2016 US Presidential Race - Mod Warning in OP

Zascar

I'm a massive Bernie fan and I'm sorry to say even I agree Hilary won. Bernie did not put on his best show tonight - but Hilary was at the top of her game. A lot of the others kinda covered a lot of his ideas, even in the opening speeches - slightly diluting the effect he has at his rallies. I thought he could have done a much better job riling up the crowd and using oratory to get them excited, but he didn't. I also thought he should have been a lot stronger and fight - I know he's running a clean campaign but he needs to differentiate himself and let people know that the others are owned by their super pacs.

I was really hoping this debate would skyrocket him - but he helped Hilary to shake off her email scandal. I put some money on Bernie to win at 22/1. I'm not liking my chances after last nights performance

Overheal

jobbridge4life wrote: »

But virtually every media outlet proclaimed Hilary the winner. Even conservative media. So why allege bias in just one media company?

Ocham's Razor: attempt to silence the biggest threat to the establishment.

The radio media (local Kelly Golden, Beck, Limbaugh) today (I drove a lot this morning) only took to low-hanging fruit commentary. Kelly and co. argued that Sanders' 90% comments were false, 'that 90% of South Carolina's economy is small business' - except they kept clipping the soundbyte right after he says "ninety percent" - of what? I tweeted her and asked her to clarify 'economy' or 'wealth' - for the remainder of her program, they recycled every other one of their talking points about Bern, but that was the last I heard them claim anything about his 90% comments, they never came back up. Hmm. They also called him a 'weakling' for his email comments to Hillary - frankly, they were quite fair, even Presidential: we have more important things to drag out than emails and Benghazi.

Beck and Limbaugh engaged in asinine semantics about "free" education. Of course free education is not 'free,' here is his proposed legislation: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/collegeforallsummary/?inline=file

That these and whether or not Hillary won the debate are the most the conservative media can talk about, it says a lot for the Sanders campaign. Roll on.

alaimacerc

Overheal wrote: »

Ocham's Razor: attempt to silence the biggest threat to the establishment.

Seems like both a bizarre misapplication of Occam (presupposing the additional -- and substantial -- entity "a conspiracy between multiple different media outlets to favour one candidate", when the alternative of "no conspiracy" plainly accounts for the same facts) and incredibly broad-spectrum call of "the establishment". As many of 'em are, of course.

Is it your claim that bigging up Hillary serves the interests both of the "liberal establishment" (on the basis that they want a "moderate" candidate who's more likely to win), and the "conservative establishment" (on the basis that if a 'Crat wins, they'd rather it be a moderate)? Because if not precisely inconsistent, it at least means that one of the above is actually conspiring against their own interests.

Magnate

alaimacerc wrote: »

Is it your claim that bigging up Hillary serves the interests both of the "liberal establishment" (on the basis that they want a "moderate" candidate who's more likely to win), and the "conservative establishment" (on the basis that if a 'Crat wins, they'd rather it be a moderate)? Because if not precisely inconsistent, it at least means that one of the above is actually conspiring against their own interests.

I can't speak for Overheal, but no I think the liberal establishment want her to win because she'll be in their pockets, and the conservative establishment just want anyone but Sanders to win, because they'll have a better chance of winning the general election then. Historically a republican president tends to follow a democrat, but if Bernie gets the nomination he'll attract a lot of fans from both sides and have a much better chance of winning overall than the republican candidate.

Also, it's nice to finally see some press on the issue:

6 Reasons Sanders Actually Won the Debate Despite What Pundits Claim
Why Bernie Sanders Didn't Lose The Debate

RobertKK

I liked how Hillary was questioned about her support of the crazy Iraq invasion and occupation.
How she wanted to bomb Assad/Syria, which in effect would have helped ISIS who were on the rise at that time.
It was under her watch that the disaster (bar Tunisia) that the Arab spring brought chaos to the region and which she and the Obama administration supported, including the Muslim brotherhood who have a very questionable background.
Obama and herself totally ignored the Russian threat, who used it to walk all over the Obama administration.

Anyone who watched the foreign policy part of the debate would have to be very concerned if Hillary got anywhere near the presidency, as secretary of state, there is a trail of disaster and chaos left in the wake of her tenure.
The devil they knew was better than the devil they didn't.

When I see Hillary Clinton, I simply see incompetence dressed up as someone who is experienced and supposedly knowing what they are doing.
What should be Clinton's strongest area given she was secretary of state, is in fact her weakest area.

Then she says she is an enemy of the pharma companies...does this woman like death?

Amerika

RobertKK wrote: »

Then she says she is an enemy of the pharma companies...does this woman like death?

No, it's because she seems to be a habitual liar, and feels the voters should believe anything she says simple because it's her stating it. Does anybody here believe her claims that she was proud to count “the health insurance companies” and “the drug companies” as her enemies? My god, she takes millions in campaign cash from those ‘Enemies.’

Overheal

alaimacerc wrote: »

Seems like both a bizarre misapplication of Occam (presupposing the additional -- and substantial -- entity "a conspiracy between multiple different media outlets to favour one candidate", when the alternative of "no conspiracy" plainly accounts for the same facts) and incredibly broad-spectrum call of "the establishment". As many of 'em are, of course.

Is it your claim that bigging up Hillary serves the interests both of the "liberal establishment" (on the basis that they want a "moderate" candidate who's more likely to win), and the "conservative establishment" (on the basis that if a 'Crat wins, they'd rather it be a moderate)? Because if not precisely inconsistent, it at least means that one of the above is actually conspiring against their own interests.

Well let's look at the 3 given outlets, Time Slate and CNN. In 3 alleged cases the reader polls completely discredit the editorial slant.

The 'conservative establishment' doesn't want a Democrat to win, but they feel far more confident in their ability to discredit Hillary and beat her in a heads up battle with whomever gets the GOP nomination. And they're right, they could run a 'dirty' campaign, bring up her pandering, flip flopping, and half-truths/lies, and you slam dunk it unless you pull a John McCain (That gaffe and Palin aka the portrayal of Palin, lost him that election). Against Sanders all they can target him on is "he's old and he's a socialist" which is the current drumline and it has done little to mitigate his campaign's momentum, with more than a million donors to his campaign faster than any other candidate in history; he even brought in an extra million dollars just off the back of his email comment to Hillary (donations via a campaign email directly discussing the Clinton-email comment as well as a request to further donate).

At the same time, the Democratic party doesn't want Bernie to win because Bernie is not even a Democrat, he is just running in their primaries on their terms. As has been reported quite regularly, prior to Bernie's taking over of the polls this was touted as a 'coronation' for Hillary Clinton. She has the backing of some of the biggest non-union forces in the country for example, the Walton family, owners of Walmart and more wealth than roughly the bottom 40% of the country.

As for 'conspiracies', a conspiracy is just an agreement between people to surreptitiously work in collusion. Political parties (your Democrats, your Repubicans, your Whigs, Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail, Labor, your Nazis, the fictional Inner Party Elite of 1984, etc etc) do this amongst themselves as a matter of course - it's why you affiliate with a party. That's the internal politics for instance that is turning the Speaker of the House situation into such a brow-raiser, with candidates for the position almost inexplicably dropping spontaneously out of consideration. As far as conspiring outlets go, frankly I doubt that they are all in collusion with one another, but I will wager with you that you will find money ties between groups of outlets which will go a long way to suggesting where their conflicts of interest lay. The salient thing to note is that liberal/union money will want the Democrat (Hillary) and the other corporate arm will want a Republican, which in turn has the best chance of winning against Hillary, not Sanders.

Thargor

The internet polls cant be trusted because they were linked to reddit and other hysterical places for instant mass spamming. I would have liked him to thrash her but he didn't, he had a shaky start and first impressions matter, Hilary was her usual offputting self but she was well drilled into a flawless performance.

PressRun

Yeah, I wouldn't trust online polls either. There are plenty of Sanders fanboys out there who would have declared him the winner if he'd gotten up and took a **** onstage. They'll believe Sanders won no matter what happened. They're as blind to the reality as any media outlet becoming hysterical over Clinton.

Magnate

Thargor wrote: »

The internet polls cant be trusted because they were linked to reddit and other hysterical places for instant mass spamming. I would have liked him to thrash her but he didn't, he had a shaky start and first impressions matter, Hilary was her usual offputting self but she was well drilled into a flawless performance.

It's not just internet polls placing saying Sanders won though, all the focus groups (including CNN's & Fox's) are saying he did too. It's funny how CNN declared Hillary the clear winner, while at the same time ignoring both their own poll and their focus group. I agree that it wasn't Sander's best performance, but by no means was Hillary the outright winner as the media suggests.

Edit: supporting links

CNN

Fox

Fusion

Overheal

HuffPo aggregated poll data

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-democratic-primary

OpEd on why Sanders didn't lose the debate

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-democratic-debate_561ee2a1e4b050c6c4a444c3

On the plus side, in all but 2 states after the debate he was the most googled political thing, so that's gonna be a bump.

There were several large online polls, which are a fairly degraded form of data that can end up measuring enthusiasm of a candidate’s base more than actual total voter preference. But to the extent those online polls have any value, Bernie Sanders won 68% in the MSNBC.com poll; Bernie Sanders won 55% in the Daily Kos poll; Bernie Sanders won 54% in the Time.com poll; and Bernie Sanders overwhelmingly won CNN’s own Facebook poll, not that you would know it from what the pundits were saying on CNN itself. CNN’s own focus group also said that Bernie Sanders won, and Fusion’s focus group said that Bernie Sanders won, and Fox News’ focus group said that Bernie Sanders won.

RobertKK

Amerika wrote: »

No, it's because she seems to be a habitual liar, and feels the voters should believe anything she says simple because it's her stating it. Does anybody here believe her claims that she was proud to count “the health insurance companies” and “the drug companies” as her enemies? My god, she takes millions in campaign cash from those ‘Enemies.’

She put out a tweet recently due to that idiot Martin Shkreli hiking a drug 5000%. So she said she would put price controls on drugs, even the other drugs companies were disgusted with Shkreli and what he did, but Hillary rode in and said she would put price controls on drugs if she got into office.
Not taking into account the billions of dollars it costs to get a drug approved and how many failures there are in drugs trials, not taking into account investors risk their money by investing in these companies.Not taking into account some of these drugs are for rare diseases that maybe three thousand people in the world suffer from.
She put out that price control tweet and biotech shares prices collapsed.
If she wants to count these companies as her enemies, then she can go to hell, and doesn't deserve any drugs these companies develop that might save her life in the future.
Such is the fear of Hillary Clinton being president and what she might say, before the CNN debate, there was a big sell off in biotech in the anticipation she might go on the attack again.
If Hillary got her way, there would be no incentive for companies to seek drugs for rarer diseases, which have to cost a lot to make the research and development pay.

One tweet from Hillary knocked $15 billion off biotech stocks. She is no friend of companies that do save lives and will continue to develop more drugs to save lives.

Amerika

RobertKK wrote: »

She put out a tweet recently due to that idiot Martin Shkreli hiking a drug 5000%. So she said she would put price controls on drugs, even the other drugs companies were disgusted with Shkreli and what he did, but Hillary rode in and said she would put price controls on drugs if she got into office.
Not taking into account the billions of dollars it costs to get a drug approved and how many failures there are in drugs trials, not taking into account investors risk their money by investing in these companies.Not taking into account some of these drugs are for rare diseases that maybe three thousand people in the world suffer from.
She put out that price control tweet and biotech shares prices collapsed.
If she wants to count these companies as her enemies, then she can go to hell, and doesn't deserve any drugs these companies develop that might save her life in the future.
Such is the fear of Hillary Clinton being president and what she might say, before the CNN debate, there was a big sell off in biotech in the anticipation she might go on the attack again.
If Hillary got her way, there would be no incentive for companies to seek drugs for rarer diseases, which have to cost a lot to make the research and development pay.

One tweet from Hillary knocked $15 billion off biotech stocks. She is no friend of companies that do save lives and will continue to develop more drugs to save lives.

Then she should have listed Martin Shkreli as her enemy, right? But no, that wouldn't have played well with the liberal base as did the evil "health insurance companies” and “the drug companies,” would it? Dishonesty... Thy name is Hillary.

Black Swan

Trump says that 911 occurred during GW Bush's watch, suggesting that something was amiss with national security under GW Bush's administration. In fairness, if you can blame Hillary Clinton for Benghazi where 4 Americans died, can you also blame GW Bush for the thousands of Americans that died on 911? If Hillary's Secretary of State administration had been incompetent in protecting the Benghazi US compound, to what extent was the GW Bush administration incompetent in providing for national security during the 8 months leading up to 911?

2016 GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush labeled Trump's attack on his brother GW Bush as "pathetic," and if so, should this label also be applied to those Republican candidates attacking Hillary Clinton for Benghazi?

alaimacerc

Black Swan wrote: »

In fairness, if you can blame Hillary Clinton for Benghazi where 4 Americans died, can you also blame GW Bush for the thousands of Americans that died on 911?

I don't fully understand the rules of TerrorBall, but my simplified guide for outsiders puts it like this:

Democrats lose.

Black Swan

alaimacerc wrote: »

I don't fully understand the rules of TerrorBall, but my simplified guide for outsiders puts it like this:

Democrats lose.

Not sure how you arrive by your one-party conclusion given that you admit you "don't fully understand the rules of TerrorBall." I would assume that the way past administrations have played, regardless if they were Democrat or Republican, have been humiliating failures at TerrorBall. The Wall Street Journal suggested this in their 9 January 2010 article "Undressing the Terror Threat" that defined and addressed TerrorBall. Furthermore, I have not heard a convincing plan by any of the candidates for 2016 president, Democrat or Republican, who understood how to play (or not play as suggested by the WSJ).

"Joshua: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?" (War Games, 1983)

RobertKK

Question could be asked what did Bill Clinton do to strengthen US national security at home after the first attack on the world trade center, given the plans for the 9/11 attacks were created during his reign.

Overheal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DISCLOSE_Act

Why is disclosure a partisan issue? Surely republican voters and democratic voters would both agree they support this. Given that we now have a democracy with corporate-personhood, money has essentially become an arm of free speech. I don't think we should honestly allow large sums of money to have an undisclosed influence in our politics.

Black Swan

RobertKK wrote: »

Question could be asked what did Bill Clinton do to strengthen US national security at home after the first attack on the world trade center, given the plans for the 9/11 attacks were created during his reign.

When do you wish to start with the structural antecedents that contributed to 911? Of all the administrations that contributed to and laid the foundation for the colossal 911 failure in national security we need go back to Ronald Reagan's (Republican President 1981-1989) Cold War arms race with the Soviet Union, and especially the Soviet–Afghan War that lasted over nine years from December 1979 to February 1989, when the US resourced and trained Afghan anti-Soviet insurgent groups, including what became known as al Qaeda in 1989 (headquartered in Afghanistan).

RobertKK

Black Swan wrote: »

When do you wish to start with the structural antecedents that contributed to 911? Of all the administrations that contributed to and laid the foundation for the colossal 911 failure in national security we need go back to Ronald Reagan's (Republican President 1981-1989) Cold War arms race with the Soviet Union, and especially the Soviet–Afghan War that lasted over nine years from December 1979 to February 1989, when the US resourced and trained Afghan anti-Soviet insurgent groups, including what became known as al Qaeda in 1989 (headquartered in Afghanistan).

The US armed the mujahiddeen to fight the Soviets. I remember it in the 80s as a child - parents watched lots of current affairs and so I watched as well.

But here is the thing, did Clinton think firing some cruise missiles was going to fix the problem when he launched the attacks after the terrorist attacks on the two US embassies in Africa?
The problem was far bigger than what some cruise missiles could fix.
I think the laissez faire attitude towards security continued on from what happened under Clinton, which was totally ineffective despite the following:
The first attack on the world trade center in 1993.
The attack on the two embassies which killed 224 people in 1998.
The attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

All happened under Clinton and nothing worthwhile was done to take on the disease that was Al Qaeda, it had been building and building until we reached 9/11, when finally AQ were properly taken on, more than a few cruise missiles fired at a camp.
Clinton had been incompetent after previous attacks, and Bush was new to the job, who ended up in his first war after just 9 months.

Overheal

Well, not only was war in the middle east on the table for a while at that point, but the war didn't effectively happen until 2003. Most of 2002 was spent in the planning stages of shock and awe, etc. Its not like bush and his handlers didn't know a war could be coming, in fact they were hoping for it and if GHWB had been re-elected we never would have left the first gulf war I reckon. (Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward)

Black Swan

RobertKK wrote: »

The US armed the mujahiddeen to fight the Soviets. I remember it in the 80s as a child - parents watched lots of current affairs and so I watched as well.

Mujahideen is a "term for one engaged in Jihad," and in this particular case against the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan. This was a generic term used to label all the anti-Soviet insurgent groups, one of which became known as al Qaeda near the end of the Ronald Reagan administration.

If the Reagan administration had not trained and resourced these insurgent groups as a part of Reagan's Cold War arms race with the USSR (CCCP), there may not have been an al Qaeda today, and this discussion of blame would have been moot. Furthermore, all administrations, be they Democrat or Republican, have failed since Reagan's time to competently address the al Qaeda problem, and all are guilty of failure including George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, GW Bush, and Obama administrations, so singling out Bill Clinton today only serves the GOP interests in their attempt to discredit 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton by association, who was only First Lady back then.

Amerika

“Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb will announce Tuesday he is considering an independent bid for the White House, his campaign announced, as his long-shot bid for the Democratic nomination continues to flounder.”

This could be a game changer, especially if Trump wins the GOP ticket and Clinton the Dem’s. I can see Republicans who wouldn’t vote for blowhard Trump, Democrats who wouldn’t vote for the untrustworthy Clinton, and Independents who would want nothing to do with either of them, casting votes for Webb.

http://time.com/4078905/jim-webb-independent/

Wompa1

Amerika wrote: »

“Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb will announce Tuesday he is considering an independent bid for the White House, his campaign announced, as his long-shot bid for the Democratic nomination continues to flounder.”

This could be a game changer, especially if Trump wins the GOP ticket and Clinton the Dem’s. I can see Republicans who wouldn’t vote for blowhard Trump, Democrats who wouldn’t vote for the untrustworthy Clinton, and Independents who would want nothing to do with either of them, casting votes for Webb.

http://time.com/4078905/jim-webb-independent/

Won't matter. Last time around Gary Johnson's goal was to just get 5% of the vote. To show growth in support for a third option to try and push for reform in the US. He failed. The people in this country are conditioned to vote one way or the other...third option is to just not vote, sadly.

Overheal

The Independent vote is already being spearheaded by Bernie Sanders, frankly.

Amerika

Overheal wrote: »

The Independent vote is already being spearheaded by Bernie Sanders, frankly.

Sanders isn’t in it to win it, frankly. His performance in the debate showed it when he gave all kinds of cover to Clinton for possible illegal activities. He’ll make his points on the campaign trail and happily go back to the Senate.

eire4

Amerika wrote: »

Sanders isn’t in it to win it, frankly. His performance in the debate showed it when he gave all kinds of cover to Clinton for possible illegal activities. He’ll make his points on the campaign trail and happily go back to the Senate.

Well according to most polls and focus groups Sanders won the first Democratic debate.

Wompa1

eire4 wrote: »

Well according to most polls and focus groups Sanders won the first Democratic debate.

And CNN's live poll that they took down when declaring Hillary the winner.

Uncle Joe is likely to announce today or tomorrow according to reports.

Amerika

eire4 wrote: »

Well according to most polls and focus groups Sanders won the first Democratic debate.

I've seen polls that state Clinton won, and other that claim Sanders won. The the only polls that really matter since the debate are the ones showing Clinton numbers rising and Sanders numbers falling. Regardless, as I said he's not in it to win it and his giving cover to Clinton's for the email scandals, which could bring about criminal prosecution, was the catalyst that caused her numbers to rise. And Obama is trying to influence a criminal investigation of her by stating her actions posed no threat (and FBI agents are hopping mad about it). But the head of the DOJ is a political appointed spot, so no doubt justice in the matter will not prevail.

eire4

Amerika wrote: »

I've seen polls that state Clinton won, and other that claim Sanders won. The the only polls that really matter since the debate are the ones showing Clinton numbers rising and Sanders numbers falling.

There are polls that show the reverse in fact that has been the trend for the most part since the summer.
Either way Clinton is still the clear favourite on the Democratic side but it is not a forgone conclusion as it once seemed to be.