President Donald Trump

[baldgriff]

I would still have taken Gary Johnson over our current President and the other candidate that lost.

[Sour Masher]

I would still have taken Gary Johnson over our current President and the other candidate that lost.

I appreciate the general sentiment that Gary was a nice enough fellow and didn't have the baggage others did, but he was utterly clueless about almost every issue he needed to know about to be president. Of course, so was the guy elected, so, yeah, I guess he would have been just as clueless and unqualified, but less horrible in almost every way.

I doubt it would have mattered at all, but the Libertarian ticket should have been flipped. Weld was a lot more credentialed and intelligent than Gary, but less "charismatic", I suppose.

Edit: While on the subject, Bald, what did you think when Weld threw his support behind Clinton? Did you think he was being a traitor to his ticket, or pragmatic about what he thought he needed to do to stop Trump's election?

[baldgriff]

I appreciate the general sentiment that Gary was a nice enough fellow and didn't have the baggage others did, but he was utterly clueless about almost every issue he needed to know about to be president. Of course, so was the guy elected, so, yeah, I guess he would have been just as clueless and unqualified, but less horrible in almost every way. I doubt it would have mattered at all, but the Libertarian ticket should have been flipped. Weld was a lot more credentialed and intelligent than Gary, but less "charismatic", I suppose.

I agree with you about Weld. Johnson had a couple rough moments on TV (Allepo), but I would like to have seen him get into the debates.

[Sour Masher]

I agree with you about Weld. Johnson had a couple rough moments on TV (Allepo), but I would like to have seen him get into the debates.

Allepo was bad, but Johnson said and did many even stupider things. Just a couple: he couldn't name one foreign leader he respected in one interiview and joked he was having another Allepo moment. But the worst to me was how clueless and flip he was when asked what he'd do about global climate change. He just said, well, I don't know, but we'll all be swallowed by the sun in a few billion years anyway, so who cares? It was sometimes hard to tell what he really was clueless about and what he was just being flip about. He seemed like a nice and funny guy, but being president involves addressing serious problems on a wide range of issues, and he came across as totally unprepared for that position. He did not do any favors for the argument to take the libertarian party seriously. Jill Stein was just as bad. Both parties will find more serious/prepared/competent candidates in the future to make any real noise on the national stage.

[baldgriff]

He did not do any favors for the argument to take the libertarian party seriously.

Possibly true, but the Republicans and Democrats are doing a great job at it.

[nots]

I appreciate the general sentiment that Gary was a nice enough fellow and didn't have the baggage others did, but he was utterly clueless about almost every issue he needed to know about to be president. Of course, so was the guy elected, so, yeah, I guess he would have been just as clueless and unqualified, but less horrible in almost every way.

I doubt it would have mattered at all, but the Libertarian ticket should have been flipped. Weld was a lot more credentialed and intelligent than Gary, but less "charismatic", I suppose.

Edit: While on the subject, Bald, what did you think when Weld threw his support behind Clinton? Did you think he was being a traitor to his ticket, or pragmatic about what he thought he needed to do to stop Trump's election?

I fully agree on Weld. I voted for Johnson but was very disappointed in his campaign. He was a much more viable candidate in 2012. He had an opening in 2016 due to the two borderline criminals running, but he smoked it away and probably set the Libertarian party back a decade. Weld was a fantastic candidate.

[baldgriff]

Edit: While on the subject, Bald, what did you think when Weld threw his support behind Clinton? Did you think he was being a traitor to his ticket, or pragmatic about what he thought he needed to do to stop Trump's election?

I voted Johnson. Honestly, I had forgotten about that.

Maybe this is ultimately why Johnson got the nomination vs Weld. Johnson was "all-in" so to speak whereas Weld may not have been. For a candidate (VP even) to "throw his support" to someone that he is running against in a different party seems to be bailing.

[DMT]

I voted Johnson. Honestly, I had forgotten about that.

Maybe this is ultimately why Johnson got the nomination vs Weld. Johnson was "all-in" so to speak whereas Weld may not have been. For a candidate (VP even) to "throw his support" to someone that he is running against in a different party seems to be bailing.

Or maybe he, like tens of millions of us, realized what a clusterfuck a Trump administration would be.

[baldgriff]

Or maybe he, like tens of millions of us, realized what a clusterfuck a Trump administration would be.

First - NO ONE - not anyone (ok Ann Coulter) actually thought that Trump had any real chance of winning the election. So although we may have thought things could be a cluster, we all thought that HRC was going to win. So throwing his support was likely a more expedient way to hopefully make himself somewhat relevant later after HRC took office.

Second - since no one had any real idea that Trump was going to win you give Weld a ton of credit for thinking things were way closer than any of us could have realized.

Lastly, and this is without doing much in the way of vote re-counting or assessment of the Libertarian voting percentages by state, I dont know if you could get enough people to give up their Libertarian vote for HRC. She represented way more of "the establishment" than most Libs would likely care for, so I dont see her getting enough votes from the 3rd party in order to make up the difference in the electoral college.

No I dont think I wasted my vote.

[Mithrandir]

https://www.mediaite.com/online/gop-congressman-rips-trump-in-insane-tirade-to-journo-evil-really-fcking-stupid-forrest-gump/

[Hornsby]

Today's episode of Fun with Trumpy!

- Trumpy orders his top officials to look at re-joining the TPP, as a means to combat China's influence in the region. Of course, this is exactly what people warned Trumpy about when he was elected!

- Trumpy's GOP house pets decide that food stamps are the reason for this nation's financial troubles, and seek to revamp the system. Hilarity ensues, and much hunger!

- Trumpy gets spanked (again!) by a federal Judge who rules that Trumpy's favorite whipping boys, the DOJ, cannot compel local police departments to cooperate with immigration agents as a condition for receiving federal funds. Trumpy grumpy, and it's still early afternoon!

[Teenwolf]

Today's episode of Fun with Trumpy!

- Trumpy orders his top officials to look at re-joining the TPP, as a means to combat China's influence in the region. Of course, this is exactly what people warned Trumpy about when he was elected!

- Trumpy's GOP house pets decide that food stamps are the reason for this nation's financial troubles, and seek to revamp the system. Hilarity ensues, and much hunger!

- Trumpy gets spanked (again!) by a federal Judge who rules that Trumpy's favorite whipping boys, the DOJ, cannot compel local police departments to cooperate with immigration agents as a condition for receiving federal funds. Trumpy grumpy, and it's still early afternoon!

You forgot to mention the National Enquirer paid $30K to silence the Trump Hotel doorman about a love child from the 80's. Very clumsy. Unregistered political contributions poppin' up all over! Shoulda been smarter, like Russia funneling $20 Mil through the NRA. Now Russia, those guys are experts at spotting a soulless money grubber... they don't speak the same language, but they speak the same language, y'know? The language of conspiracy to destabilize the US.

How effed up is it that we can speculate on the likelihood of Trump having illegitimate kids, since we know he raw-dogs....

[Sour Masher]

- Trumpy's GOP house pets decide that food stamps are the reason for this nation's financial troubles, and seek to revamp the system. Hilarity ensues, and much hunger!

This one continues to piss me off so much. The whole well-fare queen trope is so unfounded in facts--it was fake news before that term was a thing. And the absurdity of saving relative pennies compared to the exponentially larger spending related to wasteful military toys and tax cuts for the ultra-rich would be laughable it if wasn't so freaking sad. Especially when food stamps actually feeds kids, while hangers full of unused ware-planes do nothing but feed bank accounts of the military-industrial-complex fat cats.

I'm willing to listen to someone like Chance, who I suspect would point out that welfare programs have been shown to give people fish rather than teach them how to fish, or whatever more reasonable and fact-based argument he'd make, but I'd hope such people would recognize that is NOT the argument very often used by party leaders. They try to sell the absurd notion that welfare "queens" (and note this is often code for black and brown people) are having a significant impact on the pockets of good, hard working folks (note: white people). It is crass, baseless identity politics, something that all reasonable conservatives should decry, since they rightfully hate when identity politics are played against their side. It is a smoke screen while they shovel out billions of tax payer dollars to even more wasteful and far less helpful programs.

[Teenwolf]

Wal-Mart is the #1 welfare queen in the US. How many people are given sub-living wages by Wal-Mart, only to be forced into assistance from welfare and food stamps?

Yet the rhetoric is usually "we cannot afford to raise the minimum wage because it would kill all the jobs!" Hey Hornsby, my favourite fiscal conservative, do you support raising the minimum wage to get Wal-Mart/McD's/etc... off this terrible cycle of abusing the system? Others here? Do you guys support the $15/hr federal min. wage?

Are we afraid the food-stampers are gonna take that raise and lock it away in the Caymen Islands, or will they pump it directly back into the economy? Hmm, I wonder what results from giving poor people more money...

58% of America lives paycheck-to-paycheck (heard this stat recently, but nobody would read a link if I posted one, so whatevs)... it's desperation times for the majority of the country. That contingent of working-in-poverty folks have the lowest voter turnout of any voting bloc... you think they might get energized by a promise of $15/hr, when Bernie starts saying it at every rally? Think he pushes Booker/Harris to $12/hr?

End of rant... but you guys need a serious change. Food stamps are a band-aid covering a bullet hole.

[Hornsby]

You forgot to mention the National Enquirer paid $30K to silence the Trump Hotel doorman about a love child from the 80's. Very clumsy. Unregistered political contributions poppin' up all over! Shoulda been smarter, like Russia funneling $20 Mil through the NRA. Now Russia, those guys are experts at spotting a soulless money grubber... they don't speak the same language, but they speak the same language, y'know? The language of conspiracy to destabilize the US.

How effed up is it that we can speculate on the likelihood of Trump having illegitimate kids, since we know he raw-dogs....

Happened during my nap...Trumpy busy with Maid in Manhattan!

Trumpy apparently obsessed according to Comey, about the Steele Dossier, specifically the hooker sections of the report...supposedly raised the subject 4 times with Comey. Trumpy! (sad trombone)