Random Politics & Religion #00

Well we could !

Like our nephews’ t-ball league, the first Republican primary debate, scheduled for Aug. 6 in Cleveland and hosted by Fox News, is being turned into one of those “everyone gets a participation trophy” deals, with extra forums now scheduled to give rubes like Rick Santorum’s one fan in Iowa (her name is Peggy) a chance to pretend they matter to our democracy. If the forums and debate involve all the candidates onstage diving on a ground ball before whoever comes up with it forgets to throw to first (our money’s on Rick Perry), we won’t be surprised.

Previously, Fox had announced that only the top 10 candidates in an average of the five biggest national polls that week will be allowed to participate. This has upset the 397 candidates who are not likely to make the top 10 by early August. In true Republican fashion, all those candidates have redoubled their campaigning, determined to make the cut through hard work and … HAHAHAHA, actually no, they have been whining to anyone who will listen that Fox is going to strangle their campaigns before the voters have a chance to do it.

In their efforts, the candidates have been helped by Republican Party officials in New Hampshire. The Granite State is most upset that Fox could do the important work of winnowing the slate of candidates down before they get to do it a mere six months later during the state’s First in the Nation primary. So earlier this week the New Hampshire Union Leader announced it would hold a candidate forum in New Hampshire to be broadcast on C-SPAN the same night as the debate. According to the paper’s publisher, Joseph McQuaid:

Surely American democracy is on the path to oblivion if our nation is deprived of six extra months of Chris Christie attending rubber-chicken dinners at the Elks Lodge in Nashua.

Not to be shown up by those Live Free or Die hicks, Fox News announced Thursday it will also hold a forum in Cleveland on Aug. 6 for those candidates who don’t make the cut for the real debate. So now the really unpopular candidates like Carly Fiorina and Bobby Jindal have to decide if they will participate in the Fox forum or the Union Leader forum. Or, option three, they could all quit politics and go live productive and fulfilling lives doing anything else.

And of course this all elides the biggest question: Who the hell besides political reporters and comedy writers will care about anything these people have to say in the dead of summer six months before the primary? The question practically answers itself.

Texas elementary school teacher says she almost wants to return to segregation and the 1950s

She was fired after her Facebook post in the article.

What does Bernie Sanders think of the media’s performance so far this campaign? Barely adequate. The huge speaking fees Bill and Hillary Clinton have accepted? Wrong question, he says; you should be asking why anyone pays them. How about primary debates? Sanders says the entire system should be redesigned to bring Republicans on stage with Democrats.

As Hillary Clinton stayed out of sight this week, fundraising and preparing what is sure to be a highly produced presidential campaign launch speech in New York on Saturday, Sanders, the senator from Vermont who also is seeking the Democratic nomination, was mixing it up with the media.

The contrast was notable. Clinton has yet to put herself in the situation that Sanders eagerly embraced Thursday morning, as he engaged in a frank give-and-take with reporters over breakfast. He delivered some lines it would be hard to imagine Clinton ever uttering — not because they reflected his socialist outlook, but because they were so blunt.

“Campaigns are not baseball games,” Sanders scolded. “What did I read in the paper today? Gov. Bush is getting a new campaign manager. You know who cares about that? About eight people in the world. Nobody cares about that.”

Sanders went on to express irritation with the way journalists slap the "socialist" label on him, as if his embrace of policies common in the democracies of western Europe makes him a radical outlier.

“It is not a radical agenda,” he said. “In virtually every instance, what I am saying is supported by a significant majority of the American people. Yes, it is not supported by the Business Roundtable or the Chamber of Commerce or Wall Street. I maybe old-fashioned enough to believe that Congress might want to be representing a vast majority of our people … and not just the Koch brothers and other campaign contributors.”

He suggested that if the media are going to refer to him as a socialist, journalists also should affix the label of “capitalist” with every mention of his rivals.

Sanders expressed his disgust with all the money in politics, vowing to nominate justices to the Supreme Court who would overturn the rulings that have diminished campaign finance laws, but he also joked that taking such a hard line is hardly a strategic risk for him.

“I don’t want the money of billionaire class, which is very easy for me to say because I would not get their money even if I wanted it,” he said.

Still, he expressed confidence that he can mobilize enough small donors to be competitive in Iowa and New Hampshire, saying the $40 million to $50 million it would take is within reach. Some 200,000 people have made small contributions to his campaign, the underdog said.

As for being down 50 points in the polls, Sanders attributed Clinton's lead not to a fondness among the electorate for her and what she stands for, but because most Americans have not yet heard of him or been exposed to his ideas. That, he vowed, will change.

Sanders avoided much of the bait reporters threw his way Thursday morning. He did not attack Clinton’s character or her finances. Asked about the huge speaking fees she and her husband accepted over the past year and a half, Sanders said he was more troubled that any organizations were paying those kinds of fees. He then pivoted to a polemic on the billionaire Koch brothers, who back conservative causes.

When it came to Clinton’s policy positions, though, he could be merciless. He suggested that her refusal to take a position on the controversial Pacific trade agreement being deliberated in Congress is bewildering. Most progressives are imploring Congress to block the deal the Obama administration is negotiating.

“I don’t understand how on an issue of such huge consequence you don’t have an opinion,” Sanders said.

The Vermonter said he would like to see more than the planned six Democratic primary debates — but he said they shouldn’t just be debates of Democrats. Get Republican contenders on the same stage too, he suggested.

“It’s a good idea to have a group of Democrats and a group of Republicans,” he said. “I think the Republicans, frankly, have gotten away with murder. I think people really do not know what their agenda is.”

it would be weird if in some alternate universe we just ate our dead. like big weird feasts instead of funerals, with the deceased as the main course.

sorry, I think of super strange ***.

Huh. This Bernie Sanders guy is really starting to intrigue me. I might watch the Democrat debates just to see him in action. I just wish we had more politicians like him closer to the center.

What we call the center today is a bit to the left of Barry Goldwater in 1964.

But only a bit.

In '64 Bernie would have been a mainstream liberal.

It kind of is, taking into consideration white flight. It depends on income and locations. In the mid-to-late 1990's they started bussing in students from different schools within large districts with multiple campuses to allot diversity on each campus at different grade levels. Those were the Anne Richards days, though.

Looks like the school is from a district outside of Lubbock. Not sure what to say. Not familiar with the Panhandle. :/

Yeah, I was referring more to the modern U.S. center, not historical or universal center.

Abortion, Cannibalism, and Bernie Sanders. Got it.

Huh. This Bernie Sanders guy is really starting to intrigue me. I might watch the Democrat debates just to see him in action. I just wish we had more politicians like him closer to the center.

That cannibalism statement came out of nowhere. Now usually I don't skip a beat here but seriously... what the ***. lol

Yeah, I really dig his idealism, his ideas are a little out there, though. I just see him as a driving force against establishment and convention. Someone who's going to call out *** when and where he sees it, and I'm seriously excited to see him in action in the debates.

Lol, it was a play on words from Fonewear's "compatibilism". Still out there, but it makes a tad more sense in that context.

Hope 'n Change II: Bernie wants you!

...to donate money to his campaign that is most certainly going to go bankrupt.

If he doesn't place high in the first few primaries, his grass roots donation setup will definitely be an uphill battle. The 2016 presidential campaigns are expected to raise more than 4 billion dollars.

Hope 'n Change II: Bernie wants you!

...to donate money to his campaign that is most certainly going to go bankrupt.

But I already gave it all to that little shitbag from shriners



but he is really forty seven.... and he blew it all on cocaine and ***.../sobs

why god why!?