2016 US Presidential Election Thread

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no

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But she has a huge lead. You would think the logical political strategy would be to coast in, and not invite unneeded attention. It's almost as if she can't help herself. What's really to gain by centralizing these issues? Democrats already are known to have a more populist position on guns and race than Republicans.

were you alive in 2008?

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he should first concentrate on saving himself from whatever creature has taken up residence on the top of his head

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if you want lasting impact of a presidency, then you should be talking about SCOTUS

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if you want lasting impact of a presidency, then you should be talking about SCOTUS

this this this this this

this is why 2016 is a fight that Dems/humanity can't afford to lose

This is pretty much a moot argument, it is said every election.

its only a moot argument when SCOTUS isnt ridiculously politicized
The current bench is just doing whatever the fuck it wants

Its also not a moot argument given the ages of some very key positions on the court

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I really kind of just wanted Chris Christie,

why on earth?

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Before he became bridge-mafia don, I mean

he's always been that guy
he has decades long track record of this behavior

I also dont know what "stronger on foreign relations" you would expect from a guy like Christie. Maybe more of an asshole, but I wouldnt call that a strength

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i wont believe it til i see some documentation

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youll also have to limit their post Congressional lobbying salaries to the national minimum wage

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they should be given a living wage sliding for net worth/other income sources. Cover all travel expenses on coach and establish a congressional "dormitory" to cover living expenses for those that want it

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Australia says hi

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artificially high are the wiggle words

wiggle words are always important

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ohh, and clinton is any differnt?

Just how high a wage hike Clinton supports, however, remains a mystery. The candidate has not provided a figure yet. Her campaign did not return a request for comment Sunday night.
O'Malley and Sanders have said they support a minimum wage of $15 an hour.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/07/news/ec ... imum-wage/

If you go to her website it is just vague promises about raising the wage, nothing concrete... just like her position on... everything. You are fooling yourself if you think that Jeb is any different the Hillary.

yup 'work more you lazy fucks' is exactly the same as 'let's raise the minimum wage 40-50%'

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i appreciate her flexibility

Bill didn't
or some other lazy joke

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Perot didn't drop oout of anything
he ran as an Independent
and most likely handed Clinton the election
maybe twice

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i want to see a movie someday called The Last Klansman

hope its better than Last of the Mohicans

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Because the public is taking him seriously.

since when does the press give a shit about the public?

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theyre under attack from capitalist Jesus

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my issue with articles discussing that is that she was a palin supporter like 8 years ago while she was in high school

that's a

long time

I dont think 8 years is long enough to lose that much stupid

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I would say foriegn aid, national defence, social security, and welfare

lets see one of these things is entirely self solvent, another is so small it wouldn't pay for a flying machine, one has been slashed into next to nothingness over the last three decades and the other has grown almost every year since the 50s.

Wonder which would be the most effective place to start?

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refuse to believe that regular people use it?

theyre fine with regular people using it
they just dont want

those

people using it

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we should really just eat them before they get too skinny

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You can't just propose a flat tax and force the poor to pay for that war.

actually wouldnt work because the poor dont have enough money to pay for it anyway

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Also the idea that the top teir pays at a higher tax rate is hilarious to begin with

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Again, the idea that successfull people should be punished for things like hiring tax experts.

I would be in favor of closing tax loopholes though.

And everyone needs tax code reform, imho.

its not even loopholes

middle/lower class make wages taxed by income tax
upper tier makes returns on investments taxed by capital gains tax

raising income taxes will only hurt celebrities, athletes and lottery winners

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it's a pretty insidious (and racially charged) problem that people make the assertion that athletes coast on their physical gifts and don't put in the work to become great

I dont see it as coasting
I see it as a large percentage of the population is just not of the correct body size/shape to ever play certain sports. Granted there are always exceptions, but there are very few 'normal' people in the NBA or NFL

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There is a balance that can be struck between taking care of the poor and allowing people to keep their hard earned money.

the balance isnt tipping the way you think it is

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Liberals won't be satisfied unless there is a 95% tax on the rich.

are we playing the 'say stupid things' game? Can I play?

All rebuplicans hate black people!

democrats are all on drugs!

poor people just don't work hard enough!

illegal immigrants are rapists!

obamacare fixed american healthcare!

it is pretty silly
I'd prefer a 150% tax on the rich

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which is why a fraction of a cent financial transaction tax would likely do way more to generate the right money from the right places

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which is why a fraction of a cent financial transaction tax would likely do way more to generate the right money from the right places

Define your idea as it is probably easy to avoid.

Devil is always in the details. Broad statements like "tax the rich!" or "safety net" are not actual effective things to get behind in the current political system. Politicians will always advertise the best part of a bill and make a positive narrative out of it. The national health care system is a great example of this in action.

not that complicated
any financial transaction involving exchange of stocks/bonds/derivaties etc. has a miniscule flat tax added to it (fraction of a cent). This can be ignored by the average person with a personal account (or easily automated by websites handling such things) and would mostly hit pockets of high volume, short holding trading firms. Possible side effect might be slight increase in market stability, but I doubt it.

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which is why a fraction of a cent financial transaction tax would likely do way more to generate the right money from the right places

Define your idea as it is probably easy to avoid.

Devil is always in the details. Broad statements like "tax the rich!" or "safety net" are not actual effective things to get behind in the current political system. Politicians will always advertise the best part of a bill and make a positive narrative out of it. The national health care system is a great example of this in action.

not that complicated
any financial transaction involving exchange of stocks/bonds/derivaties etc. has a miniscule flat tax added to it (fraction of a cent). This can be ignored by the average person with a personal account (or easily automated by websites handling such things) and would mostly hit pockets of high volume, short holding trading firms. Possible side effect might be slight increase in market stability, but I doubt it.

Have a International company and simply declare all profit in another country but actually have that profit be generated in US or other countries of choice. Google for example only profited in the single digit thousands in the US last year. There would have to be a ton of law changes to actually get this to apply as intended.

Given that the US already has such a tax, and funds the SEC with it
doesnt seem that complicated
should just be expanded to derivatives and increased in amount

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I think the higher admin is the problem (depending on the institution)
Their ranks and salaries have been steadily increasing, because how else would we get that talent without paying them

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I just checked WSU salary info I could find and saw three employees above 500K (circa 2011).

Cool it works for the whole state of Washington. Now I can figure out how much all the people I was working with in Grad School were making. My boss was actually getting paid less than I expected.

Should also point out that profs in the Research sciences fund themselves with grant money nowadays. Salaried tenure is dying out, and I've heard of places offering 0% tenure. While I do think most profs are overpaid to some extent (although hours are insane) its kind of accepted as a reward after paying ones dues as an undercompensated grad student and postdoc all those years. It'd be nice if the money was spread out a little more even though.

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welfare programs should be cut, donations to universities count as charity, football programs aren't sustained by public money. Irresponsible spending is OK as long as you put it on TV.

Or, the same people who can't figure out how progressive tax brackets work also can't figure out what 'subsidy' means.

well the NFL/NBA/MLB etc. leech huge amounts of money from the public, why not the NCAA?

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more like a sense of tribalism

There were a number of lethal brawls post football games while I was an undergrad

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I'm going to just sit back and imagine a single issue candidate for electoral reform and cast all my dream ballots for their dream self and possibly commit dream voter fraud.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/lawre ... -house-run

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lol

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I don't think people really weigh things probabalistically very well.

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I think Romney has as goods odds as most of the current field tbh

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the probability of him deciding to do so this late is negligible.

as are most of the GOP field getting th enom

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Jeb's problem in the primaries is not his last name
It's his brown wife

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as much as that would play into notions of what the republican primary voter is, i don't think that is even remotely true except perhaps tangentially.

its not exactly his wife, but his brother was already too good to the Mexicans. This one even speaks Spanish

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that line is such bullshit

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its not about nuance, thats been the obvious lie perpetrated by the R's since 2002 or so

if it werent the big lie, he'd have been called out on it by any of the other 9 people that want to beat him in the primary

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I'd rather elect Reggie Bush