all hail HRCFollow

The issue there is corrupt politicians, not career politicians. Obviously the longer you're around the more access you have to corruption but one doesn't necessarily lead to the other. We've had plenty of fledgling politicians who still managed to be corrupt and long term public servants who are not.


Of course it does. In aggregate, of course. Individuals are free to say their votes doesn't matter anyway and complain later. Also, candidates at the presidential level aren't given, they're elected. Clinton and Trump are the nominees because they're the ones who got the most votes. One of them will be president and people are free to bury their heads and ignore their obligations but that doesn't make them matter less.

Well, yes. Because those are political party primaries. Where the political party selects its nominee.

To each their own, but a candidate who understands the mechanics of government is more valuable to me than one who gives properly "unscripted" answers. That's pretending, of course, that even novice politicians don't prepare answers and use consultants.

Edited, Sep 14th 2016 12:18pm by Jophiel

At the very least we need four parties so we can separate Liberals from Democrats and Conservatives from Republicans.

So as long as we have a proportional amount of blacks, Hispanics, queers, left-handed goat-fuckers and racists in positions of power to continue the oppression of the unwashed masses, it's cool, right?

I'm not entirely clear on your meaning.

But if it's not a sign of bad health, then how does that gossip harm her?

I do deserve to know if the person running for president has a history of loosing consciousness and falling. I do deserve to know if she has frequent cases of getting ill, since yes, repeated illness is a sign of poor health, and perhaps some underlying condition that is aggravated by external conditions (like high stress, not enough sleep, etc). I also kinda would like to know, before making a voting decision, whether the person I'm being asked to vote for has a habit of concealing this kind of condition. How wide is the circle of people "in the know" going to be in the future. If she gets this sick while president, is she going to inform say the cabinet officials in a meeting she's in? Members of congress she's interacting with that day? The commanders in the situation room where she's making critical decisions?

Yeah Joph. We kinda do deserve to know this. It's not just about her getting sick. It's about how often she gets sick like this, and whether this will impair her significantly in the future if she gets elected as president. She didn't just have a bad cough. I've seen the video of the fall. She was completely unresponsive. That's not just feeling a bit under the weather, and it's not even feeling a bit dizzy. She was completely out of it. She didn't track the car as it approached, and seemed to be completely unaware that it had stopped in front of her and the doors had been opened. She made no motions at all. Just stood there.

If it weren't for what I'm sure is a completely honest declaration by her staff about this being pneumonia, I'd think she had a seizure. Cause I've seen people with pneumonia, and I've seen someone have a petite mal seizure (multiple times, in fact). Her actions (or lack of them) looked like the latter, not the former.



Because by not disclosing it, and her having the incident she had happen on Sunday, it makes people suspect that it was made up after the fact (or was a convenient excuse for something that may have been unrelated). It also trails right into the narrative that Clinton hides everything until forced to reveal something. It makes people not trust her even more than they didn't trust her before. If she'd actually been able to keep it together, we wouldn't be having the conversation, but since she wasn't, we are.

Do I need to know every time a politician gets sick? No. But if that politician's sickness is so severe that they have an episode like she did? That's the point where you start wondering whether she's fit to serve in office. You can jump up and down and declare that this is unfair, but I suspect you're in the minority on that.

Child rape is beneath them. The real scandals all involve bowing to Japanese prime ministers and standing under umbrellas held by US marines. I mean, the right wing media really has their priorities straight. Those dirty leftists out there are burning American flags and sitting down for the sacred national anthem while the possibility of child rape just isn't a big deal at all.

There's also the issue of whether one thing is actual fact, while the other is allegation. I'll point out, again, that it's not just the GOP who is ignoring this.

Mild illnesses do not cause the kind of symptoms we're talking about Joph. Even if this really is pneumonia, that's not a mild illness. People die from pneumonia all the time. Let's not forget that at first it was allergies. Now it's pneumonia. What's it going to change to the next time she collapses or something?

This is somewhat of the point. It's getting to the point where people are just assuming whatever she says about pretty much anything at all is a lie. Because her pattern so far bears that out. And every time something comes along that shows that something she said previously was a lie, she has some excuse for it, and then insists that "this time", it's the last lie. Um... Why should we believe her?

You don't "get" a tactic you've personally used hundreds of times (that I've read in 9 1/2 years, anyway)?

Really?

Do you have dementia?


EDIT: Stoopid fraction


Edited, Sep 15th 2016 10:14pm by Bijou

Decimals might be easier.

I know you've seen a doctor once which makes you a doctor as well, but mild illnesses do cause those kinds of symptoms all the time. It's called being a politician. She lies, Trump lies, Obama lies, both Bushes lied, Reagan, etc. They all do, it's their job to. The better question is why are you pretending it's suddenly a big deal? I mean, besides it's a Democrat in question.

Edited, Sep 16th 2016 1:48pm by lolgaxe