BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

Al_U_Card, on 2016-October-22, 06:54, said:

Your post comes directly below one of someone with direct experience of working for a national government. It appears once again that it is your position that is far removed from reality. Nothing new there though.

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-21, 23:19, said:

Unfortunately, you are falling prey to the false dichotomy presented daily by right wing a.m. radio and right wing bloggers. Outside the false reality bubble they create is an immense world of doubt and alternative ideas and options.

Even though people with relevent experience should know better, some prefer not to.

As for alternate ideas and "unpopular" opinions, heaven forbid that we stray from the party line...

Winstonm, on 2016-October-22, 07:49, said:

Trump supporter to a Canadian reporter at Fridays rally...

The Canadian President is a Muslim. You can google it.

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-21, 23:19, said:

I have a third option, a little different from Zel's.

She seems to be something of a control freak. Not entirely a bad thing, but it can go awry. Although I do not know the details of exactly how it would differ, I have no trouble at all seeing her thinking "If I cut out the official server, I have more control over what happens to the messages". Now this is not good thinking. Sending a message leaves a trace, receiving a message leaves a trace. So this was not very bright. One might argue that this shows my explanation must be wrong because, afer all, she is bright. So was Nixon. He still taped stuff he should not have taped. Bright people make such errors frequently. Hell, even I have made mistakes. There have been times when I cannot believe the stupidity of something I have done. Whether she "has something to hide" or not, and really just about everyone and especially just about everyone in high pressure public life, has at least a couple of things that they want to hide, she should not have done this. It was not just a mistake, it was a really dumb error.

But it is not disqualifying. Not for me anyway.

HC, and anyone in a position of power, desperately needs someone to say "This is really stupid, don't do it". And s/he needs to value, to truly appreciate, such people.


And I will put in a reply to Al in this same message. Most if us were not born yesterday (although I really like the Judy Holliday movie Born Yesterday). But total cynicism is just as misleading as total naivety, maybe more so.

Zelandakh, on 2016-October-22, 00:40, said:

And this:

Quote

Compared to this:

Quote

The right wing a.m. radio reality finds no problems with one but the other is a criminal offense?

kenberg, on 2016-October-22, 08:15, said:

I agree and when skepticism becomes cynicism, it implies an abandonment of involvement. Just what the PTB are hoping for. Confusing naivety for credulousness is another pitfall. If you believe what they are feeding you, you are not paying sufficient attention. If you fall for their lies but learn from the experience, then skepticism is born and credulity is no longer a problem.

As I have told some of my family members that are voting for Trump: I don't have to make the case for HRC, I simply have to make a stronger case why Trump shouldn't be elected and that's a pretty easy task.

I wanted Bernie, but HRC looked better and better as the debates progressed.

Winstonm, on 2016-October-22, 08:22, said:

So two wrongs DO make a right! Or both are crooked and use the same sneaky methods. Heads they win, tails you lose...

kenberg, on 2016-October-22, 08:15, said:

Yes maybe something like this.

She (or one of her staff members) might have brought up some frustration with the government email server. Maybe it was a technical thing like too aggressive filtering, low performance, or incompatibility with their favourite email client. Maybe it was concern about security. Maybe it was (as was suggested in the quora thread) concern about private emails surfacing after FOI requests.

Then some geek in her team proposed setting up a private server and she approved it. Maybe it was originally meant as a temporary fix and then it hang on, as so many other temporary IT fixes.

Zelandakh, on 2016-October-22, 00:40, said:

I would consider (3) except for the fact that the emails seemingly existed until they were subpoenaed and they they were not only gone, but deleted in such a way that the public could have no chance of finding out what they are. To me this is highly suspicious and anybody that thinks otherwise is simply being naive.

Mind you, I am under no delusion that Trump is a good person. There are many questions about his character and anybody that needs a president to have good character is going to be disappointed this election.

However, Donald's character flaws seem to be "trumped up" while Hilary's seem to be ignored by most media outlets. While I think the rumors of her being involved in murders are false, I certainly think all of these are true: setting up mortgages so that if one misses one payment, he loses his house much to the Clintons' benefit, using the Clinton Foundation as a tool to go from broke to worth a hundred million dollars while promising favors to foreign entities with bad agendas, lying to the parents of Benghazi victims, and hiding something seriously bad by scrubbing emails. There are others too numerous to mention, but these are the ones that stick out in my mind.

I could go on a serious rant about Trump's shortcomings also, but anybody that has paid any attention to a mainstream media outlet has already heard all of them several times already, so I don't feel the need.

In reality, this comes down to which candidate you think is going to be better for the country, knowing that the candidate will likely affect the Supreme Court for a quarter century. For anybody that thinks our next president won't be a scoundrel is seriously deluded IMO.

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-22, 11:38, said:

Although that might indeed be a strong reason to vote for Clinton, she is certainly better in other ways too, such as competence in government, a strong work ethic, a reliable temperament, and the demonstrated ability to work across the aisle and with leaders of other nations.

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-22, 11:38, said:

Wow. I cannot believe anyone smart enough to play bridge can really believe these things:

Quote

From what source do you get your information to make your determinations? The only people I know of who have repeated these claims you make are all completely biased with an agenda to discredit Hillary Clinton, regardless of the veracity of the claims. If a non-biased observer has made these claims, I would be interested to know who it was.

Winstonm, on 2016-October-22, 13:56, said:

While many of my friends call your kind "uninformed uneducated libtards", I know better. Many liberals are quite well educated and smart, but IMO have been fooled by the mainstream media.

Winstonm, on 2016-October-22, 13:56, said:

I could list several links to back up each of these statements, but in my experience it will do no good. Each and every link I post you will discredit as being right wing nut propaganda. In most discussions, sites such as Breitbart and Fox News are dismissed as being racist hate groups while only liberal leaning sites like MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, or one of the major networks are accepted as truth. None of these will say anything bad about Hillary, no matter how much bad there is (although much to my surprise, CNN had a brief mention of the videotapes showing that the Democrats were interrupting and disrupting the Trump rallies.)

My time is valuable and you are voting for Hillary no matter what I post, so I would consider it a waste of time, but if you promised not to call anything I posted as paranoid bullsh*t, I would be happy to post some links supporting my statements. I could easily find links supporting the murder allegations but i don't even believe them myself.

helene_t, on 2016-October-22, 11:24, said:

Clearer now why John Kerry is doing such a lousy job.

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-22, 14:31, said:

.
A lot that is being passed off as fact is indeed bull@#t, as you say. That doesn't mean we have to believe it.

I agree that MSNBC is biased and I don't rely on them for information. Have you considered the reason NBC, CBS, and ABC are considered more reliable is because their information is not as biased? And the reason James O’Keefe is ignored is because his videos are unreliable as fact?

Relying on obviously biased information negates our ability to think for ourselves. As a bridge player, I am sure you would not allow someone else to tell you how to declare or how to defend a hand, yet listening only to a one-sided diatribe diminishes self as well.

cherdano, on 2016-October-18, 07:15, said:

Well, they were endorsing her. I would not expect them to say too many negative things about her.

Perhaps I would not have liked what they had to say about Johnson, if they'd bothered to say anything at all. He wouldn't have been my first choice for Libertarian candidate either. "This is an election between Clinton and Trump" is IMO an example of a significant problem with our present system — the two major parties control the process, and they don't let other voices be heard.

If no candidate fits the bill, then no candidate should be endorsed. Or elected.

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-21, 23:19, said:

Neither

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-22, 14:31, said:

You are certainly correct about Breitbart...

Not sure what your point is (unless, of course, you are trying to claim that Breitbart News isn't a cesspool that is deliberately catering to racists, anti Semites, and White Nationalists)

(Sorry if I am being a bit incredulous, its just that I've never actually encountered someone who treats Breitbart as a serious news source...)

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-22, 14:31, said:

"my time is valuable". I assume everyone's is. So we post or we don't post.
The first charge on your list:
"setting up mortgages so that if one misses one payment, he loses his house much to the Clintons' benefit,"
I have no idea what you are talking about. Depending on what comes next, I might give this some thought or I might not. As it stands, I don't know what Clinton, either one of them, has to do with mortgages. Setting up a mortgage so that one missed payment results in foreclosure sounds pretty tough, I never would have agreed to such a mortgage, I didn't know anything about this charge. I don't know which Clinton benefited when or how.

I confess to being skeptical. But I am often skeptical, and not simply of claims from the right. In this case, I not only don't know what the evidence is, I don't even have much of a grasp, in any specificity, of what is being claimed. Being skeptical does not mean that I won't listen, but I am skeptical.

It's true that I am going to vote for Hillary. From the beginning I could not vote for Trump. I said early on that even if he agreed with every policy view I had I could not vote for him. I don't trust him at all, I find him personally repulsive, I regard him as unstable, and so on and so on. Hillary? I regard her as capable. She is too clever by half with her words, she talks like a cross between a lawyer and a pol, which is what she is. But I think that she will get things done, and probably I will agree with at least some of the results. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.


I generally don't vote for third parties in the general election. I have, on occasion, written in someone in primaries. This time around Trump has really upset me, even more than I was at his nonsense, by his talk of rigged elections. I would like to see HC win by maybe 60-40. I want it to be such that anyone who claims that the result was due to voter fraud in "you know where I mean" will be seen as deranged. I think that this is the right response to the Trump nonsense.

The Cubs were ahead 3-0 a while back, I think I will see how it is going. Ah yes, 4-0 now. Fifth inning. 9:45. Games lasted only two hours when I was a child. We old people just can't tolerate change, this has been explained to us.