Clinton absolutely has a higher moral fibre with regards to sex, just as respectable as Reagan or Romney. Just because you don't like Clinton doesn't make her actions (sexual or other) immoral. Trump's actions and remarks would have been deplorable in other times and, most importantly, are deplorable now. Again, you're trying to argue that because others (maybe) did it, that it's okay for Trump. That's a logical fallacy, it is not okay.

As far a president moral fiber We can go back to Kennedy and Clinton both banning chicks left and right. SEX is SEX . I'm sure Bush would have like some babes backing up on him but don't think it happened. Reagan and Romney seemed to carry a higher moral fiber with regards to women and random sex.

If I would put Christian values above the candidates this election then non would get my vote. That would be a bad choice. One is clearly more destructive for America than the other.

Clinton is clearly wrong choice for leadership. Since 50% ish seem to think otherwise I have not choice but to try to block her by voting Trump. Will I hold my noise and bull the leaver You bet. Slowing down Americans moral decline ( as apposed to Clinton) is a fair reason to vote for Trump. Getting jobs creation going is a reason for a Trump vote.


If this was 30 years ago and Trump ( Bush Clinton) was running , do you think the media would have put it out? not a chance in hell? No network president would allow it.

This country has lowered it moral standard to a new low . And that is why this video was put out.

Wow. So Red = Reagan did it all?

We're suggesting that 24/7 access to Faye Reagan isn't already utopia?

On the subject of robot genitals - I recommend The Algebraist.

Over Trump's left shoulder in the thumbnail...

...I take it that's not Reagan.

I don't think we can pretend that either of them was trying 100% to engage in serious discussion. Nobody who answers a question with "my whole life has been spent out with the American people, while you're telling jokes" is committed to serious debate, unless the topic of the debate is which countries Frank has lived in.

Still, Luntz was right on one of the few facts they disagreed on - "Reagan's last two Gallup job approval ratings before he left office were 57% in mid-November and 63% in December 1988.

The highest job approval rating of the Reagan administration was 68% -- reached twice, in May 1981 and as previously indicated, in May 1986. As noted, the low point was 35% in January 1983."

My Facebook feed is filled to the brim from right wing nuts about cops, "pray for cops", "cop lives matter" and the like. Not a single one of them posted anything about the two recent killings that sparked the demonstrations.

And it's like newtboy said, nobody is saying cop lives don't matter, or that black lives matter more than others. What they don't seem to understand is they rush to find an excuse for a cop killing a black man, "oh look at his prior records" and don't care that he was doing nothing in the situation that caused the fatal shooting. They focus on the report that says the one guy didn't raise his hands and say "don't shoot me" and ignore the other report by the same people, released the same day that there was "systemic" racism in Ferguson, and similar reports have said the same about Cleveland and far too many others. When Brock Turner got 6 months for rape, they evoke his swimming records, and deny that if he was black and poor they would have searched for priors instead of his outstanding swimming records, and if he had no priors these same people would have been outraged had a black judge given him only 6 months in jail. They deny such things, but it's evident from their actions every time something like this happens. They lack any real empathy... which is especially funny since many of these people post things like the reason Christians suffer depression so much is they have so much empathy, and I'm thinking I don't see it, and I'm sure those in the LGBT don't see it when you deny them equal rights under the law, or deny them access to the bathroom of their gender identity, and I doubt blacks don't see it when you ignore their plight and instead post about how cop lives matter, or white lives matter.

If they do so out of ignorance, it is purposeful.

I used to be a evangelical, far right wing nut. Then I started vetting the information and news. Learned what sources are trustable and not. There started to be a pattern. I started educating myself further and changed positions. I became a liberal Christian, and eventually lost the faith due to the far right's overly big influence. So if I, who's not overly intelligent (perhaps more than the average person, but not nearly as intelligent as many family think I am), with no skills or real worth can get out via self education, they can to, but they prefer the comfort of their ignorance, and that I can't abide. You can point things out until you are blue in the face and they will just dig in harder to hold on to that ignorance and their limited world view.

I think we can trace a lot of this back to the rise of right wing radio and eventual rise of Fox News which convinced the Christian right that the regular, responsible news outlets were "liberal" when pretty much all news is controlled by a very select few, and none of them have an interest in making people aware of the truth... just because you can watch perhaps 12 hours of CNN before they point out something in the Obama administration that is bad, where Fox does it several times an hour doesn't make CNN liberal... it makes Fox an ass that is singly focused on making people angry at the Democrats and what they deem as liberals, and then they shift the goal post and make old Reagan era style political beliefs the new liberal... and they work to build the division. It's not longer acceptable to work with Democrats on finding a reasonable middle ground, that's being weak, and they want to dig their heals in and have it their way or the highway (basically they want a dictatorship but under the guise of a democracy). Then the rise of social media is perhaps the thing that really pushed the schism further as they further surround themselves in an echo chamber. So when people say "black lives matter" their echo chamber fills up with "well so do white lives and cop lives" and their echo chamber fills up with the idea that those on the left don't care about cops and that we think most of them are corrupt and don't care about their lives.

...aborts rant early as I'm already a million miles off topic...

The GOP has had problems since at least 2008, and they keep building up and up on the same issues.

The problem is the party is sort of stuck, and the split that it desperately needs would hurt it. Fox and the right wing talk radio aren't really on the classic GOP (of the Reagan and prior eras) side. Fox and talk radio and the social media that surround their viewers/listeners has shifted very far to the right. So much so that Reagan would in no way win the nomination today. Today's far right Republican party sees governing, and negotiating with the other side of the isle as a weakness. They don't want a representative democracy, they want a theocratic dictatorship while calling it democracy.

A party split is needed though. They need to split the two elements of the party from one another. Let the Tea Party form on it's own and let Fox and talk radio follow it. They'll find that the mass media is still far more central and closer to them than what they've been led to believe via Fox and talk radio, who accuses it of being far liberal. The party would be hurt for a couple election cycles, but as people start to wise up, they'd come back to the GOP from the Tea Party and the Tea Party would eventually become a footnote. As it stands, leaving the Tea Party elements in it will destroy the party in full.

The GOP keeps trying too hard to appeal to the far right element of it self and abandoning the central core. They are appealing to the hate mongers and bigots rather than the compassionate conservatism that Reagan at least pretended to have (though didn't).

I still think that McCain made two major errors when he ran. First was stepping too far to the right of where his voting record was while running. Had he stuck to what his record showed, he would have stood a semi-decent chance of winning... had he not made a second major fatal error and that was putting a batshit crazy, way far to the right, person as his VP candidate. Even if she wasn't crazy, or had a brain, she was far too the right for most Americans. Now, even if he had stayed true to himself, and used a centrist VP candidate he may have lost as Obama tapped into something... and I don't think anybody saw that coming.

Then the GOP embraced the hatred of Obama too much. Obama could cure cancer and they'd decry it as a bad thing, he can do nothing right so far as they are concerned. They should have toned that down. They also messed up the messaging on Obamacare. They should have embraced it, noting that they invented it, and tried to pass the same thing into federal law 3 times prior, twice under Bush Sr and once under Clinton and each time it was the Democrats who wouldn't take it. Showing how the Democrats embraced your idea would have shown, "look, we were right the whole time. We could have had this ages ago but the Democrats said 'No' and now they realized we were right." Rather than take the high rode though, they rode the crazy train of hate, and pushed more and more to become obstructionist.

Now side note, obstructionism works. Many Republican and non-affiliated voters, blame Obama for the lack of progress, though none of his ideas really got to be tried since they were bound and determined to obstruct everything and have done everything they can to ruin the Nation so they can blame him for the state of affairs, knowing full well most Americans don't know Congress controls the purse and pretty much all things related to it.

Anyhow, then Romney too shifted far to the right of what his record as Governor showed, and again went with somebody who's too far to the right (who oddly enough is now seen as too establishment by the Tea Party element) as a VP candidate... though Obama's popularity, and the popularity of Obamacare would have made it hard to overcome... though again, if the GOP had handled Obamacare properly, as their invention, then Romney would have ridden that strongly as his state used the previous Republican led efforts to create the same program, to do so on the state level. He could have ridden the fact his state had it before anyone else... again they let hatred of Obama override the logical move.

The party in the end is too afraid to do what it needs to do. It's too afraid of the short term losses and doesn't realize that the far goal is obtainable.

Christ....

Odd how Republicans always scream about "redistribution of wealth", but are fine with the fact that most employers no longer pay living wages the way they used to. They are fine if it's some rich guy taking his wealth generated by his employees' hard work for himself, but god forbid that the government take anything to help those that rich guy is leaving behind. Over half the people who work for Walmart qualify food stamps (only about 30% actually take it), despite the fact Walmart's profits are so high it could pay them all living wages, give them benefits, higher more, give more hours, and still make a huge profit while not raising prices... but it's the people needing food stamps that are bad, not the people who own and operate the company and take so much from their workers.

The one true small government candidate that the Republicans had was Rand Paul, and they rejected him for big government, tough talk, candidates that capitalize on their fears... most of which are fairly unjustified. Americans aren't lining up on the streets to get the sort of jobs that they accuse Mexican's of coming here to take. Our own actions of telling Muslims how to live is the reason they want to kill us, leave them alone and govern themselves... stop preemptively attacking... you know be more Christ like who wouldn't support such things...

And as @oritteropo basically noted, Reagan was far to the left what today's Republican party is. Reagan wouldn't even get through the Primary process. Fox News, Rush and all of them would be ripping him a new asshole for not being "conservative enough". Obama is far closer to Reagan style politics and economics than most today's primary candidates. McCain once upon a time was close to Reagan, but he swung to the right to appeal to the extreme right base, and then added an idiot running mate. Had he ran down the center as he used to be, and got a centralist running mate, he would have had a chance of winning... though Obama sort of captured a hope for progressive change that never came, he turned out to be a Democrat in Name Only and was closer to a Reagan Republican than a true progressive.

Let's also not forget that Congress controls the purse strings and the US economic outlook (at least to what degree the government can, since the rest is in the hands of investors and business owners). Congress has been obstructionist for the last 6 years, and haven't allowed ANY of Obama's policies through, any of his attempts to help fix the economy. Want to blame somebody in the government for the mess, blame Congress, not Obama... if they attempted his stuff, then yes it would be his fault, but they haven't tried a single one of them. You can't say no to trying something, then when what you did instead doesn't work blame the person you said no to.

For the price of the F35 program so far, a plane that only barely passed some of it's flight tests, the rest still failing, we could have bought every homeless person a $600,000 home.... in this area a $150,000 home is very nice (good 3 bedroom home, nice safe neighborhood with good schools), let alone what $600,000 would get you... for the price of it this year, we could fund the school lunch program for 24 years. Now to be fair, I haven't fully vetted those two "facts" myself, but what I have vetted, is for the price of the war in Iraq from 2001 to 2011, we paid more than NASA's entire history, even after adjusting for inflation. It's all a question of priorities. Republican's don't care how much the military costs the taxpayer, but suggestions to help the people being left behind as the rich take more and more for themselves (redistributing the wealth generated by their workers to themselves, rather than their workers) and suddenly they start screaming bloody murder.

Every time a Republican opens their mouth and spouts such things like this video I hate their gullibility... and all too often they talk about their faith and Christ... and I've already covered how the Republican views are 100% opposed to the teachings of Christ and it's why I first lost faith in God as he'd be screaming at them and trying to convict them that their views are wrong were he real. Don't just trust the first few Google results you see, as they filter their results to appeal to you and your views. Don't listen to the echo chamber. Learn to truly vet sources and understand what is actually going on. Don't parrot claims about a "liberal media" or whatever, when over 95% of the news sources out there are controlled by the same 5 companies, none of which have an incentive on letting people know just how bad they are being fucked by the business interests in this country... supporting gay marriage, supporting a minimum level of help isn't liberal, it's being a decent person... being against equal rights under the law because somebody sins differently than you, or not wanting to help somebody because they aren't working 80-100 hours a week is being a heartless asshole. But feel free to keep living in your echo chamber of stupidity, "You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity."

The real Ronald Reagan was in favour of a social safety net for the truly needy, despite being known for the 1981 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act which cut benefits for some of the better-off welfare recipients. Also, if you look at his position on immigration (granted amnesty in 1986) and gun control (banned open carry in California, banned sale of machine guns in 1986, lobbied for the ban on assault rifles in 1994) you'll find that he is politically far to the left of any of the current Republican presidential candidates.

The real Barack Obama proposed income tax rates lower than under Reagan, and if he's ever proposed socialist style wealth redistribution then I didn't hear about it. From over here he looks centre right poitically, so it's a little bit jarring to hear people talk about him as if he's a leftist!

Hey, what the hell, what happened to the beautiful African goddess hanging over the television set? Reagan?! A black republican? Oh. Shit. Kill it with an axe, Eugene!

@radx

I tend to see controlling the quantity of money along with the interest rate as a valid way for central banks to influence the economy when necessary but I admit in or after crises they are generally almost useless. Economics being a social science is always going to be notoriously unreliable in both prediction and in isolation the causes of a prior event, some would say almost useless.

Controlling purely the interest rates on overnight bank deposits for banks at the central bank (what setting the rate is, as opposed to the commonly held belief that the central bank dictates lending and borrowing rates) is if anything of little impact. These rates can be at 0% and if banks consider economic prospects poor, that will not cause them to lend any further.

Such was the case in the US in the immediate years after '08. i would argue the only action to have real economic impact was the buying up of distressed mortgage securities by the Fed. The parts of QE1, 2 that involved injecting money into the banks basically just led to them investing in low risk securities and earning interest (effectively just sitting on it) because they were not willing to risk lending it.

While I'm not a big fan of ceding authority to a largely independent organisation, I have to admit that since central banks have become independent, inflation in those countries has become a thing of the past. Now granted they get things wrong (e.g. Greenspan inflating the '08 bubble) but their main advantages is being willing to take measures that cause short term pain but long term gain. I don't think any elected politician would have been willing to take the measures Volcker did to curb inflation for example. In fact, while he was at the Fed, Reagan's government effectively inflated the Savings and Loans bubble.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Killer-Mike-REAGAN

Killer Mike REAGAN has been added as a related post - related requested by shagen454.

Shocking that one of the leading mouthpieces and corporate apologists for the diseased form of capitalism that is capsizing the former republic of the United States of America would be predicting that 'market forces' will maintain an environment where CEOs such as Dan Price, who are confused as to which side of the class war they are on, will be strongly discouraged from closing the historical chasm of income disparity with their workers via a complex and myriad assortment of carefully implemented internal structures, that have been embedded over several decades starting with Reagan, and will serve to doom any business to failure for not prizing profit, and the unequal distribution of profit, over all other considerations such as income parity.

The most interesting aspect of this experiment isn't whether it succeeds or fails in the long run but rather that it will someday be used as a prime example by people like Chris Hedges who argue that the form of crony capitalism plaguing the West cannot and should not be reformed but rather destroyed and replaced with a system that doesn't have as its main aim the impoverishment of workers for the sole benefit of an oligarchical aristocratic elite.