@eric3579, I agree with you. Hillary's reputation took a big hit after the DNC Leaks broke during the convention.

@newtboy, here's how I think of the campaign. (Please pardon me for this silly fable. I just kinda got writing and my creative side just sorta took over, and I just kinda had fun with it.)

.. ..

As the primary campaign advanced it was clear that Scissors was the front runner in the Rep's side. Unless something changed drastically, he would be become the nominee.

On the Dem’s side, the race was not yet decided. Rock was behind, but not by much. He was quickly closing in on Paper’s lead. Rock was hoping that his strategy of being consistent over time would prevail and win him votes. In the beginning Paper had taken off an airplane. Laughing at how slow Rock was to gain speed. But now Paper’s once comfortable head start was being called into question. Could Rock’s momentum grow fast enough to overtake her?

Paper had gone through extensive planning (on paper) long before the election. Paper wanted to keep news of Rock from reaching the voters. The idea as was to keep Rock "covered over" to the point that many of voters just didn't know about him. They just saw the old familiar name of "Paper" on the ballot and went with that. They had little or no exposure to Rock.

Rock was on a roll, and it was clear that it was gathering no moss.

Since so many voters relied on “traditional” media for information, it wasn’t too difficult to keep pro-Paper ads on the radio, and television, and in newspapers. It was expensive, but Paper seemed to have an unlimited supply of money to fund the campaign. It was almost like Paper had bought the press...

Though Rock started to break through into the areas that Paper had been dominant, the Strategy worked. Rocks downhill momentum wasn’t able to fully catch Paper’s airplane—head-start.

Paper would win the primary and go on to face Scissors in the general.

But at the Democratic Candidate Coronation Ceremony, something terrible happened!

It turns out that someone was keeping a paper-trail on Paper’s dealings. Paper had written many correspondences, and many of those letters had reached the hands of Wikileaks, which had finally chosen to publish the secrets!

The strategies Paper had used to ensure victory over Rock—the Cover-Up Campaign—were revealed. The fundraising done by The Paper Foundation to keep money flowing around laws were becoming clear.

And each week and new secret seemed to drip onto Paper’s hat…

What happens next? We don’t know. There are so many questions! Could a boat float if made of Panama Papers? How deep will the leaks get? What other secrets will be revealed before the final election? Will Paper win over former Rock supporters now that the reality of the Cover-Up-Campaign had been uncovered? Who will win the final election? Can Paper beat Scissors?

Could Scissors have been secretly helping Paper out behind the scenes out of a fear of facing Rock? Could Paper have been helping Scissors in the early parts of his primary campaign out of a fear of facing Ben Carson?

Tune in again for out next episode of House of Cards I mean Rock-Paper-Scissors to find out!

//

//

Okay, I hope you read that with in the lighthearted voice it was intended. And I’m not hiding my bias. This story was mostly about Paper—who (at first) I thought would be a fine second choice.

(I was rooting for Rock the whole time! I liked they way he rolled!)

Trump was Scissors: Wouldn't hesitate to cut his opponents with his uh.. 'wit.'
Sanders was Rock: Consistent over time. (Not blown around by the wind)
Hillary was like Paper: Thin, like her integrity.

@newtboy
I admit that perhaps invading Palestine slowly was their best viable option before the war ended.....I just think it's helpful to be perfectly honest that that's what happened and not play some game about it and pretend they hold the moral high ground on that part of the issue.

I guess I just don't agree on calling it an invasion from the outset. European Jews had the doors closed to them everywhere the world over, illegal immigration or staying in what would become Nazi occupied Europe were their only options. Palestine was hands down the most attractive option, despite a hostile Arab Palestinian population. The main reason being that the Jewish Palestinian minority were basically a state within a state. The Arab and Jewish populations had both sufficiently failed to integrate already that they were operating as largely segregated and autonomous regions. Thus, Jewish Palestine was both reasonably close to Europe, and very much welcoming to the people leaving. I don't believe that's fair to be marked as an invasion from the outset. I must insist that if we get to insist all actors conduct themselves in their own self interest, that the Jewish immigration from Europe to Palestine could have been entirely peaceful, and if the Arab population had taken a live and let live approach things could have gone swimmingly. Of course humans aren't ideal or moral very often, so both sides fought and tensions arose. By the time WW2 was over it was too late, the dice were cast and another Jewish exodus from Palestine back to Germany wasn't gonna work. Neither were the Jewish people promised a thing from Germany and it would all be on a hope and a prayer. They had a better shot making their own future by standing their ground in Jewish Palestine. Truth be told, I really can't blame the Jewish side for saying enough is enough and we're gonna stand and fight. Neither can I blame the Arab Palestinian's over much as their biggest fight was really just for independence from the British. With the British gone, both the Jewish and Arab residents fought it out over who would control what, which is sadly fairly natural.

The point I DO lay blame is when the civil war took a pause and Israel declared independence on the UN mandated borders. The Arab world(not the Arab Palestinians) jointly refused to accept any Jewish portion of Palestine and swore to drive them into the sea. Worse, they vehemently called for the retreat of all Arab palestinians from the region to make it easier to clear the country out. Of course, they failed to win that fight and it's been a source of great shame and horror ever since. They didn't fail for lack of strength in arms or numbers, but because each neighbouring Arab state cared not a whit for restoring Palestine to the Arab Palestinians but instead each sought to seize a portion of it for themselves, as invaders. Luckily for Israel they exploited those divisions to come out the other side.

There's plenty of atrocities to blame on the Palestinian response, but also empathy for a displaced and, today, a decimated people still suffering horrifically, mostly for 'sins' of their grandfather's, namely the sin of fighting invaders stubbornly.

But that is all the more the tragedy, as that is very clearly the way the Israeli's started out. They remained peaceful and fled as nation after nation tried to destroy them. The most open place to them in the time probably was Jewish Palestine. For all the atrocities to blame on Israel, I also have empathy for the plight they started from. Even their whole history through today is a tight rope walk were losing any single one of the wars from then till now would have seen the end of Israel as state.

As much blame as one can put on Israel for meeting homemade rockets with professional air strikes, they aren't the only ones to be blaming. Yes, more empathy is needed for the Palestinians than blame. But their are plenty of states, mostly Syria and Iran using the Palestinians as proxies and pawns. So many Arab entities WANT to see dead Palestinians in the news because it plays well for them. I really insist they get as much or more heat than Israel for the tragedy unfolding.

Also, in regards to age... I'd say ayahuasca is definitely for older people, when I was in ceremony almost everyone was 30+. And it makes sense, it is definitely not just love and good vibes with some slight alterations to your normal perceptions

To add to that - Santo Diame considers taking ayahuasca "THE Work". They take it at church every weekend, including their kids (lol), they are very serious about it as an integral spiritual/religious tool.

I don't know what folks you mean or how squeaky clean you mean, but I think if you search the internet long enough, you'll find someone childish enough to accuse Hilary of corruption for, say, cutting the queue at Burger King. I agree that you can't expect people to be perfect since birth, do people really ask for that?

I look at the world around us: unbelievable wealth inequality, global warming, oil wars, illegal invasions, the hijacking of Greek democracy, the great bankers bailout swindle, austerity politics, the pay gap.... I won't go on. The world has not been well managed for a long time now. A national leader represents a fuck-ton of people and their decisions can literally lead to the slow or immediate death of all of us, either by inaction or incompetence or mistake....etc. Honesty and integrity have got to be important now, even if the old ways seem familiar and comfortable. I would argue it's childish (naive) to say let's ignore those things.

Kudos to him for maintaining his cool.

But I don't believe in responding to bigotry with tolerance. Integrity, yes, but there's no way I would have put up with that bullshit.

I lived in Australia for a few years and while most of the people there were lovely, I did have quite a few encounters with racist arseholes who would either tell me they were happy to see Irish immigrants ("not like those OTHER PEOPLE") or people whose racism extended to me as well.

Both groups were told to get fucked in no uncertain terms.

Emotional angry rant,but i haven't watched the video

Fuck Wasserman and fuck Clinton for giving her dishonest, cheating little foot soldier a nice new job. Dems will reap what they sow. I hope they have a big fat mirror to look into. More likely they will all point fingers cos they have shit for integrity and are hardly much better than the crap they are running against.

You're right but the advantage Corbyn has is that we don't have a Trump character. Not only has Farage quit, Boris sunk his own career in a party of backstabbers, but we had our personality politics moment and I think people are past it.

The papers won't tell you that; our 8 billionaires will pull out every stop to convince the great unwashed that he's dangerous. The papers will tell you every day right up until a general election that he will lead Labour into electoral oblivion, even as thousands pack out halls in unprecedented showings of support in northern "racist" (according to MSM) towns. They'll tell you they won't win from UKIP and be out of power for 20 years.

I'm not saying he WILL win a GE because the playing field is not level, the game is not fair. Boundary changes will play right into Tory hands and the character assassinations will only increase, but if ANYONE has a chance of winning for Labour it's Corbyn. Owen Smith hasn't a hope in hell of getting MORE votes than Corbyn would, at an election.

The only way to win is by going with Corbyn but I fear that there are influential ex and current MPs who are sabotaging the campaign because this wave of populism and people power would not be beneficial to their future prosperity.

We are living in a post-truth world right now, with journalistic integrity at an all time low. A window was broken in the stairwell of a building where a Corbyn-Labour rival has an office, and it was splashed all over the news that it was a violent, thuggish Corbyn supporter just like they all are. There was no evidence and they even lied about the facts, which has been reported on twitter and by smaller news sources, but the damage is already done, throw enough shit and some of it will stick.

As Lyndon Johnson says - I know it didn't happen, but let's make the bastard deny it. Oh and apologies for shameless derailment.

On topic:
Is Schieffer making the usual mistake here? "It's not the left she needs to worry about, it's the middle." Taking the left for granted is what happened to Labour in the last 10-15 years and seen their support die pre-Corbyn. Dunno how it is in USA but over here the left have had to hold their noses and vote for a candidate who doesn't represent them at all and they're getting sick of it. So thanks to the internet when they finally see the cracks forming they recoil in horror at how they've been undermined from the inside from day one; why should they ever vote for that again?

This year's election cycle was like a game of rock/paper/scissors.

Sanders (was) Rock (consistent over time)
Trump is Scissors (not afraid to cut people with his wit)
Clinton is Paper (thin, like her integrity)

And now with the weight of this wikileaks' reveal of the corruption surrounding the Clinton campaign's back-room plans to keep "Rock" off the ballot--by covering it up so that the voters don't realize they have a better option--All they see is paper.

American voters are in an interesting choice indeed: A fraud, or... whatever the other one is.

For starters, I have to oppose the implied thought that Saddam's reign of terror was preventing this sectarian violence. His rule through the Suni minority to wage genocides against the Kurdish and Shia majority and decades of brutal repression of same all served to make the sectarian hatred and violence worse. Tally up the hundreds of thousands he killed through genocide, the million plus he killed in the Iran-Iraq war and everyone that died by direct execution or deliberate starvation level poverty and compare it doesn't stand out as starkly and objectively a desirable alternative to today.

Now if you ask what would I do differently it depends on what level of power I've got to act with. Ideally, we can go back to first Iraq war and have Bush senior march on Baghdad. This would've aborted one of Saddam's genocides. Equally importantly, this would have kept the Shia Iraqi population's view of America as a liberating force. The standing in the desert and watching Saddam slaughter them thing still carried their mistrust of American forces after Saddam's actual removal later. That singularly stupid move of leaving Saddam in power, at the urging of most of the planet, drove the Shia population of Iraq back to Iran as their sole sympathetic ally.

Next step, after the removal of Saddam, whether we can do it back then, or only a few years ago as it really happened is to truly setup an occupation government. You don't bring stability to a region by immediately trying to transition to a democracy before the shooting has even stopped. The occupation government would be run by somebody with actual knowledge and experience with Iraq, rather than as Bush senior did by sending in a guy with zero experience and a two week lead to brief himself. The task you should place on this leader, is to setup a federated Iraq, with distinct and autonomous Shia, Sunni and Kurdish states. The occupation government would dictate things after taking input from Iraqi's rather than holding them to the tyranny of the majority as Bush and co allowed. The occupation would setup an initial constitution defining what laws and agreements spanned all three Iraqi provinces/states and what extent of autonomy they had to define their own systems of government. The American military's job would be to enforce this very basic constitutional framework. Each Iraqi state/province would be aided in setting up their own governments with a transition plan again dictated not voted upon. The transition plan would define the point in time when each state transitioned from occupation rule to a self determined future and rule of law.

The above plan on the whole would work, but Bush and co couldn't have managed post Saddam Iraq more poorly if they had actively tried to.

If zero time travel is allowed and we are to 'fix' things today, you need a lot MORE power. You need an army the size of America or Russia's and the political will to spend several years doing things the public will hate you for. The end game is still the same as above, a federated Iraq kicked off under a dictatorial occupation. To get there from today though you need to create stability. You need to take an army and march it across the entire country. As each city is cleared of militants you take a census of everybody and keep it because you need it to track down future militants. In entirely hostile locations like were ISIS has full rule, you bomb them into the stone ages before marching the army in. The surviving population is given full medical treatment. Now, as for sorting militants from civilians though, you do NOT use American style innocent until proven guilty justice. Instead, any fighting age males are considered guilty until proven innocent. This level of rule of law needs to remain in place until stability can be restored. You of course guarantee lots of innocent arrests, but your trying to prevent massive numbers of innocent deaths so it's required. As you stabilize the nation you can relax back to innocent until proven guilty and work on re-integrating the convicted.

You'll note that although the methods I'd declare necessary above are by any count 'brutal', they do not extend into Saddam's usage of genocide, torture and rape as the weapons of choice.

Loved this rant. Not much different from US politics - the two (or three...) political elites are only interested in (re)gaining power. Voters are no more to them than the mechanism to do that. The political elites have lied to them (the voters) and their economic options are being progressively eroded - so why shouldn't they be pi$$ed and be primed to grab onto any outsider promising them a better future ("Make America Great Again"...) - but of course they are being lied to by that faction as well. Where is the media in all this? They have lost any sense of neutrality (and integrity) and become party to the political elites. They have no credibility outside of the political faction they have aligned themselves with. So we end up with mob rule (democracy by another name) led by whomever is best able to tap into the ignorance and fears of the masses...

No, you make one fatal error. You are comparing Clinton supporters with Bernie supporters. That is incredibly incorrect and it makes me shudder. You should compare Clinton to Trump supporters---ie., the entire republican party has sided with him, minus a few who will vote third party. Clinton supporters are exactly like that. Bandwagon, that's me! Not to degrade them but put a D in their mouths and they are happy.

On the other hand, Bernie supporters have more integrity and are tired of the funnel-effect of the lesser of two evils bullshit whereby more evil comes to our voting booths.

So yeah, maybe 1% of Clinton supporters will be mad and vote elsewhere (Like Jill) but what, 25% of Sanders will? Yeah...not quite the same.

The UK has done a much better job in handling the situation than the US has, it seems, though it has had more time to do so than the southern US. I don't think they achieved it by implementing systemic racism in the opposite direction, though. And let's be clear, even though we may feel justified in kicking out higher achieving students to replace them with a quota-satisfying minority group, that is systemically racist, the very thing we are trying to abolish. It is a clear example of committing a wrong to hopefully achieve a right. And it will never feel like anything short of racism to the individual student that gets short changed.

So let's say that it works, and black folk begin to integrate more successfully into the encompassing community, and the encompassing communities don't end up resenting them for the racist laws that are helping them to do s . Will we ever be remove these racist rules? Or will we be arguing about an ever small statistical deviation somewhere? Furthermore, all of the people that are unjustly damaged by these new racist rules (ie. Ashley), won't they then be due reparations in the future too? Who would pay those? Where would it end? Would it end?

I just doubt that more racism is the cure for racism.

Well we seem to be devolving into miscommunication, so let's all be clear! bareboards2, I was not singling you out at all. In fact, you have by and large been the image of civility, so much so that I picture you with a monocle while writing your missives to us.

I too think that MonkeySpank (god help us all) seems to have the most historical and accurate interpretation of the situation; one does not traumatize a people, be they Jews or African Americans for decades and decades and decades and then expect them to up and happily integrate. There's a reckoning that has to happen, and I am sorry if your lilly white ass didn't personally own slaves, you were born into a societal architecture created by those who did and you can't pretend the playing field is level. You can stare at your voting right's act, you can belly ache about how Ashley with her 3.5 didn't get into U State university while a minority did, but it doesn't change the fact that that there's a lot of redress to be done, and it'll take a LONG time to remedy. We have some signs of improvement, with prominent African American politicians and intellectuals taking the stage and garnering universal respect, but that's the tip of the iceberg, and we have a LONG way to go.

Also, this was a story in a mainstream UK paper today (the Sun). Reproducing it here because I wouldn't give the pricks another click:

WHERE THE BREX WAS WON Streets full of Polish shops, kids not speaking English… but Union Jacks now flying high again
People from Portsmouth, Plymouth and Boston revel in their relief at EU exit
BY BEN GRIFFITHS AND RYAN SABEY 26th June 2016, 2:11 am

VOTERS in Britain’s most Eurosceptic towns spoke of their relief at Brexit saying: “We’re elated.”

The anti-Brussels fervour was greatest in Boston where 75.6 per cent opted for Leave.

Single market too far … a corner shop in Boston, Lincolnshire
One in six of the Lincolnshire town’s 65,000 population are Eastern Europeans — the highest percentage in the UK.

Yesterday a buzz was back in its medieval centre where High Street stores are flanked by Polish and Lithuanian shops. Crosses of St George and Union Jack flags were adorning pubs and homes.

Caterer and mum-of-five Sally Shuttleworth, 58, said: “I’ve never been so elated as when I saw the Brexit result come in.

“Boston is an example of how Britain has lost its identity with all the Polish shops.

“We need tighter border controls. Immigrants are hard workers but there is too much pressure on the system, on schools, and hospitals.

“You could tell by the number of people streaming out of polling stations that the vote meant a lot to the town.”

In January the Boston area was named the most murderous place in England and Wales, with 15 cases per 100,000 people.

It also has the unwanted title of least integrated town in the UK.

Elation … Retired agricultural mechanic Ron Holmes, revealed: “I’m delighted. The whole town is.”
Translators are employed at Park Academy primary school where half the children speak Eastern European languages.

Retired agricultural mechanic Ron Holmes, 69, added: “I’m delighted. The whole town is.

“Whether you think the EU or immigration is right or wrong things have to stop in Boston.

“It is crippling the UK and we had to deal with it once and for all and vote out.

“The EU wasted money on so many things. They should have put the money in places like Latvia and Estonia to build them up so those people would not want to come here. We should never have joined the Common Market in 1975. I remember it well. Now we have finally put it right.”

Variety … the town of Boston has many shops and eateries catering for Polish tastes
Locals yesterday talked of celebratory parties, extra busy pubs and cheering in the streets.

There are around 1,200 people, mostly Brits, out of work in the town and many hope the result might see a change in fortunes.

Jobless Paul Cook, 53, said: “I don’t think people in the South realised how important this vote was to us.

“It is brilliant that we have voted out. We have had enough of the EU telling us what we can and cannot do. Not being able to control who comes in the country is a big problem. Now we can hopefully get a points system that will allow skilled people in.

“I’m hoping it will free up more roles for British-born people.”


There ya go. Racism is now acceptable in public discourse.

@gorillaman

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."

I still just don't think at a fraction of 11% it's worth worrying about. Certainly not enough to actually alter social law. You look at France (also at 11% immigrant) and if anything there's been overreaction with the bans on face covering.

I'm sure the UK could do more to encourage assimilation. A basic part of that would simply be making a better effort of pushing migrants into training / jobs if they're not immediately able to, which forces you to adapt to the country's culture and mores. Settling migrants in poor areas with often high existing unemployment rates is a terrible way to integrate migrants and also naturally stirs up hate among the local population.

Groups of migrants will tend to congregate when they arrive but even if some of these initially end up on welfare, there's always a strong financial incentive to become employed which will force them to integrate. Meanwhile, we know that even if the migrants are religious, their children and further descendants are much less likely to be.