The GOP never to this point kowtowed to that part of the base anyway until they decided to attempt to harness the energy of that faction to the point that this faction has a stranglehold of the party, and yet are wholly ignorant on the issues. We're talking about people who hold up signs that read "Keep your government hands off my medicare" caliber people. Or people who think Obama isn't an American. Or people who think Obama is "a complete socialized take over of health care". Stuff like that which is so obviously untrue, it's laughable.

And I want to be clear. I'm not accusing the right of having a monopoly on stupid people in their base. There's PLENTY of stupid liberals. The difference is the Democratic party is doing a far better job of keeping their idiots supporting them without enacting what those idiots want or succumbing to their idiocy.

Here's proof - how many times do you see Democratic leaders constantly say crap like George W. Bush is a war criminal for Iraq? Name a Democratic presidential candidate who actually has said over and over again that Ted Cruz isn't a US citizen? Donald Trump, the current GOP frontrunner, over and over again insists Obama isn't a US citizen, as have many many Republican Congressmen.

When the GOP signed the deal with the devil so to speak by trying to co-opt the Tea Party movement, this was the inevitable outcome. The Tea Party has been hijacked twice by my count because the people within it are so incredibly ignorant, they don't seem to realize what they stand for. It was Libertarian in the beginning both socially and economically. Then it got hijacked to become more socially conservative and economically conservative. Now, it's been hijacked by Donald Trump, who nobody actually even knows what he is socially or economically at this point overall.

Why did this happen? Because GOP support is so contaminated and dominated by so much ignorance, you can have a TV personality say a bunch of stupid crap they want to hear but is certifiably absurd, that he can become the front runner. Building a wall to keep the Mexicans out, no matter how you feel about illegal immigration as far as ideals go, is simply not a practical solution to stop illegal immigration. You can't make Mexico pay for a wall even if you built it. Obama wasn't born in Kenya. Replacing Obamacare with something "terrific" is NOT a policy proposal; it's non-specific anti-Obama BS to make people who hate Obama love you. He could replace it with "Trumpcare" which could be basically Obamacare, and that could be "something terrific" for all you know.

Trump and Cruz don't exist without the Tea Party, and the Tea Party wouldn't be a thing if the GOP didn't decide to eventually attempt to galvanize it. Well, mission accomplished, but you're never going to get the support of the growing minority segments of the population. You've forfeited the support of moderates like myself, too. And young people by enlarge are rejecting this version of the GOP big time. Women are increasingly rejecting it, too.

Your second point... Umm, big fat no.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/21/the-last-presidential-candidate-who-was-as-unpopular-as-donald-trump-david-duke/

Oh, settle down. It's a comedy bit.

The party is split no matter who wins. Trump has and likely will get more votes than anyone, but if he wins, I have even Republican friends who out of a moral obligation feel forced to vote for Hillary Clinton. Let that sink in. These are people who claimed Obamacare was "a complete government takeover of the health care system" claiming people (which is pure bullshit), and they can't stomach the thought of a Trump presidency.

On the other hand, Trump supporters might riot if Trump doesn't get it.

I don't generally make drastic predictions about politics, but I think we are watching the destruction of a political party. I don't see a way forward for the GOP because the Tea Party movement is too big and energetic within the GOP to not dominate it, yet cannot accept their way is a losing way, they are perfectly content on burning the GOP to the ground in the process, and too stupid to understand that is what they are doing.

The problem is that sets up what reminds me of the 2000 election. It absolutely astounded me half the country thought George W. Bush was a valid candidate, let alone the better candidate than Al Gore, not that I liked Gore, but given the choice between the two, Gore had viable plans for the budget, a cohesive foreign policy, etc.

It shouldn't have been a close election, but not only was it razor close, Gore lost. Countless times there have been in world history leaders who came about who generally wouldn't and shouldn't have, but they did. All it takes is a bad recession or other event to tilt the odds in their favor at the right time. Hitler doesn't come to power without the Great Depression and the Treaty of Versailles leaving Germany dependent on US loans.

And to me, Trump is absolutely frightening. I honestly have absolutely no idea what he would do as President, and not in a good way. I quite honestly don't even know if he's actually in line with the Tea Party or not. It is terrifying to me that he's on a course where potentially a recession at the wrong time could make him president because so many voters are absolutely ignorant or stupid enough to support him.

Screw the entertainment value of it. I keep thinking back to the George W. Bush Iraqi occupation and the crapshow that was Katrina and realize people's lives are literally at stake by botching the selection of the next President, and when you make one option completely invalid before the election even starts, it doesn't help.

There are some things I disagree with in this video that are debatable, and things I agree with, but the fact about how Sanders polls against Trump or Cruz compared to Clinton is ridiculous.

He's completely ignoring the fact that most voters don't even know Sanders is a socialist yet, or generally much about any of the candidates. Most know that Hillary is Bill's wife, Bill got head when he was president, there are controversies surrounding them (most cooked up, a few have some legitimacy, not that the average voter knows the difference), and she was Secretary of State under Obama. If they know who Sanders is, he's that old guy who has some good points about how government and Wall Street are corrupt.

The poll numbers provided won't matter in a general election by the time that occurs. They could be more in Sanders' favor, against him, or what they are now, but what they currently are now won't have much to do with that. Polls change this far out from the general election.

If you want the chance at a more impactful significant economic and political revolution at the cost of an increased chance that Trump, Rubio, or Cruz will win, support Sanders. If you want to decrease the chances of Trump, Rubio, or Cruz winning the general election, but you understand it's going to be more of maintaining the status quo by doing so, support Clinton.

Call a space a spade at least.

Just shared your comment with my wife, and her reaction, I kid you not:

"I think it's a little cruel to strap a go-cart to a shark, don't you think?"

Me: "You're right, it *would* be cruel to stap a go-cart to a shark; however, we're talking about a Go-Pro camera, which is an entirely different thing!"

Me uncontrollably cracking up ensued.

If you're a "Bernie or Bust" person, a Trump-Palin ticket would be by far and away the way to make that happen should Sanders pull an epic upset of Hillary Clinton.

My greatest fear about that is the general electorate is so stupid, that if the economy were to crash, people might vote for Trump-Palin, and they'd win over Sanders.

And that's about the craziest f'n thing perhaps in the history of presidential politics.

That conveniently leaves out the fact that income tax rates have plummeted since the 1940s. That's been the big consistent change, not the government increasing spending as a percentage of GDP, which wildly fluctuates.

The reason why there's a fight to get this funded is because there's a portion of this country that thinks you must pay for every new expenditure by cutting spending elsewhere because the national debt will kill us if it doesn't come down, and taxes can never ever ever ever ever be raised ever ever ever ever. They will absolutely never consider that raising taxes is worth funding anything, and are completely okay with cutting funding for things that are even needed and are worth the money (see cutting funding for PBS).

I say "principled" because they sure don't ask for reduced spending to pay for when they need help. See Katrina and other disasters, Mitch McConnell's fund to help nuclear power workers, etc.

But the fundamental problem here is the flat refusal to accept the reality that:
1. The national debt and annual deficits can, will, and should fluctuate depending upon circumstances. The "sky is falling" reaction to added debt is beyond ridiculous. This country has flourished economically under almost non-stop deficit spending. This isn't to say raising the national debt and running annual deficits is always good, but it sure as hell isn't always bad.
2. The same reaction to tax raises is also ridiculous. Tax rates can be increased or decreased, depending on circumstances, and raising or lowering them isn't inherently good or bad.

A sane reaction to this whole thing isn't - "well, they spend money on things that don't matter, so that's why this can't be funded."

It's "I don't care if it costs every single one of us an extra dollar in taxes in a year, or we need to cut funding on (insert wasteful program here), we need to get this done."

That basically means that the only way an action scene can be good is via realism, and that's not true.

I would agree so much as to say that I don't think that Avengers scene was necessarily great, but it is good. I want to preface this first with I'm not a huge Avengers fan. I'm honestly not a big comic book fan either, so this isn't coming from a fan boy.

Why was it good? First off, it is very plot connected. It demonstrated Tony Stark being forward thinking and anticipating the Hulk potentially going Hulk and hurting/killing people... It's the same for his motivation to construct what became The Vision. It stays within both his and Hulk's character. Stark maintains his wise cracking self, even when it's not probably appropriate.

Immortality? Hardly. It conveyed how much damage could be done. IE, buildings and stuff didn't just get destroyed because, LOOK! STUFF BLOWING UP! The scene actually demonstrates the flaws/vulnerabilities of both Stark and the Hulk. Stark didn't just beat him, and that was that. They were very lucky nobody died (admittedly pretty conveniently). It took a bit of good luck for Stark to stop the Hulk that there was a huge building under construction nearby. It shows that even just the Hulk could potentially overpower whatever Stark cooks up to stop him, let alone whatever actual Supervillian comes along who is actually scheming to destroy/enslave the world, and he can make mistakes despite his best attempts (which is brought about Ultron as well). It demonstrated the Hulk's fragility of setting him off. Yet it also demonstrated that without Stark, the Hulk would have continued smashing and destroying. That was one of the themes in the movie, that technological innovation is something we need, yet can destroy us all.

Was it potentially overdone and there was some stuff that they could have toned down to keep with that darker ethos? Sure. The scene ain't perfect, but it's really damn good.

Holy hell, the 80s really were awful in just about everything.

At least they didn't make it Java based. Java made me take back everything bad I've ever said about Flash.

People want to kill the video because it doesn't fit reality. There is an objective reality, not the one that fits anyone's point of view.

http://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/unspinning-the-planned-parenthood-video/

Quite honestly, while I understand both sides of the abortion debate, it's not a high priority issue to me either way. I'd rather focus on economic health and stability, national defense, etc., as those things impact more people. I respect both sides of the debate. It's a very difficult topic.

With that said, this issue is so complex and multi-faceted, it doesn't need utter BS like this mucking people's idea of what actually is reality.

If you posted this because you have a problem conducting scientific research with already aborted fetuses, then where's the outrage with organ donation, cadavers, etc. Sorry, but gaining scientific knowledge is often done with samples you'd rather not want to know, but there really isn't any moral issue using.

If you posted this because you actually think Planned Parenthood makes money by doing this, you never bothered to find out this is a viable profit center, which you would have quickly found it isn't. It didn't take me long at all. (See link above)

It's shameful you'd actually post something this revolting in how absolutely it murders the truth.

It doesn't matter if it's an incumbent or the challenger. Voting out all incumbents who don't represent the people for challengers who also don't is simply shuffling the deck. Influence party nominations the get it candidates on the ballet who do, and vote for the best candidates, even when you have to choose between crappy ones to register the fact you do vote.

All those things help.

I'm not advocating he should have caved in to Depp in the slightest. There's a difference between taking a stand that's reasonable and acting like "a complete wanker".

The quarantine requirements make complete sense. Most voters accept the fact that some laws are annoying but necessary. But he's not helping by acting like he did. At least show you'd feel bad if you had to kill his dogs instead of saying the equivalent to the dogs should fuck off. I'd completely understand if Depp came in with illegal items that if destroyed didn't hurt anyone but Depp, so yeah, outrage and some good old fashioned dickish behavior at a hollywood star acting entitled would be pretty awesome. The problem is he's acting like this about killing innocent dogs.

The issue with his behavior isn't that he took a principled stand. It's that he acted like a complete douche, which makes people turn against doing the right thing when it's completely unnecessary.

I really don't give two fucks that he didn't talk about human suffering in what was clearly a comedy bit.

I'm weird like that.

Edit: It also didn't occur to me your point about human refugees in Australia wasn't funny.