I dunno about his comments on Trump making "sexist remarks" about Hillary.

Trump says that the only thing she has going for her (why she gets votes) is being a woman. Is that sexist? Yeah, probably. He says that her approval ratings are low, even among women. Is that hypocritical, considering his own numbers with women? Sure.

But is either of those statements actually *wrong*? I think that is much less clear cut.

McCain chose Palin as his running mate in 2008 for precisely one reason: she was a woman, and he and the GOP at large were terrified that Hillary (who seemed unstoppable at the time) would get the Democratic nod and then women would vote for her en masse due to some sort of "vagina solidarity" effect. In other words, the only thing Palin had going for her was being a woman. Is it sexist to say that? Maybe, but it doesn't make it any less true.

Hillary is admittedly a vastly more legitimate candidate than Palin was, but I think there is a certain degree of truth to the suggestion that being female is a pretty significant part of why she's getting the push from Democrat elites. And it is just as insulting for the Democratic elites to think that Hillary can benefit from "vagina solidarity" as it was for the GOP to think that about Palin.

I'll just leave this here:



Canada backed out of their F35 purchases last year. McCain is the head of the Senate Armed Services committee and he has told the pentagon that they will need to reduce the buy. For the first time, they are reconsidering doing so.

Also, the latest 'little' hiccup? Concerns over ejection safety have forced the Pentagon to ground any F-35 pilots under 138 pounds from flying the jet.

I hate to break it to you, but this plane is rapidly going the route of the F22. We need to completely reconsider what we need a proper 5th gen fighter to accomplish and we need to do it with a minimum of cost. It also needs to not be a swiss army plane.

The problem is the GOP as constructed is already the minority party at least nationally. Since 1992, they've won the popular vote once in presidential races. Demographics favor voting blocs that track for Democrats. If the GOP splits into a moderate party and Tea Party, that is the effective end of the GOP, and the Tea Party would also be politically castrated. The people who built the Tea Party understood that the way to gain influence was as an insurrection within the GOP, not as a third party. For the Tea Party, it was a smart move. They've gained massive influence nationally compared to their numbers. But it is a cancer to the Republican Party that they've proven they're completely unable to control.

Every single problem or mistake you've listed is all due to one common thread - there are too many supporters of the GOP that are too radical. Why did McCain pick Palin? He was too moderate for the base, so he needed to up his conservative street creds, and he needed a minority splash to combat Obama being black. Combine those two, and you can't get Olympia Snow or Susan Collins, but you could get to either of them if you drop the "needs to be hard right conservative". Why did McCain move to the right in the first place? The base demanded it.

Why can't Obama do anything right according to no one in the GOP pretty much? Base is too rabid and demands it. Why did Romney shift to the right? Base.

You can blame the party for catering to the extreme too much, but the problem is the extreme makes up so much of what they have for support, they have no choice. Tea Party organizers astutely realized that, radicalized their supporters to threaten to not turn out for moderate candidates, and even to primary challenge even guys like Eric Cantor for compromising too much.

I mean this sincerely - the GOP party leadership is not at fault. Blame the original Tea Party organizers. Blame Tea Party candidates. Blame the media environment for increasingly favoring more radical candidates by creating partisan bubbles to carefully dissimenate information that suites partisan goals. Blame an electorate too stupid and/or apathetic to understand that neither conservative nor liberal ideology solves every problem (which is so painfully obvious that I can prove that in about 5 minutes), so you need to learn about each issue, and use those ideologies to form options, and then choose the one that's more likely to work, regardless of its ideological foundation. Yeah, that actually takes work and critical thinking, but you'll actually solve problems!

But that ain't happening, so it's time to sit back and watch the slow decline of the GOP as it eats itself alive, and Democrats will increasingly win because we'll keep being presented more with GOP candidates a majority of candidates can't stomach, and hope like heck the Democrats nominate at least someone semi-competent for office, because that's pretty much all we got.

I couldn't stomach voting for a single GOP nominee for president since George Bush, Sr. It's gotten worse because I couldn't stomach my choice for VA governor last year either. I had to choose between a batsh1t insane Cuccinelli or political sleeze in McAulliffe, and it was both the fastest choice to make for me, yet I was the least happy about having to make it for McAulliffe.

And just when I thought you couldn't get much lower from the GOP, they're on the doorstep of nominating Trump or Cruz for president of the entire country.

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.

Thanks Obama McCain!

I got to disagree that they need the Tea Party vote... well they need the Tea Party's great love, Fox News, Rush. and all the other far right nutters, so they try to appeal to the Tea Party more specifically, but I think that's why they've lost the last two elections.

McCain, had he ran as the centralist candidate he has been in the Senate, was very electable. Unfortunately for the party he stepped to the right in his campaign to appeal to what would become the Tea Party. Then he went over the deep end by choosing a VP candidate that was certifiably crazy and too far to the right for the Nation to take seriously. All in an attempt to appeal to the far right.

Then the party mishandles Obamacare. Rather than own up to it, and say "hey, this is the same plan we tried to pass 3 times into federal law. The Democrats wanted a single payer system, Obama was promising a government option, but they in the end took our plan." Instead they try to run the thing into the ground, and build on the far right anger over it, rather than appeal to where the Nation actually was. Obama's re-election was largely because of Obamacare, something the party and it's media machines like Fox don't understand. To be fair in 2008, I don't think anyone could have predicted the rise of Obama, but the fact his message took off so well, should have been a sign to the Republican party the country was trying to move back to the center from the pull to the right of the Bush years.

Romney could have ran with that further, saying how Romneycare is the model for Obamacare and that his state was the one who really started the ball rolling. Romney as he was as governor was far more electable at the national level than the Romney we got during the campaign... and again there is an appeal to the Tea Party with a Washington Insider but solid Tea Party member in Ryan.

The Republican party has a near solid slam dunk if they put up Rubio/Kasich ticket. It's a moderate ticket that has broad appeal to the masses of America without making most liberals/progressives so afraid that they'll show up in droves the way a Trump ticket does (or a Cruz ticket to a slightly smaller extent). The far right would still vote for Rubio/Kasich over Clinton/Sander (or Clinton/Warren, Clinton/Kucinich... she needs a solid, well known progressive to give her the best chance of winning), so the Rubio/Kasich is safe from all sides.

I agree though, a Trump ticket spells doom for the party period. Not only do they loose the Presidential election, the fact so many Republicans fear Trump's near Fascism will mean they might stay home, and the liberals/progressives will show up in greater than normal numbers to insure he doesn't win, which means a possible to likely loss of control of the Senate. Cruz won't scare away the Republican base as much, but still bring out more liberals/progressives than normal, which likely means a loss of the Presidential election, but perhaps not as much of a loss of the Senate. A Rubio/Kasich combo ticket is safe and gives the best broad appeal... or course if they did go Rubio, they'd tie him up with a Tea Party candidate to pull those votes in, as they don't understand they need to really shed those people and let them form their own party... I think they fear that Fox News, Rush and the like will follow the new Tea Party line rather than the mainstream Republican party and they want that attention... they are so wrapped up in the echo chamber now they don't see the nation is far more to the center than they are willing to go. The fact that Obama is far closer to Regan era style Republicans than most anyone in the race today speaks volumes to how disconnected the party is from reality.

Meanwhile, I'll wish for a Sanders/Warren or Sanders/Kucinich ticket... though realistically, he needs a young moderate up coming Democrat to broaden his appeal... and let's face it, odds are it'll be Clinton, whom I fear the Republican's first day of action will be to try an impeach her over the email and Benghazi... I mean we've had what? 3 or 4 times as many hearings on how she handled Benghazi than we had over 9/11, even though there are tons of fishy things going on with that too (without having to go into crazy conspiracy theories). So go... Clinton/Sanders or Clinton/Warren.

There's polling that Trump would be neck and neck with Clinton but I think that's baloney and in the general he will get slaughtered since his support base right now is a fairly curated group of the Republican base and in the general he will face tougher questions from the left. The pollsters like Rove already know this and there is some ideas being floated around that the GOP itself may campaign on "vote for a Congress to contain Hilary" rather than even backing Trump.

A big loss would almost certainly trigger some kind of GOP rethink. After McCain's loss the outcome seems to have been to restructure to become more radical and purist, with the Tea Party rise. Since Trump is close enough to a Tea Party candidate the hope is that after a big loss, the Republican party restructures, throws off its extremism and moves towards the center. I think this is inevitable as US youth is highly liberal and minority demographics will eventually determine elections but it may still be some years, maybe a decade before that begins to really matter.

I would say that in general that both parties have extreme Members that do more harm to the public good and are more about lining their own pockets. The old timers time have come and do need to be replaced with those who reflect today's ideals. Harry Reid and John McCain types need to go.

Yes Republicans are the holier than thou and come up short often enough. We all fail from time to time but at least they try.
Democrats doesn't even try to be holy and to me that is frustrating.

The only good thing about our government is that the people are the final check and balance. However people are too busy being self absorb to pay attention to government. No one is watching the hen house.


The purpose of this video was for this man to show that the 7% of the black population who do not feel that the democrat philosophy is the correct way to go.

This is this mans opinion.
Granted the black face brings a stigma from yesterdays past.
But this is from a black man. He can get away with it. Like white people cant say N but the black man can and it is ok.

Since he does not hold the majority view as seen by his counterparts ( blacks and sifters )this video was discarded as racist trash.

I look at racist as one group feeling superior over another.
This black man is not doing this. He is not demonstrating this belief.


As far as the FU we all at times are quick to do this. I have done this also.

Enjoy the Superbowl

Since panthers are my home town team I will root for them tonight. Beside they have one heck of a season.

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."

They used to say the same thing about Trump, but I think the RNC is finally starting to relent and starting to accept Trump even though they didn't want him originally. When it comes to primaries, votes do not matter.

I just don't think it really matters. I think most of the polls have agreed so far that in almost every possible match up....regardless of which republican, regardless of which democrat. Democrat wins.

Palin and Trump may rally the base, but they rally more people to vote against them. If McCain had picked just about anyone else for VP. I think he might have won. I think Palin made a large number of Republicans stay home and a large number of Democrats to come out to vote. I think the only thing that made it a semi close race (popular vote wise, not electorally) was that Obama was black and that made the racists come out in droves to vote against him. Fortunately, racism is slowly slowly dying. I'm also sure there were some die hard Hillary fans that were still pissed that Obama got the nod so they stayed home.

I think Trump is going to be a repeat of that. Islamaphobes and everyone who despises minorities will vote Trump, but more people (Republicans as well) will vote against him. And again, it might be sorta close because whoever will get the Democrat nod, there will be the die hard fans of the other person who will stay home.

That's my take on it so far anyway. It's the Democrats' race to lose. They've been known to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the past.

Too many unsubstantiated assertions here. From a website titled Storm Clouds Gathering, rumor mongering isn't exactly a surprise.

John McCain does not represent US foreign policy and sounds misinformed. The 4-5 US trained fighters and provision of tactical equipment pretty much represents the degree of support/involvement the US has provided Syrian rebels. For obvious reasons that he himself points out. There's no credible opposition remotely alligned with US values, and any arms provided risk ending up with radical groups.

Just because McCain thinks it's a good idea doesn't mean it is happening, will happen or that the executive branch shares his mindset. However it is true that Russian air strikes have primarily targeted other groups over ISIS. This aligns with what I talked about elsewhere that Russia's aim is to prop up Assad. With a western coalition taking on ISIS already, this naturally leaves Assad in the strongest position.

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/20151010_MAM922.png

If Bernie Sanders ran with Elizabeth Warren as VP, and they somehow collided with McCain / Palin, I'm pretty sure it would rip a hole in the space time continuum.


edit...also, yeah, credit unions are great. Most people probably have access to one and don't even know about it.

To that end then all the American people can do is stop voting for the lesser of 2 evils and vote for the one who will truly start to make a difference., regardless of outcome.

I did not vote for McCain nor did I vote for Romney and of course Obviously not Obama.

Once the sheeple wake up then another party will rise and take form.

I like you statement
" find it interesting that the only real difference is who you feel are the "greater" of two evils.this is the exact same things democrats say about republicans...interesting yes?"


When I watch MSNBC it is funny that it is an opposite of FOX. Fox is more balanced for sure. I'm talking about news not pinheads like Hannity and O'Reilly that stir the pot like Maddow, Sharpton and Sholtz.

The best news of ALL news is Brett Baier and for commentary I like The Kelly file. Both from FOX.

It's really rather disturbing to hear McCain being reasonable. Then I remember than he's not running for president any more, and that if he should ever do so again, we'll get to see the slimy politician again as he throws all principles under the bus.

The part about McCain starts at around the 25 minute mark in this video.