I hope by now people know me well enough to know I am far from a Trump supporter.

But we would be missing out on a huge opportunity here if we didn't highlight that 99% of what politicians say is different looking, but equally foul bullshit.

I'm not joking. If you actually look into the 'facts' and 'statistics' that are used to push and promote the different policies, they are all based in falsehood or manipulation of meaning, a few off the very top of my head:
- Austerity - based on a study that was discredited not long after it was used to strip assets and cut funding for those who need it most
- Immigration caps - Theresa May talks big about reducing immigration now, saying what a problem it has become but she was *home secretary*, responsible for handling immigration policy
- Benefit caps - for years they have painted benefits cheats as the great drain on the British welfare system with TV shows and press releases, but the majority of the benefits bills go towards subsidising low pay (working tax credits, people in full time work that doesn't pay enough to live on) and paying rent to private landlords (rents which are unregulated, landlords who are already privately rich).
- Greater autonomy for local government - sounds great, we get a better say about things that affect us locally, except when we say that we don't want fracking in Lancashire, they over rule us and say we WILL have fracking in Lancashire. Greater autonomy only meant "we're not giving you any more money."

I'm barely getting started. You can go on and on - tax policy when it comes to big multi nationals who don't pay their fair share, but we let them haggle and pay a tokenistic amount - but the reason we don't have enough money is because of the burden of benefits cheats and immigrants??? We paid for the damage done by the financial crash, but the same people are still in charge and now they're taking billions in bonuses too - why don't we get any of it back!??

I can turn on the news at any time and within 30 seconds find something that is skirting with the truth or outright pulling the wool over our eyes.

The entire political system is fucked up in America and in the UK, it's not just Donald Trump. Donald Trump is like a huge fist sized bubble in a strip of freshly laid wallpaper. We don't just need to fix the big obvious bubble; we need to change the way we put wallpaper up because when you look at the rest of the wall, there are thousands of smaller bubbles that amount to the exact same problem of a fucked up wall.

Donald Trump is the dead canary in the coal mine. He's the clear and obvious indicator that something is horribly, horribly wrong. Getting rid of the canary's corpse does not solve the fucking problem.

The blowback from the alt-right, these vicious people spouting nationalism and racism and sexism. AND the constantly bickering and clamouring SJW lefties who want to dominate free thought and free speech. Both these sets of people have been pitted against each other intentionally so that they don't turn on the people at the top. It is the oldest trick in the book - don't blame the guys in charge, blame each other, it gives us longer to get away with it. Divide and conquer. Spread hate, spread war, spread fear, spread anger and people gravitate to the extremes... they are easier to control at the extremes.

...rant over i guess

TLDR
If you found this boring, if you didn't want to look into it, you're part of the problem. You're contributing to the environment in which Trump can flourish.

There is no scrutiny, there is no being held to account. There is only the court of Rupert Murdoch and the Barclay brothers.

As great as John Oliver is, he spent more time there mocking them over petty things as opposed to really concentrating on the (admittedly real) flaws in their platforms.

OK, Stein's "music" is cringeworthy. And Johnson's "skirt" comment is creepy and ill advised, but clearly meant in a metaphorical way.

It kinda bothers me when people (not just Oliver) do it to Trump and Clinton also. Like Trump having "tiny hands", or bringing up cankles or pantsuits for Clinton.

All of those things can be funny, a few times. But bringing them up constantly makes it seem like we have nothing of actual substance to criticize them for -- which is clearly not the case.


He did bring up legitimate concerns for some of Stein and Johnson's signature platforms. In both cases, that criticism boiled down to "you can't actually do that", as in the president doesn't actually have the power to implement the policy that they want. That's fair ... BUT, pretty much every single politician ever makes campaign promises that they don't actually have the power to implement. You pretty much have to if you want to get elected.

That doesn't mean that setting those policies as goals can't have value. Obama wanted a much more thorough overhaul of healthcare and insurance, but he didn't have the power to make it happen unilaterally. So we ended up with a watered-down version of Obamacare after the Republicans in the legislature did everything they could to obstruct it. But still, even though it isn't exactly what Obama originally had in mind, there are plenty of people now with some health coverage who had none before. That's a tangible positive result.

Trump will never build his wall, even if he ends up in the White House (not likely). I offer no defense for this idiotic idea, but it is at least possible for massive public works projects to be used to create jobs, improve infrastructure, and have other tangible positive effects; like FDR's New Deal.

Hillary would face lots of obstruction if she attempts to implement her plan to let people attend public universities for free. Probably more than Obama did on Obamacare. But trying to do something to make post-secondary education more available to everyone is a good goal. Even if the cynic in me thinks she only produced this "plan" as a way to try to win support of Sanders voters.

Johnson couldn't eliminate income tax, or abolish all those departments he mentioned. But he could rein in a lot of spending that the Executive branch does have power over. That could be a good thing in many cases (I'd be happy to see the TSA eliminated and military spending drastically reduced), but there are also a lot of potential problems. See Kansas transformation to "Brownbackistan" as a result of Sam Brownback's drastic tax cuts.

And Stein couldn't forgive student loan debt for this "entire generation". But just like Clinton's proposal to make public universities free, there is potential value to be found in just trying to do something about the insane problems with our university system. Hillary is a savvy enough politician to know not to say too much about her plan, which would open it up to scrutiny and criticism. Stein stepped into that by revealing her political inexperience, but I tend to trust that she does actually want to do something as opposed to Hillary just saying what she needs to say to get more votes.

The president also has the power to sink us if his party is in control of congress and goes along with any stupid thing he does, and so does the Supreme Court (which will essentially belong to whoever is the next president).
If Clinton only worked within a broken system, she might be forgiven, but she doesn't. This latest DNC collusion fiasco is just the latest shining example of how she and her team flagrantly disregards the rules if they aren't convenient for her. She just gave Shultz a nice position in her campaign and you can bet she'll have a cabinet position if Clinton wins for blatantly rigging the primary for her, which is not the action of someone who values ethics.
Yes, the system needs to be reformed, but by someone that believes that rules and laws apply to everyone including them, not someone who's an expert at slipping through loopholes and skirting the rules if not breaking them outright then lying about it....which is either major party candidate.
IMO, Clinton is the fairly competent but corrupt one, Trump is fairly incompetent and corrupt and pathological and racist and narcissistic and just a terrible human being. I'm not certain which is more dangerous, because I can't tell what either of them will actually do in any situation beyond whatever appears to benefit them most at the time.

I, for one, am glad we don't have a two party system and I have other choices. I will only vote for someone I want to be president, and refuse to cast a vote against someone. That's what has us in this mess.

Voted down, simply because it reminds me of up the skirt fetish porn a bit. It's definitely artistic, just not my taste.

Yes, and that's why I display such contempt and distrust of them.

As I understood it, yes, 3 pairs of cuffs, all 3 attached to his wrists, not a chain of 3 pairs to make him comfortable. I mean, why is he cuffed at all? WTF?!? He's not 500lbs, the only time they use more than one pair in a chain is when the perps hands can't fit behind their back, NEVER for comfort....that's simply not what cuffs are about...EVER.

Yes, this level of 'incompetence' (if that's what it was, and I don't concede that) MUST be intentional. It falls so far below the bar we have set as reasonable, or the standards that police MUST meet through testing, that the only way it could actually be his incompetence rather than intentional negligence is if his supervisor intentionally falsified his test results to keep him on the force....so it's either HIS intentional negligence or his supervisors, but either way, it's intentional. No question in my mind that SOMEONE along the chain of responsibility intentionally allowed this behavior...or this level of incompetence that it's clear would lead to this behavior. There was intentional negligence, no way around it.

It actually seems to indicate a lack of a reason for shooting in the first place to me.

I've seen a dozen videos about this. Numerous times they mentioned an over 15 minute wait before he was seen by medics, during which time they had him handcuffed, bleeding in the street, but not charged with any crime or even suspected of one....why the cuffs?

I think that there is a point where negligence is SO intentional, and the results of that negligence SO foreseeable that it's indirect intent. Cops shoot to kill...period. If they shoot inappropriately, like at someone not posing a threat, that's attempted murder IMO. Period. They intend to kill, it's not accidental. Wounding him was accidental and clearly incompetence, which should be another charge IMO, unsafe discharge of a weapon...at least twice for those times he missed completely....and attempted murder 3 times.

(Side note...how in the hell do you miss from that close with a rifle?!? That, as much as anything else, should have people up in arms, that an officer is so non-proficient with his weapon, but still allowed to carry and use it. WTF?!? I want every officer with a firearm to be reasonably proficient with it...really any person with one, but that's another discussion. Police have to train, and prove proficiency with their weapon....how can this possibly happen without intentional skirting of the standards/rules/law?)

The biggest problem IMO is there's rarely any justice at all, even in those cases where there's incontrovertible evidence of guilt. Instant justice would be nice, but delayed justice would be FAR preferable to no justice, which is the current situation. How many recent killings of unarmed men have gone completely unaddressed? Far too many to count.
The system is set up in such a way that those charged with prosecuting police have personal and professional relationships with them that deny impartiality in almost every case. That is why there's rarely any prosecution, and even when there is (usually because they are pressured into it by public outcry) they blatantly throw the case in the toilet with no consequence....and there's still no justice.

While I understand this is covering a sensitive and very topical incident that relates to a larger issue of police shooting minorities, I do think it skirts the edge of snuff.

I recall the earlier shooting of Walter Scott, where you could clearly see on the video that the officer shot him in the back multiple times. I was going to post that video when it came out, because I felt that it spoke to the ongoing issue of minority police shootings, but I decided not to since it was clearly showing a man getting shot and dying on screen.

I guess we need to maybe revisit the definition of snuff. Do we allow videos that show death or dying if it is a hot button issue?

*discuss

Our country reeks of trees
Our yaks are really large
And they smell like rotting beef carcasses
And we have to clean up after them
And our saddle sores are the best
We proudly wear womens' clothing
And searing sand blows up our skirts
And the buzzards, they soar overhead
And poisonous snakes will devour us whole
Our bones will bleach in the sun
And we will probably go to HELL
And that is our great reward
For being the roy-oy-al Canadian Kilted Yaksmen

Nah, it was always the same. The lack of overtaking is commonly blamed on high downforce, carbon brakes, and super short braking distances, but it actually wasn't any better before they put wings on cars. Same thing: the rich, fast teams qualify and start at the front and stay at the front and get richer and faster...with the occasional fall from grace (Mclaren) or rise from obscurity (Brawn->Mercedes). As cool as they are technologically, development series like F1 tends to result in boring races.

ed: Oh, and using ground effect has been banned since 81(?). Interestingly, Indycars use the ground effect (though without the skirts so it's not as effective as the F1 ground effect cars), and by virtue of being a (mostly) spec series, has much better races.

On a serious note, that was really quite good. On the other hand, it is perhaps a little easy to convince people to stick up for Apple, considering how ubiquitous iPhones and other iThings are in the US.

Someone that could really use this sort of supportive message campaign is Edward Snowden, without whom we wouldn't know just how *much* the Government and all the 3-letter agencies are trying to skirt the constitution. He doesn't have the benefit of the degree of public appreciation that Apple does (even though I think he is *more* deserving of it -- not to take anything away from Apple doing the right thing here)...

I think article linked below on reading level is important to note in regards to this.
https://contently.com/strategist/2015/01/28/this-surprising-reading-level-analysis-will-change-the-way-you-write/ By keeping his language simple, he is able to reach, and have his keywords understood by a larger American audience. Of course understanding speech and reading are slightly different, but it's word choice still becomes important.

As this video notes. Trump is a salesman. And he's selling his crap expertly well. He circumvents the answer with babble that never actually answers the question. He never answered if it's un-American to have a religious litmus test to allow people to visit the US, he just says we have a problem, and implicates all the people of one faith in that, which ISIL itself said sometime ago was their goal, to turn the world against all of Islam to make it easier to recruit and radicalize more people... which is off topic. He doesn't address the point of the question, he sort of skirts it and generalizes it into his overall framework. One could argue that yes, saying there's a problem is itself an answer to the question, but it isn't a direct answer.

I don't know as if he's intentionally talking at that low a level though, or if he's just his style period.

It'd also be interesting to see if Hitler's run-up to being elected, if he used similar style. That is if he used a simple style to appeal to the masses. Not just Hitler, but other leaders of his ilk. I choose Hitler here as more an example of an elected leader gone wrong, that had mass appeal to his people, but later regretted to the point of shame.

Even if Britt's famed Warning Signs of Fascism isn't fully accurate by all scholars (and I'm aware he doesn't actually have academic scholarship) many do come close. I think most can agree that it requires at least Extreme Nationalism, warmongering, a loss of civil liberties and rights (Patriot Act, wanting to increase the spy power of the NSA, etc), corporatism a merger of the state and corporate power, racism (Britt's warning signs says sexism, but I think racism is more apt and I don't think what people normally think about sexism applies, though we need more of a racism slash something, to note those who "sin" differently than others, such as the gays).

Good lord. I've seen less pretentious perfume adverts.

So its kind of a hovercraft without skirts? Revolutionary.

Sorry to be so flippant, I guess I just don't care much about FREEDOM.

What?
So, are you, like, suggesting Sarkeesian asked for it? What? Was her skirt too short and her top too slutty?
The woman did her job, analyzing entertainment products and their relationship to women, and got death- and rapethreats. That's exactly what Lewinsky talks about minus the shaming aspect. Yes, her talk is about shaming but that's only the spread on the shit-sandwich she got and is reviewing now.
It's about shitty people being themselves online, about modern mob behaviour. Both women suffered from that and both got their share of misogyny and abuse. What they did to get it isn't the issue, it's what's done to them. They may not sit in the same boat but Sarkeesian is certainly sitting in the 15 years more advanced version of it.

Pretty good race. I gave up on the 2014 season about halfway through, and though it's still almost certainly going to be a Mercedes year, I'm pretty hopeful that there will at least be some good races.

If Red Bull ends up a Ferrari customer for 2016 such as rumors were suggesting at one point, and Honda makes their engine competitive within the stupid development rules (or the rules are relaxed), maybe things will be okay by then.

I think the next step is to allow them to to put venturis under the cars using similar regulations to the Champcars in their heyday (no skirts and ride height minimums so it's more like bonus downforce). Even the DW12's today don't suffer dirty air anything like the F1 cars do. Of course, I'm not an aerodynamics expert and I'm sure the F1 designers put a lot of thought into designing their cars specifically so that they screw with the aero of any following car, so who knows how that would work. Also, the Champcars were a lot closer to a spec series than F1 is.

Everyone is skirting the fact that parents are the first and last line of education when it comes to their children. It isn't just up to schools to teach. You must always question authority and make your own decisions, if you want your kids to know this stuff, teach it yourself! Sure you may not know 100% but every bit that is different than what cookie cutter schools teach is invaluable.

I suspect the coverup has less to do with modesty and more to do with avoiding censorship. I could definitely see this being so if it's an official or semi official campaign as it's already skirting the edges of good taste.