(09-03-2016, 11:48 PM)Galen Wrote: Eric the Obtuse you are about the most simplistic person and simple minded individual that it has been my misfortune to have ever encountered.

(09-06-2016, 09:40 AM)Anthony Wrote: If Galen supports Trump, then he's a masochist.

(09-06-2016, 09:40 AM)Anthony Wrote: If Galen supports Trump, then he's a masochist.

(09-07-2016, 12:05 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: So, How many dead, again? Hillary did what to our embassies?

(09-07-2016, 12:29 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 12:05 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: So, How many dead, again? Hillary did what to our embassies?

There is still that little matter of the war before the embassies.  Even HuffPo, hardly a right wing publication, says that she was one of the prime movers for the Libyan war and that Libya was better off under Gaddaffi.  No wonder the neocons support her these days.

Thanks for providing evidence that you have, like the rest of the Boomers, moved into the Make War, Not Love stage of your life.

(09-07-2016, 01:23 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 12:29 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 12:05 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: So, How many dead, again? Hillary did what to our embassies?

There is still that little matter of the war before the embassies.  Even HuffPo, hardly a right wing publication, says that she was one of the prime movers for the Libyan war and that Libya was better off under Gaddaffi.  No wonder the neocons support her these days.

Thanks for providing evidence that you have, like the rest of the Boomers, moved into the Make War, Not Love stage of your life.

Well, some people on the Left and Right are complaining about Hillary's support for USA's actions in Libya, but Trump and the Republicans are ONLY making hay out of the deaths at the Benghazi American embassy, not the Libyan uprising or US actions; even though Hillary made mince meat of the Republicans at the hearings earlier. That is the point, regardless of what you think about the Arab Spring peoples' uprising in Libya against their cruel and ruthless dictator, and NATO's UN-approved activities to protect and/or help the rebels. My approval for uprisings against tyranny has not changed from an earlier "phase" in my Boomer life. I still root for the people. Whether the USA or NATO did the right things is questionable, but opposing those things is not such a clear-cut or obviously-correct idea as you seem to think.

(09-07-2016, 01:40 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 01:23 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 12:29 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 12:05 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: So, How many dead, again? Hillary did what to our embassies?

There is still that little matter of the war before the embassies.  Even HuffPo, hardly a right wing publication, says that she was one of the prime movers for the Libyan war and that Libya was better off under Gaddaffi.  No wonder the neocons support her these days.

Thanks for providing evidence that you have, like the rest of the Boomers, moved into the Make War, Not Love stage of your life.

Well, some people on the Left and Right are complaining about Hillary's support for USA's actions in Libya, but Trump and the Republicans are ONLY making hay out of the deaths at the Benghazi American embassy, not the Libyan uprising or US actions; even though Hillary made mince meat of the Republicans at the hearings earlier. That is the point, regardless of what you think about the Arab Spring peoples' uprising in Libya against their cruel and ruthless dictator, and NATO's UN-approved activities to protect and/or help the rebels. My approval for uprisings against tyranny has not changed from an earlier "phase" in my Boomer life. I still root for the people. Whether the USA or NATO did the right things is questionable, but opposing those things is not such a clear-cut or obviously-correct idea as you seem to think.

Every other intervention in the region has ended badly, there was no reason to believe this one would end any better.  I very much doubt that Hillary, the US government or NATO really gave a shit about the people.  What should interest you is one of the main motives, though not the only one, was to prevent a gold backed dinar competing against the dollar.  This is something I long ago pointed out as one of the reasons for the countries the US has attacked and its current enmity with Iran.

It looks like more of the usual Boomer problem solving, take a problem and turn it into a huge intractable one for all of the wrong reasons.

(09-07-2016, 02:11 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 01:40 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 01:23 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 12:29 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 12:05 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: So, How many dead, again? Hillary did what to our embassies?

There is still that little matter of the war before the embassies.  Even HuffPo, hardly a right wing publication, says that she was one of the prime movers for the Libyan war and that Libya was better off under Gaddaffi.  No wonder the neocons support her these days.

Thanks for providing evidence that you have, like the rest of the Boomers, moved into the Make War, Not Love stage of your life.

Well, some people on the Left and Right are complaining about Hillary's support for USA's actions in Libya, but Trump and the Republicans are ONLY making hay out of the deaths at the Benghazi American embassy, not the Libyan uprising or US actions; even though Hillary made mince meat of the Republicans at the hearings earlier. That is the point, regardless of what you think about the Arab Spring peoples' uprising in Libya against their cruel and ruthless dictator, and NATO's UN-approved activities to protect and/or help the rebels. My approval for uprisings against tyranny has not changed from an earlier "phase" in my Boomer life. I still root for the people. Whether the USA or NATO did the right things is questionable, but opposing those things is not such a clear-cut or obviously-correct idea as you seem to think.

Every other intervention in the region has ended badly, there was no reason to believe this one would end any better.  I very much doubt that Hillary, the US government or NATO really gave a shit about the people.  What should interest you is one of the main motives, though not the only one, was to prevent a gold backed dinar competing against the dollar.  This is something I long ago pointed out as one of the reasons for the countries the US has attacked and its current enmity with Iran.

It looks like more of the usual Boomer problem solving, take a problem and turn it into a huge intractable one for all of the wrong reasons.

That is what Trump and the Republicans are doing raising the Benghazi embassy issue.

You are not the only one here who has stated that aggressive US policy is aimed at protecting the dominance of the dollar. If that's what Hillary and others have thought, the concern is probably misplaced. It may not really matter to US interests if the dollar is supreme or not as a reserve currency, etc.

(09-07-2016, 02:33 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 02:11 AM)Eric Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 01:40 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 01:23 AM)Eric Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 12:29 AM)Galen Wrote: There is still that little matter of the war before the embassies.  Even HuffPo, hardly a right wing publication, says that she was one of the prime movers for the Libyan war and that Libya was better off under Gaddaffi.  No wonder the neocons support her these days.

Thanks for providing evidence that you have, like the rest of the Boomers, moved into the Make War, Not Love stage of your life.

Well, some people on the Left and Right are complaining about Hillary's support for USA's actions in Libya, but Trump and the Republicans are ONLY making hay out of the deaths at the Benghazi American embassy, not the Libyan uprising or US actions; even though Hillary made mince meat of the Republicans at the hearings earlier. That is the point, regardless of what you think about the Arab Spring peoples' uprising in Libya against their cruel and ruthless dictator, and NATO's UN-approved activities to protect and/or help the rebels. My approval for uprisings against tyranny has not changed from an earlier "phase" in my Boomer life. I still root for the people. Whether the USA or NATO did the right things is questionable, but opposing those things is not such a clear-cut or obviously-correct idea as you seem to think.

Every other intervention in the region has ended badly, there was no reason to believe this one would end any better.  I very much doubt that Hillary, the US government or NATO really gave a shit about the people.  What should interest you is one of the main motives, though not the only one, was to prevent a gold backed dinar competing against the dollar.  This is something I long ago pointed out as one of the reasons for the countries the US has attacked and its current enmity with Iran.

It looks like more of the usual Boomer problem solving, take a problem and turn it into a huge intractable one for all of the wrong reasons.

That is what Trump and the Republicans are doing raising the Benghazi embassy issue.

You are not the only one here who has stated that aggressive US policy is aimed at protecting the dominance of the dollar. If that's what Hillary and others have thought, the concern is probably misplaced. It may not really matter to US interests if the dollar is supreme or not as a reserve currency, etc.

First, the Benghazi situation would not have arisen without the Libyan intervention.  I am not particularly thrilled with Trump but I would be surprised it he didn't say anything about this since Americans tend to get more worked up about US troops getting killed.

Quote:Second, the welfare and regulatory state you love depends on the petrodollar system remaining intact because that is the only thing maintaining demand for dollars and treasury securities which allows borrowing to continue.  It will not be possible to (raise) taxes enough to close the deficit, particularly when interest rates rise as doubts about the credit worthiness of the US government become commonplace.

Quote:Once that happens there are three choices.  First, the Fed can choose to monetize the debt, currently called quantitative easing.  Second, the federal government can default on its debt.  It may not even be called that but many promises, often called unfunded liabilities, will not be kept.  Third, the government can live within its means, which will mean the government will become much smaller.

(09-07-2016, 02:33 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 02:11 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 01:40 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 01:23 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote:

(09-07-2016, 12:29 AM)Galen Wrote: There is still that little matter of the war before the embassies.  Even HuffPo, hardly a right wing publication, says that she was one of the prime movers for the Libyan war and that Libya was better off under Gaddaffi.  No wonder the neocons support her these days.

Thanks for providing evidence that you have, like the rest of the Boomers, moved into the Make War, Not Love stage of your life.

Well, some people on the Left and Right are complaining about Hillary's support for USA's actions in Libya, but Trump and the Republicans are ONLY making hay out of the deaths at the Benghazi American embassy, not the Libyan uprising or US actions; even though Hillary made mince meat of the Republicans at the hearings earlier. That is the point, regardless of what you think about the Arab Spring peoples' uprising in Libya against their cruel and ruthless dictator, and NATO's UN-approved activities to protect and/or help the rebels. My approval for uprisings against tyranny has not changed from an earlier "phase" in my Boomer life. I still root for the people. Whether the USA or NATO did the right things is questionable, but opposing those things is not such a clear-cut or obviously-correct idea as you seem to think.

Every other intervention in the region has ended badly, there was no reason to believe this one would end any better.  I very much doubt that Hillary, the US government or NATO really gave a shit about the people.  What should interest you is one of the main motives, though not the only one, was to prevent a gold backed dinar competing against the dollar.  This is something I long ago pointed out as one of the reasons for the countries the US has attacked and its current enmity with Iran.

It looks like more of the usual Boomer problem solving, take a problem and turn it into a huge intractable one for all of the wrong reasons.

That is what Trump and the Republicans are doing raising the Benghazi embassy issue.

You are not the only one here who has stated that aggressive US policy is aimed at protecting the dominance of the dollar. If that's what Hillary and others have thought, the concern is probably misplaced. It may not really matter to US interests if the dollar is supreme or not as a reserve currency, etc.

First, the Benghazi situation would not have arisen without the Libyan intervention.  I am not particularly thrilled with Trump but I would be surprised it he didn't say anything about this since Americans tend to get more worked up about US troops getting killed.

...

(08-30-2016, 12:37 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-30-2016, 12:14 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-19-2016, 02:01 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

David Horn Wrote:So why is Hillary in the POTUS race so doggedly?  I'm not a psychologist, but I'll bet it includes (or may consist entirely of) the opportunity to defeat her enemies.  Where we disagree is on her lack of self awareness and even her sense of destiny. I don't see her as insightful at all.  She's certainly dogged and more than adequately scrappy, but I don't see her as a visionary in any sense.  As a visionary, she's the female GHWB.  On score settling, GWB.

We don’t disagree there.  I just don’t think she is stupid* like Trump or intellectually uncurious like GWB. I think your motivation is a reasonable start.  How does becoming another Hoover constitute “defeating her enemies”?  Answer, it doesn’t.  So vison is out.

She is promising small ball, after all, the future is unknowable and if the economic environment continues as it is now, only small ball is possible.  If she wins it is likely Congress will approve Merrit Garland.  And if Ginsburg retires, she will be forced to replace her with a moderate.  Even so, the center of gravity will move to the left, so that’s a win and it will be all she gets. She will use her good working relationships and dogged persistence to make a few small changes, perhaps enough to gain a second term,.  Or perhaps she'll retire out of exhaustion. It’s the best that can be hoped for, from her perspective.
 
On the other hand, what happens if the economy/world order DOES takes a turn for the worse? Suppose the market collapses, there is another financial crisis, and Depression looms.  Yellen meets with her and informs her that the Fed is powerless (they ARE out of ammo and everybody knows it).  The House is adamant, no bailout this time.  They stand ready to insist that everything collapse for surely she will get the blame.  They got revenge for Nixon on her husband and now they are going to get revenge for Hoover.
 
So does she go gently into that good night and let her enemies win without even a fight?  Not if she is “dogged and more than adequately scrappy”.  And that’s what I am hoping for.
 
*stupid is used here as a synonym for unwise rather than unintelligent

I was going to leave this as-is, since I had little to add.  Now, with the Senate races tightening and both candidates heading for the lowest favorability records in recent history, I've changed my mind.

Hillary is showing just how oblivious she is to the maelstrom circling around her, and how little she will bend, even when it's clearly in her favor.  The email and the Clinton Foundation issues continue to drip-drip-drip negatives that are not being ignored by the press or the public.  AS expected, her positives continue to drop along with them.  That she's still ahead of Trump is strictly his doing (he's just that bad), but is that a rational position to hold in the biggest political game in the world?  A strategic thinker would see this as a time to cut losses and mend fences, yet she persists in believing that her positions will prevail or, more likely, the issues will just fade away -- this, after 30+years of dogged opposition by an increasingly frustrated and manic GOP. 

She's a professional player who just happens to be totally tone deaf.  Don't expect anything other than dissonance.  Other than the SCOTUS, I see no upside here.

She is not very deft at handling this situation. It's a strange one she's in though. Most of the charges against her have no merit at all. But Hillary does just enough of an appearance of wrong-doing to give her fanatical enemies enough to use to deceive the people that there's fire behind their smoke. The people can't tell the difference between the truth and the gish gallop. And then she dodges it just enough so they can charge her with distorting the truth. Most of it is simply the result of who the opponents are, and their striking ability to foster the big lie on the people, but the Clintons give them just enough to use against them. It is a kind of complacency combined with justified resistance (often by means of withholding) to the other side's tactics. A bit more complacency on Leo Bill's part, and a bit more resistance on Scorpio Hillary's part.

I don't see that much change over the last few months in Hillary's approval ratings. The Hillary rating seems to have declined from about 45 to about 40 in the last week. The real clear average is down today from -10 to -12. Interesting that the Reuters/Ipsos poll is an outlier, giving both Trump and Clinton higher ratings than the other polls do.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/clinton_favorableunfavorable-1131.html#polls
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president/clintontrumpfavorability.html

The main problem with Hillary's campaign now is that it's mostly negative, against Trump. That degrades the campaign, since there's nothing but crap from the other side anyway. She needs to tout her own positives and ideas more.

Quote:State Department says set of about 30 Benghazi-related messages discovered by FBI contains only one that's all-new.

Quote:However, in a court filing early Wednesday morning, government lawyers said a closer review of the records the FBI located revealed only one of the messages was entirely absent from those produced by previous State Department searches: a flattering note sent by a veteran U.S. diplomat following her testimony on Benghazi before a Senate panel in January 2013.

"I watched with great admiration as she dealt with a tough and personally painful issue in a fair, candid and determined manner," then-U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Thomas Shannon wrote in a message sent to State Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills official account and forwarded on by Mills to Clinton's personal one. "I was especially impressed by her ability to turn aside the obvious efforts to politicize the events in Benghazi, reminding Americans of the tremendous sacrifice made by Chris Stevens and his colleagues but also insisting that our ability to play a positive role in the world and protect U.S. interests requires a willingness to take risks."

Quote:The Associated Press announced on Thursday that it is deleting a two-week old tweet about the Clinton Foundation.
“The Associated Press today is deleting a 2-week-old tweet about Hillary Clinton’s meetings as Cabinet secretary after concluding the tweet fell short of AP standards by omitting essential context,” AP's vice president for standards John Daniszewski wrote in ablog post. “At the same time, we are revising our practices to require removal and correction of any AP tweets found not to meet AP standards, including tweets that contain information that is incorrect, misleading, unclear or could be interpreted as unfair, or having a problem in tone.”
The tweet in question linked to an investigation by the AP into how many Clinton Foundation donors also met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state.
“More than half those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary gave money to Clinton Foundation,” the original tweet read in part.
What the tweet didn’t mention was that the AP analysis focused only on Clinton’s discretionary meetings with those who were not in the U.S. federal government or representatives of foreign governments, which likely made up the vast majority of the people Clinton met with as secretary of tate (though we don't know that yet because the State Department has not released Clinton's schedules for her time as secretary, something the AP has been fighting for). The tweet, and in some cases the story, was slammed by some media critics and many on the left.
The Clinton campaign initially formally requested the AP remove or amend the tweet, but spokesman Brian Fallon told POLITICO they hadn’t had further conversations with AP since their initial request.
While AP’s executive editor, Kathleen Carroll, defended the report, she did admit in an interview with CNN last month that the tweet was “sloppy” but said wire service wasn’t going to change it.
The two-week old tweet will now be replaced with one that reads “AP review: Many of the discretionary meetings Clinton had at State were with people who gave to Clinton Foundation.”
“Prior to this guideline change, whether to delete or update tweets had been left to AP news managers to decide on a case-by-case basis. The new guidance is mandatory, subjecting tweets to the same internal review and response process as other AP content,” Daniszewski wrote. “In the earlier days of Twitter, there had been a belief that removing tweets was akin to retroactively editing a conversation; it wasn’t transparent. Additionally, tweets were seen more as providing paths to in-depth content and less as content in themselves that would remain in the public discussion for an extended period. Industry thinking on this topic has been changing. And the controversy over the AP tweet has led us to an extensive reflection on this evolution.”
[i]Hadas Gold is a reporter at Politico.[/i]