1622

Yeah, Kasich is what passes for a moderate in the GOP these days. I wouldn’t characterize his positions as moderate however. This is more a reflection of how polarized politics are now, than a character judgement. If his electorate were more moderate, he’d probably be more moderate. That’s not the case with Huckabee, Cruz and some others however.

The problem is that he can’t win if he stakes out a position that he would try to compromise and work to govern for ALL Americans, and not just his party.

1623

The problem is that he can’t win if he stakes out a position that he would try to compromise and work to govern for ALL Americans, and not just his party.

Well, he has actually said basically exactly that. And yeah, he then kind of got attacked for it.

In many cases, he basically said, “Your criticisms are stupid.” In some, he issued “clarifications” that tried to placate the more hard core right wingers.

Honestly, he really should stick with telling the zealots that they are stupid, and to sit down and shut up, but the problem is that he then draws the ire of the hard core right wing talk show hosts like Limbaugh and Hannity, who then start attacking him, and their viewers aren’t really sophisticated enough to think about what Kasich actually says, and instead just gobble up whatever attacks are made against him.

Of course, we also see that on the left, with folks just regurgitating attacks against his conservative positions, without really considering any real analysis of those issues.

This is part of the problem with actually running on a concrete record of accomplishments, rather than just raw personality. Understanding accomplishments is hard. Voting for someone because you like the cut of his jib is easy.

Kasich can potentially overcome this, as he actually does have a potentially charismatic personality. He’s kind of firey at times, and that can play well if done right, although it can also backfire like it did with Paul. He’s older now, and a little calmer than he was when he was younger. He used to be really in your face when he disagreed. Not pants on head retarded like Donald Trump, but maybe kind of like Chris Christy? And he’s very blue collar, and I think he relates well to normal people.

I think he’s actually a good guy too, which I honestly cannot say about all of the candidates. Like Cruz, for instance. I don’t think he’s merely misguided, but rather I think he’s actually a bad person.

1624

Clinton has compared the GOP presidential field to terrorists, at least in reference to their views on woman. In response, the GOP candidates all loudly condemned her remarks and demanded that she apologize to them.

In other words, Clinton’s campaign needed to get into the news cycle and not have the words “flailing” or “sinking” appear in the headline. The GOP candidates are overjoyed that they have a chance to get their name in the news without the word “Trump” appearing in the headline. Everyone wins.

1625

Not to be outdone, Trump insults Asian people.

1626

I think it would be very informative if the GOP debates were less of a groupthink/one-upsmanship debate, and more 1 on 1 debates. Round-robin style. I’d be very interested in a Bush-Kasich debate, a Trump-Cruz debate, or a Kasich-Trump debate, but everything about the last debate really turned me off of watching any GOP debates until there is an actual candidate. However, I’m really looking forward to Clinton-Sanders (+also-rans, unfortunately).

1627

Why not? It only increases his popularity if you ask me. I doubt Asians will be out in droves for Trump anyways and this way he solidifies his grip on the voters who used to be worried that those damned Japanese were taking over the world with their calculators and tiny cars and who now feel the same about the Chinese.

1628

Apparently the yellow peril and the evil that lurks in Aztlan trumps the 14th amendment. As it were. See what I did there? Anyway, if the 14th amendment is “questionable” I don’t see why the 2nd isn’t as well.

1629

This is an important point because until such time that this exists nothing meaningful or substantive is going to get done.
In the next couple decades there are Big Issues that are going to need to get addressed. Without dialogue and compromise from political leaders we will reach a point where there no longer is a road to kick the can down - in some cases we probably already are there, e.g. climate change and growing medical costs. (By the way thanks Juan and others for describing such a fix for medical costs. Overcoming the twin pillars of the U.S. fear of the socialism boogeyman and entrenched corporate interests is not something I see happening anytime soon.)

Timex, I may have been wrong on social security retirement age, but here’s a brief piece on steps for fixing social security.

Lastly a recommended long article from Vox: http://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9214015/tech-nerds-politics.
Click on the links the writer provides, well worth it.

1630

Not in our lifetime (personally I think it’s no accident that the 2nd and 3rd amendment are in the order they are - but that world no longer exists. Alas, the proverbial “good luck with that” cliche applies.)

On the other hand - because there’s a second amendment there is no rational reason to not institute background checks, waiting periods and registrations. It won’t stop gun violence but it can certainly reduce it. The slippery slope argument need not apply: No, that doesn’t lead to the evil government taking your guns. They can’t because 2nd amendment. (Anyway I’m posting this thought in the wrong thread and it’s probably already been discussed! Sorry for the tangent.)

1631

I thought this was a pretty sad comparison and evidence of how desperate she is getting. She can literally see it slipping away like it did in 2008.

GOP candidates are the same as radical islam (ie. terrorists, her words) when it comes to women because of their views on abortion? lol

1632

I am pro-choice, but I feel compelled to recognize the moral objections to abortion. Abortion may be necessary, but that doesn’t make it pretty - and it does mean taking a life.

But I suppose this is her campaign rhetoric.

1633

Religion says is a bad thing. So a lot of people say is a bad thing, because they source their opinions on what the cleric tell them. Some people may have a more intellect opposition to abortion, and some have a religious opposition that is masquerade as intellectual. The core idea to oppose abortion is that a fetus is a person, but thats illogical and dumb. The religious idea is really random and based on magic and magical sparks of magic. What they really think (not what they say, because they are not honest people), is that has soon life is started, you have a soul and this is the reason abortion is bad. Because they can’t support this in a debate, they lie or fake intellectual positions or other positions to support the same idea; they just can’t straight defend their real opinion.

I respect if somebody opposition to abortion is not based on MAGIC!, but this is really much more rare than is observed.

1634

My opposition to abortion, if you can call it opposition, is the same kind of opposition I have to killing any small animal needlessly.

Prior to the second trimester, it’s an embryo. It’s a cluster of cells, and doesn’t really do anything. Abortion is ok at this stage.

As you get later on, certainly as you enter the third trimester, it can’t be dismissed that easily. At that stage, I have a hard time saying that it’s just a piece of meat. While it may not necessarily be a full person at that point, killing it without very good reason is inhumane, just like killing a kitten or a puppy would be inhumane. It’s certainly not an act that should be taken lightly.

But as I mentioned previously, this isn’t an issue I really base my vote on, either way. It’s not even in the top 5 important issues of our time.

1635

Yeah, the suggestions for fixing SS tend to involve raising taxes, raising the retirement age, and reducing benefits for wealthy people. I’m a bit skeptical of raising the payroll tax, but it’s fairly minimal.

One of the things that is mentioned there though, is the SS Trust Fund. This is always, to me at least, one of the most hilariously absurd scams in the history of government finance. The problem described in that first article is that by 2030, the trust fund will have no more money left in it. I feel the need to point out that the trust fund ALREADY has no money in it.

To be clear, the “Trust Fund” was a savings account made up from SS surpluses over the past decades. SS was pulling in more money than it was paying out, so they put it in this “trust fund”. But the kicker comes from recognition of what exactly is in the fund now.

See, the government took that money, and then bought US Government bonds with that money, and put the bonds into the fund. There is literally a binder somewhere which is holding a few government bonds which literally are worth trillions of dollars each.

But when you start to consider what that actually means, it becomes absurd.

So the US government took that money, and then loaned it TO ITSELF, by purchasing bonds from itself. Then it put those bonds into a binder, and spent the money on other shit. This would be like if you earned 100 dollars, wrote an IOU to yourself on a napkin, put the napkin in your wallet, and then spent the hundred dollars on hookers and blow… And then called your wallet your “trust fund”.

It’s not a trust fund though. It’s, literally, just debt.

In order to collect money to pay out to SS from the fund, the US government needs to cash in those bonds… But since the bonds are from itself, it means that the US government has to pay the money when they cash them in. So It’s literally EXACTLY the same as if that trust fund didn’t exist AT ALL. Every dollar that comes out of the trust fund is just dollars of revenue that are listed in the huge $450 billion chunk of the budget dedicated to “servicing the debt”.

The fact that so few people ever talk about this aspect, and how ridiculous it is, is kind of frightening.

1636

That was about 90% less offensive than I expected. I expected him to go full ching chong ding dong on us.

Asian Americans are a pretty safe target though. Relatively small population and relatively politically inactive.

1637

This is pretty much my view on abortion, but I take it a little more seriously:
I’m a strong proponent of a secular government and despite being a pinko commie liberal, I also strongly believe that private matters are none of the government’s business - and there are few things more intensely private then deciding on terminating an unwanted pregnancy. In itself a pro life stance doesn’t automatically disqualify a candidate in my eyes but it’s rare to find a leftist who also advocates for laws banning abortion (and for those who want that without exception - that is just incomprehensible to me.)

1638

Just to derail, re abortion:

From day 1 to day n: these are a bunch of cells that may even look a little like a person but aren’t. The thing doesn’t think and doesn’t live on its own. No question it can be excised without ethical or moral compunction.

From day n+1 to day 270+: it’s still the mother’s choice what to do, because it’s her body. Too bad for junior if he or she is removed prior to term. I feel a little compunction, I have to admit, but not enough to override my feeling that the mother’s choice should be paramount. I don’t think a woman should have any obligation to carry a child to term regardless of the reason for the conception.

1639

Yes, I believe this is clearly the case. Prior to the point where there is a functional nervous system, it really is just a piece of meat. It doesn’t have the capacity to feel any kind of pain.

See, I think at this point you’re falling into the realm of blind ideology, just like the far right folks are.

There is a point at which it is not simply “part of her body”. There’s a point at which it is a living creature on its own. This is quite obvious by virtue of the fact that when it’s delivered, there is no physical CHANGE to the child. It’s exactly the same creature, it’s just moved a few inches in space. The idea that when it’s at location X it’s just meat, and at location Y it’s a human being, is just as nonsensical as believing that a single fertilized cell is a human being.

Now in cases where the mother’s life is somehow threatened by giving birth, that’s fine. But without that kind of compelling reason, I find it difficult to accept killing the fetus in the last stages of pregnancy, especially given the fact that the woman could have made that choice previously. Waiting until the fetus is developed to the extent that it is a living creature and can feel pain strikes me as inhumane. Not because the fetus is “a person”, but because it’s a living creature, and deserves the same kind of respect that we should give to all living creatures.

But as I said already, this isn’t a real issue for me, in terms of voting. It’s just not that important from my perspective. The fact is, late term abortions are ALREADY illegal in most places. And most doctors won’t perform such procedures anyway, as they find them unethical. So I’m not going to fall prey to the manufactured outrage, thinking that evil doctors are torturing babies all over the place… because they aren’t.

1640

I’m much the same. Once the embryo is capable of surviving, somewhere around 24 weeks, that’s kind of it for me. Barring some situation with life of the mother.

1641

It’s not like there are a lot of options for that money though, is there? You can’t invest it, because there is just to much of it, and you can’t just let it sit there, because then it will lose value to inflation. It’s best to use the money set aside on projects that will pay off in the long run, whatever it may be, because having it sit there and do nothing is not an option.

As to Social Security, I wish we would just take the caps off of it. It’s probably the most regressive tax we have in America, and made worse by that.