[DEBATE] Presidential Election - 2016 (closing Nov 22)

tl;dr the entire thread since I last posted on here for obvious reasons, just thought I would share a nice thing for everyone to look at.

As a teenage dude who runs for my school track team, meaning a locker room is a place I am in every day, what Donald Trump said truly disgusts me to the point where I cannot begin to understand how women still support him.

After this quick note, Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight have a very nice map of the election + more. Pay attention to these dates in the graph of chance of winning-

When Trump insulted the parents of the fallen Muslim Soldier
The first debate
Donald Trump's video

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast

rood, I know how to read xd I didn't skim what you wrote, I'm just saying the ISIS problem we have in the middle east is a result of Bush's toppling governments willy nilly, so it's really not fair to blame Obama for the whole thing.

I don't know why historians would be hotly debating it. ISIS is full of previous members of Saddam Hussein's army. Bush topples his government, doesn't do anything with his army, they lay low and when they have enough strength and support they come back with a new terrorist group. Yes, some of Obama's actions may have caused some of that, but in the end the responsibility lies with the failed Iraq invasion-orchestrated by ya boi George Bush.
"But sure, everything is Bush's fault because clearly Obama can do no wrong, amirite?" Nice snark buddy. Listen, follow your own advice and don't skim. Literacy. We're talking economy and Iraq war here. Bush started the Iraq War and let the economy slide down the hole. I'm not saying every problem we have now is Bush's fault...

Yea I return snoot with snoot

No, we don't have to get right in the middle of it, but if the Houthi rebels fire missiles at a US naval ship in the name of Iranian interests, we shouldn't just sit around and take it either.

My sister was pregnant. Her husband was unemployed and uninsured. They didn't know what to do, but then they found out thanks to the "godawful mess of a policy," our father's insurance could be used by her as she was under 26. I'm sorry his legacy is the stuff of your nightmares, but it saved my family from some major mess.

Look, real talk. We need to help everyone. I understand your point, the policy was no good for the elderly. But we shouldn't just shove aside every immigrant, every unemployed looking for a job, we need to include everybody. So the plan didn't work well for some, while it fixed the problem for others. Now we can learn from that and fix it for the ones it didn't work out for.

*looks out window at Manhattan, New York*
*sees pickup truck with "Hillary is a bleep!" on the back, smack next to a "Make America Great Again" one*
yea I do need a better neighborhood =P

Yay, at least we agree on something

I find it quite amazing that republicans so fervently want to some how say that Obama is responsible for ISIS. Bush invaded Iraq based on, your word, BS. I think it had more to do with Rumsfeld and Cheney being pissed that George the 1st didn't do it in the first gulf war than anything else. There are two republican war criminals. But I digress. So after Bush and his henchmen had this brilliant idea to invade Iraq on March 1st 2003 and destabilize the entire region. So when Obama started to take troops out in 2014, 11 years later, he caused ISIS? You're right we should just occupy Iraq for 50 years because that would fix it all, right? We'll let our young men die and spend trillions because 11 years was just not enough. And because he pulled troops after that amount of time it caused ISIS? Had nothing to do with the civil war in Syria, right? Let's blame Bush and invading Iraq in the first pace and destabilizing the region. There we go, Bush created ISIS.

Who saw the most recent release from wiki leaks? The state department with Hillary tried to make a deal with the FBI to change a classified email to unclassified by giving them something they wanted. The FBI didn't fall for it. I want to like her, even though I didn't like her from the day she became first lady, because there is no way to like Trump. But she is a car wreck. There is one thing I feel certain of, whoever wins they will be a one term president.

God fluffin' dammit, I wanted to be done with this thread. Okay, so let's get one thing straight first-off:
I fully acknowledge that Iraq and Afghanistan are in a mess to start with because Bush Jr. started a fight he didn't know how to finish, for wrong or entirely manufactured reasons. No argument here. PS, he ain't "mah boi."
-This left the existing, destabilized situation for Obama to deal with during his eight years. He opened up with a commitment to "get our troops out." All well & good. Don't think for a minute I want more Americans dying on foreign soil, especially for BS reasons.
-However, it's that same reluctant, minimalist approach that left the doors on Syria and ISIS wide-open. Furthermore, under Obama's policy, it's not even clear who we're supporting in the fighting! US supports Kurdish fighters, which pisses off Turkey (who links them to a "terrorist" group in their own country), and Turkey is our ally via NATO, so we back them as well, and then Turkey starts targeting our friendly Kurdish forces in Syria...

So yes, when we can't even decide who our allies are or what our goals are, I can pin that squarely on our current CIC. But then, this tangled mess of alliances and friendly-foe "One man's terrorist is another man's patriot" conflict isn't new to either the Bush or Obama administrations. Syria and ISIS I blame on Obama, for mishandling the Iraq stuff post-Bush. You can pin it on Bush as being the lit match, and neither of us are going to be 100% right or wrong.

All of this is rather off-topic to the discussion at hand - the two idiots our current electoral system is poised to put into power. So, to lighten the mood a little, I leave you all with this.
Canadians have a message for us

The more Wikileaks come out on HRC, the more I despise her. It's (expletive) awful.

I am curious to know what would have been the proper approach to follow, in your opinion.

Same question as above.

Given that the next US president will have to deal with the mess, I think proper analysis of what should have been done and why is very relevant.

I'm a knitting operator and data analyst. My day-job is counting threads, not negotiating the murky waters of foreign affairs and international policy. Now, maybe it's hubris and rampant egomania talking, but I might be able to come up with a good, solid answer to that, given a week or two of research. However, I'm not the "Leader of the Free World," so there's really no reason to think my answer would be any better than the elected president's was.

That doesn't mean I don't recognize failure when I see it. Don't have to be a gardener to know when a vegetable's gone rotten.

I appreciate what you're going for, but this isn't one of those situations where "Let's see you do better" really applies. Even my supposed sagely tiger wisdoms aren't suited for leading an entire country or deciding the course of a foreign conflict - else I'd probably be running said country already (or at least running for office).

Fair point, though I meant more specifically the Obama talk.

Now please, would everyone stop quoting me? I'd like to unwatch and ignore this thread for a while.

I never said that she can/should get away with things simply because she's a woman; I said that I believe that she's having a harder time in the political race this year because she's a woman.

There's a HUGE difference between someone staying their opinion that she's having a hard time because she's a woman (What I was saying...), and that she should be pardoned from everything that she would do/has done/and will do because she's a woman. (NOT what I was saying...)

Let's face it, whether you want to admit it or not, society has suppressed women for... well... forever...? The history of human society in many parts of the world, including America, has shown the suppression. (I am fully aware of those that praised women instead of suppressing them much, but those societies/cultures are too far in between the ones that do suppress them.)

Depends who you're talking to. Since we're capable of critical cognitive thinking, it should dawn on you that maybe we're at least early adults?

Most "kids" do not pay attention to politics. (As select few posts in this forum suggest as they admittedly stated...)

Off topic note:

That was a move to prevent further escalations and spreading of the war. Such operations ares always high risk, but this did work out well, and it wasn't a bit a try to start "WW3" - it was a move to prevent it. Thanks Bill!

BTW, my impression, as European, is that US did gain respect due to Obama's foreign policies.

You've misinterpreted what I mean.

Russia and NATO wanted to jointly occupy the region after the end of the Kosovo War a day previously. There was concern that partitioning Kosovo between Russia and NATO would result in a Serbian-controlled north and Albanian-controlled south, so of course NATO didn't want this arrangement to go through and denied Russia to carry out their occupation separately. Russia moved their Bosnian peacekeeping force into the airport before NATO could take it for themselves - the British and French were supposed to take the airport before the Russians, but there was fear they'd be fired upon by Serbia and they weren't allowed to invade Kosovo as Serbia/Jugoslavija would withdraw their agreement to surrender, and the French ended up pulling out because of this anyway.

Anyway, NATO (on the order of an American who claimed to have UN support *the UN didn't support intervention in the war so how people believed this I have no idea*) blocked the airport's runway in order to isolate the Russians. The commander of the operation ordered this not to go ahead and said they could use British armour instead - which the British said they could only use to isolate and not blockade the airport and the person in control of these vehicles said he would never fire on the Russians. The US had to instead order its Balkan allies to not allow Russia into their airspace to supply the occupation of the airport, causing them to pull out.

Had stuff in this last paragraph not happened or one tiny thing went wrong, it would have been World War III. Over something the US and NATO were illegally involved with. Over something they didn't understand. Helping another nation's greed (*coughcough* Albania *coughcough*) and satisfying their desire to punish another. Over something as petty as ending Communism once and for all in Eastern Europe. No thanks Bill.

And on the last note; as a European, I also agree that Obama has improved the US's respect here due to their foreign policy.

Indeed you did. And I grossly overreacted, for which I sincerely apologize. Regrettably, politics (like religion) is one of those topics that tends to push my buttons rather easily. Despite my best efforts to be the dispassionate voice of reason, I am just as prone to emotional reactions over certain topics, and I'm not always smart enough to close the window and walk away. So again, my apologies for misreading your opinion as statement.

You'd think the book-tiger would know better.

Actually he didn't. He was only making reference to what appears, and I agree with, that Trump was getting away with lying and not be called out for it the way that Hillary was. In no way did I read into it that he felt Hillary should get away with lying. Just that there seemed to be a double standard related to it. Sorry for dragging you back in. You're just too much fun.

I see where the difference is - my comment was about the idea and move to stop a country / government / military that turned Nazi (racist national socialist and imperialist) from further wars and endangering of the whole region.

I don't remember all of the details, I see your comment is about risky situations involving Russians.

It's true and well known that NATO / US did not have UN support for the intervention, but at that time, UN was notorious for being incapable to react and make decisions in due time. UN has failed again and again from 1990 to 1999...

Also, in 1999, Russia was far from what it is now. Their interest in the region was low, their potential gain was low, the included risks vs. their ability to use power were very limiting.

Cowardly ... they failed to see that Serbia couldn't really (continue to) fight because of very low morale and thus lack of manpower. Serbians have had more than enough crazy staff, but far from enough crazy people to fight. Also, at that time, Serbia has had long lost the control of the airspace.

This has very little to do with Albania and little to do with punishment.
For a long time, Serbs were a rather small (10%?) minority on Kosovo, that tried to impose on the Albanian majority. In this situation, Kosovar people (non-Serbian, mostly Albanian nationality) had the choice either to fight or to emigrate.

These factors were significant:
- destabilized region, high and rising risk of spreading / re-inflaming of the war
- refugee crisis, expected torrents of refugees
- dangerous mid-term and long-term instability if Serbia weakens even more (!)
- allowing an example Nazi regime to continue their madness for so long

I support that decision for NATO / US intervention, it was for everyone's good, even for Serbia. It is a shame that neither Europe nor UN have had enough brains to see that and to react long before 1999.
Thanks, Bill!

While it's great to predict and forecast who will win the Presidency, I really don't think you can accurately predict the result of this election. You have third party candidates who are getting more attention than they have in a long time, you have Democrats mad at Clinton, you have Republicans mad at Trump, you have the silent voters. All the polling sites showed the possibility of Brexit happening at very low number and most polls showed a large majority for remain. We all know how that turned out.

I realize that since this is a politics thread I am likely to have my opinion trashed and thrashed by someone who thinks their candidate will win by a large majority. I just thought it would be nice to put the idea out there to take all these polls and polling sites with a grain of salt.

Oh boy... 2008 vs 2016. I wonder how in the world the economy could be doing worse. Fortunately for most of you you don't have to deal with the implosion that killed the wealth of the world from 2006 to 2008. I doubt there is many places that are doing worse than they were in 2008. Is the economy doing better? I sure as hell hope so. Is the economy in ANY other way shape or form even half way decent... hahahahaha

The one thing no one has mentioned is that "We the People" are the popular vote, the Electoral College actually elects the next President. Corruption at its best.

It's hardly corruption if it's the legally enacted way of election. Plus the members of the electoral college are expected to vote for whomever is elected in the popular vote.

I'll just post this:

"What does this mean in practice? It means, as everyone learned or was reminded in 2000, that the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide does not necessarily become president. There is no national election for president, only separate state elections. For a candidate to become president, he or she must win enough state elections to garner a majority of electoral votes. presidential campaigns, therefore, focus on winning states, not on winning a national majority."

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/lessons/davidwalbert7232004-02/electoralcollege.html