Another Sexual Molester for the US Supreme Court?

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Gaybutton
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Re: Another Sexual Molester for the US Supreme Court?

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Captain Kirk wrote:So he got in then
Unless the Democrats go to the polls and vote these politicians out, I'm afraid the downward spiral is only going to continue. Even if they are voted out of office, trying to undo the damage and then move forward would be like trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again.

I hope the Democrats realize that if they had gone out and voted, rather than just assuming Hillary Clinton was going to win, then none of this lunacy would be going on.

Maybe that's what the USA wants - children separated from parents, discrimination based on which country you come from, kissing Kim Jong Un's and Putin's asses while alienating our allies, trade and tariff wars, the border wall, virtually no gun control, rolling back people's rights, causing people to live with no medical insurance, tax cuts for the most wealthy while everyone else gets only a pittance, a mentally unbalanced president, a puritanical vice president, and now an unbalanced, partisan Supreme Court justice who will be there for life making decisions for the rest of us, while more than half the country doesn't want him there in the first place.

It seems to me the USA is on a self-destruct mode. The country I grew up in no longer exists. It already has radically changed and I don't like the way it is continuing to change.
fountainhall

Re: Another Sexual Molester for the US Supreme Court?

Post by fountainhall »

Gaybutton wrote:I hope the Democrats realize that if they had gone out and voted, rather than just assuming Hillary Clinton was going to win, then none of this lunacy would be going on
Not being American, I can only look on and comment as an observer. I see a number of misconceptions as well as a number of traits that people seem to overlook.

1. Clinton won the popular vote by a wide margin. Why the US continues to operate its voting on the basis of a completely outdated electoral college totally beats me. After living abroad for so many decades, I have not been able to vote in the UK for almost 20 years. But the constituency voting there also betrays a degree of anachronism, although I recognise the need for politicians who can represent the people of a certain area. Yet if the majority of voters can not expect their party to be the governing party, democracy is surely flawed.

2. The ruling party in both countries seem to have the right to gerrymander far too often. Voting boundaries are changed, usually to benefit the governing party.

3. I thought Clinton would win in 2016 despite being a heavily flawed candidate. She brought the email server controversy on herself and compounded it by not coming clean at the outset. Attempts to cover up such situations rarely succeed because someone will eventually spill the beans. Her campaign was boring and old fashioned. There was nothing exciting about it to make new voters enthusiastic. Her choice of Tim Kane as her VP pick was a disaster. Cronyism triumphing over what could have been a far more appealing pick from the more junior ranks of the democratic political field. To quite a large extent she was responsible for her own defeat.

4. Few thought Trump could win. We now know the strategy behind the campaign, the help he received from the Russians and the damage they did to Clinton. But there is another factor about Trump that most commentators seem to forget. Not only in the USA, actors and celebrities often beat the odds by getting elected. In the USA alone there are plenty of examples - Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura, Al Franken, Fred Thomson, Sonny Bono - even Clint Eastwood at a local level. Apart from Reagan, I have no idea who they ran against. But they started their races with a substantial advantage.

5. In other countries there are many similar examples. Pakistan has just voted in as Prime Minister the cricketer Imran Khan. Anyone who understands Pakistan knows that cricket is a religion there. Britain elected actors Glenda Jackson and Andrew Faulds as Members of Parliament. The Philippines is a sucker for celebrity with many elected to the various political bodies, including actor (and crook) Joseph Estrada as President. The openly homophobic boxer Manny Pacquiao is a Senator and a likely candidate as the next President. India has far too many to mention. Then look at Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Bangladesh, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands . . . The Clinton camp's lack of recognition of this appeal in Trump's candidacy was a big error.

7. As I have got older, I increasingly believe a two party system is inherently wrong and almost the antithesis of democracy. In politics, in my view, there is rarely right and wrong. Yet that is not what politicians in the USA, the UK (I know there is a third party there and for a while it looked as though it might have an effect, but it achieves little), and other basically two party countries believe. So the Obama administration puts in place a lot of changes. Trump comes in and then gets rid of a lot of them. Not usually because they fundamentally believe they are bad. Merely because they want their base to believe they are bad. Pulling out of the Iran deal is one of Trump's greatest mistakes. There was a fascinating debate with Colin Powell and Madeleine Alright about this on Fahreed Zakaria's GPS programme on CNN this morning. One a conservative republican; the other a liberal democrat. Both agreed Trump's action on Iran is near madness. But such are the results of a two-party system.

I am sure others disagree.

PS: Back on the subject, the ghastly Mitch McConnell showed the Democrats to be utterly toothless despite their having some good cards in their hands. Lindsay Graham may have been a friend of John McCain ("I loved him") but he showed that he is no better than McConnell. Schumer and Pelosi have always looked weak. This travesty surely illustrates why they have to go if the Democrats are going to have any chance of taking back the White House.
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Re: Another Sexual Molester for the US Supreme Court?

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fountainhall wrote:Why the US continues to operate its voting on the basis of a completely outdated electoral college totally beats me.

I increasingly believe a two party system is inherently wrong and almost the antithesis of democracy.
The electoral college system made sense in the late 1700s, long before anyone at the time could have even dreamed about the technology that exists today. I think most rational people today would agree that the electoral college system in today's world is flawed, outdated, archaic, and obsolete, but the problem is the extreme difficulty of changing the Constitution, especially when the electoral college system is working well for the reigning political party.

President Lyman: "Do you believe in the Constitution?"
Casey: "I never thought of it quite that way, sir. It's worked pretty well for us so far. I sure wouldn't want to be the one to change it."
President Lyman: "Neither would I."
- Kirk Douglas (Jiggs Casey), Frederick March (President Jordan Lyman), 'Seven Days in May'


As for the two party system, technically that does not exist. Politicians in the USA can run for office under a variety of political parties except for any illegal parties such as the Communist party. Politicians can even form new political parties. A famous example of that was when Theodore Roosevelt ran for president under the Progressive Party, nicknamed the "Bull Moose Party." He lost to Woodrow Wilson.

From a practical standpoint the USA is a two party system. Candidates running for office under a different political party rarely win even local elections, let alone national elections.

Of course some still argue in favor of keeping the electoral college system intact. For example, if USA presidential elections had always been decided by popular vote, Abraham Lincoln would never have been elected president. He had less than 40% of the popular vote, but he won the electoral vote.

Unfortunately, the current Republican president has about as much in common with Lincoln as . . . . . . . . . . (you get to fill in that blank)
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Re: Another Sexual Molester for the US Supreme Court?

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Gaybutton wrote:
Captain Kirk wrote:So he got in then
I hope the Democrats realize that if they had gone out and voted, rather than just assuming Hillary Clinton was going to win, then none of this lunacy would be going on.

It seems to me the USA is on a self-destruct mode.
The first sentence there I actually disagree with. It's the politics of fear which I really dislike. "Vote for me coz the other guy/party is worse". That's how Labour and the Tories keep the status quo going in the UK. "If you don't vote for me they'll win and you'll hate that even more". I vote for nobody who doesn't deserve my vote. If the Dem voters felt Hillary was undeserving then I commend them for not giving her their approval.

On the 2nd sentence, it seems to me that much of the world - at least those who matter politically - is collectively on self destruct mode.
traveller123

Re: Another Sexual Molester for the US Supreme Court?

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Captain Kirk wrote:On the 2nd sentence, it seems to me that much of the world - at least those who matter politically - is collectively on self destruct mode.
It gives me no pleasure but I have to agree with you
fountainhall

Re: Another Sexual Molester for the US Supreme Court?

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I agree in part with Captain Swing. Yes, I think Democrats can blame themselves now for not having gone out and voted for Clinton. But as stated earlier, Clinton ran a lousy campaign. She was at fault for not enthusing her base to get them out to the polls. Some no doubt assumed she would win. Others, no doubt, felt she was just plain boring.

On the other hand, she and her husband knew Trump. She knew his history. She must have known that in seeking the Presidency he would scrape the gutter as his mentor Roy Cohn had taught him. If someone stoops that low with low blow after low blow, hoe do you counteract them without similarly going low? Michelle Obama stated "when they go low, we go high!" But that didn't work, did it?

I don't like this type of gutter politics either, but since you have given the UK example, surely - as I stated earlier - this is one of the nasty and near inevitable characteristics of any two party political system?

As for the Supreme Court, long before he was elected Trump had been very open by giving the names of 21 judges who would be on his short list if elected. Oddly, though, Kavanaugh was not on it! Clinton's reaction was just a tweet -
You don't need to see who's on Trump's list to know what his Supreme Court would look like.
1:22 AM - May 19, 2016
Trump had made clear his desire to overturn Roe v. Wade. Shouldn't Clinton have hammered home the effect this would have on American society, not with a tweet but in every single rally she held right up to the election? I don't know if she did or not, but I suspect not.

I'd be interested to know more from Captain Kirk. Not liking, as I do not like, the politics of "Vote for me cos the other guy/party is worse", how do you counter the gutter politics used by an opponent. When someone like Trump continuously lies and lies, attacks with no basis in fact and trashes opponents, how do you counter that whilst "aiming high"? I wish I knew!
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Re: Another Sexual Molester for the US Supreme Court?

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fountainhall wrote:Shouldn't Clinton have............
You know the old saying: "Hindsight is 20-20"

I'm sure Hillary Clinton has a great many regrets now, but at the time she seemed like such a shoo-in, especially from what the polls were saying.

Actually, when you think about it, the polls were correct. The majority did want Clinton, just as the polls said. The problem was everybody expected Trump not only to lose, but to lose big, so too many people just didn't bother going out to vote. It ought to be obvious now that failing to bother voting was a HUGE mistake, one I hope the Democrats will not repeat.

By the way, I am not among those who voted for Hillary on the basis that Trump was worse. I wanted Hillary and all she stood for (at least what she said she stood for). I thought she was one of the greatest Secretaries of State the USA ever had and I thought she would be a great president. Now we'll never know . . .
fountainhall

Re: Another Sexual Molester for the US Supreme Court?

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Gaybutton wrote:
fountainhall wrote:Shouldn't Clinton have............
You know the old saying: "Hindsight is 20-20"

I'm sure Hillary Clinton has a great many regrets now, but at the time she seemed like such a shoo-in, especially from what the polls were saying.
As the old saying goes, it's never over till it's over. No matter how much of a shoo-in she seemed - and I certainly thought she'd win handsomely - anything can happen at any time. If you want to win, you have to fight to the bitter end. I remember seeing one of her last rallies when the Obamas joined her. To me it felt much more of a coronation, not a campaign rally. My view is that would probably have wound up more Republicans to vote than Democrats. But then, as you say, hindsight . . .
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Re: Another Sexual Molester for the US Supreme Court?

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fountainhall wrote:as you say, hindsight . . .
I think what also might have caused anger was when she called Trump supporters "deplorables." That was definitely a mistake. I am certainly no Trump supporter, but even at the time I though that remark was, shall we say, unwise.

I can only hope the upcoming midterm elections will yield some Democratic control, or at least enough to put a stop to Trump, but the way things have been working out lately, I'm not holding my breath.

I sent in my request for an absentee ballot. I'm still waiting to receive it. If I receive it at all, I hope it gets here in time. Being from Florida, I learned the hard way - my vote does count.
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Re: Another Sexual Molester for the US Supreme Court?

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fountainhall wrote:I'd be interested to know more from Captain Kirk. Not liking, as I do not like, the politics of "Vote for me cos the other guy/party is worse", how do you counter the gutter politics used by an opponent. When someone like Trump continuously lies and lies, attacks with no basis in fact and trashes opponents, how do you counter that whilst "aiming high"? I wish I knew!
Find somebody untainted by past campaigns, who hasn't been found out by lies already and has no corruption skeletons in the cupboard. I also agree with GB in that nowadays it helps if that person is well known through the media etc. Time for the Democrats to find one of their big star supporters who is known for talking the talk and get them to walk the walk, a George Clooney type if you like.
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