2016 United States Election

[Inanna]

India made the same commitment to Pakistan, called the "no first use" clause. I don't remember how Pakistan responded...,


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Please bear with my typos & grammar mistakes. Sent from my iPhone - Palantirs make mistakes too.

[Dave_LF]

Sounds like it has been official US policy to keep the first-strike threat around, even under Obama:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240 ... 3632513790

So is Trump really any different than any US president here, aside from overlooking the "speak softly" half of (Theodore) Roosevelt's rule?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yes, there is a big difference between having the theoretical possibility of a first strike in very limited circumstances in a policy statement, and the kind of casual reference to doing so that Trump makes. What is more scary is that it is very easy to see him acting on that based on the type of person that he has shown himself to be. Reading through his interviews with the Times and Post editorial boards, as well as watching the debates and snippets of his rallies and even his twitter feed, the two themes that shine through is that The Donald is the best everything and that no one can challenge the Donald's manhood. When combined with his narcissism and stunning ignorance, that is an incredibly dangerous combination for someone potentially entrusted with the nation's nuclear codes.

The former communications director of a Trump-aligned Super-PAC, Make America Great Again, posted an open letter today to Trump's supporters that is very eye-opening.

http://www.xojane.com/issues/stephanie- ... n-defector

[Cerin]

I'm reading that the now defunct Super PAC the article's author worked for wasn't affiliated with the Trump campaign. If that is true, her claims to personally know anything about the campaign or the man himself would be bogus.

[Primula Baggins]

If I understand this correctly, the whole point of super PACs is that they aren't (officially) affiliated with the campaigns they support. Behind the scenes, as a rule, they are hand in glove.

[Túrin Turambar]

I have been interested in elections and following election campaigns in Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. since I started university in 2004. So I cannot claim to be a veteran political observer, but that said, I have never seen anything as downright weird as the Republican primary campaign of 2016.

Let’s return to the Cruz affairs rumours, which are now trending on Twitter under #CubanMistressCrisis. This is kind-of serious as it might actually turn out to be the thing that secures the nomination for Trump, but the actual specific allegations are, in some cases, off-the-wall crazy. A number of women have been named by the National Enquirer as Cruz mistresses, including ‘foxy political consultant’, ‘sexy Austin schoolteacher’, and ‘$1,000 a night call girl’. The internet has ‘identified’ the first one as CNN journalist Amanda Carpenter on the basis that she worked for the Cruz campaign, is allegedly wearing Cruz’s jacket in one photo tweeted from a hotel room, and has a man’s shirt and a black thing that could be a condom packet on her bed in another (I’m not entirely sure how that last one works, but whatever - people on the internet have subjected the photo to all sorts of analysis to try and identify what the mystery black object is).

The serious media is mostly ignoring the story, so I had to go to the Daily Mail to find out the details (for those unfamiliar with the British press, this is the paper that runs stories like “Woman becomes pregnant in the mouth with baby squid after eating calamari”, “One of them is probably gay – former ‘N Sync singer Lance Bass on One Direction’s sexuality”, “New Prince or Princess of Cambridge revealed to be 23rd cousin twice removed with Beyonce and Jay-Z’s daughter”, “Middle-class children just have better genes” and “popular peanut butter brand contains cancer-causing fungus”). Sure enough, it had a long, rambling and pretty incomprehensible story under the headline “I'm not a marriage cheat - but Trump IS: Fury of woman who denies being Ted Cruz's mistress at video 'smearing' her”. What is significant is that the Daily Mail has found the smoking gun – Carpenter tweeted that she was up late eating cheese with a ‘friend’, and Ted Cruz has admitted that he loves cheese. It’s irrefutable.

I'm not sure what would actually surprise me at this stage...

[River]

How about a sex tape? When is one of those going to get released?

[Frelga]

I have made it to genuine middle age without seeing a celebrity sex tape, but if forced to, Cruz is the only candidate that might be bearable to watch.

Somewhat less traumatizing is someone running Trump's speeches through Deep Dream AI, using Cthulu as a guide image.
Some Sadist Ran a Donald Trump Speech Through Google's Neural Network

[Dave_LF]

How about a sex tape? When is one of those going to get released?

I have it on good authority that Clinton slept with one of the former presidents and is using that connection to get ahead.

[yovargas]

[Voronwë the Faithful]

If I understand this correctly, the whole point of super PACs is that they aren't (officially) affiliated with the campaigns they support. Behind the scenes, as a rule, they are hand in glove.

Yes. Some may recall that when the Colbert Report was still going, Colbert actually formed a super PAC to demonstrate (with Jon Stewart's help) how easy it was to get around the rules against coordinating. For all intents and purposes, the super PACs are part of the campaigns.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And in the latest chapter of "As the Campaign Turns," Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was charged this morning in Jupiter, Florida with battery in connection with the incident several weeks ago in which he was accused of forcefully grabbing reporter Michelle Fields, formerly of Brietbart. Lewandowski turned himself in to Jupiter police just after 8 a.m. this morning.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/national-g ... ex-/nqtkw/

[Dave_LF]

With people like that in charge of the campaigns, it's probably a good thing the convention center where the RNC is being held bans firearms. Oh, wait; Republicans are insisting they be allowed to take their guns to the convention.

[Primula Baggins]

And the Secret Service says no guns--by federal law they prevail for events at which someone they protect is present. So there won't be guns. I suspect there will be fistfights.

[CosmicBob]

Here's more from The Donald:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop- ... tes-221298

The fun never stops.

[Túrin Turambar]

After writing that post I had a dream last night that I went to work for Donald Trump, who was in the process of building a giant battle-robot to allow him to defeat Cruz and win the nomination. It wasn’t great but it beats the dream I had last week where I was sentenced to penal transportation.

[Primula Baggins]

From Australia to where?

[River]

How about a sex tape? When is one of those going to get released?

I have it on good authority that Clinton slept with one of the former presidents and is using that connection to get ahead.

Sleeping her way to the top. What a *****.

Actually, the way things are going, if a sex tape comes out it's probably going to be someone's wife. Or a look-alike. Or just some woman in such crap lighting she could be anyone. I was hoping that Hillary would get a lock on the nomination before the misogyny really started coming out but looks like the GOP primary decided to just go there now, what with the whole "Your wife posed naked, the slut" followed by "Your wife is ugly and so you cheated on her." It's just so very vile.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Meanwhile, Trump continues to stand by his campaign manager, but he can't keep the story straight, and goes back and forth between claiming that the incident never happened, to claiming that it was actually Fields that attacked Lewandowski, to claiming that she was a danger to Trump himself because she (remember, a reporter!) was standing next to him holding a dangerous looking pen!

[Inanna]

Gasp. Must have been Percy Jackson's pen.


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Please bear with my typos & grammar mistakes. Sent from my iPhone - Palantirs make mistakes too.