I think he's saying Hillary is too hawkish and hasn't learned from past actions.

Yeah something along these lines. The United States complaining that the Russians are meddling with our elections when we are directly involved in elections around the world and likely secretly involved in many other elections just makes me laugh. Like it's ok to mess with Libya or Syria because we the big bad United States but oh my God the Russians are hacking and messing with our elections!!! Freedom being questioned! Hillary being in the government for 20+ years makes her less sympathetic than the other candidates.

Totally agree with this. The whining is really poor form and makes her and the Democrats look really weak, which is the last thing we need given the current global climate.

Amazing that the conservative leaning folks are now okay with a candidate working with the Russians to illegally hack a party's computers.

I'm so old I remember when stealing from the DCCC led to a presidential resignation.

Yep. Apparently the #1 enemy of our country throughout most of my lifetime is okay if they are working against HRC. Seems like we should want whatever they least want for us, rather than having Putin's pet Trump in office.

My stance is not political at all (well it is political but not party based political) Ask me to rank the candidates: Johnson, Clinton, Castle, than Trump slightly over Stein. A Trump presidency would be an absolute disaster and Hillary would be as seemless a transition as Obama was. I actually feel like a lot of the hatred for Clinton is misogynistic and more often than not completely false.

All that said for a person whose career has been built on meddling in other countries polictics and actually openly overthrowing regimes (And that is just the stuff that is public knowledge... who in the hell knows what we don't know about?) I find the whining about the Russians "hacking" and basically releasing information our media and government won't is laughable. Pot meet the kettle.

predictit.com

My post Labor day thoughts, in no particular order:

The election has certainly tightened. Trump at ~1/3 chance feels about right. Which is kind of amazing considering where we were right after the conventions. I thought that he was too addicted to attention to stop saying stupid shit, but he's managed to find a group of advisers who have kept him muzzled, and that has been to his great advantage.

Trump will do well in the debates, mainly based on low expectations. The ratings will set records, and most people are going to tune in expecting him to call Clinton a cunt and look confused when asked to find Mexico on a map. He won't. He will stand on the stage in a nice suit, looking Presidential next to Clinton and give a pretty boring debate. And that will undercut the main argument against him--that he's fundamentally unfit.

Trump has been in the public eye as a non-politician for a long time. I am sure that Hillary's oppo research has an October Surprise or two to spring. Not sure the effect it will have, but there's probably some embarrassing videos or something to be leaked.

The #HillarysHealth thing was a brilliant move by the GOP. If she gets a cold or anything between now and November, it will be front page news.

This is the first election in my memory where one campaign has an obvious groundgame advantage over the other. Political scientists must be salivating over the data they will get regarding whether that actually matters in terms of outperforming polls.

This has to be the ceiling for the libertarians, right? The two most disliked major party candidates ever since records have been kept. Two former governors on the ticket--no crackpots. Neither major party is directing any fire at them. And they are running really, really well-done ads (by my subjective estimation). I can't see an election where they are likely to do better.

Slightly off-topic, but watched the Rob Lowe roast last night. I haven't seen anything more funny than the other roasters firing shots at Ann Coulter last night. Then she stood up and started roasting and I realized I haven't seen anything more uncomfortable at a roast than her segment. It was REALLY bad to the point that I felt bad that Donald Trump even had to be sitting at home saying 'sit down, you dumb bitch!'.

agreed with pretty much all of this...

There's a big difference between the Russians interfering, which we should stop, but yeah happens all the time, and a candidate working with a foreign government to undermine our elections. That really is new and should be condemned.

Hopefully GJ/BW forces the libertarian party to shift closer to the center next cycle. What's holding the party back are the crazy purists.

From a former Clinton advisor regarding Trump's chances......

http://www.wsj.com/articles/presiden...hed-1473203809

I still don't see the 1/3 chance. You lose the Northeast, the Great Lakes (minus Indiana) and the West Coast = there is not enough electoral votes elsewhere. Assuming, of course, nothing dramatic happens. Is that where the chance comes from?

No matter what, the media needs the narrative to be that it's close and getting closer. So look for the race to appear to tighten right up as it comes down to the line.

Turnout -- nor the lack of it -- probably what you have in mind as 'dramatic' but that's all it takes in the right demographics.

If Trump doesn't pay for some heavy cloudseeding on election day he's an absolute idiot.

Never thought I'd live long enough to hear a Republican say this about the Russian president,

Sounds similar to the Reagan/Gorbachev relationship.

Not quite. There was massive distrust between the two initially. And Reagan's comments about Gorby were not based on whether or not Gorby fed Reagan's ego.

Yes and no. Election models work a little bit like weather prediction. "Candidates in this position at this stage of the election with these fundamentals have won X% of the time."

So that's part of it. And part of it is the models extrapolating based on trend lines if the race is narrowing or widening according to the polls. The "unknown unknowns," if you will, where the model says "something could happen to continue or accelerate this trend."

Oh Gary....

"What Is Aleppo?" Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson Stumped By Syria Question - YouTube

Last night Trump also threatened to purge the senior military command and replace them with people that have endorsed his candidacy.

yeah was watching when that happened, probably just cost him some votes. In fairness to him, it was a weirdly asked question, what about Aleppo? instead of what about Syria?, but still have known it.

My thing with him on the military is his insistence that he, who has no military/foreign service, has somehow more knowledge of the middle east, Isis, and military strategy than generals who have served 20+ years. And then to call them out for their performance during Obama's terms. It should be insulting to military leaders.

He watches the shows.

Ah, then I take back my criticism ;)

:D

Oh my... that's really not good when you want to hit that 15%...

NY Times doesn't know either.

The New York Times Doesn't Know What Aleppo Is, Either

{shrug} At some point you have to give the devil his due. Putin is far closer to sane than Obama.

Sanity probably isn't the dividing line. Do not suck me back into this shit.... :)

Yeah I have long grown tired of the "eliminators" for Libertarians. Like a huge leap to legal heroin or knowing Aleppo from a poorly worded question all of a sudden justifies not being in the debate while being a jackass all the time or people mysteriously dying in things you are involved with are just met with a shrug.

Should he have known it? Probably. Was it a gotcha? For sure, notice how quickly the graphic pops up like ZING we got you, unqualified. If elected president would he be surrounded by people who know this stuff? Sure.

Is there a small subset of the population like ISiddidui that really know this stuff. Absolutely and they should absolutely be able to criticize Johnson on this blunder. Does the majority of the voting population care about more than Sadaam starting 9-11 or Obama being from Kenya? You all know the answer to this.

Aleppo's also a province (governate), and ISIS controlled the largest suburbs until the last few weeks (and one of them today), plus despite the ideological differences at the top the difference between Al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliated foot soldiers is negligible, so while mocking the NYT is fair, GJGE on the gotcha journalism Deadspin. Muphry's Law indeed!

So.Fucking.Embarrassing. :banghead:

Ya know, if this were an episode of The West Wing, and Josh Lyman was running the campaign for a 3rd party candidate, whom very few of the electorate were aware of, "Act like you don't know what it is", sounds like something he may recommend. And then CJ would say "You don't think that will make us look stupid!" and then Toby would say "Yeah....but at least people will be looking." And then Josh would say "You can't win if you aren't even in the game." And then a Snuffy Waldren tune would hit and even though it's only 2 episodes into the season, you know this guy is winning the election.

Mike Barnicle wrote this article after the interview. He said this:


"Much of the world wept for Omran Dagneesh but the tears and the heartfelt sorrow soon disappeared. Just the way ribbons of remembrance for those who serve and die in Iran and Afghanistan come untied in the winds of the changing seasons. Just the way the commitment of so many public people to remember the veterans and their families diminishes and then disappears once the election is over. Just the way they forget their duty to do their jobs, to make government work instead of trying to make it ungovernable."


"It wasn’t a trick question. It was the kind of simple question you might hear asked while standing in the checkout line of a supermarket. The kind of question that we might want answered when we are momentarily curious, thrown off our game by the image of Omran Dagneesh, his life fractured."

1) If you're going to get on your high horse, then know the difference between Iran and Iraq. We're in Iraq, not Iran.

2) What supermarket checkout lines are you going to?

I Asked Gary Johnson About Aleppo. I Don’t Blame Him For Not Knowing - The Daily Beast

Watching the whole interview, it was a rather poor interview by the hosts. They were talking about social and economic issues than suddenly randomly asked that question with no context or setup. Not the best response by Gary, though he finally did answer the question once he understood the context, but not exactly a great interview by the hosts.

Wednesday was embarrassing. Basic factual errors, self-contradictions, vague and crazy plans (somehow we're going to take oil from Iraq?), many moments of obvious BS, and more moments where his lack of knowledge went from obvious to blatant.

And 40% of the country (at least) is going to vote for this guy.

Because they want the OUTSIDER. (except in Congress).

Come on only one more post until Greta is off the last page. You can do it!!!

And HRC with a gaffe on the deplorable line. Will be interesting to see how it affects her.

Why would sit affect her. She had said half if his supporters are nut jobs that is quite accurate and she is not going to be stealing any of those who are in queue to vote for him.

It will hurt her because she's already apologizing for saying it. The next several days will be all about this and then it will come up again at the debates where it will be discussed anew each time. Each time it comes up she and her surrogates will apologize, further emphasizing the knock that Clinton isn't truthful and isn't strong.

We talked about it a few pages back, if the election is about Clinton, Trump can win. The past two weeks have been all about Clinton.

Yeah, not sure how it would be considered a gaffe when all Trump voters would consider such a statement a badge of honor ("whatever pisses off libruls") or identify as hardworking, "not racist," and all that other stuff.

Do not a large percentage of Trump supporters have a similar opinion of Clinton supporters?

Don't know and don't care.

Kind of the point though because, I suspect, a large number of those complaining do have similar opinions. I know my mother in law, for one, falls under this

I've kind of resigned myself to the belief that "the gaffe" is impossible this cycle.

If you read what she's saying, she's not actually apologizing. She regrets saying "basket of deplorables" but then double downs on the substance.

But look at all the headlines. That's all most people ever see.

Perhaps she should have said "binder of deplorables."

It's amazing to me that "Binders full of women" was considered a near campaign sinking mistake not all that long ago. This election I'm not sure if it would even register enough to get coverage.

No, but the battle is over those who are on the fence, or lukewarm for one candidate or another who will determine the election. It's as bad as Mitt's "47%" comment in that it sounds elitist, out of touch, and plays right into the negatives that make up Hillary.

I agree. I predict that if the Federal Reserve decides to hike the interest rate by a .25% in about two weeks, it could put the economy back into the spotlight heading down the homestretch, which helps Trump as well.

I think it hurts her by guaranteeing the nut jobs actually voting. That was what got Trump here in the 1st place. But, like most things, the shininess has worm off Trump. Now the nasty lady on the left has insulted them. It may bring them out in droves to the polling place.

I don't know many people who are "passionate," or really like her much, for Hillary even thought they voting for her, where you have people who are passionate for Trump or just downright hate Hillary. Hillary needs to be careful, she's doesn't have the ability to trade on her likability appeal like Obama, Sanders, or even Biden.

Seems like a bit of a poll slide could possibly help Hillary. She will likely destroy him in the debates, but closer than expected polls could serve as motivation for her on the fence supporters to show and vote. I mean ultimately she's the only grown-up in the race* and Trump must be stopped.



*that has a prayer of winning.

HRC left a 9/11 event early due to the heat. Here we go...

I do hope she is okay. I don't associate politics with ill will.

Those pant suits don't look like they'd breathe well.

In case it wasn't clear, the "here we go" meant "the Clinton health stuff is about to kick up to another gear."

/me got that

Point still stands on the pantsuits.

But you know, after this election can we move on from the boomers? Please?

I think the health question has become legitimate.

Why?

If Trump and friends hadn't been lying for weeks about her health nobody would see this as a big problem. It was a large, tightly packed crowd, in the sun for hours. I'll guarantee she wasn't the only one in the crowd that felt ill.

Okay, if you believe that...

NYC is 80 degrees, 48% humidity and breezy today. (Current 16mph with gusts to 25, forecast calling for 10-15 mph most of the day.)

Believe what? Was there any reason to question her health until Trump and friends started lying?

I'm sure this will be a story, but doing so only rewards the folks that were lying and hoping something, anything would happen that could "prove" what they were saying is true.

She probably locked her knees. I passed out like that when I was in HS and at my healthiest.

So did I, very easy to do.

I noticed that my wife was up this morning at 4 AM vomiting with diarrhea. I'm going to go tell her she's unfit to be President. Wish me luck!

Right. Locking knees is easy to do. A friend of mine in great health passed out as a groomsman in his sister's wedding in an air-conditioned church at age 20ish.

But if that's what happened, why claim overheating? And to be clear, I haven't bought into the health stuff (or, to be honest, even paid attention to it,) but this is sounding at least a *little* fishy, no?

That said, HRC has proven herself capable of making many unforced errors, so I'd say that it's fully possible that she locked her knees and decided to lie about it.

I can't even predict this race anymore; I've given up. Both candidates keep doing things to only add onto their horrible baggage. I actually do believe Johnson and Weld will make it into the first debates, which would completely change the debate dynamic a bit.

Does she know she locked her knees? If she did she would have felt nauseous and started sweating and then would feel unsteady on her feet. That's exactly what you'd feel if you overheated. The ceremonies were broadcast live on all the local stations in NYC. From what I saw before I left for church, it was sunny and the crowd was very tightly packed. I hate crowds so much that it made me a little uncomfortable just looking at it.

Heh. I giggled.

A physically ill Democrat versus a mentally ill Republican. Well done America.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) September 11, 2016

lol

He needs to hit 25% in the next two polls to get to 15% total.

There should be one condition for making the debates; being on the ballot in every state.

The video of her getting into the SUV may be the end of the campaign.

lol they propped her up then had to drag her into the vehicle.

CNN's headline says she tripped while entering the vehicle lmao

Johnson should be in the debates.

Im thinking this election is going to change the landscape of politics in this country.

If Kaine was the candidate would the polls go up or down for the Dems?

Can that even happen?

If this is true, it might be an explanation:

Why Hillary Clinton Doesn't Sweat - BuzzFeed News

I want to know Donald Trump's secret to vitality and high energy at age 70. I read somewhere that his diet is awful. And he doesn't look particularly healthy, but he does seem to be quite hardy for his age. His father lived into his 90s, so there's probably a lot of genetic help there.

She did NOT trip. My wife (who is a doctor) said she was clearly in distress. She noted that they should have had her sit or lay down immediately judging from the video, but held her up to avoid having her collapse in public. It was a scary situation. Sounds like she is OK now, which is good.

Raw video is below. I've never seen someone 'trip' in this manner.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2...t-early-rs.cnn

So if she did withdraw (or Trump I guess as well) do they get to replace her with a any candidate? If so would it be Caine or Pence? Seems like they make these ballot rules to try and lock out 3rd party candidates and a Clinton health issue would lock her out as well. (I'm not that naive to think they would treat Democrats or Republicans the same as Libertarians or Greens or Constitution...)

I'd take a deathly ill Clinton as president with Tim Kaine waiting in the wings over Donald Trump. What type of voter prefers Clinton to Trump but would switch to Trump if Clinton's health issues become more dramatically public? I understood the concern about McCain's age with Palin sitting there, but this is boring Tim Kaine, we wouldn't notice a difference.

Who's Hillary's doppelganger?

Dave (film - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Come on, man. I'm sure your wife is a fantastic doctor, but this is video from behind with no sound. I'm not sure we can say anything about what she clearly was from the video. She may very well have been in distress, but she may also have been jostled or doing a little dance. I realize the last option is very unlikely but the point is there's nothing definitive here.

One thing that is indisputable. We're going to hear about nothing else but this for at least the next week (as far as the campaign trail goes).

Per her doctor, HRC has pneumonia.

Old people and pneumonia is not a good mix.

She was diagnosed on Friday. This isn't going to help with the transparency/trustworthiness bit. Why put out the "overheating" story when you already knew she had pneumonia???

According to InfoWars HRC actually died while getting crammed into her limo. They rushed her to a witch doctor - claiming to take her to her "daughter's apartment" where she was re-animated. This explains why she looks so healthy now.

Both of them can be true and probably were true. The treatment for pneumonia probably requires her to rest a bit more and therefore standing there in a full pantsuit in the NYC heat probably affected her more than it would have.

Are robots truly alive?

I can buy that, but she and her team are professional politicians involved in a race for the most important office on the planet, and they know they have trust/transparency issues. Don't give your opponent such an *obvious* talking point:

"She knew she had pneumonia. The truth would have been a perfectly reasonable explanation, but her natural instinct is to hide the truth. He natural instinct is to lie. She cannot be trusted."

Has there ever been an election as bizarre as this one?

We've never had an election where both candidates are so universally loathed.

I gather from social media buzz that HRC's "collapse" is apparently "a thing".

Regardless of my feelings about her (similar to my thought re: Obama's teleprompter issues over the years), you've got candidates that don't eat right, don't sleep right, don't do much of anything resembling normal or healthy for months on end ... and there's some sort of shock/concern when they happen to fall out?

While there no way to prove/disprove such a thing, I'd feel pretty safe in wagering that over half of all candidates on the trail for more than a few months in a row have had a similar incident ... except they aren't always captured on film.