Post Convention Thread - 2016

"CLINTON'S CLAIM: "If you believe that we should say 'no' to unfair trade deals ... then join us."

THE FACTS: Clinton now says that she opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement, but she championed it when serving as President Obama's secretary of state, even calling the agreement the "gold standard" in trade deals. "This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field. And when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40 percent of the world's total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment," she said in Nov. 2012."  NBC News 

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-conventions/fact-checking-hillary-clinton-s-speech-n619481

*****

"Donald Trump captured his second lead this year in the polls in the days following the Republican National Convention, where he officially nabbed the GOP’s presidential nomination. Trump edged out Democrat Hillary Clinton on July 24 and has grown his lead to about 1 percent as of July 26, according to polling averages from RealClearPolitics.

While 1 percent might not sound like much, it’s worth noting that Trump’s previous headline-grabbing lead in May held steady for three days at 0.2 percent. As the InsideGov visualization shows, Trump’s current trajectory seems to continue on its upswing rather than staying level.' 

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/07/28/trump-nabs-largest-lead-so-far-over-clinton/

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Well, the Dems definitely won the grand production prize for the conventions.  What is your opinion over-all of where we are?  Foreigners feel free to join in.  Your interests are at stake as well.  pl

Comments

[Tyler]

The Left will continue to freak out as Trump triggers their id and HRC continues to dump in the polls.

Uninspiring, hectoring speech in which she lied and lied, unable to draw blp0d on Trump with the same failed attacks.Trump might be the first candidate to get a bounce from two conventions.

[Lars]

One of the historically best predictors of presidential elections:

https://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_PRES16_WTA.cfm

[jld]

Well... From a non-American perspective Trump is very likely much less disastrous than Clinton.
(and maybe from an American perspective too)

[raven]

And get crushed in the general.

[Eric Newhill]

Hillary proved that she is a slithering chameleon that believes in nothing and will say/promise anything to win. This was made all too obvious by very recent adoption of Democrat safe planks from Trump's platform that are 180 degrees from where she stood only a few months ago. I would have been only mildly surprised if she had started talking about building a wall. Shameless.

That and the white/western civ hating hyper-entitled BLM mothers and the gender confused [self admitted] child molesting whack jobs invited to speak confirmed for many Americans that Hillary and Dems, generally, are the party of societal corrosion. Strengthened the base, of course, but disenfranchised the critical fence sitters.

Fence sitters are now looking at Trump more seriously. If he can keep himself from digressing into idiocy, he should get a good bounce and go on to win. Big "if" though. It's now Trump's election to lose.

[Ex-PFC Chuck]

This piece in Der Soiegel may seem unrelated; that is until you get to the last paragraph.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/breedlove-network-sought-weapons-deliveries-for-ukraine-a-1104837.html

[Trey N]

I got into a conversation with a "progressive" young man I met here in Austin yesterday. Politics came up, of course, and I was pleasantly surprised when he said he's leaning Libertarian right now, but that whoever he finally votes for, it will be "anyone but Hillary."

When I asked why, he replied with a lot of the expected facts from her sordid past covering a whole range of issues personal, foreign and domestic; financial and political; etc etc ad nauseum.

The bottom line was her "overall [lack of] character."

One can only hope that such feelings are widespread among the general voting public. The DNC debacle shows that it well may be:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-28/did-dnc-hire-actors-below-minimum-wage-work-convention

Poor 1% zillionaire oligarchs. All those hundreds of millions of $$$ poured into their fellow psychopath's campaign, and all it's gotten them is a worthless loser hag who can't even manage to generate the traditional post-convention bounce in the polls....

[Balint Somkuti]

As a hungarian I think if the Borg Queen wins we probably better prepare for the worst, say a Maidan v2.0, since my country (some 60+% of the population-yes even those who do not like the current govt) is opposed to TTP, LMBTQ, migrants and other neoliberal/open society flagships.

Although the Norwegian Trust (run suprisingly almost exclusively by Soros' vassals), Andre Goodfriend deputy ambassador for the US, and remnants of the once dominant social-liberal parties failed to incite any mass movement against our PM Viktor Orban in 2014.

And if we talk about nomen est omen check out this 'Good friend' fella. His background, his education etc. He openly supported the ex-communist state party, Hungarian Socialist Party, without any effort to even look unbiased, with such perfectly named individuals such as Mr. Gőgös (arrogant), Mr. Hiszékeny (decievable).

So to sum it up. Hillary completely NO. Much rather Trump but if he pulls another 1919 (complete discarding of the Wilsonian principles) or 1945 (Yalta conference) you will see an uptick in anti-US sentiments.

Really wonder what the poles would say, I am pretty much slovaks, and czechs have the same (or very similar) opinion.

[Trey N]

Would this be the same type of "market" that predicted the recent BREXIT vote would be a "No"?

That "vote" was blatantly manipulated in the final days by anomalous bets in large amounts on the NO side of the ledger.

The 1% zillionaire oligarchs are flooding Hitlery's campaign with mega$$$. Why do you think they would miss an opportunity to manipulate an "indicator" like this, given all the despicable manipulative crap revealed in the DNC emails??

[Bobo]

Yes, the Dems won the production side of summer but then they have always had theThespians while the other side has had the Entrepreneurs. She should get a good bounce out of this and drag Donald through the dog days of summer but the Fall is coming.
When Hill talks about the We and I you have to chuckle as she carries an awful lot of baggage around that was never created by We but I. Does America really want a President with this amount of baggage that we know will be nothing more than another Novella of scandal, investigations and mea culpas or do we want to get something done for the We of this country.
Come September the kids go back to school, bills have to be paid and plans for the future need to be sketched out. I do not think she has a chance.

[Stuart Wood]

A well crafted speech that gave a positive msg vs Trump's. She's not a gifted speaker but I think she did better than expected. Let's see if she gets a bump in the polls in the next week. I was impressed by Gen. Allen's speech, Kahn the Muslim whose army son was killed in action, and the night before speech by Bloomberg.

[Peter Reichard]

Hillary is an even bigger shill for Wall Street than was Obama. I believe nothing she says and expect a President HRC to suddenly find a "modified" TPP to be acceptable. Polls at this point mean little except to show that this thing is really up for grabs.

[LondonBob]

Despite the spectacularly bad pick of Pence as VP I see no reason to change my opinion that Dr Norpoth's model will be proven right and Trump will win by five points or so. The discrepancy between state polls and national polls seems to have rectified itself, indeed the highly accurate LA Times poll, put together by the RAND people who finished 4th most accurate in 2012, have Trump up six points.

http://96.127.53.23/election/

What interests me at the moment is how close Paul Nehlen is to Paul Ryan and Dr Kelli Ward is to John McCain in their primaries. If Trump really is to bring change then these two losing to Trump style opponents would help a great deal.

[Ken Roberts]

Perspective from Canada: If Trump wants to to be president, then he will win. I am however still not convinced he has the necessary intensity of intent. That is what I, personally, think re the political scene. Others think otherwise !

How Canada stands: We will work with whomever becomes the next president.

Canadian concern re US politics: Fragmentation and exclusion of significant blocks of public -- seeking life, liberty and pursuit of happiness -- from legitimate political channels may produce instabilities. Coalition building, "big tent" politics, is not just to get an election won. Trump: "I will fight for you" is good. Clinton: "come join us" is also good. But where is the demonstrated substance/record re the proposed relationships ?

On the other hand: I recently had some time in Chicago and Milwaukee to observe everyday folks. All is ok. Media coverage is not good data. The predominant attitude of folks towards the press is one of amused or ironic disengagement, except for a few people who are self-acknowledged junkies. That is: the "people" know in their gut that the mainstream (English language) press, at editorial level, is not "on their side". Only the net, with all its many faults, is providing an outlet for the potential political energy.

An aside, off-topic: Is anyone else concerned re Pokemon Go perhaps being a form of crowd-sourced "casing of joints" ?

[JJackson]

As a UK 'lefty' I think a Trump victory in November is probably the lesser of the two evils on offer.
1] He may destroy the US one party (Borg) system with two faux options.
2] He may fracture NATO which has been transformed into aggressive force for the military furtherance of Borg regime change dreams to the detriment of European security. It does not need more funds for armaments - if it can stop antagonizing everyone and return to a defensive alliance. Under those circumstances who would it fear? Russia, China, India and the Islamic states are not enemies - or at least would not be if we stopped poking them and broke ties with Israel and the KSA. Standing too close to these two and the Borg are our biggest problem. With Britex the EU have also got rid of Baby Borg which should let them formulate a more realistic global view and FP.
A personal view only.

[Freudenschade]

Perhaps we should have a war game to imagine the first 100 days of a Trump presidency?

[Freudenschade]

LondonBob,

Norpoth's primary model is good at predicting the popular vote. For a cold shot of reality, check out the electoral map here: http://www.270towin.com

The Sabato Crystal Ball is a pretty good model, but there are others to choose from. Under that, Hillary wins 347 to 191. Trump has an uphill climb, even if he wins the popular vote.

[Aka]

All,
I don't think Trump can be that bad. My guess is for the most part, he will be a normal president. I assume that Trump is (if elected) hopeing to get re-elected.

And vote for Hilary because she's a woman. We have had female heads of state and they were not very good or completely useless.

Voting for someone just becuase of the gender/ the skin color/sexual orientation is not progressive.

If US has a issue of descrimination against woman, you are not going to fix it by having a female president (look at countries which had female leaders and you will see that the descrimination is stil there).

[Swampy]

"What's more: Nuland, a diplomat who shares many of the same views as Breedlove, could move into an even more important role after the November election -- she's considered a potential candidate for secretary of state."

if true, then GAME OVER

[Dubhaltach]

My pespective as a Dane

I hope Trump wins - Clinton's hysterical russophobia, her disastrous record in office, coupled with the fact that she's the Borg candidate make her too damn dangerous.

I also think what Trump's said about NATO is entirely correct and beneficial for both America and Europe in the long run.

[TV]

CNN (Clinton News Network) won the rating for the DNC.
Fox News won the RNC ratings.
The bases watch.
The DNC outdid itself, though, when it booed the Dallas Sheriff's moment of silence.
The Democrats - at heart - despise both capitalism and American history.

I watched baseball most of those nights.

[Cee]

All,

Opinions on CNAS and member General Allen?

http://thenewsdoctors.com/project-for-a-new-american-century-pnac-reboot-cnas-the-democratic-version-of-conquest-imperialism/

[Farmer Don]

OK, Col Lang welcomes comments from the peanut gallery, in this case Canada.

This election is a long awaited American public backlash against a multi decade trend of Corp. Globalism rising over the Nation State.

Elites such as Hillary Clinton get their power and mandate from an national election, but when they are elected, they see their responsibility to the world at large.

If an American losses 10% of his income thru free trade/deregulation, but the increase in income to a larger amount of people wold wide is say 20%, that is good for the world as a whole.

I'm surprised at how long it took for a powerful american public backlash to develop. But the typical American had a fair amount of fat to trim before a challenging life became really miserable one.

Who is going to win? I have no idea.

But it is interesting that Trump seems to have his fingers on the pulse of the internet alternate news spectrum which more and more people believe, were as Clinton has the old News System in her corner.

Best Regards
FD
PS
In my view, until unlimited money is no longer allowed in elections, you're system will become less and less democratic

[DC]

The Republican party has proven to be the more structurally "democratic" of our main two, but its inability field a moderate candidate (which would win in a landslide, imo) to its party members has proven its undoing. Its problem is its coalition, not its process. Yet Trump may well win; it will be a close election.

Both parties would benefit from being weaned off reliance on big money donors. Alas, I fear campaign finance reform is an impossibility unless, somehow, a viable third party can insert itself into the wicked vortex created by the rotten two.

I am less impressed by Jill Stein's leadership qualities, the more I listen to her, yet I admire her as a person. Gary Johnson of the Libertarians may have more of a shot at leading the country back home, unlikely as that may be. Hope is not something we should let slip away.

[Dante Alighieri]

Dear Colonel, it's a madhouse election. It seems where you are is this: you can pick either the psychiatrist with her arsenal of psychopharmaka or the patient who thinks he is Napoleon. We in Europe can say whatever we want but in the end will have to swallow what you choose to feed us.