Why isn’t this man in jail for fraud? In addition to his phony Trump University, there was also a Trump Institute, that used plagiarized materials to peddle real estate advice.
Ms. Parker said she did venture to one of the Trump Institute seminars — and was appalled: The speakers came off like used-car salesmen, she said, and their advice was nothing but banalities. “It was like I was in sleaze America,” she said. “It was all smoke and mirrors.”
He clearly has the votes of sleaze America locked up.
National poll finds Trump is seen as more honest and trustworthy than Hillary.
Bring on the giant meteorite.
The “Trump brand” thing puzzles me. Why do people have positive associations with it? If I were given a free apartment in an upper west side Trump apartment, I would not move in. Why? Because I’m a wimp about that “buildings collapsing while I’m in them” thing and I wouldn’t trust a Trump building to stand up. All too likely that he used substandard construction. I wouldn’t eat a Trump steak–no telling what the health of the animal it came from was–heck, who knows what type of animal it was–or ride in a Trump plane or, well, have any voluntary association with a Trump product. On strict self-preservation grounds. I simply don’t want to risk it. What leads so many people to the opposite conclusion?
Every single day there is a new Drumpfh item that simply rolls off the Drumpfh supporters.
I truly believe he entered the race, intending to get beaten, get his name all the news, and make some $ from the process. Now he’s ahead and hasn’t spent 5 minutes thinking about his larger race.
McCain, Romney, all the Bushes, Graham**–all saying/asking WTF?
** and remaining sane Republicans.
The exact same could could be said of Hillary Clinton. Everyday she has a new scandal, a new massive corporate donation, a new bending or outright breaking of campaign funding rules, and everyday Democrats and Liberals say they’ll vote for her.
Look supposed fellow progressives, Trump is low hanging fruit. You don’t get points for criticizing the obvious monster in a room full of fellow liberals, and then giving yourself a firm pat on the back for being obviously superior to the monster. Instead, you ought to be critiquing your own fellow demons and moving forward in an actually progressive direction.
As much as I abhor Drumph and his supporters, we can’t blame him directly for the fraud of that ‘Tute with his name attached:
In addition to all his actual fraud ventures, this is just investment in a fraud scheme.
IANAL: is that then “accomplice to fraud”?
—
He lives up to the cynical stereotype of politicians. As in:
Everything, every. thing, all of it, he constantly lies, with every word out of his orangey face.
Like yesterdays speech in front of a wall of trash, where his words were trashier than the wall of scrap aluminum blocks behind him.
Drumph is an orange Frankensteinian creation of GOP rhetoric that has been festering so long that Drumph has pulled itself out of its toxic waste to spew itself all over the election cycle.
Now come on #4 – most of the Hillary scandals are totally phony. I have not heard of a single accusation of her violating campaign finance rules or receiving illegal corporate donations. What are you talking about? She made a lot of money giving speeches to fat cats and that may be unseemly but it certainly isn’t illegal. Whitewater was a hoax. The Clinton’s got conned by a sleazy operator and lost their investment. If you have some specific accusation to make about Hillary Clinton, let’s hear it. Otherwise go away.
I read today that Trump is saying that any of the 2016 republican candidates for president who don’t now support him should be banned from running again:
from: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-wants-consequences-gop-rivals-not-endorsing-him-n601406
@anarchobyron #4 – False dichotomy.
Also, I’m not particularly proud of being superior to Donald Trump. It took zero effort.
@4 and 6: From Whitewater to the Starr report* to the multiple Benghazi hearings, the US has spent a lot of money trying to prove that some Clinton-any Clinton-has done something-anything-illegal. So far all that’s turned up is a bit of typical low level sleaze. And yet people keep trotting out the old “just as corrupt as Trump” crap. There’s no way that the people doing that are doing so with any motive other than getting a Trump presidency. If you think you’re only doing it for “fairness” or as a “protest” I have one (fake) word for you: Brexit.
*Doesn’t it even sound like bad porn? And now it turns out that Starr ignored actual sexual abuse when it was in front of him…what a surprise!
It’s not false, I acknowledge Trump is low hanging fruit, whereas Clinton is not given the parochial viewing power of certain liberals.
Cervantes, no they aren’t!
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/285269-exclusive-pro-hillary-group-takes-200k-in-banned-donations
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/foreign-governments-gave-millions-to-foundation-while-clinton-was-at-state-dept/2015/02/25/31937c1e-bc3f-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/06/this-is-the-hillary-clinton-scandal-no-ones-talkin.html
https://theintercept.com/2016/05/25/hillary-clinton-debbie-wasserman-schultz-pick-corporate-influence-peddlers-to-guide-dnc-platform/
http://www.judicialwatch.org/bulletins/the-clinton-shell-game/
Those are just a few articles of her overwhelmingly incestuous relationship with corporate power, and high minded arrogance.
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/04/among-hillarys-surrogates-conflicts-of-interest-ab.html
Another Hillary Clinton hater without a viable alternative. YAWN.
@9 I’m voting Stein, like I do every 4 years, so your claim that I want Trump is false. AGAIN TRUMP IS LOW HANGING FRUIT for criticism in left of center circles. It’s not worth even stating out loud I don’t back him.
Just because what she does – in some cases – is not full blown illegal, it doesn’t follow that it’s not corrupt. The lady wakes up with, eats with, breathes with, and spends all her time coordinating with, corporate big wigs. Period. She is the second largest receiver this election of super pac money and corporate money (Jeb was first). You really think being THE SECOND LARGEST (meaning more than the dozen republicans that ran) doesn’t have UNDUE influence over her? That that doesn’t constitute CORRUPTION? Jesus.
@11
There is no necessary connection between the two. One could vote for Clinton (as the lesser of two evils) without SUPPORTING her, i.e., thinking she is a noble and good progressive worthy of praise, and above criticism. If you think you MUST vote for and endorse her, without criticism, you sound like a dear leader praises that Mao and Stalin would embrace with open arms.
Have you looked at Stein’s actual positions on things like alternative medicine and vaccines? She’s nearly as crazy as Trump, if differently so.
And you expect what change in the outcome versus the last time you voted for her? She’s not even the leading third party candidate.
archangelospumoni — “…now he’s ahead” That’s not what I see in various polls this morning. CNN released a poll this morning that puts her 2% ahead, which is one of the closest but she’s still ahead. Nate Silver says, “She’s taking a 7-point, maybe 10-point lead.” Other polls show her even more ahead.
Did you check those stories of Clinton scandals on Snopes.com? It might be a good idea. For example, the one a few weeks ago of her imminent indictment was unsubstantiated, and you may notice there’s still no indictment. She’s no angel, but she’s no Trump, either.
Or you can vote for her thinking that she’s a fairly typical Democrat, imperfect and very much NOT above criticism but orders of magnitude better than Trump or even Stein, capable of keeping the country running without disaster, with some good ideas with respect to women’s rights and health care reform, and reasonable enough to be pressured successfully on issues like TTIP. In short, like Obama, a good enough candidate, not a perfect candidate. Perhaps this is a concept that you have not considered?
@14
Uhm, I really don’t think alternative medicine and vaccines are MORE dire to the state of our country than money in politics, revolving doors with wall street, drones, wars, etc.
To write off Stein when compared to Clinton due to vaccines and medicine, as opposed to war, corruption, global warming, campaign financing, etc., is obscene!
“And you expect what change in the outcome versus the last time you voted for her? She’s not even the leading third party candidate.”
Do you expect the country not to move further right under Clinton, like it did under Obama, and Bill? It’s an empirical fact that the country, in the aggregate, has shifted to the right. The Democrats are further right than 70s, 80s, and even some 90s Republicans, and today’s republicans are further right than both parties in the past. The spectrum is shifted. This 4 year race between the lesser of two evils, has in the long run given us all the evil we argued against decades ago.
Note that the fourth comment on a post about Trump’s sleazy dealings is a “but Clinton TOO!” comment. It’s like “what about the menz”: We can’t possibly talk about a man being sleazy without accusing a woman of being equally so.
@18
Like I said, in an audience hall of people left of center, that identify as liberals and democrats, criticizing trump is low hanging fruit. It’s banal at this point. And it’s self indulgent.
The fact I’m saying Stein > Clinton, and she’s not sleazy, should indicate that the last half of your post is fallacious.
Wrong, a vote for a non-viable (non-electable by the general populace) candidate is a default vote for Trump. You support Trump, albeit indirectly.
Clinton is the only electable alternative to Trump.
What is the rationale for voting Stein in this election? I’ve now heard from several people that they’re voting Stein and these are reasonable and knowledgeable people. To me it makes no sense. The person in the White House in January will be Clinton or Trump. Surely Stein voters must realize this too.
Okay, and a Republican would tell me a vote for third party is an implicit vote for Clinton. You two can fight over which of you deserves my vote, and cancel each other out. The people responsible for getting Trump in office are the people who vote for Trump, not the people who don’t. Moreover, these two candidates are SO OFF THE SPECTRUM (all polls show majority of Americans hate them, don’t trust them, and feel trapped), that it’s not immediately clear that somehow my – or other progressive votes – de facto belong to Clinton.
Instead of blaming progressives and lefties for Trump, try blaming Clinton and her SUPPORTERS (not people voting for her – people SUPPORTING her) for not moving left enough.
@21
There’s several reasons I can try to be succinct about, and appreciate you asking me with sincerity instead of being aggressive and condescending.
1. In terms of donations, there is one party with two major faces now, and the Green Party is the only party left that as a platform refuses all lobbyist and corporate $.
2. Every 4 years we are told vote X dem over Y repub because that repub is sooooo bad. But if you look at the reasons for rejecting Y repub, dating back to 92, we have gotten every we feared from both dems and repubs. The strategy isn’t working, something has to give.
3. 40% of voters identify as independent, only 29% dem, 27% repub, but every year we are talked down to as if we are a dem/repub country. I think the more limelight, votes, coverage, etc., that third parties get, is a necessary condition for eventually waking up the rest of America to the fact that they aren’t alone, and these two parties really aren’t representing them, and it’s safe to turn away.
4. For the liberals and dems upset with me, here’s my peace offering. Bernie was a new deal FDR democrat, which didn’t use to be radical. If you want the democratic party to return to its progressive FDR roots, something has to give, because the party as a whole has only shifted rightward under Clinton, Obama, and next Clinton. It’s a long game play since the short game isn’t working (see 2.), but democrats like Clinton, Obama, Wasserman-Schultz HAVE TO LOSE, and they have to lose to progressive VALUES, not party hacks. If it can be empirically demonstrated that the loss of a Clintonian dem was due to a failure to appease the left, the left can have more power in a subsequent election, and maybe you dems can get more Sanders style democrats in the party, instead of Clintonian dems.
To reinforce 3., I saw a poll yesterday that showed over 60% of Americans feel trapped between Trump and Clinton, and don’t like either. In order to break out of that trap, we need people to know they have the power to vote a different way, and actually change thing.
Otherwise we continue to live like this comical Simpsons sketch:
If anybody would go to jail for fraud, it’d probably be some small toadie or middleman. Trump is too big(headed) to jail and he’d have no compunctions against throwing plenty others under the bus in front of him.
Sighs… “marking a ballet for X” does not mean “supports(/agrees-with) X“.
@26
Totally agree!
No, that would be a normally republican voter going for the Libertarian candidate. Like all hard leftist, including the radicals during my college days, you seem to fall under two delusions. The first is that you understand politics. The second is that your party is supported by the majority of the populace. Neither is the truth.
Up to 20% of the voters may be considering third (or fourth on how you look at it) party candidates. Given that in the last election, Libertarians got 2.5 times as many votes as the Greens, the Greens are barely into single digits. Unless, of course, you have some real data to show otherwise….
By what metric did the country (I presume you mean the US) move further right under BIll and/or Obama?
Look, it costs a billion dollars to run for president. Every person who has been elected president in my lifetime has received support from wealthy people and corporations. So does Hillary Clinton. That doesn’t make her dishonest or a criminal as Trump is. You are talking about the financing of political campaigns, not personal enrichment.
I don’t like the role of money in politics either but that is not what PZ’s post is about. You’re changing the subject.
@28
I do not think the majority support the green party at all. You’re attributing to me a false position. I think the majority dislike the present landscape and feel trapped, which is empirically true. I’m a green, but I would love a plurality of parties, and I would sooner vote Gary Johnson and the libertarians over dem and repub. So please, don’t pigeonhole me into your stereotype
@29
Favoring wars, accepting large money in politics, moving away from organized labor. and passing and supporting ‘free trade’ deals. Notice, much of Europe, in terms of economic policy is FAR to our left. Discussion of NAFTA, TPP, the affordable care act, etc., would be obscene over there.
A good book on the subject is Thomas Frank’s Listen Liberal.
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/04/10/150349438/gops-rightward-shift-higher-polarization-fills-political-scientist-with-dread
http://www.salon.com/2016/01/06/noam_chomsky_the_problem_with_us_politics_is_the_spectrum_is_center_to_extreme_way_off_the_spectrum_right/
@30
I repeat for the 5th time, I AM NOT CONFLATING CLINTON TO TRUMP, BUT CRITIQUING TRUMP IS LOW HANGING FRUIT.
“Look, it costs a billion dollars to run for president. Every person who has been elected president in my lifetime has received support from wealthy people and corporations.”
So, because everyone is doing it, it’s therefore okay? And you do know Bernie got 45-46% of the vote without doing this…So it’s not outside the realm of natural law that it can be done. There are no laws of nature requiring we as a society continue down this path. We are a 150,000 year old species, which did not always have this political apparatus. it’s ideology to think the course must be maintained.
Speaing of changing the subject… the funny-haired leader-wannabe narcissist on the other side of the atlantic has just dropped his tory leadership bid. The lineup of folks to be the next prime minister don’t exactly inspire enthusiasm, though.
@27, That WHOOSHING! sound was the point flying overhead.
Favoring wars, yeah, Reagan never did that. Nor did he ever break up any unions **cough**PATCO. And there was certainly never big money in politics before Bill. Okay, so Congress in the 19th century was called the millionaire’s club, but $1 million isn’t BIG money, is it? Free trade? Certainly never a policy in the US prior to Bill. Nope, not a bit. I’ll give you that NAFTA can be laid at his doorstep, as far as any international treaty can be laid at the doorstep of a single politician.
As for the ACA, various presidents have tried to get access to universal health insurance passed in the US since at least Truman. Obama succeeded. It is the most cautious, big insurance friendly universal coverage policy possible, but it SUCCEEDED. It is in place, reducing uninsured rates, and saving lives (and tax money). How is that a move to the right compared to having no policy in place and fewer options?
Europe has been “far to our left” economically for decades.Germany has had universal health care since the 19th century.
???
Are you saying voting and supporting are synonyms? Support is taken as stronger than mere voting. For instance, the main stream medias giant upset that Bernie will vote for Hillary but refuses to endorse her.
@35
You missed the point. I said the country as a whole, under the two parties shifted to the right. Not that the republicans weren’t already right. We agree that they were and are. The point is the dems of today are where the 80s republicans were, and none of them are new deal FDR dems.
Bill gave us NAFTA, breaking up glass glass steagal, the crime bill, welfare reform, and deregulated interstate banking. Obama has continued that trend as will Hillary. That’s a rightward shift. We agree the republicans are bad (again LOW HANGING FRUIT), but the dems moved right.
@37: Okay, then, make the point better if I missed it. Again, by what specific metric is “the country as a whole” (I presume we are still talking about the US, though there are other countries in the world) is moving right? What policies of the Dems today are the same as those of the Republicans in the 1980s?
Uhm, I really don’t think alternative medicine and vaccines are MORE dire to the state of our country than money in politics, revolving doors with wall street, drones, wars, etc.
Opposition to vaccines is, in fact, more dangerous than those. Even our current wars, as awful as they are, don’t compare to the death tolls inflicted by diseases currently eradicated or contained by vaccines.
@40: Oh, yeah. I got distracted and never addressed that comment. In terms of what it shows about Stein’s character and competence alone, the anti-vax position should knock Stein out of anyone’s list of good candidates to vote for. She’s an MD. An MD who is anti-vax is only just less dangerous than a germ theory denier.
I did not know about her being anti-vaxxer. A physician being anti-vaccination has pretty bad implications on how they’d think about other things. I wouldn’t trust a person like that with such a high office.
She’s not anti-vaccine
Here’s her on reddit last month:
I don’t know if we have an “official” stance, but I can tell you my personal stance at this point. According to the most recent review of vaccination policies across the globe, mandatory vaccination that doesn’t allow for medical exemptions is practically unheard of. In most countries, people trust their regulatory agencies and have very high rates of vaccination through voluntary programs. In the US, however, regulatory agencies are routinely packed with corporate lobbyists and CEOs. So the foxes are guarding the chicken coop as usual in the US. So who wouldn’t be skeptical? I think dropping vaccinations rates that can and must be fixed in order to get at the vaccination issue: the widespread distrust of the medical-indsutrial complex.
Vaccines in general have made a huge contribution to public health. Reducing or eliminating devastating diseases like small pox and polio. In Canada, where I happen to have some numbers, hundreds of annual death from measles and whooping cough were eliminated after vaccines were introduced. Still, vaccines should be treated like any medical procedure–each one needs to be tested and regulated by parties that do not have a financial interest in them. In an age when industry lobbyists and CEOs are routinely appointed to key regulatory positions through the notorious revolving door, its no wonder many Americans don’t trust the FDA to be an unbiased source of sound advice. A Monsanto lobbyists and CEO like Michael Taylor, former high-ranking DEA official, should not decide what food is safe for you to eat. Same goes for vaccines and pharmaceuticals. We need to take the corporate influence out of government so people will trust our health authorities, and the rest of the government for that matter. End the revolving door. Appoint qualified professionals without a financial interest in the product being regulated. Create public funding of elections to stop the buying of elections by corporations and the super-rich.
For homeopathy, just because something is untested doesn’t mean it’s safe. By the same token, being “tested” and “reviewed” by agencies tied to big pharma and the chemical industry is also problematic. There’s a lot of snake-oil in this system. We need research and licensing boards that are protected from conflicts of interest. They should not be limited by arbitrary definitions of what is “natural” or not.
Nor is there ANYTHING anti vaccine in the party platform.
This is just ignorant slander.
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/gpus/pages/121/attachments/original/1436484918/2014_Platform.pdf?1436484918
@41
Easy metric is the decline of organized labor and the increase in free trade and market deregulation and wealth/income inequality. Along with the rise in our prison intake. Again, these sorts of trends and shifts have happened under both parties.
By what possible logic is the quote in 43 not anti-vaccine? She implies that the US doesn’t allow medical exemptions to vaccination, which is trivially easy to disprove, goes on to the old “it’s all a big pharma conspiracy” canard without actually presenting any data or support for her claim, and then babbles on about lack of trust in government for a couple of paragraphs. And how did Monsanto even get into that statement? Monsanto is not a pharma company. They make food, not medications or vaccines.
@45: Okay, go for it! Pick one of those and present the data on it and explain why the fact that, say, organized labor is declining (for whatever definition you’re using of “declining”) is proof of a general shift to the right. Also, demonstrate the participation of both parties in said decline, as opposed to a failure by one party to stop the policies of the other that brought about the decline.
Also, this graph looks to me like there was a big decline in union membership under Reagan and another substantial one under Bill, but a bit of a stabilization under Obama, suggesting that Obama has started to reverse the trend of declining union membership. If Obama can be credited with said stabilization.
Drat it! This graph! Sorry about the failure of documentation above.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/membership-rate-falls-for-u-s-unions-in-2014-1422028558
The answer in general is that – as I’ve emphasized – people don’t like the revolving door nature between state and the private sector, and so would like independent mediators in determining the veracity of any scientific claim. Do you not agree with that general position bracketing out vaccines for a moment? If you could choose between two scenarios, the FDA being a revolving door between business and government, or being an institution with neutral scientists reviewing data, which would you choose? I imagine the latter. If so, it totally in the realm of 99.9% certainty that that review board will find, like we all agree, that vaccines are totally great. Her argument isn’t anti-vaccine, it’s anti-revolving door. She goes out of her way to say vaccines clearly helped millions of people.
You have serious misplaced reading comprehension skills….
Then there’s incarceration rates. I agree that they’re a total disaster and need to be made lower. It looks to me though like they are starting to be reduced under Obama. (See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#/media/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png or follow the references if you don’t like using wiki.) Though I’m inclined to give more credit to things like medical marijuana and legalization in Colorado than to federal action for this one. Nonetheless, state level legalization and decriminalization hardly seem like evidence of a general trend towards increasing conservatism in both parties at all levels.
I can’t see the graph since I don’t have access to WSTJ,
It has been tanking since AFTER the new deal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Union_membership_in_us_1930-2010.png
There was a brief spike under Obama, but overall unionized labor hit a 100 year low.
http://www.peoplespunditdaily.com/news/politics/2015/01/26/union-membership-hits-100-year-low-trumka-blames-poverty-level-jobs-under-obama/
The crime bill came under Bill and was supported by Hillary.
We are talking about global trends here, where dems and repubs have both been in office, not micro changes in single years.
Again the dems of today are not the organized labor pro new deal dems of before. Period.
cervantes @1:
Last night on her show, Rachel Maddow discussed a poll that asked about support for Trump, Clinton, or-and no kidding-a meteor hitting Earth, and I think it was something like 17% of respondents expressed support for the meteor :)
So what are you proposing? Banning people who have worked in industry from working in government? That’s not policy anywhere, so the “US exceptionalism” of Stein’s statement makes no sense whatsoever. How long are people banned from changing from government to industry? Lifelong? 10 years?
Where are you going to get these “independent mediators”? What qualifications do they need to have?
Clinton’s actual position on criminal justice: major bullet points include ending mass incarceration, closing private prisons, and helping ex-cons reenter society. I suppose this is going to be one of those Schroedinger’s policy moments where she is somehow both just pandering and doesn’t mean it and simultaneously not listening to the left.
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/criminal-justice-reform/
Given that the New Deal democrat gave us mass incarceration of people based on their race, thank FSM for that!
Trump news today…his campaign solicited donations from foreign officials, which is a violation of US election law. The open question (for now) is: Was it an accident or was it deliberate? IF the later, it’s felony time…
I’ve always been intrigued at how the Greens think they’re going to get anything accomplished running vanity candidates every four years without so much as a congressman to help them implement legislation.
There’s a reason Bernie never had anything to do with the Greens.
That’s exactly why I don’t consider the Greens as anything other than a distraction. They have no support structure in place in Congress or the state legislatures to support a chief executive, either at the state or national level. Until that changes, all they can do is harangue democrats that they aren’t being progressive enough.
Show me the votes by electing people at the lower levels, and in sufficient numbers to make a difference. Only then I will consider voting for a Green candidate for the chief executive.
anarchobyron: The weasel words used on the subject of homeopathy are very much exactly what I’d expect from Hillary Clinton talking about her speaking engagements, honestly. “Just because it’s untested doesn’t mean it’s unsafe” is pretty much a rewording of “Just because I took the money doesn’t mean my opinions are for sale.” You didn’t do your candidate any favors with that quote.
Every day Hillary has a new phony scandal or lie made up about her!!! Fixed it for you.
Benghazi was pure gutter level politics. There were 13 Benhazis under the Bush disaster that killed 60 people. I’ll even list them.
FYI. The fact that there were 13 Bush Benghazis with 60 dead is universally ignored and not just by the liars of the GOP.
In yet another connection of Trump to sleaze, apparently he fills his “Trump Tower” in New York City with con artists:
Inside Trump’s Most Valuable Tower: Felons, Dictators and Girl Scouts
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-trump-40-wall-street/
I came across this article through “Yes another science blog”‘s latest post, where he talks about tracing a company that tried to scam him back to Trump Tower:
http://anothersb.blogspot.com/2016/06/trumps-tower-of-frauds-and-another.html
anarchobyron:
“In the primaries, I would prefer Bernie Sanders. If Clinton is nominated and it comes to a choice between Clinton and Trump, in a swing state, a state where it’s going to matter which way you vote, I would vote against Trump, and by elementary arithmetic, that means you hold your nose and you vote Democrat. I don’t think there’s any other rational choice.” – Noam Chomsky
First, this doesn’t remotely respond to the question you were asked. Second, a person reasonably evaluating the evidence would have to conclude that the country has a far greater chance of moving to the Right, and far further to the Right, if Trump were elected; that people on the Left supporting movements and engaging in activism on an ongoing basis is what will make the difference in the longer term; and that a Clinton presidency would present a far more hospitable environment for the people in these movements and for marginalized people and those on the Left in general. There is no reasonable basis at present for the belief that Stein has any chance of being elected, so speculating about how much better her presidency would be is a waste of time. She’s not a viable candidate, and voting for her in the general election will do nothing to push the Democrats to the Left.
Donald Trump is not low-hanging fruit. his candidacy and the movements supporting it pose a real threat to democracy, social justice, human rights, and other gains people have fought for in the US and around the world. Of course you can and should continue to criticize Hillary Clinton, and to oppose her actions and policies before and after she’s elected,* but get a sense of perspective.
*Although perhaps you should do it on general political thread(s) or posts about her and not on posts about Trump, since he’s a real danger and showing the many ways in which he’s dangerous actually does serve an important purpose.
I admit to being a bit stymied on this point: the empirical evidence is that we’ve entered the sixth major extinction event; climate change might well be irreversible already; etc. Hillary will do nothing to avert this, being more or less wholly owned by corporate interests. Trump would most likely be worse, being completely feckless. There are no clear alternatives.
But given that the extinction of our species is looking like the most likely outcome, and might still be reversible, it’s unclear how a choice between two people who will assure that human extinction is not averted represents any choice at all. Would you rather see your species go extinct? Or would you rather see it go extinct? Choose one.
13% preferred the meteor. 7%, amusingly enough, were “not sure.”
Easy Peasy, is there any legitimate chance, giving polling in the single digits or below for Stein, that she is capable of being elected by the generan populace in November? If not, she isn’t a viable choice, and you are left with what remains after that fact.
Damn skippy. One thing Brexit has shown us is that if the race is close, Trump could win simply because a million or so people decide that voting for him would be a hoot, and would be harmless since he has no chance. Nothing should be taken for granted here. The assumption that he stands no chance could be what gives him a chance simply by making Hillary’s supporters believe that they don’t need to turn out, and galvanizing Trump supporters to turn out in greater numbers.
Oops #67, general, not generan. Mea Culpa.
So we’re left with a choice between human extinction and human extinction.
I wasn’t asking you to identify a candidate who stands a chance of (a) being elected and (b) averting human extinction. I was asking a different question. I’ll try to avoid using a metaphor involving deck chairs and the Titanic, but what motivates a person in this situation? Does one supinely accept that the species is fucked, and simply proceed by ignoring that? Does one simply shrug one’s shoulders, given our powerlessness, and then go ahead and participate in the process of self-extermination?
Yeah, the high likelihood that we could be among the last generations of our species is quite bothersome to me. The fact that the political process is rigged to make this species-suicide inescapable is even more bothersome. And it does leave me a bit short of fucks to give for questions less pressing than the extinction of the species.
Trump says he considers AGW an “expensive hoax.” His energy policy advisor is Kevin Cramer. He wants to abolish the EPA (which he thinks is the DEP) and scrap climate agreements. He strongly supports fracking, and advocates greater production and use of coal and oil. So yes, I think it’s safe to say he’d most likely be worse, to put it mildly. The only rational alternative is to vote for the viable candidate who will be relatively better – in this election, the candidate who won’t be catastrophic – and then work on the ground for change in this area.
Exactly.
He probably couldn’t abolish the EPA; he probably couldn’t accomplish anything, because he’d probably spend his entire term squabbling with Congress and calling them “losers” in press conferences. Which is what I would wish for on every evening star if he should be elected. It’s the best-case scenario for a Trump presidency.
Yes, sure. Given a choice between the one who will kill me tomorrow and the one who will kill me next week, I vote for the one who will kill me next week, naturally. It would be hard to ignore the elephant in the room, though: given that choice, I should definitely stop contributing to my 401(k). And I might invite anyone who pretends this is a meaningful choice they’re giving me to go fuck themselves.
So go away and hide in your bunker then. Please. You are a complete and total idiot!!! Who has nothing intelligent to say.
1. If you really believed this you would either be stocking your bunker in the arctic to survive the coming Global Warming Catastrophe or…eating, drinking, and being merry because we are all going to die.
2. The evidence that we humans are facing an imminent extinction is zero. No doubt, global warming is going to be a sizable problem. But it is a slow process taking centuries to happen. It’s been happening for most of my lifetime already and hasn’t made much difference in my life.
You are supposedly making decisions now based on hypothetical but improbable events that might occur centuries now. But really you are just a dumb troll babbling away on the internet.
3. I’ve been seeing these guys all my life, starting with nuclear bomb duck and cover drills in grade school. X is going to happen and we are all going to die.
It’s basically a secular version of the xian’s Rapture-Apocalypse-Second Coming. And just about as believable.
That isn’t the point, though. That he’s expressed this desire shows how completely hostile a Trump administration (and I can’t even believe I’m typing those words) would be to the environmental movement. It wouldn’t just be a matter of not having any chance of making progress, which would be fatal, but of having even small past gains eliminated.
His environmental ideas are in line with the rest of the Republican party.
The US president has a great deal of power, but they’re not the only one who plays a role in determining how things go by any means. I know what you’re saying – it’s not the electoral choice anyone who cares about the planet would wish for (although I will certainly maintain that it’s a very meaningful choice in this realm and in general). But the election of a president or other representatives isn’t the sum total of what people can do, either.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Agreed. I was only clarifying why I didn’t say, “ZOMG he’ll actively destroy the environment at top speed!” Instead I described his impact on the environment as open to question. Not because I think he’ll do anything positive, and not because I’m unaware that his denial of climate change is dangerous, but because I honestly have no fucking clue what he would or wouldn’t, could or couldn’t accomplish.
Hillary has the virtue that her impact on the environment is completely predictable–which is also her vice. She will continue the status quo, letting big business run roughshod over the environment at more or less exactly the rate they are today. She will neither accelerate the damage nor do anything to slow it. She will make token expressions of concern for the environment, and express support for environmental action, which will not result in meaningful action.
Trump won’t be better, and could be a whole hell of a lot worse, but is more or less completely unpredictable. He has no fixed principles, no ability to translate intentions into action, no ability to navigate the political process, and may or may not have support from a congress that may or may not be controlled by republicans. I can make no definite statements about what he might do or not do.
How I hate this argument. Humans are facing immediate existential threats right now from sources other than environmental destruction, not to mention suffering and struggling due to a variety of human-made causes. Billions of other animals are intentionally killed every year. If you care about environmental destruction and extinction, it should be because you care about living beings and their lives. That includes those living now in addition to future generations. Also, the same systems that are destroying the environment are responsible for this suffering and death in the present, so by addressing individual aspects of the system – racism, the oppression of women, capitalism, imperialism, animal agriculture, inequality, authoritarianism, the erosion of democracy,… – you’re also often making a difference for the environment. Naturally, there’s nothing wrong with focusing your efforts on the environment, though, as long as you don’t scorn all other concerns.
To return to the question in the OP: Trump isn’t in prison because, over a certain threshold of wealth and/or power, both our major parties will refuse to prosecute crimes. Why aren’t Bush and Cheney facing war crimes trials? Because Obama refuses to push for that, even though what they did was transparently both immoral and illegal. And he does this because he know that to set a precedent that our Executive branch is liable for immoral or illegal acts would see him also on trial. (Libya was a war undertaken directly contrary to a vote of Congress, which explicitly refused to authorize it, and then there’s the drone bombing which is certainly immoral and probably could be shown to be illegal as well.)
As for voting Green instead of Democratic: Hillary Clinton’s team and Bernie Sanders’ team are currently setting up the convention platform. Clinton’s team has 8 votes, Sanders’ team has 6 votes. Support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership was inserted with an 8-to-6 vote. The inflation-indexed $15 minimum wage that Fight For $15 has been pushing for was refused by an 8-to-6 vote. Support for fracking was inserted by an 8-to-6 vote. It’s like the Supreme Court with Scalia. Clinton’s side is pushing for right-of-center stuff (including Barbara Lee, who I had some respect for, which I am rapidly losing) and not even making a pretense of doing any negotiations. It’s their way or the highway.
And, just like with votes in Congress, Clinton will be able to point to that and say “I never voted for support for the TPP, show me a vote”. The work was all done for her, in her name, but to see it requires a slightly more subtle view of events than a raw vote count, and so she can tell a lie and claim it wasn’t her fault.
(Just incidentally: the TPP permits companies to challenge and potentially have declared void national laws which restrict their profits. The Affordable Care Act not only explicitly limits the profits of insurance companies but also mandates employer contributions to health insurance. Can somebody tell me how support for the TPP is not de facto support for the destruction of the ACA which the Democrats are so proud of having passed?)
Clinton and her fellows do not stand for what I believe in, except in a tiny fraction of causes, none of which would cause the country to fall apart. The Greens mostly stand for what I believe in, except in a tiny fraction of causes, none of which would cause the country to fall apart. The Greens are the obvious choice to anyone who is left of center who is genuinely paying attention to what’s going on rather than being distracted by “Trump did something stupid again” non-news stories; sadly most Americans are not.
And, finally: in the UK, the Baby Boomers made what was obviously the wrong choice. People who went along with that choice despite not really agreeing with it are now standing around saying “whoa, this sucks, I didn’t want this, I was deceived.” Hillary Clinton was the Baby Boomers’ choice, and
idiotsDemocratic tribalists like Nerd of Redhead are saying “she’s not your choice but go along with it anyway.” Sorry, I’ve seen spoilers for that story, not interested.Argument? I’m guessing that you’re inferring that I’m making some sort of libertarian “don’t vote” argument, or an anarchist “throw ’em all against the wall” argument, but I’m doing neither. I’m accurately describing my state of mind. And since my state of mind is a quandary, it can’t possibly constitute an argument for anything: it’s just a giant question mark superimposed in front of my face.
That’s true. Millions of humans are at existential risk in the immediate future. I’m not one for ranking evils, but the idea that the species itself will continue is, for me, somewhat comforting. Unfortunately, that comfort is a bit lacking at this time.
Agreed. And I do.
Agreed. And I don’t.
As a 40+ year professional scientist, here is a hint. Humans will go extinct. The question is when. Your logic doesn’t mean there is a cause other than evolution.
Gee, we have an EcoFreak. It is also struggling due to other causes. Everybody can have have their equivalent of THE RAPTURE, and this is yours.
Gee, many say she is Obama II, who does appear to be trying to do something, but is stymied by the inability to govern by fiat, and Congress, especially the House, is not going to approve anything since AGW is a hoax. Never mind 97% of the Climate Scientists are in agreement. A few asshole denialists give them coverage for no action.
Yet that is what you appear to be doing.
And it can’t be done by a President alone, as the President has limited powers. Without the authority from Congress to make decisions, any proclamation will be negated by the Courts (as a recent immigration decision shows).
Quit thinking the President has anything other than a (in the words of Teddy Roosevelt) a “bully pulpit”.
Exactly! He’s paying it forward.
Yep.
Thanks! I assumed we’d somehow survive the heat death of the universe, so thanks for setting me straight there.
“Evolution” is a pretty broad term. I’d say that it covers every conceivable cause of human extinction, from speciation events to global thermonuclear war.
The quote to which this is the reply was not written by me. You might want to be more careful with your quoting.
He has acted on behalf of corporate interests at the expense of the environment, as Hillary will.
This, also, was a reply to someone other than me.
I fully realize that the President is one cog in a machine that exists to protect corporate interests. Pace Howard Zinn, the US was designed for that purpose from the get-go.
I’ve heard a number of people say this, but I think it’s dangerously overstated. I’m writing a series of posts about this for my blog, but to summarize here: Trump is much like Hitler (and I don’t say that lightly) in that he’s an opportunistic authoritarian. He’s an unprincipled narcissist, which can make him seem more incoherent and unpredictable than he actually is. He’ll pander, to be sure, and change his positions to suit an audience, but there is an authoritarian core. He’s all about (personal, national, racial, gender, business) domination and a rejection of equality, rather than global cooperation for a common good. He’s about respect for existing powers and contempt for those perceived as weak or “losers.” (This also applies to compassion, tolerance, and laws restraining violence, which are seen as evidence of weakness and stupidity.) He sees threats and hostile competitors everywhere. He likely sees himself as a prophet of US power, and has absorbed a strain of US Protestantism that sees the country not just as exceptional and but as boundlessly materially blessed. He’s advocated violent and destructive actions and policies in more areas than I can list here – from mass deportation to fracking to torture to cruelly demeaning his opponents to gratuitously destroying the Bonwit Teller art to banning Muslims from the country to assaulting protesters and “ruining their lives” to threatening journalists to his cavalier attitude toward nuclear weapons (people in his circle have openly called for assassinating public figures). He has a pronounced sadistic streak. He’s vindictive. He’s taken with paranoid conspiracy theories. He has no intrinsic regard for the truth, and will lie consistently and deny reality if he believes it serves his purpose.
This is the character structure with which he’d enter the presidency (again – can’t believe my fingers are typing those words). Do I think he’d stick with precisely the actions he’s suggested during the campaign, or be able to put them into action? In general, no (but it’s not impossible). But I think this character structure is itself unimaginably dangerous. It bodes worse for the natural world and for environmental activism than any particular policy he’s proposed (which do, I should note, fit quite well with his character). The prospect that he could become president is terrifying.
It’s looking more and more like Trump has avoided paying any taxes, pretty much ever.
I expect the Clinton campaign to dole that information out in strategic gobbets, but they’ll wait until the official noms are all set in stone and it’s too late for the republicans to use such disclosures as an excuse to switch horses in mid-stream.
Cynical be you. And wrong. Until you can consider you wrong, you won’t be right.
When you said “Yeah, the high likelihood that we could be among the last generations of our species is quite bothersome to me. The fact that the political process is rigged to make this species-suicide inescapable is even more bothersome. And it does leave me a bit short of fucks to give for questions less pressing than the extinction of the species,” it seemed you were arguing that this was the pressing issue and no other concerns were worth your time or energy.
Nerd:
?
Ever since my college days, some overly ecologically concerned people say everything, including humans, will die tomorrow due to human intervention. Life is remarkably adaptable. What is the difference between The Rapture, and Ecological Armageddon? Same logic is at work.
Species will adapt. I personally don’t see humans going extinct due to AGW, but other species will, and coral is leading the way.
You were quoting from my post. I was arguing in the sentence you quoted against focusing on the environment to the exclusion of other matters. I don’t share your ecological sanguinity, but I have to assume you meant to use another quote there.
Nerd quoting someone and then blasting them for the exact opposite of what was plainly written is just normal form for Nerd.
I rather suspect that a Trump presidency with a big GOP win would fix the global warming issue once and for all.
How long can it possibly be before Trump and his GOP enablers embroil us in a world war? We know that animals thrive in nuclear wastelands — they suffer less from the radiation than they do from human activity — so this would be a huge boon to the ecosystem. Whereas Clinton is more likely to keep the ship more or less steady, keeping industrial activity at a far higher level worldwide, to the vast detriment of most non-human-dependent flora and fauna.
Nerd @81:
Gee, we have an EcoWhistlerPastTheGraveyard. Since I were a lad, some
underly ecologically concerned peoplefucking idiots have been saying “don’t worry, we’ll figure it out and fix it, or adapt”. Where “adapt” will probably mean dislocation and suffering for millions, and continuing extinctions of other species. As long as it’s not you, eh? Keep whistling.clearly.
http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/american-dispatch/57341-mega-christian-leaders-having-private-meeting-with-donald-trump
…but the suffering of billions is cool with you?
I wish you would think before you say shit sometimes.
The Vicar (via Freethoughtblogs) wrote:
CUSFTA and NAFTA had similar provisions, but you don’t hear about that because whenever the courts find against the U.S. government, they tend to just ignore the ruling. The point of those rules are not to allow U.S. domestic laws to be challenged, but to ensure that U.S. companies have free reign to challenge other countries’ domestic laws.
I wonder if anyone has cataloged all the times Trump projects his own faults onto others. He loves calling Sec’y Clinton “crooked”, yet his crookedness is off the charts. He says sleepy, spacy Ben Carson’s temper is pathological (even comparing it to the pathology of a child molester), yet his own temper tantrums are sometimes obscene (schlong, anyone?) and often public (ibid). I don’t know much about psychology. Everyone knows Trump’s a real narcissist. Does anyone know what it means when someone projects his own faults so much?
in the case of the TPP, a pecking order has been established wrt this.
We, New Zealand, would be on the bottom, and not just the US, but South Korea even has the ability to abrogate local law in favor of resolution arising from the language in the TPP.
With Brexit, there is even more pressure on Oz and Hobbitton to sign on to the TPP (as the UK was our “back door” into the EU market), but just like Mexico and NAFTA… it won’t end well for us if we sign on to this, if history is any judge.
I hope people here are well aware of how NAFTA has literally trashed Mexico. If you aren’t, google is your friend.
NAFTA hasn’t really helped anyone, not even the US. The only metric that I can find that looks like a positive is an increase in trade, which is not in and of itself a good thing. So I’m puzzled as to why everyone is so eager to make more NAFTA-like treaties. I’m seen claims that the Brexit has, at least, complicated the TTIP negotiations, though what it’s done to TTP I don’t know. Trump would likely end or attempt to end TTP on general isolationist grounds, but it would be a bit like the UKIPers ending TTIP: Just not worth it, given the damage to the economy, the environment, and human rights that the rest of the package would cause.
AGW is unlikely to cause human extinction. Massive loss of human life, yes. Possible loss of parts of the world to human habitation, yes. For example, most or all of Bangladesh looks like it may simply go under water. Extinction, I doubt. But why isn’t that enough? Is it no big deal if only 50% of humanity dies because it’s not extinction? Actually, I’ve seen a claim put forward that Syria’s problems are on some level related to AGW: A crop failure due to drought led to the initial uprising and it spiraled out of control from there. That, of course, led to some extent to the refugee crisis and the inevitable backlash in Europe including the rise of nationalist, right wing parties who are likely to only make AGW worse.
I have no confidence at all in Stein to reverse this trend, however. Even assuming she could win and be effective, the only related policy I know of hers is opposition to the GMOs, which, while not likely to reverse global warming can be useful in decreasing its effects on humans and potentially other animal species by allowing crops to grow under the changed climate conditions. I suppose it might be possible to increase efficiency in carbon trapping as well. I’m going to guess that she’d support banning fracking, which would be a good idea, but is it practical? Decrease oil production without providing an alternative in the rich world and all you’re going to get is a bunch of angry voters who will dump you out at the next opportunity.
A masked Avenger, assuming that neither would do anything towards alleviating the effects of global warming, (though while far from perfect and the complete opposite of Trumplethinskin, Hilary does accept it as a real problem and does have some plans on the subject) then I would look at the other policies they propose or support to maximise the quality of life for all in the meantime. I mean if you are all doomed anyway, isn’t it better to do so with a half decent life for all as long as it lasts, rather than speed up the misery, as is likely having Trumplethinskin and the Rethuglcans in charge.
*TPP. TTP was a freudian slip.
Here is a predatory mollusc I find more cuddly than The Donald:
“Playing with a Portuguese Man o’ War.” http://freethoughtblogs.com/affinity/2016/06/30/playing-with-a-portuguese-man-o-war/
OK, it does not count as a mollusc but it has tentacles. And a cool set of colors.
The draft of the Democratic Policy Platform has been released.
A Masked Avenger,
Please spell out the process by which you think AGW is likely to lead to human extinction. There seems to be a consensus among climate scientists that a runaway greenhouse effect like that thought to have occurred on Venus is not possible. Even all-out nuclear war seems unlikely to kill everyone – but if it could, we could have that without AGW, and Trump appears considerably more likely to bring it about than Clinton.