First off let me just say I pretty much nailed predicting the 2012 primaries and General.
And 2016 so far so good, as I made many predictions Before Iowa at the end of February which are still holding strong. (here on a netcee thread)
And then I had a March FB post which went into more accurately predictive detail.
Unfortunately I'm just a good prognosticator and fact checker, so don't expect a solutions-post from me.. yet..
Long story short Hillary is going to win. It might be closer than some pundits think. But I still don't give Trump a chance against her. It's a numbers game with demographics. It's a ground game with political machine. It's, frankly, a "where the electorate is" game, with the country being "lefter" than it has in some decades... a traditional Republican would be creamed in a general, even with Hillary's baggage. Trump is literally their best shot of winning, due to his broader appeal and wildcard antics. But. Hillary will be the next pres.
Moving right along........
I was thinking about going through diligently, and t@gging specific people and responding to quotes, but if you don't mind I'm just gonna start jumping around and bulletpointing.
-Socialism is not Communism, and democratic socialism is not pure socialism.
Are your parents on Medicare? Pretty nice. Socialism.
-We must ask ourselves why Canada, Australia, and Western Europe can provide health care to everyone and do it far cheaper.. Sure, maybe there's some better specialists in the states, and some higher level medical shit for rare diseases and disabilities. But let's take a look in the mirror here people.
-Sander's couldn't get 2% of what he wants done through a Republican Congress. Agreed.
Now, Please tell me why it would be ANY different for Hillary, even if her proposals are more modest or watered down.
It wouldn't be different. She is their sworn enemy. Being white and being born here (joke) would not stop the obstruction.
And if something did get through, she'd be signing some poison-pill goodies for the Rightes along with whatever goods she wanted.
-The housing bubble collapse and global financial meltdowns had numerous factors.
Glass-Steagal as @
Diode referred to can be considered the linchpin moment, because it allowed Commercial Banking to be mixed with Investment banking.
Then we have rampant speculation, over-leveraging, phony credit ratings, shitty bundled loans (mortgage backed securities, credit default swaps, abuse of derivatives and other complex instruments)... let's see, yes Fannie&Freddie (both parties fkd up), NINJA loans, poor oversight and lack of enforcement on all of the above.
There's a lot more. Long story short Diode is not wrong about Glass-Steagal being a big deal, whatever you may think about him personally.
-@uh-oh your paragraph about union jobs and cleaner energies was filled with so many inaccuracies, I almost couldn't get to the end of it. I think boof tried his hand at dissecting it... I would have done it differently, but just know that it's quite off base.
-@Batty &others
This complete lack of trust or outright dismissal of data, charts, and statistics is a little concerning to me..
Is everything perfect and reliable? No. But should we dismiss every study& stat that doesn't align with our views? No.
Is black unemployment (especially youth), substantially greater than the overall unemployment rate. YES
Could 40 new black guys at your orientation be due to the fact that the vast majority of the unemployed people in the area were black? until they got hired there? YES
And this is coming from someone who opposes Affirmative Action and ideally I think we should be colorblind... But, I'm not going to ignore facts.
-K, back to the election for a minute.
The silver lining in this circus is: now people know how truly, truly, fucked up this 2 party stranglehold is. In general.
Specifically with respect to the Primary system it's a rigged game. Trump's got that right. I live in New York; we have a fucked voting system.
And alongside all of this, Republican state legislatures have been trying to make voting harder. This is undeniable and, frankly, disgusting.
People who were uninformed probably had no idea the Primary system was this dumb. And people like me.. who know a lil' bit.. still, I didn't know HOW bad it was until this cycle.
-----
-Our country needs to do away with superdelegates, probably regular delegates too, and yes toss the Electoral College out the window while we're at it.
-Somehow the 2 party stranglehold must be at least marginally disrupted.. Other parties/ candidates can't even get on 50 ballots. Even if they have $$ (a requirement), there are so many hoops to jump through it's ridiculous.
-@veritas lol keep the Robber Barons happy.
How about this... come to our state... State X... Zero taxes of any kind for, let's say... 10 years... just for settling here (but don't worry you can still whine about taxes),
-Your subway sub prices are going up because Jenny got a raise from 8.50 to 9.75 per hour. That greedy little wench. No other reason than these greedy workers.
- I lied, I do have a solution for something:
Employers: Hire an illegal?
PAY A SMALL FINE AND TOLD NEVER TO DO AGAIN
Hire many illegals?
PAY A LIL' BIGGER FINE AND TOLD NEVER TO DO AGAIN
Second or Third strike?
HEFTY FINE, PROSECUTION, POSSIBLE JAILTIME (FOR BREAKING THE LAW)
WOOPS, I JUST SOLVED ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.
Newsflash, neither party wants to fix immigration one damn bit (but moreso Republicans, they need it as a wedge issue).
2l0ng d1dnt r3@d