Charleston shooting

[the_std]

Agreed. I don't care how much one dislikes/disagrees with someone's political views, that someone is most likely a good person behind the scenes on a personal level (key words being most likely) and calling anyone a "cancer".

You missed the point. He was insulting Limbaugh and the rest by saying that comparing them to diseases was mean TO THE DISEASES. As in, the political people are worse than the disease.

[HYHYBT]

The Daily Show reports the news in addition to making fun of it. If anybody "lately" has been getting their news from Colbert, their news is out of date

I also get some from Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! They cover the important points of the week's news plus anything they can find that's funny, and present it as an entertaining quiz show. These are far from my only sources *now,* but when I'm sick of what's going on in the world and cut down the rest, the funny stuff keeps me at least minimally informed.

[Jester]

Card-carrying liberal here. (Registered independent, as I find both parties to be idiotic, and have since 1992, when I withdrew from the Democratic Party after only four years.) And unlike Gravekeeper, I am American. Thought I'd jump in with a few comments.

Regarding Republicans that I would find tolerable: few to none. That being said, there are some I find far more loathsome than the rest, so I guess by process of elimination, the ones that I don't find so loathsome would be tolerable, if nauseating. From the current GOP president candidate field, I find Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, and Donald Trump absolutely awful. I respect Trump's willingness to say what's on his mind, rather than checking poll numbers first, but I don't really like most of what comes out of his mouth once he says it, and don't respect anything else about him. The only other good thing I can say about him is that he is not Ted Cruz or Scott Walker. And while I'm not up on all the candidates, if that nutball Allen West is still running (I think he is), he's just too crazy. Of the non-candidates, I find Sam Brownback, Greg Abbott, Minnesota Michelle Bachmann, Mary Fallin, Rick Santorum, Rick Santorum, Tom Cotton, and Paul Ryan to be utterly despicable. Mike Huckabee used to seem vaguely reasonable to me, but lately he's a complete wacko. John McCain also used to be more reasonable, but the party's recent shifts have caused him to move further to the right than he used to be, though still more reasonable than the rest of the politicians I've mentioned above. And this is not a hometown bias--I loathed former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer with a passion, and was glad to see her not run again, as I could count on two fingers the things I felt she did right in her time in office. Marco Rubio is a blowhard, and Jeb Bush seems almost palatable when he was in Florida's Governor, but lately he, too, seems to be shifting right. There used to be a few Republicans I had some grudging respect for. Right now, I'm having trouble coming up with a single one. Barry Goldwater would be rolling over in his grave if he could see what's happened to the conservative movement he once triumphed.

On the Democratic side, you may be surprised to find out that I can't stand Hillary Clinton or Al Gore, for different reasons. Ditto Diane Feinstein. I had high hopes of Elizabeth Warren running, but in her absence, I am in the Bernie Sanders camp. As I said, card-carrying liberal here.

As for the talking heads you mentioned, while I am not a fan of his, I can understand why someone would be a fan of Rush Limbaugh, especially if their political views matched his. When he had a tv show, I would watch from time to time, as he was entertaining, even as I disagreed with most of what he said. Bill O'Reilly is a cancer on journalism, and a horrible person, and I wish him nothing but the worst. Every time I watch him, I feel my brain screaming in agony. He and his stooge Jesse Watters have personally brought the level of TV "news" down several pegs. I remember John Stossel from his reporting days, but am not familiar with him as a political commentator. And the Goldberg guy is completely foreign to me. Megyn Kelly occasionally seems lucid, until she remembers her political talking points and marching orders. But at least I don't feel like I need a shower after listening to her. Geraldo Rivera is another blowhard, though still infinitely better than O'Reilly. And Glenn Beck is a lunatic.....though still better than O'Reilly. Fuck O'Reilly. Between him and Sam Brownback, one of them is the worst person in the country.

By the way, both of you have been lobbing generalizations at each other. Stop it. Get back to debating the issues on their merits or your beliefs, not broadly generalizing about those that disagree with you. That's something I expect from the talking heads.

[Estil]

My wife is in fact a huge fan of Huckabee and naturally hopes he gets the nomination next year. As for Trump he can lead in all the polls he wants for now but to borrow a baseball analogy, no one cares who leads the league/division in April or May. We still have about a year to go before the D/R Conventions so it is way too early to tell if anyone among the R contenders is truly "for real".

[Andara Bledin]

My wife is in fact a huge fan of Huckabee and naturally hopes he gets the nomination next year. As for Trump he can lead in all the polls he wants for now but to borrow a baseball analogy, no one cares who leads the league/division in April or May. We still have about a year to go before the D/R Conventions so it is way too early to tell if anyone among the R contenders is truly "for real".

My husband once said of Huckabee, regarding his charisma, "Huckabee's a smarmy, likeable monster. I've used the phrase 'It's the suave way he mops the foam from his lips' " to refer to his popularity.

He's part of the GOP's whacko contingent and always has been. He's just really good at appearing sane and reasonable. But people who have followed his career find him as objectionable as some of the worst in the GOP camp.

addendum: Fuck all theocrats. They have no business in American politics.

[Greenday]

We still have about a year to go before the D/R Conventions so it is way too early to tell if anyone among the R contenders is truly "for real".

Would the Republicans even pick Trump if he was leading polls? If he's elected president, could the party trust him to have their priorities above his own? Cause no way Trump doesn't do what's best for him, party be damned.

[Nekojin]

Andara's hubby coming in, partly because I'm bored on a slow day at work. =^_^=

We could go back and forth for days - or years - about what features make a candidate "good" or "bad." The fact that Huckabee is an Evangelical Southern Baptist carries different weight depending on who you are and where you're from. But Mike Huckabee is every bit the sort of person you don't ever want to see in the White House. Note that this is actually his second attempt at running for the Presidency - he was involved in 2008 and was one of the front-running candidates at one point, and considered running in 2012 for a while. He's not new, so his problems are well-known to some of us.

• He does not believe in evolution, and has stated so quite a few times.
• He thinks the separation of Church and State is a bad thing, and wants to remove that separation.
• He has stated in the past that he wanted all AIDS-infected people locked up in a quarantine, and forcefully refused to recant that when it was brought up against him years later.
• Wrote and passed a law legalizing Covenant Marriages, which are a much stricter marriage with very limited grounds for divorce.
• Would pretty much gut the Federal Income Tax system if given a chance, and replace it with a goofy Sales Tax system. When asked about that on Leno, he said, "with a sales tax, prostitutes and drug dealers also pay taxes." I'll let you be the judge on the logic there...
• Pressured the Arkansas parole board to release a convicted rapist 25 years early. Once the convict was released, he did indeed go on to rape and murder at least one other person (suspected of another). When that happened, Huckabee attempted to hide his involvement in the parole.
• There's also the predictable Republican stance against gay marriage and abortion, but those are pretty much held by ALL of the R candidates at this point.

I could go on at length - seriously, there's lots of Huckabee loony-ness out there, if you go look for it. He's got a great social game, can make himself look approachable, friendly, and warm. That's and obvious necessity of his original job, that of a televangelist minister - you don't get the money coming in unless your television face is comfortable to those you're preaching to. But if you ignore that, and look at his stances on the various hot-topic social issues of the day, you'll probably want to back away slowly... if not run screaming in the other direction.

[HYHYBT]

Are there so many prostitutes in this country that it matters, financially speaking, whether they pay tax or not?

The hardest I've had to bite my tongue in months was last week when I overheard someone describe Huckabee as "that nice man who used to be in the paper."

[Andara Bledin]

It's worth noting that a lot of people engaged in criminal activities choose to still pay at least a portion of their taxes. Because while they can't get in trouble for what they put on their tax forms, they can and will get in trouble if they don't put anything or never file at all.

[Estil]

Would the Republicans even pick Trump if he was leading polls? If he's elected president, could the party trust him to have their priorities above his own? Cause no way Trump doesn't do what's best for him, party be damned.

I think Trump's main problem long term is that he has been for years, decades been the stereotypical capitalist and while tackling the record deficit/debt WILL be the top issue in 2016 by far...it's just not nearly enough. Trump just doesn't seem to have the *snaps fingers* what's the word I'm looking for, charisma? I mean it's no coincidence that Reagan and Kennedy had that in spades and are both among the top icons in their respective political parties.

[Hyena Dandy]

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Would the Republicans even pick Trump if he was leading polls?

If he wins the primary, they don't have a choice, I think.

[Jester]

If he's elected president, could the party trust him to have their priorities above his own? Cause no way Trump doesn't do what's best for him, party be damned.

As opposed to what the Republicans have been doing the last few years, which is putting their priorities above that of the country's. Look, if you don't like the President, fine. If you want to propose or enact your own legislation to oppose his, also fine. That's been the way the country's run since the beginning. Until, that is, the last few years, when the GOP has opposed and blocked or attempted to block virtually every bit of legislation from Obama and the Democrats...but have almost never had any alternative legislation of their own. Innumerable attempts to repeal Obamacare, but no alternative health care reform bills or proposals of their own. Scream about how horrible the Iran nuclear treaty is, but when asked what would be a better deal, have no answer better than that they would have gotten a better deal, without ever specificying what that better deal was. Go on and on about jobs, but never propose an actual jobs bill. And on, and on, and on, being obstructionists at every turn, but never having alternatives to the stuff they object.

Their actions over the last few years could well be interpreted as treason.

Are there so many prostitutes in this country that it matters, financially speaking, whether they pay tax or not?

The amount of money spent on prostitutes, illegal drugs, and other illegal activities in this country annual is considerable. Sales tax on such transactions would generate significant revenue, to be very honest. Not that I agree with Huckabee's plan. Just pointing out this relevant fact.

[Tama]

Plus you'd still be locking up/fining people doing it all illegally if you made it legal--I'm talking the $10 women on the corner doing it to support a habit, drug dealers who don't want to buy a license (a license to be a dealer sounds reasonable to me)...etc.

[Greenday]

As opposed to what the Republicans have been doing the last few years, which is putting their priorities above that of the country's.

What's the difference?

[Andara Bledin]

What's the difference?

Let's see, one is about personal priorities over party priorities and the other is about party priorities over societal priorities.

It's the difference between priorities between two groups vs priorities of a group vs the entire nation.

Just a wee bit of difference there... just a bit... >_>