How long before it's us?

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..and now, Trump gets nominated for the Nobel Peace prize...

[BallAquatics]

  I want to vote for the best possible person to lead our country..screw the parties..attack ads and all too....unfortunately this time around our choices are pretty slim....they each bring credibility doubts with them about having the tools to lead..... 

Amen to that.   

Dennis

[BillT]

PSA, you won't find this info elsewhere:

Here is a link to a pretty good little article on the positions of the various candidates (including now former candidates) on a variety of scientific issues: funding, NASA, Climate change, vaccines, and GMO crops.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/science-campaign-trail-where-presidential-candidates-stand?utm_campaign=email-news-latest&et_rid=33537079&et_cid=251897

Interestingly, there is a fair amount of diversity in the Republican statements on climate change.

[BallAquatics]

Dennis

[BallAquatics]

Dennis

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The two parties are so different from each other these days that it is as if they are from separate universes, or are addressing different species of creature. The fundamental issue to be decided this election is whether the American people intend to continue as people of reasoning, or whether to abandon it altogether and follow Trump or Cruz down the rabbit hole.

Hillary?s humility moment: A rabbi walks into a Town Hall and asks a question you?d never hear in the GOP debates

Watching the Democrats' town hall on CNN felt like entering an alternate election universe, where calm prevails

The only downside to being a Democrat in this election cycle?besides the looming, horrible fear that we could lose the White House, the only major segment of the American government that is currently controlled this party?is that while the primary process for the Republicans is a continued race to the bottom, the primary process for this party is a careful, shades-of-gray conversation about different versions of progressivism. It?s not a conversation with a lot of fireworks, although certainly both candidates? supporters have their own exciting hashtags. Instead, after tonight?s Democratic presidential candidates town hall on CNN, hosted by Anderson Cooper, one is left feeling a little listless and introspective, pondering the difference between campaigning and policymaking, integrity and the appearance of it, ?I am but dust and ashes? and ?the world was created for me.?

That last dichotomy was presented by a rabbi in the audience?Rabbi Jonathan Spira-Savett, of Temple Beth Abraham in Nashua, to be exact. Per CNN?s transcript:

    Rabbi Simcha Bunim taught that every person has to have two pockets, and in each pocket they have to carry a different note. And the note in one pocket says the universe was created for me. And in the other pocket the note says I am just dust and ashes.

    I want you to take a moment and think about what you would tell us about your two pockets. How do you cultivate the ego, the ego that we all know you must have?a person must have to be the leader of the free world?and also the humility to recognize that we know that you can?t be expected to be wise about all the things that the president has to be responsible for?



Spira-Savett?s question is one of balance, which is discussed more here, and it was directed specifically at Former Secretary Hillary Clinton?meaning that each candidate?s half of the town hall each contained a sprinkle of Jewish spirituality. It is a totally bizarre question to ask a presidential candidate. It?s difficult to imagine a question about the fundamental struggles of being a person directed at either Donald Trump or Senator Marco Rubio, while Megyn Kelly and Dr. Ben Carson looked on. But it was kind of a glorious one, too, and one that gets to the heart of why Democrats are Democrats. Being president is not just about winning, as Trump has repeatedly insisted it is. It?s about maintaining both your own humanity and the humanity of those you?re serving, and that is a wrenching tension that has grayed the hair of every president since Reagan.

The rabbi asked about finding a way between two apparent polar opposites, and that is a question that came up again and again last night. Moderate and progressive; big money and small donations. Likeability and electability and viability and longevity. Appearance and reality. [Senator Bernie Sanders chuckled when Cooper asked him about his Larry David impersonation. ?Are you doing your Larry David right now?? the moderator asked. ?I am Larry David,? Sanders retorted.] Sanders has a tendency to appear hectoring, while Clinton appears defensive; both were at their relative best, which included falling back on their own well-worn talking points from time to time. Clinton experienced some hiccups, because she?s under the delusion that she deserves the presidency. Sanders avoided questions about process, because his campaign rests on the enthusiasm for revolution, not the aftermath. Neither has the sheer charisma of Bill Clinton or the youthful enthusiasm of Barack Obama; both raise serious questions they haven?t quite yet answered.

But both are tolerable candidates. The town hall was transport to an alternate universe where these aren?t just our primary candidates, they?re our candidates, period; where we have the luxury of choosing between two sane and well-intentioned humans to be our next president. The Republican candidates barely came up at all, in either the questions or the responses. Instead Clinton and Sanders discussed their policies, each other, and when absolutely necessary, themselves?with more calm and honesty than either have delivered since this primary began. The town hall was about bringing together opposites and having a reasonable discussion about them, but outside, the storm that is going to be the general election is beginning to whip up to fever pitch, just like that blizzard that is apparently opening up over New Hampshire on Election Day.

Last night?s show was a little oasis of taking the measure of shades of gray, in an election where my choice, at least, is made mostly by other people. The dream of the town hall is a nice one, too, a bubble separate from the dust and ashes that make up most of American politics.

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/04/hillarys_humility_moment_a_rabbi_walks_into_a_town_hall_and_asks_a_question_youd_never_hear_in_the_gop_debates/

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Monica Lewinsky released the following statement on Hilary Clinton's run for President:
--
"I will not vote for Hilary Clinton. The last Clinton presidency left a bad taste in my mouth.
As we get closer to the 2016 election year, citizens must remember that they cannot even trust Hillary Clinton to create American jobs.
The last time she had a meaningful job, she outsourced it to me and I simply blew it."

[JR]

You would think that bad taste would be gone by now.

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You would think that bad taste would be gone by now.

LOL....I always wondered if she 'Tripp'd' when leaving the White House?

[BallAquatics]

Monica Lewinsky released the following statement on Hilary Clinton's run for President:
--
"I will not vote for Hilary Clinton. The last Clinton presidency left a bad taste in my mouth.
As we get closer to the 2016 election year, citizens must remember that they cannot even trust Hillary Clinton to create American jobs.
The last time she had a meaningful job, she outsourced it to me and I simply blew it."

Well we've come full-circle.....  another lap anyone?

Dennis

Dennis

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Bernie Sanders Doesn?t Know Diddly-Squat About Wall Street

But if he did, he might like it.
by

    William D. Cohan

?I do not know any progressive who has a super-PAC and takes $15 million from Wall Street," the avuncular socialist and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders told Anderson Cooper at Wednesday evening?s Democratic town-hall event. ?That?s just not progressive.?

Indeed, Senator Sanders has gotten a lot of mileage by bashing Wall Street ?billionaires.? His call for a ?political revolution? usually includes a reference or two to how Wall Street is full of greedy bankers who ?drove this economy to its knees? in 2008 and should return the favor of being bailed out by transferring some of their wealth to the struggling American middle class.

These are great applause lines, and it?s easy to see why. Since the full extent of the financial crisis began unfolding eight years ago, the general public has come to view bankers as a group of reprobates who, for large fees, packaged up shoddy home mortgages as securities and sold them off around the world as good investments?even when, in many cases, they knew full well that they were not. The fact that the Department of Justice let the wrongdoers off scot-free has only exacerbated this ire.

Sanders is right that Wall Street still needs reform. The Dodd-Frank regulations fail to measure up; Wall Street lobbyists and $1000-an-hour attorneys work away each day to gut the meager reforms signed into law by President Barack Obama in July 2010. It is also unconscionable that Wall Street?s compensation system continues to reward bankers, traders, and executives to take big risks with other people?s money in hopes of getting big year-end bonuses. Thanks to this system, which has been prevalent since the 1970s, when Wall Street transformed itself from a bunch of undercapitalized private partnerships (where those partners had serious capital at risk every day) to a group of behemoth public companies (where the risk is borne by creditors and shareholders while the rewards go to the employees), Wall Street has become ground zero for one financial crisis after another.

But Sanders never talks about the compensation system on Wall Street. In fact, he rarely mentions anything concrete at all. Instead, he dwells on bizarre and nebulous notions such as imposing ?a tax on Wall Street speculation,? as he did during his speech on Monday night. This tax, Sanders noted, will generate ?hundreds of billions? of dollars in annual revenue and help pay for his proposed program to make tuition free at public colleges and universities.

ut what exactly is Sanders proposing and does it make any sense? The answer to the first question is: it is difficult to tell. The candidate?s website does not really flesh out the idea, other than to say that the tax ?will reduce risky and unproductive high-speed trading and other forms of Wall Street speculation.? If one goes back to a bill that Sanders introduced in the Senate last May, there is slightly more meat on these bones; still, the proposed legislation seems to have very little to do with actually taxing ?Wall Street speculation? and more to do with taxing every trading transaction?the buying and selling of stocks and bonds and derivatives?that Wall Street and hedge funds engage in. This, of course, makes no sense whatsoever?why tax the very behavior the system depends upon??and it is probably why Sanders?s legislation went nowhere and why he doesn?t talk about it anymore.

Even if Sanders eventually elaborates on his plan more fully, does taxing Wall Street speculation even make any sense? That one is simple: nope, and it actually reveals the candidate?s ignorance about our banking system. Simply put, Wall Street?s purpose is to re-allocate capital from people who have it (savers) to those who want it (borrowers) and then use it to grow businesses that employ billions of people around the globe and help give them a modicum of wealth that they did not have before. One man?s speculation, in other words, is another man?s risk-taking. Without people willing to take those risks, and having the chance to reap their reward, there wouldn?t be an Apple, a Google, a Facebook, or countless other large corporations. The billions of people around the world who are employed by thriving companies would lose their jobs.

On a more prosaic level, few of the local businesses associated with Sanders?s home turf, Vermont, would ever exist without Wall street, either. After all, who might prop up the capital for those inns or ski shops or cheese stores or small manufacturers or maple-syrup producers? Indeed, some 80 percent of American industry is comprised of small businesses, nearly all of which are financed by debt.

Other tenets of Sanders?s poorly articulated economic agenda include breaking up the ?Too Big to Fail? banks and reinstituting some form of the Glass-Steagall Act, which in the 1930s forced investment banking to be separated from commercial banking and was repealed in 1999. These ideas are both nonsensical and archaic and show, again, that Sanders and his advisers have little if any understanding of how Wall Street works and?like it or not?how important its proper functioning is to our way of life.

If Sanders was serious about reform, a good place to start would be through overhauling the compensation system so that risk-taking remains encouraged but the traders, bankers, and executives who take those risks are also held accountable for them, financially and legally, when they go wrong. If you really want to change people?s behavior, you have to change what you reward them to do. And if we could do that, I bet even Bernie Sanders would learn to appreciate Wall Street, too.

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/02/bernie-sanders-doesnt-understand-wall-street

..thanks to the OP....

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George Carlin said, ?The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it.?)

[BallAquatics]

He also said that we are so obsessed with germs, that they swab a convicts arm with alcohol before administering a lethal injection.

A true philosopher, I never tire of listening to him on YouTube.

Dennis