US General Election Thread IV: The Beginning of the End

[Nordengrund]

Yeah, I'd probably be a more socially conservative Democrat. I've considered the Blue Dog Coalition, but they seem more like DINOs. I leaned Republican until very recently as I have been alienated by the party's nomination of Trump and I think there is a serious lack of fiscal moderates in the party.

I consider myself a radical centrist, but I still have some conservative sympathies seeing as I support Evan McMullin.

How did you feel about some of the other Republicans running for the nomination because I get the feeling you wouldn't be a fan of Sanders or O'Malley?

I actually didn't mind Sanders. We may not have much in common with ideology, but he has better character than Trump and Hillary and I'd trust him more than them. Idk much about O'Malley.

I supported Carson in the primaries, but I also liked Kasich and Jeb. I didn't have much of an opinion on the other candidates. I didn't trust Cruz, though.

[New West Guiana]

I just went through trumps page assuming his followers were PO'd that he finally recognized the black guy was born in the US. I was disappointed, but not so shocked to see the vast majority praising trump for "his courage" to stand up to the liberal media and the Clintons and that it was Obama's fault in the first place because he wouldn't prove anything.

I'm starting to question which personality cult is worse the cult of Sanders or trump?

[Alien Space Bats]

So does anyone else think that should Trump win he'll abandon DC and run the nation out of Trump tower? I'm sure he'll charge the government a reasonable rent for office space. Probably a million a day.

OR bring Trump Towers to Washington, and plant it on top of the White House.

The White Trump House

... in Trumpington, D.D.

[Valaran]

I'm starting to question which personality cult is worse the cult of Sanders or trump?

Trump's cult, easily. Its no contest.

[Jerzylvania]

Have I got this right: Trump now says that Obama was born in the US, and that Hillary started the whole birther thing?

Yes. And he's in for a YUUUUUUUUGE media storm. Dark clouds appearing in his ass-trological chart.

[Galloism]

Obama tearfully accepts Donald Trump's admission of citizenship.

[Alien Space Bats]

The maternity leave idea is better than any prominent Republican has ever come out for before now, the child-care tax break isn't so good. But let's just be clear that neither are revenue neutral. It's a spending and tax cut policy with nothing proposed to fund it.

My big concern with the Trump child care plan is the possibility that it will come at the expense of the Child and Dependent Care Credit, which currently covers BOTH child care/day care AND elder care and/or care for a disabled person in the home. Should that happen, families with elderly parents or disabled persons who need care living in their homes will find it even harder to hire someone to come in and provide respite care or cover for work by an able family member.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm starting to question which personality cult is worse the cult of Sanders or trump?

Trump's cult, easily. Its no contest.

Sanders supporters, by and large, aren't white supremacists/neo-Nazis/fascists.

[Alien Space Bats]

Problem being I'm sure the media would just swallow an answer of Yes to all three without making the incredibly obvious objection of math not working that way.

Math is like global warming: Belief in it is purely optional.

[Khadgar]

Problem being I'm sure the media would just swallow an answer of Yes to all three without making the incredibly obvious objection of math not working that way.

Math is like global warming: Belief in it is purely optional.

Newt was kind enough to inform us that objective truth doesn't matter as much as feelings.

[Gauthier]

Math is like global warming: Belief in it is purely optional.

Newt was kind enough to inform us that objective truth doesn't matter as much as feelings.

And that guy with the punchable face said people are tired of listening to experts.

[Khadgar]

Newt was kind enough to inform us that objective truth doesn't matter as much as feelings.

And that guy with the punchable face said people are tired of listening to experts.

You know so far the only thing the 2016 race has really done is make me miss Mitt Romney. He had policies and principals even though I disagreed with him he was at least sane. He was also a lying bastard but compared to Donald he's honest as the day is long.

Who was it said the campaign wouldn't be run by fact checkers? I don't remember if it was a Romney talking head or Palin.

[Galloism]

Trump's son admits that if his dad released his tax returns, the public would turn into auditors.

So Trump is afraid of us finding discrepancies in his taxes. Is this the candidate you want?

[Gauthier]

And that guy with the punchable face said people are tired of listening to experts.

You know so far the only thing the 2016 race has really done is make me miss Mitt Romney. He had policies and principals even though I disagreed with him he was at least sane. He was also a lying bastard but compared to Donald he's honest as the day is long.

Who was it said the campaign wouldn't be run by fact checkers? I don't remember if it was a Romney talking head or Palin.

Any day now I expect Trump will pledge to bring back the dodo from extinction.

[Gauthier]

Trump's son admits that if his dad released his tax returns, the public would turn into auditors.

So Trump is afraid of us finding discrepancies in his taxes. Is this the candidate you want?

He doesn't want them to see the heavy investment in S&M gear Putin spent on him.

[New West Guiana]

And that one picture sums up our feelings of trump vs Obama/Hillary. trumps face alone could be used as a Halloween costume, it does scare me a bit, looks forced and not meaningful.

Kids know who has a kind heart vs those who don't.




That one picture of trump could be used in a add.

[Valaran]

Trump's cult, easily. Its no contest.

Sanders supporters, by and large, aren't white supremacists/neo-Nazis/fascists.

Its a small difference

[Gauthier]

And that one picture sums up our feelings of trump vs Obama/Hillary. trumps face alone could be used as a Halloween costume, it does scare me a bit, looks forced and not meaningful.

Kids know who has a kind heart vs those who don't.

(Image)
(Image)

That one picture of trump could be used in a add.

That girl's face says "He *knows* I'm too young to be a Miss America contestant, right?"

[New West Guiana]

Here's a few more pics of trump holding babies:

Put each of those in a add and compare them with Hillary, just no words only the pictures themselves, ending the words "Our Children even know there's a difference"

[Ashmoria]

I wonder how much the trump campaign had to pay the trump group in order to host the candidates 2 minute speech? do they pay extra for the tour-of-the-hotel thing afterwards?

[Geilinor]

I wonder how much the trump campaign had to pay the trump group in order to host the candidates 2 minute speech? do they pay extra for the tour-of-the-hotel thing afterwards?

It's just like the Trump Foundation. He's spending other people's donations to benefit himself. He's fooling his supporters for profit.

[Ashmoria]

I wonder how much the trump campaign had to pay the trump group in order to host the candidates 2 minute speech? do they pay extra for the tour-of-the-hotel thing afterwards?

It's just like the Trump Foundation. He's spending other people's donations to benefit himself. He's fooling his supporters for profit.

the trump foundation bought an ad in the program for the DC preservation league gala.

the ad was for the new DC hotel.

[Gauthier]

I wonder how much the trump campaign had to pay the trump group in order to host the candidates 2 minute speech? do they pay extra for the tour-of-the-hotel thing afterwards?

It's just like the Trump Foundation. He's spending other people's donations to benefit himself. He's fooling his supporters for profit.

And yet his groupies have faith that somehow he won't cheat them.

[Alien Space Bats]

Speaking of objective truth...

I'm extraordinarily pissed at the coverage of Ford's announcement that they will be completing their long-standing move to relocate their small car manufacturing operations to Mexico. The national press coverage epitomizes everything that's wrong with how these jokers cover news in America: By flying overhead at 50,000 feet, looking down, and reporting the first thing they see with little or no analysis — and especially so if the headline so produced is sensational.

Here's the Detroit Free Press article covering the announcement. Unlike the national media, the Freep actually understands the automotive industry and can put this story in its proper context, as I will in my own words in the paragraphs to follow.

Ford has been slowly moving its small car manufacturing operations to Mexico; so too has everybody else. The reasons for this are simple and straightforward:

• Most of Ford's small car sales are made overseas; a large number of them are made in Mexico itself. Building the vehicles in Mexico reduces transportation cost by placing the production facilities closer to the consumers who will ultimately buy the products. In contrast, small car sales have always been a small segment within the overall American market, as consumers in the US prefer mid- and full-size cars, sporty cars, light trucks, and SUVs over smaller vehicles like Ford's Fiesta and Focus lines.
  
  
• Most manufacturers have found out the hard way that they can't make money building small cars in America; the margins on the sale of such "entry level" models are too small to allow such companies to pay their workers and managers at going US wage rates, service their debt, and still return a profit to their shareholders.
  
  
• In contrast, larger models offer large enough margins to permit not only profitable production and sales, but to allow for wage growth on the part of workers. This is key: A business that can't make a profit on its products can't afford to continue to pay its workers what they're worth, even when those workers operate at the highest levels of productivity (as American auto workers routinely do).
  
  
• The plants where small cars are currently made will not be shutting down, nor will the workers employed there be losing their jobs. Instead, Ford will be reassigning these plants and workers to light truck (Ford Ranger) and sport-utility vehicle (Ford Bronco) production, and well as additional full-size car (Lincoln Continental) production. As all of these products are sold at much more generous margins, this places Ford in a better position to not only continue to deliver profits from its shareholders, but also to remain competitive in wages and salaries for blue- and white-collar workers as well.

In summary, then, this is actually as much a good move for Ford WORKERS as it is for Ford SHAREHOLDERS. There's no further room for wage growth in the small car manufacturing market without the kinds of price increases that would damage sales worldwide; in contrast, there's still quite a lot of room for reasonable, productivity-driven wage growth in the light truck, full-size, and SUV markets, so these are the cars that Ford workers at places like the company's Flat Rock Assembly Plant, where the company is currently making those small cars that will eventually be manufactured down in Mexico instead.

Unfortunately, this is not how the story was reported out; the typical news scroller read: "FORD TO MOVE SMALL CAR PRODUCTION TO MEXICO WITHIN THE NEXT TWO TO THREE YEARS", which prompted a firestorm of angry attacks and even efforts to organize a boycott against Ford by Trump supporters. Donald Trump, ignorant fool that he is, went further and implied that Ford (which employs and will continue to employ 85,000 auto workers in the US [as opposed to 8,800 in Mexico]) was going to end ALL domestic production and lay off ALL of its American workers:

"When they make their car and they think they're going to get away with this, and they fire all their employees in the United States and move to Mexico, when that car comes back across the border into our country, that now comes in free, we're going to charge them a 35% tax. You know what's going to happen, they're never going to leave. They'll never leave in a million years. And, if they want to leave, we're going to make a lot of money because they're going to have to pay the tax."

Ford, of course, shot back at The Donald, calling him out on his statements. But who's going to listen to them when the gleaming orange idiot is spouting out his usual tripe?

In essence, Ford's move amounts to an expansion of their Mexican operations through the transfer of model lines to Mexico, with their corresponding replacement here at home with other lines. But in this brave new world of anti-globalist "Americanism", apparently even American business expansion overseas is now treason. Who would have ever expected this from a "Republican"?

Yes, Comrades: Trump's America is Best America.

[Major-Tom]

http://www.270towin.com/maps/oB9BB

My predictions.