Tag: 2016 Election

Tonight, starting at 6 PM EDT on CNN and round two at 8 PM EDT on the same cable channel, the GOP will present its second debate from the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. As before, the first debate will lead off with the lower ranking candidates in the polls. This time there are only four that didn’t make the cut for the main event, while eleven will now occupy the main stage. Former Hewlett Packard CEO, Carly Fiorina will join the boys club for this round.

This will mostly be an event to try to counter the bombastic rhetoric of the front runner, real estate mogul and performance artist Donald Trump. Mr. trumps unscripted screed has dominated the regular and cable news station, so much so that some high profile figures are calling them out on it. HBO’s “Real Time” host Bill Maher lambasted MSNBC’s  Chris Matthews on Matthews’ own show, “Hardball” for what Maher called non-stop coverage of Trump’s “rambling brainfarts”

When Matthews asked for his thoughts about how Trump could be pulling in the crowds and the poll numbers that he does, Maher’s said the reason was that when it comes to how much live coverage the media gives the plutocrat, MSNBC needs only to look in a mirror.

“Why cover it, like he’s Churchill giving an important speech? Have you listened to these speeches?” Maher asked. “Trump is always saying other countries are laughing at us. This is why they’re laughing at us, because of what he says and how we are taking it seriously.”

Maher also brought up Trump’s attacks on his rivals for using teleprompters, saying that though people have been responding to his speeches, Maher described them as “brain fart, stream of conscious ramblings.”

Matthews responded that network news keeps Trump on in order to see how long he’ll last, to which, Maher supposed Trump could go on repeating the same points forever.

“He’s already repeating his material. He says this stuff in every speech,” Maher said. He finished the conversation by acknowledging also how, whether Trump is giving speeches or taking questions, he either disregards evidence contrary to his views, or promises “something terrific.”

So what happened last night? Yes, they did it again when during Chris Hayes’ show, they cut to complete coverage of Trump’s alleged foreign policy speech, which was mercifully shorter than usual and had nothing to do with foreign policy. CNN’s Anderson Cooper, apparently fed up with Trump’s babbling, cut away:

Trump was speaking in broad terms about doing good things for the military and veterans. Now, normally whenever Trump’s speaking on TV, cable news can’t resist it. But it appears this speech may have been a final straw of sorts, as Cooper just cut into the speech and very blatantly said they were told there will be specifics.

He informed viewers if Trump started giving specifics, they would cut back to his remarks. They did not.

And it didn’t even end there. At various different points throughout the evening, Cooper made a point of highlighting how Trump gave no specifics, which apparently people were led to believe would be in this particular speech.

What is even more pathetic is former Politico writer Maggie Halberman, now writing with a New York Times by-line, trying to convince her readers that Trump has become a more “disciplined” candidate. Really??? My guess would be that Ms. Halberman hasn’t seen or heard Trump’s last two speeches.

I really hate dwelling on The Donald but he is a useful tool in the sense that he is showing the GOP for what it truly is: a racist, egocentric, party of old white men who care only about catering to the 1% who support them. No offense to Dr. Ben Carson, who is a very close second in the polls. While he maybe an excellent neurosurgeon and a innovator in his field of medicine, he is out of touch with the realities of the vast majority of black Americans. It sad that instead of being remembered for his greatness in the OR, he’ll be remembered for his clueless presidential run.

We will be live blogging this event. I will be removing all sharp and hard objects from the room lest I be tempted to throw one at my TV. I will also have a pitcher of very dry martinis and, just for The Donald, a large bowl of home made salsa and tortilla chips.

By Le Gauchiste

The term “Neoliberal” is used a lot here at Daily Kos: 203 posts included the term during the first half of 2015 alone, a little more than one every day. Many of these posts stimulate lively discussion, especially regarding the alleged neoliberalism of various Democratic Party figures, most notably President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Quantity is not always a sign of quality, however, and many of these discussions suffer from a failure to define neoliberalism adequately or even at all, leading to understandable confusion and misplaced accusations that the term is meaningless. This post will try to avoid that pitfall by proposing a definition of neoliberalism that emphasizes its nature as an ideology, and will then apply that definition to one of Clinton’s most important recent speeches, in which she was widely reported to have returned to traditional liberalism.

Once again Dr. Jill Stein has announced that she will run for president as the Green Party candidate in 2016.

Dr. Stein, a Massachusetts medical physician, ran for president in 2012 and the two mainstream parties did everything in their power to silence her message, including arresting her and her running mate, Cheri Honkala, to prevent them from attending restricted debate between President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Governor Mitt Romney at Hofstra University. Despite that, according to her Wikipedia page.

She received 456,169 votes for 0.36% in the election, making her the most successful female presidential candidate in U.S. history. Stein received over 1% of the popular vote in three states: 1.3% in Maine, 1.1% in Oregon, and 1.0% in Alaska.

Dr. Stein also sat down with Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman to talk about her platform and her differences with the Democratic Party candidates.

When asked by interns with Scripts Howard about her differences with Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Dr. Stein tweeted:

Asked difference between @SenSanders, @DrJillStein says the 2 have many identical points, but "we'll be there in the general election." – QM

— SHFWire D.C. Interns (@SHFWireInterns) June 23, 2015

You can read her platform here.