The 2016 United States Presidential Election

Agreed. Despite what his ego says, it's not all about Trump. A Trump presidency would be a complete and utter disaster. Even though there are those who actually honestly want to vote for him, many of his supporters have their eye on the longer game. Control of Congress. The balance in the US Supreme Court (currently evenly divided between conservatives and "liberals", AKA "the bad guys and the good guys in that order"). For many who will vote "for" Trump, they are actually voting for continued Republican control of Congress and getting conservative justices appointed to the Supreme Court. It's like Scotland's choice in the world soccer championship: ABE ("anybody but England"). Only in this election year they're voting for ABC (if I have to explain "C", then you lose points). They (even the Radical Religious Right) are willing to still vote Republican if only for the sake of control of Congress and of the US Supreme Court. Actually, they had learned from the Romney fiasco. By performing their postmortem of the 2012 election, they figured out exactly which groups they had to reach and what they had to do to win in 2016.The problem is that their base disagreed and chose Trump. Not that that outcome was not also aided by the actions of the Republican Party. The Party knew what it needed to do, but still went with its instincts, with its urges. The lesson to be learned from Trump should be the need to vet a candidate and to not be afraid to veto the will of the people.

What makes you think that we will ever see 2020?I mean that in both senses. Will anyone still be alive in 2020? Will there be an election in 2020?

You just answered your own question.

Yes. Though I keep finding listening to and reading his speeches for content to be rather frustrating. -- I just cannot find much content. It appears as if he is shotgunning lots of different stuff out there and waiting to see what sticks to the wall (apologies for that mixed metaphor of buckshot and linguine).And that shotgun approach did work. During the campaign, I heard several of his supporters state that they didn't agree with him on several points, but they did agree with him on one or two things and it was that agreement that sold them. If you thought about it honestly and reflected upon it, I'm sure that you will find that you disagree with him on a number of points (eg, religion -- "Two Corinthians", grabbing you by the pu**y) but that agreement on a few other points were enough for you.Interestingly, on NPR I heard one woman explain why she supported him. She was appalled by all the things that he was saying, but when she was at a rally she had a chance to talk with him and air her concerns. He listened to her, smiled, and told her to not worry because he didn't mean any of it. He was just playing to the crowd. And that is what sold her, that he didn't mean any of what he was saying, that he wasn't going to do any of what he was saying he would do.And actually, that is one of the problems we're facing now: we have no idea what Trump will actually do. That is because we have no idea what he actually stands for nor what he actually plans to do nor whether he actually has a plan. He's a professional salesman. He'll promise you everything and anything and will sell you a pig in a poke ¹. He did it to the students at "Trump University." He has done it repeatedly to the contractors who have made the mistake of working for him. He has done it to the people who work for him. He even did it during the campaign to an adviser. Whatever reason do you have to assume that he won't do the exact same thing to you and to the entire nation?Another thing we observed was why the "evangelical vote" cleaved to Trump. He was most definitely not a Christian candidate, both for religious reasons and because he is so morally reprehensible, but they still voted for him because he would nominate the kind of Supreme Court justice that they wanted. So, politics was much more important to them than God and religion and, in effect, they were willing to make a deal with Satan for purely political reasons. I seem to recall that polls on that matter differentiated between nominal and active evangelicals ² and I think that Trump polled better with nominals, but I'm not quite sure.And then there are the "Republicans", none of whom wanted to support Trump, yet all of whom now want to use him for their own nefarious plans. They think that he will enable their plans, but that is not a certainty. This is actually one of the paths for the Downfall of Trump, that the Republican-controlled Congress would seek to impeach him once they realize that they cannot control him. Remember, nobody knows what Trump really intends to do, perhaps not even Trump himself.From the Days of Wooden Ships and Iron Men comes the term "loose cannon." Onboard ship, everything is lashed down. If anything is not lashed down, then it can cause great damage as it moves about on a pitching ship (on a submarine, it's called "angles and dangles"). Of course, the more massive that object is, the more damage it could cause. On the gun deck, every cannon is lashed down. If any cannon is not lashed down, then it becomes a "loose cannon" which does very great damage as it rolls about uncontrolled.For the GOP, for the Nation, for the World, Donald Trump is truly a loose cannon. No, that is indeed what Trump said. Or rather that women who get abortions should be punished.I saw that happen and I saw Trump immediately backpedal in the face of immediate outrage. But I don't think that was the entire story.Rather, I think that Trump was following this kind of logic:

1. Some action is against the law.
2. Somebody commits that action which is against the law.
3. Committing an action against the law has certain punishments assigned to such a violation.
4. If you do the crime, then you must do the time.

I personally think that that was the reasoning going through Trump's head when he advocated punishing the woman who got the abortion. Of course, politically and morally it was the wrong thing to say. Also it assumed that what she was doing was illegal, which is not the case. Basically, I would classify this one as his having blundered into an open pit.But he still did advocate it, misguided as he was. Conspiracy theorist. NPR did a story on him (Radio Conspiracy Theorist Claims Ear Of Trump, Pushes 'Pizzagate' Fictions). White Supremacists cite his site as having "opened their minds" to ideas that led them to their radically racist position.PizzaGate is of interest. Alex Jones repeats the report that a child sex ring was being run from its back room. That story is totally false, yet the owner of that business gets death threats. And on 06 Dec 2016 a gunman from North Carolina armed with a rifle did raid that establishment, pointed his weapon at an employee who fled, and subsequently discharged one or two rounds in that esablishment. And those lies continue to circulate. You personally were so outraged that a bakery open to the general public should need to accommodate the general public, including gay couples. Yet you feel absolutely nothing for a pizza shop where everybody has to FEAR FOR THEIR VERY LIVES because of the bullshit LIES that Alex Jones and ALL OF THE TRUMP-SPHERE spreads?

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Footnote 1:What's a poke? It plays into a story from my father's childhood.When he was about 8 years old, his family moved to Texas in the early 1920's. His mother gave him a grocery list and sent him to the store. When he entered the store, there was this really old woman (about 18) behind the counter and she asked him, "What's urine?" He was embarrassed by such a question, but answered her at which she angrily threw him out of the store. As he sat there crying on the store's front step, a man passing by stopped and asked him what was wrong. He then explained that she was asking him what he wanted.So my father entered the store again and again the "old woman" asked him, "What's your'n?", and he silently handed her his shopping list. When the transaction was completed, he started to gather all the goods in his arms to carry home and she asked him, "Do you want a poke?" "No!," he thought crying to himself. "I've been through enough today! I don't want to get poked too!" But she insisted, saying that whether he wants it or not, he needs a poke and she's going to give it to him. So she came from around the counter carrying a sack into which she placed his purchase and then gave him his groceries in that sack.A poke is a sack.

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Footnote 2:OK, so just what exactly do we call them? I am inclined to call them "Legion", since they are many ... though I suppose some of them will object.Decades ago, I encountered a cartoon by former extremist Christian Fundamentalist Ed Babinski (on amazon.com, see his book, Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists) in which he presented an evolutionary tree of Christianity, the punchline of which was a play on a standard dumb "argument" against evolution, that the resultant tree is so extensive and complex that it is impossible to imagine that it all could have stemmed from one single "Christ event". Similarly, atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell once pointed out that when a Catholic becomes a free-thinker then his only alternative is to become an atheist, whereas when a Protestant becomes a free-thinker then he simply founds a new church -- in Catholicism there's only the Universal Church or nothing (ie, heresy), whereas Protestantism was built on heresy and on breaking away and forming your own church, so Protestantism naturally splinters apart into infinite patterns.OK, so there's this seething group of "true Christians" who all believe the same things that are important to our discussion, but they disagree on minutiae which no outsider could possibly even be aware exist. So whatever label we apply to the entire group will offend most members of that group. I have personally encountered this when talking with one of them who protested very bitterly at being called a "conservative Christian" or an "evangelical".So just what do we call them? I still think that "Legion" would be a good choice.

Not familiar with that guy.As for discounting Catholics as being Christians, every time that comes up on Jesus Christ's radio show, he immediately becomes very irate (as reported by a friend -- BTW, I am in a position to explain His middle initial, H).But I think we should be able to come to agreement on this point: if you provide access to and education about contraceptives, then you will drastically reduce the number of abortions.So then, in a joint effort to reduce the number of abortions, are we in agreement?

Faith, why are you so adamant about a long-discredited claim? Why would it have mattered if he were born in another country (SUBJUNCTIVE ALERT!)? Do you think that a candidate having been born in another country would disqualify him/her from being President?

Precisely why I asked Faith to clarify her reasoning there.If not being born in the United States were to disqualify one as a naturally born citizen, then what about Goldwater (born in the Territory of Arizona), McCain (born in the Panama Canal Zone), and Ted Cruz (born in Canada for eh's sake!)?Now, somebody please refresh my memory, but didn't Faith use to support Ted Cruz? So she considers Obama to have been an illegal President but would support Ted Cruz who has so more going against him?Let's compare the two with a point system: 1 point for each parent who's an American citizen and one point for having been born in one of these United States, for a possible total of three points.Obama -- father (foreign = 0 points), mother (US citizen = 1 point), born in Hawaii (in the USA = 1 point). Total points = 2Cruz -- father (foreign = 0 points), mother (US citizen = 1 point), born in Canada (not in the USA = 0 points). Total points = 1So Obama wins over Cruz 2 to 1. Using Faith's reasoning, a President Cruz would have been even more illegal than she considers Obama to be.And if it were to have turned out that Obama was not actually born in the USA, then by Faith's reasoning Cruz, whom I'm sure she supported, would have been just as illegal as she considers Obama to be.But both Faith and her disinformation sources are wrong in thinking that not being born in the USA would invalidate having been born of an American citizen.

Yes, that is quite correct. A few of the states have laws that do require them to vote as directed, but they could still vote differently. I think such a "faithless elector" from those states would just have to pay a fine of about $1000 to $5000, though I would think that they would never be chosen to serve as an elector again.The reason for having the Electoral College was that the Founding Fathers did not trust to people to make the right decision. They wanted to guard against a dishonest demagogue from deceiving the people into voting for him or from someone who is unqualified (including in character) to serve. It was believed that this body of responsible and wise men would protect our nation from such a charlatan.We are most certainly that situation that the Electoral College was intended to protect us from. So on the second Wednesday of December, we shall see whether they will actually serve their intended purpose. They either vote for somebody or they abstain from voting. A vote that is not for Trump does not automatically count as a vote for Clinton, and most certainly an abstaining vote is for nobody.But the Electoral College does not operate by a simple majority vote. The winning candidate must be chosen by the majority of all the electors. There are 538 electors. Half of that is 269. If both candidates get 269 votes, then they are tied and it has to go to Congress. That means that in order to win a candidate has to receive at the very least 270 votes.Right now, the count is at 306 for Trump and 232 for Clinton. In order to win, Clinton would need to pick up 38 votes while Trump loses at least 37. That would require at least 38 "faithless electors". "Faithless electors" have happened in past elections, but, as I understand, no where near in such numbers as we would need.There are electors chosen for Trump who refuse to vote for Trump. However, I don't know that any of them will switch to Clinton -- in fact I very much doubt it. The most likely result will be that Trump's ego will be wounded and he will unleash yet another petulant tweet-storm.The only real effect that these "faithless electors" could have would be if at least 37 Trump electors choose to not vote for him. That would drop him below the 270 votes that he needs. That would result in the Electoral College being unable to choose the President.If the Electoral College cannot choose the President, then the House of Representatives must vote. Given the Republican majority in the House, the result of that vote should be a foregone conclusion. But Trump has been doing a lot to alienate the GOP and Republican congressmen, so we may be in for a surprise or two there.As a description I've heard: It's like a train wreck ... to horrifying to watch and yet you cannot take your eyes away from it.

But you never needed to be corrected. All you ever had to do was to research into the matter, which you did not do.All you ever had to do was to read the Constitution of the United States of America itself(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)! Were you ever barred from doing that? Did anybody ever try to hide the Constitution of the United States of America itself from you?Faith, have you ever served? I have. For 35 years. I've lost track of the count, but about seven times I did solemnly swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. Every single military veteran has sworn that very same oath. Why would anybody swear such an oath without every knowing what the Constitution of the United States of America actually is and actually says? Well, I have read it. In fact, at my last enlistment ceremony, NAVRESFORCOM personally did personally present me with a copy of the Constitution of the United States of America, which over a decade later I still keep and treasure. It is still sitting before me at this very moment. Your religious peccadilli (though nowhere near as slight as the definition implies) lead you to hate the Constitution of the United States of America. My duty is to preserve it!Article Two, Section One:

quote:

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No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

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So what's a "natural born Citizen"? That has so far never been decided in the courts. But there is still a lot of legal precedence and legal argument, most of which I have already tried to explain to you. It would be supremely self-edifying for you personally to follow this Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clauseThe details can vary from country to country. Basically, the question of how one derives one's citizen is by two means (FOLLOW THE LINKS!!!!):

1. Jus Soli -- your right to claim citizenship by having been born there.
2. Jus sanguinis -- your right to claim citizenship from the citizenship of your parents.

Again, Faith, your ability to know these things was very freely available to you. Your own personal ignorance is nothing but a condemnation of you. And of the disinformation sources that you depend upon.Recently on Netflix, I watched a French movie based on an American socialite and amateur singer, one Florence Foster Jenkins, upon whom there is an English-language version starring Meryl Streep. That movie is Marguerite. At the end of that movie, Marguerite is exposed to a recording of her own voice. Her subsequent catastrophic reaction to reality is exactly what your own reaction to the truth will be.Edited by dwise1, : cleaned up minor "jiggly bit"

For an outsider to hack into the machines is something that I would question, though for an outsider to hack into the systems that collect and tally the data from those machines would be another question.Rather, for the voting machines to have been hacked would have required an insider threat. People working within the system to tamper with the machines and with the process. There is evidence of tampering of the voting machines. Voting machines with their seals broken. Counties in one of the vital swing states "suddenly" at the first sign that there would be a recount finding and discarding extra votes for Trump.The search for evidence has been called off when the recount was cancelled in some of the key 3 states and not allowed to even begin in others. As I understand, the federal government has started an investigation into election fraud, but how far do you realistically believe the GOP-dominated Trump Administration will allow that to proceed? Quite true. I fully agree with this assessment. The number of electors a state has is based on its representation in both houses of Congress, in which its representation in the House is based on population. Gerrymandering has no effect on those numbers. Rather, gerrymandering only affects the election outcomes of House races. Uh, nope! Gerrymandering is indeed an artificial manipulation of populations to affect the outcome of the election of House representation.First, where a voter works has absolutely nothing to do with who his representative is. Rather it is where he/she lives! Here is an extremely simple example to make that point. A very great number of people work in New York City, yet many of them live in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, or commute in from some other neighboring state. Does some congressman from New York City represent them? Do they vote for a congressman from New York City? No, of course not! They vote for and are represented by whichever congressman represents the congressional district where they reside.Second, no they are not gerrymandering themselves by choosing where to live. The entire reason for the term "Gerrymander" is because of how the drawing of district lines creates districts that are so monstrously contorted as to invoke visions of horrific monsters, "Gerrymanders" (part salamander part German???).For example in Orange County, CA, my friend informed me (and I checked it out at the time) that San Clemente (on the southern-most sea coast of Orange County) and Yorba Linda (about 32 miles away, where the Santa Ana Canyon opens into Orange County's central basin) were in the same congressional district. When I investigated back when, I saw how those two cities were connected by an extremely narrow band of land (if we could so exaggerate) running through mountainous wilderness (yes, the OC does have that!). How much more blatantly obvious could you possibly be? Connecting two remote communities through an essentially empty umbilical? Did the inhabitants of San Clemente move there in order to be associated with the inhabitants of Yorba Linda? Or vice versa? No! They absolutely did not choose to "gerrymander themselves" in such a manner!However, now via Google Earth I see that San Clemente is in District 44 along with communities like Corona (31 miles away) and Riverside (38 miles away) and Crestmore Heights (44 miles away). Please compare that with how distant Yorba Linda was.Now, compare that with your statement: " ... folks gerrymander themselves through their election to live and work in urban vs rural settings." OK, you were trying to a different point, but I propose that gerrymandering renders your point moot. San Clemente is South County. It is part of a sizable demographic which centers around living in the county's mountainous south while commuting to the county's central basin which is where most of the businesses are (though they have been spreading towards the south). In the meantime, you have the Inland Empire (IE) centered around Riverside and San Bernadino. Two very different regions. If you wanted to "gerrymander yourself" to the Inland Empire, then you would have moved there, whereas if you really wanted to "gerrymander yourself" to Orange County then you would have done so (ignoring the economic phenomenon of many people working in Orange County but having to live in and commute from the IE just to be able to afford the cost of housing).People live where they choose to live, for whatever reasons or necessities. Political parties in power choose to gerrymander. People do not choose to gerrymander themselves!

Sorry, but I want to take additional exception to what you said: Sorry, but ... what!?!?!?!?You are a farmer. So you're going to settle in the city? What!?!?!?!?Your business deals directly with farmers, whether in working with them, offering farming implements or stategies, or you buy from them and run grain elevators, etc. So you're going to settle in the city? What!?!?!?!?You work in tech, so you settle way out in the sticks in the middle of nowhere (BTW, been there; took the photos at Rugby, ND). What!?!?!?!?You work in whatever service or minor manufacturing work has still survived but is still centralized within the city. So you're going to settle out in the country away from the city? What!?!?!?!?To provide a bit of perspective, back in 1977, before all this current nonsense, my Permanent Duty Assignment was to Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota. As a married junior airman with extremely limited resources, we found a house to rent in Hatton, 25 miles from base. It was also 40 miles away from town, Grand Forks, ND. At the time, we had only one vehicle. I worked "swing shift" (1630 to 2400) so for the wife to shop at the commissary, we had to come in a bit early so she could drop me off at work, go to the commissary, and then drive those 25 miles back to base to pick me up at midnight. There wasn't any employment for her in Hatton, so commute to "the big town" (since there's no town in ND able to classify itself as an actual city) would have been way beyond our means.Of course, the "extreme" climate of North Dakota may be cited as an exception, but that same paradigm does still hold true across so much of this country. "Extreme climate". Two or three years we were there (out of five), there was always a blizzard on Halloween, but the kids still came out in their winter suits with their costumes on top. Similarly, every year local teenagers who had grown up in all this and were immune would eventually be found in the spring in the middle of a field a short distance from their abandoned car. Or the first year we were there, a toddler went missing in the middle of a blizzard only to be found in the spring in his own front yard.There is indeed a disparity between city and rural. Our local newspaper published a map of the election results of 2012, who voted for whom. All the cities were darkly blue while the countryside remained red. Shouldn't that disparity between city and rural be something that they need to work out on the local level instead of on the federal level? And with the gerrymandering added in, what has been the outcome?So shouldn't the rural folk be grouped together and the urban folk grouped together? Instead of being sliced and diced and rearranged in a manner favorable to the political party in power?

Yes, I know full well that any mention of Hitler is a signal that your own position is dead in the water. But after 35 years of sincere and repeated dedication to protecting the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, I must speak.The Constitution of the German Reich, AKA "The Weimar Constitution", was perhaps the most liberal constitution ever devised. It remained in effect throughout the entire Hitlerzeit ("Hitler time", the time when Hitler was in power), 1945. Despite having officially remained in effect for that entire time, it had no actual effect. If nobody was ever moved to uphold the Weimar Constitution, then it meant absolutely nothing whatsoever.If nobody is ever moved to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, then it never meant absolutely anything whatsoever.Think about that. On 1933 Jan 30 Hitler became Kanzler. On 1933 Feb 27 the German Congress, the Reichstag, was burned down. On 1933 Feb 28 Hitler declared the Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February which suspended