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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#115876: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:00:13 PM

If Kasich is trying to make himself the GOP establishment candidate, what will it be about Ted?

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#115877: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:03:32 PM

He'll be the candidate of the religious extremists, I think. And all the non-moderates who don't like Trump for whatever reason.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#115878: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:05:12 PM

Wouldnt that effectively split the GOP in three? Establishment vs religious nuts vs trump? I dont think they are stupid enough to do that

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
BonsaiForest Since: Jan, 2001
#115880: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:09:16 PM

Aren't there also libertarians as a fourth faction in the right?

LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#115881: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:09:50 PM

So, can the Midwest technically be considered part of the East Coast? While it's name is the Midwest, it is closer to the Northeast and South (Which are the East Coast) than the West.
That's a weird question, why would it be?

edited 15th Mar '16 1:22:10 PM by LSBK

GameGuruGG Vampire Hunter from Castlevania (Before Recorded History)
Vampire Hunter
#115882: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:10:00 PM

Technically, there are not enough Establishment voters to be a viable voting block compared to the New Dixiecrats and the Religious Right.

Wizard Needs Food Badly
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#115883: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:13:02 PM

That's a weird question, why would it be?

Well as I said, "Establishment republican" would make a third bloc out of the republicans, with the Religious Right and the Trump supporters as the other two.

I do not think anyone even cares about who would come out as the winner in that triumvirate, but I just think it too mindboggingly stupid for even the GOP to do that third split. Arent they rallying behind Cruz as the establishment candidate?

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#115884: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:14:26 PM

Some are putting up with that because they think Kasich is too moderate or has too little support (in the primary, that is).

edited 15th Mar '16 1:14:37 PM by SeptimusHeap

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#115885: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:17:03 PM

If Kasich is trying to make himself the GOP establishment candidate, what will it be about Ted?

Ted is competing with Trump for the same votes, plus Ted is all about the hardcore religious fanatics. Ted Cruz isn't very different from Trump, he's essentially the pre-Trump who worked his way through the Republican party.

Aren't there also libertarians as a fourth faction in the right?

I think this election has shown that libertarians continue to be a small fringe. A noisy one, especially online and sometimes in Silicon Valley, but a fringe. It doesn't hep either that they have a thousand different subdivisions and range from Y'all Queda types to slick corporate sociopaths to sorts that practically sound like hippies, except they don't want to pay taxes for anything and are under the delusion that if there was no government, they could keep trillion dollar multinational corporations at bay by suing them in court. (Exactly why they expect that 1) courts will be impartial and not corrupted by the corporations and/or won't have rules created by the corporations, or 2) the court could enforce anything on the corporations in such a scenario is beyond me. I mean, research the behavior of foreign corporations in Africa, Asia, or South America and the way they've laughed at or run roughshod over courts there to see how that situation plays out.)

Because of those subdivisions and their preference to vote based on a candidate's libertarian purity, (with all of them defining a true libertarian differently) they don't make for a very cohesive voting block to build around.

edited 15th Mar '16 1:21:35 PM by TheWanderer

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#115887: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:19:47 PM

But...even if you gather the Jeb, Rubio and Kasich votes together they could maybe stand up against Cruz but not against Drumpf...arent they better off trying to stick to Cruz, awful as he is, to have a chance at stopping Drumpf?

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
carbon-mantis Collector Of Fine Oddities from Trumpland Since: Mar, 2010 Relationship Status: Married to my murderer
Collector Of Fine Oddities
#115888: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:21:04 PM

Back from the polls in NC. My area one was pretty quiet but the town centers had plenty of Trumpites marching along their little yellow line. Had a militia nutter or two armed to the teeth and claiming they were there for "security."

LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#115889: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:21:05 PM

@Azur, I didn't do enough arrows, I was asking that to someone on the last page. Probably should have just quoted, actually.

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#115890: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:24:36 PM

So, can the Midwest technically be considered part of the East Coast? While it's name is the Midwest, it is closer to the Northeast and South (Which are the East Coast) than the West.
The regions that the US is divided into is generally divided into either four or nine areas, depending on how specific you want to be. They're officially (by the Census Bureau) defined as:

  • The Northeast
    • New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont)
    • The Mid-Atlantic (New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania)
  • The Midwest
    • The Great Lakes states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin)
    • The Great Plains states (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota)
  • The South
    • The South Atlantic (Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington D.C., and West Virginia)
    • The Deep South (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee)
    • The South Central states (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas)
  • The West
    • The Mountain states (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming)
    • The West Coast (California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii)

Those are the four/nine official areas, though I used the common names for them rather than the official ones (which are dry and boring, like "East North Central Region" instead of "Great Lakes states"). You can see the whole list and all the official names here. There are other regions that get grouped together for various reasons, of course (eg, the "Gulf states" are all the states that border the Gulf of Mexico — Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida), and there are various "belt" areas (the Bible belt, the rust belt, etc) that are less about specific states and more about culture/attitude.

And that concludes today's geography lesson.

(tldr: no, the midwest is never really considered part of the east coast.)

edited 15th Mar '16 1:30:25 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#115891: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:24:40 PM

Sometimes I think the U.S population at large fail to realize they are small town minded people in a huge sprawling nation. Hundreds of thousands are absolutely nothing in comparative numbers to the rest of the nation, but the numbers are taken as if they were hundreds of millions.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
SolipsistOwl Since: Jan, 2016
#115892: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:26:35 PM

Carson super-PAC morphs into VP vehicle

"President Trump will need the wise counsel and moral compass of Dr. Ben Carson," Sousa wrote in an email to super-PAC supporters Monday afternoon.

Sousa elaborated on his plans in a telephone interview Tuesday with The Hill.

"One of the reasons we called our group 'The 2016 Committee' was to give it inordinate flexibility," Sousa said.

"The 2016 Committee will now kind of morph itself into the objective of having Dr. Carson be Donald Trump's running mate."

Sousa says the super-PAC has been in a holding pattern since Carson quit the presidential race, but he is now ready to launch a new campaign — powered by an extensive list of donors — to convince Trump to pick Carson as his running mate.

"Honestly, I am not a Donald Trump guy," Sousa told his super-PAC donors via email.

"But, I’ve learned to deal with reality ... If the Donald is going to be our nominee, who else would you like to have his ear and give him advice than Dr. Ben Carson?

"Perhaps, with the Donald’s nomination looming as inevitable, it was very wise of Dr. Carson to endorse Mr. Trump so that he can exert a positive influence upon him," Sousa added.

PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#115893: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:30:20 PM

The idea isn't to beat Trump in the General.

It's to make sure he loses to the Democrat.

:V

(Krugman) Return of the Undeserving Poor

There's something vaguely cathartic that the GOP is melting down.

Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#115894: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:35:39 PM

I do not care about the establishment nor worried about what the poor Bush famil will do once their political onnections run out. Those idiots will be, sadly, fine

I am more concerned about the impoverished uneducated masses drunk on the GOP kool aid and what they will do if they see it crumble.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#115895: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:37:09 PM

Probably shoot people

Oh really when?
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#115896: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:37:42 PM

Shooting kills people. And killing is bad. Killing is wrong. In fact, it is badong.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#115897: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:39:01 PM

We should all promote the opposite of badong: Gnodab.

TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#115898: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:41:59 PM

(Krugman) Return of the Undeserving Poor

(Vox) Donald Trump is making conservatives turn on the white working class (i.e. One of the Voter Bases they need to win)

Those stories really show the Republican establishment/elites who were the true believers now openly spitting on the working poor that they duped into voting for them and then talked about behind their back. Hell, the second link I have quoted is basically following right on the heels of the "Father Fuhrer" story I posted about the other day. A different National Review writer, but a very similar tone and argument.

For generations, conservatives have rightly railed against deterministic progressive notions that put human choices at the mercy of race, class, history, or economics. Those factors can create additional challenges, but they do not relieve any human being of the moral obligation to do their best.

Yet millions of Americans aren’t doing their best. Indeed, they’re barely trying. As I’ve related before, my church in Kentucky made a determined attempt to reach kids and families that were falling between the cracks, and it was consistently astounding how little effort most parents and their teen children made to improve their lives. If they couldn’t find a job in a few days — or perhaps even as little as a few hours — they’d stop looking. If they got angry at teachers or coaches, they’d drop out of school. If they fought with their wife, they had sex with a neighbor. And always — always — there was a sense of entitlement.

And that’s where disability or other government programs kicked in. They were there, beckoning, giving men and women alternatives to gainful employment. You don’t have to do any work (your disability lawyer does all the heavy lifting), you make money, and you get drugs. At our local regional hospital, it’s become a bitter joke the extent to which the community is hooked on "Xanatab" — the Xanax and Lortab prescriptions that lead to drug dependence.

I saw it posted on another board before I saw it posted here, and over there I compared it to someone who has spent decades refusing to do any maintenance or upgrades on their house, let it turn into a firetrap, and when they wake up one night to find a fire, pour gasoline all over out of the spite that their house has "betrayed" them.

I mean, just wow. The Republican party's meltdown could hardly be more official at this point.

edited 15th Mar '16 1:42:20 PM by TheWanderer

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
Bat178 Since: May, 2011
#115899: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:43:42 PM

[up]x9 I noticed the South has 3 sections while the other regions only have 2. I know the South has half of the original colonies (The other half are in the Northeast), most of the important government and military facilities are there, it's the biggest region of the US (Though if you count Alaska and Hawaii, the American West might actually be bigger) and most of the population of the US lives there, but I still find it kinda odd.

edited 15th Mar '16 1:44:11 PM by Bat178

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#115900: Mar 15th 2016 at 1:46:48 PM

For generations, conservatives have rightly railed against deterministic progressive notions that put human choices at the mercy of race, class, history, or economics. Those factors can create additional challenges, but they do not relieve any human being of the moral obligation to do their best.

This bit. If I had a penny for every time I heard right-wingers put the whole weight of personal decisions on Free Will. It flies in the face of everything we know about human psychology. Responsibility calculus is such a pain the ass.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

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