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

Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#131751: Jul 23rd 2016 at 9:58:21 AM

[up][up]Clinton once declared that she was going to put coal companies and coal miners out of business. To be fair, this is slightly out of context since she was saying something more to the effect of "I'm going to try to create more economic opportunities for coal miners, since I'm going to be putting a lot of them out of their jobs". Either way, probably not the wisest thing to have said.

Republicans are generally skeptical of criticisms towards fossil fuels, and believe we should be utilizing coal more frequently (since it's really cheap energy)

edited 23rd Jul '16 10:00:27 AM by Protagonist506

Leviticus 19:34
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#131752: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:00:08 AM

Republicans hate the environment and have a vested interest in keeping coal plants running. For a lot of areas coal is their entire livelihood and thus will vote with them.

Clinton is going to take steps to shut down coal production in the US because of the extreme environmental damage it's causing.

Oh really when?
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#131753: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:00:46 AM

Do they hate the environment just because Democrats love it?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#131754: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:01:55 AM

Honestly a great deal of them probably do. The rest of it is because a lot of Republican higher ups have a lot of personal money tied up in oil and coal industries.

edited 23rd Jul '16 10:02:07 AM by LeGarcon

Oh really when?
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#131755: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:02:06 AM

Republicans don't "hate the environment" per say (they are not Captain Planet villains). However, they consider the economic benefits of fossil fuel use to be too good to pass up and as such tend to be very willfully dismissive of criticisms of fossil fuel usage.

Leviticus 19:34
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#131756: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:03:50 AM

@ Garcon:

Well at the risk of sounding like a bit of an uncompromising dick, the stakes are as high as they can get and there's only two options. Clinton or Trump. You're with one side or the other.

Even if you're not American?

Keep Rolling On
nightwyrm_zero Since: Apr, 2010
#131757: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:08:46 AM

Actually there was a study done where certain shoppers will avoid product labelled "environmentally friendly" or "green" to buy another even if the two products was the basically same.

edited 23rd Jul '16 10:09:02 AM by nightwyrm_zero

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#131758: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:10:14 AM

I dunno, I saw plenty of right-wingers worldwide hate environmentalists and "peope who ride bicycles" for being "untraditional" and "uncharacteristic of the national character", or something along those lines. Somehow liking fatty foods (especially with lots of red meat), hunting, driving fuel-guzzling vehicles, and ingesting (unfancy) alcohol, seem like more of a national character thing. Unless they're French, then the alcohol should be good wine if it fits the budget.

Initially Waszczykowski explained recent political moves by his party Pi S with having to cure “a disease” (meaning the deeds of the previous government). In an attempt to elaborate on his thoughts, Waszczykowski says :

” Under the previous government a specific left-wing policy concept was followed with which the world must move in only one direction, the Marxist model – to a new mix of cultures and races, a world of cyclists and vegetarians who only focus on renewable energies and fight against any form of religion. This has nothing to do with traditional Polish values.

That's funny, I always thought that Marxists were all about man-over-nature, giant power plants and dams, irrigation projects that dry out entire oceans, and just exploiting the shit out of Nature for the good of the People. Treehugging is supposed to be more of a Romantic/Neoliberal/Reactionary/Anarchist sort of thing?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Clarste One Winged Egret Since: Jun, 2009 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
One Winged Egret
#131759: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:24:16 AM

Well, the GOP party line is that the threat of climate change is either greatly exaggerated or simply a conspiracy of liberal scientists, so naturally they don't really place much if any value on that at all. And if you actually believe that, then obviously things like coal are simply win-win. In fact it's so obvious that the liberal perspective on the issue doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense at face value, which is partly why thinking of it as a conspiracy options seems so appealing.

edited 23rd Jul '16 10:24:25 AM by Clarste

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#131760: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:25:08 AM

So unfortunately we all gotta drink the kool aid a little bit to keep him out of office.
"Unfortunately" my ass. Clinton's not perfect, but she's one of the best qualified candidates we've had in ages. She's been involved with federal-level politics for decades. She has executive experience, she has legislative experience. She knows government inside and out both on the policy level (coming up with good plans in the first place) and on the sausage-making level (doing the back-room wheeling and dealing to actually get your plans put into action).

The only problem with Clinton isn't a problem with Theoretical President Clinton, it's a problem with Presidential Candidate Clinton. Because she's been around as long as she has, the shit the Republican party throws at her isn't as patently bullshit as the shit they threw at Obama. Obama was a relative newcomer, so they didn't have decades worth of dirt to dig up. They had to resort to inanities like "he's secretly a Muslim" and "he's not a natural-born American citizen", which anyone with functioning brain cells and the willingness to use them could tell was nonsense. With Hillary, their attacks are much more plausible. She's corrupt, she's incompetent, she violated security protocol, she's part of the Establishment instead of a Political Outsider (never mind that that's true of every candidate, even the ones that claim otherwise), etc etc etc.

However, just because they're more believable doesn't mean they're more true. Hillary Clinton is only human and she's by no means perfect, but she's still an excellent candidate. There's very little I've heard from her in terms of policy positions that I dislike, and I've already mentioned her impressive resume in terms of experience. On a personal level, I actually think she's rather likeable — not in a "it'd be cool to have a beer with her and talk about random shit" way like Obama, but in the sense that she comes off as a fairly normal, relatable person who can actually interact with the average person on the street without being cringe-inducingly awkward, an insensitive jackass, or a script-reading robot. I could see having a real conversation with her, as a person rather than as a candidate or a politician. I wouldn't feel bad about her being the face of the country for the next four or eight years.

You'll notice that none of that is "well, she's bad, but she's not as bad as Trump". There's basically nothing about her that makes her a bad candidate except for the endless amount of shit that the Republicans have been throwing at her for decades — and that's only an electability concern, not something that brings into question how well she'll actually do the job should she win. Now, electability is an important consideration (running someone who would be perfect as President is pointless if they'll never actually be able to win an election), but I think her supposed unlikability is exaggerated. She quite soundly trounced Sanders in the primary, after all — so people certainly appear to be willing to vote for her even if Sanders had much lower disapproval ratings.

tldr, Clinton is worth voting for her on her own merits, not just as the lesser evil compared to Trump.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#131761: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:28:36 AM

I've said it once, I'll say it again: If HRC was a white male with her qualifications, she would've been running away with this from day 1 (Well she kind of already is, but meh), and Sanders, Trump, etc wouldn't have come close to spitting distance of her.

New Survey coming this weekend!
Artificius from about a foot and a half away from a monitor. Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Norwegian Wood
#131762: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:29:44 AM

So I've been checking in on the DNC email controversy now and then, and just about the worst thing that seems to have been in the emails (which have so far been read) involved some DNC staffer or another suggesting putting the screws to Sanders on his atheism. That's reprehensible for many reasons, but the reaction to it has been completely out of scale. This was probably someone paid to look for angles of attack, and that's traditionally been a legitimate one in American politics. You'd really expect someone in a campaign against him to suggest it at some point regardless of the candidate they were working for, wouldn't you?

"I have no fear, for fear is the little death that kills me over and over. Without fear, I die but once."
LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#131763: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:31:11 AM

I can't help but think that talking about her as if her most valuable or even only valuable trait is that she's not Trump is actually helping her chances.

Then again, pretending like she never had any enthusiastic supporters to begin with has always seemed weird to me.

edited 23rd Jul '16 10:32:41 AM by LSBK

carbon-mantis Collector Of Fine Oddities from Trumpland Since: Mar, 2010 Relationship Status: Married to my murderer
Collector Of Fine Oddities
#131764: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:33:25 AM

@Coal, all of the republicans spouting "clean coal" nonsense have been given large donations by the Coalition for Clean Coal lobby group. Trump himself has seen several hundred thousand dollars passed his way from them.

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#131765: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:37:28 AM

[up][up][up]The issue is that the DNC itself is doing this. Even if they never carried these plans out this stuff is sketchy as hell and I think the relevant people should be removed from power as a show of good faith.

Fortunately it appears Clinton was ignorant of them helping her in this way. If she specifically asked them to discredit Sanders there'd be hell to pay.

FFShinra Since: Jan, 2001
#131766: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:38:29 AM

Boss Debbie needs to be shitcanned over this, among other things. Would also blow the wind out of the sails of this latest Wikileaks.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#131767: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:41:54 AM

[up][up] Well, this far. From what I heard, wiki-leaks is intending on releasing more on Clinton over the course of the convention.

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#131768: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:43:24 AM

Of course they are. Because Trump will bring the revolution. Or some such BS.

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#131769: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:43:24 AM

Why? If she actually did that then what benefit is there in not telling us beforehand?

Artificius from about a foot and a half away from a monitor. Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Norwegian Wood
#131770: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:45:51 AM

Maybe the slow drip of more emails does more to overshadow the convention?

Also, somewhat hyperbolic, but the tone of the GOP this time around has been making it harder not to get pulled into orbit above planet Godwin. http://warontherocks.com/2016/07/the-real-reasons-the-gop-convention-in-cleveland-should-unsettle-you/

edited 23rd Jul '16 10:47:21 AM by Artificius

"I have no fear, for fear is the little death that kills me over and over. Without fear, I die but once."
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#131771: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:48:14 AM

I suppose but if the goal is to make Hillary lose then I feel like it's better to do it now before the convention starts. This is why I keep saying I don't get them. Their actions don't seem to line up with their supposed goals.

megarockman from The Sixth Borough (Experienced Trainee)
#131772: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:50:40 AM

[up]Doing it during the convention is most likely an attempt to punch down the convention poll bounce each candidate traditionally gets. Doing the drip this past week would have had its effect drowned out by the RNC itself.

The damned queen and the relentless knight.
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#131774: Jul 23rd 2016 at 10:55:19 AM

Tim Kaine is in Miami with HRC.

And he's killing it!

New Survey coming this weekend!

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