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The Republican National Convention OT |2016|: Behold a Pale Horse With No Name

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Let's take a moment to calm down a bit. We just got through seeing one of the most sickening displays of hate, intolerance, bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, and racism play out for an entire week. Which reached its climax earlier tonight. I don't know about you guys but I'm mentally drained by it.

Hopefully the sun will seem brighter tomorrow.

The crazier this train gets the more. I start paying annoying to this train wreck and its not good for my sanity,and its happening in real time. Like this is not some satire or SNL skit or a Stephen king book its fucking real.

These people at the GOP conventions will back pretty much whatever he says and they will preform like monkeys..


Are we reading the same article?
http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin...p-sean-duffy-exaggerates-role-barack-obama-h/
Bixby; Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget; and Rudolph Penner, a fellow at the Urban Institute and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, told us:

1. About half of the $19 trillion was amassed before Obama took office in January 2009.

2. Obama took office amid a deep recession, which meant government revenues fell and spending on government programs rose.

"The debt would have exploded certainly during (Obama’s) first term, no matter who was president," said Bixby.

3. Obama proposed federal budgets, but Congress, including the Republican leadership, ultimately holds the purse strings.

Obama bears some of the responsibility for not taking steps to prevent the debt from growing, "but attributing the debt to a president doesn’t make sense," said MacGuineas.


...

Duffy said: "Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have left us with $19 trillion in debt."

The total federal debt is at $19 trillion. But most of it was amassed before Obama took office. And many factors -- Congress, the economy and Obama himself, but to almost no extent Clinton -- played a role in the debt increases during Obama’s tenure.

For a claim that contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, our rating is Mostly False.
They concluded that blaming Obama for the federal debt was a lie and also stated that most of it was amassed before Obama. Donald Trump is trying to lay the blame entirely on Obama's shoulders ("President Obama has doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion, and growing.") a claim which they claimed to be false. Someone needs to fact check the fact checker of the fact checker.



Wait is that for real the supposed fact checker relayed that other stuff as fact? does some one actually believe that its Obama or Clinton or whomever alone fault that were in so much debt? when its a collective fuck up, that information is rich -ahahahhahaahahaha fucking amazing. Its bozo world time.
 
Just a reminder of how self-selected these speech polls are. Nothing Obama has ever done is viewed negatively by only 18% of all Americans.

proxy.jpg
 

Pepboy

Member
No it wasn't. That's what Politifact said in their article. If there's an issue with it, take it up with Politifact.

Did you bother to read the Politifact article? It was disputing a claim that Obama caused all $19 trillion of national debt. Compared to that, yes "most" of the debt was amassed pre-Obama, but it has indeed doubled. That is why the quote is out of context.

It is unbelievably easy to look at national debt pre-2008 and at modern times and conclude that yes, over that time period, national debt has roughly doubled ($10 trillion to $19 trillion) in nominal terms.

Here is a table showing exactly that, taking it's data from the US treasury page
http://www.polidiotic.com/by-the-numbers/us-national-debt-by-year/

Here is the source of the data:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current

Here is a graph from showing the same thing. (edit: The graph only runs to 2015. Updating for 2016 gets you to the $18.9 trillion. And by the time 2017 rolls around (when Obama leaves office, it likely will be truly doubled to $20, as per the white house's own projections.)

Total_US_Federal_Debt_by_President_(1940_to_2015).png


Which is data taken directly from the whitehouse (Table 7.1):

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals


As I already mentioned, this is not really Obama's fault having weathered a recession, and there's a lot of misconceptions about national debt anyways.

But that doesn't mean you should get upset when some article you like does in fact need fact checking.
 
Did you bother to read the Politifact article? It was disputing a claim that Obama caused all $19 trillion of national debt. Compared to that, yes "most" of the debt was amassed pre-Obama, but it has indeed doubled. That is why the quote is out of context.

It is unbelievably easy to look at national debt pre-2008 and at modern times and conclude that yes, over that time period, national debt has roughly doubled ($10 trillion to $19 trillion) in nominal terms.

Here is a table showing exactly that, taking it's data from the US treasury page
http://www.polidiotic.com/by-the-numbers/us-national-debt-by-year/

Here is the source of the data:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current

Here is a graph from showing the same thing:

Total_US_Federal_Debt_by_President_(1940_to_2015).png


Which is data taken directly from the whitehouse (Table 7.1):

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals


As I already mentioned, this is not really Obama's fault having weathered a recession, and there's a lot of misconceptions about national debt anyways.

But that doesn't mean you should get upset when some article you like does in fact need fact checking.

Look at the way the portions of the curve are shaped by president.
 

Pepboy

Member
Look at the way the portions of the curve are shaped by president.

You misunderstand me if you think I'm here to argue that Republicans or Democrats are more responsible for the debt. It's also not really a great picture since you'd want it normalized by GDP, or at perhaps by the CPI.

But since the claim was that national debt doubled under the Obama administration (in nominal terms), the graph does show that it's more or less correct; and why the article in question needed additional fact checking.
 
I'm really interested in seeing his post-convention poll numbers. Usually candidates get a healthy bump once they've been confirmed the nominee, but this convention was such a gigantic clusterfuck I have a hard time seeing how he gained any support over the week that wasn't already there.
 

Gattsu25

Banned
You misunderstand me if you think I'm here to argue that Republicans or Democrats are more responsible for the debt. It's also not really a great picture since you'd want it normalized by GDP, or at perhaps by the CPI.

But since the claim was that national debt doubled under the Obama administration (in nominal terms), the graph does show that it's more or less correct; and why the article in question needed additional fact checking.

No, the claim was that Obama himself doubled the national debt.

Donald J. Trump: "President Obama has doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion, and growing."

Please keep the goalposts where they were originally set by Donald J. Trump.
 
guy gives one speech and people start freaking out? seriously?

I'm confident in the fundamentals but I sympathise with the others. This is real life. Not some video game you can turn off later, not some book you can put down, or a TV show you can turn off, or a movie you can walk out of. This is real and we will be stuck with it should it come to pass.
 
Did you bother to read the Politifact article? It was disputing a claim that Obama caused all $19 trillion of national debt. Compared to that, yes "most" of the debt was amassed pre-Obama, but it has indeed doubled. That is why the quote is out of context.

It is unbelievably easy to look at national debt pre-2008 and at modern times and conclude that yes, over that time period, national debt has roughly doubled ($10 trillion to $19 trillion) in nominal terms.

Here is a table showing exactly that, taking it's data from the US treasury page
http://www.polidiotic.com/by-the-numbers/us-national-debt-by-year/

Here is the source of the data:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current

Here is a graph from showing the same thing. (edit: The graph only runs to 2015. Updating for 2016 gets you to the $18.9 trillion. And by the time 2017 rolls around (when Obama leaves office, it likely will be truly doubled to $20, as per the white house's own projections.)

Total_US_Federal_Debt_by_President_(1940_to_2015).png


Which is data taken directly from the whitehouse (Table 7.1):

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals


As I already mentioned, this is not really Obama's fault having weathered a recession, and there's a lot of misconceptions about national debt anyways.

But that doesn't mean you should get upset when some article you like does in fact need fact checking.

While the national debt has nearly doubled under Obama, it's important to look at the details. Obama came in after an economic collapse that required fixing, with 2 wars going on, and massive tax cuts starting to run up real deficits. Look at the change in the Deficit from 2009's budget to 2015's budget;

FY 2009: $1.413T
FY 2015: $439B

Obama decreased the budget deficit by almost a TRILLION dollars. And most of that time was with a Republican House, and recently a divided Senate.
 
guy gives one speech and people start freaking out? seriously?

Are you seriously that dense? this is not some school yard imaginary play. This is happening in real life and in real politics. An the world is listening to his speech and not just us here, so people have every right to be a little freaked out. Because the circus keeps going and keeps getting to say stupid shit on national television. Which also seems to be encouraging other idiots, too spout their asinine backwards mentalities.


Also this "GUY" is officially the candidate for the united states of America and leader of the free world (i believe) and supposedly represents views held by some Americans. People should take it seriously as its not some light show .
 
J_ToSaveTheDay said:
Good grief, I have an extremely strong feeling of just sheer hopelessness with politics in the US right now. I have no joke been consistently losing sleep over the state of US society since the Orlando shootings, and high profile bad news just has so much charged problems underlying it that should not have gone so ignored under any good guiding principles, and now we have this insane dude rallying an alarming amount of support and I just fail to comprehend that it's actually playing out like this.

I seriously feel like I need some counselling.

Don't.

The truth is, activists on both sides are playing a game, that this is awful, this is terrible, you need to act NOW, pay attention to us NOW, it's all going to hell NOW. Because that's politics, emotional appeals are how they get movement. The truth is, America has come light years since 1968, a time when major political figures were being assassinated, police shut down protests with serious violence, and discrimination wasn't even considered wrong or unusual in most circles.

There's more equality than there's ever been, and it's not even close. On the whole crime is down. The economy is doing well. The first black president just finished two full terms and people love him. He'll go down in history as a hero, and your kids will tell you that they wish they could have been there to see it.

You're seeing punctuated outbursts of violence, but their effect is exacerbated by social media because it puts you right there, makes you feel directly affected by it. But don't confuse that with things being worse on the whole.

You're seeing angry movements like Trump and ISIS spring up, because they're the dying gasps of old paradigms that have lost their power to inspire with words and ideas alone. The argument has already been won by the other side, and all this yelling is all that's left to them.

So don't feel despair. This is actually things being great and on the verge of being really great...

...except for the environment. We're well past the point where people should be freaking the fuck out about that one.
 

Pepboy

Member
No, the claim was that Obama himself doubled the national debt.

Donald J. Trump: "President Obama has doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion, and growing."

Please keep the goalposts where they were originally set by Donald J. Trump.

Generally "President X" is shorthand for his entire administration. Did President Obama himself spend the money? Of course not. Did he technically sign into law the 7-8 annual budgetary spending bills? Yes, at least to my knowledge.

It's a separate issue of the responsibility he played in the budget and increased national spending, but it is true that under President Obama's administration, nominal national debts have nearly doubled.

Rather than fighting pedantics on something that is arguably true, I think you'd be much more convincing by pointing out that Obama inherited and weathered a severe recession -- spending did not change much and that it was much more about reduced tax revenues from lower incomes. Indeed, it's generally considered wise financial policy to spend during recessions to help the economy recover (as long as you tax the "prosperous" times more).
 

jerd

Member
Generally "President X" is shorthand for his entire administration. Did President Obama himself spend the money? Of course not. Did he technically sign into law the 7-8 annual budgetary spending bills? Yes, at least to my knowledge.

It's a separate issue of the responsibility he played in the budget and increased national spending, but it is true that under President Obama's administration, nominal national debts have nearly doubled.

Rather than fighting pedantics on something that is arguably true, I think you'd be much more convincing by pointing out that Obama inherited and weathered a severe recession -- spending did not change much and that it was much more about reduced tax revenues from lower incomes. Indeed, it's generally considered wise financial policy to spend during recessions to help the economy recover (as long as you tax the "prosperous" times more).

Trump uses that talking point as a way to place the blame on Obama and the dems to garner support for himself. It's not semantics at all to say he's not to blame. That's literally the point of the statement
 

Pepboy

Member
While the national debt has nearly doubled under Obama, it's important to look at the details. Obama came in after an economic collapse that required fixing, with 2 wars going on, and massive tax cuts starting to run up real deficits. Look at the change in the Deficit from 2009's budget to 2015's budget;

FY 2009: $1.413T
FY 2015: $439B

Obama decreased the budget deficit by almost a TRILLION dollars. And most of that time was with a Republican House, and recently a divided Senate.


This is a pretty misrepresentative argument, in my opinion. 2009 was an outlier year:

NA-CD115_BUDGET_9U_20141015124506.jpg


Looking at 2008 vs 2009, spending only increased 200 million -- the jump in the deficit was driven primarily by reduced tax revenues (lower incomes), to my knowledge due to the recession.

In 2015, the deficit has only just barely gotten back to "normal" levels.

In general, total government spending has been "on trend" with recent administrations:

federal-government-spending-2000-2011.png


Obama's decreasing budget deficit had little to do with spending and much more to do with revenues, as you can see by plotting total federal expenditures and federal receipts (income):

pRSJTDV.png


In general, both sides are blaming or attributing macro economic events to the president and their administration that are generally unwarranted.

It's like arguing which cloud is responsible for a hurricane or a drought. (Edit: Okay, it's not really like that. But the president has less control over the economy than most believe.)

edit 2:
And most of that time was with a Republican House, and recently a divided Senate.
It's unclear to me how a Republican House or divided Senate would make it harder to decrease government deficits. If anything, all the grandstanding by republicans in the house / senate have led to (slightly) lower federal spending than would have been implemented otherwise... that was what they were demanding, at least. Sadly, that has led to things like reduced funding for the sciences (NSF) or at times, NASA.

Or did you mean the amazing part was that we were able to keep receipts (income) high post-recession?
 

itschris

Member
New York Times Editorial Board: Donald Trump’s Campaign of Fear

Given a chance to replace the empty sloganeering and self-aggrandizement of his primary campaign with solid proposals worthy of Americans’ trust, Mr. Trump made clear that he instead intends to terrify voters into supporting him, who will protect them from violence, a word that occurs over and over in his remarks.

Asserting that his nomination comes at a moment of national crisis, of “poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad,” Mr. Trump offered no solutions beyond his messianic portrayal of himself. “Every day I wake up determined to deliver a better life for the people all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored, and abandoned,” he says in advance excerpts from his speech.

The dark vision of America advanced by Mr. Trump is one in which immigrants, including immigrant families, are prime sources of “violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities.” Abroad, America is a disrespected, humiliated nation.

This is not only factually false, it’s a wildly distorted view of all the nation stands for. One would think that if Mr. Trump believed this dystopia existed, he would have a clear and detailed plan for change. But, as always, he has only his empty sales pitch to offer — “I’m with you, I will fight for you, and I will win for you,” he says.
 

"Eins, zwei, drei, alle!"

Ooooh, you cannot reach me now
Ooooh, no matter how you try
Goodbye, cruel world, it's over
Walk on by.

Sitting in a bunker here behind my wall
Waiting for the worms to come.
In perfect isolation here behind my wall
Waiting for the worms to come.

Waiting to cut out the deadwood.
Waiting to clean up the city.
Waiting to follow the worms.
Waiting to put on a black shirt.
Waiting to weed out the weaklings.
Waiting to smash in their windows
And kick in their doors.
Waiting for the final solution
To strengthen the strain.
Waiting to follow the worms.
Waiting to turn on the showers
And fire the ovens.
Waiting for the queens and the coons
and the reds and the Jews.
Waiting to follow the worms.

Would you like to see America
Rule again, my friend?
All you have to do is follow the worms.
Would you like to send our colored cousins
Home again, my friend?

All you need to do is follow the worms.
 
Don't.

The truth is, activists on both sides are playing a game, that this is awful, this is terrible, you need to act NOW, pay attention to us NOW, it's all going to hell NOW. Because that's politics, emotional appeals are how they get movement. The truth is, America has come light years since 1968, a time when major political figures were being assassinated, police shut down protests with serious violence, and discrimination wasn't even considered wrong or unusual in most circles.

There's more equality than there's ever been, and it's not even close. On the whole crime is down. The economy is doing well. The first black president just finished two full terms and people love him. He'll go down in history as a hero, and your kids will tell you that they wish they could have been there to see it.

You're seeing punctuated outbursts of violence, but their effect is exacerbated by social media because it puts you right there, makes you feel directly affected by it. But don't confuse that with things being worse on the whole.

You're seeing angry movements like Trump and ISIS spring up, because they're the dying gasps of old paradigms that have lost their power to inspire with words and ideas alone. The argument has already been won by the other side, and all this yelling is all that's left to them.

So don't feel despair. This is actually things being great and on the verge of being really great...

...except for the environment. We're well past the point where people should be freaking the fuck out about that one.

Things are overall much better, yes. The problem is that IF this assclown somehow wins, the US and by extension a lot of the world will move backwards fifty years.
 

SpokkX

Member
"Eins, zwei, drei, alle!"

Ooooh, you cannot reach me now
Ooooh, no matter how you try
Goodbye, cruel world, it's over
Walk on by.

Sitting in a bunker here behind my wall
Waiting for the worms to come.
In perfect isolation here behind my wall
Waiting for the worms to come.

Waiting to cut out the deadwood.
Waiting to clean up the city.
Waiting to follow the worms.
Waiting to put on a black shirt.
Waiting to weed out the weaklings.
Waiting to smash in their windows
And kick in their doors.
Waiting for the final solution
To strengthen the strain.
Waiting to follow the worms.
Waiting to turn on the showers
And fire the ovens.
Waiting for the queens and the coons
and the reds and the Jews.
Waiting to follow the worms.

Would you like to see America
Rule again, my friend?
All you have to do is follow the worms.
Would you like to send our colored cousins
Home again, my friend?

All you need to do is follow the worms.

Rogers lyrics really are timeless
 

korona15

Banned
Trump parading his "hot" and attractive daughters and wife on the big stage all week long, counting on getting votes from millions of white guys who find them sexually appealing. 'Those girls....so hot...can't resist...must...vote....Trump...'

Sex sells, Trump knows this, turnout will be huge from white men in swing states who also hate Hillary and her unsexy pantsuits.

Trump, a human piece of garbage for pimping out his female family members in exchange for votes.
 

BokehKing

Banned
Most Reagan Democrats don't vote. Because, you know, most of them are dead.
That's not true at all, my parents generation is alive and well with many years left on their life.
Trump parading his "hot" and attractive daughters and wife on the big stage all week long, counting on getting votes from millions of white guys who find them sexually appealing. 'Those girls....so hot...can't resist...must...vote....Trump...'

Sex sells, Trump knows this, turnout will be huge from white men in swing states who also hate Hillary and her unsexy pantsuits.

Trump, a human piece of garbage for pimping out his female family members in exchange for votes.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that you only seen them as hot daughters and didn't look past the grand scheme of things. That someone labeled as such a horrible person was able to raise such great well spoken children and intelligent children.

Everyone of his children that gave a speech did more for him than any other politician did. They all spoke from the heart, but then again that's what tight knit families do.
 

bgbball31

Member
Just to chime in here. As interesting as discussing the final politifact rating is, it probably falls on deaf ears. My father, who claims he is more center right than anything, refuses to listen to ANY fact-checking service, as he claims they are all left leaning. And given things I've seen in the RNC this week, I would conclude he's not the only one.

In case you're wondering, yes, arguing with him is exactly like arguing with a brick wall.
 

Rebel Leader

THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
Just to chime in here. As interesting as discussing the final politifact rating is, it probably falls on deaf ears. My father, who claims he is more center right than anything, refuses to listen to ANY fact-checking service, as he claims they are all left leaning. And given things I've seen in the RNC this week, I would conclude he's not the only one.

In case you're wondering, yes, arguing with him is exactly like arguing with a brick wall.


Reality has a liberal bias
 

Plum

Member
Just listened to the speech.

Tell me, GAF, you guys are smarter than us, right? You won't vote this guy in? Because right now I have no power over a guy being elected who might very well bring my entire country into war, and that's an incredibly worrying thought.
 

Rebel Leader

THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
Just listened to the speech.

Tell me, GAF, you guys are smarter than us, right? You won't vote this guy in? Because right now I have no power over a guy being elected who might very well bring my entire country into war, and that's an incredibly worrying thought.
I will not vote for him but

He has a chance
 

Diablos

Member
I don't know how Ivanka can say all of those rosy things about her dad right before he marched onto the stage and lit the world on fire. Do you all realize how fucked up that contrast is?
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
I don't know how Ivanka can say all of those rosy things about her dad right before he marched onto the stage and lit the world on fire. Do you all realize how fucked up that contrast is?
It's her dad so that's how she can say things.
 
I will not vote for him but

He has a chance

Yeah, sadly, because of the way our electoral system is set up, a scarecrow made out of human feces that someone lit on fire would still net around 40-45% of the vote if nominated by one of the two parties.

Thankfully, demographic and electoral trends are generally against Trump, so his chances are (relatively, all things considered) slim.
 

Plum

Member
I will not vote for him but

He has a chance

Doubt 98% of GAF will. But yeah, he does have a chance, and until November we won't know how big of a chance that is. I'm just hoping the fact that your country is a lot more diverse than ours means that he loses from the non-White vote alone.
 

Blader

Member
Didn't a huge part of the deficit jump under Obama have to do with no longer separating Afghanistan/Iraq war expenses from the rest of the budget?

Someone needs to fact check that "fact checker".

I thought Ivanka knocked it out of the ballpark and The Don hit a solid stand-up double. Between Ivanka and The Don, they gave red meat to the base and made some strong appeals to women, Independents, the LGBTQ community, misguided Bernie supporters and blue collar Reagan Democrats. Good move to expand the party and go for the win in November.

I even choked up little bit when Trump mentioned the names of the parents from the Remembrance Project.

Glad there were more reporters than protesters.

Yeah, I can't wait to see the Trump administration follow through with equal pay for women, free childcare, anti-LGBT workplace discrimination and an endorsement of Obergefell. All red-blooded conservative talking points that a Republican congress will be climbing over themselves to make into law.
 
You only need to remember the last days of Bush in office to understand the jump in the deficit. The economy was on the brink of collapse. The timing was impeccable for voters with short memories.
 

Diablos

Member
It's her dad so that's how she can say things.
Yes but her speech was almost DNC-esque. It was like Ivanka from a parallel universe where her dad was running as a Democrat.

She's allowed to love her dad obviously but the contrast is honestly disturbing. She said all kinds of things about him that made him sound like a champion for women and equal pay, then Trump walks on to the stage, doesn't even acknowledge any of that and throws a tub of gas on an already out of control dumpster fire by giving the darkest convention speech in like 40 something years at least.

It's just disturbing.
 
Someone needs to fact check that "fact checker".

I thought Ivanka knocked it out of the ballpark and The Don hit a solid stand-up double. Between Ivanka and The Don, they gave red meat to the base and made some strong appeals to women, Independents, the LGBTQ community, misguided Bernie supporters and blue collar Reagan Democrats. Good move to expand the party and go for the win in November.

I even choked up little bit when Trump mentioned the names of the parents from the Remembrance Project.

Glad there were more reporters than protesters.

He didn't make an "appeal" to the LGBTQ community so much as he used us as a platform to fearmonger against muslims.
 
Trying to steer this guy center is like trying to steer a shopping cart with 4 swivel wheels and 50 gallons of water inside....while you're on a boat during a hurricane...and you're drunk.
 
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