We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Mr. Lind's faith in government is like a religious faith. It worries me that some people think that way given a life's experience of how governments function. Governments do not do charity.
This pattern goes back to the selling of the Lincoln bedroom. Friends, this is abnormal. I think it is racketeering at the least. Unsurprisingly, the MSM has played no role in exposing Clinton corruption.
This is not an argument for Donald Trump. As I have said before, I think Clintonian morals are already baked in the cake. It would be newsworthy if they did something honest and unselfish.
The era of the stock-picker - those without inside info - is past. Or mostly-past. If you get lucky or smart and ride a big wave of a single equity, good for you. More likely, you would not gamble enough on it to make a big difference. Today, retail investors are the muppets of the big money world. I know, because I am a muppet.
The largest broadcast networks — CBS, NBC and ABC — and major newspapers like The New York Times and Washington Post have jettisoned all pretense of fair play. Their fierce determination to keep Trump out of the Oval Office has no precedent.
Indeed, no foreign enemy, no terror group, no native criminal gang, suffers the daily beating that Trump does. The mad mullahs of Iran, who call America the Great Satan and vow to wipe Israel off the map, are treated gently by comparison.
Many Americans live for hours in virtual realities at least part of the time. You might be amazed to learn that many Americans without enough to do spend over an hour daily playing computer simulation games. It's sickening and pathetic when you think about it.
Nothing against games themselves because chess and checkers are also war simulations, but there is a mental difference between chess and Sim City. Or is there? Movies and fiction are virtual realities too. So are gas fireplaces and the Pokemon Go fad.
What prompted this survey is that a friend's parents recently moved to The Villages in Florida. This place is 100% phony, to the point of being creepy. The people are real, but in a fake place. It is as fake as Disney World, but people go to Disney for a day or two to try to enjoy the fakery, not to live in it. Many resorts are experiences in fake realities.
Many of my pals enjoy fake hunts. They plant 30 pheasants in a hayfield then send the dogs after them. It's a fake hunt, a virtual hunt. Those "flying mattresses" have never even flown before in their lives. I am not saying that it is not fun, but it is a fake hunting experience.
He likes being a free-wheeling colorful character who says whatever he feels like at the moment regardless of information or tact. Many jobs would be fine for that, but not this one. This one requires some prep, some discipline, and some organization. Something is going on with Donald Trump.
Trump has been right about many issues, but let's just call this a big mistake and bring on Pence, please. He is the real deal and Trump seems to be begging to be thrown off the ticket. With too many, Clinton is a default vote. Almost nobody except grey hair feminists on the Upper West Side are eager to vote for her. Because, vagina.
I understand that ardent Hillary supporters could not care less about Clinton lies and Clinton money. Clinton morality is already baked in the cake and has been known for many years. No matter what is revealed, it changes no vote. Still, it's an ugly story that has to be told. Shut It Down: The Clinton Foundation Is Too Corrupt to Exist.
It is nothing more than a family slush fund and corrupt to its core. Quite remarkable, really, that anybody had the hutzpah to try the obvious scam of collecting money from foreign businesses and nations while Secretary of State. Hire some friends, your kid, and political allies, make a few token international efforts which fail except for the photo ops - and Voila!
Americans Indians on reservations live like many Black Americans live in urban areas. It can easily be a soul-destroying life where everything for survival is free because the powers that be have written them off as people without productive potential and figure that the sensible route is to give them stuff and get their votes.
Everybody admires those who escape any Indian government plantation. The worst thing about the Indians' plantation: No work at all to be done. No food needs to be produced, no buffalo left to kill, no enemy tribes to fight. Nothing. Escape is the only way to salvage a life.
Government treats blacks and Indians as if they were helpless children. Give them stuff and they will shut up. Maybe they - not the government - will figure that out someday but I do not see it happening anytime soon.
"If I were going to give a young man advice as to how he might succeed in life, I would say to him, pick out a good father and mother, and begin life in Ohio."
All the damage done to him this week was self-inflicted. The arrows he’s taken are arrows he shot. We have in seven days witnessed his undignified and ungrateful reaction to a Gold Star family; the odd moment with the crying baby; the one-on-one interviews, which are starting to look like something he does in the grip of a compulsion, in which Mr. Trump expresses himself thoughtlessly, carelessly, on such issues as Russia, Ukraine and sexual harassment; the relitigating of his vulgar Megyn Kelly comments from a year ago; and, as his fortunes fell, his statement that he “would not be surprised” if the November election were “rigged.” Subject to an unprecedented assault by a sitting president who called him intellectually and characterologically unfit for the presidency, Mr Trump fired back—at Paul Ryan and John McCain...
...the fall campaign is not going to be about ideology or policy. It's going to be about whatever crazy things Trump says between now and Election Day.
Given where the race is headed, the most likely outcome of the election is this: Clinton wins as Americans reject Trump. But, despite a victory, she will still remain broadly unpopular and distrusted among a public that probably won't have paid much attention to her actual policy proposals.
Don't blame the press. Press hostility is assumed. Don't feed the trolls, stupid. Always think before speaking. Generally, that's a good idea in life.
Please discuss. I have no answer. I vote for Mike Pence who I wish would slap some sense into The Donald who appears to be on some unhinged and uninformed ego trip. Politics is reality TV, but a certain kind of more serious reality TV which actually has effects on lives. I might be wrong...
He needs to know that he is a yuuuge target now. He signed up for that. Suck it up, Buttercup as Megan would say.
Let's grant that a hack—a way of obtaining information—and a leak—a means of disseminating information—are very different things. But, still, does the particular distinction Foer draws between the two make sense? Suppose, for example, that Russian intelligence, instead of feeding its trove of hacked secrets to WikiLeaks, had chosen to pass them along to an American investigative reporter, who then wrote about a selection of them in, say, the pages of the New Yorker or the New York Times. Would Foer have any grounds for objection?
Is he a genius, a lunatic, or an idiot?