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[Max™]

And how should they force everyone to do it? Militarily?

"Enact minimum wage, or die!"

We could turn the UN into a federation of some sort. Make countries into provinces.

I'm not sure if I should try to spin that into a Gundam reference (avoid Dublin and Sydney!) or a Trek one, or go somewhere else... so I'll go back to politics: anybody hear about Stein having a warrant issued for vandalism or something at a protest just recently?

[RedKing]

Yeah. I figure she's trying to bolster her street cred on the activist Left. Not a real hippie unless you've got at least a couple of arrests and a tear gassing or two under your belt. 

[mainiac]

What is this meme?

He emphasises words a lot?

And my reasons for that have largely been borne out -- too much baggage

This baggage theory doesn't make sense with the demographics though.  The older voters, the ones who should be most aware of the baggage are the ones aren't the deficit.  The deficit is with voters under 30.  A hypothetical 44%-50% approval rating for Clinton (if we switched young adults to the extrapolation instead of reality) would look fine compared to this guy or this guy looked back when we thought one of them would be running against Clinton.

She only looks like a flawed candidate because the young voters have turned against her so strongly.  And the young voters are the ones least exposed to that baggage you talk about.  They are the voters whose first round of politics was bullshit like this: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/06/05/bernie_sanders_clinton_foundation_is_a_problem_took_money_from_dictatorships.html
Note the time of that article.  It's six weeks after this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHS-K7OuLAc

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Louie Gohmert literally degrades into elementary school rhetoric about how Clinton is "special".

Donald Trump tries his hardest to make people Godwin.

Trump also endorsed a plan to clone Antonin Scalia for the sake of the future Supreme Court. Did not mention whether he thought Scalia was murdered by Clinton Foundation staffers or not.

[Strife26]

Yeah, it's all over the North Dakota airwaves. She spray painted "I approve this message" on a bulldozer at an anti-pipeline rally-protest-b&e-vandalism opportunity.

[Rolepgeek]

See, what we need to do is fix globalism by forcing all nations to provide a decent standard of living and a planetary minimum wage.

And how should they force everyone to do it? Militarily?

"Enact minimum wage, or die!"

I will take this burden onto myself.

Worry not; so long as you comply with our reasonable regulations and laws, we will not be forced to cause the nanomachines within your blood and the air you breathe to enforce the rights of yourself and others to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

[Max™]

Kojima 2016: who cares if he wasn't born here, nanomachines son!

[Rolepgeek]

Kojima 2016: who cares if he wasn't born here, nanomachines son!

I'm pretty sure that Kojima would be crazier than any of our current candidates.

But I'm not actually certain, because it's possible he's only like that when he's doin' games.

[mainiac]

The TPP actually has labor standards in it.  If a country doesn't meet the labor standards they face trade sanctions.  Clinton thinks the oversight is weak and wants to negotiate a new oversight agreement but the enforcement mechanism of trade sanctions is pretty meaty.

[Guardian G.I.]

Russian political analysts brace themselves for the upcoming reign of the First Woman President. Their worries slightly resemble the anxiety of the Soviet leadership about Reagan's aggressiveness in the early 1980s - the kind of anxiety that nearly resulted in nuclear war during Able Archer 83.

Choice quotes:

Let’s not mince words: Moscow perceives the former secretary of state as an existential threat. The Russian foreign-policy experts I consulted did not harbor even grudging respect for Clinton. The most damaging chapter of her tenure was the NATO intervention in Libya, which Russia could have prevented with its veto in the U.N. Security Council. Moscow allowed the mission to go forward only because Clinton had promised that a no-fly zone would not be used as cover for regime change.

Russia’s leaders were understandably furious when, not only was former Libyan President Muammar al-Qaddafi ousted, but a cellphone recording of his last moments showed U.S.-backed rebels sodomizing him with a bayonet. They were even more enraged by Clinton’s videotaped response to the same news: “We came, we saw, he died,” the secretary of state quipped before bursting into laughter, cementing her reputation in Moscow as a duplicitous warmonger.

As a candidate, Clinton has given Moscow déjà vu by once again demanding a humanitarian no-fly zone in the Middle East — this time in Syria. Russian analysts universally believe that this is another pretext for regime change. Putin is determined to prevent Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from meeting the same fate as Qaddafi — which is why he has deployed Russia’s air force, navy, and special operations forces to eliminate the anti-Assad insurgents, many of whom have received U.S. training and equipment.

Given the ongoing Russian operations, a “no-fly zone” is a polite euphemism for shooting down Russia’s planes unless it agrees to ground them. Clinton is aware of this fact. When asked in a debate whether she would shoot down Russian planes, she responded, “I do not think it would come to that.” In other words, if she backs Putin into a corner, she is confident he will flinch before the United States starts a shooting war with Russia.

[...]

Clinton has justified her threatened attack on Russia’s air force, saying that it “gives us some leverage in our conversations with Russia.” This sounds suspiciously like the “madman theory” of deterrence subscribed to by former President Richard Nixon, who tried to maximize his leverage by convincing the Soviets he was crazy enough to start a world war. Nixon’s bluff was a failure; even when he invaded Cambodia, Moscow never questioned his sanity. Today, Russian analysts do not retain the same confidence in Hillary Clinton’s soundness of mind.

Her temper became legendary in Moscow when she breached diplomatic protocol by storming out of a meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov just moments after exchanging pleasantries. And the perception that she is unstable was exacerbated by reports that Clinton drank heavily while acting as America’s top diplomat — accusations that carry special weight in a country that faults alcoholism for many of Boris Yeltsin’s failures.

Cultural differences in decorum have made the situation worse. In Russia, where it is considered a sign of mental illness to so much as smile at a stranger on the street, leaders are expected to project an image of stern calm. Through that prism, Clinton has shown what looks like disturbing behavior on the campaign trail: barking like a dog, bobbing her head, and making exaggerated faces. (To be clear, my point is not that these are real signs of cognitive decay, but that many perceive them that way in Moscow.)

Another factor that disturbs Russian analysts is the fact that, unlike prior hawks such as John McCain, Clinton is a Democrat. This has allowed her to mute the West’s normal anti-interventionist voices, even as Iraq-war architect Robert Kagan boasts that Clinton will pursue a neocon foreign policy by another name. Currently, the only voice for rapprochement with Russia is Clinton’s opponent, Donald Trump. If she vanquishes him, she will have a free hand to take the aggressive action against Russia that Republican hawks have traditionally favored.

<after explaining the Kremlin's belief in realpolitik, and their opinion of Donald Trump as the person who understands the importance of realpolitik>
In Clinton, it sees the polar opposite — a progressive ideologue who will stubbornly adhere to moral postures regardless of their consequences. Clinton also has financial ties to George Soros, whose Open Society Foundations are considered the foremost threat to Russia’s internal stability, based on their alleged involvement in Eastern Europe’s prior “Color Revolutions.”

Russia’s security apparatus is certain that Soros aspires to overthrow Putin’s government using the same methods that felled President Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine: covertly orchestrated mass protests concealing armed provocateurs. The Kremlin’s only question is whether Clinton is reckless enough to back those plans.

Putin condemned the United States for flirting with such an operation in 2011, when then-Secretary Clinton spoke out in favor of mass protests against his party’s victory in parliamentary elections. Her recent explosive rhetoric has given him no reason to believe that she has abandoned the dream of a Maidan on Red Square.

That fear was heightened when Clinton surrogate Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, recently accused Putin of attempting to rig the U.S. election through cyberattacks. That is a grave allegation — the very kind of thing a President Clinton might repeat to justify war with Russia.

Personally, I think the last paragraph about Clinton possibly starting a war with Russia over cyberattacks is bullshit fearmongering. No one could really bring the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation because of cyberattacks and email leaks - this is stupid.
No, really, who could even...

“As president, I will make it clear that the United States will treat cyberattacks just like any other attack,” the Democratic presidential nominee said. “We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses.”

...well, shit.

[mainiac]

Let's put that shoe there on the other foot.

Suppose American hackers attack Russian nuclear and natural gas infrastructure.  They cause meltdowns at three or four Russian nuclear plants and ruin subterranean equipment on thousands of kilometers of pipelines.  Tens of billions of dollars of damage are done.  Rolling blackouts throughout Russia and markets are in chaos.  And the Russian government among it's many actions mobilizes every available military asset to both respond to the crisis and to be ready in the case of imminent war.

Would you say that it's ridiculous for Russia to be ready to respond militarily to cyber warfare?

Clinton didn't say "you hack my emails I nuke the Kremlin".  Clinton was just stating that military assets are used in cases of sabotage or suspected sabotage.  This has been true for decades.  If you judge vague statements by assuming they are evil then all you are doing is showing is that you had an opinion ahead of time that you are trying to twist the facts to fit.

[Rolepgeek]

If Clinton had said 'no I will not respond with any meaningful force if our infrastructure is attacked' I would have been more worried.

That said, somehow I don't think hackers can just cause meltdowns at nuclear plants, or rolling blackouts for that matter. I don't think their controls are hooked up to the internet. Hopefully their overseers are watching porn on their phones, rather than their workstations. :/

Cyberattacks would be more like seriously compromising extremely confidential stuff, I suspect. Which would still be incredibly dangerous.

[Sergarr]

The thread name change has almost made me believe that Ameripol was purged away.

Has anyone mentioned that Trump has done a RT interview? Because he has done a RT interview. Given his other recent pro-Putinistic comments, there can be no doubt that he has received an infusion of fresh Russian money and is now working to fulfil his own part of the funding agreement.

[Culise]

If Clinton had said 'no I will not respond with any meaningful force if our infrastructure is attacked' I would have been more worried.

That said, somehow I don't think hackers can just cause meltdowns at nuclear plants, or rolling blackouts for that matter. I don't think their controls are hooked up to the internet. Hopefully their overseers are watching porn on their phones, rather than their workstations. :/

Cyberattacks would be more like seriously compromising extremely confidential stuff, I suspect. Which would still be incredibly dangerous.

You don't actually need to be connected to the Internet.  Stuxnet is probably the most triumphant example of this so far, generally believed to be intended to be passed via USB drives into Iranian nuclear weapons program intranets, where they'd then literally run centrifuges until they tear themselves apart.  Any security system, up to and including air-gapping (which, more disturbingly, can theoretically be breached directly), is only as effective as the people using it.  All you need is one idiot who ignores the letter of the regs on bringing in and out external data to either bring their work home with them (in the case of Iran's program), or haul music or videos to work to plop on their workstation.

[mainiac]

That said, somehow I don't think hackers can just cause meltdowns at nuclear plants, or rolling blackouts for that matter.

Nuclear plants are very delicate.  Nobody has tried with a plant but the US was able to sabotage Iranian reactors by just subtlely fucking with the speed controls.

And blackouts are a perennial concern among the security obsessed.

Given his other recent pro-Putinistic comments, there can be no doubt that he has received an infusion of fresh Russian money and is now working to fulfil his own part of the funding agreement.

I think the man just likes being nice to people who respect him.  Which makes him like most politicians (and most people) but he doesn't give a fuck about the backlash either.