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[Sergarr]

Speaking of assassinations, some high officials from the GOP have already started to call for a, as Trump has said it, "2nd Amendment" solution to a problem of Clinton winning elections.

Time will tell if they'll really go through with it this time, or if this is just another dose of hot air, fresh from "Obawwma-men" who were saying same things in relation to Obama winning 2008 elections.

[Flying Dice]

Who could pos-

oh jesus christ it's bevin

how that yankee carpetbagger motherfucker got elected here I will never know

how people don't understand that their social benefits disappeared after he was elected because he told them that he was going to take them away i will never know

[Sergarr]

Oh fucking hell: Mike Pence refused to call David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK, "deplorable".

He did say that Trump denounced him and didn't want his support, but apparently, he's "not in the name-calling business". Funny to see this from a right-hand man to a person who's openly against political correctness. Apparently, "calling it like it is" is applied very selectively, and white nationalists are definitely excluded. What a stunning PR move.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't buy into this one. The David Duke thing was stupid to begin with, probably the only major Trumpism that's spun from whole cloth.

At the end of the day DD is a nobody wannabe nazi and requiring everybody to go on TV to curse his Name and Line is stupid and has nothing to do with the election. If anything I'm just disappointed in Wolf Blitzer.

[Helgoland]

More DNC leaks, with some interesting reading about how large donations to the DNC correlate with cushy diplomatic positions.

It's nice to see that to be ambassador to the UK you have to donate more than 3x the amount you do to be ambassador to the EU. Though to be fair, perhaps it's actually Sweden who are the ones driving that listed price up.

Probably because London is a much more interesting city than Brussels. It's not like ambassadors to first-world countries these days are anything more than symbolic anyway.

[mainiac]

More DNC leaks, with some interesting reading about how large donations to the DNC correlate with cushy diplomatic positions.

I suppose that might be interesting to anyone who is completely unaware of how this has happened in every country in the world for the past 300 years.  It is always fascinating to gain basic familiarity with politics.  I must say this is a very unorthodox medium to learn middle school civics.

[Frumple]

... since when was large political donations correlating to cushy diplomatic positions news? Hasn't that been a common thing for... decades? On both sides of the aisle in the US?

Diplomat to a country that they don't have to do much actual work in has been the standard way to both throw supporters a bone and get them out of the way for... I want to say millennium, if you go beyond US history.

and ninja'd, but okay. Pretty sure that's at least as far back as rome and whatnot, though. Three centuries is probably too little, heh.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Probably started around the time diplomatic immunity and having an office in every country you could ever conceivably need to communicate with became common practice.

[mainiac]

I was entertained by this comparison: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/09/donald-trump-announces-something-press-goes-wild
In a nutshell: Trump farts out a half baked plan, front page news.  Clinton has had a detailed plan on the topic since before her candidacy announcement, no one knows.

Even if we accept the idea that Trump is newsworthy because this is out of character for him, there is an obvious way to give the candidates equal treatment.  Compare the plans.

Probably started around the time diplomatic immunity and having an office in every country you could ever conceivably need to communicate with became common practice.

I believe that diplomatic immunity dates back to antiquity.  While political favors helped with ambassadorships that long, it wasn't really a cushy position until more recently.  Two or three hundred years back is when there is a professional diplomatic staff that the ambassador can delegate everything to while they go whoring.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I think the fact that "don't shoot the messenger" became a part of established wisdom demonstrates on its own just how safe being a diplomat was in the Dark Times.

[TempAcc]

Its not like those things were terribly uncommon, though they weren't as common as one might think, either, but being a messenger or a diplomat was a seriously dangerous job in the middle ages and back. Chances are you could end up being disemboweled because one lord or another didn't like the tone in your voice or something.

[mainiac]

Its not like those things were terribly uncommon, though they weren't as common as one might think, either, but being a messenger or a diplomat was a seriously dangerous job in the middle ages and back. Chances are you could end up being disemboweled because one lord or another didn't like the tone in your voice or something.

Do you have any cases you are thinking about or is this an amorphous "seems like it would be so" thing?

[Sergarr]

Its not like those things were terribly uncommon, though they weren't as common as one might think, either, but being a messenger or a diplomat was a seriously dangerous job in the middle ages and back. Chances are you could end up being disemboweled because one lord or another didn't like the tone in your voice or something.

Do you have any cases you are thinking about or is this an amorphous "seems like it would be so" thing?

I know one example of a diplomat getting killed over a relatively small-scale dispute, but it's actually fairly recent.

[TempAcc]

Well, I'd assume its a famous enough thing that nobody would even ask, but there's Vlad's (Dracula) example of nailing the messenger's hat to his head because he really didn't think much of his turk enemies and because he felt the messenger was being arrogant. Plutarch also mentions cases of messengers having their heads cut off for giving specially bad news.

Also, the whole "throwing people into wells" thing done in 300 is a reference to actual accounts of Darius' messengers being thrown into pits after being sent to parlay with sparta and athens. Its not like it was a common practice, since killing a messenger practically signified a declaration of war, but if you were ALREADY at war, then things could get dicy really fast for a messenger or diplomat. Its not like human rights were a thing back then.

Genghis Khan apparently also famously anihilated some of his enemies after his envoys were "humiliated". An envoy to George Maniakes, a certain infamous 11th century byzantine lord, also died in probably not a very pleasant way, but Maniakes was known for being a heckless dweeb.

[RedKing]

The Onion has a nice state-by-state guide to the election, for those who need some levity (i.e. ALL OF US).

And as usual, it's filled with "ha ha that's funny.....*quiet weeping*" nuggets of truth. Like this tidbit about North Carolina:

Pat McCrory vs. Roy Cooper (Governor): The outcome of this heated race could determine whether North Carolina is Virginia-level Southern or Alabama-level Southern.

I think they're being generous there, tbh. Even Alabama doesn't have a bathroom bill.