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[smjjames]

Heck, even TRUMP knows that you have to compromise (or negotiate as he calls it), though he tries to 'compromise' to his advantage.

EDIT:
@smjjames: Easy, Trump would just treat the rest of the world like he does his creditors and contractors. (i.e. not pay them and force them to sue in court)

Not sure how that would work because I'm not sure what court you'd use.

Also *sarcastic newsflash* Trump aides are frustrated by his debate performance and apparently they couldn't get him to focus on debate prep.

Maybe they just need to find incentives to get him to focus or find out how Trump gets himself to focus. Or maybe he just needs some prescription meds for his ADD/ADHD.

[Frumple]

So every year at crunch time, we have what is essentially a power struggle in the GOP between the zealot wing and the establishment wing over who has more control. To be fair, the Democrats are quite aware of this dynamic and are happy to use it to their advantage, which doesn't help matters.

Not that there's terribly much choice in taking advantage of such. They're not really being given much alternative between that and bending over for said zealot wing of the GOP, since the reacharound between factions on that side of things seem to involve iron clamps more than hands.

Don't see much likelihood of that changing, either, unless the GOP splits. Doubtful there's many other ways to get the non-zealot branch to stop voting in lockstep with and ferrying along legislation for the rest of the party...

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This reminds me, what's everybody's odds on Happening if the Republicans lose this year? I don't just mean Trump getting 49%, I mean a serious loss, like ~5% difference and control of the Senate.

Trump's presence has seriously reopened the wounds that were scabbed over during the peak of the Tea Party, and while it seems like they've coalesced around him happily or grudgingly for the sake of the election I'm starting to wonder if the customary post-loss instability and witch hunting could be that last blow to shatter party functionality.

[Reelya]

Let's just hope there's not some guy down the line who models himself after Trump but is worse, so that we end up fondly thinking back "well Trump couldn't have been that bad."

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Alas, poor Mittens. It just wasn't your time. All that hearkening back to JFK except with Mormons, lost to the merciless sands.

[Strife26]

I would have liked to see the Republican Party tank this election just to torpedo candidates like Trump for the next few years.

[Culise]

I would have liked to see the Republican Party tank this election just to torpedo candidates like Trump for the next few years.

Call it the inner pessimist in me, but Murphy's law suggests that if it tanks, the popular take-away isn't going to be that Trump isn't a bad candidate, but that he didn't go far enough.

[Max™]

I've checked, albeit after the fact when neither would be live, and he doesn't have anything of the kind. So he either didn't think it worth keeping or... he lied about it.

Wait, did he just double jump a counterfactual fact checker over another fact checker? Do we need to stack two of them together to make a king fact checker now, or can we just use an ordinary one and call it the king fact checker because the original one didn't actually exist?

I would have liked to see the Republican Party tank this election just to torpedo candidates like Trump for the next few years.

Call it the inner pessimist in me, but Murphy's law suggests that if it tanks, the popular take-away isn't going to be that Trump isn't a bad candidate, but that he didn't go far enough.

So they need to put his king fact checker into check and force a king fact checkmate?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That's been the trend ever since Bush Sr., but honestly? I don't know how further down the rabbit hole they could go, unless someone can be found with some kind of useful experience who openly calls for lynchings and claims non-Americans are soulless automatons.

I guess there's always four years to try and redeem David Duke's reputation.

[Max™]

I wouldn't even consider the idea of a candidate less suited for the position to be theoretically possible... but despite the feeling some may have had that Trump just kinda wandered on to the wrong stage and started talking at a podium which happened to be an actual presidential debate... he was actually supposed to be there, which means we have to accept that he is actually the republican nominee.

[nenjin]

This reminds me, what's everybody's odds on Happening if the Republicans lose this year? I don't just mean Trump getting 49%, I mean a serious loss, like ~5% difference and control of the Senate.

Trump's presence has seriously reopened the wounds that were scabbed over during the peak of the Tea Party, and while it seems like they've coalesced around him happily or grudgingly for the sake of the election I'm starting to wonder if the customary post-loss instability and witch hunting could be that last blow to shatter party functionality.

I imagine there is going to be a serious retrenchment campaign by the GOP if they lose. (Or perhaps if they win.) If Clinton wins the only natural, national outlet for Republican opinions, preferences and outrage is the House and the Senate. And while the Tea Party hasn't yet managed to make one of their candidates president, they have a far better track record for motivating their base to vote for seats in Congress. (Due to low voter turn out most of the time.) It's one thing when a polarizing figure like Trump is enough to get everyone to have an opinion they'll vote on. But as a country we honestly need to care more about Senate and House bids than we currently do; the last 4 years of gridlock and bullshit are evidence of that. And with nothing else to gain, I can see Republicans being happy to repeat the same behavior under Hilary as they have Obama.

I'd also predict that, if Trump loses, Republicans will reflect on what the cost of the absence of party unity is and manage to repair some ties between them and work toward securing as many seats in Congress as they can. But it's also probably likely that the Tea Party leadership sees blood in the water after a Trump defeat and tries to put the rest of the nails in the coffin of the Old Guard. That is sort of what led them to relevance during Obama's tenure. Rather than the re-trenching that was expected after Obama's wins, we got the Tea Party instead.

What's fucked is, the Tea Party can both tear down the more moderate Republican establishment and be legislatively obstructionist at the same time. And as things continue to stultify the electorate just gets more extreme in response, which eventually puts more of the average voter in their corner.

[Rolan7]

I would have liked to see the Republican Party tank this election just to torpedo candidates like Trump for the next few years.

Call it the inner pessimist in me, but Murphy's law suggests that if it tanks, the popular take-away isn't going to be that Trump isn't a bad candidate, but that he didn't go far enough.

(apologies if crazy, unrelated all-nighter)
Yeah I dunno...  Mitt Romney was out of touch and accidentally alienated large groups of people, and was a fundamentalist Mormon, but at least he was trying to play the game.  Trump's actually different...  like a third party candidate who got elected.
Like Sanders would have been...  Though Sanders was trying to take on the system, defeat it, and fix it.  Trump is just ignoring it and, woah, somehow that's almost working.

I don't think it will work, just prompt politicians to further fortify the system against those who don't play ball.  I don't see any useful reform coming from it.  But yeah, maybe the Right half will fracture for a while.  That could be good in a different way, from my Leftish perspective, though I hold a few Right positions...  such a false dichotomy, and I don't see the two party system actually breaking from Trump.

Sanders getting money out of politics would have helped a lot, I just didn't think he had any chance of doing that even from office.  Looking at other countries clearly demonstrates how unnecessary and terrible our campaign finance laws are...  The British government ain't perfect, but it's sure better on that front!
Tom Scott: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egeMAIXYIvI

[mainiac]

I just realised, from perusing a debate transcript, that when Hills announced that she had a live Fact Checker on her website¹, Don then immediately responded to say that so did he.

I've checked, albeit after the fact when neither would be live, and he doesn't have anything of the kind. So he either didn't think it worth keeping or... he lied about it.


¹ Not the best thing to do, it can only be partisan, and the people who truly care would go elsewhere.

Oh Donald.

TBH I think there is a role for a partisan fact checker.  People know that when they are on the candidates website that website has a partisan agenda.  But the candidate's fact checker will say things that the media might not due to the need to be "neutral".  It circumvents some of the bullshit Donald has been doing.

We had our credit rating downgraded over shit like this for bleeping sakes. Although we did become like 'Actually, AA rating isn't that bad...' after a while of moaning over the rating drop.

Well yeah but the markets didn't respond to the rating downgrade at all.  The rating agency had it's head up it's ass IMHO.

[nenjin]

So it looks like JASTA is going to become law....

http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/28/news/override-obama-veto-911-bill/index.html

As usual I'm of two minds on this. For one, holy shit, we're essentially saying diplomatic immunity is no longer really a thing, at least civilly. (More like diplomatic criminal protection.) 9/11 families will get to sue Saudi Arabia and....the rest of the world will get to sue us? With all respect due to the 9/11 families, their losses are a drop of water in the bucket compared to the death toll from Obama's drone policy in Pakistan. Did anyone really think this through, or did we once again just knee jerk react to 9/11 because being honest is still considered political suicide. The shit passed 97-1 in the Senate. Only Harry Reid went on record against. Bernie Sanders, Tim Kaine? Oh they abstained.

But on the other hand.....holy shit, we've just basically made ourselves accountable in some small way for our military actions overseas. If US private citizens can sue other governments, the door can swing both ways. The potential $ figure on clandestine military operations just went up. There can be depositions where names may have to be used. For the way things have been getting done, this is a pretty big inconvenience. Which for all our supposed military hawks in US government out there, I'm surprised we've not heard more about that reality. Again I ask....did anyone really think this through, besides Obama? I'm happy that we can be held accountable for shit like our drone policy, which is atrocious. But if our government still doesn't learn its lesson, that just means we're not only being morally reprehensible, we're also paying TWICE for the privilege to be so.

[wobbly]

Haven't looked in to the details but how exactly is this meant to work? If an American court rules the Saudi government needs to pay up & the Saudis decide an American court has no jurisdiction... ?