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[TheBiggerFish]

Do you just define good canidate by ability to win?

Yes.  By definition, the candidate who wins is the best candidate.

That doesn't mean they're best at whatever job they're applying to via the process of an election.  From the fact that I voted for Hillary, I obviously thought she'd be a better President than the current idiot in the office.

However, it is an established fact that in a heads-up contest between the two candidates, Trump won.

Um...He didn't win the popular vote.

[Sheb]

Muldrake's point has little to do with the quality of the candidate as leader or human being, his point was that last year's candidate were the two worse candidates in his memory in terms of electability. Not sure I agree, but that's all he said.

[smjjames]

Pretty sure Clinton would have been way more competent than Trump, she was a terrible candidate for different reasons than Trump was a terrible candidate. Though she would have been blocked by a Republican Congress at every step and the whole Benghazi thing would have been dialed up exponentially.

Of course though, that's the risk of having a very long political career, you accquire lots of baggage.

[Sheb]

Pretty sure Clinton would have been way more competent than Trump, she was a terrible candidate for different reasons than Trump was a terrible candidate. Though she would have been blocked by a Republican Congress at every step and the whole Benghazi thing would have been dialed up exponentially.

Of course though, that's the risk of having a very long political career, you accquire lots of baggage.

Is anyone disputing that? I mean, even among those here which seems to think that the main quality a leader must have is to clamp down on muslims immigration, I'm sure they'd agree that Clinton would have been more competent, even without agreeing to her policy. That travel ban was a mess.

[Sergarr]

Great, Trump is now trying to extort protection money out of Germany:

Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nevertheless, Germany owes.....

...vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!

[Sheb]

Great, no getting the Germans to agree to more defense spending will be even harder.

[smjjames]

Great, Trump is now trying to extort protection money out of Germany:

Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nevertheless, Germany owes.....

...vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!

What fake news about the meeting? The only criticism I've seen is that he seemed to ignore her offer of a handshake when they were doing the photo-op in the Oval office. Other than that, nothing particularily critical, besides it being awkward, which is only honest and it was certainly awkward for Merkel.

And yeah, I read somewhere of him saying that allies owe vast sums to NATO. It seems to be more of pandering to his base, even though it appears like backstabbing Merkel after meeting with her.

@Sheb: I thought Merkel had already said she pledged to increase military spending as much as she could? I suppose it depends on how much the German politicians are willing to put up with Trump and ignore the rhetoric. Though yes, it's going to irk them regardless, and Trump is already disliked in Germany.

[smjjames]

The Governments requirements for 'The Great Wall of Trump' (I called it that, not the government) The article does link to documents, but you have to download them, I'll list the stuff mentioned in the article though.

-Wall must be 'physically imposing', between 30 and 18 feet, ideally 30, higher if you can.

-"The wall must also be impossible to climb without a ladder, and should make it difficult to use "common and more sophisticated climbing aids," like grappling hooks. "

-In addition, the wall must resist attempts to penetrate through or under it. The request specifically mentions it must successfully endure for at least 30 minutes -- but ideally more than four hours -- attempts to bore through it with a "sledgehammer, car jack, pick axe, chisel, battery operated impact tools, battery operated cutting tools, Oxy/acetylene torch or other similar hand-held tools."

-It must be aesthetically pleasing with a nice color (a BEYOOUTIFUL Wall)

-It must blend in with the landscape or match it's surroundings.

-After initially saying the wall should be made of concrete, the government widened its call and said it would consider "other designs." On Friday, it suggested non-concrete designs "may not be entirely solid" and could feature "a see-through component" so the border patrol would have "situational awareness" of the Mexican side.

So, it's quite a tall (pun intended) order and an engineering challenge, that's for sure. Also, 'tall and imposing' and 'blend with the landscape' don't really go together iMO for a manmade structure since it seems like you'd want it to be obvious because imposing means it would stand out. Unless we're talking about natural stone or something.

edit: I just realized that there's nothing regarding ecological considerations, which would throw an entire bag of new wrenches into the mix.

edit2: Maybe they could have added 'as cheaply as possible' because it'd be in the governments interest to have it be as cheap as they can get it.

Edit3: Oh, and, they're going to have to adapt to multiple different environments. The border crosses a desert with shifting sand dunes, how you build a wall there is going to be MUCH different than say, in a mountainous area.

[redwallzyl]

i would just like to mention that any wall would do immense damage to cultural resources as well as environmental with both having to be approved and a full survey and mitigation going on before it could happen as this is a federal projects and so it is required by law that they do so.

[smjjames]

i would just like to mention that any wall would do immense damage to cultural resources as well as environmental with both having to be approved and a full survey and mitigation going on before it could happen as this is a federal projects and so it is required by law that they do so.

And those would likely take years, especially considering how much territory it covers. I also mentioned in an edit that it'll cross many different environments. If they're going to put something down that is more complex than a simple fence, they'll have to design for the environment that they're doing.

Right now, they're asking for prototypes for an extremely small segment, 30 feet (a bit over 9 meters), the wall would be thousands of miles (AND kilometers) long.

I think they're asking for trouble by not considering environmental factors (I mean like temperature, the kind of soil you're building on, etc) because 30 feet is fine for a small area, but not neccesarily 2,000 miles.

[redwallzyl]

lets not treat the "wall" as a legitimate rational thing. its stupid, pointless and a distraction for fools.

[wobbly]

And yeah, I read somewhere of him saying that allies owe vast sums to NATO. It seems to be more of pandering to his base, even though it appears like backstabbing Merkel after meeting with her.

Pretty sure he was saying this kind of stuff back before he even ran for office? I don't remember it coming up during he's actual campaign, though I might of missed it in amongst the mass of other nonsense. I was wondering if/when it'd rear it's ugly head again.

[smjjames]

I don't see it as a rational thing, but it doesn't stop me from discussing it. They'd have to get it paid for first and other than that starter downpayment thing Trump did do, I don't see it getting paid for anytime soon.

The environmental and cultural mitigation survey thing is definetly going to delay it for quite a while, years probably. So, it'll be a while before it even gets started.

And yeah, I read somewhere of him saying that allies owe vast sums to NATO. It seems to be more of pandering to his base, even though it appears like backstabbing Merkel after meeting with her.

Pretty sure he was saying this kind of stuff back before he even ran for office? I don't remember it coming up during he's actual campaign, though I might of missed it in amongst the mass of other nonsense. I was wondering if/when it'd rear it's ugly head again.

He may not have said that word for word during the campaign, but he's definetly said things along the lines of that. Which is why I said it's just pandering to his base, even though it really does look like he's backstabbing Merkel.

[Greiger]

More persistently peddled lie than caricature, but I guess that works, too. FTFE, etc., etc.

Now I may be mistaken on this, I know the whole email thing wasn't a big deal, but I recall a quote from Hillary Clinton saying that she got confused about which email to use and that she didn't know how to use the email was her defense against the claims at first.  Despite whatever the actual explanation was. (If I understand correctly now it wasn't actually an unusual practice)  Was I misled about her explaining the emails away by essentially saying they were too complicated for her?  That's my biggest sticking point against her, that she supposedly pled innocent due to stupidity.

And no I'm not being confrontational here, there is legitimately so much misinformation around that election that I would like to know if I was misinformed on that.
(No, I still would not have voted for her.  I would have still voted 3rd party)

[muldrake]

How does that change anything about it being quite dubious to rank candidates on their ability to win the election?

I was very specifically limiting that qualification to the issue of candidacy and yes, if you win the election, by definition you are the best candidate, that being someone standing for election and then actually winning an election.

In a functioning democracy, that also has some loose connection to being actually good at the office.

I think it should be obvious from the fact that I voted for Hillary that I thought she'd be a better President, but from the fact that he won the election, Trump was clearly a superior candidate, for the purpose of winning an election.

Muldrake's point has little to do with the quality of the candidate as leader or human being, his point was that last year's candidate were the two worse candidates in his memory in terms of electability. Not sure I agree, but that's all he said.

While I am very good at burying my own point in favor of arguing about nonsense, this is pretty much my point, to the extent there is one.  Trump was an awful candidate.  Hillary was even worse, even though her policies were, IMO, better.

I'll note there were a substantial number of voters who were entirely aware of what Trump is and actually voted for him for that reason, although I think a substantial number of other voters voted for him literally having no clue what a piece of shit he is.

We now have a shit sandwich for President.

More persistently peddled lie than caricature, but I guess that works, too. FTFE, etc., etc.

Now I may be mistaken on this, I know the whole email thing wasn't a big deal, but I recall a quote from Hillary Clinton saying that she got confused about which email to use and that she didn't know how to use the email was her defense against the claims at first.  Despite whatever the actual explanation was. (If I understand correctly now it wasn't actually an unusual practice)  Was I misled about her explaining the emails away by essentially saying they were too complicated for her?  That's my biggest sticking point against her, that she supposedly pled innocent due to stupidity.

Ronald Reagan did the same shit in Iran/Contra.  The only difference is he was more charming when he told that particular series of lies.

I don't believe it for a minute.  Hillary is a lawyer, she was legally educated and is highly intelligent.  IMO she knew the email server shit was illegal and a dodge against FOIA requests and other legal requirements, and chose to do it anyway.