Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

But because Obama is black, he could speak to this issue with more gravitas than some white politician blah blah blah

Mitch McConnell respects nothing more than gravitas, amiright?

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Still for a PI guy this is no-lose. If Hil wins the traditional PI work has got to be reinvigorated. Trump? He is going to create a whole new slander/libel law that will put your ass in the green. I envy you.

Yes suing newspapers Etc for libel on contingency is consistent with most of trumps other business plans in that they are designed to make a small fortune out of a big fortune.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

In an election year...

It's kind of quaint that you think this is still a thing.

TM

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

This does not strike me as "careful" lawyering. In fact, it sound like the attorneys on the Trump legal team are as good at law-type stuff as Trump is at business-type stuff.

Trump has great lawyers. The best. You're a Loser.

[SEC_Chick]

I am doing a bit of Wonking, but I can say without a hint of hyperbole that every single straight white middle-aged man who is a supporter of Hillary, with whom I interact in any manner, posts to this board.

I find no shortage of things for which to legitimately criticize Obama, but failure to single-handedly reform the criminal justice system isn't one of them. [I even secretly applaud him pardoning Demaryius Thomas' mother.]

Saturday was good for NeverTrump. Yesterday was not. I put odds at 80% Trump gets a majority of delegates and 18% for his failing to get the majority and a contested convention, and 2% for a Cruz win. I admit I may be biased in terms of Cruz success.

I am formally withdrawing my hasty pledge to vote for Hillary if Trump wins . I can't vote for her based on her position on abortion. I am awaiting Gary Johnson to pull out the Libertarian nomination. I lived in NM when he was elected governor (and while I don't recall exactly, I am pretty certain he was the first person I ever voted for as Governor). I am pretty sure my vote won't matter anyway and I fully expect Texas to go Trump by a decent margin. I don't see Hillary running all that close in Texas, particularly after all of the money that came in to support Wendy Davis, and the R margin of victory, and the lack of enthusiasm for Hillary generally

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

(1) The Republicans had a choice to make and they made it. For you to keep talking about Obama instead of McConnell shows that you are delusional or trolling. Hard to tell which. Both is a possibility, I suppose.

(2) In an election year, do you really believe that the speech you describe above would persuade *any* Republicans to support criminal justice reform? If so, which specific Republican legislators do you believe are susceptible to persuasion by Obama, and what about them makes you think this?

(3) If it is not otherwise clear, you are on crack.

You're missing the point. This is not about getting legislation passed.

I just want him to say those things to the public. Sure, it's a kamikaze mission. But it starts the discussion. Booker and Paul have tried to push for crim justice reform and gotten some airtime on the issue. The President could greatly assist in putting the matter more in the realm of urgent public debate.

I suspect your cynical view is Obama should not offer such a speech because its lack of success during his term would reflect badly on him. It might in the short term, but over the long term, I think it would be seen as brave and ahead of the curve.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Mitch McConnell respects nothing more than gravitas, amiright?

You can't miss a point this much. You're just being a pain in the ass here.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Obama cannot effectively talk to white people from the center on to the right when it comes to anything that has to do race. While what you said may be true (and he's definitely spoken about this stuff before), here's what they hear:

"As the first black President, I only care about issues that relate to black people and I want to free the thugs and drug dealers you fear so much who you believe cause so much violence in neighborhoods you actually never set foot in."

That's how it is. I have no idea why you think this country will rally around the President on these issues when they all just sat by and watched Congress try to shoot down any idea coming from the West Wing. Given the rhetoric from the fucking leading candidate of the Republican Party and his followers, what makes you think any of this stuff is actually achievable no matter what source if comes from?

TM

I think you discount the existence of a lot of sympathetic, sensible white people. Having seen the system in action, there's never been a moment in my legal career where I didn't think it was corrupt, racist, and cruel and brutally unthinking where it needed to be nimble and open-minded. I think almost all lawyers, even prosecutors, would admit there are three scales of justice. One for the white and moneyed. One for the white and poor. One for the black and latino.

These people have families. They have friends. And when they see things like Ferguson on TV, or the endless specials about poor and minority people being freed from death row after being railroaded by corrupt law enforcement officers and prosecutors, the message resonates all the more.

It used to be, you could not sit among Republicans or even moderate Democrats from flyover land and say something like, "The system is rigged and racist" without being bullied as a soft liberal. In the wake of all these police killings, however, it's now the "tough on crime" person who looks like a clueless fool. Granted, my petri dish is upper middle class to affluent sorts (the average Trump lumpenvoter is still a bigoted moron and wants more prisons and shooting, not less), but it's a start. If I can turn to a blathering jackass running his mouth off about "getting tougher with the thugs" at a dinner party and tell him he's talking out of his ass, and that it's the cops we should be more radically policing, and the non-violent offenders we should be releasing, we're at a good moment... A moment where a lot of people who feel like I do on this issue will feel comfortable saying, "I don't want to elect a guy who's saying we should jail people like Joe Arpaio does. And I don't want a police department outfitted like a fucking SWAT team. This is bullshit used to get stupid Republican trash to vote for candidates. I think I'll vote Democratic until the GOP changes its tune. And if the Democrat is a 'tough on crime' sort, I'll vote for a third party, or stay home."*

Maybe I'm dreaming, but I think there was a moment here where Obama could capitalize on a shift in public perception. And I think there still might be one.

If nothing else, it'll keep Hillary from taking money from private prison lobbyists. That's reward enough.

__________
* I also don't think white America grasps that a 'prosecute 'em all and throw away the key' police state doesn't stop with minorities. These bloodthirsty degenerates have artillery budgets to justify, and their corporate prison lobbyist sponsors have growth projections to meet. When they've wrung all possible profit out of harassing and warehousing minorities, they'll work their way through the white population.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Trump has great lawyers. The best. You're a Loser.

Get rid of this guy. Bye, bye, GGG, time to go home to mommy, you pathetic little rodent. Man, he just makes me want to crack him right in the face with a baseball bat. Except I am against violence. Be careful when you're taking him out. I don't like violence, but let's just say if he were to have a little accident on the way out, you won't have to worry about paying a lawyer to defend you.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

I am formally withdrawing my hasty pledge to vote for Hillary if Trump wins .

On behalf of Team Hillary, we'll consider your pledge fulfilled as long as you don't vote for Trump.

I can't vote for her based on her position on abortion.

That's so completely mind-blowing to me, but okay.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I think you discount the existence of a lot of sympathetic, sensible white people.

You're saying this now? There are lots of those people, but they don't matter much in the GOP.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Get rid of this guy. Bye, bye, GGG, time to go home to mommy, you pathetic little rodent. Man, he just makes me want to crack him right in the face with a baseball bat. Except I am against violence. Be careful when you're taking him out. I don't like violence, but let's just say if he were to have a little accident on the way out, you won't have to worry about paying a lawyer to defend you.

I wonder if the socks that aren't saying bad stuff about him, maybe those socks signed that agreement? Wait, I'm not posting about him. Whoa. Mind blown.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I think you discount the existence of a lot of sympathetic, sensible white people.

Not bloody likely. To the extent that such white people exist, they are already convinced. I think you are overstating in your head the number of people who will listen to such a speech by Obama as anything other than what I said they'd hear.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Maybe I'm dreaming, but I think there was a moment here where Obama could capitalize on a shift in public perception. And I think there still might be one.

I disagree. This type of reform needs to come from a white guy with white hair who lives in the center of political spectrum. And the absolute only reason people have moved on this issue at all is that they have realized that drug addiction and the resulting arrests are not peculiar to the ghetto. They look around their suburbs and see 20% of the privileged white kids are in that deep heroin nod.

TM

[Adder]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

I am doing a bit of Wonking, but I can say without a hint of hyperbole that every single straight white middle-aged man who is a supporter of Hillary, with whom I interact in any manner, posts to this board.

I don't normally respond to the same post twice, but I was just thinking that "what do straight, middle-aged men think" is a great metric for deciding what not to do or support. Especially if you make it white men.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

I don't normally respond to the same post twice, but I was just thinking that "what do straight, middle-aged men think" is a great metric for deciding what not to do or support. Especially if you make it white men.

It is kind of amazing how many straight white middle aged democratic male Hillary supporters congregate here. Let's face it, our demographic is mostly split between Bernie and Il Toupee.