What do you mean?
This one? Honestly, Iād kind of forgotten it 
That said, Iām looking forward to Primary season. The 2016 Republican debates were some of the funniest television Iāve seen in years.
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Well thatās impressive! How did the election turn out?
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Oh, g-d, please donāt dredge those up once moreā¦ Itād be like having to live through them all over again.
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I mean that I am pleased and delighted that Rick Perry has been indicted on two felony counts 
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Warren narrowly beat Stein. Republicans wiped out.
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Why is that?
Donāt sell Ted Cruz short! His dad, Rafeal Cruz is a batshit paranoid Texas evangelist who is a regularly on Glenn Beckās show.
Cruz senior is Tedās ambassador to the Christian Domionist Birther conspiracy lunatic community.
Itās also worth asking wondering if Ted was raised being told he is a mission from god to bring down the US government?
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Well Jon Huntsmans is still around, but heās too sane to make it past the Iowa straw polls. But we all owe him a tip of the hat for his smoking hot daughter Abbey who is now on MSNBC.
Whatever happened to Huckabee? Did he get some AM Radio gig or something?
I was disappointed that we never got a āI 
Huckabeeā campaign drive.
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I donāt want to minimize the seriousness of a DUI, but forcing someone to resign their job is questionable. Yes people in high profile positions have quit over DUIs, but forcing some to quit would depend on a lot of things like their employment agreement. And Perry got in trouble for a political quid pro quo. From what iāve heard about possible sentences, Perry is being charged with a much more serious crime.
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Ah, you beat me to the punchline. I have friends in Austin and am familiar with the broader story behind all this. Yep, Lehmberg has made her acknowledgement of wrong doing quite clear. Sheās also said that she wonāt simply step down with Perry running things - for good reason.
Perry meanwhile now has two counts against him:
Count one is for actually withholding the $200,000 in funding from the Public Integrity Unit. He did it to them specifically because she is in charge of that unit which oversees public corruption.
Count two is ācoercionā for threatening to veto the legislation that provided the budget funds ($7.5 million) to be made available if she wouldnāt leave office.
What he did may or may not be within his gubernatorial rights (ahh Texas law), but because he chose to play the bully one time too often (and too publicly) it looks like this time he may have to defend it in court - or at least in some closed door legal meetings.
EDIT: I just realized that Iād written this up to look like Perry only threatened $200,000. He first withheld $200k, and then threatened the veto on the $7.5M budget. I never wrote anything about the budget size! So he performed a smaller display of force to show heād āreally do itā to get her to quit. Edited the text to make the distinction clear.
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I thought ālooking smartā was a no-no in American politics. Gawd hates inta-lek-tu-als!
I really want to see the ads against Ted Cruz. He was born in a socialist oil-rich country. A country that still has a monarchy and concentrates the governmentās power into one man.
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I basically just follow American political system in the same way that I do international football - once every four years without getting into too much detail. Still, the 2012 Republican nominations werenāt surprising to me at all. I figured that the Republicans realized they had no chance of being elected that year, so they went all out to destroy Obamaās reputation from the start; the idea is to make Obama the most ineffectual president ever who is hated by both sides. If possible, the short memory span of voters combined with a partisan media will mean that voters start associating Obama with the destruction of the economy and abuses of power. People are going to notice what youāre doing and those who do will hate you, leading to extreme polarization, but thatās OK as long as enough people come down on your side. Itās going to take at least eight years, so you donāt want to risk any serious candidates in an election that will just be an embarrassment. 2016 is when they bring out an actual candidate to counter the party that everyone now hates. Iām sure (s)he will be revealed any month now, providing I havenāt seriously overestimated the GOPā¦
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This is part of Rick Perryās campaign for 2016. Getting busted for firing a Democrat strengthens his base. He started his campaign with those new āiām smarter nowā glasses and will end it with a new book and tour. Like 9 out 10 Republican candidates, the purpose of running for president is not to become president, but to get more national publicity and increase net worth. Kudos, Rick.
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ā¦no.
First, you have to realize that American parties donāt have any real control of the party. They can influence people, but they have absolutely no choice about how gets put up as a candidate. This is why you can have insurgent internal movements like the Tea Party that would never be tolerated in a parliamentary system. They donāt pick candidates. Candidates pick themselves. There is no strategy in who they pick.
Second, I donāt think you comprehend how weak of a candidate Obama was in 2012. He really should have lost. The Republicans didnāt have to beat him. They just had to not lose. They lost. Obama didnāt have much going for him (though post Snowden he has even less). The economy was a solid meh, he blasted taxpayer money all over large corporations and wall street banks, he actively was attacking marijuana dispensaries, and he had just finally after the majority of Americans agreed that same sex marriage is cool, came around to announcing that he guesses he is cool with it too, and then didnāt make a single attempt to pass actual legislation to back up that position. For anyone who is even vaguely liberal, the only thing Obama had going for him was that he wasnāt as horrible as a Republican and pretty much nothing else.
The only thing the Republicans had to do was not put a crazy person up and they would have won soundly. Hell, Romney was probably a decent choice. The dully moderate Romney that was the governor of Massachusetts, one of the most liberal states in the union, could have thrashed Obama. Unfortunately for Romney, the shit show that was the Republican primaries dragged him to the screaming crazy section of the right (where I frankly think he actually lives). The Republican primary shit show and the stuff it made Romney promise and say was enough to scare liberals back to voting and drive off sane moderates. Republicans were so hell bent on losing that that shit show Santorum was a serious candidate for a while.
The same is true of 2016. The Democrats are even in a worse position than they were in 2012. Obama has ripped the still beating heart out of the liberal soul by being such a worthless illiberal piece of shit. Democrat voter turnout and volunteering levels are going to be pathetic, and any Democrat promising anything as cynical as āhopeā or āchangeā is going to be pelted off the stage. This goes double and triple if the fantastically damaged goods that is Hillary ends up being the candidate.
The Democratās only hope for 2016 is that the Republicans pull out an even crazier cast of nuttery than in 2012 and scare liberals back to the polls. A dumb fuck like Perry might just be worthless enough to drive liberals to vote for whatever illiberal piece of shit the Democrats dredge up. 2016 isnāt about someone winning. It is about who is going to lose the least hard.
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I said I thought the Republicans wanted to make Obama look ineffective; I wasnāt expecting Obama to help as much as he did. I still think the GOP has done a terrible job of anything other than capitalizing on and increasing disillusionment with Obama. As poor as Obama is, itās frustrating to see him as one of the most sane actors out there. Some of my opinion is going to be colored by spending last summer in the US with my Republican chain Fox News-watching in-laws and seeing the shutdown, but from my perspective it looks like a weak president who failed to follow through on his promises against a party that had actually gone insane and was in suicide bomber mode. I just see Obama in the same way as the Pope - not a lot of substance, but thank FSM heās in power rather than the last guy or any of the other people who were in the running.
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