How about that debate, huh, folks? — VagabondSpectre

I must confess I didn't watch more than snippets of the debate (I generally don't watch political debates, as it's pointless to do so IMO). I understand that Trump refused to state unequivocally that he would accept the outcome of the election, which is yet another indication that he's a would-be authoritarian strongman. I can't wait to see how his supporters will contort themselves to continue to defend the indefensible in light of this travesty.

Donald Trump thinks the elections are rigged, and he is (accidentally) right. So who is doing the rigging? — Bitter Crank

It's amusing/depressing that Trump is happy to accept polling results when they break his way, and yet doubts them or rejects them outright when they start trending away from him (the "taxicab fallacy"). It's also ironic that one hears the never-ending drumbeat from the right about how "the media" is against Trump, and yet Fox News has been basically nothing but a free source of good press for him (at least in the general election). Fox News, you will recall, is the most-highly-rated cable news station! It takes some cognitive gymnastics to claim that the media is out to get you when the highest-rated cable news station is in the tank for you.

I would also remind Trump supporters that the Wikileaks attacks have been exclusively directed at the Clinton camp. Julian Assange himself has a personal beef with Clinton (over what, exactly, I'm not sure), and is doing everything in his power to keep her from getting elected. Thus far, it hasn't really been working, because, as I've said, there's really no "there" there when it comes to Clinton. Most of the hot items (and there seem to have been few of those) pertain to things her staffers or surrogates have said or done, and not the candidate directly. That being the case, perhaps the Clinton campaign should go after Steve Bannon (the Trump campaign's CEO) for his awfulness, including spousal battery.

Again with this O'Keefe video? You do know that O'Keefe is a demonstrated fraud and liar, right? I already pointed this out to you in another thread, but you apparently have an unwavering faith in O'Keefe's "journalistic" skills. You are just spamming now.

This just proves my point about Hillary: despite decades of scrutiny from the right, all they have to hit her with is fabricated scandals and non-issues. If this person is such a terrible politician and statesman (as the right has been bleating for years), why do conservatives need to constantly lie, distort, and dissemble in order to attack her? Wouldn't her actual words and deeds suffice? Perhaps there's no "there" there for them to find?

So the claim appears to be that Trump has tried to exploit the issue of Obama's true heritage, first raised by the Clinton campaign in 2007.

Except he didn't. — tom

You don't read the news much, do you? Trump was virtually obsessed with the birther issue for some time (prior to his running for President), even claiming that he sent his private investigators to Hawaii, and that they were discovering "tremendous things which you wouldn't believe" (or something to that effect).

Of course, this was just another lie on his part, as nothing whatsoever came of this "investigation." Indeed, it's questionable whether he even sent anyone to Hawaii in the first place.

Nothing in this email thread suggests that Podesta et al believed that Obama was foreign-born, or that they proposed to say so for political gain.

The most relevant item of "oppo research" in that list is:

* 7 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh)'s father was a Muslim and Obama grew up among Muslims in the world's most populous Islamic country.

Nothing about that says he was born in a foreign country, not Hawaii, or that he lied about his birth status (by the way, "the most populous Islamic country" refers to Indonesia, not Kenya; birthers generally claim that he was born in the latter).

EDIT: by the way, I don't deny that some of Hillary's language in the 2008 primaries veered dangerously close to being a dog whistle, trying to paint Obama as "the other," especially in her messages geared towards the working class, relatively uneducated whites who supported her over Obama in that primary. This, however, is a far cry from claiming that Hillary "began" the birth movement (as Trump claims in that press conference video) or that she tacitly or explicitly suggested that Obama wasn't born in the United States.

I was thinking about that. Maybe it has to slip up on us in order for it to happen at all. Next in line: President Ramirez or whoever... — Mongrel

Or President Muhammad somebody.

I have to say I am working up a little emotion over voting for the first female president of my country. Really? Woo Hoo! — Mongrel

I am also excited by the possibility of electing the first female president. It's interesting how little discussion that's merited, either because that fact has been so overshadowed by Trump's antics, or because people are just so used to Hillary that it barely registers: she's just part of the political furniture by this point.

Rights of women, are you freakin kidding me? — tom

No, I am not freakin kidding you (lemme guess: here comes the part where you rant about how Hillary supposedly laughed at a rape victim and sought to discredit the women who accused her husband of unwanted sexual advances).

Both Clinton and Trump are against Obama Care as it currently stands. Both want to reform it. Trump was to only Republican candidate for universal healthcare provision.

Yes, many people want to improve the ACA (some, like the House Republicans, in the classic definition of insanity, vote dozens to times to repeal it without hope of doing so). One cannot expect a program that massive to work perfectly from its initial roll-out.

As for Trump's position on healthcare, the last I heard, he was to replace the ACA with "something terrific." As for a "universal healthcare provision," you'll have to elaborate on exactly what that means, because I have no idea.

As for the Clinton foundation, have you been living under a rock?

http://www.latintimes.com/clinton-foundation-what-happened-39-billion-were-supposed-go-haiti-401841

More bullshit from the right-wing blogosphere. The Clinton Foundation has an "A" rating from Charity Watch, and a 95% rating from Charity Navigator. And, contrary to the baloney you linked to here, a bit more than 10% of its funds go to charity...the real figure is closer to 88%. Please leave the Fox News echo chamber and join reality.

https://www.charitywatch.org/ratings-and-metrics/bill-hillary-chelsea-clinton-foundation/478

https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=16680

What's your point, tom? Do I have to explain yet again to a conservative that I'm not here to defend the Clintons? — Baden

Why wouldn't one defend the Clintons? A person needn't be perfect in order to defend them (and God knows the Clintons aren't perfect). Bill and Hillary have spent decades in public service, with Hillary fighting for the rights of women and the poor, trying to extend healthcare to the uninsured, and the Clinton Foundation has worked for years on solving problems facing the global poor and fighting disease. That work is admirable, and I would say they've done more good than harm.

The vast bulk of the allegations thrown against them are bullshit, which is why the right must constantly invent fake scandals in order to attack Hillary (e.g. Benghazi, Whitewater, her "laughing at a rape victim"...the list goes on).

As opposed to Trump, who got rich by a grant from his rich daddy (money which he's largely squandered due to his being terrible at what he does), and stiffing contractors and construction workers, and then filing for bankruptcy multiple times in order to run from his fiduciary obligations. (Let's not forget the occasional bulldozing of people's homes in order to build his garish properties.)

This is probably why he now earns a living by whoring out his name to fraudulent "universities," steaks, bottled water, and whatever else he thinks his reality show fans will scarf up.

So what? It doesn't mean that O'Keefe isn't a liar, or that the videos were presented in an honest manner. The Obama administration fired Shirley Sherrod on the basis of Andrew Breitbart's (God rest his soul) fraudulent video without realizing what a lying scumbag Breitbart was, and how he'd deliberately shown the videos out of context. Sometimes people get tossed under the bus in the name of maintaining a good image.

I thought that guy in the video looked familiar: known liar and fraud James Edward O'Keefe III. Please give us a break with this, and find some real sources. We've already seen O'Keefe's "exposes," and they're heaping piles of bullshit. (And right-wingers complain about Hillary being deceitful?)

Interestingly, there hasn't been much Rand discussion here recently. It seems to occur in waves. Or has Randism been supplanted by Trumpism? — andrewk

Interestingly, House Speaker Paul Ryan is quite the fervent Ayn Rand acolyte, and also happens to currently be in a nasty tiff with...Donald Trump. Coincidence? I think not...

Felons can be temporarily or permanently banned from voting. — Bitter Crank

I've never understood former felons' permanent voting disenfranchisement at all, or how it can pass constitutional muster. Once a person has served his (or her) debt to society, they should be able rejoin said society and cast their vote like every other citizen who is of age and who has registered to do so.

What is it with all these Westerners and not batting an eye whatsoever when it comes to taking other people's land and resources? Israel needs a state? Well, why didn't you give them New York City[...] — discoii

Well, we sort of did. :D

Regardless, the award was used for political purposes and it lost significant credibility IMHO. — Hanover

The Nobel Peace Prize was always politicized in my opinion. Al Gore won the prize for Chrissakes - granted, I commend his work exposing anthropogenic climate change, but I was never clear on what that had to do with peace. On the other end of the political spectrum, I'm also not clear on why, for instance, Mother Theresa won the prize: nothing she did helped to promote peace, as far as I can tell.

But I agree about Obama: he didn't deserve the prize (which is no criticism of him: the vast majority of people, politicians or not, don't deserve the prize), and I don't think it was something which he sought for himself or believed himself worthy of. Regardless, as you say, he was a war president. How could he not be? He had Bush's messes to clean up.

you can't even stand 1 dissident, much less tens of them. — Agustino

I don't desire to block you because you're a "dissident." There are many people with whom I disagree and with whom I've had interesting and civil discussions. However, you are dogmatically right-wing, and you say nothing which can't be found on a Fox News opinion piece. In our prior discussions, you've also established yourself as a moral lunatic, obsessed with "promiscuity" and its supposedly detrimental effects on the moral fabric of society. You also pull "theories" and "facts" out of your ass when it suits you. In short: you're just not worth reading. Goodbye.

Clinton is by no means above reproach but all this nonsense about Libya and emails, are just echoes of enormous efforts by the fringe right to manufacture evidence of wrongdoing. — Wayfarer

Yes: for all of the endless carping about how awful Hillary is (even from some of the people who support her), it's telling that her enemies must constantly invent scandals out of thin air. If she's so terrible, don't her actual malfeasances suffice to discredit her? Clinton is possibly the most-scrutinized politician in history. Face it, right-wingers: there's just no "there" there. Just admit that you suffer from CDS (Clinton Derangement Syndrome), and seek treatment (step 1: Fox News detox).

Hillary Clinton is competent? Really? So she was competent in the way she handled the emails? She was competent in the way she handled Benghazi? She was competent in the way she handled the Iran deal? The only time when she was competent was when she used her foundation as a pay for play scheme - yeah, she actually was competent in that. — Agustino

Benghazi?? Jesus Christ, you have really drunk the Fox News Kool Aid. Bush and his cronies started a war on false pretenses which has cost the country dearly in blood and treasure, and he gets a free pass from conservatives. A few people die in Libya while Clinton is SoS and it's her fault, to be endlessly investigated. Congress held more hearings on Benghazi than perhaps any other issue in recent memory and found no wrongdoing on Clinton's part. So, please stop the right-wing bullshit.

To mods: is there a way to block posters, as there was in PF? I'd prefer to have to never read another of Agustino's posts ever again, if I can help it.

Yeah for a very simple reason that he says he will appoint conservative Judges, he will put tougher restrictions on abortion, he will end illegal immigration, etc. What does Crooked say on the other hand? That she will appoint progressive Judges. She will license partial birth abortion. That's the problem. It's not about the single person, but also about who surrounds them. Social conservatives have a degree of control over Trump that they don't over Clinton. I don't really care if Trump himself will be immoral so long as he will be a useful tool for the social conservative agenda. It's a calculated sacrifice - lose a pawn, in order to win the game. — Agustino

How will Trump "end illegal immigration"? Yes, he has perhaps said he will do so, but he's offered no remotely plausible plan for doing so (even his ridiculous Mexico-financed wall, should it be built, would not stop illegal immigration). Surely you're not that naive?

ISIS successfully liberated itself from 200 oppressors a few weeks ago. Good for them.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/02/middleeast/baghdad-car-bombs/

Blacks kill each other at a much higher rate than whites or cops kill black people. The gross amount of violence in Chicago this year is largely limited to black violence in black neighborhoods. A case can be made that the black on black killing is actually "caused by the police" (or more precisely, not sufficiently prevented). IF the police forces were doing their jobs more effectively, they would apprehend the black men who do the shooting. They are not, and in many ghettos, murderers operate with a fair amount of impunity, killing again and again (they're not series killers, they're more like hired guns). There certainly is such a thing as oppression, but the virtue of the oppressed is not therefore superior. — Bitter Crank

People complain when police patrol their neighborhood, and then complain when they don't. A violent criminal gets into an altercation with a police officer after robbing a store, is killed in the ensuing fight, and then gets called a "gentle giant" in media coverage. For all of their historic discrimination, American blacks are their own worst enemy in 2016 America.

What would poor people be like if they were rich? Like rich people.
Similarly I would expect Hezbollah to be like Israel if they had the power, and ISIS like an extremely unpleasant military power if they had the power. Nazi Germany maybe?

Which is to say that humans are not different in kind from one ethnicity to another, but are all and always susceptible to greed and fear and violence — unenlightened

So, in other words, given the power of a Western military, ISIS would become akin to one of (if not the) worst regimes in human history. And clearly France does not comport itself as Nazi Germany does. So, by your own supposition, what does that say about the barbarity gap between ISIS and Western militaries?

I already said:
...
oppression counts as provocation, a mitigating circumstance. — unenlightened — unenlightened

With regard to the Middle East, Tunisians and others have been oppressed largely by their own people, including despotic leaders who have squelched political and personal freedom. The people of France in general (and especially those 84 innocent people killed in Nice in particular) were not oppressing the maniac who plowed into them. (I can hardly keep up with the news: an axe-wielding Afghani national recently attacked a family on a train in Germany and a mall was shot up in that same country; just more wails of pain of "oppressed" people, no doubt). You also continue to ignore other recent examples such as the Fort Hood shooting, San Bernardino shooting, the Boston bombing, etc, most of which, far from involving oppressed people lashing out against their oppressors, involved immigrant (or 1st generation) Muslims lashing out against the country which has given them a better life than they ever would have had in their home country or country of origin. So, your theory about "oppression -> terrorism" fails.

And in your response to the Nice attack, you didn't merely intimate that there might be mitigating circumstances: you essentially blamed the West for supposedly bringing these attacks upon itself, saying we need to look into our own hearts in order to figure out the root of the Islamists' hatred. So, you are suffering not only from Chomsky derangement syndrome , you are also suffering from battered wife syndrome, in which you ask yourself what you did to "deserve" such ill treatment.

Find me the report of such an event or better the film, and that question might become worth answering. But given the news that I see day after day, you are starting to sound like a 'white lives matter' merchant, trying to misdirect attention away from the rampant racial oppression that is happening. Why would you be doing that? — unenlightened

I assume you are acquainted with hypothetical questions? Or are you just dodging mine? Such evasiveness ill suits you, Un.

(As for your foolish "White lives matter" statement, I'll ignore that, except to say, as BitterCrank pointed out, American blacks slaughter each other at astronomical rates, and so they can look to their own for the bulk of their oppression in the 21st century U.S.)

Or Dresden, or Hiroshima. Or any of the other actual important deliberate mass killings of civilians since then that have been planned, ordered and/or supported by western military powers. — Baden

Of course (and I already mentioned the nuclear bombing of Japan earlier in this thread). However, you will note a couple of points: (1) this tactic is the exception rather than the rule, and (2) our terrorist problems these days don't originate from Japan or Germany (at least not with German nationals, rather than recent arrivals from the Middle East, who sexually assault women en masse and hack at people with axes while riding trains).

The rules of engagement for U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq (and elsewhere), far from being open season on civilians, are, if anything, overly onerous, and more than one soldier has commented on this fact.

Yes, but let's include the British, please. But only in the sense that technology empowers barbarism. Which does not mean I am anti technology, only anti the technology of death. — unenlightened

Sure, we can include the British; I didn't specifically exclude them. You accused me of responding to "shit you didn't say," but you are making the tendentious point that Western militaries are more barbaric than the terrorist forces which they oppose. So, how am I misinterpreting what you said? As I said earlier, you apparently draw no distinction between intentional targeting of civilians and accidental killing of civilians as collateral damage. That being the case, you do suffer from Chomsky derangement syndrome.

What would, for instance, ISIS or Hezbollah do if they had at their disposal the military of France (never mind of the United States)?

Again, yes. But only in the relative sense that the invader, the aggressor, the comfortably empowered, have no excuse whatsoever, whereas the suffering have their suffering.

This person had dual Tunisian-French citizenship. The West is not at war with Tunisia, and any problems that country is currently suffering can probably be largely laid at their own feet, and that of their deposed dictator ben Ali. And even if this person had some legitimate grievance with France or some other Western power (which he didn't, as far as I can tell), that doesn't provide an "excuse" for mowing down more than 80 innocent people.

Terrorism, as generally understood, is the action of the disempowered attempting to gain power. When the same tactics are employed by the already powerful, it is usually called something else.

Baloney. This just the hoary old canard that the "the bigger army calls the smaller army terrorists." Terrorism is the intentional targeting of largely non-military targets (or non-combatant military targets, in the case of the Fort Hood shooting) for the sake of inflicting psychological or material damage, or simply to rack up as large a body count as possible in the name of your pet ideology. (How were the Boston bombers, for instance, attempting to gain power?) Once again, you elide the difference between intending to kill civilians, and accidentally killing them; Islamist terrorists do the former, and Western militaries do the latter (with rare exceptions, e.g. the My Lai Massacre).

Thus the shooting of an already subdued black man by the police is not called terrorism, whereas the 'retaliatory' shooting of police officers more likely is. And yes, I am saying that the former is more culpable than the latter. Not that I support either.

They're both murder. Why should one be less culpable? Is a black police officer who murders a restrained white subject less culpable than when a white officer murders a black one?

The authority in question was Pakistani, not Saudi. The Fatwa that was issued was extremely thorough and well-grounded in Islamic law, according to all reports. I am simply observing that you would think that enrolling respected Islamic authorities in the 'war on terror' might have some strategic benefits, but that this was basically ignored. — Wayfarer

I didn't make any claim as to the nationality of the person who issued the fatwa, and it doesn't really matter. Saudi Arabia (a Sunni state) is a much more prosperous and powerful state than Pakistan due to its oil wealth (albeit without nukes), and is a major exporter of Wahhabism. Whether or not the fatwa was "thorough," my point was that it appears to have been nearly wholly unsuccessful.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are ostensibly our allies in the war on terror; but with friends like these, who needs enemies?

Also, the Western media ought to have given much more attention to the fatwa on terrorism than it did. That was a movement within Sunni Islam to condemn terrorism as un-Islamic, and it hardly got any notice. — Wayfarer

Perhaps because it had hardly any success? The Saudis' export of Wahhabism is second only to their oil exports. To try to put lipstick on a pig by claiming that terrorism or extremism are un-Islamic is belied by other teachings.

I see. So, when you say things such as the below (emphasis added)...

It really isn't difficult. Stop bombing my country, and perhaps I will stop driving trucks into your parades. To stop a desperate man, help him out of his despair instead of making it greater. First let's take the hatred and violence out of our eyes, and then we will see better how to remove it from IS.

Count up the innocent deaths, and you will find that we are way ahead in the race to barbarism. I find all this outrage highly inappropriate; "How could they?" "How can they be stopped?" are the wrong questions. Replace 'they' with 'we'. — unenlightened

...perhaps you could explain who the "we" refers to in being "way ahead in the race to barbarism," by tallying innocent deaths. I thought "we" referred to the West and its allies, implying that, say, the U.S. and French militaries were more barbaric than, for instance, ISIS and al Qaeda. It also seemed as if you were taking an apologetic stance towards the Nice terrorist's actions, by suggesting it is we who are at fault for trying to help him out of his despair.

Apologies if that is an uncharitable reading of your posts, but I really wouldn't know what other way to interpret them. If your point was wholly different than what I gleaned from them, perhaps you could have chosen your words more carefully? (And not all hate-filled people are "desperate." The aforementioned Tsarnaevs weren't. Neither were Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who murdered their own coworkers. Whether you are speaking generally or about a particular instance, this is simply another invocation of the wrong-headed notion that terrorists are fueled primarily by poverty or diminished opportunity in life.)

Nobody bombed Saudi Arabia. I say each person is responsible for his or her own actions. Reject that and the dominos fall back to the Original Sin and nobody is to blame for anything. — Mongrel

I say that each person is responsible for each other's actions. I hit you, I am responsible for you hitting me back, or you hitting another. I refuse your need, I am responsible for your despair. — unenlightened

How exactly did any of the 84 dead in Nice (to say nothing of other terrorist attacks) "hit" the attacker? How did Boston "hit" the Tsarnaevs? By admitting them to their country and giving them a better life than they could even have dreamt of back home? If that's "hitting," then the West should be hitting a great many more people.

If Muslims (in the West or anywhere else) despair, they can place the vast bulk of the blame for that despair at the feet of their religion, their corrupt and authoritarian political regimes, and the religiously-inspired turn away from reason which has so degraded their society and left it behind in the middle ages. — Arkady

Why do you bother to make up shit I'm not saying and then ridicule it? — unenlightened

Either your "hitting" comment pertained to the discussion at hand, in which case my response was a propos, or it didn't pertain to the discussion, in which case I'd question its relevance.

And when did you stop beating your wife?

Last week. Keep your fingers crossed: I'm hoping to keep my streak going this time.

How exactly did any of the 84 dead in Nice (to say nothing of other terrorist attacks) "hit" the attacker? How did Boston "hit" the Tsarnaevs? By admitting them to their country and giving them a better life than they could even have dreamt of back home? If that's "hitting," then the West should be hitting a great many more people.

If Muslims (in the West or anywhere else) despair, they can place the vast bulk of the blame for that despair at the feet of their religion, their corrupt and authoritarian political regimes, and the religiously-inspired turn away from reason which has so degraded their society and left it behind in the middle ages.

Why? Trump is an ill-informed populist demagogue who has probably never read a book he hasn't written (and maybe not even then), and Hillary Clinton is a former first lady (who was heavily involved with healthcare policy), U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State who has orders of magnitude more foreign policy experience than Trump (who, in fact, has precisely none, unless building golf courses in Scotland counts).

Trump has in fact praised Putin, which itself should be cause for concern, as Putin is a strongman quasi-dictator with a history in the KGB who has, among other things, worked to limit freedom of expression in Russia, including freedom of the press. And Trump has had a dicey history with the press, barring certain newspapers from covering his campaign, for instance, and has stated he wishes to expand libel laws to make it easier to sue media outlets. This is not encouraging.

Ah yes, it's all America's fault, of course, because we support "corrupt regimes" (and I'm sure Egypt, for example, would have done just fine being ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood for the last 30 years). Just keep pressing that narrative. As you apparently make no distinction between intentions (e.g. trying to avoid killing innocent civilians but accidentally killing some versus intentional targeting of civilians) I can only conclude that you are stricken with the same cognitive derangement which afflicts Noam Chomsky and his ilk: America has killed people, al Qaeda (for instance) has killed people, ergo, America is no better than al Qaeda (worse, in fact, since al Qaeda are brave freedom fighters defending their homelands). (Chomsky's recent non-exchange with Sam Harris underscores this mindset brilliantly. To digress slightly, I know Chomsky probably views Harris as a bottom-feeding blogger who isn't even fit to shine his shoes, but why agree to play tennis with someone and then refuse to hit the ball back across the net?)

Western apologists for this sort of terrorism remind me of battered spouses who keep wondering what they did wrong to provoke such treatment. So sad.

Hmm, so, for instance, Osama bin Laden attacked the United States because we bombed Saudi Arabia? And American citizen Omar Mateen shot up a gay nightclub because the U.S. was bombing Fort Pierce, Florida? And Nidal Hasan murdered his military colleagues in Fort Hood because the U.S. had declared an unjust war on Texas? That's news to me. (Shall we also discuss the would-be underwear bomber, the would-be Times Square bomber, or the couple who shot up their own workplace in Los Angeles?) The terrorist who plowed his truck into a crowd full of innocent people had dual French and Tunisian citizenship**; yet another person who enjoys the benefits of a Western life, and then bites the hand that feeds him.

The greatest threat to Muslims remains other Muslims. It is ISIS, not the Western militaries which you evidently so deplore, which is crucifying people, burning them alive, burying them alive, and taking sex slaves. You apparently see no distinction between civilians killed as a result of collateral damage versus the intentional targeting of civilians by terrorists (not that, of course, there isn't a Western precedent for this sort of thing, e.g. the firebombing of Dresden and the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima; however, you'll notice that few terrorists these days seem to be of German or Japanese descent).

I agree we do need to understand these terrorists: so that we can better destroy them, not for some foolish, kumbaya nonsense which you espouse in your post.

**Named, shockingly, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel. Never saw that coming.

So, in other words, their party fails to live up to their stated ideals, and so Republicans...remain Republicans. Brilliant. (This is little different than apologists for Communism who simply claim that, once the right people are in power, this mode of government could go just swimmingly. But maybe, just maybe, there's an inherent structural flaw in a party which seeks to arrogate as much governmental power for itself as possible while simultaneously claiming to despise government. Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew makes this point very well.)

You really don't stay on point very well. You said that the Senate violated procedure in its failure to vote on the Obama nominee and therefore put the party over the nation. I pointed out that there was no violation of procedure because there wasn't. — Hanover

Yes, and your response was sophistry. You are fully aware that the sole reason for delaying the vote (or refusing to hold it at all) is to deny Obama his right to appoint a judicial nominee while in office, which is his prerogative as president. Ergo, the Senate is failing to fulfill its role of confirming (or not) said appointment. My response was on point.

What procedural rule was violated? My copy of the Constitution doesn't set out a timeline for when the Senate is required to evaluate Justice nominees. — Hanover

I see. And so, if Senate Democrats refused to bring a President Trump nominee up for consideration for four years or so, you'd be fine with that? After all, there are no Constitutionally-mandated constraints on when the Senate must hold confirmation hearings and take a vote on the nominee.

(This is, of course, part of a general pattern of Republicans' stonewalling Obama appointees, which leaves key governmental positions unfilled, which hurts the country. So, once, again, party and ideology come before country with the Republicans.)

How so? I didn't even offer any prescriptive statements about shrinking the government: I was just pointing out how Republicans lie about wanting to shrink the government, and then do anything but once in power. But thanks for the tacit agreement that Republicans' actions fail to live up to their stated ideals.

Racial discrimination by police officers has nothing to do with the Supreme Court. — Hanover

This would seem to fall pretty squarely within the purview of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, which is indeed a matter for SCOTUS.

It is for that reason that Republicans decry an increasingly central and controlling federal government. — Hanover

Sorry, this is just conservative pablum. Republicans aren't in favor of actually shrinking or weakening the government: they're for doing away with programs and regulations which they don't like (e.g. labor standards and environmental regulations) and building up those which they do (e.g. our already-bloated military).

Republicans love "state's rights" until the states do something they don't like, and then they're all too happy to use the power of the federal government as a cudgel (e.g. the Bush administration's attempting the squelch Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, or butting into the Terri Schiavo case in Florida).

First, Merrick Garland (the candidate specifically at issue here) was not a "bad nominee" by any reasonable measure of the term. He is a federal judge with decades of experience who has won praise from both conservative and liberal sides for his judicial acumen and even-handedness. You may not like him, but of course you wouldn't: he's an Obama nominee, and so must be bad.

Secondly, what does it say about the country when the majority party simply disregards procedure in order to stonewall a President from making the judicial appointments which it is within his power to make? That in and of itself constitutes a harm to the country (and I'd be saying the same thing were the roles reversed). Whether you like it or not, elections have consequences, and one of them is the ability to make judicial appointments. If the Senate finds him so problematic, they can vote him down.