^ that's what happening now, coal is dying because of the market, not the government. But trumps policy is to prop coal up, so clearly they don't want the government to do nothing.


This is not too far off on the few remaining trump supporters I see:

https://twitter.com/sopandeb/status/786587118965559296

[Edited on October 13, 2016 at 12:29 PM. Reason : ]

10/13/2016 12:28:07 PM

Unfortunately, I don't find it surprising that moron blames the coal industry for what happens to its employees after the government forces them out of work.

^Anecdote much? Show the response from 1 Trump supporter and extrapolate that response to them all.


[Edited on October 13, 2016 at 12:57 PM. Reason : asd]

10/13/2016 12:30:34 PM

^

10/13/2016 12:55:24 PM

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/293457-eric-trump-incorrectly-claims-white-house-calls-national

fun anecdote from a Trump supporter

[Edited on October 13, 2016 at 1:10 PM. Reason : .]

10/13/2016 1:09:47 PM

Can't believe I fucked up the link like that.

Quote :

"A shame that Katrina was just ignored because it happened in a red area."

The piece makes the point that Katrina wasn't ignored, per se, but outside of New Orleans it got very little attention. Nobody gives a shit about Mississippi, but they're very attached to NOLA.

Quote :

"It doesn't explain why so many trump supporters I know believe conspiracy theories and think Obama is a secret Kenyan Muslim"

Partly stupidity. Partly otherwise intelligent people trying to manage the cognitive dissonance between wanting to be with their tribe and realizing that Trump is an asshole. Partly living in an echo chamber where a lot of your neighbors believe and say crazy things.

Quote :

"For example, coal companies knew years ago, maybe decades, that coal was coming to an end. It should be the coal companies duty to use their vast wealth they made on the backs of coal miners to rebuild these cities in other ways. Use the coal money to start building windmills and solar farms, and train the workers so coal areas are now where the experts are for future energy needs."

I don't know if I buy any of this. Leaving aside that West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania aren't exactly well suited to wind and solar, or that coal mining employs far more people than either, I don't accept that the coal company has a "duty" to do anything other than make money (within the confines of the law). It isn't on them to take care of people who are no longer central to their interests. The governments that took taxes from the coal companies and the miners for decades are a different story. They do have a duty to invest in the future, and they didn't.

10/13/2016 1:11:15 PM

for this argument to *ahem* hold water, one would have to be able to point to an absence of stories covering eastern north carolina's current predicament. alas:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/another-nightmare-north-carolina-flood-could-swallow-small-town/2016/10/13/aa7d917a-90cb-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/us/hurricane-matthew-plunges-a-north-carolina-towns-future-into-doubt.html

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-hurricane-matthew-us-20161009-snap-story.html

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/12/weather/hurricane-matthew-carolina-flooding-visual/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/10/hurricane-matthew-death-toll-flooding-us-north-carolina

10/13/2016 1:31:39 PM

Quote :

"A shame that Katrina was just ignored because it happened in a red area."

Do you even lift read?

Quote :

""Nothing that happens outside the city matters!" they say at their cocktail parties, blissfully unaware of where their food is grown. Hey, remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans? Kind of weird that a big hurricane hundreds of miles across managed to snipe one specific city and avoid everything else. To watch the news (or the multiple movies and TV shows about it), you'd barely hear about how the storm utterly steamrolled rural Mississippi, killing 238 people and doing an astounding $125 billion in damage. No sports team = no fucks given. But who cares about those people, right? What's newsworthy about a bunch of toothless hillbillies crying over a flattened trailer? New Orleans is culturally important. It matters."

P.S. NOLA is actually a tiny blue spot in the sea of red in the Southern US.

Do you even lift read see?


[Edited on October 13, 2016 at 2:13 PM. Reason : ]

10/13/2016 2:10:20 PM

Quote :

"I don't know if I buy any of this. Leaving aside that West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania aren't exactly well suited to wind and solar, or that coal mining employs far more people than either, I don't accept that the coal company has a "duty" to do anything other than make money (within the confines of the law). It isn't on them to take care of people who are no longer central to their interests. The governments that took taxes from the coal companies and the miners for decades are a different story. They do have a duty to invest in the future, and they didn't. "

I would think a stripped mountain top is a perfect place for a wind farm or solar panels, but i haven't commissioned a study or anything.

The problem I see with this thinking though that business has no onus for their community is that the economy is increasingly more centralized because of the internet. Google/Apple/Facebook/Amazon are vacuuming up enormous amounts of revenues that in the past would have been spent more locally, with the net effect being that small towns collect less revenue, and local governments have less to work with.

In the absence of more gov. redistribution, and to fit with a conservative idea of not relying on the government, i don't see anything wrong with expecting corporations to care about their communities.

If we're in the regime of accepting that corporations are entirely self-interested, then both conservatives and liberals should be fully on board with the concept of redistribution, because there's few other ways to keep wealth flowing amongst ordinary people while centralized services like Amazon Delivery and Uber (and App Stores, and netflix, etc.) keep growing.

10/13/2016 2:13:47 PM

Quote :

"Unfortunately, I don't find it surprising that moron blames the coal industry for what happens to its employees after the government forces them out of work. "

LOL you must have missed the part where coal is being outpaced by cheaper natural gas-- the gov. didn't force anyone out of work. Coal companies just ignored the writing on the wall, and walked away from their communities taking the money with them.

We SHOULD be killing coal anyway, it's an environmental disaster, but the areas that mine coal need to be given new opportunities, whatever form that comes in.

10/13/2016 3:14:50 PM

So I say take those cats, skin them. Use their fur to keep hundreds warm!

10/13/2016 3:27:14 PM

Quote :

"for this argument to *ahem* hold water, one would have to be able to point to an absence of stories covering eastern north carolina's current predicament."

Dead fucking wrong. In this era it would be a shock to find an absence of stories about...well, nearly anything. Every news outlet has a story about "scary clowns" right now. Today I've seen two stories about Kevin Durant eating nachos. Of course there is not "an absence of stories" regarding Matthew and its effect on North Carolina. Similarly, there were stories about Mississippi and other rural areas during Katrina.

However, the coverage focused heavily on New Orleans. For people outside the region, the storm is synonymous with the city.

Quote :

"i don't see anything wrong with expecting corporations to care about their communities."

There's nothing wrong with it except that your expectations don't mean shit. Corporations aren't going to spend money on anything unless they think it will profit them, or the law makes them. The extreme end of conservative thinking is fine with government and corporations saying "fuck 'em" with regards to people being left behind by changes.

I think there are fairly large numbers of conservatives with enough sense to realize that a certain amount of government investment in communities is wise and even necessary. They don't like "redistribution" in terms of cutting checks to poor people, but they might be more amenable to building educational facilities and offering incentives to bring in new companies. I wasn't old enough to follow it as it happened, but since the development of the Research Triangle Park I haven't heard a lot of GOP complaining about it as "redistribution" or government overreach.

I think most of the problem is with political gamesmanship, not ideology. Conservatives aren't going to rush in to help to restructure communities hurt by the decline of the automotive industry, not when the towns in question are reliably democratic. And even Republicans with enough sense to see coal as a dead industry are reluctant to say so when many of the people involved live in major swing states (OH and PA).

10/13/2016 5:36:57 PM

Quote :

"They don't like "redistribution" in terms of cutting checks to poor people, but they might be more amenable to building educational facilities and offering incentives to bring in new companies"

The "offering incentives" is when things break down. It's what allows businessmen to make promises to hire a certain amount of locals and renovate a local hotel for tax breaks on top of a gamble, then break those promises when things don't work out how they like (trump did this btw). It's where cronyism seeps in.

We're better off with direct transfers to people, and let out own natural economic activity take its course-- whether this means people just leave town once they save up or it means they start their own internet based gift basket business that helps bring in some small amount of outside revenue.

10/13/2016 6:11:43 PM

"Incentives" doesn't necessarily mean tax breaks for big businesses, just something to entice them. RTP didn't get 200 companies employing 50,000 people by random chance. It got them because government (and private actors) created something to entice them.

10/13/2016 7:44:38 PM

Quote :

" In the absence of more gov. redistribution, and to fit with a conservative idea of not relying on the government, i don't see anything wrong with expecting corporations to care about their communities. If we're in the regime of accepting that corporations are entirely self-interested, then both conservatives and liberals should be fully on board with the concept of redistribution, because there's few other ways to keep wealth flowing amongst ordinary people while centralized services like Amazon Delivery and Uber (and App Stores, and netflix, etc.) keep growing. "

yeah keep doing all of this gymnastics instead of guaranteeing a living wage and letting the economy modernize itself ias fast as possible.

Quote :

"Kind of weird that a big hurricane hundreds of miles across managed to snipe one specific city and avoid everything else. To watch the news (or the multiple movies and TV shows about it), you'd barely hear about how the storm utterly steamrolled rural Mississippi, killing 238 people and doing an astounding $125 billion in damage."

This is true but not the whole story. Hurricane katrina was covered equally in gulfport and biloxi but the water came in and was gone and that was the end of it. New Orleans was fine after hurricane katrina and wasn't given excessive coverage until the levees broke. At that point, it became a unique situation because although the storm was over everywhere else, new orleans was going to be underwater until the government fixed it. People were also trapped in the city with the bridges closed.

10/13/2016 7:52:30 PM

Quote :

"yeah keep doing all of this gymnastics instead of guaranteeing a living wage and letting the economy modernize itself ias fast as possible. "

You say "guarantee a living wage" and I see "steal people's money to fund stupid people making babies they cant afford".

10/13/2016 11:00:26 PM

So your solution to the coal problem would have been sterilising coal workers over the last 30 years? (a bit extreme)

at the very least, you would have been for teaching them not to have children because their entire region's economy will not function by the time they grow up? Then when people in coal towns are "stupid" enough to have children and can't take care of them, you just let the babies starve?

So predicting the complex intricacies of the economy 30 years in the future is now part of "personal responsibility"? but I'm also sure you would be against providing these people degrees in economics so that they can determine if its "smart" to have children or not so you expect them to just figure out the type of things investors spend their lives trying to predict.

[Edited on October 13, 2016 at 11:57 PM. Reason : cool]

10/13/2016 11:52:51 PM

If people stopped having babies they can't afford we will have very few babies.

10/14/2016 7:38:01 AM

https://twitter.com/braddjaffy/status/786917317967872001

So Trump not only dragging down the GOP but Christians too.

10/14/2016 9:58:02 AM

That Access Hollywood tape really pisses me off, and not for the obvious reason.

They had this tape during the primary. They had a responsibility to release this then - if they were going to ever release it. That could have sunk his primary run and the GOP would have a viable candidate. But they wanted Trump, because he was seen as an easier ship to sink.

10/14/2016 10:54:00 AM

Given the human garbage that ran against him, I'm not sure you can make such an assessment. He said plenty of horrific things and people didn't care.

10/14/2016 11:01:28 AM

if they had it during the primaries, doesn't that mean they had it before then, too? and isn't he a public enough figure where releasing that information at ANY time would have been newsworthy?

blaming this on "the media" is fucking lazy. maybe the more likely story is that once he became the candidate, people started reviewing past interviews to see what they could find

[Edited on October 14, 2016 at 11:07 AM. Reason : .]

10/14/2016 11:02:37 AM

Human garbage is a pretty rough assessment of the field of candidates. I don't consider Rubio human garbage.

I'm not blaming "media" I'm blaming NBC I guess - honestly I don't know who to blame. But that should have been released earlier. The timing of this shit is nothing but political tactics at its best.

You have to give it to the left. They've been playing this entire election season like a fiddle. Sure, Trump played the Republican primary like one, but he can't hold a candle to the political deftness of the left.

[Edited on October 14, 2016 at 11:05 AM. Reason : s]

10/14/2016 11:03:07 AM

Fahrenthold published the tape the within hours of receiving it. Access Hollywood found it a few days before that. Discovery to publication was less than a week.

There's no conspiracy, but good job illustrating Trump's toxic legacy.

10/14/2016 11:06:18 AM

Rubio was never a threat and you know it. It was him or Cruz, and yes, he's human garbage.

10/14/2016 11:06:37 AM

A good bit of the stuff coming out now is just straight from the Howard Stern show. Even if the left has been playing the long game all along that doesn't mean a lot of this stuff wasn't available for the other republicans to use against him.

Quite honestly I've been at a loss as to why it wasn't used before, I never through Trump would actually run because my mind immediately went to the few times I've heard him on Stern, and I'm not a very avid listener.

The tapes are one piece of this entire barrage, a lot of which the republicans could have gone after if they wanted

[Edited on October 14, 2016 at 11:15 AM. Reason : asdf]

10/14/2016 11:15:09 AM

I'm surprised it took this long to find a tape of Trump saying rapey stuff. I'm sure I've heard him say the same type of shit on Howard Stern a million times.

[Edited on October 14, 2016 at 11:18 AM. Reason : ^ damn son]

10/14/2016 11:17:28 AM

Its not hard to look like political Wizards when there is so much time of Trump being Trump and in front of microphones. If they have all this material its just a matter of when to release it.

10/14/2016 11:18:37 AM

Again, I go back to his defense of Mike Tyson - he made plain his views back then. That is out there for the world to see/use. I don't think it was a bad idea to release the latest tape. I just raise an eyebrow over the timing.

So you say this was released one week after it was discovered. I guess NBC is having people go through every bit of footage of Trump they might have that could derail him - fine, it is their right to do so - their footage. But why not do this when he was running for Republican primary?

Also, I'm sure they have old footage of Clinton where they could illustrate her obvious flip flops on some of the issues, but they are choosing not to do so.

10/14/2016 11:24:01 AM

10/14/2016 11:29:40 AM

Why the face?

Someone said that any of the other Republicans running for the primary could dig this stuff up - no, they couldn't, they don't own NBC, they don't own the footage.

Maybe everybody thought it was just such a longshot that Trump would win the primary, that they just didn't care.

10/14/2016 11:31:33 AM

For what it's worth there is likely droves of shit that would destroy him even worse from The Apprentice that isn't allowed to be leaked. It's not as simple as NBC has access to it so they should have used it in the primaries.

All that aside, the GOP oppo on him was pathetic and likely due to the fact that any one of his primary challengers knew they needed his supporters (even the segment of truly awful human beings) to win a general.

[Edited on October 14, 2016 at 11:43 AM. Reason : ]

10/14/2016 11:42:15 AM

I'm claiming that the tape is a tiny piece of what is a giant amount of damning shit on Trump. Could the republicans have produced the tape? Let's say no. Could they have dug up almost any of the other shit coming out? Yes

Don't sit here and blame the democrats for waiting so long on something and assume it would have been in better hands had the republicans had access to it when they didn't push a majority of the ridiculous and numerous public things Trump has said over the years

Play all the shit he's said on Stern over and over since the beginning of the the primaries and this tape wouldn't cause such a reaction

[Edited on October 14, 2016 at 11:47 AM. Reason : asd]

10/14/2016 11:45:16 AM

Quote :

"Given the human garbage that ran against him, I'm not sure you can make such an assessment. He said plenty of horrific things and people didn't care. "

I think this was their thought. He called mexicans rapist, attacked judge curiel, said we should ban all muslims, made absurd statements about building a wall, he'd been lying about obama's birth certificate since then, we knew his comments on megyn kelley, it's not like his marla maples fiasco isn't well documented, his reputation in the 80s was that of a playboy even while he was married.

It's not a given that a 45 second video of him talking about kissing women without asking followed by a crude comment would have sunk him.

Republicans whining that "but they should have released this months ago, and let him lose the primary!" have short memories. Trump has always been an atrocious candidate, has been saying disgusting things throughout the campaign, and NOW they're mad? Ha! This is the bed they made for themselves, over years of only watching Fox News and supporting Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin, and indulging in climate-change denialism and pushing creationism, and instead of laying in it, they're trying to blame the media.

You can't spend 15 years embracing Idiocracy, then complain when it bites you in the end.

10/14/2016 11:48:49 AM

Trumps GOP primary poll numbers probably would have gone up if it was released back then

10/14/2016 11:50:01 AM

yeah but thenmedia knew they didnt care about insults to muslims andnmexicans but would quit on trump once he assaulted white women. kasich was a strong candidate.

10/14/2016 12:17:36 PM

^^ yeah i forgot the comments he made about Fiorina. Only helped him.

10/14/2016 12:26:13 PM

...and Ted Cruz's wife.

10/14/2016 12:29:08 PM

Quote :

"For what it's worth there is likely droves of shit that would destroy him even worse from The Apprentice that isn't allowed to be leaked. It's not as simple as NBC has access to it so they should have used it in the primaries. All that aside, the GOP oppo on him was pathetic and likely due to the fact that any one of his primary challengers knew they needed his supporters (even the segment of truly awful human beings) to win a general."

exactly

things are never as simple as rjrumfel always tends to believe they are

10/14/2016 12:54:08 PM

the way Republicans are tripping over themselves in an attempt to defend this whole deal is a perfect example of them telling on themselves in regards to women

10/14/2016 1:58:39 PM

I'm now pulling for Evan McMullin with the most insane political event of my lifetime. Win Utah, prevent anyone from getting 270 electoral votes, and winning via Congress. 538 did an article on this today if you are interested.

Note, I have no idea what Evan McMullin believes, I'm just in it for the insanity.

10/14/2016 7:46:21 PM

^^

I'm truly flabbergasted that the most extreme Christians on my Facebook, the ones always posting bible quotes, people I grew up with, are saying it's okay for trump to sexually abuse women because he has other good qualities.

If I were a trump supporter, i would just stay quiet now and quietly vote for trump, I would be too ashamed to try and justify this.

10/14/2016 10:20:48 PM

Anthony Gilberthorpe says Trump didn't grope at least one of the women, so it's all cool.

10/14/2016 10:37:11 PM

theres no way the plane woman wasn't paid by clinton to make this story. She's not even Trump's type!

10/14/2016 10:38:22 PM

Trump said "just about all" the accusations are false. Friggin insane. He's basically admitting at least 1 of the accusations are true!?!

10/14/2016 11:05:59 PM

i told you 2 years ago this whole thing was a troll job. i wouldnt be surprised if he admits it around thanksgiving

10/14/2016 11:13:38 PM

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/13/wikileaks-emails-reveal-bill-clintons-1m-birthday-/

You would think with all this money these traitors traded for political favors, they could at least self-fund their campaign rather than be puppets for Wallstreet

10/15/2016 2:26:31 AM

was it ever proved that he got the money?

10/15/2016 11:58:47 AM

My favorite thing on the internet today:

A leaked audio recording supposedly of Tim Kaine yelling at his daughter


When actually it's Alec Baldwin from almost 10 years ago.

10/16/2016 1:37:48 PM

^^^ wtf was that link. Opened it on my phone and all it seemed to be was a huge pop up to donate to Trump.

10/16/2016 2:21:29 PM

It's just more blatant cash for favors. Honestly though what would it take to change the mind of someone already voting for Clinton?

You either care about corruption or you don't.

10/16/2016 2:26:27 PM