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Trump and Farage had a "tea party" today

It doesn't look good with people like Pamela Geller and John Bolton prominent

The cabinet picks will go a long way to telling you how Trump will govern and so far it's looking very scary.
The one thing that you can guarantee is a big tax cut for all and that is not going to really help those unemployed or underpaid folks who voted for Trump. You will get more "trickle down"economic policies that have been a proven failure for the last 30 years.
Jobs are created by demand. Demand is created by putting more spending power in the hands of poor people who actually spend their income on goods and services in the US. The Republican Party will not vote for big infrastructure spending and increases in the minimum wage. Stuff that will jack up the spending power of the working class. Ergo the most of the tax savings will go to the wealthy and disappear off shore or at best into savings accounts here. Therefore Less spending on things in the US, leading to decreased demand .. recession and more grief for the working class of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan. and Wisconsin.

Fasten your seat belts folks

You forgot Benghazi - or are we finally accepting that the nine - NINE - separate probes into that event, which found her not to be responsible, are now legitimate?

FBI Director Comey is aware of all the "facts" above - and yet, in a remarkably partisan press conference, stated he was unable to prove any illegality connected with Hillary Clinton, or indeed any grounds for prosecuting any charges against her. Not particularly remarkable, given that previous Secretaries had maintained their own email servers.

Nor is it particularly remarkable that 30,000 emails were deleted, given that the server was maintaining both her business and personal mails - personal mails which the FBI knew full well they had no right to probe. The point is proven even more by the Wikileaks dumps, which show no illegalities (so far), but just the ordinary, wearying cynicism of political sausage making (or risotto-preparing).

Also the FBI have been leaking selectively ever since the Comey conference and they still don't have anything to force an indictment.

And as for her staff wiping the server and destroying devices no longer in use - that is standard security. The fact that they used a hammer does not confer criminality on their actions - it just makes most people wish they had been more tech savvy re their security, maintained separate servers and allowed the Department of State to make those arrangements.

But the "system" is protecting her.

And yet, we have a candidate on the opposing side who has a record of bankruptcies, lawsuits for non payment of debts, has confessed himself on tape to non-consensual sexual activity, has been accused by 11 women of such, has been forced to pay a fine for sending money to an Attorney General in Florida, just after she dropped an investigation into a bogus university scam, has never released one tax return (despite her doing so herself, and despite continuing evidence that he has had to source loans from foreign banks, whilst maintaining people on his pay roll with close attachments to the Russian government) has encouraged said Russian government to interfere in the electoral process by hacking her, has as an advisor a man who just two days ago said there may not be an election in 2020 (the lovely Roger Stone), is encouraging crowds at his rallies to abuse the press (there was some footage yesterday of Trump supporters calling the media "lugenpresse" or lying press, a phrase popularised by Hitler during the last years of the Weimar Republic), and has encouraged and nurtured far right and racist elements to rally to his banner.

There's loads more.

Now, I know what you will say - "I know all this and I'd vote for Hillary above him in a swing state...but Hillary is as bad as him. And I wish my Irish facebook friends would shut up about her."

That is not a sustainable position. There are different levels of wrong doing - which is why there are misdemeanours and felonies. But the constant false equivalency that you and others apply to both candidates serves not to expose Clinton, but to normalise Trump. There are no comparisons between the two. Clinton is possibly the most investigated public figure in American politics, maybe world politics, and all you can come up with is all sizzle, no steak, and a hope that a Hail Mary from Wikileaks is going to derail her.

And if it does? When Herr Trump is trashing the most important democratic document ever written and maybe some of the lads in Worcester and Boston are being taken away to ICE internment camps as well as the Muslims and Mexicans, when you need to keep your Green Card close in case you still have your accent, when ethnicity rather than character is the guarantor of American Citizenship - I hope your vote for Jill Stein makes sure that your conscience is clean. Washing your hands of it doesn't wash.

Maybe using a hammer wasn't so important, after all?

Great post.

Wait for 48 hours and watch Chuck and Chris jump on the "Banana Republic" skin that Trump slipped on.

Cluxton

McMahon
OCarroll
Kelleher

McCarthy
OSullivan
McCaffrey

Mullins
Moran

OToole
MacMenamon
Kilkenny

Connolly
Keaveney
Brogan

Hillary crushed the orange but it doesn't matter.
"The middle finger of the American electorate" wants to vent so badly they cannot process a rational thought. They just want somebody to show up in Washington and blow government up.
Consequences be damned.

Remember these people have been voting against their economic self interest for 30 years. They know they have been shafted and are determined to have their revenge. They support Trump because he is the one most likely to throw a hand grenade into the system that shafted them.
Hillary needs the support of rational Republicans to pull this one off.
I am praying but worried.

Great post. a vote for Trump would be another vote against their own interest.

A lot of white bluecollar GOP voters have Ulster Protestant roots. The community has a problem with demagogues and arseholes who call themselves leaders.

I don't know if I buy the whole "voting against your economic self interest" line

If you work, and are a middle wage earner many Democratic proposals or agenda items would be enough to put you in the poor house.

Could you please tell me which proposals and agenda items you are referring to?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/26/why-these-union-members-and-lifelong-democrats-are-voting-trump.html

That really does not answer my question.
It is an article that just articulates that more pissed off people are planning to vote against their economic self interest.
Their rational for abandoning Unions and the Democratic Party,  is Trump and Pence will bring back manufacturing jobs.
Let's take a look at that and check it off against the Business and voting records of Trump and Pence.
Pence has never voted against a Trade Deal
Trump is a Property / Franchising Guy who gets his stuff manufactured by the lowest bidder. Mostly outside the US.
Evidenced by their track records to date neither of them have much passion for creating manufacturing jobs in the United States.
They have just empty slogans and promises about "Building a Wall" , "Make America Great"
The fact that people will vote for them is only testimony to their blind passion for revenge against the system.
They do not see that they are voting for the party that used and abused them ergo they are voting against their own self interest.

Hillary crushed the orange but it doesn't matter.
"The middle finger of the American electorate" wants to vent so badly they cannot process a rational thought. They just want somebody to show up in Washington and blow government up.
Consequences be damned.

Remember these people have been voting against their economic self interest for 30 years. They know they have been shafted and are determined to have their revenge. They support Trump because he is the one most likely to throw a hand grenade into the system that shafted them.
Hillary needs the support of rational Republicans to pull this one off.
I am praying but worried.

Great post. a vote for Trump would be another vote against their own interest.

A lot of white bluecollar GOP voters have Ulster Protestant roots. The community has a problem with demagogues and arseholes who call themselves leaders.

I don't know if I buy the whole "voting against your economic self interest" line

If you work, and are a middle wage earner many Democratic proposals or agenda items would be enough to put you in the poor house.

Could you please tell me which proposals and agenda items you are referring to?

Hillary crushed the orange but it doesn't matter.
"The middle finger of the American electorate" wants to vent so badly they cannot process a rational thought. They just want somebody to show up in Washington and blow government up.
Consequences be damned.

Remember these people have been voting against their economic self interest for 30 years. They know they have been shafted and are determined to have their revenge. They support Trump because he is the one most likely to throw a hand grenade into the system that shafted them.
Hillary needs the support of rational Republicans to pull this one off.
I am praying but worried.

Neither the credit card or car hire firms consider this a money making proposition so you have to beat your way through the misinformation and opportunistic ignorance that they will use to deflect you from using this service. Call your credit card company and get a note verifying coverage. Be sure it states that you are covered in Ireland. Ask for this when you request the coverage note.

You can avoid the $5000 hold if you bring proof of insurance. Call the credit card company and they will refer you to the insurance carrier who will email you proof of coverage. You have ask the insurance company to state specifically the countries you will be driving in ( Ireland and UK ). If you do not do that the note will refer only to worldwide coverage and the car hire agent will use it as an excuse to upsell you. Last time I was home. June 2016 a VW golf cost me $11 per day. Total cost for a week was $73.

This works for me
1 Join hertz gold
2. Get a credit card that covers insurance ( It will cost you $75 to $100 but worth it) Try Aadvantage MasterCard)
3. Get the credit card company to send you a letter verifying the coverage.
4. You have to use the credit card to pay for the car hire.

Mike Gibson and Sean O'Neill. If they had both played on the same team at least one more all Ireland for Down and another triple crown for Ireland. I could have suffered the All Ireland to get another Triple Crown.

Well done UCD. Keep up the good work. Now do it again next year.

I was raised on the border in the 50's and 60's. In many ways it was a lost part of Ireland neither, North or South. One of those places that the Boundary Commission actually wanted to hive off to the Free State. I grew up in a catholic enclave where there was very limited exposure to loyalism and Stormont (which we refused to recognize). We had two forms of recognized and accepted authority, the Catholic Church and the GAA.

Our protestant neighbors were a small minority that we lived with and worked with cordially for 10 months of every year. Then the triumphalist gene would burst out in July and August and they would insist on telling us who was boss during their marching season but seemed to get over it before the first Sunday in September (I guess they were more interested in hurling than most of the GAA folks in the 9 counties!) In fact we had a couple of protestants friends who played hurling with us in the early 60's and for most of the year there was no mention of what "Kirk" you attended. (A couple of Protestants was a lot because the population distribution in our area was over 90% Catholic.) 

There was however a constant tension and the impression that you were not the same as them, you were something of a lower caste.  Regardless of whether you ran faster, jumped higher, were better educated or better off financially, being protestant seemed to trump all the aforementioned in a loyalists eyes.

I remember my uncle always lamenting about when he and other catholic neighbors would go to help his protestant neighbor with the hay each summer that the neighbor's mother (who was particularly strongly devoted to the orange order) would fry up a big feed of rashers and sausages on Friday to show her appreciation to the Catholics who came to help. For those of you too young to remember, back in the day papists ate fish on Friday. Despite this affront the Catholic neighbors always showed up to help and laughed off the bitterness of the woman. Thankfully she did not pass any of her bitterness to her son and he seemed to be embarrassed by her behavior. Nevertheless that need to kick out at her "papist" neighbors never left her during all the times that they showed up to help.

Another anecdote from an earlier day in the 30's or 40's when "hiring fairs" still existed. Again for those who do not know the term; at a "hiring fair" young men would sell themselves into indenture for 6 to 9 months. A neighbor of ours when he was younger was hired out to a big protestant farmer in County Tyrone. He was fed porridge for breakfast and dinner every day for 3 months until he scraped up the courage to ask for a cup of "tae" one evening. The woman of the house scornfully rebuked his request with the following pleasantry "You ungrateful papist bastard, now that the wrinkles are out of your belly you are starting to get cheeky."

For me those anecdotes speak to the peaceful yet uneasy tension that predated the civil rights movement that kicked into gear in the late 60's. As long as we knew who the boss was and accepted our place in the back of the bus; everything was OK. Once we started looking for equality in housing, employment and government, the cork blew off the top of the bottle.