You got what you deserve, Republican Party...

[Sacred Jellybean]

The one actual issue you bring up there is Syria. Syria is indeed an incredibly complex problem, and Hillary has said that she supports a no-fly zone, but is opposed to using ground troops. We definitely need to do SOMETHING to try to end that horrible war, but when there are few to no good actors to work with, it's hard to come up with a good plan...

Our plan should be to do nothing. It's an awful and tragic war to be certain, but interfering with foreign affairs has never ended well. Iraq, Libya, Vietnam, South America... it's time we stopped meddling in other country's affairs. Cut military spending, pull out, let these people deal with their own problems. It's not our business.

I don't know that I agree that sexism plays such a strong role in the attacks on Hillary. To be certain, you'll see a crazy here and there calling her a cunt. And certainly, the left has it's own problems at times with female politicians (see: Sarah Palin). Not as bad as the right, mind you, but there's a decent portion that's problematic.

Still, most of the criticism I see directed towards Clinton are either policy issues or non-scandals. But it's very rare that I see overt sexism, at least in my circles. I guess you could make the case that she faces higher scrutiny as a woman, as Obama did for being black, but you see mud slinging from all sides, and Hillary's honestly doesn't seem all that different.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Hmm... after reading your links ABF, maybe you're right about the sexist behavior towards Hillary. I retract my last post, perhaps I was being myopic.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yes, there's a large group of sexists going nuts over Hillary. It's been an issue since her first campaign and it isn't right. Weltall's points about her past policies can't be dismissed out of hand though ABF. She's saying her policies are different now, but we can't forget her past so easily.

As for Syria, and any other country that suddenly has a crisis like this in the future (we can be sure plenty will come and go), I've learned from history that America used to have a far more productive method than the ridiculous dichotomy of "should we send in troops or do nothing?". Namely, nation building in a much more literal sense. BEFORE the wars start in a country, America can offer aid in the form of building new schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. Note the specifics. We can't just write a check and send it to these countries, as their corrupt leaders will inevitably spend it on something horrible. We need to dictate the terms by actually doing the work ourselves. This used to be how America handled things, for at least a decade or two, before officials switched to the "invade them" strategy while simultaneously framing the dichotomy to make sure everyone nicely forgot about the existence of any other way.

So, we don't send in troops when these things are going on internally because we've seen what happens, but we try to provide a bottom level that internal change can build on. Oh, and we should certainly help provide an escape route and a home for refugees, though refugees have ALWAYS had a world-wide status of pariah, a lot of countries are at least opening their doors. It remains to be seen just how well the citizens of countries like Canada will treat their refugees in the long term (history shows the longer the stay the more resentment tends to build), but it's certainly an important first step that America isn't taking.

[A Black Falcon]

Hmm... after reading your links ABF, maybe you're right about the sexist behavior towards Hillary. I retract my last post, perhaps I was being myopic.

Indeed, the worst sexism aimed at Hillary is not the "overt" stuff you mentioned in your first post on this page, it's the casual sexisms of gender discrimination that you see in those link of mine and beyond. As those things are less obvious than the latest outrageous Donald Trump statement they are much easier to overlook, but overall they are much more important as more people believe and state those kinds of things than the blatantly obvious sexism of the Trumpist right. It's far too easy for people to write off Trump, but then do some maybe conscious or maybe unconsciously sexist thing as well... And that's why I like that Kimmel sketch so much, it makes that point well.

[Dark Jaguar]

Personally I'm waiting for Trump to casually imply that Hillary can't be president because her husband was already president.

"Now I gotta ask, like, can Hillary legally be president? I don't know, but I mean her husband was in the white house, he did that thing there twice, you know *weird expression*, so I mean, she's already been first lady twice, and so, is she eligible? I mean, I'm not saying she's not but it's a good question. I just wanna know."

I totally expect that or something like that to leave Trump's mouth at some point.

[Dark Jaguar]

Oh, I will say this. It's never over. Did... did anyone get that reference? The Phantasm movies? Silver floating ball full of weapons? Creepy "Tall Man" using silver balls to turn people into weird zombies? Anyone? Just me? Okay.

Um, what I mean is that, faced with only these two candidates, I'm going with Hillary. Yes, she'll do some good things. Yes, her track record is questionable. Yes, a recent statement after last weekend's shooting about "finding these people better online" by "working with our tech companies" smacks of a NSA power grab we all really need to keep an eye on. And yes, she'll be the first female president, and the only things I actually agree with from either of the two candidates are coming out of her mouth, not Trump's. BUT! This is important, she needs to have some checks and balances put into place. Let's make sure she can't do anything particularly harmful without a lot of pushback. So, let's make sure to pay a LOT of attention to local elections, from representatives and senators to even smaller level stuff like county comptroller or whatever. This has always been something we should have been doing, but why not really make it a focus? Sanders can even lead the charge on that. On a national stage, this is going to be very hard to drum up the support for, simply due to the local nature of these elections, but let's at least get the passion going to start with.