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ArtBest23
Joined: 02 Jul 2013
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 Posted: 08/09/15 10:31 pm ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
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Let's have some context of the entire stock market from 1999 to 2005, the years of Fiorina's tenure at HP, where she was the first outside CEO and the first female CEO.
From 1990 to 1999 there was a bull market, sometimes called the dotcom or technology bubble. A strong bear market began in 1999 or 2000. The market was further driven down by the events of September 11, 2001. Then, in 2002 the dotcom (or internet) bubble burst, causing a severe market crash worldwide. Many big companies went bankrupt during this period, such as Enron. Other internet giants such as Amazon, Yahoo and Ebay suffered big declines in stock value but survived.
This chart show the precipitous crash in S&P 500 P/E ratios from 1999 to 2003, followed by a weak and flat recovery, followed by another sharp decline.
HP under Fiorina's leadership actually grew aggressively in revenue, doubling from 1999 to 2005. Net income was essentially flat over the period. Some financial metrics improved (patents) while others became worse (debt).
Here's a business analysis of HP from 1999 to 2011 by Stanford University. The Compaq merger, in retrospect, hurt HP during Fiorina's tenure. It sparked proxy fights and public disputes between the board and major stockholders. Ultimately, the board approved the merger unanimously and the shareholders approved it by a margin of 51% to 49%. There were a lot of sailors in the merger boat with Fiorina.
Many, if not most, mergers turn out to be disappointments in business, and HP-Compaq was one of them. Fiorina disagreed on strategic principles with the board on the business direction for HP after the merger disappointment, and so they let her go with severance. That's just "business as usual" for many, if not most, CEO's.
How and why Fiorina exited from HP is the least relevant aspect of her business career, to me. Her glass-shattering, rocket ship rise from a real estate secretary to CEO of the world's then-largest technology company at age 45 bespeaks prodigious skills as creative team builder, communicator, and managerial superstar in a global business enterprise. Those are rare skills, which we haven't had in a President since Ronald Reagan -- if then. |
I already addressed that. As I quoted "By the time of Fiorina's ouster in February 2005, HP's stock had lost nearly half its value. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index had fallen 27% during the same time frame. " HP way underperformed Dell, Cisco, IBM, and all its other peer firms. HP's margins collapsed. The market cheered her firing. You can't pin her financial failure on the market. Her company did far worse than the tech sector or her competitors.
And her rise speaks to none of the things you cite unless you have some evidence for any of them. For all you know she rose by simply hitching her wagon to somebody else. Or by stabbing others in the back. The "creative team builder" rubbish is certainly contrary to her reputation as impossible to work with. Where is your evidence she has any of those skills?
The Compaq deal was either the result of horrible judgment or her being oblivious to what was happening in the world around her. As everyone else realized pcs were becoming indistinguishable low margin commodities, she bet a high margin R&D company's future on that low margin business. And she lost. Predictably, returns collapsed. It wasn't a difference of opinion, it was a blunder. HP has never really recovered from her mismanagement.
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scullyfu
Joined: 01 Jan 2006
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| Posted: 08/10/15 8:54 am ::: |
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there are a number of reasons for me to dislike Fiorina, but these two are game enders for me:
she stated that ultimately she is prepared to shut down the gov't over PP funding.
and she stated that her first phone call after being elected will be to 'her good friend' BeBe.
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jammerbirdi
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GlennMacGrady
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
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| Posted: 08/10/15 10:12 am ::: |
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| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
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Let's have some context of the entire stock market from 1999 to 2005, the years of Fiorina's tenure at HP, where she was the first outside CEO and the first female CEO.
From 1990 to 1999 there was a bull market, sometimes called the dotcom or technology bubble. A strong bear market began in 1999 or 2000. The market was further driven down by the events of September 11, 2001. Then, in 2002 the dotcom (or internet) bubble burst, causing a severe market crash worldwide. Many big companies went bankrupt during this period, such as Enron. Other internet giants such as Amazon, Yahoo and Ebay suffered big declines in stock value but survived.
This chart show the precipitous crash in S&P 500 P/E ratios from 1999 to 2003, followed by a weak and flat recovery, followed by another sharp decline.
HP under Fiorina's leadership actually grew aggressively in revenue, doubling from 1999 to 2005. Net income was essentially flat over the period. Some financial metrics improved (patents) while others became worse (debt).
Here's a business analysis of HP from 1999 to 2011 by Stanford University. The Compaq merger, in retrospect, hurt HP during Fiorina's tenure. It sparked proxy fights and public disputes between the board and major stockholders. Ultimately, the board approved the merger unanimously and the shareholders approved it by a margin of 51% to 49%. There were a lot of sailors in the merger boat with Fiorina.
Many, if not most, mergers turn out to be disappointments in business, and HP-Compaq was one of them. Fiorina disagreed on strategic principles with the board on the business direction for HP after the merger disappointment, and so they let her go with severance. That's just "business as usual" for many, if not most, CEO's.
How and why Fiorina exited from HP is the least relevant aspect of her business career, to me. Her glass-shattering, rocket ship rise from a real estate secretary to CEO of the world's then-largest technology company at age 45 bespeaks prodigious skills as creative team builder, communicator, and managerial superstar in a global business enterprise. Those are rare skills, which we haven't had in a President since Ronald Reagan -- if then. |
And her rise speaks to none of the things you cite unless you have some evidence for any of them. For all you know she rose by simply hitching her wagon to somebody else. Or by stabbing others in the back. The "creative team builder" rubbish is certainly contrary to her reputation as impossible to work with. Where is your evidence she has any of those skills?
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Nothing will convince political tribalists or other closed minds, but I'll give an answer on this point. My evidence is my personal experience working in an even larger technology company than HP for 17 years.
Executives who rocket to the top in such companies are a rare and special breed of charismatic management skills. For example, being a great individual engineer, scientist, salesman, bean counter or lawyer is only relevant to your first non-management job. Once one reaches the first level of management, further success is measured by team building skills, delegation skills, people and project management skills, and effective communication in the upward, downward and lateral directions.
It's a naive portrait that anyone can rise to CEO in a giant, public and widely owned corporation via "back stabbing" or "coat tails". It is impossible to so rise in such a corporation when you are coming in from outside it, as Fiorina did. A consistent and documented record of highly successful management performance is essential. (So also in the military; and less so in the administration of giant universities, where I have also worked.)
Secondary evidence of Fiorina's skills is easily obtained by simply listening to her. She is a verbal communication laser beam. Only Ted Cruz is comparable. She is always on point, responsive to the question, bluntly direct, surgically succinct, and persuasively substantive -- all delivered professionally, respectfully and without bombast, double talk or evasiveness.
Just listening to her, I can see from my experience how Fiorina would have been a communication, management and negotiation superstar within a large bureaucracy. Those are skills that are necessary for -- but have been recently absent from -- the performance of the job of President of the United States, as opposed to running for it. |
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norwester
Joined: 14 Jun 2006
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| Posted: 08/10/15 2:26 pm ::: |
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I do enjoy your descriptions of the world as well, jammer. I actually believe in the accuracy of much of what you write. I just struggle with the statement that it's any different than how the country (or rather, the world) has always run: those with money get more money, those without can maybe make a living and feed their families and take a small vacation once or twice while their kids are growing up...as long as they properly toe the line drawn by those with money, and as long as they don't have the bad luck to get caught up in some financial scheme or other as collateral damage.
As far back as the founding of this country, the Continental Congress paid soldiers and farmers with IOUs, until Robert Morris and his protege Alexander Hamilton hatched a scheme that got governments (e.g. Pennsylvania) to stop accepting these IOUs for taxes, forcing the farmers to sell these IOUs for what cash they could get. Then Hamilton and company were able to buy up most of these IOUs for cents on the dollar. After that, Morris and Hamilton took control of federal financial policy and rigged it to pay out the IOUs in silver and gold at face value plus interest, which precious metals they were able to gather by rendering excise taxes (most famously on whiskey, which was used as currency in and around Applachia) on the poor soldiers and farmers they made take IOUs in the first place! Selectively targeting these folks and putting significantly less effort into collecting taxes from merchants and businessmen on the coasts. When people were unable to pay these taxes (surprise, surprise), Hamilton and his cronies forclosed, liquidated, seized, etc., thereby increasing their holdings.
What does this jaunt through history have to do with anything? Just to say that the freedom of the common person has ever been something of a mirage. You either help those in power--or at least don't hinder them (and are thus ignored)--or you get marched on and either surrender or are destroyed by those who fell in line. The Applachian folk who avoided these unjust taxes for nearly a decade eventually had to submit to federal authority. There were just too many other poor people in other regions for Washington to recruit to march on and "free" Pittsburgh before the rebels were able to solicit help from foreign powers (or allies).
Likewise national borders have always been a fine fiction to those with wealth. Occasionally the pendulum swings and heads are lost (e.g. French Revolution, or that believable scene in World War Z the book where--spoilers--all those rich were partying it up on a compound meticulously designed to keep "zombies" out, but it wasn't designed to keep angy mobs of "common folk" out), but those whose fortunes and assets have successfully weathered centuries of worldly upheaval, the fact that they have amassed giant quantities of wealth and property and are taking advantage of the "system", how does that change how things have always been, jammer? They take charge of a political system. "They" make laws that benefit them. "They" use the media to control information. I think the only difference in the US and China or Iran is the amount of rope "they" allow the common citizen to have.
Tell me something to actually freak me out. 
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 08/10/15 3:40 pm ::: |
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Well that was brilliant and I dig (and badly need) the history lessons!
And thank you for believing the crap that I put up here. The... impetus to actually get up on a high horse and write something with some passion does not these days productively coexist with any respect whatsoever for the rules of grammar, punctuation, syntax, etc. or properly organizing my thoughts, etc. So I sometimes wonder how badly I'm damaging my own positions and credibility by not taking care with every sentence and point. I used to do that. It really seemed to matter online 15 years ago... now... not so much. Or I'm just getting old and don't care anymore.
So tell you something that actually freaks you out. After what you've written? lol.
That's a tall order. Gimme a second on that.
In the interim, let me get back to my favorite subject for a minute. The Donald. No, not me. Okay, my second favorite subject. The Other One. Keep it positive and happy since it's a sunny Monday in all of our lives.
I think it is absolutely DAZZLING what Fox News has done here during and since this debate. Just think about it. The first questions to Donald Trump in the debate were about his treatment and attitudes and specifically his SPEECH as it is directed towards women. WOMEN? Are you KIDDING ME?
This is the first Republican debate which would traditionally be a moment in time where the zany, the crazy, the ultra-Right wing, the anti-PC, the people who call anything that stands up and says anything in defense of women things like FEMINAZIS, this is THEIR moment and apologies to Ted Cruz, Donald Trump is their middle finger to the world guy. And in THEIR face, Fox News, goes after THEIR GUY, on behalf of WOMEN and specifically his SPEECH as it has applied to women. 
It's caused or opened or widened a fissure between Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. I have buddies on Facebook who I have been trying for years to illuminate as to what Fox News is and what it has done... to absolutely no avail... who are now posting things like SHARE IF YOU THINK DONALD TRUMP WAS SET UP BY FOX NEWS, etc. lol.
I just have to say this. Admit it. Donald Trump is the most fun I've had with politics since 2008. This started out initially as striking me as a non-story, annoying to even comment on or think about, much like his last 'run', then it became amusing, then it became VERY AMUSING, then it became like a lap dance from one of the Donald's Miss Universe contestants. I just don't want it to STOP! I'm fucking addicted.
Please take note that Democrats have gone dead silent on Trump. Whoa! They are watching Fox, and Trump, and Rush, and Erick Erickson (who has pretty much placed a photograph of himself beside the word 'hypocrite' in the dictionary) and they're just standing down! They have to be slapping their thighs and just choking with laughter. And believe me, they TOO, do not want this to ever EVER end. Never ever EVER.
There is the fact, and many many people probably are doing this, and I'm inclined to as well, that people are pouring things into Donald Trump like he is a vessel for the anger etc, you know, of the little guy, RE the bad trade agreements, illegal immigration, jobs going overseas, standing up to PC... which we now know... and a conservative working class base in this country now knows.... THEY CAN'T trust Fox News or the Republican Party to stand up to... because when they NEED to... they too will trot out the PC barricades and block even the Republican front runner from an event? Okay I don't know what happened to that sentence. But yeah, people are using the Donald as a stand in for their own anger. But hey... he can be the Chauncey Gardner of the moment. I'll be finishing the fucking sentences for that douchebag for the next year and a half. Happily. Let's GO!
It's just good. The longer and stronger Donald Trump is on the scene, the better for America. And I say that as a Left leaner aware of the damage he is doing but I also have to admit I'm seeing an opportunity for things to be said that are not being said, and more than that even, for there to BE a lightning rod that becomes charged with the anger and frustration of the American people.
So I say to everyone! Get on board the Trump Escalator!  _________________ Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17 |
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ArtBest23
Joined: 02 Jul 2013
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| Posted: 08/10/15 3:47 pm ::: |
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Glenn, it appears that your love of Fiorina comes down to you like the way she talks. I've known lots of smooth talkers who have zero judgment or common sense.
BTW, I've worked with and known for years plenty of CEOs, CFOs, and other high ranking executives in fortune 50 companies - Tech, Aerospace, Healthcare, and others. I consider your sweeping notion that she must be a superstar to have risen to the top to be utter horseshit.
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 08/10/15 3:52 pm ::: |
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One thing that really is the like juice driving the fascination. Is that this is ALL. SO. REAL. There is a silly season in politics. This is silly season. And yet... lol... this is NOT SILLY. It's one of the most fractious and deadly serious moments we have ever seen in the fortunes of the modern Republican Party and Right Wing and their all important right wing media machine empire. This is crazy! How long it can go on LIKE THIS is anybody's guess. Enjoy it while you can._________________ Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17 |
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beknighted
Joined: 11 Nov 2004
Posts: 11050
Location: Lost in D.C.
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| Posted: 08/10/15 4:06 pm ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
Nothing will convince political tribalists or other closed minds, but I'll give an answer on this point. My evidence is my personal experience working in an even larger technology company than HP for 17 years.
Executives who rocket to the top in such companies are a rare and special breed of charismatic management skills. For example, being a great individual engineer, scientist, salesman, bean counter or lawyer is only relevant to your first non-management job. Once one reaches the first level of management, further success is measured by team building skills, delegation skills, people and project management skills, and effective communication in the upward, downward and lateral directions.
It's a naive portrait that anyone can rise to CEO in a giant, public and widely owned corporation via "back stabbing" or "coat tails". It is impossible to so rise in such a corporation when you are coming in from outside it, as Fiorina did. A consistent and documented record of highly successful management performance is essential. (So also in the military; and less so in the administration of giant universities, where I have also worked.)
Secondary evidence of Fiorina's skills is easily obtained by simply listening to her. She is a verbal communication laser beam. Only Ted Cruz is comparable. She is always on point, responsive to the question, bluntly direct, surgically succinct, and persuasively substantive -- all delivered professionally, respectfully and without bombast, double talk or evasiveness.
Just listening to her, I can see from my experience how Fiorina would have been a communication, management and negotiation superstar within a large bureaucracy. Those are skills that are necessary for -- but have been recently absent from -- the performance of the job of President of the United States, as opposed to running for it. |
I was a fan of Fiorina's before she went to HP. She'd had a great career at Lucent, and was widely expected to be its next CEO; I thought she was a really good hire for HP, as I thought the cultures of the two companies were similar enough that she would get HP. I was wrong.
The Compaq merger was a conceptual error of very high order. The two companies weren't really much alike at all, and it was apparent it was a merger for market share, not to buy complementary capabilities or to fill a particular hole in HP's portfolio. Saying she convinced the board and the shareholders isn't really saying much - nearly all mergers proposed by a company are approved by its shareholders, and the margin was much smaller than usual.
In practical terms, the merger didn't come close to achieving her objectives. Before it happened, HP and Compaq had a combined market share of about 20% in the PC business; by the time she left, it was down to below 15%. At the same time, the increase in overall revenue from the merger and other deals did not help net revenue, which was essentially flat when the rest of the S&P's net revenue was up significantly. (I think this is because she'd basically doubled-down on the part of HP that was in a commodity business with very thin margins.)
And, of course, there are very well known issues about how she fit into (or didn't fit into) HP's culture. Now, sometimes a company needs a shock to the system, but if so, she didn't do it effectively.
So, to the extent that HP was an audition to be President - CEO of the country, so to speak - I'd say she failed it.
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GlennMacGrady
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
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Location: Heisenberg
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| Posted: 08/10/15 4:27 pm ::: |
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A new poll by Morning Consult shows Trump increasing his national lead from 25% last week to 32% after the debate. Bush is a distant second at 11%.
http://morningconsult.com/2015/08/trumps-lead-grows-after-debate-controversy/
Will Trump select magnificent Carly, slick Marco or velociraptor Ted for his running mate? The best choice would probably still be Oprah. Readiness for the presidency is largely irrelevant; appeal to low information block voters is the key. |
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pilight
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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Location: Where the action is
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| Posted: 08/10/15 4:29 pm ::: |
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| jammerbirdi wrote: |
| Please take note that Democrats have gone dead silent on Trump. |
It's the oldest rule in politics. Don't commit political murder when your opponent is busy committing political suicide.
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I ain't got a home
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justintyme
Joined: 08 Jul 2012
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| Posted: 08/10/15 4:36 pm ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| jammerbirdi wrote: |
| Please take note that Democrats have gone dead silent on Trump. |
It's the oldest rule in politics. Don't commit political murder when your opponent is busy committing political suicide. |
So true. If the Republicans were to be so dumb as to actully have someone that unelectable as their nominee...
I, Hillary Clinton, do solemnly swear....
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TonyL222
Joined: 01 Oct 2007
Posts: 5140
Location: Reston, VA
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| Posted: 08/10/15 4:44 pm ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
A new poll by Morning Consult shows Trump increasing his national lead from 25% last week to 32% after the debate. Bush is a distant second at 11%.
http://morningconsult.com/2015/08/trumps-lead-grows-after-debate-controversy/
Will Trump select magnificent Carly, slick Marco or velociraptor Ted for his running mate? The best choice would probably still be Oprah. Readiness for the presidency is largely irrelevant; appeal to low information block voters is the key. |
Don't get Giddy yet, Glenn. 32% for means there's 68% against
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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norwester
Joined: 14 Jun 2006
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jammerbirdi
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jammerbirdi
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| Posted: 08/10/15 7:55 pm ::: |
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Well now they've gone and caught Joan Walsh's tits in a wringer.
Salon: The ugly hypocrisy of the rights reaction to Trumps Kelly slur
"The pinnacle of hypocrisy, of course, was Erick Ericksons opportunistic decision to rescind Trumps invitation to his Red State Rising event this weekend (where candidates were invited to one-up one another on shutting down the government over defunding Planned Parenthood.) Erickson is a sexist oaf whos made a career out of Trump-like attacks on women. He famously called Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis Abortion Barbie but he extended that insult to GOP Rep. Renee Ellmers merely because she fought to insure the House GOPs 20-week abortion ban included exceptions for rape and incest.
Ericksons called Michelle Obama a Marxist Harpy Wife, branded the 2012 Democratic National Convention the Vagina Monologues and regularly attacks ugly feminists. But for his brave disinvite to Trump, Jeb Bush praised him as on the side of women.
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Okay, but Joan. Seriously. This? Lets be clear: Im not comparing myself to Megyn Kelly, a much more prominent journalist.
Did anyone else see her disgusting creepy cruel, sneeringly delivered interrogation of John Kasich when she asked in her meanest culture coarsening creepy cruel oh yeah Christianity is cool as long as it isn't compassionate way...
You defended your Medicaid expansion by invoking God, saying to skeptics that when they arrive in heaven, Saint Peter isnt going to ask them how small theyve kept government, but what they have done for the poor.
Why should Republican voters, who generally want to shrink government, believe that you wont use your Saint Peter rationale to expand every government program?
Yeah she's a hard ass babe. Lawyer. Gorgeous. She's also drawing millions into the very idea that Fox News isn't a despicably evil entity that does and has done already incredible damage to this United States of America. So she's even worse than the poster boys of Fox. Instead of, oh yeah, of course I hate Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, how about, I get how fucking dangerous it is that I find myself not hating Megyn Kelly and calling her anything other than beautiful shiny snake that she is? A prominent conservative journalist. Please. Make me puke why don't you._________________ Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17 |
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GlennMacGrady
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
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Location: Heisenberg
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| Posted: 08/10/15 9:01 pm ::: |
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| TonyL222 wrote: |
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
A new poll by Morning Consult shows Trump increasing his national lead from 25% last week to 32% after the debate. Bush is a distant second at 11%.
http://morningconsult.com/2015/08/trumps-lead-grows-after-debate-controversy/
Will Trump select magnificent Carly, slick Marco or velociraptor Ted for his running mate? The best choice would probably still be Oprah. Readiness for the presidency is largely irrelevant; appeal to low information block voters is the key. |
Don't get Giddy yet, Glenn. 32% for means there's 68% against |
I'm not giddy, Tony, but just having fun with this whole drama. Personally, I find the prospect of Trump as the Republican candidate to be terrifying, but the prospect of him winning the Presidency to be comforting. |
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TonyL222
Joined: 01 Oct 2007
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| Posted: 08/11/15 6:26 am ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
I'm not giddy, Tony, but just having fun with this whole drama. Personally, I find the prospect of Trump as the Republican candidate to be terrifying, but the prospect of him winning the Presidency to be comforting. |
Somehow, Glenn, I've felt all along you were having fun with the apparent Trump support.
My feelings on his prospects are exactly the opposite - I'd find comfort in him being the Republican candidate and terrified should he become President.
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 08/11/15 9:58 am ::: |
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| TonyL222 wrote: |
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
I'm not giddy, Tony, but just having fun with this whole drama. Personally, I find the prospect of Trump as the Republican candidate to be terrifying, but the prospect of him winning the Presidency to be comforting. |
Somehow, Glenn, I've felt all along you were having fun with the apparent Trump support.
My feelings on his prospects are exactly the opposite - I'd find comfort in him being the Republican candidate and terrified should he become President. |
What does it all mean, etc.? So Trump has zero chance of ever being president and traditionally that would indicate to anyone watching politics at this moment that whatever popularity he is enjoying it doesn't mean anything. Silly season, etc. He has probably a 1% chance of being the eventual Republican nominee. Still signifying nothing. Honestly, I think the chances are near single digits, ten percent at best, that Trump is running next year at this time as an independent and accepting a historic role as another Ross Perot. So again, overall, on any of the traditional bigger questions of success and results, Trump really isn't going to come out of this process as the product the process is designed to manufacture, i.e., a candidate.
But Trump is right now still doubling Jeb Bush in the latest polls, 24% to Jeb's 12%, with everyone else polling single digits. That reality is feeding into something I think very powerful in Trump's narcissistic mind and although somehow in a spectacular light show we will eventually see it all blow apart, right now, and for as long as this goes on, it's like those old westerns where they lasoo someone and drag them with their horse. The Institution of the Republican Party. The stature it commands in our two party system. The Right Wing media. Even now, because they're just that phony and hypocritical, the conservative wing groups like Red State, etc. All of that is being dragged roughly through the dirt with really no end of the torture in sight. It just can't get any better than this and there is no downside to any of it that I can see._________________ Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17 |
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 08/11/15 10:20 am ::: |
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I would say this too. Anyone on the Left or even the responsible middle who teams up with the likes of Erick Erickson and Megyn Kelly at this moment to attack Donald Trump over his views or treatment of women, those people would reveal themselves to be lower than the lowest pond scum. They would have to be careerist pols or institutions who above anything else will protect their own nest of elites. The New York Times is dangerously close to destroying any shred of respect I had left for that paper. The Washington Post, too. The papers have been repulsive even going back to Trump's war hero jab at McCain. The Times' public editor took the paper to task for mistatements three weeks ago. She's going to have a field day with the shit they've pulled regarding this 'blood from wherever' comment. It was great to see Joan Walsh point out the hypocrisy of Fox and Erick Erickson but even she is compelled for some reason to say nice things about Megyn Kelly. Come on, people. Cold blooded staring at this octopus squirming in the sunlight is what is needed. Watch it writh and suffer. Trump isn't a threat to anyone other than the Republican establishment and maybe some foreign governments and business interests who we should have under much greater scrutiny anyway._________________ Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17 |
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mercfan3
Joined: 23 Nov 2004
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| Posted: 08/11/15 10:31 am ::: |
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| jammerbirdi wrote: |
| I would say this too. Anyone on the Left or even the responsible middle who teams up with the likes of Erick Erickson and Megyn Kelly at this moment to attack Donald Trump over his views or treatment of women, those people would reveal themselves to be lower than the lowest pond scum. They would have to be careerist pols or institutions who above anything else will protect their own nest of elites. The New York Times is dangerously close to destroying any shred of respect I had left for that paper. The Washington Post, too. The papers have been repulsive even going back to Trump's war hero jab at McCain. The Times' public editor took the paper to task for mistatements three weeks ago. She's going to have a field day with the shit they've pulled regarding this 'blood from wherever' comment. It was great to see Joan Walsh point out the hypocrisy of Fox and Erick Erickson but even she is compelled for some reason to say nice things about Megyn Kelly. Come on, people. Cold blooded staring at this octopus squirming in the sunlight is what is needed. Watch it writh and suffer. Trump isn't a threat to anyone other than the Republican establishment and maybe some foreign governments and business interests who we should have under much greater scrutiny anyway. |
My issue with the outrage from the right is that they didn't seem to care when Trump was spouting his racist rhetoric.
But as a woman, it is offensive. It's sexist. A woman doesn't have to be a good woman to experience sexism. Hell, I called people out for being sexist against Sarah Palin.
It's not going to hurt Trump anyway. If anything, it'll make those on the left more disgusted with him. (Although, I still say he came off as the least scary candidate) It's not like the republican base really cares about how women are treated. As Hillary pointed out, Republican talking points on women's issues is far more offensive than anything Trump could say.
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Last edited by mercfan3 on 08/11/15 10:34 am; edited 1 time in total |
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norwester
Joined: 14 Jun 2006
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pilight
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 08/11/15 11:25 am ::: |
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| I talked to some of my Republican friends over the weekend. None of them like Trump as a candidate or as a person, but they all thought his presence in the race was a positive because of the extra media attention it brings. The record ratings that the debate got mean that the real candidates reached far more people than they would have otherwise. The media is constantly comparing and contrasting Trump with the real candidates, which again gives their positions more coverage.
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beknighted
Joined: 11 Nov 2004
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| Posted: 08/11/15 11:29 am ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| I talked to some of my Republican friends over the weekend. None of them like Trump as a candidate or as a person, but they all thought his presence in the race was a positive because of the extra media attention it brings. The record ratings that the debate got mean that the real candidates reached far more people than they would have otherwise. The media is constantly comparing and contrasting Trump with the real candidates, which again gives their positions more coverage. |
That's an interesting perspective, but I think it's overly optimistic. Unlike, say, 2008, when the Obama-Clinton race was focused on how they differed on substance, nobody really is paying attention to the substantive differences here - it's all about how Trump and the other Republicans are trading insults.
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