monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Hillary was a horrible candidate, but I didn't think the Democrats had any good candidates to pick from. I nattered on about it for a while a couple of years back - they need to develop a much fresher, younger crowd of candidates all round in the US.

I'm not a fan of any old white candidate. Old, in terms of age as well of years of political service. Get in, do something meaningful, move on.

Really? you don't think you learn more about what matters politically by talking to people around you rather than reading books/websites?

The laws of capitalism lead mecanically to wealth concentration, over the long term.

Trump is playing in "Wealth Concentration Comes Home to the White House". He is the logical end (or step) towards greater and greater alienation of the US people from their elites. One more step towards a distopia à la Hunter Games, a oligarchy with a happy few owning everything and calling all the shots and then the masses, underpaid, undertrained, under the bus.

Exactly what was on offer from the other camp.

The fact that the corporate media is so openly attacking the POTUS is a clear sign that he's not part of that particular elitist inbred oligarchy.

Not much, I suppose, re the women's march and change in the long run, but I've seen at least one article on new energy happening after the marches across the US and around quite a lot of the world..

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/02/this-poll-is-the-best-news-liberals-have-had-in-a-long-time.html

I take noise, fervor, as better than silence in the face of the dismantling of democracy.

Back in the days of Iraq protest, some of us stood with Women in Black, silently. What good was it?
Nuttin' much, except for community solidarity. This was in front of a city government building facing a major highway. A lot of trucks went by, with the drivers honking and waving and thumbing up.
I get it that this is mere tinsel in the face of stuff going on now, but community accord is useful when push comes to shove.

Adds, I'm at least a couple of pages behind here, need to read.

The Democrats signaled that they still aren't ready for getting a fresher look when they reinstalled Nancy 'look at my necklace' Pelosi.

I see what hisporsche means: it could come across as populist. But I do think we all lost our political compasses, including most intellectuals, at this particular point in history.

Here's a suggestion for an area in which you could do bettter. Back in the Spring of 2016, when Obama nominated Judge Garland to replace the late John Scalia on the Court, the outcome of the Democrat Primary was a clear expected win for Hillary, and, for the Republican primary, Trump was leading and gaining momentum, but not yet a clear winner. Most prognosticators then gave A Republican ticket under Trump no more than a 30% chance of winning the November election.

We should evaluate Senate Majority Leader McConnel's motives with these facts in mind. In the last century only four USSC candidates have neen nominated and confirmed in an election year, the last being Frank Murphy in 1940, by FDR - an election year with relatively little uncertainty in the outcome (FDR vs Wilkie). Justice Kennedy was nominated in 1987 and confirmed in the 1988 election year in a similar contest in which there was also little doubt of the outcome (Bush vs Dukakis). In addition the Senate Republicans in 2016 had the experience of chafing under the arbitrary leadership of Hary Reid who repeatedly refused to bring legislation, including budgets, enacted by the House even up for debate or a vote in the Senate throughout his term (apparently to spare anxious Democrat Senators the political riusk attendant to votes on contrntious innues); while in an obvious conspiracy the then Democrat president was using his phone and his pen to rule without deling with the legislature at all.

I believe the intensity of McConnel's statement is reflective of his personal pique, but the decision and the action were perfectly reasonable, by historical political standards.

Now the election has occurred, and, to the surprise of most prognosticators, Trump has won. He has nominated a USSC candidate who appears to meet all the nominal qualiifications for the position, and McConnell has indicated that the arbitrary refusal to consider or confirm him will likely be viewed by the people as intolerable. My opinion is he is giving the Democrats a warning that he may be prepared to act in the manner of his Democrat predecessor regarding fillibusters.

In short, there's a lot more to the matter than indicated by your blithe justaposition of the two statements, made almost a year apart, on different matters under different circumstances and your implied conclusion that it demonstrates that integrity and honesty are absent from conservatives
is without merit.

Many similar juxtapositions of statements of Sen Chuck Schumer could easily be presented, but no one here (so far) has chosen to do so.

Wealth only goes to those who create their own business. Working for others makes the owner richer. I've held management positions during most of my working life, but made real money doing consulting work. Was able to travel the world, and retired early. My brother who is a doctor always asked how I was able to travel so much.

You asked maporsche, but my reply would be: I really don't think that.

You may be able to get a good feeling for what people around you think or believe, or what political opinions they hold. But ultimately, that's still a very,very limited social circle, and, compared to the nation as a whole, a very limited segment of "what matters politically."

I'm also uncomfortable how the whole notion of "don't rely on intellectuals/books/news/websites" plays into the current anti-intellectualism and opposition of science/experts/universities as "liberal" and therefore unreliable. I really disagree that that's the way to determine policy.

No, I think you learn from all of that; and I also think you learn from science and books and even intellectuals. The assumptive and condescending thing is people thinking that because I may have supported HRC or democratic policies...that I must NOT have spoken to people around me. That I must somehow be ignoring or ignorant to real people's lives.

Learning about all sides of any issue is important, but many people string along with the party's policies. I've learned throughout the years that I have agreements and disagreements with both parties, so I registered as an Independent.

That's interesting.
I started out highly for Sanders as sort of offshoot of me (not true of course but not all that far off) and after several months I backed off, thinking that Sanders wasn't ready for the US Gov world. Never a big fan of Hillary, I thought she had a better chance for facilitating positive stuff. I was also worried re her demonstrated compensity as a hawk.

Now we have Hawkmobile on parade.

I'm not looking at determining policy. I'm talking about figuring out election outcomes. I find I get a better read of what's working/not working in campaigns by talking to people I meet than by reading. I'm in sort of an unusual situation with my range of contacts - work with the 1%, live in what's considered a bellweather riding, study/perform with a particular subset of the new immigrant community, train with an older immigrant community.

I've had a 100% prediction success rate for about 35 years of Canadian provincial and federal elections. I read/study/research but I make my predictions based on my conversations with people.

I'm not at all sure where that came into play.

I definitely didn't understand the appeal of what the Democrats or Republicans were offering. The two-party system seems to only have one direction to go. More power/money for both of them. They just switch it off.

With three or more viable parties there's a better chance for shake-up. I particularly like it when we have minority governments. Things change because the government has no option - they have to find an opponent to get along with if they want to continue to govern. That means, in practice, compromise/positive change/movement forward.

It comes back to the problem of the 'first past the post' election system that the USA has.

Has there ever been a successful 3rd party in a system like the US'?

It seems to me that a third party candidate would also be an extremist, because otherwise, he would only mirror what we already have. I think a third party candidate needs to bring new ideas to the table that isn't already being provided by the two party system. What could they be? It would have to cover economics and immigration.