3 Trump: Parables, Politics, Panic

[Hera]

5 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

You know how language changes over time? In my eyes, " Trump" now has another definition that means the word you were searching for.

All this talk from the Trump supporters about the polls being wrong is giving me flashbacks of 2012.

Remember the unskewed polls guy who kept insisting that Romney was going to win? Remember how Karl Rove had a meltdown on FOX News on election night? Remember how Mrs. Romney had that big ol' victory bouffant and Mitt supposedly hadn't written a concession speech because he believed the nuttery that outlets like FOX were spewing 24/7?

I think that history is going to repeat itself this year, but the Trump supporters are going to bring their guns when things don't turn out as they thought they would. 

 

 

I believe you're right and it scares the fuck out of me.

[Geechee Girl]

The rigged election and voter fraud will be his cross to die upon. I can't remember where I read it, but a commenter dubbed Cheeto as Trumplethinskin. I'm so using that moniker from now on. The polling data is giving me hope that the power of women, minorities, and educated people will be greater than his scary lot.

[47of74]

The rigged election and voter fraud will be his cross to die upon. I can't remember where I read it, but a commenter dubbed Cheeto as Trumplethinskin. I'm so using that moniker from now on. The polling data is giving me hope that the power of women, minorities, and educated people will be greater than his scary lot.

Trumplethinskin. LOL. Adding it to the rotation.

Even if polling data is positive I'm not relaxing until the election is over.

[Howl]

Good piece in the NYT today titled: Inside the Failing Mission to Tame Trump’s Tongue

Quote

Nearly two months later, the effort to save Mr. Trump from himself has plainly failed. He has repeatedly signaled to his advisers and allies his willingness to change and adapt, but has grown only more volatile and prone to provocation since then, clashing with a Gold Star family, making comments that have been seen as inciting violence and linking his political opponents to terrorism.

Advisers who once hoped a Pygmalion-like transformation would refashion a crudely effective political showman into a plausible American president now increasingly concede that Mr. Trump may be beyond coaching. He has ignored their pleas and counsel as his poll numbers have dropped, boasting to friends about the size of his crowds and maintaining that he can read surveys better than the professionals.

In private, Mr. Trump’s mood is often sullen and erratic, his associates say. He veers from barking at members of his staff to grumbling about how he was better off following his own instincts during the primaries and suggesting he should not have heeded their calls for change.  Full text here.

This speaks of a man who flirted with politics but never, not once, understood the nuts and bolts of what politicians do: campaigning, developing policy, creating a consistent message, forging relationships, cultivating donors, outright begging for money.  He's in the middle of this and it's just not fun.  At all.  All the Trump bluster and swagger  and his power in his own milieu count for nothing with his own party, the media and (it's becoming increasingly obvious) the larger American public.  HIS OWN RUNNING MATE is not completely on board and breaks ranks on occasion.  The rallies are likely the only thing he likes because it feeds his ego and he sees himself reflected back in their adoration. 

Ditto on someone who won't rest well until the election is over.  

[Geechee Girl]

@Howl you pretty much got to the nuts and bolts of this thing. I suspect Trumplethinskin thought becoming POTUS would be fun and easy to obtain like his gifted Purple Heart. Funding his own campaign isn't feasible running up to the general. I think it's pride & ego that won't allow him to ask for financial support. Wasn't a major component of Celebrity Apprentice was the star's ability to get large donations & call in favors? It's like he's too childish to do even that.

Has anyone seen any tv spots from Trumplethinskin or his PACS?

I'm in very blue southern California, and I haven't seen one. Hillary & PAC have 2 going so far:

Role Model  and David Letterman

[turquoise]

I am sad to say that most of my fundie-lite family and friends seem to be talking themselves into voting for Trump. They supported various other Republican candidates in the primaries, and don't like Trump's behavior. However, they all share an intense dislike of Hillary Clinton, most of which seems to be based on conspiracy theories about how many political enemies she has had killed.

One of them posted this link on Facebook, arguing that Christians should vote Republican because the Republican platform is Biblical.  Both candidates are flawed, but Trump is slowly being surrounded with good people. Most importantly, Trump opposed globalism, while Hillary thrives on it. Apparently, globalism is demonic. Who knew?

 

http://www.charismanews.com/politics/opinion/59206-answering-the-big-question

[AmazonGrace]

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/14/politics/donald-trump-isis-fight/index.html

Today we will find out how to get rid of Isis.

[apple1]

Ok - I am going to put a slight bit of humor into this otherwise humorless situation. (fyi - Everyone who has followed my posts knows I am highly anti-Trump).

Came across my FB:

I just realized that this election is between a grandma who can't figure out how her email works and a grandpa who believes every crazy spam post he reads and reposts it.

Have to laugh once in a while or otherwise will be sitting and crying. (No, I am not minimizing anything).

[Cleopatra7]

9 hours ago, turquoise said:

I am sad to say that most of my fundie-lite family and friends seem to be talking themselves into voting for Trump. They supported various other Republican candidates in the primaries, and don't like Trump's behavior. However, they all share an intense dislike of Hillary Clinton, most of which seems to be based on conspiracy theories about how many political enemies she has had killed.

One of them posted this link on Facebook, arguing that Christians should vote Republican because the Republican platform is Biblical.  Both candidates are flawed, but Trump is slowly being surrounded with good people. Most importantly, Trump opposed globalism, while Hillary thrives on it. Apparently, globalism is demonic. Who knew?

 

http://www.charismanews.com/politics/opinion/59206-answering-the-big-question

Except when the globalism in question involves exporting fundamentalist strains of Christianity and anti-LGBT policies.

[louisa05]

2 hours ago, apple1 said:

Ok - I am going to put a slight bit of humor into this otherwise humorless situation. (fyi - Everyone who has followed my posts knows I am highly anti-Drumpf).

Came across my FB:

I just realized that this election is between a grandma who can't figure out how her email works and a grandpa who believes every crazy spam post he reads and reposts it.

Have to laugh once in a while or otherwise will be sitting and crying. (No, I am not minimizing anything).

This made me laugh.

The bolded part, not so much, though, because all through this big email "scandal", I have thought that the whole thing is based on the notion that Clinton has a deep technological understanding of how servers and cyber-security work. I'm guessing she did not have the foggiest notion of even the first, let alone the second. The real focus, if it had to be turned into a scandal, should have been that the State Department had ass backwards policies and a total lack of basic cyber security. As I read it (and I asked people who are smarter than me about these things for thoughts, too), the State Department's solution to maintaining cyber security in the past had been to try to get the Secretaries to not use electronic communications at all or use it sparingly. And that is beyond unrealistic in the 21st Century. That is what Americans should be pissed about. 

On a different note, my mother's batshit crazy cousin (who my grandparents basically raised from age 5-15--so we know her better than my mother's other 9 billion cousins) posted a rant with meme attached this morning about how Hillary will abolish the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and 10th amendments. Now the 2nd is their standard fodder. But I'm not sure how when your guy is talking about taking away freedom of the press and banning or monitoring an entire religion, you can be worried with a straight face that the other candidate is going to take away the First Amendment. Of course, my guess is that this woman (who also thinks there is an ISIS training camp in her county in rural Minnesota--"People have seen things", she told my uncle) has no idea what any of those amendments are except the 2nd. 

[SpoonfulOSugar]

Mother Jones is talking about Trump's potential conflicts of interest, a topic which I find fascinating:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/trump-conflict-of-interest-old-post-office-hotel

Quote

If elected president, Donald Trump would bring with him to the White House unprecedented conflicts of interest, thanks to his sprawling holdings and various debts, including more than $100 million owed to a foreign bank. But his biggest conflict might be the $200 million hotel project Trump's company is developing a couple of blocks from the White House in the Old Post Office Building, a historic property owned by the federal government and leased to the Trump Organization for 60 years. It seems likely, if not inevitable, that during a Trump presidency the federal government could find itself negotiating with the commander in chief—or his children—over matters relating to the new Trump International Hotel.

 

[louisa05]

31 minutes ago, SpoonfulOSugar said:

Mother Jones is talking about Drumpf's potential conflicts of interest, a topic which I find fascinating:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/trump-conflict-of-interest-old-post-office-hotel

 

I think that for Trump and the eldest three children, this campaign and the possibility of the presidency is very much about what it can do for their business interests. 

Did anyone see that Ivanka was hocking her outfit from her convention speech on Twitter the next day? It was from her line at Macy's and she (or her people) posted a link to where you could buy both dress and shoes the next morning. To me, that summed up the family's purpose quite succinctly. 

[apple1]

46 minutes ago, louisa05 said:

I think that for Trump and the eldest three children, this campaign and the possibility of the presidency is very much about what it can do for their business interests. 

Did anyone see that Ivanka was hocking her outfit from her convention speech on Twitter the next day? It was from her line at Macy's and she (or her people) posted a link to where you could buy both dress and shoes the next morning. To me, that summed up the family's purpose quite succinctly. 

There is one of those FB memes that has unfortunately come across my page multiple times showing Ivanka in that dress with "Ivanka's dress cost $129", next to Hillary in some convention outfit with "Hillary's cost # thousand dollars" (can't remember the exact number). Aggravates me to death. Apparently Ivanka's dress sold out the next day at whatever place she was selling it from. And Ivanka made how many thousands of dollars from it?

Aggravating.

[louisa05]

4 minutes ago, apple1 said:

There is one of those FB memes that has unfortunately come across my page multiple times showing Ivanka in that dress with "Ivanka's dress cost $129", next to Hillary in some convention outfit with "Hillary's cost # thousand dollars" (can't remember the exact number). Aggravates me to death. Apparently Ivanka's dress sold out the next day at whatever place she was selling it from. And Ivanka made how many thousands of dollars from it?

Aggravating.

Yes, I've seen that. I don't think you get credit for being "thrifty" by wearing a cheaper outfit if your purpose was to sell it. I told someone who posted it that; the response was that she was being a "good business woman". And it also overlooks that her stepmother was outfitted in a (thoroughly impractical) dress by a designer favored by European royalty whose lower priced items sell in the $1200 range. Or that daddy's suits start at $17,000. 

Ivanka's clothing/shoes/handbags are sold through Macy's. I actually like some things in the line. But I wouldn't touch it, much less buy it. Of course, none of it is particularly original in terms of design, so similar items can be found elsewhere, too. Some are so unoriginal that she has had multiple lawsuits for copying designs. 

 

[karen77]

So, fun...

But Ivanka just had pictures posted of being on vacation with Rupert Murdochs' ex-wife, who is supposedly now Putin's girlfriend!! 

(Granted, they have been friend's for quite some time, but still!)

[louisa05]

24 minutes ago, karen77 said:

So, fun...

But Ivanka just had pictures posted of being on vacation with Rupert Murdochs' ex-wife, who is supposedly now Putin's girlfriend!! 

(Granted, they have been friend's for quite some time, but still!)

Gross. 

But I'm sure that hanging out with gold digging women with much older SOs seems quite natural to her, two stepmothers in. I wonder if it has ever occurred to her that her spouse could  someday decide he prefers much younger women. 

[Howl]

3 hours ago, louisa05 said:

The bolded part, not so much, though, because all through this big email "scandal", I have thought that the whole thing is based on the notion that Clinton has a deep technological understanding of how servers and cyber-security work. I'm guessing she did not have the foggiest notion of even the first, let alone the second. The real focus, if it had to be turned into a scandal, should have been that the State Department had ass backwards policies and a total lack of basic cyber security. As I read it (and I asked people who are smarter than me about these things for thoughts, too), the State Department's solution to maintaining cyber security in the past had been to try to get the Secretaries to not use electronic communications at all or use it sparingly. And that is beyond unrealistic in the 21st Century. That is what Americans should be pissed about. 

Yes, this, EXACTLY this.  A personal server was used by Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice.  This is not in question.  It was SOP.  What the hell was IT thinking at the State Department? It was either OK or it wasn't.  Who set up the personal server?  Good information from Media Matters for America: 

State Dept. Concludes Past Secretaries Of State "Definitively" Handled Classified Information On Private Email

Here's my take on this.  GOP operatives from WAAAAY back developed a strategy for neutralizing Hillary Clinton -- because they knew she had a political future.   Harp relentlessly on Benghazi, and I do mean relentlessly.  Plant false information and harp on that relentlessly.  Private email server (also used by Secretaries of State in Republican administrations)?  Make it a scandal and harp on RELENTLESSLY until people accept it a scandal.  As I've said before, from the first time I saw Hillary Clinton, before Bill Clinton was elected, I thought she was incredibly smart and extremely shrewd, and that opinion has not changed.  These are qualities that are rarely tolerated in a woman and celebrated in a man.  That  the Republican narrative of Hillary Clinton as a crooked politician has been used to devastating effect pisses me off to no end.  

The growing list of Republicans saying no to Donald Trump know that Hillary Clinton would not be a bad president.   She was a first lady for 8 years, a Secretary of State for 6 (5?) years and a U.S. Senator for 8 years.  There is not much mystery about how she would govern.  

[AmazonGrace]

From the NYT:

Quote

In the speech, Mr. Trump will call for greater scrutiny in screening immigrants, particularly from countries he has described as “exporters” of terrorism. The plan would be to have people answer a questionnaire that could press them on their commitment to “our basic principles of tolerance and pluralism,” on issues ranging from gay rights to women’s rights, Mr. Miller said. If that is not effective, visas could be banned from certain areas of the world.

 

I think many of his voters would fail this test. 

[formergothardite]

14 hours ago, turquoise said:

They supported various other Republican candidates in the primaries, and don't like Trump's behavior. However, they all share an intense dislike of Hillary Clinton, most of which seems to be based on conspiracy theories about how many political enemies she has had killed.

We must have the same friends. There are very few who actually like Trump, but most of them seem to feel like Hillary is killing off people left and right.

[RoseWilder]

Pressure continues to mount against Trump about his refusal to release his tax returns. But this time, the pressure is coming from a Republican who is a Trump supporter: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-tax-returns_us_57b12a33e4b069e7e505b0a6?

Quote

Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), a professed Trump backer (for now), wrote a Sunday New York Times op-ed titled, “I Support You, Donald Trump. Now Release Your Tax Returns.” 

Sanford noted his continued ability to support Trump will “in part be driven by whether Mr. Trump keeps his word that he will release his tax records.”

 

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

As I've said before, from the first time I saw Hillary Clinton, before Bill Clinton was elected, I thought she was incredibly smart and extremely shrewd, and that opinion has not changed.  These are qualities that are rarely tolerated in a woman and celebrated in a man.  That  the Republican narrative of Hillary Clinton as a crooked politician has been used to devastating effect pisses me off to no end.  

Yup. It's depressing that in the 21st century we still have to deal with idiots who are upset because women don't "know their place". 

 

[turquoise]

7 hours ago, Cleopatra7 said:

Except when the globalism in question involves exporting fundamentalist strains of Christianity and anti-LGBT policies.

These people are convinced they are right and everyone else is wrong, so of course they have to export their beliefs. Anyone who disagrees with them is persecuting them!

I don't remember any verses in the Bible about globalism one way or the other.

[Howl]

6 hours ago, RoseWilder said:

Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), a professed Trump backer (for now), wrote a Sunday New York Times op-ed titled, “I Support You, Donald Trump. Now Release Your Tax Returns.” 

I can't believe this "I'm hiking the Appalachian Trail" nincompoop is still in office.  He's a Trump supporter, of course he is. 

[GreyhoundFan]

7 hours ago, formergothardite said:

We must have the same friends. There are very few who actually like Trump, but most of them seem to feel like Hillary is killing off people left and right.

My BFF's parents are fall off the right edge of the world Republicans. They were big Ted Cruz supporters, but now sport Trump signs on their front lawn. When asked how they could support him (BFF's dad is a real Purple Heart recipient), her mother replied that they would vote for Satan before voting for Hillary. I couldn't believe it, but she was serious. At least we're in a state that has gone from rather red to fairly blue.

I don't know if you watch Bill Maher, but he had a great bit a few weeks ago where he said Hillary should become "The Notorious HRC" (it's on You Tube). One of the things he said she should say is "the Clinton 'kill list' was only 90 people. Be serious, I've killed WAY more people than that."

[Geechee Girl]

Sanford, THAT guy!  I figured he tucked tail and ran after the scandal.