The Many Faces of US Politics...

[seafoid]

Even the Telegraph ruled his comments as an endorsement of LePen! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/21/donald-trump-wades-french-election-apparent-endorsement-marine/

As for the difference between an open, public, endorsement and covert, unclaimed, leaking of embarrassing emails, I've gone through it twice already. If you don't want to concede the bleeding obvious, suit yourself.

On investigating the Russian interference, which EVERYONE bar Trump concedes occurred, if Trump and his acolytes did nothing wrong, surely they should welcome a transparent investigation?

On partisanship, we had about ten different congressional investigations into Benghazi, with Congressman Kevin McCarthy, one of the top men in the House, letting slip that it was being done purely to harm Hillary Clinton's election prospects. Whereas here, even some GOP Senators are calling for special prosecutor at this point.

So a newspaper "ruled" his comments as an "apparent" endorsement. Er...did he go on record like obama and endorse the candidate publicly to the french voters? No he didn't. You're wrong J70.

Interference, covert or not, is still interference. 

If you're having problems with the actual word here's the entry from dictionary.com
Interfere - to take part in the affairs of others; meddle (often followed by with or in):

Exactly what Obama did in the French election. I think that's enough clarification. Democrats are hypocrites.

Not just one newspaper. Numerous.

Besides, just how do you interpret "strongest on borders", "strongest on what's been going on in France", "toughest on radical Islamic terrorism" etc., issues key to Trump's own election and platform, if not an endorsement?

He could just have said "no comment". He didn't. He outlined her perceived strengths in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. That's an endorsement any day of the week.

As for the rest, deny it all you want, but "covert" and "open/public" is a very key difference. Everyone knows where Obama is coming from when he makes an endorsement. There is no secret motivation and the opponent of the endorsed could even wear it as a badge of honour and an angle of attack on the endorsed. Do you think Hillary was upset when David Duke endorsed Trump? Or Newt Gingrich or the entire Fox News team? Or Trump when some celeb endorsed Hillary?

Whereas the hacking and selective publication of emails, targeting only one side, leaves one side with a clear advantage and the other at a major disadvantage.

All of the above you wrote is irrelevant. The point is that Obama interfered in a foreign election.
Democrats can't quite grasp the hypocrisy of their position.

You're just trying to divert attention away from that fact rather than just agree.
Anyway, you keep believing your own version. Seems par for the course for democrats these days.
Block free speech, riot at public gatherings, hysterical protests etc.

People have been endorsing people in other countries forever. Seriously, who would have given a bollocks if Putin had just come out and publicly endorsed Trump, whatever his motivation? Hell, Hillary could have made an ad of it.

So no, what I wrote above is absolutely relevant.

As for the rest, if and when I express approval of rioting or shutting down campuses over Ann f**king Coulter, you can smear me. Otherwise, stick to the substance.

Anne Coulter has an opinion contrary to be bleeding hearts of the looney left, why can they not respect freedom of speech, why can they not simply ignore her and why do the f**kers need to throw the rattle out of the pram and act the collective ****?

Coulter is very disappointed with Trumpety Trump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO0Eh4Q_i-U 

[seafoid]

2 quotes from Youtube


Blowen Loadzil
Honestly Trump could nuke the US and his supporters would still vote for him

SCil
When you vote a turd into office don't be surprised you get an administration that stinks.

[seafoid]

Colbert

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q47sFg_WFus

[seafoid]

Twitter is very interesting.

@sahilkapur

It's often asked what it'd take for Republicans to seriously go against Trump. Pretty simple: his poll numbers w/ GOP voters have to crash.

@sahilkapur  5 h

As long as Trump remains popular w/ GOP base, Republicans will be reluctant to meaningfully take him on, regardless of what he says or does.

Greg Sargent‏
@ThePlumLineGS  The Comey firing actually fits into a broad pattern. Trump does something rooted in impulse and emotion; aides then have to justify it:

Norman Ornstein‏ @NormOrnstein  24 h

Because having a non-politician as
president is working out so well

Keith Johnsen‏
@johnsen50
I think the challenge is less that we elected a non-politician and more that we elected someone with zero integrity

Norman Ornstein‏ @NormOrnstein 
It is both. We have a kleptocracy, autocracy and kakistocracy rolled into one. But latter is amplified by Admin filled with non-politicians

[mrdeeds]

This is comedy gold

http://www.economist.com/Trumptranscript?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/transcriptinterviewwithdonaldtrump

He is the POTUS. Jaysus.

[J70]

Even the Telegraph ruled his comments as an endorsement of LePen! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/21/donald-trump-wades-french-election-apparent-endorsement-marine/

As for the difference between an open, public, endorsement and covert, unclaimed, leaking of embarrassing emails, I've gone through it twice already. If you don't want to concede the bleeding obvious, suit yourself.

On investigating the Russian interference, which EVERYONE bar Trump concedes occurred, if Trump and his acolytes did nothing wrong, surely they should welcome a transparent investigation?

On partisanship, we had about ten different congressional investigations into Benghazi, with Congressman Kevin McCarthy, one of the top men in the House, letting slip that it was being done purely to harm Hillary Clinton's election prospects. Whereas here, even some GOP Senators are calling for special prosecutor at this point.

So a newspaper "ruled" his comments as an "apparent" endorsement. Er...did he go on record like obama and endorse the candidate publicly to the french voters? No he didn't. You're wrong J70.

Interference, covert or not, is still interference. 

If you're having problems with the actual word here's the entry from dictionary.com
Interfere - to take part in the affairs of others; meddle (often followed by with or in):

Exactly what Obama did in the French election. I think that's enough clarification. Democrats are hypocrites.

Not just one newspaper. Numerous.

Besides, just how do you interpret "strongest on borders", "strongest on what's been going on in France", "toughest on radical Islamic terrorism" etc., issues key to Trump's own election and platform, if not an endorsement?

He could just have said "no comment". He didn't. He outlined her perceived strengths in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. That's an endorsement any day of the week.

As for the rest, deny it all you want, but "covert" and "open/public" is a very key difference. Everyone knows where Obama is coming from when he makes an endorsement. There is no secret motivation and the opponent of the endorsed could even wear it as a badge of honour and an angle of attack on the endorsed. Do you think Hillary was upset when David Duke endorsed Trump? Or Newt Gingrich or the entire Fox News team? Or Trump when some celeb endorsed Hillary?

Whereas the hacking and selective publication of emails, targeting only one side, leaves one side with a clear advantage and the other at a major disadvantage.

All of the above you wrote is irrelevant. The point is that Obama interfered in a foreign election.
Democrats can't quite grasp the hypocrisy of their position.

You're just trying to divert attention away from that fact rather than just agree.
Anyway, you keep believing your own version. Seems par for the course for democrats these days.
Block free speech, riot at public gatherings, hysterical protests etc.

People have been endorsing people in other countries forever. Seriously, who would have given a bollocks if Putin had just come out and publicly endorsed Trump, whatever his motivation? Hell, Hillary could have made an ad of it.

So no, what I wrote above is absolutely relevant.

As for the rest, if and when I express approval of rioting or shutting down campuses over Ann f**king Coulter, you can smear me. Otherwise, stick to the substance.

Please furnish me with a similar video to the one obama endorsed Macron.

We're not talking about some 3rd world backwater.

WHY did obama feel the need to get involved? It's not like himself and Macron have been buddies for years, he hardly knows the guy.

Free speech on our terms. Gotta love it!

I'm not furnishing you with anything. If you want to argue that endorsements across international lines started in 2017 with Obama, knock yourself out.

As for the why, I suspect that it was obviously because Obama, like many of us, didn't like the the views of LePen and the National Front, which she led until a couple of weeks ago. Do you think everyone who endorsed Donald Trump knew him well?? Do you think Ted Cruz, who endorsed him, even likes Trump?

I don't know why you're whining about free speech. More red herrings?

[seafoid]

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/us/politics/trump-comey-showboat-fbi.html

[Declan]

[seafoid]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/05/trump-is-trying-to-control-the-fbi-its-time-to-freak-out.html

Donald Trump's most consistent belief – even more consistent than his skepticism of international trade, which has waned on occasion – is his worship of power. He is not merely willing to do business with despots, as most presidents have been. He admires them because of, not despite, their despotism. His repeated refusal during the campaign to accept the legitimacy of the election ("rigged"), his promises to jail his opponent, and his intermingling of state power and personal profit all suggested a threat to the health of the republic. Now that threat has arrived. And if Republicans in Congress continue to cover for his actions, the damage to the health of American government may be longstanding.

[seafoid]

https://www.vox.com/2017/5/11/15622900/trump-economist-interview

[mrdeeds]

The law firm Trump hired to clear him of ties with Russia were named Law Firm of the Year in Russia.

[foxcommander]

I'm not furnishing you with anything. If you want to argue that endorsements across international lines started in 2017 with Obama, knock yourself out.

As for the why, I suspect that it was obviously because Obama, like many of us, didn't like the the views of LePen and the National Front, which she led until a couple of weeks ago. Do you think everyone who endorsed Donald Trump knew him well?? Do you think Ted Cruz, who endorsed him, even likes Trump?

I don't know why you're whining about free speech. More red herrings?

You can't provide examples, especially of this scale. Just be honest and say you can't.

The why bit is important, especially if you read macron's background. Couldn't take a chance that he could fail like Hillary did which is why obama was rolled out.

How is democrat protestors stopping free speech a red herring? Should be ashamed of themselves for promoting the idea.
Democrats are easy to program and bleat out the same mantra. I'm not sure they're able to think for themselves any more.
Should rename themselves The Kardashian party.

[seafoid]

What a clusterfuck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi8HrGazUDw

This from almost a year ago is so on the ball.

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/06/09/trump-hidden-psychology-election-crisis/

•   It's by now clear that the presidential election of 2016 is something larger than and apart from just another quadrennial contest for the highest office; it's a national crisis. The crisis will last as long as there's a possibility that someone totally unsuited for that office could win it. It should have been in the case of Richard Nixon, but before he ran for president again in 1968 (having lost in 1960, and also having been defeated for governor of California in 1962) he managed to convince various journalists that there was a "new Nixon." It was only much later—too late—that we could see that Nixon's psycho-political flaws went very deep; that the combination of his resentments and unscrupulousness, not to mention his attraction to the bottle, would take this country into alarming international and domestic crises.
•   A big difference between Nixon and Trump is that Trump's flaws—his impulsiveness, his ignorance, his lack of understanding of the important effects of what he says—are right out there before us while Nixon kept his hidden until we discovered them on the White House tapes. Thus, after months of encouraging violence in his rallies, when violence occurs outside of them, even if caused by his opponents, Trump can't see that he has any responsibility for it. Much of Trump's behavior is like that of the schoolyard boy who feels he must punch back when he's been criticized. His cruel mocking of a reporter's disability wasn't something a grownup does. Trump doesn't have mature relationships with women: he views them as objects. His marriages are those of someone who needs a beauty on his arm in a display of his virility rather than an equal partner who can challenge him. (Compare his choice of wives with those of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.) 
•   I've talked with medical people, including psychiatrists, about Trump. They all use a somewhat different term: that Trump has a "narcissistic personality disorder," which is a problem several degrees greater than mere narcissism. As opposed to being simply self-centered and pleased with himself, the person with the narcissistic personality disorder has an outsized need for approval, and can become seriously upset if he doesn't get his way. This person, the medical experts tell me, tends to be very immature and has a great compulsion to hit back.
•   Trump just doesn't appear to have become a fully-formed adult. He is unable to deal in nuance or seem to understand how much of life, and certainly governing, involves compromise. He wants his way and when he doesn't get it the result is a temper tantrum of some sort. The Freudians would say that Trump is all id, the id that's never been brought to heel. Among Trump's other worrisome traits is that he shows no inclination to have a rational discussion of differences; that if someone disagrees with him publicly he attacks. How can such a person deal with Congress, not to mention foreign countries?

•   Trump's verbal assaults on Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel, whom he charged was unable to give him a fair trial because he's "of Mexican heritage" (though the judge was born and raised in Indiana to Mexican parents) and, as Trump repeatedly explained, as if he had to, "I'm going to build a wall," sent the Republican leaders and many of their troops into panic mode.

•   Paul Ryan was the most pathetic case of a a Republican politician trying to maintain a moral position in regard to Trump's racist assault on the judge, and failing. After the House speaker became the lone holdout among Republican leaders from supporting Trump, he wrote an op-ed in his local Wisconsin newspaper on June 2 saying he'll vote for him.

•   It took the direct Lindsey Graham, who'd already made it clear that he didn't find Trump a tolerable nominee, to put it to his party colleagues for rationalizing their continuing support for Trump: he called Trump's comments about Judge Curiel "the most un-American thing from a politician since Joseph McCarthy." Graham urged Republicans to abandon Trump: "If anybody was looking for an off-ramp, this is probably it," Graham said, adding, "There'll come a time when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary."

•   The real test is whether there are any circumstances under which Republican leaders in Congress will finally stand up to Trump, renounce him as their party's standard bearer even if they can't cancel his nomination. This could mean risking that their party loses the election and their majorities in the House and the Senate. This is a length to which the congressional leaders Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and some others who've endorsed Trump or waffled—not opposing but not endorsing—have thus far been unwilling to go.

[seafoid]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/12/15621140/interpret-trump

[J70]

I'm not furnishing you with anything. If you want to argue that endorsements across international lines started in 2017 with Obama, knock yourself out.

As for the why, I suspect that it was obviously because Obama, like many of us, didn't like the the views of LePen and the National Front, which she led until a couple of weeks ago. Do you think everyone who endorsed Donald Trump knew him well?? Do you think Ted Cruz, who endorsed him, even likes Trump?

I don't know why you're whining about free speech. More red herrings?

You can't provide examples, especially of this scale. Just be honest and say you can't.

The why bit is important, especially if you read macron's background. Couldn't take a chance that he could fail like Hillary did which is why obama was rolled out.

Scale?? What, it makes a huge difference that Obama recorded a video and, say, Bill Clinton endorsing Gordon Brown didn't?

Regardless, this is all beside the point anyway.

You're the one hanging your hat on the Obama endorsement and the hack/drip of the emails being the same thing, because they're both "interference".

Its like saying stealing a loaf of bread is equivalent to committing a murder because they are both criminal offenses.

It basically doesn't make one bit of difference whether or not Obama is the first foreign leader ever to endorse a political candidate. Its not the same thing as the hacking/selective publishing of private emails.

How is democrat protestors stopping free speech a red herring? Should be ashamed of themselves for promoting the idea.
Democrats are easy to program and bleat out the same mantra. I'm not sure they're able to think for themselves any more.
Should rename themselves The Kardashian party.

Let's use YOUR apparent standard here for a minute. You apparently have political causes in common with the US right wing, which currently includes Trump and the alt-right/white supremacists, whose sudden upsurge in US college campus activity is what is partly driving the overreaction to controversial right wing speakers. If you can lump all liberals into unthinking, uncritical automotons based on some immature college kids taking the bait when some lowlifes try to rile up students on a campus, then I can certainly lump you in with Trump and the David Dukes, Richard Spencers and Andrew Anglins of this world.

So, once again, if and when I raise objections to some right wing speaker even being allowed to speak, feel free to question my commitment to free speech. Otherwise, its irrelevant to any points I've made i.e. a red herring.