Trump runs for POTUS / Trumped Up! Part V

[acbytesla]

This all pre-supposes that opposition to the Iraq war was a GOOD thing.

Is that the position of the GOP right now? That the invasion of Iraq was wrong?

Because, if not, then why are the republicans acting like it's a feature of their candidate that he opposed the war?

There is so much trying to have it both ways on every issue it makes me sick. This tends to be somewhat true of most politicians, Trump is worse than any of them. This despite the claim from Trump supporters that Trump "tells it like it is"

Trump is by far the wishy washiest limp noodle vacillater I have ever seen. What Trump is is a loudmouth boor.

 

[CapelDodger]

This all pre-supposes that opposition to the Iraq war was a GOOD thing.

But ... Treason!

Is that the position of the GOP right now? That the invasion of Iraq was wrong?

sunmaster his own peculiar position on this, as I recall. Is there still an identifiable GOP in any meaningful sense?

Because, if not, then why are the republicans acting like it's a feature of their candidate that he opposed the war?

Any and all Bushes and their works can go on the bonfire now. It turns out they were just another elite family after all, cowboy boots notwithstanding. Who'd have thought?

 

[Minoosh]

As I said, this doesn't have anything to do with what Trump said.

"We believe this man to be a terrorist". Should the president be allowed to say that?

Nothing in what I've written here addressed what a president should be "allowed" to say, or what cops should be "allowed" to say. So I think this "allowed" thing is a bit of a straw man.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Nothing in what I've written here addressed what a president should be "allowed" to say, or what cops should be "allowed" to say. So I think this "allowed" thing is a bit of a straw man.

Is it wrong or whatever word you wish to substitute? I assure you this is no straw man. As the discussion has gone further, my concern has really narrowed on the concept of divergence between what we perceived as acceptable from a lower ranking agent and from the president who is the top leader of the agency.

 

[CapelDodger]

Trump paid personal debts with his foundation's money:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...c88f9c-7d11-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html

His lawyers will soooooooo want to sue their butts off. Trump will rise above as ever.

They really do say that, don't they? Straight out.

"Eventually, court papers show, Trump’s golf course signed off on a settlement that required it to make a donation of Greenberg’s choosing. Then, on the day that the parties informed the court they had settled their case, a $158,000 donation was sent to the Martin Greenberg Foundation.

That money came from the Trump Foundation, according to the tax filings of both Trump’s and Greenberg’s foundations.

Greenberg’s foundation reported getting nothing that year from Trump personally or from his golf club.

Both Greenberg and Trump have declined to comment.

Several tax experts said that the two cases appeared to be clear cases of self-dealing, as defined by the tax code.

The Trump Foundation had made a donation, it seemed, so that a Trump business did not have to."

The cause of another case is interesting :

'The case involving the flagpole at Trump’s oceanfront Mar-a-Lago Club began in 2006, when the club put up a giant American flag on the 80-foot pole. Town rules said flagpoles should be 42 feet high at most. Trump’s contention, according to news reports, was: “You don’t need a permit to put up the American flag.”

The town began to fine Trump, $1,250 a day.


Trump’s club sued in federal court, saying that a smaller flag “would fail to appropriately express the magnitude of Donald J. Trump’s . . . patriotism.” '

Small hands, big patriotism, as the saying goes.

 

[CapelDodger]

The key is that she was not going to lie about him. Even if she had decided to make his upbringing a topic, she did not need to fabricate anything to do so.

If one looks at the advice it first identifies a problem - that Obama's diverse background was a positive for him - and a response - push the other way and stake out the Middle American ground. Obama was not only open about his history he was making something of a feature of it. There was no need to fabricate anything.

In Illinois, as I understand it, Republicans were painting Obama as a Muslim - a fabrication that soon led to the Birther lie.

The hypocrisy of Trump and his Trumpets is quite stunning.

 

[sunmaster14]

You acknowledge that the only pre-invasion comment from Trump was in support of invasion. You also acknowledge that the only pre-invasion comment from Obama was against invasion. And yet you spin these facts with self-serving supposition that puts a whirling dervish to shame, relentlessly casting Trump in the best possible light and casting Obama in the worst possible light.

That's a particularly uncharitable way of looking at my argument. I view it as explaining why Trump isn't necessarily the lying bastard that SG claimed he was, and why Obama isn't the farsighted and brave foreign policy genius he successfully portrayed himself as during the 2008 primary and campaign (and, arguably, he rode that 2002 speech against the Iraq War all the way to the White House).

When partisans come in and say that politician A is the worst person on the face of the Earth, and politician B is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it's not actually spinning to point out some mitigating factors for A and some shortcomings of B. It's called speaking reality to delusion.

 

[NoahFence]

His lawyers will soooooooo want to sue their butts off. Trump will rise above as ever.

They really do say that, don't they? Straight out.



The cause of another case is interesting :


Small hands, big patriotism, as the saying goes.

Any comments from Trump supporters on here regarding this?

I'm excited to see the spin cycle on full - blast.

 

[pgwenthold]

But ... Treason!

sunmaster his own peculiar position on this, as I recall. Is there still an identifiable GOP in any meaningful sense?

Any and all Bushes and their works can go on the bonfire now. It turns out they were just another elite family after all, cowboy boots notwithstanding. Who'd have thought?

Bush the Elder is voting for Clinton.

 

[NoahFence]

When partisans come in and say that politician A is the worst person on the face of the Earth, and politician B is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it's not actually spinning to point out some mitigating factors for A and some shortcomings of B. It's called speaking reality to delusion.

Strawboy. (Not quite a man)

Politician A (Trump) IS the worst person on the face of the Earth. But nobody thinks Politician B (Obama) is the greatest since sliced bread.

 

[CapelDodger]

That's a particularly uncharitable way of looking at my argument. I view it as explaining why Trump isn't necessarily the lying bastard that SG claimed he was, and why Obama isn't the farsighted and brave foreign policy genius he successfully portrayed himself as during the 2008 primary and campaign (and, arguably, he rode that 2002 speech against the Iraq War all the way to the White House).

That's what being right can do for you, especially with a good speech. It got Churchill into No 10 against all expectation, for instance.

When partisans come in and say that politician A is the worst person on the face of the Earth, and politician B is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it's not actually spinning to point out some mitigating factors for A and some shortcomings of B. It's called speaking reality to delusion.

So we can agree that Hillary Clinton isn't the worst person in the world. Trump isn't either, he's just a POS like hordes of others but one that inherited enough money to do a lot of damage.

 

[CapelDodger]

Politician A (Trump) IS the worst person on the face of the Earth.

No, that's Richard Roper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Manager

If Trump does win, the banality of the man will make it even worse. Not with a bang but with a whimper ...

 

[CapelDodger]

Bush the Elder is voting for Clinton.

Rumour has it. That the rumour's credible says it all.

 

[phiwum]

He claimed the police acted stupidly in the Gates case. Actually they didn't act stupidly. Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct, which you can do anywhere, even in your own house.

Did he allege that anyone was guilty of some crime prior to charges, much less trial? No? Then not particularly relevant.

Saying the police behaved stupidly in an incident in which charges have already been dropped is not really relevant.

Your Zimmerman quote is post-trial. Obama weighed in about how Trayvon Martin could have been his son (not literally) before Zimmerman was even charged. His statement almost certainly added to the sympathy factor for Trayvon Martin, and, correspondingly, to the antipathy factor for his killer.

Did he literally and clearly claim that Zimmerman was guilty of a crime prior to Zimmerman's trial?

As for the Michael Brown case, Obama (and his attorney general) said a lot more than just the official statements you've copied from the White House website. Here's one thing he said, which I think both prejudges the event and attacks the justice system as racist with no evidence to back it up.

Somewhat prejudicial, falls rather short of Trump's statement, no?

I never claimed that he indicted a suspect before the evidence was in, unless you count the police I guess. I claimed that he made statements about investigations before the facts were in that could easily have prejudiced those investigations. The Hillary email thing was particularly egregious, where he claimed, while an FBI investigation was ongoing, that Hillary had not jeopardized national security. His claim wasn't even true. He also said the same thing about the investigation of the IRS targeting of conservative 401(c)(3)'s, saying that there was not even a "smidgen of corruption". Of course that was just a baldfaced lie.

Defending the credibility of one's administration is not comparable to prejudging the guilt of a criminal suspect.

You're right. What Obama has said is much worse. Trump isn't even President yet, by the way. Also, there really isn't much doubt that the guy they caught is an evil thug, since he did shoot at police officers. Seems likely that he planted the bombs too. I can't imagine any jury being swayed by Trump's exclamations. It's obviously campaign rhetoric, not considered analysis by somebody who might have material non-public information.

Ah, well, if he's a bad person and likely planted the bombs, let's just say that he did. Good enough for me!

 

[Ladewig]

The town began to fine Trump, $1,250 a day.


Trump’s club sued in federal court, saying that a smaller flag “would fail to appropriately express the magnitude of Donald J. Trump’s . . . patriotism.”

If this billionaire is so patriotic why not fly the big flag and pay the fines?
$1250 per day is nothing to a multimillionaire.

And besides, if he knew he was going to pay a year's worth of fines, then he should be able to negotiate a discount.

 

[Garrison]

frankly I think this is more concerning than whether Trump jumped the gun on calling the bomber a terrorist:


Donald Trump attacks Ahmad Khan Rahami's right to a lawyer and medical treatment

It seems Trump wants to get down in the mud and wallow in the same barbarism we expect from the terrorist. He truly doesn't get that the point of due process isn't to protect the terrorist but society as a whole from the threat of unjust treatment. But I guess trump has always had more in common with the likes of Putin than any democratic(small d) politician.

 

[Bob001]

His lawyers will soooooooo want to sue their butts off. Trump will rise above as ever.
....

I suspect it will go the other way. Trump will want to sue, and his lawyers will charge by the hour to explain why he doesn't have a case. And if it comes to it, Jeff Bezos can buy and sell Trump with his lunch money.

 

[phiwum]

Consider Schroedinger's cat. Is it a lie to say it's alive? Or to say it's dead? No, but it is BS.

Interesting question.

I'd say that, if one has evidence that P has probability 1/2 of being true and one also has no other reason to believe that P (reasons of self-interest notwithstanding), then one is deceitful if he asserts P. He isn't quite lying, since he doesn't know P is false.

On the other hand, if one claims he will do X after election, not knowing whether he will do it or not, then he is lying. He's speaking about his own intentions, and if he literally doesn't know whether he will pursue X or not, then he is bloody well lying about what he plans to do.

 

[phiwum]

Nothing in what I've written here addressed what a president should be "allowed" to say, or what cops should be "allowed" to say. So I think this "allowed" thing is a bit of a straw man.

Yes, good point. I overlooked that.

Far as I can tell, we're speaking of appropriateness and not explicit rules.

 

[The Greater Fool]

Consider Schroedinger's cat. Is it a lie to say it's alive? Or to say it's dead? No, but it is BS.

Except that Trump claims people, good people, told him Schroedinger's cat is a Giraffe.