Almost instantly after last night’s debate various MSMers and hangers-on started talking about how Pence did good, but refused to defend Trump…whole series of conversations about it on social media, with requisite “sources say” on background to lend credibility. But, it happened too fast…it was too many people essentially saying the same thing. I figure it originated with Team Hillary. Just because the JournoList was shut down, doesn’t mean MSMers ceased intimate coordination with the Democrats, folks. Remember, the MSM is on the Democrats’ side.
The NY Times says that Ohio is no longer important, so you know it’s pretty in-the-bag for Trump – and all those stories of the House being at risk for the GOP? Not so much. In fact, given current RCP ratings, the GOP could lose as little as one seat.
Realizing that for Trump States like FL and NC are must-wins and that he’s behind in both States…still, did anyone predict that by early October the GOP nominee would have OH and IA pretty much locked up for November? I don’t think so – and I do recall that Mitt was still desperately battling for both of them right before the election. Trump’s got lots of problems and the Democrats have massive power to push Hillary over the line…but Trump is the first GOPer who could feel secure about Ohio since George H W Bush ran in 1988.
If you like your liberty, you can keep it, right? Well, not so much – Uncle Sam enlisted local PD’s to scan license plates at gun shows. I’m sure someone back in there has some justification for it, but whatever they say, it’s nonsense. It is collecting data on people who are sure to be 99.99% free of any criminal activity. It is building data-bases on us – and I don’t like that.
Give complete control of a city to Progressives, things start to suck. It always works out like that.
Kevin Williamson gives the argument for keeping American foreign policy pretty much as-is. Not a defense of Obama’s blunders, but a defense of, for lack of a better term, the Post-WWII international settlement…where the US takes up the burden of keeping the peace of the world via military alliances and free trade. I disagree – have, in fact, disagreed for years. Many years. You see, the idea that we should keep US forces stationed somewhere as a trip-wire against military aggression is monstrously immoral – it is setting up some of our best and bravest to just die in a fight they can’t immediately win. It also gives an overblown sense of security in the nations the troops are stationed in, thus allowing the host nation to skimp on military preparedness. I don’t mind alliances – but we cannot have what was called in old diplomatic language inégale partie; each side must pull it’s full weight in any agreement. I do think we should agree to the defense of Poland – but this must be predicated upon Poland maintaining sufficient military force in being to offer a vigorous defense of Poland until such time as help can arrive or, given who might attack Poland, we could start attacking Russia on their Pacific frontier. Furthermore, the UN as structured is not just absurd, it is also a force for evil in the world because it allows bad actors on the world stage to use the UN to make demands in the service of evil causes. Finally, looking after the United States – our economic and military interests – does come first and foremost. Free trade is great, but if it means deals with a corrupt China, then it isn’t really free trade.
Everyone got burned by “un-skewing” the polls in 2012, so in 2016 complaints about polls are jokingly referred to as “un-cucking” the polls. But there is an argument to be made that things aren’t necessarily as they appear. I’ve been saying all along that for Trump to win he’d have to, in a sense, create a bit of a different electorate than we’ve seen the last few cycles – and that such a shift would not necessarily show up in polling. Anyway, take it as you like – we’ll see on November 8th.
Hillary, who turns 69 later this month, is tapping Al Gore, 68, to help her with the youth vote. No, that is not an Onion article.
ISIS is calling for more knife attacks – while the word is that the attacks will be “random” you can bet your last dollar that in the United States, if they come here, the attacks will be done in gun-free zones or areas with strict gun control. You guys out there on the shooting range have nothing to worry about…
Blogs For Victory 
Speaking of “States like FL and NC are must-wins and that he’s behind in both States,” I’m surprised the Newsweek story about Trump’s alleged dealings in Cuba hasn’t caught more fire. It was in the general news for about a second before the NYT tax story came out and I ain’t heard nothin’ since.
I’m not bringing this up to stir the pot. Everyone here knows where I stand re: the election. I have no opinion on whether the story is factual and I really don’t want to debate that.
But a story about a candidate working with Cuba seems like enough red meat to make the expat Miami community froth, and I find it odd that it didn’t.
Any theories why, other than that a bigger story simply swept it out to sea? Is it a big deal in FL news and I’m just not hearing about it?
Trump just “evolved” on Cuba before Obama did. It simply shows everyone what a visionary he is. Honestly the Democrats have set the bar so low in terms of Presidential integrity, who the hell cares? You personally have resigned yourself to having a President that used the SecState office as an ATM machine so allegedly violating an embargo shouldn’t even hit the radar screen.
Hey, Cluster
Thanks for the response but the discussion I’m looking for isn’t about Trump and Cuba but more why such a story, surely set up to destroy Trump among Cubans, just died out.
And, for the hundredth time, I am not in support of Clinton. She is a scourge whom I do not want as President. I am just cognizant that she will win. Not happy with that fact, not supporting that fact, but accepting it.
I know you’re not voting for Clinton, I said you have resigned yourself to that fact, which is capitulation and when the stakes are this high I would hope you would try and rally around Trump. Or at least Pence, a man I can easily vote for.
Bob,
I personally don’t care who you vote for or even whether you vote at all, but I was where you are not very long ago, and I’d like to relate to you how I was able to change my perspective. I love my country almost as much as I love my wife and children. As part of my rationalization process, I envisioned my family being under a threat of imminent death, and the only person who could save them was someone I despise, and for whom I have zero respect. On top of that, there’s no guarantee that he will be able to keep my family from grave harm, but almost certainly they will not die if I enlist his help. For what it’s worth, that is how I view voting for Trump. Again, not trying to change your mind; just trying to give you a different perspective.
To me the important thing was to wrench the mind away from the MSM – which means DNC – Narrative. Remember, all Republicans are Hitler when it comes time to elect a President.
The primary thing which motivates Trump supporters is “fight back”. Trump doesn’t take it lying down. True, some times he should just let things slide and if he were a professional politician, he would…but he’s not; he’s an amateur at politics. But for years now GOP base voters have seen our side just crumble whenever anyone launches an attack – at best, our guys have tried to just ignore the attacks, but they never really fought back. “How dare you accuse me and my supporters of being racist!!!” – that is what should come out of the GOP Candidate’s mouth when such attacks are made. And when it comes time for the MSM slime machine to pour filth – often made up out of whole cloth – on the GOP nominee, it is perfectly ok for the GOPer to bring up the real sleaze surrounding the Democrats. But, for years, nothing – we couldn’t do that. You see, it was extreme. Rude. Might alienate the Moderates! Just couldn’t be done…
Right now, it still seems more likely that Hillary will win than Trump – polling averages show her getting about 316 EV’s…but her lead is razor thin in FL, NC, CO and WI…and Trump still has a real shot at PA. But with FL, NC, CO and WI, Trump would be at 285 (with PA, if it goes his way, just adding icing on the cake to get him to 305). Trump has a little over a month to get it done – can he do it? Can he do it in the face of Democrats getting a lot of people voting early so that even if things fall apart around October 25th it won’t matter? That remains to be seen. But come what may, the Trump people love a fighter – and if Trump loses, they aren’t going to go back to voting for a soft GOPer who won’t fight. If Hillary is seeking re-election in 2020, it will be the GOP candidate who shows the most fight who stands against her that year…and if the GOP manages to get Romney 3.0 as the nominee, then that nominee will go down to crushing defeat as the Trumpsters just stay home in droves, with dreams in their heads of what they might do in 2024.
And, in my view, they are right to be like that – who the heck wants to put it on the line for a respectable loser? Someone who can punch back as hard as Trump while also not being knocked off message by silly DNC/MSM generated talking points will be just about unbeatable…because people are really sick of things as they are.
Mark, I agree that any Republican would have been demonized. I think Rubio would have had a much harder time of it, starting with the fact that neither of his parents was a citizen at the time of his birth.
The thing about Cruz is his specific skill set. The man is a walking encyclopedia with an amazing memory, and has developed his skills over the years doing exactly what he would have had to do in a debate situation with Hillary. She scored points by getting Trump rattled, so he forgot his key points and started to wander. I don’t think Cruz would have done that, and given his performances in front of the Supreme Court I really doubt he would have shown up unprepared and planning to just wing it.
While some people wanted to see a Trump/Clinton smackdown, a lot of us wanted to see her claims and arguments systematically and surgically dismantled, one at a time, by a skilled debater who could take each one of her claims and feed conflicting data back to her, as quickly as she could lie about something else.
There are a lot of ways to “fight back” and I believe Cruz WOULD have been fighting back, just as hard and probably more effectively than Trump has been. There are different ways of fighting back, and I for one think that although there was the WWE Raw crowd who wanted to see blood on the canvas and chairs thrown a lot more people just wanted a battle of wits and of facts.
If you look at Hillary’s campaign, it is almost entirely character assassination, and Trump’s history pretty much wrote her scripts. No other candidate would have given her that much juicy material, and she would have had to fall back on policy and her resume.
“Someone who can punch back as hard as Trump while also not being knocked off message by silly DNC/MSM generated talking points will be just about unbeatable……” and the key to this is what I underlined. Look at the ground lost when Trump got baited off message by the Miss Universe thing. I think he can regain it because I don’t think he lost it based on people being convinced that he did a bad thing as much as people being turned off by the way he lost his focus and let himself be sucked in, or suckered in, to this silly non-issue.
Guys, really, I am not trying to convert you…or more accurately, I am no longer trying to convert you. Having tried that road it is clear I will not prevail and there is no reason for me to war with Amazona and whatnot when I’m not going to get anywhere. In fact, the only “anti-Trump” things I’ve posted in a while is pointing out how the MSM is not letting him up to breathe. I’m not posting any “let me tell you why you shouldn’t vote GOP” stuff.
My question re: the Newsweek truly was one of bewilderment and I want your takes on it.
We have the DNC press issuing a story that should invoke rioting in Miami, and yet it seems to have passed almost unmentioned. I expected a drumbeat of NYT and HuffPo stories keeping it alive and yet, crickets, and I have no idea why.
It is not that important – Obama has lifted sanctions on Cuba…any Cubans feeling mad about that will be far more ticked off at Obama (and thus Hillary) than Trump.
For starters the amount of money a consulting group spent in Cuba on Trump’s behalf is a rounding error compared to what the Clinton Foundation raked in from foreign governments while she was SOS. And he did, in fact, end up not investing in Cuba. Apparently the Clinton campaign is running an ad in south Florida based on the story. I guess we’ll find out on November 8th if it’s effective.
Second, no one reads NewsWeek.
Bob,
Here is a young Conservative who essentially agrees with you, although he fully recognizes why some of us feel compelled to vote for Trump.
I intensely dislike the thought of doing something out of desperation, but desperate pretty well defines the times ahead if Hillary is elected President. Quite frankly I view our choices in this election cycle as between a pile of dog shit and a pile of horse shit. I choose the dog shit because I can clean it up with a small trowel while the horse shit will require a large shovel.
I stand behind every negative thing I ever said about Trump. It was all true, and I meant every word.
However, I am reevaluating my position on him as a president. I think he is still a mess as a candidate, as my predictions about his weaknesses as a candidate are all being proved accurate, but I am coming to some slightly different ideas of him as a president.
I think Donald Trump is a very shallow man. That is a bad thing, but also a good thing. I think he reinvents himself for every situation he is in, according to how he sees what will be necessary to succeed in that situation. I think this is why so many people love him as a person, when the rest of us see him as an offensive jerk—in a one to one relationship, he becomes the charming, likable Trump these people know.
What does seem to be supported is that whenever he is in a particular situation he throws himself fully into doing what he sees as necessary to prevail in that situation. So we see Trump doing what he thinks he has to do to get his first building project off the ground and completed. We see Trump giving contributions to political people he thinks will help him achieve whatever goal he is focused on at the time. We see him being a complete and total ass in the primaries, because he sees his best chance at a nomination lying in creating such a stink he swamps all opponents with it. We see Trump treating the primaries as a WWE Raw event, because he knows there are a lot of people who get off on that kind of bully-boy theater and he can get them standing on their chairs and howling at the moon.
I don’t admire this, but I can recognize it, and I can see how it can make the prospect of a Trump presidency more palatable. His past tells us he is very likely to throw himself just as completely, with just as much focus and determination, into the role of a Conservative president as he has in every other role he has taken on.
Would I prefer to have someone whose character is so deeply ingrained that he has been consistent in his values and principles? You bet. Would I prefer to have someone I can admire for qualities other than tenacity? Absolutely. But I didn’t get that guy. He got driven out by a combination of that stink I mentioned, a completely disgusting GOP leadership (which still has to go no matter what) and a following I still cannot respect because they were either attracted to or made excuses for the very things I found despicable about the man. I will never, EVER, have the slightest bit of respect for those howling mobs, and even if Trump ends up being elected I will see this as a happy accident, not as proof that they were right. I will see it as a statement that even Donald Trump can beat Hillary Clinton.
However, as I keep saying, we have to play the hand we’re dealt. We can keep whining hillarywillwinhillarywillwinhillarywillwin ad nauseum, but that doesn’t accomplish anything but be annoying. We can complain about Trump not being what we want, but that won’t accomplish anything either, other than possibly bleed off some of the support for his presidency we so desperately need right now.
And, coming back to my point, if he can bring that same relentless focus to the presidency, and to being the man he has promised to be, in the role he seems to have committed to, for the next four years, I can live with that. One of my objective principles is to avoid Personality Politics, and in this case I have backed myself into a corner, because to be consistent I have to force myself to get beyond the personality of Donald Trump and take a hard, cold, analytical look at not only what he has done in the past but why I think he did it, and how this might play out in the future, and overlook my opinion of what a jerk he is as a person.
..a story that should invoke rioting in Miami,..”
That is the saddest commentary on life in today’s America that I have ever seen. The assumption that a story about an old financial activity “should invoke rioting” tells us how far down the rabbit hole this country has gone. (Not picking on you, Bob, just commenting on how the concept that rioting whenever something strikes a designated demographic the wrong way has become almost a new normal.)
Here’s one idea: Cubans are too smart to riot.
Here’s another: Cubans are too busy working, taking care of their families and contributing to society to riot.
A third: Fleeing to the United States, or coming from families that fled to the United States, Cubans are pretty sensitive to Leftist tactics, and can probably see right through this effort to treat all Cubans as a malleable demographic that can be manipulated to advance a Leftist agenda. They will leave that to other demographics which have submitted their dignity to the Left and agreed to be mindless puppets.
I think you may be right, Amazona. The image of the Cuban expat community as rabidly hostile to anything Castro is dated.
I didn’t mean that they would literally riot – I don’t think that community has ever rioted – but I did expect to hear some measure of noise.
But I do think you are right, that community has changed and the story was fairly minor, so it just didn’t amount to much.
Spook
I don’t think you are likely to sway my vote, just as I am unlikely to sway yours. I disagree (I guess with everyone here) on two points, neither of which will be known until November,
1. I feel it is impossible for Trump to win.
2. I do not believe the inevitable Clinton Presidency will be as disastrous as other her think.
I’ve argued the points above and I’m not going to argue (I mean bicker, wink to A) them anymore. We’ll all see what happens and whatever happens, happens. I ain’t no Oracle, just a dude with an opinion.
(I will continue to point out when the Partisan Press piles on, as I must have SOME fun here).
btw, I think point 1 renders moot point 2, but whatever
If we actually had a three system government, I would agree with you and say that a Hillary presidency could be kept in check, but if there is one thing we have learned from the Obama regime, we no longer have many checks and balances so a Hillary presidency could be absolutely awful.
(I will continue to point out when the Partisan Press piles on, as I must have SOME fun here).
Unfortunately for us, what you think of as “fun” is turning into an annoying screech of one-note obnoxiousosity.
I do not believe the inevitable Clinton Presidency will be as disastrous as other her think.
No, a Clinton presidency WOULD be absolutely awful.
What if we were, by some miracle, to have a Republican Congress with the backbone to act to rein her efforts? Would that solve any problems?
Sure, in the short run it would keep a bunch of wild-eyed Libs off the Supreme Court, but the damage done to the Conservative cause by having a Court made up of only 8, and then 7, and then 6, and then 5, justices while the propaganda machine goes into overdrive about “The Party Of No” and such drivel would be very destructive, affecting the midterm elections.
Sure, blocking Dem efforts to ram through Liberal agendas would be good in the short term, but another four years of legislative gridlock with the Left playing it up for all it is worth would counteract the benefits, affecting the mid term elections.
And we would have a Progressive cabinet, a Progressive making judicial appointments (see effects of blocking appointments, above) and so on, and we would not be able to get a single thing accomplished. It would be four more years of increasing divisiveness, stagnation at the best and more slippage down the rabbit hole as a middle ground, and a full plunge into a Death Spiral at the worst. All of this would harm the Conservative brand.
And remember, this is all predicated on something that will never happen—-a Republican Congress with a backbone and Conservative principles.
How anyone can say that a Clinton presidency would not be a disaster is well beyond me.
How anyone can say that a Clinton presidency would not be a disaster is well beyond me….. and, given her health issues, it could result in a President Kaine.
We need to press that idea, given the negative response to him in the “debate”.
I’m not going to argue any points but I gotta say with tongue in cheek, “obnoxiousosity?”
(no need to respond, this is intended as good-natured ribbing, you were clearly making up the word for fun)
But in defense of my obnoxiousosity, my core thought is Trump cannot beat the Press. When I post the hit-piece du jour from the WashPo or wherever, it is not to screech against Trump. It is to offer evidence of the impossibility he faces.
That could be true – which is why I chuckle when I see Never Trumpers bemoaning that we didn’t nominate Rubio or Cruz as if that in and of itself would make the difference. Now, I’ll bet my last dollar that Cruz or Rubio would have been more professional on the trail than Trump has been, but the pragmatic facts of life are that either of them, nominated, would still be Hitler and would have the entire MSM attacking them and running interference for Hillary. I have my doubts that any conventional GOPer is prepared to really go toe to toe with the DNC/MSM machine…maybe Cruz or Rubio would have, but there’s no way to know…and it’s just as likely that they would have Romney’d their way through the campaign.
As I said before, what is most wanted is Fight Back – don’t just cede certain issues (and certain areas of the country) because the MSM says it must be that way…go to Detroit; point out Democrat scandals…punch back, twice as hard. Might still lose – as Trump may lose – but it’s better to get beaten while fighting than to get beaten while trying to be polite.
Oh, since you put it that way—-that you are hammering home the point we all got a long long time ago, are fully aware of, and have talked about many many times—–then it is supposed to be less annoying?
The thing is, you don’t just say “Here go the media again, being biased and piling on Trump while giving Hillary a pass”, you then go on to say trumpcan’twintrumpcan’twintrumpcan’twintrumpcan’twintrumpcan’twin ad nauseum. inevitableinevitableinevitableinevitableinevitableinevitable
And the fact is, you just don’t know this. Oh, you think you know, but given so many variables—–Hillary’s health, the possibility of more leaks of even more damning emails, Trump hitting his stride on the things he has been holding back, a debate where Hillary is faced with the really hard questions she hasn’t had to answer yet, etc.—–no one actually KNOWS. Here in Colorado, Trump is picking up steam. We still don’t know what kind of hit the Clinton campaign might have taken after the public got a good look at Kaine.
If you could actually talk about media bias without falling into your incessant refrain, it might less obnoxious. If you have given up, please do so quietly.
The information in this article, especially focusing on Kaine’s lies in the “debate”, needs to be emphasized. (emphasis here is mine)
A new batch of emails from Hillary Clinton’s time at the State Department offered fresh evidence Wednesday of the pains Clinton’s staff took to accommodate her husband’s paid speeches and her family’s foundation — just hours after Sen. Tim Kaine dismissed the possibility that the Clinton Foundation had wielded influence over his running mate.
……………………………….
During the vice presidential debate Tuesday, Kaine claimed the State Department had looked into Clinton’s conduct and concluded that she “took no action to benefit the foundation.”
No such investigation ever occurred. In fact, the State Department specifically denied the existence of any investigation into Clinton Foundation influence as recently as August.
…………………………….
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/emails-show-intersection-of-clinton-foundation-state-paid-speeches/article
There are some good links in the article that didn’t translate into my quote.
Amazona
You are right, I do not know that Trump cannot win just as you do not know Trump’s Presidency would be better than Clinton’s.
It is odd you have no problem repeating your own points about Trump, “hammering home the point we all got a long long time ago, are fully aware of, and have talked about many many times” but take issue with me doing the same.
Anybody who claims certainty in predicting this election at this point is being fatuous. There are far too many variables and the race is tight.
But in defense of my obnoxiousosity, my core thought is Trump cannot beat the Press.
Bob, I think you overestimate the trust in the press by the majority of Americans.
Spook
We’ve had this discussion before. It is not that I overestimate the public’s trust in the press so much as I feel you guys underestimate the pervasiveness of the Press’ ability to shape national conversation.
Guys, I’m really not looking to argue my position. I’ve done that before, and now I’ve done it again contrary to my intentions, and it does nothing by get you guys upset. We disagree on a key point whose answer no one knows until Nov. 9.
We disagree on a key point whose answer no one knows until Nov. 9.
The point we’re disagreeing on is that everybody here is admitting they don’t know the outcome of this election while you’re saying you know it with certainty. That’s the disagreement.
Rusty
Everyone here is also saying “I know a Clinton Presidency would be worse than Trump’s” without literally knowing it. People aver their opinions at time and I am guilty as charged.
I deeply believe there is only a very small chance Trump will win. Better?
And because I fear a Trump presidence for (laundry list of reasons) AND he has no chance (imo), I see no reason to vote for him. And, because the GOP…geez, because of everythng GOP, I seek a new home for Conservatives.
I’ve done that before, and now I’ve done it again contrary to my intentions, and it does nothing by get you guys upset.
Who’s upset? I’m not upset.
“You are right, I do not know that Trump cannot win just as you do not know Trump’s Presidency would be better than Clinton’s.”
This is just plain stupid. If Trump were do to one thing, just one thing he has said he would do, his presidency would be better than Clinton’s. If Trump were to appoint just one unbiased judge, just one who does not think the judiciary is there to advance a Liberal agenda, his presidency would be better than Hillary’s. If Trump were to not have Bill Clinton moving back into the White House his presidency would be better than Clinton’s. If not one single reference to the President of the United States showed a picture of Hillary, a Trump presidency would be better han a Clinton presidency. And so on, for a very long time.
“It is odd you have no problem repeating your own points about Trump, “hammering home the point we all got a long long time ago, are fully aware of, and have talked about many many times” but take issue with me doing the same.”
And when is the last time I went through my list of things I thought should disqualify Trump for the nomination? For the presidency? When was the last time I argued against Trump as president? Are you seriously trying to claim that I go on about Trump as much as you do? Seriously?
Of course, you did just say “…you do not know Trump’s Presidency would be better than Clinton’s.”
Oh, let me guess. You are going to say that was just a joke. Been there, heard that excuse before…..
Just give it a rest, Bob. Just give it a rest. Or, if you can’t, as it appears, then at least understand that your constant carrying on about the inevitability of a Trump defeat, the inevitability of a Clinton presidency, blah blah blah blah BLAH is like fingernails on a blackboard. Trying to suggest that a Clinton presidency might be better than a Trump presidency is flat-out nuts, and yes, that is exactly what you said when you suggested that “..you do not know Trump’s Presidency would be better than Clinton’s.”
Tiresome. Oh so tiresome.
While I was driving around today I was listening to Mike Rosen on the radio. Mike has retired, but was filling in for another host, and he did what he used to do a lot when he was on every day—-read a couple of goofball letters to the editor and dissect them.
Today one of them could have been written by Bob. It was all about the merit of voting for a third party. I wish Mike were still a regular, because there used to be archives of his shows. I haven’t found one for this episode, but I will keep looking. His comments were so good, I really wish I could quote him.
Suffice it to say, he thinks the idea is ridiculous, ludicrous, and unrealistic, just to name some of his reactions. I couldn’t disagree with a word of his commentary.
I guess what it comes down to is, if someone is absolutely determined to do something stupid, that’s fine—everyone gets a vote—-but there is no reason to expect anyone else to react in any other way than “That’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard..” Going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on, interminably, about the “wisdom” of something like this was annoying but is rapidly crossing over into whatever the next level of annoying is. If, after a few weeks, no one thinks anything other than “That’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard..” there’s really no reason to keep on about it….
….other than as a way to make the blog about him, with the focus on him.
Bob,
Everyone here is also saying “I know a Clinton Presidency would be worse than Trump’s” without literally knowing it.
I, for one, have never said that. I think a Trump presidency is extremely likely to be superior to Clinton’s and can state my reasons why.
I deeply believe there is only a very small chance Trump will win. Better?
Actually, yes. Better. Your certainty of a Clinton victory is bizarre given how tumultuous this election has been and how flawed standard polling has been lately. It’s has been noted before but Reagan was way behind late in the polls in 1980 with the media against him to boot. How did that turn out?
Everyone here has given a list of very valid, very cogent reasons for believing that a Trump presidency would be better than a Hillary presidency. Not just blue sky, but serious, thoughtful, and sustainable reasons. No one here can come up with a single reason that a Clinton presidency could possibly be better than a Trump presidency. For that matter, I don’t think anyone here has even argued that they would be equal in awfulness—except maybe Bob.
Spook
Apparently, Amazona. She seems upset by my opinion.
Amazona
The opinion you have stated so often lately is not the one that tears down Trump to which you alluded, but to the current one of why Hillar sucks and Trump will be fine. You state that as often as I state that Trump will lose.
We both do the same thing, advocate our viewpoint. I said I am stopping that, as it does no good but upset you. I did want an opinion on the Newsweek article dying, but asking that has brought me back to this s**tstorm.
We disagree. It need not be argued further.
Apparently, Amazona.
Apparently, not.
She seems upset by my opinion.
… it does no good but upset you…
No more than by an opinion that it is the tree branches waving around that make the wind blow, or any other “opinion” I find silly. It is not your “opinion” that I find annoying (which is not the same as “upset” BTW) but the incessant harping on it.
I find your “opinion” so superficial and inconsequential that I am as “upset” by it as I am by a pesky mosquito, and that only because of the irritating whining noise.
Don’t flatter yourself, Bob. You’ve got a long way to go to get the point where you matter enough to be “upsetting”.
It need not be argued further.
Thank you, Lord. My prayers have been answered.
Now we just need to see how long it is before the compulsion overrides the promise.
Amazona
I stand corrected; you clearly are not upset.
The fascist Democrats are at it again. Two stories this morning shine a bright light on the Democrat party’s slide into fascism:
The first is their continued efforts to regulate the First Amendment:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fec-war-dems-reject-call-to-protect-internet-news-talk-radio-from-regs/article/2603712
Note the typical smug condescension from the “tolerant” Democrat.
And the second is the Democrat’s disdain for laws they disagree with – this time Obamacare as it relates to risk corridors.
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/10/05/republicans-looking-dozen-ways-block-obamacare-bailout/
I would welcome any Democrat and/or Hillary supporter to come in here and defend these indefensible actions.
Don’t hold your breath Cluster. Progs are good at slander and condescension, not so good with factual arguments.
Remember when the very concerned President Obama was going to get to the bottom of the VA scandal and make sure Veterans were properly taken care of?? Well:
The Phoenix Veterans Affairs office is still improperly canceling veterans’ appointments, has built up a new backlog of cases — and at least one veteran is likely dead because of it, the department’s inspector general said in a new report Tuesday.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/4/phoenix-va-builds-new-backlog-200-veterans-die-wai/
There has NEVER been a more incompetent President, but my worry is that Hillary will take the incompetence to another level with a sprinkle of corruption thrown in.
And Hillary stood up and held Obama’s hand and joined in his promise that she will continue what was begun under his presidency.
Some interesting things going on in U.S. financial markets that are not really being reported. Oil is up 10% since mid-July; gold and silver are down 10% during the same period and down 7% in just the last two weeks. Equities have been moving sideways since mid-July with a noticeable uptick in volatility. Not sure exactly what it means, but I have a gut feeling it’s not good.
Don’t know about gold and silver but oil is up because OPEC finally got Saudi Arabia to agree to tightening supply. The announcement was just a few days ago and the market reacts.
The best interviews you will ever watch. God Bless Morgan Freeman
Fantastic. But have those exact same words coming from Donald Trump and you’ll have the Regressives howling that he’s a racist and his carefully edited quotes would be dominating the campaign news.
Along with the Dali Lama, Morgan Freeman would make the banned list at Watson’s Left is Right blog. Guilty of thoughtcrime.
Truth be told it’s Progressives who are shamed by being called racists. The accusation rolls of most Conservatives like water off a duck’s back. That’s what happens when you over-use a tactic.
Indeed. The worst thing a liberal can be called is “racist” so they assume that of everyone else.
Truth be told it’s Progressives who are shamed by being called racists. The accusation rolls of most Conservatives like water off a duck’s back. That’s what happens when you over-use a tactic.
No doubt. But the accusation of racism still carries massive weight in society as a whole.
Meanwhile, the regressive left are swooning over their latest cinematic masterpiece, Birth Of A Nation, a historically flawed glamorization of the indiscriminate slaughter of white men, women, children, and babies by black mobs. That’s entertainment in 2016.
My son just told me about this and I have yet to look into it, but his take on it was exactly what you just described.
Of all places, the following review appeared in The Nation: emphasis mine
THE BIRTH OF A NATION IS AN EPIC FAIL
From its depictions of black women to the representation of slavery itself, Nate Parker’s film is deeply flawed and historically inaccurate.
By Leslie M. Alexander
The Birth of a Nation claims to tell the true story of Nat Turner, leader of the bloodiest slave rebellion in United States history. A film on Turner is long overdue, and as a professional historian of the black experience in the nineteenth century, I have anxiously awaited one. I was especially encouraged by September’s issue of Vanity Fair, in which Parker stated that he had become “obsessed with the idea of telling Nat Turner’s story” and that he sought to create “historical fidelity in his depiction of the leader of the rebellion.”
Nearly everything in the movie is a complete fabrication.
After attending an advance screening of the film, however, I now know that Parker failed miserably in his mission. Contrary to his promises of “historical fidelity,” Parker created a deeply flawed, historically inaccurate movie that exploits and distorts Nat Turner’s story and the history of slavery in America. Nearly everything in the movie—ranging from Turner’s relationship with his family, to his life as a slave, and even the rebellion itself—is a complete fabrication. Certainly the film contains sprinklings of historical fact, but the bulk of Parker’s story about the rebellion is fictitious: Nat Turner did not murder his owner, nor did he kill a slave patroller. Turner’s rebellion was not betrayed by a young boy, or by anyone else involved in the revolt. To the contrary, the rebels fought until the bitter end. The shootout depicted in Jerusalem, Virginia, never happened, because the rebels were stopped by the militia before they ever reached Jerusalem. The list of inaccuracies, distortions, and fabrications goes on and on.
…………….
Is there anything redeeming about this film? Yes. But the benefits do not outweigh the negatives.
The Birth of a Nation is a deeply problematic movie that misrepresents Turner and his rebellion, and sends insidious messages about slavery and the multifaceted roles of black women in the battle for freedom. Despite Parker’s bluster about Nat Turner’s heroism and his claims to historical accuracy, he failed to provide a truthful rendering of Nat Turner’s life, his rebellion, or the experience of black people during slavery. As a result, Parker and Jean Celestin pimped black suffering for financial gain and proved that they have no respect for black history or for the people who fought for our freedom.
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-birth-of-a-nation-is-an-epic-fail/
I’m sure the movie’s release a month before the election is just a coincidence.
Nothing to see here, folks……………
Got in an interesting discussion with a guy at MarketWatch the other day. He claimed job growth has occurred at a “blistering pace” between 2009 and the end of last year (84 months) with 11.5 million new jobs being created during that time. I asked him how many more people were employed full-time at the end of 2015 than in 2007, prior to the Great Recession. Crickets! So I did a little research. Oops! I guess those 11.5 million new jobs must have all been part-time. I said jobs growth hadn’t even kept up with population growth, and he claimed that twice as many jobs had been created as the number of people entering the work force. 11.5 million divided by 84 months = 136,900 jobs per month. Again, Oops!.
Remember the movie where Steve Martin was the weatherman in Los Angeles and the weather was always the same so he prercorded several weather shows and took off on a vacation? I was reminded of that this morning, listening to the radio, and thought that the announcement could be prerecorded and just played every month: “Job gains fell below expectations…”
Followed by, “analysts were surprised”
Interesting visit to the post office this morning. (An aside—how often do you hear THAT?) I had to fill out several cards, etc. for several envelopes going out certified, return receipt requested, and ended up being drawn into a conversation among employees and customers, and everyone who came in became part of it for a while. It was all about Trump. It was all about the need to defeat Hillary. One woman missed the Pueblo rally because she was out of town so she drove all the way up to Loveland and said it was amazing.
You’ve seen all the coverage of those rallies? Right? Seen the video of the tens of thousands of people standing in lines for hours to attend?
No? Hmmm.
Loveland estimates were between 18,000-20,000. I’ve been to that venue and it is huge, and it was packed with people standing outside. I didn’t see figures for Pueblo, just that it was packed.
What I am seeing is not always wild enthusiasm for Trump, but plenty for a Trump victory.
I said I thought great campaign pitch would be for Trump to say “It’s more important than ever to consider Hillary’s health, now that we’ve had a look at Timothy Kaine.” That was good for a laugh, and the P.O. clerk said Trump ought to say “If something happens to me, you get Mike Pence. If something happens to Hillary, you get Tim Kaine. Think about it.”
I’ve never had so much fun at the post office.
Looks like the media found another story with which to slam him into the ground.
Kind of hard to blame the big bad MSM when his party chair and the Speaker of the House are openly condemning him. Maybe he shouldn’t ever brag about how being famous lets him get away with sexual assault.
Leave it to tryvsaty to claim Trump’s comments were “sexual assault”. As offensive as his comments were, they were in the context of women being receptive to sexual advances from rich “stars”. It’s not as if he slapped a woman around, raped her, and then suggested that she “put some ice on that”. It’s not as if he solicited oral sex in the Oval Office with a girl the age of his daughter, while her boss. He said that women respond to “stars”. Some do. Is that a surprise? Really?
As usual, Try is just misstating what was said. What we call “lying”.
I said from the get-go that Trump had so much ugly baggage, which would be dragged out as the election cycle went on, that I can’t be accused of defending him. Nor am I blaming “the big bad MSM”, more appropriately described as the Complicit Agenda Media. If anyone is to blame, it is the GOP, which facilitated Trump’s rise.
Having said that, I still have to agree with a Colorado political observer, who pointed out that what Trump said he said as a private citizen, in the context of his private life, and we do have to remember that what Hillary has done has been as a public servant, abusing her position of trust and authority. Obnoxious on one side, criminal on the other. Trump is a jerk. But isn’t it pretty hypocritical to make a big deal out of what he said more than a decade ago, while giving Bill Clinton a pass for so long? As Trump said, Bill Clinton said far worse to him on the golf course. There is no evidence that Trump ever raped a woman, or solicited sex from her in exchange for a job after her husband died, or did any of the actual overt sexual things that Clinton did, many of them while he was in office. Are we to think that while Bill Clinton was a lifelong sexual predator, sometimes resorting to rape, he used genteel language in referring to women or his sexual escapades?
We knew all along the race was between a jerk and a crook. Nothing has changed. As the election cycle has gone on, there has been more evidence on both sides, merely confirming that one is even more of a jerk than we might have realized, and one is even more of a crook than we had known.
But I do think it can affect the election, and I would prefer to have him step down. I think Pence can beat Hillary, and I think everyone pretty much agrees with that. Right now there is one honest, likable, sincere, and competent person in the race, and I would love to see him move up.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I have been promoting Pence for President since February of 2010. Just ask Spook.)
Bill Clinton isn’t running for president.
Actually, Tryvasty, I do blame the MSM. If I thought the MSM would allow him an honest shot at the Presidency I’d likely vote for him but I know – and keep pointing out as I did just now – that the MSM will never let him up to breathe.
As bad as this story is I guarantee you one or two just as bad if not worse within the next seven days. More if he performs well Sunday night.
Wow. Tryvasty finally got something right. No, Bill Clinton is NOT running for president, but when he was, Dems didn’t care that he was a sexual predator. Now they don’t care that his wife was an enabler, his protector, going after the women he attacked and attacking them in turn, sliming them and slandering them and adding to their trauma.
Now all of a sudden the Left is all squeamish about the kind of language you can hear on many cable TV shows in prime time, describing the same kinds of attitudes their most beloved hero exemplified. And still does, based on his visits to Sex Island, known for its providing of underage girls for the entertainment of disgusting old pervs like Bill.
Just commenting on two things: (1) you are a liar, and (2) you are very selective about when you get the vapors about sexual language and activities.
Yeah, because no one else ever realized that the Complicit Agenda Media would try to sabotage the Trump campaign. What a surprise!
You can always tell when somebody’s lost the argument when they keep trying to argue about something else.
Keep on swinging, Try. You might connect some time, somehow.
“Lost” what argument? No one is arguing that Trump is not a jerk. No one is arguing that he did not say what he clearly said. No one is defending him. What argument?
You are the one who is trying to duck the very accurate comment on the hypocrisy of the Left, in its adoration and re-election of a sexual predator and now getting the vapors over a rich man bragging that being a “star” makes women receptive to pretty much any advances he makes to them.
You really do need to try to keep up.
Actually, no you don’t, because you have no interest in saying anything meaningful. You just want to be the same creepy little blog vandal you always have been.
BTW, you might want to work on your English grammar. You mixed number in your sentence, veering from the singular “someone” to the plural “they”. Bush league.
So what’s your point, Try? That Trump is a jerk? No argument there. Trump is a jerk. Always has been, everyone knows it, he is still better than Hillary. Two big truths right out there. Deal with it.
I guess my point is “I don’t even wait.”
Or maybe ““You can do anything.””.
“Hitting on married women? Condoning assault? Such vile degradations demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America’s face to the world.” – Mitt Romney
“Donald Trump should resign as the Republican nominee for president, he brags about sexuality harassing women. He is unfit for public office” – A.J. Spiker
Not really my claim, boyo.
You see Travesty the problem with the elites and Democrats is that they previously condoned Bill Clinton getting a blow j*b in the oval office from an intern so any critique of Trump in this regard is laughable. Your problem is that you yourself have set the bar so incredibly low, there are no more standards. You need to come to terms with that.
I am neither an elite nor a democrat. I was not of voting age at any point during Bill Clinton’s presidency. What he did was also not okay.
Also, some quick swag math:
About 36-37% of currently eligible voters were not old enough to vote in 1996.
15-20% of the people who were old enough have since died
There was 49% voter turnout
Clinton won 49% of the popular vote
There are some reasons to not multiply those directly together (Dole voters are more likely to have died since then than Clinton voters, etc), and the percentages don’t actually take into account population growth since then, but even if I’m incredibly conservative with my estimates, I’d guess that no more than 15% of eligible voters this year will have voted for Bill Clinton in 1996.
I point all this out because it’s an indication of how ineffective the “You’re a hypocrite because Bill Clinton” tact you (and Trump) seem to be taking. I’ll admit I don’t know that you guys have any better tactics, but Trump surely does: shut his mouth and let it try to blow over. He just seems to be incapable of doing that sort of thing.
Your old enough to disown him now, yet the Democrats, the elites, and evidently the younger generation that now know of his indiscretions including yourself seem fine with him campaigning for Hillary and giving speeches so nice try avoiding responsibility but a swing and a miss.
Tryvasty,
I point all this out because it’s an indication of how ineffective the “You’re a hypocrite because Bill Clinton” tact you (and Trump) seem to be taking.
I don’t know about how effective that tact is going to be, but it certainly is valid. It’s not a matter of whether you or any other currently eligible voter actually voted for Clinton or not, it’s a matter of transgressions similar or worse than Trumps current “scandal” previously being tolerated by the left. It really doesn’t matter whether you were personally involved or not; it’s more about historical context of what was considered just honky dory by the left in the not too distant past. And this historical context happens to directly involve Hillary Clinton, currently running for president and staunch supporter and denier of all of Bill’s misdeeds. So yeah, valid to bring this up.
I’m older than you and for the record, as a lifetime liberal, I was just as unconcerned by Bill Clinton’s missteps as I am about Donald Trumps, but that’s just called being intellectually honest and consistent. But believe me, there are plenty of leftists today of my generation that are not as consistent and are reacting in a totally hypocritical fashion to this current scandal.
You summed that up better than I did.
“Donald Trump’s behavior this week, concluding with the disclosure of his demeaning comments about women and his boasts about sexual assaults, make it impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy.” – John McCain
Leave it to McCain to claim that Trump’s comments were “sexual assualt”.
“It’s not a matter of whether you or any other currently eligible voter actually voted for Clinton or not, it’s a matter of transgressions similar or worse than Trumps current “scandal” previously being tolerated by the left”
The Left is not an entity. It is a bunch of people. Personify it all you want, but it’s been 20 years. The Left isn’t The Left of 1996, and shouting at people for something that they had nothing to do with is just going to make them look at you like you’re crazy.
The Left is not an entity. It is a bunch of people. Personify it all you want, but it’s been 20 years. The Left isn’t The Left of 1996
You’re adorable. The naivete is cute and dangerous.
Tryvasty,
The Left is not an entity. It is a bunch of people. Personify it all you want, but it’s been 20 years. The Left isn’t The Left of 1996, and shouting at people for something that they had nothing to do with is just going to make them look at you like you’re crazy.
You’re the one who’s personifying it, not me; I think you’re confused about that term. The left is indeed an entity, and when I speak of historical context I’m not talking about ancient historical context, I’m talking about recent political history, and one that’s relevant because the major players are still in the game as is a huge chunk of the electorate. And nobody’s shouting. I’m merely saying that bringing up the context of Bills transgressions is entirely valid. It’s called perspective.
Sure, the left is not the left of 96, but it’s not far removed. If you disagree, can you tell me what radical transformations (beside rote demographics) have taken place in the left as a movement between then and now? Changes that would be pertinent to our discussion? I certainly can’t think of any substantial ones, outside of the creeping PC fascism I’ve described in previous posts.
As a side note, maybe the charge of hypocrisy we’re throwing out here doesn’t apply to you personally; by what you’ve said it seems that you, in particular, are not guilty of hypocrisy. But that doesn’t exonerate the media and tens of millions of other Liberals.
First, The Left in 1996, even absent time passing, is not a thing you can speak about uniformly without a great amount of oversimplification. Literally millions of people voted for both Reagan and Clinton. You’re inserting uniform action and opinion where there is none. Just look at the vote for NAFTA. 134 out of the 234 votes that passed a law that Clinton eventually signed were Republican. Fast forward to today and there’s still no easy party split on the issue. If lines are so easily drawn, how can neither party have settled on how trade should work decades later, even though it’s been a core issue of the election cycle?
Second, there are actually some really easy differences. Bill Clinton passed DOMA and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (expanding the death penalty). He’s obviously just one dude (although a fairly important dude, what with the presidency and all) but those seem like pretty noticeable policy shifts, among a bevy of others. Bill Clinton was a pretty centrist President.
But the bad news for you guys is that The Left doesn’t matter here. The thing that’s actually sinking the ship is the dust cloud as the Republican Party sprints away from Trump. Maybe you should work on figuring out what double standard you can complain about there.
Of course I’m talking with a certain amount of simplification and generalizing; I’m not talking about specific policies, legislation or personalities as you are (again, you’re the one doing the personification here) but about the general platform and essence of the left between ’96 and now. And I’ll point out again that most of the major players of the left from that time, from tens of millions of Liberal voters, to the media, to Hillary Clinton, all excusing Bill’s transgressions, are the ones who are presently howling about Trumps unacceptable breach of protocol. Hence the validity of the hypocrisy charge.
The specific policies you mention had nothing to do with the left of the time. For the left, DOMA, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, welfare reform, NAFTA and many other policies were all seen as a betrayal by the centrist Clinton. I was there. I was working for a Liberal group pushing for Single Payer at the time. And we sucked it up and supported Clinton at the ballot box only because voting for a Republican would have been so much worse. So you’re way off base in suggesting that those policies were supported by or characteristic of the left. Completely ridiculous.
The millions of voters who voted for both Clinton and Reagan were moderate centrist swing voters, not the left. If you think anybody on the left voted for Reagan you’re nuts; that election was extremely partisan and the vitriol from the left was high.
So you still haven’t answered my question, “can you tell me what radical transformations (beside rote demographics) have taken place in the left as a movement between then and now?” But I’m still open to your ideas.
But the bad news for you guys is that The Left doesn’t matter here. The thing that’s actually sinking the ship is the dust cloud as the Republican Party sprints away from Trump.
I agree with you 100%.
Tryvasty, please define “Left”, in both of the time periods you reference.
I think Tryvasty is busy privately rethinking his positions. No shame in that.
“Tryvasty, please define “Left”, in both of the time periods you reference.”
I don’t have a clear definition, because I don’t find it useful to generalize about the left or the right. I’d certainly be curious to hear a consistent way to determine whether a person counts as part of “the left” though, especially since it sounds like Bill Clinton wasn’t part of “the left” when he was president, or at least while he was signing DOMA etc.
Yeah, I guess we can’t assume or say anything substantial about any groups or movements in history (even as recent as twenty years ago) because….there might be some divergence of thought? You can’t even be bothered to muster a definition of what it means to be “left”. Why study history at all? What is the use? I guess we’re expected to be forever at sea, susceptible to the next ideological shift. Odd way to view history, in my opinion. Is that what they’re teaching these days? I guess it explains the current bathroom wars.
Tell me, were there ever any Marxists? Anarchists? Bolsheviks? Or are those movements invalid because certain ranking members diverged from the common ideology?
Here’s an additional hint ,Try– there is no “consistent way to determine whether a person counts as part of “the left”.
Your search for political purity is part of your problem.
“I don’t have a clear definition, because I don’t find it useful to generalize about the left or the right.”
In other words, you don’t have a clue.
“I’d certainly be curious to hear a consistent way to determine whether a person counts as part of “the left” …”
In 21st Century American politics, the “left” is the political philosophy that believes the federal government should have the freedom to expand, in terms of size, scope and authority, beyond the 17 duties delegated to it within the Constitution, to address any problem or issue that they feel has to be addressed.
There are also many issues that are associated with those on the Left, but when analyzed most if not all of them come down to federal authority over individualism or state sovereignty. However, from a purely political point of view, Leftism in 21st Century America deals with the establishment and expansion of a Central Authority, even when this political agenda is cloaked in a variety of issues.
Your ignorance of the political system you represent and defend is not surprising. So few on the Left have the slightest idea of the fact that their support of any given issue is really support of a political system.
I think the definition you’re looking for here is “useful idiots”
Anyone who paid any attention knows that a huge component of the Republican Party never wanted Trump to be the candidate, for the very reasons we have been seeing since his nomination. He has been supported as our candidate because he IS our candidate, and because as flawed as he is as a candidate he is still so vastly superior to Hillary Clinton that supporting him is the only rational thing to do.
I think he’s got the ability to be a pretty good president, and I think he even has the motivation to be the president he is promising to be. What he doesn’t seem to have is the ability to rise above his past and recognize his weaknesses and compensate for them. And in a society so dumbed down that politics is no longer about governance but about FEELINGS that translates into way too many people being easily manipulated by the skillful Left into having bad FEELINGS about Donald Trump, even when those feelings have nothing to do with his ability to be a good president.
it sounds like Bill Clinton wasn’t part of “the left” when he was president, or at least while he was signing DOMA etc.
I think you’re saying that sarcastically but in fact you’re exactly right, Bill Clinton wasn’t part of the left when he was doing all those non-lefty things, for the country’s left of the time were squarely against them. You seem to think that since Clinton was a left center president in general everything he did was providence of the left. That’s an extremely flawed way to view history. By your lights, the left of the 60’s were pro Vietnam war because lefty presidents Kennedy and LBJ were dropping bombs there. See the problem?
“I think you’re saying that sarcastically but in fact you’re exactly right, Bill Clinton wasn’t part of the left when he was doing all those non-lefty things, for the country’s left of the time were squarely against them.”
I actually was not being sarcastic. I just am having trouble reconciling the idea that “the left” can have a double standard about anything if I can’t even reliably describe the person about whom they have a double standard as either part of the left or not.
A person or people would have to have a double standard. I totally agree with you that there is some set of people who have disproportionate reactions to Clinton’s behavior vs. Trump’s. But no matter how you define “the left” of today versus “the left” of Clinton’s era, just by the passage of time you’re automatically going to be talking about different people.
Heck, Clinton left office with an approval rating depending on the poll of 60-70%, in the ballpark Reagan and FDR. That’s substantially more than his take of the popular vote. Only 22% of people responding to a Gallup poll as he was leaving office said he’d be remembered as a below average or worse president. I don’t think there could be a definition of “the left” that could possibly include that many people. It seems pretty likely that a substantial number of people you’d be accusing of a double standard would have to have been moderate Republicans.
That’s all actually indicative of some pretty strong differences between Clinton’s scandal and Trump’s. By the time he left office, the things that people were sure Clinton had done were cheat on his wife and lie about it. There are certainly other allegations, but nothing involving sexual assault involve any definitive proof or self-admissions, and given the polling information, it seems like people wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
But that’s not really the point I suppose. The point is that you are welcome to cry foul if somebody thinks Clinton committed sexual assault and it was somehow more okay than when Trump admitted doing it. But accusing “the left” or even “Democrats” of doing it is pretty reductive. I think my 15% was probably even generous looking more closely at age demographic data. Hillary is killing it with people under 40. For all I know, it might really be that Bill’s scandal is why she’s having to pick up an extra 10 point margin over Obama among people who are too young to even really remember Bill’s scandal (18-29).
Oh, and Amazona, lest you feel left out, I mostly just scanned your rant about political systems, because it doesn’t really address the question that you quoted. The question wasn’t “what is the left”, it was “given a specific person, how do I tell whether they are part of the left”. Rusty’s answer seems to be that they are only a part of the left when they are advancing a leftist agenda, which seems consistent enough to me. (Sorry if that’s a misrepresentation, Rusty). I can work with that, but if you’ve got a different answer, I’d be happy to hear it.
I think I’ve already made myself clear: when I’m referring to the hypocrisy of the left in this instance I’m referring to tens of millions of Liberal voters (Not ALL Liberal voters), much of the media (not ALL of the media), and the Clintons. How can you dispute this? How are all of these people not being hypocritical? That’s the question before you.
I never said I was referring to ALL of the left whether it be the left of today or the left of 96. I never said I was referring to ALL of the people who gave Bill a high approval rating as he left office.
Bill Clinton was ideologically on the Left. That is, he believed that the federal government should, and could, step in to address pretty much any problem or idea in the country. For example, he believed in socialized medicine, to the point of putting his co-president, Hillary Clinton, in charge of putting together a national socialized medicine program.
Bill Clinton was politically aligned with the Left, in that he was a Democrat, which is the Leftist political party in the United States. At least the biggest Leftist political party in the United States. One can assume that, as president, he agreed with the Democrat Party platform, which was based on expansion of the size, scope and power of the federal government.
Bill Clinton was, regarding issues a Leftist. His stance on the issues of the day were definitely Left-leaning, such as expansion of entitlement programs that had no basis or even legal status under the Constitution as it was written and explained by the Founders.
He did make some efforts, some time, when it was politically expedient, to work with some Republicans. But he was always a Leftist, just closer to the center than most are today.
BTW, Tryvasaty, when you only “scan” something because you know you’re not going to A. understand it or B. agree with it, you prove a determination to stay inside your bubble, And dismissing something as a “rant” because it doesn’t support your FEELINGS is another way. Funny that you view facts as “rants” but it does explain a lot.
“Rusty’s answer seems to be that they are only a part of the left when they are advancing a leftist agenda”
No. It’s really quite simple; As a general working definition I think someone is considered to be part of the left or right based on the entirety of their words and actions. Most of your views/actions/votes tilt left? Then you might be a leftist.
Look, Bill was a leftist (I would actually characterize him as a centrist or center-left but whatever) who occasionally did non-leftist things. That doesn’t bar him from the club. But all the while there is an underlying movement or ideology defined as the left which is larger and usually more stable than any one individual.
A Catholic can occasionally engage in un-Catholic like behavior and still be regarded as Catholic, all the while Catholicism chugs along in the background unmoved.
A Muslim can drink a beer and still be regarded Muslim, all the while Islam chugs along in the background unmoved.
Nixon can establish OSHA and the EPA and still be regarded of the right, all the while the right chugs along in the background unmoved.
And literally millions of other examples can be summoned. Are you getting this? I feel a bit silly writing this down; don’t you understand this already?
Rusty: I was responding specifically to statements like:
“it’s a matter of transgressions similar or worse than Trumps current “scandal” previously being tolerated by the left.”
I don’t think there’s actually that much disagreement here anymore, though. Some of “the left” for whatever definition of that you use are hypocrites for exactly the reasons you say. It doesn’t matter, because there are plenty of people who are not being hypocrites when they condemn Trump, and the best you’re going to probably do with anybody is convince them that they should have been more mad at Clinton. But I’m going to sound like a broken record here and once again point out that Bill Clinton isn’t running. Staying married to a nasty guy to help your political career is incredibly less damning than sexually assaulting people, so I can’t imagine how it is going to matter much to anybody’s view of the current election.
Amazona: it seems like you and Rusty have nonidentical views of whether Clinton was part of “the left”. I was only trying to get at the idea that you can’t try to hold a nebulous, heterogenous group of people accountable for a specific double standard. I don’t see that the point much matters to me beyond that, but you’re welcome to work that out if you’d like.
Also, I mostly have taken to scanning your pages and pages of talking about issues versus systems at this point just as a time saving mechanism. I don’t have the time of day to read everything you write, and I pretty well have the gist of that particular rant already. I continue to think your belief that the 10th amendment can be distinguished from any other issue as some sort of defining feature is nonsensical, and every time you bring it up you manage to write long, multi-paragraph lectures about it that I’m gaining nothing from reading. Feel free to keep on writing them, and put a tick in your win column if that’s how you want to keep score, and I’ll keep skimming over them to try to find the parts of these conversations that I actually find interesting.
Well, Try has kind of bailed out, claiming he really could have understood what was said if he really wanted to, he just didn’t want to, and he really could have come up with some cogent responses to my statements, he really could have if he really wanted to, but he just doesn’t feel like it. Uh-huh. So he’s sticking with that whole feelings thing ’cause it’s not so complicated, and he’s really comfortable talking about feelings.
Rusty, I think where we get tangled up is when political ideology, which is pretty hard-edged and clearly defined and unambiguous, bumps up against issues. which are emotion-based, constantly evolving, somewhat nebulous, and sometimes conflicting.
LBJ was a pretty hard-core Leftist, ideologically and issues-wise, but he stubbed his toe on the Viet Nam War. On one hand, it was about the United States honoring its moral and legal commitment, through the SEATO, to defend any participating nation under attack by communists. On the other there was the pressure from the Left, some of whom were against the war precisely because it was against communists and most of whom were just rebellious teenagers looking for a way to strike out against authority and flex our muscles. And before you get too dismissive of that last, I was one of them, a Haight Ashbury hippie who said all the right things, went to all the right demonstrations, and didn’t have any real basis for not liking the war other than that a lot of my friends were afraid of getting drafted. Between San Francisco and Boulder, Colorado (Berkeley by the Flatirons) I had plenty of exposure to youthful anti-war sentiment, and none of it was truly political in nature. Like Tryvasty, we thought we were being political, but we were just mindless puppets emoting because it made us feel relevant. So Viet Nam is not a very good way to define Left vs not-Left. We had international influence, the CIA wanting to show its power and relevance, and all sorts of confusing and conflicting things going on there.
But we can look at the rest of the LBJ heritage, and it is a massively expanded federal government.
Leftists are not necessarily motivated by evil intentions. I think those at the top are, but I think the rank and file (those who think they are voting for issues without realizing they are really voting to support a clearly defined political system) really do want nice things to happen to help people. They just think that the bestest, easiest, fastest, most efficient way to do these nice things to help out these people is to have the federal government do them. And that’s as far as it goes, if it even goes that far. I think for most of them, it never goes farther than “I want to do things to help people and Republicans don’t want to do those things so they don’t care about people”.
And that justifies attacking Republicans because they deserve it and the most important thing is to defeat them so these nice people can vote to do nice things for other people. Whatever it takes………..
Here’s a little current, relevant hypocrisy.
Hillary Clinton declares, unequivocally and with great passion, that a man who does not respect women is not fit to be president, after working for many years even leading up to the election of her husband to elect, as president, a man who does not respect women. What was not only fine then but in her opinion good for the country is now unacceptable and badbadbad. This is even without going into the degrees of disrespect.
Democrats declare, unequivocally and with great passion, that “character doesn’t matter” when their hero is proved to have none, and those same people now claim nothing is more important than character.
I do appreciate you repeatedly bolding the word “issues” for me. Makes it a lot easier to know which things I shouldn’t bother reading.
“Democrats declare, unequivocally and with great passion, that “character doesn’t matter” when their hero is proved to have none, and those same people now claim nothing is more important than character.”
I guess I’ll just refer you to the entire discussion up above, only replace “the left” with “Democrats.” Bill Clinton left office with a substantial portion of moderate Republicans thinking he did a good job.
What is the difference between a Democrat and a Leftist?
What is a “moderate” Republican?
How do you define a Republican, in general?
What is the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?
How do you define “substantial”?
(See? No scary bolding or, even worse, bolded italics. Eeuuwww!)
BOO !
Well, it’s not just “some” on the left are guilty of hypocrisy, it’s a rather large number and the the presidential candidate Hillary herself, as I’ve already pointed out. I also said at the outset that I was not judging how effective this hypocrisy charge would be but simply pointing out that it was a valid charge to make. Also, I was never “trying to hold a nebulous, heterogenous group of people accountable for a specific double standard” as you put it. I clearly charged a specific group of people with the double standard. So look, I’m getting tired of repeating myself to you so I’m gonna let this drop. If you have any more issues with the hypocrisy charge reread what I’ve already written, I believe I’ve substantiated it there and that should be apparent to the careful reader.
“Staying married to a nasty guy to help your political career is incredibly less damning than sexually assaulting people”
Hillary did not merely “Stay married to a nasty guy”. She was an active participant in excusing and enabling Bills behavior and defaming the alleged victims. Big difference.
And you seem to be implying that Trump is guilty of sexual assault, where is the evidence of that? What he is in fact guilty of is crude locker room talk, that’s it.
“What is the difference between a Democrat and a Leftist?”
A Democrat has an affiliation with the Democratic political party. A Leftist is a vague shorthand for somebody who tends to be both socially and economically liberal.
“What is a “moderate” Republican?”
A person affiliated with the Republican party that tends towards centrist policy. Also pretty vague and subjective, especially since there are two major (and a host of smaller) axes people tend use to describe political viewpoints. If you vote Republican but think the government should take a role in trying to break monopolies and incentivising the market to produce clean energy, you might be a moderate, for instance. Or if you are Bill Clinton and you sign bills like the ones mentioned previously in this discussion, that probably makes you a moderate Democrat.
“How do you define a Republican, in general?”
Somebody who has an affiliation with the Republican party.
“What is the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?”
The party to which the person has an affiliation. That probably entails a long list of viewpoints on each side that would be more likely than if they were unaffiliated, but neither label is definitively predictive of viewpoint on any particular issue.
“How do you define “substantial”?”
Of considerable importance, size, or worth. In the particular context, I already gave some numbers, but here’s a source claiming Clinton had a 68% approval rating when he left office:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-look-back-at-the-polls/
Now, I don’t have anything indicating that there were specifically moderate Republicans in that mix, but I do know that if you add together self-identifying Democrats and independents at the end of Clinton’s term, you only make it to 63%. Even assuming that approval from those segments was unanimous, you’d have to have nearly a fifth of self-identifying Republicans approve of him (5% out of 27-28%) to make up the difference. But since it won’t have been unanimous among independents or even Democrats, the number is going to be much higher.
And indeed, you can check Pew and find out that 39% of self-identifying Republicans approved of Bill Clinton when he left office:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/116584/presidential-approval-ratings-bill-clinton.aspx
I did make a leap and figured that those would come disproportionately from moderate Republicans, and I guess you’re welcome to try to fight me on that. But even 39% seems like enough to call something a “substantial portion”.
(See? No scary bolding or, even worse, bolded italics. Eeuuwww!)
Who is scared? I was legitimately thanking you for helping me optimize my time.
Yes, Bob, thanks for pointing that out.
Here’s another big surprise—-the NYT seems to have had a story already written and ready to pop out as soon as the bad language story broke. It’s all about some poor lass who said she was so traumatized by Trump’s advances that she went ahead and dated him, then she sued him for sexual harassment, then came out as being enthusiastically on “Team Trump” just a few weeks ago. Rejected him, she says, though he didn’t seem to realize that, then dated him, then sued him, then got back in touch with him for a job and supported him, now blabbing to the NYT.
She is, like, SOOOO credible!
And I saw a headline about a liberal judge advancing some rape case (?) against Trump before the election. I only saw the headline before I had to leave but I smell a 1, 2, 3 kill shot coming from the MSM to end Trump for good. Scary.
And the transformation to the adolescent culture is nearly complete. Leave it to the our poorly educated and over emotional society to be more outraged over crass language than they are over blatant corruption and deception at the highest level of power. The elites finally have the population where they want them, under educated, hyper sensitive and easily offended and distracted. Travesty is the perfect example.
I only wonder what these delicate little children would have thought of JFK or Patton if they only knew what those men were actually like. Of course known rapist Bill Clinton does get a pass from them only because it would be just too inconvenient to acknowledge their own hypocrisy.
The takeaway from this sordid little October Surprise is that (1) it is not a surprise, and (2) we absolutely need to get rid of the higher-ups in the GOP who put us in this position.
We are not surprised to hear that Trump has been rude, crude and vulgar. We are not surprised that the Dem Party. in collusion with factions like the NYT, has been holding on to this till two days before a make-or-break debate with Hillary in which Trump has threatened to bring up things that threaten her. We are not surprised that Libs are eager to show off their newly discovered sense of decency, after so many years of supporting the likes of JFK, LBJ, and Bill Clinton. There are no surprises here.
Which brings me to my second point—everyone knew this about Trump, or at least about something like this, but the GOP hated Cruz so much they shut down efforts at the convention to give the people a voice. They shut down the effort to not “change” the rules, as they claimed, but to restore the rules, so delegates would not be bound.
And we can thank the early Trump fanatics, who proudly proclaimed that they didn’t care that he was a loud, crude, jerk, because HE TELLS IT LIKE IT IS !!!!!. They held the nation hostage by threatening to not vote at all if we didn’t give them their WWE smackdown guy. Let’s never forget the role their bad taste and bad judgment have played in putting us in this position. I know I never will.
But this only relates to electibility, not to the kind of president Trump would be. And we have always known the campaign would be dirty, filthy, would take Dem despicability to newer lower levels that even we have seen. So essentially we are back where we started, with a choice between a jerk and a crook. We are back where we started, with one candidate who, in his private life, with no responsibility to the public, took advantage (in a crass way) of the fact that many women will do or allow pretty much any sexual advance from a rich or famous man, vs a woman who used the positions of trust and authority granted to her as a public figure to enrich herself by selling American influence and putting the national security of the entire country at risk in an effort to hide her activities.
It’s a crappy choice. It’s always been a crappy choice, but it’s been the choice we’ve been stuck with for a couple of months now.
The only difference now is that this has given Travesty something new to snout around in.
The takeaway from this sordid little October Surprise is that (1) it is not a surprise
Given the path that this election cycle has taken, nothing that happens from here until November 8th is going to be a surprise. I think the revelations from late yesterday of Trumps’s crude remarks and the leaked portions of Hillary’s Wall Street speeches are going to seem tame when this is over.
The damn thing of it is is that we, this country, had the chance to elect one of the most decent, respectable man ever to run for the Presidency in 2012 in Mitt Romney. Unfortunately the Media/Democrats pulled out every stop to bring Romney down in favor of an incompetent lying race baiter, and in addition to that many “conservatives” just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Romney, so we missed a huge opportunity. In light of that I have little sympathy for anyone who complains about our current crappy choices. The 24 hour news cycle has created the current cage match we find ourselves in.
The 24 hour news cycle has created the current cage match we find ourselves in. It certainly contributes, but we can’t overlook the determination of millions of Trumpists to deny or just ignore the vast amount of negative information about Trump that was guaranteed to surface during the campaign. They may have said “It doesn’t matter to me so I don’t think it will matter” but the fact is, it was always well known that Trump would have a serious uphill battle trying to overcome his history. Pretending that none of this would make a difference amounts to a level of negligence, regarding the hopes of regaining the White House, that I find inexcusable.
We should not be fighting this battle. We should be fighting the battle of ideas, of visions, of commitment to Constitutional governance. The fact that we have a candidate who puts us in this position lies at the feet of those who shoved him down our throats. All the media are doing is reporting what the Left tells them to report, which is exactly what they always do. It was our job to have a candidate who gives them little to work with, who can force them to stay on track and talk about the real core of the campaign, which is what kind of government we want.
We can’t deny the Trumper Tantrums that threatened to tank the Republican effort if we didn’t go along with the mob and select Trump. We can’t deny the compliance of the GOP in this effort, as they shut down the voices of millions of true Conservatives at the convention. So here we are, right in the middle of a cesspool, right where some of us always said we would be, in a battle not for who is best for the nation but for who is less awful.
It is beyond foolish to expect Conservatives to not be angry and bitter. We had every right to expect an exciting, dynamic, campaign of one ideology against another, and the mob gave us a cage match—because that is what turns it on. They WANTED to see Trump down in the gutter with Hillary, slugging it out in the muck. They said so.
Once again, I repeat—-I don’t think Trump will be an awful president, and I am convinced that Hillary will add new chapters to the “awful presidents” book. It is the campaign I am talking about, and I am thoroughly pissed off at having to live through a campaign so vile and nasty just because some people thought it would be fun to sic Trump on Hillary, and who were dazzled by his cheesy smarmy pseudo-charm.
The desire for personal sabotage and the departure from discussing ideas began long before the Trumpsters entered the arena. Although tame by today’s standards, I remember the personal attacks on Reagan, then Quayle, then W, McCain, Palin, and finally Romney, so what you’re witnessing now is 30 years in the making and people like me who just don’t give a f**k anymore and have taken the gloves off.
“… people like me who just don’t give a f**k anymore and have taken the gloves off…” so now we have a bare-knuckle brawler with a long and sordid history that might result in losing the election. Great plan. Hope the spectacle is worth the price of admission.
Instead of upping our game and going for the best and brightest, whose taking off of gloves is done with class and surgical precision, we decided to lower ourselves to the level of the opposition hoping, I guess, to outdo them in the gutter.
Sorry, but while I understand the frustration you describe, I still can’t see how choosing someone with so much negative baggage he was always bound to be hounded by it was ever considered a solution. The impulse to see the Left slapped around by a brawler has led us to having Trump as our candidate, and having to deal with the crap he brings to the table. This is not a surprise, it is a decision made by his supporters who seem to have decided losing the election would be worth it if we could just see some blood on the canvas and watch someone throw some chairs.
Well, while Politics As A Blood Sport may appeal to some, it is not the way to get the nation back on track, and we deserved better than having a depressing, discouraging, uphill battle with our own candidate providing most of the stumbling blocks.
Thank you, Trumpers. Thank you, GOP.
Well I didn’t choose Trump, I am stuck with him. Remember I was a Rubio guy but then had to vote for Cruz in the primary, but evidently there are not enough people like me so I have to play the hand I am dealt. I am ready to play that hand with bare fists if I have to.
Here is a typical Leftist spin on the non-story:
A decade before Donald Trump became the Republican nominee for president, he shared candid and lewd views on women that were caught on tape.
Well, no, Trump did not express “candid and lewd views” on women in general. Duh. He expressed his experience with a certain kind of woman, a kind of woman that has been described in a variety of ways ranging from the relatively mild “groupies” to the harsher “starf***ers” and several in between. It is an opinion that has been shared by many many men of wealth, fame and/or power, who have also taken advantage of this kind of woman, and no doubt used similar language to describe the phenomenon. When rock stars, media personalities, athletes, presidents and executives engage in this kind of crude description of the opportunities afforded them with women who are receptive to any kind of sexual advance if it is from someone in one of those categories, no one blinks. Let it come from Donald Trump and suddenly the gasps of horror are deafening, especially from those whose heroes have often been doing and saying the same things, especially from a woman who enabled her husband to not only enjoy the willing attentions of such groupies but force himself upon those who did not solicit his attention or submit to it.
Leave it to CNN to lie about what he said, to advance its agenda of getting Hillary into the White House. Hey, why not have CNN :moderate” another debate?
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/07/politics/donald-trump-women-vulgar/index.html?adkey=bn
The problem with this story familiar. Bias, disproportionality and distortion in the media and an uncritical, easily swayed electorate.
There really isn’t much of a news story in the leaked Trump audio; is there really anybody who didn’t think he talked like this in private while joking about his sexual exploits? No, there isn’t. Is this type of locker room banter fairly routine among most alpha males? Yes, it is. So where’s the scoop? It’s in (brace yourselves) actually hearing him say such words (shudder), and in today’s media obsessed culture that means a lot. But if you’re intelligent, well informed and have proper control over your emotions this “revelation” shouldn’t bother you much. Unfortunately, that’s not most people, and the media is dutifully employing bias and distortion to stimulate the nations limbic system and make this the biggest story since 911.
As for disproportionality, on the same day it was revealed that while collecting a quarter of a million dollars for giving a speech to a South American Bank Clinton was secretly promoting a borderless Western Hemisphere. The politicly she’s advocating to rich donors is deeply unpopular to your average American prole and would fundamentally transform America, but try finding that in the news. You’ll find it, right there underneath the ten tons of outrage over Donald Trump.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/hillary-secretly-called-for-hemispheric-open-borders/#comments
Disproportionality to say the least. The duplicitous nature of Hillary’s speeches and recordings are I am sure what most of us suspected but 90% of the MSM is now so incredibly biased that they simply defend the State and the status quo on a level that makes the North Korean News Agency look objective.
“The problem with this story is familiar…”
“We are not surprised to hear that Trump has been rude, crude and vulgar. We are not surprised that the Dem Party. in collusion with factions like the NYT, has been holding on to this till two days before a make-or-break debate with Hillary in which Trump has threatened to bring up things that threaten her”
This is clearly wrong, for a few different reasons:
1.) This was not actually the optimal time to have made the release. We’re still too far from the election for the effect to not trail off some. In the absence of debates, you’d wait until 1-2 weeks before the election or until there was some other news story likely to swing the election that you could drop it on top of. Even if you think that releasing it before a debate is important, dropping it before the third debate would have been more effective.
2.) Media outlets are not monolithic. They are also businesses with a strong profit motive. Which is the reason it is important to be the first outlet to report on a story, even sometimes at the risk of misreporting things because you got there too early. Whatever political values they hold, most news outlets are sensationalist first and political second, by necessity.
3.) We have direct confirmation in this case that 2 was true. The tape was first found by NBC, and they were preparing a story, but it wasn’t going to run yesterday. The Washington Post scooped them after somebody at NBC leaked the story.
No, it’s not “clearly wrong”. You just don’t agree. You may think the timing was not intentional, for whatever reasons, but that is just your opinion.
“Whatever political values they hold, most news outlets are sensationalist first and political second, by necessity.” Well, I can’t think of many things more sensational than Pay to Play or the selling of American influence by the Secretary of State to line her own pockets, yet the media have been pretty quiet about that. It appears that politics overrides sensationalism.
I can’t think of many things more sensational than a presidential candidate collapsing and exhibiting symptoms of some kind and degree of neurological malfunction, yet yet the media have been pretty quiet about that. It appears that politics overrides sensationalism.
I can’t think of many things more sensational than finding that the State Department, under the Secretary who is now running for the presidency, facilitated a bungled effort to aid in a civil war, to overthrow a national leader who was active in fighting al Queda, and in doing so ended up funneling millions of dollars of weapons to that same al Queda, which by the way has repeated its intent to kill as many Americans as possible. Yet the media have been pretty quiet about that. It appears that politics overrides sensationalism.
I can’t think of many things more sensational than sending in loyal Americans to try to regain control over some of those weapons, and then leaving them to die without aid from their own country, yet the media have been pretty quiet about that. It appears that politics overrides sensationalism.
Those are four pretty spectacular stories, yet the media give every appearance of putting their political agendas ahead of sensational news coverage. And this is only a very partial list of sensational stories pretty much ignored by the media.
What does get them revved up is a recording that is more than a decade old of a man using language common to locker rooms, the military, construction workers, entertainers, etc. which in this case refers specifically to his approach to women he thinks are open to his advances because he is a “star”. THIS is what the media deem important. Looks like politics to me.
“You just don’t agree.”
Yeah, thanks for explaining that. I could have said “I think that you are clearly wrong” but I figured you could probably figure out that it’s what I thought on account of my having said it. Also, every English teacher I’ve ever had would probably have been disappointed with my rhetorical style if I’d said it that way, but I heard that you’re the expert on that sort of thing so who am I to say.
Also, you clearly don’t actually pay attention to very many news outlets if you don’t think most of those things were big stories across the board. There was an entire weekend of coverage of Clinton’s collapse and deplorables comment, followed by a dip in the polls, just to take the first on the list. I guess it’s minus the neurological malfunction bit, but I guess they didn’t think a conspiracy theory based around somebody nodding vigorously in a youtube video was enough to really go on.
“What does get them revved up is a recording that is more than a decade old of a man using language common to locker rooms, the military, construction workers, entertainers, etc. which in this case refers specifically to his approach to women he thinks are open to his advances because he is a “star”. THIS is what the media deem important. Looks like politics to me.”
You keep trying to couch it in different terms, but he was talking about sexual assault. I sure hope that our military isn’t full of people bragging about sexual assault. I’ve been in locker rooms, and nobody there talked about sexual assault. And even if they all had, it wouldn’t be an excuse for Trump doing it.
You go right ahead and define “sexual assault” your way, as it seems to please you.
In my world, if a woman presents herself as available to a man (in Trump’s case because, as he explained, he is a “star”) and he then does one or two or more actions of a sexual nature, and she accepts these actions, that is not assault.
Of course, on the Left, if a Republican does anything they can define as “sexual” then it quickly morphs into sexual assault. As Ann Coulter once commented, when Republicans have sex scandals they don’t even get to have sex. A man taps his toe while in a stall in a men’s room=sexual assault, or at least something sexual, kind of, somehow. A man takes his wife to a swingers club and asks her to join in, she says no, he takes her home—-sexual assault, in this case forcing him to drop out of a Senatorial race so a newcomer named Barack Obama can run unopposed.
In Trump’s case, he refers to actions based on having a woman present herself to him because he is a “star” and you then define this as “assault”. You go right ahead. Yawn………
Do I need to keep quoting prominent Republican officials to you? You can keep pretending that I’m the one making the claim, but you’ll be better off if you can convince Mitt Romney to not claim it was about sexual assault, as a for instance. Or is he part of “the left” now?
It’s nice to finally see a Democrat concerned about sexual assault.
I’ll go on record saying that anybody from either party who equates that tape with sexual assault is off their meds.
I think that religious men like Mitt Romney had a knee-jerk reaction to the crudity of the comment, and their emotional response was to see the action separately from the context.
I have noticed the complete lack of context in discussions of the comment, although even the NYT and the Washington Post and others published the comment itself in context.
“Fame gave him that ability, Trump continued. “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” he told to then-“Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush. “You can do anything.”
“Grab them by the p—-,” Trump said. “You can do anything.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/09/anderson-cooper-told-trump-that-is-sexual-assault-the-justice-department-agrees/
This is quite clearly a comment that when women present themselves to a “star” because of his status, they are willing to do anything the “star” wants to do. Trump was quite clear. When you are a star, they let you do it. You can do anything….. including the grabbing he mentioned.
So once we address the actual statement Trump made, which is that after a woman presents herself to him because of his status as a “star” he feels that she has indicated that he can “do anything” he might do “anything” and gave an example of what he might be able to do. Did he say he actually HAS “grabbed them by the p***y” ? No. Why hasn’t that been discussed? He says that this is the kind of behavior this kind of woman would not find objectionable. He is not talking about himself here, or what he has done. He is describing a phenomenon, describing women known in various circles as “groupies”, as (on the rodeo circuit) “buckle bunnies” , as “star f***ers”.
Ask any pro athlete if he has encountered women like this. Ask any rock star. Ask any wealthy person, trust fund baby or millionaire businessman. Ask a lot of politicians. Ask presidents. If you want to hear disrespectful language used regarding these women, talk to the wives and girlfriends of the men they hustle at golf tournaments, football and baseball games, rodeos, and so on. They are more explicit and more scornful of the activities these women solicit and encourage than Trump was. Yet somehow describing disrespectful treatment allowed by women who show no respect for themselves is supposed to brand Trump as a sexual predator.
So let’s look at what the word “assault” means. (emphasis mine)
Assault
Definition
1. Intentionally putting another person in reasonable apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact. No intent to cause physical injury needs to exist, and no physical injury needs to result. So defined in tort law and the criminal statutes of some states.
2. With the intent to cause physical injury, making another person reasonably apprehend an imminent harmful or offensive contact. Essentially, an attempted battery. So defined in the criminal statutes of some states.
3. With the intent to cause physical injury, actually causing such injury to another person. Essentially, the same as a battery. So defined in the criminal statutes of some states, and so understood in popular usage.
(Therefore,under Definition 1, permission or consent to contact would not qualify as “apprehension” of such contact.)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/assault
Assault
At Common Law, an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact.
An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm. It is both a crime and a TORT and, therefore, may result in either criminal or civil liability.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/assault
So we go to wikipedia for an “interpretation” of the word:
Assault in many US jurisdictions and Scotland is defined more broadly still as any intentional physical contact with another person without their consent; (sic)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault
Yet even wiki admits that this has to be “without…..consent” of the other person. However, Trump was clear that in a case where he, or someone else, might “grab her by the p***y” it was because ““When you’re a star, they let you do it.” “You can do anything.” That is certainly a statement that he considers being approached like this as consent to “do anything”.
I think it’s crude. I think it’s disgusting. But I know it exists, this attitude of some women to make themselves available to men of stature and status because of that status, and the lack of respect shown to those women by the men they are targeting.
Right here on this blog, when David Bowie died I objected to the canonization of him as a great man, citing his history of sex with underage groupies, and a poster rushed to his defense, saying it was not an indictment of Bowie or his character because this is just what happens with rock stars. Who is getting the vapors about Mick Jagger or Stephen Tyler taking advantage of backstage star f***ers? For that matter, does anyone really think that Tom Jones showed a lot of respect for the women who threw their panties and room keys onto the stage while he was performing? Does anyone think that the Rolling Stones sat around afterward and talked about how much respect they had for the plaster casters who had just left the dressing room?
Come on, people, get a grip and stop trying to use this to further some agenda.
A very thorough deconstruction there, Ama. Nice.
Imagine Trump’s exact quote spoken by Lena Dunham or one of the Sex in the City girls and switch the gender of the genitalia. A few eyebrows may have been raised and the sane among us would have duly noted the blatant hypocrisy, but in general it wouldn’t have been a blip on the national psyche and there even would have been plenty of “you go girl”s from the Huffpo progressive crowd.
Yes, yes I know, they’re not running for president, but still you get the point.
Your “context” is deliberately incomplete. The lines preceding the ones you quoted are important for context, but I think you know that.
Try,
What are you talking about?
Hey, and since you’re so concerned about protecting the sanctity of women from bad, bad words, what do you make of Hillary yukking it up over her pedophilic rapist client beating the rap for raping a 12 year old girl? Pretty funny, amirite? And not nearly as serious as two jerks joking around about pussy in a private conversation, wouldn’t you agree?
Imagine someone with a plummy Prince William accent saying “You know, when you have a certain status women often throw themselves at you in a very sexual manner, and when they do you could do anything, from kissing them to touching their genitals. and they wouldn’t care….” Same amount of ginned-up outrage? I don’t think so.
But a brash and somewhat inarticulate Jersey accent saying nearly the same thing but more crudely and it is suddenly the sex crime of the century.
If it is a Republican, that is.
Dems just don’t suffer consequences of sexual misbehavior, including and all the way up to rape. One of Obama’s closest advisers once aided and abetted a sexual predator in his homosexual relationship with a young boy, and not an eyebrow was raised. When Colorado parents objected to the mandatory reading, via Common Core, of a pornographic novel about a pedophile who committed incest, a book full of graphic descriptions of sexually aroused genitalia and the genitals of the young girls being molested, the book was vehemently defended on the grounds that young people (in this case as young as 14) need to be able to see the world through the eyes of a sexual predator, and be exposed to this element of black culture. Anthony “The Weiner” Weiner was confident enough of Democrat acceptance of his practice of texting photos of his genitals to women who had not requested these photos nor wanted them that he actually ran for office after this little hobby of his was made public.
But a vulgar word for lady parts? Oh, the horror!
Hillary has always had a habit of defending rapists, and even promoting one of them as President Of The United States.
Here is some information on what does NOT offend Democrats.
“…Common Core recommends a book for 11th and 12th graders by Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison called “The Bluest Eye”. The excerpts from the book are too pornographic to post here but you can choose to read them here at this link. The Bluest Eye depicts detailed accounts of incest, rape and pedophilia as “friendly”, “innocent” and “tender”. The biggest issue with the book is that the story is told from the pedophile’s point of view so the reader can become a “co-conspirator” with the rapist. The author purposely did not portray the pedophile’s actions as wrong so the reader can “sympathize” with the pedophile.
Politichicks reported:
Obviously the reason behind some parents calls for removing the book are the graphic depictions of incest, rape and pedophilia. And not just that, the book actually lets the reader see the depictions from the perpetrators point of view. In fact, the author of the book, Morrison, says that she wanted the reader to feel as though they are a “co-conspirator” with the rapist. She took pains to make sure she never portrayed the actions as wrong in order to show how everyone has their own problems. She even goes as far as to describe the pedophilia, rape and incest “friendly,” “innocent,” and “tender.”
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/08/coming-to-a-school-near-you-common-core-approved-child-pornography/
Some of the graphic excerpts are at the Blaze: I can’t copy them here. But this is an example not only of what Dems find acceptable in general but of what they want our children to be reading. Reading, reading out loud in class, discussing……………..
However, because the author worked very hard to make her rapist “friendly” and to not portray his actions as “wrong”, these actions might not qualify as “sexual assault”. Not to a Lefty, anyway.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/22/pedophilia-incest-and-graphic-sex-excerpts-from-a-common-core-reading-list-book-for-11th-graders-that-will-make-you-blush
Parents who objected to having this book included in mandatory reading lists for children as young as 14 were called “racists” and “bigots” and “intolerant”.
And in other developments – progressives who want to shut down the debate on global warming and possibly prosecute those who disagree with them, have some splaining to do:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/10/07/experts-said-arctic-sea-ice-would-melt-entirely-by-september-201/
I heard a long interview with Pat Michaels the other day on a Denver radio station, and he was fascinating. He and a collaborator have a book that I plan to buy. He acknowledges a small amount of global warming, but also addresses the benefits of this warming trend. He calls it “lukewarming”.
Patrick J. Michaels is the director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute. Michaels is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and was program chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the American Meteorological Society. He is the author or editor of six books on climate and its impact including Climate Coup:Global Warming’s Invasion of Our Government and Our Lives and Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know. Chip Knappenberger is the assistant director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, and coordinates the scientific and outreach activities for the Center. He has over 20 years of experience in climate research and public outreach. He has published numerous papers in the major atmospheric science journals on global warming, hurricanes, precipitation changes, weather and mortality, and Greenland ice melt, among many other areas, and is a very popular presenter at climate conferences worldwide.
https://store.cato.org/book/lukewarming
I’m curious. The article you linked clearly states that this was a view from 2 experts that was criticized by other scientists for making the prediction. Did you just not bother to read that far, or do you think that as long as you find a single person in a field who says something, you can hold the entire field and anybody who ever trusted somebody from that field accountable for it?
Tryvasty, not sure what you are trying to say here. A prediction was made by two “experts” and the prediction was proved wrong by empirical data. It was not just disputed by “a single person” and I must have missed the part where “an entire field and anybody who ever trusted somebody from that field” was held “accountable” for, well, something. Especially that “…anybody who ever trusted somebody from that field…” part.
Instead of coy little queries, why don’t you just tell us what you think. You know, a declarative statement. And without the catty snark, if you please. Give it a try.
Fine. I think that this was 2 professors, and claiming that anybody besides those two people or people who referenced them have “some splaining to do” is completely and utterly worthless.
Yeah, but that’s not what Cluster said. You always do find your heinie in a crack when you try to make a case based on those voices in your head, don’t you?
Let’s take a little peek at what he DID say, shall we? “progressives who want to shut down the debate on global warming and possibly prosecute those who disagree with them, have some splaining to do…” That is, they might have to ‘splain why they bought into such balderdash, because, as Cluster clearly stated, he is speaking of those who “…who want to shut down the debate on global warming and possibly prosecute those who disagree with them…” and as we all know, a large part of this whole AGW thing that these people specifically referenced by Cluster—that is, “those who want to shut down the debate on global warming and possibly prosecute those who disagree with them” base a lot of their hysteria on the assertion that the arctic sea ice is melting, and some of that hysteria is based on the claims of these two guys.
Context, dude, context.
Do you really find it amusing to nitpick every single sentence looking for something to carp at? That is what matters to you? I guess you find it more satisfying than actually reading something instead of just “scanning” it because you have decided it is just a “rant”.
“That is, they might have to ‘splain why they bought into such balderdash”
Please identify which people you believe bought into the specific predictions of the specified two professors. Once you’ve identified them, you can feel free to demand an explanation from them.
“Do you really find it amusing to nitpick every single sentence looking for something to carp at?”
I find it important to not let people speak in gross generalities.
“I find it important to not let people speak in gross generalities” says the guy whose entire “political philosophy” is nothing but a gross generality.