REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Drumpf and the KKK

POSTED BY: SHINYGOODGUY
UPDATED: Sunday, March 13, 2016 14:27
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 4343
PAGE 1 of 1

Tuesday, March 1, 2016 5:07 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


Yep, his real last name is Drumpf!

Tell me why won't he denounce the KKK and White Supremacists movement?


SGG

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, March 1, 2016 5:23 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


Oh and another thing.............Trump University, a scam and possible Ponzi scheme.
He is being sued by the majority of the attendees.

Trump may have to appear before the judge in the fraud case sometime in August.
Among the allegations:

1. Trump's "experts" - handpicked by him - didn't know anything about Real Estate.
2. He was a "No show"
3. Trump U rigged it's course ratings
4. Trump U pretended to be a school and operated without a license
5. Trump didn't develop the curriculum
6. He promoted not-so-secret investing secrets
7. Trump was in it for the money - he netted about $5 million.
8. The seminar was a bait and switch
9. Students were told to lie to their credit card companies, deceiving CC companies
by false claims of income increase, among other things.

I'm not a big Rubio fan, but he's right Trump is a con artist.


SGG

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, March 1, 2016 9:11 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:

Tell me why won't he denounce the KKK and White Supremacists movement?


SGG

He just didn't want to disavow the support of white supremacists on national TV. Trump is a faster talker, but a slow thinker.

The man who bragged a couple of months ago that "I have the world's greatest memory. It's one thing everyone agrees on" explained in an interview.

TAPPER: Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don't want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election?

DONALD TRUMP: Well just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke, OK?....I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists....

TAPPER: Would you just say unequivocally you condemn them and you don't want their support?

TRUMP: Well I have to look at the group. I don't know what group you are talking about, you wouldn't want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about....

TAPPER: The Ku Klux Klan?....I mean I'm just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here.

TRUMP: I don't know any — honestly I don't know David Duke. I don't believe I've ever met him. I'm pretty sure I didn't meet him, and I just don't know anything about him.

Donald Trump "explains" why he declined to denounce David Duke and the KKK:

“I’m sitting in a house in Florida with a very bad earpiece they gave me and you could hardly hear what he was saying,” Mr. Trump said on the “Today” show on Monday, after about 24 hours of condemnation from Democrats and Republicans.

The transcript and the video makes it crystal clear that Trump heard the question just fine. He just didn't want to disavow the support of white supremacists on national TV.
www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/02/29/donald-trump-blames-ea
rpiece-for-declining-to-disavow-david-duke
/


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, March 1, 2016 11:00 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by G:

Also too bad that the answer to "if not Trump, then who?" is not a happy one.

Politics is a way of ruling divided societies without undue violence.

Over the past generation we have seen the rise of a group of people who are against politics. These groups — best exemplified by the tea party but not exclusive to the right — want to elect people who have no political experience. They want “outsiders.” They delegitimize compromise and dealmaking. They’re willing to trample the customs and rules that give legitimacy to legislative decision-making if it helps them gain power.

Ultimately, they don’t recognize other people. They suffer from a form of political narcissism, in which they don’t accept the legitimacy of other interests and opinions. They don’t recognize restraints. They want total victories for themselves and their doctrine.

This anti-politics tendency has had a wretched effect on our democracy. It has led to a series of overlapping downward spirals:

The anti-politics people elect legislators who have no political skills or experience. That incompetence leads to dysfunctional government, which leads to more disgust with government, which leads to a demand for even more outsiders.

The anti-politics people don’t accept that politics is a limited activity. They make soaring promises and raise ridiculous expectations. When those expectations are not met, voters grow cynical and, disgusted, turn even further in the direction of anti-politics.

The anti-politics people refuse compromise and so block the legislative process. The absence of accomplishment destroys public trust. The decline in trust makes dealmaking harder.

We’re now at a point in which politicians live in fear if they try to compromise and legislate. We’re now at a point in which normal political conversation has broken down. People feel unheard, which makes them shout even louder, which further destroys conversation.

And in walks Donald Trump. People say that Trump is an unconventional candidate and that he represents a break from politics as usual. That’s not true. Trump is the culmination of the trends we have been seeing for the last 30 years: the desire for outsiders; the bashing style of rhetoric that makes conversation impossible; the decline of coherent political parties; the declining importance of policy; the tendency to fight cultural battles and identity wars through political means.

Trump represents the path the founders rejected. There is a hint of violence undergirding his campaign. There is always a whiff, and sometimes more than a whiff, of “I’d like to punch him in the face.”

I printed out a New York Times list of the insults Trump has hurled on Twitter. The list took up 33 pages. Trump’s style is bashing and pummeling. Everyone who opposes or disagrees with him is an idiot, a moron or a loser. The implied promise of his campaign is that he will come to Washington and bully his way through.

Trump’s supporters aren’t looking for a political process to address their needs. They are looking for a superhero. As political scientist Matthew MacWilliams found, the one trait that best predicts whether you’re a Trump supporter is how high you score on tests that measure authoritarianism.

This isn’t just an American phenomenon. Politics is in retreat and authoritarianism is on the rise worldwide. The answer to Trump is politics. It’s acknowledging other people exist.
www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/opinion/the-governing-cancer-of-our-time.ht
ml

www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritaria
n-213533


Malcolm (& Trump) really need to learn to share.
http://jmascia.deviantart.com/art/Firefly-593988925

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, March 1, 2016 6:44 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Jayne’s (Adam Baldwin) twitter account has today, Super Tuesday, this tweet:
https://twitter.com/AdamBaldwin/status/704792377945300992


Trump isn't winning because he's a loudmouth buffoon. He is winning despite being a buffoon because he offers what Jayne cares about: a populist nationalism.

Trump understands that the race is about the very definition of America itself. For candidates like Clinton or Marco Rubio, it's about embracing a new, more diverse, more tolerant country. For Trumpers, it's precisely the opposite. They want to put the Obama genie back in the bottle and fight vigorously for the traditional notion of Americanness.

Once it comes down to Clinton or Trump, a lot of people and Jayne are going to look at Trump's distasteful statements and questionable foreign policy and decide that what they really want in life is to pay less in taxes.

https://twitter.com/AdamBaldwin/status/704714127319543808
Jayne’s Prediction: Clinton defeats Trump in general election. Clinton reaps whirlwind of world events. Clinton wins a second term only because of voter fraud. Jayne is using the hash tag #NeverHillary

https://twitter.com/AdamBaldwin/status/704789612019867648

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 2, 2016 8:30 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:

Tell me why won't he denounce the KKK and White Supremacists movement?


SGG

Skip forward to 2:13:00 for last night's Trump victory speech.


Donald Trump is delivering his victory speech right now, and I see that he's officially started his great presidential pivot.

He's mostly saying the same things as always, but saying them with noticeably less bombast than usual. He started to relapse into bluster a bit toward the end, but he's got plenty of time to learn. Give him a few weeks and he'll seem almost like a normal person.

This is the stage of the race in which Trump starts to calm down a bit so that all the Republicans who loathe him can start telling themselves that maybe he's not so bad after all. With any luck, by August they'll have completely forgotten that they once thought he was a crypto-fascist demagogue and racist. You'll know this transformation is happening when people start commenting that he's "really grown" since those tumultuous early days of the primaries.


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, March 3, 2016 9:01 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Donald Trump and the True Meaning of "I Disavow"
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/03/donald-trump-and-true-meaning-i
-disavow


I'm fascinated to see that Joe Weisenthal picked up on something that I noticed too during Trump's late-night press conference on Tuesday:

Notice that he kept saying "I disavow" over and over again, but never said "I disavow David Duke" or "Disavow white supremacist groups"
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) March 2, 2016

Here's what happened. A reporter asked Trump once again to comment on the David Duke/KKK endorsement, and Trump whined that he had already written a Facebook post and a tweet and, really, just how many times was he supposed to disavow the guy? But as Weisenthal points out, Trump repeatedly said "I disavow, I disavow, I disavow," without ever mentioning who he was disavowing. And since the reporters weren't given mics, you really couldn't hear what the question was about. You'd only know if you've been following this controversy.

I don't think this was a mistake. Trump has done it too many times. On Facebook, on Twitter, on Good Morning America, and then again last night. His ritualistic phrase is "I disavow" without providing a clear, simple soundbite about who or what he's disavowing. Nor does he ever say anything more in the way of condemnation. His Twitter and Facebook posts, for example, had merely this terse comment: "As I stated at the press conference on Friday regarding David Duke- I disavow."

It's pretty clear what's going on here. Technically, Trump is in the clear. He has disavowed David Duke. But there is no soundbite or video snippet that shows him clearly criticizing either Duke or the KKK or white supremacist groups in general. And as Trump knows better than anyone, it's audio and video excerpts that really matter. That's what people see, not brief Twitter or Facebook posts.

Trump now has the best of all worlds. He can truthfully say that he's repeatedly denounced David Duke. He can mock the media for unfairly making a big deal out of it. But for his less savory supporters, there's no video of him clearly and unequivocally condemning the Duke or the KKK—and they understand perfectly well what this means. They're old hands at the wink and the nod.

If it were anyone else, I'd say this was all carefully calculated. But Trump has such an instinctive grasp of TV that I wouldn't be surprised if this just came naturally to him without any real thought. He is truly a master of the modern media era.

UPDATE: This is fascinating. One minute after publishing this, I wandered over to The Corner and read a Jonah Goldberg post making exactly the same point I did. Goldberg doesn't think Trump's phrasing is an accident either:

It is obvious to me that Trump didn’t want to denounce David Duke and the Klan in the Jake Tapper interview. The “bad earpiece” explanation is a transparent lie....And when Tapper mentioned the KKK, Trump still didn’t say, “Wait a second . . . ” and rip into the Klan. The question is, Why?

....Denouncing the Klan should be easy. You shouldn’t have to think about it....The one thing you shouldn’t do is sound like you’re reluctant to condemn the Klan(!) or that you’re dog-whistling that you don’t really mean it when you do. Yet when you watch the Tapper interview, it becomes clear what is really going on: He think condemning the Klan will hurt him with conservatives or southerners or both....In other words, the issue isn’t that conservative opponents of Trump think he’s a Klan supporting racist, it’s that Trump thinks many of his conservative supporters are. And that’s just one reason I don’t want this guy speaking for me.

Yep. And when was the last time Goldberg and I agreed about something? It just goes to show that Trump really does bring people together.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, March 3, 2016 9:56 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly




The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, March 3, 2016 11:39 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by G:

That's nothing new for any politician.

Obviously, but there is more: For his less savory supporters, there's no video of Trump clearly and unequivocally condemning the KKK and they understand perfectly well what this means. They're old hands at the wink and the nod.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, March 3, 2016 7:30 PM

WHOZIT


Quote:

Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Yep, his real last name is Drumpf!

Tell me why won't he denounce the KKK and White Supremacists movement?


SGG



HE DID DENOUNCE THEM!! HOW MANY TIMES DOES HE HAVE TO DENOUNCE THEM!! HOW COME CLINTON AND SANDERS DON'T HAVE TO DENOUNCE AL SHARPTON!!

I bet you have small hands...and penis.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, March 4, 2016 4:48 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


Really!? You thinking about my dick? Dude, I don't swing that way.

My statement was rhetorical, a conversation starter. But, in reality, I don't give a shit whether he did denounce or not. I don't care about the
Drumpfster and his cheap bottle of chip oil..........PHuck him!


SGG


Quote:

Originally posted by whozit:
Quote:

Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Yep, his real last name is Drumpf!

Tell me why won't he denounce the KKK and White Supremacists movement?


SGG



HE DID DENOUNCE THEM!! HOW MANY TIMES DOES HE HAVE TO DENOUNCE THEM!! HOW COME CLINTON AND SANDERS DON'T HAVE TO DENOUNCE AL SHARPTON!!

I bet you have small hands...and penis.


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, March 4, 2016 1:38 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by G:



Second - can you tell me who the artist is? Fantastic! Reminds me of Mort Drucker from Cracked.

It is from Mad Magazine, issue 535.
www.madmagazine.com/issues/mad-535

The artist is Mark Fredrickson
www.madcoversite.com/ugoi-mark_fredrickson.html

You can see the other political portraits, including Trump, here:
www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mad-hillary-cover_us_55c2124ae4b0138b0bf4
7695


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 9, 2016 3:14 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


I thought that as well. If Trump gets the nomination, I almost want him to win. Make America Great Again! Talk about disaster, the King of train wrecks will be in charge of the Right Wing Express to absolute ruin.

When I saw Romney approach the podium, I literally cringed and then burst out laughing my ass off. The GOP is imploding and they bring out the Big Guns, Mittens to the rescue! The CEO of Implosions with his milk toast approach, meekly warning the extreme right that HE thinks The Donald is totally wrong for the position.

What were they thinking? WTF is wrong with the Conservative Party and where is the Tea Party now? They're at home, washing their sheets! What a phucking joke!


SGG


Quote:

Originally posted by G:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by G:

That's nothing new for any politician.

Obviously, but there is more: For his less savory supporters, there's no video of Trump clearly and unequivocally condemning the KKK and they understand perfectly well what this means. They're old hands at the wink and the nod.




I did not see it but I understand that last night's republican debate set an even lower mark. I can't tell you how much joy I'm finding from this public implosion. It's also a treat to listen to them be completely clueless and miss why it's not working - like they are trying everything but the one thing they need to do, "it's right there, I'm pointing right at it." The sound of so many desperate Republicans, "let's get Romney! He'll save us!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! I have to gasp for air.

But after I stop laughing I'm left with the fact that Trump will be one election away from the White House. And you know what? As much as I'm pretty sure it would be an even bigger train wreck, I'm at peace with that thought. Sometimes you have to throw up before you can get better. Sometimes you have to go so far off center before you get some sense and pull back. It's an imperfect democracy - which to me means whoever we get, we deserve. Even Trump. Maybe even especially Trump.


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 9, 2016 3:20 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


Right now Trump is the Titanic, with Rience Pribus as the captain and they're heading for the Iceberg, which is hubris & stupidity (a lethal combination)...............................

Oh yeah, this is going to go Well!


SGG

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 9, 2016 7:23 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly



https://theintercept.com/2016/03/08/trumps-penis-becomes-campaign-issu
e-to-shocked-nation
/

It’s 2 a.m. The bar is closing. Republicans have had a series of strong and nasty Trump cocktails. Suddenly Ted Cruz is beginning to look kind of attractive. At least he’s sort of predictable, and he doesn’t talk about his sexual organs in presidential debates!

Well, Republicans, have your standards really fallen so low so fast? Are you really that desperate? Can you remember your 8 p.m. selves, and all the hope you had about entering a campaign with such a deep bench of talented candidates?

Back in the early evening, before the current panic set in, Republicans understood that Ted Cruz would be a terrible general election candidate, at least as unelectable as Donald Trump and maybe more so. He is the single most conservative Republican in Congress, far adrift from the American mainstream. He’s been doing well in primaries because of the support of “extremely conservative” voters in very conservative states, and he really hasn’t broken out of that lane. His political profile is a slightly enlarged Rick Santorum but without the heart.

On policy grounds, he would be unacceptable to a large majority in this country. But his policy disadvantages are overshadowed by his public image ones. His rhetorical style will come across to young and independent voters as smarmy and oleaginous. In Congress, he had two accomplishments: the disastrous government shutdown and persuading all his colleagues to dislike him.

Which would be better? Going into the fall with Trump? Or Cruz, who in November would manage to win several important counties in Mississippi?
www.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/opinion/its-not-too-late.html

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 9, 2016 8:26 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:

When I saw Romney approach the podium, I literally cringed and then burst out laughing my ass off. The GOP is imploding and they bring out the Big Guns, Mittens to the rescue! The CEO of Implosions with his milk toast approach, meekly warning the extreme right that HE thinks The Donald is totally wrong for the position.

Donald Trump is a walking political science lesson: Most voters do not listen through their ears. They listen through their stomachs. If a leader can connect with them on a gut level, their response is: “Don’t bother me with the details. I trust your instincts.”

Trump’s rivals keep thinking that if they just point out a few more details about him, voters will drop The Donald and turn to one of them instead. But you can’t talk voters out of something that they haven’t been talked into.

Many have come to Trump out of a gut feeling that this is a guy who knows their pain, even if he doesn’t. Many of his supporters are from the #middleagewhitemales-matter movement, for whom the current age of acceleration has not been kind and for whom Trump’s rallies are their way of sticking it to the people who left them behind, particularly Republican elites. They are not interested in Trump’s details. They like his gut.

And no wonder. Those Republican elites sold their own souls and their party so many times to charlatans and plutocrats that you wonder when it’s going to show up on eBay: “For sale: The GOP soul. Almost empty.”

Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz declared that they would support the party’s nominee, even if it was Trump, right after telling voters he was a con man. No wonder so many Republicans are voting for Trump on the basis of what they think is in his guts. All the other Republican candidates have none.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 9, 2016 10:56 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly



I have just now been informed that there is data to show that primary voters who hate “niggers” love Trump. In more refined terms, looking at internet search sorted by states, the measure of each state by its level of racial animus correlates with percent of Republicans who voted for Trump so far in this primary season. Massachusetts is the exception to the rule.

The graph came from www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/03/americans-anxious-economy

How can we know how much racial animus exists if few will admit such socially unacceptable attitudes to surveys? A new proxy for an area’s racial animus from a non-survey source is the percent of Google search queries that include racially charged language. http://bit.ly/1QDAYAI

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 9, 2016 1:21 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Trump receives a tax break for people who make less than $500,000 a year. That means whatever his annual income is, it’s less than $500,000, unless he is lying to New York City.

According to city finance records, which are public records, Trump's annual property-tax bill is $175,544 for his Trump Tower penthouse on Fifth Avenue. That suggests a big slug of his income is going to pay taxes.
www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20160308/BLOGS02/160309865/how-did-trump
-qualify-for-a-middle-class-tax-break


Donald Trump sued author Timothy O'Brien for doubting Trump's wealth. In his book TrumpNation, O'Brien concluded that Trump had massively overstated his assets and understated his liabilities: he was actually worth $150-250 million, not $5-6 billion.

Trump sued and lost. http://wapo.st/1TLtMXm

Have you “always been completely truthful in your public statements about your net worth?” O'Brien's attorneys asked Donald. “I try,” was his reply. When they asked him about how he calculated his net worth, he noted that the figure “goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings.” Later he added that “even my own feelings affect my value to myself.”

Call him 2 percent Trump. His proven worth is only 2% of his claims. The other 98% of Trump is his "own feelings" of his "value to himself".

In a two-can-play-at-this-game column last year, O'Brien facetiously asserted that he, like Trump, was personally worth $10 billion. How did he make such an extraordinary figure? Among other things, O’Brien assessed his home at $6 billion, his aging Ford Escape at $3 billion, and his son’s Pokemon card collection at $100 million.
www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-21/dear-mr-trump-i-m-worth-10-b
illion-too
-

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, March 10, 2016 2:44 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


So true. Very good points you made. Trump's followers react to his emotion
with emotion and are not well-versed in the nuances of the political landscape. They are not equipped with the wherewithal to foresee what could
happen with him in charge.

Today I overheard a young man declare his support for Trump, but, when asked, he did not know what party he represented. Nor did he know Obama's
party. He claims that Trump is not racist, and that Obama has ruined the country. I asked him, how did he do that? He didn't know that either. This
is representative of his followers.


SGG


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:

When I saw Romney approach the podium, I literally cringed and then burst out laughing my ass off. The GOP is imploding and they bring out the Big Guns, Mittens to the rescue! The CEO of Implosions with his milk toast approach, meekly warning the extreme right that HE thinks The Donald is totally wrong for the position.

Donald Trump is a walking political science lesson: Most voters do not listen through their ears. They listen through their stomachs. If a leader can connect with them on a gut level, their response is: “Don’t bother me with the details. I trust your instincts.”

Trump’s rivals keep thinking that if they just point out a few more details about him, voters will drop The Donald and turn to one of them instead. But you can’t talk voters out of something that they haven’t been talked into.

Many have come to Trump out of a gut feeling that this is a guy who knows their pain, even if he doesn’t. Many of his supporters are from the #middleagewhitemales-matter movement, for whom the current age of acceleration has not been kind and for whom Trump’s rallies are their way of sticking it to the people who left them behind, particularly Republican elites. They are not interested in Trump’s details. They like his gut.

And no wonder. Those Republican elites sold their own souls and their party so many times to charlatans and plutocrats that you wonder when it’s going to show up on eBay: “For sale: The GOP soul. Almost empty.”

Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz declared that they would support the party’s nominee, even if it was Trump, right after telling voters he was a con man. No wonder so many Republicans are voting for Trump on the basis of what they think is in his guts. All the other Republican candidates have none.


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, March 10, 2016 9:13 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:

I asked him, how did he do that? He didn't know that either. This is representative of his followers.

SGG

When faced with the average American, Trump learned a trick that other politicians could practice. The details are here, where they apply to Hillary:
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/03/hillary-clintons-trust-gap-kill
ing-her-millennials


I'll quote an example.

Jorge Ramos brought up allegations by the Benghazi families that Hillary had deceived them, and asked, "Secretary Clinton, did you lie to them?"

I know what Trump would do. The only answer, even if it is a total lie, to this question is "Of course not." But Hillary started by expressing her sympathy for the Benghazi families and only then said of her accuser, "She's wrong." Maybe this seems like nitpicking, but it's not. Trump has learned this lesson very well. Unless the very first words out of her mouth are "Of course not," she's going to leave an immediate impression that she's about to tap dance around the whole thing. I like Hillary, and even I sighed when she began delivering that answer.

It doesn't ever matter if the answers are the truth. The answers only have to sound like the truth. Trump knows this.

Obviously there are Americans who learn that Trump's true wealth is only 2% of what he claims it to be. 2% is enough to afford the lease on a private Trump jet, but many Americans are genetically incapable of caring about those nasty little details. They simply and uncritically love Trump's self-confidence! http://wapo.st/1TLtMXm

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, March 10, 2016 8:58 PM

ELVISCHRIST


Trump asks his brownshirts to raise their right hands to show fealty to him:




NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, March 11, 2016 9:29 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Let's Invade Iraq All Over Again says Trump. But we'll win, this time.

At last night's debate, Hugh Hewitt asked Trump and the other candidates if they'd be willing to commit a substantial number of ground troops to fight ISIS, even though it means getting in the middle of a Sunni-Shia civil war. Here's what they said:
www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/10/the-cnn-miami-republ
ican-debate-transcript-annotated
/

CRUZ: We need to do whatever is necessary to utterly defeat ISIS....We're not using our overwhelming air power. We're not arming the Kurds. Those need to be the first steps. And then we need to put whatever ground power is needed to carry it out.

KASICH: You have to be in the air and you have to be on the ground. And you bring all the force you need. It has got to be "shock and awe" in the military-speak. Then once it gets done, and we will wipe them out, once it gets done, it settles down, we come home and let the regional powers redraw the map if that's what it takes.

TRUMP: We really have no choice....I would listen to the generals, but I'm hearing numbers of 20,000 to 30,000. We have to knock them out fast. And we have to get back home. And we have to rebuild our country which is falling apart.

There are some minor nuances here, but basically all three of them said they'd be willing to send a big ground force to Iraq. (Rubio didn't get a chance to answer the question.) I don't know if this is precisely a new position for any of them, but it's sure the most explicit they've been about it on a debate stage. In previous debates, they've mostly focused on everything except ground troops. Now, suddenly, they all sound like they're gung-ho on sending a couple of divisions over. It's 2003 all over again.

And just to make it even more like 2003, you have Kasich and Trump insisting that we could get in and get out lickety split. That's exactly what George Bush told us too, but even with 100,000 troops it turned out to be a little harder than he thought. It sure sounds like history is starting to repeat itself, and not in a good way.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, March 11, 2016 10:48 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by G:

Hopefully it's all bluster for the crowd, which is even sadder to think about (that that's what they want to hear).

You would think, if you were a Democrat, that to have a strong opinion you should know something about what you have an opinion on. But Republicans voters don't think like that, can't think like that. It is why they're what they are even when not voting. I've got a really low opinion of their ability to solve problems that are not completely routine when there is any Texas Republican voters involved, even when the problems have absolutely nothing to do with politics. Maybe in other states Republicans aren't so . . . whatever you call their mental problems.

Back in the real world, before the second Iraq War, there was plenty of info that showed this war would not go as well as the first Iraq War.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/11/the-fifty-first-state/302
612
/

And after the second Iraq War was over, there was plenty to be learned from the fighting. But did any Republicans learn? I'm talking about voters, not Republican politicians. They have amnesia. They remember nothing about what truly happened, learned nothing. All they have are heroic myths and misunderstandings. That is why their optimism for more war is unbounded. They really don't know they are incompetent.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-surge-fallacy/399344/

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, March 11, 2016 11:29 AM

REAVERFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by G:

Hopefully it's all bluster for the crowd, which is even sadder to think about (that that's what they want to hear).

You would think, if you were a Democrat, that to have a strong opinion you should know something about what you have an opinion on. But Republicans voters don't think like that, can't think like that. It is why they're what they are even when not voting. I've got a really low opinion of their ability to solve problems that are not completely routine when there is any Texas Republican voters involved, even when the problems have absolutely nothing to do with politics. Maybe in other states Republicans aren't so . . . whatever you call their mental problems.

Back in the real world, before the second Iraq War, there was plenty of info that showed this war would not go as well as the first Iraq War.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/11/the-fifty-first-state/302
612
/

And after the second Iraq War was over, there was plenty to be learned from the fighting. But did any Republicans learn? I'm talking about voters, not Republican politicians. They have amnesia. They remember nothing about what truly happened, learned nothing. All they have are heroic myths and misunderstandings. That is why their optimism for more war is unbounded. They really don't know they are incompetent.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-surge-fallacy/399344/

Yup.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, March 11, 2016 4:09 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by reaverfan:

Yup.

I saw a long article today that almost gets it right (yet not quite) about the appeal of Trump.

Millions Of Ordinary Americans Support Donald Trump. Here's Why
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/donald-trump-why-america
ns-support

Quote:

As Trump says, “we have rebuilt China and yet our country is falling apart. Our infrastructure is falling apart … Our airports are, like, Third World.”
The Chinese are NOT stopping the USA from rebuilding airports and water pipes to homes. The USA simply does not want to pay Trump’s working-class supporters to rebuild. So the work does not get done and Trump supporters don’t get paid. Trump won’t change that because Americans still don’t want to pay to rebuild their airports, no matter who is President.
Quote:

Tom Lewandowski, the president of the Northeast Indiana Central Labor Council in Fort Wayne, puts it even more bluntly when I asked him about working-class Trump fans. “These people aren’t racist, not any more than anybody else is,” he says of Trump supporters he knows. “When Trump talks about trade, we think about the Clinton administration, first with Nafta and then with {Permanent Normal Trade Relations} China, and here in Northeast Indiana, we hemorrhaged jobs.”

“They look at that, and here’s Trump talking about trade, in a ham-handed way, but at least he’s representing emotionally. We’ve had all the political establishment standing behind every trade deal, and we endorsed some of these people, and then we’ve had to fight them to get them to represent us.”


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, March 12, 2016 8:24 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


If not international trade agreements, then robots will be the issue for future Trump-like candidates.

After years of hearing about the coming robot boom, most Americans believe the threat of automation in the workforce is real. But when it comes to their own jobs? Oh, those are definitely safe.

That's the takeaway from a report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center on the public's views about the future of workforce automation. It surveyed 2,000 adults and found that 65 percent expect that 50 years from now, robots and computers will do much of the work that's currently done by humans.

But when it comes to their own positions, they're not so worried. A much larger share -- 80 percent -- expect their occupations to exist five decades from now. "There’s a real disconnect between what people think will happen in the abstract and the extent to which they think it will impact them," says Aaron Smith, Pew's associate director of research.

Is it irrational? Narcissistic? Willful ignorance? The report doesn't say why the disconnect exists.

www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2016/03/10/most-americans
-think-robots-are-going-to-steal-jobs-just-not-theirs
/

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, March 12, 2016 10:08 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

The Chinese are NOT stopping the USA from rebuilding airports and water pipes to homes. The USA simply does not want to pay Trump’s working-class supporters to rebuild. So the work does not get done and Trump supporters don’t get paid. Trump won’t change that because Americans still don’t want to pay to rebuild their airports, no matter who is President.
That's not quite true.

Americans don't want to pay to rebuild their airports AND support a war-time economy which sucks up half of the Federal budget AND keep our oligarchs happy and well-fed in their profiteering. (Yanno, if you think about it, between the war economy and the financialized profits, probably half of our economy gets sucked into the void.)

Unfortunately, Americans have been trained into knee-jerk support of every pointless war that we've ever waged, and into adoration of every super-wealthy leech. So as far as making that choice ... between replacing the lead pipes in Flint and every other lead-pipe city in the USA - and building a crap-ton of F-35s that we don't need ... well, they never get around to choosing.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, March 12, 2016 10:11 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I wish there was a less-specific thread here about Trump.

Yanno, it occurred to me .... yes, I know that people are voting for Trump because they're totally dissatisfied with "business as usual" and that being part of DC is toxic ... and that "establishment" criticism is like fertilizer ... but it finally occurred to me that the Trump vote is like checking the box that says "none of the above".

If we had a "none of the above" option on our ballots which meant a whole election do-over, I suspect "none of the above" would win.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, March 12, 2016 11:31 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

That's not quite true.

Americans don't want to pay to rebuild their airports AND support a war-time economy which sucks up half of the Federal budget AND keep our oligarchs happy and well-fed in their profiteering. (Yanno, if you think about it, between the war economy and the financialized profits, probably half of our economy gets sucked into the void.)

Unfortunately, Americans have been trained into knee-jerk support of every pointless war that we've ever waged, and into adoration of every super-wealthy leech. So as far as making that choice ... between replacing the lead pipes in Flint and every other lead-pipe city in the USA - and building a crap-ton of F-35s that we don't need ... well, they never get around to choosing.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

Trump is spending a lot of time at airports, lately. That is probably why he mentioned airports needing upgrades.

I am sorry and shocked, but I gotta say that Trump is right and you’re wrong. When I look up the numbers, there is money to upgrade Trump’s airports with VIP lounges and gilded passenger concourses. And it is not money being spent on the military.

The military budget is $803 billions. Round it up to $900 billion to include A-bombs. Nobody knows what is spent on nukes because it is a secret that the US doesn’t want to share with the Russians.

The GNP is $18,264 billions.

That makes the military budget less than 5% of GNP. Most of the military is a waste, but it still is only 5%. Wiki says it is 3.5%. I think wiki missed some spending. US is high compared to other countries, but not much higher.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditur
es


That other 95% is not being spent much smarter. There is money for Trump’s new airports, if only America was willing to spend it on better paying jobs for underemployed working-class Americans -- the Trump supporters.

Where did I get these numbers?
Quote:

The USA Gross National Product is 18,263.8 Billions of Dollars. A great deal could be done with that. Every year. https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GNP

The omnibus appropriations deal reached by congressional leaders late Tuesday night will provide $573 billion for defense operations in fiscal 2016, another $163 billion for Department of Veterans Affairs programs and about nine months of budget stability for federal agencies that have faced various looming shutdown threats since September.
www.militarytimes.com/story/military/2015/12/16/budget-omnibus-fy16-de
fense-veterans-affairs-pentagon/77416466
/

The black ops budget is $66.8 billion.
http://fas.org/irp/budget/

. . . the data in the chart above represents only a fraction of the full costs of maintaining the nuclear deterrent. Other studies estimate that those costs may total $50 billion or more per year. [2] Additionally, this fact sheet includes only definable costs, and does not include many of the support costs associated with command, control, communications, and intelligence; missile defense; environmental management; decommissioning costs; and other support missions that cannot be explained without their link to nuclear deterrence. Combined, these are estimated to account for tens of billions of dollars more per year. [3]
www.nti.org/analysis/articles/us-nuclear-weapons-budget-overview/


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, March 12, 2016 11:50 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I wasn't limiting myself to military spending. The drag that financial profiteering ... and profiteering in general ... puts on the economy is staggering.

I can recap for you how the capitalists moved production to low-wage nations overseas, seeking higher profits. And how that stagnated American wage growth and stifled consumption. And how that was "made up" by families going into greater debt... serviced, of course, by the ever-helpful financial sector which was backed by their high-rolling investment firms. And how these debts simply created bubbles which, when popped, led to financial and economic misery.

And how the debts that we don't see, made to banks and other financial institutions to support their quest for profits through derivatives, is a multiple of the world's GDP, and can never be supported.

I can do all of that but I think you already know that.

The economy can't possibly support all of that, and infrastructural spending at the same time. The American family is getting pick-pocketed endlessly.



--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, March 13, 2016 3:55 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


I recognize Trump in the 1995 book The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy. Trump is revolting.
www.amazon.com/The-Revolt-Elites-Betrayal-Democracy/dp/0393313719

The book’s intro mentions “the chasm that divides the privileged classes from the rest of the nation.”

There has always been a privileged class, even in America, but it has never been so dangerously isolated from its surroundings. In the nineteenth century wealthy families were typically settled, often for several generations, in a given locale. In a nation of wanderers their stability of residence provided a certain continuity. Old families were recognizable as such, especially in the older seaboard cities, only because, resisting the migratory habit, they put down roots. Their insistence on the sanctity of private property was qualified by the principle that property rights were neither absolute nor unconditional. Wealth was understood to carry civic obligations. Libraries, museums, parks, orchestras, universities, hospitals, and other civic amenities stood as so many monuments to upper-class munificence.

No doubt this generosity had a selfish side: It advertised the baronial status of the rich, attracted new industries, and helped to promote the home city against its rivals. Civic boosterism amounted to good business in an age of intense competition among cities, each aspiring to preeminence. What mattered, however, was that philanthropy implicated elites in the lives of their neighbors and in those of generations to come. The temptation to withdraw into an exclusive world of their own was countered by a lingering awareness, which in some circles survived even the riotous self-indulgence of the Gilded Age, that “all have derived benefits from their ancestors,” as Horace Mann put it in 1846, and that therefore, “all are bound, as by an oath, to transmit those benefits, even in an improved condition, to posterity.” Only an “isolated, solitary being, . . . having no relations to a community around him,” could subscribe to the “arrogant doctrine of absolute ownership,” according to Mann, who spoke not only for himself but for a considerable body of opinion in the older cities, in much of New England, and in New England’s cultural dependencies in the Old Northwest.

Thanks to the decline of old money and the old-money ethic of civic responsibility, local and regional loyalties are sadly attenuated today. The mobility of capital and the emergence of a global market contribute to the same effect. The new elites, which include not only corporate managers but all those professions that produce and manipulate information—the lifeblood of the global market—are far more cosmopolitan, or at least more restless and migratory, than their predecessors. Advancement in business and the professions, these days, requires a willingness to follow the siren call of opportunity wherever it leads. Those who stay at home forfeit the chance of upward mobility. Success has never been so closely associated with mobility, a concept that figured only marginally in the nineteenth-century definition of opportunity (chapter 3, “Opportunity in the Promised Land”). Its ascendancy in the twentieth century is itself an important indication of the erosion of the democratic ideal, which no longer envisions a rough equality of condition but merely the selective promotion of non-elites into the professional-managerial class.

Ambitious people understand, then, that a migratory way of life is the price of getting ahead. It is a price they gladly pay, since they associate the idea of home with intrusive relatives and neighbors, small-minded gossip, and hidebound conventions. The new elites are in revolt against “Middle America,” as they imagine it: a nation technologically backward, politically reactionary, repressive in its sexual morality, middlebrow in its tastes, smug and complacent, dull and dowdy. Those who covet membership in the new aristocracy of brains tend to congregate on the coasts, turning their back on the heartland and cultivating ties with the international market in fast-moving money, glamour, fashion, and popular culture. It is a question whether they think of themselves as Americans at all. Patriotism, certainly, does not rank very high in their hierarchy of virtues. “Multiculturalism,” on the other hand, suits them to perfection, conjuring up the agreeable image of a global bazaar in which exotic cuisines, exotic styles of dress, exotic music, exotic tribal customs can be savored indiscriminately, with no questions asked and no commitments required. The new elites are at home only in transit, on route to a high-level conference, to the grand opening of a new franchise, to an international film festival, or to an undiscovered resort. Theirs is essentially a tourist’s view of the world—not a perspective likely to encourage a passionate devotion to democracy.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, March 13, 2016 11:02 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


I saw a news article:

Trump University’s ex-students give enterprise a failing grade
www.sfchronicle.com/education/article/Trump-University-s-ex-students-g
ive-enterprise-6881068.php


Trump's supporters will have a rude awakening once Trump is President. But it will be too late to get their money back. Take George Hanus for example:
Quote:

Trump University spelled hope in 2008 for George Hanus of Fremont, whose startup information technology business was crumbling under the weight of the sinking economy.

In his late 40s, Hanus felt adrift and needed a plan. That’s when he heard a radio ad announcing that experts handpicked by Donald Trump were coming to Oakland to teach the billionaire real-estate magnate’s best trade secrets.

“I was very excited,” said Hanus, 56, recalling the visions of prosperity that danced through his head. He’d been dazzled by Trump’s speech a year earlier at Moscone Center in San Francisco, and now there was a chance to emulate the master. “I wanted to learn more.”

But instead of making money in real estate, Hanus said, he drained his retirement savings of $13,000 at the urging of Trump University representatives and took a tax hit of nearly $5,000. What’s more, he said, the mentors who were supposed to guide students through the early stages of their new career wouldn’t return his calls.

“I expected to make enough to pay back my IRA and to make a better living,” Hanus recalled. “But I made zero. I felt deceived and rotten about the whole thing. My girlfriend still wants to kill me.”

Hanus isn’t alone.



NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, March 13, 2016 11:34 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Who is revolting against who?

In your description of the roving internationalists, I'm not seeing anything that distinguished Trump from any other internationalist- Jamie Dimon (JPM Chase), Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs), George Soros, Elon Musk, Christine LaGarde (IMF)- or any other number of the ultrawealthy who've made their billions in the tradespace between nations.

What this book describes is the process of internationalization- it differentiates between those business and sectors whose labor and market are primarily at home (which used to be most businesses until the invention of the cargo container and DVD) and those which are primarily between nations (like Apple which is made in China and sold everywhere)

I actually listened to a entire speech by Donald Trump yesterday to see what the fuss was all about. I heard some parts that were discomfiting (he approves of waterboarding our enemies) but I understand the appeal of Donald Trump to the masses, AND why TPTB are panicking in their effort to derail him.

Did you know that there was a meeting in Georgia by some Republicans in how to stop him?

Quote:

Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, Napster creator and Facebook investor Sean Parker, and Tesla Motors and SpaceX honcho Elon Musk all attended. So did Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), political guru Karl Rove, House Speaker Paul Ryan, GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Ben Sasse (Neb.), who recently made news by saying he "cannot support Donald Trump."

Along with Ryan, the House was represented by Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (Mich.), Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas) and almost-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), sources said, along with leadership figure Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.), Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Texas) and Diane Black (Tenn.).

Philip Anschutz, the billionaire GOP donor whose company owns a stake in Sea Island, was also there, along with Democratic Rep. John Delaney, who represents Maryland. Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, was there, too, a Times spokeswoman confirmed.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aei-world-forum-donald-trump_us_56
ddbd38e4b0ffe6f8ea125d


It's simple, really. Most central committee politicians, like Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush/Marco Rubio rub elbows with internationalists, and are neocons. They party with big-name Wall Streeters and top CEOs who believe in the worldwide spread of their business interests. And those CEOs have no interest in America whatsoever .... if they did, they would never offshore their businesses. Now, some of them believe in war and some of them believe in business (and some of them believe that war IS business) but they all think that the world should be their chessboard:

Manufacturers want to manufacture in China and sell to India, and when China gets too expensive they want to manufacture in Vietnam and sell to China.

Monsanto wants its GMO patents recognized everywhere .... as does every pharma firm HQd in the USA/Pacific, even if its programs are enforced by the native military.

Banks want to loan in every nation, and have a rock-solid guarantee that they'll get their value back, even if its guaranteed by the USA military.

Likewise software firms like Microsoft and entertainment companies want their copyrights protected worldwide.

Many of them have an interest in illegal labor - it doesn't matter if it's illegal Hondurans into the USA or illegal N Koreans into China- ALL illegal labor weakens the wage structure everywhere. Or cheap imported labor, like the visa program that the USA has going for foreign software engineers so they can work cheap for Microsoft.

Every international company wants to be able to sell its products in an evenly (un)regulated market, so that Philip Morris doesn't have to worry about plain-wrapping laws in Australia or per-pack tax in California.

It would be so much better (for them) to produce in a nations whose labor laws and environmental laws are just like every other nations' (i.e weak).

And if there's a dispute, it would be so much better to resolve that dispute with some international company-friendly arbitration board then to have to schlep all over the world to go to the right venue and sit before a judge who may find against you.

--------

In other words: They all have an interest in "free trade" deals.

That's one thing that Trump said, over and over, that was very popular with the crowd. And that's one thing that scares the shit out of TPTB, because that's one thing that Trump can do, as President: He can veto any trade deal that comes across his desk.

Presidents have huge power in international affairs. They make deals, they sign agreements (like Iran) and make war (even tho they're not supposed to) and it doesn't matter fuck-all what "the people" or even "what Congress" thinks about it.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, March 13, 2016 11:52 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


As an aside, I saw the speech that Trump gave right after he canceled the rally in Chicago. Trump's liberal and intl business detractors are now moving towards the "dirty tricks" department.

BTW, did you know that according to Zerohedge, Moveon.org is funded by George Soros? It kind of makes sense, because Clinton was all for NAFTA, and also for taking apart Yugoslavia (which was one of Soros' wet dreams) and Moveon was formed to tell retrograde Republicans to "move on" past Monica Lewinsky. Anyway, according to ZH

Quote:

Ilya Sheyman, a failed Illinois contender for Congress and the executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action, has taken credit for the violence at a cancelled Trump event last night in Chicago.
He promised similar violence and disruption will occur at future Trump political events leading up to the election.

“Mr. Trump and the Republican leaders who support him and his hate-filled rhetoric should be on notice after tonight’s events,” on the George Soros funded MoveOn web page. “To all of those who took to the streets of Chicago, we say thank you for standing up and saying enough is enough. To Donald Trump, and the GOP, we say, welcome to the general election.”

The violent demonstration in Chicago on Friday may represent a precursor to the sort of activity the organization will engage in as it tries to “shut down” its political enemies and elect either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

On Friday night many of the protesters shouted “Bernie!” and held placards announcing their support for the socialist Democrat.

The group [Moveon - SIGNY] acts as a front for wealthy Democrats. It was founded with the help of the financier George Soros who donated $1.46 million to get the organization rolling. Linda Pritzker of the Hyatt hotel family gave the group a $4 million donation.

As an aside Penny Pritzker is Obama's Scy Commerce.


--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, March 13, 2016 2:27 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Who is revolting against who?

In your description of the roving internationalists, I'm not seeing anything that distinguished Trump from any other internationalist- Jamie Dimon (JPM Chase), Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs), George Soros, Elon Musk, Christine LaGarde (IMF)- or any other number of the ultrawealthy who've made their billions in the tradespace between nations.

Once it was the “revolt of the masses” that was held to threaten social order and the civilizing traditions of Western culture. In our time, however, the chief threat seems to come from those at the top of the social hierarchy, not the masses.

Trump is the perfect example. For one, he looted money from students of Trump University. His favorite excuse was that any students who did not benefit from Trump U were natural born losers. It wasn’t Trump’s fault that losers could not take advantage of his huge real estate wisdom. They are just losers and he is giving none of their money back.
www.sfchronicle.com/education/article/Trump-University-s-ex-students-g
ive-enterprise-6881068.php


The masses (enthusiastic for now with Trump’s revolution) will be disappointed by their man when all he really does is cut his own taxes. Check Trump’s tax plan:
www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/2000560-an-analysis-of-donald-trum
ps-tax-plan.pdf


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

YOUR OPTIONS

NEW POSTS TODAY

USERPOST DATE

OTHER TOPICS

DISCUSSIONS
In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
Tue, April 23, 2024 23:33 - 3551 posts
Scientific American Claims It Is "Misinformation" That There Are Just Two Sexes
Tue, April 23, 2024 22:56 - 1 posts
Case against Sidney Powell, 2020 case lawyer, is dismissed
Tue, April 23, 2024 22:51 - 10 posts
Grifter Donald Trump Has Been Indicted And Yes Arrested; Four Times Now And Counting. Hey Jack, I Was Right
Tue, April 23, 2024 20:58 - 803 posts
Slate: I Changed My Mind About Kids and Phones. I Hope Everyone Else Does, Too.
Tue, April 23, 2024 19:38 - 2 posts
No Thread On Topic, More Than 17 Days After Hamas Terrorists Invade, Slaughter Innocent Israelis?
Tue, April 23, 2024 19:19 - 26 posts
Pardon Me? Michael Avenatti Flips, Willing To Testify On Trump's Behalf
Tue, April 23, 2024 19:01 - 9 posts
Elections; 2024
Tue, April 23, 2024 15:31 - 2295 posts
Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
Tue, April 23, 2024 12:42 - 6291 posts
FACTS
Mon, April 22, 2024 20:10 - 552 posts
Russian losses in Ukraine
Mon, April 22, 2024 17:47 - 1010 posts
I agree with everything you said, but don't tell anyone I said that
Mon, April 22, 2024 16:15 - 16 posts

FFF.NET SOCIAL