the Trump Phenomenon

[spence]

So I'm watching the republican front-runners on the stump this week. Primary campaign issues appear to be bottled water, spray tans, pathological dishonesty and hand size.

WTF is wrong with the GOP?

[buckman]

Originally Posted by spence

So I'm watching the republican front-runners on the stump this week. Primary campaign issues appear to be bottled water, spray tans, pathological dishonesty and hand size.

WTF is wrong with the GOP?

I suppose it doesn't compare to non stop pandering for the black vote .
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by buckman

I suppose it doesn't compare to non stop pandering for the black vote .
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Spence accidentally stumbled into one truth, that teh debates aren't about ideas, or why one person has a better vision than the other. Until Super Tuesday, it's desperation tactics to take Trump down.

We're probably on the verge of nominating a punch line instead of a real candidate.

Spence woul dhave us believe that the Democrats are on the verge of nominating someone as competent as Eisenhower. Not exactly true. By his own admission, she has trouble remembering whether she was shot at, or whether she casually worked a rope line, shaking hands and posing for the camera.

Our choices...(1) An amoral, serial liar, who was a disaster as Secstate (inherited a stable Iraq, left office with Iraq ablaze), with zero integrity..or (2) a narcisstic, flip-flopping, horse's ass of a reality show host with zero integrity. What a choice. At a time when we are on the edge of an abyss.

What the hell is wrong with all of us? How can we not demand more?

[PaulS]

Originally Posted by buckman

I suppose it doesn't compare to non stop pandering for the black vote .
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

The Repub. appeal so little to blacks anything that is said about them is considering "pandering"

[buckman]

Originally Posted by PaulS

The Repub. appeal so little to blacks anything that is said about them is considering "pandering"

Tell me what the Democrats do for Black people.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by buckman

Tell me what the Democrats do for Black people.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

They cripple them for life, a form of cultural genocide, by destroying their desire to succeed, and getting them addicted to welfare. I htink it was Lyndon Johnson who said "if we give these 'people' (he used the n-word) some free stuff, they'll vote for us for a hundred years. "

I cannot help but wonder if Democrats do this deliberately. The evidence of cultural destruction is so overwhelming, I don't see how any well-meaning person could fail to acknowledge it, unless the cultural destruction is actually the goal.

[PaulS]

Originally Posted by buckman

Tell me what the Democrats do for Black people.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

They show some compassion for those that need a helping hand.

How is that?

What do Repub. do for Black people?

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by PaulS

They show some compassion for those that need a helping hand.

How is that?

What do Repub. do for Black people?

Let's see...they ended slavery...then, they ended segregation...we would prefer to see black babies being born to seeing them slaughtered by the thousands...today, they want to help black people improve themselves, rather than expecting them to merely postpone death while living on $500 a month.

Here's what I don't get. Bill Clinton is a hero to blacks. Am I the only one who remembers what he actually did? He kicked millions of them off welfare. They didn't starve, they went back to work. Which, if you are able to work, is what you need.

Paul, it looks to me, that what the Dems do, is pat blacks on the head (no matter what they do) and say "there, there, it's not your fault".

Republicans (as a group) have no problem helping blacks. The difference, is that conservatives seem to get the idea, that sometimes saying "no" is the best answer, and that tough love is still love.

Oh, the other thing that Dems do, is (1) ruin urban schools, and then (2) deny black parents the ability to choose to send their kids to schools that actually work.

Which is funny, because don't liberals pride themselves as being "pro-choice"? I'm fairly certain I heard that somewhere. Apparently, not when it comes to being able to choose a better school for their kids.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by PaulS

They show some compassion for those that need a helping hand.

How is that?

What do Repub. do for Black people?

And if you think your side has a monopoly on that compassion, please look up a study called "Who Really Cares", which showed that conservatives are actually slightly more charitable than liberals, despite earning less money on average. Interesting. If you don't believe me, perhaps you'll believe the New York Times, not always known for having a conservative bias...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/op...stof.html?_r=0

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by PaulS

They show some compassion for those that need a helping hand.

How is that?

What do Repub. do for Black people?

For government, law, to be dispensed equally, it must be dispassionate. Compassion is a fellow feeling of people for other people. Dispassionate government is not "other" in relation to a free people. It is, at least it's supposed to be in our system, The People. The government doing things for people is people doing it for themselves. That is not compassion. That is self-reliance.

True compassion, person to person, is not a guaranteed, permanent relationship. True compassion does not reduce the beneficiary to dependence.

When government acts, as it does in dictatorial or tyrannical systems, as a separate person in relation to other persons (outside the government), those other persons are no longer beneficiaries of the kindness of other persons, on whom they cannot permanently depend. Instead, they are reduced to dependents. And when government has the power to reduce the people to the status of dependents, it derives and maintains its power as a dictator or as a ruling class of people who dole out favors (contrived compassion) to those who choose to depend on it and withholds favors from those who oppose it.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

So I'm watching the republican front-runners on the stump this week. Primary campaign issues appear to be bottled water, spray tans, pathological dishonesty and hand size.

WTF is wrong with the GOP?

Maybe you should start by figuring out what is wrong with your "perspective."

[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Maybe you should start by figuring out what is wrong with your "perspective."

Why do you assume my perspective is wrong?

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

Why do you assume my perspective is wrong?

Perhaps because you can't do something as morally obvious, as admitting that Hilary lies.

Spence, she flip-flopped many times on the cause of the Benghazi attack. You chalk it all up to fog of war, and conflicting reports. That may be. But boy, isn't it interesting that in every private conversation, she seemed to admit it was terrorism, and in every public statement, she relied on the video protest theory (and therefore, the attack was spontaneous and not in any way her fault).

Now, it's possible, that every time she was about to have a private conversation, she got a report saying that it was terrorism. And then just before each scheduled public statement, those same intelligence folks said to her "look, we know we just told you it was terrorism, but forget that, now we believe it was a video protest, so we want you to go with that".

That's certainly possible. But I asked you several times for some kind of timeline (who briefed her, and when) to support that notion. And you provided zip. So it appears you are accepting her explanation without any skepticism.

How fortunate for her, that every time the intelligence community told her what the cause was, it worked out in such a way that every time she made a public statement, she was reporting that she was not to blame.

We should all be so lucky.

[spence]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Spence, she flip-flopped many times on the cause of the Benghazi attack. You chalk it all up to fog of war, and conflicting reports. That may be. But boy, isn't it interesting that in every private conversation, she seemed to admit it was terrorism, and in every public statement, she relied on the video protest theory (and therefore, the attack was spontaneous and not in any way her fault).

You sure throw out a lot of "every" for someone who can't even piece together a basic timeline on their own.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

You sure throw out a lot of "every" for someone who can't even piece together a basic timeline on their own.

That's the best you can respond with?

You were the one, not me, who said that her flip-flopping was not self-serving deceit, but rather, her innocently responding to conflicting intelligence. Do you deny saying that?

Sure I can. In a private call to Chelsea, and in a private call to the leader of Egypt, she said it was terrorism. In between, and certainly afte, she (and her staff) said it was a video protest.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

Why do you assume my perspective is wrong?

Quote Spence: "So I'm watching the republican front-runners on the stump this week. Primary campaign issues appear to be bottled water, spray tans, pathological dishonesty and hand size.

WTF is wrong with the GOP?" End quote.

There are more important "issues" being addressed in the Repub. primary than you portray. But reducing the campaign to your parody dismisses them to your version of nonsense.

Jim says you're better than that. What's wrong with you?

[PaulS]

Trump did disavow Duke's support after Rubio laid into him.

I'm suprised he knew nothing about "David Duke or white supremacy or white supremacists"

LEESBURG, Va. — Republican front-runner Donald Trump drew sharp criticism from his rivals in both parties Sunday for refusing to denounce an implicit endorsement from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, raising the specter of racism as the presidential campaign hits the South.

Trump was asked on CNN's "State of the Union" whether he rejected support from the former KKK Grand Dragon and other white supremacists after Duke told his radio followers this week that a vote against Trump was equivalent to "treason to your heritage."

"Well, just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke. OK?" Trump said. "I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists."

Trump's comments came the same day he retweeted a quote from Benito Mussolini, the 20th century fascist dictator of Italy. And in a boost for his campaign in the South, he scored the endorsement of Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, one of the most strident opponents of immigration reform on Capitol Hill.

But it was Trump's statements about Duke that sparked a wave of censures with just two days to go before 11 states hold GOP primaries involving about a quarter of the party's total nominating delegate count. Several states in the South, a region with a fraught racial history, are among those voting in the Super Tuesday contests.

Marco Rubio quickly pounced on Trump's comments, saying the GOP "cannot be a party who refuses to condemn white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan."

"Not only is that wrong, it makes him unelectable," Rubio told thousands of supporters gathered in Leesburg, Virginia. "How are we going to grow the party if we nominate someone who doesn't repudiate the Ku Klux Klan?"

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called Trump's comments "Really sad."

"You're better than this," Cruz wrote on Twitter. "We should all agree, racism is wrong, KKK is abhorrent."

Trump has won three of four early voting states, roiling a party divided over the prospect of the brash billionaire becoming its nominee. Late Sunday, Nebraska's Ben Sasse became the first sitting Republican senator to say explicitly that he would not back Trump if he does win the nomination.

"If Trump becomes the Republican nominee my expectation is that I'll look for some 3rd candidate — a conservative option, a constitutionalist," Sasse wrote on Twitter.

With a strong showing on Super Tuesday, Trump could begin to pull away from his rivals in the all-important delegate count.

In the Southern states that vote Tuesday, Republican candidates will face an electorate that is overwhelmingly white. In South Carolina, the only Southern state to have voted so far, 96 percent of the GOP primary electorate was white, while 6 in 10 voters in the Democratic race were black.

While the South was once a Democratic stronghold, many white conservatives who backed the party started moving toward the GOP during the civil rights movement. Trump has borrowed from the rhetoric former President Richard Nixon used during that time to appeal to working-class white voters, describing his campaign has a movement of the "silent majority."

Trump holds commanding leads across the South, with the exception of Cruz's home state of Texas, a dynamic that puts tremendous pressure on Rubio and Cruz as they try to outlast each other and derail the real estate mogul.

Trump was asked Friday by journalists how he felt about Duke's support. He said he didn't know anything about it and curtly said: "All right, I disavow, ok?"

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by PaulS

Trump did disavow Duke's support after Rubio laid into him.

I'm suprised he knew nothing about "David Duke or white supremacy or white supremacists"

Should "white supremacists" or black racists not be allowed to vote? Why should a candidate have to disavow a vote? It's going to count in the tally whether its disavowed or not. And candidates who win election don't have to, nor could they, make into law every desire of all who voted for them.

The guilt by association thing didn't sway Democrats from voting for Obama even though he was closely associated with radical anti-American, Marxist/communist people. He was actually more directly associated with those people than Trump is with so-called white supremacists.


In the Southern states that vote Tuesday, Republican candidates will face an electorate that is overwhelmingly white. In South Carolina, the only Southern state to have voted so far, 96 percent of the GOP primary electorate was white, while 6 in 10 voters in the Democratic race were black.

While the South was once a Democratic stronghold, many white conservatives who backed the party started moving toward the GOP during the civil rights movement. Trump has borrowed from the rhetoric former President Richard Nixon used during that time to appeal to working-class white voters, describing his campaign has a movement of the "silent majority."

The irony in the notion that the "Southern Strategy" was racist is that the South became less racist as the South became More Republican and less Democrat.

Trump was asked Friday by journalists how he felt about Duke's support. He said he didn't know anything about it and curtly said: "All right, I disavow, ok?"

There you have it. He disavowed Duke's support. But Duke's vote will count anyway. Happy now.