trump is serious!!!!!

[Econoline]

Little Miss Flint meeting Donald Trump is all of us watching this election unfold

[RayThom]

There must be something in the water.

[Lord Jim]

[Lord Jim]

Hopefully we'll start seeing more of this sort of thing again:

Trump: Robert Gates 'probably has a problem that we don’t know about'

Donald Trump carried his attacks on former Defense Secretary Robert Gates from Twitter to a rally in Colorado Springs Saturday night, calling Gates a "nasty guy."

“We had a clown today, an absolute clown. Robert Gates, he’s supposed to be an expert, he’s been there forever," Trump said.

"Never met the guy, never saw him. I saw him on television, didn’t like him. The end result is look where we are. He’s a mess, OK? He’s a mess, so he goes out and he says negative things about me. I never met him, I never talked to him. Believe me, I am so much better at what he’s doing than he is, you won’t even believe it."

Trump hit Gates for criticizing presidents George W. Bush and Obama.

"He’s a nasty guy, probably has a problem that we don’t know about," he said.

Gates on Friday criticized both Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on military issues, writing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that “neither candidate has seriously addressed how he or she thinks about the military or the use of force.”

Gates specifically ripped Trump for “naive and irresponsible” expressions of admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and for a Middle East plan he called a “dangerous approach oblivious to the reality” of the region. Trump fired back on Twitter, calling Gates "dopey."

Trump said at the rally that Gates's leadership — he was in office from 2006 to 2011 — left the world worse off and cost trillions of dollars and many lives.

"We're dealing with incompetent people, we're dealing with stupid people, we're dealing with people like Robert Gates that don’t have a clue and then when they leave office, they criticize everybody," Trump said. "I don’t like critics, I don't like critics, I like the people that get it done and get it done right."

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/pre ... at-we-dont

This will of course not bother the hardcore, "we'd support you if you shot somebody in the street" Trump cult members, but it's the kind of thing that will help turn off that multitude of undecided voters who are trying to chose between their deep distaste for Hillary Clinton and their concern that Trump is not basically fit for the job...

ETA:

More of his punching down thin skinned pettiness:

Donald Trump, Interrupted. He Calls Flint Pastor Who Cut In ‘a Nervous Mess.’

Donald J. Trump said on Thursday that the pastor who interrupted his remarks at an African-American church in Flint, Mich., was “a nervous mess” when she introduced him and that he thought “something was up” with her.

During his visit to Bethel United Methodist Church on Wednesday, Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, started to assail his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, for being a failure. As he spoke, the Rev. Faith Green Timmons came over to him and said, “Mr. Trump, I invited you here to thank us,” and added, “not make a political speech.”

Mr. Trump addressed the awkward exchange in an interview on Fox News on Thursday, suggesting that Pastor Timmons had a political agenda.

“Everyone plays their games, it doesn’t bother me,” Mr. Trump said, claiming Pastor Timmons was shaking when she came up to him.

He added: “She was so nervous, she was like a nervous mess. I figured something was up.”

Some conservatives defended Mr. Trump on Thursday, pointing to a Facebook post in which she wrote that the visit was an opportunity to educate Republican candidate as evidence that she was planning to embarrass him. While that post does not appear on her Facebook page, Pastor Timmons did address the controversy there on Wednesday night.

“Had he stuck to what his camp claimed he came to do, we would not have had a problem!” she wrote.

Mr. Trump has shown more discipline on the campaign trail in recent weeks, but his criticism of the pastor demonstrated that he is still willing to push back against perceived slights. Mr. Trump also allowed himself to belittle Mrs. Clinton’s recent illness at a rally on Wednesday night, suggesting that she could not stand for such an event and that she was probably “lying in bed.”

After the interruption at the church, Mr. Trump went on to discuss the economic situation in Flint. He said on Thursday that most of the people who attended the event at the church welcomed him warmly.

“The audience was saying ‘let him speak, let him speak,’ ” Mr. Trump said. “The audience was so great.”

But a pool reporter who was traveling Mr. Trump disputed his account, describing a scene where several members of the audience actually heckled Mr. Trump and questioned him about reports that he had discriminated against black people as a landlord. According to the pool report, Pastor Timmons defended Mr. Trump and told the crowd that he was “a guest of my church and you will defend him.”

Mrs. Clinton, in North Carolina on Thursday, lamented Mr. Trump’s attack on Pastor Timmons, saying it was unwarranted.

“He called her a nervous mess,” Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference. “That’s not only insulting, it’s dead wrong.”

She added: “She’s a rock for her community in trying times. She deserves better, and Flint deserves better — in fact, so does America.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/us/po ... .html?_r=0


Keep 'em coming Donald

[Econoline]

Helmsman Sulu has taken command of the USS Internet...again!

[wesw]

seems as if the opposition here is becoming disheartened....

...except for jim.

please keep attacking the voters....

don t stop now, defeat is in your grasp....

seize the day!!!!

we welcome your hatred!!!!

[Burning Petard]

Hatred? Trump supporters have my pity. My brother has a wife who is a long-time Hillary hater dating back to Bill's first prexy campaign. I know political haters and I see very few on this board. WESW, your last post is typical of the remarks by many, who seem to advocate that that hate is the only motivation for opposing their candidate, who ever it might be. In my mind, I put you in Hillary's second basket.

I agree with Bill Clinton's observation on the Daily Show last week, that most Americans have moved beyond the usual bigotry of race, or ethnicity or religion, but we have developed a new one--intolerance for opinions that are different from our own.

The FiveThirtyEight poll-watcher now has Hillary 3-2 odds, winning by 30 electoral votes. That has not changed significantly for more than a week, in a week where the Donald was working actively with lots of media attention while the Dem campaign seemed to be floundering.

The 'national polls' that show X percent across the nation favoring one or the other candidate are darn near meaningless, outside the talking heads of the media. If the winner in Florida, or Ohio or Pennsylvania wins 99.9999999 percent of the vote in that state, or only wins by one single, greatly contested and recounted and court appealed vote, the total electoral vote for the winner in that state is exactly the same.

snailgate

[Econoline]

[Gob]

An image of US presidential candidate Donald Trump has been installed in a pub urinal as "a bit of fun".
The Raglan Road pub in Nottingham created the unusual tribute to the billionaire business mogul in its men's toilets.
Manager Ruth Beraki said it was the owner's idea but insisted it was not meant to be a political statement.
"We are not trying to influence people. It is only meant to be a bit of fun," she said.

[Burning Petard]

WHOA ! !

FiveThirtyEight now has Hillary winning by only 17 electoral votes. She better look very good indeed at The Debates.

snailgate

[RayThom]

... An image of US presidential candidate Donald Trump has been installed in a pub urinal as "a bit of fun"..."

When it comes to peeing on Drumpf I prefer this urinal:

[wesw]

snailgate,

I disagree with much of what you say, but I will defend, to the death, your right to say it.

wes

[Bicycle Bill]

Trump's Kid Posts "Poisoned Skittles®" Tweet
https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/stat ... wsrc%5Etfw


Well, here's my answer ... as put into words by Eli Bosnick on his Facebook page:

"If I gave you a bowl of skittles and three of them were poison would you still eat them?"
"Are the other skittles human lives?"
"What?"
"Like, is there a good chance — a really good chance — I would be saving someone from a war zone and probably their life if I ate a skittle?"
"Well, sure.  But the point -"
"I would eat the skittles."
"OK.  Well, the point is ..."
"I would GORGE myself on skittles.  I would eat every single fucking skittle I could find.  I would STUFF myself with skittles.  And when I found the poison skittle and died I would make sure to leave behind a legacy of children and of friends who also ate skittle after skittle until there were no skittles to be eaten.  And each person who found the poison skittle we would weep for.  We would weep for their loss, for their sacrifice, and for the fact that they did not let themselves succumb to fear but made the world a better place by eating skittles.

Because your REAL question ... the one you hid behind a shitty little inaccurate, insensitive, dehumanizing, racist little candy metaphor is, IS MY LIFE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF MEN, WOMEN, AND TERRIFIED CHILDREN?

... and what kind of monster would think the answer to that question — is yes?"

Please pass the bowl.

-"BB"-

[MajGenl.Meade]

Not exactly a penetrating analysis BB.

While it's addressed to "you", it is intended to be be read by all USians inclusively and not posed as an individual metaphor. It actually suggests this equation: "Are the lives of thousands upon thousands of American men, women and terrified children more important than the lives of thousands upon thousands of Syrian men, women and terrified children?"

I believe there are sufficient numbers of people who say "Yes" to make this an effective political tool given the level of USian political discourse.

I think it's a crappy argument but answering "yes" does not make people 'monsters'. Your results may vary

[Joe Guy]

I don't like Skittles. They should all remain at the place where they were manufactured.

[Econoline]

Another excellent reply, this one from Adam-Troy Castro on his Facebook page:

• If I had a refugee camp filled with thousands of desperate, hungry, terrorized people seeking safety from the bloodshed they ran from, and if more than fifty percent of them were children, and I told you that a small handful of those people might be terrorists, would you still save the vast majority who we're obligated to treat as innocent? Our would you compare them to Skittles?
  
  That's our Republican problem.

[Jarlaxle]

I have informed my wife that, while I have no objection to her using my Vic for her campaign work, she needs to tell me when the trunk is full. Otherwise, I may go shopping after work and discover I have nowhere to put the groceries.

[Joe Guy]

If someone showed me a bowl of Skittles and said, "just three would kill you," I'd think he meant that 3 is the recommended dosage to achieve death and all the Skittles were poison.

That's the problem, literally speaking.

[Econoline]

Why wait? Do it now! Avoid the rush!

Law professor: Trump can be impeached for fraud and racketeering before he even takes office

DAVID FERGUSON
21 SEP 2016 AT 12:39 ET
A legal researcher at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law says that current lawsuits against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump are sufficient grounds to impeach him from the presidency.

Professor Christopher L. Peterson has found that should Trump win the election in November, he would be vulnerable to impeachment even before he takes office, thanks to fraud and racketeering lawsuits related to the Trump University case.

“In the United States, it is illegal for businesses to use false statements to convince consumers to purchase their services,” Peterson wrote in a paper published Monday titled Trump University and Presidential Impeachment. “The evidence indicates that Trump University used a systemic pattern of fraudulent representations to trick thousands of families into investing in a program that can be argued was a sham.”

“Fraud and racketeering are serious crimes that legally rise to the level of impeachable acts,” he said.

Trump University, say a number of litigants, was billed as a series of seminars with Donald Trump and top real estate professionals that would teach enrollees to wheel and deal in high-value properties and amass millions in profit.

Families were encouraged to take out extravagant loans and max out their credit cards to pay the program’s $30,000 average tuition. Documents have been introduced into evidence that show that the organization targeted the families of veterans and single mothers as ideal prospects for the scam.

Peterson said that evidence in the case thus far shows that in no way was Trump University an actual educational seminar, but in fact a “sales environment” where enrollees were urged to put more and more of their own money into the program.

“Sales practices at each seminar were systematically designed, painstakingly choreographed, and implemented ruthlessly,” he wrote, based on internal memos between Trump University administrators and staff. “Posing as teachers, sales staff were trained to manipulate students’ emotions in order to sell expensive ‘Trump elite’ packages.”

“Trump University trained staff to find the emotional vulnerabilities of students and exploit those vulnerabilities to sell additional Trump University packages,” he said.

Many attendees were left bankrupt with their credit ruined. Then when they attempted to seek redress, their calls weren’t returned and the company appeared to evaporate into thin air.

“Somehow in the cacophony of the 2016 presidential campaign, no legal academic has yet turned to the question of whether Trump’s alleged behavior would, if proven, rise to the level of impeachable offenses under the impeachment clause of the United States Constitution,” said Peterson, who specializes in consumer protection and litigation of predatory scams.

Among Peterson’s findings, were the following points:

• · Fraud and racketeering are serious crimes. Both fraud and racketeering are considered felonies under state and federal law. First-degree fraud is punishable by up to four years in prison in Trump’s home state of New York. Racketeering is punishable by up to 20 years in prison under federal law.
  
  · Civil cases can legally inform Congress on whether impeachment is justified. The U.S. Constitution has never required criminal conviction prior to impeachment proceedings.
  
  · Impeachment for pre-incumbency conduct is legally permissible under the U.S. Constitution. Nothing in the Constitution’s text requires impeachable conduct to have occurred while the president is in office. The framers rejected alternative formulations of impeachable offenses that included limitations to incumbent activity.

Peterson has written multiple books on consumer protection and predatory scams, including Consumer Law: Cases and Materials and Taming the Sharks: Towards a Cure for the High Cost Credit Market.

[Guinevere]

I'm not a professor, but I'm not sure I agree that offenses conducted prior to being sworn in can be grounds for impeachment. I'd like to see his detailed sources and a more complete analysis. In any event, in a criminal case, my guess is nothing could proceed until after a trial and resolution because of the presumption of innocence. That also raises the question as to whether a president could be subject to impeachment for civil fraud, as opposed to the criminal variety.

We do know, courtesy of Bill Clinton and the Rehnquist Supreme Court, that a president may be subject to the judicial process and proceedings for pre-incumbency actions, while in office. That means the fraud trial against the head Trumpanzee proceeds if he… (I just can't say it).