Meh. This doesn't seem to be progressing anywhere new and I'm losing interest.
Oh, gee, after having just posted an 842 word message yesterday you declare disinterest - yeah, that's believable. I'm sure it has nothing to do with your position being untenable, or with the new information I introduced, or with my noting your tendency to reply to weak or fallacious arguments you wish were made instead of ones actually made.
How is it that you didn't see any of these things as "progressing anywhere new":
Rebutting your claim of union abuse of power.
Presenting a graph of the decline of union membership since 1983.
Explaining precisely how your claim that you're both pro-union and pro-taking-away-union-revenue is contradictory.
Explaining how declining union membership has placed many union pension funds in financial danger of defaulting on their obligations.
Explaining that workers in union shops make more money and receive better health benefits.
Explaining that the percentage of workers paying dues is not the same thing as the percentage of workers supporting the union. It seems predominately an economic decision, i.e., don't pay for what you can get for free.
Providing a link to an article explaining details of the Supreme Court decision and quoting briefly from it.
Pointing out your mistake interpreting an analogy.
Organizations, be they clubs or corporations or non-profits or unions or political entities or whatever, weaken when their revenues are reduced. People who don't pay union dues while benefiting from the positive works of unions are freeloaders. The Supreme Court saying that's okay (for public unions) does not make it right or okay - it just makes it the law of the land with no hint of justice. Many theories have been advanced about the causes of stagnation of middle class incomes over the last half century, and the decline of unions is often posited as contributing.
quote:"I’m pretty sure he pays his caddie well, since no matter how far into the woods he hits the ball, it’s in the middle of the fairway when we get there. —Tangle
I was paired up with a guy like that in a golf league once. His ball would go into the woods, we'd both go in looking for it, then after a minute or two of rousting the bushes I'd hear him yell "Found it," and there he'd be standing in the fairway pointing at a ball. "Must have bounced out." Like Trump, he was a horrible human being. Fortunately I only had to play with him the one time.
quote:Reports say each of his 17 bodyguards verified the record-breaking feat.
But didn't he begin the round with 22 bodyguards?
Well, I guess we all have to keep up. Did I say I recently played 2 hours of tennis in 94 degree heat? I misspoke. I meant 194 degree heat. And we took no breaks and drank no water. And we were wearing 20 pound ankle weights. And we only stopped because my partner had an appointment, else we'd still be playing. We swung so hard we went through 20 rackets and 10 cans of balls. The fence has holes in it from our massive cannonball serves. Our overhead smashes left craters in the court. Passersby were deafened as our shots regularly broke the sound barrier and created sonic booms. A crowd formed to watch us greater in number than Trump's inaugural. We'll probably win a Nobel prize.
I don't think Trump was ever a drunk, but he's definitely been drunk. See How often does President Trump drink alcohol?. As in most things, Trump lies about his drinking, too. He has claimed many times that he doesn't drink. This is a lie.
I'd expect him to drink a little bit in social gatherings,...
So would everyone, but why does he lie about it. It is apparently his SOP - if you talk, lie.
There's nothing wrong with speaking bluntly.
Yet Trump is the first president to do it in a long time, probably since Truman, if not Theodore Roosevelt. During their past campaigns, all the Republicans that were in the primaries against Trump, and Bush, and Reagan etc. had to tiptoe around being blunt about the anti-Christian news media. Unlike all them, Trump wasn't dependent on any special interest to finance his campaign, so he didn't have to worry about political correctness like all of them did. And.... Christians liked that!
Do Christians care that Trump bluntly tells lies?
The problem with Trump is his lying. Trump has turned the old joke, "How do you know he's lying? His lips are moving," into a truism. It's pathological with him. Even when no lie is necessary he lies anyway.
Obama and the Clintons did their share of lying for fun, it's documented.
This oughta be good - so document Obama and Clinton (either one) "lying for fun." I'm not fond of either Clinton, by the way, but especially not of Bill Clinton. I found especially offensive his "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" comment during his grand jury testimony.
Every president is accused of lying by those who favor the other party, and can often make good cases for it. The problem is, it can sometimes be hard to distinguish between a lie, and some innocent play-acting in the interest of politeness and good manners, something that a U.S. president often has to do just about every day.
I don't think anyone would ever accuse Trump of "innocent play-acting in the interest of politeness and good manners." Trump just lies, at a prodigious rate,
Trump didn't coin the phrase fake news, he merely uses it with a different definition.
And there's nothing wrong with that, he popularized the term, in a very useful way.
Trump is misusing the term fake news. It does not mean, "News that is unfavorable to Donald Trump or that he disagrees with." It means news that is made up and has no factual basis.
Got that? Fake news means actual for-real fake news, i.e., news that is made up out of whole cloth.
Second, what else would fake news mean except news that is made up without any basis in fact?
Word definitions can't be modified, or changed completely, as the word "gay" has over the past several decades?
Of course word definitions can change. Are you saying that you think fake news should now be defined as any news unfavorable to Donald Trump or that he disagrees with?
Brian Ross was fired from ABC news (reluctantly, they had no choice) for making something up out of whole cloth.
Two things. First, Ross wasn't fired but reassigned. Second, since you're now talking about Ross's misreporting, that means you do think fake news means news that is made up, which is the way Clinton used the term, but not Trump. You can't have it both ways, so make up your mind. Does fake news mean news that's made up, or news unfavorable to Donald Trump or that he disagrees with.
That's fake news, but many Christians like myself also have decided to consider tricky twists and distorts of the truth to also be fake news.
Now you're creating yet a third definition of fake news, one that's primarily subjective and not of much use since by that definition there will be little agreement about what is and isn't fake news. It's not really a definition so much as a transparent justification for falsely casting aspersions.
I watch ABC Fake News Tonight With David Muir most evenings, and see it there in some degree every single night.
I don't watch any television news and so can't comment, and I don't think your reactions to ABC News are relevant to this conversation anyway. In a thread about Trump this should be about what Trump thinks is fake news, not you.
Like the time several months ago when Syria gassed it's own people, and Trump declared that Syria's president "crossed a lot of lines". While some details were being shown on the newscast, the caption ~Trump; "crossed a lot of lines"~ was displayed at the bottom of the screen. They knew that casual passersby of the TV screen saw "Trump crossed a lot of lines", and were completely mislead on what actually happened. This is the games non-Christian news outlets play. Many Christians recognize it. It happens in countless other ways.
Putting "Trump: 'crossed a lot of lines'" in a caption is fake news to you because you think casual viewers will fail to see the colon and quotation mark between "Trump" and "crossed a lot of lines"? Isn't this just a meaningless complaint about a standard way of indicating who said something?
He used a golf cart. You never hear about his handicap, so I assume he's a poor golfer shooting between 90 and a 100. So to play a round he has to climb in and out of his golf cart a hundred times, and swing a golf club a hundred times, about half of which are putts.
My point was that he's energetic.
Playing golf isn't energetic, and playing it from a golf cart is even further from energetic.
He probably finished that up by mid-day and did some presidential business that afternoon - and evening.
You mean he tweeted.
Maybe I've missed it, but I don't remember seeing this kind of energy from past presidents, often much younger than him.
Playing golf reflects energy? Obama played golf, too, though not as much as Trump. Interestingly, during the campaign Trump complained that Obama played too much golf.
But you seem to favor socialism and big government, and are very forgiving of Obama and the Clintons for all their lies.
Now you're just making stuff up. I'm mostly apolitical, but Trump is just too outrageous to ignore.
Not a bigot? Bigotry is defined as "a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion." Considering the hatred most of the political left, including you, shows towards Trump, it might be time for you to realize that you no longer have a monopoly on that word.
I could go on and on, but I think family separation all by itself objectively illustrates what a horrible human being is Trump, and it certainly runs strongly against Christian values. And you're very confused about proper use of the term bigot.
What has Trump done that has personally affected your life?
The question isn't relevant since my main concern is what havoc Trump is wreaking on the country and the world, but since you ask and since Trump's tax bill will cause my taxes to go up I'll mention that as what he's done to me personally. But my larger concern regarding his tax bill is the huge tax cuts for the rich that are increasing the deficit and widening the gulf between the haves and the have-nots.
His current public life doesn't indicate a passion for Christianity, either. It does indicate a passion for the Christian vote.
It indicates a passion for traditional economical liberties. Christians aren't necessarily looking for someone to establish Christianity in government.
They pretty necessarily are.
If the U.S. can avoid being turned into a socialist country, then Christianity is served.
Remember Ananias and Sapphira? Jesus was a socialist, and apparently in favor of capital punishment for small crimes.
No, this isn't about a Trump meal. It's about Trump's changing position on whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election and whether he accepts the findings of his own intelligence organizations. By the time I finish writing this Trump may have yet again flip-flopped, but here's a compilation of Trump's statements over time.
This is Trump at his press conference with Putin in Helsinki saying that he doesn't see why any interference would have come from Russia:
quote:"All I can do is ask the question - my people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others, they said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin he just said it's not Russia. I will say this, I don't see any reason why it would be... ... So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.
Why wouldn't someone who lies as much as Trump assume that a leader like Putin would also lie? Very strange. Later back at the White House Trump backed off his Helsinki comments, saying he meant to say "wouldn't" instead of "would", though he still waffled at the end:
quote:"In a key sentence in my remarks I said the word would instead of wouldn’t. The sentence should have been: 'I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia. Sort of a double negative. I think that probably clarifies things pretty good on itself...I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place." ... "Could be other people also. A lot of people out there.
Then the next day he reversed himself again:
quote:Q: "Is Russia still targeting the US, Mr. President?"
A: "Thank you very much. No."
Then later that day he reversed himself again in an interview with CBS News:
quote:I let him know we can’t have this. We’re not going to have it, and that’s the way it’s going to be.
This president doesn't speak truth. He says whatever he feels is expedient at the time, true or not.
quote:When a Mexican company bought Mid Continent Nail Corp. in 2012, workers at the factory here feared it was the beginning of the end. Their jobs, they suspected, would be given to lower-paid workers in Mexico, more casualties of the hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing driven in part by an embrace of global trade.
Instead, Mid Continent’s factory has doubled in size since Deacero’s purchase. The company, facing fewer restrictions on steel exports after the North American Free Trade Agreement, shipped steel into Missouri, willing to pay skilled workers more to take advantage of cheaper energy costs in the United States and a location that allowed swift delivery to U.S. customers.
But President Trump has put 25 percent tariffs on steel imports, bumping production costs and prompting Deacero to reconsider this arrangement. With Mid Continent charging more for nails, orders are down 70 percent from this time a year ago despite a booming construction industry. Company officials say that without relief, the Missouri plant could be out of business by Labor Day or that remaining production could move to Mexico or another country.
Got that? Trump tariffs could put a flourishing US company out of business by fall. He helped the minuscule steel industry and hurt the huge number of companies dependent upon reasonably priced steel. The article describes the situation of a Mid Continent employee who will be in dire straights if he loses his job:
quote:Philip Bennett, 37, a machine repairman at Mid Continent, appeared close to tears as he talked about his 5-year-old daughter, Aubree, who has a congenital heart condition that has required multiple surgeries. He has health insurance through Mid Continent that covers her.
There’s a lot of good things that he is doing. But he’s affecting me now, and I don’t appreciate it, Bennett, a Trump supporter, said of the president.
The article doesn't say whether he's still a Trump supporter, but I bet he is. He doesn't understand that contrary to Trump's claim that trade wars are easy to win, they are not. Trade wars hurt both sides. Fair and open trade is the pathway to world prosperity, not trade wars.
Trump has a fundamental misconception about trade deficits. He thinks they're bad. He thinks that if China ships more goods and services to the US than we ship to them, thereby causing us to run a trade deficit with China, that that is a bad thing. He's 180 degrees wrong because the exact opposite is true. A trade deficit means we're purchasing more goods from China than they're purchasing from us because we're richer than they are, because our industries and businesses are more robust and productive and give our citizens more money to spend. Trade deficits reflect economic strength, not weakness.
marc9000's contribution is very informative. There is some meat in there,...
I would characterize it as some very tangled and biased confused thinking.
...but for the most part, 9K confirms my worst expectations.
Marc seems a typical knee-jerk emotion-driven Trump supporter who refuses to see the worldwide harm Trump is causing. He can't see, for example, the havoc Trmp's wreaking with the NATO alliance and instead thinks the true problem is the negative reports in the news, what he calls fake news, despite every bit of it being true since it consists mostly of quotes of Trump's actual words and the reactions to them.
I understand that we may differ in political and ideological viewpoints, but I'm not really sure how you can write the above with a straight face; assuming you're not just trolling. No President in living memory has gloated more than Trump. He regularly goes on Twitter to declare himself a political genius.
A lot of what he does is a reaction to the unprecedented hate he has to deal with every day.
Like your hero, you've got things 180 degrees backwards. Trump the Grump spews hate at a phenomenal rate. Let's just examine a few of his recent tweets:
quote:Attacking the free press, an expression of hate:
Jul 19, 2018 08:24:58 AM: The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media.
Lying about the free press, another expression of hate:
Jul 19, 2018 05:37:57 AM The Fake News Media is going Crazy! They make up stories without any backup, sources or proof. Many of the stories written about me, and the good people surrounding me, are total fiction. Problem is, when you complain you just give them more publicity. But I’ll complain anyway!
Lying about how good his economic numbers are:
Jul 18, 2018 06:33:34 AM: 3.4 million jobs created since our great Election Victory - far greater than ever anticipated, and only getting better as new and greatly improved Trade Deals start coming to fruition!
That's 3.4 million over the prior 19 months, which include several months of the Obama presidency, and actually more since a new president cannot have an instantaneous effect upon taking office. But here's a graph of the number of employees added over the prior 19 months. Light blue is Obama, dark blue is Trump. Note that Trump has consistently underperformed Obama:
Lying about reaction to his press conference with Putin in Helsinki:
Jul 18, 2018 04:53:41 AM: So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki. Putin and I discussed many important subjects at our earlier meeting. We got along well which truly bothered many haters who wanted to see a boxing match. Big results will come!
Calling Hillary Clinton names (how contrary to the behavior of all past presidents who at least made a sincere effort to appear presidential), and lying about Obama and the Mueller probe:
Jul 16, 2018 12:37:05 AM: President Obama thought that Crooked Hillary was going to win the election, so when he was informed by the FBI about Russian Meddling, he said it couldn’t happen, was no big deal, & did NOTHING about it. When I won it became a big deal and the Rigged Witch Hunt headed by Strzok!
Obama held a meeting with Mitch McConnell seeking common ground to announce Russian election meddling to the public. McConnell refused. All the intelligence agencies say Russian meddling in the 2016 election and that the investigation into it is defnitely not a witch hunt. Trump was briefed on the evidence by the intelligence agencies before the inauguration, so when he says there is no evidence of Russian meddling he is lying. Trump should not be singling out individual FBI agents who have done nothing wrong except send anti-Trump texts. Strzok led the Russian meddling investigation back in 2016, and the conservative Wall Street Journal (i.e., Trump friend) reviewed all Strzok's texts and concluded they showed no evidence of a conspiracy against Trump.
Jul 16, 2018 12:23:50 AM Received many calls from leaders of NATO countries thanking me for helping to bring them together and to get them focused on financial obligations, both present & future. We had a truly great Summit that was inaccurately covered by much of the media. NATO is now strong & rich!
This is an obvious lie. No NATO leaders called to thank Trump for doing his best to sabotage NATO.
Another attack on the free press, and this time also of the Democrats, another expression of hate:
Jul 15, 2018 11:18:11 AM ...Much of our news media is indeed the enemy of the people and all the Dems...
Yet another attack on the free press for not reporting his bamboozlement by Kim Jung Un in positive ways:
Jul 15, 2018 11:11:13 AM There hasn’t been a missile or rocket fired in 9 months in North Korea, there have been no nuclear tests and we got back our hostages. Who knows how it will all turn out in the end, but why isn’t the Fake News talking about these wonderful facts? Because it is FAKE NEWS!
Now here's an attack on Lisa Page calling her a liar and corruptor, another expression of hate:
Jul 12, 2018 12:55:24 AM As I head out to a very important NATO meeting, I see that FBI Lover/Agent Lisa Page is dodging a Subpoena & is refusing to show up and testify. What can she possibly say about her statements and lies. So much corruption on the other side. Where is the Attorney General? @FoxNews
That should be plenty, and those are just Trump tweets over a couple days earlier this week.
He uses Twitter to by-pass the news medias distortions of what he has to say.
He mostly uses Twitter to lie, attack people, and issue expressions of hate.
No president in history has had his opponents make complete fools of themselves during the campaign for the presidency. He was justified in the gloating he did, (it was satisfying to many Christians - he owed it to them) and he could have done it more.
So you'd like to see more gloating by the president? Just what qualities do you think a president should have? Do you think compassion, inclusiveness, objectivity, honesty and integrity should be among them?
George Bush was excoriated and ridiculed in the press and on the internet. Barack Obama was villified by different sections of the press and was accused by whackos on the internet of all manner of sins. How did they respond to these critics? They didn't, because they were trying to look presidential and had better things to do, being President of the US.
Bush and Obama didn't get it to anywhere near the extent Trump does.
Bush and Obama did not engage in boorish, buffoonish, lying, hating behavior the way Trump does
The media (according to them, the world) was "stunned" that he supposedly put a trust in Putin more so than in his own intelligence department. It could have been the wrong thing to say, but it's understandable since at least some of his own intelligence department is corrupt, and out to destroy his presidency. Ever hear of Peter Strzok, or John Brennan?
You've been sold a bill of goods by Trump and Fox News.
Check the above short vid, starting at 1:25, and tell me how presidential Obama looked.
Here's the YouTube video you linked to, prepositioned right at 1:23 (not 1:25). Looks like a gratuitous attack on a former president by Donald Trump the hater. Obama looked like his normal calm and deliberative self:
Trump, on the other hand, writes angry rants on the internet in response to comedians who mock him and publically denigrates journalists who criticise him. To praise this reaction as measured indicates either a total lack of honesty or a distressing level of self-delusion.
He's not a stuffy Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon, he has a personality that many Christians happen to like.
Cult of personality is more like it. Everyone will agree with you that Trump isn't stuffy, but neither is he presidential. He's a hate-mongering train wreck.
"Journalists" are demonstrating a hatred that is simply not good for the well being of the U.S.
Journalists are merely reporting and reacting to what Trump says. He constantly lies and spreads hate and unprovokedly attacks people and institutions and cozies up to brutal dictators, so that's what journalists report on. If it gets bad enough, such as his performance in Helsinki, then even Fox News reports on it.
If Trump would instead demonstrate compassion and an interest in responsible governance (instead of trying to twist the government to serve his personal self interest) then journalists would report on that.
Trump's ethos and "couple of politices" are FAR less antithetical to Christianity than godless socialism of today's Democrat party.
You're crazy. There's nothing Christian about Trump. Christians support him because he's a fellow traveler with respect to conservative judgeships and abortion and other Christian causes, not because he in any way resembles a Christian. I would say a fair number of Trump's Christian supporters do not much resemble Christians, either. Faith is a prime example - she's the least loving, compassionate, empathetic person I've ever encountered.
Hyroglyphyx said something about Christianity being linked to nationalism - but Trump's not even a good nationalist. The President of the United States is tweeting anti-American Russian state propaganda! Surely you don't need to be a tie-dyed hippy for that to be a step too far?
Who told you that? The fake news media? Quote one of those tweets and we'll discuss it.
How about this Trump tweet:
quote:Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!
This after Russia meddled in the 2016 election, annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine, shot down a commercial airliner killing all 298 passengers and crew, allied with brutal dictator Asad in Syria, and assassinated former Russian operatives in the UK with a nerve agent.
Trump - making Russia great again!
Should the entire presidency be judged on tweets?
We're judging Trump's presidency on two things: What he says and what he does. What he says consists of tweets, occasional responses to reporter questions, occasional interviews, occasional public comments, and what he says at his rallies. It doesn't include press conferences, since there was only the one press conference held shortly after his inauguration a year ago January.
What Trump does is a mixed bag. He's been pretty strong on Russia with sanctions, allowing the sending of arms to the Ukraine, and allowing engagement with Russian forces in Syria. He's been incredibly destructive or misguided on other things, such as attacking our democratic institutions, the cruelty of family separations, and the raising of tariffs that are now causing layoffs in the US.
Re: But that is a trait that defines the Evangelical Fundamentalist
ringo writes:
I think you can. Generally speaking, Americans are idiots or they wouldn't have elected Trump. There are certainly a lot of Americans who aren't idiots but there are enough to make the generalization kinda valid.
I'm not really replying so much as using your message as an opportunity to repeat already known information.
The electoral college amplifies the votes of rural yokels. (Sorry rural yokels, but that's what you are - we see you at Trump rallies cheering every inane lie. Trump the walking disaster is your guy and you're going to have to own up to responsibility for him.)
Wyoming has the lowest state population at .17% of the total US population (for those of you who might miss decimal points, that's .17%, not 17%). Yet Wyoming gets 3 electors in the electoral college of 538 electors, or .56%, which is 3.3 times greater than it's population would suggest it should have.
What this means is that small population rural states are way over-represented in the electoral college. While it might seem that elections so close that this matters would be rare, it's happened twice recently. Trump was elected with a minority of the popular vote, so was George W. Bush. The last time it happened before that was 130 years ago.
If very close elections are going to be the rule rather than the exception going forward, then a change to the electoral college seems necessary.
Well, anyway, it turns out Michael Cohen, until recently Trump's personal attorney and fixer, secretly recorded Donald Trump discussing the payoff of playmate Karen McDougal. The tape was seized when the FBI raided Cohen's New York office. Trump therefore lied when he denied knowledge of the payment.
It ain't fake news, folks - Rudy Giuliani confirmed it, though if you read the first article link below (from the New York Times - it's the most detailed) he tells a complex and convoluted story that just doesn't ring true - more lies, no doubt, and no surprise. Why do Trump and his boys so often lie, even when they don't have to? Sources:
So as if we needed it, here is yet more evidence that Trump's is a repeat offender philanderer and a liar. So, all you Christian soldiers out there, how do you feel about Trump breaking his marriage vows while his wife Melania was pregnant with Barron, then lying about efforts to keep it quiet? There seems nothing for Christians to like about Trump, so why do you like him so much? Do you really believe the ends justify the means, that advancing a conservative political agenda justifies supporting the antichrist?
Let me show you some quotes from some of "them" (anonymous friends of friends whom I don't really know...but who answer one right-wing Christian I DO know on facebook). Joe Whitson Note the topics that Joe chooses to bring up and note the reactions. Please, nobody, bother this man but I am bringing up his public Facebook page to show examples of how the Trump supporters think.
You didn't actually quote anything, so I don't know what you think relevant on Joe's page, but this did catch my attention:
quote:Democrats: "Non-Citizens have a right to vote in elections."
I'm not a Democrat, I just don't like lying. I'd object if he lied about Republicans or independents or anyone or anything.
This isn't a position the Democratic party supports. Why is he lying about this? If this is an example of how Trump supporters think then it tells us they're just like him: they lie.
The lie accusations fly with every president, it's all very subjective.
This is like saying, "It rains everywhere around the world," when the reality is that it rains with different amounts and severity in different parts of the globe. In the same way, different presidents lie in different amounts and severity. Here is a graph comparing Trump's lies versus Obamas. This compares Trump lies through the first 10 months of his presidency to Obama's lies over 8 years:
In the case of presidents, and the news media for that matter, Christians can consider ~omissions of truth~ as almost as serious as a lie.
The above graph of Trump lies includes omissions of truth. Just to be clear about the nature of the lies Trump is telling, here are some lies from a recent Montana campaign rally taken from Anatomy of a Trump rally: 76 percent of claims are false, misleading or lacking evidence. I'll just include a few of the briefer false statements so that this post doesn't become too long, click the link if you want see everything from "Accurate" to "Misleading" to "Mostly false" to "False":
The Democrats want open borders, which means lots of crime.
False. Democrats support measures to tighten border security, but they don’t support Trump’s plans for a border wall or other parts of his aggressive immigration agenda.
He [John Tester, Democratic Senator from Montana] never votes for me.
False. Tester votes with Trump 36.5 percent of the time.
And when they said I’m very healthy, the news was devastated. They were devastated. They didn’t want to hear that. They didn’t want to hear that.
False. Read news accounts from the period. Reporters were a bit startled at how effusive Dr. Ronny Jackson was about Trump's incredible health, and given that it was later discovered that the 2015 letter of health by Trump's former personal physician Harold Bornstein had actually been dictated by Trump it is now suspected that Trump had in some way made it clear to Jackson what he was to say to reporters.
I won Montana by so many points I don’t have to come here. You know, a lot of people from states where we have these crazy big leads, we had 42 and 44 we won by 44 points over a Democrat, over a Democrat. We won by 44 points over a Democrat. Now it was Crooked Hillary, but still she’s a Democrat.
False. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Montana by 20 points, not 42 or 44.
We’ve become a nation that is exporting energy for the first time.
False. The United States has long been an energy exporter, and since 2015 has exported more than it has imported.
We have North Korea, where you noticed eight months so, during the Obama administration, it seemed like a missile a week. I mean a lot of missiles going up, a lot of rockets going up, a lot of nuclear testing.
False. North Korea conducted 74 missile tests during the Obama administration, or roughly one test every five and a half weeks. The rate was far higher during Trump’s first year in office: 20 tests, or roughly one test every two and a half weeks.
Obama couldn’t meet [with North Korea]. They wouldn’t see him.
False. Obama never requested a meeting with North Korea.
A vote for the Democrats in November is a vote to let MS-13 run wild in our communities. Democrats want anarchy. They really do.
False. Democrats support measures to tighten border security, but they don’t support Trump’s plans for a border wall or other parts of his aggressive immigration agenda. Democrats don’t support MS-13.
She is a low-IQ individual, Maxine Waters. She’s somewhere in the mid-60s, I believe that.
False.
There’s no collusion. No collusion. After spending $22 million, it’s awfully tough.
False. The special counsel continues to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election and there’s no word yet whether Trump’s campaign colluded with the Russians. It’s not clear where Trump gets this $22 million figure. At last count, the special counsel had reported $17 million in costs, which is inside the norm for such investigations.
Moving on:
Trump wasn't a D.C. insider, and some of the things he said during the campaign, and is saying now, are TRUTHS that need to be said, since D.C. insiders tend not to say them.
No one is saying Trump never says anything that is true, but if Trump has stated "TRUTHS that need to be said" then please tell us what they are.
Of course word definitions can change. Are you saying that you think fake news should now be defined as any news unfavorable to Donald Trump or that he disagrees with?
It WILL be defined however the general public chooses to recognize the term.
Don't you think that most anyone hearing a news report labeled "fake news" will believe they're being told the account is false?
If they decide that it's a personal opinion from someone who claims to be an objective journalist, that's the way it will be defined, and it will be a very broad definition.
We're talking about news. All news outlets have opinion pages or segments, including Fox News and Breitbart - that's not what we're discussing.
(please don't ban me, I'm going I'm going.)
Ban you? Why? I don't think anyone is moderating this thread anyway.
Iran's General Gholam Hossein Gheibparvar of their Revolutionary Guard Sunday at a diplomatic gathering was quoted by Reuters as saying:
quote:America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars. You are not in a position to incite the Iranian nation against Iran’s security and interests.
Trump got together with his international team including national security advisor John Bolton, CIA director Gina Haspel, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to define the text of a measured and diplomatic public response and devise further strategy.
Naw, just kidding. Trump just tweeted off the top of his head while lying in bed last night:
quote:To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!
Just what we like to see from the leader of the free world, angry, unbalanced and over the top threats in all caps.
Having illegal's vote is not something Democrats espouse,...
Joe Whitson didn't say that Democrats want illegals given the right to vote. He said they want non-citizens given the right to vote. I guess that includes illegals.
I would not call it a lie;
If it's not a lie then it is at least fallacious or wrong or erroneous or whatever appropriate term you like. Joe Whitson said something that is not true. That Democrats want open borders to feed the hoards of non-citizens to vote for Democrats is a Republican meme in the age of Trump. Being frequent and clear about how untrue this is is important, and given the number of times correct information has been provided and made available, in my view repeating this untruth is a lie.
but it is ridiculous, paranoid, and inane. Fear of a brown planet.
Yes, I'd agree with that, it does also tell us a great deal about Mr. Whitson's state of mind. But it is also untrue that Democrats want non-citizens given voting rights.
There's nothing Christian about Trump. Christians support him because he's a fellow traveler with respect to conservative judgeships and abortion and other Christian causes, not because he in any way resembles a Christian.
YOU GOT IT! There you are Hyroglyphx, wherever you are! They don't support today's Democrats because of Democrats passion for liberal judgeships, the pro abortion causes, and the many other socialist, anti-constitution leanings of today's Democrats. My work here is almost done!
You sound proud that Christians are behaving politically in order to enforce their own religiously based beliefs of morality upon those outside their religion who believe differently. Separation of church and state gives the religious the right to worship as they please. It doesn't give them the right to force their religious beliefs onto others.
More NY Times talking points.
I wouldn't say they're exclusive to the New York Times, they're just things that are true about Trump, so I can see why you'd like to dismiss them. We can only judge Trump's presidency based upon what he says and what he does.
What he says consists of tweets, occasional responses to reporter questions, occasional interviews, occasional public comments, and what he says at his rallies. His rate of lying is considerable. He continually contradicts himself, saying one thing one day and something else the next. In Helsinki standing next to Putin he gave greater credibility to Putin than to American intelligence agencies regrading 2016 election meddling. Once he returned to Washington he walked it back by reading from a script that endorsed his confidence in American intelligence agencies. The very next day he went back to dismissing Russian election meddling. He lies incessantly.
What he does is a mixed bag but mostly negative. He finally implemented the Russian sanctions voted by Congress last year, but he exited the Iran deal escalating tensions with both Iran and our allies who were also part of the deal. He withdrew the US from the Pacific trade pact. He continually attacks our democratic institutions, especially the FBI and the courts, he attacks our allies, he cozies up to brutal dictators, he even attacks members of his own cabinet (e.g., former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson), he's cruel and inhumane (family separations, calls for violence against protestors and criminals), and he's got us into a trade war with much of the rest of the world that is costing American jobs.
So these aren't just talking points. They characterize the Trump administration as confused, contradictory, antagonistic and untruthful.
And I gave you much more evidence than you responded to, providing his tweets of attacking the free press, lying about his economic numbers, lying about reactions of intelligence agencies to Helsinki, name calling and attacking individuals like Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
All the evidence suggests that Trump is striking out at everyone and everything else and that the media is merely reporting it. Trump is the source of hate, not the target of it.
You've replied to not a single specific Trump comment or action I cited in my previous message while merely repeating your empty claims about the media. If Trump is doing and saying things reported accurately by the media that he thinks reflect poorly upon him then he need only stop doing and saying such things.
I think the Trump haters should tone it down.
If Trump tones it down and stops saying and doing inflammatory things then the media will no longer be reporting on these inflammatory things.
It's easy to see your anger isn't only at Trump, it's at all the voters who elected him.
You keep saying things like this, and you have it all wrong. Those who respect our democratic institutions and the office of the president are repulsed at Trump's many deplorable actions, but we don't hate him. His actions define who he is, there's often no need to make much additional comment.
Those who unreservedly and uncritically support Trump seem inexplicable, but we don't hate them, either.
Obama went to Cuba and made nice with the communists down there are few years ago, the news media didn't have a fit. FDR met with Stalin during his presidency.
No one's against diplomacy (by the way, you do know, I hope, that Russia was an ally against Hitler when Roosevelt met with Stalin, not once but twice, first in Tehran then later in Yalta, Churchill also present of course). We're against knuckling under to brutal dictators.
Jimmy Carter gave away the Panama canal.
I was never a fan of Jimmy Carter, but I am a fan of truth and accuracy. We created Panama so they could give us the canal zone. It was never ours. From Wikipedia:
quote:In 1903, the United States, having failed to obtain from Colombia the right to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, which was part of that country, sent warships in support of Panamanian independence from Colombia. This being achieved, the new nation of Panama ceded to the Americans the rights they wanted in the Hay—Bunau-Varilla Treaty.
Moving on:
This has got to be the first time in history when the news media goes nuts when a U.S. president has friendly, largely meaningless meetings with foreign leaders.
You are alone in characterizing the meetings with Kim Jung Un and with Putin as meaningless. Not even Fox News or Breitbart agree with you. Trump was far too "friendly" in both meetings in that he was deeply conciliatory and made free concessions, such as halting joint military exercises with South Korea, agreeing there was no Russian meddling in the 2016 election, and expressing a willingness to allow Russian interrogators to question Americans such as the former Russian ambassador.
All this outrage by the media at every small Trump action...
Assuming we're talking about news articles, there's no outrage. The news media is just reporting on what Trump does, and what he does is appalling and dismaying.
I really think if Cruz, or Huckabee, or any of the others would have been elected, the hate would be just as bad. It's a hate of U.S. tradition, not just Trump.
Again, I don't think the feelings toward Trump are hate. About Cruz and Huckabee, I don't know why you even mention Huckabee, he dropped out very early. Anyway, neither is anything like Trump. I very much doubt that either would engage in the mass production of erroneous, misleading and self-serving tweets, or would go against decades of Republican policy to oppose free trade, oppose NATO, or cozy up to North Korea and Russia.
What a nightmare it must be for Sarah Huckabee... Can you imagine trying to do damage control for Trump? Exhausting!
Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I've listened to enough Sanders press conferences to have a feel for what she's doing. She's moving as rapidly through the questions as she can. Most of her answers are very short, a couple sentences delivered in 10 or 15 seconds. She usually allows a follow-up, but if she disapproves of a question she will disallow the follow-up and move on. When challenged on an answer she usually just repeats what she just said in slightly different words. She often avoids answering questions by referring the reporter to a specific agency.
She seems to have developed a good understanding of what the president wants her to say about many things even when they don't align with what he is saying. For example, after Trump accepted Putin's word about 2016 election meddling over the findings of American intelligence agencies, Sanders said that Trump respects the intelligence agencies and their findings about the 2016 elections. Trump doesn't seem to mind this, even as Sanders consistently repeats the same answers from one day to the next while Trump keeps changing his, for example now resuming his challenges of his intelligence agency findings and calling the Mueller investigation into Russian meddling a witch hunt.
Sanders is a good translator of Trump's immoderate, undecorous, undetailed and contradictory comments into a less incoherent message. She seems a nice person, and why she's working in the service of a president so self-serving and truth-challenged is baffling. Maybe she's gotten over-focused on the challenges of the job and has lost sight of what's right and wrong.
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