Donald Trump


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I just did the round of the morning talk shows (on Real Clear Politics Video).

As much as I want to admire the intelligence of these folks, Trump is right. They are morons. Almost all of them.

If there were an emotional meter to judge statements and topics with the highest valence, there would only be two that got any emotion at all, but these were disproportionately intense compared to everything else. They also got the lion's share of the air time. Here's what the genius pundits said, over and over, that rang their ding-a-ling so loud:

1. They will not talk about Trump, and
2. Talking about Trump.

:) 

No matter what subject came up, it always went back to Trump. Negative most of the time, for sure, but about Trump.

For my choice, the election's lookin' awfully good...

Michael

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" For my choice, the election's lookin' awfully good... "

Assuming we get that far...

BO has total control.  The right has been completely impotent and cowardly his entire administration.  The people of the United States have been passively taking whatever insults and takeaways have come their way.  Who's going to do a goddamn thing if the left preempts the election?  Trump is a perfect smokescreen to let that happen.  What is the Constitution?  What are principles of government?  Where are the free people?  Where is the home of the free and the land of the brave?  Who's even talking about it?  It's all about personalities and "the rules say this and the rules say that".  BO has been breaking the rules for eight years.  Who the hell is going to stop him now?  He's acting a little too relaxed this late in a criminal administration.

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28 minutes ago, Mikee said:

  He's acting a little too relaxed this late in a criminal administration.

Of course he is.

No one is looking to indict him.

A...

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5 hours ago, Selene said:
5 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

More generally, everyone knows that people who talk about their religion in public are really big phonies and hypocrites, and that they cheat, lie, and betray others to the approximate proportion that they say what a bad thing such behavior is. Surely this applies to Ted Cruz - and to Glenn Beck, who likes him.P.P.S. - When all else fails, check your premises. There may be an intruder.

This statement is untrue and speaks to a problem of over generalization which results in poor conclusions on a deductive "P" particular matter.

Generalization to the particular fails when the generalization is poorly arrived at with poor Inductive particulars that led to the generalization.

All "people who talk about religion in public are really big phonies and hypocrites" ...really?

A... 

I think the "intruder" REB meant is that he was doing a parody.

Ellen

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5 hours ago, Selene said:
5 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

More generally, everyone knows that people who talk about their religion in public are really big phonies and hypocrites, and that they cheat, lie, and betray others to the approximate proportion that they say what a bad thing such behavior is. Surely this applies to Ted Cruz - and to Glenn Beck, who likes him.P.P.S. - When all else fails, check your premises. There may be an intruder.

This statement is untrue and speaks to a problem of over generalization which results in poor conclusions on a deductive "P" particular matter.

Generalization to the particular fails when the generalization is poorly arrived at with poor Inductive particulars that led to the generalization.

All "people who talk about religion in public are really big phonies and hypocrites" ...really?

A... 

Precisely the point I was trying to make. But you wisely removed your tongue from your cheek before writing. :cool:

I was trying to build on what I call "The Lady Doth Protest Too Much Fallacy." Supposedly, Cruz's sanctimonious, holier than thou attitude is covering up a very morally corrupt person (a serial adulterer, don't you know), who deserves to be exposed for the evil slimeball that he is.

This is a rickety stereotype that is still surprisingly robust in some unlikely quarters. (E.g., scroll back through some of the recent posts.)

REB

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3 minutes ago, Roger Bissell said:

Precisely the point I was trying to make. But you wisely removed your tongue from your cheek before writing. :cool:

I was trying to build on what I call "The Lady Doth Protest Too Much Fallacy." Supposedly, Cruz's sanctimonious, holier than thou attitude is covering up a very morally corrupt person (a serial adulterer, don't you know), who deserves to be exposed for the evil slimeball that he is.

This is a rickety stereotype that is still surprisingly robust in some unlikely quarters. (E.g., scroll back through some of the recent posts.)

REB

As suspected (your post and mine just above were nearly simultaneous), a parody.  But exhibiting non-careful reading.

Ellen

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Just now, Ellen Stuttle said:
5 hours ago, Selene said:
5 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

More generally, everyone knows that people who talk about their religion in public are really big phonies and hypocrites, and thMore generally, everyone knows that people who talk about their religion in public are really big phonies and hypocrites, and that they cheat, lie, and betray others to the approximate proportion that they say what a bad thing such behavior is. Surely this applies to Ted Cruz - and to Glenn Beck, who likes him.P.P.S. - When all else fails, check your premises. There may be an intruder.

This statement is untrue and speaks to a problem of over generalization which results in poor conclusions on a deductive "P" particular matter.

Generalization to the particular fails when the generalization is poorly arrived at with poor Inductive particulars that led to the generalization.

All "people who talk about religion in public are really big phonies and hypocrites" ...really?

A... 

I think the "intruder" REB meant is that he was doing a parody.

Ellen, you get the Astute Reader award for the day. But a couple of comments to clarify:

1. The "intruder" simply meant that your mental storehouse of things-you-think-are-so (and on the basis of which you reason) may contain one that doesn't belong there.

2. I was indeed pulling the reader's leg. I didn't have a model to work from, though, so it wasn't exactly a parody - more of a satire, I think.

REB

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1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Donald Trump has an Easter grandson from Ivanka: Theodore.

Donald Trump gets a Ted in the family – Ivanka names newborn son Theodore

:)

Michael

To compound the irony, wouldn't it be cool if Ivanka had conceived on a...cruise ship? :cool:

REB

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For anyone interested in the gossip:

Let the Stone man tell his side. Actually, what he says sounds to me the most reasonable of all so far.

To start with, he had nothing to do with it. And I believe him for one primary fact. This is a guy who likes to be paid for his work. He wouldn't do this on his own. Oh, there might be something (there always is with these kids of people), but with his public profile, it would have to be so hidden right now, he wouldn't be able to use that money for several years. And an arrangement like that doesn't sound like Roger Stone.

Now to his speculation.

There have been allegations about Rubio for a long time. Stone didn't say, but there are pictures of Rubio at gay parties and so forth. So Rubio hired some private detectives to dig up dirt on Cruz as leverage seeing how Cruz was probably threatening to go public with a campaign from his own research team (note from me: meaning someone else and Cruz in a "it wasn't me" tone, of course).

In fact, I remember during the debates the two jabbing at each other about their "oppo" (opposition research). I wonder if they were trying to blow each other's cool. :) 

Suddenly Rubio is no longer in the running. So the detectives decided to get payed twice by selling their research to the National Enquirer. My speculation is they waited until now because they were trying to get the highest bidder.

Stone thinks the Enquirer would not risk a $100 million lawsuit without having some solid research. And he keeps asking, where's the lawsuit, Ted?

btw - He denies Cruz's charge that he copulates with rodents.

:) 

Michael

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If you have the patience to put up with Molyneux's grating presentation style, here is a thorough overview of the Cruz scandal up to the point where Trump said Cruz's people licensed the nude photo of Melania from GQ (and following developments). That statement by Trump is not in the video as I believe the video was done before Trump made it.

The main thing to try to ignore with Molyneux is his mini-explosive mock outrage emphasis of a headline or fact, then a snigger. He does this over and over and I feel nails grating on a blackboard. It's like when a comedian keeps repeating the same joke. After it stops being funny, it gets boring, then it starts getting irritating.

He also drops his voice to a whisper when he wants to make a snide or sarcastic comment. That gets old real quick, too.

There are some other mannerisms, but if you can ignore those two, the video is actually quite good. Substance-wise, Molyneux does it pretty well done. It helps that he reads the texts before he comments on them. I actually like it when he gives small biographical facts and former news tidbits on the people involved so you know who they are if you didn't know much about them before.

If you are only interested in the gossip, though, you can skip this. 

My favorite part was when Molyneux quoted Cruz on saying all over America, they want to know how low Donald Trump will go. And Molyneux said no, people all over America actually want to know if Cruz slept with all those women. :) 

Michael

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14 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

Maybe he is consciously imposing that pattern in order to prevent showing natural ones after someone on his team familiar with NLP noticed something.

Jon,

This interests me.

You mean like where his eyes want to go naturally?

What do you think a possible NLP downside would be for Cruz by running natural?

Setting aside NLP, Cruz's head movement looks to me like the old presentation technique of finding a couple of people in the audience and speaking only to them. This allows you to look focused and varied at the same time.

There's a characteristic of Cruz's speech pattern I don't like. He overuses the dramatic pause. (Incidentally, that's when he tends to shift his gaze from right to left or left to right.) This makes him come off inauthentic and stilted to a lot of people. Certainly not spontaneous.

Michael

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4 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Jon,

This interests me.

You mean like where his eyes want to go naturally?

What do you think a possible NLP downside would be for Cruz by running natural?

Setting aside NLP, Cruz's head movement looks to me like the old presentation technique of finding a couple of people in the audience and speaking only to them. This allows you to look focused and varied at the same time.

There's a characteristic of Cruz's speech pattern I don't like. He overuses the dramatic pause. (Incidentally, that's when he tends to shift his gaze from right to left or left to right.) This makes him come off inauthentic and stilted to a lot of people. Certainly not spontaneous.

Michael

I know very little about the topic. What I was thinking when I wrote it was not so much that he was making a classic tell, but maybe just unspontaneous, fast and faster, different from a month ago, so maybe they decided to put some metric in place whereby he goes back to a left target and back to a right target to keep cadence-creep away. "No less than 8 words to the left person, now carefully find that person on your right, no less than about 8 words, now find the left person."

In comparison, I forget how long ago it was that he said McConnel lied to him. He looked and sounded calm then. He slowly explained his story, very serene, stick to the facts. I had no doubt he sincerely believed he was set-up and lied to.

This time it's all attack, light on facts, zero self awareness. Very different. And timed head turning.

Ted is finished.

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Roger wrote: . . . When all else fails, check your premises. There may be an intruder . . . . who deserves to be exposed for the evil slimeball that he is. end quote

I too, am suspicious of bible thumpers, and anyone who courts the religious, irrational vote, but give Ted the benefit of the doubt. In Michael’s video, Trump’s man Stone uses the word ALLEGED in the National Enquirer article about the lady's mistress, fellatio, and tramp status. He challenged Ted to sue the rag if they are blatantly lying and said he thinks Ted is bluffing. So is that proof of Ted’s sins? He THINKS Ted is bluffing? Alleged?

If Ted were being impeached, that evidence is not admissible in a court of law. It is hearsay. The charges are trumped. If the stories are supplied by paid informants, attention seekers, or political operatives it is not evidence. It is lies. We all know how people think where there is smoke there is fire but what if the smoke is simply an illusion and a dirty campaign trick? What if it is a blatant attempt to tar a candidate with lies? And if some so-called private detectives provoked some ladies to tell fibs is that proof? Ted is innocent until proven guilty.

Jon wrote: Ted is finished. end quote

In the Wisconsin Primary Free Beacon poll Ted is plus five over Trump. In the California Primary the LA Times poll has Trump at plus one. In six polls on RealClearPolitics Clinton is plus six to plus eighteen over Trump, and Clinton is averaging 2.9 percent over Cruz. A lot of pollsters are saying Trump has a ceiling he will never exceed because so many voters view him negatively. Can Trump’s or Cruz’s campaigns overcome their deficits? Ted Cruz’s 3 percent is better than Trump’s 11 percent.  

Peter 

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28 minutes ago, Peter said:

A lot of pollsters are saying Trump has a ceiling he will never exceed because so many voters view him negatively

Peter,

Are these the same pollsters who said Trump's ceiling was 12% or so?

Then 20% or so?

Then 25% or so?

And that his campaign was on the verge of being over? It was imploding? That he would never get minority votes?

And on and on?

Those pollsters?

Are those the pollsters you mean?

:)

Michael

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March 2016 polls must be viewed keeping in mind the about $100 million spent against Trump recently, and keeping in mind that no one is really going after Hillary recently. Still more than half a year to go. Trump hasn't even started against her because he's still having to focus on his own nomination. Trump will go after her and Hillary's numbers will not hold, just like Jeb's didn't, or Perry's, Walker's, Fiorina's, etc. And we will hear a zillion voices propounding about ceilings, like they have for the last 8 months, incorrectly.

Trump will decimate Hillary and anyone else the Democrats might put up. All the effort at making you believe otherwise is just part of the dual-party Cartel/Establishment trying to prevent the disaster coming to them with a Trump presidency.

The establishments of both parties are united in Anyone but Trump, because that is the way to perpetuating their scam. The GOP leadership doesn't care that Ryan or Kasich or whoever would lose, just as they feigned support for Cruz, knowing they hate him and knowing he had no chance.

The GOP leadership doesn't mind convincing you to eschew Trump and lose to the Democrats, because second in line at the trough is still better than no-more-trough-Trump. Don't fall for it.

Vote Trump.

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From “The Trumped Up Music Man”: Well, ya got trouble, my friend, right here, I say, trouble right here in River City. But just as I say, It takes judgement, brains, and maturity to score, In a baulk line game like the Presidency, And all week long your River City Youth'll be frittern away, I say your young men'll be frittern!! Right here in River City. Trouble with a capital "T" And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for Trump! People: Remember the Maine, Plymouth Rock and the Golden Rule! Oh, we've got trouble. We're in terrible, terrible trouble.
 

Jon wrote: Ted is innocent until proven guilty, in a court. I am not a court. And he doesn't need to be guilty - he's still fini. end quote

Well my friend, ya gotta have evidence. If ya smells a rat, ya gotta be able to smell that rat! You can’t say the rat is dead if the rat’s still polling. You can’t IMPLY the man’s a rat unless the Vet says it’s a rat. Zingers? And you sir, are no John Kennedy. That wasn’t proof of anything in that campaign but it still swayed a lot of those easily swayed. Not me! No emotionalism for me. Cripes now I can’t get that song out of my head.

Michael wrote: Are those the pollsters you mean? end quote

Beeeep! This is a test of the emergency notification system. Trump’s a loser. Beeeep! Sure, Michelangelo, polls are not exactly scientific, but at least I don‘t believe everything in the National Enquirer or brag about how often that rag is right. If the shoe of evidence were reversed you would be scoffing at me. And your feet would be getting pinched. I listen to polls and totally believe the vote count plus or minus 2 percent.   

Yesterday we took the highway south into Virginia, turned left at T’s Corner, drove just past the Lockheed Martin building and turned right at the Wallop’s Island NASA building and went to Wright’s Seafood Restaurant on the water. Excellent.

Peter  

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Bidinotto lovers -- and lovers of long, closely reasoned essays -- will probably enjoy giving some thought time to a fresh article on his blog. It seems written for posterity, rather than for the churn. Bidinotto haters, who hate him for his presumed hate hating on Trump, and his blinders, and his fixed mindset and the impression that he thinks you are stupid or hypnotized by a snake, you can pass it on, as Rand might say. 

There are crotches to snuffle at, and rumours to peck at and sniff, an always appealing aspect of Objectivish discussion.

I excerpt from the article, which I have obtained permission to scatter widely. I also include the note from RB on Twitter suggesting he is not a thrilling speaker.  Self-deprecation is so charming.. 

MP3 version with permission  Copyright Robert James Bidinotto 2016.

The Republican Crack-Up, Revisited

Part 1:
Part 2:

Perhaps the smartest political observation I've read in a long time comes from Joel Kotkin, a conservative Democrat and a noted demographer. In the March 20, 2016 issue of the Orange County Register, he wrote a fertile column about the rise of Donald Trump in the Republican Party [added: "Farewell, Grand Old Party"]. Kotkin's piece was laden with excellent observations, but none so important as this:

Successful political parties unite interests under a broadly shared policy agenda. The Clinton Democrats may seem ethically challenged, condescending and bordering on dictatorial, but they share basic positions on many core issues and a unifying belief in federal power as the favored instrument for change.

In contrast, the Republican Party consists of interest groups that so broadly dislike each other that they share little common ground.

This is a great insight, and it explains pretty much everything that has gone wrong with our nation politically for the past century.

The Democrats are a coalition of interest groups held together with a general unifying ideology: big-government progressivism. The Republicans, by contrast, are a coalition of interest groups without any single unifying ideology. Historically, their only basis for unity has been their shared enemies: the Democrats (and various points in the Democrat agenda). Members of the GOP have little in common ideologically -- only occasionally overlapping interests (often for diverse reasons), but mostly opposition to specific Democrats or specific Democrat initiatives and policies (again, for diverse reasons).

Put another way, there has been no basis for Republican unity in principle, except perhaps for a strong national defense. However, on matters of domestic policy, constitutional limitations on government power, economics, immigration, trade, civil liberties, individual rights...on just about everything you can name, Republicans are all over the map. There's no single principle, let alone broader political philosophy, that holds the party factions together.

Which explains why America has moved inexorably to the left over the past century, since the first Progressive Era. You have leftists, represented by the Democratic Party, who know exactly what kind of a society they want, and why. They have an underlying worldview, a Narrative, buttressed by academic theories and rationalizations, and translated into long-term policy goals. By contrast, the Republicans have none of this, and (perhaps except for Goldwater and Reagan) they have not had a leader who imposed upon the party, from the top, a unifying worldview, Narrative, theoretical rationale, or policy goals.

And it has finally led to what many are now acknowledging to be an impending crack-up of the Republican Party.

Sound familiar? [...]

Edited by william.scherk
Added fluff and filler, MP3 files and an excerpt.
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5 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

Shouldn't this crap clever material be in the Trump humor thread?

A....

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