Donald Trump

[tmj]

Interesting theory, and yeah these guys aren't pros for nothing. Could fit, irk DT in Utah with the photo campaign and be fairly sure he'd punch back, try and attribute(even just the impression) that his people employed 'sleazy tabloid friends' to release an incredibly(false?) story .

None of these guys are risk adverse, heck didn't Ted borrow like a million bucks to get a job that pays 175k/yr and is only 'guaranteed' for like six years ? Now That's a patriot( not that he isn't, but still)

[Peter]

There was an interesting “public” chemistry in the room as Carly and Ted spoke together. En guard! She was running interference so that Ted could appear more Presidential. Plus she had a serious gripe with The Daily Mail, a rag that had made up or passed along as true, stories about her family. That was clear thinking and a sword thrust on her part. Potential VP with chops?

Is a person refuting a slander if they say it is garbage and untrue? Of course they are. Ted could have said, “I did not have sex with that woman,” or “I never lied,” or “I am not a crook,” but wouldn’t that make him sound like  past liars? He should not fall into that trap.

After Ted called Trump a sniveling coward some of us were waiting for this dialogue: My name is Rafael Edward Cruz and you killed my father. And now you are going to die!

For the primary, anybody but Trump unless only Trump is left standing. If Trump does not reach the needed number of delegates the RULES SAY we have more delegate votes. No one seriously expects there to be some sort of backroom deal. Voting at the convention is public.  Anything else, including violence on the Convention floor, is not acceptable. Trump has no moral or legal right to be handed the Republican Presidential Candidacy if he achieves the most votes. Only if he reaches 1237 is he assured of victory. Shenanigans, politicking, fervor, and compromise are acceptable. Trump stealing the Convention is not.

Peter   

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

11 minutes ago, Peter said:

She was running interference so that Ted could appear more Presidential.

Peter,

Ha!

All Cruz does everywhere is "look Presidential."

Carly was running interference so Ted wouldn't have to lie or confess.

Either case would lose him a massive number of religious voters.

Michael

[KorbenDallas]

23 minutes ago, Peter said:

After Ted called Trump a sniveling coward some of us were waiting for this dialogue: My name is Rafael Edward Cruz and you killed my father. And now you are going to die!

 

[william.scherk]

 

Wow, @CNN has nothing but my opponents on their shows. Really one-sided and unfair reporting. Maybe I shouldn't do their town-hall tonight!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2016

Gingrich and Trump both mention a threat of 'lawsuit' over the GOP state rules that govern delegate allocation. Short-form, ten delegates 'up for grabs' that Trump figures he should get (eg, Rubio's and unbound 'free' delegates). From the New Orleans Advocate, "Donald Trump calls GOP primary politics 'unfair,' challenges Louisiana delegate distribution."

Edited March 29, 2016 by william.scherk
Added link to story with all the wonkish details of Trump's Louisiana problem.

[turkeyfoot]

20 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

 

Now that Trump is 

DELeTEd, Cant get rid of it.

[turkeyfoot]

Chapter 1 Campaigning for Dummies. Trumps staff requested the interview. Apparently he doesnt use google.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/03/28/trump_faces_tough_interview_with_wisconsin_radio_host_charlie_sykes.html

http://www.xojane.com/issues/stephanie-cegielski-donald-trump-campaign-defector

"Stephanie Cegielski. "Im sorry I worked for the man. I dont even think Donald Trump thought he could get this far. Thats the scariest prospect of all. He certainly wasnt ever prepared or equipped to go all the way to the White House.  But his ego has taken over the driver seat and nothing else matters. Trump acts as though hes a fictional character but like Hercules, Donald Trump is a work of fiction."

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/29/trump-campaign-manager-corey-lewandowski-charged-with-battery-for-grabbing-reporter-in-florida.html

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Geoff,

Any news on the Make America Great Again Super PAC?

That's where Stephanie Cegielski actually worked. Look 'em up.

At the very beginning, Trump kinda endorsed the idea to go along with his friend, Phil Ruffin, but later withdrew and the thing shut down.

I guess the lady who lost her employment was not amused.  

btw - In case you haven't heard, Trump doesn't use Super PACs. He's self-funding his own campaign.

Michael

 

EDIT: Read about the Stephanie Cegielski propaganda piece at Snopes: Make America Read Again. Cegielski was not Donald Trump's communications manager and top strategist. The anti-Trump folks can come up with better propaganda than outright lying about being a Trump head honcho. Come on, amateurs, get your act together...  

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I have a feeling the misdemeanor charge against Corey Lewandowski is going to get very, very interesting.

Victory press conference was over.
Why is she allowed to grab me and shout questions? Can I press charges? pic.twitter.com/qbW2RjkINX

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2016

I sure hope the behind-the-scenes powers that be are paying Michelle Fields well.

 

Michael

[Selene]

I need a safe place from all these threatening press people!!

 

                                                                                                   

[Jon Letendre]

She was the aggressor.

[Jon Letendre]

She touches him, while holding what looks exactly like a pen syringe to me (see pics at Trump's Twitter)

His reaction is to pull his arm to himself, away from her. (Michael's pic, couple posts above)

I haven't examined the original videos myself, but that's how it looks to me. (I'm kidding about syringe, probably just a pen.)

Soon thereafter, campaign guy levers her arm rearward making her lose one step, and he passes her to be alongside Trump.

She was wrong, and acting like a threat as I see Trump's lurch away from from her, campaign guy saw that from behind and made it right, that's all. And from the videos I have seen, her hair stays oriented, her head height is stable, gait continuous. She was caused to lose one step, very gently. 

If any charges, they should be against her unwanted touching that set this whole sequence going, in the first place.

[Robert Campbell]

On March 27, 2016 at 6:34 PM, Jon Letendre said:

I loved Ted Cruz. He wanted to fight and "shut down the government" and keep fighting. It seemed like he was the only one who wanted to fight, The GOP leadership was horrible. Obama would spend extra to shut down a park, more than keeping it open costs, and the leadership, "oh look the media is reporting that we are terrible people, gosh we don't have a chance, we have to give up before it gets worse for us."

But before any of this stuff between him and Trump even started, I understood that Ted Cruz would never become President and the place where he could be most effective was in the Senate.

Jon,

If Roger Stone (the man who denies being paid by Donald Trump) gets his way, Ted Cruz will not remain in the Senate for more than another month or two.  Or will limp to the end of his present term as a pariah, then discover, like David Vitter, that he no longer has a constituency.

From Stone's point of view, that's quite all right, because Cruz is just a Dubya Bush Republican in sheep's clothing.

Most Trump supporters, though their cited reasons will vary, seem to loathe the man with at least Stone's level of intensity.

Isn't the lesson that if you stand in Trump's path, even momentarily, you will have no place in the Senate, or in any other political capacity?

Robert

[Robert Campbell]

On March 28, 2016 at 3:16 PM, Jon Letendre said:

 

In other words, Ted Cruz has no place in the US Senate.

PS.  Was Graham even approximately sober when he delivered these remarks?

Robert Campbell

 

[william.scherk]

Trump handles some tough questions with his customary grace, honesty and charm, and with a focused responsiveness to challenge -- :"How should fathers and mothers explain this?" In other words ...

"There are numerous polls that show me beating Hillary."

???

Edited March 29, 2016 by william.scherk
Added the best question: "There are numerous polls that show me beating Hillary."

[Jon Letendre]

Hello Dr Campbell. For me, Trump hasn't had much to do with my recent disappointments with Ted. Being a tool of the violent left after Chicago, for example. Yes, that 'had to do with' Trump, but Ted did that himself, he jumped on the bandwagon with Soros and blamed the victim following planned and executed Move-On violence. That spoke volumes about Ted's true character and actual, in practice respect for speech. I learned that he would perpetuate appeasement of leftist violence to eliminate a nomination rival he knows is a peaceful person by smearing him with the violence just that very day committed by a billionaire on the left. Very bad.

Cruz has had no place in the Senate for several years. Trump had nothing to do with that.

Trump had nothing to do with Graham's hatred of Cruz. That also goes back several years.

I'm not sure what you mean by he's drunk. If he is, I would expect less judgement, so saying what he did is a check mark. And I would expect more honesty, lower inhibitions, and such. Another check mark.

Do you doubt that Graham and the vast majority of GOP has sincerely and deeply hated Ted Cruz for several years?

[Robert Campbell]

6 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Since one of my things is the study of persuasion, the following article is extremely interesting to me:

BREAKING: Political Operative Speaks Out on ‘Cuban Mistress Crisis’
by Jim Hoft
Mar 28th, 2016
The Gateway Pundit

This is a phone interview with an anonymous political operative speculating on what's really going on with the Cruz Sex Scandal.

The gist is a persuasion mechanism that when you see something big, then see something small, the small thing doesn't look so bad. (Marketers are always offering you something high-priced, then something low priced immediately after. This works.)

The anonymous operative calls this "anchoring" in the interview.

He believes Cruz probably had an affair 6 years ago with a lady, one he speculates was inferred in the National Enquirer article, but who is the only one not to make any comment so far. But she is getting pissed because of all the scrutiny she and her hubby are getting so she could blow at any time. And he believes Ted and Heidi dealt with it and are over it. Then Jeff Roe came into Cruz's life because he knew of it and, behind closed doors, told Cruz this was something that would come out so it needed to be handled beforehand. (He also thinks the $500k Super PAC payoff to Carly is involved with this, but that is a detail.)

So this operative believes it was Cruz's own people who shopped the article to the National Enquirer to make an outrageous splash that is easily debunked in the media by most of the women speculated about, then after Wisconsin, Cruz can have a public mea culpa, say he made a mistake 6 years ago, but he's been forgiven, this is painful, yada yada yada, and be in front of it. The National Enquirer splash will make this "thing in the past" be perceived as too tame to be much of an issue.

It's a very interesting theory...

Michael

 

EDIT: That, to me, would explain Drudge's drip feeds instead of just featuring the story. He wants to remove his site's impact from getting entangled with the The Enquirer story (getting anchored to it) and let the real story have it's correct impact when it finally comes out. These guys are not pros for nothing.

Michael,

This is all assuming that Matt Drudge knows what the real story is.

I have noted that Sarah Isgur Flores was named pretty quickly after the Enquirer story, and has not yet made a public statement (unlike Katrina Pierson and Amanda Carpenter).  There is also the payment to Carly Fiorina's PAC that could be linked to her.  (On the other hand, who is dumb enough to make such a payment, knowing that it can't be concealed and knowing what happened to John Edwards?).

How far are you willing to go with this theory?  As far as Roger Stone being paid by Ted Cruz to vouch for the story on the record?  Or at least as far as Roger Stone being duped by Ted Cruz operatives into vouching for it?

Robert Campbell

[KorbenDallas]

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!https://t.co/0w4ldD7dW3

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2016

[Robert Campbell]

8 minutes ago, Jon Letendre said:

Hello Dr Campbell. For me, Trump hasn't had much to do with my recent disappointments with Ted. Being a tool of the violent left after Chicago, for example. Yes, that 'had to do with' Trump, but Ted did that himself, he jumped on the bandwagon with Soros and blamed the victim following staged violence. That spoke volumes about Ted's true character and actual, in practice respect for speech. I learned that he would perpetuate appeasement of leftist violence to eliminate a nomination rival he knows is a peaceful person by smearing him with the violence just that very day committed by a billionaire on the left. Very bad.

Cruz has had no place in the Senate for several years. Trump had nothing to do with that.

Trump had nothing to do with Graham's hatred of Cruz. That also goes back several years.

I'm not sure what you mean by he's drunk. If he is, I would expect less judgement, so saying what he did is a check mark. And I would expect more honesty, lower inhibitions, and such. Another check mark.

Do you doubt that Graham and the vast majority of GOP has sincerely and deeply hated Ted Cruz for several years?

Jon,

All I'm getting from this is that you hate Ted Cruz, and you hate him fervently.

If Cruz has had no place in the Senate for several years... he hasn't been there that long.  All you could mean is that he should never have been elected in the first place, because he could have done nothing of positive value there at any time.

So that what you previously said about his place being in the Senate wouldn't really be what you think now, and maybe never was what you thought about him.

What do you mean by the "vast majority of GOP"?  

Lindsey Graham isn't "the vast majority of the GOP."  He isn't the even in the vast majority of Establishment Republican US Senators.  He was part of the Gang of Eight.  He is the only Republican in the Senate to be on the record favoring cap and trade—a position that he continues to champion despite being censured on account of it by several county Republican organizations in his own state.   In 2014, he and Tim Scott were on the ballot at the same time (because Scott was running for the remainder of Jim DeMint's term).  While the Democrats didn't have much of anyone to run against either of them, Scott got more votes than Graham did. Graham decided to run for President, even though no one was exactly clamoring for him to do it.  He quit two months before the primary in his home state.  Had he stayed in, he would have lost badly—not just to Trump, but to Rubio and Cruz—in his own state.

Needless to say, Graham and Trump see eye to eye on virtually nothing.

I've seen enough of Graham's public appearances to note that he looked really bad (compared to baseline) and to wonder whether he had been drinking.  His subsequent abrupt turnaround (better Cruz than Trump) didn't argue against this impression.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I have a feeling the misdemeanor charge against Corey Lewandowski is going to get very, very interesting.

 

I sure hope the behind-the-scenes powers that be are paying Michelle Fields well.

 

Michael

Michael,

Trump's campaign manager couldn't have actually committed misdemeanor battery on a Breitbart reporter?

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

1 hour ago, Jon Letendre said:

She touches him, while holding what looks exactly like a pen syringe to me (see pics at Trump's Twitter)

His reaction is to pull his arm to himself, away from her. (Michael's pic, couple posts above)

I haven't examined the original videos myself, but that's how it looks to me. (I'm kidding about syringe, probably just a pen.)

Soon thereafter, campaign guy levers her arm rearward making her lose one step, and he passes her to be alongside Trump.

She was wrong, and acting like a threat as I see Trump's lurch away from from her, campaign guy saw that from behind and made it right, that's all. And from the videos I have seen, her hair stays oriented, her head height is stable, gait continuous. She was caused to lose one step, very gently. 

If any charges, they should be against her unwanted touching that set this whole sequence going, in the first place.

Jon,

If Michelle Fields was acting like a threat to Donald Trump, how come he didn't remember it?

And say so immediately.

Robert Campbell

 

[turkeyfoot]

56 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

That's where Stephanie Cegielski actually worked. Look 'em up.

Michael, Im a low information voter. Much ado about nothing.

The Teflon Don. Safe as long as hes not overheated. )

 

[Robert Campbell]

On March 28, 2016 at 2:29 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

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

Michael,

I thought you were a little sharper at noticing the "lawyerly" dodges, of which Stone himself complained in the interview.

Roger Stone denied being paid by the Trump campaign.

Through how many other avenues could Trump have paid him, or be paying him, yet Stone's denial would still be true?

Besides, we have only Stone's word that an Enquirer reporter he already knew happened to run the story past him, yielding the only on-the-record quote in the entire piece.

Perhaps Stone also is inclined to argue that Enquirer stories about sexual improprieties are always true, because it was an Enquirer story in 1996 that got him kicked off the ... Bob Dole ... campaign.

12 years later, Stone finally admitted that that story was true.

Why is it mandatory for Ted Cruz to file a suit, which as a public figure he could easily lose even his lawyers could prove that every allegation that the Enquirer made about him was false?

Why isn't Barack Obama suing the tabloids every time one of them runs a story about him stepping out on Michelle?

Stone didn't just deny copulating with rodents.  He likened two of Ted Cruz's alleged paramours to rodents.

If Donald Trump always exercises such great judgment, why did he ever hire Roger Stone?

Robert

 

[Robert Campbell]

15 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

btw - I don't care who Cruz slept with. Whatever he did, I hope he had a good time.

It's all those Evangelicals who say they want to vote for him because he was anointed by God that I'm wondering about...

Oy vey... and all those Mormons who have faith he is the fulfillment of the Mormon prophesy...

Michael

Michael,

The real question is, do you care whether any of the stories about Ted Cruz are true?

After all, a false story could do enough damage to remove an obstacle in Donald Trump's path.

Maybe, even enough to get Ted Cruz out of the Senate.

And, for a bonus, get a large number of people you hate (Evangelicals who think the Second Coming is nigh, Mormons in Utah) to hate one guy whom you hate.

Robert

[Robert Campbell]

On March 28, 2016 at 9:11 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

It's all over the Internet that Jeff Roe, Cruz's campaign manager, is the person who secured the rights to the Melania nude picture from GQ.

I'm waiting for better sourcing to come up before I link to an article about it, though. Right now, the churn is tweets, blogs, forums, etc.

Michael

Michael,

Let's find out.

Donald Trump has been insisting that Cruz's people got the rights to the picture, not Liz Mair or whoever she can pay to work for her.

He not only did the "he started it" thing with Charlie Sykes, he kept at it when Sykes reminded him he and Cruz weren't on a playground.

His spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, claims that running the picture of Melania Trump in a sleazy ad was an insult to Donald Trump's wife by Ted Cruz, but her boss's retweeting of a certain picture of Heidi Cruz, with nasty caption attached, was not an insult to Ted Cruz's wife by Donald Trump.

Really.

Facing Hillary Clinton in a general election, I think Trump will be able to parry most of her complaints about his view of women by going after Bill, asking her about the "War Room," etc.

But how he is going to get a large percentage of Republican women to vote for him—that will be a different matter.

Robert

Edited March 31, 2016 by Robert Campbell