Donald Trump

[Roger Bissell]

11 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

On 6/16/2016 at 9:23 PM, Roger Bissell said:

Bob, I like both of these profiles. They sound dead-on to me. Please feel free to do more of this sort of thing! (One on Hillary would be interesting and insightful, I'm sure.)

REB

 

I find Hillary to be rather uninteresting.  She is about 1/16 of an inch deep. There is not enough there  for me to be even annoyed about.

To paraphrase Wolfgang Pauli --  she is not even wrong...

 

Thanks, Bob - you've done it again! Exactly what I had in mind.

REB

[Brant Gaede]

20 hours ago, Peter said:

Did you notice Newsmax spelled Dallas, Dallis? Some old letters and quotes, in contrast to Trump’s saying he doesn’t appreciate soldiers or sailors captured by the enemy.

Peter

 

Jerry Biggers wrote: Ayn Rand's position on the moral dilemma of someone being held hostage (i.e., should s/he falsely "confess" to committing acts when faced with torture, imprisonment, and other forms of coercion?) by a tyrannical government, was clearly stated in her response to "The Pueblo Incident" in 1969, when the North Korean government captured a U.S. Naval Ship, The Pueblo, and held them hostage, claiming that they were "spying."
 
What follows is an excerpt from an article entitled, "Ayn Rand on Torture," from the ARIWatch.com website:
 
First some background. In January 1968 North Korea attacked the USS Pueblo, a small and only lightly armed spy ship, in international waters. The Pueblo was no match for the Koreans’ torpedo boats and MIG fighters. The Seventh Fleet failed to come to the Pueblo’s defense, the commander quickly surrendered to save the crew, and the Koreans took all the survivors (which was all but one of the crew) prisoner. The Koreans severely beat commander and crew over the course of eleven months and forced them to confess, in writing and on film (though they made it look ridiculous), that they had invaded North Korean waters, that conditions in the U.S. were oppressive, and that the Koreans were treating them well. Eventually the U.S. government itself issued an official statement along similar lines, and retracted it after the men were consequently released.
 
There followed a military Court of Inquiry and a Congressional investigation of the incident. At the time of Ayn Rand’s article Commander Bucher was facing court-martial.
 
Were the men right to “confess?” After their release the New York Times published a letter saying that here was a “moral dilemma.” Ayn Rand disagreed, and wrote a letter of her own, which she published in “Brief Comments.” (And sent to the NYT – which never published it.) She said that Commander Bucher was a hero and should be given the Congressional Medal of Honor, and that the U.S. government is trying to make him the scapegoat:
 
“... on the grounds of an immoral and irrational military code. That code ignores the difference between a voluntary statement and a forced statement, thus endorsing the moral premise of thugs who regard torture as a legitimate method of inquiry.
 
“We recognize the difference in our criminal law – see the Supreme Court decisions which invalidate the confessions of criminals, if obtained by pressure. Yet we do not grant the same considerations to the protectors of our country when they are in the hands of savage killers.
 
“When we ascribe validity to the ‘confessions’ of men imprisoned by communist governments ... – when we do it in spite of the fact that the unspeakable atrocities practiced by such government are a matter of record – we endorse and invite the atrocities. She elaborates, then suggests the following to put an end to such extorted “confessions”:
 

“Let the U.S. government publicly order our armed forces to say, sign, admit or confess anything demanded of them when they are seized by an enemy ... . (This would not apply to divulging actual military secrets, but only to lying about political-ideological issues.) Let the government declare to the world that we will not accept as true, valid or meaningful any statement extorted by force, i.e., any statement made by an American prisoner in a foreign country – and that all such statements are repudiated in advance, in his name, by his government.
 
“This would re-establish the moral meaning of freedom and of truth. It would put an end to the martyrdom of innocent victims, to the kind of ordeal Commander Bucher and his men had to endure.
 
“In principle, this was the policy adopted by our government to obtain their release. Let this become our official policy, to be practiced by individual prisoners – as a proper expression of contempt for the social systems ruled, not by reason, but by brute force.”

 

Notes: The United States Military Code of Conduct, Article One, begins:  I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.

 

Explanation: Article I of the CoC applies to all Service members at all times. A member of the Armed Forces has a duty to support U.S. interests and oppose U.S. enemies regardless of the circumstances, whether located in a combat environment or in captivity.

 

Article II I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist.

 

Article III If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and to aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.

 

Article IV If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information or take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades. If I am senior, I will take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will back them up in every way.

 

Article V When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.

 

Article VI I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.

End of quotes from Code of Conduct.

 

RAND QUOTE 1:

 

Q: What should be done about the killing of innocent people in war?

 

AR: This is a major reason people should be concerned about the nature of their government. Certainly, the majority in any country at war is innocent. But if by neglect, ignorance, or helplessness, they couldn't overthrow their bad government and establish a better one, then they must pay the price for the sins of their governments we are all paying for the sins of ours. If some people put up with dictatorships some of them do in Soviet Russia, and some of them did in Nazi Germany then they deserve what their government deserves. There are no innocent people in war. Our only concern should be: who started that war? If you can establish that a given country did it, then there is no need to consider the rights of that country, because it has initiated the use of force, and therefore stepped outside the principle of right. I've covered this in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, where I explain why nations as such do not have any rights, only individuals do.

end quote

 

 

Honesty as an Objectivist virtue, from OPAR

quote (all that follows is a quote until I say end of quote)

 

"Conventional moralists usually regard honesty as a form of altruism. They regard it as the selfless renunciation of all the values one could have obtained by preying on the naiveté of one's fellows. Objectivism discards any such notion. In both its forms - honesty with oneself and to one's fellows - the present virtue, like every other, in an expression of egoism. Every virtue defines an aspect of the same complex achievement, the one on which man's survival depends: the achievement of remaining true to that which exists.

 

We can now deal summarily with the issue of "white lies." The ethical status of a lie is not affected by the identity of its intended beneficiary. A lie that undertakes to protect other men from the facts represents the same anti-reality principle as the con-man variety; it is just as immoral and just as impractical. A man does no service to his fellows by becoming their accomplice in blindness. Nor does he gain any moral credit thereby; an improper practice is not improved by attaching to it an altruistic justification. If anything, the latter merely compounds the evil. It removes the liar a step further from reality.

 

Is honesty then an absolute?

 

Just as particular objects must be evaluated in relation to moral principles, so moral principles themselves must be defined in relation to the facts that make them necessary. Moral principles are guides to life-sustaining action that apply within a certain framework of conditions. Like all scientific generalizations, therefore, moral principles are absolutes within their conditions. They are absolutes - contextually . . . A man is obliged to practice what he preaches - when he has the political freedom to do it. But he has no obligation to preach or practice any idea that would invite the attention, say, of the Gestapo or the IRS.

 

The same approach applies to the interpretation of honesty. The principle of honesty, the Objectivist view, is not a divine commandment or a categorical imperative. It does not state that lying is wrong "in itself'" and thus under all circumstances, even when a kidnapper asks where one's child is sleeping (the Kantians do interpret honesty this way). But one may not infer that honesty is therefore "situational," and that every lie must be judged "on its own merits," without reference to principle. This kind of alternative, which we hear everywhere, is false. It is another case of Intrinisicism vs. Subjectivism preempting the philosophical field.

 

Lying is absolutely wrong - under certain conditions. It is wrong when a man does it in the attempt to obtain a value. But, to take a different kind of case, lying to protect one's values from criminals is not wrong. If and when a man's honesty becomes a weapon that kidnappers or other wielders of force can use to harm him, then the normal context is reversed; his virtue would then become a means serving the ends of evil. In such a case, the victim has not only the right but also the obligation to lie and to do it proudly. The man who tells a lie in this context is not endorsing any anti-reality principle. On the contrary, he is now the representative of the good and the true; the kidnapper is the one at war with reality (with the requirements of man's life). Morally the con-man and the lying child-protector are opposites. The difference is the same as that between murder and self-defense.

 

There are other than criminals or dictators to whom it is moral to lie. For example, lying is necessary and proper in certain cases to protect one's privacy from snoopers. An analysis covering such detail belongs, however, in a treatise on ethics.

 

In discussing integrity, I said that to be good is to be good "all the time." I can be more precise now. To be good is to obey moral principles faithfully, without a moments exception, within the relevant context- which one must, therefore, know and keep in mind. Virtue does not consist in obeying concrete-bound rules ("Do not lie, do not kill, do not accept help from others, make money, honor your parents, etc.") No such rules can be

defended or consistently practiced; so people throw up their hands and flout all rules.

 

The proper approach is to recognize that virtues are broad abstractions, which one must apply to concrete situations by a process of thought. In the process, one must observe all the rules of correct epistemology, including definition by essentials and context-keeping.

 

This is the only way there is to know what is moral - or to be honest."

end of quotes

The United States obtained much valuable information from captured Japanese soldiers in WWII because they were not trained to resist interrogation--they were rather expected to die in combat. The conduct of US prisoners of war thanks to their training default of name, rank and service number helped protect them from interrogation, even that involving torture. One of several reasons is that such prisoners tend to come across as "simple soldiers." Some pilots captured by North Vietnam were considered to be only "simple pilots," which may have saved many from severe interrogation up to being exported to the Soviet Union, never to be heard from again.

The UCMJ is not strictly comparable to civilian law; in a war situation, hardly at all. The metrics are too different; military life too different from the civilian.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

On 6/16/2016 at 0:19 PM, Peter said:

He can be a bit irksome PDS. Trump brought up an excellent example of how he would fight radical Islam. He would command an all - out war with them because that is what they are doing with us. My easy, lead in question is this. Is radical Islam in an all - out war with Western Civilization? Do they target innocents along with our police and military?

 

Of course they are in an all - out war, and they do target children. Remember the Boston Marathon bombing? And the Orlando murderer, just *cased* Disney World.

 

So my follow - up question is: Should America and the Western World be fighting World War III with radical Islam? (Those Islamic monsters remind me of the Brad Pitt movie, “World War Z.”)  

 

Donald Trump said recently, at a campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia, "It makes a difference and it makes a big difference because unless you're willing to discuss and talk about the real nature of the problem and the name of the problem, radical Islamic terrorism, you're never going to solve the problem."

 

How will our military solve this problem under President Trump? What is moral? What is common sense? How do we win and stop them from killing our people? 

Peter

Notes:

William Brute Bradford wrote Jan 20, 2016, in “A strategy to kill radical Islam”: In sum, radical Islamists fight a total and global war in alliance with an American fifth column, while we fight a limited air war against ISIS targets in the Middle East with few allies. And so, we are losing. end quote

 

And George H. Smith wrote about war: A state of war, including one declared for just reasons, is a public acknowledgment of a serious conflict of interests . . . If -- or more precisely, *when* -- those who pursue a just war (i.e., one waged the legitimate purpose of self-defense) are responsible for the unintentional killing of innocents, then they have indeed violated the rights of those victims. As I argued at some length previously an exchange with Bill Dwyer, the rights of innocent people do not vanish because it may be in our rational self-interest to violate them -- so we are under a moral imperative to *minimize* civilian casualties as much as is humanly possible. (A moral theory that demands the impossible is useless.) end quote

 

Ayn Rand wrote: When someone comes at you with a gun, if you have an ounce of self-esteem, you will answer him with force, never mind who he is or who stands behind him. If he's out to destroy you, you owe it to your own life to defend yourself. end quote 

Most of the strength of radical jihad Islam comes from state sponsorship likely in this order: Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia (ideology) and Pakistan. If the governments of these countries are brought into line through sundry--don't have to be military--means all that's left is the mop up. This is a war against fascism, not Islam. The first is winnable and the second is good-luck-with-that.

--Brant

[Peter]

Well Brant, I would also consider the U.S., the internet, and those oil wells in Iraq, as aiding the enemy. 

Mix up WWII POW’S, the code of conduct, and a portrayal of the capitalist, trader mentality and you have the movie, “King Rat” based on a novel by James Clavell. It is very powerful, and I remember watching it with my Dad, a veteran of that war, who was also swept away by the movie. We saw it in a military theatre. He and other vets (1963?) in the movie audience had to be shushed because they commented or exploded in expletives many times during the movie. I saw it later on TV and was still mightily impressed by the situational, military and personal *values,* shown in the movie and I went home and read the book and it is also magnificent.

Peter   

I won’t give away too much with the following.

From Wikipedia: King Rat  is a 1962 novel by James Clavell and the author's literary debut. Set during World War II, the novel describes the struggle for survival of American, Australian, British, Dutch, and New Zealander prisoners of war in a Japanese camp in Singapore—a description informed by Clavell's own three-year experience as a prisoner in the notorious Changi Prison camp. One of the major characters, Peter Marlowe, is based upon Clavell's younger self. Despite its fearsome reputation, Changi was among the better-run Japanese camps, with only 850 deaths among the 87,000 prisoners who passed through.^[1] King Rat was the first book published of Clavell's sweeping series, the Asian Saga, and the fourth chronologically. Two characters from King Rat also appear in Noble House (1981) . . . .

[Jules Troy]

James Clavell was a brilliant author, King Rat was as close to an autobiography as he ever came.  Based on his experiences at Chanji pow camp.

[Peter]

20 minutes ago, Jules Troy said:

James Clavell was a brilliant author, King Rat was as close to an autobiography as he ever came.  Based on his experiences at Chanji pow camp.

I really liked his novel Tai Pei (sp?) too, Jules.

In some ways describing the Trump candidacy, Ayn Rand wrote in 1972: Above all, do not join the wrong ideological groups or movements, in order to “do something.” By “ideological” (in this context), I mean groups or movements proclaiming some vaguely generalized, undefined (and, usually, contradictory) political goals. (E.g., the Conservative Party, that subordinates reason to faith, and substitutes theocracy for capitalism; or the “libertarian” hippies, who subordinate reason to whims, and substitute anarchism for capitalism.) To join such groups means to reverse the philosophical hierarchy and to sell out fundamental principles for the sake of some superficial political action which is bound to fail. It means that you help the defeat of your ideas and the victory of your enemies. end quote

Okie Dokie. Is Trump "King Rat?" joke. Here is my prediction of future occurrence based upon the history up to now, and not based upon the 1970’s. Rand would excoriate Trump’s lack of philosophical grounding, his bluster, style, and blanket condemnations. But she would reluctantly endorse and VOTE for Trump, as would her current sycophants in obedience. That idea should piss a lot of people off.   

At the end I have posted some clips from an online article. It got me “thinking” about “critical thinking.” I can say with total conviction that I am for freedom and the Constitution but Progressives are against freedom and the Constitution. They want to be in charge of everyone else’s actions. They want to tell you what to do. I think I am right but how would they describe themselves? They would spin it. If you ask them a question about their philosophy and policies, they will sound quite reasonable, but if you parse it like a philosophical linguist you begin to see their premises, like Ayn Rand did. She sure knew how to boil eggs.     

Peter

From: Why Liberals Support Muslims Who Hate Everything They Stand For by John Hawkins Posted: Jun 18, 2016 12:01 AM

"I also now realize, with brutal clarity, that in the progressive hierarchy of identity groups, Muslims are above gays. Every pundit and politician -- and that includes President Obama and Hillary Clinton and half the talking heads on TV -- who today have said ‘We don't know what the shooter's motivation could possibly be!’ have revealed to me their true priorities: appeasing Muslims is more important than defending the lives of gay people. Every progressive who runs interference for Islamic murderers is complicit in those murders, and I can no longer be a part of that team." -- Anonymous at PJ Media

Liberalism is generally hostile to Christianity and it particularly seems to dislike anyone who has strong religious convictions that conflict with liberalism. This describes every devout Muslim on the planet. Liberals go on and on endlessly about a war on women and Islam treats women like garbage. In many parts of the Islamic world, women are forced to wear burkas or veils, are given clitoridectomies to take the pleasure out of sex for them, can’t leave the house or drive without a male relative and may be raped or beaten with impunity.  Libs obsess endlessly about gun violence and constantly trash our troops when they accidentally kill civilians. In a large minority of the Islamic world (and a majority in many more fundamentalist countries), innocent women and children are considered fair game and terrorists who murder them in large numbers in places like the Palestinian territories are considered to be heroes.

The Left has gone so insane over imaginary violations of “gay rights” that liberals are in favor of driving Christians out of any profession that caters to weddings and they insist that women have to use the bathroom with men because the less than .2% of men who “feel like” women would be uncomfortable using the men’s bathroom. Meanwhile, Islam goes with homophobia the way peanut butter goes with jelly. There are a number of Islamic countries where being gay is a crime with jail or even DEATH as the penalty.

So, how can liberals continue to turn a blind eye to all of this? As my friend Evan Sayet has explained, it has to do with the liberal emphasis on “indiscriminateness.” They were raised to believe that indiscriminateness is a moral imperative. That the only way to be moral is to not discriminate between right and wrong, good and evil, better and worse, truth and lies because your act of discrimination – discriminating between these things might just be a reflection of your personal discrimination, your bigotries.

Why are American liberals so hostile to the rich? As that old quote often attributed to Honoré de Balzac goes, “Behind every great fortune there is a crime.” That’s the thinking. Why do so many liberals seem to loathe America even though we’re the richest, most successful country in history? Because the very fact that we’re the richest, most successful country in history proves we must be doing something wrong and unfair. end quote

[merjet]

On 6/17/2016 at 0:26 PM, BaalChatzaf said:

I find Hillary to be rather uninteresting.  She is about 1/16 of an inch deep. There is not enough there  for me to be even annoyed about.

I find her conceited, dishonest, and totalitarian to the core. She wants control, control, and more control over other people. She believes she is far more competent to tell other people how to live than they themselves decide and do. Of course, she whitewashes it all with buckets of coercive altruism. 

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, merjet said:

I find her conceited, dishonest, and totalitarian to the core. She wants control, control, and more control over other people. She believes she is far more competent to tell other people how to live than they themselves decide and do. Of course, she whitewashes it all with buckets of coercive altruism. 

As Lillian von Shtupp might have said:  Powah lust, how owdinary....

[KorbenDallas]

Short video of what a Trump rally looks like from a different perspective:

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!#Trump2016 #AmericaFirst pic.twitter.com/vN4K8FvQNT

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2016

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm not a big fan of Dick Morris, but he does represent a good slice of establishment Republicans who blow with the wind, so to speak. So from that lens, I found his comments below interesting.

(Obviously he supports Trump and, now that Trump will be the nominee, surprise surprise, he just wrote a book about how awesome Trump is and offering advice.  )

That part right at the end about Hillary Clinton and Julian Assange was interesting. I knew he was going to dump more Hillary emails on Wikileaks. I didn't know there were going to be 20,000 emails in that dump.

For Trump supporters, that is great news.

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This is from an interview in 2000 with Advocate magazine, a pro-gay publication.

Flashback Interview: Trump Defends Gays from Clintons in 2000

Here are the questions the interviewer asked back then. The well-reasoned pro-gay answers might surprise a lot of people. In essence, he said he wanted equal protection for all gays and that, using the standard of "best and brightest," which are his only concerns in hiring people for business or appointing them for government, a gay person's "sexual orientation would be meaningless." He wants their brains and talent and the rest is their business.

Remember, this was when Bill and Hillary opposed gay marriage out of political convenience, then later changed their minds out of political convenience.

Advocate magazine said:

Are you serious about running? 
Why should gays and lesbians be interested in you as a presidential candidate?
Would we see gay people in a Trump administration?
What would you do to combat antigay prejudice?
Are your gay employees allowed to be out?

I'm just sayin'...

 

Michael

[Peter]

Michael wrote: I'm not a big fan of Dick Morris, but he does represent a good slice of establishment Republicans who blow with the wind, so to speak. So from that lens, I found his comments below interesting. end quote  

I would say that the Dick Morris Republican and Establishment types don’t get blown in the wind. They get their mind’s blown - by truly talented ladies and other people who I will say no bad words about. They recreate an evolutionary experience with precision simply through their skill. Even the terminology is not precise, so I think all of us should stop using the phrase, “blow.” My thingie is not a trumpet, so that is a derogatory cliché. And how in the heck did the phrase “suck” come to mean something derogatory? Be honest when you read this.

Nero   

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The beginning of this video is awful (too much yelling--at least it's a short part in a short video), but the ending interview is extremely powerful, especially the end of the interview.

That end moment hits home to all sides and nails a primal emotion we all feel.

Michael

[KorbenDallas]

Evita (..where are you Selene?..) to launch $41M in attack ads against Trump this summer:

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Something different from Bernie's folks, with bean supper and all,

Activists plot ‘world’s largest fart-in’ during Hillary’s DNC speech
by Kyle Olson
The American Mirror
June 19, 2016

 

From the article:

Kyle Olson said:

The “fart-in” ironically has its roots with the activist movement leader then-Hillary Rodham sidled up to in the 1960s: Saul Alinsky.

He promoted a “flatulent blitzkrieg” as a way to offend the elites of Rochester, New York.

He explained in a 1972 interview with Playboy magazine:

Another idea I had that almost came to fruition was directed at the Rochester Philharmonic, which was the establishment’s — and Kodak’s — cultural jewel. I suggested we pick a night when the music would be relatively quiet and buy 100 seats.

The 100 blacks scheduled to attend the concert would then be treated to a preshow banquet in the community consisting of nothing but huge portions of baked beans. Can you imagine the inevitable consequences within the symphony hall?

The concert would be over before the first movement — another Freudian slip — and Rochester would be immortalized as the site of the world’s first fart-in.

When questioned about the level of maturity of such a stunt, Alinsky defended it, saying:

First of all, the fart-in would be completely outside the city fathers’ experience. Demonstrations, confrontations and picketings they’d learned to cope with, but never in their wildest dreams could they envision a flatulent blitzkrieg on their sacred symphony orchestra. It would throw them into complete disarray.

Second, the action would make a mockery of the law, because although you could be arrested for throwing a stink bomb, there’s no law on the books against natural bodily functions. Can you imagine a guy being tried in court on charges of first-degree farting? The cops would be paralyzed.

Third, when the news got around, everybody who heard it would break out laughing, and the Rochester Philharmonic and the establishment it represents would be rendered totally ridiculous.

A fourth benefit of the tactic is that it’s psychically as well as physically satisfying to the participants. What oppressed person doesn’t want, literally or figuratively, to shit on his oppressors? Here was the closest chance they’d have.

“Such tactics aren’t just cute; they can be useful in driving your opponent up the wall,” Alinsky said.” Very often the most ridiculous tactic can prove the most effective.”

Imagine what Trump is going to do with this once he gets a hold of it.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 

Imagine what Trump is going to do with this once he gets a hold of it.

Michael

Think of the "bean scene" in the movie  Blazing Saddles....

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This is interesting (from NYT)...

Donald Trump Parts Ways With Corey Lewandowski, His Campaign Manager

I want to learn more before I comment, but I suspect the Roger Stone element (which includes Paul Manafort) will now increase presence and influence in Trump's campaign.

Corey did one hell of a job getting Trump going, though. And if Trump is true to form (like he often does with those of high talent he fires for purely business reasons), Corey will have a place somewhere in his future administration or will get some strong benefit coming from Trump re a project of his.

Michael

[Mark]

Of course my first reaction was “This is gratitude?”   But then I don’t know much about Lewandowski.  I gather his more or less replacement is Paul Manafort, a total sleazebag.  

According to one account – it may not be true – one reason that Trump dropped Lewandowski is that he had encouraged Trump to criticize that Mexican judge, which in fact was a great thing to do.

 

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's what Corey has to say. He's quite a trooper.

Michael

[turkeyfoot]

On 6/17/2016 at 3:59 PM, Mark said:

deleted

[turkeyfoot]

I take no particular joy in hearing DT is not ready for prime time. 

1.  "While Trump had promised [RNC chair Reince Priebus] that he would call two dozen top GOPdonors, when RNC chief of staff Katie Walsh recently presented Trump with a list of more than 20 donors, he called only three before stopping, according to two sources familiar with the situation," In discussions that ensued DT wanted first to get his personal funds, some $43M, back as part of the donor negotiations.

2. According to sources on the John Batchelor show, he has no meaningful data analytics in place, a communications director or fund raising director. Hes not able to use the teleprompter reliably.

https://mic.com/articles/146544/self-funding-donald-trump-asks-supporters-for-100-000-in-emergency-email-plea#.AX72WLtrl

Whatever occurs, if he lives up to his billing, it will be spectacular! ;)

[Jon Letendre]

On June 11, 2016 at 0:55 PM, Mark said:

ARI Watch unloads on Binswanger:

Contra Trump

(the first of two installments).

Good job, Mark.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is The Donald on Corey:

It's as I thought.

It was a business decision based on styles, not a personal failing on Corey's part or Trump being pissed at him. There comes a time when you have to choose a direction and some people are not compatible with that direction. Trump told O'Reilly that Corey IS a friend, not WAS or some crappy political euphemism.

Corey has a brilliant future once Trump is president. I have no doubt of that.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I have heard Stephen Miller, Trump's Senior policy adviser, speak before and he's been OK. Good at times.

Man, he just got a whole lot better.

A loooooooooooooot better.

He comes off a bit over-rehearsed at times, but whoever his coach is, it's working. This guy Miller is getting the crowd wound up in all the right ways. He might look like an accountant, but he speaks like Tony Robbins.

After he gets even more polish, I believe Stephen Miller is going to be a monster speaker. He might even become a major political figure in his own right over time. I expect to see a whole lot more of him during Trump's campaign.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I have heard Stephen Miller, Trump's Senior policy adviser, speak before and he's been OK. Good at times.

Man, he just got a whole lot better.

A loooooooooooooot better.

He comes off a bit over-rehearsed at times, but whoever his coach is, it's working. This guy Miller is getting the crowd wound up in all the right ways. He might look like an accountant, but he speaks like Tony Robbins.

After he gets even more polish, I believe Stephen Miller is going to be a monster speaker. He might even become a major political figure in his own right over time. I expect to see a whole lot more of him during Trump's campaign.

Michael

That was a nifty speech.  He got the negatives  just right.  Slam bang, right on target.   However he did not convince me one iota that Donald Trump can do anything about it.  I hate to say this,  but if Trump is elected and assuming he does not sell out,  he is almost sure to be assassinated.  The Republican party is worse than useless so if Trump is eliminated we have no one in power left to reverse the betrayals  that Mr. Miller so eloquently spoke of....

Review your history now.  Does anyone remember what happened to the Brothers Gracci????