Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[pbrower2a]

I see Donald Trump as a real-life J. R. Ewing, someone who can get away with despotic management as the boss of a business empire -- hollow and unfeeling. He may care about others' image of him if such serves his ends, but he cares more about his image than about the people who hold the image.

As the most powerful man in the world, his hollowness and shallowness would make him a disaster. He would try to govern like a dictatorial CEO, which is incompatible with the Constitutional reality. He can fire the entire staff of a resort with impunity, but he can't fire a Justice of the Supreme Court, the Governor of California, a Senator from Michigan, or the anchorman of ABC, CBS, or NBC nightly newscasts. He might love to stifle Rachel Maddow, but he won't get away with it. She'd go on Canadian TV, and cable companies would pick up the channel carrying her show.

What he says about foreigners and people that he considers questionable about their American-ness he dares not say of people whose American identity is unquestioned. But he will question how American anyone is once that person disputes his claim to truth.
Post by Yours Truly on another Forum.

Donald Trump will make George W. Bush look benign by contrast. Dubya may have been a buffoon, but he simply ignored his opponents, trying to make them irrelevant. Donald Trump will vilify his enemies and opponents, and what his staffers have shown to hecklers may be what some secret police new to America does to people who get in the way. Some of us might want to look into other countries as places to live in the event of a Trump Presidency, especially if our jobs have no geographic requirement. Maybe you will prefer Coimbra to Columbus, Tucuman to Tulsa, Munich to Miami, Warsaw to Washington, Bangalore to Baltimore, or even Shanghai to Chicago for the duration.

By "Warsaw" I do not mean Warsaw, Indiana.

[Eric the Green]

WELL SAID!!

Stop calling Trump a populist

By Ron Grossman

June 27, 2016
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opini...story.html

If for some perverse reason liberals want to throw the presidential election, they should go right on denouncing Donald Trump as a "populist."

If I thought he really were a populist, I'd vote for him. And I'm as far from being a supporter as you can get.

Calling him a populist violates the first rule of advertising: Tout your product, knock the other guy's. Populist means "for the people." So if you award that title to your opponent, you're saying you're not for the people. In other words, you're an "elitist," and the Democrats are burdened with enough evidence of that, without copping a plea to being out of touch with workaday folks.

Hillary Clinton recently spoke out against America's escalating income gap — good strategy — while wearing a $12,495 Armani jacket — dumb move. She should have appeared in an off-the-rack blouse from Kmart. Then by contrast, she could have pointed to obvious signs that Trump is anything but a homespun man of the people: a private jet, skyscrapers, golf resorts and failed gambling casinos, all emblazoned with his name.

Trump isn't a populist but a demagogue. The difference being that a populist seeks political power to work for the good of the average citizen. A demagogue claims the same motivation, but is truly only interested in aggrandizing himself.

Notice how Trump took time out from promising what he'd do for us to rant and rave about a federal judge hearing a lawsuit against him. That display of unbridled egoism mixed with a tincture of racism — he repeatedly underscored the judge's Mexican heritage — sent Republican officeholders scurrying for cover. Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk unendorsed Trump.

Another Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, hinted she might vote for Clinton.

Democrats with a taste for name-calling could label Trump a fake, a phony, a false messiah — anything but a populist. Our nation has a long and honorable populist tradition. But Trump's ability to project himself as part of it witnesses the political sinkhole we're stuck in.

Populism is a simple idea. Abraham Lincoln put it succinctly, speaking of "government of the people, by the people, for the people." Yet for 95 percent of human history, the opposite idea held sway: Government is for the few, not the many. The common people get the crumbs.

Our Founding Fathers borrowed the concept of a bicameral legislature from England, calling the chambers the Senate and the House of Representatives. The names of their English counterparts made it clear who was top dog: Members of the House of Lords didn't have to dirty their hands running for office, like members of the House of Commons. Lords inherited their seat from their fathers.

Even after we ditched titles of nobility, populism hit some rough patches in this country. In the late 19th century, American society was splitting in two, much like the current division between the 1 percent and everyone else. The Industrial Revolution had created a new aristocracy of wealth. Whole sectors of the economy were monopolized by family dynasties: John D. Rockefeller and his descendants had a lock on oil production and distribution, J.J. Hill and Cornelius Vanderbilt dominated the railroads, John Pierpont Morgan had a similar position in banking and finance, and Andrew Carnegie in steel.

In their respective fields, their word was law. Government hardly regulated and barely taxed the Captains of Industry, as their friends called them, or robber barons, as their opponents dubbed them.

Farmers were particularly at the mercy of the monopolies. They needed money to buy seed and equipment, which banks were willing to loan when times were good, but insisted on collecting even in lean times. They shipped their produce to market via railroads that could pretty much charge as they pleased.

Squeezed by those constraints, Southern and Western farmers rebelled against the status quo, leading to the formation of a People's Party in 1891. Its adherents demanded the breakup of the monopolies and backing the dollar with silver as well as gold. That would increase the money supply, making it easier for farmers to pay their debts.

In 1896, a populist orator, William Jennings Bryan, electrified a Democratic Party convention meeting in Chicago. Demanding silver money, he said: "You shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold!" He got the nomination but lost the election. Scared out of its wits, the business community loudly forecast total disaster if Bryan went to the White House.

Nonetheless, that made the Democrats the party of populism. During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed it the champion of the forgotten man.

Then strangely, the Democrats let the populist franchise get away. No longer embracing it, they used it to derogate upstart defectors from their ranks, like Alabama's segregationist Gov. George Wallace. By what stretch of the imagination could someone who denied African-Americans equal rights be a populist?

The same sleight-of-hand is involved in calling Donald Trump a populist. A populist is a unifier, while Trump is a divider. His campaign depends on pitting one group against another, vulgarly denigrating one after another. A true populist uses fewer, not more, words.

When Lincoln spoke of government of, by and for the people, he didn't add a caveat, as Trump might: "Except for Muslims, Mexicans, scum reporters, climate-change hucksters, women not as beautiful as my wife, Clueless Obama, Lying Hillary and a senator I call Pocahontas."

rgrossman@tribpub.com

[Odin]

(07-01-2016, 11:45 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The difference being that a populist seeks political power to work for the good of the average citizen. A demagogue claims the same motivation, but is truly only interested in aggrandizing himself.

This is not correct, IMO. What makes a person a demagogue is not their motivation, a demagogue can have a perfectly selfless motivation, what makes a person a demagogue is whipping up hysteria and spouting conspiracy theories in order to incite the population into an rage

[Eric the Green]

This is a nifty video; don't know how to embed it here.

https://www.facebook.com/UpandDownTheatr...121577434/

OK I found it.

[Eric the Green]

Trump finally has an opinion on the Supreme Court's abortion ruling, and it is satisfyingly stupid

By Hunter (Daily Kos)
Thursday Jun 30, 2016 · 12:18 PM PDT

MONESSEN, PA - JUNE 28: Presumptive Republican candidate for President Donald Trump speaks to guests during a policy speech during a campaign stop at Alumisource on June 28, 2016 in Monessen, Pennsylvania. Trump continued to attack Hillary Clinton while delivering an economic policy speech targeting globalization and free trade.


(Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
Gonna be a while before I get tired of this picture.

It took three days to ferment, but Donald Trump finally has come to an opinion on the Supreme Court's ruling this week that nixed Texas' onerous restrictions on abortion clinics. And as is expected, when Donald Trump is forced to weigh in on subject not directly related to which things are classy and which are not, it is a stupid response worded stupidly.

“Now if we had—Scalia was living, or if Scalia was replaced by me, you wouldn’t have had that, OK? It would’ve been the opposite,” Trump said of the ruling, which struck down a restrictive Texas abortion law.

The ruling was 5-3. If Scalia had been alive it would have been 5-4. The only way a Donald Trump appointment would have made a difference here is if Donald Trump declared that Donald Trump-nominated Supreme Court justices got three votes per case while everybody else still only got one. Which is something Donald Trump would probably do.

Radio host Mike Gallagher apparently wanted to make quite sure he got Trump on the record on this one, and so followed up: So under a Donald Trump presidency, "you wouldn't see a majority ruling like the one we had with the Texas abortion law this week." Right?

"No, I—you wouldn't see that. And—and people understand that. And, now you know, when you appoint judges sometimes, they change their minds. Because you had that in the case of Obamacare with John Roberts. I mean, who would've thought that couldn't happened?"

So to sum up, Donald Trump's opinion on the Supreme Court ruling—and mind you, there was nothing in this entire exchange to suggest that Donald Trump knows what the ruling was, or what it was about, or even the slightest bit of information beyond the vague understanding that conservatives didn't like it—is that it would have happened differently under President Trump because magic, and if it didn't happen differently it wouldn't be his fault because you can't trust them darn judges anyway.

You could have asked him to voice an opinion on any other Supreme Court ruling, including ones you just made up to see if he was paying attention, and I'd wager the response would be the exact same generic words arranged in the exact same generic way. What did you think of the court's decision in Godzilla v. Larry’s Diner & Rib Shack et al, Mr. Trump?

"If Scalia was replaced by me, you wouldn't have had that, OK? It would have been the opposite. But when you appoint judges, sometimes they change their minds..."

[Odin]

Trump is a serial rapist.

[pbrower2a]

(07-01-2016, 02:36 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trump finally has an opinion on the Supreme Court's abortion ruling, and it is satisfyingly stupid

By Hunter  (Daily Kos)
Thursday Jun 30, 2016 · 12:18 PM PDT

MONESSEN, PA - JUNE 28: Presumptive Republican candidate for President Donald Trump speaks to guests during a policy speech during a campaign stop at Alumisource on June 28, 2016 in Monessen, Pennsylvania. Trump continued to attack Hillary Clinton while delivering an economic policy speech targeting globalization and free trade.


(Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
Gonna be a while before I get tired of this picture.

It took three days to ferment, but Donald Trump finally has come to an opinion on the Supreme Court's ruling this week that nixed Texas' onerous restrictions on abortion clinics. And as is expected, when Donald Trump is forced to weigh in on subject not directly related to which things are classy and which are not, it is a stupid response worded stupidly.

“Now if we had—Scalia was living, or if Scalia was replaced by me, you wouldn’t have had that, OK? It would’ve been the opposite,” Trump said of the ruling, which struck down a restrictive Texas abortion law.

The ruling was 5-3. If Scalia had been alive it would have been 5-4. The only way a Donald Trump appointment would have made a difference here is if Donald Trump declared that Donald Trump-nominated Supreme Court justices got three votes per case while everybody else still only got one. Which is something Donald Trump would probably do.

Radio host Mike Gallagher apparently wanted to make quite sure he got Trump on the record on this one, and so followed up: So under a Donald Trump presidency, "you wouldn't see a majority ruling like the one we had with the Texas abortion law this week." Right?

"No, I—you wouldn't see that. And—and people understand that. And, now you know, when you appoint judges sometimes, they change their minds. Because you had that in the case of Obamacare with John Roberts. I mean, who would've thought that couldn't happened?"

So to sum up, Donald Trump's opinion on the Supreme Court ruling—and mind you, there was nothing in this entire exchange to suggest that Donald Trump knows what the ruling was, or what it was about, or even the slightest bit of information beyond the vague understanding that conservatives didn't like it—is that it would have happened differently under President Trump because magic, and if it didn't happen differently it wouldn't be his fault because you can't trust them darn judges anyway.

You could have asked him to voice an opinion on any other Supreme Court ruling, including ones you just made up to see if he was paying attention, and I'd wager the response would be the exact same generic words arranged in the exact same generic way. What did you think of the court's decision in Godzilla v. Larry’s Diner & Rib Shack et al, Mr. Trump?

"If Scalia was replaced by me, you wouldn't have had that, OK? It would have been the opposite. But when you appoint judges, sometimes they change their minds..."

Demagogue Don forgets that (1) Barack Obama was elected fair and square -- twice, (2) that the President nominates justices to the US Supreme Court, and (ideally) the Senate has hearings on those to confirm or reject appointees -- for incompetence, extremism, ill preparation, corruption, and cronyism, but not for partisan advantage, (3) that the Senate by playing games with the President on an appointment to the Supreme Court may ensure that Donald Trump  not only is not elected President, but also that the Republicans lose the Senate*, (4) Supreme Court decisions are capricious, but usually well thought-out, (5) that the President has no influence on any single decision, (6) the significance of stare decisis , and (7) that elections have consequences.

Abortion rights aren't going to disappear; decisions made by the Supreme Court are final -- at least until they are redefined on some bigger principle or by a Constitutional amendment. I fail to understand why a 5-3 split is any more decisive than a 5-4 split.

Barack Obama has no obligation to name a 'conservative' Justice to replace Antonin Scalia any more than that George H W Bush had an obligation to replace retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall with a liberal. (P.S. -- does anyone here think that Barack Obama might be an eventual Justice on the Supreme Court?)

This illustrates the importance of a President having experience as a Governor or Senator -- and even Eisenhower understood how the judicial process operates (and he went along with it like a good senior officer). Donald Trump knows less about the Presidency and the US government than the typical law student. Or maybe I.

*The gamble that Donald Trump will be President and that the US Senate will remain in Republican hands is a very poor bet, a high-stakes bet with little gain.

[Dan '82]

So Trump's on 9Chan?

[pbrower2a]

(07-03-2016, 10:42 AM)Dan Wrote: So Trump's on 9Chan?

Is it any surprise that neo-Nazis see Hillary Clinton as a Jew? That is almost as obvious as that Barack Obama is a Muslim!

Someone in the Trump campaign should have seen a glaring indicator of trouble in the six-pointed star over a large pile of cash. Does anyone question what a six-pointed star over a vulgar depiction of cash means? A display of stacks of cash is so vulgar as to be obsolete. How much cash do you think Warren Buffett has lying around in his house? Probably little more than the usual middle-class family.


To compare antisemitism to $#!+ is to insult $@!+.

OK, maybe chlorine trifluoride

[Dan '82]

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-03-2016, 09:04 PM)Dan Wrote:

I'm wondering what would happen if they did attack.  Would all his delegates at the Republican convention be freed to vote for other candidates?  The Republicans don't seem to have a guy the equal of Nixon anymore, willing to do what is necessary to keep his party in control then blame the Mexicans...

[Eric the Green]

Three minutes of Elizabeth Warren smashing Donald Trump





Well-done, Liz!

[Eric the Green]

"Authoritarians are thought to express much deeper fears than the rest of the electorate, to seek the imposition of order where they perceive dangerous change, and to desire a strong leader who will defeat those fears with force. They would thus seek a candidate who promised these things. And the extreme nature of authoritarians' fears, and of their desire to challenge threats with force, would lead them toward a candidate whose temperament was totally unlike anything we usually see in American politics — and whose policies went far beyond the acceptable norms.

A candidate like Donald Trump."
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/tru...itarianism

[pbrower2a]

(07-04-2016, 07:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: "Authoritarians are thought to express much deeper fears than the rest of the electorate, to seek the imposition of order where they perceive dangerous change, and to desire a strong leader who will defeat those fears with force. They would thus seek a candidate who promised these things. And the extreme nature of authoritarians' fears, and of their desire to challenge threats with force, would lead them toward a candidate whose temperament was totally unlike anything we usually see in American politics — and whose policies went far beyond the acceptable norms.

A candidate like Donald Trump."
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/tru...itarianism

Fear brings out the worst in people. Just think of how Hitler manipulated the German people -- fear of Britain, fear of America, fear of Bolshevism -- and above all else, fear of the Jews, the unifying factor behind all menace. Capitalist plutocracy in Britain and America and Soviet Bolshevism had the same source:



Literally, "Behind the Enemy Powers : the Jew"

The monster bears an amazing resemblance to the great Hollywood actor Edward G. Robinson, practically typecast as a villain. But by all accounts, Edward G. Robinson (who was Jewish) was a wonderful person.

Stalin's Hell-frozen-over Soviet Union was not the place for someone with a vulnerable ego. Stalin used fear against short-lived (a real enemy of Stalin would of course be killed quickly), imaginary, and even vanished enemies to unify the masses.

Contrast FDR, who told us in his inaugural address:

...This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

Yes, there will be genuine dangers to meet in any difficult time. We need not create new dangers in the misguided belief that fear brings heroism. Fear brings vindictiveness toward people who might as well be collaborators. It causes people to take revenge upon people who have done nothing wrong and have shown no desire to do wrong.

So how does a nation of moral courage handle danger? Hardly a nation so stared defeat in the eye and fended it off as did the British in World War II. Almost all objective observers expected the British to buckle under the inevitable power of Nazi Germany. The British put up with economic regimentation far more severe than even Nazi Germany to the extent that the British economy was almost as totalitarian as the Soviet economy at the time. But consider also that Churchill wasn't pitting one British group against another. Foreign nationals associated with Axis powers were interned, in part so that the Axis powers would not get a chance to insinuate themselves among refugees. But the internees were treated kindly.

Donald Trump offers us no confidence in ourselves; he sows pointless discord that can only hurt us.

[Dan '82]

[pbrower2a]

(07-05-2016, 08:09 PM)Dan Wrote:

...which is about like praising Adolf Hitler for his anti-smoking programs.

I really hate to bring up you-know-who, but Saddam Hussein is one of the few people for which such a comparison has relevance without hyperbole.

Ironically, should Donald Trump want someone worthy of praise for dispatching terrorists -- it's someone with "Hussein" as his middle name, not his surname.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-05-2016, 08:09 PM)Dan Wrote:

I haven't pretended to understand Trump.  I've not been pleased with his way of handling people, nor his understanding of foreign policy.

But he actually got it sort of kind of right.  The Middle East still has strong elements of Agricultural Age values floating around.  In the time before democracy, the times of peace and plenty are the times when strong leaders (Fill-In-The-Blank the Great) crushed everyone else around them.  They were so strong and so willing to use that strength that folks followed their lead and dared not rebel.

Your typical westerner, seeing Stalin, Saddam, Assad or ISIS using this approach to government is instinctively appalled.  We're apt to react with words and phrases like 'terrorist', 'state sponsored terror' and 'crimes against humanity'.   We've been rebelling against the Stalin - Saddam - ISIS style of government by atrocity for a while.  In the distant past, during our Dark and Middle Ages, we experienced and endured it to various degrees.  We've learned how to recognize it and our values suggest it ought to be quashed firmly and often.

The difference is that when one lives in a culture that has always clung to the Agricultural Age pattern, state sponsored terror is the primary example of successful government.  The time of peace and plenty is the time when no one dares draw the attention of the Saddam - Stalin - Assad style strong and ruthless leader.

I'll even acknowledge that Cynic Hero as well as Trump has some aspects of the old way of thinking right.  A return to Agricultural Age values, where human rights and soft love-thy-neighbor values are replaced by ruthless application of brutal force is a plausible path that worked for lots of cultures over a long period of time.

But I'm stuck in my partisan Western value system.  Authoritarian terrorist autocratic government ought to become a thing of the past. 

Now, on Trump's behalf, if one can follow the above 'logic', you can say he might understand the Middle East better than a lot of folks immersed in Western Values.

On the other hand, the last thing we need is a President of the United States who would want to put an Agricultural Age state terror foreign policy into practice.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-04-2016, 04:42 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Three minutes of Elizabeth Warren smashing Donald Trump

I have one problem with that piece.  It promised three minutes, but ran about ten seconds short.  I feel cheated of that last ten seconds.  Keep going, Liz!

[Skabungus]

As a native Clevelander, I've heard whisperings from home, about how Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine is offering courses in first aid........geared toward that type of first aid you'd need at a riot.  Cleveland Marshal College of Law has been offering Legal Observer training as well.  Classes have been going since late April and are disturbingly well attended.  It just so happens that there will be a number of very large punk rock shows in town on the first day of the convention to boot things off.  Methinks it's going to be a wild, wild week.  Shame the CPD cant seem to figure out how to attach those body cams to that riot armor.

https://itsgoingdown.org/

[TnT]

(07-07-2016, 11:07 AM)Skabungus Wrote: As a native Clevelander, I've heard whisperings from home, about how Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine is offering courses in first aid........geared toward that type of first aid you'd need at a riot.  Cleveland Marshal College of Law has been offering Legal Observer training as well.  Classes have been going since late April and are disturbingly well attended.  It just so happens that there will be a number of very large punk rock shows in town on the first day of the convention to boot things off.  Methinks it's going to be a wild, wild week.  Shame the CPD cant seem to figure out how to attach those body cams to that riot armor.

https://itsgoingdown.org/

Back in 2007 when I got my "Wilderness EMT" upgrade, our class consisted of 20 or so Outward Bound-type granola people who typically lead trips into real wildernesses.

Interestingly, we had in addition, two Coast Guard Rescue swimmers who had served at the Katrina disaster, two army medics and five Secret Service agents.

About half of the class scenarios over the five day period consisted of scenarios set in "regular" wildernesses, float trips, avalanches, snow storms, search-and-rescue, etc.  The other half of the scenarios consisted of exercises designed around gun battles with multiple casualties, incidents in foreign countries with attendant language barriers, etc., and an emphasis on a couple scenarios in heavily populated urban settings where civilization has essentially broken down and definitive medical help is from two to many, many hours away.

There is a first principle in disasters - the folks IN the disaster are the REAL first responders.  Police, firefighters, organized EMS services, by definition, come after that, if the folks in the disaster are lucky.