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

[pbrower2a]

(10-13-2016, 03:44 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Difference between Trump and me ...

I did some locker room talk .... 35 - 40 years ago. I reached a point in life where at most, among male-only company, we still might talk a bit dirty but using euphemisms and definitely not describing ogre-like behavior. Most men leave that behind as part of the maturation process.

Trump is stuck in adolescence. I can understand why one might think he did a deal with The Devil - most people would have suffered many consequences for behaving like this as not only a grown man, but a friggin' 70 year old man!

You understate your difference from an elderly 'juvenile delinquent' who never grew out of his delinquency.

Donald Trump all but endorses a "rape culture" that offends liberals who recognize a woman's right to say no to unwelcome sexual approaches, but probably also Christian conservatives who wish to protect their wives, girlfriends, mothers, daughters, sisters, nieces, granddaughters, and grandmothers from sexual assault of any kind. Calling it "locker-room talk" is to exaggerate the exaggerated, immature machismo characteristic of rapists. Having been in locker rooms as a K-12 student and as a substitute school teacher as an adult, I have rarely heard "rape talk". I have heard plenty of denunciations of the 'sissy' qualities of some men, including me, but I have also heard disgust registered at any boys who discuss thinly-disguised rape as expressions of personal sexuality.

I can ensure anyone: foul language about male sexuality directed at women turns off women who have any self esteem. 

OK, I am a sissy male... but I can't imagine any place less sexy than a male locker room.

[Eric the Green]

There are certainly some things about the Trump "sex abuse" tape that some people are questioning; like, why was it released now, after 11 years? Why was it recorded, and for what purpose? Why were two people who were joking and bragging about their "exploits" and "priviledges" in private, recording their banter as a public event? If it was recorded, wouldn't they know it was not just "locker room talk," but a public statement by two stars, one of whom already had political ambitions even then? How can Trump really deny that he was bragging about what he does, if all these women are coming forward now after feeling frightened about doing so, and confirming that he actually was doing those things? Was he even conscious? The Trump situation truly is a puzzlement.

Does he even really stand for the things he says? After being a Democrat for a while, and saying Hillary Clinton was a smart and capable official, that the Bill Clinton scandals were bogus, and that the economy works better under Democrats, now he spouts a pretty consistent Republican party line, combined with a basic right-wing spiel about nationalism and anti-globalism, and acts like at least a semi-fascist demogogue, as if he might really be Mussolini reincarnate-- and even resembles him in many ways. And yet he still throws in lines like "we need adequate child care" and "rebuilt infrastructure" as if he cares about these things, even though he wants to reduce taxes so much that they could never be paid for.

A part of me thinks that at some level Mr. Trump cares about people and his country, and he really wants it to be great again. But most of me thinks he is carrying on a stunt or project to boost himself and his ego as a great leader that people will look up to. As everyone knows, he is immature, maybe typical of a lot of us boomers. Not a very good representative of our generation.

I still like Hillary, as a better representative; and because she is a feminist, I think she's a genuine liberal at heart; but like most successful leaders, she succumbs to some temptations, priviledges and perks of power. I think she does care, and the care is a greater part of her than the ego. People who work with her, trust her. People who oppose liberal policies, demean her. I like Bill Clinton too. But I could not support him for re-election, because of his neo-liberal compromises. If I vote for Hillary, I can only hope that she doesn't make as many, nor behaves too much like a neo-con. I may vote for her mainly to repudiate the would-be dictator, and hope for the best. I remember that I have yet to be able to vote for any Democratic incumbent president for re-election, although had I lived in a purple state, I might well have voted for Obama in 2012, despite his shortcomings on such things as drone wars and the TPP.

[Eric the Green]

Back in the age of Mars and Empires, the days our Cynic Hero admires, and maybe Trump too who has Mars rising, soldiers would conquer a city and routinely proceed to raze and burn it, slaughter the men, and rape all the women, and then maybe kidnap or kill them. Their male Mars testosterone energies were at full tilt, roused to a fever pitch in order to make their conquest. I guess "rape culture" is a hangover from those days.

Not being an admirer of those days, I found it hard to understand how men can find any pleasure or fulfillment in forcibly raping women today. I would think there's more pleasure in sexual relations if the woman wants it and enjoys it. Which they often do want, and enjoy, and sometimes expect from their man. But to force it on her, that's just a power trip; the male feels pleasure not from the woman's pleasure, or his ability to arouse it in her, but only on his ability to conquer and force himself upon her. It's a holdover from the age of male conquest, at its height from about 2000 BC until about 300 AD, when the age of religious power superceded it and absorbed it into itself for the next 1000 years or so. Trump is a relic from the Mars age of empire and conquest.

[Eric the Green]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/opinio...inion&_r=0

The Opinion Pages | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Donald Trump’s Toxic Masculinity
By JARED YATES SEXTON, OCT. 13, 2016

STATESBORO, Ga. — Growing up in a factory family in small-town Indiana, I led an uncertain life with only a few constants: fear of losing it all, frustration with a world out of our control and the ever-present need to “be a man,” a phrase that always carried with it an air of responsibility and torment. To be a man was to maintain the appearance of toughness, to never let on that you were weak or in pain.

It was a command I heard repeatedly at home and around town, handed down by my stepfather and role models. My stepdad was fond of saying, “Boys don’t cry — crying’s for women.” One of my high school football coaches gave injured players this choice: “You a football player or are you a little girl?”

Donald J. Trump, especially the Donald J. Trump we heard last week on tape, is nothing new to me. His macho-isms, his penchant for dividing the world into losers and winners, his lack of empathy for anyone but himself — it all reminds me of home, and the sense I had, even as a boy, of a system of privilege that has ailed this country since its beginnings, but now seems to be, and sees itself, fading away.

Taking refuge in traditional masculinity is a coping mechanism that works only so much as it deadens a man and his emotions. In its most pure state, masculinity is a hardening shell meant to protect men from the disappointments and travails of life, a self-delusion that preserves them from feeling overwhelmed by the odds against them.

Mr. Trump was not lying in this week’s presidential debate when he called his offensive conversation “locker room talk.” I heard similar chatter among my teammates as they laced up their cleats and donned their pads for a big game. Young men brag about sexual conquests, demean those who have denied them and dehumanize their opponents, real and imagined. Fear precipitates this chatter — a fear of pain, a fear of mortality, a fear of rejection and, most of all, a fear of inadequacy.

They’re the fears of a child, and most men outgrow them. But for various reasons, not all do. Their masculinity, already a coping mechanism, becomes toxic.

I’ve heard men attack the character of women in the same tone that an uncle of mine once used to call for the nuclear annihilation of the entire Middle East and the murder of every last Arab man, woman and child. I’ve heard men utter un-American things, things that directly contradict our country’s highest ideals, and then excuse it all with one of Mr. Trump’s pet phrases: “We live in the real world.”

But the real world — complicated foreign policy questions, confusing social change, economic dislocation — is precisely what toxic masculinity is trying to avoid. It’s bigger than any one person, which makes it a threat to men who cling to the belief that they alone control their fate.

Though such masculinity might temporarily shelter men from the pressures of their daily lives, inevitably it robs them of their lives: Disturbing trends show that men, especially the white men who make up a majority of Mr. Trump’s base, are suffering greatly for their posturing.

From 2009 to 2014, while mortality rates fell for all other Americans ranging from ages 22 to 56, they rose for middle-aged whites, with most of the fatalities coming from what experts are calling “despair deaths,” including drug overdoses, alcohol-related liver disease and suicide, all consequences of unhealthy coping mechanisms. More and more men are also suffering and dying from heart disease, cancer and diabetes, the disease that claimed my father, a man who was so proud and so concerned with upholding his masculinity that he refused to see a doctor for decades, until it was too late.

Our economy has left many of these men behind. White men, statistics show, have borne some of the worst of the effects of globalism and the Great Recession, and still suffer from the largest shortfall of jobs.

That’s why it’s no surprise to see Mr. Trump’s core supporters not only cling to him after the tape came out, but even tighten their grip, doubling down with misogynistic T-shirts and chants at rallies. He’s the furthest thing from the working-class men of my childhood, but whatever his motives for demeaning women, these supporters hear in him an echo of their own desperation.

I can still remember, as a child, listening to the same man who’d told me to leave the crying to the girls as he sobbed alone in his room. My stepfather was a truck driver, and after he’d left his rig and clocked out of his shift, he would often lock himself in his bedroom. I could hear him, though, and I could hear when my mother, a woman he’d derided and belittled as being weak, came to him and did the heavy lifting for them both.

[Eric the Green]

Trump's speech fighting back. The challenge is made. Hoisting himself for his fall.





http://www.realclearpolitics.com/article...055.html#2

[Eric the Green]

The Trump Foxhole!

[Eric the Green]

These kinds of allegations do not necessarily bury candidates, although it might bury Trump because he's already so morally compromised, and these events may be more egregious than others. But remember, Clarence Thomas was appointed and confirmed to the Supreme Court. And then there's Bill, of course. So although we might expect his poll numbers to tank now, they may not tank all that much, and so far haven't.

His claim that these allegations are sponsored or organized by the media and the Clintons ring pretty hollow. These women coming forward are doing so because the media forced them to? Or some globalist conspirator? Have they inserted some kind of device in these womens' heads, or what? I think it's because they feel safer now to make these charges because of the ruckus enveloping him, and because he apparently admitted he did these kinds of things on the infamous tape.

[Dan '82]

[Eric the Green]

Obama was a boy scout!

[Bob Butler 54]

The Donald is now claiming to be a victim, the target of a giant smear campaign.  The way the Republican vast right wing conspiracy has been going after Hillary all these years, and the way he has been making his own campaign personal and attack driven, I don't know whether to throw a kettle or a pot at his glass house.

Eric just nominated Obama as a Boy Scout.  The way things are going now, one is going to have to chase lots of merit badges as soon as one even thinks of running for high office.

[gabrielle]

(10-14-2016, 03:37 PM)taramarie Wrote:

(10-14-2016, 03:24 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(10-14-2016, 03:08 AM)taramarie Wrote:

(10-14-2016, 02:52 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: There are certainly some things about the Trump "sex abuse" tape that some people are questioning; like, why was it released now, after 11 years? Why was it recorded, and for what purpose? Why were two people who were joking and bragging about their "exploits" and "priviledges" in private, recording their banter as a public event? If it was recorded, wouldn't they know it was not just "locker room talk," but a public statement by two stars, one of whom already had political ambitions even then? How can Trump really deny that he was bragging about what he does, if all these women are coming forward now after feeling frightened about doing so, and confirming that he actually was doing those things? Was he even conscious? The Trump situation truly is a puzzlement.

Does he even really stand for the things he says? After being a Democrat for a while, and saying Clinton was a smart and capable official, and that the economy works better under Democrats, now he spouts a pretty consistent Republican party line, combined with a basic right-wing spiel about nationalism and anti-globalism, and acts like at least a semi-fascist demogogue, as if he might really be Mussolini reincarnate-- and even resembles him in many ways. And yet he still throws in lines like "we need adequate child care" and "rebuilt infrastructure" as if he cares about these things, even though he wants to reduce taxes so much that they could never be paid for.

A part of me thinks that at some level Mr. Trump cares about people and his country, and he really wants it to be great again. But most of me thinks he is carrying on a stunt or project to boost himself and his ego as a great leader that people will look up to. As everyone knows, he is immature, maybe typical of a lot of us boomers. Not a very good representative of our generation.

I still like Hillary, as a better representative; and because she is a feminist, I think she's a genuine liberal at heart; but like most successful leaders, she succumbs to some temptations, priviledges and perks of power. I think she does care, and the care is a greater part of her than the ego. People who work with her, trust her. People who oppose liberal policies, demean her. I like Bill Clinton too. But I could not support him for re-election, because of his neo-liberal compromises. If I vote for Hillary, I can only hope that she doesn't make as many, nor behaves too much like a neo-con. I may vote for her mainly to repudiate the would-be dictator, and hope for the best. I remember that I have yet to be able to vote for any Democratic incumbent president for re-election, although had I lived in a purple state, I might well have voted for Obama in 2012, despite his shortcomings on such things as drone wars and the TPP.

Should America take the threat of nuclear war seriously though if she is elected President? I wonder if Russia will follow through on that threat from that politician and what Putin thinks of that threat? While I certainly do not think America should be told what to do from a foreign country regarding who they choose as their president, I do worry about what they will do in less than a month's time.

Please realize the nuclear threat is nothing new and in reality it's not conditional on who is elected PotUS. There is a larger chess game going on. Russia and more generally the SCO have been maneuvering for 20 years to get to this point. They view the accommodations set forth by Boris Yeltsin during the early 90s as a type of treason, and seek to create East Bloc 2.0. But this time around, East Bloc 2.0 might as well be deemed the 4th Reich.

Do you have a source on this that I may read? I did not know about this. Have they threatened nuclear war many times over? I would think the era we are in now would also make it more likely for countries to carry out their threats.

During the Cold War days nuclear war was a constant threat, with some near misses like the Cuban missile crisis.  For decades people lived in a state of uneasy reassurance that neither side wanted to die.

[Eric the Green]

We must remember that the primary issue in this election, and all elections these days, is trickle-down economics. The Trump campaign wants us to forget the sex scandal and focus on the real issue (while at the same time trying to bring back Bill's scandals). What is the real issue, they say? Lower taxes, less regulation, cuts in social programs, drill baby drill, repeal health care reform. Trump claims this will bring back jobs and make America great again. The same old trickle-down plan.

For example
https://youtu.be/YYtHXCU1oQE?t=4m24s

NO. The Reagan policy just transfers all wealth to the wealthy. That is a proven fact. Say NO to trickle-down. We need higher taxes, especially on the wealthy. We need more spending on the things we need. We need regulation to require the fossil fuel industry to switch to clean, green energy. So vote out the trickle-down Republicans, at the top of the ballot and especially down-ballot.

[Eric the Green]

http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/stump...1.12456079

Campaigning for fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton, Obama said Trump is trying to dupe voters into believing that he supports the working class. “Don’t fall for it,” Obama told the crowd of thousands who gathered on the tarmac of a small airport along the shore of Lake Erie.

“This is a guy who spent 70 years on this earth with no record of supporting workers . . . Then, suddenly he’s going to be the champion of the working community? C’mon, man!” Obama said about Trump, the Republican candidate to succeed him. “This is a guy who spent all his time trying to convince everybody he was a global elite, flying all around . . . Now, he’s trying to be a populist? C’mon, man!”

The president added: “You want to know what someone’s going to do? Look at what they’ve been doing their whole lives.”

[pbrower2a]

(10-15-2016, 01:18 AM)taramarie Wrote: This interview was fantastic. Nice to see a conservative who can see Trump for who he is. Respect to the guy for his shown intelligence.

Longtime Conservative Radio Host Calls It Quits Over Trump: ‘We Have The Lowest Information Voters Ever’

Movement conservatism has begun to show its pathology, and Donald Trump is just the one to show much of it. Liberals in contrast have little problem in vetting their candidates because to them public service is a privilege and not simply a quest. Liberals dumped William Jefferson (corrupt US Representative later convicted of taking bribes) quickly. Likewise former Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich for soliciting a bribe to sell the Senate seat recently held by Barack Obama. Anthony Wiener? Tsk, tsk. A sex scandal isn't nice.

It relies heavily upon voters incapable of judging leaders. What those leaders say they accept at face value. So Donald trump is a successful businessman -- just look at the 'gold' (solid? plated? Whichever, educated liberals see such as tacky. Starving children in Africa or even Appalachia). Movement conservatism has been pushing a an anti-abortion agenda... and Donald Trump does sordid stuff. Really sordid stuff. Oh, the proles are to either refrain from sex or pop out plenty of children to become cannon fodder and cheap labor, but elites show how powerful they are by getting away with stuff that most of would never get away with. Getting away without paying taxes? That's smart, he says. (No, we know that if one has huge assets, then failure to pay taxes indicates either that one is not a good businessman or that one is a crook hiding revenue. People and businesses get taxed basically on their pre-tax cash flow). Foreign policy? Donald Trump appeases Boris Putin before the Russian dictator has made any demands... George McGovern got cast as a dangerous radical for much less.

The Republican Party is now a coalition of low-information (low in formal education and generally toward the low end in economic achievement) and callous plutocrats who wage a war against the middle class which poor whites can be gulled into thinking are amoral exploiters and whom the callous plutocrats who no longer need a class with a stake in the system. The corporate Right wants a social order that looks much like the Marxist stereotype of capitalism as a dehumanized, exploitative order that well serves economic elites and debases everyone else.

...The sorts of people who support Donald Trump remind me of the core support of Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Khomeini, Assad, Qaddafi, Chavez, Mugabe, the Klan, and the Apartheid clique -- people with little formal educated, capable of reading but unable to read between the lines. (Note the etymology or the word intelligent: Latin intelligens is literally "reading between [the lines]"). They are unable to recognize a logical contradiction and its consequences. (If you took high-school geometry, you were then obliged to learn formal logic; by doing so you found a powerful technique of proof by contradiction). This course is the strongest determiner of what high-school students go to college and who doesn't... for good reason.

You know how the proof by contradiction works outside of geometry. The idea that giving polluters free reign will do no harm to the environment should be laughable. It is good for catching liars, fools, and demagogues.  It is hardly surprising that education, once having a strong and positive correlation with voting Republican  now has the opposite effect.

[Eric the Green]

Monologue: The Great White Grope | Real Time with Bill Maher

I have a bone to pick with Ken Bone. I'll take the lady in the pants suit.
https://youtu.be/yIMW1C-yy8k

Grab one of those Trump tees!
https://youtu.be/cTcOuytWct8

Bernie drops by the tell Californians to vote for Prop.61 (please do) and discuss the election.
https://youtu.be/tH66fsNQI9U

[Eric the Green]

[Eric the Green]

U.S. National Security Releases Statement WARNING That Donald Trump Is A Threat To America
By Sampson - October 15, 2016
http://bipartisanreport.com/2016/10/15/b...o-america/

Republican national security leaders wrote an open letter declaring their opposition to a GOP presidency due to the serious threat he poses to our nation. First published on a website entitled “War on the Rocks: The Politics of National Security” and then reprinted on Business Insider, the signers of the open letter are some heavy hitters, indeed.

For example, Ken Adelman has served several Republican administrations and was a member of the Defense Policy Board under President George W. Bush. Daniel A. Blumenthal has served the US government advising on relations with China and served as “commissioner on the congressionally-mandated U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission” from 2006 to 2012. Anna Borshchevskaya specializes in Middle Eastern, Eastern European, and Russian policies and served as the Communications Director for the American-Islamic Conference.

In short, these are not random internet bloggers angry with Trump. These are the people who advise our government on keeping our country safe.

The group composed the open letter to warn of Trump’s threat to the country. They begin by saying that there are not many issues that the entire group has been able to agree upon unanimously, but the dangers our country faces under a Trump presidency is one of them.

Some of the specific issues the open letter calls out are as follows:

‘His vision of American influence and power in the world is wildly inconsistent and unmoored in principle. He swings from isolationism to military adventurism within the space of one sentence.’

‘His advocacy for aggressively waging trade wars is a recipe for economic disaster in a globally connected world.’

‘His embrace of the expansive use of torture is inexcusable.’

‘His hateful, anti-Muslim rhetoric undercuts the seriousness of combating Islamic radicalism by alienating partners in the Islamic world making significant contributions to the effort. Furthermore, it endangers the safety and Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of American Muslims.’

‘Controlling our border and preventing illegal immigration is a serious issue, but his insistence that Mexico will fund a wall on the southern border inflames unhelpful passions, and rests on an utter misreading of, and contempt for, our southern neighbor.’

‘His admiration for foreign dictators such as Vladimir Putin is unacceptable for the leader of the world’s greatest democracy.’

‘He is fundamentally dishonest. Evidence of this includes his attempts to deny positions he has unquestionably taken in the past, including on the 2003 Iraq war and the 2011 Libyan conflict. We accept that views evolve over time, but this is simply misrepresentation.’

‘His equation of business acumen with foreign policy experience is false. Not all lethal conflicts can be resolved as a real estate deal might, and there is no recourse to bankruptcy court in international affairs.’

The open letter concludes by saying that a Trump presidency would make America less safe and reduce our standing with the rest of the world.

This is who a majority of the GOP is backing for president of the United States.

[Eric the Green]

https://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/10/14...nes/213842

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s October 13 speech pushed the conspiracy theory that the media, corporations, and “global financial powers” such as banks are, in concert, harming America and working with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to defeat him. This claim -- which several journalists noted was an anti-Semitic dog whistle -- comes from the white nationalist “alt-right” movement, which includes the website of Trump’s campaign CEO, Breitbart News, and radio host conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

During the speech at a rally in West Palm Beach, FL, Trump claimed that there was a “global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.” He also claimed that Clinton “meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers” and that the election may be “in fact controlled by a small handful of global special interests rigging the system.”

Multiple journalists noted that the speech played on old anti-Semitic tropes. As Politico’s Eli Stokols explained, “The hints of anti-Semitism were strong.” Jonathan Greenblatt, the president of the Anti-Defamation League, tweeted, “.@TeamTrump should avoid rhetoric&tropes that historically have been used [against] Jews & still spur #antisemitism. Lets keep hate out of [campaign].”

The speech was reportedly co-written by Stephen Bannon, the chairman of Breitbart News who took a leave of absence to work as Trump’s campaign CEO. Bannon has bragged that Breitbart News is “the platform for the alt-right” -- a rebranded white nationalist movement that is opposed to immigration and embraces racism, sexism, anti-Muslim bigotry, and anti-Semitism.

With Bannon at the helm, Breitbart News has peddled anti-Semitic rhetoric, which has continued since he left. In May, contributor David Horowitz wrote a piece calling The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol a “renegade Jew.” In September, Breitbart writer Matthew Tyrmand called Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum a “political revisionist” who was “on the warpath against the rising populist forces doing electoral damage to her establishment friends and allies across the world,” adding, “hell hath no fury like a Polish, Jewish, American elitist scorned.” In August, former Breitbart writer Ben Shapiro accused the website of embracing “a movement shot through with racism and anti-Semitism.” And as The Daily Beast noted, Bannon, through Breitbart, “did a lot to normalize the racist, anti-Semitic world of the alt right.”

Bannon has also personally been accused of anti-Semitism. His ex-wife claimed that while they were looking for schools to send their children to, Bannon asked the director of one “why there were so many Chanukah books in the library,” claimed he asked her if it “bothered” her that another school they visited “used to be in a Temple,” and claimed he did not like another school because of “the number of Jews that attend.” She added that Bannon “doesn't like Jews and that he doesn't like the way they raise their kids to be 'whiney brats' and that he didn't want the girls going to school with Jews.”

Trump has also enjoyed the staunch support of white nationalists, who have celebrated his stance on immigration and rhetoric against Muslims and Hispanics. In July, they lauded his tweet that appeared to show an anti-Semitic image featuring, as described by The Huffington Post, a picture of Clinton “over a backdrop of $100 bills with a six-pointed star — the Jewish Star of David — next to her face,” with the words “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” on the star. White nationalists claimed “The Leader” Trump was “dog-whistling” with the tweet and that he was exposing “filthy Jew terrorists.” They also praised Trump’s hiring of Bannon, saying that “Breitbart has elective affinities with the Alt Right.”

Trump’s speech also paid a homage to the language of radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Jones frequently invokes “globalists” as the villains behind the various conspiracy theories he discusses on his radio show. He believes that a New World Order of global elites is working behind the scenes to rule the world through an authoritarian government and eliminate 80 percent of the world’s population. Trump has courted Jones and his audience, appearing on Jones’ show in December and praising his “amazing” reputation. Trump also pushed a “globalist” dog whistle at his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. The Washington Post’s Robert Costa in August noted that the Republican Party base is increasingly under the belief that “the Republican establishment” and Hillary Clinton are “globalist[s].”

[pbrower2a]

(10-15-2016, 03:06 PM)taramarie Wrote: I know all of this from what republicans have said themselves and from observing. I may be a foreigner but I am catching on pretty quick. That was the whole point of me giving both sides the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to see what they stood for and talk to those on both sides. Lets just say from observing repubs I am disappointed. Thankfully I have seen some who are quite rational who seem to despise Trump and want to stand for better than that. Some repubs do not stand with Trump which is good. Btw personally, I think of the "gold plated home of Trump" is an abomination. Yeah sure it is his cash or should we say his father's cash as he inherited it. But it could go to help others. So, likewise I do not see it as a sign of success. Rather I see it as a symbol of a child who inherited a lot of dough who has grown up thinking money equates getting what he wants, including touching children and women inappropriately, and on top of it only thinks about himself. I wish I had that cash. I could help so many in need with it. Put it to good use. I have met so many repubs who defend....actually defend Trump's behaviour saying oh so many have said way worse. His actions in the past and what he said is an abomination and they stand there acting as if it is fine. It is not only allowing for that kind of behaviour to continue, it is defending the words of a molester and rapist who says he can get away with it because of his money, power and fame. Their excuse is oh but Bill.....what Bill did was disgusting too....but at least that was with consent from what I hear. He also did not go round perving on children and saying he will marry a 10 year old in a decade's time. Trump is everything the 80's yuppie culture created and became up to today. Greed is good apparently. Thankfully it is now starting to digest itself. Sorry, I am just fuming at Trump and those who defend that fucker. I have my reasons why. I do not like Hillary either and wish Bernie was in her place but the ignorance to what Trump is and the defending of him disgusts me.

You do well at the contest. One starts by giving the benefit of the doubt unless one side begins off-the-wall, as with flat-earth stuff, the faking of the moon landing, creationism, or the idea that 9/11 was an inside job. Valid debates involve two sides with similar merits.

The most reliable way to defeat poverty is adequate pay for honest work, with strong and powerful unions to contest the power of corporate bureaucrats. Favoring one industry or class over another does not prove worthy of the cost.

Donald Trump should be widely rejected by American conservatives (especially Christian!) for his unsavory expressions of his sexuality. A crotch grab by a married man of someone not his wife (even should there be consent) is adultery, clearly a violation of Christian teachings on sexuality.

"I'm not that bad" is a low position of morality. It allows a robber-murderer to claim that he is not as bad as serial-killers like Ted Bundy and John Gacy, let alone genocidal butchers like... well, you know. We have an ethical obligation to try to be good. Donald Trump has failed even at that standard.

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-16-2016, 02:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: SNL 2nd debate!

Late breaking news!  SNL is part of the 'vast left wing conspiracy' that is rigging the election in Hillary's favor.

Never mind that The Donald has hosted the show twice.