[cherdano]

 barmar, on 2017-August-06, 16:40, said:

Most people probably aren't qualified to be parents, either, but that doesn't stop them.

Clearly you are not a parent. Otherwise you would know that noone is qualified to be a parent.

[barmar]

 RedSpawn, on 2017-August-08, 01:30, said:

Being right about policy issues doesn't make you qualified to be President of the United States either.

That article just discusses one issue (NAFTA). You can't judge a candidate on just one point.

[Winstonm]

Trump is becoming more inconsequential by the day. He has turned over the military commander-in-chief duties to the Pentagon, domestic policy to Congress, and foreign policy to Putin. Thank god he's still in charge of tweets!

[mike777]

Korea

[Winstonm]

 mike777, on 2017-August-08, 22:23, said:

Korea

Buffoonery and bluster isn't going to win the day.

[mike777]

sounds like you are blaming trump...got it.

you call our president a buffon....got it...you are clear

[RedSpawn]

 barmar, on 2017-August-08, 09:36, said:

That article just discusses one issue (NAFTA). You can't judge a candidate on just one point.

http://www.ontheissu.../Ross_Perot.htm

Let's review his platform for reasonableness. . .

[Winstonm]

 mike777, on 2017-August-08, 23:47, said:

sounds like you are blaming trump...got it.

you call our president a buffon....got it...you are clear

Do you disagree that the president is a buffoon?

[kenberg]

 mike777, on 2017-August-08, 22:23, said:

Korea

Korea indeed.

It seems like this is where I came in. North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25 1950. I know this without looking it up because I was 11 and this was the first war that I really paid attention to on a day to day basis. Of course I have scattered memories of WW II but I was 3 when Pear Harbor was bombed and 6 at the end of that war. The Korean War, starting in 1950, I followed daily.

I don't know what is best. I wish I had more confidence in the person in the oval office. I don't. I am pretty sure that tweets won't solve the problem. We need our friends. Not only our traditional friends like Russia, but also our current friends like France. (Yes I borrowed, and modified, this line from a Tom Lehrer album).

[barmar]

 RedSpawn, on 2017-August-09, 05:00, said:

http://www.ontheissu.../Ross_Perot.htm

Let's review his platform for reasonableness. . .

Let's not. That was decades ago, I can't remember enough details and I'm not inclined to review it.

I remember thinking he seemed like a smart guy at time, if somewhat unrealistic. Kind of like Bernie Sanders.

[RedSpawn]

 barmar, on 2017-August-09, 10:09, said:

Let's not. That was decades ago, I can't remember enough details and I'm not inclined to review it.

I remember thinking he seemed like a smart guy at time, if somewhat unrealistic. Kind of like Bernie Sanders.

Agreed. He was a smart guy at the time, but being smart is not a prerequisite for the Office of the President. American voters don't want smart, nerdy, reasonable men who have logical platforms that make sense or require them to make some personal sacrifices for the advancement of the nation. They prefer smooth talking, charismatic, overly politically connected, narcissistic, and mildly corrupted men who have Ivy League credentials who promise something for nothing. These men are particularly good at whispering sweet nothings in our ear as they sell America out to the international bankers, special interests, and the highest bidder in the surging global economy. So we get George H. Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama and a $19 trillion public debt with not much infrastructure innovation or rehabilitation to show for it.

We need less finger pointing and more accountability from our leaders.

We need public campaign finance reform so badly to flush out the insane amount of big money flowing in our politics. We are transitioning from a Constitutional republic to a banana republic. I don't know where this roller coaster ride will end but it's a cheap thrill for sure.

We also need term limits in Congress to hopefully stymie the political gridlock we frequently see regarding bills. The all-you-can-eat compensation buffet at the Congressional trough needs to stop. We need more turnover in those Congressional seats; also, we should put an end to the career politician in D.C. Our nation deserves better.

[Winstonm]

Now that we are on the verge of nuclear war with North Korea, by a show of hands: who is still proud of his or her support of Donald Trump?

Quote

By Anne Applebaum

....Trump, by contrast, continues to speak as if he had no diplomats or generals, as if there were no political process, or even a thought process, behind his language. His declaration, in between rounds of golf, that any North Korean “threats” would be met with “fire and fury . . . the likes of which this world has never seen before” was dangerously imprecise. What does he mean by “threats”? North Korea issues threats all the time and has been doing so for decades. What does he mean by “fire and fury”? Almost immediately, Tillerson, seeking to repair the damage, told Americans (but not South Koreans) that they should “sleep well at night” because he had no “concerns about this particular rhetoric,” meaning, it seems, the president’s particular rhetoric. The president then came back with a louder claim: In North Korea, “things will happen to them like they never thought possible.”

This hardly clears up the problem. In truth, the president has already surrendered his most important tool: the ability to be the final rung on the ladder of escalation. Threats should start at lower levels, build up to Cabinet level and finally come from the president only when the situation is truly dire and the words are meant to be deadly serious. Instead, we have a president whose angry words are easily dismissed, even by his own secretary of state. Trump has now lied so many times about so many things, has exagerrated and pontificated so much that even the North Koreans laugh his dire words off as “a load of nonsense.” He has no authority and so — like the child in the parked car — he can’t make any of the normal threats stick. His words are just as likely to encourage the North Koreans as to discourage them — and more likely to increase the danger to the rest of us.

[diana_eva]

 Winstonm, on 2017-August-10, 17:26, said:

Now that we are on the verge of nuclear war with North Korea, by a show of hands: who is still proud of his or her support of Donald Trump?

As long as this pisses you off...

[Winstonm]

 diana_eva, on 2017-August-10, 17:43, said:

As long as this pisses you off...

What a mature and thoughtful reason. And I thought Trump supporters were just immature and childish, like their leader.

[RedSpawn]

 Winstonm, on 2017-August-10, 17:26, said:

Now that we are on the verge of nuclear war with North Korea, by a show of hands: who is still proud of his or her support of Donald Trump?

Why are you wooed and nervous by the sabre rattling? Korea needs $$$ from China to feed its own people. Let China handle Kim Jong since his residential address is in the Asia Pacific Rim.

[barmar]

It seems like Trump doesn't have a very high bar for "the likes of which you've never seen before".
From https://www.theguard...bert-meyers-bee

Quote

“Oh, we’ve seen it before,” Colbert shot back. “You know what else we’ve seen? You using that phrase.” Colbert then showed numerous clips showing Trump employing the phrase in relation to a number of topics, like the opioid crisis and infrastructure in airports. “That is empty rhetoric, the likes of which you always use,” Colbert continued. “It’s good to know our president sees the fire of nuclear war as being on the same level as a nice airport he went to.

[Winstonm]

Of course, this is NOT terrorism, I suppose, because it was for the right cause:

Quote

Car plows into crowd of anti-racist protesters, injuring people
Several people were injured after a car plowed into a group of anti-racist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, who were still marching in the streets after the Unite the Right rally was earlier shut down by police.

Video of the car shows it accelerating, deliberately driving down the street towards protesters before slamming into them, and reversing back and driving away.

Maybe words do matter:

Quote

David Duke, a white nationalist and supporter of Trump, criticized the president’s initial statement, arguing “it was White Americans who put you in the presidency.”

David Duke @DrDavidDuke
I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists. https://twitter.com/...420822780444672 …
1:03 PM - Aug 12, 2017
88 88 Replies 180 180 Retweets 334 334 likes
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Duke said Saturday the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville is in line with Trump’s “promises.”

“We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump,“Duke said. “That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back.”

Making America Great Again or resurrecting southern hospitality, circa 1840?

[Winstonm]

And for good measure:

Quote

Senator Cory Gardner, a Republican from Colorado, called out President Donald Trump over his statement about the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump condemned violence "on many sides" after a car plowed into a crowd of anti-racism protesters on Saturday, killing one and injuring dozens. "Mr. President - we must call evil by its name," Gardner tweeted. "These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism."

[Winstonm]

From the Las Vegas Sun:

Quote

Trump’s tremendous insecurities show through in his whining
By Charles Blow
Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017 | 2 a.m.


President Donald Trump is the reigning king of American victimhood.


He is unceasingly pained, injured, aggrieved.

The primaries were unfair. The debates were unfair. The general election was unfair.

“No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly,” he laments.

People refuse to reach past his flaws — which are legion! — and pat him on the back. People refuse to praise his minimal effort and minimal efficacy. They refuse to ignore that the legend he created about himself is a lie. People’s insistence on truth and honest appraisal is so annoying. It’s all so terribly unfair.

It is in this near perfect state of perpetual aggrievement that Trump gives voice to a faction of America that also feels aggrieved. Trump won because he whines. He whines in a way that makes the weak feel less vulnerable and more vicious. He makes feeling sorry for himself feel like fighting back.

In this way he was a perfect reflection of the new Whiny Right. Trump is its instrument, articulation, embodiment. He’s not so much representative of it but of an idea — the waning power of whiteness, privilege, patriarchy, access, and the cultural and economic surety that accrues to the possessors of such. Trump represents their emerging status of victims-in-their-own-minds.

The way they see it, they are victims of coastal and urban liberals and the elite institutions — economic, education and entertainment — clustered there. They are victims of an economy evolving in ways, both technical and geographic, that cuts them out or leaves them behind. They are victims of immigration and shifting American demographics. They are victims of shifting, cultural mores. They are victims of Washington.

No one speaks to these insecurities like the human manifestation of insecurity himself: Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is their death rattle: That unsettling sound a body makes when death nears.

But, Trump’s whining is not some clever Machiavellian tactic, precisely tuned for these times. Trump’s whining is genuine. He pretends to be ferocious, but is actually embarrassingly fragile. His bravado is all illusion. The lion is a coward. And he licks his wounds until they are raw.

Now, pour into this hollow man Steve Bannon’s toxic, apocalyptic nationalism and his professed mission — “deconstruction of the administrative state” — and you get a perfect storm of extreme orthodoxy and extreme insecurity.

Trump becomes a tool of those in possession of legacy power in this country — and those who feel that power is their rightful inheritance — who are pulling every possible lever to enshrine and cement that power. Suppressing the vote. Restricting immigration. Putting the brakes on cultural inclusion.

Make America great again. Turn back the clock to a time when privileges of whiteness were supreme and unassailable, misogyny was simply viewed as an extension of masculinity, women got back-alley abortions and worked for partial wages, coal was king and global warming was purely academic, and trans people weren’t in our bathrooms or barracks. The good old days.

Now the power of the presidency is deployed in this pursuit. The only thing that holds the line against absolute calamity is the fact that Trump lacks focus and hates work.

I have found that a close cousin of extreme caviling is sloth. As Newsweek puts on this week’s cover, he is a “Lazy Boy.”

He may keep himself busy with things he considers to be work, but his definition of that word and mine do not seem to be in alignment. Twitter tantrums, obsessive television viewing, holding campaign-style rallies to feed his narcissistic need for adulation. Those things to me do not signal competence, but rather profound neurosis. True productivity leaves little space for this extreme protestation.

And, not only is he a lazy whiner, he’s also a projectionist: He is so consumed by his insecurities that he projects them onto others. Trump branded Ted Cruz a liar, when he himself wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped him in the face. Trump blasted Hillary Clinton as being crooked, when he himself was crooked. Trump sneered at President Barack Obama’s work ethic — among many other things — but Trump’s own work ethic has been found severely wanting.

In 2015, Trump said, “I would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done.” He continued: “I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off.”

Lies.

Trump has spent an unseemly amount of time away from the White House, playing golf, and is at this very moment on a 17-day vacation.

Trump is like the unfaithful spouse who constantly accuses the other of infidelity because the guilt of his or her own sins has hijacked their thinking and consumed their consciousness. The flaws he sees are the ones he possesses.

This projection of vice, claiming of victimhood, and complaining about vanishing privileges make Trump an ideal frontman for the kind of cultural anxiety, desperation and anger that disguises itself as a benign debate about public policy.

Charles M. Blow is a columnist for The New York Times.

[mike777]

good grief Winston and those who support you post after post

reports say two cops killed.....


you and those who support you say nothing.

perhaps===wrong reports.....bad reports...yet say nothing at this point


you just don't get it