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ant

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Re: Trump Watch

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Robert wrote:

By contrast, Biden makes a tiny joke and the gaffometer goes off the deep end.


Joe Biden:
Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids


Is the above just another "a tiny joke" or brute stupidity?
Last edited by ant on Fri May 29, 2020 7:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Trump Watch

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Possibly both. But in contrast, as Mr. Tulip says, we have endured continuous adolescent sociopathological bullying since Trump descended that escalator on 6/15/2015. It seems interminal because it's gettin' on to five years now!
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Re: Trump Watch

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Cities burn, shots are fired.

Although Trump was not helping matters when he suggested that looters be shot, I would like to give him credit, and to give a few others on the right (such as Rush Limbaugh, who "saw no way" to justify the police behavior, implying that he saw it as his purpose to find a justification) credit, for reacting honestly to the lethal abuse of George Floyd. Trump even called Floyd's family to express his condolences. But I fear that the way the right generally frames such issues will reassert itself before long, as Charlie Sykes has predicted. "Give it 24 or 48 hours," he said.

The police are "us" and the angry young people and people of color, are "them" and so they have to have the incontrovertible evidence of "To Kill a Mockingbird" (the defendant could not have done what he was accused of doing) before they are willing to hold the police accountable. To recognize that racism was at work is to implicitly accuse white people of oppressing black people intentionally, in this narrative, and thus to trigger all the white fragility that Trump embodies and speaks for.

Already Limbaugh has blamed the problem on Minnesota being "a blue state," "run by Democrats" (tell that to Jesse Ventura), and Laura Ingraham, incredibly, brought Mark Fuhrman (who framed O.J., thus resulting in his acquittal) on to her show, while Tucker Carlson responded to Ted Cruz denouncing Floyd's death by asking if was fair to bring a murder charge against the man who killed Mr. Floyd. "Why doesn't anybody stand up for the rest of us, for civilization?" Carlson asked, as though civilization requires the killing of anyone who resists in the least.

I have heard bone-chilling accounts of the things cops treat as part of "standing up for civilization" including breaking the skull of someone for peacefully asking them to follow the law by not searching without a warrant. If the repeated lethal abuses were not part of a larger pattern, I would say well, lets just look at the facts and sort it out and not get all riled up about it. I don't ever agree with violent protest, destruction and looting, but we have let things go too far down the road of oppression to think further violence is the right option.
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Re: Trump Watch

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And while I'm at it, I thought Trump's withdrawal of the special economic status granted to Hong Kong was appropriate and even timely. It has always been one of the "carrots" to induce China to move toward rule of law, and though it doesn't mean nearly as much as it did 20 years ago, it still has significance both symbolically and practically.

Trump's determination to confront China probably provided him the margin of victory in 2016 (I know that lots of other things can also be seen as pushing him over the line, but the surprise crumbling of the Blue Wall still owes more to the giant sucking sound of jobs going to China than to any other single factor) and it still represents the only thing he stands for that I agree with. I have, on the other hand, argued that he went about it in about as foolish a way as it was possible to do, and as a result has gotten nowhere, but this was an appropriate measure with appropriate rationale. Someone in the Administration is actually thinking strategically.
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Re: Trump Watch

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Harry Marks wrote: I fear that the way the right generally frames such issues will reassert itself before long, as Charlie Sykes has predicted. "Give it 24 or 48 hours," he said.
Right on cue, Dear Leader asked the military to remove peaceful protesters so that he could go and desecrate the Bible by posing in front of a church as part of a call to "dominate" by the government, including a threat to call in troops if the states do not "dominate" to the extent he seeks. He shows no awareness that it was just that kind of thinking that killed George Floyd.
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Re: Trump Watch

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ant wrote:
DWill wrote:]The attacks on Biden's decency are designed to level the playing field with Donald Trump
That is politics, DWill. And it has been a part of the game for a very, very long time. Each side has in their respective war chest a blunt Ad Hominem beating stick. And each side uses it regularly. It is disingenuous to cry foul on one team but not the other.
I disagree strongly that the argument over who should lead reduces to one side's ad hominem vs. the other's, as if there can never be any difference on the merits, because "it's all just politics." This is an excessively cynical view. The reasons for opposing Trump aren't ad hominem, as you must recognize if you don't claim him as your candidate. You say you don't defend him, either, but continually minimizing his outrages and magnifying the flaws of the other guy has precisely that effect. Calling Biden a racist allows negating the much more plausible charge of Trump's racism.
Joe Biden's intrusive mannerisms with females is not decent. I'm sorry, but it is all over the internet for everyone to see. It has been part of his character for years and he has even been called out by members of his own team. He has been asked to temper his touchy-touchy desires and has ignored all calls for it. Add sexual misconduct allegations on top of that and it is reasonable to have suspicions about his moral conduct when not enough eyes are on him. He can't control himself and we are likely to reasonably follow his own advice that we should believe a woman if she comes forward with allegations of sexual misconduct. This should not even be a debate.
OK, if you consider that to be disqualifying, that's up to you and I don't argue with you. There has never been an uproar over Biden's touchiness, though. To say there has been is to distort people's reactions. I do not consider that to be something serious enough to compel me to vote for a third party candidate and create more risk of Trump being reelected. I say it's no exaggeration to claim that the November election represents a national emergency. In such a case, the only rational course is to blunt the emergency through the better choice.
If you are implying that I am attempting to even the playing field for Trump you are wrong. I will not be voting for Trump (i did not the first time) and do not secretly consider him to be my dog in this race.
If it's not your conscious intent, the effect is to achieve just that. Otherwise, you would say, for example, that Biden is not without his own liabilities in regard to race. You wouldn't use those problems as an implicit way of saying he and Trump have the same problem.
Ant wrote:
DWill wrote:Biden is not perfect and may even have committed criminal sexual assault 20 years ago (the evidence against him is not strong), but still there is no contest, and it's hard to imagine how there could be, regardless of whom the other party had put up to oppose Trump.
2 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years ago does not matter and should not matter when it comes to serious allegations like sexual misconduct. I am surprised you are trying to sanitize it by pleading to Father Time.
You are being severely unsympathetic here too. Women who have experienced sexual harassment and assault do not look at such egregious acts committed against them by marking days off a calendar. The trauma lives with them for the rest of their lives.

You are a reasonable man. I find it shocking that you are essentially saying "it was 20 years ago, so he's a better man than the guy who did it, oh, 10 years ago"
That reasoning can do nothing but minimize the words of future women who will bravely come forward to expose men like Biden.
I added the "20 years ago" not to say that the age of the alleged crime makes it less serious, but I can see why you thought so. With so much time passing, these allegations become murky, just as I think they did regarding Brett Kavanaugh. The date of the alleged assault isn't important to me; the particulars of Tara Reade's accusation are, though. She could be telling the truth, but there are aspects of her story that don't add up, and you can find analyses of its strengths and weaknesses. You apparently support a literal "believe the women" stance (and think that Kavanaugh should not have his SC seat), but I think that creates a dangerous precedent. Listen to the women, yes, but believe in the accuracy and veracity of charges based solely on their coming forward with them? I don't want to make that a blanket policy for allegations, no matter of what sort.

Getting back to the binary choice in November, who is Biden's opponent? "Grab 'em by the pussy" Trump, alleged by over 20 women to have forced himself on them.
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Re: Trump Watch

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DWill wrote:Trump has reached a new low. He has no bottom.
Another great moment in the Trump presidency!

Image
-Geo
Question everything
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Re: Trump Watch

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I agree

This was a profoundly stupid thing to do at a moment like this..

It did nothing but provoke the situation
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Re: Trump Watch

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DWill wrote:
I disagree strongly that the argument over who should lead reduces to one side's ad hominem vs. the other's, as if there can never be any difference on the merits, because "it's all just politics."
I don't think you meant to mischaraterize what I wrote, but you mischaracterized what I wrote.
I simply said character assassination has been a part of the body politic for decades and decades. That is simply a fact, nothing more.
It was not an attempt at justification.

One side crying foul is also the side that practices character assassination of their own --- F A C T (and you know it)

I am not shocked when it happens and frankly neither should you be.

You say you don't defend him, either, but continually minimizing his outrages
SHOW ME WHERE I have "minimized" a particular action he has taken.

Calling Biden a racist allows negating the much more plausible charge of Trump's racism.

It allows nothing but my expression as a minority that Biden is a racist.. perhaps a closet racist at best. I'm likely to believe that he is so ossified in 50s, 6os, 70s racism that he can't help what he is - a man not able to adjust to a new era.

I am a person of color.. Why is it that I am not as offended by Trump as most white men seem to be"
I do not need a white man to take offense for me where none was taken. And I refuse to be used as a mascot, not will I be told by a white man that I should take offense to some of the stupid things Trump has done (eg eating a taco salad to win over the latino vote)
Two words - virtue signaling.
Are you going to argue that virtue signaling is virtuous?
Please do.

OK, if you consider that to be disqualifying, that's up to you and I don't argue with you. There has never been an uproar over Biden's touchiness, though. To say there has been is to distort people's reactions
False.
There has been an uproar over Biden's "touchiness" by people that you dismiss as not having anything valid to be upset about as it relates to the aforementioned.

I'm not a person?
Countless people (who coincidentally may not share the same political views as you) are not people?

If it's not your conscious intent, the effect is to achieve just that
This alleged effect you are suggesting I am intentionally or otherwise creating exists in your mind.
You should not be projecting that onto mine.
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Re: Trump Watch

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geo wrote:
DWill wrote:Trump has reached a new low. He has no bottom.
Another great moment in the Trump presidency!

Image

Putting aside all the controversy and criticism this president has experienced, and I am of the opinion there is a lot to flesh out, I predict this one act is his undoing.

It has been suggested the recent turmoil would actually help his reelection. I no longer believe that to be true.

If the incedent that triggered all the mayhem had not happened, Trump would have won by a landslide because Biden and his broken brain would have been demolished.

But I abhor all violence and will speak out against it each time I see it.

Again,
An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind

Gandhi lead a revolution without firing a single shot.

F***! leftist anarchy

F*** liberal speak such as "violence is the language of the unheard"

And F*** everyone that does not condemn blind violence that victimizes the innocent..
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