2016 United States Election

[Frelga]

Meanwhile, Trump continues to stand by his campaign manager, but he can't keep the story straight, and goes back and forth between claiming that the incident never happened, to claiming that it was actually Fields that attacked Lewandowski, to claiming that she was a danger to Trump himself because she (remember, a reporter!) was standing next to him holding a dangerous looking pen!

"First, I never borrowed your china, second, I gave it back a long time ago, and third, it was already cracked."

But we all know that the pen is mightier than the sword so maybe they are right to worry?

Inanna,

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Anderson Cooper calls out Trump for using "the argument of a five year old."

https://variety.com/2016/tv/news/anders ... 201741634/

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

[Primula Baggins]

I treasure Trump's riposte: "It is not!"

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Spoken like a true five year old!

[yovargas]

Kudos to Cooper for calling him out on his childishness.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

More Cooper kudos for calling out Ted Cruz on his plan to patrol Muslim neighborhoods.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/03 ... n-townhall

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Only Donald Trump could manage to outrage both pro-choice and pro-life supporters at the same time. In an interview with Chris Matthews of MSNBC yesterday, Trump was asked whether if abortion was made illegal, there should be some punishment for the women seeking abortions. In classic clueless Trump fashion, he responded affirmatively, despite the fact that even the most ardent abortion opponents have always insisted that the women seeking abortions should not be further punished (on the theory that being in the position of seeking an abortion is punishment enough), only the providers should be punished. Trump later backtracked from the comments, but the damage was already done.

What this says to me more than anything else is that Trump simply has not thought about this issue, he simply adheres to the line that he thinks is expedient. When he was a Democrat he was "strongly pro-choice" and now that he is a Republican is equally "strongly pro-life." But none of it really means anything to him.

[Dave_LF]

I think he's simply learned that he gets the best response from taking the extreme, punitive position on any given issue. It just so happened that he stumbled upon one where even the radical right isn't willing to go that far.

[yovargas]

My brother posted this on FB - excuse the slight oversimplification but I think it's hilarious.

Capture.jpg (72.52 KiB) Viewed 5154 times

(Reminder: this is a joke and should not be taken too literally......)

[Inanna]

Rofl!!

[Cerin]

yov, I think that's actually pretty brilliant (as well as hilarious).

[Impenitent]

Oh, that's exceeding funny!

[Túrin Turambar]

Only Donald Trump could manage to outrage both pro-choice and pro-life supporters at the same time. In an interview with Chris Matthews of MSNBC yesterday, Trump was asked whether if abortion was made illegal, there should be some punishment for the women seeking abortions. In classic clueless Trump fashion, he responded affirmatively, despite the fact that even the most ardent abortion opponents have always insisted that the women seeking abortions should not be further punished (on the theory that being in the position of seeking an abortion is punishment enough), only the providers should be punished. Trump later backtracked from the comments, but the damage was already done.

What this says to me more than anything else is that Trump simply has not thought about this issue, he simply adheres to the line that he thinks is expedient. When he was a Democrat he was "strongly pro-choice" and now that he is a Republican is equally "strongly pro-life." But none of it really means anything to him.

I agree that the issue shows that Trump simply says what he thinks will win him approval from the crowd that is inclined to support him, and changes his political positions out of convenience.

That said, I found this whole issue kind of odd. What Trump said first is that, if abortion was a crime, there would be a punishment for committing it. This makes perfect sense and is consistent with practice (or at least theory) in jurisdictions where abortion is banned or restricted.

For example, current Irish law provides for a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment for a woman who procures an abortion unlawfully, or outside legally-permitted circumstances, (the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act) while the maximum penalty in Queensland is 7 years’ imprisonment for the woman and 14 years’ for the doctor (Queensland Criminal Code). I should mention that these laws are rarely, if ever, enforced, which is obviously a problem that the pro-life side in the U.S. would have if Roe v. Wade was overturned. But in principle, if abortion is a crime then those who take part in bringing it about are liable to penalties. Even if this wasn't explicit in the law, the woman would be still charged as an accomplice or accessory (assuming anyone was charged at all -there has only been one such prosecution in Queensland in my lifetime).

From reading commentary on the internet, I’m not actually persuaded that many conservative Republicans would have found Trump’s original position extreme, whatever certain commentators may have said. I don’t find it extreme myself – it is consistent with what I understand the pro-life position to be. I have no idea why he backtracked.

[JewelSong]

I’m not actually persuaded that many conservative Republicans would have found Trump’s original position extreme, whatever certain commentators may have said. I don’t find it extreme myself – it is consistent with what I understand the pro-life position to be. I have no idea why he backtracked.

I think that the actual views on abortion in the US are not black-and-white and have some strange nuances. The official GOP stance is (supposedly) against abortion in almost any circumstance. One would think that the logical way to prevent abortions is to have better access to birth control and better health and sex education programs. But the GOP is also (officially) against THAT.

My opinion is that many of the anti-abortion people are not anti-abortion so much as they are anti-sex. Especially women having sex. Especially women having casual sex and enjoying it. Pregnancy is the punishment for having casual sex. (You "deserved" it.) Women should not be able to get out of an unwanted pregnancy so "easily." They should suffer for their sexual behavior. (Yes, by bringing an unwanted child into the world...but it's not a logical thing.)

HOWEVER...statistics show that about one in three women in the USA has had an abortion at some point. So...while the official stance looks great on paper, most people really do NOT want such strict rules about abortion. Especially if it's THEIR abortion.

[sauronsfinger]

I have not made a post on politics in years. Just wanted to say that my feelings on Trump are very conflicted.

I do not like hardly anything about him and oppose him strongly. I Don't even believe he believes half of what he has said or is sincere about his positions on issues. I think he is a conman who is simply trying to advance himself and will do or say almost anything to close the deal. While I do not think his domestic policies would be that bad if he got into the White House, his bully boy arrogant attitude worries me deeply as to how he would respond in a international crisis and if his temperament would get us into war. And that deeply scares me.

But having got that out there, what I see what is about to happen to him disgusts me and I cannot support that. I have seen enough prison movies like SHAWSHANK to know what happens when the outside loner drops the soap. And Trump has most certainly allowed it to slip from his hands.

It is obvious that if Trump loses Wisconsin next tuesday night - and it looks like a real possibility - we are going to see all manner of fair and unfair methods employed against Trump to deny him a majority in Cleveland. We already see this in Louisiana where the anti trump forces on the ground are attempting to both change and manipulate the rules to cheat him out of his won share of convention delegates. this is only going to get worse and more blatant as the anti trump forces smell blood in the water like a shark.

In the end, I must stand by the process which values the vote and participation of the American people and if they vote for Trump,- as indeed they have for several months now - he should be the rightful nominee.

Take out the name of Trump and place the name of any other Republican in the mix and tell me if Romney, or Cruz, or Rubio or Walker or Bush had all those votes of the people, and had won the most states, and was far ahead in delegates, and was approaching 50% support level in national polls - would there be an allout effort to stop them as we are seeing with Trump.

[Cerin]

So much depends on the outcomes of the remaining primaries. If Trump's support begins to erode, it will be easier for the establishment Republicans to justify giving the nomination to someone else.

[Dave_LF]

Hi SF. I agree and I don't. On the one hand, there's no question that Trump is being "picked on" in a way other candidates wouldn't be. But on the other hand, his nomination would be so bad for the party and the country, it's probably warranted. And on the other other hand, political parties aren't obligated to behave democratically; they occupy a weird fuzzy zone between government and corporation. You can argue that the party leadership, who spend their careers working to set its platform and achieve its goals, deserve more say in the nomination process than individuals who by and large only think about politics once every two or four years and may not even consistently support the party whose primary they're voting in. So it's hard to say. But I'll grant that if I were a Trump supporter, I would be upset about the treatment he's receiving.

[Dave_LF]

However, it's looking increasingly likely that Trump will flop in Wisconsin tomorrow. That would make it difficult for him to reach a majority before the convention, especially if it is followed by similar flops in the NE. And speaking of actions that smell undemocratic, since Cruz is only a little better liked by his party leadership than Trump, I'd say if the Republicans go into their convention without a primary winner, they likely end up choosing "none of the above." Which is a shame, because without primary voters getting in the way, they'll probably select someone who has an actual chance of winning.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Probably, in fact, someone from Wisconsin (and no, not Scot Walker).

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/p ... z44rfJqMA7

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Here is an inconvenient fact that most Bernie Sanders supporters either don't know, or choose to ignore. Most know that Clinton has a small but significant lead in pledged delegates, which could be surmountable if Sanders is able to translate his current momentum into large victories in delegate rich states such as NY, California, and New Jersey. I don't think that will happen, but it is possible. However, what most don't mention is that Clinton has a much larger lead in actual votes, because most of Sanders victories have been in extremely low turnout caucuses. Sanders has won about 46% of pledged delegates. However, he has won only about 42% of the popular vote (and actually a much lower percentage of actual registered Democrats, since the primaries that he has won have almost all been open primaries with the difference being his large margin in independent voters). There is absolutely no chance that he can overcome that gap in the remaining contests. So if he does pull of the unlikely feat of overcoming Clinton's significant pledged delegate lead and tries to convince the super-delegates to move their support to him, he will have to do so against the will of the people, contrary to the narrative of most of his supporters.