"Until this moment I think I never really gauged your cruelty"

Robert Reich
26 mins ·
I spoke to a Washington insider this morning – a Republican – who thinks Trump is committing political suicide. That got me worried. Washington insiders have been wrong about Trump for the last year.
Think about it. What have you heard about Hillary’s campaign since the Democratic convention? Zilch. Trump has been capturing all the headlines, every day.
And are those headlines really so bad for him? He’s refusing to endorse the Republican establishment (Speaker Paul Ryan, former Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain). But this could burnish his anti-establishment image.
Trump refuses to back down on his criticisms of the Muslim-American parents of a Muslim-American war hero. But this is no problem for his anti-Muslim backers and every other anti-Muslim bigot in America.
Obama called Trump “unfit for the presidency.” But this could just provide more red meat for Republicans and other Obama haters.

3 Replies

@edgarblythe,

As long as he keeps talking about nukeing countries and people I dont think he will convince many people to vote for him.

0 Replies

@edgarblythe,

There's no cure for stupid people. We have our share in this country; many are older white bigots who can't stand that they are becoming the minority in this country.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Clint Eastwood is in the news today for Trump. Strange how a guy can be so charismatic on film and so stupid off screen.

3 Replies

@edgarblythe,

Eastwood dropped off my radar when he thought it would be cute to debate an empty chair.

0 Replies

@edgarblythe,

I used to like him because I knew he was not a bigot, but his support of Trump, a textbook bigot, just turned me off. I wonder if he supported Hitler.

0 Replies

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

But Trump has called for a "total and complete shutdown" on Muslims entering the United States. Granted, he now says that would be temporary, but a temporary ban is still a ban. If Hilary Clinton called for a temporary ban on gun purchases, would you be OK with that because, after all, it's only temporary?

It would depend on the circumstances surrounding the temporary ban, the nature of the temporary ban, and whether it looked like it was truly temporary.

Were I to condemn this hypothetical gun ban, I would not misconstrue the ban as being something that it isn't. If I felt that a permanent ban was being disguised as a temporary ban, I would directly say so instead of just calling it a permanent ban without further explanation.

joefromchicago wrote:

That's hardly worthy of you, oralloy. We've come to expect that you will provide facts to back up all of your assertions, yet here you give us vague, unsupported accusations instead. What "histrionics" did the Khans display? Don't give us smears, give us facts.

Normally I only provide cites when they are requested. I believe this is standard procedure. Posting on the internet would become untenable if every single minor fact had to be verified with a link. Posting cites on request works out much better.

Here is one statement where he misconstrued "Trump's return-fire criticism" as "an attempt to silence him":

Quote:

He is candidate for the highest office of this nation.
He has to have the patience and tolerance for criticism. Him and I have same equal rights. In his eyes, he thinks that he can criticize people, but no one else can criticize. That is not the value of this country.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/khizr-kahn-candidate-highest-office-trump-needs-tolerance-criticism/

I find this one pretty hypocritical, since not only did Trump not try to silence Khan, but Khan is arguing that Trump should be silenced.

He also used more colorful language in other places:

Quote:

"He is a black soul, and this is totally unfit for the leadership of this country," Khan said. "The love and affection that we have received affirms that our grief -- that our experience in this country has been correct and positive. The world is receiving us like we have never seen. They have seen the blackness of his character, of his soul."

Quote:

He said those GOP leaders have a "moral, ethical obligation to not worry about the votes but repudiate him; withdraw the support. If they do not, I will continue to speak."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/31/politics/khizr-khan-donald-trump-black-soul/

Quote:

Responding to Trump’s latest statement, Khan said, "This is faked empathy."

Quote:

In response to Trump’s attack on his wife, Khan said that the Republican nominee’s words were "typical of a person without a soul."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/khizr-khan-responds-to-the-latest-from-trump-what-he-said-originally--that-defines-him/2016/07/31/450f78dc-56d6-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html

1 Reply

@snood,

snood wrote:

And while you're at it, kind sir - could you please enlighten us with your humble opinion about how a temporary ban on the entire Muslim religion could be implemented?

Is there something wrong with my earlier answer?

http://able2know.org/topic/335782-8#post-6239160

snood wrote:

You're defending something I see as completely unattainable, and I would like you to provide some qualification about why you think it is a feasible idea.

I wasn't defending the idea. I was just pointing out that Mr. Trump's proposal was being mischaracterized. Personally I think current vetting procedures seem adequate.

Actually I disagree with Mr. Trump on most issues (and strongly agree with Hillary). The key though is guns. Hillary means to ban our guns and that is just plain unacceptable.

snood wrote:

I will take your continued silence on this to mean you agree that its an impossible idea, but just can't find the courage to admit it.

Any actual silence will probably mean:

a) I am off playing World of Warcraft.
b) I have gotten temporarily bored with the thread. My confidence in the results of the next five presidential elections makes political discussions a little boring, and I sometimes stop paying attention to politics for a few weeks. (I can't recommend this enough. You really don't miss anything.)
c) I'm watching the Olympics every waking minute of the day.
d) I have somehow missed your post (possibly because of "a" "b" or "c") with your post long since buried by other posts by the time I review the thread.

0 Replies

@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

Robert Reich
26 mins ·
I spoke to a Washington insider this morning – a Republican – who thinks Trump is committing political suicide. That got me worried. Washington insiders have been wrong about Trump for the last year.
Think about it. What have you heard about Hillary’s campaign since the Democratic convention? Zilch. Trump has been capturing all the headlines, every day.
And are those headlines really so bad for him? He’s refusing to endorse the Republican establishment (Speaker Paul Ryan, former Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain). But this could burnish his anti-establishment image.
Trump refuses to back down on his criticisms of the Muslim-American parents of a Muslim-American war hero. But this is no problem for his anti-Muslim backers and every other anti-Muslim bigot in America.
Obama called Trump “unfit for the presidency.” But this could just provide more red meat for Republicans and other Obama haters.

Mr. Reich is right to be worried. The demise of liberalism is imminent.

I don't agree with his logic, which seems based on assuming that Republicans are bigots and haters, but I concur that Mr. Trump is on his way to the White House.

0 Replies

@oralloy,

Quote:

until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on."

Based on the history of the past ~75 years, I have very little confidence our 'represenatives' are capable of doing that. I just visited Manzanar, one of the many places we imprisoned Japanese Americans while we 'figured out what's going on'.

If you need a more recent example, look at the F35 program. It's not as criminal as Manzanar, but it's close.

1 Reply

@Leadfoot,

Leadfoot wrote:

If you need a more recent example, look at the F35 program. It's not as criminal as Manzanar, but it's close.

I can see the criminality in canceling the F-22 program, but what is wrong with the F-35 program?

If you are upset over the F-35s not having any air-to-air ability, they were never meant to.

If you believed Obama when he said it was OK to cancel the F-22s because the F-35s were good enough to do he same job, your mistake was believing his lies. People who believed him when he said they could keep their existing health insurance plans found themselves in the same boat.

There is a move to allow the new crop of stealth bombers to carry huge loads of air-to-air missiles and down enemy fighters en masse. No way to know if it'll pan out yet, but if it does that could shore up the huge hole in American power that we're contending with.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
I repeat: you are saying that Mr. Trump cruelly attacked the Khan's.

I repeat (as I have already stated this plainly in this thread), I don't care about the Khan's feelings here that much, they'll get over it. My qualm is with the idiotic level at which the Republican representative responded. I have posted a number of better ways he could have responded and the manner he chose to was mindless.

You are insisting that I give you the straw man you want to knock down and refusing to address the central thrust of my criticism, that this kind of automatic gainsay is idiotic. I don't care about how mean it was or not, I care that this is a perfectly stupid way for the Republican representative to conduct himself.

Many other Republican leaders have said the same. Do you disagree with them?

As for statements by other Republicans, testimonial is an invalid form of argument. Aside from a mild comment about the wife's silence, give me one cruel thing that the Republican representative actually said.

1 Reply

@Brandon9000,

It's not down to you as to what someone else finds offensive. The Khans were deeply offended by Trump's bigoted, and stereotypical, statements about Mrs Khan's silence. She, like most grieving parents, was upset by the pictures of her dead son, which is why she didn't talk. Trump only attacked her silence because of her religion. He wouldn't have treated a white, Christian woman like that.

2 Replies

@izzythepush,

Agreed, I'm glad you answered that from Brandon. I just can't imagine what people from other countries think of US they were even have a man like Trump as a republican candidate for the office of United States which will affect many others than just Americans. I can imagine, but not really the depth of it.

1 Reply

@revelette2,

We've got BoJo as foreign secretary so I'm not going to get too smug.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

We are supposed to stay on topic, but, I agree, I used to love to watch Clint Eastwood movies; got started when I was a small girl and watched Hang em' High. (Kind of have mannish taste in movies, hate chick flicks..)Sorry, now back to the topic.

0 Replies

@izzythepush,

I reread my post again (I have to proof read my post a dozen or so times) I meant "we're" instead of "were. "

1 Reply

@revelette2,

Easily done, don't beat yourself up over it.

0 Replies

@oralloy,

Quote:

I can see the criminality in canceling the F-22 program, but what is wrong with the F-35 program?

Scary, I think you're serious. I worked for Lockheed Martin when the contract was awarded so I wanted the Lightning to be a good plane but the concept was deeply flawed in trying to make the same airframe do VTOL and air superiority fighter.
One biggie - I knew it would NEVER have the promised parts commonality and it doesn't.

Not Obama's fault but he wouldn't know **** about what was wrong with the F-35. He should be able to see the problem with the price tag though. If I were a foreign fighter buyer, I would not even consider the POS.

And if fighters are obsolete, why build it at all?

1 Reply

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

It would depend on the circumstances surrounding the temporary ban, the nature of the temporary ban, and whether it looked like it was truly temporary.

But you do agree that a temporary ban is still a ban?

oralloy wrote:

Were I to condemn this hypothetical gun ban, I would not misconstrue the ban as being something that it isn't. If I felt that a permanent ban was being disguised as a temporary ban, I would directly say so instead of just calling it a permanent ban without further explanation.

Well, Khizr Khan never said anything about it being permanent or temporary. And that's not really necessary, is it? A ban can be either temporary or permanent, as you yourself recognize. What you're arguing with, therefore, is Khan's choice in the way he describes the "total and complete shutdown" that Trump has proposed. In short, you're not saying he was wrong, just that you would have phrased it differently.

oralloy wrote:

Here is one statement where he misconstrued "Trump's return-fire criticism" as "an attempt to silence him":

Quote:
He is candidate for the highest office of this nation.
He has to have the patience and tolerance for criticism. Him and I have same equal rights. In his eyes, he thinks that he can criticize people, but no one else can criticize. That is not the value of this country.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/khizr-kahn-candidate-highest-office-trump-needs-tolerance-criticism/

I find this one pretty hypocritical, since not only did Trump not try to silence Khan, but Khan is arguing that Trump should be silenced.

Sorry, but I'm having trouble finding where Khan said that Trump had tried to silence him. It's nowhere in the excerpt that you posted. And regardless of whether Khan was being hypocritical or not, that doesn't mean he was "whining," which you said he was. I asked for examples of whining, not hypocrisy.

oralloy wrote:

He also used more colorful language in other places:

Well, again, are those examples of "whining?" Certainly, you'd have to concede that Trump has engaged in similarly "colorful language." Does that mean that Trump has been whining as well?

1 Reply

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