US Election: 2016

[Remius]

    They've had 11 years to get used to their son being dead. 

Wow.  Just wow.

 

[cupper]

They dug up their dead son and beat Trump over the head with him.  The attack on Trump was a total set-up and a shameful and cowardly political act.  These parents should be hanging their heads in shame.  They've had 11 years to get used to their son being dead.  I mistrust the emotion.

WHat the ever lovin F?  :facepalm:

 

[Altair]

They dug up their dead son and beat Trump over the head with him.  The attack on Trump was a total set-up and a shameful and cowardly political act.  These parents should be hanging their heads in shame.  They've had 11 years to get used to their son being dead.  I mistrust the emotion.

The Democrats have found a good strategy.

Trump cannot resist hitting back when attacked. So find a bunch of sympathetic people who should never be attacked, parents of war vets, disabled people, probably children, and maybe a puppy,  trump will hit back at them all.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

They dug up their dead son and beat Trump over the head with him.  The attack on Trump was a total set-up and a shameful and cowardly political act.  These parents should be hanging their heads in shame.  They've had 11 years to get used to their son being dead.  I mistrust the emotion.

Wow.... what does rock bottom look like?

 

[cupper]

Changing tact.

Trump needs to understand that everything he has ever said in a public forum is easily checked and open to scrutiny.

In 2013 he claims to have a good relationship with Putin in a TV interview.

This week he says that he has no relationship with Putin. Well? Which is it?

And you don't make excuses that are going to come back to haunt you, like claiming you received a letter from the NFL asking you to push for a change in the debate schedule as it conflicts with several nationally televised games. Only to have the NFL come out and say we didn't make any such request.

Or claiming that It was the GOP establishment that stripped provision of military equipment to Ukraine from the party platform, when in fact it was his own reps that pushed for ang got that removed.

Oh, and speakin of Ukraine, you need to stay up on current events, even if they have been going on for the past couple of years. Like Russian intervention in Eastern Ukraine.

 

[Rocky Mountains]

Wow.  Just wow.

The son died 12 years ago.  When you get old you find that most of the people you knew have died.  My wife is the sole surviving member of her family and I have one sibling left.  Saving up emotion for 12 years and spewing it at a public convention is not normal.  I know grief but don't use it as an offense.  It's all a set up.

 

[Altair]

The son died 12 years ago.  When you get old you find that most of the people you knew have died.  My wife is the sole surviving member of her family and I have one sibling left.  Saving up emotion for 12 years and spewing it at a public convention is not normal.  I know grief but don't use it as an offense.  It's all a set up.

Was it an act? Maybe.

Should it have been avoided? Yes.

Trumps just cannot resist fighting back. Which leads to him falling into traps like this one.

If he does it against the political class that everyone hates already that's probably a good thing for him. Minority groups that his supporters are fearful of? Sure.

War vets and their parents? Didn't hurt him with mccain but he was a politician. We shall see the fallout from this.

 

[Remius]

The son died 12 years ago.  When you get old you find that most of the people you knew have died.  My wife is the sole surviving member of her family and I have one sibling left.  Saving up emotion for 12 years and spewing it at a public convention is not normal.  I know grief but don't use it as an offense.  It's all a set up.

I can't even imagine anything worse than outliving your kids. You never get over that.  Ever. 

 

[cupper]

They dug up their dead son and beat Trump over the head with him. The attack on Trump was a total set-up and a shameful and cowardly political act.  These parents should be hanging their heads in shame.  They've had 11 years to get used to their son being dead.  I mistrust the emotion.

The highlighted portion was all you needed to say. The rest was unnecessary vitriolic crap and did nothing but diminish your arguement.

And the Dems are not alone in pulling a stunt like this. The week before the Trump campaign rolled out Patricia Smith, mother of Sean Smith, one of the casualties of the attack in Benghazi.

 

[cupper]

And the Simpsons weigh in on the 3:00 am phone call.

https://youtu.be/tLSy8Tl2bjs

 

[The Bread Guy]

They've had 11 years to get used to their son being de(a)d.

Really?  Really??  As others have said, this just takes away from the argument ...

... The attack on Trump was a total set-up and a shameful and cowardly political act ...

Saving up emotion for 12 years and spewing it at a public convention is not normal.

As someone who knows grief (and I know grief is a very individual journey), you must know this typically isn't how it works - unless you have evidence of this family showing zero grief before this engagement.

 

[Kirkhill]

Gentlemen.

Is anybody going to "win" this discussion?

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Gentlemen.

Is anybody going to "win" this discussion?

Nope.

 

[a_majoor]

What is so amazingly hypocritical about the entire thing is the contrast with the Media and Dem's treatment of Patricia Smith. Watching the CNN "commentator" remarking that the speech "spoiled her night" to the totally disgusting Bethlehem Shoals tweeting he wants to beat  Patrica Smith to death. (although he quickly erased the tweet, it was captured so proof of his mendacity will be there for everyone to see.

How much airtime or how many news cycles did that dominate?

Yeah, stay classy Dems.

 

[cupper]

The Houston Chronical makes a surprise endorsement.

These are unsettling times that require a steady hand: That's not Donald Trump.

http://www.chron.com/opinion/recommendations/article/For-Hillary-Clinton-8650345.php?

On Nov. 8, 2016, the American people will decide between two presidential contenders who represent the starkest political choice in living memory. They will choose between one candidate with vast experience and a lifelong dedication to public service and another totally lacking in qualifications to be president. They will decide whether they prefer someone deeply familiar with the issues that are important to this nation or a person whose paper-thin, bumper-sticker proposals would be dangerous to the nation and the world if somehow they were enacted.

Her opponent

The Chronicle editorial page does not typically endorse early in an election cycle; we prefer waiting for the campaign to play out and for issues to emerge and be addressed. We make an exception in the 2016 presidential race, because the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is not merely political. It is something much more basic than party preference.

An election between the Democrat Clinton and, let's say, the Republican Jeb Bush or John Kasich or Marco Rubio, even the hyper-ideological Ted Cruz, would spark a much-needed debate about the role of government and the nation's future, about each candidate's experience and abilities. But those Republican hopefuls have been vanquished. To choose the candidate who defeated them - fairly and decisively, we should point out - is to repudiate the most basic notions of competence and capability.

Any one of Trump's less-than-sterling qualities - his erratic temperament, his dodgy business practices, his racism, his Putin-like strongman inclinations and faux-populist demagoguery, his contempt for the rule of law, his ignorance - is enough to be disqualifying. His convention-speech comment, "I alone can fix it," should make every American shudder. He is, we believe, a danger to the Republic.

It's telling that so many Republicans have distanced themselves from their party's nominee. That sizeable list includes a number of prominent Texans, Bush family members foremost among them, as well as Sen. Cruz and House Speaker Joe Straus. These stalwart Republicans are concerned not only about the future of their party (and, with the exception of the two Bush presidents, their own political careers), but, more important, they're concerned about the future of this nation.

It would not be surprising to discover that these experienced politicians and public servants share the existential concern that first lady Michelle Obama raised in her powerful speech on behalf of Clinton at the party convention in Philadelphia: "Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military at your command, you can't make snap decisions. You can't have a thin skin or a tendency to lash out. You need to be steady and measured and well-informed."

Experience

Americans know Hillary Clinton; post-Philadelphia, they're even better acquainted with "the real Hillary Clinton," as her husband phrased it. After her quarter century and more in the public eye, they know her strengths and her weaknesses. Anyone who has paid even a modicum of attention to her experience as first lady, as U.S. senator, as secretary of state and as candidate for president will have at least a general notion of her positions on the issues. As President Obama noted, she's the most qualified person in years to serve as president - "and that includes Bill and me." The only candidate to come close is George H.W. Bush.
Whether voters like her personally is almost irrelevant at this "moment of reckoning," to use Clinton's words. She herself concedes that she's not a natural campaigner. She lacks Obama's oratorical gifts or her husband's folksy ability to connect with crowds. Too often she comes across as calculated, inauthentic. We're confident that she is, indeed, "steady and measured and well-informed" and that she would be a much better president than a presidential candidate.

The issues

On the issues, there's no comparison in terms of thoughtfulness, thoroughness and practicality. Acknowledging the influence of erstwhile competitor Bernie Sanders, for example, she will focus as president on repairing an economy that has left many working people behind and struggling. She will address income inequality and wage stagnation and will work to create jobs. She'll work with Congress to end tax loopholes, noting as she did on CBS's "Sixty Minutes" last weekend that an executive shouldn't be paying the same tax rate as his secretary. She also will push for equal pay for women, increasing the minimum wage and expanding tax credits for poorer families.

Immigration reform

Rejecting the ridiculous border-wall notion her opponent famously touts, she'll push for comprehensive immigration reform, building on a sensible plan that passed the U.S. Senate three years ago, only to be held hostage by a rump group of tea-party opponents in the House. She has said she intends within the first 100 days of her administration to introduce a path for the undocumented among us to earn citizenship.

Health care

Health care has been a decades-long issue for Clinton, at least since her days as the first lady of her adopted state of Arkansas. As first lady in the White House a few years later, her failed health initiative led to the creation of CHIP, the immensely successful children's health insurance program. She will work to improve the Affordable Care Act, not abolish it.

Energy

On energy, an issue of importance to Houston, she acknowledges the seriousness of climate change, the most "consequential, urgent, sweeping" problem the world faces. She has said she wants the United States to be the "clean energy superpower of the 21st century."

She also acknowledges that clean-energy reforms will result in economic casualties, among them the coal industry. She has proposed a $30 billion plan to revitalize communities where coal production is in decline and, as Bill Clinton mentioned in his convention speech last week, she intends to dispatch him to West Virginia to help struggling families and communities build a viable economic future.
Hillary Clinton has said she sees natural gas as a bridge fuel and foresees a new economy built on rapidly increasing shares of renewable energy. She has a record of supporting fracking, and she supports the Paris agreement on climate change.

Foreign affairs

On trade, another vital Houston issue, we have our differences with the Democrat. Although she now says she opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal we support, we're confident she will be adept at negotiating deals that would grow wages and jobs and that would protect American workers. Despite his vaunted deal-making claims, her opponent, we suspect, would be lost at sea trying to meet the nation's trade goals.
On foreign affairs, the former secretary of state is knowledgeable, dependable and trusted worldwide, unlike her blusterous opponent whose outrageous remarks last week about Russia were merely the most recent bizarre outburst to unsettle our allies. Needless to say, Clinton supports NATO, unlike Trump who, in the words of columnist Timothy Egan, "now stands ready to repudiate nearly 70 years of security for our European allies under an 'America First' banner. ."

Temperament

We could go on with issues, including her plans for sensible gun safety and for combatting terrorism - her policy positions are laid out in detail on her campaign web site - but issues in this election are almost secondary to questions of character and trustworthiness. We reject the "cartoon version" of Hillary Clinton (again to borrow her husband's phrase) in favor of a presidential candidate who has the temperament, the ability and the experience to lead this nation.

These are unsettling times, even if they're not the dark, dystopian end times that Trump lays out. They require a steady hand. That's not Donald Trump.

The times also require a person who envisions a hopeful future for this nation, a person who has faith in the strong, prosperous and confident America we hope to bequeath our children and grandchildren, as first lady Michelle Obama so eloquently envisioned in Philadelphia. That's not Donald Trump's America.
It is Hillary Clinton's, who reminded her listeners Thursday night that "When there are no ceilings, the sky's the limit."

America's first female president would be in the Oval Office more than a century and a half after a determined group of women launched the women's suffrage movement, almost a century after women in this country won the right to vote. It's a milestone, to be sure. Few could have imagined it would be so consequential.

 

[cupper]

What is so amazingly hypocritical about the entire thing is the contrast with the Media and Dem's treatment of Patricia Smith. Watching the CNN "commentator" remarking that the speech "spoiled her night" to the totally disgusting Bethlehem Shoals tweeting he wants to beat  Patrica Smith to death. (although he quickly erased the tweet, it was captured so proof of his mendacity will be there for everyone to see.

How much airtime or how many news cycles did that dominate?

Yeah, stay classy Dems.

The difference is that you don't have the candidate making this a personal attack with the Dems. The criticism of Patricia Smith comes from left wing press and vocal minority attack dogs. They've been around for every election cycle and are not really a surprise.

This goes to Trump personally, and his need to lash out at any perceived slight. And his need to not just rebut the criticism but to destroy the messenger.

This is not politics as usual. So we are not going to see him let it go. So someone within the campaign telling him to STFU is not going to happen. But that's what needs to be done.

Clinton was right in her speech. Trump can easily be derailed from the task at hand. This has sucked up 4 days of the news cycle, and shows little sign of tapering off. And he's being played like a fiddle with the Dems and their media outlets putting the Khans front and center at every oppourtunity.

Look at his first big presser after the convention. Does he go after Clinton and get the campaing off an a good footing? No. He goes after Ted Cruz with a dog whistle about his father meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald..

I was listening to a discussion about how easily Trump can be manipulated, as part of a larger discussion on the whole Russian / Putin influence debate. Trump can be played with flattery or with criticism. An experienced intelligence operative such as Putin recognizes this as a weakness to be exploited.

Trump is his own liability.

 

[cupper]

Just watching Warren Buffet play the McCarthy card while introducing Clinton at an Omaha campaign event.

Even Buffet is plagerizing. Damn him.  ;D

 

[mariomike]

And the Simpsons weigh in on the 3:00 am phone call.

https://youtu.be/tLSy8Tl2bjs

They crack me up.

Marge: If that's your vote, I question if I can ever be with you again.

 

[tomahawk6]

One of our founding fathers made a powerful argument for freedom and the sacrifices required.


http://www.nationalcenter.org/SamuelAdams1776.html

"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say 'what should be the reward of such sacrifices?

Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth?

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom - go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms.

Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!"

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

What is so amazingly hypocritical about the entire thing is the contrast with the Media and Dem's treatment of Patricia Smith. Watching the CNN "commentator" remarking that the speech "spoiled her night" to the totally disgusting Bethlehem Shoals tweeting he wants to beat  Patrica Smith to death. (although he quickly erased the tweet, it was captured so proof of his mendacity will be there for everyone to see.

How much airtime or how many news cycles did that dominate?

Yeah, stay classy Dems.

The difference is that Bethlehem Shoals is a nobody that no one really cares about. Donald Trump is a potential POTUS and should act accordingly. Your argument here is akin to comparing something a Private says to the CDS.

The Right and the Left are both hypocritical. Both are filled with mouth breathers who should likely be discounted off hand. The problem for the Republicans is that somehow one of the mouthbreathers who should be discounted won a primary and seems intent on taking the party down with him.