If you support Trump over Hillary, isn't that prima facie evidence that you're nuts? Or evil?

Is there any other charitable explanation? Stupid, I guess, because they think, somehow, that Trump would actually be a "better" President than Hillary.

It's so disheartening. Up to this year, I was willing to believe that within the Republican electorate, there was a large core of people who were good at heart, and were just gritting there teeth and hoping for the best with clowns like George Bush.

Their support of Trump now leaves now doubt. They're all nuts. Evil. Or stupid. I will never look at them the same.

Kinda sucks to be surrounded by them.

A bigoted unbought Trump or a corporate war hawk liar.    

By definition, every voter will be nuts in November. 

dave said:

A bigoted unbought Trump or a corporate war hawk liar.    

By definition, every voter will be nuts in November. 

If you think that Clintons foreign policy will create 1/10th the risk of Trump, you might be crazy as well.  

I would love to say I have no comment on this. Yet having endured an 8 year teeth clenching presidency of Bush, and an eight year breathing easy presidency of Obama, I am inclined to a +1 for woot.

Woot said:

dave said:

A bigoted unbought Trump or a corporate war hawk liar.    

By definition, every voter will be nuts in November. 

If you think that Clintons foreign policy will create 1/10th the risk of Trump, you might be crazy as well.  

Trump would need 10 Iraq Wars to be 1/10th the risk of Clinton's vote for the Iraq War.   He'd have to advocate a no-fly zone in Syria and get Russia to attack us to do that (something Clinton is advocating openly).

drummerboy said:

Is there any other charitable explanation? Stupid, I guess, because they think, somehow, that Trump would actually be a "better" President than Hillary.

It's so disheartening. Up to this year, I was willing to believe that within the Republican electorate, there was a large core of people who were good at heart, and were just gritting there teeth and hoping for the best with clowns like George Bush.

Their support of Trump now leaves now doubt. They're all nuts. Evil. Or stupid. I will never look at them the same.


Kinda sucks to be surrounded by them.

This thread serves as a proof of concept

Also, this interview:

Donald Trump’s Bill O’Reilly interview is an instant classic

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/30/donald-trumps-bill-orelly-interview-is-an-instant-classic/?hpid=hp_special-topic-chain_oreilly-fix-9a-camp%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

A major-party presidential candidate openly advocating that a nuclear state attack us? Well that's different.

dave said:

Woot said:

dave said:

A bigoted unbought Trump or a corporate war hawk liar.    

By definition, every voter will be nuts in November. 

If you think that Clintons foreign policy will create 1/10th the risk of Trump, you might be crazy as well.  

Trump would need 10 Iraq Wars to be 1/10th the risk of Clinton's vote for the Iraq War.   He'd have to advocate a no-fly zone in Syria and get Russia to attack us to do that (something Clinton is advocating openly).

What total BS ! Hillary voted for the Iraq war, as did MOST others. She has since come to regret it, and openly stated so. She was misled, as were MOST others, by the Bush Lie Machine. Her fault...yes. Make her a "war hawk"...hardly.

Dave, admit it ! You WANT Trump to win, to vindicate your petty little crusade against Hillary. 

It's ignorance and laziness.  People are unwilling to invest the time and effort needed to better direct their own destiny.  Sound bites and reactionary outrage are much easier.  

Dennis_Seelbach said:

What total BS ! Hillary voted for the Iraq war, as did MOST others. She has since come to regret it, and openly stated so. She was misled, as were MOST others, by the Bush Lie Machine. Her fault...yes. Make her a "war hawk"...hardly.

I am not on some petty crusade against Clinton, but she was one of many politicians who voted on the Iraq War resolution based on how she thought it would play with her constituents.  It was obvious to me at the time that the war was ill-advised.  So, anybody who voted for the war resolution was either a fool or a self-serving politician.

tjohn said:

Dennis_Seelbach said:

What total BS ! Hillary voted for the Iraq war, as did MOST others. She has since come to regret it, and openly stated so. She was misled, as were MOST others, by the Bush Lie Machine. Her fault...yes. Make her a "war hawk"...hardly.

I am not on some petty crusade against Clinton, but she was one of many politicians who voted on the Iraq War resolution based on how she thought it would play with her constituents.  It was obvious to me at the time that the war was ill-advised.  So, anybody who voted for the war resolution was either a fool or a self-serving politician.

Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin voted against US entry into both World War 1 and World War 2

You may not agree with her decision but the woman deserves a profile in courage award

Rankin was universally condemned .  She was quoted as saying " I have nothing left but my  integrity"

Hillary has none to lose

tjohn said:

Dennis_Seelbach said:

What total BS ! Hillary voted for the Iraq war, as did MOST others. She has since come to regret it, and openly stated so. She was misled, as were MOST others, by the Bush Lie Machine. Her fault...yes. Make her a "war hawk"...hardly.

I am not on some petty crusade against Clinton, but she was one of many politicians who voted on the Iraq War resolution based on how she thought it would play with her constituents.  It was obvious to me at the time that the war was ill-advised.  So, anybody who voted for the war resolution was either a fool or a self-serving politician.

Or believed the intelligence community's assessment. I'm glad to see you found the situation so obvious (how convenient), but the majority of the public, and obviously a majority of the Senate, didn't see it so.

Nothing says leadership more than consistently following the crowd.

Dennis_Seelbach said:

tjohn said:

Dennis_Seelbach said:

What total BS ! Hillary voted for the Iraq war, as did MOST others. She has since come to regret it, and openly stated so. She was misled, as were MOST others, by the Bush Lie Machine. Her fault...yes. Make her a "war hawk"...hardly.

I am not on some petty crusade against Clinton, but she was one of many politicians who voted on the Iraq War resolution based on how she thought it would play with her constituents.  It was obvious to me at the time that the war was ill-advised.  So, anybody who voted for the war resolution was either a fool or a self-serving politician.

Or believed the intelligence community's assessment. I'm glad to see you found the situation so obvious (how convenient), but the majority of the public, and obviously a majority of the Senate, didn't see it so.

'believed the intelligence community's assessment.'

Isn't that the reason advanced to justify Bush?

Who on MOL supports Trump?

Yup

tjohn said:

Dennis_Seelbach said:

What total BS ! Hillary voted for the Iraq war, as did MOST others. She has since come to regret it, and openly stated so. She was misled, as were MOST others, by the Bush Lie Machine. Her fault...yes. Make her a "war hawk"...hardly.

I am not on some petty crusade against Clinton, but she was one of many politicians who voted on the Iraq War resolution based on how she thought it would play with her constituents.  It was obvious to me at the time that the war was ill-advised.  So, anybody who voted for the war resolution was either a fool or a self-serving politician.

I know this is a very long post, but if you even remotely think that you could vote for Trump for president, please take a few minutes and read it.

"If you support Trump over Hillary, isn't that prima facie evidence that you're nuts? Or evil?"

It is prima facie evidence that you are easily taken in by scam artist and con man. 

Trump has been running the same scam for many years now in an extremely predictable pattern, and now he just took it to a massive scale.

He is running on a platform of "I am great. I am amazing. I am rich and successful. Vote for me and America will be as great and successful as I am"

Other than insulting people, that is his entire campaign. 

It also happens to be his entire business model, and completely fraudulent.

Over and over again, he has used the same argument to trick people into investing millions of dollars-- based only on the concept of "it will be great. It will be amazing because it is "Trump" and Trump is amazing."

And over and over again those people only found out later-- once he took their money and ran-- that it was nothing but fraud.  

He then just has his team of lawyers bury the victims in legal fees until they go away-- as he argues that he never actually made any of the claims that they fell for.

The pattern is clear and I challenge ANYONE who can't see this fact-- and who actually thinks that he is not running the same scam on the American people, to read these articles and then honestly tell me I'm wrong: 

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-baja-snap-story.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/30/us/politics/donald-trump-institute-plagiarism.html

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/buyers-still-feel-burned-by-donald-trump-after-tampa-condo-tower-failure/2239499

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-gained-license-print-000000122.html

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/25/inside-donald-trump-s-vitamin-scam.html

In each of the above examples (and there are many, many more... not to mention "Trump University"), he sucked as much money out as possible, let everyone else lose all of their money... and then had his lawyers argue that he had nothing to do with it. 

He ran basically the same scam in Atlantic City, over and over again. FIVE times in a row, he conned people into investing in a casino, sucked millions of $ out for his own personal gain, then went to bankruptcy court and had all of the debt wiped out-- but not before transferring his own PERSONAL debt into the project so that it could all be wiped out. And then he would do it all again. FIVE times.

What does it really mean when he "wiped out his debt"? It means he took other people's money-- which he got by promising them "it will be great, it will be amazing, because I am Trump"-- and then told them "sorry, your money is gone".  At the same time, taking millions for himself. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html

He scammed not only the people he conned into investing and those who bought his junk bonds, but he scammed all of the people who actually did the work. Contractors and companies who spent millions building his casinos, only to be told that they would not be paid. They lost millions, he profited.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/10bbe40a86774bac9ad1fbd3a936c808/little-guy-contractors-still-angry-trump-taj-bankruptcy

Amazingly, he is doing literally the same scam now in his presidential run, and many people are too blind to see it, because they don't WANT to see it. 

Repeatedly he pretends to be "self-financing" his campaign while actually doing the opposite. The money he claimed to be spending on his campaign was actually all loans-- to be paid back by donors (AND potentially taxpayers, once he qualifies for federal matching funds)

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/donald-trump-fec-fundraising-214838

http://www.redstate.com/neil_stevens/2016/05/13/wow-guess-donations-donald-trumps-campaign-will-really-go/

He is using his "campaign" to funnel millions of dollars to his companies, paid for by donors (for this scam he just had to switch out the word "investors" with "donors"). 

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/9f7412236962464f9f2c0a8d2696ba25/trumps-campaign-cycles-6-million-trump-companies

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/21/politics/donald-trump-business-spending-fec/

When this came to light with last month's FEC report, donors started to catch on, and decided they didn't want to contribute just to have him funnel it back to himself. 

So, he claimed that he was forgiving his campaign "loans" of $45 million and turning it into a $45 million donation instead-- finally doing what he pretended to be doing all along-- "self financing". 

Well, it turns out that was a lie.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/after-saying-he-forgave-loans-campaign-trump-won-t-release-n601596

The campaign said last week that he had forgiven the $45 million loan. NBC checked with the FEC, which said that he had not. 

http://www.redstate.com/streiff/2016/06/30/breaking.-donald-trump-forgiven-campaign-loans-probably-wont/

Trump of course, could easily show that he in fact had done this, be showing the paperwork. Instead he took to twitter:

"The very dishonest @NBCNews refuses to accept the fact that I have forgiven my $50 million loan to my campaign. Done deal!" he tweeted.

"I have self funded my winning primary campaign with an approx. $50 million loan. I have totally terminated the loan!"

His campaign-- which said last week that the paperwork was being filed on the day he announced it, has now changed their answer to  it"will be filed with the next regularly scheduled FEC report".

What does that mean? He can take every penny of donations that he continues to get-- from people he has conned into thinking they are donating to his campaign-- and use it to pay himself. 

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-campaign-may-use-new-donations-pay-donald-trump-36-n573291

Again, there should be nothing surprising about this. It's the same scam, over and over again. 

He did it with the millions he got from people who thought they were donating to veteran's charities. He took their money and kept it, only being forced to make the donations months later after being caught by the Washington Post. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05/24/four-months-later-donald-trump-says-he-gave-1-million-to-veterans-group/

But again... this should be no surprise.  He has used "charities" as a scam for years

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/11/donald-trump-s-charity-is-a-money-making-scam.html

"Not only does the GOP frontrunner avoid giving any of his own money to charity, he manages to make some serious profits from his ‘donations.’"

So... those who say they will vote for Trump: Is he a scam artist? Please answer honestly. 

I doubt any Trump supporters will actually take the time to read this, or any of the supporting articles. Because like all victims of scams, they WANT to believe so badly that they are somehow able to turn of all critical thinking even in the face of ridiculously obvious proof. 

Dennis_Seelbach said:

tjohn said:

Dennis_Seelbach said:

What total BS ! Hillary voted for the Iraq war, as did MOST others. She has since come to regret it, and openly stated so. She was misled, as were MOST others, by the Bush Lie Machine. Her fault...yes. Make her a "war hawk"...hardly.

I am not on some petty crusade against Clinton, but she was one of many politicians who voted on the Iraq War resolution based on how she thought it would play with her constituents.  It was obvious to me at the time that the war was ill-advised.  So, anybody who voted for the war resolution was either a fool or a self-serving politician.

Or believed the intelligence community's assessment. I'm glad to see you found the situation so obvious (how convenient), but the majority of the public, and obviously a majority of the Senate, didn't see it so.

Again, it was obvious at the time that the Bush Administration was presenting the case for war like a trial with the prosecution only.  Meanwhile, they were working to discredit people like Hans Blix who was saying inconvenient things such as "the Iraqis have no WMD".  And then the Bush Administration was claiming petty Iraqi violations because some missile had a slightly longer range than permitted - not exactly a legitimate casus belli.

As I said, anybody who supported the war was either a fool or a self-serving politician.

And I don't mind self-serving politicians, but from time to time, they need to do the right thing.  Decisions on war represent such times.

if someone is giving Hillary Clinton the benefit of the doubt on voting for the AUMF, then it follows that one should also give GW Bush the benefit of the doubt for starting the war.  There was "intelligence" that supported the case. It was wrong and incomplete of course. If we give Hillary Clinton a pass on her vote, to me that means no one should be accountable.  It was all one big "whoopsie, our bad."

tjohn said:

Dennis_Seelbach said:

tjohn said:

Dennis_Seelbach said:

What total BS ! Hillary voted for the Iraq war, as did MOST others. She has since come to regret it, and openly stated so. She was misled, as were MOST others, by the Bush Lie Machine. Her fault...yes. Make her a "war hawk"...hardly.

I am not on some petty crusade against Clinton, but she was one of many politicians who voted on the Iraq War resolution based on how she thought it would play with her constituents.  It was obvious to me at the time that the war was ill-advised.  So, anybody who voted for the war resolution was either a fool or a self-serving politician.

Or believed the intelligence community's assessment. I'm glad to see you found the situation so obvious (how convenient), but the majority of the public, and obviously a majority of the Senate, didn't see it so.

Again, it was obvious at the time that the Bush Administration was presenting the case for war like a trial with the prosecution only.  Meanwhile, they were working to discredit people like Hans Blix who was saying inconvenient things such as "the Iraqis have no WMD".  And then the Bush Administration was claiming petty Iraqi violations because some missile had a slightly longer range than permitted - not exactly a legitimate casus belli.

As I said, anybody who supported the war was either a fool or a self-serving politician.

dave said:

A bigoted unbought Trump or a corporate war hawk liar.    

By definition, every voter will be nuts in November. 

Yes, I'm leaning towards Gary Johnson. 

It’s very sad being around Bernie's supporters throwing their
toys out of the play pen in a tantrum

ml1 said:

if someone is giving Hillary Clinton the benefit of the doubt on voting for the AUMF, then it follows that one should also give GW Bush the benefit of the doubt for starting the war.  There was "intelligence" that supported the case. It was wrong and incomplete of course. If we give Hillary Clinton a pass on her vote, to me that means no one should be accountable.  It was all one big "whoopsie, our bad."

tjohn said:

Dennis_Seelbach said:

tjohn said:

Dennis_Seelbach said:

What total BS ! Hillary voted for the Iraq war, as did MOST others. She has since come to regret it, and openly stated so. She was misled, as were MOST others, by the Bush Lie Machine. Her fault...yes. Make her a "war hawk"...hardly.

I am not on some petty crusade against Clinton, but she was one of many politicians who voted on the Iraq War resolution based on how she thought it would play with her constituents.  It was obvious to me at the time that the war was ill-advised.  So, anybody who voted for the war resolution was either a fool or a self-serving politician.

Or believed the intelligence community's assessment. I'm glad to see you found the situation so obvious (how convenient), but the majority of the public, and obviously a majority of the Senate, didn't see it so.

Again, it was obvious at the time that the Bush Administration was presenting the case for war like a trial with the prosecution only.  Meanwhile, they were working to discredit people like Hans Blix who was saying inconvenient things such as "the Iraqis have no WMD".  And then the Bush Administration was claiming petty Iraqi violations because some missile had a slightly longer range than permitted - not exactly a legitimate casus belli.

As I said, anybody who supported the war was either a fool or a self-serving politician.

The diff is that the intelligence offered was developed by the administration, and as head of that administration, the responsibility falls on Bush (or more appropriately, Cheney). It would be convenient if Hillary had seen the sham, as so many of you now claim to, but she didn't, not unlike the majority of other Senators who voted for the authority. That doesn't make her a "war hawk".

I wish people would stop making excuses for Hillary Clinton.  She is what she is, ambitious to be president, socially liberal, fiscally republican light.  Her foreign policy advisors are all old-school interventionists.

I support her for president, and I will vote for her for president and hope that it all works out, but I'm not making up what her reasons are or taking at face value what she says her reasoning was.  At the time when they were getting ready to take a vote on the AUMF, I knew in my gut that it was wrong and that it was going to be used by the neocons to do as they will.

If she didnt that was a very poor reflection on her judgement, if she did know and voted affirmative anyway it goes to a poor reflection on her courage.

she is totally a war hawk. Why can't her supporters admit it? She is what she is. I'm going to vote for her in November, but I'm not going to suspend my disbelief and pretend she's something she's not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.html

Dennis_Seelbach said:

ml1 said:

if someone is giving Hillary Clinton the benefit of the doubt on voting for the AUMF, then it follows that one should also give GW Bush the benefit of the doubt for starting the war.  There was "intelligence" that supported the case. It was wrong and incomplete of course. If we give Hillary Clinton a pass on her vote, to me that means no one should be accountable.  It was all one big "whoopsie, our bad."

tjohn said:

Dennis_Seelbach said:

tjohn said:

Dennis_Seelbach said:

What total BS ! Hillary voted for the Iraq war, as did MOST others. She has since come to regret it, and openly stated so. She was misled, as were MOST others, by the Bush Lie Machine. Her fault...yes. Make her a "war hawk"...hardly.

I am not on some petty crusade against Clinton, but she was one of many politicians who voted on the Iraq War resolution based on how she thought it would play with her constituents.  It was obvious to me at the time that the war was ill-advised.  So, anybody who voted for the war resolution was either a fool or a self-serving politician.

Or believed the intelligence community's assessment. I'm glad to see you found the situation so obvious (how convenient), but the majority of the public, and obviously a majority of the Senate, didn't see it so.

Again, it was obvious at the time that the Bush Administration was presenting the case for war like a trial with the prosecution only.  Meanwhile, they were working to discredit people like Hans Blix who was saying inconvenient things such as "the Iraqis have no WMD".  And then the Bush Administration was claiming petty Iraqi violations because some missile had a slightly longer range than permitted - not exactly a legitimate casus belli.

As I said, anybody who supported the war was either a fool or a self-serving politician.

The diff is that the intelligence offered was developed by the administration, and as head of that administration, the responsibility falls on Bush (or more appropriately, Cheney). It would be convenient if Hillary had seen the sham, as so many of you now claim to, but she didn't, not unlike the majority of other Senators who voted for the authority. That doesn't make her a "war hawk".

and yes, I saw the sham in real time.  I was ridiculed by many people on this site at the time for opposing the war. I was deemed a "Saddam lover" by someone who is actually a friend.  (I forgave him for being so wrong about everything in Iraq  )

terp said:

Nothing says leadership more than consistently following the crowd.

+10

I think for many Senators, it was a reflection on their humanity. I think a lot of them knew the rationale was a sham, but they really didn't care if a lot of people in Iraq were going to die. They were prepared for thousands and thousands of people to die in order to cast a politically convenient vote. It was politically cowardly, but from a human point of view, astoundingly callous.

hoops said:

I wish people would stop making excuses for Hillary Clinton.  She is what she is, ambitious to be president, socially liberal, fiscally republican light.  Her foreign policy advisors are all old-school interventionists.

I support her for president, and I will vote for her for president and hope that it all works out, but I'm not making up what her reasons are or taking at face value what she says her reasoning was.  At the time when they were getting ready to take a vote on the AUMF, I knew in my gut that it was wrong and that it was going to be used by the neocons to do as they will.

If she didnt that was a very poor reflection on her judgement, if she did know and voted affirmative anyway it goes to a poor reflection on her courage.

ml1 said:

I think for many Senators, it was a reflection on their humanity. I think a lot of them knew the rationale was a sham, but they really didn't care if a lot of people in Iraq were going to die. They were prepared for thousands and thousands of people to die in order to cast a politically convenient vote. It was politically cowardly, but from a human point of view, astoundingly callous.

.

Wow...The Friday morning QBing on this is in full view, and it's quite disheartening. I'm not delusional that she isn't more "aggressive" than the folks here might like, but the pile-on of all the righteous indignation is a bit much. She is who you are going to vote for. What purpose does this constant vilification serve?

it's not a vilification of Hillary Clinton.  Twenty-one Democratic Senators voted for the AUMF.  I'm not saying anything now that I wasn't saying at that time. I thought it was cowardly and callous. And history has more than proven that I was right then. And I think I'm still right. I have yet to hear a single Democratic Senator or congressperson give a real mea culpa on Iraq. The best we get is the excuse that they were bamboozled. Sorry, but when regular folks like me could read the 23 different "rationales" for war, it was obvious at the time that the case was bogus. If 23 different arguments were being put forward, it should be obvious to anyone that the case is fraudulent.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/uniontrib/20040601/news_mz1e1rasp.html

Dennis_Seelbach said:

ml1 said:

I think for many Senators, it was a reflection on their humanity. I think a lot of them knew the rationale was a sham, but they really didn't care if a lot of people in Iraq were going to die. They were prepared for thousands and thousands of people to die in order to cast a politically convenient vote. It was politically cowardly, but from a human point of view, astoundingly callous.

.

Wow...The Friday morning QBing on this is in full view, and it's quite disheartening. I'm not delusional that she isn't more "aggressive" than the folks here might like, but the pile-on of all the righteous indignation is a bit much. She is who you are going to vote for. What purpose does this constant vilification serve?