Trump supporters don't want to talk about Trump

[hollodero]

(05-15-2018, 01:17 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Apologies for the delayed reply, I wanted to give this answer some actual attention.  First off, such an ambiguous statement as "drain the swamp" could be considered fulfilled or not based on your perception of the swamp.  Trump has certainly shaken things up in DC as far as how things are done.  Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on your perspective.  As for Kushner etc., you'd have to prove things are related to have a point in this regard.  If this could be done the Dems would have been all over it so I don't think you can cite that.

Hm, sure, drain the swamp is vague. I would just assume it means ending corruption, or that there's no draining not addressing corruption, and what Pruitt does just doesn't fit the bill for me. Considering this behaviour acceptable is as swampy as things get, and it makes me wonder how people could not have instances like those in mind when chanting the drain the swamp line. Or how they wouldn't have something like "keep Goldman Sachs out of government" in mind. Or don't buy overexpensive furniture, don't use private jets at taxpayers expense when unnecessary, don't allow your personal lawyer to sell access, all these things he and his cabinet members do.
Kushner again, I consider nepotism to be swampy to begin with. It gets swampier when potential business partners are welcomed to the white house, or real estate gets sold to a company that has Japan's government as owner. Probably not illegal, but sure unethical, but considering the Dems, they can not really score with these issues. I don't think their silence proves much.
That being said, you're right, it was not the best example for me to choose, due to its vagueness.

(05-15-2018, 01:17 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Neither of us are economists, so definitively stating how the cuts will affect the deficit isn't really feasible.  I do recall him saying the tax cuts wouldn't help the rich, which is obviously untrue.  I know I get a nice amount of extra money per check and I'm certainly not rich by US standards.

Good for you, sadly those cuts aren't permanent though and paid for by an exploding deficit, which although not being an economist I've been convincingly assured many times before is something the next generation will pay for, the big cuts for the rich and the crumbs for normal folks. Besides the monstrous lie about the cuts not helping him or folks like him, the Trump admin also lied about calculations done by Mnuchin that should show growth pays for the tax cuts. They did promote a paper that never existed.
Since the question was did Trump lie about a major policy issue - yeah he did, demonstrably, by saying that "this thing doesn't help me, believe me". If he's indeed broke, he'd be vindicated on that one though :)

(05-15-2018, 01:17 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Is he still under audit?  Not being facetious, I don't know.

I don't know either, but it would be strange, right, an audit lasting two years? But yeah I don't know, I never bought that reason to begin with.

(05-15-2018, 01:17 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I don't recall the "warzone" comments being specifically about muslims.  You yourself commented on the large surge in violent crime and agreed it was at least partially due to immigration to the UK.

Well they are associated with knife attacks, right? It would be strange if he'd just slam London for their high crime rate in general without connecting it to his pet peeve muslim immigration. Cincy's crime rate is higher, and there are quite a lot of US cities beating Cincinnati. So I guess it's about muslims. He had multiple other muslim lies, including publishing extremist's fake videos, an awful tale about general Pershing, muslims cheering 9/11 in New Jersey, muslims knowing about the San Bernardino attack and being silent about it, a non-existent Swedish terror attack (ok that one could just be him being uninformed), and of course that Obama might be a muslim.
Indeed, I get that some other points can be argued, I have a hard time putting a spin on those specific muslim lies. They come peppered with remarks about muslims not assimilating, that gold star widow possibly not being allowed to talk and of course how Hillary would let 600.000 Syrian refugees in. Sure, some of those are rather speculations than lies, but they add to the picture and make the lies just worse for me.

To not leave it unaddressed, yes I said that there's a surge in violent crime and that rise possibly is connected to muslims, and also to people being spurred on hating muslims. But for sure, that whole muslim immigration in Europe comes with certain problems and addressing that is not despicable per se, even if it comes from Trump. But without the lies, please.

(05-15-2018, 01:17 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Not getting into tin foil hat areas, but there has been some questionable conduct at the FBI.  McCabe wasn't fired for no reason, nor was he fired by Trump.

I agree on McCabe. Kinda, I don't really know, but there might be something there. In all honesty, I didn't dive into it.
I do not agree on the implication that the FBI is a part of the deep state in cohouts with Mueller, Comey and the democrats, wanting to protect the swamp and hence going after Trump with a made up investigation. Which is what Trump insinuates. The Russia thing is an excuse for losing an election, he said that one over and over again, and that's a lie, along with many other similar ones, twitter is full of them. I'm sure you're not tin foil affine, but Trump is. Although he often sends out Nunes or Ron Johnson or Mark Meadows or some other minions to promote the spin and the lies. But he does many of them himself too.

(05-15-2018, 01:17 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Stormy Daniels is a fugging joke.  He banged her, she accepted hush money and now her and her shyster lawyer are playing on the political climate to self promote.  You do make a decent point though, this is all accepted as Trump being Trump, which is essentially what I've been pointing out about people responding to his every tweet.  I said upon his election that there will be drawbacks to his style of presidency but there will be upsides as well.  His unorthodox approach has nations such as China and N. Korea on their heels.  He doesn't respond they way they've grown to expect the US to respond.  If he can address the trade imbalance with China and bring a resolution to N. Korea then all of his negative qualities will be worth dealing with.  We shall see.

Sure, Stormy is not a noble human being, she wants to profit the hell out of that one, and I also called that Avenatti guy sleazy. So no real argument here. Except for one thing, Trump could have just admitted what is obvious - yeah I did her - and the case would have been closed. Instead he chose to lie about the affair, and about him not knowing about the hush money, or him not reimbursing Cohen.
Also, you surprised me once by agreeing here, he in all probability molested multiple women - and lied about it. But, not a major policy issue. I still don't appreciate it.

Regarding his approach to the world, I'm just not that optimistic. Being unpredictable is fine as long as nothing disastrous comes out of it, but if that goes wrong you might find yourself in a war and that risk seems noticeable. Also, I do think the US might be a bit too self-confident here. Even if Trump gets someone to be scared and buckle, in the long term there's just so much porcelain destroyed and many countries will be inclined to deal with someone more reliable. But you're right, we shall see. If there's peace in Korea, I will, after careful evaluation, give Trump credit when credit is due. But there's a long way to go still.


Some honorable mentions: Lieing about Japan throwing bowling balls on US cars, about how much legislation he's signed, how the US became an energy exporter, how he has strengthened the nuclear arsenal, how the Paris accord works, how the Iran deal works, about the deals he struck on his foreign travels, that Obama wiretapped him, how John Oliver and others have begged him to appear on their shows, or how Joe & Mika with her face-lift were turned down by him, how Hillary invented birherism, wanted to abolish the second amendment (ok you're the wrong audience for that one) and sold uranium to Russia, how unemployment rates are effectively 30 percent and more, oh and of course how Mexico would happily pay for a wall. I know, some are not big policy, but this guy has what they say 2.000 lies since in office and I can't quite get how one would not see a problem with that. And wow that list is incomplete :)