US Politics Thread |OT| THE DARKEST TIMELINE

[TakingBackSunday]

McCain is such a fuck. 

[benjipwns]

One week after explaining why he planned to vote for Donald Trump, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman said it is time for the Republican nominee to drop out of the race and allow vice presidential nominee Mike Pence to represent the party.

[Stoney Mason]

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman

[agrajag]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1290872&page=44

damn, gaffers are stupid. They whip themselves into a frenzy over a fake tweet without even checking it.

You bet your sweet sugartits that someone is babysitting all of Trump's Twitter activities right now. It's in the wee hours of the night when everyone is asleep is when the crazy Trump tweets should be expected.

[benjipwns]

OMFG he doubled down. He actually doubled down!

Sunday can't come fast enough.

No



Way




Lord have mercy, I can only be so erect

problematic choice of words there

Is this a potential tipping point where other women come forward to talk about Trump's predatory actions?

This seems like the kind of fight Trump actually has wanted, him versus Billary re: sex and women.

[benjipwns]

Someone should hire someone to go back and connect all the usernames jerking off in that thread with all the ones whining about the media's refusal to cover seriously policy discussion and Hillary's real platform against Sanders' phony one from six months ago or whatever.

And then crosscheck it with Correct The Records payment stubs so we can find Andy.

[Madrun Badrun]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/07/the-gops-biggest-fear-appears-to-be-coming-true-independents-ditching-donald-trump/?tid=sm_tw

[benjipwns]

This all reminds me of a question I wanted to ask a while back and forgot. Did any of you guys watch much of The Apprentice? (Trump's inferior version that is, not Alan Sugar's greatness.)

I watched I think, eight of the first eleven seasons. And I've been pondering this is part of why I haven't been so shocked as other people (people IRL not like the media or even internet people like you guys) claim to be about his behavior. Or even his fly by the seat of his pants primary campaign and debate performances. This was how Trump was on the show. Played favorites and made decisions based off of the smallest bowl of information and rejected any evidence to the contrary forever, used this to insult people who were actually correct, said regularly sexist things, leered over women that they had to pretend to like, said borderline racist things that he thought were actually compliments, constantly touted everything he did as the best and greatest, the existence of Trump Ice, the kids, etc. Ivanka and even Donald Jr. often were clearly cringing at things he was saying in the boardroom. (You could tell when Ivanka finally just gave up on trying to get her dad to focus on the actual tasks rather than which celebs he liked.)

I wonder if Penn/Adam Carolla/etc. have discussed it since he started running since they were seeing the unedited version and were critical of many-Trump aspects inherent to the show prior. (They and Dee Snider and others all implied that of all the editing on the show, it was to make Trump look better more than anything related to the outcomes or stuff like fans seemed to think. Non celeb contestants said similar things about their version.) Annie Duke and some other women basically outright said Trump was a pig with his comments/judgements at times.

A cursory search shows Piers Morgan of all assholes defending Trump until late June of this year when Trump refused to oppose the NRA.

Piers Morgan ✔ @piersmorgan
Muhammad Ali said far more inflammatory/racist things about white people than Donald Trump ever has about Muslims. #fact
4:35 AM - 5 Jun 2016

Piers Morgan ✔ @piersmorgan
Watch this #Ali interview & imagine if it had been #Trump saying all this.
Then you may understand my point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqiWFLsgVi4
11:10 AM - 5 Jun 2016

Piers Morgan ✔ @piersmorgan
Muhammad Ali WAS a racist who repented. Trump ISN'T a racist but needs a more tolerant tune.
2:58 PM - 6 Jun 2016

It doesn't really matter, I'm just musing like I do, I guess if anything I'm surprised there isn't more of this old stuff being found. Especially by an opp-research team like the Clintons. Even many of the long form backstory pieces were thin gruel about anything Trump did before until somebody finally pulled out those 1980s real estate archives that nobody cared about.

[benjipwns]

huh, from the other day:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-04/trump-repeatedly-demeaned-women-on-hit-show-the-apprentice/7899898

In interviews with more than 20 people who were former crew members, editors and contestants on the show, many described Mr Trump's crass behaviour behind the scenes of the long-running hit show, in which aspiring capitalists were given tasks to perform as they competed for jobs working for him.

The staffers and contestants agreed to recount their experiences as Mr Trump's behaviour toward women has become a core issue in the presidential campaign.

Eight former crew members recalled that Mr Trump repeatedly made lewd comments about a camerawoman he said had a nice rear, comparing her beauty to that of his daughter, Ivanka.

During one season, he called for female contestants to wear shorter dresses that also showed more cleavage, according to contestant Gene Folkes.

Several cast members said Mr Trump had one female contestant twirl before him so he could ogle her figure.

Randal Pinkett, who won the program in December 2005 and who has recently criticised Mr Trump during his run for president, said he remembered the real estate mogul talking about which female contestants he wanted to sleep with, even though Mr Trump had married former model Melania Knauss earlier that year.

"He was like 'isn't she hot, check her out,' kind of gawking," Mr Pinkett said.

Former producer Katherine Walker said Mr Trump frequently talked about women's bodies during the five seasons she worked with him and said he speculated about which female contestant would be "a tiger in bed".

A former crew member who signed a non-disclosure agreement and asked not to be identified, recalled that Mr Trump asked male contestants whether they would sleep with a particular female contestant, then expressed his own interest.

"We were in the boardroom one time figuring out who to blame for the task, and he just stopped in the middle and pointed to someone and said, 'You'd f... her, wouldn't you? I'd f... her. C'mon, wouldn't you?'
"Everyone is trying to make him stop talking, and the woman is shrinking in her seat."

http://fortune.com/2016/09/08/donald-trump-the-apprentice-burnett/

The concept NBC bought envisioned Trump as host for only one year. The idea was to have a different mogul as the star each season. Trump was to be followed by Branson, Cuban, and Martha Stewart, the home-furnishings billionaire who had not yet been convicted and imprisoned for obstructing justice and lying about a stock sale.

That notion fell by the wayside during the taping of the first episode. The script for The Apprentice called for the host to play a relatively modest role. The show was about the contestants—and more than 215,000 people had signed up to become one of the first sixteen candidates on the show, living in a faux-apartment set that Burnett had built on the same floor of Trump Tower as the boardroom set (the elevator that contestants would be seen taking “up to the boardroom” was just one more piece of showbiz). Trump was to introduce the challenge that contestants faced at the start of each episode, then appear in a brief boardroom scene at the end, when he would decide which contestant had performed poorly and would not return the next week.

Trump took to his TV role as if he’d spent his life preparing for it. The taping went on for nearly three hours, well longer than planned. A couple of days later, when NBC executives screened rough cuts of the boardroom scenes, they were unanimous: the show’s script needed to be revised. Trump’s scenes were gold. “After the first episode,” Gaspin recalled, “we said we want more Trump.”

“I’m the largest real estate developer in New York,” Trump’s voice-over boasted. “I own buildings all over the place. Model agencies, the Miss Universe pageant, jetliners, golf courses, casinos, and private resorts like Mar-a-Lago. . . . I’ve mastered the art of the deal and have turned the name Trump into the highest-quality brand. And as the master, I want to pass along some of my knowledge to somebody else.”

Although TV reality shows generally follow a detailed outline, Trump made clear from the start that he intended to just wing it. He didn’t like the idea of memorizing lines. He would read the outline for the episode ahead of time, but once the camera was rolling, he would improvise his part, just as he always had at speaking engagements. In the first boardroom scene, when it came time for Trump to decide which finalist would not return the next week, he blurted, “You’re fired.” Backstage, the production crew immediately cheered the line, cementing its place in future episodes.

When Elizabeth Jarosz, a second-season contestant who later became a brand strategy consultant, once stood near Trump as he finished a press interview, she was surprised when he turned to her and asked, “How did I do? Was that okay?”

“Wow,” Jarosz thought. “He was very insecure.” Another time, Jarosz sat with Trump at a bar as he explained his view that “all publicity is good publicity. . . . When people get tired of you is when you do more publicity, because that’s when you become an icon.”

Trump also proposed that a network create a dramatic series based on his life and work. To be called The Tower, the idea was for it to be The West Wing of the real estate development world, with a main character who aspires to excellence, craves winning, and is out to build the tallest building in the world.

...

Trump gave the writer only one note: he wanted the main character’s last name to be Barron. No problem, Walch said. The Tower would be the story of John Barron—the name Trump had used for years when he called news outlets with tips for stories about Donald Trump.

[Madrun Badrun]

Now the master has passed on the art of pussy grabbing to the world. 

[agrajag]

I don't think anyone is surprised by Trump's behavior, benji. It's just a giant mindfuck that he's made it this far, and it is a bit surprising that he would unravel like that. I guess, as crude and simple-minded as he is, most people thought he at least could keep it together during his run for president.

[benjipwns]

lol i remember this one, trump was so fucking weird and got hung up on the oddest things





  ivanka

[agrajag]

  Trump said "you shouldn't just say things off the top of your head"

[Mandark]

When was the last time anyone was surprised by his behavior?

I guess some pundits were predicting a "pivot" as he wrapped up the nomination, but this basically summed that up.

[benjipwns]

I don't think anyone is surprised by Trump's behavior, benji. It's just a giant mindfuck that he's made it this far, and it is a bit surprising that he would unravel like that. I guess, as crude and simple-minded as he is, most people thought he at least could keep it together during his run for president.

See, this is the disconnect, there was never any evidence to support this and I have no clue why people thought he would "pivot" and "become respectable." Not just from The Apprentice which was just a public record of his stubborn neverchange attitude, but from the entire history of the guy. The Central Park Five thing is a perfect example of his refusal to go outside the established Trump Reality no matter how much time or facts or anything else come into play.

Trump won the primaries doing the opposite of running a standard campaign, he's not going to change his strategy, it goes against his entire philosophical mindset. Plus he's a cheapskate who hires/fires for completely irrelevant to the job reasons. Which he did by punting out the one guy (who won him the primaries) now at CNN and bringing in the Breitbart dude who was telling him he was perfect the way he is.

As for making it this far, I know the older folks on here remember me harping on how immigration was going to decide the GOP race and all the other stuff people were talking about "Obamacare"/"government shutdowns"/etc. were negotiable within the base. Trump was the only one who came in hard with the exact position the base wanted to hear. Rubio and Jeb! were always going to struggle to flip on it, Cruz is Cruz.

Of course I did think Walker was the guy and he should have stayed in until March 1st at least. Walker/Martinez 2016. PD knows what I'm talking about.

When was the last time anyone was surprised by his behavior?

I guess some pundits were predicting a "pivot" as he wrapped up the nomination, but this basically summed that up.

There's a better word to use than surprised I think but I can't pull it up.

Addicted maybe.

[TakingBackSunday]

Video statement coming from Trump.  Apparently prerecorded, so scripted.  And apparently "sincere."
Ugh

[Madrun Badrun]

https://twitter.com/onlxn/status/784492570080481280

[benjipwns]

“Voters of faith are voting on issues like who will protect unborn life, defend religious freedom, create jobs, and oppose the Iran nuclear deal,” Faith and Freedom Coalition president Ralph Reed said in an email to BuzzFeed News. “Ten-year-old tapes of private conversation with a television talk show host rank very low on their hierarchy of concerns.”

Asked if he had any comment on the tape itself and if he was definitely standing by Trump, Reed said, “I think the statement is self explanatory.”

Tony Perkins, who leads the Family Research Council, also did not reject Trump in the wake of the revelations, but indicated that he doesn’t share Trump’s values.

“My personal support for Donald Trump has never been based upon shared values, it is based upon shared concerns about issues such as: justices on the Supreme Court that ignore the constitution, America’s continued vulnerability to Islamic terrorists and the systematic attack on religious liberty that we’ve seen in the last 7 1/2 years,” Perkins said in an email to BuzzFeed News.

[agrajag]

 

[benjipwns]

David Frum decides Trump isn't all bad: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/how-to-rebuild-the-republican-party/503282/

Meanwhile, anti-Trump conservatives will be thrust back into exactly the position they held from 2013 to 2015: exponents of an ideology that does not command majority assent even within the Republican coalition, never mind the country as a whole. Repeal Obamacare; end the Medicare guarantee for people under age 55; offer big tax cuts to corporations and the richest taxpayers; pass constitutional amendments to stop abortion and same-sex marriage; back immigration reform that increases the flow of low-wage labor into the economy; take no action on climate change or other environmental concerns: that message has been tried and found wanting again and again since 2009, and it’s not going to appeal any more strongly after November. Whatever else Donald Trump did, he confirmed that a majority of Republican voters also want a message that secures health coverage, raises middle-class incomes, and enforces borders and national identity.

Trump saw that Republican voters are much less religious in behavior than they profess to pollsters. He saw that the social-insurance state has arrived to stay. He saw that Americans regard healthcare as a right, not a privilege. He saw that Republican voters had lost their optimism about their personal futures—and the future of their country. He saw that millions of ordinary people who do not deserve to be dismissed as bigots were sick of the happy talk and reality-denial that goes by the too generous label of “political correctness.” He saw that the immigration polices that might have worked for the mass-production economy of the 1910s don’t make sense in the 2010s. He saw that rank-and-file Republicans had become nearly as disgusted with the power of money in politics as rank-and-file Democrats long have been. He saw that Republican presidents are elected, when they are elected, by employees as well as entrepreneurs. He saw these things, and he was right to see them.

The wiser response to the impending Republican electoral defeat is to learn from Trump's insights—separate them from Trump’s volatile personality and noxious attitudes—and use them to develop better, more workable, and more broadly acceptable policies for a 21st-century center-right.

Instead of drawing up lists of the people never to be forgiven for their roles in 2016, Republicans should be thinking about how they can work more harmoniously. If nothing else, Donald Trump pulled down the final curtain on the politics of the 1980s. So many Republicans have been yearning for one final hurrah for what worked 35 years ago. But as one of the shrewdest of small-c conservatives warned a century ago: “The commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcass of dead policies.” Policies become dead not only because they have failed, but—maybe even more!—because they have succeeded, and thus eliminated the problem they were adopted to address. The way to inoculate the Republican Party against another Trump is to address the new problems that most Republican leaders ignored, and that Trump therefore could cunningly exploit.

The democratic world today is roiled by a tide of nationalist populism. Trump is just the local American variant of a trend that has expressed itself as Brexit in the U.K., the National Front in France, the Alternative for Germany, and so many other movements from Minsk to Madrid. The way to respond to a political tide is not to command it to halt, but to divert and channel it.

The United States in the 1930s—and western Europe after the Second World War—defeated revolutionary communism not only by standing against subversion, but also by building social-insurance states that alleviated the discontents on which communism battened. By mitigating the terrors of unemployment and poverty and the anxieties of sickness and old age, our grandparents transformed proletarians into conservatives. It’s our job now to do the same thing with the dislocations caused by mass migration and the economic rise of China and India. Successful conservatives know when to yield a little in order to preserve more. If Republicans can take just that from the strange career of Donald Trump, we may yet owe him and his supporters some thanks.

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/keitholbermann/status/784588142259105792

[agrajag]

King David grabbed 500 pussies confirmed.

[benjipwns]

[TakingBackSunday]

This episode has lead me through the depths of Twitter where I found out that Willco has a VERIFIED Twitter acount 😂

[Dennis]

What is the problem really?

America loves Bill Clinton and he dildoed an intern he had power over with a cigar.

His wife is still with him.

[Madrun Badrun]

tbh i really dont care about what he said, i just like that he fucked himself over

[Stoney Mason]

Trump violated the cardinal rule of politics. You can't shit talk white women. You can trash talk and demonize blacks, muslims, latino's, etc. But not white women.

[agrajag]

According to my Facebook feed, 100K people are talking about the Trump scandal, while 1M are talking about Wikileaks.

Trump violated the cardinal rule of politics. You can't shit talk white women. You can trash talk and demonize blacks, muslims, latino's, etc. But not white women.

He's been shit talking Hilary for months.

[Stoney Mason]

According to my Facebook feed, 100K people are talking about the Trump scandal, while 1M are talking about Wikileaks.

Trump violated the cardinal rule of politics. You can't shit talk white women. You can trash talk and demonize blacks, muslims, latino's, etc. But not white women.

He's been shit talking Hilary for months.

women as in plural. Not woman. You can always shit talk individuals.

[Stoney Mason]

https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/videos/10157844642270725/

[benjipwns]

It's over guys, enough of this silly distraction about a comment made a decade ago, lets get back to the real issues like Bill Clinton's rapes and Hillary Clinton's part in them.

[Human Snorenado]

https://twitter.com/onlxn/status/784597815607566337

[I'm a Puppy!]

I don't get the whole "it's just locker room talk!" defense.
I've done my share of time in locker rooms and while, yes, you will hear insanely crass things you don't hear this rapey, entitled stuff and certainly not "grab her by the pussy" Maybe I've been lucky but I don't get that excuse.

[benjipwns]

What's with the assumption that as soon as men start undressing in the locker room they start talking about sex.

[I'm a Puppy!]

https://i.redd.it/kachzwhu06qx.jpg

[I'm a Puppy!]

What's with the assumption that as soon as men start undressing in the locker room they start talking about sex.

I know. It's so hard to do with a cock in your mouth.

[benjipwns]

[brawndolicious]

Damn I started clapping.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Only white soccer mom hypocrisy can run so deep to say "Please don't say 'Pussy'!" on TV two minutes after you defended your political candidate for saying it.

[Great Rumbler]

Skip to 1:10.

[agrajag]

Only white soccer mom hypocrisy can run so deep to say "Please don't say 'Pussy'!" on TV two minutes after you defended your political candidate for saying it.

but what about statutes of limitation on saying you grab pussies bro

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

Jason Chaffetz just pulled his endorsement of Donald. He's good cover for any other GOP-er who wants to bail out as well, as he's one of the leaders of the Nihilist Party... I mean, Freedom Caucus.

if this guy (who to be fair, reps Utah, which still ain't going to Hillary no matter what) feels safe enough to drop Trump, well, maybe this is a sign of things to come.

[benjipwns]

Senator Mike Lee asked Trump to step down, another from Utah...to go with the Governor Herbert and former Governor Jon Huntsman.

[TakingBackSunday]

cucks

[VomKriege]

See, this is the disconnect, there was never any evidence to support this and I have no clue why people thought he would "pivot" and "become respectable."

I think GOPers underestimated just how thick Trump is. Yes of course Trump is a bit of a celebrity and him being a chauvinistic narcissic pig with a temper was a matter of public record, there's very little that was a shocking reveal among the stuff newspaper dig up in hindsight. But a lot of people at the start of the campaign, myself included, thought he was more self-aware and shrewd than he turned out to be. Plus it's not like he came in with a coherent record on policy matters before being in the race : I mean he's from New York, even as a Republican how bad could it be ?

I think most people at the party realized that during the primary, but at that point it was already too late and they're stuck with him. The "pivot" was wishful thinking that he would act as a normal candidate with the party (and country) interests in mind, but really he's just in to funnel some petty campaign cash to his coffers and to sell himself to an ardent fanbase.

I think thats the final nail

Nah, needs plenty more for the voodoo doll.

[Let's Cyber]

That is EXACTLY how I envisioned Trump speaking behind closed doors.    It was the least shocking thing ever.

[benjipwns]

The good Scott Adams is still in there somewhere:


 

[Phoenix Dark]

Remember that post-Olympics 2 week scan in which Trump wasnt saying anything too crazy and kinda was on script? That was literally the only period of this process that he wasn't being batshit crazy yet some people were still scared. This is who he is. Even if this tape didn't exist he would have embarrassed himself at the upcoming debate and republicans would be running for the hills. Multiple meltdowns were always going to happen with someone as stupid and unpredictable as Trump.

TBH he's not that unpredictable actually...like, we know exactly how he'll respond if he's attacked. He fell for every little jab Hillary took in the first debate and it'll happen again in Sunday. But he's gonna be on FIRE, utterly insane.

[benjipwns]

For some reason they pulled the full version of this off Colbert's YouTube account:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4wcza4_who-are-mike-pence-and-tim-kaine_fun

[Joe Molotov]

Trump gave the writer only one note: he wanted the main character’s last name to be Barron. No problem, Walch said. The Tower would be the story of John Barron—the name Trump had used for years when he called news outlets with tips for stories about Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is a late season Simpsons character.

And then he named his son Barron. 

[benjipwns]

what is this lol

[Joe Molotov]

[Joe Molotov]

The pool shot video of Pence and his daughter, Charlotte, ordering food and greeting patrons of Tony Packo’s. He then sat down briefly at a table to say hi to others before heading to the back of the restaurant for an interview with the newspaper, the Toledo Blade. During this time, the pool was waiting at the front of the restaurant. After about 20 minutes, it was then led halfway back into the restaurant by a Pence staffer in preparation for shooting Pence’s departure and, notably, his viewing of the Trump-signed hot dog bun, which the staffer specifically told the pool it would shoot. The Pence staffer, after leading the pool further into the restaurant, appeared to grow suspicious of the pool, which had been looking down at its phones and chatting. The pool did not address the Trump stories at all, but the staffer then left the pool to head to the back of the restaurant, where Pence and other aides were. Upon returning, the staffer said the pool needed to leave, specifically saying Pence would no longer be going to view the signed bun and, instead, would go directly to his campaign bus.

[Joe Molotov]

https://twitter.com/SethAbramovitch/status/784614001661644800

the reaction shot

[Trurl]

I hope that during tomorrow's debate, Hillary looks Trump square in the eye and says "go ahead, Donald.  Grab MY pussy."

[Madrun Badrun]

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37594918

"I'm sorry...I'll never let you down...lets be real, this is just a distraction...Bill has actually abused women'



He couldn't even keep it up for a minute.

[VomKriege]

Trump: ‘I Know That Was Pretty Bad, But Let’s Just Say You’re Going To Want To Save Your Energy’

spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's The Onion

[close]

How is H.A. Goodman doing ?

09/12/16
Bring Back Bernie Sanders. Clinton Might Actually Lose To Trump.

09/14/16
Bernie Sanders Is Healthy and Beats Trump by Over 10 Points

09/15/16
Bring Back Bernie Sanders. Donald Trump Now Leads Hillary Clinton in Ohio and Florida

09/21/16
Voting for Jill Stein is a Moral Imperative if George H.W. Bush Votes for Clinton

09/26/16
Bernie Sanders Should Have Been Debating Donald Trump. The DNC Favored the Wrong Candidate

If Democrats were truly frightened of a future with Donald Trump as president, they wouldn’t have undermined the only candidate capable of defeating Trump. As of now, if Trump doesn’t bite the head off a live pigeon on the debate stage, he’ll win the debate in the eyes of millions of viewers. The bar has been set quite low for Trump because of Clinton’s never-ending scandals.

Oh.

[Phoenix Dark]

CNN played the video and only bleeped "fuck." I was pretty stunned lmao. So when Anna kept saying pussy I was taken aback too. 

[Madrun Badrun]

People will remember Trumps great contribution to America and the world by making 'pussy' an acceptable word. 

[Great Rumbler]

This election really does have everything.