TRUMP - Just because.....................Naw, I just can't say it!
POSTED BY: SHINYGOODGUY
UPDATED: Monday, March 9, 2026 20:06
VIEWED: 244478
PAGE 52 of 170
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Lies, Lying Liars, and Donald Trump
Originally posted by THGRRI:
BREAKING NEWS:
Aug 15 4:26 pm by Paul Krugman
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/lies-lying-liars-and-donal
d-trump/
So, there’s a new conservative take on who’s to blame for Donald Trump — and the answer, it turns out, is liberal commentators, and me in particular. Yep, by denouncing the dishonesty of people like Mitt Romney, I was crying wolf, so that voters paid no attention to warnings about Trump.
Actually, even if you leave aside the substance, this is bizarre. Do you really think that the fraction of the Republican primary electorate that selected Trump cares what New York Times columnists, me in particular, have to say — that they would have been warned off if only I had been nicer to establishment Republicans? That doesn’t even rise to the level of a joke.
But anyway, let’s talk about what I said about Romney. (By the way, I don’t think I referred to him as a “charlatan” — I used that word to refer to supply-side economists, because that’s what Greg Mankiw, who was advising his campaign, called them.) Here’s a key passage:Quote:Is there anything wrong with that passage? The “apology tour” thing was a constant refrain, even though Politifact declared it pants on fire.
Every one of the Romney campaign’s major themes, from the attacks on President Obama for going around the world apologizing for America (he didn’t), to the insistence that Romneycare and Obamacare are very different (they’re virtually identical), to the claim that Mr. Obama has lost millions of jobs (which is only true if you count the first few months of his administration, before any of his policies had taken effect), is either an outright falsehood or deeply deceptive. Why the nonstop mendacity?
www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/17/mitt-romney/mi
tt-romney-says-barack-obama-began/ So were the Romneycare not Obamacare and job loss things, which were equally false. So what is the assertion here? That I should not have called Romney out on lies, because that would undermine my authority when a much bigger liar came along?
How about a different hypothesis: the foundations for Trumpism were laid in part by conservatives who made dishonesty about policy a routine part of Republican politics, and also both-sides-do-it journalists who enabled that culture of lying. This left the Republican establishment helpless in the face of someone who lied as much in a day as they did in a week, because they couldn’t credibly make the case that policy dishonesty was disqualifying.
Actually, I don’t fully believe in this hypothesis either; mainly, Trumpism is the GOP’s id triumphing over its weak superego, which was probably destined to happen regardless. But it’s a lot more plausible than blaming little old me.
No SECOND they got us, especially you. Time to fess up.
Some people, more than I care to admit are ignorant due to a lack of research. They get Fox news, listen to Rush Limbaugh and believe what they are fed. It's always been very sad. Now we see how dangerous it is as well.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
As P.J. O’Rourke, the brilliant libertarian satirist, put it: “I am endorsing Hillary, and all her lies and all her empty promises. It’s the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, but she’s way behind in second place. She’s wrong about absolutely everything, but she’s wrong within normal parameters. Better the devil you know than the Lord of the Flies on his own 757.”
Wise words
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The stench of desperation is in the air Second, and I know from whence it came:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/giuliani-no-successful-terroris
t-attacks-in-us-in-8-years-before-obama/ar-BBvEI1a?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp
Talk about rewriting history. Oh yes, the media.......God help us......the
media is to blame. Just because they fact check, at least the good ones do so, and question the validity of politicos statements. Well, they've always been troublemakers.
SGG
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Why Everybody Is Lying
Are politicians lying to us more than ever before? And if we can be honest about it, are we also lying more—in our personal lives and/or our business dealings? If everybody is lying more, has it become more acceptable?
The question of how prevalent lying has become is most prominently on display on the political stage this year. Nearly two-thirds of US voters believe that neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton is “honest and trustworthy,” according to recent polls.
Experts in psychology and political science say that politicians deceive us more often and in bigger ways, especially this year. But politicians are not the only ones playing loose with the truth. A study by University of Massachusetts psychologist Robert Feldman found that more than half of the college students who participated told multiple lies within the first 10 minutes of meeting a stranger. Such lies included both minor falsehoods about having favorable opinions of common acquaintances…and bigger lies often meant to make the liar seem more impressive.
Here’s a closer look at why our politicians are lying to us…why basically honest people are lying to one another…and what we can do to reduce the odds that people will lie to us—and that we will lie to them…
Lying Among Politicians
My recent research into lying has revealed a fairly simple reason that our politicians are lying to us—it’s because we want them to. I’ve found that people tend to complain most about the dishonesty of politicians whose political views differ from their own…while conveniently overlooking lies that come from politicians who echo their own views.
In fact, voters increasingly view lying by politicians as evidence that these politicians are willing to do whatever it takes to stand up for “the right side” on the topic.
Voters reinforce this by choosing news channels and publications that they perceive as supportive of their favored politicians—and their own views—and shunning those they perceive as hostile to their favored politicians and views. If they turn to political fact-check authorities such as PolitiFact and The Washington Post fact checker, who hands out ratings of up to four “Pinocchios” for lies, it generally is only to gauge the truthfulness of politicians they dislike.
This creates a dangerous slippery slope. Even if we tend to overlook the lies of politicians we like, we cannot fail to notice that American politics is becoming less honest. That erodes the sense of trust we have in American society in general—and makes us less likely to feel that we ourselves must behave in a trustworthy manner.
Lying Outside of Politics
There are changes occurring in the world that likely are encouraging us to lie even more than people did in the past…
• The dominance of electronic written communications in our lives—ranging from e-mails to tweets to texts—means that we can lie to people without looking them in the eye or speaking with them by phone. This makes it much easier, psychologically, to lie than it used to be.
• We are living in an increasingly cashless society. This is a key factor. The fact that credit cards, debit cards and electronic transactions are more common than cash means that money becomes less real. And that means stealing—or lying about money—seems less real. And so does lying in general.
I have conducted an experiment to test the effect of cash versus a cash substitute on honesty. Participants are told to solve as many math problems as they can in five minutes. For each problem they say they have solved, they get $1, either in the form of a dollar bill or a token that is later cashed in. It turns out that those who get tokens lie twice as much about the number of problems they solved as those who get dollar bills.
How to Cut Down on Lies
Here’s what you can do…
• Hold your preferred politicians accountable for their lies. As I said above, we tend to focus on the lies of the politicians we disagree with. Instead, we need to admit that our politicians are lying, to
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Why Everybody Is Lying
Are politicians lying to us more than ever before? And if we can be honest about it, are we also lying more—in our personal lives and/or our business dealings? If everybody is lying more, has it become more acceptable?
The question of how prevalent lying has become is most prominently on display on the political stage this year. Nearly two-thirds of US voters believe that neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton is “honest and trustworthy,” according to recent polls.
Experts in psychology and political science say that politicians deceive us more often and in bigger ways, especially this year. But politicians are not the only ones playing loose with the truth. A study by University of Massachusetts psychologist Robert Feldman found that more than half of the college students who participated told multiple lies within the first 10 minutes of meeting a stranger. Such lies included both minor falsehoods about having favorable opinions of common acquaintances…and bigger lies often meant to make the liar seem more impressive.
Here’s a closer look at why our politicians are lying to us…why basically honest people are lying to one another…and what we can do to reduce the odds that people will lie to us—and that we will lie to them…
Lying Among Politicians
My recent research into lying has revealed a fairly simple reason that our politicians are lying to us—it’s because we want them to. I’ve found that people tend to complain most about the dishonesty of politicians whose political views differ from their own…while conveniently overlooking lies that come from politicians who echo their own views.
In fact, voters increasingly view lying by politicians as evidence that these politicians are willing to do whatever it takes to stand up for “the right side” on the topic.
Voters reinforce this by choosing news channels and publications that they perceive as supportive of their favored politicians—and their own views—and shunning those they perceive as hostile to their favored politicians and views. If they turn to political fact-check authorities such as PolitiFact and The Washington Post fact checker, who hands out ratings of up to four “Pinocchios” for lies, it generally is only to gauge the truthfulness of politicians they dislike.
This creates a dangerous slippery slope. Even if we tend to overlook the lies of politicians we like, we cannot fail to notice that American politics is becoming less honest. That erodes the sense of trust we have in American society in general—and makes us less likely to feel that we ourselves must behave in a trustworthy manner.
Lying Outside of Politics
There are changes occurring in the world that likely are encouraging us to lie even more than people did in the past…
• The dominance of electronic written communications in our lives—ranging from e-mails to tweets to texts—means that we can lie to people without looking them in the eye or speaking with them by phone. This makes it much easier, psychologically, to lie than it used to be.
• We are living in an increasingly cashless society. This is a key factor. The fact that credit cards, debit cards and electronic transactions are more common than cash means that money becomes less real. And that means stealing—or lying about money—seems less real. And so does lying in general.
I have conducted an experiment to test the effect of cash versus a cash substitute on honesty. Participants are told to solve as many math problems as they can in five minutes. For each problem they say they have solved, they get $1, either in the form of a dollar bill or a token that is later cashed in. It turns out that those who get tokens lie twice as much about the number of problems they solved as those who get dollar bills.
How to Cut Down on Lies
Here’s what you can do…
• Hold your preferred politicians accountable for their lies. As I said above, we tend to focus on the lies of the politicians we disagree with. Instead, we need to aNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Interesting ideas, but my mind works in a far less delicate and refined manner. I prefer mechanical solutions more than hoped for future spiritual and moral growth of the American electorate.
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Why Everybody Is Lying
Are politicians lying to us more than ever before? And if we can be honest about it, are we also lying more—in our personal lives and/or our business dealings? If everybody is lying more, has it become more acceptable? . . .
I saw a book review about why the Republican Party went insane. There is a technical fix to bring the GOP back to rough normality which involves Congressional redistricting to dilute the inevitable human craziness by spreading it more evenly into all the state districts rather than having it concentrated into toxic levels in a few districts. Once fixed, there would still be a possibility of future Trumps winning nominations, but at least Congress would run more smoothly. A few paragraphs from the article:
www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/08/18/american-democracy-betrayed/
One of the most important developments in recent years is the near disappearance of moderate Republicans. Democratic presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Bill Clinton could rely on moderate Republicans to help them pass their initiatives, while Obama has had virtually none. Where did the Republican moderates go? The answer is that most of the House moderates were eliminated by Republican redistricting. In drawing safe districts, the Republican mapmakers diminished the forces within a district—Democrats, minorities—that might pull a Republican representative to the left.
Senators aren’t redistricted, of course, but moderate Senate Republicans were subjected to the same political trend faced by moderate House Republicans: their renomination could be challenged from their right. Even reliable conservatives weren’t safe. The defeats for renomination of senior Republican Bob Bennett of Utah in a state convention in 2010 and Eric Cantor of Virginia in a primary in 2014 by Tea Party–backed challengers scared their colleagues.
In recent years, elections have been increasingly settled in the primaries. The near liquidation of moderate Republicans has virtually ended bipartisan coalitions that might support a Democratic president’s initiatives. And coalitions of Republicans and moderate Democrats in support of Republican proposals were also greatly diminished as a result of Republican line-drawing that lopped off areas, mainly in southern and border states, that had produced most of those moderate Democrats, or Blue Dogs. This led not only to fewer Democratic House seats but also to the gradual reduction of moderate Democrats, to the point of near extinction.
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At what price the GOP’s pieces of silver?
Paul Krugman says top Republicans are willing to curry favor with bigots in the service of tax cuts for the rich.
www.nytimes.com/2016/08/12/opinion/pieces-of-silver.html
By now, it’s obvious to everyone with open eyes that Donald Trump is an ignorant, wildly dishonest, erratic, immature, bullying egomaniac. On the other hand, he’s a terrible person. But despite some high-profile defections, most senior figures in the Republican Party — very much including Paul D. Ryan, the speaker of the House, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader — are still supporting him, threats of violence and all. Why?
One answer is that these were never men and women of principle. I know that many in the media are still determined to portray Ryan, in particular, as an honest man serious about policy, but his actual policy proposals have always been transparent con jobs.
Another answer is that in an era of intense partisanship, the greatest risk facing many Republican politicians isn’t that of losing in the general election; it’s that of losing to an extremist primary challenger. This makes them afraid to cross Trump, whose ugliness channels the true feelings of the party’s base.
But there’s a third answer, which can be summarized in one number:
34.
What’s that? It’s the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the average federal tax rate for the top 1 percent in 2013, the latest year available. And it’s up from just 28.2 in 2008, because President Barack Obama allowed the high-end Bush tax cuts to expire and imposed new taxes to pay for a dramatic expansion of health coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Taxes on the really, really rich have gone up even more.
If Hillary Clinton wins, taxes on the elite will at minimum stay at this level and may even go up significantly if Democrats do well enough in congressional races to enable her to pass new legislation. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that her tax plan would raise the average tax rate for the top 1 percent by another 3.4 percentage points, and the rate for the top 0.1 percent by 5 points.
But if “populist” Donald Trump wins, taxes on the wealthy will go way down; in particular, Trump is calling for elimination of the inheritance tax, which these days hits only a tiny number of really yuuuge estates (a married couple doesn’t pay any tax unless its estate is worth more than $10.9 million).
So if you’re wealthy, or you’re someone who has built a career by reliably serving the interests of the wealthy, the choice is clear — as long as you don’t care too much about stuff like shunning racism, preserving democracy and freedom of religion, or for that matter avoiding nuclear war, Trump is your guy.
And that’s pretty much how the Republican establishment still sees it. Getting rid of the estate tax is “the linchpin of the conservative movement,” one major donor told Bloomberg’s Sahil Kapur. Gotta get those priorities straight.
Should we be shocked at the willingness of leading Republicans to make this bargain? Well, we should be shocked — we should never, ever start accepting this sort of thing as normal politics. But we shouldn’t be surprised, because it’s just an extension of the devil’s bargain the economic right has been making for decades, going all the way back to Nixon’s “Southern strategy.”
Don’t take my word for it; listen to the conservatives who have reached their limit. Recently Avik Roy, a leading Republican health-policy expert, had the personal and moral courage to admit what liberals (and political scientists) have been saying for years: “In reality, the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism.”
Just to be clear, I’m not saying that top Republicans were or are personally bigoted — but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that they were willing to curry favor with bigots in the service of tax cuts for the rich and financial deregulation. Remember, Mitt Romney eagerly accepted a Trump endorsement in 2012, kn
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I remember when Bush was screwing the pooch, lots of Republicans suddenly became "independents" or "libertarians," etc.
They won't be able to forget that they supported Trump fast enough. 
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Quote:
Originally posted by G:
Damn that's funny.I love the first tentative steps. Cats against Trump - a hash tag waiting to happen.
# She has never seen a rat that big before.
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More Than 100 Republicans Urge RNC To Drop Donald Trump
WASHINGTON ? More than 100 GOP officials, delegates and staffers have signed an open letter calling on the Republican National Committee to cut ties with Donald Trump and shift precious resources away from his struggling presidential campaign to focus on retaining the House and Senate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-rnc-open-letter_us_57b3368ae
4b0863b0284e683
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