Regarding your interest in having Trump try to overturn laws/Supreme Court decisions on abortion, or undermine progressivism in general, isn't that just a case of "when things don't go [my] way, [I'm] willing to do anything to make them go that way". — Michael

Sure, but I freely admit there is an objective standard which the law should try to approximate to, so I see myself as being justified in doing whatever is necessary to the law in order to make it approximate that standard. But as far as I know, you're not a moral absolutist, so you're not playing the same game as I'm playing. If you are a moral absolutist, then that's good - then we're on a levelled playing field, but you should at least say so :)

I never questioned the fact that Crooked started the birther movement - of course she did. But she dropped it soon after, while Trump insisted on it for a very long time.

My apologies, all this cryptic stuff has got me confused.

So the claim appears to be that Trump has tried to exploit the issue of Obama's true heritage, first raised by the Clinton campaign in 2007.

Except he didn't.

So the claim appears to be that Trump has tried to exploit the issue of Obama's true heritage, first raised by the Clinton campaign in 2007.

Except he didn't. — tom

He did exploit it, not during this election, but previously.

He did exploit it, not during this election, but previously. — Agustino

And arguably for a good while during this election cycle, which cycle tends to start about 3 years before elections in the USA.

So the claim appears to be that Trump has tried to exploit the issue of Obama's true heritage, first raised by the Clinton campaign in 2007. — tom

That wasn't the claim though: After all, he gained the political spotlight years ago when he tried to undermine the authority and legitimacy of Barack Obama on dubious grounds, then persisted in doing so for years, and remains defensive, and even proud about it, to this very day.

Good - now get off the proxy >:O I never understood why people are so scared to access websites like wikileaks... as far as I know, esp. where I am it's not illegal to access. And why should it be illegal - you're just having access to what millions of other people have access to anyways.

Nothing in this email thread suggests that Podesta et al believed that Obama was foreign-born, or that they proposed to say so for political gain.

The most relevant item of "oppo research" in that list is:

* 7 Obama (owe-BAHM-uh)'s father was a Muslim and Obama grew up among Muslims in the world's most populous Islamic country.

Nothing about that says he was born in a foreign country, not Hawaii, or that he lied about his birth status (by the way, "the most populous Islamic country" refers to Indonesia, not Kenya; birthers generally claim that he was born in the latter).

EDIT: by the way, I don't deny that some of Hillary's language in the 2008 primaries veered dangerously close to being a dog whistle, trying to paint Obama as "the other," especially in her messages geared towards the working class, relatively uneducated whites who supported her over Obama in that primary. This, however, is a far cry from claiming that Hillary "began" the birth movement (as Trump claims in that press conference video) or that she tacitly or explicitly suggested that Obama wasn't born in the United States.

So the claim appears to be that Trump has tried to exploit the issue of Obama's true heritage, first raised by the Clinton campaign in 2007.

Except he didn't. — tom

You don't read the news much, do you? Trump was virtually obsessed with the birther issue for some time (prior to his running for President), even claiming that he sent his private investigators to Hawaii, and that they were discovering "tremendous things which you wouldn't believe" (or something to that effect).

Of course, this was just another lie on his part, as nothing whatsoever came of this "investigation." Indeed, it's questionable whether he even sent anyone to Hawaii in the first place.

Sure, but I freely admit there is an objective standard which the law should try to approximate to, so I see myself as being justified in doing whatever is necessary to the law in order to make it approximate that standard. But as far as I know, you're not a moral absolutist, so you're not playing the same game as I'm playing. If you are a moral absolutist, then that's good - then we're on a levelled playing field, but you should at least say so — Agustino

Given that I'm not a moral absolutist/objectivist, I don't believe that there's any absolute/objective standard for me to violate.

I take it all back. Trump was clearly exploiting the birther issue in 2011, and it is obvious why.

I would say that you fail to understand love.

Now I recall our debate on Brexit and my willingness to accept any (legal) route to ignore the referendum result. ;) — Michael

Yes, it brought that back to my mind, too. I'm still not willing to condone going that far, but that doesn't mean that I can't bemoan the situation we're in. It'd have to get a lot worse for me to adopt your position.

How about that debate, huh, folks?

It was nice to see them put more effort into making it seem like they were actually discussing politics (more so thanks to Hillary's efforts), and even though trump was his usual self, something about him seemed a bit more palatable, a kind of je ne sais quoi.

That said, aside from Hillary's single foible when she continued to talk over the moderator toward the end (probably due to rehearsing talking through Trumps constant interruptions and one-liners), I think she performed a bit better.

Not to say I think it was a passable debate or informative beyond a study into ancient Greek style (even worse than) rhetoric and sophistry, it's just that this late in the circus you really start to become invested in whose shit stains are slightly less visible.

Trump demonstrates no competence, while refusing to see that this is a problem. According to David Brooks, Trump exhibits alexithymia: the inability to understand or describe the emotions in the self. In other words, he lacks insight, and then projects his emotions on his adversaries. Normally, this would be nothing more than pathetic, but in this case, millions of people seem to have been drawn in to his narcissistic vortex.

Anyway, hopefully, he will cause the Republican party such an enormous loss come November that they'll tar and feather him and dump him outside the city limits.

Trump wants to overthrow Roe v Wade - excellent. Crooked argues like all progressives "it's too late to do that, we've gone too far" >:O

How about that debate, huh, folks? — VagabondSpectre

I must confess I didn't watch more than snippets of the debate (I generally don't watch political debates, as it's pointless to do so IMO). I understand that Trump refused to state unequivocally that he would accept the outcome of the election, which is yet another indication that he's a would-be authoritarian strongman. I can't wait to see how his supporters will contort themselves to continue to defend the indefensible in light of this travesty.

This was definitely the best debate so far. The previous two debates were clearly staged against Donald Trump in the format, as they never tackled the real issues. They only asked very generally about the economy, what Trump thinks about some Aleppo picture, etc. This debate actually went over things very well and wasn't biased towards one candidate.

Their performance was close - too close to call I'd say. Trump is shorter on the facts compared to Crooked, but his goals for America are better than hers. He's clearly less capable intellectually than she is, and simply is a very different kind of man when it comes to this.

My operating system (windows 10) notified me via desktop pop-up the instant that Trump came out and said "I'll accept the results of the election if I win"....

BAHAHAHA!



(Yes, I'm aware of the Orwellian nature of my desktop pop-ups)...