Topic: Up Like Trump - page 188. (Read 572791 times)

Is insulting people you don't agree with some kind of argument? You do it all the time. All the time. Why wouldn't an image of a lightning strike be any as valuable as your amazing input in this thread? One kind of argument is uplifting, joyful and cheerful and, wait for it, lighthearted!

Your kind of argument could be defined as uplifting too... Only if you came out to get some fresh air after deep cleaning a septic tank with your tongue...

 

Here, better.

A guy as stupid as him will only do whet he's told to.

Once Trump has this Republican primary locked in you'll see his true liberal self come out.

He'll talk about how he voted for Obama, how he supported Clinton, how he wants universal health care. He'll be the shining star that the Democrats have been looking for.

Seriously? Like this is some kind of argument...

Both led insurgencies against the GOP establishment, which loathed them. Reagan was branded lazy, too old, not terribly bright, a warmonger and a danger to the Republic in an effort to bring him down. Trump is also the object of much scurrilous commentary generated by well-paid establishment spin doctors specialized in character assassination.

Both had a penchant for loose rhetoric that would get them in trouble (Reagan compared the New Deal to Fascism, said trees cause pollution, and was accused of racism for denouncing “Cadillac-driving welfare queens”). It is hard not to see the roots of Trump’s explosive debating style in Reagan’s legendary “I’m-paying-for-this microphone” moment that left his future vice president tongue-tied in Nashua.

Both were “big picture” guys who did not pretend to be policy mandarins. The U.S. presidency combines the roles of head-of-state and head-of-government in one office. Reagan was always more plausible as King than Prime Minister; he always had strong chiefs of staff who managed the day-to-day affairs of government while he set the strategic direction and engendered public support for it. Trump, I suspect, would govern in much the same way.

Thus, Trump’s personal history and political evolution find lots of parallels in Reagan’s career. Republican politicians who suggest Reagan would be appalled by Trump are likely just whistling Dixie: they may be right, but there is no evidence to prove that they are, and plenty to suggest they are not.

Trump’s mantra about open borders – “either we have a country, or we don’t” – echoes Reagan’s “a nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.” Both called for the abolition of the Department of Education (with any luck, Trump will actually do it); both supported free trade, but neither was dogmatic about it: Reagan did not hesitate to protect American workers under threat; he imposed trade barriers to protect Harley Davidson, which remains a going concern to this day.

Now; that´s one incisive point...Neither had Washington experience; both were considered interlopers by the power elite. Although both were gifted communicators and more than adept at using the media, the media had no use for either of them (apart from the revenue their popularity generated.) 

Anthony T. Salvia was Special Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs under Ronald Reagan, and director of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Moscow bureau. He is now Partner at Global Strategic Communications Group, a firm devoted to governmental relations and public advocacy. This is an exclusive to Russia Insider

There are two prevalent views of Ronald Reagan and his legacy in today’s GOP. The National Review’s Rich Lowry says it is time the party got over its inordinate attachment to Reagan and devised new policies to expand the party’s base. (But then Donald Trump is already doing this, which is why he is winning.)

Then there are those who still lovingly invoke Reagan’s name nearly a quarter of a century after he left office. Says Senator Rubio: it is “time for the children of the Reagan Revolution to assume the mantle of leadership.”

By this he means, of course, people like himself, and not his nemesis Donald Trump who has a history of supporting Democrats, and can therefore be assumed not to be a “movement conservative,” and therefore, not a Reaganite.

In any case, the “children of the Reagan Revolution” (whether they would agree with Mr. Lowry or Senator Rubio) revile Trump for his opposition to the things they love the most -- open borders, fast track trade deals, and military intervention overseas, which they habitually imply Reagan would have supported.

Well, I served for eight years under President Reagan as one of his appointees in the Departments of State and Defense; I know what I am talking about: Reagan stood for none of those things. Moreover, far from Trump having no claim to the Reagan mantle, he has a better claim to it than most other candidates.

Reagan and Trump are very different as personalities. The former was suave, the latter often brusque. But that should not obscure the fact that they have a lot in common:

Both had notable heads of hair. Both were long-time Democrats before switching parties. Both were media personalities. Reagan was an entertainer who became a corporate spokesman (for General Electric); Trump is a businessman who became an

entertainer (appearing for years on a program for NBC, which, when it first aired, was a subsidiary of General Electric.)

Reagan, like Trump, divorced and re-married (Reagan once, Trump twice). He was the first divorcee to occupy the White House. He made much of religion and its role in public life, but rarely went to church. Nevertheless, he won lots of Evangelical votes, just as Trump is doing in the primary. As Governor of California, he signed one of the most liberal abortion laws in the nation, although later embraced the cause of life. He campaigned actively for John F. Kennedy in 1960 only to ardently support Barry Goldwater in 1964. Trump’s views on social issues and politics have also evolved in similar kinds of ways.

Neither had Washington experience; both were considered interlopers by the power elite. Although both were gifted communicators and more than adept at using the media, the media had no use for either of them (apart from the revenue their popularity generated.)

Both led insurgencies against the GOP establishment, which loathed them. Reagan was branded lazy, too old, not terribly bright, a warmonger and a danger to the Republic in an effort to bring him down. Trump is also the object of much scurrilous commentary generated by well-paid establishment spin doctors specialized in character assassination.

Both had a penchant for loose rhetoric that would get them in trouble (Reagan compared the New Deal to Fascism, said trees cause pollution, and was accused of racism for denouncing “Cadillac-driving welfare queens”). It is hard not to see the roots of Trump’s explosive debating style in Reagan’s legendary “I’m-paying-for-this microphone” moment that left his future vice president tongue-tied in Nashua.

Both were “big picture” guys who did not pretend to be policy mandarins. The U.S. presidency combines the roles of head-of-state and head-of-government in one office. Reagan was always more plausible as King than Prime Minister; he always had strong chiefs of staff who managed the day-to-day affairs of government while he set the strategic direction and engendered public support for it. Trump, I suspect, would govern in much the same way.

Thus, Trump’s personal history and political evolution find lots of parallels in Reagan’s career. Republican politicians who suggest Reagan would be appalled by Trump are likely just whistling Dixie: they may be right, but there is no evidence to prove that they are, and plenty to suggest they are not.

Trump’s mantra about open borders – “either we have a country, or we don’t” – echoes Reagan’s “a nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.” Both called for the abolition of the Department of Education (with any luck, Trump will actually do it); both supported free trade, but neither was dogmatic about it: Reagan did not hesitate to protect American workers under threat; he imposed trade barriers to protect Harley Davidson, which remains a going concern to this day.

The pro-war wing of the GOP (it’s more than a wing; it’s the thing itself) loves to suggest Reagan would have endorsed its militarized foreign policy.

But he went to war only once – in Grenada in 1983 – in what was really a police action to rescue U.S. medical students from the clutches of Cuban construction workers. He rarely “sent in the Marines” (although he did so in Lebanon, and promptly withdrew them following a terrorist attack that killed hundreds of our finest soldiers in their sleep).

If Reagan revamped and expanded the U.S. military, it was not because he sought what the Washington war party some years later would call “global strategic predominance,” or “benevolent global hegemony,” or “full-spectrum dominance” – all euphemisms for empire, which the libertarian-inclined Reagan had no interest in at all -- but because he saw an expanded military as a requirement of national defense, and as vital to ending the Cold War in a peaceable manner.

His ending of the Cold War was a protean achievement, in my view, his finest, which is why it is so shocking to see those who claim to be his heirs fanning the flames of conflict with Moscow. His subtle and sophisticated diplomacy – backed not by the use of military force, but the implied threat to use it – constituted something of a master class in the conduct of foreign policy.

Strolling arm-in-arm through Red Square with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, he declared an end to the Cold War – much to the consternation of the “neo-conservatives.” He negotiated the joint removal of U.S. and Soviet intermediate-range missiles from Europe, sought the elimination of strategic nuclear weapons at the Reykjavik summit, and, recognizing that the unilateral deployment of an anti-ballistic missile system would destabilize the “balance of terror,” offered to share ABM technology with the Soviets (yes, the Soviets).

The forerunners of the current war party in Reagan’s midst hit the roof. The last thing they wanted was peace (which is the last thing they want now). Some had the temerity to pen articles reading him out of the conservative movement he founded.

Reagan’s “peace dividend” would have allowed us to put our financial house in order and commence rebuilding the country, but was promptly squandered by his successors in their ill-starred quest for global dominance.

Too bad, because with the demise of the repressive, atheistic Soviet regime, Europe faced the happy prospect of finally putting an end to the continental civil war that broke out in 1914, and of laying the groundwork for an entente cordiale embracing all of the Northern Hemisphere. That would have redounded to the peace and prosperity of the United States and the world -- not to mention the revival of Christendom, which is very much in our interest.

With the exception of Mr. Trump, there are no takers for a policy of peace and prosperity in the GOP of now: one candidate says he wants to “punch the Russians in the nose.” Another declared, with an air of great self-satisfaction, that if elected, she would refuse to meet with Vladimir Putin. Yet another calls Putin who, whatever his faults, has brought his country back from the brink of dissolution and made it a formidable player on the world stage, a “gangster” and a “thug” (whereas such language is never used to describe the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Ukraine to whom it is applies more aptly.)

Several want to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, a great way to provoke a Third World War – this time with a nuclear armed power (the Russian Federation). All want to sanction Moscow so as to prevent any rapprochement between Russia and Germany, and thereby reinforce the division of Europe Reagan moved heaven and earth to overcome.

Such mindless bellicosity is standard fare in Washington these days. It betrays a stunning failure of vision. And the myopia is not limited to Russia policy. Some candidates for president lament the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, then insist Assad – their resolute protector -- must go. They seem blissfully unaware of the contradiction.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, is getting some important things right: he says, if the goal is to wipe out ISIS, al Qaeda, al-Nusra and other jihadists, Americans should welcome Russia’s efforts to at least stabilize Syria and bring an end to the civil war. How true.

He says he can talk to Vladimir Putin and arrive at understandings. Good, it is high time. Rather than threatening to tear up the Iran nuclear agreement on his first day in office, as some of his opponents have pledged to do, he has said he dislikes the agreement, says it was badly negotiated, but will respect and enforce it.

Oddly enough, these are mature positions that outclass those of several of his opponents who love to pose as policy heavyweights but have a penchant for taking childish approaches to serious matters. As such, Trump is very much in the spirit of Reagan: if Reagan buried the hatchet with Moscow while it was still the capital of international Communism, surely it is not outlandish that we should negotiate with Putin as Russia is busy re-Christianizing at such a rapid clip?

The establishment is in a dither lest the rebellion Trump is leading presage the end of everything it holds most dear -- open borders (paving the way for the disappearance of the old United States and its replacement by the world’s “first universal nation,” in the phrase of the late publicist Ben Wattenberg), our endless series of optional, illegal wars that bear scant relation to any discernible U.S. interests, the subversion and overthrow of foreign governments, including secular ones in Moslem countries that protect Christian minorities, and wretched trade deals that enrich the oligarchy while leaving the rest of the nation in the lurch.

Meanwhile, sovereign debt is $20 trillion and we have $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

Memo to Rich Lowry: the GOP’s problem is not Reagan and his legacy -- it is the parlouspolicies it became wedded to after his departure from office, and which he would never have countenanced.

Still less is the party's problem Donald Trump -- our only political leader who understands that we cannot go on like this.

In focusing like a laser on establishment policies millions of Americans find intolerable -- open borders, fast track and endless wars -- Trump has become the people’s tribune. That is why he is winning. And that is why I suspect that if my old boss Ronald Reagan were with us now, he would not be averse to the prospect of a Trump victory in November.

 http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/trump-and-reagan-have-more-common-gop-likes-admit/ri13390

Trump and Reagan Have More In Common Than the GOP Likes to Admit
The Donald’s Russia policy builds on Reagan’s cold war achievement

Anthony Salvia 15 hours ago

Blessed



http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/273263-lightening-strikes-trump-tower-in-chicago-tuesday-night

https://emergingtruth.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/is-it-an-amen-or-an-omen-lightning-strikes-st-peters-basilica-on-the-same-day-pope-benedict-xvi-unexpectedly-resigns-from-his-position/

 

Trump insisted on including Jews and blacks at Palm Beach golf course in 1990s






“When Donald opened his club in Palm Beach called Mar-a-Lago, he insisted on accepting Jews and blacks even though other clubs in Palm Beach to this day discriminate against blacks and Jews. The old guard in Palm Beach was outraged that Donald would accept blacks and Jews so that’s the real Donald Trump that I know.”

That was author Ronald Kessler in a July 2015 interview with Newsmax, talking about Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump’s business practices when it came to building a golf course in the Deep South.

In the 1990s, Trump was running into a problem getting his golf course approved by the local town council in Palm Beach, which was imposing restrictions on his bid.

So Trump shot back with maximum effect. As reported by the Washington Post’s Mary Jordan and Rosalind Helderman on Nov. 14, 2015: “Trump undercut his adversaries with a searing attack, claiming that local officials seemed to accept the established private clubs in town that had excluded Jews and blacks while imposing tough rules on his inclusive one.”

The Washington Post report continues, “Trump’s lawyer sent every member of the town council copies of two classic movies about discrimination: ‘A Gentleman’s Agreement,’ about a journalist who pretends to be Jewish to expose anti-Semitism, and ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’ about a white couple’s reaction to their daughter bringing home a black fiancé.”

Sometimes, in judging the character of an individual, it pays to see what people actually do when nobody’s really paying attention. When it came to segregation in the South at private, all-white country clubs, it might have been in Trump’s business interests to simply look the other way. Instead, Trump did the right thing and insisted on desegregation at his golf resort.

And he won.

Soon thereafter, the local restrictions were lifted and, today, the golf course is open and remains inclusive.

It remains a point of pride for Trump, who boasted about the golf resort in a 2015 interview, “Whether they love me or not, everyone agrees the greatest and most important place in Palm Beach is Mar-a-Lago. I took this ultimate place and made it incredible and opened it, essentially, to the people of Palm Beach. The fact that I owned it made it a lot easier to get along with the Palm Beach establishment.”


http://netrightdaily.com/2016/03/trump-insisted-on-including-jews-and-blacks-at-palm-beach-golf-course-in-1990s/


 

 

No one spends one minute at the bernie sanders thread...


I love it.


 

People don't have to work for Trump.
https://www.nknews.org/2013/11/how-do-you-get-a-job-in-north-korea/

Donald Trump Workers Must Promise Never To Insult Him
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdBto3yevOg

Guy sound more like Kim Jong-Drumpf every day

OK, that one is pretty funny.

S&P 500 will dive 50% if Trump elected president, says Wedbush trader
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/stocks-will-get-pounded-if-trump-elected-president-warns-wedbush-trader-2016-03-15


Vote Drumpf!  Make Canada Great Again!

It comes with the system they've got. The Constitutional Republic framework, now with universal suffrage, plus good ol' American tradition means there's a lot of assertiveness within the framework of the system. But rebelling against the system? Not so much.

I.e., "not a chance." The American system does tolerate civil disobedience (breaking an unjust law) up to a point - but it's never tolerated insurrection. That standard was set in place - set in stone, really - by none other than George Washington. One of his acts as President was putting down the Whiskey Rebellion.The earlier and also defeated Shay's Rebellion was the attempted insurrection that convinced George Washington to get behind the Constitutional Convention.

If you're partial to the Union, you can say that the outcome of the U.S. Civil War was the defeat of the largest attempted insurrection in U.S. history. If you're not, you can say that the Lockean system of "consent" is a roach motel: you can check in, but you can't check out.

I hate to agree with you on this, but it's probably true.

A certain fraction of the population might put up a fight if/when hired mercenaries from oversees were running around culling the population and moving them off of the 'wildlands' (which includes what are currently the suburbs) and into the hive.  Even then, probably not enough.

OTOH, I have been impressed and genuinely proud that Americans stood up to to the power structure and said 'fuck no' to marching into Syria.  Trump getting to where he is with the fierce resistance and underhanded tactics from all wings of the establishment and exclusively with the support of the people is another legitimate cause for hope.   But Americans are increasingly doped up, dumbed down, propagandized, and castrated so even these moderate wins tend to be short-lived.

This is not a knock on Americans specifically.  Europeans seem to be at least a decade in front of us in the implementation of these kinds of societal engineering programs though the 'recipe'  or 'treatment regime' used to effect evolution of these populations is tuned a bit differently.  They work, though, as evidenced by the 'refugee crisis' and reaction to it in Western Europe.

Lol, you know who will be the great winner?
Europe. After USA shows how dumb they can be for electing something like that as a president, Europeans engineers will stop going to USA to work ^^