Trump

[tufty]

What, you mean I lied when I said "no" to "are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the communist party?"

Unpossible!

[gumboot]

What, you mean I lied when I said "no" to "are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the communist party?"

Unpossible!

Yeah, it's a pretty advanced trick. There's no evidence that anybody's been able to implement it in the wild.


On the plus side, at least the requirement to lie raises the question. It's not like so-and-so's American cousin can assure them that they're doing honour killings all the time and nobody's ever got in trouble for it.

Unless you just have to tick the same column all the way down, of course. The other day I saw one of those questionnaires where the phrasing meant that the right answer switched from "yes" to "no", but the boxes switched positions for that question, so the right answer was still the answer on the right.


I wonder if the questions will also exclude atheists.

[Darkflame]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37241284

"Applicants will be asked for their views about honour killings, about respect for women and gays and minorities, attitudes on radical Islam,"

Because only Muslims have problems with any of those issues, right?

It was either Samantha Bees show, or John Olivers where they highlighted that a lot of people at a Trump convention wouldn't pass his tests. At least, the earlier batch.

[gumboot]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37241284

"Applicants will be asked for their views about honour killings, about respect for women and gays and minorities, attitudes on radical Islam,"

Because only Muslims have problems with any of those issues, right?

It was either Samantha Bees show, or John Olivers where they highlighted that a lot of people at a Trump convention wouldn't pass his tests. At least, the earlier batch.

Surely that depends on what the correct answer to each question is.

[Dio]

What, you mean I lied when I said "no" to "are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the communist party?"

at least the requirement to lie raises the question.

There is a point to it. It requires you to make a statement which might be disprovable and give them relatively easy cause to push you out or charge you.

That's the whole point of the interview system for catching criminals, after all. Go through everything in detail, again and again, see if any contradictions appear, pick at the seams.

When you start getting close to the lines of thought police though it's pretty revolting.

[gumboot]

When you start getting close to the lines of thought police though it's pretty revolting.

Very much in line with American culture, though.

[pogo]

New Trump campaign poster. Yes, those are his kids. So, with the hashtags and the “insider vs. outsider” message this is clearly aimed at young people, in particular those who feel left out or excluded by the system. Except his kids look like the ultimate overprivileged rich kids. Or like extras from Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

[Darkflame]

Yup the memes are flowing;
https://twitter.com/hashtag/millennialsfortrump

[pogo]

Inspired by an iconic New Yorker cover, in case it looks a bit familiar:

[F-ZeroOne]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

[zip accident]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-donald-trump-retooled-his-charity-to-spend-other-peoples-money/2016/09/10/da8cce64-75df-11e6-8149-b8d05321db62_story.html

There's a lot wrong with that, spending other people's money and claiming the credit, dodgy political donations, but I like that the charity has not much of a balance, and almost no staff, all charities should emulate those features.

[Darkflame]

Christ how did I miss this one;
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... -Iraq-oil/

Trumps apparently been saying for years the US should have literally just taken Iraqs oil. Skip past world police, go straight to worlds thug.
wow.

[F-ZeroOne]

I believe he recently said that he wants to expand the military of the US - already one of the largest and most powerful in the world - so that no-one messes with the US (which has traditionally always stopped anyone messing with the US, every time).

He also would stop the current US F-35 fighter program. Now, thats a program that has had issues (understatement alert) but unless new jet fighters can be summoned by sheer force of Trump will, one of those statements does not go with the other.

[pogo]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-donald-trump-retooled-his-charity-to-spend-other-peoples-money/2016/09/10/da8cce64-75df-11e6-8149-b8d05321db62_story.html

There's a lot wrong with that, spending other people's money and claiming the credit, dodgy political donations, but I like that the charity has not much of a balance, and almost no staff, all charities should emulate those features.

Normally this sort of thing would be disqualifying for a politician, in the US or here. But Trump seems immune. He is not also a deceitful conman over his dealings with charities. He is a deceitful conman in business. And his whole platform is one of a deceitful conman, built on lie after lie that doesn’t stand up to even the most superficial of examination.

But Trump is not a normal candidate. He has been lying since his campaign began. It has clearly done him harm at times, but he is the candidate and is still if not leading performing well enough that Clinton cannot relax. It’s hard to challenge him on his lying as he does it so often, and does not respond as normal politicians do by explaining, correcting himself or apologising. He just keeps on doing it.

His supporters seem to be two sorts. People who believe him, who believe lies like his. These are more common than you might expect, as there is a significant minority of Americans who believe conspiracy theories and religious claptrap that most people would judge obvious nonsense. Then there are those who don’t necessarily believe him but support him because of his views. Racists, but also many Republicans who support him simply as he is the Republican candidate.

None of them are going to stop voting for him because he defrauded some charities. Some might even see the WaPo reporting it as further evidence of bias against them and their chosen representative. Which is part of a broader problem where extremists treat fair and objective press reporting as part of some elite conspiracy against them. See e.g. the Brexit campaign’s parade of lies, which when fact-checked by the press they simply kept repeating them and dismissing “experts” as always wrong. Or Corbyn and his supporters dismissing reports of his dismal polling and horrible personal ratings as all due to a neoliberal conspiracy.

[RiK]

The way things are going with Clinton and all the speculation about her health he's going to have nobody to oppose him soon at this rate..

Aside from all the previous videos of her apparently having mild seizures etc. Today she was clearly very unwell at the 9/11 memorial..