Trump Talk™

Last I checked he still remains free, waiting to hear if his appeal hearing is approved.

Our totally corrupt "campaign contribution" system.

So, personal opinion then.

The Washington Times - a reliably conservative source

Who gives a *** what this guy thinks?

He belongs in prison along with McDonnell.

What did McDonnell do again? Accepted a watch as a gift which prosecutors saw as a political bribe? Imagine what would happen to someone that accepts millions of dollars in political donations to their foundation in exchange for political favors, and some of these said donors were foreign governments, and then this politician deletes all the evidence on their email server that they were conducting official US government business on, and imagine they did this after the email on the server was subpoenaed.

What did McDonnell do again? Accepted a watch as a gift which prosecutors saw as a political bribe? Imagine what would happen to someone that accepts millions of dollars in political donations to their foundation in exchange for political favors, and some of these said donors were foreign governments, and then this politician deletes all the evidence on their email server that they were conducting official US government business on, and imagine they did this after the email on the server was subpoenaed.

I wonder, is there a way for Clinton to be alleviated of this issue without further enraging you?

I wouldn't want to think that you're someone who would pre-determine that she's definitively guilty without being convicted of any crimes, especially since literally no one knows the full story as of yet, which includes you. Listening to various conservatives talk about this for weeks on end now, it seems like there are only two possibilities: either she's guilty or she's being shielded by the democrats/obama/etc. Is the third option that all of this is really about nothing not possible?

The media’s obsessive coverage of Donald Trump has been stalked by a cloud of self-imposed shame. The Huffington Post made an early decision to relegate Trump coverage to its entertainment section, reflecting a wide sense that Trump’s contribution to the race was diversionary. It is almost certainly true that Trump will not win the Republican nomination, and even more certainly true that he will not be elected president. But the Trump candidacy — and, in particular, its endgame — will have an enormous impact on the outcome of the presidential race. The question is not whether Trump will affect the outcome of the race, but how.

Trump could change the race by stamping his image upon the Republicans in a way they cannot escape. Trump has made himself the symbol of racism against Latinos in the United States. He is absolute brand poison. Democrats are already airing television ads connecting other Republican candidates to Trump:

The media’s obsessive coverage of Donald Trump has been stalked by a cloud of self-imposed shame. The Huffington Post made an early decision to relegate Trump coverage to its entertainment section, reflecting a wide sense that Trump’s contribution to the race was diversionary. It is almost certainly true that Trump will not win the Republican nomination, and even more certainly true that he will not be elected president. But the Trump candidacy — and, in particular, its endgame — will have an enormous impact on the outcome of the presidential race. The question is not whether Trump will affect the outcome of the race, but how.

Trump could change the race by stamping his image upon the Republicans in a way they cannot escape. Trump has made himself the symbol of racism against Latinos in the United States. He is absolute brand poison. Democrats are already airing television ads connecting other Republican candidates to Trump:

Another, more potent way Trump could determine the outcome of the race is by running a third-party candidacy. An independent Trump is the perfectly designed Republican-killer. He appeals to a constituency (white nativists) that forms a crucial component of the Republican base, but which bears almost no authentic support for the party’s anti-government domestic-policy agenda. He has the celebrity and money to sustain such a run. An independent Trump run would virtually eliminate any chance of Republican victory.

Republicans’ success requires the party to steer a course between these two outcomes — one damaging, the other ruinous. They must keep Trump within the party without allowing him to contaminate the party. Such an outcome is certainly possible. It will not be easy. More unnerving for Republican power brokers is the fact that the success of their project lies mainly in Trump’s hands. And what Trump is even trying to achieve is difficult to ascertain.

There are two broad possibilities that explain Trump’s campaign. The first is that he has no real plan. His presidential run is the extension of his broader public persona — a bid for attention and to carry out grudges. Trump is running to spite the reporters and pundits who predicted he would never actually enter the race. Or perhaps he started out trying to grab attention, and simply kept going. Or he actually wants to be president in some vague way, and believes or hopes the force of his personality will carry him through. Or he just hates Jeb Bush a lot — one “Trump associate” told the Washington Post that Trump “has two goals: One, to be elected president, and two, to have Jeb not be president” — and would drop out of the race if Scott Walker or Marco Rubio supplants Bush.

If this is the case, then sooner or later — probably later — Trump will come to grips with the reality that he cannot win the Republican nomination. The field will narrow, the voters will get more realistic, and he will have to defeat a candidate who can be relied upon to carry out the Republican policy agenda.

I’ve seen some loose speculation that Trump could win the nomination without getting a majority, but this is not how the process works. You need a majority of delegates to win the nomination. If nobody has a majority going into the convention, then some process of horse-trading will go on until a majority combination forms. (In this case, the non-Trumps would unite around somebody other than Trump.) Much more likely, as the race went on, all the serious contenders who aren’t Trump and Trump’s most successful rival would drop out, allowing the leading non-Trump to win a majority of delegates in the primaries. Either way, Trump won’t get the nomination.

What happens when the party ends? The usual ritual calls for a show of unity, as the loser sublimates his ego and endorses the winner for the sake of the party’s success. It is not easy to envision Trump doing this. Nobody likes doing it, and all politicians have egos. Trump has, to say the least, an unusually large ego. What’s more, the usual incentive that prods them into swallowing their pride — pressure to stay in the party’s good graces for the sake of their political future — has no application to Trump.

At best, it would require unusual displays of flattery for Republicans to defuse Trump’s pride. But just as Trump would be unusually reluctant to defer to the party nominee, the nominee is going to be unusually reluctant to defer to Trump, given his poisonous associations. Add it all up — an egomaniacal candidate who refuses to accept the role of a loser; a party justifiably leery of sucking up to him in a public way — and what do you get? One very strong possibility is that you get Trump declaring a third-party run. Remember, we are gaming out the scenario where Trump entered the race without much planning, more as a way to keep the media circus going from one day to the next than as a long-term strategy. And the most logical endpoint of that assumption is that he bolts the party, claiming some slight (more on this later), and keeps the circus going all through November.

The second possibility is that Trump actually has a plan. If you analyze his behavior from the premise that he has in mind a specific destination, and not just a journey, then it is possible to make sense of it. Trump is running to the right of the rest of the Republican field on immigration, but to its left on role-of-government issues. He is not talking much about Obamacare (and he has praised single-payer insurance). He has assailed his opponents for proposing to cut social-insurance programs. (“They're attacking Social Security — the Republicans — they're attacking Medicare and Medicaid, but they're not saying how to make the country rich again.”) He’s called his opponents “puppets” of the Koch brothers, and proposed to raise taxes on the rich.

If all this is indeed the result of a considered plan, then the plan is probably not to become the Republican candidate for president. The plan is probably to run an independent campaign. Trump needs to initially declare himself as a Republican, because the primaries are the source of the media attention at this stage of the race. Running as a Republican gives him access to Iowa state fairs, nationally televised debates, and other venues for attention. But Trump is, at best, going through the motions of making himself acceptable to the party regulars. At worst he is actively antagonizing them. By this line of thought, Trump’s strategy is to provoke a break that would allow him to claim he has been driven out of the GOP, or that the party is not worthy of him, setting the stage for an independent candidacy.

In other words, both assumptions — that Trump has a plan, and that he has no plan — lead to the same outcome: Trump runs a third-party race. These are not foregone conclusions, of course. But the looming prospect of an independent Trump campaign is already serious enough to have set off frantic maneuvering. Fox News began its debate by trying to pressure Trump to rule out an independent candidacy, which he refused to do. Conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt tried to do the same. State Republican parties in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina are contemplating some form of a loyalty oath. (which is sure to **** him off - C)

This is a smart play by the Republicans, and one that is entirely within their rights — parties have no obligation to open themselves to candidates who want to take them apart. But would any such pledge actually bind Trump? He made an informal pact with Fox News, but, as Gabriel Sherman reported, proceeded to violate it unprovoked. Or consider the defense Trump proffered at the debate of the way he stiffed various business partners in the past: “Let me just tell you about the lenders. First of all, these lenders aren't babies. These are total killers. These are not the nice, sweet little people that you think, okay?” All Trump needs is some insult to his oceanic ego to declare any previous agreement null and void. And if Trump does run as an independent, that is the ball game. He wouldn’t even need to appear on the ballot everywhere. A few key states could swing the outcome. For that matter, he could swing the outcome without even making the ballot. All Trump would need to do is campaign as a write-in candidate, and if he persuades a couple percent of the voters to go along, that could make all the difference in a polarized electorate.

The scenarios described here cannot be calculated with the precision of the hard sciences; Trumpology is a field bearing more resemblance to abnormal psychology than, say, physics. Any number of things could change the equation. In deference to the chaotic possibilities, assume a Trump independent run is not probable. Maybe it’s a one-in-five chance. Or one-in-ten. Whatever probability of each party winning you drew up at the beginning of the summer, it needs to be rewritten at the end of the Summer of Trump.

What Is the Trump Endgame?
New York Magazine

This is kinda deep.

Yeah, at this point we know you are off your meds.

The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet published at 3600 New York Avenue NE, Washington, D.C., United States. It was founded in 1982 by the founder of the Unification Church, Sun Myung Moon and was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the church, until 2010 when it was purchased directly by a group led by Moon.

The political views of The Washington Times are often described as extremely conservative. The Washington Post reported: "the Times was established by Moon to combat communism and be a conservative alternative to what he perceived as the liberal bias of The Washington Post."

Conservative commentator Paul Weyrich commented:
In 2007, the Mother Jones news magazine said that the Times had become "essential reading for political news junkies" soon after its founding, and quoted James Gavin, special assistant to Bo Hi Pak:

What Is the Trump Endgame?
New York Magazine

This is kinda deep.

....
Donald's certainly battering Jeb Bush. Now he's got Jeb on the offensive against him. That probably signifies the beginning of the end of Bush's presidential candidacy.

Several of Bush's backers bailed* early this week.

Far from the begining. The begining was his unforced errors.

*Sorry can't find the reference.

I saw that (about Bush's backers). He's cooked. I wonder if we'll get Rubio or Walker as the nominee? Neither of those guys seem particularly thrilling. Carson might actually lead the polls at stages of the campaign. Who'd have thought?

Uncle Tom = black non-Democrat to white Jassik.

Colin Powell is a black republican and most definitely not an uncle tom. Carson is an uncle tom.

You're a scumbag for even saying that. It's hate speech. Straight up. You have no right to even use that term. You clearly have no idea what it means as well. You are letting your own racism shine through once again Jassik. Your post should be deleted by the Mod.

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump will sign a pledge Thursday to support the Republican nominee in next year’s general election, effectively ruling out a third-party or independent run, according to two Republicans familiar with the move.

The promise, which Trump has long avoided making, brings him closer to a party whose rank-and-file activists he has thrilled this summer but whose leadership has at times viewed his rapid ascent with alarm, especially the prospect of an outside bid that could siphon away votes from the eventual standard-bearer.

The Republicans familiar with Trump’s decision requested anonymity to discuss private conversations. They also said that Trump may have caveats or conditions upon signing that have not yet been shared beyond the businessman’s tight-knit inner circle.

Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, declined to comment about whether Trump would put pen to paper later today, and cautioned that the billionaire contender can be unpredictable.

“Only DJT speaks for DJT,” Lewandowski wrote in a text message to The Washington Post, referencing the candidate.

Trump will make the announcement at an afternoon news conference at Trump Tower, his campaign headquarters in New York, where he will sign the loyalty statement alongside its author, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus. That appearance will follow a meeting with Priebus.

One of the Republicans who has been briefed said Trump believes that pledge provides him with two political assets: increased pressure on his many rivals to give assurance that they willback him, should he be the nominee, and possible new support from Republicans who so far have been wary of his reluctance to commit to supporting the GOP through the end of the 2016 race.

For months, Republican leaders have been trying to prevent Trump, the real-estate mogul who has rocketed to the top of GOP polls, from running as an independent candidate if he does not win the Republican nomination. In the Aug. 6 debate in Cleveland, Trump memorably refused to rule out a third-party run, though he has since signaled a possible change of heart as some state parties are requiring loyalty oaths as a condition of appearing on their state’s primary ballots.

RNC staffers reached out this week to campaigns requesting that their candidates sign a sheet pledging loyalty to the party’s eventual nominee, according to campaign officials. The one-page pledge is not a legal contract or binding. Rather, it is a political document and a symbol of Republican fealty.

“I [name] affirm that if I do not win the 2016 Republican nomination for president of the United States I will endorse the 2016 Republican presidential nominee regardless of who it is,” reads the document. “I further pledge that I will not seek to run as an independent or write-in candidate nor will I seek or accept the nomination for president of any other party.”

Former RNC chairman Jim Gilmore, who is one of 17 GOP presidential candidates, said he supports the national party’s push for candidates to pledge loyalty.

“If someone is going to go to the party and ask for their support, if they’re going to ask the rank and file for their vote, that comes with an obligation for loyalty, in my mind,” said Gilmore, a former Virginia governor. “Generally speaking, if you want the party’s support, that loyalty should be there.”

Michael Steele, another former RNC chairman, said Priebus had wanted to get Trump’s flirtation with a third-party run “cleared up” before the next debate, scheduled for Sept. 16 on CNN.

“I appreciate what he is trying to do, trying to bring some level of order to this situation,” Steele said. “The expectation should be if you’re running to be nominee of the party, you should support the nominee of the party.”

Steele added that Trump may have calculated that “there is no real upside to poking the party in the eye. He doesn’t want people to peel off from him because they don’t see him as being a team player. I think that’s the way he sees it.”

Just don't pay attention to any Kentucky clerk.

She's a democrat? I gotta double check that story now. Missed that part.

EDIT: Yeah she is. They definitely left that part on some of the front page articles.

You're a scumbag for even saying that. It's hate speech. Straight up. You have no right to even use that term. You clearly have no idea what it means as well. You are letting your own racism shine through once again Jassik. Your post should be deleted by the Mod.

'A Democrat Holds an Office in Kentucky' good title for a book.