Exactly. It’s not politic to call Haiti a “shithole,” but the real offense is in implying Haitians shouldn’t be allowed to get away from that environment.
(Also, [farting noise]'s own mother immigrated from Scotland, a miserable flotsam-strewn range of sandbars and crags in the North Sea that pretends it’s a country. So there.)
I don’t know who you consider “Trumpists”, and I have not seen much evidence that Trump does it “with great enthusiasm”, but if you’ll allow me a slight amendment to “Trump prevaricates”, I’d say “yes”.
Just in case he’s reading:
You know how puerto rico is surrounded by water? Big water?
Well, countries are big like that. Yuge even. And they are not [del]homogenous[/del] all, like, the same.
Maybe some parts are ugly: like a sand trap at one of your golf courses. But some parts are pretty. Like a girl you try to harass in the bar at one of your golf courses.
So whether you use a curse word or not, being mean about countries is not nice. Sad!
Let me ask you this: As I understand the reporting on the Durbin proposal, it originally was going to eliminate the “diversity lottery” (which has historically favored Africa with about 40-50% of visas going to African nationals) and then reallocate those visas to TPS nationals.
(TPS, as we all know, is a designation for a country that is incapable of accepting deported nationals because of armed conflict or natural disaster. Calling those countries “shitholes” is impolite, but not entirely inaccurate.).
The CBC, for presumably non-racial reasons, objected to this plan (which would have reduced visas for African immigrants). So the revised plan allocated some of the visas to TPS nationals and some to a lottery that seems intended to benefit African countries.
I can’t tell whether the Durbin plan would lead to a net reduction in African immigrants (I think it would). But the real losers seem to be the Diversity Visa recipients from Europe, Asia, and non-TPS Latin America. I assume you don’t see it is a declaration that people from Ethiopia are “worth less” than people from El Salvador (because some allocation has to be made and, unless it’s on an individual “merit” based system, we’re going to have to favor some countries over others). But, why is this a good plan?
I and most objective observers are in agreement that Trump lies frequently. Do the fact-checking sites report more lies by Trump than everyone else put together? Trump aides, e.g. the Huckabee woman, are forced to follow their leader and also lie. Your wishy-washy acknowledgement that “Trump prevaricates” is insufficient. 
Trump and many Trumpists repeatedly lie brazenly.
In order to understand what weight to give your opinions it would help us to learn what you understand about Trump’s character. I’ll try some Yes-No questions:
(1) Do you think Trump has an MBA? Do you think he has claimed to have one?
(2) If you were an oddsmaker (and a leftover microphone turned up if this simplifies the thought experiment), what would you guess the probability is that Trump uttered the phrase “shithole/shithouse countries”? Is it more than 99%? (Or 20%? 50%?)
(3) Trump claimed that the GOP “tax reform” would increase his taxes. Do you believe that is true? Do you think Trump believed it was true?
We’ll start with these. You seem somewhat more honest and open-minded than many conservatives. But I, for one, want to know if I’m wasting my time.
I think it is the product of compromise, as opposed to being a proposal based on strongly held principles that I would seek to explain and defend.
I think most politicians lie, prevaricate, obfuscate, exaggerate, etc and that Trump, at least in that way, is a very typical politician. I’m not sure if your statement was intended to treat yourself and “objective observers” as separate groupings, but that’s the way it came across to me.
I don’t know. Presumably you wouldn’t be asking this question if the answer were “no”, but I don’t know why you think this would be the least bit persuasive. The fact-checking sites pick and choose which statements and claims they evaluate according to their own biases and interests, so any metric of ‘# of lies reported by fact-checkers’ isn’t terribly relevant or useful, at least IMHO. He’s the President of the Unites States, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they evaluate more of his statements than other, lesser public figures. And I suspect most of them fancy themselves part of the #Resistance, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they try to slant their evaluations against Trump. shrug
Not to be rude, but I could hardly care less what you deem sufficient or not. If you want to more clearly define “Trumpists” or provide some evidence of “great enthusiasm”, I might be open to re-evaluating my answer.
No, and I don’t know. I’ve seen times where he claims he “went to Wharton” or statements along those lines. I can’t personally recall a time where he said directly “I have an MBA”, but I’m hardly a complete catalog of all Trump’s statements.
<1%, but it’s a poorly-formed question. I doubt he said *both[/] “shithole/shithouse”. Presumably you meant to ask whether he uttered either the phrase “shithole countries” or “shithouse countries” and I’d put the odds at 67%.
I don’t know, to both. The analysis I’ve seen is that the upper income brackets have the highest % of people whose taxes will go up, but I’m not in a position to know if Trump is one of those unlucky rich or the higher portion of rich folks whose taxes are going to go down.
I suspect this exercise has a preordained outcome wherein you’ll publicly proclaim you’re wasting your time by engaging with me and move on to greener pastures, safer spaces, and less challenging debates, but on the chance that that is not the case, I’ve humored you with answers anyways.
The definitive work on that is currently in the pit library. Perhaps HD will stop by and set everyone straight if that work is in error.
I strive to avoid posting in the Pit.
Hi Hurricane. If you were interviewing a job applicant and you discovered he lied about having an MBA, how would it influence your evaluation? If you informed yourself that the allegation about Trump was true, would that change your opinion of him?
(1) So Trump lies about everything; Hillary lied about killing Vince Foster and her child sex ring in the pizza parlor. Same-same. Got it.
(2) Obviously I wrote in a shorthand thinking you’d grasp it. Did you think the complaint was amusing? Or a Gotcha!
(3) “Less challenging debate”! :smack: Please warn us when you’re about to make joke; I keep sputtering coffee on my screen!
I’d disfavor such an applicant. If there were another competent, but honest, applicant, I’d hire that person instead.
Yes, but probably not in a very significant way. I already believe he behaves like a typical politician, at least in that regard.
That’s not even remotely close to what I said. Since I’ve done you the courtesy of answering your questions, I was hoping you’d do me the same courtesy. Do you believe Hillary landed “under sniper fire” in Bosnia? That she had to run with her head down to get to the safety of waiting vehicles?
There are two classes of lies. Lies like “I have a MBA from Wharton” and lies like “This tax plan will be great for the American worker.” The latter class is more important and more pernicious, but I concede that for purpose of this subthread only the former class — easily shown to be a lie by objective fact or witness — is relevant.
Sincere thanks for not wasting my time citing proofs, just to have them dismissed with “So what? Trump is a typical politician; they all lie about their degrees.”
I’ve only vague knowledge of that incident but I assume that Hillary did in fact lie about that. If there were several other such examples I’d concede that Hillary “lies as much as or more than a typical politician.” But are there several more examples? Some that I’ve seen require taking sentences out of context. I even recall (though didn’t “bookmark”) one example where a Gopster took a Hillary-uttered clause (not even a full sentence) out of context to reverse its meaning.
So yes, maybe Hillary is an even worse liar than the median politician. That wouldn’t be a big surprise: 49% of politicians will lie more than the median.
OTOH, Trump is a record-holder. It might be amusing to start a thread “What humans have ever lied as much as Trump?” — it would be a short list of famous con men. Who’s another politician who lied about having an MBA?
And Trump is also a despicable fraudster. I answered your question about Hillary’s sniper-fire. What is your opinion of Trump University?
Sure. Take your pick. I assume you’ll trust this source:
Fact-checks | PolitiFact (one of these is the aforementioned sniper fire lie)
Is this meant as hyperbole or literally?
I don’t know, but I also don’t know another one off the top of my head that’s lied about “sniper fire” either (Perhaps Kerry?). I’m not sure “no one else has ever lied about this exact thing before” is a meaningful metric of … well … anything. And to the extent that you do, you should consider that it probably applies to a great many people, including people you probably like.
I don’t know much about it, but the little bit I do know leads me to believe it was a bad investment.
A lot of cherry-picking was needed to come up with Hillary “lies.” For example, “Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer …” I assume this is a comment on Hillary’s stupidity or ignorance about guns. But is that the same as a lie?
Please take a deep breath and come up with a meaningful comment about Trump University. I don’t even have a clue what your (snarky?) one-liner means unless it’s “That Trump fraud doesn’t count since that fraud was exposed in a lawsuit, ha ha.” You’re good at Googling; do you need help finding links to research Trump University?
I hope you don’t think Trump U. is a minor Gotcha and your “don’t know much about it” excuses you. Unless you believe that being a major fraudster is a prime qualification for President.
That one, I consider likely just a false statement, mostly because HRC is as ignorant as a bag of hammers on just about everything related to firearms. Largely through my discussions here on this board, I’ve adopted a narrower definition of “lie” than any false statement, but you asked if there were “several more”, and I’m sure any interested, reasonable person could find at least several more “lies” at the links I provided.
It wasn’t meant as snarky. It’s just not a topic that has interested me enough to read about it in detail, and so I don’t feel qualified to make a “meaningful comment” about it. In your view, is Trump University one of the top 10 most important things that has happened during his Presidency / the campaign?
That’s not the question at all. The topic under discussion is whether Trump is a particularly malicious and detestable man who utters many lies and commits fraud. If you want to deny that characterization, you’ll start by learning about Trump University and posting your view of it.
You had said “I hope you don’t think Trump U. is a minor Gotcha”. That left me with the impression you thought it was a big deal. I was just trying to confirm if I had correctly understood you. I’m undecided yet on whether I want to “deny that characterization”. That sounds laborious, and like I said, it’s not been a topic that has really piqued my interest thus far.
:dubious: You aren’t really interested in knowing whether your country’s Chief Executive, one of the most powerful people in the entire world, is a particularly malicious and detestable man who utters many lies and commits fraud?
That is not an appropriate subject for complacent ignorance, IMHO. There are plenty of trivial issues in the world which it’s reasonable to disregard if they don’t “pique your interest”, but this doesn’t seem like one of them.
It’s probably mostly due to my negative reaction to having strangers on the internet try to tell me what I need to do, or spend my time learning about. If I was trying to make an argument against something, and doing so from ignorance, I’d probably be more sympathetic to being told that I should go learn about something before making a fool of myself arguing against it. That’s not the case here though. I’m not interested in disputing whatever anyone says about Trump University. I just don’t care that much. I’ve got a very cursory understanding of the issue, and it doesn’t seem like a terribly pressing or important issue today. Maybe it will tomorrow, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.
If you want to try to give a brief, mostly-unbiased summary of the issue, I’d probably read it. If you’re just going to Google-dump, or worse, tell me ‘you need to go learn about this’, I’ll probably shrug and move on with my life without heeding that suggestion. If you think it’s important that I know about it, feel free to try to explain it and why you think it’s important. If you don’t care to invest that much energy into the matter, neither do I.
@ Hurricane — Your attitude is strange. In particular you seem to have no clue about why I introduced Trump U. to the discussion.
***The “importance” of Trump University is simply that it demonstrates that Donald Trump is a major fraudster. *** If you already know that Trump is a major fraudster, studying Trump U. has no value to you. If you’re unsure whether Trump is a fraudster, or what kind of businessman he is, there are other topics you could research. If you care.
It’s hard to tell whether you already know what kind of man Trump is but don’t care; or don’t know and desire to remain ignorant. Yet you focus on minor misspeakings by Hillary that pale in significance besides Trump’s frauds, and insist that both are “typical politicians” … while showing no interest in educating yourself about Trump.
But thank you for being frank about your lack of interest in Trump’s character. This informs us how much heed to pay to your opinions about Trump and his supporters.