Congrats to all the state finalist!

[DeCav]

Fair enough CavE. You ever notice my most common moniker is DeCav. You could be E-Cav.

You'd be ahead of me in the alphabet.

(That's an example of MOST of the responses I get to good questions regarding politics.)

I detect a note of hostility. Only a note in a symphony of brilliant and admired thoughts, conjectures, good-faith arguments, and sincerity by you just to be sure.

I'll answer every single point you raise but I'm not a microwave oven and I have a LOT of irons in a LOT of fires currently so I can't promise any promptness.

This is fair?

When I do post again. I'll take everyone one of your statements bullet point style and answer them. PFT old-school I call it.

[cavaliereagle]

Fair enough CavE. You ever notice my most common moniker is DeCav. You could be E-Cav.

You'd be ahead of me in the alphabet.

(That's an example of MOST of the responses I get to good questions regarding politics.)

I detect a note of hostility. Only a note in a symphony of brilliant and admired thoughts, conjectures, good-faith arguments, and sincerity by you just to be sure.

I'll answer every single point you raise but I'm not a microwave oven and I have a LOT of irons in a LOT of fires currently so I can't promise any promptness.

This is fair?

When I do post again. I'll take everyone one of your statements bullet point style and answer them. PFT old-school I call it.

No hostility intended brother. Remember, I don't even get mad at Penguin. Most get mad at Penguin. Of course, sometimes debate gets heated. To me, that's just because folks get excited when making a point. Kinda like a family get together. Folks try to talk over each other. No one is angry. Just excited. Honestly, when I discuss/debate/argue with someone, it is not my intention to change their mind. My intent is to understand why they feel the way they do. When I understand someone, I can respect them. For example, i'm very patriotic. I believe we should all serve in a branch of the military at least 2 years. However, Muhammad Ali was my hero. I did not agree with his stance on Vietnam, but I very much admired him for standing for what he believed. When I understood, I respected!

[DeCav]

I hear ya. I guess you get used to debating with some people, and always agreeing with others.

Truth about me? I can't stand confrontation.

I'm just awkward debating with you cause we been friends so long. I still remember that "cheater cheater" thread. You had them Rebs seriously wound up!

I'll get down with your post when i have some time. Stayed up all night long posting in the most epic facebook thread I've ever been a part of.

[cavaliereagle]

I hear ya. I guess you get used to debating with some people, and always agreeing with others.

Truth about me? I can't stand confrontation.

I'm just awkward debating with you cause we been friends so long. I still remember that "cheater cheater" thread. You had them Rebs seriously wound up!

I'll get down with your post when i have some time. Stayed up all night long posting in the most epic facebook thread I've ever been a part of.

It could in no way ever change our friendship! It's just hard on me at times because of my head injury. However, sometimes i'm clear as a bell. I was telling my oldest boy a couple of years back about the death of a friend. I asked about him probably a year ago. My son said he'd died. I told him I hadn't heard about it. He said I told him. Talk about feeling like an idiot.

[DeCav]

I'm looking forward to the reply. Not being smart ass either. I'm not joking when I say I've been asking for four years, the list growing longer every month....

Not even a response. Not even a declination to reply....



Btw, I noticed you passed on explaining what a Hydro-Sonic Missile is. Or what in the Hell a Super-Duper missile is.
He's been repeating this for a month now. If it was a gaffe, you'd think they'd have ironed out his confusion.

I passed on that because there's no such thing.
As for the previous question:
I'm not here to defend Trump. His mouth is his worst enemy. However, he has done some good things while in office. He has also done some not so good. As has every other President. Yes, I voted for Trump. I also voted for Obama both times and Clinton his 2nd term. For some reason though, you've never asked me to defend either of them. I didn't know of his missile statements until I read your post. I don't hang on every word the man says. What specifically would you like for me to try and defend? I can't possibly tell you how I would respond to those folks. I'd have to hear what they had to say. I do know he was done wrong with the Russia investigation. Strangely, you don't even seem to have a problem with that. Tell me more about you leaning Conservative...I certainly can't see any leaning to the right!

I passed on that because there's no such thing.

Well, you and I both know you weren't going to actually explain what a hydro-sonic missile was or a super-duper missile for that matter. There's only one person on Earth dumb enough to try and explain that.
But you don't have any thoughts on the comments? You don't cringe at all when you hear our president speak about these things? He's either not smart or thinks his audience isn't smart.
So without trying to be provocative, can we drill down on that one point?

Was the president displaying a lack of intelligence or was he hoping to fool his audience do you think? Sorry for insinuating that you seemed agitated or provocative earlier. It's fine if either of us do though, yes? For four years this has been a contentious subject for America. I literally know people who have either disowned or been disowned from their families over the politics of the last four years. Never seen that happen in America my whole life before.

I'll tell you what I think and you can just agree or expand on it....
Trump heard "super-sonic" missile, got it confused with a Sonicare hydro-sonic toothbrush (They're AWESOME btw!) and invented a hydro-sonic missile. Not in the way that normal people invent things but you know what I mean. The base at the rallies cheered it on because....why not? Then he made up the phrase "super-duper" missile and decided that sounded hyperbolic enough to start slinging the term around.

Again, the base is never going to boo Trump or not cheer when they think they're prompted to cheer so they reinforce his proclivity to keep saying it even though the joint chiefs and sec of defense are telling him privately there's no such things and to stop saying it.

Cleary it doesn't bother you or you'd have been more vocal about it. Not a swipe at your character or intelligence...I'm just saying based on objective observation, you're not concerned about subjects that our president is wildly inaccurate about. No big deal. Bragging about fantasy weapons of defense probably doesn't do any harm. I'm a little surprised he didn't start talking about laser-shooting robots. That's what I'd do at a rally. Start sharing that I'm deploying T-800 Cyborgs along the border to hunt immigrants trying to cross....the code name for immigrants being "John Connors".

Or let's try this....close your eyes...you're back on PFT before it went belly up and Victory6 makes a political post about how we should vote for Hillary because the Democrats have a new hydrosonic missile and something called a super-duper missile. You click the "Reply" button and say.....

What? How do you respond? No response because there's no such thing? I realize no one on the board made a post bragging about hyrdosonic missiles. We can agree only an idiot would brag about our government having hydrosonic missiles and we KNOW Vicky is an idiot.

But seriously, it concerns you not at all that the commander-in-chief said that? Asking for a friend.



I'm not here to defend Trump.
I've noticed and applaud you. There's members of the PFT old guard that do, especially on Facebook.

His mouth is his worst enemy.

You just said a mouthful, pardon the pun. You'd likely be the only Trump supporter I've discussed his shortcomings with that would agree, I believe, that Trump could have run a better re-election campaign than he did. "His mouth is his own worst enemy" seems to support this thinking. We need to remember though that there's a hypothalamus controlling that mouth. We know his mouth works pretty good. His Thanksgiving message to America was really really good and I'm not being a smart ass. Whenever he stuck to the script he could sound very presidential. That's another point that none of his supporters will concede. That he didn't run a good re-election campaign.


However, he has done some good things while in office.
Agreed. Peace in the middle east and no new wars in four years. Do you think he should have hammered down on that in press conferences and rallies? I don't mean mention it, I mean beat those two points to death. He briefly mentioned being nominated for two Noble peace prizes (at the time he was nominated). Geez....I'd have brought that up ALL the time. Look at how many times he tweeted LAW AND ORDER. Count how many times he tweeted "I was nominated twice for a Nobel Peace Prize!!!"
Maybe that's something you do differently if you could wave a magic wand and get a do-over? Biden's margin was so small in the swing states that I believe Trump could have changed tactics on just ONE issue and win in a landslide.


He has also done some not so good. As has every other President.
I agree with both sentences.




Yes, I voted for Trump. I also voted for Obama both times and Clinton his 2nd term. For some reason though, you've never asked me to defend either of them.
Ummm.....we didn't know each other through either of Clinton's terms. You realize Clinton's term ended 10 years before I signed up on PFT?
I also never asked you to defend Warren G. Harding or Gerald Ford.

For the record, I supported the impeachment of Bill Clinton and if we'd ever had a conversation about it I wouldn't have asked you to defend him. Unless you'd thought the impeachment was BS in which case I would have argued that any president defiling the Oval Office in that way should be thrown out. Go sneak off into the bushes on the White House grounds or play with your tarts on trips. I know Kennedy was famous for not being monogamous but I still think our president should be a man of character. They impeached Clinton technically for lying to congress I believe, but we all know he was impeached for having sexy time with White House staff in the Oval Office.

I actually like the guy. A friend of the Devil is a friend of mine I suppose but I was down with him getting thrown out. There's lots of guys I'm friends with who are creeps. I wouldn't want them as president either.

Asking you to defend Obama?
I never had a problem with him. I suppose it might have been more appropriate for you to ask me to defend Obama? I dunno.
I never REALLY had a problem with any US president. They were all bad and good to varying degrees. But Trump was the first to refuse to share his taxes. I thought it was strange as Hell that Trump voters didn't want to see the taxes. That would be like my wife not wanting to see my phone messages. It's one thing not to demand them but to argue against seeing them? Would be like if you owned a company and a guy comes in to apply for a job and I'm your hiring manager. I ask to see his resume and he refuses. I go to you and say, "This guy says he has a resume but can't let me see it now."

And you say, "Dude, that sounds shady as Hell. Tell him to take a hike, we have a lot of people with good resumes waiting to take this job."

And I start arguing for him with you that I trust him absolutely and he shouldn't have to show anyone his resume.

Dude, the sun wouldn't set on another day that I worked for your company if I said some stupid sht like that.

Why wouldn't you want to see Trump's taxes? I mean who's fooling who here? His supporters are terrified at what his tax returns might reveal. What if he supplied them and it showed he was an awesome tax-paying citizen and his tax return was glowing? His supporters would flood their Facebook pages with memes by the hundreds about how he had nothing to hide. The only reason his supporters stick their head in the sand is because they don't want no bad news. (double or triple neg there)



Now I'm not talking about anyone on THIS site. I'm just saying comparing this president to every other one. You're not going to make the case that this one isn't unique? Didn't release his taxes, didn't attend McCain's funeral, 4 years he skipped the White House correspondents' dinner, was impeached....and no, that's not normal....there's no credible statement like, "All or most presidents get impeached at sometime or other". Nobody believes he divested. Raised HOLY HELL about Obama playing too much golf and then played more rounds of gold in 4 years than Obama did in 8 years.

Also, every now and then someone points out that they voted for this guy or that guy previously as if it justifies voting for the current president. Nobody's accusing anyone of voting for Trump because he's white or because he's a Republican. I would hope if you voted for Clinton or Obama that it was because you thought he was the better candidate, not because you thought it was currency to spend on a bad choice for president later on.

If I had my dog tied on chain in my backyard all year long and I rarely fed it and never played with and it barked morning, noon, and night and someone knocked on my door to ask my why I'm being such an irresponsible pet owner, I wouldn't say, "Well I gave a donation to the animal shelter several years ago.", that would have nothing to do with whether I was behaving responsibly now.

I've never understood what a voter's past record had to do with his current choice.

I'm not sure I'm even asking anyone to defend their vote. Or their support. Sure, there are a lot of appealing things about him, I get that. I suppose I'm curious how half the country sees one thing and the other half sees another. Honestly, I think there's a huge factor of confirmation bias and escalation of commitment. And then several factors of cognitive dissonance going on. For instance, many times I'm debating a person on Facebook and for no reason that I can discern, they just get angry and stop responding even though I haven't insulted them or cursed or been impolite that I could tell. I've even asked people who got upset to tell me exactly what it was that I said that upset them and they can't even manage to tell me why they're mad.

With one dude on FB, I posted like 3 or 4 paragraphs and he comes back, "Well at least..." followed by I don't remember what useless point he made but it came off as a concession of every point I'd just made and then a deflection to a different argument.

One of these women who were Trump supporters got angry and I was like, "What's the problem?"

And she said, "You made fun of Trump."

I sat there for a minute kind of astonished remembering Trump making fun of a handicapped reporter. I was like, "Isn't every president made fun of?", thinking about every single season of Saturday Night Live.

"Yeah, but I voted for Trump.", she said.

"Um, yeah...I believe that's how we met right? You were going after a friend of mine on his Facebook page for a post you didn't like."

What the guy posted was literally....hold on...lemme grab the post....his post simply said, "Arizona Supreme Court just shot trump down. Again."
that was it. And a bunch of Trump supporters came piling on the poor guy calling him all kinds of rude names and cursing.



I'm telling ya....most of the guys from the boards can handle this stuff cause we were baptized in fire so to speak. I thought the political stage was gonna be Hella bumpy compared to PFT. Boy was I wrong! The people outside of our group of football fans are unbelievably sensitive and the more they like Trump the easier they are set off. Not that I'm out there trying to bait or trigger anyone. I almost always keep to my own homepage....but you'd be surprised how many people come calling if they see a post on my wall that offends them. I think one time I commented on B1's wall about something he posted but I kept it light and funny. I even saw where Chris defended me to one of his friends who had some choice words about my comments, which again weren't engineered to offend or insult. Basically, I just keep asking questions....do they have good answers? I have no idea....people get butt hurt rather than try and answer them.

One of the Trump women actually accused me of causing Trump supporters to be butt-hurt. I am not making this up.

While I'm at it I'll tell of another conversation where a woman posted "IMPEACH BIDEN".
Now I don't have to tell you there's a lot to unpack there.
1) It would seem at least one Trump voter has accepted that Trump was defeated.
2) I'm not sure you can impeach a president elect.

I pointed out the latter...

She said, "I'm just practicing!"

Ok, so we can all agree that's just....well that's just stupid.

I asked, "Impeach him for what exactly?"

"Cause he's a pedophile and he has dementia."

"Ok", I said, "first...if he's a pedophile the thing to do is arrest him and bring charges against him and have him sent to jail after an indictment." Waiting for a pedophile to become president BEFORE you prosecute him for crimes against children? That's just....well that's just stupid on parade.

Which brought me to my second point, "Yes, there's lots of creepy photos of him with kids and at least one cringe-worthy story he told at a rally about kids at a public pool who got a kick out of petting down his curly leg hair straight so they could watch it curl back up. Yes, not at all good optics but not illegal and though I'm sure many pedophiles make it through life without being brought up on charges, it still stands that if you do your research you'll find that he's never been accused of any inappropriate act with kids."

"Well he sure does have dementia!"

"No, actually he doesn't. He has a 73 year old stuttering affliction that he's managed to hide until now. Dementia isn't defined as forgetting a word or trailing off during a sentence momentarily."

And this woman had no news articles, no video links....just tweets and posts from other people. She showed me where Greg Murphy, a Republican politician and doctor of urology posted that in his opinion Joe Biden is suffering from dementia.

I pointed out that the fact that he's a politician from the opposing party isn't terribly compelling and the fact that he's a urologist is even less so.

I posted a screenshot from Wikipedia describing that a urologist basically studies pee pee and that maybe he'd seem more of an expert on Trump maybe.

Mind bogglingly she shot back that "my husband just tole me that a urologist studies urine....it's a nuerologist that studies the brain, so there! dummy!"

At that point I'd given up on the possibility that this woman had a fully formed brained and just wondered how much of a brain stem she had.

At that point her husband jumps in the thread and it's just one long run-on sentence laced with profanity and so many stupid things that I realized where that thread was headed. Same reason I didn't ever get to trading shots with Vicky cause it was only ever going to be a dollar auction all the way to Hell and by the tenth page no one would be able to tell me and Vic apart by our statements....well I might be exagerrating there but you know what I mean.) So I used the same fool-proof trick I always use when I feel myself getting sucked into a quick sand of stupid. THAT made the woman so mad she came hunting me on MY wall. At that point, I had no choice but to block her which I almost never do on Facebook.



I didn't know of his missile statements until I read your post. I don't hang on every word the man says.
That's one of the constants I've noticed over the last four years. I don't hang on every word Trump says either. Trust me. But depressingly, what I've come to learn is I've been paying more attention to Donald Trump than most Trump supporters. Why do I say that? I constantly ask these types of questions only to find out that the typical Trump supporter has no idea what I'm talking about. It was kind of a mystery to me and then I started to listen to what a lot of his supporters were saying and doing and it started making sense. No secret that conservatives hate CNN and MSNBC and pretty much anything that wasn't Fox News. Then they turned on Fox news after the election for daring to call Arizona for Biden before the other networks did.

At that point the word on Facebook from conservatives was..."Fox News is a turncoat.....we can't trust them anymore. Now it's onto OAN and Newsmax!" And man...Sun Tzu would be shaking his head. A large part of The Art Of War is dedicated to gathering ALL information, good or bad.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Ok, so literally the above wisdom was written down 1,500 years ago. The problem with Trump and the base is this....
Everytime a source reports something they don't want to hear, they dismiss the source as corrupt or fake and then they cut themselves off from that source of information. The odd thing about the statement is it doesn't comment on the condition where you know your enemy but not yourself.

I don't hang on every word Trump says...but the good statements rise to the top and get reported. And the stupid things he does and says also rise to the top and get reported. The problem here is that there are millions of people who have severed their connection with any information that makes Trump not seem perfect. Are those sources biased? Yes. Do they sometimes get things wrong? Probably. Are they as likely to report dirt on a Democrat as they are on Trump? Probably not although there were stretches on CNN and MSNBC where all you heard about in 2015 was about Hillary's emails. But it's simply not true that they're making everything up. And our president said many many times that a free press is the enemy of the people. Or at least a press that ever reports anything negative about him.

Really, the trick is to be your own 12th man. Spend a day pretending to be a Never Trumper. Venture out on to youtube and start doing searches for stupid things Trump said. And force yourself to watch it. Take your views to task. Challenge them. I did. Everything someone said about Biden leading up to the election, I'd go out and confirm what parts of it were true. And surprisingly there was a lot of it that was true. But what I found out was that the more outrageous things that were said about him? You don't have to drill down very deep to get to the meat of the matter.

Gatorfan mentioned one day that Biden had said, "That guy" when referring to God. That sounded like hooey to me so I looked it up and indeed found where he'd said something like that at a rally. So I started digging a little further...

Turns out Biden has a stutter! Read a huge article and interview about it. Then I went back and looked at all the gaffes and, yep, you can kind of see it. You can see him hit a block in his speech pattern and rather than get tripped up, he abandons the sentence and tries again from a different angle. Or you can see him stumble through a series of tough words in a sentence just so he can get to the end of the sentence. Once you understand why he's doing the things he's doing, it makes more sense.

And it would be disturbing if every sentence was like that. Or every other sentence. If what he was saying was incomprehensible? Well I hate to say it but...I mean...you do know that over 30% of voters asked in exit polls who voted for Biden were only voting to get Trump out of office? And one Trump voter who'd change his mind after four years of Trump put it best. "What does the other candidate need to get my vote? A pulse."

Sorry, Trump was SO bad that America would have voted for just about anyone to get him out of office. It's so strange....the Trump base said it would be the end of democracy if Hillary had won. And then again four years later said it would be the end of democracy if Biden won. And now, he's lost 56 out of 57 court cases, many of them decided on by judges he installed. He put up 3 new Supreme Court judges and NONE of the ones Trump nominated would even HEAR his case. Alito and Thomas said the case should at least be heard but there was no way they were going to rule in favor of Trump.

Do you guys remember how much Trump and his base cheered for Gorsich, Kavanaugh, and Barret? Good lord I could go back to Facebook posts and copy threads of 500 comments of the Trump base just basically in love with Barret talking about what a bad ass she was and how she was the perfect nomination and with the court tipped the way it was there was no way Trump could lose the election because even if he did the Supreme Court would surely overturn the election.
And then what happened when all the judges tossed out the stupid cases Trump's lawyers brought?

The base turned on ALL the judges and accused them of not knowing the US constitution. Now tell me CavE, who's more likely to know the constitution? Federal judges or a bunch of yahoos with smartphones and Facebook accounts. Don't believe me? Look at Ronna McDaniel's Facebook page and look at the mob screaming for blood saying they hate the GOP and they're all going independent.

Literally these people are inconsolable. There is no compromise...if they don't get EXACTLY what they want they throw outrageous tantrums. I do believe that a lot of the more casual Trump supporters are unaware of how crazy things are in Trumpland because most of them probably aren't paying all that much attention and the ones that are are filtering out any source of information that's going to show or tell them something that clashes with their belief system or makes Trump look bad or doesn't conform to their expectations.

The crazy thing was that even before election day there was ZERO chance the president could lose the election in an "honest" election. He could only lose if the Democrats cheated. Even though by all accounts it was a horrible campaign, 70 million people were convinced that it was not possible that enough people were sick enough of Trump that they would turn out and vote him out of office.

This notion that because Biden had small rallies that he didn't have the votes? Please tell me you aren't one of the ones thinking that Trump had to have won the election because he had a bunch of people show up at his rallies during a global pandemic. And then Trump contracts the virus and spreads it all over the White House.

For the record, I do know that there is a hierarchy in the Trump base. I don't actually think most of them are unintelligent. The numbers don't lie, more college-educated voters cast votes for Biden than Trump but that doesn't mean all Trump voters aren't articulate and intelligent people.
But let's keep it real. You'd put up with NONE of the worst of Trump's traits if it were a Democrat. You put up with Obama cause he was a decent dude.





What specifically would you like for me to try and defend?
Honestly, I'm not sure I have the passion and endurance at this point to re-litigate all the ridiculous ways he's made a mockery of the office of the president.

Maybe for another time a week or two from now? I think we can both agree in two weeks there's gonna be another host of new stupid things he said or did? Like you said, his mouth is his own worst enemy....and why he lost the election. If he'd done what Biden did and just stayed buttoned up he might have made up that difference that he lost by. His mouth is his own worst enemy. You don't think he hurt his chance of re-election by not introducing his bottom lip to his upper lip more often?

His own supporters and I mean the people that voted for him twice described him as an asshole, obviously not a christian, a bully, a toxic leader, and a monster. This wasn't one person that used these words. This was five different people who each submitted their own descriptioin. The guy who told me he gives it all to God said, "Hell we all know he ain't no Christian!"

"And you voted for him anyway?", I asked.

"Well I can't judge what another person's spirituality is, that's between me and him."

"But you just said everyone knows he's not a Christian."

That stumped him. (Was 1st and Goal btw.) He also told me it was wrong for the president to pepper ball people in the street so he could walk to a church and hold a Bible upside down in front of it. I agreed.

I'm assuming you agree also? I mean if you wanted to write a novel about the anti-christ becoming president, that isn't a scene you might see described in the book?

I guess if you want something do defend....

Here's a list of 7 stupid things. People are supposed to have take a vote to decide the stupidest one. Yeah, this internet show is biased...yes they're far left-wing pundits....But I can't help thinking the woman at times is honestly trying not to laugh while talking. And everything listed is then followed up with the video link.



I mean talking about things to defend, I started having to draw people in on certain issues because if I just sent them a link and asked for their thoughts, it was nothing but desperate excuses and mental acrobatics. Then I started asking hypothetical questions to get their honest answer. And once I nailed them down on it, having led them to believe it was hypothetical and then daring to get irritated at me for making up lies about our president, I'd then show the clip. Never failed though...always another backflip they could perform.

I asked Gatorfan about Trump looking toward the sky with his arms outstretched and claiming, "I'm the chosen one."

He didn't believe it. He demanded proof. Then I show in the clilp and he says, "Well he only said he was the chosen one for dealing with China."

WTF?

One of these Trump women I chatted with recently still isn't convinced Trump said, "You can just grab them by the poo-nanny." Even though Trump came out and admitted to saying and played the "locker-room talk" card, she maintains it's still possible that a voice actor overdubbed those lines. Oh, this was the same one that said, "But you made fun of Trump."


I can't possibly tell you how I would respond to those folks. I'd have to hear what they had to say.
Almost all of them have done interviews and lot have written books. I'd probably start there. But seriously, what does it matter? You're going to tell every one of them that they got Trump all wrong. You'd likely as not also tell all those federal judges that they don't know what they're doing? Am I completely wrong? The information is all out there. You don't have to sit down and have a personal conversation with them. They've mostly shared their thoughts about the man.






I do know he was done wrong with the Russia investigation. Strangely, you don't even seem to have a problem with that.
Did you read the Mueller report?



Tell me more about you leaning Conservative...I certainly can't see any leaning to the right!

You can't see Pluto, gravitational wave, black holes, atoms, or a fart either. Wanna see why I lean right? Go read my little brother's eulogy. I usually tell homeless people who beg me for money, "Sorry, my little brother spend all your money."

Also I've tried to spark a conversation about the TRUE dangers of the radical left. STRANGELY, no one wanted to talk about that though. Real socialism, communism, Marxism. Have you read Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn? Do you know I have people on Facebook all the time start in with how Biden will destroy America and turn it into a communist state? I ask them to tell me more about communism and Marxism and what their thoughts about how they relate to the story of Caine and Abel from the Bible and NONE of them know what I'm even talking about.

What's stupid as Hell is they could Google it I suppose and probably read up on it real quick or even copy/paste something but these people don't have the wherewithal to do even that. Communism and Marxism aren't about providing free health care or free college.

It's about pitting the proletariat against the bourgeois in a class war that in Russia killed 60,000,000 people. Ten times the number of Jews Hitler killed.

In Canada, it's now a law that you have to refer to someone by the gender pronoun that THEY prefer. So if a man comes in your story and you call him sir and he asks you to call him mam, you're obligated by law to call him that. It's no longer a matter of courtesy or consideration or compassion. It's compulsory. How about the fact that Ben Shapiro can't even go to some colleges in this country without being physically attacked or protested right off the campus grounds? That's the crap conservatives need to be worried about. Compulsory behavior, not Obamacare.

The reason you don't see me leaning right is because I'm an old school Republican, not this proud boy, I need the largest assault rifle possible with the largest capacity magazine possible crap. You'll admit I'm sure that the old Republican guard is now despised. People like John Kasich....anyone who attempts to work across the aisle is seen as part of the deep state, the ghost in the machine.

And no, Biden isn't taking away your guns. It's a painful process to have this conversation with other people. It always starts off with, "He's gonna try and take all our guns away."

"Um, no he's not."

'Yes he is."

"If Obama crying during a press conference after the Sandyhook massacre didn't change gun laws in this country then what do you think Biden will accomplish?"

"Well he's gonna outlaw automatic weapons."

"They're already against the law to own."

"He's gonna raise taxes on guns and bullets."

"You don't already have enough guns? What are you wasting your bullets on now? Practicing for a revolution?"

"We he's gonna try and institute background checks everywhere."

"I assume you've come to accept them in gun stores?"

My son said the same thing. "Biden said he's going to outlaw guns."

When pressed he could not produce any clip where Biden said that.

Now, here's why I have so little respect for the Rep party now.....

All along I assumed I knew what the October surprise was going to be.

Did you know Obama bombed Michigan? With Biden as VP?

I don't mean one, I mean he dropped multiple bombs on Michigan and had soldiers running around firing machine guns in the street.

Who knew that besides me and if anyone did, why didn't they drop that in the last two weeks leading up to the election. You think in the last weeks of October if Trump starts talking about Obama bombing Michigan and having unannounced wargames there and the GOP starts running ads about how Biden rode shotgun over a military attack on an American city that Trump wouldn't have won?

Thoughts?

[DeCav]

"In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, "And we shall overcome." I saw Richard Nixon resign and Gerald Ford tell the Congress that our long national nightmare was over. I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh's madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing 'Amazing Grace' in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
"These were the presidents of my lifetime. These were not perfect men. They were not perfect presidents, god knows. Not one of them was that. But they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate to the job. They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings. They were not all ennobled by the attempt, but they tried nonetheless.
"And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House.
"The scion of a multigenerational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides. We never have had such a cheap counterfeit of a president* as currently occupies the office. We never have had a president* so completely deserving of scorn and yet so small in the office that it almost seems a waste of time and energy to summon up the requisite contempt.
"Watch how a republic dies in the empty eyes of an empty man who feels nothing but his own imaginary greatness, and who cannot find in himself the decency simply to shut up even when it is in his best interest to do so. Presidents don't have to be heroes to be good presidents. They just have to realize that their humanity is our common humanity and that their political commonwealth is our political commonwealth, too.
Watch him behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn't he a funny man? Isn't what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now."
- Charles Pierce

[DeCav]

Our Republic Is Under Attack From the President
If President Trump doesn’t demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office.

By William H. McRaven
Admiral McRaven is a former commander of the United States Special Operations Command. He commanded the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden.

Oct. 17, 2019

2250


Last week I attended two memorable events that reminded me why we care so very much about this nation and also why our future may be in peril.

The first was a change of command ceremony for a storied Army unit in which one general officer passed authority to another. The second event was an annual gala for the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) Society that recognizes past and present members of the intelligence and Special Operations community for their heroism and sacrifice to the nation. What struck me was the stark contrast between the words and deeds heralded at those events — and the words and deeds emanating from the White House.

On the parade field at Fort Bragg, N.C., where tens of thousands of soldiers have marched either preparing to go to war or returning from it, the two generals, highly decorated, impeccably dressed, cleareyed and strong of character, were humbled by the moment.

They understood the awesome responsibility that the nation had placed on their shoulders. They understood that they had an obligation to serve their soldiers and their soldiers’ families. They believed in the American values for which they had been fighting for the past three decades. They had faith that these values were worth sacrificing everything for — including, if necessary, their lives.



Having served with both officers for the past 20 years, I know that they personified all that is good and decent and honorable about the American military with genuineness of their humility, their uncompromising integrity, their willingness to sacrifice all for a worthy cause, and the pride they had in their soldiers.


Later that week, at the O.S.S. Society dinner, there were films and testimonials to the valor of the men and women who had fought in Europe and the Pacific during World War II. We also celebrated the 75th anniversary of D-Day, recognizing those brave Americans and allies who sacrificed so much to fight Nazism and fascism. We were reminded that the Greatest Generation went to war because it believed that we were the good guys — that wherever there was oppression, tyranny or despotism, America would be there. We would be there because freedom mattered. We would be there because the world needed us and if not us, then who?


Also that evening we recognized the incredible sacrifice of a new generation of Americans: an Army Special Forces warrant officer who had been wounded three times, the most recent injury costing him his left leg above the knee. He was still in uniform and still serving. There was an intelligence officer, who embodied the remarkable traits of those men and women who had served in the O.S.S. And a retired Marine general, whose 40 years of service demonstrated all that was honorable about the Corps and public service.

But the most poignant recognition that evening was for a young female sailor who had been killed in Syria serving alongside our allies in the fight against ISIS. Her husband, a former Army Green Beret, accepted the award on her behalf. Like so many that came before her, she had answered the nation’s call and willingly put her life in harm’s way.

For everyone who ever served in uniform, or in the intelligence community, for those diplomats who voice the nation’s principles, for the first responders, for the tellers of truth and the millions of American citizens who were raised believing in American values — you would have seen your reflection in the faces of those we honored last week.

But, beneath the outward sense of hope and duty that I witnessed at these two events, there was an underlying current of frustration, humiliation, anger and fear that echoed across the sidelines. The America that they believed in was under attack, not from without, but from within.

These men and women, of all political persuasions, have seen the assaults on our institutions: on the intelligence and law enforcement community, the State Department and the press. They have seen our leaders stand beside despots and strongmen, preferring their government narrative to our own. They have seen us abandon our allies and have heard the shouts of betrayal from the battlefield. As I stood on the parade field at Fort Bragg, one retired four-star general, grabbed my arm, shook me and shouted, “I don’t like the Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!”

Those words echoed with me throughout the week. It is easy to destroy an organization if you have no appreciation for what makes that organization great. We are not the most powerful nation in the world because of our aircraft carriers, our economy, or our seat at the United Nations Security Council. We are the most powerful nation in the world because we try to be the good guys. We are the most powerful nation in the world because our ideals of universal freedom and equality have been backed up by our belief that we were champions of justice, the protectors of the less fortunate.

But, if we don’t care about our values, if we don’t care about duty and honor, if we don’t help the weak and stand up against oppression and injustice — what will happen to the Kurds, the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Syrians, the Rohingyas, the South Sudanese and the millions of people under the boot of tyranny or left abandoned by their failing states?

If our promises are meaningless, how will our allies ever trust us? If we can’t have faith in our nation’s principles, why would the men and women of this nation join the military? And if they don’t join, who will protect us? If we are not the champions of the good and the right, then who will follow us? And if no one follows us — where will the world end up?

President Trump seems to believe that these qualities are unimportant or show weakness. He is wrong. These are the virtues that have sustained this nation for the past 243 years. If we hope to continue to lead the world and inspire a new generation of young men and women to our cause, then we must embrace these values now more than ever.


And if this president doesn’t understand their importance, if this president doesn’t demonstrate the leadership that America needs, both domestically and abroad, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office — Republican, Democrat or independent — the sooner, the better. The fate of our Republic depends upon it.

[DeCav]

So one of my concerns about the president that I knew was going to be a problem four years ago has pretty much panned out.

The MSM of course focuses on the worst aspects of the president. Well they also focus on the worst of his base and ignore guys like the people on this board who can articulate themselves and have higher than average IQ’s.

Fox News and OAN also, strangely, ignore the more reasonable Trump supporters. The upshot, or downshot if you will, is that most of America is lumping all Trump supporters under one tent.

Yes yes yes, I hear you thinking now that you don’t care what anybody thinks about you. Well and fine enough. Neither did Vic or Luke. I think anyone who says that cares more than they’ll admit. But that’s a debate for another time.

The fact is that I care what people think about my friends and so do you guys. How many times through the years have you seen a Poster say something behind another poster like, “Actually he’s a friend of mine and He’s really a pretty good guy once you get to know him.”

B1 stuck up for me on Facebook a few months ago when his friends questioned my politics and he told them I was a good guy just a bit eccentric.

Anyway Trump has his own game to convince people to follow him and his opponents also have strategies to combat that. One of which is just pointing out obvious truths.

And I’ll tell ya....with the exception of the people that I know to be otherwise when I see videos like the following, it rings true for me. I can show you guys reams of Facebook threads just from Kayeigh’s fan page alone.

The base quickly went from saying they like him cause he tells it like it is to they like him because he speaks his mind.

The homeless guy that circles the mall talking to himself is also speaking his mind.



These videos don’t reflect a portion of Trump’s base. Does anyone think this is a problem?

I’m thinking about doing some live Facebook interviews woth Trump supporters who can better represent the “overlooked” Trump supporters who would otherwise cast a better light on Trump’s base.

Thoughts?

Anyone interested in representing their position in a more flattering way like the people below?



See, TYT as anyone knows is far to the left. But that’s an example of them trying to understand everyone and find common ground.

One thing that always annoys me about those videos is wondering how many interviews they actually do before they cobble together the least flattering portrait of his base.

Are there any other youtube videos with trump supporters that aren’t kind of embarrassing to watch?

I think I’ll try and conduct a search for that.

[DeCav]

I'm not sure why anyone thinks our troops and their commanders are on Trump's side. I suppose because that's what Trumps says?
Again the rest of us don't mind watching Fox News or OAN or Newsmax. And yes, I'm on Parler. What this means half the country has cut itself off from an enormous amount of information. To me it makes no sense, these calls to boycott MSNBC, CNN, or Fox News. Fake or not, anyone who does this is going against one of the major tenants of Sun Tzu which is basically that the people with this most information have the best advantage. Assuming MSM is all fake, you'd still want to be aware of what they're reporting. That'd be like a head coach on a football team with sanctioned access to the other coach's radio and refusing to use it.

But I guess that's up to the individual citizens. Obviously if you want to sever a bunch of sources of information, that's your business but it puts you completely at the mercy of what these other media sources decide they want you to believe which would be fine if you had a healthy distrust or skepticism of them and the wherewithal to compare sources and try to decide for yourself what the truth is but sadly a lot of people I'm hearing from are just swallowing everything they hear like a feeding frenzy, like the story that the military is fully behind the president.

Look at how many highly decorated officers have turned against Trump because of his ways. One other thing that doesn't add up to me:

Everyone trumpeted the presidents claim that he was gonna hire the smartest and brightest people (even though on many occasions he said, "I alone can fix it.")

Look at the turnover rate. Google (I know...Google is a bunch of fake information...use Duck Duck Go) and search for "Staff fired by Trump or who quit)

Here's something you can fact check for me. See if it's the historical record for turnover. I mean Trump really dumps on the people now that he hired years ago. What does that tell you about his ability to choose talented, smart people. Either he's crap at hiring people or he's good at hiring people and these people are qualified enough to discover that the president is no count. You can't have it both ways.

Look at the number of federal judges he's appointed. Something like 56 out of 57 court cases lost and all three Supreme Court appointments voted not to even hear Texas' case to overturn results. Then all the Trump supporters on Facebook stab these justices in the back actually saying, and I'm not making this up, that the Supreme Court doesn't know the Constitution. I mean you see what's going on here, right?

Any yahoo with a smartphone or laptop goes onto Facebook and literally states that Donald Trump appointed 3 different justices to the Supreme Court who don't know the Consitution. Think about the implication there. What idiot would appoint 3 different people and none of them have read or understand the Consitution. Ask yourself, what is more likely? That Donald Trump and tens of millions of followers know and comprehend the Constitution better than 9 Supreme court Federal Judges who are appointed for LIFE. Or that Federal judges who have all passed the bar exam decades ago know the Consitution backwards and fowards and it's Trump and his base who don't understand it.

Either way, I can't see how it does not trigger cognitive dissonance. You can have two opposing views but not at the same time.

Trump hired the best people. Or he hired the worst. If he hired the best why did so many of them write scathing books about them and why does he disparage them so much now. Look at what he's been tweeting about Bolton. You're going to believe Donald Trump over John Bolton and James Mattis?

Consider the following which isn't CNN or FOX, but the Military Times:

Trump’s popularity slips in latest Military Times poll — and more troops say they’ll vote for Biden
The latest Military Times poll shows a continued decline in active-duty service members’ views of President Donald Trump and a slight but significant preference for former Vice President Joe Biden in the upcoming November election among troops surveyed.

The results, collected before the political conventions earlier this month, appear to undercut claims from the president that his support among military members is strong thanks to big defense budget increases in recent years and promised moves to draw down troops from overseas conflict zones.

But the Military Times Polls, surveying active-duty troops in partnership with the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University, have seen a steady drop in troops’ opinion of the commander in chief since his election four years ago.

In the latest results, nearly half of respondents (49.9 percent) had an unfavorable view of the president, compared to about 38 percent who had a favorable view. Questions in the poll had a margin of error of up to 2 percent.

Among all survey participants, 42 percent said they “strongly” disapprove of Trump’s time in office.



The unfavorable number matches what an earlier Military Times Poll found in late 2019, while the favorable total slipped from just under 42 percent last year. In a poll conducted at the start of Trump’s presidency, 46 percent of troops had a favorable view of him, versus 37 percent who had an unfavorable opinion.

Even with the steady decline, Trump’s popularity in the poll remains better than former President Barack Obama. Obama had a 36 percent favorable rating and a 52 percent unfavorable rating in a January 2017 Military Times poll.

Still, the dipping popularity among troops — considered by Republican Party leaders to be part of the base of Trump’s support — could prove problematic for the president in the upcoming election.

Among active-duty service members surveyed in the poll, 41 percent said they would vote for Biden, the Democratic nominee, if the election was held today. Only 37 percent said they plan to vote to re-elect Trump.


Another 13 percent said they plan to vote for a third-party candidate, and nearly 9 percent said they plan on skipping the election altogether. About 40 percent of troops surveyed identified as Republican or Libertarian, 16 percent Democrats, and 44 percent independent or another party.

“It’s fair to say that Trump is not as popular as Republican nominees have been in the past among this group,” said Peter Feaver, a White House adviser to former President George W. Bush who now works as a political science professor at Duke University. “The bottom line is that in 2020, Trump can’t be claiming to have overwhelming support in the military.”


Poll limitations

Rosalinda Maury, director of applied research at IVMF, said the poll serves as an important reminder that the military — much like the rest of the country — is made up of a large collection of different experiences and perspectives.

“We do see consistencies from poll to poll, aspects of national security that may be more of a focus for a military audience,” she said. “But the military is not a homogenous population. You do see a variety of opinions, especially within subsets of the military.”

But she noted the poll, which has been administered in the same way for the past four years, is not a perfect snapshot of public opinion within the entire military force. The average age of poll respondents was nearly 39 years, and the participant pool was culled and verified from Military Times subscriber lists and databases.

Feaver said the poll “is a good sample of the career-oriented military members’ views, which may be different from the junior enlisted view of things.”

“But the president claims he has been good for the military, that they’re grateful that he has rescued them from the shambles. This shows that’s not the case with all of the military.”

The splits between officer and enlisted views within the poll are notable. More than 59 percent of officers said they have a poor view of the president, with more than half saying they strongly disapprove.

Among enlisted respondents, 47 percent said they have an unfavorable view, and nearly 39 percent a favorable view. Enlisted views of Trump’s performance in office have consistently been more favorable than those of officers in the poll over the last four years.

Feaver said that could be due to officers’ predisposition to long-term military careers, and a negative reaction to Trump’s comments against the “deep state” and other career federal positions.

The national Gallup Poll of Trump’s job performance conducted just before the political conventions found that 55 percent of Americans had a negative view of the president, against 42 percent who approved of his work. Feaver said with any poll of service members, it is important to remember that those broader public views also play a factor.

“The military tends to follow broad shifts in the opinion of the American public, albeit trending more conservative,” he said. “So as the country moves away from Trump, you’ll see that in the military too.”


Policy disagreements

Even with the president’s lower popularity, the most recent poll respondents were more likely to hold a favorable view of Trump’s handling of military issues (48 percent) than an unfavorable one (46 percent).

Still, the latest poll found significant disagreement among active-duty respondents with several controversial presidential policy statements from recent months.

Only about 17 percent of those surveyed felt the White House has properly handled reports that Russian officials offered bounties for Afghan fighters to target and kill American troops, an issue Trump has dismissed as unreliable intelligence. Nearly 47 percent disagreed with his statements.

play_circle_filledPresident Donald Trump waves ahead of an NCAA college football game between Army and Navy, Saturday, Dec. 14, 2019, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Half of active-duty service members are unhappy with Trump, new Military Times poll shows
But Trump is still more popular than Obama was among troops.

Leo Shane III
Similarly, almost 74 percent of those surveyed disagreed with Trump’s suggestion that active-duty military personnel should be used to respond to civil unrest in American cities, including the ongoing racial equality protests. Only about 22 percent supported the president’s idea.

That contrasts with half of the polls respondents’ support for using National Guard troops to help address civil unrest connected to the protests.

Troops agreed with Trump’s assessment of China as a national security threat (nearly 87 percent called it a significant concern) but ranked Russia (81 percent) well above Iran (58 percent). Only about 21 percent of troops saw immigration as a significant national security issue, but 48 percent identified white nationalists as a concern.

Nearly half of troops surveyed said the U.S. military force level in Germany should remain the same, despite Trump’s recent moves to drawn down American military personnel levels there. Another 24 percent say they believe troop levels in Germany should be increased.


Election views

Feaver said those policy disagreements “do not necessarily show that troops are beginning to think more like Democrats, but instead that they aren’t thinking like Trump Republicans.” He also cautioned that the stronger support for Biden in the poll than Trump may be more a reflection of dissatisfaction with the president than a political shift within the ranks.

Still, he called the numbers showing a close race in military voting between the two surprising.

In the 2016 Military Times Poll, nearly twice as many respondents said they planned to vote for Trump than then Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Exit polls from the election showed a similar margin after election day.

A 2012 Military Times Reader Survey — conducted in a non-scientific fashion — showed respondents favoring then Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney by a 2.5-to-1 margin.

Maury noted that the poll results are “a snapshot in a point of time” and that voting views can still shift in the two months between now and the election.

In the 2016 Military Times poll conducted in October, about 34 percent of troops surveyed said they planned to vote for a third-party candidate instead of either Trump or Clinton. Exit polls after the election showed that only about 5 percent of veterans and military members cast votes for candidates who weren’t one of the two major party nominees.


Our methodology

Between July 27 and Aug. 10, Military Times in collaboration with the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University conducted a voluntary, confidential online survey of U.S. service members. Poll participants are readers of Military Times publications whose military status is verified through official Defense Department email addresses.

The survey included about 30 questions on service members’ opinions related to the current political climate, policy and national security in the United States.

The survey received 1,018 responses from active-duty troops. The IVMF used standard methodology to weight the results according to the rank, gender and service branch of the actual U.S. military. The margin of error for most questions was less than 2 percent.

Like most studies where participation is voluntary, the poll’s sample is subject to self-selection bias. Researchers sought to account for that and adhered to generally accepted scientific practices analyzing the data.

The survey audience was 93 percent male and 7 percent female. The respondents identified themselves as 82 percent white, 5 percent Hispanic, 6 percent African American, 2 percent Asian and 6 percent other ethnicities. Respondents were able to select more than one race.

The Military Times and the researchers at IVMF have used identical methodologies for this survey since 2016.

Think about this. Half the troops probably voted for Biden. Among those that voted for Trump, how many would go to war against America to keep him in office and how many of those that are officers? How many officers would commit treason? How many generals?

More than 400 retired officers and military experts signed an open letter condemning the president.

It's all over but the crying. The great experiment was a flop. Not making this stuff up. If the SCOTUS was split on this and the Republican governors and officials that certified the electoral votes were split, maybe you can make a case that it's at least a wash on the success of our president but it's not even close. Was kind of close with the American electorate, not even close when it came to the adults in the room. There's only three types of people in government that are still backing Trump. The majority are lifetime politicians who are scared shitless of this new emerging third party and the influence Trump has over them. Then there are the ambitious politicians who are hoping to jump in and fill the vacuum after Trump is gone and are looking probably to try and bridge the Trumpers and the traditional GOP with a little more finesse and charm and, of course, brains. Then you have the sycophants who actually believe the shit he's shoveling and live to grovel at his feet for one reason or another.

Lord, had an epic knockdown drag-out with a dude on Facebook today. Truly stupid man. I mean demonstrably so. Said Biden couldn't deliver a speech without reading of a promoter. <----You read that right. He thought a teleprompter was called a promoter. Of course, I posted the link where Biden not only conducted the 2nd town hall debate with no teleprompter, he actually stayed at least 30mins after the debate was over because not everyone there had been able to ask a question. The dude just stayed and talked to the whole crowd and kept taking questions. The TV channels weren't covering it, you couldn't hear what was being asked at the point or what Biden was saying. I guess the networks have a deal to cut away at a certain time and can't broadcast any run over. So what was the advantage for Biden hanging around unless he genuinely cared to make sure the whold crowd was satisfied. Meanwhile on the other channel Trump ducks out as soon as the bell rings.

My mind is quite blown at this point that people are so willing to just subvert the constitution which is what Trump is trying to do. All 50 states certified their votes, including Georgia and you know Georgia didn't wanna do that and the courts upheld the decisions and certifications and half the country doesn't care because they didn't get what they want.

[DeCav]

Pretty interesting conversation here.

I'm totally puzzled by Al Jazeera. Maybe it's racist but I can't help but think "towel heads" when I see that logo.