Why does Trump stomp on his own team's talking points?

[Controlled Opposition]

Maybe she likes dressing like an oven mitt. Women still have that right...right?

She hasn't exactly started a fashion trend, has she? Where are the fashion police when they are needed?

[Controlled Opposition]

It’s none of my business what Hillary has under her clothes. I wish her well, but if it was something she wants the public to know, she will tell us.

It would hardly be helpful to any political aspirations she might hold, for everyone to know how sick she is.

[Gotcha68]

No, she's covering up. Do you know of anyone else who dresses as she does? Have you seen the videos of Hillary being helped up and down steps and falling anyway?

We know she suffered traumatic brain injuries. We know she has had two blood clots.

I ask you the same question I asked Oneuli. Is there any reason that Hillary Clinton isn't subject to illness just like the rest of us?

It is very sad that even with two brain injuries she was able to kick Trump's ass in debates.

Says a lot about the ignorant orange clown.

[Gotcha68]

So, she’s wearing a back brace, it’s very touching you are concerned about her health. No, Clinton is quite human.

I wonder if he/she is aware that we had a president lead the country while in a wheelchair at one point?

[Controlled Opposition]

It is very sad that even with two brain injuries she was able to kick Trump's ass in debates.

Says a lot about the ignorant orange clown.

That is your opinion. It is also unrelated.

[Gotcha68]

You didn't see her fall and be carried to her vehicle by the Secret Service? You didn't see her handler move in when she began to have a seizure during a speech? You didn't see her go into a seizure while she was surrounded by reporters. All signs of complex partial seizures and dementia.

You and Oneuli agree. Hillary is as susceptible to illness as anyone else. You just choose not to see it in your political idol. That is not logical.

How is it possible that you can see all that is wrong with Hillary but are blind to Trump's clear mental failings?

[Phantasmal]

It would hardly be helpful to any political aspirations she might hold, for everyone to know how sick she is.

She is a private citizen until that time.

[Gotcha68]

She hasn't exactly started a fashion trend, has she? Where are the fashion police when they are needed?

You're right here.

[Nordberg]

Your tendency to relate everything to Trump is noted by the board. So is your hero worship of Hillary.

Hero worship? Are you nuts. I wanted Bernie over her. I wanted Warren over Bernie. You are so wrong. My family worked on bBernies campaign. I guess you Trumpers think we are like you guys, but we actually can evaluate.

[PoliTalker]

Hello Oneuli,

One odd thing about Trump is the way he seems to go out of his way to demolish the carefully assembled apologetics of his own staff. It happens again and again, but I'll give one example so it's clear what I'm talking about.

After Trump's surprise firing of Comey, his staff scrambled for an acceptable explanation. They were smart enough to realize that firing the head of the FBI at a time when he was investigating election interference that seemed to implicate the president would look like obstruction of justice. Trump hadn't given them advance warning, so they didn't have a chance to get out ahead of that with a media playbook, but within a day or so, they'd settled on the talking point that it had nothing to do with the Russia thing, and instead was about the misbehavior Rosenstein had highlighted, involving Comey abusing his office to hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign. For a last-second phony justification, it was pretty clever: Rosenstein's memo cited facts liberals couldn't dispute, and provided an explanation for firing that had nothing to do with the Russia thing, so it wouldn't be obstruction of justice. Sure, everyone knew it was a lie, but it gave the usual right-wing talking heads something to pretend they believed when they made the rounds of the shows, and the only thing that could definitively disprove it is if Trump came right out and admitted he'd done it because of the Russia thing.

Well, as you know, that's just what happened. After letting his team humiliate themselves pushing a well-crafted lie to try to protect him, he went on TV and admitted he'd made the decision to fire Comey before seeing the Rosenstein memo, and that he was thinking about the Russia thing when he did so.

The question is why Trump does that sort of thing. My initial thought was that he was basically acting like an abusive boyfriend, who likes to hit his girl in front of his friends, as a way of bragging about how much she has submitted to him. Maybe Trump just got off on making his press secretary, his professional apologists in the media, and all the little forum denizens look foolish, by letting them commit to talking points and then stomping on them for all to see.

Maybe that's not right, though. Maybe it's about more than the sadistic thrill of smacking around those with so little self respect that they're still making excuses for him. Maybe it's about sending a message to others -- a message that he is completely unconstrained. As Machievelli wrote, "it's better to be feared than loved." Maybe this is a way of keeping the right-wingers fearful... if he'll casually kneecap conservatives even when they're trying to help him, imagine what he'll do if they cross him. Moreover, it sends the signal that he won't be constrained by trying to stick to colorably defensible actions. If you want to signal your power, it's not enough to fire Comey for a nominal reason that would be legitimate-- you need to show you can fire him for openly illegitimate reasons, and nobody on the right will have the balls to do anything about it.

I know, right?

The man is obsessed with absolute power. And is the living proof of the old adage that: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

[Granule]

I think that sums up his appeal to the right pretty much perfectly.

There's some truth to that.

You see, liberal, Trump is going to be known as the President who burned the perverts to the ground. One way or another, you assholes are going down.

My hope is that Trump can do it. But if he can't, then the rest of America will.

I hope you're ready.

[Oneuli]

Clinton did not have any public seizures.
~~~
The occurrence depicted above was covered by several news outlets in June 2016, with none of them reporting the candidate had experienced a “seizure.” The Hill, for instance, reported that Clinton “exaggeratedly bob(bed) her head” after reporters repeated the question about Warren, while the New York Daily News wrote that Clinton “gave an exaggerated startled response” to the question.

CBS reporter Hannah Chanpong suggested that Clinton movements were simply an exaggerated reaction to her being “startled” when some reporters in her blind spot started suddenly barraging her with questions about her putative vice presidential choice. The fact that Clinton immediately repeated her initial reaction for humorous effect supports the hypothesis that it stemmed from a conscious movement and not an involuntary seizure:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hi...seizure-video/
~~~
Perhaps eager to avoid answering or maybe just taken aback by our volume, Clinton responded with an exaggerated motion, shaking her head vigorously for a few seconds. Video of the moment shows me holding out my recorder in front of her, laughing and stepping back in surprise. After the exchange, she took a few more photos, exited the shop and greeted supporters waiting outside.

Two months later, that innocuous exchange has become the fodder for one of some Trump supporters' most popular conspiracy theories: her failing health. Where I saw evasiveness, they see seizures.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...812-story.html
~~~
Much in the way "birthers" (Trump was among the most prominent) sought similar ends by questioning President Barack Obama's citizenship, the "healthers" are using junk science and conspiracy theories to argue that Clinton is suffering from a series of debilitating brain injuries.

In an interview on "Fox News Sunday" this weekend, former New York City mayor and Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani first accused the mainstream media of hiding evidence, then encouraged doubters to "go online and put down 'Hillary Clinton illness.'"
There is absolutely no credible evidence to backstop any of these claims, including on the "videos" Giuliani cited. Clinton's physician -- the only person to speak on the record who has actually examined her -- has repeatedly affirmed the former secretary of state's health and fitness for the highest office in the land.

https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/22/polit...ned/index.html
~~~

Keep in mind that Controlled Opposition is a conspiracy buff who believes that Israel, not Al Queda, was behind 9/11, with the help of our government. Oh and grassy knoll. lol

What I find fascinating is how the same group of people manage to embrace such absolutely crazy conspiracy theories, even while being devotedly "skeptical" about, say, climate change or the idea of the Trump campaign colluding with the Russians.

[PoliTalker]

Hello Phantasmal,

He can say anything he wishes because his base believes him, or at least allows it because they want to get liberals. It’s been voiced on here many times, in different ways, but that’s the basic premise.

He enjoys humiliating people, it keeps them in their place. He alone can do it.

Why else would he create a TV show out of saying: 'You're fired?'

Think about it. Anybody here ever been fired? Had to fire someone? For most people, that is not fun, not entertaining.

The act of firing somebody is usually thought of as an unpleasant one. Often the person tasked with doing the firing does not enjoy it, and certainly the person getting fired does not enjoy it. To have a livelihood taken away, to lose a job, is often a traumatic experience. The person doing the firing usually knows it will be devastating to the person getting fired. People with empathy do not enjoy this task. Few enjoy losing their job. It can be a moment which triggers great sorrow, grief, and financial ruin. Only a crass uncaring person would enjoy destroying somebody's life. Only Trump would turn that moment of despair into entertainment. It is a sickness reminiscent of Roman Colosseum blood games.

The fact that this concept for a TV show was successful shows a darker side of our society, one which take pleasure in the misfortune of others. It is the embodiment of the thought that the only way to get to the top is by stepping on the heads of others along the way. That, in order to succeed, one has to ruin somebody else. It is the epitome of win/lose philosophy. It is the antithesis of working hard to build something and thus create wealth. It is the embodiment of thinking that the only way to acquire great wealth is to take it away from somebody else.

I am here to say that is wrong thinking. Certainly it is possible to play dirty and win by cheating. But that is not the only way to create wealth. Those who do it by building something or creating a valuable service are the true engines of advancement of the human kind.

[ThatOwlWoman]

What I find fascinating is how the same group of people manage to embrace such absolutely crazy conspiracy theories, even while being devotedly "skeptical" about, say, climate change or the idea of the Trump campaign colluding with the Russians.

I'm sure if we looked for 4.7 seconds on Google, we could find a slew of scholarly journal articles describing the pathology of these types. They truly believe that a government that is allegedly too large and too filled with corruption can cover up a presidential assassination, captured alien specimens and spacecraft, who *really* attacked us on 9/11/2001 <roll eye>. Yet at the same time this same nefariously clever but bloated government is too stupid and too inept to administer any of its mandated operations.

Anyone who knows people knows that if something was wrong with Hillary, someone close to her would have let the beans slip. Same with 9/11, Area 57, and so on.