Republican Election 2016 - Donald Trump Megathread [OFFICIAL]

[Shalcker]

If they tighten something happened clearly. Is this something that you really don't understand? You do understand when they poll they ask things about what candidates have said and done and how they feel about it?

Did you actually listen to any Trump speech in full? Or do you feel satisfied with "one sentence per speech" media articles you post to get idea of what Trump advocates?

If polls tighten it means things happening later are more important that things happening before. Eventual decision is not necessarily "sum of all previous changes".

Perhaps Trump outpaces Clinton on funding and gets much better ads.
Perhaps there is market crash.
Perhaps some terror act happens and people feel stronger about Trump anti-muslim stance. (there is every reason to expect more terrorism in upcoming months)

Just by looking at polls it is easy to lose sight of bigger picture.

And yes Articles pro and con that are speaking directly to Clinton do indeed belong in that thread. That is another 5% of your pay you owe me.

How curious, so Trump supporters should gather under Clinton heading and Clinton supporters should gather under Trump heading?

...oh, wait, right, negative partisanship, 50% or more of those who support Clinton do it because they primarily hate Trump, not because they support Clinton policy or like her as a person. So obviously they would be unwilling to talk about Clinton (who they would rather forget exists, and they do not even necessarily follow her speeches) and quite willing to talk about Trump whom they hate.

Yeah, makes sense.

[Pangean]

Looks like Trump's failing faculty's have tripped him up again.

Trump touts child care programs, but they're for guests only

When Donald Trump vowed this week to make child care more accessible and affordable, it was just the second time during his White House campaign that he's talked about an issue that affects millions of working Americans with young children.

The first came months ago in Iowa, when the eventual Republican nominee touted his own record as a business owner during a candidate Q&A, telling voters he provided on-site child-care service for his employees.

There is no evidence, however, that any such programs exist.

The billionaire real estate mogul, who previously voiced his opposition to government-funded universal pre-K programs, said in Newton, Iowa, in November 2015 that he had visited many companies that offered workers on-site child-care centers — and added that he offered such programs himself.

"You know, it's not expensive for a company to do it. You need one person or two people, and you need some blocks, and you need some swings and some toys," Trump said. "It's not an expensive thing, and I do it all over. And I get great people because of it. Because it's a problem with a lot of other companies."

Trump pointed specifically to two programs: "They call 'em Trump Kids. Another one calls it Trumpeteers, if you can believe it. I have 'em. I actually have 'em, because I have a lot of different businesses."

Trump went on to describe "a room that's a quarter of the size of this. And they have all sorts of — you know, it's beautiful — they have a lot of children there, and we take care of them. And the parent when they leave the job — usually in my case it's clubs or hotels — when they leave the job, they pick up their child and their child is totally safe."

"They even come in during the day during lunch to see their child. It really works out well," he said.

But the two programs Trump cited — "Trump Kids" and "Trumpeteers" — are programs catering to patrons of Trump's hotels and golf club. They are not for Trump's employees, according to staff at Trump's hotels and clubs across the country.

"Trump Kids" is described on the Trump Hotel Collection website as "a special travel program designed to help make your next family vacation a big hit." Its offerings include "kid-friendly amenities like kiddie cocktails, coloring books and no-tear bath amenities."

"The Trumpeteer Program" is described on the website of Trump National Golf Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, as "a program created specifically for our youngest members, ages three to twelve, which offers daily and evening child care, monthly newsletters and weekly events!"

When asked about on-site child care, employees at Trump's hotels and clubs across the country expressed confusion and explained the two programs are for guests and members only.

"No, there's no child care," said Maria Jaramillo, 36, a housekeeper at Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, where workers have been pushing Trump to sign a union contract.

Jaramillo is a mother of four children who has worked at the hotel for nearly eight years.

"It would make it much more easy to take our kids to day care at work," she said and laughed when told of Trump's comments from Iowa about child care. "If they have child care, at least they should tell us."

A collection of Trump employee handbooks makes no mention of child care. The online Trump Hotels "employee benefits" section lists health care, tuition reimbursement, paid time off, complimentary golf and an internet café, but no on-site child care services.

In New York, where the Trump Organization is based, the city's health department database of child care centers has no record of any licensed facilities at any of Trump's properties, aside from a private school that leases space at 40 Wall Street.

Asked directly whether Trump's businesses offered child care to employees, his presidential campaign responded with a statement from Jill Martin, vice president and assistant general counsel at the Trump Organization.

"The Trump Organization is very proud of the family-friendly environment it fosters throughout its portfolio," she said. "The policies and practices allowing employees to enjoy a healthy work-life balance vary from property to property. We take an individualized approach to helping employees manage family and work responsibilities."

The campaign did not respond to follow up questions, or agree to make Martin available for an interview.

Trump on Monday proposed new tax exemptions for child care as part of what his aides say will be a larger push to make child care more accessible and affordable to working-class families. Child care is a top expense for many families, surpassing the cost of college and even housing in many states.

"They're suffering, they're suffering," Trump said. "We're going to get them this much-needed relief."

Trump has credited his embrace of the issue to his daughter Ivanka, who vouched for her father's treatment of his employees at the Republican National Convention last month. "When a woman becomes a mother, she is supported, not shut out," she said.

The new policy is a departure from Trump's comments on the issue during the GOP primaries. In an interview with Fox News Business in October 2015, Trump expressed skepticism about paid family leave and said he opposed the idea of free pre-K.

"Well, I don't like it, because eventually you're going to have to raise everybody's taxes," he said. "There is no such thing as free."

[Annoying]

Tweets from Trump on Android are actually Trump, while tweets from his account posted by an iPhone are his staff:

http://varianceexplained.org/r/trump-tweets/

Trump's actual tweets are far more negative, volatile, and generally angry.

That's some impressive R coding. dplyr is confusing as hell. Given, the author actively develops packages for R, so he's probably really good at all that niche stuff.

[Blobfish]

Yeah this is objectively false if you're looking at more than a single poll.

Clinton's lead has been widening. Can you find individual polls that show Clinton's lead being smaller? Sure. But the general trend is pretty clear.

(Also, the New York Post is a tabloid. May as well get your news from Weekly World News or the National Enquirer)

Ain't this where the MIB get their news articles from ??

[Pangean]

Did you actually listen to any Trump speech in full? Or do you feel satisfied with "one sentence per speech" media articles you post to get idea of what Trump advocates?

If polls tighten it means things happening later are more important that things happening before. Eventual decision is not necessarily "sum of all previous changes".

Perhaps Trump outpaces Clinton on funding and gets much better ads.
Perhaps there is market crash.
Perhaps some terror act happens and people feel stronger about Trump anti-muslim stance. (there is every reason to expect more terrorism in upcoming months)

Just by looking at polls it is easy to lose sight of bigger picture.

How curious, so Trump supporters should gather under Clinton heading and Clinton supporters should gather under Trump heading?

...oh, wait, right, negative partisanship, 50% or more of those who support Clinton do it because they primarily hate Trump, not because they support Clinton policy or like her as a person. So obviously they would be unwilling to talk about Clinton (who they would rather forget exists, and they do not even necessarily follow her speeches) and quite willing to talk about Trump whom they hate.

Yeah, makes sense.

Which has nothing to do with your claim ""Trump winning or losing has little to do with what HE says or does". Events outside of what he says can affect the polls. However that has not happened. And polls are a snapshot of the bigger picture. Nice try at diversion. Someone give you some pointers?

Never said what you claim regarding the threads. Go back and re-read what I said. That's all I said. Your further ramblings are simply that, ramblings. Now I get you don't care that you are seen as dishonest because after all it's just a job for you but to be so transparent about it is not helping your cause.

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Interesting article on GOP folks wanting Trump cut off to protect the down ballot races.

Dozens of Republicans to urge RNC to cut off funds for Trump


More than 70 Republicans have signed an open letter to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus urging him to stop spending any money to help Donald Trump win in November and shift those contributions to Senate and House races.
The letter comes as a number of Republican senators and high-profile GOP national security officials have come forward saying they cannot vote for Trump.
Story Continued Below

“We believe that Donald Trump’s divisiveness, recklessness, incompetence, and record-breaking unpopularity risk turning this election into a Democratic landslide, and only the immediate shift of all available RNC resources to vulnerable Senate and House races will prevent the GOP from drowning with a Trump-emblazoned anchor around its neck,” states a draft of the letter obtained by POLITICO. “This should not be a difficult decision, as Donald Trump’s chances of being elected president are evaporating by the day.”

Former Sen. Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire and former Reps. Chris Shays of Connecticut, Tom Coleman of Missouri and Vin Weber of Minnesota are among the Republicans lending their name to the letter. Close to 20 of the co-signers are former RNC staffers, including Mindy Finn (former RNC chief digital strategist), Christine Iverson Gunderson (former RNC press secretary), Virginia Hume Onufer (former RNC deputy press secretary), Beth Miller (former RNC field communications division director), Heather Layman (former deputy press secretary), B. Jay Cooper (former RNC communications director under four chairmen) and Patrick Ruffini (former RNC ecampaign director).

Republican Andrew Weinstein, a vocal anti-Trump Republican, is one of the operatives organizing the letter, which began circulating earlier this week and is expected to be sent next week. Weinstein served as director of media relations for the Dole/Kemp presidential campaign and was deputy press secretary to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Weinstein said that the letter is coming from “People who want the party to protect its majorities in the Senate and the House. It’s not an endorsement of anybody.”

A spokesman for the RNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The letter ticks off a series of Trump actions that they believe have "alienated millions of voters of all parties,” including, attacking Gold Star families, positive comments about violent foreign leaders and encouraging Russia to find Clinton’s lost emails.

“Those recent outrages have built on his campaign of anger and exclusion, during which he has mocked and offended millions of voters, including the disabled, women, Muslims, immigrants, and minorities,” the letter states. “He also has shown dangerous authoritarian tendencies, including threats to ban an entire religion from entering the country, order the military to break the law by torturing prisoners, kill the families of suspected terrorists, track law-abiding Muslim citizens in databases, and use executive orders to implement other illegal and unconstitutional measures.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...#ixzz4H3zVP2zB

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Trump once again ensures folks focus on his insane ramblings.

Trump’s ‘Obama founded ISIS’ comment exemplifies why his campaign is on the brink of doom

Despite Donald Trump's repeated assertions — on Wednesday night at a rally in Florida and again on Thursday morning in an interview with CNBC — President Obama is not the founder of the Islamic State (or ISIS, in Trump's non-Post-style-compliant usage).

The militant group, which started referring to itself as the Islamic State three years ago, was formed in 2002 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to the Mapping Militants project at Stanford University. Originally called Jama'at al-Tawhid wa'l Jihad, it joined al-Qaeda to form al-Qaeda in Iraq — and then, in 2013, split from al-Qaeda to become the Islamic State.

Obama no more founded the Islamic State than shopkeepers paying extortion money created the Mafia. Which, of course, would seem to have been Trump's actual point: That it was Obama's foreign policy that created the space for the Islamic State to gain power. Trump has made a similar argument before. At a rally in Mississippi in January, he claimed that "Hillary Clinton created ISIS with Obama," in her position as secretary of state. In June, he said the same thing during a "60 Minutes" interview: Hillary Clinton invented the terror group.

The extent to which Obama deserves blame for allowing the Islamic State to expand in the months after the Syrian civil war began or credit for the United States' (belated) focus on the group is a subject best left to others. But, regardless, Trump later denied that was actually his point, which we'll get to. So let's instead focus on how Trump's rhetoric overlaps so poorly with his campaign effort.

Donald Trump likes to outrage. He prides himself on it. He's got the perfect excuse, rolled out a year ago this week: He's simply not "politically correct." He's not PC, he told Fox News' Megyn Kelly in the first Republican debate last August, which is why he makes jokes about the physical appearance of women. Trump avoids the nuanced pronouncements of more experienced politicians and is clearly comfortable with being imprecise in how he makes his points. In his eyes, he's simply telling it like it is.

"All I do is tell the truth," he said during his interview with CNBC on Thursday. "I am a truth-teller."

Part of what motivates Trump to make questionable statements is that he feeds off the approval of his base. He has been repeating the line about Clinton being responsible for the rise of the Islamic State for a while. But the response from blaming Obama was different. His description of the president as the founder of the Islamic State at that rally this week gained volume and frequency as the crowd ate it up. It was almost Pavlovian, watching Trump ride the wave of applause as he said, over and over, that the U.S. president had founded the group.

Trump has made other comments that attempted to link the president to the terrorist group. In June, he implied that Obama was perhaps sympathetic to terrorists, telling an interviewer on Fox News that "we're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart or has something else in mind."

"And the something else in mind — people can't believe it," he continued. "People cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can't even mention the words radical Islamic terrorism. There's something going on."

Polling subsequently showed that there was a segment of the Republican base that agreed with Trump's suggestion that the president might be sympathetic to terrorists. A survey last fall found that 43 percent of Republicans think Obama is Muslim, despite his regularly noting that he isn't. There's a reinforcement back and forth: Trump embraces arguments common among a subset of the conservative right and that subset applauds his candidacy.

This may also help explain Trump's bigger flub from earlier this week. On Tuesday, he said at a rally that "Second Amendment people" might be the only way to keep Clinton from appointing justices once she was president. Despite Trump's attempts to reframe the comments as somehow suggesting he was talking about electoral organizing, it was pretty clear that he was picking up on a dark joke that's not uncommon on the right: That at some point government overreach might need to be addressed with the use of the weapons the Second Amendment protects. He was saying something that he probably knew resonated with many people who like him.

Politicians always pander to their bases, but it rarely looks like this. Trump does his "truth-telling," which often means saying things that have been an undercurrent on the right for years. He gets loud appreciation for saying those things. It's a spin cycle.

Most politicians wouldn't do that — mainly because they're trying to expand their support outward. Hillary Clinton could say a lot of things that would be applauded by the Democratic far left, but that's not who she's trying to appeal to. (Well, also they probably wouldn't think she was being sincere, which is another problem.)

Clinton is focused on the general election, making a push to get Republican voters to pick her over Trump — or at least to stay home on Election Day. At the same time, she has a tightly controlled operation that's contacting voters on the ground and television spots running on the air. She has local surrogates making her case across the country.

[Bollocks]

HH: I’ve got two more questions. Last night, you said the President was the founder of ISIS. I know what you meant. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.
DT: No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.
HH: But he’s not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He’s trying to kill them.
DT: I don’t care. He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?
HH: Well, that, you know, I have a saying, Donald Trump, the pneumonic device I use is Every Liberal Really Seems So, So Sad. E is for Egypt, L is for Libya, S is for Syria, R is for Russia reset. They screwed everything up. You don’t get any argument from me. But by using the term founder, they’re hitting with you on this again. Mistake?
DT: No, it’s no mistake. Everyone’s liking it. I think they’re liking it. I give him the most valuable player award. And I give it to him, and I give it to, I gave the co-founder to Hillary. I don’t know if you heard that.
HH: I did. I did. I played it.
DT: I gave her the co-founder.
HH: I know what you’re arguing…
DT: You’re not, and let me ask you, do you not like that?
HH: I don’t. I think I would say they created, they lost the peace. They created the Libyan vacuum, they created the vacuum into which ISIS came, but they didn’t create ISIS. That’s what I would say.
DT: Well, I disagree.
HH: All right, that’s okay.
DT: I mean, with his bad policies, that’s why ISIS came about.
HH: That’s…
DT: If he would have done things properly, you wouldn’t have had ISIS.
HH: That’s true.
DT: Therefore, he was the founder of ISIS.
HH: And that’s, I’d just use different language to communicate it, but let me close with this, because I know I’m keeping you long, and Hope’s going to kill me.

http://www.hughhewitt.com/donald-tru...it/#more-31501

For bonus points:

HH: And that’s, I’d just use different language to communicate it, but let me close with this, because I know I’m keeping you long, and Hope’s going to kill me.
DT: But they wouldn’t talk about your language, and they do talk about my language, right?

[Breccia]

<Stuff that sounds familiar...>

Wait a minute. Wasn't the JTJ the group that named themselves Al Qaeda In Iraq, which Bush used to excuse us going into Iraq in the "first" place?

[Shalcker]

Which has nothing to do with your claim ""Trump winning or losing has little to do with what HE says or does". Events outside of what he says can affect the polls. However that has not happened.

I guess you're telling me that when Trump got close to Clinton those were results of what Trump said or did? Surely it's easy to prove for you then? Can you point out what Trump did or said to get even with Hillary in May?

How does it differ from what he does and says now?

And polls are a snapshot of the bigger picture.

Or it's picture of trees that hides the forest.

Never said what you claim regarding the threads. Go back and re-read what I said. That's all I said. Your further ramblings are simply that, ramblings. Now I get you don't care that you are seen as dishonest because after all it's just a job for you but to be so transparent about it is not helping your cause.

You said that articles pro- and con- Hillary belong to Hillary thread. Obviously then pro- and con-Trump articles belong to Trump thread. Yet so far we're only seeing counter-Trump articles here with any frequency. Logical conclusion from what you're saying in conjunction with other available data points to possible motivation of anti-Trump posters in Trump thread.

[Pangean]

Wait a minute. Wasn't the JTJ the group that named themselves Al Qaeda In Iraq, which Bush used to excuse us going into Iraq in the "first" place?

Yes indeed. They claimed that al-Qaeda was in cahoots with Saddam Hussein because they were in Iraq. Here's a good article on the history of ISIS.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...istory/376030/

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I guess you're telling me that when Trump got close to Clinton those were results of what Trump said or did? Surely it's easy to prove for you then? Can you point out what Trump did or said to get even with Hillary in May?

How does it differ from what he does and says now?

Or it's picture of trees that hides the forest.

You said that articles pro- and con- Hillary belong to Hillary thread. Obviously then pro- and con-Trump articles belong to Trump thread. Yet so far we're only seeing counter-Trump articles here with any frequency. Logical conclusion from what you're saying in conjunction with other available data points to possible motivation of anti-Trump posters in Trump thread.

Yeah I have had enough of your dishonest games. Welcome to my Ignore list.

[Shalcker]

http://www.hughhewitt.com/donald-tru...it/#more-31501

For bonus points:

Well, it's working for him. Free publicity. It's what he aims for. He said that many times, playing media like a fiddle to keep him mentioned.

Even though his chain of logic doesn't differ from interviewer (up to "therefore he is founder"), he chooses language that elicits strong response as finisher rather then "Yeah, probably Obama was wrong".

[Breccia]

Yes indeed.

Hmm. That's what I thought...I mean, that's what I researched heavily when it happened at the time...but I felt like asking a leading question.

Oh look! FOX News following the "RNC might pull the plug on Trump" story. Treating it as credible. Taking it seriously. Holy shit.

[Shalcker]

Yeah I have had enough of your dishonest games. Welcome to my Ignore list.

Right, when asked to prove your point, always flee.

[Breccia]

Even though his chain of logic doesn't differ from interviewer (up to "therefore he is founder"), he chooses language that elicits strong response as finisher rather then "Yeah, probably Obama was wrong".

Yes but...the strong response is, more and more, "No, that's both false and hateful, and I'm not voting for you". Seriously, there is such a thing as bad press. I just literally linked FOX running a negative piece on Trump 60 seconds ago. That's how bad it is. Trump doesn't even have FOX anymore.

EDIT: I'm actually not done with this. Seriously, look at this shit:

Based on the most up-to-date polls I could find in the last few minutes, Trump:
-- won't carry NY
-- won't carry NJ, meaning he fucked Chris Christie for literally negative points
-- won't carry Florida
-- and loses nearly 2:1 electoral college-wise. The "strong response" is "bullshit, I'm out"


EDIT EDIT: Also, I heard, I mean more and more people are saying it, I heard lots of people tell me Georgia is a battleground state. Georgia. Meaning, he might have fucked Newt Gingrich for negative points, too! Believe me!

[Zomis]

Yes but...the strong response is, more and more, "No, that's both false and hateful, and I'm not voting for you". Seriously, there is such a thing as bad press. I just literally linked FOX running a negative piece on Trump 60 seconds ago. That's how bad it is. Trump doesn't even have FOX anymore.

EDIT: I'm actually not done with this. Seriously, look at this shit:
[IMG]https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/05/04/upshot/electoral-map-trump-clinton-1462320994125/electoral-map-trump-clinton-1462320994125-master495-v2.png
Based on the most up-to-date polls I could find in the last few minutes, Trump:
-- won't carry NY
-- won't carry NJ, meaning he fucked Chris Christie for literally negative points
-- won't carry Pence's state
-- won't carry Florida
-- and loses nearly 2:1 electoral college-wise. The "strong response" is "bullshit, I'm out"


EDIT EDIT: Also, I heard, I mean more and more people are saying it, I heard lots of people tell me Georgia is a battleground state. Georgia. Meaning, he might have fucked Newt Gingrich for negative points, too! Believe me!

It will be Hilarious when Trump wins, it will be just like Brexit.

[Leobald]

-- won't carry Pence's state

Pence is from Indiana, which is still quite solidly Republican.

[Breccia]

Pence is from Indiana, which is still quite solidly Republican.

Yep, wrong state, my bad. Editing original post.

[Bollocks]

Well, it's working for him. Free publicity. It's what he aims for. He said that many times, playing media like a fiddle to keep him mentioned.

Even though his chain of logic doesn't differ from interviewer (up to "therefore he is founder"), he chooses language that elicits strong response as finisher rather then "Yeah, probably Obama was wrong".

It does not work for him. Trump is in a new time low in this general election and as many experts have said the key to the succes of this campaign is not being mentioned. Trump did pretty well, when he wasn't in the spotlight during the DNC and after the RNC. The judge, the khan family the second amendmant joke all of them are negatives to him and just feed Hillary's rhetoric of him being unfit for president, in addition that takes the spotlight of the negatives of Hillary. The DNC leaks should have been a huge focus for the media, but with Trump's comment it just went as another incident that will quickly fade away

Also, did you actually read the interview:

HH: I’ve got two more questions. Last night, you said the President was the founder of ISIS. I know what you meant. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.
HH: But he’s not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He’s trying to kill them.
DT: I don’t care. He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?

He was literally given the rope to save himself and now he feeds the media the words they need to hang him.

And then he vaguely goes around suggesting is Obama's fault, basically repeating what HH said before that he denied. He is just going around the issue, never stating what he means or what he really is trying to convey.

It's a really bizarre exchange, that you would read in waiting for godot.

[Fahrenheit]

It will be Hilarious when Trump wins, it will be just like Brexit.

With what coalition?

He going to get waxed in the black, latino, LGBT, women, muslim, and for the first time in 60 years college educated white voters. I mean he's got lesser educated white men wrapped up, but there simply isn't enough of them.

[Breccia]

He going to get waxed in the black, latino, LGBT, women, muslim, and for the first time in 60 years college educated white voters.

Hang on, I need some clarification before the Eagles kick off. What would happen for the first time in 60 years? Is this a Republican thing? I don't doubt you, but I could use a source for future reference.

[Lenonis]

How is it working for him? Every day that goes by more people are bailing on this train wreck.

I think Shalcker is running under the assumption that if Trump can get his poll numbers under 0% they'll wrap around and he'll sweep all 50 states in November.

That's the only thing I can think of.

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Hang on, I need some clarification before the Eagles kick off. What would happen for the first time in 60 years? Is this a Republican thing? I don't doubt you, but I could use a source for future reference.

The educated white male vote has always been a reliable Republican voting block -- until now.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...r-seen-before/
http://fortune.com/2016/07/11/donald...-white-voters/

(notice the dates of the articles)