Posts Made By: James Lacey

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

LOL you really do live in your own little pretend world dont you.....

Well, let's see now, what exactly have the Republicans done to win the black vote? Was it Trump's divisive and relentless politicization of black NFL players kneeling in a peaceful protest that won them over? Was it when Trump defended "beautiful" confederate statues? Was it when Trump refused to denounce and reject white supremacists at Charlottesville and any other time he's had the opportunity? Was it when he attacked Maxine Waters and caller her "low IQ?" Was it when he attacked Don Lemon and said, "Lebron James has just been interviewed by the dumbest man on television!" Was it when Trump praised Confederate General Lee at a campaign rally in Ohio? Was it when the Trump administration started detaining and imprisoning minority children in internment camps? Was it when he called Omarosa "that dog?" Did I imagine that Trump did all these things? Is it just our imagination that Trump delivers racially charged insults all the time? Someone is living in a pretend world all right, especially if they think Trump is suddenly going to win the black vote.

Originally Posted by Darian Rachal

James, I suspect that in 2020 he'll definitely get more black votes than in 2016; maybe even twice as many. 

We will see of course, but saying that Trump will double the black vote is not exactly impressive considering he go almost no black votes in 2016. In other words, increasing a few percentage points is not "winning" the black vote. Here's a pointer for the Republican party. You are not going to win the black vote by continuing to insist they are "enslaved" by the Democratic party and being "fooled" and so forth and so on. Goodness, gracious, do Republicans even realize how condescending and insulting that attitude is? I know this attitude that blacks are somehow are the unwitting puppets of the Democratic party plays well with some in the Republican base, but believe me, it does not play well with black Democrats. Maybe Republicans should try calling them low IQ, or dogs or even better unpatriotic. That will surely work.

Originally Posted by Darian Rachal

James is no dummy. It just amazes me that he buys the anti-Trump CNN crap.

They corrected the story and good for them. However, one mistake does not invalidate all the other poor optics and perceptions that Trump and the GOP have with black voters. You guys are kidding yourselves if you think black voters, or minority voters, or women voters or any other class of voters Trump and the GOP has either mocked or marginalized is going to be flocking to Trump and the GOP. Even if Trump were to double his black vote in 2020, assuming he runs in 2020, it would still be a tiny fraction of all black voters. Surely you guys aren't still holding out hope for the #walkaway meme are you?

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/10/14/david-perdue-snatch-phone-voter-suppression-sot-nr-vpx.cnn
The GOP gubernatorial candidate tried the same voter suppression technique and lost in court and here he is again doing the same thing. If your name has a hyphen added or an extra space added by a computer in the state, you're the guilty party. Most of the "errors" appear on African American voter ballots and or a disportioncate number of Democratic ones, 50,000 plus... 

Come on Rod, clearly "rogue phone snatchers" are responsible for this act, and after all, does voter suppression really matter if they win?

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

No he isnt.....perhaps gullible is a better word or perhaps blinded by ideology is a good fit

I think the point you guys are missing is that optics and perception matter. It doesn't matter if you guys think the stories are false or misleading, the only question that matters is how do the voters they affect perceive them?

I'll give you an example, but for this example, we have to get into our way-back machine; all the way back to Bush's Mission Accomplished speech on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. In that speech, Bush never actually said the words "mission accomplished," and he explicitly stated in the speech  "our mission continues" and "we have difficult work to do in Iraq." However, emblazoned behind Bush during the speech was a large banner that blared "Mission Accomplished!" From that point forward, that image was used over and over again to bludgeon Bush as being naive and ignorant about the long-term repercussions of the Iraq War. Even though, all objective evidence is he was well aware of the gravity of the situation. The banner wasn't the Bush administration's idea. Instead, it was the idea of the navy and was meant to congratulate the crew for a successful ten-month long deployment that was twice as long as usual. Regardless, the image of Bush in front of that banner went on to be used over and over again as an example of how clueless the administration was concerning the difficulties that lie ahead. That meme or narrative or misleading story or whatever you want to call it has stuck to this day and is nigh impossible to debunk.

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

The lie that the left perpetuates continuously is that voter suppression occurs in this nation.

Given how much Trump has fanned the flames over voter fraud, I think the GOP has lost the high-ground on complaints about voter suppression being strictly partisan.

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

Reality Check:

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/obama-has-presided-over-5-6-largest-deficits-us-history

CNSNEWS is a small right-wing internet news site, whose only purpose is to peddle conservative views and opinion and commentary. It's owned by L. Brent Bozell who in 2011 appeared on Fox News and declared that "Obama looks like a skinny ghetto crackhead." He was also an outspoken critic of Trump in 2016 and called him "the greatest charlatan of them all," "a huckster," and a "shameless self-promoter." This article is not objective and unbiased reporting, and the irony is of course that you are the first one to always whine about CNN or Snopes or anyone else's sources, but you routinely post and link news sites that are incredibly dubious only because their reporting resonates with your personal biases.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

The GOP is supposedly working on a tax cut for the middle class just prior to the mid term elections. Don't we already have a middle class tax cut? I mean that's how it was presented here in this forum by a a certain conservative or two. Ya mean it really was the big corporations and the millionaires that were benefiting all along and the middle class really didn't? How did that happen? That's what the Democrats have been saying all along. If they're wrong the conservatives on this forum were right, then why do we need another and just before the mid term elections?
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/20/politics/donald-trump-tax-middle-income/index.html

Isn't the real story here that Congress is out of session until after the mid-term elections? So, even if they wanted to do a tax cut before the mid-terms, it's impossible? The other thing here is that Trump also feels like he has to tout a tax cut for the middle class. Could it be the middle-class doesn't feel like they got a tax cut? As you said, we supposedly already had one of those, and on top of that, the tax cut was supposed to have already paid for itself and trickled down all kinds of wealth to the middle-class. I'm astounded that the GOP still gets away with peddling this horse hockey; cut taxes; magic happens, surplus! It has never turned out that way. Trickle-down economics is one of the biggest political lies of all time.

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

She falls for it every time

Come on Greg. Everyone knows Uranus is a planet.

Originally Posted by Gerald Miller

Richard,

But let me tell you, most of what you wrote is simply not true.

Gerald,

I can assure you; you are wasting your time trying to talk reasonably with Richard. You are dealing with a person who believes for example that the Democratic party of today, is the same party it was in 1960 and the same party it was in 1860. I don't know how you undo that level of ignorance. The idea that political parties do not change is ludicrous. For example, look at the Republican party today, versus what it was when Reagan was president. What would Reagan have to say about the GOP today and its embracement of Trump and his divisive and harmful politics? Well, let's put it this way, I'm pretty sure Reagan would be as critical as anyone has been about Trump which means, of course, he would have probably gotten a pipe bomb in the mail. This change in the GOP occurred quickly, yet we are supposed to believe the Democratic party has remained unchanged since 1860. I wish I could get Richard to read any objective history book written by a professional historian. However, I'm more likely to win the power ball. 

This redefinition of significant turning points and influential figures in American history to slam liberals and promote Republicans is scary stuff. These lies are not harmless bragging, as Richard has characterized Trump's lies. It's hilarious to think that the GOP so easily excuses Trump's lies as innocuous when we are a nation where primary school children were taught to revere George Washington for not being able to tell a lie. Lying to transform reality, trampling long-held norms and values, and attacking our most treasured belief systems, which is what Trump routinely does with his pathological lying is not harmless. Instead, it's akin to what fascists have done throughout history to manufacture a lost mythical past, and the need for a strong nationalist leader to restore greatness to the present. Sound familiar to anyone? 

It is not harmless to lie about men, women, and children who are fleeing civil strife by calling them criminals, murderers, and rapists. Saying they have middle-easterners among them is fear-mongering. Peddling conspiracy theories about how George Soros funded the caravan is conspiratorial nonsense that trivializes what is a complex humanitarian tragedy to score cheap political points. All of these lies dehumanize and legitimize treating these people as less than human and dehumanization is the first step in so many of man's sins be they slavery, genocide or war, it's an act we should avoid engaging in at all. No one is saying we should have open borders, yet another Trump lie. Instead, we are telling people to stop the fear-mongering and deal with the situation in as humane a way as is humanly possible. However, Trump never does stop; and why? Because for Trump, the fear is the message. Richard would have us believe this is all just harmless bragging. As I said in the beginning, I don't know how you undo his level of ignorance.