Trump 2016

[Vince]

I think the current Constitution as intended is fine. We just need to focus a couple of points back to what was intended.

1) I'd like to see a repeal of the 17th.
2) Clarify the "commerce clause" to emphasize and limit lawmaking to direct interstate commerce rather than anything that sort of kind of touches on interstate commerce. I'd bet this would place about 80% of our federal laws and regulations on the chopping block.
3) Fix the judiciary. I find it hard to believe that the founders made the process of amending the Constitution as time consuming and exact as it is and then turned around and wanted nine (or six at the beginning) guys in black robes to makes changes to it based on their interpretation rather than the actual words of the Constitution (and the federalist papers).

[Malcolm]

Trump says fuck your rights.

In a pre-taped interview on Fox News scheduled to air Wednesday night, Trump was asked by an audience member what he would do to address “violence in the black community” and “black-on-black crime.” Trump responded by proposing that “stop-and-frisk” policing, in which an officer is empowered to stop an individual and frisk them for weapons or any other illegal contraband, be adopted nationwide.

Suck my balls.

3) Fix the judiciary. I find it hard to believe that the founders made the process of amending the Constitution as time consuming and exact as it is and then turned around and wanted nine (or six at the beginning) guys in black robes to makes changes to it based on their interpretation rather than the actual words of the Constitution (and the federalist papers).

Eh, if anything, I'd up: (i) the number of justices in there and drop the number of losers in Congress or (ii) take away lifetime appointments from the Supreme Court. You need some group of arbitrators to adjudicate disagreements between the writers, enforcers, and victims of our "sell out to the highest bidder" legal system. My problem with using "the words" literally is that people suck balls at vocabulary, words always have subtext injected by the authors (which is important in some cases, so you want to note it), and language changes with time. That last bit is perhaps the most important. Example for the DoI: "All men are created equal..."

Back when that was written, the authors meant men who were white, Protestant, heterosexual, financially well-off, and landowners. The way the Constitution was written at the time reflected that ideology. If you missed any of those checkboxes (especially that first one), lots of luck. Ninety years later, it's no mistake Abe quoted this line and reinterpreted it so that race was removed from the equation. Now, this isn't reinterpretation of a law. That happened here and it happened because of this. That was originally intended to defang the Dred Scott v. Sanford case. The text of the first and most vague (and therefore controversial) part:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

That covers a lot more than just Reconstruction politics but perhaps the authors didn't intend it to be used in any other way. So what? I find nothing philosophically objectionable about the content and it sets base minimums for behaviour if a region wants to be part of the union.

Ninety years after its original inception, it was used in Brown v. Board of Education to destroy Plessy v. Ferguson. That finally struck off most every qualifier from the "all men are created equal..." list except one -- t3h g4y. In 2015, 5 of 4 justices used their imagination and common sense to good effect. The other 4 had their heads thoroughly up their assholes and demonstrated the dangers of narrow, limited vision.

Roberts chided the majority for overriding the democratic process and for using the judiciary in a way that was not originally intended.

Yeah, and I bet Washington and Jefferson didn't think about Larry Flynt when they stumped for freedom of speech. Does that make it any less valid for Larry to use it as a defense two centuries later and have nine dudes in robes effectively decide what art is and whether it's obscene or worthy of expression?

He [Justice Antonin Scalia] claimed there was "no basis" for the Court's decision striking down legislation that the Fourteenth Amendment does not expressly forbid

This is the kind of narrow-ass thinking to which I was referring. Because it hasn't been explicitly and directly declared, we have a gaping chasm of logic that invites breaking the spirit of the law while adhering to the letter. Then again, Scalia's brain had been damn near calcified since the '70s, so I shouldn't be surprised his ability to absorb new ways of thinking was nonexistent.

Thomas argued that the only liberty that falls under Due Process Clause protection is freedom from "physical restraint". Furthermore, Thomas insisted that "liberty has long been understood as individual freedom from governmental action, not as a right to a particular governmental entitlement" such as a marriage license.

Freedom from physical restraint and nothing else? Fuck you. Furthermore, if liberty is freedom from gov't action, then all kinds of laws go out the window and Jim Crow's back in town. Also, did he just call marriage a government entitlement? Like some shit they bestow upon certain people if they meet certain criteria?

Invoking Washington v. Glucksberg, in which the Court stated the Due Process Clause protects only rights and liberties that are "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition", Alito claimed any "right" to same-sex marriage would not meet this definition; he chided the justices in the majority for going against judicial precedent and long-held tradition. Alito defended the rationale of the states, accepting the premise that same-sex marriage bans serve to promote procreation and the optimal childrearing environment.

You're fucking kidding me. First, the states have a vested interest in banning gay marriage so their populations ... what, don't decline? Then, you turn around and use the same vague, Nostradamus-esque, could-be-taken-any-fucking-way language that you're bitching about from the majority. Rights and liberties deeply rooted in this nation's history? You mean like slavery, open bigotry against immigrants, indentured servitude, and the freedom to ingest any intoxicant you want in the privacy of your own home? Do you mean rights and liberties like those?

As for the Constitution, it's a combo of Feddie and anti-Feddie ideas. One of the major anti-Feddie complaints about direct and explicit interpretation of words is that it invites writing lists and accounting for every legal/logical possibility that could arise (which is a style many of the first ten amendments utilize). That's precisely what most people suck at and some insanity is bound to slip through the cracks.

Clarify the "commerce clause" to emphasize and limit lawmaking to direct interstate commerce rather than anything that sort of kind of touches on interstate commerce. I'd bet this would place about 80% of our federal laws and regulations on the chopping block.

Like this. The words:

[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

If you interpret "regulate" in the strict dictionary/legal definition to mean "control, manage, or supervise," then that's it. There's no wiggle room for the states. But any sane person with a scrap of right brain grey matter can immediately surmise, "Well ... you can pretty much make anyone do anything if you control their wallet." Strict interpretation is like zero tolerance for new or novel Constitutional scholarship.

[Malcolm]

Thanks, Donnie Dickweed.

The bombastic businessman has often bragged about the comforts of his ride, with its full bedroom, shower and 24-karat gold-plated bathroom fixtures. But because it seats so few passengers, Trump’s Secret Service agents appear to make up more than half of the plane’s flight manifests. And that means taxpayers are now legally required to pick up the majority of its staggering running costs.

Over the first three months of this year, after Trump asked for and received Secret Service protection, the agency’s payments to his campaign accounted for 48 percent of the $1.7 million that it paid Tag Air Inc., the candidate’s company that operates the aging jet.

Over June, July and August, as Trump became the GOP nominee and his security detail grew, the agency’s payments to the campaign made up 78 percent of the $1.3 million that it paid to Tag Air, according to The Huffington Post’s review of Federal Election Commission filings.

Sounds like the blue-collar billionaire to me.

[GORDON]

When I see the outrage for Obama using AF1 for fundraising trips, I will give a shit.

[Alhazad]

When I see the outrage for Obama using AF1 for fundraising trips, I will give a shit.

That's actually pretty irritating now that he can't be elected again. Please go back to work, mister President.

[TheCatt]

When I see the outrage for Obama using AF1 for fundraising trips, I will give a shit.

That's actually pretty irritating now that he can't be elected again. Please go back to work, mister President.

I support the first half of your statement, but not the second.

[Troy]

'Presidential" candidate calls woman disgusting, watches sex tape at 2 AM, encourages others to do so.

[Leisher]

'Presidential" candidate calls woman disgusting, watches sex tape at 2 AM, encourages others to do so.

And he's still considered more trustworthy and ethical, although stupider, than his opponent.

We're all doomed.

[Malcolm]

Eh, he was getting his ass kicked in there anyway.

The New York attorney general has notified Donald Trump that his charitable foundation is violating state law — by soliciting donations without proper certification — and ordered Trump’s charity to stop its fundraising immediately, the attorney general’s office said Monday.

[Malcolm]

The political outsider ... though he seems to understand exactly how greasing a palm works, which is pretty much all politics is.

Records show Mr. Trump, his family and associates donated in particular to attorneys general in New York, from Robert Abrams in the 1980s through incumbent Eric Schneiderman. The money was given often when Mr. Trump’s companies had decisions pending in these offices.

Pure coincidence.

“He has always said he’s given to politicians his entire career and he thinks the system is broken,” said Alan Garten, general counsel at the Trump Organization, an umbrella company for Mr. Trump’s businesses. “Thinking that the system is broken doesn’t preclude him from giving to politicians when they are knocking on his door 365 days of the year.”

What, what, what? The system is broken, yet he happily pumps cash into it? Gee, I wonder why.

Mr. Trump has been open about his motives. “As a businessman and a very substantial donor to very important people, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do,” he told The Wall Street Journal in July 2015 in discussing donations to Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. “As a businessman, I need that.”

Yep, this is the dude that's going to bring down the system.

[TPRJones]

Yes, the system is broken. And that's just the way he wants it. Corruption is his bread and butter, after all.

[Malcolm]

Next time I hear, "But he's different," my reply is going to be along the lines of, "So's an auger up the asshole but I don't want to try it."

[TPRJones]

I want to be able to vote for him for the previously-mentioned abject lesson in the importance of limiting power, but I just can't do it. I consider a vote to be a form of endorsement, and I can't even pretend that I approve of anything about him. It's going to have to be Gary Johnson, I guess.

[Malcolm]

I honestly think he wants to lose. Why in the mother of fuck are you bringing this up? How does this get you more votes?

“They admitted they were guilty,” Trump told CNN’s Miguel Marquez. “The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous. And the woman, so badly injured, will never be the same.”
...
In 1989, five teenagers ― four of whom were black, the other Latino ― were arrested, tried, convicted and imprisoned for a crime they did not commit: the assault and rape of a 28-year old woman who was jogging in New York’s Central Park. In 2002, their sentences were vacated when another man confessed to the crime and DNA evidence exonerated the wrongly accused five, whose convictions hung almost entirely on circumstantial evidence and coerced confessions.

I assume Donnie doesn't think OJ's guilty of murder since DNA evidence means nothing.

Why is this of any particular interest to Donald Trump? Well, shortly after the assault occurred, Trump took out an advertisement in the New York Daily News in which he called for the restoration of the death penalty in the case. He’s never been willing to accept that the Central Park Five have been properly exonerated. When the city settled, Trump penned an op-ed for the same paper, calling the settlement ― which we’ll remind you were the hard-won reparations of five wrongly imprisoned men! ― was a “disgrace.”

Ah, the law and order candidate, even if the laws and complete bullshit.

[TheCatt]

Because he's a racist? Trying to rally other racists?

[TheCatt]

Trump says how he really feels about women

Getting crucified. Polls dying.

In a hot mic conversation first published by The Washington Post, Trump is seen and heard telling "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush in 2005 of how he tried to "fuck" a married woman.
"I moved on her and I failed. I'll admit it," Trump said. "I did try and fuck her. She was married."
"I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn't get there. And she was married," Trump adds, after saying he took the woman -- who is identified only by her first name -- out furniture shopping.
...
Before Trump stepped off a bus, he and Bush appear to see a soap actress who greets them.
"Whoa!" Trump says. "I've gotta use some tic tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful -- I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait."
"And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything," Trump says.

So of course, he turns to the Clintons

"Bill Clinton has actually abused women and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims," Trump said. "We will discuss this more in the coming days. See you at the debate on Sunday."

[thibodeaux]

Donald Trump just posted this pic of your mom:
http://imgur.com/lRB4mfv
(Edit: does embedding not work on imgur pics?)

[Malcolm]

You need the image URL, not the imgur page. Secondly ... am I missing something in the pic?

[thibodeaux]

Hint: we're having a hurricane.

[Malcolm]

Hint: we're having a hurricane.

Ah, that'll do it.