As two of the most disliked people in the country, Clinton and Trump split this country apart just by being the nominees. If they had any concern for the welfare of their country, they would get together in a joint resignation and leave us with a normal election. Whether the parties promoted Kaine and Pence, or went for their ideal candidates (Biden and Ryan, perhaps), I think we might actually be having sane discussions, here on DCUM and throughout the country, about the issues, rather than about how awful the other candidate and her/his supporters are.

Back to the topic of sarcasm, given Trump's inability to apologize for anything, his only option is to claim that he was joking or being sarcastic. In particular, should he lose in November, he will claim that his run was just a joke. Then we can all look back to last summer and say "We knew it!"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was watching Anderson Cooper last night and they had Kayleigh McEnany and another Trump supporter on (can't remember his name) and even she couldn't support Trump's actions. I'm a regular CNN watcher so I am familiar with Ms. McEnany and usually she stops at nothing to support Trump, has from the very beginning, and last night she kept saying "I wish the Trump campaign would stay on message, they need to get back on message, this is too much of a distraction." CNN wasn't giving her a hard time but they did ask her what was her position on the Kahn controversies.

And then they asked her about Trump's beef with fire marshall, and she looked like all the air was taken out of the balloon. She admitted Trump needs a better PR team.

What's that about?

At one of his rallies, where the room was packed to its legal capacity, he bitched about the fact that fire marshals would not allow more people in.

Then there was the room packed beyond the capacity of its air conditioners, where he bitched that he would not pay the hotel.

And the time he did not like the sound of the mike, so he bitched about the sound guy.

PS, I hope the sensitive soul who was upset that Zakaria said "bullshit" is not upset that I wrote "bitched".

Obama refuses to use the words "Islamic Jihad" because they link every Muslim, no matter how peaceful, to terrorism. Case in point:

Donald J. Trump ?@realDonaldTrump 7 hours ago
This story is not about Mr. Khan, who is all over the place doing interviews, but rather RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM and the U.S. Get smart!

Was anyone else bothered when, in accepting the nomination for VP, Mike Pence declared that above all else, he is a Christian. This despite the fact that the Constitution states "but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." I have no quarrel with the fact that Christianity is an important part of his life, but it bothers me greatly that he considers it relevant to his candidacy for a public office. I must admit, though, that I am not surprised, since his stand on every social issue seems to be dictated by a fundamentalist reading of the Bible.

How does this differ from Iran or ISIS being governed by sharia law?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Civility costs nothing and buys everything."

uh huh

It's all PC BS. I'd rather hear the truth than listen to someone spout off euphemisms.

Things are politically correct because they are phrased in a way that does not cause unnecessary offense. You can lie or tell the truth in PC language, and you can lie or tell the truth in offensive language.

Both candidates have told lies, but Trump's are (in my opinion) much more numerous and divisive, and (without a doubt) more offensively stated.

But what scares me most about Trump is that the term "cult of the personality" fits him perfectly, and it's a term that has historically been applied to demagogues and dictators. Khizr Khan may be wrong that Trump will challenge our constitutional government as no president has, but I think it's too much of a risk for our nation to take.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, the next two weeks will be filled with politicians lobbying bombs at each other. NOBODY is going to look good, when the country is as divided as ever.

You're picking a fight when there really doesn't need to be one.

This is as foolish as debating whether George W. was disrespectful for swaying to the BHOTR at a memorial service.

Let it go.

Not to side track the thread, but I'm a liberal who didn't like Bush as a president. As a person, however, I think he really does have a good heart and the swaying thing was just him trying to show warmth in a really traeic situation. I think he really does hope both sides can come together in a respectful, empathetic way.

Also a liberal, and also impressed by Bush at the memorial, especially by the comment that we should stop judging the other side by their worst examples while judging our side by our best intentions. However, while Bush was trying to bring us together, Trump was spreading tales of people wanting a moment of silence for the Dallas cop-killer (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-claims-people-called-moment-silence-dallas/story?id=40549389). Aside from the fact that this appears to be another of his made up claims about "some people", he was doing exactly the judging by worst examples that Bush warned against, and trying his damnedest to rip us apart just as responsible people were searching for ways to bring us together.

I don't judge all Republicans by Trump, but it's too bad that their worst example is the presumptive nominee. In partial defense of Trump against that worst example charge, Gingrich, on Hannity's show, did a pretty good job of throwing away 1st Amendment religious freedom by advocating a test for all people of Muslim background, with deportation if they fail his test (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNtGGFJOmYs).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not looking at youtube but will add, the DC kid killed the other night thought love would solve everything too. It doesn't.

1. Not sure what "DC kid" you're referencing. Please provide a source.

2. FFS - just watch the video. If you can't even do that, don't comment.

THE END.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/police-identify-man-fatally-shot-in-bloomingdale/2016/07/11/4236fd1a-4754-11e6-90a8-fb84201e0645_story.html?hpid=hp_local-news_dcshoot-145pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Clinton referred to him in her speech today.

Didn't I hear him say he'd go to every corner of the country to work for Clinton and Democrats up and down the ballot?

I think she was expressing a degree of sharing of the killer's anger, not approval of his act. If there is one lesson we need to learn, it is to try to understand why others say things we disagree with, rather than unthinkingly attacking them.

According to the Pew Research Center (http://www.people-press.org/2016/07/07/2016-campaign-strong-interest-widespread-dissatisfaction/), the last time voters of either party were as discontented with their candidate was '92. The Republican voters that year had the same 40% satisfaction rate with GHW Bush as they have with Trump. Democratic voters have a 43% satisfaction rate with Hillary Clinton, but only had a 33% satisfaction rate with Bill Clinton back then. Amazingly, he won anyway -- with the help of Ross Perot.

I'm not sure what that tells us to expect this time, but it raises questions about the meme that these two are the most unpopular candidates in history

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is nonsense. No-one needs an assault rifle.

Go ahead and make a list of your possessions, and I'll tell you which ones you need and which ones you should give up because I don't approve of them.

And be sure to underline those that have no use other than to kill large numbers of people.

Anonymous wrote:Just saw him on C-Span. He said we must ALWAYS protect innocent life, no matter what.

I must agree.

He's a vegetarian? Or perhaps his concern extends to innocent cabbages as well?

I will be voting for Hillary, but part of me would like to see Gary Johnson win. There are a lot of things I, as a liberal, disagree with him about. Although I agree with him about legalizing marijuana, I suspect that won't happen, so it's probably not a big argument in his favor. The main thing about him that attracts me is that he is not hated by a large segment of the country as HRC and DJT are.

I don't know whether it is an unavoidable aspect of the two-party system that it tends to evolve toward the extremes, where each party is likely to nominate someone who is anathema to the other party, rather than choosing one who is likely to attract votes from the other side. Looking back, I see lots of examples to contradict this thesis: Obama was best known for his centrist speech at the 2004 convention. Romney had a centrist career as governor of Massachusetts, McCain was a "maverick" who sometimes collaborated with Dems, Kerry's military background was supposed to attract Republicans, GWB was a "compassionate conservative", Bill Clinton a "New Democrat", etc. So perhaps it's a fluke that Demagogue Donald hijacked the GOP in the same year the Dems are nominating a long-time target of GOP propaganda (whom I view as fairly centrist, by the way).

In any case, even if Gary Johnson turned out to be an incompetent, I think he might give us a vacation from the partisan warfare of recent times. Or maybe I'm being naively over-optimistic. In any case, his election is not likely. Nevertheless, I figured I'd toss these thoughts out to see how people react.

Warren's native American claim is either a charming bit of family lore or a silly mistake on a resume. In either case it is of little consequence and not worth the time Demagogue Donald has conned us into spending on it.

Trashy Trump is turning our whole political process into garbage. Worse, his self-obsession and his conviction that his "common-sense" overrides the Constitution are indications that his presidency might have more in common with leaders like Peron, Marcos, Franco, and Mussolini than with any of our prior presidents.