Hey Portland - you might get what you deserve.

[The Grand Nudger]

Nope. I'm not a mind reader. It's not clear at all to me that he was talking about violence.

Doesn't have to, under our laws, as I keep reminding you.

[Irreligious Atheist]

I'll give IA partial credit on the "Trump didn't call all Mexicans rapists." But only partial credit because the actual context isn't much better. The relevant excerpt from his Presidential Announcement speech:

When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

Technically not all Mexicans... just a high enough proportion of Mexican immigrants that he's willing to paint the group as a whole with that one brush. Not that much better, to be honest. Also, looking at it again, it's like he recently rewatched Scarface and decided that the way they portrayed the Mariel Boatlift is representative of how all immigration works.

As for the point about Charlottesville, I'm not even going to give you any of the damn faint praise I gave for the thing about Mexicans. Here's Shaun taking on the controversy regarding Trump's defense of the Torch Rally:




TL;DW: Even the protesters at the Torch Rally were white supremacists. They were just less feral than the rioters at the rally the day after. And here's some pretty comprehensive footage of the torch rally so you can see that Shaun's not just cherry-picking:



It may be a bit sensationalised (at one point, they claim 500 people were there, but later estimates show about half that number at most) but if you can find any of these Trump-approved Fine People on the Pro-Lee Statue side who aren't chanting alt-right slogans, I'd like to find them, because I've tried and found nothing.

Yes. Trump's comments on illegal Mexican immigrants were definitely foul and wildly inappropriate. Still, they were bad enough comments that people shouldn't need to misrepresent them by just saying Trump called Mexicans rapists, and that's that. What he said was bad enough in itself. Politically though, Hispanic voters voted for Trump a lot more than they did for Romney, so many of them didn't seem to mind his comments, or maybe they even respected his strength and bluntness when giving those comments. Either way, sadly, it was a winning political message, with both whites, blacks and latinos. Trump did better among both blacks and latinos than other recent Republican nominees.

I don't believe Trump was referring to the tiki torch rally when he said there were fine people on both sides. He disavowed white supremacy, and like the guy in the video said, sure, the news reported on that, but people like Don Lemon have played that clip of Trump's over and over 100 times, and every time they play it now, they exclude the part about him saying he doesn't mean the white supremacists or neo nazis. That is selective editing by the media, and the media is distorting what is said, which is not really any better than lying. The media is pushing fake news. Now, do I think Trump is a racist? Sure I do. He's plenty racist. That doesn't mean he was dumb enough to openly praise neo nazis though, I don't think. If Trump was trying to imply that both sides were equally bad, then I would disagree with that, because someone did die that day, but the anti-Robert E Lee statue people were partaking in plenty of violence that day themselves, and they deserve to be shit on for that imo. I think it's fair to say that both sides were pretty shit that day, but I don't have an issue with someone showing up because they wanted the statue of Robert E Lee to stay up, and I don't have an issue with people defending the Confederate Battle flag. I consider it to be a symbol of heritage in large part.

---

Nope. I'm not a mind reader. It's not clear at all to me that he was talking about violence.

Doesn't have to, under our laws, as I keep reminding you.

I'm pretty sure every single politician ever in the history of earth has used the word fight many times in speeches.

[The Grand Nudger]

Good for them, and?

[The Architect Of Fate]

He defended white nationalists and he called Mexicans rapists. No matter how you try and spin it.

[Rev. Rye]

I don't believe Trump was referring to the tiki torch rally when he said there were fine people on both sides. He disavowed white supremacy, and like the guy in the video said, sure, the news reported on that, but people like Don Lemon have played that clip of Trump's over and over 100 times, and every time they play it now, they exclude the part about him saying he doesn't mean the white supremacists or neo nazis.

Here's a transcript of the press conference in question, and here are the remarks specifically (one annotation by me in italics, and bold to emphasise the point is also mine):

: "No, no. There were people in that rally -- and I looked the night before -- if you look, there were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I’m sure in that group there were some bad ones. The following day it looked like they had some rough, bad people -- neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them.

"But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest, and very legally protest -- because, I don’t know if you know, they had a permit. (Note by Rye: the torch rally was an impromptu demonstration and, as a result, they did not, in fact, have a permit to hold the torch rally.) The other group didn’t have a permit. So I only tell you this: There are two sides to a story. I thought what took place was a horrible moment for our country -- a horrible moment.  But there are two sides to the country.

He literally referred to the Tiki Torch Rally when asked to explain who the "fine people" were. And, if there were innocent people protesting in good faith, they must have been so quiet that they might not as well have been there.

[Irreligious Atheist]

I don't believe Trump was referring to the tiki torch rally when he said there were fine people on both sides. He disavowed white supremacy, and like the guy in the video said, sure, the news reported on that, but people like Don Lemon have played that clip of Trump's over and over 100 times, and every time they play it now, they exclude the part about him saying he doesn't mean the white supremacists or neo nazis.

Here's a transcript of the press conference in question, and here are the remarks specifically (one annotation by me in italics, and bold to emphasise the point is also mine):

: "No, no. There were people in that rally -- and I looked the night before -- if you look, there were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I’m sure in that group there were some bad ones. The following day it looked like they had some rough, bad people -- neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them.

"But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest, and very legally protest -- because, I don’t know if you know, they had a permit. (Note by Rye: the torch rally was an impromptu demonstration and, as a result, they did not, in fact, have a permit to hold the torch rally.) The other group didn’t have a permit. So I only tell you this: There are two sides to a story. I thought what took place was a horrible moment for our country -- a horrible moment.  But there are two sides to the country.

He literally referred to the Tiki Torch Rally when asked to explain who the "fine people" were. And, if there were innocent people protesting in good faith, they must have been so quiet that they might not as well have been there.

If he was talking about the tiki torch rally, then I misunderstood and I would withdraw my comments I made about that. The tiki torchers were certainly partaking in something that seemed pretty messed up and ugly. I was under the impression Trump was referring to the day time, especially when he said both sides were to blame, because during the hours of the day we saw much violence coming from both sides, and of course the one lady was killed after being run down by the car. And why does the media continue to selectively edit the clip so they edit out the part where he says not the white supremacist or neo nazis? If he was clearly talking about them in the first place, then the media should just play the full clip and explain how Trump is being dishonest. The media are making themselves look untrustworthy with their selective editing, and that kind of dishonest nonsense is why Trump's fanbase rightly said, the media are liars and we're not going to trust them, but they went the opposite way and decided to trust everything Trump said.

[The Architect Of Fate]

More excuses

[Irreligious Atheist]

More excuses

Excuses? I literally said I was wrong. I like when I'm proven wrong about something, because now I have a more correct understanding of things.

[The Architect Of Fate]

That's not part of your comment I was referring too and no you show the opposite.