So what do you Brits make of Trump ?

[Stavros]

Some of you may have seen the footage of the 'speech' Mr Trump gave in Virginia, the one so rudely interrupted by a crying baby. It struck me when I read it this morning that this is typical Trump -say one thing one moment, then flip it shortly after.
As reported (you can see it on YouTube or in the press if you prefer)- Trump said: “I love babies ... I hear that baby crying and I like it. I like it. What a baby, what a beautiful baby." A few minutes later when the baby was still crying: “Actually I was only kidding,” he said. “You can get the baby out of here.” Of the mother misguided enough to have been reassured by his earlier words, he said, “I think she believed me that I love having a baby crying while I’m speaking. That’s OK. People don’t understand." So now it appears Trump has managed to insult mothers and babies. One wonders if there is anyone in America he hasn't slated yet.

The odd thing is that I was thinking suppose he had just given the order to drop a nuclear bomb on Mosul, and ten minutes later changed his mind -'only kidding! Can we call the guys back?' -and this afternoon I came across a story in which it is claimed-

"Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can't we use them," Scarborough said on his "Morning Joe" program. The claim is not verified by specific sources or Trump and the claim can be seen here-
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/03/trump...h-reports.html

[sukumvit boy]

Fucking psychopath, he's the best thing that ever happened to the Democratic Party.

[Stavros]

Most of today's papers focus on Trump's endorsement of Paul Ryan, which I believe he made reading word from word from a piece of paper -implying a lack of sincerity? Yet for me the two statements that are worthy of attention concern Japan and immigrants -
On Japan he said
“You know we have a treaty with Japan where if Japan is attacked, we have to use the full force and might of the United States,” Trump said. “If we’re attacked, Japan doesn’t have to do anything. They can sit home and watch Sony television, OK?”

Ending with what must be one of the cruellest of his tirades against US allies -
The Republican nominee also suggested that Japan might be “better off” with its own atomic weapons, and that he would consider, as president, ending the U.S. defense commitment to Japan and encouraging them to “go nuclear.”
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/201...ded-expensive/

The other comment is crude and the kind of thing you would expect to hear from a Klansman-
Trump said efforts to resettle Somali refugees — many of them in Minnesota — were “having the unintended consequence of creating an enclave of immigrants with high unemployment that is both stressing the state’s … safety net and creating a rich pool of potential recruiting targets for Islamist terror groups.”

He then listed several immigrants, mostly from Muslim majority countries — Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia, Syria, Uzbekistan and Yemen — who were arrested for conducting or threatening to carry out violent attacks, teaching bomb-making to recruits, and otherwise supporting terror groups.
“We’re dealing with animals,” he seethed.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/201...nimals-barred/

[Stavros]

You have to wonder if this man has any limits to his depraved ideas. Isn't this sort of thing illegal?

Donald Trump has been accused of a making an “assassination threat” against rival Hillary Clinton, plunging his presidential campaign into a fresh crisis.

The volatile Republican nominee was speaking at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, about the next president’s power to appoint supreme court justices. “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the second amendment,” said Trump, eliciting boos from the crowd.
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the second amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...cond-amendment

[blackchubby38]

You have to wonder if this man has any limits to his depraved ideas. Isn't this sort of thing illegal?

Donald Trump has been accused of a making an “assassination threat” against rival Hillary Clinton, plunging his presidential campaign into a fresh crisis.

The volatile Republican nominee was speaking at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, about the next president’s power to appoint supreme court justices. “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the second amendment,” said Trump, eliciting boos from the crowd.
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the second amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...cond-amendment

I can't believe I'm about to do this. But I'm going try to clarify what he was saying.

I think he was trying to say that the 2nd amendment people can prevent that from happening by voting for me. The problem is Trump is trying to be appear folksy so he is not using a teleprompter and going off the cuff with his speeches. He will say one thing, lose his train of thought, and then he says the first thing that pops into his head.

[broncofan]

You have to wonder if this man has any limits to his depraved ideas. Isn't this sort of thing illegal?

Donald Trump has been accused of a making an “assassination threat” against rival Hillary Clinton, plunging his presidential campaign into a fresh crisis.

The volatile Republican nominee was speaking at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, about the next president’s power to appoint supreme court justices. “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the second amendment,” said Trump, eliciting boos from the crowd.
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the second amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...cond-amendment

I think he was saying that his supporters could use weapons to stop Hillary, whether as a joke or not, it is very near the lines of illegality and in other countries would cross it. I follow a constitutional law scholar on twitter and he said his students would know that as dangerous as Trump's comments were they do not break the law because of Brandenburg v. Ohio. I pulled up the wikipedia version of the case as I do not feel like reading the whole thing, and at least the part I did read is that the speech has to be likely to incite IMMINENT violence for it to be punishable. He would have to say something that would make someone in his presence or at that moment watching a live feed begin to act I believe.

There is a good debate to be had about how far our first amendment goes in protecting many types of speech that are dangerous to law and order, civilized society, and that border on non-expressive conduct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio

[Stavros]

I think he was saying that his supporters could use weapons to stop Hillary, whether as a joke or not, it is very near the lines of illegality and in other countries would cross it. I follow a constitutional law scholar on twitter and he said his students would know that as dangerous as Trump's comments were they do not break the law because of Brandenburg v. Ohio. I pulled up the wikipedia version of the case as I do not feel like reading the whole thing, and at least the part I did read is that the speech has to be likely to incite IMMINENT violence for it to be punishable. He would have to say something that would make someone in his presence or at that moment watching a live feed begin to act I believe.

There is a good debate to be had about how far our first amendment goes in protecting many types of speech that are dangerous to law and order, civilized society, and that border on non-expressive conduct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio

I take the legal point, and without prejudice ask, isn't this just too subtle for the context in which Trump made his remark? And too subtle for Trump as well as people listening to what he says? As an outsider when I hear Americans these days talk about their '2nd Amendment rights' I tend to see them walking around with guns, with the intention of using them in 'certain' situations, though not sure what they are...

[Stavros]

I can't believe I'm about to do this. But I'm going try to clarify what he was saying.

I think he was trying to say that the 2nd amendment people can prevent that from happening by voting for me. The problem is Trump is trying to be appear folksy so he is not using a teleprompter and going off the cuff with his speeches. He will say one thing, lose his train of thought, and then he says the first thing that pops into his head.

Set aside the gun issue and the fact that Hillary Clinton was quite specific in her Conference speech that she does not advocate precisely what Trump says, this is a key passage: If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks.

As I understand it Supreme Court Justices are nominated by the President, and appointed by Congress -two branches of Government maintaining the integrity of the third, so Hillary Clinton can nominate whom she wants but Congress -elected by the people- can do something about it -and in the past Presidential nominees have been rejected. It is Trump's ignorance of the political process that is as important as his implied threat to justify violence to change something the people don't like.

[broncofan]

I take the legal point, and without prejudice ask, isn't this just too subtle for the context in which Trump made his remark? .

Yes. It is just one of those situations when legal standards seem meaningless because they strive for exactness when there is something intuitive about the wrongness of what Trump did. The most over-quoted statement by one of our Justices is about how he knows what is pornography...he said, "you know it when you see it".

If you pay attention, you know when someone is being reckless with other people's lives and futures...no matter where any of these lines are drawn by legislatures or founding fathers.

[broncofan]

Although it may not be necessary I do want to briefly address the alleged ambiguous-ness of Trump's comments. He said, "if she gets elected, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know." So, the beginning premise is that she has already been elected.

Stavros is correct that Congress gets to approve of Supreme Court Justice nominees. In his conditional statement, the elective process involving the public has already passed. He said the second amendment people can still do something in the case that she has already been elected and I think his statement loses its ambiguity about what it is second amendment people can do.