...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* The bottom line is that Benghazi should never have been investigated in the first place beyond what the State Dept. did. There is no there there. It was a sad situation, but not any more so than many other sad deaths that have occurred in service to the country. This issue may be red meat for the hard core Clinton haters, but they don't need Benghazi to sustain their hatred.
* The Beat Hillary Committee . . . sorry . . . this seventh or eighth (lost count) Benghazi Committee is costing the tax payer another 6 Million dollars. The Greedy Old Plutocrats who are using it merely to keep their base charged up should be charged the cost of this Committee as well as the six or seven previous witch hunts . . . I mean investigations.
* Two things. The basis for this investigation should have been dispelled after our most senior diplomat Emeritus, Ryan Crocker, concluded that the death of ambassador Stevens was "an occupational risk". Crocker has served under three presidents, and has a far better grasp of the job than a handful of partisan politicians. After the admission by the GOP's leading candidate for the House speakership, Kevin McCarthy, that this committee had been created to "lower Hillary Clinton's poll numbers", you would think that the Republican leadership would have dissolved it out of pure embarrassment. But, it doesn't seem possible to embarrass these people, as evidenced by the ascendency of Donald Trump as their presidential candidate.
* One has to have a conscience to be embarrassed.
* I call out a waste of time when I see it in Congress, this is a political fishing expedition. You want real transparency then open all the financial records of the military and the weapons manufacturers!
* Little known fact: The Republican controlled House Armed Services Committee, followed by the House Intelligence Committee, both found "no wrong doing" on the parts of Ms. Clinton or the Obama Administration. So, what is giving legs to the House "Beat Hillary Committee"?
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‘It’s been a secretive, bungled investigation': Conservative group goes after Benghazi panel
By Elise Viebeck, March 24, 2016
The House Select Committee on Benghazi has faced plenty of criticism from the left. Now it’s taking some heat from the right.
Judicial Watch, a conservative government-transparency group, argues the committee has “bungled” its investigation of the 2012 attacks in Libya by refusing to hold more public hearings and release documents it has collected over the past two years.
Tom Fitton, the group’s president, said the panel is conducting its business mostly in secret, causing it to miss opportunities to hold former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration accountable for mistakes in their Libya policy. Fitton argued that the committee’s approach has also lent ammunition to Democratic critics who see it as a political tool for Republicans.
“They have this almost petty approach to transparency that is at odds with the public interest,” Fitton said of the committee in an interview. “It’s not supposed to be a grand-jury-style investigation that the public can’t be privy to. There’s got to be at least some public forum for gathering testimony and evidence, and that hasn’t happened here to any significant degree. … Many folks who have been watching it are just aghast at the approach the committee has taken toward educating the public about what it is doing.”
The group’s criticism highlights a little-known disagreement on the right over how best to conduct a probe related to Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner. Judicial Watch’s comments also point to a source of tension for the Benghazi committee, which is facing pressure to conclude its work before the height of election season.
Judicial Watch is conducting its own investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while at the State Department and has also probed the department’s response to the 2012 Benghazi attacks that left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
A spokesman for the panel’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), said the investigation has been lengthy because the Obama administration has stonewalled the panel on document requests.
He dismissed Judicial Watch as a political organization seeking to raise money with its attacks.
“Armchair quarterbacks and partisan Democrats seeking to undermine Chairman Gowdy’s thorough, fact-centered investigation are nothing new,” the spokesman wrote in an email. “From the beginning, many on the right criticized the committee for not forcing the facts to fit their preferred narrative, and Democrats did everything they could to protect their preferred candidate for president.”
The spokesman also promised a “virtually unprecedented level of transparency” once the final report and witness transcripts are released. The panel has combed through thousands of documents and interviewed more than 80 witnesses in private since May 2014. It has released one 15-page report on its progress and held four public hearings.
Judicial Watch’s criticism is perhaps not surprising given its history. Though the group is mostly aligned with conservative causes, its push for less government secrecy has made it an uneasy ally for Republicans since its founding in 1994.
In 2002, the group sued then-Vice President Richard B. Cheney and Halliburton for alleged fraud, saying the company overstated its revenue under Cheney’s leadership. Around the same time, it teamed up with the Sierra Club to sue for records related to an energy task force run by Cheney. The group has included Republicans on its annual list of “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” and cheered their legal defeats.
Recently, Judicial Watch has seen success in its effort to use Freedom of Information Act requests and litigation to publish documents related to Clinton’s tenure at the State Department. A federal judge ruled Feb. 23 that it can move forward with depositions and discovery about Clinton’s email practices as secretary of state.
Fitton said both political parties have been “terribly cynical” in their handling of the Benghazi investigation, but he singled out Republicans for “timidity” in their approach.
“It’s been a secretive, bungled investigation,” he said. “The obstruction of the administration has to be taken into account, but it hasn’t been handled as it should have been.”
Defenders of the committee said Gowdy has not manipulated the process to harm Clinton and that Fitton’s comments support that.
“This investigation is about a terrorist attack and the four Americans we lost and getting their families and all Americans the truth,” Gowdy’s spokesman said.
“When its complete, everyone will be able to read the report for themselves, plus the transcripts of more than 80 witness interviews,” he said. “The committee won’t apologize for being unhelpful to any outside organization’s fundraising efforts in the meantime.”
Gowdy’s closed-door approach may come from his background as a federal prosecutor.
Eleanor Hill, the staff director for the joint congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and also a former federal prosecutor, said it’s not unusual to keep transcripts private in a criminal investigation.
“It is true that with law enforcement prosecutors and the FBI or any other federal investigative agencies, they generally do not release interviews or any discussions, reports or memos while the investigation is still pending,” said Hill, now a partner with King & Spalding in Washington.
At the same time, she said, public hearings and regular staff reports were key components of her work on the 9/11 investigation.
“The point of having public hearings is to let the public know what is going on and to give the witnesses a chance to air their side of the story,” Hill said. “I think it is a good idea to have them.”
The criticism from Judicial Watch comes against the backdrop of persistent, partisan squabbling within the committee over when certain documents from the investigation should be released.
Republicans have said they will release witness interview transcripts with their final report but not before, arguing that to do so would allow future witnesses to prepare answers to the committee’s questions in advance.
Democrats, meanwhile, have promised to release key transcripts in their possession, claiming that Republicans are making false statements about “breakthroughs” in their investigation that would be disproved by witnesses’ testimony. In response to this, Republicans placed new limits on Democrats’ access to transcripts.
In countering the criticism from Judicial Watch, the GOP argued that Democrats’ desire for the documents to be released backfired, since a transcript they published in late October is now referenced in a lawsuit from Judicial Watch against the State Department.
“The lawsuit targeting Hillary Clinton draws heavily from an interview transcript selectively leaked by committee Democrats,” the Gowdy spokesman said, adding, “That’s certainly ironic.”
Paul Bell, a spokesman for committee’s Democrats, said the GOP is missing the point.
“Democrats released the full transcript to correct the record from Republicans’ inaccurate descriptions about what the witness had said,” the spokesman said in a statement. “The release of the full transcript did what we intended it to do — correct the record. It’s as simple as that.”
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Thursday, March 31, 2016
"Thus, in effect, the Court held that lawmakers could potentially make abortion less safe for many women who seek it." Typical!
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New ‘Pro-Life’ Law Could Literally Kill Women Who Attempt To Obtain An Abortion
By Ian Millhiser, March 29, 2016
A new Utah law will subject women to medically unnecessary risk in order to ward off a problem that almost certainly does not exist. It makes a significant new incursion on what remains of Roe v. Wade — at a time when the Supreme Court is signaling that anti-abortion state lawmakers have moved too far. And it will likely either drive up the cost of abortions or cause many clinics to stop performing certain kinds of abortion because they will need to recruit new specialist physicians in order to continue serving all women.
The law, colorfully labeled the “Protecting Unborn Children Amendments,” requires abortion providers who perform “an abortion of an unborn child who is at least 20 weeks gestational age” to administer an anesthetic or analgesic to eliminate or alleviate organic pain to the unborn child.” The law’s supporters claim that human fetuses are capable of feeling pain around the twentieth week of pregnancy, and that this bill will help eliminate that pain.
This claim about fetal pain, however, is scientifically dubious at best. According to a paper published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, scans for electrical activity in fetal brains suggest that “the capacity for functional pain perception in preterm neonates probably does not exist before 29 or 30 weeks.” As the same paper explains, fetal pain awareness “requires functional thalamocortical connections,” yet the brain fibers necessary to allow such connections do not start appearing until “23 to 30 weeks’ gestational age.”
Nevertheless, anti-abortion lawmakers frequently cite the idea that fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks to justify restrictions on reproductive choice.
Utah law typically prohibits abortions around 22 weeks into a pregnancy, when the fetus is deemed viable. Thus, that state’s new law will primarily impact women who seek abortions during a narrow two-week period.
Yet the new law will subject those women to considerable risk. According to the Associated Press, the law will require doctors to either administer general anesthesia or “a heavy does of narcotics” to women impacted by the law. In rare cases, that could lead to a woman’s death. Though anesthesia-related deaths are in decline, approximately 34 patients per million died from anesthetics in the 1990s and 2000s.
And, while deaths are rare, serious complications ranging from nerve damage to “malignant hyperthermia” can result from anesthesia. Anesthesia can also cause long-lasting mental defects. According to Scientific American, studies “suggest that a high enough dose of anesthesia can in fact raise the risk of delirium after surgery,” and that “even if the confusion dissipates, attention and memory can languish for months and, in some cases, years.” (Though it should be noted that these mental side effects are especially likely to occur in elderly patients that are past childbearing age.)
As one doctor told the AP, “you never give those medicines if you don’t have to.” Now, however, thanks to this Utah law, doctors will have to.
That is, of course, unless the courts strike down the Utah law. Under Roe, states gain greater authority to regulate — or even ban — abortions as a pregnancy progresses. Yet, even in the latest stages of pregnancy, the health of a woman seeking an abortion has primacy. Abortion is always permitted “where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.”
Since Roe, however, the Supreme Court has carved away much of the right protected by that decision. Most notably, in Gonzales v. Carhardt, the Court upheld a ban on a method of abortion that was viewed by many doctors and medical associations as the safest method “for women with certain pregnancy-related conditions, such as placenta previa and accreta, and for women carrying fetuses with certain abnormalities, such as severe hydrocephalus.” Thus, in effect, the Court held that lawmakers could potentially make abortion less safe for many women who seek it.
Even after Gonzales, however, the Utah law is a significant escalation in the war against Roe. After Gonzales, a woman who sought an abortion was still likely to receive a procedure that, in their doctor’s medical opinion, was the safest legal option — even if the single safest procedure was no longer legal. The majority opinion in Gonzales also claimed that “there is medical and scientific uncertainty” regarding whether to procedure at issue in that case was ever the safest medical option.
The Utah law, by contrast, imposes additional risk on women seeking abortions, despite the fact that there does not appear to be any medical benefits to subjecting a woman to unnecessary anesthesia or narcotics. It is as if Utah required women to consume a small dose of strychnine before they can receive an abortion. If the dose is small enough, it probably won’t kill the woman, but the state would still be exposing women to a very dangerous chemical without any health-related reason to do so.
...................................................................................................................................................................
New ‘Pro-Life’ Law Could Literally Kill Women Who Attempt To Obtain An Abortion
By Ian Millhiser, March 29, 2016
A new Utah law will subject women to medically unnecessary risk in order to ward off a problem that almost certainly does not exist. It makes a significant new incursion on what remains of Roe v. Wade — at a time when the Supreme Court is signaling that anti-abortion state lawmakers have moved too far. And it will likely either drive up the cost of abortions or cause many clinics to stop performing certain kinds of abortion because they will need to recruit new specialist physicians in order to continue serving all women.
The law, colorfully labeled the “Protecting Unborn Children Amendments,” requires abortion providers who perform “an abortion of an unborn child who is at least 20 weeks gestational age” to administer an anesthetic or analgesic to eliminate or alleviate organic pain to the unborn child.” The law’s supporters claim that human fetuses are capable of feeling pain around the twentieth week of pregnancy, and that this bill will help eliminate that pain.
This claim about fetal pain, however, is scientifically dubious at best. According to a paper published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, scans for electrical activity in fetal brains suggest that “the capacity for functional pain perception in preterm neonates probably does not exist before 29 or 30 weeks.” As the same paper explains, fetal pain awareness “requires functional thalamocortical connections,” yet the brain fibers necessary to allow such connections do not start appearing until “23 to 30 weeks’ gestational age.”
Nevertheless, anti-abortion lawmakers frequently cite the idea that fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks to justify restrictions on reproductive choice.
Utah law typically prohibits abortions around 22 weeks into a pregnancy, when the fetus is deemed viable. Thus, that state’s new law will primarily impact women who seek abortions during a narrow two-week period.
Yet the new law will subject those women to considerable risk. According to the Associated Press, the law will require doctors to either administer general anesthesia or “a heavy does of narcotics” to women impacted by the law. In rare cases, that could lead to a woman’s death. Though anesthesia-related deaths are in decline, approximately 34 patients per million died from anesthetics in the 1990s and 2000s.
And, while deaths are rare, serious complications ranging from nerve damage to “malignant hyperthermia” can result from anesthesia. Anesthesia can also cause long-lasting mental defects. According to Scientific American, studies “suggest that a high enough dose of anesthesia can in fact raise the risk of delirium after surgery,” and that “even if the confusion dissipates, attention and memory can languish for months and, in some cases, years.” (Though it should be noted that these mental side effects are especially likely to occur in elderly patients that are past childbearing age.)
As one doctor told the AP, “you never give those medicines if you don’t have to.” Now, however, thanks to this Utah law, doctors will have to.
That is, of course, unless the courts strike down the Utah law. Under Roe, states gain greater authority to regulate — or even ban — abortions as a pregnancy progresses. Yet, even in the latest stages of pregnancy, the health of a woman seeking an abortion has primacy. Abortion is always permitted “where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.”
Since Roe, however, the Supreme Court has carved away much of the right protected by that decision. Most notably, in Gonzales v. Carhardt, the Court upheld a ban on a method of abortion that was viewed by many doctors and medical associations as the safest method “for women with certain pregnancy-related conditions, such as placenta previa and accreta, and for women carrying fetuses with certain abnormalities, such as severe hydrocephalus.” Thus, in effect, the Court held that lawmakers could potentially make abortion less safe for many women who seek it.
Even after Gonzales, however, the Utah law is a significant escalation in the war against Roe. After Gonzales, a woman who sought an abortion was still likely to receive a procedure that, in their doctor’s medical opinion, was the safest legal option — even if the single safest procedure was no longer legal. The majority opinion in Gonzales also claimed that “there is medical and scientific uncertainty” regarding whether to procedure at issue in that case was ever the safest medical option.
The Utah law, by contrast, imposes additional risk on women seeking abortions, despite the fact that there does not appear to be any medical benefits to subjecting a woman to unnecessary anesthesia or narcotics. It is as if Utah required women to consume a small dose of strychnine before they can receive an abortion. If the dose is small enough, it probably won’t kill the woman, but the state would still be exposing women to a very dangerous chemical without any health-related reason to do so.
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Another one of Trump's flip-floppers.
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COMMENTS:
* So what did Williamson say that wasn't true. Just because you Trump people refuse to see or understand it doesn't make it a "hit" piece. He told the the truth about what Trump has said, as opposed to what he's done - or been accused of. Are you suggesting we all ignore any accusations until - and if - he's been found guilty in a court of Law? These FACTS are public knowledge. BTW, I agree with Williamson; a guy who has to brag about his junk on national TV has some deep-seated insecurities.
* What's unworthy about this article? Is it lies? or do you simply dislike the fact that Trump - who has attacked and insulted every other candidate in the GOP primary is now taking a dose of his own medicine?
* i agree on this completely. As I always do with KDW except for one teeny little thing. "Trump is of two minds" . . .he barely has half of one and it's obvious he's out of that one as well. Trump is a grotesque fake. We all know that. HE is an incredibly insecure, petulant man-child who argues and debates with all the aplomb of a drunken high school senior on a mechanical bull--but all that aside. He's just a slime ball when it comes to his personal and public demeanor. . .whether in business or entertainment. But if he is elected. It will be another historic first. His will be the first Presidential Portrait to be done on Black Velvet with Naked Ladies dressed as angels surround him. He's just that classy.
* If this is 'tasteless', as Joshua claims, that is only because Mr. Trump's actions are so tasteless, fraudulent, etc., etc., and telling the truth about them is unpleasant for sycophants. Kevin is simply telling the truth.
* He quoted Trump's own words. Don't blame Williamson for Trump's weirdness and his willingness to lay it out in public.
* Excellent piece, Kevin. The little hamster wheels in the Trumpbots heads will be spinning off the shafts trying to understand both the irony and truth of this one. Of course, their only response will be, " New low, NR. GOPe, establishment, blah, blah, blah!" Keep up the good fight, please. You and a few others seem to be the only ones left not to have gone over the edge for this cretin Trump.
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Deport Melania Trump
She is, literally, the poster girl for his corrupt, H-1B-exploiting agency.
By Kevin D. Williamson, March 11, 2016
Donald Trump cannot quite decide what he thinks about the H-1B visa program, under which certain high-skilled foreign workers are permitted to work in the United States. Silicon Valley executives love it, and Silicon Valley worker bees hate it, charging that it is used to undercut domestic wages.
Because Donald Trump is a man who knows nothing about almost anything, his mind (as John B. Anderson once said of Jimmy Carter) is “like a seat cushion that bears the imprint of the last person who sat in it.” In the last debate, Trump decided, out of nowhere, that he was reversing his formerly restrictive view of the H-1B visa program, that our high-tech businesses needed those foreign workers, the domestic supply being insufficient. About five minutes later, having been informed that abruptly reversing himself on his key issue was bound to cost him a few votes — one suspects that Ann Coulter was on the verge of tears or worse — Trump announced that he was reversing his reversal.
It is natural that Trump is of two minds on the question. There is the third Mrs. Trump to consider.
Donald Trump, a man whose sexual insecurities are such that he feels the need to reassure the republic that his tiny little fingers are not proportional to his genitals — Lincoln versus Douglas this ain’t — and to boast in his memoirs about his sex life (“Oftentimes when I was sleeping with one of the top women in the world I would say to myself, thinking about me as a boy from Queens, ‘Can you believe what I am getting?’”), invested in beauty pageants and a modeling agency. If you are thinking that sounds like a pretty transparent ploy to put himself in the company of economically subordinate women, the fact is that his third/current wife is a former client of the Trump modeling agency, a Slovene by the name of Melanija Knavs, known to the world now as Melania Trump. The third/current Mrs. Trump came to these United States on an H-1B visa.
Given Trump’s habitual disregard for the law and for basic decency in his business affairs, it will come as no surprise that there is evidence coming to light that Trump Model Management is a serial abuser of the H-1B visa program, that it lied to modeling recruits overseas about their earnings in the United States while raiding such wages as they did earn with undisclosed fees (the structural parallels with prostitution-trafficking rings are too obvious to belabor), and, more to the point as a criminal question, lied to U.S. immigration authorities about those wages, too.
Being married to Donald Trump is, as it turns out, another temporary job Americans just won’t do. The H-1B program is structured in such as way as to (theoretically, if not in practice) prevent firms from simply bringing in foreign help on the cheap to avoid paying prevailing U.S. wages. The idea is that when companies that need specialized, highly skilled workers, or those with unusual endowments, they should be able to bring them in relatively easily from abroad when they cannot locate the workers they need at home. One of the safeguards is the requirement that firms disclose the wages of their foreign workers, so that these can be compared with typical domestic wages in the field.
In the case of Alexia Palmer, a Jamaican model recruited by Trump and brought to the United States, the agency told her — and federal immigration authorities — that she would be paid $75,000 a year, a figure that seems to have been the agency’s go-to figure. Given that the “prevailing wage” was calculated at $45,000 a year, immigration authorities would not have any reason to believe that Palmer was simply being brought in to undercut domestic rivals financially.
But, in reality, she was paid about $10,000 a year on average.
Under federal law, the requirement that H-1B workers be paid what is claimed on their immigration paperwork falls either on an employer (in the case of a worker with a full-time commitment to one firm) or, as in the case of models such as Palmer, their agencies, in this case Trump Model Management. New York immigration lawyer Jeffrey Feinbloom tells CNN: “It seems pretty clear to me that there was a violation . . . and a pretty egregious violation.” That would not be surprising: The program has a long and sometimes shocking history of abuse.
Trump likes to proclaim that our inability to enforce our immigration law is an existential threat, like terrorism: “Either we have a country or we don’t,” he says. When it comes to such threats, Trump’s tough-guy posturing encompasses all sorts of things: leaning on private companies and using the law to penalize them if they will not toe his line on immigration, violating the rights of U.S. citizens, and, famously, his pledging to treat the families of terrorism suspects like terrorists themselves, to be “very hard on the families.” Trump has publicly stated that — his words here — “a young and beautiful piece of ass” is a shield against all criticism. But the third/current Mrs. Trump is literally the poster girl for a modeling agency that is credibly accused of systematically abusing the very immigration laws whose robust enforcement is the purported raison d’être of his presidential campaign. If immigration abuse is an existential threat and getting tough on the families is our new national ethos, there’s only one conclusion.
Deport Melania Trump.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* So what did Williamson say that wasn't true. Just because you Trump people refuse to see or understand it doesn't make it a "hit" piece. He told the the truth about what Trump has said, as opposed to what he's done - or been accused of. Are you suggesting we all ignore any accusations until - and if - he's been found guilty in a court of Law? These FACTS are public knowledge. BTW, I agree with Williamson; a guy who has to brag about his junk on national TV has some deep-seated insecurities.
* What's unworthy about this article? Is it lies? or do you simply dislike the fact that Trump - who has attacked and insulted every other candidate in the GOP primary is now taking a dose of his own medicine?
* i agree on this completely. As I always do with KDW except for one teeny little thing. "Trump is of two minds" . . .he barely has half of one and it's obvious he's out of that one as well. Trump is a grotesque fake. We all know that. HE is an incredibly insecure, petulant man-child who argues and debates with all the aplomb of a drunken high school senior on a mechanical bull--but all that aside. He's just a slime ball when it comes to his personal and public demeanor. . .whether in business or entertainment. But if he is elected. It will be another historic first. His will be the first Presidential Portrait to be done on Black Velvet with Naked Ladies dressed as angels surround him. He's just that classy.
* If this is 'tasteless', as Joshua claims, that is only because Mr. Trump's actions are so tasteless, fraudulent, etc., etc., and telling the truth about them is unpleasant for sycophants. Kevin is simply telling the truth.
* He quoted Trump's own words. Don't blame Williamson for Trump's weirdness and his willingness to lay it out in public.
* Excellent piece, Kevin. The little hamster wheels in the Trumpbots heads will be spinning off the shafts trying to understand both the irony and truth of this one. Of course, their only response will be, " New low, NR. GOPe, establishment, blah, blah, blah!" Keep up the good fight, please. You and a few others seem to be the only ones left not to have gone over the edge for this cretin Trump.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Deport Melania Trump
She is, literally, the poster girl for his corrupt, H-1B-exploiting agency.
By Kevin D. Williamson, March 11, 2016
Donald Trump cannot quite decide what he thinks about the H-1B visa program, under which certain high-skilled foreign workers are permitted to work in the United States. Silicon Valley executives love it, and Silicon Valley worker bees hate it, charging that it is used to undercut domestic wages.
Because Donald Trump is a man who knows nothing about almost anything, his mind (as John B. Anderson once said of Jimmy Carter) is “like a seat cushion that bears the imprint of the last person who sat in it.” In the last debate, Trump decided, out of nowhere, that he was reversing his formerly restrictive view of the H-1B visa program, that our high-tech businesses needed those foreign workers, the domestic supply being insufficient. About five minutes later, having been informed that abruptly reversing himself on his key issue was bound to cost him a few votes — one suspects that Ann Coulter was on the verge of tears or worse — Trump announced that he was reversing his reversal.
It is natural that Trump is of two minds on the question. There is the third Mrs. Trump to consider.
Donald Trump, a man whose sexual insecurities are such that he feels the need to reassure the republic that his tiny little fingers are not proportional to his genitals — Lincoln versus Douglas this ain’t — and to boast in his memoirs about his sex life (“Oftentimes when I was sleeping with one of the top women in the world I would say to myself, thinking about me as a boy from Queens, ‘Can you believe what I am getting?’”), invested in beauty pageants and a modeling agency. If you are thinking that sounds like a pretty transparent ploy to put himself in the company of economically subordinate women, the fact is that his third/current wife is a former client of the Trump modeling agency, a Slovene by the name of Melanija Knavs, known to the world now as Melania Trump. The third/current Mrs. Trump came to these United States on an H-1B visa.
Given Trump’s habitual disregard for the law and for basic decency in his business affairs, it will come as no surprise that there is evidence coming to light that Trump Model Management is a serial abuser of the H-1B visa program, that it lied to modeling recruits overseas about their earnings in the United States while raiding such wages as they did earn with undisclosed fees (the structural parallels with prostitution-trafficking rings are too obvious to belabor), and, more to the point as a criminal question, lied to U.S. immigration authorities about those wages, too.
Being married to Donald Trump is, as it turns out, another temporary job Americans just won’t do. The H-1B program is structured in such as way as to (theoretically, if not in practice) prevent firms from simply bringing in foreign help on the cheap to avoid paying prevailing U.S. wages. The idea is that when companies that need specialized, highly skilled workers, or those with unusual endowments, they should be able to bring them in relatively easily from abroad when they cannot locate the workers they need at home. One of the safeguards is the requirement that firms disclose the wages of their foreign workers, so that these can be compared with typical domestic wages in the field.
In the case of Alexia Palmer, a Jamaican model recruited by Trump and brought to the United States, the agency told her — and federal immigration authorities — that she would be paid $75,000 a year, a figure that seems to have been the agency’s go-to figure. Given that the “prevailing wage” was calculated at $45,000 a year, immigration authorities would not have any reason to believe that Palmer was simply being brought in to undercut domestic rivals financially.
But, in reality, she was paid about $10,000 a year on average.
Under federal law, the requirement that H-1B workers be paid what is claimed on their immigration paperwork falls either on an employer (in the case of a worker with a full-time commitment to one firm) or, as in the case of models such as Palmer, their agencies, in this case Trump Model Management. New York immigration lawyer Jeffrey Feinbloom tells CNN: “It seems pretty clear to me that there was a violation . . . and a pretty egregious violation.” That would not be surprising: The program has a long and sometimes shocking history of abuse.
Trump likes to proclaim that our inability to enforce our immigration law is an existential threat, like terrorism: “Either we have a country or we don’t,” he says. When it comes to such threats, Trump’s tough-guy posturing encompasses all sorts of things: leaning on private companies and using the law to penalize them if they will not toe his line on immigration, violating the rights of U.S. citizens, and, famously, his pledging to treat the families of terrorism suspects like terrorists themselves, to be “very hard on the families.” Trump has publicly stated that — his words here — “a young and beautiful piece of ass” is a shield against all criticism. But the third/current Mrs. Trump is literally the poster girl for a modeling agency that is credibly accused of systematically abusing the very immigration laws whose robust enforcement is the purported raison d’être of his presidential campaign. If immigration abuse is an existential threat and getting tough on the families is our new national ethos, there’s only one conclusion.
Deport Melania Trump.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Tweet and re-tweet-- nothing like setting policy in 140 characters.
....................................................................................
"This is a wink-wink/nudge-nudge to the idea that illegal abortion mills or perhaps even back alleys are to be accepted as alternatives to legal abortions ..." Trump, you're an a**hole!
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COMMENTS:
* If you are offered a choice between malicious, or incompetent to describe a situation, normally the simplest and most accurate is incompetent. In this case (as in others with t.rump) I'd go with incompetent.
* Considering both his fear of pen bombs and his inability to speak for any length of time without saying something either comically unhinged or mind-numbingly stupid, at what point does Trump completely abandon debates and interviews and campaign exclusively on Twitter? Most presidential candidates get better with practice. Not our boy Trump.
* Just when it seems Trump can't do or say anything more moronic, he does. The guy is a complete idiot.
* I hope women delegates refuse to vote for this guy at the convention, even if they're committed to do so for the first ballot.
* A pro-life candidate who can't answer these questions isn't a very good candidate.
* Well, it's not like he ever *cough* objectified women.
* I wonder how many abortions Trump's "pieces of a**" have needed & been paid for by Trump.
* Is it possible to have Trump declared brain dead based on his asinine comments?
...................................................................................................................................................................
Media Missed Worst of Trump’s Abortion Comments
By Quin Hillyer, March 30, 2016
As is his wont, Donald Trump stirred up a ruckus today when he told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that women who procure illegal abortions should somehow be “punished” by legal authorities. As obnoxious as the statement was to every serious person both pro-life and pro-choice, it may not have been the worst part of his answer.
While trying to explain his position (or trying to make up a position as he went along), Trump also stepped into this thicket (as reported by the Daily Mail): “Matthews asked him how he would go about banning abortions. ‘You go back to a position like they had,’ he replied, ‘where they would perhaps go to illegal places, but we have to ban it.’”
Scrutinize that for a moment. If that doesn’t play into the hands of the anti-life movement, nothing does. This is a wink-wink/nudge-nudge to the idea that illegal abortion mills or perhaps even back alleys are to be accepted as alternatives to legal abortions — rather than that, say, adoptions should be promoted, along with community support for pre-natal care and both pre- and post-natal counseling.
Trump’s statement carries the sense of the widespread existence of speakeasies during Prohibition, as if abortion is something to be officially “banned” but culturally still condoned, like imbibing alcohol.
Of course, Trump late this afternoon walked back his statement, saying he would punish only the abortionist, not the woman who procures the abortion. But the fact that he struggled with the question in the first place, and then took so many hours to recant, is deeply offensive to caring pro-lifers. And the very idea that he would volunteer the idea of going “to illegal places,” in the context of punishing women who get caught, was effectively an outrageous invitation to use just such illegal places.
What a mess.
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COMMENTS:
* If you are offered a choice between malicious, or incompetent to describe a situation, normally the simplest and most accurate is incompetent. In this case (as in others with t.rump) I'd go with incompetent.
* Considering both his fear of pen bombs and his inability to speak for any length of time without saying something either comically unhinged or mind-numbingly stupid, at what point does Trump completely abandon debates and interviews and campaign exclusively on Twitter? Most presidential candidates get better with practice. Not our boy Trump.
* Just when it seems Trump can't do or say anything more moronic, he does. The guy is a complete idiot.
* I hope women delegates refuse to vote for this guy at the convention, even if they're committed to do so for the first ballot.
* A pro-life candidate who can't answer these questions isn't a very good candidate.
* Well, it's not like he ever *cough* objectified women.
* I wonder how many abortions Trump's "pieces of a**" have needed & been paid for by Trump.
* Is it possible to have Trump declared brain dead based on his asinine comments?
...................................................................................................................................................................
Media Missed Worst of Trump’s Abortion Comments
By Quin Hillyer, March 30, 2016
As is his wont, Donald Trump stirred up a ruckus today when he told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that women who procure illegal abortions should somehow be “punished” by legal authorities. As obnoxious as the statement was to every serious person both pro-life and pro-choice, it may not have been the worst part of his answer.
While trying to explain his position (or trying to make up a position as he went along), Trump also stepped into this thicket (as reported by the Daily Mail): “Matthews asked him how he would go about banning abortions. ‘You go back to a position like they had,’ he replied, ‘where they would perhaps go to illegal places, but we have to ban it.’”
Scrutinize that for a moment. If that doesn’t play into the hands of the anti-life movement, nothing does. This is a wink-wink/nudge-nudge to the idea that illegal abortion mills or perhaps even back alleys are to be accepted as alternatives to legal abortions — rather than that, say, adoptions should be promoted, along with community support for pre-natal care and both pre- and post-natal counseling.
Trump’s statement carries the sense of the widespread existence of speakeasies during Prohibition, as if abortion is something to be officially “banned” but culturally still condoned, like imbibing alcohol.
Of course, Trump late this afternoon walked back his statement, saying he would punish only the abortionist, not the woman who procures the abortion. But the fact that he struggled with the question in the first place, and then took so many hours to recant, is deeply offensive to caring pro-lifers. And the very idea that he would volunteer the idea of going “to illegal places,” in the context of punishing women who get caught, was effectively an outrageous invitation to use just such illegal places.
What a mess.
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"'I alone can solve.' That’s what Donald Trump says. He’s been pressed for details about what that means in the context of the federal deficit, and his answer was ludicrous, unworthy of a high-school debater."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* You must be on the watch list at Trump Central Kevin,in 15 minutes they are already flinging their bile. As to the article, the language is a bit strong, but apt.
* Psychopath is too general a term to describe Trump, he's actually a self-loathing narcissist. His existence is thoroughly entwined in a life-long need to convince himself that he is a splendid creature of immense and awesome natural gifts. When he boasts and brags it's not his fans he's talking to, it's himself to whom he's so desperately trying to make the case. In such a person this goes much deeper than mere insecurity, it is an existential struggle requiring the structure of a false reality to keep it all from collapse. In no way is such a man fit to be president.
* If tRump had any coherent policy proposal ('s) (I'm gonna build a wall & make Mexico pay for it doesn't count) then maybe a discussion could happen. What we've gotten so far is: 1) Trump says something stupid. 2) We point out that what he said is stupid and why. 3) Trumpbots yell "Shuddap!!! You GOPe, Jeb Loving, RINO kissing losers!
* Since when is pointing out sleazy, thuggish behavior "unhinged"? Unhinged would be if people of conscience stood by and allowed Trump to go on bloviating. Unhinged would be allowing Trump's remarks about George W. Bush ("He lied us into war!"), 9/11 ("The Government has secret papers that show what REALLY happened!"), David Duke ("I don't know David Duke! How can I disavow the man if I don't know him!") to go unanswered.
* Trump is so dumb he doesn't know how dumb he is. The problem is with stupid people who think they are smart and know all the answers. Trump thinks he knows everything and shows no evidence that he thinks anyone can teach him anything. Another problem is thinking that a President can say anything that pops into his head. For example, Trump identifies the religion of Islam as responsible for much of the violence in the world. And he thinks one is guilty of the crime of political correctness if one doesn't say so in public. The problem arises when you as President, are a part of a coalition that contains 32 Islamic nations that are committed to fighting Islamic terrorism. Trump shows no evidence that he is a aware of this coalition which depends essentially on Muslims fighting against other Muslims. One is not merely being politically correct in not denouncing the entire Islamic religion, one is being smart in not blaming the entire religion of Islam.
* As a man who inherited his wealth, Donald Trump is haunted by the fact that he can never be sure if he would have made it on his own. His bullying and bluster and incessant bragging compensate for his insecurity.
...................................................................................................................................................................
The Stupid Psychopath Problem
There is not a secret solution awaiting Trump.
By Kevin D. Williamson, March 28, 2016
“I alone can solve.”
Donald Trump, who can barely communicate in his native language, is the candidate of the social-media era, and the above sentiment — proffered to the electorate via Twitter in regard to Islamic terrorism — is in fact indicative of the breadth and depth of his thinking.
Trump is an example of the Stupid Psychopath Problem.
The Stupid Psychopath Problem does not plague stupid psychopaths exclusively, but they are most vulnerable to its seduction. I will leave it to the medical professionals to diagnose whatever it is that ails Trump psychiatrically; as for the stupid part, my belief is that you can learn a great deal about a person from the way he writes and speaks (my former students may recall that I am not an easy grader), and Trump’s use of language suggests very strongly that he is . . . very fortunate to have inherited a great deal of money and real estate. So dumb he thinks a manila folder is a Filipino contortionist. So dumb he thinks Tupac Shakur is a religious holiday for the “little short guys that wear yarmulkes” counting his money. Trump is like the ugly building in Chicago with his name on it: There’s a vacancy on the top floor.
The Stupid Psychopath Problem is the political distortion resulting from the fact that a great many people — some of them on barstools, some of them dangerously close to the levers of real power — believe that there are obvious, simple, straightforward solutions to complex problems such as the predations of the Islamic State or the woeful state of U.S. public finances, but that these solutions are not implemented because people in government are too soft, unwilling or unable to get tough and do what needs to be done.
Men such as Donald Trump, and a half a hundred million idiots just like him across the fruited plain, really believe that the reason we haven’t eliminated Islamic terrorism is that it never occurred to anybody in the federal government — including the people who run, e.g., the U.S. Special Operations Command — to get tough. These people imagine that the trained killers in the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, and the often ruthless men who oversee them in Washington, simply are not willing to do what it takes to win. What that means, these people have no idea, because they are unwilling to think very hard about these sorts of problems and generally have no experience themselves. Trump is famously a physical coward who lied to stay out of the military during the Vietnam war, and he knows nothing about foreign policy, national defense, or the workings of the military, which is why all we ever hear from him is “get tough” and “win.”
He seems to believe that, if he were to be elected president, he would sit down in a room full of spooks and soldiers and operatives and be given a menu of possible strategies to use against the Islamic State, at which point he would say: “Don’t we have anything . . . tougher?” At which point, the spooks and soldiers and operatives would look at one another nervously and say, “Well, Mr. President, there is another possibility, but it is just too mean. It’s too tough. We’ve never really seriously considered it. We just never had the guts to try it.” And then, Trump imagines, he’ll choose that.
Choose . . . what? Trump has no idea, naturally. He imagines that the problem is not the lack of useful alternatives, but the lack of Trump.
Trump is a habitual liar and a man who has treated his wives and family with an unusual level of callousness. Though he is as dumb as nine chickens, he knows that he is in this regard somewhat like mentally normal men, that whatever sort of conscience he has is an atrophied and useless thing. He believes this to be a virtue. Indeed, his entire public persona is constructed around convincing himself — not the public, but himself — that this is in fact a virtue, that he isn’t a man who is cruel to women and heedless of his children and dishonest in his business affairs but a man who is tough, assertive, willing to do things that other men are not willing to do, etc.
That book of Hitler speeches that Mrs. Trump (no, not this Mrs. Trump; no, not that Mrs. Trump) describes him keeping by his bedside makes perfect sense in that context, as does his obvious admiration for murderous strongmen such as Vladimir Putin. When Herod gave the order for the Slaughter of the Innocents, he needed a captain to carry out those orders. Trump is the sort of man who likes to imagine that he is that sort of man: willing to do whatever is needful in the moment. Knowing the immorality and disregard with which he is willing to treat his family, friends, and colleagues, the stupid psychopath imagines that he can make of the moral void inside himself an instrument of public good.
But it does not work that way.
The problem is that while there is an effectively endless supply of stupid psychopaths, there is no secret cache of simple, straightforward solutions to complex problems just waiting in a filing cabinet somewhere in Washington until a sufficiently tough guy comes along willing to be as cruel and as vicious as the hour requires. We have plenty of cruel and vicious men in Washington. What we do not have is effective public policies. You can repeat “get tough” until you blow a temporomandibular joint, but it won’t make any difference.
“I alone can solve.” That’s what Donald Trump says. He’s been pressed for details about what that means in the context of the federal deficit, and his answer was ludicrous, unworthy of a high-school debater. He should be pressed for details on what that means in the context of Islamic radicalism. But who really thinks that Donald Trump could locate Yemen on a map?
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* You must be on the watch list at Trump Central Kevin,in 15 minutes they are already flinging their bile. As to the article, the language is a bit strong, but apt.
* Psychopath is too general a term to describe Trump, he's actually a self-loathing narcissist. His existence is thoroughly entwined in a life-long need to convince himself that he is a splendid creature of immense and awesome natural gifts. When he boasts and brags it's not his fans he's talking to, it's himself to whom he's so desperately trying to make the case. In such a person this goes much deeper than mere insecurity, it is an existential struggle requiring the structure of a false reality to keep it all from collapse. In no way is such a man fit to be president.
* If tRump had any coherent policy proposal ('s) (I'm gonna build a wall & make Mexico pay for it doesn't count) then maybe a discussion could happen. What we've gotten so far is: 1) Trump says something stupid. 2) We point out that what he said is stupid and why. 3) Trumpbots yell "Shuddap!!! You GOPe, Jeb Loving, RINO kissing losers!
* Since when is pointing out sleazy, thuggish behavior "unhinged"? Unhinged would be if people of conscience stood by and allowed Trump to go on bloviating. Unhinged would be allowing Trump's remarks about George W. Bush ("He lied us into war!"), 9/11 ("The Government has secret papers that show what REALLY happened!"), David Duke ("I don't know David Duke! How can I disavow the man if I don't know him!") to go unanswered.
* Trump is so dumb he doesn't know how dumb he is. The problem is with stupid people who think they are smart and know all the answers. Trump thinks he knows everything and shows no evidence that he thinks anyone can teach him anything. Another problem is thinking that a President can say anything that pops into his head. For example, Trump identifies the religion of Islam as responsible for much of the violence in the world. And he thinks one is guilty of the crime of political correctness if one doesn't say so in public. The problem arises when you as President, are a part of a coalition that contains 32 Islamic nations that are committed to fighting Islamic terrorism. Trump shows no evidence that he is a aware of this coalition which depends essentially on Muslims fighting against other Muslims. One is not merely being politically correct in not denouncing the entire Islamic religion, one is being smart in not blaming the entire religion of Islam.
* As a man who inherited his wealth, Donald Trump is haunted by the fact that he can never be sure if he would have made it on his own. His bullying and bluster and incessant bragging compensate for his insecurity.
...................................................................................................................................................................
The Stupid Psychopath Problem
There is not a secret solution awaiting Trump.
By Kevin D. Williamson, March 28, 2016
“I alone can solve.”
Donald Trump, who can barely communicate in his native language, is the candidate of the social-media era, and the above sentiment — proffered to the electorate via Twitter in regard to Islamic terrorism — is in fact indicative of the breadth and depth of his thinking.
Trump is an example of the Stupid Psychopath Problem.
The Stupid Psychopath Problem does not plague stupid psychopaths exclusively, but they are most vulnerable to its seduction. I will leave it to the medical professionals to diagnose whatever it is that ails Trump psychiatrically; as for the stupid part, my belief is that you can learn a great deal about a person from the way he writes and speaks (my former students may recall that I am not an easy grader), and Trump’s use of language suggests very strongly that he is . . . very fortunate to have inherited a great deal of money and real estate. So dumb he thinks a manila folder is a Filipino contortionist. So dumb he thinks Tupac Shakur is a religious holiday for the “little short guys that wear yarmulkes” counting his money. Trump is like the ugly building in Chicago with his name on it: There’s a vacancy on the top floor.
The Stupid Psychopath Problem is the political distortion resulting from the fact that a great many people — some of them on barstools, some of them dangerously close to the levers of real power — believe that there are obvious, simple, straightforward solutions to complex problems such as the predations of the Islamic State or the woeful state of U.S. public finances, but that these solutions are not implemented because people in government are too soft, unwilling or unable to get tough and do what needs to be done.
Men such as Donald Trump, and a half a hundred million idiots just like him across the fruited plain, really believe that the reason we haven’t eliminated Islamic terrorism is that it never occurred to anybody in the federal government — including the people who run, e.g., the U.S. Special Operations Command — to get tough. These people imagine that the trained killers in the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, and the often ruthless men who oversee them in Washington, simply are not willing to do what it takes to win. What that means, these people have no idea, because they are unwilling to think very hard about these sorts of problems and generally have no experience themselves. Trump is famously a physical coward who lied to stay out of the military during the Vietnam war, and he knows nothing about foreign policy, national defense, or the workings of the military, which is why all we ever hear from him is “get tough” and “win.”
He seems to believe that, if he were to be elected president, he would sit down in a room full of spooks and soldiers and operatives and be given a menu of possible strategies to use against the Islamic State, at which point he would say: “Don’t we have anything . . . tougher?” At which point, the spooks and soldiers and operatives would look at one another nervously and say, “Well, Mr. President, there is another possibility, but it is just too mean. It’s too tough. We’ve never really seriously considered it. We just never had the guts to try it.” And then, Trump imagines, he’ll choose that.
Choose . . . what? Trump has no idea, naturally. He imagines that the problem is not the lack of useful alternatives, but the lack of Trump.
Trump is a habitual liar and a man who has treated his wives and family with an unusual level of callousness. Though he is as dumb as nine chickens, he knows that he is in this regard somewhat like mentally normal men, that whatever sort of conscience he has is an atrophied and useless thing. He believes this to be a virtue. Indeed, his entire public persona is constructed around convincing himself — not the public, but himself — that this is in fact a virtue, that he isn’t a man who is cruel to women and heedless of his children and dishonest in his business affairs but a man who is tough, assertive, willing to do things that other men are not willing to do, etc.
That book of Hitler speeches that Mrs. Trump (no, not this Mrs. Trump; no, not that Mrs. Trump) describes him keeping by his bedside makes perfect sense in that context, as does his obvious admiration for murderous strongmen such as Vladimir Putin. When Herod gave the order for the Slaughter of the Innocents, he needed a captain to carry out those orders. Trump is the sort of man who likes to imagine that he is that sort of man: willing to do whatever is needful in the moment. Knowing the immorality and disregard with which he is willing to treat his family, friends, and colleagues, the stupid psychopath imagines that he can make of the moral void inside himself an instrument of public good.
But it does not work that way.
The problem is that while there is an effectively endless supply of stupid psychopaths, there is no secret cache of simple, straightforward solutions to complex problems just waiting in a filing cabinet somewhere in Washington until a sufficiently tough guy comes along willing to be as cruel and as vicious as the hour requires. We have plenty of cruel and vicious men in Washington. What we do not have is effective public policies. You can repeat “get tough” until you blow a temporomandibular joint, but it won’t make any difference.
“I alone can solve.” That’s what Donald Trump says. He’s been pressed for details about what that means in the context of the federal deficit, and his answer was ludicrous, unworthy of a high-school debater. He should be pressed for details on what that means in the context of Islamic radicalism. But who really thinks that Donald Trump could locate Yemen on a map?
...................................................................................................................................................................
A post-birth abortion needs to be done on Trump-- that would be a fitting punishment for him.
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COMMENTS:
* Is this what he meant by "no one respects women more than me".??
* It's pretty much in line with what ANY GOPer means when they say something similar; what they mean is that they think women should be objectified and infantilized because The Weaker Vessel(tm) and other crapola of that sort...
* Looks like Trump was dissatisfied with his 75% disapproval rating with women...so now he's shooting for 99%!
* Just heard on CNN, Trump has reached a 120% disapproval rate among women. Everyone is still trying to figure out how he did it.
* WOW That level of disapproval is absolutely yuuuuge!
* And this is the man who tries to criticize Islam's treatment of women...laughable.
* Only old white men will vote for him at this rate........
* Lets build that great big wall around DT and make this country great again, and we can get him to pay for it.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Donald Trump Goes Full Anti-Woman, Suggests ‘Punishment’ For Women Who Abort
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said Wednesday that there “has to be some form of punishment” for abortion if it were banned in the U.S. — as he says it should be — and that punishment should fall on the woman.
Trump, who is currently struggling with women voters, was pressed on the issue of abortion during an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, set to air Wednesday evening.
Matthews asked whether abortion should be punished, and Trump initially skated around the issue. He said some Republicans would say it should be, and that he “would say it’s a very serious problem and it’s a problem we have to decide on.”
He then asked Matthews — but didn’t answer himself — “Are you going to, say, put them to jail?” and added he was anti-abortion and that “you have to ban” abortion.
“There has to be some form of punishment,” Trump said, adding “Yeah” when Matthews asked if he meant for the woman. The host asked if that punishment would be closer to 10 days or 10 years, and Trump said he didn’t know.
Trump indicated he would be far more lenient on the man who impregnated a woman who had an abortion — he said he did not think they would bear the same level of responsibility.
The Trump campaign quickly tried to walk back his comments afterward, saying the matter should be decided by the states. Later, Trump put out a statement that said his position was unchanged, but contradicted his past statements entirely:
“No,” said Appleton resident Sarah Schnell, when asked if she agreed with Trump on the matter. “And I’m pro-life. But I think that that’s something that’s going to have to be decided between a woman and God. I don’t think that’s right, I’m against it, but I don’t go as far as saying the government should get involved in it.”
Cathy Smith, a caretaker of people with disabilities in nearby Freemont, said “a woman should be able to do whatever she wants.”
Lucy Deboard, a sanitarian who recently moved to Wisconsin from New Jersey, said she didn’t agree with Trump. But, she added, the issue of abortion was far down on the totem pole when compared to national security.
“I don’t vote based on abortions. I think there’s more important things,” said Deboard, who described herself as pro-choice. “Look, if ISIS comes over and kills us, I’m not real concerned with abortions. There’s more important things to deal with here. We’re way beyond abortions here. If you want abortion, you can go get one. I guess I’m pro-choice, but I’m not strong. Like I said, I have more important issues I’m concerned about.”
Lynn Paulus, an Oshkosh resident who described herself as pro-life “to a point,” also sounded her disagreement with Trump.
“If there is a woman that has been raped, I believe in exceptions. No, I don’t believe in holding them criminally liable,” Paulus added.
Debra Lynn, an esthetician from Green Bay, put her objection in Biblical terms.
“If they’re not punished on Earth, they’ll be punished in the long run,” she said.
Abortion bans supported by Republicans usually make it a crime for doctors to perform the procedure, rather than for patients to obtain it.
Trump has been slippery on his stances on abortion, as with many other issues. He previously said he was in favor of abortion rights and “very pro-choice,” before changing his stance. He said he would defund Planned Parenthood, and yet offered a defense of its other services.
Republicans opposed to abortion rights already punish patients who seek the procedure, so Trump was just making their philosophy more explicit. A record number of restrictions on abortion have been passed since Republicans swept control in a slew of state legislatures in 2010; many of these provisions are meant to dissuade patients from seeking abortions and punish them if they do.
Requiring a patient undergo a waiting period of 24, 48 or 72 hours before having an abortion is a form of punishment. Banning telemedicine for medication abortion punishes patients in rural areas. Requiring an ultrasound in which the provider describes the details of the fetus to the patient is a form of punishment. Mandating biased counseling, in which doctors are required to tell patients that abortion causes breast cancer or depression, is a form of punishment.
Forcing providers to use an outdated regimen for administering medication abortions, which carries a higher risk of side-effects, is a form of punishment. Laws preventing providers from using the method used in the vast majority of second-trimester abortions, because it is the safest, punish patients. And requiring adolescents to get permission from both of their parents to have the procedure, while mandating abstinence-based sex education at the same time, punishes teens for getting pregnant.
Lastly, the Hyde Amendment, which is routinely inserted into appropriations bills, punishes low-income patients by preventing Medicaid from covering the procedure.
“I certainly would like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion, a rich woman, a middle-class woman, or a poor woman. Unfortunately, the only vehicle available is the … Medicaid bill,” said former Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) during debate over Medicaid funding for abortion in 1977.
Trump has a long history of anti-woman comments, and this month has come under fire for his treatment of opponent Sen. Ted Cruz’s wife, Heidi, and for sticking by his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski after he was charged with battery against a female reporter.
Reuters found earlier this month that half of all women have a “very unfavorable” view of the GOP front-runner.
Just 19 percent of Americans believe abortion should be illegal under all circumstances, according to Gallup, so Democrats and reproductive rights groups are guaranteed to seize upon Trump’s comments to argue that the Republican Party is out of step with public opinion on the issue.
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) quickly responded on Twitter.
“Of course, women shouldn’t be punished,” he said. “Probably Donald Trump will figure out a way to say that he didn’t say it or it was misquoted or whatever, but I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s an appropriate response.”
“And it’s a difficult enough situation, and to try to punish somebody,” he added, trailing off.
Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, released a statement saying Donald Trump obviously “wants to ban abortion, criminalize doctors, and is threatening women.”
“But let’s be clear: Donald Trump has said it, Ted Cruz has voted for it, and John Kasich has enacted it. The Republican Party’s leadership has been waging a full-out assault on access to reproductive health care,” she said, adding, “The more these Republican candidates show their true beliefs, the more voters they alienate.”
Trump’s words didn’t go over well with the head of one of the largest anti-abortion groups, either. Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, issued a statement calling the comment “completely out of touch with the pro-life movement and even more with women who have chosen such a sad thing as abortion.”
“Being pro-life means wanting what is best for the mother and the baby,” she said. “Women who choose abortion often do so in desperation and then deeply regret such a decision. No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion. This is against the very nature of what we are about. We invite a woman who has gone down this route to consider paths to healing, not punishment.”
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Is this what he meant by "no one respects women more than me".??
* It's pretty much in line with what ANY GOPer means when they say something similar; what they mean is that they think women should be objectified and infantilized because The Weaker Vessel(tm) and other crapola of that sort...
* Looks like Trump was dissatisfied with his 75% disapproval rating with women...so now he's shooting for 99%!
* Just heard on CNN, Trump has reached a 120% disapproval rate among women. Everyone is still trying to figure out how he did it.
* WOW That level of disapproval is absolutely yuuuuge!
* And this is the man who tries to criticize Islam's treatment of women...laughable.
* Only old white men will vote for him at this rate........
* Lets build that great big wall around DT and make this country great again, and we can get him to pay for it.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Donald Trump Goes Full Anti-Woman, Suggests ‘Punishment’ For Women Who Abort
Men should be all right, though.
By Elise Foley, Igor Bobic, and Samantha Lachman, March 30, 2016Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said Wednesday that there “has to be some form of punishment” for abortion if it were banned in the U.S. — as he says it should be — and that punishment should fall on the woman.
Trump, who is currently struggling with women voters, was pressed on the issue of abortion during an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, set to air Wednesday evening.
Matthews asked whether abortion should be punished, and Trump initially skated around the issue. He said some Republicans would say it should be, and that he “would say it’s a very serious problem and it’s a problem we have to decide on.”
He then asked Matthews — but didn’t answer himself — “Are you going to, say, put them to jail?” and added he was anti-abortion and that “you have to ban” abortion.
“There has to be some form of punishment,” Trump said, adding “Yeah” when Matthews asked if he meant for the woman. The host asked if that punishment would be closer to 10 days or 10 years, and Trump said he didn’t know.
Trump indicated he would be far more lenient on the man who impregnated a woman who had an abortion — he said he did not think they would bear the same level of responsibility.
The Trump campaign quickly tried to walk back his comments afterward, saying the matter should be decided by the states. Later, Trump put out a statement that said his position was unchanged, but contradicted his past statements entirely:
If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb. My position has not changed — like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions.Most women who spoke with The Huffington Post at Trump’s town hall in Appleton, Wisconsin, on Wednesday said they did not agree that women should be held ... criminally liable if they had an abortion. But Trump’s initial position did not seem to weigh heavily on their support of the real estate mogul, whom they unanimously described in positive terms as a good family man who would be good for women if elected president.
“No,” said Appleton resident Sarah Schnell, when asked if she agreed with Trump on the matter. “And I’m pro-life. But I think that that’s something that’s going to have to be decided between a woman and God. I don’t think that’s right, I’m against it, but I don’t go as far as saying the government should get involved in it.”
Cathy Smith, a caretaker of people with disabilities in nearby Freemont, said “a woman should be able to do whatever she wants.”
Lucy Deboard, a sanitarian who recently moved to Wisconsin from New Jersey, said she didn’t agree with Trump. But, she added, the issue of abortion was far down on the totem pole when compared to national security.
“I don’t vote based on abortions. I think there’s more important things,” said Deboard, who described herself as pro-choice. “Look, if ISIS comes over and kills us, I’m not real concerned with abortions. There’s more important things to deal with here. We’re way beyond abortions here. If you want abortion, you can go get one. I guess I’m pro-choice, but I’m not strong. Like I said, I have more important issues I’m concerned about.”
Lynn Paulus, an Oshkosh resident who described herself as pro-life “to a point,” also sounded her disagreement with Trump.
“If there is a woman that has been raped, I believe in exceptions. No, I don’t believe in holding them criminally liable,” Paulus added.
Debra Lynn, an esthetician from Green Bay, put her objection in Biblical terms.
“If they’re not punished on Earth, they’ll be punished in the long run,” she said.
Abortion bans supported by Republicans usually make it a crime for doctors to perform the procedure, rather than for patients to obtain it.
Trump has been slippery on his stances on abortion, as with many other issues. He previously said he was in favor of abortion rights and “very pro-choice,” before changing his stance. He said he would defund Planned Parenthood, and yet offered a defense of its other services.
Republicans opposed to abortion rights already punish patients who seek the procedure, so Trump was just making their philosophy more explicit. A record number of restrictions on abortion have been passed since Republicans swept control in a slew of state legislatures in 2010; many of these provisions are meant to dissuade patients from seeking abortions and punish them if they do.
Requiring a patient undergo a waiting period of 24, 48 or 72 hours before having an abortion is a form of punishment. Banning telemedicine for medication abortion punishes patients in rural areas. Requiring an ultrasound in which the provider describes the details of the fetus to the patient is a form of punishment. Mandating biased counseling, in which doctors are required to tell patients that abortion causes breast cancer or depression, is a form of punishment.
Forcing providers to use an outdated regimen for administering medication abortions, which carries a higher risk of side-effects, is a form of punishment. Laws preventing providers from using the method used in the vast majority of second-trimester abortions, because it is the safest, punish patients. And requiring adolescents to get permission from both of their parents to have the procedure, while mandating abstinence-based sex education at the same time, punishes teens for getting pregnant.
Lastly, the Hyde Amendment, which is routinely inserted into appropriations bills, punishes low-income patients by preventing Medicaid from covering the procedure.
“I certainly would like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion, a rich woman, a middle-class woman, or a poor woman. Unfortunately, the only vehicle available is the … Medicaid bill,” said former Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) during debate over Medicaid funding for abortion in 1977.
Trump has a long history of anti-woman comments, and this month has come under fire for his treatment of opponent Sen. Ted Cruz’s wife, Heidi, and for sticking by his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski after he was charged with battery against a female reporter.
Reuters found earlier this month that half of all women have a “very unfavorable” view of the GOP front-runner.
Just 19 percent of Americans believe abortion should be illegal under all circumstances, according to Gallup, so Democrats and reproductive rights groups are guaranteed to seize upon Trump’s comments to argue that the Republican Party is out of step with public opinion on the issue.
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) quickly responded on Twitter.
Hillary Clinton ✔ @HillaryClintonRepublican candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich told NBC’s Chuck Todd that there should “absolutely not” be punishments for a woman if abortion was outlawed. He also he would support outlawing the procedure, with exceptions for victims of rape and incest, or women whose lives were in danger.
Just when you thought it couldn't get worse. Horrific and telling. -H https://twitter.com/alivitali/status/715244637410041856 …
12:00 PM - 30 Mar 2016
Bernie Sanders ✔ @BernieSanders
Your Republican frontrunner, ladies and gentlemen. Shameful. https://twitter.com/alivitali/status/715244637410041856 …
12:17 PM - 30 Mar 2016
“Of course, women shouldn’t be punished,” he said. “Probably Donald Trump will figure out a way to say that he didn’t say it or it was misquoted or whatever, but I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s an appropriate response.”
“And it’s a difficult enough situation, and to try to punish somebody,” he added, trailing off.
Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, released a statement saying Donald Trump obviously “wants to ban abortion, criminalize doctors, and is threatening women.”
“But let’s be clear: Donald Trump has said it, Ted Cruz has voted for it, and John Kasich has enacted it. The Republican Party’s leadership has been waging a full-out assault on access to reproductive health care,” she said, adding, “The more these Republican candidates show their true beliefs, the more voters they alienate.”
Trump’s words didn’t go over well with the head of one of the largest anti-abortion groups, either. Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, issued a statement calling the comment “completely out of touch with the pro-life movement and even more with women who have chosen such a sad thing as abortion.”
“Being pro-life means wanting what is best for the mother and the baby,” she said. “Women who choose abortion often do so in desperation and then deeply regret such a decision. No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion. This is against the very nature of what we are about. We invite a woman who has gone down this route to consider paths to healing, not punishment.”
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
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Tuesday, March 29, 2016
"'... you’re being very disingenuous by saying that we’re not covering it. ... I think it’s a very good spin that you put on it,' said Lemon. 'But not necessarily the truth.'"
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COMMENTS:
* Not a fan of CNN or Trump, but his response was juvenile. He's trying to be the bully and frighten people who disagree or put him in a negative light. Well, he put himself there through years of being public.
* Trump thinks Cruz was a part of those pictures of Trump's wife but there isn't any proof that he was. Instead, trump decided to snoop down to the level of a school yard bully because he thinks Cruz might have had something to do with it. Way to be the bigger man Trump. Oh, and Trump, if you didn't want the world to see your wife naked, maybe you shouldn't have gotten with someone that has no respect for her body and showed it off to the world.
* With pictures involved it's a bit hard to defend. Trumpeters can blame the press all they want...Trump is the only one who provides material for them to work with everyday. This particular interview displays the continual denial by the Trump campaign and supporters of his own comments and posts.
* Every time I see Ms. Pierson on the TV I start to calculate the amount of Valium and alcohol she needs at the end of each day after defending Mr. Trump.
* I can't wait until this election is over. I feel like none of the candidates really care anymore it's just a #$%$ grabbing competition at this point. I feel like the next one will be even worse
* Are Cruz and Chump running for President of the U.S. or president of the 2nd grade class? More important things affect this country than the childish trash talk that has been going on for too long.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Don Lemon Takes Down Donald Trump Spokeswoman: ‘You’re Being Very Disingenuous’
By Tony Maccio, March 29, 2016
On CNN’s New Day, Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson was interviewed by Don Lemon. In the interview, she defended Trump’s most recent controversial actions. After a series of ads ran in Utah showing Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, in an unflattering light, Donald Trump went on the offensive and attacked fellow candidate Ted Cruz’s wife, Heidi Cruz. “I bet CNN viewers didn’t even know Melania Trump had been attacked for months by pro Ted Cruz people,” Pierson told Lemon. “That’s why I’m here.” Lemon responded, “We have been talking about that for months, Katrina. I think that you’re being very disingenuous about this.”
Pierson continued to insist that Donald Trump’s retweet of a photo and taking a shot at Heidi’s appearance didn’t constitute an attack — a point Lemon took issue with. “Don’t say that that’s supporting his wife,” said Lemon, “You don’t need Heidi Cruz in that picture to support his wife.” Pierson then reiterated that the attacks on Melania have been happening over the past several months with no attention from CNN. Again, Lemon was not pleased with Pierson’s rhetoric.
“We’ve interviewed Melania Trump. Anderson Cooper did a very extensive interview with Melania Trump where he talked about all of those issues,” Lemon explained. “We report on every single scandal, every single tweet. Every single thing that happens — not only with Melania Trump, but with Heidi Cruz and any of the other candidates — so you’re being very disingenuous by saying that we’re not covering it.”
Never finding common ground, Lemon concluded the interview by once again voicing his displeasure with Pierson. “Katrina Pierson, thank you very much, I appreciate that. I think it’s a very good spin that you put on it,” said Lemon. “But not necessarily the truth.”
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Not a fan of CNN or Trump, but his response was juvenile. He's trying to be the bully and frighten people who disagree or put him in a negative light. Well, he put himself there through years of being public.
* Trump thinks Cruz was a part of those pictures of Trump's wife but there isn't any proof that he was. Instead, trump decided to snoop down to the level of a school yard bully because he thinks Cruz might have had something to do with it. Way to be the bigger man Trump. Oh, and Trump, if you didn't want the world to see your wife naked, maybe you shouldn't have gotten with someone that has no respect for her body and showed it off to the world.
* With pictures involved it's a bit hard to defend. Trumpeters can blame the press all they want...Trump is the only one who provides material for them to work with everyday. This particular interview displays the continual denial by the Trump campaign and supporters of his own comments and posts.
* Every time I see Ms. Pierson on the TV I start to calculate the amount of Valium and alcohol she needs at the end of each day after defending Mr. Trump.
* I can't wait until this election is over. I feel like none of the candidates really care anymore it's just a #$%$ grabbing competition at this point. I feel like the next one will be even worse
* Are Cruz and Chump running for President of the U.S. or president of the 2nd grade class? More important things affect this country than the childish trash talk that has been going on for too long.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Don Lemon Takes Down Donald Trump Spokeswoman: ‘You’re Being Very Disingenuous’
By Tony Maccio, March 29, 2016
On CNN’s New Day, Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson was interviewed by Don Lemon. In the interview, she defended Trump’s most recent controversial actions. After a series of ads ran in Utah showing Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, in an unflattering light, Donald Trump went on the offensive and attacked fellow candidate Ted Cruz’s wife, Heidi Cruz. “I bet CNN viewers didn’t even know Melania Trump had been attacked for months by pro Ted Cruz people,” Pierson told Lemon. “That’s why I’m here.” Lemon responded, “We have been talking about that for months, Katrina. I think that you’re being very disingenuous about this.”
Pierson continued to insist that Donald Trump’s retweet of a photo and taking a shot at Heidi’s appearance didn’t constitute an attack — a point Lemon took issue with. “Don’t say that that’s supporting his wife,” said Lemon, “You don’t need Heidi Cruz in that picture to support his wife.” Pierson then reiterated that the attacks on Melania have been happening over the past several months with no attention from CNN. Again, Lemon was not pleased with Pierson’s rhetoric.
“We’ve interviewed Melania Trump. Anderson Cooper did a very extensive interview with Melania Trump where he talked about all of those issues,” Lemon explained. “We report on every single scandal, every single tweet. Every single thing that happens — not only with Melania Trump, but with Heidi Cruz and any of the other candidates — so you’re being very disingenuous by saying that we’re not covering it.”
Never finding common ground, Lemon concluded the interview by once again voicing his displeasure with Pierson. “Katrina Pierson, thank you very much, I appreciate that. I think it’s a very good spin that you put on it,” said Lemon. “But not necessarily the truth.”
...................................................................................................................................................................
"It couldn't possibly be that over half of the Republican electorate rejects Trump based on the merits, or lack thereof. Oh no. It's the system's fault."
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Does Donald Trump know what he's talking about?
By Tara Setmayer, March 22, 2016
It's no secret why Donald Trump doesn't want to do any more debates. Despite his delusions of grandeur, thinking he's done so wonderfully in all of them, the reality is he really hasn't. He's lost his temper, name-called, and in arguably one of the lowest points of primary debate history, referred to his manhood. Not exactly a reincarnation of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
Once you get beyond his histrionics at these debates, Trump is exposed for his alarming lack of policy knowledge on a whole host of issues and is unable to explain clearly how he plans to implement the few he does. Lack of substance isn't a new criticism for Trump's campaign, but he's managed to get a pass from voters on it because he's tapped into a vein of voter disgust unlike anyone else.
Trump has flip-flopped on key issues, backtracked on others, even flat out changed his mind on some, but those are pesky details his supporters don't seem to care about. According to Trump, the only thing we need to know is he is the only one who can negotiate "better deals," so we can "win" and "make America great again."
The shtick may work well on the stump, but it doesn't go over as well when he's on a debate stage where he is held accountable for his actions and challenged by his opponents directly. Trump doesn't get to control the narrative up there, and he doesn't like it.
So it was no surprise when Trump announced he would skip the next debate, leading John Kasich to pull out, too, thereby forcing Fox News to cancel it altogether. CNN provided an evening of town hall-style interviews Monday with all five remaining candidates on both sides of the aisle. Of course, Trump had no problem with this format. He thrives on his ability to frustrate even the most seasoned interviewers by using his uncanny ability to steer the conversation wherever he wants, no matter the initial question. Dodge, deflect, change the subject, repeat.
Trump telegraphed his campaign's messaging strategy moving forward. No matter the question asked, he defaulted to the same basic overarching themes: We aren't winning overseas, the United States is broke and only he can negotiate good deals, and the nominating rules are somehow unfair if there's a contested convention.
When challenged on his controversial stance on reducing American involvement in NATO and how our allies would react to such a move, Trump pivoted to our country is "under attack in every way," we are $19 trillion in debt and can't afford it. For Trump, the geopolitical implications are relegated to an afterthought to keep the message simple. Or perhaps he simply has no idea about those details, so he deflects.
On the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? Trump reassures us he's a great dealmaker. He repeats the absurd notion that participating as the grand marshal of the Salute to Israel Parade in 2004 somehow validates his claim that no one knows Israel better than he does.
Perhaps one of the most telling exchanges came when Trump was asked if he'd follow the Republican Party nominating rules if he failed to reach the 1,237-delegate majority to win the nomination before the convention in Cleveland. Not only did he refuse to say yes, Trump launched into a diatribe complaining how the entire process is "mathematically unfair" because he had to compete against so many candidates. What?
So there it is. Trump's creating a false narrative that the whole thing was rigged from the beginning to deny him and the will of the people if he doesn't win the majority of delegates before Cleveland. It couldn't possibly be that over half of the Republican electorate rejects Trump based on the merits, or lack thereof. Oh no. It's the system's fault. Trump's previous veiled threats about potential riots at the convention were not an accident. Trump's surrogates and apologists in the media have already begun to set the stage.
Sen. Ted Cruz took the opportunity to showcase his plan of attack against Trump, poking holes in the notion that he's anti-establishment. Cruz went down a litany of liberal lawmakers Trump has funded over the years and declared, "His whole campaign is built on a lie. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the flip side of the same coin. ... He made billions buying influence in Washington, and she made millions selling it."
Exposing Trump's hypocrisy on key issues from immigration to trade is clearly a Cruz campaign theme moving forward. Whether that resonates at this point remains to be seen.
Kasich continued his happy warrior routine, vowing to stay the course despite recent CNN polling that showed 70% of GOP primary voters think he should drop out. However, the same poll also showed Kasich beating Clinton by the largest margin. His argument is electability in the general, but he has a herculean task to get there.
Clinton and Bernie Sanders offered more of the same. Despite having virtually no path to victory, Sanders is staying the course. He continues to outperform Clinton with millennials and liberals, and his supporters are more enthusiastic.
Even though Clinton is the clear Democratic front-runner, head-to-head, Sanders beats all the GOP candidates by larger margins, whereas Clinton only beats Trump, pulls even with Cruz and actually loses to Kasich by 6 percentage points, according to the latest CNN/ORC International Poll.
It looks like both sides have their own nuisance candidates vowing to take it all the way to the convention floor. In this wild political season, how that plays out is anyone's guess.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Does Donald Trump know what he's talking about?
By Tara Setmayer, March 22, 2016
It's no secret why Donald Trump doesn't want to do any more debates. Despite his delusions of grandeur, thinking he's done so wonderfully in all of them, the reality is he really hasn't. He's lost his temper, name-called, and in arguably one of the lowest points of primary debate history, referred to his manhood. Not exactly a reincarnation of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
Once you get beyond his histrionics at these debates, Trump is exposed for his alarming lack of policy knowledge on a whole host of issues and is unable to explain clearly how he plans to implement the few he does. Lack of substance isn't a new criticism for Trump's campaign, but he's managed to get a pass from voters on it because he's tapped into a vein of voter disgust unlike anyone else.
Trump has flip-flopped on key issues, backtracked on others, even flat out changed his mind on some, but those are pesky details his supporters don't seem to care about. According to Trump, the only thing we need to know is he is the only one who can negotiate "better deals," so we can "win" and "make America great again."
The shtick may work well on the stump, but it doesn't go over as well when he's on a debate stage where he is held accountable for his actions and challenged by his opponents directly. Trump doesn't get to control the narrative up there, and he doesn't like it.
So it was no surprise when Trump announced he would skip the next debate, leading John Kasich to pull out, too, thereby forcing Fox News to cancel it altogether. CNN provided an evening of town hall-style interviews Monday with all five remaining candidates on both sides of the aisle. Of course, Trump had no problem with this format. He thrives on his ability to frustrate even the most seasoned interviewers by using his uncanny ability to steer the conversation wherever he wants, no matter the initial question. Dodge, deflect, change the subject, repeat.
Trump telegraphed his campaign's messaging strategy moving forward. No matter the question asked, he defaulted to the same basic overarching themes: We aren't winning overseas, the United States is broke and only he can negotiate good deals, and the nominating rules are somehow unfair if there's a contested convention.
When challenged on his controversial stance on reducing American involvement in NATO and how our allies would react to such a move, Trump pivoted to our country is "under attack in every way," we are $19 trillion in debt and can't afford it. For Trump, the geopolitical implications are relegated to an afterthought to keep the message simple. Or perhaps he simply has no idea about those details, so he deflects.
On the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? Trump reassures us he's a great dealmaker. He repeats the absurd notion that participating as the grand marshal of the Salute to Israel Parade in 2004 somehow validates his claim that no one knows Israel better than he does.
Perhaps one of the most telling exchanges came when Trump was asked if he'd follow the Republican Party nominating rules if he failed to reach the 1,237-delegate majority to win the nomination before the convention in Cleveland. Not only did he refuse to say yes, Trump launched into a diatribe complaining how the entire process is "mathematically unfair" because he had to compete against so many candidates. What?
So there it is. Trump's creating a false narrative that the whole thing was rigged from the beginning to deny him and the will of the people if he doesn't win the majority of delegates before Cleveland. It couldn't possibly be that over half of the Republican electorate rejects Trump based on the merits, or lack thereof. Oh no. It's the system's fault. Trump's previous veiled threats about potential riots at the convention were not an accident. Trump's surrogates and apologists in the media have already begun to set the stage.
Sen. Ted Cruz took the opportunity to showcase his plan of attack against Trump, poking holes in the notion that he's anti-establishment. Cruz went down a litany of liberal lawmakers Trump has funded over the years and declared, "His whole campaign is built on a lie. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the flip side of the same coin. ... He made billions buying influence in Washington, and she made millions selling it."
Exposing Trump's hypocrisy on key issues from immigration to trade is clearly a Cruz campaign theme moving forward. Whether that resonates at this point remains to be seen.
Kasich continued his happy warrior routine, vowing to stay the course despite recent CNN polling that showed 70% of GOP primary voters think he should drop out. However, the same poll also showed Kasich beating Clinton by the largest margin. His argument is electability in the general, but he has a herculean task to get there.
Clinton and Bernie Sanders offered more of the same. Despite having virtually no path to victory, Sanders is staying the course. He continues to outperform Clinton with millennials and liberals, and his supporters are more enthusiastic.
Even though Clinton is the clear Democratic front-runner, head-to-head, Sanders beats all the GOP candidates by larger margins, whereas Clinton only beats Trump, pulls even with Cruz and actually loses to Kasich by 6 percentage points, according to the latest CNN/ORC International Poll.
It looks like both sides have their own nuisance candidates vowing to take it all the way to the convention floor. In this wild political season, how that plays out is anyone's guess.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"... we are stalked by something uniquely American: death by gunshot ... why hasn’t Congress taken steps to protect our safety. Because Republicans refuse."
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COMMENTS:
* A little kid got on the school bus wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Proud to be a Democrat." The bus driver asked why he was a Democrat and the kid said "Because my parents are Democrats." "So," said the bus driver, "What if your parents were lying, biblethumping, gun-loving, hypocrites? Then what?" The kid replied: "Then we'd be Republicans."
* A fairly well reasoned, fact based article in my mind.
* He already addressed this disengenuous argument. Gun control is the only issue where people argue that if a measure doesn't prevent every incident, than any law is useless. By that argument, all traffic laws should be eliminated, because they don't prevent all road deaths.
* The NRA reacts to nothing.... they have no soul.
* I blame religious dominionism and toxic masculinity.
* It is profoundly shameful how the GOP is owned by the NRA.
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Partners in Death: The GOP and the NRA
By Richard North Patterson, March 29, 2016
The tragic toll of war stupefies and stuns. In the 240 years since the Revolutionary War, we have sacrificed nearly 1.4 million Americans to war. In itself, this number is hard to grasp.
But harder yet is to reckon the human cost — of husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters; of perished potential; of achievements and kindnesses which will never be; of families forever shattered. However justified some wars may be, war sobers us, diminishes us, cheats us. We struggle to find some national purpose to console us, some nobility of spirit to uplift us. We mourn the tragedies of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, the wars of our last half-century.
In less than that same half-century, from the murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy until now, guns have claimed over 1.5 million Americans — 100,000 more deaths than in all the wars of our history.
Here there is no nobility, no consolation, no parades or speeches or monuments or national days of remembrance. Nothing but the indelible stain of mindless butchery and private sorrow.
Every year, year after year, we lose over 30,000 more of us to homicides, suicides and preventable accidents. Every day, we average more than one mass shooting — four or more people dead or wounded. Perhaps a name attaches to that day: Charleston, San Bernardino, Sandy Hook; perhaps we see a memorial service on our screen. Beneath such days are buried the death of 88 more people that day, and every other.
And the carnage moves inexorably forward. In the first two months of 2016, we have had 28 mass shootings. In two weeks time, we have added the names of Kalamazoo and Hesston, Kansas to this litany of shame. And yet nothing changes.
Why? It is not that America has more crime — our crime rates are comparable to other advanced countries. Instead we are stalked by something uniquely American: death by gunshot — four times more per million than the next highest country, Switzerland; 20 more times than Australia. America is the first worlds’ slaughterhouse.
Most Americans deplore that. A solid majority believes the the epidemic of deaths by gunshot is a serious problem; that mass shootings are something that can be stopped; and that our gun laws should be aimed at stemming these tragedies. Indeed, over 90 percent of Americans support background checks for all gun purchases. So why hasn’t Congress taken steps to protect our safety.
Because Republicans refuse.
Amidst the comprehensive moral and intellectual collapse of the GOP, nothing captures its utter bankruptcy more than the issue of gun violence. Lest this seem too stark, we must consider its stunning record of rhetorical and legislative obedience to the NRA.
Start with the party’s most recent presidential candidates. At the height of the campaign season, the massacres in Kalamazoo and Kansas provoked no comment. To a person, they oppose any legislation or government measures whatsoever to prevent gun violence. Instead, their answer is more guns in the hands of more Americans, no matter how dangerous an individual may be. As for gun safety legislation, they consistently — and falsely — characterize it as an effort to confiscate guns from law-abiding citizens.
Three of the principal contenders suffice to capture this cowardice and cynicism will:”You don’t stop the bad guys by taking away our guns,” Ted Cruz says. “You stop the bad guys by using our guns, and a free and armed American citizenry is how we keep ourselves safe.” The recently-departed “mainstream” choice, Marco Rubio, asserts that “gun laws fail everywhere they’re tried.”
Attempting to outdo his rivals, the probable nominee Donald Trump claims that “we already have tremendous regulations. Now, if you look at my opponents, they’re very weak on the Second Amendment. I’m very very strong.” Again and again, Trump suggests that the only solution to gun violence is for Americans to carry weapons wherever they go.
And they mean it. For example, as senators both Cruz and Rubio voted against expanded background checks to keep dangerous people from acquiring guns . Both opposed banning high-capacity magazines of over 10 bullets. And on and on, for there is not a single measure to reduce the toll of death that they support.
This opposition is not grounded in reason. Instead, the GOP hides behind a shopworn litany of excuses which do not withstand scrutiny.
First, there are the myths perpetuated by the gun lobby about self-defense. No question that law-abiding citizens have the perfect right to buy a gun for self-defense or any other lawful purpose. Advocates for gun safety laws don’t debate this. To the contrary, they believe that, to the extent possible, the law should protect all of us — whether we choose to own guns or not — by keeping dangerous people from acquiring weapons
There is certainly a need for such protections. Gun ownership alone won’t keep us safe — to the contrary, the assertion that guns used for self-defense keep us safer is counterfactual. A 2012 study by the Violence Policy Center showed that for every justifiable homicide there were 32 criminal gun deaths. The study concluded that: “The reality of self-defense gun use bears no resemblance to the exaggerated claims of the gun lobby and gun industry.” With respect to women and domestic violence, a study by researchers at Boston University confirms a grim reality — in states where gun ownership is higher, more women are killed by people they know.
As for the claim that gun safety legislation will do no good, it is bogus, a logical fallacy. The goal of such legislation is not the impossible — to stop every possible death — but to make it more difficult for dangerous people to kill with a gun. And it works. Incremental measures to stop deaths from smoking and drunk driving have drastically reduced both. Obviously, they did so without banning driving or even smoking. So, too, the effort to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and others with a propensity for violence — as the shooter in Hesston, Kansas, freshly served with a domestic violence restraining order, so tragically exemplifies.
Which brings us to the greatest falsehood of all — that gun safety legislation means denying law-abiding Americans the right to own a weapon, whether for self-defense or any other lawful purpose. Not only would such legislation be unconstitutional, but nothing the Republicans so adamantly oppose remotely resembles the straw man of confiscation they so conveniently invoke.
Yet again and again, the NRA and GOP deploy a preposterous perversion of the “slippery slope” argument — that any legislation to prevent criminals or terrorists from buying guns is a step toward barring gun ownership by all Americans. Bereft of rational arguments and terrified of fact, they traffic in demagoguery and paranoia. The NRA’s propaganda marks the absolute bottom of American political discourse — rooted in fear, fomented by hysteria, dependent on lies and, in some cases, fueled by fantasies of blowing away “the other.”
As for the assertion that the 5 - 4 Supreme Court decision finding a constitutional right to bear arms means that guns cannot be regulated to protect law-abiding citizens, it is nonsense. No constitutional right — including free speech — is absolute. As to guns, the Supreme Court made clear that nothing in its opinion barred reasonable regulation to protect the public safety, such as background checks to screen out gun purchases by criminals, spousal abusers, and the adjudicated mentally ill. The Second Amendment protects the rights of law-abiding Americans to buy a gun, not the rights of violent felons to endanger the law-abiding.
When all else fails, the NRA and its Republican handmaidens traffic in a particularly distasteful brand of diversion. A lot of homicides are gang-related, they argue, so why should we care? Besides, they say, many gun deaths are suicides, not homicides — ignoring that the prevalence of guns means that a person in despair has a quick and easy way of placing themselves beyond second thoughts, or the help of others. Particularly odious is the suggestion that a mass murderer like the demented young man in Sandy Hook would simply have found another weapon to wipe out so many kids and teachers so quickly. With what — a knife, or slingshot?
And, finally, this: given the NRA’s success in promoting gun ownership and opposing gun safety legislation, why aren’t we dramatically safer? Why so many mass murders? Why so many more killings than in any other first world country? Is the only answer that more Americans should carry weapons? Do the Republicans in Congress really believe — for one tragic example — the only protection for the black churchgoers murdered in Charleston would be bringing guns to their place of worship? Do they ever ask themselves whether our society is truly that helpless?
In truth, it doesn’t matter what Republican officeholders know or believe in their hearts. They are the NRA’s legislative arm — without them, the NRA could not have succeeded in making America the first world’s most dangerous place. Because, quite simply, they are the craven servants of the gun lobby — their services bought and paid for at whatever cost in human lives.
They don’t come cheap. Since 2010, the NRA and its allies have spent more than $46 million in soft money alone to influence federal elections. In the last election cycle , the NRA spent $18.6 million on candidates. Throw in lobbying, and the NRA spent $32.5 million in 2015. Virtually every dollar spent on candidates went to Republicans. Along with that comes a small cadre of voters obsessed with guns, who respond to whatever scare tactic the NRA comes up with.
What have the Republicans given the NRA in return? Anything it wants.
[MAJOR SNIPPAGE]
The annals of American politics are rife with self-serving hypocrisy. But the Republicans’ cowardly and contemptible servitude to the NRA stands alone in its cravenness and in its costs: the death and maiming of so many thousands of Americans, year after year, shattering families and inflicting the stain of violence on our country. And the GOP’s only answer is to promise us more.
It is long past time for Americans to call them on it.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* A little kid got on the school bus wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Proud to be a Democrat." The bus driver asked why he was a Democrat and the kid said "Because my parents are Democrats." "So," said the bus driver, "What if your parents were lying, biblethumping, gun-loving, hypocrites? Then what?" The kid replied: "Then we'd be Republicans."
* A fairly well reasoned, fact based article in my mind.
* He already addressed this disengenuous argument. Gun control is the only issue where people argue that if a measure doesn't prevent every incident, than any law is useless. By that argument, all traffic laws should be eliminated, because they don't prevent all road deaths.
* The NRA reacts to nothing.... they have no soul.
* I blame religious dominionism and toxic masculinity.
* It is profoundly shameful how the GOP is owned by the NRA.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Partners in Death: The GOP and the NRA
By Richard North Patterson, March 29, 2016
The tragic toll of war stupefies and stuns. In the 240 years since the Revolutionary War, we have sacrificed nearly 1.4 million Americans to war. In itself, this number is hard to grasp.
But harder yet is to reckon the human cost — of husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters; of perished potential; of achievements and kindnesses which will never be; of families forever shattered. However justified some wars may be, war sobers us, diminishes us, cheats us. We struggle to find some national purpose to console us, some nobility of spirit to uplift us. We mourn the tragedies of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, the wars of our last half-century.
In less than that same half-century, from the murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy until now, guns have claimed over 1.5 million Americans — 100,000 more deaths than in all the wars of our history.
Here there is no nobility, no consolation, no parades or speeches or monuments or national days of remembrance. Nothing but the indelible stain of mindless butchery and private sorrow.
Every year, year after year, we lose over 30,000 more of us to homicides, suicides and preventable accidents. Every day, we average more than one mass shooting — four or more people dead or wounded. Perhaps a name attaches to that day: Charleston, San Bernardino, Sandy Hook; perhaps we see a memorial service on our screen. Beneath such days are buried the death of 88 more people that day, and every other.
And the carnage moves inexorably forward. In the first two months of 2016, we have had 28 mass shootings. In two weeks time, we have added the names of Kalamazoo and Hesston, Kansas to this litany of shame. And yet nothing changes.
Why? It is not that America has more crime — our crime rates are comparable to other advanced countries. Instead we are stalked by something uniquely American: death by gunshot — four times more per million than the next highest country, Switzerland; 20 more times than Australia. America is the first worlds’ slaughterhouse.
Most Americans deplore that. A solid majority believes the the epidemic of deaths by gunshot is a serious problem; that mass shootings are something that can be stopped; and that our gun laws should be aimed at stemming these tragedies. Indeed, over 90 percent of Americans support background checks for all gun purchases. So why hasn’t Congress taken steps to protect our safety.
Because Republicans refuse.
Amidst the comprehensive moral and intellectual collapse of the GOP, nothing captures its utter bankruptcy more than the issue of gun violence. Lest this seem too stark, we must consider its stunning record of rhetorical and legislative obedience to the NRA.
Start with the party’s most recent presidential candidates. At the height of the campaign season, the massacres in Kalamazoo and Kansas provoked no comment. To a person, they oppose any legislation or government measures whatsoever to prevent gun violence. Instead, their answer is more guns in the hands of more Americans, no matter how dangerous an individual may be. As for gun safety legislation, they consistently — and falsely — characterize it as an effort to confiscate guns from law-abiding citizens.
Three of the principal contenders suffice to capture this cowardice and cynicism will:”You don’t stop the bad guys by taking away our guns,” Ted Cruz says. “You stop the bad guys by using our guns, and a free and armed American citizenry is how we keep ourselves safe.” The recently-departed “mainstream” choice, Marco Rubio, asserts that “gun laws fail everywhere they’re tried.”
Attempting to outdo his rivals, the probable nominee Donald Trump claims that “we already have tremendous regulations. Now, if you look at my opponents, they’re very weak on the Second Amendment. I’m very very strong.” Again and again, Trump suggests that the only solution to gun violence is for Americans to carry weapons wherever they go.
And they mean it. For example, as senators both Cruz and Rubio voted against expanded background checks to keep dangerous people from acquiring guns . Both opposed banning high-capacity magazines of over 10 bullets. And on and on, for there is not a single measure to reduce the toll of death that they support.
This opposition is not grounded in reason. Instead, the GOP hides behind a shopworn litany of excuses which do not withstand scrutiny.
First, there are the myths perpetuated by the gun lobby about self-defense. No question that law-abiding citizens have the perfect right to buy a gun for self-defense or any other lawful purpose. Advocates for gun safety laws don’t debate this. To the contrary, they believe that, to the extent possible, the law should protect all of us — whether we choose to own guns or not — by keeping dangerous people from acquiring weapons
There is certainly a need for such protections. Gun ownership alone won’t keep us safe — to the contrary, the assertion that guns used for self-defense keep us safer is counterfactual. A 2012 study by the Violence Policy Center showed that for every justifiable homicide there were 32 criminal gun deaths. The study concluded that: “The reality of self-defense gun use bears no resemblance to the exaggerated claims of the gun lobby and gun industry.” With respect to women and domestic violence, a study by researchers at Boston University confirms a grim reality — in states where gun ownership is higher, more women are killed by people they know.
As for the claim that gun safety legislation will do no good, it is bogus, a logical fallacy. The goal of such legislation is not the impossible — to stop every possible death — but to make it more difficult for dangerous people to kill with a gun. And it works. Incremental measures to stop deaths from smoking and drunk driving have drastically reduced both. Obviously, they did so without banning driving or even smoking. So, too, the effort to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and others with a propensity for violence — as the shooter in Hesston, Kansas, freshly served with a domestic violence restraining order, so tragically exemplifies.
Which brings us to the greatest falsehood of all — that gun safety legislation means denying law-abiding Americans the right to own a weapon, whether for self-defense or any other lawful purpose. Not only would such legislation be unconstitutional, but nothing the Republicans so adamantly oppose remotely resembles the straw man of confiscation they so conveniently invoke.
Yet again and again, the NRA and GOP deploy a preposterous perversion of the “slippery slope” argument — that any legislation to prevent criminals or terrorists from buying guns is a step toward barring gun ownership by all Americans. Bereft of rational arguments and terrified of fact, they traffic in demagoguery and paranoia. The NRA’s propaganda marks the absolute bottom of American political discourse — rooted in fear, fomented by hysteria, dependent on lies and, in some cases, fueled by fantasies of blowing away “the other.”
As for the assertion that the 5 - 4 Supreme Court decision finding a constitutional right to bear arms means that guns cannot be regulated to protect law-abiding citizens, it is nonsense. No constitutional right — including free speech — is absolute. As to guns, the Supreme Court made clear that nothing in its opinion barred reasonable regulation to protect the public safety, such as background checks to screen out gun purchases by criminals, spousal abusers, and the adjudicated mentally ill. The Second Amendment protects the rights of law-abiding Americans to buy a gun, not the rights of violent felons to endanger the law-abiding.
When all else fails, the NRA and its Republican handmaidens traffic in a particularly distasteful brand of diversion. A lot of homicides are gang-related, they argue, so why should we care? Besides, they say, many gun deaths are suicides, not homicides — ignoring that the prevalence of guns means that a person in despair has a quick and easy way of placing themselves beyond second thoughts, or the help of others. Particularly odious is the suggestion that a mass murderer like the demented young man in Sandy Hook would simply have found another weapon to wipe out so many kids and teachers so quickly. With what — a knife, or slingshot?
And, finally, this: given the NRA’s success in promoting gun ownership and opposing gun safety legislation, why aren’t we dramatically safer? Why so many mass murders? Why so many more killings than in any other first world country? Is the only answer that more Americans should carry weapons? Do the Republicans in Congress really believe — for one tragic example — the only protection for the black churchgoers murdered in Charleston would be bringing guns to their place of worship? Do they ever ask themselves whether our society is truly that helpless?
In truth, it doesn’t matter what Republican officeholders know or believe in their hearts. They are the NRA’s legislative arm — without them, the NRA could not have succeeded in making America the first world’s most dangerous place. Because, quite simply, they are the craven servants of the gun lobby — their services bought and paid for at whatever cost in human lives.
They don’t come cheap. Since 2010, the NRA and its allies have spent more than $46 million in soft money alone to influence federal elections. In the last election cycle , the NRA spent $18.6 million on candidates. Throw in lobbying, and the NRA spent $32.5 million in 2015. Virtually every dollar spent on candidates went to Republicans. Along with that comes a small cadre of voters obsessed with guns, who respond to whatever scare tactic the NRA comes up with.
What have the Republicans given the NRA in return? Anything it wants.
[MAJOR SNIPPAGE]
The annals of American politics are rife with self-serving hypocrisy. But the Republicans’ cowardly and contemptible servitude to the NRA stands alone in its cravenness and in its costs: the death and maiming of so many thousands of Americans, year after year, shattering families and inflicting the stain of violence on our country. And the GOP’s only answer is to promise us more.
It is long past time for Americans to call them on it.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"... Trump’s poor image ratings make him the worst of the three Republicans in a general election, polls show."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* To an extent, there is no story here. We know that it's a tiny slice of voters who are participating in the Republican Primaries - at one point, the 538 blog crunched the numbers and found it was 1.8% of the total electorate. These voters tend to be very reactionary, right-wing and ideological, and until a majority of them desert Trump, there's no story. Of course, that would change if he got to the general election campaign.
* ... I've always been curious to know why Trumpers have this blind loyalty, no matter that his positions crumble under a little bit of rational thought (Wall off Mexico and they'll pay? Trade war with China and we win?) or that he's been shown time after time to be factually wrong or just ignorant about basic things that presidents need to know (the New York Times interview on foreign policy -- and, no, the mythical liberal media didn't do a gotcha, the reporters just asked questions and passed along what Trump said in response). Letting Trump vent your anger is fine, but that's no basis for a presidency. Hoping you'll reconsider and engage your thought process before voting in November.
* For progressives, the last paragraph is the one to remember. Conservative voters will rally around the nominee, even if it's DT. If the Republicans won't send this dirtbag packing, it's up to you to do the job.
* I think you're right. If trump has the most delegates, he should get the nomination. Then, when trump gets creamed in the general, will you guys finally admit that you ran a true conservative like you wanted? Then, can you finally admit that it's not the candidate that is making you lose, it's your complete lack of good ideas for the country?
* By every single measurement the more people know about Donald Trump the less they like him. He loses to Clinton by double digits. If I were a Democrat I would be excited about Trump getting the nomination. He must be stopped or he destroys the Republican Party. #nevertrump
* Trump sending out that re-tweet was the dumbest thing he's done so far. It could cost him the nomination.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Trump's popularity nosedives in critical stretch
As he inches toward the GOP nomination, Donald Trump is becoming more and more disliked among American voters.
By Steven Shepard, March 29, 2016
Donald Trump wasn't wildly popular to begin with. And now he's becoming even more disliked among American voters, creating a significant threat to his chances of winning the Republican presidential nomination.
Trump is, by far, the GOP delegate leader — and the only candidate with a realistic shot at winning a majority of delegates before the July convention. But at the same time, nearly two-thirds of Americans view Trump unfavorably — and his image rating has declined since Republican voting began in February.
The danger for Trump is two-fold: His declining popularity is taking a toll on his standing in the 17 states that will hold primaries between now and the end of the process in early June. Losing some of these states — or even winning fewer delegates in proportional states — makes it more difficult for Trump to secure a pre-convention majority of 1,237 delegates.
That’s where Trump’s horrific poll numbers could haunt him again: If Trump misses the threshold to win the nomination outright in bound delegates, it will be more difficult to persuade unbound delegates to put him over the top if they see him as a general election disaster-in-the-making due to his high unfavorability ratings among all voters.
How bad are Trump’s image ratings? The HuffPost Pollster average of recent national polls puts Trump’s favorability at only 31 percent, while 63 percent view him unfavorably.
That’s a notable decline from late January, on the eve of the first votes in the GOP nominating process, when Trump’s average favorability rating was 37 percent, with 57 percent viewing him unfavorably.
Trump is hardly alone: Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz are also viewed unfavorably by majorities of Americans, according to polling averages. Only John Kasich and Bernie Sanders — neither of whom has faced many negative attacks from either party — have positive image ratings.
Among Republicans, Trump’s numbers aren’t stellar, but they have been durable — even as the other GOP candidates have trained their fire on him. Polls earlier this month from CNN/ORC and Quinnipiac University show Trump’s overall favorability rating tanking, but the figures are virtually unchanged among Republicans: A little more than 60 percent view him favorably, and about a third have an unfavorable opinion of him.
But the remainder of Republican primaries — which resume next week in Wisconsin — will be held at the state level. And in a three-way race with Cruz and Kasich, the forces aiming to halt Trump’s march to the nomination will continue to chip away further at Trump’s image.
Some of the anti-Trump groups have chosen to target female Republicans, betting that Trump’s past — and some current — statements about women would alienate those voters. Data from the states that have already voted bear that out: Trump has run, on average, 7 points better among male voters than among female voters in the 17 states in which there have been entrance or exit polls.
One of the leading anti-Trump groups, Our Principles PAC, credits some of its attacks on Trump — including an ad featuring women reading some of Trump’s past quotes on women — with bringing those statements to the fore. And the group cited paid media and ground efforts to oppose Trump with hurting him in some of the states he’s lost, like Iowa.
Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said that even if those attacks don’t crush Trump in the primary, it could be difficult for him to hold female Republicans in a general election. “For women, Trump is like your worst date ever,” Lake said.
Club for Growth Action, another independent-expenditure group that has opposed Trump, has taken a more general approach, focusing mostly on Trump’s conservative apostasies on economic issues, though the group has also targeted Trump’s business record.
The Club ascribed Trump’s losses in states like Iowa and Oklahoma to its paid media efforts. (The group’s latest ad, in Wisconsin, specifically encourages anti-Trump voters there to get behind Cruz, whom the Club has endorsed, instead of Kasich.)
But attacking Trump doesn’t ensure defeat: Both the Club and Our Principles PAC spent heavily to attack Trump in states he went on to win, like Florida and Illinois.
Just as trying to sink Trump’s favorability doesn’t guarantee he’ll lose, nor do high favorable ratings equal votes: Some of the best-liked candidates this election cycle have faltered when voters have picked the people they want to represent their party in November.
“Oftentimes the candidate with the highest favorability doesn’t get the highest percentage of votes,” said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. “Ben Carson had the highest favorability. They liked him — they just wouldn’t vote for him.”
Still, Trump’s poor image ratings make him the worst of the three Republicans in a general election, polls show. And some Republican pollsters say that creates the prospect of a bitter campaign, at least when targeted to different demographic groups. For example, Clinton could use negative advertising against Trump geared toward women. Trump could try to motivate Republicans and independents by reinforcing their lack of trust in Clinton. Clinton could strike back by painting Trump as an enemy of Latinos, who are growing as a share of the electorate, in Spanish-language advertising.
“Hispanic media would be the most rippingly negative campaign you’d ever see,” predicted Whit Ayers, who polled for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s now-suspended campaign. “It would basically be a campaign against Darth Vader in Hispanic media — with good reason.”
But there’s also evidence that Trump’s favorability rating could rebound if he wins the nomination and Republicans rally around their standard-bearer. According to Gallup, Mitt Romney’s image ratings skyrocketed among his base after the national convention.
“Should Trump be the nominee, a lot of Republicans who have a hard time believing they would actually vote for him — once he begins to take on Hillary the same wNewhouse, Romney’s pollster in 2012. “The great unifier among Republicans is being against Hillary Clinton — and against Barack Obama. That may help remedy some of our problems.”ay he’s taken on Marco [Rubio], or Ted Cruz, or Kasich or Jeb Bush — they may turn,” said
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* To an extent, there is no story here. We know that it's a tiny slice of voters who are participating in the Republican Primaries - at one point, the 538 blog crunched the numbers and found it was 1.8% of the total electorate. These voters tend to be very reactionary, right-wing and ideological, and until a majority of them desert Trump, there's no story. Of course, that would change if he got to the general election campaign.
* ... I've always been curious to know why Trumpers have this blind loyalty, no matter that his positions crumble under a little bit of rational thought (Wall off Mexico and they'll pay? Trade war with China and we win?) or that he's been shown time after time to be factually wrong or just ignorant about basic things that presidents need to know (the New York Times interview on foreign policy -- and, no, the mythical liberal media didn't do a gotcha, the reporters just asked questions and passed along what Trump said in response). Letting Trump vent your anger is fine, but that's no basis for a presidency. Hoping you'll reconsider and engage your thought process before voting in November.
* For progressives, the last paragraph is the one to remember. Conservative voters will rally around the nominee, even if it's DT. If the Republicans won't send this dirtbag packing, it's up to you to do the job.
* I think you're right. If trump has the most delegates, he should get the nomination. Then, when trump gets creamed in the general, will you guys finally admit that you ran a true conservative like you wanted? Then, can you finally admit that it's not the candidate that is making you lose, it's your complete lack of good ideas for the country?
* By every single measurement the more people know about Donald Trump the less they like him. He loses to Clinton by double digits. If I were a Democrat I would be excited about Trump getting the nomination. He must be stopped or he destroys the Republican Party. #nevertrump
* Trump sending out that re-tweet was the dumbest thing he's done so far. It could cost him the nomination.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Trump's popularity nosedives in critical stretch
As he inches toward the GOP nomination, Donald Trump is becoming more and more disliked among American voters.
By Steven Shepard, March 29, 2016
Donald Trump wasn't wildly popular to begin with. And now he's becoming even more disliked among American voters, creating a significant threat to his chances of winning the Republican presidential nomination.
Trump is, by far, the GOP delegate leader — and the only candidate with a realistic shot at winning a majority of delegates before the July convention. But at the same time, nearly two-thirds of Americans view Trump unfavorably — and his image rating has declined since Republican voting began in February.
The danger for Trump is two-fold: His declining popularity is taking a toll on his standing in the 17 states that will hold primaries between now and the end of the process in early June. Losing some of these states — or even winning fewer delegates in proportional states — makes it more difficult for Trump to secure a pre-convention majority of 1,237 delegates.
That’s where Trump’s horrific poll numbers could haunt him again: If Trump misses the threshold to win the nomination outright in bound delegates, it will be more difficult to persuade unbound delegates to put him over the top if they see him as a general election disaster-in-the-making due to his high unfavorability ratings among all voters.
How bad are Trump’s image ratings? The HuffPost Pollster average of recent national polls puts Trump’s favorability at only 31 percent, while 63 percent view him unfavorably.
That’s a notable decline from late January, on the eve of the first votes in the GOP nominating process, when Trump’s average favorability rating was 37 percent, with 57 percent viewing him unfavorably.
Trump is hardly alone: Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz are also viewed unfavorably by majorities of Americans, according to polling averages. Only John Kasich and Bernie Sanders — neither of whom has faced many negative attacks from either party — have positive image ratings.
Among Republicans, Trump’s numbers aren’t stellar, but they have been durable — even as the other GOP candidates have trained their fire on him. Polls earlier this month from CNN/ORC and Quinnipiac University show Trump’s overall favorability rating tanking, but the figures are virtually unchanged among Republicans: A little more than 60 percent view him favorably, and about a third have an unfavorable opinion of him.
But the remainder of Republican primaries — which resume next week in Wisconsin — will be held at the state level. And in a three-way race with Cruz and Kasich, the forces aiming to halt Trump’s march to the nomination will continue to chip away further at Trump’s image.
Some of the anti-Trump groups have chosen to target female Republicans, betting that Trump’s past — and some current — statements about women would alienate those voters. Data from the states that have already voted bear that out: Trump has run, on average, 7 points better among male voters than among female voters in the 17 states in which there have been entrance or exit polls.
One of the leading anti-Trump groups, Our Principles PAC, credits some of its attacks on Trump — including an ad featuring women reading some of Trump’s past quotes on women — with bringing those statements to the fore. And the group cited paid media and ground efforts to oppose Trump with hurting him in some of the states he’s lost, like Iowa.
Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said that even if those attacks don’t crush Trump in the primary, it could be difficult for him to hold female Republicans in a general election. “For women, Trump is like your worst date ever,” Lake said.
Club for Growth Action, another independent-expenditure group that has opposed Trump, has taken a more general approach, focusing mostly on Trump’s conservative apostasies on economic issues, though the group has also targeted Trump’s business record.
The Club ascribed Trump’s losses in states like Iowa and Oklahoma to its paid media efforts. (The group’s latest ad, in Wisconsin, specifically encourages anti-Trump voters there to get behind Cruz, whom the Club has endorsed, instead of Kasich.)
But attacking Trump doesn’t ensure defeat: Both the Club and Our Principles PAC spent heavily to attack Trump in states he went on to win, like Florida and Illinois.
Just as trying to sink Trump’s favorability doesn’t guarantee he’ll lose, nor do high favorable ratings equal votes: Some of the best-liked candidates this election cycle have faltered when voters have picked the people they want to represent their party in November.
“Oftentimes the candidate with the highest favorability doesn’t get the highest percentage of votes,” said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. “Ben Carson had the highest favorability. They liked him — they just wouldn’t vote for him.”
Still, Trump’s poor image ratings make him the worst of the three Republicans in a general election, polls show. And some Republican pollsters say that creates the prospect of a bitter campaign, at least when targeted to different demographic groups. For example, Clinton could use negative advertising against Trump geared toward women. Trump could try to motivate Republicans and independents by reinforcing their lack of trust in Clinton. Clinton could strike back by painting Trump as an enemy of Latinos, who are growing as a share of the electorate, in Spanish-language advertising.
“Hispanic media would be the most rippingly negative campaign you’d ever see,” predicted Whit Ayers, who polled for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s now-suspended campaign. “It would basically be a campaign against Darth Vader in Hispanic media — with good reason.”
But there’s also evidence that Trump’s favorability rating could rebound if he wins the nomination and Republicans rally around their standard-bearer. According to Gallup, Mitt Romney’s image ratings skyrocketed among his base after the national convention.
“Should Trump be the nominee, a lot of Republicans who have a hard time believing they would actually vote for him — once he begins to take on Hillary the same wNewhouse, Romney’s pollster in 2012. “The great unifier among Republicans is being against Hillary Clinton — and against Barack Obama. That may help remedy some of our problems.”ay he’s taken on Marco [Rubio], or Ted Cruz, or Kasich or Jeb Bush — they may turn,” said
...................................................................................................................................................................
Monday, March 28, 2016
"The bad news is that electing such a con man to run for the highest office [in] the land is detrimental and dangerous."
...................................................................................................................................................................
Donald Trump: His madness drives GOP insanity
By Coug Thompson, March 28, 2016
Every election year, we seem to plunge to new depths in our selection of candidates for Congress and the White House.
Yet each year brings new, previously unimaginable lows. The pits of hyperbole, hypocrisy and hate have no bottom. Each year pushes the pit even lower.
In some ways, the ascension of showman and megalomaniac Doanld Trump as most-likely Republican candidate is a classic “good news, bad news” joke.
The bad news is that electing such a con man to run for the highest office is the land is detrimental and dangerous.
The good news is that his selection should, and may, destroy the vapid Republican Party.
I worked as a political operative for the Republican Party in 1994, the year another con artist, Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich put together a string of lies called “A Contract With America” and used it to take control of Congress.
The “contract” promised term limits, and end to padding legislation with boondoggles for members of Congress and more response from Congress to needs of “the American people.”
Gingrich and his cronies scrapped term limits as soon as they took control and walked away from virtually every other promise in his contract of lies.
As Speaker of the House, he helped lead the drive to impeach President Bill Clinton for his peccadilloes with White House intern Monica Lewsinsky while he — as the leader of the House in Congress — dallied with a committee staff member behind his wife’s back.
I walked away from politics in disgust. I was in it for the money and there wasn’t enough money any more to force me to look the other way. Not enough booze either. My first stop was Alcoholic Anonymous and has been sober, as of this writing, 21 years, eight months and 22 days.
Republicans, however continued their downward plunge into the depths. Adherence to extreme rapid right-wingers like tea party groups, nomination of outright frauds like Sarah Palin as a potential vice president and outright racism after the nation elected its first African American President.
Now the party of the overweight and out of control elephant totters on the edge of madness with a nomination of a flamboyant, ego-ridden, former reality show host and real estate billionaire to carry the GOP flag into the general election.
Donald Trump lies so often that an army of fact-checkers cannot keep up with all of his falsehoods. His potential First Lady is a Russian born model who strips off her clothes for any photographer with a check that doesn’t bounce. He brags openly about how “hot” his wife is and also admits lustful feelings about his young daughter.
His campaign tactics includes comments on the appearance of women and references to bodily functions.
Reports Sean Sullivan of The Washington Post:
Trumps drops four-letter words like a kid who shouts obscenities to be noticed and then attacks others for “vulgarity.”
Republicans, too late, finally recognized the real threat of a Trump nomination and now are willing to find a way to wrest the nomination from him and deliver it to Ted Cruz, a right-wing blowhard despised by the mainstream as much as Trump.
Are Donald Trump and Ted Cruz the best that Republicans can offer this nation? Sadly, that appears to be the case.
Is this leadership? No way.
Is it Republican politics? Absolutely.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Donald Trump: His madness drives GOP insanity
By Coug Thompson, March 28, 2016
Welcome back my friends to the show that never endsSo often in American politics, the two verses above from Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Karn Evil 9 offer a vivid display of a system out of control.
We’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside
There behind a glass stands a real blade of grass
Be careful as you pass, move along, move along
Come inside, the show’s about to start
Guaranteed to blow your head apart
Rest assured you’ll get your money’s worth
Greatest show in Heaven, Hell or Earth
You’ve got to see the show, it’s a dynamo
You’ve got to see the show, it’s rock and roll, oh
Every election year, we seem to plunge to new depths in our selection of candidates for Congress and the White House.
Yet each year brings new, previously unimaginable lows. The pits of hyperbole, hypocrisy and hate have no bottom. Each year pushes the pit even lower.
In some ways, the ascension of showman and megalomaniac Doanld Trump as most-likely Republican candidate is a classic “good news, bad news” joke.
The bad news is that electing such a con man to run for the highest office is the land is detrimental and dangerous.
The good news is that his selection should, and may, destroy the vapid Republican Party.
I worked as a political operative for the Republican Party in 1994, the year another con artist, Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich put together a string of lies called “A Contract With America” and used it to take control of Congress.
The “contract” promised term limits, and end to padding legislation with boondoggles for members of Congress and more response from Congress to needs of “the American people.”
Gingrich and his cronies scrapped term limits as soon as they took control and walked away from virtually every other promise in his contract of lies.
As Speaker of the House, he helped lead the drive to impeach President Bill Clinton for his peccadilloes with White House intern Monica Lewsinsky while he — as the leader of the House in Congress — dallied with a committee staff member behind his wife’s back.
I walked away from politics in disgust. I was in it for the money and there wasn’t enough money any more to force me to look the other way. Not enough booze either. My first stop was Alcoholic Anonymous and has been sober, as of this writing, 21 years, eight months and 22 days.
Republicans, however continued their downward plunge into the depths. Adherence to extreme rapid right-wingers like tea party groups, nomination of outright frauds like Sarah Palin as a potential vice president and outright racism after the nation elected its first African American President.
Now the party of the overweight and out of control elephant totters on the edge of madness with a nomination of a flamboyant, ego-ridden, former reality show host and real estate billionaire to carry the GOP flag into the general election.
Donald Trump lies so often that an army of fact-checkers cannot keep up with all of his falsehoods. His potential First Lady is a Russian born model who strips off her clothes for any photographer with a check that doesn’t bounce. He brags openly about how “hot” his wife is and also admits lustful feelings about his young daughter.
His campaign tactics includes comments on the appearance of women and references to bodily functions.
Reports Sean Sullivan of The Washington Post:
“That’s junior high school stuff,” said Chris Cary, 53, a Web programmer who backs Cruz. “We should be talking about ISIS. We should be talking about the loss of our freedoms.”He also brags about planning to us[e] illegal and immoral methods against other nationalities, claims he will build a wall around the U.S. border of Mexico and wants to bring back internment camps aimed –this time– at Muslims.
Christopher Handler, 60, a painter at Lambeau Field, concurred, saying, “I don’t like to see the wives getting involved.”
Trump has been at the center of many of the campaign’s most vitriolic moments. The real estate mogul has insulted Carly Fiorina’s looks, questioned Ben Carson’s religion, and endlessly mocked Bush, Rubio and Cruz.
Trumps drops four-letter words like a kid who shouts obscenities to be noticed and then attacks others for “vulgarity.”
Republicans, too late, finally recognized the real threat of a Trump nomination and now are willing to find a way to wrest the nomination from him and deliver it to Ted Cruz, a right-wing blowhard despised by the mainstream as much as Trump.
Are Donald Trump and Ted Cruz the best that Republicans can offer this nation? Sadly, that appears to be the case.
Is this leadership? No way.
Is it Republican politics? Absolutely.
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