...................................................................................................................................................................
THE DAY OF THE “ROARING JACKASS”
By John Cassidy, June 1, 2016
Even by the exacting standards of the 2016 campaign, which has turned into a theatre of the absurd and the disturbing, the past twenty-four hours have been bizarre. Barely had Americans returned to work from the Memorial Day weekend when word came that Donald Trump would be holding a mid-morning press conference at Trump Tower. He planned to detail how he had distributed some six million dollars that he claimed to have raised for veterans’ organizations back in January, when, fuming at Fox News and its anchor Megyn Kelly, he skipped a Republican debate in Des Moines, Iowa, and held a charity event of his own.
Early last week, the Washington Post’s David A. Fahrenthold reported that he couldn’t find any veterans’ organizations that had received money from Trump’s event. And it was only as Fahrenthold prepared to publish his story, he reported, that Trump moved to fulfill a pledge to donate a million dollars of his own.
To anyone who was familiar with Trump’s record of philanthropy, which is long on rounds of golf donated to charity by his various courses but short on actual cash handed over, the Post story wasn’t entirely surprising. Together with other reports, it clearly got under Trump’s skin, though. As the press conference began, his staff distributed a list of forty veterans’ organization to which he or his charitable foundation had sent checks. The organizations ran the gamut from the Navy seal Foundation, to which the Trump Foundation donated four hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars, and Operation Homefront, a sizable Texas-based charity, which received fifty thousand dollars, to much smaller outfits, such as New England Wounded Veterans, which got seventy-five thousand dollars.
The Associated Press subsequently reported that many of the checks went out just last week, and that at least some were dated May 24th, the same day Fahrenthold’s story appeared. Trump, when he took the microphone, didn’t pause to explain this coincidence. Instead, he lashed out at the media for querying his actions.
“You make me look very bad,” Trump complained. “I have never received such bad publicity for doing such a good job.” He called the reporting about his donations “dishonest” and “unfair,” and he singled out some of the journalists present. Pointing at Tom Llamas, of ABC News, Trump said, “You’re a sleaze because you know the facts and you know the facts well.” To CNN’s Jim Acosta, who expressed doubts about whether Trump could withstand media scrutiny, the candidate said, “Excuse me, excuse me. I’ve watched you on television. You’re a real beauty.” At one point in Trump’s rant, a reporter asked him if his angry demeanor was an indication of how his White House news conferences would go, should he get elected. “Yes, it is,” he said. “It is going to be like this.”
Trump didn’t reserve his vitriol for members of the Fourth Estate. He also took some swings at Mitt Romney, the patron saint of the Never Trump movement, and at its de-facto chief executive, Bill Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, who had interrupted his holiday weekend to tweet, “There will be an independent candidate—an impressive one, with a strong team and a real chance.”
Asked about the possibility of a third-party candidate, Trump said that it would lose the election for the Republicans, “and therefore you lose the Supreme Court.” He reminded his audience that Kristol once predicted that he wouldn’t run for President, and he added, “He’s got no credibility. . . . He looks like a fool.” Then he hit his antagonist with the ultimate Trump insult: “Bill Kristol’s a loser. His magazine is failing, as you know. I don’t think it even survives. He’s getting some free publicity.”
Kristol, a veteran Republican grandee who came to prominence as Vice-President Dan Quayle’s chief of staff, didn’t take long to return fire. “I gather Donald Trump said I’m a loser,” he wrote on Twitter. “I’ve won some and I’ve lost some, but one thing I’ve always tried not to be is a roaring jackass.”
In the Twitterverse—or, at least, in parts of it—this was adjudged a devilishly effective response, the literary equivalent of Ali coming off the ropes to drop Foreman to the canvas. More than sixteen hundred people have retweeted Kristol’s bon mot thus far, and one of the retweeters, Lionel Barber, the editor of the Financial Times, proclaimed, “Quote of the 2016 campaign – so far.”
From this pre-noon high, however, Kristol’s day was to embark on a steep descent. In the middle of the afternoon, Bloomberg News’s Mark Halperin and John Heilemann reported that the “impressive” third-party candidate Kristol had in mind to challenge Trump was David French, a conservative lawyer and anti-abortion activist who writes for National Review, the conservative publication that earlier this year published a special issue devoted to the theme “Against Trump.” As word of French’s possible candidacy got around, it provoked a collective raspberry from the commentariat, the likes of which hasn’t been heard since John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. Harry Enten, of FiveThirtyEight, wrote on Twitter, “No offense but who the hell is David French?” BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski quipped, “Kristol went with French after his first choice, Harambe the gorilla, became unexpectedly [un]available.” (The reference was to the primate shot by zookeepers at the Cincinnati Zoo, on Saturday.) Josh Barro, of Business Insider, said, “I want to thank Bill Kristol. I have a headache and I’m not feeling so great today, and the hearty laugh he just gave me cheered me up.”
Even some people more familiar with French expressed doubts. Ed Morrissey, a senior editor at the conservative Web site HotAir tweeted, “Huge respect for both @DavidAFrench & @BillKristol, but this is like picking @GeorgeWill to pitch for your fantasy baseball team.”
Some of this reaction may have been unfair to French, a Harvard Law School-trained constitutional lawyer, social conservative, and decorated military veteran. (While serving as Squadron Judge Advocate for the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq, he was awarded a Bronze Star.) On Tuesday evening, Mitt Romney came to French’s defense, tweeting, “I know David French to be an honorable, intelligent and patriotic person. I look forward to following what he has to say.”
The fact remains, however, that French is a political neophyte. He doesn’t have any money to finance a campaign, and just last week he published an article saying that Romney was the only one with “the integrity, financial resources, name recognition, and broad public support to make a realistic independent run at the presidency.”
Perhaps the most revelatory reaction to the news about Kristol and French came from Trump himself. Like the dog in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story “The Adventure of Silver Blaze,” Trump didn’t bark. Either he didn’t think it was worth his while, or he was too busy tweeting abuse at yet another reporter, Katie Couric, and preparing for a fawning interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity, who let slip the non-revelation that he would be voting for his guest in November. “You know, I am not the corrupt press,” Hannity said. “I am actually the conservative.” Trump responded, “You happen to be right about that.”
There followed a mutual whining session about the iniquities of the media, and how unfairly journalists were treating the presumptive G.O.P. nominee. “I said in 2008, journalism is dead; you’re confronting this bias, institutional bias, and they don’t seem to like it,” Hannity said. Naturally enough, Trump agreed. “They’re bad people,” he said.
Doubtless, they are. As Trump and Hannity were chewing the fat, the New York Times was publishing another scurrilous attack on America’s would-be savior: a front-page story that cited sworn testimony from former managers of Trump University, which was released yesterday following a court ruling. The testimony portrayed the now-defunct for-profit school as “an unscrupulous business that relied on high-pressure sales tactics, employed unqualified instructors, made deceptive claims and exploited vulnerable students willing to pay tens of thousands for Mr. Trump’s insights,” Michael Barbaro and Steve Eder wrote. One of the ex-managers told the Times, “I believe that Trump University was a fraudulent scheme.”
Trump’s lawyers told the Times that this testimony had been “completely discredited” by other depositions taken in a California lawsuit. Hope Hicks, a campaign spokesperson, said that Trump University was looking forward to its day in court. For some reason, though, as of Tuesday morning the “roaring jackass” himself hadn’t responded directly.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Friday, June 3, 2016
"Clinton made Trump look like a bad joke yesterday, but just as important is the effort to plant seeds of doubt in voters’ minds about the Republican candidate representing a genuine hazard to the nation’s future."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Well, considering he's a serial liar, serial cheater, racist, bigot, misogynist and all around a-hole, as well as defrauding people through his Trump "University," I'd say that's pretty corrupt as well as being immoral as hell.
* I just hope the dumb Trumpsters realize what a big joke this moron is to be running for POTUS no less. There's no chance that Trump will win in November, but the mere fact that a lot of stupid people believe in everything that he says is just astonishingly ridiculous!
* I think Trump is a text book psychopath. His narcissism, thin skin, and the lack of any kind of compassion are all telltale signs.
* Donald Trump will never release his tax returns The reason why is very simple. His tax returns will reveal income that he made off of the now defunct Trump University. This is the main reason why he wants the case against him thrown out. Having the case thrown out will push back the scrutiny he is currently facing. Surprisingly no one has mentioned his tax returns as revealing how he may have profited from Trump University and those same students who are now suing him. Those tax returns are keeping this and many other critical questionable financial tidbits about Donald out of the line of fire at the moment. However, you can be sure that this information and the failure to reveal the tax returns will come to the forefront more and more as we get closer to November. Like Romney said figuratively, the proof of such will be seen in the tax returns.
* It was perfect! She destroyed Trump without stooping to his level. Very Madam Presidential! I also appreciate that Hillary supporters are rational and non-violent - thanks to the tone she and her campaign has set. Unlike the other two remaining candidates.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Against Trump, Hillary Clinton did what his GOP rivals could not
By Steve Benen, June 3, 2016
It’s easy to forget, but when it comes to campaigns for national office, we’ve really only seen one side of Hillary Clinton: the primary version. In 2007 and 2008, Clinton was a high-profile presidential candidate, but she was running against Barack Obama. In 2015 and 2016, she’s been very active on the trail, but her rival thus far has been Bernie Sanders.
In her excellent new piece, New York’s Rebecca Traister noted last week, “We have not yet experienced Hillary Clinton as a general-election candidate, permitted to fight without one hand tied behind her back. We’ve only seen her in tough primaries, her natural base of support divided in its loyalties, pitted against beloved men with good politics – men she could not hit too hard, lest her negative words ever be used against them and their losses laid at her feet.”
As the Democratic race wraps up, and Clinton no longer feels the need to hold back against her opponent, we’re going to see a qualitatively different kind of candidate – one that seems far more inclined to punch her rival in the teeth.
But my oh my was yesterday’s speech an example of Clinton at her very best. NBC News’ Kasie Hunt added via Twitter, “Clinton pulling off what no GOP Trump challenger could: Taking him on in a way that makes her seem bigger, not smaller, than he.”
From the speech:
This was not, however, just a kitchen-sink strategy. The point was to underscore a specific kind of argument: Clinton realizes there may be some Americans who believe we can take a chance with a demagogic reality-show personality making life-and-death decisions in the White House, and yesterday was about making the case that the gamble is simply too great.
It’s why Clinton made multiple references to words like “dangerous” (“Trump’s ideas aren’t just different – they are dangerously incoherent”),”risk” (“A Trump Presidency would embolden ISIS; we cannot take that risk”), and “stakes” (“The stakes in global statecraft are infinitely higher and more complex than in the world of luxury hotels”).
Clinton made Trump look like a bad joke yesterday, but just as important is the effort to plant seeds of doubt in voters’ minds about the Republican candidate representing a genuine hazard to the nation’s future.
For his part, the presumptive GOP nominee struggled to respond because, frankly, no response would do – everything Clinton said had the benefit of being true.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Well, considering he's a serial liar, serial cheater, racist, bigot, misogynist and all around a-hole, as well as defrauding people through his Trump "University," I'd say that's pretty corrupt as well as being immoral as hell.
* I just hope the dumb Trumpsters realize what a big joke this moron is to be running for POTUS no less. There's no chance that Trump will win in November, but the mere fact that a lot of stupid people believe in everything that he says is just astonishingly ridiculous!
* I think Trump is a text book psychopath. His narcissism, thin skin, and the lack of any kind of compassion are all telltale signs.
* Donald Trump will never release his tax returns The reason why is very simple. His tax returns will reveal income that he made off of the now defunct Trump University. This is the main reason why he wants the case against him thrown out. Having the case thrown out will push back the scrutiny he is currently facing. Surprisingly no one has mentioned his tax returns as revealing how he may have profited from Trump University and those same students who are now suing him. Those tax returns are keeping this and many other critical questionable financial tidbits about Donald out of the line of fire at the moment. However, you can be sure that this information and the failure to reveal the tax returns will come to the forefront more and more as we get closer to November. Like Romney said figuratively, the proof of such will be seen in the tax returns.
* It was perfect! She destroyed Trump without stooping to his level. Very Madam Presidential! I also appreciate that Hillary supporters are rational and non-violent - thanks to the tone she and her campaign has set. Unlike the other two remaining candidates.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Against Trump, Hillary Clinton did what his GOP rivals could not
By Steve Benen, June 3, 2016
It’s easy to forget, but when it comes to campaigns for national office, we’ve really only seen one side of Hillary Clinton: the primary version. In 2007 and 2008, Clinton was a high-profile presidential candidate, but she was running against Barack Obama. In 2015 and 2016, she’s been very active on the trail, but her rival thus far has been Bernie Sanders.
In her excellent new piece, New York’s Rebecca Traister noted last week, “We have not yet experienced Hillary Clinton as a general-election candidate, permitted to fight without one hand tied behind her back. We’ve only seen her in tough primaries, her natural base of support divided in its loyalties, pitted against beloved men with good politics – men she could not hit too hard, lest her negative words ever be used against them and their losses laid at her feet.”
As the Democratic race wraps up, and Clinton no longer feels the need to hold back against her opponent, we’re going to see a qualitatively different kind of candidate – one that seems far more inclined to punch her rival in the teeth.
Hillary Clinton may have cracked the code on how to land a real blow to Donald Trump. He has proven a maddeningly elusive target for Republicans and Democrats alike. But on Thursday in San Diego, Clinton delivered what was easily her toughest speech yet on the presumptive Republican nominee, deploying a potent combination of her well-known policy wonkishness with a surprising dose of ridicule.As MSNBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald’s report makes clear, we don’t yet know the effects of Clinton’s, shall we say, vigorous indictment of Trump’s qualifications and preparedness, and it’s too soon to say how the presumptive Republican nominee will respond.
“It’s clear he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about,” she urged, and added, “If Donald gets his way, they’ll be celebrating in the Kremlin.”
But my oh my was yesterday’s speech an example of Clinton at her very best. NBC News’ Kasie Hunt added via Twitter, “Clinton pulling off what no GOP Trump challenger could: Taking him on in a way that makes her seem bigger, not smaller, than he.”
From the speech:
“Donald Trump’s ideas aren’t just different – they are dangerously incoherent. They’re not even really ideas – just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies.And really, this was just the start. Perhaps the most memorable portion of the remarks was Clinton reflecting on Trump’s praise of foreign autocrats.
“He is not just unprepared – he is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility. This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes – because it’s not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin. […]
“He praises dictators like Vladimir Putin and picks fights with our friends – including the British prime minister, the mayor of London, the German chancellor, the president of Mexico and the Pope. He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia.
“And to top it off, he believes America is ‘weak.’ An ‘embarrassment.’ He called our military a ‘disaster.’ He said we are – and I quote – a ‘third-world country.’ And he’s been saying things like that for decades. Those are the words my friends of someone who doesn’t understand America or the world.”
“I have to say, I don’t understand Donald’s bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America. He praised China for the Tiananmen Square massacre; he said it showed strength. He said, ‘You’ve got to give Kim Jong Un credit’ for taking over North Korea – something he did by murdering everyone he saw as a threat, including his own uncle, which Donald described gleefully, like he was recapping an action movie. And he said if he were grading Vladimir Putin as a leader, he’d give him an A.Slate’s Fred Kaplan added, “On each point, she contrasted his flimsy prejudices not only with her own experience and thought-out views but also with the long-standing, bipartisan traditions of American diplomacy. Then she kicked Trump in the shins.”
“Now, I’ll leave it to the psychiatrists to explain his affection for tyrants.”
This was not, however, just a kitchen-sink strategy. The point was to underscore a specific kind of argument: Clinton realizes there may be some Americans who believe we can take a chance with a demagogic reality-show personality making life-and-death decisions in the White House, and yesterday was about making the case that the gamble is simply too great.
It’s why Clinton made multiple references to words like “dangerous” (“Trump’s ideas aren’t just different – they are dangerously incoherent”),”risk” (“A Trump Presidency would embolden ISIS; we cannot take that risk”), and “stakes” (“The stakes in global statecraft are infinitely higher and more complex than in the world of luxury hotels”).
Clinton made Trump look like a bad joke yesterday, but just as important is the effort to plant seeds of doubt in voters’ minds about the Republican candidate representing a genuine hazard to the nation’s future.
For his part, the presumptive GOP nominee struggled to respond because, frankly, no response would do – everything Clinton said had the benefit of being true.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Turn about fair play. [snort]
...................................................................................
"The press in its proper role makes braggart politicians uncomfortable with simple scrutiny. ... Scrutiny makes Trump unhappy." That's good -- the more scrutiny of #Lyin'Donald, the better.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Trump hates the media? Good
By Tracy Warner, June 1, 2016
I know, you dislike the media. By “media” I mean the diverse conglomeration of people who bring you the news and profit by it, slightly. You don’t have to apologize. Almost everybody dislikes the media to some degree. Even I have my head-scratching moments.
You probably don’t “hate” the media, but dislike, yes. My father the lawyer used to tell me it gave him some comfort to know his son belonged to the only profession ranked lower in public esteem than his own. It made him feel a little better. So, dislike us. I am not offended.
Donald Trump naturally dislikes the media, too. In fact, for him it is fair to say hate is not too strong a term. He threw a massive televised tantrum Tuesday, lobbing names at reporters covering his campaign, emotions brought on because The Washington Post checked up on his bragged-on contributions to veterans. Apparently Trump is ready and willing to mention the millions contributed to veterans, while the veterans receive the contributions only after the media asks if Trump kept his promise.
“Instead of being like, ‘Thank you very much, Mr. Trump,' or ‘Trump did a good job,' everyone said: ‘Who got it? Who got it? Who got it?' “ Trump said. “And you make me look very bad. I have never received such bad publicity for doing a good job.”
He pointed to an ABC reporter and called him a “sleaze” and added, “And the people know the stories are false. I’m gonna continue to attack the press. Look, I find the press to be extremely dishonest. I find the political press to be unbelievably dishonest, I will say that.”
We in the media need not kid ourselves. Trump didn’t lose a single vote with this rant. There are plenty of people who agree with him. He’s been media bashing for months, to wild cheers from his adoring crowds, because they hate the media, too. Or they think they do. Or their mild dislike can be fanned into hatred easily enough. Sleaze all around.
I don’t really care what Trump says. This is just part of his technique, rooting out the disliked, the feared and the hated and taking sides. You hate them, and so do I, he says. Let’s all hate together. There are many targets of convenience. Next week he'll move on to somebody else.
I am frankly relieved. Had Trump expressed appreciation I would be losing sleep. The press in its proper role makes braggart politicians uncomfortable with simple scrutiny. Do they do what they say? Do they keep promises? Do they do good, or harm? What are their successes, and failures? Scrutiny makes Trump unhappy. A lack of praise he finds irritating. As long as he is irritated and unhappy, I’m more comfortable.
To generalize, many presidents or presidential candidates have not been big fans of the press. None were so blunt as Trump, but superficial politeness often failed to disguise distrust. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, Bush and Bush all had their famous moments. Nixon of course had his enemies list. Reagan charmed strategically. Most were smart enough not to pick fights they knew they would lose. Trump can hate if he likes.
All the while the press, or the media, was doing its job, mostly, and we should give some thanks that politicians do not appreciate it. Sure, the media can be annoying, and there is sometimes bias evident, but our liberty would be in grave danger without those people.
I don’t think Hillary likes us either. Good.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Trump hates the media? Good
By Tracy Warner, June 1, 2016
I know, you dislike the media. By “media” I mean the diverse conglomeration of people who bring you the news and profit by it, slightly. You don’t have to apologize. Almost everybody dislikes the media to some degree. Even I have my head-scratching moments.
You probably don’t “hate” the media, but dislike, yes. My father the lawyer used to tell me it gave him some comfort to know his son belonged to the only profession ranked lower in public esteem than his own. It made him feel a little better. So, dislike us. I am not offended.
Donald Trump naturally dislikes the media, too. In fact, for him it is fair to say hate is not too strong a term. He threw a massive televised tantrum Tuesday, lobbing names at reporters covering his campaign, emotions brought on because The Washington Post checked up on his bragged-on contributions to veterans. Apparently Trump is ready and willing to mention the millions contributed to veterans, while the veterans receive the contributions only after the media asks if Trump kept his promise.
“Instead of being like, ‘Thank you very much, Mr. Trump,' or ‘Trump did a good job,' everyone said: ‘Who got it? Who got it? Who got it?' “ Trump said. “And you make me look very bad. I have never received such bad publicity for doing a good job.”
He pointed to an ABC reporter and called him a “sleaze” and added, “And the people know the stories are false. I’m gonna continue to attack the press. Look, I find the press to be extremely dishonest. I find the political press to be unbelievably dishonest, I will say that.”
We in the media need not kid ourselves. Trump didn’t lose a single vote with this rant. There are plenty of people who agree with him. He’s been media bashing for months, to wild cheers from his adoring crowds, because they hate the media, too. Or they think they do. Or their mild dislike can be fanned into hatred easily enough. Sleaze all around.
I don’t really care what Trump says. This is just part of his technique, rooting out the disliked, the feared and the hated and taking sides. You hate them, and so do I, he says. Let’s all hate together. There are many targets of convenience. Next week he'll move on to somebody else.
I am frankly relieved. Had Trump expressed appreciation I would be losing sleep. The press in its proper role makes braggart politicians uncomfortable with simple scrutiny. Do they do what they say? Do they keep promises? Do they do good, or harm? What are their successes, and failures? Scrutiny makes Trump unhappy. A lack of praise he finds irritating. As long as he is irritated and unhappy, I’m more comfortable.
To generalize, many presidents or presidential candidates have not been big fans of the press. None were so blunt as Trump, but superficial politeness often failed to disguise distrust. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, Bush and Bush all had their famous moments. Nixon of course had his enemies list. Reagan charmed strategically. Most were smart enough not to pick fights they knew they would lose. Trump can hate if he likes.
All the while the press, or the media, was doing its job, mostly, and we should give some thanks that politicians do not appreciate it. Sure, the media can be annoying, and there is sometimes bias evident, but our liberty would be in grave danger without those people.
I don’t think Hillary likes us either. Good.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Thursday, June 2, 2016
"... Trump could succumb, in part, to the very conventional problem that doomed Romney in 2012: Demographics." Not enough "angry white males"!
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* The Trump University scam's problem was that it drifted over from the normally shady but legal world of real estate flipping into outright fraud.
* Together, Donald and Newt would form the 'Henry VIII ticket'. Both men are married to their third wives, forming an impressive total of six spouses between them.
* Republican are the party of family values which is why they have so many of them.
* "Obviously Trump should not be underestimated..." Just as obvious, Trump's schtick should be overestimated.
* Obviously, deep rooted racism in this country should not be underestimated.
* Trump depends on turning out Angry White Males. Forgetting that there are lots of angry non-white males and females out there who are angry at what trump is selling. Apparently only males are allowed to be angry.
* Correct. He's exceeding expectations there by a wide margin. Why would ANY woman (trolls and opportunists aside) support that guy? Especially when he's running against a woman?
* Women aren't immune to lies, racism, or paranoia.
* Seems to be the case that any woman who raises her voice above purring sound is "shouting" in Trump's world. He definitely isn't going to like the roar of tens of millions of us on November 8.
..................................................................................................................................................................
Can Trump ride white anger into the White House? A new analysis suggests it’s a fantasy.
By Greg Sargent, June 2, 2016
THE MORNING PLUM:
A new analysis published this morning by FiveThirtyEight’s Dave Wasserman casts still more doubt on one of the most cherished narratives of the 2016 cycle: That Donald Trump might, just might, be able to surprise all of us and win the White House by activating millions of anxiety-ridden missing white voters with his bluster, bigotry, and all around bigness.
Wasserman’s analysis looks at this question in a new way: He asks what might happen if Trump actually did succeed in activating these missing white voters. The baseline for this is the 1992 campaign, which is the last time the white share of the national vote actually did go up, defying a trend that has shown that demographic’s vote share steadily ticking down since 1980. The parallel to the present is clear: Billionaire Ross Perot activated these missing whites during that year by railing against unfair trade deals and promising to restore American greatness.
That’s what Trump is doing, only he’s going even further: he’s also promising to deport millions of illegal immigrants and to ban Muslims from entry into the U.S., both of which seem designed to further maximize his chances of riding white backlash into the White House. Can it work?
Wasserman ran a simulation designed to calculate what would happen in 2016, relative to 2012, if whites turned out at the same rate they did in 1992, while assuming that the vote shares of every other group remain constant. The good news for Trump: This really could theoretically bring in some nine million additional white voters, which could be enough for him to win the national popular vote (again, assuming that everything else remained consistent with 2012).
But here’s the catch: Wasserman finds, remarkably, that “these ‘missing’ white voters disproportionately live in states that won’t matter in a close presidential race.” In only three battleground states — Florida, Ohio, and Nevada — would full activation of these “missing” white voters be enough to potentially make a difference. But even in Ohio and Nevada, Trump would still have to win whites by overwhelming margins to overcome Obama’s 2012 edge in those states.
Two important points on top of this: All of this assumes that Trump will perform as well among nonwhites and college educated whites as Mitt Romney did, an assumption that is extremely generous to Trump. And meanwhile, demographics continue to shift against Republicans:
And as Teixeira also points out, some of the steps that Trump is taking to maximize white turnout, particularly blue collar white turnout — such as vowing mass deportations — could actually drive up turnout among nonwhites, offsetting any advantage Trump gains with white voters.
Obviously Trump should not be underestimated, and this will still be a tough campaign. But that’s because these elections always are tough in a divided country. There is a tendency to ascribe quasi-magical political powers to Trump, based on the idea that he is running an “unconventional” and “unpredictable” campaign that supposedly “scrambles ideological boundaries.” But it remains very possible that Trump could succumb, in part, to the very conventional problem that doomed Romney in 2012: Demographics. Indeed, it’s even possible that the very things that lead some observers to ascribe Trump these magical powers could make that conventional problem worse for him.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* The Trump University scam's problem was that it drifted over from the normally shady but legal world of real estate flipping into outright fraud.
* Together, Donald and Newt would form the 'Henry VIII ticket'. Both men are married to their third wives, forming an impressive total of six spouses between them.
* Republican are the party of family values which is why they have so many of them.
* "Obviously Trump should not be underestimated..." Just as obvious, Trump's schtick should be overestimated.
* Obviously, deep rooted racism in this country should not be underestimated.
* Correct. He's exceeding expectations there by a wide margin. Why would ANY woman (trolls and opportunists aside) support that guy? Especially when he's running against a woman?
* Women aren't immune to lies, racism, or paranoia.
* Seems to be the case that any woman who raises her voice above purring sound is "shouting" in Trump's world. He definitely isn't going to like the roar of tens of millions of us on November 8.
..................................................................................................................................................................
Can Trump ride white anger into the White House? A new analysis suggests it’s a fantasy.
By Greg Sargent, June 2, 2016
THE MORNING PLUM:
A new analysis published this morning by FiveThirtyEight’s Dave Wasserman casts still more doubt on one of the most cherished narratives of the 2016 cycle: That Donald Trump might, just might, be able to surprise all of us and win the White House by activating millions of anxiety-ridden missing white voters with his bluster, bigotry, and all around bigness.
Wasserman’s analysis looks at this question in a new way: He asks what might happen if Trump actually did succeed in activating these missing white voters. The baseline for this is the 1992 campaign, which is the last time the white share of the national vote actually did go up, defying a trend that has shown that demographic’s vote share steadily ticking down since 1980. The parallel to the present is clear: Billionaire Ross Perot activated these missing whites during that year by railing against unfair trade deals and promising to restore American greatness.
That’s what Trump is doing, only he’s going even further: he’s also promising to deport millions of illegal immigrants and to ban Muslims from entry into the U.S., both of which seem designed to further maximize his chances of riding white backlash into the White House. Can it work?
Wasserman ran a simulation designed to calculate what would happen in 2016, relative to 2012, if whites turned out at the same rate they did in 1992, while assuming that the vote shares of every other group remain constant. The good news for Trump: This really could theoretically bring in some nine million additional white voters, which could be enough for him to win the national popular vote (again, assuming that everything else remained consistent with 2012).
But here’s the catch: Wasserman finds, remarkably, that “these ‘missing’ white voters disproportionately live in states that won’t matter in a close presidential race.” In only three battleground states — Florida, Ohio, and Nevada — would full activation of these “missing” white voters be enough to potentially make a difference. But even in Ohio and Nevada, Trump would still have to win whites by overwhelming margins to overcome Obama’s 2012 edge in those states.
Two important points on top of this: All of this assumes that Trump will perform as well among nonwhites and college educated whites as Mitt Romney did, an assumption that is extremely generous to Trump. And meanwhile, demographics continue to shift against Republicans:
There are two other huge reasons why focusing exclusively on “missing” white voters fails to capture the magnitude Trump’s challenge in 2016.“In most battleground states, Trump would need to activate far more working-class whites than Perot did to win,” Wasserman concludes.”Trump would require truly historic levels of support and turnout among working-class whites — in addition to avoiding erosion with other groups — to be within range of winning.” Demographics expert Ruy Teixeira’s numbers suggest something similar.
First, the nonwhite share of eligible voters has grown since 2012, forcing Trump to activate even more white voters just to keep up. The nonwhite share of the citizen voting age population grew from 29 percent in 2012 to 30 percent in 2014. At that rate, it’s on pace to be 31 percent in 2016. Although African-American turnout could decline without Obama on the ballot, traditionally weak Latino turnout could surge thanks to antipathy towards Trump. Just 48 percent of eligible Latinos cast ballots in 2012, and according to the Pew Research Center, the number of Latinos eligible to vote will increase from 23.3 million in 2012 to 27.3 million in 2016.
Second, there is no guarantee Trump will perform as well as past Republican nominees among existing white voters. In particular, Trump seems to be underperforming with white college-educated voters, who already turn out at extremely high levels.
And as Teixeira also points out, some of the steps that Trump is taking to maximize white turnout, particularly blue collar white turnout — such as vowing mass deportations — could actually drive up turnout among nonwhites, offsetting any advantage Trump gains with white voters.
Obviously Trump should not be underestimated, and this will still be a tough campaign. But that’s because these elections always are tough in a divided country. There is a tendency to ascribe quasi-magical political powers to Trump, based on the idea that he is running an “unconventional” and “unpredictable” campaign that supposedly “scrambles ideological boundaries.” But it remains very possible that Trump could succumb, in part, to the very conventional problem that doomed Romney in 2012: Demographics. Indeed, it’s even possible that the very things that lead some observers to ascribe Trump these magical powers could make that conventional problem worse for him.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"It has come to this: Many conservative Christians just don't feel welcome in their own country." Well, gee whiz, you people and your attitudes caused it!
...................................................................................................................................................................
Evangelicals feel alienated, anxious amid declining clout
By Allen G. Breed, June 2, 2016
Pastor Richie Clendenen stepped away from the pulpit, microphone in hand. He walked the aisles of the Christian Fellowship Church, his voice rising to describe the perils believers face in 21st-century America.
"The Bible says in this life you will have troubles, you will have persecutions. And Jesus takes it a step further: You'll be hated by all nations for my namesake," he said.
"Let me tell you," the minister said, "that time is here."
The faithful in the pews needed little convincing. Even in this deeply religious swath of western Kentucky — a state where about half the residents are evangelical — conservative Christians feel under siege.
For decades, they say, they have been steadily pushed to the sidelines of American life and have come under attack for their most deeply held beliefs, born of their reading of Scripture and their religious mandate to evangelize. The 1960s ban on prayer in public schools is still a fresh wound. Every legal challenge to a public Nativity scene or Ten Commandments display is another marginalization. They've been "steamrolled," they say, and "misunderstood."
Religious conservatives could once count on their neighbors to at least share their view of marriage. Those days are gone. Public opinion on same-sex relationships turned against conservatives even before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide.
Now, many evangelicals say liberals want to seal their cultural victory by silencing the church. Liberals call this paranoid. But evangelicals see evidence of the threat in every new uproar over someone asserting a right to refuse recognition of same-sex marriages — whether it be a baker, a government clerk, or the leaders of religious charities and schools.
At a time when America's divisions — right-left, urban-rural, black-white and more — spill daily into people's lives, their relations with each other, their harsh communications on social media, their decisions in an acrimonious presidential election campaign, many Christian conservatives find themselves on the other side of the divide between "we" and "them."
Clendenen, preaching on this recent Sunday, reflected on the chasm between his congregants and other Americans.
"There's nobody hated more in this nation than Christians," he said, amid nods and cries of encouragement. "Welcome to America's most wanted: You."
___
For evangelicals like those at Christian Fellowship, the sense of a painful reckoning is not just imagined; their declining clout in public life can be measured.
The turnabout is astonishing and hard to grasp — for them and for other Americans — since the U.S. remains solidly religious and Christian, and evangelicals are still a formidable bloc in the Republican Party. But a series of losses in church membership and in public policy battles, along with America's changing demographics, are weakening evangelical influence, even in some of the most conservative regions of the country.
"The shift in the last few years has really been stunning," said Ed Stetzer, executive director of Lifeway Research, an evangelical consulting firm in Nashville, Tennessee. "Nobody would have guessed the pace of change. That's why so many people are yelling we have to take our country back."
The Protestant majority that dominated American culture through the nation's history is now a Protestant minority. Their share of the population dipped below 50 percent sometime after 2008.
Liberal-leaning Protestant groups, such as Presbyterians and Lutherans, started shrinking earlier, but some evangelical churches are now in decline. The conservative Southern Baptist Convention lost 200,000 from its ranks in 2014 alone, dropping to 15.5 million, its smallest number in more than two decades.
The trend is reflected in the highest reaches of public life. The U.S. Supreme Court is now comprised completely of Jews and Roman Catholics. In the 2012 presidential election, the Republican nominees were a Mormon, Mitt Romney, and a Catholic, Paul Ryan.
"We've lost our home field advantage," Stetzer said.
At the same time, the Bible Belt, as a cultural force, is collapsing, said the Rev. Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist public policy agency.
Nearly a quarter of Americans say they no longer affiliate with a faith tradition. It's the highest share ever recorded in surveys, indicating the stigma for not being religious has eased — even in heavily evangelical areas. Americans who say they have no ties to organized religion, dubbed "nones," now make up about 23 percent of the population, just behind evangelicals, who comprise about 25 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.
Christians who have been only nominally tied to a conservative church are steadily dropping out altogether. When Moore was growing up in Mississippi, any parent whose children weren't baptized by age 12 or 13 would face widespread disapproval, he said, Those times have passed.
"People don't have to be culturally identified with evangelical Christianity in order to be seen as good people, good neighbors or good Americans," Moore said.
Politically, old guard religious right organizations such as the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition are greatly diminished or gone, and no broadly unifying leader or organization has replaced them. In this year's presidential race, the social policy issues championed by Christian conservatives are not central, even amid the furor over bathroom access for transgender people.
[snipped]
White evangelical voters remain very influential in early primaries. About two-thirds of Iowa caucus voters this year said they were born-again Christians. In Mississippi, eight in 10 primary voters were evangelical. And they turn out at high rates in general elections.
But white evangelicals can't match the growth rate of groups that tend to support Democrats — Latinos, younger people and Americans with no religious affiliation. In 2004, overwhelming evangelical support helped secure a second term for President George W. Bush, a Christian conservative who made social issues a priority. In 2012, evangelicals voted for Romney at the same rate — yet he lost.
This is a far cry from 1976, which Newsweek declared the "Year of the Evangelical," when born-again candidate Jimmy Carter won the presidency and more conservative Christians were drawn into politics. Four years later, Ronald Reagan famously recognized the emerging influence of the religious right, telling evangelicals in Dallas, "I know you can't endorse me, but I endorse you and what you're doing."
No issue has more starkly illuminated conservative Christians' waning influence than the struggle over same-sex marriage.
Evangelicals were "all in" with their opposition to gay rights starting back with the Moral Majority in the 1980s, said Robert Jones, author of "The End of White Christian America." In the 2004 election, Americans appeared to be on the same page, approving bans on same-sex marriage in all 11 states where the measures were on the ballot. When President Barack Obama was first elected in 2008, just four in 10 Americans supported gay marriage.
But three years later, support rose to more than five in 10. And now the business wing of the Republican Party is deserting social conservatives on the issue, largely backing anti-discrimination policies for gays and transgender people. Younger Americans, including younger evangelicals, are especially accepting of same-sex relationships, which means evangelicals "have lost a generation on this issue," Jones said.
"This issue is so prominent and so symbolic," said Jones, chief executive of Public Religion Research Institute, which specializes in surveys about religion and public life. "It was such a decisive loss, not only in the actual courts, the legal courts, but also in the court of public opinion. They lost legally and they lost culturally."
Clendenen said he saw "a lot of fear, a lot of anger" in his church after the Supreme Court ruling. He said it made him feel that Christians like him had been pushed to the edge of a cliff.
"It has become the keystone issue," he said, sitting in his office, where photos of his father and grandfather, both preachers, are on display. "I never thought we'd be in the place we are today. I never thought that the values I've held my whole life would bring us to a point where we were alienated or suppressed."
Trump uses rhetoric that has resonance for Christian conservatives who fear their teachings on marriage will soon be outlawed as hate speech.
"We're going to protect Christianity and I can say that," Trump has said. "I don't have to be politically correct."
___
If culture wars and the outside world once felt remote amid the soybean and tobacco farms around Marshall County, Kentucky, change of many kinds is now obvious to Clendenen's congregants.
[snipped]
The problem, many religious conservatives say, is that government is growing more coercive in many areas bearing on their beliefs.
[snipped]
It has come to this: Many conservative Christians just don't feel welcome in their own country.
They say they are either mocked or erased in popular culture. "When was the last time you saw an evangelical or conservative Christian character portrayed positively on TV?" Stetzer asked.
"The idea of what we call biblical morality in our culture at large is completely laughed at and spurned as nonsense," said David Parish, a former pastor at Christian Fellowship and the son of its founder. "The church as an institution, as a public entity — we are moving more and more in conflict with the culture and with other agendas."
How to navigate this new reality? Most conservative Christians fall into one of three broad camps.
There are those who are determined to even more fiercely wage the culture wars, demanding the broadest possible religious exemptions from recognizing same-sex marriage.
There are those who plan to withdraw as much as possible into their own communities to preserve their faith — an approach dubbed the "Benedict Option," for a fifth-century saint who, disgusted by the decadence of Rome, fled to the forest where he lived as a hermit and prayed.
There is, however, a segment that advocates living as a "prophetic minority," confidently upholding their beliefs but in a gentler way that rejects the aggressive tone of the old religious right and takes up other issues, such as ending human trafficking, that can cross ideological lines.
Clendenen is cut from this mold. Now 38, he came of age when the religious right was at its apex, and he concluded any mix of partisan politics with Christianity was toxic for the church.
A congregant once lobbied him to participate in Pulpit Freedom Sunday, an annual conservative effort to defy IRS rules against backing politicians from the pulpit. Clendenen stood before the congregation and endorsed ... Jesus.
He prays for President Barack Obama, considering it a Christian duty no matter his opposition to the president's policies. But Clendenen believes few Americans who support same-sex marriage would show him or his fellow evangelicals a similar level of respect. "On any front that we speak on, we're given this label of intolerance, we're given this label of hate," Clendenen said. (He said evangelicals are partly responsible for the backlash, however, because of the hateful language some used in the marriage debates. "I don't see the LGBT community as my enemy," he said.)
He uses the word persecution to describe what Christians are facing in the U.S., even though he feels strange doing so. He has traveled extensively to help start churches in other countries, and knows the violence many Christians endure. A map of the world is posted in his office with pins in the places he's visited, including Romania and Kenya. And yet, he feels the word applies here, too.
He ruminated on all of this as he prepared to head into his sanctuary to lead the Sunday service.
Some good may come of these hard times, he believes. Conservative Christians who have been complacent will have to decide just how much their religion matters "when there's a price to pay for it," he said. Christianity has often thrived in countries where it faces intense opposition, he noted.
Preaching now, Clendenen urged congregants to hold fast to their positions in a country that has grown hostile to them. And as the worship service wound down, he issued a final exhortation.
"Don't give up," he said. "Don't let your light go out."
...................................................................................................................................................................
Evangelicals feel alienated, anxious amid declining clout
By Allen G. Breed, June 2, 2016
Pastor Richie Clendenen stepped away from the pulpit, microphone in hand. He walked the aisles of the Christian Fellowship Church, his voice rising to describe the perils believers face in 21st-century America.
"The Bible says in this life you will have troubles, you will have persecutions. And Jesus takes it a step further: You'll be hated by all nations for my namesake," he said.
"Let me tell you," the minister said, "that time is here."
The faithful in the pews needed little convincing. Even in this deeply religious swath of western Kentucky — a state where about half the residents are evangelical — conservative Christians feel under siege.
For decades, they say, they have been steadily pushed to the sidelines of American life and have come under attack for their most deeply held beliefs, born of their reading of Scripture and their religious mandate to evangelize. The 1960s ban on prayer in public schools is still a fresh wound. Every legal challenge to a public Nativity scene or Ten Commandments display is another marginalization. They've been "steamrolled," they say, and "misunderstood."
Religious conservatives could once count on their neighbors to at least share their view of marriage. Those days are gone. Public opinion on same-sex relationships turned against conservatives even before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide.
Now, many evangelicals say liberals want to seal their cultural victory by silencing the church. Liberals call this paranoid. But evangelicals see evidence of the threat in every new uproar over someone asserting a right to refuse recognition of same-sex marriages — whether it be a baker, a government clerk, or the leaders of religious charities and schools.
At a time when America's divisions — right-left, urban-rural, black-white and more — spill daily into people's lives, their relations with each other, their harsh communications on social media, their decisions in an acrimonious presidential election campaign, many Christian conservatives find themselves on the other side of the divide between "we" and "them."
Clendenen, preaching on this recent Sunday, reflected on the chasm between his congregants and other Americans.
"There's nobody hated more in this nation than Christians," he said, amid nods and cries of encouragement. "Welcome to America's most wanted: You."
___
For evangelicals like those at Christian Fellowship, the sense of a painful reckoning is not just imagined; their declining clout in public life can be measured.
The turnabout is astonishing and hard to grasp — for them and for other Americans — since the U.S. remains solidly religious and Christian, and evangelicals are still a formidable bloc in the Republican Party. But a series of losses in church membership and in public policy battles, along with America's changing demographics, are weakening evangelical influence, even in some of the most conservative regions of the country.
"The shift in the last few years has really been stunning," said Ed Stetzer, executive director of Lifeway Research, an evangelical consulting firm in Nashville, Tennessee. "Nobody would have guessed the pace of change. That's why so many people are yelling we have to take our country back."
The Protestant majority that dominated American culture through the nation's history is now a Protestant minority. Their share of the population dipped below 50 percent sometime after 2008.
Liberal-leaning Protestant groups, such as Presbyterians and Lutherans, started shrinking earlier, but some evangelical churches are now in decline. The conservative Southern Baptist Convention lost 200,000 from its ranks in 2014 alone, dropping to 15.5 million, its smallest number in more than two decades.
The trend is reflected in the highest reaches of public life. The U.S. Supreme Court is now comprised completely of Jews and Roman Catholics. In the 2012 presidential election, the Republican nominees were a Mormon, Mitt Romney, and a Catholic, Paul Ryan.
"We've lost our home field advantage," Stetzer said.
At the same time, the Bible Belt, as a cultural force, is collapsing, said the Rev. Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist public policy agency.
Nearly a quarter of Americans say they no longer affiliate with a faith tradition. It's the highest share ever recorded in surveys, indicating the stigma for not being religious has eased — even in heavily evangelical areas. Americans who say they have no ties to organized religion, dubbed "nones," now make up about 23 percent of the population, just behind evangelicals, who comprise about 25 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.
Christians who have been only nominally tied to a conservative church are steadily dropping out altogether. When Moore was growing up in Mississippi, any parent whose children weren't baptized by age 12 or 13 would face widespread disapproval, he said, Those times have passed.
"People don't have to be culturally identified with evangelical Christianity in order to be seen as good people, good neighbors or good Americans," Moore said.
Politically, old guard religious right organizations such as the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition are greatly diminished or gone, and no broadly unifying leader or organization has replaced them. In this year's presidential race, the social policy issues championed by Christian conservatives are not central, even amid the furor over bathroom access for transgender people.
[snipped]
White evangelical voters remain very influential in early primaries. About two-thirds of Iowa caucus voters this year said they were born-again Christians. In Mississippi, eight in 10 primary voters were evangelical. And they turn out at high rates in general elections.
But white evangelicals can't match the growth rate of groups that tend to support Democrats — Latinos, younger people and Americans with no religious affiliation. In 2004, overwhelming evangelical support helped secure a second term for President George W. Bush, a Christian conservative who made social issues a priority. In 2012, evangelicals voted for Romney at the same rate — yet he lost.
This is a far cry from 1976, which Newsweek declared the "Year of the Evangelical," when born-again candidate Jimmy Carter won the presidency and more conservative Christians were drawn into politics. Four years later, Ronald Reagan famously recognized the emerging influence of the religious right, telling evangelicals in Dallas, "I know you can't endorse me, but I endorse you and what you're doing."
No issue has more starkly illuminated conservative Christians' waning influence than the struggle over same-sex marriage.
Evangelicals were "all in" with their opposition to gay rights starting back with the Moral Majority in the 1980s, said Robert Jones, author of "The End of White Christian America." In the 2004 election, Americans appeared to be on the same page, approving bans on same-sex marriage in all 11 states where the measures were on the ballot. When President Barack Obama was first elected in 2008, just four in 10 Americans supported gay marriage.
But three years later, support rose to more than five in 10. And now the business wing of the Republican Party is deserting social conservatives on the issue, largely backing anti-discrimination policies for gays and transgender people. Younger Americans, including younger evangelicals, are especially accepting of same-sex relationships, which means evangelicals "have lost a generation on this issue," Jones said.
"This issue is so prominent and so symbolic," said Jones, chief executive of Public Religion Research Institute, which specializes in surveys about religion and public life. "It was such a decisive loss, not only in the actual courts, the legal courts, but also in the court of public opinion. They lost legally and they lost culturally."
Clendenen said he saw "a lot of fear, a lot of anger" in his church after the Supreme Court ruling. He said it made him feel that Christians like him had been pushed to the edge of a cliff.
"It has become the keystone issue," he said, sitting in his office, where photos of his father and grandfather, both preachers, are on display. "I never thought we'd be in the place we are today. I never thought that the values I've held my whole life would bring us to a point where we were alienated or suppressed."
Trump uses rhetoric that has resonance for Christian conservatives who fear their teachings on marriage will soon be outlawed as hate speech.
"We're going to protect Christianity and I can say that," Trump has said. "I don't have to be politically correct."
___
If culture wars and the outside world once felt remote amid the soybean and tobacco farms around Marshall County, Kentucky, change of many kinds is now obvious to Clendenen's congregants.
[snipped]
The problem, many religious conservatives say, is that government is growing more coercive in many areas bearing on their beliefs.
[snipped]
It has come to this: Many conservative Christians just don't feel welcome in their own country.
They say they are either mocked or erased in popular culture. "When was the last time you saw an evangelical or conservative Christian character portrayed positively on TV?" Stetzer asked.
"The idea of what we call biblical morality in our culture at large is completely laughed at and spurned as nonsense," said David Parish, a former pastor at Christian Fellowship and the son of its founder. "The church as an institution, as a public entity — we are moving more and more in conflict with the culture and with other agendas."
How to navigate this new reality? Most conservative Christians fall into one of three broad camps.
There are those who are determined to even more fiercely wage the culture wars, demanding the broadest possible religious exemptions from recognizing same-sex marriage.
There are those who plan to withdraw as much as possible into their own communities to preserve their faith — an approach dubbed the "Benedict Option," for a fifth-century saint who, disgusted by the decadence of Rome, fled to the forest where he lived as a hermit and prayed.
There is, however, a segment that advocates living as a "prophetic minority," confidently upholding their beliefs but in a gentler way that rejects the aggressive tone of the old religious right and takes up other issues, such as ending human trafficking, that can cross ideological lines.
Clendenen is cut from this mold. Now 38, he came of age when the religious right was at its apex, and he concluded any mix of partisan politics with Christianity was toxic for the church.
A congregant once lobbied him to participate in Pulpit Freedom Sunday, an annual conservative effort to defy IRS rules against backing politicians from the pulpit. Clendenen stood before the congregation and endorsed ... Jesus.
He prays for President Barack Obama, considering it a Christian duty no matter his opposition to the president's policies. But Clendenen believes few Americans who support same-sex marriage would show him or his fellow evangelicals a similar level of respect. "On any front that we speak on, we're given this label of intolerance, we're given this label of hate," Clendenen said. (He said evangelicals are partly responsible for the backlash, however, because of the hateful language some used in the marriage debates. "I don't see the LGBT community as my enemy," he said.)
He uses the word persecution to describe what Christians are facing in the U.S., even though he feels strange doing so. He has traveled extensively to help start churches in other countries, and knows the violence many Christians endure. A map of the world is posted in his office with pins in the places he's visited, including Romania and Kenya. And yet, he feels the word applies here, too.
He ruminated on all of this as he prepared to head into his sanctuary to lead the Sunday service.
Some good may come of these hard times, he believes. Conservative Christians who have been complacent will have to decide just how much their religion matters "when there's a price to pay for it," he said. Christianity has often thrived in countries where it faces intense opposition, he noted.
Preaching now, Clendenen urged congregants to hold fast to their positions in a country that has grown hostile to them. And as the worship service wound down, he issued a final exhortation.
"Don't give up," he said. "Don't let your light go out."
...................................................................................................................................................................
There are 22 countries being led by women-- why not add the U.S. to that total?
...................................................................................................................................................................
Hillary Clinton: People say, ‘I really like you, I just don’t know if I can vote for a woman’
By Dylan Stableford, May 31, 2016
The former secretary of state and Democratic frontrunner says she still encounters sexism on the campaign trail — even on the rope line.
Hillary Clinton says while sexism on the campaign trail is not as severe as it was in 2008 when she first ran for president, it still lingers — even in her encounters with would-be supporters.
In a New York magazine cover profile published this week, Clinton said she encounters people on rope lines who tell her, “I really admire you, I really like you, I just don’t know if I can vote for a woman to be president.”
“I mean, they come to my events and then they say that to me,” Clinton told the magazine’s Rebecca Traister. “Unpacking this, understanding it, is for writers like you. I’m just trying to cope with it. Deal with it. Live through it.”
But she did do a little “unpacking.”
The former first lady was asked why she thinks women’s ambition is often regarded as “dangerous.”
“[It’s] a fear that ambition will crowd out everything else — relationships, marriage, children, family, homemaking, all the other parts [of life] that are important to me and important to most women I know,” Clinton said. “We’re so accustomed to think of women’s ambition being made manifest in ways that we don’t approve of, or that we find off-putting.”
She also said that men fear ambitious women like her.
“I think it’s the competition,” Clinton said. “Like, if you do this, there won’t be room for some of us, and that’s not fair.”
Clinton then recalled the time she and a friend from the all-women’s Wellesley College took the LSAT law school aptitude test at Harvard University:
In February, two of Clinton’s prominent female supporters — former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and feminist writer Gloria Steinem — criticized young women for backing her Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders.
“People are talking about revolution,“ Albright said while introducing Clinton at a rally in New Hampshire. “What kind of a revolution would it be to have the first woman president of the United States? … Young women, you have to help. Hillary Clinton will always be there for you. And just remember, there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”
A day later, Clinton defended Albright’s assertion.
“I think it was a lighthearted but very pointed remark,” Clinton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “She believes it firmly, in part, because she knows what a struggle it has been. And she understands the struggle is not over.”
And in April, Donald Trump accused Clinton of playing “the woman card” after she promised that if elected, half of her cabinet would be women.
“The only thing she’s got is the woman card,” the presumptive Republican nominee said in a “Fox & Friends” interview. “That’s all she’s got, and it is pandering. It’s a weak card in her hands. In another person’s hands it could be a powerful card. I’d love to see a woman president, but she’s the wrong person.”
Clinton fired back. “The other day, Mr. Trump accused me, of playing the, quote, ‘woman card,’” she said at a rally in Philadelphia. “Well, if fighting for women’s health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in.”
In response to Donald Trump's "woman card" statement, the Clinton campaign is sending donors their very own Woman Cards.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Hillary Clinton: People say, ‘I really like you, I just don’t know if I can vote for a woman’
By Dylan Stableford, May 31, 2016
The former secretary of state and Democratic frontrunner says she still encounters sexism on the campaign trail — even on the rope line.
Hillary Clinton says while sexism on the campaign trail is not as severe as it was in 2008 when she first ran for president, it still lingers — even in her encounters with would-be supporters.
In a New York magazine cover profile published this week, Clinton said she encounters people on rope lines who tell her, “I really admire you, I really like you, I just don’t know if I can vote for a woman to be president.”
“I mean, they come to my events and then they say that to me,” Clinton told the magazine’s Rebecca Traister. “Unpacking this, understanding it, is for writers like you. I’m just trying to cope with it. Deal with it. Live through it.”
But she did do a little “unpacking.”
The former first lady was asked why she thinks women’s ambition is often regarded as “dangerous.”
“[It’s] a fear that ambition will crowd out everything else — relationships, marriage, children, family, homemaking, all the other parts [of life] that are important to me and important to most women I know,” Clinton said. “We’re so accustomed to think of women’s ambition being made manifest in ways that we don’t approve of, or that we find off-putting.”
She also said that men fear ambitious women like her.
“I think it’s the competition,” Clinton said. “Like, if you do this, there won’t be room for some of us, and that’s not fair.”
Clinton then recalled the time she and a friend from the all-women’s Wellesley College took the LSAT law school aptitude test at Harvard University:
“We were in this huge, cavernous room,” she said. “And hundreds of people were taking this test, and there weren’t many women there. This friend and I were waiting for the test to begin, and the young men around us were like, ‘What do you think [you’re] doing? How dare you take a spot from one of us?’ It was just a relentless harangue. … I remember one young man said, ‘If you get into law school and I don’t, and I have to go to Vietnam and get killed, it’s your fault.’”Earlier in the interview, Clinton recounted the story of what convinced her to run for public office in 1998:
At an event for women athletes called “Dare to Compete,” a teenage basketball captain, Sofia Totti, said to her, “Dare to compete, Mrs. Clinton, dare to compete.” The exhortation gave her pause. “It was like, ‘Am I just scared to do this? Is that really what it comes down to?’”It’s not the first time Clinton has addressed sexism in the campaign.
In February, two of Clinton’s prominent female supporters — former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and feminist writer Gloria Steinem — criticized young women for backing her Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders.
“People are talking about revolution,“ Albright said while introducing Clinton at a rally in New Hampshire. “What kind of a revolution would it be to have the first woman president of the United States? … Young women, you have to help. Hillary Clinton will always be there for you. And just remember, there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”
A day later, Clinton defended Albright’s assertion.
“I think it was a lighthearted but very pointed remark,” Clinton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “She believes it firmly, in part, because she knows what a struggle it has been. And she understands the struggle is not over.”
And in April, Donald Trump accused Clinton of playing “the woman card” after she promised that if elected, half of her cabinet would be women.
“The only thing she’s got is the woman card,” the presumptive Republican nominee said in a “Fox & Friends” interview. “That’s all she’s got, and it is pandering. It’s a weak card in her hands. In another person’s hands it could be a powerful card. I’d love to see a woman president, but she’s the wrong person.”
Clinton fired back. “The other day, Mr. Trump accused me, of playing the, quote, ‘woman card,’” she said at a rally in Philadelphia. “Well, if fighting for women’s health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in.”
In response to Donald Trump's "woman card" statement, the Clinton campaign is sending donors their very own Woman Cards.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Keep up the good job, CNN!
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Trump knows that people remember what they like so he gives two opposite statements so that they will remember what they like.
* It's about time the media start calling out Trump's BS...He attacked the media and his free ride is over.
* Trump's talent (and media success) consists of mastering a certain sort of "reality TV" audience, people with a retentive capacity of something less than four hours. Add to that, nobody is going to preserve copies of his junk TV show to compare what he says from week to week anyway. His latest scam, however, is politics, where media and others make a living out of datamining records and recordings for inconsistencies. Media also has a talent for bringing up every mistake a candidate ever made, and Trump's record is not a good one. I think it is going to be a long 5 months for Birther Don Trump and his gaggle of reprobates.
* Everything Don the Con says should be tagged with an asterisk.
* Great job by CNN. It's the medias responsibility to give us the truth. But when Trump said he didn't say what he obviously did, I believe he thought that was true. He probably doesn't remember saying it because he makes stuff up off the top of his head and doesn't have a real team to remind him of what positions he randomly takes.
* Why does trump have to say everything twice...? everything twice...? Believe me...
...................................................................................................................................................................
CNN Discovers Elegant Way To Call Bulls**t On Donald Trump’s Bulls**t
As I’ve noted before, one of the big challenges the media faces as it attempts to cover the policy positions of presumptive GOP nominee and seething ham planet Donald Trump is that those policy positions are in a constant state of flux. He’ll take one side in the morning, erase it entirely by mid-afternoon, and spend the evening insisting he never said anything at all. Trump has, in the past, stated that all of his “positions” are but ethereal suggestions — which makes him more difficult to pin down by design.
But if journalists are alert enough, this tactic will have a short shelf life. On Thursday, HuffPost video producer Liz Martinez caught a segment on CNN that demonstrated that whoever is writing the network’s chyrons is up for the challenge.
Trump caught wind of this criticism and is now insisting that he never ever said that Japan should acquire nuclear weapons. As Vox’s Matt Yglesias reports, Trump told attendees at a Sacramento rally that Clinton’s charge is false: “She made a speech, she’s making another one tomorrow, and they sent me a copy of the speech ... And it was such lies about my foreign policy, that they said I want Japan to get nuclear weapons. Give me a break.”
Fun fact, however: this is not a lie about Trump’s foreign policy. Per Yglesias:
It’s actually very important for the media to be awake to Trump’s tendency to radically switch positions and deny previous statements, because left untended, it can spawn errata by the metric ton. Here, for example, is an excerpt from a Wednesday piece in The New York Times by Amy Chozick, which also covers the pending Clinton foreign policy speech, and Trump’s reaction to it:
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist
...................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................
CNN has finally figured out how to cover Donald Trump's constant lying
By Matthew Yglesias, June 2, 2016
Covering Donald Trump is great for ratings, and Trump is unusually willing to appear on cable television at basically all times, which is convenient for the cable networks. But cable news has often struggled with how to cover Trump accurately given his habit of constantly saying things that aren't true or don't make sense.
Today, CNN took a big step forward with this chyron:
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6583469/trumpcablechyron.jpg)
This goes back to March, when Donald Trump was talking about the security situation in Northeast Asia.
He'd suggested earlier that the United States was spending too much money on stationing soldiers in South Korea and Japan, which are both high-income developed countries that can afford to defend themselves against North Korea.
This led to the suggestion that Korea and Japan should develop their own nuclear arsenals — obviously a big change from current American foreign policy, which tries to discourage the spread of nuclear weapons. It's also a politically sensitive issue in Japan, which is the only country that's actually been hit with nuclear weapons. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said flatly, "It is impossible that Japan will arm itself with nuclear weapons."
Today at a rally in Sacramento, Trump said, falsely, that Hillary Clinton was lying when she said he had proposed this.
"She made a speech, she’s making another one tomorrow, and they sent me a copy of the speech" Trump said. "And it was such lies about my foreign policy, that they said I want Japan to get nuclear weapons. Give me a break."
In fact, Trump very explicitly said this. Here he is in an April interview with Chris Wallace:
COMMENTS:
* Trump knows that people remember what they like so he gives two opposite statements so that they will remember what they like.
* It's about time the media start calling out Trump's BS...He attacked the media and his free ride is over.
* Trump's talent (and media success) consists of mastering a certain sort of "reality TV" audience, people with a retentive capacity of something less than four hours. Add to that, nobody is going to preserve copies of his junk TV show to compare what he says from week to week anyway. His latest scam, however, is politics, where media and others make a living out of datamining records and recordings for inconsistencies. Media also has a talent for bringing up every mistake a candidate ever made, and Trump's record is not a good one. I think it is going to be a long 5 months for Birther Don Trump and his gaggle of reprobates.
* Everything Don the Con says should be tagged with an asterisk.
* Great job by CNN. It's the medias responsibility to give us the truth. But when Trump said he didn't say what he obviously did, I believe he thought that was true. He probably doesn't remember saying it because he makes stuff up off the top of his head and doesn't have a real team to remind him of what positions he randomly takes.
* Why does trump have to say everything twice...? everything twice...? Believe me...
...................................................................................................................................................................
CNN Discovers Elegant Way To Call Bulls**t On Donald Trump’s Bulls**t
Oh, the chyrony!
By Jason Linkins, June 2, 2016As I’ve noted before, one of the big challenges the media faces as it attempts to cover the policy positions of presumptive GOP nominee and seething ham planet Donald Trump is that those policy positions are in a constant state of flux. He’ll take one side in the morning, erase it entirely by mid-afternoon, and spend the evening insisting he never said anything at all. Trump has, in the past, stated that all of his “positions” are but ethereal suggestions — which makes him more difficult to pin down by design.
But if journalists are alert enough, this tactic will have a short shelf life. On Thursday, HuffPost video producer Liz Martinez caught a segment on CNN that demonstrated that whoever is writing the network’s chyrons is up for the challenge.
Liz del Carmen @LizMartinezGThis is a pretty fun example of the cack-handed way Trump attempts to paper over his previous statements whenever the need to do so arises. Later on Thursday, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton will deliver a foreign policy speech, in which she’ll make the super obvious case that Trump is way too dangerously incompetent to represent America on the world stage. Among the things she will criticize: Trump’s previous call for Japan to develop a nuclear arsenal — an idea that is, to say the least, a complete non-starter from the point of view of the Japanese.
Trump is inspiring CNN to be more creative with its chyrons
8:05 AM - 2 Jun 2016
Trump caught wind of this criticism and is now insisting that he never ever said that Japan should acquire nuclear weapons. As Vox’s Matt Yglesias reports, Trump told attendees at a Sacramento rally that Clinton’s charge is false: “She made a speech, she’s making another one tomorrow, and they sent me a copy of the speech ... And it was such lies about my foreign policy, that they said I want Japan to get nuclear weapons. Give me a break.”
Fun fact, however: this is not a lie about Trump’s foreign policy. Per Yglesias:
In fact, Trump very explicitly said this. Here he is in an April interview with Chris Wallace:Some anonymous hero at CNN, charged with creating text on the lower third of the screen, heard about this and decided, “Nah, son.” The brief and eloquent parenthetical “(HE DID)” added to the chyron is a short, sharp, and effective means of conveying Trump’s rather mercurial relationship with the truth.
TRUMP: It’s not like, gee whiz, nobody has them. So, North Korea has nukes. Japan has a problem with that. I mean, they have a big problem with that. Maybe they would in fact be better off if they defend themselves from North Korea.
WALLACE: With nukes?
TRUMP: Including with nukes, yes, including with nukes.
It’s actually very important for the media to be awake to Trump’s tendency to radically switch positions and deny previous statements, because left untended, it can spawn errata by the metric ton. Here, for example, is an excerpt from a Wednesday piece in The New York Times by Amy Chozick, which also covers the pending Clinton foreign policy speech, and Trump’s reaction to it:
In an interview Wednesday night, Mr. Trump criticized Mrs. Clinton’s early support for the Iraq war, which he said he opposed, and questioned her judgment in Libya. “Bernie Sanders said it and I’m going to use it all over the place because it’s true,” Mr. Trump said. “She is a woman who is ill-suited to be president because she has bad judgment.”Did you spot Chozick’s goof? If you said, “Trump says he opposed the Iraq War (HE DIDN’T),” give yourself a prize, and consider a career in editing.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist
...................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................
CNN has finally figured out how to cover Donald Trump's constant lying
By Matthew Yglesias, June 2, 2016
Covering Donald Trump is great for ratings, and Trump is unusually willing to appear on cable television at basically all times, which is convenient for the cable networks. But cable news has often struggled with how to cover Trump accurately given his habit of constantly saying things that aren't true or don't make sense.
Today, CNN took a big step forward with this chyron:
This goes back to March, when Donald Trump was talking about the security situation in Northeast Asia.
He'd suggested earlier that the United States was spending too much money on stationing soldiers in South Korea and Japan, which are both high-income developed countries that can afford to defend themselves against North Korea.
This led to the suggestion that Korea and Japan should develop their own nuclear arsenals — obviously a big change from current American foreign policy, which tries to discourage the spread of nuclear weapons. It's also a politically sensitive issue in Japan, which is the only country that's actually been hit with nuclear weapons. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said flatly, "It is impossible that Japan will arm itself with nuclear weapons."
Today at a rally in Sacramento, Trump said, falsely, that Hillary Clinton was lying when she said he had proposed this.
"She made a speech, she’s making another one tomorrow, and they sent me a copy of the speech" Trump said. "And it was such lies about my foreign policy, that they said I want Japan to get nuclear weapons. Give me a break."
In fact, Trump very explicitly said this. Here he is in an April interview with Chris Wallace:
TRUMP: It’s not like, gee whiz, nobody has them. So, North Korea has nukes. Japan has a problem with that. I mean, they have a big problem with that. Maybe they would in fact be better off if they defend themselves from North Korea....................................................................................................................................................................
WALLACE: With nukes?
TRUMP: Including with nukes, yes, including with nukes.
Birds of a feather-- don't flock with #Lyin'Donald/#TruthlessTrump
.....................................................................................
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Mine, mine, mine! A toddler's words.
.....................................................................................
"Trump is a megalomaniac, untrustworthy, a boaster, a bore, a pathological liar... and he doesn't have one conservative bone in his body."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Trump was to the left of Hillary less than 5 years ago and changes his stances everyday. But your suddenly going to just take the word of guy who is basically a fancy used car salesman.
* In the last 8 years, the unemployment rate has been cut in half, the stock market is way, way up, the Bush bailout of the auto industry was completed by Obama and as a result we still have that enormous industry in the U.S. Tens of millions of people have health insurance that couldn't get it before, and inflation rates are very low. We have survived economically the scares of economic collapse of he E.U., and the absolute sputtering of the Japanese economy. Yeah, I'll take that to continue over a megalomaniacal, racist, fearmongering wanna-be strongman any day of the week, and twice on Nov. 3.
* French is a good choice for a protest vote. So is the Libertarian Party. And the Constitutionalist Party wherever they run a candidate. There are many ways to be #NeverTrump.
* No matter how much or how hot you rant and insult everyone, Trump is still manifestly unqualified to be POTUS, not under-qualified, totally unfit.
* A Trump presidency would be an untold disaster for the country and the world, and would probably burn out before the first year was up, in one hideous scenario or another. And nobody would suffer more than the Republican Party. It's bad enough that they've essentially nominated this buffoon, under pressure from the nasty lunatic morons in the base - but to actually have him bumble into the WH with an R behind his name, the party would NEVER live that down. Then again, Trump will NOT win - won't even come close; I'll take anybody's money on that - and the GOP is toast after this anyway.
* "Can someone please explain to me why (Trump) would be a better president than Hillary?" The short (and really the only) answer to that question is "no".
...................................................................................................................................................................
There Is No Good Reason for Conservatives to Vote for Trump Over David French
By Michael Van Der Galien, June 1, 2016
Yesterday my esteemed colleague at PJ Media, Rick Moran, criticized Bill Kristol and his friends for possibly pushing National Review columnist David French for president. According to reports, French may become the independent candidate #NeverTrump conservatives have been calling for in recent weeks.
Rick isn't impressed:
Although I understand anyone's wish to defeat Hillary Clinton come November, I see no reason for conservatives to support Donald Trump over her. Yes, he has an "R" next to his name, but that's also the only "conservative credential" he has. Trump is a megalomaniac, untrustworthy, a boaster, a bore, a pathological liar... and he doesn't have one conservative bone in his body. Can someone please explain to me why he would be a better president than Hillary?
I just don't see it.
Trump's official tax plan is OK (though not as good as Ted Cruz's), but that says more about Cruz's plan than about Trump's. Sadly, however, the billionaire businessman has already distanced himself from it. Then there are his "anti-immigration" plans, including the building of a wall at the Mexican border. Reportedly, he has told left-leaning reporters that he doesn't actually plan to follow through on any of these promises. Oh, and then there are his comments on changing the Republican Party's platform with regards to abortion, the fact that he has repeatedly sung the praises of the professional baby killers of Planned Parenthood, and his remark last year that his radically liberal judge sister would make a "phenomenal" SCOTUS justice.
And let's not even talk about his well-recorded support for GOP establishment hacks and radical Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and her husband.
Perhaps David French isn't the charismatic, wealthy and well-known independent candidate #NeverTrump conservatives were hoping for, but he's still significantly better than The Donald.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Trump was to the left of Hillary less than 5 years ago and changes his stances everyday. But your suddenly going to just take the word of guy who is basically a fancy used car salesman.
* In the last 8 years, the unemployment rate has been cut in half, the stock market is way, way up, the Bush bailout of the auto industry was completed by Obama and as a result we still have that enormous industry in the U.S. Tens of millions of people have health insurance that couldn't get it before, and inflation rates are very low. We have survived economically the scares of economic collapse of he E.U., and the absolute sputtering of the Japanese economy. Yeah, I'll take that to continue over a megalomaniacal, racist, fearmongering wanna-be strongman any day of the week, and twice on Nov. 3.
* French is a good choice for a protest vote. So is the Libertarian Party. And the Constitutionalist Party wherever they run a candidate. There are many ways to be #NeverTrump.
* No matter how much or how hot you rant and insult everyone, Trump is still manifestly unqualified to be POTUS, not under-qualified, totally unfit.
* A Trump presidency would be an untold disaster for the country and the world, and would probably burn out before the first year was up, in one hideous scenario or another. And nobody would suffer more than the Republican Party. It's bad enough that they've essentially nominated this buffoon, under pressure from the nasty lunatic morons in the base - but to actually have him bumble into the WH with an R behind his name, the party would NEVER live that down. Then again, Trump will NOT win - won't even come close; I'll take anybody's money on that - and the GOP is toast after this anyway.
* "Can someone please explain to me why (Trump) would be a better president than Hillary?" The short (and really the only) answer to that question is "no".
...................................................................................................................................................................
There Is No Good Reason for Conservatives to Vote for Trump Over David French
By Michael Van Der Galien, June 1, 2016
Yesterday my esteemed colleague at PJ Media, Rick Moran, criticized Bill Kristol and his friends for possibly pushing National Review columnist David French for president. According to reports, French may become the independent candidate #NeverTrump conservatives have been calling for in recent weeks.
Rick isn't impressed:
Don't get me wrong. French is a great writer and has a fine legal mind. He's a go-to guy when an important SCOTUS case comes down and you want all that legalese boiled down to the essentials.He then proceeded to blast Kristol for supposedly suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.
But for all his gifts, French has no more the skill set to be president than a less than one-term Illinois senator who was elected in 2008. The fact that he's evidently a nice guy, polite, listens to people, and is a practical conservative hardly matters when you're across the table from Vladimir Putin.
Although I understand anyone's wish to defeat Hillary Clinton come November, I see no reason for conservatives to support Donald Trump over her. Yes, he has an "R" next to his name, but that's also the only "conservative credential" he has. Trump is a megalomaniac, untrustworthy, a boaster, a bore, a pathological liar... and he doesn't have one conservative bone in his body. Can someone please explain to me why he would be a better president than Hillary?
I just don't see it.
Trump's official tax plan is OK (though not as good as Ted Cruz's), but that says more about Cruz's plan than about Trump's. Sadly, however, the billionaire businessman has already distanced himself from it. Then there are his "anti-immigration" plans, including the building of a wall at the Mexican border. Reportedly, he has told left-leaning reporters that he doesn't actually plan to follow through on any of these promises. Oh, and then there are his comments on changing the Republican Party's platform with regards to abortion, the fact that he has repeatedly sung the praises of the professional baby killers of Planned Parenthood, and his remark last year that his radically liberal judge sister would make a "phenomenal" SCOTUS justice.
And let's not even talk about his well-recorded support for GOP establishment hacks and radical Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and her husband.
Perhaps David French isn't the charismatic, wealthy and well-known independent candidate #NeverTrump conservatives were hoping for, but he's still significantly better than The Donald.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"... it is relatively easy to run for president if you are willing to say or do anything to get attention and you believe in nothing except your own self-inflated myth."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Trump is nothing more than the north end of a southbound horse. Perfect candidate for where the Republican party is today.
* After over twenty years of conservatives calling Hillary Clinton criminal they have 0 convictions 0 arrests and 0 indictments. They couldn't even come up with so much as a speeding ticket! However Elliot Broidy who is employed by Donald Trump as a fundraiser pleaded guilty to a felony. Mr. Broidy did avoid jail time for paying bribes by telling who he paid the bribes to.
* It doesn't matter how big Trump's hands are. He is a weak, cowardly, pathetic, needy, insecure baby.
* Which when translated from "GOPanese" means, Trump is the worst possible candidate this century and possibly all time. He doesn't have a clue on ANYTHING, and thinks a campaign of bullying his GOP opponents off the stage, attacking anyone and everyone that points out his failings will get him to the White House. No, it will take an actual policy, programs that improve life in America, and something that will not be unconstitutional, illegal, or immoral. Thus far, he hasn't spoken of anything remotely positive, has denigrated everyone not a member of his family, and has so many negatives you'd have to wear blinders to get past them to vote for him.
* Republicans created a system where idiotic lies are what is important to the base and now cant control the Frankenstein monster that resulted. The Republican base is comprised of the insiders and the stupid.
* Trump has a total lack of impulse control. Not a good feature in a potential head of state.
...................................................................................................................................................................
When Trump gets trolled it’s not a pretty sight
By Eugene Robinson, May 31, 2016
Donald Trump looked like a fool and a fraud on Sunday. But what else is new?
Even the most ardent Trumpistas would have to admit that Trump's appearance at the annual Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally was, as spectacles go, pretty pathetic. It was supposed to be a vast, multitudinous gathering on the plaza in front of the Lincoln Memorial, one of the greatest and most historic public spaces in the nation. Instead, Trump drew a paltry crowd estimated by organizers at perhaps 5,000.
As Trump might say in a late-night tweet: "Sad!"
The presumptive Republican nominee cut a ridiculous figure, sporting a red "Make America Great Again" baseball cap to guard against rogue breezes that might unhinge his comb-over. He lamented the attendance: "I thought this would be like Dr. Martin Luther King, where the people would be lined up from here all the way to the Washington Monument, right?"
Wrong. So very, very wrong.
He claimed that the anticipated throng was out there, but "unfortunately, they don't allow 'em to come in." That was a lie; there were no hordes outside the security perimeter, pleading for admittance. Since everyone present could easily discern the truth, Trump must have been lying to himself — perhaps to ease the sting of what can only be seen as an awful week for his campaign.
As Trump showed the world, it is relatively easy to run for president if you are willing to say or do anything to get attention and you believe in nothing except your own self-inflated myth. His reality-television-style campaign overwhelmed a badly fractured Republican Party. But the act is getting harder to pull off because now his words, often chosen for their shock value, have real consequences.
Take his promise, made Thursday in a speech on energy policy, to cancel the Paris agreement on climate change and stop U.S. payments into a United Nations fund to mitigate the impact of global warming worldwide. That's in keeping with Trump's know-nothing approach to the climate issue, but it can hurt him more than he might imagine.
Trump apparently believes that he can defeat his likely opponent, Hillary Clinton, by winning the votes of some disaffected Democrats who support Bernie Sanders. Yet while Trump has called climate change a "hoax" somehow perpetrated by the dastardly Chinese, Sanders calls it "the single greatest threat facing our planet" and proposes urgent and sweeping action to limit atmospheric and oceanic warming. Clinton basically agrees with Sanders, as evidenced by her unfortunately phrased promise to "put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business."
Just like that, Sanders supporters for whom climate change is a paramount issue are out of Trump's reach. It is hard to imagine how they could vote for a man who would renounce the landmark Paris deal, no matter what they think of Clinton.
Trump also spent the week fighting with New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, who happens to chair the Republican Governors Association and is considered one of the party's brightest rising stars. Speaking in Albuquerque, he blamed Martinez for what he called the state's lackluster economic performance. "It's your governor's fault," he said. "She's not doing the job."
Martinez's real transgressions, in Trump's eyes, are that she has not endorsed him and didn't attend his rally. He probably sees the feud as just another battle in his insurgency against the GOP establishment — but there's one problem: Trump is the establishment now. He won the nomination, and with it comes leadership of the party. Perhaps Trump fancies himself a latter-day William Bligh, trying to maintain discipline on the HMS Bounty. But as we know, that did not end well.
Trump also spent time trying to resurrect two-decade-old conspiracy theories about the Clintons, explaining why he hadn't given a promised $1 million to veterans' organizations, calling Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" and saying she has a "big mouth" — a sign that Warren has gotten under Trump's skin — and, oh yes, challenging Sanders to a debate and then chickening out.
By Sunday night, Trump was even losing on his favorite terrain. Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, a leading "Never Trump" conservative, announced on Twitter that "there will be an independent candidate — an impressive one, with a strong team and a real chance." This prompted a frantic Trump tweet-storm about how Kristol was a "loser" and a "dummy" and how "lightweights" were setting up a "spoiler."
When trolls get trolled: not a pretty sight.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Trump is nothing more than the north end of a southbound horse. Perfect candidate for where the Republican party is today.
* After over twenty years of conservatives calling Hillary Clinton criminal they have 0 convictions 0 arrests and 0 indictments. They couldn't even come up with so much as a speeding ticket! However Elliot Broidy who is employed by Donald Trump as a fundraiser pleaded guilty to a felony. Mr. Broidy did avoid jail time for paying bribes by telling who he paid the bribes to.
* It doesn't matter how big Trump's hands are. He is a weak, cowardly, pathetic, needy, insecure baby.
* Which when translated from "GOPanese" means, Trump is the worst possible candidate this century and possibly all time. He doesn't have a clue on ANYTHING, and thinks a campaign of bullying his GOP opponents off the stage, attacking anyone and everyone that points out his failings will get him to the White House. No, it will take an actual policy, programs that improve life in America, and something that will not be unconstitutional, illegal, or immoral. Thus far, he hasn't spoken of anything remotely positive, has denigrated everyone not a member of his family, and has so many negatives you'd have to wear blinders to get past them to vote for him.
* Republicans created a system where idiotic lies are what is important to the base and now cant control the Frankenstein monster that resulted. The Republican base is comprised of the insiders and the stupid.
* Trump has a total lack of impulse control. Not a good feature in a potential head of state.
...................................................................................................................................................................
When Trump gets trolled it’s not a pretty sight
By Eugene Robinson, May 31, 2016
Donald Trump looked like a fool and a fraud on Sunday. But what else is new?
Even the most ardent Trumpistas would have to admit that Trump's appearance at the annual Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally was, as spectacles go, pretty pathetic. It was supposed to be a vast, multitudinous gathering on the plaza in front of the Lincoln Memorial, one of the greatest and most historic public spaces in the nation. Instead, Trump drew a paltry crowd estimated by organizers at perhaps 5,000.
As Trump might say in a late-night tweet: "Sad!"
The presumptive Republican nominee cut a ridiculous figure, sporting a red "Make America Great Again" baseball cap to guard against rogue breezes that might unhinge his comb-over. He lamented the attendance: "I thought this would be like Dr. Martin Luther King, where the people would be lined up from here all the way to the Washington Monument, right?"
Wrong. So very, very wrong.
He claimed that the anticipated throng was out there, but "unfortunately, they don't allow 'em to come in." That was a lie; there were no hordes outside the security perimeter, pleading for admittance. Since everyone present could easily discern the truth, Trump must have been lying to himself — perhaps to ease the sting of what can only be seen as an awful week for his campaign.
As Trump showed the world, it is relatively easy to run for president if you are willing to say or do anything to get attention and you believe in nothing except your own self-inflated myth. His reality-television-style campaign overwhelmed a badly fractured Republican Party. But the act is getting harder to pull off because now his words, often chosen for their shock value, have real consequences.
Take his promise, made Thursday in a speech on energy policy, to cancel the Paris agreement on climate change and stop U.S. payments into a United Nations fund to mitigate the impact of global warming worldwide. That's in keeping with Trump's know-nothing approach to the climate issue, but it can hurt him more than he might imagine.
Trump apparently believes that he can defeat his likely opponent, Hillary Clinton, by winning the votes of some disaffected Democrats who support Bernie Sanders. Yet while Trump has called climate change a "hoax" somehow perpetrated by the dastardly Chinese, Sanders calls it "the single greatest threat facing our planet" and proposes urgent and sweeping action to limit atmospheric and oceanic warming. Clinton basically agrees with Sanders, as evidenced by her unfortunately phrased promise to "put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business."
Just like that, Sanders supporters for whom climate change is a paramount issue are out of Trump's reach. It is hard to imagine how they could vote for a man who would renounce the landmark Paris deal, no matter what they think of Clinton.
Trump also spent the week fighting with New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, who happens to chair the Republican Governors Association and is considered one of the party's brightest rising stars. Speaking in Albuquerque, he blamed Martinez for what he called the state's lackluster economic performance. "It's your governor's fault," he said. "She's not doing the job."
Martinez's real transgressions, in Trump's eyes, are that she has not endorsed him and didn't attend his rally. He probably sees the feud as just another battle in his insurgency against the GOP establishment — but there's one problem: Trump is the establishment now. He won the nomination, and with it comes leadership of the party. Perhaps Trump fancies himself a latter-day William Bligh, trying to maintain discipline on the HMS Bounty. But as we know, that did not end well.
Trump also spent time trying to resurrect two-decade-old conspiracy theories about the Clintons, explaining why he hadn't given a promised $1 million to veterans' organizations, calling Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" and saying she has a "big mouth" — a sign that Warren has gotten under Trump's skin — and, oh yes, challenging Sanders to a debate and then chickening out.
By Sunday night, Trump was even losing on his favorite terrain. Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, a leading "Never Trump" conservative, announced on Twitter that "there will be an independent candidate — an impressive one, with a strong team and a real chance." This prompted a frantic Trump tweet-storm about how Kristol was a "loser" and a "dummy" and how "lightweights" were setting up a "spoiler."
When trolls get trolled: not a pretty sight.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"... in a normal year, in a normal party, with a normal candidate, this is the sort of controversy that could end a campaign." Controversy? Nope, this was a stunt.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* I watched him yesterday at the news conference. He is a ME,MYSELF and I person. If he feels so strongly about the press I wonder how he would react if the press did not do any reports on him for at least two days, in otherwords BOYCOT. I would find it refreshing not to see or hear his name mentioned constantly
* The press should just stop covering this jerk period.
* I thought they were supposed to have equal coverage!
* Unfortunately, this was a Trump stunt gone bad. Pure publicity and no content, no conviction for a just cause.
* Corporate heads of news organizations have been giving Trump free advertising and exposure consistently. It needs to stop. Jump from channel to channel ... you can bet we will get, Shall I play for you ta-rumpa, trump, trump. Trump has been playing the media like a violin. Other candidates are shelling out millions for their ads. Those who fall for his cronyism haven't seen anything yet. Just remember if he is your choice and you vote for him, the rest of Americans will suffer Trump's consequences along with you. This is not the America I grew up in!!!!
* If I ran a corporate media outlet, I'd make Trump pay my company back every penny--plus interest--in free advertising to teach him a lesson not to bite the hand that feeds him by attacking the same political media that had bent over backwards to give him free advertising.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Trump’s veterans controversy goes from bad to worse
By Steve Benen, June 1, 2016
It no doubt seemed like a good idea at the time. In January, Donald Trump was in the middle of a spat with Fox News, so the Republican presidential hopeful boycotted a debate ahead of the Iowa caucuses, instead holding a fundraiser in the Hawkeye State for veterans. The GOP candidate boasted that he’d raised $6 million for vets, and he’d contributed $1 million out of his own pocket.
The trouble, however, started two weeks ago, when the Washington Post started asking what happened to the money. The newspaper found that Trump did not raise $6 million as he’d claimed, and making matters worse, though his campaign said Trump had already made a $1 million contribution, that turned out not to be true, either.
Yesterday, the presumptive Republican nominee held a press conference to set the record straight, though as the Washington Post reported, it didn’t go well.
But even putting that aside, whether the Republican presidential hopeful realizes it or not, yesterday’s explanation for the controversy arguably made matters worse, not better.
The AP reported yesterday, for example, “Phone calls to all 41 of the groups by The Associated Press brought more than two-dozen responses Tuesday. About half reported checks from Trump within the past week, typically dated May 24, the day The Washington Post published a story questioning whether he had distributed all of the money.”
In other words, four months after his big fundraiser, where Trump touted a tally that turned out to be untrue, Trump only started cutting checks to a variety of groups after the Washington Post published a story that made the candidate look awful.
At another point yesterday, Trump insisted, “I didn’t want to have credit” for the charitable donations, except we know that’s not true, either: he obviously did want credit, which is why he held a televised fundraiser in which he boasted about his self-proclaimed leadership on raising money for veterans. There’s also the matter of Trump not actually deserving credit for the $1 million his campaign was caught fibbing about.
Adding insult to injury, Trump insisted yesterday, “When you send checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars to people and to companies and to groups that you’ve never heard of, charitable organizations, you have to vet it.” He even demanded tax materials from the organizations before they became eligible for the money.
Even if we put aside the irony of Trump demanding tax materials from groups while he insists on keeping his own tax returns hidden from the public, and even if we overlook the fact that his operation doesn’t appear to have done an especially good job in vetting, there’s also the inconvenient fact that, according to the Trump campaign, the groups were chosen in advance in January – suggesting the organizations had already been vetted.
So where does that leave us? Trump said he’d raised $6 million for veterans, but that wasn’t true. He later claimed he never used the $6 million figure, but that wasn’t true. His campaign insisted Trump had contributed $1 million himself, but that wasn’t true. Trump said he “didn’t want to have credit” for the fundraising efforts, but that wasn’t true. He said he and his team were vetting groups they’d never heard of four months after the fact, but that wasn’t true.
And as of yesterday, all of this, the Republican candidate insisted, is the media’s fault. Indeed, Trump thinks journalists should be “ashamed” of themselves for scrutinizing his claims that turned out to be wrong.
Not to put too fine a point on this, but in a normal year, in a normal party, with a normal candidate, this is the sort of controversy that could end a campaign. Legitimate presidential hopefuls can get away with some dissembling and the occasional whopper, but Trump was caught telling obvious falsehoods about support for veterans’ charities.
If this happened to Hillary Clinton, is there any doubt it would be the #1 issue in the presidential race between now and Election Day? That every pundit in America would use this as Exhibit A in their takes on why Americans just can’t trust the Democrat?
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* I watched him yesterday at the news conference. He is a ME,MYSELF and I person. If he feels so strongly about the press I wonder how he would react if the press did not do any reports on him for at least two days, in otherwords BOYCOT. I would find it refreshing not to see or hear his name mentioned constantly
* The press should just stop covering this jerk period.
* I thought they were supposed to have equal coverage!
* Unfortunately, this was a Trump stunt gone bad. Pure publicity and no content, no conviction for a just cause.
* Corporate heads of news organizations have been giving Trump free advertising and exposure consistently. It needs to stop. Jump from channel to channel ... you can bet we will get, Shall I play for you ta-rumpa, trump, trump. Trump has been playing the media like a violin. Other candidates are shelling out millions for their ads. Those who fall for his cronyism haven't seen anything yet. Just remember if he is your choice and you vote for him, the rest of Americans will suffer Trump's consequences along with you. This is not the America I grew up in!!!!
* If I ran a corporate media outlet, I'd make Trump pay my company back every penny--plus interest--in free advertising to teach him a lesson not to bite the hand that feeds him by attacking the same political media that had bent over backwards to give him free advertising.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Trump’s veterans controversy goes from bad to worse
By Steve Benen, June 1, 2016
It no doubt seemed like a good idea at the time. In January, Donald Trump was in the middle of a spat with Fox News, so the Republican presidential hopeful boycotted a debate ahead of the Iowa caucuses, instead holding a fundraiser in the Hawkeye State for veterans. The GOP candidate boasted that he’d raised $6 million for vets, and he’d contributed $1 million out of his own pocket.
The trouble, however, started two weeks ago, when the Washington Post started asking what happened to the money. The newspaper found that Trump did not raise $6 million as he’d claimed, and making matters worse, though his campaign said Trump had already made a $1 million contribution, that turned out not to be true, either.
Yesterday, the presumptive Republican nominee held a press conference to set the record straight, though as the Washington Post reported, it didn’t go well.
Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he had given away all the money he had raised four months earlier for veterans – and at the same time bitterly attacked the news media for pressing him to explain what he had done with the money.Yes, it appears that in Trump’s mind, journalists are supposed to thank Donald Trump when he thinks he’s done something worthwhile.
“Instead of being like, ‘Thank you very much, Mr. Trump,’ or ‘Trump did a good job,’ everyone’s saying, ‘Who got it, who got it, who got it?‘ “Trump said during a news conference here at Trump Tower. “And you make me look very bad. I have never received such bad publicity for doing such a good job.”
But even putting that aside, whether the Republican presidential hopeful realizes it or not, yesterday’s explanation for the controversy arguably made matters worse, not better.
The AP reported yesterday, for example, “Phone calls to all 41 of the groups by The Associated Press brought more than two-dozen responses Tuesday. About half reported checks from Trump within the past week, typically dated May 24, the day The Washington Post published a story questioning whether he had distributed all of the money.”
In other words, four months after his big fundraiser, where Trump touted a tally that turned out to be untrue, Trump only started cutting checks to a variety of groups after the Washington Post published a story that made the candidate look awful.
At another point yesterday, Trump insisted, “I didn’t want to have credit” for the charitable donations, except we know that’s not true, either: he obviously did want credit, which is why he held a televised fundraiser in which he boasted about his self-proclaimed leadership on raising money for veterans. There’s also the matter of Trump not actually deserving credit for the $1 million his campaign was caught fibbing about.
Adding insult to injury, Trump insisted yesterday, “When you send checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars to people and to companies and to groups that you’ve never heard of, charitable organizations, you have to vet it.” He even demanded tax materials from the organizations before they became eligible for the money.
Even if we put aside the irony of Trump demanding tax materials from groups while he insists on keeping his own tax returns hidden from the public, and even if we overlook the fact that his operation doesn’t appear to have done an especially good job in vetting, there’s also the inconvenient fact that, according to the Trump campaign, the groups were chosen in advance in January – suggesting the organizations had already been vetted.
So where does that leave us? Trump said he’d raised $6 million for veterans, but that wasn’t true. He later claimed he never used the $6 million figure, but that wasn’t true. His campaign insisted Trump had contributed $1 million himself, but that wasn’t true. Trump said he “didn’t want to have credit” for the fundraising efforts, but that wasn’t true. He said he and his team were vetting groups they’d never heard of four months after the fact, but that wasn’t true.
And as of yesterday, all of this, the Republican candidate insisted, is the media’s fault. Indeed, Trump thinks journalists should be “ashamed” of themselves for scrutinizing his claims that turned out to be wrong.
Not to put too fine a point on this, but in a normal year, in a normal party, with a normal candidate, this is the sort of controversy that could end a campaign. Legitimate presidential hopefuls can get away with some dissembling and the occasional whopper, but Trump was caught telling obvious falsehoods about support for veterans’ charities.
If this happened to Hillary Clinton, is there any doubt it would be the #1 issue in the presidential race between now and Election Day? That every pundit in America would use this as Exhibit A in their takes on why Americans just can’t trust the Democrat?
...................................................................................................................................................................
"No amount of pressure is likely to get him to release his tax returns for the very reason they would go far to separate the myth from the man."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* "In a 1997 interview with Howard Stern, he [Trump] likened avoiding sexually transmitted diseases to his 'personal Vietnam.' Fighting off gonorrhea and the like made him 'feel like a great and very brave soldier.'" It's not known if Donald J Trump has a diseased body. It is more than abundantly clear he has a diseased soul and, with his presentation of narcissism and vanity, most likely a diseased psyche.
* It takes but days to know how many millions have been raised in these events. Not months. And if you know enough to claim $6MM in January, it shouldn't be less than that four months later. The press and those dogging Demagogue Donald are the only reason he had this May news conference, and the only reason he's now saying he's given his promised $1MM. Demagogue Donald, morally constitpated with a raging narcissitic personality disorder, may well actually steal candy from babies. Don't laugh--this is a guy that talks about dating his daughter.
* And you think Trump is going to fix it? When Trump's investments went south, he declared bankruptcy. You can't do that with the national economy. If I don't trust my doctor, I find a better doctor. I don't go to a shaman.
* Whenever Trump is found making a flat-out lie - which seems to happen every day, several times a day - he never responds to having been caught, and instead calls the person who catches him disgusting, nasty, and a loser. Truth and facts mean nothing to him, and mud-slinging is everything. His gullible and excitable followers eat it up. Well, Donald, here's news: you are a disgusting, nasty loser. Maybe I should run for President.
* Corvair Donald...unsafe and unqualified at any speed. He is not qualified to be president by temperament, experience, insight, intelligence and personality...Drumpf is not qualified for dog catcher
* The issue isn't who gave more money to veterans groups. The issue is Drumpf's inability to tell the truth. He said back in January that he raised $6 million for veterans groups and that he gave $1 million himself. At the time he said it, it was a lie. It took 5 months of the Washington Post digging and publically embarrassing him that he finally started writing checks. Hillary didn't go bragging about how much money she raised for veterans, so the amount she has contributed is completely irrelevant. If he brags about doing something he didn't do, his defense should not be that the other person didn't do it either.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Bashful Trump Lets Us In on His Generosity
By Margaret Carlson, May 31, 2016
For someone who claims he can change the world overnight -- stop wars, illegal immigration, Muslims and trade deals -- Donald Trump has been as slow as sludge in accounting for the money he bragged about raising for veterans in January.
Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, admitted on May 20 that he didn’t have an “exact number” of what was taken in, nor could he say what veterans' groups would be getting what.
Last week, Trump finally released a $1 million personal donation he had pledged four months ago, at a fundraiser in Des Moines, Iowa, organized as counter-programming to a debate of Republican candidates moderated by Fox’s Megyn Kelly that he had decided to boycott in a fit of pique. When asked by a Washington Post reporter whether he had made good on the promise only because he was taking so much flak, Trump said: "You know, you're a nasty guy."
As for the remaining $5 million or so Trump has claimed to have raised, he tried to put that matter to rest at a news conference and public accounting at Trump Tower in New York on Tuesday. He said the biggest chunk of what is so far $5.6 million raised was his pledge of $1 million for the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, a group that honored him last year. He listed the other beneficiaries one by one. The delays and inconsistencies that he said had been unfairly chronicled by the press occurred because he “didn't want credit" for his generosity.
This could have been a win but Trump can’t stop even when he's ahead. He spent the next half hour calling out his perceived enemies: an ABC reporter was a “sleaze,” others were “disgusting” for asking him to clarify his conflicting claims about the money raised. He sought to justify earlier attacks on fellow Republicans such as Governor Susana Martinez of New Mexico, saying she'd been "not nice" to him so he'd taken a "jab" at her. And he took after Mitt Romney as a “fool” and a “choker” who walks like a penguin.
The money to veterans is important. Trump believes money can buy love and he’s made getting love from veterans a cornerstone of his campaign. He’s not a natural given that he escaped the draft and even insulted Senator John McCain, a bona fide war hero. When Trump had his chance to fight in Vietnam in 1968, he instead got multiple student deferments and, when those ran out, a medical one for bone spurs.
That didn’t stop him from using the war as a metaphor of his life. In a 1997 interview with Howard Stern, he likened avoiding sexually transmitted diseases to his “personal Vietnam.” Fighting off gonorrhea and the like made him “feel like a great and very brave soldier.”
Compensating for that alone would eat up the money raised. It would take untold millions more to forget his claim that McCain, shot down and kept in a cage for five years, hung by his broken arms, beaten and tortured, was “not a war hero.” “I like people that weren’t captured, OK?"
This may be why Trump was less conquering hero than he expected to be when he showed up at the annual Rolling Thunder gathering of bikers and veterans in Washington over the Memorial Day weekend. He’d rejected the call by former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (a wounded veteran himself) to use the occasion to apologize to POWs and instead gave his usual speech with a few promises: “Thousands of people are dying waiting in line to see a doctor. That is not going to happen anymore.”
He shouted that “Illegal immigrants are taken much better care of by this country than our veterans,” a typical Trump twofer that elevated one group by stoking resentment of another.
He kept saying “We love the vets,” even as the most memorable moment was how much they let him down. Of the tens of thousands of vets who roared into town, only a fraction made it on to the Mall to listen to him: “I thought this would be like Dr. Martin Luther King where people would be lined up from here all the way to the Washington Monument." The allusion to the "I Have a Dream Speech" was breathtaking, but his towering ego couldn’t stop there. He said that there were actually 600,000 people wanting to attend his speech who couldn’t get in because an unnamed “they” didn’t let them.
This, like so many claims, doesn’t stand up to fact-checking. The 600,000 comes from the same place as so much else: his fantasies (Muslims cheering on Sept. 11, Ted Cruz’s affairs, Vince Foster’s murder, his own net worth), his shiftiness (from pro-choice, pro-Iraq war and anti-gun to the reverse), his willful ignorance about policy (the casual suggestion that he would use nuclear weapons and fudge on paying the country’s debts). But there is only so much the press can do to separate the myth from the man. No amount of pressure is likely to get him to release his tax returns for the very reason they would go far to separate the myth from the man.
Those who believe Trump is stable enough to be president should watch the Tuesday news conference, which was billed by his campaign as a long-awaited accounting to vets but turned into a wild ride to the dark side of Trump’s acid resentments against the press, against anyone who hasn’t been “nice” to him. Slipped in was a rewrite of his remarks at the Rolling Thunder rally: Of course, he wasn’t expecting a "I Have a Dream" moment. It was all a joke that he was disappointed. He can’t bear to be seen as his favorite epithet, a loser. But when you rip defeat from the jaws of victory, that’s what you are.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* "In a 1997 interview with Howard Stern, he [Trump] likened avoiding sexually transmitted diseases to his 'personal Vietnam.' Fighting off gonorrhea and the like made him 'feel like a great and very brave soldier.'" It's not known if Donald J Trump has a diseased body. It is more than abundantly clear he has a diseased soul and, with his presentation of narcissism and vanity, most likely a diseased psyche.
* It takes but days to know how many millions have been raised in these events. Not months. And if you know enough to claim $6MM in January, it shouldn't be less than that four months later. The press and those dogging Demagogue Donald are the only reason he had this May news conference, and the only reason he's now saying he's given his promised $1MM. Demagogue Donald, morally constitpated with a raging narcissitic personality disorder, may well actually steal candy from babies. Don't laugh--this is a guy that talks about dating his daughter.
* And you think Trump is going to fix it? When Trump's investments went south, he declared bankruptcy. You can't do that with the national economy. If I don't trust my doctor, I find a better doctor. I don't go to a shaman.
* Whenever Trump is found making a flat-out lie - which seems to happen every day, several times a day - he never responds to having been caught, and instead calls the person who catches him disgusting, nasty, and a loser. Truth and facts mean nothing to him, and mud-slinging is everything. His gullible and excitable followers eat it up. Well, Donald, here's news: you are a disgusting, nasty loser. Maybe I should run for President.
* Corvair Donald...unsafe and unqualified at any speed. He is not qualified to be president by temperament, experience, insight, intelligence and personality...Drumpf is not qualified for dog catcher
* The issue isn't who gave more money to veterans groups. The issue is Drumpf's inability to tell the truth. He said back in January that he raised $6 million for veterans groups and that he gave $1 million himself. At the time he said it, it was a lie. It took 5 months of the Washington Post digging and publically embarrassing him that he finally started writing checks. Hillary didn't go bragging about how much money she raised for veterans, so the amount she has contributed is completely irrelevant. If he brags about doing something he didn't do, his defense should not be that the other person didn't do it either.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Bashful Trump Lets Us In on His Generosity
By Margaret Carlson, May 31, 2016
For someone who claims he can change the world overnight -- stop wars, illegal immigration, Muslims and trade deals -- Donald Trump has been as slow as sludge in accounting for the money he bragged about raising for veterans in January.
Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, admitted on May 20 that he didn’t have an “exact number” of what was taken in, nor could he say what veterans' groups would be getting what.
Last week, Trump finally released a $1 million personal donation he had pledged four months ago, at a fundraiser in Des Moines, Iowa, organized as counter-programming to a debate of Republican candidates moderated by Fox’s Megyn Kelly that he had decided to boycott in a fit of pique. When asked by a Washington Post reporter whether he had made good on the promise only because he was taking so much flak, Trump said: "You know, you're a nasty guy."
As for the remaining $5 million or so Trump has claimed to have raised, he tried to put that matter to rest at a news conference and public accounting at Trump Tower in New York on Tuesday. He said the biggest chunk of what is so far $5.6 million raised was his pledge of $1 million for the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, a group that honored him last year. He listed the other beneficiaries one by one. The delays and inconsistencies that he said had been unfairly chronicled by the press occurred because he “didn't want credit" for his generosity.
This could have been a win but Trump can’t stop even when he's ahead. He spent the next half hour calling out his perceived enemies: an ABC reporter was a “sleaze,” others were “disgusting” for asking him to clarify his conflicting claims about the money raised. He sought to justify earlier attacks on fellow Republicans such as Governor Susana Martinez of New Mexico, saying she'd been "not nice" to him so he'd taken a "jab" at her. And he took after Mitt Romney as a “fool” and a “choker” who walks like a penguin.
The money to veterans is important. Trump believes money can buy love and he’s made getting love from veterans a cornerstone of his campaign. He’s not a natural given that he escaped the draft and even insulted Senator John McCain, a bona fide war hero. When Trump had his chance to fight in Vietnam in 1968, he instead got multiple student deferments and, when those ran out, a medical one for bone spurs.
That didn’t stop him from using the war as a metaphor of his life. In a 1997 interview with Howard Stern, he likened avoiding sexually transmitted diseases to his “personal Vietnam.” Fighting off gonorrhea and the like made him “feel like a great and very brave soldier.”
Compensating for that alone would eat up the money raised. It would take untold millions more to forget his claim that McCain, shot down and kept in a cage for five years, hung by his broken arms, beaten and tortured, was “not a war hero.” “I like people that weren’t captured, OK?"
This may be why Trump was less conquering hero than he expected to be when he showed up at the annual Rolling Thunder gathering of bikers and veterans in Washington over the Memorial Day weekend. He’d rejected the call by former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (a wounded veteran himself) to use the occasion to apologize to POWs and instead gave his usual speech with a few promises: “Thousands of people are dying waiting in line to see a doctor. That is not going to happen anymore.”
He shouted that “Illegal immigrants are taken much better care of by this country than our veterans,” a typical Trump twofer that elevated one group by stoking resentment of another.
He kept saying “We love the vets,” even as the most memorable moment was how much they let him down. Of the tens of thousands of vets who roared into town, only a fraction made it on to the Mall to listen to him: “I thought this would be like Dr. Martin Luther King where people would be lined up from here all the way to the Washington Monument." The allusion to the "I Have a Dream Speech" was breathtaking, but his towering ego couldn’t stop there. He said that there were actually 600,000 people wanting to attend his speech who couldn’t get in because an unnamed “they” didn’t let them.
This, like so many claims, doesn’t stand up to fact-checking. The 600,000 comes from the same place as so much else: his fantasies (Muslims cheering on Sept. 11, Ted Cruz’s affairs, Vince Foster’s murder, his own net worth), his shiftiness (from pro-choice, pro-Iraq war and anti-gun to the reverse), his willful ignorance about policy (the casual suggestion that he would use nuclear weapons and fudge on paying the country’s debts). But there is only so much the press can do to separate the myth from the man. No amount of pressure is likely to get him to release his tax returns for the very reason they would go far to separate the myth from the man.
Those who believe Trump is stable enough to be president should watch the Tuesday news conference, which was billed by his campaign as a long-awaited accounting to vets but turned into a wild ride to the dark side of Trump’s acid resentments against the press, against anyone who hasn’t been “nice” to him. Slipped in was a rewrite of his remarks at the Rolling Thunder rally: Of course, he wasn’t expecting a "I Have a Dream" moment. It was all a joke that he was disappointed. He can’t bear to be seen as his favorite epithet, a loser. But when you rip defeat from the jaws of victory, that’s what you are.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)