Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

A Week of Whoppers From Donald Trump


Damon Winter/The New York Times

By MAGGIE HABERMAN and ALEXANDER BURNS
SEPT. 24, 2016

All politicians bend the truth to fit their purposes, including Hillary Clinton. But Donald J. Trump has unleashed a blizzard of falsehoods, exaggerations and outright lies in the general election, peppering his speeches, interviews and Twitter posts with untruths so frequent that they can seem flighty or random — even compulsive.

However, a closer examination, over the course of a week, revealed an unmistakable pattern: Virtually all of Mr. Trump’s falsehoods directly bolstered a powerful and self-aggrandizing narrative depicting him as a heroic savior for a nation menaced from every direction. Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist, described the practice as creating “an unreality bubble that he surrounds himself with.”

The New York Times closely tracked Mr. Trump’s public statements from Sept. 15-21, and assembled a list of his 31 biggest whoppers, many of them uttered repeatedly. This total excludes dozens more: Untruths that appeared to be mere hyperbole or humor, or delivered purely for effect, or what could generously be called rounding errors. Mr. Trump’s campaign, which dismissed this compilation as “silly,” offered responses on every point, but in none of the following instances did the responses support his assertions.

Tall Tales About Himself

Mr. Trump’s version of reality allows for few, if any, flaws in himself. As he tells it, the polls are always looking up, his policy solutions are painless and simple and his judgment regarding politics and people has been consistent — and flawless. The most consistent falsehood he tells about himself may be that he opposed the war in Iraq from the start, when the evidence shows otherwise.

1. He said a supportive crowd chanted, “Let him speak!” when a black pastor in Flint, Mich., asked Mr. Trump not to give a political speech in the church.
Fox News interview, Sept. 15.

There were no such chants [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZR8St-NVdI (next below; with comments)].

2. “I was against going into the war in Iraq.”
Speech in Florida, Sept. 19.

This is not getting any truer with repetition. He never publicly expressed opposition to the war before it began, and he made supportive remarks [ https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/in-2002-donald-trump-said-he-supported-invading-iraq-on-the ] to Howard Stern.

3. He said any supportive comments he made about the Iraq war came “long before” the war began.
Fox News interview, Sept. 18.

He expressed support [ https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/in-2002-donald-trump-said-he-supported-invading-iraq-on-the ] for the war in September 2002, when Congress was debating whether to authorize military action.

4. He said he had publicly opposed the Iraq war in an Esquire interview “pretty quickly after the war started.”
Fox News interview, Sept. 18.

The Esquire interview [ http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a37230/donald-trump-esquire-cover-story-august-2004/ ] appeared in the August 2004 edition, 17 months after the war began.

5. Before the Iraq invasion, he said, he had told the Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto something “pretty close” to: “Don’t go in, and don’t make the mistake of going in.”
Fox News interview, Sept. 18.

Not remotely close. He told Mr. Cavuto that President George W. Bush had to take decisive action [ http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2016-09-10/ap-fact-check-trumps-false-claim-of-opposing-the-iraq-war ].

6. He said that when Howard Stern asked him about Iraq in 2002, it was “the first time the word Iraq was ever mentioned to me.”
Fox News interview, Sept. 18.

Mr. Trump expressed alarm about Saddam Hussein and the situation in Iraq in 2000 in his own book [ https://books.google.com/books?id=PV6qZU_xev8C&q=iraq#v=snippet&q=iraq&f=false ].

7. “You see what’s happening with my poll numbers with African-Americans. They’re going, like, high.”
Speech in North Carolina, Sept. 20; made same claim in Ohio, Sept. 21.

Polls show him winning virtually no support from African-Americans.

8. “Almost, it seems, everybody agrees” with his position on immigration.
Remarks in Texas, Sept. 17.

Most Americans oppose [ http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/07/politics/2016-election-presidential-poll-immigration-donald-trump-hillary-clinton/ ] his signature positions on immigration.

9. He has made “a lot of progress” with Hispanic and black voters, and “you see that in the polls.”
Fred Dicker radio show, Sept. 15.

No major poll has shown him making up significant ground with black or Hispanic voters.

10. He was “never a fan” of Colin Powell.
Fox News interview, Sept. 18.

In his book “The America We Deserve,” he named Mr. Powell as among the “best and brightest [ https://books.google.com/books?id=PV6qZU_xev8C&q=%22colin+powell%22#v=snippet&q=%22colin%20powell%22&f=false ]” in American society.

11. Mr. Trump said that after The Times published an article scrutinizing his relationships with women, “All the women came out and said they think Donald Trump is terrific.”
Fox News interview, Sept. 18.

Only one woman [ http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/ex-trump-girlfriend-new-york-times-223205 ] who was quoted in the article [ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/us/politics/donald-trump-women.html ] came to his defense after its publication.

12. “Unlike other people” who only raise money for themselves during presidential campaigns, he also raises money for the Republican Party.
Fox News interview, Sept. 15.

Every presidential nominee forms a joint fund-raising agreement [ http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/08/25/4-state-parties-sign-victory-fund-pacts-with-clinton-campaign/ ] to share money with his or her national party.

Unfounded Claims About Critics and the News Media

It’s not just Mrs. Clinton whom Mr. Trump belittles and tars with inaccurate information. He also distorted the facts about his Republican critics, including President George Bush and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio. And he claimed that Lester Holt, the NBC anchor moderating the first presidential debate, is a Democrat — but Mr. Holt is a registered Republican.

13. In the primaries, Mr. Kasich “won one and, by the way, didn’t win it by much — that was Ohio.”
Fox News interview, Sept. 19.

Mr. Kasich crushed him in Ohio [ http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/ohio ], winning by 11 percentage points.

14. Lester Holt, the NBC anchor and debate moderator, “is a Democrat.”
Fox News interview, Sept. 19.

Mr. Holt is a registered Republican, New York City records show.

15. The presidential debate moderators “are all Democrats.” “It’s a very unfair system.”
Fox News interview, Sept. 19.

Only one, Chris Wallace of Fox News, is a registered Democrat.

16. He said it “hasn’t been reported” that Mrs. Clinton called some Trump supporters “deplorable.”
Speech in North Carolina, Sept. 20.

It would be difficult to find a news organization that didn’t report her remark [ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/us/politics/hillary-clinton-basket-of-deplorables.html ].

Inaccurate Claims About Clinton

Mr. Trump regularly dissembles about his opponent, attributing ideas to Mrs. Clinton that she has not endorsed, or accusing her of complicity in events in which she had no involvement.

17. “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it.”
Remarks in Washington, Sept. 16.

Mrs. Clinton and her campaign never [ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/politics/donald-trump-obama-birther.html ] publicly [ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/politics/donald-trump-obama-birther.html ] questioned President Obama’s birthplace [ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/politics/donald-trump-obama-birther.html ]; Mr. Trump made it his signature cause for five years.

18. Mrs. Clinton had “the power and the duty” to stop the release of unauthorized immigrants whose home countries would not accept their deportation after they were released from prison.
Numerous speeches, including in Colorado, Sept. 17, and Florida, Sept. 19.

The secretary of state does not have the power to detain convicted criminals after they have served their sentences, and has little power to make foreign countries accept deportees.

19. Mrs. Clinton has not criticized jihadists and foreign governments that oppress and kill women, gay people and non-Muslims. “Has Hillary Clinton ever called people who support these practices deplorable and irredeemable? No.”
Speech in Florida, Sept. 19.

She has denounced jihadists and foreign countries on the same grounds, if not necessarily using the same words.

20. “Do people notice Hillary is copying my airplane rallies — she puts the plane behind her like I have been doing from the beginning.”
Twitter [ https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/778237485402980352 ], Sept. 20.

He did not invent the tarmac rally or the campaign-plane backdrop.

21. Mrs. Clinton destroyed 13 smartphones with a hammer while she was secretary of state.
Speeches in Florida, Sept. 15 and Sept. 19.

An aide told the F.B.I. of only two occasions [ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/us/politics/6-things-we-learned-in-the-fbi-clinton-email-investigation.html ] in which phones were destroyed with a hammer.

22. He said Mrs. Clinton is calling for “total amnesty in the first 100 days,” including “a virtual end to immigration enforcement” and for unauthorized immigrants to receive Social Security and Medicare.
Speech in Colorado, Sept. 17.

She has not proposed this.

23. Mrs. Clinton is “effectively proposing to abolish the borders around the country.”
Numerous speeches, including in Texas, Sept. 17.

She is not even proposing to cut funding for the Border Patrol.

24. “Hillary Clinton’s plan would bring in 620,000 refugees in her first term alone,” and would cost $400 billion.
Numerous speeches, including in North Carolina, Sept. 20.

She endorsed admitting 65,000 Syrian refugees [ http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/09/20/hillary-clinton-calls-for-the-u-s-to-accept-more-syrian-refugees/ ] this year, on top of other admissions. Mr. Trump is falsely claiming that she wants to do this every year and is estimating the cost accordingly.

Stump Speech Falsehoods

Some warped or inaccurate claims have become regular features of Mr. Trump’s stump speech. He routinely overstates the scale and nature of the country’s economic distress and the threats to its national security, and exaggerates the potential for overnight improvements if he were elected.

25. “Our African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape that they’ve ever been in before — ever, ever, ever.”
Speech in North Carolina, Sept. 20.

No measurement supports this characterization of black America.

26. Fifty-eight percent of black youth are not working.
Numerous speeches, including in Florida, Sept. 16, and Colorado, Sept. 17.

This misleading statistic counts high school students as out of work. Black youth unemployment actually was 20.6 percent [ http://www.bls.gov/news.release/youth.nr0.htm ] in July.

27. Many dangerous refugees are being welcomed by the Obama administration. “Hundreds of thousands of people are being approved to pour into the country. We have no idea who they are.”
New Hampshire speech, Sept. 15.

The Obama administration has admitted more than 10,000 Syrian refugees [ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/06/us/politics/us-could-exceed-goal-of-accepting-10000-syrian-refugees.html ], using an extensive screening process [ https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/11/20/infographic-screening-process-refugee-entry-united-states ].

28. “We have cities that are far more dangerous than Afghanistan.”
Numerous speeches, including in Florida, Sept. 16; Colorado, Sept. 17; North Carolina, Sept. 20; Ohio, Sept. 21; and a Fox News interview on Sept. 21.

No American city resembles a war zone, though crime has risen lately in some, like Chicago. Urban violence has fallen precipitously over the past 25 years [ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/08/us/us-murder-rates.html ].

29. Ford plans to cut American jobs by relocating small-car production to Mexico, and may move all production outside the United States.
Fox News interview and New Hampshire speech, Sept. 15.

Mark Fields, Ford’s chief executive, said it was not cutting American jobs [ http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/15/news/companies/donald-trump-ford-ceo-mark-fields/ ].

30. “We have a trade deficit this year with China of approximately $500 billion.”
North Carolina speech, Sept. 20.

He has made this claim repeatedly, but the trade deficit with China is significantly smaller [ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/us/politics/-trade-donald-trump-breaks-200-years-economic-orthodoxy-mercantilism.html ].

Esoteric Embellishments

Mr. Trump often dissembles on subjects of passing interest, like the news of the day or the parochial concerns of his local audiences. But his larger pattern of behavior still holds: These misstatements, too, accentuate the grievances of his supporters, and cast his own ideas in a more favorable light.

31. Senator Bernie Sanders fell victim to “a rigged system with the superdelegates.”
Speeches in New Hampshire, Sept. 15, and North Carolina, Sept. 20.

Mr. Sanders did not lose the Democratic nomination because of superdelegates. Mrs. Clinton beat him in pledged delegates [ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/primary-calendar-and-results.html ], too.

© 2016 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/24/us/elections/donald-trump-statements.html


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Trump’s week reveals bleak view, dubious statements in ‘alternative universe’

The GOP presidential nominee is out on the trail ahead of the general election in November.
September 24, 2016
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-week-reveals-bleak-view-dubious-statements-in-alternative-universe/2016/09/24/4f8a6ff6-80cf-11e6-b002-307601806392_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]


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Hey, Lester Holt: We Made a Cheat Sheet of Trump’s Favorite Lies for You

Donald Trump at a primary season debate.
Sept. 23 2016
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/09/23/donald_trump_s_most_likely_debate_lies.html [with comments]


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Trump and the Truth: His Charitable Giving


Donald Trump says he gives away millions through his foundation, but an analysis finds that he hasn’t put up any of his own money since 2008.
Photograph by Daniel Acker / Bloomberg via Getty

By John Cassidy
September 24, 2016

This essay is part of a series The New Yorker will be running through the election titled “Trump and the Truth [ http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/introducing-a-new-series-trump-and-the-truth ].”

Donald Trump is a rich man—even if just how rich remains an open question [ http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/just-how-rich-is-donald-trump ]—and he and his campaign have long insisted that he is also a very charitable fellow. “I’ve given millions away,” Trump said in May. The sentiment was reiterated this week by Jason Miller, his campaign spokesperson. “Mr. Trump is generous both with his money and with his time,” Miller said, in a statement [ http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/09/22/trump-plays-defense-on-stories-about-his-foundation-points-to-clinton-charity.html ] reacting to the latest Washington Post reporting on Trump’s charitable foundation. “He has provided millions of dollars to fund his Foundation and a multitude of other charitable causes.”

How many “millions of dollars”? People around Trump have answered that question in a number of ways. A couple of weeks ago, Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, said that anyone “who knows about Donald Trump and his career knows that this is a man who’s given away tens of millions of dollars to charitable causes throughout his business life.” In July, Trump’s son Eric said his father had given away “millions and millions and millions of dollars.” Last year, on the same day that Trump officially launched his Presidential bid, his campaign provided a specific number: a “summary of net worth” document made public that day stated that Trump had given away $102 million between 2009 and 2014.

Trump’s charitable giving has now become a campaign issue, largely due to a series of Post articles written by David Fahrenthold and his colleagues. Back in April, Fahrenthold and Rosalind S. Helderman reported that they couldn’t find a single cash donation [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-portrait-of-trump-the-donor-free-rounds-of-golf-but-no-personal-cash/2016/04/10/373b9b92-fb40-11e5-9140-e61d062438bb_story.html ] to charity that Trump personally had made over the previous five years. The Trump campaign had provided the newspaper with a list of donations made by the candidate, but many turned out to be gifts-in-kind from Trump’s businesses, such as free rounds of golf at Trump courses donated to charity auctions, and land-conservation agreements to forgo development rights on Trump-owned properties. The only cash donations were from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, the family charity that Trump established in 1988. But the Post also pointed out that Trump hadn’t given any of his own money to the Trump Foundation since 2008—almost all of its funding came from other people, including some of his business associates.

The Post has delivered other revelations. At the end of August, Fahrenthold reported that the Trump Foundation had violated tax laws [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/01/trump-pays-irs-a-penalty-for-his-foundation-violating-rules-with-gift-to-florida-attorney-general/ ] in 2013 by making a $25,000 political donation to Pam Bondi, the attorney general of Florida. At the time the donation was made, Bondi had been considering whether to launch an investigation of the scandal-plagued Trump University. Democrats accused Trump of having tried to buy off Bondi, but Bondi denied that there was any connection between the campaign donation and her decision not to pursue an investigation. Regardless, charities aren’t allowed to make political donations. Trump’s aides said the payment from the foundation was the result of an administrative error, and that the money was supposed to have come from Trump’s personal account. Earlier this year, the foundation paid a $2,500 penalty to the I.R.S.

The list goes on. Earlier this week, Fahrenthold reported [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-clue-to-the-whereabouts-of-the-6-foot-tall-portrait-of-donald-trump/2016/09/14/ae65db82-7a8f-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html ] that the foundation has spent more than a quarter of a million dollars to settle lawsuits filed against Trump businesses. One of the settlements, for $158,000, went to a man who had scored a hole-in-one during an event at one of Trump’s golf courses, and who claimed he had never been paid a million-dollar prize he was promised. The Post noted that using the foundation’s money in this way may have been another violation of the law: in this instance, the law that prohibits “self-dealing” by charitable organizations.

Fahrenthold and his colleagues deserve a great deal of credit for their reporting, but they aren’t the first journalists to take a skeptical look at Trump’s charitable activities. As far back as the early nineteen-nineties, the investigative reporter David Cay Johnston was following up on Trump’s claims, calling up dozens of charities that Trump said he’d given money to. Johnston had difficulty confirming some of the payments. In 1999, when Trump was mulling an earlier bid for the White House, the Smoking Gun, a Web site that specializes in unearthing and analyzing legal documents, inspected the annual tax returns of the Trump Foundation. Although Trump has managed to keep his own tax returns private, the tax filings of his foundation are public documents. They detail how much money Trump and other donors have given to the foundation, how much the foundation has handed out, and who the recipients were.

The Smoking Gun looked at the period from 1994 to 1998, when Trump’s businesses were recovering from a severe economic downturn earlier in the decade that saw three of his Atlantic City casinos, along with his Plaza Hotel, in New York, file for bankruptcy. As the real-estate market recovered, so did Trump’s net worth. In 1999, Forbes magazine estimated that he was worth $1.6 billion [ http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/092499/bus_forbes1.html ]. “With all that dough, you’d think the presidential aspirant might use some green to benefit society (because those garish skyscrapers and Atlantic City clip joints ain’t the grandest legacy),” a Smoking Gun article from November of that year said [ http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/donald-trump-00013-man-0 ]. “Alas, the Donald J. Trump Foundation has donated a paltry total of $475,624 over the past five years . . . Compared to other business barons like Bill Gates and David Geffen, The Donald looks like a lousy penny-pincher.”

On an annual basis, the Trump Foundation’s outlays came to about $95,000. But that figure was from the late nineteen-nineties. In the ensuing decade, Trump’s business fortunes rebounded: he became a highly remunerated reality-television star, and he got a lot wealthier. By 2010, Forbes had raised its estimate of his net worth to $2.4 billion, making him the 153rd-richest person in America. By this stage, Trump’s Web site was describing him as an “ardent philanthropist.” Had the nature of his charitable giving changed? In some ways it had, but not in the ways that Trump advertised.

In April, 2011, when he was again thinking about running for President, the Smoking Gun took another gander at the I.R.S. returns from the Trump Foundation. This time, the Web site examined the entire period from 1990 to 2009. Over those twenty years, it reported [ http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/trump-least-charitable-billionaire-109247 ], Trump had “donated a total of just $3.7 million to his foundation.” That figure confirms Trump’s claim that he has given “millions” away, but it hardly amounts to “many millions,” “millions and millions and millions,” or a hundred and two million. For the period from 1990 to 2009, his annual donations to his foundation averaged $185,000 a year.

The Smoking Gun’s 2011 article concluded that Trump “may be the least charitable billionaire in the United States.” It also suggested that he was one of the wiliest. Years before the Post’s stellar reporting, the Smoking Gun revealed that Trump had found a clever way for his foundation to give away more money—by using cash donated by other people.

In effect, Trump turned the Trump Foundation into a charity intermediary. Rather than donating money himself, he attracted donations from individuals and institutions he had done business with, or helped out in some way, then used this money to send out checks that bore the Trump Foundation’s name. One of the foundation’s biggest donors was Vince McMahon, the chairman and majority owner of World Wrestling Entertainment. ”Tax returns show that World Wrestling Entertainment has given Trump’s foundation a total of $5 million in return for the developer’s assistance in working a couple of televised angles along with WWE boss Vince McMahon,” the 2011 Smoking Gun article said. “The WWE gave Trump’s foundation $4 million in 2007 [ http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/trump-tax-returns?page=0 ] for his help in promoting that year’s WrestleMania festivities, and another $1 million in 2009 [ http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/trump-tax-returns?page=1 ].”

With those two donations, McMahon and his firm had given more money to the Trump Foundation than Trump ever had. This revelation didn’t go without notice in the philanthropy world. In 2012, Rick Cohen, the late nonprofit advocate and journalist, wrote [ https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2012/02/10/the-charitable-bona-fides-of-donald-trump/ ] at NonProfit Quarterly, “the interesting aspect of the Trump Foundation is that its most significant source of contributions hasn’t been Trump, but Vince McMahon of Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment.”

By looking at the Trump Foundation’s annual tax returns, it is easy to see the change in its funding sources. For example, the organization’s 2008 return shows that Trump donated $30,000 that year, while the Willard T. C. Johnson Foundation, a charity established by the heirs to the Johnson Foundation, had given $250,000, and the Charity Fight Night Foundation, a celebrity charity that raises money for the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center and other causes, had donated $150,000. (Woody Johnson, the owner of the Jets, is a friend of Trump’s.) In 2011, Trump gave his foundation nothing, while Richard Ebers, a ticket broker to celebrities and rich people, donated $450,960. In 2012, Trump again gave nothing, while Ebers gave $522,828, and NBC Universal Media, which made “The Apprentice,” the reality-television show that starred Trump, donated $500,000.

In addition to confirming that Trump didn’t donate a penny to his foundation from 2009 to 2014, the tax returns show a change in the foundation’s outlays. For years, many of the foundation’s biggest contributions went to well-known charities, such as the Red Cross, the American Cancer Foundation, and various hospitals. Also high on the list were charities associated with famous golfers, such as Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and Arnold Palmer. In recent years, however, the Trump Foundation also made large donations to charities associated with political causes. In 2012, $100,000 went to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which is now run [ https://billygraham.org/about/board-of-directors/ ] by Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s conservative son. In 2013, $50,000 went to the American Conservative Union Foundation, part of the conservative lobbying group that William F. Buckley, Jr., founded. In 2014, $100,000 went to the Citizens United Foundation, which is part of the network run by David Bossie, the conservative activist.

Trump hasn’t explained these donations. But the recipients of that money have helped Trump in his bid for the Presidency. Last year, when Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, Franklin Graham defended the proposal [ https://www.facebook.com/FranklinGraham/posts/1055176477871866 ]. Earlier this month, Trump hired Bossie as his deputy campaign manager [ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-hires-head-of-citizens-united-to-be-deputy-campaign-manager/ ].

So what is the bottom line? Even including the $1 million Trump donated to veterans earlier this year (after prodding from Fahrenthold), the public records indicate that, over the past quarter of a century, he has given away less than $5 million of his own money. According to his own estimate [ http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/280239-trump-claims-net-worth-of-more-than-10-billion-in-new ], he is worth in excess of $10 billion. If we take him at his word, that means his charitable contributions come to about 0.05 per cent of his fortune, or five cents for every $100.

Of course, $5 million is more than nothing, but Trump likes to portray of himself as a great philanthropist, and the numbers simply don’t justify that image. When you also consider the fact that he has managed to convert his personal foundation into a mechanism for giving away other people’s money, rather than his own, it brings to mind something Marco Rubio said [ http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/02/marco-rubio-donald-trump-con-artist-219843 ] back in February: “This guy is a con artist. He’s always making things up. And no one holds him accountable for it.”


Read more from our series of reported essays [ http://www.newyorker.com/topics/trump-truth-fact-checking-investigation ] that examine the untruths that have fuelled Donald Trump’s campaign.
Previously in the series: Jelani Cobb on black outreach as campaign ploy [ http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-the-truth-black-outreach-as-campaign-ploy ], Jia Tolentino on Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel [ http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-the-truth-the-mexican-judge ], Adam Davidson on the interest-rate flip-flop [ http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-the-truth-the-interest-rate-flip-flop ], Adam Gopnik on conspiracy theories [ http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-the-truth-conspiracy-theories ], Adam Davidson on the unemployment-rate hoax [ http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-the-truth-the-unemployment-rate-hoax ], and Eyal Press on immigration and crime [ http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-the-truth-immigration-and-crime ].

© 2016 Condé Nast

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/trump-and-the-truth-his-charitable-giving


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More say press is too easy on Trump than said so of Romney, McCain
September 22, 2016
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/22/more-say-press-is-too-easy-on-trump-than-said-so-of-romney-mccain/ [with comments]


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U.S. intel officials probe ties between Trump adviser and Kremlin


Carter Page speaks at the graduation ceremony for the New Economic School in Moscow in July.
(Photo: Pavel Golovkin/AP)

Michael Isikoff
September 23, 2016

U.S. intelligence officials are seeking to determine whether an American businessman identified by Donald Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers has opened up private communications with senior Russian officials — including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president, according to multiple sources who have been briefed on the issue.

The activities of Trump adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business interests in Russia, have been discussed with senior members of Congress during recent briefings about suspected efforts by Moscow to influence the presidential election, the sources said. After one of those briefings, Senate minority leader Harry Reid wrote FBI Director James Comey, citing reports of meetings between a Trump adviser (a reference to Page) and “high ranking sanctioned individuals” in Moscow over the summer as evidence of “significant and disturbing ties” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin that needed to be investigated by the bureau.

Some of those briefed were “taken aback” when they learned about Page’s contacts in Moscow, viewing them as a possible back channel to the Russians that could undercut U.S. foreign policy, said a congressional source familiar with the briefings but who asked for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject. The source added that U.S. officials in the briefings indicated that intelligence reports about the adviser’s talks with senior Russian officials close to President Vladimir Putin were being “actively monitored and investigated.”

A senior U.S. law enforcement official did not dispute that characterization when asked for comment by Yahoo News. “It’s on our radar screen,” said the official about Page’s contacts with Russian officials. “It’s being looked at.”

Page is a former Merrill Lynch investment banker in Moscow who now runs a New York consulting firm, Global Energy Capital, located around the corner from Trump Tower, that specializes in oil and gas deals in Russia and other Central Asian countries. He declined repeated requests to comment for this story.

Trump first mentioned Page’s name when asked to identify his “foreign policy team” during an interview with the Washington Post editorial team [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/21/a-transcript-of-donald-trumps-meeting-with-the-washington-post-editorial-board/ ] last March. Describing him then only as a “PhD,” Trump named Page as among five advisers “that we are dealing with.” But his precise role in the campaign remains unclear; Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks last month called him an “informal foreign adviser [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/21/a-transcript-of-donald-trumps-meeting-with-the-washington-post-editorial-board/ ]” who “does not speak for Mr. Trump or the campaign.” Asked this week by Yahoo News, Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller said Page “has no role” and added: “We are not aware of any of his activities, past or present.” Miller did not respond when asked why Trump had previously described Page as one of his advisers.


Donald Trump.
(Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

The questions about Page come amid mounting concerns within the U.S. intelligence community about Russian cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee and state election databases in Arizona and Illinois. In a rare public talk this week, former undersecretary of defense for intelligence Mike Vickers said that the Russian cyberattacks constituted meddling in the U.S. election and were “beyond the pale.” Also, this week, two senior Democrats — Sen. Dianne Feinstein, ranking minority member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking minority member on the House Intelligence Committee — released a joint statement that went further then what U.S. officials had publicly said about the matter.

“Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election,” they said. “At the least, this effort is intended to sow doubt about the security of our election and may well be intended to influence the outcomes of the election.” They added that “orders for the Russian intelligence agencies to conduct such actions could come only from very senior levels of the Russian government.”

Page came to the attention of officials at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow several years ago when he showed up in the Russian capital during several business trips and made provocative public comments critical of U.S. policy and sympathetic to Putin. “He was pretty much a brazen apologist for anything Moscow did,” said one U.S. official who served in Russia at the time.

He hasn’t been shy about expressing those views in the U.S. as well. Last March, shorty after he was named by Trump as one of his advisers, Page told Bloomberg News [ http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-03-30/trump-russia-adviser-carter-page-interview ] he had been an adviser to, and investor in, Gazprom, the Russian state-owned gas company. He then blamed Obama administration sanctions — imposed as a response to the Russian annexation of Crimea — for driving down the company’s stock. “So many people who I know and have worked with have been so adversely affected by the sanctions policy,” Page said in the interview. “There’s a lot of excitement in terms of the possibilities for creating a better situation.”

Page showed up again in Moscow in early July, just two weeks before the Republican National Convention formally nominated Trump for president, and once again criticized U.S. policy. Speaking at a commencement address for the New Economic School, an institution funded in part by major Russian oligarchs close to Putin, Page asserted that “Washington and other West capitals” had impeded progress in Russia “through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption and regime change.”

At the time, Page declined to say [ http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-adviser-russia-idUSKCN0ZN294 ] whether he was meeting with Russian officials during his trip, according to a Reuters report.


Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin with Vladimir Putin at a signing ceremony at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2014.
(Photo: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters)

But U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy prime minister who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft, Russian’s leading oil company, a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News. That meeting, if confirmed, is viewed as especially problematic by U.S. officials because the Treasury Department in August 2014 named Sechin to a list of Russian officials and businessmen sanctioned over Russia’s “illegitimate and unlawful actions in the Ukraine.” (The Treasury announcement [ https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2369.aspx ] described Sechin as “utterly loyal to Vladimir Putin — a key component to his current standing.” At their alleged meeting, Sechin raised the issue of the lifting of sanctions with Page, the Western intelligence source said.

U.S. intelligence agencies have also received reports that Page met with another top Putin aide while in Moscow — Igor Diveykin. A former Russian security official, Diveykin now serves as deputy chief for internal policy and is believed by U.S. officials to have responsibility for intelligence collected by Russian agencies about the U.S. election, the Western intelligence source said.

Copyright 2016 Yahoo! News

https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-s-intel-officials-probe-ties-between-trump-adviser-and-kremlin-175046002.html [with (over 4,000) comments]


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Trump Hotels Covered Up A Massive Credit Card Theft. Then They Let It Happen Again.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump attends a campaign event with veterans at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Seven of Trump’s hotels ignored reports on how they could better protect their customers.
09/23/2016 Updated September 24, 2016
WASHINGTON - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/donald-trump/ ]’s luxury hotel company agreed Friday to pay a $50,000 settlement and beef up its security systems after investigators found that Trump’s hotels failed to notify customers that a hacker had stolen their credit card numbers and personal information from Trump Hotel computers.
Following the initial identity theft in 2015, Trump’s hotels never implemented the cybersecurity plan they were given to prevent a second attack. As a result, Trump’s hotels and some of his condo properties were hacked again less than a year later. When banks alerted the company to the second hack in March, Trump Hotel Collection waited three more months before telling potential victims about the second hack.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-hotels-credit-card-theft_us_57e57d5fe4b0e28b2b53e373 [with embedded video report, and comments]


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My Vote


American troops in the Pacific during the Second World War.
PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL POPPER / POPPERFOTO / GETTY

By Roger Angell
September 24, 2016

I am late weighing in on this election—late in more ways than one. Monday brought my ninety-sixth birthday, and, come November, I will be casting my nineteenth ballot in a Presidential election. My first came in 1944, when I voted for a fourth term for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, my Commander-in-Chief, with a mail-in ballot from the Central Pacific, where I was a sergeant in the Army Air Force. It was a thrilling moment for me, but not as significant as my vote on November 8th this year, the most important one of my lifetime. My country faces a danger unmatched in our history since the Cuban missile crisis, in 1962, or perhaps since 1943, when the Axis powers held most of Continental Europe, and Imperial Japan controlled the Pacific rim, from the Aleutians to the Solomon Islands, with the outcome of that war still unknown.

The first debate impends, and the odds that Donald Trump may be elected President appear to be narrowing. I will cast my own vote for Hillary Clinton with alacrity and confidence. From the beginning, her life has been devoted to public service and to improving the lives of children and the disadvantaged. She is intelligent, strong, profoundly informed, and extraordinarily experienced in the challenges and risks of our lurching, restlessly altering world and wholly committed to the global commonality. Her well-established connections to minorities may bring some better understanding of our urban and suburban police crisis. I have wished at times that she would be less impatient or distant when questions arrive about her past actions and mistakes, but I see no evidence to support the deep-rooted suspicions that often surround her. I don’t much like the high-level moneyed introductions and contacts surrounding the Clinton Foundation, but cannot find the slightest evidence that any of this has led to something much worse—that she or anyone has illegally profited or that any legislation tilted because of it. Nothing connects or makes sense; it beats me. Ms. Clinton will make a strong and resolute President—at last, a female leader of our own—and, in the end, perhaps a unifying one.

The Trump campaign has been like no other—a tumultuous and near-irresistible reality TV, in which Mr. Trump plays the pouty, despicable, but riveting central character. “I can’t stand him,” people are saying, “but you know, wow, he never stops.”

We know Mr. Trump’s early transgressions by heart: the female reporter who had “blood coming out of her whatever”; the mocking of a physically impaired reporter; the maligning of a judge because of his Mexican parents; the insulting dismissal of the grieving, Gold Star-parent Khans; the promised mass deportation of eleven million—or two million—undocumented immigrants, and more. Each of these remains a disqualifier for a candidate who will represent every one of us, should he win, but we now are almost willing to turn them into colorful little impairments. “Oh, that’s ol’ Donald—that’s the way he is.”

But I stick at a different moment—the lighthearted comment he made when, in early August, an admiring veteran presented him with a replica of his Purple Heart and Mr. Trump said, “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.” What? Mr. Trump is saying he wishes that he had joined the armed forces somehow (he had a chance but skimmed out, like so many others of his time) and then had died or been scarred or maimed in combat? This is the dream of a nine-year-old boy, and it impugns the five hundred thousand young Americans who have died in combat in my lifetime, and the many hundreds of thousands more whose lives were altered or shattered by their wounds of war.

I take this personally, representing as I do the last sliver of the sixteen million Americans who served in the military in my war. I had an easy time of it, and was never in combat, but, even so, as I have written, I experienced the loss of more than twenty close friends, classmates, and companions of my youth, who remain young and fresh in memory. I have named them in previous pieces, along with some wounded survivors, like my friend Gardner, an infantry captain who landed at Normandy Beach and fought at Hürtgen Forest and Aachen and the Battle of the Bulge, was twice wounded, had five Campaign stars, and received numerous decorations, including the French Croix de Guerre, but who for the rest of his life would fall into wary silence whenever a thunderstorm announced itself. Also my late brother-in-law Neil, who lay wounded on the field for two days during the battle of Belfort Gap, and who hobbled with a cane all his life, and with two canes near the end. Every American of my generation can supply stories like these, and once learned and tried to forget that, worldwide, seventy million people died in our war.

Mr. Trump was born in 1946, just after this cataclysmic event of our century, and came of age in the nineteen-sixties, when the implications and harshness of war were being debated as never before, but little or none of this seems to have penetrated for him—a candidate who wants to give nuclear arms to Japan and South Korea and wishes to remain unclear about his own inclinations as commander of our nuclear triad. This makes me deeply doubt his avowed concern for our veterans or that he has any sense of their sufferings.

Reservations like this are predictable coming from someone my age, but I will persist, hoping to catch the attention of a few much younger voters, and of those who have not yet made up their minds about this election. I do so by inviting them to share an everyday experience—the middle-of-the-night or caught-in-traffic moment when we find our hovering second thoughts still at hand and waiting: Why did I ever?… What if?… Now I can see… and come to that pause, the unwelcome reconsideration that quiets us and makes us mature. It’s the same thought that Judge Learned Hand wanted posted in every school and church and courthouse in the land: “I beseech ye … think that we may be mistaken.”

Mr. Trump has other drawbacks I haven’t mentioned: his weird fondness for Vladimir Putin; his destruction of the lives and hopes of small investors and contractors unlucky enough to have been involved in his business dealings; his bonkers five-year “birther” campaign, now withdrawn, though without accountability—but never mind all this, for now.

Mr. Trump is endlessly on record as someone who will not back down, who cannot appear to pause or lose. He is a man who must win, stay on the attack, and who thinks, first and last, “How will I look?” This is central, and what comes after it, for me, at times, is concern for what it must be like for anyone who, facing an imperative as dark and unforgiving as this, finds only the narcissist’s mirror for reassurance.

If Donald Trump wins this election, his nights in the White House will very soon resemble those of President Obama. After he bids an early goodnight to his family, he sits alone while he receives and tries to take in floods of information from almost innumerable national and international sources, much of it classified or top secret. His surroundings are stately, but the room is shadowed and silent. There are bits of promising news here and there, but always more bloodshed, sudden alarms, and unexpected lurking dangers. The import of the news is often veiled or contradictory, or simply impenetrable. The night wears on, and may contain brief hours of sleep. There’s time to tweet. A new day is arriving, and with it the latest rush of bad news—another police shooting out West, another suicide bomber in Yemen, and other urgent briefings from a world already caught up in the morning’s difficult events. He needs to respond, but the beginning of this President’s response is always reliably at hand: How will I look?

Roger Angell [ http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/roger-angell ], a senior editor and a staff writer, has contributed to The New Yorker since 1944, and became a fiction editor in 1956.

© 2016 Condé Nast

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/my-nineteenth-presidential-election-and-the-most-important


*


Hillary Clinton for President


Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Our endorsement is rooted in respect for her intellect, experience and courage.

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
SEPT. 24, 2016

In any normal election year, we’d compare the two presidential candidates side by side on the issues. But this is not a normal election year. A comparison like that would be an empty exercise in a race where one candidate — our choice, Hillary Clinton — has a record of service and a raft of pragmatic ideas, and the other, Donald Trump, discloses nothing concrete about himself or his plans while promising the moon and offering the stars on layaway. (We will explain in a subsequent editorial why we believe Mr. Trump to be the worst nominee put forward by a major party in modern American history.)

But this endorsement would also be an empty exercise if it merely affirmed the choice of Clinton supporters. We’re aiming instead to persuade those of you who are hesitating to vote for Mrs. Clinton — because you are reluctant to vote for a Democrat, or for another Clinton, or for a candidate who might appear, on the surface, not to offer change from an establishment that seems indifferent and a political system that seems broken.

Running down the other guy won’t suffice to make that argument. The best case for Hillary Clinton cannot be, and is not, that she isn’t Donald Trump.

The best case is, instead, about the challenges this country faces, and Mrs. Clinton’s capacity to rise to them.

The next president will take office with bigoted, tribalist movements and their leaders on the march. In the Middle East and across Asia, in Russia and Eastern Europe, even in Britain and the United States, war, terrorism and the pressures of globalization are eroding democratic values, fraying alliances and challenging the ideals of tolerance and charity.

The 2016 campaign has brought to the surface the despair and rage of poor and middle-class Americans who say their government has done little to ease the burdens that recession, technological change, foreign competition and war have heaped on their families.

Over 40 years in public life, Hillary Clinton has studied these forces and weighed responses to these problems. Our endorsement is rooted in respect for her intellect, experience, toughness and courage over a career of almost continuous public service, often as the first or only woman in the arena.

Mrs. Clinton’s work has been defined more by incremental successes than by moments of transformational change. As a candidate, she has struggled to step back from a pointillist collection of policy proposals to reveal the full pattern of her record. That is a weakness of her campaign, and a perplexing one, for the pattern is clear. It shows a determined leader intent on creating opportunity for struggling Americans at a time of economic upheaval and on ensuring that the United States remains a force for good in an often brutal world.

Similarly, Mrs. Clinton’s occasional missteps, combined with attacks on her trustworthiness, have distorted perceptions of her character. She is one of the most tenacious politicians of her generation, whose willingness to study and correct course is rare in an age of unyielding partisanship. As first lady, she rebounded from professional setbacks and personal trials with astounding resilience. Over eight years in the Senate and four as secretary of state, she built a reputation for grit and bipartisan collaboration. She displayed a command of policy and diplomatic nuance and an ability to listen to constituents and colleagues that are all too exceptional in Washington.

Mrs. Clinton’s record of service to children, women and families has spanned her adult life. One of her boldest acts as first lady was her 1995 speech in Beijing declaring that women’s rights are human rights. After a failed attempt to overhaul the nation’s health care system, she threw her support behind legislation to establish the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which now covers more than eight million lower-income young people. This year, she rallied mothers of gun-violence victims to join her in demanding comprehensive background checks for gun buyers and tighter reins on gun sales.

After opposing driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants during the 2008 campaign, she now vows to push for comprehensive immigration legislation as president and to use executive power to protect law-abiding undocumented people from deportation and cruel detention. Some may dismiss her shift as opportunistic, but we credit her for arriving at the right position.

Mrs. Clinton and her team have produced detailed proposals on crime, policing and race relations, debt-free college and small-business incentives, climate change and affordable broadband. Most of these proposals would benefit from further elaboration on how to pay for them, beyond taxing the wealthiest Americans. They would also depend on passage by Congress.

That means that, to enact her agenda, Mrs. Clinton would need to find common ground with a destabilized Republican Party, whose unifying goal in Congress would be to discredit her. Despite her political scars, she has shown an unusual capacity to reach across the aisle.

When Mrs. Clinton was sworn in as a senator from New York in 2001, Republican leaders warned their caucus not to do anything that might make her look good. Yet as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, she earned the respect of Republicans like Senator John McCain with her determination to master intricate military matters.

Her most lasting achievements as a senator include a federal fund for long-term health monitoring of 9/11 first responders, an expansion of military benefits to cover reservists and the National Guard, and a law requiring drug companies to improve the safety of their medications for children.

Below the radar, she fought for money for farmers, hospitals, small businesses and environmental projects. Her vote in favor of the Iraq war is a black mark, but to her credit, she has explained her thinking rather than trying to rewrite that history.

As secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton was charged with repairing American credibility after eight years of the Bush administration’s unilateralism. She bears a share of the responsibility for the Obama administration’s foreign-policy failings, notably in Libya. But her achievements are substantial. She led efforts to strengthen sanctions against Iran, which eventually pushed it to the table for talks over its nuclear program, and in 2012, she helped negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Mrs. Clinton led efforts to renew diplomatic relations with Myanmar, persuading its junta to adopt political reforms. She helped promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an important trade counterweight to China and a key component of the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia. Her election-year reversal on that pact has confused some of her supporters, but her underlying commitment to bolstering trade along with workers’ rights is not in doubt. Mrs. Clinton’s attempt to reset relations with Russia, though far from successful, was a sensible effort to improve interactions with a rivalrous nuclear power.

Mrs. Clinton has shown herself to be a realist who believes America cannot simply withdraw behind oceans and walls, but must engage confidently in the world to protect its interests and be true to its values, which include helping others escape poverty and oppression.

Mrs. Clinton’s husband, Bill Clinton, governed during what now looks like an optimistic and even gentle era. The end of the Cold War and the advance of technology and trade appeared to be awakening the world’s possibilities rather than its demons. Many in the news media, and in the country, and in that administration, were distracted by the scandal du jour — Mr. Clinton’s impeachment — during the very period in which a terrorist threat was growing. We are now living in a world darkened by the realization of that threat and its many consequences.

Mrs. Clinton’s service spans both eras, and she has learned hard lessons from the three presidents she has studied up close. She has also made her own share of mistakes. She has evinced a lamentable penchant for secrecy and made a poor decision to rely on a private email server while at the State Department. That decision deserved scrutiny, and it’s had it. Now, considered alongside the real challenges that will occupy the next president, that email server, which has consumed so much of this campaign, looks like a matter for the help desk. And, viewed against those challenges, Mr. Trump shrinks to his true small-screen, reality-show proportions, as we’ll argue in detail on Monday.

Through war and recession, Americans born since 9/11 have had to grow up fast, and they deserve a grown-up president. A lifetime’s commitment to solving problems in the real world qualifies Hillary Clinton for this job, and the country should put her to work.

© 2016 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/hillary-clinton-for-president.html [with comments]


*


Hillary Clinton would make a sober, smart and pragmatic president. Donald Trump would be a catastrophe.


Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks in Orlando, Fla., on Sept. 21.
(Matt Rourke / Associated Press)

The Times Editorial Board
September 23, 2016, 4:00 AM

American voters have a clear choice on Nov. 8. We can elect an experienced, thoughtful and deeply knowledgeable public servant or a thin-skinned demagogue who is unqualified and unsuited to be president.

Donald J. Trump [ http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-all-things-trump ], a billionaire businessman and television personality, is the latter. He has never held elected office and has shown himself temperamentally unfit to do so. He has run a divisive, belligerent, dishonest campaign, repeatedly aligning himself with racists, strongmen and thugs while maligning or dismissing large segments of the American public. Electing Trump could be catastrophic for the nation.

By contrast, Hillary Clinton [ http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-all-things-clinton ] is one of the best prepared candidates to seek the presidency in many years. As a first lady, a Democratic senator from New York and secretary of State in President Obama [ http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/barack-obama-PEPLT007408-topic.html ]’s first term, she immersed herself in the details of government, which is why her positions on the issues today are infinitely better thought-out than those of her opponent.  

She stands for rational, comprehensive immigration reform and an improvement rather than an abandonment of the Affordable Care Act. She supports abortion rights, wants to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour, hopes to reform the sentencing laws that have overcrowded American prisons, would repair the Voting Rights Act and help students to leave college without enormous debt. Abroad she would strengthen America’s traditional alliances, continue the Obama administration’s efforts to “degrade and ultimately defeat” Islamic State and negotiate with potential adversaries such as Russia and China in a way that balances realism and the protection of American interests. Unlike Trump, Clinton accepts the prevailing science on climate change and considers the issue to be “the defining challenge of our time.”

Perhaps her greatest strength is her pragmatism — her ability to build consensus and solve problems. As president, she would be flexible enough and experienced enough to cut across party lines and work productively with her political opponents. As first lady, she worked with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Sen. Orrin Hatch [ http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/orrin-hatch-PEPLT002777-topic.html ] (R-Utah) to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides healthcare coverage to more than 8 million children. As a senator, she was instrumental in persuading a Republican president to deliver billions of dollars in aid to New York after September 11. As secretary of State, she led the charge to persuade nations around the world to impose the tough sanctions on Iran that led to the landmark nuclear agreement, and she negotiated a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Throughout her public career, beginning with her work in the 1970s for the Children’s Defense Fund, Clinton has advocated for women, children, the poor and minorities. She fought for what came to be known as “Hillarycare” 15 years before “Obamacare” became a thing; she has been outspoken in defense of women’s rights around the globe, including in her powerful and influential speech in Beijing in 1995 proclaiming that “women’s rights are human rights.”

Clinton’s long history of advocacy and public service stands in stark contrast to Trump’s record of virtually no leadership at all. He’s famous and wealthy, a TV personality, a showman — but what in his resume suggests he is qualified to lead the country? In the coming weeks, Trump will no doubt try harder to appear presidential, but surely voters won’t forget the long litany of insults, lies, threats and ignorant statements he has made about everyone from Mexicans and Muslims to a disabled reporter to Sen. John McCain [ http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/john-mccain-PEPLT004278-topic.html ], to the family of a dead Muslim-American soldier, to a federal judge, to President Obama.

Trump’s ignorance of the issues is manifest. He has called climate change “a hoax” and vowed to renegotiate the Paris climate accord. Obamacare would be repealed and replaced with “something great.” His signature proposal is to construct a wall along the southern border of the United States — and have Mexico pay the billions of dollars involved. Mexico, unsurprisingly, insists it will not. As for the 11 million immigrants already in the country illegally, they will either be rounded up and deported (though experts say that will cost billions of dollars, disrupt the economy, divide families and require massive violations of civil liberties) or perhaps some will be allowed to remain, living in the shadows.

Trump doesn’t take America’s global alliances seriously, he has cozied up to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin [ http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/heads-of-state/vladimir-putin-PEPLT007593-topic.html ] and he has promised to bring back waterboarding “and worse.” His pronouncements, though vague and sometimes contradictory, raise the specter of an iron-fisted leader taking action based on gut impulses — rather than a president seeking common ground among citizens in a politically polarized country.

In the style of earlier demagogues like Huey Long and George Wallace, Trump has aimed his misleading and mean-spirited diatribes at a struggling and frustrated segment of society — apparently touching a chord with voters who have experienced years of stagnant wages, whose jobs are threatened, who feel betrayed by Washington and nostalgic for a more prosperous past. To these voters Trump bashes immigrants and free trade and rails about law and order, promising to make America great again and assuring them that he alone can solve their problems. But those who put their hope in Trump’s politics of resentment and fear are making a terrible mistake.

The more rational wing of the Republican party has been appalled by the direction in which the GOP is moving, and its braver members have spoken up. Mitt Romney called Trump “unfit.” Michael Bloomberg endorsed Clinton. Susan Collins [ http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/susan-collins-PEPLT001253-topic.html ], Lindsey Graham [ http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/lindsey-o.-graham-PEPLT002479-topic.html ], Meg Whitman and Brent Scowcroft have all declined to support their party’s nominee, as have many others. Fifty national security experts who worked in Republican administrations wrote earlier this year: “Mr. Trump lacks the character, values, and experience to be president. He weakens U.S. moral authority as the leader of the free world. He appears to lack basic knowledge about and belief in the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, and U.S. institutions, including religious tolerance, freedom of the press, and an independent judiciary.”

Some voters who do not like Trump worry that Clinton, too, has serious shortcomings. And of course she does; all politicians do. She has a penchant for secrecy that has caused her significant problems, not least in the investigation of her ill-advised decision to use a private email server for her official communications as secretary of State. It is true that her family foundation took millions of dollars from foreign leaders and overseas business people while she was in Obama’s cabinet, creating the potential for conflicts of interest. She and her husband have spent years among the rich and powerful and have grown at home in that favor-trading world in a way that makes many voters uneasy. This page has criticized her in the past for adjusting her positions to match popular opinion and for being a little too comfortable with the use of military force. And at least on the hustings, she lacks the authentic, let’s-have-a-beer personality that many voters seek in a candidate.

To be a great president, she will have to struggle to overcome her own weaknesses. But compared with Trump’s infirmities as a candidate, her failings are insignificant. It’s absurd — and perilous — to portray this election, as so many are doing, as a choice of the “lesser of two evils” or to suggest that her flaws are in any way on a level with his.

Neither Libertarian [ http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/parties-movements/libertarian-party-ORGOV000277-topic.html ] Gary Johnson [ http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/gary-johnson-PECLB002602-topic.html ] nor Green Party candidate Jill Stein [ http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/jill-stein-PEPLT0008913-topic.html ] offers a serious alternative to the major-party candidates. Even voters who have questions about Clinton must recognize that neither Stein nor Johnson stands a chance of winning — and that a vote for either is merely one less vote for the only candidate who can defeat Trump. Besides, neither is a better candidate than Clinton; both were interviewed at length by The Times editorial board, and despite certain superficial appeal, neither comes close to matching Clinton’s qualifications, expertise or understanding of the political process.

The election of Hillary Clinton as the first female president of the United States would surely be as exhilarating as it is long overdue, a watershed moment in American history after centuries of discrimination against women. But that’s not the chief reason to vote for her. She deserves America’s support because she is the overwhelmingly better candidate. Against a Romney or a McCain, she would almost certainly be our choice. Against Trump? The question answers itself.

Every presidential race [ http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/2016-presidential-election-EVGAP00087-topic.html ] is described as “defining” and “historic.” This time, it’s true. Americans must not sit this election out, but cast their votes for Hillary Clinton over her dangerous Republican opponent, Donald Trump.

Copyright © 2016, Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-hillary-endorsement-20160923-snap-story.html [with embedded video, and comments]


*


No Fortune 100 CEOs Back Republican Donald Trump

General Electric Co. Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt speaks at a news conference in Boston earlier this year.
Democrat Hillary Clinton has 11 contributors and 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney had far more
Sept. 23, 2016
No chief executive at the nation’s 100 largest companies had donated to Republican Donald Trump [ http://topics.wsj.com/person/T/Donald-Trump/159 ]’s presidential campaign through August, a sharp reversal from 2012, when nearly a third of the CEOs of Fortune 100 companies supported GOP nominee Mitt Romney [ http://topics.wsj.com/person/R/Mitt-Romney/6591 ].
During this year’s presidential primaries, 19 of the nation’s top CEOs gave to other Republican candidates, including former Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio [ http://topics.wsj.com/person/R/Marco-Rubio/6882 ] of Florida, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of campaign donations.
Since then, most have stayed on the sidelines, with 89 of the 100 top CEOs not supporting either presidential nominee, and 11 backing Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton [ http://topics.wsj.com/person/C/Hillary-Clinton/6344 ]. A total of 66 CEOs sat out the 2012 campaign, according to the Journal’s calculation.
[...]
http://www.wsj.com/articles/no-fortune-100-ceos-back-republican-donald-trump-1474671842 [with comments]


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Trump threatens to bring Gennifer Flowers to debate
Mark Cuban will attend Monday night's debate courtesy of the Clinton campaign
The taunt is Trump's latest public reference to the 42nd president's infidelity
Updated September 24, 2016
Washington (CNN) - Donald Trump threatened Saturday to bring Gennifer Flowers, with whom Bill Clinton admitted to having a sexual relationship decades ago, to Monday's presidential debate.
The taunt is a response to prominent Trump critic Mark Cuban's plans to sit in the front row of the debate at the invitation of Hillary Clinton's campaign. It's the Republican nominee's latest public reference to the 42nd president's infidelity, which he has occasionally cited in his campaign to criticize his Democratic challenger.
"If dopey Mark Cuban of failed Benefactor fame wants to sit in the front row, perhaps I will put Jennifer Flowers right alongside of him!" Trump tweeted Saturday afternoon.
He soon deleted the original message and tweeted again [ https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/779729180334387200 ] with the correct spelling of Flowers' first name.
Cuban quickly shot back via Twitter, mocking Trump for allegedly referring to the two of them as the "Bobbsey Twins," a term referencing the long-running children's book series about wholesome siblings.
"Donald. Remember when you told me on the phone we were "Bobbsie Twins" and I laughed ? #truestory," wrote Cuban.
A message left with Flowers through a website she operates was not immediately returned.
[...]
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/24/politics/donald-trump-gennifer-flowers-hillary-clinton-debate/ [with embedded video report]


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Trump Warns That Clinton Will Rig Debate by Using Facts

September 23, 2016
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-warns-that-clinton-will-rig-debate-by-using-facts


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Bill Maher Slams Donald Trump For Blaming Charlotte Protests On Drugs
“Yeah, they’re taking something alright — bullets.”
09/24/2016 Updated September 24, 2016
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-maher-donald-trump-charlotte-protests_us_57e62e17e4b0e80b1ba24dd8 [with embedded video, and comments]


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Ohio system of purging inactive voters not legal: court
Sep 24, 2016
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-ohio-idUSKCN11T2KN


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A Black Republican Insists Donald Trump Is Great For Business

Published on Sep 22, 2016 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMtFAi84ehTSYSE9XoHefig , http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMtFAi84ehTSYSE9XoHefig/videos ]

With Donald Trump expanding his outreach to African-Americans, Stephen checks in with the one black Republican he could find.

[aired September 21, 2016]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23d7aImNGig [with comments]


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Jim Jefferies - Freedumb - Full Length Official Clip -- From Freedumb Netflix Special

Published on Aug 9, 2016 by Jim Jefferies [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm0DJ7GBsBZ7-Nq5x10c9hQ , http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm0DJ7GBsBZ7-Nq5x10c9hQ/videos ]

Comedian Jim Jefferies talks Freedumb on his Netflix special FREEDUMB.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oyKVAjISmI [with comments] [and see in particular (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=124501094 and preceding and following)


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