The Iran deal appears to have eased some of the conflicts in Middle East
Contrary to what Israel and US Republicans are saying, the Iran nuclear agreement has eased rather than exacerbated the conflicts in the Middle East.
Daoud Kuttab Amman, JORDAN 12 Aug. 2015
Contrary to the claims of Israel and US Republicans, the P5+1 agreement with Iran has eased, not exacerbated, the boiling conflicts in the Middle East. Within a short period of time, a silver lining is appearing in the bloody Syrian civil war.
The legitimate Yemeni powers are retaking large sections of south Yemen without any reaction from the Iranians, who many claimed would move to support the Houthis. In Iraq, the prime minister has passed the most wide-ranging anti-corruption law in parliament without the Iranians meddling in the affairs of their neighbour, whose leaders happen to be fellow Shiites.
The Libyan conflict also appears to be moving towards a diplomatic resolution as all parties are now meeting in Geneva under UN auspices. The Islamic republic of Iran has not delayed these diplomatic solutions, on the contrary it appears to have been encouraging them.
Iran and Russia are working together with the aim of finding a political solution to end the Syrian conflict. While various regional conflicts appear to be on their way to being resolved, it is very hard to make a direct connection between the P5+1 agreement with Iran and the easing of these crises. A 48 hour ceasefire was declared in many Syrian cities and was even extended.
It is not that Iran suddenly made a U-turn the moment they signed the nuclear deal. A more nuanced explanation is more likely. The various conflicts in the Middle East are not purely internal. Regional, and even international, tensions have an effect on them. In some cases the external parties have a direct role and in others they have an indirect impact. But in all cases, an easing of regional and international tensions always has a direct effect on local conflicts. The moment the fighters in Syria or Yemen see that the international community is working together, as in the Iran deal, they quickly realise that they can’t go on expecting these external tensions to continue for ever and fuel their own conflict.
Another explanation for the easing of these conflicts might have to do with regional balance of power. Until the Iran deal was signed, the role of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Iraq and the Gulf countries, was much more important than that of regional powers such as Iran and Turkey. But within a short period of time both Iran and Turkey appear to have made political decisions that have enhanced their potential role as regional powers. Iran made its deal with the international community and Turkey has changed its position on allowing the US to use their Incirlik Air Base to attack Daesh.
Lebanese writer Raghida Dergham captured this issue in a recent column in which she argued that Arab countries are worried about losing regional influence with Turkey and Iran gaining power. This feeling — whether correct or not — has played a big role in the realisation of regional countries that if the situation doesn’t ease, Turkey and Iran will have even more influence in the Arab world than they already have.
Whatever the reason for the apparent current diplomatic movements that are likely to put out the fires raging in the region, there is no doubt that the American diplomatic success with Iran is a contributing factor. A diplomatic success in resolving what appears to be an unresolved problem always has ripple effects.
Despite the fact that the Iran and the international community insisted that the deal was solely about Tehran’s nuclear programme and nothing else, the accord has certainly been felt in all the regional conflicts.
We are still a long way from concluding that the Syrian, Yemeni, Libyan or other Middle East conflicts are on their way to being resolved. It is also a stretch to say that all these conflicts are being resolved only because of the Iran nuclear deal with the international community. But we can safely say today that the P5+1 agreement with Iran has certainly not added fuel to the fire as right-wing American warmongers are claiming.
The full implementation of the Iran deal is now suspended until the US Congress votes on it in September. But come October, and if this deal is not derailed, one can confidently predict that Iran under its current administration will be more interested in improving the lives of its own people than wrecking the lives of its neighbours.
Former Iranian MPs in Exile Urge Congress to Approve Iran Nuclear Deal
By Jahandad Memarian [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jahandad-memarian/ ] Jahandad Memarian is a research associate at the West Asia Council [ http://westasiacouncil.org/ ]. He is also a senior research fellow at Nonviolence International [ http://nonviolenceinternational.net/ ], a Master alumni in Western Philosophy from the University of Tehran, and he was Previously an Iranian Fulbright scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 2010-2011(the FLTA scholarship from Institute of International Education). Prior to that, Memarian was a researcher at the Iranian Parliament Research Center and worked as a journalist at Hamshahri Newspaper. Posted: 08/15/2015 5:01 pm EDT Updated: 08/15/2015 5:59 pm EDT
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Honorable Members of the United States Congress,
We, the undersigned, have had the honor of representing Iranian people in various terms of the Majlis (Parliament) and have all been forced to temporarily live in exile due to our opposition to both foreign and domestic policies in Iran. We support democratic pluralism, peaceful relations with all nations and strictly adhere to Non-Proliferation Treaty. We are writing to urge you to approve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated by Iran and the group of 5 + 1 nations. For the agreement, in addition to preventing armed conflict and paving the way for resumption of normal trade relations between Iran and Western countries, has the potential to make a significant contribution to the resolution of crises in the Persian Gulf region.
Two decades of unilateral actions undertaken outside the framework of the United Nations in response to security threats in the Middle East have resulted in the spread of war, chaos and terrorism. The unanimous passage of Resolution 2231 by the United Nations Security Council endorsing JCPOA demonstrates intense and widespread international support for the agreement. The near unanimity of international support, both governmental and public opinion, for the initiative has created a new hope across the world that dangerous conflicts among sovereign nations can be resolved through negotiations.
We appeal to you, the honorable representatives of American people, to resist the kind of pressures whose promoters seem to have learned nothing from the tragic events of the past. We urge you to adopt a new approach to security challenges of the Middle East by casting a vote for JCPOA and announce your approval of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231. Such a move will constitute a precedent setting contribution to the resolution of international disputes through dialogue and diplomacy.
The complicated trajectory to democracy, protection of human rights, development and social justice in Iran needs détente in our foreign relations and avoidance of violent crises in the region. We urge you to consider this reality in reviewing the actual and potential implications of JCPOA. The continuation of irrational animosity between Iran and the United States is a disservice to both nations and a major hindrance to the efforts of reform minded and human rights activists in Iran.
Best regards,
Former Members of the Islamic Iranian Parliament
Ahmad Salamatian Member of the 1st Parliament, Former Deputy Foreign Minister and residing in Paris, France
Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari Member of the 1st Parliament and residing in Bonne, Germany
Rajabali Mazrooei Member of the 6th Parliament and residing in Brussels, Belgium
Fatemeh Haghighatjoo Member of the 6th Parliament and residing in Boston, U.S.A.
Ali-Akbar Mousavi (Khoeini) Member of the 6th Parliament and residing in Maryland, U.S.A.
Ben Carson Suggests Obama’s Iran Deal Is ‘Anti-Semitic’
CREDIT: AP Photo/Jonathan Bachman
by Sam P.K. Collins Aug 16, 2015 11:41am
After expressing an eagerness to weigh in more on matters of the economy and foreign policy, GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson decried the Iran nuclear deal and called President Barack Obama’s policies anti-Semitic during an appearance on Fox News Sunday (FNS).
“Well I think anything is anti-Semitic that is against the survival of a state that is surrounded by enemies and by people who want to destroy them,” Carson told Wallace. “And to sort of ignore that and to act like everything is normal there and that these people are paranoid, I think that’s anti-Semitic.”
Though Carson didn’t explicitly mention the Iran deal during his Fox News Sunday interview, he recounted conversations he had with people in Israel, telling Wallace that he hasn’t met one person who “didn’t think the administration had turned its back on Israel.”
In September, lawmakers will vote on the Iran nuclear deal [ http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/iran-nuclear-deal-specifics-116645.html ], a set of negotiations between Iran and six countries, including an agreement by Iran to hand over two-thirds of its 19,000 centrifuges to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The deal, if approved by Congress, would also secure billions of dollars in economic relief to Iran it would get through economic sanctions.
But not everyone wants the deal to come to fruition. Isaac “Bougie” Herzog, leader of Israel’s left-leaning Labor Party, says Iran is disengenuous in its intentions, telling the Atlantic [ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/07/israel-isaac-herzog-iran-nuclear-deal/398705/ ] that Iranian leadership will use the money from the deal to purchase more weapons and become a nuclear stronghold within the next decade. Republicans also oppose the deal, pointing to portions they say would limit congressional action in the event of future opposition. Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY), too, spoke out against the deal, writing a 1,700 word statement [ http://www.schumer.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/my-position-on-the-iran-deal ] on the matter.
Iran's Supreme Leader Says Fate Of The Nuclear Deal Still Unclear
In this picture released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends a meeting in Tehran, Monday, Aug. 17, 2015. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
In this picture released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers a speech during a meeting in Tehran, Monday, Aug. 17, 2015. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
Iran's parliament will consider the deal in the coming days.
Posted: 08/17/2015 09:49 AM EDT
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Monday the fate of a historic nuclear deal with world powers is still unclear as lawmakers in both the Islamic Republic and the U.S. review it.
The comments by Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters in Iran, suggests he supports allowing Iran's parliament to review and vote on the deal. However, his remarks carried on his official website still offered no clue on whether he himself supported the accord.
Referring to the U.S., Khamenei said: "In their understanding of the deal, of which its fate is not clear since it is not clear if will be approved here or there, their intention was to find a way to penetrate into the country."
He added: "We blocked the way. We will strongly block this way. We will not allow either economic penetration or political and cultural penetration into the country by the U.S."
Iran's parliament and the Supreme National Security Council will consider the agreement in the coming days. On Sunday, more than 200 Iranian lawmakers issued a statement demanding the administration of President Hassan Rouhani submit the deal to parliament for a vote.
Khamenei himself has not publicly approved or disapproved. However, he has repeatedly offered words of support for Iran's nuclear negotiators.
The deal calls for limiting Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions. The accord came after nearly two years of negotiations between Iran and world powers including the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.
The West long has suspected Iran's nuclear program has a military dimension. Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes, like power generation and medical treatments.
Iran’s perspective on Syria: U.S. allies to blame for rise of Islamic State
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, welcomes his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Moscow on Monday, Aug. 17, 2015. The two held talks on implementation of the nuclear deal and on international efforts to mediate the conflict in Syria. Ivan Sekretarev - AP
If Iran joins talks on Syria’s future, it will bring a different perspective
Assad is defending himself, hasn’t committed war crimes
Hezbollah was acting in Lebanon’s defense when it sent fighters to help Assad
By Roy Gutman August 17, 2015
TEHRAN — If, as many expect, Iran will soon be invited to play a bigger role in combating the Islamic State and in any future talks over the future of Syria, its clerical regime will arrive with an entirely different perspective from other participants’.
Iran has sent hundreds of advisers and thousands of volunteers to Syria in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and few in Tehran would dispute that that support has been has been indispensable for Assad’s survival to date.
“If Iran didn’t support Assad, he would be gone by now,” said Ali Bigdeli, an international relations professor at the National University of Iran.
But Iran takes no responsibility for Assad’s war tactics, including the alleged use of chemical weapons against rebels in 2013 and the use of “barrel bombs” that have killed thousands of civilians.
Some 12 million Syrians have been forced from their homes by what a U.N panel says are government crimes against humanity.
But Iran remains adamant that Assad remains the legitimate ruler in Syria, and that it is opposed to the establishment of a no-fly zone, something Turkey has demanded, but that the United States also opposes.
“The security of Syria as our strategic ally is very important,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahlan, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, told McClatchy. “We do not support the establishing a no-fly zone or a protected one in Syria. We believe this will complicate the situation more.”
Although Iran’s influence is on the upswing following the July agreement with six great powers on its nuclear program, there are major questions about the country’s ability to manage crisis, not only in Syria, but also in Iraq, where Iran has been the dominant outside power since U.S. forces departed at the end of 2011.
It was on Iran’s watch and under the leaders it backed, Assad in Syria and Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki in Iraq, that Sunni extremists captured an enormous swath of territory in both countries and set up a self-styled “caliphate.” Yet few in Iran accept any responsibility for the upheaval, and many put the blame exclusively on Arab states, Turkey and the U.S.
Officially, Iran even disputes that the Syrian revolt was home-grown, but blames it on unspecified “foreign intelligence services.”
“It is more than four years that Syria has been fighting terrorism,” Amir-Abdollahlan said.
“Based on our information, the uprising began in the border city of Daraa, and from the early hours of the uprising, foreign forces entered Daraa. . . . Of course the people’s demands turned violent. And the Bashar Assad government took measures to control it.”
Amir-Abdollahlan offered no evidence to back that version, which does not accord with news and eyewitness accounts from the time. He rejected claims by Assad’s opponents that Assad had close links to jihadists during the U.S. occupation of Iraq and therefore bears some responsibility for their rise in Syria.
“The information, from my point of view, is not very precise,” he said.
He also defended the presence inside Syria of fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, saying they were there not just to defend Assad, but also Lebanon’s own security from the threat of Sunni Muslim extremists.
“Hezbollah, in order to defend the security of Lebanon, was forced to undertake operations in coordination with the Syrian government . . . inside the Syrian borders,” he said. “And all of the people of Lebanon, be they Muslims, Sunni, Shia, or Christians are supporting Hezbollah in this.”
Some prominent voices here go so far as denying that Assad has committed war crimes. “These reports that you hear that Assad has done these kinds of things are not real,” said Hamid-Rezi Taraghi, the international affairs spokesman for the Islamic Coalition party and a former member of parliament. He said all the crimes against civilians “had been done by terrorists supported by Turkey.”
According to Taraghi, Iran is prepared to send Iranian forces into Syria. “If necessary, we will send them,” he said. Some officials have threatened to send up to 100,000 Basij or revolutionary guard fighters. “They’re always ready,” said Taraghi.
Across the political spectrum, Iranian foreign affairs experts claim that the Islamic State is sponsored by U.S. allies in the region.
“You see half of Syria has now been captured by Islamic State forces with the support of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar and with technical assistance by Erdogan,” said Mohammad-Javad Hag-Shenas, a journalist, academic and former government official, referring to Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Bigdeli, the university professor, said the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Qatar “created” the Islamic State in order “to rein in Iran’s power in the region,” and for this same reason, the U.S. decided “not to eradicate the Islamic State group.”
And Taraghi claimed there was a “U.S. plan for a new Middle East” to set up and finance the terrorist groups in the region with the aim of making “the Muslim countries insecure.”
If Iran is invited to future talks on Syria, it will probably urge the participants to support Assad at least until his term ends “and to help Assad fight the Islamic State inside Syria,” Hag-Shenas said.
Pentagon Plans to Increase Drone Flights by 50 Percent
By LOLITA C. BALDOR Aug 17, 2015, 7:49 PM ET
JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. (AP) - Faced with escalating aggression from Russia and China, the Pentagon is planning to increase its use of drones by about 50 percent over the next several years, using the Army and civilian contractors to put more of the unmanned aircraft in the air.
The decision to add Army and civilian-operated missions to the mix was triggered because the Air Force — which had been running about 65 combat air patrol missions a day — asked to decrease that number to 60 because of stress on the force. But 60 patrols don't come close to meeting the demands of top military commanders facing growing security threats around the world.
Senior U.S. officials said that while drones have been used largely to target terrorists and collect intelligence over combat zones, those needs may shift in the coming years.
Top military leaders, including the incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, have named Russia as the nation's most serious security threat. And China's rising military power and island-building program in the South China Sea have increased tensions and prompted a greater demand for U.S. surveillance and intelligence across the Pacific.
One senior defense official said Pentagon leaders are taking those security challenges into account as they decide how armed and unarmed drones will be used across Europe and the Pacific. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the issue publicly.
Pentagon leaders have been wrestling with the problem for some time, as the need for more airstrikes and surveillance by drones over Iraq and Syria to battle the Islamic State group offsets a decline in unmanned flights over Afghanistan as the war there winds down. Under the plans laid out by senior defense officials, the Air Force would continue to provide 60 daily drone missions, while the Army would conduct about 16, and U.S. Special Operations Command and civilian contractors would do up to 10 each.
"It's the combatant commanders, they need more. They're tasked to do our nation's business overseas so they feel that stress on them, and it's not getting better," said Air Force Maj. Gen. J.D. Harris, Jr., vice commander of Air Combat Command at Joint Base Langley-Eustis. "There's just not enough of the Air Force to go around."
The civilian contractors would fly surveillance drones, not the armed aircraft. But senior defense officials said they need at least a small contractor contribution in order to reach the total of 90 combat air patrols per day.
The key unanswered questions, however, are how the Pentagon will pay for the additional patrols and how the military will sort out and analyze the growing torrent of data pouring in.
Officials said some of the costs could be borne by war funding — the overseas contingency operations in a separate account approved by Congress. The account funded some of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as some counterterrorism operations in the Middle East and Africa.
The use of the Army and contractor flights will give the Air Force time to recover and rebuild its drone staffing. Over the past decade, the Air Force had to very quickly expand the number of unmanned flights over Iraq and Afghanistan. To do that, it made fighter pilots switch to unmanned Predator and Reaper drones, and moved trainers into operations missions.
"Five, six years ago, we overmatched our system and we said we could provide more than what we were capable of providing on a sustained basis," Harris told The Associated Press in an interview at his Langley office. "We actually decimated our training units. We pulled crews that were instructors that should be training the next round of students, and we put them on the operational lines flying missions overseas just to provide everything we could to the combatant commanders."
As a result, the Air Force has trained about 180 air crew members per year, far short of the goal of 300.
Harris and other military leaders thought that the demand for drones would dip as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan waned. But the renewed conflict in Iraq, the fighting in Syria, the terror threat in North Africa, the Russian invasion of Ukraine's Crimea region and the simmering tensions in the Pacific have only increased commanders' appetite for drones.
To relieve the burden on the Air Force, the military has already begun using Army Gray Eagle drones in Afghanistan and could expand to other regions as required.
But, as the missions increase, the amount of video and other data being funneled to analysts will also spike.
Officials said they are working on ways to filter the data more efficiently so that key intelligence is identified and gets to the right people.
"The intelligence analysts who process the information coming from these flights are a critical part of this," said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. "So, as we talk about expanding the number of UAV (drone) flights, we also have to look at the workload of the analysts who process that. We have to have the supporting backbone to be able to process that information and turn it into actionable intelligence."
This documentary is a potent study of the intimidating power of money not in theory but on the ground, an examination of how a wealthy man with a boundless sense of entitlement can strong-arm all opposition without really breaking a sweat.
“You use the word ‘attack,’ and it is an attack, we’re being attacked,” Trump agreed, citing two cases of American citizens being killed by undocumented immigrants that have received a lot of attention from conservative media.
“You look at beautiful Kate [Steinle] and what’s going on like in San Francisco and Jamiel [Shaw] and so many people being killed and hurt badly. And people are coming through the border that are really bad hombres and bad dudes and these are people that Mexico doesn’t want and other countries where they come from, they don’t want them.”
Other countries, he said, are “forcing” these “bad hombres” into America, where they will either go to jail or “go around killing people in our streets.”
“Another four years, another eight years of this kind of stuff, and we’re not going to have a country anymore,” he added.
Trump told Ledger that running for president was “not anything that I wanted to do” but that he couldn’t stand by as “the Constitution of this country has been absolutely riddled with bullets from the Obama administration.”
Ledger, for one, was very impressed by Trump’s self-sacrifice, declaring that the billionaire was doing his “duty” in following his “calling” to run for president, just like the men who enlisted in the military in World War I and World War II [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwQxsHVjLdo (next below, as embedded)].
As Fischer sees it, Trump's philosophy is that "I'm not going to attack anybody, but if you attack me, then I am going to counter punch" and so his attacks on Kelly have actually been a sign of "ultimate respect" for women.
"I think you could make an argument that he has shown women more respect than anybody else because he is showing them the ultimate respect of treating them as full equals," Fischer said [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWdI88vJHNw (below, as embedded)]. "He is saying to these women like Megyn Kelly, if you want to punch me, I'm going to treat you the same way that I treat the guys. You're going to get equal treatment from me, I'm not going to cut you a break. If you're going to step into the ring with the big boys, then I am going to treat you like one of the big boys."
Former speaker of the House and Architect of the 1994 “Contract with America” talks about whether Donald Trump is tapping into the American people’s hunger for strong leadership and that’s why he continues to rise in the polls and dominate the political conversation.
The 199 Most Donald Trump Things Donald Trump Has Ever Said
Politico Illustration—Getty
Would you vote for this man?
By MICHAEL KRUSE August 14, 2015
1. “… don’t let the brevity of these passages prevent you from savoring the profundity of the advice you are about to receive.” (How to Get Rich, 2004)
2. “I am a really smart guy.” (TIME, April 14, 2011)
3. “I’m intelligent. Some people would say I’m very, very, very intelligent.” (Fortune, April 3, 2000)
4. “I know what sells and I know what people want.” (Playboy, March 1990)
5. “I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.” (Albany’s Talk 1300, April 14, 2011)
6. “I just have great respect for them, and you know they like me.” (CNN, July 23, 2015)
7. “A well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market. … {I}f I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black, because I believe they do have an actual advantage.” (NBC News, September 1989)
8. “Our great African American President hasn’t exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore!” (Twitter, April 28, 2015)
9. “I have black guys counting my money. … I hate it. The only guys I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes all day.” (USA Today, May 20, 1991)
10. “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” (Twitter, Nov. 6, 2012)
11. “I know the Chinese. I’ve made a lot of money with the Chinese. I understand the Chinese mind.” (Xinhua, April 2011)
12. “I did very well with Chinese people. Very well. Believe me.” (TIME, April 14, 2011)
13. “Who the fuck knows? I mean, really, who knows how much the Japs will pay for Manhattan property these days?” (TIME, January 1989)
14. “The Mexican government forces many bad people into our country. Because they’re smart. They’re smarter than our leaders.” (NBC News, July 8, 2015)
15. “Jeb Bush will not be able to negotiate against Mexico. Jeb Bush with Mexico said, ‘People, come in,’ they come in, it’s an act of love, OK?” (Birch Run, Mich., Aug. 11, 2015)
16. “Jeb Bush has to like the Mexican Illegals because of his wife.” (Retweeted and then deleted on Twitter, July 4, 2015)
17. “I’ll win the Latino vote because I’ll create jobs. I’ll create jobs and the Latinos will have jobs they didn’t have.” (NBC News, July 8, 2015)
18. “I’m leading in the Hispanic vote, and I’m going to win the Hispanic vote. I’m also leading in the regular vote.” (Birch Run, Mich., Aug. 11, 2015)
19. “I don’t have a racist bone in my body.” (“Entertainment Tonight,” July 1, 2015)
20. “I cherish women. I want to help women. I’m going to be able to do things for women that no other candidate would be able to do … ” (CNN, Aug. 9, 2015)
21. “I will be so good to women.” (CNN, Aug. 10, 2015)
Donald Trump, who owns the Miss USA pageant, poses on his yacht with 22 state beauty pageant winners in Atlantic City 1988. “I have really given a lot of women great opportunity,” Trump says. “Unfortunately, after they are a star, the fun is over for me.” AP Photo/Jack Kanthal
22. “I will be phenomenal to the women. I mean, I want to help women.” (CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Aug. 9, 2015)
23. “Oftentimes when I was sleeping with one of the top women in the world I would say to myself, thinking about me as a boy from Queens, ‘Can you believe what I am getting?’” (Think Big: Make it Happen in Business and Life, 2008)
24. “I’ve never had any trouble in bed …” (Surviving at the Top, 1990)
25. “I have many women that work for me.” (CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Aug. 9, 2015)
26. “She’s not giving me 100 percent. She’s giving me 84 percent, and 16 percent is going towards taking care of children.” (TIME, May 23, 2011)
27. “All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me— consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.” (How to Get Rich, 2004)
28. “I have really given a lot of women great opportunity. Unfortunately, after they are a star, the fun is over for me.” (ABC’s “Primetime Live,” March 10, 1994)
29. “When a man leaves a woman, especially when it was perceived that he has left for a piece of ass—a good one!— there are 50 percent of the population who will love the woman who was left.” (Vanity Fair, September 1990)
30. “You know who’s one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody? And I helped create her. Ivanka. My daughter, Ivanka. She’s 6 feet tall, she’s got the best body. She made a lot money as a model—a tremendous amount.” (The Howard Stern Show, 2003)
31. “Every guy in the country wants to go out with my daughter.” (New York magazine, Dec. 13, 2004)
32. “… she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” (ABC’s “The View,” March 6, 2006)
33. “I’ve known Paris Hilton from the time she’s 12. Her parents are friends of mine, and, you know, the first time I saw her, she walked into the room and I said, ‘Who the hell is that?’ … Well, at 12, I wasn’t interested. I’ve never been into that. They’re sort of always stuck around that 25 category.” (The Howard Stern Show, 2003)
34. “There’s nothing I love more than women, but they’re really a lot different than portrayed. They are far worse than men, far more aggressive … ” (The Art of the Comeback, 1997)
35. “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?” (Twitter, April 16, 2015)
36. Women: “You have to treat ’em like shit.” (New York magazine, Nov. 9, 1992)
37. “What I say is what I say.” (Republican presidential debate, Aug. 6, 2015)
38. “One thing I’ve learned about the press is that they’re always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational the better. … The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
39. “Sometimes they write positively, and sometimes they write negatively. But from a pure business point of view, the benefits of being written about have far outweighed the drawbacks.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
40. “Sometimes it pays to be a little wild.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
41. “It’s always good to do things nice and complicated so that nobody can figure it out.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)
42. “If I get my name in the paper, if people pay attention, that’s what matters.” (Donald Trump: Master Apprentice, 2005)
43. “The press portrays me as a wild flamethrower. In actuality, I think I’m much different from that. I think I’m totally inaccurately portrayed.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)
44. “You know, it really doesn’t matter what they write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” (Esquire, 1991)
45. “There are two publics as far as I’m concerned. The real public and then there’s the New York society horseshit. The real public has always liked Donald Trump. The real public feels that Donald Trump is going through Trump-bashing. When I go out now, forget about it. I’m mobbed. It’s bedlam.” (Vanity Fair, September 1990)
46. “Controversy, in short, sells.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
47. “The show is ‘Trump.’ And it is sold-out performances everywhere.” (Playboy, March 1990)
48. “I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
49. “Most people think small, because most people are afraid of success, afraid of making decisions, afraid of winning. And that gives people like me a great advantage.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
50. “You want to know what total recognition is? I’ll tell you how you know you’ve got it. When the Nigerians on the street corners who don’t speak a word of English, who have no clue, who’re selling watches for some guy in New Jersey—when you walk by and those guys say, ‘Trump! Trump!’ That’s total recognition.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)
51. “There is something crazy, hot, a phenomenon out there about me, but I’m not sure I can define it and I’m not sure I want to. How do you think ‘The Apprentice’ would have done if I wasn’t a part of it? There are a lot of imitators now and we’ll see how they’ll do, but I think they’ll crash and burn.” (New York Times, Sept. 8, 2004)
52. “Other rich people don’t do commercials because no one asks them. It’s just like ‘The Apprentice.’ I can’t tell you how many of my rich friends are dying, dying to have me put them on that show.” (New York Times, Aug. 11, 2004)
53. “There’s something very seductive about being a television star.” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)
54. “I can’t help it that I’m a celebrity. What am I going to do, hide under a stone?” (USA Today, Feb. 27, 2004)
55. “I want a very good-looking guy to play me.” (Master Apprentice, 2005)
56. “Nothing wrong with ego.” (Playboy, March 1990)
57. “Show me someone without an ego, and I’ll show you a loser.” (Facebook, Dec. 9, 2013)
58. “One of the key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace. Good people don’t go into government. I’d want to change that.” (The Advocate, Feb. 15, 2000)
59. “Our leaders are stupid. They are stupid people. It’s just very, very sad.” (Las Vegas, April 28, 2011)
60. “I would hate to think that people blame me for the problems of the world. Yet people come to me and say, ‘Why do you allow homelessness in the cities?’ as if I control the situation. I am not somebody seeking office.” (Playboy, March 1990)
61. “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.” (Fortune, April 3, 2000)
62. “I have no intention of running for President.” (TIME, Sept. 14, 1987)
63. “I don’t want to be President. I’m 100 percent sure. I’d change my mind only if I saw this country continue to go down the tubes.” (Playboy, March 1990)
64. “Well, if I ever ran for office, I’d do better as a Democrat than as a Republican—and that’s not because I’d be more liberal, because I’m conservative. But the working guy would elect me. He likes me.” (Playboy, March 1990)
65. President Trump “would believe very strongly in extreme military strength. He wouldn’t trust anyone. He wouldn’t trust the Russians; he wouldn’t trust our allies; he’d have a huge military arsenal, perfect it, understand it.” (Playboy, March 1990)
66. Overseas, “we build a school, we build a road, they blow up the school, we build another school, we build another road they blow them up, we build again, in the meantime we can’t get a fucking school in Brooklyn.” (Las Vegas, April 28, 2011)
67. “What does it all mean when some wacko over in Syria can end the world with nuclear weapons?” (New York Times, April 8, 1984)
68. “I think if this country gets any kinder or gentler, it’s literally going to cease to exist.” (Playboy, March 1990)
69. “I see the values of this country in the way crime is tolerated, where the people are virtually afraid to say, ‘I want the death penalty.’ Well, I want it. Where has this country gone when you’re not supposed to put in a grave the son of a bitch who robbed, beat, murdered and threw a 90-year-old woman off the building?” (Playboy, March 1990)
70. “I know politicians who love women who don’t even want to be known for that, because they might lose the gay vote, OK?” (Playboy, March 1990)
71. “Politicians are all talk and no action.” (Twitter, May 27, 2015)
“Politicians are all talk and no action.” Donald Trump enters the ring to shave the head of World Wrestling Entertainment chairman Vince McMahon in 2007. AP Photo/Carlos Osorio
72. “When you need zone changes, you’re political. … You know, I’ll support the Democrats, the Republicans, whatever the hell I have to support.” (BuzzFeed, Feb. 13, 2014)
73. “I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people. Before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them—they are there for me.” (Republican presidential debate, Aug. 6, 2015)
74. “Power corrupts.” (Playboy, March 1990)
75. “Part of the beauty of me is that I am very rich.” (ABC’s “Good Morning America,” March 17, 2011)
76. “I’m really rich.” (New York City, June 16, 2015)
77. “Look at these contracts. I get these to sign every day. I’ve signed hundreds of these. Here’s a contract for $2.2 million. It’s a building that isn’t even opened yet. It’s eighty-three percent sold, and nobody even knows it’s there. For each contract, I need to sign twenty-two times, and if you think that’s easy … You know, all the buyers want my signature. I had someone else who works for me signing, and at the closings the buyers got angry. I told myself, ‘You know, these people are paying a million eight, a million seven, two million nine, four million one—for those kinds of numbers, I’ll sign the fucking contract.’ I understand. Fuck it. It’s just more work.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)
78. “My attitude is if somebody’s willing to pay me $225,000 to make a speech, it seems stupid not to show up. You know why I’ll do it? Because I don’t think anyone’s ever been paid that much.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)
79. “I look very much forward to showing my financials, because they are huge.” (TIME, April 14, 2011)
80. “I have a total net worth and now with the increase it will be well over $10 billion, but here total net worth of $8 billion. Net worth—not assets, not liabilities—a net worth. … I’m not doing that to brag. Because you know what? I don’t have to brag. I don’t have to. Believe it or not.” (New York City, June 16, 2015)
81. “People say the ’80s are dead, all the luxury, the extravagance. I say, ‘What?’ Am I supposed to change my taste because it’s a new decade? That’s bullshit.” (Playboy, May 1997)
82. “If you don’t tell people about your success, they probably won’t know about it.” (How to Get Rich, 2004)
83. “I know how to sell. Selling is life. You can have the greatest singer in the world, but if nobody knows who he is, he’ll never have the opportunity to sing.” (Sports Illustrated, Feb. 13, 1984)
84. “There are singers in the world with voices as good as Frank Sinatra’s, but they’re singing in their garages because no one has ever heard of them. You need to generate interest, and you need to create excitement.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
85. “I’ve always felt that a lot of modern art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than they are artists.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
86. “That’s why the banks love me. They love my reputation.” (New York Times, March 28, 2004)
87. “I really value my reputation and I don’t hesitate to sue.” (Village Voice, Jan. 15, 1979)
88. “I think the brand is huge. What is it about me that gets Larry King his highest ratings?” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)
89. “My brand became more famous as I became more famous, and more opportunities presented themselves.” (Amazon.com, 2007)
90. “Because I’ve been successful, make money, get headlines, and have authored bestselling books, I have a better chance to make my ideas public than do people who are less well known.” (The America We Deserve, 2000)
91. “Let’s say I was worth $10. People would say, ‘Who the [expletive] are you?’ You understand? They know my statement. Fortune. My book, The Art of the Deal, based on my fortune. If I didn’t make a fortune, who the [expletive] is going to buy The Art of the Deal? That’s why they watched ‘The Apprentice.’ Because of my great success.” (Washington Post, July 12, 2015)
92. “People think I'm a gambler. I've never gambled in my life. To me, a gambler is someone who plays slot machines. I prefer to own slot machines. It's a very good business being the house.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
93. “I like the casino business. I like the scale, which is huge, I like the glamour, and most of all, I like the cash flow.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
94. “Cash is king, and that’s one of the beauties of the casino business.” (Playboy, March 1990)
95. “How much have I made off the casinos? Off the record, a lot.” (Master Apprentice, 2005)
96. “And while I can't honestly say I need an 80-foot living room, I do get a kick out of having one.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
97. “Let me tell you something about the rich. They have a very low threshold for pain.” (New York magazine, Feb. 11, 1985)
98. “Fighting for the last penny is a very good philosophy to have.” (Esquire, January 2004)
99. “I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
100. “I don’t like to lose.” (New York Times, Aug. 7, 1983)
101. “I’ll do nearly anything within legal bounds to win.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
102. “If you don’t win you can’t get away with it. And I win, I win, I always win. In the end, I always win, whether it’s in golf, whether it’s in tennis, whether it’s in life, I just always win. And I tell people I always win, because I do.” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)
103. “I’ll do what I have to do.” (Atlantic, April 2013)
104. “I do whine because I want to win, and I'm not happy about not winning, and I am a whiner, and I keep whining and whining until I win.” (CNN, Aug. 10, 2015)
105. “Hey, look, I had a cold spell from 1990 to ’91. I was beat up in business and in my personal life. But you learn that you’re either the toughest, meanest piece of shit in the world or you just crawl into a corner, put your finger in your mouth, and say, ‘I want to go home.’ You never know until you’re under pressure how you’re gonna react. Guys that I thought were tough were nothin’.” (New York magazine, Aug. 15, 1994)
106. “The mind can overcome any obstacle. I never think of the negative.” (New York Times, Aug. 7, 1983)
107. “It’s been said that I believe in the power of positive thinking. In fact, I believe in the power of negative thinking.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
108. “A lot of people sit down and discuss their lives, things like are they happy, but it’s not like that with me. I don’t think positively, I don’t think negatively, I just think about the goal. But it’s not like I sit down and write goals. I just do things.” (Master Apprentice, 2005)
109. “If you asked Babe Ruth how he hit home runs, he was unable to tell you. I do things by instinct.” (New York Times, Sept. 8, 2004)
110. “A lot of people build a brand and they study it very carefully and every move is calculated. My moves are not calculated. My moves are totally uncalculated.” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)
111. “For many years I’ve said that if someone screws you, screw them back. When somebody hurts you, just go after them as viciously and as violently as you can.” (How to Get Rich, 2004)
112. “The way I see it, critics get to say what they want about my work, so why shouldn’t I be able to say what I want to about theirs?” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
113. “Sometimes, part of making a deal is denigrating your competition.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
114. “One of the problems when you become successful is that jealousy and envy inevitably follow. There are people – I categorize them as life’s losers—who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others. As far as I’m concerned, if they had any real ability they wouldn’t be fighting me, they’d be doing something constructive themselves.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
115. “Rosie O’Donnell’s disgusting. I mean, both inside and out. You take a look at her, she’s a slob … ” (“Entertainment Tonight,” Dec. 21, 2006)
Among Trump's statements on various public women: “Rosie O'Donnell's disgusting”; Bette Midler is “grotesque”; Arianna Huffington is “a dog"; Cher, however, is only “somewhat of a loser.” AP Photos
116. “She called me a snake oil salesman, and, you know, coming from Rosie, that’s pretty low, because when you look at her, and when you see the mind, the mind is—is weak. I don’t see it. I don’t get it. I never understood. How does she even get on television?” (“Entertainment Tonight,” Dec. 21, 2006)
117. “Rosie’s a person that’s very lucky to have her girlfriend. And she better be careful or I’ll send one of my friends over to pick up her girlfriend. Why would she stay with Rosie if she had another choice?” (“Entertainment Tonight,” Dec. 21, 2006)
118. “Probably I’ll sue her. Because it would be fun. I’d like to take some money out of her fat-ass pockets.” (“Entertainment Tonight,” Dec. 21, 2006)
119. “I think she’s a terrible person. I can look at people and see what they are.” (New York Post, December 22, 2006)
120. Bette Midler is “grotesque.” (Twitter, Oct. 28, 2012)
121. Arianna Huffington is “a dog.” (Twitter, April 6, 2015)
122. “Angelina Jolie is sort of amazing because everyone thinks she’s like this great beauty. And I’m not saying she’s an unattractive woman, but she’s not a beauty, by any stretch of the imagination. I really understand beauty.” (CNN, Oct. 9, 2006)
123. “Karl Rove is a total loser.” (Twitter, Feb. 7, 2013)
124. Republican pollster Frank Luntz is a “total loser!” (Twitter, Aug. 3, 2014)
125. Russell Brand is a “major loser!” (Twitter, Oct. 16, 2014)
126. “Cher is somewhat of a loser. She’s lonely. She’s unhappy. She’s very miserable.” (Fox News, May 15, 2012)
127. George Will is a “moron.” (Twitter, April 17, 2015)
128. Chuck Todd is a “moron.” (Twitter, Aug. 9, 2013)
129. Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel: “Obvious moron.” (Twitter, Aug. 23, 2014)
130. Megyn Kelly is a “bimbo.” (Twitter, Aug. 7, 2015)
134. John McCain is “not a war hero. … He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured, OK?” (Ames, Iowa, July 18, 2015)
135. “Truly weird Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky reminds me of a spoiled brat without a properly functioning brain.” (Twitter, Aug. 10, 2015)
136. “I just realized that if you listen to Carly Fiorina for more than ten minutes straight, you develop a massive headache. She has zero chance!” (Twitter, Aug. 9, 2015)
137. “What a stiff, what a stiff, Lindsey Graham.” (Bluffton, S.C., July 21, 2015)
138. Rick Perry “put on glasses so people think he’s smart. … People can see through the glasses.” (Bluffton, S.C., July 21, 2015)
139. Rick Santorum? “I have a big plane. He doesn’t.” (Des Moines Register, April 8, 2015)
140. The record ratings for the Republican debate earlier this month? “Who do you think they’re watching? Jeb Bush? Huh? I don’t think so.” (Birch Run, Mich., Aug. 11, 2015)
141. And George W. Bush is “no Einstein.” (Minneapolis, Jan. 7, 2000)
142. Bernie Sanders and Black Lives Matter protesters in Seattle? “I would never give up my microphone! I thought that was disgusting. That showed such weakness, the way he was taken away by two young women. The microphone!” (Birch Run, Mich., Aug. 11, 2015)
143. “My favorite part (of Pulp Fiction) is when Sam has his gun out in the diner and he tells the guy to tell his girlfriend to shut up. Tell that bitch to be cool. Say: Bitch be cool. I love those lines.” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)
144. “I’m not the world’s happiest person.” (New York magazine, March 5, 1990)
145. “I think I am a nice person. People who know me like me.” (New York City, June 16, 2015)
146. “I can be a killer and a nice guy. You have to be everything. You have to be strong. You have to be sweet. You have to be ruthless. And I don’t think any of it can be learned. Either you have it or you don’t. And that is why most kids can get straight A’s in school but fail in life.” (Playboy, March 1990)
147. “I like the challenge and tell the story of the coal miner’s son. The coal miner gets black-lung disease, his son gets it, then his son. If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination—or whatever—to leave their mine. They don’t have ‘it.’” (Playboy, March 1990)
148. “It is an ability to become an entrepreneur, a great athlete, a great writer. You’re either born with it or you’re not.” (Playboy, March 1990)
149. “But when somebody tries to sucker punch me, when they’re after my ass, I push back a hell of a lot harder than I was pushed in the first place. If somebody tries to push me around, he’s going to pay a price. Those people don’t come back for seconds. I don’t like being pushed around or taken advantage of. And that’s one of the problems with our country today. This country is being pushed around by everyone.” (Playboy, March 1990)
150. “Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest — and you all know it!” (Twitter, May 8, 2013)
151. “… of course, it’s very hard for them to attack me on looks, because I’m so good looking.” (NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Aug. 9, 2015)
152. “I can never apologize for the truth.” (Fox News, July 5, 2015)
153. “Who knows what’s in the deepest part of my mind?” (BuzzFeed, Feb. 13, 2014)
154. “I enjoy testing friendships.” (Playboy, March 1990)
155. “I do love provoking people.” (BuzzFeed, Feb. 13, 2014)
156. “You can never tell until you test; the human species is interesting in that way.” (Playboy, March 1990)
157. “Everything in life to me is a psychological game, a series of challenges you either meet or don’t.” (Playboy, March 1990)
158. “My father was a builder in Brooklyn and Queens, a very smart businessperson who understood life.” (Esquire, January 2004)
159. “We had a relationship that was almost businesslike.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
160. “Not many sons have been able to escape their fathers.” (New York Times, Aug. 7, 1983)
161. “Look, I had friends whose fathers were very successful, and the fathers were jealous of the sons’ success and tried to hurt them, keep them down, because they wanted to be the king. My father was the exact opposite. He used to carry around articles (about me).” (New York Times, Jan. 2, 2000)
162. “I was always very much accepted by my father. He adored Donald Trump … ” (Playboy, March 1990)
163. “He was a strong, strict father, a no-nonsense kind of guy, but he didn’t hit me.” (Playboy, March 1990)
164. “He taught me to keep my guard up. The world is a pretty vicious place.” (Esquire, January 2004)
165. “People are too trusting. I’m a very untrusting guy.” (Playboy, March 1990)
166. “I believe that, unfortunately, people are out for themselves.” (Playboy, March 1990)
167. “Statistically, my children have a very bad shot. Children of successful people are generally very, very troubled, not successful. They don’t have the right shtick. You never know until they’re tested.” (Playboy, March 1990)
168. “I want five children, like in my own family, because with five, then I will know that one will be guaranteed to turn out like me.” (Vanity Fair, September 1990)
169. “ … when you’re rich, you can have as many kids as you want. Being rich makes it easier to have kids.” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)
170. “The hardest thing for me about raising kids has been finding the time. I know friends who leave their business so they can spend more time with their children, and I say, ‘Gimme a break!’” (New York magazine, Dec. 13, 2004)
171. “My marriage, it seemed, was the only area of my life in which I was willing to accept something less than perfection.” (Surviving at the Top, 1990)
172. “I would never buy Ivana any decent jewels or pictures. Why give her negotiable assets?” (Vanity Fair, September 1990)
173. And Marla, wife No. 2? “I was bored when she was walking down the aisle. I kept thinking: What the hell am I doing here? I was so deep into my business stuff. I couldn’t think of anything else.” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)
174. “It’s all in the hunt and once you get it, it loses some of its energy. I think competitive, successful men feel that way about women. Don’t you agree? Really, don’t you agree?” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)
175. “Marla was always wanting me to spend more time with her. ‘Why can’t you be home at 5 o’clock like other husbands?’ she would ask. Sometimes, when I was in the wrong mood, I would give a very materialistic answer. ‘Look, I like working. You don’t mind traveling around in beautiful helicopters and airplanes, and you don’t mind living at the top of Trump Tower, or at Mar-a-Lago, or traveling to the best hotels, or shopping in the best stores and never having to worry about money, do you?’” (The Art of the Comeback, 1997)
176. “ … I’m married to my business. It’s been a marriage of love. So, for a woman, frankly, it’s not easy in terms of relationships. But there are a lot of assets.” (New York magazine, Dec. 13, 2004)
177. “But, I think you understand, I don’t have very much time. I just don’t have very much time. There’s nothing I can do about what I do other than stopping. And I just don’t want to stop.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)
178. “… you need love, you need trust, you need sex, you need lots of different things—all of which are very complex.” (Esquire, January 2004)
179. “For me, business comes easier than relationships.” (Esquire, January 2004)
Trump and father Fred, at right, in an undated photograph. Says Donald Trump of his father: “He adored Donald Trump.” Photo by Dennis Caruso/Getty Images
180. “I don’t do it for the money.” The Art of the Deal, 1987)
181. “I do it to do it.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
182. “I’ve done an incredible job.” (Atlantic, April 2013)
183. “I nod, and it is done.” (Esquire, January 2004)
184. “Know what? After shaking five thousand hands, I think I’ll go wash mine.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)
185. “I don’t dwell on the past.” (Playboy, March 1990)
186. “I don’t look forward or not look forward.” (Washington Post, July 12, 2015)
187. “I always go into the center.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)
188. “You gotta say, I cover the gamut. Does the kid cover the gamut? Boy, it never ends. I mean, people have no idea. Cool life. You know, it’s sort of a cool life.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)
189. “I’ve had a lot of victories. I fight hard for victory, and I think I enjoy it as much as I ever did. But I realize that maybe new victories won’t be the same as the first couple.” (People, July 9, 1990)
190. “… the same assets that excite me in the chase, often, once they are acquired, leave me bored. For me, you see, the important thing is the getting, not the having.” (Surviving at the Top, 1990)
191. “I truly believe that someone successful is never really happy, because dissatisfaction is what drives him.” (Playboy, March 1990)
192. “I rarely stop for lunch.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)
193. “I don’t sleep more than four hours a night.” (Playboy, March 1990)
194. “I’m a guy who lies awake at night and thinks and plots.” (New York magazine, Nov. 9, 1992)
195. “Some people cast shadows, and other people choose to live in those shadows.” (New York Times, Sept. 11, 2005)
196. “Did you know that New York Construction News named Donald Trump the developer and owner of the year?” (Fortune, April 3, 2000)
197. “How long is your article?” (Vanity Fair, September 1990)
198. “Is it a cover?” (Vanity Fair, September 1990)
199. “What do people say about me? Do they say I’m loyal? Do they say I work hard?” (Village Voice, Jan. 15, 1979)
Donald Trump News Conference in Hampton, New Hampshire
August 14, 2015
Donald Trump, a candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, spoke to reporters before a campaign rally at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, New Hampshire.
Donald Trump Campaign Rally in Hampton, New Hampshire
August 14, 2015
Donald Trump, a candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, spoke to supporters at a rally at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, New Hampshire. He shared this thoughts on other candidates in the 2016 Republican field and addressed issues including defense and national security, immigration, and women’s health policy.
Donald Trump poses for the media during the third day of the Women’s British Open golf championship this month on the Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland. (Scott Heppell/Associated Press)
By Jennifer Rubin August 17, 2015
Donald Trump’s appearance on “Meet the Press” was revealing. His immature and bizarre political thinking — opponents are “losers,” the United States will seize Iraq’s oil fields to starve the Islamic State of funds (or something), he learns foreign policy from “the [Sunday] shows,” etc.– provides a glimpse of his intellect and of the angry right wing’s mind-set. The extent of right-wing radicals’ — and Trump’s — unhinged political calculus and their moral vacuity is nowhere more evident than in the anti-immigration dogma one hears on talk radio or from anti-immigrant firebrand Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
On “Meet the Press,” Trump described his immigration “plan” — getting rid of birthright citizenship, rescinding the president’s executive order and deporting millions of people. “We have to make a whole new set of standards. And when people come in, they have to come in legally,” Trump began. Then the following ensued:
CHUCK TODD: So you’re going to split up families?
DONALD TRUMP: Chuck.
CHUCK TODD: You’re going to deport children–
DONALD TRUMP: Chuck. No, no. We’re going to keep the families together. We have to keep the families together.
CHUCK TODD: But you’re going to keep them together out —
DONALD TRUMP: But they have to go. But they have to go.
CHUCK TODD: What if they have no place to go?
DONALD TRUMP: We will work with them. They have to go. Chuck, we either have a country or we don’t have a country.
This is never going to happen. Americans are not prepared to undertake mass roundups and destroy family units. “It is illegal to deport American citizens. When the illegal parents of US citizens are removed then they are put in foster care,” Cato’s immigration guru Alex Nowrasteh observes. “Trump’s plan would put millions of American children into foster care. Trump is simply being more honest than anti-immigration activists. Trump has taken the anti-immigration hysteria to its logical extreme — supporting the deportation of Americans,” says Nowrasteh.
Mexico must pay for the wall and, until they do, the United States will, among other things: impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing cards – of which we issue about 1 million to Mexican nationals each year (a major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of entry to the United States from Mexico [Tariffs and foreign aid cuts are also options]. We will not be taken advantage of anymore.
In other words, we are going to cause an economic and diplomatic meltdown to force Mexico to pay for our security measures. Brilliant — in some parallel universe. On Monday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called out Trump [ http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/251254-christie-trumps-plan-for-mexico-to-pay-for-wall-makes-no ] for his crackpot plan: “This makes no sense. I’ve met [Mexican] President [Enrique Peña] Nieto a number of times. I don’t think if we present him with a bill he’s going to pay for it,” he said on CNN. “This is not negotiation of a real estate deal, OK? This is international diplomacy and it’s different.”
Trump’s plan also goes after the H-1B visa program — mixing half-truths and out-and-out inaccuracies — to limit entry of high-skilled workers. He bizarrely claims this “will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program” and claims the current program allows companies to bypass qualified U.S. workers. In fact, the program requires employers to prove there are not available, qualified workers. Shortages of skilled STEM workers [ http://niskanencenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/NiskanenH1BsDontReplaceUSWorkers.pdf ] is not a fact that can be wished away. “U.S. STEM graduates aren’t wallowing in unemployment due to competition for H-1B’s. Instead they work on Wall Street, in finance, or other professions where they make more money,” Nowrasteh explains. “The H-1B program already includes wage protections and the slots run out rapidly. Piling more regulations on top of that won’t affect that.” Perhaps that is why Trump sycophant Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) favors a huge expansion of the H-1B program.
Trump’s ignorance and mean-spiritedness are not unique. His written plan closely tracks the sort of proposals Sessions puts out and the rhetoric you hear from anti-immigrant activists and talk show radio.
Trump mixes liberal nostrums and isolationist impulses. He supports affirmative action, is indifferent to the fate of Ukraine and says he won’t void the Iran deal. (“I’m really good at looking at a contract and finding things within a contract that even if they’re bad. I would police that contract so tough that they don’t have a chance. As bad as the contract is, I will be so tough on that contract.”) He is against NAFTA and lukewarm on NATO. But it is immigration that defines him and has gotten him the lion’s share of attention. His anti-free-market fervor, fondness for police-state actions and disregard for the humanity of millions remind us how a-factual and noxious — not to mention, unconservative — the anti-immigration movement is.
Donald Trump Is Entertaining But When Will It End?
John Dean July 24, 2015
So far, 500 people have registered with the Federal Elections Commission [ http://www.fec.gov/press/resources/2016presidential_form2nm.shtml ] to run for President of the United States. Needless to say, all but a few of these aspirants lack any chance whatsoever of becoming president. To the surprise of many, Donald Trump has fully registered with the FEC and surfaced as the early leader for the Republicans.
University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, who has a very good crystal balls for predicting presidential contenders and races, has broken the massive GOP want-to-be field into five tiers [ http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2016-president/ ] to establish who is and who is not a viable potential. Professor Sabato’s first tier GOP candidates are (alphabetically): Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker. Donald Trump, who is currently leading in the polls, ranks in lowest—or fifth—tier by Professor Sabato, who labels Trump a “gadfly.”
Political pundits everywhere are scratching their heads asking what is going on with Trump. How can a clown like Trump be in front of the “serious” GOP candidates? Most blame the news media for giving Trump’s antics too much attention. But much more than media attention is at work in explaining Trump’s success. In fact, Donald Trump has emerged as America’s leading authoritarian political figure, representative of a type of leadership for which many Americans yearn.
I looked closely at authoritarians in Conservatives Without Conscience [ http://www.amazon.com/Conservatives-Without-Conscience-John-Dean/dp/0143038869 ], and the information I developed and shared in 2006 is equally, if not more, relevant today. Actually, Trump is far more aggressive in his authoritarianism than his predecessors. To understand the Trump phenomenon, it is essential to appreciate political authoritarianism, as well as its limits and boundaries.
Altemeyer was extremely helpful in assisting me translate decades of academic works by social science into meaningful material for the general reader. After he saw the interest in my book, I was able to persuade Dr. Bob to summarize some of his own work for the general reader, which he posted online, and it is free. The work is entitled The Authoritarian [ http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf ], and it has been visited by over a half million people. Trump’s candidacy should send more people to read it.
I am only going to briefly summarize the authoritarian types, who can be broadly broken down into “leaders” and “followers.” Starting with the followers, who are more prevalent and who are characterized by their submissiveness to established authorities, a trait that becomes combined with a general aggressiveness toward others. Altemeyer labels these followers “right-wing authoritarians,” and from his studies I developed a laundry list of characteristic and traits consistently found in these people.
Specifically, as I noted in Conservatives Without Conscience, the authoritarian followers are both men and women, who tend to be highly conventional, always and easily submissive to authority, while willing to work aggressively on behalf of such an authority. They tend to be very religious, with moderate to little education, trusting of untrustworthy authorities, prejudiced (e.g., with respect to gay marriage); they are typically mean-spirited, narrow-minded, intolerant, bullying, zealous, dogmatic, uncritical of their chosen authority, hypocritical, inconsistent, prone to panic easily, highly self-righteous, moralistic, strict disciplinarian, severely punitive; they also demand loyalty and return it, have little self-awareness, and are typically politically and economically conservative Republicans.
These are the characteristics and traits of Donald Trump’s followers. They are a special breed of conservatives, many of whom identify themselves as Tea Party Republicans, although there are a few Democrats who fall in these ranks, and would love to see Trump in the White House.
Authoritarian Leaders
With any group of authoritarian followers you will find a few in the ranks who are not only among the loyalist of loyal followers, but who also want to be leaders. They are biding their time. In fact, testing shows one of the reasons they are such good followers is that they believe when they are one day leading, their followers should be as loyal as they have been. These authoritarian leader types, who are typically men, will always have four clear characteristics or traits that distinguish them: They are dominating; they oppose equality; they desire personal power; and they are amoral.
While it may seem I am merely describing Donald Trump, in fact, these essential distinguishing features have surfaced time and again over decades of testing by social scientists, but Trump clearly fits the pattern. In addition, Trump reflects many of the other characteristics or traits that identify the authoritarian leaders, which I similarly spelled out in Conservatives Without Conscience—a point I make here to clarify that I am not making this up with Trump’s arrival as a near perfect authoritarian leader type. Among the additional personality features, these people are usually intimidating and bullying, faintly hedonistic, vengeful, pitiless, exploitive, manipulative, dishonest, cheat to win, highly prejudiced, mean-spirited, militant, nationalistic, tell others what they want to hear, take advantage of “suckers,” specialize in creating false images to sell self, may or may not be religious, and are usually politically and economically conservative and Republican.
It is striking that Donald Trump appears to have all these characteristics. Without question, Trump is the most prototypical authoritarian leader to ever so prominently seek the American presidency, and we have had several authoritarian presidents and vice presidents, most recently including Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, followed by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. But Donald Trump appears to fall within the indicia of the authoritarian leader far more than any of the others. This raises the question of how far a truly authoritarian leader can go in America.
How Far Can an Authoritarian Leader Go in America?
Not surprisingly, authoritarians excel in many fields such as law enforcement, the military, and business. Donald Trump has spent decades developing and harmonizing his authoritarian nature with his intellectual and interpersonal skills, and his efforts have been reinforced by his successes. While others may not take him as seriously as he takes himself, rest assured he knows exactly what he is doing. He has spent his lifetime doing what he is now doing.
Given Trump’s years as a public personality, plus his years hosting an authoritarian reality television shows—“The Apprentice” and “Celebrity Apprentice”—he understands the media better than any of his Republican rivals, and how to play himself publicly. Unlike most candidates, who can be embarrassed into following the rules by exposing foul-play, Trump is going to set the rules this time because he knows he can bully and manipulate everyone necessary to get his way. Trump is thoroughly enjoying being the loose cannon of the GOP 2016 Primary; he is making it up as he goes along. In short, do not look to Trump to restrain himself, nor the media criticizing him as a restraint. Trump knows the American public has less respect for the news media than politicians—while he sees himself as neither, rather a successful businessman who loves his country and wants to fix it for himself and his friends.
The only restraint on Donald Trump will be voters, but Republican voters love authoritarian leaders. Republicans have spent the last seven year portraying President Obama as wishy-washy and spineless, with Trump, of course, claiming he is not even an American nor as smart as he pretends to be. (Otherwise he would produce the transcript of his college grades, as demanded by Trump!) It is difficult to determine exactly how many Republicans are authoritarian followers—thus naturals for the Trump bandwagon—but in discussions with social scientists I have come to believe that somewhere between a quarter and half of registered Republicans are authoritarians, not to mention they are the activist base of the party. While the entire field of GOP presidential candidates evidence varying degrees of authoritarianism, none can top Trump.
In my informal conversations with many people who view themselves as part of the GOP base, Trump is very popular. He is telling them what they want to hear. Trump will not appeal to the Iowa evangelicals who dominate the Iowa caucuses, but if he makes a strong showing in New Hampshire and South Carolina, there will be no stopping him. Many Wall Street big-shots live in Trump’s upscale Manhattan buildings, and they view him as one of their own. Wall Street would not likely try to block him.
As I have watched Trump proceed in 2016, I keep recalling Bob Altemeyer’s troubling observation in The Authoritarian Specter: “If you think [Americans] could never elect an Adolf Hitler to power, note that David Duke would have become governor of Louisiana if it had just been up to the white voters in that state.” While Trump is no Hitler, we have never had as serious and off-the-charts authoritarian leader vying for our highest office.
To cut to the bottom line: I can envision a number of scenarios where Trump could capture the GOP nomination, and they all start with him making respectable showings in New Hampshire and South Carolina. If Trump is going to decide to go home and stop playing the game due to it being a waste of money, it will be after South Carolina. If he is in play at that time, he could win the nomination.
But I can find no scenario in which he could win the White House. Too many voters still remember Nixon, Agnew, Bush, and Cheney, who ranked high on the authoritarian leaders scale, albeit not as high as Donald Trump. Should it happen that Trump wins the GOP nomination, he will surely all but finish the destruction of the Republican Party, which began with the ascendency of the religious right and Southern conservatives leaving the “Big Tent” Democratic Party to make the GOP their unspoken racist home. The authoritarian base of the GOP has been steadily growing, and Trump could test its strength.
Of only one thing am I absolutely certain: Donald Trump will never be President of the United States, so rest easy. Authoritarians remain a minority in America, thankfully.
Thom Hartmann talks with John W. Dean, Former White House Counsel-Nixon Administration / Author of numerous books including "Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches, https://verdict.justia.com / https://verdict.justia.com/author/dean , who says Donald Trump is an authoritarian personalty and would not make a good choice for President of the United States.
Trump Is the Republicans’ Nightmare and They Won’t Wake Up From It
Donald Trump and his helicopter near the Iowa State Fairgrounds. Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty Images
By Jonathan Chait August 17, 2015 1:10 p.m.
When Donald Trump initially rocketed to the top of national Republican polls, it was fashionable to compare [ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/donald-trumps-six-stages-of-doom/ ] him to Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, and Newt Gingrich — a flamboyant media personality, briefly capturing the spotlight, but doomed to immolate. But Trump is not running a race like those other candidates, nor is he mimicking their results. Instead, he is following the pattern more like a candidate from an earlier cycle: Pat Buchanan.
Buchanan, a former speechwriter for presidents Nixon and Reagan turned cable-television host, ran for president in 1992 and then in 1996. In his first run, Buchanan — who had held down the right flank of both administrations in which he served — channeled conservative angst with George Bush. It was during his second run that Buchanan fully developed the ideological persona he has maintained since: a populist, paleoconservative. Buchanan was anti-immigration, anti-free trade, isolationist on foreign policy, and a defender of cultural traditionalism. He deemphasized the anti-tax — and, especially, anti-social spending — themes preferred by his party’s elite. Buchanan tapped into a durable constituency within the Republican Party that allowed him to capture [ http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?f=0&year=1996&elect=2%27 ] more than 20 percent of the primary vote, and more than 30 percent of the caucus vote. The party leadership, remembering his white-hot social conservative address in 1992, denied him a speaking role at the convention, leading to Buchanan holding a bizarre quasi-independent rally for disgruntled rightists just before the convention, at which he gave a halfhearted, anti-climactic endorsement for the nominee, Bob Dole.
Trump appeals to a similar, though not identical, constituency. His natural connection to the evangelical, anti-abortion, and anti-gay-rights wing is much weaker than Buchanan’s. But Trump does have the same mix of cultural and economic nationalism. Like Buchanan, he opposes the hawkish interventionism favored by the Republican elite while still positioning himself as an ardent supporter of the military. (“I’m the most militaristic person there is,” Trump has declared, displaying either a lack of awareness of the meaning of the word militaristic, or a shrewd realization that he can afford to forfeit the support of anybody who does know what the word means.) He has tapped into the very real anxiety and economic pain of the white working class, a strategy on clear display in his recent tour of Flint, Michigan [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/why-donald-trump-makes-sense-to-a-lot-of-voters--even-some-democrats/2015/08/15/cee648f0-42bf-11e5-8ab4-c73967a143d3_story.html ].
Trump, like Buchanan, stands little chance of capturing his party’s nomination. But he is not going to go away, either. He appeals to an identifiable constituency that will stick with him even in the face of defeat or embarrassment. Trump has already endured numerous mortifying gaffes, by ordinary standards, and an apparently unsuccessful effort by Fox News to destroy his standing within the party during a highly visible televised debate. He will not run out of money. He can, and probably will, take his candidacy all the way to the end.
The worst-case scenario for Republicans is if Trump decides to run a third-party campaign. Even managing to get his name on the ballot in a handful of states would bring victory out of reach for the GOP’s eventual nominee. The best-case scenario is that Trump straggles through the race, eventually supporting the nominee. But this scenario is also far from ideal. It means that Trump has shaped the tenor of the race in almost precisely the opposite way the party establishment had hoped.
Immigration did not represent the totality of the party elite’s strategic response to the 2012 election, but it did constitute its main tenet. The Republican brain trust hoped to resolve its image problem with Latino and Asian-American voters by passing immigration reform as quickly as possible. The purest version of this strategy, articulated by Charles Krauthammer, called for Republicans to fold completely on immigration, and change nothing else about their program. The idea was to take the short-term hit as quickly as possible after the midterms, allowing the base to vent its spleen and make up in time for the presidential campaign. Republicans in the Senate were able to make this happen, but the House proved typically impotent in the face of opposition.
In the wake of this failure, Republicans have vaguely hoped to finesse the issue. Trump is making that difficult. His arch-restrictionist plan [ https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/immigration-reform ] — involving mass deportations and a gigantic wall on the Mexican border that Trump, through the use of his uniquely Trumpian negotiating power, would make Mexico finance — has set a standard against which others will be judged. Scott Walker is already bellying up to the bar, comparing himself [ http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/17/scott-walker-my-immigration-plan-is-very-similar-to-donald-trumps/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter ] to the polling leader (“I haven’t looked at all the details of his, but the things I’ve heard are very similar to the things I mentioned"). Given that Trump has made himself the symbol of racism against Mexicans, it is difficult to imagine a simple escape from the party’s branding disasters of the Obama era. But that is what they have, and what they may well continue to have, well into 2016.
TYT has had a ban on Donald Trump coverage due to his history of campaigning for president as a publicity stunt. However, his publicity stunt really caught on this time so his ban was partially lifted for several months. We would show him, but only with his face blurred out. We are happy to report that the Republican Party has become such a joke that Donald Trump is now a serious candidate. Cenk Uygur, host of the The Young Turks, breaks it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
"In the first major-outlet non-Internet poll since the Republican primary debate last week, it's almost not surprising that CNN/ORC finds Donald Trump retaining the lead in Iowa. Almost. It's still a bit surprising, given Trump's wobbly handling of criticism during the event.
So Trump's up — and Ben Carson has moved into second in the first caucus state. For months, Scott Walker held a sizeable lead in the state. Walker's now in third, according to CNN, with Carly Fiorina, winner of the pre-game debate, jumping into fifth behind Ted Cruz.”*
Donald Trump has an immigration plan. It’s bananas, of course, the kind of policy menu you’d get from a think tank made up of people who yell at the TV.
You can read Dara Lind at Vox [ http://www.vox.com/2015/8/16/9162905/trump-immigration ] for a point-by-point examination of Mr. Trump’s proposals, and the work that would be required to turn his fantasy into reality. It would mean rewriting the Constitution and telling — well, forcing — 11 million people and untold numbers of their citizen loved ones to pack up and go. It would mean turning all those who decline to self-deport into fugitives, forever looking over their shoulders for federal agents, deputized cops and workplace auditors.
It would means telling industries, cities and towns whose vitality depends on immigrants: tough luck, losers. It would mean making enemies of allied countries like Mexico, which Mr. Trump wants to turn into a vassal state, forced to build and pay for a 2,000-mile border wall.
And if you think about it, which Mr. Trump has not done, it would require making life in the United States more miserable for unauthorized immigrants than anyplace else in the world. For his plan to work, an immigrant family would have to decide that life in Arizona, New York, Los Angeles or Iowa was more hopeless than in Honduras, Guatemala, rural China, Africa or all the other places that people leave, seeking a better life in America.
This is the Trump decree: No better lives for you.
It’s this commitment to hopelessness that I find most striking about the plan. That, and how grimly un-American it is.
Not in the sense that it repudiates our great immigrant heritage, and gives the finger to the Statue of Liberty. This country has always been bad at welcoming strangers, until it gets better.
By un-American I mean the plan is so stunningly lacking in self-confidence, optimism, shrewdness and strength — all the virtues that this country supposedly has in abundance.
“We will not be taken advantage of anymore,” Mr. Trump said. It was the pitiful bleat of a nation that wants to shut its border and hide under its covers. It’s the voice of the frightened, resentful, and afraid. To Mr. Trump, we are a nation cowering in a school cafeteria because — he says this endlessly — our lunch has been eaten.
It’s our lunch, and we can’t even eat it. What is more pathetic than that?
It wasn’t always this way. We used to welcome immigrants and make them Americans and turn their grit and ambition to our advantage.
But now, Mr. Trump tells us, we are weak and wounded, and we have to respond the way such people do, by lashing out at people who are even weaker.
Frank Sharry at the pro-immigrant advocacy organization America’s Voice [ http://americasvoice.org/press_releases/we-take-trump-at-his-word-deport-them-all-is-his-plan/ ] has worked himself into a fine expressive lather about what Mr. Trump is spewing, how he is walking his party dangerously to the dark side – a place populated by demagogues like Jeff Sessions of Alabama, with whom Mr. Trump consulted, and others in the fringey but loud neo-nativist lobby.
Their old, despicable argument – now carried by a useful idiot named Donald Trump – is that immigrants are a curse upon America. First he said they were murderers and rapists, now he claims they are leeches and job-stealers. His campaign is an indiscriminate act of scapegoating.
It’s loathsome and needs to be denounced, and not just by the usual pro-immigrant voices.
Republicans of the 2016 presidential campaign, the next move should be yours.
Lynette "Diamond” Hardaway and Rochelle "Silk” Richardson are two African-American women stumping for Trump. Cenk Uygur, host of the The Young Turks, breaks it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below. Watch more of The Viewer's View: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCug1cL7vmUvYooOjXyHjsxQ
"The girls became sensational with their video series where they go on extended, off-the-rails rants about subjects like Megyn Kelly‘s grilling of Trump and Hillary Clinton‘s email scandal. However, most of their videos are centered around praising Trump’s message (unless this is some kind of big Jimmy Kimmel joke or something). Lemon admitted that he watched all of their videos on WeBeSisters.com, and agreed with them that there is no one more enthusiastic than them about Trump except for Trump.”*
Bill O’Reilly recently interviewed Donald Trump. The favorable interview shows that Trump is still holding Fox News. Cenk Uygur, host of the The Young Turks, breaks it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
"...One of the major highlights was in his explanation of how Donald Trump continues to ride high on immigration because he makes waves and stands apart from the “craven cowardly politicians” that don’t even try to tackle the issues.
“It really doesn’t matter whether Trump has specific solutions to vexing problems,” O’Reilly said. “It’s enough for millions of voters that he is calling out the charlatans.”
O’Reilly also noted how Trump has managed to rattle so many politicians and media figures through his disruption of the system they embrace. To this, O’Reilly said that Trump was adding vibrance to the GOP debate, which he described as not only good for the party, but bad for Hillary Clinton‘s less colorful campaign.”*
Racist Craig Cobb Wants to Name North Dakota Town After Trump
A white supremacist who gained national attention for trying to take over a town in North Dakota two years ago is back at it. Now, Craig Cobb says he has his eye on another town – and he wants to name it after Donald Trump.
His intention is to change the town's name to “Trump Creativity,” or “Creativity Trump,” in honor of Donald Trump, who Cobb admires deeply, the television station reports.
Cobb has voiced various neo-Nazi, white supremacy beliefs. Most recently he appears to be espousing beliefs of the Creativity Movement [ https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/creativity-movement-0 ], which promotes what it claims is the inherent superiority and “creativity” of the white race. That’s why he wants a whites-only community, he says.
But now a glitch has developed for the 64-year-old Cobb, who has still not received the deed to the Antler properties and currently lives in nearby Sherwood, N.D.
Antler Mayor Bruce Hanson says the city is going to pay $35,000 to take over more than 20 parcels in Antler, including the three sold to Cobb by former resident Jim Lozensky.
The mayor admitted the city bought the property to keep Cobb out of Antler. “We don't want the guy in town,” the Antler mayor told the television station. “I mean, who does?”
Cobb says the seller wants to reimburse him. “I don't want the check,” Cobb told the Fargo TV station. “We want our church.”
Cobb said Lozensky backed out of their deal because of pressure from Antler residents, a claim the mayor denied.
Cobb attempted to buy property and set-up a white-majority rule in the town of Leith, N.D., about 230 miles south of Antler. But the gun-toting racist got arrested and was placed on probation after pointing firearms at townsfolk who opposed his brand of white supremacy.
Residents of Leith recently traveled to a town hall meeting in Antler to explain to those property owners what happened in Leith.
The Antler mayor says he believes Cobb’s primary motivator is media attention.
“If I was you, I'd just ignore the guy,” the mayor told the Fargo TV station.
Remember Craig Cobb, the white supremacist from Idaho who has been trying for years to build a town just for himself and his fellow racists? Well he’s trying again, having purchased a bunch of property near the Canadian border. And he wants to name it after Donald Trump [ http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/white-supremacist-craig-cobb-wants-to-name-latest-all-white-enclave-after-donald-trump/ ], which should certainly help Trump overcome suggestions that he’s a racist based on his, frankly, racist statements about immigration.
White nationalist Craig Cobb is still trying to establish an all-white enclave in North Dakota — which he hopes to rename in honor of Donald Trump.
The 63-year-old Cobb bought $10,000 in property last month from a man in Antler, near the Canadian border, in hopes of setting up a church for his racist Creativity Movement and homes for like-minded white supremacists, reported WDAY-TV.
He planned to rename the town to “Trump Creativity” or “Creativity Trump” to honor the Republican presidential frontrunner — who Cobb deeply admires.
Now of course, it does not logically add anything whatsoever to the evidence that Trump is a racist that some random yahoo he’s never met or probably even heard of wants to rename his white enclave after him. But it certainly isn’t going to make it any easier for him to convince people that he isn’t. Not that he is trying to convince anyone of that anyway.
The punchline to all of this is that Cobb had his own DNA tested and it showed that he has ancestors from sub-Saharan Africa, which led a fellow white supremacist to declare him miscegenated and a traitor. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is entertainment.
Three clips: 1. 8-14-15 Alex Jones has a caller who defends Dr. David Duke 2. 8-17-15 Alex Jones challenges Dr. David Duke to a debate 3. 8-18-15 The full debate between Dr. David Duke and Alex Jones
Trump Attacks Pro-Amnesty CEOs -- Date: 08/18/2015 -- On this Tuesday, August 18 of the Alex Jones Show, we report on Trump's battle with pro-amnesty supporters, including the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg. Trump has pulled clear of his Republican competition according to a new poll. On today's show Alex debates white nationalist David Duke over a variety of topics. Also, WND journalist Michael Maloof explains how Obama willfully allowed the rise of ISIS in the Middle East. Other topics covered on today's show include the LGBT lobby trying to ban public schools from using the words 'boy' and 'girl' as well as the Danish politician convicted of 'racism' for offending Muslims.
Former governor and vice presidential candidate on why Donald Trump has struck a chord and his lead his widening over GOP hopefuls and his immigration plan.
Many conservatives support Donald Trump, including many at Fox News. They seem to have created a Frankenstein they can no longer control. Cenk Uygur, host of the The Young Turks, breaks it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
"During Bill O’Reilly’s interview of Donald Trump tonight he put particular focus on Trump’s newest idea for immigration by eliminating birthright citizenship. O’Reilly said that even though he was intrigued by his call to curb illegal immigration, he was not so sure that Trump’s ideas for mass deportations can happen under the 14th Amendment.
Trump responded to O’Reilly’s concerns by saying he was wrong about how the Constitution applies to anchor babies. “Many lawyers are saying that’s not the way it is in terms of this,” Trump said. “They are saying it is not going to hold up in court. It will have to be tested but they say it will not hold up in court.””*
Donald Trump FULL Press Conference in Derry, NH Before Town Hall Meeting (8-19-15)
Published on Aug 19, 2015 by The Savage Nation
Wed, August 19, 2015: GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump was on his game tonight and gave an explosive, fiery press conference in Derry, New Hampshire just before his first town hall meeting.
FULL Event: Donald Trump's First Town Hall Meeting- Derry, NH (8-19-15)
Published on Aug 19, 2015 by The Savage Nation
August 19, 2015: GOP Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump gave his first town hall meeting tonight in Derry, New Hampshire. He spoke for a while and took questions from the audience.
Donald Trump has become a very serious candidate on the Republican side. Despite his cartoonish antics, his economic ideas are no laughing matter. Cenk Uygur, host of the The Young Turks, breaks it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
"“Your slogan is ‘Make America Great Again,'” hostMika Brzezinski noted. “I’m curious on the issue of wages ,which have been flat for years now… do you think the minimum wage should be raised across the board?”
“Mika, it’s such a nasty question because the answer has to be nasty,” Trump said. “We’re in a global economy now. It used to be companies would leave New York State or leave another state and go to Florida, go to Texas, go to wherever they go because or lower wages…””*
Two men in Boston have been arrested for urinating and beating up a homeless Latino man who they say were inspired to assault because of Donald Trump. The two guys are Scott and Steve Leader and when they were arrested they were also making threats to police officials, which is kind of interesting. When two white men make threats to police officials they just get thrown into a cell.
Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian (The Point) hosts of The Young Turks discuss. What other horrible acts do you think Donald Trump’s rhetoric might inspire? Tell us what you think in the comments.
"Boston brothers said that they were inspired by Donald Trump to beat and urinate on a homeless Latino man, police revealed on Wednesday.
According to State Police, Scott Leader and Steve Leader encountered the victim on the way home from a Red Sox game near a stop on Boston’s subway system, The Boston Globe reported on Wednesday.
The man said that he awoke to find the brothers urinating on his face and rummaging through his belongings.
“Next thing . . . he was getting hit in the face and head,” a police report explained. “He remembers being punched several times and hit with the metal pole.”
A witness said that the brothers were heard laughing as they walked away.
The man was said to be in fair condition on Wednesday after being taken to Boston Medical Center. He suffered a broken nose and bruises on his head and torso, the police report indicated."*
Donald Trump’s campaign of terror: How a billionaire channeled his authoritarian rage — and soared to the top of the polls
In this July 11, 2015, photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at FreedomFest in Las Vegas. In a state where early organization is key to a successful presidential campaign, Trump?'s New Hampshire operation has the trappings of a legitimate political organization. (AP Photo/John Locher)(Credit: AP)
Democrats have been having a good laugh at Trump's expense this summer. Here's why we shouldn't be laughing
Heather Digby Parton Friday, Aug 21, 2015 12:37 PM CDT
Ever since The Donald descended that escalator at Trump Tower a couple of months ago to announce his entry into the presidential race, Democrats have been laughing. Watching the Republicans squirm and Fox News jump through hoops has made the GOP presidential primary a delightful entertainment for their rivals on the other side of the aisle. I don’t know how many of them had it in them to watch the whole Trump Town hall extravaganza in Derry, NH, on Wednesday — but those who did were unlikely to be laughing by the end of it.
There was the standard braggadocio and egomania that characterizes his every appearance and weird digressions into arcane discussions of things like building materials (for The Wall, naturally.) He complained about the press and politicians and declared himself superior to pretty much everyone on earth. But after you listen to him for a while, you come away from that performance with a very unpleasant sense that something rather sinister is at the heart of the Trump phenomenon.
I want to talk about what we are seeing unfold here because I think what we are seeing is past the point of a clown show or a parody. I believe it is much more serious and much darker…You have someone now who is getting huge crowds, who is polling at the top of the GOP field, who polls show is beating Jeb Bush by 44 to 12 percent on the issue of immigration, going around the country calling little children, newborn babies, anchor babies saying that he’s going to use that term which I find a dehumanizing and disgusting term. Talking about giving the local police the ability to “do whatever they need to do to round up” the “illegals”. Building a wall, talking about basically chasing 11 million people out, talking about deporting American citizens to “keep families together”, talking about what would essentially be the largest most intrusive police state in the history of the American republic to go about this task, that is the person that is right now at the head of the Republican party’s presidential contest.
And the delirious crowd applauded all those those things just as they loudly cheered this reference to Bowe Bergdahl, the American soldier held by the Taliban for more than five years:
“We get a traitor like Berghdal, a dirty rotten traitor, who by the way when he deserted, six young beautiful people were killed trying to find him. And you don’t even hear about him anymore. Somebody said the other day, well, he had some psychological problems.
You know, in the old days ……bing – bong. When we were strong, when we were strong.”
It’s that pantomime of him shooting Berghdahl dead and saying “when we were strong, when we were strong” that appeals so much.
Trump repeatedly paints a picture of America in decline — weak, impotent and powerless, in terrible danger of losing everything unless we get a leader who will cast off all this “political correctness,” this effete insistence on following the rules. He promises to “make America great again” by cracking down on the “bad people” and being very, very strong.
When talking about Iraq, he characterized the the Iraqi people as cowards, “running whenever the bullets are flying.” He said “the enemy has our best equipment, we have the old stuff” and that the country is a mess because of all the “years of fighting unsuccessfully — because of the way we fight.” (The implication is that we didn’t take the gloves off.) He said, “the problem is that as a country we don’t have victories anymore. When was the last time we had a victory?” And he declared, “I believe in the military and military strength more strongly than anybody running by a factor of a billion… We are gonna make our military so strong and so powerful and so incredible, so strong that nobody’s gonna mess with us, folks, nobody. And we don’t have that right now.” This garnered huge cheers from the crowd.
On economics, it’s all about other countries taking advantage of the US. He said, “They’re up here, we’re down there. I don’t blame China or Mexico or Japan. Their leaders are smarter and sharper and more cunning — and that’s an important word, cunning — than our leaders. Our leaders are babies…our country is falling apart.” He explains the problem:
China is killing us. They’ve taken so much of our wealth. They’ve taken our jobs. They’ve taken our business, they’ve taken our manufacturing, [audience member screams out “our land”] Our land? The way they’re going they’ll have that pretty soon.Think about it, we have rebuilt China — somebody said to me “that’s a harsh statement” — it’s the greatest theft in the history of the United States. Now I have great respect for China and their leaders. The largest bank in the world is from China. They’re a tenant of one of my buildings. I love China I think it’s great. But we don’t have the people that know what they’re doing so … they’re killing us. You know what that is? They call it a sucking action. They’re sucking the jobs and the money right out of our country.That’s what they’re doing. We’ve rebuilt China. They have bridges, they have airports so do other countries and we’re like a third world country…They’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our money.They take our jobs they take everything and we owe them money. How does that happen? It’s magic. That’s not gonna happen with Donald Trump.
If a person feels as if this country isn’t what it used to be, that they’ve lost their place, that their future isn’t promising, Donald Trump is telling them right up front that foreigners are to blame. It isn’t the government being unwilling to collect taxes from people like Donald Trump so we can build infrastructure — we’re rebuilding China instead of our own country. It isn’t that we spend vast sums of money to maintain the world’s only superpower military, it’s that people from other countries are stealing us blind. And Trump will fight all these foreigners to take our country back from them wherever they are.
Of course, there is no foreigner who is wrecking this once great country more than the undocumented immigrant and he plans to cleanse our culture of their evil influence:
…we have crime all over the country, we have … the borders, the southern border is a disaster…The other night a 66 year old woman, a veteran, raped sodomized, brutally killed by an illegal immigrant. We gotta stop we gotta take back our country. We’ve gotta take it back! [huge applause]
I love this country and I know that I can make it great again.
We have to build a wall, we have to get the bad people out. A lot of the illegals, if you look at Chicago with the gangs,… you look at Baltimore, you look at Ferguson, a lot of these gangs, the most vicious, are illegals. They’re outta here. The first day I will send those people … those guys are outta here. [cheers] They talk about guns, I’m a big second amendment person, I believe in it so strongly [cheers]. Big. But they talk about guns and you look at Chicago, Chicago has the toughest gun laws in the US by far, and people are being shot with guns all over the place. You need enforcement but you also have to get the bad people out, the people that aren’t supposed to be here and we’re gonna get em out so fast, so quick — and it’s gonna be tough. It’s not gonna be “oh please will you come with us please will you please come with us.” Because you know these law enforcement people, and I know the guys in Chicago, the police commissioner’s a great man. They can do it, if they’re allowed to do it. I know the guys, I know em, New York, they’re great. Bratton, great. They can all do it. They can all do it. But they have to be allowed to do their job, they have to be allowed to do their job. [Cheers]
When a government that has pledged to do everything can’t do anything, otherwise sensible people turn to the strongman. This is how the autocrat, the popular dictator, gains power. We are seduced by his success and strength… As our old, inflexible government grows beyond its capacity to service a complex and adaptive society, and its failures deface our landscape, it creates demand for efficiency. Who can bring order to this chaos? Who has the guts and the strength to make the mess we have made work?
Then, the call goes out for the strongman. Who cares what he believes or promises? And with the voice of the common man, though he is anything but, the strongman comes and pledges to make America great again.
Castellanos agrees with Trump that America is going to hell in a handbasket largely due to liberal failure, but doesn’t think that consolidating power in the hands of a single billionaire is a great way to deal with it.
It’s easy to dismiss Trump’s ramblings as the words of a kook. But he’s tapping into the rage and frustration many Americans feel when our country is exposed as being imperfect. These Republicans were shamed by their exalted leadership’s debacle in Iraq and believe that American exceptionalism is no longer respected around the world — and they are no longer respected here at home. Trump is a winner and I think this is fundamentally what attracts them to him:
I will be fighting and I will win because I’m somebody that wins. We are in very sad shape as a country and you know why that is? We’re more concerned about political correctness than we are about victory, than we are about winning. We are not going to be so politically correct anymore, we are going to get things done.
But his dark, authoritarian message of intolerance and hate is likely making it difficult for him, or any Republican, to win a national election, particularly since all the other candidates feel compelled to follow his lead. (Those who challenged him, like Perry and Paul, are sinking like a stone in the polls.) And while Trump’s fans may want to blame foreigners for all their troubles, most Americans know that their troubles can be traced to some powerful people right here at home. Powerful people like Donald Trump.
Still, history is littered with strongmen nobody took seriously until it was too late. When someone like Trump captures the imagination of millions of people it’s important to pay attention to what he’s saying. For all his ranting, you’ll notice that the one thing Trump never mentions is the constitution.
The Daily Stormer, a Neo-Nazi and white nationalist news website, is throwing its support behind Donald Trump. Credit: Screenshot from Daily Stormer website
By James Edwards August 21, 2015 3:30 PM EDT Updated: August 22, 2015 3:30 PM EDT
The devil can, indeed, be in the details. And in the case of brothers Scott and Steve Leader of Boston, the details are disturbing.
Massachusetts State Police arrested the brothers on Wednesday, alleging they urinated on and beat up a homeless man while he was sleeping outside a Boston subway station. The man suffered a broken nose and a large bruise across his torso. Police believe the Leaders targeted the man because he was Hispanic.
Scott Leader Credit: Suffolk County District Attorney
Steve Leader Credit: Suffolk County District Attorney
According to the police report, while in custody, Scott Leader told officers, “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported.”
A state trooper also wrote that Scott Leader told police since the victim was Hispanic and homeless, it was all right to attack him.
“It would be a shame…I will say that people who are following me are very passionate. They love this country and they want this country to be great again. They are passionate.”
Trump later softened his tone on Twitter, distancing himself from the attack:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Boston incident is terrible. We need energy and passion, but we must treat each other with respect. I would never condone violence. 11:35 AM - 21 Aug 2015 [ https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/634765744673267712 ]
But supporters like the Leader brothers aren’t an exception. Some of those “passionate" backers supporting Trump also include a number of white supremacists.
• Gregory Hood, a writer who penned an essay in support of Trump for the white nationalist blog Radix. Hood wrote:
Trump is worth supporting. He is worth supporting because we need a troll. We need someone who can expose the system that rules us as the malevolent and worthless entity it is. We need someone who can break open public debate. We need someone who can expose and heighten the contradictions within the system. And we need someone who can call out the press, the politicians, and the pseudo-intellectuals as the empty shells they are.
• Brad Griffin, founder of the Occidental Dissent, a website that describes itself as "Pro-White, Pro-South, Pro-Indepdence." On Trump, Griffin recently wrote:
Donald Trump isn’t a conservative or a racialist by any stretch of the imagination, but he is a tornado that can inflict a lot of damage upon the two-party system.
• Jared Taylor, considered one of the leading intellectual voices of the white nationalist movement, praised Trump's comments about Mexican immigrants in a video posted on the website of his American Renaissance journal:
Americans, real Americans have been dreaming of a candidate who says the obvious, that illegal immigrants from Mexico are a low-rent bunch that includes rapists and murders.
• Richard Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think tank, called Trump's criticism of Senator John McCain's war heroism "revelatory:"
Trump is ‘divisive’ in that he forces his opponents and rivals to take sides. In this case, he demonstrated that the other GOP candidates are interchangeable cowards and conformists. As an added bonus, he associated them all with an unpopular failed presidential candidate and immigration enthusiast.
• The White Genocide Project, a group whose mission is to raise awareness of the "genocide" of the white race, launched a White House peition [ https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/honor-donald-trump-opposing-white-genocide-0 ] demanding President Barack Obama to honor Trump for "opposing white genocide." The petition only gathered 243 signatures and was closed for not reaching the signature requirements.
• The Daily Stormer, a Neo-Nazi news and commentary website, endorsed Trump for president, writing:
He is certainly going to be a positive influence on the Republican debates, as the modern Fox News Republican has basically accepted the idea that there is no going back from mass immigration, and Trump is willing to say what most Americans think: it’s time to deport these people. He is also willing to call them out as criminal rapists, murderers and drug dealers.
Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, says Trump's words and their potential consequences will get worse before it gets better.
"We have seen repeatedly how this kind of language leads to criminal violence," Potok says.
He adds that a figure of authority like Trump making such comments is akin to "permission giving" to supporters like the Leader brothers.
Among the crowd of about 20,000 who heard Trump late Friday in Mobile, Alabama, were those who wanted to shoot Mexican immigrants on sight. “Hopefully, he’s going to sit there and say, ‘When I become elected president, what we’re going to do is we’re going to make the border a vacation spot, it’s going to cost you $25 for a permit, and then you get $50 for every confirmed kill,’ ” Jim Sherota, 53, who works for a landscaping company, told the New York Times [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/22/us/donald-trump-fails-to-fill-alabama-stadium-but-fans-zeal-is-undiminished.html ]. “That’d be one nice thing.”
"I will say, the people that are following me are very passionate. They love this country. They want this country to be great again. But they are very passionate. I will say that."
This is the moment when Donald Trump officially stopped being funny.
The thing is, even as Donald Trump said and did horrible things during this year's incredible run at the White House, most sane people took solace in the fact that he could never win. (Although new polls [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/19/politics/2016-poll-hillary-clinton-joe-biden-bernie-sanders/ ] are showing that Hillary's recent spiral puts this reassuring thought into jeopardy.)
In fact, most veteran political observers figured that the concrete impact of Trump's candidacy would be limited in the worst case to destroying the Republican Party as a mainstream political force.
That made Trump's run funny, campy even, like a naughty piece of pornographic performance art. After all, what's more obscene than pissing on the presidency? It seemed even more like camp because the whole shtick was fronted by a veteran reality TV star who might even be in on the joke, although of course the concept was funnier if he wasn't.
Trump had the whole country rubbernecking as this preposterous Spaulding Smails caricature of a spoiled rich kid drove the family Rolls (our illustrious electoral process in this metaphor) off the road into a ditch. It was brilliant theater for a while, but the ugliness factor has gotten out of control.
Trump is probably too dumb to realize it, or maybe he isn't, but he doesn't need to win anything to become the most dangerous person in America. He can do plenty of damage just by encouraging people to be as uninhibited in their stupidity as he is.
Trump is striking a chord with people who are feeling the squeeze in a less secure world and want to blame someone – the government, immigrants, political correctness, "incompetents," "dummies," Megyn Kelly, whoever – for their problems.
Karl Rove and his acolytes mined a lot of the same resentments to get Republicans elected over the years, but the difference is that Trump's political style encourages people to do more to express their anger than just vote. The key to his success is a titillating message that those musty old rules about being polite and "saying the right thing" are for losers who lack the heart, courage and Trumpitude to just be who they are.
"I've been challenged by so many people," Trump answered. "I frankly don't have time for political correctness. And to be honest with you, the country doesn't have time either….We don't win anymore. We lose to China. We lose to Mexico….We lose to everybody."
On the surface, Kelly was just doing her job as a journalist, throwing Trump's most outrageous comments back at him and demanding an explanation.
But on another level, she was trying to bring Trump to heel. The extraction of the humiliating public apology is one of the media's most powerful weapons. Someone becomes famous, we dig up dirt on the person, we rub it in his or her nose, and then we demand that the person get down on bended knee and beg forgiveness.
Trump wouldn't pay the tab. Not only was he not wrong for saying those things, he explained, but holding in thoughts like that is bad for America. That's why we don't win anymore, why we lose to China and to Mexico (how are we losing to Mexico again?). He was saying that hiding forbidden thoughts about women or immigrants or whoever isn't just annoying, but bad for America.
It's not exactly telling people to get out there and beat people with metal rods. But when your response to news that a couple of jackasses just invoked your name when they beat the crap out of a homeless guy is to salute your "passionate" followers who "love this country," you've gone next-level.
The political right in America has been flirting with dangerous ideas for a while now, particularly on issues involving immigrants and minorities. But in the last few years the rhetoric has gotten particularly crazy.
Late last year, King asked [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nRhi_JpqZY ] people to "surround the president's residence" in response to Barack Obama's immigration policies. He talked about putting "boots on the ground" and said "everything is on the table" in the fight against immigrants.
For example, we just had Ben Carson – who seems on TV like a gentle, convivial doctor who's just woken up from a nice nap – come out and suggest that he's open to using drone strikes on U.S. soil against undocumented immigrants [ http://www.salon.com/2015/08/19/ben_carson_takes_immigration_debate_to_insane_new_low_floats_drone_strikes_at_border/ ]. Bobby Jindal recently came out and said mayors in the so-called "sanctuary cities" should be arrested when undocumented immigrants commit crimes. Scott Walker and Marco Rubio have both had to change their positions favoring paths to citizenship as a result of the new dynamic.
All of this bleeds out into the population. When a politician says dumb thing X, it normally takes ‘Murica about two days to start flirting publicly with X + way worse.
Why there's suddenly this surge of hatred for immigrants is sort of a mystery. Why Donald Trump, who's probably never even interacted with an undocumented immigrant in a non-commercial capacity, in particular should care so much about this issue is even more obscure. (Did he trip over an immigrant on his way to the Cincinnati housing development his father gave him [ http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422116/donald-trump-and-american-id-kevin-d-williamson ] as a young man?)
Most likely, immigrants are just collateral damage in Trump's performance art routine, which is an absurd ritualistic celebration of the coiffed hotshot endlessly triumphing over dirty losers and weaklings.
Trump isn't really a politician, of course. He's a strongman act, a ridiculous parody of a Nietzschean superman. His followers get off on watching this guy with (allegedly) $10 billion and a busty mute broad on his arm defy every political and social convention and get away with it.
Trump's campaign is giving people permission to do just that. It's hard to say this word in conjunction with such a sexually unappealing person, but his message is a powerful aphrodisiac. Fuck everything, fuck everyone. Fuck immigrants and fuck their filthy lice-ridden kids. And fuck you if you don't like me saying so.
Those of us who think polls and primaries and debates are any match for that are pretty naive. America has been trending stupid for a long time. Now the stupid wants out of its cage, and Trump is urging it on. There are a lot of ways this can go wrong, no matter who wins in 2016.
Historical precedents augur against Donald Trump—but perhaps the old rules no longer apply.
Norm Ornstein Aug 21, 2015
Historical context is a great asset. But is history always an accurate guide? Does past performance always give us the best predictor of future outcomes?
This election season provides a fascinating frame to see if the polarization in politics, from Washington to the states to the public, is no different than what we have seen in the past; if the angry populism evident especially on the right but also to some degree on the left, is no different from the populism that has emerged following every economic setback; if the surge for an insurgent, non-establishment candidate that has always petered out well before the primary process is over will follow the same arc; if the Republican Party will once again flirt with outside-the-box candidates before settling on an establishment figure; if the fact that every major-party convention since 1952 has been over before a ballot is cast will hold true again. Or, perhaps, if this time might be different.
Almost all the commentary from the political-pundit class has insisted that history will repeat itself. That the Trump phenomenon is just like the Herman Cain phenomenon four years ago, or many others before it; that early enthusiasm for a candidate, like the early surge of support for Rudy Giuliani in 2008, is no predictor of long-term success; and that the usual winnowing-out process for candidates will be repeated this time, if on a slightly different timetable, given 17 GOP candidates.
Of course, they may be entirely right. Or not entirely; after all, the stories and commentaries over the past two months saying Trump has peaked, Trumpmania is over, this horrific comment or that is the death knell for Trump, have been embarrassingly wrong. But Trump’s staying power notwithstanding, there are strong reasons to respect history and resist the urge to believe that everything is different now.
Still, I am more skeptical of the usual historical skepticism than I have been in a long time. A part of my skepticism flows from my decades inside the belly of the congressional beast. I have seen the Republican Party go from being a center-right party, with a solid minority of true centrists, to a right-right party, with a dwindling share of center-rightists, to a right-radical party, with no centrists in the House and a handful in the Senate. There is a party center that two decades ago would have been considered the bedrock right, and a new right that is off the old charts. And I have seen [ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/the-republican-hardliners-arent-conservatives-theyre-radicals/280217/ ] a GOP Congress in which the establishment, itself very conservative, has lost the battle to co-opt the Tea Party radicals, and itself has been largely co-opted or, at minimum, cowed by them.
Egged on by talk radio, cable news, right-wing blogs, and social media, the activist voters who make up the primary and caucus electorates have become angrier and angrier, not just at the Kenyan Socialist president but also at their own leaders. Promised that Obamacare would be repealed, the government would be radically reduced, immigration would be halted, and illegals punished, they see themselves as euchred and scorned by politicians of all stripes, especially on their own side of the aisle.
Of course, this phenomenon is not new in 2015. It was there in 1964, building over decades in which insurgent conservative forces led by Robert Taft were repeatedly thwarted by moderates like Tom Dewey and Wendell Wilkie, until they prevailed behind the banner of Barry Goldwater. It was present in 1976, when insurgent conservative Ronald Reagan almost knocked off Gerald Ford before prevailing in 1980 (and then governing more as a pragmatist than an ideologue). It built to 1994, when Newt Gingrich led a huge class of insurgents to victory in mid-term elections, but then they had to accept pragmatist-establishment leader Bob Dole as their presidential candidate in 1996. And while John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 were establishment figures, each had to veer sharply to the radical right side to win nominations; McCain, facing a possible revolt at his nominating convention if he went with his first choice for running mate, Joe Lieberman, instead bowed to the new right and picked Sarah Palin.
So is anything really different this time? I think so. First, because of the amplification of rage against the machine by social media, and the fact that Barack Obama has grown stronger and more assertive in his second term while Republican congressional leaders have become more impotent. The unhappiness with the establishment and the desire to stiff them is much stronger. Second, the views of rank-and-file Republicans on defining issues like immigration have become more consistently extreme—a majority now agree with virtually every element of Trump’s program, including expelling all illegal immigrants.
Third, unlike in 2012, when Mitt Romney was the clear frontrunner and the only serious establishment presidential candidate, and all the pretenders were focused on destroying each other to emerge as his sole rival, this time there are multiple establishment candidates with no frontrunner, including Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, and Chris Christie. And each has independent financing, with enough backing from wealthy patrons to stay in the race for a long time, splitting the establishment-oriented vote. The financing, of course, raises point four: We are in a brave new world of campaign finance, where no one candidate can swamp the others by dominating the money race. When establishment nemesis Ted Cruz announced his campaign, he had $38 million in “independent” funds within a week, $36 million of it from four donors. There is likely more where that came from. Some candidates may not find any sugar daddies, or may find that their billionaires are fickle at the first sign of weakness. But far more candidates than usual will have the financial wherewithal to stick around—and the more candidates stick around, the less likely that any single one will pull into a commanding lead or sweep a series of primaries, and thus the more reason to stick around.
Fifth, the desire for an insurgent, non-establishment figure is deeper and broader than in the past. Consider that in the first major poll taken after the GOP debate, three insurgents topped the list, totaling 47 percent, with Donald Trump leading the way, followed by Ted Cruz and Ben Carson. And, as Trump and the insurgents have shown depth and breadth of support, desperate wannabes like Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal have become ever more shrill to try to compete. Walker, for example, trashed Republican leaders in Congress for breaking their promise to repeal Obamacare. Walker’s right wing alternative health plan, meanwhile, was trashed by Jindal for being too liberal. And the parade of candidates lining up behind blowing up birthright citizenship has been remarkable.
Sixth, Donald Trump, a far more savvy candidate than, say, Herman Cain, has benefited from the anger in the conservative and Republican base electorate by running a pugnacious, in-your-face, I-am not-anything-like-these-other-clowns race, with his signature position being his extreme, nativist stance on immigration. His adherents have cared little about his positions on other issues; after all, Romney, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, et al. promised them everything and produced nothing. So Ann Coulter, a Trump cheerleader, commented that she would be fine with Trump “perform[ing] abortions in the White House,” given his immigration stance, while other supporters have ignored any dissonance between Trump’s views and their own. Trump has also been the beneficiary of an almost-worshipful press thrilled with his perpetual-motion quote machine, which covers every press conference or town hall, often live on television, and rarely challenges his comments, feasting on every outrageous statement or attack against another candidate or critic. And the blanket press coverage has meant that Trump has not had to spend a dime of his fortune on political ads.
Most pundits believe that Trump has a ceiling of support around his current levels of roughly 25 percent. But if other insurgents like Cruz and Carson have their own support nearing a combined 25 percent, why can’t Trump potentially garner a solid share of their backing if they falter? Moreover, if Trump does stay at 25 percent well into the primary season, he may well secure a strong plurality of support, with a bunch of other candidates getting 5 to 15 percent, letting him stockpile a number of delegates. And he might be able to win a slew of in states where the minimum threshold for delegates is 20 percent.
The Republican Party changed its rules to try to close on a nominee earlier than in the past. But those rules, providing a window in March for winner-take-all primaries, might not have their desired effect. It is not difficult for me to imagine that Trump, Cruz, Carson, Huckabee, Bush, Walker, Rubio, Kasich and maybe a couple more can stay in the race well into April or later, with no single candidate emerging. Perhaps the Koch brothers and their allied wealthy funders will try to unite behind a single candidate, and force the others out of the race—becoming a surrogate for the RNC and the rest of the party hierarchy. But if they go to Bush, Kasich and Walker, say, and push them to drop out and back their choice of Rubio, why would the others, with just as many delegates and some strong financial backers, listen to them?
This does not mean that we will have the first open convention in 64 years—it would not be a “brokered” convention, by the way, since there are no brokers anymore, but an open and free-wheeling one. There are still solid reasons to believe that there will be coalescence around an establishment figure, even if this one has to veer even more to the radical side than McCain or Romney did. Or there might be, like 1964, a clear nominee from the insurgent side, possibly Trump but also possibly Cruz. But there are also reasons to believe that if either of those scenarios prevailed, it would not be a happy convention. Somewhere near half the delegates will feel jilted, and Cleveland will rock. But there are plenty of historical parallels for that kind of convention, from the Cow Palace in 1964 to Chicago in 1968. History may prove a guide, but it’s no longer clear where it’s pointing.
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Donald J. Trump is the very definition of the American success story, continually setting the standards of excellence while expanding his interests in real estate, sports and entertainment. He is a graduate of the Wharton School of Finance. An accomplished author, Mr. Trump has authored over fifteen bestsellers, and his first book, The Art of the Deal, is considered a business classic and one of the most successful business books of all time.
Why Donald Trump Won’t Fold: Polls and People Speak
Donald J. Trump, leading the Republican field in recent polls, drew a crowd on Friday for an event in Mobile, Ala. Credit Jeff Haller for The New York Times
Carl Tomanelli of Londonderry, N.H., said Mr. Trump was “echoing what a lot of people feel and say.” Credit Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist for The New York Times
Maureen Colcord of Derry, N.H., right, said she liked that Mr. Trump “doesn’t need anybody’s money.” Credit Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist for The New York Times
Video [embedded] The Keys to Trump's Appeal Donald J. Trump is leading the polls in the Republican presidential race, and he does well with nearly every voter demographic. But pollsters still struggle to define what drives his supporters. (2:07) By ERICA BERENSTEIN on Publish Date August 21, 2015. [ http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000003868631/the-art-of-trumps-appeal.html ]
By MICHAEL BARBARO, NATE COHN and JEREMY W. PETERS AUG. 22, 2015
In the command centers of Republican presidential campaigns, aides have drawn comfort from the belief that Donald J. Trump’s dominance in the polls is a political summer fling, like Herman Cain in 2011 — an unsustainable boomlet dependent on megawatt celebrity, narrow appeal and unreliable surveys of Americans with a spotty record of actually voting in primaries.
A growing body of evidence suggests that may be wishful thinking.
A review of public polling, extensive interviews with a host of his supporters in two states and a new private survey that tracks voting records all point to the conclusion that Mr. Trump [ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/16/us/elections/donald-trump.html ] has built a broad, demographically and ideologically diverse coalition, constructed around personality, not substance, that bridges demographic and political divides. In doing so, he has effectively insulated himself from the consequences of startling statements that might instantly doom rival candidates.
In poll after poll of Republicans, Mr. Trump leads among women, despite having used terms like “fat pigs” and “disgusting animals” to denigrate some of them. He leads among evangelical Christians, despite saying he had never had a reason to ask God for forgiveness. He leads among moderates and college-educated voters, despite a populist and anti-immigrant message thought to resonate most with conservatives and less-affluent voters. He leads among the most frequent, likely voters, even though his appeal is greatest among those with little history of voting.
The unusual character of Mr. Trump’s coalition by no means guarantees his campaign will survive until next year’s primaries, let alone beyond. The diversity of his coalition could even be its undoing, if his previous support for liberal policies and donations to Democrats, for example, undermine his support among conservatives. And in the end, the polling suggests, Mr. Trump will run into a wall: Most Republicans do not support his candidacy and seem unlikely ever to do so. Even now, more say they definitely would not vote for him than say they support him.
But the breadth of Mr. Trump’s coalition [ http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000003868631/the-art-of-trumps-appeal.html ] is surprising at a time of religious, ideological and geographic divisions in the Republican Party. It suggests he has the potential to outdo the flash-in-the-pan candidacies that roiled the last few Republican nominating contests. And it hints at the problem facing his competitors and the growing pressure on them to confront him, as several, like Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, are starting to do.
His support is not tethered to a single issue or sentiment: immigration, economic anxiety or an anti-establishment mood. Those factors may have created conditions for his candidacy to thrive, but his personality, celebrity and boldness, not merely his populism and policy stances, have let him take advantage of them.
Tellingly, when asked to explain support for Mr. Trump in their own words, voters of varying backgrounds used much the same language, calling him “ballsy” and saying they admired that he “tells it like it is” and relished how he “isn’t politically correct.”
Trumpism, the data and interviews suggest, is an attitude, not an ideology.
For voters like Jan Mannarino, a 65-year-old retired teacher who drove an hour from her home in Green Oak Township, Mich., to see Mr. Trump this month, his defiance of political norms is his single greatest virtue.
“Even if he doesn’t win, he’s teaching other politicians to stop being politicians,” Ms. Mannarino said. “He comes on strong. He could say it gently. But I think no one would listen.”
When people talk about the qualities Mr. Trump would bring to the White House, they describe the raging, merciless executive who fired people for sport on television. Some mention trips to his golf courses, which they admiringly note are impeccably run. A common refrain: “He’s a person who gets things done.”
That he has no experience in government is not a liability, many say, but rather one of the main reasons they want him in Washington.
“We don’t need a politician for president; we need a businessman,” said Tom Krzyminski, 66, a hairstylist from Bay City, Mich. “That’s what we need to get us out of the mess we’re in.”
A New York Times review of nine nonpartisan national polls and more public surveys in the early nominating states shows that, thus far, Mr. Trump is outperforming his Republican rivals with constituencies they were widely expected to dominate.
For example, he leads Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a hero to fiscal conservatives, among Tea Party supporters, 26 percent to 13 percent, according to averages of the last nine national polls. He leads former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, a former preacher, among evangelicals, 21 percent to 12 percent. And he is ahead of Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor and a favorite of mainstream donors, among moderate Republicans, 22 percent to 16 percent.
National polls, and both public and partisan pollsters, have struggled to unravel the precise sources of Mr. Trump’s support, leaving many to ascribe it to anger and angst in the Republican electorate. But interviews with voters highlight the degree to which his popularity hinges on personality — and offer an answer to an enduring mystery: Why haven’t Mr. Trump’s outrageous statements, his lack of loyalty to the Republican Party and his caustic attacks on rivals hurt his standing?
His most offensive utterances have, for many Republicans, confirmed his status as a unique outsider willing to challenge conventions, and satisfied a craving for plain-spoken directness.
Asked if Mr. Trump had crossed a line with his language, Carl Tomanelli, 68, a retired New York City police officer in Londonderry, N.H., seemed surprised by the question.
“People are starting to see, I believe, that all this political correctness is garbage,” he said. “I think he’s echoing what a lot of people feel and say.”
Many say they support Mr. Trump because of his unusual statements, not in spite of them.
Lisa Carey, 51, of Greenfield, N.H., immediately cited Mr. Trump’s outspokenness when asked why his support remains so high.
“As inappropriate as some of his comments are, I think it’s stuff that a lot of people are thinking but afraid to say,” she said. “And I’m a woman.”
Asked if they think his brashness would make it more difficult for him to work effectively as president, many voters argue the opposite.
“I want people who are negotiating with him to believe my president when he says he’s going to do something,” said Lori Szostkiewicz, 54, an educator from Hampstead, N.H. “I want to negotiate from a position of strength, not weakness.”
In interviews with voters in Michigan and New Hampshire over the past two weeks, after events hosted by Mr. Trump, none cited his policies as chief motivation for backing him. Many pointed, instead, to his wealth, saying they believed it set him apart from career politicians and freed him of the demands of donors.
“He doesn’t need anybody’s money,” said Maureen Colcord, 60, a clinical dietitian from Derry.
Even as dozens of national and state polls have charted Mr. Trump’s steady ascent, Republican campaigns have taken solace in their conviction that those surveys are flawed and misleading. In interviews, campaign pollsters argue that such polls, conducted largely by media organizations and universities, rely on feedback from many Republicans who are unlikely to vote because the polls do not verify the party registration or voting history of respondents — a fact that those conducting the surveys concede.
New data provided to The Times by Civis Analytics, a firm aligned with Democrats and founded by the former chief analytics officer of the Obama re-election campaign, shows that there is merit to those concerns, but not enough to call Mr. Trump’s lead into question. Curious about the Republican primary landscape, the firm decided to see what it could learn from its own survey, at first for internal research purposes.
Unlike most public polls, Civis’s relied on a list of registered voters that included their voting histories, allowing it to measure Mr. Trump’s support among those who regularly cast ballots in primary elections.
The survey, which was conducted on landlines Aug. 10 through Wednesday and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points, showed Mr. Trump’s support at 16 percent among registered voters who identified as Republicans. That tally is less than any public poll in more than a month, but still more than any other candidate. Ben Carson was at 11 percent, and Mr. Bush at 10 percent.
A poll weighted to reflect the characteristics of the adult population, like most conducted for national media organizations, would have shown Mr. Trump faring some two points better than the Civis data, which was adjusted to reflect the characteristics of registered voters who identify as Republicans. The survey included 757 Republican-leaning respondents, considerably more than other polls of the Republican presidential field.
“In reality his real support is less than what we see in the polling today,” said Masahiko Aida, lead survey scientist for Civis.
The Civis poll also hinted at a potential problem for Mr. Trump: states that allow only registered Republicans to participate in nominating contests, including Iowa and Nevada. He was at 14 percent among registered Republicans in the states with party registration, compared to 18 percent of the voters who were unaffiliated with a party.
As expected, Mr. Trump performed best among less-frequent voters. He had the support of 22 percent of Republican-leaning adults who did not vote in the 2012 general election. But he still held an edge, with 15 percent, among registered Republicans who had voted in a primary since 2008.
“Whether the person voted in two or eight or 12 elections, Trump leads,” Mr. Aida said.
His falloff in support when infrequent voters were sifted out was not unique: Support for some of Mr. Trump’s rivals, including Mr. Bush and Mr. Carson, declined by similar amounts, or even more, among the most frequent voters, Civis found.
Mr. Trump’s strength among less-frequent voters is a challenge for his campaign, which may lack the organizing experience and infrastructure to motivate them and turn them out in large numbers for a primary or caucus.
But those irregular voters, like Norman Kas-mikha, 41, a grocer from Shelby Township, Mich., represent a real opportunity for the Republican Party, which is determined to retake the White House in 2016 after losing the last two campaigns.
“Right now I don’t have a second choice,” Mr. Kas-mikha said. “They all blend in to me. It’s Donald Trump — and everyone else.”
“My second choice,” he added, “might be staying at home.”
Donald Trump Pretends He Has Expert Military Advisors
Published on Aug 23, 2015 by The Young Turks
In a recent interview, Donald Trump was asked who his military advisors were. Trump responded that he sees Colonel Jack Jacobs on occasion. When Jacobs was asked about his, he explained that he doesn’t know if Trump does have a national security group of people, or if he doesn't, stating "If he does, I'm not one of them." Jacobs adds that he has had no discussions with Trump about national security affairs. Cenk Uygur, host of the The Young Turks, breaks it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
"When Donald Trump, the reality show tycoon turned GOP front-runner, appeared on Meet the Press this past Sunday, host Chuck Todd asked him, "Who do you talk to for military advice right now?" At first, Trump had no direct answer. He replied, "Well, I watch the shows. I mean, I really see a lot of great—you know, when you watch your show and all of the other shows and you have the generals and you have certain people that you like." Todd pressed him: "But is there a go-to for you?" Trump said he had two or three "go-to" advisers. He named John Bolton, one of the most hawkish neoconservatives, and retired Army Col. Jack Jacobs, who is a military analyst for MSNBC and NBC News. "Col. Jack Jacobs is a good guy," Trump said. "And I see him on occasion.””*
Corporate media has been largely pitching softballs during interviews with Donald Trump. The most difficult question he’s faced may have been Megyn Kelly asking about his vulgar comments toward women, which is personality issue not a policy issue. Is the media not smart enough to challenge his factually wrong statements? Or is “The Ratings Machine” just too lucrative to risk upsetting? Cenk Uygur, Ben Mankiewicz (Turner Classic Movies), John Iadarola (Think Tank), and Jimmy Dore (The Jimmy Dore Show Podcast), hosts of the The Young Turks, break it down on tonight’s TYT Power Panel. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
"With a Chris Cuomo-hosted hour-long interview during the 9 p.m. hour Wednesday night, Donald Trump helped CNN boost its ratings compared to the rest of the primetime schedule, but it still wasn’t enough to beat Fox News.
CNN’s Trump special came in second place at 9 p.m. with 369K in the 25-54 demo and 1.144M total viewers. Fox News’ The Kelly File, with guest-hostMartha MacCallum (who didn’t have a Trump interview), remained solidly in first place with 513K in the demo and 2.558M total viewers.”*
It's Time For The Hispanic Media To Stand Up To Trump
Published on Aug 23, 2015 by The Young Turks
"It's become one of his loudest, most frequently repeated boasts. As polls have shown him surging to the top of the Republican pack, Donald Trump has made a point of asserting his particular strength among Hispanic voters.
"I have so many Hispanics, and they love me," Trump said during a speech in Laconia, New Hampshire, last week. "And interestingly, we just got from the state of Nevada a poll [that] just came out, and Trump won with a tremendous amount. And the second line was, 'Takes Hispanic vote in a landslide,' and I've been saying that. I'm going to win the Hispanic vote.””*
Fischer: Illegal Immigration Undermines America's Core Mission To Spread The Gospel Of Jesus
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 8/25/2015 3:32 pm
On his radio program today [ https://vimeo.com/137282716 ], Bryan Fischer declared that God created the United States for the purpose of spreading the Gospel of Christ throughout the world and therefore illegal immigration must be stopped because it is causing division within the nation and sucking up valuable resources that could otherwise be used for spreading the Gospel.
"Our purpose as a nation," he said, "is to advance and expand the Kingdom of God. That is the calling that is on the United States ... And we have, up to this point in history, we have abundantly fulfilled that mission. The United States has invested more financial resources and sent more personnel carrying the message of the Gospel to more darkened corners of the world than any other place on the planet. And that is our calling and that is what illegal immigration is threatening."
"One of the things we need in order to carry out the Great Commission is a sense of national unity," Fischer continued [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQbUzMcT3mI (below, as embedded)]. "We are one people with a common purpose, that has to do with the things of God, with expanding the reach of God, expanding the impact that God's kingdom and the Gospel has on the world. Well, you can't do that if you're fractured, if you're divided over race, if you're divided because you have people living illegally who don't even belong here, have no intention of assimilating, no intention of entering into that larger purpose for your nation. They're not going to be an asset to that; they're going to be a detraction to that. They're going to diminish the capacity of the country to do that."
“Straight Talker” Trump Won’t Admit Latinos HATE Him
Published on Aug 25, 2015 by The Young Turks
How are Donald Trump’s favorability ratings among hispanics? As you might imagine, horrible. Cenk Uygur and John Iadarola (Think Tank), hosts of the The Young Turks, break it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
"“They love me,” Donald Trump said of Hispanic-American immigrants during an interview with NBC News last month. “And I’ll tell you something: If I get the nomination, I’ll win the Latino vote.”
After viewing the latest Gallup poll of 2,183 Hispanic adults conducted over the weeks since he first made those statements, Trump’s prediction looks more laughable than ever.
A full 65% of Hispanic voters surveyed said they view Trump unfavorably, with only 14% saying they have a positive view of the candidate. After calling Mexicans “rapists” and vowing to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, it’s a wonder those numbers are not worse for him.”*
Pollster Frank Luntz has been continuing to conduct focus groups on Donald Trump to see if there is anything the candidate could say that would hurt his poll numbers among supporters. Spoiler alert: there is not. "It's on his hat." Cenk Uygur and John Iadarola (Think Tank), hosts of the The Young Turks, break it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
"Republican pollster Frank Luntz peered into the GOP’s id by questioning Donald Trump supporters about his appeal — and he found the results terrifying.
“My legs are shaking,” Luntz said...
“When Trump talks, it may not be presented in a pristine, PC way, but we’ve been having that crap pushed to us for the past 40 years,” said another man. “He’s saying what needs to be said.”
Trump announced his candidacy by slurring Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists — and he has since launched attacks against women, Black Lives Matter protesters and Fox News personalities and has proposed mass deportation and suggested the 14th Amendment is unconstitutional.”*
Meet The Members Of Donald Trump’s White Supremacist Fan Club
Donald Trump, a real estate mogul and Republican presidential candidate, is winning the support of the country's most prominent white supremacists. Michael Stewart via Getty Images
Latino community activists protest Trump's candidacy in Los Angeles on August 19. MARK RALSTON via Getty Images
Patrick Buchanan, who ran for president as a Republican in 1992 and 1996 and as a Reform Party candidate in 2000, sees a kindred spirit in Trump. Buchanan, like Trump, made virulent opposition to immigration a key part of his campaigns. Alex Wong via Getty Images
The candidate has recently picked up a few endorsements he may want to throw back.
By Daniel Marans and Kim Bellware Posted: 08/25/2015 07:40 PM EDT
But there is now abundant evidence that as a presidential candidate, Trump is poisoning American politics in a way he could not have achieved as a mere mogul-cum-entertainer. His ersatz presidential campaign is winning the support of America’s most prominent white supremacists and neo-Nazis -- and in so doing, reviving dark forces in American politics that had become increasingly marginal in recent decades.
While Trump denies that he is racist and would no doubt disavow the support of white supremacist groups, his race-baiting, immigrant-bashing rhetoric has clearly struck a chord within their ranks. These predominantly white and male individuals and organizations -- who sometimes call themselves “white nationalists” or defenders of “European American identity” -- differ on some of the details, but are united in their belief that white people are under attack from the country’s growing minority groups and an elite power structure that does those minorities’ bidding. Although these white supremacists have a long list of groups they hate -- including African Americans and Jews -- they are mostly drawn to Trump for his anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies.
David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux klan and perhaps the most famous face of the American white supremacy movement, said that while Trump was “untrustworthy” he was also “the best of the lot” running on the GOP side.
“I’ve said from the beginning I think his campaign is good in the sense that it’s bringing these issues to a discussion which we have to have in America,” Duke said of Trump's high-profile immigration remarks. “And he’s continuing to move the envelope further and I think he understands the real sentiment of America.”
Duke said his views on Trump were "evolving" and at other points in his show pointed out some concerns with the hotel mogul, including what he called "deep Jewish connections." Still, his overall assessment of Trump -- or, at least, his immigration stance -- was positive.
"I'm thinking more and more that this candidacy is a really good thing for us," Duke said.
A spokesman for Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Duke is the just the latest in a long line of similarly extreme figures who have warmed to Trump’s candidacy. Evan Osnos reported [ http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-fearful-and-the-frustrated ] on Trump’s appeal at length in The New Yorker this week. The story is worth reading in full, but Osnos’ most explosive finding is that Trump enjoys the support of a who’s who of contemporary white supremacist and neo-Nazi leaders and institutions. The members of what one might call Trump’s white supremacist fan club include:
• The Daily Stormer, a leading neo-Nazi news site, endorsed Trump on June 28. “Trump is willing to say what most Americans think: it’s time to deport these people,” the site said in its endorsement. It then urged white men to “vote for the first time in our lives for the one man who actually represents our interests.”
• Richard Spencer, director of the National Policy Institute, which promotes the “heritage, identity, and future of European people,” said that Trump was “refreshing.” “Trump, on a gut level, kind of senses that this is about demographics, ultimately. We’re moving into a new America,” Spencer said. “I don’t think Trump is a white nationalist,” Spencer added, but noted that Trump embodies “an unconscious vision that white people have -- that their grandchildren might be a hated minority in their own country. I think that scares us. They probably aren’t able to articulate it. I think it’s there. I think that, to a great degree, explains the Trump phenomenon. I think he is the one person who can tap into it.” Spencer, Osnos notes, is not the stereotype of a prejudiced yokel: At 36, he is clean-cut, and boasts degrees from elite universities. The Southern Poverty Law Center, Osnos says, calls Spencer “a suit-and-tie version of the white supremacists of old.”
• Jared Taylor, editor of American Renaissance, a Virginia-based white nationalist magazine, said: “I’m sure he would repudiate any association with people like me, but his support comes from people who are more like me than he might like to admit.” Taylor later told Osnos: “Why are whites supposed to be happy about being reduced to a minority? It’s clear why Hispanics celebrate diversity: ‘More of us! More Spanish! More cucaracha!’”
• Michael Hill, head of the League of the South, an Alabama-based white supremacist secessionist group, said Trump was “good” for the white racist cause. “I love to see somebody like Donald Trump come along,” Hill said. “Not that I believe anything that he says. But he is stirring up chaos in the GOP, and for us that is good.” Osnos attended a speech Hill gave to a crowd of cheering followers in which he railed against the “cultural genocide” of white Americans, which he said was “merely a prelude to physical genocide.”
• Brad Griffin, a member of Hill’s League of the South and author of the popular white supremacist blog Hunter Wallace, has written that his esteem for Trump is “soaring,” and has lauded the candidate for his “hostile takeover of the Republican Party.”
It is not surprising that Patrick Buchanan, a longtime Republican politician and operative, who many of the white supremacists that Osnos interviewed named as a major intellectual influence, also sees a kindred spirit in Trump. Buchanan, who ran for president in 1992, 1996 and 2000 on a platform of right-wing populism, has lamented what he calls the “end of white America [ http://www.rawstory.com/2012/02/msnbc-fires-commentator-pat-buchanan/ ]” due to immigration and increasing rights for people of color. Buchanan told CNBC [ http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000403936 ] in early August that he sees his issues “sort of come to fruition” in Trump’s campaign, and that he is “delighted” Trump is running.
While Buchanan, Duke and other leading white supremacists backing Trump do not explicitly condone violence toward immigrants, the same cannot be said of all of Trump’s rank-and-file supporters. Jim Sherota, 53, works for a landscaping company and attended Trump’s rally in Mobile, Alabama, on Friday, told The New York Times [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/22/us/donald-trump-fails-to-fill-alabama-stadium-but-fans-zeal-is-undiminished.html ] before Trump’s arrival that he hoped Trump would announce a plan to issue licenses for hunting undocumented immigrants and offer $50 for “every confirmed kill.”
Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has already inspired some brutal violence against immigrants. Scott and Steve Leader, brothers who are accused of severely beating up a Latino homeless man in Boston on Wednesday, apparently justified the act using Trump’s anti-immigration pronouncements. “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported,” Scott told the state troopers who arrested him [ https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/08/21/trump-tweets-that-boston-attack-was-terrible/QkXOf3Xy4QmPBEzB292WSK/story.html ].
Trump’s condemnation of the attack has been characteristically half-hearted. When reporters asked [ http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/donald-trump-immigrant-boston-beating-121608.html ] the candidate about the assault the day it happened, he called it a “shame,” but then implied that it was an unintended consequence of the passion he inspires. “I will say, the people that are following me are very passionate,” he said. “They love this country, they want this country to be great again.”
Let me get this straight. If I want the admiration and blessings of the most flamboyant, judgmental Christians in America, I should marry three times, do a queasy-making amount of sexual boasting, verbally degrade women, talk trash about pretty much everyone else while I’m at it, encourage gamblers to hemorrhage their savings in casinos bearing my name and crow incessantly about how much money I’ve amassed?
He’s more beloved than Mike Huckabee, a former evangelical pastor, or Ted Cruz, an evangelical pastor’s son, or Scott Walker, who said during the recent Republican debate: “It’s only by the blood of Jesus Christ that I’ve been redeemed.”
No matter. The holy rollers are smiling upon the high roller. And they’re proving, yet again, how selective and incoherent the religiosity of many in the party’s God squad is.
Usually the disconnect involves stern moralizing, especially on matters sexual, by showily devout public figures who are then exposed as adulterers or (gasp!) closet homosexuals. I’d list all the names, starting with Josh Duggar and working backward, but my column doesn’t sprawl over an entire page of the newspaper.
Or the disconnect is between evangelists’ panegyrics about Christ’s penury and their hustle for funds to support less-than-penurious lifestyles. John Oliver, the host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” has been making brilliant satirical fun of this by promoting his new tax-exempt church [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg (embedded at/see {linked in} http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=116285868 and preceding and following)], Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption. Last Sunday he apologized to viewers that his wife, Wanda Jo, “cannot be with us this evening.”
“She’s at our summer parsonage in Hawaii,” he continued, “for a week of spiritual introspection and occasional parasailing.”
What’s different and fascinating about the Trump worship is that he doesn’t even try that hard for a righteous facade — for Potemkin piety. Sure, he speaks of enthusiastic churchgoing, and he’s careful to curse Planned Parenthood and to insist that matrimony be reserved for heterosexuals as demonstrably inept at it as he is.
But beyond that? He just about runs the table on the seven deadly sins. He personifies greed, embodies pride, radiates lust. Wrath is covered by his anti-immigrant, anti-“losers” rants, and if we interpret gluttony to include big buildings and not just Big Macs, he’s a glutton through and through. That leaves envy and sloth. I’m betting that he harbors plenty of the former, though I’ll concede that he exhibits none of the latter.
In 2012, inexplicably, he was invited to Liberty University, where he digressed during his remarks to extol the prudence of prenuptial agreements. But all was forgiven: His host, Jerry Falwell Jr., told audience members that Trump could be credited for “single-handedly” forcing President Obama to release his birth certificate. Oh how they cheered, as if ugly, groundless partisan rumor-mongering were on a saintly par with washing lepers’ feet.
Maybe it’s Trump’s jingoism they adore. They venerated Ronald Reagan though he’d divorced, remarried and spent much of his career in the godless clutch of Hollywood.
Maybe their fealty to Trump is payback for his donations to conservative religious groups.
Or maybe his pompadour has mesmerized them. It could, in the right wind, be mistaken for a halo.
I’m grasping at straws, because there’s no sense in the fact that many of the people who most frequently espouse the Christian spirit then proceed to vilify immigrants, demonize minorities and line up behind a candidate who’s a one-man master class in such misanthropy.
From Trump’s Twitter account gushes an endless stream of un-Christian rudeness, and he was at it again on Monday night, retweeting someone else’s denigration of Kelly as a “bimbo.” Shouldn’t he be turning the other cheek?
For politicians as for voters, devotion and grace can be fickle, convenient things. Courting the evangelical vote, Cruz used his own Twitter account last week to say that his “thoughts and prayers are with President Jimmy Carter,” whose struggle with cancer was riveting the nation. But then Cruz pressed on with a speech that bemoaned the “misery, stagnation and malaise” of Carter’s presidency. He couldn’t have hit pause on the Carter bashing for a week or two?
Carter pressed on, too — with his usual weekend routine of teaching Sunday school, which he has long done with little fanfare. His own Christianity is not a bludgeon but a bridge.
As for Trump, I must not be watching the same campaign that his evangelical fans are, because I don’t see someone interested in serving God. I see someone interested in being God.
Trump Supporter Tells U.S. Citizen Jorge Ramos To ‘Get Out Of My Country’ A Trump supporter confronts Univision reporter Jorge Ramos after he was ejected.
Ann Coulter: 'President Trump' Proof That 'God Hasn't Given Up On America Yet'
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 8/26/2015 1:45 pm
While introducing Donald Trump at his rally in Dubuque, Iowa, last night, Ann Coulter [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/ann-coulter ] said she has “felt like she’s dreaming” ever “since Donald Trump announced that he’s running for president” because now the media is covering her criticisms of U.S. immigration policy.
“I love the idea of the ‘Great Wall of Trump,’” she said. “I want to have a two-drink minimum, make it a big worldwide tourist attraction and every day live drone shows when anyone tries to cross the border.”
She said [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC4ZIGORXmE (below, as embedded)] that after nearly giving up hope for America after President Obama’s re-election, she now knows that all is not lost.
Coulter offered a biblical analogy to explain Trump’s rise: “Now I think it’s like Joseph in the Bible. He had to be sold into slavery, imprisoned, betrayed so that eventually he could save the Jews. Maybe Mitt Romney had to lose and maybe we had to give Republicans one more chance in 2014 and maybe Mitch McConnell and John Boehner had to betray us once again to pave the way for President Donald Trump. God hasn’t given up on America yet.”
Donald Trump and Ann Coulter Hold Rally in Iowa, Ann Coulter is set to introduce GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump at a rally in Dubuque, Iowa Tuesday night, August 25 beginning at approximately 7 p.m. ET.
Earlier this month, Coulter praised Trump’s plan to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants, calling it the “greatest political document since the Magna Carta.”
Ann Coulter Introduces Trump At Iowa Speech: "God Hasn't Given Up On America Yet."
Author and conservative syndicated columnist Ann Coulter introduces Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Dubuque, Iowa.
Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.
GLENN: This is why people like Donald Trump.
Yesterday, in a press conference, I think you’re seeing the beginning of top-down, bottom-up, and inside-out. The bottom is crying out from somebody at the top just to take control and say, enough is enough!
Yesterday at a press conference with Donald Trump, he had Jorge Ramos from Univision who everybody worships now as a god. Jorge Ramos. You’re going to be on with Jorge Ramos. Oh, my goodness. He asks really tough questions. He’s going to really go after you. You don’t mess with Jorge Ramos. You don’t do it. So Jorge Ramos just stood up from Univision and interrupted the press conference. And Donald Trump wouldn’t have anything to do with it. I want you to listen to the whole exchange, and we’ll analyze as we go on. But this is from start to finish, unbelievably satisfying and masterfully done by Donald Trump. Listen to this.
DONALD: Okay. Who is next? Yeah. Please. Excuse me. Sit down. You weren’t called. Sit down. Sit down. Sit down. Go ahead.
JORGE: I have the right to —
DONALD: No, you don’t. You haven’t been called. Go back to Univision. Go ahead. Go ahead.
PAT: Jeez.
JORGE: You can’t deport 11 million people. You cannot deport 11 million people. (inaudible)
GLENN: Now he looks off to the side, and he has him escorted offstage. He looks for security, and they escort him out of the room.
PAT: Yeah. He’s telling Trump he has the right to ask — no, you don’t. Not in the middle of my press conference here. I’m calling on people that will stand up and then ask me the question.
GLENN: We are all looking for someone to tell the press that they’re not gods. We’re all looking for somebody to tell the press, shut the hell up. They play by their own rules. They think they can do whatever they want. This is not only Jorge Ramos. But this is also reflective of Occupy Wall Street. Reflective of Black Lives Matter. Somebody is waiting — top-down, bottom-up, inside-out. Somebody is waiting for somebody to take control of the situation. And we are so hungry for it. And so what Trump has just done is he’s set himself up for the rest of the campaign, I’m not going to take any crap. No crap from anybody. You’re going to play by my rules. Which is the sign of a leader. That’s what a leader does. He takes control of the room, otherwise you have chaos. And he does it fearlessly, which is something the United States of America and all of us that live here — well, and maybe not Jorge — all of us want somebody just to say, look, these are the rules, and you’re going to live by these rules. There are no rules. For the last eight years, we haven’t had any decorum.
There are no rules. Anybody can get away with anything. And nobody says anything. So when you’re watching this or listening to this, you’re immediately going, oh, thank God. How many times have you wanted to say to the press, just shut up and sit down? And that’s exactly what he did. Top-down, bottom-up, inside-out. This is the beginning of it. [this YouTube, also embedded at the source of this transcript (linked below), ends at this point]
STU: He also on this one — is Ramos even fairly considered the press? He’s just an immigration activist. That’s all he is. The guy is an immigration activist.
PAT: Yeah, he is.
STU: It’s ridiculous at this point to call him a journalist or a member of the press.
PAT: A journalist is tell him, you can’t deport these people. Well, who are you?
STU: That’s your opinion. And it might be right. But as a journalist, you’re not supposed to be up there telling a candidate what he can and cannot accomplish. That’s not your role.
GLENN: Correct. So he goes on. He kicks him out. (inaudible)
DONALD: Sit down, please. You weren’t called.
JORGE: I’m a reporter, and I have —
DONALD: Go. GLENN: Now he just told his security, go.
PAT: Yeah.
GLENN: Now, stop. How many times have you seen this? And people have chanted, USA, USA, both with the Republicans and the Democrats. And they tried to cover this ugly exchange.
Trump doesn’t even flinch. There’s nobody in there because it’s all press — there’s nobody in there to cover this exchange. They’re just covering it with their cameras. But he doesn’t even need anybody. He does not flinch. He does not look nervous. He just says, take him out. Enough. Enough. Really masterfully done.
PAT: That’s where his confidence comes in handy.
GLENN: Yes.
VOICE: That’s Jorge Ramos of Univision. He’s being escorted out of the room. He was asking a question, and Donald Trump says I didn’t call him. That’s why he was being removed. Jorge Ramos refused to back down. Let’s listen there.
PAT: Jorge Ramos refused to back down?
STU: Press helping their own on that one a little bit.
PAT: Yeah, a little bit. So then later on, they allow him back in.
GLENN: No, you didn’t play the rest of it. You don’t have the rest of that clip. In the rest of that clip, Donald Trump is asked something about Jorge and he says — and this is really critical that you pay attention to these things. He said, I don’t even know who that guy was. I don’t even know who he was. What? I have no problem with him. I don’t even know who he was. Excuse me, Mr. Trump. He said go back to Univision. You know exactly who he was. Okay?
JEFFY: Yes. Yes.
GLENN: This is really important that you understand that Donald Trump is very slippery. Everybody — everybody who is watching this. Who wants control of the border and wants — would like to slap the press across the face for the last eight years. We’re all celebrating. But don’t dismiss the bread crumb of the presidential candidate being slippery on the truth, to put it kindly. I don’t even know who he was. You said go back to Univision.
STU: He just assumed he knew his exact place of employment.
GLENN: You knew exactly who he was.
PAT: Yeah, tough to get around that.
GLENN: Now, when he comes back — Trump let him in. Because he said, I don’t care if he comes back in. I don’t even know who he was. But you don’t care if he comes back in. He just will not disrupt the press conference. Which I thought was great. So they do eventually let him back in. And he calls on Jorge Ramos.
DONALD: Good. Absolutely. Good. Absolutely. Good to have you back. Okay.
JORGE: So here’s the phone number (inaudible) — it’s full of empty promises. You cannot deport 11 million. You cannot unite citizenship to the children in this country. You cannot build on —
DONALD: Why do you say that?
PAT: Listen to this guy. Again, an activist.
GLENN: He’s saying you can’t deport people.
PAT: You can’t deny citizenship.
GLENN: Right. Because the children, they’re born here. You can’t deny citizenship.
PAT: Amazing.
DONALD: Well, a lot of people — no, no. Excuse me. A lot of people — no, no. But a lot of people think that’s not right. That an active Congress can do it. Now, it’s possibly going to have to be tested in courts. But a lot of people think that if you come and you’re on the other side of the border — I’m not talking about Mexico. Somebody on the other side of the border. A woman who is getting ready to have a baby. She crosses the border for one day. Has the baby. All of a sudden, for the next 80 years, hopefully longer, but for the next 80 years, we have to take care of the people. No, no, I don’t think so. Excuse me. Some of the greatest legal scholars, and I know some of the television scholars agree with you, but some of the great legal scholars agree that that’s not true. That if you come across — excuse me. Yeah, just one second.
PAT: Also, if it is true, it shouldn’t be, and we’re going to change that. Right?
GLENN: Well, he’s going to say that.
PAT: That’s nuts. What other country in the world does that?
GLENN: That’s what he’s about to say.
DONALD: No, no, I’m answering. If you come across for one day — one day and you have a baby, now the baby is going to be an American citizen. There are great — excuse me. There are great legal scholars at the top that say that’s absolutely wrong. It’s going to be tested. Okay?
GLENN: Stop. Stop. Stop. Now, brilliant. Just brilliant. The way he’s handled that. He didn’t seem like a hater.
STU: Yeah, he actually didn’t seem as frustrated as I am as the fact that Ramos is constantly talking the entire time. He says excuse me and keeps going. He handles this really well.
GLENN: He handles it really well. For the people who feel like Pat who crawl out of their skin every time somebody says the Constitution says — he says, in no uncertain terms, it’s going to be tested. Cheers for Donald Trump. Fine. We’re going to find out once and for all. We’re going to test it. Fantastic. Where everybody else is dancing around this issue going back and forth and saying, well, our legal scholars say this. Legal scholars — he’s just saying, I’m going to test it.
PAT: And they would have folded under the pressure from Jorge Ramos.
GLENN: All of them would have. All of them would have.
PAT: Yeah.
GLENN: Because they would have known exactly what the press was saying with Wolf Blitzer. And he refused to back down. He doesn’t care. And I believe one of the reasons he doesn’t care is because he is a strong personality.
Most of these people do not have the television experience that Donald Trump has. And when I say television experience. I don’t mean that he’s been on television a lot. I mean, that he’s been on television a lot, being exactly who he is. And he knows, I can connect with the American people. This is what Reagan had. When you want to say that Donald Trump is the next Reagan, the only way that I believe you can compare the two is Ronald Reagan knew, I don’t have to deal with you. I’ll go right, straight to the American people. And I’ll tell the American people what I think, and they will hear me over all of your spin. Okay? That’s the only thing.
Donald Trump has that experience on television.
PAT: Uh-huh.
GLENN: And he has the experience of knowing, he’s got an audience. And he knows he can connect with them. And so he’s absolutely unafraid of Wolf Blitzer. He knows Wolf Blitzer and everybody else will get on and say, well, he was this and that. He doesn’t care. Because he trusts the American people and his ability to go around the press. He’s bigger than the press.
STU: Yeah. Kind of an odd extension of something you’ve talked about for a long time. Which is know your principles. And the reason why you always talked about knowing your principle is because when you have a situation that would make you uncomfortable or rattle you, you have a principle to go to. You know something that’s concrete, that will help you through a situation. Donald Trump doesn’t have principle when it relates to policy. But what he does have, he has a principle that he knows he’s awesome. He’s the guy. So he can do whatever he wants, and he’ll always be right. That’s his principle. He doesn’t have those moments of self-questioning in these things because he’s so sure he’s so great.
GLENN: Yeah. He’ll pull the trigger every time.
STU: Yeah. And it does help him in these situations.
GLENN: It sure does. It might hurt him in other situations —
STU: Yes.
GLENN: But it helps him. And it is always — what drives me nuts. Do you notice his experts? What did he say about his experts, the experts that agree with him?
PAT: They’re the top ones.
GLENN: They’re the top. Everything Donald Trump is always the top. The best. The quintessential whatever. The most luxurious. So he always — is always thinking that whatever is coming his way, whatever he has been involved in, that’s the best. This is another bread crumb you should follow. No one can ever challenge him because he knows.
PAT: Uh-huh.
GLENN: Because he’s the best. He only accepts the best. So anybody who disagrees with him, they are second rate.
Renée Loth: Up until now, it’s been tempting to dismiss Trump as harmless entertainment on the long dull road to the presidential nomination. But his campaign has become more dangerous than that. (Brynn Anderson/AP)
by Renée Loth Wed, Aug 26, 2015
Had enough of Donald Trump yet? I have. Not because his antics cheapen the presidential debate, or because he sucks all the oxygen out of any other issue or candidacy, or because his money and celebrity illustrate pretty much everything that’s wrong with our political process — although all of that is true. I’m fed up with Trump because his casually ugly slurs against immigrants have given legitimacy to a virulent strain of nativism that is doing real damage to the American idea.
Trump’s tirades against immigrants [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/06/16/full-text-donald-trump-announces-a-presidential-bid/ ] — his unfounded claim that undocumented Mexicans are responsible for an increase in drug addiction and crime, his call to repeal the 14th Amendment that guarantees citizenship to U.S. newborns — have poisoned the atmosphere. His rantings found their full expression last Wednesday when a homeless man allegedly was attacked [ https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/08/19/homeless/iTagewS4bnvBKWxxPvFcAJ/story.html ] by two South Boston thugs who claimed Trump as an inspiration. According to police, the man, a Mexican immigrant, was sleeping at the JFK Red Line station when he was debased, urinated on, and beaten with a pole by two brothers returning from a Red Sox game. Scott Leader, 38, reportedly told State Police as he was being arrested, “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported.”
Up until now, it’s been tempting to dismiss Trump as harmless entertainment on the long dull road to the presidential nomination. But his campaign has become more dangerous than that. Trump is like one of those vile websites where haters can go to have their prejudices or conspiracy theories confirmed. Rather than feeling isolated or ashamed of their bigotry, they can take comfort in the company of a man with wealth and fame, a man free to “speak the truth” without concern for political correctness or other niceties like the U.S. Constitution.
Boston, and especially South Boston, does not need a reprise of a bad old reputation for racial intolerance. It’s good to see Mayor Martin Walsh and South Boston Congressman Stephen Lynch speaking out against what was clearly a hate crime. On Thursday Lynch said the attack “reflects poorly on South Boston,” and called on Trump to “come down heavy on anyone who resorts to violence on somebody they suspect to be an immigrant.” As most everyone knows, Trump at first seemed unaware — or unconcerned — about the vigilantism carried out in his name, indulging his supporters as “very passionate.” Two days later he allowed as how “I would never condone violence.” Trump isn’t responsible for the actions of every one of his supporters. But he has created a generalized climate of hate that can incite bitter, disenfranchised hotheads looking for scapegoats.
The victim’s story also opens a lens on a host of social policy ills. First, immigration: The U.S. Congress cannot agree on the most modest reforms even to address the backlog of visa applications, and any comprehensive efforts for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. went out with John McCain’s last run for office. Second, racism: According to the Mexican consulate, the victim came to Boston 10 years ago from Chicago, where he had been a janitor in a veterinary clinic. He speaks English, pays taxes, and sends money home to his mother. And yet he was vilified as a faceless “other” without basic rights. Third, economic inequality. Despite owning a social security card and working various jobs, the man cannot afford housing or find a decent shelter bed. To these real and complex problems, Trump offers almost nothing by way of solutions.
The mayor of Antler, the tiny North Dakota town where Craig Cobb is buying up property in an attempt to establish a whites-only enclave called “Trump Creativity,” says Cobb is just a gadfly looking for publicity. “If I were you,” he told a reporter for the Grand Forks Herald, “I’d just ignore the guy.”
It’s too late to do that with Donald Trump.
The views and opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the writer and do not in any way reflect the views of WBUR management or its employees [this disclaimer standard in pieces such as this one which appear in the http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/ portion of the site].
Kentucky clerk defies Supreme Court on same-sex marriage and could be held in contempt
Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis is greeted as she arrives for work Sept. 1 in Morehead, Ky. (Timothy D. Easley / Associated Press)
By Michael Muskal
September 1 2015 3:00pm
When Kim Davis ran her election campaign to replace her mother as Rowan County Clerk in Kentucky, she often argued that the public needed a seamless transition because services including marriage licenses “cannot stop or slow down.” Davis was narrowly elected in 2014 to the top job in the office where she had worked for more than 25 years, rising to become her mom’s principal deputy.
On Tuesday, Davis derailed those services at the clerk’s office in Morehead, Ky., by refusing to issue marriage licenses to all couples -- gay and straight -- because her religious beliefs prohibit same-sex marriage. During a chaotic morning she argued that God gave her the authority to defy even the nation’s highest court, which refused to get involved in the current case after it upheld gay marriage in June.
VIDEO - A Kentucky county clerk has invoked "God's authority" and is defying the U.S. Supreme Court by refusing to license same-sex marriage. (Sept. 1)
“To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience,” she said in a prepared statement issued through her attorneys, the Liberty Counsel, based in Orlando, Fla. “It is not a light issue for me. It is a heaven or hell decision.”
A federal judge has set a Thursday hearing to decide whether Davis and her top aides should be held in contempt of court to force them to issue marriage licenses. Davis could be personally fined or even face jail, though the plaintiffs say they just want their marriage license.
The battle has echoes from the days of the African American civil rights struggles of the 1960s when Southern officials refused to follow court rulings on integration. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 26 that same-sex marriage was a constitutional right, most people thought the issue was resolved.
And in most places, it was, except in a handful of counties in Texas, Alabama and Kentucky, where local officials chose to stop issuing all marriage licenses to avoid granting licenses to same-sex couples.
Lawsuits were filed in several of the states, including against Davis, who stopped issuing licenses days after the Supreme Court decision. Two gay couples and two straight couples sued her, arguing that because she was an elected official she was required to issue the documents despite her religious beliefs. Davis claims she is protected by the state’s version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, designed to protect religious expression.
Federal District Judge David L. Bunning disagreed, ruling against the clerk. Last week, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Bunning.
“It cannot be defensibly argued that the holder of the Rowan County Clerk’s office, apart from who personally occupies that office, may decline to act in conformity with the United States Constitution as interpreted by a dispositive holding of the United States Supreme Court,” the appeals court said.
On Monday, the Supreme Court in a one-line order rejected Davis’ appeal, ending the clerk’s legal fight. It was the first time the court had to deal with a gay marriage issue since its June ruling.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who has followed the same-sex marriage issue, said that although a number of clerks around the country say they are uncomfortable issuing licenses, the Rowan County case is the only one to have advanced so far in the courts.
“My reading is that the Supreme Court was pretty clear in late June about the notion of marriage equality,” he said. “I don’t think the religious freedom argument is that strong in this situation.”
The high court’s action also set the scene for Tuesday’s confrontation in Morehead, where Davis turned away several gay and lesbian couples who sought marriage licenses.
It was the third time that David Moore and David Ermold had sought a license from Davis. In televised video of their encounter, Davis told the couple to leave.
“We're not leaving until we have a license,” Ermold responded.
“Then you're going to have a long day,” Davis replied.
Davis then retreated into her inner office and closed the blinds, seeking shelter from media cameras and rival demonstrations.
“Praise the Lord!” her supporters shouted. “Stand your ground!”
Other activists yelled, “Do your job!”
The mainly rural county, about 60 miles east of Lexington, has about 23,000 residents.
Davis’ mother served as county clerk for 37 years and her son also works in the clerk’s office.
“I love my job and the people of Rowan County,” Davis stated. “I have never lived any place other than Rowan County. Some people have said I should resign, but I have done my job well.”
Davis’ husband, Joe, told reporters that his wife has received death threats. He said he believed in the 2nd Amendment and was not afraid: “I'm an old redneck hillbilly, that's all I've got to say. Don't come knocking on my door.”
He pointed to the gay rights protesters gathered outside and said: “They want us to accept their beliefs and their ways. But they won't accept our beliefs and our ways.”
Davis was elected as a Democrat and has been supported by others including Casey County Clerk Casey Davis, who is riding his bicycle across the state in support of his fellow officeholder. His county is not issuing any marriage license either to avoid the same-sex marrraige issue, and he wants a special session of the Kentucky Legislature to deal with the whole issue.
“Kim Davis is my spiritual sister,” he said, breathing heavily, in a telephone interview from near Elizabethtown, Ky.
“I just climbed a real tall hill in Kentucky to help raise awareness about what is happening to Kim Davis,” he said. “She is a lady and not deserving of going to jail or being fined. All she is trying to do is to live her life as a Christian and that should be her right.
American Forum - Unreasonable Men: Theodore Roosevelt and the Republican Rebels Who Created Progressive Politics
October 29, 2014 11:00AM - 12:30PM (EDT) Michael Wolraich
VIDEO 56:56
Transcript tasters. If you have never heard of Prince Alfred frock coats this is for you! Wonderful history. A fascinating read for me.
[...] takes us into the heart of the epic power struggle that created the progressive movement and defined modern American politics. Recounting the fateful clash between the pragmatic Theodore Roosevelt and the radical “Fighting Bob” La Follette of Wisconsin, Wolraich’s narrative reveals how a few Republican insurgents broke the conservative chokehold on Congress and initiated the greatest period of political change in America’s history.
00:11:57:22 - Wolraich: There was both. There was a lot of corruption certainly. More so at the state level not the federal level. The local parties were in each state run by a political machines. There would be a boss and the boss would hand out jobs to his supporters in return for them drumming up votes. This was called the Patronage System. But he needed money to run his operation and that came from business. And that could be bribery, there could be delegates bribed or bought. But a lot of it was a form that was familiar today. A lot of it was campaign contributions. And that certainly happened at the Federal level. Theodore Roosevelt who despite coming out very strongly against the trusts, his campaign raised a lot of money from the large tycoons. J. D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, a lot of the railroad tycoons, etc.
00:13:01:25 - Blackmon: And so Teddy Roosevelt is a rich guy from Oyster Bay, New York. What role is he playing in all this in the decade before he emerges as a national figure? Where does he fit in the tumult that you just described?
00:13:16:17 - Wolraich: Well, Roosevelt as everyone knows he was somebody different. He was idiosyncratic. He was his own man. And cut a very different course through politics than people were used to. He was always a reformer even early on as a legislature in the state government of New York. He pushed for reforms. He was anti-corruption. He was trying to change the patronage system to switch to a more mesocratic way of recognizing and elevating public servants. But he was not necessarily, he was not the crusader that he was often remembered as and in the you know Ken Burns had a Roosevelt special which presented him as this fighter, this man who wouldn’t take no and wouldn’t compromise with his enemies. And that was not actually Theodore Roosevelt. He was very cautious about it. He wanted to change the country incrementally one step at a time. This was partly, as you said, he came from, old money and he was concerned about the populace agitation that was happening particularly out west what we now call the Midwest. He was concerned that it was too drastic, too violent, too dangerous. But the other thing was he was a very practical man. And he knew that if he pushed for aggressive measures to change the country that conservative powers in government would shut them down. This happened in New York State and it happened also once he became President. So he would work with his opponents and compromise with them to get as much change as he felt he could accomplished.
[...]
00:57:04:17 - Wolraich: Exactly, Wilson was also influenced by these changes at the time and he was more cerebral about it than Theodore Roosevelt. He had been conservative before he became governor of New Jersey. In fact it was the conservative political bosses in New Jersey hand picked him and put him, and chose him for their nominee because they felt that he would represent the conservative interests, the political machine interests. It was at that time in 1910 that Wilson started to belatedly embrace the progressive ideas that La Follette and some other Democrats like William Jennings Bryan were supporting. And so he becomes a Progressive leader but he didn’t start out that way. And then, you know, I think another important point that people don’t remember is that once he became President and once he was pushing for these tremendous changes in Congress, you know, from the income taxes to labor laws, to anti-trust laws, and ultimately women’s suffrage. These were supported not, these were not pushed through by the Democrats over the heads of the Republicans. There were a lot of Progressive Republicans mainly from La Follette’s faction who were working with Progressive Democrats and they were opposed by conservative Democrats and conservative Republicans at that time. So it was this bipartisan Progressive alliance that really pushed through the famous changes that we associate with Woodrow Wilson’s administration.
For one, oil money ain't what it used to be. And second, Tehran has bigger problems to deal with at home.
By Richard Nephew July 2, 2015
As negotiators close in on a nuclear deal with Iran, there’s been a corresponding uptick in ominous expectations about how Tehran could use the potential rush of funds from sanctions relief to prey on its weak neighbors and secure regional hegemony. U.S. lawmakers like Sen. Mark Kirk .. http://www.kirk.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1441 (R-Ill.) and lobbying outfits like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies .. http://www.defenddemocracy.org/ .. argue that once the sanctions are gone, Iran will stop at nothing to support groups like Hezbollah or Hamas, as it has in recent decades.
These fears are wildly overblown. Iran’s domestic economic needs are real, as is Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s imperative to deliver on the promises that got him elected and proceed with the talks. To ensure the stability of their government, Iran’s leaders must tend to the problems at home and make the investments necessary to sustain their future. Supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and other regional actors is an important, but secondary, objective.
Certainly, Tehran believes it has always been in its interest to support its friends in the region, and that no level of sanctions could stop them from doing so. This is a government that has, after all, funded and armed radical elements since the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979, through the Iran-Iraq War, and after the intensification of crippling sanctions in 2010. Tehran continued to invest in the Assad regime, despite the immediate loss of over a quarter of its 2012 oil revenues compared to the previous year, and $60 billion .. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303497804579240710793962446 .. in potential revenues from that point forward. Likewise, Iran has assisted Shiite militants in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and is now supporting the Houthis in Yemen, despite major economic crisis at home.
So, why should Washington free Iran from sanctions and allow it access to the $100 billion in oil revenues presently locked up in restricted accounts .. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/06/29/End-Sanctions-Worth-Hundreds-Billions-Iran ? While the thought of indirectly financing terrorists is, frankly, terrifying, this fear-laced argument assumes that Iran believes the money — which amounts to a little less than one-fifth of its 2013 GDP .. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD — would be best spent on proxy wars. But judging from the economic difficulties it faces, especially following the collapse in oil prices over the past year, that assumption seems especially dubious. This argument, irrational though it may be, is a very powerful one, given U.S.-Iran history, the volatile nature of the Middle East, and Iran’s past support of extremist groups (as the State Department reported, again, only two weeks .. http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/239631.pdf .. ago). It does not take much to convince Americans that Iran will stop at nothing to support terrorism as vigorously as it can.
But Iran’s leaders know how much money is at stake, and how it can be used. It is implausible that, after the supreme leader allowed Rouhani to be elected president in 2013 on a platform pledging economic recovery — in part, through promises of sanctions relief — he would support initiatives that leave the Iranian population in the cold in order to protect foreign groups and leaders like Assad.
-- Since the U.N. intensified sanctions against Iran in 2010, it has only grown more desperate. --
Since the U.N. intensified sanctions .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/09/iran-sanctions-united-nations-nuclear .. against Iran in 2010, it has only grown more desperate. For example, the country’s oil sector now needs anywhere from $50 to $100 billion in investment to improve production, a point that Iranian officials, including Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, have emphasized .. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304096104579240131109374914 .. repeatedly over the past two years. External investment was cut off by sanctions, and Iran has not had the spare capital to maintain, much less improve, its facilities. Nor has it enjoyed access to new technologies that could enhance oil field productivity.
Oil is, of course, only one part of Iran’s economy, which includes struggling industries like automobile and domestic manufacturing. To avoid an overdependence on global oil markets, Iran has also made it state policy .. http://theiranproject.com/blog/2015/02/07/its-necessary-to-cut-dependence-on-oil-revenues-zarif-says/ .. to build a diversified export economy. Given the prevailing drop in global oil prices, Iran is likely to continue trying to strengthen other sectors to maximize its growth potential and limit its vulnerability to an uncertain market.
Lest observers assume that Iran would have turned its entire economy into a terrorism-financing machine if only it had the money, consider the fact that the most intensive sanctions on the country are only 3 years old. Before January 2012, oil sales were bringing in nearly $88 billion annually .. http://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/calibrating-the-risk-of-iran-sanctions-relief/ , money that Tehran largely spent as any government would: on domestic and foreign-policy priorities — not solely to back anti-Western interests.
As with the effort to wean its economy off oil, Iran has also sought to reduce costly subsidies .. http://www.economist.com/node/17900396?story_id=17900396&fsrc=rss .. on everything from food, to housing, to energy, to improve the economy’s efficiency, reduce waste, and spur competitiveness. But sanctions targeting Iranian oil revenues hampered that effort, as the country lacked the hard currency — and political will — to forge ahead with subsidy reform, at least until Rouhani’s election. It is now struggling to complete this project, one that sanctions relief would undoubtedly boost by providing Iran with fresh revenue and reducing its citizens’ dependence on government handouts. This is particularly important for Rouhani, who will be looking to shore up domestic support in the run-up to parliamentary elections in February 2016 and win reelection in 2017.
But beyond this, any rosy expectations for Iran’s economy must be tempered by the reality that oil, still its primary economic driver, is worth less today than in years past and is predicted to stay that way for the foreseeable future. Iran simply won’t have as much money coming in on an annual basis, due to global economic conditions, until the rest of its economy picks up speed. Even if Tehran had wanted to spend $100 billion on nefarious side projects a few years ago (and let’s be clear: given $100 billion was more than the entire annual oil export revenue for Iran at the time, even when prices were high .. http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11011 , this would hardly be credible), it makes even less sense today.
Consequently, it is much more likely that only a portion of the liberated $100 billion and any future revenues will go to support Tehran’s regional adventurism. No one knows how much, but experts have made some educated guesses. Eli Lake’s recent survey .. http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-09/iran-spends-billions-to-prop-up-assad .. of a variety of analysts in Bloomberg View suggests that Iran sends the Assad regime anywhere from $3.5 to $20 billion a year, figures that pale in comparison to annual military spending by the United States and the Gulf Cooperation Council .. http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/milex_database .
Moreover, since 9/11, the international banking system has adopted new standards and helped create intergovernmental groups like the Financial Action Task Force .. http://www.fatf-gafi.org/ .. to crack down on money laundering and terrorism financing. Banks monitor their business far more aggressively now than ever before to detect and prevent such activities, in part by using the best practices and guidelines developed by FATF. Banks are also under greater scrutiny by their national regulators — and, in fact, by the U.S. Treasury Department — to keep their systems from being used by terrorists and their financiers for illicit acts.
If need be, Washington and its partners can always augment sanctions to deal with specific Iranian threats, such as Iran’s conventional arms market. These could be modeled on an existing authority, like sanctions covering the manufacture, shipping, and financing of weapons of mass destruction. Rather than completely abandoning sanctions as part of the nuclear deal, the United States could use them as an effective deterrent in this regional context. Care, however, will have to be taken to avoid giving Iran a pretext to argue that the United States is undermining the very sanctions relief that made a nuclear deal possible in the first place.
The United States has tools to combat Iranian regional adventurism and need not jettison the nuclear deal to preserve sanctions, which is just one of them. Regardless of the conflicting views of the nuclear deal itself, there is near-universal agreement that it will benefit Iran economically. And there is a convincing body of information and analysis to support the position of President Barack Obama’s administration that Tehran will use sanctions relief to generate economic stability at home, and that it can successfully counter any part of Iran’s newfound wealth that it delivers to bad actors.
Opponents can always point to a history of Iranian support for nefarious actors to justify their skepticism of the deal. But all this suggests is that Iran may continue to engage in this policy after a deal, not that it will ignore its domestic needs in this pursuit. In fact, an Iran with the political will and monetary resources to rebuild its economy and restore stability at home will have fewer incentives to shore up its alliances with those who oppose the United States and the international system. It’ll have too much to do at home and potentially too much to risk. Far from being a giveaway to a terrorism-supporting regime, then, sanctions relief may be the key to creating an Iran with a real stake in the international order.
.. so there you go .. now, if you believe as Huckabee does that the deal will lead Israel to the "door of the oven" .. or as Cruz, who saw Huck's oven burp as a fair and reasonable comment, believes that if the deal goes through then the "Obama administration becomes the leading financier of terrorism against Americans in the world" .. then most probably, you really will probably also need to believe that ONLY divine intervention can save you .. you have to, just for balance, you know .. i mean seriously, Glenn Beck told you, while in one of his ultra-caring-sincere seriously modes, that "only divine intervention" can save America .. forget everything else! .. only God can save America .. get serious, guys!
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