Donald Trump campaigns in his own weird 'Wonderland'
David Horsey June 2, 2016 5:00 am
Donald Trump is like a character from “Alice in Wonderland.” He has his own unusual look, his own surreal life and, most of all, his own curious logic. Disney could have cast him in the studio’s new movie, “Through the Looking Glass,” if only he were not so busy rhetorically lopping off the heads of his opponents, the media and anyone else who crosses him.
In that way, Trump very much resembles the Queen of Hearts, who screamed “Off with their heads!” at any slight provocation. Trump’s news conference at Trump Tower in New York City on Tuesday was like that. When reporters asked perfectly normal questions about his curiously tardy contributions to various veterans’ organizations and about the dubious business practices of the now-defunct Trump University, he responded with insults and aggression. He called ABC’s political correspondent “a sleazy guy.” He called the press, in general, dishonest and said he finds “the political press to be unbelievably dishonest.”
Trump is not the first political figure to make a habit of criticizing the media — an odd thing, since his campaign has benefited greatly from constant media attention and dozens of lightweight, obsequious interviews — but he is setting a new standard for redefining reality. When confronted with his own provocative statements, he will deny he ever said them. On Wednesday, for instance, he insisted he never said Japan should have nuclear weapons, even though the New York Times has recordings of him saying that very thing in an interview with the newspaper’s editorial board. David Horsey cartoons
When asked by reporters why he failed to give details about his money-raising for vets, he said he wanted to keep it all hush-hush. “I wanted to keep it private because I don’t think it’s anybody’s business if I wanted to send [money] to the vets,” Trump insisted. The man has a strange definition of “private,” given that he kicked off the fundraising in a nationally televised event that was competing with a Fox News Republican candidates’ debate that he was pointedly skipping.
And now, with the release of court records that detail the loathsome tactics his minions used to bilk suckers out of their money through his bogus “university,” Trump makes up his own facts and deflects queries by claiming he is being wrongly disparaged by an antagonistic judge who appears suspiciously “Mexican.” (The federal judge, Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing the class-action lawsuit brought by former Trump U students, was born in Indiana.)
Truth simply does not matter to Trump. He prefers fantasies that reinforce his preconceived notions or that help him in his ceaseless self-promotion. Four years ago, he invested his time and attention in the “birther” cause — the crazy and subliminally racist accusation that America’s first black president was born in Kenya, not Hawaii. At a pivotal point in this year’s primary battle, he latched onto fictitious reports that Ted Cruz’s Cuban father hung out with Lee Harvey Oswald in the days before the assassination of President Kennedy. Last week in California, he seized on the blatantly bizarre notion that the years-long drought that has cut deeply into the state’s water supply is a hoax.
If a clown is elected president, don't blame the news media
In March, Politico magazine scrutinized every Trump statement and speech over one week of the campaign and found a steady stream of mischaracterizations, exaggerations and clear falsehoods — little lies that came at the rate of one every five minutes. For anyone who has listened with a sharp ear as Trump talks, the only surprise in the Politico analysis is that the fibs did not clock in with even more frequency.
It is not hard to recognize Trumpian logic in this exchange between Humpty Dumpty and Alice in “Through the Looking Glass”:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that’s all.”
Mastering the opposition, mastering the media, mastering anyone who has the temerity to question or criticize him — that is all that matters to Trump. In Tuesday’s news conference, an alarmed reporter asked Trump if his new level of contentiousness was a passing thing or “is this what it’s going to be like if you are president?”
Bill Clinton Bagged $16.46 Million from For-Profit College as State Dept. Funneled $55 Million Back
That is a lie per your article.
A Bloomberg examination of IYF’s public filings show that in 2009, the year before Bill Clinton joined Laureate, the nonprofit received 11 grants worth $9 million from the State Department or the affiliated USAID. In 2010, the group received 14 grants worth $15.1 million. In 2011, 13 grants added up to $14.6 million. The following year, those numbers jumped: IYF received 21 grants worth $25.5 million, including a direct grant from the State Department.
As far as the grants are concerned the IYF clearly lists the donors.
A new book by Republican operative and friend of the Koch brothers, Peter Schweizer, makes a number of wild accusations about Hillary Clinton — so wild that even the author admits he has no evidence to support them. Here are ten things you need know about his book, Clinton Cash.
#1: The entire premise of the book has been widely debunked. ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, FOX News' Chris Wallace, the Sunlight Foundation's Bill Allison, and more all agree: There's no proof of the book's central thesis. Even Schweizer — the author of the book — admits he doesn't have direct evidence to back up his claims. NBC News First Read, 4/27/15; ABC News This Week, 4/26/15; Fox News Sunday, 4/26/15; NBC's Today, 4/24/15
#2: Hillary Clinton did not have veto power over a uranium deal. Schweizer claims Hillary Clinton had "veto power" and "could have stopped" Russia from buying Uranium One, a uranium mining company with large operations in the U.S. That's just false: Only the president has such power. Source: FactCheck.org, 04/28/15
#3: Schweizer's claim that a Clinton Foundation donor benefited from the sale of the uranium company is false. Schweizer spins a tale that in 2010, then-Secretary Clinton pushed the State Department to approve the sale of Uranium One to the Russian government in order to benefit a stakeholder who had donated to the Clinton Foundation. In reality, that donor said he sold his stake in the company 18 months before Hillary Clinton ever became Secretary of State, and three years prior to the sale. Source: CEO.ca, 04/23/15
#4 Hillary Clinton "never intervened" with CFIUS committee on the Uranium One sale. FactCheck.org notes that there was "no evidence" that Hillary Clinton was involved in the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) approval process on the sale of Uranium One. Jose Fernandez, a former assistant secretary of state who represented the State Department on the committee, said, "Mrs. Clinton never intervened with me on any CFIUS matter." Source: FactCheck.org, 04/28/15
#5: Bill Clinton did not receive payment for appearances for which the book claims he was paid. BuzzFeed reports that neither Bill Clinton nor the Clinton Foundation were paid for two of three 2010 speeches for which Schweizer claims he received payment. Per BuzzFeed, the Foundation did receive a donation following one speech, but President Clinton was not paid for it. Source: BuzzFeed, 04/28/15
#6: Schweizer deliberately butchers quotes to omit the positive work of the Clinton Foundation on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. In his book, Schweizer intentionally misrepresents a statement from Ambassador Princeton Lyman on the Clinton Foundation's work in Africa — omitting the parts of the statement that said President Clinton "deserves a lot of credit" for his work on The Foundation. The truth? Jim Yong Kim, who was also misrepresented by Schweizer, says President Clinton "has been absolutely one of the most important people in the global response to HIV/AIDS." Source: Media Matters, 04/29/15
#7: Schweizer constructs a "conspiracy" theory on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement that is "inconsistent with the facts." In the Daily Beast, Michael Tomasky labels Schweizer's storytelling about the Colombia Free Trade Agreement as a sheer "conspiracy." What's more: Gabriel Silva, Colombian Ambassador to the United States at the time the trade deal was signed, told CNN that "I saw no evidence that any part of the treaty was impacted by any contribution made to the Clinton Foundation or any other group in the United States." Source: CNN, 04/27/15; Daily Beast, 4/22/15
#8: Hoax cited by Schweizer was debunked years ago. Schweizer cites a press release that was exposed as fake in 2013 as "evidence" that TD Bank influenced a State Department review on the Keystone XL pipeline. Source: Think Progress, 04/21/15
#9: Schweizer's statement that a company had never received USAID grants prior to Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State is false. As part of an inaccurate theory that a telecommunications company, Digicel, received USAID grant money because of its involvement with President Clinton, Schweizer claims the company had never received USAID grant money prior to Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State. Wrong: BuzzFeed reports that "Digicel received more than $29,000 in contracts from USAID in 2007 and 2008," according to federal records. Source: BuzzFeed, 04/28/15
#10: Hillary Clinton's stance on the Indian Nuclear Deal was consistent while the book falsely claims she voted for a measure she opposed. As reported by Politico, a key fact in the book's characterization of Hillary Clinton's stance on the Indian nuclear deal is false. She consistently supported the deal following a bipartisan agreement in the Senate. Politico also reported that one of the author's assertions — that she had voted for a measure to cap India's fissile production — was deceptive: she actually voted against the measure. Source: Politico, 04/29/15
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
