;)
The Commentariat -- June 23, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Adam Liptak & Michael Shear of the New York Times: ""The Supreme Court on Thursday announced that it had deadlocked in a case challenging President Obama's immigration plan, a sharp blow to an ambitious program that Mr. Obama had hoped would become one of his central legacies. As a result, as many as five million undocumented immigrants will not be shielded from deportation or allowed to legally work in the United States. The 4-4 deadlock, which left in place an appeals court ruling blocking the plan, amplified the already contentious election-year debate over the nation's immigration policy and presidential power." ...
... CW: If you're a Sanders hardliner, here's your reason to vote for Clinton. You can't say you care about people, then sit out the election or vote for another candidate. ...
... Michael Shear on the consequences of the non-decision. -- CW ...
... Adam Liptak: "The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge to a race-conscious admissions program at the University of Texas, Austin, handing supporters of affirmative action a major victory. The vote was 4-3.... Justice Elena Kagan had recused herself for prior work on the case as United States solicitor general.... Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., dissented. -- CW ...
... ** President Obama responds to the two Court actions:
... David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "A frustrated President Obama on Thursday decried the Supreme Court's failure to lift an injunction against his signature immigration program and blamed Republicans for standing in the way of progress, as he and other Democrats vowed to turn immigration into a election litmus test." -- CW
Karoun Demirjian, et al., of the Washington Post: "Democratic lawmakers on Thursday afternoon ended the dramatic protest they have staged on the House floor for more than 25 hours, while pledging to continue to find ways to pressure Republicans to hold votes on gun-control measures." -- CW
Justin Fenton & Kevin Rector of the Baltimore Sun: "The Baltimore Police van driver accused of giving a "rough ride" that killed Freddie Gray was acquitted of all charges Thursday by Circuit Judge Barry Williams.Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., 46, had faced the most serious charges of any of the six officers indicted in Gray's arrest and death last April, including second-degree depraved heart murder. Goodson was also acquitted of three counts of manslaughter, second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office. His acquittal, which comes after Williams considered the charges for three days, throws the rest of the cases into jeopardy. The other officers charged face similar, but lesser accusations. Williams said the timeline of Gray's injuries remains unclear, and the state 'failed to meet its burden' to present enough evidence to back its assertions...." -- CW
Sibylla Brodzinsky & Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "The Colombian government and Farc guerrillas have declared the final day of one of the world's oldest wars with the signing of a ceasefire agreement to end more than 50 years of bloodshed. At a ceremony in Havana attended by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, President Juan Manuel Santos and Farc chief Timoleón 'Timochenko' Jiménez listened on Thursday to the reading of a deal laying out how 7,000 rebel fighters will demobilize. Although a final peace deal also will require approval in a referendum, the formal cessation of hostilities between the two main combatants and the Farc's acceptance of disarmament are key steps towards resolving a low-intensity war that has caused more than 250,000 deaths and the displacement of more than 6 million people." -- CW
AND Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Correction. Jonathan Chait: "The New York Times finally stops" calling fake Trump steaks Trump Steaks. -- CW
*****
David Herszenhorn & Emmarie Huetteman of the New York Times: "A Democratic sit-in on the House floor demanding votes on gun-control legislation led to a remarkable scene of pandemonium and a late-night confrontation on Wednesday when Speaker Paul D. Ryan was shouted down after briefly regaining control. Democrats pressed against the speaker's dais, waving signs with the names of gun victims and chanting 'No bill! No break!' as Mr. Ryan repeatedly banged his gavel in an attempt to restore order. When Mr. Ryan gave up and left the speaker's chair, Democrats shouted: 'Shame! Shame! Shame!' The standoff continued through early Thursday morning, as Mr. Ryan contemplated adjourning the House until July 5, which would shut down the Democrats' protest or leave them alone in a darkened, empty chamber." ...
... Karoun Demirjian & Kelsey Snell of the Washington Post: "Republicans voted early Thursday morning to adjourn the House until after the July 4th recess in an attempt to quash a dramatic, 16-hour sit-in by their Democratic colleagues seeking a vote on gun control measures in the wake of the Orlando massacre. House Democrats, led by civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), were still giving speeches even after the adjournment vote, but activity seemed to winding down just after 3 a.m. on Thursday morning. About 25 members remained on the House floor, wrapped in blankets, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) joined them." -- CW ...
... Tom Jacobs of Pacific Standard: "A study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association ... notes that, while [Australia] suffered 13 fatal mass shootings (with five or more victims) between 1979 and 1996, there have been none at all in the years since [1996, when the Parliament passed strict laws restricting firearm ownership]. Moreover, both homicide and suicide rates have declined over the two decades since the reforms were enacted. While it's impossible to say this decline in violence was the direct result of stricter gun regulations, the data suggests it played a significant role." Via Paul Waldman. -- CW ...
... Dahlia Lithwick: "Occasionally when Donald Trump misspeaks, he accidently points the way to a larger truth; a kind of Kinsley gaffe born ... of accidentally taking a really bad argument to its inevitable conclusion.... So too, his recent push-me-pull-you on gun rights accidentally shed some useful light upon the unbound 'guns everyplace' logic of the National Rifle Association.... In Trump's telling, if only bar patrons had all been packing heat, gunfight 'beauty' would have ensued. This one claim was, as it happens, a bridge too far for the NRA, which quickly repudiated Trump's assessment.... Trump's real sin lay in ... pointing out the inconsistency of [the NRA's] position.... Presumably if you shouldn't be carrying a weapon while drinking in a bar, you shouldn't be carrying a weapon while drinking at home, or on campus. And that's why the NRA has to dance itself in circles.... This entire approach to defending against gun violence inevitably assumes that the heroic defensive shooter is a trained marksman and that everyone else is just a prop.... It is, in short, a grand unifying theory of human narcissism, pushed out by narcissists and given its ultimate expression -- obvs -- by the greatest narcissist public life has ever known." -- CW
Paul Waldman in the Washington Post: "... House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) [Wednesday] released something that sort of looks like a [healthcare] 'plan'.... Ryan would eliminate the individual and employer mandates; shut down the insurance exchanges; cancel the ACA's expansion of Medicaid and then cut the program and convert it to block grants so that states could kick people off; move Medicare to a 'premium support' model, which essentially means privatizing it and cutting it back; eliminate the ACA's subsidies for low- and middle-income people...; promote health savings accounts and 'mini-med' plans that cover virtually nothing; cap the tax exclusion for employer plans...; and limit the amount victims of medical malpractice can sue for.... Despite what Ryan says, the plan doesn't actually maintain the prohibition on denials of coverage for preexisting conditions, which may be the single most popular element of the ACA.... This plan, like almost any repeal-and-replace idea Republicans have, would cause absolutely cataclysmic upheaval in Americans' health care. I cannot stress this strongly enough." -- CW ...
... ** Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Speaker Ryan's reputation for wonkitude is not deserved. Indeed, his proposals typical follow a familiar pattern -- a pattern Ryan repeated on Wednesday with a package of health reforms Jonathan Cohn and Jeffrey Young [of the Huffington Post] described as a plan to 'replace 20 million people's health insurance with 37 pages of talking points.' Ryan offers sweeping, ambitious ideas that would radically transform the fundamentals of America's social contract. Then, when genuine policy wonks point out that Ryan's numbers don't add up, or that his ideas would have absurd consequences, Ryan often responds with a new proposal that is just like the first -- only vaguer." CW: If you don't have time to read this today, read it tomorrow; Millhiser provides a mini-history of Ryan's lamebrained plans & suggests, based on compelling evidence, that Ryan doesn't understand his own proposals.
President Obama speaks with Bloomberg editors about the growth of the economy under his watch. CW: ... Which Hillary Clinton says she'll fix; interview linked below.
Linda Greenhouse: The conservative Supreme Court's many projects for this term died with Justice Scalia. The Court, therefore, has ended the term "not with a bang but a whimper." -- CW
Another Dip into the Cornucopia of False Equvalency. Jonathan Chait responds to Jonathan Rauch's Atlantic cover story, "How American Politics Went Insane." linked here yesterday: "The ... serious problem with Rauch's argument is this: Virtually every breakdown in governing he identifies is occurring primarily or exclusively within the Republican Party.... The 20th-century party system worked because the parties of that era were qualitatively different. Rauch's proposal is merely one more in the latest of a series of well-intentioned but doomed plans to bring back a world that can never be restored." -- CW
Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "An internal investigation by the Marine Corps has concluded that for more than 70 years it wrongly identified one of the men in the iconic photograph of the flag being raised over Iwo Jima during one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. The inquiry found that a private first class named Harold Schultz was one of the six men in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph. And it determined that a Navy hospital corpsman, John Bradley, whose son wrote a best-selling book about his father's role in the flag-raising that was made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood, was not actually in the image.... The investigation was opened in response to questions raised last year by producers working on a documentary, 'The Unknown Flag Raiser of Iwo Jima,' which will air July 3 on the Smithsonian Channel, in what was only the latest controversy about the photograph."
The Consequences of Cops' Incompetence. Paul Wagner of Fox "News" Washington, D.C.: "A review is underway at the District's Pre-Trial Services agency after a GPS monitoring device was incorrectly placed on a man's prosthetic leg. That man, 34-year-old Quincy Green, took off his leg and committed a murder. Dana Hamilton was shot to death on Southern Avenue last month and police had no suspects for six days until someone dropped a dime on Green. He was fitted with the GPS device after he had been arrested for carrying a pistol without a license." Via New York's Daily Intelligencer, whose headline is "Short Story We Wrote in Middle School Comes True." -- CW
Presidential Race
Neil Irwin of the New York Times: "In an economic policy speech on Wednesday, Hillary Clinton gave this message: I alone am the candidate who knows how to turn those underlying frustrations into actual policies that might make things better. She offered herself as someone who would not merely vent voters&' anger, but respond to that anger by pulling the levers of the federal bureaucracy and creating legislation that can be scored by the Congressional Budget Office and just maybe pass a Senate committee.... This carefully rolled-out speech suggests she seeks to run not by boasting of what has gone right in the economy under President Obama, but as a fixer who can more successfully deal with the things that are still broken." -- CW ...
... Jim Tankersley of the Washington Post interviews Hillary Clinton, who discusses why people might want to vote for Donald Trump. CW: If you read Leon Wieseltier's essay, linked below -- or even if you don't -- you'll see that Clinton puts the cart before the horse, which I suppose is a necessary political feint. In fact, Trump didn't create all those bigots; he was the bigoted candidate they were waiting for.
Michael Biesecker & Ted Bridis of the AP: "State Department staffers wrestled for weeks in December 2010 over a serious technical problem that affected emails from then-Secretary Hillary Clinton's home email server, causing them to temporarily disable security features on the government's own systems, according to emails released Wednesday." -- CW
Katherine Krueger of TPM: "Brent Scowcroft, a national security adviser to former Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign for the White House on Wednesday." -- CW
Yamiche Alcindor of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders came one step closer to accepting defeat on Wednesday, telling C-SPAN in an hourlong interview that he most likely would not be the Democratic presidential nominee.... 'It doesn't appear that I'm going to be the nominee, so I'm not going to be determining the scope of the convention,' Mr. Sanders said, adding that he has reached no agreement to endorse Mrs. Clinton but has been negotiating with her campaign. 'What our job is now is to have her listen to what millions of people in this country who supported me want to see happen. We'll see how that evolves.'" CW: I guess this places Bernie on the cusp of the seventh, and last, stage of grief.
Here's Donald Trump Being Presidential in a "Professionalized Presentation." Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "In a 41-minute speech seeking to build his case against ... [Hillary Clinton] by labeling her a 'world-class liar,' Mr. Trump moved to soothe concerns among Republicans alarmed by gaping self-inflicted wounds.... He said Mrs. Clinton would not create jobs, portraying her as a scandal-tarnished former secretary of state who 'may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency.'... His new, more sober approach was undercut by factual inaccuracies and embellishments, as well as flimsy claims -- at one point, Mr. Trump suggested that Mrs. Clinton was probably the victim of blackmail from Chinese hackers who gained access to her email account while she was the secretary of state." -- CW ...
... Michael Barbaro & other NYT reporters attempt to fact-check Trump's speech, which is hard to do since a lot of his claims are "suspicions" & promises. -- CW ...
... ** The AP's fact-check, by Bradley Klapper & Jim Drinkard, is even more devastating: "Donald Trump's fierce denunciation of Hillary Clinton on Wednesday was rife with distortion. He accused Clinton of announcing a withdrawal from Iraq that wasn't on her watch, pulled numbers out of nowhere on her plan for refugees and went beyond the established facts behind the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya in stating starkly that she 'left him there to die.' In doing so, he assigned her far more influence in the world than she exercised as secretary of state." CW: Why, you might think a "professionalized presentation" full of crap is still a load of crap. ...
... Dana Milbank: "Trump's volume of disinformation is so heavy that even the nimblest fact-checker can't keep pace. And that's no accident: In Trump's dystopia, things are so bad -- so utterly and desperately awful -- that no allegation, no matter how sinister, seems implausible to his followers." -- CW ...
... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: "One problem, which Clinton supporters would be best to be upfront about, is that the Clintons have given Trump some raw materials, however unsteady the structures that he builds from them may be." -- CW ...
... AND Michelle Goldberg of Slate: "Donald Trump's Wednesday morning speech about Hillary Clinton's record is probably the most unnervingly effective one he has ever given.... Like all skillful demagoguery, Trump's speech on Wednesday interwove truth and falsehood into a plausible-seeming picture meant to reinforce listeners' underlying beliefs." -- CW
CW: The Washington Post today is A Major Symphony in Trump-Bashing. Maybe Trump's banishing the Post from his road trips was not his best idea. Remember that if you aren't a Post subscriber, you can open a private window to read all the stories. The Post has a 5-click limit, so you'll have to open more than one!
GOP consultant Michael Murphy, in a Washington Post op-ed: "Forget, for a moment, all of Trump's epic character flaws. A new question has seized the campaign: Can the self-proclaimed world-class business wizard actually manage anything? His campaign's spiral into collapse proves he cannot." Murphy counts the ways. -- CW
He was a loudmouth bully. -- Steve Nachtigall, a neighbor, on little Donny Trump
When that kid was 10, even then he was a little shit. -- Charles Walker, former teacher
... Always an Asshole. Paul Schwartzman & Michael Miller in the Washington Post: "Long before he attained vast wealth and far-reaching fame, Donald J. Trump left an indelible impression in the prosperous Queens neighborhood where he evolved from a mischievous, incorrigible boy into a swaggering young man. He was Trump in miniature, an embryonic version of the bombastic, flamboyant candidate..., more than three dozen of his childhood friends, classmates and neighbors said in interviews.... In school, he misbehaved so often that his initials became his friends' shorthand for detention.... Struck with a broomstick during a fight [at the military academy to which his family banished him], he tried to push a fellow cadet out a second-floor window, only to be thwarted when two other students intervened." From the book Trump Revealed, by Post reporters Michael Kranish & Marc Fisher "in a collaboration with more than two dozen Post reporters, researchers and editors." -- CW
... Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "When Donald Trump arrives this weekend at the golf course he built on the rugged dunes of ... [Balmedie, Scotland], he will celebrate it as an example of his international business success.... He has pointed to it as a precursor to his bid for the U.S. presidency. But to many people in Scotland, his course here has been a failure. Over the past decade, Trump has battled with homeowners, elbowed his way through the planning process, shattered relationships with elected leaders and sued the Scottish government. On top of that, he has yet to fulfill the lofty promises he made. Trump has also reported to Scottish authorities that he lost millions of dollars on the project -- even as he claims on U.S. presidential disclosure forms that the course has been highly profitable." -- CW
During a dispute over property lines, workers ripped out a fence near the home of David and Moira Milne, who live in a converted coast-guard station on a hill above the golf course. The Trump workers installed their own fence -- and then sent the Milnes a bill for it.... Trump's workers also planted a row of trees that blocked the Milnes' view of the sea. When the first batch died, the workers ripped them out and planted a second. (Emphasis added.)
... Trailer for the documentary film "You've Been Trumped." YouTube has a pirated copy of the full film; you can also buy it on YouTube for $2.99:
Mary Jordan & Jose DelReal of the Washington Post: "One trademark of the most unconventional campaign in modern history is that members of Trump's family -- who have virtually no political experience -- are so deeply involved in his campaign that they often act as gatekeepers and strategists. Their influence was clear this week when Trump decided to fire his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, after his adult children and [Ivanka's husband Jared] Kushner met with him on Father's Day at a Trump golf course in New Jersey. Kushner ... and Donald Trump's three oldest children are in frequent contact with Republican National Committee officials, who have come to expect at least one of them at campaign meetings. Family members are involved in drafting speeches, messaging and policy." -- CW
Constant Weader: As a demonstration of how routinely horrible the Trump campaign is, not a single person commented yesterday on the campaign's throwing a black GOP official out of a Trump meet-and-greet. If Mitt Romney's campaign had done something like that, it would have been a "47 percent"-level story. Romney would have had to go on an apology tour of black churches & his running-mate Paul Ryan would have been forced to pretend to do dishes at a soup kitchen that hosted mostly "urban people." Look, we still remember Rick Santorum for his "blah" people remark nearly as much as for santorum.com, and Santorum wasn't even the nominee. But Trump? Nada. Not even a blip.
** Leon Wieseltier, in a Washington Post op-ed: "The people who support the white working class have been voting for Bernie Sanders, but the white working class has been voting for Donald Trump. He would be nowhere, and we would not be facing a grave historical crisis, without the enthusiasm of these despairing and deluded millions.... These downtrodden demand sympathy, and they deserve sympathy, but they do not give sympathy. They kindle, in the myopia of their pain, to racism and nativism and xenophobia and misogyny and homophobia and anti-Semitism." This a long piece, in some respects self-contradictory, but still well-worth reading. Thanks to Patrick for the link. -- CW
Senate Race
Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said Wednesday that he would run for re-election, abandoning plans to pursue a more lucrative career in the private sector and jolting a competitive race that is crucial to Democrats' plans to retake control of the Senate. Mr. Rubio, 45, who had told associates of his reluctance to give up the high profile and political power that a Senate seat offers, will enter the race with the formidable advantages of incumbency, national name recognition and strong ties to the Republican Party's donor base. But he faces numerous hurdles, the most difficult of which may be his history of talking down the Senate as unfulfilling and frustrating at times." -- CW ...
... OR, as New York's Daily Intelligencer put it, "After proving he was terrible at campaigning, repeatedly bashing the Senate, and talking about seemingly nothing other than how much he hated being a senator, Marco Rubio has made the obvious choice to run for his old Senate seat. Rubio had promised -- with relief so palpable we could practically hear his blood pressure drop -- that he would join the private sector, but we guess once you get a taste of life on the campaign trail it can be hard to give it up. That, and it was looking pretty likely a Democrat was going to take his seat in November." -- CW ...
... Good News for Marco, Bad News for America. Alex Leary of the Tampa Bay Times: "All seven [modern-day U.S. senators who ran for re-election to the Senate after losing their parties' presidential primaries] were able to rebound from their unsuccessful presidential runs with convincing double-digit general election wins." CW: Looks like running for president gives these guys an aura of "seriousness." If history serves, we'll have to assume that voters find Little Marco (& Li'l Randy) to be "serious."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Claire Phipps of the Guardian: "Polling stations have opened across the United Kingdom on Thursday morning after a closely-fought referendum campaign [on Brexit] that neither side is confident enough to call." The Guardian's liveblog is here. -- CW
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Reader Comments (13)
LEWIS AND CLARK'S GREAT SIT-IN
Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) went to John Lewis D-GA) with her idea of standing up to the Republicans by sitting down. This display by the House Democrats was dramatic and effective in its loud message of finally doing something about gun control. "All we are asking for is a vote"–––"We will not be silent any more."
But for all it's bravado and determination the operation yielded nary a vote, at least as to this writing. What will happen after the break? Can the Speaker rally round his troops to at least bring a vote to the floor? Will he be accosted by an irate someone who lost their loved one to a gun crime during the fourth of July bratwurst feast in Wisconsin? After all he claimed he changed his mind on his "makers and takers" after an encounter with someone at a brat fry who told him he was full of crap about that. At least that's the story he told.
And speaking of stories: Suddenly there is a plethora of pathetic tales about the King as a youth––so we can conclude he was out of control then as he is out of control now. Such a surprise! All this uncovering has been too long left covered but I guess if you play dirty with the WashPo, they is gonna play dirty with you. I saw the film "You've Been Trumped" last year. The devastation many people suffered because of that damn golf course is a theme running through the film.
To think once again that this man is this close (fingers inches apart) to becoming the President of this country is surely a piece of fiction and we'll all laugh at its improbability. Won't we?
Thanks so much to Patrick for the link to Leon Wieseltier's long, but most engaging piece. I love that he began by citing "The Deerhunter," a film I've seen many times that is one of the most emotionally haunting films ever made and the theme music, Cavatina, adds to its powerful stirring effect. Leon's connection to the kind of life portrayed in that small town that has now disappeared is exactly right, although the film's connection to the devastating effects was the Vietnam War.
"Hurt people, hurt people..." I found Leon's assessment of our ailing population along with his thorough discussion of imagination, empathy, and reasons for many to seek a savior making a lot of sense. He once wrote in TNR:
"A democracy imposes an extraordinary intellectual responsibility upon ordinary people. Our system is finally determined by what our citizenry thinks. This is thrilling and this is terrifying."
Dear Dahlia: Accidentally
Agree that the Leon Wieseltier piece is worth the time, though as Marie suggests, it's a bit incoherent.
But so is the state of our nation and hence our politics, and that incoherence may be the engine of Trump's appeal. Trump is successfully picking off segments of the population that reason would say should not fit together, but then in an inchoate society, not much is about reason, is it?
I see that while I was putting this together PD provided a quotation from Mr. W. from another source that speaks directly to what I just wrote. To repeat it:
"A democracy imposes an extraordinary intellectual responsibility upon ordinary people. Our system is finally determined by what our citizenry thinks. This is thrilling and this is terrifying."
Today, more terrifying than thrilling, I'd say, since we seem to be feeling (but certainly not for others) and believing a whole bunch and not thinking much.
Some numbers that support much of what Wieseltier says can be found in a short piece in a recent NYReview. They may be just numbers, but back to that feeling thing again, their shudder quotient is high.
www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/06/23/why-trump-was-inevitable/
Thanks, Patrick, for the contribution.
In this morning's NYTimes Edsall provided a decent summary of the State of Trump until the end of the piece, when IMHO he dribbles into drivel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/opinion/campaign-stops/how-low-can-the-gop-go.html?
Go House Dems!! High fkg time we started to fight back. We have both the moral and the legal high ground and Ryan's Confeds are just going to end up looking like the venal amoral asshats that they are (looking at you Louie G!)
The House Democratic chant should have been:
"Gimmee the bribe - F**k America"
This all about the NRA money, absolutely nothing else matters.
Comedian Andy Borowitz posted this on Facebook. Want to guess the name of the 'terror group'?
Well-financed Terror Group Holds Three Hundred Million People Hostage
Hint: 3 letters
Trump's speech yesterday wasn't notable for me because of his attempt to be "presidential" or what he said about Hillary Clinton. It was hilarious. His voice changes like on helium, his word comprehension delays his delivery, and depending on which teleprompter he's looking at, he uses that corresponding hand to gesture. Rachel had a clip last night. It was very, very funny.
@Nancy: I write "accidentally" but say "accidently." Webster gives "accidently" as a second spelling.
Marie
Charges made by Donald Trump on the character of Hillary Clinton point out how easy it is to make explosive assertions that go largely unchallenged. The moniker "Crooked Hillary" and the charges of her being the "most corrupt person ever seeking the presidency" are rich coming from a guy who made a good deal of his money working with the Mafia and who learned his brand of hardball at the feet of one of Organized Crime's favorite mouthpieces, Roy Cohn.
Trump lambastes Clinton because the Clinton Foundation has taken money from the Sultan of Brunei (a decision not without its own problems, especially if you're a foundation working the human rights beat) but from that concludes that Clinton would therefore obviously be beholden to certain unpleasant foreign governments as president, a questionable charge given that the money went to the foundation and not to Clinton herself.
But what is never brought up is the fact that Trump, as president, could be subject to influence from a much closer set of bad guys, Organized Crime, the folks who were contracted to build Trump Tower and plenty of other Trump projects, including Trump's bankrupt casino in Atlantic City. And unlike Brunei's money going to a foundation, Trump was the direct beneficiary of his agreeing to mob demands.
Trump has paid to play many times before and has had no problem doing so. Why would that modus operandi completely cease just because his new address was 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
Every day brings a new low. Around here we like to wail about the loss of journalism, and here's another nail in its coffin:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/06/corey-lewandowski-to-join-cnn-224733
CNN gets him "exclusively". I imagine that is necessary, because I would bet a lot that Trump gave him a severance payoff and a "no disparagement" agreement.
So CNN is hiring a commentator who can't say anything negative about the guy he'll be commenting on.
I forget ,,, what's the first oldest profession?
..."But what is never brought up is the fact that Trump, as president, could be subject to influence from a much closer set of bad guys, Organized Crime, the folks who were contracted to build Trump Tower and plenty of other Trump projects, including Trump's bankrupt casino in Atlantic City..."
If for no other reason: REMEMBER THE SUPREMES!