Flashback: The Hard Work and Sacrifices of Donald Trump

by Nomad

Let's take a look back twelve years to the time when the Khan family lost their son. What kind of sacrifices was Trump making at that time? What kind of hard work was he actually doing?

When Muslim-American Khizr Khan, father of the dead US serviceman, spoke speech at the DNC, he claimed that Republican nominee Donald Trump had made no sacrifices for his country.

Trump indignantly claimed that this was grossly inaccurate. He had made a lot of sacrifices.

He told an interviewer: 

"I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard."

Out of curiosity, I decided to go back to the spring of 2004. when US Army Captain Humayun Khan was killed in Iraq. What heroic and sacrificial things was the real estate mogul doing around this time?

Two months before Khan was killed, Trump was indeed working hard. There's no question about that. After being the butt of jokes for some long, Trump agreed to host a   Saturday Night Live show.

In one sketch Trump appears on stage, wearing a lemon colored shirt and a banana
colored tie. He dad-danced with SNL players dressed in chicken costumes.
A clip of this particular sketch was not included in the DVD box set, but here are some screen captures. 

Not too surprisingly, he seems to be enjoying the attention and applause.  

This must have about the same time (May 9) that Capt. Khan from Iraq called his mother back home for Mother’s Day. Ghazala Khan would later tell a Washington Post reporter

"Whenever I talked to him, I started to cry..He always said to me, 'Don't worry. I'm safe.' "

It was to be the last time she spoke to her 27-year-old son.

United We Stand: The Tragic Story of Marine Jose Gutierrez vs. Trump's Hate-filled Rhetoric

by Nomad

Let us take a moment to remember a fallen hero, Marine Jose Gutierrez. His story is more than enough to balance all of the hateful rhetoric we have heard about illegal immigrants from Donald Trump.

For many who watched the Democratic National Convention this week, the moment that Khizr and Ghazala Khan told the story of their son – a fallen Muslim U.S. soldier - was the ultimate takedown of the Republican nominee Donald Trump. 

Their son was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

Khan said:

“Hillary Clinton was right when she called my son the best of America. If it was up to Donald Trump, he never would have been in America. Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims. He disrespects other minorities, women, judges, and even his own party leadership. Donald Trump loves to build walls and ban us from this country.”

As most of us know, Trump has vowed to construct a wall along the US Southern border because Mexico (and presumably all of the countries south of that border) is allowing "people that have lots of problems" including rapists, drug runners, and other criminals to come to America. 

He compared this mass migration as "a tremendous infectious disease..pouring across the border." 

Many of his supporters have accepted this attempt at dehumanization as an undeniable truth, which pits "us" (native -born Americans) against "them," (the immigrant class.) As bombastic as it might seem, Trump's opinion, in fact, represents (more or less) the accepted position of the Republican party. 

An Orphan, A Street Child, and a Survivor

Standing with his wife on stage, Khizr Khan looked into the camera and asked Mr. Trump directly:

"Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending America — you will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities."

Like the story of Humayun S.M. Khan, the tragic story of Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez also deserves our attention. Twenty-two year old Gutierrez earned the distinction of being one of the first US soldiers to die in the Iraq war.

That distinction is, however, only half of the story. 

In fact, the Guatemala-born Gutierrez was not yet an American citizen at the time of his death. And so, you will not find his grave in Arlington Cemetary. 

Putin and Trump's Sippenhaft Solution: Terrorizing the Innocent in the Name of Defeating Terrorism

by Nomad

Trump's solution for defeating terrorism may sound like a "get-tough" policy. In fact, it's merely a war crime regularly used by fascists. Still worse, it plays into the hands of our enemies.

Mainly as a result of his entertainment value, candidate Donald Trump was able to say a lot of unpresidential things during the primaries. And this went largely unchallenged by the bewildered and negligent news media.

A lot of things Trump bellowed flew under the radar. The nuttiness was coming at us fast and furious. There were quite a few things that Trump said that should have made intelligent people shudder. We can dismiss the majority of these things as Trump's usual morass and an attempt to satisfy his seemingly-insatiable need for attention. 

However, a few of his remarks demand a closer inspection because they are were used to underpin some of his "solutions" to American's challenges. 

How Trump would Deal with Terrorism

One of Trump's remarks made during the interview at Fox News t had to do with how he (personally) would defeat terrorism. 

The problem with America's war on terrorism, according to Donald, was that we were attempting to wage a "politically correct war." What was needed was a more robust approach.  Namely, when it came to dealing with terrorists, "you have to take out their families. "

Presumably, he wasn't referring to taking out the relatives to dinner in lower Manhattan followed a Broadway show. The term, "take out," generally, means in military parlance "to kill."

The reaction to this remarks by the top brass in the US military was immediate and categorical. General Michael Hayden, a retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the National Security Agency, stated 

"Trump’s pledge to kill family members as being among his most troubling campaign statements.

Hayden added that the military would refuse to follow illegal orders such as the intentional killing of terrorists’ families. 

"If he were to order that once in government, the American armed forces would refuse to act..You are required not to follow an unlawful order.That would be in violation of all the international laws of armed conflict.”

In response to Hayden, Trump wasn't overly concerned. Au contraire, Trump said, as Commander in Chief he would see to it that his orders were followed.

“They won’t refuse, they’re not going to refuse me — believe me.”

Republican Scammer: Here's the Real Reason Why Donald Trump is Talking About Putting Clinton in Jail

by Nomad

The Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump came out swinging wildly in every direction last week. His comments about a federal judge and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton raised a lot of eyebrows, even Republican eyebrows.
Could an investigation in a fraud case involving the defunct Trump University may be one of the reasons for his unhinged threats and verbal attacks?

Just the other day, Trump told his supporters at a rally in San Jose, California that if he is elected he suggested that he would direct his attorney general to investigate her if Clinton is not indicted over her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state email use.

The Republican nominee-to-be has not only decided to play the role of prosecutor but of judge as well. The crowd cheered as he said:

"Folks, honestly, she's guilty as hell."

Of course, a speech isn't an interview so nobody in the media- if they had cared to- could ask Trump exactly what crime she was actually guilty of.

"I will say this, Hillary Clinton has got to go to jail."

 He also added:

"Five years' statute of limitations, if I win. Everything is going to be fair but I'm sure the attorney general will take a very good look at it."

The threat to imprison political rival whom Trump sees as an obstacle to his ambition should be taken very serious as an indicator of what kind of president Donald Trump would make.

Why America's Love Affair with Rule-Breaking Leaders Provided an Open Door for Trump

by Nomad

A recent poll revealed an interesting and somewhat disturbing trend in politics. When it comes to leadership, nearly half of the country would be happy with a president that breaks rules. And guess whose supporters overwhelming uphold that idea that rules and laws are for losers? 

Breaking Rules for the Greater Good

Yesterday, I stumbled across some interesting bit of information from one of the thousand of polls. 

According to a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, nearly half of Americans (45%) think that because things in the US have gone so far off the rails, the nation needs a leader who's willing to break some rules to put things in order. Slightly more than half of the respondents (51%) disagreed.  

If you think about it, it's really a frightening idea.

But what does it mean "to break the rules"? Does this mean voters think a leader must break laws too? Since laws are rules, that is the implication. And because the Constitution is the foundation of legal powers of the government, does it mean that half of the country would elect a leader that would violate the Constitution? 

And since the Supreme Court is the official final arbitrator of how the Constitution is applied, does this mean that 45% of the nation believes a president should listen to the high court decisions only when he agrees with it? Suddenly the entire question of the rule of law is called into question. All of our international treaties and nation-to-nation relationships are left to the whims of a leader who likes to shake things up and be "unpredictable." 

Three Ways Clinton Could Go Down in History as the Person who Handed the Presidency to Trump

by Nomad

Philip Wallace, writing for the Washington Post Weekly, offers some words of caution for Clinton supporters who might believe they have the election in the bag.
This has been an election filled with mistaken assumptions. Nothing can be assumed, especially at this point. There are, Wallace observes, three ways that Trump could win the election. 

When Racism is Just a Word

By overestimating the negative reaction to Trump's bigotry and misogynist remarks Clinton could be miscalculating the mood of the nation.

   

People care most about bigotry most if it translates into harmful acts, says Wallace. In this way, allegations that Trump's remarks are injurious or directly related to discrimination (or violence) could have an impact.

Otherwise, the voting public is much more likely to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, and believe his  heartfelt declaration that there is no hatred in his heart." There are more people who are willing to dismiss Trump's thoughtless and tacit approval of racism than you might think.

"More fundamentally, Trump's chosen idiom is us-verses-them xenophobia, not racism. The "us" part invites "regular" Americans to feel themselves as a people, in large part by identifying and rejecting the elites' cosmopolitanism as poisonous to our national fiber. That way of thinking doesn't have to be racial at all.

All About Newt: Trump Considers Former House Speaker Gingrich as Running Mate

by Nomad

According to the latest rumors, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is at the top of Donald Trump's running mate list.  One can see why Trump would be attracted to a person like Gingrich and yet, once you get past the Republican revisionist whitewash of his history, Gingrich is and has always been one hot mess.

The Ted Cruz of the 1990s

If they can do nothing else, Republicans are extraordinarily good at revising the history record and rehabilitating images. It's something they have to be good at, I suppose. Newt Gingrich is a case in point. Today the Far Right seems to idolize Gingrich as some kind of senior statesman.

His opinion is valued as though his words were made of honey. It was a very different story back in the 1990s. As Speaker of the House, Gingrich was the Ted Cruz of his day and was never one to let his conscience distract him from a political opportunity.  

Hypocrisy and politics generally go hand in hand, however, Gingrich was something of a phenomenon and new records were set for deceit and dissemblance. 

For instance, even while calling for President Clinton's impeachment for carrying on a tryst in the Oval Office, Newt himself was allegedly engaged in an affair with a Congressional aide. (Today he makes the fine distinction that the president had lied under oath. Fortunately, Gingrich was never asked about his affairs under oath.)

Karma Teaches Former Anti-Clinton Crusader and Baylor President Ken Starr a Lesson

by Nomad

In the late 1990s, Ken Starr was a name on everybody's lips. This was the independent prosecutor whom the Republicans hoped would derail the Clinton presidency.
Today, as president of Baylor University, Starr has been struggling to deal with criticism over the university's handling of a series of rape allegations.

Runaway Investigations

As a walking footnote to history, Kenneth Starr was once a name of everybody's lips. He was portrayed by the Far Right as a heroic independent prosecutor determined to expose all of the scandals of the Clinton administration. Others claimed that he was a commissioned by the Republican party with attempting to destroy the credibility of the president, and to provide the basis for the impeachment of President Clinton. Suffice to say, for awhile, he was a controversial figure. 

Starr was head of what was in some ways a runaway investigation. Initially, Starr was appointed to investigate the suicide death of deputy White House counsel Vince Foster.

After three years, Starr made the disappointing discovery that the severely depressed Foster had killed himself, and was not the victim of foul play. This reaffirmed previous findings.
The Republicans were not ready to call it quits.

When that line of questioning proved to fruitless, the investigation was expanded to include the Whitewater real estate investments of Bill Clinton. That too reached a dead end.
In December 1997, Starr shut down the Whitewater investigation because of insufficient evidence.

That inquiry was revived one more time. in January 1998 to include an extramarital affair that Bill Clinton had with Monica Lewinsky. 

Harrassment and Bullying 

The justification for this expansion was the allegation that the president had engaged in a form of workplace sexual harrassment. The idea that this was a personal matter between two people made no difference whosoever to Starr's case. 

Donald Trump and the Moment Conservatives Have Been Dreading

by Nomad

After years of divisive politics, Republicans are now reaping what they have sowed in the form of their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump. 

The Moment Has Come

Well, ladies and gentlemen, here we are. 

We have finally arrived at the moment. The moment when all of the Republican candidates have been vanquished. The moment many in the party have feared when nothing whatsoever stands between billionaire Donald Trump and the nomination. The road thus far has revealed the true character of the man, his pettiness, superficiality, his ugly bigotry and lack of judgment. 

All of the things that would in any normal election have delivered him into the rubbish heap of US political history.

(This was once, after all, the same nation that disqualified a candidate because of an overzealous war-whoop during the primaries made him look too too ridiculous.)  

Mainstream media has a lot to answer for in allowing this strange reality-tv show character to rise to the top. A lot of people should be held responsible. 

In terms of what kind of president he would be, what he represents and what he believes in, Trump has been vague, bereft of both specifics and sense. Indirectly, however, he has given us a general idea of the mentality.
Carpet-bombing ISIS may sound tough but it is a very stupid idea. Building a wall is neither a practical, nor a plausible solution to illegal immigration.  

Yet, with the state of American journalism today, right wing voters were encouraged, persuaded to take the man seriously. When it came to asking difficult questions, there's always been a bias between the two parties. Palin could be asked what newspapers she read and her party could condemn the interviewer as engaging in "gotcha" journalism.
Thanks to the mainstream media, low-information politicians were suitably paired with low-information voters who thought education and intelligence were products of elitism. 

Ted and Carly: Just Think About That

by Nomad

A World on the Brink? Some Essential Questions for Serious People in Very Serious Times

by Nomad

With the US elections months away, and problems around the world causing many to wonder and worry, it's time we asked a few crucial questions about where we are headed.

The other day, the UK Guardian had a not-so-cheerful op-ed piece that is worth noting. 

In the piece, entitled Is The World Drifting Towards Disaster? Maybe, writer Michael White expresses a gloomy fear that things seem to be headed towards something as dark as anything we have yet seen

A lot of bad things are coalescing all over the place and no one seems to be in charge. A combination of opportunist ambition, of myriad weaknesses, systemic and personal, and of profound global power shifts put us all in danger.

We have been here before.

You must have read with alarm, or watched flickering black and white newsreels, how imperial Europe, rich and complacent, drifted towards fatal civil war in 1914. Schoolchildren are taught how 25 years later it all happened again, this time after self-deluding efforts to duck unpleasant realities ended in Hitler’s war.

“How could they be so blind?” we wonder as we read the latest history book or watch those TV documentaries.

Yet look at us.

A perfunctory tour of our troubled world backs up White's observation. 

Leader or Party Hack? How Marco Rubio's Support for Veterans took a Back Seat to Budget Austerity

by Nomad

With the Alabama primary approaching, Candidate Rubio suddenly remembered US veterans. He makes a lot of fine promises and may have fooled a few people. But let's take a look at his record when it comes to supporting the troops.

Rubio's Recruits

In the lead-up to Alabama's March 1 primary, Republican Candidate Marco Rubio is pulling out his big guns in an attempt to recruit Alabama veterans. He will soon roll out the unimaginatively entitled "Alabama Veterans for Marco" according to a local paper.

Said a regional spokesman for the Rubio campaign:

"Our campaign is honored to have earned the support of these brave individuals who selflessly served our country...Throughout this campaign, Marco has not only highlighted what he has done on behalf of veterans, but stressed that we must improve the care that we offer them. We are proud that these heroic service-members will be a part of Marco's team to spread that message across Alabama."

Howard Koplowitz, writing for AL.com, pointed out that Rubio has enlisted a lot of brass too. Twenty-one Alabama veterans are reporting for duty, he writes, to boost Marco Rubio's presidential campaign.  

One group member and chairman of the group,  Marine Cpl. Don Fisher of Montgomery, cited Rubio's promise to reform the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) which has come under fire for the poor state of its hospitals.

However, one website, CorrecttheRecord, calls into question the image of Rubio as a defender of American veterans. When it comes to Republicans in the Senate, Rubio has been much more of a follower than a leader. And overall, the GOP's record on support for veterans isn't exactly a pretty thing to behold. 

VA Reform or Sell-Off?

When it came to Rubio's campaign promises to reform the VA, there's more than meets the eye. What he seems to be advocating is a form of privatization of the VA and then, turning around and calling it reform.

As often happens in Washington, it is quite  possible to reform an agency without improving it and it is possible to make matters worse. 

Here's Why Mitch McConnell's Blanket Rejection of all SCOTUS Nominees is such a Dangerous Gamble

by Nomad

The decision by Senate Majority Leader McConnell to block each and every nominee submitted by President Obama could be a very dangerous misjudgment with devastating consequences in November. 

Leader of the Majority in the Senate Mitch McConnell's announcement to stall any SCOTUS candidate President Obama put forward came hours after the news of Justice Scalia's death. McConnell claimed that the matter could not too important to be decided in an election year.

Under McConnell's order, anybody nominated by President Barack will not succeed Justice Antonin Scalia. The confirmation process will be stalled until nearly a year from now after a new president is sworn in. As reported by USAToday, Mcconnell said:

"The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President." 

Democrats pointed out that the American people already had a voice in the selection. It was called the Senate. Their representatives in Congress- democratically-elected- have been designated by the Constitution to act as a Vox populi. Surely McConnell knows his own job description.

Borrowing from Obama: Marco Rubio's Not-So-Victorious Victory Speech

by Nomad

If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then Marco Rubio's speech is an homage to President Obama.

As we know, Barack Obama has long been the target of conservatives for the last 8 years. He has been castigated by the Republicans every step of the way. 

And yet, when it comes to campaigning and political style, at least, one of the candidates must secretly admire Obama. 

AddictingInfo has an interesting scoop about Republican candidate and Senator Marco Rubio's Iowa "victory" speech. Coming in third is a victory in the Republican party. Rubio told his cheering supporters;

“So this is the moment they said would never happen. For months, for months they told us we had no chance. For months they told us because we offer too much optimism in a time of anger, we had no chance. For months they told us because we didn’t have the right endorsements or the right political connections, we had no chance. They told me that we have no chance because my hair wasn’t gray enough and my boots were too high.”

Somebody should have told him that the bronze medal is a poor substitute for the gold one.
And yet, it sounded so familiar.

Infiltration: How Karl Rove Tactics in Liberal Social Media are Attempting to Divide and Conquer

by Nomad

Would it really surprise you if the Republicans engaged in "dirty tricks" to try to win the election? It shouldn't. They have already announced the intention to infiltrate liberal sites and demoralize liberal voters.

Historian Will Durant once wrote:

The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.

Probably nothing could better explain the success of the conservative wing of the Republican party than that sentence. For years, the GOP has allowed very little dissent among its ranks. The party motto has been "you are either with us or against us" since the heady days of the so-called Reagan revolution. 

Of late, this situation has been turned on its head. From a political strategist's point of view, the situation could hardly be more advantageous for the Left. Or at least, you'd think so.

The Ignored Warning

One man earlier on forewarned about this Republican problem.
His name was Karl Rove.
Forty years of Republican "success" was actually based in large part on Democratic failure, Rove said. But it could easily work in the opposite direction. He added this:

"But it is also a cautionary tale of what happens to a dominant party — in this case, the Democrat Party —  when its thinking becomes ossified; when its energy begins to drain; when an entitlement mentality takes over; and when political power becomes an end in itself rather than a mean to achieve the common goal."

In spite of Rove's warning, and largely under his command, the GOP fell into the very trap he warned about. 

Candidate Trump and the Last Hurrah of the White Republican Voter

by Nomad

The GOP has long ignored the warnings and continued to court a shrinking audience of angry white voters. Indeed, his rise to the top of the Republican party may just spell the end of hopes for ever winning presidential elections.

Writing for the website Salon, Heather "Digby" Parton has analyzed the present confused political situation in an op-ed piece and came to interesting conclusions about what's really going on. 

Pointing out that Obama won reelection by getting the smallest share of white voters of any presidential candidate in history, Parton suggests that this is a sign of the marginalization of the white vote. And that's something that's  very likely to continue whether Republican candidates recognize it or not. 

Ideological Reinforcement of Like-Minded People

The Republican establishment may think that simply by im­prov­ing turnout they can take back the White House. With Trump at the helm, there is not much chance for much-needed reform of the GOP agenda. In short, Trump is taking the party to a place where it will not survive. 

Not a party for the entire country but a party with a country club mentality with an ever-shrinking membership.

With GOP in Complete Disarray, Trump Offers Establishment Some Difficult Choices

by Nomad

The results from the last Republican debate are in and it must have a lot of people in the Republican party extremely jittery. And they really ought to be.

After the sixth debate, Trump is still holding his commanding position, the reins of Republican Party power seem to be in his hands and he isn't going anywhere.  

MarketWatch reports:

The political establishment — in places like New York, Washington and Los Angeles — has been waiting for months for the Trump movement to flame out of its own accord. In the past few weeks they have finally woken up to the shock that this may not happen.

The choices for the ruling elite (whose authority Trump seems to be directly challenging) are stark. Either take Donald Trump with all his political warts, all of his toxic rhetoric and his inane policies or take a 50-50% risk that he will walk away and escort his supporters over to his third party. 

Even the Best Case Isn't So Terrific

According to one source, all this uncertainty and instability is having a negative effect on Wall Street. While blaming the decline in stocks on the political confusion might seem like a stretch, there is a bit of logic to that claim.

Above all else, Wall Street likes certainty and predictability. It's their security blanket and, at this point, things, especially in the Republican Party, could hardly be anymore uncertain. Here are two possible outcomes and both are fairly awful for investors. 

Even in Wall Street’s best-case scenario, the parties will only pick establishment candidates after months of bruising primary battles. In a worst-case scenario (for investors, at any rate): They’ll pick one or two heterodox outsiders who will threaten to turn everything upside down.

So, you have the Republican party being led by a rabble-rousing billionaire that cannot be bought and on the other side, there's a competition among the Dems about which candidate can appear more aggressive on Wall Street accountability.

For the Republican Party, the options are fraught with existential danger, namely, an acrimonious split in the GOP that will not be easily mended.
Analysts are looking at the possibility of having an unelectable candidate or an unwinnable campaign. 

"God Told Me So": The Dangerous Delusions of the Religious Republican

by Nomad

It's strange that the typical conservative voter would reject in a courtroom the very thing they openly support in their presidential candidates.

Last week, as reported by local media,  the courts in Cobbs County, Georgia  heard defense of an 18-year-old woman Olivia Nicole Smith. She is accused of the horrific stabbing murder her step-cousin, 17-year-old high school Abbey Hebert. 

According to her testimony, Smith claimed to neighbors, right after the murder, that God had made her do it after she and her cousin smoked marijuana together. She explained that she had "an overwhelming feeling of God coming to her: and that God had disapproved of her behavior.
In response to this imagined judgment, the young woman had an argument with her relative. That argument somehow ended in a butcher knife of murder in the victim's front yard. Prior to this, both victim and accused murderer had been close friends.

The public was justifiably outraged by the sensational crime.   

Of course, it wouldn't be the first time that God (or Satan) has been the alleged accomplice/mastermind of some otherwise inexplicable crime. In fact, it's a pretty common thing.

Astoundingly, in the very same county in Georgia, back in 2008, then 36-year-old Donna Marie Redding told the police that her husband, Gary Dean Parnell, taken the Lord’s name in vain once too many times. 

(For those of you keeping score, that's Commandment Number 3 - taking God's name in vain- while the prohibition on murder is Commandment Number 6.)

Redding's religious sensibilities were utterly offended by all this loose talk, she claimed, and for this reason, Jesus commanded her to shoot her man with a 12-gauge shotgun in the stomach.

Flatline: Why the GOP Has Become a Political Party that Deserves to Die

by Nomad

Is it time to ask whether we are actually witnessing the passing of a political party?

If you are beginning to feel like politics in the US has hit an all time low, you are not alone. 

Mike McCabe has seen the failure of the two-party system close up. 

As the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan watchdog group that specializes in tracking the money in state elections, he has been achingly aware that the Grand Old Party isn't so grand anymore. 

While Progressives have had their share of doubts with the Democrats, the Republican Party could hardly get any more farcical and bizarre than it is at the moment. 

The days of Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower and even Reagan are long gone and what remains is little more than hucksterism, fleecing the 1% and appealing the worst aspects of American culture, such as intolerance, irrational fear, and willful ignorance.  

Cartoon: Trump Playing a Well-Used Fiddle

by Nomad