Dirty Lies: How Donald Trump Suckered Coal Miners to Win the 2016 Election

by Nomad

The story of how Donald Trump lied to coal miners to win an election and continues to lie to them today. 

UnBelievable Promises

All through the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump fired up his crowds with promises to revive the coal mining and restore mining jobs in places like Kentucky and West Virginia. In speech after speech, he pledged to end Obama's attack on the coal industry and in coal country, that's an idiot-proof way to get a standing ovation.

Don't Be Fooled by Donald Trump's Big Fat NAFTA Lie

by Nomad

Throughout his presidential campaign, Donald Trump has condemned Bill Clinton's signing of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

"NAFTA is the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country."

To his roaring audiences, Trump likes to cite this agreement as the main reason why American workers have lost their jobs. President Bill Clinton is the villain, he tells them. And now, his wife is running for president. The horrorof it!

“I’m going tell our NAFTA partners that I intend to immediately renegotiate the terms of that agreement to get a better deal for our workers,”

According to Trump, NAFTA is the culprit for destroying America's manufacturing sector. Today, there are about 12.2 million manufacturing workers, down from 17 million in 1994, according to the Labor Department. As we have seen in another blog post, this claim is extraordinarily misleading (even for Trump.) 

Jan Brewer's Challenge to the Hispanic Voters in Arizona

by Nomad

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.

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. 

What Ought to be Investigated

by Nomad

Gravitas of a Grifter: Why Trump's Art of the Deal is all about the Art of Butt-Kissing and Betrayal

by Nomad

In a recent deposition, Republican Presidential candidate Trump  allowed us a peek at his true nature. It wasn't pretty and reveals a man very different than his supporters see onstage. 

The Two Faces of Trump

As we have come to know, Republican front-runner Donald Trump likes to portray himself as a politically-incorrect kind of guy who says the first thing to comes to his mind. 
If it is childish, irresponsible or just plain racist, then that's who he really is. He's not been groomed and manicured and cultivated like a hot-house orchid. Trump is Trump, and he doesn't give a damn who likes it and who doesn't.

For that, his supporters love him.

His appeal is based primarily on the premise that he may be rough around the edges but he is, at least, honest. If he goes too far sometimes, it is, if nothing else, a step in the right direction, they'll tell you. 
Sure, he may rub a lot of people the wrong way, his supporters say, but he makes good points and gives a voice for angry people who feel forgotten. Trump may be a joke but he isn't a phony, they'll tell you.
If nothing else, Trump's a breath of fresh air and not part of the political game-playing that has made Washington such a despised place. 

However, the problem for Mr. Trump is that this particular persona is really a new innovative, more based on his reality-TV character. The real story, his actual history is radically different.

Rejecting Stagnation: Why a Progressive Ideology is Really What America's All About

by Nomad

In a world impatient for change and for development, what's so wrong about a progressive superpower?

Candidate JEB expressed a complaint commonly heard among the conservatives about the progressive mentality.

The progressive and liberal mindset believes that to every problem there is a Washington, D.C. solution.

Unlike a lot of rubbish endelessly repeated in the Republican ranks, JEB's remark is not entirely untrue. Too often too much faith is put in government to resolve all problems and immediately.

But is the alternative- of doing nothing and ignoring a problem- really any better? 

The Cancer that Ate America?

It strange to hear conservatives use the idea of progress as a kind of insult. Easily outraged Glenn Beck, back when he still had his gig at Fox News, once called JEB's brother and former President George W. Bush a progressive. (The nerve!) 

And yet, George Bush thought of himself as a “compassionate conservative." So perhaps the label is based more on one's perspective.

In the twisted mind of Glenn Beck, progressive ideology is a "cancer that's eating at America" and anybody who might think differently is "evil." Progressives are little better than Nazis, These are things he has actually claimed, at least.

The term progressive is often associated with change of a "radical" kind. As we all know, a radical is a dangerous person. Radicals blow up buildings and call for the overthrow of governments. A radical ideology is one that cannot be argued with. Compromise is not possible with radicals because a radical is not willing to respect anybody with a different opinion.

Of course, what could be more radical a policy than cutting health care for millions of Americans, eliminating environmental regulations that ensure clean air and clean water? What could be more radical than privatizing or cutting Social Security for seniors who depend on this assistance for their survival?
Shutting down the government solely on the basis of a ideological principle seems pretty radical to me. 

Beck wouldn't be the first person on the Right to use the term progressive in such a way. For quite some time now, according to conservative media, a progressive has been a very very bad thing to be.
Yet that view seems to run counter to so many ideas that America was actually built upon.

Privatization of Social Security: What Kind of Security is That?

by Nomad

When it comes to Social Security, the differences between the two parties could hardly be more clear.

 

Let's Compare Clinton's Phony Email "Scandal" and Dick Cheney's Fetish for Secrecy

by Nomad

After searching in vain since in March of last year, wasting time and spending millions, the Republican Party still expects to find something on about Hillary Clinton's emails. They've already admitted the investigation were politically-motivated.
Too bad these tireless and principled investigators were not around when Vice President Dick Cheney was fighting to keep his secrets classified.

Things have a dreadful habit of backfiring for the Republicans. The more they blustered about President Bill Clinton's adultery the higher his approval rating climbed. By and large, the public thought it was a case of too much about too too little. 

It seems like the party has learned absolutely nothing. Take the fruitless email investigation and the search for.. what are they searching for?. Does anybody remember?

We do know how it began.

Investigation Ad Nauseum

The Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee Investigation started out, as we all know, as a search for culpability in the deaths of State Department officials in the Benghazi attacks, which left four dead. 

After two agonizing years (filled with unsupported but damaging leaks to the press) the committee found that the CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees.  (Presumably, that would include the appointed Secretary of State.)

On the Benghazi investigation, more than $3,500,000 was thrown away. That figure exceeds the budget of the entire House Intelligence Committee. and does not include "significant expenditures made by the State Department and Defense Department to find and declassify material requested by the committee or the expense of witness travel for those who work for the government."

A miserable flop of a smear. So, what to do now, they asked? Why not a start a new investigation into Democratic candidate's use of a private email server? With the help of the media, the new so-called scandal investigation dragged on and on.

It didn't go smoothly. 

In October, false accusations by Chairman Trey Gowdy forced the CIA to step in with a rebuttal. 

Gowdy’s accusation was that Secretary Clinton had sent an email containing "some of the most protected information in our intelligence community, the release of which could jeopardize not only national security but human lives.”

Totally untrue. No apology or clarification. The investigation pressed on as it does today. 

How much will be spent on this investigation is anybody's guess. It won't be cheap. As one source noted:

Rep. Gowdy now states the committee will continue its work into 2016 raising its cost to taxpayers to more than $6,000,000, casting his inaction as the result of the Obama administration’s slow pace at producing requested documents, a questionable premise.

Critics of the committee (and the numbers are growing) have called the investigation as nothing short of a taxpayer funded witch hunt of a leading presidential candidate. 

Supporters of the Republican-led investigations say Hillary must be guilty of something. However, many in the GOP seem to forget when it came to keeping secrets. nothing could surpass the overt duplicity of former vice-president Dick Cheney. 

Pearl S. Buck and the Privileges A Woman Must Give Up

by Nomad

A quote from a famous writer of the 1940s gives some stern advice for women voters of today. You can no longer afford the "privilege" of being complacent. 

Whenever I see women cheering in rallies for Republican conservatives, I wonder what kind of mindset would support the very elected officials who have showed so little respect for women's issues, such as women's health and reproductive choices. 

I ask myself how can so many women vote against their own interests. Where do these women come from?
One source gives a snapshot of the female conservative.

Married women are more likely to be conservative and, as the report shows, they're the one bright spot in a dark picture for the GOP. More importantly, while single women are more liberal, they don't vote as often as married women.

With so much at stake, why would any woman decide not to vote?

For such people, one writer gave a finger-wagging talking-to to women who don't concern themselves with politics.
In her 1941, book Of Men and Women,  Nobel Prize–winning author Pearl S. Buck wrote that certain attitudes had to change if women were ever going to make a positive impact politically:

What she has to give up will be her present privileges,

-the privilege of remaining ignorant in spite of education,

-the privilege of mental laziness,

-of not having to think thoroughly through any thing because she knows the ultimate decision will not rest on her,

-the privilege of being willful and capricious and irresponsible,

-the privilege of idleness and of having time to spend lavishly on self-adornment and amusement, and

-the privilege of escaping from the problems of life, by retreating from them into her home and considering that her whole duty is there.

She is, in short, to become an adult creature ready for the responsibilities of liberty."

Oregon, Obama and The Greatness of an Angry Man

by Nomad

In the aftermath of the Oregon shooting, the visibly upset President Obama spoke to reporters and to the nation.
He was not shocked. It's hard to be shocked when, as the UKGuardian points out, there's been on average a mass shooting – involving four or more injured people – nearly every day. There have been an astounding 994 mass shootings in 1,004 days. The president was angry and he made no effort to disguise the fact.

Somehow, said the president, this has become routine. The events, the reactions, the tears and the prayers. Why must this keep happening before something gets done. Is this something we have all become numb to?

He said the burden of guilt falls ultimately on the American people for not demanding more from their representatives in Washington in their respective state legislatures.

"This is a political choice that we make, to allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones."

"This is not, Obama said, "something I can do myself."

He asked the American public to consider the ways they can get their government to change the laws and to save lives. "To let young people grow up." He declared

"That will require a change of politics on this issue. If you think this is a problem then you should expect your elected officials to reflect your views."

Tomorrow's Headlines? Congressional Investigation Panel Demands Hillary's Letters to Grandmother

 by Nomad

Sometimes the real news needs no parody, but that didn't stop me for posting this.

Okay so this isn't real news but would you really be shocked if you heard this on the news tomorrow?