Donald's Middle-East Duplicity: The Shocking Truth about Trump's Anti-Islamic Smoke and Mirrors

by Nomad

As the Republican Party's fading hope, politician Donald Trump has capitalized upon and expanded anti-Muslim tensions and fears. However, as a businessman, Trump has no qualms about making lucrative deals with the very same people he has painted as America's biggest threat.

Total Shutdown

Back in December, the Trump campaign announced in a written statement Republican nominee to be would, as president, demand a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.”

Even for a bombastic man like Trump, those were stunning words. Both sides of the political spectrum were speechless.  

In fact, it was one of a series of statements that ruffled some feathers. In November, a month before his announcement, he had said that as president he would "strongly consider" closing down mosques and proposed that mosques in the United States be monitored for terrorist activity.
(In fact, as Trump probably already knows, mosques have been the subject of FBI surveillance and infiltration since the time of Bush. And as a result of this, the federal courts have been wrestling with legal questions about possible rights violations to religious freedom, freedom of association and privacy.)

Scholars also questioned the constitutionality of a "religious test" for immigrants. 

Even technically, how would be possible to ensure the accuracy. It only takes one terrorist to tell a fib and Trump's plan is torpedoed. Terrorists, as a rule, tend to be hesitant about excessive self-disclosure.
A lot like Trump, actually. 

Nevertheless, Trump's supporters roared in delight and put their hands together. Finally, a candidate was taking the radical Islamic threat seriously, they claimed. 

President Obama, Trump has repeatedly pointed out,  refused even to use the phrase "radical Islam." Actually, Obama has made it clear why he thinks labeling terrorism according to religious beliefs is a mistake. It was, the president said, "a political talking point. It is not a strategy."

“If we fall into the trap of painting all Muslims as a broad brush, and imply that we are at war with the entire religion, then we are doing the terrorists’ work for them.”

After all, when is the last time you heard a Republican call the KKK- a big time supporter of Trump-  a radical Christian group?

Why Pointing Out and Righting an Injustice is Everybody's Business

by Nomad

It's disheartening to think that the color of a person's skin can still have such a effect on people's attitudes. It makes me depressed to think that, in this day and age, it is still necessary for a white person to step in for whatever reason.  

On the other hand, it's even worse to think that a person would look the other way and not step in when they see unfair treatment.

After Destroying the GOP in November, Will Donald Trump Go After Fox News Next?

by Nomad

Here's probably the best explanation for Donald Trump's strange presidential run. As crazy as it seems, in a Trumpish way, it makes perfect sense.  

Like Poe's purloined letter, sometimes the obvious explanation is hidden right under your nose.

Nothing has been quite as inexplicable as this election cycle. It's hard to get a grip on the insanity of it. Most of it is coming from the Right and Donald Trump. Without resorting to a psychological ailment, coming up with an explanation for Trump's decisions and behavior isn't easy.

The Hiring of Ailes and Bannon 

The June's issue of Vanity Fair, however, offers one theory that makes pretty good sense. The writer postulated that Trump's run for president was nothing less than an ingenious form of self-promotion. Not an earthshaking observation, I understand. 

According to insiders, Trump was never interested in being president. And, no, he hasn't even been making a big fat joke (my pet theory)
Nope.
Actually, his entire campaign has been a promotion of his next business project, the creation of his media empire, a la NewsCorp's Rupert Murdoch. 

Fox News but without the decency and intelligence.

Ditat Deus: How Red-State Arizona's Failed Policies on Poverty Just Got a little Worse

by Nomad

Arizona is a showcase of Republican policy when it comes to helping needy families. But that's not meant to be praise. Poverty has become an intractable problem and legislators seem to be intent on making life more difficult for the poor.

No Hope, No Change

Arizona's state motto is Ditat Deus which in Latin, translates as "God Enriches" and, for some Arizonans that might be true, but for many others, God seems to have all but forgotten them. Actually, it's not necessary to lay the blame on divinities but on the easily-distracted Republican legislators. 

When the US Census Bureau updated its poverty estimates last year, the bad news about Arizona should have been hard for state officals to ignore. The state ranked third in the nation when it came to the percentage who were at or below the federal poverty line. That's an estimated 21 percent of the state's population.

You'd think those numbers would set off alarm bells that past policies just weren't working. You'd think politicians would realize that changes had to be made as soon as possible. 

That's not what happened. 

Last summer, coincidentally, Arizona became the first state to cut poor families’ access to welfare assistance to a maximum of 12 months over a lifetime.  With the passage of the law, Arizona will have the harshest limit of all the states, most of which offer benefits for five years, the duration allowed under federal law. 

As a local source noted last month:

It means an estimated 2,500 people — including 1,500 kids — will no longer qualify for the modest stipends the program provides. The average payment is $278.

Democrats lawmakers and advocates for the poor struggled in vain to keep the program at its two-year limit went unheeded.

In the debate, Republican Sen. Kelli Ward, R-Lake Havasu City. delivered the standard Republican approach to poverty: 

“I tell my kids all the time that the decisions we make have rewards or consequences, and if I don’t ever let them face those consequences, they can’t get back on the path to rewards. As a society, we are encouraging people at times to make poor decisions and then we reward them.”

It's a pretty pathetic excuse for parsimony. Reagan taught us that the poor don't need our pity or our assistance. And ever since then, the conservatives have been saying that poor have only themelves to blame. We must assume such a rationalization allows them to feel superior and look at themselves in the mirror.

Future News Headlines: GOP Nominee Trump Quits, Announces his Entire Campaign Has Been "Sarcasm"

by Nomad

"Gotcha!" says Donald Trump, in a recent news spoof in the North Carolina Charlotte Observer.

A recent satirical op-ed piece by Walker Lundy of the Charlotte Observer reports that the GOP nominee Donald Trump has announced his intention to delete his entire campaign and endorse the Democrat Hillary Clinton for president.

Furthermore, the presidential candidate gave this startling admission.

Trump said the only point of his campaign was to show how stupid and gullible many Republican voters are.

Even though he had been a Democrat for most of his life, Trump declared, he knew that if he ran as a Republican and said "increasingly ridiculous, idiotic, racist and sexist things" he had a good chance of picking up a lot of votes. 

Beyond Belief

Of course, he says in the Lundy spoof, Trump had never imagined that he would "win the Republican nomination and poll 40 percent or better in a national race against Clinton." 

(Ask me two years ago and I would have definitely said the same thing.)

He also pointed out that he had offered no real solutions to any of the country’s problems and nobody, even the news media, took much notice that “there was no there there in my campaign,” he said.