“Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would. In a heartbeat. I would approve more than that. It works. And if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway for what they do to us”.
He would also be torturing and killing this terror suspect’s family right now:
DICKERSON: Let me ask you about your position on torture. When you and I talked last week, you said that General Hayden was wrong when he said that military wouldn’t follow you on the question of water-boarding and on the killing of terrorists’ families.
In the debate, you said, “If I say do it, they are going to do it.” You were talking about the military. Then, on Friday, you said, “I will not order our military to violate — to violate those laws.”
So, what changed?
TRUMP: Well, you never asked me violating laws, in all fairness. You weren’t talking about violating laws.
I would say this. Look, we have an enemy in the Middle East that is chopping off heads and drowning people in massive steel cages, OK? We have an enemy that doesn’t play by the laws. You could say laws, and they’re laughing. They’re laughing at us right now.
I would like to strengthen the laws so that we can better compete.
He wants to compete on the basis of brutality. Seriously.That’s what he says.
I would like to have the law expanded. I would like to make…
DICKERSON: How?
TRUMP: Well, I would like — I happen to think that when you’re fighting an enemy that chops off heads, I happen to think that we should use something that is stronger than we have right now. Right now, basically water-boarding is essentially not allowed, as I understand it.
DICKERSON: And you would like it to be, if you could expand it.
TRUMP: I would certainly like it to be, at a minimum, at a minimum, to allow that.
DICKERSON: Why do you think we don’t have those — why do you think we don’t have water-boarding allowed?
TRUMP: Because we’re a weak — I think we have become very weak and ineffective. I think that’s why we’re not beating ISIS. It’s that mentality.
DICKERSON: But you think people got rid of the law to be weak?
TRUMP: No, I think that we are weak. I think we’re weak. We cannot beat ISIS. We should beat ISIS very quickly. General Patton would have had ISIS down in about three days. General Douglas MacArthur — we are playing by a different set of rules. We are — let me just put it differently. When the ISIS people chop off the heads, and then they go back to their homes and they talk, and they hear we’re talking about water-boarding like it’s the worst thing in the world, and they just drowned a hundred people and chopped off 50 heads, they must think we are a little bit on the weak side.
DICKERSON: The reason that the water-boarding was — a number of reasons, but one of them was because worry was that if America does that, then our soldiers, American hostages will be treated even worse. That’s the argument. What do you think of that argument?
TRUMP: They’re doing that anyway. They’re killing our soldiers when they capture them. I mean, they’re doing that anyway.
Now, if that were the case, in other words, we won’t do it and you don’t do it. But we’re not playing by those rules. They’re not — why, somebody tell ISIS, look, we’re going to treat your guys well, would you please do us a favor and treat our guys well? They don’t do that.
We’re not playing by — we are playing by rules, but they have no rules. It’s very hard to win when that’s the case.
DICKERSON: Isn’t that separates us from the savages, rules?
TRUMP: No, I don’t think so. We have to beat the savages.
DICKERSON: And therefore throw all rules out?
TRUMP: We have beat the savages.
DICKERSON: By being savages?
TRUMP: No. We — well, look, you have to play the game the way they’re playing the game.
You’re not going to win if we are soft, and they are — they have no rules. Now, I want to stay within the laws. I want to do all of that. But I think we have to increase the laws, because the laws are not working, obviously. All you have to do is take a look what is going on. And they’re getting worse. They’re chopping, chopping, chopping, and we’re worried about water-boarding.
He’s a sadistic monster. (But you knew that) It doesn’t appear that a majority of Americans want that. But the way it’s going he could win anyway.
Trump peddles his stuff all the time. Remember when he told Californians there isn’t a drought?
“It’s not the drought. They have plenty of water. No, they shove it out to sea. Now, why? Because they’re trying to protect a certain kind of three-inch fish.”
“If I win, believe me, we’re going to start opening up the water so that you can have your farmers survive.”
Half the guns in the country are owned by a small subset of gun nuts
by digby
This investigative piece in today’s Guardian is a must read for anyone who is concerned about the proliferation of guns in our society.It’s a very interesting breakdown of who owns guns, what they’re used for and why certain people buy them.
Americans own an estimated 265m guns, more than one gun for every American adult, according to the most definitive portrait of US gun ownership in two decades. But the new survey estimates that 130m of these guns are concentrated in the hands of just 3% of American adults – a group of super-owners who have amassed an average of 17 guns each.
The unpublished Harvard/Northeastern survey result summary, obtained exclusively by the Guardian and the Trace, estimates that America’s gun stock has increased by 70m guns since 1994. At the same time, the percentage of Americans who own guns decreased slightly from 25% to 22%.
The new survey, conducted in 2015 by public health researchers from Harvard and Northeastern universities, also found that the proportion of female gun owners is increasing as fewer men own guns. These women were more likely to own a gun for self-defense than men, and more likely to own a handgun only.
Women’s focus on self-defense is part of a broader trend. Even as the US has grown dramatically safer and gun violence rates have plummeted, handguns have become a greater proportion of the country’s civilian gun stock, suggesting that self-defense is an increasingly important factor in gun ownership.
“The desire to own a gun for protection – there’s a disconnect between that and the decreasing rates of lethal violence in this country. It isn’t a response to actuarial reality,” said Matthew Miller, a Northeastern University and Harvard School of Public Health professor and one of the authors of the study.
The data suggests that American gun ownership is driven by an “increasing fearfulness”, said Dr Deborah Azrael, a Harvard School of Public Health firearms researcher and the lead author of the study.
And politicians are helping drive the fear:
This psycho is featured in the video:
As is this psycho:
There’s a whole lot of gun culture that is also alt-right, including Trump’s own family.
Neither will gun proliferation, which he proposes along with his “let the police crack some heads” approach to law enforcement. He’s prescribing an authoritarian government working with a private vigilante force. We’ve seen that before. It didn’t work out well.
“Our local police, they know a lot of who these people are. They are afraid to do anything about it because they don’t want to be accused of profiling, they don’t want to be accused of all sorts of things,” Trump said on Fox & Friends.
Trump then pointed to Israel’s practice of predictive profiling as an example, saying the country has done “an unbelievable job.”
“Do we have a choice? Look what’s going on,” Trump said. “Do we really have a choice? We’re trying to be so politically correct in our country and this is only going to get worse.”
[…]
Trump added on Friday that he believes more terror attacks will happen in the US.
“I think this is something that will maybe get — will happen perhaps more and more all over the country,” Trump said. “Because we’ve been weak. Our country has been weak.”
Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC just told me that this week-end’s terrorist attack favors Trump. According to her, after San Bernardino he got a tough on terrorism persona that benefits from these attacks. This is something I did not know. I guess that explains why he’s pretty much saying “bring it on.”
He does seem a little confused about the role of law enforcement though. He loves them but thinks they are so cowardly and selfish that even if they know terrorists are planning an attack they won’t do anything about it because someone will say something about them. So people are injured and die.
Last Friday Donald Trump gathered the press at his glitzy new hotel for a press conference, had a famous birther introduce him and then proceeded to ramble for 25 minutes before saying that Barack Obama was born in America, that Hillary Clinton started the birther movement and he ended it. Then he refused to take questions, restrained the pool producer from accompanying him on what he apparently planned as a free promotional tour for cable TV of his new business.
Pundits and reporters alike were shocked that Trump would suggest that he “ended” the controversy, presumably when he demanded the birth certificate and President Obama finally acquiesced just to shut him up. They pointed out that he flogged the controversy for years afterward and were appalled that he would think he could get away with pretending otherwise considering the public record.
There were some who also challenged his charges that Hillary Clinton started the birther movement in 2008. But then this happened:
former McClatchy DC bureau chief @jimasher tweeting that Sid Blumenthal pushed birther lie to him in 2008. Asking for comment
Shortly people on social media were reminded that a low level staffer in Iowa had forwarded a birther email, was fired for it and the Clinton campaign apologized. And Clinton’s 2008 pollster, Mark Penn, wrote a memo which said in effect that Obama’s exotic childhood could “hold him back.” But it also said that they could never go negative on such a thing and they did not. Clinton confidante did send emails with negative clippings and articles about Obama back in 2008 but denies spreading the birther lie. Nobody has ever reported it before and journalists such as James Fallows from the Atlantic and were privy to Blumenthal’s emails do not remember ever seeing anything about the racist birther smear and are extremely skeptical that it happened. Moreover, the birther controversy has been amply documented going back to this piece by Chris Hayes in The Nation in 2007 and it was not in any way advanced by the Clinton campaign.
But the damage was done. By the time the Sunday shows rolled around, it was clear that while Trump may not have gotten away with claiming that he didn’t push the birther smear relentlessly, he had managed to “raise questions” about Clinton being the one who started it all.
Kellyanne Conway gave a bravura performance on Meet the Press and Face the Nation, constantly bringing back the charge that Clinton had started it. Here’s Chuck Todd’s reaction on Meet the Press:
So I guess what I’m curious about, though, is who cares about the Clinton incident? Donald Trump, for five years, perpetuated this. This has been, arguably, part of his political identity for the last five years. So what difference does it make whether Clinton does it? Why do two wrongs make a right in this case?
He pressed her hard on Trump’s pushing what she continued to call Clinton’s smear after 2008. He continued to accept her premise.
John Dickerson of Face the Nation was not quite as easy on Conway’s repeated accusations that Clinton had started it but when Reince Preibus let fly with this after Dickerson suggested that Clinton had nothing to do with it, it all went downhill fast:
PRIEBUS: And people get convicted every single day with circumstantial evidence that is enough to tip the scale.And by the preponderance of the evidence before us, Hillary Clinton or her campaign were definitely involved in this issue. So, we can’t keep saying it’s not true. That’s ridiculous.
DICKERSON: But…
PRIEBUS: I know you didn’t, but there’s enough media people out there claiming that that’s not true, as if it’s some fiction. It’s not fiction. It’s the truth.
DICKERSON: Sure. But when you think about — it may be contributory, but Donald Trump spent the bulk of his time…
PRIEBUS: But he’s not denying it.
DICKERSON: No, I understand that. But I guess my point is this.
PRIEBUS: But she is denying it, and that’s ridiculous.
DICKERSON: My point — well, her former campaign manager said…
PRIEBUS: All right, so everyone around her is involved, but not her, so, therefore, she’s innocent.
DICKERSON: Well, everyone around her is a little more than the evidence would support.
PRIEBUS: Her campaign deputy manager was apologizing on CNN three days ago for it.
DICKERSON: But she said she fired the one person who brought it up immediately. There’s a difference between firing one person immediately and then…
PRIEBUS: What about Sid Blumenthal? Was he involved or not?
DICKERSON: Well, let’s assume that he was.
PRIEBUS: OK.
DICKERSON: So, you have a person spreading rumors. And then you have someone making a five-year crusade, holding press conferences and spending money. Here’s my question to you, which is not to figure out the details anymore, but to ask you this question…
Priebus even managed to make it sound like she had committed a crime. Something along this line happened on every show. Yes, Trump got knocked for his birther madness. The press pushed his surrogates quite hard. Jake Tapper even managed to put Chris Christie on the defensive on State of the Union. But one Trump supporters after the other aggressively repeated the lie that Clinton was responsible for the smear.And the hosts were ineffective at best in denying it.
That dynamic has resulted in a funhouse mirror of an election in which Hillary Clinton is now seen as less honest than Donald Trump. According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, only 43% of all voters believe Hillary Clinton is honest enough to be president while 50% think that of Donald Trump. 54% believe Trump has been transparent while 37% believe that about Clinton. Considering the mountain of lies that Trump has told during this campaign and his refusal to release his tax returns, Trump Foundation accounting or how he plans to deal with his labyrinthine international business dealings once he wins the white house those are shocking numbers.
But really,why wouldn’t people believe that? Even when Trump’s lie is so blatant that it’s laughable, as it is with his birther excuses, with the help of the press, Trump and his minions managed to smear Clinton as the originator of the smear. That is a neat trick. One thing Trump’s learned is that the press will always seek to balance their coverage so if he takes a hit he makes sure that Clinton takes one too. And they are happy to help him.
When we transform the economy to deal with climate change, what should we transform it to
by Gaius Publius
I want to put two ideas into your head and ask you to hold them there for a while. Later I’m going to write a deeper piece on this subject. But for now, just notice these two ideas and how they’re linked. They form an either-or, a one-or-the-other way to respond to climate change, assuming we do.
Sometimes you can’t have everything. Sometimes you have to choose. (Source; click to enlarge)
After all, perhaps we will respond effectively to climate change, and that response may be in time to lessen the disaster. It could happen that people wake up — or more likely, that some catastrophic event grips the nation hard enough — so that changing the present course becomes actually possible, even widely perceived as necessary.
Consider this: It’s certainly true that most voters — not just Democrats, but even and especially Republicans — are full-time worshipers at the Church of Daddy Do Something when a real crisis hits. “Daddy” in this case is the government, and it better act … and now … if my house is likely to burn, my property is likely to flood, my child is likely to die of some disease or in the next attack. If that realization does hit before it’s really too late — the realization that “we’re in deep trouble and ‘daddy’ better do something” — there’s great reason for optimism.
And it’s not like we’re not sitting on a powder keg of potential disasters. For example, imagine a Haiyan-size hurricane sweeping across Florida — no lives are lost, but all property values brought instantly to zero — followed by a summer of torrential torrential rains throughout the East, South and Midwest, causing thousands of dollars of damage and bankrupting insurance companies throughout the country. What do you think the national response would be? I think the nation, with one voice (minus most of the unaffected rich) might easily say, “OK, time to really do something. This time we mean it.”
If we decide to do something, what should it be?
So the question is, what is that something? Which is where the two thoughts I mentioned above come in. Obviously we get off of carbon as fast as we can, which completely transforms the economy. But it’s not obvious what we should transform the economy to. Right now the economy is built around rapid economic growth — meaning, rapid growth of profits for the very very wealthy. Do we want to simply power the current wealth-enabling economy with renewable energy sources and call it done?
Would powering the current wealth-enabling economy even be effective in mitigating climate change? (The argument below says no.)
Or do we want to transform our broader economy at the same time to something more … sustainable? Constant growth may well be ineffective in stopping climate change, and it’s frankly unsustainable on its own. The “build more stuff, then throw it away” world has its own a natural end as well; we’re getting pretty close to it; and the end if that world is no prettier than the end of the climate chaos world.
Put more simply, why would be want to avoid the climate collapse, just to collapse a few years later anyway on the rock of unsustainable economic growth for the very very few?
I’m not asking you to agree with this just yet. Simply hold these thoughts in mind as alternatives, and read the following, by Elliot Sperber writing in Counterpunch. The piece is framed as a response to Bill McKibben’s (appropriate) call for a WWII-style “war on climate change.” The following paragraphs illustrate the kind of choices I’m trying to put before you now.
Again, the question is, if we’re going to have to transform the economy, what do we transform it to? If we’re going to embark on a WWII-style restructuring of the economy, including some rationing during the transition, everything new is possible, including each of the choices I’m presenting.
Benefits of a sustainability economy, even to the climate
In the section below, Sperber starts with meat production (my emphasis):
Perhaps most relevant to the issue of climate change and rationing, commodities such as nylon, oil, and meat were rationed during World War II. And since by some measures meat production is responsible for even more greenhouse gasthan fossil fuels, rationing (or, better yet, banning the commercial production of meat altogether) would reduce greenhouse gases far more rapidly than McKibben’s building plan. Beyond the ethical imperative to not torture animals, curtailing meat production would not only eliminate the production of greenhouse gases; it would allow the rain forests and other ecosystems destroyed in the creation of pasture and feed for livestock to regenerate, simultaneously halting CO2 and methane proliferation and absorbing it. And it’s a hardly incidental benefit that the tons of water used to raise and process meat could be used to ameliorate climate change-exacerbated drought the world over.
That’s a pretty decent list of benefits, simply on the climate front, not to mention alleviating health issues caused by mass consumption of highly processed, hormone-injected, expensive-to-produce animal protein — your next McDonald’s burger, for example.
Furthermore, though it’s less well-known than either CO2 or the notoriously potent greenhouse gas methane, water vapor is also a tremendously important greenhouse gas, one with a powerful feedback loop that amplifies global warming. That is, as the climate heats up and ice melts, and soil dries out, and water evaporates (spreading deserts and extending droughts), more and more vapor enters the atmosphere, heating the planet further still – melting more ice, producing more vapor, ad infinitum. The one trillion tons of ice that disappeared from the Greenland ice sheet between 2011 and 2014, for example, didn’t simply vanish; they transmogrified into hundreds of trillions of gallons of liquid water and water vapor that, by further heating the planet, has added to the power – as well as to the mass – of hurricanes, typhoons, storms, floods, and other extreme weather events. And this is only accelerating. But while this vapor heats the planet and, when concentrated, creates catastrophic floods, this vapor can also be absorbed by, and stored in, marine and terrestrial plants.
If a change in meat production and consumption increases the likelihood of a real climate solution, do we need to hold onto our current McDonald’s lifestyle?
Which takes us to land use and transportation:
In addition to the fact that plants convert CO2 into oxygen, because plants absorb and store water, conserving and restoring plant life is arguably just as crucial as building excessive energy capacity. And because forests and other ecosystems regenerate independently, when they’re simply left alone, this requires far less work than building all those solar panels and wind turbines (in factories that, by the way, would likely result in clearing land of a considerable deal of plant coverage). Restoring ecosystems and conserving vegetation doesn’t need to be limited to non-urban areas, though. In addition to decontaminating them (when necessary) and leaving forests alone to regenerate, plants just as easily flourish in cities. Beyond building ‘green roofs’ and street level gardens (akin to the World War II-era “victory gardens” that supplied 40% of people’s vegetables, as McKibben reminds us), much of the space devoted to cars (streets, freeways, gas stations, parking lots, etc.) could be dedicated to the growth of trees and vegetation. By absorbing both CO2 and water vapor, trees and urban gardens, not to mention spontaneously growing plants, would cool cities, improve air quality, and make cities more livable, all while mitigating global warming and providing food. Because they require space that could be used to grow plants, a serious commitment to mitigating climate change should also ration, or ban altogether, the toxic private car – at least from urban areas. If during World War II the use of public transportation increased by close to 90%, as McKibben notes, there’s no reason why this can’t be replicated today, improving the wellbeing of the climate, as well as that of human and non-human animals.
In general, this leads to the question of “industrial mobilization” versus “demobilization” and the recovery of diminishing and collapsing ecosystems, like world fisheries:
Rather than the “industrial mobilization” McKibben advocates, then, in many respects demobilization could be at least as effective at mitigating climate change, and could be implemented far more rapidly. When methane-producing, ecosystem-killing dams are dismantled, for instance, entire ecosystems can quickly and spontaneously recover. And, as it’s part of World War II history, McKibben may appreciate the fact that, in the decades leading up to the war commercial fishing in the North Sea led to the virtual extinction of fish. But, because of a commercial fishing moratorium (imposed by the threat of German submarines, and other martial maritime dangers), by the end of the war the ecosystem had regenerated itself. Following this precedent, moratoria should be imposed immediately on the commercial fishing industries presently devastating the oceans (wiping out entire species of coral, fish, and mammals, not to mention gigatons of carbon-storing, oxygen-producing phytoplankton).
Of course, rationing and imposing moratoria on ecocidal practices such as commercial fishing, logging, and the production of toxic materials, such as plastics, would slow economic production substantially; but if our priority is effectively mitigating climate change’s harms, as opposed to making money, slowing economic production is crucial. Moreover, rather than exacerbating existing poverty, the phasing out of ecocidal industries, such as the fast food industry, could lead to the elimination of poverty; we simply need to produce necessities, such as food, housing, healthcare, and transportation, for their own sake, rather than in exchange for money. Among other benefits, this would eliminate the conflicts of interest that result in such absurdities as food producers refusing to grow, and willfully destroying, tremendous amounts of food each year in order to keep up prices, and market forces driving vulnerable populations from necessary housing in order to develop luxury housing for people who already have more than enough.”
To repeat: If our first priority is effectively mitigating the harm done by climate change, instead of protecting the “right” of the wealthy to make money, slowing economic production is crucial.
Just give it some thought
I’m not asking you to make that choice yet. Just to be aware of it and give it some thought of your own. I’ll have more on this in a bit.
Economic growth (a world awash in profit) versus sustainable living (a world without the super-rich, but one we can share and maintain) — if we’re lucky, we may get to finally decide between them.
This tweet by David Atkins is a blunt lead-in to Matt Taibbi’s column about the left’s complaints of “false balance” in the press:
The 49% of people voting for Trump are doing it *because* he's an offensive, outrageous jerk. Not in spite of it.— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) September 18, 2016
Ahead of the February 20 Republican primary in South Carolina, John Baldwin, a Greenville used-car dealer supporting Trump, told reporters “We’re voting with our middle finger.” They know Trump’s a jerk. Being jerks is the point. They’re acting out “Banks of the Ohio” with the country.
Taibbi points out at Rolling Stone how “laughably snobbish” it is that liberals who somehow have divined the truth in spite of the press complain that “other, lesser humans, with weaker minds” have not. It is somehow the fault of the press that they haven’t. Secondly, he writes, we live in a dumbed-down, clickbait culture accustomed to reality TV, where voters are more inclined to watch instant video of Hillary Clinton stumbling into a van than read position papers:
No doubt about it, the country is in a brutal spot right now. We are less than two months from the possibility of one of the dumbest people on the planet winning the White House. And it seems that all anyone’s talked about this week, whether around the water cooler or on TV news, Twitter or Facebook, is the lung capacity of Hillary Clinton.
That sucks. But it’s not all the media’s fault. This is classic horse-race stuff, and if you’re getting it, it’s at least in part because you spent decades asking for it.
Thus has the presidential campaign devolved into infotainment.
Anyone who tries to argue that there’s insufficiently vast documentation of Trump’s insanity is either being willfully obtuse or not paying real attention to the news. Just follow this latest birther faceplant. The outrage is all out there, in huge quantities. It’s just not having the predicted effect.
That’s right on point. What the left is really angry about is not that the media is failing to expose the outrages of the man-child Trump. It is that his coverage is not having the desired effect on voters. But Trump supporters like John Baldwin know who Trump is and they don’t care. They are not rejecting Trump for being a self-aggrandizing asshole. They embrace him because of it. What frustrates the left is what Atkins tweeted above. Yet the left demands the press to do more of the same reporting to expose Trump, hoping for different results. And that is?
Taibbi writes that the false balance debate comes down to this:
The essence of that debate is whether or not it’s appropriate to write negative things about Hillary Clinton when there’s a possibility that Donald Trump might become president. Or, rather, we may say negative things about Clinton, but only if we always drape reporting in plenty of context about the worse-ness of Trump, or something.
But there are more layers to this onion. My recent posts here argued that the reason it seems the press spends more time on negative coverage of Hillary Clinton is that, one) with her long history she is easier to write substantive posts about (she makes a “good villain”); and two) Trump offers few details about his business dealings (to which few of his supporters would pay attention anyway). But Trump is an endless supply of clickbait and self-promotion people cannot resist, not even the press. The cultural environment Taibbi describes makes it easy for Trump to rickroll the press over and over.
Proving he is the kind of jerk who can put things over on people and get away with it is not a negative for his base. It is just the sort of thing Trump supporters love about him. Last week, Lawrence O’Donnell condemned what he said was Trump’s personal philosophy, revealed in comments to the NY Economic Club regarding China violating trade laws:
“Who can blame them and I don’t blame them at all. If you can get away with it, they’re going to get away with it.”
In the world of authoritarian followers, it is the alpha dog’s right to get away with whatever he can. And getting way with things, O’Donnell said, is how Trump lives his life, whether it’s cheating on subcontractors, lenders, or wives. Trump’s followers know this and approve. Being a jerk makes him a fit authoritarian leader. Catholic nuns taught O’Donnell otherwise. “The true test of character,” he said, “is what you choose to do if you can get away with it.” But that’s only meaningful if you have any character to begin with.
Oooops. I was wrong. Today, actually it looks like another candidate made the top stories from CNN.
But what happened to that candidate that was sick? Haven’t hardly seen a headline about her in like what seems months.
UPDATE: Hmm. Maybe if you do 4 page views down on HuffPo right now, you might see someone who looks sort of familiar in a picture with a talk show host wearing a white mask. I think she used to be running, but obviously isn’t anymore. Otherwise, she’d be covered more prominently, right?
Falsely said, “Her plan calls for…ignoring visa overstays, closing detention centres.” (Clinton is not calling to ignore visa overstays. She wants to close only privately owned detention centres, not all detention centres.)
Falsely said, “Hillary Clinton is the first person to ever run for the presidency of a country effectively proposing to abolish the borders around the country that she’s supposed to be representing.”
Falsely said, “According to the federal government’s own data, there are more than 2 million convicted-criminal illegal immigrants inside the United States right now.” (That figure – 1.9 million – refers to the number of non-citizens, illegal AND legal, with convictions. The number of illegal immigrants with convictions is much smaller.)
Falsely said, “The government knows a lot about the people that did it, but they don’t go after them. They’ve killed people, they don’t go after them.”
Falsely said, “Hundreds of individuals who have been given visas and refugee – think of this, they’ve been given, they’re refugee admissions into this country, subsequently were charged with terrorism, and nobody does anything about it.” (This figure is incorrect. “I have seen no evidence that there are ‘scores’ of recent migrants charged with terrorism,” Rand Corp’s Seth Jones told the Washington Post.
Falsely said, “We’re admitting people here with no idea who they are.” (Refugees undergo extensive screening.)
Speech to rally in Colorado Springs
Falsely said, “We’re going to have a massive tax reduction, big league tax reduction, for working and middle-class families.” (Trump’s bracket changes would give middle-class families an income boost of 0.5 per cent or less, according to the conservative Tax Foundation.)
Falsely said, “Destroyed her phones – and think of this: with a hammer! Boom. Thirteen of them.” (Two of Clinton’s phones were destroyed with a hammer.)
Falsely accused Clinton of selling “government favours and access.” (There is no evidence of this.)
Falsely said, “Since President Obama came into office, another 2 million Hispanic Americans have fallen into poverty.” (This figure begins the count during George W. Bush’s last year; when the count begins in 2009, the figure is less than 1 million. It is also highly misleading to use a raw number; the poverty rate for Hispanics has fallen.)
Falsely said, “Hillary Clinton is going to raise your taxes very, very substantially.” (Clinton’s tax hike only applies to the top 1 per cent of earners.)
Falsely said, “We have a trade deficit of $800 billion a year.” (The trade deficit in goods alone $763 billion – but there was a trade surplus in services of $227 billion, putting the total deficit well below $600 billion.)
Misleadingly said, “58 per cent of African-American youth are not employed.” (This figure counts millions of 16-to-19-year-olds who are not looking for work, including high school students and the children of black millionaires.)
That’s just Saturday. And it doesn’t count the tweets:
Never met but never liked dopey Robert Gates. Look at the mess the U.S. is in. Always speaks badly of his many bosses, including Obama.
You’ll recall that he also said he know so much more about how to do Gates’ job than he does at his rally last night.
Over 50% of the country thinks it’s either fine if that psycho becomes president of the United States or are enthusiastically hoping for it.
Update: Here’s a list of things Trump said on Friday, just in case you missed that incredible day.
On an eventful Friday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump renounced his baseless “birther” conspiracy-peddling in a bizarre event at his new Washington hotel, did an interview on Fox Business, and held a rally in Miami, where he tried to woo the Cuban community. A list of some of the things he said:
Called for the disarming of Hillary Clinton’s Secret Service detail; added, “Let’s see what happens to her . . . it’ll be very dangerous”
Renounced five years “birther” lying with one sentence: “President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period”
Falsely blamed Hillary Clinton’s campaign for starting the birther saga
Falsely claimed to have opposed the Iraq war
Falsely claimed to have said “I don’t know” when asked by Howard Stern whether he supported the war (Actually said, “Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly”)
Claimed Bataclan massacre would have been averted if people there had guns
Bragged on Twitter about tricking the media
Reversed position on Cuba: Said he would reverse Obama softening he called “fine” in September
Falsely claimed 58 per cent of African-American youth can’t get a job. (It’s 26 per cent)
Falsely claimed black people have “no jobs, no education”; falsely claimed black people in “inner cities” can’t walk down the street without getting shot
Falsely claimed Clinton “is raising your taxes substantially.” (Her tax hike is only on the top 1 per cent)
Falsely claimed 65 per cent of black children under the age of 6 are in poverty. (Not true in even one state)
Falsely claimed Clinton destroyed 13 iPhones with a hammer. (It was two BlackBerries)
Falsely claimed she sold government favours
Falsely claimed Hispanic poverty has seen a catastrophic increase under Obama. (The Hispanic poverty rate has fallen since 2009; Trump is beginning his count in 2008, before Obama took office)
Falsely claimed that, before Obama, Air Force One was always greeted by top foreign leaders; said he would turn around Air Force One if top Cuban, Saudi or Chinese officials didn’t greet him
Falsely claimed the room he was speaking in was “100 degrees”
Attacked Clinton over her stamina/health: Boasted he does multiple daily speeches, said, “Do you think Hillary Clinton can get through one?”
Falsely claimed he is “winning in Michigan”
Falsely claimed analysts say his polls show there is more enthusiasm for him than for any candidate in the past
Misleadingly claimed that he will “lower your taxes so substantially.” (According to the conservative Tax Foundation, middle-income earners will see income boosts of just 0.2 per cent to 0.5 per cent)
This is a story in the Washington Post about a Trump voting open-carry advocate:
Jim Cooley carries his AR-15 semiautomatic rifle into his home after getting it repaired in Winder, Ga. Cooley, who also owns a 9mm handgun, almost never leaves his home unarmed.
“You want to come to Walmart?” he asks his wife.
“No,” Maria says.
“Pretty please?” Jim asks.
“I’m not going to sit there and have the police called on you. I mean, I don’t want to see that crap,” Maria says, knowing what a trip to Walmart means. She knows her 51-year-old husband has two guns inside the house, and this afternoon it won’t be the 9mm, which he straps on with a round in the chamber when grabbing lunch at his favorite fast-food restaurant or visiting a friend’s auto shop. It’ll be the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, which he brings when going somewhere he thinks is dangerous, like the Atlanta airport, where he’s taken it loaded with a 100-bullet drum, or Walmart, where he thinks crowds could pose easy targets for terrorists.
In a country of relaxing gun laws where it’s now legal to open-carry in 45 states and there are 14.5 million carry permits, every day seems to bring a new version of what open carry can mean. In Kentucky, it’s now legal to open-carry in city buildings. In downtown Cleveland, people carried military-style rifles during the Republican National Convention. In Howell, Mich., last month, a father went openly armed to his child’s middle-school orientation. In Mississippi, it’s now legal to open-carry without a permit at all. And in Georgia, which has passed a “guns everywhere” bill and has issued nearly 1 million carry permits, Jim Cooley is staking out his version of what’s acceptable as he keeps pleading with his wife.
“I got to get soda.”
Maria sighs. She worked the night before assembling air-conditioner compressors at a nearby factory, and in a few hours, she knows she’ll have to leave for another third shift.
“Yeah,” she says, giving in. “I might as well get this travesty out of the way.”
“What travesty?”
“You carrying a big ol’ rifle in the store, scaring the hell out of all the Walmart shoppers.”
“There’s no difference between carrying a rifle and carrying a handgun,” he says.
“You tried that last time, remember?” Maria says, stepping into a pair of flip-flops and running her fingers through her hair. “And what happened? Barrow County sheriffs. Three or four of them.”
“They can’t tell me what and what not to carry,” Jim says. “You know I wouldn’t listen to them anyway.”
“Well, you go one way in the store; I’ll go the other,” Maria says. “Then when they say, ‘Ma’am, do you know this person?’ I’ll say, ‘No, I’ve never seen him before in my life.’ ”
He places a lit cigarette into an ashtray, walks into his bedroom, reaches behind its door, picks up the AR-15, snaps in a magazine with 15 rounds, and slings the rifle around his left shoulder so it rests against his torso.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says, grabbing her purse and following her husband out the door for an afternoon trip to Walmart to buy soda.
He thinks he needs this semi-automatic gun to feel in control of his life. He is sick and poor and cannot work anymore and this makes him feel whole. I feel sorry for him.
People say that this is Democrats’ fault for failing to focus on the economic needs of men like him. But the truth is that Obamacare would have helped him. (His illness hit before it was passed.) But nothing would have made him able to work full time again at any kind of good paying manufacturing job or long haul trucking, even if the jobs were available.
On the other hand, his wife who does work might be helped by the kinds of policies the Democrats are pushing and which the Republicans — the anti-government party with whom this gun-lover identifies — would like to starve. Literally the only thing they offer him is permission to carry a $500.00 AR-15 to Walmart to make himself feel better.
He’s being used. But you can’t tell him that because his pride and his gun is all he has left.
