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Trump to propose political tests for immigrants

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a coal mining roundtable at Fitzgerald Peterbilt in Glade Spring, Va. on Wednesday.

JERSEY CITY, N.J. » Donald Trump will declare an end to nation building if elected president, replacing it with what aides described as “foreign policy realism” focused on destroying the Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations.

In a speech the Republican presidential nominee will deliver on Monday in Ohio, Trump will argue that the country needs to work with anyone that shares that mission, regardless of other ideological and strategic disagreements. Any country that wants to work with the U.S. to defeat “radical Islamic terrorism” will be a U.S. ally, he is expected to say.

“Mr. Trump’s speech will explain that while we can’t choose our friends, we must always recognize our enemies,” Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller said Sunday.

On the eve of the speech, the Clinton campaign slammed Trump’s campaign manager for ties to Russia and pro-Kremlin interests, an apparent reference to a New York Times story published Sunday night. The story alleges Paul Manafort received $12.7 million from Ukraine’s former pro-Russia president and his political party for consultant work over a five-year period. The newspaper says Manafort’s lawyer denied his client received any such payments.

Trump on Monday is also expected to outline a new immigration policy proposal under which the U.S. would stop issuing visas in any case where it cannot perform adequate screenings.

It will be the latest version of a policy that began with Trump’s unprecedented call to temporarily bar foreign Muslims from entering the country — a religious test that was criticized across party lines as un-American. Following a massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June, Trump introduced a new standard.

“As he laid out in his Orlando remarks, Mr. Trump will describe the need to temporarily suspend visa issuances to geographic regions with a history of exporting terrorism and where adequate checks and background vetting cannot occur,” Miller said.

Trump is also expected to propose creating a new, ideological test for admission to the country that would assess a candidate’s stances on issues like religious freedom, gender equality and gay rights. Through questionnaires, searching social media, interviewing friends and family or other means, applicants would be vetted to see whether they support American values like tolerance and pluralism.

The candidate is also expected to call in the speech for declaring in explicit terms that, like during the Cold War, the nation is in an ideological conflict with radical Islam.

Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and top U.S. government officials have warned of the dangers of using that kind of language to describe the conflict, arguing that it plays into militants’ hands.

While Trump has been criticized in the past for failing to lay out specific policy solutions, aides say that Monday’s speech will again focus on his broader vision. Additional speeches with more details are expected in the weeks ahead, they said.

Trump is also expected to spend significant time going after President Barack Obama and Clinton, the former secretary of state, blaming them for enacting policies he argues allowed the Islamic State group to spread. Obama has made ending nation building a central part of his foreign policy argument for years.

“Mr. Trump will outline his vision for defeating radical Islamic terrorism, and explain how the policies of Obama-Clinton are responsible for the rise of ISIS and the spread of barbarism that has taken the lives of so many,” Miller said Sunday in an email, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State group.

The speech comes as Trump has struggled to stay on message. Last week, an economic policy speech he delivered calling for lower corporate taxes and rolling back federal regulations was overshadowed by a series of provocative statements, including falsely declaring that Obama was the “founder” of the Islamic State group.

Trump’s allies said Sunday they’re confident that this time, the billionaire developer will stay on track.

“Stay tuned, it’s very early in this campaign. This coming Monday, you’re going to see a vision for confronting radical Islamic terrorism,” his vice presidential running mate, Mike Pence, said on Fox News today.

Trump and his top advisers, meanwhile, have blamed the media for failing to focus on his proposals.

“If the disgusting and corrupt media covered me honestly and didn’t put false meaning into the words I say, I would be beating Hillary by 20 percent,” he tweeted today.

61 responses to “Trump to propose political tests for immigrants”

  1. lunalilohi says:

    Only Russia and North Korea will welcome Crooked Donald if he somehow beats 1 in 10 odds of winning the election. Even the right wing billionaire Koch brothers now refuse to back the ignoramus Donald.

    • thos says:

      Listening to all the gurus, mavens, and cognoscenti last year, it is clear Donald Trump has beaten the odds they gave him much worse than 10 to 1.

      So much for “expert” opinion.

      • klastri says:

        He’s finished. Get used to it. He’s showing every single day that he’s a psychotic.

        • thos says:

          If he is “finished” why is he still drawing such huge crowds?

          Indeed why is he bothering to campaign at all?

        • Ikefromeli says:

          Why, because there is segment of the population, mostly white males, mostly undereducated, most having trouble with job market, most are fairly isolated, most have little or no intersection with immigrants nor dexterity with technology, many closely resemble the demographic cultural profile of Irish-Scottish Appalachia. That said, while very vocal, they do not represent the majority of Americans or even republicans–polls consistently prove this point.

  2. lunalilohi says:

    And Mr. Manafort’s presence remains elsewhere here in the capital, where government investigators examining secret records have found his name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr. Manafort’s main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych.

    Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials

    • 808ikea says:

      Yes, this revelation will be a major distraction and drag to Trump’s campaign. Any message from Trump’s speech will not be heard over this issue.

  3. sarge22 says:

    GOP vice presidential candidate Mike Pence called for a new investigation on whether contributions to the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Intitiative influenced actions taken by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

    “The new e-mails that have been made public just in the last week seem to make a direct connection between favors done by State Department officials and major foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation,” the Indiana governor told ‘Fox News Sunday’ host Chris Wallace.

    “Certainly, officials at the FBI, we also found out this week, believe that there should be an investigation, and Obama’s Department of Justice apparently has shut that down,” Pence said. “The public has a right to know, because this — really and truly, this is exactly the kind of pay-to-play politics the American people are, are sick and tired of. But, frankly, it is just one more example of the way I do believe that the Clintons have been operating over the last 30 years.”

  4. PoiDoggy says:

    I think if the media was covering Trump honestly and wasn’t putting false meaning into the words Trump says, he would be losing to Clinton completely, and have virtually no support.

  5. bsdetection says:

    Removing from the Republican Party platform a commitment to provide weapons to support Ukraine’s resistance against Russian interference was a blatant step toward Trump’s pro-Putin foreign policy, but what can you expect from someone who knows nothing and relies on Paul Manafort, a Putin tool, for advice.

    The New York Times reported today that:
    “Mr. Manafort’s presence remains elsewhere here in the capital [of Ukraine], where government investigators examining secret records have found his name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr. Manafort’s main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych. Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.”

  6. lespark says:

    Excellent policy, better than the don’t offend anyone PC policy of the Obama/Clinton Administration which has been disastorous.
    Once Preet gets into the CF/CGI Rotten Hillary investigation she will be headed to the Jail House. They just have to put a bow tie on it before they present it to the Grand Jury. The Judge who granted the FOIA to Judicial Watch will do.
    You can be sure Loretta and Bill will be meeting on the Tarmac again. Many times. This will be the biggest cover up that will rock America. Obama was either complicit, extremely careless or both.
    Can you imagine if Rotten Hilliary is under investigation the scandal? OMG.
    Great job Obama’s done for the BLM in Milwaukee, Chicago, Baltimore. Whatever he did, it isn’t working.
    And all you Rotten Egg supporters, the call is out. Get a part time job, earn some cash and send it to her. She’s crawling on all fours to get to the WH or was that the jailhouse.

    • klastri says:

      You’re lying again. There is no investigation. No matter how many times you repeat this lie, it will not become true.

    • Ikefromeli says:

      Les,,why don’t you address the VA average of the last 10 days, he is down to 11%. I gave this figure over two weeks ago, you said I was full of it……..want to provide us with a scintillating analysis??

      That’s what I thought…..chirp chirp……crickets.

  7. Ikefromeli says:

    Yup, Trump is doing so well, that the RNC is in the process of cutting off any further funding to him.

    Publicly, Republican Party officials continue to stand by Donald Trump. Privately, at the highest levels, party leaders have started talking about cutting off support to Trump in October and redirecting cash to save endangered congressional majorities.

    Since the Cleveland convention, top party officials have been quietly making the case to political journalists, donors and GOP operatives that the Republican National Committee has done more to help Trump than it did to support its 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, and that therefore Trump has only himself and his campaign to blame for his precipitous slide in the polls, according to people who have spoken with Republican leadership.

    Sean Spicer, the RNC’s top strategist, on Wednesday made that case to 14 political reporters he convened at the organization’s Capitol Hill headquarters for an off-the-record conversation about the election.

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-rnc-support-226987#ixzz4HNGrWFSi

  8. Ikefromeli says:

    Hmmmn, so what is it like to work for the so-called tycoon and business wiz—nothing short of heinous, see:http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/donald-trump-magazine-employee-confessional-bankrupt-2016-214155

  9. Ikefromeli says:

    Another example of his profound ignorance and hubris in running a national election–campaigning in CT. Karl Rove recently said his lack of knowledge was astounding,,,

    And yet, on Saturday, Trump is hosting a rally in Fairfield County, Conn., a county that Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama by 11 percentage points, in a state that hasn’t voted Republican since 1988.

    It’s a move that is flummoxing and infuriating Republicans who believe Trump should be spending time and resources in winnable states, not in a place that few consider to be competitive.

    “At this point, Florida looks in trouble, North Carolina looks in trouble, they don’t even know who their people are in Ohio,” said Charlie Harper, a prominent conservative writer who runs a think tank in Georgia, where Trump is sliding in the polls. “He can go have lunch in Connecticut and be home for supper, but the map is changing rapidly in the opposite direction. Hillary Clinton is not going to move in to defend Connecticut just because Trump went there.”

    It’s unlikely she’ll need to, given the strong Democratic bent of the state, which has a Democratic governor, an entirely Democratic congressional delegation and voted for Obama by 18 percentage points in 2012. Former GOP Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut has also recently endorsed her over Trump.

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-connecticut-why-is-he-campaigning-there-226959#ixzz4HNMlEFMZ

    • keaukaha says:

      Come on crickets are you out there? Eerie silence which in this case I am elated.

    • MoiLee says:

      Ike……..and if you believe “Porky Pig” Karl Rove.You might as well believe in Daffy Duck,Bugs Bunny,WilE Coyote,and the rest of the Looney tune characters lol .
      This guy in the past has been wrong on Trump numerously,from the GOP primary to today!
      Think about it ……During the GOP primary the MSM were ALL over & sucking up to Donald Trump,but now, with the MSM being 80% Liberal Democrats (heheheeh),you would think they’re’ going to be THE True,Unbiased,Investigative reporting journalist??UUUUHHHHHHH?
      This is true, only if you live in “La La” Land”.

      The MSM has become the “Junkyard Dog” for Hillary Clinton(FoxNews), because of all the “Junk News and Lopsided polls they put out on The Donald….. Don’t believe it! He’s doing better than you think, and his numbers ARE rising since last week and this is why the MSM is afraid!

      Here’s how they conduct their polls and all their “Shinanigans”….should you decide to accept,which i doubt.

      The MSM will pick a HIGHER number of Liberal Democrats to participate in those polls VS a Lower number of Republican Conservatives to participate in that same poll!! What do you think the outcome will be? Give you time to think about it,in the mean time,I’ll play the Jeopardy song for you……….
      C’mon now,you don’t have to be a mathematician to figure this out! ……Yep! thats’ what i thought….. Don’t believe in “Fairy Tales”.IMUA

      • Ikefromeli says:

        Moi, show me one legitimate poll and strategy, that is evidence based, i.e data supported, that Trump has a real path to the White House. Don’t bother, there is none…not one. Talk about believing in tall tales and the tooth fairy…..on the other hand maybe Trump will also get you a mail order bride from the eastern bloc.

      • klastri says:

        Trump is finished. Even hard core Republicans now recognize that he is a psychotic.

  10. bsdetection says:

    Ironic since it’s highly unlikely that Trump could pass the test given to immigrants seeking citizenship.

  11. FarmerDave says:

    “If the disgusting and corrupt media covered me honestly and didn’t put false meaning into the words I say,…”

    Well The Donald, looks like you found yet another group to alienate. I’m sure your taunting will now make media give you fair coverage.

  12. FarmerDave says:

    “Stay tuned, it’s very early in this campaign.” Oh wow didn’t know Pence was a comedian. Or does he not own a calendar. Early in the campaign? Everyone has already made up their mind. Where have you been Pence?

  13. bsdetection says:

    Trump should start by releasing his wife’s immigration and citizenship papers. What is he hiding?

  14. Ikefromeli says:

    Another day, another stern repudiation and outright rejection of Trump by the conservative standard bearer the National Review.

    THE PRESIDENTIAL LIE

    But, again, that is not what I have in mind. For more than a year Trump and his choir assured everyone that he would indeed “pivot” and become more presidential. As he told Hannity: “At the right time, I will be so presidential that you’ll call me and you’ll say, ‘Donald, you have to stop that, it’s too much.’” “

    As I get closer and closer to the goal, it’s going to get different,” he told Greta Van Susteren in February. “I will be changing very rapidly. I’m very capable of changing to anything I want to change to.” As I wrote last week, this was always a lie (and a ridiculous thing to say even if it weren’t).

    Trump can no more promise to be presidential than a leopard can promise to be a top-loading washing machine that runs on good intentions when in energy-saver mode (did I get that phrase wrong?). But as 8 trillion eggs on Twitter keep telling me, what I think doesn’t matter. But Sean believed it. Hannity even suggested in that interview that the real Trump – the one Hannity has known for years — is the presidential one. Hannity in effect seconded Trump’s own assurance that Trump could change instantly into a mainstream, mature candidate whenever he wanted. Many honest and decent people pocketed this IOU of presidentialness. In fact, this promise of a new, disciplined Trump seemed to be the only thing that kept Hugh Hewitt off suicide watch.

    The simple fact is this: Trump will not win unless he changes. He needs to reassure the skeptics. He needs to win-over people not already won-over. He needs new, serious, material. But like an aging has-been rocker, he’d rather keep playing his greatest hits at Indian casinos and state fairs than actually put in the work and pivot. But Hannity doesn’t seem to care.

    Trump is sabotaging his own campaign every single day, and yet his supporters put the blame on everyone else and cheer Trump on. They are Trump’s worst enemies because they are enabling him and by enabling him, they are sabotaging Trump’s campaign. If Hannity really loved Trump, he would play Ben Affleck to Matt Damon’s Will Hunting and tell him he owes it to himself and the country to be more than what he is.

    Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438949/donald-trump-sean-hannity-does-hannity-want-hillary-clinton-win

  15. Ikefromeli says:

    Even more bad news and moreover a keen accurate reflection of the powers behind the inept Trump campaign.

    Donald Trump is scheduled to deliver what aides are billing as a major foreign-policy speech Monday afternoon, but his campaign is, yet again, already playing defense.

    In a major piece published Sunday evening, The New York Times delves into the work of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in Ukraine. For years, Manafort worked for Viktor Yanukovych, a Kremlin protege who was deposed as president amid widespread demonstrations in 2014. Trump has been unusually positive about Russian President Vladimir Putin throughout the campaign, raising questions about why he would seek to reverse decades of American policy toward Moscow, and while the newest reports about Manafort do not answer those questions, they do demonstrate close links between a Putin ally and one of Trump’s top advisers.

    The Times reports on handwritten ledgers that list $12.7 million in cash payments to Manafort from Yanukovych’s political party between 2007 and 2012. While it isn’t clear from the records whether Manafort actually received the money, the documents, obtained by the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau, sketch out some of Manafort’s many ties in the region:

    Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials. In addition, criminal prosecutors are investigating a group of offshore shell companies that helped members of Mr. Yanukovych’s inner circle finance their lavish lifestyles, including a palatial presidential residence with a private zoo, golf course and tennis court. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Mr. Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin.
    Manafort’s work for Yanukovych is not a revelation, but the $12.7 million figure is. The ledgers reportedly do not offer explanations for the payments, simply numbers. While Manafort declined to answer the newspaper’s questions, he gave a statement to CBS’s Major Garrett in which he said, “The simplest answer is the truth: I am a political professional.” He said he had never worked for the governments of either Ukraine or Russia, that all of his payments had been above board, and that money went to compensate his large team of employees.

    Being associated with unsavory leaders whose interests run counter to U.S. policy, or who have been involved in repression against citizens, is a professional risk of Manafort’s brand of political consulting. His company formerly worked for Filipino dictator Feridinand Marcos, among others.

    But the Times story suggest there may have been more to Manafort’s work in Ukraine than simple electioneering. Prosecutors allege that Yanukovych and his allies, including Oleg Deripaska, an oligarch close to Putin, set up a network of offshore companies based in tax shelters like the Cayman Islands, which they used to launder money stolen from public coffers.

    So, your right hand person has not just eye raising but illegal relation as the puppet master of an already well documented corrupt regime of the Ukraine……..hmmmmn, sounds just about right.

  16. lespark says:

    Pay for Play. You can Pay me now or you better Pay me later.

    It is also worth noting that Chagoury’s company, the Chagoury Group, pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative in 2009, the same year the Clinton Global Initiative awarded the Chagoury Group its annual prize for “sustainable development.” The money pledged was at the heart of Sen. David Vitter’s (R) probe into whether Chagoury’s cozy relationship with the Clintons played a roll in Clinton’s State Department’s delay of a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation on Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram; an FTO classification would have severely hampered Chagoury’s business endeavors in Nigeria.

    Boko Haram. Isn’t that the terrorist organization that kidnapped those school girls? Rotten Hillary was broke when she left the White House up until she became the Secretary of State. Then and only then did the money come pouring in.

    See you guys in Federal Court. Go Preet Bharara.

    • klastri says:

      You’re lying about Mr. Bharara. No matter how many times you repeat your lie about this, it will not become true.

      You seem incapable of ever writing truthful things.

      “I love the poorly educated!” Go Trump!

  17. Allaha says:

    Trump is right on one thing: Immigration. In the past immigration mainly from Europe and some Chinese and Japanese made the country the best in the world . Now USA is deteriorating due to immigration shift from bad countries like Mexico and such.

  18. Ikefromeli says:

    YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump lashed out at a new target on Monday, blaming his bad poll numbers on the existence of the numerical system.

    In sometimes rambling remarks at an outdoor rally in Ohio, the Republican Presidential nominee called the numerical system “rigged” and unleashed a torrent of abuse on numbers themselves, calling them “disgusting” and “the lowest form of life.”

    “It’s why I won’t release my taxes,” he said. “They’re full of goddam numbers.”

    While Republican candidates in the past have attempted to exploit their supporters’ distrust of math, Trump is believed to be the first nominee to call into question the numerical system itself.

    Behind the scenes, G.O.P. insiders fretted that, in attacking the very existence of numbers, Trump was veering wildly off message.

    “He should be talking about Hillary Clinton, and instead he’s going off on integers,” one insider said.

    So, his rationale and excuse for being behind is that he has bad numbers……just brilliant, really he is an once in a lifetime thinker. Cricket crew, all together now……..chirp chirp.

    • Cellodad says:

      Right, Andy Borowitz is always good for a chuckle and I enjoy his articles. You are aware however that he does write satirical columns for the New Yorker? While entertaining certainly, they should no more be used as references than should an article from the Daily Caller for example.

  19. Ikefromeli says:

    Another arrow in the heart of the Trump, this time from the very conservative writer Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal.

    By PEGGY NOONAN
    Aug. 4, 2016 7:40 p.m. ET
    2902 COMMENTS
    I think this week marked a certain coming to terms with where the election is going. Politics is about trends and tendencies. The trends for Donald Trump are not good, and he tends not to change.

    All the damage done to him this week was self-inflicted. The arrows he’s taken are arrows he shot. We have in seven days witnessed his undignified and ungrateful reaction to a Gold Star family; the odd moment with the crying baby; the one-on-one interviews, which are starting to look like something he does in the grip of a compulsion, in which Mr. Trump expresses himself thoughtlessly, carelessly, on such issues as Russia, Ukraine and sexual harassment; the relitigating of his vulgar Megyn Kelly comments from a year ago; and, as his fortunes fell, his statement that he “would not be surprised” if the November election were “rigged.” Subject to an unprecedented assault by a sitting president who called him intellectually and characterologically unfit for the presidency, Mr Trump fired back—at Paul Ryan and John McCain.
    ENLARGE
    PHOTO: CHAD CROWE
    The mad scatterbrained-ness of it was captured in a Washington Post interview with Philip Rucker in which five times by my count—again, the compulsion—Mr. Trump departed the meat of the interview to turn his head and stare at the television. On seeing himself on the screen: “Lot of energy. We got a lot of energy.” Minutes later: “Look at this. It’s all Trump all day long. That’s why their ratings are through the roof.” He’s all about screens, like a toddler hooked on iPad.

    Mr. Trump spent all his time doing these things instead of doing his job: making the case for his policies, expanding on his stands, and taking the battle to Hillary Clinton.

    By the middle of the week the Republican National Committee was reported to be frustrated, party leaders alarmed, donors enraged. There was talk of an “intervention.”

    Here is a truth of life. When you act as if you’re insane, people are liable to think you’re insane. That’s what happened this week. People started to become convinced he was nuts, a total flake.

    MORE DECLARATIONS

    How Global Elites Forsake Their Countrymen Aug. 11, 2016
    A Disunited Party’s Successful Convention July 29, 2016
    Trump and the Unknowable Moment July 22, 2016
    Three Good Men Talk About Race July 14, 2016
    It was there in the polls. Fox News shows Mrs. Clinton with a 10-point lead, with Mr. Trump at 78% of the Republican vote, compared with Mitt Romney’s 93% in 2012. Mr. Romney won the white vote by 20 points; Mr. Trump is ahead by 10. “High-end Republicans are walking away,” says a GOP oppo guy. “Who is choking now?” The battleground states, too, have turned bad.

    This is what became obvious, probably fatally so: Mr. Trump is not going to get serious about running for president. He does not have a second act, there are no hidden depths, there will be no “pivot.” It is not that he is willful or stubborn, though he may be, it’s that he doesn’t have the skill set needed now—discretion, carefulness, generosity, judgment. There’s a clueless quality about him. It’s not that he doesn’t get advice; it’s that he can’t hear advice, can’t process it or turn it into action.

    “He’ll reach out, he’ll start to listen. He’ll change, soften.” No, he won’t. Nor will he start to understand that his blunders are a form of shown disrespect for his own supporters. They put themselves on the line for him, many at some cost. What he’s giving them in return is a strange, bush-league, pull-it-out-of-your-ear, always-indulge-your-emotions campaign. They deserve better.

    And while Mr. Trump was doing this, Mrs. Clinton was again lying about her emails, reminding us there’s crazy there, too. She insisted to Chris Wallace that FBI director James Comey endorsed her sincerity and veracity. No he didn’t, and everyone knows he didn’t. She’d have spent the past week defending her claims if it weren’t for Mr. Trump’s tireless attempts to kill Mr. Trump.

    His supporters hope it will all turn around in the debates: He’ll wipe the floor with her; for the first time she’ll be toe-to-toe with someone who speaks truth to power. But why do they assume this? Are they watching Mrs. Clinton? She doesn’t look very afraid of him. “No, Donald, you don’t,” she purred in her acceptance speech. In debate she’ll calmly try to swat him away, cock her head, look at the moderator, smile. She’ll be watching old videos of Reagan-Carter in 1980: “There you go again.”

    She is aware no one believes she’s honest and trustworthy. If there’s one thing Mrs. Clinton knows it’s how to read a poll. She has accepted that people understand her. Her debate approach will be this: In spite of what will no doubt be some uncomfortable moments, she will, in comparison with him, seem sturdy and grounded—normal. That, this week, could be her bumper sticker: “Hillary: Way Less Abnormal.”

    It must be said that all this is so strange on so many levels.

    Donald Trump is said to be in love with the idea of success, dividing the world between winners and losers. But he just won big and couldn’t take yes for an answer.

    He got it all, was the unique outsider who shocked the entire political class with his rise. He should be the happiest man in the world, not besieged and full of complaint. All he had to do was calm down, build bridges, reach out, reassure, be gracious. In fairness, he could not unite the party. That isn’t possible now—it is a divided party, which is why it had 17 candidates. Mr. Trump won with just less than half the vote, an achievement in a field that big, but also while representing policies that the formal leadership of the party in Washington finds anathema. He was the candidate who would control illegal immigration, who wouldn’t cut entitlements, who opposes an interventionist foreign policy, who thinks our major trade deals have not benefited Americans on the ground. And he won, big time.

    MORE DECLARATIONS

    How Global Elites Forsake Their Countrymen Aug. 11, 2016
    A Disunited Party’s Successful Convention July 29, 2016
    Trump and the Unknowable Moment July 22, 2016
    Three Good Men Talk About Race July 14, 2016
    From what I’ve seen there has been zero reflection on the part of Republican leaders on how much the base’s views differ from theirs and what to do about it. The GOP is not at all refiguring its stands. The only signs of life I see are among young staffers on Capitol Hill, who understand their bosses’ stands have been rebuked and are quietly debating among themselves what policy paths will win the future.

    Beyond that, anti-Trump Republicans treat his voters like immoral enablers of a malignant boob. Should Mr. Trump lose decisively in November they’ll lord it over everyone, say “I told you so,” and accept what they imagine will be forelock-tugging apologies. Then they will get to work burying not only Mr. Trump but his issues.

    That’s where the future of the GOP will be fought, and found: on whether Trumpism can be defeated along with Mr. Trump.

    Mr. Trump would care about that if he cared about that.

    I end with a new word, at least new to me. A friend called it to my attention. It speaks of the moment we’re in. It is “kakistocracy,” from the Greek. It means government by the worst persons, by the least qualified or most unprincipled. We’re on our way there, aren’t we? We’re going to have to make our way through it together.

    Cmon, cricket crew, on my count, 1–2–3….. Chirp, chirp…….incredible awkward silence.

    Buahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.!!!!!!!!!

    • sarge22 says:

      Yet another long-winded dissertation oblivious to the obvious…..
      http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/upshot/were-in-a-low-growth-world-how-did-we-get-here.html?_r=0&referer=

      So why is it that the most erudite analysis fails to comprehend the following drivers:

      Bad guys. Wealth transfer. Capital destruction. Politicians with a price tag. Constitution in a straitjacket. Banksters and associated entourage getting paid first. Destruction of currencies worldwide.
      Massive immigration to pad polls and lower wages and standards of living in order to keep the sputtering Ponzi from collapsing. Western democracies run by a tiny group of corrupt families and associates, all connected to the Banksters/CB,s. Irrational desperate ponzinomics de rigeur despite the massive bubbles and unsustainable debt loads.

      I for one am not confused. I am however deeply concerned.

      • Ikefromeli says:

        Answers. The Appalachia voting profile, largely Irish/Scottish lineage, undereducated, antiquated job skill sets, no longer a primary factor in voting strategies, assume a revisionist in the rear view mirror that America was once much better (maybe if you were white, blue collar and in the 50s), fails to acknowledge that since the global recession on 2007/08, America on many metric levels have fared, by a large margin, the best as to even other industrialized country in the world, this voting group is also heavily isolated with a very poor inept dexterity with technology and litter if any interaction with immigration.

        Bottom line, you don’t have enough of this loud, but sincerely disgruntled demographic to win an election…bye bye.

        • klastri says:

          And Trump is telling them repeatedly that he will “bring coal back.” Plants being built now don’t burn coal, in part because no one has been able to figure out what to do with the ash slurry. It’s hard to transport compared with gas. The fantasy of “clean coal” was just that – a fantasy. Coal is dying and Trump cannot change the marketplace or physics to stop that. Period.

          Like usual, neither he nor his supporters have any knowledge of what they’re talking or writing about.

        • sarge22 says:

          Because most Americans rarely see coal, they tend to picture it as a relic of the 19th century, black stuff piled up in Victorian alleys. In fact, a lump of coal is a thoroughly ubiquitous 21st-century artifact, as much an emblem of our time as the iPhone. Today coal produces more than 40 percent of the world’s electricity, a foundation of modern life. And that percentage is going up: In the past decade, coal added more to the global energy supply than any other source.

          Nowhere is the preeminence of coal more apparent than in the planet’s fastest-growing, most populous region: Asia, especially China. In the past few decades, China has lifted several hundred million people out of destitution—arguably history’s biggest, fastest rise in human well-being. That advance couldn’t have happened without industrialization, and that industrialization couldn’t have happened without coal. More than three-quarters of China’s electricity comes from coal, including the power for the giant electronic plants where iPhones are assembled. More coal goes to heating millions of homes, to smelting steel (China produces nearly half the world’s steel), and to baking limestone to make cement (China provides almost half the world’s cement). In its frantic quest to develop, China burns almost as much coal as the rest of the world put together—a fact that makes climatologists shudder.

        • klastri says:

          sarge22 – Well now we know that you can plagiarize – verbatim – an article from Wired.

          Can you write original thoughts?

        • Ikefromeli says:

          Sarge, you can at the very least attribute the article…give the author that modicum of decency. Further, what you don’t provide is that this same industrialization in China came at a profound cost. First, all, and I mean ALL businesses in China have a direct nexus to their central bank–no shareholder requirements and demands, and very poor corporate governance. Two, the environmental concerns and their breaching of their water tables make this type of development , not only non sustainable it is precautionary for many investors. This system is distinct from ours and cannot go much further, it is the only reason they can fabricate annual growth in the 7-8 percent range.

          Try articulating your own thoughts and opinions.

        • sarge22 says:

          Natural Gas Dethrones King Coal With Encouraging Results
          James Taylor , CONTRIBUTOR
          I am president of the Spark of Freedom Foundation.

          Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
          New federal data show coal power is no longer the leading source of America’s electricity generation. The decline of King Coal has occurred at a strikingly rapid pace during the past decade, and natural gas has ascended to the throne.

          The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports natural gas tied coal power last year with each powering 33 percent of the U.S. electricity mix. The decline of coal power during the past few years has been remarkable considering coal powered approximately 50 percent of America’s electricity as recently as 2008. Newly released EIA data indicate coal power is trailing natural gas by a substantial margin this year for the first time in history. So far this year, natural gas has held its 33-percent electricity share while coal power has declined to 27 percent. In less than a decade, coal power has lost nearly half its U.S. electricity market share.

          This begs the question, what will the decline of coal power mean for the American economy and our quality of life?

      • klastri says:

        And this one is verbatim plagiarizing from Investor Village.

        Can you simply not create original ideas?

        • sarge22 says:

          Good information. Just getting the word out. When will the bubble burst? The world as I see it and couldn’t have said it better myself. So here it is again….”Bad guys. Wealth transfer. Capital destruction. Politicians with a price tag. Constitution in a straitjacket. Banksters and associated entourage getting paid first. Destruction of currencies worldwide.
          Massive immigration to pad polls and lower wages and standards of living in order to keep the sputtering Ponzi from collapsing. Western democracies run by a tiny group of corrupt families and associates, all connected to the Banksters/CB,s. Irrational desperate ponzinomics de rigeur despite the massive bubbles and unsustainable debt loads.”

  20. klastri says:

    This would be amusing, if it wasn’t so pathetic. Mr. Trump is asking people about their tolerance of others? WOW!

    He’s profoundly mentally ill. That should be obvious to anyone who hears one campaign speech.

  21. Ikefromeli says:

    So, where do we stand from the pivotal swing state vantage as of today?

    Which states shape up as most important?

    The swing states have sorted themselves into order. According to our polls-only model, Clinton has a lead of at least 9 percentage points in states collectively worth 273 electoral votes, including New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Colorado, Michigan and Wisconsin. Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Nevada and North Carolina are closer, by contrast.

    Aloha no, Trump!

  22. btaim says:

    Trump wants to ensure that anyone coming into the country shares the “American values like tolerance and pluralism” with respect to religious freedom, gays, and gender equality. Since when is “tolerance” in that regard an American value? We can “tolerate” rude and arrogant people, or people with bad breath or who talk too much. But as to religious freedom, sexual orientation and gender equality, we must fully and completely accept them as absolute equals. We don’t “tolerate” them.

  23. klastri says:

    Not sure if anyone saw the USA Today poll out today. Hillary Clinton is beating Trump by 56-20 among voters under 35. One in five responded that the Republicans are offering them anything to vote for. WOW! Trump is destroying the Republican Party for a generation.

    Go Trump!

  24. CEI says:

    No little Barry Hussein is not the founder of ISIS, no rational person believes that was a serious comment. It was plainly sarcasm and the dishonest progressive media and the democrat party useful idiots know it. No Barry did not found ISIS but he is certainly ISIS’s mid-wife. Meanwhile the middle east continues the downward spiral that clueless Barry has ushered in.

  25. Ikefromeli says:

    There is nothing on the electoral board, and I mean NOTHING, from all the swing states that is in his favor. Not one, in fact,,states that are historically red, like Utah and Arizona, are now in play for HRC.

    Why—terrible terrible candidate that has the double whammy, no knowledge of politics and no knowledge of how to run an effective general national election.

    Buahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!

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