Thursday, October 06, 2016

Trump: Disaster

Donald J. Trump, who might be the most ostentatiously unqualified major-party candidate in the 227-year history of the American presidency.

His affect is that of an infomercial huckster; he traffics in conspiracy theories and racist invective; he is appallingly sexist; he is erratic, secretive, and xenophobic; he expresses admiration for authoritarian rulers, and evinces authoritarian tendencies himself. He is easily goaded, a poor quality for someone seeking control of America’s nuclear arsenal. He is an enemy of fact-based discourse; he is ignorant of, and indifferent to, the Constitution; he appears not to read.

Trump is not a man of ideas. He is a demagogue, a xenophobe, a sexist, a know-nothing, and a liar. He is spectacularly unfit for office

Trump Wins Big Among People Who Never Moved Away - The Atlantic

Wednesday, October 05, 2016

Pakistan

In Washington DC, unlike Islamabad, there is clarity. You cannot have your left hand tinker with the HQN, LeT, JuD, JeM, and have your right hand shake Ash Carter’s or Susan Rice’s or anyone else’s. 

Clinton Up

Poll: Clinton up 10 on Trump nationally | TheHill

UN makes power play against Trump | TheHill

 a summer study concluding that Trump would be the only head of state in the world to doubt the science behind climate change. 

Momentum shifts in battle for Senate | TheHill 

Tuesday, October 04, 2016

Single Payer System?

market-based solutions would not solve the country's problems with insurance costs and coverage

Bill Clinton calls Obamacare 'the craziest thing in the world' - CNNPolitics.com

The media likes drama. They want a fight. So they focus on just the phrase.

Bill Clinton could not have taken the Republican position that the whole thing needs to be dismantled, should never have happened.

Perhaps the ACA was an expensive way to educate the country to tell them what you really need is single payer.

Bill Clinton goes way off message on ObamaCare | TheHill

Hillary Clinton and the White House struggled on Tuesday to explain Bill Clinton’s blistering critique of ­ObamaCare, which exposed divisions in the Democratic Party over the healthcare law.

The blunt criticism of ­ObamaCare comes in stark contrast to Hillary Clinton’s careful embrace of the law throughout the campaign. She describedthe Affordable Care Act earlier this year as “one of the greatest accomplishments” in the nation’s history, and frequently touts the law’s coverage gains in her stump speeches.

Bill Clinton’s calls for Medicare for all, also known as a “single-payer” system, echo some of the former first lady’s own comments, after she stepped to the left on healthcare during this year’s Democratic primaries. 

She has proposed big changes like a government-run public option as well as the power for Medicare to negotiate with drug companies. Democrats in Congress have also signaled a new push for the public option, with 33 senators signing on to legislation to create one.

“The change we need is not to wreck this thing and repeal it. It’s done too much good,” Clinton said. “The change we need is to create an affordable option for the small-business people and the working people who are not covered — that’s what the public option is about.”

Bill Clinton: 'I strongly supported' ObamaCare | TheHill



Trump And American Journalists

 “I wonder how I would have behaved if I had been a correspondent in Germany during the early rise to power of Adolf Hitler. Would I first have tried to report his side of the story? How long would it have taken me to realize that he was all bad and that any sympathy or even-handedness would have been misplaced? The short answer is I don’t know.”

Monday, October 03, 2016

Trump Brand Anti Semitism

“This feels like the closest thing to the type of anti-Semitism that my grandparents talk about experiencing in Poland.”

Kushner’s extended family fired back, launching an internecine war of words: “Please don't invoke our grandparents in vain just so you can sleep better at night,” seethed one Kushner cousin. “It is self-serving and disgusting.”

“When you stand silent and smiling in the background, his Jewish son-in-law,” she wrote to her boss, “you’re giving his most hateful supporters tacit approval.”

“Donald Trump,” Reizes says, “has put the Jewish community in a turmoil that I don’t really think we’ve experienced in a long time.”

31-year-old Andrew Aglin, founder of the Daily Stormer—a bigot and racist who refers to his presidential candidate by nom de guerre, “Glorious Leader.” College undergraduates from California, leisurely attending white nationalist conferences, have also shown up; and 25-year-old Matthew Heimbach, dubbed the “next David Duke.” (“Hail, Emperor Trump and hail victory.”Trump has opted to wink and nod at such “deplorables” (as Hillary Clinton has called them) when given the chance.

“What’s most shocking is...how silent the Jewish establishment has been in calling out Trump’s behavior,” Kaplan said. She later added, “The same people who told me that anti-Semitism was everywhere are now conspicuously silent on Trump. In some cases, they’re supporting Trump.”

“Donald Trump is not a distraction. He is the thing our tradition teaches us to resist,” Beinart wrote. “In this season of national decision and Jewish self-reflection, please reflect on your silence.”

“It’s a moment when both you and your grandma get to be right about this,” Harpo Jaeger, 25, tells me, an experienced campus activist in Jewish politics and a faith-based organizer. “She gets to be right that anti-Semitism is alive and well, and Jews should be worried about it,” he adds. “And the left gets to be correct, in that the anti-Israel or anti-Zionist left doesn’t have a monopoly on anti-Semitism. These people really are everywhere.”

“Why the Jews? I don’t know,” says Zach Reizes. “It’s a very scary thought, that maybe all those horror stories we’ve been told about Jewish persecution are right.” The nineteen-year-old adds, “Maybe they’re still foreshadowing a future that we thought had died.”

The BO Presidency

Barack Obama on 5 Days That Shaped His Presidency 

I haven’t lost my preference for good old-fashioned debate, bills, and the democratic process. If there’s one wish that I have for future presidents, it’s not an imperial presidency, it is a functional, sensible majority-and-opposition being able to make decisions based on facts and policy and compromise. That would have been my preference for the majority of my presidency. It was an option that wasn’t always available. But I hope the American people continue to understand that that’s how the system should work.

Donald Trump Is No Hitler, And He Is No Joke

Donald Trump is no Adolf Hitler, he is Adolf Hitler times 1,000. Comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler is like comparing the atom bomb to the hand grenade.

To his credit Donald Trump has not hidden himself or his policy proposals. Take climate change. Trump does not only not believe it is not happening, he thinks America is Saudi Arabia. He wants to take oil drilling in America into the stratosphere. Drill, baby, drill. The best of climate scientists will tell you, the clock is ticking fast and there is such a thing called point of no return. Trump has the ability to throw the world off that cliff in eight years. Easy.

The point of no return is when global weather is completely out of control. It is a bye bye agriculture scenario. Six billion dead, but not exactly fasting to death.

Now tell me, how is Donald Trump like Adolf Hitler? How will six billion compare with six million?

The best of liberals think Donald Trump is a buffoon who is not even a policy wonk, meh! Hitler was similarly taken lightly all the way to after he won his election. There were fantassies of keeping him in control.

And if climate change will not do it, Trump has a nuclear plan, and he has been very upfront about it. His plan creates a world with 20 to 30 new nuclear powers. This guy is literally Lucifer's agent. Should the world survive a climate assault, his plan B is to try and destroy it anyway through a nuclear Armageddon. 20 to 30 mid size nuclear powers with unstable political situations is a disaster waiting to happen. The world gets nervous with just one Dennis Rodman fan in North Korea. What if you had 30 such dudes? Could you sleep?

His surest plan though is a total attack on trade. This guy is mad America did not experience a Great Depression in 2009. He would like to take another crack at it.

The first President Bush is looking to me like a hero right now, with all the Bush women in tow.

You are a political illiterate of the worst kind, no matter what your party, if you don't see this guy for the fascist he is. This is not partisan name calling. If I am a democrat, I am a small d democrat. This is political analysis.

Brexit is Trump on trade. Don't say it could not happen. There is a President Trump in Philippines (yes, an American ally) who would like to kill three million people. 3,000 down, killed without regard to due process. By the way, he won an election. The fascist virus has mutated. It contests elections now.

To top it all, Trump has also threatened to gag the press once in the White House. Unthinkable in America? Germany was a country of high culture. Hitler barbarism was not expected. Heck, it was unthinkable.

Sunday, October 02, 2016

This Election Is About Body Language, Not Policy

I finally figured it out. I have been running around like a headless chicken trying to counter Trump on policy. But that has been a fool's errand. This election is not about policy. Trump has no policy proposals whatsoever. Tax cuts for the rich is not policy. It is the natural order of things. The rich are called rich for a reason. All money is their money. We are to merely borrow some once in a while.

Trump is a coward. He is so scared of ISIS he is hiding all his policy proposals under his mattress, to be revealed at some midnight hour at a much later date, while ISIS sleeps with the fishes. It is rumored there is an urban renewal proposal under his mattress.

So if this election is not about policy. It hit me after a few days of the first debate. Duh! It has been about body language all along.

For example, when Trump sniffs like he was sniffing coke (scariface) how do you feel? If you are Cuban you might even take pride in it.

When Trump (Da Man) interrupts Hillary (That Woman) every minute for half an hour, how do you feel? That question is not as easy as you think. If he had not done that half his support base would have evaporated.

When Trump stakes a claim to the country's leadership, to his credit, he never pretended it was anything about knowledge or competence. He has always claimed it as some kind of a birthright. Just watch his body language. Could Hillary match that body language? Will she at least attempt a show of a sense of entitlement?

Could you maintain a scowling pouting face for 90 minutes? I know I couldn't. But could Hillary? That is the question.

Could you wear a blue tie, a color you have never worn?

Could you look down when you are supposed to look up, and vice versa?

During the next debate I am going to pay more (nay, all) attention to body language.

Trump supporters think he won the first debate, so much so that they quickly organized to swamp all online polls at all major media sites. Why do you think they think Trump won? Body language. Trump’s body language speaks to his base completely.

The guy has taken a hit of 800 million dollars to his wealth this past year. The foot traffic to his businesses is down substantially. He is dedicated to his cause. The cause is body language. Pay attention to the body language.

Women, blacks, Mexicans, Muslims might do the same and end up with entirely different conclusions. But then that's the point. Chances are you are not part of his base.

This is a body language election, first and foremost. This is not a public policy election. I finally figured it out. So when Trump grunts, you have to understand, he is appealing to his base.

Unfair

Trump has a challenge with white women: 'You just want to smack him'

For months now, Clinton’s advertisements have used Trump’s own words to undermine his character. 

I just found out about this. That Hillary 2016 has been using "Trump’s own words to undermine his character."

This is unfair. How could they? Granted the poll numbers are tight, but this is a little uncalled for.

I support Hillary, but I expect her to play fair.

Also, what was that thing about the mic? I believe Trump. He did sound harsh. I just did not realize it was the mic.

A liberal media might do that, provide the newly conservative candidate a bad mic.

Or the bad mic might have been planted by Fox News. So a bad debate performance can be blamed on the mic.

Whoever did it, it is unfair, it is unfair to the process.

Hillary Clinton: Political Genius

Trump has a challenge with white women: 'You just want to smack him'

“You just want to smack him,” said Pam Harrison, 56, who voted for Republican Mitt Romney four years ago.

“I have always voted Republican, but I don’t feel like I could vote for Trump this year,” Rosanna Koehlert, 58, a college graduate and housewife, said as she shopped the other day in Merrimack, N.H. “He shouldn’t be making fun of people and making them self-conscious about the way they look. That’s not what a president should be.”

One of the campaign’s most recent ads, called “Mirrors,” depicts girls looking at their reflections as Trump is heard talking crudely about women’s bodies.



And I have been waiting for the women of America to get excited about the first female president idea. Does not matter who. If someone is within striking distance, go vote, it's about time. It's been only 200 plus years.

But no, what seems to rile women is the body image thing, more than even the sexism of getting interrupted.

Fat shaming, no, no, Trump, no, no, you simply don't go there. The women of the land are offended.

I am moving Hillary Clinton from the overqualified to the political genius category.

But jokes aside, I think women are being strategic. I predicted months ago women will break in Hillary's direction about two weeks before election day. That is strategic thinking. Women are not like black people who might inhabit an alternate universe. Women mostly cohabit with men. You probably don't want the men of America to wake up on November 9 thinking, I think my woman just turned the tables on me. A coup has been pulled. It is easier digestion if instead the posture is, I don't care for Hillary, especially with all that you read about the emails, but I be damned if I let that grumpy man make fun of my body! You know what I mean?