Trump dossier

[Drew Phipps]

Trump was endorsed tonight by Michael Flynn, ex-DIA chief and also PNAC advocate. (He was forced out of office after his public disagreements with Obama.) In his speech, he promoted the continued use of the concept of "American exceptionalism" and also talked about the "New American Century." He also derided the attempts to get soldiers to pay attention to such niceties as political correctness, which bathroom to use, etc...

So, in case you had any doubt where the hard core right wing military - industrial complex, that (at a bare minimum) brought us into Iraq after 9/11 (despite Flynn's post-firing criticism), stands, now you know: They want Trump.

[Peter Lemkin]

Trump was endorsed tonight by Michael Flynn, ex-DIA chief and also PNAC advocate. (He was forced out of office after his public disagreements with Obama.) In his speech, he promoted the continued use of the concept of "American exceptionalism" and also talked about the "New American Century." He also derided the attempts to get soldiers to pay attention to such niceties as political correctness, which bathroom to use, etc...

So, in case you had any doubt where the hard core right wing military - industrial complex, that (at a bare minimum) brought us into Iraq after 9/11 (despite Flynn's post-firing criticism), stands, now you know: They want Trump.

Trump for all of his bluster is a blank slate [and know-nothing]..... I'm sure the MI+C surely feels they can lead him by the nose to do whatever they want, and are correct. Presidents have little real say or power since Dallas, and less when they are totally uninformed geopolitically and historically - like Trump the Chump. Sadly, the MI+C also knows they 'win' and will control with Clinton. Either way expect more wars, more megadeath, more misery, more loss of freedom, more poverty - except for the few, more environmental destruction, more chaos, more propaganda, more hate, more bigotry, more oligarchy, more neo-fascism, more militarized police, more people in private prisons, less justice, more control, less quality of life - no matter how measured. A 'NEW new Pearl Harbor' will be possible under either of them.

Clinton would make some few minor progressive domestic changes. Neither would do anything good internationally or geostrategically - nor any MAJOR positive domestic changes. Both VERY bad. One worse. Vote Green - Dr. Jill Stein.

Beam me up Scotty! Fast!

[Peter Lemkin]

The Republican National Convention this week. Historians see in the Trump candidacy the winding together of different strains in reactionary politics under a single banner.CreditDamon Winter/The New York TimesThe New York media mogul approached his party'sconvention having already shaken the political system: The power brokers had attacked him as a dangerous rogue, mocked his hairstyle and branded him a "low voluptuary" for his colorful personal life. And yet William Randolph Hearst loomed over the St. Louis gathering as a threat to seize the Democratic Party's nomination for president.
Mr. Hearst, a publisher of lurid tabloid newspapers serving his first term in Congress, was crushed in the balloting as the party leaders of 1904 rejected him. His message a blend of populist economic policies and muscular nationalism, sometimes called "Hearstism" would await another standard-bearer, at another time.
More than a century later, Donald J. Trump is poised to do what Mr. Hearst could not: claim a major party's nomination for president of the United States. His candidacy has upended the Republican Party, baffling and then vanquishing opponents who dismissed him as a celebrity sideshow. Even now, many prefer to treat his success as a freak occurrence without precedent in United States history.
But if Mr. Trump will be the first figure of his kind to claim a presidential nomination, his candidacy falls within an American tradition of insurgent politics that has found expression in other moments of social and economic rupture, often attaching itself to folk heroes from the world of big business or the military.
His hazy political philosophy, often labeled "Trumpism," draws on themes of American identity and sovereignty preoccupations that have convulsed one party or the other from time to time, before subsiding.
And consciously or not, Mr. Trump has followed a path trod for more than a century by nationalist outsiders who coveted the presidency, from Hearst to Gen. Douglas MacArthur andRoss Perot. Like them, he has presented himself as an archetype of American ingenuity and grit a tough, patriotic businessman and offered himself as a champion against swirling international forces that he describes, in conspiratorial terms, as undermining the United States.
Photo

William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper publisher who ran for president in 1904.Creditvia The Library of CongressHis running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, hailed Mr. Trump in a "60 Minutes" interview as a heroic leader who "embodies American strength."
Walter F. Mondale, the former vice president and 1984 Democratic presidential nominee, said he saw Mr. Trump as an heir to a tradition of isolationism and cultural paranoia that surfaces from time to time as a "recurrent theme" in American politics. Mr. Trump, he said, had articulated a familiar exhortation "for America to withdraw from the world, that we have only threats coming from abroad."
Mr. Mondale, 88, said Mr. Trump appeared determined to undermine American traditions of internationalism and multiculturalism. He called Mr. Trump a "hate advocate."
"His attack on Mexicans, on judges, on immigrants of all kinds it all has this We have to protect ourselves from them' theme," Mr. Mondale said.
Historians see in Mr. Trump's candidacy the winding together of different strains in reactionary politics under a single banner. No reality television star has run for president before, but Mr. Trump, with his grasp of the art of notoriety, has forebears of a kind in General MacArthur and Charles A. Lindbergh, the celebrity aviator whose "America First" slogan Mr. Trump has appropriated, and in Hearst andHenry Ford, a pair of renowned and eccentric tycoons who eyed the presidency.
His message contains echoes of George Wallace, the segregationist Alabama governor who sought the White House on a law-and-order platform, and of Mr. Perot andLee A. Iacocca, modern industrialists drawn to politics and preoccupied with economic threats from Asia and Latin America.

REPUBLICAN CONVENTION 2016 By ROBIN LINDSAY and DAVE HORN 3:21Nixon's Mark on Republican Convention




VideoNixon's Mark on Republican Convention

As Donald J. Trump seeks to position himself as a "law and order" candidate, there are echoes of Richard Nixon, a candidate who sought to do the same in 1968.


Viewed from this angle, Mr. Trump looks less like a singular phenomenon of 2016, and more like the political equivalent of a comet that crosses the track of an American presidential campaign every few decades.
"We've seen everything in Trump before," said Kevin Kruse, a political historian at Princeton, "but we've never seen it all together at once."
A Nationalist, Right or Left

For much of the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump has defied ideological labeling: He has ignored traditional cultural wedge issues like abortion rights and same-sex marriage, and has taken shifting and often contradictory stances on a host of other matters, from military intervention in Syria to the concept of universal health care.
Mr. Trump has brusquely dismissed the charge of philosophical inconsistency. "I'm a conservative," he said in a speech in May in California. "But at this point, who cares?"
Yet beneath his swerving and scattered policy agenda, he has been steadfastly consistent over time on a few broad inclinations that define his political worldview.
To the extent that he has an ideology, it is a kind of fortress conservatism, taking a bunkered outlook on the world and fixating on challenges to America's economic supremacy and to its character as a nation defined by the white working class.
Photo

The famed aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, at an "America First" rally in 1941.CreditThe New York TimesPatrick J. Buchanan, who ran for president both as a populist Republican and as a third-party immigration hawk, called Mr. Trump a kindred spirit. "You could call it tribalism," Mr. Buchanan said. "You could call it ethno-nationalism."


Since Mr. Trump first toyed with running for president in the 1980s, he has been hostile to foreign trade and immigration and suspicious of international organizations he views as impinging on America's free hand. He isdistrustful of alliances with less powerful countries, which he has characterized as freeloading off America's wealth and power.
In the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump has suggested withdrawing from NATO and pulling troops back from longstanding bases in countries like South Korea and Germany. His threats are a precise echo of a speech he gavein New Hampshire in 1987, declaring that the United States had been "kicked around" by ungrateful allies in Asia and the Middle East.
In domestic matters, Mr. Trump's main impulse is toward hard-line law and order. He is indifferent to civil liberties and contemptuous of objections to racial targeting. For decades, he has described the country as harried by rampant crime, and has typically placed blame with different nonwhite communities, including urban blacks, Hispanic immigrants and Native Americans.
Long before he called for banning Muslim immigration and torturing terrorism suspects, Mr. Trump argued for unleashing the New York Police Department to attack social unrest with a mailed fist. He spoke approvingly of the Chinese government's brutal crackdown in Tiananmen Square. He recently expressed admiration for Vladimir V. Putin, Russia's autocratic president, and Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator, whom he praised as tough on terrorism.
He is not the first American businessman with presidential aspirations to be drawn to strongman government: Hearst and Ford, the anti-Semitic car manufacturer who considered a presidential bid in 1924, both maintained cordial and even admiring relations with emerging fascist regimes in Italy and Germany.


Gov. George Wallace of Alabama responded as protesters delayed a rally in Minneapolis in July 1968; that November, he ran for the White House as a third-party candidate.CreditAssociated PressCharles Murray, a conservative scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said Mr. Trump's autocratic tendencies placed him well outside the conservative intellectual mainstream.
"The word fascist is simply thrown around too easily, and so I don't want to use that word. But part of Trumpism is the man on the white horse," Mr. Murray said. "That's neither left nor right. That's authoritarian, and it's really, really scary."
Trump's Political Ancestry

It is unclear whether Mr. Trump has any grounding in political history. He has offered perfunctory praise for a few past presidents, like Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln, and his aides cited Richard M. Nixon's 1968 candidacy as a strategic model for the Trump campaign. But Mr. Trump has named no one as a particular hero or personal source of inspiration, as Mr. Reagan cited Calvin Coolidge, or as Bill Clinton invoked Thomas Jefferson.
Still, Mr. Trump has shown a knack for picking up historical slogans and themes from the nationalist right. When a reporter referred to America First in an interview, Mr. Trump embraced it as a campaign catchphrase. The slogan, which dates to the 1930s, was first popularized by Lindbergh as he warned against being drawn into World War II by what he described as sinister British and Jewish interests.
On the stump, Mr. Trump has invoked General MacArthur as a paragon of American toughness; in a short-lived presidential campaign, the general cast Democrats as controlled by Communists, lacking in traditional American fortitude and utterly outfoxed in international negotiations.
In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has campaigned on a theme of "Americanism." The term is vague: Theodore Roosevelt used it to convey a kind of combative patriotism, whereas the isolationists of the 1930s invoked it as a rejection of international entanglements.


On the third day of the Republican convention, the refusal by Senator Ted Cruz to endorse Donald J. Trump widened cracks in the party's veneer.


For Mr. Trump, it connotes a narrow focus on the economic interests of blue-collar industry, and contrasts with the soft cosmopolitanism of international elites. The country's economic challenges, he said recently, were the work of "a leadership class that worships globalism over Americanism."
Roger Stone, a political strategist who has advised Mr. Trump since the 1980s, said the heart of Mr. Trump's philosophy was his distrust of "globalism."
In 2016, Mr. Stone has urged Mr. Trump to fully embrace his inborn nationalism. "He's a throwback to an old-fashioned, Theodore Roosevelt-Ronald Reagan gutsy belief in Americanism," Mr. Stone said. "On NATO, particularly, on trade, on national defense, he's been talking about some of these things for 30 years."
An Enigma to His Enemies

Mr. Trump's admirers and critics have both tended to treat him as an anomaly in American politics and looked to Europe for antecedents. Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker, recently likened Mr. Trump approvingly to Margaret Thatcher as a figure of the right leading an insurrection against the established order.
Meg Whitman, a Republican who runs Hewlett Packard Enterprise, reached for a different comparison: At a June conference hosted by Mitt Romney, she said Mr. Trump reminded her of the rise of Mussolini in Italy and of Hitler's National Socialist Party in Germany.
That darker view is shared by some in Hillary Clinton's orbit. The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with extensive ties to Mrs. Clinton, conducted a study of Mr. Trump's ideology in the spring and concluded that his candidacy was an echo of the European far right. Neera Tanden, the group's president, said Mr. Trump was "very consistently a national socialist."
Photo

Walter Mondale, in 1983, the year before he was the Democratic presidential nominee; in a recent interview, he called Donald J. Trump a "hate advocate."CreditGeorge Tames/The New York Times"His signature policies are about the state that works for some groups and not for others," she said.
For an older generation of American politicians, there is a deepening sense that Mr. Trump echoes ideas that have been raised here, from time to time, and soundly defeated. In the past, a stronger two-party system, bolstered by muscular labor unions and business confederations, had quashed figures like Mr. Trump with ease.
Former Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas, a Republican, said Mr. Trump's campaign had echoes of George Wallace, whose efforts to win over Midwestern whites were thwarted by organized labor, and of the original America First movement. (Lindbergh, she recalled, had unsuccessfully sought to recruit her father, Alf Landon, the 1936 Republican presidential nominee, into its ranks.)
"When he says, I want to make America great again and I'm going to take America back,' it appeals to people who feel they've lost out," said Ms. Kassebaum, who said she did not plan to vote for Mr. Trump. "Some of it's racial. Some of it is immigration. Some of it is the lost jobs they feel shouldn't have been lost."
Even some of Mr. Trump's former opponents have begun to allow that he might be more than an accident of history.
In a little-noticed May speech in Amsterdam, Jeb Bush said that he considered Mr. Trump a reflection of deeper trends. He described American democracy as gravely imperiled by corrosive forces: economic inequality and partisan polarization, the unsettling experience of globalization and a crippling lack of empathy.
Those forces, he said, had taken root "in increments not discernible to the naked eye," leaving the country more vulnerable than ever to a political eruption.
A traumatic recession, Mr. Bush said, set it off.
"The inability to deal with these great challenges, I think, makes it easier in retrospect to see, on the left, a candidate like Bernie Sanders," Mr. Bush said, "and certainly in my party, the emergence of Donald Trump."

[Peter Lemkin]

[Cliff Varnell]

Donald Trump has two "shadow" running mates.

::
David Duke and Vladimir Putin.

[Peter Lemkin]

Donald Trump has two "shadow" running mates.

::
David Duke and Vladimir Putin.

I think we can all agree Trump is not the usual political animal and his 'ideas' [sic] are all over the lot - combining issues usually found on the Left and others on the far Right. His mix of backers is 'eclectic' at best...however, my take on his Gestalt is one of a know-nothing blowhard egoist racist populist authoritarian cum neo-fascist, with a few progressive ideas. I think he would be dangerous as President, even if the Constitution would NOT allow him to unilaterally carry out most of his stated objectives. The alternative, Clinton, is bad 'business as usual'....some choice! This is one hell of an election coming up, and t he vitriol in the debates will be setting records in obscenity in all senses of the term. I hope it shows how revolting, corrupt, controlled, and undemocratic the electoral process in the USA is. Me, I vote Green. As per usual, the vote count for other than the main two parties after the election are usually given on page 15 of the NYT about a week after the election. Third party candidates will NOT be allowed in the debates for fear that people would actually decide to vote for them [most Americans are no aware these parties even exist!]

[Peter Lemkin]

We got an advance copy of what appears to be Trump's remarks for his primetime speech at the Republican National Convention tonight. We annotated his remarks with the fact checks we have…so far.

---

Friends, delegates and fellow Americans: I humbly and gratefully accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.
Together, we will lead our party back to the White House, and we will lead our country back to safety, prosperity, and peace.
We will be a country of generosity and warmth. But we will also be a country of law and order.
Our Convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country.
Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally; some have even been its victims.
I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored.
The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead. It is finally time for a straightforward assessment of the state of our nation.
I will present the facts plainly and honestly.
We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore. So if you want to hear the corporate spin, the carefully-crafted lies, and the media myths the Democrats are holding their convention next week. But here, at our convention, there will be no lies. We will honor the American people with the truth, and nothing else.

THE TRUTH: Republican speakers and Trump surrogates have told at least 55 lies during the first three days of the convention. CONVENTION DAY 1: 20 LIES; CONVENTION DAY 2: 21 LIES; CONVENTION DAY 3: 14 LIES

These are the facts:
Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this Administration's rollback of criminal enforcement.

THE TRUTH: Criminologist: "As a nation, we are far better off than anytime for the past several decades. Crime rates are low, and there is no consistent and reliable indication that things are getting worse." [PolitiFact, 6/9/16]

Homicides last year increased by 17% in America's fifty largest cities. That's the largest increase in 25 years.
In our nation's capital, killings have risen by 50 percent. They are up nearly 60% in nearby Baltimore.
In the President's hometown of Chicago, more than 2,000 have been the victims of shootings this year alone. And more than 3,600 have been killed in the Chicago area since he took office.
The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50% compared to this point last year.
Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records, ordered deported from our country, are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.
The number of new illegal immigrant families who have crossed the border so far this year already exceeds the entire total from 2015.
They are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities with no regard for the impact on public safety or resources.
One such border-crosser was released and made his way to Nebraska. There, he ended the life of an innocent young girl named Sarah Root. She was 21 years-old, and was killed the day after graduating from college with a 4.0 Grade Point Average. Her killer was then released a second time, and he is now a fugitive from the law.
I've met Sarah's beautiful family. But to this Administration, their amazing daughter was just one more American life that wasn't worth protecting. One more child to sacrifice on the altar of open borders.
What about our economy? Again, I will tell you the plain facts that have been edited out of your nightly news and your morning newspaper:
Nearly Four in 10 African-American children are living in poverty, while 58% of African- American youth are not employed.
2 million more Latinos are in poverty today than when the President took his oath of office less than eight years ago.
Another 14 million people have left the workforce entirely.
Household incomes are down more than
$4,000 since the year 2000.
Our manufacturing trade deficit has reached an all-time high nearly $800 billion in a single year.
The budget is no better.
President Obama has doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion, and growing.

THE TRUTH: PolitiFact: "The total federal debt is at $19 trillion. But most of it was amassed before Obama took office." [PolitiFact, 7/19/16]

Yet, what do we have to show for it? Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports
are in Third World condition, and forty-three million Americans are on food stamps.
Now let us consider the state of affairs abroad.
Not only have our citizens endured domestic disaster, but they have lived through one international humiliation after another.
We all remember the images of our sailors being forced to their knees by their Iranian captors at gunpoint.
This was just prior to the signing of the Iran deal, which gave back to Iran $150 billion and gave us nothing it will go down in history as one of the worst deals ever made.

THE TRUTH: PolitiFact: "In exchange for lifting the sanctions, the United States and its allies get to block Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon in the near future. One can argue whether we got enough, but we didn't get nothing.'" [PolitiFact, 3/17/16]

Another humiliation came when president Obama drew a red line in Syria and the whole world knew it meant nothing.
In Libya, our consulate the symbol of American prestige around the globe was brought down in flames.
America is far less safe and the world is
far less stable than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America's foreign policy. I am certain it is a decision he truly regrets.
Her bad instincts and her bad judgment something pointed out by Bernie Sanders are what caused the disasters unfolding today.
Let's review the record.
In 2009, pre-Hillary, ISIS was not even on the map. Libya was cooperating. Egypt was peaceful. Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence. Iran was being choked by sanctions. Syria was under control.

THE TRUTH: PolitiFact: "The roots of ISIS trace back to 2004, when Bush was president and before Clinton was Obama's secretary of state." [PolitiFact, 7/20/16]

After four years of Hillary Clinton, what do we have? ISIS has spread across the region, and the world. Libya is in ruins, and our Ambassador and his staff were left helpless to die at the hands of savage killers.

THE TRUTH: PolitiFact: "None of the numerous congressional investigations into the attacks have faulted Clinton for her actions as the attacks unfolded that day or said she could have done something different on Sept. 12 that would have saved lives." [PolitiFact, 6/23/16]

Egypt was turned over to the radical Muslim brotherhood, forcing the military to retake control.
Iraq is in chaos. Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons. Syria is engulfed in a civil war and a refugee crisis that now threatens the West.

THE TRUTH: AP: Iran is further away from obtaining a nuclear weapon than it had been before the nuclear pact. [AP, 7/21/16]

After fifteen years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before.
This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction and weakness.
But Hillary Clinton's legacy does not have to be America's legacy.
The problems we face now poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them.
A change in leadership is required to change these outcomes.
Tonight, I will share with you my plan of action for America.
The most important difference between our plan and that of our opponents, is that our plan will put America First.
Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo.
As long as we are led by politicians who will not put America First, then we can be assured that other nations will not treat America with respect.
This will all change in 2017.
The American People will come first once again.
My plan will begin with safety at home which means safe neighborhoods, secure borders, and protection from terrorism.
There can be no prosperity without law and order.
On the economy, I will outline reforms to add millions of new jobs and trillions in new wealth that can be used to rebuild America. A number of these reforms that I will outline tonight will be opposed by some of our nation's most powerful special interests.
That is because these interests have rigged our political and economic system for their exclusive benefit.
Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged system in place.
They are throwing money at her because they have total control over everything she does.
She is their puppet, and they pull the strings.
That is why Hillary Clinton's message is that things will never change.
My message is that things have to change and they have to change right now.
Every day I wake up determined to deliver for the people I have met all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored, and abandoned. I have visited the laid-off factory workers, and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country. People who work hard but no longer have a voice.
I AM YOUR VOICE.
I have embraced crying mothers who have lost their children because our politicians put their personal agendas before the national good.
I have no patience for injustice, no tolerance for government incompetence, no sympathy for leaders who fail their citizens.
When innocent people suffer, because our political system lacks the will, or the courage, or the basic decency to enforce our laws or worse still, has sold out to some corporate lobbyist for cash I am not able to look the other way.
And when a Secretary of State illegally stores her emails on a private server, deletes 33,000 of them so the authorities can't see her crime, puts our country at risk, lies about it in every different form and faces no consequence I know that corruption has reached a level like never before.

THE TRUTH: Comey: Clinton did not lie to the FBI [Politico, 7/7/16]

When the FBI Director says that the Secretary of State was "extremely careless" and "negligent," in handling our classified secrets, I also know that these terms are minor compared to what she actually did.
They were just used to save her from facing justice for her terrible crimes.
In fact, her single greatest accomplishment may be committing such an egregious crime and getting away with it especially when others have paid so dearly.

THE TRUTH: FBI Director Comey: "There's all kinds of folks watching this at home or being told, well, lots of other cases are being prosecuted and she wasn't.' I want them to know that's not true!" [FBI Director James Comey Testimony , 7/7/16]

When that same Secretary of State rakes in millions of dollars trading access and favors to special interests and foreign powers I know the time for action has come.
I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves.
Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.
I have seen firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie Sanders he never had a chance. But his supporters will join our movement, because we will fix his biggest issue: trade.
Millions of Democrats will join our movement, because we are going to fix the system so it works for all Americans. In this cause, I am proud to have at my side the next Vice President of the United States: Governor Mike Pence of Indiana. We will bring the same economic success to America that Mike brought to Indiana.

THE TRUTH: Washington Post Fact Checker: The drop in Indiana's unemployment rate is on par with the national unemployment average. [Washington Post, 7/19/16]

THE TRUTH: Washington Post Fact Checker: "There's a lot happening within a state's economy that affects state employment trends, which are not necessarily tied to the policy decisions of the governor." [Washington Post, 7/19/16]

He is a man of character and accomplishment. He is the right man for the job.

The first task for our new Administration will be to liberate our citizens from the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that threatens their communities.
America was shocked to its core when our police officers in Dallas were brutally executed.
In the days after Dallas, we have seen continued threats and violence against our law enforcement officials.
Law officers have been shot or killed in recent days in Georgia, Missouri, Wisconsin,
Kansas, Michigan and Tennessee.
On Sunday, more police were gunned down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Three were killed, and four were badly injured.
An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all Americans.
I have a message to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police: when I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country.
I will work with, and appoint, the best prosecutors and law enforcement officials in the country to get the job done.
In this race for the White House, I am the Law And Order candidate.
The irresponsible rhetoric of our President, who has used the pulpit of the presidency to divide us by race and color, has made America a more dangerous environment for everyone.
This Administration has failed America's inner cities. It's failed them on education. It's failed them on jobs. It's failed them on crime. It's failed them at every level.
When I am President, I will work to ensure that all of our kids are treated equally, and protected equally.
Every action I take, I will ask myself: does this make life better for young Americans in Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Ferguson who have as much of a right to live out their dreams as any other child in America?
To make life safe in America, we must also address the growing threats we face from outside America: we are going to defeat the barbarians of ISIS.
Once again, France is the victim of brutal Islamic terrorism. Men, women and children viciously mowed down. Lives ruined. Families ripped apart. A nation in mourning.
The damage and devastation that can be inflicted by Islamic radicals has been proven over and over at the World Trade Center, at an office party in San Bernardino, at the Boston Marathon, and a military recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Only weeks ago, in Orlando, Florida, 49 wonderful Americans were savagely murdered by an Islamic terrorist. This time, the terrorist targeted our LGBT community.
As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBT citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.
To protect us from terrorism, we need to focus on three things.
We must have the best intelligence- gathering operation in the world.
We must abandon the failed policy of nation- building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria.

THE TRUTH: 2002: Donald Trump on whether he supported the Iraq War: "Yeah, I guess so." [Buzzfeed, 2/18/16]

THE TRUTH: 2011: Donald Trump on Libya: "Now we should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick." [Buzzfeed, 1/19/16]

Instead, we must work with all of our allies who share our goal of destroying ISIS and stamping
out Islamic terror.
This includes working with our greatest ally in the region, the State of Israel.
Lastly, we must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place.
My opponent has called for a radical 550% increase in Syrian refugees on top of existing massive refugee flows coming into our country under President Obama. She proposes this despite the fact that there's no way to screen these refugees in order to find out who they are or where they come from.

THE TRUTH: PolitiFact rated Donald Trump's claim that there was "no system to vet" refugees "False." [PolitiFact, 6/13/16]

I only want to admit individuals into our country who will support our values and love our people.
Anyone who endorses violence, hatred or oppression is not welcome in our country and never will be.
Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African-American and Latino workers.
We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people.
On Monday, we heard from three parents whose children were killed by illegal immigrants Mary Ann Mendoza, Sabine Durden, and Jamiel Shaw.
They are just three brave representatives of many thousands.
Of all my travels in this country, nothing has affected me more deeply than the time I have spent with the mothers and fathers who have lost their children to violence spilling across our border.

THE TRUTH: Washington Post Fact Checker: "Data on immigrants and crime are incomplete, but a range of studies show there is no evidence immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans." [Washington Post, 7/8/15]

These families have no special interests to represent them.
There are no demonstrators to protest on their behalf.
My opponent will never meet with them, or share in their pain.
Instead, my opponent wants Sanctuary Cities.
But where was sanctuary for Kate Steinle? Where was Sanctuary for the children of
Mary Ann, Sabine and Jamiel?
Where was sanctuary for all the other Americans who have been so brutally murdered, and who have suffered so horribly?
These wounded American families have been alone. But they are alone no longer.
Tonight, this candidate and this whole nation stand in their corner to support them, to send them our love, and to pledge in their honor that we will save countless more families from suffering the same awful fate.
We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities.
I have been honored to receive the endorsement of America's Border Patrol Agents, and will work directly with them to protect the integrity of our lawful immigration system.
By ending catch-and-release on the border, we will stop the cycle of human smuggling and violence. Illegal border crossings will go down. Peace will be restored.
By enforcing the rules for the millions who overstay their visas, our laws will finally receive the respect they deserve.
Tonight, I want every American whose demands for immigration security have been denied and every politician who has denied them to listen very closely to the words I am about to say.
On January 21st of 2017, the day after I take the oath of office, Americans will finally wake up in a country where the laws of the United States are enforced.
We are going to be considerate and compassionate to everyone.

THE TRUTH: Donald Trump: "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." [Donald Trump press conference, 12/7/15]

But my greatest compassion will be for our own struggling citizens.
My plan is the exact opposite of the radical and dangerous immigration policy of Hillary Clinton.
Americans want relief from uncontrolled immigration. Communities want relief.
Yet Hillary Clinton is proposing mass amnesty, mass immigration, and mass lawlessness.
Her plan will overwhelm your schools and hospitals, further reduce your jobs and wages, and make it harder for recent immigrants to escape from poverty.
I have a different vision for our workers.
It begins with a new, fair trade policy that protects our jobs and stands up to countries that cheat.

THE TRUTH: Moody's Analytics: Donald Trump's trade proposals would send the U.S. into a recession.[Washington Post, 3/25/16]

It's been a signature message of my campaign from day one, and it will be a signature feature of my presidency from the moment I take the oath of office.
I have made billions of dollars in business making deals now I'm going to make our country rich again.
I am going to turn our bad trade agreements into great ones.
America has lost nearly-one third of its manufacturing jobs since 1997, following the enactment of disastrous trade deals supported by Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Remember, it was Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA, one of the worst economic deals ever made by our country. Never again.
I am going to bring our jobs back to Ohio and to America and I am not going to let companies move to other countries, firing their employees along the way, without consequences.
My opponent, on the other hand, has supported virtually every trade agreement that has been destroying our middle class.
She supported NAFTA, and she supported China's entrance into the World Trade Organization another one of her husband's colossal mistakes. She supported the job- killing trade deal with South Korea. She has supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The TPP will not only destroy our manufacturing, but it will make America subject to the rulings of foreign governments.
I pledge to never sign any trade agreement that hurts our workers, or that diminishes our freedom and independence.
Instead, I will make individual deals with individual countries. No longer will we enter into these massive deals, with many countries, that are thousands of pages long and which no one from our country even reads or understands.
We are going to enforce all trade violations, including through the use of taxes and tariffs, against any country that cheats. This includes stopping China's outrageous theft of intellectual property, along with their illegal product dumping, and their devastating currency manipulation.
Our horrible trade agreements with China and many others, will be totally renegotiated.
That includes renegotiating NAFTA to get a much better deal for America and we'll walk
away if we don't get the deal that we want. We are going to start building and making things again.
Next comes the reform of our tax laws, regulations and energy rules.
While Hillary Clinton plans a massive tax increase, I have proposed the largest tax reduction of any candidate who has declared for the presidential race this year Democrat or Republican.
Middle-income Americans will experience profound relief, and taxes will be simplified for everyone.

THE TRUTH: Moody's Analytics report: Donald Trump's tax plan would mostly benefit those at the very top of the income distribution, and job losses resulting from his economic policies would most affect lower- and middle-income households. [Moody's Analytics report, 6/20/16]

America is one of the highest-taxed nations in the world. Reducing taxes will cause new companies and new jobs to come roaring back into our country.
Then we are going to deal with the issue of regulation, one of the greatest job-killers of them all. Excessive regulation is costing our country as much as $2 trillion a year, and we will end it.
We are going to lift the restrictions on the production of American energy.
This will produce more than $20 trillion in job- creating economic activity over the next four decades.
My opponent, on the other hand, wants to put the great miners and steel workers of our country out of work that will never happen when I am President.

THE TRUTH: Washington Post Fact Checker: Hillary Clinton was talking about helping coal miners adjust after they lose their factory jobs, and the quote has been "spun out of context" and "used as a soundbite." [Washington Post Fact Checker, 7/20/16]

With these new economic policies, trillions of dollars will start flowing into our country.

THE TRUTH: Moody's Analytics chief economist: "If Trump's policies were enacted it would be some form of disaster for the economy." [Politico, 1/11/16]

This new wealth will improve the quality of life for all Americans
We will build the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, and the railways of tomorrow. This, in turn, will create millions more jobs.
We will rescue kids from failing schools by helping their parents send them to a safe school of their choice. My opponent would rather protect education bureaucrats than serve American children.
We will repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare.
You will be able to choose your own doctor again.
And we will fix TSA at the airports!
We will completely rebuild our depleted military, and the countries that we protect, at a massive loss, will be asked to pay their fair share.
We will take care of our great Veterans like they have never been taken care of before.

THE TRUTH: Disabled American Veterans executive director: Donald Trump's encouraging veterans to seek health care in the private sector "would lead to worse health outcomes for many veterans." [NPR, 7/13/16]

My opponent dismissed the VA scandal as being not widespread one more sign of how out of touch she really is.
We are going to ask every Department Head in government to provide a list of wasteful spending projects that we can eliminate in my first 100 days. The politicians have talked about it, I'm going to do it.
We are also going to appoint justices to the United States Supreme Court who will uphold our laws and our Constitution. The replacement for Justice Scalia will be a person of similar views and principles. This will be one of the most important issues decided by this election.
My opponent wants to essentially abolish the 2nd amendment. I, on the other hand, received the early and strong endorsement of the National Rifle Association and will protect the right of all Americans to keep their families safe.

THE TRUTH: FactCheck.org said that Donald Trump "distorts the facts" with his claim that "Hillary Clinton wants to take your guns away" and "abolish the Second Amendment." [FactCheck.org, 5/10/16]

At this moment, I would like to thank the evangelical community who have been so good to me and so supportive. You have so much to contribute to our politics, yet our laws prevent you from speaking your minds from your own pulpits.
An amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson, many years ago, threatens religious
institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views.
I am going to work very hard to repeal that language and protect free speech for all Americans.
We can accomplish these great things, and so much else all we need to do is start believing in ourselves and in our country again.
It is time to show the whole world that America Is Back bigger, and better and stronger than ever before. In this journey, I'm so lucky to have at my side my wife Melania and my wonderful children, Don, Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany, and Barron: you will always be my greatest source of pride and joy.
My Dad, Fred Trump, was the smartest and hardest working man I ever knew.
I wonder sometimes what he'd say if he were here to see this tonight.
It's because of him that I learned, from my youngest age, to respect the dignity of work and the dignity of working people. He was a guy most comfortable in the company of bricklayers, carpenters, and electricians and I have a lot of that in me also.
Then there's my mother, Mary. She was strong, but also warm and fair-minded. She was a truly great mother. She was also one of the most honest and charitable people I have ever known, and a great judge of character.
To my sisters Mary Anne and Elizabeth, my brother Robert and my late brother Fred, I will always give you my love you are most special to me.
I have loved my life in business.
But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country to go to work for all of you. It's time to deliver a victory for the American people.
But to do that, we must break free from the petty politics of the past.
America is a nation of believers, dreamers, and strivers that is being led by a group of censors, critics, and cynics.
Remember: all of the people telling you that you can't have the country you want, are the same people telling you that I wouldn't be standing here tonight.
No longer can we rely on those elites in media, and politics, who will say anything to keep a rigged system in place.
Instead, we must choose to Believe In America.
History is watching us now. It's waiting to see if we will rise to the occasion, and if we will show the whole world that America is still free and independent and strong.
My opponent asks her supporters to recite a three-word loyalty pledge. It reads: "I'm With Her".
I choose to recite a different pledge.
My pledge reads: "I'M WITH YOU THE AMERICAN PEOPLE."
I am your voice.
So to every parent who dreams for their child, and every child who dreams for their future, I say these words to you tonight: I'm With You, and I will fight for you, and I will win for you.
To all Americans tonight, in all our cities and towns, I make this promise:
We Will Make America Strong Again.
We Will Make America Proud Again.
We Will Make America Safe Again.
And We Will Make America Great Again.
THANK YOU.

[Peter Lemkin]

Op-Ed

If Trump wins, a coup isn't impossible here in the U.S.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at FreedomFest in July 2015, in Las Vegas, where he criticized Sen. John McCain's military record. (John Locher / Associated Press)



James Kirchick


Americans viewing the recent failed coup attempt in Turkey as some exotic foreign news story -- the latest, violent yet hardly unusual political development to occur in a region constantly beset by turmoil -- should pause to consider that the prospect of similar instability would not be unfathomable in this country if Donald Trump were to win the presidency.
Trump is the most brazenly authoritarian figure to secure the nomination of a major American political party. He expresses his support for all manner of strongmen, and his campaign manager, Paul Manafort, has actually worked for one: former Ukrainian president and Vladimir Putin ally Viktor Yanukovich. At the Republican National Convention here Monday, Manafort put some of the tricks he learned overseas as a dictator whisperer to good use, employing underhanded tactics to avoid a roll call vote on the convention's rules package and quietly removing language from the party platform expressing support for Ukraine's democratic aspirations.
A political speechwriter's take on Melania Trump's plagiarism

Throughout the campaign, Trump has repeatedly bragged about ordering soldiers to commit war crimes, and has dismissed the possibility that he would face any resistance. "They won't refuse," he told Fox News' Bret Baierearlier this year. "They're not gonna refuse me. Believe me." When Baier insisted that such orders are "illegal," Trump replied, "I'm a leader. I've always been a leader. I've never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they're going to do it."
Oh really? Blimpish swagger might fly within the patriarchal confines of a family business, a criminal operation (the distinction is sometimes blurred) or a dictatorship. It does not, however, work in a liberal democracy, legally grounded by a written constitution, each branch restrained by separation of powers.
Try to imagine, then, a situation in which Trump commanded our military to do something stupid, illegal or irrational. Something so dangerous that it put the lives of Americans and the security of the country at stake. (Trump's former rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Marco Rubio, said the United States could not trust "the nuclear codes" to an "erratic individual.") Faced with opposition from his military brass, Trump would perhaps reconsider and back down. But what if he didn't?
Blimpish swagger might fly within the patriarchal confines of a family business...or a dictatorship. It does not work, however, in a liberal democracy.


In that case, our military men and women, who swear to uphold the Constitution and a civilian chain of command, would be forced to choose between obeying the law and serving the wishes of someone who has explicitly expressed his utter lack of respect for it.
They might well choose the former.
"I would be incredibly concerned if a President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the language that candidate Trump expressed during the campaign," retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, who served as head of the CIA and the National Security Agency under President George W. Bush, said in response to Trump's autocratic ruminations. Asked by TV host Bill Maher what would happen if Trump told American soldiers to kill the families of terrorists, as he has promised to do, Hayden replied, "If he were to order that once in government, the American armed forces would refuse to act."
"You are required not to follow an unlawful order," Hayden added. "That would be in violation of all the international laws of armed conflict."
Previously, in those rare situations when irreconcilable disagreements have arisen between America's civilian and military leadership, it is the latter who were ultimately deemed out of line. This was the case when President Truman acrimoniously fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur after he publicly criticized Truman for denying him permission to bomb China in the midst of the Korean War. Though MacArthur returned to the United States with a hero's welcome, Truman's decision endures as one of the most important in the history of American civil-military relations.
Trump could pull a reverse-Truman, firing a general who refused to bomb.
If this scenario sounds implausible, consider that Trump has normalized so many once-outrageous things -- from open racism to blatant lying. Needless to say, such dystopian situations are unimaginable under a President Hillary Clinton, who, whatever her faults, would never contemplate ordering a bombing run or -- heaven forbid -- a nuclear strike on a country just because its leader slighted her small hands at a summit. Rubio might detest her, but he cannot honestly say that Clinton, a former secretary of State, should not be trusted with the nation's nuclear codes.
Trump is not only patently unfit to be president, but a danger to America and the world. Voters must stop him before the military has to.

[Drew Phipps]

"The inability to deal with these great challenges, I think, makes it easier in retrospect to see, on the left, a candidate like Bernie Sanders," Mr. (Jeb) Bush said, "and certainly in my party, the emergence of Donald Trump."

Change the word "inability" to the word "unwillingness" and I'd agree.

"You are required not to follow an unlawful order," Hayden added. "That would be in violation of all the international laws of armed conflict."

Really, General Hayden, when did that stop you? When you ordered the torture of prisoners of war?

[Cliff Varnell]

Donald J. Trump ®.

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/201...nt/130163/

The "R" stands for "Russia."

Trump isn't owned by US banks like Clinton/Kaine.

Trump is owned by Russian banks/mob.

A choice not an echo...