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‘What Evidence Do You Have?’


By Eugene Kiely

It’s a simple question, one that we ask candidates, campaigns and political committees all the time: “What evidence do you have?” We almost always get an answer. But that has not been the case with Donald Trump’s campaign, which typically does not respond to fact-checkers or provides scant information when it does.

That’s why we were heartened to see NBC’s Lester Holt ask Trump “what evidence do you have” to support two of Trump’s claims in a June 22 speech that we and other fact-checkers found contained numerous false claims.

Holt asked Trump about his claim that Clinton’s private email “server was easily hacked by foreign governments.” Trump went on to say “our enemies” probably even have the emails Clinton deleted, meaning they have a “blackmail file” on her. “This fact alone disqualifies her from the presidency,” Trump said.

But it is not a fact. As we wrote, there is no evidence that Clinton’s server was hacked — let alone by hostile foreign governments. We have written that the private server was not approved by the State Department, and it was the subject of security concerns within the department and a target of attacks outside the department. But there’s no evidence at this point that any of the attempts were successful.

Holt asked Trump, “What evidence do you have?” that her server was successfully hacked. When that didn’t elicit a response, Holt asked again, “But is there any evidence that it was hacked other than routine phishing?” Trump finally said that he heard or read about Clinton’s email being successfully hacked. Asked where he got that information, Trump said, “I will report back to you. I’ll give it to you.”

Holt asked Trump how he could make his claim “with such certainty” without evidence. Trump replied, “I don’t know if certainty. Probably she was hacked.”

Similarly, Holt pressed Trump on his claim that U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens “was left helpless to die as Hillary Clinton soundly slept in her bed.” As we wrote, there is no evidence for that, either. We know that Clinton was involved in the government’s response to the attacks, which began at about 3:45 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, and we know that she sent the last of two emails about Stevens’ death at 11:38 p.m. EDT.

We also know that she went home at some point during the attacks. She testified that she stayed up all night, but as we wrote, we cannot independently verify whether Clinton did sleep that night — but neither can Trump, and he admitted as much to Holt. Trump said “who knows if she was sleeping … she might have been sleeping.”

Holt isn’t the only one who has demanded evidence from a presidential candidate.

CNN’s Jake Tapper did the same earlier this month when he asked Trump to provide evidence to support the claim that Trump was opposed to the Iraq war before it started. There is no evidence of that, either, as we have written. Trump responded to Tapper by saying, “I think there is evidence. I will see if I can get it.”

And CBS’ Charlie Rose, reading from one of our articles, asked Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders in April about his claim that Clinton relies heavily on campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. Sanders’ response to Rose was misleading, so we wrote about that, too.

But these are exceptions rather than the rule. As Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler has written, “astonishingly, television hosts rarely challenge Trump when he makes a claim that already has been found to be false,” adding that Trump’s campaign “does not even bother to respond to fact-checking inquiries.”

We, too, would like to see more TV news anchors challenge the presidential candidates on statements that fact-checkers universally agree are false and misleading, especially those that are made without any evidence. It just takes a simple question, “What evidence do you have?”

Categories:
The Wire

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Jesse Williams’ Full Speech From the 2016 BET Awards


Exceptional speech covers the still innate Racism in America. This in its tone does not demean the ordinary folks who suffer as much in many cases as the non white Americans .

Jesse Williams accepts the Humanitarian Award onstage during the 2016 BET Awards at the Microsoft Theater on June 26, 2016 in Los Angeles.

Kevin Winter/BET/Getty Images for BET

It’s safe to say that 34-year-old Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams stole the BET Awards on Sunday night with a wildly inspirational, confrontational speech that is bound to become a cornerstone of the Black Lives Matter movement. Later in the show, Samuel L. Jackson said he hadn’t heard a speech like it since the 1960s.

Williams has appeared in multiple films, but he was honored with BET’s Humanitarian Award for his activism. In October 2014, he joined protests in Ferguson, Missouri to protest the shooting of Michael Brown. He was also an actor and executive producer of Stay Woke, a documentary about the movement that premiered in May. He has written extensively on Black Lives Matter and met with President Obama earlier this year to discuss his humanitarian work.

BET CEO Debra Lee presented his award “for his continued efforts and steadfast commitment to furthering social change.”

He began by thanking BET and all involved in the video that preceded his appearance, his wife and his parents “for teaching me to focus on comprehension over career, they made sure I learned what the schools are afraid to teach us.

“This award is not for me,” he continued. “This is for the real organizers all over the country, the activist, the civil rights attorneys, the struggling parents, the families, the teachers, the students that are realizing that a system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do. It’s kinda basic mathematics: the more we learn about who we are and how we got here the more we will mobilize.

“This award is also for the black women in particular who have spent their lives nurturing everyone before themselves — we can and will do better for you.

“Now, what we’ve been doing is looking at the data and we know that police somehow manage to de-escalate, disarm and not kill white people every day. So what’s going to happen is we’re going to have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function and ours. [Standing ovation.]

“I got more, y’all. Yesterday would have been young Tamir Rice’s 14th birthday so I don’t want to hear any more about how far we’ve come when paid public servants can pull a drive-by on a 12-year-old playing alone in a park in broad daylight, killing him on television, and then going home to make a sandwich.

“Tell Rekia Boyd how it’s so much better to live in 2012 than 1612 or 1712. Tell that to Eric Garner, Sandra Bland.

“The thing is though, all of us here are getting money, that alone isn’t going to stop this. Dedicating our lives to getting money just to give it right back to put someone’s brand on our body — when we spent centuries praying with brands on our bodies, and now we pray to get paid for brands on our bodies?

“There has been no war that we have not fought and died on the front lines of. There is no job we haven’t done, there is no tax they haven’t levied against us, and we have paid all of them.

“But freedom is always conditional here. ‘You’re free!’ they keeping telling us. ‘But she would be alive if she hadn’t acted so… free.’ Now, freedom is always coming in the hereafter, but the hereafter is a hustle: We want it now.

“Let’s get a couple of things straight. The burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander — that’s not our job so let’s stop with all that. If you have a critique for our resistance then you’d better have an established record, a critique of our oppression.

“If you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do: sit down.

“We’ve been floating this country on credit for centuries, and we’re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil — black gold! — ghettoizing and demeaning our creations and stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit.

“Just because we’re magic doesn’t mean we’re not real. Thank you.”

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Working Hard On A Poor Cause.


The Dupublican leadership who have done nothing to help the “American People” they always cite (without our consent) are struggling to tone down their (unwanted) candidate have closed ranks only because some are worried about their own re-election chances. The old saying about “chickens coming home to roost” applies here. Read carefully and you will get the distinct sense of opting out or throwing their candidate to the wolves which will cause a national fallout (if we are lucky).

AP Laurie Kellman
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are sprinting to shape up Donald Trump’s presidential campaign before the party’s national convention in three weeks, even as leading members of the party carry a deep antipathy or outright opposition to his claim on the GOP nomination.
His campaign chairman said Sunday there’s a hiring spree in 16 states and the campaign is working with the Republican National Committee to solidify other matters. Paul Manafort said Trump is not all that involved in the race to organize an offensive against Democrat Hillary Clinton and catch up to her massive fundraising advantage.
“The good thing is we have a candidate who doesn’t need to figure out what’s going on (inside the campaign) in order to say what he wants to do,” Manafort said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” ”We have our campaign plans in place. We have our budgets in place.”
What Manafort described as a “new phase” for the campaign — a shift from the primaries to the general election — was a forced reshuffling of an effort hobbled for weeks by infighting, Trump’s statements about a judge’s ethnicity and a massive fund raising deficit to Clinton’s cash-raising Goliath. Trump began June with $1.3 million in the bank, less campaign cash than many congressional candidates. The $3 million he collected in May donations is about one-tenth what Clinton raised.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that Trump can’t win the presidency unless he can compete with Clinton on the financial front.
“He needs to catch up, and catch up fast,” the Kentucky Republican said on ABC’s “This Week.”
McConnell refused to say whether Trump is qualified to be president. And he suggested that the GOP platform would not reflect Trump’s ideas, including restrictions on Muslim immigration to the U.S.
“It’s my expectation that the platform will be a traditional Republican platform, not all that different from the one we had four years ago,” McConnell replied.
A few hundred delegates to the Republican National Convention are pushing to change the rules and make it possible for them to vote for someone other than Trump. The Cleveland gathering begins in three weeks.
Some rebel delegates and other anti-Trump party operatives held a 40-minute conference call Sunday night that was monitored by The Associated Press in what was a combination pep talk and strategy review. A leader of the effort, Colorado convention delegate Regina Thomson, said around 2,000 people were on the call.
Besides their uphill fight to win enough delegate support to change the rules, the coalition of anti-Trump groups are raising money to hire parliamentarians and lawyers to attend the convention, run TV ads and protect recalcitrant supporters they say face threats of retaliation.
One participant in Sunday’s call was James Lamb, a fundraiser for the presidential campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. Lamb said that he’d been with Rubio Sunday, and while the two men didn’t discuss the anti-Trump efforts, “Marco does have some concerns about the way that we’re going” in the presidential race.
Another speaker, former Sen. Gordon Humphrey, R-N.H., supported the presidential effort of Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Humphrey called Trump “just about the worst candidate you could think of, for the country first and for the party second.”
The Trump campaign and many top GOP officials are working to defeat the anti-Trump forces, including lobbying delegates and making sure that establishment party supporters dominate the convention’s crucial rules committee.
Ed Brookover, Trump campaign liaison to the GOP, said Sunday the defiant delegates’ chances of winning are “almost zero.” He said so far, “approaching 75 percent” of the rules committee’s 112 members oppose changing the rules — nearly enough to prevent a convention vote on the rebels’ proposal to let delegates support any candidate they want.
The Trump campaign and the RNC are still laboring to set up staff in what Manafort said were 16 states in which the campaign aims to compete heavily. He said the campaign will announce more about staffing this week, an effort to reassure people that Trump’s unorthodox campaign is viable.
On Sunday, Manafort sought to calm the angst, describing a partnership between Trump’s campaign operation and the Republican National Committee that goes beyond the RNC’s traditional role of raising money for the GOP nominee. He said the transition to the general election is complete — but the details have not necessarily been made public.
“We are fully now integrated with the Republican National Committee,” Manafort said. He said this week the campaign will announce “people who are taking over in major positions in our national campaign, as well as in our state campaigns.”
McConnell and other Republicans said they got the first glimmers of reassurance this week when Trump fired former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in what Trump described as a change of direction from the GOP primaries to the general election.
___
Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.
___
Follow Laurie Kellman on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/APLaurieKellman

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Brexit Regret


This article from the Washington Post shows what panic rhetoric and unfounded fears and semi facts can cause. Looking at our current elections along with the rhetoric coming out of that should make us think hard about who is running for the Presidency and who we have and will elect to the Congress. Our vote is our only way to manage our Government.

Voters in one fading port town wonder whether  they were misled on Brexit

The Washington Post

Rick Noack 7 hrs. ago

TILBURY, England — After mass layoffs in the 1970s and ’80s, this once-vibrant port town in southeastern England lost much of its glory. Many stores are closed, and windows are broken. A shuttered guesthouse in the town’s center is plastered with advertisements for instant cash loans. “Money matters,” one reads.

Tilbury is one of England’s poorest places — and one of its most Euroskeptic. More than 72 percent of voters here and in surrounding Thurrock voted for Britain to leave the European Union in Thursday’s referendum. Few places voted more decisively.

But by Sunday, the initial excitement among some pro-Brexit voters had already started to disappear, making room for worries about what’s next for an increasingly divided Britain.

Some in this town of 12,000 have also begun to wonder whether they had been misled by politicians advocating to leave the E.U. amid a campaign marked by negativity on both sides.

“I was swayed by the rhetorics, but if I had thought this through, I would have voted to stay in. I would certainly do so now,” said Antony Kerin, 38, who was watching his daughter at a newly refurbished but empty playground.

Concerns about the economic fallout from the vote were on the minds of many here. Many who voted in favor of Brexit work in professions and for companies that could suffer under uncertainty over trade deals, such as car manufacturers. And they predominantly live in poorer regions — those that have received significant subsidies from the E.U.

Tilbury was hoping to receive an E.U. grant worth more than $6 million, but those dreams were shattered by the referendum results.

Kerin, who moved to Tilbury 10 years ago and is unemployed, said he had been trying to move to public housing in a different city. But he will probably have to remain patient: Out of Thurrock’s 165,000 residents, 6,500 are on a waiting or transfer list for public housing.

“They’re making us stay here to rot,” said Kerin, referring to county officials and the British government.

For others in Tilbury, the referendum has had deeply personal implications. The news that Britain had voted to leave the E.U. shocked Kate Clarke, 38, but not her husband.

Antony, 38, said of the referrendum “If I had thought this through, I would have voted to stay in.”

“He voted for a Brexit and told me I was blind. He was shortsighted, but many others were, too,” she said Sunday morning.

“I know people who’ve fallen out with their friends over this,” Clarke said while preparing for a bike tour at the World’s End — one of the last pubs in Tilbury.

Clarke said she understands what might have motivated her self-employed husband to vote to leave the E.U. Over the past years, migrants had increasingly competed with locals in the town and had brought down prices for services — driving some entrepreneurs out of business, she said.

“There is a lot boiling beneath the surface here,” said Steve Liddiard, 65, the local councillor who is a member of the opposition Labour Party. “People’s anger is understandable, but they blame the European Union for what is actually the British government’s fault.”

But not everyone agrees. “I’m so happy we voted out,” Nigel Foster, 45, said as he stood outside a pub next to Liddiard.

A supporter of the right-wing U.K. Independence Party (UKIP), Foster works at Tilbury’s port. “I’ve seen migrants arrive here illegally in containers. Now, we can finally send them back to where they came from,” he said.

“But that has nothing to do with the E.U.,” Liddiard said.

Liddiard later said he would have continued to specify that it was not immigrants who are driving up housing prices in Tilbury, but rather Londoners moving to the outskirts. But before he could continue, he was interrupted by Foster’s 24-year old daughter, Jay.

“I have had a full-time job for years, but I still have to live with my parents because I cannot afford my own home,” she said, adding that she had voted against E.U. membership.

But she insisted the referendum had already made things worse. “We should not have been able to make this decision. There was so much scaremongering on television. And now it’s madness, absolute madness. Nobody knows what will happen.”

Standing inside his laundry shop, Nigeria-born Izuchukwu Eze, 37, smiled when he said people in Tilbury had treated him well over the past eight years. But neither he nor his Polish wife understand the political views of their neighbors.

“They don’t have a clue,” Eze said. “When they hear people like UKIP politician Nigel Farage say on television that we should leave, then they will vote ‘leave.’ ”

Eze said he thinks Tilbury will regret voting to exit the E.U. “Some of my customers have come here over the last two days, loudly asking themselves: ‘Have we done the right thing?’

“I don’t think so,” Eze said.

But despite uncertainty over his future residence status, Russian-Estonian migrant Vladislaw viewed the referendum outcome more positively. He declined to give his full name because of concerns about employment.

The 22-year old chef, who moved to Britain a year ago with an E.U. passport, does not believe Britain’s decision to leave the E.U. will have a significant impact on his own future.

“I’m not an idiot, he said. “This country needs us.”

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The Real Term


Every news report and taking head keeps repeating the words “gun control”, this indicates some sort of activity affecting firearms. The real term needs to be related to the real issue which is the people who apparently are outside the norm and who own and use firearms in a bad way. This bad way includes robbery, murder (in any form) and threats by legal (mostly) firearms owners. These individuals are and should be the focus of any law that involves the ownership of firearms . The NRA takes a broad stroke on this issue whenever it takes the stage but their rationale is purely self serving and designed to garner support and funding (incidentally the NRA does not have the broad member support they purport to have) . Our Congress is looking at potential election blowback by standing up to the NRA”s deep pockets and under informed voters . If an elected official is truly a statesman or representative then they should be able to get the correct information on an issue and decide from that their course of action. It is unfortunate that this is an event that does not happen because of party lines , fear of voter anger and the loss of big donations. I have never found anyone so far that given the truth cannot have a discussion about an issue. This is not to say that disagreement cannot occur but a sensible discussion is possible. The general public has become so angry with the Government because our legislators want it that way so they can paint themselves as friends of their constituents. If the 535 were really interested in the welfare of the country and “the American People” (who they cite so often) then our current state of division would not exist, the NRA would wield no power to influence and perhaps we can arrive in the 21st century politically. The issues that we the American Voter can change are: .

1.Dump the 2 party system

2.Stop believing the same lies year after year

3. Keep in mind all newly elected people will become tainted by the current sitters so get rid of the old ones first!

4. Ask for things that can be changed for the betterment of ALL Americans

Remember taxes are what allows the government to function and the changes need to be to the tax structure but with a dose of common sense and in a reality mode.

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Charlie Rangel: Trump has ‘pulled the sheet off the Republican Party’


The full article also appeared on Yahoo news and was written by Alex Bregman.

Alexis Christoforous

June 24, 2016

By Alex Bregman

Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York spoke to Yahoo Finance Anchor Alexis Christoforous on “Yahoo News Now” about Sen. Bernie Sanders saying for the first time that he will vote for Hillary Clinton in November and the parallels between the Brexit vote and the U.S. general election.

Rangel, a Clinton supporter, told Christoforous that Sanders’ support was a very important step for party unity. “As his makeup guy would say, it’s very, very, very, very important,” Rangel said. “But the problem we’re having in our party is like a pimple on an elephant’s behind compared to what the Republicans have. We have a different way as Democrats to talk about our unity. We just don’t sit down and say, ‘Can we do it?’ We fight like hell for those things that we believe in. And while I had no idea that Bernie Sanders was so popular when he was in the House and Senate, I really believe he’s made my candidate even a better candidate, because there’s no question in my mind that her qualifications are outstanding.”

The congressman isn’t worried about Sanders’ supporters backing Trump. “There is no problem in my mind of any of Bernie Sanders’ people supporting Trump. None. Because they’re rational-thinking people,” he said.

Rep. Charlie Rangel: Trump has ‘pulled the sheet off the Republican party’

On June 24, 2016, Rep. Charlie Rangel discussed the Brexit saying, “being disgruntled and frustrated doesn’t mean you build a wall; it means you try to tear down a wall.” He also discussed Donald Trump saying, “now that he’s completely destroyed the party of Lincoln, I want a decent two party system when this election is over.”

On whether he sees any parallels between those who voted for Britain to leave the European Union and those who support Donald Trump for president, Rangel said, “You bet your life.” He continued, “It strengthens the fact that being disgruntled and frustrated doesn’t mean you build a wall. It means that you try to tear down a wall. That’s what international trade agreements are for. That’s what the European Union was all about.”

Rangel then got into who Trump is appealing to in the U.S. “He’s tapped into those people who don’t like immigrants, who don’t like Muslims, who don’t like blacks, who hate Latinos, who don’t like Asians,” he said. “You bet your life he’s tapped into it.”

Rangel continued, “If you want to force me to say something good about Trump, I would say, yes, I am so glad he’s pulled the sheet off the Republican Party, because now that he’s completely destroyed the party of Lincoln, I want a decent two-party system when this election’s over.”

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2nd amendment


U.S. Constitution – Amendment 2

Amendment 2 – Right to Bear Arms
A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The note below is taken from a historical fact and seems pertinent now:

The biggest frustration for Continental Army soldiers was the ineffectiveness of Congress and the lack of support they received from the political body that espoused the same cause. Mutiny at times raised its head. This would play a role in the future of the nation after it was created, with those arguing for a strong central government, basing their arguments on the limited ability and lack of performance by Congress during the war.

Looking at this amendment which is so often tossed around, quoted and cited many people have no idea what it really means. Many do not (or cannot) even cite the entire amendment. The first thing to know is the “Constitution” is considered a “living” document which mean it can interpreted according to the population and country’s needs as it grows and evolves. This was written when every citizen was involved or could be involved in the protection and safety of the fledgling country. At that time there were only 13 colonies and an estimated population of 2.5 million people. Of those people an estimated 30 thousand aged 15-45 years old including patriots and farmers were in the Continental Army.(2010 census shows 310 million people with  approximately 4.1 active in all service and just under 1 million in reserves of all services). Given this information, I would say that we have a well regulated militia and the first part of the 2nd Amendment is met and has little to do with  “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms”. This being said there seems to be a need to modify this part of the amendment to reflect modern times. This is not say citizens cannot own guns but it has been demonstrated that there needs to be a better way to control who has access or can own and obtain firearms. The many ways to do that have been thwarted by the NRA by playing the patriot card and screaming louder than everyone else while plying Congress with massive amounts of money. This method of managing the Congress has left us with weak laws which could (or should) be in place to make us safe from ourselves. The political process has been subverted by big donors purely for the donor’s purposes and to the detriment of the US population overall. The key words is not “gun Control” as the gun is controlled by the owner of the gun which leaves the control to be on the owner if that owner is someone through circumstance or legality should not be a firearms owner. Any Firearms laws should be common sense and National so that each instance is treated the same, there will always be an issue of “States Rights” and if each Congress member took time to really consider the issue without worrying about funding from outside sources we could conceivably get some legislature that makes sense and works for all. An overlooked item is the Federal law governing Marijuana, several states now allow the use and sale of medicinal and/ or recreational marijuana while  it’s  illegal on The Federal level. The Congress has the power to change this has not and apparently is turning a blind eye. Our 535 again has decided to keep the status quo as long as it benefits them. Our opportunity to affect change is the vote but only when properly informed.

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Elections


The long season of elections is wearing me out. The ongoing attacks and counterattacks are at once ridiculous and unnecessary. I am not sure when we came to this point but all of rhetoric is off-putting and serves no good purpose. The merits of the candidate should be the focus not some past non relevant information. It is true that some candidates should not be candidates at all but this is America and that’s how we roll. Right now we have a race based too much on Race and sound bites that sound true but ring false. The truth is what comes out later but the falsehoods have already been implanted like a germinating plant. We already have a dysfunctional Congress and we certainly need to address that as much as possible in this electoral cycle but pressuring the current Congress is equally important as there are many members who should have been gone years ago as they have added nothing of note to our progress as a country if it did not directly benefit them. These are the “elder Statesmen” who make seemingly profound statements that in fact are no more than campaign speeches in disguise. We voters have lost the ability to reason out who actually represents the “American people” that they quote regularly. We cannot allow the 535 seat fillers to continue to do what they want to do in our names, in my opinion trust in the Government is lost due to the long serving Congress as we    have given them the OK to do what “they” think is correct and at the same time is a benefit to them and theirs. The political establishment is actually the voters as we have kept these folks in the job too long. I believe no one should  remain in the office long enough to be pensioned out, when we the American People look beyond the rhetoric we will see that the Congress is not representative of the voters who elected them. There could be a case made for long term service but I am hard pressed to see it.

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You Never Had To


Americans who are what I call regular people are the Americans who grew up white may or may not understand the following statement: “You never had to face discrimination due to skin color so you do not understand what it’s like”. The reason for this is that you as normal people are color blind and are reminded sometimes of color or ethnicity when it is put before you. This is not a failing  but more a lack of exposure to the issues  that face non white Americans. We all hear and see the same news and information from the same sources generally but there are pockets of information on both sides that would enlighten and unite us all as Americans. The title “American” should be worn with pride by all of us and unfortunately we have allowed our leaders to keep an implied or even specified difference between us aside from the natural differences inherent in all humans. These implications are what has allowed the rise of the Donald Trumps as viable candidates for the Presidency of the United States. Those of you old enough to look backwards a number of election cycles will understand that our two-party system is flawed and too often do produce the best leaders (not necessarily the President) via the Congress. The real problems in a Democracy is  weakest when  the people we elect to serve are allowed to remain too long in office and then cross over the private sector to further influence the lawmaking process. Our true power as voters is to forget the hot button issues and buzzwords such as Race, religion and citizenry but to look at the long serving legislators who so easily use “the American People” as a reason for not doing their job. If you were able to get a straight answer from any of them you would find that they have not asked too many of “the American people” for their opinion. This is a classic case of “when I want your opinion, I will give it to you”. Our focus as “Americans” is to begin the process of reasonable assessment of our legislative leaders at the State and Federal levels and ignore the reality show atmosphere of modern politics. Beware of the man behind the curtain.

Friedman Says It Better.


I blogged about Paul Ryan and his strange semi endorsement of Donald Trump but this article from Michael Walsh covering  Mr. Friedman states it better.

Thomas Friedman calls GOP morally bankrupt, criticizes John McCain

Thomas Friedman is drawing attention for his blistering column about the state of the Republican Party, which he thinks should “declare moral bankruptcy” and start over.

The three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist said the United States needs a healthy two-party system but that the Grand Old Party is not doing its part, which traditionally has been to advocate for market-based solutions and sound fiscal policy. Instead, he said, it’s merely an empty shell willing to sell itself off to the highest bidders — untethered from principled, center-right conservatism.

On Tuesday, in an opinion piece for the New York Times, Friedman lambasted top Republican leaders — who had been willing to buck the party line in the past — for throwing their support behind Donald Trump despite his history of off-color comments.

He was perplexed that Ryan would still endorse Trump after the businessman questioned Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s ability to preside over the Trump University lawsuit without bias because of his Mexican heritage. Ryan called this a “textbook definition” of racism but said it’s worth backing Trump because he will sign off on a Republican agenda.

“Really? Mr. Speaker, your agenda is a mess, Trump will pay even less attention to you if he is president and, as Senator Lindsey Graham rightly put it, there has to be a time ‘when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary,’” Friedman wrote. “Will it ever be that time with this version of the G.O.P.?”

Friedman also reprimanded Arizona Sen. John McCain and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

“Et tu, John McCain? You didn’t break under torture from the North Vietnamese, but your hunger for re-election is so great that you don’t dare raise your voice against Trump? I hope you lose. You deserve to. Marco Rubio? You called Trump ‘a con man,’ he insults your very being and you still endorse him? Good riddance.”

Trump sparked controversy back in July when he said McCain is not a war hero, even though he spent more than five years in a notorious North Vietnamese prison: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured. OK, I hate to tell you.”

In an interview with “Morning Joe” Wednesday morning, Friedman admitted to being deeply disappointed in McCain because of how much he respects him. But, Friedman said, McCain wants to get reelected in Arizona, where the party’s base has backed Trump.

“Truly a war hero. A great American patriot,” he said of McCain. “Imagine if John were out there right now talking the way you both have been talking this morning. Clear. Principled. I don’t think Trump would survive. I think this thing would be in a very different place right now. There are few people in that party whose voices count more than others, and his is certainly one of them.”

In the op-ed, Friedman also went after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a man who famously (or infamously depending on which side you’re on) worked with President Obama in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy despite a fast-arriving general election. Now, according to Friedman, it seems that Christie is more interested in currying favor with the potential future president than defending his minority constituents against slander.

“Chris Christie, have you not an ounce of self-respect?” Friedman wrote. “You’re serving as the valet to a man who claimed, falsely, that on 9/11, in Jersey City, home to many Arab-Americans, ‘thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.’ Christie is backing a man who made up a baldfaced lie about residents of his own state so that maybe he can be his vice president. Contemptible.”

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