Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[(poco) Sforzando]

No argument there. What I'm commenting on is the juxtaposition of a person CLAIMING superior levels of originality and the same person churning out post after post that isn't even in his own words.

Moi aussi.

[Herman]

Hillary Clinton's support for alleged racially motivated abortion also came up in the sermon.

It's really tiresome the way you try to tar Clinton as the racist motivated candidate.

It's why politics is so divisive. You can't blame an obviously racist candidate as Trump to try to deflect criticism, but it's painful to see parts of the population copying these cynical tactis and really internalizing them, so that some people truly believe this cant.

Clinton is for women's choice. She's also for better race relations.

Trump used to be for choice and has cynically opted to switch sides on this issue. No big deal, because he couldn't care less, really. Trump would also be a two-generation step backwards in terms of race relations.

[Karl Henning]

The KKK are counting on a three-generation backstep.

[Karl Henning]

Sucker!

Dear Donald Trump: I want my $49 back

When The Post's Matea Gold reported this week that the Trump campaign is contesting $767,000 that its pollster Tony Fabrizio says he is owed, I could feel the Republican consultant's pain.

Fabrizio was just the latest on a long list of people stiffed by Donald Trump. And now you can add one more to that list: me. I want my $49 back.

I know, I know. We had all been warned that Trump doesn't make good on his commitments. Scores of times as businessman and candidate he has refused to pay, or deliver, what he owes. Heck, he's even being sued for stiffing USA Freedom Kids, the three preteen girls who danced before one of his rallies in patriotic costumes.

So I should have had my eyes wide open when I saw Trump's video last week offering to put my name on a brass plaque on a wall in Trump Tower, for a contribution of only $49. "The wall has only space for 2,000 more supporters. Contribute today," he said, showing the "very special" wall.

As one of the loudest Trump critics, I thought it would be exquisite to have my name engraved as part of the "select group" on Trump's wall. I clicked through and authorized the $49 charge to my credit card.

And then, nothing. No acknowledgment. No response. No word about any wall with my name on it. I checked my spam filter: nothing. I checked my Visa statement: The charge had gone through.

Stiffed! And at great personal risk. Post employees aren't supposed to donate to campaigns, and in 16 years I hadn't — until the lure of Trump's wall got me. We don't want a contribution to create the appearance that we're in the tank for a candidate, even if, in the case of Trump and me, the probability of creating such an impression is fairly low. My editors gave me the proverbial 40 lashes for my $49.

But those welts are nothing compared with the injuries Trump has done as a mogul and candidate to those who have done business with him.

An investigation by USA Today earlier this year found 60 lawsuits and hundreds of liens, judgments and other government filings involving people who have accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them. The aggrieved include 48 waiters, dozens of bartenders and hourly workers, real estate brokers, a glass company, a carpet company, painters — even law firms that defended him against charges that he stiffed those he owed. The paper found 24 violations of labor law for failing to pay overtime or the minimum wage, and liens filed by more than 200 contractors and employees who provided plumbing, electrical and HVAC work and the like.

At the first debate, Hillary Clinton singled out in the audience an architect Trump had stiffed and said she'd met "dishwashers, painters, architects, glass installers, marble installers, drapery installers . . . who you refused to pay when they finished the work that you asked them to do."

Trump responded that "maybe he didn't do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work, which our country should do, too."

Apparently Trump's belief that he can't get good help these days extends to the campaign, which is disputing the $767,000 that Fabrizio, the pollster, says he's owed. (The campaign says it doesn't dispute the entire amount.) Federal Election Commission records also indicate the Trump campaign has yet to pay Michael Caputo, a former communications adviser who publicly celebrated the dismissal of Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Caputo said Wednesday that he still hadn't been paid.

Fabrizio and Caputo are big boys. But what about the three little girls who danced at a Trump rally in January, becoming a viral sensation? The father of one of them filed suit against the Trump campaign two months ago, saying the campaign didn't make good on its promise to let them sell CDs at a Trump event and then had them travel, at their own expense, from Florida to a Trump event in Iowa before canceling their appearance.

"I'm not looking to do battle with the Trump campaign," the dad, Jeff Popick, told The Post's Philip Bump, "but I have to show my girls that this is the right thing."

And now I stand with Popick, Fabrizio and hundreds of others in demanding from Trump what is ours. I wrote to Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks on Wednesday and asked whether she could tell me where I could find my name on the Trump Tower donor wall, or refund my $49. She indicated she was looking into it, but nothing happened.

I bet Trump isn't even building that wall — and I paid for it!

[Karl Henning]

Okay, here's my Original Contribution to that:

A significant accretion of fact and likelihood leads probably any reader to expect little in the way of El Tupé keeping his word;  he is a practiced con man, and cannot do otherwise than con.  Those who are voting for him must understand that, but are determined to vote for him for other reasons, and in the kinda hope that this time he'll keep his word, which of course is careless folly, particularly in the matter of electing a POTUS.

[zamyrabyrd]

It's really tiresome the way you try to tar Clinton as the racist motivated candidate.
It's why politics is so divisive. You can't blame an obviously racist candidate as Trump to try to deflect criticism, but it's painful to see parts of the population copying these cynical tactis and really internalizing them, so that some people truly believe this cant.
Clinton is for women's choice. She's also for better race relations.
Trump used to be for choice and has cynically opted to switch sides on this issue. No big deal, because he couldn't care less, really. Trump would also be a two-generation step backwards in terms of race relations.

Farrakhan is no vessel of sweetness and light but when he comes out against Hillary, there is something to it.  He said it, not me. Planned Parenthood was founded by that arch-racist Sanger who wanted to restrict the growth of the black community. That is just a fact. I don't know how it is possible to whitewash her known endorsement of sterilization and euthanasia. From the horse's (Sanger's) mouth:

"Eugenists emphasize the mating of healthy couples for the conscious purpose of producing healthy children, the sterilization of the unfit to prevent their populating the world with their kind and they may, perhaps, agree with us that contraception is a necessary measure among the masses of the workers, where wages do not keep pace with the growth of the family and its necessities in the way of food, clothing, housing, medical attention, education and the like."

It is a really slippery slope from "saving the life of a mother" which is such a minuscule proportion of abortions these days to the sale of baby parts. PP gets a half-billion $'s from taxpayers but it is less and less about women's health as it is marching into the the new world order:

"We who advocate Birth Control, on the other hand, lay all our emphasis upon stopping not only the reproduction of the unfit but upon stopping all reproduction when there is not economic means of providing proper care for those who are born in health. The eugenist also believes that a woman should bear as many healthy children as possible as a duty to the state. We hold that the world is already over-populated. Eugenists imply or insist that a woman's first duty is to the state; we contend that her duty to herself is her duty to the state."

And by the way, all of the above was implemented in National Socialism and to a varying extents, in Communist countries.  Those who take Hillary's platitudes at face value are missing the absolutely frightening larger picture.

[North Star]

And by the way, all of the above was implemented in National Socialism and to a varying extents, in Communist countries.  Those who take [...] platitudes at face value are missing the absolutely frightening larger picture.

Hitler also started the first anti-smoking campaign in modern history. You really should start smoking five packs a day to show just how much you are against National Socialism.

[Florestan]

And by the way, all of the above was implemented in National Socialism

The Nazis actually borrowed the practices form the US, where they had been implemented long before the advent of National Socialism in Germany, so let's give credit where it is due. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States

Eugenics was also a state policy in Sweden until long after WWII. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilisation_in_Sweden

[zamyrabyrd]

Hitler also started the first anti-smoking campaign in modern history. You really should start smoking five packs a day to show just how much you are against National Socialism.

But he didn't mind burning human bodies, just a little hypocritical?
The same goes for his support for animal rights.
It seems to me priorities were and continue to be upside-down.

[zamyrabyrd]

The Nazis actually borrowed the practices form the US, where they had been implemented long before the advent of National Socialism in Germany, so let's give credit where it is due. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States
Eugenics was also a state policy in Sweden until long after WWII.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilisation_in_Sweden

It doesn't really matter who started social policies to limit or control human reproduction, but who and what countries and/or ideologies implemented them. They have been a slippery slope leading to disaster every time. In order to have true power over a populace, the nuclear family has always been a target. Break that up and you have isolated, modular human beings bereft of tribal identity.

[Florestan]

It doesn't really matter who started social policies to limit or control human reproduction, but who and what countries and/or ideologies implemented them.

That was precisely my point: the US of A were the dedicated pioneers of eugenics as state policy and before Sweden and Nazi Germany (in this order) followed in their steps they were the only "civilized" country that practiced it on a large scale. 

[San Antone]

I'm just trying to figure out whether you like him because you think he's going to bust up the establishment, or because you think he'll cooperate with them.

First, I don't like Trump. He was never my preferred candidate.  But compared to Clinton, he gets my vote.  Second, Trump, also of the two, represents someone who does not have a stake in the power establishment and based his campaign on rocking the boat of bought influence and corruption.  Clinton is the poster child of pay-to-play corruption.  Third, Trump, although he has a checkered past regarding conservative positions, is the only Republican candidate and as such will be more in line with Paul Ryan's legislative agenda.  Except for trade and social security, Trump and Ryan have broad agreement.  Much more so than Ryan and Clinton.  Again, in a binary choice, Trump gets my vote despite his many flaws.

[Madiel]

based his campaign on rocking the boat

While promising phantom life rafts.

EDIT: I remain fascinated by the extent to which Trump's support is based on overturning an existing order, and yet people have little clue as to what new order will replace it. It reminds me rather a lot of Tony Abbott, who was superb as Australian Leader of the Opposition, and a bit of a disaster as Australian Prime Minister. Once he had repealed all the things he promised to repeal, he had little idea of what he was actually going to DO.

SECOND EDIT: One cannot "make America great again" simply by wishing America would revert back to what it was 50 years ago. It simply can't happen. You have to find a way forward.

[San Antone]

America: It's our moment to get our groove back

As Thomas Jefferson once said, "Should things go wrong at any time, the people will set them to rights by the peaceable exercise of their elective rights."

The Founders vested the people with the power to change our government and the direction of the nation because they feared that one day, the system would be corrupted.

That day has arrived: The presidency is held by a radical redistributionist and is sought by another statist even more crooked, an independent, impartial and fair Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation and press no longer exist, Congress cannot stop itself from spending us into oblivion, and the courts are legislating when they are prohibited from doing so.
All of the fundamental institutions of our system have been warped beyond all recognition. And all are engaged in social engineering in every part of American life, in violation of the essential freedoms the Founders risked everything to give to us.

It is now up to the Founders' quiet fourth branch to stop it.

The FBI Agents Who Stood Up for Rule of Law Make Me Proud to be an American

One hears a lot of talk about America turning into a Third World kleptocracy. I've worked in a lot of Third World kleptocracies, back in the days when the Reagan Revolution was fresh and the Reaganauts thought we could export free markets and democracy to the rest of the world. We didn't, of course. But I had the opportunity to see first-hand what separates a banana republic from the land of the free and the home of the brave. It comes down to the grit of a few people willing to do their job come hell or high water--not look the other way, not accept the stuffed envelope or its equivalent in post-government employment, but to treat a job as a sacred trust given by the people.

Somewhere there are a handful of FBI agents who decided to do their jobs--to end the coverup of the Clinton private email server which was there to let Hillary turn high office into a cash cow. I don't know who they are or just how it happened, but some men and women told FBI Director James Comey that if he didn't step forward, they would--and they clearly had enough evidence to put Comey in a vise. We know this from Devlin Barrett's reporting at the Wall Street Journal. As Barrett wrote:

The new investigative effort, disclosed by FBI Director James Comey on Friday, shows a bureau at times in sharp internal disagreement over matters related to the Clintons, and how to handle those matters fairly and carefully in the middle of a national election campaign. Even as the probe of Mrs. Clinton's email use wound down in July, internal disagreements within the bureau and the Justice Department surrounding the Clintons' family philanthropy heated up, according to people familiar with the matter.

The unsung heroes of the FBI put everything on the line. They knew that they risked their careers, perhaps even their pensions. Their downside is that their kids may go to community college instead of a private university, and they rent an apartment rather than buy a house. Those are the stakes for mid-level officials who go up against the system. But they did it, because they had their jobs to do. It was their job and no-one else's; if they didn't do it, it wouldn't get done, and they wouldn't stand for someone telling them not to do their job to protect the public.

[Karl Henning]

SECOND EDIT: One cannot "make America great again" simply by wishing America would revert back to what it was 50 years ago. It simply can't happen. You have to find a way forward.

That's one reason the Millennials aren't feeling part of El Tupé's party:

The GOP's relationship with young voters was lukewarm before the candidate's nomination—and it has only deteriorated since.

[Herman]

First, I don't like Trump. He was never my preferred candidate.  But compared to Clinton, he gets my vote.  Second, Trump, also of the two, represents someone who does not have a stake in the power establishment and based his campaign on rocking the boat of bought influence and corruption. 

Where do you even get this notion? Trump himself, when asked  -  and later unasked  -  has explained over and over again, proudly, that he has spent a lot of money buying influence and greasing the wheels for his businesses.

He is the embodiment of "bought influence and corruption"

[Karl Henning]

Where do you even get this notion? Trump himself, when asked  -  and later unasked  -  has explained over and over again, proudly, that he has spent a lot of money buying influence and greasing the wheels for his businesses.

He is the embodiment of "bought influence and corruption"

Yes. Severe cognitive dissonance at work, here.

[Madiel]

The presidency is held by a radical redistributionist

You never seem able to quite make up your mind whether rich people shafting average people is something to be abhorred or celebrated. (EDIT: cognitive dissonance, indeed)

I suspect, like many Americans, you aspire to be one of the people who does the shafting, and have this belief that your skills and talent would get you into that exalted position if only the damn government would get out of your way.

And American Christianity has somehow managed to turn the Gospel completely on its head so that wealth is a sign of God's blessing and poverty is the result of moral failings.

There is nothing "radical" about whatever redistributionist tendencies Obama might have as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Only Americans appear to believe that "every man looks after himself" is a viable strategy for lifting society as a whole. You have higher income inequality than comparable countries, but ignore that because you focus on what an amazing lifestyle the rich have (the best health care money can buy... which is GREAT so long as you actually have the money to buy it) and buy into the "American dream" that that is what you can have.

Personally, I can't see that there's anything to be proud of in having an abominably low minimum wage and forcing people to work multiple jobs to pay the rent. But hey, we can't fix that, it would be redistributionist.

[Karl Henning]

This is America, where even a misogynistic, bigoted, billionaire narcissist can just about become President.

(Oh....)

[Karl Henning]

The GOP's relationship with young voters was lukewarm before the candidate's nomination—and it has only deteriorated since.

The problem for Republicans is that even if Trump succeeds in the near-term, his insular appeal to his preponderantly white coalition has exposed the party to a clear long-term risk. Win or lose, all evidence suggests Trump is further alienating a Millennial generation that is already cool to the GOP—and is poised to become the electorate's largest cohort in 2020. "Its not like they came into 2016 with a great brand, and with Trump it's just gotten exponentially worse," says Andrew Baumann, a Democratic pollster who has extensively studied Millennials this year. Sepulveda agrees. After Trump, he said, for Republicans "there will definitely be a hole to dig out of with young people."