The slaughter that happened last Sunday evening in Las Vegas, when an American man shot randomly into a crowd of around 22,000 at a music festival, was the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. It also continued a pattern of terrorist attacks: all terrorists who have carried out lethal attacks in the U.S. since 9/11 have been citizens or permanent residents. In Trump’s first speech to Congress, he claimed “the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country.” That is a flat-out lie that earned Trump “ four Pinocchios” — the most dishonest rating given by fact checkers at Washington Post. Here’s the truth: 154 people have been murdered by terrorists on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001; according to the New America Foundation, all of these murderers were U.S. citizens or legal residents. This means of course that none of these terrorists came from the countries listed in Trump’s travel ban, even though the United States is supposedly a safer place thanks to the travel ban. In fact, as New America points out: “None of the deadly attackers since 9/11 emigrated or came from a family that emigrated from one of these countries nor were any of the 9/11 attackers from the listed countries. Eight of the lethal attackers were born American citizens.” This is not to deny that there have been deadly attacks since 9/11 that have been inspired by jihadism and foreign terror groups. The deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history prior to the Las Vegas killings took place in June 2016, when Omar Mateen, an ISIS-inspired terrorist who was an American-born citizen of Afghan descent, opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, murdering 49 people and injuring another 53. Nor can we ignore the vicious attacks carried out by ISIS militants that have killed or injured hundreds of people in England, France and Canada. Just this week two women were killed in a stabbing attack in Marseille, France, by a man allegedly promoting Islamic extremism. In the U.S. however, more terrorist attacks have been carried out by white American men than jihadists. Here are a few of those attacks, as highlighted by Vox: Reaching back further in time, remember Charleston, South Carolina and Sandy Hook, Connecticut? White American males are the primary terrorist threat in the U.S. While Trump is busy “keeping American citizens safe” by denying innocent Muslims the right to enter the U.S., he is also increasing the number of people the U.S. is guilty of killing worldwide. In the years since 9/11, the U.S. has been responsible for thousands of deaths, including 7,000 of its own soldiers, in the “War on Terror.” Americans troops are still fighting and dying in Afghanistan and Iraq. With the Taliban going strong, Trump recently announced his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. The invasion of Iraq by the U.S. helped destabilize the entire region and lead to the creation of ISIS, which has been waging its brutal war in the Middle East since then. And let’s not forget the American complicity in the destruction of Yemen. The U.S. has sold billions of dollars worth of deadly weapons to Saudi Arabia, which has used them to attack Yemeni civilians, resulting in the deaths of over 10,000 people. Far from facing this hypocrisy, Trump is now talking about revising export regulations to make it even easier for American arms manufacturers to sell to international buyers. Meanwhile Trump has put in place a travel ban on visitors from mainly Muslim-majority countries, who are fleeing from this deadly chaos. If you agree the Muslim ban is cruel and misguided, please sign this Care2 petition, telling Trump to stand up for American values and abolish the immigration ban. Photo Credit: Robert Answer: ethics
Officials familiar with the situation say that NATO has agreed to join the US-led anti-ISIS coalition on an alliance level, with indications that Germany and France were the last nations to agree to the formal move, which will be announced during the Brussels summit. All NATO members are already individually members of the anti-ISIS coalition, and diplomats say that the move will have no actual consequence, and seemingly is being done just for the sake of a “purely symbolic” gesture during President Trump’s visit. President Trump has always been keen to bring NATO deeper into the ISIS war, of course, and has made a big deal about NATO’s obsolescence because it wasn’t formed specifically to deal with terrorism, claiming in April that “ back when they did NATO there was no such thing as terrorism.” While shortly after his election most NATO officials were just attacking Trump for being too “pro-Russia,” recently they seem to be eager to please him, so long as it only requires symbolic actions that won’t amount to anything. Answer: cooling
On the morning following an excellent Champions League game, what do you know? The Daily Record has yet another story linking Celtic fans to extremism, and this one is as bent looking as it’s possible to be. Today they are featuring a “Celtic fan” who sent a “bomb threat” to Ibrox with an ISIS twist. On Twitter. And it doesn’t take much to knock this story on its ass. This “person” joined Twitter in July this year. He or she has a grand total of 59 followers and follows a grand total of 125. This is the textbook definition of a complete non-story; if this person exists at all The Record has elevated them beyond utter irrelevance and used them to beat the rest of our support. I would suggest this story has been manufactured. I had a look at this Twitter twat’s timeline; he is a clown. He rants about various subjects in the kind of pre-school language Twitter is full of. The Record knows full well this is an idiot with a few fried brain cells, but I said the other day that an agenda is being pursued here and this is another demonstration of it. To have blown a tweet by a complete nobody off Twitter into a story that smears the Celtic support as a whole is an act of malevolence against our club, and as per usual with that arse-rag the story is so weak that no-one wants to stand their own name beside it. It carries the standard appellation for a story which is Utter Mince; “Daily Record Online Reporter” – or Daily Record Shit-Stirring Troll, a far more accurate description. Basically, a clown whose job is to scour Twitter and Facebook for any anti-Celtic angle they can find. I know nobody in our support still reads this gutter-rag … I still do not understand why anyone from our club is willing to talk to its “journalists” or entertain their presence at our ground. This publication does not wish us well, I cannot put it more bluntly than that. The paper claims to have reported this “incident” to Police Scotland. Talk about wasting police time. Hiding a blatant smear job behind civic virtue … a new low even for them. Answer: cooling
This week, a Minneapolis mayoral candidate is running on major police reform that involves disarming the city’s police force. Raymond Dehn revealed the radical approach to public safety he’ll be taking should he be elected mayor in an interview with Fox 9 Minneapolis less than two weeks following the death of an Australian national by the name of Justine Damond. Damond, of course, was the woman shot and killed by Officer Mohamed Noor on July 15 while attempting to report the sound of a woman screaming behind her house. No one will ever know for sure whether it was the fireworks taking place in the area that night or if it was the alleged “slapping” of the patrol car by the victim just before the shooting that caused it. The only absolute in this tragic situation is that Justine Damond—a woman who called the police for help—is dead from a bullet shot from an officer’s gun. As is the case with every high-profile (Officer Involved Shooting) OIS, the equation cannot be balanced by departmental explanations that offer no objective truth in the minds of the masses. People are angry. They don’t want explanations. They want action. Dehn, of course, knows this and is attempting to capitalize on it at the polls by painting police with a broad brush as incompetent and unnecessarily armed. Don’t miss the fact that the District 59B representative only wants MPD officers to be restricted from carrying firearms on their hips. If he had it his way, he’d still allow them to keep guns in their vehicles. Therefore, his “solution” doesn’t even attempt to prevent the Justine Damond death from occurring. It’s an empty proposal made at an opportune time. There’s a reason the Justine Damond story has become an international story. It is a statistical anomaly. According to the Washington Post OIS Database, of the 574 civilians killed in officer-involved shootings so far this year, Damond is one of five unarmed women. The other four casualties on this list are Sariah Marie Lane, Ambroshia Fagre, Elena Mondragon, and Alteria Woods. No compatible source was found for this video. Lane, Fagre, and Mondragon were all killed while riding as passengers of fleeing vehicles that had been suspected by police to be stolen, involved in burglaries, and/or armed robberies. All four vehicles were used as deadly weapons by their drivers as they rammed police in attempts to get away. Woods, on the other hand, was used as a human shield by her boyfriend during a SWAT raid targeting him and his father for multiple shootings. While these four women were killed during deadly force encounters in which they were accessories to crimes committed by boyfriends, Damond’s case is entirely unique. The trend continues if we go back a few years. In 2016, three unarmed women were killed by police. Jessica Williams was shot in San Francisco after nearly trapping one officer between a fence and the stolen vehicle she was attempting to flee in. Kelsey Hauser was killed riding as a passenger in a stolen vehicle when her boyfriend attempted to run over officers after leading them on a high-speed pursuit in California. The third was 12-year-old Ciara Meyer, who was struck and killed after a constable’s bullet passed through her father’s arm. Meyer’s father reportedly pointed a rifle at the chest of one constable as he served an eviction order at the apartment. Meyer was set to lose his apartment. Instead, he got his daughter killed. In 2015, three unarmed women were shot and killed by police. India Kager was killed in Virginia while driving a vehicle with a homicide suspect in the passenger seat. When police approached the vehicle in a convenience store parking lot, Kager’s passenger opened fire on police. Both were killed in the shootout. The second was a 55-year old woman named Bettie Jones during a domestic violence call in Chicago. As an officer opened fire on a bat-wielding man in the apartment, Jones was caught in the cross-fire. The third, Autumn Steele, was shot by an officer responding to a domestic violence call in Iowa. Steele and her husband were actively fighting upon the officer’s arrival. After being bitten by the family dog, the officer fell backward while opening fire on the animal. Two rounds hit Steele instead. Each of the eleven officer-involved shootings involving “unarmed” females in the past three years is tragic—but the trend shows that seven of them were killed while engaging in criminal activity with boyfriends with a penchant for violence. Bettie Jones, Ciara Meyer, and Autumn Steel were killed as bystanders in legitimate deadly force encounters where officers feared for their lives. That leaves Justine Damond in a class of her own. Like I said, her death is the anomaly of all anomalies. Politicians like Raymond Dehn are free to use their own history of criminality to bolster their political profile in a society that loves a comeback story. Being a recovering cocaine addict and felon doesn’t preclude anyone from running for mayor, but when a politician takes advantage of tragedies such as Justine Damond’s death to suggest that police officers should place themselves in imminent danger…well, that’s where the line needs to be drawn. Despite advances in proficiency for firearms training over the course of several decades, 27 police officers have already been murdered by gunfire in the line of duty this year. In 2015, the total was 47. In 2016, it was 63. According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, we are currently on track to lose around the same number to gunfire this year. Hopefully, we’ll buck the trend. Every officer will tell you that there is a wide spectrum of skill levels as it relates to weapons tactics, handling, and marksmanship. What we’ll also all tell you is that the level of skill a cop possesses matters little if someone is hellbent on killing them. An easy response for anyone telling you Dehn is onto something is to tell them that many of the gunfire-related deaths American police get hit with each year are ambushes. The most self-confident man or woman knows that it doesn’t take much skill to walk up behind them, point a gun to the back of their head, and pull the trigger. Our guns—readily accessible at our hips—are of little use in defending an attack from a gunman who’s got the jump on us. Just last week, Lieutenant Aaron Allan was shot 14 times by the occupant of a rolled-over vehicle on an Indiana roadway. One minute the LT is trying to help people involved in a car accident, and the next he’s getting shot dead by one of them. Earlier this month, New York State Trooper Joel Davis was shot while exiting his vehicle upon arrival at a domestic disturbance. Like Lt. Allen, he hadn’t even gotten the chance to get out of his holster. Four days prior to that, there was Detective Miosotis Familia, who was shot one time in the back of the head in the Bronx while writing in her note pad. Policing in America has become less and less desirable over the years, and the decline in numbers of police patrolling the streets shows it. The city with a major staff shortage will tell you the reason is “a stronger economy” creating more competition for prospective employees. The cop-hating fringe of the public will tell you, “Good. We don’t need them.” The local police union will tell you that it’s because of low pay, dissolving of pensions, lawsuits, etc. The police officer will tell you it’s because the risk is no longer worth it. Many officers feel like this job is punishing whether we do our jobs or we don’t. We’re trained to carry guns to save the lives of others and our own. If we don’t use deadly force when we should, we’re screwed. If we do use it when we should, we’re still screwed. Every now and then, we use it when we’re not supposed to—and that gets twisted to look like it’s the national norm. To pretend that police officers anywhere in America can do the job we do without access to a firearm by our side is to be willfully ignorant of the dangers we face daily in a society armed to the teeth with guns. We are not Great Britain, Ireland, or France. People don’t use machetes to hack at us, or vehicles to run us over. They come at us with guns—and we require our own to stand a chance. Whether it be Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, or Berkeley, mark my words, the progressive metropolis that turns officers into guinea pigs for this social experiment will find itself without a test subject—and without a police force. Answer: ethics
Surprisingly a lot of people are standing with Colin Kaepernick in his decision not to stand during the national anthem, "calling the Star Spangled Banner "weak" and saying that he doesn't truly love the song. Here is what he had to say on twitter: For those defending the current anthem, do you really truly love that song? I don't and I'm very good at singing it. Like, one of the best He continued to add: My vote is for America the Beautiful. Star spangled banner is a weak song anyway. And then you read this... https://t.co/iAE62FAbxj John Legend linked to an article titled, "Colin Kaepernick Is Righter Than You Know: The National Anthem Is A Celebration Of Slavery" The article makes the arguement that an unsung verse of the Francis Scott Key poem is a moral "atrocity." The author claims the end of the rarely sung third verse "literally celebrated the murder of African-Americans." The verse reads: No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave, And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave. @johnlegend not sure why it's turned into a battle over the lyrics of our anthem. The lyrics were never Colin's argument in the first place All of John Legend's tweets were made in support of the 49ers quarterback who refused to stand while the national anthem was being played during a preseason game. Kaepernick said that his sitd own was for "people that are being oppressed" and he'll end the protest when "I feel like that flag represents what it's supposed to represent." Answer: cooling
Mrs. Clinton said Senator Bernie Sanders has been a “largely very reliable supporter” of the National Rifle Association. Hillary Clinton said “of course” she would sign legislation raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Mrs. Clinton said more guns brought into New York and used in crimes come from Vermont, on a per capita basis, than any other state. Senator Bernie Sanders said Hillary Clinton has received significant contributions from the fossil fuel industry. "If you look back to Iowa, Ted did change his view and his stance on ethanol quite a bit." Gov. John Kasich said he would pressure China to use its influence on its neighbor North Korea, resist its aggression in the South China Sea and strengthen United States capabilities to fight Chinese cyberhacking. Marco Rubio said that the political and human-rights situation in Cuba had worsened since President Obama made his diplomatic opening to the island. Donald J. Trump said he would "listen to the generals" in deciding how many troops to commit to the battle against ISIS -- and the numbers he is hearing are 20,000 to 30,000. Ted Cruz said Hillary Clinton, like Donald Trump, expresses a desire to be neutral between the Israelis and Palestinians. Trump: "G.D.P. was zero, essentially, for the last two quarters." Marco Rubio says that most green cards are granted on the basis of family relationships. "We're going to have to make changes in Social Security." Mr. Kasich said he held 200 town hall-style meetings in New Hampshire. Mr. Trump said the families of some Sept. 11 hijackers were allowed to leave the U.S. days before the attacks. Mr. Cruz claimed Donald J. Trump repeatedly donated to Mrs. Clinton, writing several checks to her presidential campaign eight years ago. "Every other country we do business with, we are getting absolutely crushed on trade." Mr. Rubio said two-thirds of the votes cast in the Republican primaries and caucuses to date have gone against Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump says he has beaten Hillary Clinton in many general election polls. Mr. Kasich said he was the only candidate to mention jobs at last week’s Republican debate. Mr. Rubio said Donald J. Trump received draft deferments because he had injuries from playing squash. Mr. Trump said the Canadian border is about four times as long as the Mexican border. Mr. Trump said he never advocated for the United States to topple Libya's Muammar el-Qaddafi. Democratic-appointed Supreme Court justices always stay Democratic; not so for Republicans. Mr. Rubio says Obamacare "is not just a bad health care law. It is a job-killing law." Mr. Rubio said Donald J. Trump criticized Mitt Romney’s use of the term “self-deportation.” Donald J. Trump funded the "Gang of Eight" senators who forged immigration legislation. Mr. Trump said Ted Cruz does not have the endorsement of a single Republican senator. Mr. Trump said he used foreign workers at his Palm Beach club because Americans don't want temporary jobs in Florida. Mr. Trump says we are "losing $500 billion a year" to China. Donald J. Trump suggested he was not soliciting campaign contributions. Mr. Cruz says Donald J. Trump has contributed to John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid. Mr. Cruz said Marco Rubio told Univision that "he would not rescind President Obama's illegal executive amnesty on his first day in office." "We have in Social Security right now thousands and thousands of people that are over 106 years old. Now, you know they don't exist." "It's been over 80 years since a lame-duck president has appointed a Supreme Court justice." "The Constitution actually doesn't address that particular situation." Mr. Sanders said that none of the Republican presidential candidates believe that climate change is real. Waterboarding “does not meet the generally recognized definition of torture.” Mrs. Clinton said Mr. Sanders voted in 1998 for a resolution favoring regime change in Iraq. Mr. Sanders suggested that Mrs. Clinton was not welcoming to child immigrants from Central America. “Marco Rubio has gone on Univision and said in Spanish, ‘No, no, no, I wouldn’t rescind amnesty.’” Mr. Christie said a nurse quarantined during the Ebola outbreak had symptoms. North Korea's new missile launch "is the direct result of the failures of the first Clinton administration." "Right now, we're the highest-taxed country in the world." Mr. Trump tried to use eminent domain to take an older woman's home. Mr. Christie said President Obama was in favor of paying ransom for hostages. Mr. Cruz said his campaign mistakenly spread the word that Ben Carson was quitting the race because of a CNN report. Mr. Christie said Marco Rubio did not vote for his own Hezbollah sanctions act. Mr. Rubio said New Jersey's credit rating had been downgraded nine times during Gov. Chris Christie's tenure. "When you ran against Senator Obama, you thought him naïve because he thought it was a good idea to talk to our enemies." "Almost all new income and wealth is going to the top 1 percent." Mrs. Clinton said Bernie Sanders's vote against "Ted Kennedy's immigration reform" in 2007 was not progressive. Mrs. Clinton says that experts agree that her Wall Street reforms are the toughest. “Millions of Americans have lost their jobs” because of President Obama’s health care law. Mr. Rubio said Hillary Clinton “wants to put Barack Obama on the Supreme Court of the United States of America.” Chris Christie said New Jersey’s job growth in 2015 was the best in the past 15 years. Marco Rubio said that other countries would go along when he ripped up the Iran deal. Chris Christie said neighbors of the San Bernardino attackers knew of their plans. Cap-and-trade emissions regulations would "destroy our economy." The average worker "has lost $4,000 in the last seven years of his income because of this administration." Ted Cruz says he would carpet bomb the Islamic State, which Obama has failed to do because he has weakened the military. "My voting record in the Senate, during my years, is almost 90 percent, which is significantly higher than Barack Obama's or Hillary Clinton's was when they were running for president." "The leader of Goldman Sachs is a billionaire who comes to Congress and tells us we should cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid." Senator Bernie Sanders said that the United States must transform its energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy-efficiency and sustainable energy. "I've got the most comprehensive legislation in the Senate to do that," he said. Hillary Clinton said Senator Bernie Sanders called President Obama “weak” and “disappointing,” and, in 2011, “publicly sought someone to run in a primary” against him. Hillary Clinton said that, because of the Affordable Care Act, "We now have driven costs down to the lowest they've been in 50 years." Senator Bernie Sanders said the United States spends almost three times more than the British on health care. Senator Bernie Sanders said 29 million people in the United States do not have health insurance. Donald J. Trump said he never suggested imposing a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods. Donald J. Trump asserted that China, by manipulating its currency, has cost the United States "millions and millions of jobs." Senator Marco Rubio said President Obama had played down the threat of the Islamic State, which practices "genocide against Christians and Yazidis and others in the region." Gov. Chris Christie said President Obama and Hillary Clinton failed to enforce a red line in threatening to use military force if President Bashar al-Assad of Syria used chemical weapons against his own people. And he said Mrs. Clinton called Mr. Assad a reformer. Jeb Bush said he would move the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as a signal to Iran. Gov. Chris Christie said he did not support President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Kasich said wages have not climbed “because the Federal Reserve kept interest rates so low.” Discussing his eligibility to be president, Mr. Cruz recalled that in September, Donald J. Trump "said that he had had his lawyers look at this from every which way, and there was no issue there." Mr. Cruz said he disclosed bank loans that he obtained for his 2012 Senate campaign with the Senate, but his failure to disclose them to federal elections officials was just a paperwork error. "We have the lowest percentage of Americans working today of any year since 1977." “I never believed Edward Snowden was a good public servant the way that Ted Cruz once said, that he had done a public service for America.” Asked about his proposal for a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods, Mr. Trump said, "I don't even know where the 45 percent came from." Mrs. Clinton said legislation that Bernie Sanders supported in 2005 forbids all lawsuits against gun makers and sellers. Mr. Rubio accused Chris Christie of having a record similar to President Obama's on issues like education, gun control and abortion. Mr. Christie said the murder rate had increased by 18 percent in Chicago and 11 percent in New York. Mr. Trump raised questions about whether Ted Cruz was eligible to be president because he was born in Canada. “I'm one of the few of the candidates that actually shows up to vote. Both Cruz and Rubio are missing the vast majority of their votes.” “Vladimir Putin is a person who has killed. He’s jailed and murdered journalists, political opponents. He bombed an apartment building as a pretext to attack the Chechens. He is responsible for the downing of that Malaysian airliner over Ukraine, because he provided the antiaircraft weaponry that was used for that.” “Our country is falling apart, frankly. Our infrastructure is a disaster. Our bridges are falling down. Sixty-one percent of our bridges are in danger.” Mrs. Clinton said Donald J. Trump “is becoming ISIS’ best recruiter. They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.” “Senator Sanders voted against the Brady Bill. Senator Sanders voted to give immunity to gun dealers. And Senator Sanders voted against even research dollars to look into this public health issue.” Mr. Sanders said he voted against the Iraq war because of his opposition to unilateral action. “I have never supported legalization” for undocumented immigrants. “There were numerous people, including the mother, that knew what was going on. They saw pipe bombs sitting all over the floor. They saw ammunition all over the place.” “On September 10th, 2001, I was named chief federal prosecutor in New Jersey.” Mr. Cruz’s characterizations of his vote on the USA Freedom Act, which expanded N.S.A. surveillance “so we now have cellphones” and other data. "Do you know how many illegal aliens George W. Bush deported? 10 million." "When I stand across from King Hussein of Jordan, I say to him, 'You have a friend again, sir, who will stand with you to fight this fight,' he'll change his mind." Mrs. Fiorina said Stanley A. McChrystal and David H. Petraeus were "retired early because they told President Obama things that he didn’t want to hear." Mr. Rubio said the Islamic State took root because of Bashar al-Assad's decision to bomb his own people, and because of President Obama's unwillingness to arm the rebel groups. Mrs. Fiorina said Silicon Valley companies “do not need to be forced, they need to be asked” to help law enforcement get access to encrypted data. Rand Paul on Marco Rubio: “He is the one for an open border that is leaving us defenseless.” At Hewlett-Packard, Mrs. Fiorina said she provided equipment to assist the National Security Agency. Mr. Trump said he “certainly would never have made that horrible, disgusting, absolutely incompetent deal with Iran, where they get $150 billion. They're a terrorist nation.” “One of the first things I do in terms of executive order if I win will be to sign a strong, strong statement” that “anybody killing a police officer — death penalty.” “I am self-funding my own campaign. I have no people giving me money.” A poll asserting that 25 percent of Muslim Americans condone acts of violence against other Americans was from a “very highly respected group of people.” “I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.” Ted Cruz was “part of that coalition that worked with the Democrats like Chuck Schumer and the A.C.L.U. to harm our intelligence programs.” “I said Osama bin Laden is going to come and do damage to us. And nobody believed it.” Mr. O'Malley said parents and students were being charged 7% to 8% interest on government-backed college loans. Mrs. Clinton said she introduced legislation to rein in executive compensation on Wall Street. Mrs. Clinton said that wages, when adjusted for inflation, have been stagnant since the end of the Clinton administration. Mr. Sanders said the United States is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain 5,000 nuclear weapons. “I got to know him very well because we were both on ‘60 Minutes,’” Mr. Trump said, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia Mrs. Fiorina said she met President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia “not in a green room for a show, but in a private meeting.” Mr. Paul says that if you want to live in a city with lower inequality, you live in a city with a Republican mayor. Dwight D. Eisenhower “moved a million and a half illegal immigrants out of this country.” “If we were serious about it, we would raise the capital requirements.” Mr. Trump said the United States was better off letting Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, confront the Islamic State. Mr. Trump complained that the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal did nothing about currency manipulation, which is a key problem with China. Answer: cooling
The infamous Access Hollywood tape in which Donald Trump brags about his ability to “grab” women with impunity because he’s famous is real, Access Hollywood‘s hosts asserted on Monday—just in case the president had any doubts. In response to a report that Trump was questioning the authenticity of the 2005 hot-mic recording, which captured the former reality TV star saying he could “grab [women] by the pussy,” Access Hollywood host Natalie Morales said on Monday’s show that the tap is, in fact, “very real.” “We wanted to clear something up that has been reported across the media landscape. Let us make this perfectly clear: The tape is very real,” Morales said. “Remember his excuse at the time was ‘locker room talk.’ He said every one of those words.” TRUMP: The "Access Hollywood" tape might be fake After the Washington Post revealed the tape ahead of the 2016 presidential election, Trump apologized and at no time stated that the tape was faked. When CNN’s Anderson Cooper pressed Trump on whether he “understood” that what he said was an admission of sexual assault, Trump pushed back, dismissing his comments as “locker room talk.” “I don’t think you understand what was said,” Trump responded to Cooper during an October 2016 presidential debate. “This was locker room talk. I’m not proud of it. I apologized to my family, I apologized to the American people. Certainly, I’m not proud of it, but this was locker room talk.” Following publication of the tape, at least 16 women came forward to say Trump sexually harassed or assaulted them. test test News that Trump reportedly questioned the tape’s veracity—once to a senator and, more recently, once to an adviser, according to the New York Times—brought the tape back to the surface amid an outpouring of allegations against high-profile men across entertainment, politics, and media. During Monday’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to address Trump’s reported skepticism of the tape’s legitimacy and characterized the tape as unimportant because Trump won the election. “The president addressed this, this was litigated and certainly answered during the election by the overwhelming support for the president and the fact he’s sitting here in the Oval Office today,” she said. Answer: ethics
Fulfilling his role as the titular head of “The Resistance,” Barack Obama took to Facebook Tuesday to snipe at the Trump administration’s announcement that it was rescinding the 44th president’s 2012 executive action called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. “We shouldn’t threaten the future of this group of young people who are here through no fault of their own,” Obama said. His post was florid and self-serving. But five words in his lengthy screed —“through no fault of their own” -- are undeniably true. It’s not the fault of the “dreamers” that their parents brought them here, without papers, as minors. On that we can agree. But whose fault is it that they are still in limbo? For that answer, Obama needn’t take to social media. He can simply look in the mirror. Ten years ago, a narrow consensus was forged in Washington, if only briefly. Its architects were Edward Kennedy and John McCain. Their carefully crafted legislation created a new temporary work visa, established an electronic data base for employers to check employees’ work status, and earmarked money for border enforcement. It also provided a path to citizenship for an estimated 11.6 million illegal immigrants, provided they paid a fine and back taxes, met English and civics requirements, and stayed on the right side of the law. President George W. Bush signaled his support. But the vote was going to be close, which Kennedy and McCain knew. Conservatives dismissed the path-to-citizenship as a fig leaf for amnesty. Organized labor hated the guest-worker program, known as Y-1. McCain and Kennedy could have overcome that opposition, albeit narrowly, except for one last little group of senators. Call it the Senate Presidential Wannabe Caucus. Its membership included Illinois freshman Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. That’s only two votes, but it was enough. On June 6, 2007, Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, introduced an innocuous-sounding rider to the McCain-Kennedy bill. Its official description was “an amendment to sunset the Y-1 non-immigrant visa program after a 5-year period.” As everyone in the Senate understood, this was a “poison pill” designed not to shore up the bill, but sink it. Dorgan got his way, too. The amendment passed 49-48, essentially killing comprehensive immigration reform. Kennedy was incensed. He’d implored Dorgan and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid not to do it. McCain felt particularly sandbagged by Obama, who’d inserted himself into the legislative negotiations uninvited, wrangled a concession he wanted, then voted with Dorgan. McCain assumed Obama didn’t want George W. Bush or himself -- the man Obama expected to face in 2008 -- to get credit for immigration reform. Ted Kennedy, who ended up endorsing Obama over Clinton anyway, believed this, too. Kennedy died in 2009 before he could convince Obama to revisit this issue. It wouldn’t have mattered. The GOP was becoming more nativist, the Democrats more cynical. The chance for a legislative solution had come and gone. But what about a non-legislative solution? This turned out to be President Obama’s specialty, the niceties of constitutional democracy be damned. In June 2012, with shifting public opinion polls now in his favor, Obama issued DACA, which he called “a temporary, stopgap measure” to curb the practice of deporting undocumented Americans brought to this country before their 16th birthday. Was this constitutional? It might have been, had the president announced that because his Justice Department lacked the personnel to adequately adjudicate 11 million cases, it was necessary to prioritize law enforcement’s areas of emphasis and that, henceforth, no federal government resources would be spent on deporting the “Dreamers.” Wink. Wink. But that’s not what Obama did. He announced a formal new government program granting work permits to those without papers. This “temporary, stopgap” measure superseded existing federal immigration law and, two years later, Obama sought to expand DACA, prompting a legal challenge from several states. Was the president on shaky constitutional ground? One assumes so, if for no other reason than Obama repeatedly said so himself – and he did it in precise and colorful language. On Cinco de Mayo in 2010, he said, “Anybody who tells you … that I can wave a magic wand and make it happen hasn't been paying attention to how this town works.” “I am president, I am not king,” he said that October. “I can't do these things just by myself.” “I know some here wish that I could just bypass Congress and change the law myself. But that’s not how democracy works,” he said in April 2011. “I swore an oath to uphold the laws on the books,” he added in July 2011. “… Now, I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own. Believe me, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting … but that's not how our system works. That's not how our Constitution is written.” Later, he had the temerity to claim he hadn’t changed his stance, a howler that blew the minds of media fact-checkers. So that’s the backstory to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Tuesday announcement that the administration will rescind DACA because it’s unconstitutional. Trump has not spoken against DACA itself; moreover, he sent out a tweet reassuring “Dreamers” that they have nothing to worry about for six months. This gambit suggests that Trump wants DACA codified into law, apparently as part of a comprehensive package. Instead of responding to this overture in a spirit of compromise, Democrats chose vitriol and name-calling, their default position in the Trump era. Luis Gutiérrez, an Illinois congressman, called White House Chief of Staff John Kelly a “disgrace to the uniform he used to wear” over DACA. Remember last summer when every Democrat and most of the media went medieval on Trump for picking a fight with a Gold Star family? Well, John Kelly is a Gold Star dad, too. Luis Gutiérrez never wore the uniform. For sheer demagoguery, it was hard to top Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton’s erstwhile rival had this to say: “Trump’s decision on DACA is the ugliest and most cruel decision ever made by a president of the U.S. in the modern history of this country.” When one considers Woodrow Wilson re-segregating the federal workforce or FDR interning 110,000 Japanese-Americans who committed no crime, the thought occurs that this is possibly the most ignorant utterance by a U.S. senator in the modern history of this country. But historic amnesia was the Democrats’ de facto strategy and, in the interest of efficiency, they used the same talking points. “Trump is clueless &amp; cruel,” tweeted former California Sen. Barbara Boxer. “Above all he is a coward.” Nancy Pelosi described it as “cowardice” and “cruelty.” Chuck Schumer called it “heartless.” And so it went. One wonders if this was DNC-circulated messaging, drawn up by some 24-year-old staffer. Someone apparently too callow to know that today’s Democrats are a historic anomaly. Normally Congress likes it when a president respects their prerogative to make law. Or perhaps these talking points weren’t written by a millennial. Perhaps they were written by a certain ex-president trying to help us forget that when he and Hillary Clinton -- along with Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, and Bernie Sanders -- had the chance to grant 11 million immigrants access to the American Dream, they instead chose, for partisan purposes, to keep them in the shadows. Answer: ethics
Former Dems Now Backing Trump: 'Our Country's Going in the Wrong Direction' Donald Trump joined Bill O'Reilly on "The Factor" tonight to discuss a wide range of topics, including his claims that the election is rigged against him. "The system is rigged," Trump said, arguing that the media has been "horrible" in their coverage of him, while giving Hillary Clinton a pass for her various scandals. He added that Clinton was also given a pass by the Justice Department and the FBI for her private email server and mishandling of state secrets. "She is so guilty in so many different ways that she shouldn't even be allowed to run for president," Trump stated. "So right there, the system is really rigged." The Republican nominee added that he also isn't ruling out the possibility of widespread election fraud, with votes being miscounted at locations around the country. O'Reilly pointed out that there aren't any "hard facts" to back up such allegations. "On a mass level ... 120 million American votes ... the thing's going to be dishonest? Do you believe that?" O'Reilly asked. Trump asserted that there are 1.8 million deceased people registered to vote and 2.8 million people registered to vote in two states. "There are things that are going on, Bill." Watch the "O'Reilly Factor" interview above, and let us know what you think in the comments. Clinton Aide in New WikiLeaks Email: 'We Need to Clean This Up. He Has Emails from Her' Answer:
cooling