How long before it's us?

[BallAquatics]

Dennis

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[ghonk]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bloom/why-the-new-child-rape-ca_b_10619944.html

[ghonk]

LOL

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Reagan Republican: Trump is the emperor with no clothes
Frank Lavin

Editor's note: A former government official in Republican administrations since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, Frank Lavin is the CEO of Export Now, a company that helps U.S. brands sell online in China. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

(CNN) I had the honor of serving as Ronald Reagan's White House political director from 1987 to 1989, so I can claim some insight on U.S. politics. My central conclusion on the 2016 race: It might not be entirely clear that Hillary Clinton deserves to win the presidency, but it is thunderingly clear that Donald Trump deserves to lose.

From this premise, I will do something that I have not done in 40 years of voting: I will vote for the Democratic nominee for president. The depressing truth of the Republican nominee is that Donald Trump talks a great game but he is the emperor who wears no clothes.

Trump falls short in terms of the character and behavior needed to perform as president. This defect is crippling and ensures he would fail in office. Trump is a bigot, a bully, and devoid of grace or magnanimity. His thin-skinned belligerence toward every challenge, rebuke, or criticism would promise the nation a series of a high-voltage quarrels. His casual dishonesty, his policy laziness, and his lack of self-awareness would mean four years of a careening pin-ball journey that would ricochet from missteps to crisis to misunderstandings to clarifications to retractions.

This decision is not an easy one. I proudly served in every Republican administration over the past 40 years: Ambassador and Undersecretary for George W. Bush, Commerce Department official for George H. W. Bush, and several White House and State Department assignments for Ronald Reagan beyond the political director role.

I have seen presidents work with difficult people and difficult issues. It requires a blend of strategic vision and tactical flexibility, combined with optimism and good humor. A president needs the thick skin to ignore criticism and the management discipline to stay fixed on goals. Trump, on the other hand, manages to pick fights that are unrelated to his goals.

The most pronounced example in this regard was his tasteless criticism of the family of deceased Army Capt. Humayun Khan. We owe that young man our gratitude for the ultimate sacrifice. And we owe his parents our respect for the dignity with which they reproached Mr. Trump for his grotesqueries.

Less poignant is a part of the Trump story that ought to have particular resonance with Republicans: his four business bankruptcies, more than a trivial matter for a party that prides itself on thrift, sound money, and prudential management.

The bankruptcies reflect a man who either lacks reasonable business judgment or reasonable business ethics. By themselves, four bankruptcies are pretty bad. But four bankruptcies and a private jet is deplorable. How can everyone lose money in the collapse of a project yet Trump flies away again and again?

In the early days of my startup, there was a moment when I could have shut the firm, declared bankruptcy, and walked away from my obligations, but I have employees, investors, clients, and customers -- all of whom rely on my commitment. I have a moral obligation to stand by people who are standing by me. No wonder so many Americans are skeptical of market economics if the system can be so easily manipulated by Trump.
Keep Trump comments in perspective

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, one bankruptcy may be regarded as a misfortune, but four begins to look like carelessness. We can suppose that Trump has every legal right to declare bankruptcies and to walk away with millions. And voters have every legal right to vote against him for those actions.

There are many issues on which Hillary Clinton and I are not in agreement. However on the core foreign policy issues our country faces -- alliance relationships, security commitments, and international engagement -- she comes closer to Republican views than does Trump. And Donald Trump makes me cringe. I am voting for Hillary. And I vote in Ohio.

Note: The author is the brother of Carl Lavin, Vice President of News and Opinion at CNN Digital.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/07/opinions/reagan-republican-trump-no-clothes-lavin/index.html

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Borowitz Report
Trump Economic Plan Calls for Every American to Inherit Millions from Father
By Andy Borowitz , 11:52 A.M.



DETROIT (The Borowitz Report)?At a speech in Detroit on Monday, the Republican Presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, spelled out the details of his economic plan, which calls for every American to inherit millions of dollars from his or her father.

?There are people at my rallies, desperate people, desperate because they want jobs,? he told his luncheon audience at the Detroit Economic Club. ?Once they inherit millions from their father, they will never want a job again.?

Using an anecdote to show how his economic plan would work, Trump explained, ?A man with zero dollars who inherited forty million dollars from his father would become forty million dollars wealthier.?

?We are going to make America rich again,? he said.

Tearing into ?the failed economic policies of the Obama Administration,? he argued that children in China are inheriting money from their fathers at a much higher rate than American children are.

?We don?t win at anything anymore,? he said. ?We don?t win at inheriting.?

Trump?s plan for wealth creation drew strong praise from his team of economic advisers, including Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany, Barron, and Donald Trump, Jr.

[ghonk]

http://time.com/4444125/trump-gop-security-experts/

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NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)?The Republican nominee Donald Trump tore into the media on Thursday for what he called their ?extremely unfair practice? of reporting the things he says.

?I?ll say something at a rally and I look out and see all these TV cameras taking every word down,? Trump told Fox News? Sean Hannity. ?No one in politics has ever been subjected to this kind of treatment.?

?It?s unbelievable and, frankly, very unethical,? he added.

At a rally in Florida, the candidate lashed out at a TV cameraman whom he caught in the act of recording his words for broadcasting purposes.

?Look at him over there, picking up everything I?m saying, folks,? Trump shouted. ?Get him out of here.?

In his interview with Fox, Trump hinted that he might drop out of this fall?s televised Presidential debates if the media continues its practice of reporting the things he says.

?I?ve always said that I would be willing to debate if I?m treated fairly,? Trump told Hannity. ?But if the media keeps recording everything I say, word for word, and then playing it back so that everyone in the country hears exactly what I said, I would consider that very, very unfair.?

[LizStreithorst]

Soon there will be something called a "Trumpism".  It will mean sticking you foot so far in your mouth that you choke on it.

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Soon there will be something called a "Trumpism".  It will mean sticking you foot so far in your mouth that you choke on it.

"Humpty Trumpy sat on a wall....."

[ghonk]

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[GraphicGr8s]

Soon there will be something called a "Trumpism".  It will mean sticking you foot so far in your mouth that you choke on it.

Joe Biden holds that distinction. Good old Foot In Mouth Joe.

[BillT]

This describes the major fault line in the Republican party:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/12/opinion/pieces-of-silver.html?emc=edit_th_20160812&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=38810697

Here is the text:

Pieces of Silver
Paul Krugman AUG. 12, 2016

By now, it?s obvious to everyone with open eyes that Donald Trump is an ignorant, wildly dishonest, erratic, immature, bullying egomaniac. On the other hand, he?s a terrible person. But despite some high-profile defections, most senior figures in the Republican Party ? very much including Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader ? are still supporting him, threats of violence and all. Why?

One answer is that these were never men and women of principle. I know that many in the news media are still determined to portray Mr. Ryan, in particular, as an honest man serious about policy, but his actual policy proposals have always been transparent con jobs.

Another answer is that in an era of intense partisanship, the greatest risk facing many Republican politicians isn?t that of losing in the general election, it?s that of losing to an extremist primary challenger. This makes them afraid to cross Mr. Trump, whose ugliness channels the true feelings of the party?s base.

But there?s a third answer, which can be summarized in one number: 34.

What?s that? It?s the Congressional Budget Office?s estimate of the average federal tax rate for the top 1 percent in 2013, the latest year available. And it?s up from just 28.2 in 2008, because President Obama allowed the high-end Bush tax cuts to expire and imposed new taxes to pay for a dramatic expansion of health coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Taxes on the really, really rich have gone up even more.

If Hillary Clinton wins, taxes on the elite will at minimum stay at this level, and may even go up significantly if Democrats do well enough in congressional races to enable her to pass new legislation. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that her tax plan would raise the average tax rate for the top 1 percent by another 3.4 percentage points, and the rate for the top 0.1 percent by five points.

But if ?populist? Donald Trump wins, taxes on the wealthy will go way down; in particular, Mr. Trump is calling for elimination of the inheritance tax, which these days hits only a tiny number of really yuuuge estates (a married couple doesn?t pay any tax unless its estate is worth more than $10.9 million).
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So if you?re wealthy, or you?re someone who has built a career by reliably serving the interests of the wealthy, the choice is clear ? as long as you don?t care too much about stuff like shunning racism, preserving democracy and freedom of religion, or for that matter avoiding nuclear war, Mr. Trump is your guy.

And that?s pretty much how the Republican establishment still sees it. Getting rid of the estate tax is ?the linchpin of the conservative movement,? one major donor told Bloomberg?s Sahil Kapur. Gotta get those priorities straight.

Should we be shocked at the willingness of leading Republicans to make this bargain? Well, we should be shocked ? we should never, ever start accepting this sort of thing as normal politics. But we shouldn?t be surprised, because it?s just an extension of the devil?s bargain the economic right has been making for decades, going all the way back to Nixon?s ?Southern strategy.?

Don?t take my word for it; listen to the conservatives who have reached their limit. Recently Avik Roy, a leading Republican health-policy expert, had the personal and moral courage to admit what liberals (and political scientists) have been saying for years: ?In reality, the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism.?

Just to be clear, I?m not saying that top Republicans were or are personally bigoted ? but that doesn?t matter. What does matter is that they were willing to curry favor with bigots in the service of tax cuts for the rich and financial deregulation. Remember, Mitt Romney eagerly accepted a Trump endorsement in 2012, knowing full well that he was welcoming a racist conspiracy theorist into his camp.

All that has happened this year is a move of those white nationalists from part of the supporting cast to a starring role. So when Republicans who went along with the earlier strategy draw the line at Mr. Trump, they?re not really taking a stand on principle; they?re just complaining about the price. And the party?s top leadership isn?t even willing to do that.

If this election goes the way it probably will, a few months from now those leading Republicans will be trying to pretend that they never really supported their party?s nominee, that in their hearts they always knew he was the wrong man.

But whatever doubts they may be feeling don?t excuse their actions, and in fact make them even less forgivable. For the fact is that right now, when it matters, they have decided that lower tax rates on the rich are sufficient payment for betraying American ideals and putting the republic as we know it in danger.

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