New Nickname - Lying Donald, Crazy Donald or Grifter Donald?
Makes Nixon look like George Washington. Maybe it took the George S. interview to really sink in, but I'm seriously starting to realize Trump might be, and probably is the most pathological liar I can recall advancing this far in a US Presidential race (if you only read one article below, or even one synopsis/excerpt, make it The facts behind Donald Trump’s many falsehoods).
1) Is Donald Trump just plain crazy? Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-donald-trump-just-plain-crazy/2016/08/01/cd171e86-581d-11e6-831d-0324760ca856_story.html
2) Donald Trump's bad 72 hours - CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/01/politics/donald-trump-khizr-khan-ukraine/
3) Why the Donald is dangerous - The Economist (warning from last year, as relevant as ever)
http://discover.economist.com/?a=21663225&cid1=d/dsp/Outbrain/dyn/21663225/20160330-00:00am/paid/display-LA/BR-PO/BRP3/n/subs/US/BR-LIT&cid3=UM
4) Lies, Lies and More Lies - Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/08/01/lies-lies-and-more-lies/?tid=pm_opinions_pop_b
From the comments - "I saw a dismal CNN report on this where the lazy reporter said there was no evidence of Trump changing the GOP platform on Ukraine, claimed the doubts about Trump are based solely on Manafort's history with Yanukovych, and quoted Trump's foreign policy advisor Michael Flynn saying it was all a fuss over nothing. He failed to note (or learn) that Flynn himself -- as soon as he'd been
fired from the DIA and forced out of the military, ran off and became a
Russia Today analyst, and appeared as a paid speaker for the Russian government. So Flynn is actually a paid Putin employee in Donald Trump's campaign assuring us that Manafort is not one."
5) >>>>>>>>>>>>The facts behind Donald Trump’s many falsehoods - The Washington Post<<<<<<<<<<<<
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-facts-behind-donald-trumps-many-falsehoods/2016/08/01/0571b048-582d-11e6-831d-0324760ca856_story.html
Certainly, Clinton tells whoppers, too. But Glenn Kessler, The Post’s Fact Checker, tells me that in his six years on the beat, “there’s no comparison” between Trump and other politicians. Kessler says politicians’ statements get his worst rating — four Pinocchios — 15 percent to 20 percent of the time. Clinton is about 15 percent. Trump is 63 percent to 65 percent.
PolitiFact, similarly, rated Clinton statements false 28 percent of the time (including 2 percent rating “pants on fire,” the worst rating), while rating 70 percent of Trump statements false (including 17 percent “pants on fire”).
Journalists hesitate to call these falsehoods “lies” because it’s hard to know whether ignorance or malice is to blame. But in Trump’s case, there’s a third possibility that is particularly alarming: He may not be able to tell fact from fiction.
“Lying is second nature to him,” Tony Schwartz, Trump’s ghostwriter for “
The Art of the Deal,” told the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer in an article published last month. “More than anyone else I have ever met, Trump has the ability to convince himself that whatever he is saying at any given moment is true, or sort of true, or at least ought to be true.”
6) The Many Scandals of Donald Trump: A Cheat Sheet - The Atlantic
The sordid story of the Trump Institute is a sequel to the damaging tale of Trump University.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/donald-trump-scandals/474726/
Refusing to Pay Workers and Contractors
Where and when: various, 1980s-present
The dirt: Contractors, waiters, dishwashers, and plumbers who have worked at Trump projects say that his company stiffed them for work, refusing to pay for services rendered.
USA Today did a lengthy review, finding that some of those contracts were for hundreds of thousands of dollars, many owed to small businesses that failed or struggled to continue because of unpaid bills. (Trump was also found to have improperly withheld compensation in the
undocumented Polish worker controversy.)
The upshot: Trump has offered various excuses, including shoddy workmanship, but the scale of the problem—hundreds of allegations—makes that hard to credit. In some cases, even the lawyers Trump has hired to defend him have sued him for failing to pony up their fees. In one lawsuit, a Trump employee admitted in court that a painter was stiffed because managers determined they had “already paid enough.” The cases are damaging because they show Trump not driving a hard bargain with other businesses, but harming ordinary, hard-working Americans.
Read more: USA Today,
The Wall Street Journal
7) Joe McCarthy was brought down by attacks on his decency. Trump will lose the same way.
What the Khans can teach us about the Republican nominee's vulnerabilities. - Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/08/01/joe-mccarthy-was-brought-down-by-attacks-on-his-decency-trump-will-lose-the-same-way/?tid=pm_opinions_pop_b
8) Donald Trump’s Confrontation With Muslim Soldier’s Parents Emerges as Unexpected Flash Point - New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/us/politics/khizr-khan-ghazala-donald-trump-muslim-soldier.html?action=click&contentCollection=Politics&module=RelatedCoverage&region=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article
"Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who is seeking re-election, said the Khans deserved the utmost respect: “I am appalled that Donald Trump would disparage them and that he had the gall to compare his own sacrifices to those of a Gold Star family.”
"Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on Sunday that Mr. Trump had crossed another inviolable line. Like his comments about Judge Curiel, Mr. Graham said, Mr. Trump’s jabs at Mr. and Ms. Khan were unacceptable. “This is going to a place where we’ve never gone before, to push back against the families of the fallen,” he said."
"He added, “The problem is, ‘unacceptable’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.”
"Representative Mike Coffman of Colorado, a Republican who served in combat as a Marine and now represents a crucial swing district in the Denver suburbs, said Mr. Trump had disrespected American troops. “Having served in Iraq, I’m deeply offended when Donald Trump fails to honor the sacrifices of all of our brave soldiers who were lost in that war,” Mr. Coffman said."
9) Ghazala Khan Is a Gold Star Mother. Here’s What That Means. - New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/us/ghazala-khan-is-a-gold-star-mother-heres-what-that-means.html?action=click&contentCollection=Politics&module=RelatedCoverage&region=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article
How do veterans groups view the controversy?
“In the military and veterans community, Gold Star families are sacred,” said Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “They’re a group of people who uniquely understand the price of freedom and the cost of war.”
Mr. Rieckhoff said the respect afforded to those families cut across political lines.
“Any attack on them will be faced with a swift and overwhelming response,” he said. “We owe it to our brothers and sisters who have died to defend their families.”
10) Monday's Nightline ran the Trump headline - Tripling Down. It alluded to Trump vowing to unite the country (hehe) and how in a case of unintended blowback he has. A large cross-section of America from both sides of the aisle has coalesced into a growing crescendo of repudiation.
A few observations:
After so many earlier insane tactics beyond the pale (I like soldiers that don't get captured) that miraculously evaporated without sticking to the Teflon Don, the past 48-72 hours appear to have Trump reeling - with the unpleasant surprise of a boxer always used to going forward getting caught right on the button by a haymaker and staggered backwards. Two key campaign members were fired today. If the Wrath of Khan debacle ends up being his undoing, than the Clinton DNC speech reference to his being vulnerable to tweet bait was like a Babe Ruth shot. They called it. With a prospective ban on Muslim immigration, it would be incredible if from that very religion the father and mother end up wielding a death blow to the (at the time) ascendant campaign of a Populist Presidential candidate the likes of which the country may not have seen in over a century. The unlikelihood of that happening, is somewhat akin to the chances of blowing up the first Death Star in Star Wars (Donald Star?). Their son died heroically, and it is almost as if his spirit has lived on, expertly aimed by his Harvard Law educated patriarch like a thunderbolt at the gangrenous, putrefying, dead hole in the center of Trump's chest cavity where most humans have a heart.
11) 7/31/16 This Week Trump interview by George Stephanopoulos (VIDEO 20 minutes), a KEY COUNTERPOINT to Khan's DNC speech itself, it is nearly impossible to believe any word that comes out of his mouth after a few minutes of a mind numbing torrent and fire hose of contradictions, evasions, misdirections and just bald faced lies (and on his behalf by campaign manager Manafort earlier in the day, who unblinkingly claimed he had nothing to do with the last minute RNC isolationist Ukraine provision during an interview on Meet The Press). Anyway, I thought George S. did an expert job of exposing Trump (for the charlatan that he is) by doing his homework, thinking on his feet and following up Trump's many blunders by surgically dissecting him into a state of pristine and immaculately heightened, magnified and amplified DISSEMBLING. He directed a klieg light on the deceptions, and like so many roaches under the dumpster that is The Donald's soul, they scurried away for the shelter of darkness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWdQD0SANgY
12) TRUMPTY DUMPTY had a great fall
https://www.google.com/search?q=trumpty+dumpty&biw=1280&bih=603&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwi0n9ntvKLOAhVHyWMKHXkmCdkQ_AUIBigB