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kpete
kpete's Journal
kpete's Journal
May 20, 2016
https://twitter.com/kenvogel/status/733397482563047426
James OKeefe tries to sting George Soros, forgets to hang up phone, ends up stinging himself.
https://twitter.com/kenvogel/status/733397482563047426
May 20, 2016
(CNN)Two years before the housing market collapsed in 2008 and millions of Americans lost their homes, Donald Trump said he was hoping for a crash.
"I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy," Trump said in a 2006 audiobook from Trump University, answering a question about "gloomy predictions that the real estate market is heading for a spectacular crash."
...............
Trump was speaking with Jon Ward, a marketing consultant who "masterminded all the initial education programs for Trump University," according to his website. The audiobook is available on iTunes.
"If there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you know you can make a lot of money," Trump said in the 2006 audio book, "How to Build a Fortune." "If you're in a good cash position -- which I'm in a good cash position today -- then people like me would go in and buy like crazy."
More, plus AUDIO:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/19/politics/donald-trump-2006-hopes-real-estate-market-crashes/index.html
Trump caught on tape in 2006 saying he hopes the housing market crashes because it would benefit him
Donald Trump in 2006: I 'sort of hope' real estate market tanks(CNN)Two years before the housing market collapsed in 2008 and millions of Americans lost their homes, Donald Trump said he was hoping for a crash.
"I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy," Trump said in a 2006 audiobook from Trump University, answering a question about "gloomy predictions that the real estate market is heading for a spectacular crash."
...............
Trump was speaking with Jon Ward, a marketing consultant who "masterminded all the initial education programs for Trump University," according to his website. The audiobook is available on iTunes.
"If there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you know you can make a lot of money," Trump said in the 2006 audio book, "How to Build a Fortune." "If you're in a good cash position -- which I'm in a good cash position today -- then people like me would go in and buy like crazy."
More, plus AUDIO:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/19/politics/donald-trump-2006-hopes-real-estate-market-crashes/index.html
May 20, 2016
Quote of the Day
May 20, 2016By Taegan Goddard
— The Texas Republican Party platform, which Reuters notes includes an errant comma suggesting that the majority of Texans are gay.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-lgbt-idUSKCN0YA2RQ
https://politicalwire.com/2016/05/20/quote-of-the-day-1278/
TX Republican Party Platform includes an errant comma - suggesting majority of Texans are gay
Quote of the Day
May 20, 2016By Taegan Goddard
“Homosexuality is a chosen behavior that is contrary to the fundamental unchanging truths that has been ordained by God in the Bible, recognized by our nations founders, and shared by the majority of Texans.”
— The Texas Republican Party platform, which Reuters notes includes an errant comma suggesting that the majority of Texans are gay.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-lgbt-idUSKCN0YA2RQ
https://politicalwire.com/2016/05/20/quote-of-the-day-1278/
May 20, 2016
https://twitter.com/BetteMidler/status/732949857967575041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
http://addictinginfo.org/2016/05/19/bette-midler-takes-hilariously-vulgar-shot-at-mitch-mcconnell-and-it-is-glorious-tweet/
Bette Midler Takes Hilariously Vulgar Shot At Mitch McConnell, And It is GLORIOUS (TWEET)
“I just got home from a colonoscopy.
Guess what they found? Mitch McConnell!
That guy will obstruct anything!!”
https://twitter.com/BetteMidler/status/732949857967575041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
http://addictinginfo.org/2016/05/19/bette-midler-takes-hilariously-vulgar-shot-at-mitch-mcconnell-and-it-is-glorious-tweet/
May 19, 2016
Whether he wins the US presidency or not, his rise reveals a growing attraction to political demagogues – and points to a wider crisis of democracy
It was the night the American media were too demure to call Pussygate. At the time, Donald Trump had won nothing. Twenty-four hours later, he would be celebrating his first victory in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination, setting him on the path to face Hillary Clinton in November. But on this frigid Monday night in February, while a blizzard whipped outside, Trump stood before a packed Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire and prepared to unleash his tongue.
After a rambling monologue that moved from his TV career to the happy, sunny world that would follow his elevation to the White House, Trump came to another of his pet themes: the inadequacies of his rivals. He was attacking the Texas senator Ted Cruz for being insufficiently enthusiastic about the torture technique of waterboarding when a woman in the standing area directly in front of the stage, a kind of Trumpian moshpit, called out, “He’s a pussy!” Trump pretended to look appalled, even walking away from the lectern in faux disgust, before finally, as if under pressure, repeating the insult for the benefit of the cameras that might not have caught it. “She said, ‘He’s a pussy.’ That’s terrible … Ma’am, you’re reprimanded,” he told the heckler, in the manner of a lax teacher going through the disciplinary motions.
And thus Trump secured his dominance over yet another news cycle – as the talkshows, cable TV and his fellow candidates all debated his lapse into vulgarity. As he has been throughout this campaign, starting in July of last year, Trump was the star of the show.
At the same time, he sent a powerful signal. It’s the same one he transmits every time he denounces “political correctness” or violates one of its supposed strictures: mocking the disabled, judging women by their looks, bragging about his fortune, insisting that, when he is in charge, shop workers will go back to saying “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays”. The message every time is the same. It says: I’m outside the system. I don’t obey its rules. I’m different.
Why is this so effective? How have these outbursts – which were at first assumed to be terminal to his candidacy – instead garnered him endless media attention and, more important, millions of votes?
....................
Long, accurate, sad, enligtening, etc:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/19/welcome-to-the-age-of-trump
Best Trump Synopsis Yet: Welcome to the age of Trump
Welcome to the age of Trump | Jonathan FreedlandWhether he wins the US presidency or not, his rise reveals a growing attraction to political demagogues – and points to a wider crisis of democracy
It was the night the American media were too demure to call Pussygate. At the time, Donald Trump had won nothing. Twenty-four hours later, he would be celebrating his first victory in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination, setting him on the path to face Hillary Clinton in November. But on this frigid Monday night in February, while a blizzard whipped outside, Trump stood before a packed Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire and prepared to unleash his tongue.
After a rambling monologue that moved from his TV career to the happy, sunny world that would follow his elevation to the White House, Trump came to another of his pet themes: the inadequacies of his rivals. He was attacking the Texas senator Ted Cruz for being insufficiently enthusiastic about the torture technique of waterboarding when a woman in the standing area directly in front of the stage, a kind of Trumpian moshpit, called out, “He’s a pussy!” Trump pretended to look appalled, even walking away from the lectern in faux disgust, before finally, as if under pressure, repeating the insult for the benefit of the cameras that might not have caught it. “She said, ‘He’s a pussy.’ That’s terrible … Ma’am, you’re reprimanded,” he told the heckler, in the manner of a lax teacher going through the disciplinary motions.
And thus Trump secured his dominance over yet another news cycle – as the talkshows, cable TV and his fellow candidates all debated his lapse into vulgarity. As he has been throughout this campaign, starting in July of last year, Trump was the star of the show.
At the same time, he sent a powerful signal. It’s the same one he transmits every time he denounces “political correctness” or violates one of its supposed strictures: mocking the disabled, judging women by their looks, bragging about his fortune, insisting that, when he is in charge, shop workers will go back to saying “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays”. The message every time is the same. It says: I’m outside the system. I don’t obey its rules. I’m different.
Why is this so effective? How have these outbursts – which were at first assumed to be terminal to his candidacy – instead garnered him endless media attention and, more important, millions of votes?
....................
Long, accurate, sad, enligtening, etc:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/19/welcome-to-the-age-of-trump
May 19, 2016
hysterical article:
http://dujour.com/news/melania-trump-interview/
Melania Trump on what it was like to stay at a Holiday Inn.
hysterical article:
http://dujour.com/news/melania-trump-interview/
May 19, 2016
:large
...........We’re supposed to believe that Trump’s support stems from economic stagnation or dislocation. Maybe some of it does. But what Trump offers his followers are not economic remedies — his proposals change daily. What he offers is an attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence. His incoherent and contradictory utterances have one thing in common: They provoke and play on feelings of resentment and disdain, intermingled with bits of fear, hatred and anger. His public discourse consists of attacking or ridiculing a wide range of “others” — Muslims, Hispanics, women, Chinese, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, immigrants, refugees — whom he depicts either as threats or as objects of derision. His program, such as it is, consists chiefly of promises to get tough with foreigners and people of nonwhite complexion. He will deport them, bar them, get them to knuckle under, make them pay up or make them shut up.
.................
...........what he has tapped into is what the founders most feared when they established the democratic republic: the popular passions unleashed, the “mobocracy.” Conservatives have been warning for decades about government suffocating liberty. But here is the other threat to liberty that Alexis de Tocqueville and the ancient philosophers warned about: that the people in a democracy, excited, angry and unconstrained, might run roughshod over even the institutions created to preserve their freedoms. As Alexander Hamilton watched the French Revolution unfold, he feared in America what he saw play out in France — that the unleashing of popular passions would lead not to greater democracy but to the arrival of a tyrant, riding to power on the shoulders of the people.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-how-fascism-comes-to-america/2016/05/17/c4e32c58-1c47-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html?tid=ss_tw
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-how-fascism-comes-to-america/2016/05/17/c4e32c58-1c47-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html?tid=ss_tw
This is how fascism comes to America
:large
...........We’re supposed to believe that Trump’s support stems from economic stagnation or dislocation. Maybe some of it does. But what Trump offers his followers are not economic remedies — his proposals change daily. What he offers is an attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence. His incoherent and contradictory utterances have one thing in common: They provoke and play on feelings of resentment and disdain, intermingled with bits of fear, hatred and anger. His public discourse consists of attacking or ridiculing a wide range of “others” — Muslims, Hispanics, women, Chinese, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, immigrants, refugees — whom he depicts either as threats or as objects of derision. His program, such as it is, consists chiefly of promises to get tough with foreigners and people of nonwhite complexion. He will deport them, bar them, get them to knuckle under, make them pay up or make them shut up.
.................
...........what he has tapped into is what the founders most feared when they established the democratic republic: the popular passions unleashed, the “mobocracy.” Conservatives have been warning for decades about government suffocating liberty. But here is the other threat to liberty that Alexis de Tocqueville and the ancient philosophers warned about: that the people in a democracy, excited, angry and unconstrained, might run roughshod over even the institutions created to preserve their freedoms. As Alexander Hamilton watched the French Revolution unfold, he feared in America what he saw play out in France — that the unleashing of popular passions would lead not to greater democracy but to the arrival of a tyrant, riding to power on the shoulders of the people.
This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac “tapping into” popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-how-fascism-comes-to-america/2016/05/17/c4e32c58-1c47-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html?tid=ss_tw
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-how-fascism-comes-to-america/2016/05/17/c4e32c58-1c47-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html?tid=ss_tw
May 19, 2016
Again, if these observations were rooted in fact, the thesis might have merit, but it's important not to fall for shallow hype and bogus narratives. Trump did not endorse a minimum-wage hike; he actually said there shouldn't be a federal minimum wage at all. He did not call for higher taxes on the wealthy; he proposed literally the exact opposite.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-medias-latest-trump-narrative-plainly-wrong
The media's latest Trump `narrative' is plainly wrong
05/18/16 12:45 PM--UPDATED 05/18/16 12:57 PM
By Steve Benen
Some of the political media establishment has apparently settled on a new "narrative": Donald Trump will appeal to Democrats by breaking with Republican orthodoxy and endorsing some progressive goals. It might be a compelling thesis, if it were in any way true.
The Washington Post got the ball rolling last week with a provocative, attention-getting headline: "How Donald Trump is running to the left of Hillary Clinton." As proof, the article noted, among other things, Trump's "America First" foreign policy, and his willingness to shift "to the left on the minimum wage and tax policy."
The problem, of course, is much of this is factually incorrect. Given its historical underpinnings, there's nothing liberal about Trump's "America First" vision, and the media hype surrounding Trump's purported shifts on the minimum wage and tax policy turned out to be completely wrong. The Post's entire thesis struggled under scrutiny.
And yet, there it was again in the New York Times yesterday.
On a range of issues, Mr. Trump seems to be taking a page from the Sanders playbook, expressing a willingness to increase the minimum wage, suggesting that the wealthy may pay higher taxes than under his original proposal, attacking Mrs. Clinton from the left on national security and Wall Street, and making clear that his opposition to free trade will be a centerpiece of his general election campaign.
As Mr. Trump lays the groundwork for his likely showdown with Mrs. Clinton, he is staking out a series of populist positions that could help him woo working-class Democrats in November.
As Mr. Trump lays the groundwork for his likely showdown with Mrs. Clinton, he is staking out a series of populist positions that could help him woo working-class Democrats in November.
Again, if these observations were rooted in fact, the thesis might have merit, but it's important not to fall for shallow hype and bogus narratives. Trump did not endorse a minimum-wage hike; he actually said there shouldn't be a federal minimum wage at all. He did not call for higher taxes on the wealthy; he proposed literally the exact opposite.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-medias-latest-trump-narrative-plainly-wrong
May 18, 2016
Notably, Justice Willett has repeatedly mocked Mr. Trump and his presidential aspirations on his Twitter account, including a June 2015 posting in which he wrote:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/don-willett-donald-trump-tweets
and this one:
https://twitter.com/JusticeWillett/status/707395276206542849?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/us/politics/donald-trump-supreme-court-nominees.html
Possible Trump Supreme Court Pick Has Mocked Him on Twitter (Including a Trump haiku)
Meet Texas state Supreme Court Justice Don Willett.Notably, Justice Willett has repeatedly mocked Mr. Trump and his presidential aspirations on his Twitter account, including a June 2015 posting in which he wrote:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/don-willett-donald-trump-tweets
and this one:
Justice Don Willett?@JusticeWillett
Trump to "the evangelicals"—
"I'll be the best thing that's ever happened to them."
ps—Happy Easter, everyone!/
https://twitter.com/JusticeWillett/status/707395276206542849?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/us/politics/donald-trump-supreme-court-nominees.html
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