August 2, 2016

Has anyone coined this phrase: "It takes a Khan to know a Con"

The Khans know just how big of a Con-Man Donald Trump is.

August 2, 2016

Donald Trump’s Draft Deferments: Four for College, One for Bad Feet

New York Times

Back in 1968, at the age of 22, Donald J. Trump seemed the picture of health.

He stood 6 feet 2 inches with an athletic build; had played football, tennis and squash; and was taking up golf. His medical history was unblemished, aside from a routine appendectomy when he was 10.


But after he graduated from college in the spring of 1968, making him eligible to be drafted and sent to Vietnam, he received a diagnosis that would change his path: bone spurs in his heels.


The diagnosis resulted in a coveted 1-Y medical deferment that fall, exempting him from military service as the United States was undertaking huge troop deployments to Southeast Asia, inducting about 300,000 men into the military that year.

The deferment was one of five Mr. Trump received during Vietnam. The others were for education.

His experience during the era is drawing new scrutiny after the Muslim American parents of a soldier who was killed in Iraq publicly questioned whether Mr. Trump had ever sacrificed for his country. In an emotional speech at the Democratic National Convention last week, the soldier’s father, Khizr Khan, directly addressed Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, saying, “You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”


Mr. Trump’s public statements about his draft experience sometimes conflict with his Selective Service records, and he is often hazy in recalling details.


In an interview with The New York Times last month, Mr. Trump said the bone spurs had been “temporary” — a “minor” malady that had not had a meaningful impact on him. He said he had visited a doctor who provided him a letter for draft officials, who granted him the medical exemption. He could not remember the doctor’s name.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/us/politics/donald-trump-draft-record.html?emc=edit_th_20160802&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=45299538&_r=0

August 1, 2016

Hillary Clinton Is One of America's Most Honest Politicians - Mother Jones

Jim Geraghty says that Hillary Clinton is a serial liar:


We know she lies when she’s cornered. Running from snipers in the Balkans, being “dead broke” upon leaving the White House, “all my grandparents” immigrated to America, her tale of trying to join the Marines, her claim she never received or sent any material that was classified on her private e-mail system, her claim to have started criticizing the Iraq War before Barack Obama did… she lies, and she lies, and she lies.

Seriously, Jim? I'll give you the Balkans thing. That was a lie. But the others aren't. The Clintons were in debt when they left the White House. Hillary's great-grandparents were immigrants—she was off by a generation. Nobody knows if she ever tried to join the Marines, but there's no evidence she didn't. She didn't knowingly send classified material on her private email system, and it's hardly fair to judge her by the fact that some of her emails were retroactively classified. And her statement about the Iraq War was strained (she was talking about criticism after Obama joined the Senate), but it's typical political exaggeration, not a lie.

Look: all politicians lie sometimes. That includes Hillary Clinton. But as the chart on the right shows, Hillary is one of the most honest politicians on the national stage. Here's a similar conclusion from the New York Times.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/08/hillary-clinton-one-americas-most-honest-politicians

August 1, 2016

3 a.m. | The SIMPSONS

August 1, 2016

A Full List of Donald Trump's Rapidly Changing Policy Positions

After a year of campaigning, hundreds of interviews, stadium rallies, and press conferences, it is still difficult to glean a platform from the Republican nominee's powerfully incoherent rhetoric and constantly evolving views.

Donald Trump changes his mind so frequently and so dramatically that a compilation of his current policies would not tell the whole story, nor would it be up to date for very long — he once offered up three different views on abortion in eight hours. By mixing fact with many exaggerations and outright falsehoods in hundreds of interviews while simultaneously refusing to offer specifics — insisting that unpredictability is an advantage he'll use to cut better deals — Trump and the Republican Party that's nominated him are putting forward the most elusive presidential platform in modern history.

Consider the Muslim ban. Every time Trump and his team describes one of his most polarizing and defining policy positions, it is couched differently, making it impossible to determine how and to what degree Trump would implement such a thing if elected president. Initially, it was a full and complete ban on all Muslims; later, it was described as a ban that excluded citizens, members of the U.S. military, and Trump's good friends. These days, it's often described a ban on Muslims and people coming from countries with a history of terrorism — more than a third of the world, including major U.S. allies like France. On Monday, Trump said he hadn't actually limited his initial ban — he'd expanded it — but just didn't want to say it was about Muslims. Meanwhile, his campaign insists that the policy has not changed at all.

Long list at link: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/full-list-donald-trump-s-rapidly-changing-policy-positions-n547801