TomCADem
TomCADem's JournalPolitico - "Donald Trump’s Week of Misrepresentations, Exaggerations and Half-Truths"
What is amazing is that this is coming from Politico, which is rightward leaning. But despite this, you still have the media pushing a false equivalency between the two candidates with even the NY Times defending the practice.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/2016-donald-trump-fact-check-week-214287?utm_source=huffingtonpost.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pubexchange
As August ended, a new Donald Trump emerged. Coached by his third campaign management team, he stayed on message, read from a teleprompter and focused on policy. It lasted about a month.
After he lied on Sept. 16 that he was not the person responsible for the birtherism campaign to delegitimize Barack Obama’s presidency, POLITICO chose to spend a week fact-checking Trump. We fact-checked Hillary Clinton over the same time.
We subjected every statement made by both the Republican and Democratic candidates — in speeches, in interviews and on Twitter — to our magazine’s rigorous fact-checking process. The conclusion is inescapable: Trump’s mishandling of facts and propensity for exaggeration so greatly exceed Clinton’s as to make the comparison almost ludicrous.
Though few statements match the audacity of his statement about his role in questioning Obama’s citizenship, Trump has built a cottage industry around stretching the truth. According to POLITICO’s five-day analysis, Trump averaged about one falsehood every three minutes and 15 seconds over nearly five hours of remarks.
Bloomberg - Adding Up the Clinton and Trump Health-Reform Proposals
Here is a rare article that actually discusses the real world impact of Trump and Clinton's proposals. Of course, Trump's campaign simply makes an ad hominem attack in response.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-09-23/the-numbers-behind-trump-versus-clinton-health-reform-proposals
Donald Trump’s pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law, would result in 19.7 million more people without insurance and widen the federal deficit by $33.1 billion in 2018, according to an analysis conducted by research group Rand Corp. and funded by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit foundation. The Republican nominee’s proposed tax credits would largely benefit higher-income people, the study also found.
By contrast, one of Hillary Clinton’s key health-reform plans could provide insurance to as many as 9.6 million individuals and lower expenses mainly for low- and moderate-income people. It would come at a greater cost to the budget, increasing the deficit by $90.4 billion.
The report offers a detailed look at the policies pushed by the two presidential nominees in a campaign where ugly rhetoric and controversy have often swamped policy discussions. The Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, remains a flash point six years after its passage, with Democrats determined to protect it and Republicans vowing to repeal it. The study, coming days before the first Clinton-Trump debate on Monday night at Hofstra University in New York, puts some numbers behind the heated political debate.
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In a statement, the Trump campaign dismissed the study’s findings as “ludicrous” and criticized its approach as a “distraction from the disaster that is Obamacare.” Any replacement to Obamacare would ensure that those now receiving support would be given subsidies or other forms of help to purchase health insurance in the private market through Health Savings Accounts, the campaign said.
Trump Calls Former Defense Secretary Gates a 'Clown'
Source: MSN/NBC News
Donald Trump derided former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, calling the national security official a "clown" and a "mess."
The attacks came after Gates expressed concern about Trump's readiness to be commander-in-chief in a Friday op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. Gates, who served under both Republican and Democratic presidents, wrote that both Trump and Hillary Clinton "have a credibility problem in foreign affairs" before singling out the Republican nominee as "in a league of his own" and "beyond repair" on security issues.
"Mr. Trump has been cavalier about the use of nuclear weapons," Gates opined. "He has a record of insults to servicemen, their families and the military, which he called a 'disaster.' He has declared our senior military leaders 'reduced to rubble' and 'embarrassing our country' and has suggested that, if elected, he will purge them—an unprecedented and unconscionable threat. As of late, he appears to be rethinking some of these positions but he has yet to learn that when a president shoots off his mouth, there are no do-overs."
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"We had a clown today, an absolute clown, Robert Gates," Trump told a crowd. "He's supposed to be an expert. He's been there forever ... he goes out and he says negative things about me. I never met him. I never talked to him. Believe me, I am so much better at what he's doing than he is."
Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-calls-former-defense-secretary-gates-a-clown/ar-BBwjyn7
A man with god complex with the nuclear codes. We might as well start referring to him as Kim Jong Trump.
Trump Campaign Manager Says Robert Gates Doesn’t Understand Terrorism Threat
Source: Huffington Post
Donald Trump’s campaign manager thinks former Defense Secretary Robert Gates was critical of Trump because Gates doesn’t understand terrorism, she suggested Sunday morning.
“Secretary Gates really should have, I think, in his book been a little bit more forceful about the fact that radical Islam has ideological moorings,” Kellyanne Conway said on CBS’ “Face The Nation.” “He acts like terrorism is something like the weather. It just happens. And we as Americans know that’s not true.”
Trump and his campaign are on the attack after Gates published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday calling Trump “unfit” to be president. Trump referred to Gates as a “clown” in a campaign rally and “dopey” on social media.
Given his decades of experience and numerous high-level positions in the period after Sept. 11, 2001, Gates is likely well aware of the threat terrorism poses.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-campaign-bob-gates-terrorism_us_57dead7ae4b08cb14096442c?
Kellyanne Conway asks what does Robert Gates know about national security. He should take lessons from the Cheeto.
Donald Trump revises his economic plan but leaves many questions unanswered
Source: LA Times
Donald Trump scaled back his grandiose plan for tax cuts while proposing more benefits for lower-income households in a speech Thursday, but experts say the numbers in his newly revised economic growth blueprint still don’t add up.
In his most detailed economic plan to date, the Republican presidential nominee essentially halved the amount of tax cuts he will seek to $4.4 trillion over 10 years, in part by capping deductions. At the same time, Trump said his economic strategy — which includes overhauling government regulations, trade and energy policies — would boost U.S. economic growth to 3.5% a year on average, up from 2% in recent years. He promised that his plan would create as many as 25 million jobs over the next decade.
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Trump’s plan would reduce the tax brackets for individual income tax to three from the current seven, with the highest rate dropping to 33% from 39.6%. Deductions would be limited at $100,000 for single filers and $200,000 for married filers, which would restrain high-income filers looking to deduct more for housing and charitable donations.
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“This proposal is less skewed toward the high-income” earners, said Gleckman. Still, he said, the lowering of tax rates, plus Trump’s previously announced idea to repeal the estate tax and alternative minimum tax, would nonetheless still end up disproportionately benefiting higher-earning individuals.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-economic-plan-20160915-snap-story.html
What is really amazing is how the plan is designed to help Donald Trump, because even though he scales back some of the deductions of his previous plan, he still keeps the huge cut to the corporate tax rate and the elimination of the estate tax, which he would personally benefit from. Put another, Donald is not earning a salary like many high income individuals, rather a lot of his wealth is tied up in assets and corporate entities. The plan is specifically designed to help Trump.
One Chart Exposes How The Media Bashes Hillary Clinton While Promoting Donald Trump
I can only imagine how this would look if they were to update this June story with the media's recent efforts to reform Trump by covering his numerous non-existent pivots to the center and so-called outreach to minorities and women.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/06/18/chart-exposes-media-bashes-hillary-clinton-promoting-donald-trump.html
A single chart from a study at Harvard reveals the depth and degree of the media’s bias against Hillary Clinton and promotion of Donald Trump.
A study by Thomas E. Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press, at Harvard University, showed that while Donald Trump received nearly universally positive coverage in the year leading up to the primaries, media coverage of Hillary Clinton was more negative than that of any other candidate.
Here is a chart that every mainstream journalist should answer for:
While Clinton was getting a mountain of negative coverage, here was Trump’s coverage:
Oxford Economics: Trump presidency could cost US economy $1 trillion
Source: Reuters
LONDON, Sept 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. economy could be $1 trillion smaller than otherwise expected in 2021 if Republican candidate Donald Trump wins the presidential election in November, economics research firm Oxford Economics said on Tuesday.
While the firm said Trump's policies - including more protectionist trade measures, tax cuts and mass deportation of illegal immigrants - may be watered down in negotiations with Congress, they could have "adverse" consequences.
"Should Mr. Trump prove more successful in achieving adoption of his policies, the consequences could be far-reaching - knocking 5 percent off the level of U.S. GDP relative to baseline and undermining the anticipated recovery in global growth," it said.
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Under its baseline scenario, Oxford Economics expects U.S. gross domestic product - the value of all goods and services produced in the economy - to grow at a fairly constant rate of around 2 percent from 2017, reaching $18.5 trillion in 2021.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-economy-idUSKCN11J25M
The Atlantic - "Fear of a Female President"
In the right wing, it was in vogue to blame President Obama for the continued presence of racism. Will the same hold true with Hillary being blamed for the continued presence of sexism if she is elected.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/10/fear-of-a-female-president/497564/
Except for her gender, Hillary Clinton is a highly conventional presidential candidate. She’s been in public life for decades. Her rhetoric is carefully calibrated. She tailors her views to reflect the mainstream within her party.
The reaction to her candidacy, however, has been unconventional. The percentage of Americans who hold a “strongly unfavorable” view of her substantially exceeds the percentage for any other Democratic nominee since 1980, when pollsters began asking the question. Antipathy to her among white men is even more unprecedented. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, 52 percent of white men hold a “very unfavorable” view of Clinton. That’s a whopping 20 points higher than the percentage who viewed Barack Obama very unfavorably in 2012, 32 points higher than the percentage who viewed Obama very unfavorably in 2008, and 28 points higher than the percentage who viewed John Kerry very unfavorably in 2004.
At the Republican National Convention, this fervent hostility was hard to miss. Inside the hall, delegates repeatedly broke into chants of “Lock her up.” Outside the hall, vendors sold campaign paraphernalia. As I walked around, I recorded the merchandise on display. Here’s a sampling:
Black pin reading don’t be a pussy. vote for trump in 2016. Black-and-red pin reading trump 2016: finally someone with balls. White T-shirt reading trump that bitch. White T‑shirt reading hillary sucks but not like monica. Red pin reading life’s a bitch: don’t vote for one. White pin depicting a boy urinating on the word Hillary. Black T-shirt depicting Trump as a biker and Clinton falling off the motorcycle’s back alongside the words if you can read this, the bitch fell off. Black T-shirt depicting Trump as a boxer having just knocked Clinton to the floor of the ring, where she lies faceup in a clingy tank top. White pin advertising kfc hillary special. 2 fat thighs. 2 small breasts … left wing.
Salon - Desperately slamming Krugman: Columnist unfairly targeted for anti-Trump, pro-Hillary take
Here the MSM is complaining about being called out on their false equivalency and bias toward Donald Trump with the most recent example being how the MSM plays up innuendos about the Clinton Foundation while downplaying clear evidence of bribes by the Trump Foundation. As we get closer and closer to the election, the MSM is doing its best to normalize Trump while playing up the false narrative of Trump pivoting toward mainstream positions.
http://www.salon.com/2016/09/07/desperately-slamming-krugman-columnist-unfairly-targeted-for-anti-trump-pro-hillary-commentary/
Not only is the establishment press irritated with Krugman’s latest article, “Hillary Clinton Gets Gored,” in which he highlights the journalistic malpractice evidenced in the news media’s amplification of Hillary Clinton’s non-scandal scandals over Donald Trump’s lengthy menu of real scandals and obscene negatives, but also, strangely, a vocal faction of the left believes Krugman is water-carrying for his “beloved candidate” Hillary.
The latter is perhaps as equally confounding as the former, especially knowing what Krugman and others objectively observe as an historically apocalyptic GOP candidate is slowly closing the polling gap with the far more qualified Democratic rival.
After a full month in which Trump’s campaign bungled and botched its way through the first third of the general election and completely absent any newsworthy reason to shift to a “Trump redemption” narrative, the press is rapidly fabricating one. Even though Trump’s charitable foundation was investigated and fined by the Internal Revenue Service for a pay-to-play deal in Florida, cable news is instead emphasizing the Clinton Foundation’s alleged scandal in which nothing illegal has been uncovered.
Worse, we’ve already witnessed the mainstreaming of white nationalism, as political analyst Soledad O’Brien observed on CNN over the long weekend. We’re also beginning to see news segments about Hillary’s alleged health issues — her coughing jag on Tuesday became national news, thanks to Trump and the screeching commandant of his paranoid flying monkeys, Alex Jones.
WaPo - "Here’s a tale of two scandals. Guess which one will get more play?" Re Media Bias
This article does a great job of showing how the MSM gives Trump a free pass even though he often complains about his press while going out of its way to invent scandals to fit into the narrative that Hillary Clinton is untrustworthy:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/09/02/heres-a-tale-of-two-scandals-guess-which-one-will-get-more-play/?utm_term=.ec584a9bfca7
Whenever some new piece of information emerges about Hillary Clinton or people close to her, we’re told that it “raises questions” of some kind, which means it’s being shoehorned into a larger narrative that says something fundamental about her: That she’s tainted by scandal, or corrupt, or just sinister in ways people can never quite put their finger on.
Yet somehow, stories about Donald Trump that don’t have to do with the latest appalling thing that came out of his mouth don’t “raise questions” in the same way. They’re here and then they’re gone, obliterated by his own behavior without going deep into question-raising territory.
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To sum up: An executive at the Clinton Foundation made a request of Hillary Clinton’s aide, and didn’t get what he was asking for. Now maybe there is some real evidence somewhere of corruption at the State Department during Clinton’s time there, but that sure as heck isn’t it.
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Here’s the quick summary: In 2013, Bondi’s office received multiple complaints from Floridians who said they had been cheated out of thousands of dollars by a fraudulent operation called Trump University. While Bondi’s office was looking into the claims to determine if they should join New York State’s lawsuit against Trump University, Bondi called Donald Trump and asked him for a contribution to her PAC.
Now let’s pause for a moment to savor the idea that Bondi, the highest-ranking law enforcement official in the state, would solicit a contribution from someone her office was in the process of investigating. She did solicit that contribution, and Donald Trump came through with $25,000.
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