June 17, 2016

The best explanation I’ve seen of how politicians like Trump feed violence

“When you shout BREAKING POINT over and over again, you don’t get to be surprised when someone breaks.”

by Dara Lind on June 17, 2016, 2:30 p.m. ET

If you’re worried about the effect Donald Trump’s brand of xenophobic populism is having on America, you should be paying attention to what’s going on in Britain right now. On Thursday, Jo Cox, a 41-year-old rising star in Parliament who was known for her support for Syrian refugees, was murdered by one of her constituents.

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Alex Massie, a columnist for the Spectator (a conservative British magazine), wrote a beautiful column in the wake of Cox’s murder. Massie explains, better than any commentator I’ve read, the relationship between apocalyptic rhetoric and panic-induced violence:

When you encourage rage you cannot then feign surprise when people become enraged. You cannot turn around and say, ‘Mate, you weren’t supposed to take it so seriously. It’s just a game, just a ploy, a strategy for winning votes.’

When you shout BREAKING POINT over and over again, you don’t get to be surprised when someone breaks. When you present politics as a matter of life and death, as a question of national survival, don’t be surprised if someone takes you at your word. You didn’t make them do it, no, but you didn’t do much to stop it either.

Sometimes rhetoric has consequences. If you spend days, weeks, months, years telling people they are under threat, that their country has been stolen from them, that they have been betrayed and sold down the river, that their birthright has been pilfered, that their problem is they’re too slow to realise any of this is happening, that their problem is they’re not sufficiently mad as hell, then at some point, in some place, something or someone is going to snap. And then something terrible is going to happen.

We can’t control the weather but, in politics, we can control the climate in which the weather happens.

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full article
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/17/11962618/right-wing-violence-politicians

June 17, 2016

Trump wants to build a wall as Texas developers complain about shortage of Mexican laborers to build

While presumptive GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is leading in the polls in Texas by promising to build a wall between the Lone Star state and Mexico, home builders in the area are complaining about a labor shortage that is keeping them from getting homes built and is driving up costs.

The problem? Skilled Mexican laborers who have gone home and haven’t returned, reports WFAA.

Lacking skilled tradesmen, the completion of homes under construction in North Texas is falling further and further behind, adding up to $7,000 per month to the cost of a home.

Part of the problem, explains Ted Wilson of Residential Strategies, is that many subcontractors shut down during the recession and a lot of their workers returned to Mexico and aren’t coming back despite plenty of work being available.

“It used to be the deal the electrician was finishing, the sheetrocker was stepping over him to button up the house and now you go by and there will be no trucks in front of the house for a week or so until the next trade shows up,” explained Wilson. For home builder Kevin Egan, that means he’s only completing about half the houses he needs to finish for buyers — driving up his costs and theirs.

more
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/trump-wants-to-build-a-wall-as-texas-developers-complain-about-shortage-of-mexican-laborers-to-build-homes/

June 17, 2016

Democratic lawmaker says Trump could be a secret Clinton plant: Bill and Donald ‘are buddies

For a long time, there’s been a conspiracy theory floating around that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump decided to run for office at the behest of the Clinton family as a way to destroy the GOP and pave the way for Hillary Clinton’s presidency.

Now at least one Democratic congresswoman is openly musing about the idea that this conspiracy has some truth to it.

In an interview with The National Review, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) talks about rumors she’s heard about Trump being a secret Clinton plant — and she can’t dismiss the idea entirely.

“There are some theories on the internet that this is Bill Clinton’s best political deal,” says Kaptur, who supported Hillary Clinton’s rival Bernie Sanders in this year’s Democratic primary. “That he and Donald are buddies, and they have a lot of similar friends in New York, and he has masterfully selected a friend who maybe by October will say, ‘You know, this is very boring. And I’m going to get out.’ Do I believe it 100 percent, do I believe it 2 percent? You know, you really wonder.”

While it’s unlikely that Trump is in cahoots with Bill Clinton to ensure a Hillary Clinton victory this fall, it is true that Trump has acted exactly as you’d expect a pro-Clinton plant to act. After all, he’s sown division and chaos within the Republican Party and has also helped drive the GOP’s favorable ratings to their lowest ever.

In other words, even if he’s not a plant, he’s doing a really good job of acting like one.



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http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/democratic-lawmaker-says-trump-could-be-a-secret-clinton-plant-bill-and-donald-are-buddies/

June 17, 2016

Sarah Palin invites mockery by calling Obama ‘special kind of stupid’ in latest unhinged rant

Former vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin has never been shy about her unfavorable opinions regarding President Barack Obama.

Her Friday criticism may strike some as odd, however. In a Facebook rant, Palin called the Harvard Law-educated president a “special kind of stupid” in all-capital letters. Palin was apparently upset about Obama’s efforts to enact gun regulations in the wake of the most deadly mass shooting in recent U.S. history.

“OBAMA IS A SPECIAL KIND OF STUPID,” she exploded. “Enough is enough, Mr. President. There’s no ‘due respect’ due you after pulling this stunt.”

Obama’s “stunt” was, in her mind, a call to ban high-capacity assault rifles like the one used by Florida shooter Omar Mateen. While visiting Orlando in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting this week, Obama spoke of the families of the victims, according to an Independent Journal article Palin linked to.

more
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/sarah-palin-invites-mockery-by-calling-obama-special-kind-of-stupid-in-latest-unhinged-rant/

June 17, 2016

Paul Ryan On Stopping A President Trump's Muslim Ban: We'll Sue Him!

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has made clear he doesn't agree with a proposal put forward by Donald Trump -- whom Ryan has endorsed -- to ban Muslim immigration into the United States, but in an interview with the Huffington Post Thursday, Ryan floated taking a President Trump to court if he tried to implement such a ban or some of his other controversial proposals unilaterally.

“I would sue any president that exceeds his or her powers,” Ryan said in a back-and-forth about Trump's claims that he could implement a Muslim ban or build a Mexican border wall without congressional approval.

Ryan said he wasn't sure of the "legal question" of whether Trump could institute a Muslim ban on his own as president.

“That’s a legal question that there’s a good debate about,” he said, citing the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/paul-ryan-trump-muslim-ban-sue

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/paul-ryan-trump-muslim-ban-sue

June 17, 2016

Trump Blasts Report Of Last-Ditch Effort To Oust Him At RNC: 'Totally Illegal'

Source: Talking Points Memo

Donald Trump on Friday flatly dismissed a report that dozens of GOP delegates are plotting to change the rules for the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in order to prevent him from snagging the nomination.

The Washington Post reported that some delegates to the RNC were lobbying to change its rules to unbind delegates in order to prevent Trump from clinching the nomination. Trump released a statement to The Post, which he barred this week from getting press credentials for his events, calling the reported movement "totally illegal."

“I won almost 14 million votes, which is by far more votes than any candidate in the history of the Republican primaries,” Trump said in the statement. “I have tremendous support and get the biggest crowds by far and any such move would not only be totally illegal but also a rebuke of the millions of people who feel so strongly about what I am saying.”

While the newspaper reported it was delegates agitating for a rules change, Trump took a shot at his primary opponents, appearing to blame them for the campaign. “People that I defeated soundly in the primaries will do anything to get a second shot—but there is no mechanism for it to happen,” Trump said in his statement to the Post.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-blasts-wapo-rnc

June 17, 2016

Ryan: Republicans Should 'Absolutely' Follow Their Conscience On Trump

Source: Talking Points Memo

House Speaker Paul Ryan said in an interview teased Friday that "the last thing" he would do is instruct Republicans to support Donald Trump regardless of their personal qualms.

"Absolutely," he told NBC's "Meet the Press." "The last thing I would do is tell anybody to do something that's contrary to their conscience. Of course I wouldn't do that."

Ryan has endorsed Trump for president, and is the chair of this year's Republican National Convention.

This isn't the first time that Ryan has telegraphed some ambivalence about the presumptive GOP nominee. In previous comments, Ryan has said that his endorsement doesn't constitute a "blank check" for Trump.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ryan-republicans-should-follow-conscience-voting-trump

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Paulie-boy makes it official; he doesn't have a conscience.

June 17, 2016

Elizabeth Warren drops by Hillary Clinton campaign HQ

WASHINGTON -- Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren dropped by Hillary Clinton headquarters in Brooklyn Friday and spoke to hundreds of Clinton campaign staffers.

According to a personal familiar with her remarks, she talked about the importance of the 2016 election and issues that are at stake including the need to protect the Dodd-Frank financial rules, the protect the Affordable Care Act, and the need to move forward on a Supreme Court nominee.

The visit will only bolster talk that Warren is being considered as a potential vice presidential running mate for the former secretary of state. She met with Clinton in Washington last week. Warren also took photos with staff members.

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http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/06/17/elizabeth-warren-drops-hillary-clinton-campaign-headquarters-brooklyn/uHKMTiI4iPdp2DFRSMKagK/story.html?event=event25

June 17, 2016

Trump’s Poll Ratings Are Historically Bad

Politico: “Trump is setting modern records for political toxicity — at least for a major-party candidate this far out from an election. Seventy percent of Americans surveyed in an ABC News/Washington Post poll out this week had an unfavorable opinion of Trump, up 10 points over the past month. The poll showed Trump’s favorable rating cratering at 29 percent, down from 37 percent last month.”

“The numbers were similar in a Bloomberg Politics poll: Trump’s favorable rating is just 31 percent, with 66 percent viewing him unfavorably. That’s only marginally better than in March, when 29 percent viewed Trump favorably, and 68 percent had an unfavorable opinion.”

“But it’s not just the overall unfavorable numbers — it’s the intensity of the antipathy toward Trump, and the lack of enthusiasm for him.”

The Hill: “GOP insiders fear that Trump, whose yearlong run for the presidency has been fueled by sheer force of personality, has not grasped the depth of the challenges he now faces.”

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https://politicalwire.com/2016/06/17/trumps-poll-ratings-are-historically-bad/

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“I think the tailspin could be really bad — historic proportions bad. I think it’ll be a historically bad loss. I’ve said that from the very beginning.”

— Former White House press secretary Tony Fratto, quoted by The Hill, on the impact of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign on the Republican party.

June 17, 2016

Senate votes to scale back federal job preferences for veterans

Source: The Washington Post

Congress stepped this week into a sensitive issue that’s been quietly roiling the already-challenging hiring system for federal jobs: the Obama administration’s high-profile push to give preference to veterans.

The Senate version of the vast military policy bill that now heads to conference with the House would knock out one of the advantages veterans enjoy when they apply for federal work. They would continue to get a leg up over non-veterans to get a foot in the door. But once they’re in government and want to be considered for another federal post, they would no longer go to the head of the hiring queue.

[image][/image]

It was high-level Pentagon officials who pressed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, for a change to the veterans hiring system. These officials have expressed concern to McCain and other lawmakers that too many qualified non-veterans are getting shut out of federal jobs in deference to those who served but may not be qualified for some positions, according to committee staff.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/06/17/tktk-veterans/