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March 2016

Trump, the Inkblot By Amil Imani

Billionaire businessman, Donald Trump, a sudden convert to the Republican Party, is experiencing a meteoric rise in his battle to capture the party’s nomination for presidency of the United States, a truly bewildering accomplishment for him.

People wonder what is going on. How is this possible?

Some say that in this age of substantial anger, anxiety, and fear, the ‘Donald’ has become everybody’s inkblot where each person sees what he wants to see and not what is really there. That’s why, they say, a cross section of American society, including the most unlikely, are pushing the Trump button in the voting booth. They are, really voting for their illusion.

You may disagree with this assessment and you have every right to your opinion. But, take for a moment, your eyes off the inkblot and check the following facts.

When we take off our illusion glasses, we see numerous sobering and even disturbing facts.

Here are some examples:

This man is bereft of any traditional political convictions. He is 100% Trumpist and nothing else. If he claims he is Republican, he says so because being Republican at this time presents him with the best opportunity to advance Trumpism.
This man has spent all his life being a Trumpist: a person whose only and ultimate goal in life is to do whatever it takes to serve himself. It is precisely for this reason that he has hired cheap labor, legal and illegal, to construct his buildings; he has for decades donated funds to politicians of both parties who would facilitate his predatory ventures.
A Trumpist, per force, must be populist appearing in the sense of saying and doing anything that would promote him, without regard to ideology. It is in this spirit that he advocates a vague healthcare system that is both supposedly based on marketplace forces as well as socialized mandated medicine where he promises that he is not going to let anyone die on a sidewalk. He also insists that insurance companies must insure people without respect to preconditions, while everyone knows that type of system can only be mandated. And, he is against the mandate, at the same time. And some believing souls listen to him talk from both sides of his mouth in the same breath; they still go ahead and applaud him.
Is he a conman? Well, let the facts speak for themselves. He says he borrowed one million dollars from his father and parlayed it to ten billion dollars. How? Did he invent a miracle gadget, build an automatic space age manufacturing plant, or did he develop a magic wand? No. He did it all in real estate deals, gambling houses, show business, and the like where he could and did grease the wheels to get his way and exploit tens of thousands of hardworking laborers and artisans, legal immigrants or not, to amass his ill-gotten fortune. His wealth is from the sweat and life effort of tens of thousands who did not get their fair share. How else he could end up with 10 billion dollars?
No matter where he is, he keeps saying, “I love the people…” Be it Arkansas, New Hampshire, Texas, or wherever. “they are great people,” he says that ad infinitum, and ad nauseam. Sure, he loves all those good-hearted simpletons — and there is no shortage of them — people who hitch themselves to his wagon in the hope of some free ride, but will end up with pulling his wagon as have tens of thousands before them.
The man may not be a conman in the strictest sense of the word. But he certainly qualifies as an operator that would do and say anything that would get him what he wants. If an old widow’s home, for example, is in the way of expanding his gambling house, she should be steamrolled out of the way, by hook or crook.

Downstream From a Slippery EPA In the aftermath of the Gold King spill, the agency is holding itself to a lower standard than polluters.By Ryan Flynn

Mr. Flynn is New Mexico’s secretary of environment.
The bright yellow water that gushed from Colorado’s Gold King mine and into the Animas River last summer has dissipated, but the environmental disaster continues downstream. An estimated 880,000 pounds of lead and other metals poured out of the Gold King in August when the Environmental Protection Agency fumbled a construction project and blew out the mine’s plug.

This water raced down the Animas River in mountainous Colorado, and then meandered gradually through my state of New Mexico, the territory of the Navajo Nation and Utah, before dumping into Lake Powell. Geography is important here: The slower the flow, the more that heavy metals drop out of the water and into the riverbed.

From the start, the EPA bungled its response to the spill. The first call alerting New Mexico that contaminated water was on its way didn’t even come from the agency. The water-quality manager of the Southern Ute Tribe, who live in Colorado right on the border with New Mexico, contacted my department with a warning on Aug. 6.

The New Mexico Environment Department quickly dispatched technical staff to take advance water samples, to establish a water-quality baseline. The Animas River is much more than a kayaking spot or a fishing hole for New Mexicans. The drinking water of eight communities—about 90,000 people—is drawn directly from the river, which also sustains crops and livestock, and supports thousands of people’s livelihoods.

After failing to alert New Mexico promptly, the EPA to a large extent left the states and tribes downstream to fend for themselves. No one from the EPA’s regional office in Dallas showed up in New Mexico for nearly a week, by which time the plume had passed. New Mexico’s representative to the EPA’s Incident Command Center in Colorado reported that she was shut out of closed-door meetings where decisions were made.

When EPA staff did finally arrive in New Mexico on Aug. 9, they were rotated out of the state every few days. This led to redundant briefings and inconsistent execution. One EPA communications officer arrived in New Mexico with no capability to text, email or dispatch photos from the field.

As the spill wound its way downstream, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy repeatedly went on camera to say that the agency would hold itself to a “higher standard.” Instead it engaged in a careful campaign of minimization and misdirection. CONTINUE AT SITE

Staring at the Conservative Gutter Donald Trump gives credence to the left’s caricature of bigoted conservatives. By Bret Stephens

In the late 1950s, Bill Buckley decreed that nobody whose name appeared on the masthead of the American Mercury magazine would be published in the pages of National Review. The once-illustrious Mercury of H.L. Mencken had become a gutter of far-right anti-Semites. Buckley would not allow his magazine to be tainted by them.

The word for Buckley’s act is “lustration,” and for two generations it upheld the honor of the mainstream conservative movement. Liberals may have been fond of claiming that Republicans were all closet bigots and that tax cuts were a form of racial prejudice, but the accusation rang hollow because the evidence for it was so tendentious.
Not anymore. The candidacy of Donald Trump is the open sewer of American conservatism. This Super Tuesday, polls show a plurality of GOP voters intend to dive right into it, like the boy in the “Slumdog Millionaire” toilet scene. And they’re not even holding their noses.

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has endorsed the Code Pink view of the Iraq War (Bush lied; people died). He has cited and embraced an aphorism of Benito Mussolini. (“It’s a very good quote,” Mr. Trump told NBC’s Chuck Todd.) He has refused to release his “very beautiful” tax returns. And he has taken his time disavowing the endorsement of onetime Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke—offering, by way of a transparently dishonest excuse, that “I know nothing about David Duke.” Mr. Trump left the Reform Party in 2000 after Mr. Duke joined it.

None of this seems to have made the slightest dent in Mr. Trump’s popularity. If anything it has enhanced it. In the species of political pornography in which Mr. Trump trafficks, the naughtier the better. The more respectable opinion is scandalized by whatever pops out of the Donald’s mouth, the more his supporters cheer him for sticking it to the snobs and the scolds. The more Mr. Trump traduces the old established lines of decency, the more he affirms his supporters’ most shameless ideological instincts. CONTINUE AT SITE

U.S. Veteran Accused of Trying to Join ISIS Uses Free-Speech Defense Lawyer says veteran’s interest in terrorist group is protected by First Amendment By Nicole Hong

“Prosecutors on Monday said Mr. Pugh, who served as an Air Force mechanic from 1986 to 1990, became increasingly radical after he watched Islamic State’s beheading and training videos online. He allegedly posted comments on Facebook supporting the terrorist group, connected with other sympathizers online and told his co-workers that Islamic State needed airplane mechanics.”

NEW YORK—The government’s case against a U.S. Air Force veteran accused of trying to join Islamic State could hinge on whether jurors believe his interest in the terrorist group amounts to criminal activity or is instead protected by his free-speech rights.Tairod Pugh, a 48-year-old U.S. citizen, may have watched Islamic State propaganda, expressed offensive views and shown interest in the terrorist group, but “none of this is illegal,” his lawyer said to 12 jurors Monday during opening statements.

“In this country, we don’t punish a person for his thoughts,” Mr. Pugh’s lawyer Eric Creizman said.

Mr. Pugh, who on Monday was wearing a shirt and tie with a black cardigan and khaki pants, faces one charge of attempting to provide material support to terrorists and one charge of obstruction of justice. If convicted, Mr. Pugh faces​up to 35 years in prison. Mr. Pugh has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Mr. Pugh’s trial kicked off Monday to a packed courtroom in Brooklyn federal court. Mr. Pugh is among the first two suspected Islamic State sympathizers in the country to go to trial; another trial has been ongoing in Phoenix for two weeks. In total, more than 80 Americans have been arrested since early 2014 on charges related to Islamic State.

Legal and national security experts are closely watching these cases to see how U.S. counterterrorism efforts have adapted to the threat of Islamic State, which has distinguished itself from terrorist groups like al Qaeda by heavily recruiting members through social media. Mr. Pugh’s trial is expected to last two weeks. CONTINUE AT SITE

Republican Divide About Trump Grows Former party chairman, Nebraska senator among those who say they won’t vote for him if he is nominee By Reid J. Epstein

A divisive battle is brewing in the Republican Party over the potential nomination of Donald Trump, as some party leaders warn they won’t back him and could support third-party or write-in candidates.Most party leaders still say they will back the party’s nominee, and until recent days even Mr. Trump’s loudest critics maintained they would back him in the general election if he wins the nomination.

That is beginning to change—even as Mr. Trump is poised to win a string of Super Tuesday contests, and likely take the lion’s share of the 595 delegates up for grabs.“I would not vote for Trump, clearly” said Mel Martinez, a former Republican National Committee chairman who served one term in the Senate from Florida. “If there is any, any, any other choice, a living, breathing person with a pulse, I would be there.”Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse has said he would seek a third-party or alternate conservative candidate. The party’s 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, said Mr. Trump’s hesitation to disavow support from David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, in a CNN interview was a “disqualifying” response. And former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman has said she would vote for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton if Mr. Trump is the GOP nominee.

In contrast, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have recently endorsed Mr. Trump. And the vast majority of senior Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), have said they’ll back the GOP nominee.

Former RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson, who had backed Jeb Bush’s candidacy, said even with his flaws, Mr. Trump would be superior to Mrs. Clinton and her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders.

“If he is successful in winning the nomination, I think it’s going to be very important that people coalesce around him because many of the things he’s talking about are very important to our country,” Mr. Nicholson said. “I think the country has a much better chance of healing itself under him that it does under the Democrats.”

Mr. Trump, whose path to the nomination could be unstoppable after Tuesday, has made no secret of his disdain for the party’s past leaders, and has broken with GOP orthodoxy on crucial issues such as trade. His campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Many of the party’s core conservatives believe he isn’t one of them, and the conservative Club for Growth has begun an advertising campaign to try to discredit him. CONTINUE AT SITE