In an interview with Joy Reid on MSNBC, comedian D.L Hughly got serious for a moment when the subject of Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, was mentioned, And before the Trump question was fully asked, Hughley answered, “Donlad Trump is a racist!”
Hughley then associated the rest of the Republican leadership with Trump’s racism, quoting House Speaker Paul Ryan as saying that Trump’s basically a “textbook” racist. “And if you can say that,” Hughley continued about Ryan, “it’s because you’re not affected by racists.”
Hughley ended the piece on Trump saying that “if I’m in a car, I committed a crime and the dude in the car with me pretend that he don’t know, that ain’t going to work. You’re a co-conspirator. And if you know that he is a racist, you’re a co-racist. Simple as that!”
USA Today reports: Donald Trump often portrays himself as a savior of the working class who will “protect your job.” But a USA TODAY NETWORK analysis found he has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades — and a large number of those involve ordinary Americans, like the Friels, who say Trump or his companies have refused to pay them.
At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings reviewed by the USA TODAY NETWORK, document people who have accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them for their work. Among them: a dishwasher in Florida. A glass company in New Jersey. A carpet company. A plumber. Painters. Forty-eight waiters. Dozens of bartenders and other hourly workers at his resorts and clubs, coast to coast. Real estate brokers who sold his properties. And, ironically, several law firms that once represented him in these suits and others.
Trump’s companies have also been cited for 24 violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act since 2005 for failing to pay overtime or minimum wage, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. That includes 21 citations against the defunct Trump Plaza in Atlantic City and three against the also out-of-business Trump Mortgage LLC in New York. Both cases were resolved by the companies agreeing to pay back wages.
I still don’t agree with the way the media portrayed Bernie Sanders, painting him as a bothersome nobody who should have wrapped up his campaign on January 2nd and leave the stage. But Bernie got some respect today when he met with President Obama. It was a meeting that many Bernie fans respected and appreciated. After the meeting, the president’s expected endorsement of Hillary Clinton was made official.
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“She’s got the courage, the compassion, and the heart to get the job done.”
Although some Republicans remain totally blinded by the obvious racist remarks of Donald Trump in reference to the heritage of a federal judge, a small amount of them have seen the light. Marco Rubio, a former Republican presidential candidate, appears to be one of them, and he is apparently pulling away from the leader of his party.
Sen. Marco Rubio wants to make clear that if he speaks at the Republican National Convention this July, he will not be on stage as a Donald Trump surrogate.
“I may not be asked to speak, but if I am at a convention or any Republican gathering for that matter, what I would communicate is the things I believe in,” Rubio said Monday.
He said that no one has reached out to him about a potential speaking slot.
Rubio said his vision is, in some cases, “substantially different from what Donald is offering, and that’s why I’m not sure I’m going to be asked to speak at the convention.”
After Trump’s comments suggested that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel should not preside over a case against Trump University due to his Mexican-American heritage, Rubio was among the GOP lawmakers saying that Trump should stop the rhetoric.
“I’ve never said I would stand and speak on behalf of someone else’s agenda,” Rubio said. “I would speak about the things I believe in, not somebody else’s platform or on behalf of anyone else for that matter.”
Bill Maher took to his blog to dissect the type of people who will vote for Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump. And during his research, Maher found that Trump’s voters are basically morans.
“It feels right, doesn’t it? What we’re experiencing now, not just in America, but around the world, is the revenge of the cavemen,” Maher wrote.
While admitting he had no definitive evidence behind his reasoning, Maher was buoyed by a YouGov study asking male respondents to identify themselves on a 0-6 scale of masculinity. While 65 percent of men older than 65 years of age said they were “completely masculine,” only 30 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 29 gave a similar response.
According to Maher, this age difference helps explain Trump’s popularity.
“Trump voters are overwhelmingly male and older, and think the world has gotten too PC, too ‘gay,’ and they’d like their country to be more ‘manly’ again,” the host said. “That’s where Trump comes in. He’s going to kick everyone’s ass. He’s going to win. He doesn’t care about your feelings. He wants to dominate you. This appeals to a certain cross-section of America.”
Yes, miracles can happen in politics. If Bernie Sanders wins the state of California, and if enough superdelegates have second thoughts about presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton and start switching their votes, the Vermont senator could still end up the Democratic Party’s nominee. But whether that happens or not, whether he wins or loses the party’s crown, Sanders is already the winner of 2016 on several fronts.
Indeed, the big story about Sanders is not how big he loses to Clinton, but how close he came to winning and how amazingly well he performed as a candidate. Consider: In less than a year, the maverick outsider went from being dismissed as a protest candidate to a phenomenal, national superstar who almost upset the powerful and deeply entrenched Clinton political machine and changed American politics forever.
The numbers alone are impressive. Even before Tuesday’s six primaries, in New Jersey, New Mexico, Montana, North and South Dakota, and California, Sanders had won 20 state contests, received more than 10.2 million votes and collected pledges from 1,566 delegates, according to The Associated Press — more than enough to earn him the right to take his campaign all the way to the Democratic National Convention in July. In 1976, Jerry Brown carried his challenge to Jimmy Carter onto the convention floor with only 301 delegates.
So many thoughts. So many questions. So much controversy. So much for us to learn from his actions. Such was the man and his effect on the country. Others have written with far more eloquence than I ever could about the legacy of Muhammad Ali, but from where we are now, we had better pay attention because he had so much to teach us about ourselves and where we are as a culture.
Has boxing been the same since he thankfully retired from the ring in 1980? A rhetorical question, to be sure. Yes, we did have Mike Tyson and Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns and Ray Mancini, but those were strictly fighters. Boxers. Sportsmen. Boxing has fallen farther than politics into the realm of parody, and as an entertainment choice is pretty much irrelevant. Yes, there was that fight between those two guys about a year ago that promised a great match up, but all I can remember is that people complained bitterly about how much they had to shell out for the Pay-Per-View for a fight that was decidedly terrible to watch. I could look up the fighters’ names, but I figure that if I can’t remember the latest fight of the century, it couldn’t have been memorable. That never happened for an Ali fight, even the ones that only got shown in movie theaters where the cigar smoke was so thick it’s a wonder that the fire alarms didn’t go off. Ali was vital. He was a compelling star. And you couldn’t take your eyes off him.
And, no, I do not ever remember wondering how much money any of his big fights raised, nor how much anybody had to pay to see them.
Ali also became the template for the political athlete. He paved the way for Bill Russell, Bill Walton, Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Billie Jean King and others (though not countless others, unfortunately) who saw that sports was intricately connected to politics and to world events. Anyone like me who grew up during the Cold War must remember the protestations by Olympic officials and sportscasters who said that sports and politics must not mix, only to be roundly and crushingly contradicted by the black gloves, Munich, steroids and doping, the Apartheid banishments, the boycotts of 1980 and 1984, and a certain hockey game in Lake Placid. Ali took a stand on the most controversial issues of his day, Vietnam and Civil Rights and spoke truth to power. He didn’t worry, at least outwardly, about shoe contracts or his personal wealth. He was banished, then reinstated, and won more titles. Then he became the ambassador to the world. He led, and that’s what’s made it possible for other athletes to stand up to racist basketball owners and to speak out when members of minority groups are shot by police under dubious and outright illegal circumstances.
Ali was a Muslim. Think about that if you need to. Imagine Ali and Kareem and Ahmad Rashad and every other athlete and entertainer who became a Muslim and changed their name doing so today in the age of know-nothing politicians and citizens who are utterly ignorant of the religion. Would he ever get a fight? Would the government put him on the no-fly list? How much twitter shame would he have to endure? As controversial as it was for people to become Muslims in the 1960s and 70s, and it was controversial, today we would see boycotts and, likely, violence. Ali was able to take his conversion and make it all about peace. He used his religious beliefs as the basis for his pacifism and his sense of justice. And he was right; institutional racism was far more of a threat to him and other African-Americans in 1967 than the Vietcong.
Ali was neither universally popular nor loved during his athletic heyday, nor should we expect that he would be. But as we are entering another era of domestic change and upheaval, we do need to remember that all people in all professions need to stand up for what is right and for the equal treatment of all people.
Here is another reason for Donald Trump, leader of the Republican Party, to attack Megyn Kelly.
Megyn Kelly on Thursday night said Donald Trump is “out of line” for calling the Mexican heritage of a federal judge, who is overseeing a fraud lawsuit against Trump University, a conflict of interest.
“You tell me – I’m a journalist here at Fox News and I’ve been doing legal commentary here for 10 years – this is out of line,” Kelly told guest Bill Bennett on her show “The Kelly File.”
“Yeah it’s out of line,” Bennett responded. “It’s a shame too, because it was a good day, it was an important day for Trump.”
Trump escalated his fight against U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel by telling the Wall Street Journal that the judge had “an absolute conflict” presiding over the case because of his “Mexican heritage.”
Trump cited his stance on illegal immigration, saying, “I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest.”
Kelly, a former attorney, came to the judge’s defense, noting the judicial code of conduct prevents the judge from personally responding to Trump.
Billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, is one of the many millions of sane people wondering what Donald Trump is really hiding. And Cuban is hitting on something with his new way of thinking – maybe Trump is not really a billionaire like he claims.
“I know what I’m good at, and I know what I’m not good at. I’m not so sure Donald knows what he’s not good at,” Cuban said on 77 WABC’s Bernie and Sid.
Cuban said Trump was good at putting his name on big buildings and licensing his name on hotels, but it isn’t clear how much money that has made him. “He’s good at that. Whether or not that’s made him a billionaire, I don’t know,” Cuban said. “He’s not transparent enough for us to actually know.”
Technology really speeds things up, no? We used to have to wait until August to read stories that made little sense or that focused on the non-political part of the political process, but this year we should be proud that the press is once again ahead of the calendar and is in full silly season mode on this, the unofficial start of the summer.
Part of the issue might be that both party’s political conventions are in July, which is upsetting the media. Of course, the other reason is that the Republicans will nominate perhaps the least qualified person for president in our nation’s proud history. Whatever the motivation, we needn’t look very far to see evidence of silly-creep.
Point one – I hate to say – is this notion that Donald Trump is a fascist. He is certainly profoundly ignorant on all of the issues of which he’s spoken publicly so far including immigration, energy policy, foreign affairs, climate science, and taxes. But a fascist he is not. We’ll reserve that title for those who really are official members of the Fascist Party and select foreign leaders such as Victor Orban of Hungary and a few African dictators who revel in their personal bloodbaths. Fascism has a specific definition, and since I am a charter member of the Words Have Meanings Collective, I am not going to accept that Trump is anywhere near one. Racist? Sexist? Offensive? Most assuredly. These are the terms we should use and are enough to render him unacceptable as Commander-In-Chief.
The other sillinesses that occupies my thoughts today are the ones associated with the Clinton campaign tactics and polling. That sound that resembles teeth-gnashing on the left is, in fact, teeth-gnashing over the state of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, or non-campaign, against said non-fascist. Can we get a bit of a break here? It’s May. The campaign hasn’t had a chance to consolidate because Bernie Sanders is fighting to the end, which is both his right and a test to see how the Clinton campaign reacts. Hillary always knew that this would not be easy because of both her last name and her gender. She will become a better candidate once she is able to leverage all of the Democratic resources at her disposal. Many of Bernie’s supporters will back her. Both party’s conventions will have their television moments which I hope are not violent, and then the campaign will begin. Then we’ll see what the strategies are.
As for polling, I’ve said it before, but let’s hear from someone really smart on this and repeat – we will not be discussing polling until August 1. This will be a close race and Trump is getting his pre-convention bump. Hillary will get hers. Then they’ll both get their convention bumps. Then we can pay attention.
In the meantime, enjoy the extended silliness and the holiday.
Yes, the Republican with the biggest mouth apparently shoved his foot deep down his throat when he agreed to debate Bernie Sanders earlier in the week. But on Friday, Trump realized how EUGE a mistake it would have been to get clocked in a debate by Bernie Sanders, and decided against making himself look more like a fool… as if that is even possible.
Donald Trump on Friday said it would be “inappropriate” to hold a debate with Bernie Sanders, throwing cold water on an idea that had captivated the political world in recent days.
“As much as I want to debate Bernie Sanders — and it would be an easy payday — I will wait to debate the first place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton, or whoever it may be,” Trump said in a statement.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee added that it “seems inappropriate” to debate the “second place finisher.”
Trump had said on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Wednesday night that he would be willing to debate Sanders if the proceeds would go to charity.
“Yes, I am,” Trump said. “How much is he going to pay me? If he paid a nice sum toward a charity, I’d love to do that.”
Trump added to the speculation throughout the week, telling reporters Thursday he would “love to debate Bernie.”
And I would add that not only are world leaders rattled by the circus sideshow that has now become the main attraction in the Republican party, but everyday, common-folk Americans are also rattled.
Speaking on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Japan, Mr Obama said Mr Trump had shown a cavalier and ignorant attitude towards world affairs.
Mr Obama said foreign leaders were surprised by his nomination.
There has so far been no response from the billionaire businessman.
“They are not sure how seriously to take some of his pronouncements, but they’re rattled by him – and for good reason, because a lot of the proposals that he’s made display either ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude,” the president said.
“He only has] an interest in getting tweets and headlines instead of actually thinking through what it is that is required to keep America safe and secure and prosperous, and what’s required to keep the world on an even keel.”
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