It's coming up on lunchtime, so....
"Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump descend on Iowa State Fair" by the Associated Press August 15, 2015
DES MOINES — As Hillary Rodham Clinton walked among the booths of funnel cakes and corn dogs at the Iowa State Fair, trailed by a massive pack of media and onlookers, Donald Trump’s helicopter circled the fairgrounds in the air above.
As if he is watching over her candidacy, and that may well be what he is doing.
The respective Democratic and Republican front-runners each drew large crowds of gawkers as Clinton sampled a pork chop on a stick and Trump gave rides to children on his helicopter emblazoned with his famous last name.
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Clinton and Trump weren’t the only candidates seeking Iowans’ support.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has become Clinton’s chief rival and who has drawn tens of thousands to his rallies, pitched his policies to counter economic inequality from The Des Moines Register’s ‘‘soapbox,’’ while former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum donned a red embroidered apron to flip pork burgers over sizzling grills....
Iowa more of a sanctuary for him.
President Obama brought his children to the bumper cars back in 2007, generating positive photographs for his campaign, while Mitt Romney ran into trouble in 2011, when he declared at the Register’s ‘‘soapbox’’ that ‘‘corporations are people, my friend.’’ It was a line that dogged the former private equity executive during his campaign.
Mitt would have made the perfect president, a completely corporate cretin. Better than the Donald.
Clinton did not appear on the soapbox. In the Agriculture Building, the former secretary of state walked past plates of carrots, beets, and large cabbages and peered at a pair of the fair’s famous butter statues — a cow and a tribute to the board game Monopoly. As she walked around the building, children sat on their parents’ shoulders, and people cheered from the rafters above the expo.
When the pack reached Grand Avenue, the fair’s main drag, Trump’s helicopter buzzed overhead as Clinton walked past stands selling funnel cakes, corn brats, and lemonade.
‘‘There’s Trump!’’ shouted one man.
Before wrapping up her visit, Clinton sampled a pork chop on a stick and a lemonade. Minutes later, she boarded a black sport utility vehicle and was whisked away.
Trump did not jump on the soapbox, but took questions from reporters before he came to the fairgrounds, taking shots at fellow candidates and touting his place atop the Republican polls. He said he was rejecting campaign contributions and was prepared to spend up to $1 billion on his campaign if needed.
Trump has been criticized for not detailing his policy positions, but on Saturday he said he would soon release a policy paper on immigration.
He also argued that so far, he has not made any political missteps.
‘‘Every time somebody said I made a mistake, they do the polls and my numbers go up,’’ Trump said. ‘‘I don’t think I’ve made any mistakes. I’m sure I will at some point. But so far you have to say, hasn’t worked out badly, right?
During his time at the fair, Trump inched through the man concourse. ‘‘We’re going to straighten out this mess,’’ he called out to the crowd at one point.
People pushed aggressively to reach out to Trump. After sampling a pork chop on a stick, Trump hopped on a golf cart and was driven away. People chased behind him on foot cheering.
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Also see:
Jeb Bush Would Bring Back Torture
Kasich Catches the "Big Mo"
The Le$$ig of Two Evils
Sanders Hits a Ceiling
That should fill up your plate.
Next Day Updates:
"Trump would deport children of illegal immigrants" Associated Press August 17, 2015
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wants more than a wall to keep out immigrants living in the country illegally. He also wants to end ‘‘birthright citizenship’’ for their children, he said Sunday. And he would rescind Obama administration executive orders on immigration and toughen deportation, allowing in only ‘‘the good ones.’’
I commented on that yesterday, and I'm tired of Trump and immigration right now.
Trump described his expanded vision of how to secure American borders during a wide-ranging interview Sunday on NBC’s ‘‘Meet The Press,’’ saying that he would push to end the constitutionally protected citizenship rights of children of any family living illegally inside the US
‘‘They have to go,’’ Trump said, adding: ‘‘What they’re doing, they’re having a baby. And then all of a sudden, nobody knows...the baby’s here.’’
Native-born children of immigrants — even those living illegally in the US — have been automatically considered American citizens since the adoption of the 14th amendment of the US Constitution in 1868.
The odds of repealing the amendment’s citizenship clause would be steep, requiring the votes of two-thirds of both houses of Congress and support from three-fourths of the nation’s state legislatures.
Meaning the Donald would be long gone were things even to get that far. Remember the long, drawn-out process regarding the Equal Rights Amendment?
This is all useless campaign blather anyway.
Republicans in Congress have repeatedly failed since 2011 to pass bills aimed at ending ‘‘birthright citizenship.’’ Some conservatives believe the provision could be changed without amending the Constitution.
‘‘They’re illegal,’’ Trump said about families that might face deportation. ‘‘You either have a country or not.’’
Trump’s remarks came as his campaign website posted his program for ‘‘immigration reform.’’ Among its details: Making Mexico pay for a permanent border wall. Mandatory deportation of all ‘‘criminal aliens.’’ Tripling the force of immigration officers by eliminating tax credit payments to immigrant families residing illegally in the US.
How are you going to do that, invade?
That second one is perplexing.
He said that families with US-born children could return quickly if deemed worthy by the government. ‘‘We’re going to try and bring them back rapidly, the good ones,’’ he said, adding: ‘‘We will expedite it so people can come back in. The good people can come back.’’
And the "bad" people?
Trump did not elaborate on how he would define ‘‘good people.’’ But echoing earlier controversial remarks that Mexico was sending criminals across the border, Trump said a tough deportation policy was needed because ‘‘there’s definitely evidence’’ of crimes linked to immigrants living in the country illegally.
That there is.
Also see: Deporting illegal immigrants who commit crimes isn’t always the answer
So what is?
The a New York businessman said he would waste little time rescinding President Barack Obama’s executive actions aimed at allowing as many as 3.7 million immigrants living illegally in the US to remain in the country because of their US-born relatives.
That is where the nearly-verbatim print ended.
"In a separate development, the heavily funded super PAC backing Republican Jeb Bush will spend at least $10 million on television time in the earliest voting presidential primary states, the first salvo in a massive TV ad campaign to support the former Florida governor’s bid for the Republican nomination.
Officials with Right to Rise USA say they will buy time in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina TV markets and on cable television in the three states. Ads are scheduled to begin in Iowa and New Hampshire on Sept. 15, in South Carolina a week later, and then run continuously through the end of the year.
And we are already sick of him!
Right to Rise USA’s major strategic spending of the roughly $100 million it had on hand last month. It’s the first major move by the group to run alongside Bush’s own campaign organization, which is bound by federal fundraising limits."
(Click)
Rest of web version:
Obama’s November 2014 actions were halted by temporary injunctions ordered by several federal courts in rulings challenging his executive powers to alter immigration policies without Congressional approval. The cases could lead to the US Supreme Court.
‘‘We have to make a whole new set of standards,’’ Trump said. ‘‘And when people come in, they have to come in legally.’’
Trump’s plan was endorsed by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who chairs a Senate subcommittee on immigration.
‘‘This is exactly the plan America needs,’’ Sessions said in a statement. ‘‘Crucially, this plan includes an emphasis on lifting struggling minority communities, including our immigrant communities, out of poverty, by preventing corporations from bringing in new workers from overseas to replace them and drive down wages.’’
Trump got an endorsement from a U.S. senator?
On Sunday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich echoed Trump’s call to finish construction of an incomplete system of barriers on the nation’s southern border with Mexico. There are still gaps in the barriers, which have been under construction since 2005.
Really?
Speaking on CBS’ ‘‘Face the Nation,’’ Kasich said he would ‘‘finish the wall’’ but would then work to legalize 12 million immigrants now estimated to live in the US illegally.
He just lost the base.
Kasich said he would ‘‘make sure we don’t have anybody — any of the criminal element here.’’
So when do the deportations of Washington D.C. and Wall Street commence?
He would also revive the guest-worker programs that previously brought in temporary workers to aid in farming and other industries hobbled by labor shortages.
Kasich is craftily playing both sides!
Most other GOP candidates also back completing the border wall but differ over how to treat immigrant families already living in the US Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush recently released his own immigration plan calling for the use of forward bases and drones to guard the border, but also backing an eventual plan to legalize the status of immigrant families. Bush disagrees with Obama’s use of executive actions to unilaterally enforce the policy.
This guy is a WAR WAITING TO HAPPEN, and where was he when his brother was sending the executive orders and signing statements out?!
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio worked with senators from both parties to develop a comprehensive plan in 2013 that would have legalized the status of many immigrant families. But Congress balked at the idea as tea party Republicans opposed the deal and Rubio has since backed away from his support.
In other words, he retreated.
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Hmmm. Trump, Bush, Rubio, Kasich. Looks like the Globe has already winnowed the field for you.
How to catch there attention....
"Antics help GOP rivals catch eyes, save cash" by Akilah Johnson Globe Staff August 17, 2015
With provocative former reality television star Donald Trump dominating the limelight, what will the multitude of other Republican presidential hopefuls do to stand out in a crowded field? Just about anything.
A $triptease?
They’re cooking bacon on the barrel of a semiautomatic rifle, destroying cellphones in fantastic fashion, putting 700 pages through a wood chipper, and playing childhood board games — all on camera.
These wacky stunts have a serious goal: reaching millennials, and doing it on the cheap.
You mean the kids that don't show up to vote?
The campaigns aspire to fill the Facebook feeds and Twitter timelines of millions of voters, perhaps prompting them to research a candidate’s policy positions. At least, that is how the campaigns’ thinking goes.
Is that how they plan to rig the election, with fake Facebook profiles and a narrative to follow along with it?
Hillary won because.... immigrants, kids.
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The trick is for the videos to feel authentic and not forced, said digital strategists and political analysts. If a video is inauthentic, it will to catch fire for all the wrong reasons, experts said.
Yes, let's see if we can stage and script this spontaneous authenticity we need to sell.
SIGH!
“Young people can spot inauthenticity a mile away, 10 miles away,” said Erin O’Brien, chair of the political science department at the University of Massachusetts Boston. “The viral videos that work best are the ones that show who a candidate is.”
Yeah, those young people are smart and dumb at the same time, and they are not the only ones spotting inauthenticity. I read a Globe every morning, and it's full of it.
And there are plenty of videos out there.
Of the most original: “Making Machine-Gun Bacon ” by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. He wrapped strips of cured pork around the barrel of an AR-15 and fired off a few rounds to cook it.
Next up: Carly Fiorina, former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, who talked down to male subordinates in a BuzzFeed video called “If Men Were Treated Like Women In The Office.”
Later in July, in a video for IJReview, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, took a meat cleaver and golf club to his cellphone in response to Trump giving out his number.
Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, put on rubber gloves and showed the world how to beat the children’s game Operation in a video also for IJReview that has been viewed almost 50,000 times.
I haven't seen a one.
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A recent study by Pew Research Center asked Americans to rank their sources of political news shows. According to the report, millennials between 18 and 33 overwhelmingly receive political and government news from Facebook, while baby boomers turn to local TV news. Generation X, those born between 1965 and 1980, turn to social media and television news in a roughly 50-50 split, the study showed.
I'm getting from the Globe and the blogs.
Trendy videos and smartphone apps can tell voters something about a candidate — that he or she is innovative, for example — but Mindy Finn, a veteran Republican digital strategist, cautioned against abandoning tried-and-true standards of showing a candidate’s worth.
Vincent Harris, chief digital strategist for Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and president of Harris Media, said that using the Internet to communicate a candidate’s message was something of a creative luxury during the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. Now, he said, it is “mandatory” to reach people under 35 years old.
His father just missed out, huh?
It’s something President Obama seems to know well....
Gone are the days when Republicans simply could run campaign ads on Fox News or Democrats on CNN or MSNBC, for that matter, Harris said. Thanks to world of the DVR, voters can fast-forward through the commercials in the TV shows they’ve recorded, if they watch television at all. Increasingly, people are forgoing cable for Internet streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu Plus.
Harris said the Paul campaign has begun to use platforms such as Snapchat, a photo and video-sharing app, to reach voters. The campaign uploaded three videos to Snapchat that showed Paul taking a chain saw to the tax code, as well as burning it and putting it through a wood chipper. The most popular: Paul burning the tax code, Harris said.
Didn't work for his dad, and he was getting Sanders-type crowds.
“It’s this concept of native advertising, and this concept of entertainment advertising. Younger people want to experience the ad for themselves,” he said.
I keep telling you it's all a $hit-$how fooley!
For the record, I think the son stinks.
But Greg Goodale, the associate dean in the college of arts, media, and design at Northeastern University, said it’s about something else too: free media.
There are too many candidates and not enough space on the airways to support television commercials for each of them in early voting states, Goodale said.
Candidates, super PACs, and special interest groups have already begun to gobble up ad space on the airwaves of WMUR-TV in New Hampshire, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to have their spots broadcast during daytime talk shows and prime time TV. But, he said, they are competing with corporations who want to continue to advertise their products, too.
Yeah, we know who is pouring in the money.
“It’s about . . . how desperate all of them are to get free media,” Goodale said. “There’s not just enough bandwidth and advertising space. There’s just not enough time.”
This blog is free, not desperate, and there is not enough time.
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Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana did push-ups at the BuzzFeed offices.
Impressed?
Maybe you will be by this guy:
"Support for a Joe Biden candidacy on the rise" by Margaret Talev Bloomberg News August 17, 2015
WASHINGTON — The movement to pull Vice President Joe Biden into the race for the Democratic presidential nomination appears to be gathering support.
The appearance of this article -- and the lack of any Clinton campaign coverage today -- says to me that she is in TROUBLE over the e-mail servers.
The main group behind the effort has more than 200,000 addresses on its e-mail distribution list, up from a few thousand names in March, Joshua Alcorn, senior adviser to “Draft Biden 2016,” said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“Joe Biden is the original authentic candidate,” said Alcorn, a former aide to the vice president’s late son, Beau. “It’s our job at ‘Draft Biden’ to sort of remind people of who Joe Biden is.”
Boy, they are really trying to sell the authenticity to you.
The vice president is undertaking a “deliberative process” with his family and inner circle on what the best decision would be, Alcorn said.
On Saturday, the Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., ran an editorial encouraging Biden to run.
It was another sign of Biden’s special ties to the state, where the third contest in the 2016 presidential eliminations will take place next year and where Biden and his wife, Jill, retreated recently to consider his future.
Over the course of the couple’s vacation on Kiawah Island, many of the players in his South Carolina campaign-in-waiting reached out in person, through calls, or with messages to him through aides, pledging their support if he decides to get in.
“We talked many times about him running in 2016, before Beau fell ill again, and during, and after his passing,” said state Representative James E. Smith Jr., who said he has been in contact with Biden and aides. “This was a very important week for [Biden and his wife] as they’re working through this personal decision.”
See: Beau Told Joe to Run For President
Then he has to do it.
“As soon as he announces, he’ll immediately have the most formidable organization in the state,” said Smith, predicting the vice president will run while stressing that Biden has not told him anything definitive. “We will have a longstanding organization ready when he gives the go, when he and Jill say they’re ready.”
And the winner of the South Carolina Democratic primary.... (thus extending the campaign and making it a real fight for delegates, something that will consume your attention next year as the world falls apart, the economy collapses, and the wars get moving again)
Iowa was Biden’s Waterloo in 2008, the last time he ran for president, and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont are expected to have New Hampshire pretty well carved up this time around. But the vice president long ago won the affections of two divergent pillars of South Carolina politics by delivering the eulogy for the state’s longtime Republican senator Strom Thurmond and bonding with his former Democratic colleague, Senator Fritz Hollings.
Okay, wait a minute.
Strom was a Confederate-flag-waving candidate who was full of racism. Even made it a platform for his 1948 bid for the presidency, winning 4 states and 39 electoral votes.
As for Hollings, he was forced out after calling out the Lobby.
The Bidens love to vacation on Kiawah Island, where they just spent a week with family, recovering from the loss of Biden’s son. Before he died of brain cancer in May, Beau Biden reportedly encouraged his father, who is 72, to take another shot at the White House.
All these factors explain why South Carolina is at the heart of the vice president’s early-state strategy should he mount a late bid against Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
Biden, who went in June with President Obama to mourn the racially motivated killings at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and stayed on to commune with parishioners on his own, also has amassed a list of state lawmakers and black pastors who have supported him before and are holding off on a commitment to Clinton until they know what he is going to do.
Rather odd, him going to the Roof thing after bonding with those two fellas.
South Carolina is a big military state with voters who also have family ties to the troops. Beau Biden was an Iraq veteran; over the weekend Vice President Biden choked back tears eulogizing other dead service members.
Can I take that as meaning he will be recalling troops and not sending any more into wars based on lies?
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