Not anymore.
He signed the pledge and is against the Iran deal (even saw two minutes of him on MSNBC slinking around the capitol today), so all this is nothing but hot air and not worth my time:
"Trump’s tax promises have some in GOP wary; Think tank vows to scrutinize ideas, calculate impact" by Alan Rappeport New York Times August 31, 2015
WASHINGTON — For years, Republicans have run for office on promises of cutting taxes and bolstering business to stimulate economic growth, pledging allegiance to a Reaganesque model of conservatism that has largely become the party’s orthodoxy.
But this election cycle, the Republican presidential candidate who currently leads in most polls is taking a different approach, and it is jangling the nerves of some of the party’s most traditional supporters.
The tendency of that candidate, billionaire developer Donald J. Trump, to make provocative, headline-grabbing speeches has helped obscure an emerging set of beliefs: He would raise taxes in certain areas, particularly on corporations that he believes do not act in the best interests of the United States.
Blah, blah, blah.
In recent weeks, Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on American companies that put their factories in other countries. He has threatened to increase taxes on the compensation of hedge fund managers. And he has vowed to change laws that allow American companies to benefit from cheaper tax rates by using mergers to base their operations outside the United States.
Talk is cheap.
Alarmed that those ideas might catch on with some of Trump’s Republican rivals — as his immigration policies have — the Club for Growth, an antitax think tank, is pulling together a team of economists to scrutinize his proposals and calculate the economic impact if he is elected.
“All of those are antigrowth policies,” said David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth, a group that Republican candidates routinely court. “Yes, he’s a businessman, but if those are the policies he implements, they’ll drive the economy into the ground and we’ll see huge drops in GDP, and frankly I think it would lead to massive loss of jobs.”
More?
The issue of taxing as ordinary income the compensation of hedge fund managers — a share of investment profits known as carried interest — played prominently during the 2012 presidential election. Financial disclosures revealed that Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, had paid a relatively low tax rate over the years because he was earning income in such a way from Bain Capital, a private equity firm.
Yeah, every two-to-four years that i$$ue his trotted out -- then it's back to bu$ine$$ as u$ual.
Investment managers generally pay only a 15 to 20 percent capital gains tax on profits earned from their customers’ holdings, a treatment that Democrats often argue amplifies income inequality. Trump wants fund managers to “pay up.”
Trump’s ideas are not new. The Obama Treasury Department supports a detailed overhaul of the corporate tax code that involves taxing hedge fund and private equity compensation as ordinary income and sweeping changes to the way US corporations are taxed overseas. Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and Romney’s running-mate in 2012, is determined to produce his own corporate tax overhaul this fall, in part, to finance a long-term highway and infrastructure bill. And he has the backing of President Obama and Senators Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio and Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York.
By inserting the issues into the presidential campaign, Trump has turned an obscure but high-stakes effort on Capitol Hill into a potentially major fight in the national Republican Party.
Trump’s business acumen has been one of his biggest selling points with voters. He promises that his boardroom experience would translate into favorable deals on the global stage and boasts that he cannot be bought by bankers or corporate lobbyists.
“I don’t want any strings attached,” Trump often says in his speeches, pointing to the big donations he says he has declined to take from lobbyists.
Trump has also threatened to make companies such as Ford “pay a price” for shifting their production to Mexico. And while he claims to be friendly with many of them, he has called hedge fund managers “paper pushers” who tend to get lucky on the road to riches. The populist tone is playing well with a subset of the Republican electorate that is frustrated with the status quo, but there are signs that Trump is beginning to alienate some in the party’s base.
“Those aren’t the types of things a typical Republican candidate would say,” said Michael R. Strain, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, referring to the candidate’s comments on hedge funds, support for entitlement spending and the imposing of trade tariffs. “A lot of these things are not things that businesses would be happy about.”
Grover Norquist, the founder of Americans for Tax Reform, is holding out hope for Trump even though Trump and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida are the only leading Republican candidates who have not signed a pledge to not raise taxes.
Must have read his father's lips.
Trump said last month that he was still considering the pledge and that he had no plans for a net tax increase. His suggestion that he would increase the tax on carried interest, however, has raised eyebrows.
“I would certainly be concerned about how that conversation would continue,” Norquist said. “Democrats will take that and say, ‘Now that you’ve conceded the principle, let’s go further.’”
Trump declined to comment on his economic agenda, and a spokeswoman for his campaign said a tax plan would be rolled out in the next few weeks.
As with many of Trump’s policy ideas, confusion seems to be keeping interested parties from knowing exactly how to respond. In an interview with Fox News last week, Trump said a flat tax would be a viable improvement to the tax system. Moments later, he suggested that a flat tax would be unfair because the rich would be taxed at the same rate as the poor.
“The one problem I have with the flat tax is that rich people are paying the same as people that are making very little money,” Trump said. “And I think there should be a graduation of some kind.”
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Related: Donald Trump, the unrivaled braggart
Oh, he has always been that way, even in college.
A welcome challenge to GOP’s tax-cutting dogma
Not Trump, it's Keith Hall, the new Republican-appointed director of the Congressional Budget Office.
So the tribe has spoken on Trump, and he is not to be assassinated after all.
Sorry I'm so sick of the political filler, folks:
"In Trump’s plan, an unsettling echo from US past; Up to million Mexicans were ousted in 1930s" by Russell Contreras Associated Press August 31, 2015
ALBUQUERQUE — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for mass deportation of millions of immigrants living in the United States illegally, as well as their American-born children, bears similarities to a large-scale removal that many Mexican-American families faced 85 years ago.
During the Great Depression, counties and cities in the American Southwest and Midwest forced Mexican immigrants and their families to leave over concerns they were taking jobs away from whites despite their legal right to stay.
The result: Around 500,000 to 1 million Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans were pushed out of the country during the 1930s repatriation, as the removal is sometimes called.
Immigrants were rounded up, sometimes in public places and often without formal proceedings. Others, scared under the threat of violence, left voluntarily.
So even the U.S. government was behaving like a bunch of Nazis back then, huh?
About 60 percent of those who left were US citizens, according to various studies. Later testimonies show families lost most of their possessions and some family members died trying to return. Neighborhoods in cities such as Houston, San Antonio, and Los Angeles became empty.
Same thing happened to Japanese in the 1940s.
The impact of the experience on Latinos remains evident today, experts and advocates say.
‘‘It set the tone for later deportations,’’ said Francisco Balderrama, a Chicano studies professor at California State University Los Angeles.
Two weeks ago, Trump said that, if elected president, he would expand deportations and end ‘‘birthright citizenship’’ for children born to immigrants who are here illegally. Under his plan, American-born children of immigrants would be deported with their parents, and Mexico would be asked to help build a wall along the US border.
‘‘They’re illegal,’’ Trump said of US-born children of people in the country illegally. ‘‘You either have a country or not.’’
So what are you going to do about all the dual national Israeli traitors, Don?
Trump has provided few details on how his proposed deportation effort would be carried out. The conservative-leaning American Action Forum concluded in a report it would cost between $400 billion to $600 billion and take 20 years to remove an estimated 11.2 million immigrants living in the country illegally.
I have recently written that I don't know what to do about the problem. The New World Order globalists have done such a good job of making it intractable that solutions are hard to come by and will take decades (about as much time as it took to create the mess).
And who benefits in the end?
The large-scale deportation he envisions would be impractical to enact, due to the extent to which Mexican immigrants have integrated into US society, said Columbia University history professor Mae Ngai.
US-born children of immigrants have been automatically considered American citizens since the adoption of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment in 1868.
A Supreme Court ruling in 1898 halted previous attempts to limit the birthright of Chinese-American citizens.
The ruling upheld the clause for all US-born children, Ngai said, and there have been no successful challenges to the clause since.
In the 1930s, Balderrama said, officials skirted the issue of birthright citizenship by saying they did not want to break up families.
‘‘But they did break up families and many children never saw their parents again,’’ said Balderrama, co-author of a book about the repatriation in the 1930s with the late historian Raymond Rodriguez, who testified at a California committee about seeing his father for the last time at age 10, before the father left for Mexico.
That legacy lingers in songs, often played on Spanish-language radio stations, that allude to mass deportations and separation of loved ones, said Lilia Soto, an American studies professor at the University of Wyoming.
For example, the lyrics to ‘‘Ice El Hielo,’’ by the Los Angeles band La Santa Cecilia, speak of a community afraid that federal agents are/ about to arrive and launch deportation raids at any moment.
The ballad ‘‘Volver, Volver,’’ sung by Mexican Vicente Fernandez, speaks of someone vowing to return to a lover despite all obstacles.
--more--"
Related:
Donald Trump blazes a European path in American politics
Basically calling him a Nazi and fascist.
Today’s anti-immigrant GOP risks betraying its legacy
Speaking of legacies:
"Jeb Bush changes up cautious style, fires away at Trump; In new ad, seeks to paint Trump as a liberal" by Matt Viser Globe Staff September 01, 2015
WASHINGTON — Jeb Bush is ratcheting up his attacks on Donald Trump, attempting to inject much-needed energy into his own flagging campaign while counteracting Trump’s singular, unpredictable force that for weeks has roiled the Republican presidential nominating contest.
With Trump dominating recent polls — and Bush slipping in both Iowa and New Hampshire — the former Florida governor launched an assault Tuesday that tried to cast Trump as far outside of Republican orthodoxy on issues ranging from taxes to abortion.
“He’s not a conservative,’’ Bush declared in Spanish at a campaign event in Florida.
While trying to undercut Trump’s support among activist GOP voters, he is seeking to reestablish himself as the leader of mainstream Republicans and the chief alternative to Trump in a crowded field of candidates. His strategists have concluded that Trump is not going to collapse of his own weight.
But Trump has attracted strong support from angry voters who are tired of traditional politics, and the emerging dynamic has the potential to set up a months-long biting, personal battle over the direction of the GOP.
And a lot of political distraction and filler.
*********************
The Bush-produced montage also shows Trump saying that income taxes on the wealthy should “be raised substantially.” The clip came from a congressional task force hearing in 1991, illustrating the degree to which the Bush campaign is digging through Trump’s past.
During a campaign event in Florida on Tuesday, Bush later criticized Trump in both English and Spanish.
“He attacks me every day. He attacks me every day with barbarities,” Bush said in Spanish, according to the Washington Post.
“They’re not true. What we did today was to put out in his words to show that he’s not conservative. . . . He doesn’t have a record, because he hasn’t been a person who has served like me, who served for eight years as governor.”
The Bush campaign also views Trump as vulnerable on taxes, seeing an opening to separate Trump from Republican voters who are typically averse to raising taxes of any sort.
Trump, who is promising to soon detail his tax plan, has said he wants to crack down on hedge fund managers, who typically pay taxes on capital gains, which are taxed at 20 percent, rather than on income, which tops out at 39.6 percent for the highest earners.
“They’re paying nothing and it’s ridiculous. I want to save the middle class,” Trump said last week on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “The hedge fund guys didn’t build this country. These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky.”
:-)
Bush’s strategy carries risks. Trump is a businessman who has not played by any of the traditional rules of politics and has demonstrated resilient support even after making comments that would have ended most other political campaigns.
After Bush launched his attack, Trump later sent out a brief clip of Bush thanking and praising Hillary Rodham Clinton as “someone who has devoted her life to public service,” and of President George W. Bush laughing and calling her “my sister-in-law.”
“No more Clintons or Bushes!” Trump wrote.
Until very recently Bush’s style in his first presidential bid has been cautious and methodical, at times seeming almost lethargic. Despite the exclamation point he put after his name on his campaign logo, Bush has struggled to excite crowds or draw widespread attention.
Even while he has amassed traditional measures of strength — a big lead in campaign donations and a respected staff of campaign aides — supporters have worried about his lack of fire, his shifting answers, and an inability to deal with the inevitable questions about a third Bush presidency.
“This is what responsible leaders do: Trump needs to be repudiated,” said Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party who is unaligned. “Responsible Republicans need to stand up to him. And I’m tired of other candidates who have been pandering . . . or refusing to stand up to him because they’re wimping out.”
Hell, Scott Walker is angling for the VP job.
Trump has alternately said Bush is weak, clueless, and lackluster. Bush supporters said the new strategy shows that is wrong.
“Bush is demonstrating that Donald Trump really has no core beliefs. Not as a conservative, not as a Republican — I’d venture to say he’s not really anything,” said Jamie Burnett, a New Hampshire-based Republican operative who is supporting Bush. “He’s just Trump. And will push any button he thinks will draw a headline and get him on TV. That might be great political theater but it’s certainly not emblematic of what you would want in your president.”
Nor is Bush.
Bush recently had come to embrace a tortoise analogy for his campaign. He even received an e-mail after the first GOP debate from his brother, George W., saying, “Well done, Tortoise.”
Is that how they intend to steal it?
“That’s my new nickname because I told him I’m the tortoise in the race: slow, steady progress,” Jeb Bush said on Fox News last month. “Stay focused, stay steady, do the right thing each and every day.”
This week has featured Bush as a snapping turtle.
“Somebody has to do it,” said Tim Miller, the Bush campaign’s communications director. Trump “is a big government liberal who is completely unserious that is dominating the discussion in our presidential primary. Everybody is just hoping that it’s going to go away. So we are going to take on that fight.
“There will be more to come,” he added. “We’re going to continue to turn up the heat on Trump.”
--more--"
Related: "She’s backing Jeb Bush, and even gave $50,000 to a pro-Bush super PAC this spring."
"GOP front-runner Donald Trump continued to lead the pack, with 28 percent support of likely Republican voters, up from the 21 percent he received in July. Governor John Kasich of Ohio, who received 7 percent support in July, moved to second place with 12 percent. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson took third with 11 percent, a 5-percentage-point gain. On the down slope, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin now polls in ninth place in the Granite State, with just 4 percent of the vote. That’s down from 12 percent support in July. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush lost six points from his July numbers and now sits in fourth place with 8 percent support."
So much for turning up the heat on the Leaders of the party:
"Brothers charged in homeless beating have long criminal histories.... Scott Leader, a 38-year-old mason, and his brother Steven, 30, a carpenter, listed their address in public housing. Scott Leader’s criminal record is over four pages long and details roughly 20 years of hard drinking, drug use, and violent crime, including convictions for stabbings, stomping a man’s head, and swinging a bicycle at a woman who tried to stop him from stealing it. Steven Leader has convictions for drugs offenses, including heroin, and theft. Both brothers have convictions for assaulting police."
"Brothers to remain held in attack on homeless Mexican man" by Maria Sacchetti Globe Staff September 03, 2015
Two South Boston brothers charged with a vicious attack on a homeless man from Mexico will remain behind bars pending trial next month in a case that has attracted worldwide notoriety for its alleged link to GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Scott Leader, a 38-year-old mason, and his brother Steven, 30, a carpenter, waived their right to a hearing Thursday in Dorchester District Court, where prosecutors had planned to argue that they were too dangerous to release from jail.
*********
A handful of supporters, including Scott Leader’s girlfriend, Tiffany-Marina Paolini, who said she is part Hispanic, attended the brief hearing Thursday. Afterward, Paolini said the episode was not racially motivated.
“He’s not racist,” Paolini said after the hearing. “He has Guatemalan in his family so, I mean, it’s not a racist thing. It’s not a hate crime.”
No, it was a drunk thing after the Red Sox game.
So how does he feel about what is happening in Guatemala?
State Police said the brothers were on their way home from a Red Sox game in the early hours of Aug. 19 when they stopped and urinated on the man’s face as he slept at the JFK/UMass MBTA station. Then, police said, they punched him and beat him with a metal pole and walked away laughing....
Do they boo all the Dominican players?
Mexico sent consular officials to observe the hearing. Officials said the man came to the United States in the 1980s and most recently collected cans for the deposit money, but he could not afford a place to live. His immigration status remains unclear.
He must be an illegal then.
The alleged attack reverberated in Massachusetts and in Mexico as Trump continues to lead the race for the Republican nomination for president.
**********
On Facebook, some family and friends defended the Leader brothers. One suggested the brothers had accidentally urinated on the man because he was obscured by a blanket and other items in the area.
Paolini, who said she is part Salvadoran, described Scott Leader on Facebook as a kind person who would “give you his shirt right off his back.”
“The media is making this person to be a monster and racist which he is not. Yes he has a drinking problem and becomes something that he is not,” said Paolini, who said she has dated him for nearly a year. “I know what he did was wrong in so many ways but we don’t know the real truth we weren’t there.”
Some say the real truth comes out when you are drunk.
As for ma$$ media demonization, that comes with the territory.
State court records show that each brother has a long history of violent behavior.
In July 2005 Scott Leader chased a group of Asian high school students from Carson Beach to the JFK/UMass MBTA stop, and stabbed two of the boys in their collarbones with a sharp tree branch, court records show. Leader pleaded guilty and served time for those charges.
In 2001, he was convicted of a hate crime and other charges and served a year in jail for assaulting a Moroccan Dunkin’ Donuts cashier days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In June 2006, the brothers were arrested at their mother’s apartment in South Boston public housing.
Court records said Steven Leader punched his mother’s partner. He attacked police when they came to arrest him, and then Scott jumped in. Both were convicted of assaulting police and their mother’s companion. At that time, their mother took out restraining orders against both sons.
--more--"
It was a "phalanx of media" playing follow the Leaders.
"Trump blitzes through raucous Norwood rally" by Travis Andersen Globe Staff August 28, 2015
NORWOOD — As helicopters hovered and protesters fumed nearby, GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump visited the home of car magnate Ernie Boch Jr. for a campaign rally Friday that had a circus-like atmosphere rarely experienced in the often staid world of Massachusetts politics.
Trump was accompanied by a Norwood police escort as he arrived in a stretch SUV around 7:15 p.m. He was immediately mobbed by television cameras and supporters as he left the vehicle and headed toward a media tent, to chants of “Don-ald, Don-ald!”
He then took to the lectern and held a brief press conference, hitting on topics including illegal immigration, taxes, women’s health, and even the Deflategate scandal.
Asked about the scourge of gun violence in the nation, Trump said it was tied to mental health as well as illegal immigrants.
Thanks for pushing that agenda forward, Don.
“The toughest, and the meanest, the worst dudes . . . they’re illegal immigrants,” Trump said.
And they often join gangs.
He also defended his plan to build a wall along the US-Mexico border to block illegal immigration, rebuffing critics such as Republican primary rival Jeb Bush who say the project is unfeasible.
“The Great Wall of China is 13,000 miles,” Trump said.
And if one (or three) is good enough for Israel.... what chutzpah coming from Holocaust™ survivors!
*************
Asked if he felt Patriots quarterback Tom Brady should settle his legal battle with the NFL, Trump played to the home crowd.
Turning to the subject of women, Trump mentioned his wife and daughter.
The candidate, real estate mogul, and reality TV star has stunned the political world by rising to the top of opinion polls in the early going of the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
At his event Friday, Trump focused on a number of issues.
Trump called for rebuilding the military and the nation’s infrastructure, before moving to a larger stage to address roughly 1,000 supporters — who were asked to make suggested $100 donations.
Another war president.
Next.
Boch and Trump insisted the rally was not a fund-raiser, despite a large sign out front asking guests to make checks payable to the celebrity’s campaign.
Trump said that he has turned down millions in donations and that funds raised on Friday would be used to defray the cost of the party. Trump has previously ridiculed other candidates’ reliance on fund-raisers, saying they are beholden to special interests.
Addressing the crowd, Trump discussed many of the same themes and delved into foreign policy, voicing strong opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran and poking fun at Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who led the negotiations.
Talk about an area where special interests rule!
When someone in the crowd called Kerry “a joke,” Trump quipped, “he’s a bicyclist,” referring to Kerry’s accident in France in the midst of hammering out the deal.
That's the cover story; I think Kerry's leg was broken to send him a message.
"GOP presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are expected to headline a Capitol Hill rally against President Obama’s proposed nuclear agreement with Iran. Trump, the Republican front-runner so far, announced the event during a speech in South Carolina. Cruz aides said the Texas senator extended the invitation to the billionaire ahead of Congress’s vote on the accord in mid-September. Cruz’s campaign did not provide the event date."
I Cruzed through that at the top of this post, and the NBC Nightly News report was disgusting. Proved to me once again that the ma$$ media is controlled by Zionist interests, no question.
Earlier in the evening, guests, many sporting summer attire such as salmon-colored slacks and white blazers, filed up Boch’s long circular driveway to a side deck, where a large portrait of Trump stood next to greeters handing out drinks.
Some gathered under a tent where a band played. Others congregated near Boch’s back porch or posed for photos in front of a Hollywood-premiere type background emblazoned with Trump’s name.
It's all staged and scripted theater.
The event even drew some professional athletes, such as former Patriots linemen Matt Light and Fred Smerlas.
While there was ample food and drink, one guest, Erin Erler of Haverhill, brought a dessert for the occasion.
Great!
Wrapping up his approximately one-hour visit to Boch’s home, Trump told the cheering crowd, “We are going to have so many great victories. We’re going to be so proud of this country.”
*********
The event was not all positive.
What spoiled such a good time?
Hours before the candidate arrived, protesters lined the street outside Boch’s home to denounce Trump’s comments about women and abortion. Trump, has angered groups by using words such as “bimbo,” “animal,” and “slob” to describe women he does not like.
Under the watchful eyes of Norwood police and private security guards, about two dozen demonstrators held anti-Trump signs and shouted chants....
--more--"
Let's delve into that foreign policy a bit:
"Conservative host’s foreign affairs quiz challenges Trump" by Sean Sullivan and David Weigel Washington Post September 05, 2015
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump, leading in the polls and riding a wave of momentum in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, just hit a speed bump named Hugh Hewitt.
The conservative radio host peppered Trump with foreign policy questions in a Thursday interview that produced some uncomfortable moments for the real estate mogul, who appeared upset at the line of questioning.
At one point, Hewitt asked Trump whether he was familiar with ‘‘General Soleimani’’ and the ‘‘Quds Forces.’’ (He referred to Major General Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.) Trump said he was but then seemed to mistake the Quds for Kurds, a Middle Eastern ethnic group.
‘‘The Kurds, by the way, have been horribly mistreated by us,’’ said Trump.
He's right about that -- especially after they let us and Israel use their areas as bases for intelligence operations.
Hewitt corrected him: ‘‘No, not the Kurds, the Quds Forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Forces.’’
Trump said he thought Hewitt had said ‘‘Kurds.’’
Later on, Hewitt insisted he didn’t believe ‘‘in gotcha questions.’’ Trump disagreed.
‘‘Well, that is a gotcha question, though,’’ Trump said. ‘‘I mean, you know, when you’re asking me about who’s running this, this, this, that’s not, that is not — I will be so good at the military, your head will spin.’’
Asked what he would do as president if China were ‘‘to either accidentally or intentionally sink a Filipino or Japanese ship,’’ Trump refused to say.
‘‘I wouldn’t want to tell you, because frankly, they have to, you know, somebody wrote a very good story about me recently, and they said there’s a certain unpredictable, and it was actually another businessman, said there’s a certain unpredictability about Trump that’s great, and it’s what made him a lot of money and a lot of success,’’ said Trump. ‘‘You don’t want to put, and you don’t want to let people know what you’re going to do with respect to certain things that happen.’’
Hewitt told Trump that when it comes to terrorism, ‘‘I’m looking for the next commander in chief to know who Hassan Nasrallah is, and Zawahiri, and al-Julani, and al-Baghdadi. Do you know the players without a score card yet, Donald Trump?’’
I know that all those guys, except for Nasrallah, work for U.S. intelligence.
‘‘No, you know, I’ll tell you honestly, I think by the time we get to office, they’ll all be changed,’’ Trump said. ‘‘They’ll be all gone. I knew you were going to ask me things like this, and there’s no reason, because number one, I’ll find, I will hopefully find General Douglas MacArthur in the pack. I will find whoever it is that I’ll find, and we’ll, but they’re all changing, Hugh.’’
For the record, Hasan Nasrallah is the secretary general of Hezbollah; Ayman al-Zawahiri is the leader of Al Qaeda after the death of Osama bin Laden; Abu Mohammad al-Julani is the leader of the al-Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate fighting in Syria; and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi leads the Islamic State group.
On the same show, Hewitt interviewed the GOP race’s other business leader, Carly Fiorina.
He asked the former Hewlett-Packard CEO the same questions, while informing her ‘‘there’s been social media’’ coverage of how Trump did.
‘‘Aren’t you familiar with General Soleimani?’’ he asked.
‘‘Yes,’’ said Fiorina, who also recognized the name of the Quds Force.
Hewitt is slated to ask questions at the second Republican debate later this month.
Related:
"CNN’s shift on criteria for next debate may help Fiorina.... When Carly Fiorina was relegated to the so-called undercard stage for the first Republican primary debate this month, she stood out. Clad in a bright pink suit, she delivered a forceful performance that catapulted her into the national spotlight and generated a bounce in public polls. But Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard executive, wants to be on the main stage at the second Republican debate next month. And she is waging a public war with both CNN, which is hosting the debate, and the Republican National Committee. CNN will average polls back to mid-July to determine which 10 candidates will appear."
I will be sure to miss it.
--more--"
Time to head south:
"Donald Trump courts Tea Party voters in Nashville" by Erik Schelzig and Jill Colvin Associated Press August 29, 2015
NASHVILLE — Donald Trump was in Nashville to court Tea Party-leaning voters at a conference hosted by the National Federation of Republican Assemblies. He made clear Saturday that he welcomes Tea Party support.
‘‘I love the Tea Party!’’ he told the crowd during a meandering, hourlong speech at a Christian music venue and skateboard park.
‘‘The Tea Party people are incredible people. These are people who work hard and they love the country and then they get just beat up all the time by the media,’’ he added.
True Tea Party Patriots for sure, and the game continues with the corporately-funded controlled-opposition that now passes for grass roots. As usual, any real peoples' movement is co-opted.
The event came the day after Trump held a glitzy $100-per-person campaign event — which he repeatedly insisted wasn’t a fund-raiser — outside of Boston.
Trump said the money raised was only to offset the costs of the event and said people attending could choose to pay whatever they wanted.
But multiple signs posted at the property’s entrance and along a staffed check-in table told those arriving to ‘‘Please have cash ready or make checks payable to: Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.’’ Another read, ‘‘Entry Fee $100 Per Person.’’
I thought he was in Tennessee now. Why rehash all that?
On Saturday, Trump expressed frustration that coverage of Friday’s event in Norwood, Mass., focused on the discrepancy.
‘‘I got so angry at my people because somebody put up a sign saying $100,’’ he said.
Trump also defended a personal attack he launched Friday against Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has been swept up in the controversy over Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state.
The name rings a bell:
The Huma Files: Feds investigated top Hillary Clinton aide for embezzlement
Why am I not $urpri$ed?
Trump again speculated that Abedin had shared classified information with her husband, former congressman Anthony Weiner, who resigned after sending sexually explicit images of himself to women.
A spokesman for Clinton’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but said in an e-mailed statement Friday that there ‘‘is no place for patently false, personal attacks towards a staff member.”
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Also see: Clinton Campaign Laboring Over E-Mail Scandal
I've labored for far too long on the campaign trail today, and all you got out of it was this crappy T-shirt.
