Maybe that is his job as a foil.
Either that or he is tremendously thin-skinned.
"Trump belittles Muslim parents of dead soldier" by Maggie Haberman New York Times July 30, 2016
Printed piece was by AP, and I didn't fall for it.
"Backlash grows over Donald Trump’s clash with Muslim soldier’s parents" by Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman New York Times August 01, 2016
NEW YORK — Donald Trump reeled Sunday amid a sustained campaign of criticism by the parents of a Muslim American soldier killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq and a rising outcry within his own party over his rough and racially charged dismissal of the couple.
The confrontation between the parents, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, and Trump has emerged as an unexpected and potentially pivotal flash point in the general election. Trump has plainly struggled to respond to the reproach of a military family who lost a son, and he has repeatedly answered the Khan family’s criticism with harsh and defensive rhetoric.
Why were they reproaching him?
He didn't sign the order sending their boy off to a war based on lies.
And Trump’s usual political tool kit has appeared to fail him. He earned no reprieve with his complaints that Khizr Khan had been unfair to him; on Sunday morning, he claimed on Twitter that Khizr Khan had “viciously attacked” him. Trump and his advisers tried repeatedly to change the subject to Islamic terrorism, to no avail.
Instead, Trump appeared to be caught in perhaps the biggest crisis of his campaign, rivaling the uproar in June after he attacked a federal judge, Gonzalo P. Curiel, over his “Mexican heritage.” By going after a military family and trafficking in ethnic stereotypes, Trump once again breached multiple norms of American politics, redoubling pressure on his fellow Republicans to choose between defending his remarks or rebuking their nominee.
Until next week.
Democratic leaders and candidates for Congress began over the weekend to call on Republicans to disavow Trump. And the top two Republicans in Congress, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, signaled their strong disagreement with Trump, but stopped short of condemning him in blunt terms.
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, sternly reprimanded Trump, saying at a church in Cleveland on Sunday morning that Trump had answered the Khan family’s sacrifice with disrespect for them and for American traditions of religious tolerance.
“Mr. Khan paid the ultimate sacrifice in his family, didn’t he?” Clinton said. “And what has he heard from Donald Trump? Nothing but insults, degrading comments about Muslims, a total misunderstanding of what made our country great.”
Clinton chastised Trump later in Ashland, Ohio, calling his comments part of a disturbing pattern.
Both Khizr and Ghazala Khan stiffened their denunciation of Trump on Sunday, saying that he lacked the moral character and basic empathy to be president. Khizr Khan, who addressed the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, said on “Meet the Press” on NBC that Trump had shown disrespect to his wife.
OMG!
In a direct appeal to voters inclined to support Trump, Khizr Khan pleaded with them to reject his brand of politics.
Which is what exactly? What the pre$$ portrays?
Addressing himself to “patriotic Americans that would probably vote for Donald Trump,” Khizr Khan pleaded, “I appeal to them not to vote for hatred, not to vote for fear-mongering. Vote for unity. Vote for the goodness of this country.”
And who would that candidate be? Certainly not Clinton.
And Ghazala Khan, in an opinion article published in The Washington Post, rebuked Trump for suggesting that she had not been permitted to speak at the DNC. Ghazala Khan said she did not speak because she did not believe she could remain composed while talking about her son.
“All the world, all America, felt my pain. I am a Gold Star mother. Whoever saw me felt me in their heart,” Ghazala Khan wrote.
So is CINDY SHEEN but I didn't see her get a speaking slot!
Ghazala Khan said Trump was ignorant of Islam and criticized him for offering his business career as evidence that he had sacrificed for his country. “Donald Trump said he has made a lot of sacrifices,” Ghazala Khan said. “He doesn’t know what the word sacrifice means.”
I'm not here to defend the guy, but maybe his inclination as a businessman to negotiate first rather than wage wars might mean some sacrifices may be prevented.
In any event, this couple is obviously a political prop and now a tool of the ma$$ media to slam Trump.
Think about it: the same lying, war-promoting, agenda-pushing, Muslim-hating Jewish War Pre$$ now all of a sudden cares about Muslim sacrifices.
The same administration that has been pocking the planet with drone missiles and killing the "terrorists" while leaving their women dead or widowed and children orphaned cares about every single solitary Muslim life.
Maybe it's just the "good Muslims" that serve the war machine (odd Nidal et al accepted) that matter and not the CIA trained terrorists that are the "bad Muslims."
It is too soon to say how severe the damage to Trump’s campaign might be, but his clash with the Khans has already entangled him in a self-destructive, dayslong argument with a pair of sympathetic accusers who are portraying him as a person of unredeemable callousness....
All this and MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of DEAD MUSLIMS over LIES, LIES, LIES, and TRUMP DIDN'T KILL THEM!
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You know, where it not for the constant piling on of the pre$$ and their blatant favoritism regarding Queen Hillary I would dismiss this.
"Republicans condemn Trump’s continued attacks on Khan family" by Annie Linskey Globe Staff August 02, 2016
WASHINGTON — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump spent a fourth day under a cascade of criticism. He seemed to acknowledge during a rally Monday that events aren’t going his way in the campaign, but blamed elites — not himself — for his bumpy campaign.
I blame the pre$$, but they speak for them so same thing.
“I’m afraid the election is going to be rigged, I have to be honest,” Trump said Monday afternoon.
We all know that. They have been for decades anyway. The narrative is already being spun.
It’s a baffling tactic in his unconventional campaign, but consistent with his scorched-earth approach to winning the support of the American people.
Not really. He's trying to ensure a fair -- as much as can be possible here -- election with a preemptive inoculation.
Trump has also, in recent months, praised a dictator, distributed the star of David in what was widely perceived as an anti-Semitic tweet, disparaged a federal judge, and seemingly called on Russia to launch a cyber-attack on his political opponent. (He said it was a joke.)
What is a joke is reading this dung.
With each new extraordinary statement, establishment Republicans who’ve reluctantly backed Trump find themselves participating in a stumbling and chaotic response while their most vulnerable lawmakers up for election attempt to take shelter from the Trump-induced storm system.
So we get a Democrat Congre$$ in any event, huh?
On Monday, Trump rebukes flowed from near and far, with top Republicans sprinting away from the candidate and President Obama making a veiled reference to the controversy. Even the Islamic State, a terrorist organization intent on killing Americans, noted the controversy, posting an image of the grave containing remains of the dead soldier at the center of the issue.
OMG!
Now you know they are working for U.S. intelligence!
Making Republican strategists cringe all the more, damage from Trump’s words stole attention from Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, whose TV performances are often less than stellar.
On Sunday in a Fox News interview Clinton tried to recast a scathing assessment by FBI director James Comey of how she handled classified information.
In the interview, she insisted that the FBI director has vouched she’s provided “truthful” answers and that e-mails on her controversial private server were only classified retroactively. The interview earned her “four Pinocchios” from Washington Post fact-checkers, who noted that the FBI found e-mails on her system that were classified at the time they were sent.
And there has been nothing on the platform since.
But few paid any attention as the focus was on Trump and the politicians around the country who were disavowing him.
Oh, I'm sure many were paying attention. Just not finding that stuff in my pro-Clinton paper.
“Trump never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist. “He’s running against a candidate with the highest negatives in the history of her party and yet somehow managed to outdo her with a negative rating of his own that is even higher.”
VoteVets, a Democratic leaning organization, requested that Trump apologize to the Khan family. Signed by 23 Gold Star families who’ve also lost loved ones in battle, the letter accuses Trump of cheapening the ultimate sacrifice paid by their loved one.
After George W. Bush apologizes to Cindy Sheehan first, 'kay?.
Keavin Duffy, whose brother died in 2008 in Iraq, signed the letter and said in an interview that Trump’s behavior is “un-American.”
“This is a very important moment for the character of our nation,” said Duffy, 34, of Taunton, Mass. “It doesn’t matter about party anymore. Should a national candidate for office be getting into a Twitter fight with Gold Star families?”
A coalition of veterans groups sent a separate letter to all political candidates Monday, asking for “respect not only for those who have paid the ultimate price for our freedom but also their families who have borne such a loss to protect our liberties.”
Perhaps the only positive for Trump was that the Khan controversy overshadowed another unforced error he made Sunday, during an interview with ABC News, when he seemed unaware that Russia is occupying Crimea, which is a portion of Ukraine.
Referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump said: “He’s not going into Ukraine, OK, just so you understand. He’s not going to go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down. You can put it down. You can take it anywhere you want.”
George Stephanopoulos of ABC News replied: “Well, he’s already there, isn’t he?”
Actually, George, he isn't. Crimea -- per U.N. charter -- voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. Russia is not occupying them, they were asked in, and the Crimea is no longer part of Ukraine. It's the standard framing of the issue based on falsities that is so common over here.
And by the end of the day Monday, Trump had made another statement likely to inflame.
When asked in an interview with a Fox News and USA Today contributor how he’d advise his daughter Ivanka if she was sexually harassed in the workplace, he said he’d tell her to leave.
“I would like to think she would find another career or find another company if that was the case,” Trump said.
That's a different issue for a different post, and why not deal with the war rapes instead?
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"Muslims in the military: the few, the proud, the welcome" by Dave Philipps New York Times August 02, 2016
NEW YORK — Thousands of Muslims have served in the military since at least the Civil War, but they make up a disproportionately small portion of the force. Just 3,939 troops currently list their faith as Islam, according to Pentagon data. They make up just 0.3 percent of the military; Muslims are estimated to make up about 1 percent of the civilian population. Their numbers are so few that some go most of their career without meeting another Muslim in uniform.
And yet they are getting all this pre$$?
In Europe, some countries have made moves to encourage Muslims to enlist. The British army, which has similarly low participation among Muslims, two years ago launched a recruiting initiative. The armed forces allow fasting during Ramadan and make accommodations for daily prayers, setting up prayer rooms on bases and recently adding one to a warship.
The Pentagon does not track how many Muslim troops have died in combat since 2001, but they have served in all branches — as officers, combat troops, interpreters, and intelligence gatherers.
Some say that life in the military became harder after the Sept. 11 attacks.
“After 9/11 I really started noticing a change,” said Mansoor Shams, who was born in Pakistan and served in the Marine Corps from 2000 to 2004. “A few guys made negative comments, sometimes half-joking, calling me the Taliban. I decided to nip it in the bud, and most of the guys understood.”
Some troops also find it difficult to fight in countries their families may be from.
But when it comes to religious liberty, Muslim troops say the military has gone to considerable lengths to be accommodating. Troops have time to pray and can fast during Ramadan. The military even manufactures halal versions of MREs, its plastic-wrapped field rations, along with kosher and vegetarian versions.
“The halal MREs are actually pretty good, maybe even better than regular MREs,” said Captain Nadi Kassim, a company commander in the Army’s Second Cavalry Regiment.
Kassim, a child of Palestinian refugees who graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 2010, has felt nothing but support from the military since he was a cadet, he said.
“I was never singled out for being a guy named Nadi Kassim,” he said. “The Army minimizes differences and rewards achievement, and I really thrived in that.”
When a recent field exercise fell during Ramadan, Kassim said, the support unit doing the cooking set aside meals so he and another Muslim could eat after sunset. “We did not ask them to, they just did it on their own to show they supported us,” he said.
Muslim culture has a toehold in the military, said Commander Abuhena Saifulislam, a chaplain who serves as an imam in the Navy and Marine Corps, a job he has held for 20 years. Every Friday, he said, an imam holds prayers in the Pentagon, and at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, where he is stationed, he leads prayers daily.
Saifulislam has been invited to lead prayers at the White House by Presidents George W. Bush and Obama.
Saifulislam said he has ministered to many more Christians than Muslims and has never faced a backlash. “When I was young, I came here from Bangladesh without a family,” he said. “And in many ways the military became my family. I wouldn’t have stayed 20 years unless I felt welcome.”
Look, the Islamic fascism you hear so much about.
--more--"
So how long until they make Trump's draft deferments an issue?
Good thing for Hillary women didn't have to register until next year.
And WHY all the COMMOTION about VETS coming out of the conventions?
"President Obama leaves office in January, and he plans to use this appearance to recap how he has tried to help former military members, moving beyond headline-grabbing scandals over lengthy wait-times for veterans seeking medical care. Care for America’s veterans is a top issue in the presidential campaign, with the nearly 21 million veterans in the United States making up a critical voting bloc that Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump are vying for...."
The goal is to enroll 1 million veterans as part of the president’s initiative to make ‘‘precision medicine,’’ or tailored treatment, a reality.
Related: 4-F Exemption
They are hoping you will exempt the neglect of veterans by this administration:
"Obama cites strides on helping veterans but says more work is needed" Associated Press August 01, 2016
ATLANTA — President Obama said Monday that the nation has made significant strides in improving services for military veterans, but work remains to overcome shortcomings in the delivery of health care, housing, and mental health services.
He called the nation’s commitment to its veterans a ‘‘sacred covenant.’’
Then why have you broken it?
‘‘I don’t use those words lightly. It’s sacred because there is no more solemn request than to ask someone to risk their life, to be ready to give their life on our behalf,’’ Obama said at the annual convention of the Disabled American Veterans.
It was Obama’s final major address to a gathering of veterans before he leaves office in January after eight years as president. He received a rousing welcome.
Obama said the Department of Veterans Affairs has hired more doctors, nurses, and staff and opened more clinics since the recent scandal over long wait-times for VA services, the demand for which keeps growing as more veterans come into the pipeline.
Benefits are available to more than 2 million veterans who didn’t have them before, he said.
Services are reaching more veterans, including those who live in rural areas through telemedicine. Homelessness has been cut nearly in half, by 47 percent, though still far short of the president’s long-held goal of reducing it to zero. More veterans are finding jobs.
There shouldn't be one homeless vet.
More than a half-million veterans have donated their health and genetic data to a research database that Obama said eventually will benefit not just former military members, but all Americans.
But shortcomings remain, Obama said. He cited mental care for veterans, including the 20 per day who commit suicide.
Well, it's down from about 23 a couple of years ago, but that issue has been dispatched down the old ma$$ media memory hole. It's bad for recruiting and bad for the wars.
Those suicides, btw, mostly come from doing what ObamaBush have asked.
Quicker processing of disability claims and appeals is also needed. A staggering backlog of disability claims has been whittled from more than 600,000 three years ago to below 80,000, but some 450,000 appeals are pending. Veterans wait an average of three years for a decision, which the White House called ‘‘unacceptable.’’ Obama called on Congress to pass legislation to overhaul the system.
It's almost as if they are hoping you will die and save them some dough.
Care for America’s veterans is a top issue in the presidential campaign, with the nearly 21 million veterans in the United States making up a critical voting bloc.
--more--"
And now you know why the pre$$ has been pimping this issue.
"Trump ‘unfit,’ Obama says, challenging GOP to end backing" by Michael D. Shear and Alexander Burns New York Times August 02, 2016
WASHINGTON — Obama said, “What does this say about your party that this is your standard-bearer?”
I don't know; how do Democrats feel about Clinton?
As the president made his comments, divisions in the GOP deepened. Trump’s unabashed and continuing hostility toward the Khans and his attacks on Republican leaders who have rebuked him for it threaten to shatter his uneasy alliance with the party.
For days, Trump’s top advisers and allies have urged him to move on and focus instead on the economy and the national security record of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. Yet, facing outcry on the left and right, Republicans now say Trump’s obstinacy in addressing perhaps the gravest crisis of his campaign may trigger drastic defections within the party, and Republican lawmakers and strategists have begun to entertain abandoning him en masse.
The president’s condemnation of Trump, and his direct appeal to Republicans to abandon their candidate, were stunning even in a city where politics has become a brutal and personal affair. Obama seemed eager to go beyond his past interventions in the race.
Using the formal backdrop of a joint news conference with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, Obama suggested that Trump would not abide by “norms and rules and common sense” and questioned whether he would “observe basic decency” should he reach the Oval Office.
As Obama condemned Trump, the Republican candidate repeatedly criticized Hillary Clinton and the president in an hour of remarks. He called Clinton a “liar” and a “thief” and said the country would be “finished” if voters choose four more years of a presidency like Obama’s.
Trump also accused Clinton of repeatedly lying when she told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” that James Comey, the FBI director, had said her statements about her private e-mails were truthful.
“I mean, she lied,” Trump said, prompting cries of “Lock her up!” from his supporters. “She, pure and simple, she only knows to lie. She really does. She only knows to lie. But she lied, and it’s a big story.”
Comey, testifying last month to Congress, said that “we have no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI.” But he also said that he could not say whether Clinton’s many public statements on the issue were truthful.
Trump had begun his remarks at his rally by saying that a veteran had given him a Purple Heart medal earlier in the day. “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart,” said Trump, who received five deferments from the draft during the Vietnam War. “This was much easier.”
Trump, in a written statement meant to respond directly to the president’s remarks, called Clinton “unfit to serve in any government office.” He also accused Obama and Clinton of allowing Americans to be slaughtered in Benghazi, Libya, letting veterans die waiting for medical care, and releasing immigrants into the United States to kill innocent people.
"Our nation has been humiliated abroad and compromised by radical Islam brought onto our shores," Trump's statement said. "We need change now."
On Tuesday, retiring New York Representative Richard Hanna became the first Republican member of Congress to say he will vote for Clinton.
‘‘He is unfit to serve our party and cannot lead this country,’’ Hanna wrote in a column published in The Post-Standard newspaper of Syracuse. ‘‘He is unrepentant in all things.’’
Later, Hewlett-Packard executive Meg Whitman — a prominent Republican fund-raiser — threw her support behind Clinton, saying, ‘‘Donald Trump’s demagoguery has undermined the fabric of our national character.’’
Back to the women again.
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What a bunch of crybabies!
Related: Bergdahl lawyers: McCain comments violate due process rights
Sir, have you no decency?!!
