Octopus Overlords

Republican Donald Trump insisted on Wednesday that his presidential campaign is unified, even as he faces open revolt from some in his party amid one of the most disruptive controversies of his unruly White House run. "There is great unity in my campaign, perhaps greater than ever before. I want to thank everyone for your tremendous support. Beat Crooked H!" the Republican nominee wrote on Twitter early Wednesday, referring to Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

The message belied the chaos that has erupted in the Republican Party after the New York real estate magnate engaged for days in a public dispute with the parents of a Muslim American soldier who died in Iraq. The uproar has led many Republicans to distance themselves from Trump and voice support for the Khan family. Several media outlets reported on Wednesday that the campaign is in disarray and that Trump had rejected advice from his staff to drop the battle with the Khans.

According to one news report, the Republican National Committee is looking at its options in case Trump drops out. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus is furious about the dispute with the Khans and has spoken with Trump repeatedly asking him to change course, ABC News reported Wednesday. It said senior officials are looking into how to replace Trump on the Republican ticket for the Nov. 8 election. The Trump campaign had no immediate comment on the report.

Late on Tuesday, Meg Whitman, a prominent Republican fundraiser and chief executive of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE.N), endorsed Clinton's White House bid, calling Trump an "authoritarian character" and a threat to democracy. In an interview with The New York Times, Whitman said it was time "to put country first before party."

godhugh wrote:Is it just me or are things spiraling out of control (more then usual, at least) for Trump right now?

hepcat wrote:I'm still holding firm to my belief that he has no intent of winning, just increasing name recognition for his brand.

hepcat wrote:I'm still holding firm to my belief that he has no intent of winning, just increasing name recognition for his brand. It's like watching a real life version of The Producers set in a political arena at this point.

godhugh wrote:Is it just me or are things spiraling out of control (more then usual, at least) for Trump right now?

Donald Trump asked a foreign policy expert advising him why the U.S. can't use nuclear weapons, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said on the air Wednesday, citing an unnamed source who claimed he had spoken with the GOP presidential nominee.

"Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can't we use them," Scarborough said on his "Morning Joe" program.

malchior wrote:Amazingly I just saw them still battling Khan today on CNN. This whole debacle has been amazing on a level that I don't think has been seen in modern politics in any 1st world nation. The big takeaway is that the coronation as the official nominee looks like it broke the Trumpbot for good.

Isgrimnur wrote:We will all go together when we go

Donald Trump asked a foreign policy expert advising him why the U.S. can't use nuclear weapons, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said on the air Wednesday, citing an unnamed source who claimed he had spoken with the GOP presidential nominee.

"Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can't we use them," Scarborough said on his "Morning Joe" program.

(source)

Dear Chairman Cruz:

We write to express our concern regarding recent remarks made by presidential nominee Donald Trump and the threat of foreign influence in U.S. elections. On July 27, reporters asked Mr. Trump several questions regarding the cyber breach of the Democratic National Committee and potential Russian involvement.[1] When asked if he would call on Russian President Vladimir Putin to stay out of the United States’ presidential election, Mr. Trump stated: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. . . . I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”[2] Mr. Trump’s apparent encouragement of a foreign cyberattack on presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, a U.S. citizen and former Secretary of State, is dangerous and irresponsible. We ask that you conduct an oversight hearing to determine whether existing federal criminal statutes and federal court jurisdiction sufficiently address conduct related to foreign entities that could undermine our elections.

As two dozen national security experts stated in a recent letter calling for a congressional investigation, this is “not a partisan issue” but rather “an assault on the integrity of the entire American political process.”[3] The “hacking of a political party’s email system by Russian intelligence agencies would, if proven, constitute unprecedented foreign interference in an American presidential campaign.”[4]

Mr. Trump’s encouragement of a Russian cyber incursion of a U.S. presidential candidate represents an unprecedented call for a foreign government to spy on a U.S. citizen and interfere with a U.S. election. The threat Russia poses to cybersecurity has long been recognized as a national security issue, with a 2009 National Intelligence Estimate warning that Russia had the most “robust, longstanding program that combines a patient, multidisciplinary approach to computer network operations with proven access and tradecraft.”[5] Recent Russian attempts to influence foreign elections – in Ukraine, Georgia, and France, for example – by engaging in cyberwarfare and orchestrated leaks are well documented.[6] Mr. Trump’s comments implicate U.S. criminal laws prohibiting engagement with foreign governments that threaten the country’s interests, including the Logan Act and the Espionage Act. They threaten the privacy of a U.S. citizen and former government official, inviting Russia to engage in conduct that would violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and, if performed by the U.S. government, would contravene the Fourth Amendment. Finally, Mr. Trump has invited foreign interference with the presidential election, which we believe should be carefully guarded against under U.S. law.

To ensure the integrity of the presidential election and its insulation from Russian cyber threats, we ask that you conduct an oversight hearing to consider whether existing federal criminal statutes and federal court jurisdiction sufficiently address conduct related to foreign entities that could undermine our elections. Specifically, we ask that you consider whether requests for foreign entities to conduct cyber attacks on political opponents violate existing federal criminal statutes, and whether there are obstacles to the federal courts asserting jurisdiction to protect the integrity of our nation’s elections.



Sincerely,

Christopher A. Coons Sheldon Whitehouse

United States Senator United States Senator

Billionaire businessman Donald Trump suggested on Saturday that he would have had "less difficulty" if he had proposed barring Christians from entering the US instead of Muslims.
...
"If I said that about Christians, and if I said 'banned,' I'm telling you I would have had less difficulty," Trump said Saturday. "And that's pretty sad, because we're Christians. I'm Protestant. I'm Presbyterian."

Some of Trump's critics have questioned the sincerity of his faith, noting that the real-estate mogul recently said he doesn't like to ask God for forgiveness.

But Trump unequivocally embraced the evangelical Christian community throughout the start of his Saturday speech in Sioux Center, Iowa.

"I'm a true believer. And you're many true believers — I hope all — is everybody a true believer in this room? I think so. But Christianity is under tremendous siege," Trump told supporters at Dordt College, a Christian liberal-arts school.

The real-estate mogul lamented that Christians do not wield as much political influence in the US as they could.

"The power of our group of people together, I mean, if you add it up ... it could be 240, 250 million. And yet we don't exert the power that we should have. Now, I think some of the churches are afraid of their tax status, to be honest," he said.

"But you know the fact is that there is nothing the politicians can do to you if you band together. You have too much power. But the Christians don't use their power," Trump said. "We have to strengthen. Because we are getting — if you look, it's death by a million cuts — we are getting less and less and less powerful in terms of a religion, and in terms of a force," he continued.

Trump then complained that big department stores do not say "merry Christmas" during the holidays.
...
Trump vowed to change the department-store situation when it comes to wishing people "merry Christmas."

"I'll tell you one thing: I get elected president, we're going to be saying 'merry Christmas' again. Just remember that," he said. "And by the way, Christianity will have power, without having to form."

He added: "Because if I'm there, you're going to have plenty of power. You don't need anybody else. You're going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that."

Isgrimnur wrote:BI

Billionaire businessman Donald Trump suggested on Saturday that he would have had "less difficulty" if he had proposed barring Christians from entering the US instead of Muslims.
...
"If I said that about Christians, and if I said 'banned,' I'm telling you I would have had less difficulty," Trump said Saturday. "And that's pretty sad, because we're Christians. I'm Protestant. I'm Presbyterian."

Some of Trump's critics have questioned the sincerity of his faith, noting that the real-estate mogul recently said he doesn't like to ask God for forgiveness.

But Trump unequivocally embraced the evangelical Christian community throughout the start of his Saturday speech in Sioux Center, Iowa.

"I'm a true believer. And you're many true believers — I hope all — is everybody a true believer in this room? I think so. But Christianity is under tremendous siege," Trump told supporters at Dordt College, a Christian liberal-arts school.

The real-estate mogul lamented that Christians do not wield as much political influence in the US as they could.

"The power of our group of people together, I mean, if you add it up ... it could be 240, 250 million. And yet we don't exert the power that we should have. Now, I think some of the churches are afraid of their tax status, to be honest," he said.

"But you know the fact is that there is nothing the politicians can do to you if you band together. You have too much power. But the Christians don't use their power," Trump said. "We have to strengthen. Because we are getting — if you look, it's death by a million cuts — we are getting less and less and less powerful in terms of a religion, and in terms of a force," he continued.

Trump then complained that big department stores do not say "merry Christmas" during the holidays.
...
Trump vowed to change the department-store situation when it comes to wishing people "merry Christmas."

"I'll tell you one thing: I get elected president, we're going to be saying 'merry Christmas' again. Just remember that," he said. "And by the way, Christianity will have power, without having to form."

He added: "Because if I'm there, you're going to have plenty of power. You don't need anybody else. You're going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that."

Isgrimnur wrote:

Donald Trump asked a foreign policy expert advising him why the U.S. can't use nuclear weapons, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said on the air Wednesday, citing an unnamed source who claimed he had spoken with the GOP presidential nominee.

"Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can't we use them," Scarborough said on his "Morning Joe" program.

Isgrimnur wrote:He'll quit in a huff on his own terms if there's a serious threat of him being ousted. If he quits, it will be on his terms.

Vu will be on the ballot this fall to become one the state's 16 electors in the Electoral College. When people cast votes for president, they're actually selecting electors who have pledged to back their candidate of choice—a distinction that generally has no practical implications. But Georgia is one of 21 states that don't legally require electors to vote in accordance with the outcome of the popular vote in their state. And according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution's Jim Galloway, Vu not only won't be voting for Trump in November as a citizen, he might not vote for the Republican nominee if he goes to the Electoral College.

Isgrimnur wrote:They're investigating. At the end of the day, the party is not a government institution. They don't have to play fair.

There is a rule, Rule 9, which spells out how a nominee can be replaced. But: “The rule is pretty clear about the conditions for filling a vacancy,” Putnam writes. “The list is short: death, declination or otherwise. And let’s be clear here: The rule is intended to fill vacancies, not to lay the groundwork for a replacement.

“Some have speculated that ‘otherwise’ is ambiguous. Taken out of context it is,” he continued. “However, under the provisions for filling vacancies, it clearly fills in any gap between death and declination (i.e.: an incapacitating illness, but one that leaves the nominee neither dead nor able to decline to run further). And that was the intention.” In other words, the only way Trump won't be the nominee is if he drops dead, falls into a coma or simply decides not to run.

It’s possible that the party could amend the rule, Putnam notes. “There have only been two instances in which the convention allowed — under rule — rules changes outside the convention,” he wrote. That said, the party spent the weeks leading up to and including their convention making clear that they had a unified front and wouldn’t change the rules to stymie Trump. “A majority of the committee would have to pass any change and then three-quarters of the full 168 member RNC would have to vote in favor of it for any change to be adopted,” Putnam explains. “That’s a high bar in uncertain times.”

Changing the rule would raise another problem: backlash.

A third problem for replacing Trump is that states have guidelines on when and how people can be removed from the ballot.

Isgrimnur wrote:They're investigating. At the end of the day, the party is not a government institution. They don't have to play fair.

Presidential nominee Donald Trump’s days of dividing the Republican Party are not over.

Far from consolidating his support since becoming the party’s nominee, he’s doing his damnedest to drive sentient Republicans from his column. His refusal Tuesday to endorse the re-election bids of House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Arizona Senator John McCain (whom Trump already slammed for being a prisoner of war in Vietnam) makes this abundantly clear. Not to mention ejecting a crying baby from his rally earlier that day.

President Barack Obama clearly counted on this GOP buyers’ remorse when he suggested at his Tuesday press conference that the Republicans un-nominate Trump.

Obama must know that there’s no plausible way that could happen. Yet he also probably, and correctly, anticipated that his suggestion wouldn’t cause Republicans to reflexively defend Trump – even though everything else Obama says and does instantly provokes an opposite and more-than-equal reaction from the GOP.

Such are the doubts that Trump has inspired in his own ranks, however, that no such rallying to the Donald’s banner occurred. Instead, the Great GOP What-Do-We-Do-With-Our-Nominee debate rages on.

Among Republican thought leaders, two opposing arguments have emerged. One, exemplified by commentator Hugh Hewitt, argues that keeping Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton from making liberal appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court should transcend all other considerations for conservatives. “If Hillary Clinton wins,” Hewitt wrote in Monday’s Washington Examiner, “the left gavels in a solid, lasting, almost certainly permanent majority on the Supreme Court.”

Hewitt sees a President Trump as the solution. “The vast majority of his team in the executive branch,” Hewitt adds, “will be conservatives.”

The other tendency, exemplified by Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens, whose conservative bona fides are every bit as sound as Hewitt’s, argues that questions of ideology pale alongside those of Trump’s fitness for office – much less for the presidency.

“The central issue in this election isn’t Trump’s ideas, such as they are,” Stephens wrote in Tuesday’s Journal. ”It’s his character, such as it is…. His problem isn’t a lack of normal propriety but the absence of basic human decency. He is morally unfit for any office, high or low.”

Alongside that moral deformity – so overwhelmingly in evidence with Trump’s attacks on the Gold Star parents of deceased Medal of Honor winner Army Captain Humayun Khan – comes a further deformity guaranteed to keep many Republicans awake at night: Trump’s complete lack of impulse control.

He may be surrounded by the kind of conservative pros whose presence lets Hewitt snooze undisturbed. But none of those pros could keep Trump from attacking the Khans. Or, some weeks earlier, attacking a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University for having Mexican ancestry.

The question of whether the finger on the nuclear button should belong to a guy with the impulse control of a 2-year-old – and so completely impervious to fact that he confessed on Sunday he didn’t know that Russia had soldiers in Ukraine – isn’t a question of ideology. Either his own or those of his appointees.

In 1964, the Democrats’ broadcast their famous “Daisy” ad, which implied that Republican nominee Barry Goldwater’s loose talk about nukes might just lead to a nuclear holocaust. It aired two years after the Cuban missile crisis had frightened the American public as never before.

Though a few commentators upped the ante by implying that Goldwater might just be a bit unstable, that line of attack never caught on. No one went so far as to suggest that Goldwater had no control over his emotions, or that he responded to challenges by lashing out blindly and relentlessly.

No one needs to suggest that about Trump, either. With each passing day, he demonstrates he has no control over his easily piqued rage.

A number of conservative intellectuals have already abandoned Trump for his heresies against some venerable conservative tenets. Columnist George Will leads this particular pack. But it’s Stephens’ argument, that Trump is, by dint of character and intellect – or lack thereof – unfit to be president that you’d think would carry more weight with conservatives.

Instead, what we’ve been seeing, with a few notable exceptions, is a series of profiles in cowardice. Obama’s suggestion to the contrary, there’s really no way the party can un-nominate Trump. Even if Republicans could agree on that, it’s doubtful they could readily settle on an alternative nominee. If they could, they wouldn’t have split their vote among so many candidates during the primaries.

But could leading Republicans individually announce that, putting country over party, they’re refusing to support Trump? Of course they could. Indeed, for Ryan and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, repudiating Trump could actually yield some long-term benefits.

For Republicans with a rooting interest in their party’s future, rejecting Trump wouldn’t only be a matter of putting country above party. However much such repudiations might hurt the party this November – and it’s by no means clear that they would – they would surely help it in the long run.

The very groups that Trump attacks – Latinos most particularly – are the groups that are increasing in numbers within the electorate. In future election cycles, such groups, and many Americans with a sense of common decency, are likely to regard Republicans who knew better but stuck with Trump as unworthy of the public trust.

And they’d be right.

LordMortis wrote: Is there a point where it's appropriate to call the trumpster fires who eat up this piece of shit pieces of shit as well?