Liberal Forum

Ally of Trump staffer Paul Manafort: The staff is 'suicidal,' he's mailing it in.

Donald Trump's behavior in recent days, from criticizing the parents of a fallen American soldier to declining to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan,

has strained the nerves of his campaign staff as he falls behind in the polls.

I exchanged messages Tuesday evening with a longtime ally of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, whom I asked about who was calling the shots in the campaign.

The response indicated that Manafort, a veteran of Republican politics brought in this spring for the transition from primaries to the general election, has lost control over his candidate.

"Manafort not challenging (Trump) anymore," Manafort's ally wrote. "Mailing it in. Staff suicidal."

Misty » 03 Aug 2016 2:59 pm » wrote:New York Times reporters have covered Donald J. Trump's rallies for more than a year.
His supporters at these events often express their views in angry and provocative ways.
Here are some examples.

Voices From Donald Trump’s Rallies, Uncensored - Video

Warning Foul Language!!!

Was Trump right about the Harrisburg 'war zone'? Look at the data.



It's still unclear what exactly Donald Trump saw that inspired him to describe Harrisburg as a "war zone."

But what the Republican presidential nominee couldn't see from his private jet is the region's strong economic history through recessions and other downturns.

While the Harrisburg area has certainly lost manufacturing jobs as Trump implied, the losses weren't enough to push the capital city out of its standing as the Pennsylvania metropolitan area with the second-lowest unemployment rate.

The Dauphin County unemployment rate has remained lower than the state average since the recession hit. For example, the county average was 5.0 percent in June, while the Pennsylvania average was 5.6 percent.

A 5 percent unemployment rate is the rate at which most economists say someone who wants a job can find one.

The average in Cumberland County, where Trump spoke Monday night, was 4.1 percent in June.

During that campaign stop at Cumberland Valley High School in Mechanicsburg, Trump told an adoring crowd he would bring back their jobs.

Some 15 hours later at a campaign stop in Ashburn, Virginia, Trump said Harrisburg "looked like a war zone" because of factory closings.

"It was unfortunate to characterize this region that way from 20,000 feet off the ground," said Patti Bucek, vice president of the Harrisburg Regional Chamber & CREDC.

"Without even looking at the stats or progress we've made, that comment was ill-conceived."

If Trump analyzed the job statistics in the area, he'd know there are more jobs in the region than people to fill them, she said.

The highest number of job openings is in logistics, manufacturing, health care and technology.

"Trump made a difficult claim," said Mark Price, a labor economist at the Keystone Research Center. "I wouldn't describe the region's economy as a 'war zone.' It's a growing economy."

He also pointed to the region's recovery.

"Harrisburg weathered the recession better and recovered faster," Price said.

Misty » 03 Aug 2016 9:36 pm » wrote:WOW! Republicans fighting with each other! I love it!

9 Terrifying Things Donald Trump Has Publicly Said About Nuclear Weapons

On Wednesday, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough passed on an intriguing piece of gossip: Donald Trump, speaking with a “foreign policy expert,” repeatedly asked “why can’t we use nuclear weapons.”

Scarborough’s claim was thinly sourced.

He didn’t reveal the identity of the expert advising Trump or even where he learned the information.

Information attributed to anonymous sources is inherently suspect.

But one need not rely on anonymous sources to glean Trump’s views on nuclear weapons.

He has broached the subject repeatedly on the campaign trail.

Several of his public comments are similar to Scarborough’s account while others are terrifying in their own way.

1. Trump said he might use nuclear weapons and questioned why we would make them if we wouldn’t use them

2. Trump said he was open to nuking Europe because it’s a “big place”

3. Trump said that “you want to be unpredictable” with nuclear weapons

4. Trump reiterated that it was important to be “unpredictable” with nuclear weapons

5. Trump said he wasn’t that worried about more countries getting nukes since “it’s not like, gee whiz, nobody has them”

6. Trump had no idea what the “nuclear triad” was

7. Trump started talking about nuclear weapons in Pakistan and made no sense at all

8. Trump said he’d be OK with a nuclear arms race in Asia

9. The time he said it didn’t matter if Saudi Arabia acquired nuclear weapons because “it’s going to happen anyway”

Misty » 04 Aug 2016 11:23 am » wrote:

Misty » 04 Aug 2016 1:48 pm » wrote:


http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/congress ... d=41097485

crimsongulf » 04 Aug 2016 8:05 pm » wrote:ya know, we have had one of these virus or flu scares every year for about 15 years. Bird flu, swine flu, etc, and just like all of those killer hurricanes they have all been a fart in the wind.

I Ran the C.I.A. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton

By MICHAEL J. MORELL
AUG. 5, 2016

During a 33-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, I served presidents of both parties — three Republicans and three Democrats. I was at President George W. Bush’s side when we were attacked on Sept. 11; as deputy director of the agency, I was with President Obama when we killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

I am neither a registered Democrat nor a registered Republican. In my 40 years of voting, I have pulled the lever for candidates of both parties. As a government official, I have always been silent about my preference for president.

No longer. On Nov. 8, I will vote for Hillary Clinton. Between now and then, I will do everything I can to ensure that she is elected as our 45th president.

Two strongly held beliefs have brought me to this decision. First, Mrs. Clinton is highly qualified to be commander in chief. I trust she will deliver on the most important duty of a president — keeping our nation safe. Second, Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.

I spent four years working with Mrs. Clinton when she was secretary of state, most often in the White House Situation Room. In these critically important meetings, I found her to be prepared, detail-oriented, thoughtful, inquisitive and willing to change her mind if presented with a compelling argument.

I also saw the secretary’s commitment to our nation’s security; her belief that America is an exceptional nation that must lead in the world for the country to remain secure and prosperous; her understanding that diplomacy can be effective only if the country is perceived as willing and able to use force if necessary; and, most important, her capacity to make the most difficult decision of all — whether to put young American women and men in harm’s way.

Mrs. Clinton was an early advocate of the raid that brought Bin Laden to justice, in opposition to some of her most important colleagues on the National Security Council. During the early debates about how we should respond to the Syrian civil war, she was a strong proponent of a more aggressive approach, one that might have prevented the Islamic State from gaining a foothold in Syria.

I never saw her bring politics into the Situation Room. In fact, I saw the opposite. When some wanted to delay the Bin Laden raid by one day because the White House Correspondents Dinner might be disrupted, she said, “Screw the White House Correspondents Dinner.”

In sharp contrast to Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump has no experience on national security. Even more important, the character traits he has exhibited during the primary season suggest he would be a poor, even dangerous, commander in chief.

These traits include his obvious need for self-aggrandizement, his overreaction to perceived slights, his tendency to make decisions based on intuition, his refusal to change his views based on new information, his routine carelessness with the facts, his unwillingness to listen to others and his lack of respect for the rule of law.

The dangers that flow from Mr. Trump’s character are not just risks that would emerge if he became president. It is already damaging our national security.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was a career intelligence officer, trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them. That is exactly what he did early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump’s vulnerabilities by complimenting him. He responded just as Mr. Putin had calculated.

Mr. Putin is a great leader, Mr. Trump says, ignoring that he has killed and jailed journalists and political opponents, has invaded two of his neighbors and is driving his economy to ruin. Mr. Trump has also taken policy positions consistent with Russian, not American, interests — endorsing Russian espionage against the United States, supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea and giving a green light to a possible Russian invasion of the Baltic States.

In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.

Mr. Trump has also undermined security with his call for barring Muslims from entering the country. This position, which so clearly contradicts the foundational values of our nation, plays into the hands of the jihadist narrative that our fight against terrorism is a war between religions.

In fact, many Muslim Americans play critical roles in protecting our country, including the man, whom I cannot identify, who ran the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center for nearly a decade and who I believe is most responsible for keeping America safe since the Sept. 11 attacks.

My training as an intelligence officer taught me to call it as I see it. This is what I did for the C.I.A. This is what I am doing now. Our nation will be much safer with Hillary Clinton as president.