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Reuters Poll Shows Trump Trouncing Bush. Huckabee Moves Into 2nd Place

August 25, 2015, 9:53 pm
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Trump's lead grows as Bush slips in Republican White House race: Reuters poll

Republican Jeb Bush's support is slipping in the race for the party's presidential nomination, and front-runner Donald Trump has opened a 20-point lead over his closest rivals, a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll showed on Tuesday.
Republican backing for Bush dipped from 16 percent to 8 percent in the last five days, the online poll found, as the former Florida governor feuded with Trump over immigration policy and defended his use of the term "anchor babies" to describe U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.
Trump's support remained largely unchanged over the last week at about 30 percent, well ahead of the 17-strong pack seeking to represent the Republican Party in the November 2016 presidential election.
Bush fell into a third-place tie with retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in the poll, and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee moved into second place with 10 percent.
Bush's dip came as he battled Trump over immigration in recent days, calling the real estate mogul's hard-line plan to deport undocumented immigrants and construct a wall on the Mexican border costly and unrealistic.
Bush also was forced to defend his use of the term "anchor babies," which some consider offensive, in a radio interview last week. Trump gleefully punched back with tweets that called Bush's efforts to explain himself "clumsy" and "a mess."
"Bush's numbers have been trending down, generally, and he has just been overshadowed by Trump," said Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson. "His argument that he will be the establishment's guy in the race is looking less and less convincing."
Trump's continued appeal has confounded the Republican establishment, which has been anxiously waiting for the party's primary voters to grow weary of his style.
Instead, Trump's support in the poll has largely held steady or grown, fueled by his image as a maverick who speaks his mind and stands up to authority.
The poll found about 77 percent of Republicans said Trump is appealing because he is not interested in being "politically correct," and about the same number said he is appealing because he confronts the media. About 68 percent said he was appealing because his personal fortune meant he was not indebted to donors.
Big majorities of Republicans now say Trump's participation in the party's presidential debates will challenge the establishment and open the party to new ideas.
The results in Tuesday's rolling poll are based on 511 Republicans and have a credibility interval of plus or minus 5 percent.

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Donald Trump Is Winning Women's Vote In Key Primary States. Also Leads Evangelical Vote

August 25, 2015, 10:14 pm
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Donald Trump supporters wait in line outside Ladd-Peebles Stadium hours before the start of a rally in Mobile, Alabama

Donald Trump is winning over women in key primary states, polls show

  • Republican frontrunner broadens appeal despite comments about women 
  • Trump leads with evangelical Christians in New Hampshire and South Carolina

New polls conducted in the key early-primary states New Hampshire and South Carolina show the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump not only with large leads over the rest of the GOP field, but with robust support among groups that had not previously shown strong backing for him, such as evangelical Christians and women.
The numbers arrived just as Trump let loose with fresh attacks on Republican rivals, including the former Florida governor Jeb Bush, and on media figures, including Fox News host Megyn Kelly.
In a continuation of a feud with Kelly that began at the first presidential debate, when she asked him about his past “disparaging comments about women’s looks”, Trump disparaged Kelly’s appearance on Twitter on Monday night ,retweeting a post that said Kelly had returned to her show after a hiatus “looking like Nancy Grace”, the legal commentator.

Recent Trump Tweets: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/25/donald-trump-women-voters-key-primary-states-polls?google_editors_picks=true
A poll of “usual Republican voters” in New Hampshire by left-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP) found Trump attracting 35% support, well beyond that of the runner-up, John Kasich, the Ohio governor, who was on 11%. Trump’s wide lead held among both evangelicals (32%) and women (30%).
In South Carolina, a Monmouth University poll of likely voters found Trump with a 30%-15% lead over neurosurgeon Ben Carson, his nearest rival in the state. Evangelical Christians in the poll backed Trump over Carson 33%-15%, and women backed Trump 25%-18%.
“Congrats @LindseyGrahamSC,” Trump tweeted gleefully at the senior senator from the state, who is also running for president and who has been a lacerating Trump critic. “You just got 4 points in your home state of SC—far better than zero nationally. You’re only 26 pts behind me.”
Graham responded sharply in a CNN interview Tuesday, accusing Trump of “demagoguery” and saying that he would best Trump in a head-to-head matchup.
“The way he attacks women is going to be a death blow to the future of our party,” Graham said. “Come to South Carolina and I’ll beat his brains out. I know my state.”
Early polling in presidential elections – election day is 441 days away – has in the past been weakly predictive, with other factors such as party support being more important.
Trump, who has said that he might switch from running as a Republican to running as an independent if he fails to win the GOP nomination, has not attracted wide support among Republican officials, elected or unelected. In a local television interview last week, Senator Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, said of Trump’s run: “I don’t think it’s a very serious candidacy, frankly.”
Trump also came under fire on Monday from Bush, who performed shabbily in the most recent polls. The PPP poll of New Hampshire voters had Bush tied for fourth with 7%, while the Monmouth poll of South Carolina voters had Bush in third with 9%.
During a visit to a Texas border town, Bush said Trump’s plan on immigration was “unrealistic” and recommended that the developer read a book that he, Bush, had written on the subject.
“He needs to be held to account for his views,” Bush said of Trump.
True to form, Trump gave better than he got, in the form of a short video published on Monday night on the candidate’s Instagram account. The spot highlights a 2013 interview in which Barbara Bush, Jeb Bush’s mother, said that her son should not run for president.
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"You Don't Really Need To Work So Much," The New Yorker

August 25, 2015, 10:26 pm
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Experts once predicted that Americans would face an excess of leisure time.





You Really Don’t Need To Work So Much

BY 







Recently, the New York Times ran a front-page story about the conditionsfor white-collar workers at Amazon. It revealed a workplace where abrupt firings are common, grown men and women cry at their desks, and people are scolded for not responding to e-mails after midnight. The story made clear how much things have changed in the American workforce. Once upon a time, it was taken for granted that the wealthier classes enjoyed a life of leisure on the backs of the proletariat. Today it is people in skilled trades who can most find reasonable hours coupled with good pay; the American professional is among those subject to humiliation and driven like a beast of burden.
No one thought things would be this way. Keynes famously forecast a three-hour workday, and in 1964 Life magazine devoted a two-part series to what it considered a “real threat” facing American society: the coming epidemic of too much leisure time. In “The Emptiness of Too Much Leisure,” it asserted that “some of the middle-of-the-road prophets of what automation is doing to our economy think that we are on the verge of a 30-hour week.” The follow-up was entitled “The Task Ahead: How to Take Life Easy.”


Fifty years later, it’s fair to say that the looming leisure crisis has been licked. The work week at places like law firms, banks, and high-tech companies has steadily increased, to levels considered intolerable by many people. Indeed, in 2006, the top twenty per cent of earners were twice as likely to work more than fifty hours a week than the bottom twenty per cent, a reversal of historic conditions.
Just why this has happened is both a mystery and a paradox. The past fifty years have seen massive gains in productivity, the invention of countless labor-saving devices, and the mass entry of women into the formal workforce. If we assume that there is, to a certain degree, a fixed amount of work necessary for society to function, how can we at once be more productive, have more workers, and yet still be working more hours? Something else must be going on.
The question has proved a source of fascination for economists and writers, such as Brigid Schulte, a Washington Post reporter, who wrote a personal investigation of the question. (She ended up, in large part, blaming her husband, who wasn’t sharing equally in the burden of running their home.) As Elizabeth Kolbert has written, everyone agrees that there is no one simple answer to the question. Some people think that Americans just prefer work to leisure; a strong work ethic, according to this theory, has become a badge of honor for anyone with a college degree. If you’re busy, you seem important. There is also the pride that people can have in their work; they also find love and free food at workplaces, and go to conferences as a form of vacation. Others think the rise in work must somehow be related to inequality: as people at the top of the income ladder earn more money, each hour they work becomes more valuable. And there’s the theory that our needs and desires grow as we consume more, producing an even greater need to work.
What all of these explanations have in common is the idea that the answer comes from examining workers’ decisions and incentives. There’s something missing: the question of whether the American system, by its nature, resists the possibility of too much leisure, even if that’s what people actually want, and even if they have the means to achieve it. In other words, the long hours may be neither the product of what we really want nor the oppression of workers by the ruling class, the old Marxist theory. They may be the byproduct of systems and institutions that have taken on lives of their own and serve no one’s interests. That can happen if some industries have simply become giant make-work projects that trap everyone within them.
What counts as work, in the skilled trades, has some intrinsic limits; once a house or bridge is built, that’s the end of it. But in white-collar jobs, the amount of work can expand infinitely through the generation of false necessities—that is, reasons for driving people as hard as possible that have nothing to do with real social or economic needs. Consider the litigation system, in which the hours worked by lawyers at large law firms are a common complaint. If dispute resolution is the social function of the law, what we have is far from the most efficient way to reach fair or reasonable resolutions. Instead, modern litigation can be understood as a massive, socially unnecessary arms race, wherein lawyers subject each other to torturous amounts of labor just because they can. In older times, the limits of technology and a kind of professionalism created a natural limit to such arms races, but today neither side can stand down, lest it put itself at a competitive disadvantage.
A typical analysis blames greedy partners for crazy hours, but the irony is that the people at the top are often as unhappy and overworked as those at the bottom: it is a system that serves almost no one. Moreover, our many improvements in the technologies of productivity make the arms-race problem worse. The fact that employees are now always reachable eliminates what was once a natural barrier of sorts, the idea that work was something that happened during office hours or at the physical office. With no limits, work becomes like a football game where the whistle is never blown.
Litigation may be an extreme example, but I do not doubt that many other industries have their own arms races that create work that is of dubious necessity. The antidote is simple to prescribe but hard to achieve: it is a return to the goal of efficiency in work—fulfilling whatever needs we have, as a society, with the minimal effort required, while leaving the option of more work as a hobby for those who happen to love it. In this respect, it seems like no little irony that Amazon should be a brutal workplace when its ostensible guiding principle is making people’s lives better. There must be a better way.

Tim Wu writes regularly for newyorker.com. He is a professor at Columbia Law School and the director of the Poliak Center for the First Amendment at the Columbia Journalism School.

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Bombastic Billionaire Wants Docile Piece Of Ass

August 25, 2015, 10:34 pm
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Donald Trump continues to soar in most recent poll. Wins evangelical vote by decisive margin.

Trump Twitter Tirade

Fox News Wants Apology

WASHINGTON: The Fox News chairman demanded an apology from Donald Trump (pix) Tuesday after he resumed attacks on popular TV host Megyn Kelly, dramatically re-igniting a feud between the broadcaster and the Republican frontrunner.
Trump used his Twitter account late Monday to slam Kelly as she returned from vacation to host her show, a revival of his brutal criticism of her after she asked pointed questions of the bombastic billionaire during an Aug 6 debate featuring Republican presidential hopefuls.
Trump retweeted a comment from a user late Monday calling Kelly a "bimbo," and said her show "was much better without Megyn Kelly. Her replacement while she was out on vacation was much better!"
Kelly likely had a "terrible vacation" because "she is really off her game," Trump added.
The comments drew strong reaction from Fox chairman Roger Ailes, a former Republican advisor and strategist who still holds tremendous sway within the party.
"Donald Trump's surprise and unprovoked attack on Megyn Kelly during her show last night is as unacceptable as it is disturbing," Ailes said in a statement read on the air by a Fox News anchor.
Kelly "represents the very best of American journalism and all of us at Fox News Channel reject the crude and irresponsible attempts to suggest otherwise," he added.
"Donald Trump rarely apologises, although in this case, he should."
The exchange was noteworthy because it comes after Trump and Ailes sought to make peace after the contentious debate, which aired on Fox and was watched by a record number of viewers.
Trump launched a Twitter tirade against Kelly the night after the debate, saying she "bombed" as a moderator, was the "loser" of the debate and treated him unfairly for asking crude questions about his previous comments about women.
Trump has soared in the polls since he announced his presidential campaign in June. He comes across to many voters as a straight talker with no filter, antagonising the Washington establishment.
Republican rival Senator Lindsey Graham lashed out Tuesday at Trump, telling CNN that the real estate mogul's views on women and immigrants did not reflect today's GOP.
"If Donald Trump is the nominee, that's the end of the Republican Party," Graham said.
Meanwhile, a new Public Policy Polling survey in the key primary state of New Hampshire showed Trump, at 35%, clearly ahead of his GOP competitors.
PPP said the results put Trump in the strongest position of any poll it has carried out since he threw his hat in the ring.
Trailing far behind in second place was Ohio Governor John Kasich at 11%, followed by former HP chief executive Carly Fiorina at 10%. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker are tied at seven percent each. – AFP

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Primary System Now Costs $5 Billion. Nation Needs Cheaper Way To Find Worst People.

August 26, 2015, 8:07 am
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Donald Trump’s Jorge Ramos News Conference, Annotated

August 26, 2015, 8:11 am
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Jorge Ramos, most notable latino reporter
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Ramos_(news_anchor)


Donald Trump’s Jorge Ramos news conference, annotated

Chris Cilizza

SAM CLOVIS, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I felt it was the honorable thing to do for Governor Perry. I think the world of him, to step aside, so I wouldn't have to be part of the calculus of figuring out to get me back on board, and those kind of things. And as such, I had the opportunity to look at other situations and this is a situation that presented itself. And I'm very happy and very proud to be here.
(INAUDIBLE)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: OK. Who is next? Yes, please. Sit down. You weren't called. Sit down. Sit down. Go ahead.
JORGE RAMOS: I have the right --
TRUMP: No, you don't. You haven't been called.
RAMOS: I have the right to ask a question.
TRUMP: No, you haven't been called. Go back to Univision.
Go ahead. Go ahead.
(INAUDIBLE)
TRUMP: Go ahead.
Sit down please. You weren't called.
Go.
RAMOS: I have the right to ask questions.
TRUMP: Yes, go ahead.
BLITZER: That's Jorge Ramos. He is being escorted out of the room. He was asking a question. Donald Trump didn't call on him. That is why he is being removed.
Jose Ramos refused to back down. Let's listen in.
TRUMP: Because I thought her questioning and her attitude was totally inappropriate. So it just -- well, if you look, all you have to do is look on the Internet and you will see who people favor in that one. But I wouldn't -- it is a very small element in my life, Megyn Kelly. I don't care about Megyn Kelly. No, I would not apologize.
She should probably apologize to me but I just don't care.
Yes, Katy. Go ahead.
REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) a pledge to have the nominee on balance. (INAUDIBLE)
TRUMP: Right. We just heard about it today. And we're looking at it. We certainly have plenty of time. That doesn't come due for a long period of time. We certainly have -- September 30th. Yes, we certainly have a long period of time to think about it. So, we're thinking about it.
And, look, and I say to everybody, we're leading every poll, we're leading every state from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina to North Carolina, polls have come in from virtually every place and we're leading every place. We're doing incredibly nationally.
The one poll came out today at 40 percent, over 40 percent. So my whole desire is just fairness. I want to run as the Republican nominee. I want to win. I think we will win. We have tremendous spirit in this party.
I've been contacted by so many people that haven't voted for years. They haven't voted for year. They love the Republican Party, but they haven't wanted to vote. They're going to be out there and they're energized.
We're going on win. So, I don't think it's going to matter because I think I'm going to get the nomination. And I think we're going to go on to win and we'll make America great again. so, that's all that matters to me.
Well, I didn't say that.
[18:50:00] I will certainly consider it. And we have a lot of time to worry about it.
Yes?
REPORTER: You're running for president and one of our country's top journalists, an anchor of Univision, was just escorted out of the news conference. Do you think you handle the situation --
TRUMP: I don't know. I mean, I don't know really much about him. I don't believe I ever met him, except he started screaming and I didn't escort him out. You'll have to talk to security. Whoever security escorted him out.
But, certainly, he wasn't chosen. I chose you and you're asking me questions. He stands up and starts screaming. So, you know, maybe he's at fault, also.
But I don't consider that. I mean, somebody walked him out. I don't know where he is. I don't mind if he doesn't come back, frankly.
Yes? Yes?
(INAUDIBLE)
TRUMP: No, I'm not. I've done meet and greets, but I don't care if anybody, you know, we have a small group where people, I guess, it's over here where people can send in, one woman sent in $7 and 30 some odd cents and wrote a beautiful letter, and people are sending in $10 and $20. And I like that kind it's not a lot of money ultimately, but I'm not doing anything about raising money. I don't care about raising money.
I mean, part of my thing is frankly, I'm not controlled by anybody. These other people are raising hundreds of millions of dollars. I could do that easily. I don't want to do that. It's not necessary for me to do that.
The one up in New Hampshire is just a small ticket item. And, by the way, they can come in free, they can do whatever they want. And for me, it's just a meet and greet. It's going to take place in New Hampshire and I think in Massachusetts, and it's just a very small situation and I don't consider it a fundraiser.
In fact, people don't have to pay. They're just people that have been supporting me from the beginning. They're terrific people. They want to see good things happen for our country.
So, I could do fundraisers and raise millions and millions of dollars and as you know, I haven't done that, nor do I want to, OK?
But I do meet and greet. I have to meet people and that's part of what I'm doing and I'll be in New Hampshire, I'll be in Massachusetts, I'll be in South Carolina, I'll be in Dallas in a couple of weeks. We're going to be all over. OK?
Yes?
REPORTER: President Obama has taken some tough questions from Jorge Ramos. Is there a reason why you won't?
TRUMP: Because he was out of order. I would take questions in two seconds but he stood up and started screaming.
REPORTER: Would you let him back in now?
TRUMP: I told you already, if he wants to come back in -- you can't stand up and scream. I was saying to somebody else to, is that correct? I was saying yes, and this guy stands up and starts screaming.
He's obviously a very emotional person. OK? So I have no problem with it. I don't know him. I have no idea, but I would certainly love to have questions from him.
Yes? Yes, sir? Go ahead.
REPORTER: I wanted to ask you, Secretary Clinton was here two weeks ago (INAUDIBLE)
TRUMP: Her college what?
REPORTER: Her college affordability plan --
TRUMP: Yes.
We're coming out with a plan in about four weeks and I think it's going to make people very, very happy. We have so many people going all over the country. I've been asked so many times by students, what are we going to do?
You know, the ultimate question is create jobs, because the biggest problem is they have college debt. They have debt all over the place, right up to their neck and they come out and can't get a job in this country. Whether it's China or Japan or Mexico, they are all taking our jobs. We need jobs in our country. Enough with what we're doing with foreign trade.
So, I think that's one of the reasons we're leading by so much in the polls because know that I'm going to make good trade deals. It's not going to be this horrible situation where we get nothing.
You know, if you think about China, they took our jobs. They took our money. They took our base. They took our manufacturing and we owe them $1.4 trillion. How do you figure that? It's like a magic act.
We owe them $1.4 trillion right now. We owe Japan $1.4 trillion, same amount. Two countries and they sell cars to us by the millions. And we owe them money. How do you figure that?
So, we're going to turn that around. Yes?
REPORTER: The campaign, after all is said and done, cost about $1 billion for every candidate. You have a lot of money but ultimately, just $300 million in liquid assets, it's not --
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Well, you saw my income is almost $500 million a year. If I want to, I can do that.
At some point, the Republican Party once you get the nomination will kick in and a lot of money will come into the campaign, I would say.
REPORTER: Will you beholden into those interests?
TRUMP: I don't think so. I can tell you right now. In fact, I've told people I turned down and I sort of made that, I think I told you this last week, the week before last, a lobbyist a person, very good person came to me, offered $5 million, please, I want to give you $5 million for the campaign. I said I have no interest in taking that.
In fact, it's the first time I think he's ever been told down.
[18:55:00] He told me. I think it's the first time he's been turned down because I know this person, good person, smart, tough, he'll coming to me and saying in two years, in one year, in four years, he'll be representing a country, maybe a company or maybe a person, I'm not doing anything for him.
So, I said I don't want to embarrass you by taking your money and then saying, I'm not going to see you. I'm working for one thing, for the people, and we're going to make the country strong and rich and great, and I hate to say rich, but we're a poor nation. We owe now $19 trillion. It's actually much more than that but it's $19 trillion. We're going to get things back in shape. This country is going to be so strong and so great and you're going to be so proud of it. So when he offered $5 million, I know he's going to be coming and it will be adverse to the people of this country. So, I didn't take his money.
Yes, sir?
REPORTER: Governor Bush and immigration. Yesterday he was down by the border in Texas, he said your immigration is unrealistic and it would cost too much money and is not conservative, and he suggested (INAUDIBLE) an immigration policy --
TRUMP: I watched him, by the way, and he had a very small crowd and very little enthusiasm. He is a low energy person. You need a lot of energy to get this country turned around, including immigration.
And the word immigration and illegal immigration you wouldn't be asking this question if it weren't for me, because when I came out and when I announced, I'm the one that started this whole thing, and I took a lot of flak the first two weeks and now everyone is apologizing to me.
I mean, people in this room are apologizing to me because I brought something up that's very, very serious. I brought up the crime. I brought up all of the things that happened since, including Kate who this wonderful person from San Francisco with an incredible family who I got to know a little bit, and Jamiel who was gunned down by an illegal immigrant and so many others.
The other day, in California, 66-year-old veteran, OK? 66-year- old veteran was raped, sodomized, beaten and killed by an illegal immigrant. That's few of many. That's a big problem.
So, you ask the question Jeb Bush doesn't have a clue. He doesn't even have a clue. And if I weren't in this campaign, Jeb Bush would not talk about illegal immigration.
If you remember, he said he come as an act of love. OK? Tell that to the families and there are many, many, many families who lost a loved one, act of love, OK?
No act of love. It's tough stuff, mean stuff and it's going to be taken care of. You know, a lot of the gangs that you see in Baltimore and St. Louis and Ferguson and Chicago, you know they are illegal immigrants. They are here illegally and they're rough dudes, rough people. They are going to be gone so fast if I win that your head will spin. They're going to be gone so fast. OK?
Yes, ma'am? Go ahead.
REPORTER: To your question --
TRUMP: Right.,
REPORTER: -- where do you stand on funding for Alzheimer's right now --
TRUMP: Right, sure. I'm very strong toward funding for Alzheimer's and helping -- it's a terrible situation and they haven't made much progress, unfortunately. But I'm very, very strong in trying to find an answer for Alzheimer's, big problem.
Yes, sir?
REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)
TRUMP: No, no, no, I didn't say -- I said TV, I said newspapers, I read "The Wall Street Journal", I read "New York Times", I read many, many newspapers and I read many magazines, I even read especially "Time Magazine" this particularly week, you know why? Because I'm on the cover. That's why I read.
But I read a lot about that. I read -- and I have people that I like and people that I respect and it's a great place. You get a cross section of everybody because you see people you never have the opportunity to see or meet and from there go and decide what you want to do.
But go ahead.
REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)
TRUMP: I do. I do they will be announced over the next two or three weeks.
REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)
TRUMP: That would be possible but to be honest, this country is in trouble. Infrastructure is crumbling, our roads, our bridges, our airports, we're in such trouble that I'm going to spend a lot of time here. We're going to fix our country.
Our bridges, 59 percent of our bridges are in trouble. Think -- whoever heard of that? I mean, in trouble. Serious trouble. We're going to fix our country. I'm going to spend a lot of time here in the United States.
Yes, sir?
REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)
TRUMP: Well, I like Scott Walker. I've always liked him. And I supported him. I actually gave him quite a bit of money. I liked his fight. I liked his drive. And he actually came to my office six months ago and gave me a trophy, gave me a beautiful plaque and I thought that was very nice. And in the end, I think people see, though, that what is happening in Wisconsin, I love the people of Wisconsin. I know Wisconsin well. I have friends that live there and they are incredible people. But if you look at what is going on in Wisconsin, I think people saw that they have a $2.2 billion budget deficit, it was supposed to be a surplus of a billion. That's tremendous. They are borrowing to a point that nobody thought possible. They are ranked number 38 in the states, which isn't exactly a good ranking, better than others that are running but frankly it's not a good ranking and they have a lot of problems and there is a lot of division in the state to put it mildly. And I think people, I do like Scott but I think people have seen what's happened in the state and he was. You know, the first, when I first announced, I was second and he was first. I think it was a 10 percent and he was at 22 percent. Now I think I'm at 22 or 24 percent and he's at six percent. I think what happened is people have really looked seriously at what is going on in Wisconsin and that has not been helpful to him, unfortunately. Yes, go ahead.
(INAUDIBLE QUESTION)
Well, I do retweets and I mean, to a certain extent. I do. Yes. I think that's right. You want me to say no? I retweet. You know, I retweet for a reason, right? Go ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) Christian vote during the primaries.
TRUMP: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Bible is your favorite book.
TRUMP: That's right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there anyone in the bible that you really relate to that you -- that you look up to?
TRUMP: Nobody that I would compare to. It's actually a great question. I love the Bible. I love the Bible. I'm a Protestant. I'm a Presbyterian. I went to Sunday school. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, "The Power of Positive Thinking" was my pastor. He was until this day one of the great speakers I've ever seen. You hated to leave church. You hated when the sermon is over. That's how great he was. Marble Collegiate Church. And I also had a church in Jamaica, Queens, when I grew up in Queens. And it was wonderful. First Presbyterian church of Jamaica. And I was there for years. And that's where I went to Sunday school.
And, you know, one of the things that's so incredible about the New Hampshire numbers is I lead with everybody. I lead with old, with young, as you saw, you saw it, everybody. But one of the groups I lead with substantially, evangelicals. And I've led in Iowa, too, with the evangelicals. Because they get it. They're incredible people that are really smart. And they want to see our country thrive. And, but the beautiful thing -- because it was such a comprehensive poll in New Hampshire and they just went over everything. Tea Party like leading by a lot. Moderates leading by a lot. Everybody. Literally, I think, I mean, you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I led with every single group and by substantial numbers. So, I was very honored to lead but with the evangelicals. I love the evangelicals. Okay. Yes, good, absolutely. Good. Absolutely. Good to have you back. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much.
TRUMP: Okay.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION) -- full of empty promises.
TRUMP: Okay.
RAMOS: (INAUDIBLE) You cannot deny citizenship to the children. You cannot --
TRUMP: Why do you say that?
RAMOS: You cannot do that.
TRUMP: Well, a lot of people think -- no, no, excuse me. A lot of people, no, no, but a lot of people think that's not right, that an act of Congress can do it. Now, it's possibly going to have to be tested in courts. But a lot of people think that if you come and you're on the other side of the border -- I'm not talking about Mexico. Somebody on the other side of the border. A woman is getting ready to have a baby, she crosses the border for one day, has the baby, all of a sudden for the next 80 years, hopefully longer but for the next 80 years we have to take care of the people. No, no, no, I don't think so. Excuse me, some of the greatest legal scholars -- and I know some of these television scholars agree with you. But some of the great legal scholars agree that that's not true. That if you come across -- excuse me, just one second.
RAMOS: You're not answering the question.
TRUMP: No, no, I am answering. If you come across for one day, one day, and you have a baby, now the baby is going to be an American citizen. Excuse me. There are great legal scholars, the top, that say that's absolutely wrong. It's going to be tested. Okay?
RAMOS: How are you going to build a 1900-mile wall?
[19:05:05] TRUMP: Very easy. I'm a builder. That's easy. I build buildings that are -- can I tell you what's more complicated? What's more complicated is building a building that's 95 stories tall. Okay?
(INAUDIBLE QUESTION)
You think so? Really? I don't think so. A lot of people don't think so.
RAMOS: Over 40 percent of the people say there is (INAUDIBLE) --
TRUMP: I don't believe that. Okay. You're right. I don't believe it. And the drugs come. I see them. They have pictures, they have everything, crawling over the fences which are, by the way, this high. I mean, you have fences that are not as tall as I am. They're coming by many different ways. But the primary way is being right through, right past our border patrols who, by the way, are tremendous people. And they can do the job, but they're told not to.
RAMOS: How are you going to deport 11 million (INAUDIBLE)
TRUMP: Here's what we're going to do. Ready? Okay.
RAMOS: Are you going to bring the army?
TRUMP: No, no. Let me tell you. We'll going to do it in a very humane fashion. Believe me. I have a bigger heart than you do. We'll going to do it in a very humane fashion. The one thing we're going to do --
RAMOS: One question, is there one question I want to ask --
TRUMP: Okay. The one thing we're going to start with immediately are the gangs, and the real bad ones, and you do agree there are some bad ones. Do you agree with that or do you think everyone is just perfect? No, no, no, I asked you a question. Do you agree with that? We have tremendous crime, we have tremendous problems -- I can't deal with this. Listen, we have tremendous crime, we have tremendously, we have some very bad ones. And I think you would agree with that, right? Okay. There's a lot of bad ones. Real bad ones. Because you know, they looked at some of the gangs -- excuse me.
They looked at some of the gangs in Baltimore, they looked at some of the gangs in Chicago, they looked even in Ferguson. They got some rough, illegal immigrants in those gangs. They're getting out. You mind if I send them out? Now, if they come from Mexico, do you mind if I send them back to Mexico? No, no, do you mind if I send them back to Mexico?
(INAUDIBLE)
Okay. Those people are out. They'll going to be out so fast. Your head will spin. All right? The rest we're going to do in a -- remember, you use the word, illegal immigrant.
RAMOS: No, I didn't use the word.
TRUMP: Okay. Well, you should use it. Because that's what the definition is.
RAMOS: No human being is illegal.
TRUMP: Okay. Well, when they cross the border from a legal standpoint, they're illegal immigrant when they don't have their papers. And I want to make it possible and I think you'll like this. This is the part you're going to like. I want these people, the good people, I want them to come back and I want them to get documentation and get so they become legal. It's going to be -- you know what it's called, management. So, you're not used to good management because you're always talking about government. Let me just tell you, wait, wait, wait, wait. Government is incompetent. Guys like Bush and some others that I won't name, they're incompetent people. They don't have it. They don't have it. I agree, they can't do it. But I'm a great manager. I know how to manage things. I hire unbelievable people. When I look at the vets, when I look at the VA, excuse me, when I look at the VA, we spend billions of dollars and people are treated horribly. Okay? Horribly. That will work great. What we're doing here will work great. And we want to get good people back in. And also -- let me just tell you --
RAMOS: Because you're not giving specifics about --
TRUMP: I've given you specifics. Great management. And they'll going to hopefully come back in very soon. Okay. Another question. Wait. Yes, go ahead. Yes, sir.
RAMOS: Is there any specific change in the law you made to limit money in politics?
TRUMP: Money in politics. Well, I think there should be frankly more transparency. Because I see a guy like Jeb Bush with $114 million which is now higher and nobody even knows who put the money in. And they all control him like a little puppet. Okay? I know half the people. I mean, I don't know who they are because I can't find it out but as soon as they do, I will know most of them. They're friends of mine. I used to be there. I used to be the king of that. Okay? I know the system better than anybody. The fact is that whether it's Jeb or Hillary or any of them, they're all controlled by these people. And the people that control them are the special interests, the lobbyists and the donors and they're controlled.
You know what the nice part about me? I don't need anybody's money. I mean, if a woman sends me the $7, I take it because that's great, because she's investing in this country in a proper way, not an improper way. But I don't need the money. It's a beautiful thing. So, if I say that I don't want Ford building in this case in Mexico or somewhere else, in all fairness, China, I want them to build here, I am not going to be hit by the Ford lobby and by all the other lobbies that you know who they are better than I do. They're not going to hit me. Because they didn't give ten cents to my campaign because I don't want their money. So, it's very important.
RAMOS: But should it be limited legally --
TRUMP: I don't know about the limits. I think the most important thing is transparency. You have to know who you're dealing with. And right now you don't. You don't. And I'm talking about PACs in all fairness. I have good friends who like to put money into PACs. Many friends, I have some enemies too, by the way. But I have many friends. They put money in PACs. And you need transparency. You need to know who is putting up what. So when they start making deals in a year or two years or three years, you know what is happening. Okay. How about one more question. Go ahead.
[19:10:20] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most of the illegal immigrants in this country are either criminals -- TRUMP: No, not at all. I never said that. No, I think most of them are good people. I love that question, because hopefully, maybe somebody -- no, I think most of them are very good people but they are here illegally and we're a country of laws and we're a country of borders. We have to have a border and we'll have a border and we'll have a wall and the wall is going to have a big beautiful door where people can some in legally and also where we can bring talented people. We need that in the Silicon Valley when somebody goes to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the Wharton school of finance, we send them out as soon as they graduate. They can't stay here. It's ridiculous. They want to be here. So, then they go to their country wherever it may be, whether it's Asia, Mexico, wherever it may be and they compete against us. I don't want that. I'll have one more then, yes, ma'am? Go ahead.
(INAUDIBLE QUESTION)
TRUMP: Where?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) in the latest poll numbers, Governor Walker is leading 25 percent -- what do you make of those numbers?
TRUMP: In Wisconsin? I really don't know. I mean, I haven't got there. I would think would win -- I would think would win Wisconsin. I mean, I have a great relationship with the people in Wisconsin but, you know, I haven't started. I haven't been thinking about Wisconsin right now and Governor Walker certainly has been. I don't know what the poll is. I know this, in Florida, they just came out with a poll and I'm at 28 and Bush is much lower and Senator Rubio who is a sitting senator is much, much lower. So I don't know. I think I'll do very well in Wisconsin. I think so. Yes? Yes? Yes, sir, go ahead. Ye, go ahead. Go ahead.
(INAUDIBLE QUESTION)
Well, he came up. He wants to support my campaign but then I said oh, gee, he said some negative things about me and then he comes up to my office two or three hours later, he wants to be part of my campaign. But, you know, he's the hedge fund guy and honestly, maybe the hedge fund guys won't like me too much. I know a lot about hedge fund. I also know how they are taxed better than he does. So maybe they won't because maybe they won't like me. You understand. But he came up. He came up and he wants to support me, he wanted to leave Walker to support me. But I didn't make it so easy for him. Okay. Go ahead.
(INAUDIBLE QUESTION) I don't know. Look, I have a lot of respect for Roger. We'll see. I mean, you know, maybe, maybe not. I really don't know. Look, I think they cover me terribly. FOX News, I think they cover me terribly and I'm winning by double digits in every poll. So I don't know. Maybe it matters, maybe it doesn't. I don't think I get good treatment from FOX. They certainly cover me a lot. Well, I'm being covered by everybody. I don't know. I don't know, I don't think so. Because I think they give me very bad treatment. I think FOX treats me terribly and a lot of the people that like me think they treat me terribly but I don't think, I mean, what?
Do you think I was asked nice, easy questions? The other guys are saying, what are you going to do about jobs? Another one saying, do you love God? I get these questions like, what is going on here. And yet, I won in every single poll of the debate. I won. I won from drudge. I won in "Time Magazine." I won all the -- everybody thought I won the debate but I certainly had the worst questions, the most unfair questions and you know, I like FOX. I like it. But no, I think they treat me very poorly. Yes, go ahead? Yes. I'll do that. I'll do that. Sure.
(INAUDIBLE QUESTION)
TRUMP: The which?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Late night tweeting about Megyn Kelly --
TRUMP: Takes two seconds. You do a couple of tweets because when people treat me unfairly, I don't let them forget and maybe we should have more of that in this country and maybe the country wouldn't be pushed around so much. Go ahead.
RAMOS: You say you're going to win the Latino votes --
TRUMP: I think so because I'm going to bring jobs back.
RAMOS: But the truth is, I've seen the polls, Univision polls says, 75 percent of the Latino --
TRUMP: How much am I suing Univision for right now? No, no, no, do you know the number? No, no, no, tell me. Tell me. Do you know the number? And you know you're part of the lawsuit. How much am I suing Univision for right?
RAMOS: The question is Mr. Trump --
TRUMP: Wait, wait, wait. It's 500 million.
RAMOS: I'm a reporter.
TRUMP: Okay. Good. And they are very concerned about it. I have to tell you. I'm very good at this stuff. Yes, go ahead.
RAMOS: You're losing the Latino -- 75 percent of --
TRUMP: I don't think I will.
RAMOS: Nationwide, nation --
TRUMP: I haven't started.
RAMOS: Latinos have a negative opinion of you.
TRUMP: Do you know how many Latinos --
(INAUDIBLE QUESTION)
[19:15:06] Okay. Do you know how many Latinos work for me? Do you know how many Hispanics are working for me? Okay. They love me. They love me. Do you know how many Hispanics work for me? Thousands. Do you know how many have worked for me over the years? Tens of thousands. Here is what happens, once I win, you're going to see things happen. You know what they want? They want jobs. That's what they want. In Nevada, did you see the poll of the Hispanics in the state of Nevada? Did you see -- excuse me. Big Hispanic population. I wiped everybody out, Hispanic. I won the poll. Excuse me, I'm not talking Univision. I'm talking the only poll I saw, the one that came out which was in the state of Nevada, I wiped everybody out. I wiped them out with Hispanics. You saw that, right? Did you see it? Wait. Did you see it? Okay. He's an honest guy. Now I like him. Okay. You and I will talk. We'll going to be talking a lot over the years. We will. We will. Okay. Thank you everybody.
(INAUDIBLE QUESTION)
I think about it myself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you write --
TRUMP: Very interesting because a lot of people have been asking me because in Alabama I got very high marks for a speech and I honestly feel and it's one of the things I'll talk about, I'm always on live television and if you're on live television every three or four days you got to say things different. You can't be on the same and give the same stories, right? I think about my speeches and I don't believe in teleprompters, although it's easy, huh, I'd like to go up and stand up and read a speech for half an hour and just leave. But you know what happens? You wouldn't have sold out crowds like we have outside.
You wouldn't have 30,000 people like we had in Alabama. You wouldn't have the crowd that we had the other night in New Hampshire. You just wouldn't have it. It's not the same. In fact, I jokingly say if you're running for president, you shouldn't be allowed to use teleprompters. So, I think about my speeches a lot. I think about what I'm going to say, but I essentially don't use notes, and I definitely don't read the speeches because I think it's much easier, but you know what happens, you don't have the same vibrant.
(INAUDIBLE QUESTION)
TRUMP: I do a lot of things by myself. People would be surprised. People are shocked at how smart I am, right? Okay. Thank you. Thank you.


Chris Cillizza writes “The Fix,” a politics blog for the Washington Post. He also covers the White House.


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Alabama Enacts Strict Voter Photo I.D., Now In Process Of Closing 45 Of 49 DMV Offices

August 26, 2015, 8:20 am
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Sample driver's license in Alabama
Pax On Both Houses: Compendium Of Voter Fraud And Voter Suppression Posts

The Daily Show Interviews Republican Official Who Spills Beans On Deliberate Voter Suppression 
Masquerading As Prevention Of Voter Fraud
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/10/jon-stewart-asif-mandvi-investigates.html

Republican Party Is "Full Of Racists," Colin Powell's Chief Of Staff
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/republican-party-is-full-of-racists.html

Despite Strict Voter ID Laws, Alabama Is In The Process Of Closing 45 Of 49 Drivers License Offices
Jen Hayden

If you're going to need a driver's license in Alabama, you're most likely going to have to figure out a way to get to one of only four driver's licenses offices in the entire state:
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said budget cuts will result in closing driver's license offices across the state.
The agency said the cut will be in phases, with 33 offices closed during the first wave.
In January 2016, a further 12 offices will close. By March, all but four offices in the entire state will shut their doors.
The offices that will remain open, ALEA said, are Huntsville, Montgomery, Mobile, and Birmingham.
This will no doubt have a devastating effect on lower-income residents. Considering 18.7% of residents live at "poverty level" and another 8.4% at extreme poverty levels, it's another blow that will surely leave more people behind. Can you imagine a single parent needing to take an entire day—or even two days—to travel to a driver's license office and then wait all day for their turn to take the test?
Perhaps most frightening about these closures is the effect it will have on voting in Alabama, where a conservative legislature passed a law in 2011 which requires a photo ID to vote.Alabama has already been on a steady decline (41% in November 2014) and these closures certainly won't help to bring those numbers up.
Intended or not, these office closures and the strict voter ID law will have an effect on government, policy and even safety (more people like to drive without a proper license) for a long time to come.
We've all been told "driving is a privilege, not a right." In Alabama, even securing a driver's license is about to become a privilege many cannot afford.
10:12 AM PT: Is this merely an empty threat because of cuts to the department's budget? Secretary of Law Enforcement Spencer Collier is appealing to residents to contact their legislators:
"The point is we don't want to do this," Collier said of the closings. "We understand this is a service the public has to have. We felt we've done our part by examining our drivers' license function and trying to see where we could be more efficient."
Collier said lawmakers tell him they're not hearing from voters about the budget shortfall. He urged residents to call their legislators before they end up standing in lines for hours. "I'm a former legislator, so I get it," Collier said. "Tax votes are hard. But they are elected to lead."
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Kansas Secretary of State Tries Blocks Release Of Voting Tapes After Statistical Anomalies Noted

August 26, 2015, 8:23 am
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Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach head shot
Seems that a functioning democracy would include the ability to audit the votes.

Pax On Both Houses: Compendium Of Voter Fraud And Voter Suppression Posts

The Daily Show Interviews Republican Official Who Spills Beans On Deliberate Voter Suppression 
Masquerading As Prevention Of Voter Fraud
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/10/jon-stewart-asif-mandvi-investigates.html


Kansas Secretary of State Tries Blocks Release Of Voting Tapes After Statistical Anomalies Noted

Beth Clarkson has extensively studied voting patterns in Kansas and noted several troubling statistical anomalies, ones that always benefited Republican candidates. She pressed for further transparency and was consistently rebuffed. She decided to sue Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Sedgwick County Elections Commissioner Tabitha Lehman:
While it is well-recognized that smaller, rural precincts tend to lean Republican, statisticians have been unable to explain the consistent pattern favoring Republicans that trends upward as the number of votes cast in a precinct or other voting unit goes up. In primaries, the favored candidate appears to always be the Republican establishment candidate, above a tea party challenger. And the upward trend for Republicans occurs once a voting unit reaches roughly 500 votes.
“This is not just an anomaly that occurred in one place,” Clarkson said. “It is a pattern that has occurred repeatedly in elections across the United States.”
The pattern could be voter fraud or a demographic trend that has not been picked up by extensive polling, she said.
She wants to look over the hard copies to check the error rate. You'd think in America, the heart of democracy, this would be a fairly simple request. But, no. Last night, Kris Kobach asked a judge to block the release:
Secretary of State Kris Kobach argued that the records sought by Wichita State University mathematician Beth Clarkson are not subject to the Kansas open records act, and that their disclosure is prohibited by Kansas statute. His response, which was faxed Friday to the Sedgwick County District Court, was made public Monday.
Obviously the judge will decide, but a key cornerstone of a working democracy would seem to include the ability to audit the vote.


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Florida News Item: "Old Dixie Hwy" Changed To "President Barack Obama Highway"

August 26, 2015, 8:29 am
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The above photo was taken in Orlando, Florida
Florida News Item: "Old Dixie Hwy" Changed To "President Barack Obama Highway"
This is happening in Florida.  People who only know Florida as Miami Beach or Disney World have a Hollywood-esque image of this part of the deep south.  Having lived there, however, I can attest to the fact that great swaths of the state invoke echoes of banjo music (di-di-ding-ding-ding), a la the movie Deliverance.
That said, I was surprised to read this today:
Residents of Riviera Beach expressed their concerns with what Old Dixie Highway represents. The proposal itself referenced a time when the highway divided black and white neighborhoods.
Riviera Beach City Council Votes to Change Old Dixie Highway to Barack Obama Highway
“Dixie” was a common nickname for the region in the South which would eventually secede from the Union and fight the Civil War over the right to own slaves. Thus, the name “Old Dixie” is about as blatant an appeal to the old order of white supremacy as one could get; the highway itself used to be the dividing border between black and white neighborhoods during the segregation era. “You have the chance to right the wrong and make a new chapter” said one woman on name change proposal.
Bigots Lose It As Florida City Renames Old Dixie Highway to Pres. Obama Highway
This being America, the spew from the bigots erupted like an exploding outhouse.  As usual, Breitbart serves as their forum.  I won't cite that red rag but a sample is in the above-cited article.


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Small Business Owner In Portland Spends Day Homeless. Her Account Goes Viral

August 26, 2015, 8:33 am
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Renee Spears

"A full belly does not believe in hunger."
Italian Proverb
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/08/italian-proverb-full-belly-does-not.html

Small Business Owner In Portland Spends Day Homeless. Her Account Goes Viral

Walter Einenkel

Renee Spears is a small business owner in Portland, Oregon. A couple of weeks ago she decided to spend the day homeless in Portland. She reported on her experience in a Facebook post and shared it. While she says she is not a writer, the piece she wrote hits on a lot of points we all believe in our heart of hearts and still have a hard time connecting with in our daily lives.
Ms. Spears held a sign asking for money. She met an elderly woman who panhandles when her Social Security runs out. She spoke with strangers about all kinds of things. She experienced the invisibility of being homeless in her small way. 
I spent Friday on the streets of Portland and learned so much. Here it is:
1. It's not a big deal to hold a sign asking for money, because everyone ignores you. I found an unoccupied corner right off 405 and stood there for an hour holding a sign saying 'Local business owner trying to understand our homeless problem. All funds to be donated'. Nobody made eye contact with me. They fiddled with the radio, texted, looked everywhere else. I did make $25.52 in that hour, thanks mostly to one woman that gave me $20. All the people that gave me money were women. I plan on donating $250 to Sisters Of The Road in honor of this experience.
2. Right after holding the sign, I met an 82 yr old woman sitting on her walker, holding a cup for money in front of Whole Foods. I asked if she sat out every day and she said 'only when my social security runs out and I need to eat'. She wasn't interested in talking. I touched her arm when saying good bye and she teared up and said 'I can't remember the last time someone touched me'. People just walked by ignoring her too.
3. I saw a man washing his clothes in the Saturday Market fountains. He then laid them out to dry in the sun. They looked great! I was impressed.
4. I had some wonderful conversations with complete strangers. I wore my 'Kindness Matters' t-shirt and a woman commented that kindness is often mistaken for weakness and we had a deep 5 minute conversation on the philosophy of kindness on a street corner. I now also know everything about poodles, the breakdown of society in Somalia and the different types of immigrants (economic and political). These were deep, smart conversations.People are very lonely and just wanted someone to listen.
5. It's exhausting being homeless. My body hurts from walking and carrying a backpack. There's nowhere comfy to just relax. By 4pm, I was exhausted and took a nap on a park bench. All of these years, I thought that the people sleeping on the sidewalk in the day time were just totally strung out druggies. I'm sure some are, but the people I met told me that they sleep during the day because it's safer. They can't rest as deeply at night and they are tired! After one day out there, I was grumpy, tired and dehydrated. It sucks! I can't imagine the toll that a week out there would take on a body and spirit.
6. I only saw one policeman the entire time. He was harassing an old man in a wheel chair that was trying to sell some of his homemade stuff on the sidewalk. He told the man to move because he didn't have a permit.
7. Nobody tried to sell me drugs but 3 people asked me if I had some for sale.
8. I fell in love with Portland in a whole new way. This city is alive and I felt alive in it. I saw a TV show taping, dancing in Directors Park, a dude beautifully playing a flute in front of Powells, three different music acts at the Bite, a miniature stonehenge made out of bananas, numerous history plaques, another band and the movie Grease on Pioneer Square. I walked by hundreds of people on their phones missing the whole thing.
9. The line between the haves and have nots was very apparent. I was on the outside of the fence at the Bite of Oregon while watching people pigging out on the inside of the fence. I was two feet away (thru a window) of a delicious steak at Ruth Chris Steak House.
10. There are different groups of homeless. There are those interested in drugs down on the waterfront, there are those with mental illness wondering around everywhere, but most of those I met were having a crisis of spirit and trying to find themselves. There was an executive from Seattle whose life fell apart when his wife left him and he is trying to pick up the pieces. There were many people here from other cities because Portland is a great place to be homeless. I understand this after spending a day falling in love with the city too.
11. What can we as a city do? Clearly we need to address the bigger issues of poverty, mental illness and addiction but we can do better right now. We need more public restrooms. There aren't enough and they are too far apart. We need more water fountains. We need a public laundromat and bathing facility. We need a public place for people to come in from the elements and relax in safety. We need a place for people to store their belongings so they don't have to carry them around all day, and it litters up our city.
12. What can YOU do? Remember they are people! Talk to them. Listen to them. Acknowledge they exist. Show some fucking compassion! They are tired, sore, thirsty, malnourished, ignored and being out there takes a huge toll on your spirit. Put down your phone and pay attention to what is going on outside of yourself.
13. I ended up going home in the early morning hours. My intention was to learn from the people there and I did that. I didn't feel unsafe for one minute. I found the people kind and friendly. I wondered what would change if we all just opened our eyes to what is happening instead of ignoring it.
Thank you for excusing my typos and poor grammar. I'm a visionary, not a writer.

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"Trump-Ward Christian Soldiers?" Frank Bruni, New York Times

August 26, 2015, 8:44 am
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Hey, Christians! 
How Many Of Jesus' Moral Stands Do You Approve? 
Take The Test
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/12/how-many-of-jesus-moral-exhortations.html

Yeshua Excoriates Fellow Pharisees: "The Woe Passages"

"Love Your Enemies. Do Good To Those Who Hate You," Luke 6: 27-42
Jesus of Nazareth
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/12/do-you-know-what-youre-doing-to-me.html

"Pope Francis Links"

Pope Francis: Quotations On Finance, Economics, Capitalism And Inequality

Bill McKibben: "The Christian paradox: How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong."


Trump-ward, Christian Soldiers?
Frank Bruni
New York Times
Let me get this straight. If I want the admiration and blessings of the most flamboyant, judgmental Christians in America, I should marry three times, do a queasy-making amount of sexual boasting, verbally degrade women, talk trash about pretty much everyone else while I’m at it, encourage gamblers to hemorrhage their savings in casinos bearing my name and crow incessantly about how much money I’ve amassed?
Seems to work for Donald Trump.
Polls show him to be the preferred candidate among not just all Republican voters but also the party’s vocal evangelical subset.
He’s more beloved than Mike Huckabee, a former evangelical pastor, or Ted Cruz, an evangelical pastor’s son, or Scott Walker, who said during the recent Republican debate: “It’s only by the blood of Jesus Christ that I’ve been redeemed.”
When Trump mentions blood, it’s less biblical, as Megyn Kelly can well attest.

No matter. The holy rollers are smiling upon the high roller. And they’re proving, yet again, how selective and incoherent the religiosity of many in the party’s God squad is.
Usually the disconnect involves stern moralizing, especially on matters sexual, by showily devout public figures who are then exposed as adulterers or (gasp!) closet homosexuals. I’d list all the names, starting with Josh Duggar and working backward, but my column doesn’t sprawl over an entire page of the newspaper.

Another Christian Notable, Sam Rader, Outed For Belonging To Ashely Madison "Cheater" Site

Or the disconnect is between evangelists’ panegyrics about Christ’s penury and their hustle for funds to support less-than-penurious lifestyles. John Oliver, the host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” has been making brilliant satirical fun of this by promoting his new tax-exempt church, Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption. Last Sunday he apologized to viewers that his wife, Wanda Jo, “cannot be with us this evening.”
“She’s at our summer parsonage in Hawaii,” he continued, “for a week of spiritual introspection and occasional parasailing.”
What’s different and fascinating about the Trump worship is that he doesn’t even try that hard for a righteous facade — for Potemkin piety. Sure, he speaks of enthusiastic churchgoing, and he’s careful to curse Planned Parenthood and to insist that matrimony be reserved for heterosexuals as demonstrably inept at it as he is.
But beyond that? He just about runs the table on the seven deadly sins. He personifies greed, embodies pride, radiates lust. Wrath is covered by his anti-immigrant, anti-“losers” rants, and if we interpret gluttony to include big buildings and not just Big Macs, he’s a glutton through and through. That leaves envy and sloth. I’m betting that he harbors plenty of the former, though I’ll concede that he exhibits none of the latter.
In 2012, inexplicably, he was invited to Liberty University, where he digressed during his remarks to extol the prudence of prenuptial agreements. But all was forgiven: His host, Jerry Falwell, told audience members that Trump could be credited for “single-handedly” forcing President Obama to release his birth certificate. Oh how they cheered, as if ugly, groundless partisan rumor-mongering were on a saintly par with washing lepers’ feet.
Maybe it’s Trump’s jingoism they adore. They venerated Ronald Reagan though he’d divorced, remarried and spent much of his career in the godless clutch of Hollywood.

Ronald Reagan And American Conservatism's Normalization Of Divorce In American Politics





Maybe their fealty to Trump is payback for his donations to conservative religious groups.
Or maybe his pompadour has mesmerized them. It could, in the right wind, be mistaken for a halo.
I’m grasping at straws, because there’s no sense in the fact that many of the people who most frequently espouse the Christian spirit then proceed to vilify immigrants, demonize minorities and line up behind a candidate who’s a one-man master class in such misanthropy.
From Trump’s Twitter account gushes an endless stream of un-Christian rudeness, and he was at it again on Monday night, retweeting someone else’s denigration of Kelly as a “bimbo.” Shouldn’t he be turning the other cheek?

Yeshua Excoriates Fellow Pharisees: "The Woe Passages"

"Twelve Steps For The Recovering Pharisee (Like Me)" By John Fischer
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/07/12-steps-for-recovering-pharisee-like.html

"Love Your Enemies. Do Good To Those Who Hate You," Luke 6: 27-42
Jesus of Nazareth
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/12/do-you-know-what-youre-doing-to-me.html


Hey, Christians! 
How Many Of Jesus' Moral Stands Do You Approve? 
Take The Test
For politicians as for voters, devotion and grace can be fickle, convenient things. Courting the evangelical vote, Cruz used his own Twitter account last week to say that his “thoughts and prayers are with President Jimmy Carter,” whose struggle with cancer was riveting the nation. But then Cruz pressed on with a speech that bemoaned the “misery, stagnation and malaise” of Carter’s presidency. He couldn’t have hit pause on the Carter bashing for a week or two?
Carter pressed on, too — with his usual weekend routine of teaching Sunday school, which he has long done with little fanfare. His own Christianity is not a bludgeon but a bridge.
As for Trump, I must not be watching the same campaign that his evangelical fans are, because I don’t see someone interested in serving God. I see someone interested in being God.

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Ronald Reagan And American Conservatism's Normalization Of Divorce In American Politics

August 26, 2015, 8:51 am
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Scriptural Stonewalling 

Alan: Conservative Christians assert the right to refuse marketplace service to same-sex couples.

The appended article, "The Great Secession,"  reminds us that " it never occurred to Catholic bakers to tell remarrying customers to take their business elsewhere." Good Christian customers like Ronald Reagan. 

According to The Gospel of Mark  (the oldest of the four canonical gospels) Ronald Reagan lived most of his life in a state of adultery.

Mr. Reagan also died in a state of adultery. (To be clear: An individual can be an adulterer and a great politician simultaneously. But morally censorious Christians cannot be true to core principles if they champion Mr. Reagan.)

Ronald Reagan: Nominee, GOP Adultery Hall Of Fame
Reagan divorced his first wife, Jane Wyman -- with whom he fathered two children -- and subsequently married Nancy (Davis) Reagan who scheduled her husband's White House appointments according to "favorable" dates set by her personal astrologer.

White House Confirms Reagans Follow Astrology

Joan Quigley, Nancy Reagan's White House Astrologer

Nancy Reagan's Astrologer, 'Closely Guarded Secret'

Since political pragmatism regularly trumps religious belief, conservative Christians - even biblical "literalists" - will devise quick justification for their championship of America's only divorced president, who -- according to "The Son of God" -- committed adultery with his second wife over the course of 52 years.


This core question remains: "Why does The Party of Family Values  normalize divorce - and the practice of adultery as defined by Jesus of Nazareth?"
 

Mark 10:2-12

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

2 Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3 He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” 5 But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,[a] 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
10 Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her;12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

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There Is No "There" There: Clinton Email Scandal Falls Apart As State Says There Was No Policy

August 26, 2015, 9:00 am
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No shortage of "good Christians" to throw the first stone.

There Is No "there" there: Clinton Email Scandal Falls Apart As State Says There Was No Policy
Oh no!  
Anti-Hillary folks, there is bad news.  State Dept. Says There Was No Policy Against Private Email.  
On CNN’s New Day, State Department spokesman John Kirby said, “We have said in the past, Chris that there was no policy prohibiting the use of a private email account here at the State Department, and that is still a fact.
Oh no!  Facts.  There was no policy against using a private email account when Mrs. Clinton was Secretary of State.  And the State Department has said this repeatedly but folks keep ignoring this FACT.
Now, obviously, we have policies in place now that highly discourage that, and you are supposed to use your government account so that there is a constant, permanent record of it, but at the time she was not violating policy
New policies somehow do not apply retroactively.  No policy when Mrs. Clinton was SOS.  No policy at all.  She violated no policy because there was no policy to violate.  
And, in fact, Colin Powell used one.  And, SOS Clinton followed the process that SOS Powell set up.
How sad.  There just isn't any "there" there.  All that GOP angst and hyperbole.  
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Dialogue With Frog Hospital's Fred Owens: The Big Egos Of Ramos, Trump and Pope Francis

August 26, 2015, 10:45 am
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Dear Fred,

Thanks for your email.

Clearly, people rarely rise through the ranks of "officialdom" without big egos.

Even so, I'm inclined to disagree with you about Pope Francis. 

To begin, he inherited the Augean Stables. 

If he was to do anything but submit to the terminal decline of Medieval Christendom, he had to dig in like a genetically-enhanced badger.

Not only was it necessary to resist deluge of Catholic backsliders --- as eager for the 13th century as jihadists are for the 7th -- Francis also had to plow forward... uphill and against an ongoing landslide.

At the same time he had to muck stables, a task to collapse "Mr. Clean."

Pax tecum

Alan

PS I think Jung's distinction between "ego" and "self" is pertinent to this discussion although I don't have time to think it through now.

Carl Jung: Quotations


On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 1:12 PM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:

Big egos out there. Ramos. Trump...... And Pope Francis is on his way.

Donald Trump's Jorge Ramos News Conference, Annotated
Follow Up

Dear Fred,

Thanks for your email.

I would love to see a "Biden-Bernie" ticket.

Or "Biden-Castro."

Wouldn't it be great to have consecutive presidencies with guys in The White House named Hussein and Castro?

Pax tecum

Alan

On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 1:38 PM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:

I worked for a Latino man for one year, twice a week, at his greenhouse. He grew up Mexican in East LA.... For one entire year I was listening to this man's bombastic ego and his need to report on his personal drama. I got tired of it and I quit. He was good at growing plants, I will say that. But, for the time being, I have had enough exposure to the Latino temperament. And he had three nasty little dogs -- ugh.
So then I see Ramos take on Trump, and I think the hell with both of  them. Ramos is slightly less ego-bound than Trump, and more substantial in his speech.
My new champion is Joe Biden, a smart aleck, not a bully. Biden could take on Trump in verbal combat and rub his nose in it big time.
Of major presidential candidates, Biden is the most humble.


--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital





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"Murder on Highway 20." A "Thrill Killing" In Anacortes, Washington

August 26, 2015, 12:35 pm
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FROG HOSPITAL

Murder on Highway 20

By Fred Owens

Eben Berriault shot and killed naval officer Scott Kinkele on Highway 20 in Skagit County. It was just past midnight on Friday, July 28, 2000. The prosecutor termed it a “thrill killing.” Berriault was convicted of first degree murder and is serving a 55-year sentence at Monroe Prison. This story is based on news accounts of the crime and my personal contact with Eben Berriault. It is not an objective account. I have known Eben since he was nine-years-old.

I wrote a letter to Eben Berriault. He's been in prison for fifteen years. I have not contacted him since the day he got arrested in 2000. I was at his house the day he got arrested, but I left before the cops came. Eben is somewhat notorious in Anacortes where he used to live. He was convicted of the murder of Scott Kinkele one night on Highway 20..... For that crime he was given a 55-year sentence..... Serving it in Monroe prison....Eben's mother and his wife and his two children visit him often and they have told me how he is getting along in prison.... But today I wrote him a letter. He can write back if he wants too. Or not..... I've known him since he was a blonde-haired nine-year-old boy playing and running around.... It's a common thing to hear people say this, but I never expected him to be spending his life in prison.....Why did he do it? To be honest, I am ashamed and embarrassed to admit that I know such a man. At the time of his arrest and conviction I kept my mouth shut and would not stand with him in court. His crime horrified people. His crime horrified me as well and I wished I had never known him or his family. But I do know them quite well.  

Eben and his brother Seth and I had talked about going fishing in Seth's new boat. We can go out in the channel and catch some salmon, I told them -- but instead they decided to run up to Mount Baker and go poaching a deer. That's when they got drunk and on the way home from the mountain they shot and killed Scott Kinkele..... Why didn't they go fishing with me? Nothing would have happened. I was a bit of a Scoutmaster to Eben and his brother and we would have drunk plenty of beers and broken a few fish and game regulations but nothing more than that.

Rhonda McLaughlin wrote to me on FB, “I was approximately 10 minutes ahead of this on my first night back to work after having a baby! I was heading home from LaConner to Anacortes on 20. I still get chills to this day when I pass the trees on the highway! So senseless!”

State Highway 20 runs all across Skagit County, from the Cascade Mountain Pass to the ferry landing in Anacortes. But it was on that stretch of highway past the Farmhouse Inn and just short of the bridge, where Eben Berriault murdered Scott Kinkele and left him for dead.

I have no understanding of why Eben shot Kinkele in the back, but I do understand about where it happened. That stretch of the highway has no soul. No soul. No spirit. No life. It is nowhere. No angels, no fairies, no ancestral ghosts. Only emptiness. The devil comes to earth in places like that. The devil waits until his people come to play out their evil purpose. Eben comes. His brother Seth comes driving drunk. Kinkele comes innocently, after stopping to buy gas. Did Kinkele know he had an appointment with Eben and his shot gun?

The bridge over Swinomish Channel is named after Duane Berentson, a prominent local politician. The Farmhouse Inn was established by Torre Dybfest, a popular man who knew how to feed people and make good money doing that. The train tracks run parallel to the highway and out to the refineries, but were hardly ever used in 2000. Across the highway from the Farmhouse Inn was a seed company cleaning station. Across the Duane Berentson Bridge is the Swinomish Casino, source of new wealth for the tribe. It was on that stretch of the highway between the Farmhouse Inn and the bridge where the crime took place. Not a bad place, but an empty place – so it seemed to me. That was my own emotional reaction to the crime in July of 2000 – I was not surprised it happened there.

You ask why. Why did Eben do it? Why did he pick that car, with that driver, at that time, on that stretch of the highway. Why?

Eben was not angry, not as I knew him, but he had this emptiness in him, an empty place in his psyche,  a blank space, vacant and missing.

In 1983 in Wenatchee, he was 19 years old and hanging out with Chipper and Bear from the STP family. Chipper and Bear were very dangerous, violent men and why he was drawn to them and their people I’ll never know. There was a drunken party around a campfire, then a fight, then guys came at someone with rocks, then rocks and kicks and the guy died, then they took his wallet and ran off. Eben was there and he was arrested for that and they got him to testify against the others in exchange for “only” a five-year sentence for manslaughter. Since he testified against the others, he was a marked man in prison society and served all five years in protective custody, which is very restrictive.

Eben was 19 when he went to prison and he didn’t do it – kill the guy – but he was there and that was enough and he wasn’t one to complain and say he got a raw deal. As I said, he never appeared angry, but there was this empty spot in him.

He was in prison out by Port Angeles and then for the last year of his sentence he was in Monroe prison. I remember seeing him the day after he got out. His mom came over to Mount Vernon to visit us on the farm – Eben and his mom, Eva Anderson, his brother, Jesse Berriault, his other younger brother Seth Anderson, and his two younger sisters, Ruby and Grace. They all came to see us at the farm and Eben had just gotten out of prison. He was in a state of electric shock. It was very strange to me – his extra-pale skin, his over-built muscles from confinement and weight-lifting, his super tension, like a five-year wound-up spring.

That was 1988. Eben lived with his family in Anacortes after that. He met and married a wonderful, sensible, caring woman – a black woman  from Belize. He really got lucky, to meet and marry her, she was a treasure. It seemed things were going well, on a steady track. They had two children and Eben worked construction, not steady but often enough, and drinking his beers at home and not too many beers. It seemed the bad times were all over, and 12 years passed since he got out of prison in 1988 until that night on Highway 20 when he shot and killed Scott Kinkele.

There was no reason to kill Kinkele. The prosecuting attorney called it a “thrill killing,” but that is not the right word. I don’t know the right word for what Eben did. There is no right word. He shot Kinkele and Kinkele died.

Dylann Roof shot and killed nine African-American church ladies in Charleston, South Carolina. It was a crime that shocked the nation, but Roof had a reason – he hated black people. 

Eben didn’t hate anyone. He wasn’t angry, just empty and vacant enough for a bad spirit to enter him and take over his soul and get him to fire the weapon. That’s the best I can come up with. Crime – murder -- is that which does not make sense. Justice is how we make sense out of a crime. It made sense for the court to give Eben a life sentence in prison, a fifty-five year sentence to be exact. He belongs in prison. 

I excuse him for the murder in Wenatchee in 1983 when he was 19. The way you clear him of that crime is to say the guy would have gotten killed in a brawl whether Eben was there or not there. Eben was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and got a conviction for manslaughter. I knew those guys from the STP Family, and you come near them once and you never come near them again because they were very bad and violent. Eben didn’t do that. He hung around and ended up in prison. 

But I don’t clear him of the murder on Highway 20. It was all his fault. He shot Kinkele for no reason. Kinkele was a naval officer, a graduate of Annapolis with everything to live for, but he died, and the woman he was meant to love and marry never met him, and the loving children he was meant to have were never born. Scott Kinkele was too young and his loss rippled across the world. His mother died three years later, of some medical condition to be sure, but truly of grief and anger over the loss of her son.  Eben’s younger brother Seth was driving the car that night. Seth was sentenced to 38 years at Walla Walla prison, but six months into his sentence he hung himself in his cell. So all those people suffered and died because of what Eben did. He belongs in prison for life.

His family, his wife and kids, and his mother, have always stood by him and visit him often.


"Bullet Ends Life Of Young Naval Officer"
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/skinkele.htm

Frog Hospital Subscriptions. We have taken in $350 from subscriptions so far this year and we are most grateful, but let’s aim higher, let’s aim for ten times that amount, let’s aim for $3,500. Keep those checks and PayPal payments coming in. And send me the name and email addresses of your friends, so that we can expand the Frog Hospital family. 

Thank you very much.

Frog Hospital Subscriptions
Go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button for $25, or
Send a check for $25 to
Fred Owens
1105 Veronica Springs RD
Santa Barbara, CA 93105



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"Trump-ward Christian Soldiers," Frank Bruni's Opinion Piece In Yesterday's New York Times

August 26, 2015, 1:44 pm
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Dear Fred,

Frank Bruni published a superb opinion piece in yesterday's New York Times: "Trump-ward Christian Soldiers."  http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/08/trump-ward-christian-soldiers-frank.html

It is the kind of "news item" that conservative websites -- particularly "Christian" websites -- neither quote nor promote although it is the antidote they need.

If American conservatives do not soon exhibit some significant measure of self-awareness, they will ruin the "Christian brand" while, ironically, they see themselves in the vanguard of religious renaissance. 

"Christians Are Their Own Worst Enemy: Wrecking The Brand"

I have long believed in taking strong doses of "the opposition" if only to "know our enemies" as well as we "know ourselves."

To this end I devote considerable blog space to unedited conservative views and occasionally applaud them.

In fact, I conceive no conservative view I would not publish. 



What are conservatives afraid of?

The truth?

Being "set free?"

Realizing the ultimate identity of "self" and "other?"

Comprehension of projection psychology?

Best Pax Posts On Psychological Projection And "The Shadow"

Psychological Projection, "The Shadow" And American Conservatism's Hatred Of Islam

Psychological Projection: Who's The Idiot?

Devout Christian, Blaise Pascal

"You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image 
when it turns out God hates all the same people you do."
Tom Weston S. J.

In at least one Buddhist tradition it is said that humans actually enjoy confinement and constraint in order to forfend possible panic over open awareness.

Pax tecum

Alan




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14th Amendment's 95th Anniversary: From the U.S. to Saudi Arabia, Women Had to Fight to Vote

August 26, 2015, 3:40 pm
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A Lesbian Air Force Officer Maligned In Ted Cruz' Religious Liberty Ad Tells Her Side Of Story

August 26, 2015, 4:36 pm
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Lt. Col. Liz Valenzuela at work.
Photo courtesy of Liz Valenzuela

A Lesbian Officer Maligned in Ted Cruz’s Religious Liberty Ad Tells Her Side of the Story 

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is centering his campaign around support for anti-gay “religious liberty,” claiming that Christians forced to tolerate gay people face religious persecution. On Sunday, Cruz released a video profiling “victims” of LGBT nondiscrimination measures. It was all nonsense, but one segment was particularly inaccurate: Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Phillip Monk alleged that he was “fired” by his lesbian commanding officer for “expressing a traditional view of marriage.”
That commanding officer was Lt. Col. Liz Valenzuela, a married mother of two who served two tours of duty in Iraq. I spoke to her on Tuesday about the conflict with Monk, her experiences with homophobia, and the Cruz video.
What led to the conflict between you and Monk?
One military training instructor who worked for me and counseled young airmen told them: “Homosexuals were the downfall of Rome, and now they’ll be the downfall of the military, and the military will fall because of their lust and greed.” About 13 trainees filed a complaint against him. Those complaints went straight to my boss, who told me we had to something about it.
I went to legal, and legal said, “You have to do something about this.” We had a zero tolerance policy on discrimination. I went back to my staff and told them. Monk said, “He’s got freedom of speech!” But we had to discipline the instructor. It wasn’t even a huge punishment. It was a warning.
Monk was up in arms. He came to me and said, “You know, ma’am, I can tell we’re not gonna agree on this. My replacement is already coming in. Do you mind if I take leave while this happens?” I said, “Sure, it’s your prerogative.” He walked out of my office, filled out the paperwork, gave it to me, and I approved.
Then he said I fired him.
But he was scheduled to leave the position already.
Yes. When I first met Monk, he told me, “I’m getting ready to leave, and I don’t want to get too involved with the squadron.” He was slated to rotate out.
How quickly did Monk take his story public?
The Wednesday after he went on leave, I was at a restaurant, and my major called me. “Have you seen Fox News?” he asked. And there was Monk, on Fox News, talking about how I fired him over religious freedom.
Then he went to the Liberty Counsel, and they changed it completely. They said I’m a lesbian, and I had an agenda. Monk went on this crusade against me. I’m getting hate mail and death threats because of this.
My family, we are Christian as well. We bow our head to pray for dinner. We hold hands and we pray together. It blows my mind that people took Monk at his word. That’s not a Christian thing to do—bearing false witness to your neighbors.
Did the Air Force believe Monk?
They launched an investigation and cleared me. They found him guilty of lying. But then they gave him a decoration because they didn’t want to rock the boat. My commander did nothing to help me or protect me.
How did your commander react to all this?
She wasn’t going to do anything to help me. At one point I went to her to said, I’m getting physical hate mail to my home, emails to my government computer that are threatening my life. I asked if I could change my email address. She said, “No, you need to get a tougher skin.”
Do you think she was homophobic?
150826_OUT_Portrait
Lt. Col. Liz Valenzuela.
Photo courtesy of Liz Valenzuela
When I took command of the squadron, and I told her I wanted to introduce my wife and children, she said, absolutely not. You cannot say that she’s your wife. I said, we’ve been married—we have a certificate from the state of New York. She said, no, actually, you’re not. I had to go to legal and fight her. Legal barely gave an inch and said, you can call her your “partner.”
When I wrote up my speech, my commander reviewed it and told me, “If you slip up and say she’s your wife, you and I are gonna have a discussion afterward.” I was just asking to say she was my spouse like anybody else would say. After that, my commander wouldn’t let my spouse do anything with the squadron. She said it “wouldn’t look proper” for my female spouse to be in the front and center.
My commander also refused to give me leave for my son’s first day of school so I could explain to his teachers that he has a medical condition—something I’d done every year before. She denied me leave when my son had a medical emergency that required hospitalization. She was really unfair about my family.
What do you make of Ted Cruz’s fawning profile of Monk?
I believe Ted Cruz believes Monk is telling the truth. He doesn’t realize that Monk lied—a lot. Hopefully, if Ted Cruz actually knew that Monk lied, he would not have used him.
That’s the problem. Nobody knows the actual truth because I never got to say my side. Everybody kept saying, keep quiet. Let this blow over. I’m getting death threats and hate mail, but nobody seems to care because Monk’s in the spotlight crying on cue.
You were promoted to lieutenant colonel despite Monk’s accusations. Was there any acrimony among Monk’s supporters over your advancement?
When I was promoted, I had such a huge turnout at my change of command. People I had served with way before came and told me, “I can’t believe you’re leaving! We loved you so much! You were the best commander ever!” I got so many accolades and warm wishes.
I don’t mean to toot my own horn. But I’m gay and married to a woman, and I thought people would shy away from me. But they didn’t. They were very excited and happy once they realized I didn’t have an agenda. It’s not a matter of being gay or straight. It’s a matter of being a leader.
This interview has been edited and condensed. 
Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate. He covers the law and LGBTQ issues.

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Why Donald Trump's Antics Pose A Serious Long-Term Threat To GOP. Fortune Magazine

August 26, 2015, 4:38 pm
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Moderate Republican For Trump: Only Trump Can Restore GOP Sanity... By A Landslide Loss

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/07/dear-fred-last-night-after-spanish.html

Why Donald Trump's antics pose a serious long-term threat to the GOP

 
The Republican presidential frontrunner is toxic among Hispanics, a voting bloc that could determine the outcome of the 2016 presidential race.

Donald Trump’s clash with Jorge Ramos, the lead anchor for both Univision and Fusion, at a Tuesday night press conference in Dubuque followed what’s become a familiar pattern in the Republican presidential candidate’s front-running campaign.
First, you have Trump blowing up in a way that shocks presidential political conventions. (In this case, the candidate had a security guard forcibly remove Ramos from the room after he refused to yield the floor while pressing Trump on his anti-immigration platform.) Then comes the media frenzy trying to make sense of what just unfolded. And then Trump himself weighs in, in the guise of a pundit commenting on his own campaign, inevitably unapologetic, setting off another round of chatter.
Wash, rinse, repeat. Trump’s entire bid has consisted of these types of gambits, strung end-to-end, ensuring he gathers more broadcast attention than the rest of the field combined. The Ramos conflagration was the second mini tempest Trump set off on Tuesday alone, having already reignited his strife with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in a series of disparaging tweets that prompted a rare public rebuke from network chief Roger Ailes.
So Trump nipping the media hand that feeds him is hardly a new development. Even still, his feud with Ramos represents a more serious threat to the GOP itself.
Republicans’ struggles to make inroads among Hispanic voters are well-known. Mitt Romney’s miserable 2012 performance among the demographic — after suggesting 11 million undocumented workers “self-deport,” he won 27% of the Hispanic vote in that election — convinced party brass that Republicans had to quickly rally and approvewholesale immigration reform to have a prayer of recapturing the White House in 2016.
Of course, that didn’t happen. The Senate, with a major assist from two of Trump’s rivals — Florida’s Marco Rubio and South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham — passed a reform proposal that stalled in the House in the face of conservative opposition. And the lack of a comprehensive plan for addressing either border security or the undocumented population already here opened the door for Trump to seize the issue. It’s helped vault him into a durable lead by stoking the nativist paranoia that abides among a subsection of the right wing.
But Trump’s anti-immigrant demagoguery has inflamed a pair of related problems that Republican strategists first identified in the immediate aftermath of Romney’s 2012 wipeout.
The first part is simple: Hispanics have noticed. Despite Trump’s insistence that he’d carry the Hispanic vote in the general election, in the real world, his approval ratings among them are singularly awful. A Gallup tracking poll of Hispanic views toward the GOP candidates released on Monday found that while they place the rest of the field within a relatively narrow band, from Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at net negative 7% to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at net positive 11%, they deeply dislike Trump, earning him a net negative 51% approval rating. (For that, Trump can thank aggressive coverage from Spanish-language media, in which Ramos is a trusted leading voice and an outspoken critic of his candidacy.) The longer Trump reigns in the primary, the concern from GOP sachems goes, the graver the damage he’ll inflict to the Republican brand, particularly among the constituencies the party will need to win over 14 months from now.
The second threat Trump presents is slightly more subtle. Call it the “Trump effect”—the scramble by lower-polling contenders to grab some of The Donald’s spotlight by either aping his combative style or his controversial platform—or both. And it was on display on Tuesday evening: While other cable networks were rehashing Trump’s flap with Ramos, Cruz popped up on Fox striking an unusually chippy tone with Megyn Kelly over his own immigration plan. Kelly cited Trump’s proposal to forcibly remove entire families—even those with children born in the United States—if the parents came in illegally, and asked Cruz how he’d address the same scenario. Cruz dodged, calling the question a distraction and one that President Obama and “every mainstream media liberal journalist” wanted to ask.
That the debate dominating the Republican primary these days is whether American-born children should be rounded up en masse with their families and booted from the country surely represents a darker nightmare than any GOP strategist sifting through the 2012 loss could have envisioned. But Trump is forging ahead. True to form, he appeared on NBC’s “Today” this morning and discussed his handling of Ramos, defiant as ever. A Ramos spokesman has suggested a sit-down may be in the works. It’d be a ratings bonanza—and another migraine for the Republican Party.

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August 26, 2015, 8:21 pm
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Stormy ocean water

Sea Levels Are 3 Inches Higher Than They Were in 1992

"It's very likely to get worse in the future."

A panel of NASA scientists said Wednesday that new data shows sea levels are, on average, three inches higher than they were in 1992 due to melting ice from both mountain glaciers and the polar ice caps, as well as warmer oceans.
The data was collected from NASA satellites. NASA also released a video that shows a visualization of rising sea levels.
The changes are concerning and “it’s very likely to get worse in the future,” Steve Nerem, a University of Colorado geophysicist and a member of the panel, said in a conference call,Reuters reported. In 2013, a United Nations panel reported sea levels were projected to rise between 1 and 3 feet by 2100; the NASA panel said data indicates the level rise would be on the higher end of that projection.
The sea level change is an average; in some areas, sea levels rose more than 9 inches, and in others—such as along the West Coast, sea levels are falling.
Scientists warn that we haven’t seen the worst of it yet; ocean currents and weather cycles have actually offset some sea level changes in the Pacific, which means the West Coast could see a huge jump in sea levels in the next 20 years.
The panel warned that forecasting the melting rate of the polar ice caps is nearly impossible. And even if the pattern were to stall and reverse, it would take centuries to return to original pre-climate change levels.

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