A RESPONSE TO HILLARY'S SPEECH ACCUSING DONALD TRUMP OF BEING A RACIST

A REBUTTAL OF HILLARY'S SPEECH

A little over a week ago, I guess about a week and a half, Hillary Clinton gave a speech on race, basically accusing Trump of being a racist. As I listened to the speech, I became more and more frustrated because there were plenty of things that I thought could be rebutted. I decided then that I was going to do a response, a fact check if you will, of Hillary's speech. It obviously took a while to respond to everything, so I couldn't get my response up immediately or in as timely of a manner as I would have liked. I have started a blog where I have posted some of my posts rebutting various news articles against Trump and addressing common liberal talking points. This speech was full of talking points that I thought needed to be addressed.

I realize that it is incredibly lengthy, but perhaps you might like to scroll through it. I bolded her statements, and there are comments by me and links to articles if you need some help in arguing against some of the things said about Trump.

Everywhere I go, people tell me how concerned they are by the divisive rhetoric coming from my opponent in this election.

So that's what they talk about at the multitude of fundraisers with wealthy, elitist liberals, with Wall Street, with celebrities, etc.? She raised $143 million from said folks last month.

I understand that concern because it’s like nothing we’ve heard before from a nominee for President of the United States from one of our two major parties.

Let's see:

~Hillary's policies have caused the growth of ISIS

~Hillary wanted to go into Libya, it fell apart, and then she kept her people in Benghazi without adequate security with multiple requests for it. The night the embassy was attacked, military support wasn't sent immediately. Hillary then proceeded to lie to the families and blame the whole thing on a video all the while she emailed her daughter telling her they were attacked by an Al Qaeda like group.

~Hillary kept her Secretary of State email on a personal server, tried to delete multiple emails, and compromised national security

Hillary's Lies:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437606/hillary-clintons-eight-email-lies-exposed-james-comey

~Hillary's State Department engaged in pay for play with her Clinton Foundation.

Yeah, it's like nothing we've heard before from a nominee for President of the United States from one of our two major parties.

From the start, Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia. He is taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican party. His disregard for the values that make our country great is profoundly dangerous.

Let me get this straight, the media is all riled up that Trump called Hillary a bigot. However, they aren't riled up with this. This is Hillary calling Trump a bigot. What else is it? It might not directly say the word as it is coated in politician speak, but anyone reading it knows that she is saying Trump is a bigot.

In just the past week, under the guise of ‘outreach’ to African Americans, Trump has stood up in front of largely white audiences and described black communities in such insulting and ignorant terms. ‘Poverty. Rejection. Horrible education. No housing. No homes. No ownership. Crime at levels nobody has seen.’ ‘Right now,’ he said, ‘you walk down the street and get shot.’ Those are his words.

First of all, Trump is addressing the inner cities - areas that have been under Democrat control for decades. Stats for African Americans:

1) POVERTY AND HOME OWNERSHIP (stats from Newsmax):

Nationally, Obama’s value to blacks is almost purely symbolic. It’s quite literally two steps forward, six steps back.

The unemployment rate has improved. According to the latest data, joblessness for black Americans has slid from 12.7 percent at Obama’s first inauguration to 8.4 percent in July — down 33.9 percent.

The unemployment rate for blacks from ages 16 to 19 declined over that interval, from 35.3 percent to 25.7 percent — down 27.2 percent.

But, the overall labor force participation rate for black Americans has slipped from 63.2 percent to 61.2 percent — down 3.2 percent.

This metric also slumped for black teenagers, from 29.6 percent to 27.7 percent —down 6.4 percent.

The percentage of black Americans in poverty has grown under Obama, the Census Bureau reports, from 25.8 in 2009 to 26.2 in 2014 — up 1.6 percent.

Real median income among black households during Obama, the Census says, slid from $35,954 to $35,398 — down 1.5 percent.

The number of blacks on Food Stamps soared under Obama — from 7,393,000 in 2009 to 11,699,000 in 2014 — up 58.2 percent.

Also, from Obama’s arrival through last June 30, the percentage of black Americans who own homes plunged from 46.1 to 41.7 percent, the Census reports — down 9.5 percent.

http://www.newsmax.com/Murdock/blacks-never-trump/2016/08/18/id/744126/#ixzz4IeXNOjFS

2) EDUCATION

Study Lays Out Grim Statistics on Urban Education

"Measuring Up: Educational Improvement And Opportunity in 50 Cities"

The study takes into account nine indicators around the health of public education—across all public schools in the cities—and does not separate traditional district schools from charter schools. Among the findings: 

Less than a third of the cities examined made gains in math or reading proficiency over the three-year study span relative to their state's performance. 

One in 4 students in 9th grade in 2009 did not graduate from high school in four years.

Forty percent of schools across the cities that were in the bottom 5 percent in their state stayed there for three years.

Less than 10 percent of all high school students enrolled in advanced-math classes each year in 29 of the 50 cities.

Less than 15 percent of all high school students took the ACT/SAT in 30 of the 50 cities.

Low-income students and students of color were less likely to enroll in high-scoring elementary and middle schools than those who were more affluent or were white. (In Los Angeles, for example, Hispanic students were nearly seven times as likely as white students to be enrolled in elementary or middle schools with low math achievement.) 

On average, 8 percent of students in the study cities were enrolled in "beat the odds" schools—those that got better results than demographically similar schools in the state.

About a 14 percentage-point achievement gap existed between students who were eligible for free and reduced-price meals and those who were not.

Black students were almost twice as likely to receive an out-of-school suspension as white students. (Baton Rouge, La., was the only city in the study where black students were not more likely to be suspended than white students.)

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/10/14/study-lays-out-grim-statistics-on-urban.html

3) CRIME

(CNN)Violent crime is on the rise so far this year in major cities across the US compared to the number of homicides, rapes, robberies, assaults and shootings that occurred in the same cities by this point in 2015, a new report has found.

The midyear violent crime survey released Monday by the Major Cities Chiefs Association shows 307 more homicides so far in 2016, according to data from 51 law enforcement agencies from some of 
the largest US cities.

In addition to a large increase in homicides, major cities in the US have experienced more than 1,000 more robberies, almost 2,000 more aggravated assaults and more than 600 non-fatal shootings in 2016 compared to this time last year. The only category of violent crime not reflecting an increase when compared to last year is rape.

The 316 homicides reported by the Chicago Police Department were by far the most of any law enforcement agency included in the survey, a 48% increase over last year. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said there were 110 homicides so far this year, compared to 85 in 2015. San Jose's 25 homicides more than doubled the amount during the same period last year.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/25/politics/violent-crime-report-us-cities-homicides-rapes/

This was from July, so certainly add more deaths since then. Furthermore, the Washington Post did an article on violent crime after the CNN article. While the CNN article concludes that rape is one statistic that is not up, the Washington Post article states that rape is up as well:

But the FBI reports nationwide data for the first six months of the previous year every January. In January 2016, it reported crime figures for the first half of 2015. That data showed significant increases in violent crime categories. Homicide was up 6.2 percent across the country, while rape was up 9.6 percent.

While the data reported is classified as “preliminary,” the 2015 FBI data is directly drawn from more than 70 percent of participating law-enforcement agencies. It is preliminary only in the sense that it is drawn only from the first half of the year and compared with the first half of the previous year — a statistically valid comparison. Academic research also backs up the FBI’s newest data.

In June, well before Obama’s remarks and most of the fact-checks of Trump’s claims, Richard Rosenfeld of the University of Missouri at St. Louis documented, in a study of 56 major cities conducted for the Justice Department, that homicides were up 17 percent on average. Forty of the cities saw homicides increase, and 12 of those cities saw them increase by more than 50 percent.

Furthermore, data collected by the Major Cities Chiefs Association indicate that this trend has continued into 2016. In the first half of the year, homicides are up 15 percent over 2015. Non-fatal shootings (up 4 percent) and aggravated assaults (3.4 percent) both jumped in the first half of the year as well.

Our own analysis of 20 large cities, gathered directly from publicly available police department data, finds that crime is rising overall, although the increases are spread unevenly across the country.

And compared with 2014 lows, some types of violent crimes are not just rising; they are rising at alarming rates.

For example, since 2014, violent crime is up 47 percent in Los Angeles, 26 percent in Baltimore and 23 percent in Dallas.

In Chicago, arguably the worst-hit city, homicides have risen more than 70 percent since 2014. With almost 400 murders to date, the Windy City is on track to tally more than 650 murders this year alone — the most in almost two decades.

In New York City, homicide jumped almost 6 percent while rape is up 10 percent over the past two years.

It’s true that in some cities, such as Boston and Oakland, homicides and violent crime have continued the long-term downward trend. However, while the rise in homicide rates is not uniform, in aggregate murder is up 21 percent in the major cities we surveyed, comparing the first half of 2014 to the first half of 2016.

Even as robbery dipped slightly, aggravated assault jumped 10 percent. Total violent crime figures for the selected cities rose 6 percent, according to our analysis. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-right-about-violent-crime-its-on-the-rise-in-major-cities/2016/08/05/3cf6b55e-5b11-11e6-9aee-8075993d73a2_story.html?utm_term=.2b8d0b695d5d

4) WHAT AUDIENCE WAS HILLARY STANDING IN FRONT OF WHEN SHE CALLED YOUNG BLACKS SUPER PREDATORS?

This article was written by a black woman who found those comments to be very offensive and thinks they have had a negative impact on the black community.  She said it was used to advance the three strikes law and to "justify mass incarceration for many crack addicts and small dose marijuana users, not dealers."  She also said, "The focus was not rehabilitation of the the addicts, but punitive punishment."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ronda-lee/hillarys-superpredator-comment_b_9655052.html

Try again, Hillary. Let's continue:

Donald Trump misses so much. He doesn’t see the success of black leaders in every field, the vibrancy of the black-owned businesses, or the strength of the black church. He doesn’t see the excellence of historically black colleges and universities or the pride of black parents watching their children thrive. He apparently didn’t see Police Chief Brown on television after the murder of five of his officers conducting himself with such dignity.

First of all, he speech was an appeal to the inner city. Obviously Trump knows that there are plenty of successful black people in this country - some work for his company! He sees them every day!

When has Trump said there aren't successful black owned businesses? He wants to help them by getting better trade deals, lowering taxes, reducing regulations, and fighting for lower energy costs.

Consider this from a liberal black site:

In March 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported that only 1.7 percent of $23 billion in SBA loans went to Black-owned businesses in 2013, the lowest loan of SBA lending to Black businesses on record. During the Bush presidency, the percentage of SBA loans to Black businesses was 8 percent – more than four times the Obama rate. 

http://www.blackpressusa.com/is-black-america-better-off-under-obama/

Of course Trump knows of the strength of the black church. He has black pastors like Darrell Scott, Mark Burns, James Davis, etc. supporting him!

I don't recall Trump ever saying anything critical of black colleges, but that sounded like a nice talking point, so they threw it in the speech.

I'm pretty sure Trump did see Police Chief Brown on TV. Donald Trump has advocated strongly for the police and has throughout his campaign, and it doesn't matter what race the police are.

And he certainly doesn’t have any solutions to take on the reality of systemic racism and create more equity and opportunity in communities of color and for every American. 

And Democrats do? That's why the statistics I posted above exist under a black Democrat President, right? That's why inner cities have been doing so well under Democrat rule for decades, right? As Obama's third term, the only thing people can expect is the status quo.

It really does take a lot of nerve to ask people he’s ignored and mistreated for decades, ‘What do you have to lose?’ Because the answer is everything. 

What is "everything" when you live in a neighborhood where you don't feel safe, your kids don't have access to the same type of education available in the suburbs, and you are in poverty? Is that what you are to cling to? What do you have to lose when you vote for Hillary? Maybe you won't lose anything if you vote for Hillary, but you won't gain anything either.

And that’s what I want to make clear today: A man with a long history of racial discrimination, who traffics in dark conspiracy theories drawn from the pages of supermarket tabloids and the far, dark reaches of the internet, should never run our government or command our military. Ask yourself, if he doesn’t respect all Americans, how can he serve all Americans?

This is a woman who schmoozes with celebrities and big money/Wall Street donors more than she has rallies to connect with the average voter and who won't release her Wall Street speech transcripts. This is a woman who wanted to go into Libya, ignored security requests from Benghazi after the country was destabilized, delayed our military in going to Benghazi once our embassy was under attack, and then lied to the families about why their loved ones were killed. This is a woman who put her email on a private server as Secretary of State and lied about that mishandling of classified information. This is a woman who engaged in her pay for play with her foundation. She also accepted money for that foundation from countries with terrible human rights records. After such a dismal record as Secretary of State, that is someone who should never run our government or command our military. I ask myself, if she doesn't respect all Americans (including the unborn), how can she serve all Americans?

And Maya Angelou, a great American who I admire very much, she once said: ‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.’

Oh really, Hillary? If you read that previous paragraph, I agree that you showed me who you are. Bill showed you who he was. You believed him, and you kept him around anyway.

When Trump was getting his start in business, he was sued by the Justice Department for refusing to rent apartments to black and Latino tenants. 

Their applications would be marked with a “C” – “C” for “colored” – and then rejected.

Three years later, the Justice Department took Trump back to court because he hadn’t changed.

Hillary went reaching back to the 1970s for this. A little info:

In another housing case shortly before then, a New York developer had quickly settled with the government. But Trump wanted to fight.

“The idea of settling drove me crazy,” he wrote in “The Art of the Deal.”

“What we didn’t do was rent to welfare cases, white or black,” Trump wrote in his 1987 autobiography. “I’d rather fight than fold, because as soon as you fold once, you get the reputation of being a folder.”

(Snip)

Cohn, who died in 1986, advised Trump to tell the government to “go to hell,” according to Trump’s book. Cohn counseled pursuit of a strategy that remains key to Trump’s playbook today: When attacked, hit back harder. On Dec. 12, 1973, Trump held a news conference at the New York Hilton to announce a counterclaim, saying the government knowingly made false and misleading statements. Cohn sought $100 million for the Trumps. Donald Trump claimed that the government was trying to force the company to lease apartments to people on welfare.

If that happened, Trump said, “there would be a massive fleeing from the city of not only our tenants, but communities as a whole,” according to news accounts from the time.

Trump, in an affidavit, rejected any suggestion that his view was based on race. “I have never, nor has anyone in our organization ever, to the best of my knowledge, discriminated or shown bias in renting our apartments,” he said.

Cohn filed his own affidavit lamenting what he suggested was an overzealous government.

“No matter what the outcome of this case,” Cohn said, “I suppose the damage is never going to be completely undone because you are never going to catch up with these initial headlines.”

(Snip)

Cohn spoke first, ridiculing the government for requesting racial breakdowns of Trump buildings.

There are “a number of blacks who live in there, that we know visibly,” Cohn said, according to a court transcript. 

“I have taken a ride and looked at some of them and blacks walk in and out and I assume they are not there for any improper purpose and they live in the place,” Cohn said. “But they want us to go, apparently, and canvass all 14,000 of these units and find out how many blacks live there and how many non-blacks live there, and I suppose how many Puerto Ricans live there or non-Puerto Ricans.”

(Snip)

The Trumps and their attorney then turned their attention to undermining key aspects of the government’s case.

The legal team went after the claims that Trump employees used coded language to refer to minorities. This case had originated in part from one employee, who told the government that he was instructed to mark rental applications from blacks with the letter “C” for “colored,” and that “he did this every time a black person applied for an apartment,” according to an affidavit from Goldweber. The employee said he didn’t want to be identified in the case because “he was afraid that the Trumps would have him ‘knocked off,’ or words to that effect, because he told me about their allegedly discriminatory practices,” according to the affidavit.

Court transcripts show how the Trump lawyers then attempted a new tactic: attacking the credibility of the government’s lawyer. They drafted an affidavit for the employee, in which he denied making such statements. In the signed statement, the employee claimed that the Justice Department lawyer who replaced Goldweber, Donna Goldstein, told him to “lie” or risk being “thrown in jail.” The employee described himself as a “Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican hired directly by Mr. Donald Trump.” 

Goldstein and other Justice officials vehemently denied that she made any threats. Goldstein, now a California Superior Court judge, declined to comment on the case.

Cohn said in an affidavit that Goldstein was conducting a ­“gestapo-like interrogation.” A Cohn colleague wrote to the Justice Department that its agents were “descending upon the Trump offices with five stormtroopers.”

Cohn wanted the judge to hold Goldstein in contempt. But Cohn’s effort went nowhere. The judge admonished Cohn for his language and said in a hearing that his accusations against the Justice Department were “utterly without foundation.”

(Snip)

The two sides eventually came to terms. On June 10, 1975, they signed an agreement prohibiting the Trumps from “discriminating against any person in the terms, conditions, or priveleges of sale or rental of a dwelling.” The Trumps were ordered to “thoroughly acquaint themselves personally on a detailed basis” with the Fair Housing Act.

The agreement also required the Trumps to place ads informing minorities they had an equal opportunity to seek housing at their properties.

The decree makes clear the Trumps did not view the agreement as a surrender, saying the settlement was “in no way an admission” of a violation.

(Snip)

That’s not how Donald Trump considered it. He declared victory, in part because the agreement specifically stated that Trump made the deal without acknowledging wrongdoing. 

In his autobiography Trump minimized the case’s impact. “In the end the government couldn’t prove its case, and we ended up making a minor settlement without admitting any guilt.” 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-governments-racial-bias-case-against-donald-trumps-company-and-how-he-fought-it/2016/01/23/fb90163e-bfbe-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html

Again, this was over 40 years ago when Trump worked with his father. His father grew up in a different generation. If there was discrimination today with regard to Trump's hotel, apartments, etc., I would have expected it to be out there.

State regulators fined one of Trump’s casinos for repeatedly removing black dealers from the floor. No wonder the turn-over rate for his minority employees was way above average. 

One casino? Trump had multiple casinos. If there was systematic racism going on from the top of the chain, wouldn't that be occuring at every casino? Wouldn't it be occuring at all of his properties.

However, what about Maralago?

Trump filed a lawsuit 20 years ago against the city of Palm Beach, Florida, accusing the town of discriminating against his recently purchased Mar-a-Lago resort club because it was open to Jews and blacks alike, according to a piece published in The Wall Street Journal a year later.

Moreover, the piece quoted the Anti-Defamation League’s then-Director Abraham Foxman as having said this about Trump’s suit: “He put the light on Palm Beach — not on the beauty and the glitter, but on its seamier side of discrimination.”

“In other words, long before he was running for president, there was Donald Trump battling racism and anti-Semitism in Palm Beach society,” Jeffrey Lord added in a piece he recently penned for The American Spectator.

During the whole clash between Trump and the town of Palm Beach, the now-presumptive GOP nominee also sent the city council a copy of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” a classic 1967 comedy that dealt with controversial subjects such as interracial marriage and racial discrimination.

Suits and actions like this might seem small to the contemporary small-minded liberal, but they in reality had a huge impact.

Foxman explained to The Journal that following the whole affair, the league began receiving calls from Jewish residents claiming that the clubs in Palm Beach were finally beginning to change.

“Locals concur that in the past year, organizations such as the Bath and Tennis Club have begun to admit Jewish patrons,” The Journal wrote. “The Palm Beach Civic Association, which for many years was believed to engage in discriminatory behavior, this month named a Jewish resident as its chief officer.”

The same occurred with regard to the city’s black residents — because of the very man whom modern liberals love to castigate as nothing more than a bigot and racist.

http://conservativetribune.com/what-trump-did-to-jews-blacks/

Jesse Jackson liked him a lot at one time...of course that was long before he started supporting Hillary.

In both 1998 and 1999, Trump was an honored guest at the annual Wall Street Conference hosted by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Jackson’ DC-based “multi-racial, multi-issue, progressive, international membership organization fighting for social change.”

In 1998, Jackson introduced Trump ahead of his speech at the conference.

“We need your building skills, your gusto,” Jackson told the Donlestate mogul before stating Trump is a model for “people on Wall Street to represent diversity.”

You can watch Trump’s 1998 speech over at C-SPAN’s website.

Jackson introduced his Trump — whom he called a “friend” — at the same conference in 1999, where this time he was invited to speak on the “challenges and opportunities to embrace under-served communities.”

“He is deceptive in that his social style is of such, one can miss his seriousness and commitment to success, which is beyond argument,” Jackson said Trump.

“When we opened this Wall Street project,” he continued. “He gave us space at 40 Wall Street, which was to make a statement about our having a presence there.”

“Beyond that, in terms of reaching out and being inclusive, he’s done that too,” Jackson added. “He has this sense of the curious and a will to make things better.”

“Aside from all of his style, and his pizazz, he’s a serious person who is an effective builder of people.”

http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/29/1999-jesse-jackson-praises-trumps-commitment-to-minorities-under-served-communities-video/#ixzz4JDSbzmHz

And let’s not forget Trump first gained political prominence leading the charge for the so-called “Birthers.”

He promoted the racist lie that President Obama is not really an American citizen – part of a sustained effort to delegitimize America’s first black president.

First of all, these initial theories began in 2004 - long before Trump brought them up (citing liberal media), and these were furthered by Hillary's own supporters:

False rumours about Mr Obama’s background first surfaced in 2004, in Illinois, where he was a state senator. Andy Martin, a perennial local candidate and litigant, claimed Mr Obama was secretly Muslim.

Related theories — including that he was radicalised in a “madrassa” in Indonesia — developed after Mr Obama entered the national stage with a speech to the Democratic National Convention later that year.

In 2005, Mr Obama went to Washington as the junior US senator for Illinois. The rumours about him persisted, but seemingly failed to take hold among political insiders and voters alike.

It was not until April 2008, at the height of the intensely bitter Democratic presidential primary process, that the touch paper was properly lit.

An anonymous email circulated by supporters of Mrs Clinton, Mr Obama’s main rival for the party’s nomination, thrust a new allegation into the national spotlight — that he had not been born in Hawaii.

“Barack Obama’s mother was living in Kenya with his Arab-African father late in her pregnancy,” it said. “She was not allowed to travel by plane then, so Barack Obama was born there and his mother then took him to Hawaii to register his birth.” Then in August 2008 Phil Berg, an ex-deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania and a renowned conspiracy theorist, filed a lawsuit alleging that Mr Obama was ineligible to be a candidate.

“Obama carries multiple citizenships and is ineligible to run for President of the United States. United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1,” it said.

By then, the Obama campaign had posted a copy of his “certificate of live birth” — a shorter version of the birth certificate, which is accepted as proof of birth from applicants for a US passport.

But the fact it was not the full, original certificate — and that the campaign failed to show the serial number and other details in their scan — meant that the conspiracy theorists were unbowed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/8478044/Birther-row-began-with-Hillary-Clinton.html

And:

The answer lies in Democratic, not Republican politics, and in the bitter, exhausting spring of 2008. At the time, the Democratic presidential primary was slipping away from Hillary Clinton and some of her most passionate supporters grasped for something, anything that would deal a final reversal to Barack Obama. (See: Bachmann: Birther issue settled)

(Snip)

The original smear against Obama was that he was a crypto-Muslim, floated in 2004 by perennial Illinois political candidate and serial litigant Andy Martin. Other related versions of this theory alleged that Obama was educated in an Indonesian “madrassa” or steeped in Islamist ideology from a young age, and the theories began to spread virally after Obama appeared on the national stage – to the casual observer, from nowhere – with his early 2007 presidential campaign announcement.

(Snip)

That theory first emerged in the spring of 2008, as Clinton supporters circulated an anonymous email questioning Obama’s citizenship.

“Barack Obama’s mother was living in Kenya with his Arab-African father late in her pregnancy. She was not allowed to travel by plane then, so Barack Obama was born there and his mother then took him to Hawaii to register his birth,” asserted one chain email that surfaced on the urban legend site Snopes.com in April 2008.

Another early version of the theory, reported by the Chicago Tribune in June 2008, depended on a specious legal theory that was, for a time, the heart of the argument: that Obama was born in Hawaii but had a Kenyan father, and his mother was only 18 years old. Therefore, under existing immigration law, he was not eligible for automatic citizenship upon birth — a claim that depended on an understandable, but incorrect, reading of immigration law. Other theories suggested that Obama lost his U.S. citizenship when he moved to Indonesia or visited Pakistan in violation of a supposed State Department ban as a young man. (There was no such ban.)

(Snip)

But while the identity of the First Birther is lost to the mists of chain email, one of the first to put his name to the theory was Phil Berg, a former Pennsylvania deputy attorney general who had spent the previous years accusing President George W. Bush of complicity in the Sept. 11 attack.


Berg filed a complaint in federal District court on Aug. 21, 2008, that alleged, “Obama carries multiple citizenships and is ineligible to run for President of the United States. United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1.”

“All the efforts of supporters of legitimate citizens were for nothing because the Obama cheated his way into a fraudulent candidacy and cheated legitimately eligible natural born citizens from competing in a fair process and the supporters of their citizen choice for the nomination,” the suit claims.

Even after Clinton conceded the 2008 race to Obama, according to Poltifact, some Democrats chose not to unite and instead funneled their questions of Obama’s eligibility to pumaparty.com (Party Unity My Ass).

http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/25/hillary-whose-supporters-started-the-birther-movement-blames-trump/#ixzz4IpeYZeUG

And:

Both of those stories comport with what we here at FactCheck.org wrote two-and-a-half years earlier, on Nov. 8, 2008: “This claim was first advanced by diehard Hillary Clinton supporters as her campaign for the party’s nomination faded, and has enjoyed a revival among John McCain’s partisans as he fell substantially behind Obama in public opinion polls.”

Claims about Obama’s birthplace appeared in chain emails bouncing around the Web, and one of the first lawsuits over Obama’s birth certificate was filed by Philip Berg, a former deputy Pennsylvania attorney general and a self-described “moderate to liberal” who supported Clinton.

(Snip)

The other coauthor of the Politico story, Ben Smith, now the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, said in a May 2013 interview on MSNBC that the conspiracy theories traced back to “some of [Hillary Clinton’s] passionate supporters,” during the final throes of Clinton’s 2008 campaign. But he said they did not come from “Clinton herself or her staff.” 

http://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/was-hillary-clinton-the-original-birther/

Secondly, it is not racist to question if someone is born in this country. I don't care if he's the first black President. There were a lot of theories out there, and he wouldn't release his birth certificate - there was speculation that he wasn't born in Hawaii but in Kenya. He had a very unique background growing up with regards to his father, mother, and stepfather. I don't think, in fact I know, if it was someone like Cory Booker, Trump wouldn't have questioned it. No one would. It had nothing to do with the fact he was black. Donald Trump also questioned if Ted Cruz was a citizen because he was born in Canada. He's not black.

In 2015, Trump launched his own campaign for president with another racist lie. He described Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals.

He said nothing incorrect. He never said ALL Mexican immigrants. He's talking about illegal immigrants from Mexico. Prove that this is wrong and there have been no rapists or criminals who are illegal who have come to the U.S.:

In the absence of comprehensive data, FoxNews.com examined a patchwork of local, state and federal statistics that revealed a wildly disproportionate number of murderers, rapists and drug dealers are crossing into the U.S. amid the wave of hard-working families seeking a better life. The explosive figures show illegal immigrants are three times as likely to be convicted of murder as members of the general population and account for far more crimes than their 3.5-percent share of the U.S. population would suggest. Critics say it is no accident that local, state and federal governments go to great lengths to keep the data under wraps.

(Snip)

FoxNews.com did review reports from immigration reform groups and various government agencies, including the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Sentencing Commission, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Government Accountability Office, the Bureau of Justice Statistics and several state and county correctional departments. Statistics show the estimated 11.7 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. account for 13.6 percent of all offenders sentenced for crimes committed in the U.S. Twelve percent of murder sentences, 20 percent of kidnapping sentences and 16 percent of drug trafficking sentences are meted out to illegal immigrants.

There are approximately 2.1 million legal or illegal immigrants with criminal convictions living free or behind bars in the U.S., according to ICE's Secure Communities office. Each year, about 900,000 legal and illegal immigrants are arrested, and 700,000 are released from jail, prison, or probation. ICE estimates that there are more than 1.2 million criminal aliens at large in the U.S. 

In the most recent figures available, a Government Accountability Office report titled, "Criminal Alien Statistics," found there were 55,000 illegal immigrants in federal prison and 296,000 in state and local lockups in 2011. Experts agree those figures have almost certainly risen, although executive orders from the Obama administration may have changed the status of thousands who previously would have been counted as illegal immigrants.

Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrant criminals are being deported. In 2014, ICE removed 315,943 criminal illegal immigrants nationwide, 85 percent of whom had previously been convicted of a criminal offense. But that same year, ICE released onto U.S. streets another 30,558 criminal illegal immigrants with a combined 79,059 criminal convictions including 86 homicides, 186 kidnappings, and thousands of sexual assaults, domestic violence assaults and DUIs, Vaughan said. As of August, ICE had already released at least 10,246 criminal aliens.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/16/crime-wave-elusive-data-shows-frightening-toll-illegal-immigrant-criminals.html

Another:

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in 2015 decided not to deport but release 19,723 criminal illegal immigrants, including 208 convicted of murder, over 900 convicted of sex crimes and 12,307 of drunk driving, according to new government numbers.

Overall, those released into virtually every state and territory of America had a total of 64,197 convictions among them, for an average of 3.25 convictions each, according to an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies. ICE also said that the group were convicted of 8,234 violent crimes.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ice-releases-19723-criminal-illegals-208-convicted-of-murder-900-of-sex-crimes/article/2589785

And he accused the Mexican government of actively sending them across the border. None of that is true.

Why is the Mexican government turning a blind eye to the sheer volume of people crossing their border? Why aren't they working on their country so decent people from Mexico don't feel they have to cross the border to get a better job? Why aren't they stopping the gangs, drugs, and criminals who are crossing our borders? Why do they think our government should be giving amnesty to their citizens?

On Tuesday, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto hailed President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty as an “act of justice” and vowed that the Mexican government would help illegal immigrants from Mexico obtain documents like birth certificates without having to travel to Mexico.

Pena Nieto and Obama met at the White House and, according to the White House, Pena Nieto said Obama’s executive amnesty was a “very intelligent and audacious decision” and “is of course an act of justice for people who arrive from other parts of the world but are now part of the U.S. community.”

After acknowledging that “a very big majority of Mexican citizens” will benefit from Obama’s executive amnesty, Pena Nieto said the Mexican government will help Mexicans living in the United States get the documentation “necessary to prove that they have been in the United States before 2010.”

Pena Nieto said illegal immigrants from Mexico will even “be able to get their birth certificates without having to go to Mexico.”

(Snip)

Pena Nieto, who has referred to America as “the other Mexico,” praised California for its generous policies toward illegal immigrants during a recent visit. He also scolded other governors who did not follow California’s lead and demanded “justice” for illegal immigrants in the United States.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/06/mexican-president-obama-exec-amnesty-act-of-justice-for-illegals/

Oh, and by the way, Mexico’s not paying for his wall either.

If it ever gets built, you can be sure that American taxpayers will be stuck with the bill.

Money well spent anyway. It's still cheaper to pay for the wall than the annual cost of illegal immigration:

Illegal immigration costs U.S. taxpayers about $113 billion a year at the federal, state and local level. The bulk of the costs — some $84 billion — are absorbed by state and local governments.

http://www.fairus.org/publications/the-fiscal-burden-of-illegal-immigration-on-united-states-taxpayers

We all remember when Trump said a distinguished federal judge born in Indiana couldn’t be trusted to do his job because, quote, “He’s a Mexican.”

The judge again. I have addressed this multiple times and will again:

That was a campaign blunder for Trump because, while I think the campaign should have used a different tactic to go after the release of documents from the case, it was articulated poorly. Trump should have used that in connection with La Raza. I know, I know, the media will tell me there are two La Razas, but the La Raza this judge belonged to is a political group:

SDLRLA is a non-partisan organization which takes great pride in its political activity. This organization was founded so that it could advance the Latino community through political activity and advocacy. As we well realize, the only way to effect change is to demand change by engaging the political system. Today, SDLRLA does this through two vehicles; it’s Political Affairs Committee and it’s Political Action Committee.

The Political Affairs Committee is tasked by the Board of Directors to oversee all aspects of the Association’s political efforts. The Political Affairs Committee has led the Association’s efforts to push the state legislature for a reinvestment in our judicial system, has organized two major San Diego mayoral candidate forums, and is acting as the liaison to support the National Association of Latino Elected Official’s 2014 convention in San Diego, June 26-28. 

The Political Action Committee (PAC) is a separate entity comprised of community leaders and board members that oversee all aspects of the Association’s lobbying efforts. The PAC makes decisions on how to contribute the PAC’s money to support candidates and causes that are aligned with the Association’s mission and values.

http://sdlrla.com/about-our-work/

They make endorsements:

http://sdlrla.com/endorsements/

On the side of their website, the link to various groups. One of them is Border Angels. Border Angels helps illegal immigrants and is pro-illegal immigrant:

http://www.borderangels.org/faq/

The Daily Caller lists these organizations:

Meet The Pro-Illegal Immigrant Groups The La Raza Lawyers Of San Diego Consider Part Of Their ‘Community’ 

The SDLRLA’s website includes a side-panel on their site titled “Community” which includes links to a variety of groups, including the National Council of La Raza.

“Please note, the San Diego Lawyers Association is not affiliated with the National La Raza Council,” the president of the SDLRLA, Luis O. Osuna, told The Daily Caller in a statement.

However, this link is not the only connection between the SDLRLA and the National Council of La Raza. The San Diego previously publicized a La Raza announcement in 2012 about gay marriage. The SDLRLA is also an affiliate of the Hispanic National Bar Association. The former president of this group, Rafael Santiago, was on the board of the National Council of La Raza. La Raza views itself as a non-radical Latino advocacy group, but Hispanic civil rights leader Cesar Chavez called the movement “anti-gringo.”

(Snip)

Donald Trump has come out strongly against Judge Curiel saying he can’t be impartial because of his Mexican heritage. Likewise, the National Council of La Raza has come out strongly against Trump. The group’s president has previously accused Trump of “bigotry.” The NCLR has also previously called President Barack Obama “deporter-in-chief.”

However, the NCLR is not the only group the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association associates with that takes issues with Trump and his policies. Another group linked as part of the SDLRLA’s community is Reality Changers, which provides scholarships to low-income youth, some of which are illegal immigrants. It was previously reported by TheDC that Judge Curiel was on a selection committee that gave a scholarship to an illegal alien.

MANA de San Diego is also listed on the community page of the SDLRLA and likewise to Reality Changers they offer scholarships to illegal immigrant youth. Another group in the “community” is MALDEF. MALDEF previously spearheaded a lawsuit against several colleges for denying admission to illegal aliens.

Alliance San Diego is likewise linked to by the SDLRLA and a recent post on their site is, “Latinos allege excessive policing after Trump protests.” Alliance San Diego has come out strongly in support of Obama’s executive actions providing amnesty.

Another group that SDLRLA considers part of their community is Border Angels. The founder of Border Angels opposed the most recent immigration reform bill, Gang of Eight, because “it is not humane, as it would double the size of the Border Patrol and double the size of the wall.” 

San Diego Dream Team is another organization linked to the SDLRLA. The group recently tweeted out their displeasure with deportation raids from the Obama administration. “San Diego will NOT stand for hate, militarization of our communities/separation of families#StopTheHate #HereToStay,” the group wrote on May 27.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/06/meet-the-pro-illegal-immigrant-groups-the-la-raza-lawyers-of-san-diego-consider-part-of-their-community/#ixzz4FGyw5b5Q

The judge was involved in giving a scholarship to an illegal immigrant:

Judge Presiding Over Trump University Case Is Member Of La Raza Lawyers Group [VIDEO]

United States District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the man presiding over the class-action lawsuit against Trump University, is a member of the La Raza Lawyers of San Diego and oversaw the gift of a law school scholarship to an illegal alien. 

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/01/judge-presiding-over-trump-university-case-is-member-of-la-raza-lawyers-group/#ixzz4FGztz085

Finally:

Report: Trump University Judge Linked to Group that Calls for Boycott of Trump’s Businesses

Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing a fraud case against Trump University, is reportedly a member of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association, which is affiliated with the Hispanic National Bar Association. 

The Hispanic National Bar Association sent out a press release last summer after Donald Trump, who is now the presumptive Republican nominee, announced he was running for president and created a controversy by discussing illegal immigration and crime during his announcement speech.

The press release stated the organization’s mission to target Trump’s “business interests,” according to the Conservative Treehouse. 

“By his recent derogatory remarks about Mexican immigrants, Donald Trump’s disrespect of such a large segment of the population of America is not only unbelievable but outright wrong,” the press release states. “His comment that Mexico only sends rapists and criminals to the United States reveals a racist nature that cannot and will not go unnoticed by the Hispanic National Bar Association nor the Latino community.”

The press release adds:

The HNBA calls for a boycott of all of Trump business ventures, including golf courses, hotels, and restaurants. We salute NBC/Universal, Univision and Macy’s for ending their association with Trump, and we join them in standing up against bigotry and racist rhetoric. Other businesses and corporations should follow the lead of NBC/Universal, Univision and Macy’s and take similar actions against Donald Trump’s business interests. We can and will make a difference. 

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/06/07/report-trump-university-judge-linked-group-calls-boycott-trumps-businesses/

This is someone who retweets white supremacists online, like the user who goes by the name “white-genocide-TM.” Trump took this fringe bigot with a few dozen followers and spread his message to 11 million people.

Who pays attention to what you retweet? If I'm on Twitter and see something I like or agree with, I often retweet it without looking at the handle of the person who Tweeted, let alone the profile page.

His campaign famously posted an anti-Semitic image – a Star of David imposed over a sea of dollar bills – that first appeared on a white supremacist website.

That is factually incorrect. The image first appeared on Twitter on June 15. It wasn't seen on the website until June 22. When an image is on Twitter, is it often retweeted and floats around. Second of all, it was just a star - a badge of corruption for Hillary Clinton. That sheriff's star was probably the dumbest media controversy of this campaign...and that's saying something. His daughter, son in law, and grandkids are Jewish for pete's sake. A Jewish employee of Trump said Trump was very respectful of his religion and allowed him to leave work early or miss work to observe Jewish holidays.

The Trump campaign also selected a prominent white nationalist leader as a delegate in California. They only dropped him under pressure.

Trump campaign responds:

The Trump campaign submitted the name of William Johnson, the head of the American Freedom Party who funded pro-Trump robocalls that talked of the white race "dying out in America," to the California secretary of state. Johnson is one of 169 delegates -- 159 from congressional districts and 10 at-large delegates -- that voters in each of California's congressional districts would send to the GOP's nominating convention this summer by voting for Trump.

Johnson said he received an email from a California strategist with Trump's campaign late Tuesday afternoon stating that he had been listed in error.

(Snip)

The Trump campaign on Tuesday blamed Johnson's inclusion on its California delegate slate on a "database error."

"Yesterday, the Trump campaign submitted its list of California delegates to be certified by the Secretary of State of California. A database error led to the inclusion of a potential delegate that had been rejected and removed from the campaign's list in February 2016," Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a statement.

"We are working to correct this error," she added.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/10/politics/donald-trump-delegate-white-nationalist/

Per the Huffington Post, they tried to replace him, but it was past the deadline. He resigned.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-white-nationalist-delegate-deadline_us_57335272e4b016f37897c097

When asked in a nationally televised interview whether he would disavow the support of David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, Trump wouldn’t do it. Only later, again under mounting pressure, did he backtrack.

Actually, he disavowed him prior to that interview.

TRUMP: I disavowed David Duke a day before at a major press conference, and I'm saying to myself, how many times do I have to continue to disavow people? And the question was asked about David Duke and various groups. And I don't know who the groups are. I said, would you do me a favor and tell me the groups? He was unable to tell me that. 

GUTHRIE: He says "I'm just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here." You said, "honestly, I don't know David Duke."

TRUMP: Ok, so let me tell you. I'm sitting in a house in Florida with a very bad ear piece that they gave me and you can hardly hear what he was saying. But what I heard was various groups -- and I don't mind disavowing anybody, and I disavowed David Duke and I disavowed him the day before at a major news conference, which is surprising because he was at the major news conference -- CNN was at the major news conference and they heard me very easily disavow David Duke. Now I go and I sit down again. I have a lousy ear piece that is provided by them. And frankly, he talked about groups -- he also talked about groups. And I have no problem with disavowing groups but I'd at least like to know who they are. It would be very unfair to disavow a group, Matt, if the group shouldn't be disavowed. I have to know who the groups are. But I disavowed David Duke. Now, if you look on Facebook right after that, I also disavowed David Duke. When we looked at it -- looked at the question, I disavowed David Duke. So, I disavowed David Duke all weekend long on Facebook, on Twitter and, obviously it's never enough. Ridiculous.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/02 /29/trump_disavows_kkk_duke_how_many_times_do_i_have_to_continue_to_disavow_people.html

Confirmed by Buzzfeed prior to Trump/Tapper interview:

At a news conference in Texas on Friday, Donald Trump said he disavows the support of white nationalist and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.

“I didn’t even know he endorsed me. David Duke endorsed me? I disavow, OK,” Trump said.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/trump-disavows-former-kkk-leader-david-dukes-support?utm_term=.veP00BzZV1#.mqW33e2J6n

He also just disavowed a robo call by Duke:

Donald Trump's campaign disavowed a robocall by Louisiana senate candidate and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, in which he urged people to vote for Trump and himself.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/08/29/trump-campaign-disavows-robocall-by-david-duke.html

And when Trump was asked about anti-Semitic slurs and death threats coming from his supporters, he refused to condemn them.

I would not go there when Democrat supporters have attacked Trump supporters outside of rallies, when liberals and Black Lives Matter supporters on Twitter have Tweeted death threats to Trump. Mark Dice has done a series of videos pointing out these Tweets:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa8S4GilqogQ9ZRZsSSN-TOIW2PFwt_R9

Will Hillary come out and condemn these people?

Trump said thousands of American Muslims in New Jersey cheered the 9/11 attacks. They didn’t.

Perhaps not thousands, but some sure did:

We KNOW for a fact the Orlando gunman celebrated. He was in school at the time. He was still a youth. You think he came up with that alone? Kids are highly influenced by parents and community at that age. If he was surrounded by parents and people who condemned the attack, why would he celebrate alone? I'll continue with sources, though:

Now, Former New York Police Department Commissioner Bernard Kerik has vindicated Trump in his claims, noting that there were many post-9/11 celebrations by NYC-area Muslims.

Read more: http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/trumps-claims-about-muslims-after-911-confirmed-video/#ixzz4BmHXldrJ

CNN Report: American Muslims celebrating 9/11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5BtQgTGOI4

CBS report:

Just a couple of blocks away from that Jersey City apartment the F.B.I. raided yesterday and had evidence removed, there is another apartment building, one that investigators told me, quote, was swarming with suspects — suspects who I’m told were cheering on the roof when they saw the planes slam into the Trade Center. Police were called to the building by neighbors and found eight men celebrating, six of them tenants in the building. 

The F.B.I. and other terrorist task force agencies arrived, and the older investigators on the task force recalled that they had been to this building before, eight years ago, when the first World Trade Center attack led them to Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, whose Jersey City mosque lies between the two buildings getting attention today. And the older investigators remember that the suspects that eventually got convicted for the first Trade Center case … lived in the building where these same eight men were celebrating the destruction that they saw from the roof. Calling this a hot address, the task force investigators ordered everyone detained.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/12/02/trump-100-vindicated-cbs-reports-swarms-on-roofs-celebrating-911/

Some Muslims in New Jersey did celebrate the 9/11 terror attacks during rooftop and street parties until they were broken up by the cops, a new report said Monday. 

There were at least two celebrations and likely more, with men shouting “Allahu Akbar” and women chanting in Arabic, NJ.com reported.

“Some men were dancing, some held kids on their shoulders,” said retired Jersey City police Capt. Peter Gallagher, who responded to the scene after numerous 911 calls from outraged residents.

“The women were shouting in Arabic and keening in the high-pitched wail of Arabic fashion. They were told to go back to their apartments since a crowd of non-Muslims was gathering on the sidewalk below and we feared for their safety.”

Gallagher said he cleared a rooftop celebration of up to 30 people at 6 Tonnele Ave., a four-story apartment building with a view of Lower Manhattan, after the second tower fell.

Another witness said he saw a celebration on John F. Kennedy Boulevard, a main thoroughfare in the city.

“When I saw they were happy, I was pissed,” said Ron Knight, 56, who also heard cheers of “Allahu Akbar” — “God is great” — from a crowd of about 20 people that morning.

Residents also placed numerous 911 calls complaining about Muslims partying on a rooftop at a third location, three cops told the website.

http://nypost.com/2015/12/21/nj-police-captain-says-some-muslims-did-celebrate-on-911/

Rudy Giuliani disputed the numbers but also says there were celebrations:

Giuliani said that there could have been as many as 40 people celebrating after the attacks during an interview with CNN's "New Day" on Tuesday, but added that he thought presidential candidate Donald Trump was "exaggerating" when he said he saw thousands of Muslims cheering after the attacks.

“We did have some celebrating,” Giuliani said on CNN. “That is true. We had pockets of celebration, some in Queens, some in Brooklyn.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Rudy-Giuliani-Pockets-of-Cheering-Sept-11-911-Terrorist-Attacks-360021151.html

Multiple people (citizens) backing up Trump's comments:

Tom Penicaro: “I worked for PSEG in Clifton on the Paterson boarder and I witnessed it firsthand. They were celebrating in the streets cheering and stomping on the flag. I am a Marine and I remember very very clearly because I was so passed I wanted to engage them with a bat I had in my van.”

William Hugelmeyer: We all saw and heard the reports, just because the media is doing a white wash doesn’t mean it didn’t happen! I was working in the jail when the attacks occurred. Once it was clear it was a terrorist attack, we had inmates celebrating. This instantly caused a lockdown. As you could imagine, many other inmates and officers didn’t share their jubilation.” 

P.j. Flattery: “I saw with my own eyes Muslims in Paterson dancing and singing on the streets during 9/11. Trumps an American. He’s gonna have his haters and people trying to knock him down.” 

Patrick Kiernan: “They were celebrating all around the area of the mosque on Getty Ave in Paterson. You cant tell me they weren’t because I lived there when It happened and I observed the clashes in the city at the time. There may be no visual proof but I remember the police went on the news and asked the citizens not to retaliate against any of the Muslim citizens in the city and that just emboldened them even more to be spiteful and full of their hate .Dont say it didn’t happen because it did.”

Terry Lynn Mustakas: “I experienced/witnessed many incidents of Muslims celebrating 9/11 in North Brunswick. I was in a grocery store when I heard the plane crashed on the store radio. The Muslim man in line next to me turned and spit on me. I’ll never forget it.” 

John Pezzino: “They were in the streets banging on the cars trying to drive through the crowd in the street. The Muslims were shouting death to American s and Allah is great other crap I didn’t understand. We were amused until a car with 3 young women mistakenly turned on to main st. The muslims were banging on their windows and screaming, thats when we came out of our car and pushed the muslims off their car helped them back out and get back to the Parkway.”

Mike Passeri: “It absolutely happened in Paterson. The police even had some of the streets closed off to traffic because of it. I was in Paterson on the 12th for business and the whole area around Crooks Avenue was covered in people celebrating. As for the fights in the high schools, I remember hearing about it being reported but have no idea if that was true or not.” 

Eddie Iacono: “No, I was in Jersey City when it happened. That night I had to drive through the Muslim Alcove in Paterson, NJ and they were still laughing about it a bit too happily. They may have been speaking another language, but when someone sweeps their hand down while making sound effects of a building dropping, then smiles, and raises his fists in triumph, well, something is wrong.” 

Priscilla Crane Hudson: “I saw first hand in Jersey City the Muslims cheering in the streets when the World Trade Center was destroyed. These so called news outlets should get their facts straight. And there were 100s of revelers over 3,000+ deaths.” 

Walter Emiliantsev: “I lived in NJ at the time on Demott Ave., Clifton! When I tried to go to Paterson to my brother in laws shop, I usually took Main Ave. There were so many people dancing on Main, I couldn’t get through! I KNOW what I saw!”

http://nj1015.com/these-people-say-they-all-saw-911-celebrations-in-nj-firsthand/

He suggested that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the Kennedy assassination. Perhaps in Trump’s mind, because he was a Cuban immigrant, he must have had something to do with it. Of course there’s absolutely no evidence of that. 

This again. I have addressed this multiple times and won't take up the space, but here is a link to a blog post I did, and it's the second half of it:

http://dtforpres.blogspot.com/2016/08/a-response-to-media-claims-trump.html

Just recently, Trump claimed President Obama founded ISIS. And then he repeated that nonsense over and over.

ISIS wasn't even known by the general public until Hillary and Obama policies of withdrawing too soon from Iraq, going into Libya, and ineptness on Syria, allowed ISIS to grow and spread. While he wasn't in a cave plotting to found ISIS, his policies enabled them and gave them the ability to grow and become what they are today.

His latest paranoid fever dream is about my health. All I can say is, Donald, dream on.

Donald has challenged Hillary to release full health records as he says he will. Ball in Hillary's court.

It’s what happens when you listen to the radio host Alex Jones, who claims that 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombings were inside jobs. He said the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre were child actors and no one was actually killed there.

Trump didn’t challenge those lies. He went on Jones’ show and said: “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.”

First of all, I agree that those were terrible things said by Jones, but Jones makes good points on things too sometimes (from a conservative perspective). Anyway, I'm not so sure that she would want to choose the 9/11 conspiracy theory considering your party's relationship with that:

There aren't a lot of great public numbers on the partisan breakdown of adherents to that conspiracy theory, but the University of Ohio yesterday shared with us the crosstabs of a 2006 poll they did with Scripps Howard that's useful in that regard. 

"How likely is it that people in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East?" the poll asked.

A full 22.6% of Democrats said it was "very likely." Another 28.2% called it "somewhat likely."

That is: More than half of Democrats, according to a neutral survey, said they believed Bush was complicit in the 9/11 terror attacks.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/ben-smith/2011/04/more-than-half-of-democrats-believed-bush-knew-035224

In times of crisis, our country depends on steady leadership… clear thinking… and calm judgment… because one wrong move can mean the difference between life and death.

Yes.

The last thing we need in the Situation Room is a loose cannon who can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction, and who buys so easily into racially-tinged rumors.

Agreed.  Also someone who can't figure out that "c" is for Classified.

Someone detached from reality should never be in charge of making decisions that are as real as they come.

Absolutely. Goodbye, Hillary.

He would form a deportation force to round up millions of immigrants and kick them out of the country.

Hillary forgot the word "ILLEGAL" in front of immigrant. Meanwhile, the Democrats have allowed 19,723 CRIMINAL illegal immigrants to be released just LAST YEAR.

http://cis.org/vaughan/ice-releases-19723-criminal-aliens-2015

He’d abolish the bedrock constitutional principle that says if you’re born in the United States, you’re an American citizen. He says that children born in America to undocumented parents are, quote, “anchor babies” and should be deported.

That Constitutional principle is being abused. People are literally coming here to have babies, let them become citizens. There are 295,000 (approximately) babies born a year to undocumented immigrants.

There were an estimated 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in March 2013, according to a preliminary Pew Research estimate. They make up 4% of the population, but their share of births is higher because the immigrants include a higher share of women in their childbearing years and have higher birthrates than the U.S. population overall.

These estimates are based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey and American Community Survey, using the widely accepted “residual methodology” employed by Pew Research for many years. 

Most children of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. are born here, and therefore are citizens. In 2012, there were 4.5 million U.S.-born children younger than 18 living with unauthorized-immigrant parents. 

There also were 775,000 children younger than 18 who were unauthorized immigrants themselves and lived with unauthorized-immigrant parents. These totals do not count U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants who do not live with their parents.

The nation’s unauthorized immigrants are more likely than in the past to be long-term residents of the U.S., and are increasingly likely to live with U.S.-born children. In 2012, there were 4 million unauthorized-immigrant adults who lived with their U.S.-born children, both minor and adult. They made up 38% of unauthorized immigrant adults. By comparison, in 2000, 2.1 million unauthorized-immigrant adults, or 30% of this group, lived with their U.S.-born children, minor and adult. 

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/09/11/number-of-babies-born-in-u-s-to-unauthorized-immigrants-declines/

There are millions of children in this country whose parents are not citizens, and they are either having these children to have a connection to the U.S. or are having children while here, and that gives them a connection to this country.

The rewards to the mother and father are huge. The mother, for example, can collect federal welfare on behalf of the child, and the adult child – as a U.S. citizen – will eventually be able to win a green card for his or her parents, despite their prior illegal entry into the United States. 

As National Review writes:

71 percent of illegal-alien headed households with children received some sort of welfare in 2009, compared with 39 percent of native-headed houses with children. Illegal immigrants generally access welfare programs through their U.S.-born children, to whom government assistance is guaranteed. Additionally, U.S.-born children of illegal aliens are entitled to American public schools, health care, and more, even though illegal-alien households rarely pay taxes.

The cost of K-12 public school alone for a U.S.-born child of illegal migrants is, at a minimum, around $160,000 (using the average cost $12,300 per pupil per year). Additionally, under universities’ system of racial preferences, anchor babies will get bonus SAT and GPA points when they apply to college. Many corporations will continue this benefits program when considering their job applications as well. 

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/25/census-anchor-baby-delivered-every-93-seconds/

More from the National Review piece:

The cost of this is not negligible. Inflation-adjusted figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture projected that a child born in 2013 would cost his parents $304,480 from birth to his eighteenth birthday. Given that illegal-alien households are normally low-income households (three out of five illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children live at or near the poverty line), one would expect that a significant portion of that cost will fall on the government. And that’s exactly what‘s happening. 

According to CIS, 71 percent of illegal-alien headed households with children received some sort of welfare in 2009, compared with 39 percent of native-headed houses with children. Illegal immigrants generally access welfare programs through their U.S.-born children, to whom government assistance is guaranteed. Additionally, U.S.-born children of illegal aliens are entitled to American public schools, health care, and more, even though illegal-alien households rarely pay taxes.

(Snip)

There are long-term costs, too. U.S.-born children of illegal aliens can sponsor the immigration of family members once they come of age. At 18, an “anchor baby” can sponsor an overseas spouse and unmarried children of his own; at 21, he can sponsor parents and siblings. There may be a long waiting period before that legal benefit is of use. But it’s a fact that illegal aliens with American-born children are much less likely to be deported, and that policy has been effectively enshrined in law with President Obama’s Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) policy, which would effectively grant amnesty to some 5 million illegal aliens, on top of the 2 to 3 million granted amnesty under his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. (DAPA is currently under scrutiny in the courts.)

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422921/birthright-citizenship-economic-costs-incentives

This also doesn't consider the birthright tourism:

Asian 'anchor babies': Wealthy Chinese come to Southern California to give birth

Earlier this year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a major crackdown in Southern California.

One affidavit related to that case quoted a law review article estimating that about 40,000 of 300,000 children born to foreign citizens in the U.S. each year are the product of birth tourism.

The website of one birthing center suggested that 4,000 Chinese women had been served since 1999.

The crackdown included one birthing center in Irvine. According to an affidavit, more than 400 women associated with the Irvine location have given birth at one Orange County hospital since 2013. One of the women paid $4,080 out of $28,845 in hospital bills, while her bank account showed charges at Wynn Las Vegas and purchases at Rolex and Louis Vuitton stores, the affidavit said.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-asian-anchor-babies-wealthy-chinese-20150826-story.html

Not just Asians:

Barella, founder of Barella Law, explained exclusively to Breitbart News that the birth right citizenship law – although legal – is being abused by these companies. According to Barella, poor pregnant immigrant mothers coming across the southern border aren’t the ones being targeted, but rather the companies are targeting wealthy foreigners from countries such as China and Russia, at times making $99,000 dollars per sale.

“The one that I know is called ‘Miami Mama.’ In all fairness to them – one, what they are doing is completely legal…and number two, they’re not the only ones. Just this morning I typed in Google…in Russian… “Birth in the U.S.A” … and there’s over 19,000 Google hits on giving birth in the U.S.A. for citizenship and there are quite a few companies that come up,” Barella explained.

Several companies — not just Miami Mama — came up by simply typing in Russian “Birth in the U.S.A” into a Google search. A few include: rod-v-miami.ru, www.rodivusa.com, and www.deliveryinusa.com.

“It’s not just the Russians. There are similar websites in Chinese, Spanish and Arabic,” Barella added.

Barella mainly used the company Miami Mama as an example, but reiterated it’s not the only company offering this type of service. Barella’s wife – who speaks Russian – helped him research the company website.

“It’s entirely in Russian … and basically what these companies do – and it’s not just Russian people, it’s Chinese people, it’s people from South America, wealthy people – so this is completely different from illegal immigrants coming over giving birth into the U.S.,” he explained. “This is completely legal and it’s wealthy immigrants who pay. The Standard Package for Miami Mama starts at $19,900 dollars and it goes all the way up to what’s called the Imperial Package, which is $99,000 dollars.”

Although Barella doesn’t work with these companies – and has not had any contact with Miami Mama – he explained the context behind this big moneymaking business.

“What the context is, is that these wealthy foreign families can pay to come over to the U.S. usually in their second trimester…they put them up in a hotel, they provide them with prenatal care… with a Russian doctor, which is – of course – in cahoots with this program because remember, they’re paying out of pocket – they’re not on U.S. insurance,” Barella explained. He added that he can’t confirm the doctors are in business with the company, but suspects this is the case.

He continued, “They give birth in one of the finest hospitals in Florida. While they’re here, they take tours, they’re provided a car service to be driven around to all the shopping in Miami, they give birth here, they’re children are now U.S. citizens – what do they do? – Then, they go back to Russia, they go back to Venezuela, they go back to China and they live there until their kids … what they do this mainly for is when their kids are of college age, they want them to come to university in the United States, that’s the main reason.”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/20/exclusive-immigration-attorney-anchor-babies-now-big-money-business-in-us-99000-per-sale/

And he’d ban Muslims around the world – 1.5 billion men, women, and children –from entering our country just because of their religion.

The ban is from countries compromised by terrorism as opposed to allowing in 550% more refugees from such countries.

The latest shake-up was designed to – quote – "Let Trump be Trump." To do that, he hired Stephen Bannon, the head of a right-wing website called Breitbart.com, as campaign CEO.

Breitbart tracked down some offensive liberal media headlines including Salon and pedophilia:

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/08/27/left-wing-medias-most-offensive-headlines/

No wonder he’s gone to work for Trump – the only Presidential candidate ever to get into a public feud with the Pope.

Not much of a feud, especially considering the Pope himself has a nice wall around the Vatican, but why don't you talk to the Pope about the definition of marriage and abortion? Even this liberal Pope still believes marriage is between a man and a woman and in the sanctity of human life.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, Breitbart embraces "ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right. Racist ideas.

Siting the SPLC? A liberal group that labels conservative groups hate groups? Hahahahahaha! Lest we forget they helped inspire the attempted shooting at the FRC. In the spirit of that comment, though, I'll cite Brietbart:

Christian groups are celebrating with the news that the Federal Bureau of Investigation appears to have scrubbed the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) from its hate crimes webpage, where the controversial group was listed as a resource and referred to as a partner in public outreach.

A letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, drafted by Lieutenant General (Ret.) William G. Boykin, Executive Vice President of the Family Research Council (FRC), calls such an association “completely unacceptable.”

Signed by fourteen other conservative and Christian leaders, the letter calls SPLC “a heavily politicized organization producing inaccurate and biased data on ‘hate groups’ – not hate crimes.” It accuses the SPLC of “providing findings that are not consistent with trends found in the FBI statistics.” Where the FBI has found hate crimes and hate groups declining significantly in the past ten years, SPLC claims hate groups have increased 67.3% since 2000.Where once SPLC’s hate list was reserved for groups like the Aryan Nation and the KKK, in 2010 SPLC started citing as hate groups those Christian groups that oppose same-sex marriage or believe homosexuality is not inborn, or are otherwise critical of homosexuality. Among the Christian groups targeted by SPLC was FRC.

(Snip)

Writing in the left-wing website Counterpunch, Alexander Coburn called SPLC founder Morris Dees “king of the hate business.” Coburn wrote, “Ever since 1971, U.S. Postal Service mailbags have bulged with Dees’ fundraising letters, scaring dollars out of the pockets of trembling liberals aghast at his lurid depictions of hate-sodden America, in dire need of legal confrontation by the SPLC.” In fact, so prolific is Dees at direct mail that he is in the Direct Marketing Association Hall of Fame.

Writing at the Harper’s Magazine blog in 2007, Ken Silverstein said, “What [the SPLC] does best… is to raise obscene amounts of money by hyping fears about the power of [right-wing fringe] groups; hence the SPLC has become the nation’s richest ‘civil rights’ organization.”

A critical analysis published recently by Professor George Yancey of North Texas University concluded that SPLC targets only those groups its leaders disagree with politically while leaving liberal groups who use extreme language alone.

A 2013 article in Foreign Policy concluded that SPLC exaggerates the hate crimes threat, saying SPLC is not an “objective purveyor of data,” instead calling them “anti-hate activists” and suggesting that their reports need to be “weighed more carefully by news outlets that cover their pronouncements.”

Though SPLC sits on a bank account of $250 million and raises some $40 million a year in direct mail, some have suggested that the decline of racist groups and therefore the need to tap new sources of funds might have led Dees and his colleagues to target Christian groups as new sources of revenue. Weekly Standard writer Charlotte Hays says, “…several critics with whom I spoke speculated that the last might represent another of Dees’s efforts to tap via mailing lists into a well-off and easily frightened donor base: gays.”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/03/26/fbi-dumps-southern-poverty-law-center/

Race-baiting ideas. Anti-Muslim and anti-Immigrant ideas –– all key tenets making up an emerging racist ideology known as the ‘Alt-Right.’"

Wanting to fight radical Islamic terror, having secure borders, and having people come in to be citizens who love this country is not racist. I'm not on the alt-right - I'm a social conservative. Most Trump supporters are not, and I bet most don't even know what it is. I have found posts of people who say they are alt-right, and certainly not all of these people seem racist to me. Of course, I still am confused to what the alt-right is. It's not a formal movement with a formal leader, so I think it can mean different things to different people.

Just yesterday, one of Britain’s most prominent right-wing leaders, Nigel Farage, who stoked anti-immigrant sentiments to win the referendum on leaving the European Union, campaigned with Donald Trump in Mississippi.

Farage has called for a ban on the children of legal immigrants from public schools and health services, has said women are quote "worth less" than men, and supports scrapping laws that prevent employers from discriminating based on race -- that’s who Trump wants by his side.

Respond, Nigel:

A very rattled, anxious-looking Hillary Clinton responded in a press conference and attacked my presence on the stage with Trump. She trotted out a series of wilful misinterpretations of things that I had said. 

It was a similar kind of demonisation used by George Osborne and many of the Remain camp on me during the referendum campaign. 

Along with Bob Geldof, Hillary simply cannot accept Brexit and still thinks it's wrong to even talk about immigration.

She represents the failed past and would do better going out meeting American voters rather than attacking me.

Perhaps if I donate to the Clinton Foundation her views on me might soften.

Indeed. Thank you, Nigel.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3761715/NIGEL-FARAGE-Trump-warm-man-gave-bounce-ll-new-Ronald-Reagan.html#ixzz4Iv2VJFpV

The godfather of this global brand of extreme nationalism is Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Ah, but of course. Hillary has ZERO ties to Russia:

The headline on the website Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when its precursor served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.”

The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.

But the untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.

At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.

Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. 

As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well. 

And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

At the time, both Rosatom and the United States government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company’s assets to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records show.

(Snip)

Soon, Uranium One began to snap up companies with assets in the United States. In April 2007, it announced the purchase of a uranium mill in Utah and more than 38,000 acres of uranium exploration properties in four Western states, followed quickly by the acquisition of the Energy Metals Corporation and its uranium holdings in Wyoming, Texas and Utah. That deal made clear that Uranium One was intent on becoming “a powerhouse in the United States uranium sector with the potential to become the domestic supplier of choice for U.S. utilities,” the company declared.

Still, the company’s story was hardly front-page news in the United States — until early 2008, in the midst of Mrs. Clinton’s failed presidential campaign, when The Times published an article revealing the 2005 trip’s link to Mr. Giustra’s Kazakhstan mining deal. It also reported that several months later, Mr. Giustra had donated $31.3 million to Mr. Clinton’s foundation.

(Snip)

Before Mrs. Clinton could assume her post as secretary of state, the White House demanded that she sign a memorandum of understanding placing limits on the activities of her husband’s foundation. To avoid the perception of conflicts of interest, beyond the ban on foreign government donations, the foundation was required to publicly disclose all contributors.

To judge from those disclosures — which list the contributions in ranges rather than precise amounts — the only Uranium One official to give to the Clinton Foundation was Mr. Telfer, the chairman, and the amount was relatively small: no more than $250,000, and that was in 2007, before talk of a Rosatom deal began percolating.

But a review of tax records in Canada, where Mr. Telfer has a family charity called the Fernwood Foundation, shows that he donated millions of dollars more, during and after the critical time when the foreign investment committee was reviewing his deal with the Russians. With the Russians offering a special dividend, shareholders like Mr. Telfer stood to profit. 

His donations through the Fernwood Foundation included $1 million reported in 2009, the year his company appealed to the American Embassy to help it keep its mines in Kazakhstan; $250,000 in 2010, the year the Russians sought majority control; as well as $600,000 in 2011 and $500,000 in 2012. Mr. Telfer said that his donations had nothing to do with his business dealings, and that he had never discussed Uranium One with Mr. or Mrs. Clinton. He said he had given the money because he wanted to support Mr. Giustra’s charitable endeavors with Mr. Clinton. “Frank and I have been friends and business partners for almost 20 years,” he said.

The Clinton campaign left it to the foundation to reply to questions about the Fernwood donations; the foundation did not provide a response.

Mr. Telfer’s undisclosed donations came in addition to between $1.3 million and $5.6 million in contributions, which were reported, from a constellation of people with ties to Uranium One or UrAsia, the company that originally acquired Uranium One’s most valuable asset: the Kazakh mines. Without those assets, the Russians would have had no interest in the deal: “It wasn’t the goal to buy the Wyoming mines. The goal was to acquire the Kazakh assets, which are very good,” Mr. Novikov, the Rosatom spokesman, said in an interview.

Amid this influx of Uranium One-connected money, Mr. Clinton was invited to speak in Moscow in June 2010, the same month Rosatom struck its deal for a majority stake in Uranium One.

The $500,000 fee — among Mr. Clinton’s highest — was paid by Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin that has invited world leaders, including Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, to speak at its investor conferences. 

(Snip)

Renaissance Capital would not comment on the genesis of Mr. Clinton’s speech to an audience that included leading Russian officials, or on whether it was connected to the Rosatom deal. According to a Russian government news service, Mr. Putin personally thanked Mr. Clinton for speaking.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0

Chalk it up to a small world or to a tangled web, but Uranium One, the Russian-owned uranium mining company at the center of a recent scandal involving the Clintons and a close Canadian business partner, has lobbied the State Department through a firm co-founded by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign chairman. 

Senate records show that The Podesta Group has lobbied the State Department on behalf of Uranium One — once in 2012, when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, and once in 2015.

Uranium One paid The Podesta Group $40,000 to lobby the State Department, the Senate, the National Park Service and the National Security Council for “international mining projects,” according to a July 20, 2012 filing.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/29/firm-co-founded-by-hillarys-campaign-chair-lobbies-for-russias-uranium-one/#ixzz4J5YYx4fS

And:

Which is exactly what Sberbank, Russia’s biggest financial institution, did this spring. As reported at the end of March, the Podesta Group registered with the U.S. Government as a lobbyist for Sberbank, as required by law, naming three Podesta Group staffers: Tony Podesta plus Stephen Rademaker and David Adams, the last two former assistant secretaries of state. It should be noted that Tony Podesta is a big-money bundler for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign while his brother John is the chairman of that campaign, the chief architect of her plans to take the White House this November. 

Sberbank (Savings Bank in Russian) engaged the Podesta Group to help its public image—leading Moscow financial institutions not exactly being known for their propriety and wholesomeness—and specifically to help lift some of the pain of sanctions placed on Russia in the aftermath of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine, which has caused real pain to the country’s hard-hit financial sector. 

It’s hardly surprising that Sberbank sought the help of Democratic insiders like the Podesta Group to aid them in this difficult hour, since they clearly understand how American politics work. The question is why the Podesta Group took Sberbank’s money. That financial institution isn’t exactly hiding in the shadows—it’s the biggest bank in Russia, and its reputation leaves a lot to be desired. Nobody acquainted with Russian finance was surprised that Sberbank wound up in the Panama Papers.

Although Sberbank has its origins in the nineteenth century, it was functionally reborn after the Soviet collapse, and it the 1990s it grew to be the dominant bank in the country, today controlling nearly 30 percent of Russia’s aggregate banking assets and employing a quarter-million people. The majority stockholder in Sberbank is Russia’s Central Bank. In other words, Sberbank is functionally an arm of the Kremlin, although it’s ostensibly a private institution.

Certainly Western intelligence is well acquainted with Sberbank, noting its close relationship with Vladimir Putin and his regime. Funds moving through Sberbank are regularly used to support clandestine Russian intelligence operations, while the bank uses its offices abroad as cover for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service or SVR. A NATO counterintelligence official explained that Sberbank, which has outposts in almost two dozen foreign countries, “functions as a sort of arm of the SVR outside Russia, especially because many of its senior employees are ‘former’ Russian intelligence officers.” Inside the country, Sberbank has an equally cosy relationship with the Federal Security Service or FSB, Russia’s powerful domestic intelligence agency.

Ukraine has pointed a finger at Sberbank as an instrument of Russia’s aggression against their country. In 2014, Ukraine’s Security Service charged Sberbank with “financing terrorism,” noting that its branches were distributing millions of dollars in illegal aid to Russian-backed separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine. Kyiv’s conclusion, that Sberbank is a witting supporter of Russian aggression against Ukraine, is broadly supported by Western intelligence. “Sberbank is the Kremlin, they don’t do anything major without Putin’s go-ahead, and they don’t tell him ‘no’ either,” explained a retired senior U.S. intelligence official with extensive experience in Eastern Europe.

In addition, Ukrainian intelligence has alleged that the FSB collaborated with Sberbank in the bombings of two of the bank’s branches in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in June 2015. The attacks caused no casualties but got major coverage in Russian state media as “proof” of Ukraine’s instability and violent anti-Russian nature. Although the notion that Russian spies would plant bombs as a provocation, what the Kremlin terms provokatsiya, may sound outlandish to those unacquainted with espionage, in fact Russian spies have been doing such things since tsarist times. What I’ve termed “fake terrorism” is a longstanding Kremlin core competency, and it can only be pulled off with logistical support, including with finances.

Predictably, Sberbank has blown off the Panama Papers revelations as nothing of consequence, but the fact that they are an arm of the Kremlin and they do plenty of shady things in many countries is a matter of record. As is the fact that the Podesta Group is their lobbyist in America. 

Among the Sberbank subsidiaries that the Podesta Group also represents are the Cayman Islands-based Troika Dialog Group Limited, the Cyprus-based SBGB Cyprus Limited, and the Luxembourg-based SB International. As reported this week by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a consortium of journalists exploring the Panama Papers leak, Sberbank and Troika Dialog are used by members of Mr. Putin’s inner circle to shift public funds into sometimes questionable private investments. In other words, this is top-level money laundering of a brazen kind. As the OCCRP stated plainly, “Some of these companies were initially connected to the Troika Dialog investment fund, which was controlled and run by Sberbank after the bank bought the Troika Dialog investment bank. Troika and Sberbank declined to comment.”

Adding to shadiness of all this, the Podesta Group is playing along with the useful charade that Sberbank is simply a private financial institution, rather than the state-owned bank that it is, since that would require the lobbyists to register as agents of the Russian government under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. 

http://observer.com/2016/04/panama-papers-reveal-clintons-kremlin-connection/

And:

A program overseen by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as part of the "reset" with Russia wound up enhancing Russia's military technology and funneling millions of dollar to the Clinton Foundation, according to a new report by investigative journalist Peter Schweizer and the Government Accountability Institute he heads.

The report says both the U.S. Army and the Federal Bureau of Investigation found that the program, intended to support Russia's version of Silicon Valley, was exploited to improve Russia's military capability. 

The "innovation city" of Skolkovo on the outskirts of Moscow was center of the program. Its stated purpose was "identifying areas of cooperation and pursuing joint projects and actions that strengthen strategic stability, international security, economic well-being, and the development of ties between the American and Russian people."

Instead, the FBI warned several American technology companies in 2014 that Skolkovo "may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation's sensitive or classified research development facilities and dual-use technologies with military and commercial application." Indeed, it was.

Regarding Hillary and Bill Clinton, the report says: "Many of the key figures in the Skolkovo process – on both the Russian and U.S. sides – had major financial ties to the Clintons. During the Russian reset, these figures and entities provided the Clintons with tens of millions of dollars, including contributions to the Clinton Foundation, paid for speeches by Bill Clinton, or investments in small start-up companies with deep Clinton ties." 

(Snip)

The new report said a Russian government fund sent $35 million to "a small company with Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta on its executive board, which included senior Russian officials. John Podesta failed to reveal, as required by law on his federal financial disclosures, his membership on the board of this offshore company."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-clinton-kremlin-connection/article/2003597

Key players in a main component of the reset — a Moscow-based, Silicon Valley-styled campus for developing biomed, space, nuclear and IT technologies called “Skolkovo” — poured tens of millions of dollars into the Clinton Foundation, the report by journalist Peter Schweizer alleges.

As the Obama administration’s top diplomat, Hillary Clinton was at the center of US efforts on the reset in general and Skolkovo in particular, Schweizer argues.

Yet, “Of the 28 US, European and Russian companies that participated in Skolkovo, 17 of them were Clinton Foundation donors” or sponsored speeches by former President Bill Clinton, Schweizer told The Post.

“It raises the question — do you need to pay money to sit at the table?”

In one example cited by Schweizer, Skolkovo Foundation member and then-Cisco CEO John Chambers donated between $1 million and $5 million in personal and corporate cash to the Clinton Foundation, the report says.

But Skolkovo wound up making America less safe, Schweizer argues, because it shared advanced US technology that Russia can develop for both civilian and military applications, a concern raised already by Army and FBI officials.

Many of Skolkovo’s research projects involved “dual-use” technologies, meaning they would have both civilian and military uses, the report said, citing one in particular — a hybrid airship called an “Atlant” developed at the Skolkovo Aeronautical Center.

“Particularly noteworthy is Atlant’s ability to deliver military cargoes,” including “radar surveillance, air and missile defense and delivery of airborne troops,” the Skolkovo Foundation bragged in a document Schweizer cites.

http://nypost.com/2016/07/31/report-raises-questions-about-clinton-cash-from-russians-during-reset/

However, as involvement in Skolkovo by Clinton cronies increased, so, too, did the danger for the technology coming out of the Russian tech mecca to be used for Russian military purposes.

In 2014, the FBI issued what it called “an extraordinary warning” to several technology companies involved with Skolkovo. “The [Skolkovo] foundation may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation’s sensitive or classified research development facilities and dual-use technologies with military and commercial application,” warned Lucia Ziobro, the assistant special agent at the FBI’s Boston office. She added: “The FBI believes the true motives of the Russian partners, who are often funded by the government, is to gain access to classified, sensitive, and emerging technology from the companies.”

Still, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta sat on the executive board of a small energy company called Joule Unlimited. Joule, too, received the FBI letter warning about Skolkovo. Other Joule board members included senior Russian officials. According to the GAI report: “Two months after Podesta joined the board, Vladimir Putin’s Rusnano announced that it would invest up to one billion rubles into Joule Unlimited, which amounts to $35 million. That represents one-fifth of the entire amount of investment dollars Joule collected from 2007 to 2013.”

Rusnano, which former Russian education and science minister and current science advisor to Vladmir Putin Andrei Fursenko describes as “Putin’s child,” was founded by Putin in 2007.

The GAI investigative report says it’s unclear how much, if any, money Podesta made. The reason: Podesta was on the board of three Joule entities, but only listed two on his disclosure; the most important entity, Joule Stichting, he did not list. “Podesta’s compensation by Joule cannot be fully determined,” reads the report. “In his 2014 federal government disclosure filing, Podesta lists that he divested stock options from Joule. However, the disclosure does not cover the years 2011-2012.”

Why Podesta failed to reveal, as required by law on his federal financial disclosures, his membership on the board of this offshore company is presently unknown.

“But the flows of funds from Russia during the ‘reset’ to Podesta-connected entities apparently didn’t end with Joule Energy,” the report states. According to the GAI report, Podesta’s far-left think tank, Center for American Progress (CAP), took in $5.25 million from the Sea Change Foundation between 2010-2013.

Who was funding Sea Change Foundation? According to tax records, Sea Change Foundation at the time was receiving a large infusion of funds from a mysterious Bermuda-based entity called ‘Klein, Ltd.’…Who owns Klein? It is impossible to say exactly, given corporate secrecy laws in Bermuda. But the registered agent and lawyers who set up the offshore entity are tied to a handful of Russian business entities including Troika Dialog, Ltd. Leadership includes Ruben Vardanyan, an ethnic Armenian who is a mega oligarch in Putin’s Russia. Vardanyan also served on the board of Joule Energy with John Podesta. 

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/08/01/report-hillary-clintons-campaign-mgr-john-podesta-sat-board-company-bagged-35-million-putin-connected-russian-govt-fund-2/

And finally:

Manafort and business associate Rick Gates, another top strategist in Trump's campaign, were working in 2012 on behalf of the political party of Ukraine's then-president, Viktor Yanukovych. 

People with direct knowledge of Gates' work said that, during the period when Gates and Manafort were consultants to the Ukraine president's political party, Gates was also helping steer the advocacy work done by a pro-Yanukovych nonprofit that hired a pair of Washington lobbying firms, Podesta Group Inc. and Mercury LLC. 

The nonprofit, the newly created European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, was governed by a board that initially included parliament members from Yanukovych's party. The nonprofit subsequently paid at least $2.2 million to the lobbying firms to advocate positions generally in line with those of Yanukovych's government.

That lobbying included downplaying the necessity of a congressional resolution meant to pressure the Ukrainian leader to release an imprisoned political rival.

The lobbying firms continued the work until shortly after Yanukovych fled the country in February 2014, during a popular revolt prompted in part by his government's crackdown on protesters and close ties to Russia.

Among those who described Manafort's and Gates's relationship with the nonprofit are current and former employees of the Podesta Group. Some of them spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal details about the work and because they remain subject to non-disclosure agreements.

Gates told the AP that he and Manafort introduced the lobbying firms to the European Centre nonprofit and occasionally consulted with the firms on Ukrainian politics. He called the actions lawful, and said there was no attempt to circumvent the reporting requirements of the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The heads of both lobbying firms told AP they concluded there was no obligation to disclose their activities to the Justice Department. Manafort did not directly respond to AP's requests to discuss the work, but he was copied on the AP's questions and Gates said he spoke to Manafort before providing answers to them.

(Snip)

The founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, Tony Podesta, is the brother of longtime Democratic strategist John Podesta, who now is campaign chairman for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The head of Mercury, Vin Weber, is an influential Republican, former congressman and former special policy adviser to Mitt Romney. Weber announced earlier this month that he will not support Trump.

After being introduced to the lobbying firms, the European nonprofit paid the Podesta Group $1.13 million between June 2012 and April 2014 to lobby Congress, the White House National Security Council, the State Department and other federal agencies, according to U.S. lobbying records.

The nonprofit also paid $1.07 million over roughly the same period to Mercury to lobby Congress. Among other issues, Mercury opposed congressional efforts to pressure Ukraine to release one of Yanukovych's political rivals from prison. 

One former Podesta employee, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a non-disclosure agreement, said Gates described the nonprofit's role in an April, 2012 meeting as supplying a source of money that could not be traced to the Ukrainian politicians who were paying him and Manafort. 

In separate interviews, three current and former Podesta employees said disagreements broke out within the firm over the arrangement, which at least one former employee considered obviously illegal. Podesta, who said the project was vetted by his firm's counsel, said he was unaware of any such disagreements.

A legal opinion drafted for the project for Mercury in May 2012, and obtained by AP, concluded that the European Centre qualified as a "foreign principal" under the Foreign Agents Registration Act but said disclosure to the Justice Department was not required. That determination was based on the nonprofit's assurances that none of its activities was directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed or subsidized by Ukraine's government or any of the country's political parties.

The Podesta Group's CEO, Kimberley Fritts, said the two lobbying firms had coordinated on the legal conclusion that disclosure was not necessary to the Justice Department. 

"If counsel had determined FARA was the way to go, we would have gladly registered under FARA," she said in a statement to the AP. She said the nonprofit provided a signed statement affirming its independence from Ukraine's government.

People involved in the lobbying project offered contradictory descriptions of how it came about.
Podesta told the AP his firm worked closely with the nonprofit and with Gates simultaneously. But Podesta said Gates was not working for Yanukovych's political party and said Manafort was not involved.

"I was never given any reason to believe Rick was a Party of Regions consultant," said John Ward Anderson, a current Podesta employee who attended the meeting, in a statement provided by his firm. "My assumption was that he was working for the Centre, as we were." 

Gates, in contrast, told AP he was working with Manafort and that both he and Manafort were working for Yanukovych's party. 

Pointing to Manafort's involvement, Weber told AP that Manafort discussed the project before it began in a conference call with Podesta and himself. 

The director of the European Centre, Ina Kirsch, told the AP her group never worked with Manafort or Gates and said the group hired the Washington lobbyists on its own. She said she had met with Manafort twice but said neither Manafort nor Gates played a role in its lobbying activities.

The center has declined for years to reveal specific sources of its funding.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/ap-trump-chair-routed-ukrainian-money-to-dc-lobbyists-227101

He talks casually of abandoning our NATO allies, recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and of giving the Kremlin a free hand in Eastern Europe more generally. 

He does no such thing. He talks about ensuring that the countries in NATO pay their fair share per the agreement. Hillary obviously doesn't care if they pay what they are supposed to pay and that we pick up the tab. If she says she does and then proceeds to go in and negotiate on the basis she would like them to pay their fair share but there are no consequences if they don't, what is going to change? Why would a country pay more if it doesn't matter?

I want to know what Hillary is going to do regarding Russia's annexation of Crimea. This happened on the watch of Barack Obama (whom Hillary is campaigning to be his third term). This happened AFTER she went in with her red reset button.   Also, the majority of people in Crimea want to be a part of Russia based on polls, so perhaps that should be considered.


On David Duke’s radio show the other day, the mood was jubilant.

“We appear to have taken over the Republican Party,” one white supremacist said.

Duke laughed. There’s still more work to do, he said.

I didn't even know that David Duke had a radio show as did most people out there I'm sure, but I guess Hillary listens. Maybe it's something her campaign staff does to rewind after a hard day of fundraisers.

There’s an old Mexican proverb that says “Tell me with whom you walk, and I will tell you who you are.”

That's actually a Puerto Rican proverb, but they are all the same to Hillary.

Some people Hillary walks with, though - Hillary has shown us that she walks with Bill She walks with Margaret Sanger whose award she received. Margaret Sanger was the notoriously racist founder of Planned Parenthood whose goals live on in that Planned Parenthood targets minority neighborhoods. Black people make up 12% of population and 36% of abortions.. She has shown she walks with countries with horrible human rights records who are willing to donate to her foundation. As proven above, she walks with the Russia she attacks Trump for walking with. I'm sure there are more. Feel free to add on.

He says he wants to “make America great again,” but his real message remains “Make America hate again.”

Very clever. Why, no one has thought of response to Trump's slogan yet.

Next time you watch Donald Trump rant on television, think about all the kids listening across our country. They hear a lot more than we think.

First, we have to rule out the children not here to listen because of abortion - which Hillary supports.

I agree with Hillary, though, that we really do need to think of the children. They hear more than we think, and nothing that Trump has said is worse than the lyrics in some music today on the Billboard charts be it pop. rap, etc. Nothing that Trump has said is worse than what they will hear and see in various Hollywood movies or TV shows. Nothing that Trump has said is worse than what they will hear and see from various reality TV personalities. Nothing that Trump has said is worse than some of the vitriol and filth that comes from liberal comedians. How many of those actors and actresses, singers, comedians, and reality tv personalities have endorsed Hillary? Most of them. Have a look here at the celebrity endorsement section:

https://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/List_of_Hillary_Clinton_presidential_campaign_endorsements,_2016#Celebrities

This is a moment of reckoning for every Republican dismayed that the Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Trump. 

Isn't the lib line that it's no longer the Party of Lincoln because everyone crossed over to the Democrat Party years ago? Anyway, Trump is not a racist.

Hillary then praises Bush, McCain, and Dole saying, "We need that kind of leadership again."

Those are Hillary's preferred Republican types - those who roll over for media attacks and lose elections.