So he finally drops all the horseshit about Obama not being born in the U.S. But then he adds, Hillaty started the 'birther' movement in 2008. Trump is a tool. Trump Drops False ‘Birther’ Theory, but Floats a New One: Clinton Started It
He didn't wanted it to come up as a topic in the first debate . That's what this is about. His surrogates are already blanketing the airwaves, saying " okay, this is over now. It's off the table." Well, no. You can't spew racist crap for five years and just say that it's over because you'd like it to be. When you spew racist crap for 5 years, you own it. If you don't, you're a bigger coward than you were before.
Trump blames Hillary for the genesis of the controversy.......nope, sorry Donald, Hillary's 2008 campaign may have given it new life and started the snowball but the birth place (pun so intended) of the whole thing goes back to 1991 when B.H. Obama himself failed to correct a pamphlet his literary agent released promoting a book Obama was writing. The pamphlet clearly and unambiguously states Obama was born in Kenya. ~The more you know~
Snopes explains this pretty well. And in 1991, this went unnoticed, and basically no one cared. But the 2008 Clinton campaign did not "breathe new life" into it - despite the Trump campaign (and various right-wing sites) trying to muddy the waters. The best they can do is a three-part claim, all three parts of which are nothing. a). Mark Penn advised Clinton to contrast her middle-American upbringing with Obama's partial upbringing in Indonesia. Penn was talking about Obama's Indonesian youth, did not say Obama was not born in the US (and therefore wouldn't be "legitimate,") and Clinton didn't even make anything of the "partially raised in Indonesia" thing anyway. Strike one. b). A volunteer in Iowa tried to spread the rumor that Obama was born elsewhere. True, but this volunteer was not on the Clinton payroll, and when she raised this, they fired her. So exactly the opposite of spreading it around. Strike two. c). Sidney Blumenthal may (or may not - no written evidence AFAIK) encouraged the campaign to look into Obama's birthplace. Even if he did, and even if the campaign subsequently did look into it, what obviously happened is they found out he was indeed born in Hawaii, and they dropped it. It never featured in the Clinton campaign of 2008, and AFAIK there is no instance of Hillary Clinton ever, on the air or in print, questioning Obama's birthplace. Strike three. Contrast that with Trump and his five freaking years of continually questioning it. Even after the birth certificate was produced. Constantly, dozens of times, AND lying through his teeth about it (i.e. "We've sent investigators to Hawaii, and they're finding amazing things, unbelievable things...") There simply is no equating the two, but that won't mean they won't try to present a false equivalence. Just go online and you'll find plenty of people have swallowed it, too, sadly. The media really needs to do a better job of calling a lie a lie with Trump and his surrogates. There's SOME evidence of that on this issue, but not nearly enough. Even if they challenge them once, though, typically the surrogate just blusters through it again, and the "journalist" gives up and moves on. No. Not good enough. Call a lie a lie, fercryinoutloud.
If this whole running for president thing doesn't pan out for Trump, maybe he can get a gig relaunching the old Joe Isuzu advertising campaign. (For the young, Joe Isuzu was the "spokesman" for the car company, where he was clearly lying constantly about impossible things the car could do for you. "He's lying" was superimposed on screen in the commercials.) I really wish that some reporters would start holding his feet to the fire on these outrageous lies, rather than just running footage of him saying this stuff unchallenged. The press has been entirely complicit in Trump's rise, seldom confronting him.Thinking back to legendary reporters and broadcasters, they'd have never played along the way today's click-happy press seems to.
I don't quite have the reverence for Tim Russert that some have acquired since his premature death, but still - there's no question he wouldn't have rolled over like Chuck Todd has time and again. Todd (and so many others) will push back once. But only once. Trump or a surrogate will lie. Todd, et al, will say "hey wait a minute..." and question the veracity (if we even get that much). The Trumpster will repeat the lie. Todd, et al, will move on. Not good enough. I get that they don't want to appear "rude" to their guests and (here's the real thing), they want them to continue to appear on their shows and present the horse race. But a lie is a lie. Some things are opinions, so sure - let them present opinions, like "Trump's policy on X is better than Clinton's." Fine. But if they lie flat-out, freakin' call them on it, and don't allow a simple restatement of the lie to serve as rebuttal. Continue to push back as long as they continue to lie! That goes for Clinton and her surrogates too, of course. But that simply doesn't happen nearly as often. And eventually the viewing audience would notice that. All the print outfits in the world (Politifact, FactChecker, etc.) can point out that Trump lies far more often and more outrageously than Clinton. And, to their credit, they do. But TV, for good or for ill, is where most people get their politics. So to a large degree, the fact checkers are the tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it.
It's almost comical how obvious Trump's lying is. It's like watching a small child lie. "Where did the chocolate frosting go?" a parent asks the child, whose face is smeared with frosting, his hands are covered in it, his hair thick with it, chocolate frosting footprints lead to his room. "Frosting? What is frosting? I don't know what you mean." And then the parent in this case, the press, simply shrugs their shoulders and leaves it at that. In today's media, it's all about shock value or laughs, which generate web traffic. That is the primary focus, and a web clip of a comedian mussing a candidate's hair will get tenfold the views and coverage of anything of actual substance. As a nation, I wonder if we even have the attention span or the ability anymore to know the difference between news and entertainment. I don't even blame TV anymore as much as I do Facebook. If it isn't already, it will soon be the top news source, giving equal weight to the serious and the silly. Based on what some political stuff people like and share, I'm not sure a majority of people can tell the difference between *stuff* and Shinola.
I do not wonder; I see evidence of this everyday. My teenage grandchildren even notice it and point out things that people believe just because they saw or read it without any research. (I raised some pretty pragmatic kids and it seems to have rubbed off for the next generation.)
And yet, Millennial's are not voting for Trump. They're not voting for Clinton, either. If they vote at all, they'll be following DAR's lead.
Right. Because the Millenials all worship Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, but they're not sure why. The mob mentality of Tumblr tells them how to think.
What I like is how the polls swing based on the latest thing either candidate does or says. It's like a chunk of the voters are Doug in "Up" -- squirrel!!! How can anyone not have made up their mind by now? This election feels like it's been years in the making, and the two top candidates are not unknowns.
As do mine. But they are smart enough to do anything to keep Trump out of the Whitehouse. Including in-laws, there will be 10 votes for Clinton in my family. Unfortunately we are on the West Coast where it won't change anything.
