Usa Thread

[Flashermac]

Ahora se llama "La Cebolla".

[Flashermac]

[Flashermac]

Michael Reagan: Trump is no Reagan Republican

 

By MICHAEL REAGAN

 

 

Mr. Trump, I knew Ronald Reagan. And you’re no Ronald Reagan!

 

Of course, I am stealing that line — with a twist.

 

Donald Trump shouldn’t mind. He’s been stealing my dad for his own purposes. Trump frequently invokes Ronald Reagan’s name to defend his sudden, 180-degree switch from being a life-long, pro-Clinton Democrat to a Reagan Republican.

 

Both men did make a switch, but almost all the similarities between the two end there. Ronald Reagan’s odyssey from Hollywood liberal to conservative backer took place over almost two decades.

 

Starting with his 1964 “Time for Choosing†speech that galvanized Americans for Barry Goldwater, dad began a 16-year effort of crisscrossing America to support conservative candidates for office. My dad also served eight years as California’s governor. When he ran for President, he had a proven conservative track record.

 

Donald Trump doesn’t have one. In fact, Trump still can’t explain his sudden change from being a liberal Democrat. When dad ran in 1980, Trump donated the maximum amount to Jimmy Carter. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Trump also donated to a PAC for Walter Mondale, who ran against dad in 1984.Trump has criticized some candidates for their indiscretions made during their childhood. But what can you say for a grown adult who supported both Carter and Mondale over Ronald Reagan?

 

During the 2008 election, Trump told CNN that he wanted President George W. Bush impeached. Then, during Obama’s first year in the White House, after he rammed through Congress a $800 billion stimulus and proposed a radical health care takeover, Trump praised the President, saying he was “amazing†and “truly phenomenal.â€

 

Obama’s then chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel was a player in passing Obamacare. Rahm eventually left the White House to run for Chicago’s mayor. In 2010, Trump actually donated $50,000 to Rahm’s mayoral campaign! Just last year Trump told “60 Minutes†he wants single-payer health care like they have in Canada and Britain. It’s nothing less than socialized medicine.

 

For most of his life Trump had been a Democrat, backing strong gun control and abortion rights. Today he says he’s for the Second Amendment and pro-life. But when asked who he’d like for the Supreme Court, he suggested his sister, a sitting federal judge. It turns out she’s liberal and pro-choice.

 

Trump also donated to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. In 2012, after she had served almost four years as Secretary of State, Trump had nothing but praise for her. He told CNN: “I think she does a good job ... The record of Hillary Clinton and how did she do as Secretary of State, probably above and beyond everybody else.†Folks, this was in 2012.

 

Still, at some point Trump says he became a conservative. I am not sure when. In 2012, Trump sharply criticized Mitt Romney.

 

“He had a crazy policy of self-deportation which was maniacal,†Trump said of Romney’s plan for the nation’s illegal immigrants.

 

“It sounded as bad as it was, and he lost all of the Latino vote,†Trump said. “He lost the Asian vote. He lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country.â€

 

Trump’s own plan today calls for mass deportation. Go figure. I almost need a chart to keep tabs on Trump’s ever-changing positions.

 

This past September, Trump was the first Republican candidate to call for the U.S. to open its doors to Syrian refugees. He told Bill O’Reilly, “I hate the concept of it, but on a humanitarian basis, with what’s happening, you have to.â€

 

He quickly backtracked on that. Then he came out for a total ban of all Muslims into the U.S.

 

I don’t doubt for a second the Donald is a great and funny entertainer. He’s always playing to his audience. Today, it’s Reagan conservatives. Tomorrow, I am afraid, it may be liberals in Washington. Come Election Day, should Reagan Republicans vote for Donald Trump?

 

Recently, I tweeted the answer: “You can’t be a Trump Republican and a Reagan Republican. It’s time to choose.â€

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Michael Reagan is the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan. A bestselling author, syndicated columnist and commentator, he chairs the Reagan Legacy Foundation.

 

 

 

http://www.unionlead...kt_nbr=xctqxwhe

[Flashermac]

Trump Says He Could Have Been A Porn Star

 

 

 

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump continues to confound political and media watchers with his unconventional campaign.

 

After getting an endorsement from Sarah Palin, who delivered a bizarre and rambling speech, Trump has gone on to brag about the size of his manhood.

 

“I’m all man,†said Trump in an interview with WEHW. “I’m also as big as Lexington Steele. I could have gone into the porn business, if I wanted to. How do you think I’ve been able to keep marrying these hot women? I will be the most well-endowed president in history.â€

 

Lexington Steele is a porn star known for his 10-inch penis.

 

This is not the first time Trump has bragged about his manhood. He once told TMZ that attorney Gloria Allred would be impressed with the size of his penis.

 

 

http://bizstandardne...en-a-porn-star/

 

 

American politics has turned into a bad joke.

[Coss]

And at some point, the voter will turn and look to someone serious looking,

[cavanami]

He's a showman, putting on entertainment. People are fascinated by him as what other prez candidate has

even been like Trump?

[Coss]

Iowa today, gone tomorrow

[Flashermac]

Robert Reich: Bernie is our only hope for real political change

 

 

Not a day passes that I don’t get a call from the media asking me to compare Bernie Sanders’s and Hillary Clinton’s tax plans, or bank plans, or health-care plans.

 

I don’t mind. I’ve been teaching public policy for much of the last thirty-five years. I’m a policy wonk.

 

But detailed policy proposals are as relevant to the election of 2016 as is that gaseous planet beyond Pluto. They don’t have a chance of making it, as things are now.

 

The other day Bill Clinton attacked Bernie Sanders’s proposal for a single-payer health plan as unfeasible and a “recipe for gridlock.â€

 

Yet these days, nothing of any significance is feasible and every bold idea is a recipe for gridlock.

 

This election is about changing the parameters of what’s feasible and ending the choke hold of big money on our political system.

 

I've known Hillary Clinton since she was 19 years old, and have nothing but respect for her. In my view, she’s the most qualified candidate for president of the political system we now have.

 

But Bernie Sanders is the most qualified candidate to create the political system we should have, because he’s leading a political movement for change.

 

The upcoming election isn’t about detailed policy proposals. It’s about power – whether those who have it will keep it, or whether average Americans will get some as well.

 

A study published in the fall of 2014 by Princeton professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern’s Benjamin Page reveals the scale of the challenge.

 

Gilens and Page analyzed 1,799 policy issues in detail, determining the relative influence on them of economic elites, business groups, mass-based interest groups, and average citizens.

 

Their conclusion: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically nonsignificant impact upon public policy.â€

 

Instead, lawmakers respond to the moneyed interests – those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns.

 

It’s sobering that Gilens and Page’s data come from the period 1981 to 2002, before the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to big money in its “Citizens United†and “McCutcheon†decisions. Their study also predated the advent of super PACs and “dark money,†and even the Wall Street bailout.

 

If average Americans had a “near-zero†impact on public policy then, their impact is now zero.

 

Which explains a paradox I found a few months ago when I was on book tour in the nation’s heartland: I kept bumping into people who told me they were trying to make up their minds in the upcoming election between Sanders and Trump.

 

At first I was dumbfounded. The two are at opposite ends of the political divide.

 

But as I talked with these people, I kept hearing the same refrains. They wanted to end “crony capitalism.†They detested “corporate welfare,†such as the Wall Street bailout.

 

They wanted to prevent the big banks from extorting us ever again. Close tax loopholes for hedge-fund partners. Stop the drug companies and health insurers from ripping off American consumers. End trade treaties that sell out American workers. Get big money out of politics.

 

Somewhere in all this I came to see the volcanic core of what’s fueling this election.

 

If you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who are working harder than ever but getting nowhere, and who understand that the political-economic system is rigged against you and in favor of the rich and powerful, what are you going to do?

 

Either you’re going to be attracted to an authoritarian son-of-a-bitch who promises to make America great again by keeping out people different from you and creating “great†jobs in America, who sounds like he won’t let anything or anybody stand in his way, and who’s so rich he can’t be bought off.

 

Or you’ll go for a political activist who tells it like it is, who has lived by his convictions for fifty years, who won’t take a dime of money from big corporations or Wall Street or the very rich, and who is leading a grass-roots “political revolution†to regain control over our democracy and economy.

 

In other words, either a dictator who promises to bring power back to the people, or a movement leader who asks us to join together to bring power back to the people.

 

You don’t care about the details of proposed policies and programs.

 

You just want a system that works for you.

 

 

 

http://www.salon.com...change_partner/

[My Penis is hungry]

<<I've known Hillary Clinton since she was 19 years old, and have nothing but respect for her. In my view, she’s the most qualified candidate for president of the political system we now have.>>

 

And isn't that the real problem Mr Secretary,

[Flashermac]

American voters ...