Entries by Philip Turner

No Benefit of the Doubt for Trump—Campaign Pledges He’d Refrain from Torture, then Candidate Promises to “Go Further” than Waterboarding

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Sunday March 6 Update:
The latest update to Trump’s pro-torture gambit came last night after the primaries and caucuses, when he said he wants to change the laws (“extend” them was his word) so as to permit waterboarding, and more extreme measures. So it really would be like VP Cheney again, with the Executive rewriting the laws to suit their agenda. This is an excellent article by Rosa Brooks about the possible response among the serving military to a Trump presidency. Here’s a tweet I wrote last night after the post-voting statements by Trump.


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Yesterday, when the Trump campaign supposedly altered the candidate’s pro-torture stance, and walked back his intention, if elected president, to compel US forces to waterboard prisoners, and commit worse illegal acts, I posted this on my Facebook page:

Annoyed that much of the media will accept ‪#‎Drumpf‬’s claim he wouldn’t try&compel US troops to break international law. All his campaign did today is walk it back, lest he seem like the wannabe war criminal he’s already repeatedly promised to be, eager to commit torture with gusto. A possible Trump presidency augurs a repeat of Cheney-ism, and the press shouldn’t fall for this hasty revision. Even the headline at TPM, “Trump Does About-Face On Torture: I Won’t Order Military to ‘Disobey’ Law,”  gives the walk-back credence it doesn’t deserve.

Turns out, as the first press release was landing in reporters’ in-boxes, Trump, at a rally in Warren, Michigan, once again promised to use waterboarding and said that the US under him “should go much further.” Thanks to Right-Wing Watch for reporting on this, and for posting the video at their website. I’m playing catch-up now to report on the incoherence of the statements of the campaign and the candidate, but will some other news-gatherers do the same? Come on media, help me out, fact-checking Trump is a full-time job!

This episode shows why Trump should never have the benefit of doubt on matters like this, or on his supposed ‘disavowal’ of David Duke and the KKK, especially because we know that a Memphis rally last week White nationalist James Edwards was given press credentials and did radio broadcasts from the hall for three hours, during which he did a lengthy interview with Donald Trump, Jr.

The Republican Establishment Tries Striking Back, Finally

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It’s ironic that while DEMs are worrying, pondering, and agonizing over whether our own nominee will be able to defeat the likely Republican nominee Trump, it suddenly seems, with Mitt Romney giving his well-written and well-delivered throw-down speech, they are from their upper echelons really finally going to try and prevent Trump from becoming their candidate. I’ve even noticed that neocons are massing to knock Trump out on national security grounds. I see the Party as an institution trying to muster all its internal cohesion to try and in a coordinated way deny Trump the nod, and stop what they see as a foreign invasion of the party, even with the dangers this entails now. To risk the all-out civil war that will erupt in their ranks, I believe the Rs may have internal polling and election models that show them definitely losing the presidency by a large margin, also the Senate, and even putting at risk their House majority with Trump at the top of the ticket.

The irony I began this post with applies as I end it: worried though DEMs are about vanquishing Trump and his strange celebrity charisma, it’s also possible that the Republican panics signifies what few DEMs fully believe, nervous as we are. If we do oppose Trump, we may defeat him in a landslide. If he is denied the nomination over the next few weeks, next we can worry about being deprived of the opportunity of running against him. If so, then we can begin imagining who might lead the Republican ticket—one of the remaining three, Cruz, Rubio, or Kasich—or someone as yet undeclared. Paul Ryan? Mitt Romney, again?

Meanwhile, DEMs of which I am one, will continue watching from the sidelines, with steadily rising anxiety, much more severe than in other election years, and much earlier in the cycle than is typical. We have eight months to go, and every day brings another menacing bizarreness.

Here’s a screenshot the first few paragraphs of Romney’s speech today. For the complete text, you may click here.

The Shape of the General Election, about Eight Months from November

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I’ve read almost a half-dozen stories this morning with what feels like an explosion of updated and new reporting about the unvarnished racism and excessive authoritarianism of the Republican Party.

1)  Trump declining to disavow support by the KKK, on one Sunday morning show, and claiming he doesn’t know who David Duke is on another. About both, he told interviewers he has to consider the matter before deciding if he’ll condemn them, or not, accept their support, or not.
2) Then there’s the reminder that Rep Scalise of Louisiana, third in leadership in the House, modeled his political appeal on Duke’s popularity in the state with white nationalists, which Scalise has even conceded (He said in an early campaign, “I’m like David Duke, without the baggage.” Sorry, guy, not true anymore.)
3) I can’t leave out the revelations that Trump spoke approvingly of the Chinese government’s 1989 crackdown in Tianamen Square, praising it for being a “strong” response.
4) Nor omit the Republican frontrunner’s penchant for retweeting Mussolini quotes, which Gawker pranked him in to doing this morning.
So I have a question about all this:
If the Republicans’ racism and authoritarianism are this plain eight months before the general election—with the public and media increasingly aware of them, especially on a day like this, when it seems to have really broken through the media’s invincible shield—what is the general election going to look like in November? As I’ve written previously on this blog, there will be No “‘Etch-a-Sketch’ Moment” for Donald Trump, not after the most extreme primary campaign in my voting lifetime. (I began voting in 1976, when I got to vote for Jimmy Carter over Pres Ford). Democrats have lost some and won some over those years, so I fear anything’s possible, but really, the Republicans have run the most extreme primary campaign in my lifetime, perhaps in American history, and I don’t believe they can plausibly tack to the center after this—even if they want to—for that is the place, like or not, where most US elections are eventually won. That is where the Democrats will be, with a majority of the nation behind them.

About the Chris Christie Endorsement of Trump and Early Mulling on the VP Question

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Trump knew wags would instantly speculate about Chris Christie as a possible VP or cabinet pick if he’s the nominee, which keeps the frontrunner ever more aloft in the news cycle. And it serves his purpose to be looking like presumptive nominee, mulling his future options, even though candidates at other times have been smacked down with ‘measuring the drapes’ attacks. But while some so-called experts will be apt to see the NJ guv as an ideal attack dog against a DEM nominee, especially Hillary in the fall, and in the VP debate. Remember though he would also bring seriously bad baggage from NJ that could blow up during the campaign. Consider that Romney declined to pick Christie after vetting him.

All this underscores how in this campaign year of all campaign years, the VP choice made by the DEMs, especially if it’s Hillary’s choice to make, will be critical because that person will among many key assets have to be 1) an articulate and agile defender of the head of the ticket, and 2) capable of batting back the insane stuff the members of the opposing ticket and their surrogates and supporters will surely be lobbing toward the DEM ticket amid a media environment that for now is still infatuated with Trump—witness CNN’s ridiculous decision to give Trump several interviews after last night’s raucous debate. With host Chris Cuomo, he of the ill-fitting sportcoats, Trump bizarrely claimed he’s been audited frequently by the IRS because he’s “a strong Christian.” Couldn’t be because he runs a sketchy business?

If Trump is the Republican nominee, the Democratic running mate will be the one tasked with parrying the daily insults, barbs, and baseless allegations made by the billionaire and his campaign.

Also a must-read today: Dana Milbank’s darkly funny column, “Donald Trump’s ‘Captain Underpants’ campaign“, where he assesses the grade level of the candidates’ statements.

 

Sanders’ Ugly Claim that Hillary’s Pandering to African-American Voters

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I put this up on Facebook earlier today, and want to share it here, too. Could’ve written it here first—here’s a screenshot of what I wrote, and a link to it.

As some here will know, I'm supporting Hillary Clinton for president and look forward to voting for her in the April 19…

Posted by Philip Turner on Friday, 19 February 2016

#TBT—Remembering Joel C. Turner, All the Way Back to May 1964

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In this old photo I’m getting a hug from my brother Joel at a reception celebrating his Bar Mitzvah, circa May 26, 1964, which would’ve been Joel’s 13th birthday. I’m about 9 here. Looking at the image, I can almost remember the day.

Joel died suddenly in December 2009. A few years later, on what would’ve been his 61st birthday, I posted this remembrance of him here on The Great Gray Bridge. Screen Shot 2016-02-18 at 5.48.46 PMObits also ran in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Publishers Weekly, and Shelf Awareness.

Thinking about him, as I do often, because Joel was a gregarious, social person, I know he would’ve enjoyed and thrived amid the advance of social media the past seven years. He had started on Facebook at the time of his death, but none of us, including him, was so aware yet, of how our lives would be influenced by this new media. Joel had early in his adulthood worked as a reporter, and always retained a prodigious appetite for knowing about what was happening in society; he really enjoyed talking with people, asking them questions, hearing what they thought, and offering his views on the matters at hand.  He and I didn’t share all the same politics, but the ways we thought about things was were still alike in many ways. He was a kind of social philosopher, and in 2000 ran for Congress on the Libertarian line in a Cleveland-area district. Growing up 3-4 years apart, we encountered many events as a pair in our five-person family—along with our sister Pamela, the eldest + our folks, Earl and Sylvia. We experienced events together, like the JFK and RFK assassinations. I recall be awoken the morning after Bobby Kennedy had been shot, our mom telling us as she woke us that day.  The summer of 1970, Joel and I drove from Ohio out to California and spent six weeks camping in a redwood forest. During that trip we adopted our dog Noah. I relate much of that personal history on this Great Gray Bridge webpage. Joel is much missed by all who knew him.Obit Joel Turner