LGBTQ news and entertainment
Donald Trump loves to lambast news networks for not showing the size of his crowds at campaign rallies.
This is probably one view he wouldn’t want televised – from the back of the Great Faith Ministries church yesterday where he addressed a very small portion of the congregation.
Looks like the African-Americans in Detroit aren’t buying his “late to the game” appeal for votes.
Republican presidential candidate has spent a lot of time talking about African-Americans and their lives in the U.S. during the last few weeks in hopes of courting their votes.
However, what he has not done is actually go into a black community or church and address those voters face to face.
Tomorrow, Trump will sit down with Bishop Wayne T. Jackson for a one on one interview that will air on Bishop Jackson’s cable TV network, Impact Network.
The New York Times is reporting today, however, that Trump’s side of the interview will be rehearsed. In fact, the campaign has already written his script for him.
Jackson apparently sent the list of planned questions to Trump days in advance of the sit down, and the NY Times has obtained a document containing Trump’s carefully crafted answers.
An eight-page draft script obtained by The New York Times shows 12 questions that Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, the pastor, intends to ask Mr. Trump in the taped question-and-answer session, as well as the responses Mr. Trump is being advised to give.
The proposed answers were devised by aides working for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, according to an official who has been involved in the planning but declined to be identified while speaking about confidential strategy.
Given the importance of Donald J. Trump’s visit to a black church, the Trump campaign went so far as to script Mr. Trump’s answers to the church’s pastor’s questions, which were submitted in advance. A draft of the script was obtained by The New York Times.
The document includes the exact wording of answers the aides are proposing for Mr. Trump to give to questions about police killings, racial tension and the perception among many black voters that he and the Republican Party are racist, among other topics.
According to reports, the scripted answers are light on policy, and written with the hope that Trump will be able to avoid the stumbles he’s encountered in the past when asked about his faith.
First of all, at this point we don’t even know who’s telling the truth.
Second, who was this Donald Trump who showed up in Mexico being all meek and low energy?
Does he only talk tough when he’s safely inside the US?
As a candidate, Trump has already embarrassed us on the world stage.Imagine the damage he’d do as president. pic.twitter.com/nmOVOboTYf
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 2, 2016
If you were wondering why #TacoTrucksOnEveryCorner has been trending for hours on Twitter, here you go.
Via Business Insider:
The founder of the group “Latinos for Trump” made an unconventional argument for Donald Trump’s immigration plan during an appearance on MSNBC Thursday night.
Marco Gutierrez, in an interview with host Joy Reid, described Latino culture as “imposing” and “dominant,” and suggested that without the GOP presidential nominee’s 10-point plan to overhaul the United States’ immigration policies, there might be “taco trucks on every corner.”
“I don’t even know what that means, and I’m almost too afraid to ask,” Reid responded.
Fortunately, the folks at the Washington Post can explain JUST what that means.
As most of you know, a taco truck is a box truck with a kitchen in the back that serves Mexican food. And it turns out this could very well be the employment answer we’ve been looking for.
The Washington Post crunched the numbers and guesstimates that there are about 3.2 million intersections in America. If you put one taco truck per intersection, staffed with the usual three employees, that results in 9.6 million jobs!
Tequila!
If you assume that three people work in each truck, that’s 9.6 million new jobs created. The labor force in August was 159.4 million, with 144.6 million employed. Adding 9.6 million taco truck workers would help America reach nearly full employment — and that’s just the staffing in the trucks. Think about all of the ancillary job creation: mechanics, gas station workers, Mexican food truck management executives. We’d likely need to increase immigration levels just to meet the demand.
Now that Donald Trump is back across the border from Mexico where he met with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto yesterday, both men are feeling quite macho again.
After a bit of a timid and low energy appearance with the Mexican president, Trump is again bragging that Mexico will “pay for the wall” that Trump says will make the U.S. borders safe again.
Peña Nieto, however, is being all bold and stuff saying again that Mexico will not be paying for any wall. “I’ll repeat what I told you personally, Mr. Trump: Mexico will never pay for a wall,” he wrote via Twitter.
The odd thing about all this is that Trump said during the very short press event yesterday that the two men did not discuss who would pay for a wall – with the president standing right there.
It wasn’t until Trump was back in the air that Peña Nieto informed the press that during their private chat he told Trump directly that paying for a wall was off limits.
It’s all a big “he said/he said” from two very unpopular public figures.
Mexico will pay for the wall!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 1, 2016
Repito lo que le dije personalmente, Sr. Trump: México jamás pagaría por un muro. https://t.co/IJNVe0XepY— Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) September 1, 2016
Donald Trump likes to refer to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as “Crooked Hillary,” but it’s actually Trump himself who’s been found guilty of violating tax laws by failing to report a $25,000 political donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s campaign group.
Donald Trump paid the IRS a $2,500 penalty this year, an official at Trump’s company said, after it was revealed that Trump’s charitable foundation had violated tax laws by giving a political contribution to a campaign group connected to Florida’s attorney general.
From the Washington Post:
The improper donation, a $25,000 gift from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, was made in 2013. At the time, Attorney General Pam Bondi was considering whether to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University. She decided not to pursue the case.
Earlier this year, The Washington Post and a liberal watchdog group raised new questions about the three-year-old gift. The watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed a complaint with the IRS — noting that, as a registered nonprofit, the Trump Foundation was not allowed to make political donations.
The Post reported another error, which had the effect of obscuring the political gift from the IRS.
In that year’s tax filings, The Post reported, the Trump Foundation did not notify the IRS of this political donation. Instead, Trump’s foundation listed a donation — also for $25,000 — to a Kansas charity with a name similar to that of Bondi’s political group. In fact, Trump’s foundation had not given the Kansas group any money.
The prohibited gift was, in effect, replaced with an innocent-sounding but nonexistent donation.
So, you see what happened here? Bondi asked for a donation to her campaign group, Trump made the donation, and suddenly Bondi decided not to investigate fraud charges against Trump University.
That’s about as crooked as you can get.
Trump was required to pay a 10% fine equaling $2,500.
Of course, the Trump campaign called the whole thing an “honest” mistake.
At the end of 2104, The Trump Foundation only had $1.4 million in the bank and no staff. You would think a multi-billionaire who talks a lot about how much he donates would have a more substantial foundation.
The latest national Suffolk University/USA Today poll out Thursday shows Democrat Hillary Clinton leading Republican Donald Trump by 7 points.
Clinton received the support of 48% of 1,000 likely voters, while Trump earned 41%.
This matches similar results from the recent Fox News poll released Wednesday evening, and the 7 point margin shown in the latest Monmouth University poll.
In a four-way race, the survey showed Clinton still held a 7 point lead garnering 42% support, Trump receiving 35%, Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson scored 9% and Green Party nominee Jill Stein received just 3%. The remaining 10 percent were undecided.
Trump barely led Clinton among male voters (44%/43%), while Clinton trounced Trump by 16 points among women (54%/38%).
Trump leads by 8 points (49%/41%) with white voters, but Clinton leads by 41 points with Hispanic voters (65%/24%) and by 87 points among black voters (91%/4%).
In the aftermath of whatever success or failure folks believe occurred at the two major political parties conventions in July, it’s been clear that the Trump campaign had lost it’s footing as polls showed Hillary Clinton widening her lead on Donald Trump.
The past weeks saw noticeable shifts for the Trumpster. Testing the waters with a possible “softening” of his immigration prescriptions then pulling back, it was clear Trump was lurching about trying to find some kind of message that might sell in the general election.
The New York Times explains a bit as to the underlying dynamics at play in the Trump camp.
Mr. Trump’s course adjustment emerged in an atmosphere of growing urgency and alarm within his campaign. Over the last week, close associates have told both Mr. Trump and members of his family that he is in real danger of losing the race, according to a half-dozen people close to the Trump campaign and briefed on its activities, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid angering the nominee.
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who lobbied in favor of the trip to Mexico, has told Mr. Trump that he must make immediate changes to regain his footing, associates said. And on Monday, Mr. Trump’s son Eric met with senior officials at the Republican National Committee in Washington and heard a grim prognosis of his father’s campaign, according to people briefed on the meeting.
Without a major shake-up of the electoral map, strategists indicated to the younger Mr. Trump, his father’s already narrow path to the 270 electoral votes he needs to win could vanish. Going through the swing states one by one, party officials showed Eric Trump that his father was drastically underperforming other Republicans in the polls.
While many who watched Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump yell his way through a “policy” speech on immigration last night in Arizona were left fairly dismayed, Trump’s white supremacist followers were thrilled.
Anyone expecting some kind of “pivot” during the general election may be surprised to learn that the pivot was from the far-right to the alt-right.
The speech was a grim, high volume rough ride that bordered on fear-mongering against all immigrants. Just the kind of thing white nationalists/supremacists love.
David Duke, former KKK Grand Wizard and current candidate for the U.S. Senate:
@DrDavidDuke Whitey-whitey, white-itty-white white!— Neko Case (@NekoCase) September 1, 2016
Richard Spencer, of the white nationalist think tank National Policy Institute:
Agenda for August 31.> Diplomacy in the morning.
> Nationalism in the evening. #Trump is back in a big way!— Richard B. Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) September 1, 2016
Jared Taylor, editor for the white nationalist publication American Renaissance:
#TrumpAZ Hell of a speech. Almost perfect. Logical, deeply felt, and powerfully delivered. Now watch how the media twists it.— Jared Taylor (@jartaylor) September 1, 2016
According to former campaign manager and current adviser Corey Lewandowski, the speech was written to appeal to the white male voters who already support Trump’s nationalist policies. “White males have a high propensity of voting and this speech is clearly geared at those individuals right now, to make sure he has locked them in for the election,” said Lewandowski on CNN after the hour long speech.
After dramatically flying to Mexico for a one on one photo op with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Donald Trump told reporters at a short press event with the Mexican President that the issue of who would pay for the now infamous “Trump Wall” didn’t come up.
Now comes news, via President Pena Nieto’s spokesman, that the President told Trump during their one hour meeting that Mexico would not be paying for any wall.
From Reuters:
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on Wednesday told Donald Trump that Mexico would not pay for the Republican presidential candidate’s proposed wall along the Mexico-U.S. border, contradicting Trump’s assertion they didn’t discuss payment.
“What the president said is that Mexico, as he has said on several occasions … will not pay for that wall,” presidential spokesman Eduardo Sanchez told Reuters by telephone.
Trump earlier told a joint news conference with Pena Nieto after their meeting in Mexico City that the pair had discussed the wall but not who would pay for it.
President Peña Nieto said in a tweet (above)”At the beginning of the conversation with Donald Trump, I made clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall.”
Did Trump lie during the presser? Or if not, why didn’t the Mexican president correct Trump during the Q&A?
It seems Trump is full of swagger in front of his adoring fans, but not so much when he actually has to step on the world stage.
In my opinion, I don’t know how “presidential” Trump looked today. Standing next to the young, handsome and clearly comfortable President Pena Nieto, Trump swayed side to side looking tired while slumping at the podium. It was certainly not the “strong” Donald Trump image he’s promised his supporters he would be.