{"id":23155,"date":"2016-07-25T10:00:46","date_gmt":"2016-07-25T17:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=23155"},"modified":"2016-07-25T10:00:46","modified_gmt":"2016-07-25T17:00:46","slug":"squatchs-open-thread-24072016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/25\/squatchs-open-thread-24072016\/","title":{"rendered":"Squatch’s Open Thread 24\/07\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was very hot and muggy today — 30 C (86 F) — so I tried to stay quiet in some air conditioning for as long as possible, then home to the heat.  It is 23:00 hours and the temperature is still 22 C (72 F) with high humidity.  This week will be busy as I have physio, pastoral care calls to make, teaching and 2 medical appointments.  I hope it doesn't stay hot and humid this week.  Later — My wi-fi connection shut down before I could finish and post last night so this is 10 hours late in getting up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Politicususa<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — Donald Trump is facing a new complaint that his use of the Trump Organization to do his campaign work is a violation of federal law.<\/p>\n

The Democratic Coalition Against Trump announced their FEC complaint against the GOP nominee in a statement:<\/p>\n

This morning the Democratic Coalition Against Trump filed a federal campaign complaint against Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign with the Federal Elections Commission. The complaint alleges five violations including illegally accepting direct corporate contributions, accepting services from a volunteer that were actually compensated, use of the Trump corporate name or trademark to facilitate campaign contributions, illegal use of corporate facilities by a campaign volunteer, and knowingly allowing volunteers to exceed the transportation expense limit.<\/em><\/p>\n

The question is, will the FEC recognise this as the violation it is, or will it be bullied by Trump?  If I recall correctly, the Fartfuhrer of Fitzwalkerstan, Scott Walker, faced similar charges.<\/span><\/p>\n

CBC<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — It is difficult to imagine that a democratic system has ever existed without some amount of exaggeration, cynicism and frivolity. For that matter, politics should not exclusively be the domain of serious wonkery. Some amount of theatre is natural and useful. Generous amounts of humanity are welcome. Anger and conflict are inevitable.<\/p>\n

But ideally a nation's politics would not be predominantly cynical and frivolous, would not be defined by its worst aspects. What excesses of rhetoric or action did occur would be corrected for. And, over time, the system would improve, not fall into disrepair or despair.<\/p>\n

An untrusted or unserious system is perhaps ripe for revolt or abuse.  …<\/p>\n

Trump is destroying the generally accepted norms of American politics, and expanding the parameters of what a politician could get away with saying in a way that will have lasting impact on the United States. That suggests our democracies are more fragile than we might otherwise appreciate.<\/p>\n

Some say that Canada and the US are the same, few differences at all.  I see the two countries as being quite different with some commonalities.  <\/span>In the article, my former Member of Parliament, James Moore, Conservative, was "asked about Trump's relevance to Canadian conservatives and offered two other observations. First, that Trump isn't a conservative. Second, that the Conservative Party learned in 2015 that conservatism needs to be matched with optimism."  Looking south, I certainly do not see the optimism of which Moore speaks.  What I see is more doom and gloom, outright fear, coming from Republicans.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Alternet<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — The GOP’s new big dog blew the whistle Thursday night for nearly an hour and a half and it was loud and shrill enough to reach the ears of every angry, resentful, disaffected white American. The tone was divisive, dark, dystopian and grim. Here was the alpha dog of the von Trump family, baying at a blood-red moon that the hills are alive with the sounds of menace. According to Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, this land is rapidly becoming as bleak and dangerous as one of those twisted, vicious kingdoms in Game of Thrones<\/em>, a place filled with violent crime and despair, a smoldering ruin overrun with foreigners out to take our jobs and terrorists bent on destroying our villages. It’s mourning in America. And only he can save us. This has been his message all year: I alone can fix it. Remember his tweet on Easter morning? “Another radical Islamic attack, this time in Pakistan, targeting Christian women & children. At least 67 dead,400 injured. I alone can solve."  …<\/p>\n

But as Washington Post <\/font><\/em>fact checkers Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee<\/font><\/a> noted: “The dark portrait of America that Donald J. Trump sketched… is a compendium of doomsday stats that fall apart upon close scrutiny. Numbers are taken out of context, data is manipulated, and sometimes the facts are wrong. “When facts are inconveniently positive — such as rising incomes and an unemployment rate under 5 percent — Trump simply declines to mention them.<\/p>\n

Here is a video from the Washington Post fact checking Trump's Thursday evening convenmtion speech.  Click <\/span>HERE<\/strong><\/span><\/a> to view video.  Unfortunately, I could not imbed it.  <\/span><\/span><\/span>Elizabeth Warren commented to Stephen Colbert that she didn't think Democrats were taking Trump seriously enough and that he is a dangerous individual, especially when he is so divisive and hateful.  I was amused by some of his early words in his acceptance speech at the RNC: (full transcript from <\/span>syracuse.com<\/span><\/a> <\/strong>incase you want to scan it without having to listen to his voice)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

"It is finally time for a straightforward assessment of the state of our nation. I will present the facts plainly and honestly<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span> We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore.<\/p>\n

So if you want to hear the corporate spin, the carefully-crafted lies, and the media myths—the Democrats are holding their convention next week. But here, at our convention, there will be no lies<\/em>. We will honor the American people with the truth<\/em>, and nothing else<\/strong><\/span>."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

When did Drumpf become acquainted with any truth?<\/span><\/p>\n

VOTE BLUE ALL THE WAY DOWN THE LINE!<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"beingAll in with Hillary!<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My Universe — <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"cat8\"Hi! How ya doin'!<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"52f180dc-7b40-4fb4-8928-2449da34548d\"Cat trap working!<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was very hot and muggy today — 30 C (86 F) — so I tried to stay quiet in some air conditioning for as long as possible, then home to the heat.  It is 23:00 hours and the temperature is still 22 C (72 F) with high humidity.  This week will be busy as I have […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-politics","category-35-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}