By Arianna Huffington
Earlier today, (December 7, 2015), the candidate currently leading in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” That was, of course, Donald Trump. As Jeffrey Goldberg just tweeted, “Donald Trump is now an actual threat to national security. He’s providing jihadists ammunition for their campaign to demonize the US.”
“IOTD” is image of the day, a concept I came up with. I teach visual meditative therapy – or in easy terms – a mini mental holiday. For some people it is very difficult for them to get their image right. I post an image a day for people to use in their mini mental vacay. Some are serious, some are silly, and some are just beautiful!”
AMONG THE MANY ASININE, INACCURATE STATEMENTS, PLAIN LIES
THIS IS JUST ONE AMONG THE MANY
Allegra Kirkland
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has been characteristically unapologeticabout his claim that “thousands and thousands” of New Jersey residents cheered as the World Trade Center fell on Sept. 11, 2001, even though contemporaneous news reports don’t support it.
And his insistence on that recollection, which has no basis in fact, shows just how expert he is at roping together conspiracy theories, urban legends, and rumors that lurk on the fringes of the Internet and bringing them into the mainstream.
Rumors of groups of people celebrating the attacks in “tailgate-style parties” popped up in national publications like The Washington Post and Associated Press, but were never confirmed as true. A highly publicized video of Muslims cheering and flashing victory signs on the day of the attack was shot in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of Palestine, not in the Garden State. A video of American Muslims celebrating the terrorist attack doesn’t appear to exist and none of the unconfirmed reports of such an incident comes anywhere near the scale that Trump describes.
I’ve been reading about these comments since this weekend. I just finished watching Rachel Maddow’s TV show for today, November 23. I would recommend that you look for the video on this particular topic.
I cannot believe that this is happening in this country. I cannot believe that no one is standing up to this man. There are those who cheer and egg him on. There are those who even believe him.
Trump’s outrageous claim that ‘thousands’ of New Jersey Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attacks
Glenn Kessler
“Hey, I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering.”
This is a bit like writing about the hole in the doughnut — how can you write about nothing?
Trump says that he saw this with his own eyes on television and that it was well covered. But an extensive examination of news clips from that period turns up nothing. There were some reports of celebrations overseas, in Muslim countries, but nothing that we can find involving the Arab populations of New Jersey except for unconfirmed reports. This claim has never been authenticated.
As the Newark Star-Ledger put it in an article on Sept. 18, 2001, “rumors of rooftop celebrations of the attack by Muslims here proved unfounded.”
We’ve been around the political block long enough to know that almost all presidential candidates exaggerate, dissemble, take statements out of context and, yes, lie.
But from the start of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign (remember Mexican rapists?), he has taken this to a level we haven’t seen before in American politics.
Consider just these two examples from the weekend.
First, Trump said on Saturday in Alabama:
“I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering.”
In fact, as the New York Times writes, “No news reports exist of people cheering in the streets, and both police officials and the mayor of Jersey City have said that it did not happen. An Internet rumor about people cheering in the streets, which said it was in Paterson, not Jersey City, has been denied numerous times by city and police officials.” But when ABC pressed Trump on his statement, he stood his ground.
“It did happen. I saw it … It was on television. I saw it.”
Second, Trump retweeted a graphic claiming — falsely — that African Americans are responsible for the killing of most blacks and whites in America. “That is not true, the Washington Post notes. “According to data from the FBI, most whites are killed by whites, as most blacks are killed by blacks.
There’s an obvious reason for that: Most people are killed by someone they know.”
I do not get it. I simply don’t. It’s not even a matter of which political party anyone is affiliated with or which beliefs anyone holds. I grew up in Puerto Rico, a colony of the United States but never the less “US land”. I was brought up thinking how great the US was …. as a country, as a leader, as an example to the world.
I cannot believe what I’m seeing and hearing now.
Any human with decreased number of brain cells can get what this “person” is doing and saying. There are no limits to his “statements”, nothing is off limits. He’s raised the “idiocy bar” so high that the other presidential hopefuls have no other option but to go along or even come back with more asinine statements. If they don’t, they will be left in his dust.
It’s true … this man isn’t an embarassment of this country. He’s an indictment of it.
unprecedented breach of foreign policy protocol both in its form and its boldness
Is the letter to Iran from 47 Republican senators correct about Congress’ role in nuclear deal?
The Obama administration’s efforts to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran were already contentious. But they got more so — if that’s possible — on March 9, 2015, with the release of a letter by 47 Republican senators.
The missive, labeled “an open letter to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” was structured as a civics lesson — one intended to underscore that even if Iran is negotiating with the executive branch, Congress is not powerless in the process.
A key portion of the 286-word letter says that the undersigned senators “will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei. The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.”
Critics called the letter unprecedented for seeming to meddle with the president’s authority to handle negotiations with foreign countries. Vice President Joe Bidensaid the letter “is beneath the dignity of an institution I revere.” Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said the letter “has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy.”
At a State Department briefing the day the letter was released, spokeswoman Jen Psaki went so far as to say the letter was factually incorrect.
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Republican freshman, whose letter to the leaders of Iran warning against a nuclear deal with the Obama administration has caused an international uproar.
At 37, Mr. Cotton is the youngest member of the Senate and had served as of Wednesday exactly 65 days. A graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law School, Mr. Cotton served as an infantry officer in the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq in 2006, one of the bloodiest periods of the war.
The letter 47 Republican senators sent to Iran is one of the most plainly stupid things a group of senators has ever done
By: Fred Kaplan
The letter — which encourages Iran’s leaders to dismiss the ongoing nuclear talks with the United States and five other nations — is as brazen, gratuitous, and plainly stupid an act as any committed by the Senate in recent times, and that says a lot. It may also be illegal.
The banalities begin with the greeting: “An Open Letter to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” By custom, a serious letter to foreign leaders would address them by name. Who is it that the senators are seeking to influence: the supreme leader, the Parliament, the Revolutionary Guards? Clearly none of the above, otherwise it wouldn’t be an open letter. Nor, if this were a serious attempt of some sort, would Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (who was among the missive’s signatories) leave the task of organizing it to the likes of Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, an otherwise unknown freshman.
As usual, the Republicans’ goal is simple: to embarrass and undermine President Barack Obama. The idiocies begin with the first sentence: “It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system.”
~Traitor Senator Taking Money from Defense Industry Traitor Senator~
Cotton mouthing off
~~Published on Mar 10, 2015~~
“Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks discusses Senator Tom Cotton’s defense of the GOP’s threatening letter to the Iranian leadership about nuclear negations.
A letter written by Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton and signed by forty-six other senators was sent to the Iranian leadership earlier this week that threatens a possible international agreement that the Obama administration is attempting to reach. With the deadline looming on March 24 this has seen as active sabotage and possibly even treason in a move that has never been seen by the Senate in the entire history of the United States.
Cotton went out of his way to defend the move of the GOP and his letter, condemning Obama’s moves for everything dealing with Iran thus far.”
It Is What It Is 