I don’t have anything against Melania Trump and don’t want to see her become collateral damage in the righteous pushback against her husband’s bid for the presidency, but she’s creating a lot of problems that are hard to ignore. Obviously, in Cleveland, she ruined her big introduction to the American people by plagiarizing Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention speech. Then she had to take her personal website down because it falsely claimed that she had obtained a college degree in Slovenia. And, now, it appears likely that she has been lying about the circumstances of her arrival in this country and could have used false pretenses to obtain her visa and then done modeling work she was not legally authorized to do.
Read the article if you are truly interested in all the nuances of U.S. immigration law, but the reason any of it matters is that her husband has been railing about people coming into this country illegally in order to do work that they are not authorized to do. That, back in 1995, Melania was doing a nude girl-on-girl photo shoot in some studio off Union Square instead of picking vegetables somewhere in the Inland Empire heat is a distinction without a difference under the law.
Trump may have literally married an undocumented worker who lied to enter the country under false pretenses and then failed to disclose that lie when later getting a green card and eventually gaining U.S. citizenship.
It’s kind of like Newt Gingrich complaining about Bill Clinton’s trysts with Monica Lewinsky at the very same time that he was cheating on his wife with another congressman’s staffer.
Maybe this is why Trump and Gingrich seem to get along so well.
schadenfreude.
From the NY Post pictures she looks like she was fully documented at the time.
If you think there’s frustration within the Trump Campaign, imagine editorial board meetings of The Onion.
Well, well, well…..just as word comes out that Trump seems to be at least a bit receptive to the idea that he should, you know, be attacking HIS OPPONENT instead of everyone else, this bit on news trickles out.
Is this just maybe a sample tidbit from the huge binders of shit that the Clinton campaign, no doubt, has on Mr. Trump? All just timed to perfectly drip out, bit by bit, from now until November? All just the sort of things to keep Trump wound tighter than a banjo string and set him off into spittle flecked outrage on a daily basis?
There is no way in hell he can leave this one be?
I think the Bush clan dropped this one. Pay back is a…
Re: “Binders of Shit”
Had a discussion w/ friend yesterday about how Trump flies off the handle when any of this type of news leaks out, or he otherwise feels “attacked,” vis the Khan/constitution challenge at the DNC.
My friend is totally opposed to Trump but stated that the Ds should NOT engage in these types of tactics, since they know that it will set off Trump, and that he’s likely to fly off the handle and behave like a loon – as he has for the past several days.
I pointed out that politics has always been dirty, and that a tight race is predicated on these types of slings, arrows, brickbats and smears coming out all the time. Pols need to know when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em, and when/how/where to respond.
Her thesis is that the D party should be “better” than that, and simply not do this.
My contention: yeah, dirty politics are ugly to watch, and one would like it to be different. But how else are the US public to get to see/know how Trump responds under pressure? Are we to treat him with kid gloves only to discover too late – once elected? – that he goes full metal jacket nutso because he believes some foreign leader dissed him?
After all, Trump’s surrogates shouted that Hillary should not only be in jail but that she should be summarily executed before a firing squad. Trump can’t handle the Muslim father of a slain Muslim soldier asking him if he’s read the constitution?? And that was “wrong” of the Democrats to allow Khan to do that?
Our discussion wasn’t heated, but I am still scratching my head over her response. I think we’re in for a long and bumpy ride, and I personally think the D party should throw down some gauntlets. Trump needs to answer for his regressive viewpoints. And voters should have the opportunity to witness his responses.
Well, in the perfect world your friend would be right. But as you pointed out, isn’t how he responds to things like these maybe an indicator of how he would deal with much more difficult and nuanced issues as a President? The stakes are just too high, especially in this particular case. When you have your foot on the throat of someone who is a real danger, you don’t back off. I wouldn’t expect the other side to be any less ruthless if the shoe was on the other foot. I might not like it, but I would understand that these are the unspoken rules of the game, and have been since the days of our founding.
I am sure your friend is a lovely person. But they are very, very naive.
Er, that’s WHY Ds SHOULD “engage in these types of tactics”?! For exactly the reason you gave:
Your friend sounds nice.
Also naive.
reminds me of this scene from The West Wing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoBA_zzmlxQ
So her argument is that Democrats should help him keep up the appearance of sanity, because even the insane deserve a fair chance at winning the Presidency?
Suspect it reflects a predisposition of a majority of Americans that don’t like negative ads/campaigning. A certain percentage of whom, often large, can’t bring themselves to vote when all they’ve heard is trash-talk from both sides.
A little off-topic, but al-Nusrah forces in Aleppo, estimated from 5 to 10 thousand, made an attack on Syrian allied forces and has been repelled, mostly by Russian aerial bombing. These al Qaeda-affiliated forces are now in a cauldron and are about to be starved out if not bombed out.
Many believe the August 1st date for al-Nusrah’s failed offensive is tied to an August 1st deadline earlier set by SOS Kerry for Assad’s surrender. Russia has been pointing out large movements of old weapons and ammunition from Eastern Europe to resupply the rebels in recent months.
You may have missed this because western media, like in the case of the failed coup in Turkey, hasn’t figured out how to spin why the “moderates” (with their chlorine gas attack) are failing.
And it’s also reported that Russia and Turkey have reopened negotiations for the Turk Stream gas pipelines.
The question will be how Clinton plans to fight the war next January after it’s been essentially lost.
Michèle Flournoy, her likely Pentagon chief, has thoughts on the matter.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/a-four-point-strategy-for-defeating-the-isla
mic-state/2016/07/08/13ea5f1c-3e42-11e6-84e8-1580c7db5275_story.html
So, make up a story about an imminent civilian massacre and then bomb the shit out of the head of state we want to replace. Worked great the last time, I’m told.
And that’s from the “rational” national governing party.
Mr. Bob, America is not a toy, the United States is a serious power because the American people are a serious people.
If your balls shrivel and shrink at the thought of war with Russia you not only dishonor the sacrifice of those Americans who insured the Soviet Union would not fall to Hitler’s Germany, you dishonor their realization that the communists were just as homicidal (if not genocidal) in their view of what a government should be.
I’ve wondered about the status of Melania in terms of when/how she came here. I don’t care about her naked photos, albeit one would think that the so-called “Moral” majority, “family values” crowd might not be so pleased about that. But of course, IOKIYAR. If a Democratic politician or spouse had posed for similar photos, can you just imagine the uproar? Whatever.
I’ve also wondered about Trump’s use of many H1(b) workers in his various business operations. How many of them were strictly legal, and how many were not so much?
If it comes out that Melania really did work here as an undocumented worker, you can rest assured that Trump’s fans won’t care. After all, she’s not a dirty messican, and she’s got a great booty.
Hypocritical?? I report; you decide.
Can the media keep up the sound of one hand slapping for a hundred days?
So, I think this is an interesting story but could too easily be spun as an “unfair attack on Trump’s wife.” It seems to me like the campaign should keep its hands off of this, though of course the press can dig in on it.
Yes, the more I thought about it, the more I came to a similar conclusion. It’s not a good avenue for Democrats to pursue at this time. Someone on another blog suggested that the only upside way for Clinton to pursue this is to suggest that it shows how complicated the immigration laws are and that’s why we need immigration reform. That could work, but otherwise, it’s best to leave it alone.
Clinton should say nothing. She should be playing good cop and building up her positives.
The rest of us, though – “Mr. Trump, how do you think the county should handle somebody who came here illegally 20 years ago and got citizenship under false pretenses?” I want that hypocrite to squirm.
And then I want Clinton to say she thinks Melania should receive amnesty and be allowed to stay but that requires changing the law. (Really, that’s reasonable – but that’s what it actually is.)
Have to agree. Attacks on spouses and children don’t usually play well with the public.
OTOH, Mrs. Trump’s early immigration status raises legitimate questions unlike Obama’s birth for which there are never any legitimate questions. As Trump rode the birther tiger, he is in no position to declare any questions about his wife’s immigration status as off-limits.
There are a million ways for the campaign to exploit this without having to directly address it and run the risk of creating that kind of backlash.
From any experienced political operative’s point of view, this should be an easy needle to thread. That’s why you have surrogates. Hell, Republicans and their Wurlitzer have practically turned this into an art form over the last generation.
I think we have a good test case for the number of voters who will remain happy with Trump even if his wife were shown to have been an “illegal alien”, or if he stood in the middle of 5th Avenue and shot someone: 19%.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2016/08/03/fox-news-poll-aug-3-2016/
19% is the number of Americans who declared Trump’s response to the Kahn family as “in bounds.”
Look at the rest of the numbers in that poll. For one of many examples, Clinton is +20% or more on the separate questions of whether she has the temperament and knowledge to be President, while Trump is -20% or more on those same questions.
One answer that I took note of here was the 44% of Americans who say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country today. That number has been creeping up throughout the last few months, as have the approval ratings of President Obama, which are now solidly above 50%. The number which say they are getting ahead is also trending up, and those who say they are falling behind is trending down; the “falling behind” number is at 14% now.
I suspect one of the things which is happening is that the public is hearing the change which the Republican Party is running on, comparing it to the comparatively status quo policies Clinton is running on, and deciding that the status quo looks good in comparison to Trump’s radical policies and poor temperament.
The shrinking unemployment and uninsured rates, along with other positive indicators, are part of that number as well.