Trump-Bush Feud Fires up Over 9/11

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By Daniel Strauss. The feud between Donald Trump and Jeb Bush over the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks escalated on Sunday as Trump argued that his hard-line stance on immigration would have prevented the attacks while Bush defended his brother’s handling of them.

In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace asked Trump what he would have done differently in response to an earlier suggestion that then-President George W. Bush was partially at fault for the attacks. And Trump insisted he is not blaming the former president for them.

“Jeb [Bush] said ‘We were safe with my brother. We were safe.’ Well, the World Trade Center just went down. Now, am I trying to blame him? I’m not blaming anybody, but the World Trade Center came down, so when he said we were safe, we were not safe. We lost 3,000 people. It was one of the greatest — probably the greatest catastrophe ever in this country,” the Republican presidential hopeful said.

If he were president, Trump said, it would have been different.

“I am extremely, extremely tough on people coming into this country,” Trump said. And if he were president then, he said, he doubted “those people would’ve been in the country. … There’s a good chance that those people would not have been in the country. (Read more from “Trump-Bush Feud Fires up Over 9/11” HERE)

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GOP Vet: Trump Win Looking More and More Likely

By Byron York. “I’ve resisted the idea that Donald Trump could and would become the Republican nominee,” writes GOP strategist Alex Castellanos in an email assessment of the presidential race. “Unhappily, I’ve changed my mind.”

Castellanos, who once said flatly that “Trump is not going to be the nominee,” writes “the odds of Trump’s success have increased and been validated in the past few weeks.”

The key indicator, Castellanos says, is the fact that Trump dipped in the polls and now appears to be rising again. “In my experience, that tells us something important,” Castellanos explains:

Republican voters went through a period of doubt about Trump, an understandable window of buyer’s remorse. They went shopping for someone else — but returned, finding no acceptable alternative who could match Trump’s bad-boy strength and his capacity to bring indispensable change. … Fearing they have only one last chance to rescue their country, they found no one else as big as their problem.

(Read more from “GOP Vet: Trump Win Looking More and More Likely” HERE)

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Sanders Planning ‘Major Speech’ on This Subject

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Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said Sunday that he is preparing to give a “major speech” on democratic socialism, the political philosophy that is guiding him and his upstart campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“I think we have some explaining and work to do,” the Vermont senator told an audience at a house party here in the nation’s first caucus state, acknowledging that the term “democratic socialism” makes some people “very, very nervous.”

Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats in the Senate, has long identified as a democratic socialist. As a presidential candidate, he has put forward policies that try to create more fairness in a country he says is now rigged to favor the rich — but he has stopped short of calling for classic socialist ideas, like government takeovers of private industry.

Sanders, for instance, has advocated free tuition at public colleges and universities, a single-payer health-care system, guaranteed family leave for workers and a “massive” federal jobs program to put more people to work and to fix the country’s infrastructure.

Sanders said his speech on democratic socialism is one of several addresses his campaign is preparing as his race against Hillary Rodham Clinton heads toward the first nominating contests early next year. (Read more from “Sanders Planning ‘Major Speech’ on This Subject” HERE)

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CDC: Antibiotic-Resistant Shigella Spreading, Here Are The High-Risk Groups, How You Catch It

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It is late on a Sunday night and your son is clutching his stomach complaining of pain. He feels warm so you test his temperature and he definitely has a fever. He says he needs to use the bathroom and you are shocked to see that he has passed bloody diarrhea. You rush him to the emergency room in hopes that whatever he has is easily treated. A few days later you discover that your son actually has an antibiotic-resistant Shigella and that one of the few treatments available is not only more expensive but also more harmful than the antibiotics formerly used while not being as effective. You wonder how in the world your son contracted this disease which is spread through fecal matter. Could it have been at the party for new international students you attended on Friday night? Undoubtedly it would have been at that party. If you had only known of this bacterial infection common to the developing world then you could have taken steps to prevent it in your son.

The problem is that there are are some misconceptions regarding certain diseases in the U.S and where they are likely to originate. The CDC usually does a pretty good job looking at disease outbreaks and relaying to the public information by which they can protect themselves. However, unless the public is regularly checking the CDC website for themselves, they may not be aware of current disease outbreaks as the popular news websites don’t regularly post those type of stories. Sometimes these sites direct the information only to the segment of the population that they believe is affected. People who are not related to that specific segment of the population may be harmed by not getting the information they need to protect themselves and their families.

A good example of this is the recent outbreak of drug resistant Shigella that made news when it affected Kansas City. With a little research one can find that it has been affecting parts of the United States since May 2014. By February 2015 it had already been found in 32 states. By April the CDC decided it was important to let the public know how the outbreak started and how people could protect themselves. According, to their research about 50 percent of the cases originated in the homeless population and the other cases originated with international travelers. This multi-drug resistant Shigella has specifically been traced back to mostly international travellers from India and Dominican Republic. This information is not surprising once one looks at the rate of Shigella in those areas. They are both developing areas which do not have modern sewage systems.

It is also interesting that the CDC acknowledges that in the US the main outbreaks are occurring among child care facilities, gay men, and the homeless. At this same time some major news sources are mainly discussing Shigella spreading among children in child care settings. They are ignoring the fact that Shigella is also spread by international travelers, gay/bisexual men and the homeless. This is something that the general population should be aware of!

What should we learn from this information? First, this means that people traveling to developing countries should follow the advice from the CDC on how to avoid contracting Shigella. Second, residents of the US should be cautious of those immediately returning or coming from developing countries because the traveler could be infected with Shigella. The incubation period is about two days but a person may still infect others long after they are no longer showing signs of sickness. This is one reason Shigella is so contagious and at times difficult to contain.

This subject is important to me personally because I am related to one of the at risk groups by being married to a man from a developing country. When we travel internationally we are always aware of what we should be doing to protect ourselves from various diseases. However, we know that not everyone who travels internationally is as conscientious as we are. I am aware of this because many of my international friends travel back to the country of their origin, then spent part of their vacation sick from things as Shigella. They thought that since the country was their childhood home, they did not have to take the same precautions (drinking bottled water, not eating salads/fruit) that other travelers needed to take.

The media must be more diligent in informing the public concerning the entire risks of disease epidemics so that the populace can help stem the spread of infections and stop the outbreak.

Sources:

https://www.cdc.gov/shigella/general-information.html
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6412a2.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2015/p0402-multidrug-resistant-shigellosis.html
https://www.cdc.gov/shigella/general-information.html#transmission

The Inside Story of Trump Campaign’s Connections to a Big-Money Super PAC

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[Editor’s note: This smells like another Establishment hit on Trump. Although we are not endorsing his candidacy, it’s apparent that the Ruling Class is hitting Trump for using the tool they designed and employed to keep themselves in power] As he brags that he is turning down millions of dollars for his presidential campaign, Donald Trump has leveled a steady line of attack against his rivals: that they are too cozy with big-money super PACs and may be breaking the law by coordinating with them . . .

What Trump doesn’t say is that he and his top campaign aide have connections to a super PAC collecting large checks to support his candidacy — a group viewed by people familiar with his campaign as the sanctioned outlet for wealthy donors.

This summer, Trump appeared at at least two events for the Make America Great Again PAC, which took his campaign slogan as its name and received financing from his daughter’s mother-in-law. A consultant for the super PAC is a Republican operative who has previously worked with Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, according to several people with direct knowledge of their ties.

The Trump campaign’s links to the low-profile group could undercut the candidate’s posture as the only Republican in the race who has not sought to curry favor with wealthy donors, a central part of his anti-establishment message.

Lewandowski denied that Trump or the campaign had given the green light to Make America Great Again. (Read more from “The Inside Story of Trump Campaign’s Connections to a Big-Money Super PAC” HERE)

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Man Who Interrogates Clinton on Benghazi Is Veteran Prosecutor

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The South Carolina prosecutor looked straight at the camera, relishing his role on an episode of the show “Forensic Files” as he discussed fingerprints, DNA testing and other evidence pointing to a murder suspect . . .

A year later, Trey Gowdy was elected to Congress, where his hard-nosed prosecutorial style is casting him in a much larger drama. At stake: his own reputation and the perhaps the political fate of a potential future president of the United States.

This Thursday, he will lead the high-stakes interrogation of Hillary Clinton over her role in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. And Clinton won’t be the only one on the hot seat. Gowdy, the 51-year-old chairman of the House committee investigating the attacks, finds himself defending the panel against charges that it’s only a partisan Republican effort to derail Clinton’s presidential campaign.

While Gowdy will be at the center of the political drama, his background is in court. Friends in Congress say that while leading investigations and questioning witnesses is clearly part of Gowdy’s DNA – his three dogs are named Judge, Jury and Bailiff – the highly charged political atmosphere has been frustrating . . .

“Trey does not like politics, he likes finding the truth,” said Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. “He stopped doing 70 percent of his shows like going on Fox, because this is a serious opportunity to find the truth and he wants to be less involved in the political process.” (Read more from “Man Who Interrogates Clinton on Benghazi Is Veteran Prosecutor” HERE)

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Pelosi: Democrats ‘Open’ to Helping GOP Elect Speaker

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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi signaled Saturday there could be “an openness” among at least some House Democrats to voting for a Republican speaker on the floor — and she suggested the GOP turmoil could help put Democrats back in charge come 2017.

“I think in our caucus there is interest and support. There’s an openness to a bipartisan approach to this,” Pelosi said in an interview at the Texas Tribune Festival . . .

“Do you want him to be totally destroyed in his caucus if I mentioned who I thought would be good?” Pelosi said when asked by the Texas Tribune’s Abby Livingston about the prospects of her casting a vote for a Republican speaker. “That would be the end of him” . . .

Boehner’s eventual announcement of his intent to resign at the end of October rendered those discussions moot, but until that point, members of the House Freedom Caucus were counting on Democrats voting “present,” or even in favor of Pelosi, as a way of keeping Boehner from getting the 218 votes he needed to keep his gavel.

As conservatives drew nearer to forcing the crucial vote on the House floor, Democrats stayed silent on what their strategy would be — whether they would help protect Boehner from an insurrection or sit back and watch the Republican Conference implode. Pelosi’s statement Saturday was the first indication of what Democrats might have done in that situation. (Read more from “Pelosi: Democrats ‘Open’ to Helping GOP Elect Speaker” HERE)

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Donald Trump Blames This Political Figure for 9/11

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By David Martosko. Donald Trump took an unprovoked slap at George W. Bush in an interview broadcast Friday, blaming the former U.S. president for not preventing the 9/11 terror attacks.

Asked by Bloomberg Television anchor Stephanie Ruhle how Americans might trust him to keep them safe, the Republican presidential front-runner bristled at the mention of Bush’s role as comforter-in-chief after 9/11, and President Barack Obama’s similar position following the December 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

‘OK, I think I have a bigger heart than all of them,’ he said. ‘I think I’m much more competent than all of them.’

‘When you talk about George Bush – I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time’ . . .

‘Government has proven to be a disaster during the Obama administration,’ Trump pivoted. ‘What we need is a leader, we don’t have a leader.’ (Read more from “Donald Trump Blames This Political Figure for 9/11” HERE)

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Facing Backlash, Trump Dodges Questions on 9/11 Comments

By Tal Kopan, Eugene Scott and MJ Lee. Donald Trump, under fire for suggesting that George W. Bush shared in the blame for the 9/11 terrorist attacks because they happened during his presidency, repeatedly declined to engage with reporters about the matter Friday night — opting instead to continue a long-running feud with Jeb Bush on Twitter afterwards.

Trump regularly speaks with reporters at campaign events and often takes multiple questions in an impromptu manner, making his silence Friday all the more noticeable.

When asked by CNN after a rally at a local high school here if he thought the attacks were George W. Bush’s fault, Trump, after pausing to listen to the question, walked away.

Minutes later, he again declined to say anything when asked to react to Bush’s response on Twitter, ignoring at least half a dozen questions on the matter before driving away in his motorcade. He did respond to questions about the crowd size at his campaign event Friday and why he was campaigning in Massachusetts.

The controversy began Friday morning when Trump implied that the former president could share some blame for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans, as he was in office at the time. (Read more from “Facing Backlash, Trump Dodges Questions on 9/11 Comments” HERE)

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Wal-Mart Lost $21 Billion in One Day, Here’s How

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Wal-Mart (WMT), the world’s largest retailer, saw its shares get whacked 10% or more than 6 points Wednesday, the biggest drop ever. The mauling evaporated over $21 billion in market value. As a Dow member the drop shaved over 44 points off the average.

Investors revolted after Chief Financial Officer Charles Holley lowered the boom at its annual investor day at the New York Stock Exchange (ICE), disclosing that profits will decline between 6 and 12% in fiscal 2017. The consensus was for a drop of 4%. He also stated that 75% of the reduction was tied to higher wages.

You may recall, earlier this year, Wal-Mart led the charge in raising wages for about 500,000 workers. In April, workers started receiving $9 an hour and pay may get bumped to $10 next year. Over the next two years this will cost the company nearly $3 billion, according to Holley.

Boosting worker pay has been an initiative of CEO Doug McMillian, who said, “Our investments in our people, our stores and our digital capabilities and e-commerce business are the right ones.” Despite these optimistic remarks, just last month McMillian indicated that the company could be doing a better job of controlling costs, including wages, as covered by FOXBusiness.com.

That was a big clue. If you strip out higher wages, Wal-Mart has other issues. The stock is down 30% this year, which may be the worst performance since 1973 and a sign the investor community has lost confidence in the retailer. Comparable store-sales for Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club rose a modest 1.5% for the 13-week period ended July 31. Total net sales in fiscal 2016 are expected to fall flat. (Read more from “Wal-Mart Lost $21 Billion in One Day, Here’s How” HERE)

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Edward Snowden: Clinton Made ‘False Claim’ About Whistleblower Protection

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Edward Snowden has accused Hillary Clinton of “a lack of political courage” for her assertion during the Democratic presidential debate this week that the whistleblower had bypassed options for disclosing illegal government spying programs that would have protected him and not violated the law.

Speaking via satellite at a privacy conference at New York’s Bard College on Friday, Snowden said: “Hillary Clinton’s claims are false here.”

“This is important, right?” Snowden told an audience at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College. “Truth should matter in politics, and courage should matter in politics, because we need change. Everyone knows we need change. And we have been aggrieved and in many ways misled by political leaders in the past.”

Before Snowden spoke, Clinton repeated the claim on Friday, at a campaign appearance in New Hampshire. After a voter said Snowden was “close to a patriot,” BuzzFeed reported, Clinton disagreed and said he could have received whistleblower protections but instead chose to break the law.

“He broke the laws of the United States,” Clinton said at the debate on Tuesday. “He could have been a whistleblower. He could have gotten all of the protections of being a whistleblower. He could have raised all the issues that he has raised. And I think there would have been a positive response to that.” (Read more from “Edward Snowden: Clinton Made ‘False Claim’ About Whistleblower Protection” HERE)

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Insurrection Erupts at the Democratic National Committee

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Before things went awry, Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii had been planning to be in Las Vegas for her party’s first presidential debate. Gabbard is one of five vice chairs of the Democratic National Committee; of course she would be there. But instead of talking up her party’s prospects on the Strip earlier this week, Gabbard was in Honolulu. Her presence in Sin City was strictly virtual, and anything but boosterish: She spent debate day giving cable-news interviews via satellite, claiming that, as retribution for loudly calling for more Democratic debates than the DNC currently envisions, she was deemed unwelcome in Vegas by the committee’s chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz—who Gabbard suggested is an enemy of free speech, as well as a liar.

For most debate viewers and Democratic voters, the Gabbard flap, if it registered at all, was little more than a sideshow. But among Democratic officials and strategists, the dust-up was an embarrassing public spectacle—a boiling-over of long-simmering frustrations and resentments within the party hierarchy at a highly inopportune moment.

Of two dozen Democratic insiders with whom I spoke this week, including several DNC vice chairs, not one defended Wasserman Schultz’s treatment of Gabbard. Most called it ridiculous, outrageous, or worse. Many argued, further, that the debate plan enacted by the chairwoman is badly flawed—an assessment shared by many party activists, left-bent supporters of Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, and those candidates themselves, all of whom see it as a naked effort to aid and comfort Hillary Clinton. And they maintained that the plan was a clear reflection of Wasserman Schultz’s management style, which many of them see as endangering Democratic prospects in 2016 and beyond.

One top Democrat who feels precisely this way is DNC Vice Chair R.T. Rybak, a former mayor of Minneapolis who, along with Gabbard, has publicly called for more debates. But Rybak’s indictment of Wasserman Schultz is more sweeping—and pointed—than that. “In the days before and after the debate I kept my mouth shut,” Rybak told me by phone on Thursday. “But I’ve begun to deeply question whether she has the leadership skills to get us through the election. This is not just about how many debates we have. This is one of a series of long-running events in which the chair has not shown the political judgment that is needed.” (Read more from “Insurrection Erupts at the Democratic National Committee” HERE)

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