Third World Has Come To America

Trump Campaign Pays Trump Businesses Big

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has paid his family's businesses more than $8.2 million, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance filings, which reveals an integrated business and political operation without precedent in national politics.

In all, the Trump campaign’s payments to Trump-owned businesses account for about 7 percent of its $119 million spending total, the analysis found.

Trump, on the other hand, appears to have structured his businesses in a way that lets the campaign use them without legal restriction. And he certainly doesn’t appear to feel any embarrassment about flouting political norms that typically compel candidates to distance themselves from their businesses during campaigns.

Quite to the contrary, Trump has used the campaign itself as a marketing platform to promote everything from the difficult-to-find Trump Steaks to his golf courses and a new Washington hotel.

Trump, who in 2000 predicted “I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it"

The degree to which Trump or his corporations may be benefiting from his campaign is unclear, partly because the financial and legal structures of his businesses — and their relationships with his campaign — remain opaque. Trump has stubbornly refused to release his taxes, which could shed light on the issue.

One of Trump’s primary election victory speeches in March, held at Mar-a-Lago, was widely lampooned as an infomercial for Trump-branded steaks, water, magazines and wine.

And last week, he lured the political press corp to his new Washington hotel by promising a revelation about his longstanding allegations that President Obama was born overseas, which he finally disavowed. Before getting to that, though, he took the opportunity to promote the hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in the Old Post Office.

This is what happens in Third World dictatorships. You acquire power and then you enrichen yourself with that power.

Trump is shameless, would you say?

She Is In A Bigger Harvard Test Room

I was taking a law school admissions test in a big classroom at Harvard. My friend and I were some of the only women in the room. I was feeling nervous. I was a senior in college. I wasn’t sure how well I’d do. And while we’re waiting for the exam to start, a group of men began to yell things like: ‘You don’t need to be here.’ And ‘There’s plenty else you can do.’ It turned into a real ‘pile on.’ One of them even said: ‘If you take my spot, I’ll get drafted, and I’ll go to Vietnam, and I’ll die.’ And they weren’t kidding around. It was intense. It got very personal. But I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t afford to get distracted because I didn’t want to mess up the test. So I just kept looking down, hoping that the proctor would walk in the room. I know that I can be perceived as aloof or cold or unemotional. But I had to learn as a young woman to control my emotions. And that’s a hard path to walk. Because you need to protect yourself, you need to keep steady, but at the same time you don’t want to seem ‘walled off.’ And sometimes I think I come across more in the ‘walled off’ arena. And if I create that perception, then I take responsibility. I don’t view myself as cold or unemotional. And neither do my friends. And neither does my family. But if that sometimes is the perception I create, then I can’t blame people for thinking that.

Essentially what Clinton is saying is that the stiltedness of her public persona is a kind of self-preservation tactic born out of years of brutal misogyny. 

She is still being yelled at. The yelling is being done by the media. Email. Benghazi. Whitewater. And the yelling is being done by the loudmouth dumbo running for president. Get rid of your bodyguards? Is this guy kidding me?

She is being yelled at and her supporters, men and women, need to step in and respond. We are the proctors. This is a democracy. She is not doing this for her. This is not just about America. This is about the women across the globe.

Barack Obama was about 500 years of world history. Hillary Clinton is about 5,000 years of world history.

It's Not Her, It's Us

Gallons of digital ink have been spilled trying to figure out why Clinton struggles so much with likability. But perhaps the problem isn’t with her at all. Maybe it’s with us.

Black Women Need Clinton

Barack Obama was race, Hillary is gender. Black women need both.

Secretary Clinton, you're no Barack Obama 

No matter how much Donald Trump throws these inequities in our faces, most African-Americans will never vote for him. Polls currently show Trump with only 1 percent of the black vote.

But that doesn't mean that black voters, particularly women, will turn out for Clinton with the same voraciousness as they did for Obama. And just because Obama plans to turn Clinton's election into a referendum on his political legacy, it doesn't mean African-Americans will take the bait.

Clinton has to win over black voters on her own merit. And to do that, she must convince black women, in particular, that they won't get buried underneath the shattered glass when she breaks through the ceiling.

Syria: Time For Adult Behavior

US, Russia take Syria battle to new heights 

Larvov and Kerry's speeches laid bare their widely divergent views of a war that has killed up to a half-million people, contributed to Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War II and allowed the Islamic State to emerge as a global terror threat.

Economically speaking Russia is a Second World country, India is Third World. But Syria is a tragic choice for theatrics between the two former Cold War military rivals. The right thing has to be done. The tragedy has to come to an end.

Trump’s Only Appeal Is Racism And Sexism

The guy's numbers don't add up. His round up and deport everybody plan runs into the hundreds of billions, just on logistics. The political meltdown around the idea also has to be factored in. He has been selling the wall like it were the Brooklyn Bridge.

The dude lacks basic knowledge. He doesn't know the difference between the nuclear code and the air conditioner.

He will be the oldest person ever to become president. And he eats burgers and burgers only. This fast food maniac is a heart attack waiting to happen. His cholesterol levels are as high as one of the Trump Towers.

He has disdain for democracy itself, not just Mexicans.

The guy is offering nothing but hatred. This guy is but David Duke who got half a billion from his father and a billion in tax breaks. And that adds up to less than his net worth. No, he has not been creating wealth in the private sector.

But he is a more rabid sexist more than anything else. He is peddling the thought that only men can look presidential. He is talking about "wide shoulders."

Mussolini has come to America.

America Is Ageing And Immigration Is The Solution

Looks like immigration is not only America's past but also its future. America has an ageing population. The only way to keep the economy vibrant is by not only legalizing those already here but welcoming more people.