Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

The economics of Donald Trump’s wall
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/07/daily-chart-16


DONALD TRUMP is a man of ideas. Although critics have lambasted him for flip-flopping on some policies (he now proposes to ban immigrants from "terrorist nations" rather than all Muslims), Mr Trump has stood firm on at least one proposal: his wall. A new report from Bernstein Research looks at the economics of the wall's construction.

The border between the United States and Mexico stretches 1,989 miles (3,200km), but the wall itself needn’t be as long thanks to the preponderance of natural borders such as the Rio Grande. Assuming a length of 1,000 miles and a height of 40 feet (12 metres), Bernstein reckon that the wall would require $711m worth of concrete and $240m worth of cement. Including labour, the total cost of between $15 billion and $25 billion is a bit more than Mr Trump's suggested $10 billion. (Bernstein’s estimates presumably do not factor in Mr Trump’s construction expertise.)

As it is not economically feasible to transport cement and concrete across great distances, the biggest business beneficiaries will likely be within 200 miles of the border. America has many more factories and quarries than Mexico, yet Mr Trump is adamant that the wall will be built with Mexican money. Cemex, a Mexican firm with around half the quarries close to the border, is likely to profit. At least some will benefit from the wall’s construction.
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/30/donald-trump-responds-to-the-khan-family-maybe-she-wasnt-allowed-to-have-anything-to-say/ (Donald Trump responds to the Khan family: ‘Maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say’)
 
How And Why Trump Will Try to Ditch the Debates
How And Why Trump Will Try to Ditch the Debates

Donald Trump gave his first hint last night that he might try to get out of the Fall presidential debates. But I'd thought for months that he'd likely try to get out of them. I think he will be at a steep strategic and tactical disadvantage in any debate with Hillary Clinton - a point I'll expand on later.

But from thinking he'd try to get out of the debates, I wasn't clear how he'd do it without facing crushingly bad publicity and exposure as a coward. The latter is something that cuts apart everything his campaign is based on. A few weeks ago, I figured out what I suspect that strategy will be.

As usual, Hillary & the Dems are trying to rig the debates so 2 are up against major NFL games. Same as last time w/ Bernie. Unacceptable!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2016

The requirement is simple: get out of the debates, make them not happen without seeming to be the one who's running away or tanking them. Here's how. I suspect Trump will start claiming that that the process is "rigged" because Gary Johnson and Jill Stein aren't included. For better or worse (I think better), the debate commission rules are crystal clear: You need to hit 15% support in a certain number of major polls to be included.

It's highly unlikely Johnson will meet that threshold; it's almost impossible that Stein will. Inclusion over exclusion has an inherent logic to it if it's obviously self-serving and not appropriate in this case. So I think Trump will find this a comfortable position from which to attack the debates themselves.

 
‘Is This the Spokesperson in Chief You Want?’
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/29/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-readers-comments.html


When Donald J. Trump made provocative remarks on Wednesday about Russian intelligence services and Hillary Clinton’s email, readers of The New York Times responded with a record number of comments.

More than 9,220 comments on the article were approved by moderators, who review nearly every one before they are published on The Times’s digital platforms. Thousands more comments were posted on The Times’s Facebook page.

The article became the most-commented on in The Times’s history.

At his news conference, Mr. Trump said he hoped Russian intelligence services had hacked Mrs. Clinton’s email, and encouraged them to publish whatever they might have stolen, essentially urging them to commit cyberespionage.

Here are excerpts from the comments, some of which have been lightly edited for clarity.
 
Updated Nationwide Presidential Poll Results - July 30, 2016.
RABA Research – Fast. Fair. Accurate. Affordable.

Hillary Bounces Back: In First Post-DNC Survey, Clinton Regains Commanding Lead Over Trump.

(DES MOINES) – Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has opened a significant lead over Republican nominee Donald Trump, now leading him by 15 points, according to a new online nationwide survey conducted on Friday, July 29th by RABA Research, a bipartisan polling firm.

Among likely voters, Clinton garners 46% support to Trump’s 31%. Libertarian Gary Johnson now captures 7% of the vote, while Jill Stein sits at 2%.

A RABA Research poll conducted the day after the Republican convention showed a tighter race, with Clinton at 39% and Trump at 34%. Johnson was at 8% in that survey, while Stein found 3% support.

“After closing the gap to single digits last week, Trump’s post-convention bounce has disappeared,” said RABA Research’s John Del Cecato, a Democratic partner with the firm. “While Trump continues to struggle to consolidate support within his own party, Clinton has a sizable lead among independents, and is even peeling off a small slice of Republican voters.”
 
How And Why Trump Will Try to Ditch the Debates
How And Why Trump Will Try to Ditch the Debates

Donald Trump gave his first hint last night that he might try to get out of the Fall presidential debates. But I'd thought for months that he'd likely try to get out of them. I think he will be at a steep strategic and tactical disadvantage in any debate with Hillary Clinton - a point I'll expand on later.

But from thinking he'd try to get out of the debates, I wasn't clear how he'd do it without facing crushingly bad publicity and exposure as a coward. The latter is something that cuts apart everything his campaign is based on. A few weeks ago, I figured out what I suspect that strategy will be.

As usual, Hillary & the Dems are trying to rig the debates so 2 are up against major NFL games. Same as last time w/ Bernie. Unacceptable!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2016

The requirement is simple: get out of the debates, make them not happen without seeming to be the one who's running away or tanking them. Here's how. I suspect Trump will start claiming that that the process is "rigged" because Gary Johnson and Jill Stein aren't included. For better or worse (I think better), the debate commission rules are crystal clear: You need to hit 15% support in a certain number of major polls to be included.

It's highly unlikely Johnson will meet that threshold; it's almost impossible that Stein will. Inclusion over exclusion has an inherent logic to it if it's obviously self-serving and not appropriate in this case. So I think Trump will find this a comfortable position from which to attack the debates themselves.
 
Austria announces plan to build huge border fence to stop migrants as Schengen crumbles

AUSTRIA has unveiled plans to build a massive 100km fence along its border to stop migrants and refugees crossing into the country.

By Nick Gutteridge and Monika Pallenberg
Thu, Jul 21, 2016

hungary-691905.jpg


Engineers in the central European state have finalised plans for the vast barrier, which would stretch along its entire southern border with Hungary.

Austria has repeatedly clashed with Brussels over its clampdown on illegal migration and has already put a daily cap on the number of people who can claim asylum.

And earlier this year the country’s parliament voted through a motion allowing it to declare a state of emergency if migrant numbers suddenly rise, meaning it could instantly shut its borders.

The new border fence will mark a considerable escalation in Austria’s physical attempts to bring down migration, with the country only having constructed one small 4km fence along its border with Slovenia to date.

State officials have reached agreements with hundreds of landowners along the 100km stretch of border which will allow the fence to be put up in record time should the number of refugees increase again, according to a police spokesman.

full article
 
Apple's App Store Rejects Anti-Hillary Game, Sells Nasty Trump Games
By Melissa Mullins | July 31, 2016 | 7:16 AM EDT

trumpdump.jpg
Well, here’s a liberal tilt. Charlie Nash at Breitbart reports that after months and months of making a profit at the expense of Republican nominee Donald Trump, Apple is refusing to publish a political satire game about Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.

It’s okay that Apple publishes games that make fun of Trump by featuring him as a giant turd in the game “Trump Dump,” or https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dump-on-trump-bird/id1093633235?mt=8 or https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dump-on-trump-twisty-wheel/id1082223950?mt=8 that allows a player to hit Trump with excrement. One game lets you punch Trump in the face. (Imagine the feminist reaction to these games with Hillary.) But Apple has a BIG problem publishing anything that dare criticizes Clinton, even just scandal mockery.

The game Apple refused, “Capitol HillAwry,” was invented by Denver-based Base 10 Games and describes itself as “a political satirical game where the objective is to collect as much money through email donations as possible while maintaining a decent approval rating in the polls. Once you have booted up your server you will begin to receive various emails and spam. It is your objective to delete any confidential information off of the server by swiping the emails to the right. Removing confidential emails will improve your poll rating. You will also receive political donor emails, which will help earn you money. Be sure to swipe those to the left to respond. The more donations you take, the more your poll rating will go down and if you do nothing with the emails, they will eventually expire and have consequences.”

Apparently Apple thinks “Capitol HillAwry” is too “offensive: and “objectionable” because it makes fun of Clinton’s email. Nash reports when the developers pressed as to why their app wasn’t accepted, they were contacted by an Apple representative via email:

Your app contains content that is offensive and would be considered objectionable by many users, which is not allowed on the App Store.” Somehow the "Trump Dump" people never got this memo. Apple responded last September when the Clinton-game developers attempted to submit the game for the first time. “Please remove all offensive and objectionable content from your app.”

Not satisfied with that response and citing Apple’s own satire policy which states that professional political satirists and humorists are generally exempt from this requirement,” the developers were then asked to call the Apple representative. John Matze – the developer of the app, claimed:

“The phone conversation was very tense. She said that if I could find a “professional satire writer” to claim they wrote the content of the application, it could go on the store…I found David Ross, a local conservative satire writer in San Diego… to edit my content and talk to Apple as she requested. That is why I have a second submission to Apple in 2016. With his resume and contact information attached, and me following all of Apple’s rules outlined by 14.2 in their documentation, they still denied the application and completely ignored his credentials as a satire writer.”​

Apple responded by citing “mean-spirited content” for the reason the app wasn’t approved, but given their approval for the kind of disgusting and vile anti-Trump apps on their site, this argument is baseless.

Hmm…it kind of makes you wonder who the big wigs at Apple is backing this election. Heck, if I were the developer, I’d resubmit the app as an updated edition – one that included a NEW email scandal featuring “Russian spies” running around hacking DNC emails and throwing around code words such as “taco bowl” and “foreign-born supermodel wife.” Just kidding, of course.
 
The Psychopathology of Donald Trump
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_psychopathology_of_donald_trump_20160731

Does Donald Trump only say crazy things, or does he say crazy things because he actually is crazy? In a speech delivered on the third day of the Democratic National Convention, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg openly questioned the GOP candidate’s sanity on prime-time television.

More importantly, if less sensationally, the issue of Trump’s emotional stability has also been raised by a growing number of influential and highly respected mental-health practitioners. They have done so out of a sense of urgency, even in the face of a code of conduct promulgated by the American Psychiatric Association that cautions psychiatrists against making public statements about public figures whom they have not formally evaluated.

Ordinarily, as someone licensed to practice law rather than psychology, I’d stay out of the debate and remain in my comfort zone of traditional legal and political commentary, committed to exposing the policy shortcomings of both major-party candidates and their surrogates. But Donald Trump has secured the GOP nod for president. He’s one election away from being the commander in chief of the most powerful nation the planet has ever seen. As such, he, like Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, deserves heightened scrutiny, both as to policy and personality.

This column is about Trump. There will be future ones on Clinton. And here’s my take, with no punches pulled: If Trump is elected our 45th president, he could well be the most profoundly disturbed occupant of the Oval Office since Richard Nixon, our 37th, whose extreme paranoia brought us Watergate and precipitated the most far-reaching constitutional crisis of the late 20th century.


Some readers, particularly on the progressive left who by orientation are predisposed to policy critiques, may not be comfortable with my approach. Some may even ask if it isn’t a waste of time to examine the psyche of a president or a presidential hopeful, noting that even a paranoid Nixon agreed to end the Vietnam War and opened the door to normalized relations with China. So why not just stick to policy?

To such doubters, I would say that few people, including world leaders, rarely represent pure evil or insanity. Most are capable of the occasional act of goodness or kindness or wisdom, even if by accident. But to gain a more complete understanding of any person—especially someone on the national stage, who once in office will be subject to the external pressures of social and political movements and public opinion and be responsible for the well-being of millions—a more nuanced and dialectical methodology is required that takes account of both the objective and subjective realms of human interaction.

So comfort be damned. As we head for the general election in November, when it comes to the former reality-TV show host, I’m not going to be content to focus simply on what the Republican standard-bearer has to say about Mexican rapists, building a wall, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly “bleeding from her whatever,” New Jersey Muslims cheering the fall of the World Trade Towers, being the “only one” who can save America from chaos, crime and radical Islamic terrorism, or any of the other abject falsehoods, outbursts and calumnies he’s uttered or tweeted.

I’ve decided to probe the why behind such seeming lunacy. To do that, I’ve done something positively un-Trumpian: I’ve consulted the experts and dug deeply into the public record.

Here’s what I’ve found thus far:
 
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