Category: Unpresidential

Melania Trump’s Website Taken Down After Degree Claim Debunked

Melania Trump’s website that had incorrectly claimed that she had received a college degree has been removed and the address now redirects visitors to the Trump Organization’s website.

The website’s removal was first noticed by The Huffington Post.

In a tweet Wednesday, she said that the “website in question created in 2012 and has been removed because it does not accurately reflect my current business and professional interests.”

The website had claimed that she had received a college degree before becoming a skin care entrepreneur and philanthropist. CBS News confirmed during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last week that her claim that she earned a degree in design and architecture at the university in Ljubljana, Slovenia was not true.

The convention program read, “After obtaining a degree in design and architecture at University in Slovenia, Melania was jetting between photo shoots in Paris and Milan, finally settling in New York in 1996.” This was a direct quote from her website.

CBS News checked the official public records of the university, and Melania Trump is not listed as having graduated from there with a degree.

She also came under fire last week for plagiarizing parts of first lady Michelle Obama’s speech from the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

(h/t CBS News)

Trump Invites Russian Hackers To Influence the American Election

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday invited Russian hackers to find and publish Hillary Clinton’s emails.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Clinton] emails that are missing,” Trump said at a press conference. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens. That’ll be nice.”

The remarks came after Clinton’s camp said this week that Russian hackers were likely responsible for breaching the computer networks of the Democratic National Committee earlier this year and leaking emails of top officials to WikiLeaks for publication.

The hack, which showed top staffers considering leaking negative information about Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, led to chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz announcing her resignation.

“Russia has no respect for our country,” Trump said at the press conference. “And that’s why, if it is Russia, nobody even knows it’s Russia, it was probably China. … It shows how weak we are. It shows how disrespected we are.”

Trump also slammed the DNC for what was seen as conspiring against Sanders to ensure that Clinton won the Democratic nomination.

“I’m not gonna tell Putin what to do. Why should I tell Putin what to do?” Trump said. “It’s not even about Russia or China or whoever it is that’s doing the hacking. It’s about the things they said in those emails. They were terrible things.”

He also accused Clinton of being in on the conspiracy.

“Believe me, as sure as you’re sitting there, Hillary Clinton knew about it,” Trump said. “She knew everything. Debbie Wasserman Schultz could not breathe without speaking and getting approval from Hillary Clinton.”

Trump doubled down on his Russian hacker comments in a tweet after the press conference, but revised his language to say that if Russia already has emails, they should hand them over:

But his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, released a statement after the press conference that discouraged Russian involvement in a US election.

“The FBI will get to the bottom of who is behind the hacking,” Pence said in the statement. “If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences.”

A spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan issued a statement after the press conference pushing back on Trump’s comments.

“Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug,” Brendan Buck said, according to the statement. “Putin should stay out of this election.”

Clinton’s campaign also responded.

“This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent,” senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. “That’s not hyperbole, those are just the facts. This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.”

(h/t Business Insider)

Reality

This is a curious comment at a time when Trump’s Russian connections are being scrutinized. His campaign manager Paul Manafort, had worked as a consultant for the now-ousted pro-Russian government in Ukraine. And the Trump campaign worked like mad to include a more pro-Russian stance towards arming Ukraine to be added in the GOP platform.

Here’s what Trump is up to with the “Russia, please release Hillary’s 30,000 emails.” He’s intentionally conflating the State Department server with the DNC email hack so that in the minds of Americans, Hillary already had her emails hacked by Russia. But they’re two different email scandals.

Trump is trying to make them into one thing so he can say Hillary endangered national security when Russia hacked her email (which there’s no evidence they did.)

But… But… But… He was just joking!

I mean, this might have been an attempt at humor. At best one could argue Trump was half-joking, since a Russian hack would greatly benefit him and his chances of becoming president.

And if the argument really is that he is joking then to that we would say to even publicly joke that a foreign government spy on his political rival is in poor taste because it is rooting against an American, which is all beneath the office he is seeking.

But in the end… what is the punchline?

Media

Trump Tells Female Reporter to Be Quiet

Donald Trump’s bullying, sexism, and misogyny was on full display when he told a reporter to “be quiet” on Wednesday after she pressed the Republican nominee over his assertion that he hopes the Russians have Hillary Clinton’s emails.

At a press conference in Doral, Fla., NBC News correspondent Katy Tur asked Trump whether this week’s leak of Democratic National Committee emails, which cybersecurity experts believe were obtained by Russian hackers, gave him pause.

“It gives me no pause,” Trump said. “If they have them, they have them.”

Tur, a London-based correspondent who has been following Trump on the campaign trail for NBC News, tried to ask a follow-up question, but Trump shut her down.

“You know what gives me more pause? That a person in our government, Crooked Hillary Clinton — be quiet, I know you want to save her,” he said. “That a person in our government, Katy, would get rid of 33,000 emails — that gives me a big problem.”

Moments earlier, Trump had delivered a message to the Kremlin.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

(h/t Yahoo)

Reality

It’s not the first time Trump has clashed with Tur.

Last July, he sat down with Tur for a one-on-one interview at Trump Tower during which he interrupted her several times. And at a rally in South Carolina in December, Trump referred to Tur as “Little Katy, third-rate journalist” during a rant about the “absolute scum” media that cover his campaign.

The brash real estate mogul then pointed out to the crowd where she stood on a riser near the back of the rally as his supporters turned and glared.

Media

Trump: Geneva Conventions Are ‘Out of Date’

Speaking at a press conference, Donald Trump agreed with the statement that the Geneva Conventions outlawing war crimes were “out of date,” and reiterated his support for “enhanced interrogation” of terror suspects.

“Do you think the Geneva Conventions are out of date?” asked NBC’s Katy Tur.

“I think everything’s out of date,” responded Trump. “We have a whole new world.”

Trump repeated his much-scrutinized comments that NATO was obsolete. “Three days later, people that study NATO said, ‘You know, Trump is right.’ You know what, we have a lot of things that are out of date because they’re 20 and 30 and 40 years old.”

“What would you renegotiate?” asked NBC’s Katy Tur. “The enhanced interrogation aspect of it…?”

“Katy, I would renegotiate so much of everything,” he responded.

Tur asked the question again after he gave a long answer that nonetheless avoided the question: “The Geneva Convention and enhanced interrogation, do you think they should allow for that given the rise of ISIS?”

“I am a person that believes in enhanced interrogation, yes,” Trump responded. “And, by the way; it works.”

Reality

No it doesn’t.

Trump’s proposed reliance on tactics used by Bond villains as a practical response to the terrorist acts of the Islamic State should be leaving people feeling aghast and concerned.

Unlike fictional TV shows, like 24 where Jack Bauer runs around and tortures his way to the bad guy or movies like Zero Dark Thirty who include torture scenes that never happened which lead to the capture of Osama Bin Laden, reality is quite different.

Waterboarding, and other forms of torture, is considered a war crime according to the Geneva Conventions and is not reliable for obtaining truthful, useful intelligence.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that “the CIA’s use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.” There was no proof, according to the 6,700 page report, that information obtained through waterboarding prevented any attacks or saved any lives, or that information obtained from the detainees was not or could not have been obtained through conventional interrogation methods.”

In-fact, we’ve know for centuries that torture is not effective. Here is Napoleon’s own words on the subject:

“It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know.”

Instead, rapport-building techniques are 14 times more effective in extracting information than torture and has the upside of not being unethical.

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqf2RAMWgTQ

You Can Stop Waiting for Trump’s Tax Return, He Won’t Show Them

Since Watergate, every presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican, has released his or her tax returns. It’s not required by law, but there’s a tradition of disclosure that Americans have come to count on: candidates for the nation’s highest office are expected to release information related to their personal health and their tax filings.

In 2016, Donald Trump will only meet one of the two standards. In December, his campaign released an unintentionally hilarious letter from someone claiming to be Trump’s personal physician. But this morning, the GOP candidate’s campaign chairman said we can pretty much stop waiting for the tax documents – because they’re not coming, tradition be damned.

A top aide to Donald Trump said Wednesday that the Republican presidential nominee “will not be releasing” his taxes.

“Mr. Trump has said that his taxes are under audit and he will not be releasing them,” Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort told “CBS This Morning.”

As recently as mid-May, Trump said that he’d “like to” disclose the tax documents, “hopefully before the election,” but he’s waiting for the end of an IRS audit. Manafort’s on-air comments this morning, however, suggest there will be no scrutiny of the documents before voters head to the polls.

As for the “audit” excuse, the fact remains that this rationale has never made any sense: an IRS audit doesn’t preclude someone from sharing their returns.

Indeed even Richard Nixon, during his presidency, released his tax materials in the midst of an IRS audit. Trump could, if he wanted to, release these returns whenever he feels like it. For reasons he won’t explain, the GOP candidate just doesn’t want to.

It’s as if the campaign has decided to wave a big, unmistakable sign that reads, “We have something to hide.”

The unfortunate complication here is that there’s probably never been a major-party nominee whose tax returns are more in need of public scrutiny. Donald J. Trump has been caught up in so many financial controversies – his bankruptcies, his lawsuits, his alleged ties to Russian financiers, his dubious claims about charitable work that appear to be brazen lies, et al – that the New York Republican has the added responsibility to tell Americans the whole truth before the cast their ballots in the fall.

But Trump doesn’t want to, and according to his lobbyist campaign chief, “he will not be releasing” the same materials every other candidate has released.

Trump, who had vowed to release his returns before he announced his candidacy, is convinced he can get away with this and voters won’t care. We’re about to find out if he’s correct.

Reality

Trump had a contradictory position 4 years ago when he demanded Mitt Romney to release his tax returns.

Media

CBS This Morning

After Being Called Out Donald Trump Flip-Flips on Raising Federal Minimum Wage, Then Lies

Donald Trump says he backs raising the minimum wage to $10 per hour and that states should decide.

“Well, I would leave it and raise it somewhat,” the GOP presidential nominee told Bill O’Reilly on Fox News’s “The O’Reilly Factor” on Tuesday.

“You need to help people, and I know it’s not very Republican to say, but you need to help people,” he added.

“I would say $10, but with the understanding that somebody like me is going to bring back jobs, I don’t want people to be in that $10 category for very long. But the thing is, Bill, let the states make the deal. They’re not doing that for the most part.”Trump also accused former Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders of distorting his position on the issue.

“When Bernie Sanders said that I want to go less than what the minimum wage — I mean honestly, Bill, these people are lying so much and every fact checker said Trump never said that,” he said. “I never did say it. I believe it should be raised.”

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

However, Trump’s claim that he never wanted to go less then the minimum wage is a complete and total lie and we have the videos to prove it.

Trump’s public comments regarding wages being too high started in August, 2015 when during a speech he told Michigan auto workers right to their faces that they make too much money.

He said U.S. automakers could shift production away from Michigan to communities where autoworkers would make less. “You can go to different parts of the United States and then ultimately you’d do full-circle — you’ll come back to Michigan because those guys are going to want their jobs back even if it is less.”

Then during the 4th GOP debate on November 10th, 2015, Trump said he would lower the minimum wage during a Republican debate:

Taxes too high, wages too high.

And then on again on November 11th, 2015 during an interview with Fox News, Trump went the extra step to explain why wages are too high:

Whether it’s taxes or wages, if they’re too high we’re not going to be able to compete with other countries.

Is anyone really surprised that a billionaire businessman wants to keep American worker’s wages low?

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyZ3UhXhsg4

USA Freedom Kids Manager Suing Donald Trump for Payment Refusal

Back in January, a trio of young girls known as the “USA Freedom Kids” performed at a Donald Trump rally in Pensacola, Florida. The routine, which involved the girls whirling in flashy American-flag dresses and singing a song that denounced the other presidential candidates as sworn enemies, was roundly mocked on social media, where viewers likened the video to performances honoring North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

Now Jeff Popick, the creator behind the patriotic trio and father of the youngest member in the group, told The Washington Post he plans to sue Trump, alleging his campaign violated several verbal agreements and subsequently stiffed the group of proper monetary compensation.

It started in Pensacola. When Popick first reached out to the Trump campaign about performing, he spoke with various people including former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. His understanding from the campaign was that the Kids would make two appearances in Florida, where Popick lives. The first event didn’t come to fruition, and Popick says he asked for $2,500 in payment for the second performance, in Pensacola. The campaign made a counter-offer: How about a table where the group could pre-sell albums?

According to Popick, no table ever showed up—and the incident was the first of a series of broken promises and unreturned phone calls that went on all the way to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. There, Trump’s team allegedly offered Popick a consolation prize and promised that the girls could perform because of all the previous disappointments. That performance never materialized either and now he says he’s planning to file suit. He wouldn’t specify how much he’d sue for, but he explained that it wasn’t a “billion-dollar lawsuit” and suggested a performance at a Trump venue similar to the RNC one could also work.

“He might still be the best candidate as president of the United States—or not,” Popick told the Post.

(h/t Mother Jones)

Reality

Popick’s experience fits squarely with the narrative of many others who say they were ripped off by the real estate magnate for a variety of broken contracts.

Media

Hotel Fights Back After Trump Refuses To Pay

A Virginia hotel is fighting back against Donald Trump after the GOP presidential nominee criticized the air conditioning — or lack thereof — at a Monday event there.

“If we are in a ballroom, it’s not supposed to be so hot that everybody in the audience is using a fan,” Trump said during the campaign event at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center.

And he threatened to not pay his bill for the room — a frequent move by Trump’s companies when he says he receives inadequate service.

“You ought to try turning on the air conditioning or we are not going to get you paid,” Trump said. “I pay my bills so fast with somebody good. With somebody average, I pay them OK. With somebody great, a lot of times I give them bonuses … This is ridiculous.”

Attendees at the event appeared warm and uncomfortable, and laughed when Trump commented on the lack of air conditioning.

On Tuesday, the hotel pushed back, saying it had operated the air conditioning fully and pointing to the number of people in the room as the issue.

“The Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center is committed to providing exceptional service and accommodation for all guests and members of the community,” hotel spokesman Michael Quonce said in a statement. “The hotel’s HVAC system was on and working properly through the event. We made every effort to create a comfortable environment for all of our guests given soaring temperatures and a ballroom filled with hundreds of attendees.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Separate investigations have found that Trump has a pattern of not paying or underpaying contractors and individuals he has worked with, alleging that the work was substandard. And lawsuits show Trump’s organization wages Goliath vs David legal battles over small amounts of money that are negligible to the billionaire and his executives — but devastating to his much-smaller foes.

Reports published by USA Today and The Wall Street Journal in June found Trump’s companies were facing hundreds of claims that Trump has stiffed people he contracted with for decades.

Both reports analyzed court records and interviewed the people behind the claims, and found that the average working American that Trump has geared his campaign toward are some of the same people his business hasn’t paid.

Often, the issue is settled out of court for less than the sum owed under the weight of costly legal proceedings.

Trump maintains that he pays for adequate service and even pays extra when work is performed exceptionally well.

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiGcveNDzvE

Judge Orders Trump to Pay Nearly $300,000 in Attorney’s Fees in Doral Painter’s Lawsuit

While developer Donald Trump was busy getting the Republican Party’s presidential nomination this week, he was losing big in a Miami-Dade County courtroom.

Circuit Court Judge Jorge Cueto, presiding over a lawsuit related to unpaid bills brought by a local paint store against the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort, ordered the billionaire politician’s company to pay the Doral-based mom-and-pop shop nearly $300,000 in attorney’s fees.

All because, according to the lawsuit, Trump allegedly tried to stiff The Paint Spot on its last payment of $34,863 on a $200,000 contract for paint used in the renovation of the home of golf’s famed Blue Monster two years ago.

Trump National’s insistence that it had “paid enough” for the paint despite a contract, according to the lawsuit, caused The Paint Spot to slap a lien on the property and Cueto to order the foreclosure sale of the resort.

In time, Donald Trump’s company got the judge to cancel the June 28 courthouse auction after it placed the $34,000 in escrow, and the case was put on hold while Trump National’s owner, Trump Endeavor, considered an appeal.

But the lien remained.

And Cueto was asked to rule on the fees for The Paint Spot’s three $500-an-hour attorneys and two $150-an-hour paralegals that lawsuit loser Trump Endeavor will have to pay.

The golf company, according to the court file, objected to the hourly rates because it paid its lawyers $400 an hour, according to court records.

This week, Cueto ruled that the fees were reasonable, and then some.

First, he ruled Trump should pay for nearly 500 hours of legal work, since the store’s legal team had to prepare for a trial that never took place.

Then, Cueto tacked on a 75 percent “risk” fee, partly because the store’s lawyers took the risk that they would never be paid if they lost.

Total: $282,949 and 91 cents, including copying and expert testimony.

“I’m happy I have a judgment,” said Juan Carlos Enriquez, owner of The Paint Spot. “But he [Trump] hasn’t paid yet.

“You know how he says he’ll surround himself with the greatest people if he is president? In this case, he might not be surrounded by the right people.”

Trump bought the property in 2012 for $150 million then launched into a major renovation.

Alan Garten, Trump’s in-house lawyer, didn’t return a call for comment.

(h/t The Miami Herald)

Update

Trump appealed but a state appeals court in Florida on Thursday affirmed a circuit court’s decision to order Trump National Doral Miami golf resort to pay a small paint company and its attorney hundreds of thousands of dollars after failing to pay a tenth of that for paint and other materials during a renovation project.

Trump Remarks on NATO Trigger Alarm Bells in Europe

Donald Trump set off alarm bells in European capitals after suggesting he might not honor the core tenet of the NATO military alliance.

Trump said the U.S. would not necessarily defend new NATO members in the Baltics in the event of Russian attack if he were elected to the White House.

He told The New York Times in an interview published Thursday that doing so would depend on whether those countries had “fulfilled their obligations to us” in terms of their financial contributions to the alliance.

“You can’t forget the bills,” Trump told the paper. “They have an obligation to make payments. Many NATO nations are not making payments, are not making what they’re supposed to make. That’s a big thing. You can’t say forget that.”

(h/t NBC News)

Reality

NATO is not just a defensive military alliance against a Russia that looks to expand, but it is also a projection of American influence in Europe. Some, like Trump, may take NATO for granted now but just 2 years prior Russia invaded and annexed Crimea from southern Ukraine.

Trump’s comments were perceived by some analysts as carte blanche for Russia to intimidate NATO allies and a potential harbinger of the alliance’s collapse, which would be a global crisis, were Trump to be elected.

NATO’s treaty states that an attack on one member state constitutes an attack on all, a principle enshrined in Article 5 of the alliance’s treaty.

“If Trump wants to put conditions through Article 5, he would endanger the whole alliance,” said Beyza Unal, a fellow at the London-based Chatham House think tank.

Sarah Lain, a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, agreed. She said that Article 5 is the “core” of NATO’s defense strategy.

“The suggestion that Trump may consider abandoning a guarantee of protection to fellow NATO countries would in some ways indeed make NATO obsolete,” Lain told NBC News in an email.

Responses

In an interview with the New York Times, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called Trump’s comments a “rookie mistake.”

“I am willing to kind of chalk it up to a rookie mistake,” he said. “I don’t think there is anybody he would choose to be secretary of defense or secretary of state who would have a different view from my own.”

Two additional Senate Republicans, neither of whom is attending this week’s Republican National Convention, condemned his comments, suggesting Congress would not follow his lead on the issue if he is commander-in-chief.

“As [Russian President Vladimir] Putin revives Soviet-style aggression and the threat of violent Islam looms over European and American cities, the United States stands with our NATO allies,” Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., one of the most vocal elected officials in the never-Trump movement, said in a statement.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of Trump’s former Republican primary opponents, accused him of appeasing the Russian president with his assertions.

“I can only imagine how our allies in NATO, particularly the Balkan states, must feel after reading these comments from Mr. Trump. I’m 100 percent certain how Russian President Putin feels — he’s a very happy man,” Graham said.

“If Mr. Trump is serious about wanting to be commander-in-chief, he needs to better understand the job, which is to provide leadership for the United States and the free world,” Graham continued, also calling for Trump to “correct” his statements during his prime-time address Thursday evening.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Illinois, a former Air Force pilot, told ABC News he was deeply disturbed by Trump’s comments about NATO.

“To protect American first you have to have strong alliances,” he said. “This alliance has prevented 60 years of war.”

Trump’s comments, Kinzinger added, were “ridiculous and reckless,” and suggest that Trump doesn’t understand foreign policy.

Members of the Democratic Party also slammed Trump’s remarks, accusing him of friendliness with the same unsavory leaders with whom Republicans have accused President Barack Obama of being too conciliatory.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest noted that Republicans have long accused Obama of going on a “global apology tour.”

“I guess that means that there is some irony associated with the case that’s being made by the Republican nominee at this point,” Earnest said.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign condemned Trump’s remarks, also accusing him of cozying up to Putin.

“Over the course of this campaign, Trump has displayed a bizarre and occasionally obsequious fascination with Russia’s strongman, Vladimir Putin. And he has policy positions — and advisers — to match,” Clinton senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan said, citing a Washington Post report that Trump staffers persuaded convention delegates to strip language from the GOP platform that would have called for “providing lethal defensive weapons” to the Ukrainian military.

The White House has declined to provide Ukraine with lethal weapons, but mainstream Republicans have long called for the president to do so.

“Just this week, we learned that the Trump campaign went to great lengths to remove a plank from the GOP platform about aid to Ukraine that would have offended Putin, bucking a strongly held position within his own party … It is fair to assume that Vladimir Putin is rooting for a Trump presidency.”

Kingzinger, who isn’t sure if he’ll support Trump and has frequently criticized Trump’s foreign policy pronouncements, called the platform change “curious for sure.”

Although NATO does not frequently comment on issues related to member nations’ domestic politics, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary-general, weighed in on Trump’s comments, defending European allies’ contributions to NATO while avoiding commenting on the election directly.

“European allies are also stepping up,” he said. “For the first time in many years, defense spending among European allies and Canada rose last year.”

Secretary of State John Kerry was also pulled in to the fracas Thursday, fielding a question about Trump’s comments at a press conference at the State Department.

Prefacing his comments by saying he wasn’t making a statement about the presidential race, Kerry said he would restate American policy towards NATO.

“This administration, like every administration Republican and Democrat alike since 1949, remains fully committed to the NATO alliance and to our security commitments under Article 5, which is absolutely bedrock to our membership and to our partnership with NATO.”

Trump was also questioned about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s response to the failed military coup, and told the New York Times that the United States has “a lot of problems.”

“Our nominee is making the same arguments you hear in Russian propaganda and that you hear from left-wing liberals,” Kinzinger said of Trump’s criticisms.

Links

Quick history of NATO.

Why is NATO still needed, even after the downfall of the Soviet Union?

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