"They're just words. She reads off a teleprompter. You notice, she's reading off a teleprompter. She always does. She really doesn't have her own words."-- Republican presidential contender Donald Trump, May 22, 2016, responding to criticism of him made by Democratic presidential contender former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Comment: Trump is accusing Clinton of using talking points. It would be ad hominem reasoning, if he's trying to say Clinton's criticisms are false because they are read from a script.
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In this year of political rage, one aspect that baffles me somewhat is the absolute, electrified, apoplectic, blurred-vision hatred of Hillary Clinton. Nor do I get the similar outrage expressed about President Barack Obama, who in Comment Section World makes Donald Trump look like a lovable Disney character. I can only ascribe this Rage Against the Clinton Machine to misogyny.-- Political cartoonist Jack Ohman, May 22, 2016.
Comment: Ohman is accusing many of Clinton's critics of bigotry.
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Trump:-- Political consultant Jon Favreau, May 20, 2016, referring to Republican presidential contender Donald Trump.
1) Profited off of 9/11
2) Rooted for the housing crash
3) Ran a fraudulent university
4) Sued for tax dodging
5) Is a dick
Comment: Favreau's fifth point is name-calling, perhaps of the "disgusting" variety, but certainly vulgar.
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@neeratanden @joanwalsh Scumbag Neera uses welfare when she needs it then takes away from others when they need it. Disgusting.-- Blogger Matt Bruenig, May 19, 2016, referring to activist Neera Tanden.
Comment: Bruenig is using "disgusting" rhetoric.
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In his first interview since accepting an invitation to be the running mate of former Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico, Mr. Weld assailed Donald J. Trump over his call to round up and deport the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally.-- Former Gov. William Weld (R-MA), May 19, 2016, as related in a story by Maggie Haberman and Thomas Kaplan of The New York Times.
“I can hear the glass crunching on Kristallnacht in the ghettos of Warsaw and Vienna when I hear that, honest,” Mr. Weld said Thursday.
Comment: Weld is comparing the policies of Trump to those of the Nazis. Both policies involve "rounding people up", but Trump has not advocated a pogrom against – i.e., killing – illegal immigrants, which is what Kristallnacht involved when it came to members of the Jewish faith (who were legal residents of Germany). In other words, Trump's policies are not the same as those of the Nazis when it comes to mass murder and ethnic cleansing.
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Jon Stewart may no longer be hosting his show known for biting takedowns of political figures, but that didn’t stop him Monday from going on an epic rant against Donald Trump. The former “Daily Show” host told David Axelrod at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics that he isn’t even sure the presumptive Republican nominee is eligible for the presidency.-- Comedian and activist Jon Stewart, as related in a May 9, 2016, story by Brianna Gurciullo of Politico.
“I’m not a constitutional scholar, so I can’t necessarily say, but are you eligible to run if you are a man-baby, or a baby-man?” Stewart said during a taping of Axelrod’s podcast “The Axe Files.” “He has the physical countenance of a man and a baby’s temperament and hands.”
Comment: Stewart is resorting to name-calling against Trump, and it's not clear how much of his rhetoric is intended to be taken as comedy.
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Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has issued a stern public rebuke to the military deputy chief of staff.-- As related in a May 8, 2016, story by the BBC.
Maj-Gen Yair Golan said on the eve of Thursday's annual Holocaust Day that he detected trends in Israeli society suggestive of "nauseating processes" that occurred in 1930s Nazi Germany.
Mr Netanyahu said the comments were outrageous, cheapened the Holocaust and caused harm to Israel.
Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said he had "total confidence" in Gen Golan.
"If there's something that frightens me about Holocaust remembrance it's the recognition of the nauseating processes that occurred in Europe in general, and particularly in Germany, back then - 70, 80 and 90 years ago - and finding signs of them here among us today in 2016," the deputy chief of staff said on Wednesday.
"There is, after all, nothing easier and simpler than hating the foreigner... arousing fears and terrifying."
But Mr Netanyahu said Gen Golan's remarks were "utterly mistaken and unacceptable to me".
Comment: Golan is comparing modern-day Israel to Nazi Germany of the 1930s. In what sense, though, is he saying the two are the same? If the claim is that there is xenophobia both of them, then that's true, but it's equally true of most every country today. What is it about Israel today that makes it more like 1930s Nazi Germany than today's Germany?
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"Donald Trump is like the Republican's Frankenstein with orange hair. The Republican Party is reaping what it has sowed. There's all this nostalgia about Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site of where three civil rights workers were killed by white supremacists. This is a party which has exploited what Trump is now exploiting. Dog-whistle racism, grievances, resentments. We need an inclusive populism, not the scapegoating populism. To speak to the real anxieties and fears and frustrations, but with hope, not demonization as Donald Trump is doing."-- Katrina vanden Heuvel, May 8, 2016, referring to Republican presidential contender Donald Trump.
Comment: Vanden Heuvel is accusing Trump, Reagan, and much of the Republican party of being bigots who express their position using code words. She is also calling for a higher standard of debate in which we refrain from demonizing others, though isn't it demonizing to say Trump, Reagan, and the rest are racists?
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GEIST: How do you explain the millions and millions of people who do not watch this show who actually like what they hear from Donald Trump, and they aren't taking messages and orders from us in the media, but they listen to what he says for themselves and vote for him, how do you explain that?-- Entertainer and activist Rob Reiner, May 5, 2016, responding to a question from Willie Geist of MSNBC concerning Republican presidential contender Donald Trump.
REINER: There are a lot of people who are racist.
Comment: Reiner is accusing many of Trump's supporters of bigotry.
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"Why don't you go to a really tall building and see if you can fly without a parachute?"-- Pundit Mark Levin, May 4, 2016, during the 2nd hour of his radio show, referring to political strategist Steve Schmidt, who had accused Levin of harming the conservative movement.
Comment: This is violent rhetoric.
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Donald Trump is a pathological liar, Ted Cruz said Tuesday in a forceful and passionate rebuke of the Republican presidential front-runner. Phoning into Fox News on Tuesday, the real-estate mogul parroted a National Enquirer report alleging that Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, was with John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, suggesting that the elder Cruz was somehow involved in JFK’s murder.-- Republican presidential contenders Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Donald Trump, as related in a May 3, 2016, story by Nolan D. McCaskill of Politico.
“This morning, Donald Trump went on national television and attacked my father. Donald Trump alleges that my dad was involved in assassinating JFK,” Cruz told reporters during a news conference in Evansville, Indiana. “Now, let’s be clear, this is nuts. This is not a reasonable position. This is just kooky.”
“And while I’m at it, I guess I should go ahead and admit, yes, my dad killed JFK, he is secretly Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa is buried in his backyard,” Cruz continued sarcastically.
Cruz defended his father, recalling the story of how came to America with just $100, and slammed the National Enquirer as “tabloid trash” that published an “idiotic story.” Cruz said the tabloid, which recently published a story alleging that the Texas senator has had multiple extramarital affairs, has become Trump’s hit piece to smear his targets.
“I’m gonna tell you what I really think of Donald Trump: This man is a pathological liar,” Cruz said. “He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth, and in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying.”
Trump floated the conspiracy between the Cuban immigrant and Oswald in retaliation for Rafael Cruz using his pulpit to encourage evangelicals to support Cruz. “I mean, what was he doing — what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting?” Trump said on Fox News. “It’s horrible.”
Comment: First, Trump is suggesting Rafael Cruz may have conspired with Oswald to kill JFK largely based on a picture in which Oswald appears with someone resembling Cruz. Even if the person is, in fact, Cruz, this is flimsy evidence at best; many other people appeared in the picture, are they therefore ALL conspirators? Trump's accusation against Cruz is derisive, and the burden of proof is on Trump to prove that it's true. Second, even if it were true that Rafael Cruz had played a role in assassinating JFK, what bearing would that have on his son, Ted Cruz? Is Trump accusing the younger Cruz of guilt by association? Last, Ted Cruz is accusing Trump of not caring about the truth. Granted, Trump is saying (or at least, has said) things that are false; is that enough to reach the conclusion that he's a pathological liar who doesn't care about facts? If we discover that Cruz has said things that are false, can we conclude the same about him?
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When it comes to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, even a few months’ time out of Congress has done little to lessen former House Speaker John Boehner’s contempt for his former Capitol Hill colleague.-- As related in an April 28, 2016, story by Nick Gass of Politico.
“Lucifer in the flesh,” Boehner told an audience at Stanford University on Wednesday night, according to the Stanford Daily. “I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”
In fact, Wednesday night was not the first occasion that Boehner has compared Cruz to “Lucifer.” He used the epithet last month during a question-and-answer session with reporters at the Futures Industry Association conference in Boca Raton, Florida.
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Cruz is notorious for his toxic relationship with his congressional colleagues. It turned radioactive in 2013 when the Texas senator played a pivotal role in shutting down the federal government with his high-stakes attempt to defund Obamacare.
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On Thursday, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) seized on Boehner’s comments and again showed he’s not letting bygones be bygones over the shutdown.
“Maybe he gives Lucifer a bad name by comparing him to Ted Cruz,” King said on CNN. “Listen, what John Boehner was most concerned about was Ted Cruz perpetrated a fraud and a hoax when he brought about the shutdown of the government on some kind of a vague promise that he was gonna be able to take Obamacare out of the budget or to end Obamacare.”
Comment: Boehner and King are demonizing Cruz.
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"Look, people are only voting for Donald Trump, most of his supporters are only voting for him because he’s a white guy. And frankly, if he were a woman, or if he were, I don’t know, let’s pick, Latino, Muslim, any of the groups that he’s stoked hatred amongst his supporters, if he were any of those, I don’t think he’d be getting support either."-- Pundit Sally Kohn, April 28, 2016, referring to Republican presidential contender Donald Trump.
Comment: Kohn is accusing the majority of Trump's supporters of bigotry.
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"At the end of the day, this is a distraction because the American people are going to decide who they vote for, for president, based on who they believe is going to continue to move us forward and help everybody who wants to succeed have a fair shot to do so. And what they're not going to vote on is distractions like this one and they're certainly not going to choose any one of the Republican candidates who think that we should continue and go back to policies that focus on the wealthiest most fortunate Americans."-- DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, April 24, 2016, referring to the investigation into Democratic presidential contender former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private server when she was the head of the State Department.
Comment: Wasserman Schultz is using "distractions" rhetoric.
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