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A chalk tribute to Confederate General Robert E. Lee remained on the sidewalk in Charlottesville the day after the Unite the Right rally erupted in lethal violence.

In America, there are a mere handful of groups that politicians can criticize with relative impunity members of the Islamic State, Communists, and of course Nazis.

Yesterday, however, after neo-Nazi groups marched in Charlottesville, Va., and a terrorist attack took the life of a young woman and injured 19 others, Donald Trump took the ball to the hoop and missed an uncontested layup.

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Rather than condemning these groups he took an uncharacteristically muted approach decrying what he called this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides, as if those bedecked in Nazi regalia and chanting racist and anti-Semitic slogans exist on the same moral plain as those protesting such hatred.

The same man who has ruthlessly attacked Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a Gold Star mother, the cast of Hamilton, Meryl Streep, and the department store chain Nordstrom chose to hold his tongue when it came to singling out white supremacists.

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All of this is hard to square with Trumps campaign-era statement that he is the least racist person you ever met. Even racist people condemn Nazis.

H.R. McMaster, President Trumps national security adviser, said that anytime that you commit an attack against people to incite fear, it is terrorism.

To many observers this is an indication of Trumps reluctance to upset his political base namely the racist, xenophobic white voters who helped propel him to the White House. Surely thats a possibility.

Maybe Trump simply is being stubborn. Like a petulant adolescent, the more people push Trump to do something, the more he gets his back up and remains silent.

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But perhaps there is another more basic explanation for Trumps reticence hes a racist.

Certainly, theres plenty of evidence to back up that notion. After all, he ran for president on a clearly racist political platform that targeted undocumented immigrants largely Hispanic and called for a ban on all Muslims entering the country, which he has tried to enact as an executive order. As president he has regularly taken to Twitter to condemn terror acts by jihadist groups, while remaining silent in the face of attacks against Muslims in the United States like the firebombing of a mosque in Minnesota.

This is a candidate who refused to condemn the neo-Nazi leader David Duke and only later did so half-heartedly. After his campaign tweeted out an attack on Hillary Clinton with anti-Semitic overtones, he defended it. In fact, his closing campaign ad featured several prominent Jewish protagonists and contained a host of anti-Semitic dog whistles.

He surrounds himself with advisors like Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Sebastian Gorka, and Jeff Sessions who have documented histories of racist and anti-Semitic views. He regularly attacks Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren by calling her Pocahontas. He is a birther who regularly questioned whether President Obama was born in the United States.

In his short-lived campaign for the White House in 2011 he regularly used faux Asian accents to belittle and demonize China and South Korea for allegedly ripping off Americans. Back in 1989 he ran a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for the death penalty for five young African-American men convicted in a brutal attack on a female jogger in Central Park (they were later exonerated). In the 1970s he was sued by the federal government for refusing to rent apartments in his housing developments to African-Americans.

Keep in mind: This is just a small sampling. When one considers Trumps rather lengthy track record of racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia it begs the question: Why are people so quick to view this as mere political calculation and not the articulation of Trumps own personal views?

Granted, many pundits and political observers find it difficult to call the president of the United States a racist even though that word describes plenty of previous US presidents (Im looking at you, Woodrow Wilson). To call the president a bigot is also to implicitly suggest that the 62 million people who voted for Trump, while perhaps not personally racists, were unbothered by the unambiguous racist agenda of the man they elected president.

Whatever the reason, heres one thing we can say with certainty: As politicians from both sides of the political aisle condemned the hatred and bigotry on display by a bunch of neo-Nazi thugs in Charlottesville, our president couldnt find the words to join them.

Whether you want to call that political calculation, stubbornness, or an insight into Trumps darkened soul is up to you. But where we should all be able to agree is that a man who cannot condemn Nazis and white supremacists is not fit to be president of the United States.

See the original post:
Is Donald Trump stubborn, stupid, or simply racist? - The Boston Globe

It's at least half true.

Trump reiterated his philosophy on the matter a few years ago: "I'm loyal to people who've done good work for me."

"Good work" is, of course, a subjective means of measuring one's service to Trump. But it's a telling line mostly because of the subtext, which suggests Trump is indeed willing to repay subordinates who advance his interests with loyalty -- but only up to a point. When the "good work" ends or hits a snag, as we've seen over the past seven months and during the campaign before that, Trump's backing tends to do the same.

The President's recent treatment of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who narrowly failed to deliver the needed GOP votes to repeal Obamacare, is the most immediate illustration of Trump's fickle fealty.

In fairness, McConnell helped load himself into the barrel when he criticized Trump, albeit mildly, during a Monday speech to a Rotary Club in Kentucky.

"Our new President, of course, has not been in this line of work before," McConnell said. As it applies to the legislative process, he added: "I think (Trump) had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process."

The nuance there, that cautious caveat, did not land well with the White House. Trump has now spent the better part of the week assailing the top Senate Republican on Twitter and in remarks to reporters during what's been a news-making vacation at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

On Thursday, he pointedly refused to back McConnell, suggesting what remains of his faith in the majority leader will turn on future performance.

"I'll tell you what, if he doesn't get repeal and replace done, and if he doesn't get taxes done, meaning cuts and reform, and if he doesn't get a very easy one to get done, infrastructure, he doesn't get them done, then you can ask me" again if McConnell should give up his post, Trump said.

Trump and Priebus, then the Republican National Committee boss, had an up-and-down relationship during the 2016 primaries. Despite leading in the GOP polls for months before the first ballot was cast, the party establishment (and many in the media) doubted Trump's viability, and whether he could sustain his popularity, once the contests kicked off.

Priebus, though, was clear on Trump's potential -- either to win or damage the eventual nominee's chances in November by going a third party route. There was drama over a loyalty pledge, which Trump signed, then waffled on, but ultimately honored, if only because his frontrunner status rarely wavered.

Whatever his misgivings, Priebus never intervened and eventually (technically) joined Trump's inner circle. His bald-faced backing cleared the way for other Republicans climb aboard.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wasn't always quite so unpopular in his home state. His decline began well before he left the Republican presidential primary last year, but it's hard to imagine his decision to immediately throw his allegiance to Trump did much to reverse the slide.

Christie backed Trump before it was perceived as a political imperative. His precise motives in endorsing Trump are still not entirely clear. The theories range from vengeance against other more mainstream candidates like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to strategic angling for future employment, or some combination of those and more.

The attorney general, before he was attorney general, was a US senator from Alabama. He was also the first active member of that august body to endorse Trump during the GOP primary. When the "Access Hollywood" tape threatened to upend Trump's campaign, and some Republicans began to make for the exits, Sessions stood firm: "This thing is overblown," he told Fox News. "Everybody knows that Trump likes women."

As with McConnell, Trump didn't hesitate to air his ire on social media and in a memorably caustic interview with The New York Times.

"So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?", Trump, in his role as pundit-in-chief, tweeted on the morning of July 24.

Sessions has managed to hang on mostly because he refused to resign and his old friends in the Senate made it clear Trump would not be able to quickly install a replacement if Sessions was fired.

Asked this week about their relationship, Trump offered a bright, shining endorsement.

For now.

Read more from the original source:
Donald Trump is loyal -- until he's not - CNN

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides. It's been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time."

It's hard to imagine a less presidential statement in a time in which the country looks to its elected leader to stand up against intolerance and hatred.

Picking a "worst" from Donald Trump's statement -- delivered from his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club -- isn't easy. But, the emphasis of "on many sides" -- Trump repeated that phrase twice -- is, I think, the low ebb.

Both sides don't scream racist and anti-Semitic things at people with whom they disagree. They don't base a belief system on the superiority of one race over others. They don't get into fistfights with people who don't see things their way. They don't create chaos and leave a trail of injured behind them.

Arguing that "both sides do it" deeply misunderstands the hate and intolerance at the core of this "Unite the Right" rally. These people are bigots. They are hate-filled. This is not just a protest where things, unfortunately, got violent. Violence sits at the heart of their warped belief system.

Trying to fit these hate-mongers into the political/ideological spectrum -- which appears to be what Trump is doing -- speaks to his failure to grasp what's at play here. This is not a "conservatives say this, liberals say that" sort of situation. We all should stand against this sort of violent intolerance and work to eradicate it from our society -- whether Democrat, Republican, Independent or not political in the least.

What Trump failed to do is what he has always promised to do: Speak blunt truths. The people gathered in Charlottesville this weekend are white supremacists, driven by hate and intolerance. Period. There is no "other side" doing similar things here.

What Trump is doing -- wittingly or unwittingly -- is giving cover to the sort of beliefs (and I use that word lightly) on display in Charlottesville today.

Chalking it all up to a violent political rhetoric that occurs on both sides and has been around for a very long time contextualizes and normalizes the behavior of people who should not be normalized. It is not everyday political rhetoric to scream epithets at people who don't look like you or worship like you. Trump's right that this sort of behavior has existed on American society's fringes for a long time -- but what we as a nation, led by our presidents, have always done is call it out for what it is: radical racism that has no place in our world.

So, that's the big one. But there are other things in Trump's statement that are also worth calling out -- most notably "not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama."

What Trump is doing here is pre-emptively absolving himself of blame for creating a political climate in the country in which people like these "Unite the Right" demonstrators feel emboldened enough to rally in public. Not my fault, Trump is saying. There were hate groups and hate speech under Obama too!

With someone dead and more than two dozen people injured, this is, of course, not the time for assigning blame. Or for making political calculations. This is a time to say: We stand together against what we saw in Charlottesville today. Trump didn't do that. Not even close.

Then, last but not least, is what Trump said a few paragraphs after his "on many sides" comment. Here it is:

"Our country is doing very well in so many ways. We have record -- just absolute record employment. We have unemployment, the lowest it's been in almost 17 years. We have companies pouring into our country. Foxconn and car companies, and so many others, they're coming back to our country. We're renegotiating trade deals to make them great for our country and great for the American worker. We have so many incredible things happening in our country. So when I watch Charlottesville, to me it's very, very sad."

Really? A pivot to an I-am-not-gettng-enough-credit-for-all-the-good-I-am-doing-in-the-country line? With scenes of hatred splashed across TV screens With someone dead?

This speech is not the time to tout your accomplishments. I mean "we're renegotiating trade deals to make them great for our country"? Who thought that was a good thing to say in the same speech in which Trump, theoretically, was trying to reassure people that what we all saw in Charlottesville is not, fundamentally, who we are?

That no one -- starting and ending with the President -- raised a red flag about tacking on a laundry list of accomplishments to a speech that should have simply condemned the behavior in Charlottesville and called to our better angels, is staggering, even for this White House.

There are moments where we as a country look to our president to exemplify the best in us. They don't happen every day. Sometimes they don't happen every year. But, when they do happen, we need the person we elected to lead us to, you know, lead us.

Trump did the opposite today.

More here:
Donald Trump's incredibly unpresidential statement on Charlottesville - CNN

Updated: Aug 12, 2017 8:34 PM ET

(BEDMINISTER, N.J.) President Donald Trump on Saturday blamed "many sides" for the violent clashes between protesters and white supremacists in Virginia and contended that the "hatred and bigotry" broadcast across the country had taken root long before his political ascendancy.

That was not how the Charlottesville mayor assessed the chaos that led the governor to declare a state of emergency, contending that Trump's campaign fed the flames of prejudice.

Trump, on a working vacation at his New Jersey golf club, had intended to speak briefly at a ceremony marking the signing of bipartisan legislation to aid veterans, but he quickly found that those plans were overtaken by the escalating violence in the Virginia college town. One person died and at least 26 others were sent to the hospital after a car plowed into a group of peaceful anti-racist counterprotesters amid days of race-fueled marches and violent clashes.

And officials later linked the deaths of two people aboard a crashed helicopter to the protests, though they did not say how they were linked.

Speaking slowly from a podium set up in the golf clubhouse, Trump said that he had just spoken to Gov. Terry McAuliffe, D-Va. "We agreed that the hate and the division must stop, and must stop right now. We have to come together as Americans with love for our nation and ... true affection for each other," he said.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides," said Trump. "It's been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump. Not Barack Obama. It's been going on for a long, long time."

The president said that "what is vital now is a swift restoration of law and order and the protection of innocent lives."

After completing his statement and the bill signing, Trump then walked out of the room. He ignored reporters' shouted questions, including whether he wanted the support of white nationals who have said they backed him or if the car crash in Virginia were deemed intentional, would it be declared to be terrorism.

The previous two days, Trump took more than 50 questions from a small group of reporters. A White House spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for an explanation as to what Trump mean by "many sides."

Following Trump's comment, several Republicans pushed for a more explicit denunciation of white supremacists.

Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner tweeted "Mr. President - we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism."

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio wrote "Nothing patriotic about #Nazis,the #KKK or #WhiteSupremacists It's the direct opposite of what #America seeks to be."

And even New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a staunch Trump supporter, wrote: "We reject the racism and violence of white nationalists like the ones acting out in Charlottesville. Everyone in leadership must speak out."

White nationalists had assembled in Charlottesville to vent their frustration against the city's plans to take down a statue of Confederal Gen. Robert E. Lee. Counter-protesters massed in opposition. A few hours after violent encounters between the two groups, a car drove into a crowd of people peacefully protesting the rally. The driver was later taken into custody.

Alt-right leader Richard Spencer and former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke attended the demonstrations. Duke told reporters that the white nationalists were working to "fulfill the promises of Donald Trump."

Trump's speech also drew praise from the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, which wrote: "Trump comments were good. He didn't attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. ... No condemnation at all."

The website had been promoting the Charlottesville demonstration as part of its "Summer of Hate" edition.

Mayor Michael Signer said he was disgusted that the white nationalists had come to his town and blamed Trump for inflaming racial prejudices with his campaign last year.

"I'm not going to make any bones about it. I place the blame for a lot of what you're seeing in American today right at the doorstep of the White House and the people around the president," he said.

Disturbances began Friday night during a torch-lit march through the University of Virginia before escalating Saturday.

The White House was silent for hours except for a tweet from first lady Melania Trump: "Our country encourages freedom of speech, but let's communicate w/o hate in our hearts."

Trump later tweeted: "We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for." He also said "there is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!" Trump tweeted condolences about the woman killed the protests Saturday evening, more than five hours after the crash.

Trump, as a candidate, frequently came under scrutiny for being slow to offer his condemnation of white supremacists. His strongest denunciation of the movement has not come voluntarily, only when asked, and he occasionally trafficked in retweets of racist social media posts during his campaign. His chief strategist, Steve Bannon, once declared that his former news site, Breitbart, was "the platform for the alt-right."

The president's reluctance to condemn white bigots also stood in stark contrast by his insistence of calling out "radical Islamic terrorism" by name.

"Now, to solve a problem, you have to be able to state what the problem is or at least say the name," Trump said in a general election debate.

In his remarks Saturday, Trump mentioned the strong economy and "the many incredible things in our country, so when I watch Charlottesville, to me it's very, very sad."

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President Trump Blames 'Many Sides' for Violence in Charlottesville - TIME

US President Donald Trump speaks during a security briefing on August 10, 2017, at his Bedminster National Golf Club in New Jersey. / AFP PHOTO / Nicholas Kamm (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)NICHOLAS KAMMAFP/Getty Images

(BEDMINSTER, N.J.) President Donald Trump has signed an emergency spending bill that will pump more than $2 billion into a program that allows veterans to receive private medical care at government expense.

Trump, who made improving veterans care a central campaign promise, signed the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act while at his New Jersey golf club on Saturday. The bill, which addresses a budget shortfall at the Department of Veteran Affairs that threatened medical care for thousands of veterans, provides $2.1 billion to continue funding the Veterans Choice Program, which allows veterans to seek private care.

Another $1.8 billion will go to core VA health programs, including 28 leases for new VA medical facilities.

"Today is another milestone in our work to transform the VA where we're doing record-setting business," Trump said.

The Choice program was put in place after a 2014 wait-time scandal that was discovered at the Phoenix VA hospital and spread throughout the country. Veterans waited weeks or months for appointments while phony records covered up the lengthy waits.

The program allows veterans to receive care from outside doctors if they must wait at least 30 days for an appointment or drive more than 40 miles to a VA facility. VA Secretary David Shulkin has warned that without legislative action, the Choice program would run out of money by mid-August, causing delays in health care for thousands of veterans.

The bill will extend the program for six months. Costs will be paid for by trimming pensions for some Medicaid-eligible veterans and collecting fees for housing loans.

Veterans groups applauded the bill being signed, though some criticized the delay and the cost.

"We're grateful President Trump is taking decisive action to ensure veterans using the Choice Program won't see lapses in their care due to a lack of funding," said Dan Caldwell, policy director for Concerned Veterans for America. "Unfortunately, this bill took far too long to get to the president's desk and is $1.8 billion more expensive than it needed to be."

Leaders of the House Veterans Affairs Committee said the six-month funding plan was urgently needed and would give Congress more time to debate broader issues over the VA's future. While the bill may avert a shutdown to Choice, disputes over funding may signal bigger political fights to come.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump criticized the VA for long wait times and mismanagement, saying he would give veterans more options in seeing outside providers. Shulkin announced the budget shortfall last month, citing unexpected demand from veterans for private care and poor budget planning. To slow spending, the department last month instructed VA medical centers to limit the number of veterans it sent to private doctors.

Currently, more than 30 percent of VA appointments are in the private sector, up from fewer than 20 percent in 2014. The VA has an annual budget of about $180 billion.

Originally posted here:
Donald Trump Signs Bill Funding Veterans Medical Care Program - TIME