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Illegal Immigrant Trump

Sunday, September 4, 2016

Donald Trump has now given his fire-and-brimstone speech about illegal immigrants, including that there would be no amnesty and no path to citizenship for people who entered the country illegally. According to him even people who had not entered the US illegally, but who had come in on a visa but then didn’t leave, are a “big problem“:

Immigration law doesn’t exist for the purpose of keeping criminals out. It exists to protect all aspects of American life. The work site, the welfare office, the education system, and everything else.

Hypocritically, that seems to describe his wife, Melania Trump. It is pretty clear that she entered the US on a visitor visa, which does not allow her to work, while fully intending to work as a model. That alone would disqualify her from getting a green card. Oh, and she also lied about having a university degree on her website, but that would only be illegal if she listed it on her application for residency. And the fact that she posed for nude photos while here illegally wouldn’t help either. (Unfortunately, plagiarizing her convention speech from Michele Obama would likely not count against her.)

But we don’t know, because even though more than three weeks ago Trump’s campaign promised to answer questions about Mrs. Trump’s immigration status, no such answers have been forthcoming. So the Trumps are lying and breaking promises.

I guess they hope we will just forget about it. When is someone going to ask Donald Trump whether he plans to deport his (third?) first lady if he is elected?

UPDATE: Four former models who worked for Donald Trump’s modeling agency in New York have said that they violated immigration laws by working in the US on tourist (visitor) visas. It is illegal for a company to hire someone without a valid work visa. The models were told by the Trump’s agency to lie on customs forms, and were told specifically “If they ask you any questions, you’re just here for meetings.” One of the models described working for Trump as “modern-day slavery”. Models were charged such high fees by the agency that they ended up earning almost nothing, despite working constantly. They couldn’t complain because they were illegal.

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Late Night Political Humor

Sunday, September 4, 2016

[Jokes from Aug. 24, 2016]

“After more than a year of promising mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, last night Donald Trump actually referred to them as ‘great people’. Even Ryan Lochte was like, ‘Get your story straight, man!'” – Jimmy Fallon

“At first Donald Trump came out with guns blazing, said he’s going to kick all the Mexicans out, he’s going to build a wall to keep them from coming back in. Last night during a town hall on Fox News he said he could be softening, which is normal, it happens to a lot of men his age.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“A new report has found that Donald Trump may have used some of his campaign funds to buy thousands of copies of his own book. Oh my God, that’s what he’s gonna use to build the wall!” – Seth Meyers

“He’s now agreed to give immigrants a 30-minute head start before he tries to catch them with a net.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Not only is he reaching out to the Hispanic vote, he’s been reaching out to the black community. Donald Trump said he loves African-Americans, in fact some of his best credit cards are black.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“The Trump campaign said pollsters aren’t counting people who are afraid to say they’re Trump supporters. That’s right, because Trump supporters are very, very shy.” – Conan O’Brien

“Melania Trump is getting ready to sue the British newspaper the Daily Mail for writing that she once worked as an escort. Yep, Melania says she strongly denies the accusation that she has ever worked.” – Jimmy Fallon

“NASA announced they have re-established contact with a spacecraft that had been missing for two years. The spacecraft went missing again when it was told who the Republican nominee is.” – Conan O’Brien

“A new poll released today shows Hillary Clinton is 9 points ahead of Donald Trump in New Mexico. And 100 points ahead in Old Mexico.” – Seth Meyers

“Jennifer Lawrence was just named the world’s highest paid actress, bringing in $46 million last year before taxes. Yep, she narrowly beat out the world’s second highest paid actress: Hillary Clinton.” – Jimmy Fallon

“According to Hillary Clinton’s newly-released medical records, she suffers from seasonal allergies. But she just takes some Benadryl and they’re all deleted.” – Conan O’Brien

“Experts say Hillary Clinton’s campaign strategy is to ignore the controversies, and just run out the clock. By the way, that also happens to be Hillary Clinton’s marital strategy.” – Conan O’Brien

“Hillary Clinton held fundraisers today in Silicon Valley. Said Hillary, ‘It’s so great to be back here in the town where I was built.'” – Seth Meyers

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Aasif Mandvi as the Leader of ISIS

Saturday, September 3, 2016

How ISIS really feels about Trump:

I miss Aasif Mandvi from the Daily Show.

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The Supreme Flop

Friday, September 2, 2016

Remember how Obama nominated respected moderate Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court, but the Republicans in the Senate refused to even hold hearings on him, giving the excuse that they should let the next president pick the new member of the Supreme Court. Because, you know, they really wanted to give the people a voice in the matter.

So the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee signed a letter stating that the voters would decide the ideological direction of the court and promising that they would not hold hearings on any Supreme Court nominee until a new president took office. As a result, Garland has gone longer than any Supreme Court nominee in history without a vote (or even any discussion or confirmation hearings).

Well, now that the people’s voice is becoming clearer and it is looking like Trump is going to go down in flames, the GOP is afraid that Clinton might do just what they said should happen, and pick someone more ideologically liberal to be on the court.

So this week, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley did a sudden about face and said that in the lame duck session after the election (just to make sure) but before the new president is sworn in, he might be open to considering changing his mind. His statement is a monument of wishy-washy flip-floppery:

[If] we have the election and the majority of the Senate changed their mind about doing it in the lame duck as opposed to Jan. 20, I don’t feel that I could stand in the way of that. But I don’t think I can promote that idea.

Uh, by saying that, isn’t he actually promoting the idea?

I guess “the people” get a voice only if they happen to vote Republican.

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Imagine the Debate

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Electoral Vote imagines what the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be like. Basically, it is going to be both of them trying to unnerve the other. Here’s what they think it will be like:

Moderator: How will you bring unemployment down to 4%?

Trump: Hire people to build a wall. But the real issue is: Hillary, why does Bill prefer Monica to you? Is it her technique, or what?

Clinton: Hire people to repair our potholed roads and rusting bridges. But I won’t use companies that go bankrupt over and over and over like Donald’s. Bill Gates never went bankrupt. Steve Jobs never went bankrupt. Only third-rate losers with stubby fingers like Donald keep failing time and again.

Moderator: What will you do to make sure all Americans have broadband Internet?

Trump: Make great deals with AT&T and Verizon and I will order them to make sure all their email servers are secure, unlike Hillary’s, so our national security is not endangered.

Clinton: I’d copy FDR’s 1936 Rural Electrification Act, PL 74-605, also known as 49 STAT 1363. I certainly won’t be hiring guys like Paul Manafort, who are in cahoots with the Russians, to be involved and endanger our national security.

Moderator: What is your tax policy?

Trump: My tax returns are being audited so I won’t release them, but I am considering a special tax on crooked people like Hillary who make a fortune giving speeches to companies like Goldman Sachs.

Clinton: I have released my tax returns from 1977 to 2015. I would support a law requiring presidential candidates to release 30 years of tax returns so candidates like Donald couldn’t claim to be rich when they are actually up to their ears in debt to China.

Moderator: What are your views on racial justice?

Trump: All Lives Matter. Some of my best friends are black and I find it disgusting that Hillary’s mentor, Robert Byrd, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Clinton: Black Lives Matter. Not only is Donald a bigot himself, but his top hire was Stephen Bannon, who has turned his anti-Semitism into a career.

Moderator: What is your position on torture?

Trump: If we catch ISIS fighters, I’d cut off their [bleep], put them in a blender, and force feed them to the ISIS cowards. If Hillary wins, the American people will be subjected to 4 years of torture listening to her dreadful cackle. I oppose that.

Clinton: I’ll bet (but less than $10,000) that 50 South American monkeys were tortured when someonoe ripped off their fur to make that thing on top of Donald’s head. I oppose torturing people and animals.

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Regrets

Thursday, September 1, 2016

A new poll shows that a majority of Republicans wish they had picked someone else to be their nominee. “54 percent of Republican and GOP-leaning voters believe Trump isn’t the best choice as the party’s nominee, while 35 percent are satisfied with the real estate mogul as the party’s standard-bearer.”

The problem is, of course, that they can’t decide with whom they would replace him. The same poll asked who they would prefer, and 29% picked Trump, 15% picked Ted Cruz, 14% picked Marco Rubio, and everyone else got less than 10%.

And that is the irony. Even though a majority of Republicans don’t want Trump, he is still the most popular of the Republican candidates.

The poll also asked the similar questions of Democratic voters. “56 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters are content with Hillary Clinton as their party’s nominee, while 32 percent believe there is a better option.” At least this is a majority, but still not great numbers for the Democrats.

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Real Election Fraud

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Don’t think election fraud is a real problem? Well, not in the way the Republicans claim it is (people voting without government ID). The real potential problem is the insecurity of the computers that the government uses to count votes.

Monday, the FBI issued a warning that foreign hackers have gained access to election databases in two states, reported to be Arizona and Illinois. In the Illinois case, officials were forced to shut down the state’s voter registration system for 10 days in July. The hackers downloaded personal data on as many as 200,000 voters. In Arizona, malicious software was placed into its voter registration system.

Even worse, an IP address used in the attacks matches one used by Russian hackers, and the hacking methods used resemble methods used in other suspected Russian state-sponsored cyberattacks (including one carried out just a month ago).

Hacking a voter registration system would make it possible to throw an election, by removing the names of voters likely to vote for a single candidate, making it much more difficult for those people to actually vote.

And these are just the hacks that we know about.

I am a computer scientist, and so is the founder of Electoral Vote, and I completely agree with Electoral Vote’s warning:

The problem with hacking is that a foreign power could interfere with an election and there is a decent chance it would go undetected. The best way to protect against hacking is to avoid using computers in the voting process altogether, and to make sure the voter registration systems are not connected to the Internet in any way.

I believe that it is not only possible, but likely that people (including foreign governments) could throw a US election without detection. In fact, I would not be surprised if it has already been done on a small scale. Or worse, I would be surprised if it hasn’t already been done.

This is a serious threat to our country, our democracy, and our way of life. And little is being done to combat it.

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Late Night Political Humor

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

[Jokes from Aug. 23, 2016]

“A 12-year-old boy is actually running one of Trump’s campaign offices in Colorado. When asked how an inexperienced child could be running things, the boy said, ‘Look, he’s the nominee and we’re stuck with him.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Donald Trump yesterday continued his attempts to appeal to black voters, telling attendees at a rally, ‘What the hell do you have to lose? Give me a chance!’ Said black voters, ‘We’re not at this rally.'” – Seth Meyers

“The GOP has already started making a strategy around the assumption that Hillary Clinton will win the presidency. Which may explain the Republican Party’s new slogan: ‘Winter Is Coming.'” – Conan O’Brien

“The Trump campaign recently announced that Donald Trump will be delaying his major address on immigration that was originally scheduled to take place on Thursday. So if you want to know where Trump stands on immigration, you’ll just have to wait until a year ago.” – Seth Meyers

“Donald Trump is accusing Hillary Clinton of being too ill, too frail to be commander in chief. Rudy Giuliani made a suggestion to go online and look up ‘Hillary Clinton illness’ – if it’s on the internet, you know it must be true.” – Stephen Colbert

“Melania Trump is planning to sue a British newspaper for defamation. Apparently, the paper called her ‘happily married’.” – Conan O’Brien

“Apparently Ryan Lochte lost all four of his endorsement deals yesterday following his Rio robbery scandal. In fact he’s so desperate for money, he’s actually considering robbing a gas station.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Four sponsors have now dropped Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte. On the bright side, he just signed a huge deal with Bob’s Urinal Cakes.” – Conan O’Brien

“Ryan Lochte lost all his business deals in just one day. Even Trump was like, ‘It took me months to do that!'” – Jimmy Fallon

“In a new election bombshell, the State Department has been ordered by a federal judge to produce nearly 15,000 of Hillary Clinton’s unreleased emails. I don’t want to say Hillary is worried about this story blowing up, but today she asked Ryan Lochte to make up another robbery.” – James Corden

“Journalists have tried contacting Hillary about this damaging email development. Unfortunately, they keep getting auto-replies that say ‘Sorry, I am out of the Oval Office until January.'” – James Corden

“In other Clinton news, her campaign manager, Robby Mook, said in an interview on CNN that they are having a hard time finding someone as ‘hateful’ and ‘divisive’ as Trump to go up against Hillary in her practice debates. It seems like it’d be easy to prep for a Trump debate — just get a parrot and train it to say three things: ’email’, ‘wall’, and ‘huge’.” – James Corden

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No There There?

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Maybe I’m missing something. Yes, I know that there is a narrative that Hillary Clinton is dishonest and untrustworthy. There’s even the alt-right version where she is a criminal who should be locked up (for, among other things, assassinating 40 people).

To me, it just seems like people are taking any story about her and viewing it through that lens. This is not a question of me drinking kool-aid for Clinton (or even carrying water for her). I have been critical of both Clintons many times in the past. When they deserved it.

The scandal du jour is that, OMG, she had meetings while she was secretary of state with people who donated money to the Clinton foundation. A foundation that nobody disputes has done lots of good things around the world, including saving millions of lives.

First of all, the fact that a small percentage of the people who met with Clinton while she was Secretary of State also happened to be donors to the Clinton Foundation is not at all suspicious. Correlation does not imply causation. Is there any evidence that donating money to the foundation got those people access? No. Even if it did, would anyone be the least bit surprised that money drives our politics? Even the Supreme Court says that money is free speech, and is protected.

The important question is, is there any evidence that donating money to the foundation got the donors special favors from Clinton? And the answer here is a resounding no. Some of the donors asked for favors. Most of the time they did not get them. And the few favors that were done appear to be things that likely would have been granted even if the person had never donated to the foundation.

I’ve also heard people complain that Clinton should release the schedule of all her meetings as secretary of state. Uh, she already did that. You can read them yourself online. But you don’t have to, because one reporter read all 3,721 pages and gives you a an overview of the “surprisingly intimate portrait of the life of the Democratic nominee for president” revealed by her schedule. Conclusion? Hillary Clinton works very hard and meets with a lot of people.

The bottom line is that scandals sell newspapers, and the media is only too happy to play along with the Clinton narrative created through endless Benghazi hearings. In particular, the original AP story about the Clinton Foundation “scandal” was very sloppy reporting. And adding insult to injury, the AP promoted the story widely with tweets that were downright inaccurate and misleading.

I’ve condemned Obama when he has done bad things, and that’s about someone I’m happy to admit that I really like and think has been one of our best presidents ever. I’m not afraid to condemn Clinton, but seriously, this is a scandal? It’s almost enough to convince me that sexism is alive and well in the US.

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Outreached

Monday, August 29, 2016

Jack Ohman
© Jack Ohman

The only people who will be convinced that Trump is not a racist are racists. But that may be the whole point.

But the more important point is that Trump is making it ok to be racist in America, and this is extremely dangerous. As a must-read article in Rolling Stone puts it:

To live in modern-day America is to live in a country undeniably affected by racism – mysteriously, without any racists.

With breathtaking doublespeak, Trump attacks Clinton as being a bigot because she is intolerant of the racist “alt-right” movement. But is it bigoted to be intolerant of intolerance?

The Alt-right crowd believes in and endorses a racist ideology, and they have a presidential nominee who does the same. Calling these people anything less than vile racists would be morally reprehensible and intellectually fraudulent.

The bottom line is that we ignore the increasing drumbeat of racism in America at our peril. We risk losing the most fundamental values of our country, that all people “are created equal” and have a right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

If we don’t stand up to racism, then who and what are we?

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Late Night Political Humor

Monday, August 29, 2016

[Jokes from Aug. 22, 2016]

“There are life-sized nude statues of Donald Trump. They showed up in cities across the country. You’d be walking in the park, and you see this statue [shows images]. Forget building the wall, Trump should just put a bunch of those things at the border.” – Jimmy Fallon

“The New York City Parks Department actually released a statement on the naked Trump statue after they took it down. This is completely real — they said, ‘New York City Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“After being criticized on the MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ program, Donald Trump took to Twitter to attack hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, alleging that they are having an affair. Trump tweeted, ‘Someday when things calm down I will tell the real story of Joe and his very insecure girlfriend Mika. Two clowns.’ Trump is reporting celebrity gossip. Like he is like half running to be ‘Prez’ and half running to be Perez Hilton.” – James Corden

“Also he says ‘when things calm down’. You’re running for president; assuming you win, things are never going to calm down. Trump thinks it’s going to be all right, he’s like, ‘Now that I have taken Iran, the debt crisis and ISIS, I can really blow this Joe Scarborough thing wide open. ‘” – James Corden

“Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort was forced to resign on Friday following news that he had pro-Russian ties. Which really upset Trump, because he insists having all his ties made in China.” – Jimmy Fallon

“This weekend, Donald Trump tried to win over black voters by asking them, ‘What the hell do you have to lose?’ Coincidentally, that’s also the way he proposed to all three of his wives.” – Conan O’Brien

“Donald Trump has been saying that Hillary Clinton looks unwell. Trump then admitted he thinks any woman over 35 looks like she’s dying.” – Conan O’Brien

“Donald Trump’s new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway yesterday told interviewers that she does not believe Trump hurls personal insults. She said, ‘Trump, you tell them, stupid.'” – Seth Meyers

“President Obama and the first family returned Sunday from their summer vacation in Martha’s Vineyard only to find the locks had been changed.” – Seth Meyers

“The Olympics wrapped up over the weekend with the United States coming out on top in all medal counts. The U.S. brought home 46 gold medals, 37 silver, and four idiots.” – Seth Meyers

“And the majority of those American medals were won by female athletes. So, boys, next time somebody on the playground says you throw like a girl, say ‘Thank you’.” – Stephen Colbert

“Congratulations to Team USA for winning over 100 medals! The most of any country, and my condolences to everyone who is behind them at airport security.” – Jimmy Fallon

“America just dominated the 2016 Olympics! That’s right, we killed it. We got 121 medals! And I’m not surprised. I watched the Games here in the States — can’t remember the channel — and from what I saw, apparently only Americans competed.” – Stephen Colbert

“Americans, and Usain Bolt. Of course, he’s an honorary American, because Jamaica is basically tropical Colorado.” – Stephen Colbert

“The Olympics closing ceremony was held in Rio last night. There was an emotional moment at the end when they extinguished the Olympic torch by having Ryan Lochte urinate on it.” – Conan O’Brien

“That’s right. Speedo has revoked their sponsorship of swimmer Ryan Lochte, and according to him, they did it at gunpoint.” – Seth Meyers

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The Best People?

Sunday, August 28, 2016

OMG, Trump claims to hire only “the best people” but look at the people he hires. Saturday’s announcement was that Trump’s advisor on foreign policy issues is Michele Bachmann. You know, the woman who said “What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty. You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord.” Her own backyard must be foreign to her.

And about his string of campaign managers. First there was Corey Lewandowski, the former lobbyist whose campaign strategy seemed to mainly consisting of roughing up people at campaign events. He was replaced by Paul Manafort, another lobbyist who specializes in dictators and other strongmen,but his strong ties to Russia were his undoing. Third is Stephen Bannon who ran alt-right rag Breitbart News. How’s he doing?

It has been less than two weeks, and already Bannon has multiple scandals. First were reports of anti-Semitic remarks: objecting to a private school for his daughters saying he “didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews” because they “raise their kids to be ‘whiney brats’.” Then it turns out that Bannon, who crusades against voter fraud, is registered to vote in swing state Florida, even though he doesn’t live there (he actually lives in California). Which is against Florida law.

And remember Trump’s doctor, who claimed that “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”? Well, he’s now backed down from that. So we don’t actually know if Trump has any health problems. After all, he would be the oldest person ever elected to the presidency.

Trump doesn’t seem to do any vetting of his employees, which includes criminals, people with big scandals, and the plain incompetent.

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Back to Fox?

Saturday, August 27, 2016

We reported recently that Donald Trump had pretty much only appeared on Fox News after a disastrous interview on CNN after the conventions. Well, I guess Trump is reading this blog (hah!) because he actually (finally) gave an interview to CNN.

It did not go well. In fact, it went really badly.

Maybe he should just stick to being interviewed by Sean Hannity on Fox News, where they won’t ask him any difficult questions.

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Try Yelling Fuck

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Obviously, this is not safe for work (good thing it is Saturday!), but it is a lot of fun. If you are at the end of your rope, there is something you can do. And it is even approved by Obamacare!

From “Funny or Die“.

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Sex and Politics

Friday, August 26, 2016

It is good that The Late Show is on late, because it seems Stephen Colbert can’t stop himself from having fun and discussing sex and politics:

Go ahead, Google “Donald Trump Rudy Giuliani Drag Queen Motorboat”. Of course, starting today the top result is now Colbert telling you to Google “Donald Trump Rudy Giuliani Drag Queen Motorboat”. If the internet is anything it is self-referential, and loves to take selfies of itself (and then selfies of itself taking selfies of itself, ad infinitum).

If you want the actual video of Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani, you should instead Google “Rudy Giuliani in Drag Smooching Donald Trump”. But remember, as the internet says, you can’t unsee it.

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