A Few Things, I Suppose, For Senator Pat Toomey To Worry About

First, there's the Senator's drooping poll numbers.

As of this writing (Saturday August 20), Real Clear Politics has Democratic challenger Katie McGinty up by an average of about 2.5 points.

Pat had been leading in the polls until the end of June.  Solidly leading in the polls.  By the time the GOP convention was over (July 21) the numbers began to shift, if I am reading them correctly.

Since then, since Donald Trump's installation as the leader of his party, Pat Toomey has only won one Pennsylvania poll (Public Policy Polling - a slight right-leaner, according to Nate Silver) where he was up by 1%.

That's it, ever since Pat Toomey's been trailing in the polls.

Polls change, of course.  But this still has to be something the incumbent Republican candidate has to be worrying about.

Then there's how this race fits into the national picture - for example, this piece (dated August 16) from Harry Eaton over at Nate Silver's Five Thirty Eight.  In a discussion of the electoral situation following the GOP convention Eaton parks his argument right in the middle of:

Donald Trump’s post-conventions polling slump seems to be having an effect on the Republican Party’s U.S. Senate candidates. We thought this might happen: There’s been an increasingly strong relationship between how a state votes for president and how it votes for Senate over the past few election cycles. And, indeed, Trump’s tumble has coincided with worsening GOP numbers in key states. It may cost the party the Senate.

And when we finally get to Toomey, there's this:

Republicans have also seen their prospects worsen in Pennsylvania. Trump is now down 10 percentage points in the state, a headwind that may be too much for Republican Sen. Pat Toomey to overcome. Toomey, like Ayotte, had been leading in most polls before the conventions. But he has trailed in four of the five polls conducted since the conventions. Toomey’s slide, in particular, should worry Republicans. He has made it clear that he is not a Trump fan and has avoided appearing with Trump when he visits the Keystone State. And yet, their fates still seem tied. It may be that down-ballot Republicans can only do so much to keep themselves from getting swept up in an anti-Trump tide.

Toomey's non-endorsement isn't helping him.  Toomey's non-appearances aren't helping him.

That's got to be worrying Pat.

The Emperor Has No Balls (AND...A Teeny Tiny Penis) - NSFW

In case you missed it, something anarchy-artsy happened yesterday:

A statue of Trump in the buff popped up last night in Union Square in Manhattan, assailing innocent New Yorkers with an NSFW image they surely won’t forget anytime soon: the veins, the nips, those macaroni pubes.

Identical sculptures were also spotted in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland and Seattle.

Take a look:

s/o to whoever installed this Trump statue in Union Square last night pic.twitter.com/Cldd4qkgyI

— JamesMichael Nichols (@jamesmichael) August 18, 2016

By 1:20pm (or so) the statue in Union Square had come down.  But not without some commentary from the NYC Parks Department.  That afternoon, they issued this statement:

NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small.

Ouch.

INDECLINE, the artist collective that erected said tiny erections across the country, posted a video on the statue's creation:


Cue the right-wing/tea-party outrage.

Trump! Now with more Trump!

“I am who I am. It’s me. I don’t want to change. Everyone talks about, ‘Oh, well you’re going to pivot.’ I don’t want to pivot.”  

So said Donald Trump on Tuesday.

And if there are any members of the GOP still desperately holding out for the long promised pivot, those hopes came crashing down the very next day when Trump doubled down by choosing Steve Bannon, executive chairman of the radical right fringe Breitbart.com "news" site, as his new campaign chief -- a man called "the most dangerous political operative in America" by Bloomberg Businessweek.

How radical right fringe is Breitbart.com? Media Matters gives some of their worst headlines in an article here which include:

Sorry, GOP. Trump is who he is.

Meanwhile, Outside...(NOAA State of the Climate Report for July 2016)

Remember a coupla days ago when I said we were "still a few days away" from NOAA's July "State of the Climate" report?

Well, today's the day:

For the 15th consecutive month, the global land and ocean temperature departure from average was the highest since global temperature records began in 1880. This marks the longest such streak in NOAA's 137 years of record keeping.

And:

[S]ince July is climatologically the globe's warmest month of the year, the July 2016 global land and ocean temperature (16.67°C / 62.01°F) was the highest temperature for any month on record, surpassing the previous record set in July 2015.

So last July was the warmest month on record - until this July.

So how does your favorite municipal/statewide/congressional/presidential candidate stand on the science?

Chances are, if they're a republican, they're agin it - even though it's still getting warmer out there.

Sad.

So Where's PAT TOOMEY, These Days?

Not as interesting as Carmen Santiago, admittedly, but as his party implodes around him (thanks to their chosen leader, Donald Trump) Pat Toomey's out campaigning.

The Centre Daily has the info:

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., kicked off an eight-day, 26-county re-election bid tour on Sunday in a bus with the words “security, prosperity, independence” displayed in capital letters on the side.

The tour made two stops in the area on Tuesday — one in Spruce Creek in Huntingdon County and the other at Champs Sports Grill on North Atherton Street in State College. Security was a topic of much discussion.

Ah...but he's not alone.

Our friends at NextGen are with him.

From their press release:

On August 16, NextGen Climate PA, Planned Parenthood, For our Future, and grassroots activists will follow Senator Pat Toomey's bus tour through central PA. Traveling with a giant 10 foot friendship bracelet, attendees will highlight the similarities between the candidates on important issues and note their dangerous and extreme agenda for Pennsylvanians.

"It's hard not to notice all of the things that Senator Toomey and Donald Trump have in common. With so many similarities between them when it comes to important issues, one might even go as far as to call them 'BFFs.' It's easy to imagine them watching the game, sharing a pizza, and discussing ways to keep lining the pockets of corporate polluters rather than addressing climate change and putting the public health of Pennsylvania families first," said Pat Millham, State Director for NextGen Pennsylvania.

In case you didn't know, NextGen Climate:

...is a San Francisco-based environmental advocacy organization. Founded by businessperson and philanthropist Tom Steyer in 2013, we act politically to prevent climate disaster and promote prosperity for every American. Working at every level, we are committed to supporting candidates, elected officials, and policymakers across the country that will take bold action on climate change. NextGen Climate Action is a 501(c)(4) organization. NextGen Climate Action Committee is a political action committee.

Which is interesting considering Toomey's visit yesterday.

From the Centre Daily:

At an event hosted by U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Howard Township, for agricultural leaders, Toomey said the Iran nuclear deal “endangers us.”

Representative Thompson is a climate science denier (as is Toomey, for that matter).

In 2009, when the Democrats were the majority in the house, Thompson said this about climate science:

In the debate and most of the debate of the majority party here, it's not so much based on real science as political science or even, to some degree, science fiction.

And we all know Toomey doesn't believe human activity significantly contributes to climate change.

And we all know the leader of their party thinks it's a hoax.

As much as Toomey tries to distance himself from his party's leader, he simply can't.  And good for NextGen Climate for reminding us all how deep that friendship (that perfect blendship) really is.

Warmer, Warmer, Warmer...(This Past July Was The Warmest Month Since Records Began)

We're still a few days away from NOAA's monthly "State of the Climate" report for July but if the data from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies is any indication, it's still getting warmer.

From Weather.com:

Global mean temperatures in July 2016 were the warmest on record not just for July, but for any month dating to the late 1800s, according to separate just-released analyses.

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies found July 2016 was the globe's warmest July in their dataset dating to 1880.

Not only that, but this same conclusion was reached elsewhere.

In Europe, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (which is run by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) stated recently that:

Copernicus Climate Change Service, operated by ECMWF, confirms July average surface air temperature 0.19 ^OC higher than previous records in 2009 and 2015.

In Japan, the story from the Japan Meteorological Agency is much the same AND they have a chart:

Tell me again about this Chinese Hoax of Donald Trump.

Tell me again how Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey isn't denying the science when he voted against the idea that "human activity significantly contributes to climate change."

Meanwhile, it's still getting warmer out there.  No question about it.

Denying the scientific truth won't make it go away.

Jack Kelly Sunday (UPDATE!!)

This'll be a short one - as Jack's column this morning is mostly about how Donald Trump has ruined the GOP.

But in doing so, Jack commits one yuge error - one that right from the beginning necessitates me asking:

Doesn't anyone fact-check Jack Kelly at the P-G?

It's in this paragraph, Jack's second:

A top official at the Clinton Foundation told State Department aides to give special access to a Lebanese businessman who pled guilty to laundering funds for a Nigerian dictator, emails released Tuesday revealed. The dictator, Gilbert Chagoury, pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative in 2009.

He's using this example (and another about how the father of the Orlando shooter ended up at a Clinton rally in Florida) to show what Trump should have been talking about rather than the "joke" of how the "Second Amendment People" can take care of Clinton and/or her judicial appointees if she were to be able to "pick her judges" - and so on.

But look at that paragraph.  Jack wrote that an official at the Clinton Foundation told State Department aides to give special access to a Lebanese businessman.  Jack said this guy was found guilty for laundering money for a Nigerian dictator.  Jack then said that the dictator's name is "Gilbert Chagoury" and that he pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative.

Only the name of the dictator was Sani Abacha.  "Gilbert Chagoury" is the name of the Lebanese businessman - PBS did a piece on this in early 2010.

So it's hardly a difficult-to-find piece of information.   How could Jack Kelly and/or his editor(s) get it so freaking wrong?  Doesn't anyone even look at these things before they go to press?

Now let's look at  Jack's first paragraph:

At a rally in Florida Monday, Seddique Mateen, father of Omar Mateen, who murdered 49 at a gay nightclub in Orlando, sat in a place of honor behind the podium where Hillary Clinton was speaking. Mr. Mateen is not responsible for his son’s horrific crime. But he has some fishy associations. Evidently Hillary Clinton — or some on her staff — have difficulty distinguishing between Muslim patriots such as Army Capt. Humayun Khan, and Islamist terrorists such as Omar Mateen.

The implication is clear: Seddique Mateen was given a place of honor.  Despite the fact that the campaign, upon learning who he was issued a statement that read:

This individual wasn't invited as a guest and the campaign was unaware of his attendance until after the event.

Something Jack Kelly decided not to tell you.

But that's a more or less usual sort of sin by omission that Jack Kelly makes.  The first flub, bub, is a sin of even higher proportions - didn't they teach you in Journalism class that you always have to get the easy facts right?  Not confusing a Nigerian dictator with a Lebanese businessman seems to be an easy one.

So I'll ask it yet again:

Doesn't anyone fact-check Jack Kelly at the Post-Gazette?

By Grabthar's frickin' Hammer, why do I have to do it?

UPDATE: A few hours after I posted this, I got word that the P-G issued a correction.  Here it is:

Correction (posted Aug. 14): Businessman Gilbert Chagoury pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative in 2009. An earlier version incorrectly said that the Nigerian dictator for whom he laundered money pledged the $1 billion.

You're welcome.  Now can we get someone to do this before Jack's column goes to print?  Maybe, that way, we can save the paper from all sorts of Jack Kelly inspired embarrassments.  Like these embarrassments about:

• Black Lives Matter
• Benghazi
• Slavery
• Torture
• Climate Change

And so on.

NON-Political Posting - 2PJ Gets A Shout Out!

Occasionally, I find it necessary to take a step back and post something completely non-political.

(It helps balance out the humours, you know, so's I don't have to go for a bloodletting or some chinese cupping.)

Anyway, my good friend Gab Bonesso has a YouTube channel and once a week on this YouTube channel she posts a food review.  To make a short story even shorter, at my gentle nagging she reviewed one of my faves:


Um.  I'm not really sure what's going on with Gab in this video.  She's usually so sedate and even-tempered (I mean, HER humours are never out of balance!).  Think Ben Stein in Ferris Beuller or Eugene Levy's Perry Como and you'll get the idea of how utterly and completely low-energy Gab usually is.

While I'm a yuge fan of  the Tasty Kake Chocolate Juniors, the lovely wife isn't.  So when Gab found out, she offered to adjudicate.

How about you?  Are you on #TeamDavid or #TeamJanet?

(I should note for the record that except for the TastyKakes and her stubborn Pittsburgh-ese pronunciation of the word "gnocchi", I am and forever be on #TeamJanet.)

A Question For Senator Pat Toomey - Who's Unacceptable?

Senator, recently you said on Philadelphia radio station that, while you still have some "real problems" with some of the things Donald Trump has said on foreign policy, you think that Hillary Clinton is "completely, permanently unacceptable."

Yesterday, Donald Trump stated (and then restated) his belief that President Obama literally "founded" ISIS.

Given how completely wrong that very clear and unambiguous foreign policy statement was, can you still think that Hillary Clinton is the one who's completely and permanently unacceptable?

Remember Trump was the guy who said that:

• Thousands and thousands of people were cheering" in Jersey City, celebrating 9/11 - Completely False.
• The Obama administration was actively supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq, the terrorist group that became the Islamic State. - Completely false. 
• He wants to bring back waterboarding - an illegal method of torture and thus a war crime.

Besides, Donald Trump is a birther.

The NYTimes reported:

Fifty of the nation’s most senior Republican national security officials, many of them former top aides or cabinet members for President George W. Bush, have signed a letter declaring that Donald J. Trump “lacks the character, values and experience” to be president and “would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.”

Mr. Trump, the officials warn, “would be the most reckless president in American history.”

And yet you, Pat Toomey, still think Trump's opponent is the unacceptable one?

Good God man, if all that isn't enough to sway your opinion, then your judgement has to be called into question - you're the one who's unacceptable.

The Tribune-Review Editorial Board Sides WIth Trump's "2nd Amendment People" - For A Very Weird Reason

Take a look:

And, yes, even we were tempted to join the chorus of those eviscerating the Republican presidential nominee for his comments about the future of gun rights should Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton prevail on Nov. 8. But that would have played into the Democrats' false narrative about the Second Amendment.

Said Mr. Trump on Tuesday at a North Carolina rally: “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. ... If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know.”

Exploiting Trump's often discombobulated speaking style, critics were quick to say he was advocating violence against Mrs. Clinton, if not her assassination. He was not, of course. Substitute any issues and those issues' advocacy groups in Trump's comments and that's easy to see.

Let's begin by going back to Trump's full quote (something I failed to do yesterday).  From Politico:

Donald Trump on Tuesday said "the Second Amendment people" may be the only way to stop Hillary Clinton from getting to appoint federal judges if she wins the presidential election in November.

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment,” he said as an aside while smiling. “By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”[Emphasis added.]

By adding that last sentence (again, something I failed to do yesterday) we see that Trump could not have been talking about unifying "the 2nd Amendment people" to vote against Clinton (what - they're not already so unified??) but about what would happen after her inauguration.

John Micek over at PennLive explains the importance of that last sentence:

In a nation awash in weapons, at a time when every city street in America, including those in Harrisburg, reverberates almost daily with the sound of gunfire, that there could be no mistaking its meaning.

No amount of backpedaling, no amount of outrage about a "dishonest" media or angry charges that "Crooked Hillary" was twisting his words could unring the bell that he had so loudly rung.

And this is how the Trib braintrust mistakes its meaning:

He was not [advocating the assassination of Hillary Clinton], of course.  Substitute any issues and those issues' advocacy groups in Trump's comments and that's easy to see.

One question: What? How?

Ok, that was two questions - but still.

The whole reason the braintrust is on the orange birther's side is because they don't want to be seen agreeing with this:

But the manufactured reaction does expose how the most extreme Democrats view the Second Amendment — as the first refuge of crazy wannabe political assassins.

That's it, ladies and gentlemen - a straw man argument if ever there was one.  That's why they're giving Trump a pass on this.

Want a clearer picture of what's going on?  Take a look at Thomas Friedman's first sentence (and all the other sentences!) from his column a couple days ago:

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin got assassinated.

And what Donald Trump said, joking or not, stupid or not, has no place in presidential politics.  The fact that he didn't know enough not to say it...well, that tells you enough about whether he should be president.

Donald Trump's 2nd Amendment Solutions

We usually don't do this, but the OPJ and I are blogging on the same thing - namely Donald Trump and his Second Amendment solution to a Clinton win in November.

Orange-face comb-over said this:

Hillary wants to abolish -- essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know.

First off, there's no evidence Clinton wants to "abolish" the Second Amendment. So there's lie número uno.

Next notice the grammar of the next sentence.  By using "...if she gets to pick..." Trump is saying that this must be after the election since when the only way Clinton could pick judges would be if she were already president.  This exposes the Trump campaign's response:

It’s called the power of unification – 2nd Amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power. And this year, they will be voting in record numbers, and it won’t be for Hillary Clinton, it will be for Donald Trump.

(Since it seems to be discussing the election - that is, before Clinton would be president, if she were to win) as lie número dos.

In any event 18 U.S. Code § 879 states:

(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully threatens to kill, kidnap, or inflict bodily harm upon...a major candidate for the office of President or Vice President, or a member of the immediate family of such candidate...shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.

So it looks like Trump may have committed a crime - whether he was joking or not.

But here's the thing: this is nothing new.  Look again at what Trump said.  It feeds into the rhetoric we've been hearing about for some time about what the 2nd Amendment is for; namely to protect "us" from a tyrannical guv'ment.

Remember this?  It's only from 5 years ago:

Sharron Angle, the Tea Party candidate turned Republican primary winner in Nevada, has taken heat for a number of extreme affiliations and policy positions. One of the more outlandish was a statement she made during a radio interview last January in which she floated the idea that the public would bring down an out-of-control Congress with “Second Amendment remedies.”

Or this from one of the non-Trumps in the GOP:

It's a given that every Republican presidential candidate will run for president as a strong supporter of gun rights.

But Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is arguing that the Second Amendment includes a right to revolt against government tyranny, a point of emphasis uncommon for mainstream presidential candidates.

"The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution isn't for just protecting hunting rights, and it's not only to safeguard your right to target practice. It is a Constitutional right to protect your children, your family, your home, our lives, and to serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny -- for the protection of liberty," Cruz wrote to supporters in a fundraising email on Thursday, under the subject line "2nd Amendment against tyranny."

So if you think that a Clinton win will lead to Clinton judges outlawing the 2nd Amendment and that that's guv'ment tyranny, then...

Donald Trump is not an outlier on the GOP.  He's not a usurper who's taken over the party.  He's a natural outgrowth (a cancerous one, to be sure) of some of the rhetoric that's been swirling there for some time.

Lucky us.

#HowThisElectionHasMeFeeling

It hasn't been a joke for a very long time, and no one should be surprised

Donald Trump's big economic speech on Monday at the Detroit Economic Club was supposed to be his attempt at rebooting his campaign -- pivoting away from, as CNN put it, "a week of brutal self-inflicted wounds" and looking presidential amid increasing questions about his mental stability by, well, pretty much everyone who doesn't own a "Make America Great Again" hat.

It didn't last a day.

Here's Trump on Tuesday:

   

Text: "Hillary wants to abolish -- essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know." 

But no one should be surprised. It's only a hop, skip, and a jump from calling for the jailing of your political opponent to calling for their assassination. So if you didn't see this coming, shame on you!

This is a man, after all, who is going strictly by the Dictator's playbook:

He has demonized minorities

He has attacked a member of the judiciary based solely on their ethnic origin 

He has called for banning entry to the country based on religion 

He has pledged to curb press freedom through libel laws 

He has called for the torture and killing of civilians 

He has regularly praised authoritarian governments and dictators and has called for a foreign power to interfere in our elections

He has called for the imprisonment of his political opponent, and now 

He has suggested that his political rival should be assassinated

Oh, yeah. He's also signaled his interest in using nuclear weapons.

This hasn't been a joke for a very long time. And, no one should be surprised anymore at anything Trump has to say.

Rightwing Smear Machine Smears And Smears Again

I'm sure, by now, you've seen the photo of Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton being helped up a set of stairs (the implication being that she's in frail health).

Too bad the picture's from last February and there's nothing in it to indicate any bad health news.

But of course to our friends on the right facts (whether about climate or evolution or whatever) have any validity whatsoever.

The CNN places this current smear into a broader context:

The photos were forgotten -- until Saturday. What happened then, when a cadre of pro-Trump Twitter accounts started reposting the pictures as evidence that Clinton has a hard time walking, shows how easily photos can be distorted to take on a new and more sinister meaning.

In conspiratorial corners of the conservative media, doubts about Clinton's health and stamina have persisted ever since she had a health scare in 2012. Some armchair commentators even predicted Clinton wouldn't be able to run for president in 2016.

They were clearly wrong, and the health concerns are largely considered a fringe issue. Her personal physician said one year ago that she was physically fit to serve as president.

Smear, smear, smear.

State Of The Climate - American Meterological Society

From the website:

An international, peer-reviewed publication released each summer, the State of the Climate is the authoritative annual summary of the global climate published as a supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The report, compiled by NOAA’s Center for Weather and Climate at the National Centers for Environmental Information is based on contributions from scientists from around the world. It provides a detailed update on global climate indicators, notable weather events, and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments located on land, water, ice, and in space.

Here are some highlights - the first paragraph from the chapter titled "Global Climate":

Following the warmest year on record in 2014 according to most estimates, 2015 reached record warmth yet again, surpassing the previous record by more than 0.1°C. The considerable warmth, protracted strong El Niño, and new record levels of greenhouse gases provided climatological highlights for the year.

And:

Atmospheric burdens of the three dominant greenhouse gases (CO₂, CH ₄, N₂O) all continued to increase during 2015. The annual average CO₂ mole fraction at Mauna Loa, Hawaii (MLO), exceeded 400 ppm, a milestone never before surpassed in the MLO record or in measurements of air trapped in ice cores for up to 800,000 years.

And so on.

Things That Donald Trump Doesn't Like

Scenes From Trump Rallies (NSFW!)

From the NYTimes.


WTF am I supposed to do with this?

Trump'd!

Please let this last year all have been a joke (in very, very poor taste.)

Please cancel this show

What Is WRONG With Trump??

By now we all know the Trump/Khan smack-down.

I've tried to think about how to approach the story but each day the story shifts and Trump does something even more disgusting.

Case in point.  Today in the Post-Gazette, Tony Norman has a thoughtful yet angry, succinct yet indepth description of Trump's behavior:

When asked to define “hard-core pornography,” in the 1964 case of a French film that the state of Ohio had banned as obscene, the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart gave us an immortal rejoinder: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within the shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so,” he wrote. “But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.”

That’s how most Americans, regardless of politics or ideology, feel about indecency. They know it when they see it. And on this one point, we are mostly agreed — Donald Trump is no longer just a second-rate Bond villain manque. In a fractious, pluralistic political environment, he’s become the personification of indecency itself. We all know this because we can see it in all of its terrible orange-ish majesty.

Last week at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, an American Muslim named Khizr Khan made the case that Muslim Americans have made sacrifices for this country, too. It was a simple proposition that should have been a given, but isn’t thanks to hateful demagogues who have convinced many of their fellow Americans that patriotism and Islam are incompatible

And so on.  It's a good read.  Go read it.

The operant word here is: indecency.

And this being Donald Trump's indecency, there's been more in the news since Tony filed this story.

For example this:

In an interview today with a local ABC affiliate in Columbus, Ohio, Donald Trump suggested that what angered critic Khizr Khan was Trump's aggressive efforts to prevent terrorists from entering the country.

"It's a very big subject for me, border security is very big. When you have radical Islamic terrorists probably all over the place, we’re allowing them to come in by the thousands and thousands. And I think that’s what bothered Mr. Khan more than anything else. And, you know, I’m not going to change my views on that. We have radical Islamic terrorists coming in that have to be stopped. We’re taking them in by the thousands.” [Emphasis in original.]

Yes, of course that's the case!  Khan's grief had nothing to do with the death of his son.  In Trump's mind, Khan is more upset about Trump's plan to stop the thousands and thousands of radical Islamic terrorists that he thinks are streaming over the border.

Because, you know, they're both Muslim and we all know about those people, amirite?

For some guidance, let's go to someone wealthier than Donald Trump:


But I guess we know the answer: Donald Trump has no decency.