Trump and the Media Cartoon

Inside the world of Donald Trump’s superfans

ANDERSON, S.C. — Paulette Del Casale and a friend drove nearly three hours last week from the Atlanta suburbs to this rural, northwest corner of South Carolina to experience a Donald Trump rally — again.
It was Del Casale’s fourth Trump event in three states, and for the first time she was going to work as a volunteer for a political campaign. She cheered through the Republican presidential candidate’s hour-long speech and, afterward, posed for photos with new friends and plugged a private Facebook group she helps moderate, “Trump Defeats the Establishment.”
“I feel, for the first time in my life, that I am not invisible,” said Del Casale, who decorated her campaign T-shirt with 14 large pro-Trump buttons. “For the first time, I feel like there’s actually somebody running for president who is speaking on behalf of myself and others like me.”
Del Casale is a prime example of the superfans who flock to Trump. They drive hours to campaign events and wait in Black Friday-like lines to get a spot close to the front. Many have never attended a political rally or regularly voted. Yet they devote hours each week to pro-Trump Facebook clubs and Twitter accounts and try to convince their relatives, friends and neighbors that the bombastic billionaire should be the leader of the free world.
“He hits the sore points that everybody kind of wants to steer around,” said Brett Hevner, a newly married 25-year-old who lives in Anderson and works for Pepsi. “That’s what I like about him — he’s not afraid to get in there and take the bullet. He’s not scared of anything, and that’s what we need.”
Trump’s campaign is not like most — and neither are Trump crowds. A recent speech in North Charleston attracted a group of middle-aged moms wearing homemade pro-Trump T-shirts and carrying elaborate signs. There was also a 71-year-old woman who said she watches cable television 15 hours a day to keep up with all of Trump’s comments. An appearance in rural Massachusetts attracted a man who has wanted Trump to run since 2012, as documented in a faded T-shirt featuring a cartoon Trump telling President Obama he is fired.
At a rally in Las Vegas, Trump invited onto the stage a star-struck fan clutching a copy of People magazine featuring his face. “I love Mr. Trump!” yelled Myriam Witcher, an immigrant from Colombia who bounced with the excitement of a teenaged girl meeting a boy-band heartthrob. “I am Hispanic, and I vote for Mr. Trump!”
At the rally in Anderson, cars in the parking lot were more likely to have a bumper sticker plugging a university, sports team or honors student than a political campaign. Inside were military veterans who were given seats of honor, high school students who won’t be old enough to vote next year and a 68-year-old retiree who attends as many Trump rallies as he can wearing a black and gold sombrero.
“I wear this in support because I feel like some Mexican people do support him and everything,” said Jim Yates of Laurens, S.C., a veteran of the Vietnam War and retired toolmaker whose favorite politicians are the ones who challenge longtime incumbents. “What I like about Trump is he tells it like it is. . . . We gonna hopefully build that wall, 25 or 30 feet. I’m gonna go down there and help him.”
Trump’s operation has been trying to identify his most passionate fans and funnel their energy into traditional campaign activities. Del Casale connected with one of Trump’s organizers on Facebook and agreed to help at last week’s rally. Wearing a laminated volunteer pass, she handed out yard signs, greeted the more than 5,500 people who arrived and cheered until she was hoarse.
When Trump said Republicans haven’t done enough to confront illegal immigration, Del Casale shouted, “We’re going to build a wall!” As he promised to get rid of the Common Core education standards, she agreed: “It’s child abuse!” And as Trump acknowledged that sometimes his tone can be a bit rough, she shouted, “We don’t need nice!” As Trump left the stage and rock music blared, she began to dance.

Thousands of Israelis join lawsuit against Facebook over pages inciting violence

Thousands of Israeli Jews took legal action against Facebook in a New York court Monday, alleging it allowed jihadists to openly recruit and train terrorists and plan terror attacks on its pages.
Some 20,000 Israelis, organized by the Israel-based non-profit Shurat HaDin -The Israel Law Center - joined a civil lawsuit filed Monday in the Supreme Court for the State of New York, seeking an injunction against Facebook.
The law center wants to force Facebook not only to remove the terrorists' pages, but also to better monitor and block users who post videos glorifying and encouraging terrorist attacks, and publish messages with instructions on how to carry out an attack.
“The terrorists do not come on their own; they write posts and encourage their friends to kill Jews,” said Israeli attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin. “Facebook has been transformed into an anti-Semitic incubator for murder.”
While Facebook is accused in the suit of “intentionally disregarding the widespread incitement and calls for murder of Jews posted on its web pages by Palestinians,” a spokesman for Facebook said the lawsuit is without merit.
“We want people to feel safe when using Facebook. There is no place for content encouraging violence, direct threats, terrorism or hate speech on Facebook,” the company said in a statement to FoxNews.com. “As a community of nearly 1.5 billion people, we have a set of Community Standards to help people understand what is allowed on Facebook, and we urge people to use our reporting tools if they find content that they believe violates our standards so we can investigate and take swift action.”
The company maintains it encourages users to report inappropriate or dangerous messages linked to pages, profiles or individual content and a team of safety experts prioritizes investigations by reviewing the most serious first.
But Israelis involved in the lawsuit believe more needs to be done, especially on the heels of a “wave of terror” that resulted in seven Israelis being brutally murdered and several dozen others victims of stabbings.
They point to lead plaintiff Richard Lankin, 76, who was shot in the head and stabbed multiple times Oct. 13, 2015 by Palestinian terrorists armed with guns and knives from East Jerusalem as he rode on a crowded Jerusalem bus.
Lankin, in critical condition, is being treated for life-threatening injuries in a Jerusalem hospital.Two other Israelis were murdered and more than 20 were wounded in that bus attack.
The lawsuit, filed by attorneys Robert Tolchin of New York, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner the director of the Shurat HaDin civil rights organization, and Asher Perlin of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, claims the plaintiffs "have been living in the crosshairs of a murderous terrorist rampage carried out by killers who attack people with knives, axes, screwdrivers, cars and Molotov cocktails for no reason other than that the attacker perceives the victims to be Jewish.
“Many of these murderers were motivated to commit their heinous crimes by incitement to murder they read on Facebook—demagogues and leaders exhorting their followers to ‘slaughter the Jews,’ and offering instruction as to the best manner to do so, including even anatomical charts showing the best places to stab a human being,” the complaint states.
Since Facebook uses algorithms that match users with personalized ads and connect them to potential “friends,” the company should have the ability to monitor and block such postings, the lawsuit said.
U.S. based software company GIPEC has developed software to monitor illegal activity on social media, which is used by law enforcement to identify terrorist-related pages and track piracy, counterfeiting and pornography.
A GIPEC company spokesman said there is no excuse for social media companies not to be pro-active in removing terrorist-related content immediately.
“Terrorist organizations are spending time and money and using American social media platforms to recruit and incite sympathizers and ‘lone wolves’ here in the United States and Israel and around the world,” said the GIPEC spokesperson. “The social media companies supported by advertising revenue have a moral responsibility to make their platforms safe from these horrific and directional posts that call for terrorist behavior that we have been witnessing over the past months.”
Hanan Yadin, an Israeli whose Texas-based company, Instinctive Shooting Int'l, LLC, trains military and law enforcement about terrorism related conflicts, said combating terrorism, both on the ground and virtually, is an ongoing challenge.
“I am not sure that anyone can stop this completely,” Yadin said, noting as one terrorist page is pulled down, another goes up. “This is a warfare game, psychological warfare – to instill fear and intimidation among the targets. It is also an effective and cheap tool to instigate and to recruit.”
Veryan Khan, editorial director of Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC), said Facebook is just one of many social media outlets being utilized by terrorists to spread their message of hate.
Others allegedly include YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, Instagram, Pinterest, Ask.FM, Tumblr, SendVid, Dump.to, Just Paste.it, Nasher.me, Scribid and a new web site, Telegram.
Terrorists have used these networks to release 19 different videos since Friday calling for attack on Jews in Israel, she said.
Khan believes Facebook is doing its best to monitor dangerous activity, but the challenge is that like playing the game “whack-a-mole,” as soon as one account is taken down, another opens.
Darshan-Leitner told FoxNews.com that Facebook is just the first of several social media companies that may be targets of future lawsuits by her group unless they begin to better counter terrorist postings and activities.

Business, states open legal fire on EPA’s Clean Power Plan rule

The legal barrage to halt the Environmental Protection Agency’s radical Clean Power Plan has begun.
A broad coalition of U.S. industry and business, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,  the National Association of Manufacturers, and an armada of other business and industry organizations, has  asked the D.C. District of the federal Court of Appeals to prevent any further action on the Plan until the court can decide its overall legal status.
The coalition filed a motion at their first opportunity on Friday to stay EPA’s long-awaited final rule governing the  plan, immediately after the agency published the rule in the Federal Register—the official birth notice of the long-gestating plan to drastically remake the entire U.S. electrical system, and among other things  create a nationwide trading system for carbon emissions that was blocked by the Senate in 2009.
The business coalition argues that a huge, unprecedented and illegal expansion of EPA authority over the country’s entire electrical power system  will cause “irreparable harm” unless complicated planning process ordained by the rule is halted  while that legal battle over the entire program is  fought, a process likely to last through most of 2016, if not longer.
In support of their argument they provided testimony not only from business groups but also trade unions and even school boards to buttress their concerns about the disastrous potential effects of failing to halt the process while the legal battles continue.
CLICK HERE FOR THE BUSINESS GROUP MOTION TO THE COURT
At  least 26 state Attorneys General  associations and as-yet uncounted numbers of individual companies separately asked the appeals court for a stay of  the rule on roughly similar grounds.
As a motion by 24 states to the appeals court puts it,  an  “unprecedented, unlawful attempt by an environmental regulator to reorganize the nation’s energy grid” is  intended to force the States and other bodies to make “immediate” and irreversible decisions  to plan compliance with EPA’s rule before courts have ruled whether the plan is legal or not.
CLICK HERE FOR THE STATE MOTION TO THE COURT
“Every American industry is affected by the rule,” declared Karen Harbert, president and CEO  of the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for 21^st Century Energy, at a call-in press conference today to explain the action.
The opponents argue that in broad legal terms, EPA’s plan depends on the selective misinterpretation of some 300 words in the Clean Air Act that have never previously been used to regulate carbon emissions in such sweeping fashion.
The interpretation of little-known section 111 (d) of the Clean Air Act extends far beyond the setting of standards for individual sources—which the opponents argue is the sole basis of the law—to push states and regions into enforcing the cuts on a much more sweeping basis.
Under the rule, U.S. states have until September 2016 to create plans that implement customized levels of carbon emission reductions established by EPA, or seek a 2-year extension if that proves impossible. EPA decides if they get the extension, but adds that those granted the reprieve must provide an update of their plans in 2017.
Full compliance with the emissions reductions goes into effect in 2022—two years later than EPA originally declared it would-- and they are supposed to produce 32 per cent reductions in emissions from existing power plants by 2030.
States that do not come up with plans that EPA deems satisfactory, or choose not to follow the new rules, will get EPA-designed plans instead—none of which have so far been seen.
Those deadlines, both states and business groups argue, are largely intended to force states to choose  in advance to shut down at a minimum roughly 11,000 megawatts of U.S. coal-fired power states by 2016, force mammoth reliance on new and unproven sources of renewable energy, and likely undercut the stability of the entire national U.S. electricity supply—and even then force suppliers to use a cap-and-trade system of emissions reduction certificates to stave off some of the drastic changes.
As one piece of evidence, the business petitioners  point out that the final version of EPA’s rule sets emission levels for existing U.S. power plants that are about 7 per cent lower, for existing coal-fired plants, and  22 per cent lower, for existing natural gas-fired plants—that for brand-new facilities of either type.
Indeed, the business groups argue that under the published rule,” a new coal or gas plant with state-of-the-art controls could not achieve the emission rate [it] demands.”
“This disparity makes clear that the ‘existing source’ ceilings cannot be achieved by existing sources themselves,”  but business groups argue, but essentially are pushing energy providers into deep reliance on renewables and a cap-and-trade regime that was turned down in the U.S. Congress in 2009, something that EPA Administrator McCarthy has denied.
“Bottom line: the EPA has dramatically overstepped its authority,” said Karen Harned,  executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business’  Small Business Legal Center, which joined the 300,000-member Chamber in opposing the rule.
In response to questions, Linda Kelly, senior vice-president of the National Association of Manufacturers, charged that it was “pretty clear” that the timing of EPA’s publication of the final rule  was “related” to the Obama Administration’s desire to show leadership at the upcoming, United Nations-sponsored climate change summit in Paris, where world leaders intend to adopt a nation-by-nation approach to setting global carbon emission standards.
Said Kelly:  “The Clean Air Act was not designed as a tool for climate negotiations.”
For its part, EPA has argued, in the words of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, that its new rule “has strong scientific and legal foundations, provides states with broad flexibilities to design and implement plans, and is clearly within EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act.”
The agency has also declared that it “provided unprecedented outreach before and after the proposed Plan was issued,”  and considered 4.3 million comments in response to the proposal.
McCarthy has pointed to the two-year extension in the planning process for the huge energy makeover as proof of EPA’s flexibility and the reasonableness of the planning process.
“States and utilities told us they needed more time, and we listened,” she declared on an in-house blog.
The business groups rejoinder is  that while their comments were filed, they weren’t taken into account. Evidently, a majority of U.S. states—at least 26 out of 49 affected—to a significant extent agree.
Whether the opponents get the breathing space they say they need is itself going to take time to discover. Even an expedited appeals court hearing of the arguments for a stay of EPA’s timetable of execution could spill over into early 2016.
The business opponents to EPA’s plan would not second-guess the appeals court by saying whether they would go to the U.S. Supreme Court if their plea for a stay fails.
Speaking for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, however, Institute for 21^st Century Energy  CEO Harbert declared that her group “preserves all legal options through the entirety of the process.”

House GOP unveils two-year budget deal with White House

House Republican leaders have unveiled a tentative two-year budget agreement with the Obama White House aimed at preventing a partial government shutdown and and forestalling a debt crisis.
The text of the deal was posted to the House Rules Committee's website late Monday, setting up a final House debate and vote on the plan Wednesday. Sources told Fox News the House GOP leadership will likely require the support of almost all House Democrats and between 90 and 100 Republicans to see the agreement through.
The budget pact, coupled with a must-pass increase in the federal borrowing limit, would solve the thorniest issues awaiting Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who is set to be elected Speaker of the House on Thursday. However, sources told Fox that conservatives opposed to Ryan as speaker may use the proposed budget as a reason to vote against the House Ways and Means committee chair. Not enough members were expected to defect to imperil Ryan's election.
The deal would also take budget showdowns and government shutdown fights off the table until after the 2016 presidential election, a potential boon to Republican candidates who might otherwise face uncomfortable questions about messes in the GOP-led Congress.
Congress must raise the federal borrowing limit by Nov. 3 or risk a first-ever default, while money to pay for government operations runs out Dec. 11 unless Congress acts. The emerging framework would give both the Pentagon and domestic agencies two years of budget relief of $80 billion in exchange for cuts elsewhere in the budget.
Outlined for rank-and-file Republicans in a closed-door session Monday night, the budget relief would total $50 billion in the first year and $30 billion in the second year.
"Let's declare success," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Republicans, according to Rep. David Jolly, R-Fla., as the leadership sought to rally support for the emerging deal.
A chief selling point for GOP leaders is that the alternative is chaos and a stand-alone debt limit increase that might be forced on Republicans. But conservatives in the conference who drove Boehner to resign were not ready to fall in line.
"This is again just the umpteenth time that you have this big, big, huge deal that'll last for two years and we were told nothing about it," said Rep. John Fleming, R-La.
"I'm not excited about it at all," said Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz. "A two-year budget deal that raises the debt ceiling for basically the entire term of this presidency."
The measure under discussion would suspend the current $18.1 trillion debt limit through March 2017.
The budget side of the deal is aimed at undoing automatic spending cuts which are a byproduct of a 2011 budget and debt deal and the failure of Washington to subsequently tackle the government's fiscal woes. GOP defense hawks are a driving force, intent on reversing the automatic cuts and getting more money for the military.
The focus is on setting a new overall spending limit for agencies whose operating budgets are set by Congress each year. It will be up to the House and Senate Appropriations committees to produce a detailed omnibus spending bill by the Dec. 11 deadline.
The tentative pact anticipates designating further increases for the Pentagon as emergency war funds that can be made exempt from budget caps. Offsetting spending cuts that would pay for domestic spending increases included curbs on certain Medicare payments for outpatient services provided by hospitals and an extension of a 2-percentage-point cut in Medicare payments to doctors through the end of a 10-year budget.
There's also a drawdown from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, reforms  to crop insurance, and savings reaped from a Justice Department funds for crime victims and involving assets seized from criminals.
Negotiators looked to address two other key issues as well: a shortfall looming next year in Social Security payments to the disabled and a large increase for many retirees in Medicare premiums and deductibles for doctors' visits and other outpatient care.
The deal, which would apply to the 2016-17 budget years, resembles a pact that Ryan himself put together two years ago in concert with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that eased automatic spending cuts for the 2014-15 budget years. A lot of conservatives disliked that measure.
"It is past time that we do away with the harmful, draconian sequester cuts," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "We must also ensure that there are equal defense and nondefense increases."
Just days are left for the deal to come together before Ryan is elected Thursday to replace Boehner, R-Ohio, who is leaving Congress under pressure from conservative lawmakers angered by his history of seeking Democratic votes on issues like the budget.
The deal would make good on a promise Boehner made in the days after announcing his surprise resignation from Congress last month. He said at the time: "I don't want to leave my successor a dirty barn. I want to clean the barn up a little bit before the next person gets there."
Some of the more moderate Republican members welcomed the emerging deal and applauded Boehner.
"The outline that was presented seems like a path forward," said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa. "He said he was going to try to clean the barn and this is a good start."