Trump 2016 Cartoon

Donald Trump swears off Fox News after ‘unfair’ treatment

Donald Trump’s disgust for Fox News has reached the point that he has decided not to give the conservative-leaning channel any more interviews for the time being.

The Republican presidential frontrunner has been known to make noise when he feels Fox News has given him the shaft — this week is no exception.

“@FoxNews has been treating me very unfairly & I have therefore decided that I won’t be doing any more Fox shows for the foreseeable future,” he tweeted Wednesday afternoon.

Mere hours later, the Trump campaign released a statement saying that he stands by his comments.

“As a candidate for president of the United States and the definitive frontrunner in every poll, both nationally and statewide, including the just released poll in the state of Florida, Mr. Trump expects to be treated fairly,” the statement reads. “All you have to do is look at the tremendous ratings last night from ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,’ where Mr. Trump was the guest, or the ratings from both debates, to fully understand the facts.”

Shortly after, a Fox News spokesperson said that Trump’s “boycott” was a direct response to the channel canceling his scheduled appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor” Thursday.

“When coverage doesn’t go his way, he engages in personal attacks on our anchors and hosts, which has grown stale and tiresome,” the spokesperson said. “He doesn’t seem to grasp that candidates telling journalists what to ask is not how the media works in this country.”

The on-again, off-again feud started when Trump took issue with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly’s line of questioning at the first GOP primetime debate in early August.

Trump’s disgust with the network sprang back to life Monday night as he live-tweeted throughout Bill O'Reilly’s and Kelly’s programs at 8 and 9 respectively.

Trump, who said he was “having a really hard time” watching Fox News, accused “The O'Reilly Factor” of being “very negative” to him and refusing to publish polls that show him dominating the GOP primary.

In a tweet to the show, Trump wrote, “why don’t you have some knowledgeable talking heads on your show for a change, instead of the same old Trump-haters. The real estate magnate also suggested that Kelly should take another 11-day “unscheduled” vacation.

“Do you ever notice that lightweight @megynkelly constantly goes after me but when I hit back it is totally sexist. She is highly overrated!” Trump said.

Trump retweeted dozens of his supporters who called O'Reilly’s guests “spoon- fed morons” and pro-Bush RINOs (Republican in Name Only), and attacked Kelly for criticizing the Republican frontrunner.  

But the businessman’s anger is not reserved exclusively for Fox News. He also took issue with CNN’s handling of the second primetime GOP debate, held earlier this month.

“I wasn’t treated fairly by CNN,” Trump said to New York Magazine. “And it shouldn’t have been three hours long. It was too long. I can’t imagine anyone enjoying watching three hours of a debate.”

But plenty of people tuned in, largely because of Trump’s Midas touch when it comes to ratings.

For all of our Trump fans, a sweet little morsel left over from yesterday’s Gabriel Sherman post about the latest eruption of the Trump/Fox war.
Are there any Fox News hosts so obsequious towards Trump that they might dial him up and beg him to come back, like Johnny Fontane pleading with the Godfather to help him get that part he always wanted? Seems hard to imagine for most of them. Emphasis on “most.”

One reason there likely won’t be peace in our time is that Trump still has not gotten over Kelly’s questioning of him during the opening Republican primary debate. “She caused me a lot of damage, didn’t she?” Trump recently vented to a friend. “He’s really angry,” a source explained…
Both sides are posturing to save face. Yesterday a Fox statement called Trump’s boycott “stale and tiresome.” But a source close to the Trump campaign told me that Trump thinks he has the leverage. Trump has been hearing from Fox hosts who are worried that his boycott will hurt ratings. The calculus seems to be that by shunning Fox, Trump is hoping to drive a wedge between Fox hosts, Kelly, and Ailes. That may be wishful thinking. As an Ailes friend told me today: “Roger can’t turn back. The entire credibility of Fox as powerbroker rests on Trump being destroyed.”

That theory about Trump’s strategy would be more plausible if he hadn’t attacked Kelly with that nasty bit about bleeding out of her whatever, which was bound to create sympathy for her among her colleagues. I think the real strategy here is straightforward: Boycott Fox and cast them in the role of Republican establishment villain, a bad place to be for a network that presumes to cater to the Republican man on the street. Even if Fox’s ratings don’t begin to dive right now, the seeds will have been planted among pro-Trump viewers that Fox can’t be trusted. Eroding their populist credibility among their viewer base is a process and he’s trying to move that process along.
This bit from Breitbart seems plausible too:

An individual with knowledge of these matters told Breitbart News that Ailes is “furious” at Lowry for saying on Megyn Kelly’s program The Kelly File on Wednesday that former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina “cut [Trump’s] balls off with the precision of a surgeon, and he knows it, he knows it.”
Ailes is mad at Lowry because this move means, in the ongoing war between Fox News and Trump, Fox News has now “given up the moral high ground.” Essentially, Ailes understands, that means his network looks like the unfair aggressor that Trump has accused it of being—rather than a neutral arbiter of the news—all while Trump continues soaring in the 2016 GOP primary polls.

On the one hand, that lends a bit of credence to Sherman’s theory about the wedge that Trump is supposedly trying to drive between Kelly and the rest of the Fox universe. Colleagues who sympathized with her over the “bleeding” remark might not be as sympathetic now that her show was used by Lowry to throw a scatological insult back at Trump. It’s one thing for Fox to cover him unsparingly, it’s another thing to deliberately antagonize him. On the other hand, that supports my theory too that Trump’s true aim mainly is to hurt Fox’s credibility with its populist viewers. The litmus test for whether a media outlet is “establishment” is whether it’s treating him “unfairly,” whatever that means. Lowry’s comment about Fiorina cutting his balls off is something that a viewer who’s not sure about his critique of Fox could point to as proof that Trump’s right and that they really are out to get him. It’s unimaginable that the same sort of “balls” taunt would be aimed by a guest at, say, Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz. So now Ailes needs to make a big show about entertaining Trump’s grievances in order to show his fans among the Fox viewership that he’s taking their concerns seriously.

Bill Clinton blasts media for overblowing Hillary email scandal: 'Never seen so much expended on so little'

President Clinton isn't buying into the scandal swirling around his wife's use of personal emails during her time as Secretary of State.
In an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, the 42nd President of the United States said the controversy is merely "catnip" that the Republican Party is tossing at his wife in order to distract voters from the real issues like student loan debt, income inequality, mental health care and more.
"I actually am amazed she's borne up under it as well as she has; I've never seen so much expended on so little," Clinton said.He also pointed blame at the media, which the former president suggested has a knack for picking a candidate to target.
"The press has to have somebody every election — we're going to give them you. You better not run," he said, recounting a phone call he received from the George H. W. Bush administration in 1992, warning him not to run for president.
Clinton credited some in the media: "There have been a shocking number of really reputable press people who have explained how you can't receive or transmit classified information, how the government has no central authority for classification and that Defense, State and the intelligence agencies have their own."
He concluded: "I mean, there have been a lot of really fine things. It's just that they don't seem to show up on television very much. And it is what it is."

France launches first airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria

PARIS –  France has fired its first airstrikes in Syria as it expands military operations against Islamic State extremists, President Francois Hollande's office announced Sunday.
The office said that "France has hit Syria" based on information from French reconnaissance flights sent earlier this month. It didn't provide any further details.
France has been firing airstrikes on IS extremists in Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition since last year, but had resisted airstrikes in Syria because it didn't want to strengthen President Bashar Assad. Hollande announced a change in strategy earlier this month because of growing concern about the Syrian refugee crisis.
The president's office argued Sunday that it was a question of national defense, as France has been attacked and threatened by extremists claiming ties to IS.
Hollande, heading to the U.N. General Assembly, also stressed the importance of seeking a political solution for Syria.
"More than ever the urgency is putting in place a political transition," including elements of the opposition and Assad's regime, Hollande said.
France has remained opposed however to recent diplomatic suggestions of allowing Assad to stay in power for a limited time.
While no specifics were provided about the location or timing of the airstrikes, French military officials have said they would target IS training and logistical sites, according to French media reports.
The French government has insisted that while it is part of the U.S.-led coalition, France is deciding who and what to hit independently.
Hollande announced Sept. 7 that France would start airstrikes, days after the photo of a dead 3-year-old Syrian boy galvanized public concern about Syrian refugees.
In his statement Sunday, Hollande said: "Civilian populations must be protected from all forms of violence, that of IS and other terrorist groups but also the murderous bombardments of Bashar Assad."

In GOP White House races, candidates cast Boehner's departure as like-minded, anti-establishment victory

Candidates in the Republican presidential primary, which is largely a competition to prove one’s conservative credentials, are mostly applauding the resignation of House Speaker John Boehner, which was influenced by the chamber’s far-right members.
On Saturday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie suggested voters are unhappy with how Congress is being run and called for a “reset,” though like the other candidates didn’t mention Boehner by name.
“The American people are disappointed,” Christie told Fox News. “They gave our party the majority in both houses and we have not delivered some of the things we need to deliver.”
At the Values Voter Conference, Real estate mogul and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump said Friday that Republican congressional leaders like Boehner are "babies."
He also suggested that Boehner was personally likable but said, "We want people who are going to get it done."
The annual event, this weekend in Washington, has become something of a victory lap for conservative activists, as the 2016 candidates celebrate Boehner's departure by lashing out at congressional Republicans for not fighting hard enough for conservative priorities.
In the 2016 White House race, anti-establishment candidates such as Trump and Democratic candidate Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have done well tapping into voters' frustration with the Washington establishment.
Fellow top-tier candidate Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Friday said, "I'm not here to bash anyone, but the time has come to turn the page."
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, another GOP candidate, suggested that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also should resign.
Jindal said it's time for "a clean slate" of Republican leaders in Congress.
The Louisiana governor has struggled to stand out in the crowded Republican presidential field. He's been increasingly critical of the GOP establishment in recent weeks.
Jindal called congressional Republicans "the surrender caucus." He said Boehner and McConnell "need to surrender their gavels" to make room for "someone who is willing to fight to protect our conservative ideals."

Trump stays on top in first post-debate Fox News poll

Businessman Donald Trump remains the front-runner for the GOP’s 2016 presidential nomination following his last debate performance, a new poll says.

 

Trump remains 8 points above his nearest competition following last week’s contest in Simi Valley, Calif., according to a Fox News survey.

 

 

Trump commands 26 percent support. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, meanwhile, ranks second, with 18 percent.

 

Trump led an August version of the poll with 25 percent, followed by Carson at 12 percent and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at 10 percent.

 

Fox News’s latest results follow Trump’s boycott against the media outlet earlier Wednesday following repeated spats with its various personalities.

 

“@FoxNews has been treating me very unfairly and I have therefore decided that I won’t be doing any more Fox shows for the foreseeable future,” Trump tweeted.

 

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tied for third place in Fox's poll with 9 percent apiece.

 

Cruz took fifth place with 8 percent, and former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) took sixth with 7 percent.

 

Trump, Carson, Fiorina and Rubio have all gone up in polling since the August version of the poll. Trump had 25 percent then, while Carson had 12 percent, Fiorina had 5 percent and Rubio 4 percent.

 

Bush and Cruz, meanwhile, have slid since August. Bush had 15 percent in that survey, and Cruz 10 percent.

 

The media outlet’s new samplings come as Republicans gravitate toward political outsiders during the 2016 election cycle.

 

Carson, Fiorina and Trump are all receiving significant interest for their campaigns despite the fact they each lack public service experience.

 

Fox News’s latest sampling said its results stem from a deep dissatisfaction among Republican voters with their party’s political establishment.

 

It found 62 percent of GOP primary voters feel “betrayed” by members of their political party serving in public office. Another 66 percent said the Republican-led Congress had not done enough to counter President Obama’s agenda.

 

Fox News conducted its sampling with 1,013 random cellphone and landline interviews conducted by Shaw & Co. Research Sept. 20-22 nationwide. It has a 4.5 percent margin of error among GOP primary voters.

Welfare Queen Cartoon

Maine mayor pushing bill to post welfare recipients’ addresses online

What's New?  Half the people in America sucks off of Welfare.

A Maine mayor is proposing a controversial name-and-shame strategy for welfare recipients, saying he plans to push a bill requiring the state to publish the names and addresses and other details for “every individual on the dole.”
Robert Macdonald, mayor of Lewiston, Maine, pitched the plan in his regular column for the Twin City Times. He noted that a website already lists information on state pensioners, and complained that “liberal, progressive legislators” think similar information on welfare recipients should be private.
“Well, the days of being quiet are gone,” he wrote. “We will be submitting a bill to the next legislative session asking that a website be created containing the names, addresses, length of time on assistance and the benefits being collected by every individual on the dole.
“After all, the public has a right to know how its money is being spent,” Macdonald said.
As Macdonald is a local official, he would need to get a state lawmaker to introduce the plan in the legislature. He told the Portland Press Herald he has discussed the plan with two state lawmakers.
The idea, though, quickly drew criticism in the state and beyond – including from his opponent in November’s election.
"Mayor MacDonald is wasting everyone's time,” Democratic candidate Ben Chin told FoxNews.com in an email. “He's never passed a single policy at the local level, let alone in the state legislature. Resorting to publicly shaming poor people is a sad, desperate act.”
Maine, though, is no stranger to controversial restrictions on welfare. Though the program commonly known as “welfare” uses federal dollars, states have the authority to set conditions on the funding, and Maine Gov. Paul LePage has pursued such reforms including drug-testing some recipients.
Macdonald defended his plan in an interview with the Press Herald.
“Go into a grocery store. They flaunt it,” he said of welfare recipients. “I’m not sorry. I hope this makes people think twice about applying for welfare.”
In his column, Macdonald also said he’d introduce a bill limiting assistance to 60 months total.

Washington (CNN)John Boehner, the Ohio Republican who steered his party to an overwhelming House majority in 2010, said in a news conference Friday afternoon he had decided only that morning to announce his plans to resign from Congress.

"Last night I started thinking about this and this morning I woke up and I said my prayers -- as I always do -- and I decided today's the day I'm going to do this. As simple as that," Boehner said during an emotional Capitol Hill press conference a day after he had a moving encounter with Pope Francis.

He will step down as Speaker and leave Congress at the end of October.

The Ohio Republican's tenure as Speaker has been marked by clashes with conservatives -- especially when it comes to fiscal policy. He's struggled to push through legislation to increase the debt ceiling and was facing another showdown next week to keep the government open. The Speaker has often relied on Democratic votes during these moments -- a strategy that has infuriated conservatives.

Boehner, who turns 65 in November, said Friday that he had planned to step down at the end of the year but turmoil within his caucus prompted him to resign earlier than planned.

"I got plenty of people following me but this turmoil that's been churning now for a couple of months, it's not good for the members and it's not good for the institution. If I was not planning on leaving here soon, I can tell you I would not have done it," Boehner said.

The abrupt decision comes amid heavy pressure from conservatives for Boehner to take a harder line on their causes, most recently over defunding Planned Parenthood as part of a package that would keep the government open. Boehner said he didn't want to put his fellow members through another vote to challenge his leadership.

Related: Speaker John Boehner's resignation sparks succession fight

Boehner, who has presided over the House since 2011, explained during a closed-door meeting with Republicans Friday morning that he had only planned to serve two terms as Speaker but decided to hold onto his post after then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his seat during a primary last year.

Boehner also told the lawmakers that Pope Francis' visit to Congress the day before was a crystallizing moment, according to the lawmaker. Boehner then read the prayer of St. Francis to the conference after announcing his decision.

Why now

Boehner said the main driver behind his resignation was concern for his conference, he also recalled emotionally when he and the Pope found themselves alone during the visit Thursday -- something Boehner, a devout Catholic, had sought since taking the helm of the House GOP caucus.

"The Pope puts his arm around me and kind of pulls me to him and says please pray for me. Who am I to pray for the Pope? But I did," Boehner said, struggling to hold back tears.

Boehner also drew on the Pope's words during his address to Congress on Thursday and said he hoped "we will all heed his call to live by the Golden Rule." He also stressed the importance for leaders to "find common ground to get things done."

He said he will not partake in the vote to choose his successor but said his deputy, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy "would make an excellent Speaker."

President Barack Obama said Friday at a previously scheduled news conference alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping that he called Boehner after learning of his resignation.

He did not say what he told Boehner, but praised him as "a good man" and "a patriot" who "cares deeply" about the country and always kept his word.

"We have obviously had a lot of disagreements and politically we're at different ends of the spectrum," Obama said. "He has always conducted himself with courtesy and civility with me. He has kept his word when he made a commitment. He is somebody who has been gracious. Most importantly he's somebody who understands that in government and in governance you don't get 100% of what you want."

Obama said he hoped Boehner's successor would recognize that political differences should not come at the risk of shutting down the government.

"There's no weakness in that. That's what government is in our democracy. You don't get what you want 100% of the time. So sometimes you take half a loaf, sometimes you take a quarter loaf and that's certainly something I've learned here in this office," Obama said.

Read: Obama calls Boehner 'a patriot'

Congressional leaders respond

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called Boehner's resignation "seismic for the House" and called it evidence of the far right's "hijacking" of the Republican Party. And she said the squabble to succeed Boehner will be "more than a distraction" to efforts to resolve the latest funding battle roiling the Hill.

"That resignation of the Speaker is a stark indication of the disarray of the House Republicans," Pelosi said during a Friday morning press conference.

Pelosi said she had not yet spoken with Boehner, but affirmed that she planned to continue negotiating directly with him to achieve her goal of funding Planned Parenthood.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid tweeted similarly that the ouster of "a good man like Speaker Boehner -- someone who understood the art of compromise" showed that "the party of Eisenhower and Reagan is no more."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also lamented Boehner's resignation, saying it is "very, very sad" that the tea party has "taken over control of the party."

"John Boehner, he ... is a conservative Republican, but his problem is that John Boehner has been pragmatic. He realizes that there come times when you have to make a deal," McConnell said, before pointing out that Reagan also "understood the art of compromise."

Boehner and McConnell have not always seen eye to eye as Boehner wrestled with hardline conservatives in his caucus, but McConnell said that throughout those disagreements, Boehner "never, ever misled me.

"His word was always good," McConnell said.

Syrian commander gives equipment to Al Qaeda affiliate, US military says

A U.S.-trained Syrian rebel commander has told the U.S. military that he surrendered six coalition-provided trucks and ammunition to an intermediary linked to the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, known as the Nusra Front.
U.S. Central Command said late Friday that roughly a quarter of the equipment assigned to that unit was apparently turned over earlier this week in exchange for safe passage within the region. U.S. officials said Syrians continue to insist they haven’t relinquished actual weapons to the terror group and that all of their personnel are still accounted for.
A military official told the Washington Post that assurances regarding the trade had come from the deputy commander of the group. It was the unit leader who surrendered the equipment and who contacted U.S. officials correcting the information on Friday, the official told the Post.
The command is still looking into the matter, said Air Force Co. Pat Ryder, a U.S. Central Command spokesman. However, the report contradicts information the Defense Department provided earlier Friday, which said reports of U.S.-trained Syrian rebels defecting and missing equipment going to the Nusra Front was incorrect.
"In light of this new information, we wanted to ensure the public was informed as quickly as possible about the facts as we know them at this time," Ryder said. "We are using all means at our disposal to look into what exactly happened and determine the appropriate response."
The report underscores persistent problems with the U.S.-led coalition’s effort to train and equip Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State in the embattled region. The Washington Post report White House and Pentagon officials are considering providing more weapons to a wider range of rebel groups in Syria, but now it could come in question in light of the recent incident.
Ryder said the Syrians told the U.S. earlier Friday that no equipment or people were missing, but the U.S. found out later on that some of those assertions were wrong. He said providing equipment to the Nusra Front is a violation of the training and equipping program.
The commander who turned the equipment over to the Nusra Front was one of about 70 rebel fighters who were in the second U.S. training course. He had only recently returned to Syria to fight the Islamic State militants.
The training program has been criticized as offering too little too late and failing to provide enough protection for those trained rebels once back inside Syria. The selected rebels are said to undergo a thorough vetting process to ensure they focus on the fight against the IS.
U.S. officials have begun an overhaul of the effort, including suggesting that the newly trained fighters operate as the New Syrian Forces, or NSF, alongside Syrian Kurds, Sunni Arab and other anti-Islamic State forces.
The first batch of about 54 trainees has largely disbanded. Of the 54, one was killed; one is being held captive; nine are back in the fight; 11 are available but not in Syria; 14 returned to Syria but quit the U.S. program; and 18 are unaccounted for.