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The words of Trump, new to the rhetoric of politics, elicit widespread emotions

“Words, words, words,” declared Hamlet to Polonius.
Painters have a brush and easel.  A stonemason deploys a trowel. And politicians wield words.
Words are a politician’s tool. They live by them and die by them. For without words, there are no ideas. No motivation. No proposals. No calls to action. No persuasion.
All are essential in politics.
Of course, an agenda is the main force behind words. Elect this person so they implement a set of policies or adopt legislation. But even if it’s just all talk and no action, the words remain.
This is why politicians aim to use words so carefully. Certainly they sweat over the right turn of phrase in a speech or press release. Astute politicians read a room or an audience. Some even time their delivery like a comedian delivering a punch line to score howls of laughter or applause.

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We know politicians by name and deed. But we mostly remember them for words.
“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
“I’m not a crook.”
Politicians know they’ll step in it if they use words unartfully. Off-the-cuff remarks about race, someone with disabilities or the Holocaust are sure to land a politician in a world of hurt. And, when it comes time to mea culpa, politicians use words.
Words matter in politics. And this is what makes the 2016 campaign so different. The words of Donald Trump are more inflammatory and radioactive than what voters and media have grown accustomed.
This is part of Trump’s appeal. It’s also what turns off scores of people and ignites press coverage.
“Did you hear what Trump said?” is now a regular refrain.
This is why people freak out at the rhetoric of Trump. It’s now a struggle to differentiate between what is a joke and what he really believes. What’s sarcasm and what’s a charge. What’s fact and fiction.
Trump’s uttered a lot of controversial things during this campaign. But next to his proposed Muslim ban (which now isn’t a proposed ban, until Trump apparently extended it to persons of other faiths), nothing scored more attention than his comments about the Second Amendment and Hillary Clinton.
There is white-hot language. There is incendiary rhetoric. And then.
Trump and his defenders argued opponents and the press took the gun remark out of context.
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Tom Friedman of The New York Times asserts Trump knew exactly what he was doing when he discussed the Second Amendment as a potential backdoor to short-circuit a possible Clinton presidency.
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin got assassinated,” proclaimed in the lede of Friedman’s essay this week in response to Trump. “But there are always people down the line who don’t hear the caveats. They just hear the big message: The man is illegitimate, the man is a threat to the nation, the man is the equivalent of a Nazi war criminal. Well, you know what we do with people like that, don’t you? We kill them.”
The health care debate of 2009-2010 was the last time such combustible rhetoric blanketed the American political lexicon.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., snarled “You lie!” at President Obama during his presentation on health reform during a 2009 Joint Session of Congress. Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas,  yelled that the bill was a “baby killer” as the House moved through the final version of the legislation.
ObamaCare opponents flooded the Capitol switchboard, leaving threatening messages with congressional aides and on voicemail.
Then-Rep. Bart Stupak. D-Mich., crafted the pivotal “Stupak Amendment,” which proved crucial to passing the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare. The amendment would erect an additional firewall into the health-care package to bar the use of federal dollars for abortion services.
“I hope you die,” said one caller to Stupak’s office.
Meantime, outside the Capitol, demonstrators hectored members of the Congressional Black Caucus like Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Andre Carson, D-Ind., with the “N” word. Lewis, a civil rights hero, said he hadn’t heard language like that “since the march to Selma.”
A profanity-laced message left for then-Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, expressed disappointment that she failed to break her back when hit by a car while jogging.
Someone spat on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.,  as he walked to the Cannon House Office Building across the street from the Capitol. An ordained United Methodist minister, an incensed Cleaver confronted the spitter. U.S. Capitol Police briefly detained the man in question until Cleaver asked the cops to release the subject.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was speaker at the time and responsible for ushering ObamaCare to passage. She said she witnessed this sort of provocative talk “myself in the late ‘70s in San Francisco.” When asked about the tone, Pelosi said, “It created an environment in which violence took place.”
Pelosi said the tinderbox culminated in the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first, openly gay elected official in the U.S.
“Words have power. They weigh a ton,” Pelosi said. She noted that some words whip certain people into a frenzy “depending on their, shall we say, emotional state.”
There was no physical violence on Capitol Hill toward lawmakers once the House and Senate approved the final version of the ACA. But concern and fear permeated the Capitol. Members of the House Democratic Caucus convened a meeting with top U.S. Capitol Police officials to express safety concerns. Things were so tense that then-Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terry Gainer issued a memo to the Senate community, urging lawmakers and staffers to “remain vigilant.”
This is the responsibility which accompanies the words.
“Lock her up!” was the chant about Clinton at the Republican convention in Cleveland.
In one skillful pivot, Trump responded from the convention lectern to his partisans.
“Let’s defeat her in November,” Trump swiveled.
Some political observers would assert that’s the responsible way for a politician to slyly rotate the rhetoric. Use words to defect --  yet brilliantly refocus the debate at the core task at hand.
But in most cases, it’s Trump firing verbal Sidewinder missiles.
So this is about words. Words made Trump. Words may undo Trump.
For months, there was speculation that Trump would tone things down and appear more “presidential” once he entered the general election. Trump’s now signaled he is who he is and says what he says.
Words are the tool of a politician. Just like someone in an artisan trade, each uses their tools in their own way to hone their craft.
And so does Trump.

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Clinton camp: Mills potential conflict of interest 'absurd'

The Untouchables.

Hillary Clinton's campaign is questioning a report about a top aide to Clinton when she was secretary of state also conducting interviews for the Clinton Foundation, saying implications about a potential conflict of interest are “absurd.”
Then-Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills took an Amtrak train from Washington to New York City in June 2012 to interview two executives to potentially become the foundation’s next leader, sources told CNN, which first reported the story.
Clinton purportedly accepted the secretary of state post in 2009 in part on the condition that any foundation activity would neither “create conflicts nor the appearance of conflicts” of interest for her.
The CNN report doesn’t state Mills broke any rules but suggested her interviewing trip has added to the “blurred lines” between Clinton’s government work and non-government activities, which have long created problems for her and husband President Bill Clinton.
Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server as secretary of state to send and receive official emails has also added to that perception.
The Clinton campaign said Friday that Mills “volunteered her personal time” and paid for her own travel to New York City.

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“And it was crystal clear to all involved that this had nothing to do with her official duties,” the campaign said. “The idea that this poses a conflict of interest is absurd."
Mills' attorney also purportedly said such work was voluntary.
The foundation did not immediately respond to a FoxNews.com request Saturday for comment.
The CNN report comes the same week as a new batch of Clinton emails seemed to show foundation donors got preferential treatment during Clinton’s tenure at the State Department.
Conservative watchdog Judicial Watch released the 44 new email exchanges, which the group says were not in the original 30,000 handed over to the State Department. Clinton has repeatedly claimed she turned over all work-related emails during the now-closed probe into her private server use.
The documents challenge Clinton's insistence that there was "no connection" between the foundation and her work at the State Department.
In one email exchange, Doug Band, an executive at the Clinton Foundation, tried to put billionaire donor Gilbert Chagoury -- a convicted money launderer -- in touch with the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon because of the donor’s interests there.
And a report this week by The Daily Caller says that several investigations are  being launched, including one led by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Civil Frauds Unit that will focus on the foundation's dealings in New York. The agency has declined to comment.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has also tried to get answers about Mills' New York trip. Grassley sent Secretary of State John Kerry a letter in January about the issue.

Pelosi says already getting 'obscene and sick' messages after cell phone number, email address released

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Saturday that she has received “obscene and sick” calls, voicemails and text messages after a hacker posted the private cell phone numbers and email addresses of roughly 200 current and former congressional Democrats.
“Please be careful not to allow your children or family members to answer your phone or read incoming text messages,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to colleagues. “This morning, I am changing my phone number and I advise you to do so as well.”
The contact information was part of a large computer-content dump Friday and the most recent in a series of cyberattacks on Democratic Party organizations, including the Democratic National Committee, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Pelosi said she was flying from Florida to California on Friday when she heard that the information had been posted by the hacker or hackers known as "Guccifer 2.0."
She also confirmed that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has hired a cybersecurity firm to conduct an investigation of the breach, purportedly part of a Russian cyber-attack that Pelosi has termed “an electronic Watergate break-in.”
Pelosi added that the chief information security officer of the House, in coordination with Capitol Police, has sent communications to those people whose email addresses have been made public about how to address the problem. The chief administrative officer of the House has also sent an email stating that the House computer system has not been compromised, but urged members and staff to be vigilant about opening emails and websites.

The DCCC is also issuing similar guidance.
Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., was also holding a conference call with lawmakers on Saturday evening along with cybersecurity experts who have been investigating and responding to the breach.

"This is a sad course of events, not only for us, but more importantly for our country," Pelosi said in urging lawmakers to join the conference call with Lujan.

Coverage of Trump controversies raises questions about media

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The 5 Kinds of Republicans Who Are Defecting From the Party of Trump

The political news this week is being dominated by reports of elephants breaking away from the herd: Republicans who are not supporting Donald Trump for president. They are most often being differentiated by exactly what they are saying or not saying: Some are simply refraining from opportunities to endorse their nominee; some are publicly refusing to endorse their nominee; a few are going to vote for the Libertarian or a last-minute conservative independent or write-in candidate; and a steadily increasing number are going over the brink to support Hillary Clinton, as one might expect with Election Day fast approaching. There’s no telling when the exodus will end; the latest Trump outrage, about “Second Amendment people” having some plans for HRC, is creating a fresh bout of heartburn for exasperated Republicans, and could send a new batch toward the exit ramp.

But in understanding this phenomenon and weighing its importance (or the lack thereof), it’s helpful to look at the non-endorsees and their backgrounds and motives. To that end, here’s a classification system of the five different kinds of Republicans who have broken ranks over Trump:

1. Nominal Republicans who are out of synch with their party: While they are not as plentiful as they were in the days when liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats walked the Earth, there are always some nominal partisans available, often long in the tooth, who object to the general direction of “their” party and can be rounded up to show their displeasure with a statement of dissent or a cross-endorsement. This used to be a particular cross to bear for Democrats, from the days of John Connally’s Democrats for Nixon in 1972 to Joe Lieberman’s active support for John McCain in 2008 — but Republicans are catching up.

Former South Dakota senator Larry Pressler is a good example of this breed of errant pachyderm. He endorsed Barack Obama twice, attempted a Senate comeback as an independent in 2014, and has now endorsed Hillary.

But my favorite defector of the cycle has got to be former Michigan governor William Milliken, who endorsed Clinton as a protest against Trump’s candidacy. Like Pressler, he’s a serial defector; he endorsed John Kerry in 2004, and de-endorsed John McCain late in the 2008 cycle. But to grasp how out of touch the 94-year-old Milliken is with the contemporary GOP, consider that he became governor of Michigan when George Romney resigned to join Richard Nixon’s cabinet. Enough said.

2. Lame ducks. As James Hohmann notes in the Washington Post, the willingness of current Republican elected officials to stray from party discipline is more or less in inverse relationship to their vulnerability to punishment by Republican leaders and/or angry “base” voters. So, unsurprisingly, the two most prominent defectors in the House Republican Conference — Richard Hanna, a New Yorker who has endorsed Clinton, and Scott Rigell, a Virginian who will vote Libertarian — had already announced their retirements. A Democratic precedent was Senator Zell Miller in 2004, who endorsed and spoke for George W. Bush a few months before he left Washington for good. Two years later Miller headed up something called Democrats for Santorum on behalf of the soon-to-be-defeated Pennsylvania senator; it seemed to be composed of Miller himself and his image in the mirror. But I digress …

3. Political realists. There are also Republican defectors who seem to be motivated by cold political calculation. Most obviously, Illinois senator Mark Kirk’s slim odds of reelection almost certainly depend on winning a lot of votes from people who loathe Trump. But even his Senate colleague Susan Collins, who is being treated today as a brave woman of principle for refusing to get on the Trump Train, could be thinking about her political future in Maine, where according to Hohmann she could be contemplating a gubernatorial run as an independent.

More famously, Ted Cruz is clearly calculating his “vote your conscience” statement at the Republican convention will look infinitely better if and when Trump goes down to a catastrophic defeat, leaving his own self as the front-runner for 2020. John Kasich and Ben Sasse could be making similar calculations about their political futures.

4. Redundants. In many respects the most sympathetic group of Republican defectors are former environmental, immigration, and trade-policy officials who obviously have no place in a party led by Donald Trump. I mean, really: Let’s say you are Robert Zoellick, once George W. Bush’s United States Trade Representative. Trump is accusing you and people just like you of deliberately selling American workers down the river and destroying the country in close concert with the godless Clinton administration globalists in the other party (on top of that, Zoellick ran the World Bank and worked for Goldman Sachs!). Are you going to blandly endorse him or fight to win “your” party back? It’s a pretty easy call. The same is true of Republicans closely identified with comprehensive immigration reform and strong environmental regulation (e.g., former EPA director Christine Todd Whitman, who has indicated she will vote for Clinton).

5. Assorted elites. For most of the rest of the elite defectors, the emphasis should be on the word “elite.” They are mostly former appointed officials in Republican administrations who have since moved on to life in that floating stratosphere of policy mavens, think tankers, lobbyists, and Cabinets-in-waiting. They are heavily found on that list of 50 Republican foreign-policy experts calling for Trump’s defeat.

Some are actually “redundants” associated with past Republican policies Trump has denounced (you can add the Iraq War to the list above). Others know there is no way they will have a place in, or even access to, a Trump administration. Still others simply have a reciprocal assessment of Trump as a loser. They are mostly sincerely angry about what is happening to their party, and plan to have a future role in the GOP when the “fever” has broken. What they all have in common is that they will never, ever have to deal with Republican primary voters, other than at a safe distance.

The key question to ask with all five groups of Republican defectors is whether they represent a significant group of rank-and-file Republican voters, who have for the most part been more likely to stick with Trump than elected officials and other elites have been. That’s not the only measurement of the value of defectors; sometimes independent voters can be swayed by these kind of negative testimonials for a major-party candidate, and there are financial considerations as well, since wealthy donors prefer some cover before abandoning a party nominee. But it will be interesting to find out whether the party has truly left the defectors behind, or if instead they are simply a party-in-exile that will hold the reins long after Donald Trump has left politics like a bad circus leaving town.