Trump Blames the Press, Greatest Sprinter Ever
Monday, August 15, 2016
Vol. 5, No. 227
Shoot the Messenger: Donald Trump is blaming the media for his precipitous drop in the polls, tweeting, “If the disgusting and corrupt media covered me honestly and didn’t put false meaning into the words I say, I would be beating Hillary by 20%.” He’s saying the problem is not what he has said and done during his turbulent campaign, but that the press has reported it.
Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort defended Trump’s declaration that maybe the “Second Amendment people” could do something about a Clinton presidency. Manafort told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “It was not at all meant to be a threat. But the point again is you could have covered what he was saying, or you could try and take a side and take the Clinton narrative and play it out. You chose to do that instead.”
More Bad News: Investigators unravelling the corrupt finances of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych have found evidence that $12.6 million in cash may have been paid to Manafort when he was a political advisor to Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party. Manafort says he’s never received any of that money.
Nation: Street disturbances continued for a second night in Milwaukee and shots were fired after the police killing of an armed black man Saturday night.
The disturbance erupted Saturday after a cop killed the man reported to have run away from a traffic stop, armed with a pistol. A crowd, evidently notified by social media, gathered quickly. One car burned and firefighters wary of gunfire in the area allowed a gas station to burn. Fires also were set at an auto-parts store, a beauty supply company, and a bank branch.
>A storm system that left heavy flooding in Louisiana is moving into the Midwest and threatening Illinois. Four people died in Louisiana and thousands had to leave their homes.
World: A new video released by the Nigerian terror group Boko Haram purports to show the school girls abducted in Chibok more than two years ago. Boko Haram took 276 teenage girls from their boarding school. Some managed to escape, but 215 are missing or still in captivity.
The 11-minute video is a demand for the government to trade for captured Boko Haram fighters. One of the girls says, “We are not happy living here. I’m begging our parents to meet the government to release their people so that we can be released.”
The Obit Page: Fyvush Finkel, one of the last survivors of Yiddish theater who had a long career as a character actor, has died at age 93. Finkel, who had a comically malleable face, played a lawyer in the 1990s series “Picket Fences.”
The Games: Jamaica’s Usain Bolt won gold in the Olympic 100-yard dash for the third consecutive time, establishing himself not only as the fastest man in the world, but the also the greatest sprinter in history. The NY Times did an analysis showing that Bolt has beaten the time of every Olympic sprinter going back to 1896. — Gymnast Simone Biles is up to three gold medals after winning the women’s vault. — Russia’s only track and field athlete to appear at the Olympics successfully appealed her banishment and will be allowed to compete. Darya Klishina is a long jumper who lives in the US.
Danger Games: US swimmer Ryan Lochte, a winner of six Olympic gold medals, and three other swimmers were robbed at gunpoint early Sunday morning in Rio when their taxi was stopped by gunmen posing as cops.
“They pulled out their guns, they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground — they got down on the ground. I refused,” Lochte told NBC. Then one of the gunmen pointed his gun at Lochte’s forehead.
The swimmers were returning from a party at Club France, the French hospitality house set up for the Olympics. Lochte at first denied the incident, and so did the US Olympic committee. Lochte’s mother said the swimmers were all pretty shaken.
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