Trump Hits a Nerve, Crowdsource Terror
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Vol. 4, No. 343
Trump Über Alles: Never one to back down, Donald Trump is standing by his call to ban all foreign Muslims from entering the US. In interviews Trump cited President Franklin Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese, Germans, and Italians during World War II. “Look, we are at war with radical Islam,” Trump said in an interview with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough
Whipping up the fear of Muslims Trump said, “They have sections in Paris that are radicalized where the police refuse to go there. They’re petrified. The police refuse to go in there. We have places in London and other places that are so radicalized that the police are afraid for their own lives.”
Neither assertion is true.
Nevertheless, Trump’s proposal is resonating with a lot of Americans who are afraid. Talk radio conservatives, Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham among them, cheered for Trump. Many of his Republican opponents condemned him … in varying degrees. Ted Cruz, while not endorsing the ban on Muslims, said, “I commend Donald Trump for standing up and focusing America’s attention on the need to secure our borders.”
Yesterday’s front of the Philadelphia Daily News featured a picture of Trump with his hand raised to his audience and a headline that said, “The New Furor.”
Follow the Money: The FBI is tracing a $28,500 deposit made to the bank account of the San Bernardino terrorists, believed to have come from the crowd-source online lender Prosper. Reuters reports that the couple may have drained their bank accounts and taken out the loan in a tactic sometimes used by suicide terrorists to finance their attack. The two had stocked thousand of dollars worth of ammunition.
Gunbeat: The gun maker Smith & Wesson nearly tripled its profits in the three months ending Oct. 31, compared to the same three months last year.
Slippery Slope: The price of a barrel of oil has dropped to $37, down from a peak of $108 in June, 2014. The stock market greets this as a disaster and financial reporting tends to side with oil investors, not people who drive cars to work. CNN money describes the price drop as a “collapse.” But by some predictions the price of gas could drop below $2 a gallon for millions of people who don’t own stock in Exxon or Mobil.
Food With Integrity: Adding to company woes, the Chipotle chain closed its restaurant near Boston College after 80 students who ate there came down the Norovirus, a common gastrointestinal illness. Chipotle recently had an outbreak of E. coli traced to its restaurants in nine states.
The Obit Page: Douglas Tompkins, the founder of the equipment and clothing brands North Face and Esprit, died on Tuesday in a kayaking accident in the Patagonia region of southern Chile. He was 72. Tompkins and a group of five other kayakers he was paddling with were capsized in high waves. All the others survived.
After making his fortune, Tompkins sold his business to become a conservationist and outdoorsman. He was the inspiration for the company slogan, “Never stop exploring.”
Turf War: The US women’s soccer team won a match against organized soccer by refusing to play in Hawaii against Trinidad and Tobago. After winning the world championship, the US women have been on a “Victory Tour” of matches even while pressing a lawsuit against the international soccer body FIFA about being forced to play on artificial turf. They looked at the turf inside Aloha Stadium and said, “no game.”
An open letter from the team posted on The Players Tribune said, “There were sharp rocks ingrained all over the field. They were everywhere. The artificial turf was actually pulling up out of the ground, and the turf itself was both low-grade and aging.” The letter said, “We expect to be treated equally as our male counterparts.”
Fourth Estate: In a tactic not uncommon for politicians getting bad press, Donald Trump has taken to blaming the press. The other night in South Carolina he pointed to the press corps and said, “The mainstream media wants to surrender the constitution. These people back here are the worst. They are so dishonest. They’re so dishonest.”
Sometimes it’s who hates you that counts.
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