No retreat, no surrender for free-speaking candidate Donald Trump
Once again, Donald Trump isn’t backing down from comments that have inflamed the Republican presidential race. And some of his rivals are no longer treating him with kid gloves. Republican presidential contenders Marco Rubio and Rick Perry said Trump, with his latest bombast, has demonstrated he is not fit to be president. At an Iowa candidate forum on Saturday, Trump dismissed Republican Sen. John McCain‘s reputation as a war hero, saying the aviator was merely taken captive after being shot down in Vietnam and “I like people who weren’t captured.” “I will say what I want to say,” Trump said Sunday, claimed a strong record of supporting veterans and accused McCain of failing them in Washington. “I will do far more for veterans than John McCain has done for many, many years, with all talk no action,” Trump said on ABC’s “This Week.” ”He’s on television all the time, talking, talking. Nothing gets done.” A McCain spokesman has said the Arizona lawmaker would have no comment about Trump’s remarks. Although unrepentant, Trump allowed after the Iowa event that McCain might be a hero after all, but said people who “fought hard and weren’t captured and went through a lot, they get no credit.” And he said Sunday about the Republican race: “I’m certainly not pulling out.” McCain spent more than five years as a prisoner of war, enduring torture. He stirred Trump’s anger last week when he said Trump’s comments about immigrants had “fired up the crazies” at a Phoenix rally. Weeks ago, after Trump asserted that Mexican immigrants are rapists and drug dealers, Hispanic leaders were incensed not only about those remarks but about the slow and halting response from others seeking the GOP nomination. But the fallout from Trump’s latest salvo has spread quickly and indicates that at least some of his competitors are losing their inhibitions about repudiating him. Rubio, a Florida senator, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Trump insulted all prisoners of war, not just McCain, the 2008 GOP nominee defeated by Barack Obama. “He’s saying that somehow if you’re captured in battle you’re less worthy of honors,” Rubio said. “It’s not just absurd, it’s offensive. It’s ridiculous. And I do think it’s a disqualifier as commander in chief.” Rubio said as the campaign goes on and Trump commands attention, “it’s required people to be more forceful in some of these offensive things that he is saying.” Perry, one of the few veterans running for president, said Trump has demonstrated he has neither the character nor the temperament for the White House. “Over the top,” the former Texas governor said of Trump on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” ”Really offensive.” Jeb Bush, whose wife is from Mexico, took sharp offense at Trump’s earlier comments as others hedged. After Trump’s comments about McCain, the former Florida governor tweeted, “Enough with the slanderous attacks.” But both Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, while agreeing McCain is a genuine hero, sidestepped when asked if they condemned Trump’s remarks. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
As Democrats face-off, Hillary Clinton keeps her focus on the GOP
Ignoring her primary challengers, Hillary Rodham Clinton focused instead on the expanding field of Republican contenders as she and her fellow Democrats tried to impress influential party activists in Iowa. The fundraising face-off for the benefit of the state party came Friday night as the Democratic primary fight – long assumed to be just short of a coronation for Clinton – appeared to be heating up into a slightly more serious contest. In recent weeks, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has risen in the polls and packed arenas with voters eager to hear the message of the self-described socialist who’s become Clinton’s chief rival. But rather than confront her most immediate political obstacle in a crucial primary state, Clinton took aim at the other party, vowing to never let Republicans “rip away the progress” made during the Obama administration. “Trickle-down economics has to be one of the worst ideas of the 1980s,” Clinton said, evoking Republican policy from the Reagan era. “It is right up there with New Coke, shoulder pads and big hair.” Sanders, too, refused to criticize his primary opponent directly. Earlier in the day he edged closer to an attack when he questioned whether Clinton would back the kinds of tough regulations for Wall Street that’s become a rallying call for liberal Democrats. “You’ll have to ask Hillary Clinton her views on whether we should break up these large financial institutions,” he said during an afternoon appearance in Cedar Rapids. At the evening forum, Sanders called for a “political revolution” fueled by a “mass movement from coast to coast” that would end the influx of money into politics and take the country off “the path to oligarchy.” “The greed of the billionaire class has got to end and we are going to end it for them,” he said. He added: “Please don’t think small. Think big.” The Clinton campaign has signaled that it considers Sanders to be a legitimate challenger who will be running for the long haul, noting the $15.2 million he’s raised – largely from small donors – in the first three months of the race. They believe he will find a measure of support in Iowa, where the caucus system typically turns out the most passionate voters, and in New Hampshire, given Sanders’ many decades representing neighboring Vermont in Congress. On Friday, Clinton’s campaign said it bought $7.7 million worth of television advertising time in early voting states, its first ad buy for the 2016 contest. In Iowa, the campaign paid $3.6 million for time in all eight media markets that serve the state. An additional $4.1 million of airtime was purchased in New Hampshire, which holds the nation’s first primary. Unlike her rivals, Clinton has already built a vast campaign infrastructure, run from a multistory headquarters in New York City, with hundreds of staffers across the country. But so far the Clinton team has resisted any direct engagement with Sanders, fearing such an exchange might alienate the activists and small-dollar donors who will form the base of support in the general election if Clinton should win the nomination. “You can see that Democrats are united, we are energized, and we are ready to win this election,” Clinton said Friday night. In a fiery address, she slammed the economic policy of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, joked that businessman and TV star Donald Trump is “finally a candidate whose hair gets more attention than mine,” and criticized Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for targeting union power. Besides Sanders and Clinton, the forum featured former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee. O’Malley introduced himself as a can-do former chief executive who tackled a series of problems in Maryland by promoting public education, freezing college tuition, passing a “Dream Act” for young immigrants and expanding family leave policies. But like Sanders, he got some of his biggest applause when he talked about regulating and punishing Wall Street – underscoring the populist mood of the most active Democratic voters. “Main Street struggles while Wall Street soars,” he said. “If a bank is too big to fail, too big to jail and too big to manage, then it’s too damn big.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
A round-up of Sunday editorials from Alabama’s leading newspapers
A round-up of Sunday editorials from Alabama’s leading newspapers: The Anniston Star – Bad news and bad reports In the last two days, a collection of abductions, shootings, interstate car chases and murder trials has caused us to scramble to our TV and computer screens. We’ve wanted to know what’s going on. In Colorado, a jury found theater shooter James Holmes guilty on all counts for the killing of 12 people and wounding 70 others in 2012. In Chattanooga, Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez killed four U.S. Marines before being killed by police. In Cleburne County, two women died following a car chase on Interstate 20 in what authorities believe may have been a murder-suicide. And Friday morning, Maine police caught Anthony Lord, a suspect in another U.S. shooting spree that killed several people in three different locations. In times like this — when terrible news is breaking — it’s imperative that journalists (a.) resist the urge to take chances and (b.) report only what they know to be fact. That’s not as easy as it sounds. In high-pressure situations, and in competitive media markets, being first isn’t a desire. It’s a necessity. Each of those situations — even the Cleburne County case, which The Star’s staff covered at length — could have led to the reporting of wild and unsubstantiated facts. Who shot whom? What is the suspect’s name? Who’s dead? We all want to know, and now. Social media has forever changed news delivery. Now, any news outlet — even newspapers like The Star — can report news instantly and in real time. That capability no longer is the sole domain of our colleagues on television and radio. The Birmingham News – Gay Baptists and black Rebels: an unexpected week in review Alabama’s always been a state of contradictions, and it’s been interesting to see how those have played out over the past several weeks. This week we heard from a few unexpected voices, including a gay Baptists and a few black Rebels. Earlier this week ESPN NFL reporter Adam Schefter published a tweet showing Jason Pierre-Paul’s medical records. By publicly sharing an athlete’s medical records, did Schefter violate journalistic ethics? John Carvalho, associate professor of journalism at Auburn University and a former sports journalist, offers keen insight about the legal and ethical dilemmas at play. Bryan Kessler grew up in the Baptist church. He was also born gay. In a moving essay, Bryan wrestles with the complexities of his soul and his desire to be true to himself while maintaining his faith. It’s a must read. Last week, BP announced a settlement with the five Gulf States seeking damages following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Alabama will receive approximately $2 billion in economic and environmental restoration funds, but the state’s political leaders are divided about whether it’s a good deal for the state. Attorney General Luther Strange argues that it is a good deal and will continue to rejuvenate the state’s coastal environments. Congressman Bradley Byrne, however, says that the state deserves better. He says that too much of the settlement will go to the federal and state government and that “less than $500 million will be under the control of Alabama officials on the Gulf.” The Decatur Daily – New Horizons’ Pluto journey is invaluable When astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, working out of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, discovered Pluto in 1930, Pluto was just a faint dot moving slowly across the sky, so distant it takes roughly 248 years to orbit the sun once. Through the Hubble Space Telescope, Pluto appears as a shining, white ball. Astronomers can make out its largest moon, Charon, but both still are fuzzy and indistinct. Now Pluto has come into its own, and whether you think of Pluto as a “dwarf planet” or stubbornly still call it the ninth planet, it’s putting on quite a show. The New Horizons spacecraft passed by Pluto on Tuesday and will spend the next 16 months beaming its data back to eager scientists on Earth. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville is the NASA center managing the mission. The first pictures of Pluto are nothing short of astounding. They show a world much different than the one most scientists expected. The planet’s smooth, copper-colored surface barely has any craters. That lack of surface impact indicates a geologically active world, where the surface is perhaps 100,000 years old — barely anything in the grand scheme of things. Pluto also is dotted with high mountains, some 11,000 feet tall. They’re no Mount Everest, which is 29,029 feet tall, but they’re nothing to sneeze at, and some of them are capped with what appears to be water ice. Most captivating, however, are the surface features that, like the “man in the moon,” remind us of things we see here at home. Near Pluto’s south pole is a whale-shaped expanse scientists have named the Cthulhu region, after horror writer H.P. Lovecraft’s most famous monster. Another dark blotch is named the Balrog region, after the creature in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.” Clearly the scientists in charge of naming Pluto’s features are having some fun. Pluto itself, after all, is named for the Greek god of the underworld. Yet the largest feature is a bright spot shaped like a Valentine’s Day heart. That is named the Tombaugh region, after the only American to have discovered a planet in our solar system. Pluto was a planet at the time he discovered it, anyway, and it was a planet when New Horizons launched. Dothan Eagle – Golf carts aren’t street legal A few years back, it would be difficult to find someone who owned a golf cart unless they spent enough time on the links to justify its cost. These days, ownership of these vehicles is far more common, but not necessarily for golfers. They can be purchased outfitted with an additional bench seat where one might usually find racks for golf bags, and they’re used as recreational vehicles in neighborhoods.
