US Opinion and Commentary

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Gold Star Family Feud

Posted August 2nd, 2016 at 5:51 pm (UTC-4)
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After saying Donald Trump is “unfit” to succeed him as president, Barack Obama asked prominent Republicans “if you are repeatedly having to say in very strong terms that what he has said is unacceptable, why are you still endorsing him?”

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. John McCain among other Republican icons have denounced Trump’s reaction to criticism leveled by the Gold Star parents of an American Muslim soldier who was killed while protecting fellow soldiers and civilians in Iraq.

Khizr Khan, with his wife at his side, addressed the Democratic National Convention last Thursday, saying “if it was up to Donald Trump, he never would have been in America.”

Trump’s tweets and remarks in an interview afterwards has consumed the political atmosphere for five days now. On Monday, Trump said U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan would not have been killed 12 years ago if he were president then because he wouldn’t have gone to war with Iraq back then.

When asked whether anything useful will come out of this feud with Trump, Khan told VOA “It really, really has come out that a significant larger number of Republicans are asking him to tone down, change those derogatory remarks about minorities, not only just Muslims but other minorities.”

The political fallout from all this is still being calculated.

Putin, Trump & Clinton

Posted August 1st, 2016 at 5:20 pm (UTC-4)
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Television interviews of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton over the weekend created more controversy for both candidates on issues that have dogged them so far this campaign season.

In an interview with FOX News, Clinton said the FBI Director backed up her claims that she did not send any classified information over her private email server. The Washington Post’s fact-checker begs to disagree with the Democratic nominee.

Meantime Trump doubled down on an feud with the parents of an American war hero. Capt. Humayun Khan was killed in 2004 by a suicide car bomb in Iraq. He was awarded the Bronze Star for saving his unit and Iraqi civilians.

And Trump’s responses to questions about Russia and Ukraine just added to last week’s controversy about his suggestion that Russia try to hack into Hillary Clinton’s email to find the 33,000 emails that she deleted from her private server.

Add to the intrigue a new report detailing the connections between the Clinton Foundation and a U.S.-Russia cooperative effort to create an Silicon Valley-like “innovation city” in Russia while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.

And there are just 99 days to go before Election Day.