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Trump Accepts Nomination, Vows To Put ‘America First’

Trump Accepts Nomination, Vows To Put ‘America First’

CLEVELAND (Reuters) – Donald Trump accused Democratic rival Hillary Clinton of a legacy of “death, destruction, terrorism and weakness” as U.S. secretary of state and vowed to be tough on crime and illegal immigrants in a speech on Thursday accepting the Republican presidential nomination.

Trump’s 75-minute speech was designed to set the tone for the general election campaign against Clinton, an answer to Republicans who say the best way he can unify the divided party is to detail why the Democrat should not be elected on Nov. 8.

As the crowd chanted: “Lock her up” for her handling of U.S. foreign policy, Trump waved them off and said: “Let’s defeat her in November.” Thousands of supporters who were gathered in the convention hall roared their approval.

When it was over, Trump was joined on stage by family members as balloons cascaded from above and confetti blew around the arena.

The acceptance speech by Trump, 70, closed out a four-day convention that underscored his struggle to heal fissures in the Republican Party over his anti-illegal-immigrant rhetoric and concerns about his temperament. The event was boycotted by many big-name establishment Republicans, such as 2012 nominee Mitt Romney and members of the Bush family that gave the party its last two presidents.

Trump presented a bleak view of America under siege from illegal immigrants, threatened by Islamic State militants, hindered by crumbling infrastructure and weakened by unfair trade deals and race-related violence.

Accusing illegal immigrants of taking jobs from American citizens and committing crimes, Trump vowed to build a “great border wall” against the border-crossers.

“We will stop it,” Trump said.

Trump took positions in conflict with traditional Republican policies. He said he would avoid multinational trade deals but instead pursue agreements with individual countries. He would renegotiate the NAFTA trade accord linking the United States, Canada and Mexico. He would penalize companies that outsource jobs and then export their foreign-made products back into the United States.

“We will never sign bad trade deals,” Trump thundered. “America first!”

The New York businessman, who has never held elected office, filled his speech with some of the bravado he used to win the Republican nomination over 16 rivals, punctuating his rhetorical points by waving an index finger.

“I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves,” Trump said. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”

In his speech, Trump portrayed himself as a fresh alternative to traditional politicians, willing to consider new approaches to vexing problems and help working-class people who may feel abandoned.

Laying out his case against Clinton, he denounced nation-building policies that were actually put in place to some extent by George W. Bush, without mentioning by name the Republican president who launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Trump said policies pursued by Clinton in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria had made a bad situation worse. He blamed her for the rise of Islamic State militants and blasted her willingness to accept thousands of Syrian refugees.

“After 15 years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before. This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction, terrorism and weakness,” Trump said.

Clinton senior adviser John Podesta dismissed the speech as painting “a dark picture of an America in decline” and called it a reminder that Trump “is temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be president of the United States.”

John Weaver, a senior adviser to Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich, a former presidential rival to Trump, said in a tweet that Trump had delivered the “saddest, darkest, most depressing acceptance speech in modern history.”

‘THINGS HAVE TO CHANGE’

Trump needed a strong performance on Thursday night to improve his chances of getting a boost in opinion polls as Democrats prepare for their own, more scripted convention next week in Philadelphia.

In a contest that pits two politicians viewed as unfavorable by large segments of the American people, Trump also accused Clinton, 68, of being the puppet of big business, elite media and major donors who want to preserve the current political system.

“That is why Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never change. My message is that things have to change – and they have to change right now,” Trump said.

Trump said he would speedily address the violence that has dominated headlines, such as the shooting deaths of five Dallas police officers earlier this month. He vowed to defeat “the barbarians of ISIS,” the acronym for Islamic State.

“I have a message for all of you: The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on Jan. 20, 2017, safety will be restored,” Trump said. The next president takes office on Jan. 20.

CONVENTION DISCORD

The prevailing narrative at the Cleveland convention has not been about Trump’s positions, but dominated instead by the failure of he party’s various factions to unite behind Trump.

A series of distractions at the convention largely thwarted a bid by the Trump campaign to show him as a caring father and magnanimous business leader who would bring greater prosperity and safety to the United States.

But in the end, many of these points were made when Ivanka Trump, Trump’s daughter, introduced her father.

“I have seen him fight for his family. I have seen him fight for his employees. I have seen him fight for his company and now I am seeing him fight for our country,” she said.

Trump’s text of his speech, released by his campaign, included extensive footnotes to show where the material originated.

That was perhaps in reaction to the speech given on Monday night by Trump’s wife Melania, who was accused of plagiarism when she repeated lines from a 2008 speech by Michelle Obama, Obama’s wife.

A staff writer for the Trump Organization later took responsibility for the misstep.

 

(Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson, Angela Moon, Michelle Conlin and David Alexander; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Howard Goller and Peter Cooney)

Photo: Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump formally accepts the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 21, 2016.    REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Obama To Nominate Garland To Supreme Court

Obama To Nominate Garland To Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Wednesday will nominate Merrick Garland, a veteran federal appeals court judge viewed as a moderate, to the U.S. Supreme Court, Democratic Senator Charles Schumer told Reuters.

The nomination of Garland, 63, who currently serves as chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, would set up a potentially ferocious political showdown with Senate Republicans.

Garland, 63, is a long-time appellate judge and former prosecutor who Obama also considered when he filled two previous Supreme Court vacancies. Federal appeals court judge Sri Srinivasan also had been a finalist for the nomination.

Obama said in a statement released by the White House that he will unveil his nominee at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) in the White House Rose Garden. Schumer is a member of the Senate Democratic leadership.

Obama has been searching for a replacement for long-serving conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Feb. 13.

Garland, who in the past has earned praise from lawmakers of both parties, was named to his current job by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1997, winning Senate confirmation in a 76-23 vote. Prior to that, he served in the Justice Department during the Clinton administration.

“I’m confident you’ll share my conviction that this American is not only eminently qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice, but deserves a fair hearing, and an up-or-down vote,” Obama said in the statement ahead of his scheduled announcement in the White House Rose Garden.

Senate Republicans have vowed not to hold confirmation hearings or a vote on any nominee picked by the Democratic president for the lifetime position on the court. Senate confirmation is required for any nominee to join the bench.

Obama said he hoped the Senate would do its job and “move quickly to consider my nominee.”

Without Scalia, the nine-member Supreme Court is evenly split with four liberals and four conservative justices. Obama’s nominee could tilt the court to the left for the first time in decades.

Republicans, hoping a candidate from their party wins the Nov. 8 presidential election, want the next president, who takes office in January, to make the selection.

Billionaire Donald Trump is the leading Republican presidential candidate. Obama’s former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is the front-runner on the Democratic side.

Republicans and their allies already have geared up to fight Obama’s nominee. Republican National Committee on Monday announced the formation of a task force that will work with an outside conservative group to spearhead attack ads and other ways of pushing back against Obama’s choice.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has served as a springboard to the Supreme Court for several justices including Scalia in recent decades.

Obama may have been looking for a nominee who could convince the Republicans to change course. Garland could fit that bill with moderate record, background as a prosecutor and a history of drawing Republican support.

Garland was under consideration by Obama when he filled two prior high court vacancies. Obama already has named two justices to the Supreme Court: Sonia Sotomayor, who at 55 became the first Hispanic justice in 2009, and Elena Kagan, who was 50 when she became the fourth woman to ever serve on the court in 2010.

The Obama administration also regarded Garland as a future compromise choice if another vacancy opened in an election year with the Senate under Republican control, according to Obama advisers at the time and others weighing in on the current nomination. That is the situation now confronting Obama.

Presidents tend to pick nominees younger than Garland, so they can serve for decades and extend a president’s legacy. But Obama may reason that the choice of an older nominee might also entice Senate Republicans into considering Obama’s selection.

The Indian-born Srinivasan, 49, would have been the first Asian-American and first Hindu Supreme Court justice.

Trump, speaking on ABC’s “Good Morning America” program, said it was critical for Republicans to take back the White House to avoid Democrats shaping the Supreme Court.

“You have four Supreme Court judgeships coming up, and that would mean they would take over, that would mean for 50 years, probably, this country will never be the same,” Trump said.

“The Republicans should do exactly what they are doing. I think they should wait till the next president and let the next president pick,” Trump said.

 

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Joan Biskupic; Editing by Howard Goller and Will Dunham)

Photo: Chief Judge Merrick B. Garland of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is seen in an undated handout picture. REUTERS/US Court of Appeals/Handout via Reuters

Do Not Leave This Prophet Without Honor

Robert D. Novak, a great and controversial political reporter, judged Eugene McCarthy’s nomination of Adlai Stevenson at the 1960 Democratic convention in Los Angeles to be “the greatest national convention speech I ever heard.”

The Minnesota senator’s words echo in my memory: “Do not reject this man who, his enemies said, spoke above the heads of the people, but they said it only because they didn’t want the people to listen. He spoke to the people. He moved their minds, and he stirred their hearts, and this was what was objected to. Do not leave this prophet without honor in his own party … .”

I re-read that speech because I was invited to give the Eugene J. McCarthy lecture at the beautiful campus of St. John’s University in Minnesota, where Gene McCarthy, an exceptional student and athlete (baseball and hockey), graduated at the age of 19. He entered the monastery of the Benedictine fathers who founded St. John’s, and when he left the seminary — to eventually become a husband, father, U.S. congressman, senator and, in 1968, the anti-Vietnam War presidential candidate challenging his fellow Democrat in the White House, Lyndon Johnson — the Rev. Colman Barry would tell author Al Eisele that “it was like losing a 20-game winner.”

On Nov. 30, 1967, I stood in the caucus room of what is now called the Russell Senate Office Building and heard Gene McCarthy launch his presidential candidacy: “I am concerned that the administration seems to have set no limit to the price which it is willing to pay for a military victory” and to state his support “for an honorable, rational and political solution to this war.”

He was, even his political enemies conceded, a man of the mind — yes, a man of biting wit, and a man of conviction. To him, politics was fundamentally a moral enterprise with emphasis on community, justice and the common good.

He was a man for whom you could feel more admiration than affection. But ultimately to me — even though I was proud to work that year for his antiwar Democratic opponent, Robert Kennedy — Eugene McCarthy was a man of courage, the kind of rare courage that was to change American history and to change, to this day, the way we select and nominate our national leaders.

When McCarthy began his lonely, long-shot campaign, only 19 percent of the convention delegates were even chosen in open presidential primaries. Eighty-one percent of all the convention delegates were chosen in procedures that were mostly not democratic, not open and not even timely.

More than half the delegates to the 1968 Democratic national convention had been chosen in 1966. (Hubert Humphrey would become the presidential nominee after having avoided running in every primary.) Because McCarthy’s insurgent campaign exposed both how closed and how rigged the system was to exclude rank-and-file voters, the old order became doomed. Every future president, because of McCarthy, would have to win the nomination in open, competitive contests.

In classical times, after Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, “How well he spoke.” But when Demosthenes had finished his speech, the people said, “Let us march.” McCarthy did not speak with the pre-tested applause lines of the practiced platform performer. But when he spoke, literally thousands did march in the campaign for peace he led. In 1968, the people found Eugene McCarthy.

As John Kennedy said: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” McCarthy effectively ended his own Senate career to make peaceful revolution possible and to end a war he deemed morally indefensible. For that, it should be said of McCarthy what he said of Stevenson: “Do not leave this prophet with honor in his own party.”

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

COPYRIGHT 2011 MARK SHIELDS

Obama Nominates Richard Cordray as Director of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Elizabeth Warren for Senate Buzz Will Only Intensify

The White House announced Sunday President Obama’s intention to nominate former Ohio Attorney General and currrent Chief of Enforcement at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as that body’s first director:

“American families and consumers bore the brunt of the financial crisis and are still struggling in its aftermath to find jobs, stay in their homes, and make ends meet. That is why I fought so hard to pass reforms to fix the financial system and put in place the strongest consumer protections in our nation’s history. Richard Cordray has spent his career advocating for middle class families, from his tenure as Ohio’s Attorney General, to his most recent role as heading up the enforcement division at the CFPB and looking out for ordinary people in our financial system,” Obama said.

“I also want to thank Elizabeth Warren not only for her extraordinary work standing up the new agency over the past year, but also for her many years of impassioned leadership, and her fierce defense of a simple idea: ordinary people deserve to be treated fairly and honestly in their financial dealings. This agency was Elizabeth’s idea, and through sheer force of will, intelligence, and a bottomless well of energy, she has made, and will continue to make, a profound and positive difference for our country.”

While some on the left have suggested anyone other than Warren–a darling of the progressive movement for her eloquent, aggressive advocacy on behalf of consumers–would be unacceptable at the head of the CFPB, it is hard to see Cordray’s nomination being derailed for that reason; much more likely is a Republican filibuster, as that caucus has determined that the Dodd/Frank Wall Street Reform law of 2010 gives the government “too much” power to protect us from bad behavior at banks and financial institutions.

Indeed, while many will be disappointed to see Warren not lead her brainchild (she provided the intellectual foundation for and as a special advisor to the president has done most of the legwork in creating the CFPB), the nomination of Cordray does leave her open to run for Senate against Scott Brown in Massachussetts next year. Her schedule has only increased the buzz:

In recent weeks, Warren has met in person or spoke on the phone with Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, David Axelrod, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Massachusetts Democratic Reps. Barney Frank, Stephen Lynch and John Tierney. The phone call with Murray took place in early June, Roll Call has learned. Warren attended a community banking event with Tierney in the Bay State and dined with Schumer, a former DSCC chairman and an aggressive recruiter who remains involved in DSCC activities.

Warren’s May calendar, the most recently available public schedule, shows the Schumer dinner along with the other meetings and discussions.

Given that Warren is leading the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB business could, of course, have been the lone agenda item during these meetings. But for a woman some national Democrats and liberal activists are hoping will take on Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R) — a prime target in 2012 — her calendar alludes that she has at least been examining the possibility of a run.

Of course, Scott Brown voted for the Dodd/Frank law, one of just a few Republicans to do so. Warren would need a tightly focused campaign message that accounts for Brown’s relative independence vis-a-vis the national Republican Party.