Now we know why Melania Trump has not been campaigning for Donald until this week. She knew there was hard evidence that she worked illegally in the US before obtaining her work permit. This is a brand new investigative report by three reporters from CNBC on her work status. They actually located payroll records dating back 20 years.
It may be a good idea to remind people on Facebook that we still have a lot to learn about the Trumps… including the hypocracy of his stance against immigrant labor when he is actually hiring immigrant labor at the Trump winery and at his Florida hotels.
There is a lot of information of dubious veracity on Facebook concerning the status of various FBI investigations into Clinton. While the new Clinton emails look very bad, we really can’t even trust the veracity everything on that device. No one has proven that Huma Abedin was reckless, at least not yet. A truly skilled hacker could trick Anthony Wiener into compromising control over his PC. Once it is controlled, it could be used as a “bot” to obtain files from other devices on the home network, like those of Abedin. it’s gonna take a few months to actually sort out what really happened with that breach.
SomervilleTom says
The information about Melania Trump has been available for twenty years. It came up in the campaign months ago. The media, seeking a close race, was silent.
This should have been headline news during the debates. It could have and should have been raised while there was still time for it to be confirmed, discussed, and elaborated — after all, it took several weeks for the infamous “bus tape” to reach its maximum impact.
The fact that Donald Trump makes bashing illegal immigrants a centerpiece of his campaign while his Slovenian bride worked here illegally is not surprising — it is Donald Trump being Donald Trump.
The fact that the media ignored the story last summer is the larger story here. The media want a horse-race. The media want large audiences so that it can command high advertising revenues.
The fact that the media is perfectly happy to put a terrifyingly incompetent bigot in charge of the nuclear arsenal so long as the media gets more cash is disgusting.
Christopher says
…be golden for a ratings-seeking media? Also, my cynical side is inclined to say yeah, but she’s a white European so it’s all good, right?:(
SomervilleTom says
The effect of this would have been to widen Ms. Clinton’s advantage, making the election more of a runaway.
That hurts ratings and therefore advertising revenue.
Christopher says
…whether there has ever been a study showing a correlation between tightness of the race and ratings. I figure you are either interested or you aren’t and will tune in (or not) either way.
perry41 says
who don’t usually follow baseball tuned in to Game 7 of the World Series?
Christopher says
…to tuning in on election night for the results, though even I tuned into the last inning of Game 4 of the 2004 WS when I thought Boston might win for the first time in decades.
JimC says
I was wondering how I lost that modeling gig.
Peter Porcupine says
He has TOTALLY lost the underwear model vote.
You guys like to bleat about false equivalence. This is an excellent example. Working class people are worried about losing their second and third part time jobs to illegal immigrants who will work under the table, even if their wives ARE supermodels. You should be grateful this didn’t break sooner because had you revealed your utter lack of understanding of their concerns earlier, Clinton might be doing even worse.
But Gisele might be swayed now to vote Clinton, so that’s one.
Christopher says
If the DUMB candidate weren’t so xenophobic I wouldn’t care.
SomervilleTom says
There is nothing false about the flagrant hypocrisy of the GOP, its nominee, and this lame defense of that hypocrisy.
The GOP primary contenders, including Ms. Fiorina, spent much of the primary campaign trying to out-do each other about how high a wall they’d build and repeating ever-escalating lies about “illegals” (carefully transforming men, women and children into objects of contempt). Working-class people have been hurt far more by decades of failed GOP economic proposals than by anything having anything to do with illegal immigration.
Donald Trump made bashing illegals a centerpiece of his campaign, and now we know that his own wife was herself an illegal worker. This is the same guy who publicly bashes foreign steel suppliers — and buys Chinese steel for his own buildings. A guy who brags about stiffing small-businesses and contractors who were foolish enough to do business with him. A guy who has spent a life-time exploiting, plundering, and ripping off working-class people and now claims to champion them.
It seems that the GOP has absolutely no shame about any of this. Newt Gingrich made a career attacking Bill Clinton’s adultery while Mr. Gingrich was doing far worse with his second wife (or first, or third, who can keep up). This GOP couldn’t turn their second-string speaker to replace Mr. Gingrich because THAT candidate turns out to have been more adulterous than either Mr. Clinton or Mr. Gingrich. They finally elect a “Mr. Clean”, who ultimately turns out to have been a tax cheat and serial sexual abuser of young men while a high-school teacher and coach. GOP candidates publicly preach sanctimonious malarky about “illegals”, while hiring — or marrying — illegal immigrants themselves.
Of course, we’ve known all along that the GOP doesn’t really object to “illegal immigrants” — it’s really MEXICANS (“wetbacks”) that they object to. Oh, and Muslims. Oh, and uppity women. Oh, and blacks. Slovenians are fine, though — especially if they’re female, young, skinny, and willing to whatever with or to Donald Trump.
Donald Trump lied about Melania Trump in August. She assured the world that there would be a press conference about her immigration history, and there wasn’t. This is a woman who in her first public appearance plagiarized Michelle Obama. Now we know that she also worked here illegally. I’m astonished that you have the audacity to whine about “false equivalence” or attempt to trivialize this with snarky references to “Gisele”.
Tom Brady is not the GOP nominee. We see yet another example of staggering, breathtaking GOP hypocrisy — and you defend it.
Perhaps if the GOP could somehow find candidates who walk the walk before they talk the talk, they might not be an endangered species here in Massachusetts.
sabutai says
Republicans typically like illegal immigrants who work in factories and boost profit margins. It’s just when they vote, or drive, or want to be treated as humans that we run into trouble.
scott12mass says
So is there a reason to have borders? Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million illegals but after that we were going to clamp down and stop any more from coming in. Now we have 11 million. So we’ll make them official and then stop any more from coming in?
Is it a Darwinian attempt to make sure we reward those daring souls who are willing to flout the laws and the tedious legal procedures which would give them legal citizenship? Instead of building a wall maybe we can build a set of mazes and citizenship will be the “cheese”. At certain points in the maze we can set trap doors and get the more clever ones.
Again is there a reason to have borders and what would you have their function be?
SomervilleTom says
First, please refer to them as “illegal immigrants”. They are people, not objects.
Have you bothered to learn the facts? Whatever issues we may have with immigration, building a wall between the US and Mexico will not solve them. The flow of illegal Mexican immigrants across that border essentially stopped in 2009.
Do you know any immigrants who have actually had to obtain the necessary documentation? If so, then you know that the de facto paralysis of legal immigration is a huge contributor to the issue — an issue that the GOP has made worse, not better, with its relentless “austerity” demands. One of the most effective ways to address the illegal immigration issue is to make it practical for those who qualify for green cards to actually GET THEM in a reasonable time for a reasonable cost.
I encourage to you examine actual facts rather than media lies and partisan talking points.
scott12mass says
The flow has abated (Hillary helped when she voted for the fence while in the Senate) but you never know when it can start again. A Central American war, famine etc. You don’t think it can happen again? Look at Europe.
My question was about the nature of borders. If they say they want in we let them in? No money, no sponsor or relatives, still let them in? Only let in the ones with jobs promised to them?
I do know some recent green carders. Glad they painted my house when they were still undocumented, it knocks 30% off the price.
SomervilleTom says
Our immigration issue has very little to do with physical security at our borders and everything to do with our completely dysfunctional bureaucracy charged with handling immigration.
I find your attempted humor concerning “recent green carders” insultingly cruel. My wife holds an Austrian passport. She is a green card holder. It was tedious and expensive to get and took forever. It needs be renewed every ten years, and each renewal is tedious, expensive and takes forever.
The overwhelming majority of people like my wife are here, like her, legally. The pain, suffering, and stress that we put on them is wrong. The number of families torn apart by sheer bureaucratic ineptitude is horrifying.
It is not a laughing matter.
scott12mass says
Many illegal Polish immigrants in Webster (and a big cash economy). So when amnesty is granted won’t you feel your following the rules was a waste of time?
You’re not worried about physical security at the border? My question was about the nature of borders. If they say they want in we let them in? No money, no sponsor or relatives, still let them in? Only let in the ones with jobs promised to them?
SomervilleTom says
I didn’t say any of this, and your comment is offensive.
Some people have always been willing to work under the table, that has nothing to do with immigration status. You are using tasteless and cruel humor to spread xenophobic bigotry.
You, or your contractor, has an obligation to withhold taxes on their income, to pay the employer’s share of the payroll tax, to pay for unemployment compensation, and to ensure that each and every worker is covered by workers compensation insurance. None of that has anything to do with immigration status (yes, you or your employer is required to collect an I-9 form from each). When you or anyone else hires a worker “under the table”, you undermine the safety net that protects every worker, and especially the poorest workers.
I submit that your question has almost nothing to do with borders, and instead has everything to do with xenophobia, bigotry, and scapegoating. Our physical borders are already as secure as they need to be. Where on earth did you get that rubbish about “no money, no sponsor or relatives”?
I’m saying that a green card applicant who is married to a US citizen, who is a PhD here on a valid work visa, who has a seven figure portfolio earned herself, has a full-time research job with a local employer, and for that matter who has been fingerprinted once every six months for the preceding several years should NOT have wait more than thirty months to have get her valid green card. She should not have to repeat that fiasco ten years later to renew that green card. That person should not have to hire immigration attorneys to check on their status. That person should not have to avail themselves of the “constituent services” staff of their US senator (the step that finally broke the logjam each time).
Your list of concerns is even less relevant to real life than the trumped-up justifications for the widespread voterID laws promulgated by the GOP to suppress minority turnout. In real life, if you care about addressing the multitude of immigration issues, you would demand that the first step be to reform our immigration bureaucracy and laws to be workable in today’s world, and then provide the funding needed to make those immigration processes accessible to those who need them. In real life, the GOP has been steadfastly blocking those steps for the past twenty years, opposing reform efforts by Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. GOP opposition to reasonable immigration reform in fact goes as far back as the Ronald Reagan administration.
The truth is that the conservative business interests that own so much of the GOP want to protect their ability to hire and exploit illegal immigrants, especially Hispanic immigrants, so that those conservative business interests can keep more money for themselves. The nonsense spouted during this campaign is a smokescreen intended to obscure this ugly reality.
You are repeating right-wing nonsense about immigration that has nothing whatsoever to do with real life.
Christopher says
Personally, I believe that the default position should be the free movement of goods and people. When people say that the undocumented need to go to the back of the line I ask why in the world is there a line. Anyone not a threat to public health and safety should be allowed in, IMO. We need to make the legal immigration system so efficient that there will be no need to come illegally unless your motives are less than pure. Those who simply have overstayed visas should just be able to let us know they wish to stay and fast track their paperwork. On the goods side I am by default a free trader, wishing only to restrict products made under unacceptable conditions for either labor or the environment.
JimC says
n/t