Trump is not a Republican

Donald Trump cannot call himself a Republican and contribute thousands of dollars to the likes of Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Charlie Rangel and Shelley Berkley.

Look it up on fec.gov.

His excuse? Just currying favors.

“As a businessman and a very substantial donor to very important people, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do,” Trump was quoted as saying by The Wall Street Journal. “As a businessman, I need that.”

For no heed to how they were ruining the country and the economy, just look out for No. 1.

WSJ allowed as how Trump has given to more Republicans than Democrats over time, but …. he gave nearly $10,000 to Harry Reid and $5,000 to Ted Kennedy. Days after donating $2,000 to George W. Bush in 2003, he gave the same amount to John Kerry.

The paper didn’t bother to mention the $67,000 for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee or the $24,000 for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Trump also donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation. WSJ said Trump was “practicing situational politics” — a polite way of saying turncoat?

Trump

 

The nuance behind Amodei’s remarks: That’s going to leave a welt

Who’d’ve taken soft-spoken, polite-to-a-fault, in Congress-only-nine-months Rep. Mark Amodei for a triple-play threat.

In one simple declarative statement released via email Wednesday, Amodei wove in just-beneath-the-surface nuances that stabbed fellow Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley in the back, stroked fellow Republican Sen. Dean Heller and tweaked the upturned, imperious nose of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Mark Amodei

The topic at hand was the passage of H.R. 4039, the Yerington Land Conveyance and Sustainable Development Act, which was bundled with more than a dozen other water and land use bills as the Conservation and Economic Growth Act. The Yerington bill would allow the city of Yerington to buy 10,400 acres of federal land to facilitate development of the Pumpkin Hollow copper mine and potentially create 800 well paying jobs. The package passed on a vote of 232-188 with Berkley voting nay and saying the legislative package has no chance of passing in the Senate and “faces strong opposition in Nevada,” which she failed to explain in any manner whatsoever.

In his statement, Amodei goes through the routine of thanking various bill supporters, pledging to work with the Democrats who voted for the bill and touting various aspects of the bill that include grazing improvements, border security and recreational shooting.

Amodei, without ever mentioning Berkley, who is trying to unseat Heller with the unabashed backing of Reid, concludes his statement thusly:

“Having sat on the jurisdictional committee that passed the bills in this package, the allegation of ‘strong opposition in Nevada’ is a statement whose foundation is unknown to me.

“I look forward to well-deserved support and leadership in moving the Yerington bill forward in the U.S. Senate. As the junior member of the House Republican Conference, I am sure the Senate Majority Leader will have no problem advancing Senator Heller’s Yerington legislation in much less than 120 days.”

So Berkley doesn’t think her puppet master Reid has the clout to pass a bill that would create a significant amount of jobs and have a major economic impact on an economically hard-hit part of the state. With one swing of the gauntlet, he slaps down Berkley and calls out Reid with a duel-like challenge: Can you — the great and powerful Oz of the U.S. Senate — manage to pass a Nevada-centric bill in less than 120 days, which is all the time the aforementioned junior congressman from Nevada, who took office in September, needed to pass his first sponsored bill?

Subtle.

The dynamic duo