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From the networks to live streams online, there are many options to view the GOP's supposed coronation of Donald Trump.

The protests began in earnest over the weekend in Cleveland as delegates and Republican officials arrived from all over the nation to n...

Here's the latest news on what's happening at, around and related to the Republican National Convention

The 2016 Republican National Convention will be held in Cleveland, Ohio at the Quicken Loans Arena July 18-21, 2016. We will be showing a lot of what is goin...

Live updates and developments from the 2016 Republican National Convention

The national GOP convention is under way in Cleveland, Ohio. Politics reporter Jim Brunner is sending frequent updates from the event. Follow along live.

Still smarting from his loss in the primary, Cruz says he’ll use his convention speech to outline his own vision of the Republican Party’s future. But will he endorse?

The Latest on the 2016 presidential campaign (all times local):

[Editor's note: This blog post was published in 2008. In the wake of Saturday’s shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz.

Officer Brandon Baranowski was shot in a "vicious" attack early Sunday as he sat in his squad car while colleagues investigated a domestic disturbance call, an official said. 

All groups and movements develop their own lexicon: their own terms, often slurs. Take the Chinese Communist Party: They have had “running-dog capitalist,” “right-wing deviationist,” etc. In Hoxha’s Albania, they said “Titoist.” It was not a compliment. I would like to talk about the Trump movement, the Trump army. I am not going to talk about the “alt” people. I am not going to talk about the Nazis or the fascists or the racists or the “identitarians.” I may address them another day. I would probably entitle that piece “Nazis in My Notifications.” Almost every day, I need to weed the Nazis out of my “notifications” on Twitter. These are people who celebrate the Holocaust (when they’re not denying it). They tweet pictures of crematoria and the like. The “alt” people — the “alt-Right,” or “alternative Right” — use the word “cuck” a lot. This stands for “cuckold.” The alts believe that the conservatives let dark-skinned people come in and rape their women and take over the country. Hence, they are “cucks.” So we writers at National Review, for example, would be “cuckservatives,” led by “William F. Cuckley.” That’s the way they talk. Forget them, for now. Today, I will talk about the lexicon of Trump partisans, or many of them. They come after me on Twitter and in “comments” sections under articles and blogposts. I have been scanning such things recently. The mindset is collective, and so is the vocabulary. People use the same words, whether the words are sensible or truthful or not. It’s like an army of parrots, squawking. I wonder whether the birds know what they’re talking about. I think the most prominent word, from Trumpites, is “globalist.” That is their epithet of choice. It seems to have replaced “cosmopolitan,” or “rootless cosmopolitan,” a once-common slur against Jews. It is one of those nonsense words of the populist Right. In all likelihood, they think you’re for trade. Or for alliances. Or for general involvement in the world. Certainly, they think you are not a patriot. They think you subordinate the national interest to a fuzzy, global interest. One dictionary definition of “globalism” is “the attitude or policy of placing the interests of the entire world above those of individual nations.” We at National Review, of course, have been making the case for sovereignty and the nation-state for years. And there were years when sovereignty and the nation-state were in exceptionally bad odor. I thrilled to Jeremy Rabkin, for example, a guru on sovereignty. Anyway, this means nothing to Trumpite critics of NR. I have also seen the term “globalist pig” thrown about. “Pig” is a perennial, I suppose. Left-wing radicals referred to policemen as “pigs,” and still do. Then there was “capitalist pig.” Not long ago, a Trump man tweeted at me, “There’s no more liberal and conservative. It’s just nationalist vs. globalist.” The tweeter thought himself on the side of the angels (nationalist angels). Then we have “open borders.” They will always charge that you are for “open borders” — even if you have been arguing for a restrictionist immigration policy your entire career. And at some cost to yourself. We at National Review have caught hell from some conservatives — and many libertarians — for a very long time. That is because we have been restrictionist. For our pains, we have been called nativist, xenophobic, and worse. Trumpites either don’t know this or don’t care. To them, because we (or some of us) are anti-Trump, we are “open borders.” I suspect this is just a slur. The words “open borders” have no meaning, no content, beyond the slur. When they say, “You’re for open borders,” they don’t mean “You’re for open borders.” They mean something closer to “I hate you.” In Cambodia, a small handful of Khmer Rouge criminals have been put on trial. One of them oversaw a prison where almost every inmate was tortured to death. The prison was Tuol Sleng, or S-21, and its overseer was Kaing Guek Eav, nicknamed “Duch.” Some 16,000 people went into S-21. Seven are known to have survived. One of them, a man named Chum Mey, was able to question Duch at trial. Chum Mey asked, “Why did you keep saying that we worked for the CIA?” Duch answered, “The real CIA is different from people accused by the regime of being CIA. You were identified as someone who opposed the regime. That’s why we called you CIA.” And in Hoxhite Albania, when they called you a Titoist, they didn’t really mean that you were for Tito, or working for him. They meant that you opposed the regime, or were suspected of doing so. When a Trumpite says that someone like me is for open borders, he does not mean that we’re for open borders. He means nothing more, really, than “You don’t support the candidate I support, and I hate you.” “Open borders for Israel!” You hear that from some Trump people. It is a taunt. I think they mean that anti-Trump people put Israel above all — certainly above America — and if anti-Trumpers want open borders for America, they should surely want it for Israel. Which would destroy Israel. So, ha ha. As far as I know, that’s why these guys say, “Open borders for Israel!” They also call us “Israel Firsters.” They are for “America First” (using the old isolationist slogan). So the rest of us are “Israel Firsters,” you see. Relatedly, we are “neocons” — not that these Trumpers have the slightest idea what a neocon is. They have a vague sense that it means warmongering globalist. The alt-Rightists often say “neocohen.” Get it? Get it? Good one, huh? On Twitter some weeks ago, I noted that both Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un had praised Donald Trump. I said something like, “Rule of thumb:  The GOP presidential nominee should not be endorsed by Putin or Kim.” A Trumper tweeted back at me, “No, that’s the neocon rule of thumb.” At least he didn’t say “neocohen.” But that is the level of understanding. Perpetually, people like me — conservative Trump critics — are charged with desiring “perpetual war,” or “endless war.” This is an ancient charge, incidentally, and its pedigree is malodorous. Every day, we hear that we are the “GOPe.” The “e” stands for “establishment.” In the Trumpite mind, people like me are The Man, whom The Donald and his forces are standing up to. I once wrote an essay on the use and abuse of the word “establishment,” and I won’t recapitulate it here. Suffice it to say that I think people should make arguments for or against various policies without recourse to bogey words such as “establishment.” Say what you believe and why, if you possibly can. Then there’s “RINO.” It stands for “Republican in Name Only.” And it’s a constant Trumpite charge. Which is odd on at least two levels. First, many Trump people despise the GOP. So for them to question other people’s Republican loyalty is odd indeed. But second, their man, their hero, is genuinely a RINO: a lifelong Democrat who got into the Republican primaries when he saw a populist opening. In any event, my critics can spare me the “RINO” charge because I left the Republican party when Donald Trump cinched the Republican nomination — i.e., when the party transformed itself. “Donor class.” You hear this a lot. It is a pejorative, of course. Probably, every candidate for office receives donations from people who support him. Trump has said that he is self-funding. But that is evidently not true. So he, too, has donors. Do they belong to the “class”? One of the reasons I rejected the Left, many years ago, is that they spoke constantly of “class.” No one could be an individual; everyone had to be shoved into a class. I now hear the same kind of language — ideological language, extremist language — from the Right. Someone said to me recently, “You’re working for your donor-class overlords.” This is kind of funny, when the initial shock wears off. Memo to donor-class overlords, or would-be overlords: National Review could use some. Believe me. Give us a call! P.S. As a devotee of Turkish cuisine, I certainly belong to the doner class. More on this class stuff: Not since I was a student, surrounded by Marxists, have I heard so much talk about class. Or such expressions of class envy. And it all comes from the Trump army. Someone told me, “Keep drinking wine and eating brie in your New York penthouse.” Do Trump folk know whom they’re supporting? Have they ever heard of Trump Tower? Do they realize I’m a magazine staffer? You see what I mean. #share# When you’re in my business, you hear a lot about cocktail parties. The Right charges you with tailoring your views to cocktail parties. As they tell it, “You have to toe the liberal line or your invitations to cocktail parties will dry up.” This is so divorced from reality, it’s hard to know what to say. Most of us would rather be home, typing in our pajamas, or less, than attending cocktail parties. And I have news for the Trumpite Right: Conservatives like me are as unwanted by lefties as they are by Trumpies. One side hates us for being Neanderthals. The other side hates us for not being Neanderthals. “Elitist” is another charge, of course. Trump partisans fancy themselves tribunes of the people — or the people themselves. “We the People,” they like to say. The rest of us are non-people, somehow. The charge of elitism is especially stupid and irksome. I have spoken of my rejection of the Left, when I was in my teens. One reason I rejected them is that they obviously disdained ordinary people: people who, as Barack Obama would later say, cling to their guns and religion. And people who call you elitist? They’re apt to know nothing — nothing at all — about you. “It’s not about ideology.” This is something I hear from Trump folk when I or someone else points out that Trump is not a conservative, or that he takes left-leaning positions, or outright leftist positions (as on health care). A related phrase is, “It’s not about box-checking.” What do they mean by this? I think they mean, “No fair talking about issues. No fair talking about the federal debt or taxation or entitlements or trade or gun control or abortion or NATO or affirmative action or ethanol subsidies. Issues and positions don’t matter. Thinking doesn’t matter. What matters is that Donald Trump is a big strong man, and that’s what this country needs now.” You recall what recruiters for Trump University were told: sell “feelings,” not “solutions.” “You’re for Hillary!” “Another vote for Hillary!” This sort of thing trips from Trumpite lips 24/7. If, like me, you are not voting for either Trump or Hillary — because you regard both as unfit for office — Trump folk will say that you’re for Hillary. Period. I was fighting Hillary, in every way I could, when Trump was her great friend and supporter and funder — insisting that she be at his wedding, in the first pew. My friend Bill Kristol was leading the fight against HillaryCare (as we called the precursor to ObamaCare) when Trump was waging his “personal Vietnam” — i.e., dodging venereal disease when bedding his broads. I think Trump was for single-payer health care then too, to the extent he thought about it. Anyway, we don’t need any lectures on Hillary. Yet I think that, psychologically, it’s very important to Trump people that the likes of us be for Hillary. I think they would rather shout “Hillary!” than defend Trump’s fitness for office. I don’t blame them. Note this, too: For months, the Trumpites told us that we were irrelevant, we were the “GOPe,” we were past it. They didn’t need us. We were yesterday’s news. Besides which, Trump was bringing millions and millions of new people to the polls — people who had dropped out of the political process, or had never entered it. The whole electoral calculus was changed! And now, if I don’t go to the old-folks home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on the relevant Tuesday in November, I’m going to be responsible for President Hillary Rodham Clinton? Well, I won’t be responsible for that, or for President Donald J. Trump. “Your time is over!” they often tell me. I want to reply, “I had a time? Who knew? I wish someone had told me! I might have enjoyed ‘my time’ …” Among the many other things they are, Trumpites are definers and arbiters of conservatism. They are some combination of Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk, at least in their minds. They say that George Will is not a conservative. Will is, of course, a classic conservative. Plus, he knows more about conservatism in a follicle of his hair than the Trump army does collectively. But, to them, Will is no conservative. They tell Mona Charen that she is not a conservative. She worked in the Reagan White House. She has been on the frontlines for decades. They don’t care. For them, conservatism can be summed up in one, four-syllable phrase: “Donald J. Trump.” If they want to call themselves nationalists and populists and protectionists and Buchananites and nativists and identitarians and Trumpites, that’s fine with me. But they insist (some of them) that they are conservatives. And that all others are heretics. Which is meshugge (as the neocons might say). Earlier, I spoke of Trumpites who say that they are “nationalists,” in opposition to “globalists.” “There’s no more liberal and conservative. It’s just nationalist vs. globalist.” To me, this is slightly more palatable than the One True Conservative act. “You’ve never criticized Obama!” We at National Review hear this, from angry Trump supporters. Honestly. We hear, “You’ve never criticized Obama!” Obviously, criers of such phrases have never read NR and know nothing about it. We have devoted every issue since 2008, and most covers, probably, to criticism of Obama. That does not obligate us to declare Trump fit for office, if we don’t think he is … “The primary is over!” I hear this from Trump folk increasingly. What they mean is, “Shut up. No more criticism of Trump. The Right has spoken. The Right has selected its presidential nominee. Shut up and get on board.” This is not very American. Also, I think of a response from an American general: “Nuts.” Nobody is obligated to surrender his conscience. On the contrary. #related# Ever and always, there is the threat — explicit or implicit — that things will be very bad for anti-Trump conservatives, once The Donald wins. Just you wait. You’ll get yours. You had to board the #TrumpTrain or get run over, and get run over you will. Your time is up. What do they mean? Shunning? Knee-capping? Bullet to the back of the head? Some Vorkuta planned, in Maine, maybe? Their candidate’s style is belligerent, and so is theirs. Never has there been a closer marriage of candidate and core supporters. This includes respect for the truth. If it’s to Trump’s advantage to imply that a rival’s father had a hand in the Kennedy assassination, he will. If a Trumpster needs, psychologically, to tell you you’re for open borders, or for Hillary — he will. Live not by lies. I mean, no one can stop you, but it’s a lousy way to live.

This is going to be one of my favorite spectacles of the upcoming four months - every reasonable Republican who throws their lot in with Trump for the sake of expediency will get asked to defend the insane/stupid things that Trump says/believes every time they go on TV. One of the most common things they will get to defend is the absolutely moronic idea that | Read More »

Prior to announcing Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate, presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump had narrowed the VP field down to the Indiana governor, as well as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Gov. Chris Christie.

‘​Never wound a king,” Herodotus advised 2,450 years ago. An unsuccessful attempt to overthrow a powerful ruler ends badly for those who attempt it. Having regained control of the Turkish government, President Erdogan has rounded up 2,839 soldiers as complicit in the failed coup. Many, many more Turks are also likely to suffer as Erdogan cracks down on enemies real and perceived. In fact, this attempt to unseat him will almost certainly result in Erdogan’s becoming more authoritarian, and civil liberties in Turkey being further strangled. Yet there are some positive signs — some things to be learned from what transpired in Turkey in the past 24 hours that show a hopeful direction for the country. First, and most importantly, is the burgeoning strength of Turkish civil society. President Erdogan has for years been targeting the half of Turkey’s people who did not vote for his AKP party or dared to defend the liberties he has been slowly suffocating. It was incredibly beautiful to see Turkish citizens willing to lay down in front of tanks to block their path and mobilize by the thousands rather than put their heads down and accept the outcome. There is an particular nobility to those who have been victims of the Erdogan government’s repression still insisting that military coups are not the means by which they would change their government. Unlike Egyptians, Turks made a distinction between the means and the end, and that is a hallmark of a free society. The smart money  expects President Erdogan to become even more repressive after the coup attempt; it will have validated his paranoia and given justification to crack downs on presumed opponents. But the strength of civil society will not only be aimed at preserving his government, it may also be turned against the encroachments on justice and law. Turkish civil society has been finding its strength, and the coup refusal may become a watershed as it understands the breadth of its power. President Erdogan may have to learn to accommodate peaceful demands for limits on his power. Second, the military is no longer the determiner of political outcomes in Turkey. Almost as beautiful as people risking their lives to stop tanks was Turkish soldiers’ refusing to run them over. They allowed themselves to be disarmed by citizens with sticks, surrendering themselves to their countrymen rather than firing on crowds. Only a very few among the Turkish military were willing to do violence to their fellow citizens. That is a powerful signal that the military now views itself as indistinguishable from society, rather than as “guardians of the constitution” who rule over it. Subordination of the military to civilian control has been achieved in Turkey, something hard to imagine even 20 years ago. Third, the coup was only supported by certain factions within the military. There was no unified military view. Leading commanders, including the Chief of Staff, were evidently taken prisoner by the coup plotters because they did not support the effort. This suggests that even with President Erdogan’s sweeping condemnation of the military in the Ergenokon trials, the military leadership was unwilling to move against an elected leader. Subordination of the military to civilian control has been achieved in Turkey, something hard to imagine even 20 years ago. Fourth, the media President Erdogan has so determinedly tried to choke was his lifeline during the coup attempt. What an irony to see the politician who routinely arrests journalists and shuts down social-media access reliant on a phone app to appeal for support. Cell-phone videos posted on Twitter were how most journalists outside Turkey got information; the Turkish government texted its citizens to turn out for rallies of support. Repressive governments everywhere take note: Accountability is coming. Let us hope the experience turns Erdogan into less of a scourge to freedom of the press now that he has been the beneficiary of uncontrolled information. #related#Fifth, when the coup plotters fled Turkey in a military helicopter and landed in Greece, they were arrested. Given the enmity between Turkey and Greece, there was a time that outcome could not be taken for granted. Civil authorities in Greece arrested the Turkish military officers, a powerful symbol of the progress of law in both countries. (There was once a time when Greece, too, was subject to coups.) One caution, however. Despite disavowing involvement and calling for restoration of the elected government, President Erdogan will surely suspect orchestration of the coup by Fetullah Gulen, a disaffected Turkish power broker who has long resided in Pennsylvania. Erdogan will very likely again call for Gulen’s extradition to stand trial, creating a predicament for the U.S. Absent intelligence clearly linking Gulen to the plotters, it would be a mistake for the Obama administration to hand him over. The United States did well to support an elected government during a coup; it will do likewise well to support the restraints of law against a government using the tools of the state to repress its people. — Kori Schake is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article is excerpted from Dinesh D’Souza’s new book, Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party. In January 2015 a group of Haitians surrounded the New York offices of the Clinton Foundation. They chanted slogans, accusing Bill and Hillary Clinton of having robbed them of “billions of dollars.” Two months later, the Haitians were at it again, accusing the Clintons of duplicity, malfeasance, and theft. And in May 2015, they were back, this time outside New York’s Cipriani, where Bill Clinton received an award and collected a $500,000 check for his foundation. “Clinton, where’s the money?” the Haitian signs read. “In whose pockets?” Said Dhoud Andre of the Commission Against Dictatorship, “We are telling the world of the crimes that Bill and Hillary Clinton are responsible for in Haiti.” Haitians like Andre may sound a bit strident, but he and the protesters had good reason to be disgruntled. They had suffered a heavy blow from Mother Nature, and now it appeared that they were being battered again — this time by the Clintons. Their story goes back to 2010, when a massive 7.0 earthquake devastated the island, killing more than 200,000 people, leveling 100,000 homes, and leaving 1.5 million people destitute. The devastating effect of the earthquake on a very poor nation provoked worldwide concern and inspired an outpouring of aid money intended to rebuild Haiti. Countries around the world, as well as private and philanthropic groups such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, provided some $10.5 billion in aid, with $3.9 billion of it coming from the United States. Haitians such as Andre, however, noticed that very little of this aid money actually got to poor people in Haiti. Some projects championed by the Clintons, such as the building of industrial parks and posh hotels, cost a great deal of money and offered scarce benefits to the truly needy. Port-au-Prince was supposed to be rebuilt; it was never rebuilt. Projects aimed at creating jobs proved to be bitter disappointments. Haitian unemployment remained high, largely undented by the funds that were supposed to pour into the country. Famine and illness continued to devastate the island nation. The Haitians were initially sympathetic to the Clintons. One may say they believed in the message of “hope and change.” With his customary overstatement, Bill told the media, “Wouldn’t it be great if they become the first wireless nation in the world? They could, I’m telling you, they really could.” I don’t blame the Haitians for falling for it; Bill is one of the world’s greatest story-tellers. He has fooled people far more sophisticated than the poor Haitians. Over time, however, the Haitians wised up. Whatever their initial expectations, many saw that much of the aid money seems never to have reached its destination; rather, it disappeared along the way. Where did it go? It did not escape the attention of the Haitians that Bill Clinton was the designated UN representative for aid to Haiti. Following the earthquake, Bill Clinton had with media fanfare established the Haiti Reconstruction Fund. Meanwhile, his wife Hillary was the United States secretary of state. She was in charge of U.S. aid allocated to Haiti. Together the Clintons were the two most powerful people who controlled the flow of funds to Haiti from around the world. Haitian deals appeared to be a quid pro quo for filling the coffers of the Clintons. The Haitian protesters noticed an interesting pattern involving the Clintons and the designation of how aid funds were used. They observed that a number of companies that received contracts in Haiti happened to be entities that made large donations to the Clinton Foundation. The Haitian contracts appeared less tailored to the needs of Haiti than to the needs of the companies that were performing the services. In sum, Haitian deals appeared to be a quid pro quo for filling the coffers of the Clintons. For example, the Clinton Foundation selected Clayton Homes, a construction company owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, to build temporary shelters in Haiti. Buffett is an active member of the Clinton Global Initiative who has donated generously to the Clintons as well as the Clinton Foundation. The contract was supposed to be given through the normal United Nations bidding process, with the deal going to the lowest bidder who met the project’s standards. UN officials said, however, that the contract was never competitively bid for. Clayton offered to build “hurricane-proof trailers” but what they actually delivered turned out to be a disaster. The trailers were structurally unsafe, with high levels of formaldehyde and insulation coming out of the walls. There were problems with mold and fumes. The stifling heat inside made Haitians sick and many of them abandoned the trailers because they were ill-constructed and unusable. The Clintons also funneled $10 million in federal loans to a firm called InnoVida, headed by Clinton donor Claudio Osorio. Osorio had loaded its board with Clinton cronies, including longtime Clinton ally General Wesley Clark; Hillary’s 2008 finance director Jonathan Mantz; and Democratic fundraiser Chris Korge who has helped raise millions for the Clintons. Normally the loan approval process takes months or even years. But in this case, a government official wrote, “Former President Bill Clinton is personally in contact with the company to organize its logistical and support needs. And as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has made available State Department resources to assist with logistical arrangements.” InnoVida had not even provided an independently audited financial report that is normally a requirement for such applications. This requirement, however, was waived. On the basis of the Clinton connection, InnoVida’s application was fast-tracked and approved in two weeks. The company, however, defaulted on the loan and never built any houses. An investigation revealed that Osorio had diverted company funds to pay for his Miami Beach mansion, his Maserati, and his Colorado ski chalet. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in 2013, and is currently serving a twelve-year prison term on fraud charges related to the loan. Several Clinton cronies showed up with Bill to a 2011 Housing Expo that cost more than $2 million to stage. Bill Clinton said it would be a model for the construction of thousands of homes in Haiti. In reality, no homes have been built. A few dozen model units were constructed but even they have not been sold. Rather, they are now abandoned and have been taken over by squatters. The Schools They Never Built USAID contracts to remove debris in Port-au-Prince went to a Washington-based company named CHF International. The company’s CEO David Weiss, a campaign contributor to Hillary in 2008, was deputy U.S. trade representative for North American Affairs during the Clinton administration. The corporate secretary of the board, Lauri Fitz-Pegado, served in a number of posts in the Clinton administration, including assistant secretary of commerce.The Clintons claim to have built schools in Haiti. But the New York Times discovered that when it comes to the Clintons, “built” is a term with a very loose interpretation. For example, the newspaper located a school featured in the Clinton Foundation annual report as “built through a Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action.” In reality, “The Clinton Foundation’s sole direct contribution to the school was a grant for an Earth Day celebration and tree-building activity.” The Clintons claim to have built schools in Haiti. But the New York Times discovered that when it comes to the Clintons, ‘built’ is a term with a very loose interpretation. USAID contracts also went to consulting firms such as New York–based Dalberg Global Development Advisors, which received a $1.5 million contract to identify relocation sites for Haitians. This company is an active participant and financial supporter of the Clinton Global Initiative. A later review by USAID’s inspector general found that Dalberg did a terrible job, naming uninhabitable mountains with steep ravines as possible sites for Haitian rebuilding. Foreign governments and foreign companies got Haitian deals in exchange for bankrolling the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton Foundation lists the Brazilian construction firm OAS and the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) as donors that have given it between $1 billion and $5 billion. The IDB receives funding from the State Department, and some of this funding was diverted to OAS for Haitian road-building contracts. Yet an IDB auditor, Mariela Antiga, complained that the contracts were padded with “excessive costs” to build roads “no one needed.” Antiga also alleged that IDB funds were going to a construction project on private land owned by former Haitian president Rene Preval — a Clinton buddy — and several of his cronies. For her efforts to expose corruption, Antiga was promptly instructed by the IDB to pack her bags and leave Haiti. In 2011, the Clinton Foundation brokered a deal with Digicel, a cell-phone-service provider seeking to gain access to the Haitian market. The Clintons arranged to have Digicel receive millions in U.S. taxpayer money to provide mobile phones. The USAID Food for Peace program, which the State Department administered through Hillary aide Cheryl Mills, distributed Digicel phones free to Haitians. Digicel didn’t just make money off the U.S. taxpayer; it also made money off the Haitians. When Haitians used the phones, either to make calls or transfer money, they paid Digicel for the service. Haitians using Digicel’s phones also became automatically enrolled in Digicel’s mobile program. By 2012, Digicel had taken over three-quarters of the cell-phone market in Haiti. Digicel is owned by Denis O’Brien, a close friend of the Clintons. O’Brien secured three speaking engagements in his native Ireland that paid $200,000 apiece. These engagements occurred right at the time that Digicel was making its deal with the U.S. State Department. O’Brien has also donated lavishly to the Clinton Foundation, giving between $1 million and $5 million sometime in 2010–2011. Coincidentally the United States government paid Digicel $45 million to open a hotel in Port-au-Prince. Now perhaps it could be argued that Haitians could use a high-priced hotel to attract foreign investors and provide jobs for locals. Thus far, however, this particular hotel seems to employ only a few dozen locals, which hardly justifies the sizable investment that went into building it. Moreover, there are virtually no foreign investors; the rooms are mostly unoccupied; the ones that are taken seem mainly for the benefit of Digicel’s visiting teams. In addition, the Clintons got their cronies to build Caracol Industrial Park, a 600-acre garment factory that was supposed to make clothes for export to the United States and create — according to Bill Clinton — 100,000 new jobs in Haiti. The project was funded by the U.S. government and cost hundreds of millions in taxpayer money, the largest single allocation of U.S. relief aid. Yet Caracol has proven a massive failure. First, the industrial park was built on farmland and the farmers had to be moved off their property. Many of them feel they were pushed out and inadequately compensated. Some of them lost their livelihoods. Second, Caracol was supposed to include 25,000 homes for Haitian employees; in the end, the Government Accountability Office reports that only around 6,000 homes were built. Third, Caracol has created 5,000 jobs, less than 10 percent of the jobs promised. Fourth, Caracol is exporting very few products and most of the facility is abandoned. People stand outside every day looking for work, but there is no work to be had, as Haiti’s unemployment rate hovers around 40 percent. The Clintons say Caracol can still be salvaged. But former Haitian prime minister Jean Bellerive says, “I believe the momentum to attract people there in a massive way is past. Today, it has failed.” Still, Bellerive’s standard of success may not be the same one used by the Clintons. After all, the companies that built Caracol with U.S. taxpayer money have done fine — even if poor Haitians have seen few of the benefits. Then there is the strange and somehow predictable involvement of Hillary Clinton’s brother Hugh Rodham. Rodham put in an application for $22 million from the Clinton Foundation to build homes on ten thousand acres of land that he said a “guy in Haiti” had “donated” to him. “I deal through the Clinton Foundation,” Rodham told the New York Times. “I hound my brother-in-law because it’s his fund that we’re going to get our money from.” Rodham said he expected to net $1 million personally on the deal. Unfortunately, his application didn’t go through. Rodham had better luck, however, on a second Haitian deal. He mysteriously found himself on the advisory board of a U.S. mining company called VCS. This by itself is odd because Rodham’s resume lists no mining experience; rather, Rodham is a former private detective and prison guard. The mining company, however, seems to have recognized Rodham’s value. They brought him on board in October 2013 to help secure a valuable gold mining permit in Haiti. Rodham was promised a “finder’s fee” if he could land the contract. Sure enough, he did. For the first time in 50 years, Haiti awarded two new gold mining permits and one of them went to the company that had hired Hillary’s brother. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the Clintons don’t care about Haiti. Yet it seems clear that Haitian welfare is not their priority. The deal provoked outrage in the Haitian Senate. “Neither Bill Clinton nor the brother of Hillary Clinton are individuals who share the interest of the Haitian people,” said Haitian mining representative Samuel Nesner. “They are part of the elite class who are operating to exploit the Haitian people.” Is this too harsh a verdict? I wouldn’t go so far as to say the Clintons don’t care about Haiti. Yet it seems clear that Haitian welfare is not their priority. Their priority is, well, themselves. The Clintons seem to believe in Haitian reconstruction and Haitian investment as long as these projects match their own private economic interests. They have steered the rebuilding of Haiti in a way that provides maximum benefit to themselves. No wonder the Clintons refused to meet with the Haitian protesters. Each time the protesters showed up, the Clintons were nowhere to be seen. They have never directly addressed the Haitians’ claims. Strangely enough, they have never been required to do so. The progressive media scarcely covered the Haitian protest. Somehow the idea of Haitian black people calling out the Clintons as aid money thieves did not appeal to the grand pooh-bahs at CBS News, the New York Times, and NPR. For most Democrats, the topic is both touchy and distasteful. It’s one thing to rob from the rich but quite another to rob from the poorest of the poor. Some of the Democratic primary support for Bernie Sanders was undoubtedly due to Democrats’ distaste over the financial shenanigans of the Clintons. Probably these Democrats considered the Clintons to be unduly grasping and opportunistic, an embarrassment to the great traditions of the Democratic party. — Dinesh D’​Souza is the author of Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party.

Television host Sonia Kruger has called for Australia to close its borders to Muslim immigrants during a heated debate on the TODAY Show this morning. 

CNN's Kate Bolduan badgered the RNC's Sean Spicer on Thursday's At This Hour over Donald Trump passing on speaking at the NAACP's convention. Bolduan underlined, "Trump is polling at zero percent with African-American voters in Ohio...not showing up to speak...how does that help with that number?" The guest retorted, "The liberal media wants to talk about one particular group as if that's the only way to communicate....you don't ask Hillary Clinton about groups that she is refusing to speak to."

Watch Full Original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o060w7URvAw Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUfzMDryA94 Video suggested by: https://twitter.com/Di...

Dozens of Black Lives Matter and anti-police activists have taken to Twitter in celebration following the murder of officers in Baton Rouge.

Confirmed: Top Saudi Officials Aided the 9/11 Jihad Plot

Confirmed: Top Saudi Officials Aided the 9/11 Jihad Plot Hugh Fitzgerald: French Islamologues Play at Tweedledum and Tweedledee