We begin today’s roundup with Kate Irby at McClatchy and the fact that, unsurprisingly, Donald Trump is a hypocrite when it comes to climate change:
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly called climate change a hoax and even referred to it as bull**** on his Twitter account.
But that didn’t stop him from citing climate change as the reason for building a seawall for his golf course in Ireland, according to a permit application for the wall obtained by Politico.
The permit application specifically cites global warming as a reason for building the seawall, as well as rising sea levels and extreme weather.
From that original POLITICO report:
“It's diabolical," said former South Carolina Republican Rep. Bob Inglis, an advocate of conservative solutions to climate change. “Donald Trump is working to ensure his at-risk properties and his company is trying to figure out how to deal with sea level rise. Meanwhile, he’s saying things to audiences that he must know are not true. … You have a soft place in your heart for people who are honestly ignorant, but people who are deceitful, that’s a different thing.”
Bob Ward at The Hill:
Few people outside the United States understand how Trump and the Republican Party can seriously expect to be elected while denying the risks of climate change. America's leading experts at the National Academy of Sciences have been sending the unambiguous message for many years that the potential impacts from man-made climate change could be devastating. So when American politicians disregard the verdict of many of America's finest minds, they look not only reckless, but also unpatriotic.
Former Vice President Al Gore:
"He has said some things on the climate crisis that I think should concern everyone,'' the former vice president told Anne Thompson in an exclusive interview on TODAY Monday.
"President [Jimmy] Carter said that he hopes [Trump] will be malleable, so I don't know,'' Gore said before laughing.
Gore called the tone of the presidential campaign in which Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee "unusual."
"I'm one of the millions who sometimes just does a double take: 'Whoa, what was that?''' Gore said.
Dana Milbank analyzes Donald Trump, the “welfare king”:
Trump has been refusing to release his tax returns, and now we have a pretty good idea why: He has been feeding at the public trough.
The Post’s Drew Harwell reported over the weekend that, for at least two years in the late 1970s (the last time Trump’s tax information was made public), Trump paid no federal income taxes. [...] There is no shame in being on public assistance. The earned-income tax credit, which subsidizes low-income workers and has helped millions out of poverty, is the main reason for the 47 percent (though they still have state, payroll and other taxes). But the corporate welfare Trump receives is nothing to be proud of — not least because Trump has claimed to represent the American worker and has condemned corporate executives who “make a fortune” but “pay no tax.”
Jesse Berney at Rolling Stone looks at Trump’s donations to veterans groups:
He claimed to have raised $6 million for the various charities — $5 million from others, $1 million from himself. That's real money when it comes to nonprofit budgets.
Only… he didn't.
Trump being Trump, we'll probably never know how much money he raised that night. But his campaign manager has admitted it wasn't the $6 million Trump claimed.
Trump, who went to a rich kids' military boarding school, got multiple deferments to get out of Vietnam, and has said he likes troops who "didn't get captured," loves to fashion himself a champion of veterans. That's what his counter-event that debate night was all about: selling himself as a generous friend of the men and women who serve our country in the military.
James Carden at The Nation explains why neocons are not on the Trump bandwagon (yet):
It is hard to escape the conclusion that it isn’t Trump’s policies that are really bothering the neocons. Rather, it is the possibility that, come January 20, 2017, they could be frozen out of the corridors of power for the next four years. But what must really sting is this: Republican voters, given a choice between a neocon revival or Donald J. Trump went resoundingly for the latter. Deep down, I suspect, they know that they have no one to blame for Trump but themselves
Luke Brinker at PolicyMic highlights seven Republicans who have changed their tune on Trump:
During his ill-fated presidential run last year, Graham pronounced himself "disgusted" with Trump's proposal for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, telling CNN that his party's frontrunner was a "xenophobic, race-baiting bigot." So intense was Graham's loathing for Trump that the senator held his nose and endorsed nemesis Ted Cruz in an effort to thwart the billionaire.
Even after Trump vanquished Cruz in the Indiana primary, effectively clinching the nomination, Graham remained adamant that he wouldn't support his party's presumptive standard-bearer … And now? CNN reports that Graham — who still has no plans to publicly endorse Trump — is privately urging top Republicans to fall into line behind Trump.