March 12, 2016

News Clips For The Day

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ky-lea-fortner-shaeleen-fitch-fortner-missing-teen-sisters-found-alive-new-york/

Teen sisters found alive a year after vanishing
CBS/AP
March 11, 2016, 7:18 AM

Photographs -- Ky-Lea Fortner and Shaeleen Fitch-Fortner were living with a foster family in Binghamton when they were reported as runaways in April 2015. WBNG
Photographs -- missing-teens-group00000000.jpg, Ky-Lea Fortner and Shaeleen Fitch-Fortner in an undated photo. WBNG

VESTAL, N.Y. -- Authorities say they've found two teenage sisters who disappeared last year in upstate New York.

State police say they found 15-year-old Ky-Lea Fortner and 13-year-old Shaeleen Fitch-Fortner Wednesday night in Vestal, near Binghamton. Troopers say the sisters were living with a foster family in Binghamton when they were reported as runaways in April 2015.

Investigators eventually tracked the girls down and arrested 29-year-old Amanda Hellman on kidnapping charges. Troopers say Hellman is a family acquaintance of the teens, but didn't elaborate.

Hellman is being held Friday without bail at the Boome County Jail. It's unclear if she has an attorney who could comment on the charges.

CBS affiliate WBNG reports that court documents say Hellman did numerous things to prevent law enforcement from returning the girls to their foster parents.

"For all of us, I think 11 months goes by and you think you are never going to see them again or you think the worst, but police didn't give up," said Broome County District Attorney Steve Cornwell. "State Police knew that they were going to keep working the case and keep working leads and talking to people and they didn't give up."


It is good indeed that two apparently kidnapped girls have been found. I do think, though, that the authorities should examine the foster home where they were living formerly. Sometimes foster parents are no better than the kids original family. Sometimes kids want to get away.



Why are so many people mad at Hillary?

http://www.npr.org/2016/03/11/470141514/clintons-comments-on-nancy-reagan-and-hiv-aids-cause-an-uproar

Clinton's Comments On Nancy Reagan And HIV/AIDS Cause An Uproar
JESSICA TAYLOR, DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN
Updated March 11, 20168:07 PM ET
Published March 11, 20167:22 PM ET

Photograph -- Patti Davis (left) greets Rosalynn Carter as Hillary Clinton looks at the casket during the graveside service for Nancy Reagan at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Friday in Simi Valley, Calif. Chris Carlson/AP


Hillary Clinton apologized on Friday after she called the late Nancy Reagan a "very effective, low-key" advocate on HIV/AIDS awareness.

The Democratic presidential candidate now says she "misspoke" when she told MSNBC during Reagan's funeral that the former first lady and her husband, President Ronald Reagan, pushed for recognition of the disease in the national community.

"It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV-AIDS back in the 1980s. And because of both president and Mrs. Reagan — in particular Mrs. Reagan — we started a national conversation," Clinton said.

"When before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it, and that too is something that I really appreciate with her very effective, low-key advocacy, but it penetrated the public conscious, and people began to say, 'Hey, we have to do something about this, too.'"

However, it wasn't until 1987 that President Reagan gave his first speech on the topic, calling for more testing (but not making it mandatory). At that time, according to the New York Times, there had been nearly 36,000 cases of AIDS and nearly 21,000 deaths. Reagan has been roundly criticized for not doing enough to educate the public and draw attention to the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic during his administration.

Clinton released a statement hours later, apologizing for her remarks.

Even Clinton supporters were up in arms over her ill-phrased comments.

Former Clinton White House aide and Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin, whose organization has endorsed Clinton, tweeted the former first lady was "no hero" on the issue.

Other LGBT activists, such as columnist Dan Savage, also pushed back on social media. [Go to website to read Twitter comments.]

“Clinton released a statement hours later, apologizing for her remarks. Even Clinton supporters were up in arms over her ill-phrased comments. Former Clinton White House aide and Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin, whose organization has endorsed Clinton, tweeted the former first lady was "no hero" on the issue.”


I can’t copy – for technical reasons, Twitter won’t let me -- the Twitter comments by and to Hillary Clinton on the issue of the Reagans’ late and extremely lukewarm championing of the AIDS cause in the ‘80s. Still, it has gotten her into trouble. Most of us remember the ‘80s controversy. SEE Youtube below.

The following Salon article describes her statement and their actual derision of the death dealing illness. At the time there were lots of traditionally conservative Americans who viewed homosexual activity as sickness and a sin. It’s no different today, but the Supreme Court has weighed in and now laws discriminating against the LGBT community are unconstitutional. The recent refusal to issue a marriage license shows that.

Hillary didn’t say aloud that the Reagans waited years before even acknowledging its’ existence while so many died. They even refused to give Rock Hudson any help in getting into a French hospital where treatment was available, and he had been their friend. Now the LGBT community are angry at her for giving Nancy Reagan credit for anything at all, though what Hillary did say can described as “faint praise.”

She has stepped in a political pit trap. She wanted to say something nice about Nancy Reagan because of her recent death to appease the conservatives and it backfired. As she has done several times before for controversial statements, she has now apologized. She shouldn’t in my opinion, because she stated no falsehood. However, the fact that their “national conversation” was too late and too little will not be forgotten among gays and those who sympathize with them such as we UUs, and unfortunately it probably hurt her at the primary elections. That’s okay. That’s more votes for Bernie.

To understand the anger, look at the Reagan staff’s several disgusting press conferences on AIDS:

https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0LEVwwXY.RWheEAK6ZXNyoA;_ylc=X1MDMjc2NjY3OQRfcgMyBGZyA3lzZXRfaWVfc3ljX29yYWNsZS1zBGdwcmlkA0tSUldGS0E3VDZtY2l5bDd4RWJadkEEbl9yc2x0AzAEbl9zdWdnAzQEb3JpZ2luA3NlYXJjaC55YWhvby5jb20EcG9zAzAEcHFzdHIDBHBxc3RybAMEcXN0cmwDMzYEcXVlcnkDcmVhZ2FuIGFpZHMgcHJlc3MgY29uZmVyZW5jZSB5b3V0dWJlBHRfc3RtcAMxNDU3ODA4MDYw?p=reagan+aids+press+conference+youtube&fr2=sb-top-search&fr=yset_ie_syc_oracle-s&fp=1

Reagan Administration's Chilling Response to the AIDS Crisis

"In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?" Short film "When AIDS Was Funny" directed and produced by Scott Calonic. Still haven’t subscribed ...

youtube.com 7:44 3 months ago


http://www.salon.com/2016/03/11/hillary_says_reagans_started_national_conversation_about_aids_while_they_laughed_at_lgbtq_people_dying/

Hillary says Reagans started “national conversation” about AIDS — while they laughed at LGBTQ people dying
The Reagan administration made jokes about the AIDS epidemic and let friends die. Twitter blasts Clinton's comments
BEN NORTON
FRIDAY, MAR 11, 2016 04:30 PM EST

Photograph -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during a rally at Cuyahoga Community College Tuesday, March 8, 2016, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)(Credit: AP)

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton claimed on MSNBC Friday that the Reagans started “a national conversation” about HIV and AIDS.

“It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV-AIDS back in the 1980s,” said Clinton. “And because of both President and Mrs. Reagan — in particular Mrs. Reagan — we started a national conversation, when before nobody would talk about it.”

In reality, the exact opposite happened. The Reagans remained silence for years; their only response was heartless derision.

While the AIDS epidemic was ravaging his country, Ronald Reagan did not mention it until 1985. And he did not give a major speech about AIDS until mid-1987, when tens of thousands of Americans had died from it.

“Reagan was silent at a time when silence equaled death,” Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern writes. “His cowardice in the face of the crisis will forever tarnish his legacy.”

Meanwhile, although the Reagans might not have been talking about AIDS much, their administration sure was laughing about it.

At an October 1982 White House press briefing, reporter Lester Kinsolving and Press Secretary Larry Speakes joked about AIDS, which was killing an enormous number of Americans.

“What’s AIDS?” Reagan’s press secretary asked.

“It’s known as the ‘gay plague,'” Kinsolving quipped in response. The audience laughed.

“I don’t have it,” Speakes said. “Do you?” Once again, everyone cracked up.

The press secretary joked that the journalist may himself be gay because he knew about AIDS.

Then he insisted no one in the Reagan administration knew anything about it. “There has been no personal experience here,” he joked, as the room burst into laughter.

To the Reagan administration, death was quite funny.

BuzzFeed has documented 13 times when the Reagan White House press briefing laughed about the AIDS epidemic, from 1982 to 1984. They chuckled while thousands of Americans died.

Nor are Nancy Reagan’s hands clean. While her good friend Hollywood actor Rock Hudson was dying of AIDS, she refused to help him.

Hudson flew to France in July 1985, in the last months of his life, in hopes of trying an experimental treatment that was not available in the U.S. Yet he was not allowed into the French military hospital — the only one in the world offering the treatment — because he was not a French citizen.

His U.S. publicist sent a desperate telegram to the Reagans at the White House pleading for help. “Only one hospital in the world can offer necessary medical treatment to save life of Rock Hudson or at least alleviate his illness,” his message stated.

The Reagans, Hudson’s old friends, could have helped him, but refused to do so.

He died nine weeks later.

The only “national conversation” the Reagans started about AIDS was one about their administration’s egregious inaction — and vile mockery — at a time of mass suffering, fear and death.

Hillary’s campaign issued a tepid apology (one that still speaks positively of the Reagans) hours after making the remarks. Yet the comment by Clinton — whose record on LGBTQ rights is also questionable (she opposed marriage equality until 2013) — started a national conversation in its own right on Friday, as people expressed outrage on social media.


http://www.vox.com/2016/3/12/11210044/clinton-reagan-hiv-aids-lgbt

The best explanation for Hillary Clinton's bizarre comments about the Reagans and HIV/AIDS
Updated by German Lopez on March 12, 2016, 10:00 a.m. ET @germanrlopez german.lopez@vox.com

Photograph -- Hillary Clinton campaigns in Florida. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

On Friday, Hillary Clinton made a bizarre claim about Ronald and Nancy Reagan during the former first lady's funeral: that on HIV/AIDS, they "started a national conversation. When before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it."

This got the history, as we now know it, completely wrong. Through documents and reviews of the time period, we know the Reagan administration did not care much about HIV/AIDS until years into the epidemic — in large part because it was perceived as a disease that only afflicted gay people. In a particularly brazen example, Reagan's press secretary joked and laughed about HIV and its victims in press conferences.

So it came as little surprise when Clinton walked back her comment in a statement later in the day: "While the Reagans were strong advocates for stem cell research and finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease, I misspoke about their record on HIV and AIDS. For that, I'm sorry."

But there's some reason to believe Clinton meant what she said: Clinton was part of a Democratic establishment in the 1980s that was by and large as out of touch with the plight of HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ people as the Reagan administration was at the time. So it's wholly plausible that her recollection of the period genuinely reflected well on the Reagans, at least on this issue.

Garance Franke-Ruta, who was an HIV/AIDS activist during the height of the epidemic, explained in a great series of tweets:

Garance Franke-Ruta ✔ ‎@thegarance
2) Today all the different communities in America sit cheek by jowl on social & online media. In the 80s, they were separated by vast chasms
6:45 PM - 11 Mar 2016

Garance Franke-Ruta ✔ ‎@thegarance
3) There was a mainstream, and then there were the margins. And the margins were much more distant from the center than they are today.
6:46 PM - 11 Mar 2016

Garance Franke-Ruta ✔ ‎@thegarance
3) There was a mainstream, and then there were the margins. And the margins were much more distant from the center than they are today.
6:46 PM - 11 Mar 2016

Garance Franke-Ruta ✔ ‎@thegarance
4) What Clinton said perfectly encapsulated the viewpoint of mainstream Democrats in the 1980s, before the party became gay friendly
6:48 PM - 11 Mar 2016

Garance Franke-Ruta ✔ ‎@thegarance
5) Gay people had no party on their side & no one to represent or speak for them fr halls of power. ACT UP protested Democrats continually.
6:49 PM - 11 Mar 2016

Garance Franke-Ruta ✔ ‎@thegarance
6) When Bill Clinton famously said, "I feel your pain," he said it to Bob Rafsky of ACT UP, who was heckling him. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/28/us/1992-campaign-verbatim-heckler-stirs-clinton-anger-excerpts-exchange.html …
6:52 PM - 11 Mar 2016

Garance Franke-Ruta ✔ ‎@thegarance
10) The old anti-gay laws were still on the books, upheld by Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986.
7:03 PM - 11 Mar 2016

Garance Franke-Ruta ✔ ‎@thegarance
11) Between AIDS panic and that ruling, homophobia in America ratcheted up in the late 80s. See:
7:04 PM - 11 Mar 2016

Garance Franke-Ruta ✔ ‎@thegarance
14) Today we are all more visible to each other. Imagine 40K people in America dying in 21st c w/o president talking about it. Impossible.
7:15 PM - 11 Mar 2016

In the best Garance Franke-Ruta tweet, the following is quoted from --https://zcomm.org/zmagazine/the-truth-about-reagan-and-aids-by-michael-bronski/

“The most memorable Reagan AIDS moment was at the 1986 centenary rededication
of the Statue of Liberty. The Reagan’s were there sitting next
to the French Prime Minister and his wife, Francois and Danielle
Mitterrand. Bob Hope was on stage entertaining the all-star audience.
In the middle of a series of one-liners, Hope quipped, “I just
heard that the Statue of Liberty has AIDS, but she doesn’t
know if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island
Fairy.” As the television camera panned the audience, the Mitterrands
looked appalled. The Reagans were laughing. By the end of 1989,
115,786 women and men had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United
States—more then 70,000 of them had died.”


There can’t be enough said about gays, AIDS, personal freedom, and politics, but I will end it here. One political error on Hillary’s part has brought up a terrible national memory. Thank goodness we are in a better state of affairs nowadays, but it was only 5 or so years ago, maybe less, when a young man was found tied arms and legs to a rural fence post dead. The photo was in the newspaper. It was determined that he was known in the community and was gay. I don’t think that was merely redneck rowdiness. It was a hate crime.


IS TRUMP RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS? – FOUR RELATED ARTICLES


https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-faces-questions-rally-violence-gop-debate-084859864--election.html

GOP candidate Trump calls off rally due to security concerns
Jill Colvin and Michael Tarm, Associated Press,Associated Press
March 11, 2016


CHICAGO (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump canceled one of his signature rallies on Friday, calling off the event in Chicago due to safety concerns after protesters packed into the arena where it was to take place.

The announcement that the billionaire businessman would postpone the rally until another day led a large portion of the crowd inside the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion to break out into raucous cheers. Meanwhile, supporters of the candidate started chanting "We want Trump! We want Trump!"

There were isolated physical confrontations between some members of the crowd after the event was canceled.

There was no sign of Trump inside the arena on the college campus, where dozens of UIC faculty and staff had petitioned university administrators to cancel the rally. They cited concerns it would create a "hostile and physically dangerous environment" for students.

Before the announcement the event wouldn't take place, a handful of intense verbal clashes took place between Trump supporters and protesters as the crowd waited for his arrival. For the first time during his White House bid, the crowd appeared to be an equal mix of those eager to cheer on the real estate mogul and those overtly opposed to his candidacy.

When one African-American protester was escorted out before the event started, the crowd erupted into chants of "Let them stay!"

Veronica Kowalkowsky, an 18-year-old Trump supporter, said before the event started that she had no ill will toward the protesters — but didn't think they felt the same way.

"I feel a lot of hate," she said. "I haven't said anything bad to anyone."

Hours before the event was scheduled to start, hundreds of people lined up outside the arena at the University of Illinois at Chicago — a civil and immigrant rights organizing hub with large minority student populations. Trump backers were separated from an equally large crowd of anti-Trump protesters by a heavy police presence and barricades.

Some Trump supporters walking into the area chanted, "USA! USA!" and "Illegal is illegal." One demonstrator shouted back, "Racist!"

One protester, 64-year-old Dede Rottman of Chicago, carried a placard that read: "Build a Wall Around Trump. I'll Pay for it."

However, 19-year-old Rusty Shackleford of Lombard, in line to attend the Trump rally, said he was there to "support the man who wants to make America great again."

Chicago community activist Quo Vadis said hundreds of protesters had positioned themselves in groups around the arena, and that they intend to demonstrate right after Trump takes the stage. Their goal, he said, is "for Donald to take the stage and to completely interrupt him. The plan is to shut Donald Trump all the way down."



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-bernie-sanders-supporters-harassed-chicago-rally-goers-election-2016/

Donald Trump: Bernie Sanders supporters "harassed" Chicago rally-goers
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS
March 12, 2016, 1:31 PM

Play VIDEO -- Violence breaks out at Univ. of Illinois as Donald Trump cancels rally

Donald Trump addressed Friday's violent Chicago rally during a campaign event in Dayton, Ohio, shifting much of the blame for the violence to Bernie Sanders' supporters, who Trump said "taunted" and "harassed" his fans.

"So what happened yesterday was incredible," Trump said Saturday. "It was determined that if we go in, it could cause really bad, bad vibes, and you have to understand they want me to tell my people, 'Please, be nice, be nice.' My people are nice! The people that came there were so nice."

Those "thousands and thousands" of his supporters, he said, "caused no problem."

Trump protest organizer calls raucous night a "win"

"They were taunted, they were harassed by these other people. These other people, by the way, some represented Bernie, our communist friend," Trump said. "With Bernie, he should really get up and say to his people: stop. Stop. Not me, stop. They said Mr. Trump should get up, this morning, and tell his people to be nice. My people are nice folks -- they are. They're great, they're great, my people are great."

Trump, in a statement Saturday, said that the Chicago police department had been "informed of everything before it happened."

But according to a CPD spokesperson, Cmdr. Devereaux says he spoke to no one at the Trump campaign and had nothing to do with security at the event.

At his Saturday rally, the front-runner also named other progressive groups in his tirade about the previous night's violence, including advocates from MoveOn.org.

"What they've done really on the other side -- it was MoveOn.org or other groups -- these are bad groups, bad groups. These are bad people. Let me tell you," Trump said. "These are people who really don't want to see our country be great again, let me tell you."

MoveOn.org, in turn, pointed their finger at the GOP front-runner, calling him a "fascist bully" and asserting that there was "only one person to blame."

"[H]is attempt to scapegoat progressive activists and MoveOn.org for violence at his cancelled rally in Chicago is profoundly dishonest and untrue," Ilya Sheyman, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action, said in a statement Saturday. "MoveOn proudly supported University of Illinois at Chicago students and local organizers in their courageous nonviolent protest outside the event. We helped student leaders by printing signs and recruiting MoveOn members to attend the student-led protest."

Later, a protester at Trump's rally rushed the stage and attempted to jump on to the platform.

Four Secret Service agents rushed on stage to surround Trump protectively.

According to a police officer and witnesses, a woman jumped a fence to throw a hat at Trump. She was stopped right before the stage and was escorted out with her arms behind her back.

"We want to get along with everybody, we can get along with people, we want to unify the people," Trump said later at his rally. "Our president has divided this country so badly, he has been a -- I call him the great divider."

Trump, for his part, has seemed to encourage physical reactions to demonstrators who crash his events.

At a rally in Iowa last month, Trump warned that, "There may be somebody with tomatoes in the audience."

"If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?" he added. "Seriously. OK? Just knock the hell -- I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees."

CBS News' Dean Reynolds and Jacqueline Alemany contributed to this report.


http://crooksandliars.com/2016/03/trump-supporters-falsely-identify-sanders

Trump Supporters Falsely Identify Sanders Volunteer In 'Heil Lady' Photo
By Karoli Kuns
3/12/16 10:09am

Same photo was used for both sides of the argument with different captions! Will the real HEIL lady please stand up?

Photograph -- Bernie supporter By E Jason Wambsgans Chicago Tribune
See https://twitter.com/JKxZ/status/708684441779113984/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw -- Trump supporter outside UIC, By E Jason Wambsgans Chicago Tribune

See also the short haired photograph from Boulger’s site: https://twitter.com/PortiaABoulger/status/708681685378981888
Portia A. Boulger
‏@PortiaABoulger
I wasn't in Chicago last pm spreading some nasty. My hair is short. Come on 2 IBEW in Chillcothe & #GOTVforBernie”

Donald Trump and his son are making life dangerous for a Bernie Sanders worker. Very dangerous.

The 'Heil Lady' in the photo taken at last night's Chicago rally has been clearly identified as Trump supporter Birgitt Peterson in the caption of the photo. But that didn't stop some high-profile Trump supporters from taking the opportunity to substitute the name of a Bernie Sanders organizer for it, in order to excuse their own supporters' despicable behavior.

After the picture above started making the rounds last night, some right-wingers online noticed that a Bernie volunteer had some generally similar features. Donald Trump's miserable son picked it up and ran with it.

Voxday then made a weak "correction," but it doesn't seem to have gotten as much attention.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump's twerp animal-murdering son picked up the ball and ran with it, along with actor James Woods and others:

Big surprise. However, the media will never run with this. https://t.co/3LsHvP5II3

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 12, 2016


This is the truth, as shown by the caption published by the Chicago Tribune: “Trump Supporter Outside UIC”

Others online can't manage to see the truth even when it hits them like a ton of bricks, fanning the flames further:

@BorisJohnson12 @voxday @PortiaABoulger Nope, it's been confirmed to be Portia. She's being charged.

— Ryan DeClue (@LightAtTheEnd) March 12, 2016

That's utter bull, of course, but it's social media so why not?

Meanwhile, Portia Boulger isn't letting them bully her, but she's being threatened and harassed, nevertheless.

If you're on Twitter or Facebook, share this post with as many people as you can so that this woman doesn't have to get threats and harassment from the fascists supporting Trump, please.

Update:

Here's a Facebook account of how that picture came to be. I haven't verified it, but it sounds genuine.

Also, it seems that Birgitt Peterson and her husband have a history of agitation.

Update 2:

The person who originally tweeted the smear is a known white supremacist, according to Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs.

Birgitt Peterson, Donald Trump, Jr., Portia Boulger
Click here for reuse options!
Copyright 2016 Crooks and Liars


FOR SOME ROUSING BADINAGE AND RIBALDRY GO TO THIS WEBSITE: https://twitter.com/JKxZ/status/708684441779113984/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw



https://www.yahoo.com/politics/secret-service-agents-rush-to-protect-donald-trump-202216097.html

Secret Service agents rush to protect Donald Trump as a man attempts to rush the stage at Ohio rally
Caitlin Dickson
March 12, 2016


A man apparently tried to rush the stage at a Donald Trump rally in Ohio Saturday, prompting Secret Service agents to surround the Republican presidential frontrunner.

“I was ready for him, but it’s much easier if the cops do it, don’t we agree?” Trump asked the crowd.

ABC News reported that Dayton police later arrested the man and charged him with “disorderly conduct and inducing panic.”

The night before his appearance in Ohio, Trump cancelled a planned rally at the University of Illinois Chicago, citing safety concerns. The event had drawn hundreds of protesters from around the Windy City to UIC’s diverse West side campus, where Yahoo News observed security escorting several seemingly peaceful protesters out of the venue well before Trump was slated arrive. Once it was announced that the rally would be postponed, a large portion of the crowd erupted in celebration, jumping up and down and chanting “we stopped Trump!”

While Trump claimed that the decision to cancel the event was based the recommendation of local law enforcement, the Chicago Police told a different story.

“The Chicago Police Department had no role,” Chicago Police Interim Supt. John Escalante told reporters outside the UIC Pavilion late Friday night. “In fact, I can tell you we did assure the Trump campaign that we had more than adequate resources outside the UIC Pavilion and that we guaranteed them we could provide safe access and exit for Mr. Trump.”

In Ohio, the billionaire businessman told supporters that he was forced to postpone the Chicago event because of a “planned attack” that “came out of nowhere.” Other White House contenders from both political parties blamed Trump’s own divisive rhetoric for prompting such a backlash.

Clashes between supporters and protesters are becoming an increasingly common component of Trump’s campaign rallies, as is the swift ejection of protesters accompanied by taunting comments from the candidate and chants of “USA!” from the crowd.

In the days leading up to the Chicago rally, an elderly Trump supporter was arrested for punching a protester in the face at a rally in North Carolina, and approximately three dozen were arrested for disturbing the peace at a Trump event in St. Louis where Trump reportedly referred to protesters “troublemakers” and urged them to “go home to mommy” or “go home and get a job” because “they contribute nothing.”

Despite the brief roadblock in Windy City, Trump was apparently back to rallying as usual in Ohio Saturday. In addition to the attempted stage rush, reports from the rally include Trump’s trademark taunting and a video of one protester being put in a chokehold.

NBC News reporter Shaquille Brewster tweeted that he spoke to the man who was choked who told him, “the rhetoric of the [campaign] is past the point of sitting back and not saying anything.”



“I was ready for him, but it’s much easier if the cops do it, don’t we agree?” Trump asked the crowd.” He is such a BS artist. “I’m not scared of him.” Is it possible that he actually is becoming frightened of the frenzy of the backlash that has emerged? If he isn’t, I am. I hope Sanders will make a public announcement for his people to go easy and stop being a threat, if indeed they are the ones who have been getting violent. I know from the comments on the Net that the level of vitriol is really high, so I hope this will stop. Interestingly the main three other Republicans are visibly backing away from their pledge to back Trump. I don't like these "pledges" anyway. An open attitude and mind are much better. What these combatants are doing doesn’t help either party’s cause. The story above does not show that the woman in the photo, giving what looks to be a Nazi salute, is a Sanders follower as Trump’s son has claimed; but rather that she is a Trump follower instead by the name of Birgitt Peterson. The Sanders fans whom I have met are distinctly non-violent and I’m not nearly as sure of the Rightists who have taken their places around Trump.