From Obamaland to Clintondesh or Trumpistan! (Washington Diary)
Washington, June 5
Desis in America are taking a short break from the Donald-Hillary-Bernie opera to celebrate the triumphant return of Narendra Modi for yet another tete-a-tete with his friend "Barack" and an address on Capitol Hill.
Busloads of them are rumoured to be headed to Washington to "spontaneously" greet the Indian Prime Minister when he lands here Monday or at Blair House, the presidential guest house across from the White House, where he would be staying.
It may not be anything like the rockstar welcome they gave him at the Madison Square Garden in the heart of Manhattan on his first visit in 2014 or the grand reception in Silicon Valley a year later, but as they say, "it's location, location, location" that matters.
While breaking bread with President Barack Obama at the White House is now par for the course for Modi making his fourth visit to the US in two years, a speech to the US Congress is something special.
For, it was a little known law on religious freedom passed by this august body that the previous Bush administration used to revoke his US visa in 2005 and make him one of the few people on the planet to be so barred from entering America.
Four other Indian Prime Ministers, starting with Rajiv Gandhi in July 1985 have addressed a joint sitting of the House and the Senate, but only Modi is getting a rare treat -- a lunch hosted by House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Not even Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, got that honour when he came to the US on a Voyage of Discovery and addressed the House members on October 13, 1949 -- though in a different chamber with the US Capitol under renovation.
Republican chairs and top Democrats on the House and Senate foreign relations panels as also India caucuses too are hosting a reception where leading Indian-Americans would rub shoulders with Modi.
Indian envoy Arun K. Singh looks at the Modi visit, in the midst of a hot political campaign not as a farewell call on Obama, but as part of "consolidation and celebration" of a relationship that has since 2000 undergone a transformation under three presidents.
It will also, in a sense, launch into the next administration, but a meeting with any of the three warring presidential candidates - would-be Republican nominee Donald Trump, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton or her pesky persistent rival Bernie sanders, who refuses to say die - is not on the cards.
Indian American groups, however, are reaching out to the campaigns of both "Dangerous Donald" who is "fit for the shrink" as Clinton suggests and "Crooked Hillary" who "has to go to jail" over her email scandal as the mogul asserts.
The desi crowd has been generally supportive of Democrats, but this time around, there are Indian-American groups for both Hillary and Trump and the two Indian origin Republican stars, Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley have vowed to vote Trump "warts and all".
While the "unique reception" on the Capitol Hill is seen as a reflection of the bipartisan support to India-US relationship and Clinton is a fairly known quantity in New Delhi, The Donald's pronouncements have left many "rattled", as Obama believes.
No one knows for sure which one of his "Make America Great Again" hats would the mogul don in the White House - the angry red or friendly white -- that signalled his daily moods to his long-time butler.
With Trump "evolving" his stand on issues ranging from a temporary ban on the entry of Muslims to coveted H1B visas for skilled workers every day and sometimes by the hour, pundits are left scratching their heads over his foreign policy.
But, looking at how Modi has charmed his way into Obamaland in two short years, diplomats and desis alike are pretty confident that he would be equally welcome when he comes calling again - be it Clintondesh or Trumpistan!
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)
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Boycott Trump, a fraud who tries to make America a supremacist country
BuzzFeed says it will refuse to run the Republican National Committee's Trump for President ads. On Monday morning the web site said it had terminated an advertising agreement with the RNC that both parties signed back in April. The agreement called for the GOP to "spend a significant amount on political advertisements slated to run during the fall election cycle," BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti wrote in an internal memo.
Vote for Hillary
It’s official: Donald Trump is the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for president of the United States.
While that news sinks in, it’s time to brush up on who Trump is and exactly how he plans to “make America great again” (not that you’ll find many actual plans). Here’s what you—and every voter in America—need to know about the businessman-turned-reality-show-star-turned-presidential-nominee.
1. During his very first appearance as a candidate for president—his announcement speech—Donald Trump said that Mexican immigrants are “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.”
He hasn’t gotten more measured from there: Trump has said he would assemble a deportation force to round up and remove 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., and he would overturn President Obama’s executive orders on immigration that are keeping millions of immigrant families together.
2. He announced a ban on all Muslims (even U.S. citizens) from entering the country.
Trump has called for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. And when asked if his ban would include Muslim Americans who are currently out of the country, Trump’s spokesperson responded, “Everyone.”
3. Trump would bring back torture—and he thinks waterboarding isn’t enough.
Trump’s reaction to the terrorist attacks in Brussels was frighteningly simple: “By the way, torture works.” And he wouldn’t just bring waterboarding back. He says he would “absolutely” go further.
4. His plan for ISIS is to “bomb the shit out of them.”
His plan to defeat ISIS is no more complex: “I’d just bomb those suckers,” he said. “I’d blow up the pipes, I’d blow up the refineries, I’d blow up every single inch, there would be nothing left.”
(For comparison’s sake, here’s what a strategic plan to defeat ISIS and radical jihadism looks like.)
5. Trump opposed an increase to the minimum wage.
The federal minimum wage has stagnated at $7.25 an hour—hardly a living wage in 2016. But rather than supporting a federal minimum wage increase, Trump has said that “wages are too high,” and that it’s stifling our economic competitiveness.
6. He would force all schools to allow guns in classrooms on his first day in office.
We lose more than 33,000 Americans to gun violence every single year—and nearly 3,000 of them are children and teenagers. But instead of giving parents, teachers, schools, and communities the right to set commonsense measures to keep kids safe and put an end to this epidemic, Trump says he would mandate every school in America allow guns in classrooms. “My first day, it gets signed, OK? My first day. There's no more gun-free zones."
7. Trump said women should be punished for seeking an abortion.
Republicans across the country have been strategically chipping away at a woman’s right to reproductive health care, including safe and legal abortion. So it’s particularly troubling that their party’s new standard-bearer, when asked if women should be punished for having an abortion, said: “There has to be some form of punishment.”
8. Trump thinks women should “do as good a job” as men if they want equal pay.
The average American woman working full time makes 79 percent of what men are paid—and it’s not because they aren’t working as hard. But responding to a question about equal pay, Trump said, “You’re gonna make the same if you do as good a job.”
9. There’s only one candidate in this race—on either side—who has gotten more votes than Trump: Hillary Clinton.
Hillary has received nearly two million more votes than Trump. And now that he’s the presumptive nominee, Hillary is the only thing standing in the way of President Trump in the White House.
But we can’t get complacent. Remember that 16 Republicans—once described as “the deepest GOP field in a very, very long time”—tried and failed to stop Trump. Democrats can’t underestimate him either. There’s too much at stake.
Your argument must be evidence based. Donald Trump think women are a commodity. He uses and throw them away. There are some Malayalees in USA think the same way Trump think. They use their women for the advancement o theirf selfish interest and to fulfil their mundane desires. Some of them are lazy. They don’t work; Church, Organizations like FOMA, FOKANS, Malayalee Association, Kerala Politics, and District association are their place of hangout. They claim that they are working hard to make Malayaless life great just like Trump says he is trying to make America great. Most of the Malayalees have the same attitude like Trump and that is to guard their ego by stepping on anyone they come across, especially women. They don’t have any obligation to anyone. The only thing they focus is their own self-interest.
It is easy to say that Hillary is dishonest, crooked, and not trustworthy. A woman’s life Trump or Kurian doesn’t understand because they don’t want to. They think women are inferior something used for their sexual gratification. Hillary stood with her husband when her husband was disloyal and sleeping with other women. Should she have divorced her husband by leaving him and the child? No; Not at all. She took the criticism and stayed with him. She proved that she is inherently a leader by facing the crisis in her own life. She proved time and again that she is a good leader by taking decisions as a senator of New York and as Secretary of State which would affect millions of people. She has experience, tenacity, and vision to lead this nation of emigrants. She is compassionate to the fellow beings and their issues. Trump cannot see people because he is hiding under the money with dark mind. He and his supporters want to establish a white America and get rid of rest of the people like you and me.
Respect women and their contribution to the family life. Get out and vote for Hillary for a stable and powerful United States of America; for us and our children and grandchildren.
Good reading material: Hard Choices by Hillary Clinton.
I have request to the FOAMA and FOKANA leadership and that is to invite a senators loyal to Hillary Clinton and Trump to your convention and let them inspire the lazy malayalees to get their ass out to vote. Dilep ‘chettan’ and Mamada ‘chechi’ cannot do that. Inspire our next generation just like Berny Sanders does. Have some vision. How long we will sit on the side as on lookers. Rest of the world is advancing.
VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON
My mother was a woman
My wife is a woman
My daughter is a woman
I have worked with many women
And you will have a woman president pretty soon
You better respect women and don’t be like Trump
And, you need to grow out of ‘Kutty’ , Sam and be a man