Trump takes on `Senator from Punjab' with outsourcing jab
Accuses
Hillary Of Ties With TCS, HCL That Have `Stolen' US Jobs
The
“Senator from Punjab'' will meet the “Russian stooge and Putin's pal'' when the
two US Presidential candidates clash in their first face-to-face debate in New
York's Hoffstra University on Monday .
Bitter
invective about each other's fealty to America is flowing out of both camps
even as racial tensions are flaring up in different parts of the country amid
continued police vs Black confrontations.
India,
although marginal in the overall geo-political scheme of things to the
Presidential elections, is getting dragged into the debate because of the
outsourcing issue, with both candidates trying to portray the other as being
unsympathetic to American workers and helping the flight of jobs from the US.
The Trump
campaign, with `Make America Great Again' as its central theme, stepped up its
attack on Hillary Clinton this week by dredging up old stories and clips in
which she joked about being a “Senator from Punjab“.
The
website run by Trump's new campaign chief Andrew Breitbart recalled Clinton's
remarks several years ago at a fundraiser hosted by Rajwant Singh, a prominent
Indian-American from Maryland, where she said, “I can certainly run for the
Senate seat in Punjab and win easily ,“ after being introduced by Singh as the
“Senator not only from New York but also Punjab.“ It was not the first time
Clinton was using the line -in jest. She used a similar line at a Sikh
awareness campaign event in the Capitol in 2005, getting a standing ovation.
What
Breitbart didn't mention was that even Republican lawmakers jostled to get in
with the Sikhs, with then Indiana Senator Richard Lugar recalling how he has
had a Sikh mentor for 37 years and had known the community since the time he
was the mayor of Indianapolis. Ironically, it was the Barack Obama campaign
that brought the “Senator from Punjab“ jibe to the table in 2008 when the
President fought Clinton for the Democratic nomination. A memo circulated to
reporters by the Obama campaign was headlined “Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)'s
Personal and Political Ties to India,“ a slur for which Obama later apologised.
But the
Trump campaign has revived it, in the process also cherry-picking other Clinton
quotes to show she is in favor of outsourcing -and therefore against American
workers -even though she has also argued that outsourcing can also be good for
the US economy and bring in jobs, as it has done through Tata's operations in
New York.
“Most
notably , Clinton has extensive ties to corporations responsible for some of
the most egregious anti-American worker labour practices: namely , the
India-based Tata Consultancy Services and HCL...Interestingly , both companies
have given money to the Clintons either via donations to the Clinton Foundation
or paying Bill Clinton to deliver speeches,'' the Breitbart story noted, saying
the firms have “stolen“ tens of thousands of US jobs. “HCL and Tata are
responsible for the layoffs of workers from Disney , Southern California
Edison, Northeast Utilities, Xerox, University of California, Siemens, and
countless others,'' it added.
The
Clinton campaign isn't lying back, shredding Trump big time for making many of
his products abroad and questioning how that squares with his promise to big
back jobs to America. “He also talks a big game about putting America First,“
Clinton herself pointed out in one speech.“Please explain to me what part of
America First leads him to make Trump ties in China, not Colorado. Trump suits
in Mexico, not Michigan.Trump furniture in Turkey , not Ohio. Trump picture
frames in India, not Wisconsin.''
Holocaust
historian to quit US if Don wins
Pulitzer
prize-winning historian Saul Friedlander, a world authority on the Holocaust,
said on Friday that he would leave the United States if Donald Trump was
elected president. The 83-year-old Israeli-American writer, who escaped the
Nazis by being hidden in a Catholic boarding school in France, described Trump
as a “dangerous crazy“. He said the controversial Republican candidate could
win November's election because of Hillary Clinton's “tendency to lie and to
hide things“. “One cannot exclude Donald Trump winning even though he is a
dangerous crazy,“ he said. “He says whatever comes into his mind.“
Friedlander's
magisterial two-volume history of Nazi Germany and the Jews charts Adolf
Hitler's rise to power in a period where populism was rising across the world
as it is today. AFP
(TOI)
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