Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's Lowell visit met with protests, prai
He went on a university campus? Of course there would be protesters there.
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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's Lowell visit met with protests, praise
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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses a gathering during a campaign stop at the Tsongas Center in Lowell, Mass., Monday, Jan. 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
By Shannon Young on January 04, 2016 at 7:05 PM, updated January 04, 2016 at 8:31 PM
LOWELL ‒ Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump's Monday evening rally at the Tsongas Center drew mixed reaction, with supporters and opponents offering drastically different takes on the businessman's proposals and style of speaking.
The GOP White House hopeful, whose campaign has been marked by controversial statements, stopped at the University of Massachusetts Lowell arena as part of a New England campaign swing.
Trump's visit drew protests from UMass students, who blasted the businessman's proposals to temporarily halt Muslims from entering the country and to deport those who have illegally entered the U.S.
Supporters, however, said they find the businessman's remarks on such issues and lack of political experience refreshing.
Ture Carlson, 19, a sophomore at UMass Lowell, said he helped organize a protest against Trump's visit because he and others believe the businessman's speech doesn't belong on the college's campus.
"Lowell, in general, is such a melting pot of diversity that (Trump's views) doesn't at all line up with the beliefs of many people," he said. "Many people here might believe it, but the hate speech isn't welcome."
Carlson, who said he sees himself as being politically moderate, stressed that the protest is primarily about what he called the Republican candidate's "hate speech."
Matt Cohen, 21, another UMass Lowell student protesting Trump's visit said it's a "very awkward feeling" to have the GOP front-runner on what he characterized as a diverse campus.
"We're all standing here to say that we're not okay with any of the ideology that's going to be projected in the Tsongas tonight," he said before the rally. "We're basically against racism and against sexism and against most of the things that Trump is okay for that are not okay."
Alexandra Baldwin, 29, the owner of Evolution Hair Design and Day Spa in Lowell, however, said she supports Trump because she believes he'll be a strong proponent for small businesses, like hers.
"I became a business owner when I was 27 and they make it very hard for business owners to succeed and I'd like to see the youth also go forward in entrepreneurship and I think Donald Trump is going to do that," she said. "That's why I'm voting for Donald Trump and that's why I'm here."
Baldwin, who said she is a registered Republican, added that she also likes how Trump "speaks his mind."
"I think that politics is changing and that we need someone who's not really afraid to speak out about how they feel," she said. "I like the fact that he's honest and he says how he feels and I respect that about him."
Baldwin said she also has no issue with Trump's call to deport immigrants who enter the country illegally.
"I'm half Mexican myself and my family came here legally on both sides," she said. "I have absolutely no problem with deporting people in this country if they don't belong here. I am all for legal and proper immigration and I'm coming from someone who is one of the groups that is claiming to be attacked."
John Joyce, 46, a U.S. Navy veteran from Dracut, said while Trump sometimes "speaks out too far," he's believes the businessman is the candidate best suited to address issues like foreign policy.
"He is definitely the one that can be heard by the American people - nobody wants to take on these policies, but when he does come out an say what he wants to say, people want to listen...look at this crowd here today," he said.
Peter Vanoudenaren, 57, a software engineer from Groton, is a registered independent and said he has not decided whether to support Trump or Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is running as a Democrat. Vanoudenaren said right now, he thinks the federal government is corrupt, and is "not working to benefit the people at all."
"I'm Trump curious," Vanoudenaren said. "He can be a change agent to root out corruption in Washington. He doesn't have skin in the game."
John Ranieri, 45, a Republican from Lancaster who works with special education students in a high school, said he is leaning toward Trump, although he is keeping his options open.
"I'm intrigued that the crowds that he's drawing is more of a working class coalition that I haven't really seen since I was a kid that Ronald Reagan attracted in 1980," Ranieri said.
Ranieri said he is happy that Trump has not written off Massachusetts, even though the state is heavily Democratic.
http://www.masslive.com/politics/ind...candid_16.html
Trump rally in Lowell to draw crowds and protests
Trump rally in Lowell to draw crowds and protests
By James Pindell Globe Staff December 31, 2015
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is scheduled to host a rally Monday evening in Lowell that is expected to draw crowds and protests.
Local officials expect 9,000 people will attend Trump’s event at the Paul E. Tsongas Center at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Additionally, groups have announced they will protest Trump, whose controversial comments on immigrants and a proposed Muslim travel ban have dominated much of the discussion in the Republican party’s presidential primary.
More than 230 people have confirmed via Facebook they will attend a Trump protest organized by the Black Lives Matter chapter in Cambridge and the Community Advocates for Justice and Equality. Leaders of the groups said the purpose is to protest Trump’s comments regarding Mexican immigrants, Muslims, and a Black Lives Matter organizer who was physically assaulted at a Trump rally in Alabama.
“Donald Trump is the embodiment of systemic racism in our society,” said Marisa Shea, a CAJE organizer and 29-year-old math teacher from Lowell. “We are protesting because we are not a community that embraces this type of rhetoric.”
UMass Lowell police said they are setting up a free speech zone for protesters outside of the arena. Sidewalk space is also available for protests, they added.
Clinton will campaign for his wife in Nashua on Monday, and Trump will be just across the state line in Lowell.
Shea said her group’s protests are intended to be peaceful and lawful.
Classes will not be in session at UMass Lowell during Trump’s visit, but students have been involved in protest efforts. When news spread that Trump would appear on campus, Ture Carlson, a 19-year-old sophomore from Auburn, organized an online petition on Change.org that nearly 2,500 users have signed.
“The mission was to get this hate speech off campus,” said Carlson. “But I had no idea that the petition would get this much interest.”
The petition caught the attention of school officials. UMass Lowell chancellor Jacquie Moloney issued a statement saying that the university is not sponsoring the event nor endorsing Trump.
“Thousands of people, including many of our students and others in our community, have signed a petition asking the university to refuse to rent the facility to Donald Trump. They argue that he engages in rhetoric and speech that goes beyond the bounds of fair and responsible political discourse,” Moloney wrote. “I applaud this work of activism and the motivations behind it.”
Lowell police Deputy Superintendent Arthur Ryan Jr. said his goal is to make sure the event is safe and traffic flows as easily as possible in the area.
“We want to ensure that one person exercising their First Amendment rights isn’t interfering with another person’s ability to express their First Amendment rights,” Ryan said.
Trump’s appearance in Lowell comes a week after his campaign opened its first office in the Bay State, in Littleton. According to Trump’s campaign, roughly 50 people showed up at the office’s informal launch Wednesday.
The Massachusetts Republican presidential primary is March 1, three weeks after New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary. This is the fourth time Trump has campaigned in Massachusetts. Officials estimated 10,000 people attended a Trump rally in Worcester in November.
Trump, who has topped polls of the New Hampshire GOP primary for months, will campaign in the Granite State on Tuesday.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/pol...KkO/story.html
Trump fans brave sub-freezing weather to pack 7,300-seat arena as The Donald ejects p
Video at source link also.
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Trump fans brave sub-freezing weather to pack 7,300-seat arena as The Donald ejects protesters, children shout for him to 'build that wall' – and Secret Service confiscates ammunition from a campaign volunteer
By DAVID MARTOSKO, US POLITICAL EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM IN LOWELL, MASS.
PUBLISHED: 21:42 EST, 4 January 2016 | UPDATED: 11:48 EST, 5 January 2016
On a frigid night when Hillary Clinton drew an estimated 600 people to a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, Donald Trump was a world away in icier Massachusetts and out-drawing her twelve-fold – including one man who brought a pocket full of handgun ammunition.
New England voters gave him a warm reception in the college town of Lowell on Monday after braving 19-degree weather and 10 mph winds as they stood in an hours-long Secret Service line to see him at the Paul Tsongas Center, a 7,300-seat arena that was packed to the rafters.
'You guys are tough!' Trump roared as he took the stage.
The night's entertainment came in all forms. Two girls, age 9 and 10, stood on their chairs and chanted 'Build That Wall!' during moments of silence, a reference to Trump's pledge to wall off America's southern border with Mexico.
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WHO'S TOUGHER? Trump had protesters ejected from the Paul Tsongas Center in Lowell, Massachusetts on Monday but saluted his audience for standing in sub-freezing weather for hours just to see him speak
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'BUILD THAT WALL!' A pair of young girls peppered Trump's speech with squeals urging him to wall off America's southern border with Mexico
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DISSENT: Protesters who oppose Trump's rhetoric on illegal immigration provided momentary blips in a 53-minute speech
Security screening added time to Monday night's entry lines. The Secret Service doesn't stand down in inclement weather, and for good reason.
DailyMail.com saw agents patting down one man – a self-identified Trump event volunteer in the building three hours ahead of time, who repeatedly triggered metal-detecting wand alarms – only to find about 10 rounds of handgun ammo in an inside pocket of his jacket.
The bullets were confiscated. A Secret Service supervisor on the scene had no comment.
But the man was allowed to enter after offering a sheepish grin and a quiet 'sorry.'
No apologies would come from the smattering of protesters who interrupted Trump's 53-minute speech more than a half-dozen times – a common sight as the real estate tycoon stumps before crowds that rival those of some professional basketball teams.
A few on Monday yelled 'black lives matter.' Two screamed that immigration 'isn't criminal.' Another boomed 'Bernie Sanders for President!'
After one trio was ejected – Trump had bellowed 'Get em out!' – he turned to the audience and grinned.
'Isn't this more fun than a regular boring rally?' he asked, adding with relish that 'right now they're being sent out into the cold.'
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SHOCK AND AWE: Robin Roy (center) reacted when Trump greeted her on his way into the arena on Monday
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'GOOD JOB!': Trump congratulated an audience member who shouted 'Obama sucks!'
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'FOUR YEARS OF HILLARY?' The Donald feigned horror as he asked the audience to imagine the former secretary of state in the Oval Office
Reacting to police leading a passive man up a set of concrete steps after he shouted a slogan for no more than five seconds, Trump turned the moment into a jab at Clinton.
'They remind me a little bit of Hillary,' he said, drawing laughter. 'No energy, no stamina, no strength.'
Clinton said Monday in Iowa that she won't play a tit-for-tat game with The Donald during the presidential primary season.
'I've adopted a New Year's resolution,' she told a voter in the town of Cedar Rapids. 'I'm going to let him live in his alternate reality and I'm not going to respond.'
Ted Cruz drew an elbow from Trump, although he didn't call him out by name.
Cruz has recently said he, like Trump, would wall off the U.S. from Mexico – a position he first articulated in 2012 when he was running for his Senate seat.
But Trump laughed it off, saying, 'He's a politician so he wouldn't know where to start. I know how to build a wall.'
A handful of friendly interruptions Monday night fed Trump's fire instead of fighting it.
One man early in the evening screamed, 'Obama sucks!' during a quiet moment of the billionaire's stump soliloquy about the White House's nuclear deal with Iran.
Cue the thunderous applause.
'You see, I'm not allowed to say that,' Trump mused. 'So – good job! Ah, that's beautiful!'
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'USA! USA!': Trump's audience raised the roof with patriotic shouts every time police led out a protester
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JUMBOTRON: The arena's ceiling-fixture screens played a Trump campaign video before he came out
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BLAME MASSACHUSETTS! The Donald mocked Bay Staters for America its Democratic secretary of state, John Kerry
The Donald asked one man to stand up so thousands could admire his shirt – which matched Trump up with New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady as a dream team.
'For The Win!' it said on the back.
'Tom Brady, injured, is still better than anybody else,' Trump said, drawing thunder and hoots from the NFL playoff-hungry home crowd.
He lost some of that good will by blaming the Bay State for giving America its current secretary of state, John Kerry – a longtime former U.S. senator from Massachusetts.
'Kerry has no idea what the hell he's doing,' The Donald said. 'He comes from your parts. I blame you! He comes from your area!'
'Hey, New Hampshire: Let's blame Massachusetts!'
Monday's rally precedes another appearance by the Republican front-runner on Tuesday, upstate in New Hampshire.
Trump leads in polls there, with the all-important primary contest looming barely a month away.
The Donald also hasn't let any grass grow beneath his feet in Iowa, a state where he now trails Texas Sen. Ted Cruz but has launched a multimillion-dollar television ad campaign to generate new momentum.
He will give two separate speeches Saturday in Iowa, including one at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake – the site of rocker Buddy Holly's last concert before his fatal plane crash in February 1959.
But first he'll stop in Burlington, Vermont, where Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders was once mayor. The move, he said backstage before the rally, is largely about getting northern New Hampshire voters to see him before next month's primary.
'Vermont is close to here,' he said.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...volunteer.html
Donald Trump’s Massachusetts Event Exposes Failure of Anti-Trump ‘Protesters’
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by MICHAEL WARREN DAVIS
5 Jan 2016
Lowell, MA
LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS — In anticipation of Donald Trump’s arrival here yesterday, the mainstream media relished the possibility of massive student-led protests disrupting his rally at the University of Massachusetts’s Tsongas Arena.
The Boston Herald reported that Community Advocates for Justice and Equality, a group opposed to deporting illegal immigrants, was alone mobilizing 300-400 activists. Its leader, Jay Monaco, warned the Herald that “the little area that they were going to cordon off for us is probably not going to be sufficient.” Black Lives Matter Cambridge even held a “Nonviolent Direct Action Training” workshop to prepare for the event.
Which seems to have been a YUUUUGE waste of time.
In a report on the evening, the Lowell Sun put the number of protesters in the hundreds, which is clearly an exaggeration to anyone who attended the event. Their numbers never crept above thirty, and they took only a sliver of the designated “free-speech zone.” Yet sub-freezing temperatures didn’t deter Trump’s supporters from gathering by the thousands: at its height, the line for the door stretched three blocks, with thousands waiting patiently for admission.
There were no altercations outside the Arena, save one verbal back-and-forth: when protesters began chanting “Dump Trump,” one Trump supporter hollered, “Why don’t you say what you really mean? Ber-nie! Bern-ie! Bern-ie!”
Before the event began, a member of the Trump campaign gave directions to supporters on what to do in the event of a disruption, asking those seated near the heckler to stand and chant “Trump! Trump! Trump!” to alert security. During the four incidents, however, Trump’s supporters opted to chant “U-S-A” with the entire arena – Trump included – joining in. All hecklers were removed without incident.
After the third disruption, Trump reflected, “The sad part is, it’s such a small group of people. We have thousands of people here” – ten thousand, in fact – “and tomorrow the headlines will be, ‘Protesters!’” The event set a record for the Tsongas Arena, whose normal capacity is about 7,000.
The Donald’s disdain for the mainstream press was a recurring theme of the night, with the GOP frontrunner at one point saying, “They are the most dishonest people. They are the most disgusting and dishonest people.”
Only The Washington Post declined to focus solely on the protests, calling the size of the crowd “absolutely mind-boggling.” License plates from as far afield as Connecticut were spotted in the parking lot. By all accounts, the number of people who came out from deep blue states to support a Republican candidate was unprecedented.
In other news, the Clintons also held separate rallies on Monday, with Hillary in Iowa and Bill in New Hampshire. Hillary attracted 600 people; Bill, 700.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...mp-protesters/
