Lynna is your curator. I don’t think this thread will run dry for a long time.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Lynna is your curator. I don’t think this thread will run dry for a long time.
Remember when Donald Trump told the debunked story about a U.S. General dipping bullets in pigs’ blood to shoot Muslim prisoners in the Philippines?
Well, never one to learn from his mistakes, Trump told the same story again today at a rally in Virginia. His reason? “We are going to have to get tough.”
Right Wing Watch link.
Democrats who live abroad are voting in the Super Tuesday election. The results from the New Zealand voting site, the Public Bar and Eatery in Wellington, are in. The voting began at midnight New Zealand time and closed at 12:30 a.m.
Total ballots cast: 28
Bernie Sanders: 21
Hillary Clinton: 6
Spoiled Ballots: 1
22 countries (104 cities) are hosting “Democrats Abroad” voting.
Kris Kobach is an awful person to have in an elected office. He is lacking in good governance skills, and he is sneaky as hell when it comes to purging voters he doesn’t like from the voting rolls. When you add his influence over xenophobic anti-immigration laws you really have to hold your nose. This doofus has endorsed Donald Trump for president. Of course he has.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/kris-kobach-donald-trump-endorsement
This is a followup to comment 3.
Here are a few of Kris Kobach’s favorite things:
Link.
Yep. Kobach not only helped to implement xenophobic state laws, he also succeeded in putting a big financial dent in the economies of those states.
In a way, the Kobach escapades foretell what would happen if Trump tried to implement his anti-immigrant policies nationwide.
Ben Carson said some more stupid stuff:
Right Wing Watch link.
There’s a video at the link that also features Carson trying to explain his “fruit salad” remark at the most recent public debate. He quoted the bible, “by their fruit you will know them.”
Legislators in the state of Alabama do not want minimum wage workers to get a raise. They really are adamant about that.
MSNBC link.
Oh, FFS. A state representative in Idaho made a Todd-Akin-like remark about rape.
Representative Pete Nielsen (a Republican doofus) said during a Thursday hearing that rape “does not involve any pregnancy because of the trauma of the incident.”
The Spokesman-Review link.
Good morning! Anyone else think today is likely to be terrifying?
dianne, #8
Yes.
American white supremacist Donald Trump orders black people to be removed from his rally in Georgia
@ #8
More like a foregone conclusion. For a look at how the GOP delegate selection process, which was drawn up to avoid the messy fight of 2012, now favors Trump, this NYT analysis does the math. The process is working just like they had hoped, it just favors the candidate they don’t want.
Trump is racking up some more supporters from mainstream Republican politicians:
– Rep. Tom Marino, from Pennsylvania
– Rep. Scott DesJarlais, from Tennessee
Adding these to past endorsements, Trump now has four members of the U.S. House of Representatives, one U.S. senator, and two sitting governors. This total doesn’t come close to the endorsements racked up by Rubio, but it does show that Republicans are starting to come around to idea of Trump as their candidate.
It looks like Rubio is going to lose in Florida. I think this will be the end of his campaign.
Early voting in Florida in favors Trump. Polls also show Trump winning in Florida.
Rachel Maddow discussed the changes the Republican Party made to their primary calendar in order to avoid some of the mistakes they made in 2012. The problem is, the changes favor a candidate like Donald Trump.
This segment also covers the fact that one Republican debate prior to the 2012 elections was cancelled. News Max was supposed to host it, but the candidates refused to show up. They were protesting over a moderator, Donald Trump. Nobody would participate in a debate moderated by Trump.
Sanders and Clinton both beat Trump in the latest CNN/ORC poll.
Sanders led Trump 55 to 43 percent.
Clinton led Trump 52 to 44 percent.
Polls are a snapshot in time. No doubt these numbers will change several times before the November election. However, the trend is reassuring: both Sanders and Clinton have increased their leads over Trump.
Oh, FFS. Some rightwing news hosts have labeled Romney a “Liberal” for questioning Trump’s response to the KKK. Talking Points Memo link.
Donald Trump is trying to back away more from his KKK connection. He told a host of “Good Morning America” that he is renouncing support from white supremacists.
To prove his “equality for everyone” bonafides, Trump touted his Mar-a-Lago club:
Link.
Equality, Trump style.
More weirdness and bigotry lining up behind Donald Trump:
Link
NASCAR CEO Brian France has decided to endorse Donald Trump.
Other NASCAR supporters are not happy with this endorsement, and are pushing back.
I snipped Lemonis’ tweet, which a repetition of earlier sentiments.
http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2016/03/01/3755041/nascar-endorses-trump/
Lynna, #18
That just makes my head hurt.
Extraordinary figures from the Sanders campaign:
More white supremacist kudos for Donald Trump are making news. As Seth Meyers said in one his segments last night, Trump lets just enough racism slip through to get white supremacists to say, “Oh, yeah. That’s our guy.” And then Trump backtracks and complains about faulty earpieces, etc.
(The earpiece excuse is so much bullshit it is laughable. Trump repeated “David Duke” and “white supremacists” several times, so he heard the main topic. If you hear “white supremacists” and “KKK,” why do you have to think it over before you say no?)
The latest kudos from white supremacy land:
NY Times link.
Trumpishness is infecting other parts of U.S. culture, including high schools. Some students chanted “build a wall” at a basketball game where their opponents were Hispanic.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/andrean-high-school-basketball-border-wall-trump-chants
More pro-Trump love from David Duke:
Right Wing Watch link.
Saad @20, I agree. I had the same reaction. And now David Duke has decided to push harder on the anti-semitic buttons of Republican voters. Yuck.
Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa: Trump is a ‘clown and a racist’:
Some readers’s comments:
● “Let’s put it this way, if American Republicans / Tea Party folks think the Donald is the best candidate for such an ‘important country for the rest of the world’ perhaps the global community should rethink the whole idea of the US being such an ‘important country for the rest of the world’. They seem to be more dumbed down than ever before.”
● “
“‘First day, Mister President, are you sure—’
“”
● “We need to hear the same from Joe the plumber then perhaps the message will resonate”.
● “Most of Trump supporters have no idea where Peru is.”
● “There’s nothing ‘precious’ about any political party. Let them have their euthanasia, there’s always something else that will fill the vacuum. […]”
● In response to a comment from a possible trum-prat supporter, : “I saw a dead pigeon that had been run over on the way to work today that would be a viable alternative.
“I’ll grant you that it’s grasp of macro and micro economics wasn’t too good — but it sure as hell wasn’t going to start a war or push any red buttons.”
● “Voting for Trump is like voting for Jean Marie Le Pen […]”.
● “clowns are fun. this person is not funny he’s fasist”.
● “I can`t wait for Trump to design for himself, a ‘Great Dictator’ uniform, with all kinds of medals covering it — that he earned in the militarized reform school his parents sent him to !!”
Lynna @14:
Boy, you want to talk about getting hoisted by your own petard…
This is a brilliant quote from the article, Texas fears ‘brain drain’ now that public universities will allow guns on campus:
Professor Vaidhyanathan “was a finalist for the role of dean at the University of Texas’s college of communication and in many ways would have relished a return to the place where he earned two degrees. […] However, when it became clear that guns would be allowed in classrooms, he withdrew from consideration.”
Just before discovering the fresh pasta I’d planned to kill and eat for dinner had become rather too lively and was attacking the other critter in the refrigerator — a loudly-complaining duck I wasn’t prepared to prepare tonight — and hence had to make an “emergency” trip to a restaurant, I spotted this opinion piece in the Grauniad, Donald Trump’s disrespect for the military is appalling — and unprecedented:
I myself have openly wondered several times now if the military, faced with teh trum-prat, would “rebel” (a sort-of Seven Days in May–ish situation). Whilst I have very little confidence in Mr Hayden (I have more confidence it that pasta than I do in Mr Hayden), he’s not necessarily completely wrong here, albeit almost certainly significantly overstating.
Some readers’s comments:
● “It would be nice if American forces refused to carry out illegal orders now, why wait for Trump […]”
● “Lots of hot air. Obama has already illegally killed american citizens with drone strikes and you didn’t refuse to follow orders.” [Numerous people have been extrajudicially executed, not just “american citizens” –blf]
● “Trump is a disaster waiting to happen. I am shocked that Americans want to follow this Pied Piper to hell. […]”
● “We’ve already seen the Bush torture program implemented – and while Hayden held public office. And President Obama routinely orders drone strikes that kill civilians in order to kill a single terrorist.
“Hayden’s claim that the military would refuse orders WRT these things is simply ridiculous.”
● “I don’t support our troops either. I’m glad I’m not running for office. I might get shit for it.”
● “If this idiot is elected, he should lead the ground troops in any war he starts.”
● “What is sad is that actual veterans are treated so badly, the veteran’s administration so underfunded and overworked, and the absolutely batshit crazy establishment ‘war is peace’ mentality of republicans and far too many democrats. […]”
● “former head of the CIA and NSA Michael Hayden — You forgot to add the words ‘disgraced supporter of torture’ and ‘apologist for war crimes’, which is telling, isn’t it?
“[…] troops are required to refuse unlawful orders — Go ahead, show us where and when that’s happened and the soldiers came out OK, and not in prison. How about 5 examples? Got any? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
“This is all fantasy talk, if Trump is elected, no matter what he does, the military will cooperate, period, end of story.”
President Obama hosted a meeting in the Oval Office earlier today. V.P. Joe Biden attended, as well as Senate leaders from both parties (Reid and McConnell); and the top two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Obama invited everyone there to put forward Supreme Court nominees. The Republicans simply refused. They didn’t put forward their own choices for nominees, they just said that there shouldn’t be a nominee. If Obama puts forward a nominee, the Republicans plan to ignore the nomination as if it never happened. In other words, they Republicans plan to ignore the constitution.
Link.
No more dog whistles. No more subtlety. Some Republicans are going all out to shout that racism, bigotry, and white supremacy are okay.
Donald Trump proves once again that his self-regard knows no bounds. In commenting on the Rubio jests about his hands, Trump said:
Disabled voters are taking things into their own hands. They are pushing for presidential candidates to notice them, and to take their needs into account:
Think Progress link.
More bigotry on the Republican side; this time, it is from Ted Cruz’s supporters.
Media Matters link.
Hilary Clinton has won in Georgia and Virginia. Sanders won in Vermont. More Super Tuesday results later.
So far, Rubio is giving Trump some competition in Virginia.
Trump has won in Georgia on the Republican side.
Kasich is giving Trump some competition in Vermont.
Clinton wins in Alabama and Tennessee. Massachusetts is too early to call.
Trump wins in Alabama, Massachusetts and Tennessee. Oklahoma is to early to call, looks likely for Cruz getting second place in OK.
Cruz won in Oklahoma. Bernie Sanders won in Oklahoma.
As expected, Cruz won in Texas. Hillary Clinton won in Texas
Trump won in Virginia.
Clinton won in Arkansas.
Hillary Clinton won in America Samoa.
MN is only at 53 % of precincts reporting. Rubio 37.3 Cruz 28.0 Trumpf 21.1 Carson 7.1 Kasich 6.3 On the Dem side it is Sanders 59.3, and Clinton 40.6.
Darn, I meant to add that the Dem side is only at 15% reporting. I can’t imagine that they were able to get everyone’s ballot cast by 8:00. Yay democracy!
Melissa McEwan has a great post up about Super Tuesday which I recommend for its discourse on why the best progressive position is to follow the lead of disenfranchised and marginalised people. The argument is that Black women can be relied on to recognise their own best interests, and that this will inevitably trickle up (my words) to lead to good progressive outcomes for everyone. Expecting the reverse – following the lead of the more privileged – to lead to better outcomes hasn’t worked very well yet, has it? Personally, I’m happy when I know my party appeals to people of colour and PWD and TBLG people.
Thanks for keeping this rolling, Lynna.
One more, even after putting away my keyboard:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_12/the_role_of_black_women_in_the059092.php
Forgive the naked URL.
CaitieCat @41, thanks for that comment: “Black women can be relied on to recognize their own best interests.” True. And I like the “trickle up” idea.
Looking at election results in terms of delegates:
Trump, 316
Cruz, 226
Rubio, 106
Kasich, 25
Carson, 8
Clinton, 1001
Sanders, 371
Looking at the results in terms of states won:
Trump, 7 states: Massachusetts, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Vermont
Cruz, 3 states: Alaska, Oklahoma, Texas
Rubio, 1 state: Minnesota
Clinton, 8 states:Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia
Sanders, 4 states: Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Vermont
From CaitieCat’s link in comment 42:
Now that’s power. and it says something about enthusiasm too.
South Dakota governor vetoes law on transgender bathrooms
Louisiana is the state with the most delegates to award in the voting that takes place next Saturday. Clinton leads Sanders 77-23 percent there.
In other news, Trevor Noah covered the Iowa bill that eliminates the age requirement for children to use firearms under parental supervision. Talking Points Memo link. Scroll down for video.
Senator Orrin Hatch excused Trump for failing to disavow the KKK forthrightly, or until he was asked repeatedly:
Oh, yeah, that’s it. Trump is inexperienced at expressing himself.
When Ted Cruz gave his version of a victory speech last night, he reminded us that he is going to eliminate the IRS.
Vice link.
In other news, what Harry Reid had to say about the Republican candidates:
The quote is from a speech Reid gave on the floor of the Senate.
Whoops. I made a mistake in comment 43. I listed Oklahoma twice, as a win for both Clinton and Sanders. Sanders won in Oklahoma, not Clinton.
Oh, FFS. A CNN news “contributor,” Jeffrey Lord defended Trump by saying that the KKK had a “progressive agenda.” Think Progress link.
Whenever news hosts ask prominent Republicans if they will support Donald Trump if he is the nominee, almost all of them say, “I will support the Republican nominee.” They can’t bear to say Trump’s name.
Some conservative organizations are trying to disinvite Trump:
Mother Jones link.
Trump continues to say that he gets along with everyone, that everyone loves him. Not Representative Scott Rigell of Virginia:
More white nationalist news for the Trump camp:
Media Matters link.
The Political Cesspool received press credentials from the Trump campaign.
Here’s a good example of how Trump “gets along great with everyone”:
Daily Kos link.
More violence against black people from Trump supporters at a rally:
Link.
Just since Chris Christie endorsed Donald Trump, Christie’s approval rating in New Jersey has dropped 6 points. It is now 27%. It is even lower among New Jersey independents: 18%.
News not related Christie, but related to Trump: this is what Ryan said that prompted Trump’s threat (see comment 52):
Ted Cruz is so obnoxious:
According to Cruz, if you pray to God he will tell you to get out of Cruz’s way.
Delegate math: Trump won 46% of the delegates that have been awarded so far. That’s what he got for winning 10 of the first 15 state primaries.
In future contests, Trump would have to win 52% of the delegates to win the nomination. That’s possible, but with Cruz, Rubio and Kasich staying in the race, it is less likely.
In other words, the Republicans may be heading for a contested convention. Also, I don’t think it is a good idea for God to tell other candidates to drop out now, as Ted Cruz advises.
Norway rejects Anders Breivik ‘inhuman’ prison conditions claim: “Attorney general defends jail conditions of mass murderer who has access to three cells for living, studying and exercise”.
I assume that if a person this fruitcake — the facist who shot dead 77 people five years ago — considers “subhuman” were to make a similar complaint, as ridiculous or perhaps not so absurd, he’d be ranting, raving, and going on another shooting spree.
The LDS radio station in Salt Lake City, KSL, is reporting that a local resident, Mitt Romney, has scheduled a “major announcement” for 9:30 AM Mountain time (GMT-7) tomorrow. They conjecture that it is either an endorsement or that Romney is planning to try it again.
se habla espol @58, the Romney PR people say it is not an announcement that he is running for president again. Scuttlebutt has it that Romney wants to play elder statesman, and that he wants to lecture Republican candidates on how they should behave. We know one thing for sure, he is not going to endorse Donald Trump.
Senator Al Franken gave a speech on the floor of the Senate. He addressed Republican obstruction to a SCOTUS nominee to replace Scalia, and Republican obstruction in general.
It’s a good speech. Scroll down at the link to watch the video.
Excerpt:
Is it even possible to tell lies faster?
“Bigger” lies are certainly possible — for instance, I don’t think any of the krazy klown kandidates have yet claimed gravity is myth invented by scientists to pocket billion$ & billion$…
Ben Carson is dropping out … sort of:
Twitter link.
Carson is going to speak on Friday at CPAC [Conservative Political Action Conference, a hive of über rightwing nonsense]. Presumably, he will explain why people should continue to send him money even though he is no longer running for president.
Well, you see, there’s all these currently-empty storage pyramids in Egypt…
God told most of these candidates to run, right? So is he the one that tells them when to drop out?
Classy as ever. Republican operatives in Texas gave Robert Morrow the job of Travis County GOP chairman. Robert Morrow posted the following drivel on his Twitter account:
After the drivel was noticed by the press, and other Republicans threatened to remove Morrow from his job as Travis County GOP chair, Morrow defended himself by telling reporters:
Texas Tribune link.
More white nationalist news associated with Trump.
Media Matters link.
Lynna #66 (and others)
Trump T. Trump really is like (former Toronto Mayor) Rob Ford* – he lies like a little child; he just automatically lies to cover up having done something “bad”; he says “I wasn’t taking a cookie!” while standing there on a stool with his arm right in the jar; he lies, whether the lie has even the slightest chance of being believed, or not. (You really “know nothing about white supremacist groups”? Isn’t that a little hard to do, living your whole life in the US?)
And if he gets caught out, he’ll just move on and tell another lie to try to cover the previous one.
And, like Ford, he has a “nation” of followers who don’t care, they are with him no matter what. Yay, celebrity culture!
*But of course, much scarier and in a position to do a lot more damage.
The United Farm Workers union endorsed Hillary Clinton.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/united-farm-workers-endorse-hillary-clinton-37361566
In other news, this is a followup to comment 53 which discusses the video of a young black woman being pushed around, and then escorted out of a Trump rally. The guy in the video that is wearing a red cap is Matthew Heimbach. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes him as “the face of a new generation of white nationalists.”
After the incident, the young woman was interviewed. She said she was called a “n*g*er” and a “c**t” among other things.
Matthew Heimbach has showed up at conservative rallies in the past, including CPAC in 2013. Talking Points Memo link.
Right Wing Watch link.
Islamophobia in action, Man removed from UK flight over ‘prayer’ message on phone:
Nestlé admits slave labour risk on Brazil coffee plantations:
I listened to Mitt Romney excoriate Donald Trump. Romney provided details to prove his main point that Trump is a phony and a fraud, “as worthless as a degree from Trump University.”
I think the end result will be that a few mormons in Utah will decide not to vote for Trump. But in the main, Romney just boosted Trump’s stock among Trump supporters.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/999a7f499006448a9068f19130050428/gop-sees-options-stopping-trump-not-good-ones
There is Republican debate scheduled for tonight. Katich, Rubio, Cruz, and Trump.
The debate airs on Fox News, Fox News Radio, and FoxNews.com at 9 PM ET.
In other news, Trump will have more to say about the Romney speech, but here is Trump’s general whine about “the establishment.” It includes yet another threat to run as a third party candidate:
Politico link.
More possible slavery in Brazil, Brazil: loss of ‘dirty list’ sparks fears of worker exploitation as Olympics near:
I’ve redacted a discussion of attempts to redefine what “slavery” is, the excuses used by the companies caught using (directly or indirectly) slave labour. Also, apparently Repórter Brasil is attempting to keep a useful list going, but not too surprisingly is find it difficult.
Not really a surprise, other than perhaps the scale / timeframe, Oil and gas industry has pumped millions into Republican campaigns:
Secretary Clinton is arguably just as much a tool of these and other “special interests” as well…
Hilary Clinton’s campaign raised $30 million in February. Bernie Sander’s campaign raised $42 million. Ted Cruz raised $12 million.
Clinton is leading in Louisiana polls ahead of that state’s Saturday primary: 61% to 14%.
Unconfirmed reports claim that the Koch brothers are not going to put their money behind the effort to undermine Donald Trump.
Excerpts from Romney’s speech:
A Trump supporter was arrested in connection with the Bundy Ranch standoff in 2014:
Talking Points Memo link
John McCain issued a statement backing up Mitt Romney’s speech:
Quoted text is from McCain’s website, mccain.senate.gov.
Fox News anchors Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, and Chris Wallace will moderate tonight’s Republican debate. The moderators claim that they intend to guide the debate to a more “presidential” atmosphere, but I doubt they will be successful.
On Saturday Republicans will vote in the following primaries: Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, and Kentucky. On Tuesday, primaries will be held in Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan, and Mississippi. And there is the primary in Puerto Rico on Sunday.
Full transcript of Romney’s speech.
He seems to be calling for a brokered convention:
It would certainly be entertaining to see the civil war that would erupt in the gop if that came to pass.
Until of course they start exercising their Second Amendment rights.
More partisan promotion of anti-abortion tactics in the House of Representatives:
Think Progress link
This is a followup to comment 65. Rachel Maddow covered the rise of misogynistic Hillary-hater Robert Morrow to the head of the GOP in Travis County, Texas.
It’s hard to believe! A moment of sanity in Georgia politics.
opus @83, what may be happening in Georgia has happened in other states when legislators try to pass “religious liberty” bills, people begin to realize that the passage of such bills actually depresses the economy. Sometimes corporations even move out of the state in response.
Not to mention the fact that discriminating against non-christians, gay people, and other population groups puts a damper on tourism as well.
It was nice to see a self-identified christian object to the religious liberty bill.
I think enforcement of “religious liberty” legislation will cause all kinds of problems.
Legislators in Mexico want their president to ban Donald Trump from entering their country.
Huff Po link
Some journalists have suggested that Mexico might end up building wall … to keep Trump out.
An excerpt from Trump’s long response to Mitt Romney’s speech:
Okay, that is what we expected from Trump.
What a Maroon @80, I agree. Romney is plainly calling for a brokered convention.
From Josh Voorhees’ column:
AP Fact Check on last nights debate. Some low lights:
Looks like Drumpf and Cruz make up facts.
If Drumpf and Cruz make up facts, we can also assume that Trump was lying when he reassured us concerning his penis size. Really. That happened during the Republican debate. What a farce.
The Trump penis reference came in the first 10 minutes. That established the tone.
Link.
The Affordable Care Act now provides health insurance to 20 million people. President Obama made this point in Milwaukee:
Who is Brent? A Republican who saw the light and sent President Obama a letter.
Link.
In Nerd’s comment 88, we see Ted Cruz attacking Obamacare as a “job killer.” All lies.
The audience at the Republican debate hooted and cheered loudly when Donald Trump said he would support torturing the families of terrorists.
In fairly good news, 242,000 new jobs were created in February. The jobless rate stayed at 4.9%.
An excerpt from the Republican debate that shows Trump caught in a lie about Trump University:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/best-moments-gop-debate-detroit-trump-cruz-rubio-kasich
Previous posts have also discussed that independent analsys of teh crud’s flat rat tax “plan” shows federal agencies, departments, etc., will be also be paying tax, and that it that tax on the federal government that will generate most of the revenue for the federal government.
See, e.g, Ted Cruz’s ‘crazy’ tax plan would cost US at least $16tn, thinktank says: According to Bob McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, “[…] Cruz’s math has a gigantic hole in it. He wouldn’t just make consumers pay his VAT, he would also make the government pay the tax (to itself) on all of its purchases, from warplanes to paper clips and the wages it pays to its employees. Cruz’s claim that the government can raise money by taxing itself accounts for a third of the alleged yield from his VAT. Without this sleight of hand, Cruz’s overall plan would cost more than $16tn over a decade and reduce total federal revenues by well over a third.”
Of course, I mean flat rate tax “plan”, but flattened rat tax, or even fat rat tax, is just as much in UnReality La-La-Land…
blf, Ted Cruz’s tax plan is, like most of the Republican tax plans, a boon to wealthy people. If, by some miracle, that tax plan could even be implemented, it would eventually hurt wealthy USians by destroying the country in which they live. The plan immediately hurts everyone else, except perhaps the military:
Fiscal Times link.
For the most part, the Cruz tax plan is not just bad, it is also can’t be implemented. It’s Republican shit pie in the sky. Not doable.
So what do we hear in Republican debates? Penis jokes.
Watch a Cornered Donald Trump Reveal Himself for What He Really Is: A Deceptive Sleazebag
Yes, Trump lied when questioned about Trump University. Did he think no one would notice?
During the debate, Rubio attacked Trump for praising Putin. Trump said that he didn’t praise Putin, that instead Putin had praised him. Lies.
What Trump said on a TV morning show in December 2015:
How does Trump get away with branding everyone else a liar?
Here’s some of what’s coming up this weekend in terms of primary and caucus voting:
Kansas – caucuses for both parties (Cruz is favored over Trump)
Maine – Republican caucus on Saturday, Democratic on Sunday
Nebraska – Democratic caucus
Louisiana – Republican and Democratic primary, (Trump is favored, Clinton is favored)
Kentucky – Republican caucus (Trump is favored)
Puerto Rico – Republican primary on Sunday
Both Sanders and Clinton have called for an end to “tipped minimum wage.”
Think Progress link.
Eight states have already repealed distinctions between tipped and regular employees.
Alex Jones of InfoWars is now pushing the theory that Marco Rubio has a secret “gay past” and is obsessed with Donald Trump’s package. Jones and Trump have expressed admiration for each other.
In other, strange, Republican news, Alex Jones and Phyllis Schlafly agreed that Donald Trump smells like Ronald Reagan.
Embalmed?
This is a followup to comment 51.
It looks like some of the Trump campaign’s distance from white supremacist groups may be erased by facts:
The Trump campaign disavowed the association with James Edwards:
The Sam Bushman and James Edwards side of the story:
Media Matters link.
I guess the Trumps could disavow their booking agency.
Michigan Governor Rick Synder (R) has retained outside counsel to defend him over the poisoning of Flint’s water supply. Another Republican, Senator Mike Lee of Utah is blocking federal funding for Flint. Mike Lee stands alone in this action.
The bill in question would send $250 million to Flint, with that money earmarked for infrastructure repair (mostly pipe replacement). The same bill proposes to send $50 million the CDC’s Department of Human Services to fund monitoring for lead contamination.
Mike Lee put a “hold” on the bill (along with other Senators, including Ted Cruz). Everyone but Lee has come to realize that the problem was caused by Michigan’s Republican politicians, and that the problem needs to be solved immediately. Cruz quietly abandoned the stalling effort, and so did other obstructionists.
Hey, Mike Lee, what does your mormon religion say about poisoning children, and then refusing to remove the source(s) of the poison?
Politico link.
Follow-up to @103, Why Mike Lee is stopping federal aid to fix Flint’s poisoned water:
Some readers’s comments:
● “The bulk of the article could be replaced with ‘Because he’s a jerk’.”
● “Make that an arrogant jerk.”
● “Mike Lee, killing black people.”
● “Mike Lee sold his home on a short sale and the Federal Government paid the bank their losses — Sen. Mike Lee got hundreds of thousands in personal wealth from these programs.
“But kids should drink lead because he’s a conservative.”
Considering both the source (the Wall Street Journal, a Moardoofus propaganda sheet), and the wazzock (teh trum-prat) involved, I am highly skeptical, Donald Trump reverses position on torture, saying he would abide by law:
I’m tempted to trum-prat’s quoted text, not in this case because the text is Not Even Wrong, but because nothing that wazzock says should ever be believed without confirming evidence: In this case, as one example, that he actually knows what both “law” is, and what the law is.
blf @106, After he made the somewhat moderate statement to the Wall Street Journal, Trump reverted back to his “worse than waterboarding” proposals at the rally.
Rachel Maddow covered the violence and vulgarity at Trump rallies.
As a followup to blf @105, Rachel Maddow presented a “special report” on the many failures of the Republican government in Michigan, failures which include but go beyond the poisoning of children in Flint.
Governor Rick Snyder pushed privatizing the care of elderly veterans with sickening results: terrible healthcare and elder abuse. Rick Snyder put an emergency manager in charge of public schools: now the schools have black mold problems, rat infestations, buckled floors, mushrooms growing out of the walls, ceilings falling in, etc. There’s more. The video is 13:55 long.
Mormon Moments of Madness that reveal the attitudes behind LDS treatment of LBGT people:
Raw Story link.
That’s a lot of tap dancing around the subject. That’s a lot of spin.
Here’s some good news from the Supreme Court: some clinics that had been closed by an anti-abortion law will reopen.
Think Progress link.
In my earlier comment, I should have provided a link and text to show that Donald Trump doubled down on torture after his staff sent that quote to the Wall Street Journal renouncing torture.
Right Wing Watch link.
This is a test, please ignore…
(Odd, for some reason, two very recent comments of mine (not in this thread) have been put in Moderation. Neither contained anything which should trigger the filter, leaving me very surprised.)
blf @111, both of my recent comments also ended up in moderation. Neither comment contained links or text that would trigger the filter. I sent an email to PZ to inquire about this.
I plan to refrain from commenting for a few hours. Hopefully the “moderation” filter will be fixed soon.
This is a telling excerpt from Benjamin Wallace-Wells’ article in The New Yorker:
Democrats are not ignoring the situation in Flint.
Following up to @114, there is an article I just tried to read in the Washington Post about the thugs’s stalling on Flint, and blaming it on the dummies. Unfortunately, their site is currently causing my browser to freeze up, making it all-but-unreadable, so I could, literally, only see snippets of the article. From what little I could read, it was the usual story of lies, invented “facts”, denial, everyone-else-is-to-blame, and practically nothing at all said about the poisoned people in Flint.
The people in Flint are African American for the most part. Therefore, Republicans ignore them.
The “special report” that Rachel Maddow produced is the best overview I’ve seen of Republican malfeasance in Michigan. See comment 107.
When he was asked about the poisoning of Flint’s water, Ted Cruz said that all of Michigan’s problems were a result of decades of mismanagement by Democratic politicians.
When Rubio was asked about it, he flailed around so much that you could tell he didn’t really know what was going on. Rubio finally skipped around the issue by saying that it was a shame that Democrats were politicizing the issue.
The Detroit Free Press posted a timeline of events.
Here’s a collation of links to articles in the press that discuss the Flint water crisis:
http://flintwaterstudy.org/articles-in-the-press/
Unfortunately, the list is focused on 2015 and is not up to date for 2016. Still, there’s a lot there. If you search for 2016 on that site, you will find more current resources.
With 33% of the precincts reporting, Ted Cruz is leading in Kansas with 49.9% of the vote. Donald Trump has 25.0%. Rubio is at 13.5%; Kasich at 9.9%.
You can see live election results in the right hand column of the talkingpointsmemo.com home page.
Results for Democrats have not shown up yet.
In Maine, 4.55% reporting, Ted Cruz is leading Donald Trump.
speaking of FauxNoise: Faux’s favorite son Glenn Beck is being held (questioned) by the Secret Service, for claiming to want to stab, stab, stab, Trump. Beck brushes it off as “just a joke”. ha-ha-ha.
The Kansas race has been called: Ted Cruz is the winner, with a double-digit lead over Trump. In his victory speech, Cruz reminded us that he is going to “abolish the IRS.” He is also going to remove EPA regulations, repeal Obamacare, etc.. Bad ideas from top to bottom.
Ted Cruz also won the CPAC straw poll. CPAC is a meeting of the most conservative of the conservatives. They’re known for combining fundamentalist religion with far rightwing political.
Bernie Sanders won in Kansas.
Summary of voting information, (some repetition of info already presented):
Kansas
– Democrats: Sanders 67.7%, Clinton 32.3%
– Republicans: Cruz 48.2%, Trump 23.3%, Rubio 16.7%, Kasich 10.7%
Kentucky
– Republicans: Trump 35.1%, Cruz 31.2%, Rubio 17.1%, Kasich 14.9%
Louisiana
– Democrats: Clinton 69.7%, Sanders 23.7%
– Republicans: Trump 42.1%, Cruz 37.3%, Rubio 11.3%, Kasich 6.1%
Maine
– Republicans: Cruz 45.9%, Trump 32.6%, Kasich 12.2%, Rubio 8.0%
Nebraska
– Democrats: Sanders 55.1%, Clinton 44.9%
I’ll get revised figures tomorrow. Louisiana was the only primary state, all of the other states are caucus states.
Nancy Reagan died. She was 94 years old.
In voting news, here is the revised delegate count:
Trump, 382
Cruz, 300
Rubio, 128
Kasich, 35
Clinton, 1,121
Sanders, 481
Revised voting percentages for Kentucky:
Trump, 35.9%
Cruz, 31.6%
Rubio, 16.4%
Kasich, 14.4%
Revised voting percentages for Louisiana:
Clinton, 71.1%
Sanders 23.2%
Trump, 41.4%
Cruz, 37.8%
Rubio, 11.2%
Kasich, 6.4%
Revised voting percentages for Nebraska:
Sanders, 57.1%
Clinton 42.9%
The rest of states are the same as was posted earlier.
Donald Trump came out in favor of torture again today:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-advocates-torture-beat-savages
I think he has, by now, completely obliterated the Wall Street Journal report that Trump would not order military personnel to commit war crimes.
Trump is now pushing hard for Marco Rubio to get out of the race. It’s true that Marco did very poorly in yesterday’s votes, but when Trump wants something, look for the underlying reason. I think Trump is afraid of a brokered convention (or contested convention), and if Marco stays in the race that result is more likely.
On another subject, here is Trump’s response to questions about outbreaks of violence at his rallies:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-on-the-crowd-melees
Southern California, including the greater Los Angeles area, is home to some of the worst air pollution in the USA. And it looks likely to get worse, thanks to the Republican-dominated Southern California’s Air Quality Management District Board.
Think Progress link.
Trump tried again to explain his need to torture people, and what he would do if he were president:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/03/06/3757028/trump-torture-world-leaders-react/
Godwin’s law officially suspended for photos of Trump rallies.
Daily Kos link.
At a rally, Trump asked people to swear they would vote for him. As a result, we have a Hitler-ish salute from the mostly white audience. Photo at the link.
Ted Cruz sneaked onto the bandwagon coverage of the discussion of Trump’s genitals:
Talking Points Memo link.
Without being asked, you just engaged in a discussion of Trump’s anatomy.
Uh-oh, bad news for gun control. The governor of West Virginia vetoed a bill that the NRA loved … then the West Virginia legislators rounded up enough votes to override the veto.
Think Progress link.
The West Virginia legislature is dominated by Republicans. In the state house there 64 Republicans to 36 Democrats. In the state senate, there are 18 Republicans to 16 Democrats.
There’s a Democratic Party debate tonight that is being held in Flint, Michigan. Should be interesting, if only because the Flint water crisis has been in the news … and because it has been largely ignored by Republican candidates.
In other news, Ronald Reagan’s son Michael Reagan endorsed John Kasich for president.
Marco Rubio won the GOP primary in Puerto Rico by a large margin.
More details regarding tonight’s Democratic Part debate:
– Location: University of Michigan’s Flint campus
– Time: 8 p.m. Eastern
– Moderators: Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, Dana Bash
– Host: CNN
The next primary votes will be held in Michigan, Mississippi, Hawaii, and Idaho on March 8. Hawaii is a caucus state. On March 15, votes will be held in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Northern Mariana Islands, and Ohio. After March 15, it may all be over but the shouting.
The following is based on a real article about N.Korea’s latest tempter tantrum, but I could not resists some creative editting… –blf
Wazzock threatens to reduce US and the reset of the world to ‘flames and ash’:
One or two paragraphs had to be extensively reworked, but otherwise it was (mostly) an exercise in replacing “North Korea” with “Wazzock”, and similar simple-ish substitutions.
In a unanimous decision, Gay adoption rights: ruling overturned by US supreme court in LGBT victory: “Eight justices’ decision reverses ower court’s ruling that the adoption rights granted to a same-sex couple in Georgia had no validity in Alabama”.
I assume that whining in the background is more frothing bigots.
This could be interesting, perhaps largely, I suspect, in How they (probably) “cook” the numbers; The (presumably) dubious methodologies used; and The (extremely likely) failure to address (or simply lie about) the extrajudical nature of the murders, White House to reveal death toll of US drone strikes for first time (my added boldfacing):
As previously noted, Mexico’s president has basically told teh trum-prat to go feck himself, Mexican president compares Trump rhetoric to Hitler and Mussolini (the Grauniad’s edits in {curly braces}):
Some readers’s comments:
● “Like the Mexicans sticking it to Trump. No people should accept that kind of abuse.”
● “Good for him. Anytime Trump tries to abuse Mexico or Mexicans they should tell that orange faced baboon to fuck right off. And it’ll be cheaper building a wall around Trump. Maybe with a reflecting pool.”
Whilst there is nothing obviously “wrong” with either the programme or teh trum-prat’s use of it, his use of the programme seems rather hypocritical (i.e., usual operating procedure for the wazzock), Trump hammers China while using its immigrants’ money to build tower:
Hmmmm, who is more pro-choice?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unf_JyJomsw
Wonder why one youtube link came out as a hyperlink while the other was embedded.
The Kansas legislature doesn’t like that the Kansas Supreme Court is holding them to the Kansas State Constitution. They want to be able to impeach Justices who don’t bow to their fascist wishes.
MassMomentumEnergy @ 138 & 139:
Good clips. I didn’t know Bernie and Hillary were different on the pro-choice issue until I viewed those videos.
With regard to a video link embedding or being a hyperlink, I think you get a hyperlink if you do a return and some text after the video link. I can’t find the comment now, but someone else originally shared that information on a thread.
Planned Parenthood’s official position supports Bernie. Pity their money doesn’t follow their values.
http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/issues/abortion/20-week-bans/
re: embedding videos
nahuati is correct.
If the naked url is the last thing in a comment, the video embeds.
Put anything after it, it doesn’t embed.
Because reasons.
Bloomberg is not going to run for president. He said he is staying out of the race because he feels his campaign would likely hand the win to Trump or Cruz. It is probably true that Bloomberg would take more votes away from a Democratic candidate than from, say, Trump.
Bloomberg Politics link.
Claiming ignorance, Scott Walker tried to absolve himself for appointing a Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice who had expressed openly anti-gay sentiments:
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel link.
Trump has his own 47% attitudes. He continues to criticize Mitt Romney for the “47%” speech, but I don’t see how that is different from what Trump says. In June 2015, Trump said:
Mother Jones link.
The quoted text is from a Fox News interview.
A summary of news bulletins:
The latest PPP survey shows Hillary Clinton leading Bernie Sanders 56% to 35% in Ohio.
The Seattle Times endorsed Bernie Sanders.
More conservative groups are launching attack ads against Donald Trump. In some states, like Florida, people have been sending in absentee votes for a month or more. Trump banked votes before his stock began to sink thanks to negative ads and reports. The anti-Trump campaign is late, and in some cases amateurish (focusing on how much he swears rather than his crazy policies).
The Club for Growth spend $2 million in Illinois on ads attacking Trump. So far, Trump leads in Illinois polling; he has 32%, a slight drop from earlier, but still a double digit lead over his Republican competitors.
Trump is attacking Rubio more than Cruz in Florida. The Sun Sentinel newspaper refuses to endorse a Republican candidate, saying that none of them deserve an endorsement.
Bernie Sanders made a mistake in the last debate when he said, “when you are white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto, you don’t know what it’s like to be poor.” Sanders has been trying for a day and a half now to clarify his statement.
Link
Democrats in the Missouri Senate have been filibustering since 4:00 PM on Monday afternoon. They are trying to block Republican legislation that would codify anti-discrimination, trying to block a constitutional amendment that would make it okay to discriminate according to Missouri state laws.
Think Progress link.
License to discriminate. The Republican way.
In Ohio, a Planned Parenthood clinic was vandalized. Someone painted, in huge red all-caps: “SATAN DEN OF BABYKILLERS GOD SEE ALLLL Mark 9:14.” Link.
That should make support of Planned Parenthood even more of an issue during the upcoming presidential primary voting on March 15th.
According to public policy polling (PPP), Trump leads (35%), with Kasich close behind (35%).
The Democratic candidates have been clear that they support Planned Parenthood, while the Republican candidates have almost uniformly demonized PP. Trump has praised PP’s non-abortion healthcare for women, but that doesn’t really make sense.
On her show “Full Frontal,” Samantha Bee buried the Republican Party.
Salon link. Scroll down for the two-part video.
They clearly get the spirit of International Women’s Day and feminism:
Post seen on Facebook (with tons of likes of course)
Sad and embarrassing.
Dang it, wrong thread =/
Trump’s racist past rears it’s ugly head … again.
Slate link.
Yahoo link.
As is his habit, Trump tried to deflect criticism by claiming that he did not know LiButti:
This falls into our “the company they keep” category. Trump says he is honored to be endorsed by a Sandy Hook Truther:
Media Matters link.
It’s one thing to say that Trump can’t control who endorses him, and it is another thing entirely to invite the Truther doofus to speak at a rally.
The Better Business Bureau confirmed that Trump has been lying about Trump University for some time.
Media Matters link.
Trump has always been Trumpish. In 1987 he took out full-page ads in the NY Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe to declare, “There’s nothing wrong with America’s Foreign Policy that a little backbone can’t cure.” That headline was above an essay of sorts that claimed the USA was being cheated by other countries.
In 1984, Trump told the Washington Post, “Some people have an ability to negotiate. It’s an art you’re basically born with. You either have it, or you don’t.” Trump was offering to negotiate nuclear disarmament with the Soviet Union. He knew next to nothing about the subject. That little fact didnt bother him in the least. “It would take an hour-and-a-half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles,” he said. “I think I know most of it anyway.”
The examples above are summarized from an an article in The New Yorker by Jill Lepore.
The article goes into even more detail about Trump’s wazzock qualities. In 1999, for example, Trump said on Fox News:
Ken Cuccinelli is a lawyer, a former Virginia state senator, and an obnoxious doofus. This is the guy that, when he was a senator, did not want to vote with his colleagues to eliminate Virginia’s bans on oral and anal sex. Cuccinelli said, “My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that. […] They don’t comport with natural law.”
So, now, who are the Republican ‘s pushing for a seat on the Virginia State Supreme Court? Ken Cuccinelli of course. In Virginia, the legislature appoints judges.
Here is some of the not-a-good-lawyer story:
Link.
Yearn For Bern is strong among young Muslims:
Election results from today’s primaries:
With 94% of the vote in Michigan counted, Bernie Sanders is the projected winner. Looks like we’ll end up with Sanders taking about 50% of the vote to Clinton’s 48%.
The Republicans in Michigan line up like this, approximately:
Trump 37%
Cruz 25%
Kasich 24%
Rubio 9%
In Mississippi, Clinton won in a landslide with about 83% of the vote; and Sanders got about 16.5% of the vote (that’s with 99% of the vote counted).
For the Republicans:
Trump 47.4%
Cruz 36.3%
Kasich 8.8%
Rubio 5.1%
In Idaho, only Republicans voted:
Cruz 43.3%
Trump 27.8%
Rubio 18.2%
Kasich 7.2%
In Hawaii, only Republicans caucused, and those results are not yet in.
Trump turned his victory speech (he won in Mississippi and Michigan) into a sort of QVC show for Trump Winery, Trump steaks, Trump magazines and Trump water.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-romney-successful-companies–2
Trump set up a booth backed by American flags. It was surreal.
Michigan awards delegates on a proportional basis, so Sanders and Clinton will share those delegates almost evenly. Sanders celebrated his win:
The Sanders win in Michigan was an upset. Polls showed Clinton with a narrow lead.
I’ve been watching pro-Cruz ads in Idaho, ads that claimed Cruz is going to give back to the state of Idaho all the federal lands. Bonkers. I guess that message worked, that along with Romney’s strong anti-Trump message (lots of mormons live in Idaho). Cruz won in Idaho.
A pastor in Idaho was shot shortly after he had endorsed Cruz. Not sure if there is any political connection. The shooter was captured outside the White House after throwing stuff over the fence onto the White House lawn.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/idaho-shooter-captured-outside-white-house-640027203796
Carly Fiorina endorsed Ted Cruz.
Good news from Kentucky: Democrats in the Kentucky General Assembly won three of the four seats that were contested in Tuesday’s special election. Governor Bevin (major Republican doofus) is disappointed. Before the election, he said, “I will do everything in my power to make sure that the people who I think embody the values that I was elected to represent are elected. I do think they’ll be Republicans.”
Thank goodness the people of Kentucky disagreed with Bevin. The Dems even flipped one seat that was held previously by a Republican. The state House has 53 Democrats to 47 Republicans. That will put a wrench in Bevin’s plan to take Kentucky down the same road as Michigan and Kansas.
Updating the election results posted in comment 159:
Donald Trump won in Hawaii with 42.4% of the vote.
Delegate counts:
Trump 458
Cruz 359
Rubio 151
Kasich 54
Clinton 1221
Sanders 571
While Donald Trump was touting his wine, steaks, water etc. in a deranged version of a QVC show in lieu of a victory speech last night, all of the cable news networks covered him. Clinton’s speech (she won in Louisiana) got zero seconds of live coverage. Sanders pulled off an upset in Michigan and that news was preempted by Trump’s QVC fest.
Trump is bonkers, and he is entertaining, but enough is enough. Dropping all other news to cover all of what some journalists have called “drunk uncle nonsense” is malpractice.
Move coverage of the totally bonkers Trump coverage:
Media Matters link.
Not to mention the fact that they relegated the mounting support for Sanders in Michigan to a little sidebar.
More stupidity from Fox News host Greg Gutfeld:
Link.
On this coming Tuesday, March 15, Florida and Ohio will hold presidential primaries.
In other news, a bunch of West Virginia lawmakers legalized the sale of raw milk. To celebrate, they all drank some raw milk. Then they got sick.
Some facts they ignored:
http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm079516.htm
WSAZ News Channel 3 link.
Some of the West Virginia lawmakers are denying that it was the raw milk that made them sick. The percentage of raw-milk-imbibers who got ill tells a different story.
Another glimpse into a wazzockpratian future, as currently practiced (prat-ed?) in Poland, Poland’s legal reforms do not comply with constitution, court rules:
(Polish government); (USAian Senate).
blf @169, I see the European Union playing a good role here. The investigation, and the possible “punitive measures,” should put the wazzocks in Poland back on the reality track (I hope).
This is amusing, but also brings back something of a bad memory for me: At the time, I was living in California and still attending school, and had nightmares about being targeted by this loon. (Never mind that the killings were many hundreds of kilometres away.) Ted Cruz is the Zodiac killer: the anatomy of a meme gone rogue:
I can see it. A serial killer before he was born, and now a putative carpet bomber still lacking any understanding of the wrongness.
Nuts, I hit
Postinstead ofPreviewfor teh crud-is-the-zodiac-killer meme (@171). There are some great readers’s comments:● “Think the Guardian is utterly contemptible for treating the accusation that Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer as an amusing internet meme, rather than the simple, uncontroversial truth.
“I mean, if he is innocent, why hasn’t he denied it? Silence speaks louder than words.”
● “Ted Cruz has never denied that he’s a serial killer, so the possibility remains — If he denied it, you would immediately know it’s true.”
● In reply to “It’s the salem witch trials all over again!”: “Does he float or does he sink? […]”
● “I think you could easily make the case that Cruz is a sociopath.”
In reply: “I’m not sure you need to make a case, I think pointing in his general direction probably suffices.”
● “The reason this myth is impossible to take seriously is because one cannot imagine a slimy milquetoast like Cruz being able to do anything that might get his hands dirty. He’s more the sort who would pay a killer to do the job for him, lure him to a pre-arranged spot to collect his bounty, and then shop him to the police so as to protect his money and make himself look like the good guy.
“Mind you, it’s also impossible to imagine Cruz being that intelligent, so it’s swings and roundabouts.”
● “I have no problem believing Cruz is capable of mass murder.”
In reply: “Let’s face it, Cruz is more terrifying than the Zodiac ever was.”
Cruz does seem more like the type that would hire someone else to do his serial killing for him.
In other, equally disturbing news, Florida Republican voters think Donald Trump is honest and trustworthy.
A woman who is a guns-rights activist was shot by her 4-year-old son.
Salon link.
Uh, maybe it would be a good idea to NOT get a 4-year-old child “jacked up” about firing a weapon.
Police found a .45 caliber handgun on the floor in the backseat. So, a loaded gun, a child … I would not call this an accident. It sounds more like a setup for getting shot.
Ten years ago, Senator John Cornyn (a Republican doofus from Texas) said this about Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito: “[Democrats] “will need to come to terms with our confirmation process.”
He went on to add that Democrats treating nominees “more like pinatas than human beings” is “something none of us should be willing to tolerate.”
Now that President Obama is interviewing potential nominees to replace Scalia, Senator Cornyn has a different viewpoint:
http://blogs.rollcall.com/news/scotus-nominee-will-resemble-pinata-cornyn-says/
The steaks that Trump touted as Trump Steaks during the infomercial he tried to pass off as a press conference (see comments 165 and 166) were not as advertised. Those steaks said “Bush Brothers” on the label.
Trump Steaks have not been sold since 2007, but Trump wanted to push back against what Mitt Romney had said about Trump’s failed businesses, so he lied.
The water Trump displayed was bottled by another company, and a Trump label was added before the water was served at Trump hotels and golf clubs.
Major news outlets let Trump tout his fake wares in an hour-long infomercial.
http://mashable.com/2016/03/09/donald-trump-infomercial/#_Sl8nMrL.Zql
This is a followup to comment 154.
How is it that Trump and his campaign staff are always unaware of the obnoxious views held by their supporters? When they invited Carl Gallups to give the invocation during a January 13 rally in Florida, why didn’t they vet the guy? How could they have missed the fact that Gallups is a Sandy Hook Truther?
After someone else pointed out the despicable side of Gallups, and made a big deal of it on social media, (and the story was picked up by national media) … then Trump or his campaign disavowed Gallups.
Trump gets the attention and support of the conspiracy wingnuts, then he waits a while before he disavows them. (David Duke, for example. Fake veterans group, for example.) The conspiracy wingnuts all nod sagely and talk among themselves. They know that Trump has to disavow them for political correctness reasons.
Bullshit. Trump has it both ways. He gets to associate with the worst of the worst, and then he gets a pass for having done so.
Connecticut Post link.
American white supremacist Donald Trump chimes in on 1.2 billion human beings again
And in a shocking turn of events, it turns out he doesn’t actually have anything substantial to say or has the ability to address questions about his fascist positions:
This is going to be a somewhat disjointed comment, with a quick listing of unrelated news.
The Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) endorsed Hillary Clinton yesterday.
The four remaining Republican presidential candidates will participate in their 12th debate in Miami tonight. Prior to the debate, Jeb Bush will meet with all of them but Trump. It will make big news if Bush decides to endorse Kasich, Rubio or Cruz.
Now that Kasich has beaten Marco Rubio in a couple of states and positioned well to win in Ohio, other Republican campaigns have started to run adds against him. It sounds ironic to us, but probably not to right-wingers, that the attack ads slam Kasich for implementing the Medicaid expansion in Ohio, which provided health care to hundreds of thousands of low-income Ohioans.
Trump blasted Kasich for being absent from Ohio while running for president. That seems kind of a silly insult — not up to Trump’s usual level of slime.
Marco Rubio has decided to back off of the “small hands” insults:
MSNBC link.
Sanders and Clinton debated each other last night in Miami. Univision’s Maria Elena Salinas was one of the moderators.
Most of the debate included repetition of policies we’ve heard Clinton and Sanders describe before, but there were a few new points related to immigration.
Link.
It looks to me like Sanders has pulled Clinton to the left on immigration. They are both sounding compassionate and committed.
Saad @178, Thanks for posting that. Trump sounded so ignorant, so much like a schoolboy trying to answer a question for which he was unprepared.
In other news, at some point the Republican obstructionist stance to a new Supreme Court nominee has got to cost them votes. This morning, yet another rightwing senator told the truth about the inexcusable tactics. Senator Ron Johnson said, basically, that the Senate would happily confirm an appointee if the President were a Republican like Mitt Romney:
Talking Points Memo link.
The quoted text is from a Wisconsin radio show, “Morning Mess.”
President Obama held a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this morning. The two leaders discussed their joint efforts to comply with agreements made in Paris concerning climate change, joint efforts to stop terrorism, excellent trade associations between Canada and the USA, Syrian refugees, etc. Looked like a bromance of sorts to me. Their wives also seem to get along well and have joined forces to work on the health of children.
At one point, a reporter asked President Obama about the Republican claim that he is responsible for the rise of Trump. Here’s part of Obama’s reply:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obama-trump-republicans-circus-trudeau
@ 181
I’d like him to explain just how the Court would be a threat to free speech.
On “Morning Joe” today, Joe Scarborough asked Governor Rick Scott of Florida,
Scott skipped and dodged and danced, basically refusing to answer the question. His performance reminded me of Trump trying to claim that he didn’t know David Duke and had no clue about white supremacists. Scarborough tried to get an answer out of Scott several times:
Link.
A significant population of Muslims live in south Florida. In Florida there have been several hate crimes against Muslims. Since November of 2015, we’ve seen attacks on mosques, shots fired at the private homes of Muslims, threats to burn down Islamic places of worship, and threats to kill Muslim children.
In the Democratic debate in Miami last night, Univision Asked Hillary Clinton And Bernie Sanders If Donald Trump Is A Racist. Here’s What They Said.
See link for details.
One of Donald Trump’s supporters punched a black man in the face at a rally in North Carolina yesterday.
The black man was escorted out of the rally by sheriffs, and the white guy who punched him was allowed to stay.
Scroll down for video here.
In the USA, nine of the ten largest detention centers for immigrants are run by people who also run private prisons. Corrections Corporation of America has a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to run Hutto in rural Texas. 26 women at the facility have resorted to a hunger strike to protest the unjust, dangerous conditions at Hutto.
Maribel Zelaya ended up in Hutto after fleeing violence, gangs, and domestic abuse in Honduras.
More than 60 detainees launched hunger strikes at other detention centers in Texas. The inmates (calling them “inmates” because they are treated like prisoners or worse) are desperate. As numbers of detained immigrants increase, a subset of the private prison system is raking in the cash: $195,000,000 for CCA in 2014, for example. The prison companies keep their cost low, and they treat the detainees badly.
Children are also in these detention centers:
Link.
This is a followup to comment 186.
The man who punched a black man at a Trump rally has been arrested. Finally.
The young man who was punched was being escorted out by at least four police officers, but the police threw him to the ground and did nothing to the older white guy who threw the punch. The young black man gave the bird to Trump and to the audience when Trump started saying into the microphone that the young man was “going to mommy,” “Go home to your mom!” etc. (The young man’s mother had passed away.)
An Insider Edition interview with John McGraw makes him look even worse. He made some claim about he young black man perhaps being a member of ISIS. McGraw went on to say that next time they might have to kill the Rakeem, the young black man.
Link.
Link 2.
Interview with the young man who was punched, and with his friend who took the video.
Elizabeth Warren lambasted the Republican Party members who are obstructing the Supreme Court nominee. She gave a great speech. YouTube link.
Excerpts from the speech:
This is a followup to comments 186 and 188.
The Trump campaign issued a statement about the incident in which Rakeem Jones was punched: “We are not involved.” I would just like to point out that in another of his rallies, Trump said about a protestor being escorted out, “I’d like to punch him the face.” Trump also said at a previous rally that he would pay the legal bills of any of his supporters who did punch a protestor. And finally, while Rakeem was being escorted out by officers, Trump was making insulting remarks about going home to mommy, etc. in order to rile up the crowd. Trump and his campaign are involved.
Hillary Clinton’s response to the punching of a black man at a Trump rally in North Carolina:
You can see the entire interview on the Rachel Maddow show tonight.
Clinton also responded to a tweet from MSNBC’s Chris Hayes:
Senator Mike Lee of Utah (a rightwing mormon doofus who is semi-famous for withholding funds to address the water crisis in Flint, Michigan) has endorsed Ted Cruz.
In other news, Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski roughed up a female reporter. Lewandowski’s version of events is that the reporter is an “attention seeker.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/conservatives-want-corey-lewandowski-fired-breitbart
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/corey-lewandowski-michelle-fields-attention-seeker
So if that guy was being escorted out of the room by police when he was attacked, isn’t that negligence on the part of the police?
Cliven Bundy refuses to recognize the authority of the Federal Government.
Here’s a proposal. Two days added to the sentence as contempt of court for each day Bundy claim’s the government has no jurisdiction. His arrogant stupidity can give him a life sentence….
Do that and he’ll die in prison before he actually gets a trial.
micro raptor @193. Yes, sure looks like it. There’s an internal investigation going on. Already, police officers (sheriffs) are saying they didn’t see the punch. Even if that were true, why did they throw Rakeem Jones to the floor as soon as they had him up the stairs?
Nerd @194, the entire Bundy clan buys into the rightwing, libertarian (and in this case, also mormon), that the federal government is beast that has no legitimate authority. Father and sons, all the same. And yet, one of the sons used/abused the small business loan department of the federal government.
In other news, here is the interview with Elizabeth Warren.
Apparently, Trump played nice in the Republican debate tonight. I can’t bear to discuss it right now. I’ll post some highlights/lowlights tomorrow.
Here’s some news from the Republican debate last night: none of the candidates were willing to condemn violence at Trump rallies. One example:
Huff Po link.
What Trump said about violence at his rallies:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-carson-endorsement-violence-rallies
Warmongers. That’s another conclusion from the Republican debate last night. every candidate wants to put boots on the ground in Syria and Iraq.
Trump said he would send 20,000 to 30,000 troops. The other candidates were less specific, but just as hungry for all-out war:
Think Progress link.
Trump’s campaign manager did not condemn violence at Trump rallies:
Link.
Yes, Marco Rubio did better in last night’s Republican debate than he has done in past debates. But that’s not saying much. Rubio offered a moment of stupidity when questioned about climate change:
Mother Jones link.
Trump quadruples down on Islamophobia:
Right Wing Watch link.
Sometimes the rightwing radio jocks go so far off the rails that I have to take a break from reading what they have to say. (Listening to them is worse. I gave that up long ago. I still check summaries of whatever bile they spew.) Expect me to be absent from this thread for a little while.
Link.
It was the “transgender in your soup” that maxed out my tolerance level.
Ah, good. Someone has a sense of humor about this. Chicago’s “Wiener’s Circle” hot dog stand is offering “Trump Footlongs,” which are 3 inches long. Link.
In other Trump news, a second video of a violent assault on protesters at the North Carolina rally has emerged. Link. Text and video at the link.
Excerpt:
Here is an article about violence narrowly avoided outside Trump rallies. Video, text and photos at the link.
In good news, a Muslim man handed out free donuts to Trump supporters standing in line: “There you go, now you have a Muslim friend.”
Omarosa Manigault, a Trump spokesperson, said that protestors at rallies “get what’s coming to them.”
Not all the people harassed, punched, or escorted out of Trump rallies are protestors. Some are innocent bystanders who happen to be black. That said, even protestors should not be punched or roughed up.
Omarosa said:
That sounds to me like, “I don’t condone violence, but, yes, I do condone and expect violence.”
When asked about Trump provoking the crowds and encouraging violence, Omarosa said:
Phyllis Schlafly, far rightwing whacko and founder of Eagle Forum, has endorsed Donald Trump.
Scholarly is a piece work. She covers all the rightwing bases: anti-vaccine, anti-immigration, etc. She wants Major League Baseball to ban foreign players, was an activist against the Equal Rights Amendment, praises the gender pay gap, thinks feminists are responsible for sexual assaults on college campuses, claims married women cannot be raped … and supports Donald Trump.
It’s now obvious that The Drumpf is afraid of any real confrontation with political opponents. A “pep rally” was cancelled at UIC after protesters got in due to “security concerns”. The only concern is that the cameras would catch Drumpf being booed rather than universally cheered.
Somebody from NYC scared of crownd from the Third City??? How does one say Bawk, Bawk, Bawk…..
A coward, like most bullies.
I posted comments about the violence at Trump’s Chicago rally in the Violence and Vulgarity thread.
Nerd @208, I think the cancellation of the Chicago event was a calculated move. Trump wanted media coverage of more violence at his rallies, and he got it.
Trump made several statements today that show how he will continue to use the outbreaks of violence at the Chicago rally to paint himself as a victim. Trump said that “thugs shut down our First Amendment rights.”
Fox News was glad to back Trump up on this. Megyn Kelly said, “his First Amendment free speech rights have been shut down.” Sean Hannity said, “violent agitators hijacked what was to be a peaceful campaign rally.”
The problem with this tale of victimhood is that the First Amendment protects the right of free speech, but it does not protect Trump or his supporters from criticism. The First Amendment does not protect political candidates from protesters. Trump has not been silenced, as the free coverage he gets on all the major and minor news outlets attests. His supporters have not been silenced.
The idea that the rallies of a presidential candidate are private, and therefore only supporters of the candidate can attend, is likewise bonkers.
And what about the fact that Trump has spent months encouraging violence? He is still calling the assault of protestors “very, very appropriate” today. He is still advising the crowds at his rallies to “knock the crap out of” protestors. When he says stuff like that, his supporters go wild. They love it.
Trump does not want free speech for protestors. He wants “consequences” for protesting.
Oh for fecks sake, Georgia lawmakers poised to pour $2m into ‘fake abortion clinics’:
In one sense Unterman is correct-ish, abortion is not an easy decision. However, completely lying about it or denying the possibility is not in any sense useful consoling. And tends (very probably) to ignore born children and their needs.
Dr Floyd, at least as quoted in the article, does not mention the quality-of-life (and similar) issues for the child or family with forcing the mother to give birth.
Donald Trump is threatening Bernie Sanders:
The canard Trump is telling is that the Sanders campaign organizes the protests at Trump rallies. It is true that some Sanders’ supporters have joined in the protests. It is not true that the Sander’s campaign organized the protests. Sanders had nothing to do with the protests, and there’s no evidence that he or his staff had anything to do with them.
Trump also told Chuck Todd on NBC’s Meet the Press this morning that he might pay the legal bills of the white man who punched a black man who was being escorted out of a Trump rally.
In Kansas City last night police pepper-sprayed a group of protesters. The pepper-spraying incident was largely condemned as not necessary. Circumstances didn’t call for it.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article65749927.html
News reporters have also been harassed by Trump supporters.
Trump made stuff up. He said on Fox News Sunday that “something like 27 percent” of Muslims are “really very militant.”
Trump said stupid stuff about connecting a protester at one of his rallies to ISIS:
That’s a Trump tweet that noted U.S. Secret Service agents stopped a guy trying to rush the stage.
And here’s a summary of a conversation Trump had with Chuck Todd about Trump having used a bogus internet video as his source for the ISIS connection:
blf @211, I see rightwing state lawmakers using the “crisis pregnancy centers” excuse to shut down legitimate clinics more and more.
This seems to be the favorite means of obscuring the issues and of dodging responsibility to provide reproductive healthcare that is real. Lot’s of religion at the base of these actions.
Here’s what Bernie Sanders had to say about violence at Trump rallies:
Link.
Experts (with evidence) don’t think much of The Donalds complaints against trade agreements. Some samples:
Fact checking appears to the bane of the Donald and his advisors.
Fixed.
The macabre truth of gun control in the US is that toddlers kill more people than terrorists do:
Videos of heavy sharks riding metal horses pouring teenaged vodka on hamburger peatties.
Nerd @216, making some adjustments to NAFTA seems to be the best way to go. The Trump-Prat is only interested in destruction of existing agreements, and in saying things that make him sound like the Bully King.
You are right that fact-checking is simply off his radar. Look at the way he used a bogus video to claim an ISIS-supporting protestor charged the stage at one of his rallies.
On NAFTA and TPP, I’d like to see even more debate on those issues between Sanders and Clinton. I don’t think enough time has been given to the subject. We have campaign slogans, talking points, and some accusations, but not enough detail on the plans for going forward. I do think it is likely that we can amend some of the agreements that benefit corporations and pharmaceutical companies too much.
Japan has a problem with its agricultural interests being opposed to opening their ports to more trade.
NAFTA is not the only reason that the USA lost manufacturing jobs.
Whilst the SPLC — the go-to organization / site for information on hate groups and similar in the USA — has pointed out wazzock trum-prat is a problem (Southern Poverty Law Center affixes Trump as face of ‘year in hate’ report: “The annual report focuses on how hate speech, mostly from Donald Trump, has pervaded mainstream politics, as well as the 14% increase in US hate groups”), I got to wondering what would happen if they classified him as a hate-monger (my term, I’m not sure what their terms / classifications are). A who is also… Could get very interesting…
The SPLC has been issuing statements. A very recent report one is Donald Trump has a hate group problem (dated 28-Feb-2016, quoted in full):
This seems brilliant, The ugly truth about Muslims: they have great frittata recipes:
There are images of some of the posters at the link.
First Dog on the Moon, What are these so-called minor technical issues with this extremely cool-looking F-35 jet? (cartoon): “Australia is handing over $18bn or so for 72 dud F-35 jets we may or may not get and if we do they may or may not work. Surely there is a better way to spend this money!”
The F-35 — also known as the JSF (Joint Services Fighter) — is an extremely expensive “stealth” “multirole” fighter jet, supposedly capable of doing everything except making espresso and engaging in military missions.
blf @220, the phrase “has pervaded mainstream politics” struck me as really important. Trump has created a mainstream product out of concepts and slogans that used to be restricted to the fringes of rightwing politics. To me, Trump’s politics look more like an over-hyped and deceptively-advertised product than like a political ideology.
That’s the scariest part of the trumpification of politics in the USA. He brings previously unacceptable ideas into the mainstream. Trump often says that he is creating a movement, and he is right.
In other news, here’s a followup to the incident where a man rushed the stage at a Trump rally in Ohio and was taken down by Secret Service agents. Trump later claimed (falsely) that the man was associated with ISIS.
Talking Points memo link.
DiMassimo has been involved in anti-racism protests before.
Experts dismissed Trump’s claims of a tie-in with ISIS.
More Trump supporters have used violence to intimidate people who are not white.
The Wichita Eagle link.
Excerpt:
We’ve talked before about the ways in which some state-level judicial systems raise money off the backs of the poor, and how a system of fines and fees function as a sort of debtors prison. The Department of Justice (DOJ) is warning courts to stop.
The DOJ’s warning letter went out to chief justices and court administrators nationwide.
Link.
“Brexit” (the campaign by racist loons for the UK to leave the EU) has just collided with the thugs’s kooks’s klown kampaign (racist loons who want to be the next president of the States), Ted Cruz: Obama anti-Brexit campaign will see ‘England pull out of EU’:
There are numerous readers’s comments, a small collection of some I liked:
● “Ted Cruz — the one man who makes Donald Trump look like a thinking man’s candidate”.
● “Funny how Cruz doesn’t even know whether this country is called Britain, England or the UK […]”.
● “I see Mr Cruz doesn’t have a clue about the UK, its politics or people then. What a moron.”
● “Ted Cruz is Richard Nixon without the charm. I am as fearful of him as I am of Trump. And his quote only refers to England — huh?”
● “A loathsome man — with zero friends a real oddball — donest [sic] accept climate change — pro NRA, anti abortion, anti gay, thinks the 10 commandments should be the law, anti mexico, hates obama, hates er everything aside from the worse aspects of jesus worshipping.
“Further down the repulsive food chain than trump — actually can’t recall a worse candidate for president ever.”
● “Surprised they even know where Europe is”.
● “It’s getting harder and harder to separate the cretins from the idiots in the US Republican suite of pillocks posing as statesmen and failing miserably.”
● “Obama has more integrity in his big toe than Cameron and his Tory cabal could muster collectively, as for Cruz he is just another lunatic tea party zombie.”
blf @226, Thanks for that info. It prompted a few bitter laughs on my part.
I liked the dry humor of “Richard Nixon without the charm,” since Nixon was notably charm-deficient.
Also, “suite of pillocks” is a good description for the Republican candidates.
Cruz should cruise over to “England” and get his clock cleaned by the journalists there.
In other news, Ben Carson came out in support of violence at Trump rallies. Carson encouraged Trump supporters to fight: “They can submit and do whatever those protesters want them to do, or they can fight back.”
Both Carson and Trump base some of their most egregious comments on the false story that protestors are starting fights .
Excerpt from Think Progress article:
A longer excerpt from the comments President Obama gave in reply to a question asked at a White House press conference (bolding is mine):
Without actually endorsing him, Mitt Romney is campaigning with John Kasich in Ohio today. That’s weird. Polls indicate that Kasich may beat Trump in Ohio. I hope so.
Polls show Trump doing well in Illinois, but apparently the ground game is so weak there that Trump fired its Illinois campaign director.
Cruz finally came out and said that there is one thing Trump could do to keep Cruz from voting for Trump if he is the Republican nominee: if Trump shoots someone on 5th Avenue, Cruz will not vote for him. Yay, high standards! /sarcasm
The editors of the National Review endorsed Ted Cruz.
One report claimed that North Carolina investigators were considering filing a charge of inciting a riot against Donald Trump. Not quite true, or not wholly true, unfortunately:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/03/14/nc-sheriff-might-charge-trump-for-inciting-riot.html
Here’s a different flavor of nastiness from the Trump campaign, and it’s aimed at Bernie Sanders:
Mother Jones link.
Ann Coulter, a Trump supporter, and former Fox News darling, demonstrated the split that is widening among rightwing voters. On her Twitter feed, Coulter wrote:
“Silent majority” is a phrase Trump uses in his speeches.
The rightwing is ripping itself apart.
I don’t understand the claim that the “liberal establishment” is in league with Fox News and Cruz. Say what now?
Ex-Trump workers describe egocentric micromanager: ‘Donald loves Donald’: “Interviews with former employees point to detail-obsessed boss with little regard for diversity or low-level staff: ‘His identity is wrapped around being a winner’.”
The UK’s own wannabe-wazzocks (they are too useless to qualify for wazzockianhood; they are mostly pillocks), that is, the current government, seems to taking a lesson from Steve Harper, the former-pillock, I mean former-PM, of Canada, and is planning on censoring scientists, The government’s lobbying ban will have a chilling impact on scientists (the authour is Dr David Nutt, who, as he explains in this opinion piece, has previously had a run-in with the pillocks ignoring inconvenient evidence):
Interesting analysis. The Donald’s supporters make up their minds early.
But Trump doesn’t fare will with late deciders.
Interesting if applied to the November election. The now undecideds would likely vote anti-Trump.
blf @232, thanks for that link. Here’s a longer version of the quote you posted:
So telling. Yes, that’s exactly how Trump comes across.
Sarah Palin spoke at a Trump rally in Florida:
Talking Points Memo link.
An unsavory backstory sullies Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s endorsement of Donald Trump. Yes, there are unsavory details in addition to the general nastiness of associating with Trump.
Think Progress link.
Here’s a unique take on the people protesting at Trump rallies, Michael Savage says the protesters are racist against white people:
Right Wing Watch link.
Sarah Palin (as quoted in @236 (my emboldening)),
Ironic. But more than that, the emboldened phrase seems a possible clew as to some of the “reasoning” behind the widely(?)-held misinterpretation of free speech / First Amendment (sometimes called freeze peach), including ideas such as what you say must be published, must be taken seriously, cannot be ridiculed, and so on. Which is rubbish, as both the above link, and quite famously XKCD, argue.
To wit: Protesting, ridiculing, etc., nonsense is “not peaceful” and therefore violates the freeze peachers’s right to assemble peacefully. This is quite an elastic definition of “not peaceful”, in the sense it (probably) doesn’t apply to the freeze peachers’s own protesting, ridiculing, etc., of their protesters; and in the sense that (e.g.) telling teh trum-prat he is a wazzock (whether stated calmly or yelled as a heckle) is also “not peaceful” simply because the wazzock doesn’t want to hear that and much of his audience probably has no idea what a “wazzock” is. (That they then probably beat the heckler with teh trum-prat egging them on certainly is not peaceful, but is also a reaction to the heckler’s exercise of free speech.)
Or in short: If a freeze peacher hears something s/he disagrees with, s/he gets upset, and that is not peaceful, so whoever said the something is “denying” the freeze peacher’s right to assemble peacefully, i.e., denying their free speech.
(Probably over-analyzed, I was just struck by eejit’s inclusion of the right to assemble peacefully in her attack on free speech…)
Teh cult of EW, like the child raping cult, also has a rape-then-coverup problem, Damning report reveals Church of England’s failure to act on abuse:
Republican obstructionists in the Senate have come up with a new reason to ignore any Obama nominee for the Supreme Court. They’re just trying to protect the nominee from abuse. Yeah, right.
That’s Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah saying something utterly ridiculous.
Other Republican senators have already admitted that they simply do not want to confirm an Obama nominee — doesn’t matter who that nominee is. Also, as Steve Benen of the Maddow blog noted, Republicans must have really changed a lot if they now have such a huge capacity for empathy towards White House nominees. I’m not buying Hatch’s load of swill.
As for Bork and Thomas, they were both questioned at confirmation hearings and they both received floor votes. Those are the Senate duties that President Obama expects for his nominee.
The Republicans have no logical reason to refuse confirmation hearings and floor votes for an Obama nominee, so they are throwing all kinds of ridiculous flak into the air. I think they hope to confuse voters and the media. I see you Orrin Hatch.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan committee, assessed the impact of Trump’s plan to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) “with something terrific.”
The Trump campaign posted a sort of outline for a healthcare plan. The Trump plan would cost more and do less than the Affordable Care Act. You can read the entire CRFB report at http://fiscalfactcheck.crfb.org/measuring-trumps-healthcare-plan/
Jonathan Cohn summarized Trump’s plan. Excerpt:
Voting is taking place today in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio.
On the Republican side, Trump leads in every poll except Ohio, where Kasich has a significant lead. Take all polls with a grain (or a ton) of salt. They’ve been wrong before. On the Democratic side, Clinton leads in every state, with the smallest gap between her and Sanders in Illinois and Ohio.
Trump says over and over and over again that he likes it when protestors disrupt his speeches. This amazing collation of “I love it. Isn’t is exciting!” etc. Trump comments was presented on a Rachel Maddow segment last night.
Trump’s enjoyment of the chaos is disturbing: “It is fun, right?! It’s exciting!” Donald Trump likes it. He really likes it. “Nobody else has this!”
The Daily Kos posted a funny (bitter, black comedy) article in which journalist Hunter provides the details of Breitbart News’ implosion.
The article is too long and too tightly written to excerpt, but I recommend it. Breitbart is sinking under the fuckton of ridiculous conspiracy theories it has promulgated in the past and is struggling to nurture today.
Today is Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s birthday. To celebrate, let’s enjoy a few quotes from Notorious RGB:
Koch donors divided over failure to stop Donald Trump (this is a long article, I’ve only excerpted a few bits I found amusing):
Kudos for thinking teh trum-prat is terrible, but, um, Ms Kendrick, so is teh robot, teh kochroach brothers, and faux; And da-uggh is so not even on the same planet it’s probably in a completely different reality.
Marc Short was the kochroach network’s “top political operative”. He left that group of loons, perhaps because they aren’t obviously opposing teh trum-prat, but given that he is now reported to be advising multiple other loons (including teh robot), I would not rule out an axiom of thuggery: “Follow the money”.
I’m not quite sure what metric is used to compare cash and “political muscle” (using “follow the money” — total amount of bribes paid?), but the kochroach swamp and environs has a considerable amount of “muscle”, albeit it seems to be infected with political-rabies (batshite lunacy).
So, yeah, we all saw Trump say on a news program that he would consider paying the legal fees of the man who sucker punched a protester at one of his rallies. Trump followed that up by saying that he already had his team looking into paying the man’s legal fees.
Today Trump is denying all that.
Talking Points Memo link.
@ #246 on RBG
One of my favorites is from a speech she gave at Georgetown University.
“People ask me sometimes, when — when do you think it will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine.”
Fun at the White House:
Link
toms @249, I love that quote.
Here’s a quote where RBG is being practical and inspirational: “I’m dejected, but only momentarily, when I can’t get the fifth vote for something I think is very important. But then you go on to the next challenge and you give it your all. You know that these important issues are not going to go away. They are going to come back again and again. There’ll be another time, another day.”
Something of a follow-up to @250, some more on Hamilton at the White House: why this moment means so much: “The Obamas have taken art from the edges and placed it front and centre. Their legacy — now at risk — is to make all Americans feel visible”.
Ben Carson seems to have mixed feelings about endorsing Donald Trump:
Link
Trump is backed by a bunch of well-known pastors and other christian conservative stars. What they all have in common is that they’re rich. Trump is not doing as well with the not-rich christians.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/03/15/3760287/donald-trump-prosperity-preaching/
North Carolina’s voter ID laws are causing problems for students who want to vote in the primary. And they are not the only ones.
Link
Donald Trump as America’s King David? Sheesh.
Link
China is using Trump to foster an anti-democracy agenda:
The Amalgamated transit Union (190,000 employees) endorsed Bernie Sanders.
In other news, there’s going to another Republican debate next Monday. On one subject I agree with Donald Trump, we don’t need more stinking Republican debates. Those candidates don’t tell us anything new, and sometimes they fail entirely to answer the questions of moderators.
Fox News is hosting the Republican debate in Salt Lake City on March 29. The moderators are Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace.
Trump already said he won’t participate, but his campaign has not confirmed that. Kasich says he’ll drop out if he doesn’t win in Ohio today; and Rubio may drop out if he doesn’t win in Florida (which looks likely). So, what the heck is up with this debate? A town-hall type interview with each remaining candidate might make more sense.
So might a practical, personalized demonstration of various policies advocated, such as being waterboarded and worse, carpet-bombed, shot for not putting their hands up, shot even if they do put their hands up, and so on. There are some obvious practical, moral, ethical, legal, etc., problems here, however, so we’d probably have to settle for making them eat peas whilst explaining just what any one of those many problems actually is.
Ejector seats optional. The audience, however, should wear helmets and other protective gear to reduce the number of injuries from desk-head collisions.
blf @259, helmets for all of us! We all need protection to get us through the campaign season.
This could be bad, bad, bad or it could be good … definitely head-desk worthy. MSNBC reporters across Ohio are reporting an exceptionally high rate of Democratic voters crossing over to vote in the Republican Party. Video link. 5:42 minute video. The educated guess is that a high unemployment rate in some areas may drive some white working class Democrats to crossover in order vote for Trump (the angry-at-everyone-vote) — but, and this is important, some Democrats are crossing over to place an anti-Trump vote in the Republican primary. Some of the crossover is voting for Kasich.
The St. Patrick’s Day luncheon is usually a lighthearted event during which the President, Senators, and Representatives get together, tell jokes, drink and eat.
Today was different. President Obama delivered a very serious address about the “vicious” political environment.
http://theobamadiary.com/2016/03/15/president-delivers-remarks-at-a-reception-for-st-patricks-day/
Politics in Ohio = too many guns. And at a polling place!
Cleveland Plain Dealer link.
Oh, good. President Obama delivered some good news. He is eliminating “abstinence-only” funding for sex education (sometimes called “Abstinence Only Until Marriage”), and he added to the budget $4 million for teen pregnancy prevention.
Lots of people are happy about this budget proposal, including the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States.
Now we’ll have to wait to see how much of the President’s budget proposal is actually implemented.
So Mitch MConnell is advising Trump? I wish I had a transcript of that phone call.
Talking Points Memo link.
Trump won in Florida. Rubio lost. Rubio suspended his campaign for president. We now have only three Republican presidential candidates left: Trump, Cruz, and Kasich. Trump added 99 delegates from Florida to his count. Rubio credited God with deciding Rubio should not be president.
The projected Democratic Party winner in Florida is Hillary Clinton. With 72% of the vote in, Clinton has 64.5% to Sanders’ 33.2%.
Hillary Clinton won in North Carolina for the Democrats.
The other races are too close to call, or too early to call.
Hillary Clinton won in Ohio. No matter how the rest of today’s vote goes (Illinois and Missouri), Clinton will have added to her delegate lead.
On the Republican side, John Kasich won in Ohio.
Quick update on the Illinois vote. It’s close on the democratic side, with 1.8 million votes cast (92% reporting), Clinton 51%, Sanders 49%. On the Rethug side, Trump now has less than 40% of the popular vote. Not quite a mandate.
The US senate race has an interesting feature, with both Kirk (stroke) and Duckworth (RPG to her Blackhawk helicopter in Iraq) campaigning from wheelchairs.
Lynna, #265
God’s decisions about candidates not being president seem to always come after the votes are counted.
Saad @268, Ha! Yes. God is not good with predictions?
Here’s a summary of yesterday’s voting.
In the delegate count:
Trump 646
Cruz 397
Kasich 142
Clinton 1599
Sanders 844
A roundup from states where voting took place yesterday:
Florida for Democrats – Clinton 64.4% and Sanders 33.3%
Florida for Republicans – Trump 45.8%, Rubio 27%, Cruz 17.1%, Kasich 6.8%
Illinois for Democrats – Clinton 50.5% and Sanders 48.7%
Illinois for Republicans – Trump 38.8%, Cruz 30.3%, Kasich 19.7%, Rubio 8.7%
Missouri, with 99% of the vote in, this state is too close to call on both sides. So far, Clinton and Trump have tiny, tiny leads (0.2% for both).
North Carolina for Democrats – Clinton 54.6% and Sanders 40.8%
North Carolina for Republicans – Trump 40.2%, Cruz 36.8%, Kasich 12.7%, Rubio 7.7%
Ohio for Democrats – Clinton 56.5% and Sanders 42.7%
Ohio for Republicans – Kasich 46.8%, Trump 35.6%, Cruz 13.1%, Rubio 2.9%
Obama nominates Merrick Garland to fill Scalia’s seat. Older white man, well-regarded by both sides, went to Harvard Law, Jewish–should fit right in.
Not that it matters–the Senate won’t confirm even him. I’m of two minds about this–on the one hand, if you know it’s going to be futile anyway, why not make a statement with the nomination? Find the anti-Scalia–someone who’s brilliant and radical, from a neglected demographic. On the other hand, if the goppers won’t consider even him, it underscores just how unreasonable they are.
President Obama introduced his Supreme Court nominee today, federal judge Merrick Garland. Garland is a 63-year-old white man who is a qualified and respected jurist. Some pundits are calling the nomination “generic,” while there is both high praise and disrespect coming from other quarters. Garland is also Jewish.
Senator Orrin Hatch (Republican doofus) said last week: “[Obama] could easily name Merrick Garland, who is a fine man … [but] he probably won’t do that because this appointment is about the election. So I’m pretty sure he’ll name someone the [liberal Democratic base] wants.”
More details from Think Progress.
What Republicans said about Merrick Garland in 2007, when Garland was confirmed for a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/03/16/3760775/republicans-backed-merrick-garland-1997/
Hillary Clinton’s victory speech, transcript. And for those that prefer it, here is the Video.
Donald Trump’s victory speech, video during which Trump blasted “disgusting reporters” and otherwise repeated a lot of his usual schtick, including emphasis on poll numbers.
John Kasich’s victory speech, video.
Marco Rubio’s concession speech, YouTube video link.
Ted Cruz’s primary night speech. Cruz repeated his pledge to get rid of the IRS, to institute a 10% flat tax, to repeal every word of Obamacare, and to get rid of EPA regulations. He made a big deal out of the fact that he is the only one who can beat Donald Trump. Cruz was smarmy.
Bernie Sanders’ primary night speech.
The link is to a YouTube video of Sanders at his rally in Arizona. It is just over one hour long.
Another source for the Sander’s speech: ABC News.
With 100% of the Missouri primary votes in, here are the results:
Clinton, 49.6%
Sanders, 49.4%
Trump 40.8%
Cruz 40.6%
Kasich 10.1%
Rubio 6.1%
In other news, we already knew that Trump said he will not attend the next Republican debate, to be hosted by Fox News in Salt Lake City. Now Kasich has declared that he won’t attend that debate if Trump skips it.
Now that Rubio is out of the picture, Trump is focused on threatening Hillary Clinton and the RNC. Specifically, Trump repeated several times that is we does not get the nomination automatically at the convention “you’d have riots.” Yes, Trump is pushing for riots at the Republican convention.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-riots-if-i-do-not-win
What a Maroon @270, Sorry I didn’t see your comment before I posted mine.
Republican senators are desperately looking for a way out of their obstructionism when it comes to the new Supreme Court nominee:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/hatch-open-to-garland-in-lame-duck
Mitch McConnell has already rejected the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mcconnell-rejects-garland-nomination-scotus
This just in: the Republican debate in Salt Lake City has been cancelled.
Remember that über conservative Catholic archbishop that snuck Kim Davis in to see the Pope during that visit to D.C.? Well that guy has been fired. The Vatican is replacing Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano with a clergyman that is an advocate for immigration. I hope the new guy, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, does not join Kim Davis in hating LGBT people.
Link.
Stupidity from Idaho: a sheriff objects to mandatory rape kit testing because a “majority of cases are consensual sex.”
http://www.localnews8.com/news/local-sheriff-reacts-to-rape-kit-legislation/38515374
Sheriff Craig Rowland is, in addition to being a dunderhead, is a mormon.
House Speaker Paul Ryan is backing Senator McConnell (see comment 277):
More head-desking news regarding Supreme Court nominee Judge Merrick Garland:
Link.
Some senators have said they would be glad to consider Garland if he is nominated next year. WTF?
When Trump was asked about his foreign policy advisors, he said, “My primary consultant is myself.”
Here’s what Trump said previously (March 8):
Here’s what he had to say today:
Link.
If Trump becomes President Trump the USA is so fucked.
This could have been an interesting article, potentially touching on the “lamestream media” problem in some countries, probably including the States. Unfortunately, it’s mostly saying the obvious, that anonymous sources, and their quotes and information, must be handled with care. Would UK political coverage be possible if we adopted the NY Times’s rules?:
One very good readers’s comment (which reminds me of the Washington Post’s rule for Watergate, “Verify! Verify! Verify!”):
Fox News is trying, desperately, to back up Mitch McConnell and other Republicans when it comes to the new Supreme Court nominee:
Media Matters link.
Doesn’t pass the smell test, Fox News.
See comments 270, 271, 272, 276, 277, and 282 for earlier conversation about the Supreme Court nominee.
Lynna,
No worries–you added a lot more info. To be honest, I was surprised I beat you to the news.
You know that guy who says he is the only Republican that can beat Trump? Well, Samantha Bee really shredded Ted Cruz. Daily Kos link.
Scroll down for video.
Now that Rubio has dropped out, Governor Nikki Haley has endorsed Ted Cruz. Yuck.
Maybe we should like Merrick Garland more. Ted Cruz hates him:
Talking Points Memo link.
On a daily basis, Cruz says something that adds to his dunderhead status.
Glenn Beck loves, loves, loves him some Ted Cruz. And he hates, hates, hates John Kasich. He hates Kasich so much that he abandoned his mormon-scrubbed vocabulary to call Kasich a “son of a bitch.”
Welcome to more eye-brow-raising weirdness from the rightwing:
Link
The Economist Intelligence Unit has placed Donald Trump among its top ten global risk.
Politico link.
Trump won in every state but Ohio last night. What does he tweet about? Mostly Megyn Kelly. He is prolonging his petty she-hurt-my-feelings fit and vendetta.
The quotes are from Trump’s Twitter feed. Kelly was slated to be one of the moderators of the Republican debate in Salt Lake City, the event that Trump said he would not attend.
Trevor Noah took some well-aimed swings at the Republican candidates. Scroll down for video.
This news about the Ted Cruz campaign belongs in our “the company they keep” category.
Frank Gaffney is a notorious anti-Muslim activist. He’s the guy that thinks “creeping Sharia” is taking over the USA (shades of Michele Bachmann without the crazy eyes), and he’s the one who pushed the conspiracy theory that the Muslim Brotherhood had snuck into the Obama administration (or Obama had let them in).
His “creeping Sharia” conspiracy theory included the idea that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was plotting to insert elements of Sharia law into the U.S. government. Most bonkers of all, Gaffney accused Grover Norquist of infiltrating the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) for the Muslim Brotherhood. Grover Norquist? Really?
Goofy Gaffney held a National Security Action Summit in July. Cruz and other Republican candidates spoke there as if it were a legitimate conference. Now Cruz has added Frank Gaffney to his national security advisory team.
Trump also has connections to Gaffney. He used bogus poll results from the Gaffney Center for Security Policy to back up his plan to ban all Muslims from entering the USA.
It’s a rat’s nest of conspiracy theories and bigotry.
Anti-abortion foes have found a reason to oppose Merrick Garland as the Supreme Court nominee. They had to leap chasms, and then drown in guilt-by-association to do so, but Americans United for Life (“the nation’s premier pro-life legal team”) has identified Garland as “Obama’s pro-abortion pick.”
This is how they played their abortion card:
Yes, that’s right. Garland went to a party to celebrate the publication of a book by Justice Harry Blackmun. That’s the full extent of Garland’s supposed connection to court decisions that affect access to abortion.
It took him a while to get there (he had to discuss The Bachelor” first), but Colbert did a great job covering the primary voting on Tuesday. Salon link. Scroll down for video.
Donald Trump refused to go to Salt Lake City, but other presidential candidates are campaigning in Utah.
Kasich will be there tomorrow, Friday; Cruz arrives on Saturday; Bernie Sanders will campaign in Utah on Friday. For the Clinton campaign, Chelsea Clinton was in Utah on Tuesday and Michelle Kwan will speak for Clinton today.
The Wall Street Journal published an article that discussed the primary votes so far, the Republican candidates, and the possibility of a brokered convention. The article included this sentence: “By the way, Hillary Clinton’s primary vote total so far is 8,646,551, according to the RealClearPolitics count. Mr. Trump’s is 7,533,692.”
Of course, the facts, and the real world sometimes make Trump really angry (angry with a side of hurt feelings), so he took to Twitter for revenge.
The Wall Street Journal has not responded.
The five deputies involved in escorting a black protester out of a Trump rally have been disciplined for failing to take action when John McGraw sucker punched the protestor. The deputies face up to a year of probation. WRAL link.
Did the Rolling Stones fire Donald Trump in 1989? This is certainly a good story, and The Donald plays a part that sounds true to his usual narcissistic character.
Senator Elizabeth Warren was interviewed yesterday, March 16, on Chris Hayes’ “All In” show. Warren commented on the Supreme Court nomination, and Republican obstructionism. She also gave her opinion of Donald Trump’s candidacy.
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/elizabeth-warren-sounds-off-on-donald-trump-646198851578
Our justice system at work: Cliven Bundy lost his bid to be released from jail as he awaits trial on federal conspiracy and assault charges.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/cliven-bundy-loses-release-bid
Amazing. Marco Rubio actually returned to the Senate to work for a day. After that, he is going on spring vacation for two weeks with the rest of the Senators.
Rachel Maddow interviewed Bernie Sanders last night. Excerpt:
Segment in which Sanders talked about Garland as the Supreme Court nominee.
Segment in which Sanders talks about super delegates and his path forward to the nomination. Part 1.
Continuation of Part 1 as noted above, plus a discussion of trade policy, and Sanders’ denouncing violence at Trump’s rallies.
Ah, yes, it is budget time again. President Obama submitted a budget proposal. Republicans control the House Budget Committee and that committee submitted a proposal.
Link.
The Hill link.
Yeah, the official Republican proposal is really bad, but guess what? It is not bad enough. Extreme rightwing Republicans in the House will not vote for it because it does not go far enough when it comes to decimating many federal programs.
The Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy testified for two days before a congressional committee.
I was struck by the way that Snyder bemoaned his own fate (“I will have to live with this the rest of my life”) without putting enough emphasis on the lives of the children his administration poisoned with lead-tainted water.
Snyder’s main tactic was to blame the feds. His secondary tactic was to claim an implausible innocence, along with an exaggeration of his response once he was forced to acknowledge the problem.
While in DC, Snyder refused to meet with families from Flint who had traveled to the Capitol.
Think Progress link.
Rachel Maddow’s updated coverage of the U.S. House Oversight Committee hearings on the mass lead poisoning in the city of Flint.
Uh … yeah, that’s weird. Michael Savage, popular conservative talk show host, claims that the successes of President Obama and Hillary Clinton have made him doubt that God exists.
“I go in and out of it lately,” Savage said. “When I see what Obama gets away with and what Hillary gets away with, I lose my faith.”
Right Wing Watch link.
The only suspect to escape from police capture (or death) in the Paris attacks of last November has been caught in Belgium. Slate link.
This is a followup to comment 292. Chris Hayes covered Ted Cruz’s foreign policy advisors, including the odious and illogical Frank Gaffney. Media Matters link.
Video from “All In with Chris Hayes” and a partial transcript are both at the link. Excerpt:
President Obama is making history again by appointing a woman to a post previously held by men.
Politico link.
The administrators of a high school in Georgia decided to move the site of its prom because a white supremacist group was holding a rally nearby.
Atlanta Journal link.
This is a followup to comment 296. Trump is continuing his feud with the Wall Street Journal. This round goes to the editors of the WSJ.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/wall-street-journal-tells-trump-truth-hurts
Ha. That’s snark on The Guardian level. I like it.
Editors at Wikipedia are struggling mightily to keep facts posted on the Wiki page describing Judge Merrick Garland.
Wired link.
Speaking of Grauniad snark, First Dog on the Moon, Welcome to Chaste Schools! Decent churchy folk are back in charge of our children’s minds (cartoon): “Congratulations Australia! The safety of our tiny children is no longer in the well-moisturised hands of all those culturally marxist translesbigaybian atheists”. With a few minor edits, it also describes the situation in (or threat to) some USAian states or school districts…
Bernie Sanders has picked up an interesting endorsement in Arizona:
Link.
Instead of saying he endorses Ted Cruz, Mitt Romney just tweeted that he plans to vote for Cruz in the Utah Republican primary. Two whacko religious conservatives on the same page, I guess.
In other news, there are additional cracks in the Republican dam holding back consideration of President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. Senator Mark Kirk, a Republican from Illinois, created the latest crack. Senator Kirk told his fellow Republican senators to “just man up and cast a vote.”
The governor of Alabama, Robert Bentley, recently signed a bill that bans cities in that state from raising the minimum wage. He stopped a proposed $2.85 raise for the lowest-paid workers in Birmingham, for example.
But Bentley was generous with more well-to-do people in his cabinet. He gave four of them $73,405 raises, which increased their salary by 80%. The cabinet members were already making $91,000 per year.
Bentley has also denied pay increases for teachers, other state employees, and retirees. He rather infamously closed 31 drivers license office, with most of those offices in majority black communities (a side effect will be that those residents find it harder to get a mandated ID in order to vote).
A rich asshat is screwing the people of his state.
Think Progress link.
Tennessee lawmakers want to pay for shoutouts to god by stripping some funding from education.
Knoxville News Sentinel link.
Not content with the shoutout to god on police vehicles, the lawmakers added some amendments to the bill, one of which would ban the University of Tennessee from using any state funds “to promote the use of gender-neutral pronouns, Sex Week or to promote or demote a religious holiday.”
There must be a lot of mormon leaders shaking their heads today. Bernie Sanders drew a crowd of more than 14,000 supporters yesterday at Brigham Young State Park. Nice.
Trump consistently tells TV hosts that he gets the biggest crowds, “bigger than Bernie Sanders.” Wrong.
https://berniesanders.com/press-release/utah-feels-bern-14000-turnout-sanders-salt-lake-city/
Sheriff Joe Arpaio is speaking at a Trump rally in Maricopa County, Arizona. He and his deputies are also providing security for the event (deputies riding around on ATVs and horses, deputies in patrol cars blocking some access roads). Protestors are massing on the perimeter. Looks like another recipe for violence.
In other Trump-related news, Trump asked his supporters to boycott Megyn Kelly’s show. This is getting really ridiculous. Even Fox News thinks Trump’s obsession with putting Megyn Kelly down has crossed a line.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/megyn-kelly-donald-trump-boycott
This is a correction to comment 318. It is protestors who are blocking one or more of the main roads leading to the Trump rally. They used cars and other vehicles to block the road, and they chained themselves to the vehicles.
http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/31516829/trump-protesters-block-streets-in-fountain-hills
There are better photos of the protesters blocking access to a Trump rally at the New York Daily Mail.
My bet is that Trump will take this as a personal affront, and will be in feelings-hurt mode for weeks — but he will spin it as a criminal act preventing free speech, etc.
As usual, Trump is irony-free. He had a message for Ted Cruz in Utah: “Mormons don’t like LIARS!”
Politico link.
Trump has the highest rating for lying, the biggest problem with fact-checkers of any of the candidates.
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/12/the-king-of-whoppers-donald-trump/
Also, Mormons like only one set of liars, their own LDS leaders.
Donald Trump drew smaller-than-usual crowds in Salt Lake City. That didn’t stop his from adding a few new insults to his repertoire:
Politico link.
Three of the protestors in Arizona (see comments 319 and 320) were arrested, but violence between protestors and those trying to drive to the Trump rally was avoided. Good.
Protests against Trump were also held in New York City. There were few arrests and the protests seem to have been peaceful for the most part.
Glenn Beck protested Trump by telling him to “leave Megyn Kelly alone.”
Bernie Sanders talked about immigration policy when he held a rally near the border fence that separates Arizona from Mexico. The difference between the Democratic Party candidates, with their emphasis on policy, and the Republican Party candidates, with their posturing and bluster grows starker by the day.
This may turn out to be good news. We’ve talked before about the so-called “religious liberty” bills that some states have passed. These bills are licenses-to-discriminate. Lawmakers in the state of Georgia sent a “religious liberty” bill to Governor Nathan Deal for his signature.
Deal is a Republican who wasn’t clear in the past about signing such a bill, and he asked for changes that would make it less discriminatory. He got some of those changes in the revised bill, but now he is getting powerful signals from the NFL and from Apple that he should not sign the bill. The good news is that the pushback from businesses as influential as the NFL may make Governor deal change his mind. For one thing, Deal could lose the chance to host a Super Bowl.
Think Progress link.
Cruz has added another rightwing extremist to the long list of dunderheads with whom he is happy to be associated. The Cruz campaign posted a list of endorsements, and added John Zmirak to that list.
John Zmirak is a conservative Catholic who pushes fear of “gay Sharia” on the rightwing website The Stream. Of course, Zmirak wants the Senate to block all Democratic Supreme Court nominees … forever. Cruz has voiced similar beliefs, backing obstructionist tactics, and even mentioning “gay jihad.”
Here are a few more of Smirk’s greatest rightwing hits:
– he warned us that Christians may face genocide in the USA
– he wants us to boycott Apple and Walmart because those two companies spoke out against “religious liberty” laws (see comment 324 for an example of “religious liberty” laws)
– he says gays are a greater threat to the U.S. than ISIS
– he loved, loved, loved the Center for Medical Progress’ deceptively-edited videos against Planned Parenthood
– he thinks President Obama is a Muslim
Anyone remember that “Leave Brittany Spears Alone” video that went viral years ago? I’m now hearing it in Glenn Beck’s voice.
There was a fascinating article in yesterday’s International New York Times (formerly IHT), hidden away in the “Business” section, about teh trum-prat and his apparent worldview, What Donald Trump Doesn’t Understand About ‘the Deal’ (my emboldening):
There’s a brilliant illustration in the on-line version, http://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/03/20/magazine/20onmoney2/20mag-20onmoney-t_CA1-articleLarge.jpg
‘A tipping point’: record number of Americans see global warming as threat:
blf @327, It occurs to me that in Donald trump’s rent-seeking world, one of the commodities he controls is his name. He makes millions from loaning the Trump name to hotels in Dubai, etc. That’s one way to control a market.
The idea that Trump is always out to grab more than his share rings true. That’s what he does.
Another anti-Trump protester has been attacked. This time, a protester was being escorted out of a rally in Tucson, Arizona
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/stuff-gets-ugly-at-trump-tucson-rally
More details concerning the mistreatment of protesters in Tucson (see comment 330):
Pay-to-pray scam finds families caught between faith and desperation:
Sounds promising. But:
In other words, this is being treated as a civil matter, not a criminal matter. There may be some logic to this, albeit I am very uncomfortable with the stated reasoning:
At least some of the readers are also bothered:
● “This is the same deal the Wall Street malefactors get. If they plead guilty, they become felons and are prohibited from engaging in such ventures in the future — to speak nothing of jail time. This reduces the entire affair to the level of a parking violation with a larger civil fine.”
● “Conservatives are a weird bunch. They claim to be Christians, have no problem getting upset with gays, which Christ never mentions once in The Bible, they love their guns, despite being told to turn the other cheek. The ONE thing Jesus made it very clear he was no fan of was money, he mentions it several times, get furious with the moneychangers, pissed in fact. Yet money is seen as some divine gift from god,and it’s collection at the cost of everything else is seen by evangelicals as perfectly acceptable. I’ll be honest, it seems pretty hypocritical to me, and I know I’m not alone. I feel bad for those taken by this scam, but praying for money? What did you expect? As soon as you saw the dollar sign, god is nowhere around.”
By rejecting $1 billion for a pipeline, a First Nation has put Justin Trudeau’s climate plan on trial:
blf @332 Can you rescind a prayer? Can the scam pastor who never prayed to begin with, rescind a non-prayer? I don’t understand the fear that prayers Christians paid for could be rescinded if a lawsuit was filed? Anyway, the whole scam looks like criminal fraud to me.
Mitch McConnell has come up with a new reason to refuse to consider Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland: the NRA didn’t approve him.
Think Progress link.
micro raptor @326. I remember that. The viral video was famously tearful and overwrought. I get the comparison to Glenn Beck, who is also famous for crying and for whining.
In other news, Mitch MConnell says there will be no lame-duck (after November) vote on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. This leaves Republican senators split three ways: those that want to hold confirmation hearings and a vote; those that do not want to hold hearings and a vote for an Obama nominee ever; and those that want to delay a vote until after the November election. What a mess.
This is a followup to comment 335.
NPR’s Nina Totenberg rebutted conservative and NRA claims that Judge Garland in anti-gun:
Media Matters link.
blf @332:
Is it just me, or does that article really make it sound like there was greater concern about the dial-a-prayer not having the people praying for the family it claimed it did vs the fraudulent continual charges to their credit card?
Lynna @336:
The difference is that that video was made by someone who was IIRC 16 or so at the time while Glenn Beck has no such excuse.
Lynna… I so wish you kept your blog up to date with all the news and information you post here!
a single source of fact checking like none other, that would be.
I just have to say how much I have relied on your informative posts over the years here at Pharyngula.
seriously… maybe you can just copy/paste the things you post in the comments to your own blog? no need to organize or make any other commentary even!
I would link the HELL out of that.
Ichthyic @340, thanks so much. I’ll think about adding the posts to my personal blog. My hesitation to do that is based on the fact that I usually keep my personal stuff completely separate from political commentary. I see your point, though. (I don’t keep my personal blog up to date. Posting here, in addition to working for a living, is about all I can manage.)
microraptor @339, Glenn Beck’s excuse is that he uses his fake sentimentality to make money. The “leave Brittany alone!” video was at least real on the level of 16-year-old-emotionalism. Beck is fake at all levels. Beck makes big bucks though, even after Fox News kicked him to the curb.
In other Glenn Beck news: he has resurrected the “White Horse prophecy” that made a brief appearance during Romney’s campaign. A few mormons said it out loud then, and a few are saying it out loud now. Beck’s dog-whistle version is that God is going to use mormons to save the republic by electing Ted Cruz. [head-desk]
Right Wing Watch link.
We have news of yet another rightwing extremist backing Ted Cruz white uttering totally bonkers nonsense.
Clare Lopez is on Cruz’s national security advisory team. Lopez is all-in when it comes to the conspiracy theory that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the Obama Administration. Her additional, and unique contribution to the rat’s nest of wildly inaccurate claims is that Senator Joseph McCarthy was “spot-on” when he was investigating the infiltration of the federal government by communists.
Way to go Ted Cruz, you added another rung on the ladder to exceptional dunderheadedness.
Here’s a quote from Lopez:
Link.
Clare Lopez works for Frank Gaffney at the Center for Security Policy. (See comment 293 for details concerning Gaffney’s flavor of doofusness.)
Trump’s team just increased his problem with mormons by continuing to hang out with Robert Jeffress.
Media Matters link.
Right about now Trump is probably head-desking over how difficult it is to pander to religious extremists. He needs them, but what a hassle!
Trump gets way more media coverage, including on-air time on major TV new programs, than any other candidate. He grabs some of that coverage by calling in to various programs. On the phone, Trump talks over the hosts or other guests, makes his points, and doesn’t even have to show up in the studio.
For a few weeks now, there’s been a movement afoot to deny this phone-it-in access for Trump. At least one host has taken the bull by the horns: Chuck Todd (host of NBC’s “Meet the Press”) says that he will no longer allow Trump to call in to his show.
microraptor@339 and Lynna@335, Yes, you both have pointed out reasons to be uncomfortable with the DA’s approach to the pay-to-pray scam: It is not at all clear the credit card fraud side of the scam is being taken (much) into account; I think, albeit I may be mistaken, that tends to lead to prison time. And the DA seems to be pandering to the predominate religious beliefs, and also, perhaps in doing so, (in effect) allowing the conman to keep the money if it isn’t claimed-back; I may also be mistaken here, but I think a government-run (or at least -approved) special fund is the usual solution (along the lines of the conman pays in an agreed amount, and the fund pays out to valid claimants, albeit I’m not sure what happens to unclaimed funds or in the case of an oversubscription).
(I sortof, kindof, wonder what would have happened if the victims were, say, Muslims — but have no actual basis to suppose it would have been handled differently…)
Then there is the point he had other scams going as well (which I redacted from my excerpts), and a mention of a partner-in-con (also redacted since the article didn’t go into that at all). This leaves an impression that the punishment — which, I think, isn’t necessarily the full $7m — doesn’t quite “fit” the multiple crimes.
Mano Singham also has a post on this, but doesn’t really go into this angle other than a comment at the end, “[P]eople who are dying or are caregivers of the dying are often not thinking rationally. They will grasp at any thing that offers hope and they are to be pitied while the people who take advantage of such desperation are scum and should be prosecuted to the maximum.”
Can’t imagine why. He’s very possibly unawares of this-or-that fruitcake’s anti-other-fruitcakes-isms — being aware would imply doing research and/or listening(actually, understanding, but with teh trum-prat, just hearing what others say is a necessary first step) — and it very much looks like he doesn’t do research, doesn’t understand, and doesn’t even listen. And should he happen to imagine something he doesn’t like at that moment in time, he throws out insults, threats, and absurdities. And, he also seems to be entirely happy to make things up, so I can easily imagine him burbling something like
Just a taste of President Obama’s visit to Cuba:
The excerpted text above is from The New York Times.
Two Cuba-related bills are pending in Congress, one bill to lift the travel ban instead of just amending it piecemeal, and one bill to end the trade embargo. Both bills are sponsored by Republicans, so they have at least a chance of passing.
During the joint press conference held by Raoul Castro and President Obama, Castro commented on the inequities in the USA, and on the USA’s failure to take care of poor or low-income people.
Elizabeth Warren employed some Facebook posts to roast Donald Trump:
https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethWarren/posts/10153621490203687
Lewandowski has a long history of antisocial behavior and assaults. He was the one who attacked a Breitbart reporter who has since quit.
He is also one of Trump’s campaign managers.
blf @346, Yes, I do keep making the same mistake. I assume Trump wants to make sense when he speaks, and when he panders to religious extremists. I assume Trump wants to have a coherent approach to religious minorities. I have a hard time thinking like Trump, or like the many doofuses he has working for his campaign.
raven @349, Yes, that was Lewandowski, though the Trump campaign continues to deny that. After the incident with the Breitbart reporter, Trump had Lewandowski stand next to him during a post-Tuesday victory speech. Trump gave Lewandowski a special shoutout, “Good job, Corey.” Lewandowski grinned from ear to ear the whole time.
Washington Post link.
A federal court has ruled that one of the voter-suppression tactics used by the Republican-dominated Florida legislature is unconstitutional: prison gerrymandering has to go.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/03/21/3761659/florida-prison-gerrymandering-case/
Well, this is even worse that having state lawmakers and governors claim that Crisis Pregnancy Centers can take up the slack when Planned Parenthood is defunded.
In Florida, Governor Rick Scott is expected to sign a bill that defunds Planned Parenthood. On the list of alternatives sources for health care for women were:
– 2 Salvation Army offices
– 38 dental offices
– 67 elementary and middle schools
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/19/defund-planned-parenthood-florida-bill-dentist-reproductive-care-alternatives
Blame the media: RNC Committee chairman Reince Priebus said that violence at Trump rallies would not be as bad as it is if the media didn’t add “fuel to the fire.”
Priebus also said that he likes what Trump is doing to cool things down. Say, what now?
Politico link.
At every Trump rally I’ve seen on TV in the past few weeks the voice-of-god announcer tells the audience not to touch protesters, and to shout protesters down with chants of “USA” or “Trump.” Then Trump comes on stage and invariably incites violence with his “Get ’em out!” shouts, his repetition of insults like “disgusting,” “these are not nice people” and worse.
BTW, Trump does believe in violence: killing or injuring the families of terrorists, including their children; waterboarding “and worse” detainees, etc. Most of the Republicans seem to believe in violence. Priebus is delusional.
Past presidents have been photographed in front of Communist leaders, and that includes Republican presidents Nixon, Reagan, and both Bush 1 and Bush 2. Reagan posed in front of a Vladimir Lenin statue, for example. Mao Tse-tung and Ho Chi Minh appeared in the Bush photos. Nixon also posed in front of a Mao Tse-tung image. Nevertheless, rightwing media is totally flipping out over the fact that a photo taken of President Obama (and a large group of other dignitaries) in Cuba shows an image of Che Guevara on one of the buildings in the background.
Lynna @355, that last comment could also describe appearing with Joe Arpaio, couldn’t it? A racist, terrorist mass murderer who oversees concentration camps?
#355, anybody else remember somebody going to China way back yonder in the early 70’s? I believe it was a Republican President. Everything they say against Obama could have been said about him, but I didn’t hear that shit.
An interesting happening, some NY millionaires are asking to have their taxes raised to pay for poverty relief, plus roads and other infrastructure.
Now, if the Kochroaches would only see the light.
Well, Che Guevara might be offended to have “just kill them with a drone” Obama standing in front of him.
Just sayin’
CaitieCat @356, good point. Both Trump and Cruz have been seen with a lot of criminals and bonkers bigots.
In other news, all of the current presidential candidates except Sanders showed up at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference today to speak.
From Trump’s speech:
Trump was using a teleprompter and he still talked like that.
There were about 20,000 people in attendance. Trump didn’t pander to them at all (/sarcasm).
More on the AIPAC speeches tomorrow.
Ted Cruz’s speech was the worst to my mind. He wanted to start a war. He said the Iran deal equates to Munich in 1938.
Here is a link to the Washington Post’s summary videos:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/the-gop-candidates-aipac-speeches-in-less-than-3-minutes/2016/03/21/51d533ba-efb4-11e5-a2a3-d4e9697917d1_video.html
From Hillary Clinton’s AIPAC speech:
http://time.com/4265947/hillary-clinton-aipac-speech-transcript/
Lynna @360:
Given all the white supremacists that Trump’s been hanging out with, I’m surprised that he wasn’t booed right out of AIPAC.
I’m so waiting for the day when Warren finally calls him “Drumpf”.
Crap. This isn’t good. Sometimes I wonder if the right wing extremist Muslims and the right wing extremist Christians are making common cause with each other to support each other’s recruitment.
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/bruessel-das-ist-ueber-die-anschlaege-bekannt-a-1083577.html
micro raptor @363, the AIPAC audience did laugh at Trump once. They laughed at one of Trump’s claims that he knew more than anyone else about the Iran deal. YouTube link. So telling a moment. Trump looked so ridiculous.
If Trump wanted to be honest he should have had his white supremacist supporters join him on the AIPAC stage. Barring that, the organizers could have displayed photos and quotes from white supremacists on the giant screens while Trump was talking.
I am not ignoring the two explosions in Brussels, just referring to the thread that PZ posted on the subject. ISIS has now claimed responsibility.
In other news, I wanted to do a followup on President Obama’s visit to Cuba. Obama “set a trap” for Raul Castro. Well done. President Obama has set a press trap for dictators before.
Politico link.
Both President Obama’s speech, and the press conference mentioned above, were broadcast on Cuban TV. That’s a first. And it bears repeating that this is the first time that Cubans have seen one of the Castro brothers answering questions from the press —answering questions that had not been cleared beforehand. This was not a mock press conference.
An example of Trump pretending to be a serious candidate for president, and to know something about foreign policy … he fails.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/21/the-most-baffling-moments-from-donald-trumps-washington-post-ed-board-interview/
Trump never answered the question about tactical nuclear strikes against ISIS. He deflected, he tap danced, he tried to charm the other humans present.
This is is a followup to comments 6 and 316.
We saw that Alabama state government (dominated by Republicans) had passed a law banning progressive moves by some cities, like raising the minimum wage. Now Arizona is following suit.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-15/help-workers-risk-losing-money-for-cops
Republicans have been vowing to repeal Obamacare for some time. Republicans in Congress voted more than 60 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Most of the Republican presidential candidates have repeated the “repeal every word of Obamacare” mantra. Within the last few days, Trump repeated the canard that Obamacare has raised the cost of healthcare premiums by “30, 40 or 50%.”
Despite rightwing doom-and-gloom pronouncements, good news about Obamacare continues to flood in. More people covered, no job losses, etc. Now we have evidence to refute another lie, that it is the improving economy that is responsible for reducing the uninsured rate and not Obamacare. (At least that lie requires that right-wingers confirm that the economy has improved since the dire last days of the George W. Bush administration.)
Associated Press link.
More detail on the AIPAC conference. (See comments 360, 361, 363, and 366.)
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/aipac-trump-speech-obama
Mormons, especially those in Utah, have a personal connection to the attack in Brussels. Some of their missionaries were injured.
Link.
More fear mongering and blather that is not helpful from Donald Trump:
Think Progress link.
Donald Trump is outsourcing his list of future Supreme Court nominees to the Heritage Foundation.
Like his retweets of white supremacist sources, like his recent list of foreign policy advisors, and like most of his sources for pseudo-facts, Trump has chosen a rightwing den of dunderheads to advise him.
Let’s take a look at some of the ways in which the Heritage Foundation has embarrassed itself in the past:
Think Progress link.
It’s a good thing for a president to seek advice from credible sources, and its a bad thing for Trump to be so ignorant that he cannot tell a good source from a discredited source.
Ted Cruz reiterated his intention to carpet bomb ISIS into oblivion.
Is he is going to carpet bomb Brussels then? The attackers were, as far as we know, born in Belgium or France. They were European citizens. According to Cruz, we should be carpet bombing parts of Europe.
Ted Cruz has added another rightwing doofus to his already mind boggling array of dangerous and stupid advisors. Cruz’s new Senior Economic Adviser is former Texas Senator Phil Gramm.
Yeah, that’s right. One of the guys that guaranteed a financial meltdown is going to give economic advise to Cruz. Gramm’s infamous past includes helping to pass bills connected directly to the financial crisis that started during George W. Bush’s administration. As a side dish of extra stupidity, Gramm is also against having a social safety net for anyone.
So, yeah, Gramm is also delusional. Facts like the failure of Bear Sterns are not allowed to make an impression on his closed mind.
Link.
Ted Cruz said some more stupid stuff about the terrorist attacks in Brussels:
Link.
Donald Trump said some more stupid stuff: In a TV interview he said that Belgium’s capital is a “horrible city” that has been ruined by Muslim immigration. He tweeted: “Do you all remember how beautiful and safe a place Brussels was. Not anymore, it is from a different world! U.S. must be vigilant and smart!”
More blather from Trump:
The quoted text is from an interview on Fox and Friends.
The Trump-Prat is making a fear-mongering tour of TV shows today.
On CBS, Trump said:
Trump’s claim that there are areas where “the police can’t even go” is false. He has made that claim in the past, and he has been called out as wrong. That doesn’t stop him, doesn’t even slow him down.
During the CBS interview, Trump said “I would close up our borders.” A minute later, in the same interview, he said, “I didn’t say shut down the border. What I said is we have to be very, very strong and vigilant at the borders.”
He added:
One of Trump’s supporters, conservative radio host Alex Jones, is claiming the the attacks in Brussels are “the ultimate false flag.” To which I just have to say, “oh, FFS.” On the theory that is good know how deep the slime pit is, I’ll post what Jones had to say:
Media Matters link.
Ted Cruz’s official written statement about the attacks in Brussels:
Where does he get that “United states voluntarily surrendering to the enemy…” bit? Sheesh. Some of the facts:
In 2015, ISIS lost 14% of the territory it held. In 2016, ISIS lost more territory. Mirror link. The ISIS loss of territory is now up to about 22%. In addition, we have reports of ISIS troops having their salaries cut in half, and we have reports of increasing defections from ISIS.
As for Cruz’s suggestion that law enforcement patrol Muslim neighborhoods:
– how do you define a “Muslim neighborhood”
– how do you “patrol” neighborhoods in a way that does not violate civil rights
– how does a patrol prevent radicalization
It seems to me that patrolling so-called Muslim neighborhoods in such an invasive way that you can spot who is being radicalized is a sure fire way to increase radicalization of the people that live there.
We’re seeing more fallout from the two Bundy-related standoffs on public land. Dunderheaded Republicans in Congress have come up with a bill that blocks federal enforcement of laws on public lands.
Talking Points Memo link.
The people sponsoring this bill have even worse, ulterior motives. They want to turn all public lands over to local control. In Utah, this would mean that a bunch of right-wingers who support extractive industries, (and who would like to cash in themselves by building housing developments, resorts, hunting lodges, etc.), would be managing previously protected public lands. What could possibly go wrong?
if this were any other business, it would read:
“CEO comes up with idea to block selling of own companies products at their own business.”
…and everyone wold think that CEO had lost their fucking minds and should be immediately replaced.
um. AFAICT, that’s treason.
how much longer do Americans plan to put up with this crap?
I’ve often wondered if that isn’t the point.
In the state of Idaho, Democrats are holding caucuses today. (Ted Cruz won the Republican vote in Idaho on March 8.) Polls show Sanders with a narrow lead in the Democratic race. 47% to 45%.
Both Republicans and Democrats are caucusing in Utah today. Cruz is likely to win for the Republicans in Utah (Cruz 53, Trump 12, Kasich 4%). I would like to see Kasich steal some of Trump’s small slice of pie. Sanders may win for the Democrats, but there is some uncertainty, with polls showing Sanders at 52% and Clinton at 44%.
Both Republicans and Democrats face primary votes in Arizona (not a caucus state). Polls show Trump leading Cruz at 37 to 20%, with Kasich at 16%. For the Democrats, Arizona looks like a sure thing for Clinton, with polls having her at 50% and Sanders at 24%. However, Sanders is showing as a favorite among Native Americans. On the Democratic side, delegates are awarded proportionately at the statewide and district level. For Republicans, this is a very different story, the entire state is winner-take-all. That means Trump will likely add 58 delegates to his count.
There’s also a Republican caucus in American Samoa, with six delegates up for grabs.
We don’t have results from any of these races yet.
@ #385
I think the point is to get votes. Saying out loud what the bigots are thinking seems like a good way to ensure their loyalty.
That’s terrorism expert Malcolm Nance, the head of the Terrorism Asymmetrics Project and a veteran of Navy intelligence, speaking. Nance was reacting to what Trump had to say today about the terrorist attacks in Brussels.
The cab driver who took two of the terrorists to the airport recognized the guys on TV reports, and he contacted police. That’s how police were able to so quickly hone in on the residence where the bomb factory was.
The cab driver said the two terrorists would not let him handle their luggage. He said the luggage was exceptionally heavy. The two terrorists put the bombs/luggage on carts to wheel it through the airport.
This is a followup to comments 6, 316 and 369.
North Carolina has joined Alabama and Arizona in passing state-level laws to prevent cities from passing progressive ordinances. It was a minimum wage raise in Birmingham, Alabama; worker benefits in Tempe, Arizona; and now it is anti-discrimination ordinances in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Washington Post link.
Lynna… @ # 380: … claiming the the attacks in Brussels are “the ultimate false flag.”
A follow-up claim (involving video clips I have neither time nor bandwidth to study, though the stills provided look persuasive) has it that footage shown from the Brussels airport actually came from a different attack in Moscow’s Domodedovo airport on 1/24/11: http://www.globalresearch.ca/fake-video-used-in-news-coverage-of-brussels-terror-attacks/5515894
NB: I relay this with no endorsement and much skepticism, in hopes those with better connections and more knowledge will offer analysis.
@391, I seriously doubt that fake video was used to cover the attacks in Brussels. I’ll investigate later. I’ve seen dozens of videos from the attacks. All of them looked genuine.
In other news, we have some results from the voting tonight.
Democrats: Clinton won in Arizona – delegates awarded not yet known, but it looks likely that Clinton will be awarded about 50+ delegates, and Sanders about 20+ (there are 75 total)
Republicans: Trump won in Arizona, and he got all 58 Republican delegates
Shenanigans?
U.S. Uncut link.
Sounds like a real mess. We’ll be watching this to find out what went wrong.
Marine Le Pen is currently on a tour of Quebec. She really doesn’t like how the federal and provincial governments in Canada are responding to refugees.
I guess they must be doing something right.
Pierce @391, Globalresearch is, according to rationalwiki, a website
Example:
This is not just an unreliable source, it is a batshit bonkers source. Throw that claim you mentioned about the attacks in Brussels in the trash.
Ted Cruz compared his proposal to have law enforcement patrol Muslim neighborhoods to the way that neighborhoods beset with gang violence are patrolled. This did not sit well with anyone but Donald Trump, who agreed with Cruz.
For one thing, let’s not compare Muslims to gangs. For another, the police themselves disagree with Cruz:
MSNBC link.
Cruz was told by some interviewers about the misconceptions his proposal included, but Cruz just doubled down:
Corrections to comment 389: the cab driver took all three terrorists to the airport, not just two of them.
The cab driver actually took the police to the building where he had picked up the men going to the airport.
quotetheunquote @394, that sounds like confirmation of PZ’s comments in his “Chaos/Savagery and the elimination of Grey Zones” post. You may want to cross post your comments there.
Here are the election results from voting in three states yesterday:
Arizona
– Republicans: Trump won with 47.1% of the vote, Cruz got 24.9%, Kasich got 10.0%
– Democrats: Clinton won with 57.6% of the vote, Sanders got 39.9%
Utah
– Republicans: Cruz won in a landslide with 69.2%, Kasich was second with 16.9%, and Trump came in third for the first time with 14.0%
– Democrats: Sanders won in a landslide with 79.7%, Clinton 19.8%
Idaho (Democrats only)
Sanders won handily with 78.0% of the vote, Clinton 21.2%
Here are the delegate counts:
Trump, 739
Cruz, 465
Katich, 143
Clinton, 1,681
Sanders, 937
A Republican candidate needs 1,237 to get the nomination.
A Democratic candidate needs 2,383 to get the nomination.
Oh, FFS. Jeb Bush endorsed Ted Cruz for president. The political arm of the Club for Growth also endorsed Cruz.
Cruz and Trump are trading schoolyard taunts about their wives.
The ad showing Melania in G.Q. was run by the anti-Trump group Make America Awesome. It was run in Utah to prompt mormons to shy away from Trump.
Give me a break.
What President Obama had to say about Cruz’s proposal to surveil Muslim neighborhoods:
In an interview with ITV’s “Good Morning Britain,” Donald Trump said some more stupid stuff about Muslim communities:
Link
@ #402
In other words, he’s just saying it to get votes. What a shock.
OMG, Paul Ryan actually apologized for demonizing poor people in the past. This is a Republican first. Oh, don’t worry, he is still pushing policies and budgets that punish poor people.
Ryan pulled the same say-nice-things-do-awful-things stunt when it came to denouncing bigotry and prejudice:
Link
Inspire me with policies and budgets that actually address the issues.
tomh @405:
Yes, but we really don’t know what Trump would do or try to do as President.
Ted Cruz is all over the place when it comes to torture. We don’t know what, if he were president, he would approve.
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2016/03/23/3762638/ted-cruz-torture/
Reaction to Donald Trump from Brussels:
Link
Republicans in Congress are following the Trump/Cruz lead. They are trying to pass bills that would obstruct settlement of refugees in the USA.
Link
He is! To wit:
(1) Tax rate is 100%. No deductions. Only exemptions are for thug politicians and Faux and Kochroach Bros., Unlimited, who pay 0%.
(2) Collected taxes are reimbursed to Faux and Kochroach Bros., Unltd.
(3) Faux and Kochroach Bros., Unltd., pay the thug politicians.
In a typical example of thug thoroughness, the plan does not specify how much the thug politicians are paid. Observers suspect the thugs “think” the pay will be connected to the elimination of civil society and the rule of law, and the imposition of theocracy staffed by the thugs and other Faux and Kochroach Bros., Unltd., disciples. With bonuses for nuking those pesky mooslins and other furriners.
Rush Limbaugh loves Ted Cruz, and despite all the stupid stuff Cruz has said about Muslims, Limbaugh touts Cruz’s intelligence:
Link
Hillary Clinton gave a counterterrorism address at Stanford University. She did not sound like Trump or Cruz. Quite the opposite.
NBC Bay Area link.
More coverage from Politics USA.
You can view the entire speech on YouTube. It is about 27 minutes long. After a personal introduction, Clinton’s speech about the attacks in Brussels, and about how foreign policy should be used to diminish the threat of terrorism, begins at 1:38. This is a speech that is quite good. It is an intelligent approach and it shreds Trump and Cruz without using any shouting or personal insults.
The actual steps needed to face the threat are laid out in the speech. Clinton gets specific.
The presentation on YouTube is interrupted by ads, but you can skip them. I looked for a transcript but didn’t find one. If anyone finds a link to a transcript of this speech, please post it.
President Obama had more to say about Ted Cruz’s plan to “patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods”:
The quotes are from a speech Obama gave at a press conference in Argentina.
Here is a C-Span link to Clinton’s speech. No commercial interruptions.
Let’s see if I can recap this. After the Brussels bombing, Drumpf and Cruz are being paranoid Islamophobes, while Clinton is showing real statesmanship and understanding of the issues. Sanders, please way in, preferably like Clinton…
Here’s a statement Sanders made about Trump’s response to the attacks in Brussels:
The Slot link.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nixon-drug-war-racist_us_56f16a0ae4b03a640a6bbda1
Here’s another quote from Bernie Sanders:
Lynna#417, Thanks. Much as I expected.
Democrats being States(wo)men and refuting ISIS, two. Rethugs being parnanoid Islamophobes, and therefore abetting ISIS, two.
And there is no difference between the parties????
Michele Bachmann weighs in on terrorist attacks, and she concludes that God uses terrorists to humiliate President Obama.
Link.
The people Donald Trump has working for him … what can I say? Trump spokesperson, Katrina Pierson, sent out this tweet:
Oh, sure, Trump-Prat, that will play well. Not.
To his usual repetition of insults, (low-energy Jeb, lying’ Ted, and little Marco), Trump has added an insult for Hillary Clinton, she is “incompetent.”
Link.
Trump obviously thinks he has hit on a winning strategy against Hillary Clinton. He is repeating some form of the “incompetent” insult in other venues:
Lynna… @ # 395: …Globalresearch … can’t distinguish between serious analysis and discreditable junk and so publishes both.
Which served to confuse me greatly, and led me to post my query here.
Pls confirm (as I expect to discuss this with the conspiracist friend who sent me that link, and I never watch tv myself): Did any tv coverage you (Lynna or others here) saw include the Domodedovo footage that Globalresearch claims was proffered as news from Brussels? Just from clothing alone, one should have a good shot at distinguishing Moscow-in-January from Belgium-in-March.
Thanks much, Lynna!
International news:
Radovan Karadžić sentenced to 40 years in prison for genocide in Srebrenica
Pierce @425, I’m not going to spend any time looking for examples of the video on Globalresearch having been used elsewhere. What a waste of time. I haven’t seen it.
The screen grabs from videos that are posted on Globalresearch are all fuzzy, poor quality examples of panic in an airport. They could be anywhere.
The Globalresearch false-flag story reminds me of people trying to prove that Bigfoot or Sasquatch exists. Or people posting photoshopped examples of Obama’s birth certificate. It’s all fucking nonsense.
Meanwhile, we have ample, full color, professional photos and video from the scenes in Brussels. All of those are fully vetted and obviously show what they purport to show. To back up the professional presentations of news from Brussels, we have amateur video and photos that match.
One female photo journalist was on the scene. She narrowly escaped the first blast in the airport, and she started taking photos within minutes. Some of the most iconic photos are hers.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/03/22/story-behind-brussels-photo-you-saw-everywhere-not-able-help-them/82134802/
The New York Times covered Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy speech at Stanford.
In some respects, this NY Times coverage is disappointing. For example, the article claims that Clinton’s remarks “tilted heavily to pointed words for Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz, rather than new policy solutions.” Bullshit. Clinton carefully delineated policy solutions. She focused on them. Yes, she compared policy solutions to the meaningless bluster from Cruz and Trump, but I don’t see how anyone who listened to the speech could have missed the emphasis on policy.
Maybe the NY Times has a hate-on for Clinton?
Rolling Stone has been covering the Sanders campaign well. They featured Bernie Sanders on the cover twice. I expected the magazine to eventually endorse Sanders. Surprise. They have endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/hillary-clinton-for-president-20160323
Excerpts:
More at the link, including more details regarding what Sanders has brought to the table.
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are still fighting over their wives. Trump posted side-by-side photos of the two wives, Melania and Heidi. The implication was that Melania is more good looking than Heidi, and therefore, Trump wins.
Really? Seriously? How childish.
Cruz has been busy quadrupling down on his “patrol Muslim neighborhood” stupidity, but at least he did one thing right in the war-of-the-wives. He tweeted:
Another “family values” rightwing governor goes down in flames after a sex scandal. Moreover, the elderly but super-horny Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama, fired the head of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency when the guy refused to cover up the governor’s affair.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/alabama-top-cop-says-governor-fired-him-refusing-lie-about-affair
Governor Bentley is one of those holier-than-thou family values conservatives that fights against gay rights, marriage equality, etc. He says he is not going to resign, but I think his political career is kaput. And his wife of 50 years divorced him.
The Governor says he did not have a physical relationship with “Mrs. Mason.” The press has audio copies of his phone sex escapades. The phone sex conversation makes it sound very much like he did have a physical relationship with her.
Nobody really cares if consenting adults have sex, but this guy based his whole political career on family values. Also, Mrs. Mason was paid some $400,000+ per year and no one seems to know where that money came from.
More stupidity with guns: a man in Georgia blew off part of his own leg when he was trying make some old lawn equipment “go boom.” He used “tannerite.”
What is tannerite?
The Walton County Sheriff’s office in Georgia posted this:
The quoted text is from the Sheriff’s Facebook page.
@ #428
Very much so. Media Matters details the NYT’s biased Clinton coverage for the last twenty years, from Whitewater to their blunder of erroneously reporting that two inspectors general were seeking a criminal probe of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account while serving as secretary of state. A consistent pattern of misinformation.
toms @433, that’s just sad. What the hell? I used to depend on the NYT. I’m sure they still do some good work, but a pattern of prejudice is inexcusable. The lack of a fact check before printing the false “criminal probe” story is especially startling.
In other news, the House committee “Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives” is run by bonkers conservatives. We always knew it was a waste of time since they are using the long-since discredited video campaign against Planned Parenthood as the foundation of their so-called “investigation.” Now the committee has gone even further off track. They are going after medical researchers.
Think Progress link.
From the depths of the rightwing misinformation pit:
– Wayne LaPierre (NRA honcho) told students at Liberty University that gun owners are smarter than everyone else.
Link
– Rick Wiles says that President Obama attended a baseball game in Cuba so that it would look like he was cheering a baseball game when he was really cheering for the terrorist attack in Brussels. The timeline is iffy since Obama’s attendance at the game was announced on March 1, but that does not deter Rick Wiles. He adjusted his thinking to include the pseudo-fact that Obama knew about the attack in Brussels ahead of time.
Link
Ah, so sad. Obama is just one of many Antichrists, and not The Antichrist. That’s a let down.
@ #433
This column from Quartz details the sexism that is so prevalent in American politics, and America in general, as a source of much of the antipathy towards Clinton. There is little that America hates more than a “tainted” woman, and Hillary is a woman with a past. In passing, it mentions the NYT columnist Maureen Dowd as one of Hillary’s most vicious critics over the past 20 years, (in 2008 she was “acting like a masculine woman,” according to Dowd.)
toms @436, disgusting and dispiriting — something to consciously fight.
In evidence of another kind of bigotry, South Carolina lawmakers passed a bill that will create a state refugee registry, and more importantly, will require state law enforcement agencies to investigate all refugees. Those refugees were investigated before they entered the U.S. This bill looks like it will burden the refugees with endless investigations.
Link.
Lawmakers in New York are also considering a bill that would require registry and monitoring of refugees. Big Brother for refugees. That will cost the states some money.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch, along with other officials, indicted Iranian hackers for cyberattacks on banks, stock exchanges, and a dam in New York.
The attackers are connected to the Iranian military. My bet is that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz will blame this on President Obama, and that they will bluster some more about bombing Iran.
The hacking took place between 2011 and 2013.
Link.
The whose-wife-is-more-of-a-babe war between Trump and Cruz continues. Cruz fired back at Trump again:
For those who haven’t seen it yet, here is Trump’s offensive tweet that raised the temperature in the war-over-wives:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-retweet-heidi-cruz
Welp, time to stifle back the vomit induced by even typing the words “I think Ted Cruz has the moral high ground on this one” and check to see how many times Cruz has attacked Hillary on her looks.
Bleagh.
“Real men don’t attack women,” huh?
@ #441
Not exactly about looks, but I do recall that, before the Iowa caucus, speaking about the (widely debunked) meme that Clinton lied about Behghazi, ““You know I’ll tell you, in my house, if my daughter Catherine, the five-year-old, says something she knows to be false, she gets a spanking.” I wonder if he would have said that about a male opponent.
I don’t know how much of a victory it is to be able to claim the moral high ground over Donald Trump. Nevertheless, Cruz gets that prize this time.
Lynna @ # 427: … I’m not going to spend any time looking for examples …
Nonetheless, what you did provide will be of great help to me (though I doubt my friend will accept it) – so, thanks again!
Pierce @444. You’re welcome.
In other news, we are seeing a few more cracks in the Republican wall of obstructionism when it comes to the Supreme Court nominee.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jerry-moran-scotus-vote-doing-my-job
Despite Cruz’s anger over Trump having insulted Heidi Cruz, Ted Cruz still says he will vote for Trump if he is the Republican nominee.
A few other Republicans have not been cowardly when it comes to saying they won’t vote for Trump. Add to that small group Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.
Politico link
If you care about abuse, you should care about who Ted Cruz wants on the Supreme Court
Warning for descriptions of domestic violence and abuse at the link.
Pteryxx @447, thank you for that info. Ted Cruz has consistently aligned himself with evangelical christians who are activists on the fringes of anti-gay, anti-abortion, and anti-equal rights of all kinds. Being anti-child is a new low.
Here’s more background on his entire Religious Liberty Advisory Council:
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/03/25/3763293/ted-cruz-religious-liberty/
David and Jason Benham, mentioned in comment 448, used their celebrity to fight against an LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance in North Carolina last year. PZ recently posted about the restrictive North Carolina anti-LGBT law passed this year that bars transgender people from using restrooms that match their identifying gender. The bill also barred cities from passing any separate progressive ordinances banning discrimination.
Pretty ugly stuff. Ted Cruz is a dangerous man. He has become the presidential candidate of choice for a well-organized group of anti-LBGT individuals and organizations.
You can submit a question for a proposed presidential forum focused on science, “2016 Presidential Science, Tech, Health, and Environmental Forum”
Media Matters link.
This is what happens if a Republican politician is reasonable enough to suggest that, yes, the Senate should hold hearings on Judge Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination: the Tea Party Patriots Citizen Fund declares that it will support a challenger when that politician is up for reelection.
Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas is up for reelection this year. Far rightwing Republicans may kick him out of the club for exhibiting reasonableness.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/us/politics/leading-republicans-move-to-stamp-out-challenges-from-right.html
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union endorsed Bernie Sanders yesterday.
In other news, the combined fundraising efforts of both political parties in the USA has passed the $1 billion mark for the current presidential race. Republican groups have a significant lead in raising money for Senate races, and that is not good. Democrats have a good chance to retake the Senate, but that requires a lot of campaign funds.
In other, other news, Republican candidates continue to claim that President Obama is doing nothing to defeat ISIS. Meanwhile, U.S. defense officials announced today that they killed Haji Imam, an ISIS finance minister who oversaw funding for all ISIS operation.
The U.S. and its coalition partners are killing an average of one ISIS leader every three days. The Washington Post noted that on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, ISIS is “a rapidly diminishing force.” This is not to say that the job is done, nor that ISIS won’t regroup, but it does mean that Republican candidates don’t know what they’re talking about.
Defeats in Syria and Iraq may be part of the impetus driving ISIS to make a show of force in Europe. In Brussels, law enforcement personnel continue to roundup suspected terrorists.
Comedian Trevor Noah pointed out that Ted Cruz is a “sanctimonious jackass.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/daily-show-ted-cruz-reaction-brussels-attack
Scroll down for video.
Another one of Ted Cruz’s supporters who is a religious extremist said something stupid. Bryan Fischer (American Family Association honcho) said that we need to “de-Islamize” America.
Link.
I suppose Fischer would also like to see the more than 900 Muslim officers serving in the NYPD fired. What a doofus.
Apparently Fischer can’t read the constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment applies all federal protections unto the states. But then, he would have to get his head out of the eighteenth century and learn something new, and that the original constitution set itself up to be modified, and it was. As the founders expected. What a doofus.
His head is not only in the 18th centurt BCE, but also stuffed far up his arse. It is so far up his arse it has gone recursive; that is, it’s gone in so far its come out of his mouth… and then keeps on going, around again up the arse, out the mouth, and around again, up the arse, out the mouth, and around again. And again. And again. Again.
He’s been doing this for about 38 centuries now, so he’s wound himself into a very tight knot, a superdooper dense knot, a black hole of stooopidity, that is so dense it attracts other black holes of stooopidity. Unfortunately, black holes of stoooopid don’t “eat” the stoopid, they just concentrate it. The ultimate “echo chamber”.
Occasionally a black hole of stoooopidity “burps” and emits assorted loonyions, wazzocktrons, and other lumps of stupid. Sometimes the stupid lumps coalesce and you get weird disturbances to Reality, such as teh crud and, when cruds collide, trum-prats. Trum-prats are thought to be their own anti-“particle”, and are prone to blowing up.
It is amusing in a black-comedy way when so-called intellectuals who are conservatives try really hard to justify or to understand what is going on in rightwing politics. They go mad. David Brooks is a good example.
Salon link.
Donald Trump is either vague or contradictory when he talks about ideology or policy proposals, but, as journalist Franklin Foer notes: “[…] there’s one ideology that he does hold with sincerity and practices with unwavering fervor: misogyny.”
More organizations are objecting to Georgia’s “religious liberty” bill by threatening to take their business elsewhere:
Think Progress link.
Yes, you read that correctly, The Walking Dead will walk out of Georgia if rightwing politicians there persist in passing anti-gay legislation.
Ted Nugent said some more stupid stuff: he compared women to guns and found that guns are better in many ways.
Media Matters link.
“Use it”? Really? Nugget was trying to be funny, but instead he was horrifying. Some of the other “Top ten reasons men prefer guns over women” combine ageism with misogyny: “You can trade an old 44 for a new 22.”
@ #458
Major sports leagues have also spoken. the National Football League released a statement that suggests the legislation may impact whether or not Atlanta hosts a Super Bowl. It’s worth noting that in 1992 the NFL moved the Super Bowl from Arizona to Los Angeles because Arizona refused to recognize Martin Luther King Day. And the National Basketball Association weighed in on the new North Carolina law expressing “concern that this discriminatory law runs counter to our guiding principles of equality and mutual respect. [We] do not yet know what impact it will have on our ability to successfully host the 2017 All-Star Game in Charlotte,” the statement read.
The NRA is rewriting fairy tales to include guns.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nra-adds-guns-fairy-tales
The National Enquirer has published scurrilous headlines and articles about every presidential candidate but Donald Trump. Now, in the wake of the war-of-the-wives between Trump and Cruz, the National Enquirer published an article claiming that Ted Cruz was unfaithful to his wife multiple times.
The story seems to have no basis in fact. So what does Trump do? The usual:
What a sleazy way to respond.
BTW, Trump does seem to have personal friends at the National Enquirer. He is reported to have been friends for years with CEO David Pecker.
Examples of other hit pieces run by the National Enquirer:
– “Bungling Surgeon Ben Carson Left Sponge in Patient’s Brain!” (Published when Carson was polling well and looked like he might overtake Trump.)
– Jeb Bush was “involved in the drug trade in Florida”
– “Homewrecker Carly Fiorina Lied About Druggie Daughter.” (That headline appeared after Fiorina bested Trump in a debate.)
– Clinton is “engaging in a massive cover-up about her health.” (According to the Enquirer, Clinton is suffering from strokes, brain cancer, depression, alcoholism, multiple sclerosis, endometriosis, and paranoia.)
For contrast here are Enquirer headlines about Trump:
“Trump’s the One!”
“The Man Behind the Legend!”
More voter-suppression tactics from the state of Wisconsin:
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/wisconsin-throws-major-voter-registration-hurdle
More coverage of the relationship between Trump and the National Enquirer:
Slate link.
At least one republican senator is showing some statesmanship (adult behavior in my book) and is meeting with Garland, and that is Senator Mark Kirk from Illinois.
Kirk is in an uphill campaign against liberal democrat Tammy Duckworth. The tea-bag hatred will do nothing, as the IL primary was held 3/15, which Kirk won handily against a tea-bagger, and if they want to take their hatred to a write-in level for the general election, they give Duckworth the Senate seat for six years….
I can’t figure this one out. Why would Trump perpetuate a lie about his grandfather, claiming he was Swedish?
The Daily Beast link.
At one time, Trump said “I love Kallstadt!” He knew the truth, he just couldn’t tell it.
Nerd @466, I hope that is just one of many stories we hear about down-ballot Republicans either moderating their policy stances, or being defeated by Democrats thanks to the deleterious effects of the Trump campaign.
Actually, this had nothing to do with Drumpf. Kirk had said before the primary election that the Senate should interview and vote on the SCOUTUS nominee. He is what used to be known as a moderate republican running a state that twice voted overwhelmingly for Obama, so I don’t consider his actions out of line with his knowledge of Illinois politics.
This is compared to McConnell, who is throwing a toddler temper tantrum, and not acting like a MATURE politician/statesman. He is no leader.
Kirk’s actions won’t cause me vote for him. Prior to being elected Senator, he was the Representative for my congressional district. Didn’t vote for him then either.
Apparently, Ozland will be having an election. Sometime. Soon. Why? I dunno. Most Ozlanders probably don’t either.
In any case, First Dog on the Moon is on the case, What the people of Australia need is — Continuity. And also — Change. But with Continuity (cartoon): “How did Malcolm Turnbull end up with a campaign motto that sitcom writers devised as ‘the most meaningless election slogan’? Introducing the Mottomatic 5000, with built-in teeny-tiny focus group”.
Turnbull is the current PM, and his slogan is apparently .
(The NBN mentioned is a, as I understand it, mostly–non-existent Ozland-wide Intertubes infrastructure.)
The (fortunately not nuclear-armed) prototype trum-pratist “government” in Poland, having raided press freedom, judicial independence, and the rule of law, is now planning on raiding the land itself, Poland approves large-scale logging in Europe’s last primeval forest:
The article is, unfortunately, quite short, and does not go into what scientists and others recommend to do about the infestation, nor does it make it attempt to “follow the money” and explain who will be profiting.
Nerd @469, thanks for the correction and additional info.
blf @471, Sounds like Poland hired the Bundy clan as consultants. I hope Poland gets a lot of pushback. Sounds like Greenpeace is on the case. Officials in Poland need to change their minds about destroying the last primeval woodland. I don’t doubt that they have a beetle infestation. Global warming is accelerating beetle infestations so much in the western USA that in my lifetime I have seen dramatic changes in the backcountry places I love.
Three states are holding Democratic caucuses today: Washington, Alaska and Hawaii. Republicans already held their caucuses in Alaska and Hawaii. Republicans in Washington state will vote in a primary on May 24.
Polls show Clinton with a narrow lead in Alaska, 44% to 41%. Sixteen delegates are up for grabs.
In Hawaii we have no polling. 25 delegates.
In Washington we have no polling since May 2015. 101 delegates, with an expected 66-35 delegate split for the two candidates. Sanders is expected to win. Yesterday, Sanders filled a 54,000 stadium for a rally in Seattle.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/03/25/massive-crowd-size-forces-bernie-sanders-delay-start-safeco-field-rally-seattle.html
The Republican National Committee engaged in such sleazy fundraising tactics that Rachel Maddow was enraged enough to make them the focus of one of her segments.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/fake-bill-is-a-sleazy-rnc-fundraising-mailer-652599875827
The mailer is made to look like a bill that is past due. Elderly voters are particularly susceptible to this kind of bullshit.
The real Republican primary is taking place behind closed doors. Political operatives are working hard to influence and to select the delegates who will go to the national convention. A candidate may have won in a state like Alaska, but may not have the majority of the delegates at the convention. Cruz supposedly has 12 delegates going to the convention for him (Trump has supposedly 11 delegates). Rubio had 5 Alaskan delegates who were reallocated because he dropped out. Miraculously, Cruz is no longer the delegate winner in Alaska. Trump and Cruz are tied with 14 delegates each.
This kind of stuff is going on all over. Ted Cruz gained delegates in Louisiana even though he lost to Trump there. Campaigns are also using all kinds of pressure techniques to place their delegates on the rules, platform and credentials committees. People from Louisiana who are slated to participate in those committees are all Cruz supporters.
Delegates are not robots, they are people, and they can be persuaded. Trump won in Georgia with 39% of the vote, but it is possible that Georgia’s delegates will not support Trump. Georgia delegates have been organized (reorganized?) by the Ted Cruz campaign. As delegate slates are put together at the state level, the ground beneath Trump is shifting.
Voters have not voted yet in South Dakota, and yet we see a delegate slate dominated by Cruz supporters.
Most of the above information is my summary of a segment presented by Rachel Maddow.
On the Democratic side, what you see is, more or less, what you get. Not so on the Republican side.
The moment that a bird decided to endorse Bernie Sanders:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/birbie-sanders
Scroll down for video.
With a few minor tweaks, Trum-prat releases propaganda film showing Washington under nuclear attack:
In is alarmingly easy to edit news about N.Korea’s antics into a report on teh trum-prat.
The Trum-Prat is scary all right. So are his supporters.
A 55-year-old man from California was arrested after he threatened to kill Muslims. William Celli had expressed his admiration for Trump many times.
Think Progress link.
This is a followup to comment 475.
Both Cruz and Kasich have sent political operatives to South Carolina to try to strip Donald Trump of some of the delegates he won there (50 delegates).
Those SC delegates are supposed to vote for Trump on the first ballot at the GOP convention, according to the rules. The trick is to persuade the prospective delegates to vote for Cruz or Katich on the second ballot. Well, the first trick is to lobby for the state’s party honchos to pick delegates in the first place that already lean toward Cruz or Kasich.
Delegates, according to South Carolina’s Republican Party rules, must be chosen from the 925 party honchos who attended the state convention in 2015. The chairman of that convention has made no secret of his dislike of Trump.
What do the prospective delegates say? Business as usual to their minds. First Congressional District delegate Duffy Lewis said:
We’ve been hearing about the potential for violence at the RNC convention that will be held in Cleveland, Ohio. Donald Trump has almost promised that there will be violence. What could be worse?
There’s a petition to allow open carry firearms at the Quicken Loan Arena during the July convention. 14,989 people have already signed the petition.
Correction to comment 473: the crowd size at Bernie’s rally in the stadium is estimated to have been 15,000 +.
I suspect the Secret Service will have a large say in the final decision.
According to polls, about 63% of Americans seriously dislike Donald Trump. That’s according to Huff Po polls. Other polls show even worse results for Trump:
Nerd @482, I agree. I don’t expect the petition to succeed. It alarms me though that so many people would even suggest such a stupid course of action.
One of Trump’s son’s gave an interview to a Neo-Nazi. Trump himself has received endorsements from white supremacists like David Duke. Now, two more Trump supporters, and actual Trump surrogates, have promoted Trump on a Neo-Nazi show.
Way to pander to white supremacists, Trum-Prat.
The Daily Beast link.
73% of women voters have a negative view of Donald Trump. And, really, a lot of Trump’s dirty laundry has not yet come to these women’s attention.
Slate link.
NBC has called the Alaska Democratic caucus for Bernie Sanders. The race was not as close as polls had predicted. All of the votes are not yet in, but it looks like Sanders will come away with almost 80% of the vote.
Some media sources have also called the Washington State caucus for Sanders. Only 30% of the vote is in, so I’m not going to predict yet by how much Sanders will win.
There are no results yet from the Hawaii caucus.
Just for fun, here is a photo of Democrats voting in Anchorage, Alaska. So many of them showed up to caucus that the Fire Department made them move to the parking lot.
And, also just for fun, here’s a quote from an voter in Alaska, 66-year-old Bill Heym: “Asked if Sanders could beat Republican front-runner Donald Trump in a general election, Heym said: “I think my mother could beat Donald Trump.”
¡Viva México! Mexicans to burn Donald Trump effigy to celebrate Easter:
As at least one of the readers comments, Olé!
There’s actually quite a number of comments complaining this is “evil”, “un-xian”, will only increase the number of trum-prat supporters, or is a plot by the Mexican government, Democratic Party, or Bigfoot.
Well, Ok, maybe not Bigfoot…
California reaches tentative deal to increase minimum wage to $15 an hour:
With all three states reporting 100% of the votes, here are the Democratic caucus results.
Washington State
Sanders 72.7%
Clinton 27.1%
Hawaii
Sanders 69.8%
Clinton 30.0%
Alaska
Sanders 81.6%
Clinton 18.4%
Current delegate count:
Clinton 1,712
Sanders 1, 004
Number of delegates needed for the nomination 2,383. Number of delegates still available, 2,049.
Alpha dog in the sleaze fest, Donald Trump, is still attacking Heidi Cruz.
The quote is from an interview Trump gave to ABC News.
The stupidity of the Republican presidential candidates is making John Kerry’s job as Secretary of State harder.
Politico link.
That idiotic petition to have a gunfight at the thugs’s convention (see @480) now has over 24000 signatures (and probably many more by now), Petition to allow guns at Republican convention earns 24,000 signatures:
And the readers’s are snarking:
● “ — And God said to Moses “I am who I am, and I’m armed to the teeth. Tell thy people to arm themselves with a faithful caliber gun”.
● “What fun is a convention if you can’t get drunk and shoot somebody?”
● “Alright!!! Only thing missing is free Jack Daniels and Ted Nugent.”
● “I imagine Trump saying at the convention that it’s a great triumph for democracy that those attending won the freedom to carry their guns, at which point he invites the audience to take their guns out and hold them in the air, and thereafter quite a few get accidentally shot while others fire their guns into the air bringing the ceiling down. Those carrying assault weapons keep a watchful eye out for any protesters.”
● “[…] It’s up to 36,000 signatures now.
“I doubt many of the signers really want to see the GOP convention turned into a Quentin Tarantino wet dream. But they do want to see the GOP live with the same risky rules they want to inflict on the rest of us.”
● “Isn’t Trump afraid that somebody might panic and shoot that thing that’s crawling around on his head?”
● “Why is it ‘open carry’ and not ‘openly carry’?”
One reply: “home skooling”.
Another reply: “Trump’s supporters can’t understand adverbs.”
● “Oh this is just too ludicrous. […] Carrying a gun is a GOD given right???? Seriously!!!”
Reply: “Yes, obviously, since God herself packs a Smith & Wesson.”
Reply: “[…] ever wondered how Jesus was able to turn over the tables of the moneylenders? Jesus & the Disciple Crew walked in with their Kalashnikovs. […]”
Reply: “WRONG. The bible clearly states that Jesus only carried American made weapons.”
● “It would be of greater benefit to the Republican Party if their delegates took their brains to the convention and left their guns at home instead of the other way round.”
Reply: “What brains?”
Reply: “The ones they ate, from the victims who couldn’t outrun them.”
Reply: “Trouble is, even the ones who possess a brain as well as a gun are out of practice using it.”
● “[…] I think every Republican is well aware that the Secret Service is Obama’s secret police. They should oppose those gun snatchers just like the brave heros in Oregon peacefully stood up against that tyrant wildlife sanctuary by bringing their God blessed AR15s to the convention.”
● “Strange priorities, but easier than solving real problems.”
In reply: “Sounds like a solution to the one of America’s biggest current problems — live Republicans.”
● “Not a surprise since Republican’s are intent on shooting themselves in the foot”.
● “[…] In Wyatt Earp’s day, you had to ‘check’ your guns before entering town, but now carrying them is apparently compulsory. Advance America?”
● “Michael Mouse from Disney, Florida has signed. Is he a nominee?”
● “How much more juvenile can the American right get?”
● “someone just needs to yell ‘there’s a terrorist!’ and then duck.”
● “As any good creation scientist can tell you ‘Trial by Combat’ was employed in the Middle Ages and can be again today because God never ever lets the bad guy win.
“This would also save a lot of money spent on primary campaigning. Cost of arming one’s partisans would be a fraction of the cost. And in the GOP many already are well-armed.
“Once we’ve seen how it works at conventions, we can use it in the general election. If the ‘election’ were televised, it’s certain to be a ratings hit. The proceeds from the sale of commercials could be used to retire the national debt.
“God-ordained government and a debt free America would be the result.”
● “Instead of demanding the right to bring guns, they should be demanding the right to debate and formulate policy — but evidently that’s not quite as important.”
● “Does the second amendment allow for firing the firearm in the air and shouting yea-haw due to excitement?”
In reply: “Yosemite Sam is a good image for the republican party.”
● “Once you invoke a God-given constitutional right, sanity and reason magically evaporate.”
In reply: “No, no, this is totally legit. An invisible superhero in the sky told me it’s my right. *pew, pew, pew!*”
● “Has America gone mad?”
In reply “New to the planet huh?”
● “Yahoo Republicans!”
In reply: “And conversely.”
● “Feel bored because there is no war in your country? Call the NRA –heehaw– to set up mass shootings at your political conventions with your favourite candidate!”
As several of the readers point out, you should be very very cautious about signing that petition as a joke — the Secret Service obviously isn’t going to allow any such thing so there is a low-ish risk of actually contributing to a circular firing squad — because it will almost certainly be interpreted as , yadda, yadda, yadda…
A bit of a follow-up to @492, John Kerry: presidential campaign descending into ’embarrassment’ for US (I’ve redacted most of the article, see @492):
Some readers’s comments:
● “Cruz:
“Trump: .
“Sure — Sharia legislation almost passed by a whisker last week in Congress, right? As for safety in America, the biggest enemy is the NRA. Plenty of reasons for embarrassment when these two jokers are the best the GOP can offer.”
● “Republicans heaped scorn on the president for attending a baseball game on the afternoon of the attacks, a long-planned event to celebrate new relations with Havana — Because Republicans really care about what happens in Belgium. Arseholes.”
● “Between Cruz and Trump, it’s a like a choice between a toaster in the bath tub or the third rail.”
In reply: “A tongue on the third rail.”
● “We live on planet earth with a population of 7 billion people. America has a population of about 320 million which makes up about 3% of the world’s population. Of that population about 90% of Americans could be on Mars, they know so little about this enormous culture of other humans on earth outside the US.”
[As an aside, if my memory is correct, it has been estimated that only c.10% of the people born in the USA have ever traveled outside the USA; indeed, something like only c.16% of citizens have a passport (which is an improvement from c.12% of a decade-or-so ago) — so that “90% could be on Mars” jibe is, in a sense, not-inaccurate –blf]
● “America definitely is unsafe for Americans. The number of people killed and injured by firearms clearly demonstrates the lack of safety.”
● “[…] What’s happening with the GOP is possibly the most embarrassing episode in American politics in my lifetime. My American friends here can’t stop laughing. What would the response be, I wonder, if someone said that they wanted to carpet bomb the USA? Cruz is trying to out-Trump Trump, but you can’t out-parody parody itself.”
● “The more you hear from Cruz, the more you realise just how dangerous and unstable this guy is.
“???
“This creep will press the button without a second thought”.
Democratic women running for office:
Catherine Cortez Masto, former attorney general of Nevada. She is running for the Senate to replace Harry Reid, who is retiring. Representative Joe Heck and wing-nut extraordinaire Sharron Angle are her Republican opponents.
Ann Kirkpatrick is opposing John McCain in Arizona. She is currently an Arizona Representative. She is running for the Senate.
New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan is running for the Senate to replace Tea Party wing-nut Kelly Ayotte.
Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth is running for an Illinois Senate seat. Her opponent if Senator Mrk Kirk, a guy who said, “the black community” is one “we drive faster through.” Kirk is also a Trump supporter. Duckworth is veteran of the Iraq war, and she is currently a Congressional Representative from Illinois.
Deborah Ross is running for a Senate seat from North Carolina. She is an attorney who was also a member of the North Carolina General Assembly for 10 years. She is a strong advocate for civil rights and for women’s reproductive rights.
Donna Edwards is running for a Senate seat from Maryland. Donna Edwards is black and progressive and a woman, a category not currently represented in the Senate since the election of Carol Moseley-Braun. She is running to replace Senator Mikulski who is retiring.
Two women are vying to replace Senator Boxer who is retiring, Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez. Harris has Indian-American and African American heritage. Sanchez is Mexican-American.
Katie McGinty is running in Pennsylvania.
Patty Murray is running for re-election in Washington.
Caroline Fayard is an oddity, a Democrat who is “pro-life and pro-business.” She is running in Louisiana.
You can find more information here:
http://www.emilyslist.org/candidates/gallery/senate
More bomb blasts, plus some disgusting rightwing reaction in Brussels:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pakistan-lahore-bomb-blast
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/brussels-memorial-site-protesters
The rightwing protestors screamed insults at Muslims and at anyone they thought looked like a Muslim.
Well, this is new. Trump has finally ruled something out: internment camps for American Muslims.
Link.
President Obama’s administration issued a statement condemning the attack in Pakistan (see comment 496).
Donald Trump gave to interviews to editorial boards (Washington Post, and The New York Times). It did not go well. Here is Jeffrey Goldberg’s take:
The quote is from an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation. Goldberg is a writer for The Atlantic.
Andria Mitchell was, like Jeffrey Goldberg, not impressed with Trump’s bizarre interviews with the editorial board of The Washington Post and The New York Times:
Way to go Andrea, you told it like it is.
The quoted text is from today’s “Meet the Press” show, with Chuck Todd hosting.