;)
The Commentariat -- August 24, 2016
No Play-Doh, but Tens of Millions of Dollars in Federal Assistance. Campbell Robertson & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Nearly 11 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, [President] Obama came to meet with flood victims in a visit that required him to navigate a delicate mix of compassion and politics.... The president praised W. Craig Fugate, the FEMA administrator, for overhauling the agency to make it work better, and he announced that the federal government had already distributed $127 million in aid to the flooded communities..... Local and state officials from both political parties have praised the federal response in Baton Rouge, drawing a sharp contrast with the much-criticized delays by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after Katrina. Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, a Republican who frequently criticizes Mr. Obama, said in an interview that federal officials had done 'an excellent job' responding to the floods. 'They actually do care,' he said." -- CW ...
... CW: Maybe these short clips give an unfair picture, but it seems to me there's a telling difference in Obama & Trump's body language. Obama stops to talk to people, shake their hands, hug them, give them pats on the shoulder, etc. Trump walked around looking at piles of rubbish, & in a clip we ran last week, left it to pence to hand the Play-Doh boxes to flood victims. My guess is that this is more about substance than style.
Julian Hattem of the Hill: "The House Oversight Committee is increasing the pressure on the FBI to hand over additional details related to Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of State. In a letter on Monday, committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) asked FBI Director James Comey for additional information about the presence of classified information on the system of personal machines Clinton used. He also pushed for the FBI to create an unclassified version of the files it sent to Capitol Hill last week detailing its yearlong investigation, which could then be made public." -- CW
Alan Rappeport & Yamiche Alcindor of the New York Times: "... the majority of its staff [of Bernie Sanders' new organization Our Revolution] resigned after the appointment last Monday of Jeff Weaver, Mr. Sanders's former campaign manager, to lead the organization.... At the heart of the issue, according to several people who left, was deep distrust of and frustration with Mr. Weaver.... Claire Sandberg, who was the organizing director at Our Revolution and had worked on Mr. Sanders's campaign, said she and others were also concerned about the group's tax status -- as a 501(c)(4) organization it can collect large donations from anonymous sources -- and that a focus by Mr. Weaver on television advertising meant that it would fail to reach many of the young voters who powered Mr. Sanders's campaign and are best reached online." ...
... CW: I didn't think this was a newsworthy story yesterday when Politico & other outlets covered it, & I don't think it's newsworthy today except for the 501(c) angle. But since the NYT gives it real estate, there you are.
Noam Scheiber of the New York Times: "Punctuating a string of Obama-era moves to shore up labor rights and expand protections for workers, the National Labor Relations Board ruled Tuesday that students who work as teaching and research assistants at private universities have a federally backed right to unionize.... The decision reverses a 2004 ruling by the board involving graduate student assistants at Brown University.... The three Democratic members of the board made up the majority; the lone Republican member dissented." Elections matter.
Catherine Ho of the Washington Post: "The growing congressional scrutiny of pharmaceutical giant Mylan over the high cost of EpiPens could prove awkward for Sen. Joe Manchin. The West Virginia Democrat's daughter, Heather Bresch, is chief executive of the company, which appears to have hiked the price of the epinephrine auto-injector by 400 percent since 2007. The device, which is used to treat severe allergic reactions, now costs more than $600 per dose." -- CW
... Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post interviews Heather McGhee about the call & her response. The video has "been viewed more than 1 million times on Demos’s Facebook page." -- CW
Presidential Race
Stephen Braun & Eileen Sullivan of the AP: "More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money -- either personally or through companies or groups -- to the Clinton Foundation. It's an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president. At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million." -- CW ...
... Heidi Przybyla of USA Today: "Although a conservative group investigating Hillary Clinton's relationship with donors to the Clinton Foundation maintains that newly released emails prove she granted special 'access' and 'favors' during her State Department tenure, nonpartisan experts say that Judicial Watch is right about the former but has not yet proven the latter.... According to experts, the emails confirm donors were gaining access to Clinton, yet there is no evidence she granted them special favors, an important distinction that may determine how damaging the controversy is to Clinton's campaign." -- CW ...
... Jonathan Chait: "The Clinton Foundation is hardly a large or unique source of corruption in American politics. It is, however, a source of grubby, low-level access headaches. That is the takeaway from the latest batch of State Department emails. The emails do not show that Clinton Foundation donors received any policy favors from Hillary Clinton or other elected officials. What they show is that people who donated to the foundation believed they were owed favors by Clinton's staffers, and at least one of those staffers -- the odious Doug Band -- shared this belief." -- CW ...
CW: This might be a good time to play Compare & Contrast.
Hillary Clinton, according to the AP story linked above, went out of her way to help a man whose organization had contributed to the Clinton Foundation. That man was "Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering low-interest 'microcredit' for poor business owners." The Obama administration already supported Yunas's work, & President Obama awarded Yunas the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, Obama's first year in office.
Donald Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort made millions working to promote former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych & his pro-Russian party. Yanukovych "won" the presidential election of 2004, but the election was overturn during the ensuing Orange Revolution. Also, too, he is widely believed to have poisoned his pro-Western opponent Viktor Yushchenko. With help from a Manafort "makeover," Yanukovych finally won the presidency in 2010, but was forced to flee to Russia amidst another Ukrainian revoluiton in 2014. The U.S. government & human rights advocates opposed Yanukovych's administration, & the European Parliament accused his government of imprisoning political opponents, including former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Manafort reportedly is still working for the remnants of Yanukovych's party.
So Both Sides Do It. AmIrite?
** ... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly does an excellent job of unpacking the AP story. "One has to wonder why the AP chose this story of Clinton's 30+ year relationship with a Nobel Peace Prize recipient committed to combating global poverty as the one to highlight in their efforts to suggest that the Secretary of State met with people because of their donations to the Clinton Foundation. I can't imagine a more flawed example." -- CW
Matea Gold & John Wagner of the Washington Post: Hillary "Clinton spent most of August raising huge sums for the national part.... The Democratic ticket's relentless fundraising this month -- which included 50 private events through Monday, split roughly in half between the running mates -- is helping to drive what is expected to be a record monthly haul for the campaign and the Democratic National Committee. But the intense pursuit of big money spotlights what has long been one of Clinton's biggest vulnerabilities: her immersion in a wealthy elite circle that has supported her family's political and philanthropic causes over the past four decades." CW: I think we're supposed to be shocked to learn that politicians -- and Hillary Clinton in particular -- spend so much time fundraising, a fact of political life that has been amply reported for at least a couple of decades.
Trump to Quit Saying "Mexican Rapists," Also Will Observe Black People in Their Habitats. Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "Guided by his new campaign leadership, [Donald Trump] has ordered a full-fledged strategy to court black and Latino voters and is mobilizing scores of minority figures to advocate publicly for his candidacy. Trump is planning trips to urban areas.... Trump's new posture is being influenced by his new campaign captains, chief executive Steve Bannon and campaign manager Kellyanne Conway.... Asked Tuesday whether he might change his hard-line deportation policy to accommodate immigrants who contribute positively to society, Trump told Fox News Channel anchor Sean Hannity, 'There certainly can be a softening because we're not looking to hurt people.'... So far, Trump has declined appearances before minority audiences that many past Republican nominees have made, such as the NAACP convention." CW: I can't think of a better person to direct a minority outreach program than the publisher of an online rag popular with white supremacists. Maybe Bannon could partner with David Duke on this. ...
Look at how much African American communities are suffering from Democratic control.... Fifty-eight percent of your youth is unemployed, what the hell do you have to lose? — Donald Trump, rally in Dimondale, Mich., Aug. 19
We previously awarded Four Pinocchios to Trump's absurd calculation that the 'real unemployment rate' is 42 percent -- about eight times higher than the official BLS rate. He applies the same junk analysis for the black youth unemployment rate, which defies internationally accepted measures of unemployment while ignoring an actual measure of disengaged youth that could prove his point. --Michelle Lee of the Washington Post
CW P.S. Take a look at the chart Lee provides, which compares Trumpometrics to Bureau of Labor Statistics measurements. It's no wonder Trump thinks he's a ten-billion-dollar man, a claim he seems to base, according to some of his deposition testimony, on his "feelings." I have a "feeling" that if Trump were running for re-election in 2020 (& let's hope that turns out to be an impossibility), Trumpometrics would recalculate the black youth unemployment rate to less than zero.
... Jill Lawrence of USA Today: "Trump may be asking 'what do you have to lose?' as a rhetorical question, but there's an answer to it, and that answer is 'an enormous amount.'... Black Americans, like all Americans, would stand to lose plenty under President Trump. They'd have to put up with his inaccurate stereotyping of African Americans and hostility to the Black Lives Matter movement. From a pocketbook standpoint, his protectionist views could trigger trade wars and higher consumer prices. And he'd revive trickle-down economics, a major contrast to Obama policies that have directed resources to low-income rather than high-income Americans. Do we really want to trade what gains we've made for a guy whose new tax plan is a boon for wealthy Americans, the national debt and lenders like China?" -- CW ...
... ** David Graham of the Atlantic outlines the many reasons Trump's new outreach to black voters might not work. For instance, "Trump's caricatures of black communities as dens of crime, poverty, and shiftlessness are not likely to win him many fans.... Meanwhile, he's delivering his appeals to black voters in overwhelmingly white places.... Trump is redoubling his focus on racial dogwhistle politics just as he attempts to court black voters. He's begun talking repeatedly about how vote fraud is the 'only way' he could lose the election." -- CW ...
You could go to war zones in countries that we're fighting and it's safer than living in some of our inner cities that are run by the Democrats.... I'll get rid of the crime, so you'll be able to walk down the street without getting shot. Right now, you walk down the street, you get shot.-- Donald Trump, Akron, Ohio, Monday ...
... Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: Corey Lewandowski explains to dopes like Graham that the reason Trump has to lecture blacks from the confines of white communities is that it's not safe for Trump to speak in "predominantly African-American" neighborhoods. -- CW ...
... Steve M. explains why Trump's "minority outreach" might not hurt him much with his angry white base: many Trump supporters believe they're not racists, that Republicans have long helped minorities, only to have their earnest appeals to minority groups "unfairly" maligned. So, yay! Add another grievance to the list. ...
... AND Greg Sargent points out that Trump's "minority outreach" is really about attracting white suburban voters, anyway: "... all of this is very much tailored towards persuading suburban and exurban swing voters that Trump isn't really the hater that they've seen shouting from their television screens for the last year." CW: This makes sense on another level: since Trump lives in the moment, routinely denying he ever said the outrageous things he said way last week, he expects voters to have the same memory lapses he does. He might be right.
Who Bought the Play-Doh? David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "During [Donald Trump's] visit [to Louisiana], news outlets reported that he had made at least two donations to flood-relief efforts there.... Trump promised a $100,000 donation to Greenwell Springs Baptist Church, which lies to the northeast of Baton Rouge, in a zone affected by floods.... That church's interim pastor is Anthony Perkins, who is also president of the Family Research Council -- a powerful and politically active Christian conservative group that condemns abortion, homosexuality and what it calls 'transgenderism.'... Perkins said Tuesday that Trump's gift had not yet been paid.... Trump has also been credited -- by CNN, and by his campaign's Louisiana state director -- with donating a truckload of supplies that arrived in the flood-ravaged town of St. Amant, La. But so far The Post has been unable to confirm the details of that account." -- CW ...
... The Big Grift, Ctd. Olivia Nuzzi & Ben Collins of the Daily Beast: "Donald Trump used his campaign funds to buy thousands of copies of his own book at retail cost, simultaneously diverting donor money back into his pockets while artificially boosting his sales figures. It's a tactic that may be illegal, campaign finance experts say.... Paul Ryan (not that one), of the nonpartisan nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, said that Trump would have to forgo accepting royalties for sales on the book in order for the transaction to be legal, under Federal Election Committee rules." ...
... CW: This is Chapter 2 of the new Trump e-book "How to Milk Donors for Fun & Profit." (Yesterday we learned that Trump "nearly quintupled the monthly rent his presidential campaign pays for its headquarters at Trump Tower..., when he was raising funds from donors, compared with March, when he was self-funding his campaign....") It probably won't be long before new chapters are released.
Friends of Donald. Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump insists he has 'nothing to do with Russia' -- but Russia's recent moves sure make it look as if it is trying to do something for him. CNN reported Tuesday afternoon that hackers whom U.S. officials believe to be working for the Russian government have launched cyberattacks against the New York Times and other news outlets.... [Trump] often rails against the 'failing' New York Times and the '>scum' in the media. He has vowed to 'open up' libel laws, if elected, to make it easier to sue news organizations over negative coverage. In short, Trump treats journalists as political opponents, much like Clinton [whose e-mails he urged Russia to hack] and the Democrats [whose files Russia allegedly did hack].... Journalists unsettled by his blacklisting of certain outlets, including The Post, and Trump's recent hiring of the lawyer who helped drive Gawker into bankruptcy certainly won't feel any more at ease now."-- CW
Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said Tuesday that [Donald Trump] has been clear about his intentions to restore strong borders and enforce immigration laws. 'We're going to build a wall. We're going to enforce the laws that are on the books today,' Pence ... said in an interview with CBS News' Major Garrett. 'And the mechanism for how we do that -- he's also been very clear that we'll do it in a humane way.' The process will be 'tough but fair,' Pence said, but when asked further to explain what it means when it comes to deportations, Pence declined to give more details. 'I think those are issues that will continue to be worked out in the days ahead,' Pence said." -- CW
Louis Nelson of Politico: "Hammering Hillary Clinton once again over allegations she used her former position in the State Department to dole out favors to friends, Mike Pence said revelations that the former secretary of state met often with Clinton Foundation donors 'is further evidence of the pay-to-play politics at her State Department.'... 'The Clinton Foundation must be immediately shut down and an independent special prosecutor be appointed to determine if access to Hillary Clinton was for sale. It would be a dereliction of duty by President Obama and his Justice Department if they fail to act on these startling new facts right now.'" -- CW
Way Beyond
Ceylan Yeginsu of the New York Times: "Turkey mounted on Wednesday its largest military effort yet in the Syrian conflict, sending tanks, warplanes and special operations forces over the border in a United States-backed drive to capture an Islamic State stronghold in Syria. The offensive on the city of Jarabulus began hours before Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was set to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara to discuss tensions raised by the failed coup in Turkey last month. The joint operation in Syria seemed intended to send a message that the countries are still cooperating in the fight against the militant group." CW: I hope the "message" is directed at Russia & Syria, not at me. I'm never going to be all that impressed with an administration that kicks criminals out of jail to make room for teachers, journalists & civil servants.
News Ledes
Washington Post: "Rescue workers scrambled to reach survivors buried under rubble in isolated towns and villages across central Italy on Wednesday after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake and a series of strong aftershocks struck the region overnight, collapsing homes, rattling buildings as far away as Rome and Venice and leaving an escalating toll of dead and injured." -- CW ...
... Washington Post Update: "At least 159 people died in the quake, a death toll that could jump as search crews rake through the rubble in cities, towns and villages across the regions of Lazio, Umbria and the Marches. Hundreds were injured and missing. Thousands were left homeless." -- CW
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Reader Comments (18)
Donaldo and Breitbart Steve subscribe to vile, antediluvian stereotypes of black and Hispanic Americans. They must believe that their combined history championing white supremacist thinking will be happily ignored by dim wetbacks and simple darkies who completely understand that the Glorious Leader can't possibly put his royal person in danger by visiting them in, as Marie puts it, their native habitat. Why, he or a member of his all-white racist staff might be shot by an infant playing with the gun those prom hand out to babies in lieu of rattles. Surely they'll understand.
Back in 2010 a crank scientist type nutcase named Art Robinson ran for Congress. You may remember him calling for your urine––-wanted people to send him samples of their urine for some cockamamy scheme he had to turn pee into electricity or something as innovative and steamy as that. He was running against Oregon Democrat Peter Defasio (who still has his seat today). Old Art had few dimes to his name, and donations were coming in like snails on a race track, but suddenly Art had millions. Seems a gent from NYC, Robert Mercer, a hedge fund millionaire was funding Art's campaign. Why would that be, you ask? Many people did and found out that because Peter D. was pushing for transaction taxes on all independent trading, that would certainly hurt the pocketbook of someone like Robert Mercer.
Robinson lost, of course. Mercer picked up his chips and in this campaign season zeroed over to Cruz–-was one of his major donors and now he is the biggest donor for Trump. He has his own little slogan, "Make America Number One"––whether he sees the humor in this from his past involvement with the pee person is open for debate.
Robert Mercer was also the main funder of Brietbart . Besides having had a hand in trying to get rid of the top Republican leadership–-had a few fingers in the demise of Cantor and Boehner and is working on Paul Ryan–––he is now working hard to get rid of McCain with pretty damaging ads.
The other group, the Kochs and their ilk are putting money into the Republican down ballot races. Winds are blowing in weird directions.
And then there is the man of the hour himself. When talking about coming to the aid of any Baltic state he said he didn't think we'd be wasting our military power there--Meh! too tiny and insignificant. When 9/11 occurred these tiny Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stepped up big time and sent troops to Afghanistan straightaway and this was before they joined NATO in 2004. Article 5 in this alliance means we cover your back. Trump doesn't know this?
A few days ago Biden went to Latvia sending the message loud and clear that given any Russian invasion these Baltic states can count on us. We have your back, he said–-"don't listen to Mr, Trump, he doesn't know what he's saying."
It appears that Bernie's "Our Revolution" is running into trouble. Half of his staffers have quit due to trouble they were having with manager Jeff Weaver who wants to get big checks from millionaires which goes against the small donor dealings.
Meanwhile more probing into Hillary's nefarious, infamous, whatevers and finding nothing will seek another avenue to make sneaky, and stinky. She bedded down with bin Laden's right hand man one sunny afternoon and whispered sweet nothings into his ear, but gave away secrets while the two ate dates an drank strong tea?
Yup–-I have it on the best authority.
...and leave us not forget that many of the problems that beset black neighborhoods and inner city urban areas have been at the very least accelerated and perpetuated by the longstanding policies of Trump's own party. Republicans, for over a generation, have cut budgets and snuffed out programs designed to help residents of these areas overcome the many handicaps of being poor and black in America. So, next time Donaldo wants to start pointing fingers and complaining about how dangerous urban neighborhoods are, he can look at Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
@Akhilleus: Not to mention his Nixonian "law & order" candidacy, which privileges police over citizens. Blaming the civil rights group BlackLivesMatter for "instigating" the murders of police officers is part of that platform, too.
Donald's "minority outreach" program seems to be predicated on the false assumption that blacks & Hispanics are as dumb, gullible & fact-averse as his own followers.
Marie
Trump might be right about Chicago being more dangerous than Baghdad. After all, thanks to Trump, it's easier to get a gun in Chicago.
Re: the NLRB decision on graduate assistant unionizing. Yes, elections do matter. A lot. As I count it, that's the third BFD the Obama administration has gifted the nation in only this last week. Phasing out private prisons was only one of them. (Maybe I'll remember the third before the day is out.)
And the best part of all is that in the midst of all the noisy Trumping and the continuing attacks on Clinton for everything she's done since birth (helping people? how dare she?), we don't hear a whisper about any of this from the Repugs, who are surely grimacing and gnashing their teeth somewhere in a dark cellar, hating as hard as they can.
Also had this thought. If the Clinton Foundation should be dissolved (as I've heard even from the Left) to avoid the appearance of wrongdoing, why not dissolve every corporation that contributes to campaigns or employs lobbyists? Would hate to see any appearance of wrongdoing in the way we conduct government business.
Clean it all up, I say.
I could live with that.
@Ken Winkes: You make a good point. If it's terrible to contribute to a charity that helps needy people throughout the world, even if the purpose of that contribution is access to -- and a hope for favors from -- a powerful person, then why isn't it terrible to contribute to powerful officials when the overt purpose of the contribution is to influence that official to make policy that benefits the contributor?
Marie
Post-Racial, Starring Donald Trump
So far, the Orange Headed Bigot has bloviated in front of nearly all white crowds about how he'll make sure, when he's elected, that African-Americans don't have to live in horrible, horrible, pestilential, life threatening neighborhoods more dangerous than Anbar Province circa 2005, with whizzing bullets thicker than flies around the many dead bodies left lying on the streets,lazy, poverty stricken blacks who have never worked a day in their lives, stumbling about looking for a government handout that keeps the poor dears enslaved and working on the Democrat Plantation. At least this is Trump's Confederate fever dream of what it's like in a black neighborhood in America. But tonight he'll be in Jackson, Mississippi.
There's a chance a few black residents will be allowed in, but just to be sure, there will be a large police presence (you know how those uppity nee-groes can be) and, according to a local TV station, all streets near the glorious presence will be closed at noon--seven hours before the event. Highways and nearby interstates will be affected as well by beefed up security. Trump is not leaving anything to chance. After all, Mississippi does actually allow some nee-groes to live there. He might accidentally meet one, and not some celebrity buddy like rapist Mike Tyson or shady boxing promoter Don King.
His goal (presumed goal) in even deigning to talk about blacks, is to try to blur the very real impression that he is a racist pig. And in order to prove he isn't, he's dredging up the worst sort of stereotypical images held dear by other racist pigs (see above description of black neighborhoods), because that oughta work, right?
Maybe a more useful approach, if he really does want to try to shed his white hood, would be for him to address the following:
Confederate vote suppression aimed predominantly at blacks, such as the manifold voter ID laws that are being found unconstitutional all across Red State America, laws he wholeheartedly supports, there being so much rigging and such going on in places like Philadelphia where the fact that no one in a black neighborhood voted for the Rat is proof positive of cheating.
He could talk about why there are so many Confederate flags at his rallies and why he came out in favor of South Carolina removing that symbol of the southern slave empire only after the vast majority of the Republican hierarchy was forced to do so.
How about addressing the fact that a huge number of his supporters wish the south had won the Civil War so that slavery could still be in effect? Or why he and his daddy needed a spanking by the Justice Department to force them to rent to black families? Or how about that full page ad he took out advocating the immediate executions of five black boys for a crime they didn't commit? Or the fake crime stats he tweeted just a few months ago claiming that 81% of all murdered whites were killed by blacks?
Maybe he could come up with a reason black voters shouldn't still consider the event that concluded with his coronation as White President Man, a "klanvention". And while he's at it he could explain why actual klansmen think he's the best thing since Jeff Davis. Oh, which reminds me. You know how he's always promising to write a check for this and that charity but never does? Well, a few years ago he actually DID write one of those promised checks: $25,000 to help the restoration of Jefferson Davis's retirement estate in Mississippi. Mighty white of him.
Or he could answer why he decided to turn his campaign over to one of the most vicious racists working in that fetid swamp of right-wing hate media, Breitbart Steve, the worst snake in the bigoted shithole.
Finally, he could perhaps explain his unending war to prove that the first and only black American elected to the presidency (twice!) is an illegitimate liar, a Muslim traitor born in Kenya, a guy who garnered enormous support by the same black voters he now wants to vote for him.
My guess is he won't have the balls to do anything other than the usual pandering lies about how they'll all LOVE them the Donald after he miraculously fixes all their problems.
On one hand, I hope any black residents who do show up boo the shit out of him, but then he'll have his paid hacks like Corey Lewandowski whine that "See? See? That lovely Mr. Trump went to talk to those horrible nee-groes, but they were mean to him!"
Perhaps a larger question is why the fuck Trvmpvs is spending time in Mississippi in the first place? He's up by double digits with the Stars and Bars crowd. Why not go to Pennsylvania or Ohio? I think he's thrown in the towel. He's readying his excuse that the election was stolen.
He and Breitbart Steve and scumbag Roger Stone are getting ready for post-election chaos. Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven, right boys? I'm sure these guy are all up on their Milton. (Friedman, not John.) But in the meantime, let's all dance the Confederate Post Racial Tango: "One, two, kick a black, three, four, in the back, five six, we're all pricks, seven eight, we love to hate!"
Because there wouldn't be any race issues if Democrats and pesky minorities didn't keep bringing them up.
Ken and Marie,
Yes, because the Kochs and Sheldon Adelson hold their own primaries of sorts to vet possible lackeys and then confer upon the winners piles of the filthy lucre out of the goodness of their hearts. They don't care if these guys never answer their phone calls or look over one of their policy "suggestions". IOKI....ah, shit. I can't even finish it.
Marie,
The clips contrasting the styles of the president and the Orange Headed Baboon are striking.
Trump, who is fearful of touching other people, has declared shaking hands "barbaric" (and he knows from barbarism, I tells ya). But if someone is presumptuous enough to try to grasp the short-fingered appendage, he employs a sneaky 5th grade technique of pulling the pushy peasant toward his body to make him look foolish.
Donaldo's fear of touching doesn't extend to his daughter however. His creepy groping of Ivanka at his coronation is barf inducing, especially since he has previously announced that he would love to be "romantically involved" with her. Could this guy be any more repulsive?
Trump may be a germaphobe who cares for himself over and above everything else, but Obama's very genuine concern for others comes through clearly in his personal interactions and the ease with which he connects with others in distress.
I am reminded of a scene from "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". The Yankee, Hank, aka "The Boss", takes the king on a tour of the countryside so Arthur can actually see how his subjects live. On the way, they come into a village that has been devastated with an outbreak of smallpox. The king, who has seemed a self-righteous dolt up until this point, is moved by the suffering of these people and Hank is stunned to see him enter a hut of a family whose mother is sick, on the ground. The king, against Hank's stern warnings about the contagion, picks up a stricken daughter in his arms and carries her so that she and her mother might see each other for the last time. For Hank it is a clear sign that human nobility does not reside in titles, but in the heart. It's my favorite part of a book with loads of favorite parts.
Here is the passage (page 221, if you want to read the rest of the scene.)
"There was a slight noise from the direction of the
dim corner where the ladder was. It was the king
descending. I could see that he was bearing some-
thing in one arm, and assisting himself with the other.
He came forward into the light; upon his breast lay a
slender girl of fifteen. She was but half conscious;
she was dying of smallpox. Here was heroism at its
last and loftiest possibility, its utmost summit; this
was challenging death in the open field unarmed, with
all the odds against the challenger, no reward set upon
the contest, and no admiring world in silks and cloth
of gold to gaze and applaud; and yet the king's bear-
ing was as serenely brave as it had always been in those
cheaper contests where knight meets knight in equal
fight and clothed in protecting steel. He was great
now; sublimely great. The rude statues of his ances-
tors in his palace should have an addition -- I would
see to that; and it would not be a mailed king killing
a giant or a dragon, like the rest, it would be a king
in commoner's garb bearing death in his arms that a
peasant mother might look her last upon her child and
be comforted."
Could this be Trump?
Not even in a fictional tale could one imagine such a selfish, egotistical fraud rising to such heights of human kindness. But I could see Obama doing this. Just one of the many differences between a true leader and an ignorant, foot-stamping child.
In the comments section after the WaPo article on Senator Manchin's daughter, Epipen price gouging, is this fine list. Why it is there, I don't know, but a fine list it is.
" gnsherman1956
2:35 PM EDT
Fight minimum wage increase
Cut SNAP benefits
Tax cut costing $269 billion over a decade that would benefit individuals with wealth of more than $5.4 million and couples with wealth of more than $10.9 million
Increase the DOD budget by 3.8 trillion dollars over ten years
Try to privatize Medicare
Proposal allowing spending in the coming budget year of $36 billion more for overseas military and diplomatic efforts not subject to sequester
Shut down the government
Break Unions
Leave parts of the government unfunded like Homeland Security
Ruined our Credit Rating
Defund our Social Security.
Defund the IRS
Cut Federal Employee Retirement
Cut Federal Employee Healthcare benefits
Ruin health insurance reform
Refused Medicare and Medicaid expansion in many States
Defund Planned Parenthood by spending over 3 million
Spent over 5 million on bengazi hearings
Fund the Keystone pipeline, that we can't tax and only creates fifty jobs
Refuse Presidential confirmations such as the AG
Almost all of the gop signed a pledge to norquist to never to raise taxes
Undermine our President in negotiations with foreign countries
Tried to water down the Volcker rule and the Dodd-Frank reform law
Have the worst polling in American history in 2013, 2014, 2015 and beating it in 2016
Won the 2014 elections and now can't do anything with it,
In Kansas and Louisiana experimenting with the no taxes and tax run economy has thrown those states into billions dollars of dept
Oppose same sex marriage
Oppose overtime pay
Attach a rider to the budget that would prevent the implementation of a new joint employer standard
Let the Import-Export mandate expire for the first time in 81 years
Hate everything President Obama"
Another media bash a comin'......
Have to say I hate how the media report on Trump's racism as though it's a problem for him only when it comes to reaching out to minority voters.
It's a problem for a very large portion of the white electorate, too. Racism is a candidate killer as far as I'm concerned. I won't vote for a racist, a misogynist, or a religious bigot. Period. And I know many like-minded people. The fact that Steve Bannon - a champion of white supremacy - is running Trump's campaign should be every media outlet's lede and they should be hammering Trump on this. Why aren't they?
The media act as though bigotry should only offend those who are its targets. In their particular paradigm only black people are offended by Confederate flags and other symbols of our slave history. The ADL are the only people offended by anti-Semitism, only the "feminazis" are offended by misogyny, and only Moslems are offended by the wave of anti-Islamic hysteria (And really, who cares about them? We all know they're not true Americans.).
We ALL should be offended by these things, and the media should start reporting in that fashion. Trump's racism isn't a problem for him just with black voters, it's a problem for him with a much wider segment of society; the non-racist segment. The media need to start reporting on how Trump's character defects are a direct appeal to the worst - and most decidedly un-American - segment of our population.
Saw a bumper sticker once that read, "The media are only as liberal as the conservative corporations that own them." The behavior of the media toward Trump and Bannon makes me wonder if media owners (the "Big Six" own 90% of all US media outlets) don't really want a white supremacist running the show.
Patrick,
Hey! It's the Confederate congressional to-do list.
They left off "nuke Iran" and "let's all secede!"
Here's an interesting WaPo story resurrecting DJT's 2014 hysteria about bringing an ebola-positive American citizen to the US for treatment, back two years ago. DJT was opposed, in many tweets.
You can bet yurass that had DJT been the sick one, he would have insisted on repatriation for care in the US. But if he had been president back then, he would have shut our borders to anyone coming from "Africa", ebola would have spread further, and many more would have died. It's not just that he's a prick, he is so ignorant it makes your head hurt.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/08/24/trump-wanted-to-deny-u-s-care-to-americans-critically-ill-with-ebola/?hpid=hp_special-topic-chain_ebola-840a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Schlemazel,
That last statistic was so astounding, I had to look it up. And, according to a list published on businessinsider.com, it certainly does appear that 90% of our media outlets are owned by six corporate giants: GE, Newcorp, Time-Warner, Disney, CBS, and Viacom.
In 1983, that same 90% was split among 50 companies.
What happened?
Ronald Reagan happened. And then Bill Clinton. Both contributed mightily to the deregulation that allowed 232 media executives to "control the media diet of 277 million Americans".
In 1981, Reagan began destroying the social safety net. Homelessness skyrocketed. Income inequality began the inexorable rise that prompted those who inherited their wealth, like Donald Trump, to believe that they were special, not like the dirty mob they despised and leeched off of. Factories closed. Manufacturing jobs were sent to foreign countries because Reagan made it all okay to fuck the American worker. Federal lands--public lands!--were leased to mining and timber corporations. Unions were destroyed. The religious right decided this was the perfect time, with the perfect president, to start fucking with education, to make the Bible the sole source of information for millions of Americans, to question science, facts, and truth. Reagan sold arms to our sworn enemy in order to fund death squads in South America. But of all of these heinous goals of the Reagan administration, the biggest, most long lasting was the deregulation of media and the shivving of the Fairness Doctrine.
The end result, the single most important factor in the rise of the new Confederacy, was the throttling of information. The birth of Fox (Newscorp, by the way, owns the biggest newspapers on three continents), and the corporate conglomeration of media outlets guaranteed that voters could be spoon fed whatever was necessary to ensure that conservative lies held sway.
Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 into law, the last nail in the coffin of independent media access. The Clintons, who have been beset by hate radio for decades, have only themselves to blame. The passage of that bill allowed hate media like Clear Channel to grow from a cap of 40 channels to their current, unrestricted 1200 stations. All screaming about murdering Hillary.
And today, an ignorant, racist buffoon has been elevated by the Party of Stupid as their nominee for President of the United States.
Mission Accomplished, as the last ignoramus they elected might say.
Oh, this is good.
Widdow Ewic Twumpy sniffed on CNBC, that Daddy Warbucks will not release his taxes, and absolutely should not. Why? According to Widdow Ewic, we're all too stupid to understand them.
I am not even kidding.
"You would have a bunch of people who know nothing about taxes trying to look through and try to come up with assumptions they know nothing about."
So, Paul Krugman, professional tax attorneys, tax specialists, couldn't understand them.
Listen Ewic. All we need to do is look at the first two pages of Daddy's returns and his schedule A, for the last 20 years please, just like the Clintons provided. We don't have to see anything else (right now--lots of the lying might be hidden in other forms, if we ever see them). This will tell us how much he made, how much taxes he paid (probably nothing), and how much he gave to charity (probably the same amount).
Ewic also repeated the lie about how it's impossible to show returns in the middle of an IRS audit despite the fact that the IRS has said that this is bullshit. He also sniffed that "we have to take care of our own first". Really, Ewic? Since when did the Trumps take care of anyone but themselves? Daddy hired immigrants to work his casinos, any American workers he hired, he handed pink slips and and then stiffed them.
How dare you talk down to people who are far smarter than you and have contributed far more to the betterment of this country, not to mention paid their fair share in taxes, you little fucking twit.
God! I hate these fucking people. And I thought the Romney kids were douchebags. This asshole makes that idiot Tagg Romney look like fucking Albert Schweitzer.
Apples and trees; apples and trees.
Another good analysis of AP's Clinton Foundation "scandals."
http://www.vox.com/2016/8/24/12618446/ap-clinton-foundation-meeting
I'm not a doctor, but KelleyAnne Conway looks like someone who has recently left rehab, bless her heart. Insisting that Trump doesn't hurl personal insults is a lot like the jive of a crack addict. But really, she's a bit skinny and bedraggled, don't you think? Sad........