;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 13, 2015
Internal links & defunct videos removed.
Afternoon Update:
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a challenge to a Texas law that would leave the state with about 10 abortion clinics, down from more than 40. The court has not heard a major abortion case since 2007, and the new case has the potential to affect millions of women and to revise the constitutional principles governing abortion rights."
Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post: "A Utah judge has put a hold on his order to remove a foster child from the home of a married lesbian couple, whom he had said were unfit to keep the girl because of their sexual orientation.... The original order to remove the child from the home of the Carbon County couple drew an outcry from around the country, with former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton chiming in and even the state's Republican governor declaring himself 'puzzled' and concerned that Johansen was not following the law."
Griff Witte, et al., of the Washington Post: "The U.S. military is 'reasonably certain' that an American drone strike in Syria killed the Islamic State executioner known as 'Jihadi John,' an official said Friday as British and U.S. officials seek to confirm the details of the attack."
License & Registration, Please. Dana Hedgpeth of the Washington Post: "Beep, beep. A Google driverless car was pulled over in California. The problem? It was going too slow. An officer in Mountain View, Calif., apparently saw traffic backed up behind the little, white vehicle. The car was traveling 24 mph in a stretch where the posted speed limit was 35 mph.... It was unclear whether a ticket was issued."
*****
** Tim Egan: "... let's try to pull some larger meaning from perhaps the most absurd moment of 2015: that professor at one of the nation's top journalism colleges who threatened to use force against a student journalist for doing the things taught in that school.... [This episode] goes to a more troubling trend -- the diminishment of a healthy, professionally trained free press.... The true media elites are in talk radio and right-wing television -- multimillionaire gasbags from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity. Every day, nearly every hour, they attack reporters, using verbal assaults more consequential than the muscle play by an amped-up academic.... The main reason that Republican politicians sound so crazy of late is because they get their information, and validation, from the twisted world of partisan media outlets."
Paul Krugman: "... what we saw in Tuesday's presidential debate was something relatively new...: an increasingly unified Republican demand for hard-money policies, even in a depressed economy. Ted Cruz demands a return to the gold standard. Jeb Bush says he ... is open to the idea. Marco Rubio wants the Fed to focus solely on price stability, and stop worrying about unemployment. Donald Trump and Ben Carson see a pro-Obama conspiracy behind the Federal Reserve's low-interest rate policy. And let's not forget that Paul Ryan, the new speaker of the House, has spent years berating the Fed for policies that, he insisted, would 'debase' the dollar and lead to high inflation.... This turn wasn't driven by experience. The new Republican monetary orthodoxy has already failed the reality test with flying colors...." CW: Sounds like GlennBeckonomics to me. Invest in gold! Hide it under your mattress! Get a shotgun!
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor on Thursday to a soldier who rushed a suicide bomber in Afghanistan in 2012 and saved perhaps dozens of American and Afghan lives at a devastating cost to his own. The soldier, Capt. Florent A. Groberg, has spent much of the last three years recovering from 33 surgeries, but he stood at attention in the East Room of the White House as the commander in chief bestowed on him the highest commendation available to members of the American military":
Michael Gordon & Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times: "Kurdish and Yazidi fighters retook Sinjar on Friday morning, on the second day of a major offensive to retake this city in northern Iraq, which has been under the brutal domination of the Islamic State for more than 15 months." ...
... Michael Gordon & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The United States and its allies have sharply increased their airstrikes against the sprawling oil fields that the Islamic State controls in eastern Syria in an effort to disrupt one of the terrorist group's main sources of revenue, American officials said this week."
Eric Schmitt: "The Pentagon said late Thursday that it had targeted Mohammed Emwazi, a member of the Islamic State often referred to as Jihadi John, in an airstrike near Raqqa, Syria. Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement that the military was 'assessing the results' of the strike to determine if Mr. Emwazi had been killed. Mr. Emwazi, considered the most prominent British member of the militant group, was shown in videos in late 2014 and early 2015 killing several American and other Western hostages." ...
... Brian Ross, et al., of ABC News: "The ISIS terrorist dubbed 'Jihadi John', who oversaw the brutal executions of American and Western hostages, was hit by a U.S. air strike Thursday night and is believed to have been killed, U.S. officials told ABC News." ...
... BUT. Sewell Chan & Kimoko de Freytas-Tamura of the New York Times: "Secretary of State John Kerry and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said on Friday that they did not yet know the outcome of an airstrike the American military launched on Thursday to kill Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State's most notorious executioner."
Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Thursday called the Islamic State 'the gravest extremist threat faced by our generation and the embodiment of evil in our time,' describing the group as combining 'medieval and modern fascism' and comparing it to the enemies the United States faced in last century's world wars."
Bryan Bender of Politico: "Defense Secretary Ash Carter has fired his top military aide after learning about 'allegations of misconduct,' he said in a statement late Thursday, and has asked the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate the matter. 'Today I made the decision to remove my Senior Military Assistant Lieutenant General Ron Lewis from his position after learning about allegations of misconduct,' Carter said, without divulging the details of the allegations. Fox News, citing an unnamed defense official, reported the allegations involved an 'improper relationship.'" ...
... MEANWHILE, Peter Hermann of the Washington Post: "A Secret Service officer has been charged with soliciting a minor for sex after authorities said he texted an undercover detective posing as a 14-year-old girl. Court documents say he admitted to sending some of the texts from his job at the White House. Lee Robert Moore ... faces a federal charge of attempted transfer of obscene material to a minor. He surrendered to the Maryland State Police on Monday...."
Gregor Aisch & Josh Keller of the New York Times: "In response to mass shootings in the last few years, more than 20 states, including some of the nation's biggest, have passed new laws restricting how people can buy and carry guns. Yet the effect of those laws has been significantly diluted by a thriving underground market for firearms brought from states with few restrictions. About 50,000 guns are found to be diverted to criminals across state lines every year, federal data shows [sic!], and many more are likely to cross state lines undetected."
Bill Turque of the Washington Post: "About 20 percent of the 829 U.S. firefighter fatalities over the last decade occurred while firefighters were responding to or returning from calls, according to data from the National Fire Protection Association. Traffic accidents cause more firefighter deaths than smoke, flame or building collapses. Only heart attacks from overexertion kill more firefighters in the line of duty.... Risky driving practices, including excessive speed and dangerous passing maneuvers, are contributing factors, experts say."
** "My Brother Kept Us Safe." -- Jeb! Chris Whipple, in Politico Magazine: "By May of 2001, says Cofer Black, then chief of the CIA's counterterrorism center, 'it was very evident that we were going to be struck, we were gonna be struck hard and lots of Americans were going to die.' 'There were real plots being manifested,' Cofer's former boss, George Tenet, told me.... 'The world felt like it was on the edge of eruption. In this time period of June and July, the threat continues to rise. Terrorists were disappearing [as if in hiding, in preparation for an attack]. Camps were closing. Threat reportings on the rise.. The crisis came to a head on July 10." Read on.
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Danielle Paquette of the Washington Post: "A Bloomingdale's ad encourages date rape. Also, buy Bloomie's pricey, sexy outfits. ...
... Oh, that reminds me. Here's Neiman's Christmas catalog. For $90,000, you & five friends can travel "to the edge of space" in the capsule tethered to what looks like a super-duper, sleek hot-air balloon. Better hurry; supplies are limited.
Presidential Race
Noah Weiland of Politico: "The second Democratic presidential debate will be Saturday, Nov. 14, live from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.... The debate will last two hours and begin at 9 p.m. Eastern time.... The debate will air on CBS and stream for free at www.cbsnews.com/live/. No cable subscription is necessary. CBS will also air the debate on its radio affiliates...."
Brent Budowsky of the Hill: "In a new McClatchy-Marist poll, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leads Republican candidate Donald Trump by a landslide margin of 12 percentage points, 53 to 41. In the McClatchy poll, Sanders also leads former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) by a landslide margin of 10 points, 51 to 41."
Stephen Ohlemacher & Hope Yen of the AP: "Hillary Rodham Clinton has locked up public support from half of the Democratic insiders who cast ballots at the party's national convention, giving her a commanding advantage over her rivals for the party's presidential nomination." ...
... Sabrina Saddiqui of the Guardian: "Hillary Clinton on Thursday unveiled a $30bn plan to help America's coal communities adjust to a climate agenda increasingly driven by renewable energy sources." ...
... Rachel Bade of Politico: "Several companies that worked on Hillary Clinton's private server are refusing interview and document requests from congressional investigators, even as they are cooperating with the FBI." CW: Seems mean, doesn't it?
Steve M. finds out from reading the Right Wing News that the reason the Democratic candidates are so old is that all the liberal moms back in the day aborted the 17 other potential candidates.
Worse Than Hillary. We're potentially careening down this road of nominating somebody who frankly isn't fit to be president in terms of the basic ability and temperament to do the job. It';s not just that it could be somebody Hillary could destroy electorally, but what if Hillary hits a banana peel and this person becomes president? -- Anonymous Republican strategist
... As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap. Philip Rucker & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Less than three months before the kickoff Iowa caucuses, there is growing anxiety bordering on panic among Republican elites about the dominance and durability of Donald Trump and Ben Carson and widespread bewilderment over how to defeat them.... There are similar concerns about Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who is gaining steam and is loathed by party elites, but they are more muted, at least for now.... The party establishment is paralyzed. Big money is still on the sidelines." ...
... Anne Laurie of Balloon Juice gathers some humorous responses to GOP panic story. Possible white knights: Mitt (already suited up), Bob Dole, Warren Harding clone, Reagan zombie. CW: How could they forget Paul Ryan? He's already saved our beloved House of Representatives, he was second-runner up for the veep slot last time around, & he thinks he knows how to force everybody on his team to play nice.* Also, he's very, very smart & a wonk who knows everything there is to know about economic policy. Just ask Krugman. Also, he's very, very buff & can catch fish with his bare hands -- he can invite Putin to a Catfish Summit & solve all our international problems, too, with one deft swoop into the catfish pond. Draft Paul Ryan, Reluctant Hee-ro. ...
... * Or Maybe Not. Billy House of Bloomberg: "U.S. House Republican hard-liners who helped force out former Speaker John Boehner are readying their next act: a multi-point manifesto demanding quick action on long-time conservative priorities."
Arlette Saenz of ABC News: "Donald Trump's proposal to use a 'deportation force' to deport millions of undocumented immigrants is unrealistic, President Obama said in an exclusive interview today with ABC News' Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos. 'The notion that we're gonna deport 11, 12 million people from this country -- first of all, I have no idea where Mr. Trump thinks the money's gonna come from. It would cost us hundreds of billions of dollars to execute that,' the president told Stephanopoulos.... 'Imagine the images on the screen flashed around the world as we were dragging parents away from their children, and putting them in what, detention centers, and then systematically sending them out,' the president said." With video. ...
To have a leading candidate propose a new federal police force that is going to flush out illegal immigrants across the nation? That's very disturbing and concerning to me about where that leads Republicans. -- Dick Wadhams, former Colorado GOP chairman
... I never said what I said Tuesday & repeated Wednesday. -- Trump, Thursday. Eliza Collins of Politico: "Trump said on Tuesday night. 'Taxes too high, wages too high, we're not going to be able to compete against the world.' But on Fox News' 'Special Report' Thursday he insisted that he never said wages were too high, just that the minimum wage should not increase." CW: As Maggie Haberman of the NYT wrote Wednesday, "Donald J. Trump on Wednesday morning repeated a statement he made the night before in the Republican presidential debate: that wages are 'too high' in the United States, an argument he made to explain his opposition to raising the minimum wage." ...
Ben Carson never did what he said he did. -- Trump, Thursday. Maggie Haberman: "Donald J. Trump unleashed a torrent of insults on Thursday against his main rival, Ben Carson, comparing him to a child molester in a television interview and suggesting that the people of Iowa are 'stupid' if they believe Mr. Carson's claim that he tried to stab a close relative during his childhood." CW: I suppose Trump figures he is the only candidate permitted to lie thru his teeth.
... ** Behold the Meltdown. Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "For an hour and 35 minutes, Republican front-runner Donald Trump vented about everything that's wrong with this country and this election. He said he would 'bomb the s---' out of areas controlled by the Islamic State that are rich with oil and claimed to know more about the terrorist group than U.S. military generals. He ranted about how everyone else is wrong on illegal immigration and how even the 'geniuses at Harvard' have now backed his way of thinking. He accused Hillary Rodham Clinton of playing the 'woman's card,' and said Marco Rubio is 'weak like a baby.' He signed a book for an audience member and then threw it off the stage. He forgot to take questions like he promised. And he spent more than 10 minutes angrily attacking his chief rival, Ben Carson, at one point calling him 'pathological, damaged.'" ...
... Kevin Drum: "Can you imagine what Trump would be like if he ever had a genuinely stressful job, like, um, you know?" ...
... Gregory Krieg of CNN: In an interview, "Donald Trump said on Thursday that Marco Rubio favors 'amnesty' for undocumented immigrants because the Florida senator and his parents are Hispanic." ...
... If you think the Donald was crazy-mad yesterday, wait till he hears this. Joanna Rothkopf of Jezebel: "Trump's 169-page Crippled America will debut on the nonfiction list at #5, one whole spot below Carson's A More Perfect Union, according to BuzzFeed News, which goes to show that Americans don't like to be told they are bad or dysfunctional -- they like to be told that they are perfect and will only get perfecter."
Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "The White House on Thursday pushed back against Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson's claim that China is involved in the conflict in Syria. 'I have not seen any evidence of Chinese military involvement in Syria,' National Security Adviser Susan Rice told reporters when asked about Carson's remarks. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, who grinned when ABC News's Jonathan Karl asked the question, later appeared at the lectern and said China generally does not involve itself in Middle Eastern conflicts. 'It's worth stepping back and noting China makes it a practice to not get extended into military conflicts in the Middle East,' he said. 'Their policy over many years and decades has been to not be overextended in military exercises.'" ...
... Oh, Yeah? Caitlin Cruz of TPM: "Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson's business manager and adviser Armstrong Williams attempted to support Carson's bizarre debate claims on Syria during a Wednesday interview with MSNBC by assuring the anchor that the Chinese are, in fact, in Syria.... 'From our own intelligence and what Dr. Carson's been told by people who are on the ground who are involved in that region of the world, it has been told to him may times over and over, that the Chinese are there.' Williams said in the 'next few days' a story may come out to reinforce Carson's claim of a Chinese presence in Syria." CW: Just you wait. ...
... Kevin Drum: "Carson -- or Williams -- really ought to tell us who these experts are that keep briefing the campaign on foreign policy issues. Are these the same guys who told him that seizing the Anbar oil fields in Iraq could be done 'fairly easily' and that ISIS could then be destroyed in short order?"
Marco Rubio points out that Ted Cruz has supported some pro-immigrations legislation. CW: Because Ted is a reasonable man.
Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post on Ted Cruz's & Rand Paul's tax plans, both of which include a VAT tax (which they call something else, of course).
Everything Is Obama's Fault, Ctd. Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Asked about the protests at the University of Missouri and Yale University, where complaints of racism or racial insensitivity have pitted students against administrators..., [Chris Christie] said that President Obama had created an atmosphere of 'lawlessness.'" It must have been very disappoint to Gov. Crisco that he couldn't think of a way to blame Hillary Clinton, too.
Beyond the Beltway
Sarah Larimer & Susan Svrluga of the Washington Post: "A onetime civil rights lawyer and longtime administrator at the University of Missouri's flagship campus will take over the helm of the university system, replacing a president who was forced out amid heated protests over racism and bigotry there. Michael Middleton, a lawyer and who served as deputy chancellor of the University of Missouri at Columbia before retiring this summer, will come back to serve as interim president, the Board of Curators announced Thursday afternoon."
Academic Freedom Is So Wrong. Massoud Hayoun of Al Jazeera: "A University of Missouri doctoral student plans to continue research for her dissertation on the effects of the state's recently imposed 72-hour waiting period for abortions, despite a state legislator's push to block the research, the student told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview.... State Sen. Kurt Schaefer, a Republican from Columbia, Missouri, who chairs the Missouri state senate's interim Committee on the Sanctity of Life, sent a letter in late October to the University of Missouri calling [the] dissertation 'a marketing aid for Planned Parenthood -- one that is funded, in part or in whole, by taxpayer dollars.'... Schaefer called for the university to hand over documents regarding the project's approval and said that, because the University of Missouri is a public university, it should not fund research that he said would promote elective abortions. Missouri law prohibits the use of public funds to promote non-life-saving abortions." ...
... Zandar, in Balloon Juice: "It's pretty weird how that whole theocratic crushing of ideas thing kicks in for Republican Conservative Champions Of Free Speech whenever the subject turns to a woman's reproductive system.... Republicans have long stated that waiting periods, required counseling, forced ultrasounds, etc. before abortions are to be allowed are good for women.... Somebody finally decided to take that theory, which is a testable theory, and decided to research and test that theory scientifically as part of a doctoral research project at a university.... But instead of even waiting for the findings, Sen. Schaefer is effectively saying that research cannot even be done on this subject because it might support the notion that women may be harmed by all these restrictions."
Adam Chandler of the Atlantic: "On Thursday, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign reached a settlement with Steven Salaita, a professor who had a job offer revoked by the school after he tweeted incendiary statements about Israel during the country's war with Hamas in Gaza last summer.... Salaita's job offer is still off the table, but he will receive $600,000, in addition to $275,000 in legal fees."
News Ledes
CNN: "A pair of suicide bombings struck southern Beirut on Thursday, killing 43 people and leaving shattered glass and blood on the streets, Lebanese authorities said. At least 239 others were wounded, according to state-run National News Agency.... Lebanese intelligence believes the bombers could be part of a cell dispatched to Beirut by ISIS leadership, the source said, but investigators are still working to verify the surviving suspect's claim. The three other bombers were killed in the explosions."
New York Times: "Gene Amdahl, a trailblazer in the design of IBM's mainframe computers, which became the central nervous system for businesses large and small throughout the world, died Tuesday night at a nursing home in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 92."
New York Times: "Myanmar's election commission said on Friday that the party of the Nobel Peace laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had won 348 seats in Parliament, giving her democracy movement a majority and the power to select the country's next president."
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Reader Comments (25)
So the State Sen. wants to stop the research because he knows the results will show that his position sucks. Missouri is getting interesting. Until things started a while ago I had no idea is was a shithole.
The effort of the Missouri legislator to constrain the research of University of Missouri grad student is beyond appalling. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail in MO, but if the legislature persists I hope the ACLU or similar group will take up the cause. It's troubling that the university administration didn't immediately push back.
@Victoria D. I agree. Apparently, the university is working on a response. I sure hope it's a blistering one.
Marie
So tell me. Mr. Trump, how we will recognize members of your "deportation force"? Perhaps they could wear some sort of insignia, maybe like an arm band or something.
And NiskyGuy after they finish their job, what are they going to do for a living?
Marvin,
I think that to keep their jobs they will initiate the next phase to gather up all non-Christians for either deportation or internment into re-education camps.
Last night Rachel reminded us of two previous cases (and there are so many) of those that serve in the government telling big whoopers whose sources are SECRET in relation to Ben Carson's (also Trump) who claim they know foreign policy secrets because, well, Somebody secret told them and they can't divulge whom. The first is Representative Duncan Hunter Jr. son of the Duncan Hunter who ran for president years ago, but hardly anybody remembers him. Junior claimed that 10 Isis guys were captured at the US border. WHAT! Where on earth did you get that information asked Greta Van Sustern who had him on her program. Can't tell you he said–-got it from a secret Somebody. Next is Sen. Joni Ernst–-our hog tying honey–-who claimed there WERE weapons of mass destruction in Iraq–-and she knows this for a fact because a secret Somebody verified it.
So even when Susan Rice tells us there are no Chinese in Syria, Ben will insist there are and the people will believe him rather than Rice. Tim Egan's piece about the gas bags in the media spouting bat shit crazy stuff just reinforce this baseless information over and over.
In the Hartford Courant a couple days ago Senator Chris Murphy wrote a piece about an ad that a third party ( Courageous Conservatives PAC) supporting Ted Cruz said that Cruz "stopped Obama's push for gun control laws" in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings.
"If Ted Cruz wants to brandish his pro-gun credentials to Republican primary voters, that's his right. But it's sick that he thinks he'll win votes (wanna bet?) by specifically pointing out that in the wake of 20 dead first-graders he was the face of the fight to ensure no action was taken to stop more deranged killers from..." The ad is geared to attack Rubio where at the end the voice over asks, "What's Rubio ever done?"
"This makes me want to throw up" Murphy says.
A word about yesterday's discussion about food consumption. I so admire Kate and her husband for how they deal with their intake of food. I am a meat, (hardly ever have red meat) fish and fowl eater, but actually consume very little with vegetables and grains taking center stage. We buy organic–-my husband makes his own sausage––we grow our own vegetables and berries, and have fruit trees. But I think–-and D.C. touched on this–-so many people cannot afford to eat well–-many don't even have access to open markets where they could purchase fresh products. And unless you grow your own crops, or have access to those that do the fruits and vegetables that you buy in a super market have been picked by people who work for peanuts and in fields where there are rapes and harassment. We live in a cruel world–– where animals and human beings are being exploited and some of us do the best we can and where people like Kate and her husband are the fellas we should follow if we can.
I went to Stephen's College in Columba, Mo. for one year. We girls dated the Mo. U. football players and others and went to their frat parties. I never once saw a black face. The University at that time had no black students until sometime in the late fifties and then only a few. Our college kids are raising their voices and demanding attention and I think that's a good thing. It certainly has separated the wheat from the shaft.
'
@Nisky guy: Your comment was right on, and almost made me spit out my coffee, it was so funny.
@Unwashed: Exactly. They will no doubt be deployed to enforce the Religious Uniformity Act (passed because the Republicans controlled all three branches, as few Dems turned out to vote). There goes the War on Christmas!
PD Pepe: You write so well that I cannot decide whether you have come up with a unique word picture in separating the wheat (which is good) from the shaft (which, as I recall, is sometimes used to indicate unjust treatment).
The image I learned as a child and which we see at each harvest on our island farm is the separation of the wheat from the chaff, the lighter, generally inedible portion of the harvested stalk.
In ancient times the wheat was simply tossed in the air, and the lighter chaff blew away. Today, huge combines separate the wheat from the chaff which is then gathered up and compressed into huge bales, used as winter fuel in the island's distant warming plants.
Again, thank you for your informative comments.
It's not a bit surprising that Bildungsroman Bennie and his business manager, all around whatchamacallit guy, Armstrong Williams, are peddling this spurious nonsense about the Chinese in Syria, gleaned from shadowy meetings with "secret" people who know The Truth (more about that later).
Armstrong Williams, you many recall, was featured prominently in the headlines during the Bush Debacle, pushing a Bush program, No Child Left Behind (that has proven disastrous for education in this country and that has both "damaged educational quality" and "failed to increase academic performance"--a Republican specialty). Oh, and he wasn't pushing it because he believed in it. No, no, no. He was paid to do it. He is likely one of the people Tim Egan was referring to in his piece today:
"Real reporters have been replaced with fake reporters...I’m talking about stunt reporters, who do the dirty work of the partisan outlets."
Just like Armstrong Williams who signed a $240,000 contract with the Bush Administration to pump up The Decider's deficient and detrimental program in his columns and on his radio show.
I'm sure the fact that his column was summarily dropped from national syndication and his whining about being thusly victimized make him a natural ally for another "victim" now complaining about being asked about his own lies.
Small wonder this bought and paid-for hack is now in the employ of another winger con-man, both of them slinging the shit in unison.
Sour Notes From the Trumpet
Wow. Trumpy has pretty much been an unconscionable douchebag for the entire campaign season so far (seems like it's already been a year) but, at least when he's not playing the racist asshole card, he's been somewhat entertaining, if you think watching a snake devour live mice is entertaining, and, for the most part, it's all been a show, a chance to enhance and expand the Trump brand.
It has seemed like, if nothing else, he's been in charge. But that's changing. Last week when a poll came out showing him neck and neck with Carson--withCarson leading in some polls--he flew out to Iowa in apparent desperation, to berate and plead and whine. He told an audience that he really, really, really was the best candidate, so please don't even look at anyone else. It was like the football captain's girlfriend was beginning to notice the geeky kid with the crazy ideas two rows over and he wasn't liking it.
But this extended rant on Thursday night in Iowa is the clearest sign yet that Trumpy's trumpet has gone sour. The guy is out of control. He's not in charge. Ranting and raving and talking about bombing the shit out of places....this sounds like what he should have been doing on his SNL guest spot. And there it would have been funny.
Now it's just scary. The guy is heading around the bend and I don't think he'll be coming back.
Now here's the trick. If Trumpy still holds on to his share of the lead after this pitiful demonstration of shrieking angst and fist pounding paranoia, people in Iowa also need to set up an appointment with the head doctor.
One more reason to remove Iowa permanently from its perverse position of control in presidential campaigns.
"Republicans have long stated that waiting periods, required counseling, forced ultrasounds, etc. before abortions are to be allowed are good for women....". If you leave off the last half of the sentence it sounds just like a sentence about gun-control. I'm thinking the good senator from Columbia, MO never met an NRA lobbyist who he turned away nor a bible-thumping woman's rights denier he didn't embrace.
So Republican establishment types (What does that even mean? not quite as crazy as the 'baggers?) are upset at the thought that Carson or Trump may start piling up wins come primary season, and eventually take the stage in Cleveland next summer? Boo fucking hoo.
Maybe this means there'll be a preliminary round of election rigging prior to the main event. The only problem is that Confederate candidates are all likely aware of the electoral shenanigans their party employs routinely and will be watching for it.
The next problem is, after Carson and Trump fold (Trump looks like he's ready to be carried off in a white coat. It's bad enough to call Iowa voters "stupid", but comparing Carson to a child molester? Whoa...I mean the guy's a nut but this is going way too far; and Carson may be able to whether the uproar over his lies while he's concentrating on Iowa, but it remains to be seen how this will play out in the bigger states with real primaries), who do they have then? Cruz? Rubio? Fiorina? Jeb!?
Of course I don't want to get ahead of myself. I was one of those people in 2000 saying that Bush couldn't possibly win. But the Supreme Court had other ideas. Lot's can happen between now and then.
Something to do on a rainy morning: Some further speculation about The Trumpet's deportation force.
Saw or heard some mention the other day about the size of the force that would be required, based on the ratio of New York City police to its population. New York has about 40,000 officers of one kind or another, that is, one policeman for every 215 or so inhabitants.
Don't remember the number the pundit arrived at so will spend a few minutes coming up with my own.
The same ratio of officers applied to so-called illegals would yield a little over 51,000. So far, no problem. It's not that large a number and there have to be at least that many unemployed genuine, eager-to-work Americans whose jobs those illegals have taken. We could hire them. Resentment is a great motivator so I'm sure they'd be eager to help.
But...and there are a few "buts." Is each NYC officer already assigned his or her own flock of 215? Is the identity of each certain? Does he or she know the whereabouts of all those 215 known at all times? If the officer were told to remove all 215 to Ellis Island for immediate reverse immigration, how long would it take? If three officers were required for each extraction, what would that do to our terrific plan? That thought experiment suggests that nationwide, all other factors being equal, we now might need at least 150,000 in our force.
But is it possible that the geography of the entire US being a bit vaster than even the megalopolis of NYC, might place a few more difficulties in the face of our terrific plan?
Do we already know the location and identities of each person in the US illegally? If not, the force will have to ferret them out, which will require an additional staff of researchers, of both the information tech and the cloak and dagger shoe leather types. I'd guess that addition would double the national deportation force to 300,000 or so.
Then once all the illegal human beings (my son says there is no such thing but the Truth Trumpet says he is wrong) there will be all that driving around, trying to catch them, and they run so darn fast because many of them have calves like cantaloupes. Then, when we bring them to bay, as our dedicated force surely will, transporting them to the nearest border, shoving them through the gate and locking it behind them. Maybe we'll need people to build a few more gates to cut down on congestion. (Possibly a consultation with theme park operators is also in order.) And then there will be all that transportation and vehicle maintenance to provide, not to mention the vast record-keeping infrastructure. So add a few more to the force. Make it at least 400.000.
I think we're almost there. There might be a few other impediment to our plan, but the good news is we know we need only 400,000 or so. Just empty a city the size of Omaha or Kansas City and send it scurrying around the country sniffing the air for the foul odor of the undocumented.
Terrific! Nothing to it.
Ken,
To extend your analysis even further, here are some additional considerations.
Assume, for the sake of argument, that we're talking about removing people who may not want to move. Perhaps a sizable number really, really don't want to move and may react badly to being accosted, put in leg irons (how do you keep them from running away again?), shoved into some kind of vehicle and driven to the nearest Trump Deportation Center. Maybe a percentage of them have been here long enough to have drunk the NRA Kool Aid and have armed themselves. What sort of powers do the deporters have? Are they all armed as well? And trained? And what are their orders should the encounter armed resistance, that favorite of Winger concepts?
So, okay, a few thousand may have to shot and they may in turn shoot back, so there'll be a bunch of nasty bloodbaths and some collateral damage, five, ten, maybe fifteen thousand shot and killed, tops. And a few thousand more wounded including a few hundred innocent kids and babies, but hey, they're illegals, right? We'd all have had our own vacation homes in Boca by now if it wasn't for these moochers.
So you have the first few million rounded up. You can't load them all into trebuchets and fling them over the river, right? They'll have to be housed and fed while they're in one of the hundreds of Trump Detention Centers waiting their turn. And since all of them aren't from Mexico, we'll need fleets of planes at the ready to fly to all corners of the globe.
And what about babies and kids and sick older people? Do we provide medical care while they're incarcerated? And where do we incarcerate them in the first place?
So now we'll need prison guards, medical staff, pilots, drivers, cooks, and sanitation workers in addition to the hundreds of thousands of heavily armed deporters. Also, we'll need additional morgue facilities for all those killed.
Oh wait. And we'll need to document these people, right? So if they sneak back and are caught again, they'll be liable for the death penalty under Trump Executive Order #38. We can't just send them to the DMV, so we'll have to create our own documentation force. Another several hundred thousand people. And we'll need a couple of hundred million dollars worth of equipment and servers to handle the workload and store the files.
And do we ignore what will be a deportation crisis on the other side of the border? Where do all these people go once they've been kicked out? How will they eat? Or do we just not give a shit about that, because I'm sure all those other countries will just take care of it?
If Trumpy has considered a single one of these problems, I'll be dining on Baked Chapeau.
I'm not a poet so I can't do it but maybe it's time that someone updates Martin Niemöller's poem "First They Came For The Socialists" to fit these scary, modern desires of the Confederate neo-fascists.
Akhilleus,
l have read your extension carefully.
I guess I should have known better, and had I put a little more time into my analysis I might have taken more umbrage at the holes you, armed and dangerous as you are, have shot it full of.
But I'm not surprised. Leave it up to a crazy librul like you to wreck what I thought a perfectly reasonable plan, offered in all sincerity, to fix what everyone agrees is a national crisis.
Ken,
Every party needs a pooper, that's why they invited me. Party Pooper.
But listen, instead of emptying out Omaha, can we make it Wichita? Then we could force the Kochs off their golden thrones for at least a little while. Anything to monkey wrench the oligarchs.
Akhilleus makes a good point about illegals arming themselves. Didn't another candidate have something to say about armed resistance to being rounded up and taken to concentration camps?
@Ak, Ken
Those logistics of deportation look pretty imposing, but it needs to be remembered that we're dealing with Trump here. In clawing his way to the top he's learned the lessons of Life, which, with the power of the Oval Office, he'll employ to make 'Merica Great Again'!
The key word in America under Trump, behind Freeedom of course (although he doesn't battle cry that nearly enough to embody the Neo-Confederates, am I right?), is going to be "efficiency". This high ideal will be paired with Trump's second best quality: shameless self-promotion. Everyman for himself.
It's with these qualities combined that Trump will be tackling the Great Immigration Roundup. Using history as his guide, he'll put up propaganda posters in every city and town:
"Attention all illegal aliens: Upon assuming the Throne of the Oval Office, Hunger Games will ensue. If you roundup three illegal aliens and bring them immobilized to your local police station, you can be eligible for a green card raffle. Temporary deportation protection of family members will require five illegals captured after fulfilling your own quota. If you're subsequently not chosen in the raffle, you will be asked to self-deport or face the wrath of the heavily-armed and very racist militia volunteers who have been granted war zone immunity to fulfill National Security operations. Stay at your own risk."
Minimal cost, minimal government, minimal regulations, mobilizing militias. What could go wrong?
Unwashed,
Not long ago, Confederate grandee Glenn Beck gave Niemöller's poem his own peculiarly pecuniary spin:
"You remember that old poem about them coming for the Jews?
'First they came for the banks, then they came for the insurance companies, and then they came for the car companies'"
Commentator Lewis Black famously set this idiot straight. "Glenn, get a grip. There's a difference. They came for the Jews to kill them. They came for the banks and the car companies to give them 700 billion dollars!"
Given the alarming sense of victimization and poor, poor, pitiful me-ism over in the Confederacy, I'm not sure how they'd do it today. It would have to be something like
First they came for the Founders
Then they came for the Flag
Then they came for FREEEDOM.
then they came for me...Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, fill in your own winger martyr. They're all under attack these days. It's an inquisition of holy Confederates.
Autos-da-fé every day. Getcher popcorn and watch 'em fry.
Thanks for all the comments. Maybe Trump will make Ken & Akhilleus Deportation Directors. But my question is, "Do you really want to live in mean ole Trumpistan when you could live in the pleasant Christian nation -- the shining city upon a hill where everybody wears a woozy smile & gets along (because the law does not allow subversive secular-progressive dissent) -- of Carsonia?"
Marie
Marie,
Deportation Director. That would be great! Ken and I could start a modern day underground railroad to let everyone we've caught escape. Even with Trump efficiencies like loading hundreds of deportees onto Hercules C-130s and shoving them out at 20,000 ft. over Mexico City, I'm sure we could save quite a few, turning the Trump Deportation Parade of FREEEDOM into a human rights horror show lasting years.
Wingnut wet dreams, like making millions of "those people" pay, do not comport very well with real world vicissitudes.
"...Americans don’t like to be told they are bad or dysfunctional — they like to be told that they are perfect and will only get perfecter."
Rothkoph left out the key part of that sentiment: and all the other Americans/people they are more perfect than.
Is Ben Carson aware that the word perfect is a superlative, so there is no "more perfect," or is that just Ben Carson being smarter than the rest of us?
Ken Winkes:
Today (14th) is my birthday. I'm on the Cancer Road since April, so I take every laugh stop I pass (some I wish I hadn't). Your assessment of Trump's deportation force was the best laugh I've had all day and a birthday bonus. Thanks.