Rise against the Republican plutocratic agenda

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Republican Party is, when you get right down to it, a party of greed and cruelty wrapped up in theocratic moralizing. (It's hardly any wonder that Donald Trump is doing so well, nor that Franklin Graham, one of the party's chief theocrats, is saying such nice things about him.) And perhaps the core of the Republican agenda, more important than the social conservatism, is tax policy that benefits the rich, both individual and corporate, at the expense of everyone else, that punishes everyone else, and especially the poor and others most in need of help, for not being rich.

This has been the case for a long time, but increasingly, it seems, in these difficult economic times and with the American economy (and American hegemony) in such dire straits, likely never to recover, let alone to be what it once was, Americans are waking up to what Republicans are all about and expressing their opposition. The Tea Party expresses the rage of the right, anti-government rage that complements the Republican agenda. This new opposition, garnering less media attention, expresses not the counter-rage of the left, nor even rage at all, but a genuine concern for fairness, compassion, and fiscal sanity in American politics.

Here's Think Progress:

All across America, a Main Street Movement has broken out to defend the middle class against right-wing attacks on labor rights and basic public services. In recent days, this movement has turned on GOP House members who voted to effectively end Medicare and turn seniors over to private insurance companies when they approved Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) radical budget bill.

On Tuesday, Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) was the latest congressman to face the ire of Main Street America during a town hall event with constituents who stopped being polite and started getting real.

First, constituents explained they were upset that Ryan's plan would cut off people under the age of 55 from Medicare. Then, others directly challenged Duffy about defending tax breaks for the wealthy for voting to effectively replace Medicare with a voucher system.

Ryan himself, supposedly a courageous advocate for fiscal sanity but really just a right-wing extremist whose focus is on tax cuts for the wealthy and spending cuts to programs for the poor, was challenged by his own constituents the other day. And Republicans are facing significant criticism over their support for Ryan's Medicare-slashing plan.

I suspect we'll see more and more of this. Or, at least, I hope we do. It's time for Americans to say enough is enough to the greed and cruelty of the GOP.

Here's the Duffy clip:

President Obama will never be American enough for Trump and the Birthers

By R.K. Barry

Andrew Sullivan wrote recently about a new CBS/NYT poll which found that 47% of Republicans think Obama wasn't born in the U.S and that another 22% aren't sure. He cited Steve Kornacki, who said that this "doesn't mean they've thought things through and believe an elaborate plot has been carried out, and it doesn't mean that being told actual facts about Obama's birth will sway them."

[Donald] Trump's message may be resonating with so many Republican voters simply because it represents the most blunt and unrelenting attack on Obama's "American-ness" that they have heard from a major Republican. In other words, it may not be the specifics of Obama's birth certificate and hospital records that excite them, it's the idea that someone so prominent is willing to stand up and take so much heat for saying, essentially, "Barack Obama is not one of us."

As a non-white president with ties to places like Kenya and Indonesia, he represents, for many, the fact that the American Century is over -- finally and completely. Because even if these people believe in their heart of hearts that they are not racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or xenophobic, they have decided that a country that embraced these sentiments was at the top of its game in parts of the 20th Century and that this is the country they want back -- a country where a non-white person with a non-traditional life story could not be president, a country in which only those who can "prove" they are "like us" are allowed to be hold the highest office in the land.

When reporters hold up copies of Obama's birth certificate only to be met by non-specific counterarguments from Trump and other Birthers, it is clear that the interlocutors are arguing past each other. Needless to say, when you are having an argument with someone, it's always useful to make sure you are actually in the same discussion.

The good news is that the bigots amongst us know they cannot directly argue their case and so they need devices like the birth certificate issue to give them credibility. The bad news is that when people won't say what they mean it confuses things significantly.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Birtherism, bullshit, and Donald Trump

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The leader of the Birthers, judging simply by celebrity status and media attention, isn't Jerome Corsi or Orly Taitz but rather, as you probably know, Donald Trump, who in his quest for ever more self-aggrandizing publicity, if not for the Republican presidential nomination, has been pushing the Birther lie with extreme prejudice in recent weeks.

In a way, it's become his political claim to fame, or rather his claim to political credibility on the right and with the Republican base, and with the 45 percent of Republicans who don't think Obama was born in the U.S. despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Needless to say, Trump doesn't have any evidence, but he's nonetheless continuing to tantalize not just Republicans but the media with his assertions of some terribly sinister conspiracy. He was at it again on Thursday:

Possibly-serious Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is giving few details about the investigation he claims to have launched in Hawaii to get to the bottom of where President Obama was born, but the business mogul told CNN Thursday Americans will be "very surprised" by what he has found.

"We're looking into it very, very strongly. At a certain point in time I'll be revealing some interesting things," Trump said on CNN's American Morning.

Trump first claimed earlier this month he had sent investigators to Obama's home state in an effort to find out if the president was indeed born there, as he says he was and several media organization's independent investigations have confirmed.

"I have people that have been studying it and they cannot believe what they're finding," Trump told NBC then.

But Trump has since offered few details about the on-the-ground investigation and, in the interview with CNN Thursday, wouldn't specifically say if it had uncovered new details.

"You'll be very surprised," he said when asked by CNN's Ali Velshi if his investigators have found anything.

It's rather amusing that CNN describes him as "possibly-serious." I think that's actually giving him too much credibility, and too much legitimacy. But what's key here is that Trump isn't providing any details because there just aren't any details to provide. Saying he has investigators on the job is like O.J. saying he's trying to find the "real" killers. Sure, Trump may come up with something, something to advance a Birther conspiracy theory or another, but the way to keep the story going, the way to bring himself even more publicity and to please/appease the GOP's Birther base, is not to provide any new facts, let alone to bring closure to the story, but to keep the media guessing. Whatever you think of Trump, he's a savvy guy and he knows how to play the media. And that's just what he's doing.

At No More Mister Nice Blog, Steve M. explains what's going on:

This is what's going to happen to birtherism, I think: It's going to mutate. It's going to stop being just about whether the birth story is accurate; it's going to morph into a narrative in which an inaccessible document or two in Hawaii get lumped together with (I assume) a larger number of inaccessible documents in Indonesia and Kenya to create an impression (at least to wingnuts) of a president hiding secrets that are too horrible and evil to comprehend.

*****

Trump says, "I'll be revealing some interesting things." Drudge's "source close to the publisher" says, "Obama may learn things he didn't even know about himself!" I'll say it again: the plan is to turn this into A Conspiracy So Vast, an attempt to hide aspects of Obama's youth, in which the birth certificate plays a relatively small part. I'm not saying it'll work -- I'm just saying that's the scheme to keep this fresh and continue gulling the rubes (and, if they play it flawlessly, the mainstream media).

It's not really clear to me what Trump's endgame is. He surely isn't running, and wouldn't win if he did. Is he stupid enough to believe otherwise? And would he really want to open himself up to such scrutiny? Is is just about publicity? Maybe, but how is it beneficial to him as a celebrity businessman to be so blatantly partisan, not to mention to embrace the conspiracy theories of the crazy wing of the GOP?

I'm just not sure, but there seems to be little doubt that his massive ego is driving him, and something else he said on CNN reveals a lot about how he views himself in relation to everyone else. Discussing his net worth, and refuting Forbes magazine's claim that it's $2.7 billion, Trump said this:

I can tell you that's a very low number," Trump said of the Forbes estimate. "It's much more than that. And if I decide to run, which I very well may surprise people, but if I decide to run, I will give a net worth statement essentially. As you know, we have to fill out very detailed forms for the federal government. And I think people will be extremely impressed."

Yes, it's the money, stupid. Trump thinks that it's his wealth that impresses people, that what truly sets him apart from most everyone else is his money. It's like he thinks he can do no wrong because he has so much money. Forget how many times he's been bailed out, or how many of his enterprises have failed. He's a rich man, a richer man than you think, and that, he thinks, makes him better than you -- and it's what apparently gives him automatic political credibility and a shot at the presidency. In other words, he apparently thinks he's invulnerable, that nothing can bring him down, that anything he touches, including crazy conspiracy theories, turns to gold.

In this respect, he's like any of those disgraced CEOs who stole from shareholders and destroyed their companies, except that he's got a lust for the spotlight that far surpasses most and that the media, and especially the right-leaning business media, think he can do no wrong.

I'm not sure even this explains pushing Birtherism, but obviously Trump has made some sort of calculation that being, or at least presenting himself as, the driving force behind a lie advances his personal agenda. I'm sure his "investigation" will continue to excite the rubes in the GOP and the gullible fools in the media, but anything he says, like everything he has said so far, will be thick with bullshit.

Gai kakhen afenyam

By Distributorcap

It is bad enough my peeps have to deal with complete and total douchebags like Eric Cantor and Bill Kristol, but now...

Miss Blood Libel herself -- donning a very prominent Star of David.  Doesn't it look like she is completely stoned on LSD-laced matzoh balls or Xanax-filled haroses. 

On the Sarahnews Network, Miss Blood Libel rushed to the defense of the Trumptaur himself today:

"Well, I appreciate that the Donald wants to spend his resources in getting to the bottom of something that so interests him and many Americans, you know, more power to him," she said presumably referring to an indication by Trump last week that he has investigators on the ground in Hawaii searching for information on the president's birthplace.

Maybe Donald can investigate whether Sarah had a mikvah. Or if she eats cheeseburgers.

Cherem (חרם), is the highest censure in the Jewish community. It is the total exclusion of a person from the Jewish community. It is a form of shunning, and is similar to excommunication in the Catholic Church.

Sarah -- have a glass of Cherem on humanity.

Karl Rove doesn't like Donald Trump -- imagine that

By R.K. Barry

Need any more proof that Donald Trump is the gift that keeps on giving to Democrats?

All you need to know is that a Donald Trump candidacy, with its whack job birther nonsense, scares the crap out of Karl Rove.

As ThinkProgress put it: 

By firmly planting his flag on the right-wing birther conspiracy, real estate mogul Donald Trump is single-handedly driving a deep wedge into the Republican party. His improbable popularity in the polls has motivated some high-profile Republicans to jump on the birther bandwagon while leaving others fighting to deny him any future relevance. President Bush's former adviser Karl Rove let Fox News' On the Record host Greta Van Susteren know that he falls squarely in the second camp. Utterly aghast at his full-time peddling of the birther conspiracy, Rove labeled him a "joke candidate" of the "nutty right" who will never be elected by Republicans or the American people.

The only thing I can say about this is: who among us would have thought that it would be Donald Trump, of all people, who would drive the wedge between crazy right-wingers and the more pragmatic, effective and campaign savvy elements of the GOP? Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann? Sure. Donald Trump? Wow.

It's actually kind of fun to watch Rove's disgust as he talks about Trump.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost)

Romney vs. Trump

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Appearing yesterday on CNBC, Mitt Romney took a firmly anti-Birther line:

I think the citizenship test has been passed. I believe the president was born in the United States.

The use of the word "believe" is a bit of a hedge. It's a fact, not a matter of belief/faith, that Obama was born in the U.S. Still, it's a long way off from the insanity not just of the far right of the GOP but of so much of the party mainstream these days, which however non-Birther is careful not to alienate/enrage the Birther base.

Speaking of insanity, a new CNN poll finds Donald Trump leading the Republican field in a tie with Mike Huckabee. It's mostly about name recognition and media presence at this point and so it makes sense -- to the extent that anything involving him ever makes sense -- that Trump is doing fairly well.

Back to Romney, though. He's evidently trying to capture the "sane" wing of the GOP, positioning his apparent sanity (non-Birther) against the insanity of so much of the rest of the party (including Trump and the Birthers). Will that get him anywhere? Not with his RomneyCare record, not with his flip-flopping over the years, and not with the general lack of credibility he has with the hardcore conservatives/extremists who make up the Republican grassroots and who, in a year without a leading establishment candidate (e.g., Dole, Bush II, McCain), will very likely determine the winner. (Pawlenty is trying to be the establishment candidate, but he has a lot to overcome, not least his lack of broad national appeal. The establishment, such as there is one anymore, is so desperate that the party could end up with an embarrassingly unelectable nominee like Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann that draft-X campaigns are springing up around potential "sane" candidates like Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush.)

There's another reason Trump is doing well in the polls (even if he ends up not running, which is highly likely). Insanity, including Birtherism, plays incredibly well in today's GOP. Romney can try with all his might. For all his faults, he just isn't insane enough to win.

Plouffe challenges Trump, who lashes out at Obama with unbridled idiocy

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Donald Trump -- if the media and especially the (heavily right-wing) business media are to be believed -- may be the most amazing man in American history, the glorious personification of all that is good and decent with America, but he sure has a thin skin:

The White House stopped just short of dismissing Donald Trump as a clown Sunday - calling him a "sideshow" act with "zero chance" of becoming president.

Chief Obama adviser David Plouffe unleashed a barrage of stinging comments on Trump, who has recently trafficked in fringe conspiracy theories about Obama's place of birth while taunting America with hints of a presidential run.

"There is zero chance that Donald Trump would ever be hired by the American people," President Obama's chief adviser David Plouffe told ABC's "This Week with Christiane Amanpour."

*****

Trump countered that he represents Obama's biggest nightmare in the 2012 race and that the White house is running scared.

"I know for a fact that I am the only candidate they are concerned with," Trump told The Daily News. "They are very concerned because I am challenging him as to whether or not he was born in this country where there is a real doubt."

"He should focus on properly dealing with the Chinese, the Saudis and all of the other nations that are ripping off the United States instead of making up quotes about Donald Trump," the "Apprentice" host blustered on. "Barack Obama has done a terrible job as president."

Oh... where to begin?

First, Trump can't know that for a fact, because it isn't a fact. There's no way the White House is concerned about a Trump run. Trump is simply full of shit. The question is whether he believes his own shit.

Second, there's no legitimate issue about where Obama was born. He was born in Hawaii. We have the official documentation to prove it (statement of live birth). Trump has taken up the Birther cause, and is running wild with it, but it merely destroys what little political credibility he had.

Third, you can't really be a good Republican if you're not kowtowing to the Saudis and the Chinese, mostly for business-related reasons. They have the oil (Saudi Arabia), the lucrative export market (China), and the keys to America's economic future and fiscal well-being (China).

Fourth, how exactly has Obama been so terrible? Well, of course, I assume that Trump would rather not extend health insurance to tens of millions of Americans most in need, given how little he cares about those lower than him on the wealth scale, but bailing out Wall Street? Really? Trump opposed that? Given how many times Trump himself has been bailed out over the years, after failure upon failure, he should have a little more appreciation for government handouts to the banks, particularly with so few strings attached. Of course, it's hard to know what exactly Trump thinks about anything given how insanely partisan his rantings are and how he has embraced the crazy conspiracy-mongering of the far right.

Fifth, it is embarrassing, and that's putting it nicely, that anyone takes Trump seriously, particularly those in the media who, if I may give them some undeserved credit, should know better. And yet all we seem to get -- just watch any Trump TV appearance -- is a revolting display of sycophantic fawning. And all because he has money, which buys you credibility in America's depraved political and media culture, and has successfully cultivated the mythology of himself as all-American success story.

But you know, I have to disagree with Plouffe. Trump doesn't have "zero chance" of becoming president. He has a less than zero chance. He's that much of a sordid, massive sham.

The Donald

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Wait, Trump's just in it for himself, for TV ratings and the limelight he so craves?

Say it ain't so!

**********

Not to pick on this particular Times piece, nor on the Times, but come on. Did we ever think Trump wasn't in it for himself? No matter what he's done, from the casinos to the airline to the TV shows to the hotels to the USFL to... well, to anything and everything with the Trump name on it or in any way attached to it, it's always been about The Donald.

And he isn't going to run for president in 2012 or ever. It ain't happenin'. He craves the limelight, but he wants to control it, and he wouldn't be able to control it were he to run, and a hell of a lot would come out that he'd rather keep hidden.

This is all just a massive sham. The Times should know that. We all should know that.

Donald Trump joins the Birther cult

By R.K. Barry

So Donald Trump has jumped onto the birther bandwagon. Yes, he too is questioning the fact that President Obama was born in America. If you haven't seen his latest, which I would find hard to believe, you can get a sense of his idiocy from the clip below from his appearance on The View.

Typically I pay no attention to this blowhard, but it is getting a lot of coverage so I suppose we have a responsibility to think a little about what it all means.

One possibility is that in America we seem to pay way too much attention to what rich people think simply because they are rich. We assume that because they found a way to make themselves a lot of money, what they think about any number of topics unrelated to their particular expertise must be of value. I don't know why Americans think this, but they do. Perhaps the simplest reason is that because there is no commonly accepted standard of judgment that can be used to gauge the intrinsic worth of human beings, we use money as a proxy. I find this sad, but it does seem to be true.

Another sad but true fact is that fame is also a currency we use to determine the worth of people and the value of the things they say.

Lucky him, Donald Trump is both rich and famous, so we pay attention. Charlie Sheen is also rich and famous. Gee, I wonder where he thinks Obama was born?

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Buddy Roemer, baby! The incredible 2012 Republican presidential field is about to get a whole lot more incredible!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Romney... and Pawlenty... and maybe Gingrich... and maybe Santorum... and maybe, oh, uh... Barbour... and, er, oh... Huckabee possibly... and maybe Giuliani... and, um, Karger, can't forget Karger... and, well, Daniels... and Huntsman, you never know... and Paul, Ron Paul, CPAC star... and The Donald... Trump, that is... and, of course, Palin... or not.

Is that about it? For the big names (Karger excluded), yes, though I highly doubt Barbour will run and I'm highly skeptical Gingrich is serious and even Giuliani isn't that delusional, right? Karger's a gay rights activist and hardly anyone knows who he is, Huckabee's got some right-wing cred but seems less interested than four years ago, and Daniels and Huntsman, the latter Obama's ambassador to China, are just way too reasonable for the GOP, however solidly conservative they may be. Ron Paul has the crazy libertarians behind him, but he's way too anti-establishment, and Trump is a loud-mouthed buffoon who can get a lot of press but who would never win (and will never run -- this is all about generating buzz). And, as for Palin... please. She's tantalizing us, but there's no way she gives up her cushy, absolutely-no-responsibility position as brightest Republican star for what would be an utter disaster, unless she really believes in her own "god"-given greatness and decides that she's an unstoppable force. Which is possible, I admit.

Anyway, what are Republicans to do? Well, maybe they can look to Louisiana.

To Gov. Bobby Jindal, an Indian-American who's relatively sane for the GOP? Er, no.

To Ex-Gov. Buddy Roemer. Who? Exactly.

The GOP's white-bread presidential primary is about to get a dash of Tabasco.

Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer will announce Thursday in Baton Rouge that he is forming an exploratory committee, he told POLITICO.

"I should be president or somebody better than I should be," Roemer said in an interview. "And the only way to make sure of that is to make [my opponents] go around me, through me or over me in the primaries."

First, through him or over him? For some reason I don't see that as a huge challenge.

Second, somebody better than him? It's a pretty crappy (potential) field, but he's not exactly a superstar. (And he was actually a Democrat until he switched during his one term as governor.)

And third -- to Politico -- "a dash of Tabasco"? No, he's pretty darn white. Saying that he'd bring some Tabasco (i.e., flavour, or maybe even colour) to the field, because he's from Louisiana, is just plain stupid.

The only possible major contender -- so I'm not counting Tea Party fave Herman Cain -- who isn't as white as they come is Giuliani, who presumably would bring some much-needed arrabbiata to an otherwise bland and largely tasteless Republican primary.