Day: 2/1/2012

Donald Trump To Endorse Newt Gingrich? Champagne Flowing At Romney HQ

Posted by on February 1, 2012 at 11:12 pm. NO Comments :

[Editor’s Note: This article has been superseded by this one]

The InterTubes are buzzing with the news that tomorrow morning carnival barker Donald Trump has scheduled a press conference to make an “important” announcement concerning the presidential race.

Donald Trump

Some reports are already disclosing that their sources say that Trump will give his uncoveted and toxic endorsement to Newt Gingrich. This is further affirmation of Trump’s political acumen as he casts his lot with the fastest sinking ship on the sea.

Trump’s support, if it pans out, would follow the endorsements of Wrangler Rick Perry and pizza magnate Herman Cain, as well as the plea from fading Tea Hag Sarah Palin, who made it clear that she just wants to keep the hamster wheel spinning. None of these epic losers were able to boost Gingrich’s showing in the Florida primary this week.

As it turns out, no one should expect Trump’s seal of approval to have any better effect on Gingrich’s prospects. The Pew Research Center surveyed voters last month and found that 20% said that they would be “less likely” to vote for a candidate that Trump had endorsed. Indeed, the survey showed that Trump would scare off more voters than any of the other people tested.

However, we must not assume that Trump doesn’t have an ulterior, self-serving motive. In fact, we should always assume that he does. In this case it might have something to do with his oft-stated threat that he would consider launching an independent campaign for president if his preferred candidate did not prevail in the GOP primary. Thus, by endorsing someone who is almost certain to lose, Trump positions himself to step in as the savior that he envisions himself to be. And all I can say about that scenario is “please, please, dear God, please!”

In the meantime, it would be useful to recall the planks in the Trump platform. When Gingrich accepts Trump’s endorsement and praises him for stepping forward to grab some Newt-mentum, he should be called on to comment on these issues that Trump has focused on so intently:

1) Obama’s Citizenship: This is without a doubt the cornerstone of Trump’s campaign. He talks about it at every appearance – even those where he pretends to not want to talk about it. Obama has shown the only document that the state of Hawaii issues for births. If Trump wants to continue to believe that the Obama family (and assorted communists and Muslims) hatched a plot almost fifty years ago to raise a mixed-race, foreign-born child to become an illegitimate president, that’s between him and his racist, delusional followers.

2) Obama’s Religion: Despite the fact that the President has repeatedly affirmed his devout Christianity, Trump suspects that he is secretly a Muslim and the proof may be on his birth certificate. Never mind that any religious designation on a birth certificate would be irrelevant. Obviously the baby Barack did not select his faith, but the adult has been clear and consistent.

3) Obama’s Authorship: Trump has embraced the WorldNetDaily crackpots who believe that Bill Ayers was the ghostwriter of Obama’s autobiography “Dreams From My Father.” The evidence of this fraud is the observation that both used certain phrases like going “against the current.” Well, that settles that. Trump also believes that Obama was born Barry Soetoro and later changed his name, despite the fact that he was named after his father, Barack Obama, Sr., and it wasn’t until he was four years old that his mother was remarried to Lolo Soetoro.

4) Obama’s Academics: Trump is fond of questioning Obama’s academic credentials, insisting that he was too stupid to get into Harvard. He says he is investigating this (are they the same investigators he sent to Hawaii?). Of course it is documented that Obama had graduated from Columbia before getting a scholarship to Harvard where he became the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduated magna cum laude.

5) Foreign Policy: Trump has advocated declaring a trade war with China. He also proposed addressing the deficit by stealing the oil from Libya and Iraq. This is the sort of bravado that Trump likes to display with his own business enterprises, which have resulted in four bankruptcies. In addition he has expressed support for an actual shooting war with both Iran and North Korea. However, with international relations between sovereign nations with standing armies, he may produce even worse outcomes than he has with his failing hotels and casinos.

6) Economic Policy: While he doesn’t have a 999 plan, Trump has proposed a tax increase that might inflame the sensitivities of Grover Norquist and the Tea Party:

“I would impose a one-time, 14.25% tax on individuals and trusts with a net worth over $10 million. For individuals, net worth would be calculated minus the value of their principal residence. That would raise $5.7 trillion in new revenue, which we would use to pay off the entire national debt. […] Some will say that my plan is unfair to the extremely wealthy. I say it is only reasonable to shift the burden to those most able to pay. The wealthy actually would not suffer severe repercussions.”

That actually sounds pretty good. Too bad he has disavowed that plan that appeared in his book, and now thinks he can appropriate billions of dollars from other countries to pay down our debt (he doesn’t say how).

We’ll see tomorrow if the speculation proves to be correct and Gingrich is boosted by burdened with the curse of Trump love. But the one thing we know for sure is that the Romney camp, now in Las Vegas in advance of the Nevada caucuses, will be exhausted by the time Trump has delivered his announcement. They will have been celebrating all night in Sin City. With all the vintage champagne flowing in those luxury casino suites, who knows, Romney may have a couple of new wives by morning.

The Wall Street Journal Uncovers Obama’s Enemies List

Posted by on February 1, 2012 at 3:46 pm. 4 Comments :

When Rupert Murdoch bought Dow Jones, the parent company of the Wall Street Journal, most observers were properly concerned about how he would go about destroying the paper’s legacy. The speculation leaned toward obvious predictions of more overt bias inserted into the news pages, as well as dumbing down the articles by shortening them and diluting the journalistic content with tabloid sensationalism and a reliance on dubious sources. But I’m not sure anyone predicted this:

Today’s issue of the Journal contained an article purporting to reveal President Obama’s “Enemies List.” The author, Theodore Olsen, paints a disturbing picture of a vengeful White House bent on destroying innocent, patriotic Americans who want nothing more than to run a business, create jobs, and bring energy to America.

The ominous list that has Olsen so upset seems to have only two names: Charles and David Koch. And coincidentally, Olsen, an attorney, represents the Koch brothers. So the Wall Street Journal handed over their editorial page to the Koch brothers’ lawyer for the purpose of accusing the President of carrying out some sort of vendetta against them.

For a lawyer, he doesn’t try very hard to make his case. The article alleges several times that the President has personally, or via his direction, made the Kochs “targets of a campaign of vituperation and assault.” However, he doesn’t provide a single example to support his claim. The article begins…

“How would you feel if aides to the president of the United States singled you out by name for attack, and if you were featured prominently in the president’s re-election campaign as an enemy of the people?”

The only problem is that that never happened. If Obama ever uttered the name of the Koch brothers, I can’t find it. It would not surprise me if they were mentioned by aides, but most likely while defending the President against attacks on him. I challenge Olsen to present his evidence that anyone in the White House ever characterized the Koch brothers as enemies of the people.

On the other hand, the Koch brothers created and bankrolled the Tea Party, an AstroTurf, corporate funded, pseudo-movement, that incessantly disparages Obama as a communist, a Nazi, a Muslim, an atheist, a Kenyan, and a Manchurian agent whose mission is to deliver America to its enemies and/or Satan. The Kochs are also the money behind numerous think tanks and organizations whose purpose is to destroy the presidency through propaganda or outright manipulation and suppression of the vote. One such organization is the American Legislative Exchange Council which drafts bills and then pays GOP legislators to carry them in state houses across the country.

Olsen attempts to inoculate the Kochs from criticism by portraying them as merely private citizens going about their business. The absurdity of that depiction is downright surreal. To suggest that because the Kochs do not hold public office, that they are not an integral part of the political landscape in America, is akin to suggesting that because Charles Manson did not hold a weapon, that he is not guilty of murder. The Kochs are the masterminds and financiers of the most prominent attack groups on the right that are trying to bring the Obama administration to a crashing end. It is a role they assumed voluntarily and enthusiastically.

Olsen’s article drops names of some historical villains that he asserts have something in common with Obama. He cites Richard Nixon, who actually did have an enemies list and abused the power of his office in order to punish the people on it. But Olsen cannot seem to find even one example of Obama doing anything similar. He just brings up the Nixon name to deceitfully tie it to the President. Then Olsen does the very same thing with Joe McCarthy, who orchestrated a campaign of red-baiting that ruined the lives of countless innocent people. Again, Olsen offers nothing to show any connection to Obama. He just likes to use their names in the same sentence in the hopes of having the infamy rub off.

The article continues with ad hominem use of contentious rhetoric like “the exercise of tyrannical power” and “stand up against oppression” to falsely convey the impression that Obama is attempting to “demonize and stigmatize” the Kochs. But nowhere does Olsen justify such language.

Like many conservatives, Olsen holds a perverse definition of free speech wherein conservatives are permitted vast leeway to spew any and all slander that they like, but if the other side seeks to respond they are guilty of stomping on the rights of the right-wingers. If the Kochs want to play the political game, and by the evidence of their prodigious spending they obviously do, then they cannot complain when the victims of their assaults fire back. The Kochs are not waifs who wandered unaware onto a battlefield. They know what they are doing and they have vast resources to plot their designs on society. They even have the support of the Wall Street Journal who will publish the screeds of their attorneys on the editorial page as if it were there personal diary. What more do they want?

Message to the Kochs: Either stop disseminating self-serving propaganda and fomenting hostile division in America, or be prepared if your victims decline to roll over, or STFU.

NO KIDDING: Mitt Romney Says He Doesn’t Care About The Poor

Posted by on February 1, 2012 at 12:30 pm. 3 Comments :

File this under “Tell Me Something I Didn’t Know.”

Mitt Romney appeared on CNN this morning and told Soledad O’Brien something that was already known by anyone paying attention:

“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich. They’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”

Romney’s qualification about the safety net is a weak argument for ceasing to care about people who are struggling to find work, to feed their children, and to pay for housing and health care. This is a statement that could only be made by someone so utterly lacking empathy and experience with anything outside of his millionaire bubble.

The poor in America are all too familiar with the safety net’s shortcomings. A politician can reasonably choose to focus on middle class issues, but to say aloud that they don’t care about poor people reveals something fundamentally amiss in their character. Especially if that politician is a multimillionaire.

Romney’s statement also asserts that he isn’tconcerned about the very rich. But if that’s true, then why is he struggling so feverishly to give them (him) additional tax cuts and federal benefits? For the rich people he doesn’t care about, he fights to increase their wealth. For the poor, he might try to fix some holes in the safety net if he determines it’s needed. That’s the perspective of a selfish elitist who has no idea what the nation is going through. And it’s a perspective that will make it very difficult for him to ever become president.