Day: 2/2/2012

IT’S OFFICIAL: Trumpney Is Born

Posted by on February 2, 2012 at 3:10 pm. 4 Comments :

Today will be remembered in the annals of political history as the day a hybrid presidential candidate was unleashed on America. A candidate that incorporates the wealth and breeding of a political dynasty with the riches and elitism of a casino boss.

Trumpney

Mitt Romney and Donald Trump have much in common. They are both filthy rich. They have both presided over businesses that went bankrupt. They both like to fire people, as they have said:

Romney: I like to fire people.
Trump: You’re fired.

Perhaps the most significant of their shared characteristics is that they are both proud members of the GOP (Greedy One Percent). That affiliation has got to be the worst timing for a political campaign in a year when the abuse of wealth, corporate power, and the marriage of the two, has become such a volatile political issue.

Romney’s campaign is already hampered by the popular impression that he is an out-of-touch, elitist, multimillionaire. His previous comments about being one of the unemployed, defending the personhood of corporations, and casually making $10,000 bets, has already hurt Romney with middle-class and independent voters. And now, the day after he told CNN that he “doesn’t care about the very poor,” he hooks up with America’s prime example of extravagant excess. Couldn’t they have waited a week or two?

Not that that would have helped much. According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, the Trump endorsement is toxic. The survey revealed that 20% of the respondents 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.

Finally, Romney will have a lot to answer for. Some of the questions that should be put to him include:

  • Do you believe Obama’s birth certificate is real?
  • Do you believe Obama is a Christian?
  • Do you believe Obama wrote his own books?
  • Do you believe Obama earned his academic credentials?

Those are all issues that Trump has highlighted in his media escapades, and he has made it clear that he would answer every one of those questions in the negative. Where does Romney stand?

So Trumpney has been loosed on the world. And comedians everywhere are gasping for breath as they scribble feverishly in their notebooks. This campaign just keeps getting better. With the potential for endless hilarity, November will come all too soon.

Fox News Is SHOCKED That Obama Has Christian Values

Posted by on February 2, 2012 at 11:32 am. 4 Comments :

Seriously, Fox News? Are you seriously expressing disdain for President Obama’s remarks at the annual National Prayer Breakfast about how his faith has helped form his policy opinions?

Fox Nation

The arch-conservative, fundamentalists in America have spent decades insisting that America is a Christian nation and that the country must submit to their spiritual dogma. They have attempted to, and in many cases succeeded in, passing bills that legislatively adopt their religious principles, from abortion to creationism. And Fox Pews…I mean News has adopted the crusade of the religious right as their own.

The one Christian principle that is almost always left out of the fundamentalist agenda is the one that preaches compassion for the poor and Jesus’ admonition that “whatever you do (do not do) for the least of these you do (do not do) for me.” Now when the President articulates his principles of Christian faith at a prayer breakfast he is criticized for it with a distinct implication that it was somehow inappropriate.

OK, fine. Let’s all agree that injecting religion into public policy is inadvisable and promise to refrain from doing it. But that has to apply to all sides. The Christian Taliban can no longer try to shove its philosophy down the throats of their fellow citizens. There will be no more sermonizing on God’s alleged will. No more phony wars on Christmas. No more prayers to open congressional hearings. And if the right will not agree to these terms, then they have to shut up when the President makes barely religious comments like this:

“When I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren’t discriminating against those who are already sick or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren’t taking advantage of most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody. But I also do it because I know far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years. And I believe in God’s command to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.”

[…] “I actually think that is going to make economic sense, but for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.'”

Unfortunately, the Evangelicans will never surrender their arrogant superiority long enough to permit America to have true freedom of religion. And they will likewise refuse to refrain from castigating Democrats when they exercise their religious liberties. That’s just the nature of the sanctimonious hypocrisy embraced by the practitioners of religious tyranny.

Donald Trump To Endorse Mitt Romney? Gingrich Dodges A Bullet

Posted by on February 2, 2012 at 9:02 am. 2 Comments :

[Editor: If this article looks familiar, it’s only because everything in politics looks the same]

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 Mitt Romney. This is further affirmation of Trump’s political acumen as the gold-plated Trump casts his lot with the candidate who doesn’t care about the poor.

Trump’s support, if it pans out, would follow the endorsements of lunatic fringers Ann Coulter, Michael Savage and Jon Voight. The good news for Romney is that none of these epic losers managed to dampen his showing in the Florida primary this week. That may prove fortuitous because a Trump endorsement is potentially far more damaging.

As it turns out, Trump’s seal of approval could be the most severe test yet for Romney’s electoral 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 the establishment has embraced, Trump provides himself the perfect excuse to stay out of a race he knows he can’t win, and to continue to earn the only income he has as a television game show host.

In the meantime, it would be useful to recall the planks in the Trump platform. When Romney accepts Trump’s endorsement and praises him for stepping forward to support his fellow one-percenter, 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 Romney is boosted by burdened with the curse of Trump love. But the one thing we know for sure is that the Gingrich camp, now in Las Vegas in advance of the Nevada caucuses, will be scrambling to explain to his Tea Party contingent why it’s really fantastic that Trump jilted him. Whether he knows it or not, he dodged a bullet, and Romney is the one who should be worried.