James O’Keefe Reaches New Heights Of Stupidity – And Irrelevance

Posted by on February 9, 2012 at 2:56 am. 2 Comments :

James O'KeefeThe biggest joke in the modern era of pseudo-reality television has struck again. Crockumentary videographer James O’Keefe posted a new video purporting to reveal the potential for voter fraud in Minnesota.

I’m not going to waste much space refuting the inane premise of his video. That has already been done quite well by Brad Friedman at the Brad Blog and Tommy Christopher at Mediaite. Suffice to say that O’Keefe’s escapade proved absolutely nothing.

The short story is that he entered a few Minnesota county offices and misrepresented himself as a “third party” who was interested in helping other citizens to register who were unable to do so themselves. All that this amounted to was collecting an application for an absentee ballot, which anybody can do. However, filling out and submitting the application must be done by the actual voter and requires identification or a verified witness. And voters who register this way must present ID when voting for the first time at a polling place. But, O’Keefe never went that far, nor mentioned those facts. He simply implied that picking up the application form was evidence of potential for fraud.

The only crime that may have occurred here is the videotaping that O’Keefe did without the permission of the subjects. O’Keefe, a convicted criminal himself, is already under investigation for that crime in other states. He is also being sued for having slandered people through the dishonest and deceptive editing of his video stings.

The whole gambit, like most of O’Keefe’s charades, was a pointless exercise that proved nothing. His intent was to validate the manufactured right-wing hysteria over voter fraud that is being used to promote the passage of voter ID laws that make it more difficult for seniors, students, the poor, and the disabled to vote. It is part of a coordinated campaign to suppress the vote of predominantly Democratic constituencies. It should also be noted that none of these voter ID laws would have prevented what O’Keefe is attempting to do in his video.

So it isn’t news that O’Keefe is distributing yet another fraudulent video that serves no purpose other than maligning the innocent and alleging non-existent atrocities. What’s news is that even fewer people actually care about any of the fakery he is spewing. His first phony (and thoroughly debunked) videos about ACORN were featured on Andrew Breitbarts’s BigJournalism blog and Fox News. More recently O’Keefe was only able to interest Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller. But this new video is going nowhere fast. The usual right-wing propagandists are steering clear. Perhaps even they are finally too embarrassed to be associated with this hoaxter.

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Why Is The Media Pretending That Santorum’s Victories Mean Anything?

Posted by on February 8, 2012 at 3:32 pm. 5 Comments :

Yesterday there were another trio of Republican primary contests. They were held in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado. The surprising thing about the results is not that Rick Santorum finished first in all three, it’s that anybody cares at all about these results.

There exactly zero delegates awarded last night. Santorum’s prospects for winning the nomination are no better today than they were yesterday. And for the record, yesterday he did not have a tea bag’s chance in Jello.

Nevertheless, the media is awash in speculation that this meaningless sweep of delegate-free states has somehow turned the election on its ear. They are openly challenging what they previously proclaimed was the inevitability of Mitt Romney. But come Super Tuesday they will see that Romney is just as inevitable as he ever was. Romney will be the GOP nominee. The only scenario in which that will not come to pass is if he makes a phenomenal mistake, or there is a brokered convention led by a conservative delegate revolt.

So why is the media carrying on this way? Because they are placing their priorities where they always place them – on money. Contested elections are a steaming swamp of melodrama. The only thing about these races that make them interesting enough for most people to follow is their entertainment value, and controversy = entertainment. Therefore, the networks do not want the race to be over because it would put an end to the reason that anyone is paying attention. They certainly are not watching to hear for the 47th time that Obama is an incompetent, Soros-funded, Muslim, Alinskyite. And they aren’t watching to learn the candidates’ positions on abortion or taxes.

The only reasons that viewers tune in are: 1) To witness a horrifying train wreck, or 2) To keep up with the horse race. Since no one but the candidates have any control over the potential for train wrecks, the media has to keep the fallacy of a fluid horse race alive in order to continue to draw an audience. Consequently, we have this pointless discussion of Santorum as a viable candidate with a real chance of winning the nomination. He doesn’t. Neither does Gingrich. Neither does Paul. And the media knows it.

The audience is being played by a marketing machine that is only concerned with how many impressions they can deliver for the next Appleby’s commercial. It is a pathetic rejection of the sort of honest journalism that should be informing people about the real issues in the race. The sooner that people stop being excited about irrelevancies like primaries that don’t award delegates and endorsements from clowns like Donald Trump, the sooner we can focus on what’s important and on what will actually have an impact on our lives.


The Mitt Romney Gaffe That Everyone Missed

Posted by on February 6, 2012 at 12:09 pm. 6 Comments :

Over the past few weeks there has been a lot of attention paid to some questionable remarks by GOP frontrunner, Mitt Romney. The tone-deaf nature of his candid statements repeatedly paint a picture of an elitist multimillionaire who is dreadfully out-of-touch with ordinary Americans.

A political candidate ought not to say aloud that he enjoys firing people. Especially one that has a professional resume of doing just that as a corporate raider. Romney can’t claim that he is unaware of the optics of such statements because he already admitted his consciousness of the potential fallout when he responded to a primary debate question about hiring undocumented workers by saying that he couldn’t do such a thing because he’s “running for office, for Pete’s sake”.

Despite his alleged sensitivity to what his words might convey, Romney still let loose a series of eye poppers including his business friendly “Corporations are people, my friend,” his lament that “I’m also unemployed,” and his unwholesome desire to hang Obama with a misery index. Even Republicans’ jaws dropped when they heard Romney tell Soledad O’Brien that he is “not concerned about the very poor.”

Romney’s Nevada victory speech sought to repair some of that damage by telling his exuberant followers that “I’ve walked in Nevada neighborhoods, blighted by abandoned homes, where people wonder why Barack Obama failed them.” If that’s true he managed to do it after having ditched the press and his own PR staff, because there is no documentation of such a stroll, nor of gathering hordes of unfortunates disappointed in Obama. And as if that weren’t enough, Romney celebrated his Nevada victory by repeatedly coming perilously close to referring to Obama as “The Help.”

“Four years ago, candidate Obama came to Nevada, promising to help. […] his help was telling people to skip coming here for conventions. […] Mr. President, Nevada has had enough of your kind of help. […] Mr. President, America has also had enough of your kind of help.”

You can almost hear Romney adding, “If you want to help, Mr. President, bring out some more h’orderves, and give the Bentley a good wash and wax.”

The Help


Ayn Rand Redux: Atlas Shrugged Part 2 Set To Fizzle This Fall

Posted by on February 4, 2012 at 1:48 pm. 4 Comments :

The second installment of the threatened cinematic trilogy of Ayn Rand’s insipid novel Atlas Shrugged is set for release in October of this year, a month before the presidential election. The release date was deliberately chosen by the producers for its political significance despite the fact that they haven’t even begun production.

John Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow, reprising their roles as producers, claim that part two is fully funded. And why shouldn’t it be? Part one, which ran for all of five weeks last year, was universally panned by critics and theater-goers, and earned back only one-fifth of what it cost to produce and distribute. This dismal performance was achieved despite a massive effort on the part of right-wing media and Tea Party activists to prop up the film.

Everyone from Andrew Breitbart, to the Koch brothers, and John Boehner, and, of course, Fox News, joined the hype campaign with the vain hope of turning this turkey into a hit. The day care kiddies at Fox & Friends spun the story so hard they must have gotten nauseous the next day when the producers contradicted their phony hoopla and publicly admitted that they had a bomb on their hands.

The hype has apparently already begun with an article by Paul Bond in the Hollywood Reporter that inexplicably describes Atlas Shrugged part one as having “earned a respectable $5,640 per theater.” Respectable to whom? That is an even lower take than the unmitigated theatrical disaster of Sarah Palin’s Undefeated, which pulled in only $6,500 per screen before shuffling off to an early video demise. By contrast, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth did $70,000 per screen; Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story did $58,000 per screen; Banksy’s Exit Through The Gift Shop did $21,000 per screen.

Adding to the irony is the fact that under Rand’s philosophy this film project should be abandoned. The obedience to free market principles demands that failures such as this be relegated to history’s garbage heap. But conservatives always exempt themselves from the rules they apply to everyone else. So the [dog and pony] show must go on. Here’s a peek at the promotional trailer just released that features absolutely nothing from the actual film:

Wow. Compelling stuff. The promo begins with Glenn Beck and features snippets from six people who don’t do much more than mention Rand’s name. Five of the six are Fox News personalities (how did Phil Donahue get mixed up in this?). Who do you suppose this film is being targeted at? The rest of the promo shows a clip of Rand that conveniently leaves out her notoriously anti-American, atheistic views. Perhaps this would have made a better promo:


Glenn Beck Celebrates The Death Of A President

Posted by on February 4, 2012 at 9:06 am. 14 Comments :

For anyone who was wondering, yes, Glenn Beck is still around. He may have been ousted from Fox News and reduced to posting Internet videos from his basement, but he’s still out there spewing his hate speech and conspiracy theories.

Field Marshal Beck

It’s actually a pretty sad spectacle. He’s taken to dressing like a field marshal of some fantasy army, and he insists on referring to his pathetic home movies as a television network, despite the fact that it isn’t a network and it’s not on television.

On Friday’s episode of his radio program, Beck launched into a typically repulsive tirade against one of his favorite targets, President Woodrow Wilson, whom Beck regards as evil. As it turns out, today is special day for Beck:

“This is the happiest day of the year for me. Every single year I celebrate. I’m thinking about putting up a tree today. Today is the day that in 1924 Woodrow Wilson dies – that son of a bitch. And I’m happy.”

It isn’t often that you hear public figures express such joy over the demise of national leaders who were democratically elected by the American people, particularly when they are known for being so pretentiously patriotic that they break down sobbing at the thought of how much they love their country. Imagine Beck’s reaction if someone were to throw a party commemorating the day Ronald Reagan descended to his eternal resting place in Hell. But Beck has a palpable lust for this self-declared holiday of morbidity. And that isn’t even the worst part of his ravings. He went on to say that Wilson was…

“…one of the worst presidents in the United States. He’s one of the founding fathers of the new United States of America. Theodore Roosevelt was of them too. This guy that we have in office now … he’s doing the same thing.”

So let me get this straight. Beck thinks that Woodrow Wilson is an evil S.O.B. whose death is cause for celebration. And Barack Obama is doing the same things for which Beck hates Wilson. The clear message that Beck is sending to his rabid disciples is that Obama’s death would also be a cause for celebration. That’s the level of hostility that Beck projects almost every day. Let’s just hope that none of his followers are motivated by this disgusting rhetoric to attempt to impress Beck by carrying out his fantasy.


Now It’s A Holy War: The Fox Nation Launches A Crusade

Posted by on February 3, 2012 at 1:41 pm. 7 Comments :

Notice a pattern here:

Fox Nation Holy War

Fox News has been at war against Democrats and liberals since its inception. The have declared wars on Christmas, environmentalism, community organizers, students, seniors, the poor, and on and on. The election season has seen a ramping up of their instigation of class war.

None of that has managed to pick up support from the American people who are the real targets of these invented wars. The class war, in particular, has been a resounding failure for Fox because the country has consistently sided with the 99% over the GOP (Greedy One Percent).

So the Fox Nationalists are upping the ante by sending their troops on a mission to invade the Kingdom of Heaven. This is no longer a battle of mortals, but a celestial conflagration that they are blaming on President Obama.

Once again, the rightist crusaders are demonstrating their rank hypocrisy by lambasting the President for daring to quote scripture. Conservatives have built a cottage industry of forcing their religious beliefs into the political arena. They demand that Christian dogma be codified into law. They insist that Christian fables be taught as if they were historically affirmed. They falsely assert that the nation’s founders were devout Christians who intended their faith to direct the course of the country. They complain bitterly that Christians are the only group that are discriminated against. They are, to be succinct, delusional.

So it’s onward Republican soldiers, and marching lockstep with them are the Murdoch Militia, valiantly defending America from DemonCrats and spreading their message of an imminent Armageddon. And all because they can’t abide the fact that a Democratic President shares their faith.

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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.


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.