The GOP Debate’s Biggest Winner Was Also It’s Biggest Liar

Posted by on September 17, 2015 at 3:42 pm. 4 Comments :

The second Republican primary debate is in the books and this chapter was pretty much just repetitions of everything the party has been spinning for months (years). While there were some entertaining fireworks at times, they were mostly irrelevant to any policy discussion and consisted of childish insults, whining, and bragging (and that was just Donald Trump).

Donald Trump

Prior to the debate, the pundit class had speculated feverishly about what was at stake for each of the candidates, some of whom would be facing elimination without making some sort of impression. Following the debate the consensus in the media was that Carly Fiorina was the one candidate who surpassed expectations and most helped her own cause. That assessment was based primarily on the confidence with which she expressed herself and her alleged command of the issues. The only problem with that is that she badly mangled some of the answers that she is being credited with answering confidently.

Most egregiously, Fiorina gave an impassioned soliloquy lambasting Planned Parenthood. She referred to the videos produced by an anti-abortion group that has stirred up the GOP and incited members of Congress to call for defunding the women’s health care provider. She said…

“I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, to watch these tapes — watch a fully-formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says, ‘We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.’ This is about the character of our nation, and if we do not stand up and force President Obama to veto this bill, shame on us.”

The only problem with that dare is the there is no such video to watch. Reporters have watched all twelve hours of the videos and the gruesome scenario that Fiorina described simply does not exist. She is either lying or has developed false memories that reflect her personal biases. On a side note, her demand that Obama “veto this bill” doesn’t make sense because there is no bill for him to veto. She seems to think that there is legislation pending to fund Planned Parenthood, but the only bill that is being considered in Congress would revoke their funding, which I expect Fiorina would want him to sign. She is clearly confused on numerous levels. But she does express her erroneous views confidently.

To make matters worse, Fiorina gave a post-debate interview to George Stephanopoulos (video below) who informed her that the video scenario that so enraged her was non-existent. But she held firm and told Stephanopoulos that he should “Rest assured I have seen the images that I talked about last night.” And no doubt she has seen them – in her vivid and warped imagination.

Fiorina’s “beating heart” hallucination was one of her two most memorable moments in the debate. The other being her smackdown on Trump for his sexist statements about how her face somehow disqualifies her from running for president. She said succinctly, and without commentary, that the women of America had heard him. Trump then made things worse with a disingenuous compliment saying that he thought Fiorina’s face is beautiful. What he still doesn’t get is that both his insults and his compliments are sexist. He is still judging her on appearance rather than merit.

For his part, Trump couldn’t manage to say anything that was truthful. He lied about not having declared bankruptcy (he did four times). He lied about his lobbying for a casino in Florida (he did that too). He lied about Mexico not having birthright citizenship (it does). And the rest of his performance was typically lacking any substance or detail. Nevertheless, he believes he won the debate because – well, because he’s Trump.

So now we wait a few days for a new set of polls to see what the Republican electorate thought of their candidates. Even though not a single one offered anything resembling a policy statement other than that America is a Hell hole, it’s all Obama’s fault, and Hillary Clinton is poised to destroy western civilization. But they can’t escape the pitiful situation they find themselves in where the candidate hailed as the biggest winner of their debate achieved that status by telling the biggest lie. They must be so proud.

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The Next Jade Helm Hoax Per Fox News: Obama Orders Behavioral Experiments On American Public

Posted by on September 16, 2015 at 4:52 pm. 3 Comments :

This summer there was a flashing wingnut red alert warning that President Obama was plotting to invade Texas with federal troops to enslave the residents, confiscate their guns, and generally wreak havoc on the Lone Staters. In Realityland, Jade Helm 15 was a military training exercise to prepare soldiers for battle in desert environments and it has been conducted many times before. But that didn’t stop the conspiracy freaks (including Texas governor Greg Abbott) from waxing idiotic about the looming tyrannical threat from the Kenyan Muslim occupying the formerly White House.

This week the Pentagon announced that the Jade Helm operation was complete, and despite the deranged ranting of the right-wing Psycho-chicken Littles, not a single “patriot” was hauled off to a FEMA camp and every armed Texan continues to strut around with their surrogate phalluses, except those who offed themselves while defending their pseudo-freedom. However, the absence of this delusional diversion has left the paranoia hoarders one panicky horror story short. Lucky for them that Fox News is here to fill the void.

Fox Nation

The Fox News community website, Fox Nation, reached out to the Daily Caller and Fox’s bitch, Tucker Carlson, for a story that contains all of the vital elements for a crackpot conspiracy theory. It begins, of course, with Chairman Obama abusing his power by issuing an executive order (which he has issued fewer of than any of his modern predecessors). But this particular order includes a hint of the sort of mind control that makes conspiracy theorists’ toes tingle. The headline blared “President Obama Orders Behavioral Experiments On American Public,” and warned that…

“President Obama announced a new executive order on Tuesday which authorizes federal agencies to conduct behavioral experiments on U.S. citizens in order to advance government initiatives.”

Oh my. Obama is planning to turn America into a nation of guinea pigs. Now that’s the sort of brain-fried idiocy that hatched Jade Helm (and Obamaphones, and death panels, and Benghazi, etc.). There was nothing in the article to corroborate the wild claim made by these fruitcakes. They just left the charge hanging out there to strike fear into the withering hearts of their dimwitted readers. But if any of them were curious enough to seek out the actual executive order and peruse the contents themselves, they would have found this: Executive Order — Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People.

“Where Federal policies have been designed to reflect behavioral science insights, they have substantially improved outcomes for the individuals, families, communities, and businesses those policies serve. For example, automatic enrollment and automatic escalation in retirement savings plans have made it easier to save for the future, and have helped Americans accumulate billions of dollars in additional retirement savings. Similarly, streamlining the application process for Federal financial aid has made college more financially accessible for millions of students.

To more fully realize the benefits of behavioral insights and deliver better results at a lower cost for the American people, the Federal Government should design its policies and programs to reflect our best understanding of how people engage with, participate in, use, and respond to those policies and programs. By improving the effectiveness and efficiency of Government, behavioral science insights can support a range of national priorities, including helping workers to find better jobs; enabling Americans to lead longer, healthier lives; improving access to educational opportunities and support for success in school; and accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy.

So it turns out that the order is simply an initiative to better design forms, applications, and processes so that they are easier to understand and navigate. The goals are spelled out in more detail and include “streamlining processes” and “removing administrative hurdles, shortening wait times, and simplifying forms,” as well as to “reduce regulatory burdens.”

What a friggin’ nightmare! Someone has to stop these fiends before they make government so efficient that people come to appreciate it and welcome interactions with its agencies. That, of course, would be a real nightmare for conservatives whose mission is to make everything associated with government fail so that they can argue that it is unnecessary and then propose to cut its budget and fire everybody in Washington. Never mind whether or not it actually helps people and saves money.

Republicans are the party of deliberate failure. They know that if federal services were managed competently, Americans would get used to the benefits and the cost savings and reject the right’s agenda of shrinking government so that only the privileged would benefit. That’s why electing Republicans to run government is like hiring bank robbers as security guards. They both have an incentive to screw everything up.

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It is no coincidence that these screwball conspiracies almost always originate with right-wingers. They thrive on fear and the falsehoods that produce them. Without their alternate realities they wouldn’t be able to sustain their innate anger and animus toward anyone that looks different. And media like the Daily Caller and Fox News are the fuel that ignites their hate and hallucinations, and obviously they intend to continue to do so for the foreseeable future, unfortunately.


WTF? Trump’s Rambling Policy-Free Speech Covered Live By MSNBC – Only

Posted by on September 15, 2015 at 8:57 pm. 11 Comments :

Donald Trump’s campaign promised that his speech today would provide details of his foreign policy agenda. The location he chose for the address was the deck of the USS Iowa battleship currently docked in San Pedro, California. But as usual, Trump arrived, greeted the crowd, and gave his standard stump speech that consisted mainly of glorifying himself and tossing out nearly incoherent, monosyllabic cliches and insults. No doubt his brain-dead fans ate it up.

What was unusual about this speech was that ordinarily all of the cable “news” networks would obediently fall in line to broadcast Trump’s irrelevance and inanity live. That didn’t happen today. Perhaps they are wising up and realizing that Trump has nothing to say and that he has been exploiting them to get free advertising.

So this day marks a milestone for media independence and journalistic discretion. Except for one thing. While CNN aired about a minute of Trump’s speech before cutting away to a panel of pundits, and Fox News ignored the speech entirely, sticking with their regularly scheduled broadcast of Bill O’Reilly, MSNBC cut away from the Rachel Maddow Show and aired Trump’s speech in full and uninterrupted. Yes, MSNBC.

MSNBC Donald Trump

Something is terribly wrong when Fox News employs a more appropriate editorial policy with regard to a Republican candidate than MSNBC. And ironically, throughout most of the segment MSNBC’s graphic read “Trump Gives Major Policy-Free Speech.” Which begs the question: Then why are you airing it? Even Trump recognized the absurdity of the constant live coverage he drew when he said in Alabama last month “Why don’t they just cover me like anybody else where they go the next day and they show little clips? Every time I speak it has to be live? It’s ridiculous.”

Indeed, why don’t they cover him like anybody else? A few weeks ago I wrote a column lambasting all three cable “news” nets for their flagrant whoring to one candidate for the ratings they expect to garnish. But now I fear I must remind the one network that ought to have known better in the first place. So MSNBC, pay attention:

“Even after Trump taunts them about how tightly they are wound around his fat finger, they still bow down to him. Even after he correctly notes that it’s ridiculous, they persist in following him around like lovesick puppies. Even though there is nothing in Trump’s stump speeches that makes them newsworthy, other than some fresh bit of noxious racism or ignorance, his arrogant mugging is carried live. His circus sideshow offers no justification for preempting regular programming to broadcast his ego-ranting as if the fate of the nation depended on it, but they do it anyway. […]

“The media should cover Trump like any other candidate. No more, no less. By arbitrarily providing live broadcasts of only his campaign speeches they are violating their professional duties by serving as the PR team for one candidate. Trump’s public appearances are pep rallies for his own aggrandizement, not news events. […]

“The live coverage needs to stop, or at least be reserved for only events that warrant it for their news value. Absent that, the networks should register as lobbyists for the candidate and be required to report their airtime as in-kind donations […] to benefit a raging demagogue whose primary appeal is that he could spontaneously combust at any moment.”

It’s impossible to say whether CNN and Fox declined to air Trump’s speech out of principle or if they just weren’t in the mood today. We will see what happens when Trump gives his next speech. But MSNBC has got to stop embarrassing themselves by demonstrating lower standards than Fox when it comes to campaign coverage.

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Fox News Host Floats Delusional Miss America Conspiracy Theory

Posted by on September 14, 2015 at 6:02 pm. 2 Comments :

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Todd Starnes, he is Fox’s Christianist Ayahtollah and host of the webcast “The Dispatch.” He is primarily known for spinning fables about the alleged persecution of America’s oppressed majority Christians. In most cases he invents the stories himself and provides no independent corroboration. And there is generally a stench of overt racism wafting from everything to which his name is attached.

Fox News Todd Starnes

Take for example the time that Starnes reported on a five year old girl whose father claimed she was prohibited from praying in her school’s cafeteria. It turned out that the girl’s father was the VP of Sales for his publisher and he had a book that was just about to be released. There was no evidence that the incident ever occurred and Starnes failed to disclose his close personal relationship with the allegedly abused family. Starnes has a resume of dishonesty that has hounded him throughout his career. Which, I suppose, is what makes him such a perfect employee for Fox News.

Starnes latest outrage involves the selection of the new Miss America. He took to his webcast (video below) to rhetorically ask “Did Miss America Judges Shoot Down Pro-Gun Contestant?” Starnes asserted that one of the contest’s runners-up, South Carolina’s Daja Dial, had been robbed of her victory because her answer to a question on assault weapons didn’t call for banning them, as the pageant’s overlords wanted, according to Starnes. He said…

“It was quite a night on the boardwalk where a distinguished panel of left-wing judges tested the ladies intellect on a number of the most pressing issues of our day. […] Miss South Carolina turned out to be one of the few ladies who refused to kowtow to the judges agenda, shooting down an anti-gun question by saying she opposed banning firearms. Needless to say, the pride of the palmetto state did not win. Liberals frown on pistol-packing beauty queens.”

Left-wing judges? Where Starnes gets that idea from is never revealed. Nor does he explain how any of the other candidates “kowtowed” to some imagined agenda of the liberal beauty queen cabal. In fact, the panel of judges included a country singer, a Disney star, an investor, and the widow of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle. None of the judges could plausibly be characterized as liberals. But what makes Starnes’ bitchfest so strikingly stupid is that the contestants who gave answers that liberals might agree with also failed to get the crown. For instance:

  • Miss Mississippi, Hannah Roberts, was asked whether the religious freedom of Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis was violated by the court order to issue marriage licenses to all legal applicants. She said that “It absolutely does not violate her religious freedom,” and that “she did violate the law there.”
  • Miss Alabama, Meg McGuffin, was asked why she thinks that Donald Trump is leading the GOP primary race by such an overwhelming margin. She answered that he “is an entertainer,” but that “the Republican Party should be absolutely terrified of all the attention that he is taking.”
  • Miss Tennessee, Hannah Robison, was asked if Planned Parenthood should be defunded by Congress. Her reply: “I don’t think Planned Parenthood funding should be cut off.” She continued to correctly point out that none of those funds go toward abortions, but are spent on screening for cancer and mammograms, and without it “women will be out of health care.”

It is worth noting that all three of these contestants were from conservative, southern states and gave impressive, well-reasoned, liberal answers. And they all lost despite Starnes’ insistence that the pageant was rigged in favor of liberals. If Starnes’ theory was correct, one of these contestants would be Miss America today. Instead the winner was Miss Georgia, Betty Cantrell, who was handed a non-political question about Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and his involvement in Deflategate (she thought he cheated).

Oddly enough, this isn’t the first time that Starnes whined about his preferred lady being passed over in the Miss America pageant – and for the same reason. Two years ago Starnes was infatuated with Theresa Vail of Kansas, but she lost to a beautiful, talented Indian-American from Syracuse, New York, Nina Davuluri.. Starnes responded with a noxious blast of racism in tweet saying that…

“The liberal Miss America judges won’t say this – but Miss Kansas lost because she actually represented American values.”

Of course she did. She is a white, Christian, soldier. How could she lose to a dark-skinned, Hindu, with a funny name, who could not possibly represent American values? In another tweet Starnes attributed Vail’s loss to her being a gun-toter. He really is obsessed with women and guns.

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When Starnes isn’t slobbering over well-armed beauty queens, he is fretting about gays threatening the sanctity of marriage, and pagans defiling America’s Christian foundations. He is as deranged as any religious extremist and holds that his faith is superior to that of anyone who would dare to disagree with him. His views are not only ignorant and riddled with falsehoods, they are dangerous. And Fox News gives him a platform to spread his bile to an eager and dimwitted audience.


Ben Carson Tells The Jesus Praisathon Network (aka Fox News) That ‘Atheism Is A Religion’

Posted by on September 13, 2015 at 10:23 pm. 22 Comments :

Republican presidential guilt suppressant and all-purpose sedative, Ben Carson, appeared today on Fox News MediaBuzz with Howard Kurtz (video below). The conversation covered a gamut of critical issues facing the nation, such as his dust up with Donald Trump, the irrelevancy of race in party politics, and why he is trying to stop saying stupid things on the campaign trail (i.e. ObamaCare is just like slavery and being gay is choice that people make when they go to prison). It’s good to see the media forcing candidates to address the real problems our society has to deal with.

Ben Carson

In addition to those examples of national crises, Kurtz asked Carson about his views on faith in public life. For a few minutes Fox turned into the Jesus Praisathon Network, even posting graphics that asked whether voters would “heed the call” of Carson’s “faith-based run.”. Like every other Republican candidate, Carson believes in a form of Christian Sharia Law wherein everybody has to be subject to the biblical dogma of the majority. To emphasize his point, Carson told Kurtz about how fond he is of the First Amendment and then went on to say that anyone who doesn’t practice a religious faith is an idiot:

Carson: People who say that religion has nothing to do with their life probably don’t know exactly what religion is. Just because you don’t necessarily believe in God or Jesus doesn’t mean that you don’t have a religion. Even atheism is a religion. You have something that you believe in without complete evidence that it exists.

Carson is demonstrating his reverence for the Constitution by demeaning everyone who holds different beliefs than he does. Obviously they can’t possibly understand religion if they don’t follow his. What’s more, the notion that someone who doesn’t accept the existence of a supernatural nanny, is still following a religion, defies reason. Atheism is the absence of a belief in religion. It’s like saying that someone who doesn’t believe in the fairy tale of Santa Claus still believes in the fairy tale of a world without Santa Claus. Come on people, where’s the evidence that Santa doesn’t exist?

This is consistent with Carson’s previous assaults on religious freedom. In the recent case involving Kim Davis, the Kentucky County Clerk who was found in contempt of court for refusing to issue marriage licenses to legal applicants who happened to gay, Carson took the absurd position that requiring her to do her job without discriminating was an infringement of her civil rights.

Carson told Megyn Kelly of Fox News that Davis should be entitled to deny marriage licenses to people who do not adhere to the laws of her faith. When Kelly asked if that might be slippery slope wherein Catholics could refuse licenses to people who had divorced (which Davis had done three times), or Muslims could deny licenses to Christian couples, Carson’s response was that it was OK for Christians to discriminate because America is a Judeo-Christian majority nation.

So take that, Freedom of Religion. I guess it’s also OK for whites to discriminate against blacks because we are a white majority nation. Clearly Carson’s interpretation of the Constitution is a perverse mutilation of reality and the principles for which our country stands. He would take America further along the path of theocracy were he to have any role in governing. And what’s worse is that his is not a fringe opinion in the GOP. Every Republican candidate holds the very same views. It’s the old story about the party that pretends to want government off your back, but still wants it in your bedroom and in your deepest, most personal thoughts.

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Little Monsters: Fear Mongers At Fox News Demonize Innocent Child Refugees

Posted by on September 12, 2015 at 4:45 pm. 5 Comments :

It must be exhausting for the punditry and viewers of Fox News to be on a perpetually heightened state of alert in a world where they are convinced that horrors stalk them constantly. It seems that every day they awake to a new catastrophe that sends them diving under their heavily fortified beds where they store their survival gear, gold coins, and assault weapons. This inbred fear has been triggered by everything from health care to immigration to the threat of a foreign-born, Muslim socialist with a scary name invading the White House.

Now the folks at Fox’s Fox Nation website are trembling over what they are characterizing as fledgling terrorists in the form of children taken in as refugees by Germany. The Fox Nationalists proclaimed that this is actually a plot by “Islamists In Germany Trying To Recruit Young Refugees.”

Fox Nation Syrian Refugees

Just look at them. They’re ghastly. The bone-chilling story that Fox cites as proof of this fiendish scheme is an article on Yahoo News from the Agence France-Presse wire service. The article contains reports that “Muslim radicals in Germany are trying to recruit some of the growing numbers of asylum seekers” from Syria. The wrinkle that Fox adds is a photograph of smiling children with cuddly stuffed toys arriving at the train station in Munich. Fox is plainly implying that kids like these will soon be at your local mall with pressure-cooker bombs. The photo is from the Associated Press, was not in the source article and had nothing to do with it. The article spoke only of young refugees, a common target for radical recruiting, but never mentioned children. The only conceivable purpose for inserting this photo into the Fox Nation story was to demonize innocent children as potential future terrorists.

This is all part of a larger Fox News campaign to frighten their easily spooked viewers into rejecting any proposal to bring some of the suffering Syrian refugees to the U.S. For the last week Fox has been airing segments that allege that the refugees have been infiltrated by terrorists and that allowing them into the country would result in certain death. Apparently Fox is OK, however, with refugee children dying and being washed ashore, which they will subsequently blame on Obama.

The Fox Fear Festival also featured rewritten histories of the 9/11 attacks. In an attempt to send shivers up the spines of their already quivering audience, Fox’s Neil Cavuto hosted Michael Pregent of Veterans Against the Deal (VAD), a shadowy organization that unsuccessfully tried to stop the nuclear agreement with Iran. VAD has a multi-million dollar budget whose funding sources are unknown but, not surprisingly, a member of their board, Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth, runs another astroturf vets group (Concerned Veterans for America ) that is bankrolled by the Koch brothers.

Cavuto began the segment by falsely pandering to professional 9/11 alarmists by saying that “We are helping the very folks that may have had a hand in 9/11.” Of course, there is no evidence that Iran had anything to do with 9/11. However, that is exactly the same manufactured argument that the Bush regime used to justify war with Iraq. It is all about increasing the scare quotient and aiming it at a vulnerable enemy. And to make sure the fear sticks, Cavuto made it overtly political. He asserted that the deal was a product of partisan Democrats who had orchestrated a process that Cavuto called “kinda weird.”

Cavuto: They set up this Byzantine parliamentary process by which you needed two-thirds majority and all this other stuff and cloture votes and stuff that’s way over my head, which is not hard to do.

First of all, there is nothing remotely Byzantine, or even unusual, about the parliamentary process used in this vote. Republicans needed to get a filibuster-proof majority to prevail. That’s something with which they should be familiar considering that when they were in the minority they conducted more filibusters than any session of Congress in history. Secondly, Cavuto should know that the threshold to invoke cloture to end a filibuster is only three-fifths, not two-thirds. Finally, his reference to “all this other stuff” is just nonsense. What other stuff?

Having gotten so much wrong it would be easy to believe him when he says this is way over his head, except for the fact that he is obviously lying in order to make it all sound more confusing and sinister. And his accusation of partisanship is really better suited for Republicans, After all, Democrats voted both for and against the Iran deal. It is Republicans who voted lock-step against it in a show of pure partisanship.

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In the end, the message here is to fear Democrats, fear Iran, and fear little kids escaping from Syrian turmoil, oppression and death. In short, be afraid. Afraid of everything. All the time. And thank goodness there is Fox News around to make sure that you are.

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Glenn Beck Is Embarrassed That He Supported Sarah Palin

Posted by on September 10, 2015 at 6:00 pm. 7 Comments :

Who knew? One of this country’s most divisive, dishonest, and unrepentant purveyors of hostility seems to still have some capacity for shame (if you can believe him). Glenn Beck appeared at rally in Washington, D.C. (where he never wants to go back to again) to oppose the Obama administration’s deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Also on the podium were arch right-wingers like Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and Sarah Palin. Sometime between that event and the next morning, Beck had some sort of revelation with regard to his relationship with Palin.

Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin

On his radio program this morning (video below) Beck took aim at Palin for reasons he didn’t make clear. He mentions that he “doesn’t know who she is anymore,” and “doesn’t know what she stands for.” Apparently he’s upset (jealous?) that he saw her talking to Donald Trump, who Beck is not fond of, and asks “What the hell was that?” He also admits that they had a “falling out” because “”she was listening to people who were lying to her about me.” However, he doesn’t go into who those people were or what they were saying. But the most striking comment he had about his former BFF was that…

“I don’t care what Sarah Palin says any more. Sarah Palin has become a clown. I’m embarrassed that I was once for Sarah Palin. Honestly, I’m embarrassed.”

Well, now he knows how most of the rest of the country feels about having Palin presume to speak for us. But it’s still ironic that the man who describes himself as a “rodeo clown” is suddenly seeing Palin in similarly derogatory terms. It’s kind of like the overgrown troll Donald Trump calling Carly Fiorina ugly. But what changed that altered Beck’s opinion of Palin? Certainly Palin hasn’t changed. She is tossing the same word-salad incoherence that has defined her since John McCain unleashed her, making all of us suffer for his foolishness and desperation.

You have to wonder whether this epiphany by Beck will lead to similar insights. Already Bobby Jindal seems to have seen the light about Trump. At a speech at the National Press Club Jindal said that Trump is “a carnival act.” He also called him a shallow narcissistic egomaniac.

Of course, this isn’t news to anyone with a functioning brain. The problem is that there seem to be so many intellectual zombies on the right to whom cartoon characters like Palin and Trump make sense. So when someone like Beck confesses that his prior support for Palin embarrasses him, it is a promising development, even though it is probably inspired by some selfish motive. It offers hope that supporters of Trump will soon feel some shame themselves. We know that many people who voted for George W. Bush are denying it today, and the current crop of Republicans are ashamed to even say his name.

It is too much to expect that any of those who come to realize that it was a grievous mistake to support nut jobs like Palin and Trump (and Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain, and pundits like Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc.), will ever come to accept a progressive agenda supported by history and facts. But for now perhaps we should be grateful that they can at least experience the cleansing quality of shame and let go of their delusions. It’s a small step forward, but it is a step. At least until they take two giant leaps backwards, which for them is always a possibility.

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Remedial Republicans: Or How Ralph Wiggum Foretold The Coming Of Donald Trump

Posted by on September 9, 2015 at 4:53 pm. 4 Comments :

Stupidity is not a new development in politics. In fact, according to Napoleon, it isn’t even a handicap. So the campaign of Donald Trump isn’t breaking new ground just by demonstrating how idiotic a certain segment of the electorate is. He is following in the tradition of dimwitted pols like Michelle Bachmann, and fact-challenged pundits like Glenn Beck, who appeal to Tea Party malcontents and paranoid bigots. And his entry into the political circus was eerily prophesied by none other than Ralph Wiggum of The Simpsons who, when told by Lisa Simpson that he was being used by self-serving party operatives, said that…

“Maybe I want to use them. Use them to make this country great again. When we’re mad, we’ll just use our words, then the rest of the world will play nice with us. And the only boom-booms will be in our pants.”

Donald Trump/Ralph Wiggum

From the mouths of babes, whether it be The Ralph or The Donald. Little Ralphie’s brief foray into politics for “E Pluribus Wiggum“ (Season 19, episode 10, 1/6/2008) appears to be the inspiration for Trump’s campaign theme. Not only does he want to make America great again, but he offers nothing of substance, just empty words from an equally empty mind that regards being mad as a path to solving problems. Boom boom bing bing bing. But at least Ralph doesn’t descend into the hostility that characterizes Trump’s brand of hate-spewing. That’s another old wrinkle that Trump is pursuing on his own. Other than that his campaign is notable only for his third-grade language skills and the way he has fooled the media into covering his every hiccup as if it were newsworthy.

But we’ve seen this sort of tabloid megalomania before and never ends well. It is rooted in division and relies on the abundance of intellectually lazy supporters who embrace faulty information and even disinformation (i.e. Fox News). They are a sorry lot who were fittingly described by Sean Illing of Salon as “the infantilized conservative base.” Illing noted that…

“Trump has continued to repackage shopworn stupidities and beam them back at his audiences, and conservatives can’t get enough of it. […and that…] Trump’s success shows how easy it is to openly infantilize the conservative base. You don’t need ideas to win over Republicans anymore; you simply have to reflect their paranoia and frustration, with as much bombast and superficiality as possible.”

As evidence of that theory, Trump made another one of his patented screwball challenges. Upset that CNN might benefit from the free-market capitalism that right-wingers like Trump pretend to be so fond of, he wrote a letter to CNN president Jeff Zucker to complain about how much money the network might make on the upcoming Republican debate. Sources have reported that CNN will be charging up to $200,000 for a 30-second ad that normally would sell for $5,000. From the letter…

Trump: While I refuse to brag, and as you know very well, this tremendous increase in viewer interest and advertising is 100% due to “Donald J. Trump.”

If I didn’t know better I would think that this letter was written by Stephen Colbert’s staff. Note how he leads with his refusal to brag, followed immediately by his bragging about providing 100% of the viewer interest. He may be right to the extent that the guy standing on the building ledge is also due credit for whatever ratings the news gets that night. And I wonder why Trump put his own name in quotes. Trump then challenged CNN to donate the program’s revenue to some unnamed veterans charity.

For the record, CNN can sell about fifteen minutes of ad time during the debate, which comes to a total revenue of about $6 million. The network pulls in about $1.27 billion dollars a year, so this isn’t exactly a windfall. And if multi-billionaire Trump is so concerned about the welfare of veterans, why doesn’t he just make a donation himself? Perhaps because he is famously known for being “The Least Charitable Billionaire“ in the world.

This is reminiscent of Trump’s birther challenge to President Obama to release his college transcripts and passport data in exchange for Trump donating $5 million to charity. Once again, why does Trump tie his philanthropy to whatever he can get from other people for himself? Clearly he isn’t driven by an interest in helping others. He made a similar challenge to Obama to release his birth certificate in exchange for Trump releasing his tax returns. Well, Obama did release his birth certificate, but Trump reneged on his part of the bargain.

What all of these behaviors on Trump’s part share in common is an obvious and pathetic childishness. Particularly the traits where a child believes that the world revolves around him or her self, and clings stubbornly to positions despite the absence of any logic or reason. He seems to be either stunted in emotional development or entering a stage of senility. This may explain to some degree his popularity among the infantilized set of GOP dimwits who display the same character flaws. And it clearly makes the comparison to little Ralph Wiggum all the more apt. And while we’re at it, the Simpsons provided another example of behavior that neatly fits Donald Trump. This video could have been taken of Trump as a child or even last Thursday:

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.


Hillary Clinton And The Amazing Wingnutty Media Apology Trap

Posted by on September 8, 2015 at 4:14 pm. 14 Comments :

The most overused adjective of the 2016 presidential election cycle so far has got to be the term “Outsider.” The media is thoroughly infatuated with the notion of alleged outsiders dominating the campaign season and crushing their “establishment” rivals. It’s a stark turnaround from their prior position that political neophytes (i.e. President Obama) are unqualified to assume leadership roles in government.

Hillary Clinton

These outsiders have been granted broad leeway to do and say things that ordinarily would sink any other campaign. And in today’s environment the most admirable response when caught making a formerly fatal faux pas is to double down and, by no means, apologize. Notable among the remorseless on the right is Donald Trump who has insulted Latinos by calling them criminals and rapists; dishonored veterans by saying that POWs are not heroes; pretends to be pious while insisting that he doesn’t have to ask for forgiveness because he never does anything wrong; and displays blatant misogyny aimed at any woman who challenges him. In all of these, and many other, incidents he has refused to apologize or even acknowledge that his words or actions may have been inappropriate or hurtful.

But Trump is not alone. Many of the Republican candidates are guilty of this. Mike Huckabee refused to apologize after a despicable and insensitive Holocaust reference that Obama’s deal with Iran “will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.” Ben Carson never apologized for likening ObamaCare to slavery. Jeb Bush repeatedly used the pejorative term “anchor baby” without lament (which he got from Trump). In the last presidential race Mitt Romney actually published a book titled “No Apologies.”

So it is rather disingenuous now for Republicans, and most of the media, to be obsessed with whether or not Hillary Clinton will apologize for having used a private email address. In just the past week she has been asked this question by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and again by the Associated Press. She responded that she was sorry that the subject was so confusing and expressed regret that she hadn’t decided to use separate emails, but since she did nothing wrong or illegal there was no other reason to apologize. She told the AP that “What I did was allowed. It was allowed by the State Department. The State Department has confirmed that.” These responses were then relayed to the rest of the media that continued to play up the same angle.

It’s interesting that every time a Republican refuses to apologize for their actions they are hailed as people of strong character who stand by their principles. The GOP voters drool all over themselves with ever-expanding esteem for their unyielding commitment. They are venerated for refusing to buckle under to pressure by those who would have them show remorse or even sympathy for those they malign. But when Clinton has the audacity to dismiss the need to apologize, and offers a rational explanation for her stance, she is assailed as arrogant, imperious, or out-of-touch.

This is emblematic of the right’s hypocritical approach to pretty much everything political. Inexperienced candidates are considered a threat to the nation, unless they are inexperienced Republicans like Trump or Carson. Wealthy candidates, like Clinton, are elitists who can’t relate to the common citizen, unless they are wealthy Republicans like Trump or Bush. Religious candidates like Jimmy Carter are belittled and demeaned, unless they are religious Republicans like Huckabee or Cruz. And this goes on and on with other matters including education, military service, and business experience. In every case Democrats are criticized for the same things for which Republicans are praised.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Personally, I’m a fan of apologies. It shows humility and maturity and the temperament to be able to admit one’s mistakes. People should get credit for apologizing, not criticism. But in the current political environment apologies are taken as signs of weakness. And that’s why Republicans and the press are so adamant about extracting one from Clinton. They want to portray her as weak. That’s the trap. The problem is that if she resists she is portrayed as obstinate and arrogant, but if she complies she is tagged as a spineless wimp. It’s a lose-lose proposition for her alone. Because the GOP can still refuse to apologize for anything and still get applause from the media and right-wingers who go through life with blinders on.


Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Dumbest Kim Davis Comparison Yet

Posted by on September 7, 2015 at 3:09 pm. 37 Comments :

The Kentucky County Clerk and anti-gay wannabe martyr, Kim Davis, is deservedly rotting in jail for violating a court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Her incarceration came after a Supreme Court ruling that the right to marry is constitutionally protected for gays and a federal district court finding her in contempt of court for continuing to defy the law.

Conservative advocates of Christian sharia law rallied around Davis, arguing that her religious freedom was being violated. However, there is no protection under the law for religious extremists in government offices to impose their beliefs on the people they have sworn to serve. To the contrary, as the court said, they are required to obey the law regardless of their personal preferences. These simple concepts, however, were profoundly misunderstood by Fox News who posted an article on their Fox Nation website about a separate case of religious faith in the workplace.

Fox Nation

The circumstances of Charee Stanley’s dispute with her employer Express Jet are similar to those of Kim Davis only up to a point. Stanley took a job at Express Jet and a year or so later converted to Islam. She then told her employer that her faith forbids her from serving alcohol. It was that refusal to perform the duties required of her that led to her suspension. And this is where the two women’s cases diverge.

Davis is a public servant. She was elected to her position as County Clerk and swore to uphold the law, which includes all federal laws and the provisions of the Constitution. Upon failing to do that she was ordered by the court to comply, which she likewise refused. That refusal was unarguably in defiance of a valid court order, so she was found to be in contempt of court and taken into custody by the state marshal.

Stanley is a private citizen working for a private sector business. By asserting her religious beliefs as an excuse to decline her duties she was only violating the terms of her employment, not any law. Therefore, she could reasonably be punished by her employer, but the state has no jurisdiction to arrest or incarcerate her.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

For the Fox Nationalists to suggest that there is some hypocrisy in jailing Davis but not Stanley is only evidence of the idiocy and utter absence of logic by those at Fox. There is no legal justification for jailing Stanley, but Davis is an unabashed outlaw. And in Fox’s world the innocent should be imprisoned and the guilty should go free.

[Update 9/8/2015:] The judge who jailed Davis has now ordered her released because the plaintiffs in the case have received their marriage licenses from deputies in the County Clerk’s office. The release is contingent on her not interfering with her deputies who will continue to issue licenses to all legal applicants.

Now what will the grandstanding pols (Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, etc.) who were planning on attending a protest and visiting the now-former prisoner do when they get to the Kentucky jail and Davis isn’t there? Not to worry. They are so full of bs-infused hot air that they won’t have any trouble finding something to bitch mindlessly about.