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People accuse Trump of being racist, and I don’t know if that’s true or not. But what I do know is that he manipulates people using racial issues and he does this for personal gain. So whether or not he himself is actually racist is the lesser of evils. When Trump accuses President Obama of not being born in the United States he is willfully manipulating the racist element in society who would believe such a lie. In fact, he’s speaking directly to this group.

This tactic is insidious, one might say evil, even. To the fringe element, it is a call to violence. So, Trump openly, nakedly aspires to use the fear and hatred of others for his own personal gain. If that is not evil, then I do not know what evil is.

People accuse President Obama playing the race card. We have all heard it at one time or another. That President Obama would address racial issues as a black president seems like it would be a foregone conclusion. Some may call that ‘playing the race card’ but we know better. I would defy the detractors to find an example where President Obama has used race in such a blatant way as Trump, who for nearly 5 years perpetuated a known, outrageous and race-based lie.

Trump has used race as a cornerstone of his political rise. He built his foundation on racism and exploiting the racist fears of the under educated who form a large segment of his base. His recent ‘admission’ (if you can call it that) that President Obama was born in the US rings hollow. His followers don’t believe him, and neither do the rest of us. Instead, we all the see the truth of his statement on the subject for exactly what it is, regardless of our political affiliation: It’s just another cynical attempt to win the election. The difference is that the racist elements of his base doesn’t care.

Listen, the idea that somehow Donald Trump would become a palatable candidate over Hillary Clinton simply because she’s not as healthy as a 40 year old is laughable. First of all, isn’t that the purpose of having  a running mate?

Frankly, Hillary Clinton could have 2 broken legs, gout, tuberculosis, lockjaw, be wheelchair-bound, oxygen dependent and aggressive brain cancer and I’d still cast my vote in her direction to keep Donald Trump from winning the election. Is that clear enough? She could be half digested by fungus, gutted and have her head placed on a stick in front of the castle and I’d still vote for her over Trump.

I wonder if I’m making my point clear enough?

Who cares if she coughs? It’s completely irrelevant. We have processes, stand-ins and everything else we need to keep the government running smoothly should something terrible happen. None of it is a reason to consider voting for the conman in chief wanna-be Trump. Somehow this has become an election issue. I say confront it head on: Oh, she’s not feeling good? I could give a rat’s ass. My ballot was cast months ago.

 

Today news broke that the Democrats have a nuclear option when it comes to the supreme court nomination of Mr. Garland. 
Evidently the Democrats only need to offer up a rare procedural trick which would essentially cause a simple majority vote to take place leading to the eventually up or down vote on the judge. Senator Grassley, the Republican in charge of the process reportedly said, “There’s nothing we can do about it” when asked about whether he could prevent the eventual vote.
So, while Republicans in congress constantly accuse the president being an amateur, of not leading, or of leading from behind,  these same people continuously lead their flock into fights they can’t possibly win. Each time they end up being out-maneuvered by the president whether it’s the budget, debt ceiling, foreign policy, or, well, you name it.
 
  • Ted Cruz led a useless attempt to defund the ACA and ended up shutting down the government for nothing. Beyond that, the Republicans have voted dozens of times to defund or repeal the law.
  • The Republicans led an effort to reign in Obama’s climate policy.
  • The Republicans and Tom Cotton led an effort to reign in Obama’s Iran initiative.
  • Now the Republicans have picked a fight they seem to be unable to win with the Supreme Court pick. They lose no matter what happens.
Meanwhile, President Obama must be scratching his head. Why would the Republicans continue to take public positions when they can’t possible previal?
He must wonder if losing over and over (and over) is considered great leadership by the Republican base. In the end, our President Obama usually gets whatever he wants. Perhaps this so-called ‘amateur’ isn’t so dumb after all, eh my Republican friends?

Those leading the Republican party today are total jokes. Punchlines for late night comedians. Fodder for the water cooler. The only qualified republican candidates are being overlooked and ignored by the media and will be forced to withdraw after a while due to lack of funds.

You could read 10 stories about Trump and never see a headline about about Christy, Bush or ummm, who are the other people running?

Perhaps this is a media coup after all? I mean, look what they are talking about in the press. Carson? The guy has a picture of himself with Klingon Jesus and doesn’t know apples from oranges about foreign policy.

And Trump? He’s a showman and a salesman, but NOT a politician who knows anything about policy. He thinks ratings translates into votes. We found out that isn’t true last night when we destroyed by Cruz in Iowa.

And Cruz? How could the most hated man in Washington run Washington effectively? Here’s a hint: he can’t. Can you imagine a president like Cruz? I true ideologue? He’d use executive orders to undo all the positive social changes President Obama worked so hard for. He’d work to ban every single type of abortion. He’d kick millions of people out of health care plans with his promise to repeal Obamacare. He’s a sick man who’s ready to wield power for the betterment of himself and his own personal views, but he definitely won’t be the president for all Americans. Only the staunch right wing bible thumping crew who think the apocalypse is nigh.

These guys are all fatally flawed candidates. They can’t win an election against a normal, center Democrat like Clinton. So my feeling is that the media is pumping them up which makes an easy glide path for a Democrat to take office in 2017. But I’m fine with all of it. And thank goodness. Let’s keep talking about Trump, Cruz and Carson. The more the better! I’ll laugh all the way to November.

TRUMP/PALIN for the republican ticket! smh

Would it be going too far if I called the entire Republican presidential field of candidates over the last 2 election cycles a national embarrassment? Maybe, but it’s not far off.

Let’s start with the last election.

The only candidate in 2012 who had a plausible shot at beating President Obama was Mitt Romney, but he fit in with the rest of the Republican field about as well as a boy scout at a biker rally. He was strictly a business oriented Republican and a pragmatist, not a culture warrior, and most Republicans didn’t care for him. In fact, one might say he was barely tolerated by red state voters who held their collective noses as they cast their ballots. They were voting more as a rebuke of President Obama than an endorsement of then candidate Romney.

The fact that the Republican standard bearer was so undesirable to his own party speaks volumes about how the Republicans perceived the political environment at the time. Specifically, it demonstrated that the brighter bulbs in the party who had an eye on the Whitehouse had long since concluded that running against President Obama was dead end. You only get one real chance at the Whitehouse, so why waste it?

This collective realization from nearly all the A-listers led to a power vacuum at the national level for the Republicans and set the stage for the zombie-like B-listers to wander haplessly into the void. And in they came. Candidates that ordinarily wouldn’t capture the attention of a newsroom intern were suddenly relevant and that’s why 2012 turned out to be such a disaster for the party. The patients were attempting to run the asylum.

Along with the lukewarmly-received Romney there was Ron Paul – a smart, articulate politico but also a fringe candidate with impractical views. Newt Gingrich was on his third wife which is generally a bad thing when you’re aspiring to represent the party of religion and family values, and he had a reputation from his time in congress as an angry partisan. Next there was Rick Santorum who couldn’t even get re-elected to Congress from his own state. Michele Bachmann was demagogue and nakedly ambitious. Her laughable attempt at a rogue State of the Union rebuttal was a debacle and helped seal her fate. Herman Cain was not a politician and it showed. Mike Huckabee was a creationist, and the others were even less notable than the those already mentioned. None was a serious threat to Obama.

Even the Republican electorate knew the field was stuffed with punchlines and they struggled throughout the primary season to find a suitable leader. No one wanted to settle for Romney and he had to wait his turn on the sidelines like the last kid to be picked in gym class. Polls showed voters scrutinizing literally every other candidate in the field before settling on him. A dubious honor with an unhappy and predicable ending.

Fast forward to 2015.

Now that the brass ring is up for grabs for the first time in 8 years, it should come as no surprise that the prospective candidates who grudgingly sat out the 2012 cycle are frothing at the opportunity to stake their claim. Pundits have said that the large number of GOP hopefuls is a result of the Citizens United ruling, allowing candidates to be propped up by a wealthy few, but they are only half right. The other reason is because Republican demagoguery is all the rage among the voters. If the Republican’s 2012 race (and Sarah Palin who came before them) showed the extremists on the right one thing, it was that bomb throwing is a tasty treat for primary voters.

All of these environmental changes culminated, at least momentarily, in the rise of Donald Trump. Trump is nothing less than the pinnacle of bombast, and both the public and the media have responded with open arms, although for different reasons than Trump would care to admit. The stupider, the more offensive, and the more in-your-face Trump has become, the larger his poll numbers. This has had 2 effects.

First, it’s contributed to the further decline of the stature of the Republican political machine as civility and reasonableness have been replaced by unapologetic hubris. This has also given rise to a whole slew of new candidate behaviors that would not have been tolerated in years past. Mike Huckabee, for instance, has been tripping all over himself of late to say outrageous things just to win a soundbite in the daily news cycle. It’s kind of sad to watch, but not unexpected as candidates fall all over themselves to trump Trump.

Second, it’s become nearly impossible for the better candidates to break through the noise, leaving the Republicans wondering for a second presidential election in a row if they’re going to be forced once again to field a settled-for as their party’s choice. Everyone expects Trump to fall, but no one knows when.

The Republicans have a huge right-wing problem and it’s left them a laughing stock instead of an ideological rival. A quick glance at a bell curve reminds us that the Republicans have no chance of winning from the far right. They need the center, period – but bomb-throwers don’t live in the center. So they are left with a shattered reputation and unelectable candidates who can only pretend to compete effectively as malarkey can only get you so far.

And that’s how the Republican party presidential field became such a mess.