Today a prominent member of our intrepid cast, Senator Paul Ryan, came to the realization that the entire crop of 2016 presidential candidates is bat-shit crazy. Donald Trump reportedly bit the head off a Mexican immigrant during a rally in Tempe and spit it out into the eager hands of a waiting Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Ted Cruz issued a statement calling Trump a ‘stupid-pants’ for stealing his idea.
Senator Ryan’s next move was one of desperation….
Today’s red meat loving right-wing base doesn’t mind hearing terrible things about Muslims, immigrants and anyone else they decided they don’t like. But when outrageous talk provokes outrageous action, , they won’t bother looking in the mirror or at their leaders for answers. Instead violence only provokes more violence and their leaders will be the ones clamoring to bring it to them.
Engagement has always been the way to quiet the angry rumblings of international animosity. Winning hearts and minds was never accomplished through violence. But most in the grassroots right-wing conservative movement don’t even know the difference between Sikhs and Muslims and often mistake them for one another. How can they be expected to vote for leaders who claim to understand the nuanced way to deal with a culturally different and population? They just want to vote for people who preach violence and intolerance.
The reason we have freedom of religious is not only to protect the religious group, but to prevent discord within the population in general. Antagonizing an entire group of people, especially religious fanatics, is a great way to provoke a response and we need to collectively come to that realization.
In the last decade, it seems that terror attacks just prior to elections have become all the rage. It’s almost becoming a regular expectation even when it doesn’t happen. As a population of intelligent and calm-minded people, we need to learn to expect such atrocities in today’s environment and not over-react to even the most terrible of provocations. If we can’t do that, then the bad guys win – the war mongers among us who would rather steal power through antagonistic methodologies and violence, and those who perpetrate the violence by provoking the reactions they set out to provoke.
The GOP rank-and-file just love to call Obama an emperor, insinuating that he’s left the constitution behind and become a lawless president. They accuse him of abusing his executive authority and label him accordingly. But President Obama has done much more to get his way than sign a few executive orders. At nearly every alpha-item turn, the President has outfoxed the entire Republican congress even after they took control of both houses in 2012.
The president has a handful of foreign policy accomplishments like the historic Iran deal, the historic Cuba re-engagement, and historic climate deals. And there’s more. The president won every shutdown or near shutdown fight over spending and the debt limit, passed him signature healthcare reform bill, and managed to preside over same-sex marriage’s court win as icing on the cake. The Republicans have been powerless to stop him, and yet have managed to become known as ‘the party of no’ even as they attempt to stifle his every initiative.
Now comes the death of Antonin Scalia, noted conservative jurist and scourge of the left, and the subsequent nomination of Merrick Garland. Almost predictably the reaction on the right was nakedly political. ‘Obama gets to name another justice, replacing a conservative?! Over my dead body!’ Many of them, even before the end of the day, had publicly come out as saying they would never confirm a justice nominated by President Obama, even though nearly a year remained before the end of his term.
Let me now take a moment to mention that Republicans have become amazing adept at these kinds of knee jerk reactions, and this is probably the most notable to date. It’s even more damazing than their last major political failure when, led by Senator Ted Cruz, they shut down the government over the federal budget in October of 2013. In this case, and in an astonishing display of political malpractice, they have tied their deliberate intransigence to an unpopular issue directly connected to the presidential election.
In picking this issue to make a stand, the Republicans have given several great political tools to their adversaries and have left themselves no way out of their own box.
First, this knee-jerk display of partisanship will be seen as obstructionism by objective people. Most people feel that this popular president has a right to select the replacement. Also, the constitution is clear on presidential and congressional responsibilities. The Republican’s primary rationale – that the American people should have their say thereby delaying consideration of a replacement – rings hollow, given that it’s only March. And those who say Obama ignores the constitution are now forced to eat their own words as they ignore their own party’s political departure from any kind of strict adherence to the letter of the law. Many will be hammered for months as hypocrites.
Secondly, vulnerable Republicans and those who aren’t plain crazy will understand that this posture of denying Garland a vote will not play well with moderate voters. The President’s approval rating is high right now, and varound surveys reportedly agree with the President that the nominee should be considered by congress and given a vote. These Republicans will put pressure on their own party to move past the issue, and in so doing, squeeze Mitch McConnell between their own vulnerable candidates and their immovable base.
Finally, this issue isn’t going away and is tied existentially to the election. This means that voters will, in part, make decisions based on the optics associated with this event. Democrats will no doubt work tirelessly to keep this partisan blockade of this nomination on the minds of voters right up until election day. The Republicans are acting unfairly and Some voters will probably punish them for it.
So Republicans, led by Chuck Grassley and Mitch McConnell, have once again built themselves a nice box to sit in. If they hold firm on their position not to grant a vote to the nominee, they will suffer repeated attacks all the way through election day. On the other hand, if they relent, they will be seen as weak and ineffective by their unrelentingly extreme voter base. They really have nowhere to go on this issue.
Recently our intrepid hero was quoted saying, “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain”.
For months now people on both sides of the political spectrum have been handwringing about how to beat Donald, or whether he might beat himself. The Republicans will be the first to fall by virtue of the fact that they meet Donald head-on in primary season but make no mistake – the Democrats will have to face him soon enough.
To just about everyone in the media, the circus turned serious contender has been nothing short of a jaw gaping mystery. You mean a total outsider with a loud mouth and ridiculous policy positions hasn’t been laughed out of the race? What about Michelle Bachmann, Todd Akin and Sarah Palin? That’s what’s supposed to happen to these kinds of people!
But lo, Trump has managed to elude the grip of death that has doomed so many before him leaving the media in their collective confusion to wonder about their own relevancy in this new, bizarre world. How does this end? And if I can’t predict the future with any reasonable degree of accuracy on this roller coaster, what good am I to anyone as a pundit?
But there is a simple answer, and that answer is to ignore the 3 Bs (bullying, bloviating and bombast) and forcefully return the conversation to one focused exclusively on policy. Donald can be beaten on policy, but if he’s allowed to run his entire campaign using the 3 Bs, he’ll control the news and the election.
Imagine for a moment a match-up in a general election between President Obama and Donald Trump. How would President Obama handle Trump and his 3 Bs? Obama wouldn’t get caught up in Donald’s web of nonsense. He would stick to the policy discussion, ignore personal attacks, and beat Trump by discussing his positions. The problem we’ve had this election cycle is that Trump has figured out that if he talks about waterboarding, carpet bombing, Losers and Megyn Kelly, he doesn’t have to talk about healthcare, minimum wage, gay marriage, or how he’s really going to handle Putin in the Ukraine, or North Korea, or Iran. Pulling back the curtain is the way to expose Trump to the middle of the road voters who decide every election.
At the end of the day, Trump is a showman who has relied on smoke and mirrors to drown out his competition. But his co-campaigners have also allowed Trump to control the dialog, flailing away with various tactics in their attempts to dodge the steam roller. Cruz tried by killing Trump with kindness – at least at first. But you can’t win playing a willing second fiddle. Bush tried feebly to stand up to the campus bully with predicable results. He was verbally wedgied out of the race. Rubio is finally putting up a stronger fight, but even if it wasn’t too little too late, it wouldn’t work anyway. You can’t out-3B Donald Trump. You simply need to change the rules back to the default. Get campaigns talking about campaign issues, and not Donald’s latest foray into his beloved mine field of taboos.
But Trump has used the Bs to great advantage and obscured from the public his lack of policy sophistication as his Achilles heel.
Recently Donald mentioned that he’s a fan of Planned Parenthood. This is policy kryptonite that not even Donald can overcome with some of his prospective supporters. If Hillary can find enough policy positions that are untenable to his RINO hating base, he’ll prove himself the closet liberal they are all afraid of, and he’ll lose vital support. Policy, and nothing else will sleigh this dragon, but we need to steer the conversation back from the brink of darkness. If Donald continues to be allowed to control the news cycle with the 3 Bs, he’ll control the election.
I finally had a chance to see the video where Christy was told over a hot mic to go home by Donald Trump. The link is below.
This clip is great for 500 reasons but most importantly, it shows Donald Trump for who he really is. A guy who doesn’t want to share the spotlight, even for a moment. A rude man who treats his people like errand boys. And a man used to having people say yes, no matter what.
Donald Trump is a showman, and he’s putting on a show for people. Christy was nothing more than a prop who made a terrible, horrible, life changing mistake by selling his soul to the Donvil.
Goodbye sweet Christy. You’ve been sent home.
Today Trump said, “One of the things I’m going to do if I win, and I hope we do and we’re certainly leading. I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We’re going to open up those libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/02/donald-trump-libel-laws-219866#ixzz41JhOsyat
So Trump is already moving to subvert the constitution – and in plain sight. Freedom of press is one of the MOST IMPORTANT FREEDOMS we have. Allowing a free press prevents ABUSE OF POWER by wannabe dictators like Trump. Low educated Trump supporters won’t care, but should. Subverting the press means silencing opposition. First step towards a police state. BEWARE!
Ironically, these same Trumpsters spent the last 7 years calling President Obama a dictator for, ironically, helping them get affordable health care. Now these same intellectually challenged low information voters are ready to elect an ACTUAL dictator whose first order of business, evidently, is to erode the first amendment protections of a free press.
Trump is clearly thin-skinned. He likes to portray himself as a seasoned, thick skinned professional, but his late night Twitter rants and 4th grade debate style paint a strikingly different picture.
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
Today Donald Trump “boycotted” the Fox debate.
My view? You’re an idiot, and so am I.
Fox and Trump had to have coordinated this whole wrestle-mania-like, nonsense feud. It’s terrible politics, really, but it’s GREAT television. Reality TV at it’s best for a land full of nitwits who tune in every day for another helping.
Let’s consider the facts.
Can anyone remember the last time Fox released such an unprofessional statement? So, we’re supposed to believe that suddenly Fox is a ‘fair and balanced’ news outfit where sarcastic commentary is acceptable? Did they hire Ann Coulter and Rush whatever-his-name-is to manage the newsroom?
And can anyone imagine that Donald Trump would NOT react predictably to said sarcastic statement?
So, Fox’s obvious taunt of a presidential front runner is curious at best.
It’s unprofessional, but not so much so that they’ve crossed any real lines of decency. But starting a childish war of words with someone like Trump who could credibly be considered a contender for President is not in the interest of anyone – unless it is.
This reminds me of the standard formula for many reality TV shows where they stuff a bunch of misfits into a big house and sit back while they film the drama. Except it’s not stupid reality TV. It’s prime time American Republican politics and it’s become a bonafide circus act.
Considering Fox isn’t actually run by idiots, they HAD TO KNOW Trump would respond aggressively, so this was all planned theatre. And now they get 2 huge ratings events instead and one. Laughing all the way to the bank.
This is a show, people, nothing more, by the greatest snake oil salesman of all time and the shucksters at Fox news who willing peddle his crap. And we’re the puppets watching it and paying for it. Let that sink in. How’s that feel? I skipped both events although I admit reading this article just to find out if the Republicans were actually able to discuss any policy… And not a hint of policy in this entire article.
Why? Because it’s boring for the Guns and Religion crowd. They’d rather see Sarah Palin balancing a hunting rifle on the bearded Duck Dynasty guy’s head while she shoots at endangered ferrets just to prove she’s more American than you.
Good god, we’ve become a nation of idiots.