The Clothes Have No Trump

So the emperor went in procession under the rich canopy, and every one in the streets said, 'How incomparable are the emperor's new clothes! what a train he has to his mantle! how it fits him!' No one would let it be perceived that he could see nothing, for that would have shown that he was not fit for his office, or was very stupid. No clothes of the emperor's had ever had such a success as these...

It started out as observations from those who cover campaigns, especially the fundraising and financial aspects. Donald Trump wasn't spending all that much on his own Presidential campaign.

There was a kind of paradox at play there. Trump entered the 2016 campaign last year bragging, bragging that he was the richest guy on the block worth billions of dollars. Yet he was campaigning almost entirely for free. You couldn't blame him, though. The media - Fox Not-News, the other cable channels, Daily Show, late-night stand-ups, social media - were all giving him free publicity. Even the attacks were all good for Donald, as unashamed and vulgar and he was, because even bad coverage was still getting his trademarked name - Trump (tm) - out there. Why spend millions on an ad campaign when your name and face was plastered over the news channels?

As a result, Trump grew in power and position among the Republican candidates. None dare knock him off the hilltop because the party feared he would flee and start his own campaign, one that would draw a third of their own voters away and ruin every electoral chance. None dare go after his rabid fanbase of angry voters, hoping to either win them over should Trump self-destruct or to avoid their wrath.

At no time did the Party do its homework, force the issue, argue against Trump's wealth. The Republican mindset about business and wealth was that you never question it, it's always good, everyone WANTS to be rich and powerful, and no one should ever question the rich and powerful. The party leaders never bothered to call up their friends in the world that Trump comes from, to find out if Trump was really telling the truth - as though Trump was never the world's biggest bullshit artist - about being a billionaire. They never worked up the nerve to insist on Trump helping out with the overall Party fundraising, to put money down for the other elections the GOP needed to win this cycle.

And on and on the con game went. Nobody wanted to delve too deep when they had the chance during the Primaries, and so Trump bluffed his way through a gauntlet of timid, foolish, unfit candidates within a political party trapped by their own self-serving fantasies. By the time anybody could do anything, he was the only one left.

'But he has nothing on!' a little child cried out at last.

'Just hear what that innocent says!' said the father; and one whispered to another what the child had said. 'There is a little child that says he has nothing on.'

It is the prerogative of children to state the obvious. The very young do not play the games of self-deception and deceit that adults play.

Critics kept warning - not just the general voters but the Republican Party itself - that Trump was a trap: every endeavor he'd ever gotten himself into went bankrupt or failed because he wasted money, indulged on himself, refused to do the heavy lifting, or merely sought to put his name on stuff before it collapsed into dust.

Trump wasn't going to be campaigning for the glory or health of the Republican Party: he was going to campaign for himself. And get as much money out of it he could before the deal went sour.

Thing about Trump's deal-making abilities: he's really not that savvy about smoothing out things that could profit both sides. He just goes in, argues for more and more slices of the pie, bullies those who don't cave quick enough, insults critics without care, and refuses to pay for services rendered by threatening to sue and forcing his workers to settle for less.

This is not a guy who has the temperament to talk to "other" rich people about donations and financial support. This is a guy who made three phone calls to deep-pocket backers of the GOP and gave up, having failed to get one donation that the RNC hoped to get out of the calls.

And today was a horrific day for the RNC: Filings with the FEC show that Trump really doesn't have that much money in hand, and he's been spending a lot of what he did have on his family, close business associates, his own businesses, and questionable vendors all of whom tie back into Trump.

And now the entire party is stuck. The Republicans can't get any of their deep-pocket billionaires to finance a campaign the wealthy can tell is a rip-off (because they know already Trump is a grifter). The Republicans can't dump Trump - not before the convention, not during the convention, not after - because Trump has enough of a following that when (not if) he departs he leaves behind a riot of angry voters refusing any order the party elites could issue.

There's a struggle now for the SuperPACs and outside funding to carry on direct (as allowed by Citizens United) support to the Senate and House campaigns: the mad hope that they can separate the Congressional tickets from a now-toxic Presidential one. That has problems too: You can't separate the party like that anymore. Nearly every voter votes the entire ticket (if they know to: far too many leave the down-ballot slots empty) anymore, that's how partisan our system has gotten. Voters will still vote for OR against a party entirely on how that party's leadership sells the whole group.

This is where the Republicans are right now: Trump's broke, nobody's rushing in to start paying for things, they've got a convention in less than a month where the corporate backers are jumping ship, and this is all getting public in the worst way.

It's a good thing the Republican Party is already dead. Otherwise I might worry this would be bad for the country. Thank God for schadenfreude.

'But he has nothing on!' said the whole people at length. And the emperor shivered, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought within himself, 'I must go through with the procession.' And so he carried himself still more proudly, and the chamberlains held on tighter than ever, and carried the train which did not exist at all. - Hans Christen Andersen

No Plans, No Backup, No Exit

As the polling numbers flounder, there are other signs of discord and chaos within the World of Trump (tm):

What is concerning for Trump backers and Republicans (the Venn diagram of overlap between those groups seems to be in perpetual flux) is that it appears to be distracting from the rest of the crucial work of building a presidential campaign. For most intents and purposes, there appears to be no Trump campaign... 

As David A. Graham at the Atlantic notes:

For example, Trump has no state-level campaign director in Ohio or Colorado, two top-shelf swing states. Across the map, Republican officials say they’re just waiting to hear on what to do from either Trump or the Republican National Committee, but so far they’re hearing very little. “I'll say that as far as building the infrastructure of a campaign, the RNC has been doing it for many years,” Trump said at a press conference in May...

It's true that the national committee has always handled the "ground game" aspects of the nuts-and-bolts, usually coordinating with their state branches to get volunteers and call centers organized, but there's always been a joint effort with the campaigner himself to, you know, put something into that effort to get it started. Everyone's waiting for Trump to settle into his own chain of command, press a Start button to get the general election engine going... and he's too busy yammering at rallies and Tweeting online to get his own house in order.

At the beginning of that article, Graham noted how Trump is hiring just a handful of people, and mostly focused on his home state of New York as a place he wants to win. Which flies a bit into the face of common sense because New York is so liberal Blue in national elections - and with Hillary claiming it as a home-state as well - that the Republicans are better off cutting their losses and focusing on Ohio and Florida instead.

Trump's thinking on this mimics his thinking on trying to win California: deluded that a solid Blue state could be treated like a toss-up, because it's Electoral College-heavy (gotta win HUGE) and because Trump seems to know where the state is on the map (Trump's ego is telling him New Yawk is his place and the people there are HIS people).

What's interesting is how Trump is screwing up on the finer details of campaigning: Even an amateur like myself would know to set up and keep running - especially if I'm winning - state-level offices during the primaries to have a ground crew in place for the post-convention push into the General election. It may cost some money - isn't Trump supposed to be rich, and isn't he supposed to be good at hiring people to work for him? - but even a volunteer staff would be something. This is common-sense stuff, stuff I've seen for statewide Governor campaign in-person volunteering for Crist in 2010 and with Obama's ground games in 2008 and 2012.

It's as though Trump is trying to run his whole thing on the cheap: He HAD gotten so much free press coverage up until now that it helped him avoid wasting money during the Primary season on ad time. It's his modus operandi of Other People's Money, instead of money it's with Other People's Press Coverage. And now he seems to think he can just campaign the whole way like this.

Hint: He can't. This is the part of the campaign where the fight goes to Get Out The Vote efforts, bigger ad pushes, fund-raising that requires money be spent first to get the staff to raise those funds and organize more events and drum up constant support. And he's not getting any of that in place right now.

By comparison, Hillary's got a ground game in most battleground toss-up states and is already buying up ad time. She'll be selling a positive spin on herself - and mudslinging a ton of dirt at Trump - that can reach more people and with better effectiveness than any Trump Tweet could. And we're still weeks ahead of the Democratic convention in Philly.

Trump is showing signs that he honestly doesn't know how to campaign for the Presidency in the first place, and that he's not hiring the right people to do it for him. He's also not in the mood - hilariously enough - to do any fund-raising himself (also via Graham):

A related and intertwined problem is Trump’s lack of fundraising. Although he once said he’d raise $1 billion, his new fundraising team—mostly constituted by the RNC, of course—is working to depress expectations, saying there’s little chance he’ll raise that much. In fact, many members told The Wall Street Journal they haven’t even done any work yet. There’s a vicious cycle at work here, which is that as donors see the Trump campaign in chaos, they’re unwilling to fork over their hard-earned cash. Why back a candidate who’s rending the Republican Party apart, doesn’t follow conservative orthodoxy, and seems to have no idea what he’s doing with the money?

From the Politico, this little tidbit:

...While Trump had promised Priebus that he would call two dozen top GOP donors, when RNC chief of staff Katie Walsh recently presented Trump with a list of more than 20 donors, he called only three before stopping, according to two sources familiar with the situation. It’s unclear whether he resumed the donor calls later.

Meanwhile, there’s deep skepticism on Trump’s campaign about the RNC’s commitment to the presumptive GOP nominee, with some campaign officials questioning how hard the RNC is working to help Trump and to raise money for his campaign’s joint committees with the party.

There's a sense that Trump wants control of the funds, but doesn't want to do any of the heavy lifting to get those funds in the first place. Again, Other's People Money at work here.

It's like having a professional cyclist keep the lead of the Tour de France up until the 15th Stage, and then suddenly stop pedaling (peddling?) unless the other cyclists on the Tour take over the pedaling for him.

There's been this buzz that somewhere within - deep down in a secret part of the empty space that should contain his soul - Trump is that he really doesn't want to be President. I can see where the idea would come from: Being President is too demanding, too time-consuming and too limiting on someone like Trump who has to be 100 other places all at once doing his own thing and not someone else's.

Here's the problem: Trump always wants to paint himself as a winner... even when he's running away from whatever disaster he just created - failing casinos, struggling sports league, doomed airline, questionable online school - with his terrible skills. He can't just quit the campaign for something because the ENTIRE WORLD is witnessing this. That would be a huge admission of failure, and it would wreck his trademarked name.

If there's an exit strategy - get kicked off the ballot by the GOP, or have the convention stolen from him - it still compels him at this point to play the game to the bitter end by angrily (justifiably) running as an Independent/Write-In if only to wreck the Republicans for "betraying" him. I doubt scandal - any emerging facts of his dubious business practices for example - will drive him out. Only Trump can destroy Trump, and he doesn't want to.

So for now I'm thinking he's in this to win this. He just doesn't realize what that means.

What I'm figuring is that Trump has a Plan A: Run for President using the same marketing skills to promote his brand (his NAME) to draw in enough suckers voters to win and draw in enough billionaire fools fellow rich people to give him enough money to pay off growing debts he'd rather not people know to enjoy the good life. It works (worked) for the Primary, but the General election is filled with voters who aren't suckers for a wingnut egomaniacal platform.

Trump does not have a Plan B. From what I've seen of his career, Plan B is usually bankruptcy court. That doesn't help here.

This is where the Republicans have to panic. They are facing the WORST of both worlds here. Either Trump stays on as their standard-bearer, running a disorganized mess that scares away the deep-pocket funders (more and more companies are refusing to support their convention, for example) and wrecks the whole party's ability to campaign for down-ballot offices. Or Trump leaves, but in a way that either burns the whole house down as he runs for it or else prevents the party from fixing the damage left in his wake.

Kicking Trump out is no longer an option: They do that, and the voting base riots. Worse for the RNC, they'll stop voting Republican at every level. Their dying party - still shambling about zombie-like - dies for real, and stays dead for more than one generation.

In the RNC's best-case scenario, Trump nominates a "respectable" long-time politician as his Veep, then quits for some vague excuse allowing the RNC or the convention delegates to rally to the Veep to step up as the Presidential candidate for the General election. But even then, the party will be weeks behind in organization compared to Hillary and the Dems. The Republicans would have to start from scratch in July something that should have been up and running by May. And knowing Trump, his Veep selection is going to be someone so similar in tone against immigrants and women that the replacement candidate will be just as toxic and hated as Trump, meaning they'll still poll poorly and lose in November.

The only good news in THAT scenario for the GOP is that they could get their fund-raising efforts back into play to where they could salvage their Congressional and state-level campaigns. Maybe.

The only real way Trump leaves is if he's utterly convinced he's not going to make any money out of his scam campaign. Which might be why the RNC isn't so rushed to do anything to help: the Republicans have always been about "starving the beast," after all. But the Republicans have to starve themselves in the process if they do this, with no guarantee they can recover as a Party.

I'm adding this to the Schadenfreude tag, just because it is maliciously joyous to watch the Republicans panic as this oncoming storm of disorganized hell approaches them.

I just hope innocent people don't get hurt in this.

Honest Bumper Stickers 2016: The Tenth Terror

Oh wow, it's been some time since I made a few of these.

It's kind of gotten down to the final two main contenders - Hillary vs. Trump - although I may create one or two for Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Jill Stein.

Anyway, indulge.

Should I make more?

On the Florida Front, Shifting Candidates (w/ Update)

(Update below)
Just to keep you all informed of the current situation on the ground here.

The US Senate race in Florida is changing as one Republican candidate drops out to re-apply for the Congressional district he was leaving... in order to make room for Rubio to re-apply for the Senate seat he was vacating in order to run for President (state laws prohibit a candidate from running for two separate seats on one ballot).

To the Tampa Bay Times article!

The move sets up what could be an epic contest between Republican-turned-Democrat and former Gov. Charlie Crist, who is seeking the seat. After court-ordered redistricting, Jolly's seat now technically leans further toward the Democrats, though Jolly said Friday that a focus on local issues and solutions instead of partisan posturing would help him win over skeptics.

The switch also gets Jolly out of the way of incumbent Sen. Marco Rubio, who is poised to run for re-election after long saying he would not. Jolly had declared weeks ago that he expected Rubio to reverse course and run for the Senate, and he made clear he would not run against Rubio under any circumstance.

Four other Republicans are also running in the race to replace Rubio, but none has surged to the forefront, causing national Republicans to become increasingly worried that none can win in November. That has prompted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others to publicly call on Rubio to run again for the Senate...

Rubio has kind of burned a few bridges during his Presidential campaign: Back in October he complained about the work - which was laughable because he was one of the most tardy Senators in office - and had blown off his responsibilities to the job in his constant setting up for this year's Presidential run. It would be interesting to see if he get back in (likely), which still depends on him filing by June 24. It shouldn't be too hard for him to get the signatures and funding in.

If Rubio returns, he's likely to win the Republican primary: With Jolly out, it's down to four lesser-known figures (two of whom might drop to avoid confronting Rubio) and it's with a state-wide party struggling to find any kind of salvation in the wake of Trump's bulldozing through here last March.

The thing will be the general election against the Democratic candidate, which is shaping up to be either Pat Murphy or Alan Grayson... likely to be Murphy, because Grayson's grand-standing and potential scandal is wearing out its welcome among Democratic ranks.

Just saying: both elections are key. Voters need to turn out for the Democrats both for the Senate race - make Rubio regret his absences and failures as a Senator, and turn the Senate back over to Dem control - and the House race - this is a good opportunity for Florida Dems to secure more Representatives, and get Crist to serve as a solid advocate for South Pinellas County - as part of an overall campaign to make Florida Blue.

Get the vote out, Florida Democrats. The congressional/state primary is in August, just around the corner... Every election matters, people!

Update 6/18: Just as I wrote this, it seemed the Atlantic did a report on Jolly's situation going back to run for the Congressional seat instead of the Senate. Jolly might not have anyone backing him up:

Jolly is an incumbent and by all accounts has the best shot against Charlie Crist, the former Florida governor (and ex-Republican) who won the Democratic nomination in his latest bid for a political comeback. A statement that does not even cheer his decision, much less commit support, is remarkable...

The committee helped Jolly win a tough special-election race in early 2014, a victory that presaged the GOP’s national gains in November of that year. But a rift emerged in April after 60 Minutes featured Jolly in a profile about his effort to pass legislation that would bar members of Congress from directly soliciting campaign donations. In an interview on the program, Jolly said that right after he was elected, a member of the party leadership sat him down and told him that his “first responsibility” as a new congressman was to raise $18,000 a day to get reelected.

The NRCC denied the meeting took place, and it was particularly angry that CBS was able to get a hidden camera into its “call center” near the Capitol where members dial for dollars. The 60 Minutes piece portrayed Jolly in a glowing light as a political reformer fighting against the odds. But fellow Republicans viewed his participation as a self-serving betrayal of the party and a barely disguised bid to boost his standing in a Senate race in which he was struggling to gain traction—no doubt in part due to poor fund-raising. Even more galling to Republicans was the insinuation that Jolly, a former congressional staffer and lobbyist, didn’t know what he was getting into when he arrived in Congress...

You see, the fund-raisers don't mind if you campaign every day to raise money for them. 'Cause it's all about the money. They'll get mighty pissed if you raise a stink about it instead.

I doubt Jolly's not a real reformer, though. I'm guessing he just didn't want to spend time dialing for donations, time better spent playing Call of Duty: Fake Soldier Sim on his Playstation.

Welcome to the Crazy World of Donald Trump

I vaguely recall a month or two ago there was this "conventional wisdom" that once Trump wrapped up the Primaries and got the nomination sewn up for the Republican ticket, he'd try to pivot back to the "moderate" center of a general campaign. That Trump would calm down, dial back the anger and the bomb-throwing. That Trump would drop the harsh tone he'd been using in opposition to immigrants and civil liberties and foreign relations and all that.

Welp. You can squash that "conventional wisdom" under a boot-heel. Trump's not dialing back a thing. He's doubling down on the cray-cray (via David Graham at the Atlantic):

Donald Trump isn’t pivoting to the center. If anything, he’s growing more bombastic, more erratic, more—well, more like Trump, as the primary gives way to the general election.

Celebrating his 70th birthday, the presumptive Republican nominee provided attendees a mix of red meat and bewilderment, veering between denunciations of Hillary Clinton, President Obama, and The Washington Post (all well received) and proclamations of his strong support for LGBT Americans (met with some apprehension). In the weirdest moment of the night, Trump seemed to imply that American troops in Iraq had pocketed money meant for reconstruction after the war...

...The shooting in Orlando over the weekend has given Trump a new way to talk about immigration and national security. It has also dashed Republican officials’ latest hopes that Trump might be persuaded to tone down his rhetoric. Instead, he has redoubled his call for a ban on Muslim immigration, effectively accused Obama of treason, and announced that he would not credential The Washington Post for reporting those comments...

Try to remember that to Trump, he's never been about honesty or accuracy or facts: He's always about getting attention, pushing the outrage, selling the anger. He'll never tone it down for anybody. And it's not because he believes all of the insults and lies he utters - some of his own bullshit he might believe, maybe - but because he believes it will get him victories.

For a Republican Party now focusing on the priorities of the general election - not just for the Presidency but for Congress and even vulnerable state governments - where appealing to a broader (more moderate) range of voters REQUIRES a pivot to a muddled, milder middle (even just for appearance's sake), having Trump command the Crazy Train to Warp Factor Nine has got to be driving every leader - RNC chair Priebus, Speaker Ryan, various Senators and Governors some of whom already caved to support Trump - straight to the hard drinks and to the doctor's office with sudden cases of ulcers and headaches.

And we're still a few weeks away from the Cleveland convention. There is every chance Trump is going to keep Tweeting and speaking his Id to crazier and harsher stances on public policies.

For myself, I can only hope this starts translating into party-wide abandonment. America can only hope that whatever's left of the sane fringes of the Republican Party bolts for higher ground and votes... well, for once I'll begrudge them voting Libertarian, with former Governor Gary Johnson as their nominee.

Did you ever think we could live in a world where the Libertarian (these are the guys who worship the Gold Standard and dance in their Speedos on a national stage and I am NOT linking to that, even I have standards) candidate is the SANE and EXPERIENCED alternative to the Republican candidate? I mean, usually the Libertarian nominee is some college professor or fringe-issue businessman, but they've got a two-time governor who actually knows what he's doing (relatively speaking, I still oppose a lot of their tax and deregulatory platform on principle) while the Republican Trump is an ignorant amateur blowhard lacking qualifications to even run for the Pasco County Mosquito Control Board (all apologies to Pasco County for dragging you all into this).

Still, it troubles me that while Trump's poll numbers are slipping he will continue to enjoy a level of support among voters all because he's taken over a major political party and can count on tribal affiliation to earn him votes he clearly does not deserve. I keep thinking back to Rude Pundit's revelation how in 2014 his own relatives, knowing better, still voted full Republican even though they knew the Republicans would screw them over on health care needs. All because they couldn't break their tribal conditioning.

Trump may be polling at 37 percent right now but by GOD we need to see him at 27 percent (or better still single digits).

Why 27 percent as the cutoff? Well...

There's this classic blog post on the site Kung Fu Monkey. This was back in 2005 people, and while the argument was about how low Bush the Lesser's polling could go - which by 2007-08 got really low at 25 percent - the overall discussion was on the political crazy, and this discussion on "The Crazification Factor" can help you comprehend just how long we've had this problem:

John: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is --

Tyrone: 27%.

John: ... you said that immediately, and with some authority.

Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population.

John: Objectively crazy or crazy vis-a-vis my own inertial reference frame for rational behaviour? I mean, are you creating the Theory of Special Crazification or General Crazification?

Tyrone: Hadn't thought about it. Let's split the difference. Half just have worldviews which lead them to disagree with what you consider rationality even though they arrive at their positions through rational means, and the other half are the core of the Crazification -- either genuinely crazy; or so woefully misinformed about how the world works, the bases for their decision making is so flawed they may as well be crazy.

John: You realize this leads to there being over 30 million crazy people in the US?

Tyrone: Does that seem wrong?

John: ... a bit low, actually.

We're coping with Special Crazification now, America: where an entire Republican party's voting base has become so worked up by a false reality sold to them by liars and Ponzi schemers that they chose a bullshit con artist as their Presidential candidate.

If you're just wondering, John refers to John Rogers, television producer who was working on a show Leverage at the time he blogged that (who is Tyrone?). Just recently he Tweeted about one of Trump's campaign PAC funders:

This is the world we are in now. Reality and fiction are twisting on each other.

Welcome to the crazy.

A Simple Request To All Americans

Dear America:

Considering all the things Trump did and said today...

Would you all kindly drop Trump's polling numbers into single digits, please? I wanna see this joker getting about 6 percent support on RCP by the end of this week.

There is no goddamn way any of us should be voting for this scumbucket.

Signed,

Paul

Waking Up To Troubling News In Orlando

There's been another shooting.

A gunman attacked an Orlando nightclub - about a 90-minute drive away - between 2 to 5 am this Saturday night. Called the Pulse, it was a place that was hosting around 230 people, a busy night...

So far, 20 people dead at least. The gunman was killed when the police determined the situation was going to get worse. There are tens more people at the local hospitals with serious injuries.

The gunman had at least one assault rifle, one handgun, and reportedly an explosive device - a bomb vest? - which is making the authorities think it's a terror attack. There's still a lot they don't know, so this is all conjecture until they can find more evidence.

This is horrifying. Hundreds of people gathered for a night of celebrating, sharing with friends, getting out and feeling alive... and some of them aren't alive anymore. Many of them coming back are stunned, scarred...

All because of an angry guy with guns. Regardless his motivation, his politics, his religion... it takes rage to make a person do this, to strike out with an act of violence on this scale.

We just had another tragic shooting in Orlando the day before. A singer, a minor celebrity - a popular contestant from the TV show "The Voice", Christina Grimmie - was shot by a stalker who hunted her across the state (edited for earlier factual errors, I originally listed him as an ex, my bad) while she was giving autographs.

The two shootings are unrelated. It's not like Grimmie's shooter knew the guy who shot up the Pulse. But they're practically the same because they echo each other: Angry Guy + Easy Access to Guns = Shootings.

Doesn't matter if each shooting left one dead or tenscore dead, the result is the same. People who were alive a minute ago are dead now. All because of anger. All because someone had access to firearms and wanted to play Death God to satisfy their rage.

Update: I'm finding out the nightclub is a well-known LGBT hangout, and there's something on Twitter about it being "Latin night", which sounds like a mixture of some of the more inflammatory culture war issues bouncing around our election cycle right now. Dammit.

Update 2:40 PM: The latest is that the number of dead went up - the injured not surviving their wounds - to 50 as of now, which officially makes this the worst mass shooting in American history.

Worse than Columbine. Worse than Virginia Tech. Worse than Sandy Hook. Worse than 100,000 other mass shootings we have in this nation because a small minority of gun owners prefer worshiping death over the safety of millions.

Dear God.

Update 3:05 PM: President Obama's remarks.

I am not about to add a link to anything Donald Trump has to say about it. His Twitter feed has him crowing about this.

Ferris Bueller Movie is 30 Years Old This Weekend

Esquire magazine just reminded me Ferris Bueller's Day Off is 30 years old this weekend.

To all my fellow Gen-Xers (those born between 1965 and 1977) lemme just say this:

AHHHHHHHHHH WE'RE OLD WE'RE OLD WHERE THE HELL DID OUR HIGH SCHOOL YEARS OF WACKY HIJINKS GO?!?!?!?!?!

At some point nostalgia gets horrifying.

I can only hope that we're ready now - with our collective disdain for Isms that Ferris taught us - that my generation can become leaders on the global stage and save you all from evil Boomer plans.

At least we know our culture has left a lasting impact on future generations.

Chicka-chicka.

Oh No

Trump is throwing a rally at the downtown convention center today.

He's going to have Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott and Pam "F-ck You Pay Me" Bondi in attendance.

Considering Bondi is getting outed for SOLICITING campaign contributions from Trump before dropping a state investigation into Trump U fraud charges, sharing a stage with her is going to be really bad optics at BEST...

Here's hoping the mob doesn't mess up the place, we need it cleaned up for the upcoming Tampa Comic-Con in August, okay???

Any bets on if Trump says something disparaging about the local Cuban population? Anyone...?

Goin' to California With an Aching In My Trump

So in one of those developing stories where it comes out that someone you oppose politically does something reckless/foolish/both, there's this to say about Trump's apparent plan to campaign heavily in Blue (aka Solid Democrats) states this election cycle:

Dafuq?

Or, to quote from Gary Legum at Salon.com:

...California is too big, too Blue, and the state’s Republican Party has all the heft and impact of a Whiffle ball. The state hasn’t voted for a Republican for president since George H.W. Bush in 1988. It has a large Latino population, a group with which he polls very badly thanks to his outright racism. No polling operation that I can find has it on a list of potential toss-ups...

Lemme put it to you this way:

California's so Blue that when you drive past the Nevada/Cali border your radio starts playing the entire catalog of Atlantic Records' R&B artists.

California's so Blue the Blue Man Group can't perform there because they could blend into the background and never be seen again.

California's so Blue they have to dye the wines to their proper red color.

California's so Blue they haven't had a Republican win the Presidential campaign there since 1988.

And yet, a little like Legum notes in his first paragraph in the above article, there's something about this madness that you can't immediately dismiss...

To Legum, it's that Trump wasting his time in California would force Hillary to spend more time and effort in that state than she'd normally would: nowadays all serious campaigning up to Election Day are in the battleground states (which is why as a Florida resident I am going to need to stop watching television ads RIGHT NOW). Legum still realizes it's a "terrible strategy" because it also means Trump is wasting time and effort away from those same battleground states (while thinking it'd be a good move for Hillary because Trump can't afford to waste anything).

In my mind, however, I can't avoid the idea of this making sense because I'm one of those hapless True Believers in the American system of representative government. I'm thinking it's a good idea - and a terrible one - because I'm one of those who believe EVERY district - and every state - should be fought over, contested, brought into the arguments so that the value of those districts/states be validated rather than ignored.

I want all fifty states in the debate. I'm not a fan of the calculated "Battleground State" campaigns despite their effectiveness. Part of me wants Democrats challenging every inch of Red states like Texas and Georgia and Arizona and Montana and Kansas, just on the chance of winning over voters, winning enough voters to make Republicans NOT take those states for granted.

So to be fair, I've got no qualms about Republicans challenging every inch of Blue states like California and Massachusetts and Illinois and maybe Delaware... and for the same reason of making Democrats respond to keep "their" safe states on their side.

Just campaigning in Florida and Ohio and North Carolina and Virginia and Pennsylvania and Nevada - toss-up states with enough Electoral votes to make them necessary - seems a bit underwhelming to me.

I can see Trump making this kind of argument: That letting an Electorally-rich state like California - 55 electors, the most of any state - go straight to the Dems unchallenged is no way to break the electoral strangehold the Democrats have on the College right now. At some point, the Republicans have to make a play against the polarizing demographics within key states and balance the score.

While that is a valid argument to make, Trump is NOT the candidate to be making it. He's a walking disaster of demographic demonization, unable to stop himself from insulting entire voting blocs for longer than three days. There may be a need by the Republicans to campaign in ethnically diverse states like California and Florida to win over ALL possible voters, but Trump is NOT the guy to rely on getting that job done.

This isn't even the right party to make such a move: the Republican Party has been so antagonistic towards minorities and women and college-age voters for over three decades that any attempt now to woo any of those blocs back to them is a fool's errand. If the Republicans want to campaign and win in Cali, they're going to have to sincerely re-invent themselves to more moderate, reformer stances on immigration, education, and wages.

Trump's plan to campaign in California looks both foolish and wise at the same time. There is wisdom in recognizing that the GOP needs to start fighting back to win the states they need to stay in political power at the national level. But it's extreme foolishness on Trump's part to think he's the one who can pull it off.

Certainly there's a layer of full-bore bullheaded ignorance on Trump's part thinking he can "win" anywhere he wants to. He can't.

Just look at the current polling in select Blue states - California especially, then Illinois, and New Jersey where Trump also wants to compete - and you'll see Trump is very unlikely to win any of those voters over to his side, not without him performing radical surgery on his personality into someone who's not a complete less of an asshole.

Trump's losing Kansas: Granted, it's not a major electoral state, but the psychological impact of a key Republican stronghold falling this early to Clinton cannot be overlooked. Can he afford to ignore the Red states that are now toss-ups?

Trump can lose Arizona: once a conservative wingnut safe state, all because his anti-immigrant stance is stirring up the state's Hispanic voters something fierce.

Trump's not guaranteed to flip Florida, which is honestly a toss-up state but where Hillary regularly polls a winner.

And yet Trump thinks he can win in California: a hotbed of liberal tree-hugging socialist San Francisco-Hollywood hippiedom.

Yeah, good luck with that whole "mashing your head with a solid gold Trump doorknob" idea, guys.

Game On

President Obama made it official today: he formally backed Hillary as the nominee for the Democratic Party for President.

Obama also talked to Bernie Sanders today, after which:

...(Sanders) vowed to compete in next Tuesday's Washington, D.C. primary and then hopes to meet with Clinton. He also said he will fight for his signature issues -- like college affordability, income inequality and taking on Wall Street -- during the Democratic National Convention in July.

"I spoke briefly to Secretary Clinton on Tuesday night and I congratulated her on her very strong campaign. I look forward to meeting with her in the near future to see how we can work together to defeat Donald Trump," he said.

"Donald Trump would clearly, to my mind and I think a majority of Americans, be a disaster as president of the United States," Sanders said. "It is unbelievable to me, and I say this in all sincerity, that the Republican party would have a candidate for president who in the year 2016 makes bigotry and discrimination the cornerstone of his campaign."

After all that, Obama released a video that looks like it was made about a month ago, but what the hell, even *I* admit this whole thing was inevitable:

Here's why this is big news:

Obama is currently in positive approval numbers in most of the polls. He's BEEN popular with the Democratic party faithful for a long time. Getting him out and campaigning on the stump for Hillary will give her a huge boost among his supporters.

Obama can openly point to this as a Legacy election: that what's at stake are his key successes with health care reform, gay rights especially for marriage, various economic and financial reforms, and preventing Republicans from nuking Social Security and other social safety nets from orbit.

By working with an anointed successor in Hillary, Obama can argue to the majority of Americans who backed him in 2008 and 2012 to back her as a proxy third term. Granted, Hillary is going to want to campaign on her own agenda: however, campaigning as "Obama's Third Term" is a great way to keep the 2012 Blue States on your side of the Electoral College.

It's interesting to note we've rarely had a situation like this over the last 30-40 years. The previous time we had a sitting incumbent, that was Bush the Lesser, so obviously McCain didn't want much help from him in 2008. In 2000, Clinton was available to campaign for Gore, but Gore wanted to put distance between himself and Slick Willie's sex scandals... and that was one of the steps that cost Gore the election.

The only time since 1960 we've honestly had a situation where a sitting incumbent could openly back/campaign for his party was Reagan in 1988, something that helped Bush the Elder a lot with a doubting GOP voter base.

But now, here's Obama, riding high on a wave of popularity while the Republicans stumble about proving how inept they are at governance and campaigning... Hillary is about get the best kind of backup a candidate can get.

For all the Republicans' effort to paint Obama as a failed President, he has a sizable portfolio of successes that can bring the voters out to protect those successes and vote for the Democratic candidate likely to build from that foundation of success.

Better yet, Obama can easily whack at Donald Trump without breaking a sweat. He'd already shredded the Trumpster once before about Donald's obsessions regarding Obama's birth certificate - Trump's Birther creds are how he built his Far Right fanbase - and Obama has the temperament and the skill to flatten that con artist five different ways to Friday. Trump can do all he can - he can try - to insult Obama, but Obama can mic drop on him on any issue and brush it off his shoulder before heading back to the White House for dinner.

Trump and the Republicans are about to head up against three veteran campaigners - Hillary, her husband Bill, and now Obama - who can cut those pretenders into a thousand strips of raw meat.

This is gonna be like watching the 1927 New York Yankees taking on the 1899 Cleveland Spiders. Or the 2016 Golden State Warriors taking on the 1973 Philadelphia 76ers.

Get the popcorn.

A Brief History of Women Candidates for President of the United States

In honor of Hillary Clinton earning the delegate count - granted, it's not official until the Convention or until Bernie wises up - to stand as the first female candidate of a major political party for President of the US of A, a brief listing of women candidates. It's not a full list, as there are a platoon's worth of minor third party candidates who barely register a blip on the radar. These are the ones who got caught made significant contributions:

Victoria Woodhull - 1872 - running on the Equal Rights Party

Newspaper owner/editor, stockbroker, rabblerouser.

Her campaign ran into a few difficulties: primarily, she was still technically under the age limit being 34 years old at the time of the election (she wouldn't have been 35 until six months into the term of office). This was also a period in our history when women barely had the right to vote let alone hold elective office. Oh, and every state refused to put her name on the ballots. She also ended up in jail during the election cycle due to mailing out her newspaper in November that year accusing prominent religious leader Henry Ward Beecher of adultery (the excuse was an open attempt at censorship).

Belva Ann Lockwood - 1884 and 1888 - National Equal Rights Party

Prominent suffragist, became the first woman to practice law before the Supreme Court, and the first woman to actually appear on ballots to receive votes. She won over 4,000 votes, for about... um... .04 percent.

Gracie Allen - 1940 - Surprise Party

Yes, THAT Gracie.

Was originally part of a "joke" campaign that allowed her and her husband George Burns to tour the nation working a stand-up routine. She still won 42,000 votes, a record at the time. And was still more qualified than Donald Trump...

Margaret Chase Smith - 1964 - Republican Party

First woman candidate to try and represent for a major party, which meant access to ALL ballots and a 50-50 shot at winning the whole thing. Was a moderate, almost liberal Republican... in an era when the conservative faction under Goldwater was seizing control of the party for his doomed effort against LBJ. Had elective experience in both the House and Senate, which clearly made her more qualified than Trump...

Charlene Mitchell - 1968 - Communist Party

First African-American woman candidate for the Presidency. Was only on the ballot in two states, and barely got over 1,000 votes total.

Shirley Chisholm - 1972 - Democratic Party

Had elective experience as the first African-American woman elected to Congress as a representative from New York in 1968. Won herself a handful of delegates, being the first major-party female candidate to do so, but was still not enough to place better than fourth in the 1972 Convention. Still, she became an inspirational figure within the Democratic party itself, viewed as a serious chance for both Black and Woman demographics to represent for the Presidency, and was regularly touted as the spiritual predecessor to both Obama AND Hillary (in a nice touch, Hillary showed a clip of Chisholm at her victory speech last night).

Lenora Fulani - 1988 and 1992 - New Alliance Party

Notable for being the first woman candidate to gain ballot access in all 50 states (nearly every other woman candidate not listed here were limited to few states and thus had little electoral impact). Also made history with the most votes garnered - over 200,000 - in 1988 for any woman candidate, a record that wouldn't be touched until 2012.

Monica Moorehead - 1996, 2000, maybe 2016 - Workers World Party

Not really newsworthy except for two things: the Ralph Nader people blame HER for Gore losing to Bush in 2000 - since she got 4000 votes that year, while Nader stole 2.8 million from Gore and ruined everything, screw you Ralph - and she's once again running for the office this year, so, you know, it's current.

Jill Stein - 2012 and 2016 - Green Party

Set a record for most votes for a woman candidate in 2012 with 460,000-plus votes, which barring a total meltdown by the Democrats is likely gonna get beat by Hillary Clinton getting millions of Democratic votes this election cycle. Highest elected office has been serving on a town's council somewhere in the dark forests of Massachusetts... which still makes Stein more qualified than Trump. And also maybe a Ghosthunter if the rumors of eldritch abominations roaming the New England countryside are true.

Hillary Clinton - 2008 and 2016 - Democratic Party

Didn't quite win it all in 2008, but has won the delegate count and is pretty much the nominee for 2016. It's still up to 67 million Democratic voters who came out for Obama in 2012 - as well as any other voters horrified by Trump - to show up and vote for Hillary in 2016.

It's Just a Formality At This Point Now, So Let's Show Our Contestant Some Lovely Parting Gifts

Tonight is the second-to-last (good God, who's last?) round of Primaries for the major parties, and while the Republican campaign was already called about five six weeks ago the Democratic campaign has pretty much gone to the wire.

But tonight is a big one: Two large population states including AT LAST CALIFORNIA (also New Jersey) from which Hillary Clinton can secure enough "hard pledge" delegates among the "soft" delegates to pretty much clinch the nomination.

Although the AP Newswire claimed last night that enough Superdelegates came out in favor of Hillary to cross the threshold, it matters more that the threshold be claimed tonight by the ballot counts, so yeah, New Jersey is going to be the wafer thin mint that tips the scales. Hillary's got 62 percent of the vote with 88 percent of the precincts reporting: at this rate she's got Joisey in the bag, man.

And with that, Hillary's got 2469 soft delegates (with a 1825 hard count, 400 ahead of Bernie) where the cutoff to win is 2383. She's there.

Hillary won the delegates, Hillary will earn the party's nomination in Philadelphia next month. It's done. Anybody arguing for shifting the Superdelegates around, or talking the normal delegates into bolting from any pledge to vote Hillary on the first ballot, is just in painful denial right now.

Still and all: it'd be nice to see if Hillary can dominate this night with winning the rest of the roster. Getting a majority of states looks good heading into the convention as well as the delegate count.

Hillary's leading Bernie in South Dakota at the moment: it's too close to officially call, but barring a massive outburst for Sanders in the bigger precincts it's gotta be going for Clinton.

Lets see about New Mexico: Hmm, Hillary's up 53 to 47 percent over Bernie, it's still too early to call but it's getting there.

North Dakota: Bernie's winning that with a wide margin of 62 percent to Hillary's 26 percent... which is odd except for this being another crazy Caucus where the rules are whack. 10 percent haven't committed, which means the final results might not be known until 2018. And what the hell, Dakota: 253 people TOTAL for Bernie, with 101 for Hillary? We're talking hundreds, not thousands, and I'm pretty sure you Dakota states have more people than that. Where the hell are they? Seriously folks, Caucuses have to go.

It's too early to call Montana even with Hillary in a decent-sized lead there, but then again it's Montana, I never been there so who cares? :) UPDATE 6/8: Bernie wins Montana. Congratulations. I'm sure it can fit somewhere on the trophy case...

All that's left is California, and there's no results in yet for that (West Coast votes are SOOOOOO late in the evening). UPDATE 6/8: Morning has revealed that Hillary dominated Cali 56 to 43 percent over Bernie. That is a double-digit win in the largest state of the nation.

What does all this mean?

It means Bernie needs to bow out gracefully and let Hillary (and Obama, who's itching to get out campaigning for his successor) run the national campaign to the general election now.

No more back-biting... no more questionable accusations about "stolen" elections... no more dissing southern states for "not counting"... no more sore loser stuff.

Let it go, Senator Sanders.

Work on this: You've got access towards setting the Democratic Party's platform, which you can use to set key agenda points on economic policy and Congressional reforms. No, you'll probably not get your universal healthcare idea approved, but there's a lot of other things Hillary and the Centrist factions of the party will back.

This doesn't have to be a divided Party, Senator.

I understand - I sympathize a little - that your Progressive idealism makes it hard for you and your followers to support a "moderate" Center-Left candidate like Hillary. That you don't trust her enough to even placate you on issues. I understand you hate her for being too cozy with Wall Street and the Banks, and granted that is a troubling relationship considering how much more work our nation needs to prevent those same banks and investors from causing another crippling economic collapse.

But here's the deal:

TRUMP IS A GODDAMN MANIAC ONE STEP AWAY FROM DESTROYING ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING.

I am not exaggerating.

The Democrats as a whole need to unite as one party now... The Democrats need to appeal to the Independent voters with coherent policy points and common sense and confidence... The nation, the entire world needs the Democrats to present a solid, worthwhile choice for a majority of voters to ensure the likes of Trump does not win in November (or EVER again).

You can disagree with Hillary. You can argue for the need to keep her honest especially if she wins the White House, you can push for enough Left-leaning Liberals and Progressive allies into key Cabinet positions to make sure Hillary stays honest enough to your measures.

But you gotta let go of that hate, BernieBros. You gotta recognize that we've got a lot of elections to win, not just the Presidency but the US Senate and the US House and a ton of state-level elections as well. The whole ticket needs your vote, needs your support, needs you period.

Let go of that hate, and look to hope. Hope that you can get enough Moderate and Independent voters to side with you against Trump and his tainted, dying Republican Party.

Hope that this nation can unite behind the first serious woman candidate from a major political party to officially run for President. Under this banner, the Democrats can rally to wins in the Senate and break that logjam... and if the Republicans implode as predicted there's a good chance of turning the power of the US House back to Democrats too.

This is a major election. All hands on deck, get the vote out, and do what we can to Stop Trump and Save America.

That means voting for Democrats all across the board. That means voting for Hillary.

Update: so of course Bernie is saying he's gonna fight this all the way to Philly. /headdesk

A Madman In the Driver's Seat of the GOP Clown Car, June 2016 Edition

This video I'm about to show you was recorded during a top secret meeting of librul bloggers following up on reports that Trump tried to bully his Republican Party handlers into backing his obscene plan to harass/defame the judge overseeing his Trump University fraud trial(s):

Dear YouTube: you didn't have a clip for me to embed directly. Shame on you.

The news about this is deadly serious, however.

What Trump is attempting - according to the Bloomberg article I've linked to - is to subvert the independence of the entire judicial system (nevermind the war he's already declared against the media):

Trump ignited the controversy when he defended his real-estate program by saying Curiel has an inherent conflict of interest because of his Mexican heritage, because the candidate has proposed building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to curb illegal immigration. Curiel was born in Indiana, and Trump's complaint has been criticized by Republican leaders, legal experts, and other commentators. Trump on Sunday broadened his argument by saying on CBS that it’s possible a Muslim judge could treat him unfairly too, because of his proposed ban on Muslim immigration.

How is this dangerous? Let me defer to Garrett Epps at The Atlantic:

“...Courts have repeatedly held that matters such as race or ethnicity are improper bases for challenging a judge's impartiality,” wrote the chief judge, Ralph Winter, a Reagan appointee. “Nor should one charge that a judge is not impartial solely because an attorney is embroiled in a controversy with the administration that appointed the judge. … Finally, appointment by a particular administration and membership in a particular racial or ethnic group are in combination not grounds for questioning a judge's impartiality. Zero plus zero is zero.”

That equation is a good way to think legally about Donald Trump’s attack on Curiel, who is hearing a case against him as ordinary as Macdraw—a civil class action alleging Trump’s “university” was a scam aimed at defrauding its students by selling them worthless instruction.

Trump has now made an issue out of Curiel’s ethnicity and his appointment to the bench by the Obama administration. His ire was raised because the judge allowed the release of some documents from Trump University—documents that seem extremely damaging to Trump’s case. “The judge was appointed by Barack Obama,” Trump told a rally last week. “The judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great, I think that’s fine.” In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump went on to say that Curiel’s “Mexican heritage”—he was born in Indiana—should disqualify him because “I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest.”

It's only a conflict of interest because TRUMP is making it a conflict of interest. And at no time has Trump pointed to any statements Curiel has made about Trump's political campaigning to prove bias. If you're pointing to Curiel releasing documents related to the Trump U fraud case, that's because the judge is answering a Freedom of Information Act request that's been perfectly legal in similar cases throughout the decades we've had FOIA rules. Trump's only calling that "unfair" because obviously those documents are going to reveal some pretty nasty things about Trump's business practices.

Painful in all this is the implication - shoved out there by an entitled "rich" white guy - that ethnics, women, any minority class are unable to perform their duties as a Justice when white people are being judged. Back to Epps:

A related misconception is that the impartiality of minority judges is inherently suspect. As David Graham noted, in the 1970s, this Trump-style claim of “inherent” bias was thrown at the great Leon Higginbotham, who rose to be chief judge of the Third Circuit. Higginbotham, an expert of the history of race and American law, crisply denied the motion:

By that standard, white judges will be permitted to keep the latitude they have enjoyed for centuries in discussing matters of intellectual substance, even issues of human rights and, because they are white, still be permitted to later decide specific factual situations involving the principles of human rights which they have discussed previously in a generalized fashion. But for black judges, defendants insist on a far more rigid standard, which would preclude black judges from ever discussing race relations even in the generalized fashion that other justices and judges have discussed issues of human rights.

Constance Baker Motley, the first female African American judge, faced a similar challenge in a 1975 sex-discrimination case. “[I]f background or sex or race of each judge were, by definition, sufficient grounds for removal,” she responded, “no judge on this court could hear this case.” Catholic and Mormon judges have also been challenged; Judge Michael Mukasey, an Orthodox Jew, was asked to step aside from a case against a Muslim defendant in 1994. Citing Higginbotham’s landmark opinion, he said that motion was “the same rancid wine in a different bottle.”

Trump wine has always been a little off, and this vintage fairly reeks. At its rawest, the claim amounts to, “Who are you—African American, woman, Jews, ‘Mexican’—to judge a real citizen, a white man?” It’s no different, in essence, from the assertion of one Texas Ku Klux Klansman, being sued for harassing Asian American fishermen, that a female black judge should withdraw because “of the prejudice of ‘your people against the Klansmen.’”

The re-introduction of this crude, explicit racism into politics is repellent...

This is Trump's World-View all over again: the one where it is all about getting "treated fairly," which in Trump's case is "give ME all the candy and toys I want and maybe I'll stop kicking you." Trump wants this judge to throw the whole case out, protect Trump from the embarrassment of exposing an allegedly massive fraud that was his online college. He's trying to bully Curiel off the bench and force the courts to give him what he wants. As though he's not the first defendant who's tried this...

But the problem I opened with remains: there is more to this than just Trump's attempt to corrupt our judicial system to his whims. Go back to what Trump is trying to do during that conference call with his intra-party allies.

Trump is calling on them to follow his marching orders on this, to get every Republican out there to attack this one judge on an openly racist and unproven accusation.

An embattled Donald Trump urgently rallied his most visible supporters to defend his attacks on a federal judge's Mexican ancestry during a conference call on Monday in which he ordered them to question the judge's credibility and impugn reporters as racists.

“We will overcome,” Trump said, according to two supporters who were on the call and requested anonymity to share their notes with Bloomberg Politics. “And I’ve always won and I’m going to continue to win. And that’s the way it is...”

...When former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer interrupted the discussion to inform Trump that his own campaign had asked surrogates to stop talking about the lawsuit in an e-mail on Sunday, Trump repeatedly demanded to know who sent the memo, and immediately overruled his staff.

“Take that order and throw it the hell out,” Trump said.

He's not taking advice from people who know how campaigning works... he's not recognizing the possibility he's crossing a line that nobody should cross. He's ordering people to do it his way or else, and he wants them all to attack attack attack. Especially if those attacks paint the entire Republican Party as fearmongering, self-serving racists.

This is who's leading your party now, Republicans. A proven narcissist sticking to a gameplan that's bound to alienate not only non-White voters across the board ("how dare YOU judge Trump?") but also White voters who take the impartiality of the judicial system seriously (not only Democrats and Independents but also Republicans who DO respect the system) and aren't going to support someone throwing a hissy fit like this.

This is where it gets worse, America: The Republican Party - whose collective soul had died years ago - has fallen to the whims of an Honest-to-God madman.

We will be lucky to get out of this alive...

Anniversary: Normandy

There really needs to be more YouTube clips about D-Day I can steal borrow for these annual posts:

One of the joys of watching The Longest Day movie is seeing how even the Germans couldn't comprehend Eisenhower taking the gamble on bad weather to send the Normandy invasion. But it was never really that big a gamble: Eisenhower was getting pressure from above to get a Western front of the war going to pincer the Nazis between us and the Soviets, and Eisenhower knew it had to happen before summer turned to winter, which in Europe happens too damn fast.

That little bit at the end when General Marcks can only look at the war games he planned out, predicting near exactly how the invasion would happen - and how his own army was caught so off-guard - he can only laugh.

Anniversary: June 5. As Always... I Ask After The Bravest Man I Ever Seen

It is the anniversary of Tank Man standing in Tiananmen Square.

It's been decades now.

I want to make sure he's still alive. I want to be able to ask him the question, what it was like to stand there. To stand there in front of his own government's oppression. I want to ask him if he felt scared, and if he felt free.

I hope he's still alive. I hope he had a chance at a family, that he's living a steady, normal life now.

I'm a bit disappointed that the Badass of the Week website doesn't show a page entry for him. Just because he's not wielding a +5 Sword of Awesomeness doesn't mean Tank Man isn't a badass: Sometimes just standing there, telling the world "No, YOU MOVE" is the most badass play you can make.

The Thing I Don't Get About The Bernie Supporters Who Say They'll Never Vote Hillary

(Update: Hello again, Crooks & Liars readers visiting via Mike's Blog Round-Up! Thank you, Batocchio for all your support! Oh, and Infidel753 added a link to here as well. Danke!)

Actually, there's several things I don't get.

There's a very noticeable online faction of Bernie voters - yes, the BernieBros - who'll say they'll vote Trump instead of Hillary when the time comes this November.

To which I say ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN MINDS.

Part of their argument is that they can never support Hillary as she is untrustworthy, a liar, too far Right in her politics for their tastes, a War Hawk who'll bomb other nations.

And Trump isn't any of that already?! Every argument these anti-Hillary voters have applies just as well - no, worse - to what Trump will do in the White House.

Trump will clearly - he's openly promised to these things - bomb "enemy" nations, push for a return of an illegal torture regime, start trade wars with China, disrupt our foreign allies to the point of chaos. Trump foreign policy would be a disaster beyond the pale of what happened under Bush the Lesser.

Trump's economic policies would favor the elites far worse than anything a pro-business Hillary will offer up to Wall Street and the banks. And Trump will clearly create an economic crisis - just on his trade protectionism alone - that would rival the Great Depression.

Trump's domestic and civil rights policies will be complete disasters for everyone - yes, white folk included - as his anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant policies will be on scales far worse than our shameful internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, than our mistreatment of Native tribes since the 1800s, than our decades of Jim Crow segregation.

Do you really think Hillary will commit even a tenth of the sins a Trump Presidency will inflict on our nation, on the world? Do you think Hillary is a worse candidate, a bigger liar than Trump?

You'd be wrong.

Hint: Hillary is nowhere near the liar Trump is. So take that excuse for voting Trump and shove it up your collective ass, BernieBros.

Hint Number Two: If it gets to be Hillary vs. Trump, Hillary is the candidate most likely to NOT commit massive civil rights abuses here at home, and is the most likely to NOT leave nuclear craters in places like Gaza, Iran, and Atlantic City (I am not joking). Will Hillary be a War Hawk? Compared to Obama, probably. Compared to Trump, she'll be a f-cking Pacifist qualifying for the Nobel Peace Prize For Not Being a Republican Neocon.

For all the claims on Hillary being a weak candidate who can lose to Trump, she's been consistently hitting Trump on his failed business practices, his terrible rhetoric, his sexism and racism. She will not flinch against him the way the Republican field of nobodies who quit this primary season. I can't see why this is an argument.

For all the claims that Bernie can do better, that's barely a point made from the current polls. Both Hillary and Trump can beat him, and the polling is better for Bernie (now) only because the polling for Hillary is artificially skewed by fake scandals the Far Right is STILL shilling 25 years on. Hillary's Unfavorables are high now only because there's a sizable faction against her among Dem ranks. Once she gains the nomination - much like for Republicans lining up (painfully) behind Trump - it's a good bet the polling for her will improve (Trump's Unfavorables remain high even after securing the GOP nomination... because Trump IS THAT BAD).

There's one more thing for the anti-Hillary voters among the Far Left to remember: there is more at stake here than just the White House.

Whoever wins the Presidency this November is going to be the one who gets to fill the Supreme Court vacancies (among all the judicial seats still vacant because of Republican obstruction).

Right now, the damned GOP Senate is refusing to seat Obama's pick Garland for the current vacancy. The Republican argument is that they'll hold off for whomever wins this November so that "the voters" can have a say in who takes that seat (the real reason is to hope for Republican election wins and stop the Court from shifting Center-Left).

Do you WANT to give Trump the power to fill that SCOTUS vacancy (if he wins, it will likely mean the Republicans keep control of that Senate)? You do that, say goodbye to Roe, say goodbye to Obamacare, say goodbye to civil rights, say goodbye to gay marriage or gay rights of any kind, say goodbye to voting rights, say goodbye to prison reforms, say goodbye to public education and clean air/water and unions and safety regs and fair wages and birth control and food stamps and Medicare and Social Security and everything else our nation's achieved since the New Deal era.

Your vote for Trump will likely give the Republicans a chance to fill more than just one SCOTUS seat: Ginsburg and Breyer for example are in the same risk as Scalia was dying in office. Even Kennedy (also same age risk) dying would take away the "moderate" Justice with a likely Far Right judge who will make Scalia look like Holmes. We'll be at the mercy of a Far Right - not even a Center-Right - Supreme Court for two decades or more.

Just on this alone, I'm voting Hillary over Trump. I'd vote Bernie over Trump.

And that's just it: there's more than the SCOTUS - our entire Constitutional system - at stake when it comes to Trump. Trump will be the massive wrecking ball to our nation that WE DO NOT NEED NOR DESERVE.

If the progressive Far Left among you who feel that our nation needs a revolution to break the system, this is not how you fix things. Trump is how you break things. And once broken it is very hard to put it all back together or even improve upon the remnants.

Do you think ANYTHING Trump has left in his wake has survived his meddling? He's wrecked a football league, he's wrecked airlines, he's wrecked casinos and left Atlantic City in the dumps, he's wrecked food services, he's wrecked planned condo towers, he's wrecked people's lives with a fraudulent academic scam, he's wrecked business deal after business deal and nothing has survived him except himself and his precious trademarked name.

We cannot afford as a nation to waste any vote - yes, waste - on this con artist.

Is Hillary the best possible candidate? I'll be honest, I'd have hoped for better (like oh a third Obama term. DAMN YOU 22nd AMENDMENT). I'm not there for Bernie because I disagree with the Far Left agenda - I can't see the nation accepting single-payer just as they're getting used to Obamacare working, and the expense of his plan is scaring even progressive economists - he's offering.

Compared to Trump, however, every minor - and yes, they are minor - sin of Hillary's soul still makes her the better choice. Compared to Trump, Hillary is at worst another LBJ... and that's at worst, considering all of Johnson's work with civil and voting rights, that's not too bad. At best, Hillary can be another Truman.

Trump can be the next Strom Thurmond, the next James Buchanan, the next John C. Calhoun. Just no. No. A million times No.

If it's Hillary winning the Democratic nomination, please for the love of God find the sanity and logic of backing her over the disaster Trump will be. If it's Bernie, fine so be it, Bernie is a better choice over Trump. But so's Hillary. Try to see that, people. Please.

P.S. And it will really help if you all turned out in spite of the Republican suppression efforts and vote for Democrats in ALL available races, okay? Everything is at stake here: The Senate, even the House is up for grabs despite the gerrymandering, even some state elections and governors' races are vital. Elections matter, people. Get the damn vote out.

Is Trump Even Really a Billionaire?

This is a legitimate question, which is becoming increasingly necessary to ask as more details about Trump's failed online university business scheme come out. Via Matt Ford at The Atlantic:

“Based upon my personal experience and employment, I believe that Trump University was a fraudulent scheme, and that it preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money,” said Ronald Schnackenberg, a sales manager at Trump University in 2006 and 2007.

Those declarations and other internal Trump University documents depict an aggressive, ethically dubious business model that targeted potential customers’ financial fears and socioeconomic anxieties and offered Trump’s personal brand as the solution—a strategy later echoed in his presidential campaign...

Via the Rude Pundit, who quotes from a 2006 (!) article from a Canadian reporter Kelly Roesler, the whole "Trump University" plan reads like a Ponzi scheme - relying on "Other People's Money" - than on genuine training over how to use real estate to earn success:

Roesler was subjected to everything that you've read: the hard sell, the "OPM" idea of using your credit cards to finance the expensive bullshit Trump U was flinging, the unrealistic promises of wealth. Roesler isn't part of the class action lawsuit because she saw through the screen of lies. Check it out and spread this around. It's contemporaneous evidence of what an unethical buffoon the Republican nominee is...

What strikes me is the sense of urgency, the push within the Trump University organization to bring in as many victims "students" as possible and have them all pay huge expenses towards anything and everything that organization could throw at them.

It's not so much that Trump is greedy - we know that, he brags about it - it's that Trump seems even back in 2006 so desperate for "Other People's Money" that there's more of a NEED for that money instead of a WANT.

The Balloon Juice people linked to an article from a site called HeatStreet, so let us check in with article writer Rick Wilson about what he knows:

By August of last year, I was working to convince major donors that Trump would be a destructive force and likely throw the race to Hillary Clinton. One moment from that period sticks with me as a turning point in my thinking about Trump’s money; a major Wall Street donor laughed when I told him we’d need to mount a serious and fully-funded effort to take on Trump if he chose to self fund.

My friend scoffed at the very idea that Trump was worth even a quarter of the mythical $10 billion, much less that he was liquid to the tune of more than $200 million. “He’s not a billionaire. I’m a billionaire. He’s a clown living on credit.”

While Wilson or his Wall Street friend didn't provide specific evidence, they are pointing at some very obvious clues: Trump's primary source of income is supposedly in real estate, a market known for its over-reliance on loans and credit based on the "value" of the property itself.

Trump's income surely isn't from his failed airline, failed food services, or failed casinos.

If anything, we're finding out that Trump owes money to a good number of banks. Wall Street Journal has him owing $250 million across the board, while he's in debt to $100 million to an overseas bank that can prove to be a serious Conflict Of Interest should Trump become President.

Okay, I'm asking here: if you were truly worth $10 billion, wouldn't you use some of that money cashed out - in hand - to pay off said debts? I mean, $100 million is less than a percent of $10 billion: you could pay off that debt and still have $9.99 billion to your name. Done and done. One less thing to worry about.

One of Trump's selling points during the Primary campaign was that nobody could "own" him because he was so independently wealthy. But if he's in this much debt to banks - debt he hasn't paid off with a portion of billionaire wealth he's supposed to have - how can he claim that? Those banks surely own him: what would happen if they started calling in that credit he owes?

And even Trump is admitting his so-called self-funded campaign is broke. What sustained his primary drive to victory was getting nearly free advertising from a fawning/terrified mass media industry that couldn't turn away from the clown show Trump was giving them. But now he's at a point where the Presidential nominee has to start footing the bill for all the fund-raisers and down-ballot candidates... and he's claiming now he doesn't have the cash he claimed he had.

Something stinks here, and we're nowhere near Denmark.

This needs to be an ongoing question at every press gathering, at every time Trump is at the podium: Is Donald Trump even really a billionaire?

Because all the evidence is pointing to him being a con artist instead.

 

For the Record: Trump Lies Like a Rug

Submitted with one comment, from the Politifact website tracking Donald Trump's public statements as he campaigns:

When you put Trump's Mostly False, False, and Pants on Fire numbers together, it adds up to 76 percent of his statements being lies. That's the comment I wanna point out: three-fourths of nearly every statement out of Trump's mouth cannot be trusted, cannot be accepted as factual or honest or reliable or good.

And the Politifact people give themselves a ton of wiggle room for politicians and public figures in terms of giving them some benefit of doubt. Trump is so brazen and consistent a liar that for their 2015 Lie of the Year award, they pretty much gave it to Trump for pretty much EVERYthing he said.

I know there's the perception that ALL politicians are liars. But perception doesn't always match the facts. By the same metrics I put Trump: Hillary Clinton lies 28 percent of the time (a little over a quarter), Mitt Romney tracked at 42 percent of the time, Obama at 26 percent of the time, and Bernie Sanders at 30 percent of the time (and the only one avoiding a Pants of Fire).

Trump is by far the biggest, most consistent liar on the political stage.

And yet he keeps getting his fanbase to buy his bullshit. He keeps getting the mainstream media to buy his bullshit: Even with most of them well aware he's a bullshitter.

What the hell does that say about this nation, that we don't hold liars like Trump accountable for the fraud they commit upon the voters? There may be First Amendment restrictions on our government from enforcing such fraud in public statements, but our journalism industry ought to set itself to higher standards and ethics.

The cable channels and newspapers and radio stations are under no obligation to cover Trump, or grant him such privileges as the near-constant - and FREE - coverage he gets for his daily bullshitting. To hell with ratings: where the hell is common sense that Trump is a liar and shouldn't be listened to?

They ought to start charging Trump $50,000 a minute whenever he tries to do a damn phone interview instead of showing up in-person. They ought to set up a bullshit billing system where he has to hand over $100,000 per falsehood to the channel's or paper's lawyers to cover any lawsuits for journalistic malpractice Trump will be costing them.

And why not? It's a business, after all. The channels and papers and radio stations have every right to raise revenues, especially to cover the costs of lies they're forced to shill.