If you told me in 08 that I'd be defending McCain from Trump on Twitter, I'd call you crazy. I'd also ask what Twitter was. But here we are.
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) July 18, 2015
Trump attacks McCain: 'I like people who weren't captured' http://t.co/5igxzUzvwZ
— POLITICO (@politico) July 18, 2015
Whoa. Trump on McCain: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) July 18, 2015
Trump attacking McCain's war record gives other Rs what they've badly wanted: a zero-risk opportunity to whack the guy on fighting dirty
— Alex Burns (@alexburnsNYT) July 18, 2015
Let us pause to remember when respect for veterans was the Republican way. pic.twitter.com/vL9WWOyixj
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) July 18, 2015
After Donald Trump's remarks on John McCain, it's unclear if any reporter would notice Ben Carson on stage right now if he stripped naked.
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) July 18, 2015
GOP16 McCain Tweets as of 12:24
11:03 Trump comment on McCain
11:35 Perry
11:47 Santorum
11:55 Walker
12:07 Jindal
12:19 Bush
— Charles Franklin (@PollsAndVotes) July 18, 2015
.@realDonaldTrump, who just attacked McCain, got draft deferments BTW. http://t.co/b6tqaasJBa pic.twitter.com/rKE6EgfKSA
— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) July 18, 2015
Do I think Donald Trump is a Clinton-hatched false flag operation to destroy the GOP? No. But this theory is consistent with his behavior.
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) July 18, 2015
How much love do you suppose Trump's base has for the guy who let the Kenyan win?
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) July 18, 2015
On @ThisWeekABC I'll defend my claim @realDonaldTrump is not only older & richer but wiser than @HillaryClinton. https://t.co/paEfXW5ya4
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) July 18, 2015
JPL
Yup, he might have peaked too soon. He still would be able to get 27 percent of the voters though.
Hunter Gathers
Don’t expect this to get any traction. Teh Base considers McCain a fucking loser.
gf120581
Trump’ll probably get another few points in the polls. Dissing McCain is almost as common among many Republicans as dissing Obama.
Lindsey Graham, however, will likely go nuclear. No one insults his boyfriend’s honor like that!
SRW1
Donald, please remember: Swiftboating is something you do ONLY to Democrats.
Kind regards, Reince
Debbie
No fan of McCain, but what a dick thing to say.
Germy Shoemangler
I heard Lush Rimbaugh attack McCain on his show a few years back, calling him a RINO.
.I don’t think McCain is sacred to the base.
But of course Trump lost the POW/MIA vote.
I still have the letter my grandmother received when my father went MIA during WWII. He was a POW of the Germans. Weighed about 90 lbs when he was finally liberated.
I doubt he would have cared much for Trump’s remarks.
shell
Dear God, I did not need that mental image.
Its pretty clear why Huffington Post announced its moving any stories about Trump from the News to the Entertainment section; alongside the Kardashians and the Bachelorette.
Germy Shoemangler
@SRW1:
I believe the letter said “MR. TRUMP” not Donald.
Reince might need a job after his GOP assignment is done.
c u n d gulag
I have no great love for Senator McCain, but this is beyond mere stupidity and evil, and enters the realm of ‘”Twilight Zone” stupidity and evil!’
Wow, that comment is lower than amoeba poop in the Marianas Trench!!!
Wtf is that dry raison of a mind “thinking,” when he says something like that?
If that doesn’t kill his candidacy, then guess what?
If the conservative base doesn’t strongly object, then he’ll probably be the GOP candidate.
He’s mean, stupid, ignorant, and bigoted enough.
Even for that bigoted crowd of sociopaths and psychopaths!
MattF
WTF is Bill Kristol doing on the teevee? What could he possibly have to say about the Iran deal, or about Donald Trump, or about Hillary Clinton, or about anything? Why can’t the Village just tell him to go away?
Citizen Alan
Thank you for that picture of the repulsive GOP hag with the purple band-aid right as I’m heading to lunch. And for what it’s worth, I have always found it hard to give a shit about McCain’s military service given the unprecedented level of disrespect the GOP gave Kerry’s in 2004.
Poopyman
On the plus side for The Donald, he is blaming the victim with this comment, so he is playing to the base’s strength.
Major Major Major Major
Three Plane McCain fucked up due to his own lack of skill. Not saying he deserved to be held and tortured, but he wouldn’t have even been flying that mission if his daddy wasn’t an admiral.
Debbie
@Citizen Alan:
And I hope a reporter asks the first Republican who comes to McCain’s defense how he squares that with the condemnation of Kerry.
Denali
Some force appearing to be behind Trump. He is grabbing all the attention during the summer days when it does’t really make much difference who says what anyway. Why does anyone care?
The election season is clearly way too long.
Mike in NC
Trump will stand his ground over this smear. He never backs down, but instead doubles down.
He’s like one of those balloons from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. An apology would deflate his campaign overnight.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m waiting for a statement from Max Cleland about how much appreciates Jeb Bush, Rick Perry and Mike Huckabee (all sitting govs in ’02) and his Senate colleague Rick Santorum for rushing to the defense of a maligned veteran
@MattF: go away, hell. ABC hired him away from Fox. CBS had to settle for Condi Rice and (I think? could be wrong?) Newt Gingrich.
Rex Tremendae
Count me among those who think this may very well be the beginning of the end for Trump. Certainly this is the type of thing that will do him in. All those people who hate him will pile on.
ruemara
They’d notice a naked Ben Carson because negro peen is the most dangerous weapon ever devised.
Also, I hate every last one of these people. They were all cool with swiftboating John Kerry and said nothing but praise for birtherism. Fuck them and their false honor.
Woodrowfan
@Major Major Major Major: I thought it was five planes, making him a reverse ace.
Baud
LOL Dingell.
Germy Shoemangler
@ruemara:
I agree. Well said.
And yes, I believe Negro Peen is the thing they fear the most.
Mandalay
@Hunter Gathers:
This. It’s not as though Trump followers were also McCain fans anyway.
But it’s a shame that this brouha is blocking out something else Trump said on campaign finance which is much more worthy of discussion:
Trump is obnoxious, but he really is making the rest of the GOP contenders look like a bunch of spineless wimps.
Iowa Old Lady
@ruemara:
It’s all charade, all the time, with no reality underneath.
One of the things that’s striking about Obama, especially in his lame duck incarnation, is that he’s clearly talking about reality, or trying to, though the MSM isn’t interested. That stuff is boring.
catclub
@Debbie: Dream on.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Rex Tremendae:
Trump got away with calling Mexicans rapists so I doubt this will stop him. Trump’s fine as long as he shows rage against the “other”
Patrick
@ruemara:
Amen. They only seem to care about our soldiers when it serves their political purposes. F***, they should have defended John Kerry against the anti-American swiftboat attacks against a veteran.
NotMax
“I like people who weren’t captured.”
Thus Trump must absolutely despise the biblical Jesus.
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: I’d really like to read the fitness reports for McCain from his CAG commander time. Must be filled with stuff to explain why he never got a star.
Having said that, The Donald may not aggravate the base, but he’s done an excellent job of further cementing his status as an asshole of epic proportions.
Gindy51
@Major Major Major Major: Nor would he be considered a hero if he hadn’t crashed. If he had made his bombing runs and come back fine, he would not be where he is today.
Billincolorado
Not that McCain deserved what he got at Hanoi Hilton but the reality is McCain did hotdog on that mission. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. As much as this pains me to say Trump isn’t exactly wrong on this.
catclub
@Mike in NC: If he just says “Just as I Prefer Reagan as a candidate to McCain”
He should get a pass. All the better that Reagan never served.
Villago Delenda Est
@Iowa Old Lady: Reason # 194,562 for my nym.
Cacti
The far right loathes McCain and will have little to say about this.
They loves them a tough-talkin’ chickenhawk.
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub: Reagan did indeed serve, but did so at “Camp Roach” in Hollywood. He was never deployed overseas.
Patrick
@MattF:
I will never ever forget when the Sunday morning shows had on Bill Kristol 4-5 days after the Iraq war had started in 2003. He was asked for his opinion on the war so far. He claimed that it had proved the critics wrong and it would be over pretty quickly, and that there was nothing to the Sunni/Shiia conflict. Why, oh why does the media keep inviting him for his “expertise”? My 3 year old German Shephard’s opinion would be worth than Bill Kristol. Kristol has been wrong more than John McCain on foreign policy, which says something.
Mandalay
@Patrick: And add Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D), who lost both her legs in Iraq, to the list. Her unsuccessful Republican opponent said this about her war service:
I’m struggling to find a word from anyone in the clown car who went on the record as being offended by that.
Cacti
@Villago Delenda Est:
That still puts him a cut above the original chickenhawk, John Wayne, who loved playing a war hero, but avoided the WWII draft altogether.
Felonius Monk
Here is Trump again blowing volatiles out of his ass and playing with matches at the same time. I just hope he doesn’t self-immolate before the debates.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Patrick: Rumor is that he’s advising Marco Rubio (Obama is soft on ISIS because he doesn’t want to offend the Iranians) and was the mastermind of Tom Cotton’s letter to the Ayatollah.
@Villago Delenda Est: I was gonna say he served under Bette Davis at the Hollywood Canteen.
I remember an interview BD gave about the Canteen, and as I recall she devoted a good chunk of it to talking dismissively about “Ronnie”, answering a question the reporter wasn’t asking. I think she was not a fan.
Sherparick
@Patrick: Your German Shepard would have a far better chance of getting things right then Bill Fucking Kristol, the wrongest man in the world. .
Keith G
So, Trump is stealing Balloon-Juice talking points.
Germy Shoemangler
Here’s the youtube clip of Trump making the statement.
In the comments, a trump supporter says McCain should apologize for calling Trump supporters crazy!
Crazy, man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlCIzW-i28E
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti: Wayne came to regret that later in life. It’s not easy to face the mocking and disdain of actual combat veterans when your career of make believe is so heavily based on depicting combat veterans.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Given that Shia are every bit as much on ISIS’ hit list as any Christians are, it’s hard to see how being hardline on ISIS would offend the Iranians, but this is Bill Fuckhead Kristol we’re talking about.
Baud
@Keith G:
Can’t wait until Trump tells Jeb! to eat a bag of salted dicks.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Villago Delenda Est: Except in his imagination, of course.
Wasn’t the war hero on an insubordinate (and less than skillfully executed) run when he was captured? Not that he deserved to be a tortured POW, but without family connections I suspect he might have been a guest of the US Navy at a different location.
Cacti
@Villago Delenda Est:
Wayne’s playing hero was especially shameful when you consider that other leading men like Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart were actually flying bombers over Germany.
Keith P.
They plant some seeds. They water it and give it sun (for YEARS), and now they complain when the harvest comes in?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Villago Delenda Est: When McCain made that idiotic statement being always right on foreign policy, Chris Hayes put together a greatest hits video that included an almost word-for-word quote of Kristol’s dismissiveness of the idea of Shia-Shiite conflict. The only thing missing was the “pop-sociology”
Fair Economist
So Trump actually *wanted* to be one of those flash-in-the-pan candidates, and after saying outrageous things about Mexican boosted his popularity instead, went for bashing POW’s?
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m with you and Bob Schooley’s tweet above. I would be pissed at what he said if I did not vividly remember how they trashed the service of John Kerrey and Max Cleland. Fuck all of them, Trump, McCain and every Republican in between. Fuck them with a rusty chainsaw.
Fair Economist
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
His family connections probably got him off the hook on the *previous* 3 wrecked planes (the one that got torched on the Forrestal wasn’t his fault) but I can’t imagine the Navy punishing him for disobeying orders on that bombing run. Seriously, a multiyear stay at the Hanoi Hilton was *plenty* of punishment for that.
Villago Delenda Est
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I do not know if that was the case, but I do know that when you’re third from the bottom of the class at Annapolis, getting an assignment as an aviator is pretty far fetched if you don’t have some legacy cred to spend, and being the son and grandson of Admirals is legacy cred. Then proceeding to demonstrate that the only merit you have for the assignment is being the son and grandson of Admirals just seals the deal.
geg6
@Mandalay:
Ooooooo, I forgot about that one. Fuckers. I hate them.
eric
@geg6: I am pissed that Trump said it ONLY to the extent that it limits his run for the GOP nomination. McCain is a hateful man who is more than capable of defending himself with dishonest and vulgar bile.
Tree With Water
@gf120581: Being that Trump is a man who brags about the fact that super model’s have lined up to sleep with his money, the “bro with no ho’s” from South Carolina may think twice before getting into a pissing match with The Donald- my favorite republican presidential aspirant of all time.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti: And being very modest about it, too.
Baud
The one time I’d like to hear Sarah Palin’s opinion, she is silent.
Germy Shoemangler
@Villago Delenda Est: As far as WWII actors serving or not serving, lots of them never made it back. It was hazardous just entertaining the troops. Carole Lombard never survived. Glenn Miller. Both shot out of the sky.
NotMax
@Cacti
During WW2, Wayne was also known to flatly refuse any requests to appear at war bond rallies, attend canteens, and suchlike.
Liberal With Attitude
@MattF:
As Bill might say:
Le Village, c’est Moi.
Germy Shoemangler
@NotMax: I didn’t know that. Did he ever give a reason?
There is a scene in one of the Hunter Thompson books. Wayne refused to meet with some vietnam war protestors. Wouldn’t even talk to them.
raven
Yea and how many of you douche bags think Webb is just swell because he claims to be a fucking Democrat?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I suspect there is not a trace of irony in this congratulatory tweet to a (I’m guessing) producer of the Squint Show…
….who managed to coax the reclusive and camera shy McCain to come offer his humble perspective for a group of exacting and challenging journalmalistic pros. I hope regular guy Mike Barnacle is on hand to bring his trademark lunch bucket perspective.
And I will be very surprised if McCain is not on at least two shows tomorrow.
Major Major Major Major
@raven: somebody here likes Webb?
Kropadope
@JPL:
Well, with 16 candidates, 27% is plausible as a plurality.
Kropadope
@Major Major Major Major: I like aspects of Webb, but I don’t have a full enough picture yet to render judgment.
raven
@Major Major Major Major: There certainly have been and I’ll keep sweatin them when they do. Plus, fuck LBJ!
Villago Delenda Est
@raven: Webb demonstrated the total inappropriateness of his quest for the nomination of the Democratic Party with his utter failure to be on the right side of history vis a vis the Dixie swastika.
That’s just icing on the cake of why Webb has no business seeking the Dem nomination.
waspuppet
Boy, Trump must think servicemembers who get killed are even bigger LUZERS.
It’ll be a shame if this is the end of his candidacy; I was looking forward to him on a debate stage and seeing everyone trying really hard to hide the fact that they actually agree with him on everything.
And as for his being a false flag for the Democrats and Hillary, yeah totally, because when you think of the totality of Donald Trump’s life, the phrase that comes to mind is “team player.”
Patrick
@Villago Delenda Est:
Heck, Webb is to the right of many Republicans on that issue.
Botsplainer
About now would be the time that some of the Trumpster’s financial victims that got stiffed in his BKs start chiming in, to lay ownership of him off at the feet of conservatives.
I’m causing great weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth among the few remaining conservatives on my Facebook feed by pointing out the absence of boos, the prevalence of laughter and using the epithets “Christian Conservatives” or “Conservatives” instead of “Republicans”.
One statewide operative and sometimes candidate is sputtering in rage at me.
mtiffany
Gawker, the gift that keeps on giving:
Anyone Else Think James Franco Should Sue the Hell Out of Gawker? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-womack/james-franco-gawker_b_7816032.html
Death Panel Truck
@Germy Shoemangler: Carole Lombard wasn’t “shot out of the sky.” She died in a plane crash in the mountains outside Las Vegas on her way home from a War Bond tour.
EBT
Don’t forget that at third from the bottom in his class at Annapolis, he undoubtedly used his father and grandfather’s ranks to get his wings in the first place.
schrodinger's cat
@raven: FWIW I have never liked Webb. He is pretty misogynistic and his Scots-Irish stuff is cringe inducing.
dogwood
Max Clelland and John Kerry were certainly maligned and the press went along with it. But they can take care of themselves. What pisses me off is that no one goes after Trump when he maligns the powerless. That’s fine with the Republicans and the press. It’s when he decides to punch up that he has to be stopped. I couldn’t care less what he said about John McCain; he doesn’t need help defending himself.
Shana
@Germy Shoemangler: Actually, according to Wikipedia (I know, I know) Carole Lombard’s plane crashed while she was on a war bond tour. And Glen Miller’s plane disappeared in bad weather while on a USO tour.
But still, doing war work, which should definitely be applauded.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Well put.
rikyrah
maria lia calvo
@MariaLiaCalvo
Attacking Rep Duckworth’s service: Ok
Attacking Kerry’s service: Ok
Attacking McCain’s service: UNACCEPTABLE
Spare me your selective outrage
Tree With Water
Bob Schooley @Rschooley
“Let us pause to remember when respect for veterans was the Republican way”.
The Army-McCarthy hearings – and/or- the behavior of the audience during a 2012 GOP presidential debate, when they booed at the mention of gay’s in the military. I think that was it. If not, it was somewhere in that ballpark. Their reaction was as typical as it was abominable.
Because that’s who the people who comprise the republican rank and file are as people, whether they admit it or not. And more and more are admitting it, and turning their backs on the party.. a full year out from the 2016 election, and it’s begun catching up with them nationally, is all, as it already has in California. I extend my kudos to The Donald for opening the eyes of so many voters.. So tonight at the dinner table when grace is spoken, include an appeal that God bless, preserve, and protect Donald Trump’s malignant ego..
Germy Shoemangler
@Shana:
And John Wayne (real name Marion Robert Morrison) lived to a ripe old age after a career playing dress up for the cameras and shooting blanks.
rikyrah
John McCain is not Ronald Reagan..
who’s going to change their mind about Trump because he insulted McCain?
sure.
rikyrah
PragmaticObotsUnite @PragObots
GOP Translation: Trump’s racist comments, good. Comments about white man, bad. https://twitter.com/cbspolitics/status/622485948413124608 …
Death Panel Truck
@Shana: It was common knowledge sixty years before Wikipedia even existed.
Suzanne
@Cacti: Wayne’s bullshit was especially awful, considering that he profited from the purchase and sale of property owned by interned Japanese-Americans.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: I could see Trump deciding it isn’t worth it being pestered with questions about this and going away, and just as easily imagine him getting mad and digging in, even making an indy run
Patrick
@rikyrah:
They can’t. They thought it was fine to attack Kerry, Cleland and Duckworth. Republicans are not hypocrites, are they…?
Kropadope
@rikyrah: Enough Republicans support McCain to have given him the presidential nomination in 08. That’s not a percentage of the party that a candidate should want to piss off. Maybe he can squeak by and build a case for the nomination with a simple plurality, but this is just the sort of thing that would lose him an open convention.
Realistically, I think this is the sort of thing that will make his support collapse, just like how all the candidates in 2012 had a peak then a tiny bit of scrutiny brought them down.
qwerty42
@Iowa Old Lady: … One of the things that’s striking about Obama, especially in his lame duck incarnation, is that he’s clearly talking about reality, or trying to, though the MSM isn’t interested. That stuff is boring.
Josh Marshall over at TPM has an interesting article that makes the case that what we see now in the President is a consequence of a careful planning (and some fortunate breaks). I agree: the MSM seems not to notice.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/obama-on-the-hoofbeats-of-history
scav
ChiTrib is so funny. They went with the headline “Donald Trump: John McCain ‘is a war hero because he was captured'” (!) but do mention the full comment inside, plus the frenzied and near platitudinous clarifications, and the comment section is coming from all directions. Too funny.
rikyrah
right wing tears here and in Israel
Chemi Shalev
@ChemiShalev
Ayatollah Khamenei, Backing Iran Negotiators, Endorses Nuclear Deal http://nyti.ms/1JoiLAL
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Fair Economist: I meant for his previous arrogant behavior and multiple jet losses, but I was way less than clear.
@raven: Count me out, but you probably figured that.
ruemara
Netroots Nation Townhall has turned into a debacle. Can we bribe Joe Biden to get into the race?
Cacti
@Suzanne:
When you compare him to his contemporaries, Gable and Stewart…
Clark Gable was 40 when war was declared, and was 4-years past draft age. Could have comfortably sat out the war and nobody would have thought anything of it.
Jimmy Stewart was actually rejected by his first draft board for being 5 lbs below minimum weight. So he went home, ate himself heavier, and then enlisted in the Army Air Corps.
At 32, he was also too old to get into flight school as a pilot trainee, so he paid for 100-hours of private pilot training out of his own pocket.
Wayne was a coward. Through and through.
Germy Shoemangler
NYTIMES
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Botsplainer:
Congratulations. I’m impressed.
NonyNony
Is that really Bill Kristol up there, or is that a fake Twitter account. Because I have to be honest, if I were coming up with a fake Bill Kristol tweet, that’s the one I’d make.
@qwerty42: That’s a pretty long article for Marshall to basically say that Obama has a) been playing 11-dimensional chess while his opposition has been playing tiddly-winks and b) has zero fucks left to give to his opposition.
Cacti
Also worth noting…
Trump previously lied about his Vietnam era activities.
Said he wasn’t drafted because he drew a high number.
Ruckus
@raven:
That’s a good enough reason to render Webb 4F for the job, but it is only one among many reasons.
Iowa Old Lady
@qwerty42: Good analysis. Thanks for the link.
oldster
I just followed one of Brad DeLong’s tweets over to Mitt Romney’s place.
I’d say the tweets are two to one *against* Mitt’s support of McCain. Trump’s supporters are out in force, and they hate Mitt and they hate McCain and nothing about this episode has changed their mind about the Donald.
The vitriol against McCain and Mitt kinda shocks me, even though I’m a life-long Dem who donated whatever I could afford each time to defeat them. I mean–I thought they’d be bad presidents, and I thought (correctly) that Obama would be a great one.
But these people just hate, hate, *HATE* Mitt and McCain, coming from the right–they are traitors because they lost to the Kenyan, Mitt’s a traitor because he favored socialized medicine, they are both traitors because they won’t take a stand against illegals, etc. etc.
It’s a regular fever swamp over there. I learned long ago not to read the comments on Youtube. Now I know the same applies to poor Mitt’s twitter thread.
Jeff
A repeat of the 1992 election would be amazing. A Clinton beating a Bush thanks to a wacko third party candidate.
(I didn’t make this up, wish I did)
Baud
@ruemara:
Are you there? I didn’t even know that was happening.
Germy Shoemangler
open thread:
Tree With Water
@Germy Shoemangler: Ha! That’s a question I was always asked by company doctors after I tore the meniscus in my left knee on the job. As soon as they were out of the picture, my own doctor had the knee MRI’d (which company docs declined to endorse because that’s not what they were there for), and I was on my way to recovery.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m intrigued too, anybody live tweeting/blogging?
Ruckus
@Cacti:
It’s not like he hasn’t had practice at lying. Oh wait he calls it salesmanship. I simplify, I call it bullshit.
PurpleGirl
I Googled the following words “trump marla maples best sex” and got some 61,000 hits. The NY Post started a ‘scandal’ with a headline supposedly quoting Marla Maples that Trunp was the best sex she’d ever had. They married in 1993. The did divorce later, after who knows how many affairs The Donald had. Yeah, I’d believe anything The Donald said about the sacredness of traditional marriage — NOT. Sorry I live in NYC and The Donald has commanded way too much news print for my taste. (Although, maybe the highlighting of Rudy Guiliani’s marriage stories are in a league of their own.)
rikyrah
Sasha Obama, Biden’s granddaughter forge friendship
For half of her young life, 14-year-old Sasha Obama has found a friend in Maisy Biden, the vice president’s granddaughter.
The two teenagers, who will be freshmen this fall at the elite Sidwell Friends School in Washington, were thrust into the public eye at a young age. Sasha was 5 when her father launched his presidential run in 2007. Maisy was 6 when her grandfather ran for the Democratic nomination, losing to Barack Obama but becoming his vice president.
They have more in common than famous forebears. They’ve played basketball together since 2010. The president even coached their basketball team for a time. He has predicted Maisy will play college ball in a Division 1 school and possibly the WNBA.
The girls love soccer, too. Both were in Vice President Joe Biden’s entourage July 5 at the FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015 championship match in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Sasha joined Maisy and other members of the Biden family attending the finals. Malia Obama, 17, the other presidential daughter, did not make the trip and missed seeing the U.S. women crush Japan, 5-2.
Maisy draped an American flag over her shoulders during the game and Sasha, sporting eyeglasses, wore a U.S. flag lapel pin. The two-day trip forced Sasha and Maisy to miss a summer-league basketball game, Joe Biden told reporters.
Biden, like his boss, lauds his granddaughter’s talent on the hardwood. “Maisy’s a real athlete, I mean for real,” he said after the soccer finals in Vancouver.
Sasha, born Natasha Obama, was seated next to Maisy in the stands Nov. 23 to watch the Princeton Tigers women’s basketball team defeat the American University Eagles in Washington.
First lady Michelle Obama, her mother, Marian Robinson, and Maisy’s mother, Kathleen Biden, who is married to attorney and businessman Hunter Biden, rounded out the mother-daughter outing.
The group assembled to cheer on Leslie Robinson, a 6-foot forward for Princeton. She is Sasha’s cousin and the daughter of the first lady’s brother, Craig Robinson. He was a Princeton basketball standout, who was twice named Ivy League Player of the Year.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-sasha-obama-friendship-met-20150717-story.html#page=1
Germy Shoemangler
@Tree With Water: The company doctors are never fun to deal with.
Baud
@Germy Shoemangler:
Huh?
kindness
Now that is funny. Bloody Bill Kristol defending Trump over Hillary.
Deserves to be a spectator sport.
MaryRC
@Cacti: Henry Fonda enlisted and saw combat as well, winning the Bronze Star. The irony is that Wayne established his career during the war years by getting roles that his rivals Fonda, Stewart and Gable might have played.
Ruckus
@oldster:
Bad choice of words in the same sentence. Poor and Mitt.
He’s not poor, never has been, would be more lost than he was as a candidate. He also brings all this on himself for being such a douche.
schrodinger's cat
@rikyrah: The national press corpse maybe, not the GOP base.
Mandalay
@Germy Shoemangler:
Well that’s interesting, since:
– Trump has previously claimed that the only reason he did not serve was because he had a high lottery number.
– He actually received four student deferments.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trumps-vietnam-draft-records-secret-documents-deferments/story?id=13492639
So there are at least three different versions of the truth explaining why Trump didn’t go to Vietnam.
Tree With Water
@Cacti: I saw a documentary in which Stewart discussed the “he’s too skinny” story, and he was obviously still annoyed by it 40 years later. He was a Yale graduate (I believe) who volunteered to fly because he reasoned he was bound to be drafted anyway, and he was already a pilot. There was no way the U.S. Army Air Corps was going to reject him over a few pounds. Somebody thought it would make a cute PR story, and Stewart was not amused.
rikyrah
Reading this story just made me LOL
……………………
Money flows to Madigan district while state dollars tight
At a time when Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has frozen state spending and cut the budget, a $35 million state grant got paid in full last month that helps build a 1,500-student school in the district of House Speaker Michael Madigan.
The grant went through thanks to a longsighted legislative maneuver by Madigan and his fellow Democrats, who tucked the money away more than a year ago so that no governor could touch it: They sent it to the office of Secretary of State Jesse White, a party loyalist.
Unlike other grants Rauner halted in the budget he inherited from Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, the $35 million sought by the cash-strapped Chicago Public Schools was never in jeopardy because it sat safely in the account of another statewide officeholder.
White’s office signed a contract this spring with the Chicago Public Schools to turn over the funds, saying he had little choice except to make sure the money got spent properly. By contrast, $40 million sent to the State Board of Education for Downstate and suburban school maintenance initiatives got swept up by Rauner to help ends meet before the new budget year began.
The money trail provides a case study into how Madigan deftly works the system to get what he wants — enabling the money to reach schools in his district and those of his allies even as others saw funds from the state disappear. The results underscore Madigan’s ability to stay not just a step ahead in the political game but to see several steps down the road.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/ct-madigan-school-grant-met-20150717-story.html#page=1
Germy Shoemangler
@Baud:
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/google-self-driving-car-struck-again-despite-injury-no-fault-n393511
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: I can’t parse that sentence. It makes no sense. The automated car was rear-ended, and that’s due to the fact that it’s automated? We have a cause and effect problem here, but it’s not surprising given the stupidity of “journalmalists” that are being churned out of J schools nowadays.
rikyrah
@ruemara:
Yep
Yep
Yep
MattF
@oldster: Bear in mind that Trump’s supporters are a minority of a minority– they are ready to dump the Republican Establishment, they feel betrayed by McCain and Romney’s losses to ‘that man’. I don’t know if the Establishment can regain control; it all looks very unstable to me.
Baud
@Germy Shoemangler:
Those cars are tiny, but I wish we had the tech yesterday. We waste so much time on the road.
Germy Shoemangler
@Villago Delenda Est:
I turned to The Onion’s America’s Voices for comments:
oldster
@Ruckus:
Fair enough–he is not an admirable human being. He has made his living by destroying companies and stealing the pension funds from workers. And as I said, I gave as much as I could to defeat him.
But I still felt a small twinge of sympathy for him when I read the right-wing crazies responding to his tweet. Or maybe not even sympathy, but, “he’s not even going to know what hit him!”
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay: The truth is elastic, when you’re dealing with The Donald. The man lives a life of nothing but lies.
Cacti
@MaryRC:
Tyrone Power, another action hero of the era, enlisted in the Marines and flew medical evac missions.
Tree With Water
@Germy Shoemangler: I also developed tendonitis in an elbow on that ass kicker of a job, and the first company doc steered me right (a day off, aspirin, and elbow & hand brace). The second doc told me he wanted me to return to work immediately, fuck it up even worse, and then come back for treatment. It was the first time in my life I ever held a doctor in contempt. I told him what I was going to do (a day off, aspirin, and replace the first braces that had worn out), to which the idiot responded, “Oh, OK”. And that’s what I did.
oldster
@MattF:
Unstable indeed. Let’s just hope it tips over and crushes the Republicans, not our country.
Mandalay
@oldster:
They both have loser stink.
They got both whooped by a lousy N-clang – the ultimate humiliation.
Of course they hate McCain and Romney.
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
I don’t know. “Mitt Romney was a poor candidate and would have made a poor president,” seems entirely fine to me.
PurpleGirl
@Cacti: Further, I know of at least Hollywood A list star who was killed . Leslie Howard was downed over Germany. I know many folks here don’t like “Gone with the Wind” but his role in that movie was probably is his best known movie role in the US.
ruemara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: TWIB, but there’s tons of tweets. I’m not there, since 1. I couldn’t afford that. & 2. The SD trip gave me the sicks & my ear drums are like overworked muscles right now – full of fluid.
divF
@PurpleGirl:
A great loss. See his performance in the original film version of Pygmalion.
oldster
@Mandalay:
You got that one right. Head over to Mitt’s twitter-feed, and you can read dozens of variations on that sentiment.
Combined with equally emphatic assertions that Donald is going to win it.
Jeffro
@geg6: Kerry, Cleland, Duckworth, Hackett…they go right after them for their “supposed” (quotes theirs, not mine) service and turn it into something to make fun of. Those Purple Heart band-aids were truly the lowest, most disrespectful, and unnecessary bit of theater from W’s day’s short of the Oval Office WMD hunt. Thanks Karl Rove and please send us a postcard from room 666 in heck.
Baud
@ruemara:
Feel better.
Greg
Over at Red State Erick son of Erick posted a rebuke of Trump. So far all of the comments have jumped to Trump’s defense, because McCain is a “traitor” to Real ‘Murica because he has called out the Tea Party for being the lunatics that they are. Please, please, please let Trump get the Republican nomination. We could run anyone against him and win in a landslide.
Mack
I’ve been wondering if Trump won’t be in an excellent position to prove his negotiating prowess on down the road, by either dropping out or promising not to run as an independent, and fleecing the (possible) next Repub administration somehow. I doubt he wants a seat at the table, but surely an administration that he holds markers against could make him even richer, right?
jl
@Mack: I smell a deal in the making. The new Department of Homeland C * $ * n * s, Resorts, and Beauty Pageants will need a worthy Secretary.
Mike in NC
@Mandalay: Hence the need to finally field a True Conservative in 2016. The debates will be quite a spectacle of candidates throwing slabs of raw red meat to the deranged base.
Tree With Water
@qwerty42: Remember the Grand Bargain that Obama proposed, and proposed, and proposed again and again? You might want to revisit it as it appear you’ve forgotten, for it will surely disabuse you of this “dimensional chess” bullshit.
jl
And Dingell may be old in calendar years but he can keep up with them damn kids on the tweeter.
Mack
@jl: LOL. More likely is that they will need a developer to contract with, that’s where the real money is.
gnomedad
Andy Borowitz nails it:
Steeplejack (phone)
@Germy Shoemangler:
Link or source? Or is it just “the Interwebs”?
Heliopause
If this ends up hurting Trump I’m going to start an informal list of things that do and don’t get you kicked out of a Presidential race.
Don’t: A deliberately cultivated clownish persona, colorful personal life, hair that would embarrass a TV evangelist, extreme xenophobia.
Do: Paraphrasing an American military hero while disparaging an irrelevant political figure on an irrelevant topic.
Going back in time I’ll have plenty more examples.
Germy Shoemangler
@gnomedad:
That’s exactly how he thinks. That’s his logic.
If he hadn’t been born rich I wonder if he’d be an assistant sales mgr at a car dealership somewhere. With a linkedin page that shows he never lasted more than six months at any one dealership.
Or maybe he would have gotten his realtor’s license and he’d be selling tract homes in Cohoes.
David Koch
This is Great News for Bill Kristol!
Germy Shoemangler
@Steeplejack (phone):
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/google-self-driving-car-struck-again-despite-injury-no-fault-n393511
ruemara
@Steeplejack (phone): it’s been all over the news since yesterday. The only thing it says about driverless cars, is that humans are still too stupid to drive compared to the automated cars themselves. http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/17/autos/google-self-driving-car-injury-accident/
Mandalay
@Greg:
Hardly a rebuke. More a poorly disguised blowjob:
Erickson doesn’t like swallowing what Trump said about McCain, but apart from that he’s more than happy to suck Trump’s cock.
Steeplejack (phone)
@PurpleGirl:
Leslie Howard was on a commercial flight from Lisbon to the U.K. that was shot down over the Bay of Biscay.
lol
@Heliopause:
A *Republican* military hero. All other military heroes are fair game.
lol
BTW, if anyone was wondering why Sanders doesn’t have a chance of winning the nomination, they got a pretty good view of why at Netroots Nation.
David Koch
@lol: can you expand on that for those of us not paying attention to nutroots
jl
@Mandalay: Thanks for link. TPM has 3 posts up on Trump’s attack on McCain. I don’t see anybody asking Trump to apologize or put himself through some public self-humiliation ritual. All are pretty mild except for Perry, who has already decided to go after Trump ferociously. Trump probably already has enough devoted followers that the GOPer pols don’t want to commit themselves. They will let the Base Id decide.
Trump so far has decided to pivot to the political sins of McCain and forge ahead.
What will the Base Id say?
If Trump is peaking too early, then unless the McCain thing blows up to be something more than appears now, it is ruining him too early. As many other commenters have pointed out above, the GOP base don’t really care about the fine points of decency or good faith in honoring any kind of personal service or sacrifice for the country, or anything really. If Trump’s act feels good on a regular basis, everything will be fine.
gogol's wife
@Tree With Water:
He went to Princeton.
aimai
@rikyrah: How adorable is that??? Thanks for posting it. My daughters are the same ages as Sasha and Malia. I have followed those two and Michelle’s job as their mother with a lot of empathy and respect.
SFAW
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m thinking you’re slacking off, if you’re only that far along in your count.
Debbie
@jl:
Trump slammed Perry a couple of days ago, so this isn’t high-minded principles on Perry’s part.
SFAW
@Germy Shoemangler:
For a second there, I thought you were talking about W.
ETA: Except that, if it were W, his business acumen would have caused the dealerships to fail.
jl
@Debbie: I would never characterize anything Perry does as particularly ‘minded’ at all, let alone ‘high minded’, I just reported fact that Perry is the only one who seems willing to really go after Trump on a consistent basis.
Edit: I think Perry was first to go after Trump and Trump reacted.
NotMax
@Germy Shoemangler
If he ever gave a reason, I do not know or have forgotten.
Have seen mention over the years made by other Hollywood celebs contemporary to Wayne that his self-imposed absence stood out like a sore thumb. IIRC, Bette Davis (the engine behind the Hollywood Canteen) was particularly bitter about his denial to participate.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
You got me. I of course was reading it the way it was stated, something along the line of “Oh woe is me, poor Mitt.” Poor, as in feeling sorry for Mitt, or Mitt, he started out poor but has made millions, by fucking over companies and especially their employees. Not “Oh woe is me, Mitt is a poor example of a human being.”
jl
@lol: I’d like more info too. I looked up news reports and from what I gather, HRC did not attend and lots of HRC hate. O’Malley heckled so badly by ‘Black Lives Matter’ protesters he could not finish his speech, and Sanders heckled too.
So what happened in your view? And how important are the Netroots people to the nomination and election?
O’Malley and Sanders Interrupted by Black Lives Matter Protesters in Phoenix…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbXOYSigocs
Patrick
@jl:
If I read elsewhere correctly, Perry is scrambling to make the top 10 so he can get invited to the debates.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
I understand that Three-Plane McCain was violating the rules of engagement at the time he was shot down.
In other words, it was his own fault, just like the other 3 planes he crashed w/o the assistance of the North Viet-Nam anti-aircraft brigades.
He also disgraced himself during the fatal (to 134 sailors) flight deck fire on the USS Forrestal – the aircraft carrier he was sorta flying from. When the fueling accident started, McCain was sitting in a fully armed strike fighter, loaded with bombs. His very first action was to drop all his munitions into the pool of burning fuel below his aircraft. WRONG!
SOP is to leave the munitions attached to the aircraft so that they would go away when the aircraft was pushed overboard so it wouldn’t sink the aircraft carrier when it blew up. Aircraft are cheap compared to the Carrier.
Next, after escaping from his aircraft, he went below, instead of taking command of a disorganized fire-fighting team working without its normal NCO leadership. He ran away and hid while other officers and men tried to save their ship, which was in mortal danger.
The next day, before the dead were put to rest, McCain copped a lift on a helicopter that brought a NY Times reporter out to the Forrestal to report on the disaster. He flew to South Viet-Nam for some R&R – which he certainly needed after saving the Forrestal from certain death – NOT!
He may have asked for leave to get some R&R, and his command may have allowed him to leave, so as to get the asshole out of the way, since he wasn’t going to do anything constructive if he stayed on board. This was not clear in his biography, wherein I gained these facts about his stellar Navy Pilot career.
Not a hero, just a dork who may have endangered more troops on our side than he killed on the enemy side… So nothing Trump can say about McCain could be worse than the cold truth, nothing.
ETA: Not only was his daddy an admiral, his grand-daddy was an admiral. Otherwise he would have been flunked out of the Naval Academy. And if he had passed that test, he would have been taken out of the pilot program after he crashed that second aircraft.
jl
@Patrick: yeah, that thought crossed my mind when I first saw Perry taking on Trump: Perry has nothing to lose, and this will at least get him noticed.
But Perry is going nowhere, I only mentioned him to contrast with the rest of the GOP political goofs, pundits and pols.
divF
@SFAW:
I seem to recall higher numbers in other posts. I think this one was already listed and VDE looked it up.
Steeplejack
@Germy Shoemangler, @ruemara:
Okay, this is my blog dyspeptic mini-rant for the day.
The reason I have asked Germy (and others) for links or sources lately is not because I don’t believe something happened or that it isn’t “all over the Internet”—although we have had cases where people have posted stories here as true that turned out to be from humor sites or from discredited sites. It’s because I (and I presume other readers) might like to read the rest of the source material to get more detail, fill in the context and, yes, judge the source. And it just seems more efficient for the original poster to supply a link, or at least name the source, than for potentially dozens of people to do a laborious search to find out where the quote or the story came from.
Raven’s long quote above is another example. It’s apparently a quote from Jim Webb, although his name is not mentioned (in the quote) and it’s just a screed about John Kerry and the VVAW. Is it from an interview? An op-ed piece? One of Webb’s books? What’s the context? When did he say it? That might make a difference, or mean something (I don’t know what).
If the goal is to add to the discussion on this blog, why wouldn’t it be helpful to give people a bit of a springboard from which to continue? I see from later in this thread that people had trouble with the wording of the self-driving-car story. Why not give them the link at the start so they can take a shot at sorting it out if there’s something they don’t understand?
I’m not saying we need Chicago Manual of Style citation rules here, and I know it can be hard to copy and paste a link on a phone or tablet, but even something as simple as “NBCNews.com says . . .” at least gives the reader a place to start.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl: Besides the “oops” moment, wasn’t Perry deemed impure on immigration last time? They seem even madder about it now.
Mandalay
@jl:
Yes, but a bit too ferociously:
Perry’s overplaying his hand and making himself look a bit ridiculous with that pompous nonsense. Since Perry served in the air force I think he would have done better to paint Trump as a draft dodger attacking those who serve. Trump and Perry had already fallen out over immigration, so I’m guessing Perry’s advisors told him to directly attack Trump in order to show some spine and stand out from the crowd.
Ted Cruz has not criticized Trump for his attack on McCain. He’s still hoping to scoop up the Trump supporters when Trump eventually folds.
David Koch
All this shows is McCain’s only constituency is the tire-swing media.
2 years decorated combat hero Chuck Hagel who survied various GS wounds was smeared as soft by McCain. Cruz said he was agent of NKorea and a friend of Hamas. And no one in the tire-swing media blinked an eye.
Oh, but if someone says something equal ugly about Walnuts and the tire-swingers lose their shit.
Chris
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Mexicans are not a sacred category. Republican veterans are. Even accounting for the base’s hatred of McCain, I can easily see this being the beginning of the Trump campaign’s end.
jl
@Mandalay: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Too many crazy and grify Republicans in the race now for me to keep track of what all of them are doing and why. I just want the primary to be a complete mess for as long as possible, and for it produce the least viable candidate for the general. Trump could play a valuable role in helping that along.
I am facing the fact that my hope of fifty-four GOPers at the first presidential primary debates is growing very unlikely. That breaks my heart, and I need some time to grieve over the death of my cherished dream.
@Chris: ‘Trump campaign’s end’: if so, I think that the supposed bigshots will not do much to help that along. Trump has enough support to do a lot of damage, and therefore they will go easy on him, unless they feel they have nothing to lose, like Perry.
NonyNony
@Chris:
I doubt it. Veteran’s are not, in fact, a sacred category. Not even Republican vets – anyone who fails to live up to the Republican ideal is an enemy. McCain is widely hated by the 27% of the GOP base that are going to be Trump’s constituency and so this won’t hurt him at all.
(Make no mistake – Trump cannot win this. The top of his possible support is something like 45% of the GOP primary voters, and frankly I’m betting that he maxes out at 27%. But until Jeb! starts running the ads where there are recordings of Trump saying good things about Hillary Clinton or socialized medicine, he’s not going to lose his voters.)
Greg
@Mandalay: Ha ha ha ha ha ha! You are right, of course, but even the blowjob has him in trouble with his highly deranged readers. I tell my friends that if they want to know what pompous, low-information Conservatives think, read The Corner. If they want to know what the stupid low-information conservative thinks, read Red State. If they want to know what the truly insane Conservative thinks, read WND.
Mandalay
@Chris:
I have to disagree; Republican veterans are obviously not a sacred category. Rick Perry and Lindsey Graham are the only Republican candidates who have directly attacked Trump over his remarks about McCain’s service. All the rest are going no further than passively posting their support for McCain, which is hardly the same thing.
gelfling545
@Hunter Gathers: The base (and I do mean base) is on FB right now exhorting Trump to continue to “tell it like it is”. I only know this because a friend (retired US Army) was having none of it & took Trump to task in a comment & I wanted to see what she said.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
Personally, I have no beef with John Wayne simply not having served. It’s his overcompensating for his perceived (by himself) lack of manliness by becominga raging asshole that makes me want to punch his lights out.
He really is the perfect embodiment of a certain part of America, the one that became dominant after Vietnam.
Mandalay
Heh – Jeb! Bush (very unwisely) tweeted this:
The responses are stuffing him into the woodchipper head first:
Poor old Jeb! is between a rock and hard place right now. If Trump actually planned for things to unravel like this then he’s not nearly as dumb as he is being portrayed.
gelfling545
@Citizen Alan: Except that Trumps remarks devalue the service of all POWs. He “likes people who weren’t captured”.
lol
@jl:
It completely exposed how bad his outreach to the black community is. White progressives haven’t wanted to hear or believe it.
O’Malley stuck his foot in his mouth too but he stuck around to do damage control. Sanders bailed on a scheduled meeting with activists that was to happen after.
Or as Elon put it:
jl
Don’t see any links from people who mentioned some Netroots disaster of some kind.
Here is Bernie Sander’s appearance (probably just the first part of it, seems like the Q&A is cut off).
I’m looking for something on O’Malley’s appearance.
Bernie Sanders Responds To Black Lives Matter Protesters – Netroots Nation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWiNy6UA7zY
jl
@lol: Thanks for info. News reports made O’Malley’s appearance look like a total disaster.
sigaba
@Germy Shoemangler:
Not to take away from Carole Lombard’s death, but she wasn’t shot out of the sky, the DC-3 she was riding in crashed into a mountain west of Los Vegas due to a navigational error, combined with the blackout of city lights and beacons. She had been traveling the US for a war bond drive. Ironically she’d been asked to give up her seat on the plane to servicemen going to Los Angeles, and she insisted that she and her publicist had priority.
Her death almost certainly lead to the premature death by alcoholism of her husband, Clark Gable. (I see other people already answered this, sorry.)
Wayne wasn’t eligible for the draft as he was too old and had a family. He consistently claimed that he wanted to enlist but wanted to make sure his family was taken care of, so he always had to the next movie he got, wherein he occasionally played soldiers fighting in the war. (What Frank Capra and George Stevens thought of this, being filmmakers with large families who left them to serve, and at least in the former case probably lost the best years of their careers to the decision, there is little record.)
He wrote John Ford trying to get into his Signal Corps unit, Ford thought maybe Wayne was trying to featherbed — which in any case wasn’t assured, as Ford himself was hit by shrapnel while filming the battle of Midway.
jl
OK, here is O’Malley at Netroots nation.
Black Lives Matter Protesters – Martin O’Malley Crashes Politically at Netroots Nation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbixEGV_N6g
Gimlet
@jl:
Was it worse than the “Dean Scream”?
lol
@jl:
To his credit, O’Malley scrambled to get on This Week in Blackness almost immediately afterwards. He knows how badly he fucked up.
jl
@Gimlet: I have no clue. I’m still watching the O’Malley clip. Supposedly O’Malley couldn’t say ‘Black Lives Matter’ without adding ‘White Lives Matter too’ or something like that…
I’ve given some money to Sanders, because at the time I thought there should be a real Democratic Primary and Sanders would be a good person to enter. But he has sounded tone deaf on minority civil rights, it really has to be a major issue on its own, and not, as he seems to treat it, as something that can mostly be solved through economic policy reforms. He is very aggressive on voting rights, and seems like that would be a good place to start, but he doesn’t.
Maybe Biden will enter.
I don’t really care what happens in the Democratic primary as long as it produces a nominee with best chance to win the general election.
lol
Ironically, Dave Weigel has had the best coverage, IMHO.
Tree With Water
@J R in WV: Thanks for writing that. It needed to be noted.
Gimlet
The heckling may have caught Sanders without a good response, but I can’t jump from that to he’s either a racist or doesn’t care about the social problems of Blacks.
David Koch
@jl:
Mandalay
@jl:
Not once, but twice! WTF was O’Malley thinking? He’s way beyond tone deaf.
David Koch
He was also floundered trying to explain away his repeated votes against comprehensive Immigration Reform, saying he opposed it because the chamber of commerce supported it. while that’s true, it means nothing to every immigrate and immigrate organization who wants legal status and citizenship.
Last week he appeared on CNN and offered a bumbling defense of his mind numbing corporatist vote to block victims of horrific gun violence from suing evil gun corporations (merchants of death) saying there is no difference btwn a hammer and a AK-47.
He will also have to explain why he voted for Bill Clinton’s infamous mass incarceration bill.
He has money now and a staff, yet he is unprepared such foreseeable issues.
That said, this is all entertainment. Anyone who thinks a person who will be 76 in his first year of office will win a national election isn’t a part of reality based system.
Patrick
If we had any REAL journalists in this country, they would kindly ask Jeb if Kerry, Duckworth and Cleland would be among those that have earned our respect and admiration.
jl
@Gimlet: My personal hunch is that Sanders really believes that economic justice is a necessary foundation for progress on racial justice to to make continued progress. But he will not address bigotry as a problem in its own right that needs to be addressed as an issue, whether it is racism, or prejudice against ethnicities, religions, whatever.
As I said above, he is extremely aggressive on citizen participation, civic action, and that includes voting rights, so I he could make a start there. But I think he is just a true believer in his approach.
On racism against blacks, I hear black friends and co-workers run the gamut from being rabid Bernie supporters to really feeling offended by his approach. If Sanders turns out to be tone deaf person who cannot understand the need to address important issues like racism on their own, and not always have to fold them into economics, then he will not do very well, and then too bad for him.
jl
@David Koch: Yeah yeah right right right. You hate Sanders. I got that. Troll away, my friend.
Sanders has addressed the minority mass incarceration problem, blacks being unable to walk down the street without police harassment, and GOP attempts to suppress minority voting on his stump speech spin around the country.
I’ve posted enough links today, so you go find them and listen. I would bother to agree with you that he does not address these issues adequately, but you have a habit of becoming a deranged troll on some issues, so I won’t this time.
Gimlet
Regarding McCain
Back when he was the Republican candidate a glaring contradiction arose, robust but 100% disabled.
Sen. John McCain has long said he is in robust health and is strong enough to hike the Grand Canyon, but he also is receiving what his staff Monday termed a “disability pension” from the Navy.
When McCain released his tax return for 2007 on Friday, he separately disclosed that he received a pension of $58,358 that was not listed as income on his return.
On Monday, McCain’s staff identified the retirement benefit as a “disability pension” and said that McCain “was retired as disabled because of his limited body movements due to injuries as a POW.”
McCain campaign strategist Mark Salter said Monday night that McCain was technically disabled. “Tortured for his country — that is how he acquired his disability,” Salter said.
Certain types of military and veterans pensions are either partially or completely tax-exempt, depending on the seriousness of the disability. In McCain’s case, the exemption is 100%.
David Koch
Here’s some articles on the carange.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/2015/07/18/black-lives-matter-protesters-disrupt-bernie-sanders-martin-omalley-phoenxix/30351121/
If he hit himself in the head with a hammer it would have done less damage with latino voters than this callous explanation.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/18/martin-omalley-bernie-sanders-interrupted-hecklers-phoenix
Yes, yes – when the going gets tough, the tough ask, “what are we doing here?”
dogwood
How important are these netroot malcontents to the Democratic Party? I don’t see why any serious candidate would appear before a convention of hecklers, and disrupters. I’m not a big Hillary fan but, her absence from this event raises my opinion of her. I would be wary of supporting a candidate who willingly subjects him or herself to a crowd of self-important assholes. Sounds like a wannabe CPAC gathering.
David Koch
@jl: Go ahead, call me names. That all Sanders’s supporters have. Talk about projection and weakness.
Yet all the childish name calling won’t wipe away his record and the issue remains, why did the great white populist hope vote to throw millions of blacks and latinos in jail?
Splitting Image
Gawker should rebrand itself as “Trump: The Website”.
lol
@David Koch:
And cancels all his meetings for the rest of the day.
O’Malley shot himself in the foot but immediately sought medical attention. Sanders vanished.
Mandalay
@dogwood:
The audience was there to protest rather than listen. Clinton would have got slammed just like O’Malley had she turned up, and I’m sure she anticipated that possibility, but her absence certainly doesn’t raise my opinion of her.
During Romney’s presidential campaign he gave a speech to the NAACP. Not surprisingly, it was received politely, but with little enthusiasm. I give far more credit to Romney for turning up than I do to Clinton for staying away.
David Koch
@Gimlet: But if he cares why is his voting record so ugly.
He twice filibustered the stopping deportations and granting Latinos legal status and a pathway to citizenship in 2007 Vote #1 Vote #2
Vote #2 shows you how seriously hard line he was against immigration. The bill broke the filibuster for allowing a floor debate (64-35) yet he still voted against Obama, Feingold, and Ted Kennedy.
That’s just mind bloggling. He has to find some way to explain those anti-latino votes.
And he voted for the draconian Mass Incarceration bill that targeted millions of minorities with cruel and unusual punishment.
If he really cared about minorities why would he vote to lock them up and take away their education, leaving them with no skills when they were eventually release after long sentences?
Mandalay
@David Koch:
Obviously they don’t realize it, but Bernie Sanders would have been the best ally the audience could possibly have had in the presidential campaign, and they shot themselves in the foot by treating him like he was the enemy.
Having rejected Sanders, BLM can now flock back to Cornel West and Tavis Smiley, and wonder why nothing changes.
Tree With Water
Andrew O’Hahaha at Salon.com writes: “Progressives often view the zombified 21st century GOP with an understandable mixture of apprehension and bewilderment: How the hell did this happen? Can it really be working? The answers to those questions are that it was the result of a brilliant long-term strategy to alter the dynamics of American politics – to change perception, and then to change reality — and that it’s working much better than most people perceive”.
Changing perception, so as to best change reality, is of course not in and of itself ignoble. O’Hereir knows that Martin Luther King essentially accomplished the same feat, but for the good. And I for one have never once paused to wonder how the hell this country has got in the mess we’re in today, because I’ve had a front row seat my entire life as the tragedies have unfolded. But the Salon writer has drawn a bead on what’s happened to the republican party over the past forty years, and explains it well.
John Revolta
Looks like neither one of these guys would’ve gotten very far with Sister Souljah.
dogwood
@David Koch:
Getting into a pissing contest about whether or not Bernie is a savior or a fraud seems beside the point to me. He’s had a long legislative career which means you can cherry pick votes till kingdom come to argue a point. I like Bernie, and think he’s a good rabble rouser. I just don’t think he’s suited for the presidency. That’s not a knock on him; most people aren’t. We can make all kind of arguments about why the Republicans had to settle for Mitt Romney in 2012, but it really just boils down to the fact that outside of Huntsman who was a non-starter, he was the only one even remotely suited for the job.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mandalay: I don’t know if I’d equate NN and the NAACP. And Romney showed up precisely because he knew he’d get a polite reception, and then no one could say he didn’t show up. He had no interest in advancing the goals of the organization. Quite the opposite. I don’t know why you’d give him credit for an empty gesture that cost him nothing but time, and wasted the time of the people attending. Whatever disagreements the NN protestors had with O’Malley, Sanders or Clinton, they’re not on opposite sides of the issue
David Koch
@lol: Not unusual. He always runs.
After Sandy Hook, he cancelled a press conference and threw reporters out for daring to ask the great leader about the Massacre.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Please to explain.
@dogwood: I think as Republicans go, Pawlenty or Perry would have been just as serviceable to them.
Kay
@David Koch:
You’re representing this as focused on Sanders, but that isn’t what the protester herself says:
, but here’s my full interview with Tia Oso, the Black Lives Matter activist who took the mic today during the Netroots Nation Presidential Town Hall. This interview was given just a few moments after the protest ended.
Q: Were you satisfied with the reactions from the Presidential candidates?
A: Before we took over, did you hear Martin O’Malley? Talking about all the things that he did in Baltimore?
Q: Yeah, he said the protests at his announcement were only three people.
A: He said it was three white people! All I said to myself was, we’re going to take care of that for you. That’s not the best thing to come out with. When he said that, one of the girls I was with was like “rush the stage.” I said OK wait. And then he said White Lives matter? What’s going on?
Q: And Sanders kept pivoting to an economic critique?
A: Because that is a more comfortable space for him. But if you really want to talk about economics, do you want to talk about incarceration, do you want to talk about defunding the public sector, do you really want to talk about, oh job creation. There’s plenty of jobs! Right? We’re in America, it is never just anything without the context of white supremacy it’s never just anything.”
You think there wouldn’t have been a protest if Clinton had gone? I think there would have been.
http://daviddayen.tumblr.com/post/124440696571/interview-with-tia-oso-black-lives-matter
Mandalay
@David Koch: I’m a Sanders supporter, but kudos to you for raising and relevant concerns about his voting record that deserve answers.
David Koch
@dogwood: landmark issues like the mass incarceration bill and immigration aren’t cherry picking.
Mack
Toby addresses the activists.
dogwood
@Mandalay:
Well just have to disagree here. My estimation of Hillary went up in the same way my estimation of any Republican who refused to go to CPAC would rise. And sorry, but comparing Romney’s appearance at the NAACP, one of the country’s oldest advocacy groups, to appearing at the netroots confab is pretty insulting.
Another Holocene Human
@Steeplejack: Well said.
Mandalay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I respectfully disagree. If they are not on opposite sides of the issue, then why did Clinton stay away, and why did O’Malley, Sanders get such a rough reception?
I wasn’t there, and I have only seen limited video clips, but my uninformed opinion is that O’Malley, Sanders and Clinton ARE all on the opposite side of the issue in the minds of that audience. To them they represent the status quo, but the crowd was so emotional that they didn’t even want to let Sanders and O’Malley speak.
Clinton’s no-show was prudent but cowardly.
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: Bowe. Bergdahl.
David Koch
@Mandalay: can you imagine any other candidate getting away with such votes?
Imagine if Obama had said there’s no difference btwn a hammer and a AK-47, if he had voted against Latinos and in favor of sick mass incarceration, he would have been torn to shreds by the blogosphere and actual voters.
dogwood
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You beat me to it, and said it much better than I.
Mandalay
@dogwood:
Yes, we’ll have to agree to disagree, because I thought Clinton’s no-show was pretty insulting.
Kay
@Mandalay:
Clinton stayed away because she was booed in 2007. I was there in either 2009 or 2010 when they booed the person Obama sent. The BLM activists are obviously different people and it’s a different issue but a protest at a NN event is not at all unusual. Last year I was there for a protest by immigration activists, in Detroit
Keith G
@jl:
lol…Not as long as HRC is still ambulatory
With the GOP messaging getting vaporized by Trump, I hope Lefty types do not go back to our very old habit of forming circular firing squads.
David Koch
@Kay: I’m not representing anything. I linked to articles from the Guardian, MSNBC reporter Kristal Ball, and the local Phoenix paper. It’s their words.
Catherine D.
Roy Zimmerman’s new CD is out. Many snarky songs including SCROTUS (Supreme Court Republicans of the United States), the Vagina Dialogues and Give Measles a Chance. Love me some Roy!
Another Holocene Human
@jl:
If Sanders does think that, and I suspect the same given his habit of pivoting to econ issues, then he’s wrong.
Google putting up that doodle of Ida B. Wells the other day offers a hint as to why he’s wrong. (It’s the terrorism, stupid.)
dogwood
@David Koch:
You are cherry picking, because The Violence Against Women Act was part of that mass incarceration bill. Would it be fair for Bernie’s supporters to declare his adversaries on this issue misogynists?
Kay
@Mandalay:
I was at this one:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/06/17/white-houses-pfeiffer-draws-boos-at-netroots-nation/
2013 it was Pelosi and Valerie Jarret who were booed.
Keith G
@Mandalay:
It was wise. Very fucking wise.
A disruption of her comments would have been engraved on the news cycle and flashing on the side of a blimp.
Kay
@David Koch:
But the activist herself starts out with Martin O’Malley and goes on to say that her issues are: voting rights, incarceration and public sector employment.
The O’Malley speech is where they took the mic. I get that you want to make this about Bernie Sanders but there’s a long tradition of protests at NN and if Hillary Clinton had been there the same thing would have happened because it’s not “about” Bernie Sanders. They’re issue activists. They want the Democratic candidates to respond. That’s what they said.
dogwood
@Mandalay:
So in essence:
“Im insulted that Hillary wouldn’t make herself available to be heckled and insulted.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You write as if all three knew that the town hall interviews were going to become a focus point for BLM, and Sanders and O’Malley nobly strode into the fray while Clinton hid. They didn’t know this was going to happen.
As to being on different sides: Do you really think Sanders, O’Malley and Clinton don’t believe systemic racism exists, and they don’t want to fix it? Do you think they would actively oppose measures to improve, just to take one part of the whole, policing?
David Koch
We should be real. Sanders is doing a good job raising money and appealing to voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. But because he isn’t the national frontrunner, he’s received a free pass from the media.
This is not unusual. The media ignored Howard Dean until he became the frontrunner and then the media dropped a ton of bricks on him.
I like Sander’s positions on economics (even if some are only platitudes), but he has also cast disturbing votes that he has so far refused to address.
On a rational level, I just am unable to envision a man who will be 76 in 2017 winning a national election. At age 76, he’s the one person who would make Jeb! look young.
So I can appreciate his economic message, while looking askance at the blogosphere’s non reality based electoral fantasies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I think in 2006, Barbara Boxer was stunned to find people knew and cared (and were really pissed) about her campaigning for Joe Lieberman.
Mandalay
@Kay:
Fine, that’s understandable. But that hardly makes her a profile in courage, or deserving of praise.
Meanwhile, O’Malley and Sanders had the balls to show up and weren’t really allowed to speak, and then fuckwits like our very own Elon White dump on them:
O’Malley certainly fucked up, but with friends like BLM you don’t need enemies.
Kay
@dogwood:
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/04/29/hillary-not-ready-for-netroots
She may also have stayed away because in Detroit there was a Ready For Hillary presence (she had people there and she sponsored something) and it was eclipsed by the Ready for Warren people. Maybe she’s just had it.
dogwood
@Kay:
I understand what your point is Kay, but the question I asked earlier in the thread is whether or not this is a valuable forum. Does the party benefit from a ritualistic venting against their own, or is it simply theater?
Another Holocene Human
@Kay: I feel last year’s protest was more constructive, although I’m not saying both men didn’t have it coming. From the AZ story apparently the local activists were mostly pissed at NN so this was a high profile way to derail it. Maybe some confusion of tactics, strategy, and goals going on. But, eh, if O’Malley didn’t get heckled at NN it would have been elsewhere. Markos said he was boycotting AZ, was that a boycott of one?
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I was in the room when they booed the Obama guy and I was uncomfortable with it, not because they were protesting but just because the interview seemed really smug to me- like a staged “smackdown”, you know what I mean?
I think if you ask someone a question you have to let them answer, and I’m really familiar with people who are all about asking the smack-down question (which is not really a question and is instead about the person asking the fake-question) because certain lawyers do it. If you just want to challenge someone then don’t pretend it’s a dialogue or that you seek information. That doesn’t apply here because they actually didn’t ask questions, they just heckled.
Mandalay
@dogwood:
Not at all. I just posted that it was understandable that she didn’t turn up, since Kay pointed out that she had been booed in 2007, but that hardly makes her absence praiseworthy. And I wouldn’t blame Sanders or O’Malley at all if they never go back again either, after that clusterfuck.
But what I really don’t understand is why she has gone up in your estimation for not attending, as though she has done something wonderful.
Kay
@dogwood:
Markos actually boycotted this one because he won’t go to Arizona because he is Latino and thinks the state shouldn’t get the dollars. So, I don’t know the answer to your question. I suspect NN lasts as long as people keep going.
msdc
@dogwood: Don’t forget the third option, “counterproductive grandstanding.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
sounds like Major Garrett. In the lower-stakes fora I used to attend, the (usually) less belligerent but just as self-important form of this was the “I have more a comment than a question….”, or the ones who just got up to pontificate without even pretending they wanted to engage in dialogue, just listen to themselves talk.
(also, too, do you still have the keys? Can you throw up an open thread?)
Kay
@Another Holocene Human:
I thought last year’s was fine but honestly I had taken my 12 year old to see Rev. Barber so I was afraid they were going to shout him down (they didn’t, and my son heard Rev Barber). He was 11 and he waited hours (you know how everything’s always behind schedule) and I just really wanted him to hear Barber.
David Koch
@Another Holocene Human: This.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I should so I’ll try. I’m sorry. I should have realized. I’m (as you know!) a terrible blog manager :)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I was hesitant to ask, it’s just that this thread is getting long and it seems like there’s a lot to talk about today.
dogwood
@Mandalay:
I have a certain amount of respect for anyone who refuses to become a human piñata for a bunch of malcontents.
NotMax
@sigaba5
All well and good but totally beside the point, as what was being commented upon was neither enlistment nor the draft.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s done and you can always ask. Anytime.
Mandalay
@dogwood:
I don’t think that it is purely theater. There is a valid frustration that Democratic politicians are systemically not addressing real concerns, and O’Malley’s blundering showed that there is a massive gap to be bridged – he came across as completely detached and clueless about the concerns of the audience.
But you are not going to make any progress by treating the people who come to speak to you with contempt, and on the video clips I have seen that is what happened today.
David Koch
At some point Sanders is also going to have answer why he voted against President Obama and fellow Vermont Senator Pat Leahy and in favor of keeping GITMO open
Civil liberties for me, but not for thee.
Tree With Water
@Mandalay: The one common characteristic of white Americans is a common misperception of the history of both continent and country as seen through the eyes and experience of black Americans. Most white Americans are unaware the two stories are primarily incompatible, and profoundly so. I count myself among that great white herd.
Not too long after reading Ta Neisha Coates acclaimed essay about slavery and reparations, I was prompted by a rave review to purchase The Counter Revolution of 1776- Slave Resistance And The Origins Of The United States Of America (NYU Press, 2014). To say it’s an eye opener is an understatement. The honky scales are falling from my eyes as I read it, because it casts a great and abiding light on our history (and I just started reading it). It’s actually pretty thrilling- an old guy like me, having that happen. It’s a book that all honkies would likewise profit from reading, even those relative few that do know the story. The author is Gerald Horne, and he’s a fine writer.
Gin & Tonic
There was some discussion way upthread about Trump’s Selective Service status. He would have been in the first lottery, and his number in that was 356. So deferment or no deferment, there was no way he was going in.
The Other Chuck
@shell:
I think it’s too cute by half that HuffPo thinks it has anything but an Entertainment section.
Mandalay
@dogwood:
I think you revealed a bit more about yourself than you intended there.
Completely O/T: A comment of yours a few weeks ago got me reading T.C. Boyle, so thanks for that.
Mandalay
@David Koch: It’s rare that anyone here changes my opinion, but I have to admit that your Bernie posts in this thread really are making me a squirm a bit. Thanks for that.
(McClaren did the same with his/her posts on Biden.)
Kay
And here’s another BLM activist interview:
http://daviddayen.tumblr.com/post/124440944821/interview-with-ashley-yeats-black-lives-matter
David Koch
@Gin & Tonic: the problem is Trump graduated college in 1968, before the lottery, which occured a year and a half later in December 1969. In 1968 he lost his student deferments. He was classified 1-A, eligible for the draft. But he got out using a doctor saying he was physically unfit. That was common among rich kids. They’d go doctor shopping and get a slip.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/trump-draft-deferment
dogwood
@Mandalay:
Yeah, that’s what I suspect. I think my stridency about Hillary not attending really stems from the fact that I can’t stand to watch people being publicly embarrassed or humiliated no matter their station in life. It makes me uncomfortable even if it’s people I can’t stand on the receiving end.
Denali
How come nobody mentions the killer speech that Elizabeth Warren gave at NN? Its available at Digby. Why won’t she run? She doesn’t have the baggage that Hilary brings.
Patricia Kayden
@Citizen Alan: AMEN! Kerry was what jumped to my mind when I read this post. I recall having to dine with some co-workers who were big Bush supporters in 2004 and how they openly mocked Kerry all during lunch. I had to shut my mouth, of course, because I was a lowly worker. Republicans have no respect for Democratic military members so who cares what Trump says about McCain.
And don’t forget what the GOP did to Max Cleland!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Cleland
The Other Chuck
@Denali: Maybe she doesn’t want the job?
Tree With Water
@Gin & Tonic: First things first. I would still like to know where the hell was GW Bush when he went AWOL from a champagne outfit in a time of war? And what was he up to during those years (“I remember you, Dan Rather”).
pseudonymous in nc
@NonyNony:
Verified with a blue tick against his name; verified by being totally fucking wrong.
Mandalay
@dogwood:
Agreed, and there is no way that Sanders and O’Malley deserved the treatment they received today, regardless of their limitations and failings in the minds of the audience.
I’ve been reading today’s tweets from Elon White who blogs on BJ. The gulf between Elon’s perspective and that of elected politicians – even those on the left like Sanders – is clearly massive.
dogwood
@The Other Chuck:
Don’t destroy the dream.
David Koch
@Mandalay: His economic message is great and it pushes Overton’s window to the left. At the same time we need to remain dispassionate, if only so people aren’t eventually hurt at the electoral outcome.
chopper
@Chris:
john mccain isn’t.
Another Holocene Human
@David Koch: I’d like an answer on that one, too. That one has always made me wonder why the uber-left is all over this guy. Scream that No-Bummer wouldn’t close Gitmo and ignore the guy who bravely ran away when it was time to take a stand? I swear some people are for Sanders simply because he calls himself a socialist. No more thought or info required.
Another Holocene Human
@Kay: And you could get a lot more technical with it, too. Unfair labor laws that disadvantage workers in fields dominated by people of color. The Right To Work law that lets state gov’t block people in public jobs from unionizing or effectively fighting for good wages, jobs that often overrepresent African Americans for a variety of reasons. The ways the Social Security system is also stacked against people of color. The fads driving awards of overly limited transit dollars that make a joke of the environmental justice provisions of the civil rights laws, with monies being redirected to low ridership people movers for rich people while bus service gets cut and communities of color are bypassed by subway systems. There are all kinds of decisions made at the Federal level that profoundly affect communities of color.
All of this stuff is hard to do because other parties would see themselves as the “losers” (rightly or wrongly) in any fix but they have to be done. Sanders does himself and us no service by continuing to avoid this stuff. It wasn’t all solved with a stroke of a pen in 1964 and 1965.
PaulW
true story: my Vietnam War vet dad and hardcore Rush Limbaugh supporter is not a fan of McCain.
I doubt dad is a fan of Trump – in fact, I have no idea who dad would support although it might be Rubio or Walker – but he’s not going to shed tears over this either.
Whatever war vet support Trump will lose over dissing McCain he is more than going to double from the hypocritical sideline chickenhawks who thrill to the idea of pissing on the party’s “RINO” establishment.
Kay
@Another Holocene Human:
Keith Ellison:
dogwood
@Another Holocene Human:
I don’t know how old you or David Koch are but the über left are always all over some candidate early. It’s what they do. The one thing they don’t do however, it vet them. I’ve been defending Bernie today to David, because I don’t think we should take out our frustrations with his passionate supporters on him. If they bothered to vet Bernie before falling in love they’d know he’s a one or two issue guy, whose not as pure as they want the to believe. At least they have better taste this time than in 2008, when they were all over John Edwards cuz he cared so much about the poor. At least Bernie’s not a sleaze.
Jeffro
@Mandalay:
Yes indeed. They both appeal to the exact same subset of the base.
dogwood
@Kay:
Another question, because I’ve always assumed you’ve been a pretty strong Hillary supporter and I trust your judgment. Over the Fourth my group of friends were have our annual party and we got to talking about how I strong armed all of them into giving monthly donations to the Obama campaign early in ’08. We did the same in ’12 and figured we donated between 60-70 grand collectively. However, while all of us have been contacted by O’Malley and Sanders, none of us have heard a word from Clinton. We all decided we wouldn’t give until she asked. But we’re pretty concerned that there is an important piece of the puzzle missing from her organization. Why are they so far behind when it comes to finding small donors like me and my friends? I’m sure she has a better staff than she did the last time, but when it comes to fundraising, she obviously didn’t attract the best and the brightest.
redshirt
I’ve really been enjoying the Donald so far. He’s a fun Twitter follow if you have a taste for the absurd.
RaflW
@Citizen Alan:
This.
Or, as was tweeted today:
Bobby Thomson
@Gimlet: he can’t comb his own hair because of the damage to his arms. Doesn’t mean he can’t walk. Being ambulatory /= being disabled.
brantl
Few people know the history, that John McCain was only captured because he disobeyed orders, or that he wrecked several planes and set an aircraft carrier on fire, by showboating. Trump actually is right about this. Stopped clock, and all.