Damn it, Trump! Per CNN’s breaking news headline:
Donald Trump signs GOP loyalty pledge, he says after meeting with RNC leader.
Reince Priebus isn’t butch enough to shake down a five-year-old for her lunch money, so what’s Trump’s angle here? I was almost starting to believe he was giving us a masterwork performance in civic trolling, but caving to Rinses Repeatus doesn’t jibe with that scenario…
schrodinger's cat
What stops him from making the pledge now and disregarding it later.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Simple. The pledge isn’t legally binding or anything. Priebus signed his party’s own death warrant is what just happened here. Trump stays in until the GOP is a smoking crater, and they can’t disown him now.
To the primaries!
A guy
I listen to his pressed just now. He’s gonna be the next president.
Tom Levenson
@schrodinger’s cat: A metric f**ktonne of nothing.
Dolly Llama
@schrodinger’s cat: Exactly. If the RNC “doesn’t treat him fair,” he’ll feel less than no obligation to abide by it. And how stupid will the Republican candidate look whining about some dumb-ass pledge? You think anyone inclined to vote for Trump will give a shit about that?
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: Nothing. Lord knows he’s flip-flopped like a boated marlin on virtually every topic except his own greatness. But he seemed so indignant about Fox News’ attempt to strong-arm him into pledging fealty during the first debate, I thought he’d continue to refuse out of pure spite. If you can’t trust drainpipe hairball-wearing scoundrels to hold a grudge forever, whom can you trust?
Mike J
@schrodinger’s cat:
His solemn word.
Bwahahahaahahahahahahaha!
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: Is Patsy Marie home?
PsiFighter37
That presser was entertaining as hell. ‘Do they like me in Indonesia?’
I can’t believe this is real and not performance art…
Bobby Thomson
@schrodinger’s cat: absolutely nothing! Say it again.
Gin & Tonic
@A guy: Here’s The Economist’s cover for this week.
redshirt
Deals are made to be broken.
RaflW
He entered the race as a joke candidate/publicity stunt. His numbers took off, his ego has been stroked 1,000million times, and now he’s decided he can win — so he wants to win. Committing to the GOP shit-show is part of becoming a “serious” candidate for the highest office in the land.
Scary.
scav
Lord, breaking oaths and treaties etc when they no longer are convenient is a part of his schtick and appeal. He’ll break it with a brass-band and pop-pom girls all riding his golden escalator behind him.
trollhattan
How does the party now rope, corral and slaughter The Donald’s apostasy on taxes and tax shelters? He’s got Grover Norquist throwing a BP of 250/185 and if he remains the frontrunner, the other douches are going to have to start shedding their doctrine stances.
schrodinger's cat
@redshirt: All’s fair in love and war or the Republican primaries.
dedc79
The man is a pathological liar.
Blue Meme
@schrodinger’s cat: Exactly, and from the perfect person to suggest it. Quantum superposition means the Donald is both running and not running as an independent. We cannot know for certain until the box is opened, which I see as the moment when it becomes clear whether or not he will be the Republican nominee. Statements and promises before then are without meaning.
(As are statements and promises after then. Because Physics.
Waysel
@Mike J: Nice.
catclub
I was thinking that if Trump wants to go all Law and Order he will have Fred Thompson as his VP candidate.
I also agree with responses #1 and #2 – Democrats will have film saying Trump IS the GOP, or have him run as third party candidate.
Mike J
Let’s say Trump wins the popular vote in the primaries, but the superdelegates hand it to Bush. Do the Republicans really think Trump won’t act like Trump?
RaflW
Also, too, he can just declare bankruptcy on his pledge, right?
MazeDancer
Not seeing the angle for Trump, either. Unless that he thinks he’s going to win the nomination. Being the GOP candidate gives him a better shot at the White House. He probably believes he can win that, too.
His supporters care not a whit about the RNC. They actually like that Trump is not part of the party establishment. They would have celebrated Trump’s being his own man. Maybe he wanted to look more “mainstream”? A real candidate, not a sideshow long shot.
MattF
But who, exactly, is going to beat him? It’s easy to think of a dozen or so who won’t, but…
ETA: Of course, if Trump chooses Cruz as his VP, his life expectancy goes down all of a sudden.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@trollhattan: As of right now, they can’t. That’s what I meant about Priebus signing the GOP’s death warrant. Now they’re stuck with him until he decides he’s done with them, not the other way around.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: No. We can pick her up at 4 PM. To complicate matters further, my car is in the shop, and it won’t be ready until 5 PM, so we have to pick her up in my husband’s monster truck. He’ll have to hoist her in because it sits pretty high off the ground. Poor doggy!
RaflW
@catclub: Hahaha.
Fred Thompson didn’t even bother to show up to his own campaign when he ‘ran’ before. Makes Jeb. seem positively eager beaver by comparison.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
So they got him to take a pledge to stay inside the tent pissing on anyone in there who looks at him cross-eyed? Brilliant. Until he gets mad enough to say “I wanted to work with the party, but everywhere I go, people are begging for Trump to go Trump, and Trump will Trump as long as a Trump can Trump!”
catclub
@RaflW:
This is the interesting part. in 2012 he quit after he had been re-signed by NBC. This year, NBC called his bluff – and somebody else will have to pay for that insult.
germy shoemangler
Ryan Lizza @RyanLizza 36m36 minutes ago
I’m sure Trump would never violate a non-binding pledge.
Elizabelle
@PsiFighter37: He’s high with Latinos. He said that.
RL Harrngton
he is now bigger than the party and will points when he sticks it to the establishment as so weak they had to have loyalty pledges to keep their party together.
MazeDancer
@catclub:
This year, he needs no series. Every channel, site, and publication is The Donald Trump Show. It’s 24/7 free publicity for him.
benw
@Tom Levenson:
Get outta here with your French-loving, commie, socialist, fascist metric system, you hippie!
This seems like a win-win for Trump. If he bails to a 3rd party run, who cares about burning this particular bridge; and if he stays, he’s that much closer to being a legitimate R candidate.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: Poor Patsy Marie. I hope she feels better soon.
redshirt
Trump signed the wrong date on the pledge, so it already doesn’t count.
Big ole hound
I am starting to believe this was a conspiracy by the Democrats insofar as planting the idea of more grandeur in Trumps head. It sure is working to perfection.
schrodinger's cat
@benw: Good for Trump but bad for the Republican party. Reince Priebus has signed its death warrant.
RaflW
I think Donald will set up a TV show this coming winter on whatever cable network will carry it:
The Apprentice – V.P. edition!! and we can watch all the loser third tier GOPers groveling to be on his ticket.
*He’ll just tell NBC to sue him, whadddarethey gonna do, sue the Preznit of the Uuuuunited States?
beltane
Corey Booker is a YES on the Iran deal!
Warner also, from what I’m reading.
rikyrah
He belongs to them.
lock, stock an barrel.
tee hee hee
BWA AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
scav
@MazeDancer: Angle for Trump could just be that it got him a few news cycles generated by speculation and the unexpectedness of it all. It’s a spotlight within arms reach: wrestle it your direction.
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: Gawd. It’s amazing to see that Economist cover and realize it’s not a parody.
Here’s the article: Trump’s America. Why the Donald is dangerous.
Final paragraph:
But Economist writer: are these Republicans, listening carefully, to vote for another Republican?
Because the Donald’s views, taken as a whole, are actually less toxic than any of theirs. He may be an imbecile on immigrant hordes and anything to do with foreign affairs, but the Donald actually believes in access to healthcare and is on the record saying the economy has done better under Democrats.
I guess you want them to vote for a Democrat? Will they?
SiubhanDuinne
@MazeDancer:
Yeah, maybe then HuffPo will start covering him in “Politics” instead of “Entertainment.”
Keith G
In case you have missed earlier views, included here are photos of President Obama with puppies!!!
Tonic for a busy day.
rikyrah
September 02, 2015 4:52 PM
Anti-Choicers Pulling the Punch on Planned Parenthood?
By Ed Kilgore
Assuming Ben Domenech knows his right-wingers, which I would guess is the one thing he does infallibly know, he’s solved a big mystery for us in a column yesterday. A few weeks ago the whole hep conservative world was aflame with promises and threats about defunding Planned Parenthood, even if it took a government shutdown. Erick Erickson was hyperventilating nearly hourly about how the GOP needed to lay down and die if it did not follow this course of action to the bitter end. Presidential candidates were climbing on board in due order.
Then—well, Mitch McConnell allowed as how it wasn’t going to happen, the presidential candidates and conservative media stopped talking about it, and even ol’ Pope Erick seemed to back off. What’s up with that?
According to Domenech, it was actually the big antichoice groups that called off the dogs:
For the time being, Capitol Hill Republican leaders are on the same page as the national pro-life groups – a shutdown strategy is not their preference, because it makes it more likely Democrats will win in 2016, and that means you miss probably your best opportunity in a generation to get rid of Roe v. Wade. Capitol Hill Republicans are looking to the pro-life groups to provide them cover by not scoring a Planned Parenthood-funding continuing resolution, and most of the big groups are expected to go along with this strategy.
washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_09/antichoicers_pulling_the_punch057416.php
some guy
@beltane:
now that it is a sure thing time for the bandwagon jumpers to leap.
Elizabelle
@beltane: Warner got off the can. All right!
Cervantes
@schrodinger’s cat:
We could ask his (former) creditors.
schrodinger's cat
@rikyrah: From Lincoln to Trump, that’s quite a trajectory!
CONGRATULATIONS!
I might also add an observation that by pledging to stay with the GOP to the end, he has utterly and totally torpedoed the Koch’s plans for this election. And one of those two wannabe Nazis (possibly both) won’t be around for the next one.
Amir Khalid
Has the wording of the pledge been released anywhere? And is it really non-binding? If so, why ask anyone to sign it?
beltane
@some guy: It’s a sure thing, but if five more jump on the bandwagon the President won’t even have to issue a veto.
Roger Moore
I expect this pledge will have about as much effect on his behavior as his promise to be nice to Megyn Kelly.
Elizabelle
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Put that way, I like that about Donald Trump.
Do you think any of this has its roots in jealousy the big bad Kochs were getting all the “billionaire behind the scenes” press?
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Trump might be trying to get around something that might have him declared to be an ineligible candidate, based on some GOP rules BS.
I’m happy for him to not stand on principle, especially if it means that he will be around longer to torment the other GOP Presidentials.
Haydnseek
@A guy: I read your commed just now. You’re going to be Tsar of all the Russias.
Bobby Thomson
@MazeDancer: he had to agree to it to participate in the SC primary.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
trollhattan
@redshirt:
Worser, he registered as “Hispanic.”
SiubhanDuinne
@beltane:
Bout time, but YAAAY! Good to have the insurance.
redshirt
@SiubhanDuinne: What’s bad for Republicans is great for America and the world.
trollhattan
@Haydnseek:
Surprised he’s still around and didn’t get the banhammer for using das n-word the other night. Must have compromising mopping pics of Cole, or something.
schrodinger's cat
@SiubhanDuinne: I don’t know, it could be replaced by something far worse.
ETA: Like the party in power in Hungary, for example.
Princess
He’s not fooling anyone with this pledge. Except the GOP. Bwahaha.
If he weren’t such a racist demagogue, I’d be enjoying this thoroughly. But people are going to be hurt by others heading his words whether he wins or not.
ETA: Well, I guess he fooled Betty too.
wilfred
I’m sure he negotiated a loyalty pledge in exchange for some role should the Republicans win, in much the same way that Clinton parlayed a yes vote on what Obama called the worst foreign policy decision in the history of the US to become SoS.
Trump’s got lots of money and a big mouth, both of which he can use to gin up support for the Repub candidate while remaining Teflon coated himself.
Roger Moore
@dedc79:
I don’t think so. He’s a competent and experienced liar, but true pathological liars are unable to control themselves. I’m pretty sure Trump actually knows the difference between truth and fiction and is fully capable of telling the truth when he thinks it will help him.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, it’s non-binding. Anything more would be impossible.
Patricia Kayden
@redshirt: And that’s exactly what Trump will say when he announces his bid to run as an Independent.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@rikyrah: Nope. Other way around.
There’s the old saying if you owe the bank a thousand bucks, you have a problem, but if you owe the bank a million dollars, the bank has a problem.
Priebus just gave Donald the GOP seal of approval. Now he has the problem; corralling and managing a guy who will not be told what to do. Ever. Dealing with the only candidate who the Kochs hate and refused to fund – but now they’re funding him through the party. Oh, there’s now a lot of GOPpers who have a problem today, but none of them are named Donald Trump.
I imagine the Kochs are probably having a mutual cerebrovascular accident right about now, especially since they gave the GOP their fancy high dollar data-mining/GOTV tool – and now Trump gets to use it.
SiubhanDuinne
@beltane:
How many are still undeclared?
Bobby Thomson
@Amir Khalid: it’s as legally binding as the Norquist pledge not to raise taxes. It’s the cover charge for the SC primary, which is where Junior ended McCain’s momentum in 2000.
Anonymous At Work
1. He thinks he can win it. And he thinks he can do it without the blackmail of “treat me well or else”
2. He’s got two divorces and four bankruptcies on his record. You think that that totally non-binding piece of paper means anything to him? Cuz if he doesn’t win or get favorable treatment, he’ll claim that the RNC sabotaged him, so the agreement is void.
beltane
@SiubhanDuinne: Nine in the Senate. Make that eight with Warner’s vote.
Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.)
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.)
Sen. Ben Cardin (Md.)
Sen. Gary Peters (Mich.)
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.)
Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.)
Sen. Mark Warner (Va.)
Sen. Maria Cantwell (Wash.)
Sen. Joe Manchin III (W. Va.)
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Indeed. That’s pretty awful, and has been for a few years (although it seems to be only now, with the refugee crisis, that anyone in this country is paying any attention).
redshirt
@CONGRATULATIONS!: God help me I love Donald Trump!
Elizabelle
@beltane: Ah. Warner still is in the Cone of Shame. No surprise.
Bennet should get off the pot too. Colorado just elected Cory Gardner. Time for Bennet to make the blue enclave Coloradans remember why they want to support Bennet for Senate next election.
MazeDancer
@Bobby Thomson:
Oh, makes sense now. Many thanks!
Though @scav: has a point about never pass up the free spotlight getting even shinier.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Rancid was channeling Neville Chamberlain.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
From W to Trump, not so much.
SiubhanDuinne
@beltane:
Thanks. I was just about to do my own Googling, but you saved me the effort.
beltane
@Elizabelle: No, he’s out of the cone of shame (he indicated his support before the list was updated). Warner may not have covered himself in glory but he did the right thing in the end.
NonyNony
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I want to know why Priebus forced this so early – was there a deadline for the SC primary that Trump needed to file by that was going to pass or something?
It would have been better to let Trump keep irritating party loyalists for a few more months and keep that animosity building. Now Trump is “legit”, and there are going to be some folks whose only objection to Trump is that he’s “not a Republican” who start to give Trump a second look. The more Trump holds onto the “inevitable winner” narrative that has surrounded him for the last month, the more he’s going to peel off the bottom-feeding crazybase candidates who want to back a WINNER.
Elizabelle
The wig budget at SNL is about to go through the roof.
beltane
Sorry to detract from Trump and his captive Republican party, but here is another reminder of the awesomeness that is President Barack Obama: vox.com/2015/9/3/9257235/obama-iran-humans-new-york
Germy Shoemangler
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
Don’t be surprised if Donald Trump gets case as Donald Trump on SNL.
Elizabelle
I get real mad at our corporately owned 24/7 cable networks, that they are all about Trump and the eyeballs.
It’s so sleazy.
President Obama was up in Alaska about climate change, THE issue of our time, and we all know he got sprayed by a salmon (?), but a serious country would have covered that trip and local conditions and his plans a lot more in full.
[What we got was the sideshow of renaming Denali. My mom and aunt visited there ten years ago, and they came home talking about Denali. No one was calling it Mount McKinley.]
The European news channels are all about the refugee flow of tragedy and deaths, and how the flood of refugees might play out for EC countries. We had a big part in helping to destabilize the region being fled.
But it’s TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP.
I’d take the US cable channels’ fucking broadcasting licenses. They should better serve the public.
Amusing ourselves to death.
Kay
The headline is “Latino Fest hopes to trump last year’s attendance”
toledoblade.com/Culture/2015/09/03/2015-Midwest-Latino-Fest-looks-to-trump-last-year-s-attendance.ht…
Another Holocene Human
Oh, sure, Betty, bullies are always shovel-faced butch brawlers. That’s just science, or something.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@beltane: Steve Clemons said on Maddwo that Mancin won’t support “the hypocrisy” of a filibuster, whatever the hell that means. I think he said one other supporter (Casey?) supports the deal but won’t go along with a filibuster
Calouste
Latest poll has Trump at 30, Ben Carson at the non-Trump-flavor-of-the-month at 18, and all the “serious” candidates in single digits. Oh, and the Trump-Carson-Fiorina trio, neither of whom have ever held office, are at a combined 52%.
Trump’s angle is that he has this thing in the bag.
Cervantes
@beltane:
You have to wonder how the human gene pool could produce two beings as different as these.
Another Holocene Human
@dedc79:
ding ding ding
Anoniminous
Nobody has spouted how this is Good News for
McCainJEB!?!I am surprised.
beltane
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I love how “lets not anger the big donors too much” gets translated into a highminded distaste for “hypocrisy”. Where was this concern at all the other times when there weren’t enough votes to overcome a filibuster.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I clicked on Clemons’ twitter feed to see if he offered a link to some explanation of Manchin’s would-be-pious blather on why filibustering is “hypocrisy”, there was not but I did find these cogent arguments against the deal
I wonder who’s more proud, Mia’s parents? Or the ghost of Ayn Rand?
Another Holocene Human
@catclub:
A goodly portion of the GOP electorate can’t stand him. Yet they always
fall
in line.
Another Holocene Human
@beltane: woot
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This one surprised me
Kay
@Elizabelle:
So why doesn’t a Republican support those same economic issues and not be a demagogue on the rest? I don’t know why Donald Trump’s supporters have to do all the moving. The rest of the GOP field could move closer to those voters on economic issues and see if they can pull Trump support that way. Problem solved.
Elizabelle
@beltane: That’s wonderful.
Sounds like his speech pattern, too.
NonyNony
@Mike J:
They don’t need to worry very much about that, because Republicans don’t have as many superdelegates as the Dems do. In 2008 (last time Dem superdelegates mattered) they had something like 850 of them – the GOP had around 125 in 2012. If the totals are close enough that the GOP superdelegates can actually sway the result, then either Trump ends up as Bush’s VP or (more likely) Bush follows his Daddy’s role and plays second banana to a demagogue.
Republicans didn’t used to have superdelegates at all. I don’t remember why they decided they needed them.
Roger Moore
@Cervantes:
One of them comes from the shallow end.
Not That Guy
@schrodinger’s cat:
Awesome. And if the GOP were capable of introspection, pretty damning.
Another Holocene Human
@Roger Moore:
His hair blatantly contradicts that hypothesis.
Steve From Antioch
As noted above, he had to sign this to participate in the SC primary. That’s why he signed it.
Also notice that he signed it only after a meeting with the RNC. Presumably, that meeting was not videotaped — so when Trump decides to run as an independent he will be able to say “I signed that pledge only after the RNC explicitly agreed that ____, ______, and ________. As we can see they have not kept their word, so I am forced to run as an independent.”
NonyNony
@Kay:
Kay, you know this wouldn’t happen. If one of the other GOP candidates started talking about protecting social security and taxing hedge fund managers, their funding would dry up in a heartbeat.
The only reason Trump gets away with it is because he’s not relying on crazy Bircher billionaires to fund his campaign. If Trump had to rely on traditional GOP fundraising, he would have been out by the end of July.
Redshift
@Kay: The fact that Trump can be the frontrunner while having moderate positions on the economy and taxes tells you what really motivates the Republican base; without the demagoguery, a candidate wouldn’t get their support. The standard conservative economic platform is to appeal to the donor class, not the rank and file. Most national Republicans have to have appalling positions on economic issues to appeal to the billionaires and the CEOs they need to fund them, and appalling positions on immigration, social issues, race, etc. to appeal to the base they need to vote for them.
Another Holocene Human
Narcissists’ biggest blind spot is always themselves. So whenever Trump talks about himself–what kind of guy he is, what he will do–he’s utterly delusional if not consciously spinning the story he believes the audience wishes to hear.
Doug R
@Elizabelle: That’s the scary thought he is the most reasonable republican.
J R in WV
I see I’m not the first person to note that this “signature” isn’t binding in any way on Trump. He can and will do as he pleases when it suits him.
What are they gonna do if he fails to win the (R) monimation, leaves the party and forms his own party, The Rich Bastards Gonna Rule party, and runs against whichever nitcase the (R)s nominated?
They’re gonna have to run against him.
Patricia Kayden
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Great!! This is a big win for the President.
benw
@schrodinger’s cat:
Somehow I doubt it. If the Iraq/Afganistan wars, Katrina, and the Great Recession (aka the W presidency) couldn’t do them in, they can survive a huckster like Trump. If he flames out or even gets the nom and loses, they’ll just flush him down the drain and move on to the next big thing.
piratedan
@Patricia Kayden: an oath to a bunch of oathbreakers is no oath at all……
Redshift
@Roger Moore:
Yeah, he’s a BS artist. As Harry Franfurt wrote, that’s more dangerous than a liar, because a liar deliberately says things that aren’t true, wheres a BS artist doesn’t care whether what he’s saying is true or not, only if it works.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Did anybody watch Trump’s press conference? Is it true that Trump was the second weirdest person in the room? (third if Reince was there)
Doug R
@Elizabelle: Cantwell should listen to Murray and get off the pot too
Peale
@J R in WV: I guess we’d have to see what rules there are. Do the states still determine who gets to be on the ballot representing the parties? I thought there were some states that had rules where if you appeared on the ballot in the primary for a party and lost, you couldn’t appear as a third party candidate or something like that, to prevent sour grape candidates splitting up parties. No all states, but I thought there were a significant number. Doesn’t matter now, of course, because, as hard as it is to remember, we aren’t actually holding any primaries and the race isn’t officially underway at this point.
Redshift
@Elizabelle: Considering that Warner’s support was mentioned by the WH press secretary this morning, rather than being announced by Warner himself, I’m betting that he’d already told them he’d support it, but he didn’t want to be the winning anti-override vote. But I’m cynical that way.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@NonyNony: The NC and VA GOP were voting on rules changes to keep Trump off the ballot.
Now they can’t.
PROBLEM NOT SOLVED
Elizabelle
@Doug R: Truly.
Although maybe Boeing likes a war. And lots of overflights.
RaflW
@Elizabelle:
I’d put it that the dumb pundits say those things about Republicans. Conventional wisdom is just that, and I think Trump upsets convention enough to have a better shot at the GOP nod than any of the losers, hucksters and one or two uninspiring but at least plausible candidates.
Can he win the general if he manages to rile the GOP voting masses? Most likely not, though even that is conventional thinking on my part. The Economist is right, demagogues do win sometimes. The results for the country could be quite bad in that case.
Another Holocene Human
@Redshift: How the Republican sausage is made.
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
A HAHAHAH HA HA HA HA
This just gets better and better!
Elizabelle
@Redshift: Could be.
I will remember Tim Kaine’s support and courage far more than Warner’s “oh shit, I have to make a decision that some peeps might not like, what to do, what to do? What’s in it for ME?”
Betty Cracker
@Another Holocene Human: You seem to be laboring under the misconception that “butch” can only describe people’s appearance. You’re wrong.
@Redshift: Bingo.
rk
@redshirt:
Every time I start to get entertained by Donald Trump I’m reminded of the homeless Hispanic man beaten by two Trump supporters. Trump’s response was that his supporters are “passionate”. He is a hate filled moron and it’s a shame that no one in the media cares enough to call him out for being a race baiter.
Mike in NC
@Roger Moore: The Trump Memorial will be much bigger and classier than the one they erected for Abe.
Kay
@NonyNony:
Oh, I know it won’t happen. The entire Tea Party rebellion on Obamacare was predicated on Republicans telling old people Obama was taking Medicare funding and giving it to poor people.
Republican voters LOVE entitlements.
Anoniminous
@NonyNony:
GOP national and state party organizations control the selection of a minimum of 313 delegates. Have to dig into the state rules for delegate allocation to see it.
Another Holocene Human
@Betty Cracker:
I refuse to accept that “resting rage face” = “butch”
And there are other ways to intimidate people besides physical threats or flat bluster or shouting.
benw
Hey, are we going to get a college football open thread up in here?
Elizabelle
@RaflW: I would guess GOP might unite behind Kasich — a reader in the Economist comments was suggesting an experienced GOP governor from a state with a lot of votes — who does that sound like ? (Yeah, Rick Perry too, but America’s not that loopy.) Christie and Walker are still in it too; I guess Jindal. But Kasich is from the bellweather state and the GOP cannot win without Ohio.
He worries me the most. Was all about reducing government spending while the Tea Partiers were just racking up years to Medicare eligibility so they could scream at the rest of us, compelling personal story (dead parents at a young age — sob!), and the MSM will knobwash him from one side of the studio to the other. He’s not a culture warrior, they’ll assure us. (He kind of is, on abortion, but quietly signs that stuff.) He said at the first debate he’d been to a gay wedding and wouldn’t disown his daughter if she turned up gay. Ahhhhhhhh. The elusive moderate!!
Mike J
Another Holocene Human
Brad Dourif has made a career playing creepy villains who aren’t butch in the slightest.
RNC PR BS is pretty worthless as they go, but if he weren’t, I’d file him under Hannah Arendt’s Banality of Evil Face.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
Because then they’d be a Democrat.
Calouste
@Peale: “Sore loser” laws don’t apply to the Presidential race, IIRC because it is not decided in one state alone.
andy
@schrodinger’s cat: i’m betting nothing. a win is a win, amirite?
Anoniminous
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
This keeps on keeping on getting better every day!
jl
@Betty Cracker:
” Nothing. ”
Yeah, zip. I happened to hear Trump’s statement on the news this morning. It was all about how taking this pledge and working through the GOP nomination process now was the best way to ‘easily’ beat the Democrats in 2016. Nothing about commitment to GOP’s vile political con game, ummmm… I mean Republican Party principles.
It was the Bernie Sanders approach very Lite. Sanders at least says he is committed to the principles of the Democratic Party, and won’t do anything that would in any way encourage a Republican victory next year. I didn’t hear Trump go nearly so far.
It means nothing. If Trump later decides he can better ‘easily’ defeat the Democratic candidate next year by running a third party bid, he can quote himself to prove he’s kept the spirit of his pledge.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Well, I’m sure he’s highly qualified
Betty Cracker
@Another Holocene Human: Huh? I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. The point about Preibus is, he’s famously a doormat. He’s the bullied, not the bully, and yet he seemingly rolled Trump. It’s got nothing to do with his fish-like visage.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: something something three generations of morons is enough something
pea
in the ’80’s the game the “masters of the universe” played was, “whoever has the most toys when he dies, wins.”
passe in the 21 century.
the game now between the kochs and “the donald”s is
whoever owns the most real estate (resources, patents, rights, leases, indentured servants) wins.
the donald believes he has it in the bag.
jl
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Thanks for info. Looks like a win-LOSE situation for Trump-GOP (respectively). I hope the train wreck continues and irreparable damage to current GOP rump ensues.
Elizabelle
Dammit. Kim Davis could end up not spending ONE night in jail. She’s allegedly on her way back to the courtroom. LA Times:
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
Do not want!
Another Holocene Human
@Betty Cracker: I’m confused now. As a big old queer, I have a problem with butch = bully. I think it also implies a lot of icky stuff about gender roles and so on. Of course we agree Reince sucks at his job. To argue otherwise would be to argue a counterfactual.
I think Reince would suck just as much butched up. Butch != bully.
Actually, Priebus is very willing to taunt those he thinks are beneath him. He just has no power over the GOP whatsoever, he’s not persuasive, he doesn’t know where the bodies are buried, and he isn’t very realistic about his party or the political environment.
So he looks like an asshole all day every day.
Schlemazel
It’s early Rise to Retch is not home from middle school yet.
SRW1
I have the feeling what this indicates is that Trump now belives that he can actually win the Republican nomination and that it will benefit him by binding the other candidates.
I also have no problem visualizing Trump abandoning his pledge, ‘because the GOP elites didn’t treat me right’.
Tommy
Has there ever been a pledge in the history of mankind more worthless than this?
Another Holocene Human
@Elizabelle:
The county attorney put out a public statement throwing a lot of doubt on that scenario.
ETA: @Tommy: Yeah. Whatever Miss Kimmy is about to tell that judge.
Elizabelle
More from the LA Times story:
Don’t stop that gravy train!
Not watching TV, so no idea if this comports with other reporting. Although they may be TRUMPING all over themselves rather than dealing with another issue of the day.
Schlemazel
@Kay:
Because their Daddy Warbucks would disown them if they tried and they would have no monies to run with. They can try to keep down with him of the awful browns but the (long) greens come from people who will not tolerate that sort of policy.
jl
@Another Holocene Human: I thought ‘butch’ was just slang for ‘tough’ and was adopted by LGBT to describe a ‘tough’ style. And now, like ‘gay’ is the meaning has been swallowed up by the LGBT use.
I think we need need to keep the old meaning of ‘gay’ around, so I try to use LGBT whenever I remember to, instead of ‘gay’.
Edit: and funny that the my hetero community seems just or maybe more responsible for losing the old meaning of ‘gay’ than anyone else. The word contracted LGBT ‘cooties’ among heteros, and you got more BS-y response from them using ‘gay’ with the old meaning than you did from LGBTers.
Redshift
In less significant political news, I got a Jim Webb fundraising email today. Other than the appalling fact that it approvingly quotes Noonan about what’s wrong with Washington, it’s mostly a weird totebagger mishmash of declarations that “leadership” is what’s necessary with complaints about the types of people running and the coverage of them that can only reasonably be read to be about the Republicans, but he doesn’t identify them because he’s going to “bring the diverse factions of our multicultural society together” and be taken seriously “among Republicans and independents.”
And since it’s from Webb, it is also way, way too long. I can only assume he actually writes these himself.
Elizabelle
@Another Holocene Human: Oh, good. To be continued.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Holocene Human: I read her as using butch as tough not bully.
Roger Moore
@Tommy:
Munich, 1938.
Elizabelle
@Redshift: Gag. There’s probably one in my old email account too.
Liked him when he was a Virginia senator, but this business that HE is going to unite the country? After the best president of my life has endured so much ugliness? (A lot because of race, but a lot because of DemocRAT too.)
Webb does have a literary imagination.
Amir Khalid
@Redshift:
Is Jim Webb currently polling as high as the single digits, or is he somewhere in the mid-tenths of a percent?
ETA: Huffpost Pollster tells me he’s at about 1.7%. Not as bad as I’d thought, but still terrible.
KithKanan
@Elizabelle: Cable channels don’t have/need broadcasting licenses. They’re distributed over private communications networks to paying customers, not using the federally regulated wireless spectrum that belongs to the public and can be received by anyone.
? Martin
Trump knows full well what the value of a pledge is vs a contract. He knows full well that loyalty is a function of what you stand to lose. Trump stands to lose nothing by breaking this pledge. You go after the best deal – there’s no loyalty in business. If the GOP wants him to not run as a 3rd party then they need to give him something worth more than running as an independent. Unfortunately the only thing they can offer him is the nomination.
So, he’ll just ignore the pledge as a meaningless gesture, which is what it is.
Calouste
@Roger Moore: Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Redshift
@Amir Khalid: In the RCP average, he’s at 1.6 percent. Which is actually higher than Chaffee, and slightly below O’Malley.
Srv
Trump will hold his pledge if the rnc allows a fair primary process. He knows they won’t, so when the cuckocrites break their promise, the republican base, independents and many democrats will demand the pledge be broken.
The only voters outraged will be the rhinos and they’re irrelevant.
Trump is a populist candidate, something the dnc and rnc do not have.
cmorenc
Trump signed it because he’s calculated his chances of actually winning the GOP nomination straight-up have become good enough that the Jeb-stablishment no longer has the leverage to nudge him aside with cynical, dirty maneuvers, even of the Rovian Bush variety. His play is to force the establishment to get on-board with him after he wins Iowa, NH and SC, and the nomination’s effectively his, or so he calculates.
That’s my take on it.
Omnes Omnibus
@cmorenc: He signed, as others have said above, because it is a condition of the getting on the ballot in SC and it is utterly nonbinding. If he later breaks the pledge, his fans will cheer him for it.
Srv
Reince is the Neville chamberlain of the RNC.
Elizabelle
@KithKanan: Thank you.
Elizabelle
@cmorenc:
love it
Omnes Omnibus
@Srv: Are you going for Lord Haw-Haw of the Trump campaign?
Redshift
@Elizabelle: He does seem to be going full-on with the media idea that because Obama said he wanted to bring the country together and couldn’t, the problem must be LEADERSHIP!, not unyielding lack of cooperation from Republicans. Which I guess is not a bad strategy to get media attention, particularly when your bio has more leadership positions than accomplishments, but it seems pretty questionable as a strategy for getting votes.
Ian
@Mike J:
Wrong party. Only the Democratic party uses superdelegates.
jl
Jeb? campaign responded to Colbert’s (obvious, inevitable and necessary) disassociation of himself and his show and his parent company from Jeb?’s tacky raffle with tacky Jebberish and tacky symbolic and meaningless hypocritical gestures.
Go Jeb?, keep up the good work! Now probably the issue is settled with Jeb? looking like a moldy turd and sleazy hustler and inconsiderate ungrateful lout. Win-win in my book
Colbert Rips Jeb Bush For Fundraising Off His ‘Late Show’ Appearance (VIDEO)
TPM blog
” Bush responded on Twitter with a video announcement of his own. He said that he would lower his raffle entry fee to $1, and would become a contestant in Colbert’s own raffle by donating to the Yellow Ribbon Fund. He did not say in the video whether he would donate more than $3.”
talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeb-bush-stephen-colbert-raffle
Edit: I I repeat from a thread last night, seems to me Colbert HAD to do something high profile to disassociate himself from Jeb?’s tacky move, and did so in a light hearted way that allowed Jeb? a relatively easy out from his crummy scheme. Jeb? didn’t take it. Let the public judge.
Elizabelle
Scanning TPM website.
I see that Ted Cruz has announced “I stand with Kim Davis.”
No word if his ass is parked in a Kentucky jail cell too.
Amir Khalid
Trump “made peace” with Fox News, them resumed his vicious personal attacks on Megyn Kelly as soon as she got back from the vacation that was meant to give him, Trump, time to cool off. This happened just weeks ago. In that light, I’m not sure why Priebus saw any point in making him sign a non-binding pledge.
Meanwhile, the party which delights in comparing Obama to Neville Chamberlain has now itself done a Chamberlain deal — not with a foreign power, but with one of its own presidential candidates. This ought to be a massive talking point for the DNC, but will the DNC seize upon it?
SatanicPanic
@rk: this is my problem with his candidacy. It’s all fun to gawk and point and laugh, but sometimes real people will get hurt and I would prefer if he weren’t out there emboldening neo-fascists.
Elizabelle
CNN on in background. One of the Liberty lawyer shills talking to Anderson Cooper. The Staver guy. (Ah. He just said that Kim Davis “once played in the devil’s playground.” Or words to that effect. You don’t hear that every day.)
Talking again about the “godly mother in law.” Who goes unnamed, yet again.
I’ve never heard of anyone mortal being called “godly.” Is that an Apostolic conceit?
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: This ought to be a massive talking point for the DNC, but will the DNC seize upon it?
Who knew that staying up all night made you so funny?
Elizabelle
Also, the Staver guy was saying he and Davis would be happy if the County just took Davis’s name off the marriage licenses, that then she’d be fine with issuing them.
Is that giving her a fig leaf? An expensive delay that other clerks might take? Some weird thing where you find out it takes an act of legislature to do that, and so no icky gay marriages for quite some time?
All these weasels need to get taught a lesson.
bcinaz
I know nobody caught this from the ‘debate’ because of Meghyn Kelly’s blood, but Trump did get asked about the 4 bankruptcies and basically blamed the creditors. If he doesn’t keep his ‘word’ on the legally binding stuff, why on earth should anyone care if he signed a thing with no legal status at all. Who here believes he won’t run as an independent if the hoi polloi eggs him on.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@SatanicPanic: There is no GOP candidate who would NOT be out there emboldening the neo-fascists, racists, bigots, scum, criminals, banksters, ripoff artists and evangelical Sharia practitioners. The days of the reasonable Republican ended in 1992 when Bush Sr. left office, and I’m being really generous with the definition of “reasonable” here.
If you know of one, tell me, I’d consider voting for that non-existent GOP candidate.
Chris T.
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well, they’re a war on love, so that just follows naturally.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Elizabelle: I’ve seen it used in your books and such, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard someone use it, sincerely, about a living person.
@jl: I still can’t believe anyone running for President, especially a Republican, thinks it’s a good idea to go on Colbert’s first shows. WRT to this idiotic fund-raiser, it’s no surprise that Jeb? blundered into it, but have none of his kids, his nieces or nephews, anyone on his staff ever seen the show? There was really no one with the rank and/or the guts to say, “Um… governor….” And I would think if there was one candidate who didn’t need to be this desperate about cash, it’s Jeb?.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Elizabelle: @Elizabelle: Oh, whoops, somebody just realized that her job might be on the line here.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: My parent’s next door neighbor is a Evangelical preacher of some stripe, and his grand kids are about the age of my nice and nephew. A couple of years ago, the granddaughter told my niece that she (the granddaughter) couldn’t wear shorts because they were not godly. FWIW she did not saying anything about my niece’s shorts.
Roger Moore
@Calouste:
At least they obeyed the secret parts of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that called for the partition of Poland.
SatanicPanic
@CONGRATULATIONS!: What Trump is doing is still much worse than your standard issue GOP candidate- that’s why he’s getting early endorsements from VDARE and David Duke
ETA- and specifically it’s his appeals to racism that are much more out in front than any other candidate. I’m not so concerned about his opinions on bankers, because I doubt anyone is going to get beat up over those
Elizabelle
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Oh yeah.
Anderson Cooper suggested “Couldn’t she just get another job?”, but $80,000? And paid by the taxpayers? In an economically disadvantaged county?
I don’t think the lawyer had anything to say in response to that.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You have to be smart (or at least PR and marketing savvy and shrewd) and have a strong sense of identity and boundaries to go on Colbert without getting damaged to some extent. So, Trump could. Bill Clinton, Obama, Biden, Sanders or Warren could. HRC maybe could. But Jeb?, no way. (Edit: note that Dub could, and probably do pretty well)
The raffle was idiotic. I imagine the show’s lawyers and marketing people had an emergency confab when the story broke on how to respond. As I said, Colbert responded in a way that gave Jeb? an easy out, and Jeb? blunders on. Probably just a small ding for Jeb? (though, let’s wait until the show is over), but he keeps piling up the dings and sooner or later the cumulative damage of being a loutish petulant shifty jackass will be very significant.
catclub
@Elizabelle:
That just gets back to not doing her job. Somebody has to take responsibility for issuing the document – that is she.
raven
One hour till football!
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: Child’s right.
I have seen no recounting that Jesus ever wore shorts.
Cacti
@beltane:
Heitkamp has also announced her support.
The more votes the better, but seriously. Could they have been any more chickenshit with the timing of their announcements?
Iowa Old Lady
@catclub: Apparently she says she’s choosing jail over letting her clerks issue the licenses. Yay. This woman brings out all the vindictiveness in me. I want her in jail until she rots.
Roger Moore
@bcinaz:
He actually had a fair point. Lending people money carries an inherent risk they will be unable to pay and you won’t get your money back. Knowing that risk, and having had a chance to look over his businesses, they went ahead and loaned money to him anyway. That’s how capitalism works.
Iowa Old Lady
@jl: It’s hard to say what Colbert’s new show persona will be like though.
Calouste
@Roger Moore: I’m 100% sure that Trump will keep at least two out of his three pledges of not running as an independent, not running as a write-in, and not running third-party.
Elizabelle
@Iowa Old Lady: I’d be happy if she at least stayed a night in jail.
Must be dinner hour, right about now.
CNN has Trump pledge on as “breaking news.” With the full banner and urgent music.
Are we amnesiac? Didn’t that happen several hours ago?
Peale
@Cacti: Could they be any more chickenshit? Well at least they are doing it on the Thursday before the 3 day weekend and not the Friday…xD
Redshift
@Amir Khalid:
I don’t see how it’s a useful talking point for the DNC that the RNC got one of their candidates to pledge not to run as an independent. Very inside-baseball. Politics geeks may be able to see it’s not good for them, but it would only get a puzzled response from most people if the DNC tried to make something of it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: I am pretty sure that somewhere in the NT, he said, “If thou hast it, thou shouldst flaunt it.”
Cacti
@Roger Moore:
It’s the Otter defense from Animal House.
“You fucked up. You trusted us.” Or in Trump’s case, “you trusted me”.
SiubhanDuinne
@NonyNony:
NPR said “end of the month.”
jl
@Roger Moore: IANAL, but there are contingencies that allow contracts to be modified under legal process. Inability to pay is one of them. No contract can be complete in the sense that it is unreasonable to assume that all possible future contingencies be specified and described in a contract, so, yes, Trump had a fair point in general. Whether Trump actually used bankruptcy law or abused it is another question, though. But you are right, he made a fair point.
SatanicPanic
@Roger Moore: that’s a decent reason to not feel bad for his lenders, but not a good reason to trust him
catclub
@Ian: I was wondering about that.
catclub
@Calouste:
What about running fourth party?
scav
@Elizabelle: Sometimes it seems as they know the mind of God and the baby Jesus better than the entity himself. For their sins are forgiven while those of others are necessarily damned and destined for hellfire — don’t wait until the final judgement day for the Mysterious ways of god, just get the results early from the local expert who knows. And now they’re chanelling the definitive interpretation of the Constitution along with that of the Good Book: these bits apply to others while these other bits don’t apply to me. They speak with the firey tongue of Authority.
Halcyon
If I were Trump, I imagine the hardest decision about this whole “pledge” thing would be whether to openly cackle in Reince’s face while signing it now, or when he inevitably whines about it being broken later. (Trump seems too classy for “both” obviously.)
Amir Khalid
@Redshift:
We’re talking about the one candidate who has the resources to make a third-party run, who has publicly threatened to do so, and whose threat is precisely why this pledge exists at all.
Cacti
Breaking…
A day after launching a broad manhunt and having schools closed after a Millis, Massachusetts Police officer said his cruiser had been fired on…
The MA State Patrol announce that the whole thing was a bullshit fabrication.
The officer who reported the fictitious incident is being fired by the Millis PD.
Hoodie
They gave him a gift by raising this issue in the first place, as they failed to understand that the base of their party hates the party leadership anyway, just slightly less than the Muslim Usurper and his minions. Trump knows an easy mark when he sees one. In Trump’s world, loyalty to the GOP is coextensive with loyalty to himself, and he can always violate the pledge by saying the party betrayed him.
Kay
@Amir Khalid:
It’s not really to bind Trump. It’s to remind his supporters they’re in a GOP primary,
Comrade Luke
This is a can’t lose. Either he wins the nomination outright, or flips the bird at the party, goes independent anyway, and gets hailed as a maverick.
I don’t know if he’ll be president, but I”m pretty sure he’s going to get more votes than every other Republican in the general.
redshirt
@Amir Khalid:
I like how the DNC/Hillary/Bernie have been handling the Repuks so far, which is: Ignore them for the most part, and take a few shots at Jeb.
What’s that saying about not getting in the way of your opponents errors?
Mandalay
@Elizabelle:
The Guardian has a vicious and heartwarming hatchet job on Walker…
Tommy
@Hoodie: Yes. At times I dislike the Democratic party but I don’t hate it. Issues, sure. How does the far right not know their folks, that will vote in a primary, HATE their party? I am thinking Trump could go against this half-hearted pledge (if that) and get more votes.
Peale
@Kay: And if you’re in a GOP primary, you darn well better not be voting for the candidate who hasn’t signed the “no new taxes pledge” the “end abortion now pledge” the “I hate environmentalists” pledge and the “Restore Mount Mckinley” pledge.
jl
@redshirt: As I interpret Sanders’ stump speeches and interviews, he is already using the issue: to run for office in thie country now, you either have to be sponsored by a rich person or be one yourself, and if you doubt that, just look at what is going on the GOP primary.
I’m not sure it will be worth his time to go into inside baseball about Trump’s BS pledge and state primary rules or not. Probably not. But Sanders’ is using the issue in a general way.
Cervantes
That problem is not “wholly unnecessary”; it’s non-existent.
Amir Khalid
@Kay:
Like the Donald’s supporters even give a shit about that. They despise the political establishment and its politicians, don’t they?
Turgidson
@Elizabelle:
The Economist also neglects to point out, of course, that the GOP’s candidates are all fucking demagogues (the only possible exception is Kasich), which is the ugly result of cultivating a voter base motivated by fear, hate and bigotry for the last several decades and then increasingly having to cater to those people’s ugliest demands to keep them turning out to vote. Even so-called moderate Jeb is a nasty demagogue on all but a couple issues. Maybe in his heart (if members of that family of vipers have such things, which I doubt) he’d prefer it be different, but it ain’t.
But…our Village media and its “respectable” cousins like the Economist are duty-bound not to point this out, at any cost.
redshirt
@jl: Agreed, and that’s the way to do it. Let the Republicans fight each other and don’t distract them from the cross fire.
Lihtox
@Mike J: I’ve been working under the assumption that the GOP establishment hates Trump and will do whatever it takes to make sure he’s not their nominee. But is that likely? If Trump maintains these levels of popularity into the primary season, wouldn’t the establishment want to hitch their wagon to him? Or are there personal or ideological differences that would make that unlikely?
Tommy
@Mandalay: I got this weird tick. Many really. But watch a show or movie I have to head to IMDB to find where that actor was before. What show or movie. If we kick all the Canadians out many roles on popular TV shows will not be filled. The darn Canadians have flooded our borders with attractive people that can act. Fu$k them :)
Mandalay
@Cacti: And some more good news…..
Cervantes
@Kay:
If (1) primary voters are shying away from Trump because they suspect he may turn out to be disloyal, then (2) his making this pledge could encourage them and “allow” them to voice their support for him.
Do you think either (1) or (2) is real?
tom
I think he figures he may as well use the GOPs campaign cash rather than his own.
My Truth Hurts
Only fascist, authoritarian or totalitarian governments and organizations require signed loyalty oaths. What a joke.
jl
@Lihtox: I think the GOP does not know how to control Trump and therefore fears Trump,
Trump poses two big problems for the GOP.
Trump is blatant about exploiting the racial and ethnic prejudices, and terrified xenophobia, of the GOP primary voting base that the GOP knows it has to be subtle about in order to not drive away too many Hispanic, Asian and other constituencies that they will need in the future. (Edit: and moderates that they need in presidential election years).
And, Trump won’t play along with the GOP’s long con game to destroy social insurance. This is a project very dear to the GOP’s billionaire mega-funders.
Trump is bad bad news for the con game and swindle the GOP has been playing with both its important fanatic base which very reliably turns out for every election, and its ability to lure moderates and independents in presidential election years.
Trump is very very bad news for them.
Amir Khalid
@Mandalay:
From that Jeb Lund piece in the Guardian:
One could easily find two dogs each smarter than Rick Perry; and if one looked hard enough, maybe an overcoat smarter than he as well.
Patricia Kayden
@Mandalay: Good to hear. I can never understand why anyone has the right to shoot and kill an unarmed person. Cops need to be trained to take non-lethal actions and only use deadly force if their life is threatened. Seems like Cops shoot first and then come up with justifications later.
Brachiator
@Cacti:
Well, they could have waited until 5:30 pm Eastern Time on Friday. Too late for most of the evening news and at the start of a holiday weekend.
daverave
Where’s RTR to tell us how this Donald pledge thing is actually good news for Jeb!???
Docg
I read the “Art of the Deal.” The Republicans need to make this a contract with a $100,000,000 default penalty, deposited in the RNC account in advance. The Donald will pay the fee happily because assholes love me!
redshirt
@jl:
Agreed. And again, anything bad for the Republican party is good for America and the world.
Don’t fear the Trump (for now). Welcome him as the Destroyer we need.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid:
That is a good turn of phrase. May have to read this Sexy Jeb Lund.
jl
@Patricia Kayden: One thing I agree with Sanders, we need a national policy to better train police, have real workable and effective community policing policies.
Sanders doesn’t say it explicitly, and emphasizes the institutional racism part, but I think it is more: our police are not well trained and don’t operate under good policy and procedure.
There was a report issued by a national police institute about a shootout in Stockton CA where a hostage was shot, and the Stockton police are being sued. Really sad story of lack of discipline and training and really irresponsible shooting by the police. It was a wonder that a couple of policemen were not shot: police were blindly shooting when other police were standing in front of them, for example.
Edit: and the whole shootout was a mistake. The policemen were ordered to hold fire, but one policemen heard a noise and started shooting, so they all started shooting, or most all of them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the Book of Bialystok, 4:13
Amir Khalid
It has just occurred to me, quite out of the blue, whom Scott Walker reminds me of: Dagwood Bumstead!
jl
@Amir Khalid: I think that is kind of an insult to Dagwood!
Calouste
PPP just has a poll out that shows what the GOP should fear:
Clinton 46 v Trump 44
Clinton 46 v Bush 42
Clinton 42 v Bush 23 v Trump 27
Comrade Luke
@Calouste:
So in all scenarios, she doesn’t get a majority. Great, another four years of “ILLEGITIMATE PRESIDENT”
Brachiator
@jl:
The GOP drove away Asians and Latinos in 2008 and 2012. Their original strategy was to try to use Jeb! or Rubio to win back as many conservative Latinos as they could. Trump has stomped all over that plan, singling Asians and Latinos out for special insults.
So about the best that can said about Trump is that he is a scoundrel, but not a thief.
Amir Khalid
@jl:
An evil Dagwood Bumstead, that is.
redshirt
@Amir Khalid: Dagwood was a good guy, was he not?
redshirt
@Calouste: I’ll take all bets: No way Trump wins the General. NO WAY.
Put your money up if you’re scared.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
No, it’s fairly common usage. A classic is Macaulay’s “Soon the world begins to find out that the godly are not better than other men.”
Amir Khalid
@redshirt:
No no no, I mean Scott Walker is like an evil version of Dagwood Bumstead.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
Dagwood was completely benign.
PS: Sorry, I just saw your clarification.
gene108
@Lihtox:
The GOP. for the last 20 years or so, at least since the “Gingrich Revolution” has been moving towards a hive mind collective existence.
They all say the exact same thing. They all support the exact same policies. There is no disagreement.
There was a bit, when Gingrich and Co. took over. Even when Bush, Jr. proposed his second round of tax cuts, in 2003, George’s boss, Cheney had to cast the tie breaking vote in the Senate for it to pass.
But especially after Obama got elected. they have all converged into a collective entity. There really are no differences of opinion or policy.
It’s kind of like selling the difference between Kang or Kodos for President.
And now Trump’s come along and gone off script and the hive mind does not know what to do.
Edit: Following Trump, in some regards, is sort of like thinking for yourself and breaking away from the collective. Not an easy thing to do for members of a hive mind collective. Even, if it is just trading following the hive mind for following the Donald.
Turgidson
@Roger Moore:
Absolutely. He demonstrates this awareness every day. The GOP has spent the last few decades boxing themselves in to the point where their only path to winning is to lie (or be willfully deluded like Crazy Eyed Michele) about everything, themselves, their opponents, their policies, their opponents’ policies, everything. Mittens and Granny Starver took this strategy about as far as it could go in 2012. It’d be faster to document their true statements than their lies. Poor Steve Benen must have aged 5 years covering Mitt’s mendacity.
But Trump has a new formula the GOP apparatus has no idea how to handle. Keep on lying about policy, but tell the ugly truth about his opponents. The GOP has skated by on this for ages, (mostly) adhering to Reagan’s commandment in primaries and relying on the Democrats to keep their criticisms civil, working the refs to make sure the media is shamed out of actually reporting on their heinousness, while they throw all manner of shit against the wall without restraint. But Trump is doing to the other candidates what they and their ratfkers like Atwater and Rove have been doing to the Dems, except that a lot of what he says is the true, and the type of things the media has been browbeaten into ignoring if it’s a Republican.
Trump actually winning is pretty horrible to contemplate, but he’s doing a lot of hatchet work on the other candidates that the media and Dems never would have touched. I don’t mind this aspect of his candidacy in the slightest. Seeing Jeb(!) hoisted on his family’s petard of gutter innuendo politics is pretty awesome, in fact.
redshirt
@Amir Khalid: You opened up a strange can of worms. Dagwood Defenders, unite!
Calouste
@Comrade Luke: That’s with about 10% “don’t know/other”. In the actual election “don’t know” isn’t counted and “other” is not more than 1.5%. Which means that in a two way race Clinton will most likely top 50% and in the three way race she will win a landslide in electoral votes, winning everything that’s even vaguely purple.
redshirt
@Turgidson: Agreed 100%. For now, it’s a thing of beauty. Heaven help us if he were to actually win.
Calouste
@redshirt: Oh, I don’t think Trump will win the general, but that post was about the GOP getting wiped if Trump goes third party.
Mandalay
@jl:
True, but I think that there is an even more fundamental problem: the police seem to feel that they are the absolute authority that should never be challenged. I have no idea how to get rid of that mindset, but this story from yesterday shows how deep seated their problem lies:
Allegedly the whole thing was a joke, albeit in poor taste. But this is how the Fraternal Order of Police (over)reacted:
When the police react this way to a non-incident, you can begin to understand why they are handuffing pre-schoolers and shooting unarmed black teens. They constantly exhibit hair trigger reactions, and have bizarre views on their own authority and importance. They really need to grow the fuck up and start acting like adults instead of spoilt brats.
Brachiator
@Turgidson:
Great call.
You’re right. The GOP doesn’t know how to deal with him. They keep trying to treat him like a conventional politician. Look how they are so concerned about his possibly running as an independent, but they apparently did not do anything to prevent him from going after them with everything he’s got. Trump’s recent dig at Jeb! for speaking Spanish to a group of supporters was a mean-spirited thing of beauty, and made Bush look weak and evasive.
Betty Cracker
@Mandalay: I disagree, even though I think the FOP people are often whiny-ass crybabies who overreact. In this instance, I don’t blame the cop for demanding a refund or the FOP for calling for a boycott, which is a perfectly legit way to express displeasure over that sort of incident. The employee who refused to serve the cop deserves to be shit-canned for refusing to do his or her job, and if the restaurant manager laughed it off, he or she needs to be shit-canned or at least retrained to handle customer service more effectively.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
I might support zero-tolerance in a case like this after we have zero-tolerance for misbehavior by the police.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: I support firing cops who misbehave 100%. I don’t support refusing service to random cops who are just trying to buy a crappy roast beef sandwich because some other cops suck.
lgerard
@Amir Khalid:
He reminds me of mark Allan Stamaty’s cartoon congressman Bob Forehead
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t exactly support that, either. It’s the zero-tolerance aspect in your previous comment that I had doubts about. Perhaps I misunderstood.
Anyhow, glad your dog is back. Have a great evening (if not any sleep).
rikyrah
@jl:
say it over and over and over.
the problem they have with him is that he does not speak in Frank Luntz-approved dogwhistles.
Bobby Thomson
@Elizabelle: as long as she complies, that’s fine. If she lied . . . . things will not go well for her.
Matt McIrvin
@Comrade Luke:
We get that regardless. They’ll find a way. Just for starters, the Constitution explicitly refers to the President of the United States as “he”, so I’m sure we’ll be hearing about that.