Several times in this space, I’ve complained about Trump getting a free pass from the media on his disgraceful “birther” exploits. Here we have a major party’s presumptive nominee who has recently participated in an overtly racist and incandescently stupid crusade against a sitting president, and the media allows the candidate to wave it off with, “I don’t talk about it anymore.” Too bad Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch didn’t think of that!
Well, better late than never: The New York Times published a piece on Trump’s bizarre birther career yesterday. Some excerpts:
In the birther movement, Mr. Trump recognized an opportunity to connect with the electorate over an issue many considered taboo: the discomfort, in some quarters of American society, with the election of the nation’s first black president. He harnessed it for political gain, beginning his connection with the largely white Republican base that, in his 2016 campaign, helped clinch his party’s nomination.
“The appeal of the birther issue was, ‘I’m going to take this guy on, and I’m going to beat him,’” said Sam Nunberg, who was one of Mr. Trump’s advisers during that period but was fired from his current campaign. “It was a great niche and wedge issue.”
And starting in March 2011, when he first began to test the idea that a reality television star with no political experience could mount a campaign for the presidency, Mr. Trump could not stop talking about it. “Why doesn’t he show his birth certificate?” he asked on ABC’s “The View.” “I want to see his birth certificate,” he told Fox News’s “On the Record.” And on NBC’s “Today Show,” he declared, “I’m starting to think that he was not born here…”
Mr. Trump also said repeatedly that he had sent a team of investigators to Hawaii to unearth information about Mr. Obama’s birth records. “They cannot believe what they are finding,” Mr. Trump told ABC’s “The View.”
When Trump was promoting the birther sideshow, he mentioned the team of investigators he’d supposedly dispatched to Hawaii all the time. That was his go-to response when pressed about his blatantly racist obsession with President Obama’s birth certificate — he had a team looking into it, and they were finding unbelievable, shocking stuff. So whatever happened with that team?
But for all of his fascination with the president’s birth certificate, Mr. Trump apparently never dispatched investigators or made much of an effort to find the documents.
Dr. Alvin Onaka, the Hawaii state registrar who handled queries about Mr. Obama, said recently through a spokeswoman that he had no evidence or recollection of Mr. Trump or any of his representatives ever requesting the records from the Hawaii State Department of Health.
A bald-faced lie, then. You’d think as a major party candidate who repeatedly told a huge lie to TV audiences in connection with his racist crusade against a sitting president, Trump would be asked about the investigators, maybe pressed to name a member of the group. But I guaran-damn-tee you we’ll hear more about Hillary Clinton’s Bosnia sniper fire story over the next few months.
Still, kudos to the NYT for the birther retrospective. The story may not be as sexy as tales about email servers and chance encounters on airport tarmacs, but it seems kinda important to remind folks that a major party candidate for president has a long and well-documented history of racism and lying.
UPDATE: Trump just can’t quit white supremacists, y’all. He regularly retweets and swipes memes from them. Via valued commenter Rikyrah, here’s a link to a piece by internet sleuths who tracked down the origin of Trump’s infamous Star of David graphic: yep, white supremacists!
rikyrah
He was the Birther-In-Chief.
And, they (the MSM), went along with it, pretending that it was anything other than what it was: PURE-D RACISM.
rikyrah
Only4RM @Only4RM 14m14 minutes ago
Nominee Trump is as close to an up/down vote on white supremacy as we get. Old turnout assumptions obsolete.
Soonergrunt (mobile)
This is the natural result of the GOP stoking the crazy-hate for 40+ years. Nobody should be surprised that this is happening.
Felonius Monk
Feature, not a bug.
Corner Stone
Good God, why? Why does MSNBC continue to book Nancy Grace wannabe’s for show segments? They have some ex Tea Party Express chair on there, Amy Kremer, opening her wide piehole to yap about Bill Clinton every time she speaks no matter the topic or question.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@rikyrah:
Yup. We’re going to get an accurate state by state headcount in November. I saw my first Trump sign plastered house yesterday in this relatively upscale, heavily Jewish town just west of Boston. It should just be a swastika/middle finger sign to the locals.
schrodinger's cat
@rikyrah: I agree, a vote for Trump is a vote for Nazi America/ Apartheid America, every thing else is window dressing.
Fair Economist
Triple whammy on Trump: he’s following an outrageously racist/sectist Tweeter, he’s not got the resources to do his own 15-minutes-or-less photoshop, and he’s plagiarizing.
Corner Stone
At this point ISTM that every single thing Trump has ever said about his business, personal life or anything else has to be cross checked before it can be believed. The default should be what the WaPo started doing after he blacklisted them.
schrodinger's cat
Our MSM would do Goebbels proud. Is there a more useless Pundit on TV than Mark Jowly Sheilds?
Felonius Monk
CNN just interviewed Jill Stein. This woman is delusional.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Corner Stone:
Why do you do this to yourself?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Felonius Monk:
Hence her appeal to Bernie Stans.
Gindy51
The only differences between your garden variety white supremacist and Trump is that he has a fuck ton of money and he is easy click bait/advertising dollars for the idiot media. If he hadn’t been born with that silver spoon up his ass, we wouldn’t know his name.
Felonius Monk
@Corner Stone:
I guess you could watch CNN or Fox instead. :-)
Corner Stone
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I don’t know. I like Joy Reid, and I love(d) MHP so I always want to give them a shot. During the week I have it as background and it barely registers except occasionally. I don’t watch soaps and there’s only so much NFLTV you can watch during the offseason.
Davis X. Machina
@Felonius Monk: Delusional, yes.
But then she’s a true progressive, and you’re not.
MattF
@Corner Stone: It’s Mary McCarthy’s line about Lillian Hellman: the default assumption has to be that every word he says is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.
Corner Stone
And MSNBC’s political director is Beth Fouhy! Of Washington Times fame!
Sheeesh.
germy
Is he doing this or does he delegate to staff who are either (1) stupid or (2) regular viewers of those sort of websites?
Having worked for the heroic business leaders my entire life, I rarely saw them do anything themselves. They were champions of letting others do the actual… stuff.
Jordan Rules
Obama is such a better human being than him. The contrast is so effing stark.
I want this man humiliated beyond just losing the election.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: There’s a Trump sign prominently placed in the front yard of a house in a suburban village that’s now quite mixed demographically but was developed as the Boca Raton of this city’s suburbs.
Corner Stone
@germy:
I’m not sure he has any staff. Everything I have seen or read so far says he does every single thing for this sham of a scampaign. Why have some intern you have to buy sandwiches for do your tweeting when you can do it yourself and be yoog, classy and the best.
dmsilev
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’ll see your Shields and raise you a Halperin.
Felonius Monk
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: If Jill Stein really cared as much for country as she professes, then she should stand down from this election and throw all her weight and that of her party behind Hillary to ensure that Trump is defeated. Trump is too much of an existential threat to this country not too.
MattF
@germy: So, he’s either hiring people who seek out alt-right memes or he’s doing it himself. I don’t see a huge difference.
Calouste
@Davis X. Machina:
Progressives are interested in, you know, making progress.
Baud
@rikyrah: Yep. That’s why I’ve said it’s my litmus test for credibility going forward.
RaflW
@Gindy51:
FTFY
Betty Cracker
@germy: I think Trump writes his own tweets or at least dictates thoughts to a minion who does the actual typing. The content is so close to the bile that dribbles out of his pie hole at his rallies and on his phone-in interviews; it seems genuine. It might be that he didn’t realize he was retweeting a white supremacist the first time it happened, but it’s become so routine that it’s clear now he just doesn’t object to the source.
@Jordan Rules:
Yep. A Romney scale loss isn’t near repudiation enough. Anything less than a drubbing is a stain on this country’s character as far as I’m concerned.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Felonius Monk:
She, Bernie and Trump are delusional frauds reacting to Obama’s coalition sidelining their white base. The first time either President Stein, President Sanders or President Trump signed an actual bill, their supporters would run to the next delusional fraud who will be happy to pretend they’re the true [fill in the blank], for a fee.
Citizen_X
And I’m sure these attacks took no inspiration from the Trump campaign: Worshipers attacked at mosques in Texas and Florida.
Eric U.
@RaflW: TPM interviewed Mark Cuban, and he said that it appears that Trump has at least a billion in assets. It’s hard to know how leveraged they might be though.
germy
@Corner Stone:
Then he’s the exception. Guys like him usually limit themselves to inspirational speech and handshaking, leaving the tiresome details to the little folk.
dmsilev
@Betty Cracker: Honeslty, even the fact that he’s going to get nominated is a stain on the country’s honor. It’s says that there’s a fair sized chunk of the electorate that believes in this sort of crap. Combine that with the political tribalism of ‘I’m a Republican, therefore I should support the Republican candidate’, and suddenly we have several tens of millions of people who are, at a minimum, excusing away all the ugliness. Not good.
Roger Moore
@Felonius Monk:
What specifically did she say?
Humdog
@Betty Cracker: you said : Yep. A Romney scale loss isn’t near repudiation enough. Anything less than a drubbing is a stain on this country’s character as far as I’m concerned.
I think the stain has already set itself given than over half of whites and over half of men support this shriveled tangerine ballsack. I am ashamed of my country, again. I honestly did not think we could be so stupid as to reelect Shrub in 2004. I was shocked no disappointed then but now it is just pure shame.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Betty Cracker:
The recent poll numbers of Trump’s unfavorables in every group except white men (of course), including now with white women where I think Hillary is +12, are pretty epic.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Corner Stone: MSNBC’s management wants RWNJ guests and segments because they’re convinced that’s where the audience is. This has been clear for months.
I don’t know when people are going to accept that MSNBC isn’t “left-wing” any more (if it ever was, after they fired Phil years ago).
It’s fine to watch it if you enjoy the hosts or something, but don’t expect to get much more than a RW / GOP / Teabagger perspective from most of the guests.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: He dictates them:
http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/show-me/video/he-doesnt-write-out-his-own-tweets-and-other-things-we-learned-about-donald-trump-513497667844
Though as we all observed, for about 30 hours at the beginning of the past week, someone else was writing and sending them as they were coming from a desktop workstation log in, not the cell phone they usually come from.
West of the Cascades
I think (hope) that President Obama is going to spend the next five months not letting America forget how Trump lied about his birth certificate.
Adam L Silverman
@Eric U.: He’s cash poor. If you add up all his NY real estate, it probably gets him into the billionaire category. But that does him no good if he’s got little actual cash flow/reserves.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: I heard a somewhat different story.
RaflW
@Jordan Rules:
I am hopeful that this campaign will largely destroy Trump. It is fairly well reported that he basically has no ongoing businesses, all his hotels, golf courses, etc are licenced deals that others finance, build and operate. As he descends deeper into his racist id, who will want to own a Trump-branded business? I mean, you’ll have a lock on the 27% old angry white dude market, but that isn’t where the growth is.
The dude is probably functionally broke at this point, or at least living from licence payment to license payment. His thing about not financing his general election campaign isn’t out of principle, it’s that he’s out of prinicipal (aka capital, aka cool hard cash).
I hope we get a good look at his collapsing ‘business empire’ over the next 4 months!
Humdog
Hey Corner Stone, I used to keep MSNBC on in the background too. Then I figured that they could be getting “credit” for my TV “vote” and decided to tune in to one of PBS extra stations. Let PBS get credit for my empty living room watching how to sew or what is up with local native tribes etc. I actually learn something sometimes and it really never raises my blood pressure.
dogwood
What was always so discouraging about the birther issue which predated Trump’s involvement by many years, was how passively democratic elected officials sat back and watched it happen.
Troublesome Carp fka Geeno
@germy: That’s another reason I firmly believe that he isn’t a billionaire. He does so much of the maintenance of his organization; billionaires don’t bother to stiff the guy who painted one of several country clubs they own. That decision is made and defended WAAAYYYY down low on the org chart.
RaflW
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Given who watches cable TV, vs who watches for example Samantha Bee segments streaming on their phones, MSNBC is cosying up to the only demographic they can: old cranky white shut-ins. (OK, that last part isn’t quite it … yet. But the cable news demo is accelerating towards the grave, and skews old, conservative, white and frightened). MSNBC was kidding themselves that they’d unearth a young, hip, progressive demo on cable.
Corner Stone
@germy: I agree. Most people in charge or with any power in an organization or structure leaves all the fine tuning to the little people.
However, I think we’re seeing into the mind of a deeply paranoid, narcissist who has never been held to account for anything. If the switchboard story in Mar Lago is correct then who knows how badly off his rocker this guy is? His public utterances all by themselves are so far to the nut side I don’t know how much else anyone really needs.
Corner Stone
@Troublesome Carp fka Geeno:
Like the guy that ran his ca$!no that said Trump complained about $1000 for community building efforts and etc. Paraphrasing, the guy said Trump was like “Why do you do that? Don’t spend that money.”
Fair Economist
@Eric U.:
This is the key. Real estate people always have lots of leverage. Trump “owns” billions in property, but he’s going to owe at least a substantial fraction of it. My guess is that his *net* worth is a fairly large number, but a small fraction of his gross assets, and if he had to raise money quickly, he’d only get fire sale prices and end up with nothing.
Incidentally, much of his liquid assets may be encumbered as collateral, which may account for his seeming cash flow problems.
Fair Economist
@RaflW:
Young people have better things to do that watch TV.
RaflW
@Eric U.: Hard to know, but irresponsible not to speculate!
Kidding aside, everything about the man, including his well documented business failures strongly suggest he is highly leveraged. If he is a billionaire, it is in a very illiquid way that I think will show he’s just pulling levers at Oz.
Corner Stone
@Citizen_X:
I have no idea why but I first read that as, “Worshipers attacked by mosquitoes in Texas and Florida”
And I was like, “Trump is demagoguing Zika now?”
Roger Moore
@Adam L Silverman:
He may have over $1 billion in assets, but there’s a big question about his liabilities. It’s quite possible that he owes more than he owns unless you include the value of his name. I am inclined to agree with Josh Marshall; it’s hard to believe that somebody who’s worth anywhere close to as much as Trump claims to be would be out there putting his name on penny ante business propositions like Trump Steaks, much less outright scams like Trump University.
trollhattan
Dick Whisperer has an extensive piece on Paul Manafort today, chronicling, among other things, his decades-long work for despots and arms dealers. Working for Trump must seem pretty mild in comparison but that doesn’t mean Hillary isn’t history’s worst monster.
Good times.
Frankensteinbeck
And this is still a shameful and grotesque soft-pedaling of Trump and the GOP’s racism.
germy
I get irritated when I hear people talk about the current generation of angry old conservative racists dying out and then suddenly… a progressive utopia!
Because there’s a new generation of yoot picking up the ugly slack.
A blogger I follow recently posted about an incident he observed on a train. He was with his father, returning from a baseball game and some passengers got ugly… all young people.
dogwood
@RaflW:
I think you’re right. I’m old, and I stopped watching years before I finally cut the cable. When I retired I actually started watching quite a bit of tv, but I was streaming it on my computer or iPad. So I bought a roku and let the cable go. Younger people were never conditioned to go to tv for news and info, so cable is stuck competing for a shrinking audience.
maya
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
As that liberal South Dakotan journalist and NBC liberal news anchor, Tom Brokaw, said after the “Mission Accomplished” Iraq invasion blew up in his liberal face; “It was all the information that the Bush Administration would give us (liberals).” Something like that
dmsilev
@Roger Moore:
And of course his name going to be absolutely toxic to large swaths of the country by the time this is over, and nobody with any sense would pay to license it for a new hotel or whatever. He’s trashing what is probably his most valuable asset.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
All
hathair, no cattle.I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Fair Economist: David Cay Johnston on Trump’s “income”:
Trump’s entire “business” seems to be just a gigantic scam – scamming the IRS, scamming investors, scamming the public. If he has “billions” in assets, one can bet that he’s simultaneously claiming huge depreciation numbers so that he doesn’t pay any federal taxes. It’s the perfect arrangement for him – others put up most of the money, he puts up his “classy name”, he claims huge tax benefits while pleading poverty when it comes to taxes while simultaneously telling everyone else how rich and successful he is.
He’ll never release his taxes, I don’t think he’ll ever debate Hillary, and I won’t be surprised if he finds some way to quit before the November vote. He’s bad news for American politics and he deserves to lose badly.
It’ll be so good to watch Obama bring the hammer down on him at the convention…
Cheers,
Scott.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Grr. I just got stuck in moderation for some reason. Help?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Corner Stone
@dmsilev:
Pace the multiple lawsuits regarding the famous chefs that refused to open a restaurant at Trump’s properties.
If you’re an entity that actually owns a building or buildings with the name Trump licensed on them, aren’t you fucking freaking out at this point? Do you drop the branding and reclassify?
MazeDancer
Is using images from neo-Nazi message boards “bad optics”?
So many people on the Sunday Shows seem very concerned about “bad optics”. Maybe swiping and posting images from white supremacists isn’t?
dmsilev
@Corner Stone: Maybe the cash from all the cancellation fees will give his campaign the liquidity infusion it needs.
Synergy!
PaulWartenberg2016
@Corner Stone:
They dumped Donahue back in 2002-03 because he was anti-war over the pending Iraq occupation. That should have been a major tip-off that even the “liberal” MSNBC is more concerned with “playing nice with the Beltway and ‘conventional’ wisdom” than creating a genuine counterpunch to the Fox Not-News Wingnut Narrative.
dogwood
@PaulWartenberg2016:
They got rid of Ashley Banfield for something she said at a commencement or some similar speaking engagement.
smith
@Corner Stone: If all you’re looking for is background noise, you have a truly vast array of internet radio to choose from. I’d suggest trying BBC Radio 4 — it’s got a nice variety of shows, and you’ll get much more accurate news as well.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Truth. The racist operating system white America runs in its media and institutions serves to protect white Americans from seeing its own racism with any kind of self awareness. It’s heavily invested in treating Trump like some kind of one off clown who is biting the heads off chickens, than representative of almost half the country.
PaulWartenberg2016
@Adam L Silverman:
Trump’s operation reportedly relies a lot on credit and loans, except that he’s pretty much burned bridges with banks who NOT will loan to him anymore. Which is one argument behind the theory about his recent get-rich schemes with Trump U… and his shell game with this campaign (trying to win the GOP nomination – or worse the election – so he can control other people’s money he can funnel to himself).
bystander
Clinton puts out years of tax returns. Trump, nothing. Hillary is so dishonest.
As a side light to an investigation, Clinton’s computer arrangements, although the same as the only two predecessors to use computers, were cause for investigation and to date nothing has been found. Trump or his businesses are under multiple fraud investigations. Hillary is so untrustworthy.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@dogwood: And fired Keith shortly after he was suspended for donating to 3 Democrats without approval.
Yet Joe can give years of free time to his GOP buddies and their policies…
Cheers,
Scott.
Joel
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Newton, eh?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Joel:
Needham.
Aimai
@rikyrah: I love the strange, delicate, artificial way the Times says “certain sections ” or “quarters” of the electirate. They arent embarrassed to assign identities to Hillary’s voters–liberals, women, latino–so what prevents them from admitting that the specific section of the electorate trump is going for is white racists? (Rhetorical)
dogwood
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Yup. I remember the last time I ever watched MtP. I had a long-standing Sunday morning ritual of coffee and crosswords with the Sunday morning shows on . So in the fall of 2005, I’m doing my thing and listening to Russert interview Hagel, Lugar, and Obama who had been on a loose nuke mission to Russia. At the end of the segment, he switched gears and put up some goofy comment by Harry Belefonte and demanded Obama respond to it. Blatant racism, pure and simple. Never watched the show again.
burnspbesq
@Fair Economist:
Including, but not limited to, filing frivolous litigation alleging fraud in the Democratic primary process.
Joel
@Corner Stone: The Simpsons nailed pretty much all of televised news media with this little segment 20 years back…
smith
@bystander:
By now we have a whole generation of journalists who think this is how journalmalism is done. By default, Hillary, or any Dem, is to be looked on with suspicion, while IOKIYAR. I do not know how to rescue our experiment in free press when the forces of wealth that control the press now are so overwhelming. I had hoped, along with many others, that the internet would even the playing field, but what’s happened is that we’ve all migrated to different informational silos. Those of us in progressive world literally do not inhabit the same reality as someone living in Fox world. That becomes clear any time you try to engage one of them in a meaningful way — there are no common points of reality from which to start a discussion.
SiubhanDuinne
@dogwood:
I had forgotten about that, so checked the Wikipedia article on Ashleigh Banfield:
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@dogwood:
It’s so pervasive, it’s really breathtaking. But once seen, it cannot be unseen, hence the determination to perpetuate and reinforce it at every opportunity. Obama’s twice winning coalition – in landslides – really blew the white supremacist patriarchy lid off, and every white male controlled institution has been busy trying to nail it back on, and/or trying to distract us and divide us from noticing that the lid is really and truly off, and looking at all the mediocre white male supremacy inside. That’s what Bernie the fraud’s “revolution” of resentful bros is – restoring mediocre white men to their rightful place, to say nothing of Trump’s middle class white male resentments.
germy
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Well said.
MattF
@Joel: Not so amusing, now that the actual insect overlords have turned up.
RaflW
@srv: One teeny tiny difference: Kennedy said what he wanted for the country. Trump says what he wants for his grubby, selfish self.
Helen
@Roger Moore: And this is why he will not release his taxes. His taxes will show his deducted interest payments. Work backwards using a reasonable interest rate and we know how much he’s leveraged. Subtract that from the value of his real estate assets (which can easily be determined) and BOOM. We discover he’s actually worth $1.50.
Villago Delenda Est
So there was no birther team on the beach at Waikiki sipping mai tais?
I haz a sad.
D58826
If Hillary had shot down the two planes before they hit the Twin Towers and Bill did likewise at the Pentagon, the GOP would have launched a years long investigation into what litter laws they had broken.
dogwood
@SiubhanDuinne:
I remember the Banfield mess very clearly. She was an asset to the network.
burnspbesq
The misogyny of the Bernie-or-Busters is every bit as blatant, and every bit as pernicious, as the racism of the birthers. No one bereft of the Sacred Y Chromosome could possibly be preferred over a Saint Bernard, seems to be the theology of that movement.
RaflW
@germy: I get that. But here’s the demographic thing – if, say 27% of white youth end up unreconstructed racists a-holes, well, they will be a minority of a non-majority soon enough. And the recent polls say that young voters are going for Hillary roughly 5:3. So yes, white shitheel racists reproduce and will always be with us. But they won’t have the clout of the Reagan or even Dubya era.
Villago Delenda Est
@SiubhanDuinne: My nym. Again and again.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Felonius Monk
@Roger Moore: The usual magic pony stuff: forgive all student load debt, free college for all, etc. Not one hint about how this stuff actually would get accomplished. And, that SHE is the only honest broker among all the candidates. Mostly delusional bullshit.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@burnspbesq:
They’re clinging to Jill Stein in defense of that accusation, knowing full well she has zero chance of ever winning.
JPL
@D58826: If Bill had ordered planes to lock their cockpit doors, the media would have said he’s just trying to change the subject, from his personal problems.
Villago Delenda Est
@MazeDancer: Even the Nazis understood “bad optics”. Julius Streicher fell out of favor with Hitler because he was too Drumpf about the Jews.
trollhattan
@RaflW:
The Kennedys sacrificed three of four sons for their country. Trumps have sacrificed parts of their country for Trump. Totally alike.
Glennis Waterman
Truer words were never spoken. Trump seems to favor “unbelievable” as a description of his promises, policies, and pronouncements, and he’s absolutely right. Don’t believe him for a second.
max
‘They’ can kiss my ass.
max
[‘Pardonne moi. Needed to be said.’]
Corner Stone
@smith:
Well, I haven’t been fully truthful on this. While it’s mainly background noise, there is the not insignificant matter of one “Tamron Hall” . Blessed be her smiling smackdowns of rightwing talking points.
burnspbesq
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
If Stein had a fraction of the integrity her supporters ascribe to her, she would repudiate the boyo element of her support.
Keith P.
Not trying to play psychic (since it isn’t difficult here), but I called this yesterday in a conversation. Trump is not exactly a content creator…he just passes things on, so I figured someone (either a white supremacist or Gawker) tweeted that to him in hopes it would get retweeted by The Donald.
Villago Delenda Est
@srv: Billdo. The guy who doesn’t understand the tides.
Really a go to guy about explaining anything.
RaflW
@Corner Stone:
Headed to sin city Nevada tomorrow (ugh, hot hot hot sun!, but it’s a good launching place for the Grand Canyon, showing my Swedish cousins the SW next week!). Of the 13 five-star hotels on the strip, the Trump hotel is second-lowest in price. The 11th most expensive is a $36/nt jump. Just anecdata, but one does think the Trump hotel chain should be seeing some occupancy issues.
D58826
@JPL: He would want the doors locked so he could boink the stewardess undisturbed (after killing the pilots).
germy
@RaflW:
I like your optimism and I hope you’re right.
fuckwit
Of course Troll isn’t anti-semitic! Why, his pimp is Jewish! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bloom/why-the-new-child-rape-ca_b_10619944.html
The next Bill Cosby.
hovercraft
@Felonius Monk:
The ‘people’ claim to want authenticity, the only problem with most truly authentic leaders is that they are true believers. And as they are pure they do not believe in compromise. The republicans are seen as the opposition and their beliefs are simply wrong, democrats are seen as would be allies who are worse than republicans because they know better but have sold out.
Cat48
@Humdog:
I feel shame about Trump too. I cant imagine having to go to his convention or even a rally. Ive never seen the GOP so out & proud Racist. Depressing
gindy51
@dmsilev: You’re so right. My rich in laws refuse to stay in any of his properties and gladly pay more to avoid them. These folks should be his “base” white, rich, snobs. But he’s lost them forever with his racially tinged rants. Several of their grand kids are of mixed race and his bull shit does not play well in their household.
Keith P.
Hehe…yet another Trumper left the campaign. This is a regular TV surrogate – Barry Bennett. The degree to which the Trump campaign is apparently falling apart (Politico and the mainstream isn’t covering it much, but Redstate is going to town on it) is incredible. Worst possible candidate at the worst possible time. I still maintain that Ted Cruz would have been a more formidable opponent than Trump.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: That’s nice.
Patricia Kayden
@Corner Stone: Saw her on Joy Reid’s show. She didn’t seem all that effective though and couldn’t really defend Trump’s behavior. From what I can tell, Amy captures the bottom line for Trump supporters which boils down to “We’re supporting Trump because he’s not Secretary Clinton”. I didn’t hear Amy explain what would make Trump a better candidate for issues like education, defense, jobs, etc. Nor could she explain why he keeps retweeting White Supremacists.
Cat48
@trollhattan:
Who is that? Dick whisperer?
Renie
@srv: Most of the comments say Billo is a jerk. This one was good:
“How Donald Trump and JFK are alike. Donald Trump is having about as many intelligent thoughts as JFK is currently having.
MattF
@Keith P.: Trump:senior staff::ship:rats.
ETA: With appropriate apologies to the rats.
Adam L Silverman
@Roger Moore: I think Marshall’s attempts to read the tea leaves on this have been very well done.
Yellowdog
@Humdog: I find How it’s Made on the Science channel to be good background programming. The problem is that sometimes they switch over to Naked Alaska or something like it. I swear that with the oil downturn about half of Alaska’s GNP must come from the various Alaska shows. There’s even one that is just about plane crashes in Alaska.
Adam L Silverman
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: David Cay Johnston is a national treasure and should be put in charge of a regulatory agency and given one set of instructions: find the enemy, fix them in place, reduce their ability to do harm to zero.
schrodinger's cat
@dmsilev: But Mark Shields supposedly represents the left on the Snooze Hour. All I hear him do is trot out excuses with wingers. Trumps supporters are not racist. Hillary has a likeability problem and so on. Almost any BJ commenter, let alone a FPer could do a better job representing the Dems, than Jowly Shields does.
We know Halperin is really a Republican under the guise of being impartial.
smith
@Corner Stone: Well, as long as you’re getting something out of it…
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: Please rescue me from moderation. Thanks!
Adam L Silverman
@MazeDancer: They can either talk about optics or have an actual conversation about what exactly is wrong with someone who is a major party nominee for president who continuously retweets white supremacists, anti-Semites, racists, homophobes, and xenophobes. Given what we know about political journalism in 21st Century American, which do you think they’re going to go with?
Patricia Kayden
@Keith P.:
Hmmmm. Perhaps he would have had the RNC and establishment on his side but Cruz is not a well-liked person (even among Republicans) so I’m not sure if he would have been that better than Trump. http://www.usnews.com/news/opinion/articles/2016-04-21/republican-party-may-hate-ted-cruz-more-than-they-fear-donald-trump
Patricia Kayden
In moderation. Thanks Betty.
Betty Cracker
@Adam L Silverman: Me too. I think he’s likely on the money about Trump’s June fundraising too — a ticking time bomb that will explode in Trump’s face in the middle of the GOP convention.
dogwood
@hovercraft:
I think when people talk about “authenticity” they are more likely to be talking a bout a candidate’s persona rather than his/her ideology. Trump really is an authentic candidate. He is running as himself. The fact that so many are willing to support such a vile and disgusting human being is what’s scary. Barack Obama is an authentic politician. He runs and governs as himself.
Adam L Silverman
@PaulWartenberg2016: There’s only one bank that will provide him credit. My guess is they do so because he’s into them for so much that he’s triggered the old saw: “If you owe the bank a hundred dollars, they own you. But if you owe the bank ten million dollars, you own the bank.”
MattF
@schrodinger’s cat: Halperin was the originator of the ‘Good news for John McCain’ meme. It was when McCain lost count of his seven houses– no problem, said Halperin, and, in fact it was actually good news for J. McC.
Betty Cracker
@Patricia Kayden: Rescued; was probably the naked link…
RaflW
@gindy51: I think Trump hotels (and other brands) appeal to the garish nouveau riche, or really just folks with some short-term flash cash to throw around. Folks who would be considered well-heeled would never stay in his palaces of mirrors, fake-Tiffany lighting and piles of slightly imperfect, bought by the truckloads, compare-at-non-remnant price pink granite.
hovercraft
@germy:
I think he’s a combination of a control freak and a cheapskate. He wants to control his campaign and he wants to run it, and because he is the smartest person ever who used his ‘skill’s to win the primary he won’t listen to anyone. He’s also lazy so he won;t take the time to actually learn anything about running a country. The real estate business he learned the trade from his dad, and then figured out that he could make even more money by monetizing his name. This way he takes none of the risk, does none of the work, and gets paid either way. He does his own tweets because he knows that he can just lie about what he tweeted and the media will let him get away with it. His business was built on lies, ice rink (pretending to be financing the reconstruction while not putting a dime and in fact taking a salary), Atlantic City ( filling up construction site to make it appear as though work was being done), and many more, he assumed he could run an election running the same con. Lazy, cheap, liar, grifter.
Villago Delenda Est
WP is going nuts with moderation and/or eating posts. Can someone drop Allain a line and ask him to look into things on Tuesday?
Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian
Aren’t dog-whistles supposed to communicate under the radar to one’s target, while appearing innocent to the general public?This Hillary/Star of David tweet makes no sense, since it’s so blatant.
And what is an anti-semitic tweet against Hillary, who isn’t Jewish, supposed to accomplish? The whole thing suggests complete idiocy, rather than clear intent (plus too much surfing on white-supremacist sites).
Corner Stone
This whole repeated “Back Button” failure has seriously got me thinking about voting for Trump. I know he can make the Back Button Work Again!
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Done!
schrodinger's cat
@MattF: I am no Halperin fan, he disingenuous, Mark Shields on the other hand just seems inept.
Corner Stone
@Yellowdog:
I love that show. The investigators take their role very seriously and try get all the info available. And I’m like, “Dude, really bad weather came out of nowhere and the pilot was not instrument rated.” That’s the answer in about 98% of them.
MattF
@Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian: In fact, Digby has a post on Trump’s continuing not-at-all subtle wooing of white supremacists. ‘Under the radar’ is not a correct description. It’s open and shameless.
Baud
Moderation test.
Balloon Juice sucks donkey balls.
Heh. No one will ever see this.
Villago Delenda Est
@hovercraft: He’s similar, it seems, to the picture painted of Sarah Palin by Frank Bailey in Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin. Micromanaging, yet lazy. Devoid of ethics. Eager to explain away with lies (easily detected and exposed lies) anything perceived as being damaging.
trollhattan
@Cat48:
Dana Milbank
smith
@Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian:
To me it suggests so much surfing on white supremacist sites that an image like that has become normalized and unremarkable. It was a loud dog whistle that the surfer had become deaf to.
Villago Delenda Est
@Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian: Hillary is OBVIOUSLY a puppet of the Elders of Zion. What, do we have to spell this all out to you in 70 point Times New Roman?
MattF
@Baud: FYWP moderation is just a mystery to me. I post all sorts of bad words and don’t get caught.
hovercraft
@smith:
Healthier for both mind and body true, but it is important to keep abreast with what the villagers are thinking and saying. I like to know what conventional wisdom is and where it’s going, so that I’m ready for the next bullshit meme they are going to advance, so I also have msnbc on as background because it’s better than the other two.
RaflW
@Betty Cracker: That’s a great article. I think many deep-pocketed GOPers know Trump is a scam artist and charlatan and won’t give. It’s not about the racism, probably not even about the incompetence. It’s the obvious con-artist that turns them off.
Villago Delenda Est
@MattF: Halperin is ambulatory dog shit.
There are so many shitty actors in The Village that listing them all would break WP for sure.
Amir Khalid
It’s the Fourth of July already on my side of the International Date Line. A happy Independence Day to my American friends.
As for Donald Trump, the birtherism is just one thing among many. He doth seem a candidate beyond the pale for the Republican party. It doesn’t give a damn that he is transparently dishonest and utterly ignorant of policy and governance (so were many of its more “serious” candidates this year, after all). But his balls-out vulgarity and various bigotries are an embarrassment to the party, his shady and/or failing commercial operations a mockery of its reputation as The Party of Business, his lack of interest in raising money for or properly organising his campaign a danger to its downticket chances in November, his divisiveness a no-kidding, for-serious existential threat. This is a candidate who could actually take the party down with him when he loses.
realitybites
It is so frustrating to see Trump get one free pass after another by the media, I wish there was some way to make them do their f***ing jobs. One shocking, racist, or stupid thing after another – child rape, birtherism, illegal phone tapping, allegations of sexual assault, not knowing the convention had to be held in Cleveland – one huge stinting pile of evil and incompetence. And every day, just driving around, I am reminded of just how many people will actually Vote for this sh*tweasel. Last weekend, I took some pix while dropping kittens off at a rescue group and also while on my way to work. As you can see, some of these landmarks have been around for a while. How do people stay so angry and uninformed for so long? We MUST GOTV. I am very worried about all the voter suppression. https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipOCiGfPadkVqjGDjEEgaZfhof1mGW7U2c54awLb
Villago Delenda Est
@Patricia Kayden: Since Rafael is the anointed of Jehovah Himself, the fact that he pisses off those who should be his friends, if not allies, is irrelevant, it seems. If he actually had some charisma about him, he might be seriously dangerous, in the manner of a failed artist from Vienna in 20’s and 30’s Germany.
Keith P.
Not to dwell on Redstate, but it cracks me up. They’re flipping out over Trump taking over the party over their establishment promising the moon and not delivering, and now they’re over there getting pissed off that Hillary doesn’t look to be indicted, as if suddenly any infraction that she commits warrants jail time (I’ve had a coworker tell me she should be in a Supermax over Benghazi). It’s not their establishment promising the moon,..it’s their punditry/radio hosts, which trickles to the establishment.
hovercraft
@smith:
To be fair Bernie and Jane have been too busy to release theirs with barley a peep from the media. Every interview should begin with where are your tax returns, just like every Hillary interview includes questions about he e-mails.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
On behalf of America, thank you.
After the W. presidency, I’ll believe it when it happens.
MattF
@RaflW: The wealthy R donors have figured out that any money they contribute goes directly into Trump’s bank account as repayment of ‘loans’ to his campaign. This is actually a very big deal.
Villago Delenda Est
OK, now I’m trying to respond to realitybites #152, and I keep getting kicked to the Yahoo Error handler (thanks, Firefox!) if I use the reply button to that particular post.
Here’s the reply: The MSM clowns are doing EXACTLY what they are paid to do, what their actual jobs are: to generate revenue for their Corporate overlords. Any notion of “civic responsibility” in broadcast/cable journalism died with Edward R. Murrow and Uncle Walter, when the “loss leaders” for prestige that were the news divisions of the networks became “profit centers” at the behest of soulless MBA drones.
Our media model is very, very badly flawed, and it’s distinctly possible that nothing short of burning the motherfucker down and rebuilding on the ashes will fix it.
Fair Economist
There’s a house a few blocks from mine that I walk by frequently which had up a Trump sign. When we went by this morning they’d taken it down and hidden it in the side yard. Telling!
hovercraft
@RaflW:
Reports say his businesses are down 60 % year to date. By election day lets hope he is down to just a smoldering heap of wreckage. FSM be praised.
RaflW
@schrodinger’s cat: I take it as a sign that younger progressives know that the Sunday shows and PBS are death’s waiting room for why Shields is still on. I figure folks like Ezra Klein wouldn’t want to taint their twitter-generation cred by showing up on the SnoozeHour etc.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Thank you, Amir. We’re still far short of the ideals we aspired to some 240 years ago, but we’re making slow progress. I can’t blame the rest of the world for being skeptical about us, though.
realitybites
Crap. I thought I had a link to my pix for 152.
Villago Delenda Est
realitybits at 163: FYWP hates you, it seems. I’ll bet you put in a link that it didn’t like and now it’s taking its revenge by going nuts with the reply line.
Mnemosyne
@RaflW:
This. The point is not to make sure that there are no more racists, because human nature says there will always be at least a few racists. The point is to deny political power to those racists and keep them on the fringes where they belong.
rikyrah
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
tell that truth
Villago Delenda Est
@RaflW: Appearing with that assclown Brooks rightly should be the kiss of death for anyone.
Felonius Monk
@Baud:
Heh. Someone did.
gogol's wife
@Fair Economist:
There’s one near me that looks all crumpled, like somebody trashed it but the owners put it back up again.
Sherparick
@srv: No, Bill he did not. JFK volunteered & almost got killed in the Pacific. Whatever his faults, he was heroic in looking after his crew & selflessly risking his life to get them rescued. Donald Trump has never done anything except for Donald Trump all his life. What a group of assholes.
Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian
@Keith P.: That’s a good explanation. He retweets without assessing the original. I don’t see him as a very analytical guy.
Thanks, smith, MattF, villago.
Baud
@Felonius Monk: Crap.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: I’ve pinged Alain.
Frankensteinbeck
@Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian:
Trump has been getting loud and ugly online support from the anti-Semitic right lately. Really, really nasty stuff, harassing Jews who make public statements against him with tweets saying the Jews deserved the holocaust, and so on. Some of those will make up a reason this is about Hillary, but all of them will see this as a message he stands with them.
Sherparick
@Villago Delenda Est: yep. Our corporate overlords claim their only ethical inheritance is maximize shareholder value. This is the result.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Cat48: Lexicon:
Cheers,
Scott.
realitybites
https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipOCiGfPadkVqjGDjEEgaZfhof1mGW7U2c54awLb
One more time? :)
Villago Delenda Est
@MattF: Bingo. There’s one thing that scam artists should know better than doing, and that’s trying to scam the wealthy. Some of them got that way not by falling out of a uterus, like The Donald, but by actually paying attention to the details.
RaflW
@MattF: The loans, but also “Mr. Trump’s use of the Mar-a-Lago Club, his Florida resort, which was paid $423,000” in May alone.
And his other businesses.
And his unbelievably amazing kids getting paid. Etc….
Adam L Silverman
@realitybites: I fixed the embed problem that stuck it into the reply button. However, all it does now is take me to google log in. In response to this, please post the link naked – just copy and paste it in and then hit return after it to create an additional space and then hit the post comment button. That should fix it.
Villago Delenda Est
realitybites @177: No go. The link is 404 and the reply button breaks things.
burnspbesq
@Adam L Silverman:
Counter-poimt from someone who does for a living what Johnston purports to have expertise in: he’s a crackpot and a one-trick pony. His heart is arguably in the right place, but in terms of understanding how the law actually works amd how it can be fixed in a world where getting to 218 votes in the House matters is concerned, forget it. He’s the Bernie of the tax policy world.
The people you should be paying attention to are Lee Sheppard, Reuven Avi-Yonah, and Dan Shaviro. Shaviro’s blog is all kinds of excellent.
http://danshaviro.blogspot.com
fuckwit
@Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian: “I don’t see him a very analytical guy” deserves the 2016 “Not necessarily to our advantage” understatement award.
RaflW
@Villago Delenda Est: I have been enjoying all the pitchforks in the NYT comments section after each time Brooks polishes one of his own turds.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
For all his faults, George Walker Bush was by Republican standards a reasonably competent candidate. He didn’t shirk fundraising duties and he had a proper campaign org instead of trying to make the party do all the organising work. He didn’t have new staffers saying “Fuck this shit, I’m outta here” after one week on the job. He never caused people to avoid the conventions that nominated him. He never provoked anything remotely like a Dump Shrub movement, let alone an intraparty fight between such a movement and his supporters.
Adam L Silverman
@realitybites: I’ve taken it out of the link embed again because it was going to the DNS search lookup page for a dead site. When I do so, all it takes me to is Google login. As I wrote in comment 180/@Adam L Silverman: please just post the naked link to where you want to go in response to either comment 180 or this one. Then hit return after you post the link to create a space. Then hit post comment so I can see what’s going on. Thanks!
smith
@RaflW:
I think I saw after that FEC report that he, Trump, is also being paid a salary by his campaign. He’s paying himself to run for president. Let that sink in…
dogwood
@schrodinger’s cat:
Halperin and Heilmann actually do some real work when they write their books. Plenty of people on both sides of the aisle are willing to go on record with them. I have no idea what Mark Shields does beside spout conventional wisdom on PBS. David Brooks is more interesting than Shields and that’s a pretty low bar.
Adam L Silverman
@burnspbesq: I do read Shaviro’s blog. Johnston is what he is. And what he is is good at explaining this stuff to an audience of lay people with, at best, minimal backgrounds. I’m curious what his actual classes are like at Syracuse where he teaches in the law school.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: He was also really good at campaigning. In many ways it was his particular political gift. Or at least a skill he worked hard to develop.
Villago Delenda Est
@smith: The ideal outcome of all this would be Drumpf, his most recent trophy wife, and all his children being arrested for vagrancy in front of the former Trump Tower by subway cops.
Amir Khalid
@Sherparick:
Let’s not forget, JFK used his family connections to get into, not out of, wartime military service, despite being medically unfit; and once in, he served with distinction.
RaflW
@smith: Amazingly, he paid himself about $3K for May. So he’s valued himself at $36,000/yr. Probably about right if he had to go find an actual job at a real company. Executive Assistant to the Jr. Vice President for Widget Restocking.
smith
@RaflW: No wonder the big donors are knocking down his door, waving check books and throwing cash!
Kay
They’re doing it to their voters again. They guaranteed a Clinton indictment. When that doesn’t come their voters will feel ripped off and further enraged.
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m never sure why people keep repeating this falsehood. He hated people and it showed. He was a horrible retail campaigner. He won in spite of his campaigning, not because of it.
He’s not warm, charming, sociable, gabby, anything. He hates being around plebes, and it shows. He owes all the aura bullshit 100% to the media that fawned all over his fucking nicknames for them, and access.
? Martin
@Keith P.:
Oh, no question. For all of Cruz’s faults he’d at least have a competently run campaign. Having cash, the structure of a media strategy, policy strategy, disciplined campaigner. Yes, people don’t like him, but he’d round up the surrogates who if nothing else would defend Cruz’s policies, even if they don’t like him personally. Trumps problem is that people don’t like him either and they don’t like his policies. Only if this is going to be some kind of big anti-establishment election does Trump actually have an advantage.
RealityBites
@Villago Delenda Est: hey, my pix showed up at 152! Strange time lag!
Corner Stone
@Kay:
The system is rigged!
/Sanders…..errr /Trump
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: I always got a different impression. I don’t disagree with your take, but I saw what you’re relaying when he wasn’t campaigning.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay: This is the story…the followers are getting fed up with the lack of regress that they want to see happen. Abortion is still legal. Obama is still President. Hillary is still at large.
The monster they’ve created has turned on the creator. Gene Hackman is not available to calm the monster down. It’s going to get ugly.
Villago Delenda Est
@RealityBites: Yeah but it’s still a link to the Google 404 page.
RealityBites
@Adam L Silverman: thanks. I’m a long time lurker, and still learning how to post.
rikyrah
@MattF:
Which is why…as another blogger says…
The GOP Crime Bosses are keeping their checkbooks closed.
Amir Khalid
@Corner Stone:
As I recall, W did well as a campaign operative for Poppy.
Cat48
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: heh, funny story & thank you
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman: The only recent Texas pol that surpasses GWB’s hatred for “normal” people is Rick Perry. The only difference is the pedigree. GWB had amazing name recognition and a vastly superior campaign staff.
Ask anyone who was not a “Ranger” bundler that has met GWB. He’s a cruel, indifferent moron.
Corner Stone
@Amir Khalid: You mean when Poppy lost re-election and GWB vowed vengeance against everyone who he thought had failed him and his daddy?
MattF
@RaflW: I expect that when (or if…) Trump gets the nom, he’ll get a raise.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: It’s one thing to work behind the scenes, another thing to be on the stump, and Poppy himself never cared all that much for campaigning. Too much contact with the plebs, you know.
SiubhanDuinne
@Sherparick:
What liberal lies are you spreading now? What about Trump’s heroic service in Vietnam? Okay, maybe not the real Vietnam, but he picked up a dose of the clap, so it’s exactly the same thing.
Kay
@Villago Delenda Est:
Trump is using the same tactics the establishment uses. He’s ginning up enthusiasm by telling them Clinton will be indicted. That’s exactly the same approach the establishment used for years- Obamacare will be repealed, Romney’s polls are skewed, etc.
I heard Dick Morris on right wing radio yesterday- he’s telling them the polls are fine because they aren’t picking up Trump supporters. There’s nothing different about Trump. This is the same shit they’ve all used for the last 8 years.
hovercraft
@dogwood:
I agree that that is what voters mean, but purity candidates tend to equate authenticity with purity of positions. That’s why Bernie was so critical of Obama, he’s backed off now because he realized that being critical of him was costing him, for the Steins, Sanders and Naders of the world authenticity is measured by the purity of your positions. Drump is authentically awful on every level.
Villago Delenda Est
@hovercraft: Yes, and Hitler and Stalin and Mao all had purity positions.
Kay
I think birtherism was central to Trump’s appeal, because he wasn’t just telling them Obama had perpetrated an elaborate fraud- something was supposed to happen after Trump proved it. Obama was supposed to resign in disgrace or be removed. It was never just about the birth certificate. It was about repealing the election of the first AA President. That’s what he was promising them.
hovercraft
@Villago Delenda Est:
I read an article the other day about the Palin nomination and republicans embrace of her was the moment the gop lost control. Before that the Gohmerts, Steve Kings and Bachmanns of the party were fringe figures on the periphery of the party. Palin bought them main stream and made it possible for that type of crazy to run for the nomination and win. The establishment chose to accept her and once the genie was out of the bottle it overtook them. Self inflicted wound.
Kay
I hope there’s a really good documentary or book on birtherism. It’s important. It’s mob insanity brought on by racism. It should be studied. They had to put all common sense and rational thought aside to believe it and so many of them did! They still do! The GOP base just elected the highest-profile proponent. It explains A LOT.
redshirt
Correct my memory but Trump didn’t start the birth certificate nonsense, but rather jumped on the already existing bandwagon and became the defacto leader of the movement. Is that correct?
Villago Delenda Est
@hovercraft: While in the realm of Presidential politics, I think that’s a valid point, they went there back in 1994 when perpetual bomb-throwing back bencher Newt was installed in the Speakership. He was constantly haunted by coup plotting all four years he was Speaker, because he wasn’t being insane enough. The germ of what would become the “Freedom Caucus” was planted during Newt’s tenure.
Villago Delenda Est
@redshirt: Yes, he saw a vehicle to ride to a more prominent position, and jumped on it and took charge.
Kay
It’s the same kind of insanity that led Ohio GOP voters to readily believe that there were tens of thousands more voters than their are RESIDENTS in some swing counties in Ohio. They swallowed it whole. They had to be imagining hordes of undocumented and fraudulent voters- tens of thousands of them in counties with 100 thousand residents. They believed that happened. They LIVE in these places. They thought no one in Wood County, Ohio noticed tens of thousands of voters being “bussed in” to vote fraudulently? There would be busses idling everywhere! It’s not that big a place!
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay: Every four years we get the same stories of Democrats busing in “illegals” in the hundreds, if not thousands, to skew the vote in key precincts and the Lamestream media (but not your alert friends at InfoWars!) working hand in glove to cover up THE TRUF! about massive, egregious voter fraud of olympian proportions.
hovercraft
@Kay:
And the fact that he was willing to voice his ‘birtherism’ loudly and publicly, while the gop just knuckled under and ‘allowed’ Obama to remain president. But in the end he had to drop it because just like the promises to repeal Obamacare it was all a lie, elections have consequences and they lost to him twice. There is no way to undo the election results. Obama is 45 period, and unlike the last two republican presidents he does not have to skulk off into history in ignominy. GHWB because he lost, and GWB just because.
Technocrat
@Kay:
It’s a tactic, but it’s not just an establishment tactic:
redshirt
@Technocrat: Sanders logic checks out.
hovercraft
@Villago Delenda Est: @Kay:
This is one of the major downsides of the urban / rural divide, whereas we urban/ suburban dwellers are more likely to be more liberal we do know quite a few republicans and are content in the knowledge that are numbers are sufficient to drown out their votes and don’t see them as a threat, rural voters tend to live in more homogenous places both racially and ideologically that they see those outside of their group as a threat to their way of life and the country, they fear the unknown. Diversity is good for you it may breed contempt but it also eliminates the fear factor that leaves them more susceptible to the lies and propaganda about the ‘others’.
Amir Khalid
@Technocrat:
Doesn’t HaHa Goodman know that many law-enforcement agencies around the world now make it a practice to record interviews with witnesses, not just with suspects, on video? It gets down everything that was said, and provides reassurance that nobody’s civil rights were trampled upon.
RaflW
@hovercraft: And good news for John McCain!
I hope the old cloud-shouting bastard gets the boot in Arizona.
Emma
@Amir Khalid: They have their own reality now. Bless their hearts.
Technocrat
@Amir Khalid:
Amir, that’s a reasonable explanation on the surface. However, the fatal flaw is Reasons. Therefore, Indictment.
Q.E.D.
hovercraft
@Technocrat:
Well I guess we should all get ready for President Sanders now. My bad for not having faith in the real progressives, they pulled it off, congrats.
dogwood
@Kay:
I don’t think I’ll live long enough to see any serious discussion of racism in the Obama years, and it’s likely that the President won’t either. But 50 years from now there will be plenty of historians combing through the Obama Presidential papers and finding disturbing and sometimes horrifying crap. We’ll talk about it then. That’s how it works with race in America. It’s an acceptable topic if we’re talking about the past and the players are long gone, but it should never be discussed as a contemporary issue.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: Of your final statement I have no doubt.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: Yes.
J R in WV
@Soonergrunt (mobile):
Not surprised, but a little sad about it. I know the haters will be with us always… but I am sad about that. It’s kind of like they’re self-harming themselves in their minds by thinking such unhealthy thoughts full of hate.
Villago Delenda Est
@hovercraft: You can see this very clearly in Washington and Oregon, where the vast majority of the population (and the most significant urban areas) are west of the Cascades. On election night, Oregon looks like a red state from the map, but the problem is all those red counties are for all practical purposes uninhabited when it comes to where the votes are…west of the Cascades and north of where the Coast and Middle forks of the Willamette come together, just south of Eugene.
J R in WV
@Fair Economist:
“Young people have better things to do than watch TV?”
I’m an old, and I would rather read BJ comment threads than watch TV. At least until after the General Election come November!
gene108
@dogwood:
I do not fault Democrats. They did not stoke the Birther issue. Anytime a Democrat was asked about Obama’s birth they all told the truth that he was born in Hawaii.
It’s the Republicans, who stoked the issue. Video after video came out about Republicans being asked by some nutcase in the audience about Obama’s Kenyan birth and not one* Republican corrected said nutcase. They just gave some non-committal answer at best.
The Republicans stoked this conspiracy theory to the point that a large chunk or even maybe a majority of Republicans were convinced Obama was born in Kenya.
I just do not see the Democraats as the problem. They are not the group the crazy-ass-butt hurt-racist conservatives, who were pushing the bullshit, were ever going to listen to.
*I believe McCain corrected a lady, once during the 2008 campaign and was booed. I think that’s the first and last time a Republican directly tried to set a Birther straight.
gene108
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
On the books a building is listed at the purchase price and depreciated. The tax schedule has a specific depreciation rate, whereas you can use different depreciation methods on your books. This creates differences between book and taxable income. You’ll get a tax benefit for a few years that will reverse into a liability. Businesses usually plan around this, with regards to disposing of assets to avoid the liability years.
This is better than letting a business set a market price for an asset, like a building, because the amount of bullshit that can be done if they were listed at market prices is scary.
jayjaybear
@Cat48: The migration of the racist low-lifes from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party that began in 1950-ish has finally almost been completed.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@gene108: “He’s an Arab…”
McCain ran a despicable campaign against Obama and then tried to walk a lot of it back when he saw how insane his supporters were. He tried to have it both ways.
Cheers,
Scott.
Uncle Cosmo
@SiubhanDuinne:
Might’ve picked up another in Scotland. The golf clap this time….
catclub
@Eric U.:
So what, if he has 4 Billion in liabilities?
Mark Cuban might have meant net assets, in which case the liabilities have been counted.
Bonnie
I hope that Trump will lose by a landslide; and, then, be told that the American people did not vote for him because he is fat and ugly–not to mention stupid.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
Thanks Amir!
And Happy Eid al-Fitr in a couple of days now, in case I don’t comment with you again before!
redshirt
@Uncle Cosmo: Hmm. 6/10. Good effort, but doesn’t actually reflect the situation in Scotland, in which Trump was continuously pressured by protests large and small.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Amir Khalid: Thank you, Amir.
John B.
What a bunch of self-congratulatory pompous asses. You’re all great, just ask you! You wouldn’t know objective evidence or commentary if it bit you in the ass.
As this page says, “lighten up, Francis”. Get a life.