Showing posts with label Donald Trump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donald Trump. Show all posts

Monday, January 9, 2017

MERYL STREEP - MY HERO



It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter, someone he outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back. It -- it kind of broke my heart when I saw it. And I still can't get it out of my head because it wasn't in a movie. It was real life. 

 And this instinct to humiliate, when it's modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody's life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose. 
Meryl Streep is my hero, and not for the first time.  She said what needed to be said about President-elect Donald Trump in her speech at the Golden Globe Awards.  When Trump mocked reporter Serge Kovaleski's physical disability, he should have been shunned by everyone, including sane members of the GOP, and eliminated from the field of candidates.

When the tape of Trump boasting about assaulting women was released, his candidacy should have been finished, over, done, but that did not happen.

Trump invited his friend Putin to hack Hillary Clinton's email, and I don't recall a GOP outcry at the time.  The vast majority, if not all, Republican members of Congress endorsed Trump in the end. Putin followed through, hacked the Clinton campaign's email server, and interfered with the election.  Now, too little, too late, a few Republican leaders are "concerned".  That Trump is unfit to serve as president is obvious, but where were the sane Republicans who should have been speaking out forcefully against Trump for months and months?

Also, now that the election is over, Democrats are far too quiet about Trump's unfitness to suit me. The Democratic leadership, with some exceptions, seems overly focused on a smooth transition of power, but a smooth transition to what? Maybe the focus should be on the disastrous nightmare that will follow the smooth transition. WTF?

Friday, December 16, 2016

"BUCK UP, DEMOCRATS AND FIGHT LIKE REPUBLICANS"



Dahlia Lithwick of Slate and law Professor David S Cohen from Drexel University in The New York Times:
There's no shortage of legal theories that could challenge Mr. Trump'a anointment, but they come from outsiders rather than the Democratic Party. Impassioned citizens have been pleading with electors to vote against Mr. Trump; law professors have argued that winner-take-all laws for electoral votes are unconstitutional; small group of Hamilton Electors is attempting to free electors to vote their consciences; and a new theory has arisen that there is legal precedent for courts to give the election to Mrs. Clinton based on Russian interference, All of these efforts, along with grass-roots protests, boycotts and petitions, have been happening without the Democratic Party. The most we've seen is a response to the C.I.A revelations, but only with Republicans onboard to give Democrats bipartisan cover.
Clinton won nearly 3 million more votes than Trump. Trump won by 1% in Pennsylvania, but he received all 20 electoral votes, which disenfranchises the people who voted for her in the state and in all the other winner-take-all states. Why not support the Hamilton electors in the Electoral College in doing the job as described in The Federalist Papers #68? Why have the Electoral College at all if it's never to be used for it's proper purpose?
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
....

It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief.
Tumult, disorder, and mischief abound in Trump's leadership and in his team. Democrats generally fight fairer according to Marquess of Queensbury-like rules and traditions, and Republicans take off the gloves and fight unbound by tradition and unwritten rules, which makes the fight assymmetrical, leaving Democrats at a disadvantage. As witness, during the writers' joint appearance on Chris Hayes' All In, Lithwick notes the 300 days the nomination of Merrick Garland languished in the Senate with no forward movement. Sorry, I can't get the embed link for the video to work, but you can try this link and look for the title Should Democrats act more like Republicans?.

If electors choose not to vote for Trump and write in another name besides besides Clinton, and no candidate receives the required 270 votes, the decision would go to the House of Representative. Of course, the majority will vote for Trump, but then the responsibility for the Trump presidency and its consequences will rest entirely in the hands of Republicans.

My post is not about laying blame for what's past, but rather about what Democrats do now. The electoral vote is on Monday, November 19, so there's very little time. Is there a way to stop the Putin-Trump co-presidency of the world?

Saturday, November 12, 2016

WORDS THAT DON'T GO AWAY

From Digby at Hullabaloo:
Trump tweeted the following four years ago when he thought Obama was going to win the electoral college and Mitt Romney was going to win the popular vote. He's deleted them, but every Donald Trump tweet has been preserved.

Trump won the election in the Electoral College with with fewer votes than Clinton, but he is, without doubt, the winner of having made the most statements that may come back to bite him in the ass. Not that it will matter, because he will carry on as though he never said or tweeted the words.

Friday, November 11, 2016

ELECTION 2016

Top aides to Hillary Clinton believe the press and FBI Director James Comey contributed to her surprise election night loss, according to a Hill report out Thursday.

In a private conference call with supporters, Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, communications director Jennifer Palmieri and other senior staffers struggled to explain how their well-oiled campaign machine ultimately failed.

Voter suppression, Comey, media bothsiderism, and the media banging away at Clinton emails, (State Dept. and Wikileaks), and, in comparison, ignoring Trump's many scandals all played a part, but honest self-examination would indicate that the DNC is a troglodyte and needs an overhaul starting at the top.

When African-Americans in Louisiana, who turned out in lower numbers than previous elections, were asked why, their response was that neither Clinton nor Kaine were a presence in the state, so they felt the two didn't care about Louisiana.

Local Democrats worked hard and did their best, but they received scant support from national Democratic organizations such as the DNC, the DSC, and the DCCC.  Even if blacks had voted in higher numbers, Trump would probably have won the electoral votes in the state, but that does not negate the fact that Democrats, win or lose, need an ongoing 50-state strategy, starting now.  A political party that wants to be a national party does not have the liberty to write off even deeply red states. To build a national party, Democrats must have a presence in every state, as Howard Dean told us over and over and tried to do when he was head of the DNC.  Alas, he was thrown out for a scream.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Correction: Howard Dean offered his resignation as Chairman of the DNC after Barack Obama was elected in 2008, because the president traditionally appoints the DNC chair, not because of the scream.  In 2004, Dean was a candidate for president.  The scream was an attempt to rally his supporters after his loss of the Iowa caucus that he had expected to win. Wide media coverage of the scream was followed by loss of support from party insiders, and John Kerry ultimately became the Democratic nominee.

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

DEAD PEOPLE WILL NO LONGER PAY TAXES SAYS TRUMP


Yesterday, Donald Trump gave an economic policy speech in Detroit in his subdued persona, speaking from a teleprompter. He offered a replay of the old, failed GOP trickle down economics, which results in great benefits to corporations and the very rich, but, from past experience, we know that very little benefit trickles down to people who need it most.  In the greatest exercise of self control I've seen, Trump did not strike back at several protesters who were quickly removed from the venue, though if looks could kill....

Trump spoke to a group of corporate executives at the Detroit Economic Club, who probably approved of his message. If Trump's goal was in any way aimed at attracting the votes of ordinary people, living in an economy that is struggling to recover from bankruptcy in 2013, his promise to repeal the "death tax" stood out as particularly ironic. The estate tax affects only a very small number of people in the entire country.

Though I assume Trump was also speaking to the wider world, his supporters among working class white men could hardly have been moved by the promise, unless they greatly misunderstand how few people actually pay the "death tax".
The Tax Policy Center estimates that some 10,800 individuals dying in 2015 will leave estates large enough to require filing an estate tax return (estates with a gross value under $5.43 million need not file this return in 2015). After allowing for deductions and credits, 5,330 estates will owe tax. Nearly 85 percent of these taxable estates will come from the top 10 percent of income earners and over 40 percent will come from the top 1 percent alone.

Sunday, July 24, 2016

DONALD TRUMP - CHAMPION OF SMALL BUSINESS

According to the Miami Herald, Trump National stiffs a small business by refusing payment for the full amount of the paint contract because it has “paid enough”.

In this instance, Donald Trump was penny wise and pound foolish.  Why not just pay the $34,863? Now he owes nearly 10 times the amount. Here's why: Trump has pulled the same stunt on other contractors, but not all small businesses have the funds to take him to court. In this instance the attorneys took the case with the agreement that they would not get paid if they lost.
Circuit Court Judge Jorge Cueto, presiding over a lawsuit related to unpaid bills brought by a local paint store against the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort, ordered the billionaire politician’s company to pay the Doral-based mom-and-pop shop nearly $300,000 in attorney’s fees.

All because, according to the lawsuit, Trump allegedly tried to stiff The Paint Spot on its last payment of $34,863 on a $200,000 contract for paint used in the renovation of the home of golf’s famed Blue Monster two years ago.
Note that the judge is Latino, but he is of Cuban descent, so perhaps Trump will not demand that he recuse himself from the case, as he did for Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is of Mexican descent.

TRUMP AND PUTIN



Excellent post by Josh Marshall at TPM on the Trump/Putin relationship.
To put this all into perspective, if Vladimir Putin were simply the CEO of a major American corporation and there was this much money flowing in Trump's direction, combined with this much solicitousness of Putin's policy agenda, it would set off alarm bells galore. That is not hyperbole or exaggeration. And yet Putin is not the CEO of an American corporation. He's the autocrat who rules a foreign state, with an increasingly hostile posture towards the United States and a substantial stockpile of nuclear weapons. The stakes involved in finding out 'what's going on' as Trump might put it are quite a bit higher.
According to Trump, Obama vs, terrorists - weak and wrong; Putin vs. terrorists - strong and right. "There is something going on," but not with Obama and terrorists.  

And that, my friends, is only one of the reasons why Trump's tax returns from the last 10 years will never see the light of day.

Marshall's entire post is well worth a read.

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

TRUMP IS YOUR ALBATROSS

When faced with Donald Trump as the nominee of their party, certain GOP politicians give Trump their full endorsement; others say they do not endorse The Donald but they will vote for the nominee of the party; still others say they support the nominee but do not endorse him.  Will someone in the GOP explain to me the difference between endorsing, supporting, and saying you will vote for a candidate?  The choice by Republicans to slice and dice their words is meaningless, because, in the end, they all declare their approval of Trump as the nominee, and they will have to live with that choice.

TalkingPointsMemo keeps score of Republicans in office who endorse, support, or say, "Never Trump".  Prominent Republicans who do not presently hold office, such as members of the Bush family and Mitt Romney, will not endorse, support, or vote for Trump, and I say good for them.  If there is a remnant of the GOP left after the present election, I presume the anti- and pro-Trump forces will have to make up.

The source of the present controversy that divides supporters of Trump are his rants about Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the federal judge who presides over civil litigation trials against Trump University in California, whom Trump labeled a "hater of Trump" and a "Mexican" and called upon the judge to recuse himself.  Judge Curiel was born in Indiana of Mexican immigrant parents who are now naturalized citizens.  Further, the judge is a courageous hero who, in the past, stood up to Mexican drug cartels which resulted in threats to his life, forcing him to live under federal protection for a year.

The latest racist rants by Trump attacking Judge Curiel were too much for some Republican Trump supporters/endorsers, and a number are speaking out against the accusations, calling them what they are - racist. Rather than back down, Trump doubled down in his criticism of Judge Curiel.  Other GOP office holders, including Orrin Hatch and Chris Christie, defended Trump's remarks.  If, in the end, Trump backs down (He will never apologize, as he does not do apologies.), Republicans will still live in fear of his next intemperate tweet or his next intemperate rant when someone gets under his "very thin skin", as Hillary Clinton said in her recent foreign policy speech.

To Republicans who supported, endorsed, or declared they will vote for Trump, he's your albatross. If you choose to withdraw your endorsement, support, or promise of a vote because of some future outrage over Trump's intemperate commentary, he is still your albatross, and he will hang around your necks for the indefinite future.

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

DONALD TRUMP'S SONG TO HIMSELF


HOW GREAT I AM
(To the tune of How Great Thou Art)

O Donald Trump, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds my hands have made;
I see the tower, I hear the jangling quarters,
My power throughout this earth of ours displayed.

CHORUS:

Then sings my soul, O Donald Trump, to me,
How great I am, how great I am.
Then sings my soul, O Donald Trump, to me,
How great I am, how great I am!

And when I think of me my time not sparing;
I choose to run, I scarce can take it in;
That on the stump, my burden gladly bearing,
I lie and shout my way to score a win.

REPEAT CHORUS

When I shall come with shouts of acclamation
As nominee, what joy shall fill my heart!
The right will bow with humble resignation,
And there proclaim, "O Trump, how great Thou art!"

REPEAT CHORUS

Alternative lyrics for the hymn by me, with apologies to Carl Gustav Boberg (1859–1940).

Original post from December 2015.

Friday, March 4, 2016

THE DONALD AND THE DUKE

Our own Louisiana treasure, Stephanie Grace, on Trump's handling of his endorsement by David Duke.
Given the ascent of Donald Trump, whose arena-size angerfests are kind of like [Pat] Buchanan’s 1996 rally on steroids, was there ever any doubt?

Keying in Trump’s anti-outsider rallying cry to build a wall on the Mexican border and ban Muslims from entering the United States, Duke, who rarely misses an opportunity to emerge from obscurity and grab a headline, declared that white people who didn’t back Trump were committing “treason” to their “heritage.”
Pat Buchanan was savvy enough to know that though he might get away with coded, racist language to attract supporters, association with David Duke crossed a line that would not play well and would surely come back to bite.
While Buchanan, a political communications pro by trade, knew just what to say in a similar situation, Trump has flailed and flopped all over the place. He first disavowed Duke’s support, then on Sunday reversed himself during a genuinely shocking ABC News interview.

“Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, OK?” Trump said. “I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists.” (My emphasis)
David Duke?  I never heard of the guy.  OK, Mr Trump, you'd have to be living in a cave cut off from all communication not to have heard of Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
After a day of denunciations from the press and rival Republican candidates, Trump backtracked again, claiming that he hadn’t heard the question despite the specificity of his answer. (My emphasis)
And there it is - Trump's denial that is quite obviously not true, because he repeated Duke's name. Tomorrow is primary election day in Louisiana.  Only registered Democrats and Republicans are allowed to vote for their candidate of choice in each party.  My guess is that Trump's botched response to the endorsement of Duke will make little difference in his totals in Louisiana.  His performance in the Republican debate last night, which I thought was his worst, may affect the vote - or not.  Thus far, Trump's die-hard supporters have remained unaffected by reports of his stumbles, misspeaking, and denials of statements that are on record.  

Saturday, January 9, 2016

WHAT IF THE WORST HAPPENS?


Michael Gerson in the Washington Post:
Every Republican of the type concerned with winning in November has been asking the question (at least internally): “What if the worst happens?”

The worst does not mean the nomination of Ted Cruz, in spite of justified fears of political disaster. Cruz is an ideologue with a message perfectly tuned for a relatively small minority of the electorate. 
....

No, the worst outcome for the party would be the nomination of Donald Trump. It is impossible to predict where the political contest between Trump and Hillary Clinton would end up. Clinton has manifestly poor political skills, and Trump possesses a serious talent for the low blow. But Trump’s nomination would not be the temporary victory of one of the GOP’s ideological factions. It would involve the replacement of the humane ideal at the center of the party and its history. If Trump were the nominee, the GOP would cease to be. 
Michael, Michael, the "humane ideal at the center" of the Republican Party disappeared years ago, and the racist, sexist, loathsome Donald Trump candidacy of today is the creation of the GOP, your very own Frankenstein's monster, who is now out of control.  Trump says in plain language what the other so-called establishment Republican candidates speak in veiled code language.  (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, you know what I mean.)

As for Hilary Clinton's "manifestly poor political skills", I wonder if you watched any part of the eleven hour Benghazi!!! hearings, in which Clinton made Trey Gowdy and the other Republicans on the committee look like bumbling fools.  Maybe it's just me, but I thought Clinton's political skills, intelligence, and stamina were very much in evidence.  She would not only perform well against candidate Trump but perhaps send him over the edge to the point where even Republicans would vote for her, or, if they could not bear to cast a vote for a Democrat, they would not vote and perhaps even stay home, which would affect not only the presidential vote but down-ticket Republican candidates. 

Further, the GOP "conservatism" of today quite obviously does not involve "respect for institutions and commitment to reasoned, incremental change" and has not for quite a number of years.

You say:
Liberals who claim that Trumpism is the natural outgrowth, or logical conclusion, of conservatism or Republicanism are simply wrong. Edmund Burke is not the grandfather of Nigel Farage. Lincoln is not even the distant relative of Trump.
You are wrong, Michael. The members of the so-called "center" of the GOP, who no longer have an influential voice in the party, stayed silent through the worst of the excesses perpetrated by Republican members of Congress, thus giving them free rein to vote for their extremist agenda, with the result that the two candidates who now lead in the polls are Trump and Cruz.

Two quotes come to mind:

Silence is the voice of complicity.  (Fr Roy Bourgeois)

For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.  (Hosea 8:7)

Monday, December 14, 2015

DONALD TRUMP'S SONG TO HIMSELF


Photo by Gage Skidmore

HOW GREAT I AM
(To the tune of How Great Thou Art)

O Donald Trump, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds my hands have made;
I see the tower, I hear the jangling quarters,
My power throughout this earth of ours displayed.

CHORUS:

Then sings my soul, O Donald Trump, to me,
How great I am, how great I am.
Then sings my soul, O Donald Trump, to me,
How great I am, how great I am!

And when I think of me my time not sparing;
I choose to run, I scarce can take it in;
That on the stump, my burden gladly bearing,
I lie and shout my way to score a win.

REPEAT CHORUS

When I shall come with shouts of acclamation
As nominee, what joy shall fill my heart!
The right will bow with humble resignation,
And there proclaim, "O Trump, how great Thou art!"

REPEAT CHORUS

Alternative lyrics for the hymn by me, with apologies to Carl Gustav Boberg (1859–1940).

Thursday, September 10, 2015

BOBBY JINDAL V. DONALD TRUMP

Feisty Bobby Jindal decided to take on Donald Trump in a frontal assault in a speech at the National Press Club. In a desperate attempt to get attention, Jindal attacked the No. 1 candidate in the GOP line-up. Jindal and his strategist, Timmy Teepel, observing that no one is paying attention and that Jindal remains in low single digits in the polls, may have thought by attacking Trump, a bit of Trump magic may fall his way. Bobby says:
The Donald Trump Act is great, and the idea of Donald Trump is great -- BUT the reality of Donald Trump is absurd, he's a non-serious carnival act.
Of course, some might say the same about Jindal's reach for the presidency.

Also, Jindal and crew hope the attack on Trump may serve as a distraction from the reality that holes are already appearing in the flim-flam budget passed by the Louisiana Legislature and signed by Jindal. The plan was that the budget, which both the legislature and Jindal knew was flim-flammery, would implode as Jindal's term as governor ended, leaving the mess for the next governor and legislature to clean up, but the governor and his advisers miscalculated, and the holes in the budget showed up too soon.  As Melinda Deslatte says:
As lawmakers patched their way through this year's budget, many of them talked as if they had drawn up a six-month plan, fully expecting Louisiana's next governor to come in with a broader blueprint for fixing the state's financial mess.

They may have been too generous. This budget may not even hold for six months.

One modest cut's already been required, other gaps have emerged and nose-diving oil prices could upend everything.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/news/business/article32640099.html#storylink=cpy
Oops!  We are to believe President Jindal will make America a great country again, when we have the example of his ruination of the State of Louisiana during his two terms as governor.

Monday, May 9, 2011

THE DONALD


Everyone has the image ahead of me, but it's so funny that I had to have it, too.