Month: August 2015

Dear Maureen Dowd 

by tristero

Dear Maureen Dowd,

You write:

And Trump is, as always, the gleefully offensive and immensely entertaining high-chair king in the Great American Food Fight. 

There is absolutely nothing entertaining about Donald Trump when you consider that if he won, he would have the codes to more nuclear missiles than anyone else in the world.

By that standard – and it is the only standard that matters because, you know, existential – there is nothing remotely entertaining or even clownish about any of the Republican candidates. Nor is it entertaining that there are millions of Americans who seriously think any one of these pack of fools could be trusted with nuclear arms.

The only word that properly describes Trump and his clones is”appalling.”

Love,

tristero

–Dennis Hartley

Yay!

by digby

Earlier this week, Cicero Barbosa and a few friends were out enjoying a day of boating off the coast of Mongagua, Brazil, when they happened upon a humpback whale who wasn’t having nearly as good of a time. The massive animal, it soon became clear, had gotten tangled up in something that was making it tough for her to swim.

“I think it’s the third time I’ve seen a whale here, but the first time so close up,” Barbosa told Brazilian news outlet Globo. “The coolest thing was we could help her. She had a net wrapped around her body and it seemed like she was asking for somebody to take it off.”

So they cut the net off and set her free.

“Afterward, the whale stayed there, showing off for us,” said Barbosa, “like she was saying thanks.”

The men were stunned to watch as the whale lingered around, happy and free. At one point, in perhaps the greatest expression of gratitude to the dudes who helped her, the enormous mammal even joined in on a post-rescue photo — seeming to mimic the mens’ hand-gesture with the whale equivalent of a “thumbs up.”

I love that.

That story is from The Dodo, which is my go-to site when I need to lift my spirits. I go there often — the human species is very depressing sometimes.

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QOTD: The Nuge

by digby

Needless to say, he’s very upset that people care about some creepy dentist killing a protected lion. He loves to kill animals.

But this is really too much:

The entire episode is such a lie. It’s like “Black Lives Matter” … I suppose those who claim “Black Lives Matter” don’t believe that that the black lives in Chicago matter or Baltimore or Detroit or New Orleans or Washington, D.C., because as black lives are slaughtered by the hour, not a peep. Same with lions. Thousands and thousands of lions were killed in the exact same legal manner, and not a peep for one reason and one reason only, because they didn’t have names.

Because he cares:

I do agree with Mr. [Bill] Cosby that the Trayvon Martin shooting has nothing to do with race. Only empty-headed racists such as our black-panther loving Department of Justice believe otherwise.

Race does, however, play a significant role in the percentage of black Americans who are killed and wounded every single day in America.

The overwhelming majority of blacks are slaughtered by other black hoodlums, the overwhelming majority of whom are involved in gangs and drugs — you know, that “victimless crime” thing.

Mr. Cosby is right about this tragedy. These black punks do use guns to solve their gang-related differences. None of them carry or use their guns legally.

And by the way, I don’t recall all the sensitive new age guys at Fox and Red State getting upset about him saying this, do you?

From a 2007 concert where an assault-rifle-wielding Nugent also referred to then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as “a worthless bitch”:

I said, “Hey, Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch. Since I’m in California, how about [Senator] Barbara Boxer [D-CA], she might want to suck on my machine gun. And [Senator] Dianne Feinstein [D-CA], ride one of these you worthless whore. Any questions?

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About those debates

by digby

The best piece you’ll read about them is by Rick Perlstein:

In an article Wednesday in Politico about the three moderators, Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, and Chris Wallace, Wallace boasted, “The reason all three of us were chosen is that we’re three of the toughest, hardest hitting interviewers in the business.” Rigggggght.I must have missed the part where they asked Governor Scott Walker about the fact that the day before the debate, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that he had almost certainly lied when he said it was “100 percent wrong” to say he had been targeted in a corruption probe in 2011; that the federal investigator in fact had written at that time, “I submit that there is probable cause to believe that Scott Walker … committed a felony, i.e., Misconduct in Public Office”; and that it is impossible that Walker did not know he was being investigated.

I did, however, learn the following things:

• That if you line up 10 Republican presidential candidates in a row, your initial visual impression is of a line of riot police in a place like Ferguson, Missouri, only with better ties.

• That lesser Republican candidates love brains more than zombies in a George Romero movie. (Carson, shrugging off his ignorance: the “most important thing is having a brain.” Trump: “we need brains in this country to turn it around.”)

• That Ben Carson doesn’t know the political parties in Israel, doesn’t know who’s in NATO, and thought Alan Greenspan had been Treasury Secretary, not head of the Federal Reserve–but also when it comes to poise, confidence, and verbal intelligence, hell, he sounds the most presidential of the bunch.

• That because this election is “about the future, not the past,” Marco Rubio deserves to win because of his mastery of Thomas Friedman insights that were stale in 1998. (“Did you know the largest retailer in the country and the world today, Amazon, doesn’t even own a single store?”)

• That the existence of previous Bushes in the White House is irrelevant to Jeb Bush because: “In Florida, they called me ‘Jeb’ because I earned it!” and “Veto Corleone, because I vetoed 2,500 separate line-items in the budget. (APPLAUSE).”

• That speaking of Bushes, if you come from an aristocratic WASP family and are groomed for power since birth, quietly confident, dripping rectitude, prone to yaddayadda-ing about stuff like “net effect” and “driver for high sustained economic growth” and “robust accountability”–well, you’re at a damned disadvantage in debates staged in gaping basketball arenas crowned by Jumbotrons. Being the also-ran idiot younger brother, tutored in lobbing spitballs by a childhood of resentful rage, is much better training for Fox.

• That the sort of audiences who flock to debates in basketball arenas–gladiatorial arenas–really, really like it when their would-be leaders call women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” And like it even better when one of them threatens a woman: “What I say is what I say,” says Trump. (Like a Zen master. If the Zen master were an jackass.) And: “Honestly, Megyn, if you don’t’ like it, I’m sorry. I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be (APPLAUSE).”

• Ted Cruz is auditioning for Mt. Rushmore.

• Presidents, if their names are “Huckabee,” would have unilateral power to decide both constitutional doctrine and scientific fact by fiat. (“I think the next president ought to invoke the Fifth and Fourteen Amendments to the Constitution now that we clearly know that that baby inside the mother’s womb is a person at the moment of conception.”

• That governors are heroes when they don’t break the law–because breaking the law is what you do when you don’t balance a state budget. As governor, Jeb Bush balanced “eight state budgets” (as Florida law required).

• That Donald Trump (Fox screen chryon: “133rd RICHEST MAN IN AMERICA”) is guilty of bribery, and is proud of the fact. “I gave to many people before this,” Trump said. “When they call, I give. And you know what, when I need something from them two years later … I call the. They’re there for me.”

Speaking of Trump–speaking of Trump was just about all the moderators and candidates did, both implicitly and explicitly, ever since the first questioner asked the candidates to raise their hand if they wouldn’t pledge to support the party’s eventual nominee. Trump raised his hand to boos, smirked in response, and explained, “I cannot say I have to respect the person that–if it’s not me–that wins.”

Trumpism in a nutshell.

There’s lots more …

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Erick Erickson: sensitive new age guy

by digby

So he disinvited Donald Trump to his “gathering” for saying mean things about Megyn Kelly.It’s just not right to say such things about women.

Things like this:

“Is Obama Shagging Hookers Behind the Media’s Back? I assume not. I assume that Obama’s marxist harpy wife would go Lorena Bobbit on him should he even think about it…”

That’s what the feminazis were enraged over? Seriously?!? Wow. That’s what being too ugly to get a date does to your brain.”

“Thus ends the credibility of all pro-abortion groups. Thanks Mrs. Tebow for that. Ugly feminists return to their kitchens.”

“Turned on twitter today and there was a barrage of angry feminists upset with me telling them to get in the kitchen and learn to cook”

“Good thing I didn’t suggest the feminists … you know … shave. They’d be at my house trying a post-birth abortion on me”

“Feminists have no sense of humor, but clearly God did in creating feminists.”

“When you look at biology, look at the natural world, the roles of a male and female in society, and the other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. The female, it’s not antithesis, or it’s not competing, it’s a complementary role. We as people in a smart society have lost the ability to have complimentary relationships in nuclear families, and it’s tearing us apart.”

(That last one sparked a lot of outrage among Erickson’s female colleagues including Megyn Kelly.)

Trump is a sexist jackass, no doubt about it.  I don’t know if he was saying Kelly was on her period, but who cares? It’s just one of thousands of disgusting things he’s said recently. (He said “she had blood coming from her eyes and blood coming out of her wherever.” He claims he meant coming out of her nose …)  But Erick Erickson calling someone out for sexism is like Donald Trump calling out someone for their fake tan…

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Those were all quotes by Erick Erickson, highly esteemed CNN and Fox contributor.,

Conscience clause


by digby

.@BleuZ00m @catawu pic.twitter.com/Sfq2ymXs1T

— Graham Dawson (@GLDawson) August 8, 2015

Hey, we need something to keep them from actually killing your daughters. 

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Having “a Republican argument”
by Tom Sullivan

It could be weeks before U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder rules on whether North Carolina’s House Bill 589 violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The NAACP and the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit alleging that the law discriminated against racial minorities, the elderly and young people. In addition to requiring photo IDs for voting, H.B. 589 eliminated same-day voter registration, out-of-precinct provisional voting, preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds, and reduced early voting from 17 to 10 days. (In advance of the trial, state legislators loosened the ID requirements.)

At Plum Line, Greg Sargent spoke with Chris Brook, one of the ACLU attorneys on the case, about “the mother of all voter suppression bills”:

PLUM LINE: What is the case against the North Carolina law?

BROOK: It makes it more difficult for all North Carolinians to vote, but in particular for racial minorities in our state. Beyond that, the legislature knew full well, when they passed this raft of voting restrictions, that it would make it more difficult for African Americans to vote. Yet they plowed forward despite that fact. We’re challenging these measures pursuant to the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as well as Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

PLUM LINE: The judge in this case is trying to determine whether the impact of the law is discriminatory or merely inconveniencing. It seems like proving discrimination is a high bar.

BROOK: There’s grounds for optimism, because over the course of the trial, we were able to put on a strong case featuring dozens of North Carolinians who were disenfranchised in 2014. These restrictions are not mere inconveniences. They resulted in many North Carolinians not being able to vote.

More than 1,000 North Carolinians cast out-of-precinct provisional ballots in 2014 that previously would have been counted and were not counted. Approximately 11,000 North Carolinians registered to vote during the same-day registration window in 2014. They were not able to participate. This is something that has kept North Carolinians from voting.

In a narrow ruling this week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found Texas’ SB 14 voter ID requirement violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in that it “produces a discriminatory result that is actionable because [it] . . . interact[s] with social and historical conditions in Texas to cause an inequality in the electoral opportunities enjoyed by African-Americans and Hispanic voters.” North Carolina’s H.B. 589 court could face a similar ruling.

The Fifth Circuit did not affirm that the law was passed with discriminatory purpose or that it constitutes a poll tax. Discriminatory purpose is tougher to prove, even if it’s obvious.

Election Law Blog’s Rick Hasen:

Particularly interesting in this analysis is the question whether Texas’s explanations for why it needed its law (antifraud, voter confidence) were tenuous. The trial court found that they were because the evidence did not support the need for voter id for either of these purposes, and this factor worked in favor of finding of a Section 2 violation.

In upholding the Section 2 claim, the court observed:

While increasing voter turnout and safeguarding voter confidence are legitimate state interests, see Crawford v. Marion Cnty. Election Bd., 553 U.S. 181, 191 (2008), the district court found that “the stated policies behind SB 14 are only tenuously related to its provisions,” Veasey, 71 F. Supp. 3d at 698. While in-person voting fraud is rare and mail-in fraud is comparatively much more common, SB 14’s voter ID restrictions would only combat the former. Id. at 639–41, 653.

[…]

The district court also found “no credible evidence” to support assertions that voter turnout was low due to a lack of confidence in elections, that SB 14 would increase public confidence in elections, or that increased confidence would boost voter turnout. Id. at 655. Two State Senators and the Director of the Elections Division at the Texas Secretary of State’s office all were unaware of anyone abstaining from voting out of concern for voter fraud, and the Director testified that implementing the provisional ballot process might undermine voter confidence. Id. The district court also credited testimony that SB 14 would decrease voter turnout. Id. at 655–56. According to a well established formula employed by political scientists to assess individuals’ likelihood of voting in an election, increasing the cost of voting decreases voter turnout—particularly among low-income individuals, as they are most cost sensitive. Id. at 656. Further, the district court dismissed the argument that increased turnout during the 2008 presidential election was demonstrative of increased voter confidence in two states that had recently passed voter ID laws. Id. at 655. Instead, it found that the increased turnout, nationwide, was due to President Obama’s candidacy. Id. Finally, the court also found that public opinion polls—which found high levels of support for photo ID requirements—were not demonstrative that SB 14 itself would promote voter confidence. Id. at 656. The district court discounted the polls because they did not evaluate whether voters supported SB 14 when weighed against its attendant effect on minority voters. Id.

The same “confidence” assertion the district court in Texas rejected is one prime rationale behind most of these laws nationwide, as well as in North Carolina. In July closing arguments in North Carolina, the Winston-Salem Journal reported:

Schroeder asked Farr [one of the state’s attorneys] what the justification was in making the election law changes. State Republican legislators said publicly they wanted to restore public confidence in the election system and stamp out potential voter fraud.

There is no evidence of widespread in-person voter fraud in North Carolina or nationally. An expert for the plaintiffs testified that North Carolina had only two verified cases of voter fraud out of 35 million votes cast in primary and presidential elections between 2000 and 2014.

My wife calls this having “a Republican argument.” That is to say, a disingenuous one. It’s where your opponent abandons rules of evidence and logic and instead argues by assertion or by exaggerated fear of what “might be” happening undetected.

It is to argue, for example, that eliminating public assistance to the rich through tax cuts, credits, and direct incentives (that fund their fifth home, new yacht, or airplane upgrade) will kill their incentive to work hard and “create jobs.” But public assistance to the poor — you know, for food — eliminates their incentive to work.

It is to argue after every mass shooting that we need no new gun laws criminals will simply ignore; we just need to enforce laws already on the books. Except when it comes to voting restrictions, we need new laws on top of those they complain the state is already not enforcing.

It is people arguing that we need to restore public confidence in the election system after they’ve spent decades trying to undermine it to build public support for restoring Jim Crow.

Next up: competency tests.

First class trolling of the presidential kind

by digby

The Republican candidates didn’t have enough mean things to say about Hillary Clinton last night. But in one of the most clever trolling exercises I’ve yet seen, Hillary Clinton’s campaign put these posters up all over their headquarters:

Heh.

Covering Bush’s tracks?

by digby

Emptywheel posted an interesting little story about all the debate transcripts being clipped to leave out this exchange:

Kelly: Governor Bush, let’s start with you. Many Republicans have been outraged recently by a series of videos on Planned Parenthood. You now say that you support ending federal funding for this organization. However, until late 2014, right before you started your campaign, you sat on the board of a Bloomberg charity that quite publicly gave tens of millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood, while you were a Director. How could you not know about these well-publicized donations [a few boos] and if you did know, how could you help a charity so openly committed to abortion rights?

Bush: I joined the Bloomberg foundation because of Mike Bloomberg’s shared commitment for meaningful education reform. That’s why I was on it. We never had a debate about the budget. It was presented and we approved it. Not item by item. Here’s my record. As governor of the state of Florida, I defunded Planned Parenthood. [applause] I created a culture of life in our state. We were the only state to appropriate money for crisis pregnancy centers. We expanded dramatically the number of adoptions out of our foster care system. We created — we did parental notification laws. We ended partial birth abortion. We did all of this. And we were the first state to do a “choose life” license plate. Now 29 states have done it and tens of millions of dollars have gone to create a culture where more people, more babies are adopted.

Kelly: But did you know?

Bush: [pause] No. I didn’t know. But it doesn’t matter. I was working on this board because of the education. My record is clear. My record as a pro-life governor is not in dispute. I am completely pro-life and I believe that we should have a culture of life, it’s informed by my faith from beginning to end. [big applause] And I did this not just as it related to unborn babies, I did it at the end-of-life issues as well. This is something that goes way beyond politics. And I hope one day that we get to the point where we respect life, in its fullest form, across the board. [applause]

I know I heard this because I tweeted about the oblique reference to Schiavo in his “end-of-life comment.

This is bizarre. They have excised this entire passage. Why? Are they that worried that Bush is going to flame out prematurely?

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