Month: January 2016

Ted Cruz vs Fox News

by digby

Man, it’s getting confusing out there. Is Fox so discombobulated by Trump that they’re completely forgetting who they hate?

Fox News host Chris Wallace cornered Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Sunday about his claim that President Barack Obama’s health care reform law had cost jobs.

“The fact checkers say you’re wrong,” Wallace told Cruz. “Since that law went into effect, the unemployment rate fell from 9.9% to 5% as 13 million new jobs were created, and 16.3 million people who were previously uninsured now have coverage.”

“There are plenty of problems with Obamacare, but more people have jobs and health insurance,” the Fox News host added.

Cruz, however, argued that the fact checkers were wrong because they were biased.

“Fact checkers are not fair and impartial,” he stated “They are liberal editorial journalists. And they have made it their mission to defend Obamacare.”

“Wait,” Wallace interrupted. “There’s certainly no question that more people have jobs and more people health insurance.”

“Yes, there is question,” Cruz insisted “The fact is from 2008 to today, we’ve seen economic growth of 1.2% on average.”

The Texas senator became irritated as the Fox News host pressed for an answer to his original question.

“Chris, don’t interrupt me,” Cruz snapped.

“That’s changing the subject,” Wallace noted. “Thirteen million new jobs have been created.”

“And that is a historically slow rate of job creation,” Cruz replied.

According to the GOP hopeful, small business owners told him that they were “praying” to be saved from Obamacare.

Wallace pointed out that the Cruz plan to replace the Affordable Care Act — by selling insurance across state lines, expanding health savings accounts and making insurance portable between jobs — “would have almost no effect in giving people who are not uninsured health coverage.”

Cruz said that the conclusions of organizations like that Congressional Budget Office about his plan were “simply not accurate.”

“This law is a disaster,” Cruz opined. “People are hurting.”

Oh dear, they really are confused these days aren’t they? They hate Trump but nobody can stand Cruz who is lying about Obamacare which they also hate but which is actually working so they’re using it against Cruz.

It’s awesome.

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The only people he likes are Putin and Kim Jong Un


by digby

He hates everyone

The New York Times put some poor intern on the thankless job of cataloging all of Donald Trump’s twitter insults. It’s an amazing list. The two top targets seem to be Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton and interestingly, he says much the same things about both:

According to people who’ve been following his campaign, he watches “the shows” and determines based upon his gut feelings what are his opponents’ weaknesses.

I think in this case, Darryl Hammond has captured the Trump persona perfectly: he’s calling Jeb Bush and Clinton weak women.

Nothing new in that, of course. Republicans have been doing this Democrats of both genders forever. And it’s often quite effective (as the flaccid, green-tea drinking John Kerry can attest.) Trump’s just turned it on one of their own.

Feel the magic, Liz Cheney throws her hat in the ring

by digby

I was sure she was running for Senate last time so that she could make the presidential race against Clinton. That didn’t work out so she’s taking the slower track. But rest assured, she’s going to run for president:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter will officially announce she’s running for Congress on Monday, according to a new report.

Liz Cheney filed federal election documents that show she’s running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, The Associated Press reported Saturday.
Campaign officials told the AP she plans to announce her candidacy Monday in Gillette, Wyo.

Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who currently holds the seat, recently announced she would not be running for re-election.

This is Cheney’s second major campaign. She ran for a U.S. Senate seat in Wyoming in 2013, but quit seven months before the 2014 primary, citing a health issue in the family.

I can hardly wait.

Make America illiterate again

by digby

The Donald gets mad and starts tweeting like a 12 year old mean girl.

This is just from this morning …

Is everyone ready to have this fellow as president?  Because it might just happen.

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If it’s good enough for Denmark and Sweden….
by Tom Sullivan

Border crossing between Russia and Norway near Kirkenes
By Elmar78 (Self-photographed) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Bernie Sanders is fond of citing examples from Europe of the benefits of democratic socialism. Denmark and Sweden, for example. Yet Sanders’ conservative critics sneer at America taking policy cues from Europe. Except when they do. Like now.

Denmark approved a controversial plan to pay for the upkeep of asylum seekers by confiscating valuables in excess of about $1,500:

The bill has been widely criticised by human rights groups.

The prospect of refugees having possessions seized has drawn comparisons to the confiscation of valuables from Jews during World War Two.

The government has said that items of sentimental value, such as wedding rings, will be exempt. It also raised the amount refugees will be allowed to keep from 3,000 kroner to 10,000 following objections.

Sweden and Finland announced plans last week to join Norway in deporting tens of thousands of people seeking asylum from war in the Middle East. They are poised to begin the kind of wholesale deportation of immigrants that Donald Trump has proposed for the United States.

Two weeks ago Norway began busing asylum seekers to the Russian border in temperatures near 30 degrees below zero:

Norway’s tough new asylum policy was adopted by a broad majority in parliament last year after more than 5,500 asylum seekers cycled to Norway from Russia through the border at Storskog – a safer and cheaper route than risking a rubber boat in the Mediterranean. Some 30,000 people claimed asylum in Norway in 2015.

However, the UN warned last week that Norway was likely to be in breach of the UN refugee convention.

“They can end up in a no man’s land where they risk freezing to death,” Vincent Cochetel, the UN high commissioner for refugees’ regional coordinator in Europe, said last week. “There are large cracks in the Russian asylum system. We believe Norway is wrong to regard Russia as a safe country for people who need protection.”

Sweden is preparing to eject up to half the asylum seekers that reached there last year:

The interior ministry has called on police and migration authorities to prepare for a sharp increase in deportations, and to arrange charter flights to expel refused asylum seekers to their country of origin. Sweden is also approaching other EU countries, including Germany, to discuss cooperation to increase efficiency and make sure flights are filled to capacity, it said.

On Thursday Finland’s interior minister said Helsinki also intended to expel about 20,000 of the 32,000 asylum seekers it received in 2015. “In principle we speak of about two-thirds, meaning approximately 65 percent of the 32,000 will get a negative decision (to their asylum application),” Paivi Nerg, the ministry’s administrative director, told Agence France-Presse.

Sweden received more than 160,000 asylum applications last year – by far the biggest influx in the EU as a proportion of the population. Between 60,000 and 80,000 of them will be rejected, the interior minister, Anders Ygeman, told Swedish media on Thursday.

Of course, the responses from commenters on sites such as Townhall and Gateway Pundit are gleeful. (Sorry, not providing links.) It’s all good if America emulates Europe when it comes to authoritarian crackdowns.

Friday night in Stockholm, a gang of masked men handed out leaflets targeting migrants days after the stabbing death of a 22-year-old female worker at a center serving asylum-seeking minors. Al Jazeera reports:

The leaflets handed out on Friday night, which were confirmed by police as being the same as were posted on Swedish social media, said, “When Swedish streets are no longer safe for ordinary Swedes it is our DUTY to fix the problem … Today, therefore, 200 Swedish men gathered to make a statement against the North African ‘street children’ who are ranging around the capital’s central station.

“The police have amply shown that it lacks the means to rein them in and we now see no alternative than for us to mete out the punishment they deserve.”

Police have not confirmed reports of violence against people thought to be migrants.

Associated Press reports from England:

Police in the port of Dover on the English Channel say there were arrests and injuries connected to a protest organized by far-right groups opposed to immigration into Britain.

The demonstration by the National Front and the South East Alliance was met with a counter-rally organized by two groups of opponents: Dover Stand Up to Racism and the Kent Anti-Racism Network.

A strong police deployment largely kept the peace but there was pushing and shoving throughout the day. Some bricks and smoke bombs were thrown.

So perhaps prior to the November elections in this country, Americans will get to see what deporting tens of thousands of migrants and refugees really looks like, not just in theory, but in practice. Of course, if we put Donald Trump in charge, Americans deportations will be in the millions, not wimpy and girlish, like those in Scandinavia. They will be massive, Yuge. But fair and humane, right? Something to bring a patriotic tear to your eye.

Oh, who cares about your sick brother-in-law…

by digby

This story would show a weakness for Cruz — and all Republicans — in a general election. In a GOP primary I don’t think it matters at all. They just don’t care. And if they benefit from the ACA they attribute it something other than Obamacare.

Senator Ted Cruz is often asked about doing away with President Obama’s health care law. He is less rarely pressed by voters on what will replace it.

But at a middle school cafeteria here, a man, Mike Valde, presented him with a tragic tale. His brother-in-law Mark was a barber — “a small-business man,” he said. He had never had a paid vacation day. He received health insurance at last because of the Affordable Care Act. He began to feel sick and went to a doctor.

“He had never been to a doctor for years,” Mr. Valde, 63, of Coralville, Iowa, said. “Multiple tumors behind his heart, his liver, his pancreas. And they said, ‘We’re sorry, sir, there’s nothing we can do for you.’ ”

The room was silent.

“Mark never had health care until Obama care,” Mr. Valde continued. “What are you going to replace it with?”

Mr. Cruz expressed condolences and pivoted quickly to a well-worn answer assailing the health care law.

Mr. Cruz said “millions of Americans” had lost their jobs and their doctors as a result of the law, and that many had “seen their premiums skyrocket.”

He said he had often joked about a pledge by Mr. Obama that premiums would drop: “Anyone whose premiums have dropped $2,500, as President Obama promised, should vote for Hillary Clinton,” Mr. Cruz said. “I’ll take everybody else.”

Many in the room laughed.

Mr. Valde — who said in an interview later that he did in fact intend to caucus for Mrs. Clinton — pressed on.

“My question is, what are you going to replace it with?” he said.

Mr. Cruz said he was getting there, but had to lay out the problems with the law first. “There are millions of stories on the other side,” he said, describing voters who had liked their insurance plans and lost them because the plans did not provide the level of coverage the new law required.

He went on to describe elements of his plan, which includes an effort to allow people to purchase insurance across state lines.

Mr. Cruz turned back to Mr. Valde. “Your father-in-law, he couldn’t afford it,” he said.

“Brother-in-law,” Mr. Valde said.

“Your brother-in-law couldn’t afford it,” Mr. Cruz said.

“Right,” Mr. Valde said. “But he could afford it — he finally got it under Obama.”

“He would have gotten it earlier, if he could have afforded it earlier,” Mr. Cruz said. “But because of government regulations he couldn’t.”

Cruz does have a plan. He wants to repeal Obamacare and all the requirement that are in it including the ban on denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions. Then he will make it so people can buy insurance across state lines (in order to avoid state regulations requiring insurers to treat their customers fairly.) He wants to get rid of employer sponsored health care so everyone can “own” their own insurance policy. And he wants to “expand” health savings accounts.

In other words, he wants to go back to the way it was before and then make it a hundred times worse. Because freedom.

Oh, and he even lies about his own insurance.

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Inside Donald Trump’s mind

by digby

It’s a creepy place:

NASHUA, N.H.— Donald Trump made his decision to start skewering Sen. Ted Cruz as his private jet was approaching here earlier this month.

“Ted is hanging around the top too long,” the Republican presidential front-runner announced on the plane, according to his campaign manager. “Time to take him down.”

Mr. Trump’s airborne verdict to strike at his closest GOP rival and a look at other decisions like it reveal a truth behind his famously pointed attacks: Mr. Trump, not his staff or consultants, personally drives them, and they are both calculated and improvised to adapt to news and polls, with little research or extensive prep work.

Mr. Trump proceeded to question whether Mr. Cruz’s Canadian birth disqualified him. A week later, he tore into the Texas senator about a loan he took from Goldman Sachs to finance his political career and about his notoriety as a Senate “nasty guy.” The onslaught seemed to stall Mr. Cruz’s rise in Iowa, where polls show Mr. Trump holding an advantage.

In a repeated pattern, Mr. Trump has fired personal attacks at rivals when they emerge as a challenge. While his attacks and policy pronouncements often appear to be off-the-cuff, hours spent interviewing Mr. Trump and watching him behind the scenes show how he plots them, most often alone in his jet as he flies to early primary states.
[…]

Mr. Trump flies the campaign trail with just a few senior aides. On a Jan. 18 flight to Concord, N.H., sitting in his cream-colored leather club chair at a pearlwood desk trimmed in 24-karat gold, he read and watched news reports on the race, jotting notes on his perceptions of candidates’ flaws.

Ten minutes before landing, he grabbed paper, scrawling five points—15 words—on what to say before his next adoring crowd. “I’m strategic, but trying to do the right thing and only saying what I have a very strong opinion on before going into battle,” he said on the plane. “Interestingly, people say that’s what everybody’s thinking but nobody wants to say it.”

His jotted items: “SELF-FUNDING SUPER PACS,” “NOW BLOCK SYRIAN REFUGEES,” “2ND AMENDMENT,” “HILLARY CLINTON A DISASTER,” “STOCK MARKET.”

At the event, he loosely followed his note, talking broadly and then returning to items on his list. After expressing support of the Second Amendment, he pointed out a few big men in the audience. “If we had you, and you, and you, with weapons, think how different the result would have been in Paris and San Bernardino.”

A key to his unscripted approach is his conversational style of speaking extemporaneously, incorporating the day’s news and gauging the crowd’s reaction. “Without a photographic memory, you can’t speak without notes,” Mr. Trump said. “My memory is one of the greats.”

Mr. Trump has shown a flair for touching the popular zeitgeist, such as in his position on immigration. But his campaign-by-counterpunch approach has critics charging him with eroding civility and raising the question of whether he has any positive message.

He drew new criticism for his weekend assertion in Iowa that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose voters.”

“Trump’s style degrades people and public discourse,” said Pete Wehner, a former White House adviser and speechwriter for President George W. Bush. “His keen sense to go for the jugular and play to the Kardashian culture is effective, but dangerous for failing to offer a positive vision for the country.”

“I’m doing it from the heart—and the brain,” Mr. Trump said. “A lot of it resonates.”

He’s a disgusting human being. But you knew that.

This is interesting, though:

He uncharacteristically used one scripted line, citing a Bible verse from “two Corinthians” instead of “Second Corinthians,” drawing some chuckles from the audience. Back on his plane, an angry Mr. Trump reviewed his page of notes and saw he copied “2 Corinthians” exactly as emailed from Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, who suggested its usage in the Liberty speech.

With social and cable media highlighting his gaffe, Mr. Trump blamed it on a momentary lapse of listening to someone other than himself. “I’m self-funding my campaign; no one can tell me what to say or do,” Mr. Trump said. “I do better that way.”

Mr. Perkins said: “I gave him the reference as you would find it in any English Bible.”

I don’t know if he fully understood that Trump was completely illiterate about the Bible or if he did and trapped him into making that error. But he endorsed Cruz a few days later. Not that it matters. It turns out that Perkins’ flock doesn’t really care about the Bible. In fact, you have to wonder if they know any more about it than Trump does.

In his motorcade in Des Moines, Iowa, Mr. Trump said he wasn’t deterred by charges he is running a negative campaign. “A lot of times I sound negative, but ultimately I’m positive,” he said. “ ‘Make America Great Again’ is a very positive campaign.”

Yeah, sure it is.

Trump is a thug. And that’s what his followers love about him.

ICYMI: here’s another look at the movie Trump suppressed for 25 years. Let’s just say he lack character…

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Yet another good guy with a gun

by digby

I’m assuming this fine fellow wasn’t mentally ill — just a standard issue savage brute whom the NRA thinks should have every right to terrorize anyone he chooses. We have a lot of them in the good old USA and because they hand out guns like M&Ms on Halloween, they are lethally dangerous:

KCPD officers arrested a liquor store manager they say chased a choking victim in his car with a gun on Thursday morning.

Donnell Byers told FOX 4 he was enjoying a Chick-Fil-A chicken biscuit when he started to choke and pulled off to the side of Wornall Road. But when he stopped choking, the real chaos began.

Byers says in the process of trying to grab his orange juice to keep from choking he ended up striking a parked car at Mike’s Liquors.

The 2015 Infiniti QX4 happened to belong to the managing partner of the company, 29-year-old Patrick Doohan.

“He runs out of the liquor store with a gun in his hand, grabs my car door and opens my car door up. My cousin, who’s the passenger, sees the gun and says ‘pull off, pull off!’” Byers said.

Byers says he took off fearing for his life, but police say Doohan gave chase. Byers says the manager chased him for a couple miles, pulling along side him and his passenger with the gun, before he finally got them cornered.

“As we are crossing Troost, he gets in front of us and blocks the car off, hops out, walks up to my door and puts the gun to my head,” Byers said.

A witness spotted the altercation and called 911 saying Doohan was yelling “I’ll kill you” with the gun pointed to Byers head.

Police responded finding Doohan with the 9mm semi-automatic pistol in his back pocket and a bullet in the chamber. A probable cause statement form says he does not have a conceal-carry weapons permit.

All these silly wingnuts are wetting their pants over ISIS. They should be scared of idiots like this.

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The International Trump Movement

by digby

Local media reports that hundreds of thugs had been involved

I have found it somewhat amusing to hear Marco Rubio say that Senator Sanders should run for president of Sweden considering how dominantly white Sweden traditionally has been.  It’s true that it’s long been a bastion of democratic socialism, despite being a symbolic monarchy,  and been very successful at it as well. But like the rest of Europe Sweden has had an influx of refugees as has most of Europe and their Donald Trump side (which exists everywhere) is coming out:

A large mob of far-right football hooligans attacked people ‘who looked foreign’ at Stockholm’s central train station, according to local police .

Shocking footage shows officers armed with batons in running battles with the crowd of masked men dressed in black.

As many as 200 people were involved in the beatings last night, prompted by the thugs’ desire to ‘clean up’ the area, it has been claimed.

Swedish news site Aftonbladet reports the group were spreading racist leaflets that targeted street children, entitled ‘It’s enough now’, earlier in the day.

Witnesses told Aftonbladet they saw a number of people being attacked in other areas in the city, including Sergels Torg public square.

A photographer for the site said: “I went by and saw a large black clad gang who were masked.

“They came from Queen Street and walked down toward the plate and began, as I understood it, to turn immigrants.

“I saw maybe three people who were beaten. I was quite scared and went from there.”

Read more : Social worker killed ‘trying to break up knife fight’ between to boys at migrant centre

A spokesman for Stockholm Police said: “They were scattering leaflets which had the intention to incite people to carry out crimes.”

Three people were arrested – one for punching a plain-clothes policeman and another for carrying brass knuckledusters, according to the Local.

All three were released on Saturday morning.

“We have been able to link them to hooligan gangs for Stockholm football teams,” Fredrik Nylén from the Stockholm Police told Aftonbladet.

Following the attack neo-nazi group the Swedish Resistance Movement said they had “cleaned up criminal immigrants from North Africa that are housed in the area around the Central Station”.

The scenes in Stockholm are just the latest in a spate of anti-migrant violence in Europe, and comes after a live hand grenade was thrown into a refugee camp in Germany.

The leaflet said:

‘All over the country, reports are pouring in that the police can no longer cope with preventing and investigating the crimes which strike the Swedish people.’

‘In some cases, for example, in the latest murder of a woman employed at a home for so called ‘unaccompanied minor refugees’ in Molndal, it goes as far as the National Police Commissioner choosing to show more sympathy for the perpetrator than the victim.’

‘But we refuse to accept the repeated assaults and harrassment against Swedish women.’

‘We refuse to accept the destruction of our once to safe society. When our political leadership and police show more sympathy for murderers than for their victims, there are no longer any excuses to let it happen without protest.’

‘When Swedish streets are no longer safe to walk on for normal Swedes, it is our DUTY to fix the problem.’

‘This is why, today, 200 Swedish men gathered to take a stand against the north African ‘street children’ who are running rampage in and around the capital’s central station.’

‘Police have clearly showed that they lack the means to stop their progress and we see no other way than to hand down the punishment they deserve ourselves.’

‘The justice system has walked out and the contract of society is therefore broken – it is now every Swedish man’s duty to defend out public spaced against the imported criminality.’

‘Those who gathered today are neither your politician, your journalist or your policeman. We are your father, your brother, your husband, your colleague, your friend and your neighbour.

‘Swedish men and women deserve safety in their everyday life and we are therefore calling on all others who also see the problem to follow in our footsteps, both in Stockholm and in other places around the country. For a better future together’

They’re going to make Sweden great again.

The right wing blogs are cheering them on. They say that vigilante violence isn’t really a good thing but what can you expect?

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