Month: January 2016

Most disgusting ad of the season (so far)?

by digby

This could be it:

If you like government reaching into your bedroom and your hospital room you’re going to love Jeb!

Says the narrator: “He’s a man of deep faith who fought time and again for the right to life.”

“It is simply disgusting that Jeb Bush and his super Pac would exploit my wife’s tragedy for his crude political gain. Shame on Jeb Bush,” said Michael Schiavo, Terri’s husband, who said she did not want to be kept alive in that state and was repeatedly challenged by Bush and Schiavo’s parents and siblings.

“Using his disgraceful intervention in our family’s private trauma to advance his political career shows that he has learned nothing. He’s proud of the fact that he used the machinery of government to keep a person alive through extraordinary artificial means — contrary to the orders of the court that were based on the courts determination, made over 6 years of litigation, that doing so would be against her wishes,” he said. “What the campaign video shows is that if he ever got his hands on the power of government again, he would do the same thing again, maybe next time to your family.”

The Don makes his wishes known

by digby

He’s a gangster:

With the first 2016 votes set to be cast in less than a week, Fox News finds itself in the unprecedented position of being in open warfare with the GOP front-runner. Tonight, Donald Trump is continuing to leave people guessing about whether he will be on stage at the Fox debate on Thursday, if Roger Ailes refuses to yank Megyn Kelly from the moderator panel. “I’m not 100 percent, I’ll see,” Trump told CNN earlier today, echoing a threat he first made on Saturday. “If I think I’m going to be treated unfairly I’ll do something else. But I don’t think she can treat me fairly, actually. I think she’s very biased and I don’t think she can treat me fairly.”

Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowksi told me tonight that Trump could very well boycott Fox. “We haven’t said he’ll be there, and we haven’t said he won’t be there,” he said. “The bottom line is Megyn Kelly shouldn’t be rewarded for her media bias.”

Behind the scenes, Trump has pressured Ailes to remove his fastest rising star. While campaigning in Iowa today, Trump told the Boston Globe’s James Pindell that he spoke with Ailes by phone and said Kelly should “recuse herself.”

Fox isn’t backing down. Tonight, the network released another carefully worded statement: “Sooner or later Donald Trump even if he’s president, is going to have to learn that he doesn’t get to pick the journalists. We’re very surprised he’s willing to show that much fear about being questioned by Megyn Kelly.”

The timid response – by Ailesian standards – is more evidence that the Fox chief is struggling to draft a playbook to deal with Trump. According to a Fox source, Ailes’s senior executives convened an emergency conference call on Sunday to discuss Fox’s Trump strategy. Two more sources told me that Ailes is becoming increasingly worried about leaks from inside Fox. He’s tasked his lawyer Peter Johnson Jr. with running an investigation to ferret out sources.

It makes sense that Ailes would be worried. While it remains highly unlikely that Trump actually doesn’t show up on Thursday, he continues to threaten the relationship between Fox News and its viewers. During his CNN interview, Trump played on Ailes’ leak anxiety, hinting that he has dirt on Kelly and is willing to use it. “Maybe I know too much about her,” he said.

This will be a historic election if Trump gets the nomination. Our first openly gangster president.

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Who will break the gold ceiling first, Trump or Bloomberg?



by digby

It’s so exciting. With the announcement that multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg may be getting into the race, the prospect of a true history-making campaign is upon us. Who will be our first billionaire president? I wrote about it for Salon:

Buoyed by the still unsettled field, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is growing increasingly enchanted with the idea of an independent presidential bid, and his aides are aggressively laying the groundwork for him to run.

Michael R. Bloomberg has instructed advisers to draw up plans for a potential independent campaign in this year’s presidential race. His advisers and associates said he was galled by Donald J. Trump’s dominance of the Republican field, and troubled by Hillary Clinton’s stumbles and the rise of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on the Democratic side. […]

Bloomberg, 73, has already taken concrete steps toward a possible campaign, and has indicated to friends and allies that he could be willing to spend at least $1 billion of his fortune on it, according to people briefed on his deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss his plans. He has set a deadline for making a final decision in early March, the latest point at which advisers believe Mr. Bloomberg could enter the race and still qualify to appear as an independent candidate on the ballot in all 50 states.

According to an average of estimates provided by two independent firms, Bloomberg is worth nearly nine times Trump. Forbes estimates place Bloomberg’s net worth at $36.5 billion, making him the ninth richest man in America. Wealth-X, the independent research firm, puts his net worth at $42.1 billion.

Trump’s wealth is a little more contentious. Forbes says he’s worth $4.5 billion, while Wealth-X pegs him at $4.4 billion. Bloomberg News, which does not tabulate Bloomberg’s wealth, tallied Trump’s net worth at $2.9 billion.

In July, that calculation prompted Trump to say the organization vastly undercounted his fortune because the former mayor was “jealous.”

He claims to be thrilled to welcome Bloomberg into the race, but it’s obvious that would create yuuuuge problem for him. After all, his entire rationale for running is that he’s the best man for the job because he’s so rich and so successful. If there’s another guy in the race who is (at least!) nine times richer and also has political experience, well it’s going to be pretty hard to make that claim. Wouldn’t that guy be nine times better at making America great again?

I won’t be long before all of our candidates are billionaires.  This is America. They have a dream. More at the link…

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Big spending in Real America


by digby

Here’s one reason why Iowa and New Hampshire insist on being the first states in the presidential nominating contest:

The biggest spender on ads is Jeb Bush’s PAC who has apparently spent the equivalent of the GDP of a small country and way, way behind him in second place, Marco Rubio. Then Sanders then Clinton. I think what surprises me the most is the fact that Cruz has spent so little.  What’s he saving it for?

But as you can see all these millions are very, very good for the Iowa media companies. Why would they give them up?

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Moving the Goal Posts 

by tristero

Some telling micro-rhetoric, courtesy the Times, which really should know better, y’know?

Mr. Cruz, now a Texas senator and a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, rarely invokes the 2000 race and recount. He has largely disavowed the comparatively moderate Bush wing of the Republican Party in pursuit of conservative ideological purity.

Comparatively moderate? George W. Bush? The president that flew back to Washington to intervene on the side of rightwing religious lunatics during the Schiavo madness? That countenanced torture and went to war at the behest of far-right neocon ideologues?

Holy Overton Window, Batman! In a world where a man as extreme in his opinions as George W. Bush is described as comparatively moderate, anyone with a sensible foreign policy, a reasonable level of religious observance, or even simple commonsense can only be thought a commie radical.

Of sowing and of reaping
by Tom Sullivan

It was a bit of delicious irony yesterday to see a Texas grand jury investigating Planned Parenthood over those hoaxed “fetal tissue” videos turn around and instead indict the anti-abortion activists who made them:

David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were indicted by the grand jury for tampering with a governmental record, said prosecutors for the county in which Houston is located. The felony charge is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

As Digby observed, there’s no telling what “tampering with a governmental record” means in this case.

There was more irony last night when CNN host Chris Cuomo asked Glenn Beck whether he bore any responsibility for the emergence of Donald Trump as the GOP’s presidential front-runner. Beck described Trump as a “dangerous man”:

“But here’s the thing,” Cuomo pointed out. “Is there a little bit of reap what you sow in some of this with the GOP, that engendering an oppositional mode towards government, in ratcheting up negativity as a mainline discourse, you wound up somewhat birthing Donald Trump?”

“And now some of those people who were angry about what was going on and telling people to be angry, now they’ve got somebody who is harnessing the power of exactly that, and you’re disappointed,” the CNN host said.

Beck insisted that he had “warned against this.”

Beck has also endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the would-be Stephen King ghoulie whom a legion of non-friends and former co-workers describe as an insufferable “pompous asshole,” proving Beck’s lack of either judgment or taste.

Even Putin has to use poison

by digby

Only 3 people in the world can claim they can just shoot someone and not lose supporters: Trump, al-Baghdadi and Kim pic.twitter.com/Cbnj5hXCUy

— Yannis Koutsomitis (@YanniKouts) January 24, 2016

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Goodbye Cruel World

by digby

Via Amato at C&L, here’s GOP strategist Alex Castellanos:

I think a lot of the fault, actually, belongs to the conservative intellectual leadership of America that you see in this issue of “National Review.” The conservative cause that animates the Republican Party, we don’t appeal to young people, we don’t appeal to millennials, we don’t appeal to young women, we don’t appeal to minorities. We appeal to only cranky old white guys like me. – Alex Castellano, THIS WEEK

Well …. yeah.

Castellanos is equally depressed in his latest email missive:

those of us who would like to see a gop nominee other than trump or cruz were not necessarily helped this week by national review and the conservative intellectual establishment’s well-meaning but poorly-timed assault on trump.

this contest is not yet about defeating donald trump, it is about finding an alternative to him. if that alternative is cruz, the republican party’s future is in doubt. if that alternative is rubio (or less likely, bush/christie/kasich), “the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

Lulz. What a mess.

But he pulls himself together enough to lay out the right’s strategy against Sanders and Clinton, which is useful to read, even if it’s depressingly familiar:

Today’s Democratic Party has little room for old-school, mechanical pragmatists such as Clinton. Its heart belongs to the rebellious, agitators such as Elizabeth Warren. Combine George McGovern’s 1960 anti-war protest campaign with a dash of the “Decade of Love.” Tailor the mix with a sprinkle of 2016; iPhones, principled shoes (TOMS, “The Shoes That Educate Poor People!”) and replace LSD with a few pharmacological mood-stabilizers to round life’s sharp edges. 

There, you have Bernie Sanders’ throwback-to-the-future campaign: It is fantasy camp for middle-class, wannabe ’60s radicals. It is an undemanding revolution, accessible without risk or effort. They would be more comfortable Ubering to Wall Street than marching on it, but their mission of insurrection is unchanged.

Before Sanders is done, Democrats may again wear bell-bottoms with peace-sign patches. Gallup reports that 59% of Democrats have no problem embracing a self-described socialist for president.
[…] 

Clinton has campaigned with awkward artificiality. She has advocated her party’s new lefty-populism with the grace of Charles Barkley’s golf swing.

She has tried. She broke with President Barack Obama on the Trans-Pacific Free-Trade Deal. She cloned Sanders’ support of the $15 an hour federal minimum wage. With robotic focus, Clinton even pretended to be Elizabeth Warren. When she said, “Don’t let anybody tell you that… businesses create jobs,” she looked like a right-handed NFL quarterback attempting a left-handed completion. Clinton is no more comfortable as candidate of the little guy than Richard Nixon walking on the beach in wing tips.

At the beginning of the campaign, Democrats had accepted that Clinton offered the best shot at winning a general election and protecting the White House from a somewhat deranged mob of Republicans.

And Democrats owed a debt to Clinton: Eight years ago, they chose to correct injustices of race before those of gender. They nominated the first black president instead of the first female president. Democrats sent Hillary Clinton and the women of America to the back of the bus to wait their turn. They hoped not to do that again.

Then, Bernie Sanders gave Democrats an opportunity to party like it’s 1967. They could dig their tie-dyed shirts out of the closet while helping Clinton. They could bring her home to their middle-class version of Woodstock, this time with cozy theater seating and no mud. By embracing Sanders, they could pressure Clinton to move left: At last, she would be like them. 

Initially, Sanders was not Clinton’s opponent. He was a plea from concerned friends, imploring Clinton to renew herself as Hillary Rodham, Wellesley grad, and restore her radicalism.

But Clinton achieved the impossible. She transformed Bernie Sanders from an unelectable messenger to serious opponent. Again, the Sidam Touch [reverse Midas touch] doomed her.

There’s more backhanded snark, hippie bashing and sexism in that thing than I’ve seen at a mainstream site in years. Cold, old “sagging” Hillary with her sad army of battleaxes and ancient hippie king Bernie reviving Woodstock — it’s got it all.

But hey, whatever. His party actually is so fucked up in every possible way that this stale old garbage is all he’s got. And he knows it.

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The hoaxters get hoist by their own petards

by digby

This is pretty amazing:

A grand jury in Houston, tasked with investigating Planned Parenthood’s Houston affiliate following the August release of an undercover video taken inside the clinic, cleared the organization of misconduct Monday, and instead indicted the group behind the video. 

David Daleiden, president of the undercover anti-abortion group The Center for Medical Progress, and Sandra Merritt, who was named as the founder and CEO of BioMax, the sham tissue procurement company created by the Center, were indicted for “tampering with a governmental record,” a second degree felony. Daleiden was handed an additional indictment for “prohibition of the purchase and sale of human organs,” a Class A misdemeanor.

According to a statement from Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson, the grand jury reviewed “allegations of misconduct” by Planned Parenthood’s Houston affiliate for more than two months.

“We were called upon to investigate allegations of criminal conduct by Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast,” Anderson said. “As I stated at the outset of this investigation, we must go where the evidence leads us. All the evidence uncovered in the course of this investigation was presented to the grand jury. I respect their decision on this difficult case.”

I don’t know what “tampering with a governmental record” means or if they are being prosecuted for something that would otherwise be called muckraking. But if they are being called to answer for their entrapment and fraud then more power to the Grand Jury for holding them accountable. It’s one thing to go undercover to reveal facts that tell a true story. It another to go undercover and then selectively edit your footage to make up a story. That’s what happened here and it was despicable.

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They didn’t know about the lead #Undocumented #Flint

by digby

This is just horrifying:

While the state government mobilizes a massive response to the water crisis in Flint, handing out bottled water and filters to residents affected by lead-contaminated tap water, undocumented residents here feel left out.

In interviews with Fusion, a half dozen undocumented people said that either they’ve been turned away from free water or are worried that they’ll be deported if they try to get help. Some who don’t speak English only learned about the problems with the water in the last few days, and have been drinking contaminated tap water for months.

Officials at some fire stations—where the National Guard is distributing free bottled water and filters—have asked residents for a form of identification. Immigrants in Michigan without legal status are unable to receive drivers licenses or state IDs.

“I went to ask for water from the fire station, and they asked for my social security number, so I left,” said Estella Arias, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. “I feel bad that I can’t get the help… I don’t want to expose my kids to lead.”

State officials say that as of Friday night, they are no longer turning anyone away for lack of identification, and were only asking in the first place in order to track where their resources are going.

But undocumented people here say that policy is not being implemented across the board. Officials at some fire stations simply hand anyone who walks in a case of water, while others demand identification.

“Once word of mouth ripples through the community that you have to have ID, it’s too late,” said Susan Reed, the managing attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center.

Moreover, when National Guard officers go door to door to deliver water to elderly and disabled people, undocumented immigrants are unlikely to open their doors. Rumors are flying about the Obama administration’s undocumented immigration raids nationwide, and on social media, immigrants encourage one another to keep the door shut.

There are no Spanish language media there. But there are some decent people who are helping:

Adia Cuadrado along with members of the “Action for Greater Lansing” are collecting water just for those undocumented immigrants.

“When undocumented individuals are suffering, they suffer until somebody is aware that they are suffering and helps them out” said volunteer Guillermo Lopez.

Parishioners at Cristo Rey Catholic Community and members of “Action for Greater Lansing” don’t want anyone in Flint to be afraid to ask for help. So they are going to help them.

“Undocumented people are people who come here just like me and just like others with the same kind of dream” said Cuadrado. “Many times they’re used to being left in the shadows.”

The state says they will no longer require identification at pick up locations but Cuadrado doesn’t think it’s completely true.

“They say it is not a requirement to ask for identification now there’s a lot of things here that doesn’t require drivers licenses but it’s still being asked for” Cuadrado explains.

Instead of taking the donation to the Red Cross, the group is taking it to their sister church in Flint.

“Our Lady of Guadalupe parish in Flint is a primarily Hispanic parish and it’s a place people will have confidence to go to and not be afraid” said Father Fred Thelen of Cristo Rey.

There they know they’ll be able to get the water into the right hands.

“When we take an action if it’s a small one it doesn’t matter. There’s so many times when you feel powerless in what you’re doing” Cuadrado said.

I can only imagine what the conservatives are saying about this. (I can’t bear to look.) Not that conservatives would ever care about undocumented workers’ children, we know that. They don’t even care about American children. When it comes to climate change and guns they don’t even care about their own children. Still …

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