Month: February 2016

The right wing case against Rubio

by digby

I just thought I’d share the latest from the pro-Cruz conservative movement:

Jeb Bush’s failure to actually get out and campaign on his vision of the future allowed his one-time partner in government – Marco Rubio – to in effect expropriate Jeb’s record, and many of Bush’s establishment-friendly policies as his own.

This is especially true on economic policy, where Bush’s “right to rise” and Rubio’s promises of business growth and opportunity both find their roots in Big Business’ “econometric” view of employment and a world market for labor that will breakdown borders and impose a harsh Malthusian leveling on the wages and quality of life of America’s middle income citizens.

Rubio was Speaker of the Florida House of Representative that allowed Jeb Bush to increase state government spending in the Sunshine State by over 50% and imposed upon local school boards a top-down education testing program that was a precursor to the much-reviled Common Core standards of today.

During the time Marco Rubio was in the Florida House and served as Speaker (and the Florida House held the purse strings of Florida state government) state spending ballooned by 52 percent, from $48.6 billion in 1999 to $73.9 billion in 2006.*And state expenditures per capita rose from $2,809 in 1999, to $3,942 in fiscal year 2006-2007.

We know Marco Rubio supported Jeb Bush’s education policies in Florida, but where did Rubio stand on local control of education once he got to the U.S. Senate?

How did Senator Rubio vote on the Every Student Succeeds Act to reauthorize the anti-conservative Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESAA) for four years, through fiscal 2020, with an authorization of some $24.5 billion for fiscal 2017, increasing to $26.1 billion in fiscal 2020? And increase standardized testing, use race-based scoring and other anti-conservative policies?

Marco Rubio wasn’t there to fight it or even vote against it.

But when Rubio was Speaker of the Florida House, then-Speaker Rubio pushed through Jeb Bush’s so-called education reforms taking away local control of Florida schools and substituting a state mandated curriculum that produces students who are taught to take multiple choice tests, but who can’t form a logical argument or name the three branches of the federal government – compliant drones for the Big Businesses that were the primary advocates of Jeb Bush’s “reforms” and that are now Common Core’s staunchest advocates.

And that are now Marco Rubio’s new best friends and biggest supporters.

After running for the Senate as a Tea Party-backed constitutional conservative Rubio quickly joined the DC establishment, and began to adopt the language of the Left in attacking his conservative opponents on amnesty for illegal aliens, his backing of the Obama-Hillary Clinton adventures in the Middle East, and Mitch McConnell’s crony government spending.

“Conservatives who have sensible questions about the “Gang of Eight” amnesty for illegal aliens plan backed by Florida Senator Marco Rubio are finding out the hard way that the bill’s supporters don’t plan to engage in a polite Tea Room debate about the merits of the 700-plus page bill and its unworkable implementation,” said CHQ Chairman Richard A. Viguerie in an April 2013 news release.

And that view was echoed by Erick Erickson of RedState who observed, Marco Rubio has been an active participant in the attacks on conservatives as “racists, slavery supporters, bigots, haters, baby killers, un-Christian, etc. They are waging a coordinated attack between Senator Rubio’s office and others against conservative stalwarts like the Heritage Foundation and Jim DeMint.”

The “they” to whom Erickson refers was the unholy alliance of establishment Republicans, business interests and New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, Illinois Democratic Senator Richard Durbin and a host of other left-leaning political operatives and interest groups.

And when the amendment came up requiring completion of the border fence? Marco Rubio voted NO.

Now Marco Rubio says the bill he defended with tooth and claw “wasn’t intended to become law?”

Conservatives don’t like his policies or the people he keeps around him, but we at least give Jeb Bush credit for being honest about his support for amnesty for illegal aliens and his steadfast – if wrongheaded – defense of his beliefs.

And Rubio did the same thing when he joined anti-conservative Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham in attacking limited government constitutional conservatives who had sensible questions about the Obama-Hillary Clinton strategy in the Middle East.

The policies Rubio, McCain and Graham support are that we must have open borders, bring in millions of Islamist Muslims to our country, and then send our troops overseas to get involved in every inconclusive Islamic civil war.

And they attacked Ted Cruz and others who pointed out that the disastrous nexus between Rubio’s immigration and Middle East policies has not enhanced our national security, led to an endless war in the Middle East, brought 2.5 million Muslim immigrant security threats into our country and proved disastrous for the quality of life for millions of American families.

As Hot Air’s Allahpundit put it back in 2013, if you’re down on Rubio for being too much like McCain on immigration, you can take comfort in the fact that he’s … a lot like McCain on foreign policy too.

If you take Jeb Bush’s policies and record on spending, education and amnesty for illegal aliens and add-in John McCain’s policies and record on amnesty for illegal aliens, bringing Muslims to America and engaging in endless and inconclusive adventures in the Middle East, and add a dash of support for the Obama and Hillary Clinton disasters in Libya and Syria, plus a strong dose of their views on amnesty and funding left-wing racist organization, you don’t get a limited government constitutional conservative – what you get is Marco Rubio – Jeb Bush, without the integrity and good manners.

They don’t like him much…

And by the way, the self-righteousness coming from Rubio and Trump over Cruz’s alleged dirty tricks is so phony it’s laughable. These “dirty tricks” are child’s play in the annals of right wing ratfucking. It’s a joke. But because there’s an existing meme of Cruz being disliked by everyone he meets, the other campaigns are pushing this meme with such holier-than-thou sanctimony that I’m beginning to feel sorry for Cruz.

Watching Trump, of all people, play choir boy is enough to make me lose my lunch.

.

And they all start to come around

by digby

Here’s Kevin “loose lips” McCarthy:

McCarthy praised Rubio’s comeback in South Carolina after the Florida senator finished a disappointing fifth in New Hampshire, but he acknowledged that it is difficult to name a state that Rubio could win given the dominance of Trump in the race.

McCarthy likened Trump’s popularity among voters to actor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rise to governor of California “even down to the fact that they replaced Trump with Arnold on ‘The Apprentice.'”

The House GOP leader expressed optimism about working with Trump, acknowledging the businessman’s status as the Republican presidential front-runner.

McCarthy pointed to Trump’s momentum in the GOP race after winning New Hampshire and South Carolina, saying, “I think there’s more [than a] 50-percent chance he’s the nominee.”

McCarthy insisted that he could work with any of the GOP candidates leading the field.

“Oh yeah, I think I could work with Donald Trump,” McCarthy said.

He’s got an R after his name doesn’t he?

Here’s Alex Castellanos, GOP strategist. He would prefer Rubio and thinks he still has a chance but he’s getting there:

First, let me confess my growing respect for Donald Trump, who remains the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. Mr. Trump is a much better candidate and, yes, leader than ever imagined by the condescending GOP establishment, yours truly included, which he is routinely thumping. Donald Trump is far from the impulsive decision maker he often appears. His bright mind, keen instincts and business skills have given him superior preparation for a Presidential campaign and, perhaps, for a Presidency. One-third of Republicans seems to think only Donald Trump offers sufficient change to make America great again.

My concern with Mr. Trump remains what it has always been, that he is not a conservative who believes in reducing the power of the all-consuming, all-knowing, all-controlling collective state which is sapping the life of this country. As he has noted, he would just manage big-government better than the “losers” now running it. My fear is that he would rescue our old top-down government, not the average American it crushes.

In that sense, Mr. Trump has not yet grown beyond a Better Business Bureau version of Hillary Clinton. However, he has demonstrated an astonishing capacity to learn and lead. If he becomes the GOP nominee, I will put his yard sign on my lawn, preferring the ambiguity of Donald Trump to the certainty Hillary Clinton.

I keep thinking there’s got to be a large number of Republicans who are appalled by Trump and will never vote for him. He is, after all, a neofascist megalomaniac. But maybe I’m wrong.

God, I hope I’m not wrong.

Update: I’m wrong

Look at this graph of national GOP voters gradual, growing acceptance of Trump as nominee pic.twitter.com/3bINR9TQgb

— Martin Gelin (@M_Gelin) February 21, 2016

.

by digby

Roger Ailes must be so jealous:

The co-hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” chatted with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump about everything from his golfing excursions to his debate performance during commercial breaks while filming a town hall last week, according to audio obtained by comedian and radio host Harry Shearer. 

Shearer said Sunday on his radio program that the audio was obtained by his staff members for an ongoing “Found Objects” segment. In the clip, host Mika Brzezinski can be heard talking about which questions she should ask Trump. It’s not clear from the audio to whom she is directing her question. 

“You don’t want me to do the ones—with deportation?” Brzezinski said. 

After some cross-talk, co-host Joe Scarborough said, “We really have to get you some questions.” 

“That’s right, nothing too hard Mika,” Trump interjected. 

“Okay,” Brzezinski said. 

A spokesperson for NBC declined to comment to TPM. 

Trump also can be heard on the audio calling former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) “weak” and talking about his golfing excursions. At one point, Brzezinski refers to a Trump rally during which he brought participants up on stage as a “wow moment.”

If you happened to watch that atrocity as I did, you would have seen a performance that made Sean Hannity look like Edward R. Murrow by comparison. But then all of Scarborough and Brzezinski’s interviews with him have been love fests. Scarborough is talked up as a possible VP for Trump.

I’m guessing the brass at MSNBC doesn’t much care about this. But it is disgraceful and it’s harming the reputation of the network and the good journalists who work there.

You can hear it at the TPM link.

More here.

The right wing will never allow the Senate to confirm a justice nominated by President Obama 

by digby

There seems to be some concern among progressives (including some right here on the blog) that President Obama is going to finance his retirement by selling a Supreme Court seat to the highest corporate bidder with the nomination of a sell-out whore to Big Oil or Wall Street or some other corporate interest.

I have no idea about any of that. What I do know is that even if he wants to do it he will not get this corrupt shill confirmed because the Republicans, for some reason, are sure they won’t be satisfied with whatever dishonest tool of corporate America this president will put forward and will never allow him or her to be confirmed:

Conservative leaders are sending a blunt message to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: The Supreme Court is more important than your majority.

McConnell’s (R-Ky.) top priority since becoming majority leader last year has been to put his colleagues in a strong position to win reelection, in part by showing that Republicans can govern.

But bottling up President Obama’s nominee to replace the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia could bring the work of the chamber to a screeching halt if Democrats choose to retaliate.

Taking action on a Supreme Court nominee — even through the Judiciary Committee — when Obama has less than a year left in his term would be a cardinal sin, conservative activists say.

They argue the ideological balance of the court is so important that it’s not worth playing political games to take the pressure off vulnerable Republican incumbents.

“I would rank having a conservative justice as more important than having the majority in the Senate,” said David Bozell, president of For America, a conservative advocacy group. “God knows this Republican majority in the Senate hasn’t done much anyway for conservatism, period.”

“If you look at some of the conservative movement’s successes, it’s in large part due to the court doing some decent things and making some good decisions,” he added.

Two of the biggest court decisions in recent years, the District of Columbia v. Heller and Citizens United v. FEC, did far more to lift restrictions on gun ownership and political spending by outside groups — two conservative priorities — than anything passed by Republicans in Congress.

“The Senate isn’t as important on a great number of issues as the Supreme Court. The Senate is not going to determine whether or not we have Second Amendment rights, the Supreme Court is. The Senate is not going to determine marriage, the Supreme Court did. The Supreme Court, not the Senate, determined abortion,” said Mike Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association.

“The issues that are of great concern to the conservative movement have all been decided by the Supreme Court,” he added.

Honestly, I think everyone can relax about this. The next president will decide the balance of the court.

.

QOTD: Tom Sullivan

by digby

In his piece from this morning Tom wrote something that’s going to haunt me for some time:

…”picture the bronzed face and hair of Donald J. Trump on the walls of every federal office worldwide, or on a marble statue on the Mall (a big, beautiful statue), or on the $100 bill.”

Let’s not assumeTrump voters agree with his “liberal” apostasies, ok?

by digby

I wrote about Trump’s South Carolina victory for Salon this morning:

The big showdown in South Carolina is over and it came down pretty much as everyone expected. Donald Trump came in first with 32.5 percent, Rubio and Cruz nearly tied for second with Rubio ever so lightly edging Cruz with 22.5 percent to Cruz’s 22.3. The bottom three, Bush, Kasich and Carson all landed with 7-ish points each. The big news was that Jeb Bush dropped out of the race within minutes of the results being called.

Read on …

Is Obama about to nominate an Exxon lawyer to the Supreme Court?

by Gaius Publius

When we talk amongst ourselves, we leftie writers and activists, I sometimes hear it said that Obama should nominate someone very liberal to replace Antonin Scalia. I also sometimes hear that if he doesn’t do that, it’s because he feels pressured not to. Immediately after hearing these things, the next phrase going through my head is this one, the phrase that took up residence during the 2009 health care process:

Which brings us to Obama’s rumored list for Supreme Court justice, the one who will replace the newly departed Scalia. (Side thought — Did Antonin Scalia depart while accepting favors from someone with prior business before the Court? Was he there to be hobbed and nobbed with by any of the 35 other guests, who may also have past or future business before the court? Maybe we’ll find out. It’s not like he hasn’t done it before; Scalia, I mean; accepted gifts, I mean.)

Topping every nomination short-list, printed, rumored and trial-ballooned, is Sri Srinivasan. Mr. Srinivasan is almost always named first (and out of alphabetical order) in lists with more than one name (example here; another here, first paragraph). And, as noted above, it appears he’s being trial-ballooned by none other than Joe Biden. 

So let’s take a look at Sri Srinivasan as a potential nominee. We’ll start with Srinivasan and the climate, the one that Obama dearly loves. If he becomes the nominee, we’ll take a look at other aspects of his biography.

Greens are wary of Sri Srinivasan’s fossil fuel past

This takedown of Srinivasan comes via Politico of all places. (But wheels within wheels. This doesn’t look like a pro-administration article, a placement as it were, but it could be — a media placement that tanks apparent corporate favorite Srinivasan and allows Obama to nominate someone like Loretta Lynch, for example. Perhaps we’ll look later at the many-layered chess game in this nomination, as Obama fends off his opponents, both left and right, prevents a possible anti-corporate nominee, notches another … er, notch … in his duel with McConnell, and pockets an E-ticket spendable at his post-retirement theme park party. Wheels within wheels.)

Here’s Politico (my emphasis):

Greens wary of Sri Srinivasan’s fossil fuel past

His work as an attorney representing Enron’s former CEO and ExxonMobil raises hackles among some eco-activists.

The prospect of President Barack Obama tapping Sri Srinivasan for the Supreme Court is spawning a sharp debate among at least one part of the Democrats’ liberal grass roots — environmentalists turned off by his high-profile defense of giant fossil fuel companies. …

Srinivasan’s work on human rights cases in which he defended ExxonMobil and the mining company Rio Tinto have raised particular objections from environmentalists. He also represented that enduring symbol of corporate excess, former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling, in the appeal of the executive’s fraud and conspiracy convictions.

“Any judge that sides with Big Oil over the American people has no place on our Supreme Court,” said Jane Kleeb, a Nebraska activist who helped lead the grass-roots campaign that killed the Keystone XL oil pipeline, in an email to POLITICO on Tuesday.

“Corporate interests have trumped citizens’ concerns for too long,” she added. “Folks in the heartland will not look the other way of Srinivasan representing both Enron and Exxon, which denies climate science and pollutes our land and water.”

Jane Kleeb, if you haven’t yet heard of her, is entirely reliable on the subject of the climate. A Nebraskan, she’s one of the national heroes behind stopping the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have run through her state.

The Exxon Supreme Court Nominee

Assuming Obama does nominate Srinivasan, would Exxon say thank-you in, say, another year or so, for putting an Exxon lawyer on the nation’s highest court? Especially if doing so would also block a Sanders or Clinton appointee who might take a dimmer view of the self-dealing insider game played by corporations and both parties alike?

Not sure, but if they did want to thank him, there are ways. I keep thinking of this:

These presidential libraries don’t build themselves. A person needs friends to help with some of the lifting.

(A version of this piece appeared at Down With Tyranny. GP article archive here.)

GP

.

A knife to a gun fight
by Tom Sullivan

Our Republican brethren must now pause to consider that, as Scot Lehigh writes in the Boston Globe, Donald Trump is “well on his way to a hostile takeover of their party.”

On the upside, with Trump on track to turn the United States of America into a pariah state the world will shun, maybe we won’t have to spend all the tax dollars needed to build a YOOOOGE wall to keep scary brown people out. (TAX BREAK!) Of course, Trump will want to build it anyway. Because China. Because Trump’s Great Wall will be the best. You won’t believe how great it will be.

On the downside, Republicans are now faced with owning everything Trump says. Rachel Maddow asked Saturday night how Republicans running down-ticket everywhere else in the country can possibly run on that. Possibly they won’t. Possibly they can get some friendly advice from Democrats who lost by running away from their party’s leader and Obamacare.

The problem is that over decades Republicans have made it an article of faith not to admit to any mistakes. Dubya couldn’t name one. Or make apologies. It’s not as if Republicans suddenly are going to go all weepy TV preacher, apologize to their angry, Trumpish base for stringing them along, and ask their forgiveness. They’d be thrown to the lions. The Donald sees no reason to ask God for forgiveness. He has nothing to apologize for. Only the weak apologize. And the strong devour the weak. Law of the jungle and all that. Can you smell the freedom?

Now close your eyes and picture the reaction on the faces of Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson. Even better, picture the bronzed face and hair of Donald J. Trump on the walls of every federal office worldwide, or on a marble statue on the Mall (a big, beautiful statue), or on the $100 bill.

(Has anyone else wondered whether Trump is the the secret creation of Trey Parker and Matt Stone?)

At Political Animal, D.R. Tucker is mighty anxious about the coming Trump era:

Trump is, for all intents and purposes, already the GOP nominee, a prospect that should unnerve any American who believes in common decency. His conquest of South Carolina was nothing less than a signal from America’s emergency broadcast system: this is only a test of whether rational America will allow fear and fury to flourish over the course of the next four years.

The thought of this man—this embodiment of every dark, demonic force in American history—becoming the 45th President of the United States chills the blood. What does it say about our educational system that this man was not laughed right out of the political system the moment he announced his candidacy?

He talks about what Mexico allegedly sends to the United States. Imagine what a President Trump would send to the rest of the world: a message that racism, sexism, xenophobia and narcissism are virtues, not vices. A message that reason is for the weak. A message that America has fallen into a deep moral abyss.

That said, Democratic primary voters had best be sure their presidential candidate is not going to get caught this fall bringing a knife to a gunfight.

“It’s just like when you have a bad dream except this is real”

by digby

So right.

.

Marco Rubio’s parents are Latino immigrants? You’re kidding!

by digby

The other day I wrote about a GOP meme that Rubio is ineligible to run for president because his parents weren’t citizens when he was born. And guess what?

On Saturday, Trump retweeted a tweet that suggested the Florida senator was not a citizen, George Stephanopoulos asked him about it on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday morning.

Rubio was born in Florida on May 28, 1971. His parents had come to the United States from Cuba in 1950s. Trump retweeted a tweet on Saturday that suggested both Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz were ineligible to be president.

There is a lawsuit pending in Broward County, Florida, challenging the eligibility of both Cruz and Rubio — Cruz because of where he was born, Rubio because of where his parents were born. An initial hearing of Michael Voeltz’s suit is to be held March 4 in front of Judge John Bowman.

“I think the lawyers have to determine that that — and not— it was a retweet, not so much with Marco. I’m not really that familiar with Marco’s circumstances,” Trump said Sunday morning.

“But then why retweet it?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“Because I’m not sure. I mean, let people make their own determination. I know Ted is being now — I think he’s being sued by somebody having nothing to do with me, by the way,” Trump said.

“You’re really not sure that Marco Rubio is eligible to run for president? You’re really not sure?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“I don’t know. I really — I’ve never looked at it, George. I honestly have never looked at it. As somebody said, he’s not. And I retweeted it. I have 14 million people between Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and I retweet things, and we start dialogue and it’s very interesting,” Trump said.

See, he just retweets things and it starts “a dialog” and it’s very interesting. These used to be called dirty whisper campaigns. But now, with social media, you can blast this garbage out and have millions of people “having a dialog about it” within minutes.

What a slimy hitman he is, a real character assassin. But that’s what they love about him.

And, just as his similar insinuations about Cruz, this is all designed to draw attention to the fact that Rubio is one of those damned foreigners and you can’t trust a one of ’em. Look for some anti-Catholic stuff soon. It’s all part of Trumps disgusting game.

.