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Month: March 2016

Will Dick Cheney endorse the Donald? #whynot?

Published by digby on March 7, 2016

Will Dick Cheney endorse the Donald?

by digby

I wrote about Trump’s dance around the torture question for Salon today:

Is there a luckier politician in America than Donald Trump? Just as he starts to lose some altitude in the race, having to face a certain deluge of media scrutiny all day Sunday and Monday in the wake of the Super Saturday Ted Cruz boomlet, former first lady Nancy Reagan dies, suppressing the coverage of the presidential race and halting the momentum of the growing narrative of Trump weakening. He didn’t plan this, of course, but it’s a testament to his good luck and timing that it happened when it did. He needed something to change the coverage and this did very nicely.
On Saturday night, Trump had given one of the most desultory victory speeches of his short political career.  He’d won Louisiana but lost the caucuses in Kansas and Maine to Ted Cruz and had a close call in Kentucky. Compared to the glorious win on Super Tuesday it wasn’t much to brag about.  But then a lot had happened in the meantime.
The establishment had sent out Mitt Romney to make a stirring speech apparently designed to keep everyone in the race long enough to deny Trump the needed delegate count going into the convention. (Romney seems to think it will be acceptable to the Republican rank and file for a candidate who didn’t win the most delegates to get the nomination. Has he met any Trump voters?)
Trump didn’t seem particularly phased by Romney’s cri de guerre but it was clear that Marco Rubio’s suicidal decision to roll around in the mud with Trump had left some marks. That comment about his “small hands” particularly got under his skin and he couldn’t leave it alone when he debated Rubio, Cruz and Kasich on Thursday night on Fox.
Before a national audience Trump raised up his hands and said:
I have to say this, I have to say this. He hit my hands. Nobody has ever hit my hands. I have never heard of this. Look at those hands. Are they small hands? And he referred to my hands, if they are small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee.
CNN’s headline was “Donald Trump defends size of his penis.” Later in the spin room he could be seen comparing the size of his hands with reporters in the room.

It was not a good night for Trump. Actually, it was a bad night for all the candidates. Rubio is permanently scarred by his decision to try to out-Trump Trump with insults, since it made him seem like a nasty teenager, which was the last thing the callow candidate needed. And Cruz was … Cruz, unfortunately battling something unpleasant looking on his lip (which he ate) that made half the people in the country google “what that thing on Cruz’s lip?” Kasich recited his resume in answer to every question failing somehow to recognize that nobody in the Republican party gives a damn.
But Trump fared the worst, coming in for the kind of scrutiny he hasn’t faced before. And there was one answer that seemed to shock the moderators and the audience alike. Moderator Brett Baier noted that a number of foreign policy experts had written a letter that week saying that his “expansive use of torture” and the targeting of terrorists families is inexcusable and asked what he would do if the military refused to carry out such illegal orders. Trump replied:
TRUMP: They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse me. Believe me.
Let me just tell you, you look at the Middle East. They’re chopping off heads. They’re chopping off the heads of Christians and anybody else that happens to be in the way. They’re drowning people in steel cages. And he — now we’re talking about waterboarding.
This really started with Ted, a question was asked of Ted last — two debates ago about waterboarding. And Ted was, you know, having a hard time with that question, to be totally honest with you. They then came to me, what do you think of waterboarding? I said it’s fine. And if we want to go stronger, I’d go stronger, too, because, frankly…
(APPLAUSE)
… that’s the way I feel. Can you imagine — can you imagine these people, these animals over in the Middle East, that chop off heads, sitting around talking and seeing that we’re having a hard problem with waterboarding? We should go for waterboarding and we should go tougher than waterboarding. That’s my opinion.
BAIER: But targeting terrorists’ families?
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: And — and — and — I’m a leader. I’m a leader. I’ve always been a leader. I’ve never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they’re going to do it. That’s what leadership is all about.
BAIER: Even targeting terrorists’ families?
TRUMP: Well, look, you know, when a family flies into the World Trade Center, a man flies into the World Trade Center, and his family gets sent back to where they were going — and I think most of you know where they went — and, by the way, it wasn’t Iraq — but they went back to a certain territory, they knew what was happening. The wife knew exactly what was happening.
They left two days early, with respect to the World Trade Center, and they went back to where they went, and they watched their husband on television flying into the World Trade Center, flying into the Pentagon, and probably trying to fly into the White House, except we had some very, very brave souls on that third plane. All right?
It’s worth pointing out that Trump was saying these things long before the debate with Ted Cruz. He’d first answered the question the same way back on August  on “This Week.” After Paris and San Bernardino he added it into the stump speech with ever more lurid details:
Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I’d approve it, you bet your ass — in a heartbeat.
“And I would approve more than that. Don’t kid yourself, folks. It works, okay? It works. Only a stupid person would say it doesn’t work.They’ll say, ‘oh it has no value’, well I know people, very, very important people and they want to be politically correct and I see some people taking on television, ‘well I don’t know if it works’ and they tell me later on, ‘it works, it works, believe me, it works’.
“And you know what? If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway for what they’re doing to us.”
When Trump called Cruz a pussy at a rally in Manchester, NH, it was because Cruz failed  to enthusiastically endorse this form of torture in a debate. (In fact, Cruz cited the notorious John Yoo memo as justification for waterboarding in that debate, claiming that it isn’t torture at all.) Trump believes that it is torture and that the United States should openly use it and admit to using it. In his view, the reason people do bad things in this world is because the United States is not “strong” enough, by which he means ruthlessly violent enough.
But really, why shouldn’t Donald Trump believe this? The former Vice President of the United States goes on television and says he’d waterboard again “in a heartbeat,” and claims that the decision to use it is “a no-brainer.” And the likes of former CIA Director Michael Hayden getting on a high horse and superciliously telling Trump that he’d have to “bring his own bucket” if he planned to waterboard is especially rich considering his previous stances on the subject of torture. All these “foreign policy experts” acting shocked is just a little too little, a little too late. The cheering you hear from Trump’s crowds whenever he talks about waterboarding shows just how normalized this sick behavior has become.  Perhaps if some of these people had spoken up earlier … or better yet, if some of them had not been complicit in doing it in the first place, Trump wouldn’t think it’s acceptable to b lithely cheer lead for barbarity on on the campaign trail.
Interestingly, the day after the debate, “someone” (we don’t know who) apparently had a little chat with the Donald over his assertion that he could make the military obey an illegal order.  (It would be very interesting to know the backstory on that.)  He released a very un-Trumplike statement to the Wall Street Journal that sounded as if it had been dictated to him at gunpoint. He said that he understands “that the United States is bound by laws and treaties and I will not order our military or other officials to violate those laws and will seek their advice on such matters. I will not order a military officer to disobey the law. It is clear that as president I will be bound by laws just like all Americans and I will meet those responsibilities.”
That would be a relief if we didn’t already know that all it takes is for any president to seek a legal opinion from a hand picked war criminal inside your own administration.  Still, this was probably done for the sake of diplomats, members of the military and others who have to deal with foreign governments who might not understand that we now stage our presidential campaigns like fake TV wrestling matches and they needn’t start to plan just yet for the total collapse of the current world order.
But lest anyone think that Trump has lost his mojo, he made clear in his press conference that he thought this whole “bound by laws” thing is ridiculous. And he came on “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning to make it very clear where he stands:
JOHN DICKERSON (HOST): Let me ask you about your position on torture. When you and I talked last week you said that General Hayden was wrong when he said that military wouldn’t follow you on the question of waterboarding and on the killing of terrorist families. In the debate you said “If I say do it, they are going to do it.” You were talking about the military. Then on Friday you said, “I will not order our military to violate those laws.” So what changed?
DONALD TRUMP: You never asked me about violating laws, in all fairness, we’re talking about violating laws. I would say this, look. We have an enemy in the Middle East that’s chopping off heads and drowning people in massive steel cages, ok? We have an enemy that doesn’t play by the laws, you can say laws and they’re laughing– they’re laughing at us right now. I would like to strengthen the laws so that we can better compete. You know, it’s very tough to beat enemies that don’t have any, that don’t have any restrictions, all right? We have these massive restrictions. Now I will always abide by the law but I would like to have the law expanded. I would like to make —
DICKERSON: How?
TRUMP: Well, I’d like to — I happen to think that when you’re fighting an enemy that chops off heads, I happen to think that we should use something that is stronger than we have right now. Right now basically waterboarding is essentially not allowed as I understand it.
DICKERSON: And you would like it to be, if you could expand it.
TRUMP: I would certainly like it to be at a minimum — at a minimum to allow that.
DICKERSON: Why do you think we don’t have those — why do you think we don’t have waterboarding?
TRUMP: Because I think we have become very weak and ineffective, I think that’s why we’re not beating ISIS, it’s that mentality.
DICKERSON: But you think people got rid of the law to be weak?
TRUMP: No. I think that we are weak. I think we’re weak. We cannot beat ISIS. We should beat ISIS very quickly. General Patton would’ve had ISIS down in about three days. General Douglas McArthur — we are playing by a different set of rules. We are — let me just put it differently. When the ISIS people chop off the heads and they then go back to their homes and they talk, and they hear we’re talking about waterboarding like it’s the worst thing in the world and they’ve just drowned a hundred people and chopped off fifty heads, they must think we are a little bit on the weak side.
DICKERSON: The reason that waterboarding was — a number of reasons, but one of them was because the worry was that if America does that then our soldiers, American hostages, will be treated even worse. That’s the argument. What do you think of that argument?
TRUMP: They’re doing that anyway. They’re killing our soldiers when they capture them. I mean, they’re doing that anyway. Now, if that were the case, in other words we won’t do it and you don’t do it, but we’re not playing by those rules, they’re not — what, did somebody tell ISIS, look, we’re going to treat your guys well would you please do us favor treat our guys well? They don’t do that. We’re not playing by — we are playing by rules but they have no rules. It’s very hard to win when that’s the case.
DICKERSON: Isn’t that what separates us from the savages?
TRUMP: No, I don’t think so, we have to beat the savages.
DICKERSON: And therefore throw all the rules out.
TRUMP: We have to beat the savages.
DICKERSON: By being savages.
TRUMP: No, well — Look, you have to play the game the way they’re playing the game. You’re not going to win if we are soft and they are — they have no rules. Now I want to stay within the laws, I want to do all of that, but I think we have to increase the laws because the laws are not working obviously. All you have to do is take a look at what’s going on. And they’re getting worse. They’re chopping, chopping, chopping, and we’re worried about waterboarding. I just think it’s — I think our priorities are mixed up.
Once again, Donald Trump is simply eliminating the dogwhistle that other politicians have been using for years.  When Dick Cheney euphemistically said it was “time to take the gloves off” it was understood he was talking about abandoning norms about civilized behavior that had been in force for decades. Torture was long known to be an unreliable way of obtaining information and the Bush administration’s program did nothing to disprove that. It’s only good for one thing — conveying to the world that you are as savage as your enemies.
Trump has just stopped being “politically correct” and admits it out loud. If he keeps it up he might just snag his biggest endorsement yet: Dick Cheney himself.

Tea Party vs Trump

Published by digby on March 7, 2016

Tea Party vs Trump

by digby

This is the latest from the conservative movement leader Richard Viguerie’s shop:

Tea Party Patriots leader Jenny Beth Martin made a powerful case against Donald Trump in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference this past Friday, and in it were points we think every conservative and Tea Party movement supporter should consider as they vote in their respective Republican primaries. (You can view Jenny Beth’s speech through this link and it is well worth your time)

Jenny Beth channeled our concerns about Donald Trump as she made the point that, “I know you’re angry and I know you’re upset too and I know that Donald Trump’s tapping into that anger. It’s a smart campaign strategy because he makes it seem like he shares our frustration and it’s like he’s fighting on our behalf… “

However, said Martin, “Donald Trump loves himself first, last and everywhere in between. He loves himself more than our country, he loves himself more than the constitution. He doesn’t love you, me, and he doesn’t love the Tea Party. Donald Trump has no business thinking he’s Tea Party and every Tea Party person who truly loves the constitution should take that into account when you’re casting your vote.”

Jenny Beth Martin got it right as she pointed out that based on his record on eminent domain and press freedom Trump is a false and, Martin noted, politically inconsistent on many issues such as health care, abortion and immigration.

Jenny Beth Martin was certainly right from our perspective, but she didn’t really have time to offer a complete picture of Donald Trump’s anti-constitutional conservative positions.

The question Jenny Beth Martin asked and answered in speech to CPAC was, in its essence, “Is Donald Trump a limited government constitutional conservative and does he share the values of the limited government constitutional conservatives of the Tea Party movement?”

Martin’s answer was “NO,” especially if you are a limited government constitutional conservative concerned about the steady erosion of the constitutional limits on government, and especially concerned about the heavy-handed use of executive power Donald Trump in which Barack Obama has so regularly indulged.

Just as Donald Trump often appears unfamiliar with the Bible and the principles of Biblical living, so he often appears to be unfamiliar, even contemptuous of Constitutional principles and the idea that the Constitution is the law that governs government.

Indeed, many of Trump’s big applause lines such as, “We’re going to get Apple to build their damn computers and things in this country instead of in other countries,” could only be accomplished by extra-constitutional means, such as coercive taxes and regulations that no president could properly accomplish on his own authority.

The Constitution isn’t a smorgasbord from which Presidents can pick and choose a few dishes that are convenient to their political taste –it is the law that governs government and the fundamental underpinning of constitutional conservatism.

One of the primary reasons we endorsed Ted Cruz is that he is a constitutional conservative who has spent the past several decades defending constitutional liberty. Ted Cruz has a consistent record of defending the individual against the power of the state, and unlike Donald Trump he holds the Constitution in such reverence that he does not make violating it into a cheap applause line in a speech.

We urge our friends in the limited government constitutional conservative and Tea Party movements to take Jenny Beth Martin’s analysis to heart and vote Ted Cruz in their upcoming Republican presidential primaries.

This is the battle, right here. We know the Republican establishment is dead. The party is fully captured by rightwing extremists and white nationalists. I wonder how many members of the rank and file are both?

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Trump profiting from selling visas?

Published by digby on March 7, 2016

Trump profiting from selling visas?

by digby

This is the kind of thing that should be hard to explain — but probably won’t be:

Throughout his presidential campaign, Donald Trump has attacked China and warned about the dangers of deficient immigrant screening.

“They’ve taken our jobs, they’ve taken our money, they’ve taken everything,” he said of China in a speech late last month. He has called for a revamping, even a freezing, of the immigration system, but says he would make an exception for the highly-skilled.

Yet no skills are required of the wealthy Chinese being courted by a Chinese-subtitled video to help finance a huge Trump-branded tower in New Jersey. The video leads viewers behind the wheel of a car into Jersey City with scenes of the tower, all to the tune of the theme song from The Sopranos, “Woke Up This Morning.”

The video was produced to help raise tens of millions of dollars through a controversial government program that offers expedited visas to foreign investors overwhelmingly from China. While the program has many supporters who argue it attracts foreign capital and creates jobs at no U.S. taxpayer cost, congressional overseers and Homeland Security have raised sharp concerns. Applicants are sometimes cleared in less than a month and the critics say the government is essentially selling visas to wealthy foreigners with no proven skills, paving the way for money laundering and compromising national security.

Trump Bay Street is a 50-story luxury rental apartment building being built by Kushner Companies, whose chief executive officer, Jared Kushner, is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka. It will have an outdoor pool, indoor golf simulator and sweeping views of Lower Manhattan; it adjoins an existing high rise condo, Trump Plaza Residence. The firm that was hired to seek investors, US Immigration Fund, is run by Florida developer Nicholas Mastroianni, who announced a partnership last year with a Trump golf course in Jupiter, Florida.

The visa program is known as EB-5. In exchange for investing at least $500,000 in a project promising to create jobs, foreigners receive a two-year visa with a good chance of obtaining permanent residency for them and their families. In 2014, the most recent year for which records are available, the U.S. issued 10,692 of these visas — 85% to people from China.

The Jersey City project has raised $50 million, about a quarter of its funding, from loans obtained through EB-5, according to a slide presentation by US Immigration Fund. Mark Giresi, general counsel of US Immigration Fund, said he believed nearly all of the EB-5 investors in the Trump project were from China.

Asked for a comment for this article, a Trump spokeswoman said by email, “This was a highly successful license deal but he is not a partner in the financing of the development.” She did not respond to questions about EB-5. A Kushner spokeswoman said the project was entirely legal and creating jobs.

So Trump licensed his name to his son-in-law who’s taking advantage of laws which exchange visas and permanent residency for foreigners in exchange for a $500,000 investment in a rich businessman’s project. And according to the article the visas aren’t exactly meticulously screened.

Apparently Trump has no problem with the Chinese coming into this country if they’re giving his family money. Why they probably have “anchor babies” and everything.

It’s hard to say if this would hurt him. He’s always gotten away with saying that he’s a smart businessman who makes a profit by any means necessary and he’ll do the same for America. That seems to make sense to his followers. But the accumulation of criticism over his business dealings may have an effect over time. The problem, of course, is that time is running out.

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Pulling their fat out of the fire by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on March 7, 2016

Pulling their fat out of the fire
by Tom Sullivan

At New Yorker, David Remnick ponders the unbearable rightness of Donald Trump:

This is not a Seth Rogen movie; this is as real as mud. Having all but swept the early Republican primaries and caucuses, Trump—who re-tweets conspiracy theories and invites the affections of white-supremacist groups, and has established himself as the adept inheritor of a long tradition of nativism, discrimination, and authoritarianism—is getting ever closer to becoming the nominee of what Republicans like to call “the party of Abraham Lincoln.” No American demagogue––not Huey Long, not Joseph McCarthy, not George Wallace––has ever achieved such proximity to national power.

With opening day for major league baseball a month away, the Stop Trump effort is in full a-swing-and-a-miss mode, as the Republican National Committee fends off questions about a brokered convention:

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus highly doubts there will be a brokered convention in Cleveland this summer despite growing talk of one within his own party.

“I just don’t see that happening,” he said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” “It doesn’t mean it’s impossible — it just means that you don’t know what next week is going to bring, or the week after, or a month from now. “

Meanwhile, Republican donors are scrambling to pull their fat out of the Trumpster fire:

As donors come to the realization that their non-Trump candidates have little chance of winning the nomination in the upcoming contests, chatter of a contested GOP convention has been dominating fundraising circles in recent days, and donors are beginning to re-evaluate how they can best spend their resources to increase the chances of a contested convention.

David Beightol, a former major Romney bundler and Bush backer, recently attended a briefing session Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign manager Terry Sullivan held in Washington, D.C. Although some donors were disappointed that Sullivan didn’t make the case for Rubio to actually win primaries in upcoming states, Beightol said he and other donors, who realize that a contested convention at this point is the only way to stop Trump, were won over.

Nancy Reagan (age 94) died over the weekend. At least she will not have to watch her party’s self-immolation, says Larry King:

“If there’s one thing glad about this,” he added. “She isn’t around to see the end of this political year. Because she was very upset by it.”

The GOP bacon’s getting extra crispy about now. Trump is a burnin’ thing.

His hometown papers

Published by digby on March 7, 2016
His hometown papers

by digby

The Daily News also features this story about the emails they receive from Trump supporters:

They dislike President Obama and are frequently preoccupied with his race. 

They are afraid of Muslims, Mexicans and a lot of other people — indeed, fear is an overriding theme through most of the messages… 

The following selection of emails gives a better idea of just who is supporting the real estate mogul and reality star — and just how they feel about the future of the nation.

The messages are uncensored, but The News has cut the names and email addresses of the senders.

From:


Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2015 8:09 PM


To: NyDailynews-Webmaster


Subject: You suck DICK.


Where were you on checking your faggot monkey so called POTUS all these years??? Now you wanna jump on Trump tho.


*****


From:


Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2016 12:26 AM


To: Voicers


Subject: Trump


I’m from nyc and I have a quick question. Do you get tired of being a peace of shitt.


*****


From:


Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2016


To:


Subject: The complete guide to fleeing President Donald Trump’s America


Hey you filthy anti-American whore, here’s a tip. Beat the rush. Get the hell out of America NOW.


Its scum like you that drive voter to Donald Trump.


WHEN he wins I hope you and all your filthy, commie, America hating dirtbags have a nice big cry fest and then…..


GET THE HELL OUT OF MY COUNTRY!!!!


Why don’t you all charter a plane and fly over Syria.


*****


From:


Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2016 12:25 PM


To: Voicers


Subject: Daily News Voice of the People


GREAT!!! You mean that if Trump becomes president all the loudmouth clowns mentioned in the article will leave our country??? I really only care that Fat-lips Sharpton and Whoopie Goldberg– Black Communist and pig gasbag will depart. That will earn Trump a second term for sure!!


–An email reacting to “Sign of the Apocalypse” on Trump’s dominance in a new national poll.


*****


From:


Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2016 8:36 AM


To: NyDailynews-Webmaster


Subject: Trump


You faggots never surprise me, you wanna attack Trump about the KKK and make up the whole fake story?. Yet, this criminal CUNT Hillary you have not a peep. You are not news, your a fuckin JOKE. And everyone sees it now.


An email in response to The News’ cover on Trump’s endorsement from KKK leader David Duke.
From:


Sent: Monday, February 29, 2016 7:16 PM


To: Voicers


Subject: KKK cover page


Now everyone knows why the Jews always make sure they control the media so they can control your mind — not Just Hitler

Emails in response to The News’ cover ‘Dawn of the Brain Dead’ on Trump’s triumph in the New Hampshire primary.


Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 11:06 AM


To: Voicers


Subject: IYou have made me a mindless zombie


Your front page attack on Trump is outrageous.While I am not a big fan of his I will now vote for him against any general candidate you endorse.It seems to me that perhaps your paper should be written in Hebrew and be emblazoned with a red star. The liberal Jewish reporter ,editors and owners are a disgrace to fairness. You even had an article written by a Barbara Rees who you must have shaken a tree for her to fall out of so you could criticize Trump. This woman worked for a monster for “18 years” and owes her career to him.He promoted her from a supervisor to a VP. Wow,he must have been a terrible woman hater. It is funny how your paper is perfectly willing to attack a White Christian male but is afraid to attack woman or minorities. By the way perhaps you perceive that I am racist. or anti semetic as this is a typical thought when someone doesn’t agree with any minority. First of all I would vote for Bloomberg in a NY minute. Second white Christian males are now the minority thus we can’t be racist. Isn’t that the way it works. You can say whatever you want if you are the minority.


*****


From:


Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 11:21 PM


To: NyDailynews-Webmaster


Subject: YOUR GARBAGE PAPER IS TO WIPE SHIT OFF MY ASS. THE ENQUIRER IS HIGH BROW COMPARED TO YOU. GO FUCK YOURSELF.


*****


From:


Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 7:24 PM


To: NyDailynews-Webmaster


Subject: DAILY NEWS


YOUR NEWSPAPER IS A PIECE OF SHIT!! HOW CAN YOU CALL YOURSELF A NEWSPAPER??


*****


From:


Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 10:20 AM


To: NyDailynews-Webmaster


Subject: Your disgusting paper


You are nothing but a group of morons.


You think if the people don’t vote for the candidate who you pick out they’re brain dead. Well all of you are brain dead I think Mickey mouse would make a better president than the communist we have in office right now.


I hope Trump wins and you all can go to hell along with all the other muslin communist sons of bitches.


*****


From:


Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 8:53 AM


To: NyDailynews-Webmaster


Subject:


You all are nothing but a piece of shit


*****


From:


Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 8:53 AM


To: NyDailynews-Webmaster


Subject: Front page Trump


To whoever wrote that , fuck you !



Email in response to ‘Confederacy of Dunces’ covering Trump’s victory in the South Carolina primary.


From:


Sent: Sunday, February 21, 2016 9:45 AM


To: NyDailynews-Webmaster


Subject: (no subject)


I hope when president Trump gets in office he buys your ONCE great paper and fires the left wing assholes who seem to be running it now.


From:


Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2016 11:40 AM


To: NyDailynews-Webmaster


Subject: Trump


You guys suck dick. Just deal with trump being president and get over it.


*****


From:


Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2016 11:54 AM


To: NyDailynews-Webmaster


Subject:


You have to be a sick newspaper to not back Trump. I guess you like obama that has destroyed our country and put us in debt. You probably like the lesbian,liar, nurderer. Your a communist newspaper then. You can go to hell!!!!

Sunday funnies

Published by digby on March 7, 2016

Sunday funnies

by digby

That’s a big problem for Trump voters. Since he’s not dogwhistling, not trying to hide the racism, bigotry, misogyny and hate, his voters can’t pretend they don’t hear it either. They own him.

Via DKos (This one’s for those of us who have to spend time on social media… oh god…)

Dick Cheney’s No- Brainer Legacy

Published by digby on March 6, 2016

Dick Cheney’s No- Brainer Legacy

by digby

His legacy is Republican presidential candidate who has the moral understanding of a 6 year old is the leading contender. Why? Because Dick Cheney and the boys busted that taboo and there’s no going back:

JOHN DICKERSON (HOST): Let me ask you about your position on torture. When you and I talked last week you said that General Hayden was wrong when he said that military wouldn’t follow you on the question of waterboarding and on the killing of terrorist families. In the debate you said “If I say do it, they are going to do it.” You were talking about the military. Then on Friday you said, “I will not order our military to violate those laws.” So what changed?

DONALD TRUMP: You never asked me about violating laws, in all fairness, we’re talking about violating laws. I would say this, look. We have an enemy in the Middle East that’s chopping off heads and drowning people in massive steal cages, ok? We have an enemy that doesn’t play by the laws, you can say laws and they’re laughing– they’re laughing at us right now. I would like to strengthen the laws so that we can better compete. You know, it’s very tough to beat enemies that don’t have any, that don’t have any restrictions, all right? We have these massive restrictions. Now I will always abide by the law but I would like to have the law expanded. I would like to make —

DICKERSON: How?

TRUMP: Well, I’d like to — I happen to think that when you’re fighting an enemy that chops off heads, I happen to think that we should use something that is stronger than we have right now. Right now basically waterboarding is essentially not allowed as I understand it.

DICKERSON: And you would like it to be, if you could expand it.

TRUMP: I would certainly like it to be at a minimum — at a minimum to allow that.

DICKERSON: Why do you think we don’t have those — why do you think we don’t have waterboarding?

TRUMP: Because I think we have become very weak and ineffective, I think that’s why we’re not beating ISIS, it’s that mentality.

DICKERSON: But you think people got rid of the law to be weak?

TRUMP: No. I think that we are weak. I think we’re weak. We cannot beat ISIS. We should beat ISIS very quickly. General Patton would’ve had ISIS down in about three days. General Douglas McArthur — we are playing by a different set of rules. We are — let me just put it differently. When the ISIS people chop off the heads and they then go back to their homes and they talk, and they hear we’re talking about waterboarding like it’s the worst thing in the world and they’ve just drowned a hundred people and chopped off fifty heads, they must think we are a little bit on the weak side.

DICKERSON: The reason that waterboarding was — a number of reasons, but one of them was because the worry was that if America does that then our soldiers, American hostages, will be treated even worse. That’s the argument. What do you think of that argument?

TRUMP: They’re doing that anyway. They’re killing our soldiers when they capture them. I mean, they’re doing that anyway. Now, if that were the case, in other words we won’t do it and you don’t do it, but we’re not playing by those rules, they’re not — what, did somebody tell ISIS, look, we’re going to treat your guys well would you please do us favor treat our guys well? They don’t do that. We’re not playing by — we are playing by rules but they have no rules. It’s very hard to win when that’s the case.

DICKERSON: Isn’t that what separates us from the savages?

TRUMP: No, I don’t think so, we have to beat the savages.

DICKERSON: And therefore throw all the rules out.

TRUMP: We have to beat the savages.

DICKERSON: By being savages.

TRUMP: No, well — Look, you have to play the game the way they’re playing the game. You’re not going to win if we are soft and they are — they have no rules. Now I want to stay within the laws, I want to do all of that, but I think we have to increase the laws because the laws are not working obviously. All you have to do is take a look at what’s going on. And they’re getting worse. They’re chopping, chopping, chopping, and we’re worried about waterboarding. I just think it’s — I think our priorities are mixed up.

“You have to play the game the way they’re playing the game…they’re chopping, chopping, chopping…”

That’s what he’s talking about.

If I may be so crude as to quote myself from eleven years ago:

To some extent civilization is nothing more than leashing the beast within. When you go to the dark side, no matter what the motives, you run a terrible risk of destroying yourself in the process. I worry about the men and women who are engaging in this torture regime. This is dangerous to their psyches. But this is true on a larger sociological scale as well. For many, many moons, torture has been a simple taboo — you didn’t question its immorality any more than you would question the immorality of pedophilia. You know that it’s wrong on a visceral, gut level. Now we are debating it as if there really is a question as to whether it’s immoral — and, more shockingly, whether it’s a positive good. Our country is now openly discussing the efficacy of torture as a method for extracting information. 


When Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined the phrase “defining deviancy down” he couldn’t ever have dreamed that we would in a few short decades be at a place where torture is no longer considered a taboo. It certainly makes all of his concerns about changes to the nuclear family (and oral sex) seem trivial by comparison. We are now a society that on some official levels has decided that torture is no longer a deviant, unspeakable behavior, but rather a useful tool. It’s not hidden. People publicly discuss whether torture is really torture if it features less than “pain equavalent to organ failure.” People no longer instinctively recoil at the word — it has become a launching pad for vigorous debate about whether people are deserving of certain universal human rights. It spirals down from there. 


When the smoke finally clears, and we can see past that dramatic day on 9/11 and put the threat of islamic fundamentalism into its proper perspective, I wonder if we’ll be able to go back to our old ethical framework? I’m not so sure we will even want to. It’s not that it changed us so much as it revealed us, I think. A society that can so easily discard it’s legal and ethical taboos against cruelty and barbarism, is an unstable society to begin with. 


At this rather late stage in life, I’m realizing that the solid America I thought I knew may never have existed. Running very close, under the surface, was a frightened, somewhat hysterical culture that could lose its civilized moorings all at once. I had naively thought that there were some things that Americans would findunthinkable — torture was one of them. 


The old Lebanon hand from above concludes by saying this:


I think as late as a decade ago, there were enough of us around who had enough experience to constitute the majority view, which was that this was simply not the way we did business, and for good reasons of practicality or morality. It’s not just about what it does or doesn’t do, but about who, and where, we as a country want to be.”

Now that we’ve let the torture genie out of the bottle, I wonder if we can put that beast back in. He looks and sounds an awful lot like an American. 

RIP Nancy Reagan

Published by digby on March 6, 2016

RIP Nancy Reagan

by digby

She lived to be 94 years old and that’s as long as anyone can hope for. Liberals should be somewhat happy that she was the First Lady during the Reagan administration because it’s widely assumed that it was her influence on the president to take up glasnost which led to the thaw in the cold war that soon brought it to a close. (This was far more important than Reagan’s vaunted military build-up that the wingnuts persist in saying was the cause.)  If the hardliners had had their way, it wouldn’t have happened. In fact, Reagan was commonly seen as a weak sister among the hawks for doing it. It wasn’t until Grover Norquist and the boys got together to form the “Reagan Legacy Project” that Republicans rallied around the Gipper once again as the avatar of everything right and good about conservatism.

She also meddled constantly and was relentless in her desire to control the people around the president. (And yes, she consulted an astrologer after the president was shot and had influence on his schedule throughout the administration.) It’s clear that Reagan was slipping in his second term and Nancy protected him from scrutiny. All of which just shows that when Bill Clinton said a few years down the line, “you get two for the price of one,” the outcry was just a little bit self-serving — and all the years of caterwauling over Hillary Clinton having a role in the White House was little more than posturing.

Nancy Reagan was probably the most powerful first lady in American history, far beyond anything Hillary Clinton or Eleanor Roosevelt ever did. She was his closest adviser and lived with him most intimately. She knew very well that he was cognitively disabled at the time he was president. She kept it quiet.

That’s not how it’s supposed to work but it’s how it happened. All these sexist right wingers who created the image of Clinton as Lady MacBeth must know on some level that it fits the Reagan myth much more closely.

The last part of her life was spent in devoted care-taking of her husband as he disappeared into the twilight world of Alzheimer’s disease and she became a strong advocate for a cure, even flouting right wing dogma around stem cell research.   She had a long and interesting life and nobody can ask for more than that.

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The autobahn was a job creator

Published by digby on March 6, 2016

The autobahn was a job creator

 by digby

The Autobahn ground breaking ceremony

Rick Perlstein in In These Times addresses a dangerous misunderstanding about the nature of right wing populism:

Why has Donald Trump been so successful? Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone, thinks he has the answer.
He writes, “Reporters have focused quite a lot on the crazy/race-baiting/nativist themes in Trump’s campaign.” Taibbi, though, will not be bamboozled: “These comprise a very small part of his usual presentation. His speeches increasingly are strikingly populist in their content.” Trump’s pitch, which Taibbi seems at least partially to accept: “He’s rich, he won’t owe anyone anything upon elec­tion, and therefore he won’t do what both Democratic and Republican politicians unfailingly do upon taking office, i.e. approve rotten/regressive policies that screw ordinary people.”
And though Taibbi insists this insight lifts him above the common scribbling herd, he’s hardly alone. Ryan Lizza, in the New Yorker, quoted conservative intellectual Henry Olsen to likewise suggest that Trump is thriving because he “is posing a new question: To what extent should the GOP be the advocates for those struggling in the modern economy?”
I attended the same Trump rally in Plymouth, N.H., as Taibbi. Matt should clean the wax from his ears: I heard the crazy and the race-baiting and the nativist themes raining down like dirty dollar bills at a strip joint.
But leave aside that Mexicans and Syrians are also “ordinary people” who struggle in the modern economy. And that you can’t trust anything Don­ald Trump says.
No, the core inanity here cuts much deeper. It’s an ignorance of a simple historical fact: Every fascist achieves and cements his power by pledging to rescue ordinary people from the depredations of economic elites. That’s how fas­cism works.
Read, for instance, this article from a Nazi-friendly web­site on “How Hitler Defied the Bankers”:
When Hitler came to power, Germany was hopelessly broke … Germany had no choice but to succumb to debt slavery under international (mainly Jewish) bankers until 1933, when the National Socialists came to power. Hitler began a national credit program by devising a plan of public works that included flood control, repair of public buildings and private residences, and construction of new roads, bridges, canals, and port facilities … Within two years, the unemployment problem had been solved. … Germany’s economic freedom was short-lived; but it left several monuments, including the famous Autobahn, the world’s first extensive superhighway…
And, for what it’s worth, it’s true! Hitler built the Au­tobahn! He conquered inflation! (It’s not hard, if you can shoot people who raise prices.) Unemployment plummeted!
You might even say that for “ordinary Germans” strug­gling in the modern economy, things got pretty good.
But guess what? Under fascism, economic protection for the goose accompanies dispossession of the gander. White people prosper in part because minorities suffer—whether, under Hitler, by taking away property from Jews, or as Herr Trump expects, by taking back “our” jobs from “them,” whether the them is immigrants or our supposedly duplici­tous trading partners.
There’s even a sociological term for it: herrenvolk repub­licanism. We’ve had it here, too, if in milder form.
George Wallace said to Wil­liam F. Buckley Jr. in 1968 that the state of Alabama “had five generations of people who didn’t go to school because there were no schools for black or white.” Then he became governor and—he claimed—turned Alabama into an educational paradise. Like all authoritarians, he lied: Education stayed plenty awful, especially for blacks in segre­gated schools.
And, like all authoritarians, the bedrock of his appeal was his hate. As one voter in Mas­sachusetts asked Wallace’s aide Tom Turnipseed in 1968, “When Wallace is elected president he’s going to round up all the ni**ers and shoot them, isn’t he?” Turnipseed assured him, “We’re not going to shoot anybody.” At which the voter responded, “Well, I don’t know whether I’m for him or not.” Which sounds a whole lot like what Trump fans told The Nation’s Sasha Abramsky. “I’d give ‘em a choice,” said one un-cherry-picked voter, concerning Muslims in America. “A trench on one side or a ticket out of here.”
Build infrastructure, jail banksters: Hell, I’m for all that, too. It shouldn’t take electing thugs to do it. There’s a reason the saying “anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools” made so much sense in Weimar Germany: Socialism and barbarism can look very similar in their surface appeals. The real fools are the media sophisticates who don’t bother to look a bare inch underneath.

I would just note this tweet from yesterday commemorating an important historical anniversary:

He won with only a plurality. Everyone else was busy fighting among themselves. Read up on that election if you’re interested to find out what issues the opposition thought was important as the Nazis marched to power.

Of course Germany in 1933 was not already a global military empire unequaled by all the other nations of the earth combined as we are. The rest of the world might not find that a soothing thought, however. To many people in this world, that earlier example still resonates. There are some alive today who went through it.

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Look at the hate on their faces

Published by digby on March 6, 2016

Look at the hate on their faces

by digby

Via Slate:

“I was called a ni**er and a cunt and got kicked out,” she says, and tells the interviewer that she was ultimately escorted out of the event by police.

And then there was this yesterday:

Donald Trump’s ascent to the top of the Republican presidential candidate heap has been increasingly likened to the rise of Adolf Hitler, as both men have used racist rhetoric and blamed select groups of minorities for many of the country’s problems.

On Saturday, that comparison became even more apparent when footage surfaced of Trump at a rally in Orlando, Florida, that was eerily reminiscent of 1930s Nazi rallies.
Toward the end of his speech, Trump can be seen addressing the crowd forcefully. He tells them to raise their right hand and asks them to repeat after him that they will vote for him for president, no matter what.

“Don’t forget you all raised your hand, you swore,” Trumps says to the crowd afterwards. “Bad things happen if you don’t live up to what you just did.”

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