Month: April 2016

This is Tump’s GOP

by digby

Via Think Progress:

Mike Pape, a Republican running for Kentucky’s first Congressional district, released a new TV ad filled with ugly stereotypes about Latino immigrants, complete with huge Mario Bros.-like mustaches, fake accents, and subtitles for the actors, even though they’re speaking in English for the vast majority of the ad.

Three men, presumably undocumented immigrants attempting to cross the border into the U.S., are running to a fence and cutting through it when they reveal their very specific political plans.

One of the men says, “Once through, we’ll stop Donald Trump!” and another man joins in and says, “Si! And Ted Cruz, too!” Then third the third man joins in and suggests they stop “Señor Mike Pape.”

The other men don’t know who Mike Pape is, but once they realize he’s going to “help Trump build the wall” and “repeal Obamacare,” they say, “We must stop Mike Pape!” If you’re still unsure as to whether the undocumented immigrants are really committed to the cause versus simply wanting to make a better life for themselves in the United States, they’re also wearing T-shirts that read, “Stop Trump!” and “Stop Ted Cruz!”

This Trumpish demagogue is running on a platform of stopping immigration and repealing Obamacare. And I’m fairly sure he’s not going to be the only one. This is going to be one ugly campaign.

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When Roger met Donald

by digby

Jeffrey Toobin caught up with Roger Stone a week or so ago and Stone related how he first met Trump:

It started in 1979, when Stone was a twenty-six-year-old aide in Ronald Reagan’s Presidential campaign. Michael Deaver, a more senior campaign official, instructed Stone to start fund-raising in New York. “Mike gave me a recipe box full of index cards, supposedly Reagan’s contacts in New York,” Stone said. “Half the people on the cards were dead. A lot of the others were show-business people, but there was one name I recognized—Roy Cohn.” So Stone presented himself at the brownstone office of Cohn, the notorious lawyer and fixer.

“I go into Roy’s office,” Stone continued, “and he’s sitting there in his silk bathrobe, and he’s finishing up a meeting with Fat Tony Salerno,” the boss of the Genovese crime family. Stone went on, “So Tony says, ‘Roy here says we’re going with Ree-gun this time.’ That’s how he said it—‘Ree-gun.’ Roy told him yes, we’re with Reagan. Then I said to Roy that we needed to put together a finance committee, and Roy said, ‘You need Donald and Fred Trump.’ He said Fred, Donald’s father, had been big for Goldwater in ’64. I went to see Donald, and he helped to get us office space for the Reagan campaign, and that’s when we became friends.”

Pretty revealing, no?

So is this:

 Trump has little use for political advisers. “He listens to no one,” Stone noted. “On his own, he conceptualized a campaign model that rejects all the things you do in politics—no polling, no opposition research, no issue shop, no analytics, no targeting, no paid advertising to speak of.” He went on, “He had this vision of an all-communication-based strategy of rallies, debates, and as many interviews as he can smash into a day. The campaign exists to support the logistics of the tour.” 

How can this be happening in the powerful country on the planet? Is this how it all goes sideways?

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The enemy of my enemy

by digby

Following up on my post below, here’s a good explanation from Nate Cohn at the NY Times of the Cruz-Kasich pact to stop Trump:

Here’s an overlooked fact about the Republican race: Right now, all of the polls are consistent with a finish of 1,237 or more pledged delegates for Donald Trump and an outright nomination victory, without a contested convention.

That’s because Mr. Trump leads by a comfortable margin in all of the polls in Indiana and California, which would give him the nomination when added to the delegates that everyone expects him to win.

That’s the context for the John Kasich-Ted Cruz deal that was announced on Sunday night. The agreement is straightforward: Mr. Kasich won’t compete in Indiana; Mr. Cruz won’t compete in New Mexico and Oregon.
[…]
As I wrote recently, the whole Republican contest could come down to Indiana. The state has 57 pledged delegates, and it awards those delegates on a winner-take-all basis statewide and by congressional district. As a result, the difference between a narrow win and a loss is huge for Mr. Trump. If he wins statewide — even by a point — it will be fairly easy for him to reach 1,237 delegates with a victory in California, which on paper is probably an easier state for him than Indiana.

The most recent polls show Mr. Trump leading in Indiana with around 40 percent of the vote. That’s a number low enough for him to be vulnerable, but Mr. Kasich has been at 19 percent in an average of the same surveys — giving Mr. Cruz a very narrow path to victory.

There isn’t a lot of time for a Cruz comeback there. The vote in Indiana is in eight days, and Mr. Cruz is most likely about to post another round of mediocre showings in the Northeast this Tuesday, which would make it even less clear to Republican voters that Mr. Cruz is the principal anti-Trump option in Indiana.

The deal gives Mr. Cruz a better chance of consolidating the anti-Trump vote in Indiana the way he did in Wisconsin. If he can do that, he has a real though by no means certain chance to squeeze past Mr. Trump. A Cruz victory in Indiana would be enough to make Mr. Trump an underdog in the fight for 1,237.

In exchange, Mr. Kasich gets New Mexico and Oregon. In a way, this is counterintuitive: Mr. Cruz has fared very well out West, and he might have been favored to win either or both states over Mr. Kasich and Mr. Trump. Mr. Cruz’s concession would seem to increase the chance that these states go to Mr. Trump.

But this has virtually no downside to anti-Trump forces, at least from a delegate perspective. That’s because New Mexico and Oregon are the only two states after Rhode Island on Tuesday that award their delegates on a purely proportional basis — meaning they award their delegates in proportion to a candidate’s statewide share of the vote. (Many “proportional” Republican states award two delegates to the winner of each congressional district and one to the second-place finisher.) They’re also two of the smallest contests remaining after Tuesday.

Victories are nice, but what matters for Mr. Trump in New Mexico and Oregon is his share of the vote, something that Mr. Kasich and Mr. Cruz’s arrangement should do little to change.

This primary is something else …

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”I have never been more worried about the Republican Party breaking apart than I am today.”

by digby

I wrote about the latest in the GOP saga for Salon today:

Lindsay Graham is hysterical. As usual. He appeared on John Catsimatidis’s radio program on Sunday and declared,”I have never been more worried about the Republican Party breaking apart than I am today.” This is par for he course for Graham. He’s what Trump would call a panic artist, running around in circles declaring the sky is falling over virtually every issue. But in this case, he’s probably right. The Republican party is in big trouble and nothing says it more clearly than the fact that it is necessary for the presidential front-runner’s campaign manager to appear before GOP officials and reassure them that their client is a total phony.

As the New York Times reported on Friday:

Donald J. Trump’s newly installed campaign chief sought to assure members of the Republican National Committee on Thursday night that Mr. Trump recognized the need to reshape his persona and that his campaign would begin working with the political establishment that he has scorned to great effect.

Addressing about 100 committee members at the spring meeting here, many of them deeply skeptical about Mr. Trump’s candidacy, the campaign chief, Paul Manafort, bluntly suggested the candidate’s incendiary style amounted to an act.

“That’s what’s important for you to understand: That he gets it, and that the part he’s been playing is evolving,” Mr. Manafort said, suggesting that Mr. Trump was about to begin a more professional phase of his campaign.

The week-end featured a number of new signs that the party is not ready to reconcile itself to the nomination of Donald Trump regardless of how many make-overs or second acts his new handlers prescribe no matter how much the media may be thrilled with the new story line. And some of them are very thrilled indeed. As Eric Boehlert noted last week:

He actually called him Senator Cruz!” gushed ABC World News Tonight’s David Wright. “The consummate deal-maker changing his sales pitch to close the deal. The tone, more presidential.” (Old habits apparently die hard — within a day, Trump was back to calling Cruz “Lyin’ Ted.”)  […] 

Meanwhile, note that candidates who try to unveil a new look mid-campaign usually get called out by the media’s authenticity police. But there’s been very little of that regarding Trump this week; very little mocking of him for attempting to construct a new public persona on the fly.

That’s yet another example of Trump’s “exceptionalism” in American politics. Anyone else would be excoriated if his campaign managers announced that their candidate had been putting on an act an pledged to change his personality so as to be more acceptable. But this is Trump and, as usual, none of the rules apply. Despite the fact that Paul Manafort, the man Trump has put in charge of his campaign going forward is a long time associate of Roger Stone, one of the most malevolent, mendacious dirty tricksters in politics, many in the press seem willing to take this “pivot” at face value.

There are exceptions. A very skeptical Chris Hayes of MSNBC interviewed Esquire’s Charles Pierce who predicted that Trump would run a successful con on the press until the nomination is secured:

He is going to campaign like a thug, win, be gracious on election night, go to another state and start the whole thing all over again and every time he accepts a speech and comes within an area code of civility, a lot of the elite political press is going to get fooled and say look, it’s the new Donald Trump. And this is a great scam. He can run this all the way to the convention.

The Washington Post editorial page urged people to remember the incendiary rhetoric and authoritarian policies that got Trump this far by printing a long list of reminders that amounted to a bill of indictment. On CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday, journalist Carl Bernstein compared this attempt to remake Trump’s image to 1968’s press obsession with “The New Nixon” and he’s right. This report from the North American Review of September 1968 will sound quite familiar:

“Is there a ‘new Nixon’?” One of Richard Milhous Nixon’s own advertisements in a New Hampshire newspaper poses the question. Tune in on a television interview, the ad says, and see for yourself. Political pundits coast to coast have been “tuning in on” Nixon’s latest campaign for the presidency seeking the answer, watching every and phrase to determine if the really is a new Nixon, this vigil has become such a standard procedure in the Nixon’s campaigns that newsmen covering the primaries speak of the “new Nixon, Mark VI.”

Trump’s pal Roger Stone has Richard Nixon’s face tattooed on his back. For real.

But the real question is not whether the media will accept this alleged reinvention of Trump. They’ll cover the spectacle regardless and that’s all Trump requires. It’s Republican officials and party functionaries who are the real focus of this make-over. And so far, it doesn’t seem to be working:

Ted Cruz notched another delegate landslide Saturday, stretching his advantage in a competition that might never occur: the second ballot of a contested Republican National Convention in July. 

Cruz won at least 65 of the 94 delegates up for grabs Saturday (he may have won more than 65, but Kentucky’s 25 delegates haven’t revealed their leanings). The Texas senator has so thoroughly dominated the fight to send loyalists to the national convention that if front-runner Donald Trump fails to clinch the nomination on the first ballot, Cruz is well-positioned to surpass him — and perhaps even snag the nomination for himself — when delegates are free in subsequent convention rounds to vote for whomever they want.

This will all be for naught if Trump manages to hit the magic number before the convention. New polls in California show him at nearly 50% which could put him over the top (assuming he competently manages the complicated delegate rules.)  And polling does suggest that voters believe that whoever comes in first should win regardless of the threshold so if he comes close he’ll probably have the public behind him if he makes that pitch.

But seeing as Ted Cruz is successfully recruiting delegates to his side for a second ballot, it appears that many of the party activists and officials who ill be at the convention don’t exactly have their hearts in the Trump campaign. Under those circumstances anything could happen.

And late Sunday night it was revealed that the Cruz and Kasich campaigns are now coordinating to prevent that from happening.  As Fox News reported:

In a pair of simultaneously released statements, the campaigns announced that Kasich would pull out of Indiana to give Cruz “a clear path” ahead of that state’s winner-take-all primary May 3, while the Cruz campaign will “clear the path” for Kasich in Oregon, which votes May 17, and New Mexico, which votes June 7. 

“Having Donald Trump at the top of the ticket in November would be a sure disaster for Republicans,” Cruz’s campaign manager, Jeff Roe, said in a statement. “To ensure that we nominate a Republican who can unify the Republican Party and win in November, our campaign will focus its time and resources in Indiana and in turn clear the path for Gov. Kasich to compete in Oregon and New Mexico, and we would hope that allies of both campaigns would follow our lead.”

Talk about a desperate hail Mary.  When have we ever seen rival campaigns working together to stop another?

Meanwhile, Koch brothers are taking to the airwaves to send a strong message to the Republican party that the money will not be forthcoming if they don’t get their act together. It’s hard to know how many others of the Big Money class are feeling the same way but it spells trouble for the Party if they decide to lay out. Trump has given no indication as to whether he’s prepared to finance a general election campaign (and the press has inexplicably failed to press him on the subject)  but he may find that he has no choice.

So yes, Lindsey Graham’s hysterics are well founded for once.  His party has a problem. And it’s getting worse by the day.

Atmospheric CO2 Rising Off the Chart, Spikes Above 409 ppm on April 10

by Gaius Publius

I’ve likely said too many times to count that (1) the degradation in our climate won’t be either linear or gradual; and (2) most estimates of the rate of decay are wrong to the slow side, too conservative. The rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 is turning into a prime example.

This is what decadal changes in atmospheric CO2 has looked like through the last half-century (source):

For quite a while, climate scientists have been comforted (if that’s the world for a very jittery bunch) by the stability of the CO2 growth rate — “only” 2.11 ppm per year. There is some acceleration, obviously. But for the most part that acceleration hasn’t been dramatic, aside from the large one-year spike in 1998 (chart here).

We now have another large one-year spike (see chart at the top of this piece; also here), and we’re not done yet. The actual yearly peak in atmospheric CO2 is reached in May, a number not yet available, so the April peak (so far) is still shy of the actual number for 2016. (Note that both 1998 and 2016 are El Niño years, but as you’ll read, that should not be comforting.)

Keep in mind, CO2 readings barely touched 400 ppm very recently — as a the daily average, in 2013; as a monthly average, in 2014 — and the monthly readings solidly breached 400 ppm only in 2015 (per-month data table here). The May 2014 highest weekly mean was 401.88 ppm. The May 2015 highest weekly mean was 403.94, for a rise of a little over 2 ppm, the average over the last 10 years. The May 2016 weekly average could peak near 410 ppm, and one of the daily averages could exceed it. (If you look at this chart, you’ll see the hourly average has already breached 410 ppm. In the hourly measurements, we’re already there.)

This is a problem, this spike in atmospheric CO2, and a more immediate one than this generation is prepared to acknowledge. Robert Scribbler comments (my emphasis):

Hothouse Gas Spikes to Extreme 409.3 Parts Per Million on April 10 — Record Rate of Atmospheric CO2 Increase Likely for 2016

Simply put, a rapid atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gasses is swiftly pushing the Earth well outside of any climate context that human beings are used to. The influence of an extreme El Nino on the world ocean system’s ability to take down a massive human carbon emission together with signs of what appears to be a significantly smaller but growing emission from global carbon stores looks to be setting the world up for another record jump in atmospheric CO2 levels during 2016.

Already, as we near the annual peak during late April through early May, major CO2 spikes are starting to show up. On Sunday, April 10 the Mauna Loa Observatory recorded a daily CO2 reading in the extraordinary range of 409.3 parts per million. These readings follow March monthly averages near 405 parts per million and precede an annual monthly peak in May that’s likely to hit above 407 parts per million and may strike as high as 409 parts per million. These are levels about 135 to 235 parts per million above the average interglacial to ice age range for CO2 levels during the relatively stable climate period of the last 2 million years.

Consider this trajectory of highest daily means from the chart above:

• 2014 – 2015 = ~3 ppm (402 ppm – 405 ppm)
• 2015 – 2016 = ~4 ppm (405 ppm – 409 ppm)

Even if we average “just” a steady +4 ppm/year for 10 years (with no more acceleration), we’ll be at 450 ppm in the mid 2020s, not the mid-2050s. That spells trouble for this generation, not just the next.

About El Niño…

There’s a lot of cheerleading for the end of El Niño, so that the ocean can again take up more of the excess heat. That’s not a good thing. Consider that if the sun’s excess heat ends up in the ocean, the slower acceleration in atmospheric heat is only temporary, only delayed, since every El Niño year the ocean “burps” its heat back out again. The more heat the ocean stores, the more it has to spit back out. Increasing the rate of emissions increase the total heat retained in the system. It’s a literal lose-lose situation.

Look again at this chart and tell me why this train isn’t headed for disaster.

Is This an Emergency Yet?

… or can we afford to wait even longer? If this isn’t the cusp of a possible near-term species emergency, I don’t know what is. Keep in mind, the social chaos could easily precede the full climate chaos, as people see what’s coming. Social chaos will make organizing a solution much harder.

If this were a giant asteroid 10 years away with just a 30% chance of hitting the earth, we’d be scrambling every dollar we had to build something to prevent it. I personally think we need that kind of effort now, and arguing for it now is our one best hope.

It isn’t over yet though, and there are things you can do now:

• Sign on the one of the “emergency mobilization” petitions and join their actions. One of those petitions is here.

• Bernie Sanders is the only candidate talking about a planetary emergency — which seems to be born out by data, and not just the data above — one that may require a WWII-style mobilization to prevent. Consider voting for him.

Blue America has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. If you’d like to help out, go here. If you’d like to “phone-bank for Bernie,” go here. You can volunteer in other ways by going here. And thanks!

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

GP
 

Your water’s poisoned? Tellya what I’m gonna do…
by Tom Sullivan

City leaders and a group of organizers here have been fighting state efforts to take over our city’s water system for several years. City of Asheville v State of North Carolina, et al. goes before the state Supreme Court next month. The originator of the bill (an ALEC board member before he lost his state House seat) insisted transferring control to a regional authority was not the first step towards privatization. You know, we just didn’t believe him. The water situation in Flint, Michigan is sure to come up in oral arguments on May 17.

Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-WI) of Milwaukee is the Ranking Member of the Monetary Policy and Trade Subcommittee that oversees U.S. relations with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. She is not too keen on water privatization either. Privatization opponents in Wisconsin recently fought off an effort led by Aqua America Inc. to privatize water there:

The legislation would legalize purchases of water utilities by out-of-state corporations and change existing law to make public referendums on such purchases optional instead of mandatory.

Moore is not happy about the International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank, promoting water privatization and profiting from it. She wrote a letter to Dr. Jim Young Kim, President of the World Bank Group:

The letter, addressed to World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, describes the failure of a World Bank-backed water privatization project in Manila, Philippines—the “success story” the IFC uses in marketing around the world—as the foundation of her concern. In Manila, the IFC advised the government to contract with two private corporations to manage the city’s water system, which it did in 1997 in a concession deal that favored one corporation, Manila Water Company, with less debt and better infrastructure. The IFC subsequently took part ownership in MWC only.

Since taking over, MWC has raised rates nearly 850 percent, and has even brought the Manila regulator—and the Philippines Department of Finance—into arbitration in an attempt to hike the cost of water even higher.

As part owner of MWC, the IFC is now in direct opposition to the government’s efforts to keep water affordable for its people. And while the IFC has stood by MWC, it has made $43 million from its initial investment.

In a statement issued with the letter, Moore said:

Water access is a fundamental human right no matter where you live. Dr. Kim and his team have the responsibility to put the World Bank’s mission — alleviating global poverty — above the pursuit of profits. This institution must take that responsibility much more seriously, especially when it comes to water, or it will fail the very people it is supposed to be serving.

“By shedding light on the conflict of interest inherent in the World Bank’s investment and advisory services related to water, it is time that this vital financial institution stop funding and promoting corporate control of water pending an extensive external evaluation of IFC conflicts of interest as well as congressional hearings.

In an emailed statement, Moore connected the issue to U.S. water issues:

“Yes, we’ve just now started shedding light on this local and national issue in the United States, but there are global implications to think about as well,” Moore added, pointing to the World Bank’s investments in private water companies. “It has become clear that there are those in positions of great power who are all too willing to prioritize profits over public safety.”

The people of Flint would agree. As I’ve said for years, we are dealing with the kind of people who would sell you the air you breathe if they could control how it gets to your nose. And if you cannot afford to buy their air, well, you should have worked harder, planned better, and saved more.

How long will these (below) remain elaborate pranks?

Canadian start-up sells bottled air to China, says sales boom
$115 bottles of British air sold to Chinese buyers

QOTD: a plane guy

by digby

In a New York Times article about Trump’s fleet of aircraft a plane broker said this about his tricked out 757:

“Buying a 25-year-old 757 is like buying a bag of Cheetos. It’s a lot of food for a low price.”

Hookay…

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Conspiracy theories killing people

by digby

How sick is this?

In Pakistan, hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated children are at risk of contracting polio, a disease that causes incurable paralysis. While health workers travel door-to-door to vaccinate children, in hopes of eradicating the crippling disease, they are also under attack. But instead of a deadly virus, these medics are fighting another fatal threat: the Pakistani Taliban.

On Wednesday this threat struck once again — suspending vital vaccination efforts in Pakistan’s largest city. In broad daylight outside a market in Karachi, Pakistan, seven police officers were gunned down while escorting a vaccination team. No health workers were harmed.
[…]
The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the drive-by shooting and promised future attacks. The militant group has targeted polio volunteers for decades in Pakistan and Afghanistan, accusing health workers of spreading disease and spying on behalf of Western governments.

“We have deep sensitivity about the polio vaccination,” Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told The Associated Press in 2014. “We still have strong suspicions that the vaccination campaign could be used again and again to spy on Muslims.”

In recent years, shootings of polio immunization workers and their security teams have killed more than the disease itself, according to data from the World Health Organization. In 2014, militants killed 89 health workers in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria — the last three countries where polio remains. Meanwhile polio killed between 15 and 30 people.

This year is on track for even grimmer figures. In the last 16 months alone, over 95 police officers have been killed.

I’m so tired of conspiracy theories. It’s a common facet of human nature. But it’s dangerous.

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Swiftboats a comin’

by digby

It’s smart of the Democrats to get ahead of this thing:

According to C&L, Reince thinks they’ve got a good rejoinder.:

“Well, look, I mean and — and we’re starting the general election campaign, too. We had two soldiers from Benghazi at the RNC meeting who were lied to by Hillary Clinton, who did an awful job as secretary of State.”

Haha.  Hey, swiftboating worked once, why not again?

I have a sneaking suspicion that Trump’s going to get a lot more down and dirty than that, however. He’s shown he’s not afraid to sink as low as it gets. Benghazi ain’t it.

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Helping with the pivot

by digby

So rightwingers are allegedly upset about the “new Trump”

And others are questioning the whole field: