Category: Presidential Campaign

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Ted Cruz Accidentally Proves Donald Trump Is Human

I’m not a fan of Donald Trump, but his response to Cruz’ “New York values” jibe is a thing of beauty:

First, he corrected Cruz—Manhattan produces conservatives, he said, “including William F. Buckley and others” (and what kind of Democrat would name-drop William F. Buckley?), and then he seemed to stand up taller.

“He insulted a lot of people,” Trump said of Cruz. “New York is a great place. It’s got great people, it’s got loving people, wonderful people. When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York.”

The crowd applauded and, as if to admit defeat, so did Cruz.

“Everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.”

“You had two 110-story buildings come crashing down, thousands of people killed, and the cleanup started the next day, and it was the most horrific cleanup probably in the history of doing this, and in construction. I was down there,” Trump said.

“I’ve never seen anything like it, and the people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death and even the smell of death—nobody understood it, and it was with us for months. The smell, the air. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched, and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.”

Cruz just looked at the camera with a nervous smile. Suddenly his suit seemed too tight.

I really think that we saw some honest emotion from the Donald here.

Even if it was a preplanned comeback, he just force fed Ted Cruz his own shit.

It was brilliant.

Bought and Paid for by the Vampire Squid

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It appears that during his first campaign for the Texas Senate, Ted Cruz got a million dollar loan from Goldman Sachs, and then in contravention of campaign finance laws, did not report it to the Federal Election Commission:


As Ted Cruz tells it, the story of how he financed his upstart campaign for the United States Senate four years ago is an endearing example of loyalty and shared sacrifice between a married couple.

“Sweetheart, I’d like us to liquidate our entire net worth, liquid net worth, and put it into the campaign,” he says he told his wife, Heidi, who readily agreed.

But the couple’s decision to pump more than $1 million into Mr. Cruz’s successful Tea Party-darling Senate bid in Texas was made easier by a large loan from Goldman Sachs, where Mrs. Cruz works. That loan was not disclosed in campaign finance reports.

Those reports show that in the critical weeks before the May 2012 Republican primary, Mr. Cruz — currently a leading contender for his party’s presidential nomination — put “personal funds” totaling $960,000 into his Senate campaign. Two months later, shortly before a scheduled runoff election, he added more, bringing the total to $1.2 million — “which is all we had saved,” as Mr. Cruz described it in an interview with The New York Times several years ago.

A review of personal financial disclosures that Mr. Cruz filed later with the Senate does not find a liquidation of assets that would have accounted for all the money he spent on his campaign. What it does show, however, is that in the first half of 2012, Ted and Heidi Cruz obtained the low-interest loan from Goldman Sachs, as well as another one from Citibank. The loans totaled as much as $750,000 and eventually increased to a maximum of $1 million before being paid down later that year. There is no explanation of their purpose.

Neither loan appears in reports the Ted Cruz for Senate Committee filed with the Federal Election Commission, in which candidates are required to disclose the source of money they borrow to finance their campaigns. Other campaigns have been investigated and fined for failing to make such disclosures, which are intended to inform voters and prevent candidates from receiving special treatment from lenders. There is no evidence that the Cruzes got a break on their loans.

He should take a hit for this, particularly because much of his personal story is about how he risked it all to run for the US Senate, but it won’t make a difference in the primaries, because the Republican Party base has drunk too much Flint municipal tap water.

Oh Snap!

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Hillary Clinton has been going after Bernie Sanders’ single payer healthcare proposals, claiming that single payer would take their healthcare away, and she’s rolled out Chelsea on the campaign trail.

It is ludicrous and dishonest, and it has led to a huge spike in contributions to the Sanders campaign:

Hillary Clinton’s new barrage against Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential primary opponent she has all but ignored through most of her campaign, is having an effect — though probably not the one she intended.

Sanders’s underdog campaign said it is seeing a surge of contributions as a direct result of the new attention it is getting from the Democratic front-runner, with money coming in at a clip nearly four times the average daily rate reported in the last quarter of 2015.

………

The former secretary of state and her team have stepped up their criticism of Sanders on a variety of fronts in recent days as polls have begun to show him edging even with her in Iowa — and, for the first time, looking competitive in a national poll. But the Clinton strategy may be backfiring in some ways.

………

“As of now, we are at about $1.4 million raised since yesterday when the panic attacks by the Clinton campaign began,” Briggs said. “We’ve gotten 47,000 contributions. We’re projecting 60,000 donations. Even for our people-powered campaign, this is pretty darn impressive.”

………

Even her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, got into the act, bashing Sanders during her first campaign appearance on behalf of her mother this election season.

“Senator Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the [Children’s Health Insurance Program], dismantle Medicare and dismantle private insurance,” Chelsea Clinton said at a stop in New Hampshire. “I worry if we give Republicans Democratic permission to do that, we’ll go back to an era — before we had the Affordable Care Act — that would strip millions and millions and millions of people off their health insurance.”

Ludicrous, and dishonest, and more significantly, desperate.

Hillary’s strength this cycle was her aura of inevitability, and that appears to be vanishing like the mist

As I recall, inevitability was her perceived strength in 2008 as well.

I Did Not Expect This

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It appears that the Bernie Sanders campaign employs no fund raising staff, Hillary Clinton, in contrast, has over 30 dedicated full time staffers working this:

It’s no secret that Bernie Sanders is raising tons of money, but that fact that he’s doing it without a finance team is highly unusual.

Bernie Sanders loves to talk about the fact that he doesn’t have a super-PAC backing his campaign. But the true state of his fundraising strategy is even more astonishing than that: The Sanders campaign doesn’t have a finance team.

And that’s a big deal.

Every competitive presidential campaign in recent election cycles has had team of people exclusively dedicated to finances: figuring out how much money the campaign needs, putting together a plan to get that money, and then making it all come together.

It’s considered a fundamental part of a modern presidential campaign, right up there with having a team to deal with the press. But Sanders may be changing that.

Call it a reinvention of campaign funding, but the Vermont senator has shown so far that a campaign can operate just fine without a fleet of green-visors counting the cash.

“I’ve never heard of a presidential campaign, even a minor party presidential campaign, that didn’t have a fundraising team,” said one campaign finance attorney. “But, OK if it’s working.”

And, judging by Sanders’s latest fundraising numbers, it is.

This is a positive thing for a number of reasons.  Not only does this reduce his burn rate, 30 staffers full time raising cash probably cost something north of 60 Grand a month, but also because the fundraising profession is an entry point for the most repulsive people in public service (See Emanuel, Rahm, and Wasserman-Schultz, Debbie).

I really like this guy.

Excessive Schadenfreude May Cause Dizziness, Euphoria, and a Sense of Smug Satisfaction

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So now both Donald Trump and Ann Coulter have gone birther on Ted Cruz.

First, the Donald:

Donald Trump cast doubt on Republican candidate Ted Cruz’s eligibility for the presidency on Tuesday, on the basis that he may not be a natural-born US citizen.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump said the fact that Cruz was born in Canada was a “very precarious one for Republicans because he’d be running and the courts may take a long time to make a decision. You don’t want to be running and have that kind of thing over your head.”

The Republican frontrunner went on to claim a “lot of people are talking about … the fact that he was born in Canada and he has had a double passport.”

Cruz, whose campaign declined to comment, was born in Calgary in 1971. Although his father Rafael was not an American citizen at the time, his Delaware-born mother, Eleanor, was. Article II of the US constitution requires that “no person except a natural born Citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

And from the Dennis Rodman of Republican spokesbimbos, we have:

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter, who once dismissed birthers as “cranks,” suggested Wednesday that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) may be ineligible for the presidency because he is not a “natural born citizen.”

In a series of tweets, Coulter, an ardent anti-immigration advocate, suggested that Cruz was not a “natural born citizen,” a requirement to run for President outlined in the Constitution:

I’m amused.

Awww ……… Bernie is Picking on Donald

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When Bernie Sanders speaks, Donald Trump listens:

Donald Trump, billionaire Republican presidential frontrunner, has changed his mind about wages: Americans aren’t earning enough. He’s also not keen on Wall Street. The shift has Trump on a collision course with Democrat Bernie Sanders – while oddly agreeing with many of his points.

“Wages in are [sic] country are too low, good jobs are too few, and people have lost faith in our leaders. We need smart and strong leadership now!” Trump tweeted on Monday.

The opinion appeared to reverse what the Republican frontrunner said in November during the fourth Republican debate. Asked if he was sympathetic to the protesters demanding a $15-an-hour minimum wage, Trump said: “I can’t be.”


“[T]axes too high, wages too high, we’re not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave [the minimum wage] the way it is,” Trump said at the time. “People have to go out, they have to work really hard and have to get into that upper stratum. But we cannot do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. We just can’t do it.”

Sanders, a senator from Vermont and self-described socialist, used those comments to criticize Trump while appearing on CBS Face the Nation on Sunday.

………

In his Monday morning tweets, Trump touched on these topics – noting that wages had barely grown in the past few years.

“The middle-class has worked so hard, are not getting the kind of jobs that they have long dreamed of – and no effective raise in years. BAD,” Trump tweeted. “Many of the great jobs that the people of our country want are long gone, shipped to other countries. We now are part time, sad! I WILL FIX!”

………

Trump’s recent comments on wages come as he has also stepped up his disparagement of Wall Street – characterizing hedge funds as “getting away with murder”. His comments have drawn puzzlement from bankers familiar with the financing of the presidential candidate’s business empire.

Well, now we know who, and what, scares Donald Trump.

Bernie Sanders Nails It

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Writing in the New York Times, Bernie Sanders talks about the elephant in the room, that the Federal Reserve has been completely captured by the financial industry:

Wall Street is still out of control. Seven years ago, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department bailed out the largest financial institutions in this country because they were considered too big to fail. But almost every one is bigger today than it was before the bailout. If any were to fail again, taxpayers could be on the hook for another bailout, perhaps a larger one this time.

To rein in Wall Street, we should begin by reforming the Federal Reserve, which oversees financial institutions and which uses monetary policy to maintain price stability and full employment. Unfortunately, an institution that was created to serve all Americans has been hijacked by the very bankers it regulates.

The recent decision by the Fed to raise interest rates is the latest example of the rigged economic system. Big bankers and their supporters in Congress have been telling us for years that runaway inflation is just around the corner. They have been dead wrong each time. Raising interest rates now is a disaster for small business owners who need loans to hire more workers and Americans who need more jobs and higher wages. As a rule, the Fed should not raise interest rates until unemployment is lower than 4 percent. Raising rates must be done only as a last resort — not to fight phantom inflation.

What went wrong at the Fed? The chief executives of some of the largest banks in America are allowed to serve on its boards. During the Wall Street crisis of 2007, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive and chairman of JPMorgan Chase, served on the New York Fed’s board of directors while his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed. Next year, four of the 12 presidents at the regional Federal Reserve Banks will be former executives from one firm: Goldman Sachs.

Just read it.

Sanders Campaign Gets Data Access Back

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It sounds like the DNC blinked, notwithstanding their protestations to the contrary:

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign overnight Friday night reached an agreement on voter data access, after a day of acrimony between the sides.

Even in the wake of a deal, the DNC and Sanders’ team have differing stories on how it was settled.

In a statement shortly after midnight, the Sanders campaign said the DNC “capitulated and agreed to reinstate Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign’s access to a critically-important voter database.”

The statement said that the campaign’s filing of a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Washington brought about the change.

“We are extremely pleased that the DNC has reversed its outrageous decision to take Sen. Sanders’ data. The information we provided tonight is essentially the same information we already sent them by email on Thursday,” said Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver.

In a statement released at about the same time, DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz explained the resolution differently, saying it came after the Sanders camp “complied with the DNC’s request to provide the information that we have requested of them.”

“The Sanders campaign has agreed to fully cooperate with the continuing DNC investigation of this breach,” she added.

“The fact that data was accessed inappropriately is completely unacceptable, and the DNC expects each campaign to operate with integrity going forward with respect to the voter file.”

I don’t think that anyone with a Glasgow Coma Scale score above 3 believes DWS on this one.

Once the lawsuit was filed, and it was clear that the DNC was violating the terms of the contract, there was a 10 day waiting period required before taking action, and that the optics were rebounding to Sanders’ benefit, they had no choice.

Could someone please fire the frowzy headed albatross around the Democratic Party’s neck that is Debbie Wasserman Schultz?

Live Blogging the Democratic Debates

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Note:  If you are seeing this of Facebook, it will not update as I update.

10:50 pm
Hillary ended her closing statement with, “May the force be with you.”
That is f%$#ing awesome.

10:49 pm
Closing statements:
Bernie Sanders: Talked about his background, growing up poor, and how it shaped is opinions on the economy, education, etc.
Martin O’Malley: Republicans will do nothing the make the country, endorses path to citizenship for undocumented, we must act on climate change.
Hillary Clinton: Republicans are scary and evil assholes.  I just became a grandmother, and think about her future.

10:37 pm
Martin O’Malley just talked about his wife Katie in glowing terms when he got to talk about the first spouse thing, extolling her lawyering, judging, and advocacy against domestic violence.
He is so getting laid tonight.

10:36 pm
What the F%$#?
A question about the role of the first spouse, and talked about Bill Clinton not supervising flower arrangements?
What the F%$#ing F%$#?

10:33 pm
Radditz just asked about the mess that is Libya, and how much blame she bears for that.Clinton’s reply was not particularly meaningful, and Radditz basically repeated her question.
Neither Sanders or O’Malley are saying that they need to talk, because they recognize that she is digging herself a hole.
Sanders finally gets to talk, and notes, once again, that the unintended consequences of regime change are tend to be disastrous.
O’Malley, says that we let our, “Lust for regime change,” to override our ability manage the situation.

10:26 pm
A Union-Leader editor just asked Sanders how to handle the recent Heroine epidemic.
Sanders response is that we need to look at doctors and pharmaceutical companies and the over prescription of opiates, and that addiction is a disease, not a a crime, and that it is immoral for addicts to wait months for treatment.
Hillary talks about how this was brought up to her at her talks in New Hampshire (good move), and largely agrees with Sanders.
O’Malley talks about the loss of a daughter and a mother of his friends to addiction.  It is a human and touching moment.
He also specifically talked about how we need to have interventions from the first time that someone hits a hospital with addiction problems.

10:20 pm
They ask Hillary Clinton about racism and law enforcement misconduct.
Clinton talked primarily about rebuilding trust between the police and the populace.
O’Malley talked about how he worked to fix Baltimore when he was mayor (IMNSHO, too aggressive policing) and that he reduced incarceration as governor.
O’Malley went there, saying that police forces need to be more open and accountable.
Sanders notes that we are a prison society, with the highest incarceration in the history of history.  He said that racism is real.
He then said that cops should not shoot unarmed civilians, and that we should legalize pot, and end the war on drugs, “Spend more on jobs and education, not incarceration.”

10:10 pm
Another break, and the talking heads come on (Stephanopoulos and Karl, not David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison, the band Talking Heads make a comment would be cool)
I screamed, “SHUT UP GEORGE!”

10:08 pm
Clinton is trying to say that people earning a $¼ million a year are middle class who must not pay a few bucks more a week for health care and family leave.
Sanders again notes that his proposals would be a net saver for the middle class.
O’Malley noted that he balanced all his budgets (a bit of a fib, it’s required in the state constitution, not a choice) and that he made taxes more progressive (true)

10:05 pm
Quote of the night.  When Sanders and Clinton get into it on taxes, Bernie says, “Oh, now this is getting fun.”

10:04 pm
They switch to education, and call out an educators ask Sanders how free tuition won’t just load up the taxpayers.
Sanders goes back to his Tobin tax.
O’Malley says, “I have actually done this,” as Governor.  Point, O’Malley.
Clinton talks about her educational compact, and then says that Sanders single payer is unaffordable.
Sanders replied how the costs of healthcare are born by the ordinary people, and that single payer will save them money,

9:57 pm
We move to healthcare, Hillary is asked about increases in healthcare prices.
She talks about needing new regulations, and calls out governors who opted out of Medicaid expansion.
Sanders still calls for single payer.  He says that everyone should have the right to health coverage.  Martha Radditz demands to know the exact amount of tax increases, and Sanders replied that ordinary family will save thousands of dollars a year.

9:52 pm
Sanders calls out Bill Clinton’s role in repealing Glass-Steagall and deregulating the financial industry.

9:50 pm
Clinton just  made a little fib:  She said that she had more donations from teachers and students than she has from Wall Street.  There may be more $20 dollar checks from teachers, but the banksters cut bigger checks, and gave her more money.

9:48 pm
Hillary is asked about what she would do, and who should like her.  Her response, “Everyone.”
Sanders explicitly says that big business will not like him.  He wants the big banks up, and says that the greed of the billionaire class are destroying the economy and people’s lives.
O’Malley just called out Hillary Clinton for invoking 911 to excuse her support for the big banks.
Charlie just said, “I want O’Malley to be Bernie Sanders’ running mate.”

9:43 pm
Clinton was a little late coming back from the break.  She apologized, and Charlie, my son, said, “This is the most entertaining she has been all night.”
Sanders is asked about middle class stagnation, and he listed them off quickly:

  • Increase to minimum wage
  • A Tobin tax on speculation to make public college free.

O’Malley noted how he has walked the walk, raising Maryland’s minimum wage, and having the highest median wage in the nation.
Clinton basically calls out the Republicans, doing the front runner again.

9:33 pm
I’m watching a break, and the f%$#ing talking heads have taken advantage of the beak to have George Stephanopoulos and Jonathan Karl bloviating.
Please, run ads instead.

9:27 pm
Clinton just said that we have to remove Assad first.   (Gawd, her foreign policy sucks)
Sanders notes that her priorities are wrong, and that we need to focus on ISIS, and that Assad is a distraction.
O’Malley notes that Clinton is engaging in cold war thinking, where we pick and choose who we want to overthrow.  Has a great quote, “It is not our role to roam the world looking for monsters to destroy.

9:21 pm
Sanders is asked about ISIS, and he says that the US should not be the policemen of the world.
He called out Saudi Arabia and Qatar for not dealing with ISIS.  He specifically called out the war in Yemen, and Qatar’s profligate spending on the world cup.
Clinton was asked whether we are already on the ground, as we lost a special forces member there, and there are more special forces on the ground.
She denied that this is an escalation, and Martha Radditz suggested that our current actions will lead to an escalation.
Radditz asked O’Malley about his accusations of lack of adequate human intelligence in the region.
O’Malley makes note that we are under resourcing foreign policy, and sustainable development.
Clinton replies that she is still arguing for a no-fly zone.  Again, stupid.  A no-fly zone is declare war against Syria.
Gawd, she is stupidly bellicose in her foreign policy.
Sanders noted that Clinton is too eager for regime change, and does not consider the blowback.
He notes that we have created vacuums have created safe havens for terrorists.

9:10 pm
Clinton is asked about a Syrian refugee ban, and goes full weasel, and says nothing of note.
O’Malley calls the talk of a Refugee ban a betrayal of American values.

9:07 pm
Clinton is asked about banning encryption, and suggests a “Manhattan like Project for Tech.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
If law enforcement has access, then the companies have access, then the crooks have access.
O’Malley was asked, and said that we should not asked to give up our rights for security.

9:03 pm
Clinton is asked of Trump supporters are wrong.
She just called him ISIS’s best recruiter directly.
Sanders comes back with the fact that Trump is using hatred and bigotry to rip off ordinary people.
O’Malley objects to being ignored again.

8:59 pm
Clinton claims that O’Malley mischaracterized her positions.
I would note that Clinton is clearly playing the front-runner in her debate strategey.

8:56 pm
Clinton is asked why she supports gun control when many Americans want more guns.
Clinton shot this down, noted that she does not feel that this is helpful.
She also went after Trump, essentially calling him an ISIS recruiting tool.
Sanders was then asked about guns, and he said that wants better background checks and an end tyo the gun show loophole.  More significantly, he came out for an assault weapons ban, which is a big deal.
Martin O’Malley had to break in to note that he actually passed gun control laws, and noted that Sanders voted against the Brady bill, and that Clinton has flip flopped on this issue.
He scored a good point when he said that ISIS propaganda videos suggest buying from gun shows.
Sanders got pissed off, and noted his record.

8:48 pm
The moderators bring up the San Bernardino attack, asking Hillary Clinton.
She calls for an American led air campaign with Arab and Kurd boots on the ground.  (Hasn’t work so far)
She also talks about working with the tech companies, which sounds a lot like carrots and sticks to get them to look through our personal statements.
O’Malley brings up that we have failed to invest in intelligence, and brought up his close ties to first responders, and increase data sharing.
Sanders told by the moderators that 78% of the population believes the government cannot defend against lone wolf terrorists.  Sanders agreed, and noted that it was a fruit our our ill considered Iraq invasion.

8:43 pm
The moderators started with a question on the data breach issues (FYI).
Bernie Sanders was very forthcoming, noted that there have been repeated problems with the way that the data is (mishandled) the data.
He admitted that his staff did the wrong thing, and that he would fire anyone involved in this breach.
When he asked, he apologized immediately to Clinton.
Clinton was reasonably gracious in reply.
O’Malley condemned the whole thing as a distraction from the issues, and brought up terrorism again.

8:38 pm
Clinton, then O’Malley, and then Sanders.
Clinton did a fairly generic opening that leaned on her inevitabiliuty, and claimed that she had a plan to defeat ISIS.
O’Malley went big on national security and terrorism.  Oh, snap!  O’Malley called Trump out as a fascist, though not by name.
Sanders opened with his fairly standard positions: Changing the economy to benefit us all, moving away from fossil fuels, and he said that our foreign policy needs to change

8:32 pm
Skipped the 30 minutes of talking heads, they walked on the stage and are about to start the opening statements.

Antonin Scalia is Too Extreme for ……… Donald Trump?

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This is strange beyond belief:

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump says he does not agree with comments from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia questioning the efficacy of affirmative action.

“I don’t like what he said, no, I don’t like what he said. I heard him, I was like, ‘Let me read it again,’ because I actually read it in print, and I’m going, I read a lot of stuff, and I’m going, ‘Woah,’ ” Trump said in an interview televised Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The billionaire said he thought Scalia’s comments were “very tough to the African-American community.”

Trump, who has supported affirmative action in the past but declined to say whether he was in favor of it today, said he has great friendships with black people.

“I have great African-American friendships,” he said. “I have just amazing relationships. And so many positive things have happened.”

We f%$#ing live in f%$#ing Bizarro World.

I think that this was an authentic statement from Trump, but honestly, I’m not sure when he is sincere, and when he is just trolling.

F%$# Donald Trump for Making Boris Johnson Look Wise

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The fact that Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, who can best be described as little more than a life support system for his hair, can appear wise when talking about Donald Trump is an indication of just how wrong and disturbing the whole phenomenon of Trump’s political ascendance is:

London’s mayor, the conservative politician Boris Johnson, also chimed in.

“As a city where more than 300 languages are spoken, London has a proud history of tolerance and diversity and to suggest there are areas where police officers cannot go because of radicalization is simply ridiculous,” he said.

“The only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump,” Johnson quipped.

We live in Bizarro World.

Be Afraid. Be Very, Very Afraid

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Over at the Washington Post, Paul Schwartzman and Jenna Johnson look at the Trump Campaign, and they discover that there is actually a very sophisticated and measured messaging process, not the shoot from the lip perception of “The Donald”:

He referred to Mexicans as “rapists,” questioned Sen. John McCain’s status as a war hero, ridiculed the physical appearance of his opponents, falsely claimed that “thousands” in New Jersey cheered as the World Trade Center fell and, this week, called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.

Despite predictions that such searing, divisive rhetoric and the resulting outcry would cripple his campaign, Donald Trump’s insults and controversial proposals have propelled him to the forefront of the 2016 presidential race — and kept him there.

And while it may seem like a lurching, chaotic campaign, Trump is, for the most part, a disciplined and methodical candidate, according to a Washington Post review of the businessman’s speeches, interviews and thousands of tweets and retweets over the past six months.

Trump delivers scores of promises, diatribes and insults at breakneck speed. He attacks a regular cast of villains including undocumented immigrants, Muslims, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, his GOP rivals and the media. He keeps the narrative arc of each controversy alive with an endless stream of statements, an unwillingness to back down even when he has misstated the facts — and a string of attacks against those who criticize him.

All the while, his supporters see a truth-talking problem solver unlike the traditional politicians who have let them down. Spending remarkably little, he dominates yet another news cycle, and his Republican rivals languish in his shadow.

………

The Post’s analysis found several qualities to Trump’s approach. First is a pattern of experimentation that suggests that he is testing his insults and attacks as he goes along. Like a team of corporate marketers, Trump understands the value of message-testing — but he appears to do it spontaneously, behind the lectern and on live television.

It appears that there is a method to this madness.

To me this is a hell of a lot scarier than him being some loud mouth who accidentally captured the Zeitgeist of the Republican Party, because it means that the next time, it could be worse.

Of Course, Jeb(!) Bush Floats a Conspiracy Theory. That’s All He Has Left.

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It appears that in an attempt to regain relevance, Jeb(!) Bush has made the accusation that Trump’s campaign is a rat-f%$#ing orchestrated by Hillary Clinton:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush responded to a poll promoted by Donald Trump — which showed the billionaire holding on to 68 percent of his supporters if he ran as an independent — by floating the theory that the GOP frontrunner’s candidacy might be a false flag operation planted by Hillary Clinton.

The tweet may have been in jest, and otherwise Bush has been one of the more vocal critics among the 2016 field of Trump’s hardline stances that including banning Muslims from entering the U.S. (Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus — who persuaded Trump to sign a loyalty pledge to the GOP — said he didn’t agree with the Muslim ban, but refused to criticize Trump further.)

Maybe Donald negotiated a deal with his buddy @HillaryClinton. Continuing this path will put her in the White House. https://t.co/AlvByiSrMn

— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) December 8, 2015

Hillary and her Evil Minions™ aren’t that smart.

More importantly, they are not tight lipped enough to pull it off.

If Clinton had done this, someone in her campaign would have already gone to the press claiming that they were the genius behind this.

Well, This Is One F%$# of a Campaign Slogan………

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Too Evil for Dick Cheney.

Seriously, it is a complete mindf%$# that the Donald has plumbed depths that Dick Cheney recoils from in horror:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is joining a chorus of voices slamming GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s proposal to bar Muslims from entering the U.S.

“I think this whole notion that somehow we can just say no more Muslims, just ban a whole religion, goes against everything we stand for and believe in,” Cheney told radio host Hugh Hewitt.

“I mean, religious freedom has been a very important part of our history and where we came from,” Cheney added during Monday’s interview.

This is so wrong, and so weird, that I am at a complete loss for words.

The New York Times Uses the “L” Word

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By the “L” word, I mean that the Times is calling Donald Trump a liar, and they are actually using that word:

America has just lived through another presidential campaign week dominated by Donald Trump’s racist lies. Here’s a partial list of false statements: The United States is about to take in 250,000 Syrian refugees; African-Americans are responsible for most white homicides; and during the 9/11 attacks, “thousands and thousands” of people in an unnamed “Arab” community in New Jersey “were cheering as that building was coming down.”

In the Republican field, Mr. Trump has distinguished himself as fastest to dive to the bottom. If it’s a lie too vile to utter aloud, count on Mr. Trump to say it, often. It wins him airtime, and retweets through the roof.

It’s nice that they are calling a lie a lie, but there are a lot of other cases where the word, “lie”is completely justified.

It be a real public service if they were to call other liars out in no uncertain terms.

Not This Sh%$ AGain!

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Once again, after seeing the continued popularity of Donald Trump amongst the Republican party base, the punditry reach into their bag, and pull out Willard Mitt Rmoney. Give me a f%$#ing break:

Huge congratulations to Suffolk University and the Boston Globe for crafting a poll in New Hampshire that actually offers an interesting bit of news. The story of the Republican primary in the state has largely been the same for months, with Donald Trump holding a steady and robust lead. In the Real Clear Politics polling average, he’s up 15 points. In Suffolk’s new poll, he’s up 10 — but with a healthy-sized number of undecideds.



But then Suffolk and the Globe added something to the mix. If we added Mitt Romney to the list, they asked, would you switch to him? For 30 percent of respondents, the answer was “yes.” Romney leads all other Republicans by a two-to-one margin. Trump loses a third of his support.

Seriously, can we give this a rest?

Rmoney is popular because He is Not Running., and as soon as he joined the race, he would be forced to fall into lockstep with the batsh%$ insane wing of the party base, and we would be back to where we started.

The depressing thing about this is that on the other side of the aisle, the favored candidate of the pundit class, Hillary Clinton is the weakest candidate against “The Donald.”  (Yes, the polling shows that O’Malley even though a cipher to most voters polls slightly better against Trump.)

So, it’s “insane” to  nominate Donald trump, but the only sane thing for the Democrats to do is nominate the candidate that he is most likely to beat.

Could the pundit class please go Cheney themselves?