Category: Presidential Campaign

Bobby Jindal: That guy’s brain is a bag full of cats. You can smell crazy on him.

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It does seem to be the day for rmorally bankrupt and batsh%$ insane tripe to pour our of the mouth of Republican candidates today.

In this case, the always reprehensible Piyush “Bobby” Jindal, who takes victim blaming to grieving parent who has tried to make sense of the evil that his child committed:

If, after last week’s shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, you held the gunman responsible, Bobby Jindal thinks you’ve missed the mark.

On Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Jindal published a self-described “sermon” on his campaign website, addressing what he believes are the root causes of mass shootings. These causes include, but are not limited to, “cultural decay,” violent video games, absent fathers, and the general devaluing of human life.

“It’s the old computer axiom—garbage in, garbage out,” Jindal wrote. “We fill our culture with garbage, and we reap the result.”

Jindal also lashed out at the shooter’s father, who has called for gun control in the wake of his son’s rampage. “He’s a complete failure as a father, he should be embarrassed to even show his face in public,” Jindal wrote. “He’s the problem here.

This is remarkably awful, even to the degree that ammosexuals blame the victims (as in the Newtown Massacre), this is repulsive, evil, and delusional to a degree that puts the rest of the Republican Presidential field to shame.

Seriously?!?!?! “Go to the Next One” Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

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Presidential Candidate, Neurosurgeon, and poster child for the batsh%$ insane Ben Carson has eschewed visiting the victims and the families of the victims of the Umpqua Community College shooting.

He basically said that he was too busy running for President.

I can understand how he’s being honest, but then he says that he, “Would Go to the Next One.”

So he’s maintaining that there is no problem with easy access to firearms, and that his way of dealing with the (literally) daily mass shooting is that he, “Would go to the next one.”

Un-dirtyword-believable.

Then Fox’s Brian Kilmeade asked if, like Obama, Carson would would still travel to visit victims’ families despite some residents protests of grandstanding, to which Carson replied all too casually:

Probably not. I mean, I would probably have so many things on my agenda that I would go to the next one.

So Carson doesn’t have faith in any sort of regulation to stop the massacres that that have become all too routine in this country, nor does he apparently believe that anything can stop them ever.

Did this guy somehow acquire Mad Cow Disease?

The Mask Slips

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The leading candidate to replace John Boehner as speaker, Kevin McCarthy just accidentally told the truth about the House’s Benghazi investigations:

So now we know: One of the principal reasons Republicans spent so much public money investigating the tragic Benghazi episode was to bring down Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the likely successor to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), told Fox News’s Sean Hannity explicitly on Tuesday night that the Clinton investigation was part of a “strategy to fight and win.”

He explained: “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.”

The Republican-led House hasn’t been particularly good at governing, but perhaps governing has never been the point. Why govern when there’s a future election to influence?

That the Benghazi investigation is a crock of sh%$ is not a surprise.

That a Republican party leader basically admitted that it was all a politically motivated freak show on a public program is a bit of a surprise.

Maybe Ron Paul Should Hit Marco Rubio with a Folding Chair at the next Debate

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Looks to me like a sucker punch

Because if Rubio’s staff is going WWE Raw on Paul’s Staff, responding in kind might be well advised:

Video footage appears to show a top official for the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio punching the national political director of a rival candidate, Rand Paul.

The incident is alleged to have occurred during a conference on a Michigan island on Thursday night.

In a Facebook post early on Friday morning, John Yob, a Michigan-based political consultant who serves as national political director for the Paul campaign, said Rubio’s deputy campaign manager, Rich Beeson, punched him in a downtown bar on Mackinac Island.

“I ran into a guy named Rich Beeson, who frankly I didn’t even know who it was at first because he isn’t relevant in our political world,” Yob said.

“He literally physically assaulted me by punching me in the face. The state police are looking for him. I have it on video from multiple angles. This will play out in the national media in the next few hours.”

Shannon Banner, spokesperson for Michigan state police, told the Guardian it was not involved in the investigation, which is being handled by the Mackinac Island police department.

“It wasn’t a brawl,” the Mackinac Island police chief, Brett Riccinto, told the Guardian on Friday. “If anything, it was a shove. Literally, it was a shove. This thing has been blown way, way, way out of proportion.”

Riccinto, however, said a complaint had been made for assault, and it had been forwarded to the prosecutor to decide if charges would be filed. He confirmed the alleged incident occurred at Horn’s Gaslight Bar & Restaurant.

It really is the silly season in Republican politics.

Quote of the Day

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“I’d rather go to Iraq than work for Carly Fiorina again,” said one high-level former campaign staffer, who asked not to be identified, citing disclosure restrictions in his contract.

Carly Fiorina, who’s net worth is something north of $50 million, stiffed her campaign workers in her 2010 Senate (Demon Sheep) campaign.

BTW, not getting paid by a political candidate is something that happens now and again, the amount of outright hatred expressed rivals that of long time Hewlett Packard employees.

It’s not about getting stiffed. She must have been absolute hell to work for.

Think about this: Donald f%$#ing Trump doesn’t have employees ratting him out like this, and neither does Hillary Clinton, and if any of her former employees were willing to right a tell all, they would get a seven figure advance. (Even more if they were willing to mention “Benghazi.” )

 It really is remarkable how people like her (I mean high powered executives, not Republicans in this case) keep failing up the business food chain.

H/t Digby at Salon for the quote.

More of This

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Hillary Clinton just compared the Talibaptist wing of the Republican to the Taliban, and she used the T-Word (Terrorist), and the whiny bitches in the Republican Party are having a sad:

Hillary Rodham Clinton likened Republican presidential candidates to fundamentalist terrorists with brutal or repressive views about women on Thursday, a significant escalation of her rhetoric about GOP positions on abortion that her campaign sees as a major vulnerability in the general election.

“Extreme views about women? We expect that from some of the terrorist groups. We expect that from people who don’t want to live in the modern world,” Clinton said. “But it’s a little hard to take coming from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States.”

Clinton did not say which terrorist or militant groups she meant as a comparison. Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria have held women as sex slaves and chattel, while the Taliban in Afghanistan refused to allow girls to attend school.

“They espouse out of date and out of touch policies,” Clinton said of the current Republican field. “They are dead wrong for 21st Century America. We’re going forward. We’re not going back.”

Republicans have spent the past 50 years describing Democrats as fellow travelers of Communists, terrorists, feminists, etc., who are determined to destroy America.

Now that a major Democratic Party justifiably observes that Republicans want to turn the United States into Saudi Arabia on social issues, they are lamenting the loss of civility in politics.

They need to go Cheney themselves.

The Best Case of, “Our Work is Done Here,” this Presidential Campaign

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The “Stop Chris Christie” PAC has closed its doors.

It appears that they believe that, through the efforts of Chris Christie, they have been rendered redundant:

A super PAC opposing Chris Christie’s (R) presidential bid said Tuesday that it planned to shut down, citing the New Jersey governor’s poor performance in the polls.

The treasurer of the Stop Chris Christie PAC, Thomas Bjorkland, made the announcement in response to a letter from the Federal Election Commission that warned the super PAC must change its name or else clarify the nature of the committee. Bjorkland wrote in a letter to the FEC that “based on recent polling and the miserable showing of the candidate in question,” the committee decided to instead wind down its operations.

That’s some sweet Schadenfreude.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

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Even as his campaign has shown remarkable staying power, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is dogged by the perception that there isn’t much to him beneath the bluster and the glitz. But he may have inadvertently steered the race into important territory, at least when it comes to Wall Street and taxes.

In interviews over the last several days, Trump made blistering comments about inhabitants of a corner of the financial industry who have grown accustomed to criticism. “I know a lot of bad people in this country that are making a hell of a lot of money and not paying taxes,” Trump said in an interview with Time, in apparent reference to hedge fund and private equity fund managers. “The tax law is totally screwed up.”

“They’re paying nothing and it’s ridiculous,” he added on CBS a few days later. “The hedge fund guys didn’t build this country. These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky.” He went on: “They’re energetic, they’re very smart. But a lot of them, it’s like they’re paper pushers. They make a fortune, they pay no tax…The hedge funds guys are getting away with murder.”

“The hedge fund guys didn’t build this country. These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky.”

Donald Trump is in agreement with me, and with Bernie Sanders, and Barack Obama that the carried interest loophole is bullsh%$, and it needs to be repealed immediately.

Let me be clear about this, Donald Trump is a bigoted nativist, or at least he does a remarkable job of playing on on TV, but a lot of Trumps positions, whether about welfare for hedge funds, social security, or healthcare (see my earlier previous post) he is literally the best Republican in the race right now.

As I’ve said before, Trump is not a political outlier.  This is the Dixicrat politics of Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, and Theodore Bilbo.

I Wish that Heath Ledger Were Alive and Playing Donald Trump in a Biopic

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It would be glorious.

I’m not sure whether Heath Ledger channeled Donald Trump in his glorious performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight, of if Donald Trump is channeling Ledger’s Academy Award winning performance, but I definitely see the Joker in Trump’s eyes.

I didn’t realize this until I saw the Joker meme image on the Internet.

It is “The Donald”.

H/t DC at Stellar Parthenon for the image.

Damn! Genuine Emotions………

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One of the criticism of Hillary Clinton is that she is, or comes across as artificial and emotionally detached.

She was talking about the shootings today, and as this clip from CSPAN shows, she appears to be genuine and emotionally attached to the issue of sane gun laws.

If she wants the win the nomination, she needs to can the “Ice Queen” bullsh%$ and show more of this.

Another Reason to Support Bernie Sanders

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In a rally a few days ago, the distinguished gentleman from Vermont has said that he will be introducing legislation to ban private for profit prisons:

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is taking his criminal justice reform platform from the campaign trail to the Senate with a plan to introduce legislation outlawing private prisons when Congress returns from August recess.

Daily Kos first noted that at his Reno, Nevada, rally on Tuesday night, the Independent senator told a gathered crowd of 4,500 supporters that “when Congress reconvenes in September, I will be introducing legislation, which takes corporations out of profiteering from running jails.”

Sanders, who is opposed to building any new prisons, has long advocated against draconian sentencing laws, voting in favor of investments in alternative sentencing and telling the Nevada crowd that he also plans to tackle mandatory minimums for certain crimes:

We want to deal with minimum sentencing. Too many lives have been destroyed for non-violent issues. People that are sent to jail have police records. We have got to change that. Our job is to keep people out of jail, not in jail.

Our system of private gulags is deeply and ineluctably evil.

They serve to create a system where taxpayer money goes to increased incarceration by private companies, who then use political contributions to secure their rents.

It is thoroughly corrupt, and it needs to end now.

F%$# Me! I Agree with Bill Kristol!

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Though for completely different reasons.

You see, while lamenting the weakness of the Republican field, something that I laud, Bill Kristol made a suggestion for a Presidential candidate:

But all this is a sideshow. I present to you now the most correct thing that Bill Kristol will ever write:

And there are distinguished conservative leaders from outside politics; Justice Samuel Alito…

Let me be clear: I cannot possibly endorse this more strongly. Alito should run. He should be the nominee. The discussion should be over. And needless to say the ticket should be balanced with the nation’s most prominent African-American conservative. ALITO/THOMAS ’16! Make it happen.

I’d love to see Alito run for President.

Anything to get those antediluvian ratf$#@s off the f%$#ing court.

Get a F%$#ing Grip

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I was reading Talking Points Memo, and came across a very overwrought article titled, “Christie And Cruz Hammer Cancer-Stricken Jimmy Carter On The Trail.”

Seriously. This is a bit much.

Cancer or no cancer, it is OK to criticize a former President’s policies.

There is nothing wrong, for example, with my saying that I was stunned to discover that Jeb Bush was the stupid Bush brother, and it is fine to say this regardless of the health status Jeb, or George W., or George H.W. or any of the Bush Crime Family™.

They disagree with the foreign policies of the Carter administration, I do too, but on the opposite side of the issue: They felt that Carter was too unwilling to use military force, while I consider Jimmy Carter to be a war criminal for the evil that he inflicted on Afghanistan.

The validity of these viewpoints has nothing to do with his health.

If they were making jokes about his cancer, I could see a cause for outrage, but this is a different kettle of fish.

Well, Duh!

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Over at The New Republic, Andrea Flynn states the obvious, that “Carly Fiorina Is a Trojan Horse in the GOP’s War on Women.”

Her record in politics is one of failure, and her record in business is one of fraud and failure, so the only reason that she would be a more credible candidate than, for example, Limberbutt McCubins, a Tabby cat from Kentucky is that her double-x chromosome gives the Republicans some (not particularly) plausible deniability against accusations of engaging in a war on women.

What Is Depressing Is That This Isn’t Even the Craziest Thing Said by a Republican This Week

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The craziest Mother f%$#er in the Republican Presidential contest ……… No, the other one, ……… No, the other one, ……… No, not Donald Trump.

OK, it’s Ben Carson, alright?

Well, the other day, he was talking immigration, and he suggested that we should use missile strikes to secure the border against illegal immigration:

Another day. Someone else surges near the top of the polls. Another nutball comes to the border and loses his mind. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present your current second-place contestant in the Republican presidential derby.

On Wednesday morning, Carson responded to a question about whether he would be open to the possibility of drone strikes on American soil to secure the border. “The take home point is this. We have excellent military leaders,” he said. “We need to employ their expertise because this is a war we are fighting. That’s the bottom line.”

Look out, El Paso. Sometimes, mistakes are made. Sorry about that junior high that used to be there.

It’s batsh%$ insane, it’s needlessly cruel, and it is is a relentlessly bigoted demonization of the other, but it’s not as bad as deliberately accusing mothers of poisoning their children for free rent.