National Review Eviscerates Donald Trump's Candidacy

On a less disturbing note - although it demonstrates how insane the Republican Party has become - the National Review (hardly a liberal outlet) is carrying a piece that utterly eviscerates Donald Trump and his narcissistic campaign circus.  Reports now are out that trump paid actors $50 a piece to attend his so-called campaign announcement.  Here are column highlights:

Donald Trump may be the man America needs. Having been through four bankruptcies, the ridiculous buffoon with the worst taste since Caligula is uniquely positioned to lead the most indebted organization in the history of the human race.

The Trump conglomerate is the Argentina of limited-liability companies, having been in bankruptcy as recently as 2009. To be sure, a lot of companies went bankrupt around then. The Trump gang went bankrupt in 2004, too, and in 2001. Before that, Trump was in bankruptcy court back in 1991 when his Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City — the nation’s first casino-cum-strip-club, an aesthetic crime against humanity that is tacky by the standards of Atlantic City — turned out to be such a loser that Trump could not make his debt payments.

Donald Trump, being Donald Trump, announced his candidacy at Trump Plaza, making a weird grand entrance via escalator — going down, of course, the symbolism of which is lost on that witless ape. But who could witness that scene — the self-made man who started with nothing but a modest portfolio of 27,000 New York City properties acquired by his millionaire slumlord father, barely out of his latest bankruptcy and possibly headed for another one as the casino/jiggle-joint bearing his name sinks into the filthy mire of the one U.S. city that makes Las Vegas look respectable, a reality-television grotesque with his plastic-surgery-disaster wife, grunting like a baboon about our country’s “brand” and his own vast wealth — and not see the peerless sign of our times?

On the substance, Trump is — how to put it gently? Oh, why bother! — an ass. Not just an ass, but an ass of exceptionally intense asininity.

Trump’s is a fill-in-the-blanks agenda: He claims to have a plan for defeating ISIS, but he cannot say what it is for reasons of operational security for the mission that exists only in his mind. He assures us the plan is “foolproof,” but whoever coined that word had never met a fool like Donald Trump. Immigration? Build a wall and force the Mexicans to pay for it.

We’ve been to this corner of Crazytown before. If we’re going to have a billionaire dope running for the presidency, I prefer Ross Perot and his cracked tales of Vietnamese hit squads dispatched to take him out while Lee Atwater plotted to crash his daughter’s wedding with phonied-up lesbian sex pictures.

The problem with messiah complexes is that there’s no way to know whether you are going to rise on the third day unless somebody crucifies you. Trump has announced, and I say we get started on that.

If the above hasn't made you laugh enough, check out Cher's twitter comments on "The Donald" here.

Cher Tells Russia/Putin to Shove It, Turns Down Offer to Do Opening of 2014 Olympics

I have been a fan of Cher for a long, long time.  I of an age where I remember when she and Sonny Bono first appeared on television in the 1960's.  She has her detractors (especially among the Christofascist set), but she has never been afraid to speak her mind and she stood by Chaz Bono when he transitioned with no reluctance.  Now, she indicates that she was asked to a main act for the opening ceremonies for the 2014 Winter Olympics and she said no.  She will not go to an anti-gay country like Russia.  Hopefully, other major acts will follow suit and refuse to perform in Russia and make it perfectly clear why Russia has become a country to be avoided.  Russian may pretend that they don't care, but Russia has a long history of wanting to be accepted as a fully modern and western country.  When major stars and cultural exchanges refuse to visit, it will make a difference in the longer term.  I hope it ultimate bites Vladimir Putin in the ass big time.  Here are story highlights:

Her voice—that famous contralto—has kept Cher on the Billboard charts, on TV and in films for more than five decades. She is one of only 16 people on the planet to be part of the EGO club—a rarefied circle of performers who have won an Emmy, a Grammy and an Oscar. And a Tony win may be in the cards in the future as she plans to stage a Broadway musical about her life. Her 26th album, Closer to the Truth, due out Sept. 24, comes more than a decade after her last full-length disc. Already, her latest single, Woman’s World, has made it to the Billboard dance club songs chart—her eighth No. 1 hit.  

Q: What do you think about what’s going on in Russia right now?

A: I can’t name names but my friend called who is a big oligarch over there, and asked me if I’d like to be an ambassador for the Olympics and open the show. I immediately said no. I want to know why all of this gay hate just exploded over there. He said the Russian people don’t feel the way the government does.