Donald Trump Is a Crook

A piece in New York Magazine cuts to the chase and addresses what his racist, white supremacist, knuckle dragging supporters - and the Vichy Republicans - simply want to ignore: the man is a crook and has been for years.  Indeed, Trump is a profiteer who is openly abusing his office to enrich himself and his family much in the style of third world despots and Vladimir Putin if on a much lesser scale.  The fact that none of Trump's profiteering bothers the Congressional Republicans underscores just how morally bankrupt the GOP has become. Stealing from the poor to give the very rich now stands side by side with turning a blind eye to Trump's violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution and business practices that only a few years ago would have driven a president from office.  Here are column highlights:

On November 17, 1973, President Richard Nixon delivered a speech that became famous for his self-defeating boast, “I am not a crook.” The windup to the infamous phrase consisted of Nixon defending his aggressive, but legal, tax-avoidance strategies. “I made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service — I have earned every cent,” he insisted. (This was perhaps half-true.) “And in all of my years of public life,” he continued, “I have never obstructed justice.” (This was not true — the year before, Nixon had tried to get the CIA to quash the FBI investigation into Watergate.)

Like Nixon, Donald Trump denies having engaged in obstruction of justice, even though he plainly has (both by asking intelligence agencies to push back against the FBI, according to reports, and by firing the FBI director over the Russia investigation, by Trump’s own admission). Unlike Nixon, Trump does not deny profiting from public service. He does it brazenly and flamboyantly.

If he were a normal president, rather than one who produced calamities at an unprecedented pace, Trump’s open profiteering would receive five-alarm media coverage and threats of impeachment. The Washington Post recently reported that Trump’s budget slashes funding for a wide array of low-income housing programs, the one notable exception being a program that his own firm benefits from. The story connects this shady decision to an even shadier one: Trump’s appointment of Lynne Patton — a wedding planner close to the Trump family who possesses zero relevant experience and who has falsified her résumé — to oversee the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s programs in New York City. That is, Trump is using his budget to suspiciously single out for favoritism a program from which his firm benefits, and then installing a wildly unqualified personal loyalist in a position where she could protect his funding stream. This scandal alone could shake a non-Trump presidency to its foundations.

That it has caused barely a ripple helps to explain why Trump feels emboldened to locate the first fundraiser for his reelection campaign at his hotel in Washington. Trump’s Washington hotel has already raked in cash from lobbyists and government officials, foreign and domestic, seeking to curry favor with the First Family. Trump has gotten away with it because his party has evinced zero interest in restraining him. The GOP Congress has quashed investigations of his profiteering or demands that he produce his tax returns. Now the party elite will literally be suborned at an event conjoining his public duties and the fattening of his own wallet.

History has mostly forgotten what Nixon said after his famous line: “I am not a crook. I have earned everything I have got.” The premise of that statement was that a president who enriches himself through office is a crook. So, what does that make Donald Trump?

Don't Buy Mike Pence's Claims of Innocence

There are many things to find disgusting and reprehensible in the Trump/Pence, not the least of which is Mike Pence who, in his own way is just as dangerous as Der Trumpenführer.  Pence, like Trump, is a pathological liar, except Pence, like most Christofascists, sees lying to protect himself and to advance his theocratic agenda.  Now, Pence is lying to try to convince Americans that he has known nothing of the scandals roiling the flounder Trump regime.  To believe this, however, one has to accept the fact that Pence, as head of the transition team, is utterly incompetent and near brain dead. The truth, of course, is that Pence knows what's going on and is simply trying to save his extremist ass.  It must be remembered that Pence jumped at the vice presidential slot because he was facing likely defeat if he ran for re-election in Indiana's gubernatorial race.  Thus, Pence is a loser and a liar who claims to be a "godly Christian" even though he hitched his future on a thrice married, narcissistic liar who brags about sexual harassing/molesting women.  An op-ed in the Washington Post looks at Pence's lies.  Here are excerpts:

Mike Pence would like you to know that Mike Pence is not involved in any of this. At least that appears to be the message coming from Pence’s allies, and perhaps the vice president himself, as the Trump White House reels from a series of interlocking scandals that threaten all manner of political peril, even potentially an impeachment or resignation that could make Pence the president of the United States.

All of a sudden we’re seeing a wave of articles in which anonymous sources close to Pence tell reporters that he’s completely out of the loop, to use the phrase that then-Vice President George H.W. Bush uttered so memorably when claiming his innocence in the Iran-Contra scandal. But can we believe it?

Nobody tells him anything! How can he possibly have any culpability for administration wrongdoing when he’s barely involved in any of this running-the-government stuff? Sources close to Pence would also like you to know that “Pence was not consulted about the decision to bring on Flynn as the national security adviser in November.” I barely know the guy, I tell ya.

You’ll recall that Flynn was supposedly fired because he told Pence that he didn’t discuss the potential easing of sanctions with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak when he and the ambassador talked multiple times during the campaign, a lie that Pence then repeated to the press. This affront to Pence’s honor was so profound that President Trump had no choice but to give Flynn the boot. 

Flynn was paid half a million dollars to lobby on behalf of Turkey while he was advising the Trump campaign, and in January, on the advice of his lawyer, he retroactively registered as the agent of a foreign government. Though Flynn informed the Trump transition’s legal team of this fact, Pence says that no one told him, despite the fact that he was in charge of the transition.

Pence claimed in March to have just found out about Flynn’s work for Turkey. Yet Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, sent Pence a letter on Nov. 18 going into considerable detail about Flynn’s Turkey connection. As of yesterday, Pence was standing by his assertion that he only learned about it in March.

As leader of the transition, it was Pence’s job to make sure that things such as appointing a national security adviser with troubling ties to foreign governments didn’t happen. So his defense in the Flynn matter comes down to: I was doing a terrible job leading the transition and had no idea what was going on.

That then brings us to the matter of FBI Director James B. Comey’s firing. . . . . We quickly learned, however, that Trump intended to fire Comey all along. Trump said so in an interview with NBC, and Rosenstein confirmed it to senators yesterday when he told them that he was instructed to write the memo after being told that Comey would be fired.

So the initial White House line was a lie, which was only corrected once Trump blurted out the truth. Did Pence know? . . . . if you parse Pence’s words carefully enough, you can come up with an interpretation in which he was being technically accurate despite giving an intentionally misleading impression.

Anyone who has gone to work in this administration risks being tainted with its excesses, its incompetence and its corruption. No one is more at risk than Pence, who plainly harbors presidential ambitions of his own — and might even become president without having to run for the job. So the steady narrative coming from Pence associates —  that he has nothing to do with the parade of horrors issuing from the administration — could be an attempt to inoculate him for some later date when he has to stand before the voters on his own. Sure, I was there, he may say, but I really wasn’t involved with that catastrophe.

If Pence thinks that argument is going to fly, he’s got another thing coming.

Like Trump, Marine Le Pen Keeps Lying and Re-writing History’s

One of the common traits of the political right nowadays, both in America and in Europe is a total disregard for the truth and a desire to rewrite history.  Here in America, the white supremacists of the GOP base conveniently forget the injustices and horrors that took place against minorities - gays included - during the "good old days" that they seek to bring back.  America's past sins are whitewashed away and the myth of American exceptionalism inflated.  Hand in hand with this is a celebration of "traditional Christian belief" with all its bigotry and mistreatment of others.  Something similar is happening in France under the banner of Marine Le Pen and her National Front. Appeals to open racism are the norm and a whitewashing of ugly, inconvenient facts of France's history are underway.  An editorial in the Washington Post calls out Le Pen for her lies and denials of French culpability in the Holocaust.  Here are highlights:

WHEN A front-runner in France’s impending presidential election obliterates history by denying the country’s well- documented complicity in deporting tens of thousands of French and foreign Jews to Nazi death camps, it is clear something sinister is afoot in the birthplace of the Enlightenment.

Characterizing France as a victim rather than a willing and even enthusiastic participant in World War II’s mass liquidation of French and foreign Jews, Marine Le Pen, head of France’s far-right National Front, tried to remove the indelible stain left by that shameful chapter in her country’s history. Instead, she only ensured the stain attached to her own candidacy.

Founded by her father, the racist Holocaust minimizer Jean-Marie Le Pen, the National Front spent several decades mainly at the extremist margins of French politics. Since taking the party’s reins in 2011, Ms. Le Pen has presented herself as a gentler sort of immigrant-bashing nationalist. But, evidently loath to alienate the party’s old guard, she has negated her efforts to detoxify the National Front with dog whistles to the party’s nativist base. With her willfully denialist remarks last weekend, she went even further — squarely into the realm of historical revisionism.

“I think France was not responsible for the Vel d’Hiv,” she said, referring to the Winter Stadium in Paris where more than 13,000 Jews — mostly women and children — were rounded up in July 1942 before being sent to their deaths in Nazi gas chambers. “I think generally, if anyone is responsible, then it is those in power at the time, not France as such. It wasn’t France.” She added that “France has been mistreated, in people’s minds, for years.”

Actually, it was very much France that carried out the stadium roundups — specifically, some 4,500 French police, deployed in pairs, fanning out through the City of Light beginning at dawn on July 16, 1942, and acting on the direct orders of French officials. In all, 13,152 Jews were picked up over five days: 5,919 women, 4,115 children and 3,118 men; nearly all of them were then deported and murdered.
 Following the war, more than 50 years passed before the French government officially acknowledged the nation’s guilt and collaboration in abetting the Holocaust, in which, of 6 million Jews who died, more than 76,000 were deported from France. Nonetheless, denialism and willful historical ignorance have maintained their grip, thanks partly to Mr. Le Pen, who advanced the idea that the Nazi gas chambers were “a detail” of World War II.

[T]he party, which leads in next weekend’s first-round presidential races, according to some opinion polls, hasn’t really been remade, just recast. Ms. Le Pen has made that clear.

Again, it is not lost - at least for me - that those who talk the most about traditional Christian values are the ones who most want to harm and persecute others.  Religion is a pestilence on mankind. 

NARTH Ex-Gay Torture Founder Joseph Nicolosi Dead

Nicolosi - the face of hate and evil

One of the biggest lies promoted by the Christofascists  - and even the Vatican - is the myth that sexual orientation is a "choice" and that through "conversion therapy" or "reparative therapy," gays could become heterosexual.  All gays needed to do was admit their sinful behavior and decide to "change."  One of the high priests of this dishonest campaign was Joseph Nicolosi, a co-founder of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), which peddled the "choice" myth for decades - and made a plush living "treating" desperate gays and getting paid for speaking engagements at Christofascist venues.  As The Daily Beast reports, Nicolosi died today at age 70, leaving behind him a wake of lives damaged - or ended through suicide -  by the foul lies and practices Nicolosi championed.  Here are highlights on the passing of this foul individual:

Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, a co-founder of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) and a prominent figure in the ex-gay movement, has passed away, the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic, where he served as clinical director, confirmed over the phone to The Daily Beast. Nicolosi, 70, was a practitioner of conversion or reparative therapy, treatments intended to change a person’s sexual orientation that have been widely denounced by major medical associations—including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychological Association—and banned by legislation in five states: Vermont, Oregon, New Jersey, Illinois, and California.

As noted in numerous previous posts, Nicolosi and other practitioners of "conversion therapy"  not only enriched themselves at the expense of others, but also aided GOP allies by claiming that LGBT nondiscrimination protections  are unnecessary since homosexuality is a choice and a behavior, not an inherent characteristic. I may sound cruel, but the world is a better place now that Nicolosi has left it.  The damage he did will long out live him. 

How to Remove Trump From Office

In eleven days America will enter into a nightmare phase unlike any other in its history and a man thoroughly unfit for office assumes the office of the presidency.  It is difficult to know how much damage Trump, a/k/a Der Fuhrer, will do to America and the world, but one thing is clear.  Trump cares for no one but himself and establishing his own dynasty of sorts. His paranoia and self-absorption make Richard Nixon look like a normal, truthful and affable guy. Sadly, the House of Representatives is controlled by Republicans, the majority of who are as crazy as Trump and/or who would sell their mothers - and their souls - for pocket change in order to stay in power. Thus impeachment of Trump is unlikely.  A column in the Washington Post points to one other method of removing Trump. Could this happen?  Who knows, but it is certainly within the realm of the imaginable that Trump could do something so insane that even his cabinet might wake up to the danger the man poses. Here are column highlights:

Donald Trump is a one-man basket of deplorables. He is a braggart and a liar. He is a bully and a demagogue. He is an ignoramus and a deadbeat, a chiseler and either a sincere racist or an insincere one, and his love for himself is matched only by my loathing of him. He is about to be president of the United States. A constitutional coup may be in the offing.

Since winning the election, Trump has not moderated his behavior. He still behaves like a brat — his childish tweet zinging Arnold Schwarzenegger for failing to get Trumpian ratings on “The New Celebrity Apprentice” being the most amusing example. Many of the others were just plain lies, the most serious being his earlier troubling statements regarding Russian efforts to affect the election. As always, Trump made this about himself — not, as it should be, about a foreign power meddling in our democracy.

Trump lives in a hall of mirrors — but not alone. Reince Priebus, the outgoing Republican National Committee chairman and now another of the moral eunuchs in Trump’s court, said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” that the release of the intelligence community’s finding was “clearly politically motivated to discredit the victory of President-elect Trump.” Priebus, as my grandmother used to say, knows which side his bread is buttered on.

It is folly to think that aides such as Priebus are going to be able to moderate Trump. They are enablers, emptying their consciences and stuffing their egos, and it is even sillier to think that Trump himself will change. He is 70, into the years of ossification, and his political triumph has only convinced him of his inerrant correctness. He thinks he is infallible, a kind of secular pope. Things will go from bad to worse.

One remote remedy is impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate. It is, as it should be, a laborious process and requires provable acts of treason, bribery or other “high crimes and misdemeanors” . . .

There is, however, another way. Under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, the vice president, together with a “majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide” can remove the president for being “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

[T]hey [cabinet nominees] should all be asked whether they are aware of the 25th Amendment and, if need be, whether they would be willing to implement it. Some would say that they do not respond to hypotheticals, but a willingness to abide by the Constitution is not a hypothetical. It is, instead, a grave duty.

Is this going to happen? Probably not. We’ll just muddle through a Trump presidency, as we have some others. But the nature and malevolence of Donald Trump have to be borne in mind. He has shown little regard for the Constitution,

Since his election, Trump has done nothing to allay the concern that he is unfit for the presidency. In about a week, he’ll assume the presidency with all its awesome power. Maybe the only thing that will constrain him is his own Cabinet. Trump goofed. There are some good people in that room.

Sleazy Daily Beast Article "Outs" and Endangers Olympic Athletes

Douche Bag (my view) Nico Hines

Up until now, I regularly check out The Daily Beast and often have referenced their articles - I did the same with Rolling Stone until it published its fiction based story slandering the University of Virginia.  Now, The Daily Beast is going to join Rolling Stone as an outlet to be avoided.  Why? Beacuse of an utterly sleazy pieces by a scumbag (at least in my view) named Nico Hines who went around the Olympic Village with Grindr and other hookup apps and then "outed" various athletes, many from anti-gay countries where their lives might be endangered on their return home.  While the editors of The Daily Beast have done a disingenuous "We're Sorry!" piece, it is nowhere near enough and does nothing to undo thee damage done to some athletes.  Both Hines and whoever approved his piece need to be fired immediately.  Slate has a piece ripping The Daily Beast a new one and rightly so.  Here are highlights from Slate: 

On Thursday morning, the Daily Beast published an exceedingly gross and bizarre article by a straight, married male writer who lured in gay Olympians through hookup apps for no particular purpose. The entire piece is an astoundingly creepy exercise in Grindr-baiting, which involves a journalist accessing Grindr in an unlikely setting and … seeing what happens. But the Daily Beast piece, penned by Nico Hines, is a uniquely disgusting and irresponsible entry into the tired genre. Hines entices his (often closeted) subjects under false pretenses; effectively outs several closeted athletes who live in repressive countries; then writes about the whole thing in a tone of mocking yet lurid condescension. By 10:30 a.m. ET, the Daily Beast had, in response to criticism, edited out the most identifying details about closeted athletes—but that’s too little, too late. (Update, 9:15 p.m.: On Thursday evening, the Daily Beast took down the piece entirely.)

Hines begins by explaining that his entire assignment consisted of walking around the Olympic Village while using several hookup apps, hoping to learn whether “an Average Joe” can “join the bacchanalia.” He quickly abandons apps like Tinder, which are mostly used by straight people, for Grindr, which is for gay men: “No prizes for guessing that Grindr proved more of an instant hookup success than Bumble or Tinder,” he writes. Presumably, Hines awards “no prizes” because he believes gays are more promiscuous than straight people—a theme to which Hines often returns throughout his vile piece.

Because Hines is not gay, you might find his use of Grindr a bit dishonest. But not to worry: “For the record,” Hines writes, “I didn’t lie to anyone or pretend to be someone I wasn’t—unless you count being on Grindr in the first place—since I’m straight, with a wife and child.” This sentence reflects a stunning amount of ignorance, because, in Hines’ situation, of course being on Grindr in the first place is a lie. Grindr is an app for men who wish to hook up with other men. That is its purpose! To be on Grindr when you do not have that goal, and when you could not possibly have that goal because you are straight, is itself a mendacious deception.

With his dubious premise established, Hines proceeds to out athlete after athlete, providing enough information about each Olympian he encounters for anyone with basic Google skills to uncover their identities. (After several minutes of Googling, I surmised the identities of five of the gay athletes Hines described.) I’m not going to repeat his descriptions, because—as Hines himself acknowledges!—some of them live in “notoriously homophobic” countries and remain closeted at home.

Shortly after Hines’ article published, openly gay Olympian Gus Kenworthy tweeted that the author “basically just outed a bunch of athletes in his quest to write a shitty [Daily Beast] article where he admitted to entrapment.” That is correct, but it’s worth exploring why Hines embarked upon this weird, sleazy quest in the first place. I count two reasons. The first is that Hines simply enjoys tittering with condescension at all the gay athletes who take the bait and engage with him—a straight dude, as Hines emphatically reminds us. Why else zero in on Grindr? The second reason is more repulsive: Hines appears to take pleasure in luring in these Olympians then outing them to all the world.

But the offensive purpose of Hines’ article is really the least of its problems. Far worse is the actual damage it will likely cause to real, live human beings—inevitable onsequences that Hines blithely ignored. Several athletes who are closeted at home (and possibly to their own teammates) will wake up on Thursday morning to the news that the Daily Beast has outed them. Their teammates could ostracize and alienate them; their families could disown them; their countries could imprison them. And for what? A homophobic article about how a straight guy conned gay Olympians from anti-gay countries into hitting on him through Grindr? Hines’ article is a dangerous disaster, a wildly unethical train wreck that should be taken down immediately for the sake of its duped subjects. Hines may view his Grindr-baiting as all fun and games. For the victims of his unprincipled journalism, however, his nasty little piece has the power to ruin lives. 

As I said, I am saying good bye to The Daily Beast.  As for Hines, he needs to be fired and  boycotted by legitimate news outlets.  Perhaps he can get a job with FRC or AFA where lying and seeking to harm gays is an everyday mission. 

Paul Ryan - An Utter Douche Bag and Liar

Paul Ryan - douche bag and liar

If readers haven't previously figured it out, I view Paul Ryan (R-WI) as an utter douche bag.  In fact, this asshole who was born into a wealthy family and who has never had to worry about money or where his next meal would come from has taken his hypocrisy to new levels speaking a CPAC - a coven like gathering of racists, religious fanatics and bigots that now passes as a mirror the GOP base - where he recounted basically a made up story that when traced back to its origin has a message 180 degrees the opposite of Ryan's agenda to slash social programs for the poor and relegate the less fortunate to the trash heap.  The man truly makes the Pharisees of the Bible look like pillars of integrity and decency.  And people wonder why I cannot be a Republican nowadays.  The Raw Story looks at the roots of Ryan's dishonesty at CPAC .  Here are excerpts:

Tea Party Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) anecdote criticizing government school lunch programs was apparently lifted from a book about an encounter between a student and a private benefactor.

Wonkette reported on Thursday that Ryan’s remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday regarding a “young boy from a very poor family” relying on “a government program” for his lunches was strikingly similar to the premise of the book An Invisible Thread, which recounted author Laura Schroff’s 1986 meeting with an 11-year-old “homeless panhandler” named Maurice, who was receiving lunches through a school program.

Schroff wrote that she offered Maurice a choice between giving him enough money for a week, or taking him to a supermarket to buy him enough food to cover the same amount of time. The book then detailed this exchange:

If you make me lunch,” he said, “will you put it in a brown paper bag?”  I didn’t really understand the question. “Do you want it in a brown paper bag?” I asked. “Or how would you prefer it?”

“Miss Laura,” he said, “I don’t want your money. I want my lunch in a brown paper bag.” “Okay, sure. But why do you want it in a bag?”  “Because when I see kids come to school with their lunch in a paper bag, that means someone cares about them. Miss Laura, can I please have my lunch in a paper bag?”

On Thursday, Ryan recounted nearly the exact same story, attributing it to Wisconsin Department of Children and Families Director Eloise Anderson, who was appointed by Gov. Scott Walker (R). But Ryan said it was Anderson who met a young student who told her he did not want a lunch from a government program, but one served in a brown paper bag.

“He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown paper bag had someone who cared for him,” Ryan said. “This is what the left does not understand.”

At the time of their appearance on Huckabee’s show, Schrock and Maurice promoted the Share Our Strength No Kid Hungry campaign. Two months later, the campaign released a statement opposing Ryan’s House budget proposal, which included cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) Program by $125 million.

Note two things: (i) Either way Laura Schroff was going to make sure the boy did not go hungry.   The only issue was as to how she would accomplish this goal; unlike Ryan's budget proposals, she was not going to leave the boy with no way to secure food; and (ii) Schroff and Maurice appeared on behalf of a program that actively opposes Ryan's budget cuts.   Try as I might, my take away conclusion is that Ryan is not a decent person and that he's a liar.  A slippery and canny liar perhaps, but a deliberate liar nonetheless. Sadly, Ryan now represents what the greed driven, racist and homophobic GOP is all about. It's beyond ugly and the fact that Ryan and his allies dress themselves in the cloak of religiosity makes Christianity itself repugnant to more and more Americans.  It will be the "godly folk" not the liberals who kill Christianity.

 

Mark Obenshain Tries to Pretend He's a Moderate

One thing that always strikes me about self-anointed "godly Christians" and their puppets - is prostitutes a better term? - within the Republican Party s the abandon with which they lie and believe the public is too stupid to check out their current claims with past actions and voting records.  This phenomenon is glaringly apparent in this year's GOP statewide slate which takes dishonesty and insanity to new levels for Virginia.  Mark Obenshain (pictured at left in the photo above), the GOP Attorney General candidate, is actively trying to market himself as a moderate who supports "inclusive policies" even though his political career has been diametrically opposed to the positions he now pretends to hold.  The Richmond Times Dispatch looks at Obenshain's snake oil campaign.  Here are highlights:

Sen. Mark D. Obenshain, the Republican nominee for attorney general, said Thursday that he wants to run an inclusive campaign and work across the aisle in order to appeal to a wider base of voters.

Obenshain, from Harrisonburg, is known for his conservative voting record that he has accumulated since he was first elected to the state Senate in 2003.

He drew flak for drafting legislation in 2009 that would have required women who had miscarriages without medical attendance to report it to authorities within 24 hours.

Obenshain has also consistently voted against Democratic measures that would assure protections for homosexual state employees under Virginia’s anti-discrimination law.

Obenshain recently has also portrayed himself as an advocate for protecting state employees and faculties from discrimination based on their sexual orientation — a position which earned him criticism from Democrats and gay-rights groups doubting his sincerity because of his voting record.

“Mark Obenshain can try all he wants to run away from his extreme ticket, but actions speak louder than words,” said Ashley Bauman, spokeswoman for the Democratic Party of Virginia.

 Obenshain said he doesn’t expect miracles, “but I am going to be there, because I want people to be there and understand that my message is an inclusive message.”

My response? Liar, liar pants on fire.  Obeshain is no different than Cuccinelli and Jackson.  He's a liar seeking to dupe Virginia voters.  He needs to be defeated in November.

Conservatives and Billionaires Turn on Karl Rove

Perhaps one of the sweetest aspects of the 2012 election results is to have seen virtually all of the candidates backed by Karl Rove's foul Crossroads PAC go down in flames.  Living in Virginia one could help but hear the Crossroads ads - some of the most dishonest and blatant in their lies that I have ever heard.  Indeed, the Crossroads ads made Mitt Romney himself appear to be paragon of honesty in comparison.  In retrospect I suspect that the ads may have done more harm that good because anyone who paid the least amount of listening to other sources or a smidgen of fact checking could only see the ads as bald faced lies.  The election results indicate that contrary to Rove's belief, Americans are not all total cretins and morons - unlike the millionaires and billionaires Rove shook down for money that they might well have better burned based on the zero results Rove delivered.  The only short term winner apparently was Rove who no doubt paid himself very well along the way.  Here are highlights from a Salon piece that looks at the rising fury of those Rove played for fools:

Karl Rove helped pour $400 million of outside money into the 2012 elections. But since Republican candidates were walloped on Tuesday, the backlash against the Rove strategy is coming fast, and he has a lot of explaining to do.

Rove has alternately blamed Hurricane Sandy (“The president was also lucky,” he wrote in a Thursday Wall Street Journal Op-Ed. ”This time, the October surprise was not a dirty trick but an act of God. Hurricane Sandy interrupted Mr. Romney’s momentum and allowed Mr. Obama to look presidential and bipartisan”) and argued that if not for Crossroads, “this race would have been over a long time ago.”

But mostly Republicans are lashing out at Rove. Rick Tyler, an adviser for Todd Akin’s campaign, pointed to Rove’s management of his super PAC. ”Rove spends more for Republican candidates than the NRSC and the NRCC. He’s running things,” Tyler told BuzzFeed. He added, “Rove is definitely a problem.”

A Wednesday New York Times article highlighted Rove’s on-air meltdown over Fox News’ projection that Obama had won Ohio, saying that Rove’s refusal to accept the result “raises questions about his role.” Rove explained that his objections were based on memories of “premature calls” in 2000.

”The billionaire donors I hear are livid,” a Republican operative told HuffPo. “There is some holy hell to pay. Karl Rove has a lot of explaining to do … I don’t know how you tell your donors that we spent $390 million and got nothing.”

Minnesota mega-donor Stan Hubbard told Politico of the call: “Obviously, somebody made a mistake and didn’t do things right. There’s no question about that.”

I will be honesty.  I find Karl Rove to be a foul and nasty individual by almost every measure not the least of which is his willingness to brazenly lie and  sow hate and discord.  One can only hope that after the Crossroads debacle he will be relegated to the political wilderness where he belongs.

Mitt Romney Showed His Arrogance Last Night

It's no secret that I do not like Mitt Romney.  Frankly, in my view he's an arrogant prick: the spoiled little rich boy who thinks living an apartment while living off of trust funds while attending graduate school was a struggle.  And his equally bitchy and arrogant wife, Ann "Marie Antoinette" Romney is no better in my book.   Fortunately, some of Romney's arrogance and sense of extreme entitlement came through last night - along with his patent dishonesty mentioned in a prior post.  Also telling was Romney's failure to give any specifics on how he would grow and strengthen the U.S. economy.  He merely said that he would and that was supposed to be all the voters - who he views as peasants and would be serfs to GOP plutocrats - need to know.  Thus, the real issue becomes whether or not voters wake up to who the real Mitt Romney is over the next couple of weeks or not.  Are Americans as stupid as Romney believes them to be.  I for one hope not.  A column in the Washington Post looks at these issues further.  Here some highlights:

[T]he most electorally significant performance was Romney’s. Under pressure this time, the former Massachusetts governor displayed his least attractive sides. He engaged in pointless on-stage litigation of the debate rules. He repeatedly demonstrated his disrespect for both the president and Candy Crowley, the moderator. And Romney was just plain querulous when anyone dared question him about the gaping holes in his tax and budget plans.

Any high school debate coach would tell a student that declaring, “Believe me because I said so,” is not an argument. Yet Romney confused biography with specificity and boasting with answering a straightforward inquiry. “Well, of course, they add up,” Romney insisted of his budget numbers.

Romney’s stonewalling was so obvious that it opened the way for one of Obama’s most effective lines of the evening: “If somebody came to you, Governor, with a plan that said, here, I want to spend $7 or $8 trillion, and then we’re going to pay for it, but we can’t tell you until maybe after the election how we’re going to do it, you wouldn’t have taken such a sketchy deal. And neither should you, the American people, because the math doesn’t add up.”

The most instructive contrast between Debate I and Debate II was the extent to which Romney’s ideas crumbled at the slightest contact with challenge. Romney and Paul Ryan are erecting a Potemkin village designed to survive only until the polls close on Nov. 6. They cannot say directly that they really believe in slashing taxes on the rich and backing away from so much of what government does because they know that neither idea will sell. So they offer soothing language to the middle class, photo ops at homeless programs to convey compassion and a steady stream of attacks on Obama, aimed at shifting all the attention his way.

In the first debate, Obama let Romney back into the race by failing to shake his opponent’s self-presentation. But Romney also put himself into contention by pretending to be a moderate, shelving his plutocratic side and hiding his party’s long-term objectives.

In the second debate, the disguise fell. Romney revealed more of himself than he wanted to and asked voters to endorse a radical tax-cutting program without providing them the details that matter. Sketchy is one word for this. Deceptive is another.

Disingenuous Mitt: Romney to Stop Mentioning Navy SEAL After SEAL's Mother and Friend Slam Him

Proving yet again that he's a sleazy liar who will stoop to virtually anything in his quest for the White House, Mitt Romney had been mentioning a former Navy SEAL killed in the attack on the American consulate in Libya.  Or he was until the dean man's mother and a friend slammed Romney for politicizing the man's death and his shallowness at the time he actually met the former SEAL.  Glen Doherty's friend stated on Rachel Maddow's show last night that when Romney had met Doherty at a function, Romney had introduced himself four times not even remembering that he'd already introduced himself just minutes earlier.  The friend described Romney as shallow and insincere.  With Mitt, it's all about Mitt and no one else.  Doherty's mother summed it up well when she said "I don't trust Mitt Romney."  Neither do I.  The man is truly reprehensible.  The Washington Post looks at Romney's slap down by Doherty's mother.  Here are highlights: 

Mitt Romney will stop mentioning a former Navy SEAL killed in the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Libya last month in his campaign speeches, according to aides, after the man’s mother said the GOP presidential candidate should stop invoking her son’s name.

“I don’t trust Romney. He shouldn’t make my son’s death part of his political agenda,” Barbara Doherty said in a statement broadcast Wednesday on WHDH-TV in Boston. “It’s wrong to use these brave young men, who wanted freedom for all, to degrade Obama.”


Barbara Doherty’s son Glen was killed last month in the consulate attack.

Think Progress reports on what Glen Doherty's friend had to say about Romney which is equally bad:

Romney’s not only telling the story against the wishes of Doherty’s family, he’s also mischaracterizing his encounter with the former SEAL. According to Glen Doherty’s longtime friend, Doherty said Romney had introduced himself four times in the span of less than 30 minutes, saying it was”pathetic” that Romney didn’t know the two had just met:

“He said it was very comical,” [Doherty friend Elf] Ellefsen said, “Mitt Romney approached him ultimately four times, using this private gathering as a political venture to further his image. He kept introducing himself as Mitt Romney, a political figure. The same introduction, the same opening line. Glen believed it to be very insincere and stale.” [...]
“He said it was pathetic and comical to have the same person come up to you within only a half hour, have this person reintroduce himself to you, having absolutely no idea whatsoever that he just did this 20 minutes ago, and did not even recognize Glen’s face.”

Ellefsen said it makes him “sick” that Romney is using the story out on the stump. “Glen would definitely not approve of it,” he said, adding, “He probably wouldn’t do much about it. He probably wouldn’t say a whole lot about it. I think Glen would feel, more than anything, almost embarrassed for Romney. I think he would feel pity for him.”

I suspect that most prostitutes have more integrity than Mitt Romney. I can only hope that voters open their eyes to the shallowness of this man and his rank dishonesty before November 6th.

Pathological Lies from Paul Ryan

The hypocrisy of Paul Ryan is matched perhaps only by Mitt Romney's shameless dishonesty and willingness to lie on almost every topic.  Ryan's latest round of batshitery involves his claim that Barack Obama and the Democrats are engaged in class warfare against the wealthy even though its Ryan and his party who seek to implement a reverse Robin Hood form of society: take from the poor and middle class and give even more to the already very rich.  Worse yet, he claims that its the Democrats, not the policies of the GOP that impede social mobility in America which has fallen markedly over the last three decades.   Apparently, Ryan hasn't pulled his head out of his ass lately and noticed that Europe now has more upward social mobility than the USA.  Nor has he noticed that the wealthy are currently paying the lowest tax rate in roughly 60 years.  Why let the truth get in the way of one's demagoguery.  Here's Ryan's factually backwards comment on social mobility:

"We should not shy away from class warfare," Ryan said. "We should take this head on, which is, the president is preying on the emotions of fear, envy and resentment, and he's speaking to people in America as if they're fixed in some class. That's the European model. That's the model our ancestors left to come create an opportunity society, equality of opportunity, equal protection of the law -- not equality of outcome. Government's role is not to equalize the results of our lives. And we should take that on in a moral way and defend the system of upward mobility."  

Oh, a did I mention that Ryan opposes equal protection for LGBT citizens among other minority groups.  The man is a douche bag and the antithesis of what Catholic social teachings is all about.   Even the utterly corrupt and morally bankrupt Catholic bishops have condemned Ryan's budget policies and reverse Robin Hood policies.  Here's some more commentary from Huffington Post:

Republicans have long accused President Barack Obama of engaging in class warfare, citing his effort to scale back the Bush tax cuts for the nation's wealthiest. Frustrated defenders of the president have long called on Democrats to make the case that the true class warriors are the ones looking to slash entitlements and inevitably expand income inequality by cutting corporate taxes, busting unions and pushing through trade deals that ship blue-collar jobs offshore.

Dividing the country between those who are receiving government assistance and those who aren't are familiar themes for Ryan and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

In a 2011 speech, Ryan suggested that 30 percent of Americans are "takers." "Seventy percent of Americans want the American dream. They believe in the American idea. Only 30 percent want the welfare state," he said.

 

The 27 Debate Lies of Mitt Romney

I've noted previously that I found Mitt Romney's lies last night during the first presidential debate to be both infuriating and to be nauseating but sadly all to typical of today's Republicans and politicians who wrap themselves in religiosity even as the do violence to the dictates of the Ten Commandments.  It seems that a number of media outlets are endeavoring to expose Romney's blatant and deliberate lies and I hope the phenomenon continues to grow.  It is crucial that Americans realize that Mitt Romney is  cynical liar who will say whatever he thinks will further his cause.  Frankly, most whores are more honest than Romney.  Think Progress has put together a good summary of the top 27 lies of Mitt Romney during last night's debate.  Due to the importance of exposing Romney's shameless and deliberate lies, the following is a more or less verbatim excerpt of the Think Progress piece:

[Romney] spoke for 38 minutes of the 90 minute debate and told at least 27 myths:

1) “[G]et us energy independent, North American energy independent. That creates about 4 million jobs”. Romney’s plan for “energy independence” actually relies heavily on a study that assumes the U.S. continues with fuel efficiency standards set by the Obama administration. For instance, he uses Citigroup research based off the assumption that “‘the United States will continue with strict fuel economy standards that will lower its oil demand.” Since he promises to undo the Obama administration’s new fuel efficiency standards, he would cut oil consumption savings of 2 million barrels per day by 2025.

2) “I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut. I don’t have a tax cut of a scale that you’re talking about.” A Tax Policy Center analysis of Romney’s proposal for a 20 percent across-the-board tax cut in all federal income tax rates, eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax, eliminating the estate tax and other tax reductions, would reduce federal revenue $480 billion in 2015. This amounts to $5 trillion over the decade.

3) “My view is that we ought to provide tax relief to people in the middle class. But I’m not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people.” If Romney hopes to provide tax relief to the middle class, then his $5 trillion tax cut would add to the deficit. There are not enough deductions in the tax code that primarily benefit rich people to make his math work.

4) “My — my number-one principal is, there will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit. I want to underline that: no tax cut that adds to the deficit.” As the Tax Policy Center concluded, Romney’s plan can’t both exempt middle class families from tax cuts and remain revenue neutral. “He’s promised all these things and he can’t do them all. In order for him to cover the cost of his tax cut without adding to the deficit, he’d have to find a way to raise taxes on middle income people or people making less than $200,000 a year,” the Center found.

5) “I will not under any circumstances raise taxes on middle-income families. I will lower taxes on middle-income families. Now, you cite a study. There are six other studies that looked at the study you describe and say it’s completely wrong.” The studies Romney cites actually further prove that Romney would, in fact, have to raise taxes on the middle class if he were to keep his promise not to lose revenue with his tax rate reduction.

6) “I saw a study that came out today that said you’re going to raise taxes by $3,000 to $4,000 on middle-income families.” Romney is pointing to this study from the American Enterprise Institute. It actually found that rather than raise taxes to pay down the debt, the Obama administration’s policies — those contained directly in his budget — would reduce the share of taxes that go toward servicing the debt by $1,289.89 per taxpayer in the $100,000 to $200,000 range.

7) “And the reason is because small business pays that individual rate; 54 percent of America’s workers work in businesses that are taxed not at the corporate tax rate, but at the individual tax rate….97 percent of the businesses are not — not taxed at the 35 percent tax rate, they’re taxed at a lower rate. But those businesses that are in the last 3 percent of businesses happen to employ half — half of all the people who work in small business.” Far less than half of the people affected by the expiration of the upper income tax cuts get any of their income at all from a small businesses. And those people could very well be receiving speaking fees or book royalties, which qualify as “small business income” but don’t have a direct impact on job creation. It’s actually hard to find a small business who think that they will be hurt if the marginal tax rate on income earned above $250,000 per year is increased.

8) “Mr. President, all of the increase in natural gas and oil has happened on private land, not on government land. On government land, your administration has cut the number of permits and licenses in half.” Oil production from federal lands is higher, not lower: Production from federal lands is up slightly in 2011 when compared to 2007. And the oil and gas industry is sitting on 7,000 approved permits to drill, that it hasn’t begun exploring or developing.

9) “The president’s put it in place as much public debt — almost as much debt held by the public as all prior presidents combined.” This is not even close to being true. When Obama took office, the national debt stood at $10.626 trillion. Now the national debt is over $16 trillion. That $5.374 trillion increase is nowhere near as much debt as all the other presidents combined.

10) “That’s why the National Federation of Independent Businesses said your plan will kill 700,000 jobs. I don’t want to kill jobs in this environment.” That study, produced by a right-wing advocacy organization, doesn’t analyze what Obama has actually proposed.

11) “What we do have right now is a setting where I’d like to bring money from overseas back to this country.” Romney’s plan to shift the country to a territorial tax system would allow corporations to do business and make profits overseas without ever being taxed on it in the United States. This encourages American companies to invest abroad and could cost the country up to 800,000 jobs.

12) “I would like to take the Medicaid dollars that go to states and say to a state, you’re going to get what you got last year, plus inflation, plus 1 percent, and then you’re going to manage your care for your poor in the way you think best.” Sending federal Medicaid funding to the states in the form of a block grant woud significantly reduce federal spending for Medicaid because the grant would not keep up with projected health care costs. A CBO estimate of a very similar proposal from Paul Ryan found that federal spending would be “35 percent lower in 2022 and 49 percent lower in 2030 than current projected federal spending” and as a result “states would face significant challenges in achieving sufficient cost savings through efficiencies to mitigate the loss of federal funding.” “To maintain current service levels in the Medicaid program, states would probably need to consider additional changes, such as reducing their spending on other programs or raising additional revenues,” the CBO found.

13) “I want to take that $716 billion you’ve cut and put it back into Medicare…. But the idea of cutting $716 billion from Medicare to be able to balance the additional cost of Obamacare is, in my opinion, a mistake. There’s that number again. Romney is claiming that Obamacare siphons off $716 billion from Medicare, to the detriment of beneficiaries. In actuality, that money is saved primarily through reducing over-payments to insurance companies under Medicare Advantage, not payments to beneficiaries. Paul Ryan’s budget plan keeps those same cuts, but directs them toward tax cuts for the rich and deficit reduction.

14) “What I support is no change for current retirees and near-retirees to Medicare.” Here is how Romney’s Medicare plan will affect current seniors: 1) by repealing Obamacare, the 16 million seniors receiving preventive benefits without deductibles or co-pays and are saving $3.9 billion on prescription drugs will see a cost increase, 2) “premium support” will increase premiums for existing beneficiaries as private insurers lure healthier seniors out of the traditional Medicare program, 3) Romney/Ryan would also lower Medicaid spending significantly beginning next year, shifting federal spending to states and beneficiaries, and increasing costs for the 9 million Medicare recipients who are dependent on Medicaid.

15) “Number two is for people coming along that are young, what I do to make sure that we can keep Medicare in place for them is to allow them either to choose the current Medicare program or a private plan. Their choice. They get to choose — and they’ll have at least two plans that will be entirely at no cost to them.” The Medicare program changes for everyone, even people who choose to remain in the traditional fee-for-service. Rather than relying on a guaranteed benefit, all beneficiaries will receive a premium support credit of $7,500 on average in 2023 to purchase coverage in traditional Medicare or private insurance. But that amount will only grow at a rate of GDP plus 1.5 percentage points and will not keep up with health care costs. So while the federal government will spend less on the program, seniors will pay more in premiums.

16) “And, by the way the idea came not even from Paul Ryan or — or Senator Wyden, who’s the co-author of the bill with — with Paul Ryan in the Senate, but also it came from Bill — Bill Clinton’s chief of staff.” Romney has rejected the Ryan/Wyden approach — which does not cap the growth of the “premium support” subsidy. Bill Clinton and his commission also voted down these changes to the Medicare program.

17) “Well, I would repeal and replace it. We’re not going to get rid of all regulation. You have to have regulation. And there are some parts of Dodd-Frank that make all the sense in the world.” Romney has previously called for full repeal of Dodd-Frank, a law whose specific purpose is to regulate banks. MF Global’s use of customer funds to pay for its own trading losses is just one bit of proof that the financial industry isn’t responsible enough to protect consumers without regulation.
18) “But I wouldn’t designate five banks as too big to fail and give them a blank check. That’s one of the unintended consequences of Dodd-Frank… We need to get rid of that provision because it’s killing regional and small banks. They’re getting hurt.” The law merely says that the biggest, systemically risky banks need to abide by more stringent regulations. If those banks fail, they will be unwound by a new process in the Dodd-Frank law that protects taxpayers from having to pony up for a bailout.
19) “And, unfortunately, when — when — when you look at Obamacare, the Congressional Budget Office has said it will cost $2,500 a year more than traditional insurance. So it’s adding to cost.” Obamacare will actually provide millions of families with tax credits to make health care more affordable.

20) “[I]t puts in place an unelected board that’s going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have. I don’t like that idea.” The Board, or IPAB is tasked with making binding recommendations to Congress for lowering health care spending, should Medicare costs exceed a target growth rate. Congress can accept the savings proposal or implement its own ideas through a super majority. The panel’s plan will modify payments to providers but it cannot “include any recommendation to ration health care, raise revenues or Medicare beneficiary premiums…increase Medicare beneficiary cost-sharing (including deductibles, coinsurance, and co- payments), or otherwise restrict benefits or modify eligibility criteria” (Section 3403 of the ACA). Relying on health care experts rather than politicians to control health care costs has previously attracted bipartisan support and even Ryan himself proposed two IPAB-like structures in a 2009 health plan.

21) “Right now, the CBO says up to 20 million people will lose their insurance as Obamacare goes into effect next year. And likewise, a study by McKinsey and Company of American businesses said 30 percent of them are anticipating dropping people from coverage.” The Affordable Care Act would actually expand health care coverage to 30 million Americans, despite Romney fear mongering. According to CBO director Douglas Elmendorf, 3 million or less people would leave employer-sponsored health insurance coverage as a result of the law.

22) “I like the way we did it [health care] in Massachusetts…What were some differences? We didn’t raise taxes.” Romney raised fees, but he can claim that he didn’t increase taxes because the federal government funded almost half of his reforms.

23) “It’s why Republicans said, do not do this, and the Republicans had — had the plan. They put a plan out. They put out a plan, a bipartisan plan. It was swept aside.” The Affordable Care Act incorporates many Republican ideas including the individual mandate, state-based health care exchanges, high-risk insurance pools, and modified provisions that allow insurers to sell policies in multiple states. Republicans never offered a united bipartisan alternative.

24) “Preexisting conditions are covered under my plan.” Only people who are continuously insured would not be discriminated against because they suffer from pre-existing conditions. This protection would not be extended to people who are currently uninsured.

25) “In one year, you provided $90 billion in breaks to the green energy world. Now, I like green energy as well, but that’s about 50 years’ worth of what oil and gas receives.” The $90 billion was given out over several years and included loans, loan guarantees and grants through the American Recovery Act. $23 billion of the $90 billion “went toward “clean coal,” energy-efficiency upgrades, updating the electricity grid and environmental clean-up, largely for old nuclear weapons sites.”

26) “I think about half of [the green firms Obama invested in], of the ones have been invested in have gone out of business. A number of them happened to be owned by people who were contributors to your campaigns.” As of late last year, only “three out of the 26 recipients of 1705 loan guarantees have filed for bankruptcy, with losses estimated at just over $600 million.”

27) “If the president’s reelected you’ll see dramatic cuts to our military.” Romney is referring to the sequester, which his running mate Paul Ryan supported. Obama opposes the military cuts and has asked Congress to formulate a balanced approach that would avoid the trigger.

Tony Perkins Has Spittle Eruption Over Dan Savages Truthful Remarks

While there are many dishonest and sleazy hate merchants among the Christofascists ranks, but one of the more reprehensible is white supremacist lover Tony Perkins of Family Research Council, an organization rightly labeled as a hate group because of its incessant dissemination of lies and falsehoods against LGBT citizens.  Not a day goes by that FRC doesn't send out foul messages seeking to create an atmosphere of hate and stigma against LGBT people.  Worse yet, FRC uses the red herring of religious freedom to support continued religious based denigration and bullying of LGBT school students.  Given this reality, last week Dan Savage called Perkins out for his organization's foul and deadly anti-gay messages that drive LGBT teens to suicide and said ""Tony Perkins sits on a pile of dead gay kids every day when he goes to work — and he calls himself a Christian."  Personally, I believe that Dan's statement was 100% on target.  If Perkins doesn't like the truth he has an easy answer: stop deliberately spreading anti-gay lies and hate.  Of course, Perkins will never do that.  During an interview with Mike Huckabee (another anti-gay hate merchant) Perkins nearly wet himself with spittle as he complained about the accurate description of his handiwork.  Here are details from Right Wing Watch:

Last week, Dan Savage set off a controversy when he declared that "every dead gay kid is a victory for the Family Research Council," so it was no surprise that today Mike Huckabee invited FRC's Tony Perkins on to his radio program to respond, allowing both men to spend most of the discussion voicing their outrage about his remarks, with Perkins even hinting that legal action might be taken:

Huckabee: I found Dan Savage to be unnecessarily rude, vile, and angry. Just angry. He was not a happy person and he just takes out his venom on other people, but he's gone to a level I've never seen.
Perkins: As my teenagers would say, he has some issues. He is a man with some real deep-seated issues ... and Dan Savage is nowhere near, he's a hundred and eighty degrees from the positions that we have taken. It's wrong and I will tell you this, we are pursuing everything possible to deal with him because he is out of control.

Perkins then went on to attack gay activists in general, declaring that they will always feel empty inside because they are "outside the way God created" them:

This is the bottom line, Mike: is that if you don't embrace and celebrate homosexuality and everything associated with it, then you are intolerant. And the truth of the matter is, let's just be very, very truthful, and that's what we deal in is the truth, that even is society embraced homosexuality, there would never be that sense of self-fulfillment because it's outside the way God created man and woman. And that's the bottom line. They cannot erase that, even if they get every law on the books changed, it will never change that.

 

If there truly is a Hell, then I believe that Tony Perkins is one individual who has a reserved seat.   In my view, he's a racist, anti-gay bigot and all around dishonest and foul individual.  And sadly, he's what passes as a "godly Christian" in America today.