Trump's Campaign Is Becoming a Dumpster Fire

I had one reader who question whether or not Donald Trump actually wanted to be president or if, instead, all that we have seen to date is a narcissistic, ego driven reality TV game for the man.  One has to wonder when one looks at the current state of Trump's campaign, both in terms campaign funds on hand and the lack of a staff equal to the task of a national campaign.  A piece in Politico looks at the disaster that is the Trump campaign - something that may fuel the "Dump Trump" movement and keep GOP donors clutching their closed wallets.  Oh, and note how Trump continues to pay himself and his organization with campaign funds.   Some say that Trump will self-fund, but will he?  His money may be too precious for him to part with.  Here are some story excerpts:

Donald Trump's campaign started the month with a paltry $1.3 million in cash — a mere fraction of Hillary Clinton's $42.5 million war chest — putting the GOP frontrunner at a sharp disadvantage heading into the general election against Clinton's money machine.

On the same day that Trump fired his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, amid a steady stream of reports of campaign infighting and disorganization, the latest batch of Federal Election Commission filings show that the real estate mogul has a long way to go to establish a financial operation that can compete at the national level.

And it's not just money — the filings revealed a campaign staff of less than 70, a number was dwarfed by Clinton's nearly 700 paid employees, and few of the campaign's expenses suggested work had begun to build out a more robust operation. All together, it's the most lopsided fundraising start to a presidential election in the modern campaign finance era.

[T]he campaign showed no clear path for improving its financial picture. Trump raised just $3.1 million from donors (including almost $2 million in amounts less than $200) and lent his campaign another $2.2 million, though he said he won't continue self-funding through the general election. Trump has now loaned his campaign a total of$45.7 million, almost exactly the same amount that Mitt Romney loaned his 2008 campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.

Though his campaign trimmed spending from $9.4 million in April to $6.7 million in May, it finished May with just $1.3 million cash on hand. By contrast, the Clinton campaign ended the month with $42.5 million in the tank. Even the defunct campaigns of Ted Cruz and Ben Carson had more cash on hand than Trump's.  In fact, several House members running for reelection have more cash on hand than Trump's campaign.

The campaign's disarray doesn't stop with its finances: On Monday, Trump fired his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, after a turf war with chairman Paul Manafort paralyzed the campaign's ability to staff up and hone its general-election message.

The May FEC report showed just 69 people on payroll, to Clinton's 685. And the Trump campaign's spending offered no signs of building a national campaign infrastructure.

By comparison, the campaign spent only $48,000 on data management and $115,000 on online advertising.

The Trump campaign has yet to reserve any airtime for advertising in the fall, and he may not be able to rely on super PACs. The real estate mogul's inflammatory attacks on a federal judge and renewed calls for a ban on Muslim immigration have failed to endear him to the party's leading donors, and one of the main outside groups supporting him, Great America PAC, raised just $1.4 million in May.

Tuesday Morning Male Beauty

New anti-Trump Movement Includes Nearly 400 Delegates

As the Donald Trump campaign continues to look about to go off the rails - Trump fired his campaign manager today - the unease and near hysteria in some Republican circles continues to grow.  Now, as the Washington Post reports, the "Dump Trump" effort reportedly now includes over 400 of the delegates for the upcoming GOP convention.  I have little pity for those who want to stage a coup at the convention since over the years they have fostered the atmosphere in which Trump has thrived.  Indeed, they made racism, homophobia and misogyny platforms of the party even though they used dog whistle messaging.  Trump has merely taken their message from out of the smoke screens.  Here are Post highlights on the new effort to stop the GOP's Frankenstein monster:

A campaign to stop Donald Trump from becoming the Republican presidential nominee has the support of nearly 400 delegates to the GOP’s convention next month, according to organizers, quickly transforming what began as an idea tossed around on social media into a force that could derail a national campaign.

While organizers concede their plan could worsen internal party strife, they believe they are responding to deep-rooted concerns among conservatives about Trump, who is suffering from declining poll numbers after weeks of missteps and embarrassing headlines.

“Short-term, yes, there’s going to be chaos,” said Kendal Unruh, a co-founder of the group, Free the Delegates. “Long-term this saves the party and we win the election. Everything has to go through birthing pains to birth something great. We’re going to go through the trauma of the birthing pains, but the reward will be worth it.”

Unruh, of Colorado, said her cause is winning support from “the non-rabble rousers. The rule-following, churchgoing grandmas who aren’t out protesting in the streets. This is the way they push back.”

The campaign’s growing support came amid a significant shake-up in Trump’s campaign. On Monday, he fired his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, one of his most loyal and vocal aides. The move was seen as an urgent attempt to ease GOP concerns over the campaign’s direction.

Thomson said at least 1,000 people participated in the call. Delegates who participated said they plan to spend this week wooing others to the cause.

In recent days Trump has called attempts to strip him of the party nomination “totally illegal” and a rebuke of the millions of people who voted for him. Over the weekend he accused former opponents Jeb Bush and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) of trying to undermine his candidacy. Both men say they have nothing to do with the new movement.

On the call Sunday night, leaders of Free the Delegates repeatedly insisted they are not working on behalf of any of Trump’s former opponents. They also lashed out at Chairman Reince Priebus and other officials at the Republican National Committee who have dismissed the delegates’ efforts as silly and a media-driven myth.

But several delegates said they were buoyed by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that “it is not my job to tell delegates what to do, what not to do, or to weigh in on things like that. They write the rules. They make their decisions.” Said Unruh: “Paul Ryan signed our permission slip.”

“My whole adult life I have been a loyal Republican. But this whole experience has really opened my eyes to what some folks I previously thought were nuts were warning us about,” Stinemetz said. “If you want to know how it’s possible for someone like Donald Trump to rise this far in our party, it’s because we have leaders like this.”

Texas Baptist Pastor Prays for injured Orlando Survivors to Die

Pastor Donnie Romero - the face of hate

I know that I am beating a dead horse, but if one wants to know how the Republican Party became such a foul organization, I say again, look no farther than the rise of the Christofascists in the party. The decline of the GOP directly correlates with the rise of the self-congratulatory, self-centered, hate-filled "godly folk" in the party.  To get an idea of just how foul the Christofascists are in fact, Pastor Donnie Romero of Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth gave us an up close glimpse this past weekend as he celebrated the deaths of 49 LGBT individuals and their allies in Orlando.  But he did not stop there.  He prayed that the other survivors struggling to recover in Orlando hospitals would also die.  

Yes, I know that Christian apologist will bristle and say, but real Christians don't speak that way.  But where are they in condemning this hideous mindset and demanding to make statements of condemnation on news cameras and elsewhere. The "good Germans" allowed Hitler to destroy Germany.  Nowadays, we see the "good Christians" allowing horrible monsters destroy Christianity. For myself, I care nothing about the survival of Christianity - over all I see it as a net evil in the world and its death cannot come soon enough.  But for those who still claim to be Christians and oppose hatred, their time for acting and stopping hate mongering in the name of God and Christ is running out.   Roughly a third of the under 30 generations have walked away from religion.  Rantings like that of Romero will accelerate the exodus.  With Romero, Tony Perkins, hate-filled Catholic bishops who protect sexual predators are becoming the face of Christianity.  If the "good Christians" not stir themselves and get off their self-satisfied asses, sooner or later they will find themselves members of a nearly dead religion and deservedly so.

But back to Romero.  The Raw Story looks at his ugly sermon which is all too representative of what is the norm in fundamentalist churches and denominations.   Here are highlights:

In the wake of the attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida last week, many right-wing Christian religious leaders have celebrated the shooter’s actions, but a Texas pastor is taking that to a whole new level.

Pastor Donnie Romero of Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth told his flock he agrees “100 percent” with Baptist Pastor Roger Jimenez, who made news with his sermon advocating that the government should use a firing squad to “blow their brains out.”

“These 50 sodomites are all perverts and pedophiles, and they are the scum of the earth, and the earth is a little bit better place now,” Romero said in the Sunday sermon. “And I’ll take it a step further, because I heard on the news today, that there are still several dozen of these queers in ICU and intensive care. And I will pray to God like I did this morning, I will do it tonight, I’ll pray that God will finish the job that that man started, and he will end their life, and by tomorrow morning they will all be burning in hell, just like the rest of them, so that they don’t get any more opportunity to go out and hurt little children.”

Romero went on to cite Sodom and Gomorrah, which he called the first ever “queer mass murder” and called out mega churches, whom he believes are too soft on preaching anti-gay sermons. Biblical scholars believe the “sin” in the story had nothing to do with homosexuality, rather it was about inhospitality.

In a twist, Romero was ordained by Pastor Steve Anderson, who also made the list of anti-LGBT religious leaders standing with the actions of the shooter. 

As several friends have noted, one can only wonder how long it will be before we see Romero's name in a list of convicted pastors - either for embezzlement of funds or sexual abuse of minors.  I did get a complimentary copy of Free Thought Today published by the Freedom From Religion Foundation and was amazed to see two full pages of arrests and convictions of crimes by the clergy under the "Black collar Crime Blotter" - something that is published in each issue.  And, yes,  a large percentage of the crimes involved sexual abuse of children and conservative, anti-gay denominations were involved in a majority of the cases.  

Monday Evening Male Beauty

Orlando Massacre (And Murder of Children at Newtown) Do Not Sway Senate Republicans

Click image to enlarge

If one wants proof of the moral bankruptcy of today's Republican Party, look no farther than the vote this evening in the United States Senate on a bill that would have allowed the U.S. Attorney General to prohibit the sale of fire arms to suspected terrorists. EVERY single Republican except Senator  Ayotte of New Hampshire and Senator Kirk of Illinois - who are each facing a difficult re-election fights - voted to kill the bill.  Even so-called "GOP moderate Susan Collins.  NRA - think gun manufacturer - money meant more to these horrible Republicans than the 49 lives lost in Orlando a little over a week ago and the 20 elementary school children massacred in Newtow, Connecticut.  Likewise, the vote showed the lie of GOP claims that Republicans want to protect Americans from future terrorist attacks.  As I often say when talking about today's Republicans, the nastiest tawdry whore has more honesty, integrity and virtue than this hypocrites and cheaply bought political prostitutes do.   Huffington Post has details:

WASHINGTON — Just over a week after the worst mass shooting in American history, the Senate failed Monday to advance a pair of modest and popular gun violence reform measures.

One would have barred gun sales to anyone who has been on a terrorist watch list in the previous five years or who is “reasonably” suspected of posing a terrorist threat. Another would have tightened the background check system to cover the so-called gun show loophole and all internet gun sales. About 90 percent of the public favors such steps.

But neither of the proposals could get the 60 votes needed to advance.

The background checks amendment failed, 44 to 56. Sen. Mark Kirk (Ill.) was the only Republican who supported it. Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Jon Tester (Mont.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.) were the only Democrats who opposed it.

The terrorist watch list amendment failed, 47 to 53. Kirk and Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) were the only Republicans who voted for it. Heitkamp was the only Democrat who opposed it.

A pair of competing amendments by Republicans also failed.

The votes were scheduled after Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) took control of the Senate floor last week in a 15-hour filibuster-style marathon aimed not at stopping something, but at spurring action on gun violence.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) saw the failure coming, and condemned it Monday, after reciting a long list of recent mass shootings.

“Instead of getting help from their elected officials, our constituents see a disturbing pattern of inaction,” Reid said. “It’s always the same. After each tragedy we try, we Democrats try to pass sensible gun safety measures. Sadly, our efforts are blocked by the Republicans in Congress who take their marching orders from the National Rifle Association.”

When the next "lone wolf" terror attack occurs, just remember that Republicans likely made it possible. If you find this behavior as sickening as I do, vote against Republicans at every opportunity and make it clear why you are doing so.  Encourage all you friends and family members to do so as well.  The Republican Party puts no value on American lives and the party needs to be defeated at every front.  As for the Democrats who voted against these reasonable measures, the next calls I get from the Democrat and Senatorial fundraising arms, they will get a piece of my mind and it will be very clear that I will give NO MONEY until these three Judases are out of office. 

Americans Learn LGBT Hate Starting At A Young Age

While Republicans and anti-gay religious extremists want to point to Islam as the real enemy of LGBT individuals, they totally ignore their own equally toxic contributions to keeping homophobia alive and well.  Indeed, as one of my children, the only difference between anti-gay Christians and anti-gay Muslims is that the majority of such Christians do not advocate killing us.  The merely want us to be invisible and/or open targets of their discrimination which, like anti-gay Muslims, they justify on the basis of their "deeply held religious beliefs."  A piece in Think Progress looks at how children in America are still taught to hate those who are LGBT despite the efforts of some to end religious based hatred.  Here are some excerpts:

Parents who object to seeing expressions of affection between two people of the same gender — expressions such as the one that reportedly offended the gunman who opened fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando last weekend — typically argue that’s inappropriate because they have no way to explain what’s happening to their children.

But when schools offer to do this work by developing curricula that would help children understand concepts related to gender and sexuality in a developmentally appropriate fashion, those some parents tend to get angry.

From sex ed classes to gender neutral bathrooms to gay pride, school administrators are often pressured by angry parents and conservative groups to roll back efforts at LGBT inclusion.

These type of controversies in the classroom could have a lasting impact on how young kids grow up to see LGBT people. The backlash not only deprives students of an education about LGBT issues; it also communicates to them that issues that are important to the LGBT community are not worth their consideration and at worst, are offensive.

Here are just a few examples of efforts across the country . . . that it’s okay to celebrate hate against LGBT people — or, at the very least, to ignore their existence:

Silencing LGBT teachers

Omar Currie, a third grade teacher in North Carolina, found himself amid a national controversy last year after he read a book to his elementary school class that featured gay characters. After Currie — who is openly gay — noticed a bullying incident against a child, he decided read the book King & King to his class to teach them more about same-sex couples. Parents railed against his decision to read the book, saying they should have been informed he would read the fairy tale to the class. Most of the people who were angry about the reading didn’t actually have kids in his class.

Fighting against inclusive sex education

Sex and health education advocates have long pushed for classes that teach students how to use protection against pregnancy, how to protect themselves against STIs, and how to recognize whether their partner consents. But advocates have also begun to do a better job of recognizing that a comprehensive sex and health education also requires acknowledging LGBT students.

Right now, only 12 states ask teachers to mention sexual orientation during their sexual health discussion, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Four states require that when sexual orientation is discussed, only negative information should be shared.

An LGBT-inclusive sex education would challenge gender roles and acknowledge the existence of different kinds of families, including same-sex parents.

Accusing LGBT student clubs of having a “gay agenda”

LGBT students and their allies also face opposition when they attempt to introduce a Gay Straight Alliance to their schools. There have been various instances of schools and parents resisting GSAs and facing legal action from the ACLU as a result.

Most recently, after students at a Winchester, Tennessee high school started a GSA, they were accused by parents, community members, and anti-LGBT groups of pushing a “gay agenda.” During this outcry, the school board considered placing restrictions on all student organizations, such as requiring students to get permission from their parents to join. For some LGBT students and their allies, a request for parent permission would guarantee they couldn’t join the club, and could face consequences for even asking.

Protesting against gender-neutral bathrooms

Despite clear communication from federal courts and the U.S. Department of Justice that transgender people have the right to use the bathroom corresponding with their gender, there is still fierce opposition from hate groups to gender-neutral bathrooms, which are often one stall bathrooms that don’t require two people to share them.

Policing LGBT people’s clothes

Despite all of the progress that has been made in securing marriage equality and in ongoing victories for trans students’ right to use the bathroom, administrators are still accusing of LGBT students of “disruption” and “lewdness” when they wear a T-shirt that expresses their sexual orientation or LGBT pride.

Earlier this year, one administrator told a California student that her “Nobody knows I’m a lesbian” T-shirt was an “open invitation to sex.” He also said the T-shirt could be “gang-related,” and that students aren’t allowed to wear shirts stating their “personal choices and beliefs.” Her school eventually reached a settlement with the ACLU and agreed to change its dress code.

Administrators often police student’s clothing until media attention adds pressure on the school or courts require them to back off.

Not allowing LGBT people to enjoy prom

Administrators’ attempts to control LGBT student expression often extend to formal events such as dances as well. This year, a member of school staff attempted to stop two boys from attending prom together and a principal attempted to stop two girls from being nominated as prom royalty.

The two boys, who went to French Settlement High School in Louisiana, were told they couldn’t come together as dates by the assistant principal. When a local television station inquired as to why the boys were prevented from attending together, the school said it would investigate the matter. The boys attended as each other’s date and wore matching tuxes. 

It must be noted that it is ALWAYS the self-anointed "godly folk" who lead the charge to denigrate LGBT individuals.  Like Islam, in far to many ways Christianity is a religion of hate.  Blather about love of other is just disingenuous lip service.  It's really all about hate.

More Monday Morning Male Beauty

Good News: The Whole Other Trump Disaster

Yes, there is some good news on the 2016 campaign front which boils down to Donald Trumps refusal to date to set up his own team on the ground.  While his lack of a ground game may have worked with the base of support that he was courting during the GOP nomination process, many in the Republican Party are fearful that it will not work in the general election.   Better news yet is that Trumps approach could be a drag on down ticket GOP candidates.   Yes, by some fluke Trump's approach might work, but it ignores the usual need to get every possible voter out to the polls on election day.  A column in Talking Points Memo looks at this situation.  Here are highlights:

It's hard not to fixate on Donald Trump's string of galactic unforced errors on the campaign trail. But there's a whole different story playing out on the campaign mechanics front - and one that has Republicans rightly worried. According to this new story out from AP, the Trump campaign estimates that it currently has a nationwide field staff of 30 people. 30. This in a country with 50 states.

It is difficult to overstate just how many crazy notions are embedded in this package. No presidential campaign can really outsource its field operation to the party. That just means that the party has to build a whole additional field staff in addition to the one its already building (set aside not being able to control its strategy, quality of work etc.) That's not possible, or at least not possible to do well. The way this works in the modern campaign is that the presidential campaign has its field operation, the party has an additional field operation and they are coordinated together and in some ways integrated together in the fall for maximal impact.

Down ticket races are heavily, heavily dependent on these two massive field operations; they get pulled along with the wave of turnout these and other campaign committees coordinate.

Trump seems to have decided he's just not going to have one. Maybe he'll decide that's ridiculous and he wants to build on after all. But you can't just build a campaign operation overnight. And Trump is way, way behind.

It will have a substantial impact beyond the presidential contest itself. And that is assuming Trump gets into gear now and starts building. But that assumption itself seems highly, highly questionable.

The GOP’s Cynical Gay Ploy

As noted in a post yesterday, Donald Trump is claiming that he'd best protect the LGBT community from those who hate us even as he panders and cuddles up the leading Christofascists groups and pastors who are on record that they favor the government executing gays.  While such batshitery may easily pass with Trump's low education, low intelligence base of support, few sane and rational members of the LGBT community are falling for such rubbish.  So what's Trump and the GOP's strategy?  A column in the New York Times in my view correctly surmises that this false message isn't for the LGBT community but rather for uninformed moderates who Trump and the GOP want to dupe into voting for the principal political enemies of the LGBT community.  The piece also runs down the most recent efforts of the GOP to strip LGBT Americans of their civil rights and/or to keep us second class citizens.  Here are column excerpts:

One of the most brazen — craven even — ploys by Republicans in the wake of the Orlando massacre has been to suggest, incredibly, that they would be better for the L.G.B.T. community than the Democrats.

At a rally on Thursday, Donald Trump said “L.G.B.T is starting to like Donald Trump very much lately, I will tell you, starting to like Donald Trump very, very much lately.”

As Tierney Sneed of Talking Points Memo put it last week:

“The same Republicans who have argued that gay couples should not be allowed to marry, that L.G.B.T. Americans don’t need federal anti-discrimination protections and that trans people should not use the bathroom that matches their identity are now claiming that they — not Democrats — are the party on the L.G.B.T. community’s side.”

But the L.G.B.T community is not deceived by this treachery, in which the mouth speaks of protections while the hands and heart toil away at subjugation, if not destruction.

An analysis this month by The Washington Post of state efforts to limit L.G.B.T. rights found that:

“Since 2013, legislatures have introduced 254 bills, 20 of which became law. According to data collected by the American Civil Liberties Union and analyzed by The Washington Post, the number of bills introduced has increased steadily each year. In the first half of 2016 alone, 87 bills that could limit L.G.B.T. rights have been introduced, a steep increase from previous years.”

It is no wonder then that in a May opinion piece, Gallup’s Frank Newport pointed out that just 18 percent of those who identify as L.G.B.T. held a favorable opinion of Trump.

These vacuous appeals fly in the face of facts and are simultaneously laughable and infuriating.

Then it occurred to me that these weren’t appeals to the L.G.B.T. community at all. This wasn’t a way of peeling off the rainbow contingent from liberals’ rainbow coalition, but instead a way of making Republicans and amenable independents feel good about supporting the party’s schismatic policies. This was a way to salvage nobility for the homophobic, to say that there are factional benefits for tribalism, that liberalism itself is flawed because you can’t house the wolves with the rabbits.

But this too shall fail.

Republicans want us to forget that, according to the former George W. Bush campaign manager and Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman (who has since come out himself as gay), Republicans like Karl Rove have used anti-gay marriage amendments in crucial states to help draw homophobes to the polls and benefit Republicans.

Maybe Republicans want us to forget that, as ThinkProgress reported in December:

“Six of the Republican candidates vying for the presidency have signed a pledge promising to support legislation during their first 100 days in the White House that would use the guise of “religious liberty” to give individuals and businesses the right to openly discriminate against L.G.B.T. people.”

They want us to forget that although people of all political stripes have evolved on the issue of gay equality — including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton —Republicans are the trailing edge of that evolution.

No amount of the exploitation of fear and the revising of history is going to change what we know about the Republican Party and their continued abysmal record on gay rights.