Trump's Immigration Plan: Kick 'Em All Out!

Billionaire buffoon and raging id of the Republican Party Donald "Rump" Trump is unveiling his immigration policy:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says that undocumented immigrants "have to go," and he has vowed to undo President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The comments underscore how Trump, who has regularly stoked controversy with comments on illegal immigration and border security, is running a very conservative campaign centered on the issues -- and one that puts him to the right of some of his key primary opponents. On Sunday, Trump released a position paper on immigration and border security that called on Mexico to pay for a wall on the southern border of the United States and force the "mandatory return of all criminal aliens" to their home countries.

He also against "birthright citizenship," which means he takes issue with the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which states in Section 1: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."  That Constitution -- it's for losers! You're fired!

But Rump thinks he's "number one with the Hispanics." Actually, we're sure they think he's "Number 2," if you get what we mean and we think you do.

UPDATE:  Rump's "plan" is being well-received by right-wing media and by racist know- nothings (i.e., The Republican Base).  Watch his poll numbers tick up.

UPDATE II:  Koch brothers puppet dummy Gov. Scott Walker says, "Me, too!"

Great Moments in Republican Rhetoric, Iraq Revisionism Edition

"First of all, the Iraqis want our help. They want to know that we have skin in the game, that we're committed to this." (emphasis added) -- House of Bush legacy candidate John Ellis "J.E.B.!" Bush, responding to an audience member at the Iowa State Fair "soap box" on Friday, who pointed out to J.E.B.! that his brother was the one who negotiated the 2011 troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Here we go again. Someone should coach the "smarter Bush" that whenever he hears the word "Iraq," he should fake temporary deafness and excuse himself from the scene.  Then they should point out that, because his brother Dumbya committed the biggest foreign policy blunder in our history after selling the war on cooked up intelligence, we lost thousands of men and women, caused tens of thousands more to be wounded and crippled, and spent up to two trillion dollars on the Bush misadventure.  We'd call that "skin in the game," and any Iraqi knows that, having lost hundreds of thousands of their own people.

BONUS:  Billionaire vulgarian and the Republican Party's dark id Donald "Rump" Trump noticed J.E.B.!'s "skin in the game" nonsense, too, and called him on it.  Popcorn, anyone?

Julian Bond 1940-2015

Veteran civil rights leader Julian Bond has died:

(AP) - Julian Bond, a civil rights activist and longtime board chairman of the NAACP, died Saturday night, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

He was 75.

Bond died in Fort Walton Beach, Florida after a brief illness, the SPLC said in a statement released Sunday morning.

The Nashville, Tenn. native was considered a symbol and icon of the 1960s civil rights movement. As a Morehouse College student, Bond helped found the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and as its communications director, he was on the front lines of protests that led to the nation's landmark civil rights laws.

Bond later served as board chairman of the 500,000-member NAACP for 10 years but declined to run again for another one-year term in 2010.

The SPLC said Bond was a "visionary" and "tireless champion" for civil and human rights.

"With Julian's passing, the country has lost one of its most passionate and eloquent voices for the cause of justice," SPLC co-founder Morris Dees said in a statement. "He advocated not just for African Americans, but for every group, indeed every person subject to oppression and discrimination, because he recognized the common humanity in us all."

Bond also served in the Georgia state legislature and was a professor at American University and the University of Virginia.

In recent years, Bond also was a strong supporter of same-sex marriage and actions to reduce the impacts of climate change.

Video of the Day

Perhaps the most cogent statements issued by Rump.  Everybody now, "bing bing bong bong, bing bing bong bong."

(h/t to Tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors)

Big Tent / Little Tent Cartoon of the Day

(click to enlarge)

The Beltway village media cognoscenti are a-Twitter these days, fascinated with mega-buffoon Donald "Rump" Trump, largely because he feeds them the kind of gutter-level sound bites that they live on.  He's the shiniest of shiny objects for them to observe, despite the fact that the crowds that Sen. Bernie Sanders attracts dwarf Rump's.  Yes, Rump can fill a ballroom with what Arizona Sen. John "McNasty" McCain called "crazies," but Sanders is filling arenas.

However, as the cartoon suggests, Rump could have five people show up at his rally, but as long as he hurls some vile statements, our broken media will be there in droves.

(cartoon:  Matt Wuerker, Politic-ho)

Sweet Tweet - Stages Of Trump Think Piece

We're a bit late in getting to this tweet from BuzzFeed's Ivor Tossell, but it's standing the test of time (h/t Balloon Juice):

5 stages of Trump thinkpiece: 1. Ha Ha, Trump 2. Why Trump Can't Win 3. Explaining Trump 4. We Must Respect Real America 5. Oh God, Oh God

— Ivor Tossell (@ivortossell) July 25, 2015

At this stage, most corporate media are somewhere between #3 and #4. Right-wing media is at #5.

Jeb! Tries To Polish Family Legacy, Doesn't Realize It's A Turd

Juan Cole at the University of Michigan (Go Blue!) has some facts that set the record straight on John Ellis "Jeb!" Bush's recent revisionist Iraq War wanderings:

Jeb Bush very unwisely went after Hillary Clinton last night on the grounds that her Iraq policies gave us Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). [snip]

One of the arguments Mr. Bush made was that while his brother, George W. Bush, didn’t get everything right, he did have a brilliant moment with the 2007 troop escalation or “surge,” which put the world right. Then that horrible Obama crew, including Mrs. Cinton, came along and screwed things up by withdrawing from Iraq in 2011.

First of all, saying that W. didn’t get everything right in Iraq is like saying that Custer didn’t get everything right at the Little Bighorn. Bush’s Iraq misadventure was the biggest foreign policy screw-up in American history. Didn’t get everything right, indeed.

Second, Jeb Bush’s narrative about the “surge” is mythical history unconnected to reality. See my Engaging the Muslim World for the real story.

In brief, here is what happened.  (our emphasis)

Cole then proceeds to masterfully dismantle Jeb's ! faulty neocon history, once again calling into question whether Jeb! is the "smart Bush" (one always has to remember, it's all relative). 

Jeb! has recently been on a campaign to out-Trump Rump in the belligerent know-nothing department. On torture.  On the Iran nuclear deal.  On relations with Cuba.  Jeb! is starting to sound like Dumbya on steriods.  But when your "investors" have lined your campaign coffers with tens of millions of dollars and you're at 5 percent in Iowa, you need to start flailing away and hope that you're appealing to someone, somewhere.

Problem is, a Bush trying to sound smart about Iraq is a guaranteed Fail. 

Weekend Song

Happy 74th (!) birthday to David Crosby, co-founder of The Byrds (along with Roger McGuinn and the late Gene Clark) and the super-group Crosby, Stills, Nash (and sometimes) Young.  We're selecting a song written by Crosby in his waning days as a Byrd, "Lady Friend," released in July 1967.  The song is sometimes referred to as the "lost Byrds hit" partly because it had the misfortune of not finding its way onto "The Notorious Byrd Brothers" album -  by the time the album was halfway through production, Crosby had been fired from the group.  The other interesting thing to note about the song is that Crosby was unsatisfied with his fellow Byrds' vocals and decided to dub all the vocals himself (which no doubt further endeared him to his bandmates).  In any event, it's quite a pretty, uptempo rocker that deserved a better fate, with all-Crosby vocals, chiming guitars and even a synthesizer horn drop-in.  Enjoy!

"Disqualified"

After taking a week to digest its implications, influential blogger Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has a must read essay today on why Sen. Schumer's plan to vote against the Iran nuclear deal disqualifies him from being the next leader of the Democrats in the Senate.  Please read his arguments, which lead to this conclusion:

So why did Schumer oppose the deal? I think he moves in circles, personal and financial, where this deal is simply anathema and he doesn’t feel he can or wants to buck that opinion. He may also believe he can have his cake and eat it too - vote against, satisfy, and stay good with key supporters and not block its adoption. This is actually what I see as the most likely answer. He may also feel uncomfortable enough on this hot seat that he simply won’t look at the logic of the situation.

I can't know and frankly I don’t care. The bright line is that he’s smart enough to know better.

I’ve heard some say that this creates tension for him “on the left” in his quest to become Minority or Majority Leader. This is silly pundit talk. This isn’t the public option. This isn’t something supported by the foreign policy “left”. It’s very basic and mainstream and necessary. The fact that the neoconservatives who gamed the country into the Iraq disaster favor it does not change that.

Democratic senators who don’t reconsider support for Schumer as the leader of their caucus are making a big, big mistake. He should be ruled out of consideration for the job.  (our emphasis)

As Marshall demonstrates, surely Schumer is intelligent enough to know that the arguments he used to advance his position are dishonest and destructive.  That's what makes putting him into any future leadership role in the Senate so toxic.  Far from taking a principled position of conscience, Schumer has succumbed to the most banal impulses at a most critical moment in the history of our nation and of the nations in the Middle East.  This too- clever- by- half pol is hoping things will blow over (as opposed to blow up?) by the time Democrats vote for their next Senate leader.  There will be many of us trying to make sure that doesn't happen.

Marshall links to an op/ ed today by Fareed Zakaria, who takes Schumer's "reasoning" and demolishes it point by point, much as Jeffrey Lewis did earlier in Foreign Policy. Both are well worth reading to get a sense of how Schumer, a man who clearly knows better, has stood logic on its head for his own selfish reasons.

Picture of the Day

A U.S. Marine prepares to raise the flag at the newly-opened U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba this morning, as Secretary of State John Kerry stands in the background, center.

Kerry, speaking at times in Spanish, emphasized the political differences with Cuba over human rights, but stressed that a policy of engagement was the path most beneficial to Cubans and Americans alike.

(photo: AP / P. Martinez Monsivais)

The Panic In Noodle Park*

As desperate Republicans and their handmaidens in the media flog the Clinton email non-scandal, and resultant "panic" among "some Democrats," Jay Bookman at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution gives us a little perspective:

The hypocrisy in this case is also pretty rich, because the use of outside email accounts is a pretty standard and open secret in government at almost all levels, from local to national.  The former and current Republican governors now attacking Clinton — Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal — have all dealt with similar controversies, as did Mitt Romney in Massachusetts.

And during the George W. Bush administration, some 88 senior officials in the Bush White House were discovered to have used non-governmental email accounts to conduct government business and evade transparency requirements; email from more than 50 of those officials — amounting to somewhere between 5 million and 20 million emails — somehow disappeared and most were never recovered. Nobody was prosecuted for it.

One more point: There’s no evidence that Clinton’s email system was ever compromised, and as we’ve seen from recent hacks, keeping her emails on a “protected” government server would not exactly have been a guarantee of secrecy from prying foreign eyes. That doesn’t excuse her decision, but it’s nonetheless true.  (our emphasis)

Whether it's Whitewater, or Benghazi!!!, or the Clinton Foundation, or this, Clinton-haters have always been engaged in throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks.  Sometimes, as Bookman notes, unforced errors by the Clinton operation compound the situation.  But mostly it's a lot of noise generated by Republicans with the avid assistance of puerile Clinton-hating "journalists" who love a good horse race, to hell with the implications for our country.

The Beltway Boyz love to write about "Democrats in panic mode" (never offering any names, because sources!).  We fully believe that there are spineless, hand-wringing Democrats (=cough= Schumer =cough=), and Democrats who are shilling for one candidate or another.  But for every "Democrat in panic mode," we bet there are 50 Democrats who still wouldn't trade places with wrong- side- of- history Republicans and their catastrophic clown show.

* Apologies to Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne, and James Mills.

BONUS:  Nate Cohn would also like to inject some reality into the equation.

Today's Headline - Ben Carson, Doctor Of Hypocrisy

Ben Carson Used Fetal Tissues In His Own Research

This from the anti-choice extremist who now (that he's running for President) believes that a 17- week- old fetus is a human being;  the same Dr. Ben Carson who wrote a paper in 1992 describing research on two fetuses aborted in the 9th and 17th weeks of gestation.  We'd call that rank hypocrisy, but then "we're not scientists."

Let's remind ourselves why fetal tissue research is important.

Clerks and Cakes: Talibangelists Losing Ground

Nearly two months after the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal nationwide in Obergefell v. Hodges, two news items illustrate that some Bible-thumping yahoos haven't gotten the message:

First, a county clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples seeking to wed.  In doing so, clerk Kim Davis violated a Federal District court order that religious beliefs could not be cited as a reason for denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples.  A talibangelist law firm, "Liberty Counsel" (liberty for heterosexuals only, of course), is representing the clerk pending appeals to higher Federal courts.  Denying marriage licenses is a delaying action, of course, and one that only serves to humiliate and offend same sex couples.  It's also representative of the lawless nature of these talibangelists who would create a theocracy in America if given the opportunity.

Second, in Colorado, the state Court of Appeals ruled that a talibangelist baker couldn't refuse to provide a wedding cake to a same-sex couple on the basis of his religious beliefs.  The baker's attorneys are mulling whether to appeal to Federal court (good luck with that, Waldorf T. Flywheel).  This follows several instances from Oregon to New Mexico where companies providing a service or product to the community attempted to discriminate against same-sex couples based on religious beliefs, and lost their cases.

Point(head), Counterpoint(head)

Wow.  These two are really going at it (meow!):



Yay Freedumb!  Yay Constitution!  Yay Bill of Rights!  Yay "Ayn" Rand Paul!

Here's adolescent adult Rump Trump's counterpoint(head):

Rand Paul is doing so poorly in the polls he has to revert to old footage of me discussing positions I no longer hold. As a world-class businessman, who built one of the great companies with some of the most iconic real estate assets in the world, it was my obligation to my family, my company, my employees and myself to maintain a strong relationship with all politicians whether Republican or Democrat. I did that and I did that well.

Unless you are a piece of unyielding granite, over the years positions evolve as they have in my case. Ronald Reagan, as an example, was a Democrat with a liberal bent who became a conservative Republican.

Recently, Rand Paul called me and asked me to play golf. I easily beat him on the golf course and will even more easily beat him now, in the world in the politics.
Senator Paul does not mention that after trouncing him in golf I made a significant donation to the eye center with which he is affiliated.

I feel sorry for the great people of Kentucky who are being used as a back up to Senator Paul’s hopeless attempt to become President of the United States--- weak on the military, Israel, the Vets and many other issues. Senator Paul has no chance of wining the nomination and the people of Kentucky should not allow him the privilege of remaining their Senator.  Rand should save his lobbyist’s and special interest money and just go quietly home.

Rand’s campaign is a total mess, and as a matter of fact, I didn’t know he had anybody left in his campaign to make commercials who are not currently under indictment!

 What "talent"!  How "well-qualified"!  What a "deep field"!

BONUS: Unbiased pundit George "Effing" Will, whose wife is on Scott "Koch Head" Walker's payroll, joins in the Rump roast.

Scott Walker - Tough On Unions, Soft On Plutocrat Donors

Scourge of union workers and higher education Gov. Scott "Koch Head" Walker (R-Kochland) displeased just about everybody (including purportedly his benefactor Koch brothers) with this sweetheart deal:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed legislation Wednesday that commits hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money to a new arena for the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, a move that could complicate the Republican presidential candidate’s efforts to paint himself as the most ardent small-government conservative in a crowded field.

Walker and state GOP leaders pushed the arena plan for months, especially as the team's owners threatened to move the Bucks to a new market. The deal requires the team's current and former owners to cover half of the arena's $500 million projected cost, while taxpayers will cover the rest -- with interest, the public cost could rise to as much as $400 million. 

Hmmm.  We wonder where fiscal conservative Walker will find that $250 million- plus of taxpayers money?  Oh, now we remember.

Anyway, he certainly stood up to those owners, didn't he?  Just like he stood up to union workers terrorists.  At least he was unselfishly standing up for the people of Wisconsin Kochland!

Two members of the Bucks' ownership group donated $200,000 to the super PAC backing Walker’s presidential campaign, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

As the article mentions, some of Walker's supporters on the far right are making noises about their discomfort with the deal, although we suspect any time public money can line the pockets of supporters of right-wing PACs, all will be forgiven.