Mid-Week Hand Holding Song

In recent years, there has been a wave of solo female singers from the UK:  Adele, the late Amy Winehouse, Joss Stone, Ellie Goulding, and Leona Lewis to name a few.  Soulful Jess Glynne is a Grammy-winning singer from Hampstead, England, who, collaborating with electronic synth group Clean Bandit, had a big hit last year with "Rather Be."  Today's song, "Hold My Hand," is off her debut studio album, "I Cry When I Laugh," to be released next month.

Winky's Low Blow

While some of his Rethuglican competitors line up to smack blowhard bigot Donald "Rump" Trump, others have chosen to mute their criticism or to decline to criticize his lunacy at all.  In the latter case, sociopathic radical Sen. Ted "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz comes to mind as he licks his chops at the prospect of inheriting Rump's angry mob at some point.  Another, who's not even running for the nomination, is snowbilly grifter and quitter Sarah "Winky" Palin, grumpy Sen. John McCain's "gift" to American politics.

In her history of shivving people who have stood in her way politically or have crossed her, this has to be one of the more sorry examples.  In an e-mail to CNN's Rethuglican apologist Jake "Tippy" Tapper, Winky appeared to take no sides in the Rump - McCain dustup, before giving former mentor McCain a pointed dig over his comments that the immigrant haters were "crazies" (the term that set Rump off), and that Rump fellow traveler Tailgunner Ted was a "wacko bird" for shutting down the Government:

"Everywhere I go, hard-working patriotic Americans -- not 'crazies' or 'wacko birds' -- ask me to pass on to Mr. Trump encouragement to keep educating the masses about true ramifications of illegal immigration, and in general the real state of our union." (emphasis added)

That'll leave a mark on her former defender and booster.  Also, "keep educating the masses"?  Sounds elitist to us, Winky, if not a bit fascistic.  Winky's still very, very bitter about America's rejection of her in 2008, and, being the delusional narcissist that she is, can't bring herself to blame anyone but McCain and his staff for the loss.

BONUS:  Jon Stewart traces the Republican sociopathic id from Winky to Rump. 

Today's Cartoon: "Side Effects Of Diplomacy"

(click on image to enlarge)

(Brian McFadden, via gocomics.com)

Republicans, and their Israeli doppelganger, Prime Minister Netanyahu (R-Tel Aviv), are fast at work trying to sabotage the Iran nuclear agreement (which would take some craven Democrats in the Senate to accomplish - of which there's no shortage).  Meanwhile, Jonathan Alter spoke to former Israeli intelligence chief Ami Ayalon:

"When negotiations began, Iran was two months away from acquiring enough material for a [nuclear] bomb. Now it will be 12 months," Ayalon says, and the difference is significant to anyone with a background in intelligence. "Israelis are failing to distinguish between reducing Iran's nuclear capability and Iran being the biggest devil in the Middle East," he says.

Why has the response been more emotional than logical? "It's very easy to play with fears in a fearful society,” he says.

That's one of the things that bonds Republicans to their right-wing Likudnik allies:  using the tactic of fear to motivate.  But, as Alter goes on to point out,

For six years, Barack Obama has been cautious about calling out Iran. To convince China and Russia not to veto sanctions in the Security Council, he spoke softly. Harsh condemnations might have complicated the nuclear deal, which was rightly his first priority. The same went for pushing too hard on Iran’s outrageous imprisonment of four innocent Americans. 

Now the president will have a much freer hand to confront Iran on its non-nuclear behavior, and has more political incentive to do so. Like the deal itself, that’s good for the world in general, and Israel in particular.

(Identifying the rejectionists in the cartoon above: (top line) Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Scott Walker;  (second line) Jeb! Bush, John Boehner, Mike Huckabee, Bibi Netanyahu.)

Welcome To The Republican Clown Bus, John Kasich (Who?)

Alright, we know who John Kasich is (governor of Ohio, former Congressman, Lehman Brothers executive, former budget director under Dumbya).  Today, he's the 16th candidate to board the Republican presidential clown car bus.  What's his niche, you ask?  After all,  he expanded Medicaid under Obamacare and once voted for an assault weapons ban.  So, he's a "moderate conservative," right? (Mmmm, only in an age where the Overton window has shifted so far right.)

We agree with Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog, who pegs him as 2016's (doomed) Jon Huntsman:

Can you say "Jon Huntsman"? Kasich also supports the hated Common Core. Yeah, Jeb does, too -- but Jeb has more money than God, and he's more or less locked up the votes of all Republicans who think they need to make a choice based on pragmatism rather than ideological zealotry. That's a minority of the GOP electorate, though it may be a large enough minority to get Jeb through the early primaries, at which point maybe the rest of the electorate will hold its collective nose and rally around Jeb. But there's no room for Kasich in all this. The GOP isn't a lovely garden where a hundred reasonable right-centrists can bloom. It's a cesspit of carcinogenic rage.

Mainstream political journalists can't stand the thought that GOP voters aren't in sync with them. Just as they never stop insisting that Chris Christie is poised for a comeback, they're certain Republicans would embrace Kasich if circumstances were more favorable (a smaller field, an earlier entry into the race, no Trump). That's nonsense. Kasich would be blown away even in a two- or three-candidate race. He's no GOP voter's idea of an ideal presidential candidate. He'll be lucky to outpoll George Pataki and Bobby Jindal. (our emphasis)

The only real constituency Kasich has is the Republican-wired Beltway media, who can't understand why no one has the hots for Kasich like they do.  But that won't stop them from promoting him at every opportunity, now that their tough-love daddy figure, Gov. Chris "Krispycreme" Christie, remains beached like a dead whale.

BONUS:  Harry Enten at FiveThirty Eight has a similar take, with supporting data.

Scott Walker Wants To Be Starting Something

Here's Koch brothers employee of the year Gov. Scott "Koch Head" Walker (R-Kochland) and just two of his half-baked personas:

The Patton of Pewaukee:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) said over the weekend that the next president of the United States needed to be prepared to take aggressive military action on their very first day in office, including against Iran.  [snip]

... I believe that a president shouldn't wait to act until they put a cabinet together or an extended period of time, I believe they should be prepared to act on the very first day they take office," he said. "It's very possible, God forbid that this would happen, but very possible, that the next president could be called to take aggressive actions, including military actions, on their very first day in office."  (our emphasis)

"President Walker - your phone call's ready" -- in which his bald spot seems to have gotten bigger.

But Scottie wasn't going to wait until he was President (=snicker=) to go into battle with another foe: women.  Here's the Scourge of Sheboygan:

As expected, 2016 GOP presidential candidate and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has signed one of the most punitive anti-abortion bills in the nation, banning the procedure after 20 weeks with no exceptions for rape or incest, and jailing and fining doctors who don’t obey the law. [snip]

During Walker’s tenure as governor, he has defunded family planning services and eliminated equal pay protections, revealing an ultra-conservative view of women’s roles that go beyond denying constitutionally upheld reproductive rights.  (our emphasis)

The Wisconsin law will be challenged in federal court, but for now it burnishes Scottie's credentials with the mouth-foaming fringe.

IQ Test Tweet of the Day

Donald Trump wanted to become America's president but wound up becoming America's IQ test.

— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) July 19, 2015

Today's Tomorrow Cartoon And NASA/AMS Report On Climate Change

(click on image to enlarge)

(Tom Tomorrow, via Daily Kos)

Those characters depicted in the fourth panel?  Arguably two of the most ignorant and craven people ever elected to office, Republican climate change deniers Sen. James "Sen. Snowball" Inhofe (R-Oilpatch) and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Nitwit).

From the 25th annual "State of the Climate" report by NASA and the American Meteorological Association:

“Most of the dozens of essential climate variables monitored each year in this report continued to follow their long-term trends in 2014, with several setting new records,” the report said.  [snip]

Perhaps Jeff Severinghaus of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography provides the best takeaway from the report, saying, if this is Earth’s annual checkup, “the doctor is saying ‘you are gravely ill.'”  (our emphasis)

If by "several" records you mean seven, including hottest year, record high greenhouse gas emissions, and record Greenland and Antarctic ice melt.  But, it's just scientific evidence, so if you're a Republican, feel free to continue ignoring it.

BONUS:  Meanwhile, in other climate change denial news, there's this from Down Under:

[Sydney] Cardinal George Pell has publicly criticised Pope Francis' decision to place climate change at the top of the Catholic Church's agenda.

Cardinal Pell, a well-known climate change skeptic, told the Financial Times the church had "no particular expertise in science".

"The church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters," he said,

"We believe in the autonomy of science."

This clerical cluck, unfortunately, was placed in an important Vatican post by Pope Francis (Prefect of the Secretariat of the Economy), who may now rue that decision.  Pell is also not alone among his countrymen:  Australia has the highest percentage of climate change skeptics in the world, with 17% of the population having their head up their asses (the US is fourth, with 12% similarly afflicted).

Headline Of The Day

Credit to Andy Borowitz for this classic:

Trump Says He Heroically Avoided Capture in Vietnam by Staying in U.S.

We guess that explains why Trump likes himself so much.

Even A Blind Squirrel…. (Updated)

…sometimes finds a nut:

"Is there a double standard here? Are Republicans -- they say, 'There's no place in our party to disparage those who have served honorably.' Well, unless you're a Democrat?" (emphasis added)

That's CNN's Jake "Tippy" Tapper posing the question to Rethuglican Rep. Will Hurd (Secession-TX), after a discussion of the remarks made about Sen. John "McAngry" McCain's military service by draft-dodging Donald "Rump" Trump, and alluding to the smear of John Kerry by Rethuglicans in 2004.

Recall that the entire Republican / New Confederate / Stupid Party had a field day mocking Secretary of State John Kerry's three Purple Hearts-winning honorable service in Vietnam during the 2004 Presidential campaign.  The scurrilous Swiftboat Veterans for Truth acted as an arm of the Rethugs in slandering Kerry's record, and the Rethugs delighted in the smear.  Remember the Purple Heart bandaids worn at the 2004 Rethuglican National Convention, and the braying wingnuts that wore them?  And the current co-front runner who thanked the Swiftboaters for attacking Kerry?  And the guy wearing those "smart" glasses?

So good for you, Tippy.  Eleven years have passed, but it's never too late to call out the hypocrisy of the right wing.

BONUS:  John Kerry weighs in on Rump's remarks.

BONUS II:  Wonkette has an amusing piece on Rump and the party of situational heroism.

U.S. and Cuba Reopen Embassies

Fifty-four years after diplomatic relations were broken between the U.S. and Cuba, formal diplomatic relations were re-established today as embassies in Washington, D.C. and Havana reopened.  The Cuban flag will be raised at the Cuban embassy this morning by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, who will later meet with Secretary of State Kerry at the State Department.

Despite the restoration of relations, the trade embargo and reparation claims, along with human rights issues, remain unresolved.

(photo:  Worker installs Cuban flag in lobby of State Department this morning.  Paul Richards/AFP/Getty Images)

Washington Post Sees Good Economic News, Declares It Bad

The lead from an editorial in today's once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle, home of unrepentant deficit scolds:

WHEN IS an improving fiscal situation not really an improving fiscal situation? When it’s the United States’ current one.

That’s the lesson of the White House’s annual budget update, known as the Mid-Session Review, which was published Tuesday by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Data in the report show the federal government is on course to record a $455 billion budget deficit this year, which is $128 billion less than the Obama administration had projected six months ago. Expressed as a percentage of gross domestic product, this is even more impressive: it amounts to six-tenths of a percent of GDP that we were planning to borrow this year, but won’t have to borrow after all. Well over half of this unexpected deficit reduction is due to above-forecast tax revenue, generated by the economy’s continued growth. Given the report’s forecasts for next year, it is likely that, as a share of the economy, the budget deficit at the end of the Obama presidency will be three-quarters smaller than it was at the beginning. Not too shabby. 

But, of course, this impressive accomplishment can't be allowed to stand unchallenged.  Allusion to the Simpson-Bowles "catfood commission" in 3...2...1:

These stubbornly high levels of public debt, and the prospect of truly uncontrolled debt in the years beyond 2025, reflect the lack of fundamental reform to U.S. entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. President Obama may be able to boast about lower deficits on his watch, but not his avoidance of this issue. 

"Yes, =cough= much lower deficits =cough= but let's keep our eye on the small picture:  keeping the oldsters from robbing us!  Let them eat catfood!"

For a look at the world the rest of us live in, let's turn instead to Robert Kuttner, who we'll quote at length on what the real debt problem is:

This is the real debt problem—the merciless and economically stupid failure to write off old debt. It is the opposite of the claim that is relentlessly promoted by conservative groups, who tell a story of debts that must always be paid and of public debt burdening future generations. The reality is the opposite. It is growth that tames debt and makes it less burdensome; sometimes it takes debt relief to restore growth.

Here in the United States, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and a variety of front groups that it has created have spent more than $1 billion to propagate the story of public debt destroying America’s economic future. In this view, only austerity—budget cuts intended to pay down debt—can spare America from this fate.

This view violates the most basic logic of economics. If an economy is in a deep recession, balancing the budget is the worst policy that can be pursued, because fiscal contraction during a downturn reduces the rate of growth. The government’s books may eventually balance, but at a needlessly depressed level of economic output. This is what has occurred in Greece, where forced austerity has caused the economy to shrink by more than 25 percent and the budget is still not in balance.  [snip]

Peterson and the deficit hawks have continued to warn that deficits and debts are courting sky-high inflation, on the theory that government borrowing crowds out business borrowing and pushes up rates. But in a subpar economy, demand for credit is depressed and the inflation never arrives. That the austerity mongers have been proven wrong again and again has not diminished their puritanical crusade.

President Obama needlessly succumbed to the allure of the deficit hawks in 2010. He defined America’s prime economic problem not as prolonged stagnation but as excessive public debt. He appointed a bipartisan ["catfood"] commission inspired by the Peterson Foundation, chaired by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, to come up with a belt-tightening program. Mercifully, the commission could not agree on a plan that met its required supermajority.  [snip]

Only when the Federal Reserve embraced heroic monetary policies of bond purchases on a scale unknown since World War II—more debt!—did the economy begin a real recovery. The debt-to-GDP ratio began coming down faster than projected—not mainly because of the budget cuts but because growth was resuming. Obama finally abandoned austerity economics in his 2015 State of the Union Address. By then, the political damage was done. Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress and his proposals for increased public investment were dead on arrival.

Not that we expect the editorial board at the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle to acknowledge the abject failure of their prescriptions for economic health.  As the times pass them by, count on their finding more gray linings inside silver clouds.

Donald Trump And The "Party Of Crazy"

With a big assist today from The Miami Herald's Leonard Pitts, Jr., we continue to fill the void left by HuffPo's refusal to cover the campaign of Republican front-runner Donald "Rump" Trump (except in its Entertainment section).  You're welcome!  Here's Pitts on why Rump appeals to so many in his party, and what that ultimately tells us:

Trump is No. 1?

Sure. Why not? Didn’t he promise to build that wall and make Mexico pay for it? There you go, right? Immigration solved, right?

Well...no. But the very fact that so many of us apparently think so provides a vivid illustration of the anti-intellectualism and deep-fried yahoo-ism now holding the Republican Party hostage.

Somehow, the party of Teddy Roosevelt, Gerald Ford and Bush the elder has become the party of secession talk, revolution talk and vigilantes harassing children on the Southern border, the party of the “war on whites,” “the war on Christmas,” tea parties and birthers, the party of anti-science, anti-history and fear that the U.S. military is, right this moment, preparing for the invasion of Texas. In a word, the party of crazy.
Small wonder it is also the party of Trump.

Yes, cooler heads will soon prevail, and some establishment candidate will carry the banner into battle. But don’t let that tempt you into being sanguine about this insane moment when the leader of the Republican field is a two-legged id with an incontinent mouth.

We should take no solace in the fact that Trump will eventually fall from his lofty perch. Rather, we should wonder what it says about the GOP that he was up there in the first place.  (our emphasis)

A brief anecdote could serve to illustrate "The Problem."  As we noted below, there was a rally in Columbia, SC, of "Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan" members who were demonstrating against the removal of the Confederate treason flag from the South Carolina state capitol grounds.  The leader of that group of simian/ human hybrids is one Roy Pemberton, who was asked for whom he would vote in the 2016 election, if the choice were a certain match-up:

Pemberton’s world is one of hate, cloaked, at least at times, in a veneer of righteous struggle. He said he would vote for Ben Carson, the African American Republican candidate for president, over Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. He said he hates black people as a race, but not individually.

So, whether or not Rump is in the race, or is the front-runner, is really irrelevant;  "The Problem" is the audience that finds what he and the other far-right cranks in the race says so appealing.  It's called "The Republican Base," also now undeniably revealed as "The Party of Crazy."  It's who you are, Republicans;  own it.

BONUS:  See also Digby and Andrew O'Hehir.

Great Moments In Republican Rhetoric, Cont'd.

"I recognize that folks in the press love to see Republican on Republican violence.  You want me to say something bad about Donald Trump or bad about John McCain or bad about anyone else and I'm not going to do it." -- Smarmy sociopath Sen. Ted "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz (Wingnut-Calgary), becoming the only Rethug candidate for 2016 refusing to criticize the remarks made by raging wig-stand Donald "Rump" Trump who refused to call John McCain a "hero" because of his POW status.

If this isn't the clearest sign that Tailgunner Ted believes that Rump's toast and desperately wants to inherit Rump's followers, we don't know what is.

(photo:  All sweetness and light.)

"Heritage" of Hatred

Roughly 40 members of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and their white supremacist supporters demonstrated in support of the Confederate flag of treason today on the South Carolina state capitol grounds in Columbia, SC.  They were opposed by a much larger crowd of counter protesters.

The Klan and their supporters waved the flag and chanted "white power" and gave the Nazi salute during the protest (thereby demonstrating that the flag represents Southern "heritage" -- whatever that means -- and not racist hatred, right?)

(photo:  Chris Keane, Reuters)

Keep Him Talking….Please

It bears repeating that the reason bigot blowhard Donald "Rump" Trump is flying high at the top of the polls of Rethuglican base voters is that he gives voice to their dark thoughts, thoughts which are broadly unpopular outside of the right wing hothouse.  Some of the other Rethugs in the race for President are more careful in their bigotry, using well-known dog whistles and code terms.  But Rump is unrestrained, hateful and unapologetic.  Here's Kali Holloway at Alternet:

"With Trump, though, there’s nothing to decode in his speeches, no dog whistles you have to strain to hear; it’s all loud and wrong and right there on the record, with no pretense of being anything but ugly and hateful. When Trump offers his thoughts on Mexican immigrants, he is clear and direct about the fact that this is what he truly believes. When he sends the press an 881-word essay saying that 'the worst elements in Mexico are being pushed into the United States by the Mexican government,' and that 'tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border,' he is telling us, in no uncertain terms, that this is how he thinks. When he retweets supporters that Jeb Bush “has to like Mexican illegals because of his wife,” or that he should 'Get to The WHITE House' (you know, to reclaim it from the black people currently living in it), he is sending a resounding message about who he is. Likewise, when Republicans applaud Trump for his honesty or claim he’s speaking for the American people, they too are telling us that Trump is expressing exactly what they think. Only out loud. And without the big show of pretending to be a decent human being that his competitors put on….

Donald Trump has always been awful and racist, but that wasn’t enough, I suppose. It took him being awful and driving his racist rhetoric right to the tippity top for the Republican base to fall truly and madly for him. In a league of crazy racist xenophobes, Trump has proved himself the craziest, most racist xenophobe of all, or at least the most upfront about it. And for that, he is being rewarded by a party of people who cannot get enough. Because that’s what the modern GOP is all about." (emphasis added)

The more Rump rages, the more the Rethuglican establishment has apoplexy.  The higher he rises in the polls, the more the same establishment sees their hopes in 2016 fading.  Goodbye, rebranding. Goodbye, 2016 and the White House and Senate.  (Which is why, unlike HuffPo, we won't be exiling Rump to our Entertainment section -  if we had one, that is.)

Keep talking, Rump, keep talking.

BONUS:  Today's Trump Dump:

While addressing the annual Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa on Saturday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump took another shot at John McCain, this time questioning the latter's status as a war hero. “He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured,” Trump said. “I like people that weren’t captured.” McCain was taken as a prisoner of war for five years during the Vietnam War. Trump, meanwhile, received four student draft deferments between 1964 and 1968 and an additional medical deferment after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Uh oh.  A personal attack on a former POW and decorated veteran is the other third rail for a political candidate.  And a fellow Republican, to boot. This could be YOOGE.