Initech

Initech's Journal

August 31, 2016

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #40: Zika Virus Apocalypse Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! Come with me, and you’ll see in a world of pure imagination. Take a look and you’ll see into your imagination… Sing it with me! We are back ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, LGBT and gender non conformers! And in our regularly scheduled time slot! No computer fuck ups, no breaks, just some Top 10 goodness. Come on let’s give it up for Gene Wilder who sadly passed while we were putting together this week’s edition. I want to see some applause people! Come on, who didn’t love at least one of his movies – and he made some truly amazing ones. You have Blazing Saddles and the Producers. That would be enough for any actor or actress to have movies of that caliber on their resume, but then you add such amazing flicks as Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, Bonnie & Clyde, Hanky Panky, The Woman In Red, See No Evil Hear No Evil, Young Frankenstein, Silver Streak, I could go on and on. I mean the guy even had his own show that ran for two seasons – “Something Wilder”. So how do we best remember the man who fueled so many childhoods with Willy Wonka, and adulthoods with Blazing Saddles and the Producers? How about this clip from one of my favorite flicks – Blazing Saddles?

First off – John Oliver is on a break while he goes on tour with Funny Or Die’s Oddball Fest, but first – Stephen Colbert tests the validity of the Hillary Clinton e-mail “scandal”:

So where do we begin this week? Well we begin with a trigger warning – the top slot is going to go to a registered democrat and daughter of West Virginia senator. But as we’ve shown before in our discussion of Deborah Wasserman-Shultz, nobody is immune from this list if they do something incredibly stupid or evil. With that in mind the top two slots are going to go to Heather Bresch (1,2), who is redefining what it means to be a robber baron in modern society. Meanwhile returning champion Donald Trump is going to take up the next three slots (3, 4, 5). In the third slot we’re going to talk about Donald J. Trump and a certain Ann Coulter, and how their relationship might be well, in shambles. Don’t trust a snake oil salesman too quickly there, Ann! In the fourth slot we’re going to talk about Donald Trump’s relationship with “the blacks” while he said some jaw-dropping things about NBA star Dwayne Wade’s late cousin and got in a Twitter fight with Avengers star Don Cheadle. Meanwhile in the fifth slot we’re going to talk about something rare that Donald Trump almost never does – apologize for hurling insults. Or did he? Taking the number 6 slot we are going to talk about another Trump incited feud, this time involving 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (6). At number 7, now that the 2016 Olympics is in the books (spoiler alert: America won twice as many gold medals as the next country, only we didn’t get to see it), we’re going to tell you about the Mainstream Media (7) and their coverage of the Zika Virus. If you watch the MSM, you would see that it is coming to kill every last single one of us! Ahhhhhhhhh!!!! At number 8 we’re going to talk about Maine Gov. Paul Le Page, who got caught leaving a profanity-laden voice mail, and we’re going to take him up on his challenge to prove he’s a racist. Taking the number 9 slot (NEIN!!!) Alex Jones returns and he’s got a whopper this week surrounding Hillary’s jabs at him during her speeches. Finally this week we have to talk about this story. So apparently Lindsay Lohan (10) is traveling to Russia, and her list of demands are certifiably insane. One of them? She wants to have a sit down with Donald Trump’s BFF and shirtless dressage pioneer Vladimir Putin. Good luck with that! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

[font size="8"]Heather Bresch[/font]

You know since I started the Top 10, one of our favorite punching bags here has been pharma-douche Martin Shkreli. And while Martin Shkreli might be getting his ass handed to him by forensic accounting investigators and the FBI, a newer, more scarier pharma-douche has emerged. Sorry Shkreli, playtime is over. But compared to Heather Bresch, your ill-advised pharmaceutical price hiking seems relatively tame by comparison! Here’s the news as it originally broke:

For most parents, back-to-school season means searching for this year’s trendy first-day outfit, stocking up on 3-ring binders, and making sure that summer homework is finished. When it comes to parents of kids with severe allergies, however, there’s an extra task on that list: Re-stocking their EpiPen prescription before their children enter a world where a lethal peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich could be lurking a cafeteria table away.

“Make sure your child always has an EpiPen(R) Auto-Injector within reach,” reads item number 2 on the “Back To School Homework for parents” webpage hosted by the EpiPen brand owner, pharmaceutical company Mylan.

Last year, about 3.6 million prescriptions were written for EpiPens, which expire each year and need to be replaced.

But Mylan has priced this life-saving medication, which can keep airways open during severe allergic reactions, far out of reach for many families. Over the past nine years, since Mylan bought the rights to the EpiPen, the price for the easy-to-use injectors has quintupled — increasing about 450 percent, from around $50 for one injector to $600 for a pack of two.
https://thinkprogress.org/life-saving-allergy-treatment-is-becoming-too-expensive-for-families-to-afford-4fe5dd9aab39#.9pauegkpj

Holy fucking shit! Think about that number there for a minute. 450%!!! The only other time you would achieve a percentage that high is when you use cheat codes in Grand Theft Auto to get 450% armor, or maybe when Thor fights Iron Man in the first Avengers flick:

But there’s more:

Epinephrine-dispensing EpiPens have become a necessity for families with children suffering from severe allergies. However, as the price of EpiPen surges, the potentially life-saving medicine is being given a skip by users who have to make a choice between being broke or risking an attack.

In cases of severe allergic reactions, the synthetic adrenaline in EpiPens is used to counter effects like wheezing, uneven breathing, increased or decreased heart rate, swelling and other reactions. While a two-pack of EpiPens cost pharmacies about $100 in 2009, the prices have risen by more than 480 percent to its current price of more than $600, CBS News reported.
http://www.ibtimes.com/epipen-price-surge-causing-families-risk-severe-allergic-reactions-2402965

This is a jaw-dropping, stunning level of evil here. The medication is so fucking expensive that poor families who have kids with severe allergies have to make a choice – buy Epipen at $600 a piece, or risk severe allergic reactions.

But here’s where things get batshit insane. So you know here at the Top 10 we’ve been railing on CEOs and outrageous pay increases since the beginning. Well if this doesn’t make you want to vomit all over your monitor / phone / tablet, you sir / madam are a much stronger person than I am.

Mylan Pharmaceuticals CEO Heather Bresch is desperately trying to control the public relations disaster created by her company’s decision to jack up the price of the life-saving EpiPen drug by 450 percent over the past 12 years.

CNBC interviewer Brian Sullivan also pointed out that the American Medical Association has said that EpiPens are the same product that they were in 2009, and thus nothing justifies such massive price hikes.

When asked how she could justify increasing her own compensation — which has risen from $2.5 million in 2007 to $18.9 million in 2015 — even as parents have to pay significantly more for their children’s life-saving drugs, Bresch again completely dodged the question.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/watch-mylan-ceo-heather-bresch-goes-down-in-flames-defending-16m-pay-raise-and-epipen-price-hike/

And here’s my favorite part of this whole thing – Ms. Bresch herself is saying that “no one is more frustrated than I am” when it comes to the 450% price increase of Epipen. Cue the world’s tiniest violin:

Mylan CEO Heather Bresch struggled Thursday to justify the repeated big price hikes of the company's lifesaving EpiPen devices as criticism continued that Mylan is gouging consumers with a retail cost of more than $600.

"No one's more frustrated than me," Bresch told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday when she was pressed on the question of why Mylan needed to have such a high price for EpiPens, and why she just didn't cut their price.

"Everybody should be frustrated," said Bresch, who in recent days has come under fire from U.S. Senators, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and patients who are outraged by EpiPen's 400 percent price increases in recent years.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/25/mylan-expands-epipen-cost-cutting-programs-after-charges-of-price-gouging.html

Everyone should be frustrated? No shit!!! $600 for a drug that used to cost $57???? And you get a $16 million fucking pay day out of this? How are we not supposed to be frustrated with this? This is exactly the same thing Martin Shkreli did and he bragged about all the cash and bling that he got out of it like he was in a Rick Ross video (see: Idiots #7 ) !

And then I love this part – this was the actual response from the CEO herself: “Mylan CEO on her salary increasing as EpiPen prices rose: "I understand...that facts are inconvenient to headlines" “. Shut up!!!

[font size="8"]Heather Bresch[/font]

So if you’re an investor in Mylan Pharmaceuticals – you’re pretty much fucked. It’s almost as if Heather Bresch has been mirroring Martin Shkreli and doing the same thing he’s doing, only way more evil. Here’s what happened:

Mylan Pharmaceuticals — the company that makes the EpiPen rescue device — has watched its stock value plummet over the last five days as panicky investors jump ship.

According to U.S. Uncut, outrage over Mylan’s decision to jack up the price of the EpiPen has spooked shareholders, whose departures have reduced the value of Mylan stock by 12.4 percent. On August 19, Mylan stocks went from $49.20 per share to $43.11 on August 24, a net loss of nearly $3 billion for the company.

The EpiPen is a popular rescue device for food allergy sufferers who run the risk of anaphylaxis — a potentially lethal reaction to allergen exposure. The device rapidly delivers a dose of epinephrine to the system, which for severe allergy sufferers can mean the difference between life and death.

The device was conceived and developed for the U.S. Department of Defense by researcher Sheldon Kaplan. The studies and testing were all underwritten by U.S. taxpayer revenues. The device was originally created as an antidote to nerve gas, but it was released to the public as a rapid remedy to anaphylactic shock.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/epipen-makers-stock-value-plunges-nearly-3-billion-as-investors-panic/

You know in doing research on this topic, we have to go back to 2012, when doctors were warned about a curious rise in food allergies – such as peanuts and honey – among kids that were developing at an alarming rate. 4 years ago, that drug was owned by Pfizer. Let’s delve into some history of the drug here, shall we?

After a 7-year-old girl died in January in a similar case in Virginia, the state passed a law that allows any child who needs an emergency shot to get one. Beginning this month, every school district in Virginia is required to keep epinephrine injectors on hand for use in an emergency. Illinois, Georgia and Maryland have passed similar laws, and school nurses are pushing for one in Ohio. A lobbying effort backed by Mylan, which markets the most commonly used injector, the EpiPen, made by Pfizer, led to the introduction last year of a federal bill that would encourage states to pass such laws.

Mylan has also lobbied state legislatures around the country directly and is passing out free EpiPens this fall to any qualifying school that wants them.

“When a child is having an anaphylactic reaction, the only thing that can save her life is epinephrine,” said Maria L. Acebal, the chief executive of the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network. “911 doesn’t get there fast enough.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/business/mylan-invests-in-epipen-as-child-allergies-increase.html?pagewanted=all

That sounds innocent enough right? I mean when Mylan bought the drug from Pfizer, it seemed like a no brainer that it should be handed out to elementary school kids free of charge right? Well, it’s not as innocent as it sounds:

EpiPens are mandatory for public schools in at least 11 states after Congress passed a law recommending their use — but the drug’s manufacturer pays no U.S. taxes at all after relocating overseas.

Mylan spent $4 million lobbying Congress to pass the 2013 School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act, which offers incentives to schools to stock the potentially life-saving auto-injectors.

About a year and a half later, Mylan completed a corporate inversion to change its legal residence to the Netherlands, a tax haven, while keeping its headquarters and most of its employees in the Pittsburgh area.

The move allowed Mylan to cut its U.S. effective tax rate from 9.4 percent in 2013, the year Congress helped protect its market dominance, to negative 4.7 percent in 2015, according the group Americans For Tax Fairness.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/mylan-pushed-for-law-to-make-epipens-mandatory-in-us-schools-then-fled-overseas-to-avoid-taxes/

Well, I hate to tell you my friends, it gets weirder. Yes, there is rampant cronyism and nepotism involved. Yes, Mylan’s CEO is the daughter of West Virginia DEMOCRATIC senator Joe Manchin. But that part isn’t what is important. What’s important is that Heather Bresch should not be put in charge of anything! I wouldn’t trust this woman to run a kids’ lemonade stand!

Mylan CEO Heather Bresch would never have been hired at the company had it not been for her father, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, NBC News reported.

Bresch herself admitted as much in a 2012 interview published in WV Living magazine. “I don’t deny that I got my first job at Mylan because of my dad,” she said at the time, adding, “I couldn’t have told you what Mylan did. I vaguely knew it had something to do with science.”

The magazine reported that Manchin mentioned to the company’s co-founder, Mike Puskar, that she was looking for a job. The senator then urged her to apply at the company for a data entry position 20 years ago.

“You should absolutely take it. Give it a year,” she recalled him saying.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/epipens-bresch-i-got-my-first-job-at-mylan-because-of-my-dad-didnt-know-what-they-did/

Shut up. Just shut up. Stop talking. Knowing what I’ve read about this thing – if Mrs. Bresch would run a lemonade stand, she would be selling a 25 cent glass of lemonade for $65. Now let’s check out the chain o’ command that shows how Mylan got the drug shall we?

In 2014, Mylan purchased the generics business of Abbott Laboratories, which allowed the Pennsylvania company to shift its corporate headquarters to the Netherlands, cutting its tax bill. That tax “inversion” drew the ire of President Obama, who criticized Mylan and other companies as unpatriotic. Mylan executive chairman Robert Coury, 55, fired back in an op-ed in USA Today, saying it was the equivalent of calling Americans who buy foreign products unpatriotic. With head-scratching logic, he pointed out that many antibiotics are no longer made in the US. “Should Americans stop taking these lifesaving medicines because they aren’t ‘Made in the USA?’ ” he wrote.

Last year, Israeli generic maker Teva offered to buy Mylan for $40.1 billion. Mylan didn’t just say “no,” but “hell no,” and Coury blasted Teva’s management and culture in a public letter to Teva’s chairman. “We do not wish to make Teva’s problems Mylan’s problems, or to inflict them on Mylan’s shareholders and other stakeholders,” he wrote.
http://qz.com/765333/exorbitant-prices-are-just-one-reason-to-loathe-the-company-that-makes-the-epipen/

And then what does Sen. Manchin have to say about his daughter being a CEO robber baron? Well… PR response is PR response:

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has come into the spotlight this week after revelations that his daughter’s company has decided to drastically increase the price of life-saving EpiPen drugs.

On Thursday, Manchin issued a public statement addressing the controversy that ensued when it was revealed that drug manufacturer Mylan Pharmaceuticals has raised the price of EpiPens by 450 percent over the past 12 years.

“I am aware of the questions that my colleagues and many parents are asking and frankly I share their concerns about the skyrocketing prices of prescription drugs,” he began. “Today I heard Mylan’s initial response, and I am sure Mylan will have a more comprehensive and formal response to those questions.”
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/sen-manchin-finally-responds-to-his-daughters-company-jacking-up-epipen-prices/

And of course they lowered the price. But not as much as you’d think:

The maker of EpiPens announced Thursday that it is reducing the price of the device following an uproar in Washington over the cost of the treatment for serious allergic reactions.

Mylan, the company that makes EpiPens, said it will provide a savings card worth up to $300 for people who had been paying the full out-of-pocket cost, effectively reducing the cost by 50 percent.
The company is also doubling the eligibility for its patient assistance program, which eliminates out-of-pocket costs for uninsured and underinsured people.

"We have been a long-term, committed partner to the allergy community and are taking immediate action to help ensure that everyone who needs an EpiPen® Auto-Injector gets one,” CEO Heather Bresch said in a statement.
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/293273-epipen-maker-lowers-price-in-response-to-uproar

[font size="8"]Trump V. Coulter: Yawn Of Justice[/font]

So last week you know we had a lot of fun with the Donald Trump fake Tweet generator. Which lets you say just about anything and formats it as a Donald Trump tweet:

Damn right. So we have to talk about the Donald Trump and Ann Coulter situation. So Ann Coulter put out her latest piece of shit book called “In Trump We Trust”. I particularly like that it has the tagline “E Pluribus Awesome”. Can we show that?

So what did Trumpenfuror do to Ann Coulter? Why if you guessed he can’t be trusted, you are correct good sir / madam! You get points! So of course here’s the first review:

By my scientific count, there are only two newspaper columnists in the known universe who have not already declared Donald Trump’s presidential campaign dead and buried. One is me. Having mocked Trump for getting in a Twitter war with a Mexican narcotrafficker way back at the beginning of the campaign, only to see him shoot to the top of GOP polls, I long ago certified this campaign as too bat-guano-crazy to predict.

The other dissenter is the lethally blonde Ann Coulter, whose new book “In Trump We Trust” will be published Tuesday and, if history is any indication, will next be spotted on the New York Times best-seller list.

Coulter, an early and enthusiastic backer of Trump (he essentially adapted her book “Adios, America” as his campaign platform on immigration), has been warning that the polls were undercounting his supporters ever since he started out near the bottom of a 17-candidate Republican field.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article97277152.html#storylink=cpy

And then wow – I never thought I would find myself agreeing with bloated gasbag Rush Limbaugh but you know what they say – a broken clock is right twice a day:

Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh fell into a fit of laughter Thursday while telling his listeners about how Donald Trump had somehow managed to convince his loyal followers to support amnesty just before Ann Coulter‘s book came out.

RushTalk radio host Rush Limbaugh fell into a fit of laughter Thursday while telling his listeners about how Donald Trump had somehow managed to convince his loyal followers to support amnesty just before Ann Coulter‘s book came out.

“Could you imagine what it’s like to be Jeb Bush today? Who knew–” he began, before laughing.

“First they tried Marco Rubio. They tried the Gang of Eight. They tried Jeb Bush… they tried everybody they could think of to try to convince the Republican base to support some form of amnesty for illegal immigrants…” he tried again, before breaking into uncontrollable laughter.

“Who knew,” Limbaugh finally managed to say between chuckles, “that it would be Donald Trump to come out and convert the GOP base to supporting amnesty the same week Ann Coulter’s book comes out!”
http://www.mediaite.com/online/rush-limbaugh-literally-cant-stop-laughing-at-the-plight-of-ann-coulter/

So can I take that as a “we were right all along” when it comes to immigration, Rush? Well this thing gets weirder and weirder. So here’s what Donald Trump did when Ann Coulter’s book came out:

Donald Trump has just betrayed Ann Coulter. Which is a dangerous thing to do.

This week, Coulter released her new book, In Trump We Trust. As the title suggests, it’s a defense of Trump. But more than that, it’s a defense of Trumpism. Most Trump surrogates contort themselves to defend whatever The Donald says, no matter its ideological content. They’re like communist party functionaries. They get word from the ideologists on high, and regurgitate it as best they can.

Coulter is different. She’s an ideologist herself. She realized the potency of the immigration issue among conservatives before Trump did. On June 1 of last year, she released Adios America, which devotes six chapters to the subject of immigrants and rape. Two weeks later, Trump—having received an advanced copy—famously picked up the thread in his announcement speech.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/how-trump-betrayed-ann-coulter-on-immigration/497618/

Which as you can guess, this has left hardcore xenophobe Ann Coulter betrayed and angry. Don’t trust a snake oil salesman that quickly, Ann:

WASHINGTON—Ann Coulter has just begun the promotional tour for her new book, In Trump We Trust, which contains this statement: “There’s nothing Trump can do that won’t be forgiven. Except change his immigration policies.”

The book came out Tuesday. By Wednesday, Coulter did not seem like a woman who trusted Donald Trump.

Trump, it had become clear, is thinking about changing his immigration policies.

The Republican presidential nominee has modified, abandoned or reversed a dizzying array of campaign pledges, but this particular shift would be a doozy to surpass them all. Trump, who won the Republican primary in significant part because of a promise to deport all 11 million of America’s illegal immigrants, is now musing publicly about allowing most of those people to stay.
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/08/25/ann-coulter-fumes-as-donald-trump-floats-massive-immigration-flip-flop.html

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

That’s real. That happened. Donald Trump is so desperate to court the African American vote – where he is currently hovering at about, um…………… 2%:

The need for better outreach by the Republican Party and its nominee to African-Americans has been underscored as Trumpmade this point in recent days to the overwhelmingly white crowds that show up to his rallies.

"The GOP is the party of Lincoln, and I want our party to be the home of the African-American vote once again. I want an inclusive country, and I want an inclusive party," Trump said in Virginia.

The challenge Trump has in reaching out is also apparent in his poll numbers. African-Americans represent a reliable voting bloc for Democrats, but Trump's poll numbers with black voters are low — even for a Republican nominee.

Exit polls from 2012 showed Mitt Romney winning just 6% of African-Americans, while President Obama won 93% of the black vote. An ABC News/Washington Post poll this month showed Trump with just 2% of support among black voters.
http://www.npr.org/2016/08/21/490821643/trumps-appeal-to-black-voters-may-repeat-past-mistakes-of-gop-outreach

So 2%!!! That might be the lowest approval rating in the history of, well, approval ratings! But I love this – in an apparent attempt to channel his inner Kanye West, or maybe Charlie Sheen, Trumpenfuror is looking forward to the 2020 election and saying that he will be the greatest of all time:

Donald Trump promised Friday night that if elected president, he will win 95 percent of the African-American vote in his reelection bid.

Renewing his effort to reach out to black voters at a rally Friday evening, Trump suggested that Democratic politicians that overwhelmingly govern in America’s inner cities have failed African-Americans. Trump told the Dimondale, Michigan, crowd that “we can never fix our problems by relying on the same politicians who created our problems in the first place. A new future requires brand-new leadership.”

“You're living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs. Fifty-eight percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?” Speaking before another largely-white audience in a town whose population is 93 percent white, Trump said, “And at the end of four years, I guarantee you that I will get over 95 percent of the African-American vote. I promise you. Because I will produce.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-african-american-vote-227218

https://cdn1.lockerdome.com/uploads/d070b3efa6ab9b92293a0216ac0fc792dd428cadefee07089d4b95bec92181eb_large

Well he won’t win any votes with the African American community when he resorts to pulling stupid shit like this. Can we throw that Tweet up there?

:medium

And yes that’s an actual Trump Tweet. See if we were to make a fake one it would look something like this:

So here’s what happened and it’s a really shitty story, and I have great respect for Dwayne Wade, he’s one of the best in the game right now, and it sucks that this happened. Just another day in gun country:

Donald Trump sought to use the shooting death of basketball player Dwyane Wade's cousin as a political statement on Saturday, a move that drew scorn from some on social media.

On Friday, Nykea Aldridge, 32, was shot and killed while she pushed her baby in a stroller near an elementary school on Chicago's South Side. The baby was not harmed in the shooting.

Trump, after a year of waging a presidential campaign marked by divisive and racially coded rhetoric, has recently sought to appeal to African American voters. The effort, note many political observers, is also an attempt to boost his poll numbers with moderate whites, who in surveys view past rhetoric by Trump to be racist.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-updates-1472317889-htmlstory.html

But my favorite part of this is that Don Cheadle – who is awesome in the Avengers movies as Col. James Rhodes, aka War Machine / Iron Patriot. He unloaded at Donald Trump over this:

"Dwayne Wade's cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago," Trump tweeted Saturday morning, misspelling the basketball player's first name. "Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!" . . . .

Actor Don Cheadle and other Trump critics Saturday pounced on the tweet, saying he was seizing on Aldridge's death and Chicago's gun violence for political gain. In a series of tweets — often employing pretty salty language — Cheadle blasted Trump as using the shooting to throw "red meat to his alt-right troglodytes."

"People of Drumpf's ilk are contributors to the conditions that lead to the 'Chicagos' of this country," Cheadle said in one tweet, referring to the surname of Trump's German ancestors.

The election, Cheadle added in another tweet, "is like a Shakespearean farce except it could end in a mushroom cloud."

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/08/27/don-cheadle-unleashes-twitter-storm-donald-trump/89477440/

And in case you were wondering about Donald Trump’s minority outreach program and how that’s working, look no further than my hometown of Anaheim, California, where a group of 100 people (yes, you read that number correctly) calling themselves “Latinos For Trump”. Can we show that photo of the rally?

I particularly like that one guy in the bottom row with the sunglasses and he has his thumbs up. Kind of like he's saying "Hey you know who has two thumbs and is going to vote against his best interests in November? This guy!"

About 100 supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump rallied at Anaheim City Hall on Sunday afternoon, arguing that his support among the Latino community is stronger than has been widely reported.

The rally, organized by Latinos for Trump, was part of an initiative termed Operation Taco Bowl – an apparent reference to a Cinco de Mayo photo of Trump eating a taco bowl with a caption that read, “I love Hispanics.”

Those attending were about half Latino, with most from outside of Orange County. Trump supporters took turns standing beside two mannequin caricatures of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and telling the crowd why they support Trump.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/trump-727278-support-latinos.html

That’s real. That happened. Can we show the flyer?

He couldn't even spell my hometown's fucking name correctly!!!

And by the way – I love this – MSNBC has compiled a list of things that are more popular among the African American community than Donald Trump:

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

Apologies. That thing you do when butt dial 911 while you’re out buying weed from your local dealer. “I’m sorry officer, my phone accidentally dialed 911 by mistake while I was buying weed. I’ll be sure to put a pass code on it so it doesn’t happen again!” Well, Donald Trump doesn’t know the meaning of what an apology is, apparently.

So that happened.

The GOP nominee says Friday's interview of Burns was a "coordinated gang attack." In a statement on Sunday, Trump calls it "one of the most appalling things I have ever seen on television."

On Monday's show, Brzezinski made no mention of the controversy.

Friday's segment was contentious, to say the least. The website Mediaite described the segment this way: "Brzezinski Browbeats Black Pro-Trump Pastor: Is It Racist, Yes or No?"

Related: Trump will address black voters

Burns made the TV news rounds last week supporting Trump's candidacy. In his "Morning Joe" appearance on Friday, Brzezinski asked Burns, when Trump "made the comments he made about the judge saying he was a Mexican, was that racist, or not?"
http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/28/media/donald-trump-morning-joe-mika-brzezinski/

Or did Donald Trump apologize?

‘Sorry’ really does seem to be the hardest word – especially if you’re Donald Trump.

With the blustery reality show host dominating the Republican presidential polls in spite of – or perhaps, because of – a variety of offensive statements aimed at women and minorities, many have demanded that Trump apologize. The real estate mogul this week even drew the ire of Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, who said Trump should say he’s sorry for his latest attacks on anchor Megyn Kelly, who grilled Trump on past anti-woman comments at the first GOP debate of the 2016 contest.

Ailes is hardly alone. There have also been calls for Trump to apologize to Sen. John McCain and families of POWs after he questioned the Arizona lawmaker’s Vietnam war record. Then there’s his suggestion that Mexican immigrants are “rapists” and “killers,” and his rant against Kelly in which he implied she had only grilled him because she was menstruating.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/has-donald-trump-ever-apologized

Donald Trump showing remorse for something? Puh-lease!!!!!!!!!! I can sense his nose getting longer and longer every single time he speaks.

But getting back to Donald Trump and apologies. If you’ve been following this train wreck of a campaign as much as I have, you should know by now that Donald Trump is the most thin-skinnned person on the planet. I mean how could our possible future president Donald J. Trump not lie about anything?

Donald Trump on Thursday appeared to stash away the bravado he has displayed at his rallies, apologizing for what appears to be the first time for his controversial words on the campaign trail and saying "I will never lie to you."

"Sometimes, in the heat of debate, and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that, and believe it or not I regret it," Trump said.

"I do regret it particularly where it may have caused personal pain.” It was a remarkable departure for the candidate who almost never expresses regret out on the campaign trail, unless in jest.

Trump was not specific about the remarks he says he regretted, but he has made numerous controversial comments and offered falsehoods over the course of his campaign, from calling Mexican immigrants rapists, to insulting a federal judge for his Mexican heritage.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-apologizes-words-campaign-trail-lie/story?id=41496030

In fact Donald Trump and Ryan Lochte’s forced PR apologies should teach us one thing – don’t listen to PR people and speak from your heart. Oh wait, don’t do that! At least have some input to your PR advisor:

What do Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Olympic gold medallist Ryan Lochte and comedy writer Kurt Metzger have in common?

They wouldn’t know how to say they’re sorry to save their lives, as illustrated this week by their very public non-apologies for equally public bad behavior.

Let’s start with the man who has so much to apologize for, the master of misspeak, Donald J Trump.

At a campaign event Thursday in North Carolina, the brusque businessman made headlines for what may have been the first expression of regret in his political career.

“Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing,” Trump declared as he read from prepared remarks.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/20/public-apologies-donald-trump-ryan-lochte-kurt-metzger

[font size="8"]Trump V. Kaepernick[/font]

I had a much different entry planned for this one. We were going to talk about the preacher who bought raffle tickets to win an AK47 with the intent of destroying it, but forgot to do a background check - we'll save that one for next week. But we have to talk about the Trump V. Kaepernick controversy that started this week. This is too good to leave off for next week. So here’s how it started during a 49ers practice game:

Which of course did not sit well with 49ers fans, who reacted of course, by lighting $300 jerseys with his name on fire. Like you do:

But that didn’t stop the incident from getting the ire of a certain Donald J. Trump:

Donald Trump sharply criticized San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick on Monday for refusing to stand for the national anthem, telling a radio host it's a "terrible thing."

"Maybe he should find a country that works better for him. Let him try. It won’t happen," said the Republican presidential nominee, who spoke to conservative show host Dori Monson on KIRO radio in Seattle ahead of his Tuesday trip to the region for a fundraiser and rally.

Kaepernick, who has been highly critical of both Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, has drawn national scrutiny for his decision to sit during the national anthem before games as a form of protest against what he sees as injustices across the country, including police treatment of civilians.

"I mean, ultimately it’s to bring awareness and make people realize what’s really going on in this country. There are a lot of things that are going on that are unjust, people aren’t being held accountable for, and that’s something that needs to change," he said Sunday, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/08/29/trump-slams-colin-kaepernick-maybe-he-should-find-a-country-that-works-better-for-him/

Wait wait hold up. Back up!!! Beep! Beep! Beep! So let’s extrapolate this for a minute. Colin Kaepernick, in an act of protest, sits down during the national anthem at a 49ers PRACTICE game. Donald Trump is running on a platform of “making America great again” by trashing Mexico, while wearing hats that are, um, made in China!!! The hypocrisy reeks here folks!

Like Justin Bieber, Donald Trump wears his own merch. And the candidate’s “Make America Great Again” hats — which play into the ongoing dad-cap trend — have become instantly recognizable, inspiring their share of fashion parodies. However, whether or not the American hat-manufacturing industry is included in Trump’s plan for greatness is unclear. The Associated Press submitted Trump’s chapeau to a microscopic analysis and found that the caps are assembled in Los Angeles, but not from the specific, American-made fabric the manufacturer claims. (That doesn’t necessarily mean the fabric used is not American-made — the AP story does mention “how difficult and murky it can be to verify something is actually ‘Made in USA.’” However, multiple sources within the manufacturer did tell the wire service that the fabric and bills were both foreign-made.)
http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/07/donald-trump-hats-might-not-be-made-in-the-usa.html

But getting back to the Kaepernick situation – this whole scrutiny from Donald Trump has drawn the ire of just about everybody. Even NASCAR driver Tony Stewart weighed in on the deal:

Tony Stewart did his racing legacy no favors yesterday when he picked up his smartphone and Tweeted his way into the Colin Kaepernick National Anthem controversy. The 45-year-old three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion took umbrage with The San Francisco 49ers quarterback sitting down during the National Anthem in a game over the weekend. Kaepernick was protesting police treatment of African-Americans nationwide; Stewart called him an idiot.

"I'm sorry but @Kaepernick7 needs to learn the fact about police before running his dumbass mouth!" Stewart tweeted. "He has no clue what they go thru! #idiot".

The twitterverse backlash was immediate and strident, and went straight for Stewart's jugular: focusing on the 2014 incident at a sprint car race in Canadaigua, NY, in which a fellow sprint car racer Kevin Ward was killed by Stewart's race car. No charges were brought against the Indiana native, though a civil lawsuit brought by the Ward family is ongoing.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/tony-stewarts-twitter-tirade-against-160125062.html

And I love Kareem Abdul Jabar - mainly because I'm a Lakers fan and grew up with the Dream Team - but also for this:

One sign of the maturation of American society is the willingness of those in the public eye, especially athletes, to openly take a political stand, even if it could harm their careers. The modern era of athletes speaking out began in 1966 with Muhammad Ali refusing to be drafted to fight other people of color. In 1967, I joined with football great Jim Brown, basketball legend Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali and other prominent athletes for what was dubbed “The Cleveland Summit.” Together we tried to find ways to help Ali fight for his right of political expression. I don’t know how much we were able to accomplish on a practical level, but seeing black athletes in support of Ali inspired others to speak out. The following year at the 1968 Olympics, African Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists during the medal ceremony as a protest to the treatment of people of color in the United States. In 2014, NBA players LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Jarrett Jack, Alan Anderson, Deron Williams and Kevin Garnett and NFL players from the Rams and Browns wore “I Can’t Breathe” shirts during warm-ups for a game to protest police killings of unarmed blacks...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/08/30/insulting-colin-kaepernick-says-more-about-our-patriotism-than-his/?postshare=2111472561231470&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.b6851edee066

[font size="8"]Zika Virus Apocalypse[/font]

So with the 2016 Olympics in the books you would think we’d move onto the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeonchang or the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, you would think that’s the last we would hear about the scary things coming out of Brazil. Well not if you’ve been paying attention to the mainstream media and their coverage of the Zika virus. If you listened to the media in the last week with their never ending coverage of the Zika virus, you would think we’re all going to die tonight.

Oh wait, that was from the Evil Dead remake.

But here’s what you might think if you watched media coverage of the Zika virus. Here’s the definition straight from the CDC:

Zika is spread mostly by the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito (Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus). These mosquitoes are aggressive daytime biters. They can also bite at night.
Zika can be passed from a pregnant woman to her fetus. Infection during pregnancy can cause certain birth defects.
There is no vaccine or medicine for Zika.
The Florida Department of Health has identified an area in one neighborhood of Miami where Zika is being spread by mosquitoes. Learn more.
https://www.cdc.gov/zika/about/index.html

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! Well of course Mike Huckabee would joke about it to intimidate Hillary Clinton:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mike-huckabee-zika-virus_us_57abc8f3e4b0ba7ed23f15c9?section=&

Zika virus is no laughing matter ― unless, apparently, you’re Mike Huckabee warming up the crowd at a Donald Trump rally.

The former Arkansas governor and failed Republican presidential candidate mocked concerns over the devastating virus so he could take a potshot at Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, during a Wednesday evening rally for Trump in Sunrise, Florida.

“I’m a lot more afraid of a Hillary Clinton presidency than I am of getting a mosquito bite in South Florida,” Huckabee said.

Huckabee’s dismissive attitude toward the virus is not shared by women who are pregnant or may become pregnant. One day earlier, a Texas infant died in the state’s first Zika-related death.

And here’s how the media took it. Holy shit.

A threat to everyone!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

It will ruin the games!!!

Dude, why are they calling the Olympics unhealthy? Did they not see that one article about the pallets of condoms being trucked into Olympic village? There was probably a lot of boning going on!

Apparently not as big as you’d think.

And my personal favorite:

[font size="8"]Paul LePage[/font]

So I’ll admit that I stole the “People Who Somehow Got Elected” bit from John Oliver. But I love the John Oliver show and I don’t hide it. So here’s the original segment in question:

That was epic. Well, Paul LePage was torn a new asshole this week when he might have unintentionally said something racist. Did I say unintentionally? My bad! Oh yeah he’s a fucking batshit crazy racist bigot all right!

Maine Gov. Paul LePage left an expletive-laced voicemail for a state lawmaker that goaded him to "prove that I'm a racist" after a series of controversial comments once again put the governor in the news.

LePage left the message for Democratic State Rep. Drew Gattine on Thursday, according to the Portland Press Herald, which also posted audio of the voicemail. The uncensored audio message contains several explicit phrases.

CNN requests for comment to Gattine and LePage's office Friday morning were not immediately returned.

The bombastic Republican governor is known for his loose style, which sometimes draws criticism. He is a strong supporter of Donald Trump, and Trump's campaign recently hired his daughter to work on the race in Maine.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/26/politics/paul-lepage-explicit-voicemail-duel-lawmaker/index.html

So cue the forced apology that was written by a well paid public relations advisor (Paul LePage’s would have to be well paid!) in 3… 2… 1…

AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul LePage is apologizing to "the people of Maine" for leaving a vulgar voicemail for a Democratic legislator and says he was using a metaphor when he said he wished he could challenge the lawmaker to a duel and point his gun "right between his eyes."

LePage said in a written statement Friday that he takes it "very seriously" when someone calls him a racist and that it made him "enormously angry" when he heard from a reporter that Rep. Drew Gattine, D-Westbrook, had called him one.

LePage says being called a racist is "the absolute worst, most vile thing you can call a person." So he says he referred to Gattine as a vulgar name involving oral sex because it was the "worst word" he could think of.

The governor then held a news conference Friday in Augusta where he again defended himself for leaving the vulgar voicemail on Gattine's phone.

Read more: http://www.sunjournal.com/news/maine/2016/08/26/gov-paul-lepage-apologizes-obscene-language-voicemail/1983074

And in case you were wondering there is tape of this. Can we roll that please?

NORTH BERWICK — Maine Gov. Paul LePage is in hot water once again for comments about drug dealers arrested in the state, saying photos he's collected show more than 90 percent of them are black or Hispanic.

The comment came after one man in the audience accused the governor of creating a "toxic" environment for racists in the state.

The governor took a lot of questions from residents at Wednesday night's town hall, but maybe the one that struck a chord the most with the governor was one from a resident who questioned his political correctness on recent racial comments.

"The fact of the matter is sir I am not a racist and I don't promote it," LePage said.

Read more: http://www.sunjournal.com/news/maine/2016/08/25/gov-paul-lepage-says-most-drug-dealers-are-black-or-hispanic/1982219

So my question to the Top 10 audience – why are these assholes, liars, racists and morons not held to the same standards they hold our democratic leadership to? The hypocrisy once again reeks! Oh, and in case you were wondering how possible future president Donald J. Trump is involved, I give you:

Donald Trump trusts his own children to help run his business empire, so maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that he decided to hire Maine Governor Paul LePage’s daughter to help his campaign win the Pine Tree State.

The Maine Republican Party announced that Lauren LePage will serve as the Trump campaign’s coalitions director. This is not her first job in politics. The third-year University of Maine law student also headed up a political non-profit and worked for her father. The campaign also announced a deputy state director, meaning the campaign now has three staffers in the state. Lauren isn’t the only LePage to get an interesting job this summer. The first lady is working as a waitress in Boothbay Harbor.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/08/24/trump-hires-lepage-daughter-maine/bq1YKxWsNDae0lFuREQkLN/story.html

Although some good news - and this is late breaking:

Maine Governor Paul LePage says he’s considering resigning following a rash of incendiary and odd outbursts, including calling a state legislator a “socialist” and a “cocksucker” in a voicemail message.

“I’m looking at all options,” the twice-elected Republican governor said while appearing on WVOM, a radio station in Bangor. “I think some things I’ve been asked to do are beyond my ability. I’m not going to say that I’m not going to finish it. I’m not saying that I am going to finish it.”

He later said, “If I’ve lost my ability to help Maine people, maybe it’s time to move on.”

LePage canceled a town hall Tuesday in Westbrook, the hometown of that state legislator, Drew Gattine, and is meeting with Republican legislators Tuesday night, fueling speculation that a resignation could come soon.

Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/lepage-considering-resigning-494592

You can't call someone a cocksucker and expect to get away with it. That's a pretty strong word.

[font size="8"]Alex Jones[/font]

Well we here at the Top 10 hate to admit it, but it’s finally time that Alex Jones, well, may have lost his shit. And that’s saying a lot. I mean remember this is the man who said that Obama was going to start killing every SCOTUS justice when Antonin Scalia died (see Idiots #16 )! Or how about the time he said Beyonce's new album was part of a CIA conspiracy to get people to rebel against police to install martial law (see Idiots #25 )? Or how about when he calls nearly every single mass shooting a "false flag attack" (see Idiots #4 and Idiots #31). Or when he thought Michelle Obama was a transgendered woman and her daughters weren't hers (see Idiots #28)? I could do this all day. Well now there’s a thing called the Alt-Right movement and at the forefront of this movement are whackadoodle conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones and “men’s rights activists (MRA)s” like Milo Yiannopoulis. Well, that didn’t stop Hillary Clinton from calling these nutjobs out. Can we roll tape on that?

And here’s what drew Mrs. Clinton’s attention:

Yeah that stunt with the pickle was staged!!! It was a liberal media conspiracy to keep Donald Trump from getting elected!

President Obama used “tiny helicopters and airplanes” to guide a super-tornado toward a small Oklahoma town in order to distract from yet another alleged “gun grab,” I thought we’d reached Peak Jones. I thought we’d finally witnessed the most ludicrous conspiracy theory since the one about shape-shifting lizard people from outer space infiltrating every level of our government.

But somehow Jones managed to top it, while also completely embarrassing himself. Finally.

For several years now, Jones has led the effort to diagnose Hillary Clinton’s physical health, theorizing that the Democratic nominee is suffering from a not insignificant brain injury, which, by the way, she’s failed to disclose and ought to immediately. Naturally, the real-life springboard for the theory emerged from a December 2012 story about Hillary suffering a concussion when she collapsed from apparent dehydration.
http://www.salon.com/2016/08/29/pickle-jar-truthers-alex-jones-latest-hillary-health-conspiracy-is-extra-twisted/

And then there’s this:

Conservative conspiracy-monger Alex Jones said Hillary Clinton “looks like a dying woman” on his radio program Sunday, going on to describe Clinton as looking like “a three year old with a lobotomy,” as Media Matters previously reported.

“They’re saying Trump’s got mental problems, they’re saying he’s got health problems,” Jones said. “They’re saying his wife’s a prostitute, an illegal alien, all this crap. The point is, Hillary looks like a dying woman.”

“She looks like she’s in bad shape,” he continued. “She’s got holes in her tongue, she looks like she’s got, I’m sorry, Down syndrome whenever she’s out there with the balloons falling, like she’s a three-year old with a lobotomy.”
http://www.salon.com/2016/08/08/conspiracy-nut-alex-jones-hillary-clinton-looks-like-she-has-down-syndrome-and-a-lobotomy/

You know I’m done beyond trying to comprehend the “logic” or lack thereof coming from Mr. Jones. He’s just too batshit crazy for words. Well you saw the video of how Hillary responded. Now here’s how Alex Jones responded. Can we roll tape on that?

And:

Even my second favorite late night host – Jimmy Kimmel – poked some fun at Alex Jones:

Which caused Alex Jones to of course lose his collective shit:

Late night host Jimmy Kimmel apparently hit a nerve. On his ABC show Thursday night, Kimmel mocked conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for being a pickle jar truther.

“Jimmy Kimmel makes fun of me, how my head’s in the cloud, in cloud cuckooland,” Jones said on his InfoWars show Saturday.

Kimmel had jokingly asked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to open a jar of pickles to prove she was physically fit enough to be president. In response, Alex Jones dedicated more than 7 minutes of his show on Tuesday to “proving” that the jar was already openned. Kimmel fired back on his own show, mocking the alleged “pickle can-spiracy.”
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/alex-jones-bounces-around-in-a-spasm-of-rage-after-jimmy-kimmel-mocks-his-clinton-pickle-trutherism/

Oh and the direct result of this? Infowars’ site got hacked:

Thousands of user accounts at the conservative site InfoWars have been hacked.

According to Motherboard, the Alex Jones-founded site gives paying subscribers access to extra stories, media and information. The accounts for those paid subscribers were hacked and the email addresses, usernames and their passwords are being offered on the digital underground.

An administrator at Databases.Land gave a copy of over 50,000 unique records to prove the hack was real and Vigilante.PW also lists a data dump of the InfoWars information.
https://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/alex-jones-infowars-site-hacked-50000-plus-users-info-now-available-in-digital-underground/

[font size="8"]Ms. Lohan Goes To Russia[/font]

So I love it when celebrities like Lindsay Lohan channel their inner diva. I love that shit. That’s the only reason why I watch entertainment news! I don’t give a fuck what restaurant Kim Kardashian and Kanye West went to last night. No!!! I want to see singers demanding only one type of drink served, incense burning 24/7, white rose pedals on the bed sheets that smell like only one kind of perfume! I want to see white rose pedals blowing out the air conditioner vents. How about a private Rolls Royce with a personal chauffeur for your dog! Or how about solid gold toothpaste dispensers? I want to see a personal toilet flusher! Have Kenny Loggins blaring through the loudspeakers 24/7! And only the easy listening Kenny Loggins. No Danger Zone. Sorry, Archer. Give me that kind of shit and I’m suddenly very interested! If you’re going to go full diva, go full diva! Like Cher actually demanded that each tour stop include a separate wig room:

She has sold over 200 million albums worldwide and has an Emmy, a Grammy and an Academy Award – so we can forgive Cher for a little diva behaviour. A woman of many hairstyles, it seems only reasonable for her to request a separate wig room to house the multitude of hair pieces she planned to don during her Living Proof: The Farewell Tour from 2002 to 2005. She must have been feeling emotional about her last planned tour as she also made a special request for aloe vera tissues – but only if they were presented in cube-shaped boxes.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopfeatures/11231787/The-most-outrageous-celebrity-diva-demands.html

Or Sarah Palin demanded bendy straws! Bendy straws!!!!

When Pink Floyd sang, in Money, "I'm in the hi-fidelity first class travelling set, and I think I need a Learjet," they were thinking of themselves and their fellow rock stars. They were certainly not thinking of future ex-governors of Alaska. Yet Sarah Palin's leaked demands (including three deluxe hotel rooms, a private aircraft that "must be a Lear 60 or larger", and a "bendable" straw) have made her not only the envy of our former expense-claiming MPs, for whom a simple moat is now an unattainable dream, but also the peer of many rock stars.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/sarah-palin/7594844/Sarah-Palins-flexible-straw-demand-makes-her-a-classic-diva.html

I hear Sarah Palin also demands Big Gulps:

But that leads us into Lindsay Lohan this week. I fucking love this story. So as you may or may not be aware, Lindsay is dating a guy named Egor Tarabasov, who, happens to be, I don’t know, a 22 year old Russian billionaire heir. Who proposed to her like not even 7 months after they started dating. Does he not pay attention to the news? Does he not know the trainwreck that is Ms. Lohan?

They've been dating for seven short months and the world has heard little, if anything, about Lindsay Lohan's romance with Egor Tarabasov, until now.

But no-one was more surprised about last week's engagement than Lindsay herself, it seems, as friends claim 'she didn't see it coming'.

Source close to the star told The New York Post newspaper's Page Six column the 29-year-old actress was taken by surprise when the Russian businessman popped the question last weekend.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3541742/Lindsay-Lohan-shocked-Russian-heir-Egor-Tarabasov-s-proposal-dating-seven-months.html

Dude, there’s still time! Get out now while you can!!! So he asks her to come to Russia. Sounds innocent enough right?

Lindsay Lohan has reportedly been approached by a popular Russian talk show about dropping in for a chat. The only problem, according to the Hollywood Reporter, is that the network has deemed Lohan's alleged list of demands "unreasonable." The show, Let Them Talk, is hosted by popular Russian TV personality Andrey Malakhov.

A copy of Lohan's alleged contract proposal published by Life.ru and obtained by THR reportedly demands a "one-off $860,000 fee" for Lohan's appearance. Additionally, the contract purportedly sent to Channel One requests "full and effective security" for her Moscow visit, a "fully paid suite" at the local Ritz Carlton, and a moratorium on follow-up interviews with several people. Egor Tarabasov, Lohan's former partner, is reportedly listed as someone with whom the network is barred from carrying out "any form of interview" within a year of taping Lohan's appearance.
http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2016/08/lindsay-lohan-demands-860000-putin-meeting-russian-talk-show-appearance

Man I wish I got paid $860,000 to go to Russia. But why demand a stay at the Ritz Carlton? If you’re going to demand that kind of money why stay where the peasants stay? Well there’s this:

Lindsay Lohan is trying to be a tougher negotiator against Russia than either Clinton or Trump could ever be ... because she's demanding a queen's ransom for an interview on Ruski TV.

We've learned Lindsay was offered to appear on the most popular talk show in Russia -- "Pust govoryat." The show airs on Channel 1, a state-owned station.

The host wants to interview her about her relationship and breakup with ex-fiance Egor Tarabasov. Our Russian spies got us a copy of Channel 1's letter to Lindsay, in which they say, "Please send the list of demands."
http://www.tmz.com/2016/08/21/lindsay-lohan-russian-tv-interview-vladimir-putin/

You want to know what those demands are?

Lindsay sent her demands alright ...

-- a private jet

-- security

-- 1 year Russian visa with extension

-- 500,000 British pounds

-- hair, makeup and manicurist onboard jet

-- Ritz-Carlton penthouse suite

A private jet and half a million British pounds, people! Who is she, Dr. Evil?

[font size="8"]And Now This:[/font]
[font size="8"]Primus Covers “Pure Imagination”:[/font]

You’re welcome.

See you next week!

August 26, 2016

Mylan Pushed To Make Epipen Access Mandatory In Elementary Schools, Then Moved To Netherlands

This is a stupefying level of evil here. Heather Bresch knew damn well what she was doing, and then fled the country. WTF. We live in the Matrix.

August 24, 2016

Stephen Colbert Tests The Validity Of The Clinton E-Mail "Scandal"

August 22, 2016

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #39: #HoorayFreedom Edition

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #39: #HoorayFreedom Edition

Ed. Note - Before we get started this week - sorry folks – computers are shitheads. I had this whole thing planned for Sunday but my computer went down, and so I will post what I had meant for Sunday as well as this week, since there’s a possibility I won’t be here on Wednesday, and hopefully we’ll get back on schedule.

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! Hey Google and Ad Choices, please stop asking me to visit advertiser because we both know that ain’t happening. Unless they sponsor my show then I would love to visit advertiser! Just sayin’. We are back! You know last week we had our special all Donald Trump edition and we ended with Mitch McConnell in the “People Who Somehow Got Elected” segment. And you know we’re getting back to normal here after the all Trump edition. So how many people are watching the Olympics? You know I thought we were going to get a shit storm in Rio but it seems like things are running smoothly, other than the swimming pool turning into a toxic green color, but apparently the IOC and the government of Brazil was like “OK it’s fine to swim in!”. But I’m getting frustrated with the coverage I’m seeing here – literally every time I turn on the TV, the only thing I see is volleyball or basketball. Can NBC show any other sports please? But I think we can all agree that we were won over and enamored with the Irish rowing team who won the gold medal in that contest Sunday. Can we show that?

That has to be the most Irish interview I’ve ever seen. But the Olympics have been great haven’t they? Well mainly not NBC’s coverage. You know it would be nice to turn on the Olympics and be able to watch sports other than volleyball or basketball which seem to be on nearly every single time I turn on the TV. Let’s get right down to it shall we? But first after the RNC, DNC, and a couple of weeks in between, John Oliver is back in true form and completely owns Donald Trump by comparing him to a character from a children's book called "The Kid Who Ran For President":

So where do we begin this week? First off, I was tipped off to a Donald Trump Tweet generator, which we will be using to our advantage not just here but throughout the Top 10. You can have some fun with this too: http://faketrumptweet.com/ . And we are going to have some fun with this! While returning champion Donald Trump won’t be occupying the top 2 slots this week like he normally does, this week instead we are awarding the top 2 slots to Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort (1, 2). It seems that Manafort’s name appeared at the top of a payroll ledger for a pro-Russian group based in the Ukraine and that has everyone talking, including Hillary Clinton herself. Taking up the third, fourth, and fifth slots of course is Donald J. Trump (3, 4, 5). In the third slot we’ll talk about Donald Trump’s health – a mysterious letter has surfaced from Trump’s doctor and reports are it may have been forged. While in the fourth slot we’re going to talk about how Donald Trump called Obama the founder of ISIS and he’s still not done with his attacks on Khzir Khan. And in the fifth slot we’re going to talk about the republicans and charities, among other Trump madness. In the number 6 slot we’re going to bring back “How Is This Still A Thing” and ask – body shaming – how is this still a thing? Specifically Fox News, Donald Trump and Matt Drudge are age shaming Olympians and Hillary Clinton, among other atrocities. In the number 7 slot is Republican Sexists (7). It starts with Milo Yiannopoulos. You may remember him as the smooth talking jackass who got kicked off Twitter for harassing Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones, but guess what? He’s back! Meanwhile Rush Limbaugh is convinced Obama is gearing for a takeover of lesbian farmers. Hey I’m for it! And for more than just body shaming. At number 8, the Bathroom Police (8) are back and not going away any time soon. So sigh… federal trans bathroom guidelines got rejected again and we’ll tell you all about it. In the number 9 slot (NEIN!!!) Stephen Anderson wants to challenge you to an arm wrestling competition to prove he’s not gay. No seriously! Finally this week we’re going to take the Top 10 Mystery Machine to Rio for a special Olympic episode. What exactly happened with Ryan Lochte at a Brazillian gas station? As we delve into this mystery, the answer is going to surprise you! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

[font size="8"]Paul Manafort[/font]

So in case you were living under a rock last week, you know that Donald Trump basically told his followers to go 2nd amendment on Hillary Clinton. Whatever that means. Let’s roll tape on that shall we?

But here’s something you didn’t know – something that got lost in the headlines last week. And it’s quite possibly batshit insane. So the Trump campaign is in turmoil, and you might be asking what is going on with his campaign manager? Well let’s first go back to last April when Trump fired his former campaign manager and hired Paul Manafort, and we’ll explain to you who exactly Mr. Manafort is:

Strangely, the HUD scandal proved a marketing boon for the firm. An aide to Mobutu Sese Seko told the journalist Art Levine, “That only shows how important they are!” Indeed, Manafort enticed the African dictator to hire the firm. Many of the world’s dictators eventually became his clients. “Name a dictator and Black, Manafort will name the account,” Levine wrote. (Levine’s piece, published in Spy, featured a sidebar ranking the ethical behavior of Washington lobbyists: It found Black, Manafort the worst of the bunch.) The client list included Philippine strongman Ferdinand Marcos (with a $900,000 yearly contract) and the despots of the Dominican Republic, Nigeria, Kenya, Equatorial Guinea, and Somalia. When the Center for Public Integrity detailed the firm’s work, it titled the report “The Torturers’ Lobby.”

His lobbying helped convince Congress to send Savimbi hundreds of millions in covert aid. Indeed, every time Angola stood on the precipice of peace talks, Manafort, Black worked to generate a fresh round of arms—shipments that many experts believe extended the conflict. Sen. Bill Bradley was blunt in assigning blame. “When Gorbachev pulled the plug on Soviet aid to the Angolan government, we had absolutely no reason to persist in aiding Savimbi. But by then he had hired an effective Washington lobbying firm, which successfully obtained further funding.” Or as Art Levine concluded, “So the war lasted another two more years and claimed a few thousand more lives! So what? What counts to a Washington lobbyist is the ability to deliver a tangible victory and spruce up his client’s image.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/paul_manafort_isn_t_a_gop_retread_he_s_made_a_career_of_reinventing_tyrants.html

Holy shit! No wonder Donald Trump wants to hire this guy – he would be the perfect guy to spearhead a campaign that’s built on trying to keep people out of this country! Or any country for that matter given what he’s done to Angola. So why is he all of a sudden in the news?

In the hours since the New York Times uncovered millions of dollars in illegal secret cash payments made from a Vladimir Putin puppet to Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, all hell has broken loose within the Trump campaign – and much of it is playing out in public for all to see. One of Trump’s top surrogates is publicly gloating over Manafort’s criminal connections, while another top Trump surrogate is publicly accusing a fellow Trump surrogate of “working for Hillary Clinton.”

The Trump campaign meltdown began late Sunday evening when the NY Times published the story exposing Manafort’s millions of dollars in hidden illegal payments from Vladimir Putin lackey Viktor Yanukovych. Corey Lewandowski, who had been Trump’s campaign manager until he was fired this spring and replaced with Manafort, tweeted out a link to the article as if to gloat about the fact that his replacement is being taken down by a corruption scandal. 3
http://www.dailynewsbin.com/news/trump-campaign-meltdown-paul-manafort-a-paid-russian-agent-roger-stone-attacks-corey-lewandowski/25660/

You know replacing one guy in your entourage who's been embroiled by scandal with another, is kind of like drinking VitaminWater - you know it's not healthy but it sure as shit isn't good for you! But there's more and I feel like we're living in the Matrix.

But there’s more to this. Oh no, we’re not done.

Donald Trump's behavior in recent days - from criticizing the parents of a fallen American soldier to declining to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan- has strained the nerves of his campaign staff as he falls behind in the polls.

I exchanged messages this evening with a longtime ally of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who I asked about who was calling the shots in the campaign. The response indicated that Manafort, a veteran of Republican politics brought in this spring for the transition from primaries to the general election, has lost control over his candidate.

"Manafort not challenging (Trump) anymore," Manafort's ally wrote. "Mailing it in. Staff suicidal."

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/02/ally-of-trump-staffer-paul-manafort-the-staff-is-suicidal-hes-mailing-it-in.html

Ouch. So you’re saying “suicidal” is not the term you want to hear when you’re running for president of the United States! I say a pox, a pox on thee, good sir / madam!!

Nyuk! Nyuk! NyuK! Whooooo whoooo!! So what does Hillary Clinton think about this whole spiel? Well here’s what Mrs. Clinton had to say about that:

" Clinton campaign press secretary Robby Mook issued a late-night statement on the bombshell in the recent New York Times detailing Donald Trump’s campaign chair Paul Manafort and his questionable dealings in Ukraine.

Mook notes that the comes just before Trump is scheduled to give a major foreign policy address Monday on what his strategy will be if he is elected as president.

“We have learned of more troubling connections between Donald Trump’s team and pro-Kremlin elements in Ukraine,” Mook said in the statement. “Given the pro-Putin policy stances adopted by Donald Trump and the recent Russian government hacking and disclosure of Democratic Party records, Donald Trump has a responsibility to disclose campaign chair Paul Manafort’s and all other campaign employees’ and advisers’ ties to Russian or pro-Kremlin entities, including whether any of Trump’s employees or advisers are currently representing and or being paid by them.”

more at: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/clinton-campaign-responds-to-shocking-revelations-about-paul-manaforts-pro-kremlin-ties/

Ouch. But we’re still not done – in fact here’s what else you need to know about Mr. Manafort – this is very long but well worth looking into:

In 1980. Manafort co-founded Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly (BMSK), a powerhouse beltway lobbying firm alongside partners Stone, a longtime Trump confidante, and Charles Black, a leading strategist in the John Kasich campaign. One of its most lucrative clients was Jonas Savimbi, leader of UNITA, the pro-Western rebel army fighting the Communist government in Angola. Manafort helped make Savimbi a heroic figure among conservative Washington think-tanks, and aided him in securing hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from the Reagan and Bush Administrations, money that never brought victory.

In the mid-1980s, the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator of the Philippines, paid BMSK $950,000 a year to lobby for funding, as well as polish his blackened reputation among lawmakers, with Manafort serving as his chief advocate. Another top client was Mobutu Seko of Zaire, renowned as the quintessential corrupt African dictator. Manafort even sought to recruit Siad Barre, the strongman of Somalia. In her book “Choosing the Hero,” Riva Levinson recalls that Manafort asked her assistance in luring Barre. When she objected on ethical grounds, the boss explained: “We all know he’s a bad guy, but he’s our bad guy!”
http://fortune.com/2016/08/15/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-paul-manafort/

[font size="8"]Paul Manafort[/font]

So the Donald Trump campaign has essentially become a revolving door of shit at this point. Here’s what Hillary Clinton had to say about it:

And if there’s anything that the Trump campaign needs, it’s PR. I mean if you’re going to attack Hillary Clinton for some e-mails, what about the, I don’t know, 22 million that went missing from the Bush administration? Where’s the outrage there?

22 million RNC emails erased from a private server. I don't recall an intense scrutiny or "outrage" like Hillary is getting. And many of those, no doubt, were communications regarding the lead up to the illegal Iraq invasion.

http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/web-video/missing-white-house-emails

But now what? When you have a campaign surrounded in turmoil, where do you go from there? Well who does Trump replace Manafort with? Well….

The problem with Paul Manafort, it turns out, was not that he was a shill for allies of the Kremlin. It’s that he tried to turn Trump into a respectable-ish general election politician. Now that Manafort has received a de facto demotion, to be replaced by Steve Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, we can expect to see Trump drop any pretense of cleaning up his act. Instead, he’s reportedly going to amplify the combative persona and ethno-nationalist message that won him the GOP primary:

Costa adds that this “gloves off” strategy entails “brutal fights with Clinton” and “heavy emphasis on nationalism and populism.” Breitbart is, after all, the online world’s biggest cheerleader for Trump and the home of the political alt-right. Bannon, whom Bloomberg once dubbed “the most dangerous political operative in America,” once chided Fox News for being too liberal. As we barrel toward election day, it looks like the campaign has decided to let Trump be Trump.
https://newrepublic.com/minutes/136108/latest-campaign-shakeup-trump-pivoting-meaner-nastier-trump

Oh man wouldn’t American politics be so much better with a steel cage death match?

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

Before we get started on all things Trumpenfuror this week, OMG, I love this story. So there’s a Fox News correspondent who’s claiming that Obama and Clinton are purposefully “baiting” Trump to say stupid things on a regular basis. Uh no… sorry. Trump himself says stupid things on a daily basis:

Kimberly “Kill them all” Guilfoyle regularly dives off the deep end of our fact-filled universe, is now blaming President Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for all the stupid things Donald Trump says. The Trump apologist claimed Friday on Fox News’ The Five,

“It’s like the most unholy partnership of all time between the Obama Administration, Hillary Clinton, constantly making comments trying to bait Trump into saying something that will sidetrack him.”

Where to begin? First of all, what she is really complaining about is that to Trump’s ridiculous and unfounded claims, Obama and Clinton respond with reason, logic, and a whole lotta fact. Not the sort of stuff Trump wants put up against the tall tales he’s busy spinning.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/08/13/kimberly-guilfoyle-accuses-obama-clinton-baiting-trump-stupid.html

I like that one. But I have to give props to the Donald Trump Fake Tweet Generator, which you can find at http://www.faketrumptweet.com , and you can make it say anything you want and it will come out as a Donald Trump Tweet. Like this:

Why thank you Trumpenfuror! Well Donald J. Trump – you know him as the guy who headed the reality show The Apprentice and kept Meatloaf and Gary Busey from killing each other:

By the way, if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend going to check out Seth Rogen’s hilarious new animated flick Sausage Party. *Spoiler alert* There’s a scene where a literal piece of meatloaf is singing Meatloaf’s signature song “I’ll Do Anything For Love”. That tells you all you need to know about this movie.

That one never gets old. Getting back to our possible future ~~President~~ Third World Dictator Donald J. Trump, you know that republicans hate this thing called “facts”. They also hate these things called “logic” and “reason”.

According to Sykes, any attempts to continue fighting back against misinformation is dismissed with complaints that he has “sold out,” adding, “Then they’ll ask what’s wrong with me for not repeating these stories that I know not to be true.”

Sykes warned “There’s got to be a reckoning on all this.”

“We’ve created this monster,” he warned. “Look, I’m a conservative talk show host. All conservative talk show hosts have basically established their brand as being contrasted with the mainstream media. So we have spent 20 years demonizing the liberal mainstream media. And by the way, a lot has been justifiable. There is real bias. But, at a certain point you wake up and you realize you have destroyed the credibility of any credible outlet out there.”

“And I feeling, to a certain extent, that we are reaping the whirlwind at that,” he continued. “And I have to look in the mirror and ask myself, ‘To what extent did I contribute?'”
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/conservative-radio-host-weve-created-this-monster-of-fact-hating-right-wing-voters/

But you know failed presidential candidate and Donald Trump speech stage prop Chris Christie it was revealed that Christie might have picked up the tab for one of Trumpenfuror’s failed business ventures – his New Jersey casino:

http://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/aug/17/trump-casinos-tax-debt-was-30-million-then-christi/

By the time Chris Christie became governor of New Jersey, the state’s auditors and lawyers had been battling for several years to collect long-overdue taxes owed by the casinos founded by his friend Donald Trump.

The total, with interest, had grown to almost $30 million. The state had doggedly pursued the matter through two of the casinos’ bankruptcy cases and even accused the company led by Trump of filing false reports with state casino regulators about the amount of taxes it had paid.

But the year after Christie, a Republican, took office, the tone of the litigation shifted. The state entertained settlement offers. And in December 2011, after six years in court, the state agreed to accept just $5 million, roughly 17 cents on the dollar of what auditors said the casinos owed.

Tax authorities sometimes settle for lesser amounts to avoid the costs and risks of further litigation, legal experts said, but the steep discount granted to the Trump casinos and the relationship between the two men raise inevitable questions about special treatment.

This is my new favorite thing.

But there’s more to this thing – what did Donald Trump have to do with this mysterious letter? Did he write it? And what do we make of this? No one is Superman or Khan.

What are “astonishingly excellent” laboratory test results? I’m a doctor, and I don’t know. Is it astonishing that a 70-year-old man has normal results? All his results are exactly average which is good — but wait, I thought his tests are all positive?

And while we’re at it, doctors just don’t say “laboratory test results” that sounds like something on a soap opera.

5. Doctors don’t say “test score” — we just give the results.

The conventional way to reference PSA would be PSA 0.81 ng/ml (normal < 4 ng/ml). A test score is something that happens at the DMV.

6. How did Dr. Bornstein test Donald Trump’s strength and stamina?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-gunter/im-a-doctor-heres-concerning-trumps-medical-letter_b_11565838.html

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

Buyer’s Remorse. That thing you get when you get really wasted, go on iTunes and then the next morning you wake up and find out you purchased 15 Bon Jovi albums including 3 greatest hits collections. I didn’t know Bon Jovi had that many albums! I just wanted to hear “You Give Love A Bad Name” because I was very poorly singing along to it at karaoke last night! Well Donald J. Trump doesn’t know that term and I don’t think the GOP does either. Look at what one pundit has been saying –first look at what he said in February of this year during the straw poll:

That’s my choice. They’re making a stand in Iowa today, and I want to do the same.

Incredibly, unbelievably, after these months of debates and speeches, it’s Trump. He’s the one. He’s who America needs.

And I think he is going to roll to victory, not just through the primaries, but in the general election as well. He’s going to take it Andrew Jackson style, in a populist rising that is as much about giving the finger to the establishment as it is about backing him.

I started out thinking he was a joke.

Having seen him play the toe-in-the-water game too many times, I thought his pretensions of a campaign were ludicrous. Back then, I wanted Mitt Romney to run again.
http://wham1180.iheart.com/onair/bob-lonsberry-3440/im-for-trump-14330733/

And then look at what he said last week – man the hypocrisy reeks here!

Donald, you dumb son of a bitch.

You've destroyed yourself, and you're about to take the rest of us down with you.

Do you understand that?

Tens of millions of Americans invested in you, not because they gave a damn about you, but because they love their country. And because you convinced them you could lead their country out of the doldrums of decay created by progressive globalists.

They bought into you. A whole political party bought into you.

And you crapped the bed.

You've gotten so stupid, so decidedly self-destructive, that it doesn't seem like an accident. It seems like you're a political suicide bomber, intent on destroying not just the Republican Party, but also the United States.
http://wham1180.iheart.com/onair/bob-lonsberry-3440/lonsberrytrump-fish-or-cut-bait-15007706/

Yes you did asshole!!! You helped create this problem! You get to fix it!

But that guy is right in that Donald Trump continues to shoot his mouth off and say things that are as batshit crazy as what came before it. Like last week for example. Can we roll tape on that?

I like that one. So here’s what happened:

Washington (CNN)Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said Donald Trump was being "serious" when he spoke this week about President Barack Obama being the "founder" of ISIS, saying that the GOP nominee "getting people's attention."
Speaking with "Fox News Sunday," Trump's running mate was asked to clear up whether Trump was being sarcastic, as he tweeted on Friday, or being serious, as he said multiple times throughout the week.
"I think he was being very serious," Pence said. "He was making a point that needs to be made, that there is no question that the failed policies of President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in the wider Middle East, created a vacuum within Iraq in which ISIS was able to arise."
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/14/politics/mike-pence-donald-trump-isis-serious/

I am having way too much fun with this thing. But there’s more! You know who is backing Donald Trump’s controversial statements? Why if you guessed it was Israeli terrorist-ish group Hezbollah, you are correct good sir / madam! Points!

Donald Trump has apparently found an unlikely espouser of his allegation President Obama was the “founder” of the Islamic State (ISIS).

Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the militant Hezbollah group, said at a rally in southern Lebanon Saturday that Mr. Trump's statement, which the Republican presidential nominee has since backed away from, was was factual, reported Al-Manar, a Lebanese TV outlet.

"This is an American presidential candidate who is saying this. What he says is based on facts and documents," said Mr. Nasrallah, adding that Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were responsible for the destabilization of the region that created ISIS.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2016/0815/Hezbollah-s-leader-backs-Donald-Trump-on-Obama-founding-ISIS

And of course Trumpenfuror is, like a good republican, denying that he didn’t say those things that he said – calling it “sarcasm” which I don’t think he quite gets the definition of:

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump on Friday attempted to walk back the widely criticized false claim he repeatedly made over the last two days that President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were "co-founders" of ISIS -- saying he was being sarcastic.
Trump tweeted Friday morning that the media was missing his sarcasm.

"Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) "the founder" of ISIS, & MVP. THEY DON'T GET SARCASM?" Trump wrote.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/12/politics/donald-trump-obama-clinton-isis-founder-sarcasm/

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

Can Donald Trump seriously go 5 whole minutes without making an ass of himself? I mean here he is calling for the end of the Clinton Foundation. I mean seriously what the fuck:

Donald Trump is calling for the Clinton Foundation to be “shut down immediately.”

The Republican nominee issued a statement Monday morning saying the foundation is “the most corrupt enterprise in political history.”

“Hillary Clinton is the defender of the corrupt and rigged status quo. The Clintons have spent decades as insiders lining their own pockets and taking care of donors instead of the American people. It is now clear that the Clinton Foundation is the most corrupt enterprise in political history. What they were doing during Crooked Hillary’s time as Secretary of State was wrong then, and it is wrong now. It must be shut down immediately.”

The call comes following Republican accusations that Clinton gave foundation donors special treatment and access while she was secretary of State.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/08/22/trump-end-clinton-foundation/89094714/

If he’s going to blast the Clinton charity for doing the wrong thing, shouldn’t he be blasting a lot of charties for doing the wrong thing? I mean just this week Gabby Giffords and her anti-gun charity endorsed a republican candidate who got an A+ rating with the NRA!

The gun control group founded by Gabby Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, has endorsed two Republican Senators in tough re-election fights as it seeks to expand its outreach.

In an op-ed on CNN Monday, Americans for Responsible Solutions backed Sens. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Mark Kirk of Illinois, who are both facing tough re-election races in a year in which Democrats hope to regain control of the Senate.

The two sitting Senators voted in favor of gun control proposals after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where 20 children were killed.

“In the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook, Republican Sens. Pat Toomey and Mark Kirk broke from the gun lobby and supported a bill to help prevent felons, domestic abusers and the dangerously mentally ill from obtaining firearms at gun shows and online,” wrote Giffords and Kelly in the op-ed.

http://time.com/4461211/gun-control-pat-toomey-mark-kirk-gabby-giffords/

But you know Donald Trump isn’t the only guy on his campaign who’s hurling insults left and right. I give you the latest staff addition – Kellyanne Conway. We got a great big Conway across the USA! Come on sing it with me!

Donald Trump’s new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, claimed Sunday that the GOP presidential nominee does not personally insult people.

George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC News’ “This Week,” showed Conway a series of video clips of her attacking Trump while she was supporting Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) during the primary. (Conway ran a super PAC backing Cruz’s candidacy.)

In one of the excerpts, Conway said she was not backing Trump because he “hurls personal insults.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kellyanne-conway-trump-personal-insults_us_57b9ad98e4b03d513688ea6f?section=&

Oh and guess who Donald Trump hired as his foreign policy expert? Why it’s a conservative idiot hall of famer – Michelle Bachmann!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!

Tea Party firebrand Michele Bachmann says she is advising Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on foreign policy.

The former Minnesota congresswoman attended a fundraiser in the state for Trump on Saturday, where she revealed to the press that she has his ear on foreign policy.

“He also recognizes there is a threat around the world, not just here in Minnesota, of radical Islam,” she said, according to MPR News. “I wish our President Obama also understood the threat of radical Islam and took it seriously.”

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/292126-michele-bachmann-advising-trump-on-foreign-policy

[font size="8"]Matt Drudge[/font]

Time once again to ask:

Body shaming – how is this still a thing? And also the Drudge Report – how is this still a thing? I thought Matt Drudge was scraping the bottom of the barrel during the Bush administration but nope he’s back and getting better ratings than ever. And he’s been busy age shaming Hillary Clinton:

The Drudge Report on Sunday highlighted a months-old photo of Hillary Clinton slipping on a flight of stairs to suggest that the Democratic nominee’s health may be failing.

Photos released by Reuters and Getty in late February showed two men holding Clinton by the arms after she slipped on a staircase while campaigning in South Carolina ahead of that state's primary. As CNN’s Brian Stelter noted, right-wing Twitter users began circulating the images on Saturday night, mocking Clinton’s supposed frailty with no mention of when those photos were taken.

By Sunday, a right-wing blog called The American Mirror published a post about the “SHOCK PHOTO” that called Clinton “unstable” and asked when the “mainstream media” would question the former secretary of state’s “health status.”

Drudge quickly picked up the thread that afternoon, posting the image in a splash on his site's homepage along with a link to the American Mirror story and the headline “Hillary Conquers The Stairs.” As of Monday morning, the post had been moved just below the splash. Neither the original article nor The Drudge Report had been amended to note that the photo was over six months old, or that the caption on the image said that she had simply slipped.

Instead, Drudge supplied several links to previous spills Clinton had taken, dating back to 2009.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/drudge-questions-hillary-clinton-health-old-photo

How is this different from the amount of times Ted Nugent has threatened Hillary Clinton or Harry Reid or President Obama? That seems to happen about once a year – conservatives recycle the same jokes more than most animated programs do. So this brings us to the subject of age shaming. Yes, we here at the Top 10 Conservative Idiots are guilty of it given how many times we’ve attacked Clint Eastwood and posted “get off my lawn” graphics. So what are you going to do? Fight us about it? I thought liberals were supposed to be pacifist! Well there’s more – in fact Donald Trump is so guilty of body shaming that one street artist in New York decided to protest by creating a nude statue of Trumpenfuror. And in the interest of good taste, no, we won’t show pictures.

What has been seen, the saying goes, cannot be unseen, and for Indecline, a self-professed “anarchist art collective”, that was surely the point: on Thursday, the group installed five life-size effigies of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, in five cities across the US that left nothing to the imagination.

If you have none yourself, the title helped you out. The Emperor Has No Balls, the group gleefully dubbed it, stealth-installing duplicates of the naked Trump in New York, San Francisco, Cleveland, Seattle and Los Angeles. Each lasted barely an hour before being removed, but in an era where viral image-sharing precludes the fact of actually being there, that was more than long enough. The thousands of naked Trump selfies pinging around the social mediasphere made avoiding the gruesome spectacle impossible. Naked Trump is a part of us now, a perpetual presence forever an ill-fated Google image search away.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/aug/19/naked-donald-trump-statue-satire-ageist-body-shaming

And by the way if you don’t have a strong stomach, we here at the Top 10 do not recommend Google image searching with the safe search turned off.

But there’s more. In fact not just age shaming but body shaming as well. There’s enough of this in your news feed that it should make your stomach turn:

An ad campaign touting a new featherweight laptop from HP is being denounced by some who find its slogan to be a body-shaming insult to anyone who isn’t skinny.

“This kind of advertising promotes fatphobia and negative body image. #ShameOnYouHP,” notes body-image author and activist Virgie Tovar on Instagram, where she has a loyal following of more than 13,600.
https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/does-power-thinnest-ad-campaign-000000314.html

Um………………………………. They do realize they’re talking about laptops right?

https://www.yahoo.com/sy/ny/api/res/1.2/.yCxRagxg4wA6iC.3tDahg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9NzQ0O2g9NDg3O2lsPXBsYW5l/

And that didn’t stop Fox News and the NBC Olympic coverage from asking whether or not gold medal winners should be wearing makeup when they accept their awards:

Then, there was this “Should Female Olympians Wear Makeup?” segment on Fox’s “Sports Court,” featuring former New York city detective Bo Dietl and conservative radio host Mark Simone. It was certainly interesting, especially for those of us who have always wondered what Bo Dietl thought about what we should be doing with our faces. Which, we think, is probably no one. Tamara Holder, the show’s host (who, full disclosure, is a friend), opened up the segment:
We all know the old adage ‘sex sells.’ Well now, female Olympians are sexing it up more than ever by wearing makeup during their competitions. Some say this is about empowerment. Well, really? Do women who are elite athletes need to wear makeup to feel stronger, or is it simply a fashion statement?

The segment intended to address a recent USA Today article, “The empowering reasons why female athletes are wearing makeup during the Olympics,” which, despite the eyeroll of a headline, was sort of nice and cool and had a neat story about runner Shannon Rowbury wearing red or pink lipstick as an homage to her Nonnie. Most of the women interviewed wore makeup for the same reason we wear makeup, and we are basically a Professional Feminist. They like it and think it’s a fun way to express themselves. As far as we’re concerned, this should be the end-all and be-all reason to wear makeup. And it’s all good, so long as we also work toward making sure there isn’t a mandate to wear makeup and that women who choose not to are allowed to embrace their own choice.
http://wonkette.com/605476/nbc-and-fox-news-very-concerned-about-the-cosmetic-choices-of-female-olympic-athletes#A1aYcckq6xzliyh6.99

And what does Donald Trump think of this?

”That’s because women who don’t wear makeup are the worst women. See under my watch, we'll only have the best women who wear the best makeup because that's what winners do. The stupid losers who don't wear makeup are going to be locked up in a camp, and we'll build a wall around it. Because if America is going to keep winning, it only needs the beautiful people. Look at Sweden - they win all the time, and they're represented by nothing but beautiful people. So that's how America wins - we kick the ugly stupid losers out and put only the prettiest in charge! Trump out!"

This is of course Fox News, the network headed by Roger Ailes – if the GOP were in fact the evil empire, he would be Jabba The Hutt. In fact I’m surprised he doesn’t have his own bikini clad Princess Leia tied up somewhere:

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/roger-ailes-funneled-millions-in-fox-news-funds-for-shady-firms-to-harass-his-victims-report/

The hits just keep on coming for former Fox News head Roger Ailes, with a report that he used Fox funds to run a “Black Room” operation at the company’s headquarters where investigators and public relations staffers investigated and plotted again the executive’s personal enemies.

According to Gabriel Sherman, writing for New York Magazine, an investigation is under way at Fox looking into how Ailes spent millions of dollars to settle sexual harassment lawsuits with virtually no oversight, which might have set off alarms.

That’s enough to make you ask – body shaming:

[font size="8"]Republican Sexists [/font]

We need some appropriate music for this entry. Can we get that please?

Well you know, because this jackass claims that Paul Feig ruined our childhood. Ya know. But Milo Yiannopoulos may be permanently banned from Twitter because of harassment, but that doesn’t shut him up:

Months after he was supposed to give away more than $100,000 for college scholarships, Milo Yiannopoulos says all of the money is still sitting in his bank account.
Yiannopoulos promised in January to create a college scholarship fund for “white men who wish to pursue their post-secondary education” that would be awarded in “early summer 2016.” The fund has raised somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000 to date, Yiannopoulos told The Daily Beast via email.

But the Yiannopoulos Privilege Grant has not filed any paperwork to become a charity in the United States. When asked if an application for tax-exempt status had been sent by his lawyers to the Internal Revenue Service, Yiannopoulos said, “I’ll check.”

While the group vowed that an application page would open on the website by the spring of 2016, it has yet to appear as of this writing. The grant’s website currently states that “applications are not yet open” and “please do not write to us if you are a prospective Grant applicant.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/19/breitbart-editor-milo-yiannopoulos-takes-100-000-for-charity-gives-0.html

Now I don’t want you to think the Top 10 is all about negativity! No sir / madam! In fact we try to put a positive spin on things. To be fair, Milo won his own scholarship contest! Bravo well done!

But my favorite episode in this week in *cue reverb* NEW ADVENTURES IN REPUBLICAN SEXISM!!! One of our favorite punching bags here – Rush Limbaugh – thinks Obama is riling up America’s lesbian farmers for a hostile takeover:

Remember back in the day when wingnut hate radio wackaloon Bryan Fischer said he wished Michelle Obama would focus one of her health initiatives on solving the problem of beefy lesbians? Well apparently Michelle’s husband Bamz heard the call, so he invented a secret program to get those ladies moving, specifically on farms! Yes, Rush Limbaugh has revealed an Obama conspiracy, and it focuses on the LGBT Rural Summit, a big gay hootenanny thrown by the Department of Agriculture and the National Center For Lesbian Rights (NCLR), to support LGBT families living in rural areas. Sounds harmless enough, right? That’s because you’re not Rush Limbaugh, hallucinating because the Oxycontin ran out probably and his Dominican houseboy has been playing hard-to-get, allegedly.

Rush explained that this is all part of President Obama’s master plan to magically turn lesbians into farmers, so they can destroy rural, conservative America from the inside out, as they scream Melissa Etheridge songs at the top of their lungs through the aisles of the Home Depot, while they are buying all the things they need for their farms. How does this Free Farms For Lezzies clandestine program work, Rush?
http://wonkette.com/605735/rush-limbaugh-so-mad-obama-creating-army-of-lesbian-farmers-to-destroy-america

[font size="8"]The Bathroom Police[/font]

Sigh… the bathroom police are back. And this time it’s not a good thing. Originally I was going to take this space to remind everyone of what happened when the DEA went against Obama’s recommendation of loosening federal restrictions on marijuana sales and usage, but as long as we’re going to repeatedly deny a group of people their rights why don’t we talk about what the GOP is doing to trans people once again?

A federal judge on Sunday blocked the Obama administration from enforcing new guidelines that were intended to expand restroom access for transgender students across the country.

Judge Reed O’Connor of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas said in a 38-page ruling, which he said should apply nationwide, that the government had not complied with federal law when it issued “directives which contradict the existing legislative and regulatory text.”

Judge O’Connor, whom President George W. Bush nominated to the federal bench, said that not granting an injunction would put states “in the position of either maintaining their current policies in the face of the federal government’s view that they are violating the law, or changing them to comply with the guidelines and cede their authority over this issue.”

The judge’s order, in a case brought by officials from more than a dozen states, is a victory in the continuing legal battles over the restroom guidelines, which the federal government issued this year. The culture war over the rights of transgender people, and especially their right to use public bathrooms consistent with their gender identities, has emerged as an emotional cause among social conservatives.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/us/transgender-bathroom-access-guidelines-blocked-by-judge.html

And that’s not the only thing the bathroom police have been doing this week. In fact remember when batshit crazy lunatic fringe religious groups like Focus On The Family and the American Family Association promised to boycott Target because of their pro-trans bathroom policy (the opposite of what Jesus would do) ? Well…

Target's $20 million answer to transgender bathroom boycott

Target, facing a boycott over its policy of allowing transgender customers and employees to use the bathroom of their choice, says it will spend $20 million to expand bathroom options at all of its U.S. stores.

Target (TGT) CFO Cathy Smith said Wednesday that the company has heard objections to the transgender bathroom policy from some customers, though she said other customers had voiced support. In response, Target has decided to expand its use of a third, single-toilet bathroom at all of its stores, which can be locked by users.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/17/news/companies/target-bathroom-transgender/

Hey AFA…

But there’s still more in the war on bathrooms. In fact we go to my home state of California for this one:

A Southern California barbershop has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought against the business by a transgender man who said he was denied service and told "we don't cut women's hair," local media reported on Friday.

Under the settlement filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, management of Hawleywood's Barber Shop & Shaving Parlor in Long Beach agreed to halt any future discriminatory practices and to pay the plaintiff an undisclosed amount, the Los Angeles Times reported on its website.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-barbershop-lgbt-idUSKCN10U2AP

How is this still a thing?

Although some good news last week – BYU may not be admitted to the Big 12 because of their anti-LGBT policies:

Several LGBT advocacy groups are urging the Big 12 not to admit BYU as an expansion school, according to a letter obtained by ESPN.com.

The news was first reported by FOX Sports.

In the letter, dated Aug. 8, Athlete Ally, a non-profit organization that raises LGBT awareness in sports, sent a letter to Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby to express its concerns about the Big 12 candidacy of BYU, which is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/17251009/big-12-urged-lgbt-advocacy-groups-not-admit-byu-expansion-school

Excellent!

And remember when I said I would post a real sex crime every time the bathroom police felt the need to harass innocent trans people? Well they did not disappoint in our absence last week:

GOP Stockton Mayor Anthony Silva, who has held official town hall meetings at an anti-gay megachurch and who ceremoniously gave the key to the city to God (who did not attend), has been arrested on multiple charges including secretly recording a male teenager playing a game of strip poker in his bedroom at a summer camp. Sacramento’s NBC affiliate reports:

Silva, 41, was charged with eavesdropping or recording confidential communications, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, providing alcohol to a minor and cruelty to a child by endangering health, according to court records. The incidents for which Silva is being charged happened between Aug. 5 and Aug. 9, 2015, at the Stockton Silver Lake Camp, according to the Amador County District Attorney.

The arrest stems from a September 2015 FBI investigation where Silva’s cell phone was seized by Homeland Security investigators at San Francisco International Airport as he got off a flight from China. One of the clips on Silva’s phone contained audio of several people during a strip poker game in Silva’s bedroom at the camp, the Amador County district attorney said. One of the participants was 16 years old.

Silva was arrested today at the camp where the 2015 incidents allegedly occurred. But wait there’s more: http://www.joemygod.com/2016/08/04/california-gop-mayor-arrested-recording-teens-playing-strip-poker-bedroom-video/

And this is the Mayor of Stockton!!!!

[font size="8"]Stephen Anderson[/font]

Controversial hate church pastor Stephen Anderson is no stranger to controversy or idiocy. In fact he’s one of the original idiots that inspired the Top 10 revival. You might remember after all the shootings that took place last year that he wanted to ban rock concerts. But now, my friends, the tables have turned! Now he might actually get banned from South Africa because of his violent hate speech! Let’s explore:

Durban - The Ministry of Home Affairs appears to be dragging its heels on a decision on whether to ban anti-gay US pastor Steven Anderson from entering the country next month.

The ministry was placed on terms to make a decision on the matter last month by the South African Human Rights Commission, which sent a letter to Minister Malusi Gigaba and director general Mkuseli Apleni.
http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/heel-dragging-on-ban-of-anti-gay-pastor-2058026

Let’s stop there. Who is complaining about Anderson? Well it’s the LGBT community of course.

The commission, which had received complaints about the visit from outraged lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) communities, asked the ministry to make a decision based on legislation that allows a person to be banned for being “undesirable”.

The commission received no reply to its first letter and a second was sent on August 2.

On social media, people have commented that the ministry’s handling of the Anderson complaint appears to be in contrast with the way the government dealt with several visa applications by the Dalai Lama.

While the SA government has denied that it refused the Dalai Lama’s visa applications, it has been reported that the religious leader’s trips to SA in 2009, 2012 and 2014 were cancelled after his visa application was not processed or delayed for so long that he would not have obtained a visa in time.

Anderson, who is scheduled to preach in Johannesburg on September 18 according to his church’s website, is widely known for his anti-gay sentiments on social media.

Here’s some of his greatest hits in case you’re unaware:

And:

Although even he hates whackjob conspiracy theorist Alex Jones:

But what else has the hate church pastor been up to? Well I love this story. Apparently he’s so afraid of “the gheys” that he will stoop to challenging an arm wrestling competition to prove his manliness. Any female or gay body builders or strong arm competitors out there want to take him up on the challenge? I’ll gladly start a Go Fund Me for your plane ticket out there!

Pastor Stephen Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Ariz., said in a sermon last week that he gets an email on his phone every day calling him “misogynistic.”

“What a stupid word.” he says. “This is like a new word.”

Why are people calling Pastor Anderson this “stupid” word? It might have something to do with his habit of demanding women arm wrestle him to prove their superiority.
http://fusion.net/story/334269/arizona-pastor-arm-wrestling/

[font size="8"]Ryan Lochte[/font]

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, LGBT and gender non conformers, let’s get in the Top 10 Mystery Machine! Come on let’s go!

That said we need some appropriate music for this. Hit it Steve!

And how great was Katy Perry’s theme song Rise? That makes me want to go out and do some international diplomacy.

That sounds like a James Bond theme doesn’t it?

Go away Trump. So the Olympics is a thing that is happening in Rio De Janeiro this week and next week, and we got to talk about this Ryan Lochte situation. This has been almost as all over the news as Donald Trump has. So this is the news as it originally broke and as we go down the wormhole it’s going to get scarier and scarier. Kind of like walking outside the Olympic village if you’re visiting Rio.

U.S. Olympic swimmers Ryan Lochte, Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and Jimmy Feigen were robbed at gunpoint while in Rio de Janeiro overnight Saturday, NBC News has confirmed.

Following conflicting reports — including the IOC denying any incident took place — Lochte himself confirmed with TODAY's Billy Bush that he and the other swimmers were robbed at gunpoint.

"We got pulled over, in the taxi, and these guys came out with a badge, a police badge, no lights, no nothing just a police badge and they pulled us over," Lochte said. "They pulled out their guns, they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground — they got down on the ground. I refused, I was like we didn't do anything wrong, so — I'm not getting down on the ground.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-rio-summer-olympics/u-s-swimmer-ryan-lochte-robbed-gunpoint-brazil-n630396

Now you might be thinking who in their right fucking mind would rob a gold medal winner at gun point? Well to answer you good sir / madam, we are going to need some appropriate music for this:

*Turns on Casey Kasem impression* It turns out, good sir / madam that Ryan Lochte wasn’t robbed at gun point at all. If you look at what has come out of this, it gets weirder and weirder. Let’s continue:

Ryan Lochte and three other U.S. Olympic swimmers lied about being robbed at gunpoint in Brazil over the weekend, according to a report.

Citing Brazilian authorities and sources in Brazil, Matt Gutman of ABC News said Thursday that Lochte and his teammates “fabricated” the robbery story after fighting with a security guard at a gas station.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/olympics/report-lochte-teammates-fabricated-robbery-story-after-fight/ar-BBvMd9o?li=BBnb7Kz

Whoa! Let’s stop there for a minute. Let’s go to the next story shall we?

“I think they’re all shaken up. There were a few of them,” Ileana Lochte told Rachel Axon of USA Today Sports. “No, they were just, they just took their wallets and basically that was it.”

Lochte’s mother said Ryan called her immediately after the incident and said it was “terrifying.” The six-time gold medalist told Ileana that he was in a cab heading to a party he had been invited to by Brazilian swimmer Thiago Pereira when the cab stopped for gas. Lochte said he and the people he was with were confronted by people who were holding guns and knives. They took the swimmer’s wallet, but he was not harm
http://larrybrownsports.com/olympics/ryan-lochtes-held-at-gunpoint-rio/317228

That’s right! He was terrified and shaken up! So why are we not sad? Well………

Gutman’s report Thursday morning appeared to contradict Lochte’s account of the alleged robbery.

Later Thursday, the gas station owner told Brazil’s O Globo news the U.S. quartet urinated on his Shell franchise’s walls in Rio’s Barra da Tijuca neighborhood at the time in question. Meanwhile, the British Daily Mail reported a security guard drew a gun at the swimmers after they drunkenly “destroyed a gas station toilet and refused to pay for the damage.” The swimmers then reportedly paid.

The video footage released by O Globo shows the four U.S. swimmers retreating into an alley on the property before returning to their taxi. At that point, someone approaches the vehicle, the swimmers get out, and they’re led to a landing outside the gas station, where they sit with their arms raised.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/report-ryan-lochte-u-s-swimmers-fabricated-armed-robbery-story-140805637.html

That’s right! Ryan Lochte and his friend busted up a gas station and were being pulled over by the police who just happens to be brandishing their guns!

But we’re still not done! The Brazillian government wants Ryan Lochte’s passport but he was too busy, oh, I don’t know fleeing the country!

RIO DE JANEIRO — Rio police said four U.S. swimmers lied about being held up at gunpoint Sunday morning.

“No robbery was committed against these athletes. They were not victims of the crimes they claimed,” Fernando Veloso, chief of civil police, said during a news conference Thursday afternoon.

Police said the swimmers were confronted by security guards carrying guns after leaving a party at the French hospitality house. The latest developments in the case led to more questions and confusion about the swimmers' account of what happened when they said they were robbed at gunpoint.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/rio-2016/2016/08/18/ryan-lochte-swimmers-fabricated-story-robbed-gunpoint/88946508/

And he’s apparently everything that foreigners hate about Americans:

Turns out that Hope Solo didn’t clinch the title of “Worst Person at the Olympics” after all. She only insulted her competition and former coach, moments after a heartbreaking loss.

What Lochte did is far worse. He fabricated a story to cover his own butt, and in doing so played on all the fears and stereotypes his Brazilian hosts have been trying to allay. He caused panic among the visitors. He caused an international incident.

Lochte, 34, is a four-time Olympian. What motivated him to make up such a story is beyond my - and probably your - imagination. Was he just scared of Mommy? The story started with his mother telling reporters that Lochte had told her he had been robbed.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Lochte-legacy-most-embarrassing-American-Olympian-9170745.php?t=0e8ef5f14d

And of course the internet being the internet turned Lochte’s douchebaggery into comedy:

Ryan Lochte bolted from Rio de Janeiro, leaving three U.S. Olympic swim teammates to explain to Brazilian authorities just what happened in an incident, now being debunked by authorities, in which Lochte claimed they were robbed at gunpoint.

It’s like Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve at 12:05 for the Internet.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/08/18/internet-takes-ryan-lochtes-mess-turns-it-into-memes/

My favorite one is this one:

:large

But why Mr. Lotche, why? And he would have got away with it too if it wasn’t for those meddling kids!

[font size="8"]And Now This:[/font]
[font size="8"]Kanye West Writes A Poem About McDonalds[/font]

You know we've got a bonus for you for putting up with all this madness. So Kanye West, America's foremost expert on the auto tune, opened a pop up shop for his self-proclaimed album of the year "The Life Of Pablo" which you can buy for $20 there. Which The Verge took the liberty of illustrating:

Frank Ocean finally dropped his much-anticipated album Blonde this weekend, along with a limited companion zine called Boys Don't Cry that came with some physical copies of the album. The zine features artwork from collaborators, personal essays and interviews, and a poem about McDonald's by none other than Kanye West.

Accompanying the poem are artsy shots of Kanye picking up McDonald's drive-thru in a very expensive-looking car, which, like, same. As a fellow McDonald's lover, I felt moved by Kanye's poem. So moved, in fact, that I decided to illustrate the story. You can read it as a bedtime story to your children or to yourself, if you need to be reminded of the dangerous temptation of McDonald's fries.
http://www.theverge.com/tldr/2016/8/22/12586016/kanye-west-mcdonalds-poem-frank-ocean-boys-dont-cry-zine

https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WlQasY7P3mcn9zhKYq7Zi8CCSs0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6975893/mcdonaldsman1.0.png

And here's a video of a guy actually reading it in a McDonalds:

See you next week and hopefully in our regularly scheduled time slot!

August 15, 2016

John Oliver Exposes The Sleazy Underground World Of Used Car Loans

August 10, 2016

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #38: Wheel Of Corruption VIII: The Wrath Of Khan Edition

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #38: Wheel Of Corruption VIII: The Wrath Of Khan Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! And no, I will not “Shazam” for more. Whatever that is. We are back in our home ladies and gentlemen! And this is the kind of audience you would get with a brand new Wednesday edition! Boy remind me never to take a week off again! Because holy fuck did I almost miss doing Top 10 style commentary on what could be the biggest cluster fuck of the Donald Trump campaign so far. And while I was putting together this edition, Donald Trump went and fucked up again, this time literally taking aim at Hillary Clinton. So this might be our biggest edition ever and I know I say that every time but bare with me. So we’re going to do something quite a bit different for this edition and that is that you guys and gals, frequent viewers of the Top 10 know that I always save the craziest thing for spot number 10 each week. And the reason I love doing that is because it gives me a chance to talk about off topic and non political stuff. But this week because the Donald Trump vs. Khan fight is the craziest story of the week, we are going to throw out our usual nonsense and dedicate all 10 slots to Donald Trump this week. That’s right – Donald Trump is taking not one, not two, not three, but all 10 slots! So to kick things off on this all Trump edition this week, we’re going to have Bill Maher explain to you why Donald Trump is the 1950s candidate of choice:

So where do we begin this week? So we’re going to bring back the wheel in order to tell of the biggest fuck up of the Donald Trump campaign so far. Donald Trump is of course taking up all 10 slots this week plus we have a bonus idiot for you. Obviously the first two slots are going to go to Donald Trump (1, 2) and his ongoing feud with the Khan family over his “support” of our fallen soldiers. Bravo, well done Trump, take a bow. Plus we have some late breaking news for you. Taking the 3rd slot, Donald Trump loses the feud between him and Mr. Khan, and is continuing to dig his own grave in the presidential race. In the number 4 slot, we’re going to show you the relationship between Donald Trump and Paul Ryan – and it’s not a very good one. In the number 5 slot we’re going to talk more random insanity surrounding the Trump campaign. At number 6 we’re going to talk about Donald Trump and his number 1 celebrity endorsement – Clint Eastwood. It seems Clint is sticking by Trumpenfuror after the whole Khan fiasco. In the number 7 slot we’re going to talk about Donald Trump’s (7) denouncement of our “pay to play” campaign finance system then announced his team of all male economic experts! At number 8 - we are going to talk about Donald Trump’s (8) wife Melania and her immigration status, among other things she might be lying about. At number 9 (NEIN!!!) I was originally going to cover Donald Trump and his sons' expensive hunting excursion to Canada, but we have to talk about this whole threatening Hillary Clinton thing. It's a fuck up too big to ignore and it cannot wait until next week. Finally this week we’re going to end on the lighter side and talk about Donald Trump (10) and the $400 million conspiracy theory, and we're also going to talk about Donald Trump and the Olympics - lots of craziness there. And we have a bonus idiot for you who’s not named Donald J. Trump. And to do this we’re going to bring back “People Who Somehow Got Elected”. And the subject? None other than Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell. Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

Come on everybody say it with me – it’s time for the: WHEEL OF CORRUPTION!!!!!

And of course if we had a bigger budget we’d have our own graphics and theme music. The wheel is back everybody!! yes just like last time I’ll talk about whatever the wheel lands on. But remember that if it lands on the Guacamole option that it costs $1.50 extra. So this week the items on the wheel will be:
- Gun Nuts
- Go Directly To Jail
- Clip Without Context
- Guacamole
- 5,000
- Poison
- Poison (The Band)
- Community Chest
- Bankrupt
- Morally Bankrupt
- Satan
- Chance
- Buy A Vowel
- Donald Trump
- My Wife
- Food
- Whammy
- A Recent Study
- Constitution
- Guns
- VR Headset
- Babies
- Late Breaking News
- People Who Somehow Got Elected
- 10,000
- How Is This Still A Thing?
- Fox News
- Rocky
- 15,000
- Star Trek
- Congress
- Memorials
- Conspiracy Theories
- Khan
- Something random in the news
- ??? (Mystery)
- Florida (Obviously)
- Infowars
- Lightning Round
- Bonus Spin
Let’s get going! Spin that shit! Come on no whammy no whammy no whammy no whammy no whammy… stop!!! Clip without context!

Jesus… throwing veterans under the bus are you, Trumpenfuror? Well by now you should be well aware of the feud brewing between our possible future president Donald J. Trump and the family of fallen Islamic American soldier Humayun Khan, who lost his life defending America back in 2004 during a war that, as far as I last checked, is still going on! Well this is turning out to be quite the epic feud, and The Donald is firing on all fours, and well, failing big fucking time. Pass the butter.

In his first response to a searing charge from bereaved Army father Khizr Khan that he’d “sacrificed nothing” for his country, Donald Trump claimed that he had in fact sacrificed by employing “thousands and thousands of people.” He also suggested that Khan’s wife didn’t speak because she was forbidden to as a Muslim and questioned whether Khan’s words were his own.

“Who wrote that? Did Hillary's script writers write it?” Trump said in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard.”

On the last night of the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, Gold Star father Khizr Khan, his wife Ghazala by his side, recounted to the crowd how his son was killed in 2004 by a car bomb in Iraq.

Khan also chastised Trump for seeking to ban Muslims from entering the country, saying that his son, U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, would not have been able to serve under a Trump presidency.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-father-fallen-soldier-ive-made-lot/story?id=41015051

So this whole thing started when Khan was invited to speak at the DNC and then denounced Donald Trump and his anti-Islamic policies. I mean if you can’t support our nation’s US-born Islamic soldiers, who can you support? Well…

Khizr Khan, who denounced Trump at the Democratic Convention, said “an ethical, moral stand has to be taken, regardless of the political costs.”

Khan, the father of Muslim-American war hero Army Capt. Humayun S.M. Khan, who was killed in action in Iraq, implored Republican leaders of the Senate and House to disown their presidential nominee, Donald Trump, once and for all.

Appearing in his living room with his wife on MSNBC, Khan stared unwaveringly into the camera with watery eyes and asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.): “Isn’t this time to repudiate Trump?”

“If your candidate wins and he governs the way he has campaigned, my country, this country, will have constitutional crises never before in the history of this country, and my conscience compels me under these very difficult circumstances,” Khan said. “But there is so much at stake, and I appeal to both of these leaders, this is the time. There comes a time in the history of a nation where an ethical, moral stand has to be taken regardless of the political costs. The only reason they’re not repudiating his behavior, his threat to our democracy, our decency, our foundation, is just because of political consequences.”

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/khizr-khan-paul-ryan-mitch-mcconnell_us_579c1d52e4b0693164c1726f

Holy shit. He scared Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan shitless. But we’re still not done with the first part of this clusterfuck. So now the GOP is firing on all fours *AGAINST* Khan. I mean smear campaign is a go, people!!! So who have they got as an ally? How about RNC interrupter Roger Stone?

According to former Trump campaign staffer and key confidante Roger Stone, Democratic convention speaker Khizr Khan isn’t really just a father of a fallen soldier, he’s a Muslim Brotherhood sleeper agent hellbent on protecting Hillary Clinton.

Stone tweeted his theory Sunday night.

@RogerJStoneJr Mr. Khan more than an aggrieved father of a Muslim son- he's Muslim Brotherhood agent helping Hillary http://linkis.com/shoebat.com/2016/07/amTCP …

The url in Stone’s tweet links to a website run by anti-Islam pundit Walid Shoebat, and co-run by his son Theodore Shoebat. The Shoebats argue that “Khan is a Muslim plant working with the Hillary Clinton campaign, probably for the interest of Muslim oil companies as well as Muslim immigration into the U.S.”
(…)
The site even attacks Captain Humayan Khan, the decorated soldier who died serving in Iraq. “In regards to his son, many were the ‘Muslim martyrs’ who joined the US military…” they argue. “Is it likely that Khan’s son was killed before his Islamist mission was accomplished? Only another type of investigation will determine that.”
http://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-ally-capt-khans-father-is-a-muslim-brotherhood-agent-helping-hillary/

?w=600

So to follow their logic – Khan was a devout Muslim. He served in the US Army. Therefore – he And remember – this is the guy whose claim to fame was that he was in a political sex scandal working for the Bob Dole campaign! Bob Dole!!! Why is my voice getting so high?

Conservatives really love has-beens, don’t they? But here’s the really fucked up thing about all of this – in pure Donald J. Trump fashion, he didn’t just keep up with the insults hurled at Khan, he doubled down:

Republican nominee Donald Trump, facing backlash over his controversial remarks about the family of slain Army Capt. Humayun Khan, continued to aggressively push back against critics this morning.

"Mr. Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC and is now all over T.V. doing the same - Nice!" Trump tweeted today in reference to an appearance that Khizr Khan and Ghazala Khan, the slain soldier's parents, were making on CNN's "New Day."

Khizr Khan used the opportunity to praise his son, describing him as a "wonderful, patriotic, deliberate" person. He criticized what he said was Trump's ignorance of the Constitution and said that Trump wanted "one set of rights for himself and another set of rights for others," referring to the First Amendment.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-doubles-criticism-khan-family-blow-back-continues/story?id=41041166

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

Spin it to win it! And it lands on……………………… KHAN!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spin it again. And it lands on, well, morally bankrupt. Which is exactly what Donald Trump is. So let’s talk about how low Donald Trump’s polling numbers are among the African American community before we get into more Khan talk.

WASHINGTON ― Rounding out one of the worst weeks in his presidential campaign, Donald Trump faces yet another sad reality. According to new NBC/Wall Street Journal polling released Thursday, only 1 percent of black voters nationally support the Republican nominee.

This is the lowest level of support ever recorded among the demographic, indicating that a sentiment already present among black voters in swing states is widespread. Trump also suffers among Hispanic voters, garnering just 26 percent of their vote, according to an Economist/YouGov poll released earlier this week.

Generating support among voters of color ― whom Trump’s rhetoric habitually alienates ― is key to winning the general election. People of color constitute nearly one-third of eligible voters, making the 2016 electorate the most diverse in U.S. history. This renders it essential for Trump to secure higher numbers of those votes in order to win. President Barack Obama won 93 percent of the black vote and 71 percent of the Hispanic vote nationally in 2012; in 2008, he won over 95 and 67 percent, respectively. The most recent Republican president, George W. Bush, won over 11 percent of African-Americans and 44 percent of Hispanics support in 2004; in 2000 he won 9 and 35 percent, respectively.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-voters-trump_us_57a4a2a1e4b021fd98784a42

So getting back into the Khan madness – no, we’re still not done. We have a lot to cover here.

In an interview today with a local ABC affiliate in Columbus, Ohio, Donald Trump suggested that what angered critic Khizr Khan was Trump's aggressive efforts to prevent terrorists from entering the country.

"It's a very big subject for me, border security is very big. When you have radical Islamic terrorists probably all over the place, we’re allowing them to come in by the thousands and thousands. And I think that’s what bothered Mr. Khan more than anything else. And, you know, I’m not going to change my views on that. We have radical Islamic terrorists coming in that have to be stopped. We’re taking them in by the thousands.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-khan-was-mad-i-ll-keep-out-terrorists

Awwwwwwwwwww… Donald Trump thinks he can keep out terrorists by banning Muslims. Isn’t that special?

And it gets better – my favorite part of this whole feud has been that Trump thinks that he’s “made a lot of sacrifices”. “I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I have made the best sacrifices. Nobody makes better sacrifices than I do.”

(CNN)Donald Trump rejected a Muslim lawyer's assertion on the Democratic convention stage that the Republican nominee has "sacrificed nothing and no one."

"Who wrote that? Did Hillary's script writers write it?" Trump said in an interview with with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos that will air Sunday. "I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard."

Khizr Khan, whose son Army Capt. Humayun Khan died in Baghdad in 2004, delivered one of the most powerful speeches of the Democratic National Convention. With his wife Ghazala at his side, Khan repeatedly blasted Trump's immigration proposals -- specifically those aimed at barring Muslims -- and said the billionaire businessman has "sacrificed nothing and no one."

Trump, in the ABC interview, said in response, "I've created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I've had tremendous success. I think I've done a lot."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/30/politics/donald-trump-khizr-kahn-response/index.html

Well he certainly didn’t serve in the military. He didn’t become a self made millionaire. So what sacrifices has Donald Trump made? #Trumpsacrifices

But oh no – we’re still not done! This is getting better and better. I can talk about these stories all night, give me some butter! This is turning into an all out brawl between Khzir Khan and Trump. Round 1!

Khizr Khan on Tuesday accused Donald Trump of dodging the Vietnam War draft, and said he shouldn't have accepted a Purple Heart given to him at a rally earlier in the day, deeming it the latest sign of his inability to empathize with parents of fallen soldiers.

"You dodged the draft," Khan, a Muslim whose son was slain in the Iraq War, said of Trump to CNN's Anderson Cooper. "Put that Purple Heart back on that person's chest."

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/02/politics/khizr-khan-donald-trump-purple-heart/index.html

Advantage: Khan!! Round 2:

The Twitterverse is trying to teach Donald Trump's spokeswoman Katrina Pierson a sassy history lesson.

In an interview with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, Pierson blamed President Obama and Hillary Clinton for the 2004 death of Army Capt. Humayun Khan. However, Khan died while George W. Bush was president — four years before Obama was elected.

Now, #KatrinaPiersonHistory has been used more than 31,000 times, sarcastically claiming Obama was to blame for key moments in history.

The feud between Donald Trump and Ghazala and Khizr Khan, the parents of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, has dragged on in the days since they appeared at the Democratic National Convention and criticized the real estate mogul for “smears” of Muslims. Trump’s reactions have only led the issue to snowball as other Muslims and military groups call out Trump for what they call disrespect toward the Gold Star family.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-spokeswoman-blames-obama-for-captain-khans-death/ar-BBvb3JC?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

Trump wins this round. Round 3!

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/31/politics/khizr-khan-donald-trump-black-soul/

Washington (CNN)Khizr Khan, the father of a Muslim US soldier slain in Iraq in 2004, said Sunday that Donald Trump has a "black soul," indicating he lacks empathy and compassion.

Khan told CNN's Jim Acosta on "State of the Union" that he hopes Trump's family will "teach him some empathy."
"He is a black soul, and this is totally unfit for the leadership of this country," Khan said. "The love and affection that we have received affirms that our grief -- that our experience in this country has been correct and positive. The world is receiving us like we have never seen. They have seen the blackness of his character, of his soul."

Khan moved into the national spotlight after he pulled out a pocket copy of the Constitution during his speech at the Democratic National Convention. He said Trump would have barred his Muslim family from entering the United States.
Khan said Sunday Trump's "policy, his practices, do not reflect that he has any understanding of the basic, fundamental constitutional principles of this country."

Khan wins this round! Round 4!

The Clinton campaign became aware of Khan's story while preparing for her December speech in Minnesota. According to multiple aides, a member of Clinton's speech writing team came across a print interview where Khizr Khan described the 10 steps that his son, Humayun, took before his death.
It was immediately clear, aides said, how powerful Khan's story was.
"If you want to see the best of America," Clinton said, "you need look no further than Army Capt. Humayun Khan."
Shortly thereafter, Democratic Party representatives contacted Khizr Khan to ask if they could pay tribute to his son's memory at the party's mid-year meeting, Khan told CNN this week.
He agreed............
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/04/politics/2016-election-khizr-khan-donald-trump-muslim-ban/index.html

Khan wins! It’s a TKO!!!

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

Spin it to win it! And it lands on………… wait for it………….. Clip without context!

Spin it again! Donald Trump. So Donald Trump lost the one-man war against Khzir Khan, and we’ve already covered this extensively, but let’s cover exactly how far he dug himself into a hole. There’s:

Donald J. Trump’s unabashed and continuing hostility toward the parents of a slain Muslim American soldier, and his attacks on Republican leaders who have rebuked him for it, threaten to shatter his uneasy alliance with the Republican Party at the outset of the general election campaign.

Ignoring the pleas of his advisers and entreaties from party leaders in Washington, Mr. Trump only dug in further on Tuesday. He told a Virginia television station that he had no regrets about his clash with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of an Army captain killed in Iraq. And in an extraordinarily provocative interview with The Washington Post, Mr. Trump declined to endorse for re-election several Republicans who had criticized him, including the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, who both face primaries this month.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/us/politics/donald-trump-gop.html?_r=0

And how far else has he gone? Well….

Donald J. Trump’s unabashed and continuing hostility toward the parents of a slain Muslim American soldier, and his attacks on Republican leaders who have rebuked him for it, threaten to shatter his uneasy alliance with the Republican Party at the outset of the general election campaign.

Ignoring the pleas of his advisers and entreaties from party leaders in Washington, Mr. Trump only dug in further on Tuesday. He told a Virginia television station that he had no regrets about his clash with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of an Army captain killed in Iraq. And in an extraordinarily provocative interview with The Washington Post, Mr. Trump declined to endorse for re-election several Republicans who had criticized him, including the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, who both face primaries this month.

He also belittled Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who had criticized his treatment of the Khans, for not being supportive of his campaign.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/us/politics/donald-trump-gop.html?_r=0

Just keep digging there, Trump. You’ll reach the bottom of the earth eventually.

There’s always that. But how does Donald Trump’s campaign feel about this?

Following a week of high-profile blunders, Donald Trump’s antics have left the chair of the Republican National Committee “apoplectic” and his own aides “suicidal,” according to several reports.

RNC Chair Reince Priebus was reportedly “apoplectic” over Trump’s bucking the party line by refusing to back House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) or Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for re-election and called several of Trump’s staffers to voice his discontent, according to NBC's Katy Tur.

A longtime ally of top Trump staffer Paul Manafort also told CNBC’s John Harwood that Manafort is “not challenging Trump anymore” and is “mailing it in,” while the campaign staff is “suicidal."

NBC News’ Peter Alexander tweeted that an anonymous source confirmed “it’s all true” about Harwood’s reporting and that the situation is “way worse than people realize.” Manafort, for his part, denied Harwood's report.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rnc-chair-trump-staff-implosion-after-week-of-blunders

Yes, the campaign is in turmoil. And they certainly don’t need Will Smith laying the smack down on Trum and his fans:

http://www.someecards.com/news/politics/will-smith-trumps-treatment-of-women/

Sixteen years into the Willennium, Earth is reckoning with the candidacy of one Donald J. Trump, and Will Smith is outraged over his treatment of women.

Making the rounds promoting his new film Suicide Squad (in case you haven't already seen the trailer before every YouTube video), Smith spoke up about the way Trump speaks about womankind.

“For a man to be able to publicly refer to a woman as a fat pig, that makes me teary. And for people to applaud, that is absolutely f**king insanity to me,” an emotional Smith told Australia's news.com.au.

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

Come on spin that shit…. Stop! And it lands on……….. babies!

Oh wait, that was a clip from the hilarious 2012 Will Ferrell flick “The Campaign” (if you haven’t seen it yet I highly recommend doing so!). Here’s the clip I was looking for:

You know if we’re going to kick a crying baby out of a Donald Trump rally, shouldn’t we start at least with the guy who’s speaking at the podium? Hey o!!!!

And by the way I think even Trumpenfuror has a low opinion among babies if these photos are any indication:

Spin it again! Congress. You know the funny thing about that baby clip from the Trump campaign so far? He ejected a crying baby after saying he loves babies. “The best babies come from Trump tower… I love babies!!!”. So what about another big baby in government? I’m of course talking about House speaker and current stand-in for White Goodman in the Dodgeball sequel, Paul Ryan. So did Paul Ryan endorse Donald J. Trump for president and did Donald J. Trump endorse Paul Ryan in his reelection bid, or did neither of these things happen?

Donald Trump is refusing to back House Speaker Paul Ryan in his upcoming primary election, saying that he is “not quite there yet” in endorsing his party’s top-ranking elected official, the Washington Post reports.

In fact, Trump praised Ryan’s underdog opponent, Paul Nehlen, for running “a very good campaign.”

Said Trump: “I like Paul, but these are horrible times for our country. We need very strong leadership. We need very, very strong leadership. And I’m just not quite there yet. I’m not quite there yet.”

https://politicalwire.com/2016/08/02/trump-refuses-to-support-ryan-in-primary/

But Donald Trump didn’t endorse Paul Ryan in his reelection bid! In fact there’s far more to this than it may seem:

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump is testing just how far he can push his unconventional campaign without wrecking it.
The Republican nominee shattered traditional political boundaries Tuesday when he told The Washington Post he isn't backing House Speaker Paul Ryan or Sen. John McCain as they face primary challenges. The two leading Republicans seemingly angered Trump with their denunciation of his criticism of the family of a slain Muslim US soldier.

Trump's comments -- delivered to a newspaper he's banned from attending his events since mid-June -- capped a bizarre day on the campaign trail that also included asking for a crying baby to be removed from a rally and causing a stir over Purple Heart recipients.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/03/politics/donald-trump-paul-ryan-john-mccain-election-2016/

And we’re still not done yet. Why yes Donald Trump does indeed think that the former head of the CIA is a – and I’m quoting – “Clinton – Obama pawn”.

After former CIA head Mike Morell endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in an op-ed and accused Donald Trump of being an unwitting agent of the Russians, Trump hit back in a statement denouncing Morell as just another Clinton pawn.

“Hillary Clinton and President Obama bear the direct responsibility of destabilizing the Middle East, having let ISIS take firm hold and Iraq, Libya and Syria, not to mention their allowing Americans to be slaughtered at Benghazi,” Trump began.

“Clinton’s home email server that she lied to the American people about was a profound national security risk, and it should come as no surprise that her campaign would push out another Obama-Clinton pawn (who is not independent) to try to change the subject in a week when Clinton’s role in putting Iran on the path to nuclear weapons and this Administration’s being called out for sending $400 million in cash to the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism is on every front page in the country,” he continued.

“Hillary Clinton has bad judgment and is unfit to serve as president,” Trump concluded simply.
http://www.mediaite.com/election-2016/trump-hits-back-at-former-cia-chief-mike-morell-another-obama-clinton-pawn/

Wow, the guy who has literally been calling just about everyone and everything names, said horrible shit about the family of a deceased soldier, is calling Hillary “unfit to serve”?

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

Spin that shit! Come on no whammy no whammy no whammy no whammy no whammy no whammy stop! Wow, another clip without context! Steve?

Detroit Rock Titties!

Spin it again. Donald Trump. So one question that hasn’t been asked yet of supporters of possible future president Donald J. Trump – why do you not care about the facts? Well the Washington Post has some answers:

How did Donald Trump win the Republican nomination, despite clear evidence that he had misrepresented or falsified key issues throughout the campaign? Social scientists have some intriguing explanations for why people persist in misjudgments despite strong contrary evidence.

Trump is a vivid and, to his critics, a frightening present-day illustration of this perception problem. But it has been studied carefully by researchers for more than 30 years. Basically, the studies show that attempts to refute false information often backfire and lead people to hold on to their misperceptions even more strongly.

This literature about misperception was lucidly summarized by Christopher Graves, the global chairman of Ogilvy Public Relations, in a February 2015 article in the Harvard Business Review, months before Trump surfaced as a candidate. Graves is now writing a book about his research at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-facts-dont-matter-to-trumps-supporters/2016/08/04/924ece4a-5a78-11e6-831d-0324760ca856_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

And we’re still not done with all the crazy stuff Donald J. Trump has been doing in the last week. I mean there’s nothing wrong with the Constitution right? I mean it’s the US Constitution! It’s the document that makes us, us! Well Donald J. Trump won’t have any of it:

Portland, Maine (CNN)A group of protesters at Donald Trump's rally here on Thursday stood up silently during the Republican nominee's speech and held up pocket copies of the Constitution.

They were quickly ejected by campaign staffers and drew fierce boos and jeers from the roughly 1,800 Trump supporters packed into the auditorium, the capacity of the venue.

The seven protesters held up pocket copies of the Constitution issued by the American Civil Liberties Union. It was not immediately clear whether the demonstrators were affiliated with a particular organization.

The ACLU responded on Twitter, saying: "Glad to see people are standing up for constitutional principles using their ACLU pocket Constitutions!"
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/04/politics/donald-trump-protests-constitution/

But for those wondering about Donald Trump and the Constitution, why yes he does in fact hate free speech! Just like a good wannabe dictator should!

Voters on the political right finally believe they have found their weapon in beating back a scourge of social justice both online and in demonstrations across the country, and they believe that weapon is Donald Trump. To hear it told, the brash, supposedly un-PC outsider is just the ticket that conservatives need if they are to restore balance to the societal scale and end the shame-based culture of social justice. But a closer look at Donald Trump’s actions and words clearly show a disturbing pattern: Not only is he a long way from being the proud free-speech activist he claims to be, but he is in fact the most politically correct candidate running for the presidency in 2016.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/432848/donald-trump-opposes-free-speech-pc-left

That is some scary shit there. Yes Donald Trump has a right to say what he says, but is there such a thing as going too far?

But getting back to pocket constitutions – you know these are the same things that the Bundy bunch carried around with them when they declared themselves above the law. In fact there’s more to this than you might think. And of course just like everyone else Trumpenfuror doesn’t agree with, he had them removed:

Hillary Clinton also had to deal with protesters while stumping.

Donald Trump was interrupted numerous times on Thursday while stumping in Portland, Maine.

A group of people were removed from the event, all holding pocket Constitutions, a nod to the now-iconic moment by the father of a fallen U.S. soldier who spoke during the Democratic National Convention, blasting Trump for his anti-immigration rhetoric.

It appears at one point, one of the protesters had a whistle. The protesters were booed and called "traitors" as they were removed.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/protesters-pocket-constitutions-removed-donald-917336

And then this is my favorite part - Donald Trump says he would "absolutely debate Hillary Clinton" but he has conditions. And they're the best conditions. Nobody has better conditions than he does.

Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will commit to three debates this fall with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, but may try to re-negotiate the terms that have been agreed upon by a bipartisan commission.

“I will absolutely do three debates,” Trump told TIME in a phone interview. “I want to debate very badly. But I have to see the conditions.”

“I renegotiated the debates in the primaries, remember? They were making a fortune on them and they had us in for three and a half hours and I said that’s ridiculous,” Trump said. “I’m sure they’ll be open to any suggestions I have, because I think they’ll be very fair suggestions. But I haven’t yet. They’re actually presented to me tonight.”

Read more: http://time.com/4445182/donald-trump-debate-terms/

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

Spin it again! Cool, I get a bonus spin. And it lands on………… memorials. Damn. You know folks I have to pay my respects to one of the greats that we lost this last week. What has to be one of my favorite movies of all time – the Big Lebowski. RIP David Huddleston.

Huddleston, who portrayed another blowhard — Mayor Olsen Johnson, one of the many Johnsons in town — in the Mel Brooks comedy classic Blazing Saddles (1974), died Tuesday of heart and kidney disease in Santa Fe, N.M., his wife Sarah told The Hollywood Reporter.

In The Big Lebowski, inspired by the noirish work of Raymond Chandler, Huddleston played a multimillionaire (or so he appeared) who shared the last name of the film's protagonist, the hippie Jeff "the Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges). Julianne Moore portrayed his daughter.

In a career of more than 60 films, his breakthrough role came as a vicious gang leader with a sense of humor in Robert Benton’s directorial debut, the Civil War-set Bad Company (1972), which also starred Bridges.

Read more: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/david-huddleston-dead-big-lebowski-917418

If you haven’t seen the Big Lebowski it’s easily one of the best movies of the last 20 years. If you have seen it go rewatch it. What are you waiting for? Stop viewing my nonsense. Go watch a great movie and remember a great character actor. I’ll sit here and play Angry Birds while I wait.

Spin it again! Morally bankrupt. You know Donald Trump just can’t stop provoking Hillary Clinton, and every time he does he loses. So who is endorsing Donald Trump with a fiery fury like no other? Why it’s Mr. Dirty Harry himself – Clint “Empty Chair” Eastwood!

NEW YORK — Clint Eastwood has stopped short of endorsing Donald Trump, but in an interview in Esquire magazine he praised the Republican presidential candidate for being “on to something.”

In the interview posted online Wednesday, the actor-director hailed Trump as a foe of political correctness and lamented what he called “the kiss-ass generation.”

“Everybody’s walking on eggshells,” said Eastwood, 86. “We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren’t called racist.”
http://time.com/4438268/clint-eastwood-donald-trump-2016-election/?xid=homepage

Yes! The “Get Off My Lawn” guy doesn’t see racism. I mean it’s black and white folks. I mean… bad choice of words. I mean… um… shit!

But what is Donald Trump onto? He wasn’t exactly clear about that. And of course rather than apologize, he says “get the fuck over it”!

Clint Eastwood thinks America’s “pussy generation” needs to “just f–ing get over” Donald Trump’s “racism.”

In an interview with Esquire published Wednesday, the actor/director/producer said young America — which he has dubbed both the “kiss-ass” and “pussy” generation — needs to stop throwing the word “racist” around so freely.

“ onto something, because secretly everybody’s getting tired of political correctness, kissing up,” he said. “We’re really in a pussy generation. Everybody’s walking on eggshells. We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren’t called racist.”
http://www.thewrap.com/clint-eastwood-donald-trump-racism/

And the Khans were exploited at DNC:

Clint Eastwood, who spurred a social media storm with comments during his interview with Esquire magazine, says the grieving military family featured during the Democratic National Convention and then embroiled in a war of words with Donald Trump was “exploited” by the DNC.

“What do I care?” Eastwood said when a cameraman caught up with him after the social media firestorm and asked if he feared young people would stay away from his movies.
http://buzz.blog.ajc.com/2016/08/04/clint-eastwood-says-grieving-military-family-was-exploited-at-dnc/

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

Spin it to win it! And it lands on…………… Chance! Let’s draw a card shall we?

Cool. I’ve been elected chairman of the board of directors. I may have to pay each of you $50, but I get that big $7,000,000 annual salary! And if I fuck up I get to leave the company with a $63,000,000 bonus and lifetime benefits like use of the private jet!

Damn. Spin it again! Donald Trump! Wait, didn’t we already do Donald Trump already? Is the wheel broken? Can we get my team out here to fix it again? I’ll wait.

OK we’re back! Well it is a wheel, it only has a finite number of items on it. So Donald Trump recently unveiled his all male economic team. Anyone remember that movie Dodgeball when they decide to hold a fundraising car wash and get crushed when some hot girls hold their own car wash across the street? I mean yeah this is kind of like that.

Donald Trump's campaign on Friday announced more than a dozen members of the Republican nominee's all-male economic advisory team, including several prominent real-estate investors, hedge-fund managers and bankers.

Names on the list, which the Trump campaign boasted as having "unparalleled experience and success in business" include Steve Roth, the founder and chairman of Vornado Realty Trust; oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm; Vector Group President and CEO Howard Lorber; Steven Mnuchin, Trump's national finance director and chairman/CEO of Dune Capital; top fundraiser Tom Barrack, the founder and chief executive at Colony Capital; Stephen M. Calk, chairman and CEO of The Federal Savings Bank; John Paulson, president and CEO of investment firm Paulson & Co.; Andy Beal, a banker, businessman and poker player; and Steve Feinberg, co-founder and CEO of Cerberus Capital Management.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-economic-advisory-team-226709

And of course as you may have guessed they are his biggest donors:

After spending months scolding his rivals for being beholden to their financial backers, Donald Trump unveiled an economic advisory council last week — and filled it with some of his biggest donors.

Of the 13 men — and they are all men — that Trump touted as economic advisers for their “unparalleled experience and success,” five are major donors whose families combined to give Trump’s campaign and his joint fundraising account with the Republican Party more than $2 million. Two more have been pursued for campaign contributions.
Story Continued Below

Among those Trump tapped for his economic advisory council is Steven Mnuchin, who, as Trump’s national finance director, is the point man for soliciting campaign cash across the nation. Mnuchin gave Trump $425,000 at the end of June. Others big donors on Trump’s economic advisory team include:

— Stephen Feinberg, co-founder and CEO of Cerberus Capital Management, who contributed $339,400 to Trump Victory, the Republican’s nominee joint fundraising account with the national and state Republican parties. Feinberg's wife gave another $339,400.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trumps-economic-advisers-are-also-his-biggest-donors-226758

And in case you were wondering, why yes, Donald Trump’s economic advisors are the same group who ruined Kansas’ economy:

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/trumps-economic-team-is-loaded-with-the-same-tea-party-cranks-who-destroyed-kansas-economy/

By now, we all know that Governor Sam Brownback’s Tea Party “experiment” in Kansas has been an abject failure.

Actually, scratch that: There is someone who still thinks Brownback’s Kansas disaster has been a smashing success, and he happens to be a Heritage Foundation economist who is one of Donald Trump’s top economic advisers.

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities documents, top Trump economics adviser Stephen Moore has been instrument

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

Entering the spin zone! Round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows. Rocky! It seems nobody likes cold blooded murderers like George Zimmerman and Dylan Roof. So this happened:

The man who said he shot unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in self-defense said he was punched in the face while he was talking to people at a restaurant in Sanford over the weekend.

George Zimmerman called 911 after a man accusing him of bragging about the fatal shooting punched him in the face, authorities said.
http://www.wftv.com/news/officials-george-zimmerman-punched-in-face-for-allegedly-bragging-about-killing-trayvon-martin/417278308

And in this corner:

The hate-filled racist accused of slaughtering nine black parishioners in a South Carolina church last year was roughed up Thursday in a jail bathroom, officials said.

Dylann Roof, who is white, was sucker-punched in the shower by a black inmate inside the Charleston County Detention Center around 7:45 a.m., according to Sheriff Al Cannon..
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/dylann-roof-assaulted-inmate-charleston-jail-article-1.2738424

Spin it again! My wife.

More specifically – Donald Trump’s wife. Melania. Who you know was caught plagiarizing and rick rolling the crowd at the RNC.

And who did they blame it on? Well specifically they blamed it on longtime speech writer Merideth McIver. Well, the good folks at Twitter found out that – wait for it – Merideth McIver doesn’t exist. Yay!!!!

http://www.dailynewsbin.com/news/twitter-suspends-account-of-melania-trump-speechwriter-meredith-mciver-who-probably-isnt-a-real-person/25566/

Days after Melania Trump gave a Republican National Convention speech which was plagiarized from an eight year old Michelle Obama speech, the Trump Organization laid the blame on her longtime speechwriter Meredith McIver. The trouble: no such person appeared to exist. Various pages depicting her life were discovered to have only been created after she was assigned the blame for the plagiarism, including a Twitter account which she primarily used to keep insisting that she was in fact a real person. But it appears that Twitter’s management has ultimately reached the opposite conclusion, suspending the account in question.

But that isn’t the only thing Mrs. Trump has been lying about. In fact she lies about everything and anything. Like what about the college she claims to have graduated from?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/melania-trump-college-claims_us_578dd95ce4b0c53d5cfac0dc?section=

Her bio on her professional site says she graduated, her biographers and wiki page says she didn't. Sounds like some major inconsistencies surfacing here.

-----my own take:

There is a growing contention that Mrs. Trump is lying about having completed college in Slovenia.

If this is true that means that a presidential candidate himself, Donald J. Trump, is most certainly involved in knowingly perpetuating that lie to the public.

Or what about her immigration status? Donald Trump’s arch nemesis Univision dropped a bombshell that Melania might not be a full naturalized immigrant:

Melania Trump told Larry King in an interview in 2005 that she had never been married before her nuptials to Donald Trump, but that doesn’t seem to be the whole story. An immigration attorney who works for the Trump Organization, Michael Wildes, who now backs that story, told Univision’s investigative unit that Melania had obtained a green card in 2001 “based on marriage.”

Wildes’s role in the Trump Organization as an immigration attorney was to ensure the legal entry into the United States of contestants in the Miss Universe pageant as well as models who worked for the Trump Organization. Univision confirms that they were told by Wildes that Melania’s green card had been secured on the basis of marriage to a U.S. citizen a full four years before she married the business mogul on January 22, 2005.

http://bipartisanreport.com/2016/08/06/breaking-univision-releases-devastating-melania-trump-green-card-bombshell-details/

But what’s even stranger is Melania isn’t providing specifics:

In the piece published Thursday morning, Politico pointed to interviews Trump gave describing the immigration process she used while working as a model in the U.S. before obtaining a green card. Trump described returning to her home country Slovenia every few months to have her visa stamped. Immigration lawyers pointed out that the process she described resembled that used by foreign nationals on a tourist visa, which does not permit them to work in the U.S. The most common visa granted to immigrants permitted to work in the U.S. is valid for three years and does not require visits back to one's home country every fews months to be re-stamped. There is a less common workers' visa that permits holders stay in the United States for up to three years, but that is typically granted only to workers at the upper echelons of their field and at the time in question, Trump was a low-level catalog model.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/melania-trump-immigration-response

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

Spin that shit! And it lands on…………. Clip Without Context! Man there are a lot of these this week!

Because when one goes to a theme park that’s a giant replica of Noah’s Ark, the last thing they are looking for is logic and reason. Spin it again! How is this still a thing?

Big game hunting – how is this still a thing? Remember last year when that dentist killed Cecil The Lion and all the outrage there? Or how about that veterinarian who killed a feral cat with a bow and arrow and posted it on Facebook? Or when NRA board member Ted Nugent channeled his inner Rambo and mowed down pigs with a high powered automatic rifle from a helicopter? Well now Donald Trump and his sons are going to Canada to shoot animals for sport.

In the heat of the campaign – and during a particularly brutal week for their father — Donald Trump’s two sons suddenly disappeared. Donald Jr. and Eric, according to reports, left the country on a hunting trip.

Beyond that, curiously little is known. Bloomberg Politics reported that the trip was a fundraiser for a foundation run by family members of Tyrone Woods, a Navy SEAL slain in the Benghazi, Libya, attack. Various political reporters heard that they fled to the Yukon, a favorite hunting location of Donald Jr. He then posted an Instagram photo of himself with his son, which showed them in Canada for a “Father son trip” — but in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/08/06/the-trump-sons-go-hunting-again-will-more-trophy-photos-follow/

Oh shit!!! I'm being told we have some late breaking news to report! Let's go to that shall we?

Thanks NY Daily News, for saying what we're all thinking. What did Donald Trump imply in this clip?

Donald Trump on Tuesday warned his supporters that if Hillary Clinton were elected president and appointed members to the Supreme Court, there was nothing anyone could do about it – but then added that, given the Second Amendment, maybe there was.

“If she gets to pick her judges ― nothing you can do, folks,” Trump said at a Wilmington, N.C., rally with a shrug. “Although: the Second Amendment, people, maybe there is. I don’t know.”

What Trump was actually suggesting was not clear. However his veterans affairs adviser found himself in hot water when he said that Clinton should face a firing squad over her use of a private email server.

Trump’s campaign did not respond to queries about his remark, but at least one person attending the rally appeared to sense the comment was out of bounds.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-clinton-shoot_us_57aa2f6de4b0ba7ed23dd652

Holy fucking shit. He went there. And of course Mike Pence is pulling the "Move along, nothing to see here" card:

When asked about how he felt about Donald Trump's comments that “Second Amendment people” might be able to stop Hillary Clinton from appointing Supreme Court judges, Mike Pence jumped to his running mate's defense and denied that Trump meant the comments as a threat.

Shortly after Trump made those comments Tuesday at a rally in North Carolina, Pence joined other Trump surrogates trying to walk them back following his own campaign event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/pence-trump-second-amendment-comment

But Trump supporters think it's just fine and dandy that Donald Trump actually called on his supporters to murder Hillary Clinton. And then there's of course Rudy Guiliani. Wait, this guy is still around? And yes he is shooting his mouth off:

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday blamed the media for misinterpreting Donald Trump’s incendiary remarks about the ability of “Second Amendment people” to take action against Hillary Clinton.

"What he said very clearly was that if Hillary Clinton were elected president, she would get to appoint judges to the Supreme Court, and among the other things that they would do to destroy us, would be to do away with the Second Amendment and your right to bear arms," Giuliani said while introducing Trump at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina. "Now, is there anybody here that doubts that?" he asked the audience.

"And then he said, 'And you have the power to do something about it,'” Giuliani went on. “And what he meant by that was you have the power to vote against her. You have the power to campaign against her. You have the power to speak against her. You know why, because you're Americans."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/giuliani-blames-media-spin-trump-second-amendment-comment

But there's still more:

You know, The Line, the one that He, Trump has to cross before the entire Republican Party, not to mention a good portion of the human race, finds him too revolting for their delicate stomachs? What say you, Paul Ryan? Is that the line? John McCain? Mitch McConnell? All you clowns in the tricorns and the Watering The Tree Of Liberty tank tops? What say you all? Do you stand by this?

How about the elite political press? Is this enough to push you over the line to admitting every day in your coverage that this is not a normal election because the Republican Party has nominated a public sociopath for President of the United States? Once, while contemplating the re-election of Richard Nixon, the late Dr. Thompson once wrote this, and it might be the best single paragraph of political journalism anyone ever wrote:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a47492/trump-hillary-assassination/

And more - Donald Trump is literally playing with fire here, folks!

People are playing with fire here, and there is no bigger flamethrower than Donald Trump. Forget politics; he is a disgusting human being. His children should be ashamed of him. I only pray that he is not simply defeated, but that he loses all 50 states so that the message goes out across the land — unambiguously, loud and clear: The likes of you should never come this way again.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/opinion/trumps-ambiguous-wink-wink-to-second-amendment-people.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region

Even the great Dan Rather has denounced Trumpenfuror, and this is a great comment:

"No trying-to-be objective and fair journalist, no citizen who cares about the country and its future can ignore what Donald Trump said today.

When he suggested that "The Second Amendment People" can stop Hillary Clinton he crossed a line with dangerous potential. By any objective analysis, this is a new low and unprecedented in the history of American presidential politics. This is no longer about policy, civility, decency or even temperament. This is a direct threat of violence against a political rival. It is not just against the norms of American politics, it raises a serious question of whether it is against the law. If any other citizen had said this about a Presidential candidate, would the Secret Service be investigating?
https://www.facebook.com/theDanRather/posts/10157249295185716

Well said.

And even his own people think he's gone too far:

Donald Trump must end his campaign for the White House in a reckoning with his own madness, while praying that nothing comes of his musing about an assassination of Hillary Clinton.

In the event that Trump fails to abandon his candidacy — as he seems determined to — the Republican Party, including vice presidential nominee Mike Pence, must instead abandon Trump for toying with political bloodshed.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/trump-hinting-assassination-article-1.2744789

[font size="8"]Donald Trump[/font]

Let’s spin the wheel one last time this week. And it lands on… conspiracy theories. You know what? We need some proper music for this entry.

Ah much better. So you know about Donald Trump and his insane theory about Russian airliners sending $400 million in US money to Iran right? Well turns out that didn’t happen and Donald Trump might have been making this up the whole time.

Donald Trump is ripping into Hillary Clinton anew over news that the United States government covertly sent $400 million to Iran in January that coincided with the release of four American prisoners, although President Barack Obama's administration has hit back at any notion of a quid pro quo.

"Our incompetent Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was the one who started talks to give 400 million dollars, in cash, to Iran. Scandal!" Trump tweeted Wednesday morning, following a Wall Street Journal report published Tuesday evening that cited U.S. and European officials, as well as congressional staff briefed on the details of the operation after the fact. As former secretary of state, Clinton has claimed credit for bringing Iran to the bargaining table through sanctions.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/iran-400-million-payment-trump-clinton-226605

I like that one. But it gets better!

One of the key Republican talking points this week has been the widely-debunked notion that a $400 million payment to Iran was a “ransom” to secure the release of hostages, when it was actually a repayment of funds that have been in dispute since 1979. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump placed himself at the center of that story by repeatedly claiming he had seen video of the cash transfer, which he was finally forced to admit did not exist.

At a rally in New Hampshire Saturday, Trump revived the story, and instead of hewing to the Republican talking point that Iran would use the money to fund terrorism, Trump decided, for some reason, to say the opposite:
http://www.mediaite.com/online/donald-trump-weirdly-insists-iran-wont-use-most-of-400-million-ransom-for-terrorism/

That’s right, he is insisting on this. But I can’t quite find the right words to describe how batshit crazy this is. Donald Trump is one candidate who simply defies logic.

Let’s switch subjects and talk about Donald Trump and the Olympics. “Under my watch, America is going to keep winning. We produce the best winners. Nobody produces better winners than we do. There will be no stupid losers here in America”. But what was he doing watching the Mexican pole vaulting team?

Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson on Friday mocked Donald Trump's plan to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, joking that the businessman is worried about Olympians pole vaulting over.

"I hear that Donald Trump is watching the Olympics tonight. He's seeing how high the Mexican pole vaulters go," Johnson quipped an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal.

A central proposal of the GOP nominee's campaign involves building a wall along the southern border and deporting those in the country illegally.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/290625-gary-johnson-trump-watching-olympics-to-see-how-high

And I normally don’t post satire articles but I love this one:

Psychiatric facilities across the United States are at breaking point after the number of people claiming to be sent from the future to stop Donald Trump reached epidemic proportions.

New research has shown that every ten minutes someone claiming to the from the future sent back to save humanity is admitted to a hospital somewhere in the US.
http://newsthump.com/2016/03/03/psychiatric-hospitals-filling-up-with-time-travellers-sent-back-to-kill-donald-trump/

But then there’s this. And I shit you not. This is how Donald Trump is supporting the US Olympic team in Rio during the games these next two weeks:

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump wished the US Olympic team good luck on Friday -- and may have cleared up a "bigly" debate in the process.
On the night of the 2016 Olympics' opening ceremonies in Rio, Trump posted an image of himself to Twitter and Facebook, giving a thumbs-up with the words "Big League" and "Good Luck Team USA" overlaid.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/06/politics/donald-trump-bigly-big-league-olympics/

And yes Trump posted a picture of himself – and I am not making this up – in the exact way you would expect a third world dictator to greet his Olympic team. Can we throw that up there?

[font size="8"]Bonus Idiot:[/font]
[font size="8"]Mitch McConnell[/font]

Spin the wheel one last time this week. People Who Somehow Got Elected. Hit it!

And now it’s time for another edition of “People Who Somehow Got Elected”. This week – Kentucky senator and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R- NRA). You know it’s nice to know that in an era when gun violence is at an all time high, that the guy in charge of the Senate majority is a paid shill for the gun lobby:

Supreme Court justices are nominated by the president and appointed with the advice and consent of the National Rifle Association, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). McConnell offered this unusual view of the confirmation process during an interview with Fox News Sunday. In response to a question from host Chris Wallace, who asked if Senate Republicans would consider the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court after the election if Hillary Clinton prevails, McConnell responded that he “can’t imagine that a Republican majority in the United States Senate would want to confirm, in a lame duck session, a nominee opposed by the National Rifle Association the National Federation of Independent Businesses.”
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/03/20/3761908/mcconnell-no-new-supreme-court-justice-until-the-nra-approves-of-the-nominee/

Yes. He would let the NRA pick the nominee for the next SCOTUS justice. You know, the people who, I don’t know, decide the supreme law of the land! The NRA. The organization that would have this guy as a member of their board of directors. You know this guy:

Yes that’s NRA board member Ted Nugent, the guy who was just shown threatening the president and Hillary multiple times over. In fact if you go back to Idiots #12, we pointed out that Ted Nugent has a ridiculously long history of threatening to kill Obama, Hillary, and anyone else he doesn’t agree with. If Mitch McConnell gets his way, this man would have to approve of the next appointee to the Supreme Court. In fact Nugent’s rhetoric against Obama and Clinton is so toxic that it even inspired this man to take action and it led to his arrest:

But this whole thing is really pissing people off like Elizabeth Warren, who’s had enough of McConnell’s madness.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) accused Republicans of pure political obstruction of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees Wednesday, prompting a shrug from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who objected to her attempt to expedite 15 long-stalled appointees.

Warren took to the Senate floor in the afternoon seeking unanimous consent to bring up all the noncontroversial judges who have passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, but have not received votes on the Senate floor.

Pointing to a report she released Monday, the Massachusetts senator noted that Republicans have been approving nominees at a glacial pace since taking over the Senate in 2014, approving just 18 judges in this Congress. Judicial vacancies have skyrocketed from 43 to 89.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/warren-hits-petty-absurd-mcconnell-behavior_us_

In fact McConnell has blocked every single one of Obama’s attempted appointees. Prompting the Washington Post to do some fact checking:

The Washington Post’s editorial board criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) “patently ridiculous” claim that Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland is ideologically extreme.

Since Garland’s nomination in March, groups like the Judicial Crisis Network, the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Rifle Association have made numerous false and misleading claims about Garland’s record to portray him as ideologically extreme. In fact, conservatives have praised Garland for years and multiple prominent conservative lawyers have announced their support for Garland’s nomination.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/06/06/wash-post-debunks-mitch-mcconnell-s-absurd-claim-merrick-garland-ideologically-extreme/210740

But the really sad thing? This isn’t the first time Senator Warren has called McConnell out for his nonsense. In fact in 2005, the republicans when Bush was appointing SCOTUS justices, the republicans brought up that Bush must be supported in his decision:

Senator Warren said in a statement, "Senator McConnell is right that the American people should have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court justice. In fact, they did - when President Obama won the 2012 election by five million votes."

After Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced that he would lead Republicans in obstructing President Obama yet again, this time by leading his party to abdicate their Constitutional duties, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) reminded McConnell that President Obama’s will is the will of the people and that he won by five million votes.

Then Warren proceeded to remind McConnell about that thing Republicans are always claiming to worship – the Constitution, specifically Article II, “Article II Section 2 of the Constitution says the President of the United States nominates justices to the Supreme Court, with the advice and consent of the Senate.”

Wait for it… “I can’t find a clause that says ‘…except when there’s a year left in the term of a Democratic President.'”

The next time a Republican waves their pocket version of the Constitution around as they drone on about the debt as an excuse for why they have not shown up to work for weeks, someone ought to remind them that they can’t pick and choose what works for them from the Constitution like they do from the Bible.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/02/14/elizabeth-warren-reminds-mcconnell-pres-obama-won-million-votes.html

In fact members of his own party asked him to step down:

A tea party-affiliated group is urging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to bow out of his reelection bid next year against Democratic rival Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, citing concerns with the longtime senator's electability.

Matt Hoskins, the Senate Conservatives Fund's executive director, told the Washington Post Tuesday that McConnell isn't a strong enough candidate to face off against Grimes and that it may be time for him to "pass the torch."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/02/mitch-mcconnell-tea-party_n_3536897.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

The fact that McConnell has to frequently be reminded of that document he claims we should support verbatim, is very sad. And you know what? Despite failing poll numbers, McConnell was elected to the senate anyway – for a fourth term! Bravo, well done Kentucky! And is it me or does Mitch McConnell remind me of the asshole heckler from Happy Gilmore? You will not fill this seat, jackass!!

McConnell has promised to shut down any and all discussion of filling the vacancy, even after President Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland, a very well qualified judge with years of deep bipartisan support.

Back in March, McConnell’s penchant for obstruction earned him the title of most hated political figure in America according to Public Policy Polling.

On Saturday, McConnell spoke at an event in Fancy Farm, Kentucky, where he declared:
“One of my proudest moments" was when I told Obama "you will not fill this Supreme Court
http://www.ifyouonlynews.com/politics/mcconnell-one-of-my-proudest-moments-was-telling-obama-i-wouldnt-do-my-job-now-video/

That’s Mitch McConnell – another one of the:

That's it for our all Donald Trump edition and possibly our biggest edition ever. Hope you enjoyed it. Next week we will return to our regularly scheduled format.

See you next week!

Ed. Note: The Top 10 Conservative Idiots - every Wednesday at 10:00 AM PST. Also please join our Twitter feed at @DUInitechTop10, and join the fight, won’t you?

August 8, 2016

John Oliver Exposes The Sad State Of Modern Journalism & The End Of Newspapers

Is John Oliver a journalist? The Last Week Tonight host has rejected the label in the past, but as he showed on Sunday night, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have strong opinions about the state of journalism in 2016. Sure, we may idolize reporters in movies like Spotlight, but that hasn’t stopped the steady decline of newspapers over the past decade. After all, a lot of our news—and even the material for Oliver’s own segments—comes from these sources, even if we get that information through a third party like “Facebook, Google, Twitter, or Arianna Huffington’s Blockquote Junction and Book Excerpt Clearinghouse.”

When print newspapers’ standards are jeopardized by staff cuts or in making the switch to digital, Oliver argues, we all suffer for it, and not just because that results in content-churners like Tronc. Publications can become vulnerable to dubious buyers, like casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who purchased the Las Vegas Review-Journal, or to silly mistakes, like the Boston Globe’s “investifarted” tweet. Most importantly, they can stop investigating the local issues that so desperately need to be monitored to prevent corruption.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/08/08/john_oliver_remade_spotlight_to_show_newspapers_in_the_age_of_online_journalism.html

August 2, 2016

Couple Sponsors Boy Through World Vision For Decades. They Went To Find Said Boy. They Got Scammed.

“We want to know: Who took the photo? What was their aim?” asked Othman’s uncle Abdul-Hamid Sabateen, a chicken farmer in Husan, a Palestinian village on the outskirts of Bethlehem.

I had come to Husan to find Othman after a chance meeting with an Australian police officer months before. I was lost in Sydney’s airport, and he helped me find the departure gate. On the way, I mentioned my work as a journalist in the Middle East, and the officer — who is 44 and spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his first name, Brendan, because of his work — said he had been interested in the Palestinian cause since he was a teenager.

Brendan told me that in 2003 he had signed up to “sponsor” Othman through World Vision, a Christian charity whose website highlights faces and biographies of children from impoverished places around the world, saying that $39 a month can “change a child’s world for good.”

Over the next five years, Brendan said, he sent at least $1,100, along with Christmas and Easter cards, photographs and letters for Othman. He never got any response from the boy, and always wondered what had become of him. He did not know Othman’s last name, but remembered that he was from Husan, a village of about 7,000.

“My curiosity has got the better of me,” Brendan wrote in an email later. “If you could ask around in your travels, I’d love to know that he is O.K.”

More:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/a-world-vision-donor-sponsored-a-boy-the-outcome-was-a-mystery-to-both/ar-BBv9Fjf?li=BBnbcA1

I don't remember the part of the Bible where Jesus says "one born every minute".

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