May 28, 2014

Donald Trump Reveals New Theory About Obama Birth Certificate

By Tiffany Willis on May 28, 2014

I know why Donald Trump has been so successful in business — the dude is hella tenacious. He vehemently clings to his birther theory, even after he was made a laughingstock by the president himself at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner.

Let’s walk down memory lane and watch this hilarious two-minute clip — I never tire of watching this:

The Donald has repeatedly, over the years, maintained that Pres. Obama was born in Kenya and should be impeached. He even once offered the president $5 million dollars to produce his college records. But now, he has a new theory: the president WAS born in the U.S. but lied and said he was born in Kenya so he could get into college.

In a speech at the National Press Club this week, Donald Trump denied any regret about his birther obsession said that he believes there’s a “very big chance” that Obama was born in the U.S.. However, there is irrefutable proof, according to Trump, that something is amiss: the president’s refusal to acknowledge Trump’s offer to donate millions to a charity of the president’s choice in exchange for the truth.



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http://www.liberalamerica.org/2014/05/28/donald-trump-reveals-new-theory-about-obama-birth-certificate/

May 28, 2014

Operation American Spring Officially Ends — It Was Pathetic

By Michael Tuck on May 27, 2014

Operation American Spring “officially” ended today with a whimper instead of a scream, as the Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally rumbled through Washington, DC to commemorate Memorial Day, ignoring OAS entirely.

The annual “Ride for Freedom” was made up of some 6,000 motorcycle enthusiasts of all ideological and social stripes. The Operation American Spring organizers had desperate hopes that the bikers would join them and bring their movement back from the dead. However, nothing that took place in the rally had any connection to OAS, the Facebook-driven push to “impeach Obama and his criminal administration” by a few dozen far-right malcontents that was supposed to culminate in an occupation of the Capitol District by “tens of millions of Americans.”

The idea was that they would remain in place, howling and shrieking and waving signs and unread copies of the Constitution, until Obama and his gang came crawling out of the White House with their hands crossed before them, waiting to be zip-tied and hauled away. That isn’t what happened.

In reality, a few hundred “patriots” (at most) milled aimlessly around the Mall for a few hours before going home to engage in a maelstrom of finger-pointing that included the “traitor” Glenn Beck, the conservative media and “alternative news groups and commentators”, and, of course, the Obama administration, which allegedly blocked their social media access and perhaps even held rain dances to deter the tens of millions of patriots from coming out in the morning showers.

more
http://www.liberalamerica.org/2014/05/27/operation-american-spring-officially-ends-it-was-pathetic/

May 28, 2014

The Problem With Blaming Both Sides In Politics

DAVID SHORR – MAY 28, 2014, 9:34 AM EDT

National security blogger John Schindler thinks it’s time for partisans on both ends of the political spectrum to do some soul-searching and realize how they’re hurting the country. Writing at his XX Committee blog, the scholar of military history and strategy who teaches at the U.S. Naval War College accuses true believers on the left and right of being disdainful toward any other perspectives and neglectful toward the facts — making our politics dysfunctional and our country ungovernable in the process. The sensible majority of Americans, according to Schindler, get caught in the middle of this political holy war and either get taken for granted or viewed as dupes whenever they tilt toward the other side.

It’s been just over two years since a pair of the country’s leading students of Congress, Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann, announced their conclusion that both sides are not equally to blame; Republicans are the problem. But because the “plague on both houses” complaint has stayed such a popular flavor of critique, we have to keep reminding ourselves of the facts of what Ornstein and Mann call asymmetric polarization.

Schindler’s piece doesn’t work very well as a diagnosis of our current political discourse. He does highlight some views held by some people on the left and right that are misperceptions or mischaracterizations. Yes, some left- and right-wingers get each other wrong, or distort things to puff themselves up, or make presumptuous claims to speak for the American people. If you want to claim partisan rancor is blocking us from reaching solutions to our problems, though, you have give us ideological views that are actually getting in the way of reaching, you know …

Take Schindler’s analysis of the debate on guns, the stakes of which have been tragically highlighted yet again by this weekend’s violence in Isla Vista, California. On the political right, he duly points out the denial of the very real havoc that results from a country awash in firearms. On the other side, “the Left will not acknowledge that lots of law-abiding Americans have perfectly legitimately [sic] reasons to have guns.” I don’t know about “the Left,” but certainly there are Blue State city dwellers who view gun ownership as a weird fetish. Having spent the bulk of my years in the Acela-serviced Corridor and the past decade in Wisconsin, where deer season is like the high holy days, I recognize the cultural divide Schindler is talking about.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/the-problem-with-blaming-both-sides-in-politics

May 28, 2014

Top US Commander: Obama Ended Afghan Uncertainty

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS


KABUL, Afghanistan May 28, 2014 (AP)

The top U.S. and coalition commander in Afghanistan says that President Barack Obama's decision to keep about 10,000 American troops in the country past 2014 has eliminated any uncertainty Afghans may have had about America's commitment.

Gen. Joseph Dunford told reporters Wednesday the decision will allow an advisory force of 9,800 troops to remain in the country to finish training and equipping Afghan security forces.

Obama announced plans Tuesday for keeping nearly 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after this year, then quickly withdrawing nearly all of those forces by the end of 2016.

The commitment is conditional on Afghanistan's government signing a stalled bilateral security agreement. While Afghan President Hamid Karzai

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Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/top-us-commander-obama-ended-afghan-uncertainty-23894304

May 28, 2014

Most Americans Didn't Like Rove's Comments On Hillary's 'Traumatic Brain Injury'

TOM KLUDT – MAY 28, 2014, 7:25 AM EDT

Anyone subscribing to the idea that Karl Rove is engaging in some devilishly smart politics by going out of his way to talk about Hillary Clinton's health and age might want to take a look at a poll that dropped Wednesday morning.

The latest Washington Post-ABC News survey indicated that the man hailed as the "architect" of George W. Bush's two successful presidential campaigns may have outwitted himself. Two-thirds of Americans said they disapprove of Rove "raising questions" about the former secretary of state's "age and health." Only a quarter of respondents said they approve of Rove's comments.

Rove has spent much of this month discussing Clinton's fitness for the presidency after he addressed her late-2012 hospitalization at a conference in California. He insisted that he never said Clinton had "brain damage," but contended that it's fair game to talk about a would-be candidate's health.

On Monday, Rove was at it again, calling Clinton is "old and stale."

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/karl-rove-hillary-clinton-brain-injury-poll

May 27, 2014

Jeb Bush’s humiliating plea: I swear I’m smart

Jeb's pals are very eager to show the media he's not like George. The problem: He's got bigger worries to deal with

JIM NEWELL

Jeb Bush has a dirty little secret that he wants to tell, and he doesn’t even care who knows: he’s a “geek”! A nerd. He’s so silly like that, caring about policy all the time when all everyone else wants to do in life is have a good time.

Such is the message passed off in a weekend New York Times riff on the former Florida governor. It may be the most comically obvious attempt we’ve seen yet in the 2016 proto-campaign from Jeb’s handlers to show that he’s not an idiot like his elder brother, the former President Bush. The piece is filled with effusive quotes about how bookish and wonky and smart Jeb Bush is. Rarely is an image-crafting piece so indiscreetly dropped by a politician’s handlers. Hell, a reading list is even provided to run alongside the profile to offer even more proof that yes, the rumors are true, Jeb Bush is literate. And the pace in which he devours middlebrow histories and libertarian at-length ranking and Bill O’Reilly’s “Killing ____” books is breathtaking.

The profile is mainly a laundry list of quotes submitted by his supporters.

Friends and former aides have variously described him as a “policy wonk,” an “ideas junkie” and, as Arthur C. Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, called him, “a top-drawer intellect.”…

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http://www.salon.com/2014/05/27/jeb_bushs_humiliating_plea_i_swear_im_smart/

May 27, 2014

Joe The Plumber To UCSB Parents: 'Your Dead Kids Don't Trump' My Guns

Source: TPM

TOM KLUDT – MAY 27, 2014, 11:32 AM EDT

Samuel Wurzelbacher gave his condolences this week to the families of the victims of the mass shooting near the University of California, Santa Barbara. But no tragedy is going to stop "Joe The Plumber" from defending the Second Amendment.

In an open letter published Tuesday on the website Barbwire, Wurzelbacher went out of his way to explain to the victims' parents that the deaths won't undermine his "Constitutional rights."

"I am sorry you lost your child. I myself have a son and daughter and the one thing I never want to go through, is what you are going through now," wrote Wurzelbacher, who became something of a mascot for John McCain's failed 2008 presidential campaign. "But: As harsh as this sounds – your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights."

Wurzelbacher singled out Richard Martinez, whose son Christopher was one of the six students killed by Elliot Rodger in Isla Vista, Calif. Since the deadly rampage, Martinez has twice railed against politicians and the National Rifle Association for the failure to pass new gun laws after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joe-the-plumber-wurzelbacher-ucsb-shooting-dead-kids

May 27, 2014

Nigeria leader backed out of deal to free some girls

Source: CBS News

The Nigerian military has come under harsh criticism for its failure to rescue more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls, and six weeks after they were snatched from their school in the north of the country, Nigeria's Chief of Defense Alex Badeh claimed the military knew where they were, but a rescue operation was too risky.

Badeh told a crowd of bussed-in demonstrators gathered to support the beleaguered military that he couldn't say publicly where the 276 missing girls were being held.

If the military rules out using force to rescue the girls, CBS News contributor Debora Patta reports that it would leave secret negotiations between the government and the Boko Haram militant group -- which have been going on for weeks -- as the main option.

But a source close to the talks told CBS News that a deal to swap the girls for Boko Haram prisoners secured over the weekend was scuttled at the last minute by President Goodluck Jonathan.

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Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nigeria-goodluck-jonathan-scuttled-prisoner-swap-with-boko-haram-to-free-girls/

May 27, 2014

LGBT Group Demands Apology For Utah Guv's 'Hate Speech'

Source: TPM

CAITLIN MACNEAL – MAY 27, 2014, 10:21 AM EDT

After Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) last week said that states choosing not to defend their gay marriage bans in court will lead to "anarchy," a state LGBT leader is calling for an apology.

"For elected officials, governors or attorney generals, to pick and choose what laws [they] will enforce I think is a tragedy, and is the next step to anarchy," Herbert said in a press conference last week after Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) said he wouldn't appeal a court's ruling striking down the state's same-sex marriage ban. "We have an obligation as a state to defend those laws."

Herbert then implied that being gay is a choice after he was asked if a ban on same-sex marriage was any different from a law prohibiting interracial marriages.

"What you choose to do with your sexual orientation is different than what you’re born with as your race," he said, later adding that there might be "different gradations" in sexuality.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/herbert-utah-gay-marriage-anarchy

May 27, 2014

Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade: ‘Respect’ your wife when she is wrong by calling her ‘baby doll’

By David Edwards
Tuesday, May 27, 2014 8:20 EDT

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on Monday advised viewers to show “respect” by challenging their wives to an argument, while calling them “baby doll.”

During a segment about author Richard Greenberg’s recent column on raising children, Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy distilled the tips down to the phrase: “Happy wife, happy life.”

“One of the things is if you say, ‘Yes, dear,’ that’s appropriate because it derails any argument,” Doocy explained. “Plus, my wife is always right anyway.”

Kilmeade, however, said that choosing happiness over being right was “condescending” to the spouse.

“That’s like saying, ‘I know my wife is wrong, but I’m going to say she’s right just so I don’t have to hear it,’” Kilmeade asserted. “To me, you have to give the women the respect to engage in a (SIC) interplay.”

“I would like to challenge you on this, baby doll,” the Fox News host recommended saying.

Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck argued that Kilmeade’s strategy “made some sense” because it was a “left hook and a right.”

“The way you’re framing it, Brian, where I’m going to ‘challenge’ my wife, I don’t think there’s a lot of upside to that,” Doocy observed.

“It’s a little like a game show, I admit to you,” Kilmeade quipped. “Okay, I would say this. I would just say, ‘Nine out of ten times you’re right. This is the tenth time, baby cakes.’”

“It’s not a challenge, it’s a marriage,” Doocy concluded.

Watch the video below from Fox News’ Fox & Friends, broadcast May 27, 2014.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/27/fox-news-brian-kilmeade-respect-your-wife-when-she-is-wrong-by-calling-her-baby-doll/

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Posted with permission