August 13, 2015

US News & World Report: "Fiorina's Rise Has Just Begun" (headline buries the report's conclusion)

"Does this mean Fiorina's headed towards winning the GOP nomination? Probably not. It's been centuries since a non-politician, non-military hero has won a major political party's presidential nomination."

August 13, 2015

Alan Keys: "Whole GOP Presidential Field Reflects Its Quislings’ Corruption"

The anchor line between Alan Keys and sanity is tied with a loose slipknot.

With that said, when one inmate within the asylum points out that the others have gone off their medications, that is a situation that warrants monitoring:

The GOP masquerades as a party for people who have true allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, and the logic of the Declaration of Independence from which its provisions take root. ...It’s telling that the first question posed to the GOP candidates during their mock-up of a debate was about their allegiance to the GOP. As if party loyalty can ever be the most important consideration for a candidate for president of the United States.... All the candidates avowed their intention to support the party’s nominee except for Donald Trump. ... Only Donald Trump refused to rule out a so-called “third party” run in the general election. Only Donald Trump ostensibly refused to put loyalty to the elitist faction’s sham party system above loyalty to the Constitution and people of the United States. ... he chose a course calculated to induce GOP voters, decisively disappointed and angered by the GOP quislings’ continual betrayals, to remain in the GOP’s rigged casino for one more throw of the electoral dice. Yet his past and present stands on more than one “fatal flaw” issue correspond in substance to the quislings’ betrayals.

This shocking bit of lunacy serves as a reminder that the people voting in the other primary are not all very tightly wrapped.

August 13, 2015

Rep. Randy Weber, the Most Useless Texas Republican in Washington, DC

Democrats in Washington DC cannot always get legislation they support passed because the Republicans control the House and Senate, but there is no explanation or excuse for the complete and extreme ineffectiveness of Texas Republicans:

Rep. Randy K. Weber
14th District
Effectiveness Score: 0%
Total Sponsored Bills: 10
Bills Passed Committee: 0
Serving Since: 2013

The "Unlucky 13" Runners Up for Least Useful Texas Republican:

Sam Johnson, 3rd District (95% ineffective)
Kenny Marchant, 24th District (95% ineffective)
Louie Gohmert, 1st District (95% ineffective)
Mac Thornberry, 13th District (94% ineffective)
Ted Poe, 2nd District (93% ineffective)
Pete Sessions, 32nd District (92% ineffective)
Pete Olson, 22nd District (92% ineffective)
Jeb Hensarling, 5th District (91% ineffective)
Michael Burgess, 26th District (90% ineffective)
Kevin Brady, 8th District (89% ineffective)
John Abney Culberson, 7th District (88% ineffective)
Roger Williams, 25th District (88% ineffective)
Blake Farenthold, 27th District (87% ineffective)

August 13, 2015

The New Yorker: "The G.O.P.’s Misogyny Primary"

Excerpt from a great article:

An example of misogyny is when someone online threatens to rape and mutilate a woman whose opinions that person does not like. Another is when a Presidential candidate says of a female journalist whose questions he finds impertinent, “There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her—wherever.”

The day after Trump made his comment about Megyn Kelly, he was disinvited from the RedState network’s annual conference of G.O.P. leaders. RedState’s editor-in-chief, Erick Erickson, ... was prone to Trump-like woman-baiting. (A tweet from 2010, spotted by my colleague Ryan Lizza: “Good thing I didn’t suggest the feminists … you know … shave. They’d be at my house trying a post-birth abortion on me”).
....
it’s hard not to see some sort of misogyny in the unseemly scramble to plant a flag at the very farthest frontier of anti-abortion territory, positively eager to reiterate, as Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker did, that bans on abortion should include no exception to save the life of a woman. Rare as such situations are—anti-abortion advocates are right to say that they don’t occur often—why would you want to bar even the possibility of saving a woman’s life over that of the fetus she is carrying? And whatever their motivation or intentions, the effect of the substantial restrictions on abortion that the Republican candidates favor would be damaging to women.

August 12, 2015

Great article in Rolling Stone: "Inside the GOP Clown Car"

Here are some highlights from the hilarious and insightful article:

Twenty years from now, when we're all living like prehistory hominids and hunting rats with sticks, we'll probably look back at this moment as the beginning of the end.... Take a combustible mix of the most depraved and filterless half-wits, scam artists and asylum Napoleons America has to offer, give them all piles of money and tell them to run for president.

...

The orangutan-haired real estate magnate entered the race in mid-June and immediately blew up cable and Twitter by denouncing Mexicans as rapists and ripping 2008 nominee John McCain for having been captured in war. .... amid the strange Republican leadership void of 2016, the furor only gave Trump further saturation among the brainless nativists in his party and inexplicably vaulted him to front-runner status.... Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry ... decried Trump himself as a "barking carnival act" and a "cancer" that the party should "excise" for its own sake — and, one supposes, for Rick Perry's....The irony is that this was supposed to be the year when the Republicans opened the tent up, made a sincere play for the Hispanic vote, and perhaps softened up a bit on gays and other vermin. But then the lights went on in the race and voters flocked to a guy whose main policy plank was the construction of a giant Game of Thrones-style wall to keep rape-happy ethnics off our lawns. So much for inclusion!

...

The irony, of course, is that when America finally wrested control of the political process from the backroom oligarchs, the very first place where we spent our newfound freedom and power was on the campaign of the world's most unapologetic asshole. ...America is ceasing to be a nation, and turning into a giant television show. And this Republican race is our first and most brutal casting call.

August 12, 2015

CNN / ORC Poll: Trump tops in Iowa as Scott Walker drops

Source: CNN

Donald Trump has a significant lead in the race to win over likely Iowa caucus-goers, according to the first CNN/ORC poll in the state this cycle.

Trump tops the field with 22% and is the candidate seen as best able to handle top issues including the economy, illegal immigration and terrorism. He's most cited as the one with the best chance of winning the general election, and, by a wide margin, as the candidate most likely to change the way things work in Washington.

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson follows Trump in overall preference with 14%, bumping Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who had held the top spot in most recent public polling in Iowa, down to third place with 9%. Walker is nearly even with a slew of other candidates.

Previous public polls had found Carson with around 10% support, but most were released before last week's debate. A Suffolk University poll of Iowa Republicans released Tuesday found Carson's closing remarks to be the most memorable moment for those who watched the prime time debate.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/12/politics/iowa-donald-trump-poll-cnn-orc/

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Of the "establishment" candidates who I think are most likely to win the nomination (Bush, Walker, Rubio, Kasich), Walker is the most malignant so I'm glad to see him fall.

August 12, 2015

The Wall Street Journal scorns Trump Carson Fiorina Perry Santorum Jindal Graham Pataki & Gilmore

After their first presidential debates, it is time for Republicans to get serious. Donald Trump won’t be their nominee. Neither will Ben Carson. Nor will any of the men in the 5 p.m. undercard event last week. Despite Carly Fiorina’s strong performance, it is hard to believe that the GOP would turn to someone who was fired as Hewlett-Packard’s CEO in 2005 after a tenure charitably described as controversial, and whose only run for elective office resulted in a landslide loss in 2010 to Sen. Barbara Boxer in California.

I don't know if this is better or worse: the WSJ's discussion of The Five Plausible GOP Candidates completely ignores Christi, Huckabee and Paul as if they have already dropped out.

August 12, 2015

Washington Post: "Is this the end for Rick Perry?"

From Chris Cillizza's Washington Post blog, The Fix:

Perry's decision to run again -- after such a disastrous first campaign -- made very little political sense. Polling suggested that Republicans had made up their minds about Perry during that first campaign -- and concluded that he simply wasn't up to the job. Nice guy. But not ready for primetime.

As I wrote many times between the end of Perry's first campaign and the start of this one, it's extremely difficult to get a second chance to make a first impression in politics (or life). But, if you read Perry's quotes -- or talked to people around him -- you got the distinct impression that this second campaign wasn't fundamentally about winning, it was about rehabilitating his image from the last campaign.

...

Perry's poll numbers have never even come close to the heights he enjoyed in 2012. He was relegated to the kids table debate last Thursday and even in that lower-profile forum (it ran at 5 pm on Fox News Channel) he exhibited some of the halting nervousness that characterized his debate struggles four years prior.

...

Perry had his chance in 2012. He swung and missed. This campaign is an attempt to reverse history and start again. Which almost never works.

August 12, 2015

Lawyers Guns & Money Blog: "Scott Walker: Reverse Robin Hood"

excerpt from insightful commentary:

"The fact that Scott Walker has abominable positions on abortion shouldn’t cause us to forget his abominable positions on pretty much anything. ... Tomorrow, Scott Walker will stand on a stage at State Fair Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and betray virtually every conservative economic principle there is by handing out up to $450 million in taxpayer money to wealthy sports owners to pay for private infrastructure at a time when public infrastructure is crumbling.

The massive sum will go toward the building of a new sports arena for the Milwaukee Bucks basketball franchise, pleasing the team’s billionaire hedge-fund-manager owners, who threatened to move the team if they weren’t given taxpayer tribute. Conservatives in recent years have feigned concern about corporate welfare, and this deal is really the ultimate expression of it: hundreds of millions of dollars from teachers, waitresses, factory workers and shop owners funneled to pay for an aristocrat’s show palace rather than needed public service."

August 12, 2015

LA Times: "What non-Californians don't know about Carly Fiorina -- but should"

Here are some key excerpts from the great article:

she had failed to cast a ballot in 75% of the California elections for which she was an eligible voter. She missed presidential primaries in 2000 and 2004, and the primary and general elections in 2006, including a Senate reelection run by Democrat Dianne Feinstein. She skipped the primary and general elections in 2002, a gubernatorial election year, as well as the historic recall vote that brought Arnold Schwarzenegger to the governor's seat.

...

She was CEO of Hewlett-Packard from mid-1999 to early 2005, a period in which the company's stock sank 49% to 60% (depending on how you count), making it one of the worst-performing high-tech firms.

CEO Fiorina talked a lot about "innovation" while pursuing corporate strategies displaying a striking lack of imagination. She cut HP's payroll by 10,000 employees in 2000 while surrounding her glamorous self with clouds of image and strategy consultants.

...

She blames the California drought on "liberal environmentalists," which is about as uninformed as one can get about water in the West but fits seamlessly with GOP orthodoxy.