Trump Calls For Second Amendment People To Deal With Clinton

I've said many, many times that the biggest danger to our country is the fucking Gun Cult. Their nominee just confirmed it. A not so thinly veiled call to assassinate the Democratic nominee...wow...

If Hillary ever does start taking away peoples' guns, she should start with every gun blogger and commenter. And then put them in Gitmo since we can't seem to close it:)

An Epidemic of Pinheads

The epidemic has started. A few days after Marco Rubio declared that women who are pregnant with Zika-infected babies should not be allowed to have abortions, one such baby was born to a woman in Texas. The infant died:

The girl, born in Harris County, Texas, had several Zika-related birth defects, including microcephaly, which leaves the head and brain underdeveloped. Unlike the recent cases of Zika in Florida, where local mosquitoes are spreading the virus, the mother in Texas likely contracted it in Latin America, according to a statement from Harris County health officials.

Meanwhile, Zika is starting to take hold in the United States: 

Four cases of Zika infection in Florida are very likely to have been caused by mosquitoes there, the State Department of Health said Friday — the first documented instances of local transmission in the continental United States.

“Zika is now here,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a news briefing.

Republicans in Congress torpedoed attempts to stop the spread of the disease by littering legislation with special-interest gimmicks and divisive policy changes that invited a Democratic filibuster and a veto threat from the White House:

Democrats said they blocked the bill because Republicans were using the must-pass legislation to score political points, jam through unpalatable policy changes and cut money from other programs, including provisions that would hinder access to contraception for women [emphasis added] and weaken environmental restrictions on pesticide use.

Republicans, in turn, accused Democrats of manufacturing excuses for blocking the bill, but they did not dispute that some of the provisions favored Republican policy positions.

Democrats and the White House have been pushing since February for the Republican majorities in Congress to approve $1.9 billion in emergency financing to fight Zika, which can cause brain damage and other serious defects in infants born to infected mothers.

Republican religious zealots are intentionally increasing the likelihood that women will become pregnant and infected with Zika and be forced to bear microcephalic infants to term.

It's kind of ironic that Republicans are doing everything possible to increase the number of microcephalic infants, commonly called "pinheads." Pinhead is a derogatory term favored by Republican blowhard Bill O'Reilly. But the epidemic of pinheads we're suffering right now isn't caused by Zika -- it's caused by intolerant conservative racist and religious rhetoric spewed by the likes of Trump, Hannity, O'Reilly, Rubio and Limbaugh.

Rubio's stand is typically hypocritical:

"I understand a lot of people disagree with my view – but I believe that all human life is worthy of protection of our laws. And when you present it in the context of Zika or any prenatal condition, it’s a difficult question and a hard one," Rubio told POLITICO.

"But if I’m going to err, I’m going to err on the side of life."

Republicans like Rubio talk a big game about being "on the side of life," but he, like the vast majority of Republicans, favors the death penalty and complains that we're not killing people fast enough. They demand death even in cases of offenders who are mentally disabled or were juveniles when they committed their crimes. They favor starting unilateral wars of convenience that kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians (as well as American soldiers). Republicans like Trump even favor assassinating the wives and children of suspected terrorists. So much for the sanctity of human life.

But this really begs the question: what is human life?

The courts have decided that a brain-dead person can be taken off life support, though many Republicans still oppose this. In 2005 Republicans fought to prevent Terry Schiavo's husband from removing her feeding tube, although she had been stuck in an irreversible persistent vegetative state for 15 years. When she was autopsied the pathologist found she literally had only half a brain.

Republicans bitch about welfare queens not pulling their own weight: why -- in their own terms -- do they want society to support a bunch of pinheads who will never amount to anything, and can't even feed themselves or use the toilet?

This is the kind of "human life" Marco Rubio wants to prolong. Infants born with severe microcephaly will never be normal. They will never laugh, talk, or play, or go to kindergarten. They will never be able to feed themselves, or walk or take care of their own basic physical needs. They often suffer seizures. Many cannot swallow, see or hear. Most of them will never be able to recognize their own parents. Many will die after a few short months or years.

In other words, such children will suffer interminable torture until their disability ultimately kills them.

Yes, there are people with severe disabilities who still have lives and contribute to society: Stephen Hawking cannot walk or feed himself. Yet, because he has a functioning human brain, he has been able to communicate and accomplish amazing things.

Children born with severe microcephaly will never do that, because they are not, in the most important sense, human beings.

Our brains are what make us human. It's not opposable thumbs, or upright bipedal locomotion, or (mostly) hairless bodies. With today's technology children born without feet can become Olympic caliber runners like Oscar Pistorius (that technology, sadly, will not necessarily make them decent people, however).

But children born with severe microcephaly do not have human brains: they will never really be human.

Microcephaly can be detected in utero with ultrasound, and there's no mistaking the symptoms. If a woman wants to accept the burden of caring for a severely disabled infant until its disease finally kills it, that's fine. That should be her choice. But such children require constant medical attention for a condition that will never be cured.

Now multiply this by the potential for thousands and thousands of microcephalic infants if the Zika epidemic becomes widespread, and you have a recipe for a tsunami of medical bankruptcies and escalating health insurance costs, all to keep tiny-brained children alive for a few short years.

Republicans constantly bitch about the tyranny of political correctness. Forcing women to bear severely disabled babies whose lives will consist of unending agony is the height of conservative political correctness and religious orthodoxy carried to preposterous lengths.

So I'll be politically incorrect and call a spade a spade. Fetuses with such severe mental handicaps are not really human: they have not been born yet, they have no experiences, or emotional attachments. Nor will they ever be able to form them. They cannot survive on their own and most would die without extensive and expensive medical intervention.

Mothers have to consider the consequences of carrying a deformed Zika baby to term and make their own decisions. Bearing such a child will be an expensive, time-consuming and thankless task that will steal the love and attention from their other children and their spouses, as well as drain their financial resources, and ultimately the resources of American society. Does it make any sense to have thousands of microcephalic infants on life support who are only going to die in a few years, at a cost of billions of dollars?

When the precepts behind the religious absolutism on contraception and abortion were forged centuries ago, these were all moot points. Women died in childbirth all the time, miscarriages were extremely common, and child mortality was extremely high. Birth defects were thought to be the result of sin or curse. Infants with severe birth defects would die within hours or days. Those that didn't die were frequently abandoned in the wild.

It is our advanced technology that has made these questions of birth control and abortion such controversial topics. Absent our advanced health care system we wouldn't be having this discussion -- our Christian forebears just let deformed infants die.

This country should be doing everything it can to prevent the spread of Zika in the first place. We should be doing everything to ensure that women don't get pregnant in areas where Zika is prevalent. Birth control should be freely available everywhere, but most especially when women are at risk of bearing children with birth defects.

And we should never prevent a woman from terminating a pregnancy that will ultimately result in only misery and death.

Dressing More Conservatively

Will They Even Listen To One Of Their Own?

If GOP strategist Rick Wilson and I sat down for a beer to discuss ideology, we'd like find very little with which to agree upon. He's a conservative which means he pushes policies that, for the most part, simply don't work in reality.

But his recent column on Donald Trump and how he has to be beaten badly in November in order to save the party is completely accurate. Let's take a look at a few choice cuts, shall we?

A growing number of Americans are coming to the realization that Trump is more than just a political train wreck; he's a real threat to the nation, what with the fear of nuclear weapons and the sweeping power of the federal government in his tiny paws.

I've seen this from the beginning and it's certainly a reflection of where the party has gone. It gives me a great deal of hope for this country that the adults, regardless of their political stripe, see this too.

Those of us who believe, who know, that Trump is dangerous can't just settle for him being beaten in November. We need to ensure that he is on the business end of a decisive, humiliating defeat — so that the terribly divisive forces he has unleashed are delivered a death blow.

Those divisive forces can be defined specifically as the right wing blogger/commenter crowd, formerly the short wave radio folks followed by the email forward peeps. These are the moonbats that honestly define the party today and begin their "expert" analysis with the words, "I'm hearing some things from some people..."

Wilson correctly identifies the key to this election's results. Let's bury these fuckers forever. They are a danger to our country and its progress.

The second reason Trump needs to fall hard in November is that the Party of Lincoln needs a complete, top-to-bottom reset — one that completely purges the Trumpkins who believe racial animus is a governing philosophy and that their ignorant and angry primal screams can ever build a Republican majority. After a pretty decisive loss to Obama in 2012, the Republican Party produced an exhaustive, detailed post-mortem pointing the way forward, focused largely on how to better connect with the growing Latino vote. None of the lessons were actually learned. All the recommendations about fixing the posture of the party have been treated as though they had been printed on toilet paper.

Yeah, what happened to that all improved and reflecting GOP? Well, they realized their base is made of racist assholes who don't want to change. As I have stated previously, it's time to leave them behind. Wilson has a different idea...sort of....

Well, Trump voters, it's your turn. Go get a switch. I'm not going to coddle you and say you're really smart and good people and this is just a misunderstanding. That's just what the PC crowd does on the left. Trumpkins don't deserve a participation trophy for wrecking the party and saddling the nation with Hillary. They made the crazy the enemy of the good, and centered an entire campaign on rage, fear and an eternally shrinking spiral of cult-worship and fanaticism.

I laughed out loud when I saw the PC reference. And "rage, fear?" Hmm...where have I heard that before?:)

So when it's over, Trumpkins, remember: You're not purging us. We're purging you. No more hate and reckless group blame. No more fact-free fearmongering. No more feeding the obese ego of a man who's transparently unfit for the job.

Can they actually do it? Given this...

While Donald Trump was retweeting "White Genocide 1488 Ovenmaster," Clinton's campaign was building data files and contacting swing voters. While Trump was tweeting about "Crooked Hillary," she was having precisely targeted television ads aimed at swing voters in the suburbs of key cities in battleground states appearing at just the right moments. While Trump was depending on red hats and WWE rallies, her people have been going door-to-door by the thousands, knocking, talking, winning hearts and winning votes.

...I'm not sure it's possible.

Really Fucking Bad

Remember a few months back when some pundits were hand wringing over how Hillary Clinton could get Donald Trump? After all, the guy was impervious, right? He bested a "strong" GOP field of 16 other candidates and was all set to take down the Hilz in similar fashion. There was no earthly way she could stop him.

Except she did.

And it was magnificent.

We're still three months away from the election and a lot could happen. In fact, I'm expecting a few bad things to happen to Hillary along the way. Maybe even a really bad one or two. That's politics and no doubt her team is expecting it now that we have the revelation that Julian Assange wants to be the teenager who burns the house down just for kicks. But one thing has became very clear in the last week.

Like any right wing blogger or commenter, it's mere child's play to get to a guy like Trump.

The trap she laid for him with Khans was beautiful. It totally threw him off his game and he spent the week pitching a fit that has now put Georgia, Arizona and possibly Missouri in play for the Dems. Down ballot, GOP candidates are scrambling to saw themselves loose of the dead hooker (Trump) to which they are handcuffed. Consider this handy checklist of Trump's behavior as a result of being pwned by the Khans.

-Foamed at the mouth about fire marshals from Colorado to Ohio.

-Kicked a baby out of an event after saying the baby was OK to stay.

-Took a purple heart from a veteran that he said was real but wasn't and made jokes about it.

-Said that if a woman was being sexually harassed in the workplace, she should get a different job.

-Refused to endorse Paul Ryan or John McCain and then grudgingly did so.

-Called Hillary Clinton the devil (ah, that ol' chesnut..:))

-Called the election rigged (see also: taking ball, going home after ass whupping)

-Claimed that a video existed of the US paying off Iran. He later retracted this statement.

-Claimed that the NFL sent him a letter complaining of the debate schedule. The NFL said they never did so.

Given all of this, here's my latest map...

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

Now that we have all seen how easy it is to get a guy like Trump, Hillary's debate strategy should be pretty clear. The guy can't resist taking the bait and then making shit up based on the insanity in his head. So, give him the bait.

More importantly, though, I think we are finally seeing just how well the mentality, emotional balance and ideology of right wing bloggers and commenters would do under the spotlight.

Really fucking bad.

Buddies!

Thankfully Chipping Away

Does Trump's Draft Dodging Disqualify Him?

As Donald Trump continues his insane tirades against the parents of a soldier who was killed in Iraq, the question of Trump's draft dodging has come up again. It surfaced a while back, when Trump criticized John McCain for having been a POW in Vietnam.

Trump received five deferments to avoid the draft in the 1960s. Four were for college, and one was for "bone spurs" in his heels. This was clearly bogus, but Trump was not alone in buying his way out of the draft. A lot of politicians of Trump's age took advantage of their social station to avoid serving in war: Dan Quayle, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton.

Should avoiding the draft disqualify you from serving as president? It depends: people like Bush, Cheney and Rove were all gung-ho for the war, but weaseled their way out of Vietnam.

War is hell, the old saying goes. But some wars are "better" than others. US involvement in the two world wars was inescapable. The Korean and Persian Gulf Wars were waged to assist allies against aggressors.  The Afghan war, while justified, was completely screwed up: it should have been a police action targeted specifically to destroy bin Laden and Al Qaeda, but Bush turned it into a unwinnable war against an entire country.

The Vietnam and Iraq wars were wrong from the get-go. Both were ginned up to gain political advantage. Opposition to both these wars was justified, and draft evasion during the Vietnam War for moral and political reasons was justified to "starve the beast." It is completely moral to avoid participating in the killing in an elective war of aggression like those in Vietnam and Iraq, waged to bolster the reelection chances of a sitting president.

But avoiding service in Vietnam while clamoring for other Americans to be sent off to die in the jungle was the height of hypocrisy. Dozens of Republican chickenhawks in Congress and the Bush administration (I'm looking at you, Dick Cheney) were guilty of this when they invaded Iraq on false pretenses. At the same time they demonized Democrats like John Kerry who actually served in Vietnam.

Some people think that military service should be a prerequisite to be commander in chief. These people are wrong. Some people in the military (I'm looking at you, John McCain) think of military action as the answer to every problem. McCain has called for war against more than a dozen different countries, and had he been president it's completely possible we would be at war with Russia at this moment over the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and Crimea.

What is required to serve as commander in chief, however, is the ability to understand what the consequences of your actions will be, and what the effects of those actions will be on the people who serve, their families, and the country as a whole. That requires knowledge, foresight and empathy.

Donald Trump has none of these. He has no idea what's going on the world: last week he didn't know that Russia had invaded Ukraine in 2014. He doesn't know the difference between Iran's Quds force and the Kurds in Iraq.

Trump's lack of foresight is even worse: he has said that the United States should let South Korea and Japan should go hang, and develop their own nuclear weapons. He has said that the US should stand by and do nothing if Russia invades NATO allies that don't spend enough on their military.

It's no wonder that North Korea, Russia and China are all rooting for Trump to be president.

Trump's total lack of empathy has been amply displayed time and again, most recently in his attacks on the parents of Capt. Humayun Khan. And lest we forget, his snarky demand that a crying baby be ejected from his rally.

Besides, Trump's bone spurs prevent him from being commander in chief.

What he's saying and what he's thinking...

Good Words

As an editor I’ve launched investigations into her business dealings, her fundraising, her foundation and her marriage. As a reporter my stories stretch back to Whitewater. I’m not a favorite in Hillaryland. That makes what I want to say next surprising. Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.

---Jill Abramson, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian.

And here's another piece which explains why the Hillary pile on continues to happen.

The Continued Adolescent Tantrum

Over the last few months of this campaign, I've note how Donald Trump is exactly the candidate that conservatives deserve. They have gone from the party of Reagan and his shining city on the hill to the party of anger, hate, fear, and darkness. As clearly reflected by their politicians, pundits and supporters (especially the right wing bloggers/commenters), their behavior is that of an adolescent having a temper tantrum, stomping down the hall, slamming the door, and shouting, "You can't make me!!! I don't wanna!!!!"

Witness this latest tantrum from their candidate.


And this wasn't the first time he's called those fat headed fire marshals with all their poopey headed rules and stuff...



So, now we can add fire marshals to the list of people who are against Donald Trump...this on top of Gold Star families.

All of this ranting, raving, and lunacy sure does remind me of many a blog discussion...:)

The Real Email Scandal

Hillary Clinton gave an interview on Fox News on Sunday in which she once again apologized and admitted fault for using a personal email server during her tenure as Secretary of State. The media went ballistic today (natch) over her "lying" about classified material being sent on this server. It's been explained so many times now that I really don't get why everyone is still talking about her emails.

What they should be talking about is the real scandal. Hillary Clinton doesn't understand basic technology and clearly has trouble on the line with the computer machine. Sure, it's not as sexy as her lying and going to jail (nothing gives a conservative a boner like imagining a Clinton in jail), but it is a fact. She set up the private server because she didn't have the multi-tasking capability to toggle between two different emails on her Blackberry. When she was asked about her hard drive being scrubbed, she said, "What do you mean, with a cloth?" She seemed to not understand reading the code on three emails that had a "c" classification.

All of this tells me that she doesn't understand something the leader of the free world should get. I have several emails accounts on my phone along with a variety of apps that I use all the time. Granted, I may be a bit ahead of the game in terms of tech but the president should have basic level knowledge of this stuff.

I highly doubt the media, particularly the conservative media, will go after on this but they should. It's a valid criticism and it should be concerning to voters.

Leave Them Behind

The presidential election of 2016 can really be summed up in one way: it's the last stand of the white non college educated male voter. 

Consider that in less than four years, white people in this country will be in the minority. For the white non college educated male voter, this is the fucking apocalypse. And it really explains the appeal of Donald Trump. His talk of walls and bans are a direct appeal to the fear that white males feel when they see the world changing around them. His anti-trade rhetoric and stated reluctance to help other countries fits perfectly into the mindset of this demographic. After all, these are the people who have lost jobs and are being left behind in the age of globalization.

In this election cycle, pundits have declared that the Democrats have to reach out to this voter and connect with them. They have to show the non college educated white male that Trump is a charlatan who would actually be worse for them. They've been hammering Trump on his failure to pay contractors and his fraud with outfits like Trump University. Hillary herself implored an audience just yesterday to talk to their friends and relatives about just how bad Trump would be for the middle class.

None of this will help. Why?

The Trump voter is a lost fucking cause. Consider that they are supporting a man who by all rational thought in reality is a total disaster of a person. Is there anything even redeeming about him at all? The simple fact that they are supporting him says to me that there is no hope of changing their minds. They are lost to all that anger, hate and fear.

So, leave them behind. History is filled with demographic groups that the march of time waved buh-bye too. I haven't seen any significant numbers in the Egyptian Gods demographic of late. Nor have I seen the Roman emperor followers clamoring for a return to that empire. In our own country, the Whigs and their supporters never made it out of the 19th century. Progress and new ways of thinking left all of these groups and their ultimate failures behind.

The attention should be focused on getting out the vote from all other demographic groups. This is where the election is going to be ultimately won or lost for the Democrats. White college educated voters (male and female) and minority voters need to make a statement this election.

It's their country now and we're not going back.

If Trump Can't Run an Elevator, How Can He Run a Country?

Donald Trump just got himself trapped in an elevator:

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump had to be rescued from an elevator that was stuck between the first and second floors of a resort Friday, the Colorado Springs Fire Department said.

In a statement released Saturday, the department says that it was called at 1:30 p.m. Friday to rescue about 10 people, including Trump, trapped inside the elevator at The Mining Exchange, A Wyndham Grand Hotel & Spa resort.

The department says the firefighters opened the top elevator hatch and lowered a ladder into the elevator. Trump and the others used the ladder to climb out of the elevator to the second floor. The department says no injuries were reported.

I'm impressed that Trump was able to waddle up a ladder and fit through the trap door of an elevator.

How did this happen?

“The parties that lease the hotel also wanted to control of the elevators and I assume that happens when you get to a certain level of security, and so they were given a key to actually control the elevators and the elevator apparently in the course of being controlled by somebody other than in the course of the normal operations, the elevator stopped and consequently Mr. Trump was, I understand rescued by the fire department from that within a matter of five minutes or less,” Sanders said.

Trump insisted that the hotel give him the key to the elevator, and he somehow managed to screw up pressing a button to go to another floor. After the fire department rescued Trump, the Republican cry baby blasted the fire marshal for trying to enforce crowd capacity limits at his rally. Because nothing could possibly go wrong at a Trump event, right?

And some people think Trump can be trusted with the codes to America's nuclear arsenal?

Examine the Parallels

The Hilz Brings It Home

The speech that Hillary Clinton gave on Thursday night was the finest one of her career. Let's remember that she's not a natural orator like Barack Obama or her husband. This is tough for her and the television audience sure noticed it in the first few minutes of the speech. She was a little overly cautious.

But then she got into the groove and never looked back. She outlined her plan and vision for our country in the next four years and it was magnificent...that is, of course, if you are someone who lives in the real world, not the made up one. Offering a stark contrast to the darkness dispatched a week ago at the GOP convention, the Hilz reminded us all that there isn't one person that can solve all of our nation's problems. This is especially true if that one person is a mentally deranged psychopath suffering from narcissistic personality disorder.

The systematic take down of Donald Trump was truly a beautiful thing to behold all week and Hillary put an exclamation point on all of it. Her best line was this...

A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man you can trust with nuclear weapons.

No shit. We're not electing a right wing blogger to run our country. We're electing a president.

Here is her full speech.

Do You Understand The Constitution?

Before I get to Hillary, I want to turn the spotlight on this guy. Mr. Khan represents what our country is all about. This was the ultimate mic drop moment to the people who are now running the GOP. Their hatred looks more ugly now than it ever has...

 

DNC Stars Shine Brightly

The first two days of the Democratic National Convention were pretty darn good. Michelle Obama was extraordinary. Bill Clinton was uncharacteristically humble. There also wasn't much mentioned about Donald Trump and his various problems. Clearly, they were saving that for last night.

Beginning with Joe Biden, then Michael Bloomberg, then Tim Kaine, and finally the president, the Democratic stars shined brilliantly last night. Joe Biden's speech spoke directly to white working class, non college educated voter and, man oh man, was he brilliant.


This was the beginning of the evisceration of Donald Trump. "He doesn't have a clue about anything." was most certainly the best line of Biden's speech. He went on detailing just how poorly qualified Donald Trump is to be president.

Michael Bloomberg spoke to the independent voter and described how Donald Trump was a fraud.


Unlike Donald Trump, Michael Bloomberg is an actual billionaire.

Next up was Tim Kaine, who was more or less ripped on Twitter for being that awkward dad that no one wants around. Being an awkward dad, I thought Kaine was fantastic and you can bet Hillary and her people did as well. They can use that boring and awkward whiteness to resonate with a voting demographic they need. And, yeah, his Trump impression was kinda bad but he completed the trifecta on the Trump take down. Trump is a liar.



The president the arrived for his prime time spot and reminded everyone just how fucking awesome he is and what a great job he has done as president.


I am really going to miss this guy.

Tonight, the attention turns to Hillary. It seems damn near impossible to top all of the speakers before her. This is especially true considering that she isn't as talented of an orator as all that have gone before her, self admittedly. But does it really matter? I think the USA needs to finally see President Grandma come out and talk about her life that has been dedicated to helping people. We've had far too much of the "made up" Hillary in the news these last few weeks. It's time to see the real one.

Russia's Hacking Department

Trump Wants Russia's Help

Donald Trump just called on Russia to help out with Hillary's missing emails.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said, staring directly into the cameras. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Wow...

Big Dog Nails It

Bill Clinton could have talked a lot about himself last night but he didn't. Pundits complained that he didn't mention any of the various #Clintonscandals in a sort of mea culpa. But that would have been the same thing as making the speech about himself.

Instead, he spent 42 minutes talking about why the Hilz is the right person for the job. He focused quite a bit on her early career which not many people know about. And he had the line of the convention in which he stated that there are two Hillary Clintons. "One is real, the other is made up."

Brilliant. Here is the full speech.