Monday, March 14, 2016
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Saturday, March 12, 2016
Good Words From The President
"We’ve got a debate inside the other party that is fantasy and schoolyard taunts and selling stuff like it’s the Home Shopping Network," Obama said in a clear reference to Trump's Tuesday-night press conference, where he wheeled out products like Trump Steaks and Trump Water to prove his business bona fides.
"How can you be shocked?" he asked. "This is the guy, remember, who was sure that I was born in Kenya. Who just wouldn’t let it go. And all this same Republican establishment, they weren’t saying nothing. As long as it was directed at me, they were fine with it. They thought it was a hoot. Wanted to get his endorsement. And then now, suddenly, we’re shocked that there’s gambling going on in this establishment."
Sounds familiar...:)
"How can you be shocked?" he asked. "This is the guy, remember, who was sure that I was born in Kenya. Who just wouldn’t let it go. And all this same Republican establishment, they weren’t saying nothing. As long as it was directed at me, they were fine with it. They thought it was a hoot. Wanted to get his endorsement. And then now, suddenly, we’re shocked that there’s gambling going on in this establishment."
Sounds familiar...:)
Friday, March 11, 2016
Poetic Justice
So, let's see here...mom brags on social media, "My right to protect my child with my gun trumps your fear of my gun" and then ends up accidentally getting shot in the back by that same child.
Now she might be charged because Florida law requires guns to be secured from minors?
Poetic justice...
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Three Year High
The president's approval rating has hit a three year high. Real Clear Politics has him at more approval than disapproval. That's good news for Hillary Clinton who seeks to continue the president's legacy.
Right around now is when Republicans will start to say that there were some good things that Barack Obama has done...:)
Right around now is when Republicans will start to say that there were some good things that Barack Obama has done...:)
Wednesday, March 09, 2016
Why Do Polls Suck?
Today the big news was that Michigan primary was a huge upset! How huge? Sanders beat Clinton by a whole 0.5%.
That doesn't sound like much of an upset. In most of the states where Clinton isn't pounding Sanders into the ground with 60, 70 or 80% of the vote, they're running about equal. Which means Clinton is piling up delegates much faster than Sanders.
So why are they calling it an upset? Because the polls predicted that Clinton would win by 20 points. If Sanders had clobbered Clinton by the same amount that Clinton has clobbered Sanders by in other states, that would be an upset. Here, the polls were simply dead wrong.
By this point it should be obvious that polls don't work anymore, and this has been the case for several years. Karl Rove made an absolute ass of himself when he refused to believe that Obama won, because he trusted his polls more than the election itself.
Mark pointed to an article on fivethirtyeight.com about why the polls are wrong. It was a list of lame excuses from someone who still believes that polls can work. They can't. Polling is completely broken, and probably forever.
Here are the real reasons why polling has lost most of its credibility.
Most reasonable people just don't answer the phone if they don't recognize who's calling. They look at the caller ID or let their answering machine pick it up. Why? Every unsolicited phone call you get from an unknown number is
Pollsters used to only call landlines, which was beginning to significantly skew poll results. They have since changed that, and now call mobile numbers as well. Since mobile minutes cost real money, only really schmoey shmoes will waste their minutes talking to a pollster.
People who willingly pick up unsolicited calls frequently do so in order to mess with the caller, tying them up and wasting their time. Some think that lying to pollsters helps tweak the lamestream media, which faithfully and breathlessly report the latest poll numbers, which are increasingly wrong.
A lot of reasonable people who do pick up don't think it's anyone's business who they're going to vote for. They'll a) politely decline, b) just hang up, or c) lie to the pollster. Why? Because they have no way of knowing how that information will be used against them in the future. And it often will be used against you -- independent polls are completely free to sell your answers to political campaigns, who will use that information to dun you with more calls begging for money.
Rabid supporters will answer polls in order to "get their vote in" for their favorite candidate. These are generally a tiny and predictable fraction of the population, so they don't really tell you much about how the majority of the population will vote.
Many voters have the attention span of a gnat. They don't know anything about any of the issues. They often don't decide who they're voting for until they get in the voting booth. Polls tell you nothing when the electorate is so undecided, and though they try to control for this, clearly it's not working (this is the one excuse that 538 gave that holds water.)
For example: the most ridiculous thing I've heard voters say this cycle is, "I can't decide between Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump." (Jesse Ventura, among others, has said this.) This is like saying you can't decide between Attila the Hun and Mahatma Gandhi.
Some of these are simply clueless people. Others, like Ventura, are trying to sabotage the American political system. These saboteurs don't are about either candidate's stands on the issues, they just want to blow the system up.
News flash: nominating unelectable or unqualified candidates won't make the government work better. You'd think Ventura would have realized this after spending four years as governor of Minnesota when neither party had his back and the media hounded him for being such a thin-skinned lout.
Finally, there are Internet polls. These are conducted online, and most pollsters regard them as completely worthless because they aren't really random: it's a self-selecting population, and they are easily gamed by campaign organizations, and are also vulnerable to bot nets (like any other Internet scam).
Political campaigns and news organizations will continue to use polls, but their predictive value is nearing zero.
The only polls that really matter are the ones that actually elect candidates.
That doesn't sound like much of an upset. In most of the states where Clinton isn't pounding Sanders into the ground with 60, 70 or 80% of the vote, they're running about equal. Which means Clinton is piling up delegates much faster than Sanders.
So why are they calling it an upset? Because the polls predicted that Clinton would win by 20 points. If Sanders had clobbered Clinton by the same amount that Clinton has clobbered Sanders by in other states, that would be an upset. Here, the polls were simply dead wrong.
By this point it should be obvious that polls don't work anymore, and this has been the case for several years. Karl Rove made an absolute ass of himself when he refused to believe that Obama won, because he trusted his polls more than the election itself.
Mark pointed to an article on fivethirtyeight.com about why the polls are wrong. It was a list of lame excuses from someone who still believes that polls can work. They can't. Polling is completely broken, and probably forever.
Here are the real reasons why polling has lost most of its credibility.
Most reasonable people just don't answer the phone if they don't recognize who's calling. They look at the caller ID or let their answering machine pick it up. Why? Every unsolicited phone call you get from an unknown number is
- someone you don't know calling during dinner or your favorite TV show or when you're working, or
- a crook trying to steal your personal information, your credit card, your bank account, or your identity, often posing as Microsoft Windows support, or
- a sales person trying to sell you something shady or something you don't want, or
- a crook from a phony charitable organization selling you some bogus sob story to steal your money, or
- a paid telephone solicitor from a reputable charitable organization that is growing ever more desperate for donations because the disreputable scum bags are stealing all their donors.
Pollsters used to only call landlines, which was beginning to significantly skew poll results. They have since changed that, and now call mobile numbers as well. Since mobile minutes cost real money, only really schmoey shmoes will waste their minutes talking to a pollster.
People who willingly pick up unsolicited calls frequently do so in order to mess with the caller, tying them up and wasting their time. Some think that lying to pollsters helps tweak the lamestream media, which faithfully and breathlessly report the latest poll numbers, which are increasingly wrong.
A lot of reasonable people who do pick up don't think it's anyone's business who they're going to vote for. They'll a) politely decline, b) just hang up, or c) lie to the pollster. Why? Because they have no way of knowing how that information will be used against them in the future. And it often will be used against you -- independent polls are completely free to sell your answers to political campaigns, who will use that information to dun you with more calls begging for money.
Rabid supporters will answer polls in order to "get their vote in" for their favorite candidate. These are generally a tiny and predictable fraction of the population, so they don't really tell you much about how the majority of the population will vote.
Many voters have the attention span of a gnat. They don't know anything about any of the issues. They often don't decide who they're voting for until they get in the voting booth. Polls tell you nothing when the electorate is so undecided, and though they try to control for this, clearly it's not working (this is the one excuse that 538 gave that holds water.)
For example: the most ridiculous thing I've heard voters say this cycle is, "I can't decide between Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump." (Jesse Ventura, among others, has said this.) This is like saying you can't decide between Attila the Hun and Mahatma Gandhi.
Some of these are simply clueless people. Others, like Ventura, are trying to sabotage the American political system. These saboteurs don't are about either candidate's stands on the issues, they just want to blow the system up.
News flash: nominating unelectable or unqualified candidates won't make the government work better. You'd think Ventura would have realized this after spending four years as governor of Minnesota when neither party had his back and the media hounded him for being such a thin-skinned lout.
Finally, there are Internet polls. These are conducted online, and most pollsters regard them as completely worthless because they aren't really random: it's a self-selecting population, and they are easily gamed by campaign organizations, and are also vulnerable to bot nets (like any other Internet scam).
Political campaigns and news organizations will continue to use polls, but their predictive value is nearing zero.
The only polls that really matter are the ones that actually elect candidates.
Tuesday, March 08, 2016
Monday, March 07, 2016
Sunday, March 06, 2016
Trump As Hitler?
As Donald Trump continues to lead in the GOP primary, comparisons to Adolph Hitler's populist nationalism are creeping in to the mainstream conversation. I've thought of about ten different ways to talk about it but today DJ Tice said it the best in this editorial. Donald Trump, like Ross Perot before him, is essentially Hitler's act but in a different dialect. Further...
Another discomforting vision of demagoguery from its heyday was authored by Minnesota’s Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sinclair Lewis. In “It Can’t Happen Here,” in 1935, before the full horrors of Nazism were revealed, Lewis conjured a satire in which U.S. Sen. Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip — “an inspired guesser at what political doctrines the people would like” — imposes fascism on America. Windrip gets himself elected president with promises one admirer calls “molasses for the cockroaches,” including: “that he had thoroughly tested (but unspecified) plans to make all wages very high and the prices of everything … very low; that he was 100 percent for Labor, but 100 percent against all strikes; and that he was in favor of the United States so arming itself, so preparing to produce its own coffee, sugar, perfumes, tweeds and nickel instead of importing them, that it could defy the World … and maybe, if that World was so impertinent as to defy America … take it over and run it properly.”
In short, buyers beware...
Another discomforting vision of demagoguery from its heyday was authored by Minnesota’s Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sinclair Lewis. In “It Can’t Happen Here,” in 1935, before the full horrors of Nazism were revealed, Lewis conjured a satire in which U.S. Sen. Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip — “an inspired guesser at what political doctrines the people would like” — imposes fascism on America. Windrip gets himself elected president with promises one admirer calls “molasses for the cockroaches,” including: “that he had thoroughly tested (but unspecified) plans to make all wages very high and the prices of everything … very low; that he was 100 percent for Labor, but 100 percent against all strikes; and that he was in favor of the United States so arming itself, so preparing to produce its own coffee, sugar, perfumes, tweeds and nickel instead of importing them, that it could defy the World … and maybe, if that World was so impertinent as to defy America … take it over and run it properly.”
In short, buyers beware...
Saturday, March 05, 2016
Donald Trump's Penis Signals The Destruction of the GOP
I think I was the only one not shocked when Donald Trump assured debate watchers that his penis was not as small as hands. When your party's base is filled with adolescents, penis size matters. But apparently there were many others who were shocked and most of them are conservatives.
“The spectacle made me ill,” writes the conservative Free Beacon’s Matthew Continetti. “On screen I watched decades of work by conservative institutions, activists, and elected officials being lit aflame not only by the New York demagogue but by his enablers who waited until the last possible moment to try and stop him.”
Mitt Romney is trying to stop him and gave this speech hour before the debate.
Aside from the obvious problem that Romney sought and received Trump's endorsement in 2012, Romney's points about Trump (which are all dead on accurate) completely fail to note the conservative base admire all these traits in Trump. Why?
Because they are just like that too!
Predictably, the adolescents that support Trump are pissed that adults are trying to talk them down but they want none of it.
"I want to see Trump go up there and do damage to the Republican Party" said Jeff Walls, 53, of Flowood, MS.
Kathy, from Sun City, Ariz., told Mr. Limbaugh she was “absolutely livid by the Romney speech. He’s condescending,” she said, adding that he sounded like a “Democrat the whole time.” Steve from Temecula, Calif., said he had a message for Mr. Romney: “The Republican electorate is not a bunch of completely ignorant fools.”
“We know who Donald Trump is,” he added, “and we’re going to use Donald Trump to either take over the G.O.P. or blow it up.”
Ah, rebellious teenagers:)
Frank Luntz declared Hillary the biggest winner of the night and said that 22 out of his 25 focus groups said that this debate will hurt the GOP in the fall election.
Jamie Johnson, senior adviser to Rick Perry, said, "My party is committing suicide on national television.
Kristen Anderson, millenial pollster, said, "We may as well cancel the rest of the debate bc we are now in a Mike Judge film and nobody's going to talk about anything but Trump hands." That's not the first time I've hear an Idiocracy reference.
The National Review's Alexis Levinson called for a safe word during future debates.
I think the best reaction, though, came from the Hilz..
Sorta reminds me of my 8th graders...
“The spectacle made me ill,” writes the conservative Free Beacon’s Matthew Continetti. “On screen I watched decades of work by conservative institutions, activists, and elected officials being lit aflame not only by the New York demagogue but by his enablers who waited until the last possible moment to try and stop him.”
Mitt Romney is trying to stop him and gave this speech hour before the debate.
Aside from the obvious problem that Romney sought and received Trump's endorsement in 2012, Romney's points about Trump (which are all dead on accurate) completely fail to note the conservative base admire all these traits in Trump. Why?
Because they are just like that too!
Predictably, the adolescents that support Trump are pissed that adults are trying to talk them down but they want none of it.
"I want to see Trump go up there and do damage to the Republican Party" said Jeff Walls, 53, of Flowood, MS.
Kathy, from Sun City, Ariz., told Mr. Limbaugh she was “absolutely livid by the Romney speech. He’s condescending,” she said, adding that he sounded like a “Democrat the whole time.” Steve from Temecula, Calif., said he had a message for Mr. Romney: “The Republican electorate is not a bunch of completely ignorant fools.”
“We know who Donald Trump is,” he added, “and we’re going to use Donald Trump to either take over the G.O.P. or blow it up.”
Ah, rebellious teenagers:)
Frank Luntz declared Hillary the biggest winner of the night and said that 22 out of his 25 focus groups said that this debate will hurt the GOP in the fall election.
Jamie Johnson, senior adviser to Rick Perry, said, "My party is committing suicide on national television.
Kristen Anderson, millenial pollster, said, "We may as well cancel the rest of the debate bc we are now in a Mike Judge film and nobody's going to talk about anything but Trump hands." That's not the first time I've hear an Idiocracy reference.
The National Review's Alexis Levinson called for a safe word during future debates.
I think the best reaction, though, came from the Hilz..
Sorta reminds me of my 8th graders...
-- Here’s a sampling of how conservative media outlets are covering the debate:
- National Review: “GOP Implosion Accelerates in Motor City Wreck.”
- FoxNews.com, “GOP breaks down in Motor City”: “Much of the fight on the Republican side is centered on who can beat Clinton,” Chris Stirewalt, the digital politics editor, writes. “The growing fear among GOP voters is that the answer might be: ‘None of them.’”
- Christian Broadcasting Network, “All That Was Missing Was Jerry Springer”: “The Grand Old Party didn’t look grand at all. Instead, they looked gross,” writes CBN political correspondent David Brody. “Reince Priebus is faced with a crucial decision now: does he go with Tylenol or Excedrin? Which medication will take away this big fat headache?”
Friday, March 04, 2016
Trump's Dupes Just Don't Care
The Republican establishment has belatedly begun attacking Donald Trump for being a con man and a liar. The problem is, Trump supporters don't care:
On the issue of the now-defunct Trump University—which offered real estate seminars that cost students up to $35,000, and which is the subject of three lawsuits that allege Trump defrauded students by misrepresenting what the "university" was—Travino admitted it was a "black mark" on Trump's record. "But I don't care," he added. And he doesn't think Trump's supporters will care either.And:
Matthew Higgens, a Trump supporter from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, felt the same way about Trump University. "To be honest with you, I don't care," he said. Higgens said other Republicans hadn't gone after predatory for-profit colleges that get students to take out loans for degrees and jobs that don't pan out. "How can you point the finger at one guy?" he asked. "It's ridiculous."No, it's not ridiculous. The crooks running those other phony for-profit "universities" aren't running for president. Why do Trump's dupes think that a man under indictment for fraud is going to fulfill any of his campaign promises?
Trump is suckering the his supporters exactly the same way that he suckered those idiots who blew $60,000 on worthless Trump University degrees.
The main reason people say they support Trump is that "he tells it like it is." They hate "establishment" politicians because they say whatever they need to say to get elected, and they never deliver on their promises.
The thing is, Trump is doing exactly the same thing: he's making promises he will never keep, and is at this very moment doing the exact opposite of what he promises. Trump is promising to stop immigrants from entering the country, yet Trump hires foreigners by the thousands to work at his casinos, hotels and construction sites (and even married two foreigners). Trump talks about slapping huge tariffs on Chinese goods, yet his Trump-brand merchandise is made in China and Asia.
But, yeah, I know. Trump supporters don't care. They just want to stick it to the politicians they hate, without really getting that Trump will be even worse than the guys they're trying to stick it to.
Trump has made a big deal about how he's funding his own campaign, and isn't beholden to campaign contributors because he hasn't taken their money. Okay. Like many Americans, he cynically thinks if you give a candidate money, you own the candidate.
But the corollary to that is: if you don't give a candidate money he owes you nothing. That means Trump believes he owes the people who simply voted for him even less than nothing. Trump is going to do whatever's good for Trump, not those broke and angry losers who put him in office. And the people who send $50 or $100 checks to Trump without ever meeting him and extracting a promise from him? They're the biggest losers ever, giving away money with no promise of any return whatsoever....
When Trump said, "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters," he was bragging about himself, implying that his supporters are duped losers following a shiny object.
Trump is repeating the prejudices of white people -- saying what he thinks they want to hear -- in order to get elected, dressing it up as "telling it like it is." He's making insane proposals about walls and tax breaks to set out an initial negotiating position, fully intent on dialing down the crazy when he comes to the negotiating table after he's elected.
That's not just my take on it, that's Trump's standard negotiating tactic: ask for the moon when what you really want is the lot on the corner. Throw your negotiating partner off balance with your daring and bravado, and he'll think he's getting a great deal when you screw him over. It's also what Trump told the New York Times editorial board in the "off-the-record" part of a January interview, according to a story on Buzzfeed.
Trump constantly carps about "political correctness," but he has already said that as president he'll be the most politically correct person in the world.
Trump is exactly the kind of wheeler-dealer politician that all his followers claim to despise. He's promising concentration camps for illegal immigrants. He's promising to lock certain Americans up en masse the way Japanese Americans were during WWII. He's promising to torture Muslims and murder their wives and children in cold blood.
He will never do any of that because these acts are violations of the Constitution and war crimes, and most of the FBI and the American military will disobey such illegal orders, and Trump doesn't want to be impeached or sent to the Hague to face a war crimes tribunal.
Trump is blustering hate to get primary votes from whites who feel downtrodden and left behind: just like the people who got suckered at Trump University. After he gets the Republican nomination, he'll back off on most of this crap for the general election, telling people that they misunderstood what he said, that he was just exaggerating for effect. He didn't really mean it, he'll say, it was just the heat of the moment. Or he'll say he was just repeating what he heard someone else say, and wasn't really sure it was true and he didn't mean it in any case.
But Trump's dupes will remain faithful. They'll rationalize that he's lying to to get win the general election, but that once he's in office he'll do what he promised in the primary.
In other words, he'll be acting just like any other politician. Because he is like any other politician, except that he's even less honest than most.
If you listen to the way Trump talks, it's obvious that he's being intentionally misleading -- or senile. He will repeat something three times, then say the opposite, then ask it as a question, then make a joke, then talk about how popular he is, what a loser his opponents are, and how well he's doing in the polls, and how much we're going to win, and how much money we're going to make by suing everyone for libel (yeah, he said that). It's all bullshit
Once he's in office, Trump will do whatever it takes to make him look good to himself. That will probably mean making tons of deals, and throwing away every campaign promise he ever made. Trump will blame Congress and the Democrats for stymieing him, and he'll sue a bunch of newspapers and websites for insulting him, and he'll swear a couple of times and the dupes who elected Trump will still fall for the act and think he's great. Even though he will have swindled them in the biggest con in history.
The truth is, there's no way to know what Trump will do as president. Everything he says is pie-in-the-sky crap. He's taking his supporters for a ride, and it'll cost this country a lot more than one of those worthless Trump University degrees.
Thursday, March 03, 2016
Post-Mortem on Super Tuesday
Super Tuesday showed that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the front runners for the respective parties.
The Hilz is in a far better position than the Donald with a 1052 to 427 lead over Bernie. At this point, she's halfway to the 2382 needed to win and will likely win the nomination. Bernie fans can take heart that his ideas will live on in this year's party platform.
Donald's front runner status is not quite as solid as of yet. He's got 319 to Cruz's 226 and Rubio's 110. Kasich has 25. The three of them together beat Trump which I find highly amusing for several reasons. More people don't want Trump to be the nominee than want him to be the nominee. Mitt Romney is making a speech today to try to rally the troops against Trump. Many Republicans are calling for a third party option. They may as well just support Hillary if they are going to take this tack. Of course, this is what you get when you have 89 people running for president in your party. You get a disaster as your nominee.
The best the "stop Trump" folks can hope for is that he does not get to the magic number of 1237 in order to win and they can have a contested convention. That will do wonders for voter turnout in the fall. But a Trump candidacy will have the same effect as many GOPers don't support him. They are kind of fucked any way you cut it.
I've said it many times and will continue to say it. When you spend the better part of a decade conditioning your supporters to believe lies through hate, anger and fear, you get Donald Trump as your nominee.
Conservatives only have themselves to blame.
The Hilz is in a far better position than the Donald with a 1052 to 427 lead over Bernie. At this point, she's halfway to the 2382 needed to win and will likely win the nomination. Bernie fans can take heart that his ideas will live on in this year's party platform.
Donald's front runner status is not quite as solid as of yet. He's got 319 to Cruz's 226 and Rubio's 110. Kasich has 25. The three of them together beat Trump which I find highly amusing for several reasons. More people don't want Trump to be the nominee than want him to be the nominee. Mitt Romney is making a speech today to try to rally the troops against Trump. Many Republicans are calling for a third party option. They may as well just support Hillary if they are going to take this tack. Of course, this is what you get when you have 89 people running for president in your party. You get a disaster as your nominee.
The best the "stop Trump" folks can hope for is that he does not get to the magic number of 1237 in order to win and they can have a contested convention. That will do wonders for voter turnout in the fall. But a Trump candidacy will have the same effect as many GOPers don't support him. They are kind of fucked any way you cut it.
I've said it many times and will continue to say it. When you spend the better part of a decade conditioning your supporters to believe lies through hate, anger and fear, you get Donald Trump as your nominee.
Conservatives only have themselves to blame.
Wednesday, March 02, 2016
Tuesday, March 01, 2016
Trump: Then and Now
Yesterday the Daily Show did a send up of Trump's "Fascist Week" antics. Trevor Noah ridiculed him for unknowingly retweeting a Mussolini quote, even though it was originated by "ilduce2016." ("Il duce" is the Italian equivalent of Hitler's "Der Führer.").
The episode also looked at the interview in which Trump refused to disavow an endorsement from white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. Afterwards Trump claimed he couldn't understand the question because of a faulty earpiece. Seriously? He repeated the name "David Duke" and variations on the phrase "white supremacist" several times, so he clearly heard the words, but he just didn't seem to get it.
I have no doubt Trump had problems understanding the question. He hasn't aged well, so he's probably suffering from significant hearing loss. He may have been repeating the words to make sure that he had heard them properly.
The problem I have with Trump isn't so much the lack of disavowal (because we know Trump is intentionally courting -- nay, inciting -- the racist vote), but the physical and mental deficits Trump is clearly displaying in the clip from Sunday, which starts at about 8:30 in the video.
Notice how confused and pinched Trump's expression is. Notice how frequently he blinks. High blink rates are associated with several things: dry eyes, schizophrenia, stress, and lying. I'm guessing Trump is suffering from three out of four of these -- your guess as to which. (As a bonus, notice how bloated and orange his face is, and how white his skin is around the small, beady eyes, and how silly his hair looks. I wouldn't normally point this out, but since Trump is constantly deriding other people for their appearance -- making light of Rosie O'Donnell's weight, or insisting that Heidi Klum is no longer a 10 -- it's only fair to point out that Trump himself is a pasty, dumpy three and was never more than a five.)
Now look at time index 9:50 in the video, which is an interview Trump gave in 2000. He mentions Duke by name as the reason he's getting out of the presidential race. Trump sounds relatively coherent and reasoned.
Comparing the two Trumps side by side, it is clear that Trump's mental and physical state have greatly deteriorated in the last 16 years. Comparing him to other politicians of a similar age -- Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton -- and even older politicians like Bernie Sanders and Jimmy Carter, Trump has not aged well at all.
In recent days Republicans like Marco Rubio have stooped to Trump's level, hurling all kinds of inane insults at the billionaire. Yet they have not yet touched on what is a completely legitimate concern: Trump's rapidly advancing senile dementia.
This is a serious concern. What will the Republicans do if Trump strokes out from a Viagra overdose having sex with his mistress a month before the election?
The episode also looked at the interview in which Trump refused to disavow an endorsement from white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. Afterwards Trump claimed he couldn't understand the question because of a faulty earpiece. Seriously? He repeated the name "David Duke" and variations on the phrase "white supremacist" several times, so he clearly heard the words, but he just didn't seem to get it.
I have no doubt Trump had problems understanding the question. He hasn't aged well, so he's probably suffering from significant hearing loss. He may have been repeating the words to make sure that he had heard them properly.
The problem I have with Trump isn't so much the lack of disavowal (because we know Trump is intentionally courting -- nay, inciting -- the racist vote), but the physical and mental deficits Trump is clearly displaying in the clip from Sunday, which starts at about 8:30 in the video.
Notice how confused and pinched Trump's expression is. Notice how frequently he blinks. High blink rates are associated with several things: dry eyes, schizophrenia, stress, and lying. I'm guessing Trump is suffering from three out of four of these -- your guess as to which. (As a bonus, notice how bloated and orange his face is, and how white his skin is around the small, beady eyes, and how silly his hair looks. I wouldn't normally point this out, but since Trump is constantly deriding other people for their appearance -- making light of Rosie O'Donnell's weight, or insisting that Heidi Klum is no longer a 10 -- it's only fair to point out that Trump himself is a pasty, dumpy three and was never more than a five.)
Now look at time index 9:50 in the video, which is an interview Trump gave in 2000. He mentions Duke by name as the reason he's getting out of the presidential race. Trump sounds relatively coherent and reasoned.
Comparing the two Trumps side by side, it is clear that Trump's mental and physical state have greatly deteriorated in the last 16 years. Comparing him to other politicians of a similar age -- Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton -- and even older politicians like Bernie Sanders and Jimmy Carter, Trump has not aged well at all.
In recent days Republicans like Marco Rubio have stooped to Trump's level, hurling all kinds of inane insults at the billionaire. Yet they have not yet touched on what is a completely legitimate concern: Trump's rapidly advancing senile dementia.
This is a serious concern. What will the Republicans do if Trump strokes out from a Viagra overdose having sex with his mistress a month before the election?
Super Tuesday Predictions
As voters in several states around the country head to the polls today, it's become very clear that Hillary Clinton will likely capture the Democratic nomination.She will win Alabama, American Samoa, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. With all of these states and the super delegates she already has, that will put her around the half way point towards the nomination. Bernie Sanders will win Colorado, Minnesota, and Vermont which will clearly not be enough to climb out of the deep hole he is already in.
On the Republican side, Donald Trump will win Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Vermont and Virginia. Marco Rubio will win Minnesota and Tennessee. Ted Cruz will win Texas. With all the victories Trump will pile up, it seems now that he is the likely nominee however it's just a tad too soon to tell. The winner take all states of Florida, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio on March 15th will probably be the day when we see how the rest of the primary season will go.
If Trump wins 2 of these states, it's over. If he wins Florida, Rubio is done. Republicans have been alternately pooping themselves and wringing their hands at the prospect of a Trump nomination. Some have even called for an independent run for one of the candidates that don't win. All of this really says one thing to me.
The GOP as we know it is officially dead.
I've been saying that it was coming for years. The writing was on the wall. Spend time lying to your supporters, stoking fear, anger and hatred-all of which are steeped in xenophobia and racism?
You get Donald Trump as the leader of your party.
On the Republican side, Donald Trump will win Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Vermont and Virginia. Marco Rubio will win Minnesota and Tennessee. Ted Cruz will win Texas. With all the victories Trump will pile up, it seems now that he is the likely nominee however it's just a tad too soon to tell. The winner take all states of Florida, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio on March 15th will probably be the day when we see how the rest of the primary season will go.
If Trump wins 2 of these states, it's over. If he wins Florida, Rubio is done. Republicans have been alternately pooping themselves and wringing their hands at the prospect of a Trump nomination. Some have even called for an independent run for one of the candidates that don't win. All of this really says one thing to me.
The GOP as we know it is officially dead.
I've been saying that it was coming for years. The writing was on the wall. Spend time lying to your supporters, stoking fear, anger and hatred-all of which are steeped in xenophobia and racism?
You get Donald Trump as the leader of your party.
Monday, February 29, 2016
The Trump Chant
I wonder if political candidates truly understand what happens when you poke the darker parts of nationalism in a country.
Because you get shit like this.
In Iowa, students chant 'Trump! Trump!' after basketball loss to more racially diverse high school
At least something has come out of it...
Trump's recent David Duke and KKK comments come as no shock to me whatsoever. His base is composed entirely of rabid racists who want the Antebellum South to rise again.
Because you get shit like this.
In Iowa, students chant 'Trump! Trump!' after basketball loss to more racially diverse high school
At least something has come out of it...
Trump's recent David Duke and KKK comments come as no shock to me whatsoever. His base is composed entirely of rabid racists who want the Antebellum South to rise again.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Is Trump Going Senile?
Donald Trump has received some endorsements recently. Some are relatively benign, though hypocritical, like Chris Christie's. Some, like Paul LePage's, the kookie governor of Maine that everyone in the legislature hates -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- are of limited utility.
Other endorsements are completely toxic for the general public, such as the various hate groups that have been running phone banks supporting Trump's candidacy. And then there's David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
When asked if he would refuse endorsements from Duke and other white supremacist organizations, Trump acted confused, repeating himself over and over like some doddering old man:
"I don't know anything about David Duke. I don't know what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacist. I don't know. I don't know, did he endorse me, or what's going on?" he said. That prompted a back-and-forth that went, in part:Trump is either confused here, or has lost his memory, or is lying. He should know exactly who David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan are:
Trump: I don't know what group you're talking about. You wouldn't want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about. ... If you would send me a list of the groups, I will do research on them and certainly I would disavow them if I thought there was something wrong.
Tapper: The Ku Klux Klan?
Trump: You may have groups in there that are totally fine and it would be very unfair. So give me a list of the groups and I'll let you know.
Tapper: I'm just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here.
Trump: Honestly, I don't know David Duke.
In 2000, when he ended his presidential campaign, Trump cited Duke's participation in the Reform Party as one reason he no longer wanted the party's nomination.
"The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. [Pat] Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. [Lenora] Fulani. This is not company I wish to keep," he wrote in his statement.
I'm going to engage in some armchair neurology here. Donald Trump is 70 years old. If elected he would be the oldest man ever elected president, beating Reagan by several months.
As Timothy Egan noted, Trump has suffered from sleep deprivation for decades:
Sleep deprivation, we know, can make you cranky and temperamental, and throw off judgment. The severely sleep-deprived are more impulsive, less adaptable and prone to snappish decisions, and they have trouble listening to others. They miss out on essential REM time, which allows people to process emotions and events in their lives. Smaller things set them off.Sleep is essential for good health. As I've written about previously, during sleep the brain cleans out toxic protein buildup. Those proteins are the same plaque tangles that cause Alzheimers. Lack of sleep can cause Alzheimers.
“You know, I’m not a big sleeper,” Trump said last November. “I like three hours, four hours, I toss, I turn, I beep-de-beep, I want to find out what’s going on.”
Now, some people are able to function with little sleep. Bill Clinton is cited as an example, and he's the same age as Trump. But comparing Bill Clinton's manner and Trump's, Clinton's mind is clearly still sharp, while Trump is quite evidently suffering from significant personality, memory and cognitive deficits.
The reason Trump sounds like your crazy old uncle, is that -- like your crazy old uncle -- he's getting senile.
When Trump is viewed in this light, everything becomes clear. He thinks he can build a wall and make Mexico pay for it because he's going senile. He is prone to bouts of bile, vulgar tempers and frenetic excitement because he's suffering from Alzheimers. He talks at a third grade level not because of a grand strategy to condescend to his poorly educated audience, but because that's all he can manage. He constantly repeats himself because he can't remember what he just said.
He runs his presidential campaign from Twitter like some 13-year-old mean middle-school over-privileged princess, not because he's some brilliant media savant, but because mental deficits have regressed his intellect to that of a teen-aged girl.
Last year Trump released a bullshit letter from his doctor claiming that Trump was in the best shape any president ever was. It was written just like a Donald Trump press release, and was obviously penned by Trump's PR flaks. Hilariously, Trump tweeted that the letter had been written by a doctor who had been dead for five years. Trump is in such bad shape he can't even remember who his doctor is.
Clearly, Trump is in a constant state of angry befuddlement.
This suggests an entirely new avenue of attack on Trump: the rest of the Republican field should demand that he submit to a real physical and mental examination by a qualified neurologist or gerontologist, instead of Trump's fart doctor.
I'm sure Ben Carson, brain surgeon, can recommend someone as a parting gift as he drops out of the race.
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