Between Donald Trump’s birther nonsense (which was the top story on Anderson Cooper tonight for some reason) and that damn wedding, I’m not watching cable news until next week. Someone send me an email if Gaddafi finally gets killed by one of his sons.
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Do what I do in such situations. Unplug the Cable and immerse yourself in Marx Brothers movies.
yeah, birther nonsense. who cares where he was born. stupid rules we have.
@2 Yeah, Birther nonsense. Every objective party that has looked at birther alledgations for the past three years has reached the same conclusion: he was born in Hawaii, no questions, no doubts. Numerous courts have rejected birther lawsuits as without merit. Those are the rules that we have, and anything else is wishful thinking on the part of 1) people who will only hear or acknowledge the answer they want to hear, or 2) people who cynically know the answer but want to manipulate folks in 1) and/or try to damage Obama politically. Which are you? A liar or a fool?
FWIW, I didn’t vote for Obama, and politically I lean libertarian. But mass stupidity, feigned or real, combined with the currently fashionable contempt for any facts that don’t fit one’s prejudices, is a bigger threat to our society than any one individual.
@3
Every objective party that has looked at birther alledgations for the past three years has reached the same conclusion: he was born in Hawaii, no questions, no doubts
seriously?…you are making the arguement we have objective, non partisan groups in this country? really?
a little reminiscent of bill clinton refusing to release his medical records. dems are lucky they have the msm in their corner so they can get away with this stuff.
by the way, even though we are from the “question authority” generation, remind me again, whats on the list we’re not supposed to question….
holocaust denier
9/11 truther
birther
did i leave anything out?
Lee, do yourself a solid and just cancel the cable all together. Not only did I cancel the cable, when the TV broke I never replaced it. I’ve never regretted it. But then, I don’t watch sports…
Michael,
Perhaps for some reason that therapists would attribute to something that did, or did not, happen in my childhood, I keep cable to watch the Mariners. Why someone would want to watch a train wreck is what keeps therapists occupied. Thankfully, the Mariners did not play today, so their situation did not worsen.
How’s the gawd awful movie (Part 1!) of that gawd awful book fairing?
If you wonder on over to Weekend Box Office you can see how America shrugged over Atlas Shrugged (Part I!)
Last week it opened in 300 theaters and it made $5,600 per screen. This past weekend it expanded to 166 (466) more screens and made $1,890 per screen. Ouch!
So, the message is clear to you teapartiers! out there. Y’all need to see this classic again and again and again. Else we may never see Part II! made. :-(
Now Trumps trying to “question” Obama’s academic credentials. He doesn’t have any facts, he just expresses disbelief that Obama could have gotten into Harvard Law on his own merits “so quickly”.
Gee, four years and a degree from Columbia, then moving straight into three years of law school? That’s the usual academic pathway to a law degree.
Just a couple of days ago Trump was bragging about being a graduate of the Wharton School of Management (at the University of Pennsylvania). He claimed it’s the premier business school in the nation. But it’s only and undergraduate program, not an MBA or a law degree – which is probably why Trump is trying to raise questions about Obama’s academic credentials, so nobody looks too closely at his own.
Oh, and while we are at it, has anybody checked into Trump’s draft status in 1968? His student deferments would have expired upon his graduation. This was before the lottery. So why was he able to return home to work in his Daddy’s real estate business, with NO MENTION of the Vietnam-era draft which would have normally been a big concern for any 22-year old who’s student deferments would have expired. A friend of mine managed to milk student deferments until he graduated from law school about the same time, whereupon he volunteered (in advance of being drafted) and served stateside in the JAG corps. Wouldn’t Trump have been expected to do the same?
Among Trump’s contemporaries, Al Gore volunteered for service in Vietnam, George W. Bush had his Daddy get him a safe gig with the Texas Air National Guard, Karl Rove spread his student deferrments out long enough (without actually attending classes) until he got important enough among the College Republicans go get re-classified as “not subject to the draft”. Cheney similarly avoided the draft by milking his student deferrments until he was safe, and Rush Limbaugh and former Rep. Congressman Jack Kemp used suspicious medical deferments to keep from serving.
@8
oh rhp, i’m sure it was inadverdent, you left out what bill clinton did.
Yep, I did leave out Clinton. And although I don’t expect you to believe it, it was inadvertant. I was planning to include him AND John Kerry, but I got side-tracked and forgot to go back and pick that up.
The problem is, that you have a number of Democrats who opposed the war but served anyway (Kerry, Gore, etc.). Then there are those who opposed the war but managed to avoid the draft by working the system (Clinton). Then you have some Republican politicians who approved of the war and served (McCain, etc.). Then you have a whole line of “ChickenHawks” who approved of the war in general, and every other war in which they could commit American trooops, but went through considerable effort to avoid getting into harm’s way themselves (Rove, Limbaugh, Cheney, Bush, Kemp, etc.).
By the way, Kemp’s an awfully strange fellow – asked for, and received an F4 draft status because he claimed bad knees, then went on to play professional football for the better part of a decade on those same bad knees.
Oh, and I forgot to add – Trump graduated from a military high school in New York State, he even led a unit from that school in the Macy’s parade in New York City in 1964. I wonder how many of his classmates went on to serve in Vietnam?
Look, the Vietnam war was a difficult time, and I’m not going to throw too many stones at someone for making some difficult decisions when they were 18 or even 22 years old.
But with respect for those who DID serve, many of whom died or were maimed, I think any politicians from that era should be forthright about their situation with respect to the draft and honestly present the details and why they did what they did.
What draws my attention to Trump’s biography is that at least in Wikipedia, there is NO MENTION of his draft status, which is rather unusual. If he’s discussed it before, I haven’t heard of it.
I suspect what probably happened is that, given the manner in which draft boards were organized at that time, Trump got a “pass” as a white, wealthy protestant son of a prominent local businessman. He wouldn’t be called up as long as their were sufficient minorities, poor, and middle-class potential inductees available to fullfill the quotas. Fred Trump probably didn’t even need to pull any strings for his son to get such favorable treatment, it was pretty much the way things were conducted back then. Which was the whole reason the draft board system was abolished, in favor of the lottery, in order to create fairness in the process.
Heck, I’ll even give Richard Nixon credit for that one. Nixon was acutely aware of the difference between opportunities he received as a middle-class son of a family of modest means, and those of the priviledged classes, and he did his best to correct some of those discrepencies. His signing of the Affirmative Action plan was one of those attempts to level the playing field.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/.....-research/
Breaking News!!!
Attn: manofshit
@8 Right. How in the world could someone whose Daddy bought him a bachelor’s degree from Wharton (What? Not even an MBA?) comprehend how someone of modest means could have managed to get into Harvard, much less earn a law degree?
Guess what, Donnie…..there’s something called “hard work”. Not that you’re likely to have been exposed to the concept in your entire pampered, Teddy-boy life.
To the rest of you: If you think George W. Bush was a man of superior intellect and high moral standards, you’re gonna love this guy.
Trump knows very well that he is preying on the stupid in this country by advancing the birther bullshit. Like Jeffery Tobin pointed out on AC last night, John McCain was actually born outside of the US, but that’s never questioned and it is because McCain is white. Period.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....e-Election
Here’s one for the puddybitch…
Trump is a gift to the Democrats. He is distracting with silliness and demonstrating the bankrupcy of the republican party’s ideas. Which reminds me, which does Trump have more of, bankrupcies of divorces?
Haley Barbour withdrew from the 2012 White House race yesterday (before he ever officially was in it), by claiming that he didn’t have the “fire in the belly” to commit the next ten years to the job (2 years campaigning, then eight years in office).
That’s a credible excuse for a man of 62 years, but in less than 24 hours those close to Barbour have been quick to tell the press the real reason: Barbour was convinced he couldn’t win against Obama.
The first part of the analysis was that a sitting President has lost a bid for re-election only twice since WWI: Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter. In both cases the incumbent was hampered by a bad economy, a strong challenge from within his own party, and a third-party candidate which bled away votes.
Barbour thought he could find a path to survive the primary process, but he couldn’t find a way to win the general election. He has problems of his own: racially insensitive comments and positions, a southern base which doesn’t appeal to centrist voters, a prior career as a lobbyist, and a physical presence which isn’t exactly inspiring, which he himself described as being “a fat southern redneck with a deep drawl in his speech”.
All in all, I think he’s right – he can’t win against Obama. Sure, he could bring along with him the southern states which Republicans would be expected to win anyway – but he’s got too much going against him to carry electoral-college rich swing states like Florida, Ohio, and California.
“or” not “of” at the end.
What I don’t see among the Republicans, especially the newly-minted Tea Party candidates, is an electoral college strategy that would take them through the general election. Palin, Trump, etc. are so blinded by the adoration they receive from the faithful that they can’t recognize that it’s only a small percentage of the national electorate, and it has a very poor chance of turning into a Republican majority of the electoral college – especially with a Tea Party celebrity as it’s standard-bearer.
By the way, I predict that once Glen Beck is off TV, probably sometime next month (the date seems a little fluid), he’s going to throw his hat into the ring. Which should provide some great entertainment value.
Usually Republicans can be counted on to fix their internal debates in sufficient time so that the Republican convention comes off like a well-oiled machine. This time, however, we may have a floor fight which goes on for several ballots, with the Tea Party delegates refusing to compromise and multiple ballots. You saw a bit of that in the Rossi-Diddier contest here in Washington last time around, with Diddier refusing to endorse Rossi even after Rossi had clearly won the nomination. It’s quite possible we might see one or more Tea Party candidates attempting third-party, or independent, bids for the Presidency in the general election.
Koch Brothers Invade Facebook to Recruit Right-Wing Think Tank Automatons to Be Placed Around US
Where in the f*** is that wingnut Klynical?
He is ignoring my progress in his favorite poll-
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 22% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18.
I’ve got those wingnuts right where I want them. Klynical & his pals should also acknowledge only 66% of Americans believe we are still in a recession.
19: Officially, Trump has more divorces than bankruptcies, because he always arranges his affairs so that it’s not he himself who is in bankruptcy, just businesses in which he holds a controlling interest. That’s how he shouts down anyone who claims he’s filed bankruptcies, claiming that he (personally) has never claimed bankruptcy in his life.
As a business matter, I’m not that concerned about whether Trump’s business ventures filed bankruptcy or not. At least it’s a controlled process of re-structuring or disolving a business, where everyone knows the rules about who gets what, and when. It’s not quite as bad as some out-sourcing, union-busting, hiring illegal labor, or violating workplace laws. But when Trump’s business interests file bankruptcy, it goes against Trump’s claims of what an incredible business man he is.
I have to confess that the thing which makes me so opposed to Trump isn’t really political, but personal (or cultural) for me. I grew up in an evironment where you never tooted your own horn, if others didn’t talk favorably about you then you didn’t have much to bragg about anyway. It’s all part of the “respect is an earned, not given” culture. Trump’s braggadocio is completely contrary to that value system, and may be more of a “New York” culture than my own.
But even setting that aside, there’s not much in Trump’s background to indicate he would be a very good President. He’s never been involved in government, at any level. Even Dwight Eisenhower expressed frustration over being unable to get much done – he was accustomed to given orders, and things would get done. As President, he found out that he could give orders, and more often than not nothing happened. I can’t imagine Trump being able to perform any better than Eisenhower in that position.
There is nothing like a paid special session, to signal the “Idiocracy” of giant budget cuts.
Couldn’t be done in a regular session, saving $$$ DUH
@24 STFU, troll.
@22 STFU, Klown.
Instead of boring old cable “news”, watch free over the air digital tv instead. Channel 28.2 (Tacoma – KBTC) carries the MHz Worldview channel which, among other programming, carries foreign newscasts like: Al Jazeera English, France24, Russia Today, NHK, and DW.
http://www.mhznetworks.org/mhz.....ogramming/
And yes, I can receive it in Seattle, with my tiny indoor antenna.
@2 It’s nonsense when people insist on believing things that plainly aren’t true. Saying the moon is made of cheese doesn’t make it edible.
Let’s recap the Wingnut Nonsense we’ve heard lately:
1. If Dino Lossi loses an election, it must be because Dean Logan printed up extra ballots in the storeroom.
2. If a black Democrat gets elected president, he must be a closet terrorist trained in an Indonesian madrassa.
3. If the economy collapses on the GOP’s watch, it must be the fault of those damn Democrats and socialists!
Sheesh.
Here’s another one:
If a gun nut with white supremacist ties shoots a Democratic congressman (and a bunch of other people), he must be a lefty.
I’m sure other people here can think of a lot more.
@4 You are solidly in the category of people who believe what they want to believe, facts be damned.
@7 You’d think the wingnut foundations would be out there buying up tickets to hype the sales figures like they do for wingnut books.
Wingnut Perpetual Motion Machine
Scientists say it’s impossible, but they make it work. Here’s how:
A wingnut factory publishes 1 million books. Then the wingnut factory buys all 1 million of the books it published and donates them to a landfill. Rinse, repeat. This process keeps going on forever.
@18 “he didn’t have the “fire in the belly”
More likely he didn’t have the “money in the coffers” to make the run.
@8 “Among Trump’s contemporaries, Al Gore volunteered for service in Vietnam …”
Don’t forget Roger Rabbit, who left home as a teenager, worked his way through college (completing a four-year degree in three years by taking extra classes and going to summer schools), volunteered for Vietnam, then went to law school on the G.I. Bill … and while I was doing all this, Rush Bigmouth was sending photos of a pimple on his ass to his draft board and Donald Trump probably was out there breaking into parking meters …
@17 “Which reminds me, which does Trump have more of, bankrupcies of divorces?”
They’re probably equal: An infinite number of each.
Marrying Donald Trump is essentially the same thing as a one-night stand.
@22 “Where in the f*** is that wingnut Klynical?”
Probably got syphillis from one of his goats and died.
Has anyone looked for Mr. C over on Sucky Politics to see if he’s still got a pulse?
41 – No. It’s been nice around here without him.
7 – Who needs Atlas Shrugged? Just watch Paul Ryan – that’s randroid psychodrama enough.
# 36: “…and Donald Trump probably was out there breaking into parking meters …”
Actually, I think he was evicting tenants from his Dad’s apartment buildings, which isn’t much better on the moral scale of justice.
Okay, I finally found Trump’s quotes on Obama’s academic credentials:
Translation: “My rich white friends have sons who can’t get into Harvard, it’s unthinkable that someone like Obama (black, not rich) can get in when they can’t.”
And disecting the statement a bit more…
(1) Trump’s got the Republican talking point game down pat. He makes a lot of wild, general accusations, challenges Obama (or any other Democrat) to disprove them. If they take the bait, he would then insist that their proof isn’t sufficient to convince him, who in his mind is the only judge which needs to be convinced.
(2) Gee, I guess Obama’s the ONLY President who’s never released his grades? Offhand, I can’t think of any President (or candidate) who HAS released their grade transcripts.
(3) The fact that he graduated from Harvard Law Magnum Cum Laude speaks for itself.
(4) Trump can’t stand the thought that Obama might be smarter than he is, so he wants to believe that somehow he, Trump, got into Wharton School at the Univ. of Pennsylvania on his own merits (possible, but his Dad’s wealth probably had something to do with it), and somehow construct a scenario in his own mind that Obama didn’t deserve to get in.
(5) This is a back-handed racial insult, just another way of saying that the only way a black man could get into Harvard Law was because he was given preferential treatment(i.e., affirmative action). He’s appealing to the same folks who believe that they are being discriminated against because,surely, all those blacks/asians/hispanics in colleges can’t ALL be smarter than little Bubba Jr., who has been told by the admissions counselers that perhaps he should consider community college instead.
Roger Rabbit @ 30,
Atually, I don’t believe they’ve ascertained the shooter’s politcal affiliations. He’s just a plain nutcase.
I beleive Obama will win in 2012 because the Republicans have no one to run against him. Trump is a sideshow – once he garners enough attetntion, he’ll move onto another publicity stunt.
Obama will get re-elected, but the Republicans will at least maintain the House and possibly take control of the Senate. That’s not such a bad situation because a government divided can do less harm.
I’d like it very much if we’d wrap-up the adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. I would have thought Obama would have ended those by now, but he can’t seem to get his agenda accomplished in regard to Afgahanistan or Iraq. We should also begin shrinking the empire by removing our troops from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ve been running this empire on borrowed money, and it’s not sustainable any longer. It means a much smaller military with less need for such things as advanced fighters and long-range tanker aircraft. A smaller military also means less jobs for those who are not college material or cut out for college to begin with, so unemployment is likely to rise.
I’d say this adjustment from “World Cop” to an “At Arm’s Length” friendly neighbor should take at least a decade. Maybe somebody else will step into the responsibility of trying to run other countries’ lives, but it’s time for the US to give it up.
I don’t know what China and Russia will do once we withdraw from the “fight,” but we should proceed on a path of reduucing our military and staying out of foreign disputes.
# 45: China has actually been doing quite well by staying out of foreign disputes. In the meantime they are simply buying up foreign assets and leasing out their workforce to run industries where the native country’s workforce doesn’t have the education or experience.
And on to local news….
I’ve always been a bit befuddled by Kemper Freeman Jr.’s quixotic battle against Light Rail, or any other form of mass transit, coming to Bellevue. After all, wouldn’t his real estate ventures profit from an expanded customer base? Doesn’t he, himself, get frustrated by the congestion on the bottle-necks (bridges) between Bellevue and Seattle?
Well, it seems he has a partial solution – at least as it applies to himself and his friends. He just received permission from the Bellevue City Council to operate up to five helicopter flights a week, landing on the Bank of America Building (on the N.E. corner of the intersection bordered by Bellevue Square to the S.W., and Lincoln Square to the south).
So, he and his friends can travel right into the heart of downtown Bellevue from anywhere he can land a helicopter, without having to worry about traffic in Bellevue at all.
Atlas Shrugged blows…
The sound you hear is that one invisible hand clapping.
via BJ
Hmmm, at an average of $10.00 per ticket (although a lot of these were probably matinee prices, maybe $8.00 each), a quick estimate of audience numbers is 87,900 over two weeks.
Now, you put 87,900 people in one stadium, and it seems like an impressive number. Even dividing them into a number of meeting rooms, etc., it seems like a lot. Which is why the Tea Party celebrities are under the illusion that everyone agrees with them, and that they are riding the crest of a national movement which will sweep away liberalism and the Democratic Party forever.
But in terms of a national election, 87,900 people is just a drop in the bucket. And don’t forget that some of those audience members were probably dragged their by a member of their family.
Boy Scout,
The books are always better than the movies. I’ll watch the DVD of “Atlas Shrugged” when it becomes available. I didn’t think the progressives on this blog would have much good to say about the movie, and you guys haven’t let me down. After all, the real opposite of progressives is Libertarians, not Republicans. Republicans are just the other side of the Big Government Party that has taken over government since the beginning of the Republic.
Republicans have no more interest in shrinking government and reducing federal power than they do in memorizing the Icelandic Eddas.
@44 He’s a nutcase who hangs with white supremacists. And how many liberal white supremacists do you know?
@44 (continued) I think it’s reasonable to infer that a nutcase who shoots a DEMOCRATIC congresswoman probably isn’t a Democrat.
Sheesh. Trying to reason with a winger is like trying to teach a brick to sing.
@50 Libertarian 04/26/2011 at 6:34 pm,
Just to be clear, the book, Atlas Shrugged, sucks. We could discuss the myriad of ways that it sucks on so many levels, but why waste time?
While we probably agree that nearly everything the Republican Party has put forth as its principles over the past 30 years is either a lie or a scam, if you are indeed of a Libertarian persuasion you are the mark the Grifting Old Party is happy to have in the audience.
@20
By the way, I predict that once Glen Beck is off TV, probably sometime next month (the date seems a little fluid), he’s going to throw his hat into the ring. Which should provide some great entertainment value.
entertainment off the charts, but you’re way, way off on that one.
Roger,
I don’t know any white supremacists. Was the guy who took a shot at Reagan a disgruntled Democrat? No, he was just a nutcase. Was Squeaky Frome a Democrat? I don’t think she was much of anything on the political spectrum, but she was found by the Secret Service boys with a weapon at some event where Gerald Ford was speaking. Remember that? I think she’s still in the slammer.
I haven’t heard anything that ties this guy in Arizona to any particular political philosophy. He’s just a nut.
As far as “Atlas Shrugged” goes, the book is better than the movie. I don’t think the Libertarians are being duped by the Republicans because most Libertarians recognize that the Republicans are just as much a part of the problem as any other major political party is: they just want to get elected and stay elected. {Yet another good reason for term limits.}
At least the guys who are doing “Atlas Shrugged” are using their own money to try to distribute the film. The Hollywood establishment is not too interested in helping that project because they aren’t exactly Libertarians to begin with. That might make it hard to get screens for themovie. Kelsey Grammar said the Hollywood establishment tried to do its best to stop “An American Carol” some time back. You may not remember that one, but it was a parody of Michael Moore. Bill O’Reilly even did a cameo appearance where he slapped the living daylights out of the guy playing Michael Moore. I thought it was funny.
The Republicans, too, don’t have any reason to want the movie to be seen. The Libertarians are just as disdainful of the Republicans as they are the Democrats. Has anthing really changed in the past 100 years that didn’t invovle an increase in the power of the federal government? Terrorists attack a building in New York. Response: yet another cabinet-level department and another bureacracy filled with surly government employees. The Patriot Act and all the entities formed when it was enacted should be repealed and un-done. We’re losing personal freedoms at an alarming rate, and it’s time to slap the government senseless and put it in its proper place as the servant of the poeple, not the master.
If you guys disagree, tough bananas! I could care less.
Go Trump and go birthers; it’s good to see the right throwing leftist tactics right back at them. The more violently the left ridicules you the more you know that you’re doing something right.
Read Wing Nut Daily and go ever more bat crap insane.. That’ll win you a lot of elections.
Oh dear. It seems we’ll not be
tortured withtreated by Atlas Shrugged Parts 2 & 3.‘Atlas Shrugged’ producer: ‘Critics, you won.’ He’s going ‘on strike.
Well there you go.
The maker of Atlas Shrugged is going to Go Galt on you lame teapartiers. Why? Because the minions of the tea party follow the liberal media critics like lemmings.
Will not Glenn Beck save us?
# 57 said: “…The more violently the left ridicules you the more you know that you’re doing something right.”
Ridicule isn’t an act of violence. It’s a combination of humor and contempt, perhaps even satire. And no, just because you are being ridiculed doesn’t mean you are doing something right. It could also mean that you are doing something which is so patently ridiculous it calls out for ridicule.
That’s why the Republicans have generally been such easy subjects for satire: for comedians, it’s a target-rich environment. Their own words write the script, as Carson Daily & Colbert discovered. All you have to do is repeat what Republican politicians say with a straight face, try unsuccessfully to control your laughter, and eventually give up and collapse in laughter at the utter absurdity of it all.
Republican attempts to try similar approaches against the Democrates have been stunningly unsuccessful.
@57 “Go Trump and go birthers”
They all need a new gig, seeing as how the long-form birth certificate was just released on their lame asses. Chumps.
It’s Law & Order re-runs for me. Can never get enough Lenny Brisco (aka Jerry Orbach), who had to go and die of cancer on us a few years ago.