Tag Archives: donald trump

CPAC2013: Keep F*cking That Chicken

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On Bill Maher’s New Rules segment this week, he talked about a “relatively small group of very shrill people [who are] devoted to — and succeeding at — convincing us that this is a much more conservative and religious nation than it is.”

Maher goes on to explain that CPAC is merely an extension of such devotion:

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Maher discusses his term Shit Kicker Inflation ”the phenomenon of all things conservative being portrayed as way bigger than they really are” with the following examples:

  • ONE MILLION MOMS: the number of followers that One Million Moms has on Twitter: 2,258. 
  • THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE: just as there aren’t a million moms in One Million Moms, there is no “league” in The Catholic League. It’s one guy with a fax machine.
  • OBAMACARE: as an idea, it’s unpopular. But ask voters about the elements in it, they’re all very popular. It’s like saying “I hate pizza! I love tomato sauce and melted cheese on dough, but pizza? I hate that shit.”
  • GUNS: gun ownership is actually DOWN in this country… way down. And yet the NRA, with just 4 million members, has a stranglehold on the gun policies in a nation of 300 million.
  • CPAC2013: Among the featured speakers at CPAC this year include Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Rick Santorum, Wayne LaPierre, Donald Trump, and Sarah Palin… a virtual who’s who of what the fuck.

Here are some highlights from a few of CPAC’s featured who’s who of WTF:

Sarah Palin: ”We’re not here to rebrand a party [but to] put on a fresh coat of rhetorical paint.” Then she said: “More background checks? Dandy idea, Mr. President. Should’ve started with yours.” Fresh birther paint!

Next, she dazzled the audience with a boob joke followed by heroically (according to crowd reaction?) drinking from a Big Gulp. Wolverines!

“Outside the ballroom afterward, CPAC attendees raved about the stunt. “Hilarious.” “I thought that was awesome.” “I loved that.” One woman I spoke to said the moment “just really symbolized American freedom.” A man named Tomas told me that Palin holding up the Big Gulp “gave a new look to the Statue of Liberty.” Whether or not anyone, including Palin, realized that Mayor Bloomberg’s soda restrictions wouldn’t even have affected Big Gulps is not clear.” – Dan Amira




Freedumb!

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Donald Trump: “Behold, the scene at Donald Trump’s CPAC speech this morning in the main ballroom. Empty seats were everywhere, although it’s not entirely Trump’s fault. He was given an 8:45 a.m. speaking slot, the very first of the day. Many CPAC attendees aren’t even out of bed yet. Still, Trump was invited not because of his conservative bona fides (he’s donated more money over the years to Democrats than to Republicans), but because he’s supposedly a crowd-pleasing draw.”

Pre-speech:

Post-speech:

These empty seats are Totally False.

Photos via ‘flunky’ Dan Amira

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Mitt Romney: “‘It’s up to us to make sure that we learn from our mistakes — and my mistakes,’ Romney told the crowd Friday. [...] Romney’s re-emergence at CPAC comes after months spent almost entirely out of public view. People close to him say he consumes large volumes of news every day on his iPad and on Fox News. He stews as he reads the coverage of the various budget showdowns in Congress, frustrated that the president has pursued what he sees as an aggressively liberal agenda that won’t solve the country’s economic problems.”

So to Mitt Romney, “learning from his mistakes” includes continuing to bravely watch Fox and continuing to bravely label the President’s insistence on a balanced approach to deficit reduction (spending cuts alongside closing loopholes and subsidies for the wealthy) an “aggressively liberal agenda.” Sure. Apparently the only mistakes Mitt made with his CPAC speech were omitting some birther jokes and not drinking from a Big Gulp.

Let’s be honest: the theme “America’s Future: The Next Generation of Conservatives” really doesn’t describe CPAC. This annual gathering of wingnuts could be more efficiently labeled “Keep F*cking That Chicken.”

Related: Keep F*cking That Chicken

God Save Us from the next generation of conservatives.

Bill Maher explains Donald Trump’s $5 million lawsuit against him (and #Apers)

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Huffington Post: Donald Trump is suing Bill Maher for $5 million in charity donations after “proving” his biological father is not, as Maher joked on “The Tonight Show,” an orange-haired orangutan.

Politico: Trump’s attorney Scott S. Balber released a letter following Maher’s comments and attached a copy of Trump’s birth certificate. “Attached hereto is a copy of Mr. Trump’s birth certificate, demonstrating that he is the son of Fred Trump, not an orangutan,” Balber wrote in the letter.

Seriously! And the best part? Trump released a short-form birth certificate!

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Maher explains,

“Let me catch you up on how all this got started. During the last week of the presidential campaign last year, Donald Trump – who previously had been a one-issue candidate obsessed with Obama’s birth certificate – announced that he would give $5 million to charity if Obama produced his college records. Because a black guy getting into college? Something fishy there.

So playing on the fact that the only other thing in nature with the same color hair as Trump’s is the orange-haired orangutan, I joked that Donald Trump needed to show HIS papers to prove HE wasn’t hiding a bad secret about HIS birth. This is known as parody. And it’s a form of something we in the comedy business call a joke.

Naturally I also aped, if you will, Trump’s offer of a charity of HIS choosing… which I identified as The Hair Club for Men. Really? We’re going to court about this? Well, this upset The Donald so much that they could barely get him to stop flinging his feces…

[...] You know, I’ll tell you something: the legal system in this country, it’s not a joke. It’s not a toy for rich idiots to play with. And, frankly, Mr. Balber, what you released raises more questions than it answers. At least it does to a growing chorus of patriotic Americans who call ourselves ‘Apers’ …”

Watch the whole thing. Hilarious.

The Donald flinging his feces:

Feb. 4:
1

Yesterday (Feb. 9):
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Is low testosterone causing some of the problems in Washington?

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Get off my lawn! Why some older men are so grouchy

The look: A scowling face, a wagging finger, and a shaking head. The targets: The economy. Teenagers. Windmills. Some informally dub it “grumpy old man complex.” British author Carol Wyer labels it “irritable male syndrome,” a spike in the outward crankiness of guys of a certain age. As more baby boomers hit 60 — the age when male grumpiness seems to kick in — be ready for a growing chorus of grouchy flare-ups, like a Donald Trumprant set to explode.[...]

Testosterone levels generally fall as men age, according to the Mayo Clinic. Such hormone drops are known to dampen male moods, says Dr. Ridwan Shabsigh, head of the International Society of Men’s Health and a urologist in New York City. “Testosterone is a hormone that grows muscles, reduces fat in the body, affects energy, and improves sexual desire,” Shabsigh says. “However, it also has neural-psycho effects. And in some men we encounter in our practice, those affects can be mostly visible: low mood and irritability.”

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Donald Trump: Patron Saint of Butthurt

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via: bunnyfood

Except for Donald Trump.

MMFA: Shortly after TV networks called the election for Obama, Trump tweeted, “He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!”

trump1

Eleven minutes later, Trump tweeted, “More votes equals a loss…revolution!”

trump2

[...] UPDATE: After this item was posted, the tweets were deleted from Trump’s account.

Donald Trump is a horse’s ass and other thoughts on Romney’s lies about Jeep

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dailydot: That awkward moment when the Senior Vice President of Design at Chrysler (which owns Jeep) calls you out on Twitter.

Detroit Free Press: “The larger question is: Why is this coming up at all at this late stage of the campaign? The answer is simple, political experts say. Both sides have known from Day One that this campaign would hinge, in large part, on the saving of Detroit’s signature business, and it’s still in Romney’s eleventh-hour interests to change the narrative that Obama gets the credit, especially in blue-collar parts of the battleground state of Ohio. No Republican president has ever won the White House without winning Ohio, and Romney — in most polls — trails there. [...] Melissa Miller, a political science professor at Bowling Green State University south of Toledo, said she doesn’t think the Romney campaign would be making the claim if they didn’t think it was going to help them, though she thinks its effectiveness is very much in doubt. “He’s probably put some fear in the minds of some people who work for Jeep, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re being told right there on the factory floor — by management — that this is a false claim,” she said.”

Romney Style: How to Destroy Your Campaign’s Credibility in Five Easy Steps:

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The Romney Campaign’s game plan: Fear. And hoping Ohio voters are stupid. It is literally all they have.

Hunter / Daily Kos:

“A reminder: Mitt Romney has had to absolutely kowtow to this man. [...] Does Mitt Romney—or any Republican, for that matter—care in the slightest that Trump is a rotten boil on the political landscape? Do they give a damn that the Republican brand has so thoroughly been reduced to pandering to the least common denominator of their base, all the rest of reality be damned? Of course not. No matter how big a fool this dimwitted, Palinesque publicity hound makes himself, Mitt Romney will still shake his hand, and Paul Ryan will still hold private fundraisers with the man. [...] Welcome to the modern Republican Party. These are the people who are chosen not to be shunned, but to speak for the party, and guide the party, and raise money for the party, and appear on television for the party, and hold the reins of party leadership. Congratulations, Republican Party. Whatever depths of vapidity and grifting you might have been aiming for, I’d say you’ve managed to get there and then some.”

Tweet of the Day:

FIVE DAYS LEFT: VOTE!!

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Donald Trump. Or the GOP. Really.

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So what was Donald Trump’s huge, birther-related, campaign-shattering, October-surprise announcement?  If Obama will release all of his college transcripts and passport applications, Trump will contribute $5 million to the charity of Obama’s choice. The Guardian: “This is not a media event or about Donald J Trump,” [Trump] wrote – a claim that, if true, would have made it unique in his professional career. “This is about the United States of America.” Oh, but it very much was about Donald J Trump – and far from being a gamechanging revelation, the much reported revelation, when it finally came, wasn’t even a revelation. It was a two-and-three-quarter-minute YouTube video in which the mogul, sitting behind a desk and seemingly channelling the spirit of a Bond villain, offered Obama “a deal I don’t believe he can refuse.”

Hell toupée

via: topherchris

“This all dates back to when we were growing up together in Kenya. We had constant run-ins on the soccer field. He wasn’t very good and resented it. When we finally moved to America I thought it would be over.” — President Barack Obama mocks Donald Trump offer on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Trump mocked on Twitter: Tweets spanning the political spectrum skewered Donald Trump Wednesday after his much-publicized announcement about President Barack Obama — which he billed as a bombshell — turned out to be a bust.


via: megseg311

image

The Onion:

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The Daily Show:

  

  
  
Source: sandandglass


hobolunchbox: October surprise.

Colbert Report: 
  
  
  
  
Source: sandandglass

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“Direct those questions to Boston because Donald Trump is Mitt Romney’s biggest supporter, so he owns everything he says.” — David Plouffe, quoted by Politico, when asked about Trump’s much-hyped video announcement today.

Oliver Willis: “In February, Trump recorded robocalls for Romney, then endorsed his candidacy. That was followed by a Romney fundraiser that offered dinner with Trump as a prize to donors. Just a few days ago, Trump was one of the designated “special guests” at a “Romney Victory Fall Retreat.” Trump’s executive vice president and special counsel Michael Cohen told Business Insider that Trump has given “millions” to SuperPACs supporting Romney’s candidacy. Despite Trump’s long history of indulging in conspiracy theories, hyping nonsense and trafficking in classic hucksterism, conservative media dutifully promoted Trump’s latest attempt at getting his name back in the news. Steve Doocy, co-host of Fox & Friends, promoted Trump’s stunt this morning, noting, “I’m sure we’re going to be talking about it tomorrow.”” (Steve Doocy, Fox & Friends, CNBC’s Squawk Box, Fox Nation, The Drudge Report, World Net Daily…)


Hunter-DailyKos: “A reminder: Mitt Romney has had to absolutely kowtow to this man. [...] Does Mitt Romney—or any Republican, for that matter—care in the slightest that Trump is a rotten boil on the political landscape? Do they give a damn that the Republican brand has so thoroughly been reduced to pandering to the least common denominator of their base, all the rest of reality be damned? Of course not. No matter how big a fool this dimwitted, Palinesque publicity hound makes himself, Mitt Romney will still shake his hand, and Paul Ryan will still hold private fundraisers with the man.

Just like Mourdock. Just like Akin. And Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and the ridiculous Steve King, and Paul Ryan himself, the king of unicorn-based math and fleecing the poor to make the rich a bit fatter, and just like Mitt Romney himself, the poster child for the very sons of bitches that wrecked the economy by putting casinos within casinos, shoving those casinos in bigger casinos and claiming the whole thing was so goddamn patriotic and freedom-loving that you were practically un-American if you chastised them for it.

Welcome to the modern Republican Party. These are the people who are chosen not to be shunned, but to speak for the party, and guide the party, and raise money for the party, and appear on television for the party, and hold the reins of party leadership. Congratulations, Republican Party. Whatever depths of vapidity and grifting you might have been aiming for, I’d say you’ve managed to get there and then some.”

Racism in the Republican Party? That’s mind blowing!

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Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski posted a photo entitled: Man At Romney Rally Wears Mindblowingly Offensive Shirt: “The Getty Images photo was taken at a Romney/Ryan campaign event in Lancaster, Ohio on Friday. A Romney spokesperson commented that the shirt was “reprehensible and has no place in this election.””


(Getty)

Are their “minds blown” because the guy wore an offensive shirt or because he wore a shirt that loudly proclaims the racism that they’ve all participated in but agreed to not be so blatant about? It’s okay for Mitt to joke that “no one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate” (and to use Donald Trump and his flagrant birtherism for campaign cash), to run ads claiming President Obama is cutting welfare requirements to “shore up his base,” and to speak to a room full of wealthy people, like him, about how 47 percent of Americans won’t take personal responsibility for their own lives and that’s why they’ll vote for Obama.

That’s all supposedly quieter, just some harmless dog-whistling. But according to Team Romney, this shirt is “reprehensible and has no place in this election.” Uh huh — it has no place in this election NOW, four weeks from Election Day, when they’re trying to appeal to potential voters outside their circle of extremists.

But guess whose minds aren’t “blown” by this shirt? Everyone who’s been paying attention to the Republican Tea Party since 2008.

SNL and Bill Maher on The Undecided Voter

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We’re all pretty tired of it…

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“There’s still a lot we don’t know. And we want answers.”

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Bill Maher also tackled undecided voters on Friday night — AND the media who celebrates them:

Huffington Post: With less than two months until the election, Maher advises those who still don’t know who they’re voting for to “stay home” on Nov. 6, because they probably won’t be able to find their polling places. He doesn’t understand why undecideds such as “Octomom” Nadya Suleman are being celebrated or painted as more discerning than the rest of us when Barack Obama and Mitt Romney couldn’t be more different.

“And that, in a nutshell, is America’s celebrated, undecided voter: put on a pedestal by the media as if they were Hamlet in a think-tank, searching out every last bit of information, high-minded arbiters pouring over policy positions and matching them against their own philosophies. Please, they mostly fall into a category political scientists call ‘low information voters,’ otherwise known as ‘dipsh*ts.’”


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The Teapublican National Convention will be anything but a moderate affair

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Paul Harris with The Guardian reports on the terrible shitstorm of the century that’s about to hit Tampa — and how it might be impacted by Hurricane Isaac. Harris describes the difficulty Romney will have attracting moderates while being nominated to run for president by a party base comprised of socially conservative “Christians,” anti-government wackadoos, and tea party “patriots.” It will be a perfect storm of the most extreme, vicious, and radical versions of the GOP that have ever existed.

The article describes the various extreme elements to watch for, such as Todd Akin with his legitimate rape theory — which is who and what the RNC’s official abortion platform actually matches. There will be birthers, seven in all, as featured speakers. Will four three days be enough time for all the fresh birther jokes? And any mention of marriage equality and gays should rile the attendees to a level of primate frenzy not fit for national coverage. So The Girl With the Faraway Eyes will be there, speaking at numerous events, doing her part to rile them. Herman Cain will talk about how Obama is failing black people and maybe Jesus, and to offer his personal attention to any lonely female attendees. Ted Cruz will undoubtedly speak about the huge threat of Sharia Law… and Muslims.

The article doesn’t mention the “surprise” appearance of the shadowy OPSEC Group, a reincarnation of Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, run by Republicans, funded by nameless billionaires (none of whom were probably ever in the military), and comprised of a few former U.S. intelligence and special forces personnel who dislike the president enough to use their past service in a political campaign to advance a guy who dodged the Vietnam draft for 30 months in France. They want to tell America that President Obama had about as much to do with the take down of Bin Laden as did Snooki from the Jersey Shore. Not that any of these people were anywhere near the Bin Laden operation, but … you know, they once had super important Jason-Bourne-like government jobs — so you should just believe them. And it’s anyone’s guess how their swift-boating will be “honorably” represented this year, without the little purple-heart bandaids.

And at some point Donald Trump, with his intricately spiraled hair hat, will amaze the attendees with his originality by shouting at an Obama impersonator: “You’re fired!”  Naturally, some will believe it’s really happening, while the others will pretend they didn’t see that coming, and the crowd will go mouth-foaming wild. Count on The Donald to serve up another fresh birther joke as well.

But for Mitt, the real ugliness will be Ron Paul and his legion of disciples:

[...] A final thorn in Romney’s side could be Texan congressman Ron Paul. Libertarian-leaning Paul is bowing out of national politics, but his followers are going to be vocal in Tampa, highlighting their beliefs in minimal government, an anti-war foreign policy and getting rid of the Federal Reserve. Now thousands of Paul supporters are holding a three-day festival in Tampa in his honour. Paul himself will speak tomorrow night at a rally at the University of South Florida’s Sun Dome. Coverage is hardly likely to leave the impression that Romney heads a united or a moderate party. One thing that could dampen things is Hurricane Isaac, which is barrelling towards Florida and may yet force some of the convention to be delayed or cancelled. “For Romney, that is probably a blessing in disguise,” said Bowler.

We’ll see if Reince Priebus and Mitt have observed what’s arrived in Tampa and decided that the hurricane will be a danger to the attendees every day this week except for Thursday night. It’s pretty bad when a hurricane would be the best thing that could happen to Lord Romney’s convention.

“Statesman of the Year” is a “prestigious” award, obviously

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Donald Trump will be in Florida a day before the Republican National Convention kicks off to receive a “Statesman of the Year” award from the Sarasota Republican Party. A spokesman for Trump said he is “honored to be the recipient of this prestigious award,” according to Mediaite.  Prestigious! 

If Republicans didn’t give each other these meaningless silly prestigious awards, who else would?

Morning Bunker Report: Thursday 6.7.2012

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WHAT ROMNEY / REPUBLICANS STAND FOR———————————————

Creepy young Mitt Romney: did young Mitt Romney like to impersonate a police officer? Another witness says yes — When Mitt Romney was a college freshman, he told fellow residents of his Stanford University dormitory that he sometimes disguised himself as a police officer – a crime in many states… And he had the uniform on display as proof. [...] Said Madden in a recent interview, “He told us that he had gotten the uniform from his father,” George Romney, then the Governor of Michigan, whose security detail was staffed by uniformed troopers. “He told us that he was using it to pull over drivers on the road. He also had a red flashing light that he would attach to the top of his white Rambler.” In Madden’s recollection, confirmed by his wife Susan, who also attended Stanford during those years, “we thought it was all pretty weird. We all thought, ‘Wow, that’s pretty creepy.’ And after that, we didn’t have much interaction with him.” – National Memo


image: randomactsofchaos

The self-hating union members in Wisconsin – Romney said: “The union members, they’ll support us. Without the union members who support our campaign and support conservative principles, we wouldn’t have Scott Walker win in Wisconsin if that weren’t the case.” Exit polls showed that, while Barrett won a huge victory among union members, Walker nearly tied him among people who live with union members. – Washington Post

Maddow doubts whether Democrats can survive flood of dark money – “In just about every election, if you are outspent eight-to-one, then you are going to lose,” Maddow said. “There is occasionally going to be a Hail Mary, miracle underdog, but over time, structurally speaking, remove the personality and just think about this in political science terms, if you are outspent that kind of way — the way that Republicans can outspend Democrats with unlimited corporate money — the Democrats are going to lose.” Democrats have called for the Citizens United ruling to be overturned with a constitutional amendment, but the proposal is almost unanimously opposed by Republicans. Maddow described the amendment as a “very, very long term goal.” “Do Democrats have a realistic way to survive in elections to even try to get to the medium term, let alone that long term, if Republicans are systematically defunding the Democratic Party in a way that renders Democrats incapable of competing?” – Raw Story

imageJohn McCain’s Reindeer Games: what does defense spending have to do with farm / nutrition issues? Nothing, of course — The McCain amendment [to the FARM bill]… would require Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to file a detailed report by Aug. 15 on the security effects of the nearly $500 billion defense sequester. [...] Though the push to reverse the defense part of the sequester is especially popular among Republicans, the move to attach the McCain measure to a delicately negotiated, $969 billion bipartisan farm bill could be just the first of many to threaten final passage. [...] Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said earlier this week he is willing to have an open amendment process on the bill as long as amendments fall within the purview of the legislation. The big question now is whether Republicans will demand amendment votes on proposals such as McCain’s, which are not directly relevant to farm or nutrition issues. – Roll Call News

  • J.M. Ashby sez, do it! I encourage congress to pass this amendment. Why? Because It will not serve the GOP’s interest. In fact, it may shut them up. [...] The $500 billion sequester will be drawn out over a period of 10 years. It’s not going to come all at once. Military spending is still going to increase over the next 10 years, but it will increase by $500 billion less than it otherwise would have over that time period. Furthermore, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have already expressed confidence in their budget which accounts for the sequester. The same budget Paul Ryan accused them of lying about when they expressed their satisfaction.

Florida Governor Rick Scott Officially Defies Justice Department, Vows To Continue Voter Purge – In a letter sent [last] night, Florida Governor Rick Scott said the state will continue to purge registered voters from the rolls despite the Department of Justice’s warning that the effort is illegal. The Miami Herald reports, “the letter all but dares the Justice Department to sue Florida for allegedly violating the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.” – Think Progress

WHAT THE PRESIDENT / DEMOCRATS STAND FOR ————————————

Obama: Bush Tax Cuts For Wealthy Will Not Be Extended, Period – The White House is insisting President Barack Obama will not extend the Bush-era tax cuts for wealthier Americans – even temporarily. Obama spokesman Jay Carney said the president has been clear in his opposition to extending tax cuts for households with annual incomes above $250,000. Tax cuts for people of all incomes are due to expire at year’s end. — HuffPo

Serious legislating is ‘all but done’ in 2012 – “[M]y message to Congress is, get to work,” [President Obama] said over the weekend. “Right now, Congress should pass a bill to help states prevent more layoffs, so we can put thousands of teachers and firefighters and police officers back on the job. Congress should have passed a bill a long time ago to put thousands of construction workers back on the job rebuilding our roads and our bridges and our runways.” There was no realistic chance Congress would heed the president’s call. Not only have GOP lawmakers rejected all credible efforts to boost the economy, but at this point, Capitol Hill doesn’t really intend to do much of anything before the election. [...] [O]n Tuesday, [House Majority Leader Eric Cantor] all but predicted 2012 substantively over… The rest of the year, Cantor said, will likely be about sending “signal[s] that we’ve actually gotten with the reality here, that we have huge problems to deal with.” So, after a year and a half of getting practically nothing done, we can now expect to see Congress engaged in “signal” sending, not policymaking, for the next five months. – Maddow Blog

Obama For America TV Ad: “Jobs” – The President’s jobs plan would put teachers, firefighters, police officers, and construction workers back to work right now. And it’s paid for by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more, but Congress refuses to act. Tell Congress we can’t wait: http://www.barackobama.com/JobsNow

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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi calls on Republicans to cancel next week’s recess (which will be the NINTH RECESS OF THE YEAR) — “Instead of recessing yet again, the House should remain at work and pass critical legislation that will create jobs for the middle class that will actually be signed into law. Republicans must not run out the clock on the economy,” the California Democrat said in a letter to Speaker John Boehner. “As House Republicans prepare for yet another week of recess, hundreds of thousands of construction workers, businesses large and small, and others in the transportation industry, and millions of college students and their families are facing imminent hardship,” Pelosi said, adding that “statements from the House Republican leadership have raised alarm among middle-class families and American businesses concerning your commitment to acting on the middle-income tax cuts and the debt limit.” – Roll Call News

From yesterday’s press gaggle with White House press secretary Jay Carney on Air Force One:

Q: Can I ask you about the California fundraisers, in particular? The President is getting a lot of heat over cavorting with showbiz types. Rush Limbaugh is referring to him as Barack Kardashian, can you believe. What is your response to that? (Laughter.)

CARNEY: Two words — Donald Trump. Next question.

Laugh OL!

Morning Bunker Report: Saturday 6.2.2012

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WHAT ROMNEY / REPUBLICANS STAND FOR———————————————

Is Mormonism Different Than Other Religions? – I also don’t think Romney’s religion should be ruled entirely out of bounds for discussion. He is running in a party that explicitly states there is no solid separation of religion and politics. And the current president was pummeled mercilessly for the more radical teachings of his church in Chicago. And Obama was just a member of the congregation – not a former official in the church, like Romney, whose entire identity is bound up with a very particular religion. Mormonism, in other words, should not be tackled differently than any other faith; but neither can it be completely exempted from examination in this election. When a future president puts on white robes and enters a secret Temple on a Sunday, it will be as big a cultural shift as having a black man in the Oval Office. I think Romney should pre-empt bigoted attacks with his own account of how his faith affects his life and politics. Just as candidate Obama did. – Andrew Sullivan

Romney’s ENTIRE platform: If you vote out Obama, you’ll feel better – “This may be the most explicit version we’ve seen of the Romney camp’s intended message: if you’re angry or frustrated by your current circumstances, or about how things are going, vote the guy in charge out, and it will make you feel better. The game plan: to get swing voters to cast their vote almost entirely as an expression of frustration and disillusionment with the economic status quo, and by extension with Obama himself, without thinking too hard about the true nature of the alternative Romney is offering.” — Greg Sargent

The dog that caught the car: What if the Supreme Court actually overturns Obamacare? — In other words, Republicans are offering voters an implausibly rosy proposition: Enjoy the popular pieces of the Affordable Care Act but don’t worry about the unpopular components. […]As a short-term political posture, it has served them well. But now that the Supreme Court might give them what they want, they’re forced to deal with the reality of what it would mean. And that’s a huge wake-up call for the party, especially one without a clear leader to herd the cats as they figure out their next move. — TPM

Romney’s refusal to take on Trump a sign of his “strength” — Anonymous Romney advisers tell Buzzfeed how strategically clever and how tough they’ve been in taking the fight to Obama in an effort to appeal to red meat conservatives, with one example being the refusal to disavow Donald Trump.  As I noted here the other day, the story Team Romney is now telling is that standing up to Trump’s birtherism would represent surrender (a la John McCain) to the liberal media, and not doing so is actually a sign of his strength. —  Greg Sargent

More proof that Rep. Allen West (R-FL) is a complete and certifiable wackadoodle.

WHAT THE PRESIDENT / DEMOCRATS STAND FOR ————————————

Obama Wants to Break Republican “Fever” — “I believe that if we’re successful in this election — when we’re successful in this election — that the fever may break,” Obama said at a fundraiser in Minnesota. “Because there’s a tradition in the Republican Party of more common sense than that.” Republicans may be more helpful on issues such as jobs, debt reduction and clean energy because they won’t be so concerned about defeating him at the polls, the president said. “My hope, my expectation, is that after the election — now that it turns out that the goal of beating Obama doesn’t make much sense because I’m not running again — that we can start getting some cooperation again,” Obama said. [...] “2008 was a significant election, obviously. But John McCain believed in climate change. John believed in campaign-finance reform. He believed in immigration reform. There were some areas where you saw some overlap,” Obama said. “In this election, the Republican Party has moved in a fundamentally different direction.” – USA Today 

CHART: Bush Vs. Obama On Private And Public Sector Job Creation — Even with today’s disappointing and troubling jobs report, private sector job creation under President Obama has far exceeded private sector job creation under President Bush. 40 months into his presidential term, there are currently more private sector jobs in the economy than when Obama came into office. At the same point in President Bush’s term, the total number of private sector jobs was still down 1.7 percent from where it began. […] But there is one area of job creation where President Bush clearly outshines President Obama: the public sector. Public sector employment is now down 608,000 workers since January 2009, a 2.7 percent decline. At the same point in President Bush’s term, public sector employment was up 3.7 percent. – Think Progress

Because ONLY the rightwing media heard an endorsement an the adjective Bill Clinton used – President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign released a statement noting that Bill Clinton’s praise for Romney’s “sterling business record” did not constitute an endorsement of the Republican nominee. – Team Romney (Buzzfeed)

Clinton says his remarks on Romney were ‘twisted’ — Clinton used an appearance at a rally in Paterson, New Jersery to perform a bit of damage control. “I said, you know, Governor Romney had a good career in business and he was a governor, so he crosses the qualification threshold for him being president,” Clinton told the crowd. “But he shouldn’t be elected, because he is wrong on the economy and all these other issues.” “So today,” Clinton continued, “because I didn’t attack him personally and bash him, I wake up to read all these stories taking it out of context as if I had virtually endorsed him, which means the tea party has already won their first great victory: ‘We are supposed to hate each to disagree.’ That is wrong.” — Raw Story

Bill Clinton Slams Walker For ‘Divide And Conquer’ and ‘constant conflict’ In Wisconsin — “And now they look at Wisconsin, and they see America’s battleground between people who want to work together to solve problems, and people who want to divide and conquer — people who know that creative cooperation is working in America, and people who want constant conflict. And here’s what I want to tell you…I think I know a little bit about what would bring America back, what would bring economic recovery, what would enable us to have broadly shared prosperity. And I’ll tell you, if you go anywhere in America today, believe it or not, there are a lot of places that are already back. And they all have one thing in common. They’re dramatically different, but they all have one thing in common: They are involved in creative cooperation, not constant conflict.” — TPM

Romney Economics: Mitt Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts promising more jobs, decreased debt, and smaller government. By the time Romney left office, state debt had increased, the size of government had grown, and Massachusetts had fallen behind almost every other state in job creation.  Other Republicans agree: Romney economics didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.

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Morning Bunker Report: Thursday 5.31.2012

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WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY—————————–—

“There is no more naked celebrity in America than Donald Trump. He doesn’t do subtlety. He doesn’t do ‘thought.’ To say he has a political calculus is a wild overstatement. His strategy amounts to no more than junior high school algebra. The equation is: Trump + infantile public statement x infinite repetitions on TV and Twitter = maximum publicity for flailing Trump products and insatiable Trump ego.” — Frank Rich | image: christopherstreet

Romney’s birth certificate evokes his father’s controversy – Willard Mitt Romney, the certificate says, was born in Detroit on March 12, 1947. His mother, Lenore, was born in Utah and his father, former Michigan governor and one-time Republican presidential candidate George Romney, was born in Mexico. So on a day when real estate and media mogul Donald Trump was trying to help Mitt Romney by stirring up a new round of questions about whether Democratic President Barack Obama was born in the United States, Romney’s own birth record became a reminder that in the 1968 presidential campaign, his father had faced his own “birther” controversy. – Reuters

Where’s Mitt Romney’s Long-Form Birth Certificate? – Just one problem: The document released by Mitt Romney’s campaign is titled “Certificate of Live Birth.” This is, to be clear, the same thing as a birth certificate (it just has a couple of extra words in there and the order is flipped around). But according to three years of commentary from top conservative media and politicos, it’s not enough. “There’s a difference between a birth certificate, apparently, and a certificate of live birth,” said Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a segment last April on the President’s supposedly missing paper trail. The President’s certificate of live birth, reported Fox and Friends host Steve Doocy, “is not the exact birth certificate.” Sarah Palin suggested that the certificate of live birth was insufficient proof of citizenship. As one leading conservative activist put it, “A ‘birth certificate’ and a ‘certificate of live birth’ are in no way the same thing, even though in some cases they use some of the same words.” That was Donald Trump.  – Mother Jones 

Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday denied he was a “birther,” but found it “odd” that President Barack Obama took so long to release his birth certificate. “You know, I’ve never been a birther,” the Fox News host declared. “You know, it was odd that they didn’t release the birth certificate to me. I’m like, you ask me for my birth certificate, it’s pretty easy to get.” […] During his 2008 bid for the White House then-Sen. Obama did release his short-form birth certificate. FactCheck.org concluded  at the time that “it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. … Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.” After billionaire Donald Trump and other prominent birthers refused to drop the issue, the White House released the president’s long-form birth certificate in April 2011.  – Raw Story

Hoekstra Says Feds Should Check Birth Certificates (but it’s not about Obama) – Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra (R) said he’d like to “create a federal office in Washington that would verify that presidential candidates meet the minimum requirements to hold the office,” the Detroit Free Press reports. Said Hoekstra: “This is not brain surgery. It should be an FBI person, maybe a CIA person. If you want to run for president, you’ve got to go with the proper documentation and get it certified that you meet the qualifications to be the President of the United States.”– Political Wire

  • CNN Host Confronts Pete Hoekstra Over Birther Commission Proposal – Baldwin aired a clip of an infamous Hoekstra ad that aired during this year’s Super Bowl, since pulled from his website, in which an actress depicted a Chinese villager thanking Hoekstra’s opponent in broken English for running up the national debt. “Critics called you a racist for that ad,” Baldwin said. “Do you realize that critics might use this office, this proposal for this office, as further proof?” Hoekstra was not happy to see the old wound reopened. “I don’t know why they would take it in that direction,” Hoekstra said.  – TPM
  • Romney surrogate: CNN ‘should be embarrassed’ for covering birther story — Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu, who is now a surrogate for Mitt Romney, on Wednesday blasted CNN host Soledad O’Brien for reporting on the presumptive Republican nominee’s link to birthers like billionaire Donald Trump. – Raw Story

New low for Fox News: Fox News produced its own 4 minute attack video disguised as a retrospective of President Obama’s first term in office and aired it as a “Fox & Friends Presents” special.  […] At the conclusion of the video, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy thanked one of the show’s producers for editing together the segment “for weeks.” But it only took hours for network brass to perhaps recognize the implications of Fox News producing and airing its own attack ads, because they quickly pulled it from the Fox News website with no explanation. Even conservative sites balked at the idea of Fox News producing its own political attack ads. – Think Progress

Tea Party Joe Walsh race baits — “The Democratic Party promises groups of people everything,” Walsh, a conservative freshman from suburban Chicago, said during a Schaumburg, Ill., speech caught on video provided by CREDO SuperPAC, an anti-tea party group. “They want the Hispanic vote, they want Hispanics to be dependent on government, just like they got African Americans dependent on government. That’s their game.” Walsh goes on to say that civil rights activist Jesse Jackson “would be out of work if [African Americans] weren’t dependent on government.” Walsh was elected in 2010, part of a wave of tea party-backed candidates elected to the House of Representatives that year. – HuffPo

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WHAT THE PRESIDENT / DEMOCRATS STAND FOR ————————————

Not much has changed…

image: compeet

Obama Pitches ‘To-Do’ List at Bill Signing – President Barack Obama used the bill signing reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank to again push for his “to-do” list, which has gone nowhere in Congress so far. [...] Obama hasn’t gotten any traction on his “to-do” list, which includes tax cuts for small businesses, a massive mortgage refinancing plan, extending renewable energy tax breaks, a Veterans Jobs Corps and shifting tax breaks from companies that ship jobs overseas to companies that bring them back home.The president also touted his trade policies, which he said opened markets in South Korea, Colombia and Panama, while doubling the number of trade cases brought against China. – Roll Call News

Obama’s political advisor David Axelrod dissected Romney’s record in Massachusetts between 2003 and 2007 in a campaign memo…”Mitt Romney applied the economic philosophy he learned in the private sector to disastrous results as governor of Massachusetts,” Axelrod wrote.”It’s the same formula that benefited a few, but crashed our economy in the first place and undermined security for the middle class. Massachusetts couldn’t afford Romney Economics, and neither can the American economy.” Axelrod said that under Romney, Massachusetts plunged from 36th to 47th out of 50 states in job creation, and despite promises to the contrary raised taxes and fees on middle class families and small businesses. “Meanwhile, he cut taxes for millionaires like himself, handing over more than $75 million to just 278 of the wealthiest in Massachusetts.” — FRANCE 24 | image: mittromeny

Axelrod: A handful of plutocrats are trying to buy the United States – “There was a report this morning that the Republican Super PACs, apart from Romney and apart from his own super PAC, intend to spend a billion dollars in this campaign setting up shadow state organizations—district-wide organizations—as well as running media. So a handful of plutocrats of billionaires with a special interest agenda are going to try and buy this government in this election, and the stakes of that are pretty profound. I’m obviously concerned about the implications for our race, but we’ve braced ourselves and we’ve been talking about this for some time. It’s a concern. It’s one of my big concerns. But for congressional candidates, it’s gotta be a nightmare. We saw in the last election, in the last 3 weeks of those campaigns, Super PACs swooped in and spent huge amounts of money in the final 3 weeks to influence those congressional races and turned a lot of races with their money. I think you can anticipate that in spades this year.” – Raw Story | image: realpolitiks

  • GOP Groups Plan $1 BILLION Push for Romney (that’s billion, with a B) – Political Wire

Help Matt Taibbi Stand Up for Wall Street Reform – To get the word out about Wall Street’s anti-reform push and stiffen spines in congress, we’re trying out Thunderclap, a cool new technology that lets groups of people tweet a single message together at the same time, breaking through the din and reaching a potentially massive audience. (Learn more here.) But we need your help! Here’s how it works: Go here  and click “Tweet this in X days.” On June 6 at 12 pm, together with hundreds of other Twitter users, you will automatically tweet a message –”.@senjohnsonsd @stabenowpress Hear our voices and stop the rollback of Dodd-Frank http://thndr.it/JBZD9Z” – to Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, the chairman of the Senate banking committee and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, chair of the Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over financial derivatives. — Rolling Stone

Wage theft complaints increased 400% in the last decade — According to CNN Money, “More than 7,000 collective actions were filed in federal court in 2011 alleging wage and hour violations under the Fair Labor Standards Act, an approximately 400% increase since 2000.” A 2009 report showed that more than two-thirds of low-income employees had experienced a wage law violation in the previous week alone, prompting Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum to ask, “How many reports of mistreatment do we have to get before we finally figure out that labor violations are rampant in this country?” As the Huffington Post’s Alexander Eichler noted, the weak economy has “reduced the amount of leverage employees have in their relationship with their managers — meaning it’s been especially easy in recent years for bosses to demand ever more of workers while paying them the same amount as before.” – Think Progress

imageThe Pentagon wants to move toward a greener military, one that relies more on renewable energy and less on fossil fuels. Why? It would save lives. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey made that case last October and a recent Army study found that “[a] fighting force that isn’t restricted by the reach of a tanker truck or weighted down by heavy batteries is more nimble and, as a result, more lethal.” …However, there are a few hurdles standing in the way: Republicans. The House GOP included a measure in the defense authorization bill this month prohibiting the Defense Department from buying alternative fuels if they cost more than “traditional fossil fuel.” And the Senate Armed Services Committee last week followed suit with an “even tougher” provision mirroring the House version but also exempts DOD from clean energy standards. Why are the Republicans doing this? VoteVets.org chairman Jon Soltz pointed out yesterday that they get a lot of money from the oil and gas industry. – Think Progress

“The President of the United States was born in the United States. That’s just a fact. It’s not a disputed point. It’s just a fact. It’s like, we have one moon not two. It’s a fact.” – David Frum (Former Special Assistant to George W Bush) on CNN answering the question: Where do you disagree with Donald Trump?

A heads-up for all the dumbasses who aren’t rich but continue to vote Republican anyway

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Mitt Romney campaigned with both of these guys yesterday:

  • Donald Trump: “I mean, part of the beauty of me is that I’m very rich.” 3/17/11
  • Sheldon Adelson: “I don’t take comments from anybody unless they’re rich.  If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?  Now if they’re rich, then they must be smart.” 1/7/11

Unless you’re rich, you don’t count. That’s about the only thing you can take to the bank from these guys. Also, too:

Mitt Romney Wants the Biggest Military Ever, Regardless of Cost — Mitt Romney wants a bigger government, so long as its the kind with more guns and fewer social programs. “We have two courses we can follow: One is to follow in the pathway of Europe, to shrink our military smaller and smaller to pay for our social needs,” Romney told a San Diego crowd of some 5,000 on Monday outside the Veterans Memorial Center and Museum. “The other is to commit to preserve America as the strongest military in the world, second to none, with no comparable power anywhere in the world.” – Mother Jones

You can bet that Mitt does not plan to pay for his biggest, fastest, bestest, most manliest new military with more revenue, such as with higher taxes for himself and the rest of his wealthy friends. You and I and everyone else (who isn’t rich) will be paying for this awesome, Orwellian expansion of our great military (some wars end, some others need to begin!), and the continuation of tax cuts for the one percent, with austerity measures for the rest of us. But maybe it’ll be exciting, like living in a Mad Max movie.

And the dumb shites who have no more money than the rest of us will line up to vote for Romney in November because of mental disorders which they shout from the bumpers of their cars or on Facebook and Twitter or nightly on Fox “News” in a hypnotic, rapid-fire, Tourette-like manner: NOBAMA! BIRTH CONTROL! SHARIA LAW! ILLEGALS! SOCIALISM! ‘MURKIA! JESUS! GUNS! GAYS! COMMUNISM! BIRTH CERTIFICATE!

Which makes the wealthy laugh. All the way to the bank.