Your Daily Trump

I realize I'm not posting these every day, but the news items come out every day, several each day, and the title is catchy. Will it keep him from being nominated at the convention? Maybe. If it does there will be mayhem. The mob doesn't care if he's a swindler or a liar or a thief or a rapist (that's the newest story).

The Gothamist, out of NY, reports that Trump is being sued for the alleged violent rape of a 13 year-old girl in 1994. He also allegedly threatened to kill her and her family if she ever spoke about it.

Trump’s bankruptcies: his companies tanked but he pocketed lots of money. Is this true? Politifact says yes it is.

Trump’s campaign seems to be paying a lot of its money to Trump himself. What a con trick. WinningDemocrats has the details.

Trump’s mob connections? Well known.

Reported by CNN.

Verified by Politifact.

Trump’s “christian” backers are from that wing of Christianity that says Jesus favored the rich.

The Daily Beast has the story on this, but there are other reports readily available. Trump will roll Christians as readily as he will roll gamblers at his casinos. And the Christians he rolls with are con men of a similar type.

Minnesota Public Radio is reporting that one of Trump's top “christian” advisors is Michele Bachmann. You kind of wonder. Does she support Trump because she thinks he’ll bring the end of the world? Possibly, because when the world ends, Jesus will come, or so she believes. Which may explain how bizarre and deranged her ideas are. Planned catastrophe in the name of her savior. Like throwing your children in front of a car or off a bridge so Jesus will save them. A dangerous kind of psychopath.

This bizarre idea of Bachmann's is may represent another plan to fulfill one of her favorite biblical prophesies. Place America in such imminent danger that wiser heads will step in, allowing her to point and say “See? The Antichrist. Just like the Bible says.” Bushwa. LeftWingNation has the audio of Michele discussing Obama's evil plan in a radio interview.

CBSNews is quoting former first lady Barbara Bush: “I don’t know how women can vote for Trump.”

To balance all of the white haired Republican ladies in their pumps and pearls, we have the millions of Trump’s other more unpleasant followers. From the New Republic.

Is Michele Bachmann Right After All?

World Net Daily (always fascinating) reports Michele Bachmann blames/thanks Obama for triggering the End Times. Hooray! Now Jesus will come!

A priest on FoxNews says we can't trust our "atheist president" because he isn't afraid of eternal damnation.

The Dallas Morning News reports Texas Governor Abbott has called out the National Guard to keep watch on U.S. Military maneuvers which he thinks are a secret plan to take over the state of Texas.

(This is from way last year) Tom Delay, unseated corrupt Republican Speaker of the House, explains how God wrote the U.S. Constitution.

In Kansas, a new law permits prosecutors to put teachers in jail for assigning books they disapprove of.

In Texas, the state has approved a new history textbook for schools which includes Moses as one of our Founding Fathers.

The Guardian makes an interesting observation: in most American cities police can be put in jail for shooting animals, but not for shooting people.

Speaking of the Baltimore riots, New York Magazine published this interesting list of times white people have rioted, burned and looted over stupid things like basketball teams winning games.

On Fox'N'Friends a black woman put in a leadership post in the Miami police raises fears she might be a dangerous Muslim terrorist.

…maybe these are the End Times.

Give War A Chance

This Iran deal has Republicans upset. The point seems not to be whether it’s a good deal or a wise deal but that it’s a deal reached by a Democrat. And a black Democrat at that.

Scott Walker promises to blow up the deal, no matter what our allies think. (Washington Post)

But even the very conservative Chicago Tribune has these treaty-haters figured out, explaining they'd hate anything Obama did.

The less exciting but more rational experts are also weighing in, saying it’s a better deal than they’d dared hope for. (Mother Jones has links to all of them)

The consensus among experts who didn't plan the War in Iraq is that the deal is a good one.

(Slate)

(Vox)

All the rightside pundits are alarmed. Is it because an Iran deal would decrease the likelihood of another profitable war? Apparently.

(Peggy Noonan)

Of course Ms. Noonan’s hero and former boss, Ronald Reagan, did business with Iran. He did business with them, cut a deal with them, even before he was president. He arranged that Iran would hold the American’s hostage until he was sworn into office. Clever move. It probably got Reagan elected. (Reagan's Secret Help-The-Hostage-Takers Deal from 1979)

But Reagan didn’t stop there. He later sold the Iranians weapons to arm their mideast terrorist allies. He did it secretly, and used the proceeds to arm our own terrorists in Central America. Again, secretly, because it was illegal to do so. (Iran-Contra)

Those involved were criminals. But they were pardoned. And many of them are now criticizing Obama’s nuclear disarmament deal with Iran. They seem to like arming Iran, but don’t like disarming Iran.

Former congresswoman Bachmann is ever ready with the inapt comparison. Such an unfortunate mouth on that woman. (Mrs. Bachmann compares Obama to a psychopathic mass murderer)

On this Easter weekend you have to wonder if the superChristians in the superpatriotic Republican Party are disappointed because the Middle East might not deliver the full scale global war that prophecy has promised them. You know, the one that means that Jesus is coming again to sort out the dead.

Republicans don’t like peace. They don’t like calm prosperity. They like ructions and chaos and financial collapse. Why? Because it’s more profitable of course. Profitable for their clients. Profitable for their chums who’ve bought short positions on the U.S. and the world. The calamatists who’ve been squirreling away all that gold expecting it to zoom up when the edifice collapses again. They love a nice spectacular collapse. They know how to profit from collapse. When things go really really bad, they're clients will still get rich selling weapons.

Dumb and Dumber-Republicans on Camera

Heck, it's Friday. Here's a short collection of the stupidity of the Republican presidential field. Our allies and friends must really wonder about us.

Rick Perry's goofy speech in New Hampshire

Rick Perry's oops moment in the recent debate

Herman Cain's prolonged inability to answer foreign policy question in Milwaukee

Michele Bachmann's long list of gaffes and misstatements

How do choose one Sarah Palin gaffe from among so many? Here's the goofiest.

Here's some choice Gingrich. The man is funnier when he's wrong because he's so arrogant about it.

Romney, the robocandidate, always seems prepped and memorized. Or is it a microchip? He's still consistently and woefully out of touch with average Americans. Here's a recent instance reported in The Week.

Out of touch? Are we surprised? After all, Romney made his millions by leveraging and downsizing American companies and moving their jobs overseas, as this NYTimes story reported.

We've forgotten how inept a Republican president can be. I wonder sometimes if the ineptness is a blind, a way of diverting our attention so we don't see how hard and effectively Republicans work to degrade the middle class and cater to the very rich.

Bush had many excruciating moments. His father set a low bar when he vomited in the lap of the Japanese president, but Bush Junior had no trouble going lower. I remember his glassy eyed pauses best. I'm remembering one especially long pause in a 2004 debate. I'd describe it as a fugue state. He won re-election anyway, thanks to a few Diebold machines in Ohio.

These Bush gaffes are almost too numerous to catalog.

And another bit of pure Bush, on camera, on mike. Scary.

A carefully reported story about President Bush cheating during the 2004 debates was spiked by the New York Times. Why are Republicans shielded from serious reporting? Maybe the stupidity act makes the news media feel protective.

Michele Bachmann Should Scare Us

Curl up close to the AC with a tall cold drink and try not to let this Rolling Stone article scare you enough to wet your pants. It's a must read.

Michele Bachmann metastasized several years ago and it's too late to stop her now. Please don't laugh. We've spent several years laughing at her––because she is funny, like those improbable bimbos in Scary Movie––but, seriously, this is one of those times when we need to be afraid. We need to be worried. We can't run away. We need to confront the danger for what it is.

Maybe it comes down to the Big Lie. Bush Jr. had a gift for the Big Lie, but Bachmann is even better at it. She's faster and she's everywhere. (Is there an end-times creature that has the power to be in many places all at once? Where's my Book of Revelations?)

Bush seemed to lie without comprehending. He was as clueless as the average American. Bachmann has this cunning ability to state falsehoods as if she believes them utterly, as if God himself whispered them in her ear. As if they are true because she believes them. And while the mean journalist is pointing out what she's gotten wrong or asking her to clarify a misstatement, she's onto another lie larger and stranger than the last. She does it without blinking, and her sincerity vouches for every word.

Also there's her delivery. Her falsehoods are fired off in rapid clusters making it hard to shoot them down. You can't stop them all. While the knowledgeable person is questioning her about one lie in a paragraph of lies, she's quickly on to other lies bigger and stranger than the last bunch.

Her career resembles W's in another way. She makes us laugh. Apparent inadequacy is sometimes charming and amusing. Someone this ill-informed and strangely-informed ought to be laughed out of politics, but because America loves to laugh and the news media is forbidden to tell a Republican they are lying, Bachmann is media gold.

And unlike Bush, she doesn't appear to be stupid. Someone smart enough to know better who is so provably wrong about so many things becomes downright dangerous. She is smart enough to know better, so there is a reason she pushes the ridiculous and the false.

Unlike Bush, it isn't flim-flam. She isn't someone else's puppet. With her it's a cultlike zealotry. She is on a personal crusade. It's a belief system based on the end-time notion that if she can cause enough irreparable harm, wreck enough public institutions, pour enough sand in the works, derail enough systems, impoverish enough people and allow the very rich to steal enough money, and get the rest of us to herd ourselves down the sluice toward economic and environmental disaster... if she can make things bad enough, Jesus will come and rescue us, or at least rescue the people who voted for her. And if you believe that will happen, maybe we all deserve the outcome.

Governing Like There's No Tomorrow

There's an excellent piece about Michele Bachmann in Mother Jones. I've written essays and satires on this strange rapture-wishing, and am surprised there isn't more discussion of the odd priorities that apocalyptic thinking pushes to the fore.

Let the environment go to hell, let global issues fester and explode, let the financial system collapse, make the world fall apart so Jesus will come.

They also want to be in government so they can run it into the ground.

Does Israel know the kind of ally they have in these strange Christian rightists? They want Israel to exist so it can be drowned in blood. These Christian "friends" are like greedy heirs who hover around a "loved one" hoping he will die soon, and plotting to make it happen. It is the stuff of a bad murder mystery, which everyone ought to be able to see through.

Hate Radio Jock Opens Minnesota Legislature for Republicans

Just after I'd sent my Pasquino letter this morning I heard that this same hatemonger, Bradlee Dean had been invited by MN Republicans to open the legislature with a prayer. I've heard it. It wasn't the usual non-denominational, non-partisan stuff. It wasn't a hate-filled screed like his radio show, but it was very very partisan. It drew an appropriate but very measured response from the Democrats. It deserves a much louder and angrier response from the public.

This next clip is especially good. And it isn't new. Dean was a chum of Tom Emmer's last fall. Did it get him noticed by journalists?

Why, if Rachel Maddow was reporting Dean's creepiness and GOP friendliness in 2010, is he unreported enough to be invited to open the Minnesota legislature. I realize the Dump Bachmann website is a tad partisan. But Maddow does her reporting well.

The Strange BFF of Minnesota Republicans

Maybe you think we shouldn't give Bradlee Dean any more attention, but "no-comment" tends to validate his message.

I often listen on weekends when I'm in the car, and my jaw drops. I can't quite describe the spiel. A cross between Jack Van Impe and Father Coughlin, with Ozzy Osbourne and a little bit of gushing twelve year old valley girl thrown in––lots of "hell-O!" and "Wake up Am-merr-ick-A!". There's also the eager sidekick saying amen to everything. Faux evangelism can be riveting.

Here in town we get a couple of hours twice each weekend full of Obama is a Nazi (and/or a Commie), Come-to-Jesus, Gays are stalking our kids, the country is in danger so grab your guns, heed/ignore the Constitution and take back/take down the government. Two full hours of tinfoil hats and bible verses. I've also heard bits of race baiting and Jew hating slipped in, like the accidental disclosure of KKK robes worn under his radio costume. Muslim hating and gay hating are the main agenda. And hatred of our present elected government and the president, lampooned with the familiar racist schtick.

It would be interesting and helpful to get some intelligent analysis of the spiel, the linguistic or rhetorical trickery of it. Why is it so mesmerizing? Why is it attractive? Who does it fool? How can advertisers be comfortable with it? Who is funding this guy? And how has he evaded criticism, not to mention his taxes.

And why the hell is it on radio every weekend? Possibly because it's hypnotically interesting. Like Glenn Beck done by an adolescent boy. But why no local criticism? When filth like this goes out on the air unchallenged a lot of people assume it's because it's valid and true. But it's a familiar flim-flam. An updating of Lonesome Rhodes and Father Coughlin with a heavy metal guitar haircut.

http://minnesotaindependent.com/2652/because-god-said-youth-ministry-uses-deception-to-gain-access-to-public-schools

This from a Presbyterian minister, writing in the Pioneer Press ten years ago. Note that there is no mainstream media reporting on this goon.

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0616-02.htm

The alleged Muslim/sharia/homosexual threat:

http://minnesotaindependent.com/74635/bradlee-dean-keith-ellison-is-advancing-sharia-law-through-homosexual-agenda\

The Bradlee Dean spiel linking Obama-Nazis-Muslims-homosexuality-the Holocaust and (in case that isn't interesting enough) saying the execution of gays is a moral act. As Dean himself would say: "Hell-O!"

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bachmann%E2%80%99s-favorite-ministry-joins-fischer-link-gays-holocaust

http://minnesotaindependent.com/58393/gop-linked-punk-rock-ministry-says-executing-gays-is-moral

http://minnesotaindependent.com/59761/bradlee-dean-says-minnesota-independent-twisted-his-words

http://minnesotaindependent.com/59568/hard-rock-ministry-says-jailing-gays-is-right-thing-to-do

http://minnesotaindependent.com/53940/bradlee-dean-sharon-lubinski-u-s-marshal

It doesn't take long with some of these charismatic rockstar "ministers" before you find the actual reason they became a religion. Tax exempt status. Rock and roll doesn't allow you to not pay taxes.

http://www.rippleinstillwater.com/2010/12/did-you-can-run-but-you-cannot-hide-get.html

Some youtube video on Dean and his Republican/right wing friendships

http://www.youtube.com/user/MNPOLITICS#g/u

Michele Bachmann praying for Bradlee Dean's "ministry" of hate:

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bachmann-supported-group-claims-rep-ellison-using-gays-impose-sharia-us

If you would rather learn constitutional law from a former drug addict and rock performer than a professor of constitutional law at Harvard, you can enroll in Bradlee Dean's class for $240:

http://shop.youcanruninternational.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=106