I hate saying it, but I agree on something with Morning Joe

If the Republican Party wants to do what is best for this country and its national security, they will remove Devin Nunes as Intel Chairman.

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) March 22, 2017

matryoshka

(Trump associates' links with Russia: what we know so far)

Trump! Now with more Trump!

“I am who I am. It’s me. I don’t want to change. Everyone talks about, ‘Oh, well you’re going to pivot.’ I don’t want to pivot.”  

So said Donald Trump on Tuesday.

And if there are any members of the GOP still desperately holding out for the long promised pivot, those hopes came crashing down the very next day when Trump doubled down by choosing Steve Bannon, executive chairman of the radical right fringe Breitbart.com "news" site, as his new campaign chief -- a man called "the most dangerous political operative in America" by Bloomberg Businessweek.

How radical right fringe is Breitbart.com? Media Matters gives some of their worst headlines in an article here which include:

Sorry, GOP. Trump is who he is.

GOP Convention Day Four Theme: "Tomorrow Belongs to Me"

I'm here in Cleveland and I managed to get some video of the rehearsal for the last night of the GOP convention. Rehearsal? Right! I guess there have been so many missteps, they're leaving nothing to chance for the grand finale. Anyway, the rock group Queen has repeatedly requested that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump no longer use their song "We are the Champions" as his theme song, so the Trump campaign has gone in a different -- and some might say -- a more appropriate direction. From my iPhone:



Looks like the focus group of delegates are eating it up! Can't wait to see Trump enter to this!

They will also be revealing the new campaign poster:

I'd say another winner!

As per the program notes for the evening, directly after Trump gives his speech, Hillary Clinton -- having been tried in absentia and found guilty by potential Attorney General Chris Christie -- will be dragged into the Quicken Loans Arena where her head will be shaved and she'll be "shot for treason." 

What a show!

Video Highlights from Melania Trump's Convention Speech

(CNN: "Melania Trump's speech plagiarizes parts of Michelle Obama's")

(Melania Trump: “He will never, ever, give up. And, most importantly, he will never, ever, let you down.” Vox: "Did Melania Trump include a Rickroll in the middle of her convention speech?")

Trump Announces Running Mate

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump announced his longtime spokesperson, John Barron, as his running mate for the 2016 election at an early morning press conference. Barron said about Trump, “He’s a good guy, and he’s not going to hurt anybody." Barron further remarked that Trump was “doing well financially and he’s doing well in every other way.”

(Yes, I totally stole the premise of this joke from Bill Maher. So bite me.)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the GOP Presidential Primary Leader:

Added: And, the runner-up:

Hey, Trump! Your slip is showing.

Trump Doubles Down on Closing Mosques: 'We're Gonna Have No Choice'

Trump on rally protester: ‘Maybe he should have been roughed up’

Donald Trump Tweets A Wildly Inaccurate Graphic To Portray Black People As Murderers

Trump’s outrageous claim that ‘thousands’ of New Jersey Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attacks

God knows what he'll say today...

Whenever Ben Carson speaks...

...It should be mandatory for the media to followup by playing this clip:

BREAKING! Carly Fiorina has seen video proof of zombie outbreak!

Here it is!

 

 Just in case you were wondering, when Ms. Fiorina said at the debates last night:

"I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says, 'We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain,'" Fiorina said Wednesday night at the GOP presidential debate, during a discussion about a congressional vote on defunding Planned Parenthood.

1. No scene anything like the one she described were in any of the versions--edited or unedited--of the Planned Parenthood videos put out by Center for Medical Progress.

2. There was a scene of a baby in a mini documentary by Center for Medical Progress that was not filmed at any Planned Parenthood, that may have simply have been ten-year-old stock footage of a preemie that was used to *illustrate* someone's never proven claims about Planned Parenthood.

See here, here, here (and numerous other sites).

But by all means, let's shut down the entire government over a scene that was not in the videos she claimed it was in and that did not show what she claimed it did!

And, by the way, when she was the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, she illegally sold hundreds of millions of dollars of computer products to Iran, meanwhile every single investigation of Planned Parenthood about those videos has turned up nothing illegal.

Question

Question: Are the other GOP presidential candidates more happy or sad today? Happy because Trump's comments slamming McCain for being "captured" in Vietnam make them all look less extreme? Or, sad because his racist comments about Mexicans are going to lose the few Latino voters the Republicans had?

true

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography. Homophobia is God's way of teaching us the names of Republican governors.
— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) March 31, 2015

(h/t to Gyma @ A Spork in the Drawer)

It's their party and they'll do what they want

Congressman Mike Doyle Knows His Internet Memes!

And puts them to great use -- good on him!

Can I burn down your house? No Just the 2nd floor? No Garage? No Let's talk about what I can burn down. No YOU AREN'T COMPROMISING!
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) October 2, 2013

UPDATE: And Congress just went into recess because of reports of shots fired near/around the Capitol--so much for a lighthearted post...

An interview with a member of the Tea Party Caucus in the House

"I can smell the booze wafting from members as they walk off the floor"

While voting to shut down the government Saturday night, apparently some of the House members weren't just drunk on power. From a Politico Congressional reporter:

I'm not over exaggerating when I say I can smell the booze wafting from members as they walk off the floor.
— Ginger Gibson (@GingerGibson) September 29, 2013

And from a Buzzfeed reporter on Capitol Hill:

I def saw more than 1 member of congress putting a few back on Penn earlier. Ran into 2 in the liquor store.
— KateNocera (@KateNocera) September 29, 2013

And before they even got drunk, they were already acting like drunken pigs:

[T]hey have added a “conscience clause” to the spending bill which takes away preventative care from women, which includes birth control.  

[snip]  

Friday afternoon, Republican John Culberson from TX got huge applause from his colleagues when he compared the GOP’s effort to destroy Obamacare to the heroes of 9/11. Culberson compared the House Repubs to the passengers on United Flight 93 who overtook the terrorists and got control of the plane on 9/11. Yes, Seriously.

This is your government on drugs Tea.

How The GOP Lies

Subtly, very subtly.

Take a look at this from Talkingpointsmemo:

Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign is touting his support for the Violence Against Women Act — even though the Republican Senate minority leader has a consistent record of voting against the anti-domestic violence legislation.

Um, what?  How can they possibly do that honestly?

Here's how:

A press packet that McConnell’s spokeswoman distributed to reporters at a Friday event titled “Women For Team Mitch” features testimonials from Kentucky women. One of them caught the eye of Joe Sonka, a reporter for the Louisville-based LEO Weekly, who posted it on Twitter.

The quote, attributed to a woman named Angela Leet in Jefferson County, read, “Mitch was the co-sponsor of the original Violence Against Women Act- and continues to advocate for stronger policies to protect women. I am proud to call him my senator.”

You'll note the word "original" in the tweet.  That's how they get to say that the guy who's consistently voted against VAWA gets to look like he supports it.

A few more things to note about McConnell's support of the bill.  According to this page from Thomas, the principal sponsor of the bill was a certain Senator from Delaware: Joe Biden.

Yes, the same Joe Biden who's now President Obama's Vice-President.

Gee, that being the case, I wonder why didn't the McConnell campaign say he "co-sponsored Vice-President Joe Biden's original Violence Against Women Act"?

By the time the bill was reintroduced - in 1993 with a Democrat in the White House, (a coincidence, no doubt), McConnell voted against it.

This is how they get to lie.

The Party Of Reagan?

Senator Bob Dole doesn't think so.

Here he is being interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News this past Sunday:


Thanks to Think Progress for a transcript:

WALLACE: You describe the GOP of your generation as Eisenhower Republicans, moderate Republicans. Could people like you, even Ronald Reagan — could you make it in today’s Republican Party.

DOLE: I doubt it. Reagan couldn’t have made it. Certainly Nixon couldn’t have made it, 'cause he had ideas. We might have made it, but I doubt it.

Understandably, while this story's made its way onto much of the left leaning news sources (talkingpointsmemo, americablog, and so on), I was wondering if there was any (ANY) echo on any conservative blogs.

Well, my friends, take a look at this from the American Conservative.  After quoting Dole's interview with Wallace about how Reagan "couldn't have made it" in the contemporary GOP, W. James Antell III writes:

This has become a common refrain among a certain kind of Republican. Jeb Bush said much the same thing, throwing his father into the mix of party elders who would be out of step with today’s GOP.

Dole’s legislative accomplishments ranged from being part of the bipartisan majorities that passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to playing a key role in the passage of the Reagan economic program. The Republicans of his era were more temperamentally conservative, even if less ideologically so. They believed in balanced budgets and would have been horrified to hear a party leader say “deficits don’t matter.”

Newt Gingrich, who became Dole’s partner in crime during the GOP Congress of 1995-96, is a good example of the party’s evolved brand. He led Republicans to their first House majority in 40 years, displaying a creativity that past Republican leaders conspicuously lacked. But he was undone by his excesses, cultivating an image of partisanship, over-the-top statements, and a penchant for unpopular crusades.

Today’s GOP is as much Gingrich’s party as Reagan’s or Nixon’s. Chest-beating often replaces prudence, the party frequently makes use of both libertarian and traditionalist themes without taking either of them very seriously.

Um thanks, Newt?

But at least that's rational - check this out from breitbart.com.  Guess what?  Instead of countering Dole's argument (and positing some evidence that Reagan WOULD be welcome in the contemporary GOP, they just BASH DOLE INSTEAD:

Dole complained that he would not make it in today's Republican Party. However, Dole could not make it in 1976 on the bottom of the GOP presidential ticket against when the Party ran against Jimmy Carter or the top of the ticket 20 years later when he ran against Bill Clinton.

And that's hardly surprising considering the state of the contemporary GOP.

More On Senator Marco Rubio's Geological Knowledge

He's been called one of the rising stars of the GOP and one of the symbols of the future.

He's also got a lot to learn about science.

Take a look at this from GQ (h/t to ThinkProgress). When asked how old he thought the earth was, he responded:

I'm not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that's a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I'm not a scientist. I don't think I'm qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries.

Yes, there are "multiple theories" about how the universe was created (some of them actual science, most of the others are not), but that's not what he was asked.  He was asked about the age of the earth - and to that question he said he wasn't sure "we'll ever be able to answer that."

But he's wrong.  It's not much of a mystery and  - that age isn't much in dispute.  It's about 4.54 billion years old (give or take 50 million).

The funny thing about Rubio is that he's not even being consistent with his own church.  He told Christianity today that:

I'm a Roman Catholic. I'm theologically in line with the Roman Catholic Church.

Ok, so what does the Roman Catholic Church say about the age of the earth? Let's take a look at this document from the Vatican website:

According to the widely accepted scientific account, the universe erupted 15 billion years ago in an explosion called the “Big Bang” and has been expanding and cooling ever since. Later there gradually emerged the conditions necessary for the formation of atoms, still later the condensation of galaxies and stars, and about 10 billion years later the formation of planets. In our own solar system and on earth (formed about 4.5 billion years ago)...[Emphasis added.]

So Rubio disagrees with his own church?

More anti-science from the GOP - the future of the GOP.

Three things to remember during the debate about the Fiscal Cliff Fiscal Curb

1) Ronald Reagan: "Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit."



2) A nonpartisan tax report which found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth was withdrawn after G.O.P. protest.

3) Nobody actually cares about the deficit like they say they do:




(h/t to Digby for items 1 and 3)