US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

from corner comments: Trump is playing a media game and now he has sucked Obama into it ... there is now blood in the water and Trump is energized ...
sexy

trump is a literal clown

What is Trump's official response? Not satisfied, i imagine?

I read it was somthin' like What took so long?

I don't think Truman was shot at -- was he in the Blair House when the Puerto Rican nationalists blazed away?

why? kinda makes my point - these people now look like the sort of people who when you show them two things next to two things and say "see, there's four" say "I see they've gotten to you, too"

I think I was misreading what you were getting at earlier, I thought you were hinting at some sort of resolution to this whole thing but reading back now I think you were referring more to the strategy side of things. I just didn't think this was going to do a single thing to end the ridiculousness and, at least so far, it appears we're heading for more of the same.

my mom was watching FOX NEWS the other day, and Neil Cavuto was talking w/ Karl Rove about Trump...Rove basically said that Trump's decision to make headlines w/ the birther controversy made him impossible to take seriously as a potential Presidential candidate, which seemed to surprise Cavuto, who acted like he honestly thought it gave him some credibility...

Fun with cascade logic

in fairness to Neil Cavuto, he is dumber than a stump

x-post to Morbz Yeah, it sounds more impressive than it is. But here we got rid of a bunch of political violence a long time ago - Charles I, Spencer Percival, and I guess the IRA in Brighton. We just seem to miss out on a lot of political violence :(

i think we ought to distinguish violence that is really political! booth and czolgosz, absolutely. hinkley and zangara, not really. oswald and sirhan, kind of, in a very weird way basically skew from 'real' politics.

giffords' shooter (can't remember his name already!) probably non-political, but he did hate women apparently.

x-post Yeah, absolutely.

James Fallows worth reading here.

5) Speaking of carnival barkers: Every member of the political press knows that the chance of Donald Trump becoming the 45th President of the United States is zero. I say that the chance of Sarah Palin becoming president is extremely low but greater than zero. I will take any bet at any odds against Trump becoming president, for reasons I'll boil down to this: the same circumstances that would make Obama so vulnerable that a Trump could beat him (economic, political, military, or social chaos of any kind you want to imagine), would simultaneously motivate the Republican party to choose a "real" candidate with the best chance of winning the election and running the government. That is, if the Republicans think they have a serious chance to win, they're not going to blow that chance with Trump.

My real point is: knowing for sure that Trump's "lead" in the GOP polls now is a quaint artifact of name recognition, and knowing that there is no chance that his "colorful" background and prima donna manner could stand the long grueling, humiliating ordeal of the primaries and the caucuses and the endless interviews, how long will the press keep acting as the megaphone for this carnival barker? Why aren't they jumping all over him now, for the patent idiocy of his "birther" claim, rather than acting as if somehow he has scored a point by making Obama react? In reality, he'll be on the stage with the press' megaphone until people get bored with him -- which gradually but undeniably has happened to Palin.

btw you guys' endless fascination w/ these crazies is exactly why dissatisfied libs will be "driven into Obama's arms," as per every prez election post-Reagan.

these crazies are setting the GOP agenda fyi

Yes, but:

no chance that his "colorful" background and prima donna manner could stand the long grueling, humiliating ordeal of the primaries and the caucuses and the endless interviews

= truth bomb.

I don't know, the thought of Obama completely destroying Trump in a head-to-head debate brings a smile to my face.

here's hoping hubris will make him try anyway xp

the entertainment value of a Palin/Trump/Huckabee debate would be very, very high

^^^ otm

it would be an escalating competition to see who could dodge the most questions

I still crack up about how Palin spent half of her debate with Biden saying, "I would not like to answer that question, but instead want to blather on about the thing I was coached on that I still know nothing about" in response to questions.

"I paid for this microphone...and her's, and that other guy's too."

On the subject of hypothetical stuff though, tbrr for a sec, the thought of Trump as president terrifies me SO much more than Palin as prez.

Fuck my state's governor with a rusty chainsaw btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B72p4nDreo

Holy hell, that's guy's a little too tightly wound.

fyi we have a rolling right-wing thread AND a 2012 speculation thread for this tabloid nonsense

I still crack up about how Palin spent half of her debate with Biden saying, "I would not like to answer that question, but instead want to blather on about the thing I was coached on that I still know nothing about" in response to questions.

― I just like… I just have to say… (Starts crying) (DJP)

i still can't believe people conned themselves into believing she did a decent job during that debate but then again people are conning themselves into believing infant obama was conspiring from birth to be prez or w/e.

these crazies are setting the GOP agenda fyi

Not entirely true -- that's why the TPers are calling Boehner a sellout -- but meantime let's just be grateful that our Rock Star and his Goldman Sachs pals are at least smart and nasty to us, and keep out mouths shut in steerage.

i still can't believe people conned themselves into believing she did a decent job during that debate

Extremely low expectations

Boehner isn't as batshit insane as the Teabags, but he's still certifiable. that he's seen as "sane" has more to do with how very unhinged the GOP base has become.

that said, "the lesser evil" schtick vis-a-vis Obama et. al. has gotten very old.

AFAIC, it's all Obama has going for him right now.

Why is it insane to want to preserve & enhance the material wealth & status of today's rich Americans? Insane ≠ wrong.

Love the generally held belief that the only thing keeping Boehner from going over the edge is his long history as a total hack.

this is sort of standard Usenet troll practice: claim that you used to be with the side you're arguing against

cant be emphasized enough imo

it's on the same spectrum as concern-trolling, i think.

It's been said on several other threads but seriously, stay away from the comments sections of online news stories, especially ones as tied up in insanity as birther stuff. This way lies madness...

if Trump makes it to the primaries, I would register Republican just to vote for him

actually I've been tempted to register Republican for a long time now, under the idea that if I can convince enough people to follow my lead, we could utterly ruin and/or transform the party

sadly, I don't think I have enough pull to convince enough others to come with me to make it worthwhile but it would still be entertaining

they just had story on the CBC about the "birthers" and Obama producing his birth certificate etc - basically called them closet racists!

xpost

xpost

my mom convinced me at (temporarily) register republican when I was 18 so I could vote against reagan in the 1976 primary. fat lot of good it did in the long run, and my she never did move to canada as threatened "if that ACTOR becomes president."

might be persuaded to give it a go again. operation chaos.

yeah, be careful what you wish for. and what kinds of crazy nonsense folks will fall for from a front runner.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkbrjozbOf1qz83umo1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1304031085&Signature=1%2BWxsECJNQUzjGB1an0smoA%2BDtw%3D

im not the first person to make this observation but theres something sort of... thematically appropriate about this country's first black president being forced to show a form identifying himself,

Um, yeah - the consensus over here is Presidentin' While Black. This woman's take was good: http://elleabd.blogspot.com/2011/04/pull-over-that-ass-is-too-black.html

can someone please drop a safe on Scalia already

In a 5-4 ruling . . .which fell precisely along ideological lines

NO KIDDING?

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkbxmp2WC61qackuso1_500.jpg

hahaha fuck yeah

so glad ego trip is back in the game

he's gettin SO FUCKIN COOL just in time for you slugs to vote for him again