Trump again colludes

Donald Trump pressured the government of Ukraine to find or manufacture dirt on the son of former VP Joe Biden in an attempt to interfere with the United States Presidential election. This sort of thing is a crime, as well as a major ethical issue.

Looking for collusion? Well, there it is.

I take your question

I shall respond to dumb things with "I take your question" from now on.

This is your Republican party Continued

Bigfoot Erotica? Yes, Bigfoot Erotica! But also, Nazis, Neo-Confederates and goons. This is what it has come to, folks.

Russian Nesting Doll seems like too obvious as a metaphor . . .

I have been saying (here and elsewhere) for quite some time that the GOP as a whole is at least complicit in the Russian program to subvert and undermine American Democracy. There are obvious moles (Dana Rohrbacher, anyone?) within the Republican Party, to be sure. But now it looks like the entire structure of the GOP may be wholly owned by Putin and his cronies.

I'm not alone in seeing this

Ladies and Gentlemen, This is Your Republican Party!

Today's Republican Party is BOLD, FRESH, EXCITING . . . CORRUPT, RACIST, ANTI-AMERICAN.  It is truly a "Big Tent". It encompasses Holocaust deniers, and Neo-Confederates, and Nazis, and Russian Stooges and people who cover up child molestation.

The party even has room for serial abusers, conspiracy nuts and Paul Ryan.

Truly a big tent!

Updates and additions:

Wife Beating

Sexual harrassment

Gianforte, another GOP Thug

Greg Gianforte Assaulted a reporter from The Guardian. Montana politics normally isn't this insane, but this does seem to be where today's GOP is heading.
Alana Levinson of Buzzfeed witnessed it. Gianforte's office is lying about it, because of course they are.



http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/big-crazy-news-out-of-montana

RubioBot and Trump's penis

Marco Rubio (R - Borg Cube) has been reprogrammed to sound more like the Trump insult machine. His latest tactic: Insinuating that Trump has a tiny wang. I have to wonder at this strategy. He seems to believe that the way to woo voters is to behave like a twelve-year-old bully on the playground.

I think Rubio needs more beta testing.

Over on the Democratic side, two adults are disagreeing about issues and attempting to make their case to other adults.

Oh well.

Marco Rubio is a Scandal 'Bot

It seems that Marco Rubio wants to Unseat The TRUMP and become the Republican Nominee in order to face either Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. I hope he does. He is an oppo researcher's wet dream. Here are a few links, just for fun!


Marco Rubio has some issues that

should hurt his whitehouse bid.

There's this

and drug lords

and such

and real estate

which isn't going away

and the credit cards

and his arest record

which does not look good for a "values" Republican.

and these are the tip of the Marco Rubio Scandal iceberg

Rubio in Collapse

In the most recent GOP debate, Chris Christie demolished Marco Rubio. 

Christie hammered Rubio's replicant-like repetition of memorized talking points when asked any question. He nailed Rubio for being a lightweight, uninformed, kid.  Not bright, is what most viewers thought of Rubio after that exchange. A low wattage intellect .

Some of us already knew that. 

Trump v Cruz

Vox discusses why some of the GOP elite seem to prefer Trump to Cruz. They get it dead wrong. The reason the Bob Dole wing of the Republican party prefers Donald Trump over Ted Cruz is simple. Trump can't win, Cruz possibly could.

The calculation is this: Trump on the top of the ballot guarantees that Hillary Clinton (or Berni Sanders) becomes president and likely gives control of congress back to the Democrats. Dole et al think that the Republican party can survive that over the long term.

On the other hand, a Cruz candidacy is likely to create the same effect, but there is a small chance that Cruz could win. A Cruz presidency would wreck the economy for a generation. It would be a disaster of diplomacy. The nation would almost certainly enter into at least one new war. Our allies would possibly abandon us. We would come very close to becoming a failed state. And no other Republican could be elected president in generations.
\

That is their fear. It is a rational fear.

schadenfreude

Lawyers, Guns and Money tackles the legal argument surrounding birther-ism. It's a great article, and reminds us all to enjoy the irony of Ted Cruz's chickens coming home to roost.

Dog Whistle Through a Loudspeaker

"These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty … these types of guys … they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home. […] Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road."

That's Maine Governor Paul LePage. He actually said that, in public on the record. Doesn't he know that you are supposed to save the KKK rhetoric for closed door meetings with supporters?

here's more on this

More Rubio Scandals

Did Marco Rubio use his political office to grant favors for a major drug traffiker ? It sure seems so.  The more we learn about his friends and finances the more troubling it becomes. But, he's the GOP golden boy!

Trump and the Mirror

Everyone is talking about what a hate filled, bigoted, slow witted, unserious candidate Donald Trump is. Well, everyone who isn’t one of his millions of rabid acolytes, anyway. In truth, the everyone I’m talking about includes only those members of the punditry that aren’t also hate filled, bogoted, slow witted, unserious people. So, a few people are talking about what a hate filled, bigoted, slow witted, unserious candidate Donald Trump is. 

But, what isn’t being mentioned is that he isn’t an outlier. The GOP debate was filled with people who fit that metric. Jeb! May not hate the Mexicans as much as Trump, but he certainly hates the poor and all those “Asian anchor babies”. Walker is as slow witted and unserious as anyone ever. Rand TM Paul isn’t all that far from his Daddy Ron’s white power newsletters. Huckabee is one step away from saying gays must be stoned in the town square. 

They all seem to either hate women outright or at least view women as weirdly subservient sex providers and child raisers.

They all support policies that will gut freedom, wreck the economy and redistribute what is left of the wealth into the hands of a few wealthy individuals and corporations. 

They all fall in line with anti-science corporate greed.

They all support authoritarian police state tactics that lead to the murder of unarmed black men, women and children.

They all suck.

When will the media notice that all of the Republican candidates are just like Trump, but with better manners?

Laugh about it, shout about it

The GOP debate was fucking weird. The FOX news crew teamed up with nine ultra-conservative fucks to try to ratfuck Donald Trump out of existence. The funny part was that they failed. Really fucking failed. These pissants cannot play at the same level as THE DONALD. The crowd loved the bloody red meat he kept flinging.

I'll eat my hat if Trump doesn't come out of this stronger. The thing is, this is what FOX and the Koch Cabal have been building. They have worked so hard to create an underclass of uninformed, spiteful, bigots to fuel their hegemony. Now Trump shows up to embody all of it and they are terrified that he could end up as their nominee.

On a side note, Rand Paul is finished. That's it.

The best debate commentary can be found here,  and

here

and

of course here but 

those good people at wonkette have the mostest and bestest things to say on the subject. Read them, not us.