Last Call For The First Of Many

In the battle of two Tea Party Republicans fighting it out for one seat in NC, it's Rep. Renee Ellmers who ended up without a chair when the music stopped.

Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) lost her bid for reelection Tuesday, becoming the first GOP congressional incumbent to lose their seat in 2016.

Ellmers, who was elected in 2010 amid the tea party takeover of the House, lost in the Republican primary to Rep. George Holding (R-N.C.) in North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes suburban and rural Raleigh.

Holding won with over 53 percent of the vote with 96 percent of precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press. Ellmers was barely clinging to second place ahead of Greg Brannon, edging him by little more than 200 votes.

Brannon previously ran for Senate in 2014 — earning an endorsement from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul — and lost to Sen. Thom Tillis (R). Brannon ran again this year, losing to Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) in the March Senate primary.

Holding used to represent the 13th Congressional District but chose to run in the 2nd district after court-mandated redistricting took effect earlier this year, prompting an incumbent-versus-incumbent showdown.

It's important to note that in the case of this GOP primary, Ellmers had the endorsement of Donald Trump. Which is weird, because she's one of the handful of Republicans who realized that in an increasingly larger Hispanic voting population in NC, voting against the President's executive orders on immigration was a bad idea.

While Ellmers criticized Obama’s executive actions, saying she would “fight tooth and nail to put a stop to his amnesty plan,” she said in a statement that the bill was “overly broad in scope, as it has the potential to have a real negative and lasting impact on jobs and families in North Carolina.”

“There are businesses in the Second District who contract with Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and many of these jobs could be put in jeopardy with the passing of this legislation,” Ellmers said in the statement her office issued in response to questions.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/congress/article24778438.html#storylink=cpy

She forgot she's a member of the party that wants to deport millions, and it cost her with them.

A whole lot of Republicans are going to find themselves in similar positions this year.

I won't miss them when they are back home and out of Congress.

Trump Cards, Con't

And the septic tank that is the GOP continues to make excuses for Trump's overt racism.

This was probably not the interview that New York state Representative Lee Zeldin had in mind.

The Republican Congressman sat down with CNN’s John Bermanand Kate Bolduan Tuesday morning to address his support for Donald Trump head-on in the aftermath of the newest controversy embroiling the campaign. Trump, the party’s presumptive nominee for President, has been arguing that an Indiana-born judge of Mexican heritage can not fairly oversee a lawsuit involving Trump University given the candidate’s proposed southern border wall.

Shortly after House Speaker Paul Ryan called Trump’s comments — but not the man — “textbook racism,” Representative Zeldin had a tougher time walking that razor-thin tight rope.

“I think that Mr. Trump made a regrettable mistake with his statement,” Rep. Zeldin admitted.

But as soon as Berman and Bolduan turned up the heat on Zeldin to hold him accountable for defending someone embattled in a controversy of racism, Zeldin seemed to buckle and squirm with discomfort.

His answer on Trump?

"There’s more than just words to define a person and, by the way, aside from words, there’s a whole lot more to define everyone, but you can easily argue that the President of the United States is a racist with his policies and his rhetoric."

Ahh, the ol' "prove the NAACP isn't racist" canard.  From a grown man and Member of Congress, no less.  But this is who they are, folks.  And they are proud of their hatred.

And in November, they will still control a hefty chunk of this country.

The Huckster Returns

With Trump now the presumptive nominee, his former opponents have of course been on his side against the Republican establishment since the beginning, right?

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said in a radio interview on Friday that establishment Republicans should be happy that they are not being executed by angry voters.

“Who made it possible for Obama to have the Iranian deal, full funding for Obamacare, Planned Parenthood funding? Republicans did that,” Huckabee, a Trump surrogate, said on the Sean Hannity Show.

“And they’re getting what they justly deserve, they’re getting spanked,” he continued. “And they need to be happy they’re only getting spanked and not executed because there is seething rage out in country for those who have fought to help some of these guys get elected. And they get there and they surrendered to Obama and people are sick of it. And I think that’s why we’ve seen the spirit of this election, and frankly Donald Trump gives me great comfort. I tell people, ‘I don’t have any hesitation going out there and genuinely supporting Donald Trump.’”

Now you can say Huckabee realized early on that Trump was going to win, backing The Donald well before he packed his own campaign in, appearing at Trump events as early as January, taking on the role of Trump surrogate.

The problem is of course that The Huckster's not a very good surrogate.

KELLY: When did he repeatedly disavow the Klan?

HUCKABEE: Well, he did it in his Twitter account. He did it on Friday --

KELLY: The Klan or David Duke?

HUCKABEE: Well, both. And I don't know of anybody who has ever suggested that Donald Trump is a racist. I'm not speaking as somebody who's out there advocating for Trump. I just want to say that I just don't think that Donald Trump has given any indication that he's supportive of the Ku Klux Klan. My gosh, who would be? --

KELLY: None except in that interview, is what his critics say. None except in that interview, is what his critics say. Because it was so strange that he would say on Friday, "I disavow David Duke," and then when specifically asked on Sunday, act like he didn't know who David Duke was.

HUCKABEE: You know, I can't answer that. You know, I really can't. You'll have to ask Donald Trump because I haven't talked to him about it. But the fact is --

KELLY: How do you explain that? What his critics say is the explanation is he heard very well and he was trying to give some sort of a dog whistle to people in the South who don't want to hear David Duke disavowed. That's what Mitt Romney is suggesting right there.

HUCKABEE: Sure. Mitt Romney wasn't on the ear piece. Neither was Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz. And I wasn't either.

KELLY: But Trump heard, Trump heard David Duke in that ear piece. You know that. Because he repeated back David Duke to Jake Tapper.

HUCKABEE: Yeah. Look, here's the one thing I think is important. Is Donald Trump a racist? I don't think he is. Does Donald Trump support the KKK? Heavens no. I don't think anybody seriously is suggesting that he is giving a wink and a nod at the KKK. They're a deplorable, disgusting, abominable entity. Sometimes I'm amazed that they even still exist. I just don't know of anybody who embraces them anymore except a handful of crazy people.

KELLY: The very point you're making, that it's such a no-brainer, is what makes his response to Jake Tapper so confusing to many.

Of course, now we know that there's plenty of support among white supremacist groups like the KKK for Don The Con.  And Huckabee has backed him for months anyway.

Remember, the GOP establishment is "the enemy" because they haven't stopped the first black president.

Cleveland is going to be mighty fun in a few weeks, huh?

StupidiNews!

• Analysis by the AP shows that Hillary Clinton has enough delegates and commitments from super-delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination going into today's final primary contests.
• The ruling party of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto suffered a number of defeats in state and local elections, losing governor's races in at least four Mexican states, including Veracruz.
• Washington, DC's City Council will vote on a proposal to boost the district's minimum wage to $15 by 2020, which would affect about one-seventh of jobs in the district.
• A car bomb in Istanbul has killed at least 11 and injured dozens one day after Turkey announced the end of military operations in two cities against separatist Kurds of the PKK.
• Google's AlphaGo AI will soon face off against China's world number one Go player, child prodigy Ke Jie, before the end of the year, according to China's Xinhua news agency.

Last Call For Donald The Buzz Kill

News and entertainment site BuzzFeed has pulled out of a $1.3 million advertising deal with the RNC over Donald Trump's racist rhetoric, which is pretty much unprecedented for a political news site to do.

In an email to staff on Monday, BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti explained that in April, the RNC and BuzzFeed signed an agreement to "spend a significant amount on political advertisements slated to run during the Fall election cycle." But since Trump became the nominee his campaign has proven themselves to be "directly opposed to the freedoms of our employees in the United States," because of proposed bans on Muslim immigration and comments about descendants of immigrants, among other policies.

"We don't need to and do not expect to agree with the positions or values of all our advertisers. And as you know, there is a wall between our business and editorial operations. This decision to cancel this ad buy will have no influence on our continuing coverage of the campaign," Peretti said in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO.

"We certainly don't like to turn away revenue that funds all the important work we do across the company," Peretti wrote. "However, in some cases we must make business exceptions: we don't run cigarette ads because they are hazardous to our health, and we won't accept Trump ads for the exact same reason."

In a follow up email, BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith said the decision was from the business side and would not affect coverage of the Trump campaign "This was Jonah’s call, and the prerogative of a publisher,” Smith wrote.

BuzzFeed has had an at times contentious relationship with the Trump campaign, with their reporters being denied credentials or general entry to Trump rallies and being directly targeted by the campaign and Trump himself. Reporters at the site told POLITICO that the decision likely won't change their relationships with the campaign, which they described as already strained.

It's also far from the first time the site has taken a position on a topic. In early 2012, BuzzFeed blacked out parts of their site in solidarity with the protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act. Following the Supreme Court ruling in 2015 which legalized same sex marriage, the site changed its logo to the rainbow flag colors, which are a symbol of the gay pride movement. Smith said at the time: "We firmly believe that for a number of issues, including civil rights, women’s rights, anti-racism, and LGBT equality, there are not two sides."

Let's understand that political ad money is basically free cash for news outlets, and those pockets get deeper and deeper every election cycle.  Given the precarious state of digital news sites in 2016, turning down a cool million plus seems suicidal, but BuzzFeed apparently says they can turn down the RNC's ad money.

But let's face it, what BuzzFeed is really risking is the wrath of the Republican Party for their news and editorial division, and I'm pretty sure that if it was difficult for BuzzFeed to get news from the Trump camp before, it's going to be impossible now.

On the other hand, good for BuzzFeed for not taking money directly from the scuzzballs.

The Day Bernie Faces The Music

The Sanders campaign faces a tough decision tomorrow: all indications are that Clinton will win New Jersey handily, and take enough delegates in California to clinch the nomination. The real question then becomes "does Bernie stay in?"

A split is emerging inside the Bernie Sanders campaign over whether the senator should stand down after Tuesday’s election contests and unite behind Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, or take the fight all the way to the July party convention and try to pry the nomination from her… 

Tad Devine, a senior Sanders strategist who advised Democratic nominees Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, among others, suggested the “path forward” is uncertain, hinging on the outcome in California and other states that have yet to vote. He voiced a conciliatory note, describing how the two campaigns might set aside differences that have grown more pronounced in the heat of the year-long campaign… 

Campaign manager Jeff Weaver, who has worked in Mr. Sanders’s congressional offices and Vermont-based campaigns dating to the mid-1980s, takes a more aggressive approach… 

“The plan is as the senator has described it: to go forward after Tuesday and keep the campaign going to the convention and make the case to superdelegates that Sen. Sanders is the best chance that Democrats have to beat Trump,” Mr. Weaver said. “The trajectory is the same regardless of the outcome in California.”

As Nancy LeTourneau points out:

Ultimately, the candidate himself will have to make the call. It will be up to Bernie Sanders to decide whether he continues to be a progressive voice within the Democratic Party or sidelines both himself and his supporters as disrupters.

Frankly, I don't see the Sanders camp throwing in the towel until the convention.  It's only a matter of how much damage Sanders does and is rightfully blamed for heading into the Clinton v. Trump general election matchup.

We'll see very soon.  But the notion that Sanders is somehow "winning" ends Tuesday night.

The French Disconnection, Con't

So it turns out that National Review contributor David French really doesn't want to be president after all, and that his boss Bill Kristol really is the most idiotically wrong pundit on Earth.

Here is a sentence I never thought I’d type: After days of prayer, reflection, and serious study of the possibilities, I am not going to run as an independent candidate for president of the United States.

I gave it serious thought — as a pretty darn obscure lawyer, writer, and veteran — only because we live in historic times. Never before have both parties failed so spectacularly, producing two dishonest, deceitful candidates who should be disqualified from running for town council, much less leader of the free world.

Hillary Clinton lies habitually and changes position on virtually every public issue except for her pro-abortion extremism, and she has a suspicious record of making public decisions that favor donors to the Clinton Foundation. Her signal foreign-policy “achievement” was helping launch a war in Libya that not only cost American lives in Benghazi but also helped transform the nation into ISIS’s latest playpen.

To add to all that, she’s in the middle of an active FBI investigation. If I had handled classified information the way we know she handled classified information, my career would already be over, and the single goal of my life would be persuading the prosecutor to reach a lenient plea bargain.

Donald Trump also lies habitually (sometimes minute by minute), and changes position based on his moods. In one breath he claims to support working men and women, and then with the next breath he threatens to destroy our economy through trade wars or by playing games with the full faith and credit of the United States. He believes an American judge — a man born in Indiana who spent months hiding from drug cartels after they’d put a “hit” on him – can’t rule on a case involving Trump University because the judge’s parents emigrated from Mexico.

His supporters believe it demonstrates “strength” when he mocks the disabled and bullies women. He has attracted an online racist following that viciously attacks his opponents and their families — including my wife and youngest daughter.

Given this reality, it would be tempting to say that when it comes to confronting this national moment, “somebody” stepping up is better than nobody. But somebody is not always better than nobody. I’m on record saying that Mitt Romney could win. I believe others could run and win, and would make excellent presidents.

It's amazing that these National Review clowns can see Trump so clearly for who he is, but have to habitually lie about Hillary Clinton "being investigated by the FBI" when she isn't. The reality is "e-mailgate" was cleared up months ago. Even David French can't help himself.

The false equivalence of "If I handled my classified info the way she did, I'd be in jail" is something I see a lot from the right, and yet none of them batted an eye when the Bushies did the same thing and unlike Hillary failed to produce millions of emails to the FBI, so I don't particularly want to hear it.

Still, David French lasted all of a week or so.  Shame, would have been funny to see him not get a single vote on his own.

StupidiNews!

• Three people are dead and dozens injured in Belgium as a passenger train collided with a stopped cargo train late Sunday night, Belgium's Federal Police are investigating the matter.
• An NPR photojournalist and his translator were killed in Afghanistan over the weekend as the Afghan Army unit they were embedded with came under attack in Helmand province.
• The US Navy has banned drinking for sailors stationed in Japan after a reported drunken driving incident by a sailor in Okinawa resulted in a car crash that injured two. 
• Multiple polls showing that British voters want to leave the EU ahead of a June 23rd referendum are starting to weigh heavily on the British currency in world markets.
• Technology and automation may claim yet another field of American jobs sooner than people think: your local TV weather forecaster may not have a job for too much longer.

Judging The Donald

Donald Trump's racist comments about a federal judges of Hispanic origin not being impartial enough to be involved in cases pending against him are bad enough, but now he's publicly saying anyone of Muslim faith isn't impartial or qualified either.

Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump said that it was possible that a Muslim judge would be biased against him when asked in an interview aired Sunday for his views after proposing a ban an all Muslims.

Trump reiterated on CBS News' "Face the Nation" that he thought U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding over the federal fraud case against Trump University, was biased toward him because he was "very strongly pro-Mexican."

CBS host John Dickerson asked Trump if he thought he wouldn't be able to be treated fairly by a Muslim judge.

"It's possible, yes. Yeah," Trump replied. "That would be possible, absolutely."

"He is a member of a club or society, very strongly pro-Mexican, which is all fine. but I say he's got bias. I want to build a wall," Trump said, referring to the wall he wants to build between the U.S. and Mexico.

This is amazing.  Open bigotry and this guy became the nominee of a major political party for President? Gosh, is anyone still surprised that the Republicans are the party of hate?  Only now are other Republican scrambling to try to distance themselves.

"I couldn't disagree more" with Trump's central argument, McConnell said on NBC's "Meet the Press." McConnell distanced himself from Trump's comments, but dodged three times when asked if they were racist.

"I don't condone the comments," added Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on ABC's "This Week."

And Newt Gingrich, who became speaker of the House promising to open the GOP more to minorities, delivered the harshest warning of all.

"This is one of the worst mistakes Trump has made. I think it's inexcusable," Gingrich, a former presidential contender, said on "Fox News Sunday."

But of course, not all Republicans are.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Sunday argued that Donald Trump deserved a fair trial just like any pedophile or rapist.

Speaking to Fox News, Gonzales doubled down on his Washington Post op-ed that defended Trump’s right as a U.S. citizen to question the partiality of U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is hearing a case against Trump University.

Trump has the right to question if you're all racist against white people, I guess.  I know that what I want to see in a President, right?

Snday Long Read: Hill To Climb

The Sunday Long Read this week is Rebecca Traister's profile of the Hillary Clinton campaign as she tries to head into the general, but there's a lot of things between her and the White House, and not a few of those things are Clinton's own responsibility.  But can she fix it in time to save the country from Trump?

The idea that, at this point, there is some version of Hillary Clinton that we haven’t seen before feels implausible. Often, it feels like we know too much about her. She has been around for so long — her story, encompassing political intrigue and personal drama, has been recounted so many times — that she can seem a fictional character. To her critics, she is Lady Macbeth, to her adherents, Joan of Arc. As a young Hillary hater, I often compared her to Darth Vader — more machine than woman, her humanity ever more shrouded by Dark Side gadgetry. These days, I think of her as General Leia: No longer a rebel princess, she has made a wry peace with her rakish mate and her controversial hair and is hard at work, mounting a campaign against the fascistic First Order.

All the epic allusions contribute to the difficulty Clinton has long had in coming across as, simply, a human being. She is uneasy with the press and ungainly on the stump. Catching a glimpse of the “real” her often entails spying something out of the corner of your eye, in a moment when she’s not trying to be, or to sell, “Hillary Clinton.” And in the midst of a presidential campaign, those moments are rare. You could see her, briefly,letting out a bawdy laugh in response to a silly question in the 11th hour of the Benghazi hearings, and there she was, revealed as regular in her damned emails, where she made drinking plans with retiring Maryland senator and deranged emailer Barbara Mikulski. Her inner circle claims to see her — to really see her, and really like her — every day. They say she is so different one-on-one, funny and warm and devastatingly smart. It’s hard for people who know her to comprehend why the rest of America can’t see what they do.

I spent several days with Hillary Clinton near the end of primary season — which, in campaign time, feels like a month, so much is packed into every hour — and I began to see why her campaign is so baffled by the disconnect. Far from feeling like I was with an awkward campaigner, I watched her do the work of retail politics — the handshaking and small-talking and remembering of names and details of local sites and issues — like an Olympic athlete. Far from seeing a remote or robotic figure, I observed a woman who had direct, thoughtful, often moving exchanges: with the Wheelers, with home health-care workers and union representatives and young parents. I caught her eyes flash with brief irritation at an MSNBC chyron reading “Bernie Sanders can win” and with maternal annoyance as she chided press aide Nick Merrill for not throwing out his empty water bottle. I saw her break into spontaneous dance with a 2-year-old who had been named after her, Big Hillary stamping her kitten heels and clapping her hands and making “Oooh-ooh-ooh” noises. I heard her proclaim, with unself-conscious joy, from the pulpits of two black churches in Philadelphia, that “this is the day that the Lord has made!” and watched the young campaign staff at her Brooklyn headquarters bounce up and down with the anticipation of getting to shake her hand.

But what the rest of America sees is very different. Clinton’s unfavorability rating recently dipped to meet Trump’s at 57 percent; 60 percent think she doesn’t share their values, 64 percent think she is untrustworthy and dishonest (and that doesn’t even account for the fallout from the inspector general’s report about her private email server). Some of this is simply symptomatic of where we are in the election cycle, near the end of a bruising primary season, with Democratic tempers still hot even as the Republicans are falling in line behind their nominee. But some of it is also unique to Clinton, who has been plagued by the “likability” question since she was First Lady (and, indeed, even before that).

In a recent column, David Brooks posited that Clinton is disliked because she is a workaholic who “presents herself as a résumé and policy brief” and about whose interior life and extracurricular hobbies we know next to nothing. There’s more than a little sexism at work in Brooks’s diagnosis: The ambitious woman who works hard has long been disparaged as insufficiently human. And the Democratic-leaning voters least likely to view Clinton favorably, according to a recent Washington Post poll, skew young, white, and male. But those guys aren’t the only ones she’s having trouble reaching. And, no, it’s not really because we don’t know her hobbies (though if that is a burning question for you, read on).

The dichotomy between her public and private presentation has a lot to do with the fact that she has built such a wall between the two. Her pathological desire for privacy is at the root of the never-ending email saga, to name just one example. But how do you convince a woman whose entire career taught her to be defensive and secretive that the key to her political success might just be to lay all her cards on the table and trust that she’ll be treated fairly? Especially when she might not be.

There are a lot of reasons — internal, external, historical — for the way Clinton deals with the public, and the way we respond to her. But there is something about the candidate that is getting lost in translation. The conviction that I was in the presence of a capable, charming politician who inspires tremendous excitement would fade and in fact clash dramatically with the impressions I’d get as soon as I left her circle: of a campaign imperiled, a message muddled, unfavorables scarily high. To be near her is to feel like the campaign is in steady hands; to be at any distance is to fear for the fate of the republic.

And that's why Clinton looks like a terrible, weak candidate on TV, when in person she's not.  What bothers me is that Democrats have been running folks like that for years: Dukakis, Bentsen, John Kerry, Walter Mondale, the two guys who were different, Obama and Bill Clinton, won because they looked good on TV as well.

Trump is the opposite: if you see the guy at a rally he looks like a lunatic (and is) but on TV the guy comes across as less insane, if not "exciting" compared to "dull" Hillary Clinton (and to an extent, Sanders is the same way.)

How Clinton can start coming across as the reasonable choice in this media environment that constantly rewards Donald Trump and makes excuses for him daily because he's good ratings?  I don't know if she can.

But she has to or...

The Champ's Last Fight

The Greatest, Muhammad Ali, Louisville's favorite son and the man that helped teach the world that sports and politics are a powerful force for real change, is dead at 74.

Ali had suffered for three decades from Parkinson's, a progressive neurological condition that slowly robbed him of both his verbal grace and his physical dexterity. A funeral service is planned in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.

His daughter Rasheda said early Saturday that the legend was "no longer suffering," describing him as "daddy, my best friend and hero" as well as "the greatest man that ever lived."

Even as his health declined, Ali did not shy from politics or controversy, releasing a statement in December criticizing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States. "We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda," he said.

The remark bookended the life of a man who burst into the national consciousness in the early 1960s, when as a young heavyweight champion he converted to Islam and refused to serve in the Vietnam War, and became an emblem of strength, eloquence, conscience and courage. Ali was an anti-establishment showman who transcended borders and barriers, race and religion. His fights against other men became spectacles, but he embodied much greater battles.

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay on Jan. 17, 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky, to middle-class parents, Ali started boxing when he was 12, winning Golden Gloves titles before heading to the 1960 Olympics in Rome, where he won a gold medal as a light heavyweight.

He turned professional shortly afterward, supported at first by Louisville business owners who guaranteed him an unprecedented 50-50 split in earnings. His knack for talking up his own talents — often in verse — earned him the dismissive nickname "the Louisville Lip," but he backed up his talk with action, relocating to Miami to work with top trainer Angelo Dundee and build a case for getting a shot at the heavyweight title.

As his profile rose, Ali acted out against American racism. After he was refused services at a soda fountain counter, he said, he threw his Olympic gold medal into a river.

Recoiling from the sport's tightly knit community of agents and promoters, Ali found guidance instead from the Nation of Islam, an American Muslim sect that advocated racial separation and rejected the pacifism of most civil rights activism. Inspired by Malcolm X, one of the group's leaders, he converted in 1963. But he kept his new faith a secret until the crown was safely in hand.

That came the following year, when heavyweight champion Sonny Liston agreed to fight Ali. The challenger geared up for the bout with a litany of insults and rhymes, including the line, "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." He beat the fearsome Liston in a sixth-round technical knockout before a stunned Miami Beach crowd. In the ring, Ali proclaimed, "I am the greatest! I am the greatest! I'm the king of the world."

Ali's contributions to both the worlds of boxing and civil rights were vital and necessary in America. His life intersected that of so many famous black figures, from Stevie Wonder to Malcolm X, Dr. King to Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier and George Foreman. Later in his life, he was an ambassador for peace and civil rights across the globe.

When I moved to Kentucky ten years ago, one of the first things I did was to visit the recently opened Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville. If you ever get the chance, visit there. Bask in the man's true glory. He brought pride, skill, and unflinching courage to the world that badly needed it.

There will never be another like him.

Rest, champ.  You've earned it a million times over.

Did You Throw An Egg In San Jose

I've been away so long
I may go wrong and lose my way
Do you know the way to San José?
I'm going back to find
Some peace of mind in San José.

Protests outside a Donald Trump rally in downtown San Jose spun out of control Thursday night when some demonstrators attacked the candidate’s supporters. 

Protesters jumped on cars, pelted Trump supporters with eggs and water balloons, snatched signs and stole “Make America Great” hats off supporters’ heads before burning the hats and snapping selfies with the charred remains. 

Several people were caught on camera punching Trump supporters. At least one attacker was arrested, according to CNN, although police did not release much information. 

“The San Jose Police Department made a few arrests tonight after the Donald Trump Rally,” police said in a statement. “As of this time, we do not have specific information on the arrests made. There has been no significant property damage reported. One officer was assaulted.” 

In one video circulating widely on social media, two protesters tried to protect a Trump supporter as other protesters attacked him and called him names. 

Another video captured a female Trump supporter taunting protesters before being surrounded and struck in the face with an egg and water balloons. 

Police eventually cleared the protest, which they called an “unlawful assembly.”

I'd say political violence is always wrong, except history is replete with examples of it being used to great effect, written by the winners who used it.  The GOP is threatening to deport tens of millions by force, folks, and that's not making people happy.  Governments use violence all the time, and when a government uses violence, it is by definition political.  Trump hopes to seize control of that violence and use it for political means.

On the other hand, if you thought Trumpies were playing the aggrieved victims before, you have no idea what's coming now.  This will get a lot worse, and soon.

Zombie-Eyed Trump Voters

GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan is fully endorsing Donald Trump, and with Ryan falling in line the Republicans are now totally the party of white supremacy in 2016. Yay!

Back in early May, Ryan became perhaps the highest profile Trump resister who's currently holding elected office when he went on CNN to proclaim that he wasn't "ready" to endorse Trump. Ryan emphasized that, to "bring all wings of the Republican Party together," he thought Trump would have to do two things: embrace conservative values and use rhetoric that would "appeal to all Americans."

But, as Matt Yglesias wrote at the time, this always appeared to be a bluff. Ryan simply didn't have much leverage on the guy who had already won the GOP nomination. Furthermore, Ryan himself needs the party to unify, to better help his House majority win reelection. And reports from a mid-May meeting between Ryan and Trump seemed to signal that the speaker wouldn't hold out too much longer.

So now Ryan has caved. And his rationale, essentially, is to argue that it's he and his House Republicans, not Trump, who would really be setting the policy agenda. Here's Ryan in the op-ed:

Oh, this should be good.

"Donald Trump and I have talked at great length about things such as the proper role of the executive and fundamental principles such as the protection of life. The list of potential Supreme Court nominees he released after our first meeting was very encouraging.

But the House policy agenda has been the main focus of our dialogue. We’ve talked about the common ground this agenda can represent. We’ve discussed how the House can be a driver of policy ideas. We’ve talked about how important these reforms are to saving our country. And we’ve talked about how, by focusing on issues that unite Republicans, we can work together to heal the fissures developed through the primary.

Through these conversations, I feel confident he would help us turn the ideas in this agenda into laws to help improve people’s lives. That’s why I’ll be voting for him this fall.

It’s no secret that he and I have our differences. I won’t pretend otherwise. And when I feel the need to, I’ll continue to speak my mind. But the reality is, on the issues that make up our agenda, we have more common ground than disagreement."

Gosh, does the GOP House agenda include building a giant wall and deporting tens of millions?

It does now, Paul. And you just signed on for all of it.

StupidiNews!

• Continued flooding in Texas has claimed the lives of five US Army soldiers from Fort Hood when their vehicle flipped over, four more soldiers are still missing.
• A rare stamp stolen in 1955 has finally been recovered and returned to the Philadelphia research library that owns it after being stolen from a display in Virginia sixty years ago.
• German officials say they are investigating some 180 terror suspects with links to ISIS in Syria after three suspects were arrested for allegedly planning a major terror attack in Dusseldorf.
• Wal-Mart will take on grocery delivery services offered by Amazon and other competitors by partnering up with rideshare giants Uber and Lyft.
• The FDA is calling for voluntary guidelines in reduction of sodium in food, drawing praise from some food companies, and sharp criticism from grocery store and industry groups.

Last Call For Voter Suppression, Ohio Style

Republicans will do anything to win in 2016, and in all-important swing state Ohio, that means throwing tens of thousands of black voters off the rolls for the "crime" of not voting since 2008.

As the Nov. 8 elections loom, officials in Ohio have removed tens of thousands of voters from registration lists because they have not cast a ballot since 2008. 

All U.S. states periodically cleanse their voter rolls, but only a handful remove voters simply because they don’t vote on a regular basis. And nowhere could the practice have a greater potential impact in the state-by-state battle for the White House than Ohio, a swing state that has backed the winner in every presidential election since 1960.

Voters of all stripes in Ohio are affected, but the policy appears to be helping Republicans in the state's largest metropolitan areas, according to a Reuters survey of voter lists. In the state’s three largest counties that include Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, voters have been struck from the rolls in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods at roughly twice the rate as in Republican neighborhoods.

If Ohio is a swing state, then the state pivots on Cincinnati and Hamilton County, and taking a closer look at who Ohio GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted has thrown off the voter rolls makes this entire move much more heinous:

 

In other words, anyone who last voted in 2008 (like, say, tens of thousands of newly registered black voters) and who didn't vote in 2012, now cannot vote in 2016.

If you wonder how Trump is going to keep Ohio close?  You just found it.

I'm hoping Ohio Democrats are moving to get folks registered to vote again, because a whole lot of people lost their right to vote thanks to Ohio Republicans.

Trump Cards, Con't

At this point even William Saletan over at Slate has figured out that Donald Trump is a racist slimeball.

Since announcing his candidacy, Trump has tested our tolerance. He has insinuated that Cuban Americans, Mexican Americans, and Seventh-day Adventists can’t be trusted. He has proposed a ban on Muslims. These statements have thrilled his crowds, and they haven’t cost him the support of Republican leaders. In general election polls, he has pulled even with Hillary Clinton.

So the assault continues. On Friday, at a rally in San Diego, Trump claimed that the federal judge who is hearing the fraud case against Trump’s real-estate “university” isbiased and corrupt—in part, apparently, because the judge is “Mexican.”

Trump has previously portrayed people as biased or untrustworthy, based purely on Latino ancestry, on at least four occasions. Last summer, after retweeting an allegation that Jeb Bush “has to like the Mexican illegals because of his wife,” Trump defended this claim on the grounds that Bush’s wife—who had been an American citizen for more than 35 years—was “from Mexico.” On Dec. 12 and Dec. 29, Trump suggested to Republican audiences in Iowa that they shouldn’t vote for Sen. Ted Cruz because “not too many evangelicals come out of Cuba.” In February, Trump accused Gonzalo Curiel, the judge in the Trump University case, of conspiring against him, calling Curiel “Spanish” and “Hispanic.” When Trump was asked to explain the connection between the judge’s alleged bias and his ethnicity, Trump said: “I think it has to do with perhaps the fact that I’m very, very strong on the border.”

Trump’s attack on Friday continued in this vein. “I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump,” he told a crowd in San Diego. “His name is”— at this point, Trump, having raised his voice like a drum roll, held up a piece of paper and pronounced the name carefully, gesturing for effect—“Gonzalo Curiel.” The audience booed, and Trump let the moment soak in, shaking his head in solidarity. Trump told the audience two things about Curiel: that he “was appointed by Barack Obama” and that he “happens to be, we believe, Mexican.” After railing against Curiel and the lawsuit for more than 10 minutes, Trump concluded: “The judges in this court system, federal court—they ought to look into Judge Curiel.”

Flat-out, no-holds-barred racism, guys.  This is now what the Republican party stands for. in 2016. And our media is too frightened of Trump and his goons to call them out on it.  Everyone is pretending this is all normal and acceptably behavior, because after all if we have a open racist as president, that would be bad for the country, right?

So instead we hear how about this is probably Al Sharpton's fault or something.

Guys, Trump has to lose by double digits and the GOP along with him.

How To Succeed At Trumping Without Really Trying

CNBC's Jake Novak is now convinced Trump is going to win because Awesome Business Acumen.

A few months ago, I wrote that Donald Trump would win the GOP presidential nomination – but that would be the end of the line for him. I was sure that Trump just couldn't shore up enough of the already too small Republican base to win in November, thus nearly guaranteeing not only a loss but a big loss to Hillary Clinton in the general election. 

Well, I was wrong.

In the 80-odd days since I wrote that piece, I've been seeing more and more evidence of why my predictions for Trump's demise were wrong — and that his chances of winning in the general election look pretty decent.

OK, I'll bite.  How you figure there, champ?

Base? Trump doesn't need no stinking base.

And it hasn't ended there. Trump is still breaking conventional rules by recently insulting New Mexico Governor Susan Martinez, a GOP "golden child," because all the conventional wisdom says Republicans need more women and Latino voters to have a future. But remember, Trump is trying to make sure you don't primarily identify him as a "team player" Republican anyway. That team is a losing team and Trump wants little part of it. And he's probably also aware that it's a waste of time for any non-Democrat to run after elusive female and Latino voters anyway. It sounds crazy to slam Martinez, but as Trump is proving over and over again, Trump's campaign is crazy like a fox. 

It also sounds crazy to a lot of people that Trump has been actively going after the white vote. Why does a non-Democrat ever have to do that? Because white voter turnout has been down in recent elections. Trump knows he needs to energize lots of white voters who have recently stopped voting. He did that in the primaries and it's all still working now.

This is something that's been tossed around before: that demographic changes in states have nothing to do with voting, it's not that there's now more voters of color and more women voting, it's that there's a huge pool of conservative white, male, working-class voters (probably at a Home Depot in Pennsylvania or hanging out at an American Legion baseball field in Ohio, just tens of millions of them, man) that have dropped out of the political process over the last 25 years or so, and if they just simply voted again, Trump would win easily.  They're just disconnected because Republicans are loser cucks and Democrats are pussy SJWs and if they all came out to vote, and turnout nationally would be like 75%, these hero bros would crush those people for good.

It's the notion that with enough while men voting, it relegates everyone else in the country meaningless in a presidential election and in everything else. Make America Great Again, indeed.

Did I mention Jake Novak is a white guy?

Oh it gets better, kids.

The second biggest mistake I made about Trump is something else the CNBC audience should appreciate: I didn't think his incredible abilities and experience at self-promotion would translate very well from the business and entertainment media world to the political arena. But I forgot that Trump has been a master business marketer for decades and has also been working closely with some of the best writers in reality TV for more than 15 years. And probably the best talent those writers have is making events and comments sound truly off the cuff and natural even when they are really completely planned and strategically weighed. 

I don't think Trump has said one thing or sent out even one tweet during this campaign that didn't sound like something he truly believed and would naturally say or write. Even if you've hated 100 percent of the things Trump has said and written, it's important to understand that Trump has won a crucial marketing and persuasive victory simply by convincing you that what he's saying and writing is his genuine voice and authentic personality. It's called building a clear and identifiable brand. Winning an election is still very much about connecting personally with key voters and you can only do that if you present a clear personality or brand to the voters in the first place. If you're the person who sees Trump's personality/brand and have decided you hate everything about it, I have news for you: You're not the target audience. But you're still proof that Trump's messaging is at least very clear and that's often more than half the battle in business and politics.

Trump am sooper smart business guy brain man!  You know, because Andrew Carnegie totally would have tweeted that people were losers.  It's because the orange little peckerhead can slap his name on everything, and that makes him the perfect president for 'Murica.

And that brings me to my last mistake about Trump's chances: I underestimated how bad Hillary Clinton's campaign would be. To be fair, I never thought Clinton was a particularly strong candidate. But at every essential task of marketing and messaging, the Clinton campaign has been surprisingly bad. 

We all know Trump's key slogan/promise is "Make America Great Again." I'm still not sure what Hillary Clinton's key slogan/promise is and I follow her campaign very closely. Is it "I'm with Her?" If so, it's not very good in that it doesn't seem to have anything in it for the person who isn't "her."

Chicks are dumb! You don't need them to win an election, and they suck as candidates, especially when you brand yourself well!

We might as well hang it up, squad.  We can't possibly beat such mastery of politics as salesmanship, and we certainly can't stop this many white guys from winning outright.

Right?

StupidiNews!

• An apparent murder-suicide at UCLA's College of Engineering has resulted in the death of Prof. William Klug and a student as the campus was locked down for 3 hours Wednesday.
• Massachusetts GOP Gov. Charlie Baker says he will sign the state's new anti-discrimination legislation that expands protection to transgender residents.
• The US Treasury Department has instituted further sanctions on transactions from North Korean bank accounts, calling the country a "primary money laundering concern".
• Heavy rain and flooding continue in southern Germany as the river Inn crested several feet over flood stage, at least four are dead in Bavaria and several more are missing.
• Summer air pollution in Paris has led to new restrictions on cars more than twenty years old to be banned from city streets on weekdays, and no cars built before 2011 by 2020.

Last Call For Going Into Overtime, Con't

Last month I talked about the Obama administration expanding Labor Department rules on overtime pay for salaried employees and who should be eligible for it, making millions of people in entry-level salary jobs finally able to earn time-and-a-half pay.


The business community is starting to weigh in on this, and they pretty much despise it.  Their tack is simple: low-level salaried positions are mostly filled by younger workers, and as we all know (snort) Millennials are the worst.

The Dallas Fed surveys factory owners to compile the monthly release, and the final report includes edited anecdotes on how businesses are doing.

In May, a lot was said about the Department of Labor's new overtime rule, which more than doubles the income threshold of eligibility to $47,476 per year from $23,660.

The concern was that this would raise the costs of labor. And one manufacturer was furious while saying that millennials already weren't bothering to give their money's worth.

Those damn kids and their hippity-hop music! 


By the way, that manufacturer's complaint to the Dallas Fed? This:

The Department of Labor rules and other government regulations are seriously slowing down business development, increasing overhead costs, reducing productivity and causing increased management time spent on non-customer-focused/non-value-added efforts. We have a serious productivity problem with office workers and estimated that less than 50 percent of their time is spent on value-creating business activities. The younger workers are often off task, engaged on social media, on the internet, texting on phones and other unproductive activities.

The Department of Labor must realize that if we are supposed to pay them overtime for work they should do during normal work this will make us have to focus on micromanaging employees and reducing compensation to reflect actual productivity of a mandated 40 hour or less workweek.

You kids don't do anything during the day anyway except Snapchat and Reddit, why the hell would we pay you cogs overtime?!?!


I love how the problem is suddenly office workers are playing too much Candy Crush.  Look, I work in corporate IT and I know the largest abusers of company IT policies aren't the rank and file drones, they are the managers, directors and execs who think they are entitled to using the company broadband to watch The Masters and March Madness and check their stock options.


Value-creating business activities my black ass.

DIspatches From Bevinstan, Con't

It seems in his haste to dismantle Medicaid expansion and throw 400,000 off health insurance, Gov. Matt Bevin is running into a few problems, mainly the entire rest of Kentucky thinking that doing so is a terrible idea both morally and fiscally. Backpedaling Bevin is now reversing course on his plan to turn the program into a worse version of neighboring Indiana's and GOP Gov. Mike Pence's hybrid mess.

Kentucky’s Medicaid commissioner says the state’s plan to scale back the expanded Medicaid system will not require beneficiaries to pay premiums, according to an Associated Press report.  

In the report, Commissioner Stephen Miller goes on to say that Medicaid recipients could receive fewer benefits, including reduced vision and dental services. 

Late last year, Gov. Matt Bevin announced that he would by 2017 “transform” the state’s expanded Medicaid system into one where recipients have “skin in the game” by paying for benefits. 

Doug Hogan, communications director for Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services, said that the state couldn’t comment on the proposed changes or negotiations with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). 

“Everything is on the table and no decisions have been finalized. We are continuing to engage stakeholders and CMS in good faith,” Hogan said.

So now the plan is to cut benefits, something too that Bevin will have to sell not only to Kentucky voters but to the Obama administration.

Jonathan Gold, press secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said “any changes to the program should maintain or build on the historic improvements Kentucky has seen in access to coverage, access to care, and financial security.” 

According to an HHS official, requiring beneficiaries to be employed may not be a condition of eligibility for Medicaid.

Bevin remains one of the most unpopular governors in the country for a reason, and that mostly for mucking around with a system that worked and replacing it with a system that's broken on purpose to keep people off Medicaid and other state benefits.


We'll see how long that lasts. Bevin is crashing and burning pretty hard already.