Last Call For The Long, Hot Summer Of Trump

Understand that state polling at this juncture is notoriously inaccurate this far out in front of the unifying conventions in July, and the fact that most Americans simply don't pay attention to the presidential contests until afte Labor Day.

Having said that, if this is even remotely close to being true in November, holy Christ.

Our weekly EV Update - Rolling avg, 60 days, polls only. pic.twitter.com/nkIcgbmBCO

— Benchmark Politics (@benchmarkpol) June 14, 2016

I can understand Arizona being moderately in play and even Missouri, but South Carolina? Georgia? Mississippi? FREAKING KANSAS?  No, odds are extremely good that these polls are just statistical noise at this point, and that changing the electoral map by more than three or four states from 2012 is not going to be very likely, even in this election.

But...not impossible.

Hack The Planet

Somewhere, Vlad Putin is burning hundreds of calories laughing at America again, and deservedly so.

Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach. 

The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC’s system they also were able to read all e-mail and chat traffic, said DNC officials and the security experts. 

The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some GOP political action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available. 

A Russian Embassy spokesman said he had no knowledge of such intrusions. 

Some of the hackers had access to the DNC network for about a year, but all were expelled over the past weekend in a major computer clean-up campaign, the committee officials and experts said.

The DNC said that no financial, donor or personal information appears to have been accessed or taken, suggesting that the breach was traditional espionage, not the work of criminal hackers.

Let's face it, Putin has all the information he wants on Hillary Clinton already. And who would have better dirt on Trump than the DNC? Saves you the time from having to gather it yourself.  Of course the Russians want to know everything they can about American politicians.

The intrusions are an example of Russia’s interest in the U.S. political system and its desire to understand the policies, strengths and weaknesses of a potential future president — much as American spies gather similar information on foreign candidates and leaders. 

The depth of the penetration reflects the skill and determination of the United States’ top cyber adversary as Russia goes after strategic targets from the White House and State Department to political campaign organizations. 

“It’s the job of every foreign intelligence service to collect intelligence against their adversaries,” said Shawn Henry, president of CrowdStrike, the cyber firm called in to handle the DNC breach and a former head of the FBI’s cyber division. He noted that it is extremely difficult for a civilian organization to protect itself from a skilled and determined state such as Russia.

And it's not like we don't engage in the same activities against other world leaders, guys.

The question is why leak the news now?  Pretty sure we'll find out when the other shoe drops during the campaign. I mean, if you're Trump, getting your good buddy Vlad to steal the DNC's oppo research on you is brilliant.  It's like Watergate, only totally legal. You think maybe this is about Trump throwing the newspaper out yesterday?

I'll tell you who looks like the loser in all this: Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Can this finally be the excuse to get rid of her?

Once A Birther, Always A Birther

Donald Trump wasted no time Monday morning implying that President Obama allowed this weekend's slaughter in Orlando to happen on purpose, for political reasons, because Donald Trump is essentially an awful human being.

"He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands. It's one or the other," Trump said of Obama on "Fox & Friends," speaking on the phone. "And either one is unacceptable, No. 1, and No. 2, calling on another gun ban, I mean, this man has no clue. First of all, the shooter was licensed. So he went through all the procedures, he was fully licensed to have a gun. So he would have passed the test that the president would have thrown up there. It's so ridiculous. You know, this is a, this is a mentality, this is a state. And you have thousands of shooters like this with the same mentality out there in this country, and we're bringing thousands and thousands of them back into this country, and into the country every year." 

Trump defended a much-criticized tweet he sent on Sunday, saying, "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism." 

"No, no, no, I'm getting thousands of letters and tweets that I was right about the whole situation," he said. "I mean, I've been right about a lot of things, frankly." 

And Trump again implied that the president was not a trustworthy leader when it comes to fighting terrorism. 

"We're led by a man who is a very -- look, we're led by a man that either is, is not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind," Trump said. "And the something else in mind, you know, people can't believe it. People cannot -- they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the ways he acts and can't even mention the words radical islamic terrorism. There's something going on. It's inconceivable."

Trump is basically garbage, but implying that President Obama is bringing "thousands" of Omar Mateens into America on purpose is just ridiculous. Mateen was a US citizen, period.

Sure isn't going to stop the Republicans, who again will tell you that a deadly terror attack is "good for Trump in November".

That's something you might want to reconsider, guys.

StupidiNews!

• London Mayor Sadiq Khan is making good on a campaign promise and will ban "unrealistic body images" in ads from London's transport systems.
• A federal judge has ordered a jury trial for the man suspected of killing nine in a South Carolina black church in Charleston last year, the trial is scheduled for November 7.
• A second US Navy aircraft carrier has entered the Mediterranean as the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower will relieve the USS Harry S. Truman in supporting operations in Syria and Iraq.
• Nigeria's government will enter into talks with the militant Niger Delta Avengers group in order to restart the country's oil production, now at its lowest level since 1989.
• At least one fake Twitter account is pretending to be that of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in order to try to scam people into donations based on this weekend's massacre.

Last Call For Not Going Anywhere

Bernie Sanders will continue to Bernie Sanders for the foreseeable future, in case you were somehow confused about the whole Bernie Sanders thing.

Senator Bernie Sanders said on Sunday that he would “take our campaign for transforming the Democratic Party into the convention,” refusing to concede the presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton though not explicitly saying he would challenge her for it. 

Mrs. Clinton earned enough delegates to clinch the nomination last week, but Mr. Sanders has declined to end his campaign. He has contended that he could persuade enough superdelegates, the party leaders who have overwhelmingly backed Mrs. Clinton, to switch their support to him by arguing that he would be the stronger candidate against Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. 

That plan became more improbable last week as high-profile Democrats supported Mrs. Clinton. President Obama endorsed her on Thursday, calling her the most qualified candidate ever to seek the White House and imploring Democrats to unite behind her. 

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts also endorsed Mrs. Clinton. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the only senator to endorse Mr. Sanders, told CNN on Friday that he now supports Mrs. Clinton. 

In recent days, Mr. Sanders appeared to acknowledge the odds against him, and began speaking less about beating Mrs. Clinton and more about working to defeat Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. 

On Sunday, he gathered with about 20 key supporters and advisers at his home in Burlington, Vt., to discuss how to proceed. 

“We are going to take our campaign to the convention with the full understanding that we are very good at arithmetic and that we know, you know, who has the received the most votes up to now,” Mr. Sanders said after the meeting, standing on his front lawn with his wife, Jane. Among the dozen or so people who attended the gathering were Benjamin T. Jealous, a former president of the N.A.A.C.P.; Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona; Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator; and Bill McKibben, the environmentalist and author. 

Notably, Mr. Sanders also said he would continue his efforts aimed at “transforming the Democratic Party,” a sign that his main goal may no longer be to become the nominee.

So we've reached the opening phases of the Great 2016 Democratic Unity Swap Meet, which apparently is all about the negotiations involving what Bernie's price will be for endorsing Hillary Clinton, but before we get totally outraged at Sanders, please remember that the same Clinton folks were DEMANDING eight years ago that Barack Obama make Hillary his vice president or else. Even Ed Kilgore was pushing an Obama-Clinton ticket in the summer of 2008, so I'm not really going to buy the "What is Bernie Thinking?" line right about now. That's baked into this little pie, folks.

The Clinton PUMAs were just as obnoxious then as the Bernie or Bust folks are now, frankly, and just as condescending.  No, two wrongs don't make a right, but having said that, Clinton realized that burying the hatchet was the best course of action. I'm not so sure Bernie has gotten to that long game point yet, because this is pretty much his last shot at the brass ring.

Anyhow, I'm fairly sure that a former Senator and Secretary of State may know a few things about high-stakes political negotiations, and that she will find a solution that can satisfy as many people as possible.

We'll see.

Losing To Win

Real Clear Politics DC bureau chief Carl Cannon is convinced that Donald Trump's awful June so far is evidence that he knows he is in over his head and that he is secretly trying to self-sabotage in order to get out.

Let’s call this more reflective subconscious entity “Don Trump.”

Donald Trump loves winning and hates losing, while Don Trump knows that running a smart campaign and beating Hillary Clinton means he’d inherit a job he has neither the qualifications nor the temperament to perform successfully. Don Trump wants to lose. He wants this campaign to be over so Donald Trump can go back to doing what he’s good at: promoting his personal brand and counting his money.

To me, that’s the best explanation for the loony “Mexican” judge comments and other unforced errors Trump has made since clinching the Republican presidential nomination. A man who wanted to win this election wouldn’t make these mistakes.

Let’s start with Susana Martinez. As governor of New Mexico, she’s the chief executive in the state with the highest percentage of Latinos in the country, a border state where Trump’s famous “wall” would be built, and a bellwether that Republicans would like to carry in November. She’s the GOP’s most prominent a female Hispanic, two demographic groups Trump has trouble with. So does he woo Martinez and praise her? No. Because she skips his rally in Albuquerque, he throws a tantrum, gratuitously lashing out at her in her own capital.

“We have got to get your governor to get going,” he told the crowd at his event. “She’s got to do a better job. Okay? She’s not doing the job. Hey! Maybe I’ll run for governor of New Mexico. I’ll get this place going.”

This is Don Trump talking. A candidate trying to win wouldn’t have drawn attention to the fact that the governor was skipping his rally, let alone publicly disparage her. A candidate who wanted to win wouldn’t have mentioned her at all. If he did, it would have come out something like this: “Your governor is doing a great job! She endorsed somebody else in the primary, but we’ll get her on our side because she proves that an independent-minded Republican can carry New Mexico—and we’ll do it together in November!”

This of course is making excuses for the people who are desperately trying to nominate Donald Trump as the Republican party's presidential candidate in 2016. As I have said time and again, Trump is not the cause of the GOP's problems, he's merely the symptom of a larger pathology based on a major American political turning to hatred, demonization of the "other", and "Second Amendment solutions" to America's problems.

If Donald Trump supposedly knows he is unqualified, and you know that he's aware of it, what does that day about the millions who voted for him anyway?

The Last Of The Ohio Moderates

Something of an era has passed in Ohio with the death over the weekend of the state's last reasonable, moderate Republican statesman, former governor and Senator George Voinovich, at age 79.

The news shook friends and supporters across the state, with remembrances pouring in from Democrats and Republicans alike.

“He was a unifier who thought outside the box, never gave up and worked hard for the ideas he believed in up until the very end of his life," Ohio's current governor, John Kasich, said in a statement. "Thanks to that leadership he saved Cleveland, governed Ohio compassionately and responsibly and was a candid voice for reason in the U.S. Senate."

David Pepper, chairman of Ohio's Democratic Party and former Cincinnati city councilman, recalled giving then-Senator Voinovich a tour of Cincinnati.

"It was clear he was still a mayor at heart," Pepper said. "He didn’t miss a detail, and that’s what a great public servant does--focuses on the details and brings people together to find solutions."

Voinovich was deeply religious, believing that everyone had God-given gifts, recalled Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine. He took home work every night and weekend as governor. And though he was a "city kid," he loved the Ohio State Fair.

"His administrative style and philosophy were to hire good people, hold them accountable, but let them run their departments," DeWine recalled in the statement.

Voinovich was governor in the 90's and did things like "increase taxes to pay for welfare and other social programs", something that would have gotten him flayed by today's GOP.

As governor, Voinovich cut $720 million from the budget in two years.

But he was also willing to take political risks--and to show a softer side. He once broke into tears when protesters gathered outside the governor's office to demand that he restore cuts the Legislature made to welfare.

And in 1993, Voinovich worked with leaders of both parties in the Legislature to push through a tax increase aimed at shoring up the state's finances. The move angered some conservatives who began questioning the governor's commitment to their cause.

In an interview Sunday, ex-state Sen. Stanley Aronoff, a Cincinnati Republican whose time as Ohio Senate president overlapped with Voinovich's governorship, said "he lived a relatively frugal life, but he also wanted to take care of everybody." Aronoff said Voinovich was a "bipartisan" chief executive in the true spirit of that word.

Former President George H.W. Bush weighed in on Sunday as well. "George Voinovich was, in my view, the quintessential public servant," he said in a statement. "He brought people together, focused on results, and left his state and our country a better place thanks to his selfless commitment."

When he was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1979, the city had defaulted on its loans and was in fiscal ruin. Voinovich raised taxes and balanced the books. He ran for governor in 1990, saying he would bring the same fiscal discipline to the state budget.

"It is not an exaggeration to say he personally saved the city from default and revived the spirit of Cleveland through sheer force of will, an unyielding work ethic and an infectious optimism," Terrace Park Republican Rob Portman, who succeeded Voinovich in the Senate, said in a statement Sunday.

Voinovich was a nice, boring, nerdy Republican numbers guy.  He wasn't a punisher, he didn't try to shut down abortion clinics or drug test welfare recipients of scam the state's parents with charter schools, in fact he was one of the few GOP senators who voted against Dubya's No Child Left Behind bill because the numbers didn't add up.

He did things like "raise taxes in order to fix bridges, roads, and put people to work" and "wanted us to pay for our war in Iraq or leave because we couldn't afford it otherwise".  He thought President Obama's stimulus was too much pork, but he though Dubya's stimulus was too much pork too, and voted against both.

In other words, as far as Republicans went, he was reasonable and wasn't insane, he wasn't a religious fanatic, he didn't want to punish those people all the time and was, by all accounts, a decent guy. When 2010 and the Tea Party rolled around, Voinovich retired from the Senate because he saw what was coming and wanted no part of it. He voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor as one of his final acts, thought gun control legislation was acceptable, and didn't go around screaming at his opponents.

He would have been primaried out of existence today.  Never would have made it in the GOP.  No, George Voinovich wasn't great, but he actually did his job.

That's worth mourning.

StupidiNews!

• Four people were wounded after a man hurled a beer bottle full of gunpowder at an airport counter in Shanghai, the man later committed suicide by slashing his own neck.
• An Indiana man has been arrested with a car full of weapons and possible explosives on the way to cause harm to an LA Pride march this weekend.
• Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins have claimed the 2016 Stanley Cup in Game 6 over the San Jose Sharks in a 3-1 win.
• Broadway's "Hamilton" picked up 11 Tony Awards last night, including Best Musical and Best Actor for Leslie Odom Jr., and Best Original Score.
• Ride sharing service Uber faces nearly $1 million in fines for operating in Paris against French law as EU countries continue to sanction the company as an illegal transport service.

Sunday Long Read: Three Years In Singapore

Rather than talk about urban planning and sustainability in a densely-packed urban center like Singapore and the many changes in the city-state since 2013, filmmaker Keith Loutit made a breathtaking three-year time lapse project and edited it into just under five minutes.


The Lion City II - Majulah from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.


Taking a break for the rest of the evening.

Another New Worst Mass Shooting In America

If you guys want to discuss the hideous mass shooting in Orlando at an LGBT nightclub today, that's fine.  But don't ever tell me there's not a dime's difference between the two political parties when Texas GOP Lt. Gov.Dan Patrick is tweeting Bible verses about "reaping what you sow" in the wake of 50 people being slaughtered.

Hours after approximately 50 people were killed at a Florida LGBT nightclub in what federal officials are investigating as an act of terrorism, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas is receiving backlash after tweeting a verse from the Bible.

About 7 a.m. Sunday Dan Patrick tweeted a photo with the words of Galatians 6:7. The verse reads, "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows."

You don't even fix the words in your mouth to say that anymore.

Climate Of Hostility

D.R. Tucker over at Washington Monthly reminds us that 15 years ago, Republicans still believed in climate change.

By 2016 Republican standards, Bush’s speech is impressive. Bush spoke of “develop[ing] an effective and science-based approach to addressing the important issues of global climate change” and “recogniz[ing] our responsibility….at home, in our hemisphere, and in the world.” He also refuted the arguments that Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing media figures had been making about climate change for years:

First, we know the surface temperature of the earth is warming. It has risen by .6 degrees Celsius over the past 100 years. There was a warming trend from the 1890s to the 1940s. Cooling from the 1940s to the 1970s. And then sharply rising temperatures from the 1970s to today.

There is a natural greenhouse effect that contributes to warming. Greenhouse gases trap heat, and thus warm the earth because they prevent a significant proportion of infrared radiation from escaping into space. Concentration of greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have increased substantially since the beginning of the industrial revolution. And the National Academy of Sciences indicate that the increase is due in large part to human activity.

Bush would continue to acknowledge the reality of climate change during the course of his presidency. He would never actually do anything about the climate crisis–besides editing scientific reports, harassing climate scientists, genuflecting to ExxonMobil, and trying to convince the American people that the threat wasn’t that severe, of course. Yet Bush, at the very least, admitted that the science was real and credible.

Who would have thought that fifteen years later, the Republicans would nominate a man who believes that climate change is a hoax invented by China? Who would have thought that fifteen years later, despite the abundant evidence of climate chaos, mainstream media entities would still refuse to give this issue the coverage it deserves? And who would have thought that fifteen years later, the folks who thought that there was no real difference between Democrats and Republicans on such issues as the environment would hold on to that warped and worthless worldview?

It's that last part that's the killer.  I see people saying there's no difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and that they want to see the country burn in order to save it.

What they won't admit is that they want to apparently see the entire planet burn too.

Going To The Alabama Slammer

Alabama Republicans are a mess right now, and none more so that the state's Speaker of the House, Mike Hubbard. Or, I should say "former Speaker Mike Hubbard" as he's going to prison for a very, very long time.

A Lee County jury today convicted Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard on 12 felony charges in his ethics case, removing Hubbard from office.

Hubbard, 54, was convicted after a jury spent seven hours deliberating whether he used his public position for personal gain.

Hubbard faces up to 20 years in prison for each ethics count. Sentencing is set for July 8.

Hubbard was immediately taken into custody and placed in the Lee County jail.

He was released on $160,000 bond Friday night and driven away by a bail bondsman, according to the Associated Press.

The conviction came after a 12-day trial in which Hubbard took the stand for three days in his own defense.

"We hope this verdict tonight will restore some of the confidence in the people in the state of Alabama that public officials at all levels in the state of Alabama will be held accountable for their actions," Acting Attorney General Van Davis said.

"Especially those who would betray their public trust and their position of public trust while in office from all levels, local, county and state."

Now, nobody believes Hubbard will be sentenced to the max 240 years, and frankly he'll probably remain out on appeal for years.  The state's stronger ethics laws passed in 2010 after all were never meant to actually convict anyone, much less the state's Republican Speaker of the House. After all, the $2.3 million that Hubbard took in pay-to-play bribes were supposed to be the perk of his position, not his downfall.

Hubbard led the 2010 GOP effort to oust state Democrats as Alabama's GOP party chair, and for his efforts he ran for the legislature, won easily, and was named Speaker. The same Republicans who passed these same tough ethics laws to "stop corrupt Democrats" who had run the state for decades never expected these laws to be used against them.

Meanwhile the state's GOP governor, Robert Bentley, now faces his own impeachment scandal.  Of course, the Republicans are running those efforts too, so who knows?

Alabama voters of course will continue to vote GOP. After all, the Democrats allowed one of those people to be President, so they'll stick with the corrupt Alabama GOP.

Last Call For Trumpster Dumpsters

So there are quite a few Republicans who aren't so much "upset" with Trump's rampant racist, misogynist and Islamophobic garbage as they are "convinced he's going to lose".  Republicans are okay with racism, misogyny and Islamophobia, that's why Donald Trump won their primary easily. What they really hate however is a loser, so the "Dump Trump" long knives are out.

Some lawmakers, senior members of the Republican National Committee and delegates to the party’s convention next month in Cleveland acknowledged in interviews this week that another disruptive self-inflicted crisis would force the party to begin seriously looking at ways to deny Mr. Trump the nomination.

So far, discussions of a renewed dump-Trump drive have taken place only among the factions of the party that are openly opposed to Mr. Trump, and they have failed to gain much support.

But Mr. Trump’s suggestion that Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel’s Mexican heritage should disqualify him from hearing a lawsuit against Trump University has reawakened talk of hatching a convention coup — a complicated and nearly impossible measure of last resort that has no precedent in modern Republican politics.

Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and one of Mr. Trump’s most unapologetic backers on Capitol Hill, suggested this week that Mr. Trump had “a crucial two- or three-week period” to smooth out his rougher edges or put his nomination in jeopardy.

Stopping Mr. Trump at this point could prove additionally difficult, however, because he has quietly filled the most important convention committees — those that will determine the rules and platform — with delegates loyal to him.

Initially seen as not having a strong delegate whip operation, Mr. Trump can now count on about half the seats on the platform and rules committees, according to Republicans who have been tracking delegate selection. This is a major turnaround from two months ago, when Senator Ted Cruz’s campaign was sweeping the delegate contests.

The bottom line is that Trump has until the end of the month to show he can be coached and that his people can get a handle on containing his toxic waste dump of a mouth, otherwise the Republicans are apparently going to try to depose him.

I'm all for an ugly convention and I'll tell you why: the Republicans out there who supposedly see Trump as a problem have one last chance to save their party or be consigned to the dustbin of history. They are going to have to decide which is worse: the immediate amputation of the Trump wing of the party, or the soul cancer of him taking over as head that will slowly wipe them all out.

The first option will cost them 2016. The rough beast slouching towards Cleveland will not abide being starved, and they will turn on each other, coughing up either a badly weakened nominee with Trump as a serious third party threat, or a perhaps a Trump with no support in the general and the GOP simply taking a dive to clear the decks.

The second option however will cost them the country for a generation, it will be their McGovern moment. For even the notion of dumping Trump to be in print is either sign of the RNC throwing a Hail Mary or so utterly incompetent in the message discipline department now that they are doomed in November anyway (and probably a long time after that).

Do I think the Republicans are smart enough to save themselves from Trump?  Possibly. But are there enough of them with the courage to do so?

Don't make me laugh.

The Next Bundy Ranch

Armed insurrection against the federal government only seems to happen when there's a Democrat in the White House, and I doubt that will change under Madam President.  However, let's not forget that there's still seven months left in the Obama administration, and it looks like we're going to have another episode of Bundy Ranch/Oregon Wildlife Sanctuary idiocy on our hands this summer, this time in Utah's Cedar Mesa.

Now, President Obama is weighing whether and how he can leave his own permanent imprint on history by designating about 2 million acres of land, known as the Bears Ears, as a national monument. 

And despite the uniformly acknowledged historical significance of the area, some people regard the conservation efforts by the White House as classic federal overreach. In the current-era conflict between Washington and rural Westerners, the idea of a Bears Ears national monument has produced warnings of a possible armed insurrection. 

In a state where the federal government owns 65 percent of the land, many conservatives already resent existing restrictions because they bar development that could generate additional revenue. Out-of-state militias came to San Juan County two years ago, when Commissioner Phil Lyman helped lead an all-terrain-vehicle protest ride through a canyon the Bureau of Land Management had closed to motorized traffic in 2007. Lyman is appealing the 10-day jail sentence he received in connection with the protest, and he argues that his case shows how BLM officials place the priorities of environmentalists over those of local residents.

“I would hope that my fellow Utahans would not use violence, but there are some deeply held positions that cannot just be ignored,” Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, the veteran Republican lawmaker, said in an interview.

Well, that's certainly comforting.  And once again, the President clearly has the law on his side.

But some lawmakers have suggested that unilateral action by the president, under the 1906 Antiquities Act, could provoke the same sort of resistance that led to the 41-day armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon earlier this year. 

“There is a lot of conflict that has escalated into being on the precipice of violence that is unnecessary and unwarranted,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who opposes the designation. 

Obama has approached the designation of national monuments as a way to bolster the country’s defenses against climate change and as a way to make the national narrative more inclusive, in addition to his obligation to safeguard the country’s national treasures.

Please note that Utah Republicans aren't saying that the President doesn't have the authority to do this, note that they are saying if he does designate the national monument that he will provoke possibly deadly violence and it will be his fault.

That's insanity.

President Obama is attempting to protect Native American culture (and more than any other president in memory he has done quite a bit in that regard) as well as land vulnerable to climate change and the response from the "loyal opposition" is "Oh, well you can do that but *I* wouldn't, you're likely to get somebody shot."

Can Republicans not be awful, even for a moment?

Liz Laser Lights Up Lame Loser

It amazes me that with all the opponents that went after Donald J. Trump in the primary that the best man for the job of taking him down turns out to be a very intelligent, very qualified woman: one Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

He has personally — personally! — directed his army of campaign surrogates to step up their own public attacks on Judge Curiel. He’s even condemned federal judges who are Muslim on the disgusting theory that Trump's own bigotry compromises the judge’s neutrality. You just can’t make this stuff up. 

Now, like all federal judges, Judge Curiel is bound by the federal code of judicial ethics not to respond to these attacks. Trump is picking on someone who is ethically bound not to defend himself — exactly what you would expect from a thin-skinned, racist bully.

These are the words that Republicans should have used a year ago to stop Trump. They chose not to (something about racist, thin-skinned glass houses and several metric tons of palm-sized rocks perfect for throwing) and the result is a huge target on the GOP presumptive nominee that Sen. Warren and other Democrats will be hitting on a regular basis for the next six months.

Expect it.

By the way, if you think this is a hell of an audition for Hillary's veep pick, you would not be the only one.