Last Call For Trumping All Reality

Pretty sure I know what Saturday Night Live's cold open would be this week if the show wasn't on summer break.

Donald Trump said Wednesday that he believes he will win the Latino vote, slamming Hillary Clinton for promoting what he called an immigration policy that would "let everybody come in… killers, criminals, drug dealers." 

"I have a great relationship with the Mexican people. I have many people working for me - look at the job in Washington - I have many legal immigrants working with me. And many of them come from Mexico. They love me, I love them," the 2016 GOP contender said in an interview with NBC News. "And I'll tell you something, if I get the nomination, I'll win the Latino vote." 

Trump said that "there's nothing to apologize for" in relation to his controversial comments about Mexico, arguing that he'll win the support of Latinos because of his record creating jobs. 

"Hillary Clinton is not going to be able to create jobs, I will tell you right now," he said. "Neither is Jeb Bush going to be able to create jobs. I will create jobs and the Latinos will have jobs that they don't have right now. And I will win that vote."

Every time Trump opens his mouth he gains ground in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, and gets further behind in the general. It's amazing stuff. Calling Latinos criminals and killers and expecting to win their votes?

But remember, Trump doesn't represent the GOP position on Latinos.  Not in the least.

Turn The Machines Back On

We apologize for slightly breaking your economy.

The New York Stock Exchange shut down its main market because of a computer malfunction, forcing traders to steer orders elsewhere in the biggest disruption to an American equity venue in almost two years. 

The suspension, announced to securities firms through notices on the NYSE website around 11:32 a.m., dropped the largest U.S. share platform out of the network of trading platforms that make up the American equity market. That network kept running, however, as other exchanges such as the Nasdaq Stock Market and Bats Global Markets Inc. picked up the runoff.

It's good that the NASDAQ basically acted as a giant backup stock exchange for a while while the NYSE gets their crap sorted out, but increasingly in the world of high-speed, high-volume computerized trading, glitches like this will only keep getting more damaging to the economy.

“I don’t think it’s a hacking incident here or anything like that,” Joe Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Chatham, New Jersey-based Themis Trading LLC, said by phone. “Based on what I’ve seen in the past, these type of things are usually some sort of issues related to an upgrade, maybe to handle the excessive traffic that’s constantly coming in with high-speed trading.” 

The stock exchange operator said in a Twitter message the issue is internal and not a “cyber breach.” The Securities and Exchange Commission is closely monitoring the situation, according to an e-mailed statement from Chair Mary Jo White.

You don't suppose it has anything to do with China melting down amidst the Greek debt crisis, right?

Fleecing The Rubios

Sen. Marco Rubio is letting us see his cards, and surprise!  It's a race to the bottom to see which Republican would destroy the nation's public schools and universities first: Rubio or Bush.

On education, Rubio said he would establish a new accreditation process that would “expose higher education to the market forces of choice and competition” and create income-based loan repayment programs to make student debt more manageable.

“Our higher education system is controlled by what amounts to a cartel of existing colleges and universities, which use their power over the accreditation process to block innovative, low-cost competitors from entering the market,” he said.

“Within my first 100 days, I will bust this cartel by establishing a new accreditation process that welcomes low-cost, innovative providers. This would expose higher education to the market forces of choice and competition, which would prompt a revolution driven by the needs of students — just as the needs of consumers drive the progress of every other industry in our economy,” he said.

He also called for student investment plans and an increase in vocational and apprenticeship programs to encourage high school students to begin careers as mechanics, plumbers or electricians.

It’s a message that could appeal to some of the younger voters Rubio hopes to win over.

The Florida senator focused on taxes, saying he’d cut the corporate tax rate to the 25 percent average for developed nations, establish a territorial tax system that encouraged U.S. companies to bring money they’re holding overseas home, allow companies to claim more expenses for investing in creating jobs, and put a ceiling on the amount U.S. regulations can cost.

On immigration, he said he would push for an overhaul that encourages “skill and merit-based” immigration, rather than family-based immigration.

Pretty much every check box on the Chamber of Commerce corporate bonanza right there: massive business tax cuts, corporatized schools and colleges to turn them into profit centers (and hey, lower tax revenues will mean cuts to education, making for profit schools more "competitive" as public schools are starved) and exploitation of low-cost apprenticeship and immigrant labor.

There's nothing new about Rubio's plan, it's just the business wing of the GOP all day, every day. Think Kansas, only in all 50 states!

Won't that be fun?

StupidiNews!

• Subway spokesman Jared Fogle has been dropped by the company after 15 years after an FBI raid in Fogle's home Tuesday near Indianapolis.
• Baylor University has removed "homosexual acts" from the school's code of misconduct as the world's largest Baptist university calls the change part of "a caring community".
• European Union creditors are giving Greece until Sunday to come up with reforms or risk being ejected from the euro currency at an emergency summit this weekend.
• British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne will deliver the first Tory-majority budget to Parliament in nearly two decades in what is expected to be a major swing towards austerity.
• AT&T is reportedly offering a promise to make low-cost internet available to subscribers if lawmakers, the DoJ, and the FCC approve its deal to buy DirecTV.