Donald Trump’s Interview with Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia

An historic event took place this morning when billionaire Presidential candidate Donald Trump sat before the television cameras to interview Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia. Here is the transcript.

TRUMP: How do I look?

SCALIA: You’re a billionaire. Why can’t you do something about that hair?

TRUMP: Good morning, ladies and gentleman. I am sharing a stage with a man I greatly admire and respect, the brilliant Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia. Thank you for joining me.

SCALIA: My pleasure.

TRUMP: Tell me, what was your reaction when I announced my run for the White House?

SCALIA: Half the Republican Party is running for President.

TRUMP: Yes, but I’m talking about me.

SCALIA: Maybe we’d do better to switch topics.

TRUMP: Really?

SCALIA: It’s your hoe down.

TRUMP: Are you as upset as I am about the recent gay marriage ruling by your fellow judges?

SCALIA: I am hornswaggled. My fellow jurists erred grievously in their decision to give…those people equal rights under the law. The Constitution isn’t some magical document that grants people any wish they want. Mark my words, in the next few years we will see cases before the court of people wanting to marry their pet gerbils.

TRUMP: It’s like you were reading my mind. Equality under the Constitution simply doesn’t apply to everybody.

SCALIA: I have long favored monarchy as the ideal form of human organization. Democracy is simply too much for people to handle.

TRUMP: I think it would be absolutely fantastic to run for King.

SCALIA: We need men of character and proper breeding ruling us, not the genetically questionable riff-raff we are getting these days. Looking to the past is our key to the future.
 

TRUMP: Okay. Lets talk about the Gore v. Bush decision in 2000—

SCALIA: Come on, Donald. That’s ancient history. Old news. I’m not going to sit here and rehash what happened 15 years ago.

TRUMP: But I thought you just said—

SCALIA: The past is the past. Let it go.

TRUMP: Citizen’s United. Still think that was the right decision?

SCALIA: Without a doubt. It might be one of the Court’s greatest achievements. By reducing the influence of the unwashed masses and enhancing the influence of people who truly understand what power means and who should wield it, by which I mean the filthy rich, we adjusted the balance in this country to its correct position.

TRUMP: Believe me, I agree with you there. We can’t have trailer trash or liberals deciding how this country should be run. I see we’re out of time. Thank you for taking time out of your busy work gutting democracy to talk to me, Judge Scalia.

SCALIA: Thank you, David. It’s a thankless job, but someone’s got to do it.

Fantastic Friday

Yeah, Friday was fantastic. The same Supreme Court that crowned George Bush President in 2000 and declared corporations were people came through in a very big way on Friday.  In one day, this Court with a conservative majority declared same-sex marriage legal in all states, knocked down another challenge to the Affordable Care Act and helped strengthen fair housing discrimination protections. It’s like the Mississippi River changed course for a day. Unbelievable.

Of course, the heads of Scalia, Thomas and everyone at FOX News are still exploding and it’s a beautiful sight to see. After fifteen years of Bush and Bush’s legacy under Obama, those of us on the Left finally have something to cheer about.  And on top of everything else, Bernie Sanders is proving to be a viable candidate for President.

We have to savor the taste of victory while we can, because the Supreme Court still has a conservative majority, Obama is getting his way on TPP and we are still following a failed Middle East policy. But for a day or two, we can cheer our successes and thank all of those Americans who actively pushed, agitated and demonstrated for these major steps forward.

Bobby Jindal Announces His Presidential Candidacy. (crickets)

Wow. I mean, wow. John Stewart, among many others, has been skewering Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindals’ presidential announcement ad, so I new I needed to see it for myself. I just watched it, and…wow.

Shot from the perspective of a Go Pro wearing cat caught in a tree, the video is a one long take of Jindal and his family sitting around a table in their backyard. Bobby, his face obscured by a tree limb, announces TO HIS CHILDREN that he’s going to run for President.  The kids respond with the same enthusiasm you might expect from a “Mommy and Daddy are getting a divorce” announcement, which is pretty much total silence.

From the man who once said the Republican Party should stop being the “stupid” party, this is one of the dumbest stunts I’ve ever seen from a politician in any party.  It’s wrong on so many levels you’d need a calculator to count them all.

It’s clear that this was an attempt by handlers to make Jindal look “folksy” and “genuine” within a casual family gathering. Got it. And that is the first problem with this video. Casual family gatherings are normally where people talk about very mundane, day-to-day activities, like what happened at school or work or who’s dating whom. How many family gatherings have you been to where someone announces he is running for President of the United States? That would be zero.  Okay, Jindal makes one, which is what makes this concept so preposterous and contrived.

Now, if you were taping a Presidential announcement vid, and the premise is that you are making the announcement first to your family, wouldn’t you want the children to be excited that Daddy might one day be President of the U.S.? In Jindal’s video, however, the kids sit in stunned silence, with one of the boy’s giving his Dad an awkward thumbs up.  Now you or I or anyone with an IQ over 70 would say, “Hey, let’s try that again with a little more enthusiasm.” But the geniuses in the Jindal camp must have thought the genuineness of the moment was a positive thing. How very, very wrong they were.

And what are we to make of Jindal announcing his presidential ambitions to children, and using that as his announcement to the nation at large? Is he comparing the American voters to children? Does he think he needs to make his announcement simple enough for a seven-year old to understand?

I could go on, but I’ll end with a technical issue, but a rather large one in my opinion. I don’t know how much the media buy was for Bobby’s announcement, but would you or anyone else spend tens of thousands of dollars placing a video promoting your candidate in prime time where his face is obscured by a tree limb?  Genuine moment or not, this is a major no no. It comes off as totally amateurish rather than a warm family moment. Do you think the American people are so familiar with Jindal that he doesn’t need to show his face? Bobby Jindal?

Jindal’s announcement ad deserves all of the ridicule it is getting. It’s mawkish, amateurish and displays an epic amount of poor judgment on the part of the candidate and his team. And, I’m sure, accurately reflects Bobby Jindal’s character to a T.

BREAKING: Racist Right Wing Media Denies Americans are Racist

The Right Wing media’s reaction to the murder of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, SC by an avowed white racist has been horrifying, embarrassing and predictable.  They have spun out and discussed every possible excuse for Dylann Roofs’ killing spree, from drugs to mental illness to an anti-Christian bias, except the correct one; Roof is a virulent racist intent on starting a race war pitting whites against blacks. Whether Roof even understands the Christian Identity roots of his beliefs, they were watered and nurtured by the insidious, coded racism of the mainstream conservative media, from FOX News to Limbaugh to the Drudge Report.

America’s favorite crazy uncle, Bill O’Reilly, went on a tirade recently claiming anyone who thinks we are a racist country is anti-American, and that the actions of Roof do not reflect the feelings of the vast majority of whites. As a Salon writer points out, that same argument doesn’t seem to hold much water when the perpetrator is Muslim or a minority.

The attempt by conservatives to whitewash institutional racism in America is disingenuous at best, as day in and day out they continuously use broad brush strokes to characterize immigrants, Muslims, African Americans, etc. as all members of the same herd with the ultimate goal of destroying traditional (white) America. This theme is incessant and no one who understands the code words and inferences believes it is anything other than thinly cloaked racism. That’s why the term “bully” is so appropriate for people like O’Reilly and Limbaugh, because like their schoolyard counterparts, they tease, harass and verbally insult their victims on a daily basis, yet when the person being persecuted finally turns around and punches them in the nose, they whine and cry that “I didn’t do nothin’.”

Institutional racism continues to exist in America, and there are libraries of research and data to confirm this. That the Right Wing media is working so hard to deny this makes them look even more out of touch with reality than ever.  Dylann Roof is no Lone Wolf, but the product of a conservative media machine that feeds its consumers a steady diet of hate and anger and victimization that is bound to be acted on by one of the tribe. And, if nothing changes, there is no reason to believe it won’t happen again.

Want to buy a vote in the U.S. Senate? Here’s how much money you need

So how much does it take to buy a vote in the Senate? The Guardian did us the favor of crunching the numbers related to the recent passing of the odious Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in the Senate. Here's the going rate for a Congressional vote:

• Out of the total $1,148,971 given, an average of $17,676.48 was donated to each of the 65 “yea” votes.
• The average Republican member received $19,673.28 from corporate TPP supporters.
• The average Democrat received $9,689.23 from those same donors.

The amounts given rise dramatically when looking at how much each senator running for re-election received.

Why the traitorous Democrats settled for less cash than Republicans is a mystery, but it seems it was enough to get a vote.  We Californians must get rid of Dianne Feinstein when she comes up for reelection.  She has become a shameless tool of the oligarchy/surveillance state who continues to turn her back on the desires of her constituents.  She has thrown her lot in with the 1% and has to go.

All of the Democrats who voted with the Republican majority should be ashamed of themselves. TPP is an agreement crafted by corporations to benefit corporations and it will most certainly screw everyone else as well as threaten our sovereignty as a nation.

Just remember, if you have a spare 10 grand lying around you don't know what to do with, you can always buy a vote in the U.S. Senate.

Donald tRUMP enters the fray

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact*

At the Research Digest, a site sponsored by the British Psychological Society, there is an article titled: “Correcting False Beliefs about Vaccines Can Be Surprisingly Counterproductive.” The brief articles looks at the findings of a recent study examining how attempts to debunk myths about vaccines, namely that they can give you the flue, can be counterproductive among the most vehement vaccine skeptics. When presented with facts about vaccines that debunk popular myths, the quarter of the adults who questioned vaccine safety still did not intend to get vaccinated after being educated on the topic. They merely came up with other new concerns about vaccinations. It’s called the Backfire Effect.

The rest of the article discusses approaches one might use to get through to these intense skeptics and avoid the Backfire Effect. In my opinion, there are additional issues and concerns about myths and myth busting that go beyond those discussed in the article.

The author considers the facts about vaccines that were used in the research to be true, and I don’t doubt that they are based on solid science. A problem arises, however, when the “facts” used to debunk a belief are

• Scientifically questionable
• Only partially true
• Being used to cover up something or for political gain
• Actually beliefs themselves

 In many instances, people disagree on the most fundamental facts in our lives; Christians and atheists, conservatives and liberals, socialists and capitalists, etc.  What one person believes is a fact is seen by another person as a myth. Even in the scientific realm there is an ever shifting array of research and “facts” telling us, for instance, that wine is both good for us and bad for us, depending on the study. Many believe that what the government or the news media tells us is factual, despite volumes of evidence to the contrary.

We should always rely on provable facts over superstition and conventional wisdom, but we must also be careful in our assumptions about what the facts are. 

*Arthur Conan Doyle

The State of Michigan: Another Republican Failure

There’s an excellent Salon article today exposing the failed policies and resulting human devastation of yet another Republican governor, Michigan’s Rick Snyder. Despite the reality that his state is in an economic free-fall, Snyder is touring the country trying to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse with highly selective and dubious claims about his austerity program. Like Brownback in Kansas, Walker in Wisconsin and Scott in Florida, Snyder is using slight of hand and verbal obfuscation to confuse the rest of the country about what is actually going on in his state.

Like his fellow Republican governors, Snyder has cut taxes for the wealthy, drained money from public education and social services, attacked unions, ignored or repealed corporate safety and environmental regulations, and disenfranchised minority residents even more than they already were. Snyder, however, has upped the anti by instituting “emergency management legislation” that allows him to send in self-appointed “managers” to take over the running of school districts and, in some cases, entire cities.

Despite the fact that the austerity policies of all these Tea Party Republican governors have proven to be dismal failures and caused significant hardship for the citizens of their states, the corporate media is paying scant attention to this disaster in the making. The reason why is quite simple. The oligarchy running this country loves what Snyder and his colleagues are doing. The human toll is of no importance to them, as long as the corporate monster is being fed and obeyed. Snyder, Brownback, Walker and Scott are the best friends a CEO ever had, and the worst governors the people have ever had to endure.

Made it to California

Four days, 2,100 miles, 106 degrees yesterday in the San Joaquin Valley, but I made it to Concord. Above is a picture of me cooling off after unloading and returning the trailer. California is great.

Go West, Old Man

Tomorrow I will be leaving Minnesota for California, carrying all my worldly belongings in a 5 x 8 trailer. It's amazing to realize I've lived in the Midwest (Iowa and Minnesota) for almost 40 years, and I have many wonderful memories to take with me. I'll miss family and friends who are living here very much. Most life changes have up sides and down sides. However, I believe this is what I need to do. I'll be offline for a few days.

The Tea Party is a corporate scam, but members won’t care

No surprise here. A study funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health provides conclusive evidence that the founding of the Tea Party was not a grassroots effort by tax protestors and small government conservatives, but an organization formed and funded by groups with ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers.

Liberals and Progressives have long asserted that the Tea Party was an AstroTurf movement created to push a corporate-friendly agenda, and now we know that is the case. And the effort has been extremely successful. Since its inception in 2002, the Tea Party has successfully pushed Republican candidates farther and farther to the right, confused the public on climate change, muscled its way into state legislatures to promote its agenda, and all but abolished bipartisanship in Washington, D.C.

You might think that rank and file members of the Tea Party would be a bit miffed to learn they belonged to an organization created by billionaires to advance a corporate agenda, but I doubt that will be the case. First of all, if you are a member of the Tea Party, you’re not too bright to begin with and are probably used to being taken advantage of by those smarter than you. Second, you’ve convinced yourself that it doesn’t matter, because, hey, maybe someday you’ll be a billionaire too. Or finally, you’ve been brainwashed into believing that what’s good for RJ Reynolds and the Koch brothers is good for America.

Interestingly, the Tea Party would probably not have grown into the political powerhouse it is today if anyone other than Obama was President. Because he’s black, smart and the boss of everybody, he has become an icon representing everything Tea Partier’s despise about America in 2015, and he has served to bring racist whites together in common cause and shared hatred.

Money can’t buy love, but it can buy hundreds of thousands of gullible citizens willing to crusade for America’s beleaguered billionaires.

How far will they let Sanders go?

I enthusiastically support Bernie Sanders in his bid for the White House and I’m thrilled that his campaign is picking up traction across the country. I’m also fearful.

We live in very troubling times where internal threats to the American hegemony from whistleblowers, investigative reporters and overly vocal citizens are met with the utmost legal force the government can muster, and in some cases, illegal force as well. As ridiculous as it is to say, Bernie Sanders, unlike Hillary Clinton, represents a threat to the Dark Government that really runs things. This is not something entirely new (think JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King), but the reach and power of the surveillance state has grown considerably in the past forty years, and exposing the truth is more dangerous than ever.

As Sanders’ star ascends while Hillary’s campaign is mired in controversy and attacks from the Right, it begs the question: How far will the Shadow Government allow the Vermont socialist to go? He stands for everything they despise: Higher taxes on the elites, drastically reducing income inequality, stronger social programs to help the poor and low income workers, strengthening social security and Medicare, a reduction in military spending, more support for unions, and finally, dismantling the surveillance state currently in charge of this country.

With views so utterly at odds with the ruling elites, would they ever allow him to become President of the United State? This is a question that was once reserved for third world countries where assassinations and coups have historically been common occurrences, but the United States of America? Sadly, I don’t think it’s an unreasonable concern anymore.

I want to scream at the stupid people

In the aftermath of hurricane Sandy, Ted Cruz said federal aid to the victims was “wasteful pork spending.” Now there’s flooding in Texas and Cruz is asking for federal relief. American dictionary publishers should all get together and agree to change the definition of “Hypocrite” to “Every conservative ever.”

How can anyone admire or cast a vote for someone who is so wrong about so many things? Someone so callous and lacking in empathy that he will allow his fellow citizens to suffer for his ideology, but come crying to the government when he’s the one suffering?

Some days I just want to get up on a roof and scream at the stupid people.

If I owned a business, I wouldn’t hire any of the current Republican candidates for President for any job more important than cleaning the bathrooms. They are all soulless monsters motivated by a morally bankrupt ideology that promotes selfishness, greed and superstition above all else. They are Ayn Rand’s bastard children who worship the moneylenders instead of the hippie freak who kicked them out of the marketplace.

The fact that these morons are even seriously considered candidates for the highest office in this country makes us the laughing stock of the rest of the world. We’re no longer held in respect by the international community, we’re simply feared for our vast military reach and nuclear weapons. The stupid people are destroying this country, and everyone can see it but us.

Republican Jesus

Welcome to the plutocracy formally known as the United States

The insidious tentacles of the corporate state are tightening their grip around our hearts and minds as they reach into every facet of our daily lives. From naming sports arenas to product placement in every form of entertainment we view (read the Salon article about the music industry selling out) to the government using the NSA and CIA for corporate spying, our business overlords pretty much own us and are shaping our sense of reality.

Even US foreign policy is controlled by the .01 percent. Noam Chomsky said of the controversial TPP agreement, it is “designed to carry forward the neoliberal project to maximize profit and domination, and to set the working people in the world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase insecurity.” Despite Obama’s spin, the TPP will benefit the wealthy at the expense of working Americans.

We live in a plutocracy now, were the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations call the shots. Politicians in Washington, D.C., including the President, are bought and paid for and have been reduced to merely carrying water for the true powers working behind the curtain. Need an example? We are living in the midst of catastrophic man-made climate change, yet the greedy, short-sighted titans of industry like the Kochs and their minions in Congress have successfully confused the public and prevented any meaningful action to address this important issue.

To the corporate state, our only reason for being is to purchase products and our senses are under continual assault from marketers 24/7 to buy, buy, buy. Our worth as human beings is based on what we wear, drive and eat, not on who we are. Creativity is only tolerated if it can be packaged and sold, and even religion, primarily fundamentalist Christianity, has morphed into a selective rationale for why greed is good.

Like the Germans of the 1930s, I fear the American people will realize what’s going too late to make a difference. Distracted by shiny objects and deluded into believing myths about American Exceptionalism, my fellow citizens continue to live under the illusion that this is still a democracy where their voice counts. I also fear that it will take a catastrophic event to shake them from their slumbers, and that event is coming sooner or later.

Bernie Sanders takes on America’s corporate media

In his Salon article today, “The media’s sickening Sander’s double standard: How the socialist brings out their true colors,” Simon Maloy analyzes how the media reacts to Bernie Sanders' positions as opposed to his Tea Party counterparts in the Republican party. On the subject of income inequality, one of Sanders’ top priorities, he has suggested we return to the Eisenhower-era tax structure when the marginal tax rate for the wealthiest Americans was around 90 percent. The interviewer was taken aback.

“When you think about something like 90 percent, you don’t think that’s obviously too high?” he asked.

“No,” Bernie shot back.

As Maloy points out, we have been so brainwashed over the past thirty years by the corporate media that the idea of taxing the wealthiest Americans to this extent seems like a crazy idea, although the American economy has historically prospered when taxes on the rich were high and floundered when they were low, as they are now.

Conservatives are given a very long leash by the mainstream media when it comes to calling their craziness to account, but when a progressive utters anything even remotely “leftist” it is met with incredulity and eye-rolling. Sander’s has a large mountain to scale in his run for the presidency, not so much from Hillary, but from the internal biases of America’s corporate media.

Christians think the world will end in September. Wanna bet?

According to a number of prominent conservative Christians, the world’s going to end this September. Yawn. I don’t know, something about blood moons and Israel and the Pope speaking to Congress… it’s a fundamentalist Christian’s wet dream of convergences where God finally gets out of his Laz-y-Boy and makes his way to Earth to tell the faithful, “Y’all were right. Kill the liberals.”

With silver-haired, pinched-faced pastor John Hagee leading the mob, Christians are getting their ascension robes dry-cleaned and cancelling any October plans they might have made.

Well, I’d like to issue them a challenge.

If you believe with all your heart that the world is going to end in September, you won’t have any problem participating in a small wager. If the world does end this fall, well, I’m screwed, you’re in heaven for eternity and we’ll all be spared one more sequel of The Expendables. If you’re wrong, however, and I’m still cleaning out the cat box on October 1, you, Mr. Hagee, will be responsible for collecting $10 million to be deposited into my checking account by the end of the year. And, you’ll donate another $10 million to the Bernie Sanders for President campaign (It’s not all about me).

I await your response in the comments section, Pastor Hagee. Any time now.

Conservative hypocrisy headlines of the day

Another day, another dose of Republican hypocrisy and lies:

South Carolina Repub: Drop 20-week abortion ban because women will fake being raped to get one (Raw Story)

Texas Senator blamed violence in Baltimore on ‘absent fathers,’ has nothing to say about Waco massacre (Think Progress)

Michigan pastor who railed against same-sex marriage resigns after being caught seeking men on Grindr (Raw Story)

George W. Bush’s CIA briefer admits Iraq WMD ‘intelligence’ was a lie (Salon)

Jeb Bush: A tolerant country would allow discrimination based on ‘religious beliefs’ (Raw Story)

Rand Paul cruelty and delusion on display: U.S. shouldn’t accept Iraqi refugees because “we won the war” (Right Wing Watch)

Jeb Bush tells Pamela Geller he will ‘trust his brother’ to deal with the ‘Islamic threat’ (AlterNet)

Bobby Jindal says he will issue executive order allowing anti-LGBT discrimination (forwardprogressives.com)

Texas governor signs bill that makes local fracking bans illegal (Think Progress)

‘I’m going to call a drone and…kill you’ and 9 other insane things Lindsey Graham has said (The Nation)

Former 4^th District congressional candidate admits planning armed militia attack, firebombing of Muslim community in New York (Chattanoogan.com)

…and finally a dose of good news:

The GOP is dying off. Literally. (Politico)

A Biker Brawl in Victorian England

Location: The Boar’s Tail Pub, Knightsbridge, London, 1895

Setting: A dozen members of the Weston Gentlemen’s Bicycling Association are enjoying pints of ale in a corner of the pub. Four bicyclists from the Brickstone Riding and Touring Club enter the pub and order drinks. Charles Twittenstraw, a member of the former group, approaches the table of the pub’s newest patrons and addresses William Cockswoon.

Charles

Well, a good day to you, Gentlemen.

William

And to you, Sir. A fine day.

Charles

Indeed it is. Indeed. I’ve not had the pleasure of seeing you or your companions in here before.

William

Quite true. Our club is located in Brentford and we are touring west through the city. Lovely area, here.

Charles

Yes, it is. We are very proud of our little corner of London, and it is always dismaying to have its beauty despoiled by those of inferior character.

William

Of course. And if we see such louts, we will alert you immediately.

Charles

I was referring to you, Sir. This pub, this area of the city, is reserved solely for the riding enjoyment of the Weston Gentlemen’s Bicycling Association.

William

A jolly good jest. (Turns to his mates) If nothing else, the residents of Knightsbridge are entertaining.

Charles

It was not intended to be entertaining. You and your little band of sparrows should fly away now, if you have any common sense and regard for your own safety.

William

Ah, my safety. Pray tell, what brand of bicycle does your “association” prefer?

Charles

Only the finest two-wheel machine in existence: The Schwinn.

William

(Laughing with his companions) The Schwinn. No true bicyclists would be caught dead riding a Schwinn when the far superior Raleigh is available.

Charles

The only Raleigh riders I know are elderly women and circus animals.

William

(Standing) I’d hold my tongue if I were you. And I’m surprised you’re pathetic Schwinn is able to roll forward without collapsing under your formidable weight.

Charles

Doesn’t every Raleigh come with a pair of bloomers?

William

(As the two groups converge) The only bloomers I have are the ones I took off of your wife last night.

Charles

I’d be insulted if I thought my wife ignorant enough to fornicate with a feeble minded Raleigh rider.

William

Of course you’re right. It wasn’t your wife. It was your mother.

(And…fisticuffs ensued.)