The head birther comes clean. Sort of.

       In a way, trump's press conference and statement that the president was born in America was even more offensive than his ridiculous birther campaign to say that he wasn't.

He was forced to do so after letting his true colors show to the Washington Post , which left his handlers scrambling to play clean up.  

What he did not do was apologize, and he had the audacity to blame his years of race baiting and dog whistle messages ---sent to his David Duke like friends--- on his general election opponent.

He carried it on for years, and he tweeted about it, and he talked about it to anyone who would listen or read. So now, sadly, this disgusting episode in American life--- which was a sordid attempt to delegitimize the first African American president in the history of this country--- falls squarely in the lap of  Herr trump. 

Today, with the rest of the country looking on, he was forced to pivot, and to declare to all the world that the president was in fact born in this country.  He crusaded for seven years as the leader of the birther movement, and he took two minutes to tell us to just let it go, and in doing so, told another big lie.

Watching that spectacle that was supposed to be a press conference (just trump promoting his new hotel) you got to see trump's arrogance on full display. 

He did not have the decency to apologize to the president for being the leader of this reprehensible and racist movement over the years, and he quickly got through his proof of life type delivery as if his handlers were holding a gun to his head. 

To black folks this entire birther sham  was personal. I say shame on him. And shame on every  American who supports him as well. 

*Pic from mediamatters.org.

  

"A bigot and a racist"?

          Tonight I will leave you with a cut and paste worthy post from Dana Milbank.

"Let’s not mince words: Donald Trump is a bigot and a racist.

Some will think this an outrageous label to apply to the frontrunner for a major party’s presidential nomination. Ordinarily, I would agree that name-calling is part of what’s wrong with our politics.

But there is a greater imperative not to be silent in the face of demagoguery. Trump in this campaign has gone after African Americans, immigrants, Latinos, Asians, women, Muslims and now the disabled. His pattern brings to mind the famous words of Martin Neimoller, the pastor and concentration camp survivor (“First they came for the socialists…”) that Ohio Gov. John Kasich adroitly used in a video last week attacking Trump’s hateful broadsides.

It might be possible to explain away any one of Trump’s outrages as a mistake or a misunderstanding. But at some point you’re not merely saying things that could be construed as bigoted: You are a bigot.

It has been more than a quarter century since Trump took out ads in New York newspapers calling for the death penalty for “criminals of every age” after five black and Latino teens were implicated in the Central Park jogger case. The young men, convicted and imprisoned, were later cleared by DNA evidence and the confession of a serial rapist – and Trump called their wrongful-conviction settlement a “disgrace.”

Since then, Trump led the “birther” movement challenging President Obama’s standing as a natural-born American; used various vulgar expressions to refer to women; spoke of Mexico sending rapists and other criminals across the border; called for rounding up and deporting 11 million illegal immigrants; had high-profile spats with prominent Latino journalists and news outlets; mocked Asian accents; let stand a charge made in his presence that Obama is a Muslim and that Muslims are a “problem” in America; embraced the notion of forcing Muslims to register in a database; falsely claimed thousands of Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attacks in New Jersey; tweeted bogus statistics asserting that most killings of whites are done by blacks; approved of the roughing up of a black demonstrator at one of his events; and publicly mocked the movements of New York Times (and former Washington Post) journalist Serge Kovaleski, who has a chronic condition limiting mobility.

He hasn’t gone after Jews recently, but his backers have, and Trump was uncharacteristically silent when prominent booster Ann Coulter, responding to Republican candidates’ support for Israel in a debate, tweeted: “How many f---ing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?”

Though all Trump supporters surely aren’t racists or bigots, even a cursory examination of social media reveals that many are.  Those supporting Trump tend to be white, less-educated and middle-aged and older – those who are anxious and angry because they are losing ground as the American economy changes. An analysis of the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll by my colleague Scott Clement found that Trump, who has the support of 14 percent of registered voters overall, does particularly well among white men who aren’t college-educated (24 percent) and white, non-evangelical Protestants (27 percent), but gets only 3 percent of non-whites and 5 percent of those under 30 years old." [More]

 

I had almost forgotten about trump calling for the death penalty for those young men in the Central Park  jogger case. Young men, I might add, who have since been vindicated.

 

It's sad that it took a journalist who writes for the Washington Post to do what the republican establishment and candidates should have been doing this election cycle: Call out Donald trump for the racist and bigot that he is.    

 

One of the sad things about the trump phenomenon is that people are always willing to make excuses for him. 

 

"..he defended the treatment of the black man at Trump’s rally (“he was obviously being disruptive and he was a big burly guy”), Trump’s tweet falsely blaming African Americans for most killings of white people (“he just fell for some bad data”) and Trump’s embrace of a Muslim database (“that was brought up by a reporter”)."

 

Whether Donald trump wins the election or not, his rise to prominence has been bad for America. Even if his supporters don't realize it yet.

 

*Pic from thinkprogress.org

 

 

 

"We have a problem in this country."

Before I drop this post, let's have a moment of silence for Scott Walker........

Goodbye Scott, we hardly knew you. And to think that after all you did up in Wisconsin you still thought that you could one day become the president of this "great" nation. 

I wonder who will be next? At least six or seven of these candidates have to know that they have no shot at winning the republican primary let alone the presidency. At this point they are just all trying to raise how much they can get for their speaking fees in the future, and angle for a talk show on FOX VIEWS.

Of course Scott Walker dropping out now frees up the big donor money for the folks at the top, like Carly Fiorina, the Donald  (I take that back, Donald has his own money), and this election year's version of Herman Cain. 

Carly is now rising, and Donald Trump, as is to be expected, is attacking. Fortunately for him there is a lot there to attack.  I will give her credit, though, the way she doubles down on a lie is quite Nixonian. I am sure that there are a lot of folks in her party who appreciates that.

Raise your hand if you believe, like I do, that Donald Trump has peaked. At some point all the stupid stuff he could get away with as an entertainer is not going to cut it on the presidential trail. (Dude, what's with the Megyn Kelly obsession?) The way he handled that town hall meeting in New Hampshire was laughable. And no, I am not talking about him ignoring the birther question about the president. It was his response to the deranged winngut asking him about Muslims ("I will look into that") that was beyond pandering; it made him look like a complete moron. No different than the obvious loon who was asking him the question. The leader in the presidential field of a major political party will "look into" getting rid of Muslims?    

"We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims. We know our current president is one," the man told Trump.

 

"You know he's not even an American. We have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That's my question. When can we get rid of them?"

Sir, we do have a problem in this country, but believe me when I tell you, it ain't Muslims.

*Pic from wonkette.com

"Pimps Up Ho's Down"

“You know, I don't agree with all the people who support me and my guess is they don't all agree with everything I believe in. But I need to get 50.1 percent or more and I'm appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people.”

Let me translate that for you: I will do anything to get elected. Even if it means taking money and chest bumping with a guy who delegitimizes the very office I am seeking by calling the person who currently holds it a non- citizen.

The Donald has his latest political whore to slap around, and he is called Mitt Romney. I call Mitt a whore because Donald Trump is somewhat of a pimp. He is someone who collects your money by making you spend it on something that is seemingly beautiful and gives you pleasure -Think of his casinos.- Now, once again, he is pushing the birther issue, and fortunately for him, the republican candidate for president lacks the backbone or the moral fortitude to tell him to take a hike.

Of course Donald the pimp doesn't care about his whore, so rather than tone down the birther talk he is letting it rip.

Nothing’s changed my mind” on the issue, Trump told CNBC. “And by the way, you know, you have a huge group of people. I walk down the street and people are screaming, ‘Please don’t give that up.’ Look--a publisher came out last week and had a statement about Obama given by them to Obama when he was doing a book as a young man a number of years ago in the ’90s: ‘Born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia.’” [Here is what Howard Kurtz said: "Um, it was Obama's literary agent, and the guy who did it says: "This was nothing more than a factchecking error by me—an agency assistant at the time." Drat!"]

“I don’t consider myself birther or not birther, but there are some major questions here that the press doesn’t want to cover,” Trump later added. “Now, if that were somebody else they’d be covering it and they’d be throwing people out of office, but they don’t want to cover it.”

And what does Donald's whore have to say about this?

“You know, I don't agree with all the people who support me and my guess is they don't all agree with everything I believe in. But I need to get 50.1 percent or more and I'm appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people.”

Mitt, just "hit the strip" and STFU.

Finally, let's keep an eye out for what is taking place down in Florida. Voting rights are being taken away by way of a purge by that state's republican governor.

Yes folks, Florida again! Calling Eric Holder.

Republicans feud, and more birther nonsense.

It's not Tupac and Biggie, but we wil take it.

Man it didn't take long for Mr. Bad Hair to respond to George Will calling him a bloviating idiot with a low IQ.  Mr. Bad Hair has been dying to get in front of a television camera, but unfortunately for him, television producers are getting tired of his act. The man who wants to see Obama's birth certificate as bad as the rest of us wants to to see his hairdresser, can be pretty unpredictable. Producers know that. There is no telling what he will say once the cameras start rolling.

Still, I am sure that he is glad for twitter. He couldn't wait to get to his twitter account so that he could put a fellow wingnut on blast. He called George Will "dumb" and said that he is an "overrated commentator".  Of course he is right on both counts, but this is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Anyway, Mr. bad Hair can take heart in the fact that he is not alone with this birther obsession. There is actually a state in our union paying to investigate Obama's claim to having being born in America, and state officials in that state  are legitimizing the birther movement with their offensive outrageous behavior.

"In these harsh and bitter times when the air is thick with acrimony, we owe a vote of thanks to the state of Arizona for stepping into the spotlight to offer some light relief.

It’s a role for which the state seems well-suited. Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts wrote, “We’ve long been the land of crackpottery and lunacy.”
Unfortunately, Arizona’s secretary of state, Ken Bennett, pulled the plug on his threat to keep Barack Obama’s name off the November ballot unless the president produced a birth certificate that satisfied Bennett’s high standards for such documents.

Never mind that this issue has long been put to rest in the mind of every rational American. Bennett perhaps began to have second thoughts when he found himself denounced by national news organizations as the tool of half-baked clowns and a legitimizer of lunatic leanings.
That’s not what you want on your resume if you’re planning, as Bennett apparently is, to run for governor in two years.

He finally did what any state official could do and asked Hawaii for a copy of Obama’s birth certificate. Hawaii complied, and his office quickly and quietly dropped its effort to prove that Obama was an illegal immigrant. Still undeterred was Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County. We outside the state can’t tell how good at law enforcement Arpaio is. The U.S. Department of Justice apparently doesn’t think he’s all that good because it is suing him. In any event, the limelight-loving lawman seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on issues outside his jurisdiction.

And one of those is — yes! — Obama’s birth certificate. Arpaio is also after Obama’s draft records, which would seem to be beside the point because, as president, Obama is commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces, including the state militias. It says so in the Constitution, although Arpaio might want to demand that the National Archives prove that its copy is not a forgery.
Crime and budget issues apparently not being pressing issues in Phoenix, Arpaio dispatched a deputy and an investigator to Hawaii. (Why two? “Security issues that I can’t get into,” Arpaio said cryptically.)

There, Arpaio said, his minions “were stonewalled.” However, Hawaiian officials — who have never struck me as a particularly devious bunch — said that the Arizonans met with the deputy director of health, the director being away, and a deputy attorney general and that they were provided with all the relevant documentation." [Source]

If there is anyone reading this post who happens to live in the state of Arizona, please leave a comment explaining to the rest of us why you are still there.

Happy Memorial Day everybody. Most people who read this blog know that I have a great deal of respect for Veterans and the men and women who are volunteering to serve this country in the military theater. I may not agree with our American policies that put our men and women (and innocent people in other countries) in harms way, but the men and women who are out there risking their life and limbs will always have my love and respect.   

 



  



       

Mr. Speaker, why would you flood out the people of Cairo?You know that black folks can't swim.

It must really suck to be the most famous birther, Mr. Bad Hair, these days. Has anyone heard from him lately? I am afraid that my man might be thinking about jumping from one of his towers. Donald, I hope your timing in business isn't as bad as your timing in politics, because, if it is, I am sure that there are some very nervous bankers out there. Thank you Kevin Allen, for confirming what we have long suspected.

Staying with the birther theme; I see that my Indian American friend down in Bayou country is having some birth certificate issues of his own. What goes around comes around Bobby. I am sure you were born in A-merry-ca, but, as a child of immigrants, you might need to be a bit more sensitive with this issue in the future.

Finally, speaking of stuff coming back to bite you; it seems that the folks in the Cairo, Illinois area are experiencing a little bad karma these days. You remember those folks, right? They were the ones that had that public lynching of Will "Froggy" James back in 1907. And they were the ones who chose to put cement over their municipal pool before they let you Negroes swim in it.

So anywhoo, we fast forward fifty years or so and now Cairo is a town made up of mostly you Negroes. It is a poor town, but you Negroes chose to stay there, because, let's face it, where else were you going to go?

Here comes the mighty Mississippi, and rather than flood out the town of Cairo and its Negroes, the Army Corp of Engineers decided to blow up a levee and flood out valuable farmland belonging to white folks to save you Negroes in Cairo. The horror!

As is to be expected, some folks were not pleased. "What? Flood valuable farmland to save a bunch of Nig...I mean Negroes?" I am paraphrasing here, but that was Missouri's republican speaker of the house weighing in on the subject. Wait, I have a direct quote, let me give it to you:

"Missouri's Republican House Speaker Steve Tilley was asked by reporters about the dilemma. "Would you rather have Missouri farmland flooded or Cairo underwater?" Tilley is asked.

Without hesitation, he replies, "Cairo. I’ve been there. Trust me. Cairo.” [Source]

I have never been there Mr. Tilley, but I think I know what you saw.

Still not good enough Mr. President!

I just saw one of those great You Tube moments on John King's show.

"JOHN KING, HOST, “JOHN KING USA”: You raised this –

DONALD TRUMP, CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: No, no, you raised this.

KING: No, I did not raise this. I did not call the press conference in Palm Beach earlier this week –

TRUMP: Excuse me, you raised this. And every time I sit down with the press, all they want to talk about is the birth certificate. And I got him to do something that nobody else could get him to do, and I’ve been getting great credit for that.

KING: And you - you raised this issue of his credibility, that if he has it, he should release it.

TRUMP: Absolutely.

KING: There are people who question yours in the middle of all this. The other night, you went on "ANDERSON COOPER" and you said your investigators told you it was missing or it wasn't there.

TRUMP: Excuse me.

KING: What was that about?

TRUMP: Excuse me. Very simple. I had people looking into it. Now I don't have to have the people - I can call them back, I hope. I mean, I haven't seen this. I'm sure a lot of experts –

KING: But if – would you ever pay them – if serious people told you it was missing or not there, here it is. Here it is.

TRUMP: Would I pay them? I don’t know. Maybe I'll let you negotiate for me.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Some people think you just made that up though.

TRUMP: Let me just tell you, I don't make up anything. Let me tell you something. I have done a great service to the American people...."

For more laughs please watch the clip that goes with this link.

I will say this much for Mr. Bad Hair, he fits right in with the republican party. He looked right into the camera and told a lie. When King asked him why he said he was even with the president in the CNN polls he said because he was. When King told him that CNN had no such poll he told King that he [King] was lying and tried to send some flunky to get it [The poll]. CNN and the rest of A-merry-ca is still waiting for proof of that poll. It will never come. Just like we will never hear from the investigators that he had in Hawaii. It was all a lie.

Still, I am mad at O. I did not want him to release his birth certificate. The thought of an A-merry-can president having to release a birth certificate to prove that he is an A-merry-can is astonishing to me. It's why I can't stop blogging about it. Can you imagine? Two years into their presidency one of the previous 43 presidents having questions raised about where they were born?

So there was Mr. Bad Hair today taking credit for O showing a document which every person in A-merry-ca who doesn't see black helicopters over his/her lawn knew existed.

"Yes, but why did it take two years for him to show it. Tell the people, Mr. Obama, why two years? "

Mr. Wingnut, why did he have to show it to you in the first place?

Not good enough.

“You never find yourself until you face the truth” ~Pearl Bailey~

I can't believe it! Finally a news organization in this country investigates the birther charges against O and guess what they found? Nothing. Yes, it seems that he was born in this country.

I caught some of Gary Tuchman's report earlier, and my man did real journalist proud with his report. He interviewed the republican who is the former director of Hawaii's department of health, and guess what she said? That she did see the actual birth certificate. He interviewed other officials and journalist in Hawaii as well, and, I hate to disappoint you wingnuts, but there is nothing there. Looks like you are going to be stuck with his O ness for awhile.

I wonder if CNN would would allow FOX NEWS to dedicate an hour or so out of their programming and carry the CNN report? I am sure that some type of fee arrangement could be worked out. Let's face it, there is no other way to reach the wingnuts in this country. They sure as hell would never watch anything on CNN.

Will this put to rest all of this birther talk? (Shout out to Warren Olney on public radio in L.A. I was on his program today, and, as usual, he was a class act.) I doubt it. I know President Obama doesn't want it to stop. (Independents. Independents. Independents.) It's great for him when the people who hate him most are certifiable lunatics.

Anyway, now that the birther issue has been debunked; we have a new one: The "graders".

" Move over birthers, here come the "graders." President Obama was a "terrible" student who didn't deserve to get into the Ivy League universities he attended, Donald Trump suggests in an interview with AP. "I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?" Trump asked. "I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records." [Source]

I know Donald, "the blacks" always get special privileges. BTW what type of grades did you make at Fordham and the University of Pennsylvania? The next time you send one of your apprentices to the grocery story, you might want to tell them to stock up on Windex to clean your house.

COUYON!

*

Mrs. Field won't like this post, but I am going to have to rip her state tonight.

I mean honestly, it's one thing to listen to a certain lunatic fringe in A-merry-ca go on and on about the president's birth certificate and the nutty Muslim conspiracy theories floating around, but when elected politicians lend legitimacy to this madness it diminishes all of us as A-merry-cans.

Now we have the Governor of the Pelican state (an Indian A-merry-can whose birth certificate is safely tucked away somewhere in Baton Rouge) saying that he will sign into law a birther bill if it comes across his desk. Honestly, I think that those chemical plants on the Mississippi River are a little too close to the state house. My man must be inhaling some of the fumes.

"If it reaches his desk, Gov. Bobby Jindal says he'll sign a proposal to require President Barack Obama and other presidential candidates to prove their U.S. citizenship before their names can be included on a state ballot." [Story]

Don't worry Gov. I will still rock it in"da Boot" every chance I get. I will just watch my back when I am down there. Those Cajuns might want to see my ID.

* Pic from Getty Images.

NEGRO SEEKING WORK

*

So Mr. Bad Hair has people on the ground in Hawaii trying to unearth the greatest hoax in A-merry-ca's long history. Not since the birth of a certain little guy in a town called Bethlehem has so much been made of where a child was born.

"He spent $2 million in legal fees trying on to get away from this issue, and if it weren't an issue, why wouldn't he just solve it?" he said. "I wish he would because if he doesn't, it's one of the greatest scams in the history of politics and in the history, period. You are not allowed to be a president if you're not born in this country. Right now, I have real doubts."

Donald, I know that some folks don't like it, but I have to tell you, I have my doubts as well. So I was wondering; could you use someone else on the ground in Hawaii? For a small fee-- and daily per diem --I would be glad to interview people and go over every public record with a fine- toothed comb for you. No one will work harder than the field to uncover this fraud perpetrated on the A-merry-can people by this Obama guy.

If there is some kind of fraud there; I will find it. Promise.

Finally, it seems that another republican presidential candidate is a little confused about his own intentions to lead our great country.

"Running for president has become such an elaborate press operation that it's sometimes hard for even the candidates to keep up.

Just ask Tim Pawlenty, who sounded a verbal miscue during an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan Tuesday night about whether or not he's actually running for president.

"I'm running for president," Pawlenty told CNN. "I'm not putting my hat in the ring rhetorically or ultimately for vice president so I'm focused on running for president.

" The comments--a partial transcript of which was forwarded to reporters ahead of the actual broadcast of the interview--instantly made big news, given Pawlenty, technically, has filed only an "exploratory committee." It's a phrase that seems to imply the former Minnesota governor is still thinking about whether to mount a full-fledged run, even though it's fairly obvious he's very much in the 2012 race.

But Pawlenty's aides quickly tried to stamp down the story their boss was officially in the race, insisting that CNN had mischaracterized the ex-governor's comments. As evidence, they pointed to another segment in the interview in which he dialed back his initial claim. "I've got an exploratory committee up and running, and we'll have a final or full announcement in the coming weeks here,"

Pawlenty added later. "It won't be too much longer, but everything is headed in that direction." "I'm running for president," Pawlenty told CNN. "I'm not putting my hat in the ring rhetorically or ultimately for vice president so I'm focused on running for president."

The comments--a partial transcript of which was forwarded to reporters ahead of the actual broadcast of the interview--instantly made big news, given Pawlenty, technically, has filed only an "exploratory committee." It's a phrase that seems to imply the former Minnesota governor is still thinking about whether to mount a full-fledged run, even though it's fairly obvious he's very much in the 2012 race. [Source]

OK, let's run that back: "I AM RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT". Mr. Pawlenty, I think that you were pretty clear. But yet your aides said that "CNN had mischaracterized" your comments.

You would make a great republican President. They all lied when their lips were moving.

*Pic courtesy of theGrio.

Donald, can you prove that you are from this planet?

Donald Trump has been showing every republican who wants to run for office the road map to success. Just say enough crazy things and the base will follow. I would say that he is becoming unhinged, but he has had that hair for awhile now, so it's safe to say that he has been crazy for a long time.

Trump says (and I am paraphrasing) that he has people down there in Hawaii looking into O's birth certificate now, and he can't believe what they are finding. He has implied that Obama might have pulled off the greatest hoax in history. But, given his wealth and standing in A-merry-can society, I would say that he has beaten O to the con game.

Talk about a reality show. I think that he [Trump] might be planning his next one right now.

And, speaking of unhinged, I see that Glen Beckkk is leaving Radio Rwanda. I would dance on his gold coins, but Beckkk will make about 30 million next year, so I think he is getting the last laugh. Suckers!

Up in cheese country there is a very important race to put a judge on their Supreme court. It's a very important race because if the conservative wins he will uphold Scott Walker's beat down of the unions and the concept of collective bargaining. It's a close race but the democrat seems to have a small lead and might win th.....hold it! Here is some BREAKING NEWS!

"MADISON, Wis (Reuters) - Officials in Waukesha County on Thursday said a final review of paperwork and other records from this week's closely watched Wisconsin Supreme Court election had uncovered thousands of uncounted votes, a potentially stunning development that could upend the contest.

Unofficial returns on Wednesday had given the union-backed challenger in the race, JoAnne Kloppenburg, a narrow 204-vote statewide lead over Republican David Prosser.

But late Thursday, the county clerk in Waukesha, a Republican stronghold, said workers had found 7,582 votes uncounted votes for Prosser. Clerk Kathy Nickolaus said she would hold a press conference at 5:30 p.m. to discuss the discovery." [Source]

You dems could learn a thing or two from these republicans. They will do whatever it takes to win an election. Those workers just happened to find over 7, 582 votes? That's a lot of votes to find. I wonder where they were hiding?

Finally, I have to keep it real and defend a little white boy as hard as I would a little black boy if he had found himself in a similar situation.

WTF is wrong with the po po in Denver? You can't just go around pepper spraying 8 year old kids. He is EIGHT! What was he going to do? Blast you with the wooden wall trim? [Story]