Counting their chickens a little too soon.

One of my guilty pleasures  in life is EPL soccer. I spend too much time on Sunday mornings watching the match of the day from across the pond.

Anyway, I was just watching the Manchester City Middlesbrough match, and right before halftime Middlesbrough scored to take a one to nothing lead. They celebrated, to be sure, but they knew there was a half to go, so they couldn't rest on their laurels. Invariably, the better side ended up scoring to equalize things, and the match ended in a 2-2 draw.

Which brings me to my post.  Today I watched Donald trump and his band of merry -winngut- men declare victory because the house narrowly passed a bill to replace the ACA. Trump was chirping on the White House lawn about what a victory he had won, and he gloated, once again, that he is the president.

You read that right. There was a Rose Garden ceremony for a bill that passed only one chamber.  But that is so trump. Spiking the ball before he gets in the end zone.

The bill still has to pass the senate, and chances are zero to nothing that it will pass in its present form, if it passes at all. To stay with my soccer analogy, Mr. Orange Hair and his gang are celebrating as if they won the match and it's only halftime. They still have an entire half to go.

These clowns were so desperate for a political win that they rushed through the bill without some of their members reading it, and before it was scored and analyzed by the CBO.

But let's see where this goes from here, and what will happen to some of these GOP politricksters in swing districts when it's time to send them back to Washington.

If you listen to trump and his friends tell it, premiums will go down, coverage will go up, and all will be hunky dory in trumpland. We. Will. See.

"Appearing on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer Thursday, Congressman Chris Collins (R-NY) conceded that he hadn’t even examined the document.

“I will fully admit, Wolf, I did not,” Collins said, saying that he relied on his staff to read the bill and brief him.

Collins was not alone. In the very next segment, Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) likewise said that he was briefed by his staff.

 

Blitzer was taken aback by this. He pressed Collins on whether he had a responsibility to actually read the legislation which stands to impact so many.

“This legislation affects a fifth of the U.S. economy and millions and millions of Americans,” Blitzer said. “Don’t you think it was important to actually sit down and read — read the language of this bill?”'

“You know, I have to rely on my staff,” Collins said. “And I can probably tell you that I read every word, and I wouldn’t be telling you the truth, nor would any other member. We rely on our staff, and we rely on our committees, and I’m comfortable that I understand this bill in its entirety, Wolf, without poring through every word.”'

   

Donald stalks Hillary through the second debate.

 I just saw the latest Hillary trump debate, and, if I am going to be honest, it was a couple of hours of my life that I now wish  that I could get back.

Donald trump, as is to be expected, was horrible. But that's just me. I actually like my presidents to be smart and to know what they are talking about. (Stalking Hillary all around the stage was not a good look. Somebody give that man a Tic Tac.)

The moderators were pretty decent, but they couldn't stop trump from bringing four of the women from Bubba's past to rattle Hillary. Nor could they stop Donald from threatening to lock up Hillary while he stalked her across the stage. There was even a Third World style press conference before it all got started.

Hillary was....well.... Hillary. The poor GOP has to be thinking that if they only had another candidate they probably could have won the whole damn thing. But, sadly for them, they are stuck with the orange haired one. And from the looks of things, they will be in the L column this November.

That tape over the weekend might be too much for Donald to overcome. It's one thing to read about something he said, it's quite another thing to actually hear it.

Then, to make matters worse, there might be more tapes out there, and another shoe might drop one day soon.

I hear that Mark Burnett  (Producer of The Apprentice) might be sitting on that tape, and there is mounting pressure for him to release it.

There is apparently a five million dollar fine for anyone of his former staff members who was on the set, and who reveals or discloses anything that they learned.

I think I might start a fundraiser to try and help raise some money for anyone who comes forward.

Maybe one of these billionaires supporting Hillary (I see you Mark Cuban) can kick in some dollars as well.   

The next few days should be interesting.

The "third-rate hooker" and the candidate.

     Imagine, if you will, a young Barack Obama running for president in 2008 against Hillary Clinton, and the following story comes out about him:

"Back in 2004, a model named Victoria Zdrok gave an interview to a guy named Chaunce Hayden. In it, she detailed the way that Donald Trump had called up her bosses at Playboy and requested to meet her under the guise of needing a model to work a campaign for a new casino. As it turns out, he just wanted a model to date. They went out four times.

She told Hayden all about their time together for his magazine, Stepping Out. She said this:

 First of all, he’s really arrogant. He’s really into himself! On a date all he does is talk about himself. He loves himself! The first thing he says to me on our date is that he’s taller and better looking than what he looks like in pictures, and that people don’t realize it. He said, ‘People don’t realize how handsome I am!’ He actually loves himself! I never met a more narcissistic person than Donald. You feel just like a piece of jewelry when you’re with him. For him it’s all about looks, appearances, and signing autographs. He just loves it.

Naturally, Trump wasn’t too excited to hear that this interview would be coming out in 2004 as he was beginning the first season of The Apprentice, according to the Daily Beast.

He called Hayden himself and said, “[Zdrok] looks like a fucking third-rate hooker. Gimme a break. I never took her out. She’s full of shit. Chaunce, look, I have good taste in women. Take a look at her picture. It’s all bullshit. I never took her out … I never took her out, and based on that picture I would never take her out. She’s not even attractive, she’s not a good-looking girl… Who the hell wants a Penthouse Pet? Penthouse is gone, it’s bankrupt, it’s over.” [Source]

Barack Obama would have lost the election by double digits and you would have never heard from him again. But this is not Barack Obama; this is  Donald trump, and no matter what he does he will have the undying support of his minions.

Maybe this is why all those "elder statesmen" in the GOP fear trump. They believe that his elevation to the presidency of the United States would set the image of the grand old party back a hundred years. What they don't realize, of course, is that just by running for president he has sullied the party and its standing about a large portion of the electorate. It is a portion of the electorate that does not take kindly to this type of crass boorish behavior towards women, and sadly for Mitt and company, I suspect that it is too late to bring them back.

*Pic from thedailybeast.com

     

Checking Shelby.

Every now and then I have to call out one of my favorite conservative writers. Shelby Steele is a pretty smart guy, and he usually does a good job of observing some of the racial dynamics here in America. The problem with Shelby, however, is his ideology, and where he chooses to align himself in our political debate.

Shelby is a classic black conservative. He likes to call out black folks and liberals for being too lazy and disingenuous, and he praises the conservative ethos and their (so called) honesty.

Anyway, Mr. Steele has struck again. [h/t to David for e-mailing this article to me) This time he has penned an article for the Wall Street Journal about Obama. (Shelby is fascinated with Obama. He is still pissed that the first black president came from the left and not the right.) In it, he lets America have it for not calling out Obama for his incompetence and giving him a pass because of his exotic skin and charisma.

"The president's success in having Osama bin Laden killed is an exception to a pattern of excruciatingly humble and hesitant leadership abroad. Mr. Obama has been deeply ambivalent about the application of American power, as if a shameful "neocolonialism" attends every U.S. action in the world. In Libya he seems actually to want American power to diminish altogether.

This formula of shrinking American power abroad while expanding government power at home confuses and disappoints many Americans. Before bin Laden, 69% of Americans believed the country was on the wrong track, according to an Ipsos survey. A recent Zogby poll found that only 38% of respondents believed Mr. Obama deserved a second term, while 55% said they wanted someone new.

And yet Republicans everywhere ask, "Who do we have to beat him?" In head-to-head matchups, Mr. Obama beats all of the Republican hopefuls in most polls.

The problem Mr. Obama poses for Republicans is that there has always been a disconnect between his actual performance and his appeal. If Hurricane Katrina irretrievably stained George W. Bush, the BP oil spill left no lasting mark on this president. Mr. Obama's utter confusion in the face of the "Arab spring" has nudged his job-approval numbers down, but not his likability numbers, which Gallup has at a respectable 47.6%. In the mainstream media there has been a willingness to forgive this president his mistakes, to see him as an innocent in an impossible world. Why?

There have really always been two Barack Obamas: the mortal man and the cultural icon. If the actual man is distinctly ordinary, even a little flat and humorless, the cultural icon is quite extraordinary. The problem for Republicans is that they must run against both the man and the myth. In 2008, few knew the man and Republicans were walloped by the myth. Today the man is much clearer, and yet the myth remains compelling.

What gives Mr. Obama a cultural charisma that most Republicans cannot have? First, he represents a truly inspiring American exceptionalism: He is the first black in the entire history of Western civilization to lead a Western nation—and the most powerful nation in the world at that. And so not only is he the most powerful black man in recorded history, but he reached this apex only through the good offices of the great American democracy.

Thus his presidency flatters America to a degree that no white Republican can hope to compete with. He literally validates the American democratic experiment, if not the broader Enlightenment that gave birth to it. "

Let me jump in here: Barack Obama is no worse than any of the previous presidents before him. So Shelby, you lost me at hello. Your article, from its outset, is poisoned by ideological prejudice. And you give Americans credit for enlightenment where they deserve none. I would argue that electing Barack Obama only highlighted the fact that America is still stained by its sad racial legacy. And it has created more bigotry, ignorance, and uncontrolled hostility by not only the usual suspects, but by those who we never expected to become so afraid and fearful of losing their country to those other people.

"..Conversely, the media hold the president's exceptionalism against Republicans. Here is Barack Obama, evidence of a new and progressive America. Here are the Republicans, a cast of largely white males, looking peculiarly unevolved. Add to this the Republicans' quite laudable focus on deficit reduction and spending cuts, and they can be made to look like a gaggle of scolding accountants.

How can the GOP combat the president's cultural charisma? It will have to make vivid the yawning gulf between Obama the flattering icon and Obama the confused and often overwhelmed president. Applaud the exceptionalism he represents, but deny him the right to ride on it as a kind of affirmative action.

A president who is both Democratic and black effectively gives the infamous race card to the entire left: Attack our president and you are a racist. To thwart this, Republicans will have to break through the barrier of political correctness.

Mr. McCain let himself be intimidated by Obama's cultural charisma, threatening to fire any staff member who even used the candidate's middle name. Donald Trump shot to the head of the Republican line by focusing on Mr. Obama as a president, calling him our "worst" president. I carry no brief for Mr. Trump, but his sudden success makes a point: Another kind of charisma redounds to those willing to challenge political correctness—those unwilling to be in thrall to the president's cultural charisma.

Lastly, there must be a Republican message of social exceptionalism. America has more social mobility than any heterogeneous society in history. Isn't there a great Republican opportunity to be had in urging minorities to at last move out of their long era of protest—in which militancy toward the very society they struggled to join was the way ahead? Aren't Republicans uniquely positioned to offer minorities a liberation from both dependency and militancy?

In other words, isn't there a fresh new social idealism implicit in conservative principles? Why not articulate it and fight with it in the political arena? Such a message would show our president as unevolved in his social thinking—oh so 1965. The theme: Barack Obama believes in government; we believe in you." [Article]

Let me jump in here: Republicans don't applaud social exceptionalism,they view it with scepticism. Your claim that Obama is an affirmative action president is proof of it. Telling the truth isn't political correctness, and honestly and openly questioning something isn't necessarily racism. But claiming that only republicans can move minorities out of their "long era of protest" because only republicans can show us how to work hard and achieve in America, is an insult to every hard working person of color who helped to make this country what it is. "Militancy" isn't always such a bad thing. Just ask the founding fathers to whom you and those of your ilk pray to every day. Without that "militancy" you wouldn't be able to speak of this great country that you seem to love so much. You wouldn't be able to collect a nice check from Stanford University. And you certainly wouldn't be able to collect what your publishers give you in advances for those wonderful books you like to churn out like pablum for the wingnut soul.

Shelby, I credit my success in life to my parents and the work ethic that they gave me, not the benevolence of white America. I have succeeded in America in spite of American -so called- exceptionalism, not because of it.

I wonder if you can say the same thing?