ON THE RECORD ....
“I think without question he is qualified to make the cut to be prime minister of Canada.” — Sen. Rand Paul, on Sen. Ted Cruz’s citizenship. 1/06/16
"They just need to get the hell out of here. They didn't ask anybody, we don't want them here...our little kids are sitting at home when they should be in school." -- Jarvis Kennedy, a member of the Burns Paiute tribe's council.
“One could not imagine a group of armed black men taking over an unoccupied federal building in one of our nation’s cities as they have in Oregon. It is time to tell that tough truth.” -- Senate candidate Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) arguing that the government response to the small group of armed militiamen occupying a wildlife refuge in rural Oregon and Black Lives Matter differed starkly because of race.
“That’s the kind of person that we want to put on stage against Hillary Clinton? I don’t think so. She’ll pat him on the head and then cut his heart out.” -- Chris Christie about Marco Rubio. 1/07/16
"Yet again, Chief Justice Roy Moore is flagrantly defying the rule of law, and empowering those who wish to stand between same-sex couples and their constitutional right to marry the person they love." -- HRC Legal Director Sarah Warbelow on Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s order saying that a ruling issued last March by the Alabama Supreme Court remains in effect and that probate judges “have a ministerial duty not to issue any marriage license contrary” to Alabama’s law and constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. 1/06/16
"Throw them out into the cold ... don't give them their coats.” -- Donald Trump responding to protesters disrupting his rally in Burlington, Vermont. 1/07/16
“He doesn’t support the individual right to own a firearm. That’s been the position of his Supreme Court nominees. That’s been the position of his administration. So what are we going to talk about, basketball? I’m not really interested in going over and talking to the president who doesn’t have a basic level of respect or understanding of the Second Amendment and law-abiding gun owners in this country.” --Chris Cox, head of the NRA’s lobbying arm on why he didn’t participate in President Obama’s town hall on guns. 1/08/16
“I urge you to vote for Donald Trump because he is the one candidate who points out that we should accept immigrants who are good for America. We don’t need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump.” -- White nationalist super PAC robocall to registered voters in Iowa 1/0 9/16
“We’re going to win so much — win after win after win — that you’re going to be begging me: ‘Please, Mr. President, let us lose once or twice. We can’t stand it any more.’ And I’m going to say: ‘No way. We’re going to keep winning. We’re never going to lose. We’re never, ever going to lose.” — Donald Trump 1/11/16
“I got on my knees and asked the Lord. I said, Lord, if you want me to write something, please help me clear my mind, and show me what I should write. And that’s what happened .... In a short period of time my mind was cleared. ... During that letter I began to understand what the Lord felt about the Hammonds .... [and] Harney County, and about the country. I clearly understood that the Lord was not pleased about what was happening with the Hammonds.” -- Ammon Bundy's “Dear Friends” video. Bundy fails to explain why the Almighty should be fretting about this and not, say, hurling lightning bolts at the miscreant earthlings who are displeasing Him. 1/01/16
"Let's go ahead and investigate the thing. Let's not be giving them access to the ability to further carry on what they call a civilization jihad, and to change us from a Judeo-Christian foundation to a Muslim foundation. We have got to be smarter than that." -- Ben Carson criticizing the President for allowing representatives of a Muslim civic group to attend the State of the Union address. 1/12/16
“I will say it is more than a little strange to see Donald relying on as authoritative a liberal, left-wing, judicial activist Harvard law professor who is a huge Hillary supporter. It starts to make you think, ‘Gosh, why are some of Hillary’s strongest supporters backing Donald Trump?'” — Sen. Ted Cruz, on Trump citing Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe while questioning his eligibility to run for president.
“We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn’t a matter of political correctness. It’s a matter of understanding what makes us strong… When politicians insult Muslims, when a mosque is vandalized, or a kid bullied, that doesn’t make us safer. That’s not telling it like it is. It’s just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals. And it betrays who we are as a country.” -- President Obama in his SOTU speech 1/12/16
IN THIS ISSUE
IN THIS ISSUE
1. "The Daily Show" w/Trevor Noah: President Obama Targets Gun Violence
2. The Borowitz Report: Poll: Republicans Would Rather Actually Be Shot by Gun Than Agree with Obama
3. The DAILY GRILL
4. From MEDIA MATTERS (They watch Fox News so you don't have to)
5. MarkFiore cartoon: “United States of Militiadom”
6. Crowdpac
7. Jimmy Kimmel: Congratulations North Korea!
8. Late Night Jokes for Dems
9. 2016 Presidential Election Quiz
10. "The Daily Show" w/Trevor Noah: Birthers Target Ted Cruz
11. Fox News Reaches New Low in Sad and Disgusting Attack on President Obama (Video)
12. What did Republican lawmakers hate about President Obama's State of the Union address?
13. "The Nightly Show" w/Larry Wilmore: Welcome to Texas - Refugees
IN THIS ISSUE
1. David Von Drehle: Donald Trump’s Art of the Steal
2. Saladin Ahmed: An antidote to Islamophobia
3. Nicholas Kristof: Guns, Tears and Republicans
4. E.J. Dionne: Ending the Gun Lobby's Con Game
5. Michael Tomasky: The Real Threat Trump Poses to Hillary—and Us
6. Barack Obama: Guns Are Our Shared Responsibility
7. David Brooks: The Brutalism of Ted Cruz
8. Katha Pollitt: The Hillary Clinton Double Standard
9. Dana Milbank: Ted Cruz gets burned by the birther fires he stoked
FYI 1. "The Daily Show" w/Trevor Noah: President Obama Targets Gun Violence
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/9oluov/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-president-obama-targets-gun-violence
2. The Borowitz Report: Poll: Republicans Would Rather Actually Be Shot by Gun Than Agree with Obama
A day after President Obama held a nationally televised town hall about guns in America, a new poll shows that a majority of Republicans would rather actually be shot by a firearm than agree with him.
In an indication of the challenges facing the President in persuading Republicans, those surveyed named a wide variety of specific guns that they would choose to be personally shot by rather than seeing eye to eye with Obama.
When asked to state their preference, forty-three per cent stated “handgun,” twenty-seven per cent replied “shotgun,” twenty-one per cent responded “assault rifle,” while only two per cent named “agreeing with Obama.”
The poll results are reminiscent of a poll taken last month about climate change, in which a majority of Republicans said they would rather see their habitat destroyed by rising sea levels than agree with President Obama.http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/
3. The DAILY GRILL
This is the smoking gun. It is a direct order to violate the laws of the United States concerning classified info. --Hugh Hewitt@hughhewitt on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who allegedly "directed an aide to alter and send a document over a non-secure system."
VERSUS
On January 9, the Associated Press reported that the State Department "checked its records and found no indication that the document in question was sent to Secretary Clinton using nonsecure fax or email," and "instead turned up a secure fax transmission shortly after Clinton's email exchange" -- Media Matters 1/10/16
"It is fair to call it a conspiracy. It is a false notion that I believe is circulated for either political reasons or commercial reasons in order to prevent a coming together among people of goodwill to develop commonsense rules that would make us safer while preserving the Second Amendment." -- President Obama on the view that he's trying to take people's guns away.
VERSUS
"That the House of Representatives does hereby censure and condemn Barack Obama for having willfully disregarded the legislative powers of the duly elected Congress provided by the Constitution of the United States through his executive actions to deprive American citizens of their constitutionally-mandated right to bear arms under the Second Amendment," -- Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.) resolution to censure Barack Obama for his executive order on guns.
“It (an executive order declaring that all schools and military installations would no longer be “gun-free zones”) gets signed my first day. You know what a gun-free zone is to a sicko? That’s bait.” -- Trump 1/09/16
VERSUS
“No, we don’t allow any firearms in the hotel.” -- Manager at Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago. (Other Trump properties which remain gun-free zones include the Trump National Gulf Club in Los Angeles and the Trump International Hotel Waikiki Beach Walk in Honolulu.)
Pat Buchanan gave a fantastic interview this morning on @CNN - way to go Pat, way ahead of your time! -- Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 9 Jan 2016
VERSUS
"I used to like Pat. I was on Crossfire with him. I thought he was a nice guy. Then I read the things he had written about Hitler, Jews, blacks, gays, and Mexicans. I mean, I think it’s disgusting. That speech he made at the ‘92 Republican convention was a disaster. He wants to divide Americans. Clearly, he has a love affair with Adolf Hitler, and that’s sick. Buchanan actually said gay people had chosen ‘satan[ism] and suicide’ Now he says he welcomes gay people into his campaign. The guy is a hypocrite.” -- Trump in a 1999 interview with the Advocate.
“At the same time, that does not mean we just flat out open our borders. We can’t do that. We cannot continue to allow immigrants to come here illegally. And in this age of terrorism, we must not let in refugees whose intentions cannot be determined.” -- S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley in the English version of the Republican SOTU rebuttal
VERSUS
“It’s essential that we find a legislative solution to protect our nation, defend our borders, offer a permanent and humane solution to those who live in the shadows, respect the rule of law, modernize the visa system and push the economy forward.” -- Diaz-Balart, in the Republican Spanish rebuttal
4. From MEDIA MATTERS (They watch Fox News so you don't have to)
Right-Wing Media Cite Discredited Republican Lawyer To Claim Hillary Clinton Committed "Numerous Federal Crimes"http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/01/07/right-wing-media-cite-discredited-republican-la/207839
After Media Backlash Against Benghazi Committee's Clinton Hearing, Gowdy Declares No More Public Testimonyhttp://mediamatters.org/video/2016/01/07/after-media-backlash-against-benghazi-committee/207834
On MSNBC, Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta Debunks Fox's Benghazi "Stand Down Order" Myth -- Panetta: "There Was Never Any Order To Stand Down" From The Pentagonhttp://mediamatters.org/video/2016/01/07/on-msnbc-former-secretary-of-defense-leon-panet/207832
"Dirty Trickster" Roger Stone Is A Driving Force Behind The Latest Round Of Anti-Bill Clinton Attackshttp://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/01/08/dirty-trickster-roger-stone-is-a-driving-force/207866
NRA Commentary: Gun Violence Survivors Were "The Wrong People" For Obama To Share The Stage With During Gun Violence Speech http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/01/08/nra-commentary-gun-violence-survivors-were-the/207863
Donald Trump Echoes Right-Wing Media Falsehoods In Vowing To "Get Rid" Of "Gun-Free Zones"http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/01/08/donald-trump-echoes-right-wing-media-falsehoods/207860
O'Reilly Ignores Stellar Jobs Report And Claims Obama's Economic Policies "Have Not Worked"http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/01/08/oreilly-ignores-stellar-jobs-report-and-claims/207873
Fox's Stuart Varney: Cecile Richards Is A "Villain" And It's "Villainous" To Fund Planned Parenthoodhttp://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/01/11/foxs-stuart-varney-cecile-richards-is-a-villain/207887
Rush Limbaugh Slams Obama For Inviting CAIR Officials To Final State Of The Union Address. Limbaugh: "This Is Purposely Provocative ... This Is To Remind You That It Isn't Your Country Anymore"http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/01/12/rush-limbaugh-slams-obama-for-inviting-cair-off/207922
Cruz Surrogate Steve Deace Hypes Conspiracy Theory That Obama Will Not Give Up Presidency After His Termhttp://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/01/13/cruz-surrogate-steve-deace-hypes-conspiracy-the/207947
Maureen Dowd Starts 2016 With Return To Anti-Clinton Crusade http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/01/13/maureen-dowd-starts-2016-with-return-to-anti-cl/207894
Fox & Friends: Obama Ripped His State Of The Union Speech From “The West Wing”http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/01/13/fox-amp-friends-obama-ripped-his-state-of-the-u/207941
Fox's Kilmeade Uses Benghazi Movie To Push Debunked "Stand Down Order" Mythhttp://mediamatters.org/video/2016/01/13/foxs-kilmeade-uses-benghazi-movie-to-push-debun/207942
5. MarkFiore cartoon: “United States of Militiadom”
6. Crowdpac
Crowdpac’s unique data model shows where national, state and local politicians stand on the issues, based on what they say, how they vote and who gives them money. Their excellent website is at https://www.crowdpac.com/
7. Jimmy Kimmel: Congratulations North Korea!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33D3NOl0-ag
8. Late Night Jokes for Dems
"Since January 1st, Texas is allowing gun owners to carry their guns openly in most public places. However, you still have to conceal your science book." –Conan O'Brien
"I'm a little worried about Bernie Sanders. He is currently trailing Hillary Clinton by 17 points. Americans have stopped 'feeling the Bern' and are now feeling more of a mild chafing sensation." –Stephen Colbert
"In a recent interview, Hillary Clinton said that she would investigate UFOs, and said that aliens may have already visited Earth. When he heard that, Trump said, 'Forget the wall. We need a dome! Just build a huge dome. A huge classy beautiful dome! We'll make the aliens pay for the dome.'" –Jimmy Fallon
"After being confronted yesterday by a homosexual protester on whether being gay is a choice, Dr. Ben Carson said, 'That's a long conversation.' Of course, for him, 'Hello, I'm Ben Carson' is a long conversation." –Seth Meyers
"On 'Face the Nation' yesterday, Donald Trump accused Ted Cruz of copying his immigration reform plan, specifically his idea of building a giant wall. Then China said, 'Uh, hello?'" –Jimmy Fallon
"A new poll found that women in America are angrier about current events than men. And if you want to make them even angrier, just tell them they seem angry." –Jimmy Fallon
"Donald Trump's television ad mistakenly shows footage from Morocco instead of Mexico. Trump insists it's not a mistake, and he's going to build a fence along the U.S.-Moroccan border and make Morocco pay for it." –Conan O'Brien
"I imagine Jeb Bush's New Year resolution was probably to spend more time with his supporter. Hillary Clinton's resolution is currently being focus-grouped. Donald Trump doesn't have any resolutions because resolutions are for losers and he's a winner. Bernie Sanders' resolution is to catch that damn squirrel that keeps eating the food out of the birdfeeder." –James Corden
"Republican hopeful Carly Fiorina said on Sunday that Ted Cruz will say 'whatever he needs to say' to win the election. And it's true. Just this morning, Ted Cruz said 'Hi, I'm Hillary Clinton.'" –Seth Meyers
9. 2016 Presidential Election Quiz
Short quiz to see which 2016 Presidential candidate you side with. http://www.isidewith.com/elections/2016-presidential-quiz
10. "The Daily Show" w/Trevor Noah: Birthers Target Ted Cruz
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/bf30yu/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-birthers-target-ted-cruz
11. Fox News Reaches New Low in Sad and Disgusting Attack on President Obama (Video)
12. What did Republican lawmakers hate about President Obama's State of the Union address?
For those keeping score at home, here are just some of the issues that President Obama raised during Tuesday’s State of the Union address that Republican Senators and Congressmen in attendance refused to clap for:
Nearly 15 million new jobs and the unemployment rate being cut in half.
Equality for all Americans.
Cutting pollution levels.
A good education for our children.
Fighting terrorism.
The idea that America is the strongest nation on earth.
Avoiding war.
Making it easier to vote.
And, Curing cancer! http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/13/1469254/-What-did-Republican-lawmakers-hate-about-President-Obama-s-State-of-the-Union-address
13. "The Nightly Show" w/Larry Wilmore: Welcome to Texas - Refugees
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/p22wnj/the-nightly-show-with-larry-wilmore-welcome-to-texas--refugees-
OPINION 1. David Von Drehle: Donald Trump’s Art of the Steal
Unless Cruz can continue to rise through the primaries—aided by members of the congressional Freedom Caucus who share his maximal conservatism—or a candidate like Rubio manages to push aside all mainstream rivals to consolidate the anti-Trump vote, the pot-stirring plutocrat may well steamroll through winter into spring with the lion’s share of the delegates. They won’t stop Trump because they can’t stop Trump.
In that case, party insiders may be forced to decide whether to pull every trick in the rule book to keep Trump from the nomination, with all the havoc that would ensue–including a very real chance that the party could split in two. Faced with that prospect, they may decide instead to swallow hard and follow Trump’s glowing blond nimbus into battle this fall. “The pundits don’t understand it,” Marco Rubio told an audience at a recent campaign stop in New Hampshire. “They don’t understand why in this election, why aren’t the things that worked in the past working again? Why is it that the people with the most money, or the most endorsements, or the one that all the experts thought would be in first place–why aren’t they winning?”
Donald Trump will be happy to tell them. 1/18/16 http://time.com/4170772/the-art-of-the-steal/?xid=homepage
2. Saladin Ahmed: An antidote to Islamophobia
IN 1979, WHEN I was a child, the Michigan community center that my father and great-grandmother founded to help Arab immigrants was gutted by fire. Investigation found that the center was targeted by racists. With the help of community residents — white, Latino, and black as well as Arab — we rebuilt.
A few years later, our new community center was also burned to the ground. Again the larger community — immigrants and natives, auto workers and grandmothers — came together to help. But the bigots’ message was clear: Muslims are not welcome here.
We can emerge from this darkness, but only by vigorously, defiantly affirming one another’s humanity. According to Islam, God is ‘‘al-Rahim’’ — the most merciful. I believe in God’s mercy. But whether or not one shares that belief, we can choose, together, to believe in redemption. In human decency. We can save our soul — whether we take that term to mean our character as a nation, or something more mystical — but we must do it together.
How? By not staying uncomfortably silent when one’s relatives or coworkers start carrying on about “the Muslims.’’ By asking a proprietor to change the channel when an in-store TV blares pundits preaching hate. By finding out what your kids are being taught about Muslims at school. By contributing to a rebuilding fund for a mosque struck by vandals.
These things take time and energy. They can make us uncomfortable. But far more costly is the collective choice — through assent or silence — to become comfortable with this religious and racial hatred. We’ve seen where that dark road leads. It is not too late for us, together, to choose a different path. 1/11/16 http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2016/01/11/antidote-islamophobia/aCpIUj5PPeLt9omgRFQTdK/story.html
3. Nicholas Kristof: Guns, Tears and Republicans
There’s no magic wand to solve gun violence in America, but neither is it immutable fate that 32,000 Americans die from firearms each year. We know from the experience of states like Connecticut and Missouri that sensible regulations save lives. And why wouldn’t we want to keep guns from men subject to domestic violence restraining orders if the result is fewer women murdered by jilted boyfriends?
The Republican presidential candidates are on the wrong side of history here. While even Republican voters overwhelmingly say in polls that they favor sensible steps like universal background checks, the Republican candidates are politicizing what should be a public health issue, and they are scaring Americans into buying more guns, which magnifies the problem and causes more carnage. 1/07/16 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/opinion/guns-tears-and-republicans.html
4. E.J. Dionne: Ending the Gun Lobby's Con Game
An old trick on the part of those who will not budge, no matter how many Americans are killed by firearms is to say that since there are already so many guns out there -- some estimates run to over 300 million -- no particular practical measure will do much of anything to stem the violence. It's hard to know the exact number, by the way, partly because the NRA and its congressional enablers impede gun research.
But as soon as the weapons extremists have said that sane action is useless in the face of so many guns, they turn around and assert that those who support universal background checks and other small steps are secretly in favor of gun confiscation. Wait a minute: In one breath, they are implying, against all their other assertions, that the problem really is too many guns; in the next, they are condemning those who propose any regulations as would-be despots who want to disarm the country -- the only thing their own rhetoric suggests would make a real difference. Welcome to a new philosophical concept: circular illogic.
That the gun lobby has managed to make this con game work so well for so long is a national scandal, and it drove the president to tears on Tuesday.
Bullies are intimidating until someone calls their bluff. By ruling out any reasonable steps toward containing the killing in our nation and by offering ever more preposterous arguments, the gun worshipers are setting themselves up for wholesale defeat. It will take time. But it will happen. 1/07/16http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/01/07/ending_the_gun_lobbys_con_game_129230.html
5. Michael Tomasky: The Real Threat Trump Poses to Hillary—and Us
Trump says things about the world that are either just false or crazy, and everybody has to spend three days explaining why it’s false or crazy. He saw “thousands and thousands” of American Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the 9-11 attacks. That was eventuallydebunked. But it took nearly a week. And by the way, it hasn’t been debunked everywhere; certain web sites on the right spent days if not weeks defending Trump.
There will be clear and important policy differences between Trump and Hillary Clinton, but the difference is we’re not likely to have a real debate about them. Instead, we’re going to have more of this. Clinton is going to give some normal and slightly over-earnest speech about paid family leave. Important thing. And Trump will respond…not by stating his counter-position, but by saying something about how women want to be paid to sit at home and watch soap operas, and we’ll spend three days on it. And of course he’ll issue an endless stream of false or over-the-top statements about Whitewater and Vince Foster and, as he’s promised, Bill’s sex life.
And the campaign will just be that, over and over and over. Trump says crazy thing A. Cable shows salivate. A few responsible outlets read by 4 percent of the population point out that what Trump said isn’t true. Clinton spends three days repeating that. Upshot: Much of America is left with the impression, because Trump will be attacking and Clinton will be responding, and in TV land that’s what mostly matters, that it’s probably true. And then he’ll say crazy thing B, and then crazy thing C… 01.08.16http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/08/the-real-threat-trump-poses-to-hillary-and-us.html
6. Barack Obama: Guns Are Our Shared Responsibility
THE epidemic of gun violence in our country is a crisis. Gun deaths and injuries constitute one of the greatest threats to public health and to the safety of the American people. Every year, more than 30,000 Americans have their lives cut short by guns. Suicides. Domestic violence. Gang shootouts. Accidents. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost brothers and sisters, or buried their own children. We’re the only advanced nation on earth that sees this kind of mass violence with this frequency.
A national crisis like this demands a national response. Reducing gun violence will be hard. It’s clear that common-sense gun reform won’t happen during this Congress. It won’t happen during my presidency. Still, there are steps we can take now to save lives. And all of us — at every level of government, in the private sector and as citizens — have to do our part.
We all have a responsibility.1/08/16 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/08/opinion/president-barack-obama-guns-are-our-shared-responsibility.html
7. David Brooks: The Brutalism of Ted Cruz
Cruz’s speeches are marked by what you might call pagan brutalism. There is not a hint of compassion, gentleness and mercy. Instead, his speeches are marked by a long list of enemies, and vows to crush, shred, destroy, bomb them. When he is speaking in a church the contrast between the setting and the emotional tone he sets is jarring.
Cruz lays down an atmosphere of apocalyptic fear. America is heading off “the cliff to oblivion.” After one Democratic debate he said, “We’re seeing our freedoms taken away every day, and last night was an audition for who would wear the jackboot most vigorously.”
As the Republican strategist Curt Anderson observed in Politico, there’s no variation in Cruz’s rhetorical tone. As is the wont of inauthentic speakers, everything is described as a maximum existential threat. 1/12/15http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/opinion/the-brutalism-of-ted-cruz.html
8. Katha Pollitt: The Hillary Clinton Double Standard
I like Bernie Sanders. In my calmer moments, I know it’s not fair to blame him for his annoying fanboys—the Bernie bros—who write off Hillary Clinton’s supporters as rich white women or party hacks and dismiss wanting to see a liberal, pro-choice Democratic woman in the White House as “identity politics.” I think it’s great that Bernie is giving Hillary a run for her money. He’s pushing her to the left, showing pundits and politicos that there’s more of a constituency for progressive politics than they think, and he may even help spark a grassroots movement that outlasts his campaign. Hillary supporters should be grateful to him as well: The better he debates, the cleverer she has to be; the more popular he becomes, the less her nomination will look like a “coronation.” It’s good for Hillary to have to work to win the primary. I hear Ted Cruz is very smart.
But Bernie Sanders isn’t going to win the nomination… can we at least be honest about that? And if he did, he wouldn’t win the general election. And if, by some miracle, he did, he’d still get creamed by the same political and economic forces that hemmed in President Obama. Nation contributing editor (and my friend) Doug Henwood says much the same thing in his anti-Hillary polemic, My Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency. That’s one of the things I’ve always admired about Doug: He’s a realist.http://www.thenation.com/article/yes-hillarys-a-democrat/
9. Dana Milbank: Ted Cruz gets burned by the birther fires he stoked
When you dance with the devil, the choreography can get awkward.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) last week made his latest appeal to the U.S. nativist fringe by naming Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) as a national co-chairman of his presidential campaign. King, called a “courageous conservative” and “incredible leader” by Cruz, is the anti-immigrant hard-liner who spoke of Mexican immigrants having “calves the size of cantaloupes” and who was a prominent birther.
King raised questions about President Obama’s birth certificate, voiced doubts that Obama had been born in the United States, floated the idea that Obama’s birth announcement in Hawaiian newspapers may have been placed “by telegram from Kenya,” and alleged that Obama “was not raised with an American experience.”
So we’re entitled to savor some schadenfreude now as Cruz himself gets caught in the birther web. Donald Trump’s questioning of Cruz’s status as a natural-born American and, therefore, his eligibility to be president is rough justice. Cruz, like Trump, has stoked the fires of resentment and xenophobia, so it’s entirely fitting that he gets burned. 1/08/16https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ted-cruz-gets-burned-by-the-birther-fires-he-stoked/2016/01/08/c6cf7e02-b60a-11e5-a76a-0b5145e8679a_story.html
