Bob Bennett was a rightwing conservative senator from Utah. He served in the US Senate for 18 years, and I rarely agreed with him on anything. He was consistently earning high ratings from conservative activist groups such as the National Rifle Association, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Conservative Union. But in 2010, something happened — the emergence of the Tea … Read More
Watch As House Republicans Go Out Of Their Way To Discriminate Against LGBT
A chaotic scene unfolded on the floor of the U.S. House today as a measure to ensure federal contractors can’t discriminate against LGBT people was defeated by a single vote. It initially appeared that the measure — an amendment to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would’ve nullified a Republican “religious liberty” provision allowing federal contractors to discriminate against … Read More
Texas Republicans Debate Whether A Muslim Can Be A Republican
A Texas pastor stood up Monday in a local GOP meeting to vocally oppose one precinct chair’s appointment because he is Muslim, the Washington Post reported. Trebor Gordon, the chaplain for the Harris County Republican Party, said Syed Ali should not be able to serve as a leader in the local GOP “on the grounds that Islam does not have … Read More
Short Takes
(1) Trump likes to say that he is bringing enthusiasm to the GOP and people are voting in the Republican race in massive numbers, which means that Democrats should be worried about the general election. Is he right? He is not. As many have pointed out, voter turnout is an indication of the competitiveness of a primary contest, not of what will … Read More
Garland
Is it hard to do cartwheels over President Obama’s choice of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland today. Professor Epstein seems to think he’s a good liberal… … but you always have to question the methodology of these things. Merrick Garland is 63 years old and currently serves as chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of … Read More
Who Is To Blame For Trump?
A short incomplete list by conservatives and even GOP moderates to explain how Trump happened. ANSWER ONE: Obama is to blame for Trump says Bobby Jindel in the Wall Street Journal. We’ve had eight years of the “cool, weak and endlessly nuanced” Barack Obama, he argues, which means now voters are hungry for the precise opposite – they want “a … Read More
The Scalia Gambit
Without question, the death of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia has set all sides of the political spectrum into a frenzy. Everybody is weighing, but the stupidest comments are coming from Republicans who say that Obama shouldn’t nominate a justice at all because there is an election coming up. Rand Paul, who supposedly loves the Constitution, says that Obama has a … Read More
South Carolina Primary Outlook
A the Republican debate last Saturday, which I didn’t see, this occurred: TRUMP: George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East. DICKERSON: But so I’m going to — so you still think he should be impeached? BUSH: I think it’s … Read More
Trump At War With Fox
This may be the point where the fracture in the Republican Party becomes unfixable. You have a candidate who leads the GOP poll by double digits nationally, fighting with the media mouthpiece of the GOP in a bizarre carnival of testosterone. It’s the climax of a bizarre confrontation between the candidate and the dominant conservative news outlet. The first debate … Read More
You Read Digby Now
She wrote about how Trump has revealed something very important about the conservative movement for Salon this morning. A good many of its believers have just been mouthing words all these years. They don’t care about their elaborate ideology. They just hate the other team…. a snippet: The Republican establishment is under a tremendous amount of stress right now. Donald … Read More
Can You Hear The Dog Whistles?
This: Rep. Peter King (R-NY) told Politico Thursday that Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) should “go back under a rock” after the GOP nominee hopeful said rival Donald Trump “embodies New York values.” Cruz talked about Trump’s campaign rally songs Tuesday and said he thought the real estate mogul might start playing Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” … Read More
Did Ted Cruz Leak Classified Information During The Latest GOP Debate?
It went down like this. While Rubio and Cruz were debating each other’s records on national security and surveillance, Cruz got into some details about what the bulk data program covers. “What he knows is that the old program covered 20 percent to 30 percent of phone numbers to search for terrorists,” Cruz said, referring to Rubio. “The new program … Read More
Another Debate Tonight As Trump Stays Ahead
Yes, I’ll probably live-tweet the debate tonight. Meanwhile, Cruz leads in Iowa (according to one poll), but the story remains Trump Trump Trump. Ever since is incendiary and divisive comment about blocking Muslim immigration, Trump has become the darling of the pants-wetting and/or white supremacist right. Here’s what happens at Trump rallies: But it quickly became clear Monday night that … Read More
The Trump Backlash Continues
A $6 billion golf community under construction in Dubai is removing his name from the project. Trump was tossed from a respected business network in Scotland, where the billionaire says he invested more than $300 million in golf courses and other developments. And Lifestyle, a retailer that does business in an enormous marketplace spanning the Middle East, India and Africa, … Read More
Trump May Have Hit The Ceiling
Donald Trump has defied political pundits for months now. When he first attacked John McCain, the thought was that it would kill him in the polls, but then he went up. And that’s been the story for over four months now. He keeps on appealing to the worst-of-the-worst conservative base and his numbers go up. But many are now saying … Read More