In a scene reminiscent of the Hunger Games, Stephen Colbert paid tribute to Wisconsin governor, former GOP presidential candidate, and current loser, Scott Walker.
Walker, as I’m sure you’ve heard by now, was the latest Republican, the latest casualty of Donald Trump to drop out of the 2016 race for the Republican nomination to be president of the United States. And fittingly, the Hungry Games as done by Stephen Cobert was the perfect tribute for the Wisconsin loser.
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Just in case you are one of the smart ones who skipped last week’s Republican debate, I’m sure by now you might of heard about a statement Jeb Bush made about his brother George.
In confronting Donald Trump, who at the time had George Bush in his crosshairs, Jeb opened his mouth and actually made this statement; “You know what? In reference to my brother, there’s one thing I know for sure, he kept us safe.”
And like many of the other unfortunately few who watched the debate, my mouth dropped open in awe after hearing that statement. And I was happy to see this ad that fact-checked jobs attempt to rewrite history, and showed him how dishonest his statement was.
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With a close to zero ratings in the polls, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker bowed out of the Republican race for the 2016 presidential nomination.
The Wisconsin governor entered the primary in July as a front-runner in Iowa and a darling of both the conservative base and powerful donors after winning battles against public unions in his left-leaning home state. But that promising start was quickly dashed after poor debate performances dried up support from donors.
“Today, I believe that I am being called to lead by helping to clear the field in this race so that a positive, conservative message can rise to the top of the field. With this in mind, I will suspend my campaign immediately,” Walker said at a news conference in Madison, Wisconsin.
He encouraged other trailing Republican candidates to follow his path.
“I encourage other Republican presidential candidates to consider doing the same so that the voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive, conservative alternative to the current front-runner,” said Walker, referencing businessman Donald Trump. “This is fundamentally important to the future of our party, and, more important, the future of the country.”
In an interview published today with America magazine, Vice President Joe Biden once again answers the question on everyone’s mind – are you running for president in 2016.
“I mean, I’ve just got to be certain that if I do this, I’m able to look in the eye and everyone else and say I’m giving all my passion, all my, all my energy and will not be distracted. And secondly, equally as important, the other piece is: Is this moment, is this the best thing for the family as a unit?” Biden said.
Biden remarked that he has known “almost every person” who has made a White House bid since the age of 29, and the decision always hinges on “personal considerations.”
“Your whole family is implicated. Your whole family is engaged. So for us it’s a family decision, and I just have to be comfortable that this will be good for the family,” he explained.
“We’re just not there yet and may not get there in time to make it feasible to be able to run and succeed because there are certain windows that will close. But if that’s it, that’s it. But it’s not like I can rush it. It’s not like it either happens or it doesn’t happen. I know that’s not satisfying to anybody, but people who have been there, I know they understand,” the vice president said.
That’s really all you need to know about Carly Fiorina’s chances of becoming either the Republican nominee or president of this great country. She’s an accomplished woman with plenty of money and a great speaking style, but when it came to getting votes, she couldn’t win, even in the great Republican year of 2010.
Fiorina lost to Barbara Boxer in the 2010 California Senate race by 52%-42%. We will have a woman as United States President, but it won’t be Carly Fiorina. When your best line has nothing to do with policy, but is instead a necessary rebuttal to Trump calling you ugly, then you will get press, but not solid voter support. And when your other policy proposal concerns building up the Sixth Fleet and spending huge amounts of money on defense rather than actually speaking to Vladimir Putin, then you have nothing more to say about responsible foreign policy. And those comments about the Planned Parenthood videos? All anybody has to do is watch them to know how utterly wrong Firoina was.
I don’t think we have a long way to go before we get a sense as to which one of the Republican candidates will be the nominee. Each of them will get their day in the media spotlight and each one will be found wanting in some way. Donald Trump will not win. Ben Carson will not win. Carly Fiorina will not win.
Next.
Chris Christie is getting some nice press about his performance in the debate, especially his opening statement, which was the longest he got to speak. He still has plenty of money, so perhaps the next step would be for him to get some media, although the press is still not done with Jeb! and Marco Rubio.
If the debate was any guide, then the Democrats will still have the upper hand entering the general election campaign late next spring. The Republicans are still talking nonsense about how hard they’ll come down on immigration, how they’ll shut off money to the main source of women’s health care in many states (Planned Parenthood), how they’ll carve up the Constitution to preserve a religious right that’s found nowhere in the document, and how they won’t meet with world leaders until they do what we want them to do.
And they have other problems. The Republican Party elites reduced the number of debates and made many states winner-take-all when it comes to primaries in the hope that a nominee would emerge early enough to run against the Democrat and to raise gobs of money. Now, they’re looking at a scenario where the nominee will be pulled farther to the right than Mitt Romney was, and the prospect that Donald Trump will win some of those states where the winner takes the whole delegate bundle and becomes a power broker at the convention. The Citizens United case opened up the money spigot and one of the nastier effects, at least for the GOP, is that now even some of the fringe candidates will have enough cash to cause a great deal of mischief.
Now comes word that Vice President Biden will be entering the Democratic race ahead of the October 13 debate. This will give him the opportunity to gauge his support and will also give him an out if he feels that his emotions and his family will not support a long run. Hillary Clinton’s campaign should be worried about Biden because they are at a vulnerable stage with all of the talk about lost momentum due to the e-mail problems she’s had. Bernie Sanders will also get the loud applause at the debate because he’ll give the base what Hillary probably can’t if she wants to move to the center in the general campaign. Biden can pick and choose which Obama policies he wants to continue supporting and Hillary will be in the position where she’ll need to distance herself from some of his programs. It’s shaping up to be a fun night.
The presidential campaign seems like it’s dragged on forever, but we are still in its early stages as primary voters try each candidate on for size before they settle on the one they believe can win.
As presidents Giuliani, Dean and Cain used to say… oh wait a second…
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
Trump has come under heavy fire over the last week for allowing a man at his town hall event to call President Obama a Muslim. And the comparison was made when in 2008, a woman at a John McCain town hall called Mr. Obama an “Arab.” Back then, John McCain stopped the woman, took the mic and corrected her, telling her that Mr. Obama is a decent American man with whom he sometimes disagree.
And rightly so, John McCain gained national respect from both Democrats and some Republicans for that moment of putting politics aside and telling the truth for a change.
But then there is Donald Trump.
Given that same opportunity to do something admirable, Donald Trump allowed the man to make his statement and even agreed with the man with his answer, “We’re gonna be looking at a lot of different things,” Trump answered.
But Trump wasn’t finished. In another event in Iowa on Saturday, Trump addressed the incident not by apologizing, but by attacking John McCain for being “harsh” against the woman in 2008.
“Remember the famous day when John McCain just ripped that microphone out of the woman’s hands?” Trump asked his audience while giving a speech to evangelical Christians in Iowa. “That was a little bit harsh, to be honest with you. Does anybody agree with me? That was harsh, wasn’t it? They gave him so much credit. Not me, I didn’t give him credit.”
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It was the very first question asked in Donald Trump’s so-called town hall in New Hampshire. A man who identifies himself as being from White Plains “amen,” stepped to the microphone after a generous invite from the leading Republican presidential candidate.
“Okay, this man. I like this guy,” Trump said as he points to the man to take the mic. After identifying that he is from White Plains, the man Donald Trump said he likes proceeded to ask his question.
“We have a problem in this country, it’s called Muslims. We know our current president is one. You know he’s not even American!”
“We need this question,” Trump injected, apparently amused. The man from White Plains continued asking his question.
“But anyway, we have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That’s my question, when can we get rid of them?”
“We’re gonna be looking at a lot of different things,” Trump began, apparently admitting that getting rid of a whole group people because they’re Muslims make sense. And you know a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We’re gonna be looking at that and plenty of other things.”
So, ethnic cleansing is something Donald Trump will be looking into?
Republicans love this man.
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If it wasn’t for Donald Trump, CNN wouldn’t have had a debate last night. Seriously, I mean come on! Every single question had to do with what Trump had previously said. “According to Donald Trump…this” or “Donald Trump said…that” and then the rest of the GOP presidential wannabes were asked to respond.
Things got so kiss-ass that even the bloviated please talk about me all the time Donald Trump himself noticed and spoke about it the day after, on msnbc.
“I thought I was on too much,” Trump said. “I felt badly for everybody else. Every question had to do with me. Even the first characters, I mean, everything was about Trump.”
Now when this statement is being made by a man who toots his own horn every chance he gets, you know something is seriously wrong.
Trump continued;
”
And then they go into this debate, and there was split screens all over the place. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was a little bit unfair to a lot of other people, frankly. But from my standpoint, I was treated fairly. Time magazine did a poll, and it had 67% say Trump won the debate. You know, I was listening to you talking about Carly, and I thought Carly was fine, but they saw it a little bit differently.”
CNN owes the American people an apology. No one, except CNN and Fox News, cares about Trump and his come pat me on my shoulder please campaigning style. People tuned into the debate to learn about the candidates’ position on the issues, and instead all we heard was candidates supporting Trump’s views, or where they disagreed with him.
Excuse me while I pat Trump on the shoulder for having the main stream media in his back pocket!
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You can like and coming soon, the ability to dislike. As per Mark!
Facebook might finally give users the ability to “dislike” things. During a question-and-answer session streamed live on Facebook on Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg said the company was testing alternatives to the “Like” button.
“People have asked about the ‘dislike’ button for many years,” Zuckerberg said at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California. “Today is the day that I actually get to say we are working on it.”
So who’s this cup of joe doing in my hand?
Presented with the opportunity to work with the CEO of Starbucks to open more franchises in predominantly black neighborhoods, NBA great Shaquille O’Neal said that he declined the offer because “black people don’t drink coffee.”
Speaking to reporter Graham Bensinger, Shaq recalled his encounter with Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz.
“My agent called me up and he says ‘Howard Schultz wants to do business with you, and I’m like, ‘coffee, eh.’ Because growing up, in my household, I’d never seen a black person drink coffee. So it was my thought process that black people didn’t drink coffee.”
“I’m always a guy that, if I don’t believe in it, I can’t do it,” O’Neal said. “No amount of money can make me endorse something that I’m not 100% behind.
“I looked at the great Howard Schultz’s face and said, ‘Black people don’t drink coffee, sir. I don’t think it’s gonna work.’ And you should have seen the look on his face!”
Maybe I need to dump my cup. I never got the memo stating that I’m not supposed to drink this stuff.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Donald Trump, speaking about Carly Fiorina – another Republican running for the GOP nomination – said,”Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine anyone voting for that for president? I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not supposed to say bad things, but really folks, come on. Are we serious?”
Trump has been questioned and hammered about that statement since the words escaped his trap. But like everything else, Trump managed to come up with an excuse to pacify his Republican base. His excuse? To say he wasn’t talking about Fiorina’s face, he was actually talking about her “persona!”
“Probably I did say something like that about Carly,” Trump said on Fox News. “I’m talking about persona. I’m not talking about looks.”
He once again climbed in Republican polls, so the obviously bought his persona excuse! Amazing!
Well Carly Fiorina was not amazed and has finally figured out how to hit back against the wicked mouth of the Northeast! In a new ad Fiorina has taken Trump’s words about her face and made it about all women’s face.
Can you say classic politics coming from the non-politicians!
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In an interview with the New York Daily News, the retired Tennis star James Blake, said that the officer who tackled him while he was standing outside a hotel waiting for a ride to the U.S Open, does not deserve to “have the same title as officers who are doing good work.”
“I want him to know what he did was wrong, and that in my opinion he doesn’t deserve to ever have a badge and a gun again, because he doesn’t know how to handle that responsibility effectively. He doesn’t deserve to have the same title as officers who are doing good work and are really helping keep the rest of the city safe.”
Blake was an apparent victim of “mistaken identity” by the New York police officer. He was tackled to the ground and arrested, then released after his identity was known. Blake is promising to use his celebrity status to bring to light a common police tactic of assuming that everyone is guilty and must prove their innocence.
The Mayor of New York and the Police Commissioner have issued formal apologies to James Blake.
“I’m lucky to be in the position I’m in, but I also talked to a lot of people the last few days that have had similar situations happen to them. Those are the people that deserve to be apologized to.”
James Blake is considering a lawsuit if changes aren’t implemented by the NYPD. Meanwhile, the officer, James Frascatore, who is white by the way, has been placed on desk duty.
