Politics Plus

Seldom does a day go by that Rump Dump Trump or one of his close Republican Aides does not signal his followers to achieve through violence what he is unable to accomplish through his normal flood of hatred.  But lately, he has been calling for the assassination of the President of the United States, if he is not elected.  I learned how he gets away with treason.

Over half a century ago, Clarence Brandenburg stood before a small gathering of his fellow Ku Klux Klansmen dressed in full Klan regalia. “We’re not a revengent organization,” Brandenburg told the gathered bigots, “but if our President, our Congress, our Supreme Court, continues to suppress the white, Caucasian race, it’s possible that there might have to be some revengeance taken.”

On Tuesday, the Republican presidential nominee made a statement that was far more similar to Brandenberg’s than one would expect from someone who wants to become the Leader of the Free World. “If [Hillary Clinton] gets to pick her judges — there’s nothing you can do, folks,” Donald Trump told a campaign rally. Then he added an allusion to violence: “although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”

Both statements contained calls to violence against the speakers’ political opponents. And, at least under the letter of the law, there’s a plausible argument that Trump’s statement was illegal. One federal law provides that “whoever knowingly and willfully threatens to kill, kidnap, or inflict bodily harm upon . . . a major candidate for the office of President or Vice President, or a member of the immediate family of such candidate” commits a federal felony. Another provides that someone who intentionally solicits another person to “engage in conduct constituting a felony that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against property or against the person of another in violation of the laws of the United States” may also face criminal charges.

But such a prosecution would be unconstitutional, thanks to a case that Brandenburg brought up to the Supreme Court. Donald Trump, arguably the most important racist leader in the United States for a generation, is the direct beneficiary of Brandenburg’s racist speech and the legal rule that emerged from it.

In the wake of his suggestion that “there might have to be some revengeance taken” against the president and other high officials, Brandenburg was prosecuted under an Ohio law that punishes individuals who “‘advocate or teach the duty, necessity, or propriety’ of violence ‘as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform.’” But the Supreme Court ruled that, under the First Amendment, mere advocacy of violence cannot be a crime absent much more…

From <Think Progress>

In my opinion, Brandenburg v. Ohio was wrongly decided.  The next President will likely choose four Supreme Court Justices.  They will be chosen by Clinton or by Trump.  There are no other possibilities.  On the plus side, if we can break the Republican stranglehold on the Court, maybe we can challenge and overturn such miscarriages of justice.  That is my hope.

Almost every week, Republicans join a competition to see who can say the most outlandish things, and in the process, they push the envelope on just how awful InsaniTEA can become.  I trust that you will believe it, when I tell you that last week was no exception.  Now that the RNC is over, the Trump team is ramping up the craziness!  I wonder if Trump has figured out yet that there is no "I" in TEAM!

By no reasonable measure did Donald Trump have what is traditionally defined as a good week. As the candidate sunk to unforeseen new lows, speculation abounded about whether he might be mentally ill, Fox Newsians openly snickered about him and Republicans leaders began to publicly decamp.

But it’s been mighty hard to look away from the crashing and burning. Here are some of the lowlights from the Trump-o-verse during the week that was.

4. Sean Hannity apparently did not get the memo.

It’s hard to pluck out the most embarrassing thing Trump did or said this week given that he inhabits what has politely been called by the Poynter Institute a “post-fact world.” One excellent candidate for the booby prize was his claim to have seen a top-secret video of $400 million in ransom being taken off a plane in Iran to pay for hostages, a video which does not exist. Full stop. Over and out.

Uncharacteristically, faced with incontrovertible evidence, even Trump sort of admitted he was mistaken—that the plane he saw was actually in Geneva, that he saw it on TV and it was a "nice plane," and that it didn’t have money on it. And having set the truth bar so very low, Trump was even praised by some for making this brave and exceedingly rare admission that he may have gotten a few facts wrong.

But this did not prevent Trump fanboy and frontrunner for dumbest Fox Newsian Sean Hannity from continuing to perpetuate the myth of the Iran tape. In fairness, Hannity was still reeling from being called an idiot by Wall Street Journal editor Bret Stephens ("he’s the dumb ass,” Hannity retorted. Ooh, good one), so he may have missed Trump’s tweeted correction.

Having defended every other insane, racist and inflammatory thing Trump has said, Hannity swung into action to repeat Trump’s already retracted claim.

“You know, we now have video of the ransom that Iran is now showing," Hannity told a guest. "You know, for all the talk about how the president talked about, well, this great new Iranian deal, and we give them $150 billion, we give them $400 million in cash and I guess euros and francs, and we send it in an unmarked cargo plane and it’s on pallets and they get the cash.” 

And that's going to be used for terrorism yada-yada.

Hannity, always putting his intellectual gifts on display for the sake of the republic.

From Alternet — Click through for the other four delusional right-wing moments from last week.  It truly is amazing how the right-wing just keeps giving and giving.  I expect we will be posting another article next week about the disgusting things said by Trump and Team Trump since it is reported that he is turning up the trash talk.  Hey, when you have no ideas about policies that help the electorate, trash talk is all you have according to Trump.

When it comes to populism from Rump Dump Trump, it includes hatred of all the people that Republican Supply-side Jesus (the polar opposite of the real Jesus) wants them to hate, especially Muslims and undocumented immigrants (except his wife).  However, when it comes to his economic plan, he embraces the Tinkle Down policies of Paul Lyin’ Ryan.

From the beginning of Donald Trump’s campaign, there has been a nagging inconsistency in his approach to economic issues. On trade and immigration, he has broken with Republican dogma, arguing that the influx from abroad of cheap goods and low-wage workers has undermined the job prospects and living standards of ordinary Americans. [his own products excluded] On tax policy, however, Trump has stuck to the standard G.O.P. script, promising a slew of tax cuts skewed toward businesses and the rich. To be sure, until Monday, Trump hadn’t talked much about his tax plan, but the broad outlines of it were there on his Web site, serving as a reminder of the limits of his populism.

Trump rolled out his original tax plan last September, after his Republican-primary opponents accused him of lacking policy specifics. I thought at the time that adopting trickle-down economics represented a strategic error for a candidate who was promoting himself as a new type of Republican. Instead of saying he’d slash business taxes and bring the top rate of income tax down to twenty-five per cent, Trump could have promised tax cuts and tax credits targeted specifically at middle-class Americans, citing the fact that wealthy Americans were doing fine and didn’t need another handout. For instance, he could have suggested raising the upper-income cut-off on Social Security contributions and using the cash this generated to pay for higher benefits for everybody. Or he could have eschewed tax cuts aimed at the wealthy in favor of expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, which boosts the take-home pay of low-income working families.

It’s true that without any offsetting cuts in spending, such a tax plan would have raised the hackles of deficit hawks—but the plan he did introduce raised those hackles anyway. A plan aimed at the middle class, however, could have complemented Trump’s populist line on immigration and trade, wrong-footed the Democrats, and allowed him to claim he had a three-pronged approach to raising wages and living standards. In short, it would have made him a much more formidable candidate.

The problem was that moving in that direction would have signalled [sic] that Trump was a genuine populist insurrectionary, rather than a cosseted billionaire who plays one on television… [emphasis added]

From <The New Yorker>

Click through for more of this excellent analysis.

Lawrence O’Donnell provided some analysis of his own, and it’s superb.

Now, if Trump is elected, there will be no money for infrastructure, and he and his Republican Rectumite cronies will have to raise vast sums to pay for his huge increase in welfare for the 0.1%.  They will take it from YOU.  The poorer you are, the more they will take.

Remember that Hillary ad back in 2008 about a 3 A.M. phone call coming into the White House?  Well …

It’s rare that we citizens get a chance to visually compare and contrast how two candidates react in a real-life threatening crisis situation – but this year happens to be one of those rare times.

Both Trump and Hillary have had protestors actively and forcefully charge them while speaking at a rally – and both required their Secret Service guards to intervene.  I think it’s illustrative of how one flinches and the other stays focused.

Here’s the GIFs of each:

Here’s a YouTube video comparing them:

And here’s a great Tweet that compares them side-by-side.  (Unfortunately, I believe the Tweet graphic is formatted as Flash, and I haven’t figured out how to save it.  So it comes w/ the Tweet)

Hillary Clinton: tested, steady, fearless. Donald Trump panicked, afraid & chaos. Compare Secret Service videos. pic.twitter.com/np0yyZZz9X

— RiotWomenn (@RiotWomennn) August 5, 2016

So, who do YOU want to have access to our Nuclear Codes?