TRUMP is seriously dangerous

[semper occultus]

At Secretive Meeting, Tech CEOs And Top Republicans Commiserate, Plot To Stop Trump

Karl Rove shared focus group findings that give hope to the GOP establishment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aei-world-forum-donald-trump_us_56ddbd38e4b0ffe6f8ea125d?tn50o1or

Billionaires, tech CEOs and top members of the Republican establishment flew to a private island resort off the coast of Georgia this weekend for the American Enterprise Institute's annual World Forum, according to sources familiar with the secretive gathering.

The main topic at the closed-to-the-press confab? How to stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, Napster creator and Facebook investor Sean Parker, and Tesla Motors and SpaceX honcho Elon Musk all attended. So did Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), political guru Karl Rove, House Speaker Paul Ryan, GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Ben Sasse (Neb.), who recently made news by saying he "cannot support Donald Trump."

Along with Ryan, the House was represented by Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (Mich.), Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas) and almost-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), sources said, along with leadership figure Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.), Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Texas) and Diane Black (Tenn.).

Philip Anschutz, the billionaire GOP donor whose company owns a stake in Sea Island, was also there, along with Democratic Rep. John Delaney, who represents Maryland. Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, was there, too, a Times spokeswoman confirmed.

"A specter was haunting the World Forum--the specter of Donald Trump," Kristol wrote in an emailed report from the conference, borrowing the opening lines of the Communist Manifesto. "There was much unhappiness about his emergence, a good deal of talk, some of it insightful and thoughtful, about why he's done so well, and many expressions of hope that he would be defeated."

"The key task now, to once again paraphrase Karl Marx, is less to understand Trump than to stop him," Kristol wrote. "In general, there's a little too much hand-wringing, brow-furrowing, and fatalism out there and not quite enough resolving to save the party from nominating or the country electing someone who simply shouldn't be president."

A highlight of the gathering was a presentation by Rove about focus group findings on Trump. The business mogul's greatest weakness, according to Rove, was that voters have a very hard time envisioning him as "presidential" and as somebody their children should look up to. They also see him as somebody who can be erratic and shouldn't have his (small) fingers anywhere near a nuclear trigger.

Sources familiar with the meeting -- who requested anonymity because the forum is off the record -- said that much of the conversation around Trump centered on "how this happened, rather than how are we going to stop him," as one person put it.

[semper occultus]

But I'm not voting because there's no point. Votes don't count. They haven't since 2000. Everybody enjoys forgetting this. The reality show is too much fun I guess.

...but that view is being somewhat belied by the "establishment's" increasingly obvious irritation, upset and discomfiture in the face of this outbreak of voter disobedience....they really aren't enjoying this process....the fact Bush managed to spunk $130million of plutocrat dosh only to be utterly humiliated and dismissed from the room like a snotty nosed kid who's just farted at the table is not only one of the most delicously enjoyable moments in recent political history but also pretty significant of something happening isn't it...?

...that in itself could be empowering at a certain level - like the moment when Ceausescu giving his speech from the balcony suddenly realised they were jeering and cat-calling the despised bastard not cheering obediently to avoid being rounded up by goons...

[Luther Blissett]

Yeah David Brooks was crying all over the op-ed pages today trying to figure out how to save the grand ol party. It was a delight.

[PufPuf93]

Melania is kind of sweet though.



Except for Bernie Sanders, the roll of POTUS candidates this cycle is horrid.

I would not vote for Hillary Clinton and the GOP folks are worse.

Sanders win in Michigan yesterday somewhat reset the Democratic selection of a nominee.

I actually believe Sanders can win Democratic nomination.

Sanders is likely to be a better head-to-head candidate than Clinton versus Trump, especially as Sanders likely will bleed independent voters from Trump while Trump would bleed independent and Democratic voters from Clinton.

[Nordic]

But I'm not voting because there's no point. Votes don't count. They haven't since 2000. Everybody enjoys forgetting this. The reality show is too much fun I guess.

...but that view is being somewhat belied by the "establishment's" increasingly obvious irritation, upset and discomfiture in the face of this outbreak of voter disobedience....they really aren't enjoying this process....the fact Bush managed to spunk $130million of plutocrat dosh only to be utterly humiliated and dismissed from the room like a snotty nosed kid who's just farted at the table is not only one of the most delicously enjoyable moments in recent political history but also pretty significant of something happening isn't it...?

...that in itself could be empowering at a certain level - like the moment when Ceausescu giving his speech from the balcony suddenly realised they were jeering and cat-calling the despised bastard not cheering obediently to avoid being rounded up by goons...

For the scam to work, the polls have to show that it's close. They couldn't get Jeb anywhere close.

[seemslikeadream]

Keith Olbermann: I can’t stand to live in a Trump building anymore


By Keith Olbermann March 8 at 4:55 PM
Keith Olbermann is a news and sports commentator and reporter.
Okay, Donnie, you win.

I’m moving out.

Not moving out of the country — not yet anyway. I’m merely moving out of one of New York’s many buildings slathered in equal portions with gratuitous gold and the name “Trump.” Nine largely happy years with an excellent staff and an excellent reputation (until recently, anyway) — but I’m out of here.

I’m getting out because of the degree to which the very name “Trump” has degraded the public discourse and the nation itself. I can’t hear, or see, or say that name any longer without spitting. Frankly, I’m running out of Trump spit.

Trump: Only 'Donald Trump' did well tonight
Play Video1:05
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump rolled to big wins in Michigan and Mississippi on Tuesday, brushing off a week of withering attacks from the party's establishment to solidify his front-runner status as four states voted in nominating contests. (Reuters)
And, yes, I’m fully aware that I’m blaming a guy with the historically unique fashion combination of a cheap baseball cap and Oompa Loompa makeup for coarsening politics even though, out of the two of us, I’m the one who has promulgated a “Worst Persons in the World” list for most of the past decade. That’s how vulgar this has all become. It’s worse even than Worst Persons.

[Dana Milbank: Donald Trump’s flirtation with fascism]

This is the campaign of a PG-rated cartoon character running for president, interrupting a string of insults the rest of us abandoned in the seventh grade only long enough to resume a concurrent string of half-crazed boasts: We’re gonna start winning again! We’re gonna build an eleventy-billion-foot-high wall! We’re not gonna pay a lot for this muffler!

All this coarseness is largely masking the truth that the Trump campaign is entirely about coarseness. Take away the unmappable comb-over and the unstoppable mouth and the Freudian-rich debates about genitalia, and there is no Trump campaign. Donald Trump’s few forays into actual issues suggest he is startlingly unaware of how the presidency or even ordinary governance works.

Of course that doesn’t preclude his election. A December study carried out with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst showed that Trump’s strongest support comes from Republicans with “authoritarian inclinations.” They don’t want policy, nuance or speeches. They want a folding metal chair smashed over the bad guy’s head, like in the kind of televised wrestling show in which Trump used to appear.

And it isn’t as though the American electorate hasn’t always had a soft spot for exactly the worst possible person for the presidency. Two months before the 1864 vote, some Republicans were so thoroughly convinced that Abraham Lincoln would lose in a landslide that they proposed to hold a second Republican convention and nominate somebody to run in his place. The Democrat they feared, George B. McClellan, was not only probably the worst general in the history of the country, but also his campaign platform was predicated on stopping the Civil War, giving the South whatever it wanted, running the greatest president in history out of town and repudiating the Emancipation Proclamation. Even after the North’s victory at Atlanta turned the tide of the war and thus the election, McClellan — anti-Union, anti-Lincoln, anti-victory and pro-slavery — still got 45 percent of the all-Northern vote.

There could still be enough idiots to elect Trump this November. Hell, I was stupid enough to move into one of his buildings. But here in those buildings, even as I pack, is the silver lining hidden amid the golden Donald trumpery.

One day Trump appeared in person and, with what I only later realized was the same kind of sincere concern and respect that Eddie Haskell used to pay “Beaver” Cleaver’s mother, asked me how I liked the place and to let him know personally if anything ever went wrong. About 15 months ago, when the elevators failed and many of the heating-unit motors died and the water shut off, I wrote him. He sent an adjutant over to bluster mightily about the urgency of improvements and who was to blame for the elevators and how there would be consequences, and within weeks Trump’s minions were obediently and diligently installing — a new revolving door at the back of the lobby.

That three-week project stretched past three months, smothered the lobby in stench and grime, required the repeated removal and reinstallation of a couple of railings, and for a time created a window frosting problem even when it wasn’t cold out.

[semper occultus]

.......but WHY couldn't they get Jeb close...and wasn't Rubio meant to be the next favoured son to have stabilisers put on his little red trikey and a pathway cleared.....who seems to have immediately veered off into the road into the path of an on-rushing juggernaut....

...I genuinely think this phenomenon has got them ( the plutonomy, the 1% , whatever we call them ) scared....and its not really about Trump personally or his character or genuineness or political ability...its just about what he might be stirring up amongst the people left behind in this vast American hinterland which has basically been cut loose and abandoned to globalised post-industrial (un)managed decline.......

..they genuinely have contempt for Trump no doubt about that but that's not what they're scared of ...its what he might be stirring up by so openly challenging the unassailable political and economic orthodoxy of the last 40 years & where that political enegy may be channeled next if Trump fails either to win the Pres election or - incredible as it once seemed, does win but inevitably can't follow through on any of these visionary promises...


( ETA you don't actually need stabilisers on a trikey...but on reflection actually maybe this lot do... )

[coffin_dodger]

...I genuinely think this phenomenon has got them ( the plutonomy, the 1% , whatever we call them ) scared....and its not really about Trump personally or his character or genuineness or political ability...its just about what he might be stirring up amongst the people left behind in this vast American hinterland which has basically been cut loose and abandoned to globalised post-industrial (un)managed decline.......

..they genuinely have contempt for Trump no doubt about that but they also fear what he might be stirring up by so openly challenging the unassailable political and economic orthodoxy of the last 40 years & where that political enegy may be channeled next if Trump fails either to win the Pres election or - incredible as it once seemed, does win but inevitably can't follow through on any of these visionary promises...

Equally, if Trump were one of them - i.e. one of the plutonomy, the 1% etc... (who, incidentally, are fairly universally disliked at the moment - there is trouble on the horizon for the 0.1%, come what may) - then could it not be a reverse-psychological ruse for the other members of the cadre to decry one of their own as terrible, so the gullible voting public may be counted upon to vote against the wishes of the same 0.1% to spite them, thus ensuring the victory of 'the inside man'?

After all, young Mr Obama made an awful lot of noises sweet to the ears of the voting masses, none of which he actually honoured. What makes anyone think business under Trump will be so different?

[semper occultus]

...yes, indeed that could be exactly what it is.....but I'm more of the view that no-one could have gamed in advance what's been happening in the last few months....anymore than the MP's did who signed Corbyn's ticket for the leadership so that it looked like a balanced debate....

...Trump maybe as fake & hollow as a false leg but the idea's he's espousing and the way they are going across with people are anything but....simplistic maybe but powerful

...in that respect the Hitler comparisons actually become quite interesting & salient in that he was also the establishment's inside man sent in to infiltrate & keep an eye on fringe political trouble-makers....

[tapitsbo]

America is surely way more stable than Weimar

[Wombaticus Rex]

Olbermann having a crisis of conscience about his fabulous wealth is such nutritious LULZ, my sweet fuck. Thank you for that link.

[brekin]

At Secretive Meeting, Tech CEOs And Top Republicans Commiserate, Plot To Stop Trump

Sources familiar with the meeting -- who requested anonymity because the forum is off the record -- said that much of the conversation around Trump centered on "how this happened, rather than how are we going to stop him," as one person put it.

Ahh, the secret cabal...



are actually a confederacy of dunces.

[SonicG]

Trump might be one-percent but he is still a hayseed...If he was really wealthy he would own a winery in Napa...but oh wait, he doesn't even own the winery...

The table was stacked with bottles of Trump Wine, and Trump declared of the winery, "I own it 100 percent, no mortgage, no debt."

The winery's website says something different: "Trump Winery is a registered trade name of Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing LLC, which is not owned, managed or affiliated with Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization or any of their affiliates."

http://www.npr.org/2016/03/09/469775355 ... last-night

QVC meets politics and one step closer to Idiocracy...

[82_28]

I say this should come down to a cook off. Make drumpf cook on his own. We know, sir you have the best people, but cook us up something that can beat the other contestants.

OR shit make him cook against a Mexican "illegal". Winner takes all.

[Harvey]

Karl Rove shared focus group findings that give hope to the GOP establishment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aei ... d?tn50o1or

Billionaires, tech CEOs and top members of the Republican establishment flew to a private island resort off the coast of Georgia this weekend for the American Enterprise Institute's annual World Forum, according to sources familiar with the secretive gathering.

The main topic at the closed-to-the-press confab? How to stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

Karl Rove didn't write that himself?

Edit to add: And didn't we almost get convinced by what we read that Sanders was a no hoper and that Trump is inevitable? Well I sort of did.