Year: 2015

David Brooks: “When campaigns enter that final month, voters tend to gravitate toward the person who seems most orderly. As the primary season advances, voters’ tolerance for risk declines. They focus on the potential downsides of each contender and wonder, Could this person make things even worse?” “When this mental shift happens, I suspect Trump will slide. All the traits that seem charming will suddenly seem risky. The voters’ hopes for transformation will give way to a fear of chaos. When the polls shift from registered voters to likely voters, cautious party loyalists will make up a greater share of those counted.” He is half right. I feel like they will turn away from Trump, but they will not turn towards Rubio or Christie. They will go for Cruz. Because they want chaos. They do not fear it.

Last night, a theater performance played out in the Senate. Mitch McConnell managed to get the Senate to finally pass a bill, by a vote of 52-47, that repeals Obamacare, defunds Planned Parenthood, and allows terrorists to keep buying guns legally in the United States. They also refused to increase security at Planned Parenthood facilities in the hopes that conservative terrorists will find it easier to commit more attacks. The bill will be vetoed by President Obama, of course, after it is passed in the House. This was all theater so that the GOP could send a message. And that message is that the Republican Party opposes women's healthcare, opposes healthcare in general, and is in support of terrorists and will continue to arm them. The GOP wants you to die, and because you are not dying quickly enough for them, they will arm terrorists to see that you do die.

Copeland has a point. If he was running as a Democrat, (instead of the guy who is next in line to be Governor) he could easily say, "Hell, yes I support the $15.05 minimum wage." But his political career isn't about values, it is about not saying shit that someone might not like.

The GOP wants the angry, motivated, energetically racist Trump voters - but without Trump. They might get there if Cruz comes through as some at DL have predicted. In Cruz you have a slightly more polished politician with all the same tough guy swagger, and stridently anti-PC bravado. But where does that leave down-ticket Republicans? If the NRSC has anything to do with it, it leaves them transformed into an army of Junior Trumps, tweeting angry nonsense and rolling up the electoral spoils.

Yesterday, Robert Costa and Philip Rucker reported that the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee wrote a seven page confidential memo that “urges candidates to adopt many of Trump’s tactics, issues and approaches — right down to adjusting the way they dress and how they use Twitter.” If you can’t beat him, join him.

Rick Klein says our political system has failed on gun violence: “Are the responses just timed Tweets at this point, tweaked with a new detail or two? From one side of the aisle, ‘thoughts and prayers’ and a call for a focus on mental health. From the other, ‘this must change’ and a push for gun control, of course. The nation looks to politicians for guidance and help in understanding, if not fixing, tragic circumstances. On this count, when it comes to mass shootings and their aftermath, the political class has failed.” “If anything, the responses we’ve come to expect now only add to a nation’s numbness. But the simple fact is that politicians and candidates aren’t feeling voter pressure to change their responses or their policy positions. Part of the ritual now is the numbness, followed by the forgetfulness.”

According to early reports from police, at least one gunman shot as many as 20 people at a conference center in San Bernadino, California. A specific yet unknown organization was holding a meeting at the conference center and was specifically targeted. It's unclear how many people were fatally wounded. I have heard 12 or 13. There might have been multiple shooters. Reports say that one of the shooters or the shooter was dressed in heavy military armor and left the scene in a black SUV.

The headline above is pure bullshit and yet Bernie supporters are starting to believe it. All I can say is that if Bernie fails to win the nomination, and then fails to rally the fuck out his supporters to vote for Hillary Clinton, and liberal Democrats stay home, we are screwed. So screwed that it will be a century before we can even think about being unscrewed.

Dana Millbank: “Let’s not mince words: Donald Trump is a bigot and a racist. Some will think this an outrageous label to apply to the frontrunner for a major party’s presidential nomination. Ordinarily, I would agree that name-calling is part of what’s wrong with our politics.” “But there is a greater imperative not to be silent in the face of demagoguery. Trump in this campaign has gone after African Americans, immigrants, Latinos, Asians, women, Muslims and now the disabled… It might be possible to explain away any one of Trump’s outrages as a mistake or a misunderstanding. But at some point you’re not merely saying things that could be construed as bigoted: You are a bigot.”