National

Donald Trump is now against the First Amendment protections for a free press: "We're going to open up those libel laws. So that when the New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace, or the Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they're totally protected." Once more into the Fascist breach.

About 50 people attended, and give them credit. It can take a willing suspension of disbelief to back a Republican candidate for governor, considering there are 126,000 more Democratic than Republican voters and there has not been a Republican governor elected since 1988, while the voters went with a Democratic streak of Tom Carper, Ruth Ann Minner and Jack Markell. Bonini nevertheless told the crowd the race was winnable, arguing that Delaware is moving in the wrong direction and his campaign can put together a coalition of Republicans, unaffiliated voters and 30,000 to 50,000 persuadable Democrats to vote for him to try something different. "The here-and-now needs some serious change. We need to lower taxes across the board, we need to reform regulations, the things we always talk about. You know why we talk about those things? Because they've never not worked," Bonini said.

Except...They've never worked, and I'd love for Bonini to collect my standing $50.00 bet that that lowering taxes and cutting regulations has ever worked, but I know my $50.00 is more safe than a side of Broccoli on Colin's lunch plate.

We are at the point in the campaign where everyone decides that the nomination is going to the guy in front of the pack, and there is no need to antagonize that person who is going to be a big shot-caller in the party, so they drop out. Except they aren't. Trump isn't for obvious reasons. He is going to be the nominee. Cruz isn't because he is going to win Texas and if only Rubio would drop out, he'd have a clear shot at beating Trump. (Perhaps at the convention < - Best Case Scenario) Yes... I do think Cruz is narcissistic enough to blow up the GOP convention. It is the only thing I like about him. Rubio isn't because if only Cruz would drop out, he'd have a clear shot at Trump and although the primary voters don't like him, the billionaires who propped up Jeb! do. Kasich isn't because he is now running for the VP spot. Carson isn't because all these books aren't going to sell themselves. The revised standings will be revised in about 200 days when we get to the convention:

...he's got a large, overflowing even, Delaware leadership team. But the Delaware Presidential Primary is late this year: April 26. I am now taking bets on the fact that Kasich will not be in the race by then.

Taegan Goddard on last night's disaster of a GOP debate: "The runaway winner of this debate was the Democratic party. If there are many more nights like this one, the Democratic nominee will have a much easier time in November. It was a truly pathetic mess."

Chez Pazienza says the political press needs to grow a pair when it comes to Trump.

Nobody is willing to openly admit what most of us have been able to see for months: that if Donald Trump is the best the Republican party can do, and if he winds up becoming the nominee for president, we’re fucking doomed. The political press just keeps right on plugging along, pretending that while this is an unusual and surprising election season there’s nothing completely offensive and undeniably dangerous about it. Donald Trump is calling immigrants rapists and killers, he’s for banning all Muslims from entering the country, and he’s regularly encouraging his rabid followers to rough up protesters, and yet as a whole our nation’s political media is covering Trump’s rise as if it’s something to marvel at -- or to hardly notice at all -- rather than something to be utterly ashamed of. The job of the political press is to hold candidates accountable -- but our political press for the most part isn’t doing a damn thing when it comes to Trump. On Sunday, MSNBC correspondent Katy Tur tweeted out a depressing but not all that surprising incident that happened on the trail. She claims that at a campaign rally, Trump worked the audience by going after the media -- not at all the first time he’s done it -- and that led to the angry crowd hurling insults and threats at the press covering the event. According to Tur, at least one guy in the audience turned toward her and shouted, “You’re a bitch!” while another flipped the press gaggle off. In response to this, Chuck Todd fired off a tweet accusing Trump and his nutjob acolytes of engaging in “outrageous and dangerous behavior,” and saying that the “campaign rhetoric” needs to be “ratcheted back.” Trump singles out Katy Tur, accusing her of saying something negative about him, then whips the crowd into a frenzy against her until people are basically ready to tear her head off, and that’s just “campaign rhetoric?” No, it absolutely isn’t. It’s the frightening ravings of a would-be fascist dictator, one who refuses to behave decently or responsibly and who all the admonition in the world won’t stop. Remember, this is the same guy who responded to a protester being punched at a rally in November by agreeing that “maybe he should’ve been roughed up.” [...] Eventually, some member of the media is going to get hurt when Trump singles them out for a scathing rebuke. Back in January, he tore the head off a poor camera operator in the middle of a Trump rally for the unforgivable sin of not moving the camera to show the size of the crowd. (As if the people covering the rally work for Trump and are therefore required to take orders from him.) When Trump went after him, the crowd followed suit and launched into the same kind of mass tirade Katy Tur was on the receiving end of. And yet, again, not only does the media not take steps to protect its own people, it otherwise behaves as if Trump isn’t a threat to the public and America as a whole. Granted, the easiest way to correct itself on both counts would be to simply stop covering Trump, but given his status as ratings and page-view catnip that’s just never going to happen. Barring that then, the political media should be willing to take a stand and at every turn portray Trump as he is: a dangerous, megalomaniacal demagogue.

I have been thinking something for a while, but have been unwilling to put it into digital print, or say it out loud, but I think I will now. American politics has faced dark and dangerous and chaotic elections before. 1968 brings to mind a very good example. Then you had two political leaders, RFK and MLK, assassinated, and protesters and supporters of candidates beaten. It could happen again. This is not a prediction, or a "Round them up" hyperbolic call to arms that I am infamous for. It's just a gut feeling I have that something violent is going to happen to change this presidential race Either a protester is killed at a Trump rally by a mob of Trump supporters, maybe even upon Trump's orders, or maybe Trump himself will be shot at or assassinated.