National

Long rumored as a possible candidate who will have the backing of the VoteVets organization, Sean Barney officially announced his congressional campaign this morning. It appears from his announcement email that Mr. Barney intends to focus most of his campaign on foreign policy and I applaud Mr. Barney for devoting a lot of his announcement for standing up for the Syrian Refugees, joining Bryan Townsend, Lisa Blunt Rochester and Bryon Short in accepting the refugees after they complete the vetting process. I wonder though, if Mr. Barney intends to focus his campaign entirely on foreign policy. Starting out this way though, is smart, since it is his base of support.

Donald Trump “met privately on Monday with black pastors and religious figures at Trump Tower in Manhattan, trying to confront skepticism about his candidacy and project sensitivity about minority concerns,” the New York Times reports. Said Trump: “There was great love in the room.” Politico: “Instead of endorsements, many black pastors issued Donald Trump demands for an apology for his treatment of racial minorities at a closed-door meeting at Trump Tower in New York on Monday.” So demands for apologies equals great love. Personally, I believe these pastors and religious figures were fools to meet with him in the first place. You meet with Trump, you validate Trump, no matter what you say to Trump, because Trump will say you love him. And that is all the media hears.

I know Governor Elect John Carney is committed to pissing his pants over Syrian refugees, but will he address the real terror cells? Will he fully vet the bloodthirsty savages from the hotbed of religious fanaticism known as North Carolina?

Glenn Thrush says Ted Cruz is running the best GOP campaign: “The fundamentals are in place for a big winter push. Cruz’s fundraising has been near the top of the field ($26 million as of Oct. 15) and his campaign has an efficient 50 percent burn rate with about $14 million cash-on-hand.”

“After prematurely announcing the endorsements of 100 black pastors — prompting several to protest they were not, in fact, supporters – Donald Trump’s campaign abruptly cancelled a press conference with the group scheduled for Monday afternoon at Trump Tower,” Politico reports. “The botched endorsement rollout represents an embarrassing setback for a campaign struggling to combat the perception that its candidate is racially divisive.” The pastors, as a group, said that they had only agreed to meet with Donald Trump, but were not endorsing him. To a narcissistic egomaniac fascist like Donald Trump, this is a huge... YUGE personal insult. How dare they not endorse him? What kind of idiot pieces of trash do they have to be to not endorse him? I mean, my God, the Donald gave them the great, no YUGE opportunity to meet his august presence.

Michael Tomasky says I have been right all along in my pronoucements that Ted Cruz will be the 2016 GOP Nominee.

Cue the scary-minor-key power chord: Ted Cruz is within the margin of error of Donald Trump in Iowa. It’s Trump 25, and Cruz 23, but as we will see further down, other numbers from the poll suggest that Cruz is well positioned to win what might now be a two-man race in the Hawkeye State. This is just awesome news. One can now begin to see how this may all be shaping up. I tweeted it last Friday. Trump becomes the crazy, not-really-electable, neo-fascist candidate—the choice of a good chunk of the base, but one the establishment can’t live with. Marco Rubio, the guy the establishment is most comfortable with, becomes the establishment candidate—but by definition that will make him unacceptable to a sizable chunk of the base. And so emerges Cruz—the “compromise” candidate! (That the scenario of Cruz as compromise candidate is not at all implausible is one stark measure of what Trump’s presence has done to the GOP.) Cruz is now running—and smartly, it must be said—what you might call the “Donnie Jr.” strategy. Be like Donald, but not as... Not as out there. Not as openly racist. Not as extreme. Differentiate where principle absolutely demands, as Cruz did on the question of religious ID cards for Muslim Americans, which Cruz ruled out as Trump did not. But basically, be the acceptable Trump.

Timothy Egan at The New York Times writes about Donald Trump’s rhetoric in the race for the Republican nomination:

Take him at his word — albeit, a worthless thing given his propensity for telling outright lies and not backing down when called on them — Donald Trump’s reign would be a police state. He has now outlined a series of measures that would make the United States an authoritarian nightmare. Trump is no longer entertaining, or diversionary. He’s a billionaire brute, his bluster getting more ominous by the day.