Trumpf Says When People Call Him P.T. Barnum He Takes It As A Compliment

I'd venture to guess that most people who have heard of Phineas Taylor Barnum (P.T. Barnum) think he coined the phrase "there's a sucker born every minute." He didn't, nor did Donald Trump, but both men have lived their lives as though they did. Barnum plagued American for most of the 19th Century, a hustler who Trumpf has modeled himself on. He was a businessman/showman, author and politician (briefly). He freely admitted that his actions were meant to "put money in my own coffers" and, more than anything else he considered himself "a showman by profession." His name is synonymous with hoaxes and self-serving "philanthropy." Like Trumpf, he made some spectacularly bad investments and went bankrupt. Unlike Trumpf, he ran for office, as a Republican, and won. He served 2 terms in the Connecticut state legislature and one term as mayor of Bridgeport.

Meet the Press went to Ottumwa, Iowa Sunday to capture some ratings points by interviewing the clownish Herr Trumpf. He spent a lot of time attacking Cruz-- insinuating that his birth in Canada could ruin the GOP chance to win theWhite House, reminding Iowans he's a flip-flopper on ethanol and only claims to be for it for the sake of the campaign, and a flip-flopper on "amnesty." Any time Chuck Todd tried to pin him down on something factual, Trumpf would try to worm out of it, often in artfully, by changing the topic slightly or just going off into a non-sequitur, like "I am really looking to February first; it's gonna be very exciting." Republicans-- though not necessarily Trumpf fans-- may be mortified that he's bragging about an intention to use executive orders when he wants to get things done.

Ted Cruz went on Fox News to whine that when President Obama issued an executive order, he was "behaving in an unprecedented way." as with much of what comes out of Ted Cruz's mouth, that's false. Lately-- i.e., since Obama was elected-- Republicans claim executive orders are unconstitutional and tyrannical, etc but they really took off in a big way under Teddy Roosevelt. His predecessor, William McKinely, had only used 185 but Teddy issued 1,081. "Mr. Republican," William Howard Taft, would sit in his bathtub issuing them and he averaged 181 per year, for a total of 724. Woodrow Wilson, a conservative Democrat, went right along with the trend-- 1,803. The 3 Republicans who caused the Great Depression were collectively responsible for 2,693 and FDR hit the top end-- 3,522, but he was president for a really long time. It's become much rarer since then:

• Eisenhower- 484
• JFK- 214
• LBJ- 325
• Nixon- 346
• Ford- 169
• Carter- 320
• Reagan- 381
• Bush I- 166
• Clinton- 364
• Bush II- 291
• Obama- 226

So... the only presidents contemporary of anyone still drawing breathe today who have issued fewer executive orders than Obama were one-term presidents. Here are Chuck and Donald:



Obviously, when Trumpf sits down for an interview, the fact checking organizations have to be on high alert. It's almost impossible to fact check every lie he tells because virtually everything he says is a lie. But Politifact caught a couple of whoppers. First his nonsensical claim about the detainees Obama traded for Bowe Bergdahl 2 years ago. Herr said "We get a traitor, they get five people that they've wanted for nine years, and they're back on the battlefield, trying to kill everybody, including us. And we get a dirty, rotten traitor."

Politifact:

Trump’s statement that the five former detainees-- who were senior Taliban operatives-- are now "back on the battlefield" is one we rated False in July 2015. We decided to revisit the claim to see if anything had changed in the past six months.

We looked into whether there were any new developments around the detainees, sometimes called the Taliban Five. The new information shows they’re still where they were last-- in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar under government supervision. So Trump is still wrong.

The five detainees were released to Qatar in 2014. Qatar is understood to be a neutral state, as opposed to a "battlefield" for insurgent activity. Under the agreement, the five released detainees are not allowed to leave the country.

This travel ban was initially supposed to last one year, ending June 1, 2015, but it has been extended.

Multiple administration officials told us the detainees haven’t left Qatar. We looked for any evidence to contradict that and found nothing.

In fact, in December 2015, the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee produced a report in which it expressed concern that the Taliban Five pose a security risk. But the report noted that the security arrangements first made in 2015 had been extended so that the five would remain in Qatar.

The State Department told us on Jan. 9, 2016, that the men were still in Qatar.

"None of the five individuals has returned to the battlefield," said State Department spokeswoman Liz Trudeau. "All five men are subject to a travel ban, and none have left Qatar."

"They’re still in Qatar," added Myles Caggins, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

...Because there is no evidence to support Trump’s claim, we rate it False.

He also went off on some crazy rampage that South Korea doesn't give us anything in return for protecting it. "We have 28,000 soldiers on the line in South Korea between the madman and them. We get practically nothing compared to the cost of this." Another lie. Politifact:

This is not the first time Trump has used this talking point. In 2011, we checked this claim about South Korea: "We have 25,000 soldiers over there protecting them. They don't pay us. Why don't they pay us?"

We rated the claim that South Korea doesn't pay False, noting that South Korea had picked up the tab for nearly $700 million in the most recent year for personnel, logistics and construction costs.

On Meet the Press, Trump made a slightly less absolute statement. Rather than saying, "They don't pay us," he said, "We get practically nothing compared to the cost." So we took another look at this assertion.

We found that South Korea does still pay for the U.S. presence, which currently includes roughly 28,500 military personnel. (That’s far smaller than the roughly 500,000 South Korean service members on active duty, plus many more South Korean reserve troops.)

In fact, South Korea pays quite a bit more than they did in 2011.

In the most recent agreement, announced in early 2014, South Korea said it would pay $866.6 million that year to support the U.S. presence. That was 5.8 percent higher than the 2013 amount, and that could grow by as much as 4 percent annually through 2018.

...Beyond that, several experts said Trump’s apparent premise-- that the United States is giving a growing, affluent country what amounts to a charitable gift-- is wrong. The United States itself benefits from the military investment in South Korea, they said.

"U.S. forces are no longer there strictly to defend South Korea," said William W. Stueck, historian at the University of Georgia. "They are there to enhance regional stability as well. The point is that we have vital interests in East Asia and the Western Pacific, so why shouldn't we pay part of the bill for our force presence?"

Janda concurred: "The traditional argument for keeping troops in South Korea is that it deters North Korea from attacking South Korea, stabilizes the region politically, socially, and economically, and gives the United States bases from which it can project military power throughout the western Pacific. In addition, he said, the military expense helps protect countries that buy U.S. products, he said.

Allan R. Millett, a historian and director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, agreed. "Alliances are not to be measured in dollars, but in their effectiveness at deterring conflict," he said.

...Currently, South Korea pays well over $800 million annually to support the United States’ troop presence, an amount that doesn’t qualify as "practically nothing." And while Trump makes it sound like the United States’ willingness to pay the rest of the freight amounts to a gift to South Korea, he overlooks that the United States actually benefits significantly on a strategic level from the arrangement. We rate the claim Mostly False.

Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy, Part 11

• GOP and FOX whip up the hate over a POW exchange
• Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 14: Iowa asylum escapee Rep. Steve King




It's the Old Crackpot Switcheroo! Nebraska Crackpot Rep. Lee Terry was merely one of a flock of Crackpot Cuckoobirds who were all gung-ho for the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. . . until it happened and The Word came down from Crackpot Central -- and all hell broke loose.

Crackpot Utopia: A dream world as envisioned by republicans; a manifestation or expression of the deranged, warped alternate universe inhabited by republicans, at least in their minds. See also: Bachmannism, Boehneresque.

by Noah

1. Once more into the idiocy: GOP and FOX whip up the hate over a POW exchange

The exchange of five Taliban prisoners of war for one U.S. prisoner of war, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, provides a fine example of the irrationality and instability of the republican mind in 2014. Just as the republicans loved what is now called Obamacare when it was just a gleam in the eyes of the Heritage Society or when it was called Romneycare only to psychopathically turn on it in a screaming rage when President Obama embraced it, the exchange for Sergeant Bergdahl gave us yet another look at Crackpot Utopia.

You see, before President Obama orchestrated the return of our soldier, the Crackpot Party was screaming that the preseident had done nothing to free him, that this was just more evidence of everything from "Obama's incompetence" to him supporting "his fellow Muslims." Here's former Republican presidential candidate John McCain back on February 18 discussing the then-potential deal that had been in the works for over two years with CNN's Anderson Cooper:

Well, at that time the proposal was that they would release Taliban, some of them really hard-core, particularly five really hard-core. . . . Now this is idea is for an exchange of prisoners for our American fighting man.

When asked, by Cooper if he was saying that he would support the deal, McCain replied:

I would support. Obviously I'd have to know the details, but I would support ways of bringing him home and if exchange was one of them, I think that would be something I think we should seriously consider.

Ah, but when the deal went down! McCain did a 180, and did it also on Anderson Cooper's show:

The problem that I have, and many others have, is what we paid for that release, and that is, releasing five of the most hardened, anti-American killers, brutal killers. . . .

Yeah, "brutal killers" as opposed to, you know, the other kind of killers, the kind that, even in times of war, prefer to kill in a kinder, gentler way.

Then there was Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe.



First Inhofe said on his website:

The mission to bring our missing soldiers home is one that will never end. It is important that we make every effort to bring this captured soldier home to his family.

Only once the trade was made, Inhofe criticized the Obama administration for agreeing to free "people who have killed Americans," never mind that when wars end, that's often what both sides do. There's a thing called the Geneva Conventions that our country signed on to decades ago, after all.

Lesser lights of the Crackpot Party (if one can say that lesser-than-Inhoff is possible) made a similar switcheroo, such as New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte. First: "Bring him home, bring him home, why aren't you doing whatever is needed to bring him home? Sure, swap some prisoners, just bring him home." Then after the release: "Why did you do that?" Of course, President Obama had been working on the deal for quite some time, but why should we expect a mind like Ayotte's to understand?

Other members of the Crackpot Party initially praised and cheered Sergeant Bergdahl's release on their Twitter accounts, only to delete their tweets from their accounts and websites once they had received the memo from the higher-ups in their deranged party. We saw the deleted tweet from Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry at the top of this post. Here are a couple of other effusions that were jettisoned from history:

Nevada Rep. Mark Amodel

Then GOP primary candidate, now Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst


Republicans didn't stop with just condemning the release deal and smearing President Obama over it. No, that wasn't enough for the crazies. They had to smear our soldier too, raising the question of whether he was, in fact, a deserter. They did it in such a way that it was no longer a question but a fact, and therefore he should not have been brought back to us.

Perhaps they should go to the Pentagon and take it up with the military service chiefs, starting with Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was involved in the deal:

"I balanced the risk of transferring the detainees with the importance of returning a U.S. soldier from captivity. I concluded the risk posed by the detainees' future activity would be less grave than breaking faith with our forces in combat.

The other services chiefs weren't involved in the deal, but afterward Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said that release of one of our POWs "regardless of the circumstances is both a moral imperative and vital to keeping faith within our Army," and the Joint Chiefs' vice chairman, the Navy's Adm. James Winnefeld, said, "While the five detainees are indeed hard-core Taliban, they never posed a threat to the United States homeland or our interests in Afghanistan." The media, both Crackpot and so-called-liberal, tended to ignore the opinions coming from the Pentagon. I guess those opinions didn't make for good television, even if they would have made for better journalism.

Of course outlets like the insipid Daily Caller and FOX "News" dug down the lowest.

"Reasoning" like the nine-year-old child he is, Bill O'Reilly fell back on good old bigotry: "Robert Bergdahl, the father, he has learned to speak Pashto, the language of the Taliban, and looks like a Muslim." Right, Bill-O! Just like all those who speak Italian are mobsters and all those who speak German are Nazis.

Next there was fellow FOX buffoon Brian Kilmeade, whose syntax took a beating as he waxed eloquent about the real issue, the beard that Bergdahl's dad had grown while his son was in captivity:

He says he was growing his beard because his son was in captivity. Well, your son's out now. So, if you really don't want to no longer look like a member of the Taliban, you don't have to look like a member of the Taliban. Are you out of razors?

Hmmm, interesting that the FOX brigade doesn't say the same thing about frequent contributor Phil Robertson, of Duck Dynasty. Damn, he sure looks like a Muslim to me! As did a lot of the 2013 World Champion Boston Red Sox. Back in the 1950s, where republicans would prefer to be, having a beard meant to them that you must be a commie. Now it means you must be a Muslim. Crackpots, it seems, are still in the grip of beardophobia.

The bottom line in the POW exchange is that, whether our military personnel have deserted or been captured, we go get them. If they've done something wrong, they get punished, by us, in a court system that our people have fought and died for, not in someone else's system. If they did something great, they may get a medal, from us. The key thing is, we decide. Our military investigators and our military courts decide. To think otherwise and let an enemy decide what happens to our POWs is to put all our military personnel at risk, not to mention manifesting a lack of belief in the American way of handling a situation.

The debate, if you want to call it that, about the retrieval of Sergeant Bergdahl was not just about taking a good thing and using it for the lowest smear politics imaginable; it was also about the lack of belief in a policy that our country has had since day one, a policy that was set forth by Gen. George Washington -- I'm sorry, republicans, if that isn't good enough. You sure like to yap about the Founding Fathers, but as usual it's just crackpot yapping.

One last thought on this: President Obama got one of our soldiers back for a mere five prisoners from Gitmo. So-called President Bush released 500 detainees from the same prison. What did he get in return, and why was the clueless chorus of crackpots so silent then?


2. Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 14: Iowa asylum escapee Rep. Steve King


Most every time Steve King opens his mouth it seems like he's fishing for a Crazyspeak Award nomination.

Iowa's own Rep. Steve King is no relation to the famous author of horror novels. He's more like the heinous, destructive characters that populate Stephen King's books. Just look at the guy and tell me you wouldn't cross the street to avoid coming into close contact unless you could taser him and put him back in his straitjacket.

Here is Steve King's 2014 Crazyspeak qualifying quote:

"I don't expect to meet gay people in heaven."

Right you are, Steve baby! You see, they don't expect to see you in heaven either, except to see you turned away at the gate, followed by a swift kick down to the pits of burning, flaming hell. Thanks, though, for providing even more proof that you'll never belong in heaven. Hell should suit you just fine, though. Say, why not leave today?

King also decrees that divorced folks and even cohabiters will be excluded from heaven. Don't you just love it how republicans always go around speaking for God? I mean, poor recently deceased Mickey Rooney, who musta been divorced about seven times, maybe eight.

And what about me? What about my posthumous fate? My wife and I cohabited for something like nine years before we eventually got married. Does this mean, in Crackpot Utopia, that we must spend nine years in hell before gaining entrance into the republican concept of the ultimate gated community? Is there some sort of reverse-time-served deal, or does that nine years condemn us to hell for eternity? Oh well, at least I'll be with my wife. That'll make up for having the fetid likes of you as a neighbor, oh pious and holier-than-thou Mr. King. But please, draw your curtains when you have some drag-queen Michele Bachmann come over to flog your bare ass while her hubby watches with some local priest.

TOMORROW IN PART 12: Arizona Republican protests busload of YMCA campers; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee(s) No. 15: the Impeachment Variations (group nominee); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 16: NM Rep. Steve Pearce

NOAH'S 2014 IN REVIEW --
Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy

Part 1: Princess Liz Cheney tries for the Smoothie of the Year Award; "Miss Beck regrets" -- Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 1: Glenn Beck; and the Crackpot Party reacts to President Obama’s State of the Union speech [12/19/2014]
Part 2: Republicans wonder why normal people call them racists; Sean Hannity wants to self-deport; and the First Annual Mr. Burns Award, to ABC "shark" Kevin O'Leary [12/20/2014]
Part 3: Using fear, loathing, and paranoia to sell stuff; Arizona legalizes crack!; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 3: Bill O’Reilly [12/21/2014]
Part 4: A celebration of Michele Bachmann: Pray away the crazy?; What "War on Women"?; and the "Obama angle" on Malaysian Flight 370 [12/22/2014]
Part 5: The GOP and the kiss heard 'round the world; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 5: Joe the Plumber [12/23/2014]
Part 6: A word about South Carolina; Pat Robertson and his magic asteroid; and I'll have a pack of Twizzlers and an IUD to go, please [12/24/2014]
Part 7: And so it begins: The running of the buffoons; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 7, George Will has no idea what rape is; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 8, Rick Wiles calls for a coup [12/29/2014]
Part 8: Things to come: Forward into the past! (11 Presidential Dream Tickets); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 9: Former republican VP nominee Paul "Crazy Eyes" Ryan; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 10: Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association [12/30/2014]
Part 9: Pompous Blowhard of the Year Award: Bill O’Reilly; FOX "News" announces new spinoff: the "FOX Benghazi™" Shopping Channel!; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 11: DiGiorno Pizza [12/31/2014]
Part 10: Newsmax -- Beyond Drudgery; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominees Nos. 12 and 13: Michele Bachmann, Kimberly Guilfoyle [1/1/2015]
Part 11: GOP and FOX whip up the hate over a POW exchange; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 14: Iowa asylum escapee Rep. Steve King [1/3/2015]
Part 12: Arizona Republican protests busload of YMCA campers; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee(s) No. 15: the Impeachment Variations (group nomination); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 16: NM Rep. Steve Pearce [1/4/2015]
Part 13 (and last): TV for Dummies: Sarah Palin launches her own channel; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 17: Arizona schools superintendent John Huppenthal (rhymes with Neanderthal); and the final Crazyspeak of the Year nominee -- and also the winner! [1/5/2015]

NOAH'S 2013 IN REVIEW --
A Prayer to the Janitor of Lunacy

For listings and links, see Part 1 of this year's series.

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Has Pointless Racism Driven The Republican Party Mad?

Last night, writing about the need to cope with China's role in Climate Change, Paul Krugman pointed out that "any attempt to make sense of current American politics must take into account this particular indicator of the Republican Party’s descent into madness." Krugman's analysis stands up across a dozen "issues," but it doesn't take into account the bitter and primitive racism and white outrage at the heart of the deranged and persistent drive to delegitimize the presidency of Barack Obama, a deranged drive that began the moment he was elected. The policy doesn't matter. The nominee doesn't matter. To the hardcore racist right-- primarily unreconstructed Confederates and their allies-- if Obama proposed it, it must be opposed, no matter the cost.

Thursday, Sylvia Burwell as confirmed to be Secretary of Health and Human Services 78-17, the 17 being all GOP racists, eager to disrupt the smooth functioning of government just for the sake of opposing a man they don't recognize as a legitimate president-- no matter what the voters said… and then said again. Their voters, after all did not say so. In fact, on the Burwell matter, the day before, Mitch McConnell led a filibuster to prevent a vote on her nomination at all. McConnell knew he would fail-- as he did, 67-28-- but several of his backward colleagues were happy to go on the record as opposing Obama again. Roger Wicker (R-MS), Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), for example, voted to keep the filibuster going and, when that effort failed-- having made the point that… whatever the point is-- voted for the confirmation.

So why the two clips fromRachel Maddow's Thursday evening show? Just another example of the deranged hyper-partisan nature of Republican opposition to anything and everything President Obama wants to do on behalf of the country. And it isn't just a liberal like Maddow who's remarking on this derangement syndrome. Right wing propagandist David Brooks devoted his Thursday NY Times column to it: President Obama Was Right.

Americans don’t have a common ancestry. Therefore, we have to work hard to build national solidarity. We go in for more overt displays of patriotism than in most other countries: politicians wearing flag lapel pins, everybody singing the national anthem before games, saying the Pledge of Allegiance at big meetings, revering sacred creedal statements, like the Gettysburg Address.

We need to do this because national solidarity is essential to the health of the country. This feeling of solidarity means that we do pull together and not apart in times of crisis, like after the attacks on 9/11. Despite all our polarization, we do accept the election results, even when the other party wins. People in New York do uncomplainingly send tax dollars to help people in New Mexico. We are able to assimilate waves of immigration.

National solidarity is especially important for the national defense. Men and women serve in the armed forces for a variety of reasons, but one of them is the awareness that it is an extraordinary privilege to be an American, that it is a debt that needs to be repaid with service.

Soldiers in combat not only protect their buddies, they show amazing devotion to anyone in the uniform, without asking about state or ethnicity. This is the cohesion that makes armies effective.

These commitments, so crucial, are based on deep fraternal sentiments that have to be nurtured with action. They are based on the notion that we are members of one national community. We will not abandon each other; we will protect one another; heroic measures will be taken to leave no one behind. Even if it is just a lifeless body that we are retrieving, it is important to repatriate all Americans.

The president and vice president, the only government officials elected directly by the entire nation, have a special responsibility to nurture this national solidarity. So, of course, President Obama had to take all measures necessary to secure the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Of course, he had to do all he could do to not forsake an American citizen.

It doesn’t matter if Bergdahl had deserted his post or not. It doesn’t matter if he is a confused young man who said insulting and shameful things about his country and his Army. The debt we owe to fellow Americans is not based on individual merit. It is based on citizenship, and loyalty to the national community we all share.

Soldiers don’t risk their lives only for those Americans who deserve it; they do it for the nation as a whole.

…President Obama made the right call. If he is to be faulted, it would be first for turning the release into an Oprah-esque photo-op, a political stunt filled with inaccurate rhetoric and unworthy grandstanding. It would next be for his administration’s astonishing tone-deafness about how this swap would be received… [T]he president’s instincts were right. His sense of responsibility for a fellow countryman was correct. It’s not about one person; it’s about the principle of all-for-one-and-one-for-all, which is the basis of citizenship.

Republicans, almost entirely steeped in hatred and bigotry and brainwashed by Hate Talk Radio, no longer have that sense of responsibility for a fellow countryman-- or for anything else that benefits America or Americans. Nothing gets beyond the hatred and white rage. And there are no lies too outrageous for them to perpetrate in the service of their goals. The Republican Party has turned itself into a party of sedition and madness.