Carly Fiorina Knows Trump Is Toxic For Congressional Republicans But Doesn't Say How Many Seats They'll Lose-- Here Are Around 40

Trump and his dumb-ass followers call mainstream media "fake news," although generally not Trump-TV (AKA, Fox News). And he watches Trump TV all day. So what do you think he thought of this day in the middle of his insanity about how only 25% of voters want him impeached? "Just over half of voters want President Trump impeached and removed from office, according to a Fox News Poll released Wednesday. A new high of 51 percent wants Trump impeached and removed from office, another 4 percent want him impeached but not removed, and 40 percent oppose impeachment altogether. In July, 42 percent favored impeachment and removal, while 5 percent said impeach but don't remove him, and 45 percent opposed impeachment. Since July, support for impeachment increased among voters of all stripes: up 11 points among Democrats, 5 points among Republicans, and 3 among independents. Support also went up among some of Trump's key constituencies, including white evangelical Christians (+5 points), white men without a college degree (+8), and rural whites (+10)." 12% of Trump voters, 28% of white evangelicals and 38% of rural whites are saying Trump should be impeached and removed from office-- all the impeachment process has barely begun!

Newsweek's James Walker reported how, according to Carly Fiorina, Trump has done "Lasting Damage" to the GOP. Whether you think Fiorina is a lunkhead or not, her point about Trump being an autocrat has plenty of merit. Here's the podcast where she made her charges against Trump. Perfect explanation of why Trump is such an existential threat to democracy and to our country. Horrible that Vladimir Putin recognized it and acted on it before any Republican Party leaders did: "I think he honestly believes his political self-interest is the nation's interests. That is the definition of an autocrat." She added that she "worked hard to ensure that he wouldn't be the Republican Party's nominee because I thought, and still think, that he has done lasting damage to the party."

Later in the interview, Fiorina argued that public opinion could lead Republicans in Congress to turn on the president. She pointed to recent polling that showed around 45 percent of Americans already backed impeachment.

"If the polls continue to move in favor of, at the very least, an impeachment inquiry, you may see more politicians speak out," she said.

She also called the transcript of Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "crystal clear" and "pretty black-and-white."

During the call, Trump told Zelensky, "I would like you to do us a favor, though," and later urged the Ukrainian president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and Biden's son.

"You have a president asking a foreign government to dig up dirt on his political opponent," Fiorina said of the transcript, which was released to the public on September 25, following a whistleblower complaint regarding the call. "This is, at the very least, conduct unbecoming a president-- and, at the very most, it is an absolute equating by the president of the nation's interests with his political self-interest."

...Fiorina's views on the Mueller report were similar. She said she had read the 448-page document released in April "cover to cover" and called Trump's conduct "unbecoming" of a president.

...Asked about Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her decision to launch an impeachment inquiry against Trump, Fiorina came out in support of the Democratic leader. She said Pelosi had handled the inquiry "extremely well," adding that the speaker had been "sober" and "mindful of public opinion."

The dismal leadership of Cheri Bustos and her pathetic team of conservative establishment incompetents at the DCCC will probably protect dozens of House Republicans from the righteous wrath of anti-Trump voters. But not all of them, especially not in the case of independent-minded candidates who basically just ignore the DCCC and its front groups. The DCCC supports right-of-center corrupt corporate candidates with immense sums of money, but generally refuses to help progressives-- or, even worse, sabotages and undermines progressive caandidates' campaigns. The 2020 Blue America congressional thermometer on the right is where you can contribute to the campaigns of bona fide progressives all across the country. Please consider helping any of them as much as you can-- and pass it along to your friends. These Republican incumbents below are the hardcore Trump enablers who always vote for his reactionary agenda and who are most vulnerable next year-- along with their 2018 win numbers:

Jennifer Christie is the progressive Democrat running for the open House seat in the suburbs and exurbs north of Indianapolis. Earlier this evening she asked "What if we invested in solving the climate crisis, health care for all, education, innovation, and targeted our spending to reflect our values and solving our toughest problems? Where would we be?  We would be healthier, smarter, and a world-leading problem solver. Instead we are wasting our money and harming ourselves by spending on endless wars that do not even make us safer or more secure. It’s time to re-evaluate; let’s spend our money on what works for America. We can fix our economy, solve the climate crisis. and more. Our budget should reflect our goals and our values and it’s up to Congress to assure that it does.

• CA-01- Doug LaMalfa- 54.9%
• CA-22- Devin Nunes- 52.7%
• CA-50- Duncan Hunter (likely to lose his primary; going to jail)- 51.8%
• FL-15- Ross Spano- 53.0%
• FL-16- Vern Buchanan- 54.6%
• FL-18- Brian Mast- 54.3%
• GA-07- Rob Woodall (retiring)- 50.1%
• IL-12- Mike Bost- 51.8%
• IL-13- Rodney Davis- 50.5%
• IN-05- Susan Brooks (retiring)- 56.8%
• IA-04- Steve King- 50.4%
• KS-02- Steve Watkins- 48.1%
• KY-06- Andy Barr- 51.0%
• MI-06- Fred Upton- 50.2%
• MI-07- Tim Walberg- 53.8%
• MN-01- Jim Hagedorn- 50.2%
• MN-08- Peter Stauber- 50.8%
• MO-02- Ann Wagner- 51.3%
• Montana- Greg Gianforte (retiring)- 50.9%
• NE-02- Don Bacon- 51.0%
• NY-01- Lee Zeldin- 52.5%
• NY-02- Peter King- 53.3%
• NY-24- John Katko- 53.1%
• NY-27- Chris Collins (retired; going to prison)- 49.4%
• NC-02- George Holding- 51.4%
• NC-13- Ted Budd- 51.6%
• OH-01- Steve Chabot- 51.8%
• PA-01- Brian Fitzpatrick- 51.3%
• PA-10- Scott Perry- 51.4%
• PA-16- Mike Kelly- 51.5%
• TX-02- Dan Crenshaw- 52.9%
• TX-10- Michael McCaul- 50.9%
• TX-21- Chip Roy- 50.3%
• TX-22- Pete Olson (retiring)- 51.4%
• TX-23- Will Hurd (retiring)- 49.2%
• TX-24- Kenny Marchant (retiring)- 50.7%
• TX-25- Roger Williams- 53.6%
• TX-31- John Carter- 50.6%
• VA-05- Denver Riggleman- 53.3%
• WA-03- Jaime Herrera Beutler- 52.9%

This must really sting-- at least one person on the list

Can Any Of The Deep Bench Clowns Match Trumpf's Cunning And Ruthlessness? Cruz?

It was fascinating to watch Trumpf destroying Jeb Bush's campaign in real time-- the classic tricks of a devious, intuitive and manipulative New York marketing expert. But, in the context of a relatively genteel Republican primary, is was breathtaking. The Bush family-- which after all spread lies about McCain's adopted child to smear him as a race mixer in South Carolina-- had never seen anything like it, let alone been the victim of such a slimy and unstoppable mass assault. I actually entertained the idea that Trumpf was doing it for the Clintons! Yesterday at the Daily Beast Ruben Navarrette didn't even touch on how Trumpf wiped the Bush Machine off the face of the political earth in his piece on turning Jeb's top asset-- his ability to win with Hispanics-- into a disqualification, something, obviously no Democrat could-- or would-- ever get near.

[W]ith a series of deft maneuvers, and a little political jujutsu, Trump managed to turn Bush’s asset into a liability that essentially took him out of the race.

When Bush described as “an act of love” the concept of a Mexican immigrant traveling north to the United States—even without proper documents-- in order to reunite with family members or to support a family back home, or when Bush spoke to Hispanic crowds in Spanish and fielded questions from Spanish-language media in the same language, or when Bush told an audience in New Hampshire that he had a “grown up plan” to deal with immigration that combined border security with earned legal status for the undocumented, Trump pounced. And pounced. And pounced some more. In tweets, speeches, and jabs, Trump has learned to effectively use Bush’s own words against him.

On one occasion, the weapon wasn’t Bush’s choice of words but something much more personal: his choice of a life partner.

In July, Trump advanced the theory that Jeb’s moderate views on immigration stem from the fact that his wife, Colomba, was born in Mexico. It started with a tweet created by a third party, but retweeted by Trump’s account, which asserted: “Jeb Bush has to like the Mexican Illegals because of his wife.” The tweet was later deleted. Colomba Bush came to the United States legally, and eventually became a U.S. citizen.

...All these things-- that Bush speaks Spanish, supports legal status for the undocumented, married a woman from Mexico—feed the narrative that Trump has pushed to working class whites since he first began attacking the establishment’s candidate: “Bush isn’t for you. He’s for the Mexicans.” ...What Trump did to Bush was evil. Brilliant, but evil.

Correct, very evil... and Navarrette didn't even get to Trump's use of basic negative marketing techniques, like destroying a brand well beyond his racism and xenophobia. How many Americans now think Jeb is too dull, too stupid and too... low energy to be an effective or competent president? Too many. Jeb is not just languishing in 5th place in the GOP primary polls-- the Real Clear Politics national average has him in 5th place at 5.3%, stuck between a neo-fascist freshman senator from Texas at 12.0% and a disastrously failed ex-CEO and aggressively delusional story-teller at 3.7%. The most recent Quinnipiac poll of Iowa GOP caucus goes shows Jeb in 6th place at 4%, behind Trumpf, Cruz, Carson, Rubio and Rand Paul. His scores on shared values (1%), leadership (3%), honesty (4%) and electability (6%) are all in the toilet-- as are his ability to handle every single issue. And when asked "are there any of these candidates you would definitely not support for the Republican nomination for president," it wasn't Trumpf with the worst score (23%) but poor Bush (26%), particularly among those Republican caucus goers who describe themselves as Tea Partiers (39%), evangelicals (23%), very conservative (33%) and without college degrees (26%). Bush's favorable to unfavorable rating among GOP caucus goes in 39/53%, the worst of any candidate. Trumpf, for example, has a positive rating-- 59% favorable, 34% unfavorable.

And the Republican establishment candidates have been largely ineffectual in their attempts to counterpunch Trumpf. Kasich's brilliant emotional ad comparing Herr Trumpf to Herr Hitler doesn't seem to have impressed Republican primary voters in the slightest. Way too abstract for the average Trumpf supporter, who by all accounts, is a very low IQ individual without the mental capacity to comprehend complex ideas. Sunday on ABC's This Week, Kasich refused to say he'd support Trumpf if he were the GOP's nominee. "Well, he's not going to be the nominee, Martha, because, at the end, look, he may have 20% of the vote. But he's got 80% of Republicans who don't support him... Somebody who divides this country here in the 21st century, who's calling names of women and Muslims and Hispanics and mocking reporters, then says I didn't do it but he did do it, it's just not going to happen. And everybody needs to get over it and take a deep breath."

Kasich is deluding himself if he believes that. The most recent Fox poll of national GOP primary voters shows Trump way ahead with 28%, up 2 points, more than the 4 Establishment candidates-- Jeb (5%), Rubio (14%), Christie (3%) and Kasich (2%) combined. And a Washington Post/ABC News poll released the same day shows Trumpf with 32% and the 4 establishment candidates with a combined 22%. An even greater percentage-- 39%-- say they think Trumpf will emerge as the eventual GOP nominee.

Fiorina also took a couple of ineffectual swings at Trumpf Sunday, on Fox. She brought up his gross behavior of mocking a handicapped NY Times reporter, pointing out that the NY bully "only feels big when he’s trying to make everyone else look small... This is the pattern, isn’t it? The pattern is-- he says something insulting, offensive and outrageous; the media pays attention; then he claims we all misunderstood him. This is the pattern, perhaps, of an entertainer. It’s certainly not the pattern of a leader." Her assault on Trumpf is less than a pin-prick. I suppose the Republicasn establishment encouraging all the candidates to gang up on Trumpf thinks-- or hopes-- all these little jabs will add up to something. So far, all they add up to is Trumpf's polling numbers increasing every week. And here he is today saying he's open to over-turning Roe v Wade:



Even fellow and equally hated outsider Ted Cruz is starting to take shots at Trumpf-- kind of. Out on the hustings, Cruz doesn't ever attack Trumpf the way the other candidates do, but he's been trying to win over his voters this week in Iowa in a big way:

I think the reason people got excited about Donald Trump is they're fed up with Washington. And they're fed up with politicians in both parties who lie to us, who don't tell the truth and don't do what they said they would do,” Cruz said. “I am immensely grateful that Donald Trump is running and I think that it has actually been enormously beneficial to our campaign. Why? Because Trump has helped frame the central question of this primary as: Who will stand up to Washington? Now if that's the central question, it leads to a natural follow-up question. OK. Who has stood up to Washington? Who's stood up to not just Democrats but to leaders in our own party? And in that regard my record is markedly different from every other candidate on that debate stage... Our country's in crisis. It's now or never. We are at the edge of a precipice. And four or eight more years going down this road we risk losing the greatest country in the history of the world.

Especially if a power-mad sociopath like Trumpf or Cruz ever becomes president. Much better alternative, regardless of political party: right here.

Republicans Talked Business At The Business Debate On Fox's Business Channel

Yesterday we looked at how the Republican presidential contenders dealt with the issue of immigration in their latest debate. The other two big take-aways from the debate were in regard to the minimum wage and to health care/insurance. It's a shame the intimidated/on best behavior and biased Fox anchors didn't have what it takes to draw out of the candidates their philosophical approaches to the entire concept of a minimum wage and to social insurance policies like Medicare and Social Security. [Perhaps someone could have had noted Ayn Rand scholar, Paul Ryan, who was in the audience, stand up and state the official-- if publicly downplayed-- Republican Party position.] Still a lot of what the candidates did have to say gave us a glimpse at the reactionary 19th Century dystopic vision of society most of them share.

The first question came from Neil Cavuto: "As as we gather tonight, just outside, and across the country, picketers are gathering as well. They’re demanding an immediate hike in the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Just a few hours ago, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed doing the same for all state workers, the first governor to do so... Are you sympathetic to the protesters' caused? Hereditary billionaire-- who claims his pappy only gave him a measly million dollars to start-- stated that he's not sympathetic and that American workers already earn too much money. No, he really said that. Listen:



Then-- boom, as if the moderators needed something for PolitiFact to do-- they turned right to Dr. Ben for the night's first big tall-tale, which he was happy to provide: "Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases." This is a standard-- and ancient-- right-wing trope that has long ago been proven false but that is endlessly repeated on Hate Talk Radio and Fox News. PolitiFact was quick to respond:

[J]oblessness rose after a minimum-wage hike more than half the time-- seven out of 11 occasions-- but fell four times. Since joblessness fell some of the time, it means that Carson’s sweeping claim-- that joblessness rises "every time" the minimum wage goes up is off-base.

But there’s another factor that casts additional doubt on his assertion.

As it happened, there was a recession under way during six of the 11 periods we studied. During each of those periods, joblessness rose after the minimum wage went up. This is not surprising-- but it does cast into doubt the cause and effect behind the rise in joblessness. The impact of a recession does, at the very least, raise questions about whether a minimum wage hike in and of itself caused joblessness.

If you look instead at the five wage hikes that occurred when a recovery was under way, joblessness declined four of those times. The only exception was the 1991 wage hike, which took effect soon after a recovery began.

Finally, we should note that economists are split over what effect a minimum wage hike has on job growth. There’s some research that shows raising the minimum wage negatively impacts job growth, and a lot that shows it has an insignificant effect.

Our ruling

Carson said, "Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases."

If you look at the 12-month period following every minimum-wage hike since 1978, joblessness did rise on seven occasions, but it fell on four occasions, undercutting his sweeping claim. In addition, it’s not at all clear that a minimum-wage hike was the primary culprit for the periods in which joblessness rose, since those periods also coincided with broader recessions in the economy.

We rate his claim False.

It's also worth mentioning that even Carson himself appears to be conflicted over raising the minimum wage. In May, he recorded an interview with NBC's John Harwood during which he said the minimum wage "probably" should be raised. And then there was Florida's AWOL junior senator, Marco Rubio, the tap dancer. He told the audience that if he "thought that raising the minimum wage was the best way to help people increase their pay, I would be all for it, but it isn’t. In the 21st century, it’s a disaster." Using an argument that's been around as long as the first proposals for a minimum wage, the young reactionary claimed that "If you raise the minimum wage, you're going to make people more expensive than machines. That means all the automation that is replacing jobs and people right now will be accelerated."

Poor Jeb, now a third tier candidate, kept quiet on this one, but back in March told South Carolina Republicans that he thought the minimum wage should be left to the states and not the federal government. He used the same scare tactics about automation that Rubio used.

Fiorina got the ball rolling by by calling for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, something all of the Republicans say they agree with, which amounts to cutting off access to quality affordable health care for something like 18 million Americans, as well as denying health insurance coverage for preexisting conditions and for preventive care services. Fiorina, universally considered one of the worst failures as a CEO in business history, insisted that Obamacare is a failure. One of the worst of the GOP liars, she may be a flawed spokesperson but last night she was just another loud voice braying the same message-- for which PolitiFact didn't just give her a False grade but yet another Pants on Fire. The truth of the matter, of course, is contrary to what Firoina and her tribe had to say. The Affordable Care Act has made health care more accessible-- the country's uninsured rate has fallen below 10% for the first time since the early 1970s-- and has lowered the uninsured rate, while drastically reducing the rate of increase in health care spending, even with concerted sabotage from Republican governors and legislatures in many states. So listen to some trademarked Fiorina Menacity:



Although I'm not sure how she's trying to differentiate between "drugs companies" and "pharmaceutical companies," one is expected to walk away persuaded that the pharmaceutical and insurance companies are paying off the Democrats. She's partially correct. Both industries give a good deal of money to Democrats, overwhelmingly corrupt, conservative Democrats-- New Dems and Blue Dogs primarily-- from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. But neither industry gives nearly as much to the Democrats as they give to their Republican Party handmaidens. These charts just represent legal bribes Pharma and Insurance have given to congressional Republicans and congressional Democrats. First the charts that show what has been given since 1990 and then the charts that show what has been given just this election cycle so far:

Also worth mentioning-- neither the Insurance Industry nor the Pharmaceutical Industry are among the top 10 contributors to Hillary's campaign or to Bernie's campaign or to Martin O'Malley's campaign. Different story among Republicans. The Insurance Industry is the 14th biggest source of contributions for Jeb, 15th for Cruz, 9th for Carson, 17th for Rubio, 13th for Rand Paul, 7th for Huckabee, 12th for Trump, 12th for Kasich, 12th for Santorum and 15th for Fiorina herself. When she ran her disastrous 2010 Senate campaign she took $250,264 from the insurance company, her 11th biggest source of contributions. The biggest recipient of Insurance contributions so far this cycle has been John Boehner (R-OH) with $301,300/$2,455,364 since 1990 and the biggest recipient of pharmaceutical industry contributions so far this cycle has been Richard Burr (R-NC) with $168,432/$1,254,013 since 1990, a member of the Finance Committee's subcommittee on Health Care and a member of the Health Committee's subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, two positions from which he works to implement the pharmaceutical industry's agenda.



State Senators Mike Noland (D-IL) and Ruben Kihuen (D-NV) are two of the most accomplished progressives in their state's legislatures. To put it mildly, they don't view these issues in the same way the Republicans do. Ruben is running for the seat currently held by anti-minimum wage Republican, Cresent Hardy. Take a look at the video he sent us today, just above. Mike is running for an open, blue-leaning congressional seat west of Chicago now, the one Tammy Duckworth is giving up, and his interests have always revolved around supporting the legitimate interests of the area's working families. After Tuesday's debate he told us that "While our economy improves, income inequality in America continues to worsen. Real wages, and so the average household income of average Americans, continues to decline. The best way to bridge the gap between rich and poor in America is by increasing pay for low-wage workers. Creating a stronger minimum wage will increase consumer spending mostly to the benefit of local small businesses, the backbone of our economy. Moreover, we should index the minimum wage to inflation, so that real wages, and so America’s buying power, does not continue to fall in real value every year. This will help stabilize both earning and spending and so our overall economy. In the end, raising the minimum wage is good for our national and state economies, local businesses and, most importantly, working families. It is an essential component of any rational plan for continued economic recovery in the United States. I support it." We need more men and women with Mike's and Ruben's perspective in Congress. If you'd like to help their grassroots campaigns, you can do that right here, while you watch the Cruz/Fiorina team do their crazy, ugly little dance.

2016 Republican ticket

Krugman Goes Beyond Fiorina's Shallow Partisan Lies About The Economy To Look At The Baseless GOP Premises Spawning The Lies

Paul Krugman wrote in his NY Times column yesterday that he agrees with one assertion Carly Fiorina made in her Wall Street Journal OpEd, Hillary Clinton Flunks Economics, namely that "America needs someone in the White House who actually knows how the economy works." Clearly the dismally-failed one-time CEO of Hewlett Packard is not that person. Fiorina's main point is, as usual, wrong. Hillary is absolutely correct when she claims the economy has indeed done better under Democrats. Krugman points out that "Republicans talk about economic growth all the time. They attack Democrats for 'job-killing' government regulations, they promise great things if elected, they predicate their tax plans on the assumption that growth will soar and raise revenues. He regrets that Democrats don't take-home on more frequently. Later today, Oren Jacobson, a business strategy consultant and member of Chicago's New Leaders Council, is going to look at how the Republicans twist economic reality into their own bizarre pretzel logic. That's precisely what Krugman was getting at yesterday. He asks "why has the economy performed better under Democrats" and "given that record, why are Republicans so much more inclined than Democrats to boast about their ability to deliver growth?"

The arithmetic on partisan differences is actually stunning. Last year the economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson circulated a paper comparing economic performance under Democratic and Republican presidents since 1947. Under Democrats, the economy grew, on average, 4.35 percent per year; under Republicans, only 2.54 percent. Over the whole period, the economy was in recession for 49 quarters; Democrats held the White House during only eight of those quarters.

But isn’t the story different for the Obama years? Not as much as you think. Yes, the recovery from the Great Recession of 2007-2009 has been sluggish. Even so, the Obama record compares favorably on a number of indicators with that of George W. Bush. In particular, despite all the talk about job-killing policies, private-sector employment is eight million higher than it was when Barack Obama took office, twice the job gains achieved under his predecessor before the recession struck.

Why is the Democratic record so much better? The short answer is that we don’t know.

Mr. Blinder and Mr. Watson look at a variety of possible explanations, and find all of them wanting. There’s no indication that the Democratic advantage can be explained by better monetary and fiscal policies. Democrats seem, on average, to have had better luck than Republicans on oil prices and technological progress. Overall, however, the pattern remains mysterious. Certainly no Democratic candidate would be justified in promising dramatically higher growth if elected. And in fact, Democrats never do.

Republicans, however, always make such claims: Every candidate with a real chance of getting the G.O.P. nomination is claiming that his tax plan would produce a huge growth surge-- a claim that has no basis in historical experience. Why?

Part of the answer is epistemic closure: modern conservatives generally live in a bubble into which inconvenient facts can’t penetrate. One constantly hears assertions that Ronald Reagan achieved economic and job growth never matched before or since, when the reality is that Bill Clinton surpassed him on both measures. Right-wing news media trumpet the economic disappointments of the Obama years, while hardly ever mentioning the good news. So the myth of conservative economic superiority goes unchallenged.

Beyond that, however, Republicans need to promise economic miracles as a way to sell policies that overwhelmingly favor the donor class.

It would be nice, for variety’s sake, if even one major G.O.P. candidate would come out against big tax cuts for the 1 percent. But none have, and all of the major players have called for cuts that would subtract trillions from revenue. To make up for this lost revenue, it would be necessary to make sharp cuts in big programs-- that is, in Social Security and/or Medicare.

But Americans overwhelmingly believe that the wealthy pay less than their fair share of taxes, and even Republicans are closely divided on the issue. And the public wants to see Social Security expanded, not cut. So how can a politician sell the tax-cut agenda? The answer is, by promising those miracles, by insisting that tax cuts on high incomes would both pay for themselves and produce wonderful economic gains.

Hence the asymmetry between the parties. Democrats can afford to be cautious in their economic promises precisely because their policies can be sold on their merits. Republicans must sell an essentially unpopular agenda by confidently declaring that they have the ultimate recipe for prosperity-- and hope that nobody points out their historically poor track record.

And if someone does point to that record, you know what they’ll do: Start yelling about media bias.

Who Was The Biggest Liar In The CNBC Republican Debate?

The above rant-- about Marco Rubio lying his ass off-- by conservative former Congressman Joe Scarborough (R-FL) is the sort of treatment normally reserved for Hillary Clinton. But, yes, Rubio flat-out lied in front of 14 million people during the Boulder debate. What Scarborough was referring to was this exchange between moderator Becky Quick and young Marco:

QUICK: Senator Rubio, you yourself have said that you've had issues. You have a lack of bookkeeping skills. You accidentally inter-mingled campaign money with your personal money. You faced foreclosure on a second home that you bought. And just last year, you liquidated a $68,000 retirement fund. That's something that cost you thousands of dollars in taxes and penalties.

In terms of all of that, it raises the question whether you have the maturity and wisdom to lead this $17 trillion economy. What do you say?

RUBIO: Well, you just-- you just listed a litany of discredited attacks from Democrats and my political opponents, and I'm not gonna waste 60 seconds detailing them all. But I'm going to tell you the truth.

And he just wandered off into the bio section of his stump speech. He never responded to any of the serious (and far from "discredited") charges-- and she never said a word about how that "second house" in Tallahassee was the notorious party house he and his henchman, serial criminal David Rivera, shared. Long before it was foreclosed on, the house was a party scene filled with generous lobbyists, call girls and cocaine. Imagine if Betsy had brought that up! The facts of the foreclosure have been public record, at least in Florida, for many years. She let him off light on everything... she didn't even mention the Republican Party of Florida credit card he was using illegally for personal services like getting his back shaved-- paying it off after he got caught-- as well as funneling money to his household through his wife. And Rubio's cascade of lies just kept coming all night, until you wonder whether you've fallen through a worm hole into some kind of an alternative universe, instead of realizing that modern day GOP politics is an alternative universe.

But when you think of the current crop of Republican candidates and the word "liar," first up has to be the always veracity-challenged Carly Fiorina, followed closely by Trump, and Carson. Let's look at Fiorina first. I'm guessing the "Pants-On-Fire" Moment Politifact was referring to was when she put on her sternest, most self-righteous demeanor and spoke in the most authoritative tone she musters-- always a sure-fire give-away that the Big Lie is coming. This morning, Neil Irwin spelled it out succinctly for the NY Times: Carly Fiorina’s Flawed Portrayal of Female Job Losses Under Obama

Carly Fiorina said that “92 percent of the jobs lost during Barack Obama’s first term belonged to women” as part of a discussion of gender differences in compensation.

The assertion is flawed. In January 2009, the month President Obama’s first term began, 66.9 million women were employed in the United States, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In January 2013, when his first term ended, that number had risen slightly, to 67.1 million. Overall employment similarly rose slightly, from 142.15 million to 143.32 million, meaning the pattern of employment among women in Obama’s first term was similar to the pattern among men.

In other words, overall employment among both women and men rose during Mr. Obama’s first term, though very slightly. That said, the unemployment rate among both groups was higher at the end of his first term than the beginning, with the jobless rate among women rising to 7.8 percent in January 2013 from 7 percent in January 2009, reflecting a growing population.

Trump's biggest lie of the evening-- as you can see, the evening was packed with them-- was a poker-faced response to a couple of questions by Becky Quick about a visa dustup between Rubio and Trump in which Trump denigrated Rubio as Facebook honcho "Mark Zuckerberg's personal senator," a fairly accurate assessment. But, incredibly, Trump denied he had ever said it-- "I never said that; I never said that... Somebody's really doing some bad fact-checking."-- a bold-faced and easily disprovable lie. The phrase was instantly found on Trump's own website, in the much-vaunted immigration section:

Increase prevailing wage for H-1Bs. We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program. More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program's lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.

When Quick pressed him after a commercial break, he just swatted her away like a fly, not in the least bit concerned that he had just been exposed as a liar in front of 14 million viewers. Trump had 10 "Pants-on-Fire" moments, 27 false statements and 6 mostly false statements, last night. Virtually NOTHING he said all night was true. (And polls show that he was the winner of the debate.) Let's move on to Dr. Ben.

Carson was asked by Carl Quintanilla about his long-standing, well-documented  relationship with Mannatech, basically a snake oil company that claims it can cure cancer and just about anything else that ails you if you use their supplements, supplements that Carson hawks for them in infomercials (which have earned him hundreds of thousands of dollars). He looked straight at the camera and said he had "no relationship" with Mannatech. He was lying, albeit with a very different demeanor from the more bullying tone that Fiorina and Trump employ when they're trying to put one over on everyone.

Quintanilla: There’s a company called Mannatech, a maker of nutritional supplements, with which you had a ten-year relationship. They offered claims that they could cure autism, cancer. They paid $7 million dollars to settle a deceptive marketing lawsuit in Texas, and yet your involvement continued. Why?

Carson: Well, it’s easy to answer. I didn’t have an involvement with them. That is total propaganda and this is what happens in our society. Total propaganda. I did a couple of speeches for them, I did speeches for other people, they were paid speeches, it is absolutely absurd to say that I had any kind of relationship with them. Do I take the product? Yes. I think it’s a good product.

Here's the soft-spoken doctor hawking Mannatech's products. He sounds so convincing, doesn't he? He even invokes God-- and God spelled backwards too-- on Mannatech's behalf!

Carson first spoke out in favor of Mannatech products over a decade ago when he claimed that the Texas-based company’s “glyconutritional supplements,” which included larch-tree bark and aloe vera extract, helped him overcome prostate cancer.

The company doctor “prescribed a regimen” of supplements, Mr. Carson told its sales associates in a 2004 speech. “Within about three weeks my symptoms went away, and I was really quite amazed,” he said to loud applause, according to a YouTube video of the event.

The candidate today is cancer-free after surgery. He told associates of the company, Mannatech Inc., that he initially considered forgoing surgery and treating the cancer with supplements only.

As the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month, Carson’s relationship with the company deepened over time, including “four paid speeches at Mannatech gatherings, most recently one in 2013 for which he was paid $42,000, according to the company.” The company disputes that Carson was a “paid endorser or spokesperson,” according to the Journal, and claims his financial compensation went to charity.

National Review also highlighted Carson’s connections to Mannatech in January and how Carson’s team went to great lengths to distance themselves from the company. Some of his video appearances have been removed from the Internet, but those that remain appear to show a deeper affiliation than Carson claimed during Wednesday’s debate.

In one video for Mannatech last year that remains online, Carson discusses his experiences with nutritional supplements while seated next to the company’s logo. “The wonderful thing about a company like Mannatech is that they recognize that when God made us, He gave us the right fuel,” Carson explained. “And that fuel was the right kind of healthy food … Basically what the company is doing is trying to find a way to restore natural diet as a medicine or as a mechanism for maintaining health.”

Carson stopped short of making substantive medical claims about Mannatech’s products. “You know, I can’t say that that’s the reason I feel so healthy,” he said. “But I can say it made me feel different and that’s why I continue to use it more than ten years later.” His apparent hesitation is understandable. Seven years before Carson appeared in that video, then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican who was elected governor of Texas last year, sued Mannatech for running a illegal marketing scheme under the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Abbott claimed that the Dallas-based company and its sales representatives repeatedly exaggerated the medical efficacy of their products.

“Texans will not tolerate illegal marketing schemes that prey upon the sick and unsuspecting,” Abbott's office said at the time. “Aided by an army of multi-level sellers and their fictitious claims about its products, Mannatech has aggressively marketed supplements to countless unwitting purchasers.” Abbott also emphasized that the company’s claims were “not supported by legitimate scientific studies, nor are its products approved as drugs by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”

Mannatech paid a $6 million settlement in 2009 in which the company admitted no wrongdoing. “Under the agreed final judgment, Mannatech agreed not to advertise or otherwise claim that its dietary supplements can cure, treat, mitigate, or prevent disease,” according to Abbott’s office. The settlement also levied a $1 million fine against company founder Samuel Caster and banned him from working for Mannatech for five years.

Carson is neither the first nor the only high-profile doctor to endorse nutritional supplements with dubious scientific backing. A Senate subcommittee excoriated Dr. Mehmet Oz last year for promoting “miracle” pills and “magic” weight-loss solutions on his nationally televised daytime talk show. My colleague James Hamblin noted that Oz’s endorsements helped fuel a “sordid, under-regulated” market for self-proclaimed miracle cures. The industry is largely shielded from regulatory scrutiny by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, which does not require dietary and nutritional supplements to be approved by the FDA before their sale in the United States.

The debate question could have provided Carson with an opportunity to clarify his relationship with the company and his views on nutritional supplements. Instead, his denial will only increase public scrutiny of his interactions with a controversial industry.

I doubt that there will be any more public scrutiny at all. Republican primary voters are raised on Hate Talk Radio and Fox News-- fact-free zones. They could care less. And Dr. Ben's not going any further than that crackpot crowd anyway. So... I bet Hillary's oppo-research team isn't even looking up how to spell Mannatech. But, regardless of all the lies, last night's big loser, easily, was... Monsieur Low Energy. 

UPDATE:

Can You Imagine A President Ted Cruz Yet?

Trump is still way ahead in every poll-- nationally with an average of 23.2% (6 points ahead of his closest rival), In iowa with an average of 22.3% (6 points ahead of his closest rival), in New Hampshire with an average of 25.3% (double his closest rival) and in South Carolina with an average of 34.0% (15 points ahead of his closest rival). The pundits insist he's starting to trend down and that it's just a matter of time before he's overtaken by... by who? You need an actual contender to overtake a frontrunner. Trump leads Jeb by 15 points nationally, by 15 points in Iowa, by 17 points in New Hampshire, by over 28 points in Iowa and by 28 points in South Carolina. And this week's pundit-fave, Marco Rubio lags Trump by 13 points nationally, by 14 points in Iowa, by 18 points in New Hampshire and by 29 points in South Carolina. The only poll completed this month has Trump besting Jeb 27-10% nationally and besting Rubio 27-13%. This morning, Maggie Haberman in the NYTimes speculated that Trump is laying the groundwork for a campaign exit, something Trump vociferously denies.

And it isn't just the pundits and the GOP Establishment who are counting on Trump "going away." (On Morning Joe Friday morning, Trump said "I'm never getting out.") Ted Cruz's whole campaign strategy includes Trump eventually dropping out and somehow transferring his own support to the extremist Texas senator who isn't on the same page with Trump on all that many issues other than their shared bigotry towards low-end immigrants. Thursday in an interview with ABC's Rita Cosby (above) that will air tomorrow. Cruz has been the only Republican to not just refuse to attack Trump but to always express admiration for him. It's been widely noticed that he;'s been sucking up to Trump big time and everyone guessed his strategy. In the interview with Cosby he answered a question if he could beat Trump by saying, "I don't believe Donald is going to be the nominee, and I think in time, the lion's share of his supporters end up with us."

Trump operative Daniel Scavino took umbrage on Twitter:

I'm not going to make a case that Trump somehow doesn't go the distance and win his nutty party's primary. But... if he doesn't and if he does drop out, it's looking more and more that Rubio will be the weak candidate of the establishment and Cruz will be the weak candidate of the... I don't know how to categorize him... the Confederates? AP reported yesterday that Cruz trounced Rubio in third quarter fundraising, $12.6 million for the Texas fascist and around $6 million for the younger party boy from Miami. That may seem like a big deal, but not if the Kochs follow through with the rumbling about them getting their right-wing network to get behind Rubio as the more "electable" of the two. I guess Fiorina could be VP for either, although it's been the Cruz campaign that's been financing her demented screed of a campaign so far-- and the Kochs like her too.

A little update on the Kochs and Fiorina-- apparently another one of her incessant lies. Charles Koch did an interview that will appear tomorrow on CBS' Sunday Morning in which he flatly denies the claims about backing Fiorina, claims the Fiorina campaign have been spreading far and wide. From the interview:

Anthony Mason: "You said, you're not particularly high on any of the candidates so far?"

Charles Koch: "Well, I didn't say that. I said I don't have the evidence that they're going to change the trajectory of the country."

"Are you intending to support a candidate for President?"

"Well, it depends."

"If Donald Trump got the nomination, would you support him?"

"I made a vow: I'm not going to talk about individuals. David said he liked [Scott] Walker, so now all the press is, 'Well, we put all this money behind Walker, and he had to drop out.' We didn't put a penny [on him]. David said he liked him. That doesn't mean we've picked him."

"Were you surprised Walker's candidacy didn't resonate in any way?"

"Well, I thought it would resonate better. But he wasn't a very good campaigner. So you may agree with us on a number of issues, or we agree with you on a number of issues. But if you're presenting them in a way that doesn't resonate, that doesn't do any good. So we can't support you.

"We're not interested in attacking windmills."

Freedom Partners, an umbrella group that the Kochs support, has said Carly Fiorina is one of the candidates they "look forward to hearing more from."

But when Mason asked Koch about reports that he is "increasingly interested" in Fiorina, Koch laughed.

"Listen, if there's a report about me, just say, 'Okay, that is probably the opposite.' And you'll be on firmer ground."

"You're denying that report?"

"Absolutely!"

Keep in mind that Cruz's super PACs raised $38 million as of the end of June thanks to eight-digit donations from three super-rich far right families, making him the best-funded candidate among all the extremists. Crackpot oil billionaire Wilks brothers-- Farris (a certifiably insane, woman-hating, gay-hating, satanic preacher) and younger bro Dan-- for example, gave $15 million to one of the Cruz SuperPACs. And it's not just the crazy Wilks brothers doing everything they can to help Cruz undermine American democracy and take over the White House. Another certifiably insane billionaire, paranoid hedge fund magnate Robert Mercer gave $11 million and the son of right-wing Texas Congressman Randy Neugebauer, Toby, gave $10 million. The only Republican who's raised as much loot as Cruz is Jeb Bush, who is thoroughly despised-- in part thanks to Trump's constant and effective attacks-- by the Republican base and the GOP activists who just forced John Boehner to announce his retirement. As Janet Hook and Patrick O'Connor wrote in yesterday's Wall Street Journal these activists and the base extremists are re-making the Republican Party in their own insane image. "The insurgent uprisings rocking the Republican Party in Congress and the presidential campaign," they wrote, "are creating heartburn among establishment party figures, who worry an unguided fury will keep the GOP from reclaiming the White House next fall."

Both sides suspect that the Grand Old Party, long run by a hierarchical and well-organized elite, is being transformed by the conservative anger that initially propelled the party back to congressional power in 2010.

...This ground-up rebellion is shaking a party long dominated by seniority that habitually elevates the next person in line. This is particularly true in the presidential primary. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the son and brother of the last two GOP presidents and the early favorite among the party’s establishment voters, has failed to generate enthusiasm among the grass roots.

Instead, the primary has been dominated by Mr. Trump, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Carly Fiorina. Roughly half of Republican primary voters named one of the three political neophytes as their preferred pick for the nomination, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted late last month... [G]rass-roots leaders warn that there may not be an easy resolution to the feud.

“This is a fight that’s going to go on for years to come,” said Mark Meckler, a conservative organizer who travels the country talking to other activists. “We’re winning the fight in the court of public opinion, but we’re not winning in the policy arena. Not yet, at least.”

GOP Nomination Fight-- How Do You Keep Track Who The Biggest Freak Or Clown Of The Day Actually Is?

Carly: "Politics is a fact-free zone"

Rand Paul's now infamous rant and meme the other day about Trump being a "clown" who is "unfit" to be president followed a similar screed by Marco Rubio that Trump's campaign was nothing more than a "freak show." Both senators were correct, of course, but either could have been just as easily referring to another self-serving/self-entitled GOP multimillionaire with grand political ambitions: failed business executive and professional victim Carly Fiorina.

Fiorina has rapidly advanced in the polls by presenting herself as someone who will not be bound by anything as mundane as reality or facts in a right-wing jihad against the hated interlopers. People wonder how she could be gaining support when she's obviously a compulsive liar. The problem is that the fact that she's a known to be a compulsive liar is why she's gaining support. That's what Republican primary voters-- raised on the lies and bigotry of Hate Talk Radio and Fox News-- want and expect... and, some would say, deserve.

In the last Republican debate, the topic of secretly recorded Planned Parenthood videos came up, and Fiorina said passionately, “I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says ‘We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.'” While it received huge applause, the line was false. The Planned Parenthood videos contain someone describing a similar scene, but not what Fiorina claimed was in them.

Which might not be a big deal-- afterward, Fiorina could have said, “I mixed up something in those videos with things I had seen and heard elsewhere,” and we could still have a reasonable debate about the merits of fetal tissue research. But that’s not what she said. Instead, after practically every single fact-checking enterprise declared her claim false (here’s Politifact; here’s FactCheck.org), her campaign released its own cobbled-together video, using footage not from Planned Parenthood of a fetus kicking on a table, in an attempt to claim that Fiorina was actually telling the truth. Even in their phony video, which includes a photo of a stillborn baby being passed off dishonestly as a photo of an aborted fetus, there isn’t anyone saying, “We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.” This is, as Dahlia Lithwick says, “trying to doctor doctored videotapes and still failing to produce an image that corresponds to Fiorina’s narrative. It’s truthiness elevated to almost cosmic levels.”

But most remarkably, Fiorina continues to insist, no matter who asks her, that she never said anything untrue about the original Planned Parenthood videos. When Chris Wallace asked her on Fox News Sunday last week, “Do you acknowledge what every fact checker has found, that as horrific as that scene is, it was only described on the video by someone who claimed to have seen it?”, she answered, “No, I don’t accept that at all. I’ve seen the footage.” Yesterday she appeared on Meet the Press, and Chuck Todd asked her, “There is no evidence that the scene you described exists. Are you willing now to concede that you exaggerated that scene?” She replied, “No, not at all. That scene absolutely does exist. And that voice saying what I said they were saying, ‘We’re going to keep it alive to harvest its brain’ exists as well.”

There’s no reason why a conservative couldn’t say to her, “Look, I agree with everything you believe about abortion and Planned Parenthood, but you just need to admit you misspoke and move on.” But Fiorina has seemingly decided that the proper strategy is to just keep lying about what is in the end just a detail related to a larger policy issue, no matter how many people point out that she’s lying.

And why not? It’s working. While not long ago her support was too small to measure, she’s now in double-digits in the polls, while other candidates are faltering. The people rallying to support her don’t seem to care. Quite the contrary-- they may be looking at this controversy and concluding that Fiorina is standing up to all those media bullies with their “facts” and their “evidence,” just like Ben Carson is telling it like it is on why the Constitution is for people like us, not people like them.

However this primary race turns out, at the moment more than half the Republican electorate is supporting either 1) a spectacularly xenophobic candidate who wants to round up 11 million people and build a wall around America; 2) a candidate who thinks that we ought to have religious tests for high office; or 3) a candidate who evinces few qualms about lying repeatedly even after her lies have been carefully documented. This is a party with a lot to be proud of.

Brain Beutler also has a problem with Fiorina's compulsive lying and how easily-- eagerly-- right-wing dupes slurp it up. Writing for The New Republic, he compares the loopy Fiorina to C.J. Pearson, the 13-year-old right-wing hoaxer from Georgia whose brazen lies landed him a job as Ted Cruz’s youth-outreach chairman after he was exposed! "[H]ere's what the PR folks are saying: say you lied and apologize to avoid backlash," Pearson wrote in a series of tweets. "But, instead, I choose to stand by my word. While the article will be incriminating, all we have in politics is our word and I stand by it."

Carly Fiorina's mode of deception, and her response to being fact-checked, is nearly identical. The main difference, of course, is that Fiorina is a 61-year-old former corporate executive who’s a top contender to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2016, while Pearson is still going through puberty. The fact that so many conservatives are lining up to defend her is indicative of the degree to which conservatism has become a movement defined by affective rage and imagined victimization by mainstream forces. This toxic brew contributed to the party's difficulty winning recent national elections. It is already poisoning the party's campaign for the presidency in 2016.

...As more interviewers and moderators interject to debunk Fiorina’s story about a video segment that doesn’t exist, Fiorina’s reputation among conservatives isn’t suffering. Instead, the right’s journalist shit-list is growing longer.

Pearson can be forgiven for expecting the conservative media to rush to his aid, rather than orchestrate his demise. He's coming of age in a movement that often treats reality as subordinate to perception; that will embrace obvious distortions of facts if doing so might move the needle of public opinion, and dissemble and whine, rather than admit error, when the media gets wise. If the stakes were higher-- if Pearson were a 61-year-old presidential candidate instead of a 13-year-old kid-- he would be climbing in the polls today. 

It isn't just Paul Waldman and Brian Beutler noticing this, not by a long shot. That Fiorina is a compulsive liar, perhaps a sociopath, perhaps suffering from severe narcissistic personality disorder, is becoming conventional wisdom, at least outside the circles traveled by low-info Republican primary voters. Gary Legum, at Salon, wrote that her brazen demagoguery puts Trump's to shame and he's sure she's more dangerous than the Trumpy piñata. He seems less concerned with "her strict adherence to right-wing ideology on issues and more concerned with "the affect she’s developing on the campaign trail. Of the top three current candidates-- Fiorina, Trump and Ben Carson-- it is the former HP executive who has emerged with the steely resolve and chest-thumping, unapologetic jingoism so beloved by conservatives."

Her MTP interview was a textbook example of Fiorina’s effectiveness in appealing to the right wing, particularly when she’s in the cross hairs of a mainstream media outlet. (That she was questioned by Chuck Todd, an interviewer so hapless he might as well have been my 2-year-old nephew asking “But why?” after every Fiorina answer, certainly helped.) Asked why she’s sticking to the well-documented fictions she keeps telling about the infamous Planned Parenthood videos, Fiorina smiled like a shark, shook her head, condescended to and talked over Todd, and reiterated with all the assurance of a champion bullshit artist that yes, there is no question that “Planned Parenthood is aborting fetuses alive to harvest their brains and other body parts. That is a fact.”

...[W]here Fiorina’s demagoguery becomes even more dangerous is in its specificity about policy. Compare her talk on foreign policy to those of Trump and Carson. When asked during the debate how she would interact with Vladimir Putin, Fiorina told CNN’s audience,

What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic states. I’d probably send a few thousand more troops into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message.

Imagine you are a Russian hard-liner sitting in Moscow watching this debate and hearing the GOP’s third-leading candidate promising a foreign policy aimed at your country that is so muscular, Ronald Reagan’s corpse just got an erection. You’re not thinking that Fiorina sounds more unhinged than General Buck Turgidson or the fact that Barack Obama is also conducting aggressive military exercises in the Baltics and the Sixth Fleet is as big and strong as ever. You’re thinking Comrade Putin will stand strong against this foolishness when Carly Fiorina is in the Oval Office.

And if you are a conservative voter in America, you’re thinking, Carly won’t be a chump like that wimp Obama, who has let Putin walk all over him. That swelling in your chest is a jingoistic pride that you haven’t felt during the long, dark years that the Kenyan Usurper has been destroying America from within.

Compare Fiorina to the boastfulness of Donald Trump, who talks in generalities: I’ll make us great again, I get along with everyone so I’ll get along with the Russians and Chinese, I’m a successful businessman, I’ll make fantastic deals and everyone will be very happy. Trump also promised he would actually talk to Putin instead of ordering the Sixth Fleet into the Turkish Straits practically the moment he takes his hand off the Bible at his Inauguration. Despite all his bluster, Trump at the end of the day wants to be the friendly executive strolling across the construction site and shaking hands with all the hardhat-sporting workers. Fiorina wants to be the one yelling at them to quit staring at her and get back to work.

After all, talking and making friends is also what that community organizer Barack Obama does.

Mild-mannered Eugene Robinson finds Fiorina so filled with anger, rage and theatrically staged righteous indignation that "she can't see straight." She "stands out among the Republican presidential candidates," he wrote yesterday,

not just because she is a woman but also because she has adopted a strategy of breathing fire. She presents herself as mad about everything, and she never gives an inch on anything she says, no matter how demonstrably untrue. Unhappily for our democracy, this approach has vaulted her into the upper tier of the multitudinous GOP field... Is she really, truly so filled with rage? Probably not. When she ran unsuccessfully against Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in 2010, she was a moderate, pro-business Republican. That erstwhile profile would get her nowhere in this year’s presidential race, however, when everyone is scrambling to get to the right of everyone else and “moderate” is a dirty word. One has to wonder if the showy posture of ultraconservative anger isn’t the biggest lie of all.