Zorro
Zorro's JournalTrump's emerging reelection strategy: Double down on failure and lies
Earlier this year, top Republican donors sounded a loud, clanging alarm about President Trump’s reelection strategy. They leaked word to Politico that Trump has not absorbed the lessons of the GOP’s 2018 bloodbath and has lost major ground in the “blue wall” states that are crucial to reelection.
“There’s a lot of anxiety,” one GOP donor said, largely due to Trump’s evident inability to grasp how deeply his relentless focus on his base has alienated moderates and independents.
We are now learning new details about Trump’s reelection strategy, and there is zero indication that his team is taking these concerns seriously. It looks as if Trump’s operation is only leaning harder into that base-only strategy — in no small part because this strategy is being set by Trump himself.
This week, Trump will launch a fresh effort to secure an additional $8.6 billion in funding for his border wall — $5 billion in straight funding, and $3.6 billion in new military construction funds that he’s redirecting via his declaration of a national emergency. Democrats have vowed to oppose the funding, which means the possibility of another government shutdown over the wall could soon loom again.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/11/trumps-emerging-reelection-strategy-double-down-failure-lies/
Fox News host Tucker Carlson uses racist, homophobic language in second wave of damaging audio
Source: Washington Post
A day after releasing audio of Tucker Carlson making numerous misogynist remarks, Media Matters for America published a new video with clips of the Fox News host using racist and homophobic language to describe Iraqi people, African Americans, gay people and immigrants while speaking on a radio program between 2006 and 2011, according to a report published Tuesday by the nonprofit.
The self-described watchdog of “conservative misinformation in the U.S. media” published the audio from Carlson’s appearances on a Tampa-based radio program, the “Bubba the Love Sponge Show,” just 25 hours after releasing similar recordings in which he’s heard flippantly using sexist language to express his views on child rape, rape shield laws, underage marriage and other sensitive topics.
The new audio highlights about a dozen instances of Carlson using racist language on the “shock jock” show, which he apparently called into for about an hour per week. In 2008, Carlson lamented that “everyone’s embarrassed to be a white man,” before stating that white men deserve credit for “creating civilization and stuff.”
In another instance, Carlson is heard saying that Iraq is a “crappy place filled with a bunch of, you know, semiliterate primitive monkeys,” adding, “That’s why it wasn’t worth invading.” That follows a 2006 segment on the show in which Carlson said he had “zero sympathy” for Iraqi people and their culture because they “don’t use toilet paper or forks.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/03/12/new-tucker-carlson-audio-released-this-time-using-racist-homophobic-language
Mob boss Carmine 'The Snake' Persico dies while serving 139-year prison sentence
Source: LA Times
The longtime boss of the infamous Colombo crime family, Carmine "The Snake" Persico, has died at age 85 while serving a 139-year prison sentence.
Persico died Thursday at the Duke University Medical Center, said his attorney, Benson Weintraub. He had been serving what was effectively a life sentence at a federal prison in Butner, N.C.
Persico was among eight defendants convicted in a 1986 prosecution called the "Commission Trial" that was overseen by then-U.S. Atty. Rudolph W. Giuliani. At the time, it was the biggest legal assault on the heads of the Mafia's five families. Persico was convicted of racketeering and murder.
The son of a law firm stenographer and a stay-at-home mother, Persico was a high school dropout who was part of a local street gang.
Read more: https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-carmine-persico-20190311-story.html
I wonder what Trump's mob nickname is.
High taxes be damned, the rich keep moving to California
Are rich people fleeing California to escape astronomical state income taxes? That’s the word. But it’s fake news.
In fact, more wealthy people are moving to California than leaving, research indicates. It’s the poor and middle class who are departing.
It makes sense. If you’re getting rich in California and can afford to live comfortably here in this balmy climate, there’s little incentive to leave — except to stick it to the tax collector in Sacramento.
“If you’ve got your business here and you’re making money, it’s hard to leave,” says Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-income-tax-california-wealthy-20190311-story.html
Trump's Budget Contains Twenty Million Dollars for Bail
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump’s $4.7-trillion budget raised eyebrows on Monday when government-watchdog groups discovered that it contained twenty million dollars for bail.
The line item for a “bail fund” was buried in the fine print of the published budget, along with a footnote specifying that the money could be used only to bail out Trump and members of his immediate family.
The footnote listed the members of his family who would be eligible to use the funds, including his daughter Ivanka and his sons Donald, Jr., and Eric, but not his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined a chorus of congressional Democrats who cried foul at the notion of American taxpayers posting bail for Trump and his family.
“At the end of the day, this is going to cost way more than twenty mil,” she said.
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trumps-budget-contains-twenty-million-dollars-for-bail
Arizona ranchers who supported Trump wall now have doubts about border plans
When Donald Trump was elected president, rancher John Ladd said smuggling traffic on his ranch immediately dipped, and he slept soundly for the first time in years.
Ladd, 63, a fourth-generation cattle rancher, had voted for Trump and his promise to build a border wall and have Mexico pay for it. But the wall hasn’t been constructed, the respite didn’t last, and Ladd, along with other vocal southern Arizona ranchers, has lost faith in the Border Patrol’s barrier plans.
“If they build a wall and do what they did to us, it isn’t going to work,” Ladd said last week as he drove through the 10½-mile stretch of his ranchland that borders Mexico — roughly from the community of Naco west to the San Pedro River.
All but about half a mile of the border on his ranch is already fenced, a patchwork of varying heights, all erected on his land prior to the Trump administration. To his immediate west, at the foot of the Huachuca Mountains, the fence ends.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/la-na-arizona-border-trump-ranchers-20190310-story.html
NRA targets Ocasio-Cortez in scathing attack, labelling her a 'self-absorbed socialist darling'
Source: The Independent
The National Rifle Association has launched a scathing attack on Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, branding the congresswoman a “self-absorbed socialist darling”.
Grant Stinchfield, who is a host on the TV channel of the largest gun lobbying group in America, said Ms Ocasio-Cortez made him “sick”.
Mr Stinchfield, a self-described “firearms enthusiast”, hit out at the Democrat for criticising the war in Afghanistan.
“AOC thinks the war was disastrous and wrong,” he said on NRA TV. “The woman whose Green New Deal promises to figure out a way to handle cows that pass gas, is now crapping on patriotism and of course national security.”
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nra-alexandria-ocasiocortez-socialist-green-new-deal-afghanistan-war-grant-stinchfield-a8816501.html
Game on, NRA!
Trump brands Ann Coulter a 'wacky nut job' over border wall criticism
Donald Trump has rounded on former ally Ann Coulter, branding the right-wing commentator a “wacky nut job” over her criticism of his inability to secure funding for a border wall.
The president defended the apparent lack of progress on his signature policy during a string of tweets on Saturday, taking aim at Coulter in particular.
“Wacky Nut Job @AnnCoulter, who still hasn’t figured out that, despite all odds and an entire Democrat Party of Far Left Radicals against me (not to mention certain Republicans who are sadly unwilling to fight) I am winning on the Border,” he wrote.
“Major sections of Wall are being built… and renovated, with MUCH MORE to follow shortly." “Tens of thousands of illegals are being apprehended (captured) at the Border and NOT allowed into our Country." “With another President, millions would be pouring in. I am stopping an invasion as the Wall gets built. #MAGA”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-ann-coulter-wacky-nut-job-tweet-border-wall-delays-funding-criticism-a8816021.html
God Offers People of Alabama New Bibles to Replace Ones Trump Signed
MONTGOMERY, Alabama (The Borowitz Report)—God has offered to give the people of Alabama brand new Bibles to replace the ones that Donald J. Trump signed during his visit to the state on Friday.
In a rare public statement from the famously mysterious deity, God said that He was furious at Trump “for defacing My book,” calling Trump’s signature “a wanton act of vandalism.”
“Where was Mike Pence in all of this?” God asked. “These people can’t do anything right.”
God added that He was “dumbfounded” that Trump had taken it upon himself to sign his name on a book to which he had “no relationship whatsoever.”
“I’ve got news for Trump: the Bible is not ‘The Art of the Deal,’ ” God said. “Of course, he didn’t write that book, either.”
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/god-offers-people-of-alabama-new-bibles-to-replace-ones-trump-signed
Fox News's Chris Wallace embraces false equivalence
If Fox News’s Chris Wallace made arguments such as these on his own program, he would destroy himself.
In an interview with Michael M. Grynbaum of the New York Times, Wallace, host of the excellent program “Fox News Sunday,” criticized the decision earlier this week by Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez to stiff-arm Fox News for its 12 primary debates in the 2020 presidential cycle. A recent article by Jane Mayer of the New Yorker, Perez said, was critical to the decision. “Recent reporting in the New Yorker on the inappropriate relationship between President Trump, his administration and Fox News has led me to conclude that the network is not in a position to host a fair and neutral debate for our candidates. Therefore, Fox News will not serve as a media partner for the 2020 Democratic primary debates,” Perez noted in a statement.
The whole New Yorker angle, Wallace suggested, had the ring of pretext: “Do I think Tom Perez read the New Yorker article and suddenly said, ‘Oh, my gosh, there’s gambling going on in the back room?’ No,” he told the New York Times. “There is a visceral antipathy to Fox News among the left wing of the Democratic Party, and I think they saw this as a good opportunity to make a decision that I’m sure the D.N.C. was under a lot of pressure to make.”
That “visceral antipathy,” it might be noted, has something to do with the programming on Fox News. On Wednesday night alone, host Tucker Carlson, speaking about immigration, contended that the Democrats “are not for America. They’re actively against America.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/08/fox-newss-chris-wallace-embraces-false-equivalence
Chris Wallace is and has been a right wing shill his entire career. His father would be disgusted with him if he was still around.
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