The recent actions by Donald Trump that seemed to indicate a willingness to work with Democratic leaders on funding the government, raising the debt ceiling, restoring the DACA, and backpedalling on the wall program has resulted in some commentators starting to speak of him as an ‘independent’. But we should not dignify the words of and actions of someone who could well reverse himself on any of these things at any moment with a label that suggests that he is acting according to some principled plan.
[Read more…]

For something light, we turn to the embarrassment that Ted Cruz is currently suffering for having ‘liked’ on social media a porn video. In subsequent interviews, he has placed the blame on a mistake by an unidentified low-level staffer, the usual scapegoats when prominent people suffer any embarrassment.
[Read more…]

The Daily Show alum Jordan Klepper has a new daily show where he adopts the persona of a character based on the wild right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. The show is called The Opposition and premieres on September 25. Here is a clip that previews it, where he attends the recent Trump rally in Phoenix where people could not tell the difference between a right-wing nutcase and a parody of a right wing nutcase making fun of them.
[Read more…]

I was taken by surprise at the short-term deal that Donald Trump made with the Democratic leaders to extend the debt ceiling and the budget financing until December 8, 2017. Both those issues had faced September deadlines and I thought that Trump would refuse to pass ‘clean’ bills that accomplished just those things and would use them as a threat to shut down the government if he did not get funding for his wall or get the tax cuts for the rich that he and the Republicans want so dearly.
[Read more…]

John Oliver says that the way that Donald Trump’s DACA decision played out shows how Trump speaks when he has no idea what he is doing.

He reviews the various developments in the last week from the awful to the cringe-worthy, throwing the feckless Republican leadership into the mix.

The former Mexican president turns out to have quite the comedy chops. He has produced some memorable digs using salty language at Donald Trump and his plans to build the wall, but now he goes further and says that he is going to run for US president in 2020. He makes the announcement in this campaign video where he discusses his platform and his strategy for winning.
[Read more…]

Hillary Clinton is on a book tour to promote her new memoir. As is her custom, she is charging high prices for the privilege of listening to her and rich people get to get close to her by paying a higher price. Given the fact that her practice of selling access haunted her during the campaign, and that surely she must not need money anymore given her wealth, why she keeps feeding the image of being greedy is incomprehensible.
[Read more…]