So, just to be clear where we are as a country…
This fuckin’ guy (who, by the way, has the writing skills of a… of a… of a person who doesn’t have great writing skills) —
To the Editor:
Re “Donald Trump Gets Weirder,” by Gail Collins (column, April 2):
Even before Gail Collins was with the New York Times, she has written nasty and derogatory articles about me. Actually, I have great respect for Ms. Collins in that she has survived so long with so little talent. Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers), is not at a very high level. More importantly, her facts are wrong!
As far as her comments on the so-called “birther” issue, I don’t need Ms. Collins’s advice. There is a very large segment of our society who believe that Barack Obama, indeed, was not born in the United States. His grandmother from Kenya stated, on tape, that he was born in Kenya and she was there to watch the birth. His family in Honolulu is fighting over which hospital in Hawaii he was born in-they just don’t know.
He has not been able to produce a “birth certificate” but merely a totally unsigned “certificate of live birth”-which is totally different and of very little significance. Unlike a birth certificate, a certificate of live birth is very easy to obtain. Equally of importance, there are no records in Hawaii that a Barack Hussein Obama was born there-no bills, no doctors names, no nurses names, no registrations, no payments, etc. As far as the two notices placed in newspapers, many things could have happened, but some feel the grandparents put an ad in order to show that he was a citizen of the U.S. with all of the benefits thereto. Everybody, after all, and especially then, wanted to be a United States citizen.
The term used by Ms. Collins-“birther”-is very derogatory and is meant in a derogatory way. Had this been George Bush or almost any other President or Presidential aspirant, they would never have been allowed to attain office, or would have been thrown out of office very quickly.
For some reason, the press protects President Obama beyond anything or anyone I have ever seen. What they don’t realize is that if he was not born in the United States, they would have uncovered the greatest “scam” in the history of our country. In other words, they would become the hottest writer since Watergate, or beyond.
Open your eyes, Gail, there’s at least a good chance that Barack Hussein Obama has made mincemeat out of our great and cherished Constitution!
DONALD J. TRUMP
New York, April 7, 2011
— is one of the current frontrunners for the GOP primary ticket, and Mike “Huckster” Huckabee is in talks to be his running mate.
If that doesn’t make you want to set something on fire, then I don’t know what it’s going to take. I mean, jeepers — what does the GOP have to do to make you want to set something on fire?
By the way, I love Gail Collins’s response:
Although Trump and I have had our differences in the past, I never felt it was personal. In fact, until now, I have refrained from noting that I once got an aggrieved message from him in which he misspelled the word “too.”
Indeed.
[via NYT; via Think Progress]
[cross-posted here at that place you like]
Phil Perspective
What’s worse is Brian Williams playing Trump up like some sort of serious “elite.” How any treats Williams with anything but contempt is beyond me.
Nutella
His writing skills are right up there with his hair-combing skills.
Just Some Fuckhead
If Trump gets the Republican nomination, can Democrats nominate Rosie O’Donnell?
Roger Moore
@Phil Perspective:
I would assume that it’s because they need to suck up to him to get favorable coverage. There’s the old saying about buying ink by the barrel.
joe from Lowell
This is very poor writing. His sentence structure makes it look like he is saying that her storytelling ability and word usage come from him.
In general, Trump’s piece reads like it was written from beginning to end and never looked at again before he sent it out.
maya
trump could never be prez. His comb-over would evaporate on the White House lawn walk to Marine 1.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Now we know why tRump Inc. keeps going bankrupt. They spend too much money warehousing records that are well past their Shred This NOW date.
jl
Trump is the guy who couldn’t produce a real birth certificate, then something that said he was born in Jamaica, then some weirder supposed ‘official certificate of birth’ bamboozalrama (something with black background and white type, what traces of forgery were they trying to cover up?).
His PR flack’s statement about ‘certificate or live birth’ versus ‘official whatever certificate’ read like something out of Scientology.
Who is Trump, really? And where is he from, really?
What sinister forces are backing him? Soros? Illuminati? The sinister puppet master John Cole? The evil and occult Glenn Beck? I wanna know. I demand to know.
Upper West
@Phil Perspective:
Much as I love Jon Stewart, his sucking up to Brian Williams is very disappointing. (Brian has also had positive things to say about Rush Limbaugh.)
EJ
He owns many leather-bound books and his apartment smells of rich mahogany.
EJ
Also, I’m going to start putting the parenthetical “(coming from me, who has written many bestsellers)” into my writing from now on.
Violet
@Phil Perspective:
He’s probably contractually obligated to do so since Trump’s got a show on his network. Anything for ratings.
JPL
My sons can’t be President. Has anyone asked to see Trumps receipts from the hospital where he was born?
Maude
@jl:
Jamaica, Queens. I like your implication.
Not a ritzy address for The Donald.
What’s with the hair? It’s dyed blond where it tries to cover the top of his head.
He should come out and say the president is black.
jheartney
I nominate it for Balloon Juice rotating subtitle.
Zifnab
The Republicans have given up on Bob Dole and thrown everything in behind Ross Perot for President.
*sigh*
4tehlulz
Will no one rid us of this meddlesome Kenyan?
/Trump
tmm
The writing skills of Ayn Rand?
Comrade Luke
Where’s Corner Stone? All we need now is an Apple post from mistermix.
(vis.)
jeff
Not only is he nearly illiterate, but he hasn’t the foresight to pay someone before he posts something that embarrassing. Good god, he’s got somewhere between negative and positive $1 Billion, right?
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
What’s most depressing about Trump’s candidacy is the fact that he seems to have single handedly revitalized and relegitimized the whole birther bullshit nonsense to many folks, even as he shows a whole lot of nada in proof, just those strong assertions that the GOP and the media so love.
It’d be fucking hilarious if this wasn’t what a whole host of fucking nitwits are actually basing their vote on.
Angry Black Lady
@joe from Lowell: I kind of want to redline it.
Hee.
Angry Black Lady
Also, since when did writing bestsellers become the mark of a good writer?
Snooki’s book is a bestseller, FFS.
Angry Black Lady
FTW.
R. Johnston
You learn something new every day. Today I learned that Donald Trump is functionally illiterate. He writes on the level of a mildly retarded six year old strung out on heroin.
Is Donald Trump a plot by the Hilton family to make Paris look like an intellectual giant among trust fund babies?
Brachiator
I love the smell of an ignorant conspiracy theory in the morning. Smells like … stupidity.
with apologies to Apocalypse, Now.
Citizen_X
@jeff:
Well, just like me, who has balanced many checkbooks.
Roger Moore
@R. Johnston:
If so, he’s doing a bang-up job.
Midnight Marauder
@Angry Black Lady:
I believe this is known as the Ann Coulter Corollary.
Quicksand
I agree, Fire would probably make a better president than Trump. Less destructive.
DonkeyKong
Wonkette called Trump a “junkbond gnome” I think that’s a winner.
balconesfault
I don’t get the whole ‘they wanted him to be a citizen’ thing.
His mom was a citizen _ he was eligible for citizenship no matter where he was born.
Idiots.
grillo
I prefer the Spy Magazine name, Short Fingered Vulgarian.
Warren Terra
Without conceding anything about Ms. Collins, it is obvious from Mr. Trump’s own biography that this is indeed exactly the sort of skill he values most in the world.
Litlebritdifrnt
Trump is taking his talking points straight from Farah and Corsi at World Net Daily, he is swallowing them down whole without having any of his “people” doing any fact checking at all. His latest screed today, where he printed out a Vanity Fair blog post and then scrawled all over it with his Sharpie made him look like the “Dear Shit Fer Brains” letters to the Editor dude at Wonkette.
quaint irene
Best-sellers, eh? Hard to think of people paying money for financial advice from a guy who declared bankruptcy at least twice. Sure, he’s come out of them allright; wonder how many people were ruined in the process?
dogwood
@Midnight Marauder
That’s pretty dated. It’s the Sarah Palin Principle.
Litlebritdifrnt
@balconesfault:
No actually he wasn’t. You have to pick through the weeds of US Citizenship regulations to find this (as us anti-birfers have done) but technically because she had allegedly not spent the requisite number of years in the US after the age of 15 at the time of the birth she did not automatically confer citizenship on her child. It doesn’t matter of course cause he was born in Hawaii, there is no evidence to the contrary, but the whole “if he was born in Kenya it doesn’t matter cause his mom was a US citizen” thing is simply incorrect.
It is very important that us anti-birfers stick to the facts even when the facts do not support our position.
Omnes Omnibus
@Angry Black Lady: Snooki has a book? Snowflake or New Jersey?
WereBear
A Trump/Huckabee ticket?
The con is on!
Hob
balconesfault @32: True, but birthers specialize in bizarre misreading and hair-splitting to get aroun this. Basically, some of them say that “natural-born citizen” means something other than “a citizen who was born that way rather than naturalized”, though there’s no support in the Constitution or case law for this; and others lean hard on a small theoretical loophole, based on 1960s immigration law which has since changed, that could’ve put Obama in a gray area due to the young age of his mother (but only if he wasn’t born in the US).
Of course, both approaches require them to assume that the U.S. government never thought of these things and was easily bamboozled into giving Obama a passport and all other citizenship rights throughout his life.
Amir_Khalid
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I’m a little lost here. As far as I know, Stanley Anne Dunham was never outside the US until she followed her second husband to Indonesia. Is this to say that being only three years part the age of 15 meant that she could not pass on her American citizenship to her child?
Jay C
OK, I’d be the first to admit that Gail Collins is, at best, right in the middle-of-the-pack AFA the NYT’s columnists go: but compared to this ignorant semi-coherent screed of Trump’s, she’s Dorothy F*cking Parker. And this dipwad thinks he’s going to ride the “birther” train to the White House?
Gee, Donald; you’ve just figured this out? Maybe if you scratch your scabby pate some, you might be able to figure out why…
bemused
I suppose a letter to the editor whining about Collins is a step up from circling her picture, writing “the face of a dog” on it and sending it to her.
The only difference between Trump and any misogynist, egotistical good old boy down at the local dive bar is a lot more money and better hair.
dmsilev
Wait, Obama’s grandparents took out a fake birth announcement so that Obama would be eligible for welfare? That would of course be the welfare system that, with a few exceptions like food stamps, wouldn’t exist until a few years after Obama was born. Not to mention that I don’t think welfare has ever had a ‘natural born citizen’ requirement.
It’s amazing, really, the foresight of Obama’s grandfolks. They faked his birth in Hawaii so that he would be eligible to run for President a half century later, and also faked his (unnecessary) eligibility for a program which was still 4 or 5 years away from being authorized. And, the icing on the cake, they retroactively airbrushed their grandson into a picture of themselves. So, either Obama is descended on his mother’s side from Nostradamus, or the other set of rumors are true and he really *is* a Time Lord.
dms
Johnny V
Here is the Bumper Sticker
TRUMP-HUCKABEE 2012
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!
JGabriel
@joe from Lowell:
Hey! That’s my posting style you’re mocking!
.
BDeevDad
It’s more likely that Bill Ayers wrote Trump’s “bestsellers” than Obama’s. Seriously, who is more likely to have used a ghost writer?
Master of Karate and Friendship
I know, right? The GOP supports policies that help the rich but hurt the middle class, they constantly bomb other countries that aren’t a danger to us, they turn a blind eye to poisoning the environment, and they support secret military trials for terrorist suspects…yet middle class people still support them.
What a bunch of suckers!
JGabriel
@bemused:
Minor fix. I suspect you left it in just to set up that punch line for someone else.
.
BDeevDad
I’m surprised she didn’t reference this article in the New York Times:
Angry Black Lady
@Master of Karate and Friendship: Y’all are off your game. Can’t believe it took 48 comments for one of you to take the bait.
I guess you’re all busy in the drone war post.
Double-meanings are fun for the family.
Warren Terra
It’s a shame that the Times chose to publish this letter, when they could have responded in the style of the best lawyer letter ever.
Bill Arnold
@Hob:
I’ve always been fond of the literal reading that this disallows anyone who wasn’t born in a “natural childbirth”. Absolutely no caesarean section babies can be POTUS. Epidural? Sorry, your child can never become POTUS. The Supremes could argue about the rest.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
I cannot believe those mean old k-k-krazee firebaggers are accusing some fine representative American folks of being an “Uncle Barack”. Don’t they realize how truly hurtful and insulting that is?
.
.
Maude
@balconesfault:
True. If a US citizen has a baby in another country, the baby is a US citizen.
I don’t think I can stand any more of the birfer bit.
They should just say the prez is black and a black man can’t be prez and get it over with.
jprfrog
Since I moved to the NYC area 4 years ago, I have seen Mr. Trump’s name on any number of large erections….er….constructions. That guy must have a very large black hole in the middle of his soul.
Certainly he can afford a copy editor. But would he hire someone to tell him when he is wrong? Doesn’t seem likely.
Kilkee
@jheartney: I’m for this, even at the expense of ‘Han shot first.’
Kilkee
@DonkeyKong: But it’s hard to beat the old Spy magazine characterization of “short-fingered vulgarian Donald Trump.”
Kilkee
@Litlebritdifrnt: Help me out: I thought the “x number of years after 15” only applied to naturalized US citizens? In other words, a 13-year old US-born American who moved to Australia at 5, then moved back to Vegas a week before giving birth, would still deliver a Natural Born Merkin. No?
Adrienne
@Kilkee: This was my understanding as well. I remember looking this up when the whole birther non-sense got started and I came to the same conclusion: It makes ZERO sense to have the “5 yrs after 15” rule apply to natural born citizens. I mean, really? An American born woman couldn’t confer American citizenship on her child until she turned 20?
Tim, Interrupted
Seriously, what kind of a freak purposely wears their hair like that?
And in what kind of a society is such a person taken seriously?
Bruce S
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Trump is the Most Perfect of the GOP candidates, epitomizing “faux conservative” values (as even SarahP doesn’t quite scale the Trumpian heights), in that he is Totally Full of Shit – aka “Himself!”
I salute this man.
Incidentally, every article written on Trump should begin with the words, “This fuckin’ guy…” I don’t think I’ll continue to read any that don’t.
Nellcote
@Johnny V:
Trump says that people are always sending him Bibles:
“Well I get sent Bibles by a lot of people… we keep them at a certain place. A very nice place. But people send me Bibles. And you know it’s very interesting. I get so much mail and because I’m in this incredible location in Manhattan you can’t keep most of the mail you get.
“There’s no way I would ever throw anything, to do anything negative to a Bible, so what we do is we keep all of the Bibles,” he added. “I would have a fear of doing something other than very positive so actually I store them and keep them and sometimes give them away to other people but I do get sent a lot of Bibles and I like that. I think that’s great.”
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Just Some Fuckhead:
only as veep, but even then only if its a trump/james traficant ticket.
trump/traficant, sponsored in part by valtrex, hairpiece, herpes? we’ll ask the questions, motherfucker.
tkogrumpy
@EJ: Mahogany has no smell.
Villago Delenda Est
@jprfrog:
Well, there’s the black hole in his soul, and there’s the pretty obvious equipment shortage just south of his waistline.
cynn
I would totally vote for Trump/Sheen. With Tupac as Sec of State.
Calouste
@Tim, Interrupted:
I see you have never heard of or seen a picture of Boris Johnson, mayor of London. Although I must say in defense of the British that Boris is rarely taken seriously.
Suck It Up!
@Nellcote:
that almost reads like a Sarah Palin quote.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@cynn: Winning! 2012.
P.S. no zombie Tupac pls.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
I’m sure that Trump’s letter looks better in it’s original crayon form.
PhoenixRising
Of course, both approaches require them to assume that the U.S. government never thought of these things…
Well, it’s possible that Ann brought her Kenyan born baby into the US by flying into Honolulu with him all swaddled up, and no one asked her for any paperwork on her baby, because back then little kids and babies didn’t need travel documents.
This would raise the question, How and when did they return to Hawaii where many many people including whoever married the little scalawags recall seeing her pregnant? Why did she travel to Africa when she was about to have her baby, and which airline allowed a woman who was nearly to term to waddle up its wheeled staircase to take a flight across the Pacific? Now THOSE would be some interesting policy manuals to compare to interviews of folks who worked at the carriers serving HI in the early 1960s.
The birfers never ask the good stuff, because it pushes into the realm of: And her parent cooperated with this life-endangering (for their child and soon to be first grandchild) ruse WHY?
Dazedandconfused
You can google up his past comments about running to prevent Palin from winning. Some kind of narcissistic thing about “If she runs, I’ll run to stop her!”
I believe this is a pre-emptive strike on her, in collusion with FOX and Turd Blossom, to prevent her from screwing up the primaries. The Donald really does care. Some might ask why such a man want to make a fool of himself. Well, I thnks he does it for publicity and doesn’t have the slightest qualm about playing the fool, if it serves to manipulate other people. Just look at his hair.
BTW, Palin is on to it. She came out full-birther today to try to re-claim her posse. Lotsa luck with that.
kerFuFFler
@Warren Terra:
(getting by without talent)
Brilliant! :D
kerFuFFler
@Warren Terra:
Thanks, I needed that!
Blogreeder
@Maude:
Well, technically the President is more white unless you’ve bought into the one drop rule.
rickstersherpa
There is a large fraction of our population who believes that the Earth, the Sun, and the whole Universe was created 8,000 years ago by a guy with a beard. Which I am sure taht Trump will also say he now believes as reaches for his Ross Perot moment. (This is somewhat disrespectful to Ross Perot who I believe was sincere back in 1992, and not just running a con like this guy.)
Trump has discovered how much money the rubes will give him if he runs for President and birther nonsense guarantees him free publicity. I mean even we can’t avoid talking about it.
Yep, it would have just natural for a 19 year old pregnant girl and her family to leave her home in Hawaii and travel 15,000 miles across the world to British Crown Colony to have her child. These fools can’t even fake the passport and travel records for such a trip.
Thlayli
@Adrienne:
OK, the rule works like this:
Say an American is on a military mission overseas, and fathers a child with a German or Vietnamese woman (picking two countries completely at random). That child is a US citizen, but if they never move to the US they don’t pass the citizenship on to their children.
DriveBy
@Warren Terra:
LOL – That is the best letter ever written by a lawyer!!!
James Ph.Kotsybar
TRUMP UP (a clerihew)
— James Ph. Kotsybar
In the polls, Donald Trump
took an astonishing jump,
but the most surprising thing for me
is I’d vote for him over Huckabee.