Which was a lot like Breitbartocalypse, in that it was a giant nothingburger.
Trump’s big announcement was that he’s got $5million to give to the charity of President Obama’s choice, if the President releases his Passport application and his college transcripts.
Because a Cum Laude graduate of Harvard just might not be very bright, apparently. And because Trump is incapable of donating to charity himself without the President’s input.
Consider this an open thread. I am certain that it will have more impact than Trump’s little shit-show-fail-parade just now.
Thatgaljill
what an asshat…
Butch
It’s just another depressing commentary on the state of journalism that Trump’s announcement that he was going to make an announcement was considered news.
beltane
WTF, Donald. Go back to your whores and casinos, please.
Whatever happened to Romney’s tax returns by the way? I hope that no Democrat running for anything should ever have to release their tax returns again since this is now the standard that’s been set.
Jeff Spender
It seems like I wake up every day to more hostility toward those who are educated.
That’s what this really boils down to. Hostility toward the educated and racism.
Anti-intellectualism is going to be the death of this country.
Upper West
Pity — Political Observer had such high hopes.
MikeJ
Isn’t there some big Rickroll planned for the 27th?
Gin & Tonic
O should do it, and designate as charity the Hair Club for Men.
Pooh
@Upper West: Nonsense, “hope” has a well known liberal bias.
Rosalita
Trump just becomes more of a caricature of a man every day. what a joke.
quannlace
Sure, if Trump will release his. They’d be interesting, considering what a moronic dick he obviously is.
NotMax
Buffoon (noun): see Trump, Donald
beltane
Bah, I could not write about Trump without my comment being put in moderation. So hard to write about this person without using at least one forbidden word.
RedKitten
I think Obama should say, “Sure! That sounds like a great idea. And I’ll tell you what…if Mitt Romney releases his past 10 years of tax records, I’ll MATCH your donation, Mr. Trump! And the money will go towards the National Military Family Association. That way, even though Mitt Romney has made no mention of veterans in his platform or during his campaign, and obviously doesn’t hold them as any sort of priority, he’ll at least be helping them in an indirect way.”
Strandedvandal
What a tool.
mds
Well, to be fair, when it comes to Harvard grads, Trump might be thinking of George W. Bush, Ben Shapiro, and Mitt Romney.
Lars Thorwald
No one — and I mean, no one — has a higher opinion of Donald Trump than I do, and I think he is a greasy taint stain.
The Other Chuck
Obama should take up the offer. The charity he names should be the “Kick Donald Trump in the Junk Foundation”. Kinda like Make a Wish, just real specialized.
martha
O should raise him $5m ( I’m sure he could find a donor who would ante up) and say he will release his documents when Rmoney releases his tax returns…
MikeJ
@RedKitten:
Except five million is about half of what Obama is worth. He’s rich from his book sales, but he’s not “shipping jobs to China and closing down American factories” rich.
lamh35
trump is a douch and anyone who still watches the Apprentice after the first season is a fool.
Now this business with Allred, the Bostin Globe & the Staples guy is an interesting distraction. if only cause it can develop into a pain in the Romney spox behind especially since Mitt ain’t giving anymore network interviews until after Election Day I guess
Villago Delenda Est
Attention whore needs attention, and attention pimps of the media are more than willing to help, and take a cut.
Laura
What’s this obsession with college transcripts? Do they think Columbia offered Intro on How to Hide the Fact that You’re Really a Skurry Muslim from Kenya?
Huggy Bear
New Trump! Now with more Nothing!
You know that the $5 million isn’t coming out of Trump’s cheap pocket either way. I wonder what sponsor he suckered into backing this.
Catfish N. Cod
Gosh, even Allred’s thingy was more than that. Granted, all that Allred demonstrated was that Romney can be an @$$ when he’s playing hardball. Anyone paying attention already knew that. Anyone not paying attention didn’t care. But at least she had an actual fact to state.
You can generally ignore anything coming from Perfect Hair Forever.
As for the Troll, if he’s not DougJ, he’s likely on someone’s payroll to do this, so who cares what he says? You could write a script to do what he’s doing. In fact, Doug may well have done that. Would you try to have a dialogue with a stock-trading program?
BGinCHI
WHO covered this? Was it on cable news?
The only beneficiary of anything done by Donald Trump is, of course, Donald Trump.
PT Barnum weeps.
martha
Edit isn’t working for me…obviously RedKitten and I are completely on the same wavelength :)
Yutsano
@RedKitten: @martha: I approve of this message. But Willard won’t take that bait and Teh Donald is just click-whoring.
Villago Delenda Est
@Laura:
That’s Islamofascist Studies 310, if I recall correctly.
Scott S.
I’d like to see Trump’s tax returns. ‘Cause I doubt that he’s actually got $5 million to his name…
Mnemosyne
What’s that? The media just let Trump have a free two-day commercial for the upcoming season of “Celebrity Apprentice: All Stars”?
Who’da thunk it?
Bokonon
Desparate attempt to pollute a news cycle with birther nonsense.
On the other hand, given the condition of our media institutions … it will probably work.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
Donald Trump: Started out as a slumlord on Daddy’s Money. Moved up to hotels and casinos, almost all of them ending in bankruptcy. Now 25+ years past his sell-by date.
I can understand why Trump would be in the Romney camp (two scions of 1980s, closer to pirates than to businessmen). But I don’t understand why anyone pays attention to this fool.
amk
carnival barkers taken seriously by msm. god save murka.
Violet
@martha: I hope someone does this. That would be excellent fun to watch.
Since this is an open thread, does anyone have any Evangelical Christian friends or acquaintances who are wavering on voting for Mitt because of his Mormonism? Have them check out this hidden camera video of secret Mormon temple rites. If they weren’t sure Mormons were Christians before, this should seal the deal that their doctrine is very different.
martha
@Yutsano: Oh I know, but gosh it would be entertaining if it happened…the MSM would whine and gnash their teeth and wail about the lack of dignity of the whole thing…
dmsilev
Speaking of professional carnival freaks, Sarah Palin has apparently escaped from her handlers again:
SatanicPanic
This is sad even for him. I doubt Trump even has that much in cash laying around, he’d have to throw a fundraiser for his dumb stunt.
Democrat Partisan Asshole
Even for Combover Hitler this is weak fucking sauce.
And I have serious doubt he could come up with five million on short notice. It’s well know his finances are not in good shape.
Watch Obama do it just to fuck the guy out of five million dollars.
ETA: The lead article on Google’s news feed is still “GOP’s Mourdock stands by rape comment”. Combover Hitler can’t even put a dent in this story, which is gonna hurt Rmoney and Screech with the wimmens even more.
The Red Pen
I found a Freeper comment that nailed it, actually:
Ouch.
Seth Owen
I wonder if he just dumped out of the “Obama divorce” story when his trial balloon from Kass was popped by widespread derision and this was just his backup.
Scott S.
Also, I kinda hope the Obama campaign does what it can to make sure Trump makes the news for another few days — the more people hear Trump (and Coulter and Palin and Limbaugh) talk, the more they want to vote for Obama.
shortstop
I very much fear–emphasis on “fear”–that Trump’s increasingly self-humiliating bids for attention will soon involve him dancing naked in Times Square, combover flapping in the breeze like a banner for pathos.
dmsilev
Obama should agree on condition of Trump shaving his head.
Redshift
@lamh35: Yeah, I thought that was interesting, too. (Gawker has the story.)
Frankly, I wonder whether the no-interviews decision has anything to do with that, or if it’s because they know he’ll be asked about his casually adopting all of the president’s foreign policy positions, and they don’t want to damage the illusion they’ve constructed for the final weeks.
Brachiator
I’ll make a donation to charity if Trump releases the name of his hairdresser and publishes pictures of his head without that godawful combover.
@Jeff Spender:
They’ve been saying that since the founding. Many Americans look on anti-intellectualism as a constitutional right.
mdblanche
How disillusioning of Trump to let us down. If you can’t trust a lying buffoon, who can you trust?
Now let’s all take a bit of advice from Bill Cosby.
Mnemosyne
@Huggy Bear:
Fix’d for accuracy. I doubt Trump has $5 million in assets, much less $5 million to blow on this bullcrap.
I would love to see Obama call Trump’s bluff on this, but only after election day. If Trump did not put a time limit on his offer, that’s totally what I would do.
mainmati
He acts as disgusting and idiotic as he looks.
Betty Cracker
@dmsilev: Shuck and jive? Really?
beltane
@shortstop: I thought he did something like that back in the ’80s when maybe he wasn’t quite so vomit inducing.
patrick
@RedKitten: redkitten for the win…..
I was initially thinking have warren buffet make the same pledge to mitt’s chosen charity if he releases his last 15 years of tax returns, but this is even better
Dan
I don’t understand the obsession with the college transcripts. Worst case scenario is that Obama was a lousy student, with no money ro family connections who still went on to become PRESIDENT OF THE FUCKING UNITED STATES.
YellowJournalism
I take comfort in the fact that one day I may make a sarcastic reference to Trump and my grandchildren will turn to me and go, “Who?”
Redshift
@dmsilev: What?! You’re going to put the small animal that nestles on top of his head out of a job? In this economy?
beltane
@Violet: That was a very disturbing video. Shades of Foucault’s Pendulum, anyone?
Chris
@Laura:
Birtherism didn’t work, so transcriptism it is.
Pathetic that it took him this long to bounce back and this is all he’s come up with.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: I don’t think it’s a comb-over. People assume Trump marries only long-haired blondes because he has a microscopic penis and thinks trophy wives compensate for that somehow. But the truth is more insidious: He needs their hair. He fishes out a clump from the shower drain every morning and plops it on his head.
Redshift
@Betty Cracker: Looks like she’s getting into Coulter territory — having to say outrageously offensive things to get any attention.
Comrade Dread
I wonder when or if the reporters covering this asshat will ever realize just how badly they keep getting played and STOP COVERING HIM.
mdblanche
@dmsilev: No, her handlers quit when her 15 minutes of fame were up. Several hours ago.
LAC
@Upper West: Even sadder, that brain stem transplant may never happen.
This from a man with world’s biggest combover…you shake it hard enough and Ameila Earhardt might fall out.
jgaugust
@Laura: As a recent grad, I can assure you that one of the options for the major cultures requirement was how to be an undetected foreigner. Other courses included Islam and politics: committing jihad through communism and socialized medicine: a European dream for America.
/snark off
/legitimate CC ’09 grad
/how has no one ripped the blonde animal off Trump in public yet for shits and giggles?
Comrade Dread
@Dan: No, they’re all holding out hope that somehow Obama attended American colleges as a foreign student. That’s what the obsession is about.
lamh35
Sarah Palin Decries Obama’s ‘Shuck And Jive’ On Libya
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/sarah-palin-decries-obamas-shuck-jive-on-libya
g
Let me ask a stupid question. How do you release a passport application?
I got my first passport in 1990. Obama’s first one must have been a child’s application for living in Indonesia.
Does the government even keep applications on file? (as opposed to the record of the actual passport.)
David in NY
@Mnemosyne: Interesting legal question whether it’s an enforceable offer, I think.
dmsilev
@Betty Cracker: Yes, really. It was on her Facebook page. Guess she also is feeling lonely and unappreciated.
shortstop
@Dan: He became PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES through AFFIRMATIVE ACTION! White men can’t get a break! The system is rigged in favor of colored people!
That’s what the obsession is about, and white people who can barely spell “cat” flock to the belief that no black man is smart enough to succeed in higher education without special treatment. Apparently the toothless rubes among us are under the impression you can get to be president of the Harvard Law Review by being mediocre.
SatanicPanic
@shortstop: This is brilliant- dancing naked in Times Square, combover flapping in the breeze like a banner for pathos
David in NY
@Mnemosyne: Interesting legal question whether it’s an enforceable offer, I think.
Soonergrunt
@Dan: The birfers have this fantasy that Obama was raised from birth to be some kind of sleeper agent that would destroy America from within, and that his college transcripts would have tell-tale signs of being falsified documents or that they actually refer to whoever was REALLY taking the classes while Obama was getting his Kenyan-Muslim-Fascist-Communist indoctrination on.
Redshift
@Laura:
It’s twofold. First, there’s a conspiracy theory that Obama got a scholarship for foreign students, which would “prove” birtherism. Second, they’re sure he’s an “affirmative action” case, which would be bad because… who the hell knows?
I accidentally knocked on the wrong door canvassing last weekend (didn’t notice that my list skipped a block) and got a wingnut who ranted at me through the closed door (surprisingly without a huge amount of anger.) He insisted both that Obama was a “lying demagogue” and that he was “the ultimate affirmative action case.”
I know it’s not a new observation, but cognitive dissonance apparently has no effect on these guys.
Spatula
Wow. $5 mill is a LOT of money that could do a lot of good.
So, PBO will release the documents, right?
different-church-lady
Anyone found the whitey tape yet?
gogol's wife
@beltane:
This is what I keep asking of an unresponsive universe.
Punchy
So Obama’s not getting divorced?
Chris
@Soonergrunt:
Yeah, it’s the usual fantasy of conspiracy theorists – specially trained KGB moles can apparently be exposed by their college transcripts (or birth certificates).
Because, you know, no one with a real American birth certificate could possibly be a KGB mole.
mds
Passport application and college transcripts? Okay, I’ve got it: Trump is gambling that they will both show Obama claiming to be a native of American, which means Native American, which means affirmative action under false pretenses, which means the Romney-Ryan campaign can launch a last-minute ad blitz starring Romney staffers doing the tomahawk chop. And thence, victory.
Culture of Truth
Heh. As if Donald Trump has $5 million.
Lurking Canadian
Warmed over, triple-dog-dare birtherism? That’s Trump’s bombshell that was so bombshelly he had to alert the media that it was coming, lest the shock overwhelm us?
At least “they once thought about getting a D-I-V-O-R-C-E!” would have had the benefit of novelty.
PeakVT
@Laura: It’s twofold: they want to “prove” Obama is stupid because he had bad grades (dunno if he did or not), and they want to stir resentment about affirmative action, quotas, and the like.
Tractarian
Well, that was disappointing. I had gotten my hopes up for something big. Turns out, this probably won’t boost Democratic GOTV efforts at all.
Culture of Truth
“What’s this obsession with college transcripts?”
Well how else can we judge this President?
dmsilev
Wait, Obama has a passport? How un-American of him.
Dan
@Comrade Dread: Ah. I had missed that bit of lunacy.
Don’t these people realize that if anything really damning about Obama existed, it would’ve come out in the ’08 primary campaign?
Culture of Truth
Bill Clinton was the KGB mole. Everyone knows that.
Bill in Section 147
@Jeff Spender: It is like a stealth front in class warfare.
On an emotional level it is no different than a school yard bully who hates the kid with good grades. Someone else showing signs of being better than they are can not be tolerated. This appeal is what helps the powerful gain support across all classes.
For the powerful on a practical level, they all want their kids to go to Ivy League schools for prestige, to learn how to remain powerful and to meet powerful allies. So it isn’t anti-education exactly. More of an anti-social and economic mobility.
Intellectuals from the lower classes create a disenfranchised elite which naturally wants to elevate their status and access threatening the existing structure.
A good education provides them the tools, facts and information to challenge the existing power structure.
Comrade Jake
Why would Obama take Trump’s word that he’d give $5M? I can easily see Trump complaining about not having the official documents or some other such nonsense to back out of the donation.
mds
You know what, Donald? If you really have an extra $5 million lying around to blow on phony-baloney stunts like this, how about we just raise your taxes instead?
dmsilev
By the way, nobody tell our pet moron, but Romney has lost 3 points in the last two days in the Gallup tracker.
(otherwise known as the Gallup tracker starting to return back to this plane of existence after its extended stay in the Bizarro Universe)
Lurking Canadian
@Dan: He wasn’t properly vetted!!!
Which, I believe, is wingnut for “He’s BLACK!!! BLACK I tell you!”
pseudonymous in nc
@Culture of Truth:
Exactly. I have $970 trillion to give to charity in exchange for disclosure of all of Trump’s corporate and personal accounts.
(Trump is not rich in the way that Romney is rich; Trump is highly leveraged, and if the banks were to call in their loans, he’d be broke.)
dmsilev
Someone who actually had the stomach to watch Trump babble summarized the video:
Based on that second sentence, I expect we’ll see a similar offer from Trump to Romney for release of the last ten years of his tax returns…
Culture of Truth
Reason for Application: “2 cill witie”
AHAAAA!!!!!
Comrade Dread
@Dan: Your mistake is that you assume that logic and deductive reasoning have any place in the Birther mind.
A Birther would likely reply to your statement that the Press never vetted Obama because they wanted a black liberal to win and/or that Hillary Clinton was pressured by her party to go soft on Obama so as not to hurt the feelings and turnout of black voters and thus she became part of the conspiracy.
Soonergrunt
@Dan: Well, he’s black you know.
The way this works in their “reasoning,” is that nothing that’s damning has come out because of the big conspiracy that includes all the media, including Fox News, AND the McCain 2008 campaign.
fuckwit
@Brachiator: IT IS OUR FREE-DUMB!!!!
We are FREE to be DUMB! THAT’S WHAT FREEDUMB IS!
We have a god-given RIGHT to be idiots! I’m not going to let some pointy-headed intellectual tell me what facts are! I’m a MURKAN! Proud of my FREE DUMB!!!!
BURP.
Paul
Do we any need any more evidence that Mr Trump is a racist? He is demanding birth certificates and college transcripts from the black guy, but not the white guy.
It is a sad state of affairs that the US media in 2012 gives this racist so much publicity. Shame on them all.
Tractarian
OT: Gallup is (finally) moving back in Obama’s direction. He’s now down only 3 among “likely” voters and actually leads by 1 among registered voters.
Jay in Oregon
@Laura:
It’s pure racism.
They think Barack Obama is too stupid to get through college on his own merits (because them black folks is ign’ant, ya know) and so his accomplishments must be because of the Dreaded Political Correctness.
Culture of Truth
In August Gallup had Obama 43% approval, 50% disapproval
Today: 53% approval, 42% disapproval
Higgs Boson's Mate
@shortstop:
Dang! You use your mouth purtyer than a twenty dollar whore. :)
Wolfdaughter
@RedKitten:
Me likey!
I have a cousin who is normally a shrewd, intelligent woman. She has emailed me some ridiculous crap about Obama. Among others, he was supposedly a mediocre student at Harvard and rarely showed up for class (the source of her info may have actually been remembering Bush at Harvard). He also was the worst editor of the Harvard Law Review that ever existed.
The people who start these rumors don’t think them through. Graduating magna cum laude from Harvard isn’t exactly an easy gig. I know someone who was (elected? appointed?) to be editor of the Law Review here at the University of Arizona, and she knew it was a great honor, and that is all the more so for someone at Harvard!
Most of the RW Repubs continue to astonish me. I know I shouldn’t be astonished, but since the way their minds work is so alien to me, I’m continually blindsided. It must be horrible to be occupy the fever swamps that pass for thought among these people.
Frankensteinbeck
@Laura:
The conspiracy theory half of this obsession has been covered well. I think the other half needs to be described more plainly.
‘Obama’s hiding his test scores because they’ll prove black people are stupid and he’s only president because blacks get a free ride in this country.’
(Disclaimer: In a Poe’s Law world, I want to be clear that I’m describing their feelings, not my own. I think Obama’s a god damn genius.)
S. Holland
@Gin & Tonic: That WAS funny!!!
Culture of Truth
@Spatula: Absolutely, you may get flamed, but you are right.
However, as we all know, Trump is worth several billion, and this a chance to do a lot of good, so Obama should make a counter-offer and not settle for less than $1 billion.
It’s all about the charity, in the end.
fuckwit
Also, Donald Trump is Sarah Palin with a penis. Probably a small one too. And a rug.
I’m so happy that most of the otherwise-clueless corporate media finally figured out sometime in 2009 that Palin was just a troll, and not to feed her. Looks like they’ve figured that out about Trump too.
Rita R.
@Tractarian:
I’m sure we’ll start hearing from Joe Scarborough and Mark Haleperin and Chuck Todd and Wolf Blitzer and the rest of the useless Beltway media about Obama having the momentum now, right? Gallup, the most awesomest of awesome polls ever says so! They wouldn’t let their Mittmentum!!! story get in the way of the facts, would they? (snark)
Culture of Truth
Hannibal Lecter voice:
“I accept Mr. Trump’s proposal, but I have a few conditions of my own…”
Punchy
@dmsilev: Yes, but for what it’s worth (likely nothing), offshore books had his “chance to win” at -210 yesterday drop to -155 today, and ominously, his chance to take Ohio went from -170 to even odds. Is there an Ohio poll that I’m unaware of showing O in serious trouble?
Yutsano
@Rita R.:
Heh. U funnee!!
Culture of Truth
Really, a billion dollars is a small price to pay for the peace of mind that comes from knowing the right man is President. Up front. In escrow, of course.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Comrade Jake:
Trump would demand the non-existent long-form versions of the documents.
Tractarian
Wait a minute. Is that an 18-point super-storm-surge I’m looking at? Why are we not hearing about Obama’s unstoppable momentum? WHERE ARE YOU CHUCK TODD
Lurking Canadian
@Tractarian: Todd is busy preparing his statement that now that California is a lock for Romney, he should start moving resources into Hawai’i.
Culture of Truth
Sure he was editor of the HLS, but not a great one!!
These people kill me. Look, Yale doesn’t even give out grades. No one cares. and Obama was the black editor of HLS ever.
peach flavored shampoo
Combing the Romney man-sauce out of the squirrel glued to his face.
g
Silly question here – how do you actually go about “releasing” a passport application?
My first application was in 1990. Obama’s first application would have been one for a minor under 16.
Does the government actually keep copies of passport applications?(as opposed to passport records.)
Plus, for a child both parent and child have to apply in person, and submit proof of citizenship plus proof of the relationship (a certified birth certificate does both). Then the government returns the documents to you.
If Obama even HAS a US passport it means his birth certificate is legit.
Yutsano
@g:
My birf certificate from Hawai’i was good enough for me to not only get a passport but to renew it. Interesting, that.
Culture of Truth
If Obama even HAS a US passport it means his birth certificate is legit.
you need to spend more time down the rabbit hole
shortstop
@SatanicPanic: @Higgs Boson’s Mate: Thanks, dolls!
g
The college transcript thing is hilarious, too. Have any of these knuckle-draggers actually SEEN a college transcript?
I had to get mine for a job application. It has my name, student ID#, lists the classes I took and the grade I got in them. It doesn’t list anything else. Certainly nothing about my application for admission, certainly no information about my ancestry or citizenship status – I was an out-of-state student at a State school, and my transcript doesn’t even list THAT distinction.
Tractarian
@Punchy:
No
bemused
OT but what do you say to a liberal woman friend who believes majority of abortions are done for “convenience”? I mean, how do you define “convenience” anyway and how can anyone know statistically for sure what the reason for choosing an abortion most often is? People just don’t think these issues through all the way.
Soonergrunt
@Yutsano: Hell, my computer generated form that was a copy of a copy of a birth certificate was good enough for me to get a TS clearance.
PurpleGirl
@g: He would have needed a passport when his mother took him to Indonesia. I have no idea if he has a current one.
Elie
@Culture of Truth:
NOT TO SPEAK OF THE FACT THAT OBAMA’S MOTHER WAS AN AMERICAN AND THEREFORE HE IS AN AMERICAN!!!!
Rasputin's Evil Twin
First, that’s a dead muskrat on Trump’s head. Glad we have that cleared up.
God, I miss “SPY” magazine and how they kicked the “short-fingered vulgarian” around. I think they’d have fun with the idea this buffoon went from being a self-proclaimed lord of real estate to bankruptcy at least twice, to finally winding up as a game-show host and media whore.
Maude
@different-church-lady:
It’s with the WMDs.
Elie
@bemused:
To know that for sure “most” abortions are for “convenience”, there would have to be some place on the medical record for the procedure that related to “reason for procedure” Having been a nurse in such a facility, there is no such information asked for from patients who are having pregnancy terminations.
Also, none – NONE of my patients related that sentiment. None.
Jay in Oregon
@Comrade Jake:
If Obama is dumb enough to play Trump’s game, Trump won’t give away the money. That’s par for the course for attention whores.
Anti-videogame whacko Jack Thompson offered to donate $10,000 to charity if someone wrote a videogame where a disgruntled father goes into a game developer studio and starts shooting people.
Well, this is the internet, so a group of people came up with a Grand Theft Auto mod that did exactly that (IIRC, they even featured Thompson as the dad). Sure enough, Jack Thompson claimed he was “just kidding” and didn’t pony up; so the creators of Penny Arcade donated $10,000 to charity, and wrote “Because Jack Thompson Won’t” on the memo line for the check.
http://www.joystiq.com/2005/10/17/penny-arcade-donates-10-000-in-jacks-name-to-charity/
Soonergrunt
@bemused: That it’s none of her damn business why other people who are not her choose whether or not to terminate their pregnancies?
Kathy in St. Louis
I have a serious doubt that this is what Trump intended to annuonce at this time I think someone sold him a bill of goods on something more serious, like the birth cert., or bogus transcripts, or as I read somewhere, some bogus item about Michelle and Barack. I think that before the “bombshell” was released he found out he’d been had and this was the best he could come up with. I know it’s all conjecture, but it’s certainly as good as the crap announcement of his.
RedKitten
It’s just the other side of the teleprompter coin. Because we all know that the only reason that any intelligent-sounding words come out of Obama’s mouth is because he’s reading them off of a screen. He’s just too gosh-darned dumb to have thought of any of that stuff hisself.
Mino
I’m not sure Gloria Allred’s October surprise will be any more significant. Even Republicans know Mitt’s a liar. They just don’t care. And they hates themselves uppity divorcees, too.
hitchhiker
I have a close personal relationships with an Obama-hater. That would be my father-in-law, who was eagerly reading Ed Klein’s hate-bucket, The Amateur when we visited him last summer. My FIL is 85 yrs old. He started a business that did well. He can be generous with both his time and his resources, and he’s not a terrible human . . . but he’s INSANE when it comes to Democrats. (He also believes 100% that Clinton personally committed both rape and murder.)
There’s no point whatsoever trying to understand, argue, discuss, convince, or persuade. For me it’s come down to whether or not I can forgive him. He would say that it’s entirely reasonable and smooth of Trump to bait the president this way. For him it just provides more evidence that Obama is desperately hiding his own lack of talent, and that Obama only pretends to care about the needy.
J R in WV
@shortstop:
We’re going to NYC next month for fun… how much are tix to see Trump getting crazy? ‘Cause I’d pay for that!
bemused
@Elie:
@Soonergrunt:
This was truly shocking to me because I never expected her to say this. She had replied in email to the wonderful Lesley Gore video in a few threads back I sent her.
My first thought was that “convenience” implies making the decision casually which I doubt hardly any woman does.
This friend has daughters and granddaughters which makes it even more disappointing she hasn’t thought about this issue more.
I think I will talk to her directly, not in email, when my astonishment settles down a bit.
mdblanche
@Elie: No, I’m pretty sure his mother was a woman and they don’t count. (This message brought to you by the NRSC)
@Kathy in St. Louis: Trump doesn’t strike me as the type to either realize or acknowledge when he’s been had.
Ruckus
@Redshift:
Small animals everywhere are getting pissed.
That thing has to be man made. Nothing in nature is that fugly.
Original Lee
@beltane: And what about his medical records? I think Obama’s released his. After this third debate, though, I would really be interested to see what Romney’s docs have to say. IMO, after both the 2nd and 3rd debates, Romney looked haggard. McCain was older didn’t look so awful at the end of his debates, IIRC.
Ruckus
@shortstop:
Those toothless people you describe probably don’t have the first clue about the Harvard Law Review. That it exists, what it is, anything.
priscianusjr
@Soonergrunt:
Citizen Alan
@Dan:
It’s so they can get a list of every professor who gave him a good grade and then investigate every one of them to see if any of them had any “unAmerican” leanings.
Kathy in St. Louis
@mdblanche: Except that he’s been made to look the fool several times on this birth certificate deal. So, if it were pointed out to him that he stood a very good chance of having it happen again, he might not like that.
Jack the Second
Two words: Planned Parenthood.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Kinda like a merkin, only for his dome.
Elisabeth
@martha:
Frank Rich sort of went there on Twitter:
Tonal Crow
Yeah right. Obama could release not only the requested records, but the epigenetic sequence of every cell in his body, and Trump would claim that the bargain wasn’t fulfilled.
What a load of GOPaganda.
ericblair
@Kathy in St. Louis:
I’m thinking this too. I may be wrong, but this seems too pathetic and weak even for Colonel Combover. Sounds like last minute made-up bullshit after it was too late to back down quietly.
Of course, we all know that Obama’s transcript goes something like:
BARRY SOETERO
Extra Special Foreign Student Affirmative Action Scholarship
Kenyan Soshulism: A+
USA #1 Studies: F
Islamofascism and Ayers: A+
Special Topics in Manchurian Candidacy: PASS
Pledge of Allegiance: FAIL
PurpleGirl
@Kathy in St. Louis: Naw, he’s a grade A attention whore whose TV show will be starting another season soon. He needs his name in the news.
Tonal Crow
Mr. Donald Trump, YOU’RE FIRED!
Ruckus
@Tonal Crow:
If only wishing made it so.
Kathy in St. Louis
@PurpleGirl: I didn’t realize it was almost Trump Day. Do the kids get off school?
ellennelle
obama’s best response?
wow, donald; you’ve got 5 mill to give to a charity? well, why not just do that? c’mon, you’re a generous man. just do that. any charity, your choice.
and as soon as that check clears, you can beat sand till the cows come home.
gelfling545
Oh sweet bird of paradise! His immediate family should get him declared non compos & then live it up on his money.
IIRC wasn’t the President’s passport application hacked sometime in the primaries last election? It’s out there Donald. Keep searching.
Mnemosyne
@g:
Sadly, you haven’t spent enough time in the fever swamps — the fact that Obama has a US passport is proof that the US State Department is in on the conspiracy. As far as I can tell, so far the vast conspiracy to conceal Obama’s non-US citizenship requires the seamless cooperation of:
the state of Hawaii
Occidental College
Columbia University
Harvard University
the state of Illinois
the University of Chicago
the US State Department
the FBI
I’m sure there are a few conspirators I’m leaving off the list, but those are the ones I can think of right now.
Tom65
So all those investigators he sent to Hawaii just had a nice vacation on him. Sucker.
Lurking Canadian
@Mnemosyne: It doesn’t need to be as complicated as that. Obama having a passport proves that he is an American citizen. It doesn’t prove that he is not a naturalized citizen.
The many-times documented fact that he was born in Hawai’i, however, does prove that he is not a naturalized citizen, but for that conspiracy to work, you only need his parents, his grandparents, the state government of Hawai’i, the staff at the hospital, the staff at the newspaper and a time machine. Easy peasy!
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
Wow, I wonder if he’d maybe give that money to a charity of my choosing. I’m happy to show him my passport and college transcripts. All it’ll really show will be a bunch of trips to Central America and a George Busheque 2.52 grade point average, though, so maybe that isn’t what he’s looking for.
Tone In DC
@fuckwit:
LULz. Sad thing is, the whole “ignorant and proud of it” thing is gaining steam with voters from South Fukistan.
R-Jud
@Lurking Canadian:
The fact that his mother was also an American citizen proves he is a natural citizen. No matter where he was born in the world. See also: John McCain, George Romney, my kid, etc.
Tone In DC
@Gin & Tonic:
LULz.
Patty K
I actually would like to see Romney’s transcripts, especially after the embarrassment of describing Syria as Iran’s only path to the sea. One more piece of evidence that he is just not that bright.
Lurking Canadian
@R-Jud: I have heard (I am not an immigration lawyer, obviously) that this is not so. Apparently there was some funny business in the law around the time of the president’s birth to the effect that his mother wasn’t old enough to confer citizenship, or hadn’t lived in the US long enough, or some crazy damned thing.
Ah, I have found it. She was not yet nineteen, but the law required parents to have lived in the US for five years after they turned fourteen.
All moot, of course, since he was born in the US.
Soonergrunt
@Mnemosyne: The CIA, the NSA, the governments of Great Britain, Kenya, and Malaysia, the Bilderbergs, the Rothschilds, and a partridge in a fucking pear tree.
SFAW
@Soonergrunt:
Not the Bilderbergs, too! Oh, fie!
And you forgot
PolandIndonesia!Matt McIrvin
@Lurking Canadian: *If* she was actually married to a non-citizen. If her marriage was invalid (which it may well have been on grounds of bigamy), then her son would get automatic citizenship because of hers.
Again, of course, all moot because he was born in the US.
ranchandsyrup
@Soonergrunt: the Pentavarate? I thought that was the Vatican, The Queen, The Gettys, The Rothchilds and Colonel Sanders before he went tits up.
Mnemosyne
@Lurking Canadian:
That would only apply if Obama’s mother had been a naturalized citizen (ie born in a different country and became a citizen later). Since she herself was a natural-born citizen, those laws would not have applied.
This shit was all settled in 1898. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise has, shall we say, ulterior motives for wanting Obama to not be a citizen.
MattR
@Mnemosyne:
You forgot the Selective Service System, the Social Security Administration, potentially the IRS for accepting Obama’s tax returns with a fraudulent social security number, and lastly the various secretaries of states and numerous judges who have refused to blow the whistle on the conspiracy even after all the evidence was clearly presented to them. Oh, and the mainstream media who are refusing to report the truth.
@Butch:
Just as depressing is the fact that they will treat his next announcement of an impending announcement as news.
Berliner2
Considering that Niall Ferguson is a “professor” of “history” at Harvard there are good reasons to doubt the value of a Harvard education. But that’s another story.
ranchandsyrup
@Berliner2: Someone has to take their Oakeshott in the Widener Library for succor.
Mnemosyne
@Lurking Canadian:
Also, as you may have guessed, there’s an additional dose of racism lurking under the “birther” stories — there’s a large contingent of conservatives who are really pissed off that the children of people who immigrated illegally are automatically US citizens by virtue of being born here. They want us to move to a system like a lot of countries in Europe (and Japan) have where you’re only a citizen if your parents were citizens. So the fact that Obama is the son of an immigrant who’s allowed to be a US citizen by virtue of being born on US soil drives them absolutely bananas.
ETA: Here’s an example why what people told you about the “five years” thing is total nuttiness. My natural-born US citizen stepmother had her first son when she was 16. According to that reading of the law, my stepbrother should not be a US citizen, because she was under 19. It’s just absolutely insane on its face.
Felonius Monk
Someone should explain to Trump that it really is not polite to fart in public like this.
aimai
@bemused:
I just skip to a different set of facts. Speaking as a fertile woman, and mother of two children, I ask her if she knows what happens to women with ectopic pregnancies, rapes, or miscarriages in countries without robust abortion rights? That’s right: they die, carry the pregnancy to term, or are forced to undergo “trial of labor” and “natural passing of the fetus” which amounts to being forced to return home and wait until the decayed fetus drops out of their body instead of being offered a D and C> And that is happening right now in the US–there are many hospitals where they will not offer D and C’s to women who are having a miscarriage. There are hospitals where they will refuse to give a woman a tubal ligation after a C section–the cheapest form of birth control for married women and the safest way to have the surgery given that you are already undergoing a surgical procedure.
Then I ask why women should be prevented from controlling their own fertility–by definition its convenient and prudent to determine when, where, and with whom you build a family. Getting pregnant at any time that is inconvenient to you can be utterly destructive of your life: your education, your finances, your family life, your future. Why should an outside person’s judgment supersede your own. We believe, as a country, in the purusit of life, liberty, and happiness. Why is this one area where women are considered second class citizens?
aimai
John B.
@beltane:
You’ve got that right: it’s been an utter surrender by the mainstream media. They just let Romney say “no, no more tax returns” and moved on… Until the next time, of course, when it’s not their Republican favorite.
bemused
@aimai:
I think she is aware of many of those situations. However, she said she believes the only difference between an abortion and killing a newborn is 9 months and abortions should not be done for convenience or birth control and the large majority of abortions are done for those purposes.
I am still in total shock. I had no idea she had these beliefs and we have been good friends for over 40 years.
I do plan to talk to her.
Mnemosyne
@bemused:
Is it mean of me to say that a whole lot of older women seem to suddenly become “pro-life” as soon as their own fertile days are over? I don’t know why it happens, but I’ve seen it happen in my own family. Maybe it’s because pregnancy is now an abstraction and not an ongoing worry, but it does seem that there’s an empathy loss.
bemused
@Mnemosyne:
Well, she is a fairly new grandmother, first grandchild under a year old.
aimai
@bemused:
Ask her that old standby: if she were standing outside a fertility clinic filled with frozen embryos and a daycare filled with infants and both were on fire would she dash in to save the petrie dishes? Would she leave a nine month old and grab the petrie dishes? If not: why not? What’s the difference? Does she know that 1/3 of all pregnancies end during the first trimester? Are those self abortions a kind of murder? Should those women be investigated and locked up until they can prove they didn’t self abort deliberately?
Also: stop being friends with her. She is full of fucking crap and deserves the contumely of all women who know her, including her own children. I’ve lost all patience with these people.
ReflectedSky
For accuracy’s sake, Barack Obama’s undergraduate degree is from Columbia. I believe he’s the first Columbia grad to be President. He is also a graduate of the Harvard Law School. He is not a graduate of “Harvard,” which implies that he went to college there.
The heyday of people getting into Harvard College on the basis of merit is long past, although you could certainly find plenty of examples of nepotism even then; that’s always been a feature, not a bug, of all elite educational institutions maintaining their claim to be the trainers and gatekeepers of power.
I think it’s interesting when people who like to rag on the elites then use exactly the same metrics to prove value. I went to Harvard during the height of public school/non-privileged admissions. Probably the general level of competence and intelligence was somewhat higher than a lot of other places. But I have met incredibly smart people who went elsewhere, and plenty of people at Harvard with me were bright but unexceptional, and in some cases (like the 10th generation son of an ambassador) arguably not college material at ANY institution. I wouldn’t rely on where ANYONE went to college to prove their ability. How about Barack Obama, son of a single mother, not in any way, shape or form a member of a privileged or well-connected group — in fact, to the contrary, a man whose appearance plays into various biases and stereotypes that traditionally hold people back in the United States — became President of the United States? I realize that people like Donald Trump can’t fathom how that proves his worth, but aren’t we playing right into those toxic biases to likewise pretend we need other, more “elite approved” metrics to demonstrate Obama is an intelligent, talented man?
Don’t get me started on Niall Ferguson. Such an embarrassment. But at least he hasn’t damaged the country the way Larry Summers has — and Summers is indisputably smart. Funny how that doesn’t turn out to be enough.
bemused
@aimai:
I know what you mean by losing all patience with people but some have not been paying as enough attention and don’t seem to know how bad it is getting. For instance, she accepts it if a young girl is raped and life in danger or an older woman’s life in danger. When it came to other pregnancies from rape, an abortion would be the woman’s choice.
My friend doesn’t even seem to realize there will be no choice.
No, I don’t plan to stop being friends with her. I will talk to her and say exactly what’s at stake for her daughters and granddaughters if she is willing to hear me out. Hopefully, I will be able to point out things she hasn’t even considered and will think about them. The other scenarios are she won’t want to discuss it which would really scare me or she will hear me out but we will agree to disagree or she will dump me as a friend.
This just seems so out of character for her…I mean, I never would have imagined she felt this way.
Now to go look up how many states allow the rapist visitation rights to the child of the woman he forced to have sex with him. I think it’s about 30 states.
Mnemosyne
@bemused:
I guess my question would be, “If these women are so irresponsible that they will just go and get an abortion for convenience, what on earth makes you think they’re capable of actually caring for a baby?”
Weirdly, I think some people would actually prefer to have infants abused or neglected to death rather than allow legal abortion because then that would prove how immoral those sluts were rather than letting them cover up their slutty sluttitude by getting an abortion.
Lurking Canadian
@Mnemosyne: At the risk of giving renewed life to an issue that should have died the final death years ago, was your stepbrother born outside the country? The way it was explained to me is that his mother’s age only mattered if he had been born in Kenya.
Since he was not born in Kenya, it doesn’t matter, of course, but you are the first one to tell me that this only would have mattered if she was naturalized. And here’s MM telling me about the bigamy exception.
There is a good deal of chaff around this issue, is what I’m saying. Thank you for clearing it up.
Mnemosyne
@Lurking Canadian:
The conspiracy theories got very convoluted and wacky, but from what I recall they were taking a provision that said that an American citizen who was born outside of the US had to have lived in the US for at least 5 years after the age of 14 in order to claim American citizenship for their child who was also born outside of the US and tried to apply that to all US citizens under the age of 19 whose children who were born in the USA. The ones whose reading skills were slightly better then concocted the “flying to Kenya while 9 months pregnant” story to try and fill the holes, but it still wouldn’t have applied because Dunham would have not been a resident of Kenya even under those circumstances, just a visitor.
But since, as you say, Stanley Dunham gave birth in a US state, it doesn’t matter how old she was at the time of the birth — her child was an automatic US citizen.
Mnemosyne
@Lurking Canadian:
Okay, this may be even more confusing, but let me try again:
Let’s say that, theoretically, Stanley Dunham had been born in the US, and her parents moved to Kenya when she was 5 years old. If she had grown up in Kenya and married someone in Kenya without ever going back to the US, she would not be able to claim US citizenship for her child.
That’s the provision that they were trying to claim meant that Obama would not be a citizen if he was somehow born during a visit to Kenya, but it pretty clearly would not apply.
Soonergrunt
@Lurking Canadian: Everything you EVER wanted to know, and a damn sight more, about all the conspiracy theories surrounding the President’s birth and childhood can be found at http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/
Supremecourtjester
What is inside Donald Trump’s head is every bit as bizarre as what’s on top of it.