Ad Wizard Who Took Apart Crazy Barry G. in ’64 Perfectly Nails The Pathology of Trump’s Brain Disease: ASDD

The most psychologically unqualified, arrogant, dangerous person to ever get close to the White House was at it again on Sunday. He just HAD to make his appearance at the Rolling Thunder Rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial all about him, with a token malapropian nothingness salute to the event, “It’s our day, and we have to be very proud of it and we are very proud of it.” Huh? What? He then bragged about himself, called reporters Screen Shot 2016-05-30 at 4.30.41 PM “lowlifes,” and thanked the great coach Bobby Knight for his endorsement. Shocked and understandably disappointed that his mere presence didn’t equate to an August, ’63 Martin Luther King-sized event, he then proceeded, of course, to lie about the actual size of the crowd. “No matter where I go, there’s bikers,” said Mr. Trump.

Best Description of Trump comes from a guy named Lloyd Wright. Lloyd was one of the advertising guys involved in LBJ’s 1964 crushing of Barry Goldwater, who they painted as crazy and dangerous. Via Politico:

“My opinion is that Trump is suffering from what I call “Attention-Seeking Deficit Disorder.” ASDD ….He doesn’t want to serve. He doesn’t want to be president; he wants the attention that accompanies the campaign. And now, I think he’s rather afraid that he might win. [Laughs] I don’t think he knows what he’s going to do as president.
I never had that same view about Goldwater. While we felt strongly that he was not adequately concerned about nuclear proliferation, he had some solid views — views I respected, and which would have enabled him to be an effective president.”

Trump’s daughter Ivanka recently reassured us that daddy is “not a groper” of women. His wife Melania guarantees he’s “not Hitler.” But he may simply just be worse than Barry Goldwater. A somewhat different take from Watergate’s John Dean:

Don’t Compare Trump’s Presidential Campaign to Barry Goldwater’s

Barry Goldwater entered public service to make government better. He served the State of Arizona, and the nation, in the United States Senate for thirty years with great distinction. He was one of the most popular members of the Senate, respected and admired by all his colleagues. Donald Trump has spent his life serving Donald Trump. His pursuit of the presidency is not to make America great rather it is like everything in his life—it’s all about Donald Trump. Just as there are no similarities between Trump and Goldwater, as men, there are no similarities between the 1964 and 2016 Republican presidential campaigns. Only fools and the uninformed are comparing them.

Rest well, and enjoy 2 minutes of Memorial Day Megalomania in Washington.

Oh, You Can Bet Euclid Ave Becomes LeBron Blvd If Those Cavaliers Beat the Cleveland Title Curse! Believe Me.

For many of us Cleveland products across the country it will be another nervous two weeks as the NBA Finals start. The pressure is enormous to break the 52-year curse of No Championships. Thanks to the always exploitive ESPN for producing “Believeland,” which they will run ad nauseam through the Finals. It is

Screen Shot 2016-05-30 at 4.01.25 PM the story of the five-decade failure of Cleveland sports. You know, the same ESPN that televised LeBron’s “decision” a few years ago to leave Cleveland high and dry for a few more years while he vacationed in Miami.

I was 9 when the Browns won that last championship in 1964. We’d just moved to Cleveland (Beachwood, suburb) that spring. How great it was! Who knew it would be the last time a local team would ever win it all? The Screen Shot 2016-05-30 at 4.04.16 PM Browns ruled Cleveland through the sixties. My older brother went to a summer camp run by Browns Dick Schafrath and Vince Costello. The peak for me was sitting there freezing at the 1968 NFL Championship game at the Stadium with my cousin Maxine. That’s the game the Colts won so they could go get smoked in the Super Bowl by Joe Namath and the Jets. I moved out of Ohio by 1981 and have generally lost touch with the Browns and Indians. Beating Golden State or Oklahoma City will be tough, but as close at the Cavs came last year with 2 of the Big 3 out, it’s certainly possible. The parade might dwarf any sports celebration parade anywhere, anytime. There are millions of us scattered across the country waiting for this moment. It was one thing for the Red Sox to finally win, but Boston itself had hardly been starved for pro championships in the other sports. Same with the Cubs and Chicago. Cleveland is a special case. Lift a glass for LeBron and the Boys!

Dilbert Explains It All In (On) Real Time

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As always, everything Trump says is a lie. Friday he declared there is no drought in California.

Trump said state officials were simply denying water to Central Valley farmers to prioritize the Delta smelt, a native California fish nearing extinction — or as Trump called it, “a certain kind of three-inch fish.”

“We’re going to solve your water problem. You have a water problem that is so insane. It is so ridiculous where they’re taking the water and shoving it out to sea,” Trump told thousands of supporters at the campaign event.

I see he’s focus-grouped “Pocahontas” and “Crooked Hillary will stop all drilling and fracking… she will repeal the Second Amendment” and is sticking with those proven winners. He chickened out debating Bernie because (he lyingly says) it wouldn’t be “appropriate.” Yes, THERE’S the word that guides Donald Trump. I apologize for missing the Year of Appropriateness. The lies are even more striking as they all line up under the category of “they’ve all been lying to you… I’m the great sage, smarter than everyone…the truthteller… whatever the issue is, only I can solve it, quickly, cheaply, and easily.” The great Scott Adams, the Dilbert guy, has brilliantly analyzed Trump, and regrettably predicted his election many months ago. He explained it on Bill Maher Friday night. It’s truly evil.

Trump Caught In Lie Again: Told Megyn His Favorite Movie Was “Citizen Kane.” Evidence Points to “Scarface.” Believe It.

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I first saw Scarface when it opened on Christmas Day, 2003. Ever since then, I’ll catch 15 or 20 minutes when it pops up, as it continually does, on tv. No real need to watch the whole thing. In case you haven’t seen it, Al Pacino (Tony Montana) swims 90 miles from Cuba, fighting off sharks, and comes ashore at the Fontainebleau on Miami Beach. Tony deals drugs, his sister gets mad at him, he becomes the South Florida Cocaine King, and is so enamored with himself that he buys a big house and literally kills anyone who looks at him wrong or messes with his business. That’s about it, isn’t it?

I’ve always kind of thought of Scarface as cartoonish and exhibit A of a trademark over-the-top Pacino yelling/performance. Amazingly though, it’s grown to be taken more seriously over the years and has found its way into rap music and video games. Even Martin Scorsese himself has praised it. I’m not sure why. WHY SCARFACE’S CRITICS WERE RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. IT’S AWFUL

Nonetheless, it’s a work of fiction. It was not designed to be blueprint on how succeed in business without really dying or anything of the sort. But the non-stop bombast, the public self-assurance, the threat to destroy anyone who doesn’t 100% support or even just disagrees with Tony Montana looks exactly the way Donald J. Trump is steamrolling his path to the doorstep of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Tony Montana was not a practitioner, but should have been, of Praeteritio, a word I was not familiar with until I was researching Trump’s sickening, deliberate habit of saying something by saying that he’s not going to say it. Praeteritio is the term that describes this tactic stolen from 8-year-olds and Cicero. Back in December, Shon Arieh-Lerer of Slate.com described it this way:

Let’s talk about Trump’s rhetoric. No, we’re not going to talk about how he called Mexican immigrants “rapists and criminals,” or prisoners of war “losers.” And we’re definitely not going to remind you how he imitated a disabled reporter. No, we’re not going to mention those moments, because we wouldn’t do that. We are, however, going to talk about Trump’s favorite rhetorical tactic.

Praeteritio is the act of saying something by saying that you’re not going to say it. Like, for instance, when Trump calls Rubio a lightweight by saying “I’m not going to call him a lightweight, because I think that’s a derogatory term.” It’s a rhetorical device as old as political rhetoric itself, once proudly wielded by Cicero, who often “refused to mention” the various crimes committed by Catiline and his supporters.

As with Cicero, Trump uses praeteritio to insult his opponents while also suggesting he’s the kind of guy who’s above insulting his opponents. It’s a neat trick.

We now face another six months of the nominee talking about not talking about things he just doesn’t want to talk about. He reminded us early in the week that he didn’t want to talk about how some people say Vince Foster was killed by the Clintons. But let me note that, among the thousands of things Trump has gotten away with… and please, no “but what about Hillary’s email scandal she’s getting away with?”… as if she’s getting away with anything here…. On Thursday, May 25, when the President said while in Japan that Trump was “rattling world leaders,” Trump’s Full-Threat Tony Montana response included this: “He shouldn’t be airing what he’s airing where he is right now and I think you’re going to see it stop pretty soon.” What’s being said there? What does that mean, “you’re going to see it stop pretty soon?” Was that a Trump presidential-style polite reminder that Barack Obama only has 8 months left in office so by definition he won’t have the stage to say those kind of mean, nasty things anymore? President/Caudillo-in-waiting Trump will now declare Obama officially a Muslim and ban him from re-entering the country? Maybe he’s speaking of violent removal from office “pretty soon?” Maybe the Trump Air Force will shoot down Obama’s plane. That would shut him up. Maybe, as always, I’m just being overly sensitive and am too stupid to understand the bonding and coding that Donald Trump has with his unshakable supporters who know they are supporting the most brilliant, generous, thoughtful, trustworthy person who’s 100% on their side against the World.

Me? I see it differently. I see Trump, the guy who has consistently said for 30+ years he’d only run if things got so bad that while looking in the mirror he saw himself as the only savior of the United States. He’s seen that, and coupled that with his belief he can destroy the American village to save it.

He’s only in it to win it as he redefines The Ends Justify The Means. I would not want to be the folks who deliver him bad news election night that all is lost while he’s on the 39th floor of Trump Tower taking it all in.

Guess Who Entered The Mortgage Business While Hoping The Housing Market Would Collapse?

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In 2006, our Mr. Potter Goes to Washington character wanted to be able to cash in on a crash.

“I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy,” he said in his ’06 audiobook for Trump University. “If there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you know, you could make a lot of money. At the same time, I don’t think that will happen.” I would never nitpick Trump’s Archie-Bunker-like mangled syntax with phrasing like “if there is a bubble burst.” Who ever put the words in that order? But I promised not to nitpick, so I won’t.

Keeping in mind what we know now…. that literally everything Trump has ever said he either didn’t really believe, was lying about, or under the Rules of ’16 is permitted by the Enabling Press to get away with being 100% inconsistent with any and all past statements on everything… those above remarks were made for the “students” at TFU… Trump Fake University. So, let us pretend that Trump, not running for office then, actually was hoping for a real estate bubble that would blow up and he’d brilliantly swoop in and buy for pennies on the dollar. He’d greatly profit from his impeccable timing and one day they’d make a movie about it called “The Big Short–Fingered Vulgarian.” Oh wait, there were actual public figures who actually predicted the collapse… Dean Baker, Nouriel Roubini, Peter Schiff and Robert Shiller among them. Then there’s Trump, who in actuality was hardly waiting to capitalize on what he hoped would be lower real estate prices even though he was telling the people at TFU he was a modern day Baron Rothschild, who said in 1875, “Buy when there’s blood in the streets.”

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While Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren publicly, legitimately go after Trump for his stated personal wish for an exploitable housing collapse that would cause mass foreclosures making millions homeless and send Screen Shot 2016-05-25 at 10.53.24 AM

the world economic system careening towards depression or worse, they are neglecting the final nail in today’s issue of The Trump Coffin of Inconsistency, Lying, and Hypocrisy.

On February 29, Washington Post reporters Tom Hamburger and Michael Kranich wrote a piece called: Trump Mortgage failed. Here’s what that says about the GOP front-runner.

As some economists and Wall Street traders began to sense danger ahead of the crippling housing market collapse of 2008, Donald Trump waved away the worries and offered a concrete expression of confidence in the industry.

In the spring of 2006, the tycoon hosted a glitzy event at Trump Tower to introduce Trump Mortgage LLC, a new firm that specialized in selling residential and commercial real estate loans. He devoted a floor of the Trump Organization headquarters at 40 Wall Street to the new business. And his picture appeared atop the company website with the instruction: “Talk to My Mortgage Professionals now!”

“I think it’s a great time to start a mortgage company,” Trump told a CNBC interviewer in April 2006, adding that “the real estate market is going to be very strong for a long time to come.”

What kind of genius businessman would be starting a mortgage company at the same time he was hoping for real estate, in general, to collapse? Maybe one not quite as shrewd or intelligent or consistent as the image those man-on-the-street interview subjects believe in, “yea, he’s clever and rich and I think he’ll do the same for me and the country we’re gonna take back… he’s not politically correct and he’s not a politician.” Ya think?

Marketwatch on Elizabeth Warren: “Donald Trump was drooling over the idea of a housing meltdown — because it meant he could buy up a bunch more property on the cheap,” the Massachusetts senator said in a speech Tuesday , according to the Washington Post. “What kind of a man does that? Root for people to get thrown out on the street?” Clinton, Trump’s likely opponent in November, hit Trump on the same subject in a video and series of tweets. Trump blasted both Clinton and Warren at a rally in New Mexico Tuesday night, calling Clinton a “low life” for using his comments about the housing crisis in an ad.

As always, his technique to supposedly make the issue NOT about his views on the housing market in 2006 but about the NERVE of his opponents to use his own words against him… how DARE they… will be accepted 100% by his cult and buy him the few hours he’ll need to move on to the next news cycle and outrage moment. Our only hope is that at some point, this Authoritarian Jenga Tower falls of its own weight of insanity.

Kenneth Starr, Jesse Helms, and Bill Clinton

As Donald Trump continues his I Love the 90s tour, it’s instructive to look back and remember some of the details relating to the impeachment of our 42nd president

Kenneth Starr was a pivotal character in the impeachment of Bill Clinton. He had been appointed as a special investigator to look into Whitewater. For those of you not old enough to remember, Whitewater was the Benghazi of it’s time: Conservatives relentlessly pursued it, knowing that it would end the Clintons. In the end, nothing was there. There’s a reason that Donald Trump doesn’t add this to the litany of Hillary’s sins. Even he knows the witch hunt was bollocks

It seems impossible to believe, but the expansion of the Whitewater investigation lead us down the primrose path to the discovery of Monica Lewinsky and her affair with President Clinton. Conservatives were so enraged at Bill Clinton and his “far left” policies that they went to great lengths to try to destroy him, politically. One of the political figures most intent on destroying Clinton was North Carolina’s senior senator, Jesse Helms

Helms served thirty years in the United States Senate and delighted his supporters by mocking Ted Kennedy and, generally, opposing anything that didn’t help Big Tobacco. Helms said no quite frequently and he said it loudly. This earned him the title of “Senator No”, which he wore proudly

By the time the 90s dawned, Mr. Helms needed some new material. His homophobia still scored points for the fans, but he needed a little something that let him pivot and refresh his act. Enter Slick Willie

Bill Clinton stood in stark contrast to Jesse Helms. He was handsome, well-spoken, Ivy educated…hell, Bill Clinton had even been to Europe…AND LOVED IT! Jesse Helms made it his life’s work to hound Bill and Hillary Clinton, with some help from his buddy Lauch Faircloth

In one particular episode, Mr. Helms said that if Mr. Clinton was so popular on military bases in North Carolina that “he’d better have a bodyguard” if the president visited. Mr. Helms quickly called the comment “a mistake”, but his fans loved it

And, so it was, that when it came time to appoint a special investigator to Whitewater, Mr. Helms made sure his lawyer buddy from the Big Tobacco wars was put in charge: Mr. Starr

Mr. Starr has been in the news a bit recently. First, he made some surprising comments about the man who was impeached, in great part, thanks to his efforts

His genuine empathy for human beings is absolutely clear. It is powerful, it is palpable. The folks of Arkansas really understood that

Umm…thanks? I can only imagine the mix of emotion that must have entered Bill Clinton’s mind when he read that

Also, Kenneth Starr may or not still be president of Baylor University

So, you see, when you see Donald Trump revisiting Monica Lewinsky and the impeachment of Bill Clinton, it’s another great gift from the wellspring that is/was Jesse Helms. His legacy lives long and now his words are coming out of the mouth of a tangerine billionaire

On behalf of the citizens of North Carolina, you’re welcome

Charles Wade, Black Lives Matter Leader Arrested For Prostitution/Human Trafficking, Is Son Of NBA & TNT’s Charles Barkley

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Black Lives Matter leader Charles Wade, charged April 25 with four counts of prostitution and three counts of human trafficking, is the son of NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley. A transportation industry worker says he picked up Mr. Wade (real name Charles Wade Barkley, Jr.) at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport last year and drove him to Fayetteville where he met up with a rapper Mr. Wade said he was managing.

The worker said Mr. Wade (who said he chooses not to capitalize on his father’s name in his activist efforts) detailed that he had been conceived when his parents were students at Auburn. Shortly after he was born, his parents’ relationship ended and Mr. Wade characterized his relationship with his father as more akin to a “grandfather.”

The transportation worker said Mr. Wade was especially proud of his work with an organization called Help or Hush (link) and was heading from Fayetteville immediately to St. Louis to do work for that organization.

The worker also said Mr. Wade talked about the pressures of being the son of someone famous. photo courtesy of NBA.com Screen Shot 2016-05-22 at 10.22.55 AM

Charles Wade maintains his innocence of the charges.

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Trump’s Tiny Little Hands Were Too Small To Hold The Rifle Overhead Like Moses At The NRA Did! Sad.

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Donald J. Trump has been constantly lying and saying for months that “Hillary Clinton wants to take away your guns and abolish the Second Amendment… Crooked Hillary Clinton is the most anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment candidate ever to run for office.” It got major attention Friday when he said it to the NRA Convention, where he shockingly received their endorsement. For good measure, Trump added in another uncontested lie that Hillary wants to open up all the jails and let the murderers out (particularly the black ones just like Willie Horton, seen here, from the Bush-Dukakis era) so they can come and rape your women before they murder again… and you’ll be defenseless, just the way she wants it, because she’ll already have confiscated your gun. The sickest part of this is that, as usual, most of the reporting of the speech (excepted here) quickly mentions Trump is factually wrong but gives him credit for pushing the lie to his followers and white trash in the middle of Pennsylvania or in Ohio, etc. This is major-league Hitler/Goebbels-like demagoguery. Lie upon lie, accusing the opponent of dictator-like intentions when Trump is the one guaranteeing a Wall, rounding up 11 million+, excluding people from the country based on their religion only, and threatening US companies while practically promising an international trade war… as he encourages nuclear proliferation. One question: what kind of paranoid person believes anyone, including the President, can “abolish” the Second (or any) Amendment. That can’t happen under our Constitution, has never happened…. and we need to look more soberly at the candidate who has drilled down into an authoritarian, racist, nationalistic psyche that represents a bigger slice of America than we thought. Before the Great American Democratic Experiment is damaged beyond repair, please.

Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker, 5/20:

If Trump came to power, there is a decent chance that the American experiment would be over. This is not a hyperbolic prediction; it is not a hysterical prediction; it is simply a candid reading of what history tells us happens in countries with leaders like Trump. Countries don’t really recover from being taken over by unstable authoritarian nationalists of any political bent, left or right—not by Peróns or Castros or Putins or Francos or Lenins or fill in the blanks. The nation may survive, but the wound to hope and order will never fully heal. Ask Argentinians or Chileans or Venezuelans or Russians or Italians—or Germans. The national psyche never gets over learning that its institutions are that fragile and their ability to resist a dictator that weak. If he can rout the Republican Party in a week by having effectively secured the nomination, ask yourself what Trump could do with the American government if he had a mandate.

NC Democratic US Senate Candidate Deborah Ross on Burr, Bernie, Bathrooms, Barbecue and More!

This is 2016, the Year of the Insulting Nickname in politics, courtesy of You-Know-Who. Debra Ross responds to our question of what she does in response to being labeled, “the ACLU hippie chick.” (Ross was head of the NC ACLU for 7 years before election to the state’s General Assembly) “Richard Burr doesn’t want to run on his record because he’s so out of touch.” On HB2, the infamous NC “bathroom bill,” Ross says Senator Burr claims the bill doesn’t discriminate, is certainly not a federal issue, and won’t affect the state’s economy. Wrong on all three counts, counters Ross, who also addressed the Affordable Care Act, minimum wage, and how to make higher learning more affordable….

Some Good News About North Carolina’s HB2

On Wednesday’s Brad & Britt Podcast, we discussed a story about Braeburn Pharma deciding against cancelling an expansion in the state. From the article:

In the company’s statement, Sheldon said that she elected to keep the company in North Carolina after meeting with Attorney General Roy Cooper, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate who urged Braeburn to stay in the state and fight discrimination.

“The Attorney General argued that Braeburn could help more by advocating from within North Carolina than by protesting through departure,” the statement said

This indicates good news for North Carolinians who have been fighting HB2 for two months. Business leaders may get the message that they can talk to someone other than the governor for reassurance. This could mean that some business leaders don’t have confidence that McCrory will be North Carolina’s governor next year (Cooper is mounting a stiff challenge and is the Democratic nominee for North Carolina’s top office)

The state had previously enjoyed a progressive, pro-business reputation going back decades to leadership provided by governors like Terry Sanford and Jim Hunt. It is difficult to gauge the exact economic impact from HB2, but multiple stories have told stories of companies cancelling plans to come to North Carolina and organizations cancelling plans to hold gatherings in the state

In the next six months, Cooper and McCrory will mount a vigorous campaign for the office. Cooper will be able to tout the fact that Braeburn was given comfort by him at a time when the chips were down. This could be very helpful in reaching out to traditionally Republican voters and independent voters, who may not be engaged on LGBT issues, but are concerned about the negative economic impact of HB2. This will be key to Cooper’s campaign if he is to get beyond the Liberal vs. Conservative paradigm

This could amount to a “lack of confidence” vote from the business community for McCrory, which could mean bad news for the governor in November