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01 May 2011 16:22

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Politics: Donald Trump, post-Seth Meyers: NOW he wants to talk issues?

  • cause At last night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, both Barack Obama and Seth Meyers scored some ice cold burns on Donald Trump — while he was in the room, grimacing.
  • effect This morning, Trump called the comments “inappropriate” and tried to redirect things to political issues. WAIT. Now you wanna talk issues all of a sudden, Sideshow Don? Too late, brah. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 Apr 2011 20:46

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U.S.: Barack Obama vs. Unwavering Irrationality

  • President Obama’s decision to release his long-form birth certificate is a reminder of the handicaps under which rational people labor when confronting the irrational.
  • Wendy Kaminer at The Atlantic • Giving us some perspective on this birth certificate madness. Obama has both reason and empirical evidence on his side, but those are useless against an opponent who rejects reason and empiricism. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Apr 2011 16:53

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Politics: Iowa GOP voters wouldn’t mind seeing that birth certificate

  • When the fringe becomes the norm: The past couple years, the birther issue has been a touchy one in Republican politics; it’s a dangerous internal wedge issue for them. Say he was born in Kenya (or merely imply your doubts), and you look like a kook of the highest order. Say he was born in Hawaii, and you’ve alienated a non-negligible amount of your traditionally ravenous base. If the GOP Presidential field had managed to stay in the middling, “I take his word for it” zone, averting the problem — no Republican would have disdained their party’s strongest looking candidate because he didn’t think Obama was foreign. But with Donald Trump diving into the deep end of the birther pool, this constituency becomes volatile and impossible to predict. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Apr 2011 22:29

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Politics: Arizona State Senate: “Where’s the birth certificate?!”

  • YES a “Birther Bill” has passed the Arizona Senate source
  • » Score one for The Donald: Arizona’s State Senate just passed a bill that requires presidential candidates to produce their “long form birth certificate” in order to appear on the state’s presidential ballots. If they can’t (or won’t) do that, other documents will be accepted–but not, much to Orly Taitz’s delight, a Certificate of Live Birth. We, like many Arizona Democrats, are skeptical as to whether or not this is within a state’s power. Regardless, the bill now heads to the state House for a vote.
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Apr 2011 11:42

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Politics: Obama adviser: Donald Trump’s birther campaign “a sideshow”

  • I saw Donald Trump’s kinda rising in the polls. Given his behavior over the last couple weeks, I hope he keeps on rising. … There’s zero chance that Donald Trump would ever be hired by the American people to do this job. There may be a small part of the country that believes these things [birthers]. But mainstream Americans think it’s a sideshow.
  • Obama senior advisor David Plouffe • Ripping Donald Trump’s whole birther campaign as what it is. You know, a “sideshow.” Can we get this whole quote printed on a T-shirt or something like that? That’d be cool. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Apr 2011 21:08

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Politics: Pander to the Birthers, and Fox News will give you gig

  • rhetoric Donald Trump has been stoking the Birther fires lately, repeatedly questioning President Obama’s place of birth (and, by extension, the legitimacy of his presidency).
  • result Fox News has given Trump his own weekly segment, “Monday Mornings With Trump.” We mean “given” in the literal sense; Fox says that Trump isn’t being paid. source
  • » Fun fact: In announcing Trump’s new gig, Fox amusingly referred to the billionaire TV star as “The Donald.” Admittedly, this nickname format rolls off the tongue much better with Trump than with other 2012 contenders (The Mike, The Mitt, The Newt, etc).
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 Mar 2011 13:20

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Politics: Trump follows Obama’s lead on birth certificates

  • zing! Donald Trump, in a bid for political attention, has wholly embraced the Birthers, going so far as to release his own certificate. “It took me one hour to get my birth certificate.” Way to one-up the President!
  • oops… What he released is not his real birth certificate, but rather one issued by the hospital, which is EXACTLY what Obama did. There’s something on that certificate Trump doesn’t want us to see! source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

24 Mar 2011 13:12

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Politics: Donald Trump thinks Obama fears the birth certificate

  • Donald Trump behaving like a slippery politico already: It’s been a big week in terms of assessing the political strategies of Republican billionaire Donald Trump, namely that he isn’t so hot at lying on his feet, and he likes pandering to birthers (a belief he’s got to be too smart to earnestly hold). Following his clumsy, easily dispelled claim that he knowingly rented land to Muammar Gaddafi then didn’t let him use it (or “screwing” him, to use his parlance) with an eye towards donating the money to charity, he decided to go back to birtherism, claiming on The View that “there’s something on that birth certificate he doesn’t like.” Keep on swinging, Donald! source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Mar 2011 15:01

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Politics: Donald Trump blows the dog whistle long and loud

  • When you interview people, if ever I got the nomination, if I ever decide to run, you may go back and interview people from my kindergarten. They’ll remember me. Nobody ever comes forward. Nobody knows who he his until later in his life. It’s very strange. The whole thing is very strange.
  • Donald Trump • About Barack Obama, in an interview with ABC news. On the heels of his Comedy Central roast, which he ended with an awkwardly obvious political self-promotion, Trump is now using dog whistle rhetoric to appeal to people who doubt the legitimacy of the President (the birthers, basically). This is, as it happens, not uncommon in the realm of Republican politics at this time- Mike Huckabee, however he might like to deny it, was doing precisely the same thing when he claimed Obama had a Kenyan upbringing. So, an early sign that Donald Trump knows how to pander to those racked with distrust and conspiracy theories. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Jan 2011 01:26

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Politics: Max Headroom: Andrew Wakefield denies autism study fraud

  • The autism/vaccine guy speaks out: In recent weeks, Andrew Wakefield’s name, already synonymous with a questionable autism study from over a decade ago, has been dragged through the mud further amid reports that the report is an elaborate fraud. He still stands behind his study, claims the reporting of Brian Deer was completely, utterly wrong, and emphasizes that he did not personally profit off the study as reported. Credit to Alisyn Camerota, who hits him pretty hard with questions the whole way through. It’s weird that this interview isn’t getting much attention at the moment. (Note: He said he was going to upload some proof to his blog, but we see absolutely nothing new there.)
  • Shouting at your laptop If you’re like us and do searches on newsworthy political topics on YouTube every once in a while, you might run into this guy. This guy, a conservative, likes yelling really quickly. it’s his whole schtick. Here, he’s yelling about Keith Olbermann. He’s like a combination of Billy Mays (God rest his soul) the Micro Machines guy, and Rush Limbaugh. Mostly Rush.
  • Backed into a birther corner On “Meet the Press,” our boy David Gregory was chattin’ up our good friend Eric Cantor, basically trying to get him to say something bad about birthers. Cantor, eventually realizing that he couldn’t weasel out of Gregory’s line of questioning, gave him a half-answer on the question. Honestly, Cantor was right the first time. Why are we talking about this still?
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink
 
 
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