Rest in Peace Jane Jamison My CPAC Buddy

For those who haven't noticed, the right hand column of this blog is an RSS reader showing the latest post of my favorite blogs.  Tonight as I was going to close down for the night this headline from The Other McCain leaped out at me Jane Jamison, R.I.P., Right Wing News had one too Jane Jamison From Uncoverage Has Passed Away

Jane passed away Saturday--a total shock to me.  Jane (not her real name) lived in suburban San Fransisco and needed to use the pseudonym because being a conservative pundit and a successful lawyer in "the people's republic of San Fransisco" were not compatible.
,
I first met Jane at CPAC 2009. We were stuck on the line for people who "weren't on the list." We immediately struck up a friendship while the CPAC folks were trying to work out our blogger papers. We spent most of the next few days sitting together in the  bloggers lounge.

It was hard not to be friends with Jane she radiated a warmth that was unique, even at a setting like CPAC where people who have had internet contact with each other were anxious to put the faces with the emails. Jane was different she was the one who walked around the bloggers lounge asking everyone if they needed anything (she had no responsibility but really cared).

From my short time with Jane, she showed a passion for almost everything she did. I still remember how excited she was when she found out Donald Trump was coming to CPAC, she even wrangled a meeting with Trump. 

Now she is gone, apparently she had been ill but she never showed it

Goodbye Friend, you touched our lives and made us better. May you rest in peace. 

TRUMP LIED: There NEVER Was Going To Be An Announcement During Last Apprentice Episode

The Trumpster has had a lousy day.  Fresh off this morning's polls that showed his political support falling down the abyss, we find out that there will be no candidacy announcement during the final episode of the Apprentice, in fact there never was going to be one.

The ratings-deflating news was delivered to National Journal on Tuesday by Sharon Pannozzo, publicity director for NBC Entertainment, who sounded a little miffed with The Donald’s false advertising.

“The show this weekend [part one of the finale] was taped back in November, and next week’s episode is also taped,” Pannozzo said. “So there will be no opportunity for him to do something like that.”

Over the past few weeks "The Donald" has said more than once that he would be announcing whether or not he would be running for President during the final episode of the Apprentice.

“I am thinking of saying on the live finale of The Apprentice on May 22 that in a few days I will be making an announcement about my decision,” Trump told the Times. ”I might ask the two finalists if I should run for president. Of course, if they’re intelligent they’ll have to say yes, since I’m about to fire one of them.”

Not exactly, according to the show’s publicist. “There will be no announcement,” Pannozzo said. “It’s just misinformation on his part.” Pannozzo insists there will be no live segments of the show. Asked about Pannozzo’s comments, Trump spokesman Michael Cohen confirmed to National Journal: “Mr. Trump will not be making any announcement during the finale of The Apprentice.”

So the entire thing was just Donald Trump being the carnival barker,trying to draw people into his tent of oddities.  Or as Seth Meyers said during the recent Correspondent's dinner

"I was surprised to hear that Trump was running as a Republican, I thought he was running as a joke"

I don't often agree with Meyer's politics, but this time he was absolutely correct. As a Presidential candidate, Trump was and is a joke.  This is just one more example.

Trump's Done; Can We Concentrate on REAL Candidates Now ?

Attention Donald Trump your 15 minutes as a presidential candidate are officially over. Public Policy Polling (PPP) most recent survey of likely Republican primary voters has shown your numbers fall off a cliff. In April, PPP reported that Trump was leading all GOP challengers topping  Huckabee by a 26-17.  Today's results have Huckabee in the lead with 19% , Romney at 18%, Gingrich at 13%, Palin 12%, and  Trump tied with Ron Paul at 8%.

The main reason is that Trump was a one-issue candidate, and with the President's release of his long form birth certificate the number of birthers have fallen significantly (thank God). Additionally Trump's support amongst birthers has fallen also.

Beyond the overall support numbers, Trump is simply not like by Republicans. As he got more exposure, voters decided that they were not happy with a cussing, birther whose GOP credentials are at best suspect. Only 34% of GOP voters have a favorable opinion of Trump to 53% who view him in a negative light. A 53% negative is hard to overcome.


Keeping in mind that it is still much too early in the campaign to start following polls seriously, there does seem to be an interesting trend emerging. Romney and Huckabee may be starting Gingrich and Palin. Of course out of the four only Gingrich has declared (actually he as declared that he is going to declare tomorrow).

The survey points out that it is still anyone's game:

 We also looked at a fair number of alternate Republican universes in which various candidates don't actually end up making the race. With Trump out Romney leads Huckabee 21-20 with Gingrich at 15% and Palin at 14%. With Trump and Huckabee out Romney is tops at 24% to 20% for Gingrich, 17% for Palin, and 12% for Paul. With Trump and Palin out Huckabee has the advantage with 24% to Romney's 22%, and Gingrich's 20%. And with none of Trump, Huckabee, and Palin running Romney gets 28% to 26% for Gingrich 12% for Paul, and 11% for Bachmann.

Now that (hopefully) Trump will be gone, all we need is for Ron Paul to go and the GOP concentrate on the REAL candidates.

Donald Trump: Birther

As if Donald Trump wasn't whack-a-do enough, he has now come out with a rather birther-like stance about President Barry and his birth certificate. I guess this is getting press because allegedly Donald Trump is thinking about running for president. I don't really think he's going to, but I think he likes to be out there, stroking his own ego, and let others stroke it as well. (Yes, I know what sounds like, so keep your comments to yourselves!) I'm going to get behind what Jon Stewart told Extra TV when Stewart was asked what he would think of it if Trump did run for president. "A gift from God. That is, if he's to continue this, it would be a gift from God. He would be, in fact, gold-plating my living room. I'd be excited to see him do that." And while my living room wouldn't end up gold plated like Mr. Stewart's, I'd still have one heck of a good time with that one as well.

It came to light on 'The View' last week that Mr. Trump was more of a nutjob than I had previously thought. Personally, I can't watch 'The View'. All of those shrews talking at the same time in those shrill voices? And offering opinions based upon absolutely nothing other than their estrogen? No thanks. But I did catch the clip where The Donald said that he had "a little" doubt about whether or not President Barry was born in this country. He said something to the effect of there must be something on his birth certificate that he doesn't want people to see. He also thinks that it is weird that no one remembers him from early in his life. Where to begin?

First of all and for what I wish was the last time, he already has produced a copy of his birth certificate. There was also an announcement in the Honolulu newspaper after his birth. And finally, if there was anyone on the planet who would prove that he was not born in this country and thus ineligible to be president, it would be Hillary Clinton. Do you really think that she didn't have every single resource at her disposal working on this issue when she was campaigning for the Democratic party nomination? She wanted to be president so bad, she would have done just about anything short of murder in order to get it. (And really, I'm not even so sure that was ever off the table.)

But back to The Donald. Now, in an "exclusive" with Newsmax, Donald Trump has "...released his birth certificate" in an effort to...um...well...I don't know what the point of that was. One of the "points" that he makes is where he states "I went to the best college and I was a great student, and it is inconceivable to my brain that no doctor, no nurse, nobody has stepped forward to verify the birth, other than the governor. He remembers? The governor? A birth 50 years ago? Come on. He’s taking a bullet for his party." Oh, for cryin' out loud! Really?

That's the best that he can come up with? First of all, President Barry is 50. It would not be inconceivable for the people who were in the delivery room with him to be dead at this time. After all, his parents (who were a fairly integral part of the process) are dead. And I find it absolutely insane that when the governor says that he remembers the birth of Barack Obama (if that is what Donald Trump is referring to there) that it isn't good enough! That's what Trump wants, isn't it? For someone to come forward and say that they remember? Someone did! But on top of that, you know why it doesn't matter? Because he already HAS produced his birth certificate! What part of that don't those people understand?! (By the way, strangely enough, people have talked about remembering his birth. You can look at this article over at Snopes.com. Feel free to pass it on to Donald Trump if you happen to see him.)

But back to Donald Trump's birth certificate! When President Barry did provide a copy of his birth certificate, it looked like this:

OK. There it is. Also, there was this announcement (49 years ago) that appeared in the newspaper:

That's good enough for me. But Donald Trump, in some sort of weird effort to prove something, releases his birth certificate and it looks like this:

Are you kidding me!? THAT is acceptable to Donald Trump as something that proves someone was born in this country? I could make that on Photoshop in less than ten minutes! I could probably do it in less than five minutes provided that I already had a template and a nice star sticker on hand. Is it filled in with pencil? What the what is that anyway?! I have never seen a birth certificate that looked like that. Are we sure that Donald Trump was born in this country? What's underneath that sticker? What is he trying to hide?!

I find it amusing that this is still an issue with some people. Granted, I find it more annoying than I do amusing, but it's still amusing none the less. I guess that people don't realize how ridiculous they sound when they talk about not believing that President Barry was born in this country. They also don't seem to realize that when you sound like a gigantic fruitcake, it does very little to further your cause. That is, unless your cause is furthering fruitcakes. In that case, you're golden. But in the real world, you're a bit of a doofus, Mr. Trump.