Crybaby of the Day

By Yahoo Finance 14 hours ago

Charles Koch: My body is full of harpoons

If only.

The billionaire CEO of Koch Industries has mostly stayed out of the limelight, choosing instead to remain behind the scenes, donating money to politicians who share his vision of smaller government but avoiding publicity as much as possible—that is, until recently.

Yes, people who are doing shameful, indecent things generally do try to stay out of the limelight.

Charles Koch, author of the new book, Good Profit: How Creating Value for Others Built One of the World’s Most Successful Companies, sat down with Yahoo Finance editor-in-chief Andy Serwer to explain why he's finally decided to step off the sidelines and into the public fray.

The original working title was How Inheriting a Fortune Allowed Me to Corrupt the Government and Build an Even Bigger Fortune.

“I always followed what the mama said to the baby whale. She said, ‘Son, the time you got harpooned is when you spout[ed] off.’ So, I’ve followed that, and what I didn’t realize is my body was full of harpoons already, so what difference would it make if it got a few more?”

Oh. It must be so difficult for you. You've been **sob** criticized! I don't know how you can take it!

Part of the mission of Koch’s book is to correct the record about his philosophy on business and politics. Koch believes “good profit” is generated through efficient free markets, rather than “corporate welfare” that is doled out by the government in the form of tax breaks and local pork projects.

Oh. My. God. You're an OIL COMPANY!

Report Shows The Oil Industry Benefits From $5.3 Trillion in Subsidies Annually 

A Brief History of Big Tax Breaks for Oil Companies

Federal Government Still Spending Billions To Subsidize Fossil Fuels

You're complaining about corporate tax breaks? That's like a bird saying that people need to stop putting seeds into feeders. That's like a dog complaining that too many people are throwing sticks.

But that message has been twisted, according to Koch. “We needed to tell our story, because it was being totally distorted,” he said. “Most of the things said about us, the opposite was true.”

So why have Charles and his brother David Koch become such lightning rods?
Critics charge that Charles and David Koch are trying to buy influence to boost their own profits. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders has called the billionaire brothers “greedy.”

Well, that is the understatement of the century. "Trying" to buy influence? They buy influence at Costco! They buy influence by the gross. They're "trying" to buy influence like Brad Pitt is "trying" to be handsome.

Keep at it, kid. You'll get there!

Oh, and Bernie Sanders called them "greedy?" Boo fucking hoo. That's like calling Manute Bol tall.

 

Calling the Koch brothers "greedy" is like calling Chris Christie fat. Or Dubya Bush dumb. Or Ben Carson crazy. Or  Ted Cruz crazy. Or Rick Santorum crazy. It's not even being insulting, it's just a statement of fact.

The two brothers are a regular feature in Sanders’s stump speech, in which he says they will spend more money in this election cycle than either the Democratic or Republican parties. The Washington Post “Fact Checker” column called the statement “wildly off base.”

Well, the Washington Post can go fuck itself, that claim is totally valid if the Kochs do indeed follow through with their threat promise to spend nearly a billion dollars on this election cycle.  The Post says the claim is "off base" only because not all of the money the Kochs will be spending comes directly from the Kochs themselves. It's like saying "no, Billy, you didn't spend $100 on video games. Some of that was your birthday money from Grandma." It doesn't matter who gave Billy the money to spend, he's the one who spent it. He's the one who decided which games to buy, and he's the one who has new games to play with.

When asked why he believes he and his brother are targeted, Koch says fear plays a part. “Those who advocate government controlling people’s lives do not like competition. . ."

 So, let's break this down a bit. Those who advocate government controlling people's lives, also known as people who do not exist, have a fear of a competing force, ie the wealthy and powerful corporations, competing for control of their lives. It's just so silly that people would be afraid of a bunch of unaccountable egomaniacal billionaires controlling everything rather than demopcratically-elected government officials.

“They are apparently afraid to debate and have a national conversation on these ideas: which is better, which is a more just system, which will help people improve their lives better? And so they’re trying to shut down all opposition.”

 

Well, if by "shut down" you mean "say things critical of," then yep. I mean, you're still allowed to say whatever you want, and fawning Yahoo Finance "reporters" will give you a public platform to say it in as will magazines, radio, television stations. . .   

  

 Even the "Liberal" station.

And the Supreme Court has decided that you're allowed to buy all the politicians you want to not only spread your ideas, but put them into action. And if you wanted to, you could go all Rupert Murdoch on us and start buying up newspapers and tv and radio stations, maybe even launch your own "all free-market propaganda all the time" cable network. But other than that, yeah. You're totally being shut down. Boo fucking hoo, you pathetic little crybaby.

Donald Trump is a Racist and a Liar. And he's Winning.

It's really astounding how glib Donald Trump is about his estrangement from honesty.
First he sends out this tweet with racist lies about crime statistics.

Then, when he's called out on the lie by none other than Bill Freakin O'Reilly(!) he has this to say:

TRUMP: Bill. Bill. Am I going to check every statistic? I get millions and millions of people @realdonaldtrump by the way.

Um, YEEEESSSS! Yes, you should be checking every statistic. Well, not every statistic, you don't need to check what Willie Mays's batting average was in 1958 (.347) but any stat you're going to put out there as fact - hell yes, you need to check that first!
And this stat doesn't even pass the initial sniff test. I'm just some guy. I'm not a criminologist or statistician or law-enforcement expert of any kind, but if you were to ask me "what percentage of white murder victims are killed by black murderers?" I wouldn't have a number for you, but I would have said "way less than half. Most people who are murdered are killed by someone of the same race." And I would have been right. You trotting out this bullshit number of 81 percent of white victims killed by black assailants would be unacceptable in a high-school term paper, let alone as a claim of fact from someone who thinks he's qualified to be President!

And what was your point, anyway? Even if you thought that this stat seemed legit somehow and were too lazy and too unconcerned with the truth to bother having your people check it before you broadcast it to your "millions and millions" of followers, what point were you trying to make?

How is it part of your campaign strategy to point out that white people get killed by black people? And again, that is, of course, not true. But even if it were? You're what, trying to get people to vote for you because black people are scary? Who are you, Lester Maddox?

Oh, and speaking of glibly telling racist lies, Trump is also now claiming that he watched Muslim Americans in Jersey City celebrating on 9/11. Now, before anyone even checked on this, everyone knew this was bullshit. Yes, there were some people in other countries who celebrated this tragedy, and fuck those people, but Muslims in America were feeling the same horror and sadness as the rest of us, mixed in with a feeling of dread knowing that their lives in the US were about to get a lot more difficult.

But when everybody and his brother pointed out that this never happened, that there were no celebrations in New Jersey on 9/11, instead of saying admitting that he might have mis-remembered having a weird dream where people were celebrating 9/11 and then suddenly he realized he wasn't wearing pants and the final exam is in five minutes!, Trump instead just insisted that of course he was right.

(source)

'"So, nobody believed me," Trump said. "Some people believed me. By the way, thousands of people believe me because they saw it."

No! No one saw it because it never happened! You are lying.  You can't just make up a ridiculous story, trot it out as if it were true, have that story effortlessly debunked by numerous sources, stick to the made-up bullshit story and expect to have people believe you.

At least, you'd think not. . .

Some of Trump's most ardent supporters believed his version of events, which Trump said he witnessed on TV at the time. Bruce Engelhardt, 63 years of age, is a shopping center manager from nearby Pinkerton. "I mean, it probably did happen in some ways," Engelhardt said. "Let's face it, you look at the facts, it did happen. There's good Muslims as well as those that aim to harm America. I think those are the ones we're concerned about."

"It probably did happen in some ways." Wow. I've been rolling that sentence around in my head for like 10 minutes now, trying to figure out a way in which it makes sense. The only thing I can come up with is that this Englehardt fellow is using what we here at the Chaos Compound refer to as the John Jenkins technique. Named for an old friend of ours (not his real name) who used to say things like "my boss says I can't have a raise until I lose 20 lbs." And when we would say "John, there's no way your boss said that," he would shout "WELL HE WAS THINKING IT!" 
So maybe in the mind of a Trump supporter, it makes sense to say that maybe no one was physically dancing in the streets or visibly celebrating in any way, but it's safe to assume that on the inside, they were all happy about 9/11.

Sylvana Whittaker, 52, a part-time real estate agent and homemaker from Worthington, also seemed surprised that no video existed of such celebrations.
"But they do celebrate 9/11," Whittaker said, who appears to think that there are anniversary celebrations of the attacks. "Maybe he was referring to when they do celebrate it. I know we have free speech here and we agree with that but still, why don't people apologize for that instead of all the other things they apologize for that are not offensive? It is offensive for a group of people that killed 2,000, 3,000 Americans, innocent working citizens to be celebrating that."

Seriously?
This is the mindset of a quarter of Republican primary voters? Well, probably even more, but some of them just prefer a different lunatic like Cruz or Carson. This country is in deep trouble. 


Oh, and also, on the subject of trump being a racist cockhole:

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Donald Trump suggested Sunday the half-dozen white attendees at his campaign rally on Saturday may have reacted appropriately when they shoved, tackled, punched and kicked a black protester who disrupted his speech.
“Maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing,” Trump said Sunday morning on Fox News, less than 24 hours after his campaign said it “does not condone” the physical altercation.

Did anyone not see this coming?

.

Two men arrested in shooting of Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis

Is anyone surprised?
After a year or more of right-wingers vilifying the Black Lives Matter movement, calling it "anti-white," "anti-cop," "pro-cop-murder," etc. Is anyone surprised that a couple of scumbag white supremacists opened fire on #BLM protestors in Minnesota?


I mean, look at this shit:

How much of this kind of shit can you feed to people who are already paranoid, full of misguided anger and heavily armed before you can expect some of them to go out and commit this kind of terrorism. And yes, this was terrorism. Absolutely. This wasn't intended only to kill and/or wound certain particular people at this particular site. This was also intended to frighten (ie, terrify) other #BLM activists into standing down. That's pretty much the definition of terrorism, although no one in the media will call it that. Because the shooters didn't shout "Allahu Akbar!" before firing.

You know, when they first started this anti-BLM, "war on cops" rhetoric, I thought "oh, shit, they're going to get someone killed." And it's only sheer dumb luck and bad aim that prevented deaths at the Minnesota protest. And they don't care. There is zero chance that any of these FOXies will tone down their rhetoric, or choose their words more carefully or stop spewing race-baiting bullshit. They didn't change a damn thing after O'Reilly inspired one of his followers to murder Dr. George Tiller. They didn't change anything after one of Glenn Beck's disciples was arrested on his way to shoot up the Tides Foundation. Even after he said he was inspired by Beck. Or when some asshole shot up a Unitarioan Church and said he was inspired by Bernie Gioldberg's book about "people who are screwing up America" and wanted to kill as many liberals as he could.

So, no, they won't take any responsibility or blame. Hell, in private they may even take credit.But they will keep stirring up the loonies. And then step back and watch the violence they've inspired. And not feel a twinge of guilt. Because they're sociopaths.

Ridiculous headline of the day

Via Yahoo News:

Ted Cruz has always had a master plan. Now it could win him the White House.

Pffft!!! The White House?!?!?! Ahahahahaha!!!

Every politician plans, plots, or schemes; that's part of the job. But not every politician is a prodigy at it. Ted Cruz is.

 

 Ahahahahah! A "prodigy?" Ahahahaha!!

A prodigy?
Mozart was a prodigy.
Ted Cruz is fourty-five years old! It's too late to be a prodigy!
Also, a "prodigy" would not be best known for reading a children's book on the Senate floor and misunderstanding it!

Maximillian Lu adjusts his cap as he toys with a chess set during an interview, Nov. 16, 2015, in Armonk, N.Y. The 10-year-old recently became the youngest chess master ever in the United States.

See, this kid is a prodigy. Being really good at an adult thing at the age of ten makes you a prodigy. Being sort of okay at an adult thing when you are a middle-aged man does not.

 But suddenly it seems that Cruz is running what even Dan Pfeiffer, a former top aide to President Obama, concedes is “the best campaign on the other side.” 

.

Dan Pfeiffer. The only man in America who considers running in fourth place behind three lunatics to be running "the best campaign."

He has raised more money than any Republican other than Jeb Bush and more non-PAC money than any other Republican, period; he also has more cash on hand than any of his GOP rivals. He was the first candidate to recruit chairmen in all 171 counties in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. 

Yes. And he is in fourth place. And he's, what, about fifteen points behind a complete political neophyte with a bad comb-over a string of bankruptcies?

And from the start he has conspicuously refrained from criticizing frontrunner Donald Trump, choosing instead to position himself as Trump’s heir apparent, should the bombastic real estate mogul falter or fade, which Cruz has publicly predicted will happen.

Except it hasn't yet. I mean, God knows Trump has given the voters every reason to throw him overboard, with one ridiculous statement after another, but every time you thing "well, that's gonna have to cost him," he gets stronger. And Cruz just sits there waiting, waiting, waiting for the implosion that surely must be just over the next horizon, hoping that when the Trump pinata bursts, the votes will be scooped up by him and not Rubio, or Bush or Carson or Kasich or any of the other blindfolded children waiting for candy to fall on them from above. That's a hell of a strategy. What a prodigy!

Trump vs Rubio

Remember on Monday when we speculated that Trump's comments on shutting down mosques might actually gain him a point or two in the polls?

Well, the latest FOX "News" New Hampshire poll just came out, and lo and behold, Trum is up a couple points!






No one is even close to him! Ben Carson has cratered, I guess because Republicans have realized that they can have the same level of offensiveness and nuttery from a white man so who needs Carson?

Rubio is the closest competitor and he is FOURTEEN points behind Trump! And how is he going to make up this gap? How many other candidates would have to drop out and throw 100% of their supporters to Rubio to make this happen?

Well, next closest is Cruz. He can't drop out because God wants him to be President and you don't say no to the guy with the lightning bolts! So, Rubio could maybe pick up JEB!'s 9% if he were to drop out.
If Carson goes, you gotta figure his 9% goes to Trump, so best-case scenario fro Rubio is that Carson doesn't stomp his feet, stick out his lower lip and take his bat and ball and go home before New Hampshire at least.
He could pick up 7% when if Kasich throws up his hands, wails "what the fuck happened? I used to be the extreme right-wing of the stupid party!" and quits.
When Christie drops out, Rubio might get some of his voters, those who were voting for the "corrupt, but at least he's not insane" candidate. But the East-Coast-loudmouth-jerk constituency would flock to Trump, so let's say maybe 3% apiece. That's a wash.

So, that's Trump 30%, Rubio 32? Is that right? Of course, once Fiorina decides to go back to being a spectacular private-sector failure, her 3%  comes from the CEO-worshipping wing of the party, so that goes to Trump.

Rand Paul's 3% doesn't go to either candidate. His supporters will probably write in Lyndon LaRouche or Alex Jones or someone.

And there's no one else over 1% other than Don't Know. And Don't Know's 7% could go anywhere.


Anyway you spin it, this is bad news for the GOP. Which means it is good news for America. When your party's best hope is that the electorate will coalesce around Marco Rubio.

Rubio.

The guy who says things like women are looking forward to having more abortions so they can sell the extra baby parts. (source)

The guy whose suggestion that we arm and support the Syrian rebels soon to be known as ISIS got him dragged by the American Conservative!
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/marco-rubio-favors-greater-chaos-in-syria-ii/

The guy who was willing to support immigration as long as it wouldn't give any gay people the right to come to America. http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/why_does_marco_rubio_hate_gay_people_so_much

This guy is your most electable candidate. He's the guy who seems Presdiential when you compare him to Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and the rest of the insans clown posse crowding on to the GOP debate stage. But when he has to stand on stage with Bernie Sanders or Hilary Clinton, he's back to looking like this guy: