“The Evil Bozo Creep Show”: Trump University And Clown School
There’s really nothing all that wrong with defining “success” as making an absolute buffoon of yourself. You get attention that way. You might even make money that way, especially if you convince people that being as much of an embarrassment as you are is, in fact, a good thing – and you can put them on TV so people can watch the spectacle unfold. And in our absurdly celebrity-obsessed culture, there’s enough blurriness to the line between famous and notorious that one can convince oneself they’re moral equivalents.
But they’re not. If you want to make an ass of yourself for fame and money, knock yourself out. But don’t expect to be taken seriously at the same time.
That lesson has escaped walking logo Donald Trump, whom we thought was spending all his time combing his thin hair over his forehead, putting his name on buildings in tacky bright lights and humiliating people on a recession-era TV show about getting a job. But Trump, it seems, was running something called Trump University. Who knew?
These are not, after all, two words that one would put next to each other, logically. But Trump runs some sort of seminar camp in which he charges people up to $35,000 to hear hand-picked speakers talk about how to do the “art” of the Trump real estate deal, according to a complaint by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. It’s not an actual university – that is, it doesn’t award degrees. And even the dangling carrot of the institution – the hope of actually getting to meet The Donald – wasn’t realized by many students (or, “students”) who, Schneiderman said, had to settle for a photo of themselves next to a cardboard cutout of Trump.
To his credit, that’s not a bad metaphor for the whole “university” scheme. But it’s hardly fair to people who shelled out thousands and thousands of dollars, thinking they’d get rich. Said Schneiderman:
Trump University engaged in deception at every stage of consumers’ advancement through costly programs and caused real financial harm. Trump University, with Donald Trump’s knowledge and participation, relied on Trump’s name recognition and celebrity status to take advantage of consumers who believed in the Trump brand.
To be fair, there are other fake schools that collect high tuitions from desperate people who then can’t find jobs or make back the investment they made in their educations. Trump is a meaty target – something he surely knows, since he’s put a lot of effort into making himself one. And it’s entirely possible that Schneiderman, wanting a tiny piece of the media attention Trump courts 24/7, was drawing attention to a serious issue by going after the least serious “school” out there.
But Trump’s level of self-aggrandizement has reached stunning heights, as he now contends that the president of the United States himself is behind the sting. President Obama and Schneiderman met on a Thursday night. Could they have been talking about Democratic politics? A looming government shutdown and what it would mean for the economy? The impact of Obamacare in New York, where insurance premiums are expected to go way down? Nope, Trump insists. It all has to be about him – what else? Said Trump:
They meet on Thursday evening. I get sued by this A.G. Schneiderman, I get sued on Saturday at 1 o’clock. Think of it. What government agency in the history of this country has ever brought a suit on a Saturday? I never heard of such a thing.
Perhaps it will all be academic in the end – which is about as close to academics as his institute comes. But Trump University and Trump himself should cheer up. There’s always clown college.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, August 27, 2013
“A Monopoly On Stupid Comments”: Offensive Republican Rhetoric Is Backed By Offensive Republican Policies
As the nation’s attention turns to the 50th anniversary of the March of Washington, Reince Priebus and the Republican National Committee are at least making an effort to show the public the party takes race, diversity, and civil rights seriously. Whether these efforts have merit is a separate question.
Keli Goff reports this morning that Priebus took questions from a handful of African-American journalists following an official RNC luncheon yesterday, and Goff asked the party leader an interesting question.
I asked Priebus, whether in light of the many racially inflammatory comments made by Republican leaders recently (which you can read here, here and here) and the many more made by Republican leaders as a whole since President Obama took office (which you can read here), if he as party leader would consider apologizing on behalf of the party for such rhetoric and setting a zero-tolerance policy so that such rhetoric stops being commonplace. The chairman replied that he has criticized specific Republicans for specific instances of offensive language, most notably when he pressed for the resignation of an Illinois Republican Party leader who made racist and sexist comments about multiracial Republican congressional candidate Erika Harold. But in a baffling turn, Priebus then seemed to insinuate that the GOP doesn’t have any more of a racist rhetoric problem than Democrats.
“Look I don’t think either party has a monopoly on stupid comments,” he told The Root. “I think both parties have said plenty of stupid things and when people in our party say them, I’m pretty bold in coming out and talking about them, whether it be the issue in Illinois [involving Erika Harold] or Todd Akin or a variety of issues.”
When Goff reminded Priebus that one of his predecessors, former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, apologized at an NAACP event for Republicans exploiting racial tensions for electoral gain, Priebus responded, “I don’t know what the back story is. You’re giving me facts and back channel information I’m not aware of.”
Nevertheless, the RNC chair’s response was unsatisfying for a variety of reasons.
When it comes to race, saying that the parties are effectively the same on “stupid comments” is belied by the facts. Indeed, it’s not even close — Republicans are the party of birthers. They’re the party of Rep. Steve “Cantaloupe” King and Gov. Paul “Kiss My Butt” LePage. It was Republican Don Young who talked about “wetbacks” in March, and it was Republican Sarah Palin who talked about “shuck and jive” during the 2012 campaign.
Obviously, plenty of Democrats make plenty of stupid comments all the time, but to hear Priebus tell it, specifically on race, there’s nothing especially unique about Republicans’ troubles. I think the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
What’s more, this isn’t just about offensive rhetoric; it’s about offensive policies. Republican policymakers nationwide continue to approve voter-suppression laws that deliberately target minority communities.
And therein lies part of the RNC’s problem: Priebus seems eager to do the right thing so he can expand his party’s old, white base, but he just doesn’t have anything constructive to offer in the way of solutions. He seems aware of the fact that he has a problem, but doesn’t know what to do about it, exactly, except say nice things about outreach.
Priebus will need far more.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 27, 2013
“Rights, Obligations, And Ignorant Libertarians”: If You Define Yourself By A Philosophy, At Least Have An Idea Of What It Implies
Oh, Rand Paul. What are we going to do with you?
I’ll tell you in a moment what I’m referring to. But first: One of the principal functions parties serve is that they act as a heuristic, or cognitive shortcut, for voters. If you have to vote for someone to serve on your city council and you know nothing about the candidates, you can use party as a proxy and you’ll be right almost all the time. You can also look to your party to see where you should come down on issues. It doesn’t necessarily make you lazy; sometimes it’s just efficient to look to others with values similar to yours for cues about what policies are worthwhile. We can’t all be experts on everything. In a similar way, parties give people who run for office a set of policy positions they can adopt without having to know everything about anything a lawmaker might have to address.
But if you call yourself a libertarian, you’re saying that parties aren’t enough for you, even if you’re a Republican. Instead, you’re motivated by a philosophical perspective to which you’ve given some serious thought. Every libertarian in politics, including Rand Paul, presents themselves this way. They’re concerned with ideas. So if you’re going to define yourself by a philosophy, isn’t it incumbent upon you to at least have an idea of what that philosophy implies, and a grasp of some basic philosophical concepts—for instance, like what a right is—so that you can talk about them with some modicum of sense when they come up, as they inevitably will?
Apparently not. Here’s Paul in a new National Review article:
“There’s a philosophic debate which often gets me in trouble, you know, on whether health care’s a right or not,” Paul, in a red tie, white button-down shirt, and khakis, tells the students from the stage. “I think we as physicians have an obligation. As Christians, we have an obligation. . . . I really believe that, and it’s a deep-held belief,” he says of helping others.
“But I don’t think you have a right to my labor,” he continues. “You don’t have a right to anyone else’s labor. Food’s pretty important, do you have a right to the labor of the farmer?”
Paul then asks, rhetorically, if students have a right to food and water. “As humans, yeah, we do have an obligation to give people water, to give people food, to give people health care,” Paul muses. “But it’s not a right because once you conscript people and say, ‘Oh, it’s a right,’ then really you’re in charge, it’s servitude, you’re in charge of me and I’m supposed to do whatever you tell me to do. . . . It really shouldn’t be seen that way.”
Oh dear. Paul is obviously unaware of this, but saying that health care is a right doesn’t mean that doctors have to treat people without being paid, any more than saying that education is a right means that public school teachers have to work for free. Because we all agree that education is a right, we set up a system where every child can be educated, whether their families could afford to pay for it themselves or not. It doesn’t mean that any kid can walk up to a teacher in the street and say, “I command you to teach me trigonometry for free. Be at my house at 9 tomorrow. You must do this, because I have a right to education and that means I am in charge of you and you’re supposed to do whatever I tell you to do.”
All this talk of “servitude” and “conscription” is just baffling. The only way I can interpret it is that libertarianism is something Paul picked up from his dad, and it seems to go over well with Republicans when he mentions it, but he hasn’t spent any time thinking about it.
I don’t know if the 2016 Republican presidential contest is going to be quite the nincompoop parade that 2012 was. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Rand Paul presents himself as the candidate with the big ideas. Make of that what you will.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, August 27, 2013
“Out Damn Spot, Just Go Away”: George Zimmerman Is Enjoying His Celebrity Post Acquittal Victory Tour
As Trayvon Martin’s parents headed to Washington for a protest commemorating the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom, their son’s killer was touring the factory that produced the gun he used to kill their son, and posing for celebrity photos while he was there. Fittingly, celebrity gossip site TMZ broke the news of George Zimmerman’s visit to the Kel-Tec factory last Thursday. Trayvon Martin’s killer is clearly enjoying his post-acquittal right-wing folk-hero status.
Meanwhile, his brother jumped on the bandwagon of white grievance-mongers playing up the alleged racial angle of the murder of Australian baseball player Chris Lane, who was killed by three young men, two black and one white. “Mainstream media is side stepping the fact that one of the alleged murderers openly professed on social media to ‘hate’ white people,” Robert Zimmerman told the Daily Caller. “Which one of these three teens looks most like Obama’s theoretical son?”
I’m sorry, America, we’re stuck with the Zimmermans. They won’t go away. Rather than recoil from his status as the man who shot an unarmed 17-year-old, George Zimmerman is enjoying his celebrity, while Robert Zimmerman continues to collaborate with the right-wing media-entertainment complex to make his brother out to be the real victim in Sanford, Fla., last year – the victim, first, of “thuggish” Trayvon Martin, and then of civil rights leaders like the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, as well as Martin’s parents.
Somewhat surprisingly, Zimmerman’s attorney Mark O’Mara released a statement criticizing his client for his gun factory visit in harsh and vivid terms. “We certainly would not have advised him to go to the factory that made the gun that he used to shoot Trayvon Martin through the heart,” Shawn Vincent, a spokesman for attorney Mark O’Mara, told Yahoo News. “That was not part of our public relations plan.”
I don’t recall O’Mara playing up the fact that the 17-year-old Martin was shot, at close range, “through the heart” during the trial, but maybe he thought the dramatic statement might help distance him from what could be his client’s post-acquittal victory tour. (I should note Vincent’s statement to Reuters didn’t include those words.) With Yahoo News, Vincent continued: “We are George’s legal representation, but I don’t think he takes our advice on how he lives his life or what factories he decides to tour. We represented him in court. We got the verdict that we believe is just, and the rest of George’s life is up to George.”
Translation: Don’t blame us for whatever Zimmerman does next.
Part of what made the Zimmerman acquittal hard to take was the shooter’s utter lack of remorse for killing Martin. Even if you believed every word of his self-defense claim, it had to be hard to imagine having no regrets about the death of a teenager. Even Sean Hannity, who normally appears conscience-free, asked Zimmerman if he had “regrets” about getting out of his car and following Martin, which led to their confrontation and the boy’s shooting. “It was all God’s plan, and for me to second guess it or judge it,” Zimmerman told Hannity, his voice trailing off.
That’s the kind of cluelessness that would lead a guy to tour the factory that made the gun he used to kill Martin, and to pose grinning with a star-struck factory worker like he’s Frank Sinatra visiting a local trattoria.
It’s particularly sad that Zimmerman’s visit came on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, which was commemorated Saturday by a civil rights convening that included Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon’s parents. The issues of racial profiling, stop and frisk and “stand your ground” laws are animating a new movement for racial justice, and Martin has become a symbol of the way young black men are treated at the hands of police as well as vigilantes like Zimmerman. “Trayvon Martin was my son, but he’s not just my son, he’s all of our son, and we have to fight for our children,” Fulton told the crowd.
But to Zimmerman’s defenders, Martin is a symbol of predatory young black men, and Zimmerman is the hero enacting “God’s plan” to fight back. Not surprisingly, his brother defended his gun factory victory tour. “George is a free man and as such is entitled to visit, tour, frequent or patronize any business or locale he wishes,” Robert Zimmerman told Yahoo News. So don’t expect Zimmerman’s victory tour to end any time soon.
By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, August 26, 2013
“An Unexpected Turn”: Missouri Develops Strategy To Prevent A Repeat Ghastly Rush Limbaugh Bronze Bust Statue Debacle
Last year, both Steve and I wrote posts discussing the induction of Rush Limbaugh into Missouri’s Hall of Fame. At the time, there seemed little of redeeming value to this tale but now, it has taken an unexpected, and even encouraging, turn.
Just to recap: inside the grand rotunda of the state capitol in Jefferson City sits the Hall of Famous Missourians, a stately array of bronze busts celebrating such notables as Mark Twain, Harry Truman, and as of May 14, 2012, a broadcaster from Cape Girardeau named Rush Hudson Limbaugh III. Tellingly, the Hall’s latest inductee failed to meet with universal acclaim. According to Politico:
News of the impending ceremony broke shortly after he called Georgetown Law School student Sandra Fluke a “prostitute” and a “slut,” inspiring a “Flush Rush!” campaign against Republican House Speaker Steven Tilley, who selected Limbaugh for the honor. In the past couple of months, protesters reportedly have delivered hundreds of rolls of toilet paper to Tilley’s office and presented him with approximately 35,000 petition signatures.
Republican leaders of the Missouri House kept the induction event secret until 25 minutes beforehand, hoping to keep protesters away from the unveiling of Limbaugh’s bronze bust. The Kansas City Star reported that the doors were locked and guarded by armed members of the Missouri Highway Patrol while the ceremony took place. Behind those locked doors, the honoree took this solemn occasion to say, “Our so-called ‘friends’ on the other side of the aisle are deranged.”
So that went well.
But now Missouri has a new House Speaker, Tim Jones, who devised this inspired online strategy to avoid any repeat of the ghastly Limbaugh debacle:
Selection into the hall traditionally has been at the discretion of the Speaker of the House. However, current House Speaker Tim Jones has empowered the people of Missouri to decide the next outstanding Missourians to be honored by induction into the hall. Please use the forms below to provide your suggestion for the next inductee into the Hall of Famous Missourians. Also include your reasoning for why your selection makes the ideal candidate to join the likes of Walt Disney, Ginger Rogers and Stan Musial. Speaker Jones will accept nominations until September 13, 2013 and will formulate a “Top 10” list of candidates based on the results and other important criteria as recommended by nonpartisan staff of the Missouri House. Visitors will then have the opportunity to cast their votes for the final 10 nominees with the two candidates who receive the highest number of votes selected for induction into the Hall of Famous Missourians. Voting will conclude October 13, 2013.
So they’re going to let Missourians decide who gets to be in the Hall of Famous Missourians? Sounds suspiciously like democracy to me.
By: Kent Jones, The Maddow Blog, August 26, 2013
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