There were stories, recently, in the usual places, about how Trump was being seriously considered for a major speech at the Republican Convention. I did not dwell on the story much, because I assumed that these rumors were a product of Donald Trump's prodigious vanity and powerful imagination. Ha ha ha, sure, the Republicans will definitely want the stupid make-believe TV mogul who pretends to fire people for a living, at their big party.

Now that "Celebrity Apprentice" is done, Trump is back to pretending to be a major political player. He just announced his intention to start his own super PAC, because he is a weird attention-hungry idiot with a bit of money to burn (though not as much money to burn as he would like you to think he has to burn).

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Pretty much immediately upon the death of his father, Luke Russert inexplicably had a full-time broadcasting job, supplanting his part-time broadcasting job co-hosting a satellite radio sports talk show with James Carville. (That was a real thing that actually existed. Can you imagine a human who would want to listen to that?)

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The Transportation Security Administration, a universally loathed government agency, is facing a shortfall, despite its more than $8 billion budget. Instead of having a debate over what effective airport security might actually look like and how much should reasonably be spent on the honestly rare threat of commercial-air-travel-based terrorism, there was a debate over how best to come up with the money needed for all the radioactive naked picture machines and bomb-sniffing dogs. The Democrats suggested passing on the cost of ineffective, cumbersome and intrusive security theater to citizens, via higher fees on airfares. The Republicans, even more predictably, suggested cutting spending that directly helps poor people to ensure there is enough to spend on stopping imaginary future 9/11s.

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TPM rounds up the news, from the Arizona Republic and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser: A deputy from Arpaio's "threats unit" and "posse" member Michael Zullo arrived at the Hawaii Department of Health Monday demanding proof of the existence of a document we've all now seen a thousand times. From the Star-Advertiser:

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Ken Vogel has the scoop in Politico, based on some very intriguing INFOWARS reporting.

Everyone knows that the elite secret society known as the Bilderberg Group is one of the means by which the Lizard People exert their control over the shadow World Government. As hero journalist Alex Jones told independent cable news network Russia Today, the elite will decide at the coming Bilderberg Conference in Virginia whether to support Obama or Romney in 2012.

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The talk seemed reasonably well-received by the audience, but TED "curator" Chris Anderson told Hanauer that it would not be featured on TED's site, in part because the audience response was mixed but also because it was too political and this was an "election year."

Hanauer had his PR people go to the press immediately and accused TED of censorship, which is obnoxious -- TED didn't have to host his talk, obviously, and his talk was not hugely revelatory for anyone familiar with recent writings on income inequity from a variety of experts -- but Anderson's responses were still a good distillation of TED's ideology.

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This particular dope -- Ben Shapiro, former boy-pundit Joel Pollak, some guy -- says he is totally not a birther, at all, whatever gave you that idea, but it is very important that this forgotten old publicity pamphlet from a literary agent for a book project that never happened be unearthed and heavily hyped now, because the president was not properly "vetted" in 2008. (The idea that the president is a secret radical whose secret radicalism was not properly explored by the mainstream media is a stupid conspiracy theory that is almost as ridiculous as birtherism, by the way. We have proof that the president is not a secret radical leftist, and it is "his entire political career including his first term as president of the United States.")

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Now, there is no evidence that Jon Huntsman is planning for run for mayor of New York City, but one of his annoying daughters tossed this one out there last night:

Trying to convince dad @JonHuntsman to run for mayor of NYC. Thoughts? #whynot?

— Abby Huntsman (@HuntsmanAbby) May 17, 2012

Why not? I mean sure he has never lived in New York and has no connection to the city, but why not?

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John Avlon, the "No Labels" co-founder and Daily Beast contributor, is very sad about the news. He reports that they nearly called it quits last week:

Late last week, leaders at the well-funded insurgent organization were planning to pull the plug entirely on this year’s effort. There was talk of focusing instead on building the organization at the local level going forward, following a model like Angus King’s independent Senate campaign in Maine. But this abandonment would be devastating to overall efforts that aim to inject increased independence and competition into the political process, effectively wasting the 2.5 million signatures the group collected to get on the ballot in 26 states to date.

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The SEC is investigating the massive loss, but that will take a lot of time and the eventual report will probably be very difficult for novices to understand and probably they won't put anyone in jail. Dimon might have to be hauled before Congress to answer questions, but no one watches congressional hearings, and no one likes members of Congress. I think a big televised prime-time tribunal would be best. And then maybe some JPMorgan shareholders, unemployed people, journalists and angry bloggers can just ask him some really simple questions about why he thinks JPMorgan shouldn't be regulated at all.

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On the back of my review copy of "The Tyranny of Clichés," Goldberg's latest, it still claims that the author "has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize." That, of course, was revealed yesterday to be utter bullshit. He is a two-time entrant for Pulitzer consideration -- to enter requires solely an application and a $50 fee -- and while Goldberg claims not to have added that line to his bio, it appears everywhere he writes, and it's hard to believe he hadn't noticed it until this week. That said, I can't imagine a person dumb enough to actually believe that Jonah Goldberg had been seriously considered for a Pulitzer. (Well, OK, I can imagine one person dumb enough.)

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Long Op-Ed short, Brooks says "cyclicalists" (unnamed) think we should deficit-spend our way to prosperity, because, according to Brooks, they believe that "the level of government spending is the main factor in determining how fast an economy grows." (No one actually believes this.) But according to Brooks, all of our problems are "structural," which is to say that the reason we have mass unemployment and debt and growing wealth disparity is because of "technological change" and crappy schools. And "special-interest deals" in the tax code.

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Here's a brief list of insane things that are apparently common knowledge among the billionaire class:

• That President Obama and the Democratic Party have treated wealthy finance industry titans maliciously and unfairly.
• That the fact that they are perversely wealthy and growing richer during a period of mass unemployment and staggering debt is a sign that the economy is functioning correctly.
• That poor people, and not the finance industry, are responsible for the financial crisis and subsequent recession.
• That the ultra-wealthy are wealthy because they are smarter and work harder than everybody else, and that they are resented for their success.
• That the ultra-wealthy in general, and finance industry executives in particular, are the victims of widespread prejudice akin to that faced by ethnic minorities.

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"He had worked a road up along 'Big Canyon Creek' as an act of speculation when his crop failed in the summer of 1849. He charged tolls to prospectors making their way to California at the height of the Gold Rush and even had a Pony Express station commissioned along his pass."

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So any Americans Elect delegate can "draft" a candidate, and any eligible citizen can declare him- or herself a candidate, but AE has a high bar for a candidate to be declared "qualified" to actually run in its online primary: "Insiders" require 10,000 clicks -- 1,000 people in at least 10 states -- of support from delegates. "Outsiders" require 50,000. Thus far, Ron Paul, a drafted candidate, has received 8,753 clicks. Buddy Roemer, a declared candidate, has 4,389. In other words, no one is close to being qualified, and the massive grass-roots support AE expected did not really pan out. The first "caucus" vote, scheduled for next week, has been canceled. The next vote, set for May 22, is reportedly "in jeopardy."

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