Anyone following Donald Trump’s Twitter feed is engaging in a treacherous IQ-lowering exercise. As much as we have vowed not to be shocked by anything the carnivalesque GOP candidate does or says, damned if he did not stun us again with that stupid Cinco de Mayo tweet about loving the tacos made by “the Hispanics” he loves so much in Trump Tower. He and flunky Bill O'Reilly could not wrap their heads around the fact that anyone would see that as cynical pandering. Samantha Bee expressed it best when she tweeted back:
In case you forgot, the taco tweet and promoting a National Enquirer Kennedy conspiracy assassination theory involving Ted Cruz’s father were this week’s version of Trump acting oh-so-presidential.
So many low-lights from the seemingly imploding far-right flank, so little time. Here's a sampling.
1. Trump goes to Twitter war with Elizabeth Warren—doesn’t win.
Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump spent a large portion of his week engaging in sophomoric Twitter feuds, which may well be how he would conduct foreign policy if he is elected. There was his juvenile spat with former fanboy Joe Scarborough, who announced he won’t be voting for Trump. But when Elizabeth Warren flamed him following his victory in Indiana and ascension to all-but-certain nominee status, he uncharacteristically took a couple of days to muster his response. Friday night, he came out with this intellectually lofty gem: “I hope corrupt Hillary Clinton chooses goofy Elizabeth Warren as her running mate. I will defeat them both.”
Warren was not terribly impressed. Goofy? She wondered. Is the name of a lovable Disney character really the best you can do? “For a guy with ‘the best words’ that’s a pretty lame nickname. Weak!” she retorted.
But Trump was sticking to his adjectival guns, and without another bullet in his chamber went back to his old favorite. “Goofy Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton’s flunky, has a career that is totally based on a lie. She is not Native American.”
One thing is for sure, the Donald is definitely making the twittersphere great again.
Read more of the back and forth.
2. Lord of Darkness endorses Trump.
There’s not much of a joke here. Just an all-over skin crawl coupled with an all-over shudder and sickening gut twist. Dick Cheney has endorsed Trump. That’s all. In doing so, the Iraq-war architect has broken rank with other prominent Republicans like the entire Bush clan, John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Mitt Romney. Not to mention House Speaker Paul Ryan who has so far just said no to Trump. We can only assume that Cheney just really wants to go to the GOP convention in Cleveland this summer. Perhaps the Darth Vader admirer’s dancecard is coming up empty these days.
Cheney said he would back Trump, despite earlier saying that Trump sounded too much “like a liberal Democrat,” when he criticized the decision to invade Iraq and said the Bush administration lied about the existence of weapons of mass destruction. Trump did not sound like a liberal Democrat when he stated this fact. He sounded like a man in the throes of a rare moment of lucidity.
But now, Cheney doesn’t care about that. Or he does not remember it, and as long as his artificial heart keeps ticking, he’s jumping on board the Trump carnival caravan. Woo hoo!
3. Bill O’Reilly is incredulous that people criticized Trump’s ridiculous Cinco de Mayo tweet.
Poor Papa Bear O’Reilly. Stephen Colbert may no longer be making merciless fun of him on a nightly basis, but the modern world is just so confusing for him. Here, his perfectly nice, though somewhat cheapskate milkshake pal Donald simply tweeted something about eating a taco and loving “the Hispanics,” and now everyone is criticizing him. What are a couple of clueless old white guys with deeply insulting strains of cynicism supposed to do?
O’Reilly aired his outrage on his show, natch, saying:
Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo. Donald Trump tweeted out a picture of himself eating tacos. Above the picture he said that he loves Hispanics. Almost immediately, the president of the militant organization La Raza tweeted out, "Eating a taco or wearing a sombrero doesn't cut it with our community in 2016. Trump is clueless, offensive and self promoting."
So eating a taco on Cinco De Mayo is now offensive? That's like saying eating corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day, and saying you love the Irish is offensive. That's how insane American culture has become.
Apparently, O’Reilly is conveniently unfamiliar with the concept of pandering, and the fact that Trump has been relentlessly demonizing Mexicans and other Latinos literally since the day he announced his candidacy. Also, anyone who disagrees with O’Reilly is de facto “militant.”
Talk about insane.
4. Fox News tweets unhinged thing about Planned Parenthood.
The fact-free zone of Faux News has always been impervious to, well, reality in general, and certainly the somewhat mundane reality of what Planned Parenthood actually does: providing reproductive healthcare for women, all women (and some men), regardless of their ability to pay.
Sounds like a dastardly plot to Fox, which never misses a chance to gin up extremist hatred and potential violence toward the life-saving organization. Not content with peddling the fiction that Planned Parenthood illegally traffics in baby parts, Fox has taken the hysteria-mongering one step further this week. A FoxNews.com article said the healthcare provider’s latest diabolical venture is helping “transgender patients with sex changes.”
How horrible! Wait, why?
Fox's Cinco de Mayo article claims that since Planned Parenthood stopped "selling baby body parts for money," the “gender reassignment process may enable the organization to make up the lost cash."
Of course, the fetal parts profiteering myth has been utterly debunked, and offering trans-inclusive healthcare is something the organization has been doing going back about 50 years, but Fox has never been one to turn down a chance to sow further hatred. And trans people and the people who love and help them are favorite targets these days.
Disgusting, despicable and vile. Just another day at Fox News.
5. Katrina Pierson just has a little suggestion for Paul Ryan.
CNN served up quite a softball for nutty Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson this week, after House Speaker and Ayn Rand-lover Paul Ryan declined to endorse Trump but stopped short of saying #NeverTrump.
CNN asked, “If the Republican speaker of the House does not come around to supporting the Republican nominee, do you think that Paul Ryan is still fit to be Speaker? “
Her answer will probably surprise no one, but she delivered it with her usual hard-right conservative flair, saying:
No. Because this is about the party. You have to understand—the last two cycles we were told John McCain was a conservative, he is not a conservative, his Conservative Review score card is 37%. We were told Mitt Romney is a conservative, and he was pro-abortion... gave us Obamacare, we were told to hold our noses and vote for the sake of the party. These same people are now telling us that because their guy didn't win they want to hurt the party...
No word on how Pierson will explain Trump’s inevitable dishonest tack to the center as the general election campaign progresses.
Stay tuned.
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