Paul Krugman Nails the GOP for Being the Party of Con Men—Just Like Trump

Paul Krugman makes an excellent case in Monday's column that Donald Trump's sleaziness is equaled by the party he now leads.

To get to his point, Krugman first dispenses with Trump's pile of frauds and schemes, all of which were fully evident before the GOP primary began, so why did no one bring them up? Trump University, his history of failing to pay contractors, and how he personally profited while running his casinos into the ground. Of course there is also the fact that he is not even as rich as he claims to be, nor as successful since he mostly inherited his wealth.

None of this has been hard to dig up, but Trump's GOP rivals just didn't. "Were they just incompetent, or is there something structural about the modern Republican Party that makes it unable to confront grifters?" Krugman asks, coming down on the side of the latter:...
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/paul-krugman-nails-gop-being-party-con-men-just-trump

Donald Trump Is Hurting Endangered Republican Senators

New polling released by Public Policy Polling provides perhaps the strongest evidence yet that embattled Republican senators’ reelection chances are being hurt by Donald Trump’s presence at the top of the ticket.

In five races where Republicans face tough reelection contests — Arizona (John McCain), New Hampshire (Kelly Ayotte), Wisconsin (Ron Johnson), Ohio (Rob Portman), and Pennsylvania (Pat Toomey) — the survey indicates incumbents have been hurt by their endorsement of Trump. In fact, in each state with the exception of Pennsylvania, more than twice as many voters said their senator’s support for Trump made them less likely to vote for their reelection as opposed to more likely. (In Pennsylvania, 40 percent of respondents said Toomey’s support for Trump made them less likely to vote for him, compared to 22 percent who said the opposite.)...
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/06/13/3787810/trump-hurting-endangered-republican-senators/

These Republicans Worry Trump Will Violate Constitution, Incite Violence. They Support Him Anyway.

Embroiled in a tough reelection fight, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) worries presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump would overstep the chief executives’s legal bounds if elected president. Along similar lines, Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) is concerned Trump’s proposed Muslim ban violates the constitution. And Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) warns that Trump’s divisive rhetoric could lead to more violent incidents like the racially motivated mass shooting at a Charleston church that claimed nine lives.

Yet despite those concerns, all three have pledged to support Trump, raising the question of just what it would take for them to disavow a candidate who has done anything but moderate his positions since locking up the Republican nomination....
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/06/03/3784512/mccain-haley-cole-trump-support/

Listen To Paul Ryan Say That He Cares More About Gutting Medicare Then He Does About Racism

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) believes that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s recent, racist attack on a federal judge — Trump claimed that Judge Gonzalo Curiel must remove himself from a case involving one of Trump’s companies because Curiel is “of Mexican heritage” — is wrong. But Ryan is voting for Trump anyway.

In an interview with Up Front with Vicki McKenna, a Milwaukee radio show, Ryan said that “the comment about the judge the other day just was out of left field” and that he “completely disagree[s] with the thinking behind that.” But the fact that Trump simultaneously launched a racist attack while calling into question whether he will respect the rule of law if elected president is no reason to vote for a Democrat, Ryan insists....
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/06/03/3784716/ryan-trump-judge-attack/

An Amazing Moment

I'm not sure if anything captures the weirdness and moral vacuum of this campaign better than this. Today, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said that divisive, racially charged rhetoric like Donald Trump's led to last year's horrific mass killing at an African-American church in Charleston. That's quite a statement. (The Justice Department recently announced it will seek the death penalty against Dylann Roof, the 22 year old who has been charged with the crime.) She wishes Trump would be more civil. And yet, as our Trump Endorsement Scorecard shows, Haley, like virtually every other elected Republican in the country, says she will support Trump as the nominee of her party....
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/an-amazing-moment

Trump demands Republican surrogates call other people racist: Surrogates obey

Trump's openly racist attacks against the federal judge hearing the case against his alleged "University" continue to demonstrate just how debased the rest of the Republican Party has become. On Monday we learned that Donald Trump held a conference call with his surrogates in which he demanded those surrogates attack questioners of his racist remarks, telling them that the people questioning him "are the racists. I would go at 'em."

 And so today we are treated to the sight of his Republican supporters washing up on our television screens like so many dead crabs.....
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1535627

Graham: Time to Rethink Those Trump Endorsements

[Graham] urged Republicans who have backed Mr. Trump to rescind their endorsements, citing the remarks about Judge Curiel and Mr. Trump’s expression of doubt on Sunday that a Muslim judge could remain neutral in the same lawsuit, given Mr. Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim noncitizens entering the country.

“This is the most un-American thing from a politician since Joe McCarthy,” Mr. Graham said. “If anybody was looking for an off-ramp, this is probably it,” Mr. Graham added. “There’ll come a time when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary.”...
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/06/graham-time-rethink-those-trump-endorsements

Ryan: Trump’s Judge Attacks ‘The Textbook Definition Of A Racist Comment'

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday that he wouldn't defend presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump's attacks on a federal judge's ethnicity because they were "indefensible."

"Claiming a person can't do their job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment," Ryan said at a news conference.

"I think that should be absolutely disavowed." But, Ryan said that Republicans would still be better off with Trump in the White House than Hillary Clinton.....
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ryan-trump-judge-attacks-indefensible

First Elected GOPer To Leave Party Over Trump Compares Him To Hitler

An Iowa lawmaker on Tuesday became the first elected Republican to leave the party in protest of its presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.

“I haven’t supported Mr. Trump at any point along the way but what I am calling his racist remarks and judicial jihad is the last straw,” state senator David Johnson told The Guardian. Johnson, who said he would change his registration to No Party, compared Trump’s rise to the top of the GOP ticket to the rise of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.

Trump won “by reducing his campaign to reality TV and large crowds and divisive language and all the trappings of a good show for those who like that kind of approach and that’s what happened in the 1930s in Germany,” he told The Guardian....
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/david-johnson-leaves-gop-trump-hitler

Trump’s Racism Isn’t A Deal-Breaker For Congress’ GOP Leadership

On Tuesday morning, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) offered up unambiguous denunciations of Donald Trump’s racist attack on U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Latino heritage, with Ryan characterizing Trump’s comments as “sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment” and McConnell describing them as “outrageous and unacceptable.”

But in the next breath, both politicians reiterated that they still plan to support Trump. Ryan cited pragmatic reasons. “Do I believe that Hillary Clinton is going to be the answer to solving these problems? I do not. I believe we have more common ground on the policy issues of the day and we have more likelihood of getting our policies enacted with him than we do with her.”...
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/06/07/3785491/paul-ryan-mitch-mcconnell-stand-by-trump-despite-racism/

This U.S. Senator Just Became The First Republican To Un-Endorse Donald Trump

Just hours after the Democratic Party of Illinois released a statement criticizing Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) for remaining silent about Donald Trump’s racist attack on a federal judge, Kirk took the bold step of un-endorsing his party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

Kirk, facing a tough fight with Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) to keep his Senate seat, released a statement saying, “While I oppose the Democratic nominee, Donald Trump’s latest statements, in context with past attacks on Hispanics, women and the disabled like me, make it certain that I cannot and will not support my party’s nominee for President regardless of the political impact on my candidacy or the Republican Party.”...
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/06/07/3785770/mark-kirk-unendorses-donald-trump/

Harry Reid: Mitch McConnell is 'the poster boy for Republicans’ spinelessness' on denouncing Trump

Outgoing Minority Leader Harry Reid continued his "Reid Unplugged" tour Monday from the Senate floor, tying Mitch McConnell's complete failure to denounce Donald Trump's racist rants against a federal judge to the candidate's rise and ultimate success among GOP voters. Here’s a partial transcript:...
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1535164

Another GOP Senator Condemns Trump’s Racism, Says She’ll Vote For Him Anyway

With a tough re-election fight ahead of her, Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte is making the case for re-election in her traditionally Democratic-leaning home state of New Hampshire.

Unfortunately for her, that has meant answering some difficult questions about her support for Donald Trump, her party’s controversial presumptive presidential nominee....
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/06/06/3784959/ayotte-trump-federal-judge-comments/

McConnell: Ignore Trump’s Racism Because ‘The Party Of Lincoln Wants To Win The White House’

Appearing on Meet the Press Sunday morning, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) thrice refused to label Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s statement that a federal judge cannot decide a case impartially because the judge is Mexican American a “racist statement.”

Then, when confronted with a conservative columnist’s harsh words for GOP’s leaders rallying around Donald Trump — “the Party of Lincoln intends to circle the wagons around a racist. Damn them for that.” — McConnell responded by clarifying where his own priorities lie. “I think the party of Lincoln wants to win the White House,” McConnell said....
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/06/05/3784881/mcconnell-ignore-trumps-racism-party-lincoln-wants-win-white-house/