* And then there were four.
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson will end his presidential bid, saying that Super Tuesday’s election results left him with no “political path forward.”
* I guess this is an example of Donald Trump “moderating” his racism in preparation for the general election.
“Political Cesspool” host James Edwards thinks that slavery was the greatest thing that ever happened to black people. He also thinks that Donald Trump is the greatest thing that ever happened to the Republican Party.
Edwards attended a Trump rally in Memphis last Saturday, as a fully credentialed member of the press. From the media pen, Edwards hosted a live broadcast of his “unapologetically pro-white” radio show, and snagged a 20-minute interview with our future president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
* Repeat after me: “Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.”
White House vetting judge from home state of @ChuckGrassley for Supreme Court Seat. That should be interesting. https://t.co/W05Bqr1PnL
— jennifer steinhauer (@jestei) March 2, 2016
* Washington Monthly contributing editor Tim Noah – writing with Brian Mahoney – has an interesting explanation for why Donald Trump is winning a plurality of Republican white collar voters.
One possibility is that the sharp distinction political analysts have always drawn between blue-collar and white-collar is blurrier than it used to be. College graduates still out-earn high school graduates by a substantial margin, but the “college premium” hasn’t grown since the 1990s. The broad-based income inequality of the ‘80s and much of the ‘90s, when a shortage of skilled labor drove up white-collar wages, gave way to the more cartoonish income inequality of the 21st century, defined by the outsized income share enjoyed by the top one percent. Nowadays you can experience economic resentment all the way up to the 99th percentile.
* Apparently Minority Leader Harry Reid caught fire on the floor of the Senate today.
“Donald Trump is the standard-bearer for the Republican Party,” Reid said from the Senate floor Wednesday. “Republicans created him by spending seven years appealing to some of the darkest forces in America. Now it’s up to the Republicans to try and undo what they have done by denouncing Donald Trump. It’s time for the Republicans to stop the Frankenstein they created.”…
“The Republican Party has spent years railing against Latinos and immigrants, trying to incite fear. Congressman Steve King called undocumented immigrants drug dealers. He described their bodies in a very negative, ugly way,” Reid said on the floor. “Now Donald Trump is saying the same thing. Donald Trump is the ultimate fulfillment of the Republican Party’s legacy of obstruction and resentment.”
* Michael Grunwald made a very similar case on twitter yesterday. Here’s a sample, but you can read the whole series at Storify.
22) This is maybe a long-winded way of saying that Republicans have reaped what they sowed, but what they sowed wasn’t right-wing policies.
— Michael Grunwald (@MikeGrunwald) March 1, 2016
23) The GOP has strayed not only from its policy principles but from policy period. It’s been all about branding and marketing and fighting.
— Michael Grunwald (@MikeGrunwald) March 1, 2016
24) Now they might nominate someone who’s awesome at branding and marketing and fighting. They’re unhappy about it, and they should be. END
— Michael Grunwald (@MikeGrunwald) March 1, 2016
* Nope. No racism here. Move right along. Simply another unprecedented move from a few Republicans.
On days when the House of Representatives does not have much to do by way of work, the body names post offices. Usually these are fairly mundane affairs, the body will unanimously vote to approve the naming of a post office no matter what member puts the request forward.
That was the case today when a vote to rename a post office in California to “Medal of Honor” post office passed 381-0.
However, it was not for the next vote, cast to rename a post office in Winston-Salem, N.C. after Civil Rights icon Maya Angelou. That measure passed with only 371 votes.
Nine Republicans voted against the Maya Angelou bill and one voted present.
* Finally, Markos Moulitsas has written a sentence that every Democratic activist and/or politician should mount on their wall.
You do not build a liberal movement by bringing together white people, then hoping that people of color come along for the ride. You start with those communities of color.
