Tag: conservative political action conference
Lara Trump

Trump's Handpicked Co-Chair: 'In America, We Get Ahead By Merit Alone'

The annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, got under way on Thursday. One of the big names on the stage was none other than Donald Trump’s sycophant daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who is also the oft-indicted former president’s hand-picked candidate for co-chair of the Republican National Committee. She gave a pretty standard let’s-go-Donald-Trump speech, filled with some grade-school jingoism and an astonishing lack of self-awareness.

After throwing some red meat to the GOP base by bringing up the fabricated epidemic of trans student athletes, Lara made this extraordinary claim about her daughter: “I want her to understand that in the United States of America, we get ahead and succeed by merit and merit alone.”

That’s a truly rich statement coming from the former Lara Yunaska who, to repeat, was just endorsed as co-chair of the RNC by her powerful father-in-law, even though her main qualification seems to be her last name—unless her experience as a TV producer, Trump campaign surrogate, and Fox News talking head is supposed to count.

Lara’s seeming delusion about what constitutes a meritocracy is shared by others in her family. Who could forget when Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka bragged about her childhood business acumen—which amounted to her extorting the maids and butlers working for her father?

The Trump family epitomizes how being a failure at virtually everything you do means nothing when you are born (or married) rich.

Democratic voters know Joe Biden is old and MAGA voters like to pretend that Trump isn't just as long in the tooth. Both men were old the last time we did this and the only thing that’s changed is Biden is now a successful incumbent, while Trump is busy juggling trials and indictments.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

'#Notinvited': CPAC Declares Muppets Won't Be Welcome At Next Year's Conference

'#Notinvited': CPAC Declares Muppets Won't Be Welcome At Next Year's Conference

Reprinted with permission from DailyKos

Republicans have expanded their list of people to hate on to include muppets. Last Thursday, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) posted not one but two tweets that barred Elmo, Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie from attending their conference. That's right: CPAC took to Twitter to remind fictional characters they were not invited to a conference they have never been invited to before.

While they are wacky enough not to need a reason to randomly tweet at puppets, these conservatives were allegedly triggered by a tweet shared by Big Bird's Twitter account encouraging children to be vaccinated.

"I got the COVID-19 vaccine today!" Big Bird's tweet read. "My wing is feeling a little sore, but it'll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy."

Following the tweet, Sen. Ted Cruz amongst other right-wing minions took to accusing Sesame Street of pushing "government propaganda," but of course CPAC had to take it further: They decided not only to shame and ban Big Bird, but come after the whole crew.

I doubt that the Muppets ever had plans to come to the conference in Orlando, but the fact that CPAC even thought to tweet it is hilarious. One tweet even featured the hashtag #notinvited. We get it, you don't want Muppets at your conference, CPAC.

Not to mention they even made flyers with images of the Muppets to enforce the ban. They must really have a lot of time on their hands.


But Big Bird advocating getting vaccinated is not the only issue CPAC has with the Muppets. After PBS announced that its newest cast member to join Sesame Street was Asian, CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp shared his disapproval.

"What race is Ernie is Bert," Schlapp tweeted. "You are insane PBS and we should stop funding you."


But a tweet wasn't all Schlapp did to complain about the show's newest Muppet. He was so concerned that he had to go on Fox and Friends First.

"I grew up watching, and it wasn't ever about race. It was about learning lessons and learning to read and learning tolerance," Schlapp said. "And they want to inject race."

He also dove into the topic of gender.

"And by the way, this whole question about gender into everything, one of the Muppet characters had a son, and the son wanted to be a daughter, and they just won't stop with their push for woke politics," Schlapp said.

When asked by NBC News about his stance and why he wanted to defund PBS due to Sesame Street, Schlapp stood his ground and even took some stabs at National Public Radio (NPR), a publicly funded nonprofit media outlet, accusing the organization of wanting to "be in arms in the socialist movement."

"Sesame Street needs to go back to the time when a show was devoted to a letter in the alphabet, and not the latest woke fad," he told NBC News. "We all loved Bert and Ernie without the foggiest idea of the racial demographic they may have represented. Afterall, Ernie is orange. The taxpayers deserve a big rebate. If PBS and NPR want to be in arms in the socialist movement, they need to pay their own way."

While PBS receives some public funding, it is also significantly funded through private donations and grants.

The conservative hate isn't new to PBS, though. According to The New York Times, since its earliest days, PBS has been accused of liberal bias by conservatives including President Richard Nixon, who criticized the public broadcasting channel during his presidency.

Sesame Street has been making headlines for years, not only with its advocacy of increasing participation in the census, but the promotion of conversations regarding health, inclusion, and race.

The Muppet has been praised for letting Asian American children see a character like themselves on screen, but Schlapp slammed PBS.

Of course, like any other time a conservative takes their stupidity to Twitter, Twitter users had something to say about CPAC's outrageous tweets. Most of the retweets the organization had were from those mocking them.

Honestly, good for the Muppets. Who wants to attend CPAC anyway? At least we got some laughs from these tweets.

Ramble On: At CPAC, Trump Rants Until Auditorium Starts To Empty

Ramble On: At CPAC, Trump Rants Until Auditorium Starts To Empty

When Donald Trump showed up for his annual appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington on Saturday afternoon, he must have anticipated a happy ending to a very bad week. Here seated before him were thousands of buzzing cult followers, eager to rise and applaud repeatedly even as he rambled on inanely for hours. Scheduled to speak for 50 minutes, according to the CPAC schedule, Trump just couldn’t tear himself away from the “love” in that big hotel ballroom, as he put it. So he just didn’t stop for a long, long time.

Well before he finally did stop, however, people started to stream out of the ballroom — just around the moment when his meandering remarks turned to crowd size, one of his favorite topics. It was amazing to hear him boast that nobody had left while he spoke, even as he watched them walking out the doors — and then to hear him predict that the media would report people had left, as if it were untrue. (At that point, someone in the rear yelled, “Fake news!”)

That scary little moment showed again how Trump gaslights his base and how susceptible they are to his tricks. No doubt those who walked out while he was talking would later agree with the president that nobody had out. Anyone who laments the loss of presidential dignity would find no agreement among these fine people, bless their hearts. They jump up and cheer when they hear him scream “Bullshit!” and “We kicked their ass!”

As for the speech itself, we’ve all heard most of this guff before. Trump remains obsessed with many of the same matters that have preoccupied him for years, from the number of rubes who attended his inauguration to his theory that tariffs can make America rich. At first, the speech text focused on trade policy — with Trump hilariously claiming that he personally had “found” several dusty US statutes that justified his tariffs — but soon veered “off script.” He had won the presidency by going off script, he gibed, and he isn’t about to change.

Perpetually self-indulgent, Trump just lets it all hang out. And in recognition of that stream-of-consciousness style, let’s not pretend that he delivered a coherent speech at CPAC — and instead, simply note a series of moments:

Early on he reminded us that his election in 2016 “was the greatest of all time.”

He reasserted the wisdom of firing FBI director James Comey, a “bad cop” who “did a horrible job…Everybody hated him.”

He wanted to be sure we know all the reasons why Robert Mueller should not be investigating him, including that he wanted to be FBI director, that “Comey is his best friend…and those are a few of the conflicts.”

When the Supreme Court overturns Obamacare, he promised, “we will get together with the Democrats” to bring America “really great health care.” (That sounds very familiar.)

Blasting the “socialist” Democrats, he explained: “Socialism is only about one thing. Socialism is about power for the ruling class.” (But obviously it’s not socialism to appoint a cabinet of billionaires.)

He renewed his ridiculous claim that Mexican drug cartels flourish because ICE “doesn’t have a border wall behind them.”

Mocking Senators, including Republicans, he lispingly noted that they’re “concerned about precedent” set by his national emergency declaration. Well, he’s concerned about murderers and rapists flooding across the border.

By the way, we have to fix “our broken immigration system,” especially “chain migration.” Please don’t tell Grandpa Drumpf — or Melania’s parents.

He complained that media saw midterm election as “a humiliating defeat” for him, when it was truly a great victory. “I wasn’t running!” he cries. (Although he told everyone to vote as if he was.)

Never ever call those other people “the Democratic party,” Trump instructed. Always call them “the Democrat party” — because “it sounds bad.” (He’s really a “conservative” now, see?)

There can be no collusion, he argued, because Melania once said: “You never spoke to anyone from Russia, darling!” (OK, forget collusion. Does anyone believe she called him “darling”?)

The failed summit with Kim Jong Un was “very productive…And we haven’t given him anything yet.” (Except for exactly what the dictator wanted.)

We should feel sorry for Trump, not the Warmbier family, according to the president. Although he lampooned their suffering, he loves the Warmbiers, including their late son Otto. But he needed to suck up to Kim, whose regime tortured Otto to death. “I’m in a horrible position,” Trump said.

You can read the whole thing here, if you have those tendencies.

Conservatives Shunning Breitbart Provocateur Milo Over Pedophilia Tape

Conservatives Shunning Breitbart Provocateur Milo Over Pedophilia Tape

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A leading U.S. conservative conference rescinded its invitation to provocative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos and a publisher canceled his book deal on Monday after old internet videos of him recirculated in which he discusses pedophilia.

Yiannopoulos, in a Facebook video post, denied he ever condoned pedophilia and said one video of him was edited to give a misleading impression.

Yiannopoulos, a Briton who is celebrated by some arch conservatives, was banned from Twitter last year after making highly controversial statements. He has infuriated liberals with provocative comments on race, religion and sex and appears to delight in his ability to offend.

The chairman of the American Conservative Union, which sponsors the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, said on Sunday the group rescinded an invitation to this year’s Wednesday-Saturday event “due to the revelation of an offensive video in the past 24 hours condoning pedophilia.”

“We realize that Mr. Yiannopoulos has responded on Facebook, but it is insufficient,” Matt Schlapp, chairman of the union, said in the Twitter post.

CPAC is a high-profile annual gathering of conservative activists. President Donald Trump is among the scheduled speakers this year along with Vice President Mike Pence, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and senior Trump adviser Stephen Bannon. Yiannopoulos is also an editor for the right-wing Breitbart News, which Bannon once headed.

Earlier this month, the University of California canceled Yiannopoulos’ speaking engagement on the Berkeley campus when violent protests against his appearance broke out.

Trump, in response, threatened on Twitter to cut off federal funding for the university.

The latest controversy stems from a video in which Yiannopoulos seems to suggest the standard for pedophilia is whether the younger partner has gone through puberty.

At another point in the video, however, Yiannopoulos says the established age of consent, which is 16 to 18 years old in the United States, is “about right.”

In his Facebook statement on Monday, Yiannopoulos denied condoning pedophilia.

“I find those crimes to be absolutely disgusting. I find those people to be disgusting,” he said, while expressing regret he used the word “boys” instead of young men while discussing the benefits of relationships between men with large age differences.

Book publisher Simon & Schuster said it canceled the publication of Yiannopoulos’ book Dangerous, which was due out on June 13.

“After careful consideration @simonschuster and its @threshold_books have cancelled publication of Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos,” spokesman Adam Rothberg said on Twitter.

Yiannopoulos acknowledged in a separate Facebook post: “They canceled my book.”

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Peter Cooney)