Mike Malloy vs. a Ditto Head

Thom Hartmann at Common Dreams on the "The Two Santa Clauses"

This weekend, House Republican leader John Boehner played out the role of Jude Wanniski on NBC's "Meet The Press."

Odds are you've never heard of Jude, but without him Reagan never would have become a "successful" president, Republicans never would have taken control of the House or Senate, Bill Clinton never would have been impeached, and neither George Bush would have been president.

When Barry Goldwater went down to ignominious defeat in 1964, most Republicans felt doomed (among them the then-28-year-old Wanniski). Goldwater himself, although uncomfortable with the rising religious right within his own party and the calls for more intrusion in people's bedrooms, was a diehard fan of Herbert Hoover's economic worldview.

In Hoover's world (and virtually all the Republicans since reconstruction with the exception of Teddy Roosevelt), market fundamentalism was a virtual religion. Economists from Ludwig von Mises to Friedrich Hayek to Milton Friedman had preached that government could only make a mess of things economic, and the world of finance should be left to the Big Boys – the Masters of the Universe, as they sometimes called themselves – who ruled Wall Street and international finance.

Hoover enthusiastically followed the advice of his Treasury Secretary, multimillionaire Andrew Mellon, who said in 1931: "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. Purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down... enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people."

Thus, the Republican mantra was: "Lower taxes, reduce the size of government, and balance the budget."

The only problem with this ideology from the Hooverite perspective was that the Democrats always seemed like the bestowers of gifts, while the Republicans were seen by the American people as the stingy Scrooges, bent on making the lives of working people harder all the while making richer the very richest. This, Republican strategists since 1930 knew, was no way to win elections.

Which was why the most successful Republican of the 20th century up to that time, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had been quite happy with a top income tax rate on millionaires of 91 percent. As he wrote to his brother Edgar Eisenhower in a personal letter on November 8, 1954:

"[T]o attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything--even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon 'moderation' in government.

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt [you possibly know his background], a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

Goldwater, however, rejected the "liberalism" of Eisenhower, Rockefeller, and other "moderates" within his own party. Extremism in defense of liberty was no vice, he famously told the 1964 nominating convention, and moderation was no virtue. And it doomed him and his party.

And so after Goldwater's defeat, the Republicans were again lost in the wilderness just as after Hoover's disastrous presidency. Even four years later when Richard Nixon beat LBJ in 1968, Nixon wasn't willing to embrace the economic conservatism of Goldwater and the economic true believers in the Republican Party. And Jerry Ford wasn't, in their opinions, much better. If Nixon and Ford believed in economic conservatism, they were afraid to practice it for fear of dooming their party to another forty years in the electoral wilderness.

By 1974, Jude Wanniski had had enough. The Democrats got to play Santa Claus when they passed out Social Security and Unemployment checks – both programs of the New Deal – as well as when their "big government" projects like roads, bridges, and highways were built giving a healthy union paycheck to construction workers. They kept raising taxes on businesses and rich people to pay for things, which didn't seem to have much effect at all on working people (wages were steadily going up, in fact), and that made them seem like a party of Robin Hoods, taking from the rich to fund programs for the poor and the working class. Americans loved it. And every time Republicans railed against these programs, they lost elections.

Everybody understood at the time that economies are driven by demand. People with good jobs have money in their pockets, and want to use it to buy things. The job of the business community is to either determine or drive that demand to their particular goods, and when they're successful at meeting the demand then factories get built, more people become employed to make more products, and those newly-employed people have a paycheck that further increases demand.

Wanniski decided to turn the classical world of economics – which had operated on this simple demand-driven equation for seven thousand years – on its head. In 1974 he invented a new phrase – "supply side economics" – and suggested that the reason economies grew wasn't because people had money and wanted to buy things with it but, instead, because things were available for sale, thus tantalizing people to part with their money. The more things there were, the faster the economy would grow.

At the same time, Arthur Laffer was taking that equation a step further. Not only was supply-side a rational concept, Laffer suggested, but as taxes went down, revenue to the government would go up!

Neither concept made any sense – and time has proven both to be colossal idiocies – but together they offered the Republican Party a way out of the wilderness.

Ronald Reagan was the first national Republican politician to suggest that he could cut taxes on rich people and businesses, that those tax cuts would cause them to take their surplus money and build factories or import large quantities of cheap stuff from low-labor countries, and that the more stuff there was supplying the economy the faster it would grow. George Herbert Walker Bush – like most Republicans of the time – was horrified. Ronald Reagan was suggesting "Voodoo Economics," said Bush in the primary campaign, and Wanniski's supply-side and Laffer's tax-cut theories would throw the nation into such deep debt that we'd ultimately crash into another Republican Great Depression.

But Wanniski had been doing his homework on how to sell supply-side economics. In 1976, he rolled out to the hard-right insiders in the Republican Party his "Two Santa Clauses" theory, which would enable the Republicans to take power in America for the next thirty years.

Democrats, he said, had been able to be "Santa Clauses" by giving people things from the largesse of the federal government. Republicans could do that, too – spending could actually increase. Plus, Republicans could be double Santa Clauses by cutting people's taxes! For working people it would only be a small token – a few hundred dollars a year on average – but would be heavily marketed. And for the rich it would amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts. The rich, in turn, would use that money to import or build more stuff to market, thus increasing supply and stimulating the economy. And that growth in the economy would mean that the people still paying taxes would pay more because they were earning more.

There was no way, Wanniski said, that the Democrats could ever win again. They'd have to be anti-Santas by raising taxes, or anti-Santas by cutting spending. Either one would lose them elections.

When Reagan rolled out Supply Side Economics in the early 80s, dramatically cutting taxes while exploding (mostly military) spending, there was a moment when it seemed to Wanniski and Laffer that all was lost. The budget deficit exploded and the country fell into a deep recession – the worst since the Great Depression – and Republicans nationwide held their collective breath. But David Stockman came up with a great new theory about what was going on – they were "starving the beast" of government by running up such huge deficits that Democrats would never, ever in the future be able to talk again about national health care or improving Social Security – and this so pleased Alan Greenspan, the Fed Chairman, that he opened the spigots of the Fed, dropping interest rates and buying government bonds, producing a nice, healthy goose to the economy. Greenspan further counseled Reagan to dramatically increase taxes on people earning under $37,800 a year by increasing the Social Security (FICA/payroll) tax, and then let the government borrow those newfound hundreds of billions of dollars off-the-books to make the deficit look better than it was.

Reagan, Greenspan, Winniski, and Laffer took the federal budget deficit from under a trillion dollars in 1980 to almost three trillion by 1988, and back then a dollar could buy far more than it buys today. They and George HW Bush ran up more debt in eight years than every president in history, from George Washington to Jimmy Carter, combined. Surely this would both starve the beast and force the Democrats to make the politically suicidal move of becoming deficit hawks.

And that's just how it turned out. Bill Clinton, who had run on an FDR-like platform of a "new covenant" with the American people that would strengthen the institutions of the New Deal, strengthen labor, and institute a national health care system, found himself in a box. A few weeks before his inauguration, Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin sat him down and told him the facts of life: he was going to have to raise taxes and cut the size of government. Clinton took their advice to heart, raised taxes, balanced the budget, and cut numerous programs, declaring an "end to welfare as we know it" and, in his second inaugural address, an "end to the era of big government." He was the anti-Santa Claus, and the result was an explosion of Republican wins across the country as Republican politicians campaigned on a platform of supply-side tax cuts and pork-rich spending increases.

Looking at the wreckage of the Democratic Party all around Clinton by 1999, Winniski wrote a gloating memo that said, in part: "We of course should be indebted to Art Laffer for all time for his Curve... But as the primary political theoretician of the supply-side camp, I began arguing for the 'Two Santa Claus Theory' in 1974. If the Democrats are going to play Santa Claus by promoting more spending, the Republicans can never beat them by promoting less spending. They have to promise tax cuts..."

Ed Crane, president of the Libertarian CATO Institute, noted in a memo that year: "When Jack Kemp, Newt Gingich, Vin Weber, Connie Mack and the rest discovered Jude Wanniski and Art Laffer, they thought they'd died and gone to heaven. In supply-side economics they found a philosophy that gave them a free pass out of the debate over the proper role of government. Just cut taxes and grow the economy: government will shrink as a percentage of GDP, even if you don't cut spending. That's why you rarely, if ever, heard Kemp or Gingrich call for spending cuts, much less the elimination of programs and departments."

George W. Bush embraced the Two Santa Claus Theory with gusto, ramming through huge tax cuts – particularly a cut to a maximum 15 percent income tax rate on people like himself who made their principle income from sitting around the pool waiting for their dividend or capital gains checks to arrive in the mail – and blowing out federal spending. Bush even out-spent Reagan, which nobody had ever thought would again be possible.

And it all seemed to be going so well, just as it did in the early 1920s when a series of three consecutive Republican presidents cut income taxes on the uber-rich from over 70 percent to under 30 percent. In 1929, pretty much everybody realized that instead of building factories with all that extra money, the rich had been pouring it into the stock market, inflating a bubble that – like an inexorable law of nature – would have to burst. But the people who remembered that lesson were mostly all dead by 2005, when Jude Wanniski died and George Gilder celebrated the Reagan/Bush supply-side-created bubble economies in a Wall Street Journal eulogy:

"...Jude's charismatic focus on the tax on capital gains redeemed the fiscal policies of four administrations. ... [T]he capital-gains tax has come erratically but inexorably down -- while the market capitalization of U.S. equities has risen from roughly a third of global market cap to close to half. These many trillions in new entrepreneurial wealth are a true warrant of the worth of his impact. Unbound by zero-sum economics, Jude forged the golden gift of a profound and passionate argument that the establishments of the mold must finally give way to the powers of the mind. He audaciously defied all the Buffetteers of the trade gap, the moldy figs of the Phillips Curve, the chic traders in money and principle, even the stultifying pillows of the Nobel Prize."

In reality, his tax cuts did what they have always done over the past 100 years – they initiated a bubble economy that would let the very rich skim the cream off the top just before the ceiling crashed in on working people.

The Republicans got what they wanted from Wanniski's work. They held power for thirty years, made themselves trillions of dollars, cut organized labor's representation in the workplace from around 25 percent when Reagan came into office to around 8 of the non-governmental workforce today, and left such a massive deficit that some misguided "conservative" Democrats are again clamoring to shoot Santa with working-class tax hikes and entitlement program cuts.

And now Boehner, McCain, Brooks, and the whole crowd are again clamoring to be recognized as the ones who will out-Santa Claus the Democrats. You'd think after all the damage they've done that David Gregory would have simply laughed Boehner off the program – much as the American people did to the Republicans in the last election – although Gregory is far too much a gentleman for that. Instead, he merely looked incredulous; it was enough.

The Two Santa Claus theory isn't dead, as we can see from today's Republican rhetoric. Hopefully, though, reality will continue to sink in with the American people and the massive fraud perpetrated by Wanniski, Reagan, Laffer, Graham, Bush(s), and all their "conservative" enablers will be seen for what it was and is. And the Obama administration can get about the business of repairing the damage and recovering the stolen assets of these cheap hustlers.

Barack Hussein Obama takes Oath of Office

Randi Rhodes, Stephanie Miller, Bill Press, and Joe Madison on Supporting our Troops

Turning the Page

The "End of an Error is upon us, and while I am not a religious person, I thank the heavens above. Expectations are high for Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as they should be, but a nation that is beaten badly, is as resilient as it is behind them. We must take a look at reality here, miracles are not going to happen. Yet, having someone in place who recognizes the realities of his own life, gives us "Hope". Spending the last 8 years challenging an Administration on issues such as War, minority rights, the environment, torture, foreign policy, and a laundry list of other disasters, what can we expect?

Well, it is conceivable that an Obama White House will have us either rolling our eyes at moments, or smiling upon our country. I have always said "If I agree with someone 100% of the time, then I am the idiot", I stick by that standard. That said, I expect the incoming Administration to recognize the outrage displayed over the last number of years to influence poor decisions made. "Yes We Can" was an addictive campaign slogan, it worked, and it was all inclusive, and it had it's detractors out in droves. From old friends to family members, I heard it all. The Sean Hannity talking points, to whatever the National Review or Heritage Foundation was pushing, or even "Socialism". I truly hope we see some better days ahead of us...we need it.

It is expected by many, myself included, that nothing will come of any investigations into Dubya, and Cheney and their misdeeds. Nothing will likely transpire, which I find disheartening. Although, "looking forward" is a promise we hope to see kept, but should crimes be repeated, we need to be there. While this week is filled by honoring Martin Luther King Jr., celebrating a new era in American history, and enjoying the music of Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, Pete Seeger, and Will I. Am among others, remember this victory does belong to us. The End of an Error! As Barack Obama stated on the campaign trail..."Enough!" We heard him loud and clear and said..."Yes We Can!"

The Young Turks pick apart latest Osama Bin Laden tape

The Franken / Coleman battle for Senate seat carries on

The Minnesota Senate carries on, defeated incumbent Norm Coleman is challenging Al Franken's victory in the courts. While the slim margin of 225 votes could be realistically challenged, the fact that a recount has already been completed shows Franken the victor. The right-wing noise machine is chirping irregularities in the recount, and insist the Minnesota Supreme Court decide the matter. While attorney's from both sides are tirelessly working on their cases, the fact remains is that the people of Minnesota are without one Senator. On her own in the Senate is Amy Klobuchar (D-Mn).

What is evident in all of this, is the Republicans cannot believe they were beat by Al Franken. Hearing the right-wing pundits like Sean Hannity, Bill O' Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh, you could swear that their respective heads were exploding even saying Senator Franken. The former Saturday Night Live Star, and Air America Radio host, and liberal author Franken made a career of picking apart the disastorous decisions of the GOP. This scenario is likely to carry well into the new year, ass the courts will hear the appeals on Feb. 5th . Stay tuned.

Just when you thought he was gone

Today was to be "Dubya's " final press conference, and it was ridiculous. However, he address the country one last time on Thursday night. A primetime appearance that will be his moment where the bothersome press corps cannot ask silly questions. You know, like "Mr. President, could you talk about the alleged WMDs ?" or "Mr. President, could you reflect on any failings of your Administration?" etc.

Of course George dodged these questions as if they were size 12 loafers. When it came to Iraq, "Things didn't go according to plan" Oh really? Or Katrina "I've thought about Katrina," Ok? How about "Mission Accomplished"? "Clearly putting a mission accomplished on an aircraft carrier was a mistake," he replied when asked what he'd done wrong under his watch.
"Some of my rhetoric has been a mistake." Ok, here is the answer of the day "The question is, in the long run, will this democracy survive, and that's going to be a question for future presidents,".

Good riddance to this Son of Bitch! He went to express his gratitude to his critics, really "not hostile", really George? Are you that out of touch? In addition to his blathering today, he spoke of respecting the Constitution, ya know, the same one he called a "Goddamn piece of paper!". Well, tune in, we have one more "moment of reflection" from this President.

Help needed, misery at Michigan pound

1/7/09: Misery For Profit At Michigan Pound
This issue comes up for a vote at the commissioners meeting, 1/12/09
FOR A FORMATTED LETTER (WORD DOC), EMAIL: kinshipcircle@accessus.net
Easily modify letter. Copy/paste it into an email or print letter to fax or mail.


LT PHOTO: She was a sweet, shy yellow Lab named Liz... By all accounts, Liz
should have been adopted quickly, but for whatever reason her time ran out
at the Montcalm County animal shelter in Stanton, Michigan last week... READ
MORE ABOUT LIZ AND OTHER ANIMALS FOR SALE TO RESEARCH LABS:
Michigan Deals with the Devil, http://www.poocini.com/report/archives/964

===========================================================
FULL CONTACT INFORMATION. Sample Letter Follows
===========================================================

Many alerts currently circulating the Internet about Montcalm County's pound
seizure practice ask activists to CALL and/or SNAIL-MAIL comments, rather
than email them: "Please...write a good old-fashioned letter and copy it 9
times. Often when email is sent for something like this the commissioners
will simply hit DELETE."

STREET ADDRESS FOR ALL COMMISSIONERS:
Montcalm County Commissioners
Administrative Building, 3rd Floor
211 W. Main St.
P.O. Box 368
Stanton, MI 48888

Commissioner Marcia Walker
home: 616-754-8236; email: lloydwalker@chartermi.net

Commissioner Tom Lindeman
home: 616-754-4918; email: tblindeman@sbcglobal.net

Commissioner Ron Retzloff
home: 989-235-6827; email: comish@casair.net

Commissioner John Johansen
home: 616-754-5375; email: johm@pathwaynet.com

Commissioner Carl Paepke
home: 616-636-5692; email: johm@pathwaynet.com

Commissioner Ron Baker
home: 231-937-5465; email: rbaker68amx@hotmail.com

Commissioner Pat Carr
home: 989-352-8129; NO EMAIL

Commissioner Roger Caris
home: 989-268-5875; email: rcaris@gccmha.org

Commissioner John McCrackin
home: 989-584-3713; NO EMAIL

City of Stanton, Mayor Robert Burns
225 S. Camburn St.
P.O. Box 449
Stanton, MI 48888
ph: 989 831-4440; fax: 989-831-5756
email: mayor@cityofstantonmi.com

Montcalm County Animal Control
154 W. Quarterline St.
P.O. Box 368
Stanton, MI 48888
ph: 989-831-7355; fax: 989-831-7410

*Kinship Circle cannot guarantee validity of email addresses. During
campaigns, recipients may change or disable their email addresses. Emails
from government or corporate websites may be incorrect.

===========================================================
SAMPLE LETTER -- This letter is prepared to inform you about the issue.
Try to shorten and personalize your letter before sending.
===========================================================

Dear Montcalm County Officials:

Please do not send companion animals to research laboratories. I implore you
to cancel the county's contract with R & R Research, Inc. and never again
engage a Class B dealer to dispose of homeless animals.

Behind a lab’s closed doors, animals undergo invasive surgeries, toxic
dosing, food/water deprivation, and prolonged pain. Still, your taxpayers
subsidize pound seizure whether they like it or not. They indirectly fund
animal tests that delay medical progress with misleading results.

It is particularly irresponsible to support animal research when strides in
in-vitro technology, computer automation, and many more animal-free methods
now uncover data relevant to human health and safety.

Clearly, there is no altruism in dealing cats and dogs for research. There
is only profit. In 2006, USDA records reveal R & R Research of Howard City,
Michigan grossed $196,723 from the sale of 621 dogs and cats. Moreover, R &
R flaunts an unethical history. A 2006 USDA citation shows R & R illegally
transported dogs chained to a livestock trailer. In 2005, R & R was cited
for procuring dogs and cats from Howard City, where there is no pound.
Apparently officials sold their strays to R & R.

Before that, the Michigan Attorney General ordered R & R to pull its "animal
shelter" listing in the yellow pages. In the 1990s, a WOOD TV investigative
video portrayed R & R owners gassing animals in a corroded "CO2 barrel."

At the very least, Montcalm officials ought to be embarrassed by their
relationship with a Class B dealer. I strongly encourage you to terminate
your contract with R & R and permanently stop pound seizure -- a shady
practice abandoned by most counties nationwide.

This issue has generated worldwide publicity via the Internet. I look
forward to your feedback.

Thank you

Don't Speak...

John Ziegler, filmmaker and former talk show host believes he is onto something, suggesting the only reason Barack Obama won the election was because of media bias. Referring to it as "media malpractice", Ziegler is making a documentary, and Sarah Palin was quick to oblige. In an interview, Palin, whom we heard enough from during the campaign, chose to accuse Katie Couric and Tina Fey of "exploiting me". She also answered the tough question of what she reads, after a few months thinking about it. What can be gathered here is that, Ziegler and Conservatives would like to say it was impossible for Republicans to have lost. And Sarah Palin would like to blame everyone but herself. One thing is clear, if you thought Palin was an airhead before, it is now confirmed. Sarah....Don't speak...

Happy Friday!

While the news is saturated with criticisms of President-Elect Obama's economic plans, the burning question is "what should we do?". Costs continue to rise for working poor, and mortgages, home energy, food are showing no mercy. Unemployment is now at 7.2%, which is a sobering number to say the least, and many fear by mid 2009 the bottom will drop out. I tend to find that number misleading, since people who's benefits that expired, many stopped looking. Becoming a statistic is all but imminent for numerous workers around the country, as commercial businesses are finding themselves having to close their doors, and the
buildings remain empty.

While Obama's plans will increase the deficit, the hopes are similar to the last stimulus package, with a larger amount of monies paid out. Yet, party infighting and partisan bickering may stall the plans. Economist and liberal columnist Paul Krugman is critical of tax cuts now, Senator John Kerry, an ardent supporter of Barack Obama, suggests larger spending on infrastructure in order to create more jobs. Ron Wyden, Democratic Senator of Oregon, had this to say
"In tough times people don't respond all that well to marginal changes, such as a small amount of money added per paycheck,".

As expected, the Republicans are not swayed by the needs of the people or the country. However, some are willing to work with Democrats to create some sort of plan. They fail however to mention that a large portion of this mess, is policies that they supported. What is clear, is that the President-Elect and members of both parties recognize that something needs to be done. After Fannie-Mae & Freddie Mac, Wall St, and the Auto Industry bailout/loans, the American people are hoping for their assistance. While many pundits on the right are calling the plan a "nanny state" policy , simply cause they are not recognizing the facts on Main St. Others have seen this coming for some time.

Rachel Maddow on the Daily Show

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Rachel Maddow

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Poor little Ann Coulter

NBC canceled right-wing author Ann Coulter's appearance on the Mondays Today Show, so she appeared on the Early Show on CBS. Perhaps the launch of Media Matters campaign to point out her lies, err, mis-truths in her latest book caught the eyes of NBC's executives? Early Show host Harry Smith, opening the show with these words..."Ann Coulter is in the studio this morning. She has a brand new book ... and in it, she says that I am certifiably insane. Perhaps I am, for having her on the program this morning." As the right-wing , and GOP brand becoming increasingly insignificant, it is not hard to imagine the only place Ann Coulter and her ilk will be welcome is on Fox, alongside Sean Hannity. E.J. Dionne points out in the Washington Post, the thirty and under crowd is leaning to the left.

Thom Hartmann and Bernie Sanders discuss the Employee Free Choice Act

Senator Al Franken!

As the Minnesota Senate recount came to an end, and Democrat Al Franken is the victor...for now. The slim 225 votes, which he held over incumbent Norm Coleman is going to be challenged in court. While this was a hotly contested race, the significant result is that Minnesota now has two Senators. For Liberal Democrats, like myself, it is a joy to have the late Senator Paul Wellstone's seat filled by Al Franken. Norm Coleman's term in Senator Wellstone's seat was an insult, not because of the vile things he said over the years, but that he was President Bush's lap dog, lock-step with the agenda that has our country in a mess.

After Coleman defeated Walter Mondale for the seat following the tragic plane crash that took the Minnesota Senator's life he uttered words like
"I will be a 99% improvement over Paul Wellstone," Norm Coleman declared upon winning.
"Get over it" -Coleman on constituents grieving Paul's death

As I mentioned, declaring Al Franken the victor is going to the courts. Lawsuits are already in the works, as Coleman's lawyers are feverishly began filing in recent weeks. While the courts have favored Franken during the recount, the other issue will be the Republican Party, which numerous members have said they will fillibuster the seating. John Cornyn has stated that the Senate GOP will attempt to block the inevitable seating.






The following video is just class speaking of Paul Wellstone

Fox News? or RNC mouthpiece?

Nearly every independent, liberal, and moderate Democrat will agree, Fox News is a mouth piece for the Republican Party. Fox itself, is always offended when this fact is pointed out. Their regurgitation of RNC talking points on a regular basis has many hoping that some pepcid would be helpful. Their latest gaffe would be New Years Eve, where their ticker had the words "Let's hope the magic negro does a good job". As many know, this was initially a parody song on the Rush Limbaugh Show, and recently used as a Christmas gift for donors from Chip Saltsman.

Saltsman's hopes to become Chair of the RNC are slim after the criticism of his gift giving. For a Party that repeatedly is ridiculed for being the "party of old white men", you would think that maybe they could've of learned something over the last few years. American's are not appreciative of race-baiting.