The Commentariat -- Sept. 16, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Honest to Pete, the New York Times thinks this is top-o'-the-page breaking news: "Donald J. Trump publicly retreated from his 'birther' campaign on Friday, acknowledging that President Obama was born in the United States and saying that he wanted to move on from the conspiracy theory that he has been clinging to for years.... Mr. Trump also falsely accused Hillary Clinton of having first raised questions about Mr. Obama's birthplace during the 2008 Democratic primary." At the end of the story, we read, "In a speech in Washington on Friday before Mr. Trump made his statement, Mrs. Clinton said that Mr. Trump owes Mr. Obama and the country an apology and that it is too late for him to walk back what he has done. 'For five years he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president,' Mrs. Clinton said. 'His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie.' She added, 'There is no erasing it in history.'" -- CW ...
... The Washington Post makes Clinton's critique of Trump's birtherism a stand-alone story. -- CW ...
... Eli Stokols of Politico: "Donald Trump did not apologize Friday for driving one of the uglier, most blatantly racist narratives in American political culture during the Obama presidency. The most prominent proponent of the birther movement..., [Trump] instead lied about his role in conspiracy theory's popularity and, without any evidence, attempted to pin the blame on Hillary Clinton. With the first general election debate 10 days away, Trump attempted to neutralize a likely Clinton attack line ' that he spent five years questioning the American citizenship of the country's first African-American president. Trump's concession to reality came only after he leveraged the spectacle of his walk-back into 30 minutes of live cable coverage that served as a branding opportunity for his new Trump Hotel in Washington -- where the event was held -- and for himself.... After the event, Trump led a small pool of still photographers and television crews on a tour of his hotel. But when the print pooler was excluded from the tour, the networks voted to pull their camera and erase the footage." -- CW ...
... CW: This is the second time in two days that members of the press have revolted against Trump's manipulations. See the story linked below by Eli Stokols & Hadas Gold of Politico. ...
... ** Libby Nelson of Vox: "Donald Trump promised a major statement about his embrace of conspiracy theories about President Obama’s birthplace. Instead, he fooled the three major cable news networks into airing a 20-minute infomercial about his hotel and his candidacy. With the 'breaking news' chyron on, MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN played footage of veterans praising Trump and Trump praising his own hotel. And then Trump showed up on stage for less than two minutes to say that Obama was born in the United States. This is what people mean when they complain about how 'the media' has covered the Trump campaign." -- CW ...
... Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Mr. Obama's citizenship was never in question. No credible evidence ever suggested otherwise.... Yet it took Mr. Trump five years of dodging, winking and joking to surrender, finally on Friday, to reality after a remarkable campaign of relentless deception that tried to undermine the legitimacy of the nation's first black president.... Surrounded by, and in many ways shielded by, decorated veterans in his new Washington, D.C., hotel, he could not resist indulging in another falsehood -- that his opponent, Hillary Clinton, had started the so-called birther movement. She did not.... [The birther lie] this lie was different from [his other lies from] the start, an insidious, calculated calumny that sought to undo the embrace of an African-American president by the 69 million voters who elected him in 2008." -- CW ...
... Andrew Prokop of Vox: "Finally, on Friday, Trump himself begrudgingly gave an extremely brief statement that "President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period,' and again dishonestly blamed [Hillary] Clinton for supposedly starting the controversy. But he shouldn't be allowed to worm out of this so easily, because birtherism is in many ways the urtext of Trump's presidential campaign. It demonstrates his willingness to mainstream fringe racism, his desire to flout the norms of political discourse, his ability to play the media, and his imperviousness to facts. And Trump has never truly been held to account for it during this campaign." -- CW
Robert O'Harrow, Jr., of the Washington Post: "During his run for the White House, Trump has maintained he always operated aboveboard as a real estate developer and casino operator, at a time when corruption and organized crime were rampant in New York and Atlantic City. But the details of Trump's relationships with [FBI informant Daniel] Sullivan and [FBI agent Walt] Stowe show that he worked with men with underworld connections to further and protect his business interests. In doing so, Trump risked his reputation and his dream of becoming a tycoon. He entered into a land deal with Sullivan and an organized crime figure who was later targeted for a hit. He agreed to finance Sullivan's purchase of a company under FBI investigation for racketeering. And he collaborated on a plan with Stowe and other FBI agents to allow an undercover operation at his first casino." -- CW
Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Food poisoning will make America great again! Or, at least, that's what Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appears to be banking on with a new proposal released on Thursday. Trump's campaign distributed a fact sheet outlining 'specific regulations to be eliminated.' Among other things, this fact sheet took aim at '"the FDA Food Police.'... America has already tested the idea that we can have safe foods without adequate regulation." Millhiser relates a short history of the American ketchup market. "As it turns out, the invisible hand of the market delivered moldy, rancid ketchup that used vinegar and spice to cover up the flavor of decay. It took regulation, the very kind of regulation that Trump now seems to be out to get, to enable Americans to trust their food." -- CW
*****
Presidential Race
CW: Here's a hard, depressing analysis of the electorate, with which I am inclined to agree: Charles Pierce: "Had the Republican Party nominated someone more dedicated to the hard work of demagoguery, someone more committed to the craft of being a dictator, instead of the scatterbrained dilettante currently campaigning as a performance piece, that candidate would be even money to defeat anyone the Democrats put up in opposition. A substantial portion of this country wants someone not to govern, but to rule, to defeat the imaginary enemies they have concocted so as not to bestir themselves to resist the forces that actually are working against their interest.... Largely due to the presence in it of this ridiculous man and his ridiculous campaign, the American people have proven themselves profoundly unworthy of being called citizens." ...
... CW: That is, with perhaps exceptions in a few isolated Zip codes, half (or more) of your neighbors -- people you like, people you'd invite over for a Sunday barbecue -- are pathetic, ignorant jerks.
Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "A rested Hillary Clinton returned to the campaign trail [in Greensboro, N.C.,] on Thursday after three days of recovering at home from pneumonia, and vowed a different approach on the final stretch of the campaign, one more focused on her own positive vision for the country, rather than eviscerating her rival.... 'People like me, we're lucky,' she [said.] 'When I'm under the weather, I can afford to take a few days off. Millions of Americans can't.'" --CW ...
... Abby Phillip & Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton returned to the campaign trail on Thursday..., giving an address on improving the welfare of children and families that is part of an effort by the Democratic candidate to refocus the presidential race on her credentials.... Clinton said that being off the trail gave her time to reflect on the core issues that brought her into public service in the first place. She noted that many families aren't able to take paid time off in the event of sickness.... 'I have met so many people living on a razor's edge -- one illness away from losing their job; one paycheck away from losing their home.'... 'I want to give Americans something to vote for, not just against,' Clinton later told reporters traveling with her. 'We are offering ideas, not insults,' she said. 'Plans that will make a difference in people's lives.'" -- CW
Abby Phillip: "Hillary Clinton denounced Donald Trump for his continued refusal to acknowledge that President Obama was born in the United States. 'He was asked one more time: "Where was President Obama born?" And he still wouldn't say Hawaii. He still wouldn't say America,' Clinton said at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gala dinner in Washington. 'This man wants to be our next president? When will he stop this ugliness, this bigotry?'" CW: See Robert Costa's report below.
Jonathan Martin & Amy Chozick: "Hillary Clinton and her Democratic allies, unnerved by the tightening presidential race, are making a major push to dissuade disaffected voters from backing third-party candidates, and pouring more energy into Rust Belt states, where Donald J. Trump is gaining ground.... Her campaign and affiliated Democratic groups are shifting their focus to those voters, many of them millennials, who recoil at Mr. Trump ... but now favor the Libertarian nominee, Gary Johnson, or the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein." -- CW ...
... Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "Hillary Clinton, the 68-year-old Democratic nominee for president, has a problem with young voters, and she's turning to the big guns for help: 75-year-old Bernie Sanders and 67-year-old Elizabeth Warren. The Clinton campaign is sending those two liberal senior citizens on a college tour of Ohio this weekend in a bid to whip up enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket among millennials." CW: Couldn't the campaign have added Sherrod Brown to the team, who at 63, is only 43 years older than the average college student? Also, too, his librul creds are unimpeachable. He was my first pick for president this year. Instead, they're sending Chelsea Clinton into Ohio, whose vapidity would be unmatched among candidates' offspring in most races where Donald Trump is not running. ...
... Jim Newell of Slate outlines the many, many reasons, both practical & ideological, the kids should not vote for Gary Johnson. CW: I'm guessing all they know about him is that he's pro-weed. They should see the rest of his platform.
** Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Paul Waldman: "If you dropped into our presidential campaign last weekend knowing nothing about it, you probably would have been puzzled at why everyone was making such a big deal out of the fact that one of our major party nominees got light-headed one day -- the result, we later learned, of pneumonia and probably dehydration, conditions that are easy to treat. What exactly was so momentous about this event, that it should have the news media so worked up? The answer is just about everything that's wrong with the way the 2016 campaign has been covered." CW: Please read on.
I don't care. My facts are good. My facts are good. I don't get enough credit for having my facts right. They'll say I'm wrong even when I'm right. -- Donald Trump, on the possibility debate moderators will fact-check the candidates ...
... Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump said in an interview [in Canton, Ohio,] that he remains unwilling to say that President Obama was born in the United States, that he is more bullish than ever on his chances to win and that he is not exploring the launch of a new media company in case he loses the race.... 'I'll answer that question [about Obama's birthplace] at the right time,' Trump said. 'I just don't want to answer it yet.'... In the interview, Trump defended his wife's immigration history; attacked targets including CNN host Anderson Cooper and Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.); and said he had been 'respectful' since Clinton fell ill but 'that doesn't mean that I'm going to stay there.'... Since Clinton fell ill Sunday..., Trump has been mixed in his responses. He has sounded taunting in some of his recent remarks.... 'The alt-right. You know they came up with the term "alt-right,"' Trump said, blaming Clinton and her allies, although the term has been used within the movement for years.... Trump said [Dr. Harold] Bornstein's letter will be the final document that he will release on his health before the election.'" CW: It's nice to see that Costa, who is a right-wing guy, is fact-checking Trump. ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: Meanwhile, "... Trump's campaign said that [Trump] acknowledged [that President Obama was born in the U.S.], in a statement that was itself riddled with falsehoods." First, the statement repeatedly blamed Hillary Clinton for putting the issue out there, which is false. Then it claimed Trump was an heroic "closer" for forcing Obama to release his long-form birth certificate. BTW, in a December 2013 tweet, Trump suggested the president had had Hawaii's health director killed in a plane crash to cover up the fact that the birth certificate was a fake. And as recently as December 2014, Trump was still claiming the birth certificates Obama produced were fakes. CW: So, um, if Obama's birth certificates are fakes, how is that a win for our heroic closer?
Michael Finnegan of the Los Angeles Times: "Donald Trump released a new doctor’s letter Thursday saying he is 'in excellent physical health,' but offered limited details about his medical history apart from his use of a drug that lowers cholesterol.... Trump's campaign released a statement claiming incorrectly that Trump was 'setting records for number of events, size of crowds, and breadth of travel on the campaign trail.' Presidential candidates routinely travel more than Trump does, and President Obama's crowds in 2008 were far larger than Trump's. For months, Trump has said Clinton lacks the strength and stamina to lead the nation. 'We are pleased to disclose all of the test results which show that Mr. Trump is in excellent health, and has the stamina to endure -- uninterrupted -- the rigors of a punishing and unprecedented presidential campaign and, more importantly, the singularly demanding job of president,' his statement said." -- CW ...
... Max Rosenthal of Mother Jones: "The letter Donald Trump released on Thursday from his longtime physician, Dr. Harold Bornstein, featured one strange-but-Trumpian detail: his testosterone level. That unusual data point got big applause when Trump appeared on the Dr. Oz Show on Tuesday, seemingly fueling his self-proclaimed case that he's in excellent health and feels like Tom Brady. According to Dr. Vito Imbasciani, a urologist who's the current president of the Los Angeles County Medical Association, testosterone would not normally be ordered as part of a routine physical or health checkup." Imbasciani said there were two reasons that a person would get a testosterone test: if there was a concern about (1) his bone density or (2) infertility. He said Trump's testosterone level, as reported in Dr. Bornstein's letter, "perfectly, absolutely, boringly average and normal." "Imbasciani does say the public should take Bornstein's word with a grain of salt given Bornstein's apparent exaggerations about his credentials. 'He's not telling the truth about his credentials,' Imbasciani says. 'Therefore anybody, doctor or not, would have to question what he says.'" ...
... CW: The obvious point is that Hillary Clinton likely has a much lower testosterone level, making her unfit to be president. I suspect that Trump sought the presidency as a reaction to his horror at his waning virility. There are photos of Trump -- like the one above & in the Heil Trump pic to the right -- where he appears to have a "widow's stoop," or "dowager's hump," which is indicative of osteoporosis. Just saying. Too bad these photos aren't producing left-wing conspiracy rants -- "Trump is Falling Apart!", "Likely to Crack Any Minute!" "Dense Head; Undense Body".
Nothing Is Sacred. Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: Speaking on Fox "News," "Donald J. Trump said on Thursday that the pastor who interrupted his remarks at an African-American church in Flint, Mich., was 'a nervous mess' when she introduced him and that he thought 'something was up' with her.... 'Everyone plays their games, it doesn't bother me,' Mr. Trump said, claiming Pastor [Faith Green] Timmons was shaking when she came up to him.... 'The audience was saying "let him speak, let him speak,"' Mr. Trump said. 'The audience was so great.' But a pool reporter who was traveling Mr. Trump disputed his account, describing a scene where several members of the audience actually heckled Mr. Trump and questioned him about reports that he had discriminated against black people as a landlord." ...
... CW: In the Realm of the Mad Trump, the Worst Person in the World is someone who even mildly rebukes him for pulling some stunt. As contributor Diane wrote yesterday, "Trump was nearly speechless and went all wobbly when Pastor Timmons redirected him. Others should take note. Trump is a coward." Among the others gleefully taking note will be anti-American heads-of-state who can hardly wait to steamroll the Chickenshit Blowhard of the Free World. ...
... Nick Gass of Politico: "Donald Trump's newfound commitment to message discipline and restraint showed some cracks on Thursday, with [Trump ... attacking an African-American pastor who cut off his political speech in a Flint, Michigan, church.... Trump's slam on [the Rev. Faith Green] Timmons was a return to form, after the brash billionaire scorched through the Republican primary field with a steady delivery of incendiary comments about minorities, women and his GOP rivals.... [Trump] initially refrained from delivering an 'I told you so' when [Hillary] Clinton nearly collapsed after appearing at a 9/11 memorial service [during a bout of pneumonia]... But on Wednesday night, Trump apparently couldn't resist, and he again questioned Clinton's stamina during a rally in Canton, Ohio.... Trump's children also offered up some unhelpful headlines." CW: Read on. I like the parts where Trumpelthinskin Junior more-or-less walked out on a Pittsburgh WTAE reporter when the questions got tougher than "How great is the old man?", and, as we learned yesterday, Ivanka Trump did walk out on a Cosmo interviewer who wouldn't stick to questions about how pretty Ivanka's line of dresses were. See also stories about Junior's gaffes below.
Eli Stokols & Hadas Gold of Politico: "DonaldTrump on Thursday mocked his traveling press corps for being late to his rally, even though his campaign is responsible for arranging the pool's travel. 'I have really good news for you,' [he] ... told supporters [in Laconia, N.H.], according to a livestream of the rally.... 'I just heard the press is stuck on their airplane. They can't get here. I love it. So they're trying to get here now. They're going to be about 30 minutes late. They called us and said could you wait? I said absolutely not. Let's get going, New Hampshire.' While television cameras continued to roll live on the rally, still photographers already at the venue opted not to shoot any images of the event out of solidarity with their pool colleagues." Reporters were furious. "The reporters said they had yet to receive an explanation or response as to why they were left behind." -- CW
Lydia Wheeler of the Hill: "Donald Trump floated rolling back food safety regulations if he wins the White House in November.... The fact sheet [containing the proposals] was later removed from the website and a new fact sheet detailing Trump's economic agenda did not include mention of the FDA." CW: Luckily for me, I have enough land to become a subsistence farmer. Guess I'll have to lobby the town to allow chickens.
Trumpus, Aspiring War Criminal. Tim Egan: Donald Trump has "already called for war crimes -- killing family members of terrorists, torturing suspects. He would further violate the Geneva Conventions by making thieves out of a first-class military.... Under Trump's plan, American men and women would die for oil, victims of endless rounds of lethal sabotage and terror strikes.... For this kind of plunder, there is in fact a precedent for Trump's plan: Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.... Of course, the Mideast would be aflame with violent anti-Americanism if Trump's troops sat on the oil wells in the desert.... But, by then, Trump would already be at war with Iran, as he suggested in another of his overlooked recent statements.... Trump would become a war criminal, a role he seems to relish -- typical for a man who has never served a day in the military.... But Trump would have an ally in kleptocracy with his favorite world leader, the former K.G.B. operative Vladimir Putin." -- CW
Courtney Weaver of Financial Times: "Putin finds a fan base in Trump country." "Right now there are a lot of people who are very frustrated and very angry that have been cast aside. They're looking for someone to come around and be forceful ... and have someone at the helm." This is not unlike why women seem to prefer "bad boys." ~LT
Because he's got a 12,000-page tax return that would create .. financial auditors out of every person in the country asking questions that would detract from (his father's) main message. -- Donald Trump, Jr., on why Trump won't release his tax reports ...
... Matt Yglesias of Vox: "Donald Trump has thus far declined to follow the precedent set by the past 40 or so years' worth of presidential campaigns and release copies of his recent tax returns. He says the reason for this is that his returns are under audit by the IRS, an explanation that lawyers and accountants find baffling -- there's no reason audited returns can't be released to the public. Speaking to the Pittsburgh Tribune, Trump;s son cleared things up admirably. Donald Trump Jr. said the real reason Trump won't release his returns is that if he released them, then the public would get a chance to see what they say, and Trump doesn't want the public to see what they say and ask questions about it." CW: Read on: Yglesias speculates on a number of reasons Trump doesn't want the public to know what an anti-American tax cheat he is. Here's one point: "... what seems ... probable to me is that he'd like to avoid scrutiny of how much he's abused the charitable deduction to claim breaks for giveaways of little social value."
The media has been [Clinton's] No. 1 surrogate in this. Without the media, this wouldn't even be a contest, but the media has built her up. They've let her slide on every indiscrepancy, on every lie, on every DNC game trying to get Bernie Sanders out of this thing. If Republicans were doing that, they'd be warming up the gas chamber right now. -- Donald Trump, Jr., suggesting that the American media were the new Nazis
Junior's gift for Stormfront metaphors proves (again) that the one great uncovered story of this campaign is what truly horrible people these are. -- Charles Pierce ...
... Louis Nelson of Politico: "Donald Trump's campaign lashed out at the media on Thursday after some construed a comment from Donald Trump Jr. as a Holocaust joke.... Conservative independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin [wrote ] ... on Twitter that it was 'an unsurprising Nazi reference from the 'alt-right' movement's presidential campaign. This is the real Trump.' [Hillary] Clinton then ... retweet[ed] McMullin's message.... The National Jewish Democratic Council also weighed in with a statement, arguing that Trump's comments were unsurprising given his campaign's track record.... 'Donald Trump Jr.'s reference to gas chambers is outrageous....'... But Trump spokesman Jason Miller said..., 'The liberal dishonest media is so quick to attack one of the Trumps that they never let the truth get in the way of a good smear....'" ...
... CW: So McMullin, Clinton & the NJDC are part of the "liberal dishonest media"? As for Pierce's commentary, guess what the chances are we'll see a front-page headline "Donald Trump and Family Are Horrible People, Analysis Indicates."
Other News & Views
Paul Krugman: Middle-class incomes rise, thanks to "socialist, redistributionist" Obama. -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "Officials in Columbus, Ohio, appealed for calm, patience and investigative help Thursday, hours after a white police officer fatally shot a 13-year-old African-American boy who had apparently brandished a firearm that was later determined to be a BB gun. Speaking at a news conference, the mayor, the police chief and other officials offered few details about what led to the death Wednesday night of the teenager, Tyree King. They cautioned that the investigation, which will be presented to a grand jury, will not be quick. So far, they said, they do not know of any video recording of the shooting." -- CW ...
... The Columbus Dispatch story is here.
News Lede
New York Times: "Edward Albee, widely considered the foremost American playwright of his generation, whose psychologically astute and piercing dramas explored the contentiousness of intimacy, the gap between self-delusion and truth and the roiling desperation beneath the facade of contemporary life, died Friday at his home in Montauk, N.Y. He was 88." -- CW
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Reader Comments (22)
Grumpy says "my facts" as one might say "my socks". There doesn't seem to be the understanding that facts are immutable, not something one owns. This is a common psychological stumbling block for babies and small children who have become aware of themselves as creatures in the world. They make sense of the world only as it relates to themselves.
Thus Trump can promise to send deportation squads from house to house, dragging people out in chains, separating parents from children and disrupting millions of lives across multiple generations and still describe such actions as humane. It's how he can use other people's money for charitable donations and still claim credit for the gift. It's how he can, literally hours after a kindly pastor rescues him from what could have been one of the more embarrassing scenes in a campaign fraught with such incidents, go on to describe that woman as fearful or unhinged or attempting to undermine him.
Dunno about you kids, but I'm not looking forward to a tantrum prone 4 year old with a access to the nuclear codes if he doesn't get his bawbaw on time.
@Akhilleus: You've put your finger on it, thanks to Trump's unintentionally revealing locution. Trump's intellectual & psychological development stopped when he was a toddler. I was wondering about his signature lying, as I wasn't sure that toddlers told lies, but I looked it up on the Googles, and they do. Many do it a lot.
Meanwhile, as Paul Waldman writes in the piece linked above,
"Donald Trump — a bigot and a con man who appeals to the worst instincts of the worst people, who neither knows nor cares how government works, who encourages violence and promises to commit war crimes, who lies so often and so blatantly that it's positively pathological, who has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's the most loathsome human being to have been nominated by a major party in living memory — Donald freaking Trump stands a reasonably good chance of being elected president of the United States and thus becoming the most powerful human being on Earth, and news outlets are running pieces on 'Hydrated Hillary: 9 times Clinton quenched her thirst.'"
Marie
Trevor Noah had Bill Clinton on his show last night. Worth watching:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-clinton-donald-trump-daily-show_us_57db6aaae4b0071a6e066993?section=&
You get a job, and you get a job, and you get a job...in fact, if newly-hired worked three full time jobs— in the reopened coal mines (who needs sleep) one still can't get to Trump's numbers.
John Schoen CNBC: Analysis: Trump's 25 Million New Jobs Promise Doesn't Add Up "nothing plus nothing" ...highlights the magical numbers in Trump jobs plan. To do this, he'd have to add 300,000 jobs per month for the next ten years.
In March, American Action Forum, a center-right policy institute led by former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin (Yeh! him.), estimated it would take between $100 billion and $300 billion to arrest and remove "all undocumented immigrants residing in the country, a process that we estimate would take 20 years," the group said.
Schoen adds: "Without a wave of new immigrants entering the American workforce, Trump will have a hard time finding enough workers to fill those jobs."
Guess this must be one of Trump's indiscrepancies* (sic)!!
*(reference: Donald J. Trump, Jr.).
The Trump Foundation, a criminal enterprise.
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/09/trump_is_the_gift_that_keeps_on_giving_sheneman_ca.html
When is there going to be a serious investigation of this thief?
He gets a fine for using his 'foundation' to bribe.
The fake Foundation, the fake University.
The Star Ledger made one mistake. They called him P.T. Barnum.
Actually it's Bernie Madoff for POTUS.
And of course if he got dehydrated this would be a real national scandal.
And given Waldman's assessments (and ours) where the hell does that leave us? Obviously there are "thousands and thousands" of people who disagree, who are Trump voters, who, in our estimation, are ill informed, misinformed, and all the other labels we can hang on them. And we DON"T hang with them––we all probably know those who think different politically (and otherwise) and many of you like me have them in your own family–––but we tend to fraternize with like minded people. The division is so great; the frustration and anger is mounting every day. When Trump first started this comic farce we were amused, then taken aback, then amazed that he was actually considered, then alarm... The fury I feel at this point is at its zenith. And I wonder how we as a country are going to mend fences, come together as a nation––and corny as that may sound, it's important that we do so. Nothing good comes from this kind of animus.
Was listening to Simon and Garfuncle's 1981 concert in Central Park on PBS last night and it brought back the headiness of earlier times when lyrics like "all gone to look for America––and again with even more emphasis––"all gone to look for America" were sung with hope, not cynicism.
Looks to me we are still looking.
WHY DOES THE UNITED STATES GIVE SO MUCH MONEY TO ISRAEL?
Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg back in April had a riveting cover story covering his intensive interview with Obama who said he believed Netanyahu could bring about a two-state solution, but was too fearful and politically paralyzed to do so. The relationship between these two leaders is icy at best. Yet, Obama leaves office having out-pledged all of his predecessors in military support for Israel.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/09/united-states-israel-memorandum-of-understanding-military-aid/500192/
Don't know if others are experiencing the same, but I notice that as Trump's numbers rise and I see more more Trump signs in our rural paradise, I think less and less of my fellow human beings and am increasingly reluctant to see or talk with anyone not a confirmed Trump detester, because there's a good chance anyone I don't already know might be so morally and intellectually empty and corrupt I don't even want to be in the same county him or her.
Another meaning for Obama withdrawal?
I don't know if it will restore some of the psychological health I seem to be losing or confirm me in my nascent hermetic habits, but beginning Monday I will be gone for a month, traveling in places where I truly won't know anyone, but will have good reason to be suspicious of everyone, so will have little incentive to scratch below the safe surface of politely distant meet and greet.
Suspecting my psychological and physical withdrawals won't take me as far as I would lik from this crazy place and its wacko denizens, I'll try to check into the land of RC sanity from time to time and dose myself with some of its good medicine for the soul.
Flying and Falling
Last night I was reading a new interpretation of an old thought experiment, the Flying Man, designed by the Persian philosopher Avicenna (I have a pet theory that in order to be a philosopher from late antiquity into the early middle ages, it was not a bad idea to have a name beginning in A: Augustine, Averroes, Avicenna, Aquinas, Abelard, Albertus Magnus, etc.).
Avicenna's experiment involved a newly created human floating in the air, deprived of all senses, no feeling, no ability to absolutely determine that he even had a body. Without digging too deeply, the point, according to Avicenna, is that at the very least, this person would be self-aware. It's a bit of a mind-body problem, one that would, centuries later, fascinate the Cartesians.
It struck me that Avicenna had in mind a rational being with a brand new, uninscribed, but also undamaged or unhinged brain. In other words, he wasn't thinking about a Trump-like creature.
Self-awareness seems to be such a given, such a natural state, and yet we now have a presidential candidate seemingly unaware of a great many things. He's aware of the Trump Wants and Desires, but he is apparently dangerously incognizant of external aspects attached to and handicapping those desires, something most of us come to understand early on and factor into our thinking.
Case in point (and there are many; this is just one), is his speech yesterday to the Economic Club of New York. Trump's proposals and promises are staggeringly stupid, astoundingly divorced from reality. He is clearly (as is evident in almost every promise he makes, from the Wall, to growing the economy) unaware of the necessity of matching goals with methods. He'll build a wall. Mexico will pay for it. He doesn't say how. No biggie. Crime will disappear minutes after he's been inaugurated (a stupendously simpleminded claim that has gotten very little scrutiny in the media--this sort of magical thinking alone should automatically remove his name from any serious consideration), but he doesn't say how.
And yesterday he promised an eye-popping 4% growth every year for the next 20 years as long as his "plan" is followed, as well as the creation of 25 million jobs.
Of course, he neglects to account for real world facts (oh, wait. I know....he's using Trump Facts), such as where will he find workers to fill all these jobs with tens of millions of baby boomers leaving the work force and birth rates on the decline (especially among whites, his chosen people), and how will he put the economy back on the level it was during the unprecedented growth experienced after WWII? Of course, he doesn't say.
"'In the post World War II period, we had very strong labor force growth — especially with women entering the workforce in large numbers,' said Chad Stone, chief economist at The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 'Especially in the absence of immigration, those demographic trends are going to be impossible to replicate.'"
But Trump has ruled out immigration for years. Sounds like a problem, don't it?
"Without a wave of new immigrants entering the American workforce, Trump will have a hard time finding enough workers to fill those jobs."
So, Trump promises enormous growth and unprecedented job creation. But he can't do it without immigration which he has deemed a non-starter. Not only that, many of the jobs created after WWII were industrial-manufacturing jobs, most of which are long gone and won't be coming back.
The fact that he is so blind to the implications and ramifications of the combined effects of his various promises and "policy" pronouncements, such as they are, reminds us of just how un-self-aware he is. All of which offers further proof of how dramatically different Trump is as both a candidate and a normal human being. This isn't just a lack of critical thinking ability, it's something deeper, more fundamental.
At which point I'm reminded that another name for Avicenna's thought experiment is perfect for Trump's condition: The Falling Man.
Oh, do I identify with Ken's first paragraph! I am beyond hanging my mouth open at the things people say and think and who support the Dumpster...it boggles... My next-door neighbor has a Trump sign out and every dang time I return to my house, I have to pass the thing. So, when I sell my house, that is the first realtor that does NOT get a crack at it...she already had a fit when the neighbor on the other side did not give her the listing of her house. I won't even give another person with Dumpster love a smile. It's like not tolerating someone from an evangelistic religion I disapprove of, I guess! (I know-- I am an anti-Trump bigot!) But this is a crisis now-- thanks "librul" media--
And PD-- lordie, I am right there with you. Netunyahoo (ha!) is horrible and yet, we give them award-winning amounts of money. What's up with that??
Crazy Town, USA
There are many towns located in every Red State in the nation, populated by the insane, the rude, the stupid, the uneducated who think they're smart, gun knobbers, birthers, secessionists, and Trump voters, which may be a redundant designation.
The imminent horror of a Trump presidency should not blind us to the fact that there are thousands of mini-Trumps in charge of things they have no business running, like states.
Take, for instance, the state of Kentucky, run by a sleazy ex-businessman with a thing for tax evasion, a 'bagger boy who came into the state and immediately dismantled one of the best ACA health exchanges in the country, one that gave tens of thousands of state residents insurance coverage for the first time in their lives. It's gone now. Why? Black president, that's why.
But now the possibility of a woman president, and worse, one named Clinton, has the whackos up in arms. Literally.
At the recent Values Voter Summit (such a great name for a collection of cuckoos spouting treason and Jesus in the same breath), Governor Matt Bevin shouted that if Hillary Clinton is elected president, "some people" will have to be murdered. And I am not making this up. With the regularity of explosive diarrhea from a bout of dysentery, Bevin, like so many gun knobbers before him, ignorantly cherry picks a Jefferson quote, the one about the tree of liberty being watered by the blood of tyrants and patriots, and uses it to whip up a frenzy of gun action by "the second amendment people" as Trump calls the nuts, against the possibility of a duly and legally elected president he doesn't particularly care for.
She may need to be killed. Along with plenty of others. Even Trump has suggested that killing Hillary Clinton may be the only way to keep wingnut order intact.
This is what passes for leadership on the right.
After the backlash, Bevin sniffed that it's pretty clear that liberals whining about a little case of murder are simply not smart enough to realize that he was quoting the Great Thomas Jefferson, of Founders, Inc (™).
But it's actually Bevin who is the ignorant one.
Jefferson's quote is taken out of context, as it always is with these people. It had to do with Shay's Rebellion. But Jefferson changed his mind over time. Madison, who wrote the second amendment, had this rebellion expressly in mind. It's the sort of action (armed rebellion) regularly discussed by gun knobbers and Trumpbots and governors who advocate murder of their enemies as "tyrants". But Madison wrote the second amendment and included provisions for a standing army in order to handle rebellions whipped up by rabble rousers, like Bevin and Trump, for their own purposes. Article one, section 8 of the Constitution has a provision for "...calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions."
Here's an excellent review of real history, as opposed to invented, wishful 'bagger history.
If you want to get all originalist (and this is why people like Scalia conveniently ignore that part about a "well regulated militia"), Madison's intent was to provide for the suppression of exactly the sort of thing Bevin is advocating.
So much for historical knowledge.
But this is the sort of dangerous, crazy talk, ignorant of actual history or what the Constitution actually provides for, going on in many corners of the Crazy Towns in this country.
Many residents of which will be voting for the Crazy Man.
Akhilleus and Jeanne,
In my hurried attempt to convey this morning's dudgeon, see I omitted five letters. Here they are: w-i-t-h and e. (I feel a bit better now.)
And my problem is not so much the crazy towns (Anne and I will be visiting very red [better dead than red, anyone?] states) but the crazy neighbors, many of whom seem sane enough until those Trump signs sprout in their yards or they make some disparaging remark about HRC, implying the pox is equal on both sides, thereby demonstrating a depth of idiocy that makes this one teeter on the edge of despair.
I recall a statement earlier this year about "secret" Trump voters who didn't want to advertise themselves. Like the bit in yesterdays comments om the absence of Clinton signs in Oregon I have the same thing here in North Florida. I'm honestly afraid to put one out. So how many "secret" Clinton voters are out there?
The fact that the GOP's leader is not being completely hammered by the media for having drug out his very deplorable "birther" conspiracy this long is another example of the very sad state mass media finds itself in today. They provide the him, again, wall to wall coverage so he can announce something that everyone living in reality already knows. And after congratulating himself for having achieved nothing but racial divisions and disrespecting one of our finest modern Presidents, he just up and leaves! No questions taken from the nasty press corps, but thanks for the free publicity you wankers. He is running circles around the journalists and manipulating the media like the professional con artists he has morphed himself into.
And like everyday, the media falls in line behind the side show antics.
Like this gem from Nick Gass in Politico above: " Trump’s newfound commitment to message discipline and restraint showed some cracks on Thursday..."
Newfound commitment you say? What constitutes a commitment these days? As Marie has pointed out, those paying attention haven't seen a single day that the Trumpster fire had received more gasoline. And his new persona is revealing "cracks" you say? He has been attacking everyone since day one. The only cracks revealed are those in his business dealings, policies, ability to occasionally tell the truth, and all the other cracks that reveal a seriously deranged and dangerous candidate.
Still a Liar
Looks like Donaldo finally caved on his birther lie, but because nothing is ever his fault, the announcement, using veterans as cover for his replacement lie, is that the birther controversy is Hillary Clinton's fault. Luckily for the nation, he, Trump, came along to straighten things out. "She started it. I finished it."
There simply cannot be a single atom of shame left in the universe.
Clinton was the one hawking the birther thing all along. Trump straightened her out.
Of course the lie that Clinton has ever had anything to do with Trump's birther gambit, the scam that pushed his flabby orange ass onto the national stage, there to engulf the rest of the Republican Deep Bench®, like Cretaceous bugs encased in amber, has been more thoroughly debunked than Republican claims that there was no Cretaceous period, because the earth is only 6,000 years old. I mean look over there...Marco Rubio, trapped in Trumpized tree resin. And over there, Ted Cruz. Man he still looks creepy even in that nice orange glow.
But here is Trump, with a straight face, claiming that it was all Hillary's doing.
Minds would boggle if they hadn't already long since passed the point of any additional bogglement.
Last week I drove from the east coast to the west coast, on a sort-of northern route MD-WV-OH-IN-IA-SD-WY-MT-ID-WA. I stuck to the interstates. Most of the other traffic was relatively local, judging from license plates. I saw almost no bumper stickers for any candidates, national or local. There were a few 3X5 blue Trump-Pence signs in NW Iowa. Ditto western Washington just north of Seattle. I did not see a Clinton sign, at all. There were one or two "I'm with her" bumper stickers on Whidby Island, just north of Seattle -- where the Navy old guard is shifting demographically to recent retirees from other parts of Cascadia.
Signs of any kind are rare on interstate rights-of-way, except in SD which has billboards for everything.
I live outside of Washington, D.C. It used to be common to see candidate bumper stickers in the area, but for the past five national elections (Bush-Gore to now) the practice has become rare here. Ditto for yard signs.
I have assumed that people don't feel much of a need to express their views through signage. But I also suspect that people observe a risk -- that there are enough assholes out there that people don't want to risk getting their cars keyed or their houses egged - so they don't take that risk.
Finally, putting a bumper sticker on your car these days may just be bad taste -- you don't see many "South of the Border" or "See Rock City" stickers anymore, either.
I don't think the numbers of stickers or signs convey any information about voter sentiment anymore.
Thanks to the NYT for demonstrating everything wrong with American politics. I am waiting for the headline "Trump announces the details of how he plans to create 25 million jobs".
Don't you just love how the Trump mouthpiece describes the media as smear merchants for reporting Junior's Holocaust joke? How dare they comment on his use of the Holocaust as a smartass smear of his own!
Trump-lovin media: Like a country bumpkin in the big city, marked by the con on the corner.
Now will you stop covering this guy?
Just saw a clip on MSNBC of Trump in a rally (FL?). He was on the "Clinton wants to take your 2nd Amendment rights" yada yada, which makes no sense in the first place. Then he suggested that her security give up their guns and "we can see what would happen to her." Apparently suggesting that a presidential candidate should be assasinated is not disqualifying for the presidency. I hope it brings the secret service down on him.
I saw several MSNBC shows today as I was baking copious amounts of cookies. Although the birther issue was up front news, there was no attempt to draw the nexus between white supremacy (I refuse to say alt-right) and Trump's multi year campaign to delegitimize Obama.
I believe his lashing out at Hilary about removing her security's guns, which was followed by the suggestion of assassination, is a byproduct of Trump being really angry. He's angry because he was forced to acknowledge Obama's birthplace. Last night's statement, in which he tried to assert an imagined upper hand by claiming he forced Obama to produce his birth certificate, showed his sweaty desperation. I hope the media, although way late to the party, keeps the pressure on.
I think it's a 50/50 chance he does the 1st debate and much less to do the rest. I'm anxious to see the bag of rocks Pence in the spotlight.
Good to see Maddow's focus on white supremacy tonight.
DT's newly opened hotel in The Old Post Office building in D.C.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/9/16/1570948/-Busted-The-new-Trump-hotel-in-D-C-hotel-is-filled-top-to-bottom-with-goods-made-in-China