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The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Monday
Oct102016

The Commentariat -- October 11, 2016

Afternoon Update:

He's Been Holding Back Until Now! Stephen Collinson, Eugene Scott and Eric Bradner of CNN: "Donald Trump is launching a kamikaze mission -- fracturing his own party four weeks before Election Day. The GOP nominee is lashing out in a stream of tweets boiling with rage and resentment, slamming House Speaker Paul Ryan for effectively cutting him loose and accusing the party leadership of dooming his campaign. It's a meltdown unprecedented by a presidential nominee this late in the year. 'It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to,' Trump said in a tweet that raised the prospect of a full on civil war in the Republican Party. Akhilleus: Poor Donaldo, he's been laboring in slavery so far, but now he'll really show everyone a thing or two.

Now that those shackles are off, Trump can really show those namby-pambies how real authoritarians do it: Arthur Delaney of Huffington Post. "Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) would apparently like for ... Donald Trump to rule with absolute power and squelch personal freedom. At least that's what he seemed to be saying in a radio interview Tuesday when he called for Trump to embrace authoritarianism. 'Sometimes I wondered that our Constitution is not only broken, but we need a Donald Trump to show some authoritarian power in our country and bring back the rule of law,' LePage said on a conservative radio station in Maine. 'Because we've had eight years of a president, he's an autocrat, he just does it on his own, he ignores Congress and every single day, we're slipping into anarchy.'" Akhilleus: Hmmm...so we've had eight years of authoritarian rule and what we need now is more of that, only better, because white, of course. Well, thanks for clearing that up, Guv!

More from the Trump-loving authoritarian right. This time, hopefully, from prison. Jacques Billeaud of the AP. "Prosecutors said Tuesday they will charge Sheriff Joe Arpaio with criminal contempt-of-court for defying a judge's orders to end his signature immigration patrols in Arizona, exposing the 84-year-old lawman to the possibility of jail time. The announcement in federal court sets in motion criminal proceedings against the sheriff less than a month before Election Day as he seeks a seventh term as Maricopa County sheriff. The 2016 election cycle has also seen Arpaio take a prominent role ... alongside ... Donald Trump on several occasions. A judge previously recommended criminal contempt charges against Arpaio but left it up to federal prosecutors to actually bring the case. Prosecutor John Keller said in court that the government will bring charges.... Arpaio could face up to six months in jail if convicted of misdemeanor contempt." Akhilleus: Poor Joe, persecuted for his belief in rule by billy club and racial hatred.

The Great Embarrassment. Jill Lepore of the New Yorker. "[American writer] Joe McGinniss once observed that the American voter 'defends passionately the illusion that the men he chooses to lead him are of a finer nature than he' and that 'it has been traditional that the successful politician honor this illusion.' That tradition has ended. No one in the Republican Party can possibly believe that [Donald] Trump is a better person, a man of finer nature, than the ordinary American voter. The problem for the Party is that no one, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, can even pretend to believe that anymore. No one can believe that in daylight, or in the darkest hour of night, while Trump, restless, tweets about the conspiracies that he believes are being hatched by his enemies -- men and, especially, women -- to fell him."...Akhilleus

*****

Presidential Race

Carrie Dann of NBC News: "As Donald Trump's campaign reels over tapes of the presidential candidate's sexually aggressive comments about women in 2005, the Republican nominee now trails Hillary Clinton by double digits among likely voters, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. The poll, conducted on Saturday and Sunday but before the second presidential debate, shows Clinton with 46 percent support among likely voters in a four-way matchup, compared to 35 percent for Trump." CW: Don't get cocky, people; voters have the memories of gnats.

Darrel Rowland of the Columbus Dispatch: "Before a crowd [at Ohio State U.] the [Clinton] campaign said the Secret Service estimated 18,500 when those watching from outside the secured area were counted, [Hillary] Clinton said, 'It wasn't just this one video that was so disturbing and shocking. We have seen this behavior throughout this entire campaign.... He's targeted others as well.'... Today, Ohio was moved to 'leans Democrat' from 'leans Republican' by the much-watched Crystal Ball, run by the University of Virginia's Center for Politics."

Chris Megerian of the Los Angeles Times: Hillary Clinton's "campaign is releasing a series of videos that highlight Republicans who plan to vote for Clinton." -- CW

Jose DelReal of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump continued to attack Hillary Clinton over her husband's marital indiscretions during a campaign event [in Ambridge, Pa.,] Monday, citing allegations of sexual improprieties against former president Bill Clinton while dismissing intense criticism over his own treatment of women.'As I outlined last night, Bill Clinton was the worst abuser of women ever to sit in the Oval Office. He was a sexual predator,' Trump said. 'For decades, Hillary Clinton has been familiar with her husband's predatory behavior and, instead of trying to stop him, she made it possible for him to take advantage of even more women.'" -- CW ...

... Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Trump, speaking before a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday afternoon, said he's been ganged up on ever since Friday's release of a 2005 tape that captured the billionaire speaking in incredibly crude terms about women.... Trump warned against the release of more damaging tapes of his past comments, threatening to continue attacking the Clintons over former President Bill Clinton's alleged infidelities and Hillary Clinton's response to those women's accusations if more such tapes emerge." -- CW ...

... Trump: Don't vote for Hillary because ... Chappaquiddick. Trump was reading from a teleprompter when, in an anti-media rant, he made remarks about Ted Kennedy. Who is dead. Who supported Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. CW: Funny how Trump hates womanizers, isn't it? ...

... ** CW: If you think that's incredible, Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek does us one better. Yesterday at his Wilkes-Barre, Pa., rally, Trump read from what was supposedly a leaked memo from Wikileaks' docudump of John Podesta's hacked e-mail account. According to Trump, the e-mail he read was from Hillary Clinton's long-time consigliere Sidney Blumenthal, & it implicated Clinton as responsible for the Benghaaazi affair. BUT, what Trump read to the crowd was actually a short portion of a longer article by Eichenwald condemning one of the many GOP Benghazi committees for politicizing the tragedy in Libya. And the only way that Trump could have obtained this false information was from Sputnik, the Kremlin propaganda outlet (what Eichenwald calls "Putin's mouthpiece"), which misattributed the Eichenwald citation to Blumenthal. ...

     ... "This is not funny," Eichenwald writes. "It is terrifying. The Russians engage in a sloppy disinformation effort and, before the day is out, the Republican nominee for president is standing on a stage reciting the manufactured story as truth. How did this happen? Who in the Trump campaign was feeding him falsehoods straight from the Kremlin?" -- CW ...

By Driftglass. Multiple applications.... Ed Pilkington & Lauren Gambino of the Guardian: During the Wilkes-Barre rally, Trump "praised the open-information group that acted as conduit for one of the biggest leaks of US government secrets in history: 'WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks,' he said." CW: Yup, the GOP presidential nominee is praising an arm of Putin's anti-American propaganda operation. ...

     ... ** Robert Windrem & William Arkin of NBC News: "During Sunday's debate, Donald Trump once again said he doesn't know whether Russia is trying to hack the U.S. election, despite Friday's statement by the U.S. intelligence community pointing the finger at Putin -- and despite the fact that Trump was personally briefed on Russia's role in the hacks by U.S. officials. A senior U.S. intelligence official assured NBC News that cybersecurity and the Russian government's attempts to interfere in the 2016 election have been briefed to, and discussed extensively with, both parties' candidates, surrogates and leadership, since mid-August. 'To profess not to know at this point is willful misrepresentation,' said the official. 'The intelligence community has walked a very thin line in not taking sides, but both candidates have all the information they need to be crystal clear.' On Sunday, Trump disputed the idea there was any hack at all." ...

... Alt-Reality. Margaret Hartmann of New York has more on the Sputnik-Breitbart-Trump connections. ...

... CW: It is not even speculative any more, much less wacky, to claim that Trump is an agent of the Russian government, & is himself a party to the Russians' efforts to undermine American democracy. As Eichenwald writes, "It's terrifying." This is a lot worse than his history of sexually assaulting women. It is abundantly clear now that a demagogue with less baggage could easily have been elected POTUS -- this year or at any time in the future. ...

... Washington Post Editors: "Once again, [Donald Trump] played the part of Vladimir Putin's lawyer. 'She doesn't know if it's the Russians doing the hacking,' he said of Ms. Clinton. 'Maybe there is no hacking.' Mr. Trump is receiving classified intelligence briefings, so he is certainly aware of the evidence that hackers backed by Moscow have stolen email and other records from the DNC and tried to penetrate state electoral systems. So why does he deny it?... In Sunday's debate, Mr. Trump reeled off a series of false statements about Russia's intervention in Syria, saying it was aimed at the Islamic State even though almost all of Russia's bombs have fallen on rebel groups fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad, or on civilians.... Mr. Trump's advocacy on behalf of an aggressive U.S. rival, and the opaqueness of his motivation, is one of the most troubling aspects of his thoroughly toxic campaign." The headline on the editorial: "Donald Trump, Putin's Puppet."

... Eli Stokols & Glenn Thrush of Politico: "... people close to [Donald Trump] ... say he's viewed the staggering setbacks over the last four days as license to loosen up, be himself, and wage a personal war against the unified forces of the liberal media and dying GOP establishment. Venture onto the pro-Trump right-wing Breitbart website and a Trump-Pence ad pops up: 'It's Us Against the World,' it proclaims, but there's no Pence, just two Trumps -- the glowering candidate and his image in a mirror. 'He hates all these guys, anyway, never liked kissing their butts, so he's inclined just to say good riddance,' says a top Republican who has known Trump for years." -- CW

Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: The Republican fissure Trump has engendered is growing worse. ...

Philip Rucker & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "The Republican Party tumbled toward anarchy Monday over its presidential nominee, as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) cut Donald Trump loose in an emergency maneuver to preserve the party's endangered congressional majorities. Ryan's announcement that he would no longer defend or campaign with Trump prompted biting condemnations from within his caucus and from Trump himself, who publicly lashed out at the speaker.... Unlike Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was rendered mute.... He told a business group in Kentucky that if they wanted to hear his thoughts on Trump, they 'might as well go ahead and leave,' according to the Associated Press.... Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus pledged complete fidelity to Trump in a conference call with RNC members...." -- CW

Paul Ryan should spend more time on balancing the budget, jobs and illegal immigration and not waste his time on fighting Republican nominee. -- Donald Trump, in a tweet Monday

... Kelsey Snell of the Washington Post: "House Speaker Paul Ryan will not campaign with or defend Donald Trump through the November election, according to a knowledgeable source who participated in a phone call with House GOP lawmakers on Monday morning. 'The speaker is going to spend the next month focused entirely on protecting our congressional majorities,' said Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong. 'There is no update in his position at this time,' Strong said regarding an endorsement." CW: Strong also confirmed that Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, would call upon his state legislature to change the Badger State's official state animal to a weasel. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Max Fisher & Amanda Taub of the New York Times: "When Donald J. Trump told Hillary Clinton at Sunday's presidential debate that if he were president, 'you'd be in jail,' he was threatening more than just his opponent. He was suggesting that he would strip power from the institutions that normally enforce the law, investing it instead in himself. Political scientists who study troubled democracies abroad say this is a tactic typical of elected leaders who pull down their systems from within: former President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the fascist leaders of 1930s Europe." -- CW ...

... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Donald Trump's debate-night vow to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton's email setup and put her 'in jail' provoked a sharp blowback from former U.S. prosecutors, who said Trump's view of the Justice Department serving the whims of the president is antithetical to the American system. While presidents appoint the attorney general, they do not make decisions on whom to prosecute for crimes -- and were Trump to do so, prosecutors warned, he would spark a constitutional crisis similar to that of the 'Saturday Night Massacre' in the Nixon administration.... Former Republican appointees to senior Justice Department posts used words like 'abhorrent,' 'absurd' and 'terrifying' to describe Trump's threat to use the legal system to imprison Clinton." -- CW

Neetzan Zimmerman of the Hill: "Newly resurfaced footage from an episode of 'Celebrity Apprentice' reveals that Donald Trump once fired a contestant for engaging in 'locker room' talk. In a 2010 episode of his reality TV show, Trump had little patience for what he deemed a 'locker room' remark made in the boardroom by professional wrestler Maria Kanellis -- and terminated her on the spot. 'Isn't it sort of gross bringing that up? It's, like, disgusting,' Trump said, in reference to a comment Kanellis made about another contestant's bodily functions. 'This is my board room. It's not a locker room. Maria, you're fired.'... [Trump]'s no-nonsense attitude toward Kanellis six years ago is a change from the way he's brushed off the current-day controversy raging over his past remarks." ...

     ... The video is here. CW: Trump's reaction is not surprising. We've learned before that Trump does not like to hear about bodily functions, which he describes in the tape as "gross" and "disgusting," before "firing" Kanellis. I'm sure a professional can explain why Trump is both obsessed with beautiful bodies & disgusted with their "mechanics." A male media bigshot (who was not Trump) once said to me about a woman with both knew, "She's so beautiful, she doesn't shit. Little fairies come & take it away." ...

... Lisa Hagen of the Hill: "The producer of ... 'The Apprentice' confirmed on Monday that he cannot release footage from its archives.... Mark Burnett and MGM, which owns his production company and the NBC show hosted by the GOP nominee from 2004 to 2015, released a joint statement clarifying recent reports about potential leaks of outtakes. 'Despite reports to the contrary, Mark Burnett does not have the ability nor the right to release footage of other material from The Apprentice, the statement read.... 'Various contractual and legal requirements also restrict MGM's ability to release such material.... 'The recent claims that Mark Burnett has threatened anyone with litigation if they were to leak such material are completely and unequivocally false. To be clear, as previously reported in the press, which Mark Burnett has confirmed, he has consistently supported Democratic campaigns.'" -- CW

Mr. Buffett Is Not Amused. Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "Billionaire investor Warren Buffett on Monday offered up some numbers to contradict Donald Trump's debate-night claim that the two ultra-wealthy moguls took similar approaches towards tax payments. 'He has not seen my income tax returns. But I am happy to give him the facts,' Buffett said in a statement to CNBC, after Trump accused the Berkshire Hathaway chairman of taking a 'massive deduction' ... [during] the second presidential debate.... 'I have paid federal income tax every year since 1944, when I was 13. (Though, being a slow starter, I owed only $7 in tax that year.) I have copies of all 72 of my returns and none uses a carryforward,' Buffet[t] said." -- CW ...

     ... Patricia Cohen of the New York Times: "Warren E. Buffett is not running for president. But on Monday, Mr. Buffett ... volunteered more detailed information about his income taxes than Donald J. Trump ... ever has. Mr. Buffett released the information after essentially being called out by Mr. Trump during Sunday night's presidential debate. Acknowledging for the first time that he had avoided paying federal income taxes for years by claiming nearly a billion dollars in losses in 1995, Mr. Trump then tried to shift attention to ... Hillary Clinton.... 'Many of her friends took bigger deductions,' Mr. Trump said. 'Warren Buffett took a massive deduction.'... 'My 2015 return shows adjusted gross income of $11,563,931,' [Buffett] revealed. 'My deductions totaled $5,477,694.' About two-thirds of those represented charitable contributions, he said [in the statement released above]. Most of the rest were related to Mr. Buffett's state income tax payments. Mr. Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and one of the richest men in the world, went on to say: 'My federal income tax for the year was $1,845,557. Returns for previous years are of a similar nature in respect to contributions, deductions and tax rates. Last year, Mr. Buffett paid about 16 percent of his reported income in federal income taxes." -- CW

Hunter Walker of Yahoo! News: "After largely staying silent for the first few days of the firestorm that erupted after a leaked video showed his running mate making lewd comments about women, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence expressed strong support for Donald Trump on Monday." Includes video clip. -- CW

Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post reports on Steve Bannon's role in Trump's campaign: when Trump goes low, Bannon goes lower. "When Trump brought Bannon on board, he knew exactly what he was doing. The campaign would, with no qualms, pull out every last stop." -- CW

CW: Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway says you'll have to find video of Trump actually grabbing pussy, instead of just boasting about it, if you want to "bandy about" terms like "sexual assault." Okay, that's not exactly how she put it, but that's the implication of her position. ...

... Somebody Draw Beauregard a Picture. Allegra Kirkland: In the spin room after Sunday's debate, "Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) claimed Sunday that Donald Trump was not describing sexual assault in a leaked video recording in which the Republican nominee brags about grabbing women 'by the pussy' without their consent.... 'But beyond the language, would you characterize the behavior described in that [video] as sexual assault if that behavior actually took place?' the Weekly Standard asked. 'I don't characterize that as sexual assault,' Sessions replied. 'I think that's a stretch. I don't know what he meant --' 'So if you grab a woman by the genitals, that's not sexual assault?' the Weekly Standard pressed. 'I don't know. It's not clear that he -- how that would occur.'" -- CW ...

... Emily Crockett of Vox: "Trump surrogates have started normalizing sexual assault in a terrifying way."-- CW

CW: I would never say anything derogatory about anyone's body, but just as a point of information, did anybody watching Sunday night's debate notice whether or not Trump has a fat ass?

MJ Lee of CNN: "Donald Trump issued an unmistakable threat to Hillary Clinton Sunday night: I am willing to cross any line to make the next 30 days of your life hell." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed: "Trump's revanchist positioning is a sign he's retreated to pleasing the hard core of his base, despite the fact that they cannot deliver him the White House; a performance like this won't bring on board the voters Trump must persuade in order to win.... On Sunday night, Trump's Facebook page posted an image emblematic of where his campaign is now. It's a meme of him standing at a lectern, with the words 'She would be in jail' right next to his face." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

Steve M.: "I'm told that yesterday's events are unprecedented in American politics.... But the only thing new that happened yesterday was that Trump brought the attitudes, suspicions, and resentments of conservative America to the debate stage undiluted.... Donald Trump is the real Republican Party stripped of phony civility and fake high-mindedness. He represents his party better than John McCain and Mitt Romney ever did. He's the genuine article. If you're shocked by his campaign, you've had your head in the sand for a long time." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... CW: Yup, what's really upset Republicans this election season is that Donald Trump is the crude public embodiment of who they really are, and the deplorables they rely on to support them.

Greg Sargent: "There is a lot of chatter to the effect that Trump has 'stopped the bleeding.'... If it means, 'Trump fired up demoralized hard-core GOP base voters with an exciting show of fight, which will make it harder for GOP lawmakers to continue abandoning him, requiring them to instead say he took steps towards righting his campaign,' then, yes, Trump probably 'stopped the bleeding.' But..., if anything, Trump doubled down on his core boorishness, mostly to deepen his bond with his supporters, because in the end, those are the only voters he knows how to connect with." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Brian Stelter of CNN: Two sources say Billy Bush is unlikely to ever be back on air at NBC. CW: Nevertheless, that Bush bro may have saved the nation from itself.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: "Amid increasingly tense relations with the United States over Syria, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia took advantage of a routine meeting in Istanbul on Monday to advance the Kremlin's reconciliation with Turkey, including an agreement to revive a suspended natural-gas pipeline project.... The pipeline would make it much easier for Russia to cut off gas supplies to neighboring countries like Ukrainewithout disrupting sales to countries farther west like Italy or Austria. Russia has been trying for years to establish such an export route." -- CW

News Lede

New York Times: "Samsung Electronics is terminating production of its troubled Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, according to a person familiar with the decision, in a major and embarrassing about-face for the South Korean electronics giant. In a statement filed with the country's stock exchange late Tuesday, Samsung said it had made a 'final decision' to stop production. That means the company will no longer produce or market the smartphone.... Samsung has struggled with reports that the Note 7 could overheat and catch fire because of a manufacturing flaw. Last month, the company said it would recall 2.5 million of the phones, but in recent days, reports that the fixed version could also catch fire began to surface as well." -- CW

Comments Off
Sunday
Oct092016

The Commentariat -- October 10, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Kelsey Snell of the Washington Post: "House Speaker Paul Ryan will not campaign with or defend Donald Trump through the November election, according to a knowledgeable source who participated in a phone call with House GOP lawmakers on Monday morning. 'The speaker is going to spend the next month focused entirely on protecting our congressional majorities,' said Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong. 'There is no update in his position at this time,' Strong said regarding an endorsement." CW: Strong also confirmed that Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, would call upon his state legislature to change the Badger State's official state animal to a weasel.

Greg Sargent: "There is a lot of chatter to the effect that Trump has 'stopped the bleeding.' [see Driftglass, linked below]... If it means, 'Trump fired up demoralized hard-core GOP base voters with an exciting show of fight, which will make it harder for GOP lawmakers to continue abandoning him, requiring them to instead say he took steps towards righting his campaign,' then, yes, Trump probably 'stopped the bleeding.' But..., if anything, Trump doubled down on his core boorishness, mostly to deepen his bond with his supporters, because in the end, those are the only voters he knows how to connect with." -- CW

MJ Lee of CNN: "Donald Trump issued an unmistakable threat to Hillary Clinton Sunday night: I am willing to cross any line to make the next 30 days of your life hell." -- CW

Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed: "Trump's revanchist positioning is a sign he's retreated to pleasing the hard core of his base, despite the fact that they cannot deliver him the White House; a performance like this won't bring on board the voters Trump must persuade in order to win.... On Sunday night, Trump's Facebook page posted an image emblematic of where his campaign is now. It's a meme of him standing at a lectern, with the words 'She would be in jail' right next to his face." -- CW

Steve M.: "I'm told that yesterday's events are unprecedented in American politics.... But the only thing new that happened yesterday was that Trump brought the attitudes, suspicions, and resentments of conservative America to the debate stage undiluted.... Donald Trump is the real Republican Party stripped of phony civility and fake high-mindedness. He represents his party better than John McCain and Mitt Romney ever did. He's the genuine article. If you're shocked by his campaign, you've had your head in the sand for a long time." ...

... CW: Yup, what's really upset Republicans this election season is that Donald Trump is the crude public embodiment of who they really are, and the deplorables they rely on to support them.

*****

Presidential Race

Patrick Healy & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "In a startling political maneuver before tens of millions of viewers, Donald J. Trump accused Hillary Clinton of smearing women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting or harassing them, turning their presidential debate Sunday night into the tawdriest in modern history as he sought to salvage his presidential candidacy after explosive reports about his past lewd comments about women.... Mr. Trump ... argu[ed] that the accusations against Mr. Clinton were 'far worse' than Mr. Trump's remarks in 2005 that he could kiss and grope women because he was 'a star.' Mr. Trump apologized for those remarks but also repeatedly minimized them as 'locker-room talk,' and even tried to blame Mrs. Clinton for raising them in light of Mr. Clinton's behavior.... At several points, Mr. Trump expressed his frustration with the two moderators.... 'Why aren't you bringing up the emails?' he asked, before flatly accusing the moderators of conspiring against him. 'It's nice, one on three,' he said." -- CW ...

... David Fahrenthold & Katie Zezima of the Washington Post/Both Sides, Inc.TM:"Sunday night's presidential debate was unusually dark and bitter, with the two candidates taking steps unheard-of in the genteel tradition of Presidential debates, with .... Donald Trump referring to ... Hillary Clinton as 'the devil,' and promised that -- if elected -- he would order the Justice Department to investigate her. Clinton said at one point that Trump lives 'in an alternate reality.' The first half-hour of the debate was dominated not by questions from the undecided voters in the audience, but by interruptions and accusations by Trump himself.... 'You bragged that you committed sexual assault,' moderator Anderson Cooper said, and then asked Trump if he understood the implications of what he said. 'I didn't say that at all. I don't think you understood what was said. This was locker-room talk,' Trump said.... The words 'sex tape' also made their debut in the solemn tradition of American presidential debates, as Trump denied doing something he had actually done: Asking his Twitter followers to 'check out sex tape' of a former Miss Universe with whom he was feuding." -- CW ...

     ... Danielle Paquette of the Washington Post: "The exchange [between Anderson Cooper & Donald Trump] stands out for more than just its lewd content, already unusual in the context of a presidential debate. Cooper used the Justice Department's definition in describing the behavior Trump bragged about in the conversation, calling it 'sexual assault.' The Justice Department defines sexual assault as 'any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient.'" -- CW

     ... CNN video: Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway tells Dana Bash to "stop saying 'sexual assault.'" ...

By Driftglass. Multiple applications.... Mark Barabak, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "Donald Trump took a scorched-earth approach to trying to right his faltering campaign Sunday night, lashing out at his rival -- and even threatening her with imprisonment -- during a presidential debate where he confronted the turmoil that's pushing his party toward mutiny." -- CW ...

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker reprises "the nastiest presidential debate of all time." -- CW

But it's locker-room talk, and it's one of those things. I will knock the hell out of ISIS. -- Donald Trump, "explaining" his sexual predator boasts during the debate

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "He vowed to put her in prison. He stalked across the stage, and hovered imposingly behind her. At one point, he referred to her as 'the devil.' Rather than being chastened by the most serious crisis of his presidential campaign..., Donald Trump came forth in full alpha-male mode for his second debate with ... Hillary Clinton on Sunday night. It made for a discomfiting 90 minutes...." -- CW ...

... The Candidate vs. the Stalker. Paulina Firozi & Melanie Zanona of the Hill: "Social media quickly responded on Sunday during the second presidential debate of 2016 at the image of Republican nominee Donald Trump looming behind ... Hillary Clinton as she answered a question on healthcare." Tweeters called in "menacing," "bullying," "threatening," etc. "Abusive men do this to us all the time." -- CW

Brian Beutler of the New Republic: "Since he launched his presidential campaign over a year ago, Donald Trump's overarching strategy has been unchanged: win by subjecting his opponents to abuse and humiliation. On Sunday night, that strategy changed to subjecting Hillary Clinton to as much humiliation as possible on his way to defeat.... Trump launched a ceaseless and unhinged series of attacks on Clinton, both on the debate stage and off.... He promised that if he's president of the United States, he would instruct his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton's email practices, and, in the fashion of a junta leader, that under his administration she'd 'be in jail.'... At one point he smacked down his own running mate, Mike Pence, for serving up ad hoc Syria policy at the vice presidential debate last week: 'He and I haven't spoken, and I disagree.'... For a party desperate to part ways with him, to avoid being dragged down with him, his performance was disastrous precisely because Trump succeeded at the only thing he came to accomplish...: to pander to his demoralized supporters." -- CW

Helaine Olen of Slate: Donald Trump "blamed Hillary Clinton for the fact he doesn't pay taxes. Because, you see, 'A lot of my write-off was depreciation, and that, Hillary as a senator, allowed. The people that give her all this money want it.' (Clinton, of course, wasn't a senator in 1995, the year Donald Trump reported the $916 million loss. If you needed reminding!)" -- CW ...

... CW: The notion that a first lady or a junior senator or even a president can just snap her fingers & get Congress to change the law is beyond ludicrous. Yet that was Trump's "best argument" throughout the debate.

New York Times Editors: "Donald Trump boiled his decadent campaign down to one message during the presidential debate on Sunday night: hatred of Hillary and Bill Clinton.... Sniffing and glowering, Mr. Trump prowled behind her as Mrs. Clinton presented herself again as the only adult on stage, the only one seeking to persuade the great majority of Americans that she shares their values and aspirations.... Once again, as he flailed, he whined that the moderators were ganging up on him and failing to question Mrs. Clinton about her private email server -- immediately after they had done just that." -- CW

"Tin-Pot Dictator." Zack Beauchamp of Vox: "There is no way to sugarcoat this:... Donald Trump threatened to throw Hillary Clinton in jail if he wins the presidency. This -- threatening to jail one's political opponents -- is how democratic norms die.... This is everything we feared about Donald Trump. His long history of trying to silence critics with lawsuits, his inability to let personal slights go, his pettiness: The nightmare scenario is that these would incline him to use the power of the presidency to forcibly silence his critics and opponents. That's what is done by tin-pot dictators...."...

     ... CW: This may be the most important takeaway from the debate: that a candidate for POTUS has threatened to shred the Constitution to incarcerate his political rival and that he has done so in the most public way possible. Trump's model for this tyrannical threat is former Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych, a Russian puppet, who -- after a bitter election -- arranged a show trial against his main rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, then jailed her on Trumped-up charges. Yanukovych's handlers included Paul Manafort, who served as Trump's campaign manager. The parallels are, needless to say, eerie.

Bryan Bender, et al., of Politico fact-check the debate: "In a campaign season littered with falsehoods, Sunday night's debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton marked the moment when the tether between rhetoric and reality snapped.... Much of this falls on Trump, who combined the familiar falsehoods of his fact-challenged stump speech with a new set of unsubstantiated charges about Clinton's past treatment of other women. And on the biggest question of the night -- how Trump would answer for leaked audio in which he described his technique for making unwanted sexual advances on women -- Trump largely got away without answering at all." -- CW ...

Her client she represented got him off and she is seen laughing on two occasions laughing at the girl who was raped. -- Donald Trump

It is totally false to say that Hillary Clinton laughed about the rape of a 12-year-old. And it has been thoroughly debunked. -- Zack Stanton of Politico

... David Leonardt of the New York Times: "This is the second time I’ve summarized a presidential debate by listing Donald Trump's untruths, and there’s a reason. The country has never had a presidential candidate who lies the way that he does -- relentlessly." -- CW

Driftglass live-tweeted the debate, AND he watched the post-debate punditocracy: "... within 20 seconds of this crime-scene being shut down and roped off, everyone from PBS to CNN to MSNBC were racing to declare it a tie and that Donald Trump had finally 'stopped the bleeding'. And I put 'stopped the bleeding' in quotes because within moments pundits on CNN and PBS (David Brooks) were both using exactly this same phrase. As if they had already worked out in advance what the narrative was damn well gonna be regardless of the facts on the ground." -- CW ...

... CW: Sorry, David Brooks, et al., the public doesn't agree with your super-brainy analysis. (Note: snap polls are not super-scientific, which should be okay with Trump.

New York Times reporters' live commentary on the presidential debate is here. The page also contains a livefeed of the debate. ...

     ... Update: The commentary is pretty good & includes fact-checks.

Robert Costa, et al., of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's campaign sought to intimidate Hillary Clinton and embarrass her husband by seating women who have accused former president Bill Clinton of sexual abuse in the Trump family's box at the presidential debate here Sunday night, according to four people involved in the discussions. The campaign's plan ... was thwarted just minutes before it could be executed when officials with the Commission on Presidential Debates intervened. The commission officials warned that, if the Trump campaign tried to seat the accusers in the elevated family box, security officers would remove the women.... The gambit to give Bill Clinton's accusers prime seats was devised by Trump campaign chief executive Stephen K. Bannon and Jared Kushner, the candidate's son-in-law, and approved personally by Trump." Read on. -- CW

Ha Ha. Melania's Revenge? Judy Kurtz of the Hill: "Melania Trump opted to wear a Gucci garment to the second presidential debate with an eyebrow-raising name: a 'pussy-bow' shirt. The hot pink blouse, which retails for $1,100, was identified by multiple fashion mavens on social media as the one Donald Trump's wife was sporting at the Sunday debate in St. Louis." -- CW


Ashley Rodriguez of Quartz on where to watch the second presidential debate, which will begin at 9 pm ET. Unlike posts from a couple of other reputable news outlets, Rodriguez notes that NBC is not carrying the debate. But there's this: "NBC is partnering with AltspaceVR to host a debate watch party in virtual reality. Anyone with the Altspace VR app on Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, or HTC Vive can join in. (Just beware of technical challenges.)" -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

Alan Rappeport, et al., of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton head to St. Louis on Sunday for a widely anticipated second debate that comes as extraordinary upheaval in the Republican Party has upended the presidential race just a month before the election."

Brian Stelter of CNN: "The first set of questions at Sunday night's presidential debate will be about Donald Trump's vulgar comments on a newly published 2005 videotape, and the fallout from it. And Hillary Clinton will get the first question." -- CW

Editorial Board of AL.com, which comprises the Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, Mobile's Press-Register & other Alabama media outlets, endorses Hillary Clinton: "Donald Trump must not be president.... Even before the revelation of video evidence of Trump making lewd, demeaning comments advocating sexual advances on women against their will, we knew that he was unfit to lead this country.... Any endorsement of Clinton will be a bitter pill to swallow for many in our state.... Still, Hillary Clinton is more than qualified to be president, and in winning her party's nomination has reinforced the promise that our democratic process is equally open to all. We've watched Clinton weather every challenge -- public and personal -- that's faced her over the last 30 years and, unlike Donald Trump's late night Twitter meltdowns, Clinton has consistently remained presidential in her response and demeanor." -- CW

CNN: "President Obama comments on the latest Donald Trump controversy at a campaign event for Illinois Rep. Tammy Duckworth in Chicago":

Kevin Drum takes a look at the most "controversial" remarks Hillary Clinton reputedly made in speeches to bankers which came from hacks Wikileaks released. Pretty much a plateful of bland nothingburgers. "If anything, this suggests that Clinton hasn't privately said much of anything that's especially friendly to Wall Street." -- CW

Madeline Conway of Politico: "Under fire for bragging about sexual assault, Donald Trump tried to redirect by holding a surprise panel, broadcast live to Facebook, with women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct on Sunday evening, just an hour and a half before he was set to square off with Hillary Clinton in their second presidential debate. Seated beside four women -- including Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and Kathy Shelton -- Trump addressed viewers ahead of the debate, making an issue of Bill Clinton's own sexual history as the GOP nominee faces a mass defection from within his own party." CW: You can be sure we're going to hear about this Sunday night. ...

... Madeline Conway: "Hillary Clinton's campaign quickly hit back at Donald Trump for hosting a surprise panel with women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct ahead of their second debate on Sunday, labeling the move a 'stunt' and 'act of desperation.' 'We're not surprised to see Donald Trump continue his destructive race to the bottom,' Jennifer Palmieri, the campaign's communications director, said in a statement. 'As always, she's prepared to handle whatever Donald Trump throws her way.'" -- CW ...

Ezra Klein: "At 7:26 pm, barely 90 minutes before the second presidential debate, Donald Trump tweeted, 'Join me on #FacebookLive as I conclude my final #debate preparations.' The link went to a Facebook live post, where Trump was holding a press conference with Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, and Kathleen Willey, three women who have accused Bill Clinton of various forms of sexual misconduct. This, Trump thinks, is the Hail Mary that will save his presidential campaign. This is so much crazier than anything I ever imagined I would see in presidential politics that I legitimately don't know how to process it.... Every Republican who endorsed and normalized Trump while knowing there was nothing normal about him bears part of the blame for this moment.... The size of the disaster the Republican Party is facing cannot be overstated." -- CW ...

... ** Jeff Horwitz & Chad Day of the AP: "A sexual-assault victim who is critical of Hillary Clinton and who appeared alongside Donald Trump before Sunday night's debate was paid $2,500 by a political action committee founded by Trump ally [CW: & insane conspiracy theorist] Roger Stone. The Arkansas woman, Kathy Shelton, was sexually assaulted at age 12 and was the victim in a 1975 case in which Clinton was appointed to represent her then-41-year-old attacker, Thomas Alfred Taylor. Shelton has accused Clinton of crossing ethical bounds in the case, and over the past few months, Shelton has given TV and video interviews slamming Clinton.... The May payment to Shelton by the Committee to Restore America's Greatness PAC, founded by Stone, was described as 'contract labor' in campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.... Stone has arranged to pay other women critical of the Clintons. Earlier this year, Stone sought to raise money to pay off the mortgage of Kathleen Willey, who accused Bill Clinton of making unwanted sexual advances toward her during her time as a volunteer in his White House in the 1990s. Stone claimed in an online video interview that Trump had personally contributed to the fund." The Trump campaign says it paid Juanita Broaddrick's travel expenses to the debate. -- CW ...

... Jordyn Phelps of ABC News: "Over the weekend, Donald Trump has called former President Bill Clinton an abuser of women and Hillary Clinton a bully who intimidated his victims. But if you rewind to 1998, the Republican presidential nominee had a very different view of the 42nd president, defending him as the real 'victim' in the wake of the fallout of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and blasting the accusers as 'terrible' and 'unattractive.'... 'The whole group, Paula Jones, Lewinsky, it's just a really unattractive group. I'm not just talking about physical,' he said. 'Would it be any different if it were a supermodel crowd?' [Fox 'News's Neil] Cavuto then asked. 'I think at least it would be more pleasant to watch,' Trump replied." -- CW

John Kelly, et al., of USA Today: "... an ongoing USA Today investigation of Trump's 4,000-plus lawsuits shows that he and his companies have been accused for years of mistreating women. Allegations outlined in at least 20 separate lawsuits accuse Trump and managers at his companies of discriminating against women, ignoring sexual harassment complaints and even participating in the harassment themselves. The details of these allegations, some not reported until now, suggest that the kinds of lewd and discriminatory actions reported last week may be more prevalent within Trump's organization than previously known." In at least two of the cases, Trump was personally involved in the alleged harassment. -- CW

Alexander Burns, et al., of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump signaled he would retaliate against lawmakers who withdraw their support from his campaign, and senior party leaders privately acknowledged that they now feared losing control of both houses of Congress.... On Twitter, Mr. Trump attacked the Republicans fleeing his campaign as 'self-righteous hypocrites' and predicted their defeat at the ballot box. In a set of talking points sent to his supporters Sunday morning, Mr. Trump's campaign urged them to attack turncoat Republicans as 'more concerned with their political future than they are about the country.'" -- CW

CW: Wow! When even Chuck Todd forgets IOKIYAR, the GOP really has hit a new low. ...

... Alan Pyke of Think Progress: "Trump's defense: He was only a misogynist the first 69 years of his life.... Voters needn't worry about Donald Trump saying he gropes women and gets away with it because he's famous, Rudy Giuliani repeatedly claimed on Sunday, because the process of campaigning for high office has left Trump a changed man.... 'It's a different man that emerges when you campaign around the country for a year and a half and hear the concerns and the problems of the American people.'" -- CW

Nikita Vladimirov of the Hill: "... Gov. Mike Pence on Saturday told a group of GOP donors that he remains fully committed to the Republican nominee despite growing pressure from some party leaders to have Trump step down from from the ticket." -- CW

Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "Starting Friday afternoon, thousands of people shared personal stories on social media of being sexually assaulted, many using the hashtag #NotOkay. For many hours, #NotOkay was a trending topic on Twitter in the United States. A day later, the hashtag continued going strong. The outpouring seems to have started after several prominent Twitter users posted about the potential consequences of brushing off Trump's comments. Doing so, they said, would normalize and enable 'rape culture.'" And, they argued, this kind of behavior was more commonplace than some might think." -- CW

Chas Danner of New York: "Billy Bush will not be appearing on Monday's Today show following the release of an Access Hollywood tape containing a misogynistic off-camera conversation the former Access anchor had with Donald Trump in 2005. Though NBC had previously maintained that Bush would be back on the air on Monday, CNN's Brian Stelter reports that the network will now reprimand Bush over the tape by sidelining him from Today for an unknown length of time, and possibly for good." CW: Are we all having a sad?

The Deplorables. Charles Pierce: "It doesn't matter now if [Donald Trump] drops out or not. He has shown the world what the black heart of modern Republicanism -- and of the modern form of conservatism that drives it -- really looks like. He has become its beau ideal. He will stand for it until the party commits itself to real change and genuine outreach to those people it now only employs as targets for its timorous angry base to aim at. Whether he stays or whether he goes -- and, god, I hope he stays -- Donald Trump has burned down all the camouflage. He is what they are." -- CW

Other News & Views

Kirk Ross, et al., of the Washington Post: "Hurricane Matthew pummeled the Atlantic seaboard Sunday, drenching North and South Carolina, where rescuers rushed to save hundreds of people from flooding and strong winds. The storm, which swept from the coast of Florida to Virginia Beach, has entered a dangerous new phase, sparking record flooding in North Carolina and causing power outages for more than 2 million people across five states. The death toll in the United States has climbed to at least 19, but local authorities warned that it could rise as people attempt to return home and are met with contaminated water, downed power lines and flooded roadways. Five people are missing in North Carolina, which has seen the most deaths so far." -- CW

News Lede

Washington Post: "Harvard's Oliver Hart and MIT's Bengt Holmström were awarded the 2016 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday for their work on contract theory, the study of how people can efficiently enter into agreements. Their contributions have shaped the thinking in a wide range of fields, from law to economics to political science." -- CW

Comments Off
Saturday
Oct082016

The Commentariat -- October 9, 2016

Dustin Waters, et al., of the Washington Post: "After a protracted and violent journey up the southeast U.S. seaboard, a weakened Hurricane Matthew made landfall Saturday in South Carolina, inundating a vast stretch of the coast with torrential rain and triggering floods far inland." -- CW ...

... Weather Channel updates are here.

Presidential Race

Ashley Rodriguez of Quartz on where to watch the second presidential debate, which will begin at 9 pm ET. Unlike posts from a couple of other reputable news outlets, Rodriguez notes that NBC is not carrying the debate. But there's this: "NBC is partnering with AltspaceVR to host a debate watch party in virtual reality. Anyone with the Altspace VR app on Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, or HTC Vive can join in. (Just beware of technical challenges.)" -- CW

Annie Karni of Politico: "The bombshell Donald Trump video that surfaced Friday has so dramatically altered expectations for Sunday's town hall debate that one Democrat close to Bill and Hillary Clinton had a new view of what may unfold in St. Louis: 'Expect Armageddon.' Hillary Clinton will arrive at the Washington University debate stage Sunday prepped for battle against an opponent many of her allies believe has already lost the election. Trump, in contrast, will walk onto the debate stage with nothing to lose.... On Saturday evening, Trump previewed his nothing-to-lose strategy -- he retweeted Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who accused Bill Clinton of raping her in 1978. Bill Clinton has denied the accusation, which Broaddrick made in 1999, in the wake of his affair with Monica Lewinsky."

Columbus [Ohio] Dispatch Editors reluctantly endorse Hillary Clinton for president: "... Donald Trump is unfit to be president of the United States. Democrat Hillary Clinton, despite her flaws, is well-equipped for the job.... The stakes are too high to sit out this election and risk letting Trump misuse the awesome power of the presidency." The Dispatch urges voters to elect Hillary Clinton." CW: The Dispatch has not endorsed a Democrat in 100 years.

Tim Mak & Andrew Desiderio of the Daily Beast: "Leaked Podesta Emails Show Bernie Was Right." CW: I think most of us knew that all along. As I wrote during primary season, bankers were not going to pay Clinton big bucks to harangue them for an hour on what horrible, greedy people they were. ...

... Nikita Valdimirov of the Hill: "Bernie Sanders on Saturday responded to the leaked emails that reveal parts of Hillary Clinton's Wall Street speeches, a major point of contention during their primary battle, by reiterating his support for the Democratic Party platform." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Louis Nelson, et al., of Politico: "Vice President Joe Biden issued a scathing rebuke of ... Donald Trump, saying his talk about groping women against their will amounts to 'sexual assault.' ;The words are demeaning. Such behavior is an abuse of power. It's not lewd. It's sexual assault. -- Joe,' Biden said in a tweet Saturday afternoon." -- CW

Nate Cohn of the New York Times: Donald Trump "had only an 18 percent chance to win the election Friday morning before the videotape's release, according to The Upshot's model, with that number set to shrink almost daily unless ... Mr. Trump could make inroads. Now, of course, it is very easy to imagine how he sinks farther as a result of the new video. In the history of October surprises, it is hard to think of anything comparable at this stage of a presidential race. Obviously, it is too early to say exactly what effect it will have on Mr. Trump. But the videotape fits all of the major criteria for a damaging scandal, and it puts congressional Republicans in a precarious position." -- CW ...

... Nate Silver: "... if we knew on Friday night that this would be a big story, it's become an even bigger story throughout the day today (Saturday) as dozens of GOP elected officials have either repudiated Trump, or unendorsed him, or called for him to resign his position at the top of the ticket. Trump had unusually low levels of support from these 'party elites' to begin with... Now, the floodgates have opened, and the whole party is fleeing him. We've never seen anything like this in a modern American election campaign.... Many of those Republican defections are strategic rather than sincere, of course.... But the timing of this is just about as bad as possible for Trump. Even before the 'hot mic' tape, there were reports that GOP elected officials might abandon Trump if he had a poor second debate.... A Clinton landslide is no more far-fetched than a Trump victory -- and given the events of the past 24 hours, probably less so." CW: See also Jamelle Bouie on Republicans' "stragetic" morality, linked below.


Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Donald Trump hunkered down Sunday morning -- pulling back top aides from planned national appearances -- while previewing a vicious attack on tonight's debate stage, targeting Bill Clinton's past infidelities and Hillary Clinton's alleged bullying of his victims. Only Rudy Giuliani was dispatched to inject the Trump campaign's position into the national conversation during a round of Sunday morning news shows. Giuliani condemned Trump's description of making unwanted sexual advances against women -- kissing and groping them -- but also dismissed them as 'talk' among men.... Interim Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile on ABC's 'This Week' said that, despite the tape being more than 10 years old, truly reflects the real Trump. 'You can draw a straight line between what Donald Trump said in 2005 and what he's been saying every day on the campaign trail over the last year and a half,' she said.... 'It's really for Donald Trump to try to answer for it and take responsibility for it,' Tim Kaine said on CNN. 'It's not just words, it really is ... talking about a pattern of sexual assault.'" -- CW

Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Donald Trump on Sunday downplayed the exodus of top Republicans who have called on him to step aside or rescinded their prior endorsements. 'Tremendous support (except for some Republican "leadership"),' the Republican presidential nominee tweeted Sunday morning. 'Thank you.'... 'So many self-righteous hypocrites. Watch their poll numbers - and elections - go down!' he predicted in a tweet." -- CW

Hel-lo, Rudy Sunday. Rebecca Morin of Politico: Donald Trump's "campaign manager and the Republican National Committee chairman have canceled all appearances on the Sunday news shows. Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign manager, was to appear on 'Fox News Sunday' and NBC's 'Meet The Press,' but has been replaced with former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, an avid Trump backer. RNC chairman Rience Priebus was also to appear on CBS's 'Face the Nation,' but was replaced by Giuliani.... Priebus was also set to speak on ABC's "This Week." Giuliani is appearing instead." -- CW

Jenna Johnson, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Republican Party plunged into an epic and historic political crisis Saturday with just a month to go until Election Day as a growing wave of GOP lawmakers called on defiant presidential nominee Donald Trump to drop out of the race in the wake of a video showing him making crude sexual remarks." -- CW

Michael Barbaro & Patrick Healy of the New York Times take a stab at explaining why Republicans suddenly got religion when they saw the Trump sexual predator video. Nice try, boys, but you missed Jamelle Bouie's point, which gets to the heart of the matter. -- CW ...

** Jamelle Bouie: "Hours before we learned of Trump's boasts about grabbing women 'by the pussy,' the Republican nominee affirmed his false belief that the Central Park 5 -- five teenagers, four of them black and one Latino, convicted on charges of attacking and raping a 28-year-old white woman, all five since exonerated by DNA evidence -- were guilty. The same Republican leaders who rushed to condemn Trump for his remarks on a hot mic were silent about his continued attacks on these men.... Republicans didn't say anything because Trump wasn't attacking Republicans.... The GOP could tolerate his place at the top of the ticket so long as he restricted his threats to groups outside the party.... We now have a list of all the things the Republican Party will tolerate solely for the sake of the White House and a continued congressional majority. It's a long list." Read it. -- CW

Karen Tumulty, et al., of the Washington Post: "With less than a month to go before the election, a major political party is poised to walk away from its own presidential nominee -- a situation with few precedents in American political history. There is little to guide Republicans, collectively and individually, except the growing realization that they have risked their party's survival by tying it to Donald Trump as he has led them into a crisis that is both extraordinary and utterly predictable." -- CW

The media and establishment want me out of the race so badly - I WILL NEVER DROP OUT OF THE RACE, WILL NEVER LET MY SUPPORTERS DOWN! -- Donald Trump, Saturday evening, in a tweet

There is nothing that will cause his dropping out. That is wishful thinking of the Clinton campaign and those who have opposed him for a long time. -- Rudy Giuliani, to reporters Saturday evening

... Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump showed up just before 5 p.m. in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan, accompanied by his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, and his eldest child, Donald Trump Jr. Security officials stopped reporters and attempted to bar them from getting near Mr. Trump as he went outside and immersed himself in a crowd of supporters, who had gathered hours earlier for a rally.... Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, withdrew his support on Saturday for Donald J. Trump as the Republican Party descended into chaos.... 'I have wanted to support the candidate our party nominated,' he said in a statement. He added: 'But Donald Trump's behavior this week, concluding with the disclosure of his demeaning comments about women and his boasts about sexual assaults, make it impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy.'" -- CW

Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Senate leaders are letting Republican candidates and officeholders weigh the scandal and decide for themselves how to react without pressure from above.... But they gave a clear signal of which way the GOP leadership is leaning when Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Thune (S.D.), who is in charge of the conference's messaging operation, tweeted Saturday that Trump should step aside and let his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, have the party's nomination ... 'effective immediately.' -- CW

Come on, that's how real men talk! -- Real Man rallying at Trump Towers Saturday too afraid to give his name

Have you heard of Alex Jones? Alex has the behind-the-scenes people, like Larry Nichols. And I was even able to call Larry personally, and he said he asked Bill one time, how come Hillary flies to L.A. once a month? And he said, Hillary is going to witchcraft meetings.... I mean, didn't travel with her to these witchcraft meetings but, as a Christian I have spiritual discernment. I can discern Hillary. I can tell she's into that stuff. --Johnny Rice, a messianic Christian at the Trump rally ...

... Shall we revisit the "basket of deplorables" remark? Steven Shepard, et al., of Politico: "A wave of Republican officials abandoned Donald Trump Saturday, but, at least for now, rank-and-file Republicans are standing by the party's presidential candidate, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll conducted immediately after audio was unearthed Friday...[V]oters are largely viewing Trump's comments through their own partisan lens: 70 percent of Democrats say Trump should end his campaign, but just 12 percent of Republicans -- and 13 percent of female Republicans -- agree...Nearly three-quarters of Republican voters, 74 percent, surveyed on Saturday said party officials should continue to support Trump. Only 13 percent think the party shouldn't back him." --safari...

... Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "Some voters greeted prominent Republicans with boos and loud heckling at Saturday events, after the officials spoke out against the vulgar and redatory remarks Donald Trump made about women in a newly unearthed recording. 'Paul Ryan sucks!' Milwaukee resident Paul Anderson yelled at a fall festival in Elkorn, Wisconsin, where the House speaker addressed a crowd, according to the Los Angeles Times. 'You turned your back on us,' other hecklers shouted, breaking into chants of 'We want Trump!' Trump was originally supposed to appear with Ryan at the event. But Ryan disinvited Trump hours after the recording surfaced.... In Las Vegas, Rep. Joe Heck (R-NV), who's running to replace Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), also was booed loudly as he read a statement calling for Trump to withdraw and be replaced by a candidate 'with honor' who deserved to be president." CW: Thanks to contributor Gloria for the link. Like Gloria, I am suffering from a severe case of walking schadenfreude, but even without medication, I don't feel bad at all. ...

... Anne Laurie of Balloon Juice reprises some Trump supporters' reactions to GOP leaders' exodus. The one by David Duke is so special; Yair Rosenberg's retort is excellent. -- CW

Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "The Republican National Committee on Saturday appeared to at least temporarily halt the operations of some of the 'Victory' program that is devoted to electing Donald Trump.... In an email from the RNC to a victory program mail vendor, with the subject line 'Hold on all projects,' the committee asked the vendor to 'put a hold' on mail production." -- CW

Isaac Chotiner of Slate: "The discussion will now slowly shift to Republican hopes of shoring up down-ballot races and (just wait) the creation of Trump TV. But we cannot and should not forget: A couple days ago it was still fathomable that America could have voted into office the biggest threat to the country in decades." -- CW

Marc Fisher of the Washington Post: "On a new batch of recordings from Howard Stern's radio shows aired Saturday by CNN, Trump said that he would 'have no problem' having sex with 24-year-olds, that he 'couldn't care less' if he satisfies the women he sleeps with, that 'it's checkout time' once women reach the age of 35 and that he had engaged in three-way sex. 'Haven't we all?' Trump told Stern on his SiriusXM satellite radio show in 2008.... Trump also described barging in on nude Miss Universe beauty pageant contestants in their dressing room, characterizing his visits as inspections by the contest's owner." -- CW ...

... Paulina Firozi of the Hill: "A producer from ... 'The Apprentice' used Twitter on Saturday night to warn that the now infamous leaked audio of Trump is just the beginning. 'As a producer on seasons 1&2 of #theapprentice I assure you: when it comes to #trump tapes there are far worse,' tweeted Bill Pruitt.... Pruitt is not the first to suggest there will be more revelations about the GOP presidential nominee's past behavior. According to reports by Fox News' Ed Henry, top Trump adviser Ben Carson suggested there would be more 'bombshells' to come." -- CW ...

     ... Update. Julia Reinstein of BuzzFeed: "Pressure is building on The Apprentice producers to release unaired raw footage of the show after Friday's release of a 2005 hot mic video.... More than 20 former contestants, crew members, and editors told the Associated Press that Trump treated women on the show inappropriately, including talking about which contestants he would like to have sex with and rating them by breast size." -- CW ...

... Annals of "Journalism, Ctd.

CW: The big fail here is NBC News. They've already had major problems with their former news anchor Brian Williams (who made up war stories until a real war vet outted him), with Matt Lauer who grilled Hillary Clinton & threw Trump softballs, & now with Billy Bush, who worked for NBC Entertainment for a long time & now works for NBC News. And what is the news division doing? Trump has been running for POTUS for more than a year, & either NBC News ordered its staff not to snoop around NBC Entertainment for damaging Trump tapes, or its reporters decided Trump is too big to fall. Either way, it's NBC "News" now.

     Update. Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post has the same questions of NBC "News," asked & unanswered: "Without adequate answers from the top, made publicly, it may not be unreasonable to conclude that one of the nation's largest news companies simply wasn't doing its job."

     Update Update. Slow Lawyers, Entertainment. Paul Farhi of the Washington Post reports on NBC's excuse: "NBC News was aware of video footage of Donald Trump making lewd and disparaging remarks about women for nearly four days, a network executive said Saturday, but held onto the recording until lawyers finished reviewing the material. The network's caution led to an awkward result: NBC News was scooped by The Washington Post, which took just five hours to vet and post its story.... The news division agreed to let 'Access Hollywood' break the story first." But "AH" wasn't going to air it until at least sometime this week.

     CW: So NBC "News" had a highly-time-sensitive story on which the future of the free world might depend, & they let it sit in an attorney's inbox, then held off to let the money side of the business decide when it would be most fun to run the news. Sorta like, "Boss, there's a monster tornado coming. We have to warn the public!" "Nah, we're rebroadcasting 'Twister' this Friday; we'll do the tornado story around that."

    CW: And I have one more question: Did Billy Bush keep this tape secret from Cousin Jeb!? If not, why the hell didn't Jeb! use it in the primaries? Is he too, too fastidious? Somehow I think the Bush family Thanksgiving might look a helluva lot like one you may be dreading in your own family. Maybe Billy & Jeb! will get in a hilariously awkward fistfight.

Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump said in an interview Saturday that he would not drop out of the race under any circumstances, following calls from several prominent members of his party to do so. 'I'd never withdraw. I've never withdrawn in my life,' Trump told The Washington Post in a phone call from his home in Trump Tower in New York. 'No, I'm not quitting this race. I have tremendous support.... They're not going to make me quit, and they can't make me quit,' Trump said of associates and party leaders who have urged him to step aside." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Vaughn Hillyard of NBC News: "Mike Pence expressed dismay Saturday over Donald Trump's lewd comments about women, saying in a statement that he was 'offended' but wanted to give his embattled running mate a chance to 'show what is in his heart' at the second presidential debate.... Pence earlier cancelled an appearance in Wisconsin [at Paul Ryan's shindig] amid the fallout from Friday's video." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

Kyle Cheney & Burgess Everett of Politico: "In May, Sen. Deb Fischer stood silently as her nephew led a drive to humiliate fellow Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse for his opposition to Donald Trump. On Saturday, she publicly joined Sasse's side. As Republicans abandon Trump en masse over newly revealed lewd comments about women, Fischer joined Sasse in urging [Trump] ... to step aside. 'The comments made by Mr. Trump were disgusting and totally unacceptable under any circumstance,' she tweeted Saturday afternoon, adding: "It would be wise for him to step aside and allow Mike Pence to serve as our party's nominee.'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

Burgess Everett, et al., of Politico: "After standing aside Trump during months of bombastic remarks aimed at Muslims, Latinos and women, Trump's sexually aggressive and lewd remarks, caught on tape in 2005 and aired Friday, were the breaking point. On Saturday morning, New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte was the first vulnerable GOP incumbent to withdraw her support. Joe Heck, a Republican running in Nevada, quickly followed suit. 'I wanted to be able to support my party's nominee, chosen by the people, because I feel strongly that we need a change in direction for our country. However, I'm a mom and an American first, and I cannot and will not support a candidate for president who brags about degrading and assaulting women. I will not be voting for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton and instead will be writing in Governor Pence for president on Election Day,' Ayotte said." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... CW: Yeah, it's funny how all these Republicans were putting up with every horrifying piece of crap from Trump's horrifying history of abusing, cheating and/or insulting everybody but Putin (last week Ayotte said Trump "absolutely" would make a good role model for his kids, a remark she later retracted), but suddenly when he's caught on tape boasting about committing multiple sexual felonies, they're all shocked & discombobulated.

Alan Rappeport: "While the idea of replacing Mr. Trump has been a fantasy for some 'Never Trump' Republicans for months, the reality is that removing him from the ticket at this point would be exceedingly complicated. Here's a look at some of the questions that Republicans are mulling." -- CW ...

... Jonathan Swan of the Hill: "The Republican Party would face enormous political and legal problems should it decide to replace Donald Trump as its presidential nominee, election law experts agree. While a number of prominent Republican lawmakers are urging Trump to step down due to his unacceptable sexual comments, the legal community is engaged in a separate argument about whether the Republican National Committee has the authority to remove Trump without his consent." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... CW: While Rappeport's & Swan's reports are accurate, GOP leaders have the power to effectively force Trump to drop out. If the party cut off his funding & renounced him, Trump would know he was looking forward to a humiliating defeat. That might cause him to bow out gracelessly, screaming about the "rigged system" & "losers" & "Washington corruption"; whatever. I don't know that would help the party in the election, but party officials could pretend to go down with dignity.

Paulina Firozi of the Hill: "Melania Trump says she was offended by her husband Donald Trump's 'unacceptable' sexual remarks about women, but is asking the nation to accept his apology. Melania Trump said in a Saturday statement that the 'words my husband used are unacceptable and offensive to me.... This does not represent the man that I know. He has the heart and mind of a leader.'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Kurtis Lee of the Los Angeles Times: "'Entertainment Tonight' co-anchor Nancy O'Dell, the woman who was the focus Donald Trump's lewd comments in a 2005 audio recording, said Saturday she was saddened by the Republican nominee's comments. 'When I heard the comments yesterday, it was disappointing to hear such objectification of women,' O'Dell said in a statement. 'The conversation needs to change because no female, no person, should be the subject of such crass comments, whether or not cameras are rolling. Everyone deserves respect no matter the setting or gender.'" -- CW

The Boys & Girls on the Bus. Melissa Warnke of the Los Angeles Times: "Sexist jackasses like Trump don't exist in isolation; they need support from opportunists.... See: Billy Bush egging Trump on and fanning his ego. See: Arianne Zucker, the actress, flirting along when they ask for hugs.... It takes a village to create a misogynistic monster. And it takes a party to create a misogynistic monster candidate.... Just as Trump needed Billy Bushes and Arianne Zuckers in his private life, he's needed spineless opportunist politicians in his quest for the presidency.... None of [Trump's history of misdeeds] was enough to make the Republican leadership take a stand against Trump.... The GOP's hateful party platform and desperation to promote a white American identity enabled the rise of a deeply revolting presidential candidate." (Emphasis added.) -- CW

Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "... when the story broke on Friday that Donald Trump was caught on a live mic bragging about how he could kiss women -- and grab their genitals -- without their consent because he was famous, I initially wondered what the news was. Was there anyone alive surprised here?... Historically, all these Republicans could actually pretend Trump was just kidding; they could deny that Trump was who everyone knew that he was.... The groping tape ... reveals both the real Trump and the performer Trump, and it turns out the former is actually scarier than the latter.... The monstrous woman-hater is actually the person under the performer." -- CW

... Guardian: .. de Niro made the video "as part of a campaign urging people to vote in the 8 November poll. De Niro is one of a number of celebrities who took part in the #VoteYourFuture initiative but his scathing contribution was considered to be too partisan to be included in the final campaign, and was instead released separately by the producers on Friday." -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Ruben Vives, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "Two Palms Springs[, California,] police officers were fatally shot and another wounded Saturday while responding to family disturbance call, and a SWAT team remains at the scene, police said." -- CW ...

     ... The story has been updated: "Just before 1 a.m. Sunday, more than 12 hours after the shooting, the suspect was taken into custody, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department said. In a sheriff's statement early Sunday, the suspect was identified as John Felix, 26, of Palm Springs, who was taken to a hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. The statement said he surrendered peacefully." -- CW

NBC New York: "A Long Island Rail Road train derailed in New Hyde Park Saturday night, though most of the hundreds of passengers were uninjured. An eastbound commuter train struck a work train at about 9:10 p.m., causing the commuter train to derail and the work train to catch fire, according to Nassau County police and the MTA." -- CW

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