The Commentariat -- October 21, 2016

FYI. Ali Breland of the Hill: "A massive denial of service attack slowed major websites to a crawl Friday morning. DynDNS, a tool that helps helps users access websites via simple domain names like Google.com instead of by their IP addresses, suffered a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that took down some of its services. Because of the attack, many sites that use Dyn — including Twitter, Reddit and Spotify — reportedly experienced latency or were not accessible.Dyn said Friday morning that has resolved the attack. The attack had primarily affected the U.S. East Coast, according the DNS provider’s status page." CW: If Donald Trump doesn't blame Hillary Clinton for shutting down his Twitter account, I'll eat my new Nasty Woman bumper sticker.

Presidential Race

Nate Silver: "Clinton Probably Finished Off Trump [Wednesday] Night.... Clinton went into the final presidential debate on Wednesday with a lead of about 7 percentage points over Donald Trump. And according to the only two scientific polls we’ve seen, voters thought that Clinton won the debate.... The morning headlines, which focused overwhelmingly on Trump’s refusal to say whether he’ll accept the election results, are potentially worse for Trump than the debate itself." -- CW ...

... Rasmussen Report: "The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey of Likely U.S. Voters [CW: which consistently, & often inaccurately, favors Republicans over Democrats] finds Trump with a 43% to 41% lead over his Democratic rival. Five percent (5%) favor Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, while Green Party nominee Jill Stein earns three percent (3%) support. Another three percent (3%) like some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided." -- CW ...

... The USC/Los Angeles Times' daily tracking poll, which has showed Trump leading in general election polling most of the time, has Trump up by one point today. ...

... The New York Times' Upshot, which tracks chances of each candidates' winning based on likely Electoral College votes, "suggests that Hillary Clinton is favored to win the presidency [by 93% to 7%], based on the latest state and national polls. A victory by Mr. Trump remains possible...." -- CW 

It's amazing I’m up here after Donald, I didn’t think he’d be OK with a peaceful transition of power. And Donald, after listening to your speech, I will also enjoy listening to Mike Pence deny you ever gave it. -- Hillary Clinton, at the Al Smith dinner, Thursday ...

... Hillary Clinton roast Donald Trump (and Rudy!) at the Al Smith dinner:

The president told me to stop whining, but I have to say the media is more biased this year than ever before. You want the proof? Michelle Obama gives a speech and everyone loves it, it’s fantastic, they think she’s absolutely great. My wife Melania gives the exact same speech and people get on her case. I don’t get it, I don’t know why. -- Donald Trump at the Al Smith dinner

     ... Whatever else Donald Trump said at the dinner is here (link fixed). ...

... Ben Kamisar & Harper Neidig of the Hill: "Donald Trump's appearance at Thursday night's charity event took a tough turn as the crowd repeatedly booed the GOP nominee for his sharp-edged jokes about his rival Hillary Clinton." -- CW ...

... Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: Donald Trump's speech at the Al Smith dinner "might as well have been a eulogy for his presidential campaign.... At one point, he wondered aloud if the crowd was booing him or Clinton, to which someone in the crowd answered: 'You!'” -- CW ...

... Cristiano Lima of Politico: "Hillary Clinton's allies are blasting Donald Trump for attacking the Democratic nominee at New York's Al Smith dinner on Thursday night, an off-key speech that prompted a chorus of boos from those in attendance.... The white-tie charity dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan, which benefits Roman Catholic charities, quickly devolved into an insult comedy special when Trump began ripping Clinton for being 'corrupt' and insinuating that she hated Catholics. The dinner is usually a light-hearted affair, but Trump used the occasion to let fly many of the attack lines he uses on the stump." -- CW ...

... For contrast, see 2012 remarks by Mitt Romney here & President Obama here.

Eric Geller of Politico: "Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s Gmail account was hacked by the same Russian intelligence-linked hackers that breached the DNC and the DCCC, researchers confirmed Thursday, spurring Clinton's team to immediately lash out at Donald Trump over his ongoing reluctance to blame Moscow for the spate of election-related hacks. The GOP nominee is now President Vladimir Putin's 'puppet,' said Clinton's top foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan, who added that the latest findings are proof that the Kremlin 'is trying to help Donald Trump. It's time for Trump to tell the American people what he knew about these hacks and when he knew it,' Sullivan said." -- CW 

Paul Krugman writes a love letter to Hillary: "... let’s dispel with this fiction that Hillary Clinton is only where she is through a random stroke of good luck. She’s a formidable figure, and has been all along." CW: Krugman thinks voters would not have fallen for, say, Marco Rubio. Sorry, but enough of them fell for George W. Bush that, along with a little help from the Supremes, Bush the Ignorant beat Al Gore, who was nearly as policy-smart as Clinton. -- CW 

Farah Stockman of the New York Times: "In her debate on Wednesday with Donald J. Trump, Hillary Clinton for the first time emerged as the clarion-voiced advocate for women whom many liberal women had been longing for — especially the younger voters she had largely left cold throughout the Democratic primaries.... Perhaps the biggest boost she received, however, was one that neither she nor any army of political operatives could have engineered: when Mr. Trump interjected, 'What a nasty woman,' as Mrs. Clinton was discussing Social Security and taxes. Overnight, his insult became a battle cry for Mrs. Clinton’s partisans — including many whose passions she had not yet stirred." -- CW 

Washington Post Editors: "... it is time to point out another reason Ms. Clinton is winning: She is earning it. She and her campaign have remained disciplined and even-keeled through tempests large and small.... It is not easy to stand on a stage for 90 minutes and parry words with an opponent, moderators and town-hall invitees; still less is it easy to do so while keeping one’s cool amid sleazy provocations and unpredictable insults from Mr. Trump. Through it all, Ms. Clinton has stayed focused on issues, laying out a program for the country that we don’t accept in every particular but that is well within the broad mainstream of plausible policy alternatives. Perhaps most important, she has kept her rhetoric civil and inclusive, in the face of an opponent bent on trashing the norms of democratic discourse." -- CW...

...Ezra Klein explains the importance of Hillary Clinton's prep work and its effects on the debates by bedeviling "Donald". Pretty good. --safari

Krissah Thompson of the Washington Post: "... after a rousing speech last week in New Hampshire in which she passionately renounced Republican Donald Trump, and another in Arizona on Thursday making the case for Clinton’s vision for the presidency, [Michelle] Obama has demonstrated an ability to do what Clinton herself has struggled with for much of her campaign: explain why voters should vote for her.... The first lady has shown a willingness to pitch in wherever Clinton needs her — including a speech in the traditionally red state of Arizona, where Obama’s appearance reflected the campaign’s growing ambitions for a landslide victory on Nov. 8." -- CW  

When you try to sow the seeds of doubt in people’s minds about our elections, that undermines our democracy. You’re doing the work of our adversaries for them. -- President Obama, at a Miami rally, Thursday ...

By Driftglass... Alan Rappeport & Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump insisted on Thursday that he would not cede the right to contest the outcome of the presidential election, even as Democrats and Republicans expressed concern that his position threatened to upend America’s tradition of peaceful power transfers. But in a small gesture of civility, he suggested that he would not dispute the result if the outcome of the race is clear. Mr. Trump’s reluctance to pledge absolutely that he would honor the election outcome follows a rocky performance in the third and last presidential debate.... On Thursday, Mr. Trump continued to rally his supporters with conspiracy theories about how the race was rigged against him, but he did make clear that there was one result that he would not challenge under any circumstance. 'I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election — if I win,' Mr. Trump said to cheers at a rally in Delaware, Ohio." -- CW 

Hahahahahaha. Trump Allies Insist He Respects Democracy. Also, the world is flat. Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Donald Trump’s allies are furiously trying to neutralize his nuclear statement that he may not accept the outcome of the presidential election, saying he simply wants to make sure there’s not blatant fraud, while claiming Hillary Clinton is the one undermining basic democratic principles. Drowning in headlines highlighting — and editorial boards rebuking — Trump's unprecedented refusal and reversal to say he will abide by political norms, his campaign all but ignored the menacing admission. 'Donald Trump clearly won the debate,' Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway declared in an interview with 'Fox and Friends.' 'With respect to the rigged system and the certification of results, he basically is saying that until he knows — you can lay out any hypothetical — until he knows the results, they’re certified and verified, he’s not going to completely concede an unknown.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Akhilleus: Soooo....he respects democracy, but democracy itself is some kind of unknown and he'll let us know later whether it passes the Trump Test (i.e., he wins no matter what). And...it's all Hillary's fault, whatever it is. Very adult. ...

... CW: If you know anyone who was shocked, shocked by Donald Trump's flouting of Constitutional principles & bedrock traditions, you may want to direct them to Charles Pierce: "It has been an article of faith for the entire Republican Party for a quarter-century now that any elected Democratic president is prima facie illegitimate. Trump is just putting a layer of narcissistic varnish on the bucket containing all the historical deplorables. Further, the history of the country is replete with efforts, some of them violent, by politicians to avoid 'respecting' the results of election.... Donald Trump is just being a little cruder about things than many of our television historians would like. Democracy is not a bedtime story, but the monsters within it are very, very real." -- CW 

Historian Eric Foner and profressor Eddie Glaude put Drumpf's rise into historical perspective and says he is the logical conclusion of the GOP's increasing extremism. They are one and the same.--safari

Tim Egan: Donald Trump's "debate-night threat, holding the validity of the election itself hostage, is no surprise. Trump is bereft of patriotism, and seems to hate the country he wants to lead. He’s been talking down this nation and its most cherished institutions throughout his campaign. Time and again, he would rather defend Russia than the United States." -- CW 

Josh Israel of Think Progress: "In Wednesday’s presidential debate, Donald Trump claimed that new videos proved that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had 'hired people' and 'paid them $1,500' to 'be violent, cause fights, [and] do bad things' at Trump rallies. He was referring to videos released this week by conservative activist James O’Keefe that purport to show pro-Clinton activists boasting of their efforts to bait Trump supporters into violent acts. The videos offer no evidence that Clinton or Obama were aware of or behind the alleged dirty tricks.... Trump neglected, however, to mention ... [that his] own controversial foundation ... gave $10,000 to [O'Keefe's] Project Veritas. Trump, who claimed in the same debate that Hillary Clinton 'shouldn’t be allowed to run' for president 'based on what she did with e-mails and so many other things,' was funding a convicted criminal." -- CW 

By Driftglass.Around the Bend, Starring Donald Trump. David Taintor of NBC News: "Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of having advance notice of the debate questions, a claim for which he offered no evidence. 'Why didn't Hillary Clinton announce that she was inappropriately given the debate questions -- she secretly used them! Crooked Hillary,' Trump tweeted Thursday morning. Akhilleus: Trump offers no evidence for a whackadoodle fantasy claim? Nevah! What's next, she was using Jedi mind tricks to control Chris Wallace? (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

What this shows is Trump doesn’t know a damn thing about military strategy. -- Jeff McCausland, retired Army colonel & former dean at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. ...

... Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "In Wednesday night’s debate, Donald J. Trump excoriated the American-backed Iraqi military offensive to recapture Mosul from the Islamic State, saying it had forfeited 'the element of surprise' and allowed militant leaders to slip away. 'Douglas MacArthur, George Patton spinning in their graves when they see the stupidity of our country,' Mr. Trump added, invoking two of the greatest American commanders from World War II. Actually, probably not, according to some military historians and senior officers, who said on Thursday that Mr. Trump’s armchair generalship revealed a fundamental lack of understanding of Iraqi politics, military warfare — and even some of the most famous campaigns commanded by MacArthur and Patton.... There are many good reasons to foreshadow an impending ground offensive, like Mosul, mainly to reduce civilian casualties, isolate the enemy and instill fear within its ranks, military scholars and retired commanders said." -- CW

Pam Belluck of the New York Times: "In the presidential debate Wednesday night, Donald J. Trump ... assert[ed] that under current abortion law, 'You can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day.' Doctors say the scenario Mr. Trump described does not occur. 'That is not happening in the United States,' said Dr. Aaron B. Caughey, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health and Science University. 'It is, of course, such an absurd thing to say,' he said. 'I’m unaware of anyone that’s terminating a pregnancy a few days prior to delivery of a normal pregnancy.'” -- CW ...

... Meredith Isaksen, in a moving New York Times op-ed, relates her own & her family's agony over a late-term abortion necessitated after doctors discovered in her 20th week of pregnancy a severe abnormality in her unborn child. CW: Anti-abortion fanatics & opportunists must stop further torturing these families in crisis.

Laura Dimon and Larry McShane of New York Daily News: "Donald Trump’s latest accuser, with tears streaming down her face, charged the White House hopeful with a U.S. Open groping nearly two decades ago. Wellness expert Karena Virginia alleged Thursday that the billionaire tennis fan touched her breast after making a lecherous comment about her looks — to the entertainment of his male entourage. 'I was in shock,' she recounted at a Manhattan news conference about their 1998 encounter at the tennis championships. 'He said, "Don’t you know who I am?" I felt intimidated and powerless. I said, "Yes.’” Akhilleus. Et maintenant, le deluge. Wonder if Melania [Trump] is thinking about some kind of apology now. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

When Paul LePage Calls You Stoopid.... Madeline Conway of Politico: "Even Paul LePage, the controversial governor of Maine who has drawn comparisons to Donald Trump for his loud rhetoric and habit of disparaging the press, is harping on the Republican nominee for his refusal to commit to conceding if he loses the November election. 'Not accepting the results, I think, is just a stupid comment,' LePage said on a Maine radio station on Thursday, responding to Trump’s comments at the third presidential debate. 'I mean, c’mon. Get over yourself.'” -- CW ...

I didn't like the outcome of the 2008 election. But I had a duty to concede, and I did so without reluctance. A concession isn't just an exercise in graciousness. It is an act of respect for the will of the American people, a respect that is every American leader's first responsibility. — Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. ...

... The AP publishes statements made by some politicians regarding Donald Trump's refusal to say he would accept the results of the election unless he wins.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Amy Chozick & Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "In the third and final presidential debate, Mrs. Clinton outmaneuvered Mr. Trump with a surprising new approach: his. Flipping the script, she turned herself into his relentless tormentor, condescending to him repeatedly and deploying some of his own trademark tactics against him. The relatively subdued and largely defanged Republican nominee who showed up onstage at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, was a different figure from the candidate America has watched for the past 16 months. Mr. Trump was, for much of the night, oddly calm and composed. He minimized his name-calling. His interruptions were relatively rare for him." ...

... CW: Really?? Let's Ask Steve. ...

... ** Steve M.: The Times analysis looks like Chozick's "application for Maureen Dowd's job." The Times report doesn't reflect "... what happened. Trump was more subdued than expected, especially in the first twenty minutes or so of the debate, but then the tranquilizers wore off his temper resurfaced and he was his old self again. And Clinton is not like Trump. Clinton doesn't menace. Clinton doesn't try to intimidate. An opponent who was minimally socialized could have had an exchange with her that would have been called 'sharp' or 'heated' or 'barbed,' but wouldn't have descended into a pre-adolescent battle for dominance. Trump, however, always keeps it at the grade-school level." -- CW ...

     ... Read on. Steve explains part of what Trump means by a "rigged election": ... the election is rigged because the press publishes stories he doesn't like.... it's a rigged election because people who have died or moved are still on the voter rolls where they used to vote -- never mind the fact that there's no evidence that "millions" of people try to take advantage of this. And it's a rigged election because Hillary Clinton was allowed to run for president.... No election that includes Clinton could be fair. No election in which the press criticizes Trump could be fair." -- CW ...

...Here's the video I tried to link yesterday. Ari Berman of The Nation gives us a RealityCheck and points the finger of vote rigging at the Republican party. He paints a pretty comprehensive picture about their different strategies of disenfranchisment. Sorry Marie for the link trouble yesterday. Hopefully this one works. --safari

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Brad Plumer of Vox: "... none of the [debate] moderators asked about global warming at all. Not in the first presidential debate. Not in the vice presidential debate. Not in the second presidential debate.... Not in the third presidential debate. Hillary Clinton name-checked the topic, occasionally, but that was it. Humanity is departing from the stable climatic conditions that allowed civilization to thrive, yet the most powerful nation on Earth can’t set aside five minutes to discuss." -- CW ...

... Joe Romm of Think Progress: Ditto.

(Today's Constitutional Question: Say, what happens if Trump -- who likes to sue everybody (including his underpaid, undocumented Polish workers) -- sues like 37 states for rigging their elections & the suits find their way to the Supreme Court? [Answer Help: Chief Johnnie Balls-and-Strikes does not get to break a tie.])

... AND John Schwartz of the New York Times plans a social-interaction test of Trump's debate tactic: "Today's experiment: During conversations with people around the office, I'll just spontaneously interject 'WRONG' and see how things go." -- CW

Stephen Battaglio of the Los Angeles Times: "Fox News anchor Chris Wallace landed a permanent place on the presidential debate highlight reel when ... Donald Trump said he would not commit to accepting the results of the election.... 'I have been covering Trump for a year and half,' Wallace said Thursday. 'I’ve learned to not be surprised by anything.' But the veteran Washington journalist and first-time presidential debate moderator knew that the magnitude of the response required him to frame the question a second time. 'I thought, "You need to put this in historical context," which is why I asked a follow-up question about one of the long traditions of democracy —  the idea of the peaceful transfer of power and that we accept the results of the election,' said Wallace. 'I wanted to put it in context so that it was clear that whatever Trump said, folks understood how unprecedented this would be.' For Wallace, it was one of the debate highlights that earned him near unanimous kudos on social media....” -- CW 

Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Jim Murphy, Donald Trump’s national political director, is no longer playing an active role on the campaign, according to three sources briefed on the move – a troubling development for the Republican nominee coming just 19 days before the election. 'I have not resigned but for personal reasons have had to take a step back from the campaign,' Murphy said in a statement to Politico. He did not elaborate on the reasons for his departure. Several Trump aides said that Murphy has been conspicuously absent in recent days as the campaign mobilizes for the final push.... It’s the latest departure in a campaign rife with turnover." -- CW

Congressional Races

Philip Rucker & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "As [Donald Trump] ... reeled from a turbulent performance in the final debate here in Las Vegas, his party’s embattled senators and House members scrambled to protect their seats and preserve the GOP’s congressional majorities against what Republicans privately acknowledge could be a landslide victory for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. With 19 days until the election, the Republican Party is in a state of historic turmoil, encapsulated by Trump’s extraordinary debate declaration that he would leave the nation in 'suspense' about whether he would recognize the results from an election he has claimed will be 'rigged' or even 'stolen.'” -- CW ...

... For Example. Kelsey Snell of the Washington Post: "Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) is eight points behind her Democratic rival, Gov. Maggie Hassan, in a race that could determine whether Republicans will retain control of the Senate, according to a poll from WMUR and the University of New Hampshire released Thursday.... Trump is trailing Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by 15 points in New Hampshire, according to a WMUR poll released Wednesday." -- CW 

Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post: "With presidential pre-election polls heavily favoring Democrat Hillary Clinton, President Obama aimed his attacks Thursday at Sen. Marco Rubio and other Republican officials who have supported GOP nominee Donald Trump, despite his controversial campaign and derogatory remarks about immigrants and women.... Much of Obama’s speech was focused on questioning the honesty and ethics of Republican politicians who have condemned Trump but still back him. He was especially critical of Rubio (R-Fla.), who is in a tough battle for the state's Senate seat with Democrat Patrick Murphy." -- CW 

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Bernie Sanders can still apparently pack a punch when it comes to fundraising. The senator from Vermont raised just shy of $2 million in two days online this week for 13 like-minded U.S. Senate and House candidates, according to his campaign committee." -- CW 

Other News & Views

Dara Lind of Vox: "... 'law and order' patriots don’t actually think legitimacy is inherent in American laws and government. It’s dependent on whether white people want to see it as legitimate or not. When government acts in accordance with their desires — when it helps them, and especially acts against nonwhites — 'rule of law' and 'law and order' become universal values, and nonwhites are being justifiably punished for violating them. But when government acts to protect nonwhite Americans, it’s seen as a reason to question the legitimacy of the government itself. It’s not really about law. It’s about power. And in America, that power has historically been white supremacy." -- CW 

Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "WikiLeaks has published several emails sent to and from then-Sen. Barack Obama in October 2008, just before he won his first presidential election. The emails sent to John Podesta, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman ... are from bobama@ameritech.net, a domain that has never been publicly linked to the president. The email dump is part of the massive hack of Democratic officials and its campaign apparatus.... The emails that include Obama are fairly mundane...." -- CW 

 

The emails that include Obama are fairly mundane: The correspondence includes some early discussions about his potential Cabinet as well as a memo about his possible participation in the G-20 summit if elected. Most of the emails are written by top aides, with Obama only briefly chiming in.

Burgess Everett of Politico: "Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake has maintained for months that Republicans should take up Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination if it looks like the presidential contest is a lost cause for the GOP. It's looking about that time, Flake said in an interview on Thursday. 'I said if we were in a position like we were in in '96 and we pretty much knew the outcome that we ought to move forward. But I think we passed that awhile ago,' Flake said. 'If Hillary Clinton is president-elect then we should move forward with hearings in the lame duck. That's what I'm encouraging my colleagues to do." The political calculus is straightforward: Better to deal with Garland now and avoid swallowing a more liberal nominee from Hillary Clinton." -- CW 

Beyond the Beltway

Marc Tracy of the New York Times: "The University of Louisville on Thursday confirmed that the N.C.A.A. had formally charged current and former staff members in its men’s basketball program, including Coach Rick Pitino, with major rules violations related to a scandal in which a university employee provided prostitutes who performed sexual acts with players and recruits." -- CW 

Way Beyond

Turing's Law. Sewell Chan of the New York Times: "Decades after homosexuality was decriminalized in Britain, the government announced on Thursday that it would posthumously pardon thousands of gay and bisexual men who were convicted, in essence, of having or seeking gay sex. Since 2012, men with such convictions who are still alive have been able to apply to have their names cleared. The law providing for the pardons ... is named for Alan Turing, the mathematician who made a major contribution to Britain in World War II by cracking Germany’s Enigma coding machine and was a central figure in the development of the computer. Turing was convicted on charges of homosexuality in 1952 and committed suicide in 1954. The government apologized in 2009 for its treatment of him, and in 2013, Queen Elizabeth II formally pardoned him." -- CW 

Phillipines' Own Donald Trump Obsequiously Sidles up to China. Katie Hunt, et al., of CNN "Rodrigo Duterte left no room for doubt about where his allegiance lies. In a state visit aimed at cozying up to Beijing as he pushes away from Washington, the Philippine President announced his military and economic 'separation' from the United States. 'America has lost now. I've realigned myself in your ideological flow,' he said at a business forum in Beijing on Thursday. 'And maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to [Vladimir] Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world: China, Philippines and Russia. It's the only way.' Akhilleus: Anyone wondering what America under Trump might look like, Duterte offers a good clue. A lawless, undisciplined, ignorant, self-aggrandizing, authoritarian thug. Trump will no doubt play Duterte's entreaties to China as yet another of his favorite dictators who doesn't like America. Damn! (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Commentariat -- October 20, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Hahahahahaha. Trump Allies Insist He Respects Democracy. Also, the world is flat. Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Donald Trump's allies are furiously trying to neutralize his nuclear statement that he may not accept the outcome of the presidential election, saying he simply wants to make sure there's not blatant fraud, while claiming Hillary Clinton is the one undermining basic democratic principles. Drowning in headlines highlighting -- and editorial boards rebuking -- Trump's unprecedented refusal and reversal to say he will abide by political norms, his campaign all but ignored the menacing admission. 'Donald Trump clearly won the debate,' Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway declared in an interview with 'Fox and Friends.' 'With respect to the rigged system and the certification of results, he basically is saying that until he knows -- you can lay out any hypothetical -- until he knows the results, they're certified and verified, he's not going to completely concede an unknown.'" ...

     ... Akhilleus: Soooo....he respects democracy, but democracy itself is some kind of unknown and he'll let us know later whether it passes the Trump Test (i.e., he wins). And...it's all Hillary's fault, whatever it is. Very adult. ...

Around the Bend, Starring Donald Trump. David Taintor of NBC News. "Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of having advance notice of the debate questions, a claim for which he offered no evidence. 'Why didn't Hillary Clinton announce that she was inappropriately given the debate questions -- she secretly used them! Crooked Hillary,' Trump tweeted Thursday morning. Akhilleus: Trump offers no evidence for a whackadoodle fantasy claim? Nevah! What's next, she was using Jedi mind tricks to control Chris Wallace?

Laura Dimon and Larry McShane of New York Daily News. "Donald Trump's latest accuser, with tears streaming down her face, charged the White House hopeful with a U.S. Open groping nearly two decades ago. Wellness expert Karena Virginia alleged Thursday that [Trump] ... touched her breast after making a lecherous comment about her looks -- to the entertainment of his male entourage. 'I was in shock,' she recounted at a Manhattan news conference about their 1998 encounter at the tennis championships. 'He said, "Don't you know who I am?" I felt intimidated and powerless. I said, "Yes."'" Akhilleus. Et maintenant, le deluge. Wonder if Melania [Trump] is thinking about some kind of apology now.

Philippines' Own Donald Trump Obsequiously Sidles up to China. Katie Hunt, et al., of CNN "Rodrigo Duterte left no room for doubt about where his allegiance lies. In a state visit aimed at cozying up to Beijing as he pushes away from Washington, the Philippine President announced his military and economic 'separation' from the United States. 'America has lost now. I've realigned myself in your ideological flow,' he said at a business forum in Beijing on Thursday. 'And maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to [Vladimir] Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world: China, Philippines and Russia. It's the only way.' Akhilleus: Anyone wondering what America under Trump might look like, Duterte offers a good clue. A lawless, undisciplined, ignorant, self-aggrandizing, authoritarian thug. Trump will no doubt play Duterte's entreaties to China as yet another favorite dictators who doesn't like America.

*****

Presidential Race

John Merline of Investor's Business Daily: "After more than a week of blistering attacks from Democrats, celebrities and the press, Donald Trump has managed to pull ahead of Hillary Clinton by a 1.3 percentage point margin -- 41.3% to 40% -- in a four-way matchup, according to the new IBD/TIPP poll released today. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson got 7.6% and Green Party candidate Jill Stein got 5.5%. The results are the first in the IBD/TIPP presidential tracking poll." CW: This is not some nutty poll devised by Steve Bannon. Nate Silver determined that IBD/TIPP had the most accurate 2012 presidential polling. If this isn't an outlier, it appears Stein is killing Clinton.

Chris Megerian of the Los Angeles Times: "After the debate, Hillary Clinton made a beeline for a campaign event in North Las Vegas..., where more than 5,000 supporters had been watching her spar with Donald Trump on a massive screen in an open-air amphitheater. ''We are a better country than Donald Trump is,' Clinton said after taking the stage with her husband. Clinton was introduced in Spanish by Mexican singer Vicente Fernandez, and she urged the largely Latino crowd to help her defeat Trump.... Bill Clinton joined his wife onstage, and they put their arms around each other. 'I want you to know that our family will support your family,' Hillary Clinton said." -- CW

Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "'Just landed in Ohio. Thank you America- I am honored to win the final debate for our MOVEMENT,' Trump tweeted, citing unscientific polls like Drudge that showed the GOP nominee crushing Democrat Hillary Clinton. CNN'S poll showed that a majority of viewers said Clinton won." -- CW

By Driftglass.Patrick Healy & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that he might not accept the results of the presidential election if he felt it was rigged against him -- a stunning statement from a major party nominee and one that Hillary Clinton called 'horrifying' -- in a final debate that swung wildly between civil and caustic.... Mr. Trump, under enormous pressure to halt Mrs. Clinton's steady rise in opinion polls, came across as frustrated and sarcastic at several points.... He lashed out repeatedly, saying that 'she's been proven to be a liar on so many different ways' and that 'she's guilty of a very, very serious crime' over her State Department email practices. And by the end of the debate, when Mrs. Clinton needled him over Social Security, Mr. Trump lost his cool and snapped, 'Such a nasty woman.' Mrs. Clinton was rarely rattled, and made a determined effort to rise above Mr. Trump's taunts while making overtures to undecided voters.... The debate felt less like an argument between equals than a last-ditch attempt by a fading candidate, Mr. Trump, to save himself." -- CW

Jose DelReal & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump refused to say whether he would accept the results of November's presidential election if he lost -- a startling break with American democratic tradition, and the most striking moment of Wednesday night's final presidential debate. Trump, who came into the debate trailing badly in polls, said that he believed the system was rigged, blaming the news media for 'poisoning' minds against him and the FBI for not recommending charges against rival Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server to handle government business while she was secretary of state. When the moderator, Fox News' Chris Wallace, asked whether Trump would accept a loss and allow for a peaceful transfer of power, Trump replied: 'I will tell you at the time,' meaning after Election Day on Nov. 8. 'I will keep you in suspense.'" -- CW ...

... New York Times Editors: "Donald Trump turned, in the third and final presidential debate, from insulting the intelligence of the American voter to insulting American democracy itself. He falsely insisted there were 'millions of people' registered to participate in the election who did not have the right to vote and declared he would not commit to honoring the outcome.... 'He is talking down our democracy,' Mrs. Clinton warned.... The presidential debate was another exercise in narcissism, bombast and mendacity by Mr. Trump. One could only hope that this might be the last grand display of his gross unfitness to be president.... His trashing of the democratic process, in service of his own ego, risks lasting damage to the country, and politicians of both parties should recoil from him and his cynical example." -- CW

... Gail Collins: "O.K., Donald Trump won't promise to accept the results of the election. That's truly ... good grief.... Hillary Clinton noted that Trump tends to presume that whenever he loses anything, the system was rigged: 'There was even a time when he didn't get an Emmy for his TV program three years in a row and he started tweeting that the Emmys were rigged.' 'I should have gotten it,' Trump retorted. This is obviously what we should have known was coming when the host of 'The Celebrity Apprentice' wound up as a presidential nominee. But jeepers, people, this is serious. Trump was refusing to acknowledge it was even possible for him to lose a fair fight. At one point, he announced the election was rigged because Hillary Clinton was in it. ('She should never have been allowed to run for the presidency based on what she did with emails.')" -- CW ...

... A Long, Long Time Ago. Neetzan Zimmerman of the Hill: "A 1993 letter written by George H.W. Bush on his last day in office wishing Bill Clinton well has resurfaced following the final presidential debate. Asked Wednesday night if he would accept the results of the election irrespective of the outcome, Donald Trump told debate moderator Chris Wallace that he will wait for the outcome before deciding. The response sparked outrage on both the left and right.... 'A long, long time ago, in a land far far away, politics had grace. George H.W. Bush's letter to Bill Clinton on leaving office: pic.twitter.com/bJn6ojWRS4' [tweeted]-- Saba Gul. 'I wish you great happiness here,' Bush wrote in the note dated January 20, 1993. 'You will be our President when you read this note.'" -- CW

Absolute Proof Clinton Leading Global Conspiracy to Rig U.S. Election:

During the third presidential debate, Hillary Clinton, in cooperation with the mainstream media controlling the cameras, Chris Wallace & the Presidential Debate Commission, subtly reminded her fellow conspirators to rig the election.

Washington Post Editors: "... the policy discussion was clarifying also, exposing as it did Mr. Trump's ignorance of -- or is it distaste for? -- facts and policy. He again insisted that the North American Free Trade Agreement has sucked jobs from the country, when economists have found otherwise. He indicated the debt would take care of itself under his economic plan because 'we will have created a tremendous economic machine,' which is pure snake oil. Incoherently, he attacked Ms. Clinton for favoring open borders but also favoring a border wall. In another striking moment, Mr. Trump denied that the Russian government has been meddling in this election, refusing to accept the judgment of the country's intelligence community.... [These lapses] fade to the status of trivia in the face of an opponent who will not accept the basic rules of American democracy." -- CW

Dana Milbank: Donald Trump "set the tone for the last debate by inviting President Obama's half brother, a Trump backer, to the debate, along with the mother who accuses Clinton of murdering her son in Benghazi and a woman who just accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault.... At first -- and probably because [Chris] Wallace chose to begin the debate with substantive issues of policy — Trump was uncharacteristically mild, even as Hillary Clinton tried to needle him.... Gradually, with Clinton's baiting, Trump began to rumble.... Gradually, [Trump's] interruptions increased. 'Wrong!' he said when Clinton justifiably said he had been cavalier about nuclear weapons. 'Wrong!' he said when Clinton correctly noted that he mocked a disabled reporter. When Clinton tried to 'translate' something Trump had said, he blurted out: 'You can't!'... Trump, rather than taking the race in a new direction, decided to do what he's done before when his back is to the wall: lash out with fury." -- CW ...

No puppet! No puppet! You're the puppet. -- Donald Trump, answering Clinton's claim that he was a puppet of Vladimir Putin's

This has to be the most infantile rebuttal in the history of formal debates. I don't mean just presidential debates. I'm talking 8th-grade practice debates. If Clinton were more of "a nasty woman," I believe she could actually have gotten Trump to this. Really -- Constant Weader

... Maureen Dowd: "At the final debate tonight in Las Vegas, Donald Trump once more showed how easily egged on he is.... Hillary Clinton baited Trump into a series of damaging nails-in-the-coffin statements. And it was so easy.... Trump tried to stay calm, but he can never let go of a slight.... He defended himself on groping charges by saying, 'Nobody has more respect for women than I do.' But he ended up, after Clinton's hazing -- 'Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger' -- blurting out as she talked about entitlements: 'Such a nasty woman.'... He was so unnerved, he said one of the most shocking things ever heard in a debate, putting his ego ahead of American democracy.'" -- CW ...

... Shane Goldmacher of Politico zeroes in on the moment Hillary took control of Little Donnie. -- CW

Politico: "Donald Trump cut in 67 times during Wednesday night's presidential debate -- but Hillary Clinton still out-talked him by six minutes in the final meeting between the two candidates." -- CW

Helaine Olen of Slate: "Trump's Defense of His Tax Avoidance Is Getting Even More Brazen." He is blaming Hillary Clinton for a law passed (CW: at his request, BTW) when she was first lady. "And what about now? Clinton is now advocating a plan that would limit developers taking advantage of something called like-kind exchanges -- that's when they avoid paying taxes on profits by taking the money and buying another property -- to $1 million a year. As for Trump, who conveniently didn't say whether he thinks his income tax avoidance was a problem, even though he's criticized much less fortunate Americans for doing the same: His tax plan, according to many analysts, would actually increase the tax breaks available to real estate honchos like himself. Deplorable." -- CW

Can This Marriage Be Saved? (Not That We Care.) Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump said he didn't apologize to his wife after the release of a video in which he bragged about kissing and groping women without their consent and allegations that he sexually assaulted nine women.... In an interview Monday on CNN, Melania Trump said her husband apologized to her." -- CW

Jennifer Agiesta of CNN: "Hillary Clinton won the final presidential debate, topping Donald Trump by a 13-point margin according to a CNN/ORC poll of debate watchers, giving Clinton a clean sweep across all three of this year's presidential debates. But Wednesday's debate watchers were closely divided on which candidate they trusted more on the issues most important to them.... Half of voters (50%) who watched Wednesday's debate said Clinton agreed with them more on the important issues, while 47% thought Trump did, but by wide margins, they thought Clinton had the better understanding of the issues, 61% to 31%, and was better prepared to handle the presidency, 59% to 35%." -- CW

Here are the debate highlights. CW: Good thing for me because I missed the whole debate when my cheap computer went down:

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post provides an annotated transcript of the debate. ...

... OR you can read Driftglass's liveblog.

New York Times reporters are liveblogging the presidential debate. -- CW

Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Scott Foval and Robert Creamer, two little-known but influential Democratic political operatives, have left their jobs after video investigations by James O'Keefe's Project Veritas Action found them entertaining dark notions about how to win elections. Foval was laid off Monday by Americans United for Change, where he had been national field director; Creamer announced Tuesday night that he was 'stepping back' from the work he was doing for the unified Democratic campaign for Hillary Clinton." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Peter Sterne of Politico: "Leslie Millwee, a former reporter for local Arkansas TV station KLMN-TV, has accused former president Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting her three times in 1980, while Clinton was the governor of Arkansas, Breitbart News reports. Millwee told Breitbart that she interviewed Clinton about 20 times publicly and met with him in KLMN-TV's editing room, which is where she said he allegedly groped her and rubbed his genitals on her. She also said he once gave her half of his tie and wrote his name on her reporter's notebook, and that he once tried to visit her apartment but left after she did not let him enter. After Clinton came to her apartment, she told Millwee, she decided to quit her job at the station." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Max Fisher & Amanda Taub of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump's foreign policy is not a foreign policy at all, but rather a vessel for reaching voters on a purely ideological level.... Mr. Trump has tapped into what scholars call conservation values. People who hold those values prioritize security, conformity and tradition. They also tend to fear physical threats and people they see as outsiders, whether that means foreigners or those of different races or religions. And they often express those values as a particular set of 'hawkish' foreign policy views..., characterized by a desire to shut out the world, ruthlessly promote American interests, reject cooperation and meet threats with overwhelming force.... Supporters do not primarily hear a policy agenda, but a promise: that Mr. Trump understands their fears and will protect them." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... That Was Then, This Is Fear-Mongering. Oliver Darcy of Business Insider: "Donald Trump had a starkly different tone about globalization in a 2013 op-ed published on CNN's website.... [Trump], writing about how Europe was a 'terrific place' for investment, argued at the time that the 2008 recession had made it clear 'the global economy has become truly that -- global.' Trump wrote that 'cultures and economics are intertwined' in today's society, and that it was necessary to 'work with each other for the benefit of all.... In this case, the solution is clear. We will have to leave borders behind and go for global unity when it comes to financial stability.'... [He] concluded ... that the future of the US and Europe 'depends on a cohesive global economy.'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Ed Kilgore of New York: "In an atmosphere poisoned by Donald Trump's constant claims that the presidential election has been or will soon be 'stolen,' there are actually some real threats to the integrity of our voting system worth worrying about between now and November 8. These do not include the 'massive voter fraud' chestnut far too many Republicans love to talk about in one of the more obvious racial dog whistles of this and other recent campaigns.... But above and beyond these campaign-generated disruptions, our rickety and radically decentralized system for casting, recording, and reporting votes -- not much improved since the 2000 fiasco -- could fail us or prove an irresistible target for malicious hackers, domestic or foreign.... And consider this: What if the objective of a certain foreign power is less to elect their favorite U.S. major-party presidential candidate than to reinforce said candidate's arguments that this country is in such a state of decay and decline that we cannot even hold an honest election? Yeah, such concerns could make you as jumpy as a Bolshoi ballerina." --safari ...

... Lauren Smiley of the New Republic: "In fact, however, the U.S. election system really is vulnerable -- though not in the way Trump claims.... In July and August, Russian intelligence services hacked voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona. But as menacing as foreign agents meddling with U.S. databases may seem, the biggest threat to the sanctity of the vote is the voting machines themselves. Like so much of America's crumbling infrastructure, the systems we rely on to tabulate our votes fairly and accurately are in dire need of an overhaul. In thousands of precincts, the outcome of the election rides on equipment that's outdated, prone to errors, and difficult or impossible to repair" --safari.

David Mack of BuzzFeed: "Ivanka Trump once told a gathering of friends and acquaintances she had never seen 'a mulatto cock,' BuzzFeed founder and chief executive Jonah Peretti alleged Wednesday. 'Surprised Ivanka would be shocked by lewd language,' Peretti tweeted. 'I met her once & she casually said: "I've never seen a mulatto cock, but I'd like to."'... In a statement, Ivanka Trump called Peretti's words 'a complete and total lie.' Reached by phone, Peretti said he wrote the tweet ... after having read a BuzzFeed News report about [Ivanka's] reaction to the Billy Bush Locker-Room Bus tape]... 'That's not language consistent with any conversation I've ever had with him, certainly, or any conversation I've overheard,' she said at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit. 'So it was a bit jarring for me to hear.'" -- CW

Meet your Trump Supporters, Jeezus Edition. Jonathan Chait: "A belief in the connection between personal morality and fitness for office used to be a bedrock of Republican politics.... Five years ago, white evangelical Protestants were the most heavily Republican voting bloc in the country, and also its most moralistic. Only 30 percent of them believed that 'an elected official can behave ethically even if they have committed transgressions in their personal life.'... But Donald Trump has changed all that. Today, white evangelical Protestants are the least moralistic cohort of voters. According to a new PRRI/Brookings survey, a full 72 percent of them now believe elected officials can behave ethically even if they have committed transgressions in their personal lives.... Trump has cured what used to be called 'the Moral Majority' of its moralism." --safari ...

... Mazin Sidahmed of the Guardian: "A post on the aggregator site Drudge Report sparked a cascade of hate mail and phone calls to the American Muslim Women political action committee(Pac) on Tuesday. Mirriam Seddiq, a criminal defense attorney and the founder of the group, woke up to an email with a link to a site that sold ammunition covered in pork. 'It's bullets made to kill Muslims,' said Seddiq. After showing the email to her Pac colleagues, she realized that Drudge Report had highlighted their seven-week-old Pac at the top of its site. A link that read 'Hijab for Hillary' referred to a press release of the group endorsing Hillary Clinton last week.... The Pac aims to get Muslim women more involved in the election cycle, partly by ensuring more of them register to vote.... Seddiq said that the hate emails and phone calls were exactly the reason they started the Pac to begin with. In response to the hate emails, the Pac is selling pink 'Hijab for Hillary' T-shirts that can be ordered on their site." --safari

Emily Jane Fox of Vanity Fair: "[A]s New York magazine's Gabriel Sherman revealed on stage at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit on Wednesday morning, Trump has lost one key ally: Roger Ailes. The former Fox News boss had reportedly served as an advisor to Trump throughout the campaign. He was said to have played a particularly important role as of late, helping him prepare for the presidential debates.... That's all changed now, according to Sherman and Vanity Fair contributing editor Sarah Ellison. The reason for the fallout depends on who you ask. 'Ailes's camp said Ailes learned that Trump couldn't focus -- surprise, surprise -- and that advising him was a waste of time,' Sherman said.... On the Trump side, Ellison said the story is different: 'Even for the second debate, Ailes kept going off on tangents and talking about his war stories while he was supposed to be prepping Trump.'" --safari ...

     ... CW: Oh, I thought the falling-out was because Ailes was so shocked by Trump's abuse of women.

Other News & Views

Scott Shane, et al., of the New York Times: "Investigators pursuing what they believe to be the largest case of mishandling classified documents in United States history have found that the huge trove of stolen documents in the possession of a National Security Agency contractor included top-secret N.S.A. hacking tools that two months ago were offered for sale on the internet. They have been hunting for electronic clues that could link those cybertools -- computer code posted online for auction by an anonymous group calling itself the Shadow Brokers -- to the home computers of the contractor, Harold T. Martin III, who was arrested in late August on charges of theft of government property and mishandling of classified information." -- CW

Way Beyond the Beltway

Martin Chulov of the Guardian: "Mosul residents who have fled Islamic State say a homegrown resistance, raised over the past six months, has made plans to launch coordinated attacks against the group as Iraqi and Kurdish forces close in -- a move that could prove influential in the final battle for the city. Though a decisive clash still appears to be weeks away -- by some estimates up to two months -- the residents say an underground movement has organised into cells that are prepared to oppose Isis when they receive sufficient support." --safari: Great news for the fight against ISIS, although publishing the story now could cost many people their lives. I'm sure ISIS leaders read the news.

Nina Lakhani of the Guardian: "Two more land rights activists in Honduras have been murdered amid a continuing wave of violence against community leaders opposing big business interests. Jose Ángel Flores and Silmer Dionicio George -- both members of the Unified Peasant Movement (MUCA) -- were shot dead by a group of men outside the organization's office in Tacoa, in the Bajo Aguán region.... A killing spree triggered by the 2009 coup d'état has made Honduras the world's most dangerous country for environmental and land activists, leaving at least 120 dead, according to the NGO Global Witness." --safari

House of Cards, Karma Edition. Matt Sandy of the Guardian: "Eduardo Cunha, the Brazilian politician who orchestrated the impeachment of the country's first female president, Dilma Rousseff, has been arrested on corruption charges. Federal police detained the former speaker of the lower house in Brasilia on Wednesday and executed a search warrant at his home in Rio de Janeiro...The arrest was ordered by federal judge Sergio Moro, who has gained celebrity in Brazil by leading that probe, which has ensnared dozens of leading politicians. Moro has been investigating Cunha for months but could only arrest him after he was expelled from the chamber of deputies last month, and lost his parliamentary immunity.... Cunha, who built his powerbase on knowing the secrets of others, is said to be writing a book...Opposition politicians predicted if Cunha made a plea bargain with prosecutors, the government could fall." --safari

@safari: Sorry to have lost your video. It seems to have corrupted my cheap computer, so I ran out & got a new cheap computer & have semi-set it up, & it won't load the vid, either. Anyway, it looked like a good one. -- CW

The Commentariat -- October 19, 2016

Afternoon Update:

     ... See Akhilleus's comment for context.

Max Fisher & Amanda Taub of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump's foreign policy is not a foreign policy at all, but rather a vessel for reaching voters on a purely ideological level.... Mr. Trump has tapped into what scholars call conservation values. People who hold those values prioritize security, conformity and tradition. They also tend to fear physical threats and people they see as outsiders, whether that means foreigners or those of different races or religions. And they often express those values as a particular set of 'hawkish' foreign policy views..., characterized by a desire to shut out the world, ruthlessly promote American interests, reject cooperation and meet threats with overwhelming force.... Supporters do not primarily hear a policy agenda, but a promise: that Mr. Trump understands their fears and will protect them." -- CW ...

... That Was Then, This Is Fearmongering. Oliver Darcy of Business Insider: "Donald Trump had a starkly different tone about globalization in a 2013 op-ed published on CNN's website.... [Trump], writing about how Europe was a 'terrific place' for investment, argued at the time that the 2008 recession had made it clear 'the global economy has become truly that -- global.' Trump wrote that 'cultures and economics are intertwined' in today's society, and that it was necessary to 'work with each other for the benefit of all.... In this case, the solution is clear. We will have to leave borders behind and go for global unity when it comes to financial stability.'... [He] concluded ... that the future of the US and Europe 'depends on a cohesive global economy.'" -- CW

Peter Sterne of Politico: "Leslie Millwee, a former reporter for local Arkansas TV station KLMN-TV, has accused former president Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting her three times in 1980, while Clinton was the governor of Arkansas, Breitbart News reports. Millwee told Breitbart that she interviewed Clinton about 20 times publicly and met with him in KLMN-TV's editing room, which is where she said he allegedly groped her and rubbed his genitals on her. She also said he once gave her half of his tie and wrote his name on her reporter's notebook, and that he once tried to visit her apartment but left after she did not let him enter. After Clinton came to her apartment, she told Millwee, she decided to quit her job at the station." -- CW

Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Scott Foval and Robert Creamer, two little-known but influential Democratic political operatives, have left their jobs after video investigations by James O'Keefe's Project Veritas Action found them entertaining dark notions about how to win elections. Foval was laid off Monday by Americans United for Change, where he had been national field director; Creamer announced Tuesday night that he was 'stepping back' from the work he was doing for the unified Democratic campaign for Hillary Clinton." -- CW

*****

Agnese Landini, wife of Matteo Renzi; Michelle Obama (wearing an Atelier Versace dress), President Obama, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy, before the state dinner.Kevin Freking of the AP: "President Barack Obama praised Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Tuesday for 'bold' and 'progressive' leadership that Obama said is exactly what Europe needs at a time of crisis and soul-searching. Obama also hailed U.S. relations with Italy, saying America has many strong allies around the world but that few are as strong, reliable and capable as the boot-shaped country.... Standing in the sun-washed Rose Garden after private talks on a range of world issues, Obama said during a news conference with Renzi that he counted his much younger counterpart -- Renzi is 41, Obama is 55 -- among his closest partners and friends on the world stage.... Hours earlier, Obama said it was a 'bittersweet moment' as he and first lady Michelle Obama welcomed the Italian leader and his wife for an official visit and the final state dinner of Obama's presidency. 'We've saved the best for last,' Obama said, grinning." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Brent Griffiths of Politico: "Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Tuesday morning took a swipe at Donald Trump during his visit to the White House, saying the future of the world is about building bridges, 'not walls.' 'Together, we are facing the challenge to give the name to a new era together,' Renzi said, referencing Amerigo Vespucci whose legacy is left in the name of the continent. 'My personal opinion is that the name of future has to be freedom. The name of the future has to be education not intolerance, sustainability not distraction, trust not hate, bridge[s] not walls. The name of the future has to be growth not austerity. In the time of fear, we have to give answer with the audacity of hope, not only in the United States.'" -- CW ...

... Video of the full press conference is here.

Caroline Grueskin of the Bismarck (North Dakota) Tribune: "Criminal charges filed against a journalist, who covered a pipeline protest, were dropped Monday after a judge refused to sign the complaint against her. Judge John Grinsteiner did not find probable cause that Amy Goodman had engaged in a riot while reporting on a clash between protesters and private security in September.... Prosecutor Ladd Erickson had asked the judge to charge Goodman with engaging in a riot after dropping a criminal trespass charge against her, due to legal problems proving the charge.... Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now, a radio/news program that airs on 1,400 stations worldwide. She has won several prestigious awards for her reporting. Nearly 200 people came to the courthouse to support Goodman." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Miami Herald Editors: "This newspaper has a long history of supporting U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio's electoral campaigns.... But in many ... ways, Sen. Rubio has been a disappointment.... Rep. [Patrick] Murphy [D] will fight for the right issues, as he stated in his debate with Sen. Rubio on Monday. He supports the diplomatic opening to Cuba, reasonable gun-control measures, the Affordable Care Act, measures to rein in climate change and Roe v. Wade -- as well as comprehensive immigration reform and filling the Supreme Court vacancy. For the U.S. Senate, the Miami Herald recommends PATRICK MURPHY." -- CW

Presidential Race

Amelia Warshaw of the Daily Beast has the particulars on tonight's presidential debate & how to watch it. The debate begins at 9 p.m. ET, & will take place at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. CW: Chris Wallace of Fox "News" is the moderator; he has promised not to fact-check the candidates (good call, Chris!), & I wouldn't be surprised if he went full Benghaaazi! & EmailGate. Let's assume Hillary Clinton won't be surprised either. ...

... Washington Post Editors: "Mr. Trump's falsehood-per-minute tally in his last encounter with Ms. Clinton, from the size of the trade deficit to his position on the Iraq War, was astonishing. Given Mr. Trump's indifference to the truth, we are skeptical that the final meeting can be much of a debate either, in any conventional sense." -- CW

Jeremy Peters & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "This intensely antagonistic election has shattered another quaint campaign ritual: the handshakes between opposing candidates' family members before a debate.... For the final debate, Hillary Clinton's campaign wants a different setup.... That's because at the previous debate..., the Trump campaign had an elaborate plan to parade three women who accused Mr. Clinton of sexual assault and rape into the family seating area and force Mr. Clinton to shake their hands as he crossed the room.... The Clinton side is not taking any chances at the final presidential debate..., and has apparently gained approval of a different protocol for the entry of the candidates' spouses and families into the debate hall. The new arrangement calls for the candidates' spouses to enter the hall closer to their seats, rather than crossing the room, and each other's paths. That would avoid any potential for confrontations, given Mr. Trump's penchant for dramatic stunts." -- CW ...

... CW: Whaddaya mean, "dramatic stunts"? ...

... Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "... Donald Trump has invited the mother of a State Department employee killed in the 2012 Benghazi attacks to attend Wednesday's final presidential debate of 2016. Pat Smith is a vocal critic of Hillary Clinton who blames the former secretary of State for her son Sean's death during the attacks on the U.S. compound. She told Yahoo News on Monday that the Trump campaign invited her, and she believes she will be in the 'front row' of the debate in Las Vegas." -- CW ...

... Really? John Santucci & Candace Smith of ABC News: "As an attack on the sitting president, the [Trump] campaign has invited the half-brother of President Barack Obama, Malik, to attend the debate as Trump's guest, ABC News has confirmed. The news was first reported by the New York Post. Malik Obama, a native Kenyan, has been an outspoken critic of Clinton and said that his support is with Trump." CW: I hope Clinton has the sense not to invite Trump's many accusers to sit in the front row of the audience.

Vogue Editors: "For all the chaos and unpredictability and the sometimes appalling spectacle of this election season, the question of which candidate actually deserves to be president has never been a difficult one. Vogue has no history of political endorsements. Editors in chief have made their opinions known from time to time, but the magazine has never spoken in an election with a single voice. Given the profound stakes of this one, and the history that stands to be made, we feel that should change. Vogue endorses Hillary Clinton for president of the United States." Complete with a glam shot of Clinton, ca. 1993. -- CW

Steve Erlanger & David Sanger of the New York Times: "Ecuador announced on Tuesday that it had cut off Julian Assange's access to the internet in his exile in the country's embassy in London, making it clear that it feared the tiny country was being sucked into an effort to 'interfere in electoral processes' in the United States by the activities of the founder of WikiLeaks. The announcement came a day after WikiLeaks said that Mr. Assange's connection to the internet had been severed shortly after the organization published speeches that Hillary Clinton gave to Goldman Sachs, the global investment firm. The transcripts, the latest in a series of disclosures, appear to have come from the hacked email account of John Podesta, the chairman of her campaign and a White House chief of staff when Mrs. Clinton's husband served as president.... Only hours before Ecuador's announcement, WikiLeaks had charged that Secretary of State John Kerry had quietly urged the Ecuadorean government, in a meeting late last month, to stop Mr. Assange from publishing the emails or interfering in the election. The State Department issued a statement declaring that the reports were 'simply untrue. Period.'" -- CW ...

... Ernesto Londoño of the New York Times: "In a recent interview, [Ecuadorian President Rafael] Correa said a Trump presidency would be better for Latin America, noting that it was during the administration of George W. Bush when populist leaders in several countries rose to power and banded together to repudiate America's arrogant approach to foreign policy. That said, he also allowed that if he were American, he'd vote for Mrs. Clinton. 'I know her personally and I have great appreciation for her,' he said. 'For the good of the United States and the good of the world, I'd want Hillary to win.'" -- CW

CW: That "scandalous" "quid pro quo" story about an exchange between Clinton's undersecretary of state & an FBI official that I've mostly been ignoring (one link yesterday) turns out to be the big nothing I assumed it was.

Arlette Saenz of ABC News: "President Obama today characterized Donald Trump's affection for Russian President Vladimir Putin as an 'unprecedented' moment in U.S. history. 'Any characterization that somehow we have improperly challenged Russian aggression or have somehow tried to encroach on their legitimate interests is just wrong. And Mr. Trump's continued flattery of Mr. Putin and the degree to which he appears to model many of his policies and approaches to politics of Mr. Putin is unprecedented in American politics,' the president said at a joint news conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Obama said Tuesday that Donald J. Trump should 'stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes.' Speaking at a Rose Garden news conference with Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, Mr. Obama also called it 'unprecedented' for any presidential candidate to 'discredit the elections' before any votes were even cast, as Mr. Trump has done repeatedly in recent days." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

... ** Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in a Washington Post op-ed: "Cratering in the polls, besieged by sexual assault allegations and drowning in his own disgusting rhetoric, Donald Trump has been reduced to hollering that November's election is 'rigged' against him. His proof? It looks like he's going to lose. Senior Republican leaders are scrambling to distance themselves from this dangerous claim. But Trump's argument ... [is] just one more symptom of a long-running effort by Republicans to delegitimize Democratic voters, appointees and leaders.... For years, Republican leaders have pushed the lie that voter fraud is a huge issue.... Trump also didn't invent ominous appeals for partisans to patrol'certain areas' and 'go and watch these polling places' where citizens often vote for Democrats.... Trump's effort to delegitimize federal officials and political opponents also shares a long-standing Republican pedigree.... Trump's words and deeds are merely the latest -- and loudest -- examples in a long line of Republican tactics that are poisoning our political system." -- CW ...

... Digby, in Salon, on Republicans' lo-o-o-ong history of actually rigging elections by purging Democratic-leaning voters from the rolls. -- CW ...

... Explaining the extent of voter fraud to dimwits, including the little nutjob in the lower right-hand corner of the picture:

... Send in the Thugs. Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's 'election protection' effort will be run by Mike Roman, a Republican operative best known for promoting a video of apparent voter intimidation by the New Black Panthers outside a polling place in 2008. Roman is to oversee poll-watching efforts as Trump undertakes an unprecedented effort by a major party nominee by calling into question the legitimacy of the popular vote weeks before election day. The Republican nominee has insisted, without evidence, that dead people and undocumented immigrants are voting in the United States." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Eric Levitz of New York: "'I'll look for ... well, it's called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can't speak American,' one Trump supporter said, while describing his marching orders to the Boston Globe. 'I'm going to go right up behind them. I'll do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. I'm not going to do anything illegal. I'm going to make them a little bit nervous.' (Trying to make voters 'who can't speak American' nervous at a polling place is illegal). Why Mike Roman -- a man passionately opposed to voter intimidation -- would work for a candidate who is all but demanding his supporters engage in it is a mystery. It's almost like Roman believes that black people intimidating white voters is bad, but white people intimidating black voters is a defense of America's democratic traditions." CW: Almost.

By Driftglass.Mark Hensch of the Hill: "Donald Trump on Tuesday said Hillary Clinton may be behind the multiple accusations of sexual misconduct directed toward him that have arisen in recent days. 'Those stories are nonexistent stories,' he told host Mike Gallagher on his radio show Tuesday. 'They don't exist. The stories are made up. They're totally fabricated. They were made up for, I don't know, fame, or Clinton got them to do it, or for whatever reason, you know, the women that came out,' [he] ... said." -- CW ...

... Stephanie Petit of People: "Six colleagues and close friends who corroborate former People writer Natasha Stoynoff's account of being attacked by Donald Trump in 2005 are now coming forward. Among them is a friend who was with Stoynoff when she ran into Melania Trump later in N.Y.C. The wife of the Republican nominee denies meeting Stoynoff after the attack, but Stoynoff's friend Liza Herz remembers being there during the chance meeting.... In a CNN interview with Anderson Cooper on Monday, Melania denied the encounter ever took place." ...

     ... CW: Also, as you may recall, Melania Trump demanded People issue a retraction & apology re: the NYC chance encounter with Stoynoff, & threatened to sue the magazine if it didn't comply. ...

... ** Michelle Goldberg of Slate: "All over America, the squalid denouement of the Trump campaign is forcing women to think anew about abuse they've endured. According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, the weekend after the release of the Trump tape saw a 33 percent increase in people turning to its National Sexual Assault Hotline for support. Traffic to the group's website was up 45 percent. The writer Kelly Oxford says that 1 million women responded to her call to tweet their first sexual assault.... Clinton is probably going to win, but the majority of American men are poised to vote for Trump. Even if the country is saved, it will be a long time before it feels safe." Read the whole post. -- CW ...

... Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "The debate [about Donald Trump's & Bill Clinton's (alleged) histories of assaulting women] has been particularly painful for many victims of sexual assault, who now must endure nonstop coverage of allegations of groping and kissing without consent -- along with backlash against the women who made the claims about Trump. Many also fear that brushing off allegations of sexual assault, as Trump and his backers have done, minimizes the fact that it is a pervasive problem that affects millions of women and men.... Helen Brumley, a sexual assault survivor..., said Trump is 'basically giving America a crash course on victim blaming 101.'... The issue has become sharply divided along partisan lines, including claims by some Trump allies that the behavior described by Trump's accusers -- groping and forced kissing -- might not be considered assault.... Ashley O'Connor, a Republican strategist..., said that Trump is in essence saying, 'You need to believe the people who have come forward and accused Bill Clinton. You need to believe that Hillary Clinton was attacking these women. But don't believe the women who have come forward against me.'" -- CW

Laurel Raymond of Think Progress: "In a speech in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Monday night..., Donald Trump ... alleged that 'it is possible' that illegal votes from undocumented immigrants ... may have won President Obama the state of North Carolina in 2008. 'It could have provided the margin of victory,' Trump said. There's no credible evidence backing up Trump's claim. Nonetheless, his campaign is backing him up  --  with even more misinformation." Trump's campaign co-chair Sam Clovis told a Boston radio station that undocumented workers in North Carolina could get drivers' licenses & based on the licenses, register to vote. Never mind that "North Carolina does not allow undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers licenses."

Little Trump. Nolan McCaskill of Politico: Trump surrogate "Newt Gingrich explained his Big Trump, Little Trump analogy during an interview conducted Tuesday with the Washington Examiner's David Drucker. Gingrich said there's a side of Little Trump's personality that's 'very sensitive, particularly to anything which attacks his own sense of integrity or his own sense of respectability, and he reacts very intensely, almost uncontrollably, to those kinds of situations.'" -- CW

Andrew Kaczynski & Chris Massie of CNN: "The New York Daily News had reported in 2006 that Trump had told an audience at a Learning Annex convention speech, 'Condoleezza Rice, she's a lovely woman, but I think she's a bitch. She goes around to other countries and other nations, negotiates with their leaders, comes back and nothing ever happens.' Deadspin first resurfaced the New York Daily News story on Tuesday. When asked if she had any response to the New York Daily News report of Trump's remarks, Rice simply wrote back, 'Exactly. Can't wait until November 9!' Video from CNN's archives located after initial publication of this story shows Trump saying the following: 'I wish she was a bitch. I don't care if she's a lovely woman. I want somebody that can go and make deals. She goes to countries, nothing ever happens. Except sound bytes.' The archived video only shows a small part of Trump's speech. Rice took aim at Trump earlier this month on her Facebook page following the revelation of his 2005 hot mic comments.... 'Enough! Donald Trump should not be president. He should withdraw," she wrote on her page on October 8." -- CW

** Demolition Man. Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek on Donald Trump's business career: "... Trump ... has repeatedly left bitterness and ruin in his wake. His destructive behavior -- spurred by recklessness, arrogance and an unslakable thirst for vengeance -- has victimized cities, businesses, investors, partners, even members of his family.... He was born into an exceedingly wealthy family and tried to build upon his father's success with ever-riskier ventures, and by any rational measure, he failed again and again.... If the Republican nominee had done nothing but mow his lawn for the past 35 years, he would be a dramatically wealthier man than he is today. The huge bonus in that scenario: Thousands of people would not have been ridiculed, ripped off or otherwise have suffered from encounters with Donald J. Trump.... And now he vows to do to America what he did to them." A nice synopsis of his brilliant career. -- CW

Consumers to Donald Trump: You're Fired! Corey Schouten of CBS Moneywatch: "Donald J. Trump thought he could ride the coattails of his lucrative personal brand and business interests to the White House. But mounting evidence suggests his nasty and divisive run for president is harming his business interests instead. Traffic is down at Trump-branded resorts and golf courses, consumer surveys show his name now adds less value to a product, he's become radioactive as a mass entertainer and spokesman, and charities are wary about holding fundraising events at his swanky Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. Bottom line: His brand may lack the stamina to fully weather his own rhetorical assault on women, immigrants, Muslims, people with disabilities, Gold Star families, and so on." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Akhilleus: It's a conspiracy, dammit! Everyone loves me! I'm yuuuuuge with the ladies and "the blacks" and the A-rabs and even hose dirty messicans. I hire plenty of them to clean the toilets in my hotels. They love me! They can't fire me. The author does point out that the Trump family businesses are in good hands while daddy is off blowtorching democracy because the kids--I'm guessing Junior and Little Dracula--are so smart and "well adjusted". Hmmmm..... must be thinking of some other Trump family. Well adjusted? Smart? Nahh.

Meet Your Trump Supporters, Ctd. Dana Milbank: "I spent a couple of hours before [a Trump] rally in this indoor show ring [in Colorado Springs] talking to many Trump supporters and found them in states of denial and fury. I didn't find one who expects Trump to lose. To varying degrees, most agreed with Trump that the election process is rigged. And some predicted ominous things if Trump loses -- if not violence, a mass rejection of the legitimacy of the democratic process.... [Trump's] talk of election fraud is ... clearly an effort to destabilize the post-election environment." -- CW

Meet Your Trump Supporters, Ctd. Jonathan Mahler of the New York Times: "... hundreds of Jewish journalists ... have been the target of anti-Semitic attacks on Twitter during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League. Anti-Semitism ... has taken on a new dimension in the United States with the emergence of the Trump campaign, whose battle against political correctness has provided a kind of on-ramp for bigotry to enter the political mainstream. During its investigation, the organization found that 2.6 million anti-Semitic messages were posted on Twitter from August 2015 to July 2016. Of those, 19,253 were directed at journalists.... The words appearing most frequently in the Twitter biographies of the attackers were 'Trump,' 'nationalist,' 'conservative' and 'white.'... The report was careful not to suggest that the Trump campaign 'supported or endorsed' the anti-Semitic attacks, but noted that many had been sent by his supporters." -- CW

Meet Your Trump Supporters, Ctd. Steve M. postulates that "maybe the key to Trumpism is immaturity.... I wonder whether any similar movement has ever been as much of a big party as Trumpism is. Let's wear tasteless shirts that call Hillary Clinton a c**t! Let's make a cartoon frog our avatar of racial purity! Let's scare people online with tasteless gas-chamber jokes! I'm not sure these people want to be thugs so much as brattish pre-adolescent males -- they want to have fun saying shocking things to offend people and they resent being told that they ought to have consideration for other people's feelings when they speak. They want to annoy and harass females, and have no interest in actually making connections with them, just like fifth-grade boys. They want to play with guns, the ultimate adult toys." -- CW ...

... CW: I think the key to Trumpism is failure. Few of us ever become the heroes of our dreams, so to that extent, we're all "failures." As Kurt Eichenwald points out, Trump actually is a yuuuge failure. At some level, many of Trump's own supporters know this -- Trump's business flops have been in the news enough. And yet. And yet. He lives their dreams in gold-encrusted palatial homes, with a series of beautiful wives & the claimed ability take whatever woman he wants by force. He had a hit teevee where the main purpose was to humilate people. People who feel like failures themselves are apt to see Trump's freewheeling crudeness as some kind of marvelous "success." They wish they could get away with shit the way Trump gets away with shit. Yeah, that's "immature," as Steve writes. But it's an immaturity based on a want of feelings of self-worth.

Charles Pierce: "Imagine where we'd be if Trump didn'tgo bananas every night....People who are confused as to how the party of moral values and Jesus militants came to this have forgotten their William James. 'Piety is the mask,' James wrote. 'The inner force is tribal instinct.'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Andrew Kaczynski: "Like his father, Donald Trump Jr. has a history of engaging in controversial conversations with radio shock-jocks.... On shows like 'Opie and Anthony,' the now-defunct 'The Six Pack,' and 'Opie with Jim Norton,' the younger Trump made a joke about the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, expressed regret he could no longer mock overweight people, invoked Arab stereotypes, and joked about child beauty contestants being abused by their parents. The Trump son also noted there were hours of footage of the 'The Apprentice' left on the cutting room floor that would appeal to those with a 'sick sense of humor.'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Other News & Views

Sydney Ember of the New York Times: "The New York Times brought a new generation of the Sulzberger family into its top ranks on Wednesday, naming Arthur Gregg Sulzberger the deputy publisher. The appointment positions him to succeed his father as publisher and chairman of The New York Times Company. Should he ascend to that position, Mr. Sulzberger, 36, would represent the fifth generation of his family to serve as publisher since the family patriarch, Adolph S. Ochs, purchased the newspaper in 1896." -- CW

     ... CW: I remember A.G. Sulzberger as a lousy reporter. For instance, there's this. And this.

News Lede

Washington Post: "Two Americans were killed and another three were injured in a rare attack on foreign troops in the Afghan capital Wednesday, U.S. and Afghan officials said. A gunman fired on international advisers at an ammunition depot near Camp Morehead, a training site for Afghan commandos, about six miles south of Kabul. The attack, which took place near the entrance of the base, killed one U.S. service member and injured another. One U.S. civilian was also killed, and two more were wounded in the assault, a statement from the NATO-led coalition said." -- CW