The Commentariat -- October 12, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Towers of Jello. James Hohmann of the Washington Post. "Republican elected officials are personally outraged and ashamed by something their party's nominee says or does. So they distance themselves. But as soon as they face a whiff of blowback from some in the party, they cave and fall back in line. Then they offer up excuses and rationalizations, twisting themselves into pretzels to justify voting for a guy who some will tell you privately is a danger to the Republic. It's happened over and over again now, and it validates what Trump himself said during the primaries: Many politicians are indeed craven and interested mainly in maintaining power for themselves, principles be damned." Akhilleus: I think I'm being unkind to weasels. Even calling these pusillanimous frauds cowardly would be unfair to most cowards. They are a special brand of spineless poltroon.

Buyer's Remorse. Trump donors want their money back, dammit! Leigh Ann Caldwell of NBC News. "Two big-money donors who have given or raised tens of thousands of dollars for Donald Trump are livid at the Republican presidential nominee and are asking for their money back, according to a bundler who raised money for Trump.... 'I regret coming to the Trump support event, and in particular allowing my son to be a part of it,' [a] donor, who had given to and raised money for Trump, said. 'I respectfully request that my money be refunded.' Senior Trump spokesman Jason Miller said the campaign is 'unaware of any donors making such a request.'"Akhilleus: Anyone think Trump will actually return the money? Soitanly not! I mean the guy doesn't pay anyone. Why would he give money back to schmoes he's already conned? Besides, Trump has already spent that money on a rack full of those pussy bow blouses Melania wore to the debate. The ones Maureen Dowd wasted an entire column considering.

Scott Suppression Scheme Scotched. Gary Rohrer of the LA Times. "Floridians will get one more week, through Tuesday, Oct. 18, to register to vote, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. The move could tip the balance of a pivotal swing state as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump make their pitch to voters in the final month of the campaign. After a one hour hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Walker ruled the right to vote was fundamental and shouldn't be jeopardized because of a natural disaster like Hurricane Matthew.... The suit was filed Sunday by the Florida Democratic Party after Gov. Rick Scott refused to extend the deadline due to disruptions caused by Hurricane Matthew...Akhilleus

Message from Russia: Elect Trump or else. Andrew Osborn of Reuters. "Americans should vote for Donald Trump as president next month or risk being dragged into a nuclear war, according to a Russian ultra-nationalist ally of President Vladimir Putin who likes to compare himself to the U.S. Republican candidate. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a flamboyant veteran lawmaker known for his fiery rhetoric, told Reuters in an interview that Trump was the only person able to de-escalate dangerous tensions between Moscow and Washington." Akhilleus: Yes, and I am Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Zhirinovsky goes so far as to award Trumpy a pre-wrapped Nobel Peace Prize, which he can gaze at while Putin goes on a rampage across Eastern Europe.

*****

Presidential Race

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "The stark choice that Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump pose for voters goes as well for their revised tax plans: Mr. Trump would simplify the tax code but cut taxes mainly for the rich and add trillions of dollars to the federal debt, while Mrs. Clinton would do the opposite, an independent analysis released Tuesday concluded." Clinton's plan would not add to the national debt. "Her plan would increase federal revenue $1.4 trillion over the first decade. Rather than lower the federal debt, however, Mrs. Clinton would use the money to pay for education and other initiatives." -- CW

Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "In a rare return to presidential politics, [Al] Gore, who was Bill Clinton's vice president, joined Hillary Clinton [at Miami Dade College] for a 45-minute Democratic call to arms.... 'Your vote really, really, really counts,' he said, in the state synonymous with his excruciating 2000 election loss. 'You can consider me as an Exhibit A.'... Introducing Mr. Gore, Mrs. Clinton spoke of clean energy, curbside gardens, the Paris climate agreement and Donald J. Trump's suggestion that climate change is a hoax. She commended Mr. Gore's Nobel Peace Prize and his documentary, 'An Inconvenient Truth,'...." -- CW ...

     ... Russell Berman of the Atlantic has more.

Nolan McCaskill & Sarah Wheaton of Politico: "President Barack Obama ... openly mocking Republicans who are refusing to rescind their endorsements even as they condemn the nominee for talking cavalierly about sexual assault. 'The fact that now you've got people saying: "Well, we strongly disapprove. We really disagree. We find those comments disgusting, but we're still endorsing him. We still think he should be president." That doesn't make sense to me,' Obama said Tuesday during a Hillary Clinton rally in Greensboro, North Carolina.... The president slammed Trump on myriad issues, including taxes, his threat to jail Clinton ('no trial, no indictment, no lawyers') and the rhetoric from his supporters -- specifically conservative radio host Alex Jones, who suggested that Obama and Clinton are demons." CW: The full speech is here.

Kathleen Hennessey & Julie Pace of the AP: "Hillary Clinton's top adviser said the FBI is investigating Russia's possible role in hacking thousands of his personal emails, an intrusion he said Donald Trump's campaign may have been aware of in advance. If true, the assertion from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta would amount to an extraordinary link between Russia and an American presidential campaign. Podesta said the alleged ties could be driven either by Trump's policy positions, which at times echo the Kremlin, or the Republican's 'deep engagement and ties with Russian interests in his business affairs.'" -- CW

Mark Leibovich, in the New York Times Magazine, has a long piece -- likely the cover -- on Hillary Clinton & the dynamics of this year's election. Leibovich interviewed Clinton in Ohio in early October. -- CW

Hold On, America, He's Been Holding Back Until Now! Stephen Collinson, et al., 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 eally show everyone a thing or two. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)...

Nikita Vladimirov of the Hill: "Donald Trump on Tuesday blasted Speaker Paul Ryan in an interview with 'The O'Reilly Factor,' stating that he no longer wants the Wisconsin Republican's support. When asked if he thinks establishment Republicans, including Ryan, will support him as president if he's elected, Trump said yes while speculating about the speaker's future. 'They'll be there. I would think that Ryan maybe wouldn't be there, maybe he'll be in a different position. The fact is, I think we should get support and we don't get the support from guys like Paul Ryan,' [Trump] ... said...." -- CW ...

... Jonathan Swan of the Hill: "Steve Bannon, the chairman of the right-wing news outlet Breitbart who became CEO of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, gave explicit orders to his staff to destroy Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). On editorial conference calls, the Breitbart chairman would often say 'Paul Ryan is the enemy,' according to a source who worked with Bannon at the news organization. In December 2015, weeks after Ryan became Speaker, Bannon wrote in an internal Breitbart email obtained by The Hill that the 'long game' for his news site was for Ryan to be 'gone' by the spring." -- CW

Despite winning the second debate in a landslide (every poll), it is hard to do well when Paul Ryan and others give zero support! -- -- Donald Trump, Oct. 11 tweet

In reality, not a single quality poll shows he won the debate, though one indicated a near-tie. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post

...Josh Marshall of TPM: "Remember, Trump is a bully. Bullies seek out people they can hurt. Trump has done everything he possibly can to hurt Hillary Clinton. But he doesn't seem to be able to do so.... But there is someone else he can hurt profoundly, even as he falls behind in the general election: the Republican party. All the better since they are his best argument to justify his defeat as a betrayal rather than a personal failure.... Like an abuser who takes out his personal failures and frustrations and rages on his wife and his children, Paul Ryan and the GOP are now alone in the house with Donald Trump. He is angry and the prospect of defeat will no doubt make him angrier. In Trump's world of displacement, abuse and vengeance turning against the GOP is the most logical thing in the world." --safari

Trump's Debate Real Estate

Nikita Vladimirov of the Hill: "Donald Trump on Tuesday blasted the claim that he was lurking behind Hillary Clinton during the presidential debate on Sunday. 'One thing I will say, you know, right after the debate they left and said, "Oh, Donald was right in her space." I never walked near her. I was at my lectern and all of a sudden she walks over to me, stands right in front of me and the next day I read that I was in her space,' he said in an interview with Bill O'Reilly. 'I was standing at my lectern and all of a sudden from nowhere she walks right in front of me. I never walked near her. She stands right in front of me. The next day it was I was in her space. I was standing at my chair, my lectern,' Trump reiterated on 'The O'Reilly Factor' Tuesday." -- CW

Jose DelReal of the Washington Post: "Don't call Donald Trump a 'lurker.'... On Tuesday night [he] lashed out at critics who said he had invaded Hillary Clinton's personal space during Sunday's second presidential debate in St. Louis. Instead, he insisted during a campaign event ... in Florida that it was in fact Clinton who had gotten too close." Read on and/or watch the video of Trump's remarks.

The HuffPost has a more extensive video of Trump's dominance moves at the debate. It's a slow loader, which will eventually appear near the top of the page.

New York Times Editors: "Andrei Kozyrev, a former Russian foreign minister, told The Times: 'I'm sure Putin is trying -- and more successfully than many think -- to manipulate both the process and one of the candidates. He realizes that Trump will trample American democracy and damage if not destroy America as a pillar of stability and major force able to contain him.' In the end, it may not matter whether Mr. Trump is being manipulated by Mr. Putin or naïvely accepting Mr. Putin's twisted views. What does matter is that with each new bizarre utterance he provides further proof of his inability to evaluate credible information and, more broadly, his lack of fitness to further his country's best interests." -- CW

Steve M. embeds Trump's new ad where Trump focuses on Hillary Clinton's illnesses to demonstrate that she doesn't have the stamina to run the country. "... this ad suggests to me that Trump genuinely connects physical imperfection and imperfection of character.... He's repulsed by blacks on the floors of his casinos, and a Mexican-American judge, and Mexicans and Muslims in general; he's spent years in a blind rage at a beauty queen (Hispanic, of course) who gained a few pounds; he regularly touts the physical superiority of his daughter Ivanka (her breast size, her height).... Trump believes in a white, fit master race. Those who stumble and cough are not among the fittest, in his worldview." ...

... CW: ... which is kinda odd because Trump himself is a flabby old guy, near-clinically obese, with a paunch, a fat butt, a disappeared chin, a mystery hairline, & a suspicious snort-sniffle-wheeze. Not to mention a recovering bone-spur victim! Seen here at the GOP convention, grabbing his ultra-fit daughter Ivanka:

I'm telling you Donald Trump owned the pageant for the reasons to utilize his power to get around beautiful women. Who do you complain to? He owns the pageant. There's no one to complain to. Everyone there works for him. -- Tasha Dixon, a former Miss Universe contestant

I would never let my daughter run for a pageant that he owns. -- Mariah Billado, a former Miss Teen USA ...

... Fred Barbash of the Washington Post: "On an April, 11, 2005, Howard Stern show, Donald Trump bragged about some of the special perks he enjoyed while owner of the Miss USA pageant. They came not in a locker room but a dressing room.... CBS 2 Los Angeles did a little fact checking and, guess what, this time, no Pinocchios. Tasha Dixon, Miss Arizona of 2001, told the station that Trump just came 'waltzing in' while contestants were nude or half-nude as they changed into bikinis. Separately, BuzzFeed reported early Wednesday that four women in the 1997 Miss Teen USA beauty pageant said he walked into their dressing room while they were changing. Some were as young as 15, BuzzFeed said." -- CW

James Keaten of the AP: "U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump would be 'dangerous from an international point of view' if he is elected, the U.N. human rights chief said Wednesday, defiantly doubling down on his recent expression of concerns about 'populist demagogues' that prompted a rebuke from Russia's ambassador to the United Nations. In a broad-ranging news conference touching on issues like violence in Yemen, Syria and sub-Saharan Africa, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said some remarks by Trump are 'deeply unsettling and disturbing to me,' particularly on torture and about 'vulnerable communities.'" -- CW

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 (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Garrison Keillor goes to London where it occurs to him that "Mr. Trump would have enjoyed the 17th century, the tumult, the divine right of kings, the suppression of Parliament. Vituperation was normal discourse, the idea of privileged sexual aggression was common in high places, money flowed freely, rich men commissioned great monuments to themselves.... If you put him on Grub Street in 1650, he'd be magnificent in his great swirling robes, surrounded by courtiers and sycophants, ranting against the Puritans, supporting the monarchy, smiting his enemies." -- CW

"Trump's Strategy for Minority Americans? Don't Let Them Vote. Washington Post Editors: "WITH DONALD Trump's polling numbers in a tailspin, he has doubled down in calling on Republican vigilantes to take matters into their own hands to thwart what many of them are primed to regard, without proof, as a rigged election. The Republican nominee's rhetoric, inciting white rural and suburban voters who fear the voting clout of black urban Democrats, is a recipe for voter intimidation and even violence on Election Day. It also lays the groundwork for his followers to believe, if he loses,that his defeat was a historic swindle.... Mr. Trump's odious gambit is ... in keeping with long-standing voter-suppression schemes in state legislatures...." -- CW ...

... Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Republicans have started warning their increasingly ostracized nominee to stop stoking his supporters with claims that the 2016 election will be stolen, daring him to show proof or put a lid on it.... 'I don't think leading candidates for the presidency should undercut the process unless you have a really good reason,' Sen. Lindsey Graham ... told Politico." Thanks to Gloria for the link. -- CW ...

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! (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Meet Your Trump Supporters. Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas), one of the dimmest bulbs in a House full of them, said he would consider still backing Donald Trump if Trump said he liked raping women. Apparently someone told Pajama Boy that rape didn't poll well, as he later apologized. -- CW ...

     ... Update: See also comments by Akhilleus & Gloria in today's thread.

... ** Anita Hill in a Boston Globe op-ed: "Twenty-five years ago Tuesday..., I testified before Senate Judiciary Committee about the sexually harassing behavior of the nominee, Clarence Thomas. As being a target of harassment wasn't bad enough, I was then victimized a second time by a smear campaign meant to protect the nomination. Stunningly, people wondered aloud why his behavior mattered in a hearing about his character and fitness.... We must understand the harm that sexual harassment and sexual violence causes. Missing from the conversation this weekend, which focused almost exclusively on the character of the offender, was concern about the victims of sexual violence.... Trump's language, which he and others have tried to minimize as 'locker room banter,' is predatory and hostile. To excuse it as that or as youthful indiscretion or overzealous romantic interest normalizes male sexual violence." -- CW ...

... CW: In case it escaped your notice, one of the main things Trump means when he inveighs against "political correctness" is the crimp sexual harassment laws have put in his style. (And, yeah, that's what Bill Maher means, too.) ...

... ** Rebecca Traister of New York: "Republicans are not shocked; they're scared. Donald Trump is losing and they are beginning to understand that his loss is going to expose them, not simply to partisan defeat, but as a party that has been covert in its cohesion around the very biases that he makes coarse and plain. Trump's attitudes about women are not different from the attitudes that have been supported by the contemporary Republican Party via their legislative agenda.... The view of women as yours to control via political power, star power, or simply patriarchal power, is what Republicans -- not just Trump, but lots of Republicans -- have been doing for years as they work to reduce reproductive-rights access and reinstall women in early marriage and traditional hetero homes where their competitive, independent, threatening power might be better contained." ...

... CW: Traister is giving Republicans too much credit: they still think their repression of women is chivalric; they[re too misogynistic to feel "exposed," as Traister herself demonstrates by their responses to the Trump-Bush tape. Nonetheless, her column is a must-read.

John Koblin of the New York Times: "Four days after the explosive Donald J. Trump 'Access Hollywood' tape was made public, Billy Bushis negotiating his exit from NBC. Mr. Bush and NBC are working out the terms of his departure from 'Today,' which may come in the next few days, according to two people briefed on the plans. It would be a swift fall for Mr. Bush after a brief tenure as a host in the 9 a.m. hour of the show. He joined 'Today' this summer." CW: Still, thanks again, Billy. Maybe there will be an opening for you at Trump TV. You'd be a great host for "Miss Politics USA" or "Hot Babes in Politics," both in the planning stages.

AND Maureen Dowd -- the Pulitzer Prize winner & esteemed owner of the most influential piece of newspaper real estate in the USA -- in her usual manner, jabs right at the heart of the presidential race: what about that pussy bow? And the shoes! If Donald Trump is the paradigm of American exceptionalism, nonpareil in reality or fiction, then Dowd is aspiring to take that prize for U.S. journalism.

Other News & Views

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to decide whether high-ranking George W. Bush administration officials -- including John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, and Robert S. Mueller III, the former F.B.I. director -- may be held liable for policies adopted after the Sept. 11 attacks. The case began as a class action in 2002 filed by immigrants, most of them Muslim, over policies and practices that swept hundreds of people into the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on immigration violations in the weeks after the attacks. The plaintiffs said they had been subjected to beatings, humiliating searches and other abuses." -- CW

Adam Liptak: "In an argument marked by testy exchanges, the Supreme Court on Tuesday struggled to decide whether it should make an exception to the usual rule that jury deliberations are secret when evidence emerges that those discussions were marred by racial or ethnic bias." CW: Chief Justice John Roberts was skeptical, because, as you know, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." Putz.

Jonelle Marte of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found that the setup of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is led by a single director, is not in line with other independent agencies, which are typically run by a group of commissioners.... But the court decided against shutting down the CFPB, instead ordering that the agency be restructured so that the director could be removed by the president at will. Currently, the director can only be removed with cause -- a system that Judge Brett Kavanaugh said lacked checks and balances.... The ruling comes as Republican lawmakers and financial groups are upping their efforts to weaken or dismantle the agency.... The CFPB said Tuesday that it is reviewing its options for challenging the ruling." CW: Kavanaugh is -- surprise! -- a Bush II appointee. Also, too, he's a protege' of Ken Starr & an all-around ass.

Brian Fung of the Washington Post: "Comcast is paying one of the biggest fines ever levied on a cable company after regulators said it illegally billed customers for unwanted equipment and services. In a settlement with the Federal Communications Commission, Comcast is agreeing to pay $2.3 million. It's also agreeing to give consumers a chance to block the addition of new services and equipment if they don't want it. Some subscribers who complained to the FCC said they'd been charged for premium channels, set-top boxes or video recording devices despite telling the company they weren't looking for upgrades, the agency said Tuesday." CW: Note to FCC: DirectTV does it, too. There is no way in hell I wanted that NFL package they foisted on me. And they made me pay for it for a full season, even after I complained. Capitalism is awesome, all right.

Beyond the Beltway

Ted Sherman & Matt Arco of NJ.com: "The defense attorney for a former Gov. Chris Christie aide charged in the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal suggested on Tuesday his client told the governor about the lane shutdowns before they occurred and while they were happening." [Emphasis added.] -- CW

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 ... appearing alongside Republican presidential nominee 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.

Way Beyond

Weston Phippen of the Atlantic: "For two days over the weekend, German police searched for suspected Syrian terrorist Jaber al-Bakr, a refugee who had come to Germany last year, and whom they believed was plotting to bomb a train station or airport.... Police asked the public for help.... The refugees [Chancellor Angela] Merkel's opponents are set on keeping out were the ones who led the police to al-Bakr: On Monday, three Syrian refugees turned the suspect terrorist into police when they realized he was on the run." -- CW

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

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