;)
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
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Reader Comments (15)
@PD Pepe From quite a distance away, I am perplexed, and frankly saddened by the unrestrained emotions which the current US presidential election has aroused. My heart goes out to any child who is spat upon by an adult who should surely know better.
When I was about 12 years old, I used to go door to door in the more populated areas of the San Fernando valley, selling magazine subscriptions. My wonderful mother taught me to introduce myself as a representative of the Curtis Publishing Company, and I did so, proudly as well as hopefully. I did make a few sales, probably because some of the people who answered the door were simply kind rather than particularly interested in subscribing to the Ladies Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post or any of the other Curtis publications. I have no recollection of anyone being rude to me.
Nearly 60 years later, in 2008, when my two sons and I went door to door in Adams County, Pennsylvania for then Senator Obama, we were definitely in McCain country. But again, we experienced no rudeness, even when we happened to knock on the door of someone who turned out to be a McCain supporter. On election eve, we visited a polling place where people waited patiently in line to vote. When I explained to someone at the door that we were visitors from Denmark, we were invited inside to watch a very orderly voting process.
The whole iconic, tranquil scene reminded me of a Norman Rockwell painting that might have been called simply, "Democracy". On two card tables to one side there were home baked donuts and pies along with coffee and tea for anyone who wanted to partake after voting.
Senator McCain won Adams county, but if I recall correctly, Senator Obama got the highest Adams county vote tally of any Democratic Presidential candidate, ever. And these extra votes helped him carry Pennsylvania.
In the current campaign, I agree with President Obama that the primary responsibility for the thoughtless, unrestrained, and undisciplined emotion and behavior lies with DTs enablers.
Here are two dismaying articles on the effects of their dismal "leadership":
http://www.salon.com/2016/10/17/new-mexico-republicans-threaten-albuquerque-residents-your-neighbors-will-know-if-democrats-win/
http://www.salon.com/2016/10/17/donald-trumps-rigged-election-lie-is-working-on-republicans-73-percent-of-gop-voters-think-the-election-could-be-stolen-from-him/
Islander: Thanks for your input as always. Glad to hear your efforts were free from rudeness and doubly glad to hear you had "A wonderful mother"–––makes the world a better place don't you think?
Mike Roman? This sleaze? So this is the man who will be in charge of Trump's paranoid election monitoring––a man who is intimately tied to the racist machine that has tried to delegitimate Obama for the past eight years. Read about him here and try not to throw up:
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-election-fraud-mike-roman-58c0232a124e#.oc65mu419
Slate's Goldberg (linked above) states: "The majority of American men are poised to vote for Trump." Really? does this mean that the majority of American men are racist, bigots, uneducated, etc? Does this mean the majority of WHITE men or do we think this means all men? What exactly does she mean here.
@PD Pepe: Harry Enten has the numbers, by sex, but not by race. A majority of white men have voted for the Republican candidate for decades, & will do so this year as well, according to polls. As Enten points out, men are treating this presidential election as "normal"; men are not. Last week, I posted & linked to Nate Silver's maps on how the vote would go if only men voted & only women voted. Trump would win the election if women didn't vote.
Philip Bump of the WashPo has a breakdown by race. In general, Hispanic & black men vote majority Democratic, tho less than Latina & black women.
Marie
Are we not men? Just because we behave like chimps?
Devo sez, "Jocko Homo":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62lN2NQsHPw&list=RDCR3KTg3jhFk&index=7
Does anyone find it ironic that tonights poo flinging confest is being called a debate? So many important subjects have been ignored in this campaign, judicial appointments,climate change among others. With a Faux moderator in charge of the hen house we'll probably see a scenario like CW posited above while Trump gets marshmallows tossed his way.
Apparently equal opportunity Russian hackers play fair????? (Bi-Partisan or Both-Siderists?) Or as Lesley Gore sang, "...(Republicans) it's your turn to cry."
"Hackers Hit U.S. Senate GOP Committee" per Krebs On Security
"...The national news media has been consumed of late with reports of Russian hackers breaking into networks of the Democratic National Committee. Lest the Republicans feel left out of all the excitement, a report this past week out of The Netherlands suggests Russian hackers have for the past six months been siphoning credit card data from visitors to the Web storefront of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC)."
"That’s right: If you purchased a “Never Hillary” poster or donated funds to the NRSC through its Web site between March 2016 and the first week of this month, there’s an excellent chance that your payment card data was siphoned by malware and is now for sale in the cybercrime underground."
A Potemkin career.
Kurt Eichenwald (this guy needs a Pulitzer for his work in covering this election, specifically, the serial fraudulence of one Donaldo Trumpado), in his latest salvo in the battle to keep Candidate Agent Orange from poisoning the rest of the country recounts the jaw-dropping failures that constitute the highly fictionalized career of the current Confederate bully boy running for a chance to inflict as much damage on the country as he did on investors who believed in him.
The litany of disasters overseen by this fraud is too long to even summarize. Suffice it to say that Trump's Potemkin career goes like this: loads of money from wealthy dad starts him off. He gets by for a few years on his father's political and banking connections but as soon as he starts going out on his own, disaster after disaster. Soon the big money players realize what a stiff he is and decline to do business with him. But even though he has lost fortunes for those who invested in his schemes, he pocketed enough to remain rich. After the banks turned their backs on him, he went into TV to play the person he never was, a successful billionaire, a genius at big business. After rebuilding his name based on a fictional game show, he began licensing his name to any and all comers. Plenty of those who paid Trumpy up front to paste his glorious name on their cut rate projects never completed them and defaulted. Hundreds of millions were lost and thousands of jobs, all around the world. Trump, however, always got paid.
Eichenwald concludes "Trump’s career has been much of the same kind of scam. He demands applause and annihilates those who refuse to give it. He preens about successes he obtained only by destroying the wealth, careers and reputations of other people. He takes credit for the victories of others and denies any blame for his many failures. In his impulsive pursuit of self-aggrandizement, his victims are legion.
And now he vows to do to America what he did to them."
A good read.
@Akhilleus: I wish Eichenwald would make good on that unsubstantiated "Donald Trump was committed to a mental institution" rumor he spread a few weeks ago. I don't hold anything against candidates who worked on improving their mental health, but I'd love to know in which institution Donald might have resided in case I crack up over this election. I want to be sure not to check into Donald's place as it sure didn't do him any good.
Marie
You guys remember a certain Carly Simon song from 1972 (yes, it was that long ago...)?
She has never allowed it to be used in a political spot. Until now. Guess who this describes?
You walked into the party
Like you were walking on a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf, it was apricot
You had one eye on the mirror
And watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner, and
You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
And the spot is GREAT, the best, yuuuuge...
And, as a bonus, 100% correct.
Oh, and there is one little change, made by Simon herself to the lyrics in the song. Instead of "Your scarf, it was apricot" she changes it to "Your face, it was apricot".
Good call, Carly.
Marie,
It seems Eichenwald is too meticulous a reporter to let something like that slip without some kind of solid background, but who knows? My sense is that The Great Donaldo would never have allowed himself to be committed. I don't for a second doubt that there is more than enough evidence of serious mental issues, but I'm betting he doesn't think so. He still has all the best words, after all.
But Eichenwald certainly has a point about Trump's reluctance to release much of anything about his health history, except that he's in the best shape of any past or future president.
But if he loses this election, as he deserves to, he may lap himself on the crazy track. He's already way beyond the bend. He may catch up and pass himself on the circular road to Eternal Whackdom.
I seriously doubt that Trump has ever seen a psychiatrist. How can someone with a perfect mind need to see one? Besides, Trump knows much more about psychiatry than any psychiatrist.
And note, psychiatrists hate to see people with NPD. A waste of time.
Ak wrote, "...he may lap himself on the crazy track. He's already way beyond the bend. He may catch up and pass himself on the circular road to Eternal Whackdom."
Sounds to me like you've just described Dante's 10th Circle of Hell. Drumpf's just combined all of the other nine into one of his very own.
I'm guessing Drumpf and Co. are going to show up with some obscure character from Bill Clinton's past and grunt and guffaw about the press not devoting the next 3 days to it.
Tonight's debate, with Drumpf unshackled and seething about every slight to his damaged ego, is guaranteed to be a historic low point in American political history. I stayed up for the last two debates, but I will be skipping this one as it's nearly guaranteed to be an extended infomercial for Breitburt fever dreams with occasional returns to reality brought to you by Clinton. No one wins here. We can only hope the Clinton campaign can goad Donald into further self-destruction.
Pursuit of Perfection
Confederate ideology has no acquaintance with pragmatism. Perfection is the goal. Wingers cannot abide a single woman making a choice that affects her life if that choice involves abortion (and in some instances, even contraception). If someone, anyone, gets "something for nothing" in their opinion, the entire country has gone to the dogs. If Hillary Clinton is elected, the vast majority of them would, it seems, prefer that she not be allowed to govern at all, a sentiment expressed truthfully, if unintentionally by John McCain. Making the best of things is not in their nature. They have to win. Losing means, for many, that Satan has won (or Democrats, pretty much the same thing). And this cannot be suffered. Only complete and total victory, meaning annihilation of their enemies (whether they be fellow Americans of different persuasions or dirty mooslims), can be accepted.
The problems with such a world view are obvious.
The Stoics understood this. Break things down, discover what's really important, let other things go. Epictetus advises not to despair of imperfections. Do what you can do and live to fight another day. The most famous of the Stoics (at least by modern standards), Marcus Aurelius, warns those of a political bent not to expect Plato's Republic. Be happy with modest victories, small steps forward. Looking to others for approval, hoping for the perfect victory, indulging in lies and skullduggery to achieve a spurious and unattainable goal is a fool's game. Here's what Marcus counsels:
"Never value anything as profitable to thyself which shall compel thee to break thy promise, to lose thy self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything which needs walls and curtains."
Of whom does that remind you?
I'm going to surmise that neither Epictetus nor Marcus Aurelius are on DJT's nightstand. Besides, that space is reserved for several hand mirrors in case he needs to remind himself before retiring of who, and what, is most important.
Thankfully, this is the last "debate". I suppose I should be grateful for small steps in this long slog. I was never looking for perfection in this process and we are for sure not getting it.
Thanks, Marcus. Every scintilla of sane advice is welcome.
Quote from Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations" Book Three.
Alas! dear Akhilleus: I must confess neither Epictetus nor Marcus Aurelius are on my nightstand either.