;)
The Commentariat -- October 25, 2016
Afternoon Update:
More Lies. Guess Who? Jeremy Diamond, et al., of CNN: "Donald Trump claimed Tuesday during an event with staff at his resort here that his employees are having issues with Obamacare -- an account contradicted by his property's general manager -- amid the news that President Barack Obama's signature health care legislation is facing soaring premiums. 'I can say that all of my employees are having a tremendous problem with Obamacare,' Trump said. 'What they're going through with their health care is horrible because of Obamacare, so we'll repeal it and replace it.'... [BUT]...Clarifying Trump's remarks, the general manager of Trump's property in Doral, David Feder, said "99% of our employees are insured through our hotel. Akhilleus: I guess Trump Math allows one to describe anything under 1% as 100%. In fact, it's very likely that the remaining 1% don't get any kind of health insurance. They're probably all illegal immigrants. Just Trump's way of Making America Great again. Oh, and I'm guessing Mr. Feder will be looking for a new job by tonight.
*****
Presidential Race
Anne Gearan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump each launched fresh attacks against the other on Monday, signaling that harshly negative closing arguments may dominate the final two weeks of the campaign. Clinton's campaign tried to build on its case that Trump doesn't respect women, while Trump again questioned the integrity of the election process -- this time asserting that polls showing Clinton ahead across the country are 'phony' and 'rigged.'" -- CW
Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "Weaponizing a debate-stage insult that has become a rallying cry for female supporters of Hillary Clinton, Senator Elizabeth Warren let fly a stern, swaggering warning on Monday to Donald J. Trump: 'Nasty women vote.' In a blistering rebuke of Mr. Trump, with Mrs. Clinton seated and smiling onstage beside her [in Manchester, N.H.,], Ms. Warren took furious aim at the Republican nominee's personal and political record, ticking off his history of disparaging remarks during the election and reminding the crowd of the many accusations of sexual assault against him. 'He thinks that because he has a mouthful of Tic Tacs that he can force himself on any woman within groping distance,' Ms. Warren said...." -- CW ...
New Jersey Star-Ledger Editors: "Clinton's sins are venial, and her flaws, as former Gov. Christie Whitman [R] put it, are within the norm in American politics. She has done nothing remotely illegal, and her paranoia may be largely explained by the baseless charges of her overheated critics. After several investigations into the deaths in Benghazi, Republicans hunting for Hillary's scalp came away with a whole lot of nothing. Trump's vow to throw her in prison is an unnerving reminder of his scorn for Constitutional restraint. In fact, we endorse Hillary Clinton not just because Trump is such a scary alternative, but because she is ready for this job, in experience and temperament. Her flaws are outweighed by her virtues, and it's not a close call." -- CW
Amy Chozick & Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "With polls and early voting data signaling that Mrs. Clinton is likely to prevail against Mr. Trump in two weeks, liberal Democrats are already looking past Election Day -- and relying on [Elizabeth] Warren to become the thorn in chief in Mrs. Clinton's side, scrutinizing her appointments and agenda. Mrs. Clinton has vowed that if elected she will work across the aisle with congressional Republicans, but relations with liberals, including Ms. Warren of Massachusetts and Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, could prove quite contentious." -- CW ...
John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Sen. Bernie Sanders, a loyal soldier for Hillary Clinton since he conceded the Democratic presidential nomination in July, plans to push liberal legislation with like-minded senators with or without Clinton's support if she is elected -- and to aggressively oppose appointments that do not pass muster with the party's left wing. In an interview, Sanders said he and other senators have started plotting legislation that would achieve many of the proposals that fueled his insurgent run for president, including a $15 federal minimum wage, tuition-free public college, an end to 'mass incarceration' and aggressive steps to fight climate change." -- CW
By Driftglass.John Wagner, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump warned Monday that his candidacy represents 'the kind of change that arrives only once in lifetime' and launched scattershot attacks against ... Hillary Clinton. 'She lies more than any human being,' Trump said of Clinton during a raucous rally in Tampa, his final stop during a day of campaigning in Florida, a must-win state for him.... During his evening rally in Tampa, Trump pointed toward the assembled press and said: 'These people are among the most dishonest people in the world, the media. They're trying to fix the election for Crooked Hillary.'" -- CW
Nikita Vladimirov of the Hill: "Donald Trump on Monday claimed he has been 'conceptually' endorsed by the military, despite the large number of military figures who have denounced him." CW: By "conceptually," I guess he means, "I think it; ergo, it's true."
It's Okay to Sexually Assault a Porn Star (But I'll Say I Didn't). Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "Donald Trump on Monday addressed the latest accusations of inappropriate sexual contact made against him, saying of the accuser, an adult film performer, 'Oh, I'm sure she's never been grabbed before.' At a news conference Saturday, Jessica Drake accused Trump of grabbing and kissing her without permission and offering her money to go up to his hotel room alone a decade ago. In an appearance on WGIR radio's "New Hampshire Today," Trump called the accusations against him 'total fiction.'" -- CW
The Cowardly Lawyers. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Alarmed by Donald J. Trump's record of filing lawsuits to punish and silence his critics, a committee of media lawyers at the American Bar Association commissioned a report on Mr. Trump's litigation history. The report concluded that Mr. Trump was a 'libel bully' who had filed many meritless suits attacking his opponents and had never won in court. But the bar association refused to publish the report, citing 'the risk of the A.B.A. being sued by Mr. Trump.'
"The Election Is Rigged, So Don't Bother to Vote." Sincerely, DJT. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "It's hard to suss out whether Trump's 'the vote is rigged' message is already tamping down the enthusiasm of his base, but in ABC's new poll, the number of Republicans who reported being likely to vote fell seven points since the Post-ABC poll released earlier this month.... Trump is ... relying heavily on strong turnout from a group of voters that generally doesn't turn out that much.... Telling them instead that the vote is rigged and, implicitly, that their votes may not count seems like the exact opposite of what he should be doing." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: Trump's primary calling card has been his contention that he is a business and organizational genius on an order rarely seen, that there is nothing he can't fix. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. He's going Chapter 11 on his own campaign. This guy is so incompetent, he can't even do what is most necessary to win, GOTV. In fact, his big idea is to imply that votes won't matter. Loser or idiot? You make the call.
** Trumpgate -- How Donald Trump Framed Hillary Clinton
Step 1. Give a Criminal a "Charitable Grant." Josh Israel of Think Progress (Oct. 20): The Trump Foundation gave $10,000 to Project Veritas in May 2015.
Step 2. Assist in Dirty Tricks You Can Pretend Are Tied to Your Opponent. Hadas Gold of Politico: "A liberal activist and organizer coordinated with reporters from the conservative news site Breitbart during the primaries to cover his disruptions of events for candidates such as Sen. Marco Rubio. Aaron Black, an associate with Democracy Partners and a former Occupy Wall Street organizer, worked with the pro-Trump site Breitbart, tipping it off about his stunts, exchanging raw video and coordinating coverage, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation.... 'He worked directly with Breitbart's political team on the ground in the primary states to sabotage Marco Rubio & Ted Cruz, and elect Trump as nominee of [the Republican] party,' the source told Politico.... Black has resurfaced recently as one of the people featured in undercover video from the Project Veritas group.... Black in the video says he helped organize protests in Chicago that led to Trump's cancellation of a rally there in March...." ...
Step 3. Have the Criminal Secretly Videotape (and Edit!) the Dirty Tricks. (See Gold.)
Step 4. Accuse Your Opponent & Her Allies of Criminality (in a Maximum-Visibility Venue).
If you look at what came out today on the clips [by Project Veritas]. I was wondering what happened with my rally in Chicago and other rallies where we had such violence. She's the one, and Obama, that caused the violence. They hired people, they paid them $1,500, and they're on tape saying, be violent, cause fights, do bad things. When I saw what they did, which is a criminal act by the way, where they're telling people to go out and start fist-fights and start violence. In particular in Chicago people were hurt, and people could've been killed in that riot. And that was now all on tape started by her. -- Donald Trump, at the third president debate
... CW: Notice how Trump one-upped Nixon. Nixon had teams of dirty tricksters: most notably the Watergate burglars & the "Plumbers." Trump not only has a team of dirty tricksters; he also blames Clinton & President Obama for the dirty tricks his own team perpetrated. If there is criminality in this entire conspiracy, it starts with Donald Trump, who financed, coordinated & encouraged the activity as part of a long-running plot to undermine his opponents.
... Worse than Watergate? Not in toto, because the Watergate investigation morphed into exposing the crimes Nixon & his minions committed while he was in office. But worse than the original Watergate burglary? Yes, insofar as Trump arranged to have the dirty tricks "exposed," so he could try to pin the supposed criminal acts on the POTUS & Hillary Clinton. Remember, Trump's Russian allies already had committed the equivalent of the Watergate burglary -- the purpose of which was to steal the DNC's campaign documents-- when they hacked into numerous Democratic accounts, including the DNC's & John Podesta's. Unlike Nixon, who tried to cover up the Watergate burglary, Trump "openly and notoriously" encouraged the Russian hacks. The whole scheme is extraordinary.
Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "A video posted on Monday by a British newspaper appeared to show a Republican consultant with ties to Donald J. Trump offering to disguise the source of contributions to a 'super PAC' intended to aid Mr. Trump's presidential campaign. In an accompanying article, the newspaper, The Telegraph, wrote that two of its reporters, posing as representatives of a Chinese national who supported Mr. Trump..., had proposed making a $2 million contribution in support of him. According to the newspaper, the G.O.P. consultant, Jesse Benton, had proposed routing the contribution through his own public relations firm and into nonprofit groups that do not disclose their donors, disguising the foreign source. The groups would then make the contribution to the super PAC, known as Great America PAC, or spend it to benefit Mr. Trump. United States law strictly forbids foreign nationals from making contributions to candidates, political parties or PACs.... Last month [Benton] was sentenced to two years of probation for his role in a 2012 scheme to make secret payments to an Iowa state senator in exchange for an endorsement [of Ron Paul for president]." ...
... CW: Lest we forget, "Benton is strongly associated with the Paul family, serving as a high-ranking staffer for both Ron Paul and Rand Paul. He is married to Ron Paul's granddaughter."
** Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Dana Milbank: "... We in the media made Trump possible in the first place and enjoyed the entertainment (and ratings) he provided for far too long. When the election ends -- if it ends -- there needs to be some newsroom soul-searching.... In general, watchdogs until recently were outnumbered in this election by those who cover politics as horse race, praising the maneuvers of whichever candidate is ahead in the polls. This avowedly neutral approach -- process journalism -- is apolitical. But it's also amoral -- a he-said-she-said approach that in this case confused tactics for truth and what works for what's right....
'It's the revenge of the elites,' Mark Halperin of Bloomberg Politics said ... on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe'.... 'Elites do not accept that that was an appropriate answer.' Host Joe Scarborough agreed that the issue was only of concern to 'people in newsrooms ... with their soy lattes.' Halperin (Harvard '87) went on to say that 'normal people won't care about that answer.'... 'Morning Joe' has come in for a large share of criticism for cheering on the rise of Trump. And contributor Halperin's praise for Trump's tactical genius has been particularly soulless. -- CW
Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "The sickness in today's Republican Party is not confined to its current standard-bearer. It is therefore not curable by merely disavowing, however belatedly, the soon-to-be-defeated nominee. The sickness has taken over the Republican base, and there's only one antidote. If Republicans truly want to save the Republican Party, they need to go to war with right-wing media. That is, they need to dismantle the media machine persuading their base to believe completely bonkers, bigoted garbage.... When it comes to the paranoid, destructive excesses of right-wing media -- not just Fox News's headliners such as Sean Hannity, but also Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones -- Republican leaders have been somewhat more reluctant to condemn or even gently critique." -- CW
Here's the thing: Trump didn't come out of nowhere now. For years, Republican politicians and far-right media outlets have been pumping out all kinds of toxic, crazy stuff.... Donald Trump didn't start all this. Like he usually does, he just slapped his name on it, took credit for it, and promoted the heck out of it. -- President Obama, last Thursday ...
... Oliver Darcy & Pamela Engel of Business Insider: "Trump's rise was no accident; rather, it was a natural outgrowth of a growing and influential faction of conservative media that for years fed the Republican base a steady diet of fringe theories masqueraded as news. And Republicans allowed it to happen, as Obama noted. 'They just stood by and said nothing, even though they knew better, while their base actually started believing some of this stuff,' he said.... The president's remarks hit home for numerous Republican strategists and members of the traditional conservative press. Many of them felt that Obama, public enemy No. 1 over the past eight years, had been the one to accurately home in on the problem." -- CW ...
... Who's to Blame? -- the Chickens or the Eggers? Josh Barro of Business Insider: "... the Republican Party cannot be fixed through the taming of its most committed members' favorite media outlets. The popularity of figures who fill Republicans' heads with disinformation -- people like Sean Hannity and Alex Jones and Matt Drudge -- is mostly a symptom of the problems in the party, not a cause.... Wealthy conservatives favor lower taxes on themselves.... This ... is not a compelling electoral argument. So, conservatives built a network of think tanks and magazines and pressure groups funded by wealthy donors whose job was to come up with arguments that would sell the donor class agenda to the masses.... The conservative information sphere has long been full of lies.... If Republicans want to tell the truth and win elections, they're going to have to advance different policy ideas -- and that's why they lie." -- CW
More Media Notes! Must-Not-See TV. Issie Lapowsky of Wired: "Welcome to the Donald Trump show! [Monday night], the Trump campaign [kicked] off a show that will air on the candidate's Facebook page every night at 6:30 pm ET.... In [the] inaugural episode [the show's hosts] ... interview Trump campaign manager KellyAnne Conway and adviser Jason Miller. The series, which will stream Trump's rallies directly each night and feature pre-and post-event commentary, comes on the heels of the campaign's debate night Facebook Live last week, which brought in more than 9 million views. Members of the media quickly seized on the event, calling it a test drive for Trump TV...." -- CW ...
... Charley Lanyon of New York: "The live-stream -- modeled after a cable news network with similar graphics and a news ticker running at the bottom of the screen -- featured Trump campaign advisers Boris Epshteyn and Cliff Sims acting as hosts, interviewing Trump supporters such as campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, The Blaze's conservative commentator Tomi Lahren, and the Republican National Committee's communications director and chief strategist Sean Spicer. In between interviews and clips from Trump campaign ads, the hosts railed against the 'left-wing media' which Epshteyn explained 'screws everything up' and boasted that now they could reach viewers without bias or spin." -- CW
Trivial Pursuits. Jasmine Lee & Kevin Quealy of the New York Times have catalogued "Donald Trump's Twitter Insults: The Complete List (So Far)" since Trump declared his candidacy in June 2015. (Updated Oct. 23.) ...
... "Bigly"? No, no, it's "big league"! Transcribers & linguists agree. CW: Why, it's almost as if Trump speaks at a second-semester fifth-grade level, even if he drops his "g"s.
Election News
Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: "PPP's newest North Carolina poll finds that Democrats are running up large leads already during early voting. Among those who say they've already voted, 63% say they cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton to only 37% for Donald Trump. Interestingly, less than half of a percent say they voted for Gary Johnson, which could be a sign that he won't end up getting that much more support than a normal third party candidate. The big Democratic advantage holds down ballot as well. Roy Cooper leads Pat McCrory 61-33 for Governor among those who have already voted, with Libertarian Lon Cecil at 1%. And Deborah Ross leads Richard Burr 52-34 for Senate, with Libertarian Sean Haugh at 7% among those who say they have already cast their ballots." -- CW ...
... Polling of likely North Carolina voters is considerably more grim. CW: Let's hope Trump keeps depressing the GOP vote.
** Vanessa Williams of the Washington Post: "A growing conflict over voting rights and ballot access is playing out in Georgia, where civil rights activists are trading accusations with Republican elected officials and where the stakes have risen considerably with the state's new status as a closely watched battleground. Activists said this month that as many as 100,000 Georgia voter-registration applications have not been processed. One of the state's largest counties offered only one early-voting site, prompting hours-long waits for many people at the polls last week. And the state's top election official has refused to extend voter-registration deadlines in counties hardest hit by Hurricane Matthew." ...
... CW: Thanks, Supremes! Georgia is one of the states that is off the hook now because of the confederate Supremes gutting the Voting Rights Act in 2013.
Early Voting in Nevada Goes to Democrats. James Hohmann of the Washington Post. "The media tends to focus on the lack of enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton relative to President Obama, which is real, but a few thousand more ballots were cast in Nevada on Saturday -- during the first day of early voting -- than during the kickoff day four years ago, when there was a similar flurry of activity to propel Democrats to the polls. And that was before Air Force One touched down yesterday afternoon." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: Block parties for Voto Latino, door to door canvassing, hitting the unions and the churches, Getting.Out.The.Vote. This is how it's done, Donnie, not whining about how it's all so unfair and screaming "rigged election"! Another example of how he does business. He shoots his mouth off but the only action you'll see from Trump is him trying to grope strange women. But this is yet another reason anti-democratic Confederates want to kill expansion of electoral opportunities like early voting. ...
... CW: As Nate Silver pointed out in a post also linked yesterday, "Nevada is one of a number of states where Democrats usually do better in early voting than in the vote overall, so this shouldn't be taken to mean that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto, are going to win their races by double digits." ...
... BUT. Ben Botkin of the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "Hillary Clinton is pulling away from Donald Trump in Nevada with early voting underway, according to a poll commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Clinton ... has a 7-point lead over GOP nominee Donald Trump, 48 percent to 41 percent. Libertarian Gary Johnson has 6 percent support. Four percent of voters are undecided and 1 percent support someone else or no candidate." CW: No doubt this will all change when polling reflects Sheldon Adelson's Review-Journal endorsement of the Trumpenmogul.
CW BTW: Today was the first day for early voting in Florida, & when friends & I went this morning, the line was about two people long. Not only that, we were at the only polling place in Fort Myers. A lady I chatted with came over from Cape Coral, which is GOP territory, "because the lines were too long there." Extremely anecdotal, to be sure, but not a great sign, particularly because our polling place is in about the only Democratic-leaning area in Southwest Florida.
Other News & Views
Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Premiums for midlevel health plans under the Affordable Care Act will increase by an average of 25 percent next year, while consumers in some states will find significantly fewer insurance companies offering coverage, the federal government said Monday. But the Obama administration said three-fourths of consumers would still be able to find plans for less than $100 a month with the help of federal subsidies." -- CW
Lauren Fox of TPM: "Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said he is confident that he has laid the groundwork for Democrats to nuke the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees if they win back the Senate in November.... Reid warned that if a Senate Republican minority block [Clinton's] Supreme Court nominee, he is confident the party won't hesitate to change the filibuster rules again. Such a move would be an extension of what Reid did in 2013 when he was still majority leader, eliminating filibusters (with a simple majority vote) on the President's nominees. There was only one exception: the Supreme Court.... Reid said, however, that could change. 'I really do believe that I have set the Senate so when I leave, we're going to be able to get judges done with a majority...,' Reid told TPM in a wide-ranging interview about his time in the Senate and his legacy." ...
... CW: Hold your nose & vote for the Democrat even if he's a jerk. I'm talking to you, Indianans. (See Bayh, Birch.)
Reed Abelson of the New York Times: The AARP Monday filed "a federal lawsuit against the government agency that handles the rules on ... so-called wellness programs.... The suit ... argues that the programs violate anti-discrimination laws aimed at protecting workers' medical information. It also questions whether the programs are truly voluntary when the price of not participating can be high. The target of the suit is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency responsible for issuing the rules governing what employers can do." -- CW
How to Make a Maligned Institution Scummier. David Cloud of the Los Angeles Times: "Short of troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade ago, the California National Guard enticed thousands of soldiers with bonuses of $15,000 or more to reenlist and go to war. Now the Pentagon is demanding the money back. Nearly 10,000 soldiers, many of whom served multiple combat tours, have been ordered to repay large enlistment bonuses -- and slapped with interest charges, wage garnishments and tax liens if they refuse -- after audits revealed widespread overpayments by the California Guard at the height of the wars last decade." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: The Bush Cheney Debacle keeps on screwing Americans. Hey, if the Pentagon is demanding that soldiers who signed up to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan pay back sign up bonuses, why can't those soldiers demand that the Pentagon give them back their legs, arms, eyes, and mental health they forfeited to make George W. Bush forget that he was a deserter? ...
... UPDATE: Cristiano Lima "Hillary Clinton [and other political leaders] slammed the California National Guard and Pentagon on Monday for reportedly demanding solders who fought in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade ago to return enlistment bonuses they received for their service." -- CW
What Unites Us. Dan Zak of the Washington Post: "... Tom Hanks ... pulled off the best political sketch of the year.... 'Saturday Night Live' has staged its 'Black Jeopardy' sketch a few times before, pitting its African American cast members against white guest hosts who can't overcome their own whiteness to answer clues about black culture and jargon. This time, though, the white contestant -- a Trump supporter named Doug played by Hanks -- proved to be surprisingly adept at 'Black Jeopardy'"
Beyond the Beltway
Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: "The Virginia Board of Health voted Monday to scrap hospital-style building codes for all abortion clinics, saying that they were unconstitutional under a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The board had signaled months ago that it would lift the requirements for 14 existing clinics but impose them on any new ones. But in an 11-to-4 vote Monday, it decided that the construction requirements should not apply to any of the state's clinics. The decision follows a Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down abortion-clinic regulations in Texas. It also fulfills a central campaign promise of Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who said during the 2013 campaign that he would be a 'brick wall' against abortion restrictions." -- CW
Angela Couloumbis & Craig R. McCoy of philliy.com: "Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane was sentenced Monday to 10 to 23 months in jail for orchestrating an illegal news leak to damage a political enemy, capping a spectacular downfall for a woman once seen as one of the state's fastest-rising stars.... A tearful Kane pleaded for leniency, urging the judge to consider the impact on her sons", to no avail. -- CW
Claude Brodesser-Akner of NJ.com: "A top Democrat said Monday the law firm hired by Gov. Chris Christie to conduct a state-funded investigation of the Bridgegate scandal should refund $8 million to New Jersey taxpayers, saying she is 'infuriated' by court testimony contradicting its findings. 'It is a legal question as to whether we can compel them to refund the money,' state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) told NJ Advance Media. 'But at the least, we are going to demand that they refund it first. This is a big deal. Those millions should go to programs for women's health, for education, that we've had to cut.'" -- CW
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Reader Comments (13)
Good news?
John Wagner, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump warned Monday that his candidacy represents 'the kind of change that arrives only once in lifetime.'
That's a promise I and millions of others would like to take to the bank.
Many of you may remember the "Crazy Eddie" TV commercials: a frenzied guy is screaming that his "Prices are Insane!" These prices refer to all sorts of appliances owned by an electronic chain run by Eddie Antar and his cousin Sam. The two ran a scam in which they funneled millions of dollars out of the company. They were eventually caught; Eddie fled the country but Sam turned face witness, confessed everything and managed to get a lesser sentence. His lawyer was married to Trump's sister who is a federal judge. Donald then hired the crazy Eddie's lawyer for his own personal one. Cozy family connections.
Now back in 1981 when New Jerey was voting for their Governor the Republican operation in charge of voting polls put up huge billboard signs that said "WARNING" and spelled out all the ways people were not eligible to vote and what would happen if they dared. They had police and Sheriffs patrolling the polling areas. This operation was stopped by Democrats and law officials after this election by implementing what is called "The Consent Degree" which means it is unlawful for any polling station to engage in this deplorable stunt. This law expires next year. Who was the lawyer that represented the Republicans? Yes! Crazy Eddie's lawyer, Donald's brother in-law and lawyer.
And now Donald is urging his "people" to do something that is unlawful and if carried out could land then in jail. Crazy dimwit whose messages are INSANE!
The National Republican Party has sent out memos warning states to avoid poll watching.
PD: your reminiscing about Crazy Eddie brought to mind an old SNL skit of a commercial for the furniture company Sofa King.
Criminal? Apparently no one is aware of the fraudulent "Trump University" under serious criminal investigation. My guess is that the indictments will come on Nov.9 since they don't want it look look like politics.
What's going to be the spin after the "media" decides they're tired of being whipping boys for Donald and boycott an event?
Not a possibility but a good thought.
"Conceptual" endorsements. What a great idea. If I can conceive of something, in the World According to Trumpy, it's so. Okay, great!
I'm conceptually the Emperor of the Universe, and my first command is to banish Trumpado and all his followers, enablers, hangers-on, criminal counterparts, and media bandwagoneers to the Kuiper Belt where they can find comets and other debris to cling on to. Trumpy, being a world class groper, should have no problem. It would be like that Jules Verne novel, "Off on a Comet"! Yeah, that's the ticket.
Except, now that I think of it, if I recall the storyline, the people picked up by the comet eventually return to Earth. Nope. That won't do. But as conceptual Emperor of the Universe, I hereby edit Verne's novel. Instead of returning to Earth, the Trumpies and their conceptual king, all land on the planet Amazonia, ruled by a race of 8 foot tall women who chop the hands off any man who tries to grope them. There, the handless Trump lives out his days as a slave, condemned to clean out the Amazonian rest rooms. But how does he do it without hands? Hey...that's what that orange fright wig is for! Problem solved.
I wonder if any of the existentialists considered conceptualist ideation? It's a gas.
The media and trump. Remember that other mental case who ran for
vice president in 2008? The media tailed her for about 6 or 7 years
after her run, reporting her every move and utterance, no matter how
stooopid.
Me thinks the same will be true for the donald, since his millions of
followers will want to keep up with his every crooked move and every
tax avoidance scheme and they'll surely want to know all about his
next divorce and the importation of another Eastern European beauty.
What a price they pay for a green card!
Forrest,
I believe you're right about the media and the Orange Headed Bigot. Palin was small beer next to Trump (he's more a failed vodka kind of guy). If they really do due diligence (as has been done only in dribs and drabs by actual journalists thus far), the stories they uncover about Trump, in addition to all the crap already out there, should be scary but necessarily instructive for our democracy as we face even smarter Trump 2 and 3.0's to come.
Of course there will still be those afraid to kick the clay feet. Take, for instance the ABA which commissions a report about Trump's history (linked above) of ludicrous libel claims then decided they're too fearful of his impotent wrath to release it. The whole point of the report, so it seems, was that his many libel suits all come to naught, but they must feel unwilling to take a chance, which I can't understand for the life of me.
First, Trump is a public figure and a libel case brought by a public figure can be hard to prosecute. The test of actual libel is spreading information one knows for a fact to be untrue with the express intention of damaging an individual. If you're conveying absolute documented truth, despite what Trump thinks and says (he's never wrong, has never made a mistake, and has never done a bad thing to anyone in his life), there is no way a report based on documentary evidence and court filings could be construed by any court as libelous.
But I do feel it important that Trump not be let off the hook after the election. After the Rat lost, he dropped out of sight and checked into the Oblivion Inn faster than Trump could grope a 15 year old. Remember that picture of a sullen Rombot in shirtsleeves pumping his own gas a few weeks after his loss? Trump would never be caught dead pumping his own gas. He'd hire someone to steal it for him then sue the oil company and the arresting officers. The Rat was a no good sonuvabitch oligarch who ruined people's lives for money. He lied like he was breathing. But he didn't challenge the essence of democracy. And he wasn't demonstrably insane. If he had been elected, it would have sucked royally, but no one would be worried that he'd have a conniption fit if some foreign head of state slighted him and nuke the guy's country.
Trump could have stayed out of presidential politics and lived out his days as an eccentric, somewhat douchy/gaudy self-aggrandizing B list celebrity who may or may not be as rich as he claims. As it is, he'll be remembered as a vicious, lying, stupid, racist demagogue with delusions of grandeur, a taste for authoritarian dictators, and a sexual predator of the first rank who'd sell his grandmother for a front page article touting his genius.
He deserves to be hounded to the grave.
Fuck him.
@AK: Oh never mind what our Trumpster has in store for himself––I'm worried about poor Mr. Feder––manager of Trump's Doral property. Yes, by midnight, this poor guy is wandering the dark streets looking for shelter from the cold shoulders of the King's dynasty. I worry about poor Mr. Feder.
@Unwashed: Thanks for that video–– very funny.
Re: the problems with Obamacare otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act. If Bernie and Lizzie have their way they will opt for the single payer and will lock Hillary in a congressional closet until she agrees which come to think of it wasn't her initial healthcare project as First lady similar? If we are able to gain the Senate and get some of our people in the House, drug Paul Ryan and give no-doze to Mitch we might just have a chance for something that will help ALL the people.
Guess we can thank the Bush Crash for at least two things.
Eight years of Obama's sanity and health costs staying relatively steady for most of those years.
The rising healthcare costs reflect both greed (always greed) and a strengthening economy (yes, that's in part Obama's fault, too), but the silver lining in those rising costs may be the leverage they might provide to move us to (more sanity) some kind of single payer system.
But with the always retrenching Repugs in Congress, it won't be easy. Without a clear Democratic majority in at least one of the houses, I would expect from the House fratboys (really, really nasty men) at least two years of POTUS hazing and not much else.
I was struck by the quality of both the politics and the journalism in this interview of Michael Gove on WatO, BBC4. Worth a couple of minutes even with no interest in British politics.
How often do the Cons have to admit voter suppression before Dems work very hard to eradicate it? Universal suffrage is our only defence, and no one should be disenfranchised.
Sorry, WatO link
...." Let's Find Out What's on Newt's Mind!
Newt Gingrich (on air, on Megyn Kelly's Fox "News" show): You are fascinated with sex and you don't care about public policy. ...
Megan Kelly: You can take your anger issues and spend some time working on them, Mr. Speaker.
Newt: You too.
Dan Scavino (Trump's social media director), in a tweet: Megyn Kelly made a total fool out of herself tonight- attacking Donald Trump. Watch what happens to her after this election is over...."
I'm a guessing that Megyn Kelly will change her party affiliation to Democrat and become a successful Tee Vee Announcer on CNN, MSNBC--or one of the more mainstream stations. Methinks she has HAD IT!