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
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Reader Comments (25)
Claptrap can work with no one, and no one can work with the clap. It's becoming easier and easier to see why he went broke so many times.
One of the commenters (Sebastian Williams) under the Stokols/Thrush Politico article linked above is very percipient. In part:"The reality is that the country is center-left now, and the tantrums of the extremist right are the backlash. But we don't have a center-left party. We have one cosmopolitan liberal elitist party that kowtows to Silicon Valley and Wall Street, and a radical right-wing insurgency that has given up all pretense to governance or parliamentary politics."
Other commenters observe correctly that democracy relies on a functioning opposition. Our worries will not be over in November.
Carrie Fisher who is an expert on the subject, says Trumps sniffles show he is in fact a 'coke head'. Any idea on how to get a urine sample?
They are eating their own. Kellyanne threatens deserters.
Satire meets reality at the event horizon.
"... 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..."
The fact of briefing that material is probably true, but I find it very hard to believe that "a senior intelligence official" who is involved in the briefing process told NBC what topics were briefed. The answer to reporters' questions about what was briefed is "we can't discuss details of intelligence briefings."
That said ... holy shit!
The other irony here is that the light weight "entertainer" cousin Bush has been suspended from a tv show (for giggling?), and the coke head continues, despite admitting to criminal assault. Trumpoids assert it was recorded in secret - while wearing a microphone. Dumb as a rock.
It is unnerving that the lyin' king is taking its leads directly from the Kremlin.
@Patrick: That same thought occurred to me, too. However, it appears the cited "intelligence officials" are less wary of revealing the content of their briefings when the information has been released to the public & has to a great degree become general knowledge. Probably when they heard what Trump said in the debate, they were so alarmed, they thought "holy shit!"
But, yes, this is an example of norms breaking down when a radical tyrant could plausibly become POTUS. This appears to be a bit of a Deep Throat moment.
Marie
"SESSIONS: I don't know. It's not clear that he—how that would occur."
Ol' Jeff is probably confused by the fact that female genitals don't protrude much, so how could you "grab 'em"? It's not like grabbin' 'em by the pecker.
He's confused about a lot of things that have happened since 1861.
I haven't seen this anywhere else but as a reaction to the Trump tape from last Friday it seems appropriate.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/10/donald-trump-pussy-grabs-back-meme-women-twitter
Here is a link to Carrie Fisher's coke head comments, mentioned by Marvin - I thought you and she were joking! She really means it.
How long before trump says something like "Bill and Hillary are
coke heads, and it must be true because my dealer doesn't lie".
Shakespeare understood how a great country could wind up being governed by a sociopath.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/opinion/sunday/shakespeare-explains-the-2016-election.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad
This comment to a WaPo article on Pence's return to defense of DJT is kind of appropriate:
"rockco65
6:41 AM EDT
Although the Bible was written years ago, the Bible knows Pence, and the Gospel writers warned against him and his ilk. Pence is the strutting Pharisee, loudly praying and proud of his piety, who walks right past the poor, the sick, and the hungry, and who insists to Pilot that Jesus must be crucified. Pence is the grinning money changer in the temple, eager to snatch away the last widow's mite; Pence is the "wolf in sheep's clothing," the false prophet. If this election helps us do anything, let us cast off hypocrites like Pence and be done with a power-hungry religious right. See Matthew 7:15-21."
You often hear the argument that we should forgive those who express contrition, and that is a nice concept. But forgiveness is not the same as supporting or empowering. I can forgive DJT for his many transgressions, and Pence for his hypocrisy, for whatever that's worth. But I could never vote for them, nor defend them as worthwhile persons.
If you're interested in hearing what some Republicans not named Ryan or McConnell are thinking about Trvmpvs, check out this interview on NPR this morning with GOP consultant Mac Stipanovich. This guy is no RINO. He's a Florida Republican (ask Marie about those folks) who helped Bush steal the election in 2000 and now he's voting for Clinton.
When asked whether Trumpbots are impervious to reality, he admits as much stating that 35 to 40% are irredeemably "face down in the Kool Aid" (a steal-worthy line if I've ever heard one). He goes so far as to say that the party may be on the verge of breaking apart completely or may have to "wander in the wilderness for a decade or so" before reconstituting as a viable political entity.
I suppose it's somewhat encouraging to hear that there are a few on the right who understand that Trump is their responsibility. It's also chilling to realize that even those as seemingly sentient as Stipanovich have been complicit--for years--in preparing the Way of the Trump.
The larger issue that we see now in the fullness of its time is the apotheosis of the GOP's strategy of deception, lies, misdirection, character assassination, paranoia, and burgeoning sense of victimization. These qualities have become the bedrock of the modern Confederacy and we can see it every time the Orange Headed Bigot opens his mouth. Facts and truth don't matter. How many wingers do you think read any of the many fact-check articles that appeared after either debate? They don't care about facts. This is how Trump is able, time and again, to lie, lie, lie, and then lie about the lies. He was against Iraq, blah, blah, blah. And NO that lie was not debunked, blah, blah, blah. This sort of thing goes back at least as far as Reagan.
And now the weeds planted at that time, nurtured for years, have morphed into the Trump Monster.
Good job, GOP!
Gloria, while it is certainly possible that Trump's behavior at debate was simply Trump under pressure, I wouldn't be surprised if he had some drug, legal or not to help him get through the door. But whatever the situation, just think of this Commander in Chief under pressure.
Holy Shit! for real. Glen Beck endorses Hillary!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/glenn-beck-hillary-clinton_us_57fc695be4b0e655eab74351
A perfect deal for both. Hillary gets the endorsement and a totally immoral idiot gets to pretend that he actually cares about morality.
My guess is he believes it's over so this is a chance to look good at no cost.
Wait. Just stop with the spit polishing of Obamas glorious crown and extolling Clinton's "key role in the Iran nuclear deal" for a moment, and maybe take our eyes off the daily mudslinging for a second, and look at what is unfolding in Yemen to see that there were deadly deals and concessions made in the Iran deal that will have long term negative impacts in the middle east. Check out:
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/11/obama_is_killing_yemen_a_yemeni
Let the back-pedaling commence.
Jeff K.,
I was just wondering to whom you were referring in your demand that the spit polishing of "Obama's glorious crown" cease? Also wondering who might be doing the back pedaling, and for what. Certainly there are those on this site who are fans of what Obama has been able to accomplish in the face of enormous opposition, but I have yet to run across any who don't have problems with various aspects of his presidency, often very serious problems. If you're referring to some other or others it would be helpful to identify them. It seems as if that might be the case because the comment about back pedaling implies an existent and specific position. In fairness I have not had time to listen to the entire interview you've linked. I will when time allows.
If your opening and closing volleys refer to some comment or comments here, I must have missed them. If you're thinking of some other group or groups, more information would be helpful to support your contention since I haven't spied any crowns, much less spit polishing of same. Barack Obama has been one of the most hated, vilified, and harshly criticized presidents in memory, and the criticism comes from both sides.
Thanks. And thanks for the link.
One of DJT's more bizarre routines is his recitation of a doggerel about a snake. You've probably heard about it: a young woman saves a dying snake, nurses him to health, and the snake deals her a fatal bite. She asks why, and the snake says "Why are you surprised, you knew I was a snake, it's what I do."
I never quite got the point he was trying to make, but now maybe his enablers are thinking about how they knew all along who he was, and they will suffer for sustaining him.
Maybe.
A couple thoughts:
Once I saw that little "Bushy" was suspended at NBC after his enabling of Donald, I couldn't help but think about Drumpf sitting on his gilded thrown, smiling down into the glow of his smartphone at 2 a.m. and cackling a bit to himself: "First Jeb, now Billy. The Bushes are a bunch a' pussies". It then occurred to me that maybe, perhaps, Drumps egomania has gotten so out of proportion due to his religion of "any press=good press" that he hardly bothers to even read articles any more, sufficing with a quick title skim. Knowing that his intellectual capacities are limited by his even smaller attention span, he probably doesn't even 'read' the press, as normally people would consider the idea. He could be just googling "Donald Trump" on a daily basis, watching his google search score surge, and leaning back in warm satisfaction. This man is anti-intellectual to the extreme, where reading through an entire Politico article is like reading 50 pages in a book: umpossible!
Combining his anti-intellectualism with Vladimir Putin's honed, life-long KGB training, Drumps doesn't stand a chance in hell. At first I thought Drump was just trolling the left with his Russian conspiracy stories, maybe falling in line with his corrupt advisers, but mostly just reveling in the attention given to him by placing him among the world's (dubious) leaders. But after Marie's linked piece today in Newsweek, it appears the Russians have found the formula (if they hadn't already) to get straight to the top of Drump's communication racket. His campaign is getting played by Russia so directly and so overtly, it's astounding to witness. And whether they care, or if they'd change course if they'd known, seems almost certainly a "NO!" if they can stick it to the establishment, both left and right. And so sink the GOP, and our democracy with it.
Safari,
You're correct about the googling of the name, but Donaldo doesn't do that himself, nooo..he hires other people to google his name for him. The elite don't do their own googling, after all.
At least according to this GQ piece (well worth the read) about Trump's 27 year old PR "expert", Hope Hicks, who formerly worked with and became friendly with Princess Ivanka.
"Every morning, staffers print out 30 to 50 Google News results for 'Donald J. Trump.' He then goes at the sheaf with a marker, making circles and arrows and annotating things he likes or doesn't like. The defaced article gets scanned and e-mailed to the journalist or the person quoted who has drawn Trump's attention, under the subject line 'From the office of Donald J. Trump.'"
One might think that someone running for president, especially a complete neophyte, with zero experience in crafting policy or even thinking about it, might spend time doing appropriate and necessary research, not reading about how wonderful others believe one to be, or how totally unfit, in which case, those writers are automatically denied any sort of future access to the great man.
Life in the Trump bubble. The one in which he hopes to immerse and cart off the rest of us like this one in that old British TV show "The Prisoner".
Patrick,
A while back, we took a look at that snake story Trumpy tells as a teaching moment for his minions.
The tale he tells is a version of the old frog and the scorpion story, modified to fit Trump's vision of the world, paranoid, hateful, and dismissive of helping anyone in need lest they bite you, you die, and they slither away laughing at how stupid you are. Helping someone who isn't named Trump is, in the Great Leader's mind, a yuuuuuuge mistake. Therefore, no food stamps for six year old Timmy, the little moocher.
Tiger by the tail
It was a nice thought, wasn't it? Him in shackles.
Too much to listen to today, I know. This is a thoughtful piece about Aleppo on BBC4 World at One (WatO), 21 October, starts at 7'29". We have said before here, no good outcomes. Similarly Yemen. We criticise, but finding a least bad solution in an extremely complex situation, where there are no good guys, is another thing. We have done the experiment: full intervention (Iraq) => disaster; partial intervention (Libya) => disaster; minor intervention (Syria) => disaster. What would we be saying now if we had not intervened at all in Libya, and watched as Gaddafi massacred hundreds of thousands of his people, but the country was not turned into the war torn failed state that it is now? Could that have been a less bad outcome, and would we know that it was? Can we have any idea what the least bad outcome is in the ME? I heard an earlier conversation on WatO, experienced negotiators saying that these (civil) wars just go on till someone wins (7 - 15 years). Lots of people will die, regardless of what the West does till someone "wins".
It is also the real world that forces politicians to deal with the politics of their decisions and actions. Especially when they are dealing with a stupid, ill-informed electorate, or even a cynical, war weary one, they can't do anything they see as right, even if they can discern what that is. PM Cameron could not persuade the British electorate to support a military campaign in Syria three years ago.
Like Ak, I don't know of any comments here that have professed support for the US/Saudi role in the Yemeni fiasco. Congress and the President support arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and it's the so-called liberal media that reports, critically and in some depth, on this story. No crowns polished here. What would be the fall-out of not supporting the Saudis? I don't know what goes on behind the scenes, but I don't think it's pleasant. Perhaps the Saudis are threatening an even worse maelstrom, or nothing. Perhaps this is something that Obama has got very wrong, or he is protecting people from much worse. He certainly doesn't seem to like the Saudis, and I can't imagine he's doing it out of ignorance or for laughs.