GOPer Goofing

Congressional Republicans attack health reform, environment, choice, worker protections - Shareblue:

The memo issued by the DCCC’s Policy Department, recapping the 114th Congress, is brutal in its stark assessment of the failures of the Republican leadership to accomplish meaningful change on behalf of the American people.

After setting a light schedule which “has the House on track to work the least number of days since 2007,” much of their paltry time “was wasted on dozens of bills attacking health care reform, environmental regulations, a woman’s right to choose, worker protections, banking reforms, and punishments for IRS and VA workers that had little chance of passing into law. As a result, the House only passed 20 major bills this Congress...”

tRump Losing More GOP Support

Insiders: Trump had a terrible week - POLITICO:

..."It's not just the debate — which was awful for him — it was the coverage of the debate,” a Wisconsin Democrat added. “He's getting killed.”

Republicans were more divided about the week's impact: 47 percent said it would have no impact at all — but roughly just as many, 43 percent, said it would help Clinton. Only 10 percent said Trump would benefit...

Another, Kinda, Sorta Clinton First

USA Today Takes A Side In The Presidential Race For The First Time | Huffington Post:

...“This year, the choice isn’t between two capable major party nominees who happen to have significant ideological differences,” reads the editorial. “This year, one of the candidates — Republican nominee Donald Trump — is, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, unfit for the presidency...”

The Horror Of tRump

O On Vote Wasting

President Obama says a third-party vote is a Trump vote - Shareblue: 00:00
00:17

...If there’s one message I want to deliver to everybody: If you don’t vote, that’s a vote for Trump. If you don’t vote, that’s a vote for Trump. If you vote for a third-party candidate who’s got no chance to win, that’s a vote for Trump.

In addition to what the President is saying here, there’s also this: A vote for a third-party candidate is also a vote for someone who isn’t a very good candidate...

Fox News Warns About Misleading Polls

Fox News vice president warns staff about online debate polls - Business Insider:

...At least three Fox News hosts cited unscientific online polls in the hours after Monday night's presidential debate to suggest Donald Trump emerged as the winner of the political showdown.

Trump had come out ahead in a slew of unscientific polls, or polls in which the sample of participants did not accurately reflect the sample of viewers who watched the debate. Such polls are almost always discounted by professional pollsters and analysts.

The only scientific survey conducted in the debate's immediate aftermath was the CNN/ORC instant poll, which showed that viewers thought Hillary Clinton handily defeated Trump. Respondents to a Morning Consult poll released Wednesday also said, 49% to 26%, that Clinton bested Trump in the debate...

Fox News Warns Talent!

As In Life, tRump Bucks Less Than Claimed

Trump fundraising record not all it appears - POLITICO:

Donald Trump’s campaign was desperate to change the subject after his shaky debate performance on Monday, and it found just the story to do it — a record fundraising surge that Trump says was powered by small donors, proving he actually got a boost from the debate.

But a closer examination of the claims around Trump’s fundraising surge — which the campaign says yielded $18 million in the 24 hours after the debate through online donations and a big-donor phone bank — suggests the haul might not be quite as significant to Trump as he and his campaign have made it out to be...

The 27%

So Long, It’s Been Bad to Know Ya… | The Nation: 

...Are these people really ‘crazy’ as Rogers asserts? Probably not. But his broader, rhetorical point is made—they are likely to be ‘dead-enders’ and ‘true believers,’ people who simply have no capacity to endure cognitive dissonance or curiosity in learning basic facts. The implication being that if you peel away the rational pulp of our body politic, the one quarter or so that’s left represents the hard, unthinking pit of the American psyche...

About The Coming Shutdown

Government Shutdown Looms in Congress with Fight Over Flint, Louisiana Flood Funding:

...So, the federal budget is now once again hostage to a Republican family spat over who can be most popular with Hugh Hewitt's audience. It is also being used by the Democrats to try and wedge some money into the budget to help the people of Flint with their poisoned water. The Fail Safe mechanism seems to be that neither party wants to get hung with the blame for a shutdown a month before the election, so the smart money is on some sort of continuing resolution to get everyone past the beginning of November.

The basic question of how anyone can pit flood victims in Louisiana against the poisoning of the people of Flint is left unanswered. There's an election, after all.

Clinton Scores Another GOPer Endorsement

Arizona Republic endorses Hillary Clinton for president - CNNPolitics.com:

The Arizona Republic, the state's largest newspaper, has never endorsed a Democrat for president -- until now.
In an op-ed published to its website Tuesday, the editorial board backed Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump for president...

tRump Gets Owned

Hillary Ruled the Show:

...If I know anything about Trump he'll feel wounded by this encounter, low-stamina Hillary, almost a foot shorter than him, a weak women ... well, she controlled him and owned the floor. Like we saw with Pastor Timmons and so many others who have hurt him, he'll lash out.

I think the night went badly for Trump. We'll have several days again going over his list of lies. And the pressure on him will go up for the second debate.

What's Wrong With Half The Men In The U.S.

...and probably 80% world wide can be summed up in the following snippet: Of Course Men Commented On Hillary Clinton's Looks During The Debate | Huffington Post:

...Fox News host Brit Hume took things one step further. He didn’t simply object to Clinton’s smile (or lack thereof) ― he took issue with her entire face.

“She looked composed, smug sometimes, not necessarily attractive,” he said.

Well, if Hume doesn’t think Clinton is very attractive, let’s just call this whole presidential race thing off. We all know ladies are only worth anything if they’re hot.

Dear tRump: Remember Al Capone?

BOMBSHELL: On debate night, WaPo breaks story of potential Trump tax evasion - Shareblue:

According to Fahrenthold’s sources, Trump has directed approximately $2.3 million worth of payments he was owed personally to the foundation. The problem for Trump is that he is still required to pay taxes on that income.

But the Post was stonewalled when it sought proof that Trump paid the taxes he owed:

Could he provide proof of that tax payment?

“Absolutely not,” [Adviser Boris] Epshteyn said...

The IRS can't touch me, tRump thinks.

Lies A-Flyin'

Trump Campaign Manager Bashes Reporters Ahead Of First Debate | Huffington Post: Kellyanne

Conway, the campaign manager for Donald Trump, claimed Monday that some embedded network producers following the GOP presidential nominee are overwhelmingly “negative” in their coverage...

MLK Was A Human First

Politicalprof - Can we just STOP with the�“Martin Luther King, Jr., Didn’t Riot But He Changed the World” Thing?:

...Third, is it now required that we all be Martin Luther King? Is it required that we all have the patience to endure endless harassment and violence in order to be “worthy” to protest? Do remember that King himself had largely abandoned the philosophy of nonviolence at the time of his assassination. For example, he was only in Memphis in April 1968 supporting a direct action strike by sanitation workers in the city, an action LOTS of people would have called violently disruptive to the health of the community. His movement only seems beatific in retrospect, through the lens of the rioting and social chaos that ensued his marginalization in the later 1960s and 1970s. There are no perfect protestors even when there is much to protest.

I do not think the Martin Luther King, Jr., you remember is the Martin Luther King, Jr., who actually lived.

tRump Says No To Facts In Debates

History calls for an end to the double standard against Hillary Clinton (#DemandFairDebates) - Shareblue:

...We could not agree more. Debate moderators must be willing to remain focused on policy, and they must come prepared to fact check the candidates in real time. [Notably, Donald Trump has already rejected the idea of real-time fact checking while Clinton has welcomed it.]...

tRump Will Increase Taxes On The Poor

A new study says Trump would raise taxes for millions. Trump’s campaign insists he won’t. - The Washington Post:

More than half of America's single parents and one-fifth of its families with children could see their federal income taxes go up under Republican Donald Trump's revamped tax plan, according to a new analysis of the plan by a New York University professor who previously served as a tax specialist for the Obama administration and the Senate Finance Committee...

As Gomer Pyle Used To Say

Clinton Receives Glowing NYT Endorsement

Hillary Clinton for President - The New York Times:

...Through war and recession, Americans born since 9/11 have had to grow up fast, and they deserve a grown-up president. A lifetime’s commitment to solving problems in the real world qualifies Hillary Clinton for this job, and the country should put her to work.

I wonder if MoDo's head exploded.

Tax The Rich

Clinton gives nod to Sanders with 65% top estate tax rate:

...Clinton has repeatedly called to put a larger tax burden on the wealthiest Americans to boost investment in infrastructure and job creation. The revision will put a 65 percent tax rate on estates valued at $1 billion or more per couple, the Clinton campaign said Thursday...

Another GOPer Paper Endorses Clinton

Major Ohio paper endorses Clinton after years of backing GOP - CNNPolitics.com:

The Cincinnati Enquirer, one of Ohio's largest newspapers, is backing Hillary Clinton after supporting Republican presidential candidates for nearly a century.
"The Enquirer has supported Republicans for president for almost a century -- a tradition this editorial board doesn't take lightly. But this is not a traditional race, and these are not traditional times," the editorial board of the Enquirer published Friday. "Our country needs calm, thoughtful leadership to deal with the challenges we face at home and abroad. We need a leader who will bring out the best in all Americans, not the worst."

"That's why there is only one choice when we elect a president in November: Hillary Clinton," the editorial reads...

LA Times Endorses Clinton

Hillary Clinton would make a sober, smart and pragmatic president. Donald Trump would be a catastrophe. - LA Times:

American voters have a clear choice on Nov. 8. We can elect an experienced, thoughtful and deeply knowledgeable public servant or a thin-skinned demagogue who is unqualified and unsuited to be president...

Vets Are Moochers Says GOPer

Boehner’s GOP replacement slurs veterans as ‘moochers’ and ‘pretenders’ for seeking VA care:

Donald Trump-backing Ohio Republican is defending his claims that “moochers” and “pretenders” are overwhelming the Veterans Affairs’ health care system with fraudulent claims — even though there’s little evidence of abuse...

This one hits me right where I live. In the late 60s I was injured in a military operation. In addition to hearing loss, I also had back and neck injuries. I was treated in a hospital for lacerations and sent on my way. A year later, back in the states, I went to the base hospital because my hearing was getting worse and my back was hurting. The doctor accused me of trying to get a discharge, which was insane since I wanted to make a career of the military. Years later, after multiple attempts and multiple varying excuses, I can still get no help from the VA. Their latest excuse was, as a SS and NC teacher's pensioner, I make too much money. Yeah, there are lying deadbeats milking the VA, but all the money they steal is a drop in the bucket compared to the money wasted on projects like the F-35, and for every one of those grifters, there are at least a dozen veterans who are denied benefits but deserve them. 

Russians Are Hacking US

Top Dems: Russians Trying to Influence U.S. Election - NBC News:

Russian intelligence agencies are trying to interfere with the U.S. presidential election, the top Democrats on the intelligence committee said Thursday.

The lawmakers, part of the so-called "Gang of 8," members of Congress who are briefed on nearly all the nation's intelligence secrets, went much further than President Barack Obama has been willing in engaging the question of Russian hacking into American political organizations...

Too Big To Jail?

Wells Fargo Had A Bad Day. That’s A Start | Crooks and Liars:

...And Warren is right: Senior executives who encourage or tolerate fraud, while enriching themselves from it, need to go to jail. That means appointing regulators and Justice Department officials who will uphold the law without fear or favor.

Wells Fargo’s CEO faced a rough grilling. That’s a start. But John Stumpf is undoubtedly decompressing somewhere right now, waiting in comfort for the heat to die down. Wall Street’s fraud won’t end until its senior executives are held fully accountable for their actions – and not just for a day.

More Cons From Don

Trump received $1.6 million from Secret Service - POLITICO:

Donald Trump's campaign isn't alone in patronizing his own businesses: taxpayers are indirectly doing so, too.

Federal Election Commission records show that the U.S. Secret Service has paid the Trump campaign about $1.6 million to cover the cost of flying its agents with the candidate on a plane owned and operated by one of his companies...

An Evangelical Evolution

Like Katy Perry, I broke up with the conservative evangelical project | Religion News Service:

...Whether you like President Barack Obama or not, former religious right activist Frank Schaeffer told the ugly truth about contemporary conservatism: It has carried out a vicious “slow motion lynching” of our first African-American president. Today’s conservatives have been undermining voting rights for minorities, vilifying immigrants, scapegoating LGBTQ people, and resurrecting white privilege and white supremacy to maintain systemic injustice. One simple word in Trump’s campaign slogan — “again” – harkens back to a time of deep discrimination against everyone who doesn’t look like or pray like me...

Ruining tRumper's Day

CNN host abruptly ends interview after pro-Trump pastor keeps yelling facts are ‘nonsense’:

CNN host Alisyn Camerota abruptly ended an interview with Cleveland Pastor James Davis, a supporter of GOP nominee Donald Trump, after he continually shouted over other another guest and refused to accept any facts showing that the black community was not in worse shape than any time in U.S. history...

Let's Get The Facts Before We Riot

A flashback post on Duke Lacross, re: Charlotte riots, police shooting. The conflation with the Tulsa shooting, which looked like a crime to me, (update: she has been charged) is probably what has caused the immediate problem. The longer term problem is a police and justice system in need of a severe reminder that they work for all the citizens of this country, not just a select few.

- Media Notes Extra - washingtonpost.com: "...But in all the coverage you read and see about the clearing of these young men, very little of it will be devoted to the media's role in ruining their lives. I didn't hear a single television analyst mention it yesterday, even though two of the players' lawyers took shots at the press...

...We will now read 100 stories about how an obsessive prosecutor overreached in bringing the indictments in the first place, and that's fine. But keep in mind that the Duke case was all over the network newscasts, the morning shows, the cable channels and the front pages. Newsweek put two of the defendants' mug shots on the cover. "I'm so glad they didn't miss a lacrosse game over a little thing like gang rape," Nancy Grace said on Headline News...

...The North Carolina AG spoke of "a tragic rush to accuse," and he just as easily could have been talking about journalists as Mike Nifong. Commentators have been chattering about whether Nifong will be disbarred, but no one gets to disbar the media.

An Ad About tRump's Real Supporters

No More Mister Nice Blog: CONFESSING MY UNPOPULAR OPINION: I PREFER EVAN McMULLIN'S NEW ANTI-TRUMP AD TO JOSS WHEDON'S:

...This ad is plain and unpolished. It's a punch in the gut. It reminds us that Trumpism isn't just about a buffoonish blowhard who may or may not be able to back up his belligerent words -- it's about millions of angry people who are being told it's okay for them to intimidate people who aren't white or Christian or male...

Go listen to the ad at the link and you'll discover that Clinton's basket of deplorables wasn't nearly large enough.

Ryan Clueless On Stop & Frisk

Paul Ryan ducks on stop-and-frisk - CNNPolitics.com:

House Speaker Paul Ryan ducked Thursday on whether he supports the "stop and frisk" policy pushed by Donald Trump.
"I don't have an answer for you because it's not something that I've familiarized myself with -- the constitutionality of it, its efficacy, whether (it) worked well in New York City or not," Ryan said after being pressed twice by reporters on the policy the GOP nominee wants to revive, despite court rulings finding it unconstitutional...

Sen. Kirk Still Lying

Mark Kirk's Campaign Website Said He Was An Iraq War Vet: He Wasn't:

A new report from CNN reveals that Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL)'s campaign website falsely listed Kirk as an Iraq War veteran even though the senator served stateside in the Navy Reserves during the conflict. Kirk's inflated military record nearly cost him his Senate seat before.

According to CNN, "a once public, now private webpage" included the information, which brought back memories of Kirk's 2010 race when he exaggerated his military service. Kirk's current campaign told CNN that the website was not supposed to be public and was still in edits...

Grade A Congressional Trolling

Dems Hijack IRS Impeachment Hearing With Skittles And Trump Taxes | Huffington Post:

... “Commissioner, you know who I’m talking about. Everyone in this room knows who I’m talking about,” said Gutierrez, who had made clear at the start of his questions to Koskinen that he was going to enjoy his chance to derail the GOP’s hearing.

“I have a few extra bags of Skittles and I’m going to share them with you and your staff so that after this reckless and bitter hearing you can get a small amount of sweet candy to improve the rest of your day,” Gutierrez said.

Baby tRump Whining Again

Trump Accuses Hillary of Copying, Proves Once Again That He's a Child:

On Tuesday, Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton not once, but twice of copycatting him, because apparently, that's a real attack used in this hellfire of an election...

tRump Wants To Violate Everyone's Civil Rights

Trump Proposes Reinstating Stop And Frisk At Event Aimed At Black Voters | Huffington Post:

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump thinks the best way to stop crime in black communities is to broaden the use of stop and frisk, a policing tactic that has been proved to be discriminatory against blacks and Latinos...

Some Good Poll News

Trump's Surge May Already Be Fading:

...I'm not saying that Clinton is back in a comfortable lead. I'm not saying we know she'll win. I'm not saying that we know that the virtual tie Trump moved into last week has subsided. I'm making a much narrower point. We don't have enough data yet to know. But the limited data we do have both nationally and in key states suggests Clinton is reopening the modest lead she had prior to her weekend of horribles. And it looks to me at least like what I called the 'Clinton Wall' has not been breached.

We'll have to wait for more data.

Clintons Roasts tRump Over Charity Misuse

Trump used foundation money to pay legal fees, report says - Business Insider:

...Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign fired off a response to the Post story soon after it was published.

"Clearly the Trump Foundation is as much a charitable organization as Trump University is an institute of higher education," Christina Reynolds, the campaign's deputy communications director, said in a statement. "Trump’s version of charity is taking money from others to settle his own legal issues and buy at least two pictures of himself, which experts say is a clear violation of laws governing charitable organizations."

"Once again, Trump has proven himself a fraud who believes the rules don't apply to him," she continued. "It's past time for him to release his tax returns to show whether his tax issues extend to his own personal finances..."

Long Odds On Death By Terrorist

Donald Trump Jr. Skittles Tweet Sparks Outrage For Refugee Comparison : NPR:

...And, as the Washington Post pointed out, the bowl of Skittles would have to be awfully large for Trump's analogy to be accurate: The odds of being killed by a refugee in a terrorist attack are about 1 in more than 3.6 billion, according to a recent Cato Institute study...

Another Crack In The Media Wall Of Stupid

Morning Joe Panel Rips Joe Scarborough For Whitewashing Trump's Assassination Remark | Crooks and Liars:

The entire panel of guests on MSNBC's Morning Joe took on show's namesake host, Joe Scarborough, on Monday after he came to the defense of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's thinly-veiled assassination comments about Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton...

tRump Wants To Arrest Himself

ALERT: Trump questions free speech, calls for arrest of people (like him?) who incite violence - Shareblue:

...Without a trace of irony, Trump continued:

Those people should be arrested because they are inciting violence. They are making violence possible. They should be arrested immediately. They have websites that tell how to make bombs, how to make all sorts of things that are totally destructive, and you know where they are coming from, and yet we don’t want to touch them because of freedom of speech.

This is a man who has twice invoked the assassination of his opponent, so by his own logic he should be “arrested immediately...”

Later on, tRump insults police competence by saying they can't protect us without profiling. Funny, I think they've done a pretty good job since the landscape is not littered with bodies and burning buildings.

The Color Of Life Experiences

The resegregation of America - CSMonitor.com:

...His wife, however, has never faced these problems. She grew up in Northfield, south of the Twin Cities, and is a “prototypical Minnesotan,” he says. “Her interaction with the police, her life with the police, is significantly different than mine has been.”

The couple’s different experiences speak to a growing gulf between the lives of white and black people in the Twin Cities – and much of the United States as a whole. While the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area is known for its prosperity and well-educated population, it also has some of the worst racial disparities in the country...

I could speculate forever on the root causes of this police/citizen problem, but I would like to point out that it is not just blacks who have trouble, ask any former hippy (or current hippy) about police interactions. Maybe it's that "otherness" thing that some the head GOPers were talking about over the weekend. I'm not trying to diminish the race issue at all; I am saying that the problem may be more than skin deep.

The Lying Liar's Daily Lie List

Hullabaloo:

Just one day of Trump publicly lying courtesy of The Star. And we're not even talking about the birther nonsense.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump delivered two speeches on Saturday.

The first was to The Remembrance Project, a group for the family members of people killed by illegal immigrants. The second was to a rally in Colorado Springs.

He made 12 false statements. Here’s a fact check:...

Crazy In NC: GOPer Media Cheating Edition

Pat McCrory's Staff Plants Softball Questions For Governor At Event | Huffington Post:

Taylor Batten, the editorial page editor for The Charlotte Observer, wanted to ask North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) a question at an event Thursday. But when he tried to do so, he was told that there were already three questions in the queue from his outlet, so he was out of luck.

Ends up those questions weren’t from The Charlotte Observer at all. They were questions planted by McCrory’s own staff. Batten said speakers at the Hood Hargett Breakfast Club regularly take questions from the audience, but this time, McCrory would take only written questions submitted in advance...

More One Siderism On Sunday

Sunday News Shows Omit Coverage Of Trump Foundation Investigation, Conflicts Of Interest:

... Journalists have been criticized for the “double standard” in the ways they cover Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Earlier this month, cable news programs devoted 13 times more coverage to Clinton’s pneumonia diagnosis as The Washington Post’s reporting about the Trump Foundation. This week, both the Trump Foundation and Trump Organization stories were given short shrift by the broadcast news programs in favor of coverage of Donald Trump’s Dr. Oz stunt.

tRump Profile In Courage-- Not

Politicalprof - The Latest Edition of Donald Trump: Now he’s not just a bigot, a misogynist and King Birther, he’s a coward as well!

tRump Tax Breaks

A Trump Empire Built on Inside Connections and $885 Million in Tax Breaks - The New York Times:

...The project set the pattern for Mr. Trump’s New York career: He used his father’s, and, later, his own, extensive political connections, and relied on a huge amount of assistance from the government and taxpayers in the form of tax breaks, grants and incentives to benefit the 15 buildings at the core of his Manhattan real estate empire.

Since then, Mr. Trump has reaped at least $885 million in tax breaks, grants and other subsidies for luxury apartments, hotels and office buildings in New York, according to city tax, housing and finance records. The subsidies helped him lower his own costs and sell apartments at higher prices because of their reduced taxes...

Another Former SecDef Says No To tRump

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates Says Trump Is 'Beyond Repair' | Huffington Post:

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has served both Republican and Democratic presidents, sharply criticized Republican nominee Donald Trump’s ability to lead the United States, writing that the business mogul was “beyond repair” when it came to national security.

“At least on national security, I believe Mr. Trump is beyond repair. He is stubbornly uninformed about the world and how to lead our country and government, and temperamentally unsuited to lead our men and women in uniform. He is unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief,” Gates wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Friday evening...

tRump As KKK Chief

Trump, Grand Wizard of Birtherism - The New York Times:

So, on Friday the Grand Wizard of Birtherism against President Obama admitted that birtherism was bunk, not by apologizing for his prominent role in the racist campaign — no, that would have been too right — but by suggesting that he deserved credit for dousing the flames he’d fanned.

This man is so low that he’s subterranean.

Donald Trump said Friday: “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy.”

That was a lie. There is no evidence Hillary Clinton and her campaign either started or took part in the efforts to question the location of Barack Obama’s birth...

tRumper Violence In WI

Trump supporters first pepper spray, then yell “n****r lover” to 15-year-old protester in Paul Ryan’s hometown - Salon.com:

Police in Janesville, Wisconsin, are searching for two Donald Trump rally attendees who pepper sprayed and sexually assaulted a 15-year-old anti-Trump protester outside the Republican presidential frontrunner’s rally on Tuesday. Video of the incident shows other apparent Trump supporters shouting “bitch” and “nigger lover” to the teenager as she attempts to walk away with pepper spray in her eyes...

The Real Vet Disrespect In 1968

The Small Bit of Weird Everyone Missed During Trump's Infomercial:

...A small bit of weird that went unnoticed in the Trump infomercial on Friday morning was the contention of one of the speakers that the military was not respected in 1986. This person clearly lived through a different 1986 than me. While the public devotionals to the military weren't as ostentatious or as ubiquitous as they are now, it still was the heart of Reagan-era nationalism. Of course, the public disrespect I remember towards the military at the time was when President Amyloid closed all the VA out-patient psych clinics, which increased homelessness among veterans and allowed PTSD among them to go untreated, and also the fact that he left 241 Marines to be killed in Lebanon for no particular reason, and that his people later sold arms to the country that probably sponsored that killing. But that's just me...

Wallace Confirms He Is In The Bag For tRump

#DemandFairDebates: Chris Wallace openly favors Trump - Shareblue:

...Publicly stating that Trump is “winning” on transparency, based on misinformation. Admitting he won’t fact-check the candidates. Conflict of interest. That’s three strikes. Wallace ought to be out.

For the benefit of the candidates themselves, for voters, and for the nation, we #DemandFairDebates. And if the scheduled moderators cannot commit to providing them, then they should be replaced with people who can and will.

‘Tombstone’ Offers Hope

I am a cult fan of Tombstone so this post was right up my alley in several ways. ‘Tombstone’ and the Serious Side of the Corner Taco Truck | MadMikesAmerica:

...That last item in Behan’s boastful self-description, chairman of the non-partisan Anti-Chinese League probably says as much about us today it does about Behan back then. It advances the plot, establishing Behan’s credentials to modern audiences as a mean, mean man, a bigot who sees virtue in beating down a vulnerable ethnic minority. It is our distaste for that casual statement of hatred that should tell us something about the development of the American character. It should tell us something hopeful about ourselves, as well as something not so attractive about that part of American culture that was prevalent in those days...

Why Donald Trump. You look like somebody just walked all over your grave.

More Media Flogging

Watch MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch drop a massive truth bomb on Trump’s shady foreign entanglements:

...Panelist Donny Deutsch said the revelations completed undermined the foundation of Trump’s campaign — which he pointed out had focused its attacks on Clinton’s ties to “the establishment-industrial complex” and her alleged conflicts of interests.

“He trumps her, no pun intended, in those categories 10-to-1,” Deutsch said. “Every business dealing we look at of him is either dark or murky or sleazy — every single one. Yet the press, it’s so ironic how the press is painted as left-leaning. I think in a lot of ways, other than the Washington Post (and) New York Times, (the press) gives him a pass. Going back to the tax returns, people should not let up. They don’t let up on Hillary’s emails, people should not let up on these issues, those 500 entities that Kurt Eichenwald was talking about (in Newsweek)...”

Contrasting tRump And Clinton Actions

Hillary Clinton's Iron Will | Crooks and Liars:

...There's one big part of this story that no one bothers to talk about: Hillary's iron will. Comedian Patton Oswalt said, "Wait, so Hillary has PNEUMONIA and she's still campaigning as hard as she is? You realize how badass that is, right?" This comes as no surprise to those of who have worked with Hillary -- the woman is as tough as nails. No one I have ever known has ever matched her for sheer determination and hard work. She gets sick; she keeps working. She is attacked mercilessly by her foes; she keeps working. She runs into a brick wall on an issue; she finds a way around it.

Contrast that with Donald Trump, who whines about everything. The polls show him down, so he says the election is rigged. The debate timing and format, agreed to a year and a half ago, aren't good enough. A judge rules against him on Trump University, and Trump says it's because the judge is a Mexican (even though the judge was born in Indiana). Protesters show up to his events and he whines so much about them his supporters sucker punch them...

Humping GOPer Drama

What's The Deal With Those Wild Prostitution Claims Against A GOP Rep.?:

With less than two months to go until Election Day, newly surfaced allegations that a Republican congressman from Louisiana slept with prostitutes who were later murdered in a series of unsolved killings are making a splash in a crowded U.S. Senate race.

The outlandish charges against Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) received national press attention this week, after Boustany's campaign released a denial from his wife that prompted his opponents in the Senate race to play up those allegations in their own statements that denied having had any hand in the prostitution story...

About Former SOS Powell

Colin Powell Email Leaks on Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Show It's Time to Stop Listening to Him:

...If anybody could have stopped the rush to war in Iraq with a single press conference, and I'm not entirely sure anyone could have done so, it was Colin Powell, who knew he was being lied to and went before the UN anyway.

It's time for us all to take a long break from caring about what Colin Powell thinks about things. He is not a reliable ally if his image gets threatened.

More properly, I'd say, "if his self-image gets threatened."

Newsweek Questions tRump Empire

How the Trump Organization's Foreign Business Ties Could Upend U.S. National Security:

If Donald Trump is elected president, will he and his family permanently sever all connections to the Trump Organization, a sprawling business empire that has spread a secretive financial web across the world? Or will Trump instead choose to be the most conflicted president in American history, one whose business interests will constantly jeopardize the security of the United States?

Throughout this campaign, the Trump Organization, which pumps potentially hundreds of millions of dollars into the Trump family’s bank accounts each year, has been largely ignored. As a private enterprise, its businesses, partners and investors are hidden from public view, even though they are the very people who could be enriched by—or will further enrich—Trump and his family if he wins the presidency...

tRumper Punches 69 Year Old Woman In Face In Asheville

69-year-old woman punched in face outside rally by Trump supporter | WLOS:

Police say they arrested five people at Trump's Monday night rally in Asheville, and as of publishing have warrants out for two more people. Police plan to arrest Richard Campbell of Edisto Island, South Carolina for assault on a female.

That female is 69-year-old Shirley Teeter. She has protested her whole life. Now she adds Trump to the list of things she's protested against.
"Why did I get involved yesterday at my age? Because I ran into another situation that was sickening my heart," she said Tuesday afternoon outside Cafe 64 in downtown Asheville....

Where Democrats Need To Focus

Democrats: Ignore The Distractions And Seize The Day | Crooks and Liars:

...If Hillary and other Democrats focus the election on the economic narrative of leveling the playing field -- the same economic narrative Hillary and Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have all focused on over this election -- we will win this election, and win it big. If we talk about creating good, new jobs through rebuilding roads and highways and investing in solar and wind power; if we talk about paid family leave and affordable child care; if we talk about raising the minimum wage; if we talk about holding Wall Street accountable; if we talk about free college for low- and middle-income students; if we talk about getting the drug companies to lower their outrageous price increases; if we talk about not letting big money control our politics anymore; in other words, if we talk about the Democratic platform Hillary and the entire party have already endorsed and campaigned on, we will win this election...

Are You A Deplorable Enabler?

About the ‘Basket of Deplorables’ - The New York Times:

...Donald Trump is a deplorable candidate — to put it charitably — and anyone who helps him advance his racial, religious and ethnic bigotry is part of that bigotry. Period. Anyone who elevates a sexist is part of that sexism. The same goes for xenophobia. You can’t conveniently separate yourself from the detestable part of him because you sense in him the promise of cultural or economic advantage. That hair cannot be split.

Furthermore, one doesn’t have to actively hate to contribute to a culture that allows hate to flourish...

Crazy In NC-- Again: tRumper Riot Edition

Criminal Charges Sought Against Trump For Inciting A Riot In North Carolina:

...I’m asking for a full investigation into Donald Trump and his campaign on behalf of those who were assaulted.

So much for the idea that the Trump campaign could capitalize on Hillary Clinton’s recent illness and time away from the campaign trail.

Trump and his supporters have once again shown an inability to control their inner thugs. Whether or not criminal charges are actually filed against Trump isn’t the point. The fact that the Republican nominee for president is in a position where it is possible for him to be investigated for instigating a riot is what voters should be focused on...

tRump's Absurd Week

An absurd week in America's two-tier election - Macleans.ca:

This may have been the most absurd week in U.S. politics in recent history.

Here is a list of gaffes, mistakes, or scandals that came out of the Trump campaign, just in the last seven days, just off the top of my head:...

...But it doesn’t really matter why it is happening. What matters is that it is happening at all. Everyone needs to step back from the daily coverage and cast their eyes over the massive smoking wreckage of this election. As soon as you do, it becomes painfully obvious that Trump is the most unsuitable candidate for president in living memory. My God, he isn’t even qualified to be president of the Hair Club for Men.

The absurdity of the last seven days has made it impossible to deny there aren’t two tiers of scrutiny in this election. Maybe, as a result, we’ll see a turn toward sanity. Maybe, the media will begin to judge Trump as a candidate for the office he covets, and not as the reality-TV star he is.

Crazy In NC-- Again: tRumper Attack --Again

Trump Supporter Strikes Protester as Trump Decries 'Deplorables' Comment - NBC News:

Just as Donald Trump on Monday was decrying Hillary Clinton for having called called "half" of his supporters "a basket of deplorables," an altercation broke out in the stands above him.

Protesters are nothing new at Trump rallies, but before a group could be escorted out of U.S. Cellular Center here Monday evening, a man from the crowd went over to violently confront them...

New Con Prescription For Future

How Conservatives Lost the GOP - POLITICO Magazine:

...We could apply precisely that way of thinking to our lumbering, sclerotic public programs. A fresh agenda of decentralization and federalism could help address some key downsides of our social, economic and cultural fragmentation, drawing us back to the mediating institutions of civil society, which offer an alternative to both radical individualism and stultifying central control...

After bemoaning how tRump seized control of the GOP, the post goes on and on and on about retaking the future and arrives at startling recipe for conservative control: states rights. Everything old is new again.

Comment Of The Day: Deplorable Edition

The Commander-In-Chief Forum | Uppity Woman: pm317, on September 11, 2016 at 10:23 AM said:

Others have to tell me more about this. I have watched at least 6 presidential elections and nowhere did a candidate get away with the foul language and lies and innuendos used against his opponent like Trump has in this election season. I love it how Hillary put everything Trump and his supporters (less than half, more than half, half) have done in this campaign that media refuses to call out, into one single word, ‘deplorable.’ Take that kill shot, Trump, you are deplorable.

I mean come on, when they are chanting, ‘kill that bitch’, ‘string her up’, ‘lock her up’ and the media does not call them out and hold him responsible, it is beyond the pale of decency. It is deplorable.

The End Of Public Schools

‘If this guy is elected, you can kiss public schools goodbye’ - The Washington Post:

“There is no failed policy more in need of urgent change than our government-run education monopoly.”

With that line from his big education policy speech on Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump placed himself firmly in the camp of school “reformers” who want to break up the public education system in America...

Another Clinton Rules Standard Invoked

David Brooks Bemoans The 'Race To The Bottom' Following Clinton's 'Deplorables' Remark | Crooks and Liars:

Donald Trump can call Mexicans rapists and drug runners, propose an un-Constituional ban on Muslims entering the country, make a not so thinly veiled "joke" about 2nd Amendment remedies if his opponent is elected, praise Vladimir Putin as a great leader while insulting the President of the United States, and he still refuses to apologize for his birther remarks, and the media just shrugs for the most part.

Hillary Clinton dares to point out that a good portion of Trump's supporters are huge flaming racists and homophobes, and the media predictably immediately gets a case of the vapors...

tRump Gifting Self From Charity

Trump picked his bogus charity’s pocket to buy $20K painting of himself:

According to a bombshell report from the Washington Post, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump not only doesn’t contribute any of his own money to his charity The Trump Foundation, he also used $20,000 of donor money to buy a six-foot painting of himself...

The Daily Flashback: SOS Clinton At Ground Zero Edition

9/11 tapes reveal raw and emotional Hillary Clinton | US news | The Guardian:

It was 26 August 2003, almost two years since 9/11, and the sickening plume of smoke that hung over Ground Zero in lower Manhattan had long since dissipated. But steam was rising from the steps of city hall, three blocks away, where Hillary Clinton was venting her rage at the Bush administration for having lied to the American people.

“I don’t think any of us expected that our government would knowingly deceive us about something as sacred as the air we breathe,” she said, her voice tightening in anger. “The air that our children breathe in schools, that our valiant first responders were facing on the pile...”

It's Getting Spooky Real Now

Former CIA Director: Trump Cannot Credibly Serve As President | Huffington Post:

Donald Trump cannot possibly serve as president if he keeps embracing Russian leader Vladimir Putin, two top former spymasters argued in a scathing editorial...

tRump Enjoyed 9-11 Aftermath

Hours after Twin Towers fell, Trump bragged his building was now the ‘tallest’ in lower Manhattan

...Only parenthetically in the middle of the 10-minute conversation did Trump turn to a favorite topic-size. "40 Wall Street," he said, referring to his 71-story building blocks away from the now-collapsed twin towers, "actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest-and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second-tallest. And now it's the tallest..."

Today In Commander-In-Chief Farce

Trump Threatens Act Of War As Response To Rude Hand Gestures | Huffington Post:

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Friday threatened to respond with an act of war if Iranian sailors made rude gestures toward U.S. Navy ships.

“When Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats, and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn’t be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water,” Trump said to raucous applause from his Pensacola rally audience...

Clinton Speaks Truth To tRumpers

Is Hillary Clinton Right About Trump Supporters? This Is What The Polling Data Says:

Speaking at a fundraiser in New York on Friday night, Hillary Clinton described half of opponent Donald Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables,” an evocative phrase that Clinton used to describe various forms of intolerance and bigotry...

More Dirt On Wikileaks

Report: Wikileaks' Syria Docs Exclude Email On $2B Transfer To Russian Bank:

Wikileaks in 2012 published emails from Syrian government officials obtained by hackers, but the website did not include an email noting that the Syrian regime transferred more than $2 billion to a state-owned Russian bank, according to a Daily Dot report published on Friday.

Wikileaks denied that it purposefully excluded the record from the trove of emails it published, and the transparency group threatened retribution against reporters at the Daily Dot if they continued to report on the document...

About That Putin Feller

It's Not 'Red-Baiting' to Be Concerned About Putin Interfering in Our Elections:

...It is not red-baiting to point out that Putin is clearly an authoritarian white nationalist who is (at the very least) romancing other authoritarian white nationalists around the globe, including in the Netherlands, Great Britain, and in the upper levels of the campaign of the Republican candidate for President of the United States. He's a kleptocrat and a gangster, and he could be far worse than that. Putin, who learned his trade among the departed masters of tradecraft, is monkeying with the 2016 election, and it is not red-baiting to be concerned about it.

Are we supposed to believe that Donald Trump really went on RT television by accident? That nobody on his staff knew that the Russian government's American network picks up Larry King's podcast? Are we supposed to ignore the fact that El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago—and his trusty sidekick, Pancho Vanilla—have doubled down on their belief that Putin is a better "leader" than the current president of the United States purely on the merits of the argument?...

Liar Chyrons Are A Debate Minimum

It’s Time for the Media To Step Up and Call Out Donald Trump’s Many Lies - The Daily Beast:

...Lauer deserves to be remembered for this. It belongs in the first paragraph of his Times obit when the day comes. He should apologize to America for a performance that was indefensible by any known journalistic standard.

But more importantly, his performance should be a wake-up call.

With the debates coming, the networks have to think long and hard about how they’re going to handle them. Here’s one starter idea, which I batted around on Twitter Thursday morning with Glenn Thrush of Politico: real-time on-screen fact-checking chyrons.

This would require the debate-hosting network to have a little battalion of staffers at computer terminals assigned to do instant web searches and determine whether what the candidate said had any connection to reality. So it would cost money...

The Corrupt News Network Gets One Thing Right

CNN Military Analyst Nails Trump For His Erratic Foreign Policy | Crooks and Liars:

Mr. Trump started off by saying he would bomb the oil fields and encircle them with troops. Then he said he would bomb all the terrorist safe havens. Then he said he would torture. Then he said I know more than the generals do. Then he said I don't have to ask for advice because I know it all. Now he's saying I'm going to take some advice from the generals. So I'm very confused.

You're not alone, Lt. General Hertling, we are all certain only of the fact that Trump is seriously insane. John Berman asks him specifics about Libya.

A Summary Of "Stuff" From tRump In The CIC Forum

Donald Trump Keeps Saying Things That Would Destroy Any Other Presidential Candidate | Huffington Post:

...But the sheer number of them, and the fact that it’s become expected for Trump to say outlandish things, meant they were treated almost casually, like run-of-the-mill utterances as opposed to objective head-scratchers:...

As mentioned in the post, the bar is set so incredibly low for tRump that he can say virtually anything and still survive as a candidate.

Return Of The Bush Bulge

Trump Campaign Runs With Alex Jones Conspiracy Theory About Clinton "Earpiece" During NBC Forum:

Republican nominee Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is running with the Alex Jones-fueled conspiracy that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was fed answers through a secret earpiece while participating in NBC’s September 7 “Commander-in-Chief Forum.”

Infowars.com is run by Jones, a conspiracy theorist who believes the government was behind the 9/11 attacks and other national tragedies. Jones recently said he’s been advising Trump. Infowars posted a September 8 story headlined, “WAS HILLARY WEARING AN EARPIECE DURING LAST NIGHT’S PRESIDENTIAL FORUM?”...

In case you have forgotten about Skippy the Shrub using Rove's Brain, go here.

The idea that SOS Clinton would need off-stage help to roast the Orange Marshmellow is ridiculous on its face. I'd love to see Clinton and tRump doing Foreign Policy Jeopardy (like Couric did to the unarmed Palin back in '08). Meanwhile, tRump gets the 2016 version of the Obama '08 question ("What does it feel like to be a black man...[insert activity or event of any kind]?"

Clinton And Health Care

Hillary Clinton Must Champion Success of Obamacare in Bringing Down Uninsured Rate:

...The idea that the rate of uninsured Americans has dropped below 10 percent should occasion parades. (And, I know this is primarily a sardonic trope on the Intertoobz, but geez, thanks, Obama.) Fifteen years ago, when Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to reform American healthcare on behalf of Bill Clinton's administration, the rate of uninsured Americans was rising at a rate of two million-a-year. And even then, even after the country elected a president who pledged to do something about it, HRC ran into a stonewall—although, to her credit, after the larger project augured in, she did work extremely hard on behalf of the initiative put forward by Orrin Hatch and the late Edward Kennedy that produced the State Children's Health Insurance Program...

Crazy In NC: Sunday Voting Suppression Edition

Now That Courts Have Destroyed ‘Voter ID’ Laws, the GOP Is in a Panic to Suppress the Vote - The Daily Beast:

...The GOP has a sinister Plan B in North Carolina. A leaked email from North Carolina Republican Party leader Dallas Woodhouse reveals that the GOP is urging local voting officials in North Carolina to eliminate Sunday voting favored by blacks, which could circumvent the Fourth Circuit decision. “Republicans can and should make party line changes to early voting,” Woodhouse wrote to local voting officials, according to The News & Observer...

On Paying For Presidential Speeches

Mark Cuban flattens Fox host over Clinton speaking fees: Reagan was paid $1 million one speech:

...After Cavuto questioned Clinton receiving $250,000 for a speech, Cuban set him straight about what the market pays for ex-presidents..

“Look. You have to ask yourself what’s the market for a former president giving a speech, right?” he lectured. “So first of all, Ronald Reagan was paid more than a million dollars for speeches in 1989. He went to Japan and gave two speeches. Second of all, Bill Clinton made, I think it was $250K give or take, for a lot of speeches. I’ve made $250K for a bunch of speeches. For the most part, he gets paid a little more than I do, but the point is he was right inside the market. He wasn’t getting paid more or less than the market...”

The Gore Treatment

Hillary Clinton Gets Gored - The New York Times:

...True, there aren’t many efforts to pretend that Donald Trump is a paragon of honesty. But it’s hard to escape the impression that he’s being graded on a curve. If he manages to read from a TelePrompter without going off script, he’s being presidential. If he seems to suggest that he wouldn’t round up all 11 million undocumented immigrants right away, he’s moving into the mainstream. And many of his multiple scandals, like what appear to be clear payoffs to state attorneys general to back off investigating Trump University, get remarkably little attention...

Four Stars For Clinton Foundation

ElectoralVote: Clinton Foundation

...Gets Best Possible Rating from Watchdog Group

Republicans have been criticizing the Clinton Foundation for months. However, Charity Navigator, a nonprofit watchdog group whose mission is to investigate charities for accountability and financial strength in order to let potential donors know about them before they give money, has given the Clinton Foundation four stars out of a possible four stars. The watchdog group considers a number of factors—for example, whether the charity has at least five independent members on its board, which the Clinton Foundation now has (it didn't always have this number). According to Michael Thatcher, the president of Charity Navigator, the Clinton Foundation scored 94.74 out of 100 points to get its four star rating. The only items in which it was not perfect were minor issues with the donor privacy policy and its process for determining the chief executive's salary. (V)...

Crazy In NC: Koch Attack

Koch Network Activates Grassroots Army In North Carolina Senate Race - BuzzFeed News:

The Koch network is unleashing its grassroots army in North Carolina to boost Sen. Richard Burr, following recent polls showing his re-election race tightening and concerns about lack of field organization from the Trump campaign hurting down-ballot candidates.

Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, which has a heavy presence in the state, will target Burr’s Democratic opponent, Deborah Ross, for her votes in favor of certain tax hikes during her time in the state legislature. AFP will start knocking on doors, making calls and sending out 500,000 mailers on the issue — the first in a series of mailers directed at Ross — this week...

tRump Not Endorsed By Dallas Morning News

Scathing Dallas Morning News Editorial Slams Donald Trump:

...“Trump doesn’t reflect Republican ideals of the past; we are certain he shouldn’t reflect the GOP of the future,” the editorial added. “Donald Trump is not qualified to serve as president and does not deserve your vote...”

tRump's Campaign In Israel

Trump doesn’t have an office in North Carolina but one just opened in Israel’s West Bank:

Israeli supporters of U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump have opened a campaign office in the occupied West Bank, saying they hope to get as many American expatriates as possible to cast an absentee ballot for their candidate...

tRump Bribery Scheme Exposed

Trump Surrogate Admits To Joy Reid: Trump Did 'Pay-For-Play' | Crooks and Liars:

In what can only be described as an epic failure, a Trump spokesman first admits that Trump participates in "Pay for Play" deals, but then tries to justify it because he is a private citizen and *everyone* does it...

Clinton Has Plans; tRump Has Gas

E.J. Dionne Jr.: Phony populism doesn't feed the family | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

...The truth is that Ms. Clinton has offered many more serious policy proposals for raising workers’ incomes than Mr. Trump has. Her website is full of ideas on expanding profit-sharing, a “Make It in America” initiative to promote manufacturing, plans on family leave, child care, cutting student debt and much more.

One of the banes of this campaign is the media’s temptation toward false balance: If a reporter says that Mr. Trump is not offering a lot of plans, he or she feels obligated to say either that Ms. Clinton is short on specifics, too, or that she may have a lot of plans but is not packaging them very well. But if the media doesn’t want to cover them, all the bright bunting in the world won’t matter.

In the meantime, Mr. Trump has effectively reduced his campaign to immigration and trade (plus “law and order”). He’s arguing that the problems faced by American workers will be magically solved if we throw millions of immigrants out of the country and if he gets a chance to negotiate much tougher trade deals...

About Continuing tRump Inc.

Shut Down The Trump Organization. Now.:

...Of course there is one very key difference between money the Clinton Foundation may take, if Hillary Clinton is elected, versus money that the Trump Organization may take, if Trump is elected President.

The Trump Organization money would go directly into Donald Trump’s family’s bank account. Clinton Foundation money has not yet, and would not in the future, make it into the Clinton’s wallets.

All while he is president, the Trump Organization would continue to make deals with foreign nationals, foreign governments, domestic governments, domestic developers, licencees, and more. But, unlike the Clintons, Trump would stand to gain financially from such deals.

Conflict of interest much?

Creepy Clowns Creeeep Into NC

Disturbing clown sightings continue, spread to Winston-Salem | WLOS:

Creepy clown sightings have now spread to North Carolina.

Police say they are doing extra patrols in a Winston-Salem neighborhood after two children reported seeing a person dressed as a clown trying to lure kids into the woods with treats...

Another Quality tRumpian

Today In Trump Supporters Behaving Badly - Candidate Wishes Rape On Reporter | Crooks and Liars:

...Mike published his wish that Ms. Nuzzi would be "raped by a Syrian refugee" to an obscure social media website called Facebook. And sent it to Ms. Nuzzi because that would make her see what an awesome debater he is...

Sounds About Right (Wrong)

Former Texas official says he was told to drop Trump University probe - CBS News:

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton moved to muzzle a former state regulator who says he was ordered in 2010 to drop a fraud investigation into Trump University for political reasons...

No There There Says Joy Reid

MSNBC's Joy Reid: "The Standard For What Qualifies As A Hillary Clinton Scandal Aren't About Smoking Guns, They're About A Magical Thing Called 'Optics'":

...Except there was no there there either, because the answer to those questions about whether the Clinton Foundation received special access from Hillary Clinton's State Department was a resounding no. As theTimes reports in the story, the State Department never issued the passport to the foundation official who made the request. So why is the media looking for a Clinton scandal when there's none to find and trying so hard to see a Trump pivot when he shows no signs of ever pivoting?..

Poll Fakery

Here's Why Headlines Stating Hillary Clinton Is As Unpopular as Trump Are Bogus:

...One of the consistencies of the 2016 campaign has been a close relationship between Clinton’s approval ratings and the tone of the media coverage that she is getting. When Hillary Clinton gets a spate of bad media coverage her favorables drop. When she gets good coverage, they rise.

Guess what kind of coverage she got after some in the mainstream press embraced the Republican idea that the Clinton Foundation was a “scandal”?

So, the media can thank itself for putting Hillary Clinton anywhere near Donald Trump in popularity. Well done, because obviously these issues are totally on par with Donald Trump’s massive abuse of power as a “businessman” and consistent problems with ethics as evidenced by the never-ending stream of lawsuits he is entangled in, including the deposition stemming from one lawsuit that revealed Trump’s constant stream of lies.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are equally unpopular by one measurement but two other measurements in the same poll explain why the Democrat is winning.

The press is trying to build a horse race out of nothing, and in order accomplish this journalistic sleight of hand they constructing a house built out of straw that is easily blown down by data and facts.

Hidden Clinton Supporters And A "Civic Emergency"

The News and its New Silent Majority: Clinton Supporters – Whither news? – Medium:

...Second, I am voting against Trump and actively opposing him because I see a moral imperative to do so. As Jay Rosen said in my dotNYC podcast, Trump’s candidacy approaches a civic emergency. As Univision’s Jorge Ramos said in Time: “It doesn’t matter who you are — a journalist, a politician or a voter — we’ll all be judged by how we responded to Donald Trump…. And neutrality is not an option.” This is my generation’s “What did you do in the war, Daddy?” Still, I’m not hiding behind any Trump exception to the journalistic canon, arguing that this year is special. If Clinton were running against a reasonable, human, patriotic, unbigoted, smart, articulate, decent, mature, experienced opponent, I’d still be her passionate, open supporter...

Reevaluating The Nothingburger

Georgetown's First Step Toward Slave Reparations Is Necessary and Overdue:

...So, late Friday, the FBI released its full report from its investigation into whatever-the-hell the whole Hillary Rodham Clinton e-mail thing is supposed to be about. What is clear even from a cursory reading is that FBI director James Comey oversold the findings of this investigation in his press conference, and that there really isn't any there there. (The report also makes clear that Colin Powell is being very slippery about what he told HRC about private servers, and when.) Nonetheless, as CNN reports, optics! Narrative! Perception! Playing Into Republican Charges!..,

Stein Lost In (Air)Space

Green Party's Jill Stein Flies To Wrong Ohio City For Rally:

Talk about a detour!

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein ended up in the wrong Ohio city Friday for an unknown reason, delaying a speech she was supposed give at a university, The Columbus Dispatch reported...

Yep. She's ready for the big time.

Pennywise Loose In The Upstate?

What the hell is going on? ‘Creepy clown’ panic spreads from South Carolina to Ohio:

More residents in South Carolina and now Ohio are reporting sightings of “creepy clowns” trying to lure children into the woods.

According to Fox 6 News, the sightings have been occurring since Aug. 23, with more and more residents of the Greenville and Spartanburg areas of South Carolina reporting seeing the ominous figures in the woods...

... or are the clowns looking for the tRump bus? ...or are they aliens in the most appropriate disguise they could muster to observe the election?

Killing Higher Ed

Public Higher Education In America Is Facing An Existential Emergency:

...An example is the University of Texas at Austin: “Around 1980, they got about 60 percent of their funding from the state, now they get 12 percent. But for that 12 percent, [UT-Austin] has to do anything they tell them to do, including allowing [students] to carry guns on campus, because they’re a state entity ― even though they have to find the other giant check of money to fund the place.” It’s the worst of both worlds in the ownership equation, where you have to go out and court private donors, while accepting total dominion from the minority stakeholder state government that has been assiduously diminishing its investment...

CDS Of Highest Order At NYT

New York Times Instructs On Why All Clinton Email Stories Should Be Ignored | Crooks and Liars:

...This is why you shouldn't believe any story about the emails, or the Clinton Foundation. In their zeal to find something -- anything -- to tear down the Clinton Foundation, they'll even conveniently forget an important diplomatic moment in order to gnaw at the edges of an organization doing nothing but good in the world. Why? To tear down the one sane candidate in the presidential race. Because they've got to be balanced!

What's next? A smear story about how ties between Clinton's State Department and Iran cast a shadow on Jason Rezaian's release?

In the age of Trump, they are working very hard to push everything Clinton down and make it something it's not, because they just don't know how to deal with the lunatic running on the Republican side of the ticket. It's far easier to revert to that which has been done so often for so many years, rather than step up and perform actual...journalism.

We have another Clinton rule being formulated: if a Clinton is doing something good, it must be spun to have an evil ulterior motive. So Bill goes to North Korea and basically rescues two people, the despicable NYT slimes that into an attack on SOS Clinton. Sigh. And that NYT  is why I keep refusing your subscription requests. I'd love to read the paper but you're not getting my money as long as your finger is firmly on the GOPer side of the Both Siderism scale.

States Have Rights!....

...as long as they do what we want.

House Republicans Will Investigate Their Ability To Investigate Investigations:

House Science Committee Chair Lamar Smith (R-Texas) wants to exert congressional authority over state attorneys general who are trying to investigate ExxonMobil’s climate record...

tRump Gets Fined For Pay To Skate

Trump pays IRS a penalty for his foundation violating rules with gift to aid Florida attorney general - The Washington Post:

Donald Trump paid the IRS a $2,500 penalty this year, an official at Trump's company said, after it was revealed that Trump's charitable foundation had violated tax laws by giving a political contribution to a campaign group connected to Florida's attorney general.

The improper donation, a $25,000 gift from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, was made in 2013. At the time, Attorney General Pam Bondi was considering whether to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University. She decided not to pursue the case...

I bet this won't be a lead story on any of the MSM's newcasts today, but we will probably hear another breathless report about Clinton meeting with somebody at sometime and how someone gave some money to the Clinton Foundation.

Media Tipping Scale For tRump

One of the best tweetstorms ever is featured.

The media has dropped the ball on covering the election - AMERICAblog News:

...When you know a lot more about Anthony Weiner’s weiner than you do Hillary’s and Trump’s policy proposals (beyond that stupid wall), we’ve got a problem.