A right-wing website closely tied to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is taking its war against House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to new levels.
Breitbart News on Saturday published as its lead story an article written by Julia Hahn, headlined: “He’s with her: Inside Paul Ryan’s months-long campaign to elect Hillary Clinton president...”
...Susan and a man next to her said they weren’t going to monitor polls or take to the streets if Trump lost. They only mused about doing one thing if Clinton becomes president.
“Move to Canada,” they said.
...In recent years it all went stale. They started to run out of lines to sell the public. Things got so desperate that during the Tea Party phase, some GOP candidates began dabbling in the truth. They told voters that all Washington politicians, including their own leaders, had abandoned them and become whores for special interests. It was a slapstick routine: Throw us bums out!
Republican voters ate it up and spent the whole of last primary season howling for blood as Trump shredded one party-approved hack after another. By the time the other 16 candidates finished their mass-suicide-squad routine, a tail-chasing, sewer-mouthed septuagenarian New Yorker was accepting the nomination of the Family Values Party...
...Over the course of the series of presidential debates, he’s shown that he’s tall, he’s pretty good on television, and he carries himself with the distinctive confidence of a mediocre white man.
Beyond that, he’s got nothing...
In a 1997 legal deposition, Donald Trump argued that educators lack intelligence, saying that teachers are “very stupid...”
...And here’s the thing: Trump didn’t come out of nowhere, now. For years, Republican politicians and far-right media outlets have just been pumping out all kinds of toxic, crazy stuff. I mean, first of all, there was the whole “birther” thing. Then they start saying climate change is a Chinese hoax. And according to them, I’m power enough to cause these hurricanes and I’m about to steal everybody’s guns in the middle of the night and declare martial law, but somehow I need a teleprompter to finish a sentence...
...But Wallace also exposed his audience to a large dose of right-wing misinformation:
His question about the economy began with the false premise that President Obama’s 2009 stimulus plan damaged the economy.
His question about immigration took Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s 2013 comments about “open borders” grossly out of context.
His question about abortion access invoked the right-wing myth of “partial-birth” abortion, a non-medical term invented by anti-abortion groups.
His question about the national debt falsely alleged that programs like Social Security and Medicare are going to run out of money and add to the debt absent short-term cuts, echoing Republican talking points about entitlements.
Wallace also failed to fact-check Trump’s frequent falsehoods -- following through on his promise not to be a “truth squad” during the debate...
The New Mexico Republican Party has confirmed they sent a flyer ominously suggesting that residents' presidential election votes could be tracked and made public.
The flyer, which was discovered in Alburquerque, read: "When the Democrats win the election and you didn’t do your part ... your neighbors will know." It garnered attention online when it was posted to Reddit:..
...Trump was foggy on the specifics—if he knows what the Supreme Court's Heller gun-control decision actually is, I'll eat the 14th green at Turnberry—but he was at least coherent and resolute in his position. On abortion, it's clear he's gone all in with the anti-choice crowd, talking again and again about ripping babies from the womb and pivoting (as they all do) to the argument that the law in this area should devolve back to the states. (A very bad idea, but an idea nonetheless.) Meanwhile, HRC gave the clearest and most definitive statement of support for the rights codified in Roe v. Wade that I've ever heard. No more "safe, legal, and rare" dodge, HRC spoke forthrightly about the efforts out in the states to curb those rights piecemeal...
...Hillary Clinton has been judged the winner of the first two debates. Tonight, many felt Trump needed a knockout to get back in the race. But I think this was Clinton’s best performance – perhaps by far. I think she wanted this to be a preview of her presidency. Her tone was the most straightforward and direct I have yet seen. She didn’t try to run away from her policy expertise. She embraced it. It was as if she was saying, “I am here. I am smart. I am qualified. I will not be intimidated or silenced. And I am ready to be president...”
It was a good thing that, at this debate, immigration finally came up. However, the discussion went awry quickly, and will probably only be remembered for Trump calling undocumented immigrants "bad hombres." Kudos to Clinton for pointing out that many undocumented immigrants likely pay more in federal income taxes than Trump does...
Ousted Fox News head Roger Ailes and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump have fallen out and are no longer speaking, sources say.
Emily Jane Fox of Vanity Fair reported on Wednesday that New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman and Vanity Fair editor Sarah Ellison have both been informed that the longtime friends Trump and Ailes are no longer on good terms, but the reasons for the parting of ways vary according to who you ask...
Sen. Marco Rubio told ABC News that Republicans and Donald Trump are making a mistake by "indulging Wikileaks' and jumping on the alleged hacked emails because it's an attempt by a foreign government to influence our election process.
The Florida Senator also is worried the the next round of hacks could expose Republicans next...
In the hours since a North Carolina Republican Party office was firebombed while no one was in it, reactions have been flying from all sides. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton offered words of support, while Republican nominee insisted (without a shred of evidence) that Clinton’s supporters were behind it. Trump’s suspicious response has led to the question of whether he himself was behind it. But now comes a shocking revelation of a different kind: the GOP was illegally stashing completed absentee ballots in that office...
...But it would be interesting to watch a UFO question unfold. Because if debate moderator Chris Wallace asks Clinton her thoughts on otherworldly visitors, regardless of how she answers, Trump would undoubtedly be allowed to respond.
Anyone out there have a direct line to Wallace before Wednesday’s debate?
...I am so excited because today we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to cure StupidParty.You can look up every right-wing argument on this website and find a handy counterargument almost immediately, and the neat thing about these counters is that they are based on facts, that little known and little understood principle of human life. The list is beyond comprehensive. It is probably all inclusive.
On the other hand, if Trump wins—we will know precisely what America has become. I am excited because I am just so fed up with the enemy hiding amongst us, acting as if all is copacetic. No, it never was. Will this be the end of days or the dawning of a new age? I happen to be optimistic, not just because of Trump but because mankind is on the cusp of being able to save itself from its own myopia via technology. I see the end days for oil (the root of America’s problems), the end days for ISIS, and the end days for StupidParty...
... Moore’s broken silence about the 2016 race—rooted in her own experience with sexual assault—signals a widening gender divide between evangelicals. Increasingly, moderate and conservative Christian women are speaking out about Trump’s brand of misogyny and divisiveness, and condemning support for the nominee or silence about him from male evangelicals...
...Gowdy and the republican Benghazi committee have been attacking by using a variety of government documents which have been heavily redacted to the point that it’s never been entirely clear just what context they would be in if not for all of the redactions and blackouts. After democrats asked the CIA to declassify the documents so that the public could see what was really being presented, the CIA responded by stating that it had never asked for anything to be redacted. When questioned under pressure, Gowdy admitted that he himself decided to redact large portions of the documents based on his own personal judgment of what information he did or didn’t want the public to know...Lies. Lies. And more lies.
Undecided Alaskan voters will be able to read about Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein in an informational pamphlet sent to them over the weekend, but not Donald Trump.
Trump’s campaign didn’t send the necessary materials to Alaskan election officials before the August 30 deadline, according a report from The Hill. Gary Johnson's campaign also failed to respond to Alaskan election officials in time...
Democratic officials in North Carolina have asked law enforcement to step up protection of campaign workers after Orange County offices for both the Republican and Democratic parties were targeted on the same day...This seems to have slipped by unnoticed.
...I also want to remind people that there are other exceptions to the First Amendment besides, "You can't falsely yell fire in a crowded theater." Threatening speech is NOT protected speech. It is essential to show the public that making true threats to others will have consequences.
After people are shot, killed or assassinated, pundits will wring their hands and say, "Nobody could have seen this coming!" Yes we can.
And before some concern troll starts talking about a chilling effect to political speech, I'm not talking about thoughtcrime or pre-crime. We've seen the threats, they are specific and they are happening now. We need to act to prevent violence now, instead of waiting for after the election to really take them seriously.
...As the L.A. Times concludes, Assange’s SUPER OMG BREAKING NEWS leaks have revealed the shocking secret that Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton...
Donald Trump has taken a step closer to starting his own cable TV network, the Financial Times reported Monday.
The Republican presidential nominee’s interest in harnessing his political gains and populist appeal for a slice of the cable TV market has long been rumored. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been in contact with Aryeh Bourkoff, founder of investment bank LionTree, about starting a TV network if he's defeated in the presidential election in November, the FT reported...
A North Carolina Republican Party office was firebombed overnight and threatening words painted nearby, party officials and local news organizations reported Sunday...The only group that gains from this is the GOP, adding further fuel to their on-going rage fest. They had means; they had opportunity. They also had the only good motive. Please feel free to prove me wrong by finding the culprit.
The Charlotte Observer has endorsed Democrat Roy Cooper over incumbent Republican Gov. Pat McCrory in the Nov. 8 election.
It marks the first time in McCrory's 25-year political career that the state's largest newspaper has declined to endorse him...
...In fact, it’s not out of the question that Donald Trump’s increasing focus on fighting the GOP will drive so many Republicans to vote against him that Clinton enjoys no mandate at all — stuck with a hollow presidency and an America lacking utterly in unity or direction...
..."This election is incredibly painful. I take absolutely no satisfaction in what is happening on the other side with my opponent," Clinton said, according to the Times. "I am not at all happy about that because it hurts our country, it hurts our democracy, it sends terrible messages to so many people here at home and around the world."
At a time when the election seems to be more full of personal attacks than substance, Clinton urged her supporters not to "turn away". Instead she asked they "start looking after each other again..."
...But Trump's lies are not tall tales or entertaining fantasies; they are designed to land in the dead zones of American belief. Like fish kills and algae blooms, their existence is evidence of waste and irreparable damage; of greed, ego, and entitlement gone awry. Trump's myths are mainly put forward by surrogates. The top five (below) cast blame away from him for situations he created and articulated...
...In both debates so far, the distorted media narrative was insufficient to cause people not to believe their own eyes and ears. But this default mode, in which political reporters miss the big picture and focus on "what might look bad for Clinton," is unfortunately alive and well.
There is still plenty of time for this media culture to do further damage to Clinton's candidacy, not by reporting anything that is truly bad about Clinton but by emphasizing the negative spin at all times. And the saddest aspect of this is that the people involved in this scrum surely think that they are not doing anything wrong.
Three Kansas men have been accused of plotting attacks targeting an apartment complex home, a mosque and many Muslim immigrants from Somalia, authorities said Friday...Note: Kansas is not in the South.
In this historic year for women in presidential politics, the most unapologetic and powerful feminist speech of the campaign was delivered not by the historic candidate but by the First Lady.
Michelle Obama, speaking in the swing state of New Hampshire, delivered the half-hour talk with furious precision. It was a speech about women — the woman running for the presidency, and the women around the country who have been badly shaken by the turn this election has taken, as reports have emerged that make very clear how Donald Trump talks and acts with regard to the bodies of women and girls...
...“Jonathan, you know me,” Burr said. “I will help whoever is in leadership to try to bestow what I know and what I have learned as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I’ve done that for the Trump administration.”
...In the late 1990s, during his first round of Clinton trashing, Bossie was particularly incensed when he and his fellow anti-Clinton crusaders become the subject of scrutiny, with reports that a book about them was on the way. Bossie said that the sex life of his former boss Burton -- whom, it had been revealed, fathered a child in an extramarital affair -- should remain off limits.
Liberal pundit Bill Press, on a 1998 episode of Crossfire, asked Bossie, “Republicans open an investigation into Bill Clinton's sex life, can't they expect the same thing into their life and isn't that fair?”
“If they lie about it, absolutely,” Bossie said.
Asked Friday morning to respond to the powerful rebuke of Donald Trump delivered a day earlier in a speech by first lady Michelle Obama, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said “I don’t understand the basis of her claim...”Is Mike Pence really this stupid?
...Inaugurating the first woman president was always going to change things in the United States, but the question was how much. Our first black president has changed America, but it is still the country I remember from 2008. That’s in part because Barack Obama’s presidential opponents were basically pretty decent guys. Donald Trump is not. What we are going to witness over the next few weeks is what Obama’s 2008 campaign would have been like if Obama had been running against unrepentant segregationist George Wallace and not maverick Sen. John McCain. The next few weeks may see the Sweet Meteor of Death bring the Masculicine Era to an end. What comes after will include far bigger changes in relations between the sexes than we saw in relations between the races from 2009 to 2016...
...Here are eight Trump allies and boosters at risk of seeing their futures erased and legacies tarnished by their proximity to the collapsing candidate:..
...These sentiments felt so familiar to me. Then I realized why. It’s how I heard Catholic women of my mom’s generation talk after the church’s child molestation scandal broke. Learning about the predatory behavior was awful in its own right. But what really caused them to lose faith, what caused many of them to never return to the Catholic Church, were the religious leaders who failed to denounce the molestation; who dishonestly minimized it in hopes of saving the institution in the short term...
If you’re not frightened by the thought of Donald Trump having his finger on the nuclear button, you should consider listening to these folks.
A group of former nuclear launch officers in the U.S. Air Force have signed an open letter saying they’re disturbed by the idea of Trump standing over what’s known as the “red button.” The letter, with 10 signatories, was first reported by The Washington Post on Thursday...
...Campaigning with Al Gore in Florida, a state already feeling the effects of climate change, Clinton put out a detailed factsheet on her “Plan for Combatting Climate Change and Making America the Clean Energy Superpower of the 21st Century.” It is long on ideas, and short on tolerance for treating climate change as an issue that does not demand immediate attention.
Clinton also unveiled new details of a middle-class tax cut plan, which will “help lift families with children out of poverty.” It is an audacious plan, described by Vox’s Dylan Matthews as “arguably among the most important policies she’s announced during her entire presidential campaign...”
I finally went to bed on Tuesday night because I couldn't stay up late enough to see if CNN had found a busload of Carmelite nuns who revealed that Donald Trump had groped them all in a slot parlor in Laughlin, Nevada. Every time I got up from the work I was doing, and I passed the television set, there was another woman telling the same story about a grotesque encounter with the stubby fingers of the Republican party's nominee for president. They were trampling out the vintage where the Gropes of Wrath were stored, over and over again...
...We are not proclaiming our opposition to Donald Trump out of bitterness, but out of a desire to regain the integrity of our school. While our president Jerry Falwell Jr. tours the country championing the log in his eye, we want the world to know how many students oppose him. We don’t want to champion Donald Trump; we want only to be champions for Christ.
A New Jersey municipal court judge issued a summons for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Thursday, seemingly in relation to Christie’s alleged involvement to the closure of two lanes on the George Washington Bridge in 2013 in a supposed act of political retaliation...
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump rebuffed political aides’ requests to research his past, people familiar with the matter said, a decision that contributed to his campaign being caught unprepared for the past week’s barrage of claims he mistreated women...
There used to be something very special in the air for North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr (R), and it had a lot to do with the interests he is now being pummeled for catering to in his increasingly tight re-election bid.
What was so special? Free travel, and lots of it...
In a 1992 interview with CBS News, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump leered at a pre-teen girl as she rode up an escalator at Trump Tower.
“I am going to be dating her in 10 years, can you believe it?” Trump said to the camera...
...Despite Trump’s contention that his plan is superior to Clinton’s, it is not. The Washington Post reported:
As many as 9.6 million Americans could gain health insurance under Hillary Clinton’s proposal to provide families a tax credit to help them pay for premiums, deductibles and coinsurance, according to a new analysis. For a typical family in the lower-middle class, the credit would reduce health-care expenses by roughly a third, but it would come at a cost to taxpayers of roughly $90 billion in the first year.
The Rand Corp. and the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund published the analysis of Democratic presidential nominee’s health agenda on Friday, along with a second document examining proposals from her Republican rival, Donald Trump. Trump’s proposal to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s health-care law, would result in as many as 25 million Americans giving up coverage, depending on how the repeal is implemented...
...Clinton’s campaign has refused to acknowledge the authenticity of hacks, which the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are investigating and that Clinton’s campaign believes is a move by the Russians to control the outcome of November’s U.S. presidential election.
While Trump repeatedly touted the information disclosed by the WikiLeaks dumps and blasted the press for not writing about them, the GOP nominee suggested he has no ties to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin...
...But I think what happened with him is symptomatic. The problem lies not so much with Billy Bush himself. It lies with NBC and other networks that blur news and entertainment and do the public a disservice...
...Vladimir Putin, a ruthless authoritarian kleptocrat, is trying to influence an American presidential election, and he intends to employ all means, fair and foul, though mostly foul, to put the man he wants leading the United States in the Oval Office. In the case of Kurt Eichenwald, the attempts were clumsy and stupid, so the fine hand of the Russian oligarchs became exposed. We must assume that's the exception, and not the rule. Donald Trump has exposed American democracy as being far more fragile than we thought it was, and far more fragile than any of us should be comfortable with. He's had a lot of help, too.
...The simplest answer is usually the best. Here's my guess: Bigotry can be useful as long as it does not impact your core constituents. With video showing Trump admitting to the crime of sexual assault, and doing so in the foulest language possible, bigotry has come full circle for congressional Republicans. The bigotry that the GOP courted for decades to create a coalition large enough to capture the White House is now alienating a reliable voting bloc: middle-class white women...
Hillary Clinton often says she wants to help families struggling to pay for child care and other expenses that come with raising kids. Now she’s presenting a plan designed to do just that...
...Today, however, Trump should stay atop the ticket, for four reasons. First, he will give the nation the pleasure of seeing him join the one cohort, of the many cohorts he disdains, that he most despises — “losers.” Second, by continuing to campaign in the spirit of St. Louis, he can remind the nation of the useful axiom that there is no such thing as rock bottom. Third, by persevering through Nov. 8 he can simplify the GOP’s quadrennial exercise of writing its post-campaign autopsy, which this year can be published Nov. 9 in one sentence: “Perhaps it is imprudent to nominate a venomous charlatan.” Fourth, Trump is the GOP’s chemotherapy, a nauseating but, if carried through to completion, perhaps a curative experience.
...Trump has not sexually assaulted her in seven weeks on the job, even though they have occasionally been alone together:......this one.
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| "You do remember that I'm a redneck from Arkansas?" |
...“Because you’d be in jail,” Trump said. He drew out the last word—jay-ull—like an eight-year-old playground bully’s taunt. A Presidential candidate saying that his opponent should be behind bars—and will be, if he has anything to do with it—may be new and shocking in a Presidential debate. But it is not new in this campaign. It is, indeed, one of the most regular features of Trumpism; “Lock her up” chants are heard at almost all his rallies. That doesn’t make it less disturbing. The jail threat is jarring, in part, because it reflects what Trump understands the power of the President to be: he gets to lock her up. (Trump has a whole set of conspiracy theories based on the notion that President Obama is blackmailing Clinton with the threat that he will lock her up.) “Hillary for Prison” buttons are for sale on the Trump campaign Web site. And such threats are not new, sadly, in the world beyond America. The use of criminal law as a discretionary political tool is why, historically, some people have wanted to leave other countries to come here. Trump put an ugly smudge on that beacon...
...Third, one notable thing is that there was that moment we've all been waiting for when Trump finally unloaded the whole oppo file on Bill. Again, that's part of the Breitbart/base GOP fantasy scenario. Indeed, in a very real sense this has been a dream moment for many on the American right for 25 years. And yet, my sense is that it basically fell flat and barely affected the rest of the debate. Like a stone falling into a pond never to be heard from again. He trotted out what all of us have been hearing from Trump and Trump surrogates for months. Indeed, it was what we've been hearing anti-Clinton critiques hitting for two decades. Did it matter? I don't think so. Saying on a stage and in front of Hillary didn't make it any newer or more consequential. It just fell flat and I don't think anyone cared...No one who mattered really cared then; no one who really matters now cares either. The Deplorables are gonna to deplore and set their hair on fire. Sooner or later, someone will wander by and douse them with the cold water of reality.
...His positions are both contemptible and extreme, and his posture mixes the self-aggrandizing swagger of Donald Trump with the sanctimonious moralizing of Ted Cruz (whom he endorsed during the primary). In 2003, he responded to then-President George W. Bush’s proposal to send $15 billion to Africa to fight the AIDS epidemic thus: “The timeless values of abstinence and marital faithfulness before condom distribution are the cure for what ails the families of Africa. It is important that we not just send them money, but we must send them values that work.”
Under Pence’s “values,” Indiana has become a state in which the small town of Austin, with a population of 4,200, now has a higher rate of HIV than “any country in sub-Saharan Africa...”
...Many Missourians also spoke out against the negativity in politics, both in politician and surrogates' discourse and in campaign advertising.Well, golly gee-whilikers, I wonder who started slinging the mud first? I guess Clinton is just supposed to sit passively on the side lines and take the endless crap flung at her from the GOP. "Lock her up! Lock her up!" Yes, you have reason to wring your hands. Who put it out of control? I believe we might can go back and look at Whitewater and blue dresses and discover the actual culprits who have lowered the level of political discourse in this country into the sewer--- and you won't find Democrats digging that hole.
"I hate the ads," Hon said. "I hate it, all they do is cut each other down, and I don't think that should be part of politics. It wasn't that way when I was growing up and I think it's gotten out of control..."
...And right now you’ve got a lot of angry women to contend with. And let me remind you, Mr. Trump… hell hath no fury like a pissed off woman who’s tired of this sexist bullshit...Oh, I hope this fire burns bright. Women are the only hope to bring this world back from the brink of disaster. The entire planet needs nurturing now, not conquest and control, and the only way that is going to happen is if the power is taken from the miserable people like tRump and most of the GOP.
...Pence has built his career atop anti-choice measures, making Indiana one of the most unsafe places to be pregnant in the country — and now his party wants us to believe they’re horrified by Trump’s hostility toward women’s agency, even as they long for Pence to take his place.
The Republican Party’s position is essentially that sexual assault (forcing a woman to do something with her body she doesn’t want to do) is a Terrible Thing, but the denial of abortion (forcing a woman to do something with her body she doesn’t want to do) is a Moral Imperative...
...And the American Evangelical movement is standing by Trump. That's disgusting.
Political scientist and author Corey Robin said it best:
....this tape shouldn't be used to delegitimate Trump; he's already done that six thousand times over, and I doubt anyone will be surprised by what he says here. What it should be used to delegitimate is the Christian Right, the overwhelming majority of which—according to the latest polls—is standing with this man who stands for everything they claim to oppose. Rather than discredit Trump, this tape should destroy that movement, its leaders, and the cottage industry of enabling journalists and academics who've told us for decades that we need to take "people of faith"—by which they mean the Christian Right—more seriously.
...But Ryan had – until this point– shown very little sign of outright distancing himself from Trump. Ryan spoke at Trump's convention and continued to voice his support for his nominee.It's the old "he is the scum of the earth," but "he is my scum of the earth" argument. It's hard to imagine that the leader of a tribe would continue to endorse such an obviously rotten member of the tribe, but I suppose membership is more important than ethics, common sense, and basic human decency, and that, in a nutshell, is the entire problem with the GOP. In no alternate universe can I imagine a tRump like Democrat still being touted by anyone in the party leadership. Of course, it is equally unlikely that anyone like tRump could win the Democratic nomination.
This is the strongest admonishment Ryan has given yet, however, he hasn't pulled his endorsement. The question of whether Ryan is finished with Trump is still to be determined.
...We don't get here without the 25 years of right-wing demonization of Hillary Clinton. We don't get here without every fruitless investigation into something Clinton-related, all political retribution for Bill Clinton daring to be elected president and his wife daring to step out of the prescribed social role of First Lady. On NPR, the genuinely evil Michael Chertoff, who had various roles in the Bush II administration, said he was supporting Clinton this year. And while that is cause for alarm itself, here is what he said about how those investigations affected the safety of the country: "In looking back on that I realized that in the '90s we spent an enormous amount of time pursuing issues involving the Clintons' associations back in Arkansas in the '80s, Whitewater and other things, and we didn't spend nearly the same amount of time on what bin Laden was up to and others were up to in the region." This is the guy who led the probe into the Whitewater land deal, one of the earliest and longest-lasting fake Clinton scandals. He says that Clinton derangement syndrome diverted attention away from real threats...
...But, out in Youngstown one day, in a bar on Steel Street, an old union guy told me that this was a mistake. He remembered literally fighting the oligarchs of his day and he told me that, when they say what they want to do, they mean it. He was right.
Make no mistake when you vote this year. If they get the chance, Paul Ryan and the Republicans will do what they say they want to do. They are true believers, cult-like in their allegiance to the money power, and religious in their devotion to the alleged character-building benefits of poverty. They are not committed to building a viable political commonwealth. They are committed to something very much darker.
...Donald Trump disagrees. On Friday, he told CNN he still believes the Central Park Five committed the crime for which they have been exonerated.
"They admitted they were guilty," Trump said this week in a statement to CNN's Miguel Marquez. "The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous. And the woman, so badly injured, will never be the same."
Trump’s statements are not a gaffe or a misunderstanding. They are policy. He has stood by this position for a quarter century. And, as is so often the case, he has chosen to focus his ire on racial minorities...
...Fortune 500 companies are holding more than $2.1 trillion in accumulated profits offshore for tax purposes. Just 30 Fortune 500 companies account for 65 percent of these offshore profits. These 30 companies with the most money offshore have booked $1.4 trillion overseas for tax purposes.
Only 57 Fortune 500 companies disclose what they would expect to pay in U.S. taxes if these profits were not officially booked offshore. In total, these 57 companies would owe $184.4 billion in additional federal taxes. Based on these 57 corporations’ public disclosures, the average tax rate that they have collectively paid to foreign countries on these profits is a mere 6.0 percent, indicating that a large portion of this offshore money has been booked in tax havens. If we apply that average tax rate of 6.0 percent to the entirety of Fortune 500 companies, they would collectively owe $620 billion in additional federal taxes. Some of the worst offenders include:...
...Klein interviewed a grammar school classmate of Hillary's, who told "the story of being ordered by Hillary to guard a warren of baby rabbits, and not give any of them away to neighborhood boys. When he did, [the classmate] recalled, 'Hillary hauled off and punched me in the nose.'" Ed Klein concludes, "She’s been using people as punching bags ever since."
So let me get this straight. Grade school Hillary and a male classmate found a baby rabbits' nest, and Hillary admonished the boy to not grab baby bunnies from their nest and distribute them to neighborhood boys, and then he DID?...
...Author Eric Sapp laid out the case that voters who care about the facts regarding abortion rates should look to Democrats, past and present, as leaders on these issues:...
..."I don't care how sick you are," the Republican nominee said.
"I don't care if you just came back from the doctor and he gave you the worst possible prognosis, meaning it's over. Doesn't matter. Hang out till November 8. Get out and vote."
I guess if you're terminally ill and bitter you might consider a vote for Trump to be your final middle finger to the world. But I think most people about to meet their maker might think about what world they want to leave behind.
...That would be an inspirational and potentially effective comeback if not for one problem: Trump flopped long before his casino bankruptcies, causing huge losses that wiped out his tax obligations. And the primary way he avoided bankruptcy those times was not through any personal skill, but because of an accident of birth—his wealthy father, who set him up in business, bailed Trump out...
The Left is sure that Trump would end the world as they know it. Christians fear that Clinton would turn the United States of America into a hostile nation for them to live in. And thus, the two sides will never see eye-to-eye.
The Atlantic has endorsed just three presidential candidates in its 159-year history: Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and now, in 2016, Hillary Clinton.
Clinton, the publication’s endorsement reads, “has more than earned, through her service to the country as first lady, as a senator from New York, and as secretary of state, the right to be taken seriously as a White House contender...”
...Like would be the case with a President Trump, our Governor has been so busy tending to his chronic case of diarrhea of the mouth that he has been completely unable to govern the state. Not only has his governorship been functionally a disaster for our state, it’s made us a national embarrassment time and time again...
Donald Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R), spent much of the first and only vice presidential debate Tuesday night doing his damnedest to get Americans to forget all of the offensive things Trump has said...
Residents in Indiana are up in arms over a parade float Saturday that depicted Donald Trump throwing the switch on Hillary Clinton in an electric chair and President Obama as a Easter Island figure with an oversized head...
More than an hour before the vice presidential debate had even begun, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) had already schooled Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.).
At least that’s according to the Republican National Committee, which mistakenly posted a glowing review of the GOP vice presidential nominee’s performance on its website Tuesday evening, long before the debate started...
...It's only proper that the Democratic party returned to power will prioritize meeting the concerns of its loyal constituencies -- blacks, Latinos, gays, the non-religious, etc. But it will also need to start trying to coax the Trumpanzees out of their bubble of cultural resentment and address their problems. They are part of our country too, and they vote, and they aren't going anywhere.Infidel argues that the entire problem is cultural. Could be. But then where did the culture gain its fire? From the cold blast furnaces of the job market, I'd say. The way to win them back is to first fix the jobs problem, even if it involves FDR like job creation. There's a tremendous infrastructure problem in this country that could generate millions of jobs. Shaming them is not going to work. Let's try giving them jobs (and do something positive for the country at the same time).
...“West Virginia, West Virginia—get over here. Beautiful,” utters Trump. “I knew a girl from West Virginia once—she drove me crazy…I loved her. She had no makeup, no nothing. They didn’t know about makeup. You know, in West Virginia, they didn’t know about makeup, they didn’t know about cellulite. Just beautiful...”
Donald Trump told a group of military veterans on Monday that some members of the military develop mental health issues because they are not "strong" and "can't handle it..."
"...For centuries, women were seen as unfit to hold public office. Ambition, power and business were the province of men. Unlike gossipy feminine chatter in the parlor, manly discourse was considered impersonal, unemotional, forthright and reasonable.Don't worry, she still retains her certificate as a Genderist Of The First Order.
Every minute of every day, Trump debunks that old “science” when he shows that the gossipy, backbiting, scolding, mercurial, overly emotional, shrewish, menopausal one in this race is not the woman..."
Conservative media are attempting to deflect attention from the revelation that GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump took a $916 million loss in 1995 that might have allowed him to avoid paying federal income taxes for 18 years by saying that that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and former president Bill Clinton did “the same thing” by claiming a “$700,000 loss” on their 2015 tax return. The claim, which originated with a pseudonymous Reddit poster and has already spread to Fox News, fails to note that while the Clintons’ 2015 return shows that they did have a roughly $700,000 capital loss carried over from a prior year, that loss originates with the financial crash of 2008, and they received only a $3,000 deduction for those losses and paid $3.2 million in federal income taxes in 2015...
...It’s not a coincidence that the first African-American president may be followed by the first woman president. Progress requires that you let the momentum carry you when you have it. But it also shouldn’t be a surprise that the first would enter office on a high note of inspiration and the second would face the inevitable backlash. We should have seen it coming. I get the feeling that Hillary Clinton did.
Former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, once the lead Republican lawyer on the Senate committee investigating Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Whitewater scandal, will vote for the former secretary of state for president this fall...
In a growing list of heartless Mike Pence actions, the Indiana governor has now denied a pardon for a man wrongly convicted and now proven innocent...
...Hillary Clinton, who perhaps is not the candidate most North Carolinians would like to bring along to a local craft brewery or a drum circle, is a deeply qualified, highly experienced and compassionate leader who will do the job well and serve the needs of our state far better than any of her fellow candidates.Note the comment about third party voters, and yes, you will be wasting your vote, and let us remember that Nader voters put George Bush in the White House, which led to 9-11 and the Iraq war, so don't think you can vote or not vote without consequence.
She may not blow up the system, but she is well prepared to make it better.
Voters in the Asheville area will probably cast more ballots than most this year for third-party candidates, and that is certainly their right. Those votes won’t be wasted, but they will be cast at the expense of those who would be hurt most by a Donald Trump presidency...
Harry Truman’s decision to fire Douglas MacArthur at the height of the Korean War in April 1951 shocked the American political system and astonished the world. Much of the world didn’t realize the president had the power to fire a five-star general; much of America didn’t realize Truman had the nerve...A long but very thorough article that is especially illuminating in one area: what we didn't know. It should also give pause to the wave of MacArthur boosterism that is surging around the InnerToobs. I soured on Old Corncob decades ago when I discovered his neglect in allowing our forces in the Philippines to be destroyed after Pearl Harbor.
The ability of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and other wealthy people to avoid paying taxes is “exactly why so many millions of Americans are frustrated, they are angry, they are disgusted at what they see is a corrupt political system in this country,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The former Democratic presidential candidate’s comments came after The New York Times reported that Trump may have legally avoided paying taxes for up to 18 years by declaring a $916 million loss in his federal income taxes in 1995...
...The dogma of Mr, Brooks' Both Siderism simply will not allow the real problem with this election to be what it obviously is -- the terrifying manifestation of the longstanding Republican media/electoral strategy of stocking the Party to the rafters with bigots an imbeciles and keeping those bigots and imbeciles whipped into a perpetual state mindless rage and paranoia. The dogma of Mr, Brooks' Both Siderism simply cannot tolerate a version of history in which his Republican Party has suffered a complete, collective psychotic break with reality due to 30 years of relentless wingnut pandering and propaganda in which he so enthusiastically participated...
...But I think we need a complementary acronym: IACIYAD – it’s a crime if you’re a Democrat.
Adam Cohen of the Times’s editorial page has written several pieces on cases in which Democrats have been railroaded into jail on charges that either don’t stand up, or don’t sound like a crime. The most dramatic example is former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, “who is serving more than seven years in prison on dubious charges.” Cohen’s latest is here...
The editor-in-chief of Newsweek confirmed Friday that the magazine's website was on the receiving end of a denial-of-service attack Thursday night, following the publication of a story accusing one of Donald Trump's companies of violating the Cuban trade embargo...The post describes potential Russian involvement.
In some people’s belief system, “Give people a little taste of equality and they will want even more” is just not a thing that can possibly be true; in fact, they consider “a taste of equality” to be in all cases a scam, a trick that The Man uses to lull people into thinking things will keep getting better. If I understand correctly, the next step is that The Man will put a stop to the getting-betterness, but no one will notice because… I’m not sure, I guess the idea is that once people have experienced a little happiness about one thing, they just stay happy and go back to playing Pokemon forever, and never pay any attention to their circumstances after that? So basically, incremental reform is the opiate of the masses, except it’s an opiate that somehow doesn’t cost the supplier anything to produce, and/or doesn’t even have to be provided to the masses after the first taste.
It all makes perfect sense if you assume that the point of political thought is not to achieve any goals or to form bonds of solidarity with any people, but just to not be a sucker.
Dan Saffer
