“I have never been in the room when someone has said, ‘Grab them by the pussy,” Stern said on his Sirius satellite radio show, quoting Trump’s own words caught on a hot mic during a 2005 “Access Hollywood” appearance. “No one’s ever advocated going that step where you get a little bit, ‘Hey I’m going to invade someone’s space.'”
Though Stern built his own career on jokes about mass shootings and raunchy interviews grilling celebrities about their sex lives, he said there was a line between lewdly describing women’s bodies and boasting about sexual assault.
Tuesday Reads: Hillary is Winning and So are Girls and Women
Posted: October 18, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton 44 CommentsGood Morning!!
I really wish we didn’t have to live through another debate tomorrow night. I just hope her Secret Service detail stay near the stage to protect Hillary. I know she will be dignified and unflappable, but I don’t want her to have to deal Trump’s insults anymore. In a few short weeks, she will be President of the United States and Trump can try and fail to start a Trump news network. He has ruined his own brand, and I’m glad.
At least it’s difficult to understand how Trump could continue attacking Hillary based on Bill’s behavior with women in the ’90s after Melania went on CNN last night and attacked the women who have come forward to accuse her husband of sexual assault.
The New York Times: ‘They’re Lies’: Melania Trump Rejects Women’s Claims That Husband Groped Them.
Ms. Trump, in an extensive interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, said the women who had accused Donald J. Trump of groping and kissing them were lying, and likened her husband to a teenage boy who engages in macho boasting.
She echoed her husband’s complaint that he was the victim of a broad conspiracy between the news media and the Clinton campaign.
“I believe my husband, I believe my husband — it was all organized from the opposition,” Ms. Trump said. “They can never check the background of these women. They don’t have any facts.” ….
Ms. Trump, 46, called the exchange between Mr. Trump and Mr. Bush “boy talk,” and said Mr. Trump had been “egged on” by the host “to say dirty and bad stuff.”
But she stressed that she believed that Mr. Trump was simply being boastful and did not engage in the behavior he described.
“Sometimes I say I have two boys at home: I have my young son, and I have my husband,” she said with a slight laugh. “But I know how some men talk, and that’s how I saw it, yes.”
Hmmm. . . she doesn’t make her husband sound very presidential. She also claims women are constantly trying to attract her husband’s attention
“I see many, many women coming to him and giving the phone numbers and, you know, want to work for him or inappropriate stuff from women,” she said. “And they know he’s married.http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/17/politics/melania-trump-interview/index.html”
Mrs. Trump told Anderson Cooper that her husband is a “gentleman.”
Melania Trump called her husband “real” and “raw” — and said because of his years as an entertainer, he faced an especially tough challenge transitioning into politics, because he has made decades’ worth of controversial comments.
“It’s very hard, especially for him — when he decided to run for the presidency, because he did so many stuff in his life. He was on so many tapes, so many shows. And we knew that — that, you know, tapes will come out, people won’t want to go against him.
“But my husband is real. He’s raw. He tells it like it is. He’s kind. He’s a gentleman. He supports everybody. He supports women. He encourages them to go to the highest level, to achieve their dreams. He employs many, many women,” she said.
She said she wouldn’t describe what Trump said on the tape as sexual assault, even though in the video Trump appeared to be describing his own actions.
“No, that’s not sexual assault,” she said. “He didn’t say he did it.”
Actually he did though. And even Howard Stern doesn’t buy the “boys will be boys” defense. TPM reports:
Shock jock Howard Stern on Monday refuted his friend Donald Trump’s claim that his leaked comments about grabbing women’s genitals were just “locker room talk.”
Fortunately, we won’t have to listen to anyone in the Trump family much longer, because he is not going to be POTUS. Stuart Rothenberg at the Washington Post: Trump’s path to an electoral college victory isn’t narrow. It’s non-existent.
The trajectory of the 2016 presidential race — which will result in a Hillary Clinton victory — remains largely unchanged from May, when Donald Trump and Clinton were in the process of wrapping up their nominations.
But what has changed recently is Clinton’s likely winning margin. For many weeks, even months, I have believed that Clinton would defeat Trump by three to six points. If anything, that range now looks a bit low, with the Democratic nominee apparently headed for a more convincing victory, quite possibly in the four-to-eight point range.
Trump continues to be his own worst enemy, saying or tweeting things that only fuel chatter about his current and past views, values and behavior. His comments about people — from Vladimir Putin and Alicia Machado to some of the women who have accused him of sexual assault — have kept the focus on him at a time when he should be making the election a referendum on Clinton.
No, Trump’s supporters have not turned on him. But he trails badly with only a few weeks to go until Nov. 8, and he must broaden his appeal to have any chance of winning. That is now impossible.
Read the whole thing at the link.
Eric Levitz at New York Magazine: New Polls Show Clinton on Pace for a Landslide.
On Monday, CNN’s new “poll of polls” — an average of the four most recent national surveys that meet the network’s standard — put Clinton ahead of Trump by 8 percent.
One of those surveys was George Washington University’s Battleground Poll, which also found Clinton leading the GOP nominee by eight points. The same poll had Clinton up by only 2 percent in early September. In that earlier survey, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein were collectively polling three points higher than they are now, with the Libertarian claiming 8 percent and the Green Party nominee just 2 percent.
A Politico/Morning Consult poll out Monday finds Clinton leading Trump 42 to 36 percent in a four-way race. After the vice-presidential debate, Trump had climbed to 39 percent, but grab’em by the pussy-gate and last week’s wave of sexual-assault allegations have pulled the GOP nominee back to where he stood after he bragged about tax evasion at the first debate. Clinton’s support has hovered around 42 percent in the poll for all of October.
As of this writing, FiveThirtyEight’s Polls Only forecast gives Clinton an 87 percent chance of taking the Oval Office next January.
More polling info at the link. And check this out from Peter Daou at Share Blue: Boys will be boys…and women will be presidents.
Some feel-good stories to check out:
New York Magazine: Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Has More Black Women Than Any Presidential Campaign in History.
CNN: Baby elephant is so concerned about her ‘drowning’ friend.
Raw Story: Ex-homeless mom pays off lunch tabs for poor kids after little boy’s ‘two lunches’ story goes viral.
What else is happening? What stories are you following today?
Lazy Saturday Reads: Dealing With Trump Stress
Posted: October 15, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Adolf Hitler, American Psychological Association, anti-semitism, Donald Trump, election stress, Godwin's law, Hillary Clinton, Steve Bannon, White supremacists 50 Comments
Good Morning!!
I’m illustrating this post with baby animals and their mothers, because I’m just about to the point that I need to sleep with a teddy bear at night because of the stress of this presidential election. Donald Trump is holding most of the country hostage as he holes up with his misogynistic, racist, xenophobic white supremacist advisers planning for campaign rallies in which he addresses his shrinking band of loud and angry fans with paranoid, insane monologues about how the media, the Republican “establishment,” “the Clintons” and a supposed “global conspiracy” are trying to rob him of the presidency. It’s all getting to be too much, and we still have 23 days to go before election day.
It has gotten so bad that American Psychological Association is offering tips on how to deal with election stress. The Washington Post reports:
Weeks before The Washington Post made that 2005 video of Donald Trump public, before Trump supporters were interrupting Hillary Clinton rallies by screaming that Bill Clinton is a rapist, before Trump told Clinton to her face that she should be in jail, Americans were already seriously stressed out by this election.
In August, the American Psychological Association included a question in its annual Stress in America survey about this election. It released the results of that particular query on Thursday, and it found that more than half of U.S. adults, regardless of party, felt very or somewhat stressed by the election.
One can only imagine that what’s transpired over the past week has intensified the disgust, anxiety and disbelief felt by so many Americans.
The poll found that people older than 71 are the most stressed out and millennials are the next most “angst-ridden” group. They also found that people who use social media are among the most highly stressed groups.
The suggestions for dealing with the situation are about what you’d expect: Turn off the TV and stop reading the news when it feels like too much and get some exercise or spend time with people you care about; avoid talking to others about politics; think about volunteering or joining a local political group; try not to catastrophize about possible results of the election; and be sure to vote.
Or you could start going to gym, get a professional trainer, do those popular workouts like the russian squat program. Stress-free and healthy at the same time.
Unfortunately, if I could tear myself away from the media coverage and social media, I wouldn’t feel like me anymore. But I’m trying to find ways to stay centered. Like Dakinikat, I’m having life worries too, so it’s all so difficult.
Was yesterday the worst day in the campaign so far? If not, it would have to be close. Trump gave two speeches in which he behaved like a madman, screaming about “the Clintons” and the women who have said he abused them, and even tearing apart his teleprompter on stage the second event. Sopan Deb at CBS News:
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — During Donald Trump’s second rally of the day, he announced dramatically to the crowd that his teleprompter – that he had uncharacteristically relied on for months – had stopped working.
“And I notice every time I look up, they’re trying. It’s trying. It’s straining. It’s straining. Hey, get this thing out of here, will you?” Trump explained.
He physically removed the device that had been telling him what to say and proceeded to speak for nearly an hour – veering from topic to topic, in a kind of stream-of-consciousness manner. It was a rally reminiscent of the barn-burning campaign he ran in the fall.
“You know what? I like it better without the teleprompters,” Trump declared.
Trump acknowledged earlier in the day that those around him did not want him to spend a bulk of his speeches responding to the numerous accusations of sexual misconduct that have risen in recent days and weeks.
“Folks, you know my people always say, ‘Oh, don’t talk about it. Talk about jobs. Talk about the economy,’” Trump said in Greensboro, North Carolina earlier in the day. “But I feel I have to talk about it, because you have to dispute when somebody says something, and fortunately we have the microphone. We’re able to dispute. Some people can’t.”
Trump went on to rail against accuser Jessica Leeds, implying that he couldn’t possibly have sexually assaulted her because she was too unattractive. Read more about this disgusting speech at the link.
Jonathan Martin ticked off the low points of Trump’s day at the New York Times: Donald Trump’s Barrage of Heated Rhetoric Has Little Precedent.
There is a long tradition of presidential candidates ratcheting up their language when they are trailing in the closing weeks of an election.
But in the same fashion Donald J. Trump has broken with other political traditions, he is taking a longstanding rite of fall to new heights — or perhaps new lows.
On Thursday and Friday alone, Mr. Trump unleashed a barrage of near-apocalyptic warnings about the potential destruction of the country, broad accusations about the illegitimacy of American democracy, and crude innuendo about his opponent that is almost without precedent in modern presidential history.
He warned that Hillary Clinton was conspiring with financiers to destroy American sovereignty, claimed the fate of civilization depended on his victory and ridiculed the appearance of the one of the women accusing him of sexual harassment, while also deriding Mrs. Clinton’s looks and saying she ought to be in prison. He also said the presidential election amounted to “a big ugly lie.”
While delighting his partisans, Mr. Trump’s rhetorical shooting spree has enraged Democrats and unnerved many Republicans, who believe he is acting out a political death wish.
Please go read the rest at the NYT.
At Slate, William Saletan has going full Godwin: Let’s just say it: Trump sounds more and more like Hitler.
In Godwin’s honor, let’s stipulate: There will never be another psychopath quite like Hitler. The German dictator preached such overt hatred, murdered so many people, and earned such infamy that every demagogue since, from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to David Duke, has learned to draw at least tactical distinctions between himself and the Führer.
Then there’s Trump. He’s a salesman, not a fanatic. He doesn’t foist his hatreds on others. Instead, he reads and plays to the resentments of his crowds. He tells them that President Obama was born in Kenya, that Ted Cruz is a Canadian-born Cuban, and that Ben Carson is a Seventh-day Adventist. Trump will go after a Mexican American judge, a Muslim Gold Star family—whatever he thinks will work.
Jews aren’t on Trump’s target list. His son-in-law and grandkids are Jewish. His daughter, Ivanka, is a Jewish convert. But Trump’s habit of retweeting alt-right material—Hillary Clinton with a Star of David, for instance—has immersed him in the muck of anti-Semitism. And in the past few days, Trump has turned to an ideology of global conspiracy that resembles the speeches of a certain politician from a century ago.
For Trump, the principal enemy is Muslims. He blames Muslim Americans collectively for domestic terrorism—falsely claiming, for instance, that many of them saw but didn’t report the preparations for last year’s attack in San Bernardino, California—and says we should never have let their parents into the country. For Hitler, the interlopers were Jews. Speaking in Munich on July 28, 1922, he lamented that they had been given German citizenship. Jews “have always formed and will form a state within the state,” said Hitler. That’s uncomfortably close to Trump’s warnings about Sharia in the United States.
Jews may not be “on Trump’s target list,” but they are on Steve Bannon’s; and it’s obvious that he’s in charge of Trump’s speeches now. Let’s not forget that Bannon and other white supremacists have openly said that they think they can influence Trump to do their bidding. Saletan goes on to compare some of Trump’s speeches to Hitler’s. Read about it at Slate.
Now, as an antidote to all this Trump hate, please read this article–also at Slate–by L.V. Anderson: Forget This “Hillary Is Unlikable” Stuff. Hillary Is Downright Inspiring.
Expectations for this election have become so warped that the primary conclusions media commentators took away from the second debate were that it had been an ugly, uninspiring affair and that Trump didn’t lose. Let’s set aside the absurdity that a man who brought up his own tax scandal unbidden, who threatened to jail his opponent, who betrayed his absolute ignorance of the nuances of the war in Syria, and whose best zinger amounted to recalling that Abraham Lincoln’s nickname was “Honest Abe” somehow fought to a draw with his opponent. Trump was as ugly and uninspiring as usual. But here’s what people haven’t been saying in the days since the debate: Hillary was inspiring as all get out….
Put yourself in Hillary’s shoes for a moment. You’re 68 years old. You have spent decades—decades—in the public eye, absorbing criticism from every possible angle. Your opponent is an impulsive, amoral ignoramus with a long history of humiliating women. He has made it his strategy during this debate to dredge up what are probably the darkest moments of your personal life—your husband’s affairs and alleged sexual assaults—as evidence of your failures as a wife and as a woman. He has brought three of these women to sit in the front row during the debate in an attempt to throw you off guard and cow you into submission. He literally tells you to your face that he will imprison you if he wins the election.
What would you do? If I were Hillary, I would blubber incomprehensibly through my rage-tears for the duration of the debate, if I lasted onstage that long. What did Hillary do? She stood tall and looked comfortable. She listened carefully to the voters who were asking her questions and offered them empathetic, intelligent, and articulate answers. She serenely and thoughtfully enumerated the character faults that make Trump unfit for office. She laughed it off when Trump insulted her in the most personal of terms. And at the end, she complimented him on his children. Never mind that his children don’t really deserve that compliment—Hillary responded to undeniably sexist personal attacks that are unprecedented in the history of modern American politics with an inspiring level of grace and poise.
Exactly. And when Hillary is POTUS Americans will again see her positively as they did when she was a Senator and then Secretary of State.
Then check out this humorous column by Alexandra Petri at the WaPo: The hideous, diabolical truth about Hillary Clinton. It’s written in the form of a chronological bio based on the right-wing conspiracies about her. Here are the first few paragraphs:
Before Time, Before the Earth Was Made, Before Matter and Being and History: Hillary Clinton (Lucifer, Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, Prince of Darkness, Satan, She Whose Many Names the Cats Scream in the Night) is cast out of heaven for overweening hubris. She is condemned to lie in eternal torment in a lake of fire surrounded by her fallen angels, or, alternatively, to run for a major office while female. For thousands of years she lies outside time, smelling of sulfur, before deciding to undertake the second option.
Oct. 26, 1947: Hillary Clinton, a robot, is constructed by Saul Alinsky, then slipped into a bassinet and delivered to the Rodham house, where it stores its Six Human, Relatable Memories of squeegeeing, family life and honest toil.
Fall 1965: The young Hillary Clinton is replaced by a new model, this one with glasses. It retains only one of the memories, the squeegeeing. It attends Wellesley, where it decorates itself with spectacles and what conservative commentators will later describe as ONE VAST AND HIDEOUS EYEBROW LIKE A CATERPILLAR IN WHICH MANY WELSH MINERS COULD BE TRAPPED AND LOST AS IN A HORRID, THORNY FOREST.
Spring 1969: Hillary Clinton graduates from Wellesley, although first she gets in touch with Alinsky and his mentor, Satan. She fails to mention at the first meeting that she, too, is Satan, and then once they know each other it seems too awkward to bring it up. As a consequence, the Devil mentors Herself for many decades, wasting everyone’s time and effort. She also founds the Islamic State. She will toil for many years in secret on this passion project, keeping it even from Bill, whom she is about to meet. Once, during his presidency, he will ask, “Is there anything I should know about, Hills?” and she will shrug and say, “Nah.” A bit confusingly, she also begins to fight the Islamic State, which she will spend her entire adult life doing.
Please read the rest at the link.
So . . . what stories are you following? And how are you dealing with election stress? Be sure to take some for yourself this weekend.
Thursday Reads: Total Meltdown
Posted: October 13, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: allegations of predatory behavior by Donald Trump, Bob Dylan, Donald Trump, Nobel Prize in literature, total meltdown 49 Comments
Good Morning!
Donald Trump continues to traumatize America. So far, eleven women have come forward to accuse the GOP presidential nominee of sexual harassment and/or sexual assault since he denial of predatory sexual behavior at the second presidential debate. Melissa McEwan at Shakesville provides a very good summary of the allegations so far.
Yesterday morning, I noted that four competitors in the Miss Teen USA pageant had alleged Donald Trump walked in on them while they were in various states of undress, which is also alleged to have done to Miss Universe and/or Miss USA contestants.
By the end of the day, there were at least seven more assault allegations against Trump.
Jessica Leeds says she was groped by Donald Trump on an airplane.
The Trump campaign is denying these claims and questioning the timing of the stories. McEwan:
I will simply note, again, that the only reason these stories became “public decades later” is because the women he assaulted saw him lie during a presidential debate and refused to let him get away with it.
Leeds’ and Crooks’ stories are very much like those of Jill Harth and Temple Taggart, which were already public….
Trump has gotten away with this behavior for a very long time. There are certainly lots of women he has abused over many decades. And every member of the Republican Party who has supported this guy, and continues to support him, is abetting his continued abuse. The last thing he needs is more power.
And our choice is between a woman who used her position as Secretary of State to faciliate the prevention of sexual violence around the globe, or a man who is himself a sexual predator.
After a day filled with shocking stories about Trump’s disgusting behavior, People Magazine published a story by one of their own reporters late last night.
Natasha Stoynoff, People Magazine reporter
Physically Attacked by Donald Trump – a PEOPLE Writer’s Own Harrowing Story, by Natasha Stoynoff.
…in December 2005, around the time Trump had his now infamous conversation with Billy Bush, I traveled to Mar-a-Lago to interview the couple for a first-wedding-anniversary feature story.
Our photo team shot the Trumps on the lush grounds of their Florida estate, and I interviewed them about how happy their first year of marriage had been. When we took a break for the then-very-pregnant Melania to go upstairs and change wardrobe for more photos, Donald wanted to show me around the mansion. There was one “tremendous” room in particular, he said, that I just had to see.
We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat.
Now, I’m a tall, strapping girl who grew up wrestling two giant brothers. I even once sparred with Mike Tyson. It takes a lot to push me. But Trump is much bigger — a looming figure — and he was fast, taking me by surprise and throwing me off balance. I was stunned. And I was grateful when Trump’s longtime butler burst into the room a minute later, as I tried to unpin myself.
Rachel Crooks says Donald Trump kissed her on the lips without permission.
Trump then went on to tell Stoynoff:
“You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?” he declared, in the same confident tone he uses when he says he’s going to make America great again. “Have you ever been to Peter Luger’s for steaks? I’ll take you. We’re going to have an affair, I’m telling you.” He also referenced the infamous cover of the New York Post during his affair with Marla Maples.
“You remember,” he said. “‘Best Sex I Ever Had.’ ”
Read about Stoynoff’s reactions and the aftermath for her at People.
This morning Time Magazine unveiled its latest cover, an updating of the “meltdown” cover from August 22. (See both versions at the top of this post.) This week’s cover story: Inside Donald Trump’s Total Meltdown. The piece begins with a description of the remarkable decision by evangelical Christians to stick with Trump despite the Access Hollywood tape that came out last Friday, then moved on to how Trump has traumatized most Americans.
As the 2016 campaign moved into its final weeks, Trump had put the whole country on the rack alongside the Christian conservatives, stretching the sinews of American politics to the breaking point. While some voters were tugged toward the wincing sophistry of the conference call, a larger number pulled disgustedly into the ranks of #nevertrump. The candidate himself was consumed by petty grudges. The furor over the leaked recording seemed to liberate him. Free of the “shackles”–his own tweeted word–Trump reduced his campaign to a primal grunt.
It sounded, at times, like the last gasp of the angry white man. Trump threatened to throw his opponent in jail, bragged of avoiding income taxes and peddled an empty conspiracy theory about undocumented immigrants’ being given voter-registration cards. He insisted he was right to stoke the racial tensions of New York City during the Central Park jogger drama in the 1990s, refusing to accept the DNA proof that he had the case wrong. He promoted a fiction that Muslim friends of the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorists knew their plans but failed to alert authorities, and he injected a crude Russian propaganda effort into one of his rallies without a care about its inaccuracy. Another tape (it wasn’t easy keeping track) caught him agreeing as a radio shock jock labeled his daughter Ivanka “a piece of ass.” Having congratulated himself for keeping the first presidential debate slightly above the muck, in Round 2 he plunged into the wallow, deflecting attention from his own vulgarity by saddling Clinton with the alleged sexual sins of her husband and trying to seat Bill Clinton’s accusers in the front row.
Jill Harth accused Donald Trump of attempted rape.
Trump once said on the campaign trail that he would approve of torture as President, “even if it doesn’t work.” With four weeks left to Election Day, he seemed to be testing the proposition on the public. Unshackled, he flirted with unhinged and erased the emollient line between a campaign aimed at the base and one intended to debase.
Read the rest at the link above.
Naturally, Trump himself has been busy tweeting this morning.
For the record, the New York Times’s May 2016 story about Trump’s repulsive behavior toward women has not been discredited.
For me, one of the most fascinating thing about the information that has been coming out about Trump since last Friday is observing men in the media beginning to understand the extent of the sexual aggression most women experience constantly in the workplace, on the street, and in private. Women have seen who and what Trump is all along. The real question is will men continue to keep their new awareness, or will it just fade away after the election?
Bob Dylan, winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature
In other news, Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. The Washington Post: ‘Poetry for the ear’: Bob Dylan wins Nobel Prize in literature.
Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday for work that the Swedish Academy described as “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
He is the first American to win the prize since Toni Morrison in 1993, and a groundbreaking choice by the Nobel committee to select the first literature laureate whose career has primarily been as a musician.
Although long rumored as a contender for the prize, Dylan was far down the list of predicted winners, which included such renown writers as Haruki Murakami and Ngugi wa Thiong’o.
This is the second year in a row that the academy has turned away from fiction writers for the literature prize. And it’s possibly the first year that the prize has gone to someone who is primarily a musician, not a writer.
The next few weeks are going to be awful to watch, but at least we can be pretty confident that in January 2017 Hillary Clinton will be sworn in as the first woman President of the United States.
What stories are you following today?
Lazy Saturday Reads: A Shocking Day In Politics
Posted: October 8, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Central Park Five, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Racism, Sexism, sexual assault, Sexual harassment 94 Comments 
Good Afternoon!!
Yesterday was the worst day in politics that I can recall seeing in my many years of following politics closely. The closest thing I can remember is the “Saturday Night Massacre” in October 1973, when Nixon fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox along with Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy William D. Ruckelshaus. That was a shocking day.
Yesterday was a shocking day, and not just because of the video of Donald Trump degrading women and bragging about sexually assaulting them. Anyone who has paid any attention to Trump’s behavior over the past year and to his career before running for POTUS should have understood this is the kind of man he is. Just this year Trump has repeated defended Roger Ailes for sexually harassing and abusing women at Fox News.
And does anyone actually believe that there isn’t plenty more video demonstrating Trump’s abusive behavior?
Trump’s treatment of women has been well known over the years. In May, the New York Times published a lengthy article with example after example of Trump’s sexist and abusive behavior toward women. It sunk like a stone as the Times and the rest of the media focused on Hillary Clinton’s emails and then the Clinton Foundation.
But the shocking video released yesterday was not the only shocking revelation that came out. Trump also stated that he still believes the Central Park Five–African American and Hispanic teenagers who were wrongly convicted and served full sentences for raping a jogger in Central Park in 1989–are guilty, even though they were exhonerated by DNA evidence and the confession of the real perpetrator. NBC News New York:
Félix Vallotton, The Reader
Donald Trump stepped back into one of the most racially charged controversies in New York City history this week, saying he still believed the “Central Park Five” were guilty.
Two years after a judge approved a $41 million settlement with the five men, Trump told CNN they should not have been exonerated, after one of the men said he was hoping for an apology from the Republican presidential nominee.
“They admitted they were guilty,” Trump told CNN in a statement. “The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty.” ….
Following their arrest, Trump took out full-page ads in the city’s newspapers calling for New York to bring back the death penalty, though he did not explicitly say those five defendants should be executed.
And yet, many Republicans–including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan have not withdrawn their support from this man who has and will continue to shame their party and our country. Some Republicans are coming out to say they will no longer vote for Trump, it’s far too little and far too late. These people know who and what Trump was all along. Anyone who hadn’t already denounced him before yesterday are stuck with him.
Georges d’Espangnat
There is no way the GOP can dump Trump from the ticket, and this morning he told Robert Costa of The Washington Post that he will never quit.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said in an interview Saturday that he would not drop out of the race under any circumstances, following calls from several in his party to do so.
“I’d never withdraw. I’ve never withdrawn in my life,” Trump told the Washington Post in a phone call from his home in Trump Tower in New York. “No, I’m not quitting this race. I have tremendous support.”
“People are calling and saying, ‘Don’t even think about doing anything else but running,” Trump said when asked about GOP defections. “You have to see what’s going on. The real story is that people have no idea the support. I don’t know how that’s going to boil down but people have no idea the support.
“Running against her,” Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, makes keeping the party behind him easier, Trump added.
“It’s because she’s so bad. She’s so flawed as a candidate. Running against her, I can’t say it’d be the same if I ran against someone else, but running against her makes it a lot easier, that’s for sure.”
jean-edouard-vuillard
Late last night in his so-called apology, Trump tried to excuse his behavior by claiming that Hillary and Bill Clinton have done far worse to women. If you haven’t seen it, here’s one place to watch it. Rolling Stone:
Trump’s video apology came hours after the Republican nominee dismissed the footage as “locker room talk” and apologized only if “anyone was offended” by the comments.
However, rather than simply apologize, Trump used his video to further blast Bill and Hillary Clinton for alleged previous improprieties. Here’s the full transcript:
I’ve never said I’m a perfect person, nor pretended to be someone that I’m not. I’ve said and done things I regret, and the words released today on this more than a decade-old video are one of them. Anyone who knows me, know these words don’t reflect who I am.
I said it, it was wrong, and I apologize.
I’ve travelled the country talking about change for America. But my travels have also changed me. I’ve spent time with grieving mothers who’ve lost their children, laid off workers whose jobs have gone to other countries, and people from all walks of life who just want a better future. I have gotten to know the great people of our country, and I’ve been humbled by the faith they’ve placed in me. I pledge to be a better man tomorrow, and will never, ever let you down.
Let’s be honest. We’re living in the real world. This is nothing more than a distraction from the important issues we are facing today. We are losing our jobs, we are less safe than we were 8 years ago and Washington is broken.
Hillary Clinton, and her kind, have run our country into the ground.
I’ve said some foolish things, but there is a big difference between words and actions. Bill Clinton has actually abused women and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims. We will discuss this more in the coming days.
See you at the debate on Sunday.
So bragging about sexually abusing and assaulting women–actions that Trump admitted in the video–are “nothing more than a distraction.” That’s not an apology. And Trump went on to threaten more horrible behavior to come on Sunday night.
jacques emile blanche
There undoubtedly will be more fallout today, but many Republicans are still saying this isn’t a “game-changer.”
Politico: GOP insiders: It’s not a knockout punch.
Leaked audio of Donald Trump making crude, sexually aggressive comments about women has dealt a serious blow to the GOP nominee’s presidential campaign, but swing-state Republican insiders aren’t convinced it will effectively end Trump’s chances in November.
A slim majority of Republican members of The POLITICO Caucus — a panel of activists, strategists and operatives in 11 battleground states — said they don’t think news reports of the Trump tape are a “knockout blow” for the GOP ticket. But while 54 percent of Republicans say Trump can overcome these comments, 46 percent say the New York real-estate magnate’s chances are doomed.
“Trump’s obscene comments might be the straw that broke the camel’s back for evangelical voters, Republican women and any remaining undecided voters,” said a Colorado Republican — who like all insiders, completed the survey anonymously in the hours after the tape of Trump describing trying to sleep with a married woman and boasting that he could kiss and grope women because of his celebrity.
“Our politics is tribal and polarized. So it’s not like this swings the thing 10 points,” a Virginia Republican added. “What it does though, and it has the same impact, is it further devastates Trump amongst women and white college-educated voters, two groups he had to make up big time ground with to even stand a chance of winning. Those windows have now permanently closed.”
We’ll see. Honestly it was hard for me to even write this post, and I’m sure it will be painful to read. It disgusts me that Hillary and here supporters have to deal with this racist, bigoted asshole when we should be celebrating the election of the first woman President of the United States. But I have no doubt that Hillary will maintain her dignity and make us proud again on Sunday night.
In a way it actually seems fitting that this woman who has been attacked for decades in the most disgusting and sexist ways will be the one to save our country from the danger and shame of a President Donald Trump.
I’ll have more links in the comment thread. Please feel free to post your thoughts and links on any topic.
Thursday Reads: The Tide Has Turned
Posted: October 6, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: demographic data, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Mike Pence, Mitt Romney, poll data, Tim Kaine 17 Comments
Good Morning!!
Following the first presidential debate last week, Hillary is flying high in the polls and many in the media seem to have turned against Donald Trump. I’m reminded of what happened in 2012 after Romney’s “47%” gaffe was revealed. Once you become a laughing stock, it’s hard to change people’s minds. Trump’s loss in that debate may turn out to be his downfall, and now his running mate has his own horrendous gaffe–“That Mexican thing.”
Daily Kos has a great summary of the latest poll data: Daily Kos Elections 2016 forecast: Hillary Clinton’s victory odds now back up to 83 percent.
What a difference a week makes! When we looked at the model on Monday, September 26 (the day of the first presidential debate), Hillary Clinton’s odds of winning were 64 percent. There had been some subtle improvements in the previous week in Clinton’s national polling numbers (as Pneumonia-ghazi started to fade from view) but that hadn’t really trickled down into the state-level polls, which is what our model is based on. By Thursday, September 29, that improvement was starting to filter into the state polls, and our model ticked up to 68 percent … but that was still based only on polls with a pre-debate field period.
On the morning Monday, October 3, we had a few post-debate polls under our belt … and Clinton’s overall odds were up to 72 percent … but we were still left wondering why everything was so quiet on the polling front. By the end of Monday, though, the deluge had arrived, and with one exception (Quinnipiac’s Ohio poll), everything was very good news for Clinton: among others, a Clinton +11 poll from Monmouth in Colorado,another Clinton +11 poll in Colorado from Keating Research, polls from Quinnipiac with Clinton +5 in Florida and +3 in North Carolina, a Clinton +9 poll in Pennsylvania from Franklin & Marshall, a Clinton +3 poll in Nevada from Hart Research, and a Clinton +7 poll in Virginia from Christopher Newport Univ.
Ooops!
It may well have been her single best polling day of the cycle, and by Tuesday her odds had jumped to 82 percent, a one-day gain of 10. That matches the largest single-day gain our model has seen since we started running. That other gain of 10 happened between August 8th and 9th; in case you’re wondering what was happening then, that was the Monday after the Democratic convention ended, when the post-DNC polls started to show up. So you could say that the debate was one of the most momentous events of the campaign: if your metric is the effect it had on our model, she got a convention-sized bounce out of it.
The subsequent days have seen even more strong poll results, most notably two different polls on Wednesday (from Monmouth and Anzalone Liszt) giving Clinton a 2-point lead in Ohio, which isn’t a lot but serves to counteract the Quinnipiac poll that had her down 5. The subsequent polls weren’t enough to really move the model much higher; it currently places Clinton’s odds at 83 percent. But they do continue an impressive little winning streak: out of the several dozen polls of swing states released since the debate, only one of that entire stack had Donald Trump leading (again, that Quinnipiac Ohio poll). And that stack covers every major swing state except Iowa (and Wisconsin, if you even consider that a swing state in the first place).
More details at the link.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks with Zianna Oliphant onstage after speaking at the Little Rock AME Zion Church in Charlotte, N.C., Sunday, Oct. 2, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
What about demographic data?
Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight: Trump’s Doing Worse Than Romney Did Among White Voters.
Donald Trump’s strategy in this campaign has been fairly clear from the beginning: Drive up Republican support among white voters in order to compensate for the GOP’s shrinking share among the growing nonwhite portion of the electorate. And Trump has succeeded in overperforming among a certain slice of white voters, those without a college degree. But overall, the strategy isn’t working. Trump has a smaller lead among white voters than Mitt Romney did in 2012, and Trump’s margin seems to be falling from where it was when the general election began.
Four years ago, Romney beat President Obama among white voters by 17 percentage points, according to pre-election polls. That was the largest winning margin among white voters for any losing presidential candidate since at least 1948. Of course, even if Trump did just as well as Romney did, it would help him less, given that the 2016 electorate will probably be more diverse that 2012’s. And to win — even if the electorate remained as white as it was four years ago — Trump would need a margin of 22 percentage points or more among white voters.
But Trump isn’t even doing as well as Romney. Trump is winning white voters by just 13 percentage points, according to an average of the last five live-interviewer national surveys.1 He doesn’t reach the magic 22 percentage point margin in a single one of these polls.
NBC News: Clinton Holds 41-Point Lead Over Trump Among Asian-American Voters: Survey.
The Fall 2016 National Asian American Survey, taken between Aug. 10 and Sept. 29 in 11 different languages, found that 55 percent of registered voters intended to vote for Clinton compared to 14 percent for Trump. Eight percent intended to vote for a different candidate, and 16 percent had not yet decided, according to the survey. Seven percent of registered voters declined to give an answer.
When taking into account voters leaning one way or the other, Clinton’s lead grows to 43 points, with 59 percent of registered voters intending to or leaning toward voting for Clinton compared to 16 percent for Trump and 16 percent who were undecided or refused to answer.
“The big takeaway is a continuation of what we saw in the Spring 2016 survey— an Asian-American population that was become more Democratic over time,” Karthick Ramakrishnan, the survey’s director, told NBC News. “We see that Trump is likely a significant reason for that shift. Trump’s unfavorables are like nothing we’ve seen before.”
Marc Caputo at Politico: Clinton dominating Trump among Florida Hispanics in new poll.
Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by 24 points among likely Hispanic voters in Florida, according to a new poll that shows a significant number of Republican Latinos are unsure of their nominee for the White House.
Clinton’s 54-30 percent lead over Trump with Hispanic voters stands in marked contrast to the U.S. Senate race, where bilingual Republican incumbent Marco Rubio is ahead of Democratic U.S. Rep Patrick Murphy by 48-39 percent, a TelOpinion Research survey conducted for the conservative-leaning Associated Industries of Florida business group shows.
Clinton’s huge advantage over Trump is buoyed by strong support among Democrats (whom she carries 75-13 percent) and independents (among whom she wins 61-20 percent) in the poll of 600 likely Latino voters. Trump’s 63-19 percent lead over Clinton among Republican Hispanics could be much bigger, but 14 percent are undecided. That’s double the number of undecided Latino Democrats.
Those numbers worry Republicans because the polls show Trump is already under-performing 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s final margins with Florida Hispanics — yet there’s a month of campaigning left and Clinton is outgunning Trump in paid Spanish-language TV ads that are playing in heavy rotation in the Miami area.
What about the fallout from the vice presidential debate? Immediately after it ended, cable talking heads pronounced Mike Pence the winner because he was able to lie repeatedly in a calm voice. By yesterday his performance wasn’t looking so good.
Abby Phillip at The Washington Post: Clinton debate prep is focused on what happens once the debate is done.
Sen. Tim Kaine may have awakened Wednesday to poor reviews after the first and only vice-presidential debate, but his acerbic performance in Farmville, Va., revealed that the Clinton campaign’s strategy for these debates extends far beyond the stage.
Armed with pre-planned Web videos, television ads and tweets, the campaign has used key debate moments this week and last as a cudgel against the Republican ticket, showing a level of discipline and organization largely absent from Donald Trump and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence’s campaign.
“Kaine had a very clear and simple plan for the debate: remind a national televised audience of all of the offensive things Trump has said and done in this campaign,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to President Obama. “The Clinton campaign was smart enough to know that who ‘wins’ or ‘loses’ the VP debate doesn’t move votes. Instead it’s an opportunity to communicate a message to a very large audience.”
“I don’t see a single thing that Pence did that moved the needle for Trump in any way,” he added.
And then there was that awful Pence gaffe that many outside of the Latino community didn’t pick up on right away.
Vox: How the Clinton campaign is making #ThatMexicanThing a thing, explained.
Sen. Tim Kaine made a point during the vice presidential debate of reminding the American public of that time Donald Trump called Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers.
“He started his campaign with a speech where he called Mexicans rapists and criminals,” Kaine said, listing Trump’s most controversial campaign statements. “I cannot imagine how Gov. Pence can defend Donald Trump.”
At first, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence responded with a laugh and a shrug — a seemingly implicit defense of Trump implying Kaine’s attack was unfounded (despite the fact that Trump really has said these things). But Pence’s initial lack of response didn’t stop Kaine. He used the same line four times Tuesday night. And by the fourth time, Pence had had enough.
“Senator, you whipped out that Mexican thing again,” Pence retorted. “There are criminal aliens who have come into this country illegally, who are perpetrating violence. He also said, ‘and many of them are good people.’ Sen. Kaine, you keep leaving them out of your quote.”
And then Twitter exploded.
The Clinton campaign also seized on it quickly: www.thatMexicanthing.com now redirects to Hillary Clinton’s campaign website, and Clinton’s campaign is doing its darnedest to make the hashtag #ThatMexicanThing the takeaway from Tuesday’s debate.
It’s an illustration of just how savvy campaigns can be in the face of a losing performance, but it is also a reflection of what Kaine was trying do all night: sink Pence down to Trump’s level.
Vox isn’t so sure the strategy worked, but that’s not what Latino leaders are saying.
You’ve probably seen several videos from Clinton and groups supporting her with clips of Pence denying that Trump said the things he said, but this morning CNN put one out.
I really do think the tide has turned in Hillary’s favor, and the final blow could come in the second presidential debate on Sunday night.
What else is happening? What stories are you following today?
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