Thursday Reads: Enraged Media Strives to Prevent Glass Ceiling from Shattering
Posted: August 25, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Associated Press, Donald Trump, glass ceiling, Hillary Clinton, media lies, women's liberation, women's suffrage 36 Comments
Good Afternoon!!
Once again I’m struggling with a feeling of shock as I look at today’s headlines and listen to the useless TV talkers. I wonder if this sense of unreality will ever pass?
Donald Trump, a blatant racist, nativist, and pathological liar with literally no qualifications to hold any public office is actually running for President of the United States, and he’s getting very little real pushback from the mainstream media. He refuses to release his tax returns, provides only a ludicrous doctor’s letter, and says he’ll let his children take over his business dealing rather than divest himself of financial conflicts of interest. Can this really be happening here? Unfortunately, it is.
Meanwhile the press spends most of its energy running a witch hunt against Hillary Clinton, an eminently qualified candidate with a long history of public service. We’ve heard about her emails every single day for more than a year, and now we’re weathering a storm of attacks on the Clinton Global Initiative and charges that Clinton may have had contact with some donors to the charity while she was Secretary of State, although there’s no evidence of any wrongdoing on her part.
What is going on here? Once again, the only answer I can come up with is that a women is on the verge of becoming POTUS. Once again, Peter Daou has a great explanation: IT’S HAPPENING: The Fury Crashing Down on Hillary Is the Glass Ceiling Starting to Shatter.
America has never heard this crashing noise before. It’s the sound of the gender barrier breaking, of the highest glass ceiling shattering, of institutional gender bias resisting conquest — and losing.
November 8th will be the culminating moment, but the process is happening now: With each passing day, Hillary is powering forward in the face of a furious assault on her lifesaving foundation, her private email communications, her health, her family, her integrity. She is wrestling the monumental forces of misogyny and gaining the upper hand.
America has never been here before. We’ve never heard these thunderous noises. We’ve never navigated this terrain.
And we’ve never witnessed a candidate endure such a vicious double standard, such unrestrained attacks by the establishment media.
This is the process of smashing the ultimate gender barrier, this intense grind forward, this fury raining down on Hillary, this uncontrolled maligning of a powerful, dignified woman.
The conquest of institutional bias doesn’t happen in one day. Election Day is the climactic moment, but now is the time the glass is beginning to shatter and the shards are crashing down.
He’s right. Although the gender bias is often unconscious to those in media who are expressing it, we women can see it. We can hear the dog-whistles and the overt sexism followed by denials. It’s ugly and despicable, but we have to get through it. Hillary has been fighting for us for most of her life, and now we need to be strong for her.
At the Democratic Convention, President Obama said, “Carry her the same way you carried me.” That is what we will do. We will carry her across the finish line on November 8 and we will stand strong for her for the next four years. We must do this for ourselves, for our daughters and granddaughters and for our foremothers who fought for the vote, for the ERA, for reproductive rights, for protection from rape, incest, and domestic violence.
As we’ve seen with the first black President, the battle won’t be won just because we have a woman President, but it will be huge step toward real gender equality. We can tell how huge it is by the way the media is ignoring the historic nature of Hillary’s candidacy and their ravening attacks on her using anything thing think can be twisted somehow to hurt her in hopes of making her break down. They can’t beat her and they are getting angrier and angrier about their failure to destroy her.
And what of those politicians and media people who are enabling Donald Trump? Jorge Ramos writes at Time Magazine: Judgment Day Is Coming For Those Who Stay Silent on Donald Trump.
It doesn’t matter who you are—a journalist, a politician or a voter—we’ll all be judged by how we responded to Donald Trump. Like it or not, this election is a plebiscite on the most divisive, polarizing and disrupting figure in American politics in decades. And neutrality is not an option.
The day after the election will be too late. It was too late when we realized that there were no weapons of mass destruction after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. That horrible error of judgment by the Bush administration—and the lack of strength by those opposing the war—cost thousands of American and Iraqi lives. And nobody can even say that we won the war. But hopefully we can learn something from it.
Regardless of whether Donald Trump wins or loses, we will be asked on November 9th: What did you do? Did you support him? Were you brave enough, ethical enough, to challenge him when he insulted immigrants, Muslims, women, war heroes and people with disabilities? Are you on the record correcting his lies? Did you discuss with your friends and family that in a democracy like ours there is no room for racism and discrimination? Or did you just seat idly, silently, allowing others to decide the future of the United States?
Because you will be asked.
Trump has forced journalists to revisit rules of objectivity and fairness. Just providing both points of view is not enough in the current presidential campaign. If a candidate is making racist and sexist remarks, we cannot hide in the principle of neutrality. That’s a false equivalence.
Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite were right; sometimes you have to take a stand. They did it against the dangerous persecutions of Senator Joe McCarthy and in denouncing the pernicious official spin during the worst years of the Vietnam War.
Please read the rest at the link.
For the past couple of days, both big media and social media have been obsessed with a disgraceful story by the Associated Press about supposed conflicts of interest between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department. (The story has now been updated with reports on yesterday’s reactions.) The AP also sent two completely inaccurate tweets to promote an article that essentially found nothing. Here are some responses to the AP’s claims and their embarrassing refusal to correct their false tweets.
Matthew Yglesias: The AP’s big exposé on Hillary meeting with Clinton Foundation donors is a mess.
Tuesday afternoon, Stephen Braun and Eileen Sullivan of the Associated Press released the results of a review of State Department appointment data that they used to make some striking claims about Hillary Clinton’s schedule as secretary of state.
According to their reporting, Clinton spent a remarkably large share of her time as America’s chief diplomat talking to people who had donated money to the Clinton Foundation. She went out of her way to help these Clinton Foundation donors, and her decision to do so raises important concerns about the ethics of her conduct as secretary and potentially as president. It’s a striking piece of reporting that made immediate waves in my social media feed, as political journalists of all stripes retweeted the story’s headline conclusions.
Except it turns out not to be true. The nut fact that the AP uses to lead its coverage is wrong, and Braun and Sullivan’s reporting reveals absolutely no unethical conduct. In fact, they found so little unethical conduct that an enormous amount of space is taken up by a detailed recounting of the time Clinton tried to help a former Nobel Peace Prize winner who’s also the recipient of a Congressional Gold Medal and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Here’s the bottom line: Serving as secretary of state while your husband raises millions of dollars for a charitable foundation that is also a vehicle for your family’s political ambitions really does create a lot of space for potential conflicts of interest. Journalists have, rightly, scrutinized the situation closely. And however many times they take a run at it, they don’t come up with anything more scandalous than the revelation that maybe billionaire philanthropists have an easier time getting the State Department to look into their visa problems than an ordinary person would.
The AP spent quite a long time attacking Clinton for meeting with Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, whom they failed to note has been close friends with Hillary since 1983.
…the most extensively discussed case the AP could come up with is this:
Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering low-interest “microcredit” for poor business owners, met with Clinton three times and talked with her by phone during a period when Bangladeshi government authorities investigated his oversight of a nonprofit bank and ultimately pressured him to resign from the bank’s board. Throughout the process, he pleaded for help in messages routed to Clinton, and she ordered aides to find ways to assist him.
I have no particular knowledge of Yunus, Grameen Bank, or the general prospects of microcredit as a philanthropic venture. I can tell you, however, that Yunus not only won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize but has also been honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Congressional Gold Medal. In 2008 he was No. 2 on Foreign Policy’s list of the “top 100 global thinkers,” and Ted Turner put him on the board of the UN Foundation. He’s received the World Food Prize, the International Simon Bolivar Prize, and thePrince of Asturias Award for Concord.
In other words, he’s a renowned and beloved figure throughout the West, not some moneybags getting help from the State Department in exchange for cash. On the level of pure politics, of course, this is exactly the problem with the Clinton Foundation. Its existence turns the banal into a potential conflict of interest, and shutting it down is the right call. But the fact remains that this is a fantastically banal anecdote.
Read much more at the link.
More negative reactions to the AP reporting:
Matthew Yglesias: The AP’s defense of its bad Clinton Foundation story is also bad.
Washington Monthly: How the AP Spun the Story About the Clinton Foundation.
Inside Philanthropy: Once Again, the Media Gets It Wrong on the Clinton Foundation.
Tommy Christopher: Here’s Why Clinton Foundation Must Restrict Donations if Hillary Is Elected.
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/768806930584403974
This is only going to get worse. Many “journalists” seems to have turned into ravening wolves, hoping for an opportunity to tear Hillary Clinton into bloody bits of flesh. We can’t let them win. We must standing with Hillary. #ImWithHer
What else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links on any topic in the comment thread, and have a nice Thursday.
Tuesday Reads: The Insane Campaign
Posted: August 23, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Kimmel, lies, Melania Trump, perjury, Racism 58 Comments
Good Morning!!
Can this presidential campaign get any more ridiculous? I’m guessing it will. I know I’ve written this multiple times, but every morning I feel shocked all over again. On the days when I have to write a post, it’s even worse. I just can’t believe what is going on in the corporate media! As Donald Trump’s behavior gets more and more out-of-control insane, so-called “journalists” search for ways to make Hillary Clinton look equally horrible. It’s not working for them, and that has to be sooo frustrating.
Last night Hillary appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show and joked around about the conspiracy theories that Trump and his supporters are pushing about her health. The Washington Post reports:
It was a funny premise: Hillary Clinton would pick Donald Trump quotes out of a jar and try to read them with a straight face.
But when it came time for the last quote, she said she couldn’t even read it. She handed it to Jimmy Kimmel.
Kimmel read it: “‘I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.'” (Trump actually said this in 2006.) …..
“I do feel sometimes like this campaign has entered into an alternative universe,” she said. “I have to step into the alternative reality and, you know, answer questions about, am I alive, how much longer will I be alive, and the like.”
I know that feeling. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be the person who is dealing with all this right-wing craziness.
At NBC, First Read summarizes Trump’s efforts to get the media to make the campaign a referendum on Hillary Clinton and not on him. But could he ever really stand to have the attention on someone other than himself?
It’s time for a special prosecutor to look in the Clinton Foundation! Hillary Clinton has a health problem! Clinton and the Democrats are bad for minority voters! “Welcome to the Bannon campaign,” the New York Times’ Alex Burns observed, referring to new Trump campaign chief Steve Bannon of Breitbart News. Indeed, the Trump camp has been under new management for an entire week, and you see how it’s doing everything it can to turn this race from a referendum on Donald Trump — which it has been for months now — into a referendum on Hillary Clinton. Of course, there’s a legitimate question as to whether this will all work. After all, there’s no way the Obama administration will appoint a special prosecutor with 77 days before the election. And the allegations about Clinton’s health are unfounded — in fact, Clinton’s letter from Dr. Jeffrey Epstein is much more thorough than Trump’s four-paragraph letter (which begins “To Whom My Concern”). But you see what the Trump campaign is trying to do: Down in the polls, it’s trying to change the subject back to Clinton.
As for the Clinton Foundation, here’s what Trump said about it campaigning last night in Akron, OH: “Her foundation took in large payments from major corporations and wealthy individuals, foreign and domestic, and all the while she was Secretary of State. The Clinton Foundation accepted as much as $60 million from Middle Eastern countries that oppress women, gays and people of different faiths.” More Trump: “The amounts involved, the favors done and the significant numbers of times it was done require an expedited investigation by a special prosecutor immediately, immediately, immediately.”
And he continued his pretend pitch to minority voters, delivered to a lily-white audience in Akron, Ohio:
Over the past week, Donald Trump has been making a pitch to minority voters. And it’s easy to see how it’s likely to fall on deaf ears, especially since he’s been making it in front of nearly all-white crowds. “Crime at levels that nobody has seen, you can go to war zones in countries that we’re fighting, and it’s safer than living in some of our inner cities. They’re run by the Democrats,” Trump said in Akron, OH last night. “And I ask you this, I ask you this, crime, all of the problems, to the African Americans, who I employ so many, so many people, to the Hispanics, tremendous people — what the hell do you have to lose? Give me a chance. I’ll straighten it out, I’ll straighten it out. What do you have to lose?”
First read left out a scary ad lib by Trump last night.
“Walk down the street and you get shot.” Wow.
Corey Lewandowski, the CNN “commentator” who is also being paid by the Trump campaign, explained why Trump “reaches out” to African Americans while speaking to all-white audiences. T-Bogg at Raw Story: Trump avoids speaking to black voters because he’s not safe in their communities.
Lewandowski was part of a panel Monday night hosted by Anderson Cooper when he was asked why Trump doesn’t appeal to black voter by actually meeting with them instead of talking about them in front of predominately white audiences.
“You know what’s amazing to me is that no one remembers Donald Trump went to go have a rally in Chicago at the university. And remember what happened?” Lewandowski began. “It was so chaotic and it was so out-of-control that the Secret Service and the Chicago Police Department told him you cannot get in and out of the facility safely. And that rally was cancelled.”
Several panelists jumped in with the same question: “What does that have to do with communicating with the black community?”
“Look!” Lewandowski shot back. “That is a black community. He went to the heart of Chicago to give a speech to the University of Chicago in a campus that is predominately African-American to make that argument. And you know what happened? The campus was overrun and it was not a safe environment.”
Panelist Angela Rye replied, “Would you acknowledge that not all black communities all over the country are still not monolithic. So if he tried the same thing in Cleveland–”
Lewandowski immediately cut her off, saying “He tried to go to Chicago and wasn’t allowed to make the speech–” as Rye shot back, “What about Dallas? What about Los Angeles?”
Here’s Jill Lawrence at USA Today on whether any of us should “take a chance” on Donald Trump: Change is not your friend this year.
What do you have to lose? Donald Trump keeps asking African Americans. But really that’s his question to all of us. The core premise of his campaign is that our country is so weak, and our leaders are such losers, that we should put all our money on Trump the wild card, the savior. The restoration to greatness is at hand, but only if we choose him.
Trump made that explicit the other day by christening himself “Mr. Brexit.” He’s the candidate of disruptive change, exciting and unsettling and the ride of your life. What we can expect the day after Hurricane Trump makes landfall at the White House? Hey, don’t harsh the euphoria.
Here’s the thing, though. Trump may be asking “what do you have to lose?” as a rhetorical question, but there’s an answer to it, and that answer is “an enormous amount.”
I’m not even talking about the temperament issues that unnerve so many in both parties as they contemplate a President Trump in charge of nuclear codes, the military and relationships across the globe. Let’s look purely at economics and other indicators of national health.
The stock market continues to set new records during President Obama’s tenure, andonly George H.W. Bush presided over a bull market for more of his time in office. The jobs report for July, released on Aug. 5, was so positive that conservative economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin called it impressive, “strong across the board,” and “the first month in recent memory that doesn’t have some significant downside.” Republican leaders were silent rather than issuing their usual negative responses….
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of overseas contract jobs for veterans available. But not all of these jobs are for “private security contractors,” you know, the scary looking guys with even scarier looking weapons. While “private security contractors” are the ones that seem to make all the headlines, there are many other overseas contract jobs available.
…black Americans, like all Americans, would stand to lose plenty under President Trump. They’d have to put up with his inaccurate stereotyping of African Americans and hostility to the Black Lives Matter movement. From a pocketbook standpoint, his protectionist views could trigger trade wars and higher consumer prices. And he’d revive trickle-down economics, a major contrast to Obama policies that have directed resources to low-income rather than high-income Americans.
Do we really want to trade what gains we’ve made for a guy whose new tax plan is a boon for wealthy Americans, the national debt and lenders like China? As acerbic liberal Jason Sattler (aka @LOLGOP) put it on Twitter, “Trump is offering ‘change’ the way a high-impact collision with a tree offers your car ‘customizing.’ ”
I’ve been reading David Cay Johnston’s new book, The Making of Donald Trump. Whatever horrors you read in the media are just the tip of the iceberg. I can’t believe the dishonesty of this man. Sometimes I have to take breaks from reading just to recover a sense of normalcy. I can’t even imagine what would happen to the global economy if he somehow became POTUS.
Just check out this new story at Huffington Post: Donald Trump Jacked Up His Campaign’s Trump Tower Rent Once Someone Else Was Paying For It. HuffPo doesn’t allow cutting and pasting anymore, so I can’t excerpt from the article; but here are the basics. Trump “quintupled” the rent on his Trump Tower headquarters to $169, 758 beginning last month. Read much more about the Trump campaign’s spending at the link above.
Melania Trump has also run into some dishonesty issues. Raw Story: REVEALED: Melania Trump outright lied under oath about having a college degree.
Melania Trump’s website was yanked offline in July when discrepancies surfaced about her claim that she graduated with a degree in architecture from the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. She, in fact, did not graduate, rather she only attended classes before moving on to a modeling career and coming to the United States under possibly illegal visas.
Now it seems, new evidence shows that Trump may have lied about her degree under oath, which would make her guilty of perjury.
The case involved a now-defunct caviar skincare line, which Racked.com recalls Melania Trump promoted on “Good Morning America,” her husband’s show “The Apprentice” and on CNBC, but ultimately never made it to the market. The contract Trump had with a cosmetic company called New Sunshine LLC imploded when friend Steve Hilbert was fired from the company by another Trump friend, John Menard.
The case ended up in court, where Melania was required to testify.
“Where were you born, Mrs. Trump?” the attorney asked.
“I was born in Slovenia,” she answered.
“Would you please explain to the Judge your formal education including what schools you attended and from which you graduated?” the attorney requested.
“I attended and graduated from design school, from fashion and Industrial Design School and also attended, graduated from architecture degree, bachelor degree,” she testified under oath.
The controls for a hydraulic leveler is present on the wall near the dock opening. This dock equipment Las Vegas NV is the best choice for high capacity loading and provides smooth and quiet operation. Upgrade your website now with the help of our web designers to learn more Click Through to the Following Web Page – WebDesign499.
As was revealed in July after Trump’s plagiarism scandal, that isn’t an accurate account of Trump’s educational background. She does not have an architecture degree, nor did she graduate with a bachelor’s degree.
That’s all I have for you today. What new horrors will Tuesday bring? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread below.
Monday Reads: Stranger than Fiction and all that jazz
Posted: August 22, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections | Tags: Donald Trump, hate crimes, Loch Ness monster, white nationalists, White supremacists 26 CommentsGood Afternoon!!!
Today is the Anniversary of the first sighting of the Loch Ness Monster back in the 1930s. I figure that’s as good of a place as any to start our reads today because everything else is a lot less believable. This is the type of monster sighting I’d like to read about. Unfortunately, it’s not the kind of monster sighting we get today.
Newly published documents reveal that a Scottish police official in the 1930s believed ‘beyond doubt’ that the Loch Ness monster existed. Expert Loren Coleman says it reveals the government’s longstanding policy to protect the mythic beast.
I’m pretty much turning into a victim of shaken head syndrome because I find myself doing that or picking my jaw up off the floor nearly daily. Every day there’s a monster sighting on the internet. Perhaps having a major political party elect a known-nothing reality TV star for president has something to do with it. Donald Trump has this way of bringing out the worst in people and bringing out the worst people. He is the monster we see today on the internet and on TV and he brings a lot of them with him.
This is not a headline I expected to see over the weekend or even these days. That is until the Donald stirred the White Supremacy pot. “Armed, Confederate flag-waving White Lives Matter protesters rally outside Houston NAACP.” Houston, you have a problem.
White Lives Matter staged a rally outside the NAACP’s Houston headquarters on Sunday, sparking controversy and counter-protests in a city where racial tensions remain high after a string of recent incidents.
Clutching Confederate flags, white supremacist signs and, in several cases, assault rifles, roughly 20 White Lives Matter members stood on the sidewalk of a historically black neighborhood to denounce the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“We came out here specifically today to protest against the NAACP and their failure in speaking out against the atrocities that organizations like Black Lives Matter and other pro-black organizations have caused the attack and killing of white police officers, the burning down of cities and things of that nature,” organizer Ken Reed told the Houston Chronicle. “If they’re going to be a civil rights organization and defend their people, they also need to hold their people accountable.”
Reed, who was wearing a “Donald Trump ’16” hat and a “White Lives Matter” shirt with white supremacist symbols, said protesters were “not out here to instigate or start any problems,” despite the weaponry and body armor on display.
Of course! No one whose been listening to Trump spout his “second amendment solutions” advice has any malice or intent to do harm to anyone! This guy in Tulsa, Oklahoma–as an example–was just exercising his metaphorical 
constitutional rights a few weeks ago too!
For years, the Jabara family says, their Tulsa neighbor terrorized them.
He called them names — “dirty Arabs,” “filthy Lebanese,” they said.
He hurled racial epithets at those who came to work on their lawns, they alleged.
He ran Haifa Jabara over with his car and went to court for it.
And it all came to a head last week when the man, Stanley Vernon Majors, walked up to the front steps of the family home and shot and killed Khalid Jabara, police said.
“The frustration that we continue to see anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, xenophobic rhetoric and hate speech has unfortunately led up to a tragedy like this,” it said.
Or this guy that gunned down an Imam in NYC with his assistant. Just a white guy waxing in that special first amendment way and exercising his second amendment solutions.
Saturday’s shooting was not the first incident of violence to hit this growing Bangladeshi community, which straddles the border between the New York boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn.
For years, attacks have happened, most frequently during Ramadan, the holiest month of the Islamic calendar, when activity at the five neighborhood mosques peaks. Police bolstered patrolling efforts and stationed officers outside of mosques during the month. For the most part, community members said their presence has been helpful.
But protection during Ramadan is not enough, Hoque said.
“I feel like 106 Precinct is very lazy because they don’t have enough patrolman in our area,” she said. At the rally, Hoque said she witnessed community members, usually on the side of the police, levy similar charges.
While some uneasy neighborhood residents believe the need for more robust policing is greater than ever, some younger community members feel it is time to lessen the community’s dependence on police.
On Wednesday afternoon, the men of Al-Furqan Jame Masjid were gathered in the prayer space, which amounted to little more than two adjoining rooms cooled by an array of three-armed ceiling fans. There, they discussed plans for succession and next steps.
Mohamed Amen, an Egyptian-American police officer in the community affairs bureau, was among the men seated in front of the crowd of 30 men.
During his comments, Officer Amen reiterated that morning’s news: the charges against Oscar Morel, the suspected killer, had been changed from second-degree murder to first-degree murder. If convicted, he explained, the assailant could face life in prison without parole.
“Alhamdulilah,” a few men murmured in unison. Thank God.
Then he addressed the matter of motive. “I can tell you that the hate crimes unit is conducting its own investigation,” he said.
Travel.Scotland, Oddities. pic: June 1969. American submarine expert Dan Taylor sits in the cockpit of his 20 foot submarine at Loch Ness, where he will go underwater to search for the Loch Ness Monster. PPP
It does seem that some Republicans and former Trump supporters are beginning to understand that Trump appears to be leading a movement of white nationalists and supremacists. This is despite the attempt by some to dress the wolf up in sheep’s clothing.
Donald Trump is alienating his own supporters because of his sometimes “erratic” and inflammatory ad hominem attacks, according to a focus group held Saturday by pollster and Republican strategist Frank Luntz.
“He was my first choice. But just along the way, he has — I guess you can say he’s lost me,” one participant said in the focus group, which aired Sunday as a segment on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I’m not saying there’s no chance of turning but he’s become outrageous. I mean, we all have thoughts, but I think he speaks without thinking.”
The panel, conducted in Pennsylvania, only had a handful of attendees that were still committed to supporting the GOP nominee. Several more participants once backed Trump but no longer do.
“When he initially began to run, he gave voice to a lot of the frustrations that I was feeling about how government is working or more to the point not working,” one man, Michael R., said. “But since then, he’s been running as a 12 year old and changes his positions every news cycle, so you don’t even know where he stands on the issues.”
Another, Howard E. chimed in: “Whenever somebody makes a derogatory comment to him, like in a democratic convention, Trump feels like he needs to attack that person. And he says things that are crazy. And I keep asking myself: is this the kind of person I want to handle the nuclear codes?”
Luntz followed up, asking, “what’s the answer?”
Howard responded: “No way.”
If Republicans are looking for a kinder, gentler, more presidential Donald Trump, they aren’t getting him today. He was more preoccupied with gossiping about Morning Joke and Mika then doing outreach to African Americans with “nothing to lose”.
On Monday morning he trained his Twitter fire at the MSNBC show “Morning Joe,” formerly one of his favorite places to campaign.
Trump criticized “Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski in highly personal terms, calling her “off the wall, a neurotic and not very bright mess!”He also implied that Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough have been secretly dating. He called them “two clowns.”
The comments about Brzezinski were reminiscent of Trump’s highly personal attacks against Fox host Megyn Kelly.
The co-hosts were in the middle of a three-hour live broadcast at the time and had been highly critical of Trump earlier in the morning.
Scarborough responded during a commercial break, stating that “Clinton is targeting key swing states today while Trump starts his day obsessed with cable news hosts while channeling Gawker.”
He ended the tweet with one of Trump’s favorite put-downs: “SAD!”
More people are beginning to worry that his end game is actually to start a Alt-right/White Nationalist media empire given his thrown in with both Alec Jones and Steve Bannon.
Has Donald Trump given up on winning the White House and “pivoted” (this might be his real pivot) to a full-blown effort to build a national following that will outlast the election, perhaps allowing him to establish a media empire with him at the helm — one that caters, at least to some degree, to a white nationalist or “alt-right” audience? Was that his plan all along?
The last few days have brought fresh reporting and evidence that suggest this is where Trump is really headed, a scenario that a numberof observers (your humble blogger included) have been speculating about for months. I thought it would be useful to round up this evidence:
* Vanity Fair media writer Sarah Ellison reports in a radio interviewthat Trump has had private discussions with his inner circle about “how to monetize” the new audience he’s built up. As Ellison puts it, this potential goal should no longer be seen as “speculation.”
* The New York Times reports today that in July, Trump’s campaign “spent more on renting arenas for his speeches” than he did on setting up a national field operation, leaving him with no operation to speak of. That is consistent with the idea that Trump (as I’ve speculated) is very consciously sinking most of his resources into a format (rallies) that allows him to continue staging his unique form of raucous WWE-style political entertainment, and building an audience that thrills to it, rather than winning a general election.
Meanwhile, Campaign Mommy Kellyanne Conway insists that the Donald doesn’t hurl any personal insults.
In February, Conway called Trump’s attacks on rivals like Cruz “vulgar.”
“Do I want somebody who hurls personal insults,” she asked on CNN, “or who goes and talks about philosophical differences?”
On Sunday, though, Conway claimed that Trump’s tone has changed and that he’s already made a pivot “on substance.”
“He doesn’t hurl personal insults,” she said. “What he’s doing is he’s challenging the Democratic Party. He’s challenging Hillary Clinton and President Obama’s legacy.”
She’s been mommysplaining her “pivots” from the Cruz campaign to the Trump nearly all weekend. It’s really pretty disgusting and disingenuous which appear to be her trademarks. However, there’s no way to mommysplain Steven Bannon who has been labelled “the most dangerous political operative in America” and wants to take down establishment Republicans as well as democrats. Check this piece about him out even though it’s from last year.
While attacking the favored candidates in both parties at once may seem odd, Bannon says he’s motivated by the same populist disgust with Washington that’s animating candidates from Trump to Bernie Sanders. Like both, Bannon is having a bigger influence than anyone could have reasonably expected. But in the Year of the Outsider, it’s perhaps fitting that a figure like Bannon, whom nobody saw coming, would roil the national political debate.
The biggest scare now is that Trump has been priming the pump about rigged elections and evil media plots against him. Given that his followers now regularly threaten the media and a few of them are using their second amendment solutions are immigrants, what can we expect when he loses? Will we have the police dealing with the well-armed League of Angry White men?
“Among the values most necessary for a functioning democracy is the peaceful transition of power that’s gone on uninterrupted since 1797. What enables that is the acceptance of the election’s outcome by the losers,” said Steve Schmidt, the GOP operative who was McCain’s campaign strategist in 2008.
“Here you have a candidate after a terrible three weeks, which has all been self-inflicted, saying the only way we lose is if it’s ‘rigged’ or stolen — in a media culture where people increasingly don’t buy into generally accepted facts and turn to places to have their opinions validated where there’s no wall between extreme and mainstream positions. That’s an assault on some of the pillars that undergird our system. People need to understand just how radical a departure this is from the mean of American politics.”
Should Trump opt not to concede after a loss or deliberately roil his supporters and spark uprisings by refusing to accept the legitimacy of the election results, he would still have little recourse to alter a significant electoral victory for Clinton. Only if the election were close, hinging on one or two states where there were alleged voting irregularities, could Trump seriously contest the result in court.
But beyond who wins the White House in November, many Republicans fear that Trump’s efforts to diminish people’s confidence in mainstream media, fair elections and politics itself will have a lasting impact.
I’m expecting a good deal of these dudes will not go quietly into that great night. Frankly, I hope the police are up to it. There’s a reliance on conspiracy theories and monster sightings that scares the bejeebus out of me. It’s hard to know what exactly what folks like this will do when backed into reality. The Donald Trump monster is not fake in the traditional sense of monster sightings. He’s more than real even though everything he promises, affirms as truth, and does is not particularly real.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Lazy Saturday Reads: Trump’s Epic Meltdown Continues
Posted: August 20, 2016 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: African American voters, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Paul Manafort, Racism, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin 15 Comments
Good Afternoon!!
Yesterday, Trump fan Chris Matthews devoted much of his 7PM Hardball program to praising Donald Trump’s supposed “modulation” of his “tone.” By the time the rerun of the program aired at 10PM, it was already obsolete. Trump had given a speech in Michigan in which he blatantly lied about the state’s economy and delivered more stunning insults to black voters while speaking to a nearly all-white audience. The Detroit News reports:
DIMONDALE — On his second visit to Michigan in two weeks, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Friday blasted Democratic policies he said have destroyed Detroit and other urban centers and called for African Americans to support him, saying blacks cannot expect change otherwise….
Trump’s remarks, however, seemed somewhat out of place, given that he was delivering it in a hall outside Lansing, halfway across the state from the Detroit. He also hammered away on a message than Michigan manufacturing is in the dumps, just days after Gov. Rick Snyder — also a Republican — noted that unemployment in the state has dropped to its lowest levels since the early 2000s.
“Your business and plants have been ripped out,” said Trump, who repeated earlier promises to stop manufacturing from leaving Michigan — even though auto jobs are up sharply since the depths of the 2007-9 recession….
Trump said “the Michigan manufacturing sector is a disaster,” and no sector has been hurt more by “Hillary Clinton’s policies than the auto sector,” statements which seemed to ignore that since the rescue of General Motors and Chrysler in 2008-9, auto manufacturing jobs in Michigan have grown from 22,800 to 38,200 and auto parts jobs also have grown, from 73,400 to 162,800.
Artist unknown
Trump’s message to black voters:
“What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump?” he asked of blacks.
Trump noted that Detroit is the most violent city in America — a statistic he didn’t back up but Detroit does show up at or near the top of lists of major cities in terms of violent crime and murders — and said he could work changes on the city if elected. A recent EPIC-MRA poll reported by the Free Press last week showed Trump behind Clinton in Michigan by a margin on 85%-2%, with 10% undecided.
“It’s time to hold Democratic politicians accountable for what they have done to these communities,” Trump said. “At what point do we say enough?”
“I will produce for the African Americans,” he said. “All the Democrats have done is taken advantage of your vote. … You have nothing to lose.”
But that’s not all. Trump went off-script with these lovely remarks (h/t Slate):
“What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump?” he said. “What do you have to lose? You’re living in poverty; your schools are no good; you have no jobs; 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?”
Never mind that Trump—who recently polled at 1 percent among black voters in a nationwide survey—was treating black people as a monolithic group of poor, unemployed people. His ad-libbed “what the hell do you have to lose” line sounded very much like Trump thinks he knows what’s better for black voters than they know for themselves….
There were other moments where Trump veered wildly off-script in a way that seemed absurd. Specifically, Trump said that he would not just win this election, but win re-election in 2020 with 95 percent of black voters supporting him—again, earlier this month Trump’s polling among black voters was somewhere between 1 and 4 percent.
“At the end of four years, I guarantee you that I will get 95 percent of the African-American vote,” he said. “I promise you, because I will produce for the inner cities and I will produce for the African-Americans.”
Darren Thompson
Cable news commentators are speculating that these disgusting remarks about black people are probably aimed at college-educated Republican women who have abandoned Trump in droves. I can’t imagine it will work.
Philip Bump responded to some of the charges made by Trump: It’s hard to imagine a much worse pitch Donald Trump could have made for the black vote.
Consider: Black Americans are not “living in poverty” as a general rule. A quarter of the black population is, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, about the same as the percentage of Hispanics. In Michigan, the figure is slightly higher. Most black Americans don’t live in poverty, just as most white Americans don’t.
Consider: The unemployment rate in the black community is higher than that in the white community, as it has been since the Department of Labor started keeping track. Among young blacks, though, the figure is not 59 percent — unless (as Politifact noted) you consider not the labor force butevery young black American, including high school students. Many young black high school students are unemployed. This isn’t a metric that Labor typically uses, for obvious reasons, but calculating the rates for young whites gives you about 50 percent, too.
Consider: Black voters are perfectly able to evaluate candidates on qualities other than their political parties. Black voters began supporting the Democratic Party heavily thanks to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Since then, they have consistently voted for the party — a party that is one-fifth black and which since 1964 has elected the vast majority of the black members of Congress. (This line of argument from Al Sharpton in 2004 is worth a read.) Democrats win the support of black voters consistently because those voters like the work that they do and like the fights that they fight.
When Barack Obama won reelection in 2012, 93 percent of black Americans thought he was doing a good job as president. That’s also the percentage of the vote he received, according to exit polls, beating Mitt Romney by 87 points.
And yet, somehow, Trump is doing worse.
Les Muses, Maurice Denis
There’s much more at the Washington Post link above. The gist is that Donald Trump is pathetically ignorant about the lives of African Americans.
Yesterday Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort resigned after being pushed aside in the latest campaign shakeup and after multiple revelations about his involvement with foreign leaders close to Russia. Politico has all the gory details: Inside the fall of Paul Manafort.
According to Politico, Manafort told Trump in early August that the stories coming out about his foreign consulting and lobbying would become a “distraction” and he wanted to come up with a new leadership plan just in case.
Although Manafort told associates that he thought he would be able to weather the controversy, his meeting with Trump nonetheless sparked internal discussions about changes to the campaign’s senior management structure. They included elevating pollster Kellyanne Conway, who had been brought onto the campaign last month, into a more senior role, and also officially bringing on Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon, who had been informally advising people around the campaign for months.
Still, Manafort associates said, he hoped he could ride out the storm and remain with the campaign until the end. That’s despite what the associates characterize as Manafort’s growing frustration with Trump’s unwillingness to embrace advice for a more scripted, measured tone and a greater reliance on more traditional campaign tactics.
But it quickly became clear that Manafort would have to go. More details about the crumbling mess of a campaign at the link.
Cocotte, reading, by Camille Pissarro
There’s a federal investigation now, and it involves the Podesta Group, which is currently being run by Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s brother. Rosie Gray at Buzzfeed: Top Firms Lawyer Up In Ukraine–Manafort Lobbying Controversy
Two powerful Washington lobbying firms are engaging outside counsel after becoming embroiled in a controversy over undisclosed foreign lobbying by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy.
The situation concerns a period between 2012 and 2014, when the Podesta Group and Mercury Public Affairs worked on behalf the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. The Brussels-based nonprofit is closely linked to the Party of Regions, the political party of Ukraine’s pro-Russian ex-president Viktor Yanukovych.
Manafort and his associate Rick Gates connected the European Centre with the two firms, according to the AP, which also reported that Gates personally gave instructions to Mercury and Podesta Group employees in a lobbying effort on behalf of Ukrainian officials. At the time, Manafort and Gates were consulting for Yanukovych in Ukraine. The AP’s story showed that Manafort and Gates had acted as unregistered foreign agents, never disclosing their work for the Ukrainians to the Department of Justice, as is required under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Now, the Podesta Group is acknowledging that the European Centre may have been directed by the Party of Regions and has hired outside lawyers to advise on the situation.
“The firm has retained Caplin & Drysdale as independent, outside legal counsel to determine if we were misled by the Centre for a Modern Ukraine or any other individuals with regard to the Centre’s potential ties to foreign governments or political parties,” Podesta Group CEO Kimberly Fritts said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “When the Centre became a client, it certified in writing that ‘none of the activities of the Centre are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed or subsidized in whole or in part by a government of a foreign country or a foreign political party.’ We relied on that certification and advice from counsel in registering and reporting under the Lobbying Disclosure Act rather than the Foreign Agents Registration Act. We will take whatever measures are necessary to address this situation based on Caplin & Drysdale’s review, including possible legal action against the Centre.”
Much more at the link.
John L. Wellington
As Trump melts down, the media has tried to get voters outraged about “scandals” involving Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Clinton Global Foundation; but so far it’s not working very well. Trump’s high profile flame-out is getting most of the attention. There’s so much happening that I can’t possibly cover all of it, but here are a few more interesting links to check out.
NYT: In Maze of Trump’s Empire, Unknown Ties and $650 Million in Debt.
Sarah Kenzior at Quartz: Donald Trump’s bromance with Vladimir Putin underscores an unsettling truth about the two leaders.
Former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul at the WaPo: Why Putin wants a Trump victory (so much he might even be trying to help him).
Ruth Marcus at the WaPo: Trump’s Sickening attacks on Clinton’s health.
Daily News Bin: Donald Trump goes to Louisiana flooding site, spends a minute handing out Play-Doh, leaves.
Buzzfeed: Trump Campaign Manager On Manafort: “He Was Asked” To Resign.
Politico: Republicans prep ‘break glass’ emergency plan as Trump tumbles.
Christian Science Monitor: Trump hands his campaign to the ‘alt-right’ movement.
What else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a great weekend!
Friday Reads: Rearranging the Deck Chairs in Das Führerbunker
Posted: August 19, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, Afternoon Reads, Andrew Breitbart | Tags: Donald Trump, Katrina Pierson, Kellyanne Conway, Paul Manafort, Stephen Bannon 51 CommentsGood Afternoon and Welcome to Day 32 of America Held Hostage by the RNC!
When is an apology not an apology?
When the campaign mommy makes you do it and you can’t even bring yourself to mention all the folks you trashed,hurt, bullied and sicced the League of Angry White men on like reporters, women, and helpless children who just want their families to stay together, etc. This blatant, pandering play for the votes of suburban white women comes from the same Kellyanne Conway that tries to stop Republicans saying dumb things about women’s bodies and specifically rape and abortion. This woman makes Phyllis Schafly and Cersei Lannister look like your average fairy godmother. Snakes would be embarrassed to compare their tongues with hers. They would definitely come up very short and straight.
Conway spent time on Hardball last evening patiently explaining how women were the real victims of abortion service providers and it was a matter of time before the wonderful people in the forced birth movement would get Donald to use the right code words. That’s what it’s all about now. She also wants to unleash the inner Trump again but oddly enough it includes teleprompter speeches that appear to be written by Stephen Bannon and edited for woman appeal by Cersei Conway.
They’ve gone full throttle Breithbart while trying to fake it at rallies with teleprompter speeches to get educated white people and white women in the suburbans to ignore the Stormfront material and realize that Donald is just being Donald and just doesn’t select his words quite right since he’s not a real politician. She followed the ever-delusional Katrina Pierson in the increasingly-disgusting MSNBC guest schedule yesterday. Pierson diagnosed Hillary Clinton with Dysphasia on MTP Daily. Too bad the Doctor diagnosing the Donald can’t do another weird diagnosis and the fake one they tried earlier didn’t pass muster. Meanwhile, Pierson–who actually works for Kellyanne now–spewed this weirdness yesterday.
The Trump spokeswoman was at it yet again, telling MSNBC’s Kristin Welker that Clinton is suffering from a rare brain disorder known as dysphasia.
In the MSNBC interview, after she tried to blame Michael Cohen’s #SaysWho exchange on technical difficulties, Pierson decided to diagnose the former Secretary of State with a rare brain disorder. Basing everything on fake reports from4chan,
In a later interview, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza remarked that the Pierson segment “was among the five most remarkable” Pierson interviews he’s seen, acknowledging that while she’s known to say crazy shit all the time, this was truly off the deep end. He also stated that the hit showed that there would be no pivot, other than the Trump campaign is going to triple down on crazy.
Just to recap Katrina Pierson’s last week or so:
— says President Obama started the War in Afghanistan
— states that liberal reporters are “literally” beating up Trump supporters
— denies that there was a campaign shakeup after Trump placed two new people into leadership roles
— diagnoses Clinton with brain damage
Less than 90 days left of this folks. I think we can make it. I hope so.
Kellyanne–when asked by Tweety if this tact wasn’t a bit ratfuckerish–explained that she wasn’t a doctor and wanted Trump to stick to the issues. If that’s
the case, why don’t we see Katrina Pierson’s real unemployment check today? Believe me, just watch an interview with this woman and you’ll realize what a twisted sister she really is. Actually, either of them–but especially Kellyanne –can spin a tale that sounds somewhat plausible if you’re into wicked twisted stepsisters.
Let’s sum up the possible folks who really deserve a specific apology instead of a generic mea cupa event meant to endear the press and confuse white women.
https://twitter.com/BenjySarlin/status/766676858498932736
The press seems to have a short memory but he’s really relying on key white voting constituencies to have even shorter memories. Will this really make them feel okay voting for this small-fingered vulgarian?
Three and a half months after sealing the Republican nomination, Donald Trump pivoted to contest the general election on Thursday night, expressing regret for his past failures to “choose the right words” and delivering one of the most comprehensive, on-message rationales for his candidacy to date.
Speaking from prepared remarks on the heels of another staffing shakeup, Trump positioned himself as the champion of voiceless Americans against a corrupt and incompetent elite and the leader of an inclusive movement who repeatedly condemned “bigotry.”
His address, delivered at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, presented the sort of message Republican leaders have been waiting months to hear. But with 82 days left until the election and early voting only weeks away, even a flawless sprint to the finish line may be too little too late for Trump to salvage his flailing campaign.
Early in his remarks, the New York businessman nodded at the months he has squandered, acknowledging that his own mouth had hindered his candidacy. “Sometimes in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that,” Trump said to laughter and cheers from his supporters.
“And believe it or not I regret it. And I do regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. Too much is at stake is for us to be consumed by these issues, but one thing I can promise you is this. I will always tell you the truth,” said Trump, who did not specify which words he regrets saying.
The press is probably more gullible than Walmart or Security moms.
Meanwhile, Paul Manafort has quit and will undoubtedly be facing a number of FBI inquiries. Bye Bye now!!! Out the moondoor with you!!
Trump campaign chairman and chief strategist Paul Manafort resigned on Friday, following a staff shake-up this week that reduced his role in the campaign.
GOP nominee Donald Trump confirmed the resignation in a statement: “This morning Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign. I am very appreciative for his great work in helping to get us where we are today, and in particular his work guiding us through the delegate and convention process. Paul is a true professional and I wish him the greatest success.”
Meanwhile, lurking at the edge of darkness remains Stephen Bannon who put the Go in Goebbels. Every one’s hair continues to go on fire about this dude including people that have worked for him as BB indicated yesterday.
A former Breitbart News spokesman slammed Donald Trump’s new campaign chief executive, Stephen Bannon, for allegedly using racistrhetoric during editorial meetings at Breitbart that he said sounded “like a white supremacist rally,” while a Trump ally calls the new CEO a positive addition to the team. Both men joined this week’s episode of ABC News’ Powerhouse Politics podcast.
Kurt Bardella, who worked with Bannon at Breitbart for two years, says the former Breitbart News chairman regularly disparaged minorities, women, and immigrants during daily editorial calls at the publication.
ABC News reached out to Bannon for comment but did not receive a response.
“If anyone sat there and listened to that call, you’d think that you were attending a white supremacist rally,” said Bardella, citing what he called Bannon’s “nationalism and hatred for immigrants, people coming into this country to try to get a better life for themselves.”
“This is someone who has a very low moral compass,” he said of Bannon, “and the idea that this is the type of person that Donald Trump, as the Republican nominee, as president, would have closest to him is very disturbing.”
Bardella joined this week’s episode of “Powerhouse Politics” podcastwith ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl and ABC News Deputy Political Director Shushannah Walshe to discuss the recent shakeup in the Trump campaign.
“I think it’s incredibly concerning and dangerous actually to have someone have this kind of influence with the person who is running for president of the United States, who would be a top adviser if he were to win the election,” he cautioned.
Bardella quit Breitbart in March in protest over how he believes the news organization handled allegations by then-reporter Michelle Fieldsthat she was manhandled by Trump’s campaign manager at the time,Corey Lewandowski. Police charges filed against Lewandowski in the case were later dropped. Bardella said he believes the Breitbart News organization did not defend Fields over the incident.
Who would ever thought that we’d have an Epic Cartoon Villain and his team against Hillary Clinton this time out?
Donald Trump
Is the Lex Luthor of our time
When, exactly, did Donald Trump cross over—going from rank assholery into real-deal, can’t-not-watch, like-chugging-spoiled-milk super-villainevil? If we had to place it, it started after he called the good people of Mexico rapists, but definitely before he called for a ban on all Muslims. Because what’s so delightful about Trump’s villainy is how lazy it is—how drowsily he shifted from hollering about his BEST AND CLASSIEST campaign to pure, raw racism and misogyny. Maybe Donald Trump hates women, and Muslims, and our socialist Kenyan president. (Okay, he definitely does.) But the super-villain-y part is that he didn’treeeally hate them until it was politically expedient.
Trump is truly the villain we deserve in 2016—and not because he wants to take over the world. It’s because he’s after something far, far scarier: applause. — Sam Schube
Stay tuned. It’s likely to get much worse.
As an example, check out the new Trump ad.
Last night, Donald Trump delivered a speech in which he spoke in soothing tones about the need to unify the country and expressed “regret” about any remarks that have caused “personal pain,” though he didn’t specify which particular remarks he regrets. This led some commentators to suggest that another “pivot” is underway.
This morning, Trump released his first general election ad, an ugly and dishonest production which shows he isn’t changing a thing.
In fact, the new ad is filled with precisely the same sort of dark, dystopian themes and content — and even some of the same sort of grainy, dark footage depicting illegal immigrants as invaders — that marked one of the first ads he ran during the GOP primaries.
Meh, more of the same!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Recent Comments