ON THE RECORD. . .
“I’ve never seen anything like that. That's just awful. I mean a candidate used the intelligence professionals who were briefing him in an absolutely nonpolitical setting, he imputed to them views that were politically useful to him in the moment” -- Former CIA Director Michael Hayden. 9/08/16
“What's the best way to repudiate that kind of underhanded, mean-spirited effort to deprive people of their votes? Get out and vote and make it clear we're not putting up with that! These laws are a blast from the Jim Crow past and they have no place in 21st century America.” -- Hillary Clinton on N.C. 9/08/16
Imagine how history would judge today’s Americans if, looking back at this election, the record showed that voters empowered a dangerous man because of . . . a minor email scandal. There is no equivalence between Ms. Clinton’s wrongs and Mr. Trump’s manifest unfitness for office. -- Washington Post Editorial 9/09/16
Over seven decades, there’s one continuous theme to Trump’s life story: This is a narcissist who has no core. The lights are on, but no one’s home.” -- Nicholas Kristof in the NY Times. 9/08/16
“I do hate them. I hate some of these people, but I’ll be honest, I would never kill them.” — Donald Trump, saying that even though Vladimir Putin has been accused of killing journalists, “I’m totally against that.” 12/21/15
“Other than destroying every instrument of democracy in his own country, having opposition people killed, dismembering neighbors through military force and being the benefactor of the butcher of Damascus, he’s a good guy. This calculation by Trump unnerves me to my core.” —Sen. Lindsey Graham,on Donald Trump’s embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 9/08/16
it was “pretty unlikely” that Russia was behind recent cyber attacks aimed at the DNC and state election systems. Maybe the Democrats are putting that out, who knows?” -- Donald Trump during an interview on the state-run Russian television network
“I think it’s inarguable that Vladimir Putin has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country.” -- Gov. Mike Pence, reaffirming the Trump’s campaign’s embrace of Russia’s president.
"Every day that goes by, this just becomes more and more of a reality-television story. ... And it is beyond one's imagination to have a candidate for president praising a Russian autocrat like Vladimir Putin." -- Hillary Clinton9/09/16
“I hope that everyone can see that as the sad, misogynistic, sexist rhetoric that I hoped we had moved beyond in the 21st century, certainly in 2016.” --Chelsea Clinton responding to Trump’s assertion that Hillary Clinton does not have a "presidential look.
“By the way, when Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats, and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn’t be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water.” -- Donald Trump 9/10/16
“I don’t see the path. I just don’t see the path. … I’ve been in these races where you’re nine points down, then you’re five down — you’re still losing.” — GOP strategist Stuart Stevens, noting that Donald Trump is doing no better than Mitt Romney in the presidential race. 9/09/16
Two things here … first, racists, sexists and bigots should be insulted. At every opportunity. And second, we’ve always known that Trump’s base is made up of those racists, sexists and bigots, but it’s nice that the Trump campaign has finally admitted it. Kudos, Kellyanne.” -- Barbara Morrill in the Daily Kos 9/09/16
Donald Trump’s charitable foundation gave $100,000 in 2014 to a conservative activist group that to help finance a federal lawsuit against New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman — the same public official who was suing the real estate mogul for fraud over the operations of Trump University. -- Michael Isikoff 9/9, 2016
“It is simply true that Donald Trump has electrified the racist fringe in America, and that is really critical for her to raise. I don’t think it’s a gaffe. I think it’s a really important strategy. This fires up her voters." -- Paul Begala on Clinton’s” comment. 9/10/16
“This in a combination with the recent fondness of mumus, makes me think she is concealing a deep brain stim [sic] battery pack that counters her tremors from Parkinsons (my dad has this battery pack too). They may have admitted HRC has pneumonia, but that’s not WHY she has pneumonia. I believe she has pneumonia caused by Parkinsons disease.” -- Daniel Tamburello, co-chair of Veterans for Trump 9/12/16
“It’s terrifying. He’s not qualified … and it’s a massive problem. I’m not a fan of Hillary Clinton, but at least I feel like some of those jobs that are required for president, she could do them.” -- GOP consultant to BuzzFeed 9/13/16
"Think about the fact that (Russian President Vladimir Putin) is Donald Trump's role model. I have to do business with Putin, I have to do business with Russia, but I don't go around saying, 'That's my role model.' Can you imagine Reagan idolizing somebody like that?" -- President Obama stumping for Hillary on Tuesday
IN THIS ISSUE
1. The DAILY GRILL
2. Is Hillary Clinton Right About Trump Supporters? This Is What The Polling Data Says
3. From MEDIA MATTERS (They watch Fox News so you don't have to)
4. From the Late Shows
5. Political Ads/Statements
6. Electoral Map Has a Growing Democratic Bias
7. 2016 Is Looking Very Similar to 2012
8. How Trump Is Making Money Off His Campaign
9. The Borowitz Report Trump Says Ordering People At Rallies To Attack One Another Has Prepared Him To Be Commander-in-Chief
10. Clinton’s Narrow Lead Is Bigger Than It Looks
11. MSNBC's Katy Tur Shuts Down A Trump Adviser's Attempt To Downplay Trump's Birtherism (video )
12. GunFAIL CXCIII
13. Trump Campaign Tweets Fake Photo of Rally
14. Court Blocks Proof-Of-Citizenship Voting Requirement In 3 States
15. Trump Foundation's Phantom Donations
16. Did You Hear the Latest About Hillary?
17. Late Night Jokes for Dems
1. Greg Sargent: Spare me the phony outrage over Clinton’s ‘basket of deplorables’ remark
2. Michael Tomasky: It’s Time for the Media To Step Up and Call Out Donald Trump’s Many Lies
3. Charles M. Blow: About the ‘Basket of Deplorables’
4. William Saletan: NBC’s Commander in Chief Forum Was an Authoritarian Farce
5. Paul Waldman: Why Donald Trump’s falsehoods and fantasies seem so unstoppable
6. Eugene Robinson: Donald Trump’s raging egomania
7. Charles M. Blow: Donald Trump Is Lying in Plain Sight
8. E.J. Dionne Jr.: Trump’s best example of political corruption is himself
9. Matt Olsen: Why ISIS Supports Donald Trump
10. Dana Milbank: Donald Trump’s war with the U.S. military
11. Frank Bruni: Donald Trump’s Ideology of Applause
12. Ta-Nehisi Coates: Hillary Clinton Was Politically Incorrect, but She Wasn't Wrong About Trump's Supporters
13. Dana Milbank: Yes, half of Trump supporters are racist
14. Keith Olbermann: 176 Reasons Donald Trump Shouldn't Be President
| FYI |
1. The DAILY GRILL
Hillary Clinton was sporting a mini earbud wired to receive stealth communications from her campaign handlers during Wednesday’s Commander-in-Chief Forum carried live on NBC from New York City” -- True Pundit 9.08.16
VERSUS
Fox News happily lapped up an InfoWars and Reddit-based conspiracy theory alleging Hillary Clinton wore an earpiece at Wednesday’s Town Hall. Too bad every other picture from any angle proves otherwise.-- The Daily Beast 9.08.16
Yellen was “very capable” and that he, too, was a “low interest rate person” and that raising rates would be a “disaster.” -- Donald Trump in May.
VERSUS
“She's keeping them artificially low to get Obama retired. It is a very serious problem and I think it is very political. I think she is very political and to a certain extent, I think she should be ashamed of herself.” -- Trump on Monday
.@realDonaldTrump: [@HillaryClinton] has no child care plan. FOX BusinessVerified account@FoxBusiness
VERSUS
It’s literally right here: http://hrc.io/2cCVg1S … Hillary Clinton ✔@HillaryClinton
2. Is Hillary Clinton Right About Trump Supporters?
Some in the media were shocked — shocked! — that Clinton would suggest even some Trump supporters are bigoted.
Whether Clinton’s characterization is good political strategy is a matter of opinion. But whether Clinton is correct is a factual matter. Let’s look at the polling data.
A survey taken this May found that about 66% of Trump supporters believe Obama is a Muslim.
The same poll found 59% of Trump supporters believe Obama was not born in the United States.
A national poll of 2000 people taken in January by YouGov found that 1/3 of Trump supporters believe the internment of Japanese Americans during World War I was a good idea.
A PPP poll of South Carolina voters in February found that there is a substantial portion supported banning LGBT people from the United States.
In the same poll, 16% of Trump supporters admitted they believed that “whites are a superior race,” while an additional 14 percent said they were “not sure.”
The national YouGov poll from January found that 20% of Trump supporters disagreed with Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed southern slaves.
Is the percentage, as Clinton suggested, about 50 percent? That depends on how you define the various forms of bigotry within the Trump coalition. But, based on the polling, Clinton appears to be more likely to be downplaying the issue than overstating it. https://thinkprogress.org/is-hillary-clinton-right-about-trump-supporters-this-is-what-the-polling-data-says-2b37625a1df3#.t5phy3hm0
3. From MEDIA MATTERS (They watch Fox News so you don't have to)
Trump’s campaign is running with the Alex Jones-fueled conspiracy that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was fed answers through a secret earpiece while participating in NBC’s 9/7 “Commander-in-Chief Forum.” http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/09/08/trump-campaign-runs-alex-jones-conspiracy-about-clinton-earpiece-during-nbc-forum/212925
Fox's Megyn Kelly Claims, Without Evidence, That Clinton Cleared Server "After She Got [A] Subpoena" http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/09/08/foxs-megyn-kelly-claims-without-evidence-clinton-cleared-server-after-she-got-subpoena/212952
Donald Trump Says He Supports Chris Wallace's Promise Not To Fact Check Candidates As Debate Moderator http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/09/08/donald-trump-says-he-supports-chris-wallaces-promise-not-fact-check-candidates-debate-moderator/212950
White Nationalists See Trump As A Chance To Break Into The Media Mainstream. Hours Before Clinton Highlighted Trump’s Racist Supporters, Three “Alt-Right” Leaders Gathered To Salute The GOP Nominee http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/09/10/white-nationalists-see-trump-chance-break-media-mainstream/212984
White Nationalists See Trump As A Chance To Break Into The Media Mainstream Hours Before Clinton Highlighted Trump’s Racist Supporters, Three “Alt-Right” Leaders Gathered To Salute The GOP Nominee http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/09/10/white-nationalists-see-trump-chance-break-media-mainstream/212984
Jamelle Bouie: Looking At Polling Data, Clinton Was “Being Correct And Accurate” With Trump’s “Basket Of Deplorables” -- CBS' Bouie: “Among Trump Supporters,” At Least Half Of Them “Agree With Statements That Political Scientists Categorize As Being Explicitly Racist” http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/09/11/jamelle-bouie-looking-polling-data-clinton-was-being-correct-and-accurate-trump-s-basket-deplorables/212989
Hannity: "Wikileaks Has Never Been Wrong In 10 Years -- Not One Time" -- Sean Hannity Hypes A WikiLeaks Conspiracy Theory That Hillary Clinton Has Parkinson's Disease -- Hannity: "Wikileaks Has Never Been Wrong In 10 Years -- Not One Time" http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/09/12/sean-hannity-hypes-wikileaks-conspiracy-theory-hillary-clinton-has-parkinsons-disease/213018
Fox's Eric Bolling: Clinton "Is Done, She's Is Not Fit To Run The Country" --Bolling Pushes Conspiracy That An Unconscious Hillary Clinton Was Dragged Into Secret Service Van Because Of Health Issues http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/09/12/foxs-eric-bolling-clinton-done-shes-not-fit-run-country/213016
Worst Media Reactions To Hillary Clinton's Diagnosis
-- Drudge Report: "Will She Survive?"
-- 9/11 Truther Alex Jones: I Was “Just Literally In Ecstasy” Watching Clinton Illness Video Because The “Hand Of God Is Upon This." On
-- Neo-Nazi Website Daily Stormer: “The Dog Is As Sick As A Bitch”; “She Is Literally Ready To Drop Dead.” http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/09/12/six-worst-media-reactions-hillary-clintons-pneumonia-diagnosis/213012
4. From the Late Shows
The Daily Show host Trevor Noah: Matt Lauer Botches The Commander In Chief Forum
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Matt Lauer: A Complete Disgrace to Journalism
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Did Donald Trump Bribe the Florida Attorney General?
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee | "Asking" the "Tough" "Questions"
Late Night with Seth Meyers: A Closer Look: Hillary Clinton and the Basket of Deplorables
5. Political Ads/Statements
The Briefing: Imagine Trump's America | The Briefing
PlainSight: Trump Exposes Trump
Only Way | Hillary Clinton
Priorities USA Action: I Love War
Low Opinion | Hillary Clinton
Priorities USA: Then and Now
Trump's foundation: Corrupt politics | Hillary Clinton
6. Electoral Map Has a Growing Democratic Bias
The presidential election map is undergoing a fundamental change, with shifts that will make it easier for Democrats to win not only in 2016 but also for years to come.
Driving the change are two demographic trends: The share of Hispanic and under-30 voters, who favor Democrats in big numbers, is growing significantly in states that in the last decade were decent bets to vote Republican.
Colorado, Nevada and Pennsylvania illustrate how the demographic changes are giving Hillary Clinton an electoral advantage Democrats are unlikely to lose anytime soon. Clinton leads in Pennsylvania and Colorado, which for years were regarded as swing states, and she has a polling edge in Nevada. 9/12/16 Read more at http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article100906362.html
7. 2016 Is Looking Very Similar to 2012
The Upshot election forecast predicts Hillary Clinton will win 347 electoral votes.
“If the predictions for each state hold, the November election would match the 2012 Electoral College result in every respect except one: The Democrats would win North Carolina.”
“Which brings us to another perhaps surprising similarity between this election and the 2012 version. Mr. Obama won in 2012 by 3.9 percentage points over Mr. Romney. If you combine the polling averages compiled by Real Clear Politics, The Huffington Post and The New York Times, Mrs. Clinton is leading Mr. Trump by 3.7 percentage points. 9/0916 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/upshot/red-states-blue-states-does-this-map-look-familiar.html
8. How Trump Is Making Money Off His Campaign
Donald Trump has contributed more than $52 million to his presidential campaign… But the Republican nominee has offset some of that by pouring $7.2 million dollars — just over eight percent of the money his campaign has spent through July — into his own businesses.
Since Trump moved into the general election phase, that spending has increased. During the first year of his campaign, he spent on average half a million dollars a month at his own companies. But as his campaign ramped up from the end of June through July, he spent $1.2 million at Trump businesses.” http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-businesses-profit-off-presidential-campaign-money/
9. The Borowitz Report Trump Says Ordering People At Rallies To Attack One Another Has Prepared Him To Be Commander-in-Chief
Responding to a question about his qualifications to be Commander-in-Chief, Donald Trump told NBC’s Matt Lauer on Wednesday night, “At my rallies, I have ordered many, many people to attack other people.”
“In the heat of the moment, you have to decide who is going to hit which person, when, and how hard,” Trump said. “I have ordered more people to attack other people than most of our generals have.”
He said that the outcome of the fights at his rallies showed that he has the judgment necessary to be Commander-in-Chief. “You always want to make the bigger guy hit the littler guy,” he said. “That’s how you win.”
Asked about his strategy for defeating isis, Trump said, “What I learned from my rallies is that you never tell people in advance how you’re going to attack them. You wait until they least expect it, and you sucker-punch them in the face. That’s what I would do to isis.”
He contrasted his extensive experience ordering people to attack one another with Hillary Clinton’s “complete lack of experience” in the same arena. “You look at her rallies, no one’s hitting anybody, she’s not telling anybody to hit anybody, and people are just sitting there,” he said. “It’s a disgrace.”
Elsewhere: Poll: Unconscious Clinton More Fit To Be President Than Conscious Trump: In a positive development for the Democratic nominee for President, a new poll released on Sunday reveals that likely voters find an unconscious Hillary Clinton “substantially more fit” to be President than a conscious Donald Trump.
In a hypothetical matchup between a Clinton who has been rendered completely unconscious and a fully sentient Trump, voters chose an inert Clinton over an ambulatory Trump by a margin of nine percentage points.
A spokesperson for the Clinton campaign hailed the findings. “We have every reason to believe that Hillary Clinton will be a fully conscious President,” the spokesperson said. “But even if she is not, she is still the far better choice.” Read more at http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/
10. Clinton’s Narrow Lead Is Bigger Than It Looks
The next time you see media reports that Florida or Ohio is ‘close’ or that Pennsylvania is ‘tightening,’ you should not be surprised. They are narrowly divided states where it is difficult for one party to blow out the other in a competitive federal election.”
But being ‘close’ isn’t the same thing as saying a state is a ‘toss up’ or both candidates have the same chance of winning it.
And because of that, the Clinton-Trump race can be both ‘competitive’ and even ‘close’ in a state and nationally, but at the same time clearly favor one nominee – in this case Clinton. -- Stuart Rothenberg 9/13/16 Read more at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/09/13/why-im-skeptical-of-polls-showing-trump-gaining-on-clinton/
11. MSNBC's Katy Tur Shuts Down A Trump Adviser's Attempt To Downplay Trump's Birtherism (video)
12. GunFAIL CXCIII
68 guns were discovered by TSA agents at airports across the country, during the week of May 6 - 12, 2016.
Several of this week’s accidents featured a ruthless “efficiency,” of sorts. We regularly keep track of what we sometimes call “home invasion shootings,” that is, incidents in which people accidentally discharge their weapons into a neighbor’s home or property, often through the walls, floors or ceilings of their own homes. In St. George, Utah, some Responsible Gun Owners actually fired a shotgun through their own trailer’s wall, clean through two neighboring trailers, and into the side of a fourth. In Marion, Michigan, our accidental shooter was the maker of custom-built holsters, who managed to accidentally shoot both himself and his sister with a gun he “didn’t realize was loaded.” I guess they don’t teach that safety stuff at holster-making class. And an accident in Guns Everywhere Georgia combined multiple victims with multiple properties: a single bullet struck four people, in two different apartments!
Our title story this week comes from everybody’s favorite weapons experts: the active duty military. Someone got the blanks and the live rounds mixed up ahead of some Army exercises at the National Training Center in the Mojave Desert, where you might think they’d had some practice with these things. And they have! But practice rarely actually makes perfect, and several rounds found their way into one soldier’s rifle, and from there into one multi-million dollar Apache helicopter.
The week’s full list is at http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/9/8/1524566/-Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot-That-rifle-is-Lima-Oscar-Alpha-Delta-Echo-Delta-GunFAIL-CXCIII
13. Trump Campaign Tweets Fake Photo of Rally
The Trump campaign is responding to Hillary Clinton’s characterizing a large segment of his supporters as white supremacists by sending out a photo from a 2015 Trump rally in Dallas and claiming it was his appearance last night in Pensacola, Fla.” 9/10/16 Read more at http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/eric-trump-tweets-out-fake-photo-of-rally-1786475295
14. Court Blocks Proof-Of-Citizenship Voting Requirement In 3 States
A federal appeals court has blocked Kansas, Georgia and Alabama from requiring residents to prove they are U.S. citizens when registering to vote using a national form. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/proof-citizenship-voting-blocked-kansas-georgia-alabama
15. Trump Foundation's Phantom Donations
Five times, the Trump Foundation’s tax filings described giving a specific amount of money to a specific charity — in some cases, even including the recipient’s address. But when the Washington Post called, the charities listed said the tax filings appeared wrong. They’d never received anything from Trump or his foundation. 9/12/16 Read more a thttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/12/there-were-five-phantom-donations-in-the-files-of-donald-trumps-foundation-heres-what-we-know/
16. Did You Hear the Latest About Hillary?
Hillary Clinton has pneumonia. Did you know she has a body double? She was that blond woman waving at reporters in front of Chelsea Clinton’s apartment a few hours after Mrs. Clinton felt unwell and left the Sept. 11 commemoration at ground zero.
Did you also hear that Mrs. Clinton has Parkinson’s disease? Her coughing fits prove it, as does her latest bout of illness. She has epilepsy, as well as advancing dementia. She has managed to hide all these illnesses through almost a year and a half of a grueling campaign because the man the world thinks is the head of her Secret Service detail is actually her hypnotist. He’s also a medical doctor.
No, I haven’t lost my mind. I’ve just lost many hours on social media, where these conspiracy theories run rampant. -- Zeynep Tufekciin the NY Times 9/12/16 Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/opinion/campaign-stops/did-you-hear-the-latest-about-hillary.html
17. Late Night Jokes for Dems
"Trump may have gotten a sign he will win in November because Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen, tweeted out a picture of a cloud that kind of looks like Donald Trump, along with the caption, 'In case anyone is unsure as to who will be our next #POTUS, the Lord has chosen the people's messenger.' Yes, God made a Trump-shaped cloud, though the cloud actually holds a position longer than the real Donald Trump." –Stephen Colbert
"Yesterday, in China, President Obama had a meeting with Vladimir Putin. And before they started, Obama texted Michelle: 'Going into a meeting, love you.' While Putin texted the same thing to Donald Trump." –Jimmy Fallon
"A lot of people were saying President Obama was snubbed by China when they didn't have the stairs ready for him to get off the plane. In fact, Donald Trump said that if that ever happened to him, he'd just close the plane doors and leave the country. Every other country was like, 'That's all we have to do? Thank you. That's perfect!'" –Jimmy Fallon
"Happy birthday to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. It was the first birthday party where someone jumped into the cake instead of out of it." –Jimmy Fallon
"A national Washington Post survey found that Donald Trump has historically low support among college-educated women. It's from their new segment, 'Stuff You Could Have Guessed.'" –Seth Meyers
"One of the big revelations of this latest email dump is that Secretary Clinton didn't use just one smartphone in office as she originally claimed, she used up to 13 different mobile devices in four years. Madam Secretary, tell the truth. Are you a crack dealer? Because I can't figure out why else you would need 13 phones." –Stephen Colbert
"Last night, Donald Trump said if he's elected, he will employ a 'deportation task force.' It's not really necessary, because if he's elected most people will probably leave voluntarily." –Conan O'Brien
"In his speech last night, Donald Trump proposed new screening to prevent violent extremists from entering the U.S. In response, Trump's supporters said, 'But we're already here.'" –Conan O'Brien
"A new poll reveals that supporters of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are motivated by fear, not excitement. And third-party candidate Gary Johnson supporters are motivated by being related to Gary Johnson." –Conan O'Brien
| OPINION |
1. Greg Sargent: Spare me the phony outrage over Clinton’s ‘basket of deplorables’ remark
Donald Trump and his spinners are outraged — and some reporters are murmuring their disapproval — because of Hillary Clinton’s comments about putting half of Trump’s supporters into what she called the ‘basket of deplorables’
But if there is one group of people who should take their outrage about Clinton’s comments and stuff it in a very dark place, it’s Trump and his paid apologists, who unloaded in a series oftweets this morning. Trump’s campaign even put out a statement claiming that Clinton “revealed her true contempt for everyday Americans.”
Oh, please. Two things can be true at the same time: First, Clinton overgeneralized about what’s in the hearts and minds of Trump supporters. Second, her underlying characterization of the general nature of many of Trump’s campaign appeals — and her related observation that they really are successfully playing on the baser instincts of an untold number of Trump’s supporters — are 100 percent accurate.
Every single reporter and commentator closely following this race knows full well that Trump’s campaign is fueled, at least to some degree, by tacit or even overt appeals to bigotry or efforts to encourage a sense among many Trump backers that white identity and white America are under siege. We’ve all seen the polling data and the reporting. Many Republican voters agree with the highest-profile Trump statements and items on the Trump agenda, the ones that are most prominently intertwined with those appeals and messages. 9/10/16 Read more at https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/09/10/spare-me-the-phony-outrage-over-clintons-basket-of-deplorables-remark/?utm_term=.f26f17b7533b
2. Michael Tomasky: It’s Time for the Media To Step Up and Call Out Donald Trump’s Many Lies
After that Matt Lauer debacle Wednesday night, it’s time to stop grading Donald Trump on a curve, don’t you think? He’s not blunt. He’s not refreshing. He’s not a straight talker.
Trump is two things.
First, he’s a liar. Not an occasional liar or accidental liar, but a liar as a matter of course, a liar as strategy, a liar as a means to crush his opponents. This is hard for most people to wrap their heads around because most people aren’t like this and indeed have never even met anyone like this. It’s so shockingly amoral that most people can’t believe that someone would actually be like this. But he is.
Second, he’s something we don’t even have an English word for. “Ignorant” is a start, but ignorant misses the key element, which is his I-don’t-give-a-crap pride in his own ignorance. He doesn’t know anything about anything having to do with governing the country. How large a brigade is; how Medicare is financed; what an average family of four pays in health care premiums a year; what the median household income in this country is, within (I’d bet) $10,000; the number of cabinet departments in the executive branch, within three; that military courts already exist, as we learned in Wednesday night’s fiasco; and, well, nearly everything else.
Think about that. We have a lot of words in this language of ours, and we don’t even have a word for what he is. I wish I knew more German; surely buried somewhere in Nietzsche or Heidegger is some perfect seven-syllable word for the type. I see from the Googles that the respective German words for ignorant, proud, and brain are unwissend, stolz, and Gehirn. So that’s what he is. Unwissendstolzgehirn. It’s only six syllables, but it’ll do, and all the better of course that it’s German. Memorize it and pass it around. 9.08.16 http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/08/it-s-time-for-the-media-to-step-up-and-call-out-donald-trump-s-many-lies.html
3. Charles M. Blow: About the ‘Basket of Deplorables’
What Clinton said was impolitic, but it was not incorrect. There are things a politician cannot say. Luckily, I’m not a politician.
And there is some evidence that Trump’s supporters don’t simply have a passive, tacit acceptance of an undesirable platform, but instead have an active set of beliefs that support what is deplorable in Trump.
In state after state that Trump won during the primaries, he won a majority or near majority of voters who supported a temporary ban on Muslims entering this country and who supported deporting immigrants who are in this country illegally.
In June a Reuters/Ipsos poll found: “Nearly half of Trump’s supporters described African-Americans as more ‘violent’ than whites. The same proportion described African-Americans as more ‘criminal’ than whites, while 40 percent described them as more ‘lazy’ than whites.”
A Pew poll released in February found that 65 percent of Republicans believe the next president should “speak bluntly even if critical of Islam as a whole” when talking about Islamic extremists.
Another Reuters/Ipsos online poll in July found that 58 percent of Trump supporters have a “somewhat unfavorable” view of Islam and 78 percent believe Islam was more likely to encourage acts of terrorism.
A February Public Policy Polling survey found “Trump’s support in South Carolina is built on a base of voters among whom religious and racial intolerance pervades.” What the poll found about those South Carolina supporters’ beliefs was truly shocking:
• Eighty percent of likely Trump primary voters supported Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims.
• Sixty-two percent supported creating a national database of Muslims and 40 percent supported shutting down mosques in the United States.
• Thirty-eight percent wished the South had won the Civil War.
• Thirty-three percent thought the practice of Islam should be illegal in this country.
• Thirty-two percent supported the policy of Japanese internment during World War II.
• Thirty-one percent would support a ban on homosexuals entering the country.
On Saturday, Clinton issued a statement pointing out that “I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong.” Place the percentage where you will — or don’t — but the fact is indisputable.
I understand your outrage, but I’m unmoved by it. If the basket fits … 9/12/16 Read more athttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/opinion/about-the-basket-of-deplorables.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
4. William Saletan: NBC’s Commander in Chief Forum Was an Authoritarian Farce
Trump played his usual tricks. When he was quizzed about foreign policy, he changed the subject to trade. When he was pressed for solutions, he talked instead about President Obama’s failures. When he was asked about a tweet in which he had blamed military sexual assaults on the integration of women, he acted as though he had always believed the problem was insufficient prosecution. He also claimed, contrary to fact—and undisputed by moderator Matt Lauer—that he had been “totally against the war in Iraq.”
But the most important moments in this forum weren’t the ones in which Trump made news. They were moments in which he proudly underscored his authoritarian ambitions. First came his answer to a question about ISIS. “I’ve always said [we] shouldn’t be there,” Trump said. “But if we’re going to get out, take the oil.” When Lauer asked him how we would take Iraq’s oil, Trump replied: “You would leave a certain group behind, and you would take various sections where they have the oil.” We got “nothing” for the money we spent invading Iraq, Trump complained. “It used to be, ‘To the victor belong the spoils.’ … I always said, ‘Take the oil.’ ”
This is a policy of explicit theft. Trump has stated this policy many times. He has been applauded for it by crowds and has not been morally challenged by Lauer or other interviewers. Now Trump is repeating it in the run-up to the fall debates. He’s betting that Americans will embrace—and the media will accept—plunder as foreign policy. So far, he has not been proved wrong. 9/08/16 Read more at http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/09
/nbc_s_commander_in_chief_forum_was_an_authoritarian_farce.html
5. Paul Waldman: Why Donald Trump’s falsehoods and fantasies seem so unstoppable
Fifteen months after he announced his candidacy for the presidency, we’ve almost run out of ways to describe what Trump represents. He is, without a doubt, the most dishonest candidate to run for the presidency in modern history, and perhaps in all of American history. It isn’t even close, and that should be beyond dispute by now. It isn’t just about his habit of stating alleged facts that are demonstrably untrue, and continuing to repeat them even after it’s been pointed out that they’re false, though that’s part of it. It’s also about the sheer volume of unreality he delivers, as though he’s trying to drown us all in a river of bull that moves so fast that truth itself begins to seem almost irrelevant.
So how should journalists deal with this? The closest thing to a solution is to ask Trump as many specific follow-up questions about it as they can. Even if he won’t tell us what’s in his plan, we could come close to exposing him as a charlatan by forcing him to add more layers of baloney to the edifice he has already constructed. We could ask things like, Is the plan written down, or is it just in your head? How many pages does it cover? Did you formulate it yourself, or did you work on it with other people? Who are those people, and can they confirm that they worked with you on it? How many hours would you say you devoted to the task?
There’s a good chance that if he were forced to answer those questions, he’d end up looking like even more of a fool as he spun out the fantasy even further. The problem, though, is that “exposing” him in this way probably wouldn’t make much of a difference, either in changing his behavior or in changing the minds of those who’ve decided they want him to be president 9/08/16 Read more at https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/09/08/why-donald-trumps-falsehoods-and-fantasies-seem-so-unstoppable/
6. Eugene Robinson: Donald Trump’s raging egomania
The most revealing moment in the presidential candidates’ first joint forum Wednesday night came when Donald Trump told the world how much he admires Vladimir Putin .
Never mind that the Russian strongman invaded Ukraine and seized Crimea. Never mind that he supports the butcher Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Never mind that so many of his political opponents end up murdered or imprisoned. Never mind that U.S. officials suspect his government of trying to disrupt our election with cyberattacks. In Trump’s star-struck eyes, all of this makes him “a leader, far more than our president has been a leader.”
Putin, you see, once paid Trump a compliment. “If he says great things about me,” Trump told moderator Matt Lauer, “I’m going to say great things about him.”
There you have it, folks, the distilled essence of Trump’s disgraceful campaign. It’s not about immigration or foreign policy or making America “great again,” whatever that means. It’s entirely about Trump and his raging egomania.
Trump is sincere when he expresses preening self-regard. All the rest is just verbiage tossed with a light vinaigrette.
Face the truth: Trump has to be the most dangerously ignorant major-party presidential candidate in history. 9/08/16 Read more athttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trumps-raging-egomania/2016/09/08/252a4990-75f6-11e6-be4f-3f42f2e5a49e_story.html
7. Charles M. Blow: Donald Trump Is Lying in Plain Sight
It has generally been my experience that when people pepper their speech with the phrase “believe me,” they are not to be believed.
The default position among people of honor — the silent agreement between speaker and listener — is one of truth and trust.
But Donald Trump is not a person of honor.
Presidents lie. Politicians lie. People lie. But Trump lies with a ferocious abandon.
This is not an honest man. This is not a trustworthy man. The fact that people believe he’s honest is a result of a failed media that aims its sincerest critique at Clinton’s deficiencies with the truth, but applies an entertainment standard to Trump that corrects falsehoods but doesn’t castigate him for them.
There is no reasonable explanation or salable excuse for the media’s behavior this presidential cycle. History will look back at this period and it will not be kind to the Fourth Estate. We will all have to one day ask ourselves, “Where was I on Trump and the truth?” Far too many of us will be found wanting. 9/08/16 Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/opinion/donald-trump-is-lying-in-plain-sight.html
8. E.J. Dionne Jr.: Trump’s best example of political corruption is himself
Better than anyone, Donald Trump made the case for why our campaign money system is rotten. Unsurprisingly, the prime example he used was himself.
“I was a businessman,” Trump explained at a Republican debate in August 2015. “I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me. And that’s a broken system.”
Bravo. Sort of. In retrospect, it’s remarkable that Republican primary voters seemed to reward Trump for saying that he bought off politicians right and left, as if admitting to soft bribery was a sign of what a great reformer he would be.
And it turns out that there is one candidate who was so metaphysically perfect, so personally close to him, that Trump tells us his (illegal) contribution to her was not designed to make sure she’d be “there” for him.
Meet Pam Bondi, Florida’s attorney general.
Trump would have us believe that it is pure coincidence that the Trump Foundation’s $25,000 contribution to Bondi on Sept. 17, 2013, was made four days after the Orlando Sentinel reported that Bondi’s office was considering joining a class-action lawsuit against Trump University. It was brought by customers who felt victimized by what sure looks in retrospect like a shameless rip-off operation. Weeks later, Bondi announced that Florida would not join the lawsuit after all.
Yes, when Trump needs something, he gets it.
Where sleaze and corner-cutting are concerned, we all should pay proper tribute to Trumpian exceptionalism. When it comes to the broken system he so accurately described, Trump is the star. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-best-example-of-political-corruption-is-himself/2016/09/07/5db0e208-752c-11e6-8149-b8d05321db62_story.html
9. Matt Olsen: Why ISIS Supports Donald Trump
This year, ISIS isn’t simply a passive observer of American politics. Since the group’s rapid rise in 2014, ISIS has established a far-reaching, sophisticated propaganda machine. Its members rely on social media to shape public opinion, recruit new members and mobilize followers to carry out attacks. Now, some of them are using those channels to advocate for Trump. In August, one ISIS spokesman wrote: “I ask Allah to deliver America to Trump.” Another supporter declared: “The ‘facilitation’ of Trump’s arrival in the White House must be a priority for jihadists at any cost!!!” ISIS is working to drum up support for the candidate it has called “the perfect enemy.”
Trump’s comments undermine our counterterrorism efforts around the world. By demonizing Muslims, he feeds ISIS’s narrative that the U.S. is at war with Islam. As one ISIS defector interviewed by Revkin and Mhidi said: “We were happy when Trump said bad things about Muslims because he makes it very clear that there are two teams in this battle: the Islamic team and the anti-Islamic team.” He also risks alienating our allies in the Middle East and North Africa. These nations are our essential partners in the fight against terrorism, and we depend on the cooperation of their military, intelligence and law enforcement services. Trump does not seem to grasp the importance of working with our allies to combat terrorism. This is not a threat we can defeat alone—and his comments disparaging our allies, and threats to walk away from them, undermine our efforts to build and foster these critical partnerships.
The bottom line is this: Trump’s erratic and belligerent slogans are no substitute for policies based on facts and sound judgment. 9/07/16 Read more at http://time.com/4480945/isis-donald-trump/
10. Dana Milbank: Donald Trump’s war with the U.S. military
Donald Trump, who had five draft deferments, never had to fight in the jungles of Vietnam.
But he had a different sort of war record, as he told radio host Howard Stern years ago: He slept with many women without getting STDs. “It is my personal Vietnam,” he said. “I feel like a great and very brave soldier.” What’s more, Trump added: “This is better than Vietnam. It’s more fun.”
Said Stern: “Every vagina is a landmine. Haven’t we both said that in private?”
Trump concurred: “I think it is a potential landmine. There’s some real danger there.”
I recalled this Trump war story after his latest disparagement of the U.S. military Wednesday night. Asked to elaborate on his previous boast that “I know more about ISIS than the generals do,” Trump said at NBC’s national security forum Wednesday that, under the Obama administration, “the generals have been reduced to rubble. They have been reduced to a point where it’s embarrassing for our country.”
Trump later implied that he would fire current generals — who, in the American tradition, are avowedly nonpartisan — and replace them with retired generals who have supported him politically.
These include retired Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, now an official at the Family Research Council, who believes Satan is working through Islam and who says gay rights are an “evil” that must be opposed by “God’s army.” Also on Trump’s list is retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a Fox News commentator who supported an Army officer who refused to deploy to Afghanistan, claiming President Obama was foreign-born and therefore an illegitimate commander in chief. 9/09/16 Read more athttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trumps-war-with-the-us-military/2016/09/09/a6701dae-7678-11e6-8149-b8d05321db62_story.html?utm_term=.92a1a1bd6928&wpisrc=nl_draw2&wpmm=1
11. Frank Bruni: Donald Trump’s Ideology of Applause
Americans are such sticklers. Such poops. Sure, some of Vladimir Putin’s political opponents wind up in jail, while some of the journalists he dislikes end up in the morgue. Yes, his government is apparently committing cybercrimes to meddle in our election. And there was that small matter of invading and annexing one of Russia’s neighbors.
But look at his numbers! What’s a little blood on your hands when you’re polling like that?
“He does have an 82 percent approval rating,” Donald Trump said during the special “commander in chief” forum last week. It’s worth dwelling on that sentence, because it’s the key to what drives and guides his presidential bid. It’s the giveaway.
For Trump, the whole point of political office is adulation, and adulation is the entire proof of a person’s worth. Rectitude pales next to ratings. Ethics are a sorry substitute for applause. And the methods by which a crowd is fired up don’t matter, so long as he can bask in the clapping.
This is Trump’s core — or, rather, his terrifying lack of one. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/opinion/sunday/donald-trumps-ideology-of-applause.html
12. Ta-Nehisi Coates: Hillary Clinton Was Politically Incorrect, but She Wasn't Wrong About Trump's Supporters
Hillary Clinton claimed that roughly “half of Trump’s supporters” could be characterized as either “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it.” Was Hillary Clinton being truthful or not?
Much like Trump’s alleged opposition to the Iraq War, this not an impossible claim to investigate. We know, for instance, some nearly 60 percent of Trump’s supporters hold “unfavorable views” of Islam, and 76 percent support a ban on Muslims entering the United States. We know that some 40 percent of Trump’s supporters believe blacks are more violent, more criminal,lazier, and ruder than whites. Two-thirds of Trump’s supporters believe the first black president in this country’s history is not American. These claim are not ancillary to Donald Trump’s candidacy, they are a driving force behind it.
When Hillary Clinton claims that half of Trump’s supporters qualify as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic,” data is on her side. 9/10/16 Read more at http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/basket-of-deplorables/499493/
13. Dana Milbank: Yes, half of Trump supporters are racist
Hillary Clinton may have been unwise to say half of Donald Trump’s supporters are racists and other “deplorables.” But she wasn’t wrong.
If anything, when it comes to Trump’s racist support, she might have low-balled the number.
Trump, speaking to the National Guard Association of the United States’ annual conference here Monday afternoon, proclaimed himself “deeply shocked and alarmed” about Clinton putting half of his supporters in the “basket of deplorables”— as if anybody, especially Trump, could be shocked by anything this late in the campaign. How dare she, Trump said, “attack, slander, smear, demean these wonderful, amazing people.”
But this isn’t a matter of gratuitous name-calling. This election has proved that there is much more racism in America than many believed. It came out of hiding in opposition to the first African American president, and it has been welcomed into the open by Trump.
Few people embrace the “racist” label, so let’s help them. If you are “very enthusiastic” about a candidate who has based his campaign on scapegoating immigrants, Latinos and African Americans, talked of banning Muslims from the country, hesitated to disown the Ku Klux Klan and employed anti-Semitic imagery — well, you might be a racist. But if you are holding your nose and supporting Trump only because you think him better than Clinton, that doesn’t put you in the basket.
Trump, on stage, rejected any notion of racism, saying people who want secure borders “are not racists,” people who warn of “radical Islamic terrorism are not Islamophobes” and people who support police “are not prejudiced.” But moments later, he repeated the campaign slogan he borrowed from an anti-Semitic organization that opposed involvement in World War II.
“America First – remember that,” he said. “America First.”
That’s deplorable.9/12/16 Read more at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/clinton-wasnt-wrong-about-the-deplorables-among-trumps-supporters/2016/09/12/93720264-7932-11e6-beac-57a4a412e93a_story.html
14. Keith Olbermann: 176 Reasons Donald Trump Shouldn't Be President
Every few generations, we Americans are called upon to defend our country. To defend it not so much from foreign dictators or war or terrorism, but from those here who have no commitment to progress or democracy or representative government—no commitment to anything except their own out-of-control minds and the bottomless pits of their egos.
Our society has thrown up these people before: Joseph McCarthy. George Wallace. Father Coughlin. Jefferson Davis. Aaron Burr. The Know-Nothings. The Blacklisters. The America-Firsters. And we have always thrown them out.
And now our generation has its own: the most dangerous individual ever nominated by a major party for the highest office in this country.
His base wants few details and fewer facts; they just want to burn it down and blame their failures on the collective other. AndDonald John Trump is their demonic messiah in Oompa Loompa's clothing.
We must stop him.
It is not pleasant.
It is not fair that we have to do this.
But it is our turn. 9/13/16 Read more at http://www.gq.com/story/176-reasons-donald-trump-shouldnt-be-president-olbermann