ON THE RECORD. . .
“Who the f*ck do you think you are calling me a fat f*ck? I’m the f*cking governor of this state.”— Gov. Chris Christie to a New Jersey official who recounted the phone call in the Bridgegate trial. 10/05/16
“The republic is under siege by a moron, basically. The whole thing is tragic. Without overstating it, it's a tragedy for our democracy.” -- Bruce Springsteen to Rolling Stone about Donald Trump. 10/06/16
“I’m sure you’re not going to write it. To me that’s— they’re letting people pour into the country so they can go vote.” -- Donald Trump claimed that the federal government is allowing undocumented immigrants to enter the country in order to vote in the upcoming presidential election. 10/07, 2016
“I think he can hold his own. He just needs to be—to ignore, as everybody here has said—ignore the bait. He should just dismiss all the quotations that he hears, the way that Pence did. Deny it ever happened and then ignore the fact checkers the next day.” -- Fox News commentator Charles Krauthammer offering advice for Donald Trump ahead of the next presidential debate: deny your own record.
"I love Hillary, I think she's by far the most qualified candidate that we've had in a long while," -- Caroline Giuliani, daughter of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani who is a key adviser to Donald Trump and one of his most vocal surrogates. 10/06/16
"These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow — the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.” -- Jeh Johnson, the secretary of homeland security, and James Clapper, the director of national intelligence accusing the Russian government of hacking of the DNC and other political organizations. 10/07/16
“When it rains it pours. But, this race was over long before Friday night.” — GOP pollster Robert Blizzard, on Twitter.
“People want me to run for president all the time … I don’t like it. Can you imagine how controversial I’d be? You think about Clinton and the women. How about me with the women? Can you imagine?” — Donald Trump 1999.
“We elect our presidents in the hope that they will do their best for us, including to try — whatever their flaws and ours — to represent the best in us. There is no such hope for Donald Trump.” --NY Times Editorial 10/08/16
Retweets may not be endorsements, but Trump clearly just endorsed a race to the bottom.” -- Aaron Blake onTrump retweeting Juanita Broaddrick calling Bill Clinton a rapist. 10/08/16
“I’m done. This is the nail in the coffin. I’m done. I cannot look my children in the eye and tell them I voted for this man.” -- Aimee Winder Newton, who continued to support Trump even after Trump’s unending series of offensive, inaccurate and hurtful comments about Mexican immigrants, Sen. John McCain, Judge Curiel, and a former Miss Universe. 10/08/16
“I thought it was the coolest thing I ever saw It just sounded so awesome to hear somebody of his status say those words and just speak what he felt was the truth.” -- David Moore, a Des Moines welder and mechanic recalling a speech from earlier this year in which Trump “came out and dropped the F bomb three times.” 10/08/16
“I assure you: when it comes to the Trump tapes there are far worse.” --Bill Pruitt, a producer on the first two seasons of “The Apprentice.' on Twitter
“When it rains it pours. But, this race was over long before Friday night.” — GOP pollster Robert Blizzard, on Twitter.
For 80 years, the Deseret News has not entered into the troubled waters of presidential endorsement. We are neutral on matters of partisan politics. We do, however, feel a duty to speak clearly on issues that affect the well-being and morals of the nation. Accordingly, today we call on Donald Trump to step down from his pursuit of the American presidency. -- The Deseret News 10/08/16
Donald Trump is a man I cannot and should not support. The actions of the last day are disgusting, but that’s not why I reached this decision, it has been an accumulation of his words and actions that many have been warning about. I will not vote for a nominee who has behaved in a manner that reflects so poorly on our country. Our country deserves better." -- Ohio Gov. John Kasich 10/08/16
"One of the most disturbing things about this election is just the unbelievable rhetoric coming from the top of the Republican ticket. I don't need to repeat it, there are children in the room,"Demeaning women, degrading women, but also minorities, immigrants, people of other faiths, mocking the disabled, insulting our troops, insulting our veterans -- that tells you a couple of things. That tells you that he's insecure enough that he pumps himself up by putting other people down, not a character trait that I would advise for someone in the Oval Office. It tells you he doesn't care much about the basic values we try to impart to our kids. I tells you he would be careless with the civility and respect that a real vibrant Democracy requires." -- Barack Obama 10/09/16
“Donald Trump spent his time attacking when he should have been apologizing. He just doubled down on his excuse that it’s just locker room banter. Well, I’ll tell you what: Women and men across America know that is just a really weak excuse for behaving badly and mistreating people.” -- Hillary Clinton referencing Sunday night’s debate. 10/10/16
“Here’s what we don’t know: Does Mr. Trump propose this collaboration with a regime obsessed with thwarting and weakening American power out of ignorance and naivete, or because of personal and business interests he has not disclosed? Mr. Putin surely knows the answer to that question — but U.S. voters do not.” -- Washington Post Editorial 10/10/16
“Mr. Trump’s comments released yesterday—though 10 years ago (he was 60)—are not just sophomoric or locker room banter. They are truly the kind of misogynistic trash that reveals a man to be lecherous and worthless—not the guy who gets politely ignored, but the guy who gets a punch in the head from worthy men who hear him talk that way about women.” -- James MacDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel, an Illinois-based evangelical church.
Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to our democracy. He’s a man with a dangerously authoritarian mindset. He’s a man with no respect for and no knowledge of the basic political norms and values that guide our 240-year experiment in democracy. There’s nothing else for us to discuss after Sunday night’s debate. -- Michael A. Cohen in the Boston Globe 10/10/16
“If he loses a presidential election that was so gob-smackingly winnable — if he loses to Hillary Clinton — it doesn't matter if he blames establishment Republicans or a cavalry charge of unicorns. He will have lost to Hillary Clinton.” Michael Steel 10/10/16
"The very foul mouthed Sen. John McCain begged for my support during his primary (I gave, he won), then dropped me over locker room remarks!" -- Trump tweet, part of his rage-against-the-GOP tweet spree 10/11/16
“I’ve been involved in politics for nearly five decades, and this definitely is the first campaign that I’ve been involved with in which I’ve had to tangle with Russian intelligence agencies, who seem to be doing everything they can on behalf of our opponent.” -- Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. 10/11/16
“Again — it depends — you don't know the entire context of all of this. That would be bad, and I would have to consider — I'd consider it." -- Blake Farenthold (R-TX) responding to host Chris Hughes who asked whether he would still support Trump even if the Republican nominee said on tape that he liked raping women. 10/12/16
IN THIS ISSUE
1. Trump’s stream of falsehoods
2. Reactions to the Second Presidential Debate
3 . Borowitz Report: Putin Cancels Campaign Event With Trump
4. The DAILY GRILL
5. Donald Trump Makes History With Zero Major Newspaper Endorsements
6. From MEDIA MATTERS (They watch Fox News so you don't have to)
7. From the Late Shows
8. Political Ads/Statements
9. Team Clinton Is Running Up Big Lead In Early Voting
10. 11-year-old audio of Trump’s graphic, vulgar remarks on women surfaces
11. Collateral Damage: Trump could take the GOP down with him
12. Trump's Pledge to 'Jail' Clinton Unprecedented
13. Dear Donald Trump And Vladimir Putin, I Am Not Sidney Blumenthal
14. Late Night Jokes for Dems
1. Eugene Robinson: Trump can’t stop his campaign’s death spiral
2. Paul Krugman: What About the Planet?
3. Washington Post Editorial: Scandal! WikiLeaks reveals Hillary Clinton to be . . . reasonable
4. Fareed Zakaria: How Trump exposed the corruption in the U.S. tax code
5. Max Boot: Republicans are paying the price for their addiction to their own media
6. Washington Post Editorial: How much damage could a President Trump do? We can only begin to imagine
7. David Brooks: Trump’s Sad and Lonely Life
8. Jonah Goldberg: Character Is Destiny
9. Glenn Thrush and Katie Glueck: Is Trump's campaign over?
10. Maureen Dowd: Donald Goes to the Dogs
11. Ezra Klein: Trump Has Finally Come Undone
12. Chicago Sun Times Editorial: Dump Trump and redeem the Republican Party
13. Betsy Woodruff and Tim Mak: Donald Trump Goes Full Rage-Monster on Hillary and Bill Clinton
14. NY Times Editorial: Donald Trump Goes Low
15. Paul Krugman: Predators in Arms
16. Michael Gerson: A Politician -- and a Party -- Deserving of Contempt
17. Jill Lepore : Donald Trump, The Great Embarrassment
18. NY Times Editorial: Donald Trump’s Weird World
| FYI |
1. Trump’s stream of falsehoods
Despite what you may have heard at Sunday night’s presidential debate . . .
• Syrian refugees are vetted before they enter the country.
• Americans are taxed at lower rates than the citizens of many other developed countries.
• Mr. Trump publicly backed the Iraq War before the invasion. His claims otherwise have been repeatedly debunked.
• The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has not endorsed Mr. Trump.
• The country’s nuclear arsenal is not “exhausted.”
• The U.S. economy is growing at faster than 1 percent per year.
• There has been hacking of U.S. email accounts this election year. The U.S. intelligence community has blamed the Russian government.
• Mr. Trump did urge his Twitter followers to “check out” an alleged sex tape involving former Miss Universe Alicia Machado.
• Hillary Clinton is not responsible for the racist “birther” campaign Mr. Trump waged against President Obama.
• She did not laugh at a rape victim.
• “Clean coal” is a contradiction in terms.
• The trade deficit was not $800 billion last year.
• Ms. Clinton has not proposed admitting “hundreds of thousands” of Syrian refugees.
• She does not favor a single-payer health-care plan.
• Most health-care premiums are not spiking by “68 percent, 59 percent, 71 percent.”
• The Islamic State does not control “a good chunk” of Libya’s oil.
• The North American Free Trade Agreement was not a “disaster” for jobs.
• Ms. Clinton did not order the deletion of State Department emails after they were under subpoena.
• U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens did not make 600 calls for help before dying in the September 2012 Benghazi attacks.
• The United States is not “giving” Iran $150 billion as part of the nuclear deal.
• There is no evidence “many people saw the bombs all over the apartment” of the San Bernardino, Calif., shooters.
• Most African Americans do not live in bombed-out inner cities 10/10/16. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-unleashes-a-stream-of-falsehoods/2016/10/10/a3a3e64a-8f24-11e6-9c52-0b10449e33c4_story.html
2. Reactions to the Second Presidential Debate
“What occurred here on Sunday is likely to be remembered as the Spectacle in St. Louis: a presidential debate wrapped inside a sordid and unfolding series of events that have left Trump isolated, defiant and politically wounded, his Republican Party at war with itself and the country caught up in a campaign that has left issues and even moderately civil debate far behind, almost an afterthought.” -- Dan Balz
“Whatever chance Donald Trump still had of capturing the White House largely evaporated Sunday night in his second debate with Hillary Clinton.” -- David Gergen
“Lincoln-Douglas this was not. In fact, the debate Sunday night between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was ugly, angry and soul-crushing. It was less a forum for undecided voters than a grudge match between two people who really, really don’t like each other. At the end of the day, however, this debate did little to change the trajectory of the campaign. This is still Clinton’s race to lose. And Trump refuses to do what he needs to win it.” -- Amy Walter in the Cook Political Report
“To Republicans whose beliefs have been shaped through exposure to the Drudge Report, Breitbart, Fox News, or Rush Limbaugh, every word that escaped his lips was simple truths. Hillary Clinton cited the Republican officials who have called him unfit for office, trying to use the prestige of the Republican Party against him. Trump used his time to show that he is the Republican Party.” -- Jonathan Chait
“At Sunday’s debate, Donald Trump revealed that he is not running to be America’s president so much as its dictator.” --Ezra Klein
"Sometime over the last week — probably after the release of the video showing him bragging about sexual assault — Donald Trump realized he wasn’t going to win this election. He’s now moved on to Plan B. Trump’s pivot — starting with his “apology” video late Friday night — was to go full Breitbart. He’s now speaking only to the audience for a speculated media venture. Its not a mistake that his top advisers are former Fox News chief Roger Ailes and Breitbart’s Stephen Bannon." -- Taegan Goddard
"This is what was on display these last 72 hours: hate. The hate for the other that emanates from his scowling face and undergirds his words, and that has thrummed lightly beneath Republican policy goals for some time, now exposed for the world to see. Trump is channeling the hate of his supporters, inspiring hate in his detractors. This weekend, Donald Trump made America hate again." -- Rebecca Traister
3. Borowitz Report: Putin Cancels Campaign Event With Trump
Calling the Republican nominee’s behavior “completely indefensible,” the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, cancelled a joint campaign appearance with Donald Trump on Monday.
Putin, who had been scheduled to campaign alongside Trump at a rally in Columbus, Ohio, said that he would make no joint appearances with the billionaire for the remainder of the campaign.
“As the father of two daughters, I cannot condone or defend Mr. Trump’s behavior,” the Russian leader said in a curt official statement.
Appearing on CNN, Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, attempted to downplay the Putin defection by claiming that Trump still has the support of many other totalitarian dictators.
Slightly Earlier: Heading into the second Presidential debate of the 2016 general election campaign, Donald J. Trump made it clear that he had his eyes firmly fixed on one goal: to defeat Bill Clinton in November.
“I am prepared to make my case to the American people that Bill Clinton is unfit to be President of the United States,” Trump told reporters at Washington University. “That’s all I’m living for now.”
Trump said that, in order to deny Bill Clinton the Presidency, he was prepared to scrutinize “every nook and cranny of Clinton’s sordid personal life.”
“Absolutely nothing is off the table,” the billionaire said. “This country is in bad shape, and the most important thing right now is that Bill Clinton never becomes Commander-in-Chief.”
Earlier: In what is being described as a best-case scenario, some political experts are predicting that the Republicans could once again be a viable political party as early as the year 2096.
Davis Logsdon, the head of the University of Minnesota’s political-science department, said on Saturday that the eighty-year time frame for the Republican Party to recover was “admittedly optimistic, but still doable.”
“In order for the G.O.P. to become even a marginally functional political party again, all memory of the 2016 campaign will have to be obliterated,” political strategist Tracy Klugian said. “That means everyone who witnessed it will have to be dead, and probably those people’s children, and their children’s children, too. I wouldn’t bet on the Republican Party recovering any earlier than the year 2132.”
Much Earlier: Republicans on Friday expressed bafflement that President Obama had garnered a record-high second-term approval rating despite having turned the United States into an economically devastated, crime-ridden hellhole.
Appearing on “Fox & Friends,” the Trump surrogate Rudolph Giuliani said he was “dumbfounded” by the disconnect between Obama’s high approval rating and the President’s near-total dismemberment of a formerly strong nation.
Having witnessed their President transform a once-great country into a dystopian nightmare unfit for human habitation, the American people’s decision to give Obama a record-high approval rating filled Giuliani with bewilderment. “Maybe they approve of the job he did founding isis,” he said. Read more at http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/
4. The DAILY GRILL
“I consider myself too perfect and have no faults.” — Donald Trump, on Twitter in 2014.
VERSUS
“I’ve never said I’m a perfect person, nor pretended to be someone that I’m not.” — Trump, in his video apology. 10/07/16
“In 2011, after failed attempts by both Senator McCain and Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump single-handedly forced President Obama to release his birth certificate, which was lauded by large segments of the political community.” --Donald Trump’s biography on the website of his privately held corporation, the Trump Organization, calling U.S. Sen. John McCain a birther conspiracy theorist.
VERSUS
How DARE anyone have the audacity to lump my father in with birthers & birthirism. In case you forgot, there's video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c-Ijky95dc… Meghan McCain ✔@MeghanMcCain
5. Donald Trump Makes History With Zero Major Newspaper Endorsements
With just a little over a month until election day, Donald Trump has racked up zero major newspaper endorsements, a first for any major party nominee in American history. 10/06/16 https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-makes-history-zero-major-newspaper-endorsements-000943174.html
6. From MEDIA MATTERS (They watch Fox News so you don't have to)
Rush Limbaugh: "It's Inarguable" That "The Government's Hyping Hurricane Matthew To Sell Climate Change" http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/10/07/rush-limbaugh-its-inarguable-governments-hyping-hurricane-matthew-sell-climate-change/213613
Limbaugh: Debate Moderators Martha Raddatz And Anderson Cooper Are "Two Hillary Supporters From State-Run Media" http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/10/07/limbaugh-debate-moderators-martha-raddatz-and-anderson-cooper-are-two-hillary-supporters-state-run/213614
Limbaugh: Journalists Who Accept Climate Science “Have Been Over Taken By … A Special Kind Of Stupid.” http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/10/07/limbaugh-journalists-who-accept-climate-science-have-been-over-taken-special-kind-stupid/213612
A Trump Apologist Told Ana Navarro Not To Say "Pussy" On CNN. It Didn't Go Well For Her. -- Ana Navarro: "Don't Tell Me You're Offended When I Say 'Pussy,' But You're Not Offended When Donald Trump Says It. I'm Not Running For President, He Is" http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/10/08/trump-apologist-told-ana-navarro-not-say-pussy-cnn-it-didnt-go-well-her/213644
Trump Ally Alex Jones: "I Was Told By People Around" Clinton That "She's Demon-Possessed" -- Jones: "High Up" People Tell Me "Obama And Hillary Both Smell Like Sulfur" http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/10/10/trump-ally-alex-jones-i-was-told-people-around-clinton-shes-demon-possessed/213712
Fox’s Newt Gingrich: A Clinton Administration “Would Be The End Of America As We Have Known It ”http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/10/10/fox-s-newt-gingrich-clinton-administration-would-be-end-america-we-have-known-it/213722
Sean Hannity Declares Paul Ryan’s Republican Party “Dead” -- Hannity: “Nobody Likes Them Anymore. Nobody Thinks Much Of Them Anymore” http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/10/10/sean-hannity-declares-paul-ryan-s-republican-party-dead/213720
Meet Jill Harth, One Of The Trump Sexual Assault Accusers His Media Surrogates Ignore -- Jill Harth, a former Trump business associate, filed an unresolved lawsuit alleging that Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s and is now speaking out again. http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/10/10/meet-jill-harth-one-trump-sexual-assault-accusers-his-media-surrogates-ignore/213719
7. From the Late Shows
SNL Cold Open: VP Debate
SNL: Weekend Update: Denise McDonough and Doreen Troilo
Playback: Trump and the 'Access Hollywood' bus tapes
Late Night with Seth Meyers: Trump and the GOP Crisis: A Closer Look
8. Political Ads/Statements
Locker room talk? | The Briefing
Avalanche of insults | The Briefing
Mike Pence couldn't defend Donald Trump at the Vice Presidential debate | The Briefing
Correct The Record: Trump “Left Nothing But Ruins Everywhere He’s Gone”
Silo | Hillary Clinton
9. Team Clinton Is Running Up Big Lead In Early Voting
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton could run up an “insurmountable lead” in Florida, North Carolina and Nevada ahead of Election Day because of early voting, effectively deciding the outcome of those battleground states, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said Thursday.
Democrats expect that at least 40 percent of votes will be cast ahead of Nov. 8 in battleground states that allow early voting, Mook said during a conference call with reporters. He claimed that early indications in crucial Florida and Ohio are positive for Democrats. Clinton leads Republican Donald Trump in Florida by 2.4 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls, and trails Trump in Ohio by the same margin.10/06/16 Read more at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/06/clinton-campaign-claims-three-battleground-states-could-be-locked-through-early-voting/
10. 11-year-old audio of Trump’s graphic, vulgar remarks on women surfaces
11. Collateral Damage: Trump could take the GOP down with him
AFTER Friday, here's the nightmare situation for Republicans: You have a good chunk of the party criticizing Trump and demanding him to drop out of the race, and you have the other part (especially Trump's supporters) fighting back. Thirty days before a national election, that hurts voter and volunteer morale, it dampens turnout, and it all makes it harder to win races up and down the ballot. When it becomes every politician for himself or herself -- we saw this play out with Republicans in 2006 and 2008, and with Democrats in 2014 -- it usually doesn't turn out well for that party. -- Cook Political Report's David Wasserman tells First Read.. 10/09/16 Read more at http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/collateral-damage-trump-could-take-gop-down-him-n662701
12. Trump's Pledge to 'Jail' Clinton Unprecedented
Donald Trump's pledge Sunday night that he would order his attorney general to investigate Hillary Clinton, and his quip that she should "be in jail," is a direct breach of the tradition of nonpartisan rule of law.
A president is not typically authorized to order specific criminal investigations of individuals, let alone a public pledge to investigate a political opponent. Former Attorney General Eric Holder tweeted that President Richard Nixon's attorney general "courageously resigned" after being asked to fire a special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal. 10/09/16 Read more at http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-s-pledge-jail-clinton-would-be-unprecedented-n663351
Trump renews call for special prosecutor for Clinton: http://bcove.me/8nmaxlu5
13. Dear Donald Trump And Vladimir Putin, I Am Not Sidney Blumenthal
The Russians have been obtaining American emails and now are presenting complete misrepresentations of them—falsifying them—in hopes of setting off a cascade of events that might change the outcome of the presidential election. The big question, of course, is why are the Russians working so hard to damage Clinton and, in the process, aid Donald Trump? That is a topic for another time.
For now, though, Americans should be outraged. This totalitarian regime, engaged in what are arguably war crimes in Syria to protect its government puppet, is working to upend a democracy to the benefit of an American candidate who uttered positive comments just Sunday about the Kremlin's campaign on behalf of Bashar al-Assad. Trump’s arguments were an incomprehensible explication of the complex Syrian situation, which put him right on the side of the Iranians and Syrians, who are fighting to preserve the government that is the primary conduit of weapons used against Israel. -- KURT EICHENWALD 10/10/16 Read more at http://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-sidney-blumenthal-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-benghazi-sputnik-508635 More about Trump citing this bogus story is at http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-reads-erroneous-sputnik-news-article-at-rally
14 . Late Night Jokes for Dems
"Donald Trump's charity, the Trump Foundation, is no longer allowed to accept donations in New York. This is really bad news for anyone who thought, 'I'd like to make sure my money gets to the people who really need it; I know, I'll funnel it through Donald Trump.'" –Conan O'Brien
"Supporters of Donald Trump are saying the fact that he lost a billion dollars and then didn't pay income taxes for 18 years means he is a 'genius.' They also say three marriages makes him a 'feminist,' so it kind of works out." –Conan O'Brien
"This weekend, a person or persons spray-painted graffiti all over Donald Trump's new Washington, D.C., hotel. Police have narrowed their list of suspects down to '50 percent of the country.'" –Conan O'Brien
"We're going to start by talking about everybody's favorite subject: taxes. Over the weekend, Donald Trump's private tax documents were leaked to The New York Times, showing that in 1995 he posted a loss of $916 million dollars. The only people with a more embarrassing loss in 1995 were the prosecution team in the O.J. Simpson trial." –James Corden
"He lost a billion dollars. Right now, Gary Busey is like, 'Hold up, wait — didn't you fire me on 'Celebrity Apprentice' for losing the Snapple challenge?'" –James Corden
"Now, nobody knows where this leak has come from, but some are suggesting that the source of the leak was Trump's ex-wife Marla Maples, who leaked the taxes as revenge. Even Beyoncé was like, 'Now that is making lemonade.'" –James Corden
"The big story is Donald Trump might not have paid any income tax since Xena: Warrior Princess went on the air." –Jimmy Kimmel
"Now, the idea that Trump hasn't paid taxes in nearly 20 years is bound to be unpopular with — what's the word — people. But according to the former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Trump not paying taxes just proves how smart he is." –Stephen Colbert
| OPINION |
1. Eugene Robinson: Trump can’t stop his campaign’s death spiral
On the debate stage Sunday night, we saw a lifelong public servant with total grasp of the issues and concrete plans to take the nation forward. And we saw a fraudulent boor who knows nothing about anything and brags about groping women. Let’s not pretend anymore that we have an actual choice.
Let’s not pretend there is any question about who “won” the debate, because only one candidate — Hillary Clinton — actually debated. Donald Trump did nothing but spew dangerous and incoherent nonsense, demonstrating in the process how fortunate we are that his electoral prospects finally seem to be circling the drain.
“If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation,”Trump told Clinton , referring to how she handled emails from her tenure as secretary of state. I believe those have to be the most shockingly un-American words ever uttered at a presidential debate, and they made me sick to my stomach.
That sort of thing happens in banana republics: Newly elected leaders use state institutions to persecute and punish their political rivals. Presidents of the United States do not behave this way, for heaven’s sake. The fact that Trump would threaten Clinton with prison proves he does not begin to understand, let alone respect, the traditions that have sustained our democracy since the time of the founders. 10/10/16 Read more at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-cant-stop-his-campaigns-death-spiral/2016/10/10/df752a50-8f13-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html
2. Paul Krugman: What About the Planet?
Our two major political parties are at odds on many issues, but nowhere is the gap bigger or more consequential than on climate.
If Hillary Clinton wins, she will move forward with the Obama administration’s combination of domestic clean-energy policies and international negotiation — a one-two punch that offers some hope of reining in greenhouse gas emissions before climate change turns into climate catastrophe.
If Donald Trump wins, the paranoid style in climate politics — the belief that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by a vast international conspiracy of scientists — will become official doctrine, and catastrophe will become all but inevitable.
So why does the media seem so determined to ignore this issue? Why, in particular, does it almost seem as if there’s a rule against bringing it up in debates?
The good news is that there are still two debates to go, offering the opportunity to make some amends.
It’s time to end the blackout on climate change as an issue. It needs to be front and center — and questions must be accompanied by real-time fact-checking, not relegated to the limbo of he-said-she-said, because this is one of the issues where the truth often gets lost in a blizzard of lies.
There is, quite simply, no other issue this important, and letting it slide would be almost criminally irresponsible. 10/07/16 Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/opinion/what-about-the-planet.html
3. Washington Post Editorial: Scandal! WikiLeaks reveals Hillary Clinton to be . . . reasonable
THE CLINTON campaign has refused to deny or confirm the authenticity of a WikiLeaks report including apparent purloined emailed excerpts of her paid speeches to corporate audiences in the years between her departure from the State Department in 2013 and her declaration for president in 2015. We hope the excerpts are genuine, because at least in the texts made public as of Monday, the Hillary Clinton that emerges is a knowledgeable, balanced political veteran with sound policy instincts and a mature sense of how to sustain a decent, stable democracy.
With a level of self-awareness unimaginable in her opponent, Ms. Clinton described herself in one speech as “kind of far removed” from the ordinary American’s struggles because of her newfound wealth, and suggested she was making a conscious effort to compensate for that. In other talks, she said she “really admire[s]” even ideological opponents willing to run for office amid the toxicity of modern politics; she noted, correctly, that the optimal situation for the United States is “two sensible, moderate, pragmatic parties.” She also favored the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles framework for deficit reduction, in which entitlement reform would be traded for progressive tax increases, and she offered an astute, historically informed discussion of the challenges of extending health-care coverage at an affordable cost. 10/10/16 Read more at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/scandal-wikileaks-reveals-hillary-clinton-to-be--reasonable/2016/10/10/bbad509c-8f19-11e6-9c52-0b10449e33c4_story.html
4. Fareed Zakaria: How Trump exposed the corruption in the U.S. tax code
Even though America is generally more competitive than other rich countries, its taxation is much more complicated and inefficient. Why this anomaly? The answer is that it is intentional — a feature, not a bug, in the system. The complexity of the tax code exists by design, because it allows for the distinctive feature of the American political system: fundraising.
America is unique among democracies in requiring, at all levels of politics, that vast amounts of cash be raised from the private sector. In order to get this money, senators and members of Congress need something to offer in return, and what they sell are amendments to the tax code. When you pay $5,000 to have a stale breakfast with a congressman, you are not paying for his insights or personality. You and others like you are buying a line of the code, which is why it is thousands of pages long. This is the world’s ultimate “pay for play” setup.
There are only two ways to fix this problem. One would be to stop people from paying politicians. But the Supreme Court ruled in Buckley v. Valeo in 1976 that money is speech and thus constitutionally protected. (As far as I know, this is a view shared by no other Western democracy.) That leaves another path — take away what Congress sells. If the tax code were to be made short and simple, with a handful of deductions, politicians would have little to offer people as a quid pro quo. You could still pay them, for their ideas and personality, but I suspect that the flow of money would slow to a trickle. It is the simple, single solution to the cancer in American politics. And we could thank Donald Trump for highlighting it. 10/06/16 Read more at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-trump-exposed-the-corruption-in-the-us-tax-code/2016/10/06/612eec4e-8bf8-11e6-875e-2c1bfe943b66_story.html or http://wpo.st/1ci32
5. Max Boot: Republicans are paying the price for their addiction to their own media
Trump denied that agents of the Russian government hacked the Democratic National Committee (as intelligence briefers reportedly told him with “high confidence”), claimed that unscientific online polls were more legitimate than scientific polls and suggested that Google is deliberately skewing search results to leave out bad news about his opponent.
Such wild assertions are fully in character for a candidate who has spent five years pushing the lie that President Obama was not born in the United States, and has also suggested that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, that global warming is a Chinese hoax (in the first debate, he brazenly denied saying this), that “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in Jersey City, N.J., cheered 9/11, and that vaccines cause autism.
Where might Trump get such nutty ideas? He derides the mainstream media as “disgusting and corrupt,” but heaps praise on the National Enquirer, which he said should have received a Pulitzer Prize, and on Jones, a radio host who has claimed that 9/11 and Sandy Hook were “false flag” operations carried out by the U.S. government. “Your reputation is amazing,”Trump told Jones last year. “I will not let you down.”
You can and should blame Trump for believing so much of the nonsense that is spouted by the alternative media, but the deeper problem is with the outlets themselves. The right wing has created its own echo chamber which is increasingly disconnected from reality. There are millions of Americans who share Trump’s outré beliefs — which helps to explain why his presidential campaign has done better than expected.10/06/16 Read more at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-are-paying-the-price-for-their-addiction-to-their-own-media/2016/10/06/bf2c2bb4-8a5d-11e6-b24f-a7f89eb68887_story.html or http://wpo.st/0hi32
6. Washington Post Editorial: How much damage could a President Trump do? We can only begin to imagine.
A PRESIDENT TRUMP could alter the face of this country and its role in the world, in many cases with Congress and the courts having little power to check him. In a series of editorials over the past several days, we have described the vast reach of executive power in areas where Mr. Trump has made his intentions clear. He could, in fact, unilaterally order mass deportations, resume torturing detainees, undo the preservation of natural treasures and tear up long-standing trade agreements.
We don’t have to imagine how Mr. Trump would like to wield his powers once congenial officials were in place. He has repeatedly disparaged journalists as “moron,” “disgusting” and “absolute scum” while banning news organizations that offend him from his events andproposing to “open up” libel laws to sue journalists who write “negative” things about him. When he learned during primary season that a wealthy Chicago family was contributing to his opponent, he tweeted, “They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!” While many people remember Mr. Trump’s disparaging the Mexican heritage of the federal judge overseeing a Trump University fraud case, how many recall the implicit threat against him? “I’ll be seeing you in November,” Mr. Trump said in May.
If Mr. Trump wanted to wield the IRS against that Chicago family; if he tried to use U.S. diplomats to help his hotel business in Russia or Azerbaijan; if he barred disfavored reporters from the White House; if he ignored a judge who told him, say, that immigrants had to be given hearings before being deported — what recourse would Americans have?
Yes, Congress has the power to remove a president who ignores the law. But given the easy GOP capitulation to such an obviously unfit candidate, how far would Mr. Trump have to go for a likely Republican House to impeach him? How much damage would he have to do?
We have faith, ultimately, in the integrity of the federal workforce, the resilience of the U.S. system and the essential fairness of the American people. But all three could be tested as never before by a Trump presidency. The nation should not subject itself to such a risk. 10/06/16 Read more at http://wpo.st/Kli32 or https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-much-damage-could-a-president-trump-do-we-can-only-begin-to-imagine/2016/10/06/312ba2fe-8a3a-11e6-875e-2c1bfe943b66_story.html
7. David Brooks: Trump’s Sad and Lonely Life
Politics is an effort to make human connection, but Trump seems incapable of that. He is essentially adviser-less, friendless. His campaign team is made up of cold mercenaries at best and Roger Ailes at worst. His party treats him as a stench it can’t yet remove.
He was a germophobe through most of his life and cut off contact with others, and now I just picture him alone in the middle of the night, tweeting out hatred. Trump breaks his own world record for being appalling on a weekly basis, but as the campaign sinks to new low after new low, I find myself experiencing feelings of deep sadness and pity.
Imagine if you had to go through a single day without sharing kind little moments with strangers and friends.
Imagine if you had to endure a single week in a hate-filled world, crowded with enemies of your own making, the object of disgust and derision.
You would be a twisted, tortured shrivel, too, and maybe you’d lash out and try to take cruel revenge on the universe. For Trump this is his whole life. 10/11/16 Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/opinion/donald-trumps-sad-lonely-life.html
8. Jonah Goldberg: Character Is Destiny
If you’re shocked that Donald Trump was capable of being this much of a pig, you let yourself be deluded. If you’re surprised that the Clinton campaign — or some allied party — found something like this, you willfully chose to live in a fantasyland. If you think there isn’t more of this stuff waiting, you’re doubling down on your delusions and fantasies.
The grab them by the p***y video is the perfect October surprise two days before the debate, when early voting is really coming online, and when Trump’s Achilles’ heel is his poor standing with moderate suburban college educated women. That is not a coincidence.
I can’t imagine what the Clinton campaign would be unloading if Trump were five points ahead.
Donald Trump is a fundamentally dishonorable and dishonest person – and has been his whole adult life. The evidence has been in front of those willing to see it all along. And there’s more to find. And there’s more in the Clinton stockpile.
Character is destiny. The man in the video is Donald Trump. Sure, it’s bawdy Trump. It’s “locker room Trump.” And I’m no prude about dirty talk in private. But that isn’t all that’s going on. This isn’t just bad language or objectifying women with your buddies. It’s a married man who is bragging about trying to bed a married woman. It’s an insecure, morally ugly, man-child who thinks boasting about how he can get away with groping women ”because you’re a star” impresses people. He’s a grotesque — as a businessman and a man full stop. 10/07/16 Read more at http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/440859/trumps-piggishness-surprises-beguiled
9. Glenn Thrush and Katie Glueck: Is Trump's campaign over?
It’s fitting that the election of Hillary Clinton as the first female president might have been sealed by Donald Trump’s treatment of women as subordinate, interchangeable, pliable playthings.
Trump — a compulsively public politician who has mouthed some of the most hilarious (intentionally or otherwise), offensive, fact-allergic and misogynistic statements by anyone competing in the public arena — might be ultimately undone by a private admission about a woman he wanted to have sex with.
There has never been a major party nominee like Trump, and there has never been anything like the release of Trump speaking about women in the most vulgar and demeaning terms in a 2005 hot mic recording — including the admissions that he made an apparently unwanted pass on a married woman and groped women he courted whether they liked it or not.
Americans don’t trust politicians (it’s one of the biggest reasons for Trump’s improbable rise), but they trust their eyes and ears. And the recording of Trump talking with radio and TV host Billy Bush makes a starker case that he’s unsuited to occupy the nation’s highest office — making Mitt Romney’s infamous leaked “47 percent” tape seem like a high-minded Great Courses lecture. 10/08/16 Read more at http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/is-trumps-campaign-over-229341
10. Maureen Dowd: Donald Goes to the Dogs
On Friday afternoon, The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold, who has been tormenting Trump on ethical issues with Trump’s foundation, tormented the candidate on another vulnerable area: his history of crude remarks about women.
The paper reported on a creepy 2005 conversation between Trump and Billy Bush of “Access Hollywood” captured on a hot mike — more trouble with a mike! — when Trump was promoting a cameo on “Days of Our Lives.”
“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there,” Trump says. “And she was married.”
And when the two men see a beautiful actress on set, Trump gets excited: “I’ve gotta use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.” He said that, as a star, he could grab women in an erotic zone and “do anything.”
Trump responded to the shocked reaction of his remarks: “This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course — not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended.”
All week, Trump had been saying he wanted to talk about policy and not get “into the gutter” in the next debate, and he emailed Richard Johnson from The New York Post’s Page Six that he wanted “to win this election on my policies for the future, not on Bill Clinton’s past.”
But when he got hit by The Washington Post’s story, he couldn’t help himself. He went straight to Bill Clinton and women.
Throw a tennis ball, the black Lab goes after it. But it’s not fair to compare Trump to a dog. Dogs are awesome. 10/08/16 Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/opinion/sunday/donald-goes-to-the-dogs.html?smid=tw-nytimesdowd&smtyp=cur ornyti.ms/2dCsoW0
11. Ezra Klein: Trump Has Finally Come Undone
What happened Saturday in American politics was profound, and for Donald Trump, it marks the likely death of his presidential campaign. The permission structure that was slowly, reluctantly built around Trump by the media, by the Republican Party, by the conservative movement, and by Trump himself, is crumbling, and there is no time to rebuild it before the election.
Two weeks ago, supporting Trump was what you did if you were a Republican. Today, abandoning Trump is what you do if you’re a decent person. Two weeks ago, Trump’s floor was probably the mid-40s. Now it is plausibly much lower — I would no longer be surprised to see Trump’s vote share dip down into the 30s, with disastrous results for the Republicans congressional majority.
Trump is becoming de-normalized, and the structure that made it safe for Trump-skeptics to vote for him is crumbling. That is a very dangerous dynamic for the Republican nominee, and for the political party that tried for so long to protect him. http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/9/13213234/donald-trump-tape-republicans-supporting
12. Chicago Sun Times Editorial: Dump Trump and redeem the Republican Party
The vulgarian is at the gate. Flee him now.
There is no redeeming Donald Trump. He is a lost cause. The only question is whether there is redemption for the political party that so irresponsibly put him up for president.
Speaker Paul Ryan doesn’t get it. He said Friday he was “sickened” by Trump’s comments, but he did not withdraw his support. On the contrary, he said this might all be an unfortunate misunderstanding. Trump, he said, should “demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than this clip suggests.”
That would be impossible, and Ryan knows it. Trump does not have greater respect for women than this clip suggests.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn’t get it either. He called Trump’s comments “repugnant” and demanded he apologize to women. But he didn’t even hint that he might back off his endorsement.
Trump is a political goner, or so we hope. The stakes for our nation are so high. The only responsible course for every Republican leader and elected official now is to withdraw their support, or the GOP as a national party will be a goner, too.
The shaming of our country continues. 10/08/16 Read more at http://chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/editorial-dump-trump-and-redeem-the-republican-party/
13. Betsy Woodruff and Tim Mak: Donald Trump Goes Full Rage-Monster on Hillary and Bill Clinton
It was the ugliest 90 minutes in modern American political history.
At Washington University on Sunday night, Donald Trump leveled hit after hit at Hillary Clinton: physically looming behind her while she spoke, frequently interrupting her, and even threatening to send her to jail if he becomes president.
It’s a grim preview of what the final 30 days will look like: an angry street fight between one of the most practiced presidential contenders of all time and a brawling reality-TV veteran with nothing to lose.
The night was an hour and a half of Trump’s unfettered id, spilling out in sex-obsessed suggestions and naked threats. Trump lobbed every hit Breitbart News and far-right conspiracy theorists could have dreamed of. This election is now a referendum on whether that style of politics works. 10.09.16 http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/10/donald-trump-goes-full-rage-monster-on-hillary-and-bill-clinton.html
14. NY Times Editorial: Donald Trump Goes Low
Donald Trump boiled his decadent campaign down to one theme during the presidential debate on Sunday night: hatred of Hillary and Bill Clinton.
Sniffing and glowering, Mr. Trump prowled behind Mrs. Clinton as she presented herself again as the only adult on stage, the only one seeking to persuade the great majority of Americans that she shares their values and aspirations. Mr. Trump, by contrast, fell back on the tricks he has learned from his years in pro wrestling and reality television, making clear how deep his cynicism goes.
During the debate, Mr. Trump struggled once again to coherently explain his policies, instead wandering down twisting, shadowy alleyways in muttering pursuit of his various claims about Mrs. Clinton, including that she, not he, was responsible for his birther lie about President Obama. He complained that the moderators were ganging up on him and failing to question Mrs. Clinton about her private email server — immediately after they had done just that.
The videotape disclosed Friday provided gruesome evidence that the Republican standard-bearer has for years used his powerful status to prey on women. Other revelations followed, including that in 2005 he told Howard Stern on his radio show that, when he owned the Miss Universe pageant, he made a practice of “inspecting” naked contestants backstage. “You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. … And you see these incredible-looking women, and so, I sort of get away with things like that.”
Now, as he struggles to close the biggest deal of his lifetime, a woman is getting the better of him. That’s not surprising, but it is apt. 10/09/16 Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/opinion/mr-trump-goes-low.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
15. Paul Krugman: Predators in Arms
As many people are pointing out, Republicans now trying to distance themselves from Donald Trump need to explain why The Tape was a breaking point, when so many previous incidents weren’t. On Saturday, explaining why he was withdrawing his endorsement, Senator John McCaincited “comments on prisoners of war, the Khan Gold Star family, Judge Curiel and earlier inappropriate comments about women” — and that leaves out Mexicans as rapists, calls for a Muslim ban, and much more. So, Senator McCain, what took you so long?
One excuse we’re now hearing is that the new revelations are qualitatively different — that disrespect for women is one thing, but boasting about sexual assault brings it to another level. It’s a weak defense, since Mr. Trump has in effect been promising violence against minorities all along. His insistence last week that the Central Park Five, who were exonerated by DNA evidence, were guilty and should have been executed was even worse than The Tape, but drew hardly any denunciations from his party.
And even if you consider sexual predation somehow uniquely unacceptable, you have to ask where all these pearl-clutching Republicans were back in August, when Roger Ailes — freshly fired from Fox News over horrifying evidence that he used his position to force women into sexual relationships — joined the Trump campaign as a senior adviser. Were there any protests at all from senior G.O.P. figures?
Of course, we know the answer: The latest scandal upset Republicans, when previous scandals didn’t, because the candidate’s campaign was already in free fall. You can even see it in the numbers: The probability of a House Republican jumping off the Trump train is strongly related to the Obama share of a district’s vote in 2012. That is, Republicans in competitive districts are outraged by Mr. Trump’s behavior; those in safe seats seem oddly indifferent. 10/10/16 Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/opinion/predators-in-arms.html
16. Michael Gerson: A Politician -- and a Party -- Deserving of Contempt
To many people outside the talk radio hothouse, I can attest, Trump's debate performance was appalling, contemptible, shameful, squalid, vile. Do we really want a president who views the rule of law as a means to imprison his opposition? A president who dismisses talk of sexual assault on the theory that boys will be boys? A president who urges a foreign power to hack his opponent, then excuses that power when it is caught? A president who accuses his opponent of killing American soldiers based on a position he actually took himself?
Trump and his advisers must know that the conservative talk radio audience, and the Republican primary electorate, is different from a national electorate, which actually includes minorities, young people and women who don't like disgusting boors. Perhaps Trump's strategy was a recognition that even his strongest supporters were on the verge of bolting and needed to be appeased. Perhaps Trump's knowledge of policy is so thin that it fills three or four minutes of a 90-minute debate, and all he has left is trash-talk. Or perhaps he is captive to his impulses, incapable of shame and nasty to the core.
Whatever the explanation, Trump achieved the worst possible outcome for the GOP. He was good enough with his base to avoid a generalized revolt; and bad enough with the rest of the country to continue his slide toward major defeat.
This sad Republican fate is deserved. It is the culmination, the fruition, of an absurdly simplistic anti-establishment attitude. The Trump campaign is what happens when you choose a presidential candidate without the taint of electoral experience -- and all the past vetting that comes with it. It is what happens when you pick a candidate who has not engaged in serious public argument over a period in which his or her views and consistency can be tested. It is what happens when you embrace a candidate only on the basis of an outsider persona, who lacks actual political skills -- like making a policy argument, empathizing with a voter or avoiding a constant stream of distracting gaffes.
This is what Republicans get for devaluing the calling of public service. When you have contempt for politics, you often get a politics worthy of contempt. 10/10/16 Read more at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/10/10/a_politician_--_and_a_party_--_deserving_of_contempt_132023.html
17. Jill Lepore : Donald Trump, The Great Embarrassment
Donald J. Trump leads the Republican Party the way the head of a rebel army holds a capital city. This isn’t an ambush or an act of treason or a kidnapping. This is a siege. He plans to build walls; he promises to put his opponents in prison. He enjoys harems. He admires tyrants. He erects monuments to himself in major cities. He holds entertainments in America’s stadiums, where he toys with his political enemies, delighting his band of followers while terrorizing other citizens. Over the weekend, he insisted that he will neither retreat nor surrender.
Meanwhile, he invokes the people: they, he says, have chosen him, and will elect him; the people love him. Do they? Joe McGinniss once observed that the American voter “defends passionately the illusion that the men he chooses to lead him are of a finer nature than he” and that “it has been traditional that the successful politician honor this illusion.” That tradition has ended. No one in the Republican Party can possibly believe that Trump is a better person, a man of finer nature, than the ordinary American voter. The problem for the Party is that no one, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, can even pretend to believe that anymore. No one can believe that in daylight, or in the darkest hour of night, while Trump, restless, tweets about the conspiracies that he believes are being hatched by his enemies—men and, especially, women—to fell him. 10/11/16 Read more at http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/donald-trump-the-great-embarrassment
18. NY Times Editorial: Donald Trump’s Weird World
For most of this campaign, Donald Trump’s admiration for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, and his willingness to act as a Kremlin apologist on issues ranging from Syria to the computer hacking of individuals and political parties have been sources of bafflement and dismay. Mr. Trump’s alarming performance at Sunday night’s debate deepened these concerns.
Mr. Trump again denied that the Russians were doing anything to manipulate the presidential election despite powerful evidence to the contrary. And he again laid bare his cockamamie and uninformed view of the bloody civil war in Syria and his refusal to acknowledge Russia’s role in making it worse.
Mr. Trump has no foreign policy experience. He has, however, received two briefings from American intelligence agencies that should have alerted him to the challenges facing the next president but apparently have not. All of which raises unsettling questions about whether the Republican nominee for the most powerful job in the world is Mr. Putin’s poodle, stubbornly naïve, totally clueless or, as some have ominously suggested, protecting undisclosed business interests in Russia. 10/12/16 Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/opinion/donald-trumps-weird-world.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0