Reality has been that the ability to functionally state a case and make an argument has been infinitely more important than the actual argument that has been made. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find an argument by either candidate that would actually solve anything, even if they could push their ideas to fruition. They might as well have been discussing the pros and cons of various chess openings, playing trivial pursuits, or having a meaningless debate about who is the early favorite on The Voice. Americans probably could have deciphered as much from those interactions as anything else. What this election has been about is Clinton's corruption and health vs Trump's racism and sexism. What it has morphed into is the Wikileaks revelations about Clinton corruption vs media revelations and accusations about Trump's treatment of women.
Problem for Trump is that in the Corruption vs Sex argument... sex will win every time.
This is not logical. It's not reasonable. It's not based on anything analytical. It's purely a specific attempt to manipulate emotions to elicit the desired response of negative feelings.
If we were logical, in a completely generic sense, someone who has shown corruption, obvious criminal behavior, and repeated work failures in their employment past, would be hard pressed to make an argument that they deserve a promotion. much less a promotion to President/CEO. On the flip side... boorish statements made in private ten years ago, and unfounded accusations from three decades ago would probably bear little or no weight in an actual employment competition.
When Trump has gone low... she has gone lower. Unless, of course, you consider the high road calling your opponent a racist during a national debate, running 50,000 negative ads, and calling tens of millions of Americans a bunch of irredeemable deplorables who should not be even considered American.
All that being said... it's never over till it's over. Clinton has had a history of grasping defeat from the jaws of victory, and there is still plenty of time for the political temperature to change. I would offer that there are two main considerations to mull over moving forward.
The first (and most obvious) is that the current media "hype" over these decades old allegations will prove to be less of an issue with the average American voter than is generally assumed. At the end of the day, emotional attacks aside, people want to know what's in it for them. Does rejecting Trump because he may or may not have taken liberties with women actually make their life better? Why do you believe liberal women stood by Bill Clinton through all the sex scandals? Because they felt he was still a better option (than the Republican alternative) to promote what they wanted. At the end of the day we are very much selfish creatures.
The second is that there is still a reasonable chance that the combined efforts of the Clinton machine (complete with her capitulating media) will take this too far, pile on, and turn Trump into some sort of Martyr. He's already laid the ground work with the "rigged" system talk. What's more rigged than an increasingly obvious planned personal assault on Donald Trump four weeks before the election? It is possible he could convince people he is actually the victim here. After all, If Bill Clinton could garner sympathy after shoving a cigar into the genital area of a 22 year old intern because the big bad prudish Republicans were picking on him... then isn't anything possible?
The only thing we know for sure is that these last few weeks will be anything but dull.
32 comments:
She has zero plan to cut Federal Tax rates on middle and lower income earners.
Trump does.
Voters top three issues:
1, Jobs and lack of increased pay
2, ObamaCare and the spiking premiums for those of us that pay our own way
3, Terrorism in the Streets of the USA
At the federal level, the minimum wage was last increased on July 24, 2009, when it rose from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour, the last step of a three-step increase approved by Congress in 2007.However, before 2007, the minimum wage had been stuck at $5.15 per hour for ten years"
O'Hillary have done nothing to help the workers of the USA .
It was Republicans that Cut middle and low income Federal Rates that are still in effect today. It Was Republicans that voted and raised the Minimum Wage to today's level.
There is good news and bad news for Trump in the latest Fox News poll.
The bad news is Trump lost 4 points and is now behind Clinton by 7.
The good news for Trump is that they are not going to Clinton. She only gained one point.
Trump is still in it.
Barely.
DEVASTATION is facing you.
Much good reading at electoral-vote.com
And this just in at politicalwire.com
BREAKFAST READING FOR TROOTHERS:
GOP Insiders See Trump’s Chances Fading
Politico: “After a nightmarish, seven-day stretch that began with the release of a tape of the now-GOP presidential nominee making sexually aggressive remarks, just 27 percent of GOP swing-state insiders say Trump would win their states if the election were held today. That’s down from the roughly half of Republican insiders who said Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton in their states over the past six weeks.
“Democratic insiders are more certain of the outcome — 99 percent said Clinton would carry their state.”
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Denial ain't just in Egypt.
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Obama Says Republicans Created Trump
President Obama gave Republicans a frank dressing-down for allowing Donald Trump to become the Republican nominee by “feeding their base all kinds of crazy for years” at the annual Ohio Democrats’ dinner Thursday night, TPM reports.
Said Obama: “The problem is not that all Republicans think the way this guy does. The problem is that they’ve been riding this tiger for a long time. They’ve been feeding their base all kinds of crazy for years, primarily for political expedience. So if Trump was running around saying I wasn’t born here, they were okay with that as long as it helped them with votes. If some of these folks on talk radio talked about how I was the antichrist, that’s just politics.”
He added: “They stood by while this happened. And Donald Trump–as he’s prone to do—he didn’t build the building himself, he just slapped his name on it and took credit for it. And that’s what happened in their party.”
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Same thing I've been saying for a long time. Even the part about riding the tiger that I got from JFK.
Nah, unlike you I have no need to be emotionally invested in a candidate.
However, I will say your celebration of another four years of misery for the American people under the rule of a plainly criminal president is nothing short of evil.
I am proudly emotionally invested in my country and thus in this election.
You're emotionally invested in a criminal.
The one emotion you have in regards to this country is hate and a desire for the election to destroy the country.
You won't succeed of course. The country can survive one election.
Trump Will Link Mexican Billionaire to Clinton
“Donald Trump will broaden his attack against the media to hit globalism and the Clinton Foundation by charging that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is part of a biased coalition working in collusion with the Clinton campaign and its supporters to generate news reports of decades-old allegations from several women,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“As early as Friday, Mr. Trump is planning to claim that Mr. Slim, as a shareholder of New York Times Co. and donor to the Clinton Foundation, has an interest in helping Hillary Clinton’s campaign, according to a Trump adviser.”
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He's off the rails.
A video comes out in which he brags about making unwanted advances toward women.
During the debate, he is asked if he did what he bragged about.
He says he did not.
Several women step forward to state that he did. They include four teenage beauty contestants.
The Times runs the story of their disagreement with Trump.
Trump threatens to sue the Times.
The Times points out that they printed a newsworthy story which they checked out and also printed his campaign's denial.
And as for a lawsuit, the Times welcomes an opportunity to allow a court to "set him straight."
Boy o boy o boy o boy. All you have to do is look at what keeps appearing at politicalwire.com:
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‘Lock Her Up’ Talk Worse Than Locker Room Talk
Charles Krauthammer:
“Such incendiary talk is an affront to elementary democratic decency and a breach of the boundaries of American political discourse. In democracies, the electoral process is a subtle and elaborate substitute for combat, the age-old way of settling struggles for power.
“Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chávez and a cavalcade of two-bit caudillos lock up their opponents. American leaders don’t. One doesn’t even talk like this. It takes decades, centuries, to develop ingrained norms of political restraint and self-control. But they can be undone in short order by a demagogue feeding a vengeful populism.”
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WOW.
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Trump Looked Up Models’ Skirts
“Yet another woman is alleging that she witnessed inappropriate sexual advances by Donald Trump, now the Republican nominee for president,” the Huffington Post reports.
“Lisa Boyne, a health food business entrepreneur, described a disturbing episode in the mid-1990s: While at a restaurant with her and others, she said Trump paraded women in front of their table, looked under women’s skirts, and commented on whether they were wearing underwear.”
Said Boyne: “It was the most offensive scene I’ve ever been a part of. I wanted to get the heck out of there.”
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WOW.
Ground Game In Florida Goes Missing
Politico: “Remember when the GOP said it had this great ground game in Florida? Yeah. The Florida Dems are beating the GOP in voter-registration forms submitted by 503,000 to 60,000.”
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Clinton Makes Push to Win Over Educated Men
USA Today: “Weeks ago, the Clinton campaign thought its best hope of skimming votes from the GOP was largely limited to moderate, suburban white women. Now it’s making an aggressive play for college-educated, white suburban males as Trump faces a potential collapse in support that could prove unprecedented."
Said chief Clinton strategist Joel Benenson: “Especially given the events of the last week, I think we’re going to see a reasonable number of Republicans’ reconsider their support. It’s now broader than educated white women.”
Yep looks like CH is going to have to turn monitoring on.
Yes!
It is clear those that emotionally support a woman that is clearly a criminal as is her hubby, can not keep in check the very thing that created the Children's Blog.
Mike Pence has promised the Donald Trump's promised concrete proof that the women accusing Trump of making unwanted sexual advances to them are all lying -- that proof will be made today "within hours."
We patiently wait.
Trump’s Electoral Map Is Collapsing
The Fix:
“Forget Virginia. Or Colorado. Or lots of other traditional swing states. Right now, Donald Trump’s campaign is in such bad free fall, states that haven’t voted for a Democrat in generations are suddenly coming into play as the Republican nominee’s path to 270 electoral votes collapses all around him.
“Over the past 72 hours, polls have come out in Alaska, Texas and Utah that show Trump narrowly ahead of Hillary Clinton. That comes on top of data that suggests Republican-friendly states likes Arizona and Georgia are already a jump ball between Clinton and Trump.
“That’s absolutely remarkable when you consider the historic trends in those states. The last time a Democrat won Alaska was 1964, when Lyndon Johnson carried it over Barry Goldwater. Texas hasn’t voted for a Democrat for president since Jimmy Carter eked out the state in 1976. In Utah, like Alaska, LBJ is the last Democrat to win.”
The Upshot puts Clinton’s odds of winning at 89%,
FiveThirtyEight has her at 84%
and Sam Wang has her at 97%.
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OH NO! NOT ANOTHER ONE!!!
Another Trump Accuser Coming Forward
Prominent feminist attorney Gloria Allred announced she will hold a press conference Friday afternoon with a new accuser who claims Donald Trump had inappropriate sexual conduct toward her, the Daily Beast reports.
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SAY IT AIN'T SO...
Republicans in Danger of Losing the House
Ramesh Ponnuru:
“Their majority is protected by gerrymandering, the geographic distribution of Republican voters, the power of incumbency and its own sheer size. Republicans have 247 seats in the House, the most since 1931. Democrats would have to win 30 to take back the chamber. And that includes many seats in districts that usually go Republican in presidential contests. That sets the House apart from the Senate, where to keep their majority Republicans will have to hold seats in states that usually vote for Democratic presidential candidates.”
“But Clinton’s lead in the polls is widening to the point that Republicans need to set aside their complacency. Split-ticket voting has declined over the last generation. If Clinton wins big — because Republican voters stay home, or swing voters choose her party, or both — House Republicans will struggle to win re-election. Henry Olsen, the co-author of a recent book about the Republican party, tells me that an eight-point win would put Republicans in the danger zone.”
ANOTHER ONE!!!!
Woman Says Trump Groped Her Under Skirt in Early 1990s
Kristin Anderson tells the Washington Post that she “was deep in conversation with acquaintances at a crowded Manhattan nightspot and did not notice the figure to her right on a red velvet couch — until, she recalls, his fingers slid under her miniskirt, moved up her inner thigh, and touched her vagina through her underwear.”
It was Donald Trump.
“The episode, as Anderson described it, lasted no more than 30 seconds. Anderson said she and her companions were ‘very grossed out and weirded out’ and thought, ‘Okay, Donald is gross. We all know he’s gross. Let’s just move on.'”
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WHAT A PERVERT.
PERVERTY TOO.
https://politicalwire.com/2016/10/14/trump-said-sex-was-great-with-deeply-troubled-women/
It would be nice if we got so much as a when and where from these accusers.
ABOUT THAT EVIDENCE WE WERE PROMISED....
Trump campaign says it has secret evidence to disprove women’s sexual assault claims
But won’t share it just yet.
At a Cincinnati rally on Thursday, Donald Trump denounced “false accusations of the crooked Hillary Campaign and the mainstream media”
Days after an unearthed video revealed that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump boasted in 2005 that he sexually assaults women, and a slew of women came forward to say that they were among his victims, the Trump campaign says it has evidence that will prove that these women (and he) were lying.
On Thursday, Trump suggested in a campaign speech that he could not have sexually assaulted these women because they are too ugly and threatened to sue the media for publishing their claims. But now, he and his surrogates are promising something even better: documentary proof that he never sexually assaulted any of the myriad women who have come forward.
“We already have substantial evidence to dispute these lies, and it will be made public in an appropriate way and at an appropriate time — very soon,” Trump pledged at a West Palm Beach rally.
Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University and a member of Trump’s “Evangelical executive advisory board” told CNN’s The Hour that Trump (who as recently as 2013 testified that he almost never uses email) had told him he has exculpatory electronic messages.
“He told me about emails he had from these accusers who wanted to work for him after the supposed event had occurred. And he told me about other email evidence that supports the fact that it didn’t happen,” Falwell said.
On Friday morning, Trump’s running mate Mike Pence told CBS’ This Morning that the secret evidence would come in a Friday news dump. “Before the day is out, there’ll be more evidence publicly that calls into question these latest allegations,” Pence promised. “Stay tuned. I know there’s more information that’s going to be coming out that will back his claim that this is all categorically false.”
But while it is possible that Trump’s accusers might each have emailed Trump to thank him for not sexually assaulting them, in the past he has frequently boasted of having secret information that somehow never materializes.
Last summer, after his nativist campaign kickoff speech included claims that most Mexican immigrants were drug smugglers, rapists, and criminals, CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Trump to prove these claims.
“Well, you’re going to find out if I have evidence. I’m not telling you now, but you’re going to find out what I have,” he vowed.
No proof has been produced.
Well after President Obama released his long-form birth certificate, Trump tweeted in August 2012 that he had inside information to prove that the document was fraudulent.
Four years later, he has still not identified the “extremely credible source” or any evidence of this claim.Trump now pretends this never happened and that his birther obsession ended in 2011.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday night that Trump will blame the allegations on a complicated conspiracy involving the Clinton campaign, the New York Times, and its minority shareholder Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.
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Oh heck. I already heard that one.
He lies about as badly as you do, Commensa.
Woman Says Trump Groped Her Under Skirt in Early 1990s
She said she was an aspiring model who was at a nightclub where she was gropped by a man she didn't know at the time but "later" identify as Donald Trump.
Is that suitably vague for you?
Well, it sounds like those who were with her and possibly she herself knew it was Donald Trump. He seems to have had a reputation for being Donald Trump and for behaving in that way.
Now tell us that 7:26 was also vague.
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Bill Cosby will probably hire you to try to "prove" that none of the women who accused him knew him.
Thanks for amusing us. Again.
THE NEW YORK TIMES Opinion Pages
contributing op]ed writer Timothy Egan
Burning Down the House
A wounded bear is a dangerous thing. Detested and defeated, Donald Trump is now in a tear-the-country-down rage. Day after day, he rips at the last remaining threads of decency holding this nation together. His opponent is the devil, he says — hate her with all your heart. Forget about the rule of law. Lock her up!
He’s made America vile. He’s got angel-voiced children yelling “bitch” and flipping the bird at rallies. He’s got young athletes chanting “build a wall” at Latino kids on the other side. He’s made it O.K. to bully and fat-shame. He’s normalized perversion, bragging about how an aging man with his sense of entitlement can walk in on naked women.
Here’s his lesson for young minds: If you’re rich and boorish enough, you can get away with anything. Get away with sexual assault. Get away with not paying taxes. Get away with never telling the truth. Get away flirting with treason. Get away with stiffing people who work for you, while you take yours. Get away with mocking the disabled, veterans and families of war heroes.
You know this by now — all the sordid details. For much of the last year, the Republican presidential nominee has been a freak show, an oh-my-God spectacle. He opens his mouth, our cellphones blow up. But now, in the final days of a horrid campaign, an unshackled Trump is more national threat than punch line. He’s determined to cause lasting damage.
Is there one sector of society he has yet to maul? Until this week, it was the denial wing of his own party, those “leaders” who looked the other way while their leader walked all over the Constitution.
But those who take pleasure in watching Trump destroy the Republican Party are missing the bigger picture. He’s trying to destroy the country, as well. Civility, always a tenuous thing, cannot be quickly restored in a society that has learned to hate in public, at full throttle.
Trump has made compassion suspect. Don’t reach out to starving refugees — they’re killers in disguise. Don’t give to a charity that won’t reward you in some way. Don’t pay taxes that build roads and offer relief to those washed away in a hurricane. That’s a sucker’s game. We’re not all in this together. Taxes are for stupid people.
Every sexual predator now has a defender at the top of the Republican ticket. The most remarkable thing about last Sunday’s debate was Anderson Cooper having to school a 70-year-old man on workplace taboos that most of us learn on our first job.
“You described kissing women without consent, grabbing their genitals,” said Cooper. “That is sexual assault. You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?”
What you heard was the lecture the human resources director gives just before saying, “You’re fired.” Trump could not get hired at the drive-through window at a Jack in the Box. Knowing about his history would make any employer liable. It took decades to get the workplace to that point where Trumpian predators are shunned. Given the biggest pulpit in the world, Trump is trying to bring that consensus down.
He calls it locker room talk. The locker room has pushed back, resoundingly. Let’s call it what it is — the workplace. And as Trump told Howard Stern in 2005, when he bragged about his voyeur intrusions into backstage beauty pageants, “I sort of get away with things like that.” He made a similar comment — the blueprint for his actions — in the 2005 television tape that has blown up in his face. If he can do it, any creep outside of the celebrity bubble should be able to get away with the same thing.
He’s destroyed whatever moral standing leading Christian conservatives had — starting with Mike Pence. Their selective piety is not teachable. Take solace in one of the small acts of courage breaking out in recent days: a group of students at Liberty University telling their Trump-supporting president, Jerry Falwell Jr., to practice what the school preaches.
Trump is “actively promoting the very things that we Christians ought to oppose,” the students wrote. These young people, at least, are smart enough to see what Trump is doing to their world.
It will take many people like those students, and like the first lady, Michelle Obama, a model of decency and class, to repair the awful damage Trump has done.
In a powerful speech Thursday, the nation’s most respected public figure scorned the “hurtful, hateful language” of Trump and its effect on children: “The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything to a woman. It’s cruel. It’s frightening.”
So it has come to this: The core lessons that bind a civilized society are in play in the last days of this election. We long for family dinners where Trump no longer intrudes, for tailgate parties where football is all that matters, for normalcy. Remember those days? They may be gone forever.
For those either despairing or exulting in Trump's wild swings in the recent polls, just a word of caution. Columbia University statistics Professor Andrew Gellman explains in detail something that I mentioned earlier: the wild swings may be attributable to the self-selection element of survey methodology when something particularly outlandish has occurred.
"Recent research, however, suggests that swings in the polls can often be attributed not to changes in voter intention but in changing patterns of survey nonresponse: What seems like a big change in public opinion turns out to be little more than changes in the inclinations of Democrats and Republicans to respond to polls."
According to their analysis of the 2012 election, two-thirds of the poll swings comes from changes in response rates, as opposed to people actually changing their minds. So while Clinton retains a strong lead, it's not nearly as drastic as one may celebrate or fear.
That makes sense in a way. Democrats would be more inclined to express their outrage when called and a Republican may be more discouraged.
It also however may be a measure of enthusiasm.
I was going to sit out the election , not anymore, the WikiLeaks about Hillary have changed my mind, I am going to vote.
We know now why Comey could not send charges to AG Lynch, Obama would be called to testify at some point on what he new, why he invoke Executive Privilege, Bill Clinton would have been put on the stand next, why did you met with AG Lynch and what did you discuss?
In a way I do feel for Comey, he was knee capped, he had to play along, but this stinks more then ever before, this is no way for people at the highest level of government to behave.
Hillary PR Team @OnMessageForHer 10m10 minutes ago
Are you a woman? Have you recently remembered, decided, and/or hallucinated that Trump groped you at some point? We'd LOVE to hear from you!
Trump ‘Inspected’ Each Woman In Pageant
A former Miss North Carolina who competed in the 2006 Miss USA pageant told CNN that Donald Trump personally inspected each woman prior to the contest, to the point where it was “the dirtiest I felt in my entire life.”
Said Samantha Holvey: “He would step in front of each girl and look you over from head to toe like we were just meat, we were just sexual objects, that we were not people. You know when a gross guy at the bar is checking you out? It’s that feeling.”
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Trump Attacks Accusers As Unattractive
Donald Trump used a campaign speech in North Carolina “to attack the women accusing him of sexual assault or unwelcome advances as fame-seekers and liars, while portraying himself as the victim of a vast conspiracy on the part of the news media and Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” the New York Times reports.
“Speaking at a rally here, Mr. Trump dismissed as ‘total fiction’ the accounts of a growing number of women who say he groped them or made unwanted sexual advances. But he offered no evidence to cast doubt on their allegations.”
Instead, Trump assailed their motives, suggesting that they might have been paid off. He also said they were unattractive.
Politico says Trump “intimated a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her was not attractive enough to have drawn his interest, part of a broader attack on the integrity and physical appearance of multiple women who’ve come forward this week to accuse the GOP presidential nominee of sexual assault.”
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That former Miss NC doesn't sound paid off.
Peed off, but not paid off.
And attractive she was.
Pence said that Trump would be offering concrete, positive proof that the women who have accused him of assault are lying.
It would come today, "within hours."
The hours are ticking away.
http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/this_time_magazine_cover_of_trump_says_it_all
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