Month: October 2016

This is one good reason why people should vote this time out. You can bet if the Republicans take the white house by hook or by crook  (by say, sneaking in with a plurality through third party voting) they will set back work on climate change incalculably. Trump is promising to back off the Paris agreement and I’d guess that’s one he could actually get done quite easily. The whole GOP is all in with him on that one. 

QOTD: Mike Pence

by digby

At a town hall yesterday:

He’s supposed to be a great politician, someone with a Reaganesque touch.

He’s a clod.

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Two speeches that defined a campaign: Donald Trump’s conspiratorial ranting, and Michelle Obama’s inspiring call for decency. Trump’s dog-whistle diatribe was this campaign’s darkest hour, while Michelle Obama’s speech was its finest

Everyone was anxiously waiting on Thursday morning to see how Donald Trump would react to the cascade of new accusations of sexual abuse, misconduct and inappropriate commentary that came down on Wednesday night. His lawyer had threatened the New York Times with a lawsuit and the word on the street was that the campaign had decided to go nuclear.

But before Trump could deliver his scheduled speech to a West Palm Beach crowd, First Lady Michelle Obama delivered one of he own in New Hampshire that put the whole issue into perspective. Surprising everyone, she decided not to give her usual stump speech and instead addressed Trump’s treatment of women head-on, delivering the most emotionally raw remarks of her public career. With a voice that uncharacteristically shook at times, she patiently explained to a reeling nation how Trump’s language and behavior sounds to millions of women and proclaimed this truth:

This is not normal. This is not politics as usual. This is disgraceful. It is intolerable. And it doesn’t matter what party you belong to — Democrat, Republican, independent — no woman deserves to be treated this way. None of us deserves this kind of abuse.

Don’t think she wasn’t speaking about herself and the woman who is running to succeed her husband, as well as the rest of us. Both of them were subjected to flagrant misogyny from the right-wing fever swamps the moment they entered public life. During her years as first lady, Hillary Clinton was routinely demeaned and insulted for her looks, her “manliness”, her voice and her supposed inability to keep her man happy. Michelle Obama has been the object of sickening derision on both a sexist and a racist basis. In this election, you’ve seen the T-shirts some Trump supporters are putting on their kids that say “Trump that bitch” and “Hillary sucks but not like Monica” — and worse.

If Michelle Obama’s speech was a call to the nation’s conscience and a plea for principled men and women to take a stand for basic human decency, Donald Trump’s speech delivered minutes later was something else entirely. It was not one of his extemporaneous ramblings. It was a scripted teleprompter speech, obviously written by Trump himself and his alt-right “campaign CEO” Steve Bannon. It was one of the most disturbing speeches he’s given yet, and that’s saying something.

Trump opened the speech with a full-blown conspiracy rant:

For those who control the levers of power in Washington and for the global special interests, they partner with these people that don’t have your good in mind. Our campaign represents a true existential threat, like they haven’t seen before. This is not simply another four-year election. This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not we, the people, reclaim control over our government … 

Just look at what this corrupt establishment has done to cities like Detroit; Flint, Michigan; and rural towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, and all across our country. Take a look at what’s going on. They’ve stripped away these towns bare and raided the wealth for themselves and taken our jobs away, out of our country, never to return unless I’m elected president. The Clinton machine is at the center of this power structure. We’ve seen this firsthand in the WikiLeaks documents in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends, and her donors.

To quote the late Molly Ivins, it sounded better in the original German.

It’s tempting to believe that Trump may not understand all the allusions in that passage, but then he is known to have kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bed so maybe he did. Either way, the alt-right anti-Semitic devil on his shoulder, Steve Bannon, certainly understood them, and you can bet that all the white nationalists and neo-Nazis who love Trump heard the soothing sounds of that dog whistle loud and clear.

Trump claimed the Clintons and the media are in cahoots to destroy him and then adamantly denied the accusations by nearly a dozen women that he had kissed, groped, fondled and otherwise sexually assaulted them over a 30-year period, despite the fact that he had been caught on tape bragging about doing all those things. He then took it to another level, accusing these women of being “horrible people, they’re horrible, horrible liars.” That’s right, the same man who staged a televised stunt just four days ago in which he sanctimoniously slammed Hillary Clinton for supposedly trashing the reputations of assault victims, stood before the cameras and trashed the reputations of assault victims.

As if to prove Michelle Obama’s searing description of the demeaning behavior that women are forced to put up with in this world, he even went so far as to intimate that one accuser wasn’t beautiful enough for him to assault, a line similar to one he used the day before when he said he didn’t invade Clinton’s space because he had “no interest, believe me” in being in close physical proximity to her.

That’s what Michelle Obama was talking about when she said:

I have to tell you that I listen to all of this and I feel it so personally, and I’m sure that many of you do too, particularly the women. The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman. It is cruel. It’s frightening. And the truth is, it hurts. It hurts.

Elections are always national discussions about issues, culture, power and politics. But we’ve never had a conversation like this one. It’s as if we’re speaking different languages, in different dimensions. On Thursday, it was starkly revealed just how far apart we are.

Our first African American-American first lady gave a heartfelt speech about women’s experiences of misogyny and sexism and asked that people reject it and vote for the first woman president, whom she described in glowing terms. Donald Trump delivered an angry, conspiratorial diatribe directed at his paranoid white nationalist base, and then proceeded to prove himself to be the sexist lout we already knew he was.

If you were looking for two important speeches that symbolize the choice in this election, they were both delivered on the same day, within hours of each other. Let’s hope the one that has the most lasting impact was the one delivered by Michelle Obama.

“Enough is enough”
by Tom Sullivan

Donald Trump and his alt-right supporters want women like Michelle Obama to know their place. In her case, twice. Referring to workplace sexual harassment, Donald Trump Jr. told an interviewer in 2013, “If you can’t handle some of the basic stuff that’s become a problem in the workforce today, then you don’t belong in the workforce. Like, you should go maybe teach kindergarten. I think it’s a respectable position.” Teachers. Nurses. Homemakers. Maids. Know your place, ladies. It’s a man’s world. If you can’t take a little grab-ass around the office, “You can’t be negotiating billion-dollar deals.”

Michelle Obama, a lawyer, is having none of it. No woman should. In a mesmerizing speech in New Hampshire yesterday, Obama ditched her usual stump speech to address the allegations of sexual assault against Donald Trump and the tape in which he brags about it to the boys.

The Los Angeles Times:

First Lady Michelle Obama starred in a defining moment of the presidential race Thursday, delivering a stinging and emotional condemnation of Donald Trump’s behavior toward women that framed the election as no longer about ideology, but human decency.

Michelle Obama told the audience:

And I know it’s a campaign, but this isn’t about politics. It’s about basic human decency. It’s about right and wrong. And we simply cannot endure this, or expose our children to this any longer — not for another minute, and let alone for four years. Now is the time for all of us to stand up and say enough is enough. This has got to stop right now.

Rebecca Traister writes:

It was a speech that Hillary herself could not have given, for a number reasons: in part, because it remains damn near impossible for a woman to make inspiring feminist arguments on her own behalf without coming off as self-congratulatory; in part, because Hillary is hamstrung by the fact that she’s married to a man who has been accused of his own sexual-power abuses; and, in part, because she is simply less comfortable conveying communion, empathy, and inspiration on the stump. But while Hillary could not have delivered it, it was a speech that the country desperately needed.

Obama never once mentioned Trump by name:

And to make matters worse, it now seems very clear that this isn’t an isolated incident. It’s one of countless examples of how he has treated women his whole life. And I have to tell you that I listen to all of this and I feel it so personally, and I’m sure that many of you do too, particularly the women. The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman.

It is cruel. It’s frightening. And the truth is, it hurts. It hurts. It’s like that sick, sinking feeling you get when you’re walking down the street minding your own business and some guy yells out vulgar words about your body. Or when you see that guy at work that stands just a little too close, stares a little too long, and makes you feel uncomfortable in your own skin.

It’s that feeling of terror and violation that too many women have felt when someone has grabbed them, or forced himself on them and they’ve said no but he didn’t listen — something that we know happens on college campuses and countless other places every single day. It reminds us of stories we heard from our mothers and grandmothers about how, back in their day, the boss could say and do whatever he pleased to the women in the office, and even though they worked so hard, jumped over every hurdle to prove themselves, it was never enough.

Throughout this campaign, throughout the presidency of Barack Obama, forces of retrenchment have yearned to turn back the clock, unmake the future, and erase the present. Like the Taliban who used dynamite and artillery fire to destroy a different religion’s cultural antiquities, and who yearn to put their women back in their places, Donald Trump’s GOP is at war with modernity. They truly believe this is their country, a white, Christian, male-dominated country, and they are unwilling to share it if they cannot control it. They would rather burn it down, constitution and all.

On Reddit, someone named CouchAlmark distilled why Trump appeals to the Republican base (h/t David Atkins):

Trump’s message is basically the same as everything the GOP’s been dog-whistling for decades. The only difference is that he considers a dog whistle to be low energy. He prefers a bullhorn, which fucks up the whole strategy because suddenly it becomes searingly obvious to everyone what he’s saying. This appeals to the base because finally someone is focusing on giving them what they want instead of using them to push a fiscal policy that they don’t care about.

The fiscal conservatives, meanwhile, are horrified because they didn’t want to have to be openly associated with those social issues. Trump puts them in a position where they have to choose between pissing off independents, who don’t like it when the GOP runs on a platform of “fuck Mexicans, blacks, women, and gays”, and pissing off their base, who won’t settle for dog whistles anymore.

This is part of why Trump was able to decimate everyone else during the primary: it wasn’t just that they were too busy attacking each other to attack him, but they to some degree couldn’t attack him because they have the same social positions that he does.

Now, with their world dying, they are at their most dangerous.

8/ Trump is threatening the entire GOP and it could take a decade to erase the damage. We are looking at an extinction-level event.— Matt Mackowiak (@MattMackowiak) August 11, 2016

Michelle Obama urges women not to stand for it:

We have everything we need to stop this madness. You see, while our mothers and grandmothers were often powerless to change their circumstances, today, we as women have all the power we need to determine the outcome of this election.

We have knowledge. We have a voice. We have a vote. And on November the 8th, we as women, we as Americans, we as decent human beings can come together and declare that enough is enough, and we do not tolerate this kind of behavior in this country.

In the end, that is what this election is about. That is the message decent people in this country must send to their fellow citizens and to the rest of the world.

I’m So Glad I Love Popcorn… 

by tristero

…because there’s so much opportunity to kick back and enjoy a big heaping bowl of it. Chris Christie:

A judge has found probable cause for a complaint of official misconduct against Gov. Chris Christie related to the George Washington Bridge lane closures. 

Judge Roy McGeady issued the ruling Thursday. The case now goes to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, which will decide whether to bring the issue to a grand jury for possible indictment.

But this has gotta sting:

Spectators in the courtroom applauded after Judge Roy McGeady’s ruling.

Now if you like popcorn, a little tip. Don’t do microwave or Jiffy Pop, that’s not the real experience. Go ahead and splurge and get some of the good stuff and make it on the stove or in a popper. Not hard at all, and barrels of fun.

Add a little butter, maybe some chili powder or a touch of cayenne, and enjoy the sorry spectacles being offered up this fall in style.

The cats will save us 

by digby

… at least our sanity:

Clinton on cat gifs: “In the last few weeks, I’ve watched a lot of cats do a lot of weird and interesting things.” https://t.co/g1c1k38HYg

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 13, 2016

I have never done this myself. But if I did, I might enjoy something like this:

Mistake ‘o the decade

by digby

This is when a smart person would quit the campaign:

“Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump rebuffed political aides’ requests to research his past, people familiar with the matter said, a decision that contributed to his campaign being caught unprepared for the past week’s barrage of claims he mistreated women. Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager, requested that Trump submit himself to a forensic evaluation that is traditional for any public figure seeking office, according to people granted anonymity to speak freely about the campaign’s start-up days last year. Opposition research would allow Trump’s new political team to prepare for potential attacks on his candidacy. Paul Manafort and his team made a similar request when they took over the reins after Lewandowski, who was ousted this June. Trump declined, the people said, and the issue became a point of contention among his closest political advisers and some long-time employees at the Trump Organization.”

Lou Dobbs Doxxer

by digby

What a jerk:

Fox Business host Lou Dobbs on Thursday posted a phone number and an address purportedly belonging to one of the women who has accused Donald Trump of unwanted sexual contact.

Dobbs, a fierce Trump supporter, retweeted an individual who had posted the purported information of Jessica Leeds. The 74-year-old woman told The New York Times in an article published Wednesday that decades ago Trump groped her on a first-class flight.

“This is the Dirtiest Campaign in our History,” Dobbs wrote, using the hashtags “MAGA,” “TrumpPence16,” and “AmericaFirst.”
[…]
The purported personal information was posted to claim that Leeds had the same phone number as one listed for the Clinton Foundation in WikiLeaks releases (even though the phone numbers themselves did not match).

Dobbs is one of Fox Business’ most prominent hosts and earns some of the highest ratings on the network.

Some people would be fired for stuff like that. But this is Fox and you pretty much have to be a sex slave trafficker to get fired from there so …

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Daddy’s boy

by digby

There’s that Don Jr we’ve come to know and loathe:

“I’ve had conversations like that with plenty of people where people use language off color. They’re talking, two guys, amongst themselves. I’ve seen it time and time again. I think it makes him a human,” Donald Jr. said. “I think it makes him a normal person, not a political robot. He hasn’t spent his whole life waiting for this moment to run for the presidency.”

He repeated: “I think it means that he’s a human being that he’s a regular person like everyone else. I think that’s what endeared him to the American public.”

Yeah, it’s the fact that he’s such a regular guy that makes him so endearing to the American people. Average folks walk around bragging to total strangers that because they’re “stars” they can grab women by the pussy and get away with it all the time.

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