Hillary Clinton will be the next POTUS. There will be no magical moment that, all of a sudden in the last three weeks, everyone changes their mind. But, hey, some folks love a horse race. So, for you that do, there’s always Congress.
Cracked has a great, long sympathetic piece on rural America’s view of the elite and city folk, well worth a read if you want to understand Trump voters feeling left behind:
How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind
As a kid, visiting Chicago was like, well, Katniss visiting the capital. Or like Zoey visiting the city of the future in this ridiculous book. "Their ways are strange."
And the whole goddamned world revolves around them.
Every TV show is about LA or New York, maybe with some Chicago or Baltimore thrown in. When they did make a show about us, we were jokes -- either wide-eyed, naive fluffballs (Parks And Recreation, and before that, Newhart) or filthy murderous mutants (True Detective, and before that, Deliverance). You could feel the arrogance from hundreds of miles away.
Wells Fargo’s New CEO, Tim Sloan, told a leading industry trade publication in June 2016 that the bank’s aggressive sales culture and “cross-selling” targets was perfectly appropriate and “is not going to change.” This was years after top executives at the bank knew that thousands of their employees were responding to those sales targets by generating fake accounts.
Sloan is replacing John Stumpf, who stepped down on Wednesday amid the ongoing scandal, for which the company has been fined $185 million by federal regulators and faces investigations from the departments of Justice and Labor.
Before the fines were announced, Sloan, who was groomed to replace Stumpf for years, sat down with American Banker to talk about the company on June 16. By that point, the Los Angeles Times had already uncovered evidence of fake accounts, and the city attorney of Los Angeles had filed suit over the allegations (the suit would eventually be folded into the larger settlement). The L.A. Times also had disclosed that the bank was under federal investigation.
American Banker asked Sloan, “Wells has come under scrutiny for its strong sales culture. Is there any sense that the bank has pushed that strategy to the limit?”
“No,” Sloan replied.
When Sloan made these statements in June, thousands of Wells Fargo employees had already been fired for creating fraudulent accounts. Wells Fargo eliminated all product sales goals for their retail bank branches on Oct. 1 of this year. [...]
Since the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 1967 in the case of Loving v. Virginia, it's been against the law to keep interracial couples from marrying the way Virginia did with its Racial Integrity Act of 1924. The ruling also knocked down the anti-miscegenation laws of 15 other states still on the books in the late '60s. But Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, didn't get the memo, or rather, he did but won't obey the law. He recently refused to marry an interracial couple, just as he has done on at least three previous occasions.
Bardwell, whose elected term of office runs until 2014, told the Associated Press: "I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way. I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."
As long, apparently, as they don't try to marry his sister. […]
The American Civil Liberties Union and local NAACP are looking into the matter. But how long before certain denizens of the national pundithuggery start braying that stopping Bardwell's outlawry would violate his principles? We can hear Glenn now: "Denying him his right to deny other people their rights is denying his rights!"
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin mines the most granular information on the voter universe. Josie Duffy Rice discusses the inspiring career of Brooklyn D.A. Ken Thompson, mass incarceration and the definition of violent crime, and the California ballot propositions on the death penalty.
Donald Trump places a ribbon on Miss California USA Carrie Prejean during a press conference at Trump Tower May 12, 2009 in New York.
Donald Trump places a ribbon on Miss California USA Carrie Prejean during a press conference at Trump Tower May 12, 2009 in New York.
Almost as if he was inspecting the troops, a former Miss USA contestant says that Donald Trump, the GOP presidential candidate, used to inspect each woman the month before the pageant.
"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," (Samantha) Holvey said, (who represented North Carolina). "You know when a gross guy at the bar is checking you out? It's that feeling."
CNN reported last week that Trump told radio host Howard Stern in 2005 that he would "go backstage and everyone's getting dressed, and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere, and I'm allowed to go in because I'm the owner of the pageant and therefore I'm inspecting it."
"You know, the dresses. 'Is everyone OK?' You know, they're standing there with no clothes. 'Is everybody OK?' And you see these incredible looking women, and so, I sort of get away with things like that. But no, I've been very good," Trump said.
The Koch brothers and other Republican groups, acknowledging that they've probably lost the presidential race and quite possibly Congress, are trying to get congressional Republicans to act now to cripple Obamacare.
A coalition of more than 50 conservative groups is calling on Congress to stop “bailouts” of insurance companies under ObamaCare.
The groups, in a Wednesday letter to members of Congress, are calling for the passage of two bills that would keep funds away from insurers under two ObamaCare programs that have been the target of growing Republican outrage. The conservative groups are now further pressuring Republicans.
“American households deserve better than to have their tax dollars go toward bailouts for insurance companies,” wrote the groups, which include Freedom Partners, Americans for Prosperity, Heritage Action and Americans for Tax Reform.
They are not "bailouts," of course. What's in question is the federal government paying a legal settlement to insurers which are suing the government. Because they didn't get the funds they were assured from the federal government under the "risk corridors" provision that protected them from losing money by taking on too many sick new patients. They didn't get those funds because Republicans blocked them. That's created a hole for insurance companies who took on new Obamacare patients.
If the insurers can't afford to participate, they'll have little choice but to leave the exchanges. That would do serious damage to the structure of the whole system. Which is exactly what the Kochs et. al are counting on. Because ultimately, they don't think all those "moochers" deserve to have health insurance. Because they are all monsters, basically.
It’s crazy enough that polling shows Hillary Clinton with a lead in Arizona, while only lagging Missouri by five. Those may be Red states, but they were already in the “possible” category, especially Arizona.
But Donald Trump’s numbers are cratering so hard, that we’ve got some particularly crazy deep-Red states suddenly threatening to be in contention.
Trump led the pack with 36.1 percent, followed by Democrat Hillary Clinton at 30.6 percent, Libertarian Gary Johnson at 17.9 percent and Green Party nominee Jill Stein at 6 percent. Nine percent were undecided.
The poll was conducted after the first debate, but before all the latest crazy.
Indiana was never supposed to be competitive, even before Donald Trump tapped its governor as his running mate. The latest Monmouth University Poll throws those expectations out the window. Trump currently leads Hillary Clinton by a slim 4 points [45-41], down from his 11 point lead in August.
Not only is Clinton creeping closer, but “Democrat” Evan Bayh leads the Senate race 48-42 and, amazingly, Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Gregg leads his GOPer opponent 50-38.
It's Friday, October 14, and Day 243 since Justice Antonin Scalia died and Mitch McConnell decided no nominee would get any Senate attention: No meetings, no hearings, no votes. It's also Day 212 since Merrick Garland was nominated by President Obama to fill that vacancy.
Meanwhile, they're still holding that seat open for the guy the majority of them won't yet dump, Donald Trump. That continues even after he gave what might have been his most extreme speech yet, one that the alt-right ate up with a spoon, in which he repeated his boast that when he's president, he'll lock Hillary Clinton up. They're still raving about it. Just a reminder of the kinds of things they are cheering:
"[…] we are in fact controlled by a handful of global special interest rigging the system and our system is rigged. […] They will seek to destroy everything about you including your reputation. They will lie, lie, lie and then again they will do worse than that. They will do whatever is necessary. The Clintons are criminals. Remember that. […]
We have seen this firsthand in the Wikileaks document 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. […]
Lock her up.
Trump is attacking the free press more directly than ever. He vows to instruct his Department of Justice to jail his political opponent if he becomes president. He has promised to rewrite libel laws so that government officials could sue their critics in the media. He says he will kill the families of terrorists. He will bring back torture. He would "unilaterally slap a tax on the products of companies who build plants in foreign countries."
Trump promises a radically unconstitutional—not to mention un-American—presidency. And the Republican Senate continues to flirt with the disaster of his making a Supreme Court appointment. Perhaps they can assure themselves that it's highly unlikely he'll win the presidency, but the fact remains: they are leaving that possibility open.
Every single day we see Trump get more and more unhinged, more and more extreme. And Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans—including those who could have dumped Trump and could stop the blockade—are proving they're willing to take that chance.
Remember Dean Chambers, the guy who “removed liberal bias” from every 2012 poll, leading to the inevitable conclusion that Mitt Romney would win big? He was so successful in creating an alternate conservative reality than even the Romney campaign fell for it!
Well, we don’t have any high-profile poll unskewers this cycle, but this is the Age of Twitter, so it would be inevitable someone would arise to create an alternate reality for distraught conservatives. And thus, I give you … Bill Mitchell! This Bill Mitchell:
Apparently he’s a radio guy or podcaster or something. But whatever he actually does for a living, he is a Grade A nutcase.
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Hillary's only hope was a Trump implosion. Instead, he's just getting better.
Perhaps Trump is the ultimate gift to feminists: a grabber and bragger who has focused the world’s attention on the outrages women quietly endure on a chronic basis without notice. And perhaps we can now see the mid-90s response to Bill Clinton’s own accusers — subdued or defensive among liberals on account of his women-friendly politics — as a near miss of an opportunity, a cultural shift that could have built on the momentum of Anita Hill, but never did.
The stories emerging about Trump, as well as his own words, could give women a new way of seeing their own experiences with sexual assault going forward — as part of a pattern of male behavior that has been noted, flagged and loudly denigrated.
The Economist recently published an article titled, “The debasing of American politics,” where the author stated, “By normalising attitudes that, before he came along, were publicly taboo, Mr. Trump has taken a knuckle-duster to American political culture.” He has normalized bigotry, racism, misogyny, and antisemitism. He, and many of his followers, are a postcard of many of the things that are wrong with America.
It appears that those on the side of Mr. Trump want a society where ignorance and stupidity are valued over intelligence, wisdom, and education. A world where if you went on to college, or heaven forbid, post-graduate studies, you are an out-of-touch elitist who lives in an ivory tower. If you mention the title or subject of a book you read to better understand your political opposition, you will be labeled as faux intellectual and a pompous ass because seeking out knowledge is taboo. If you are a veteran, you are to be praised—until they find out you are a liberal veteran, then you are to be mocked, and told that you could not have possibly served, or that you are a holier than thou veteran because you mention your status to them.
While I was in Germany I had several Germans tell me that Trump was another Hitler. If the people of a country who actually had a Hitler, tell you that you listen to them. They could not understand what had happened to American politics, how the Republican Party seemed less interested in governing, and more interested in the obstruction of government.
I met a British gentleman who told me flat out that Trump would end America. The world is watching, our children are watching. We have allowed facts to go out the window, and rumors, innuendo, conspiracy theories, and thirty years of baseless investigations, i.e. witch hunts, into the Clintons that have found nothing other than the former president cheated on his wife. These witch hunts, and that is what they have been, politically driven witch hunts that have wasted billions of tax payer dollars, have found nothing. I can understand being against someone because you oppose their political beliefs. I can understand not voting for someone because they are a vile human being, i.e. Trump, but I cannot understand this ginned-up hatred over Hillary Clinton. She is not a bad person, she is not evil, she is not the devil incarnate, nor is she the Antichrist.
The story of the Central Park Five has always been a story about race. From the moment those NYPD officers first accused five black and Hispanic boys of brutally raping and almost killing a white woman in Central Park, race has been one of the primary characters in a saga that has persisted almost thirty years.
Beginning in 1989, all five boys would be charged and tried in trials that commanded the city's attention. All five would also become fodder for a ravenous and racist media, headline after headline calling them animals and gangsters and savages. Never one to pass up the chance to dog-whistle, Donald Trump himself took out a full page ad in the New York Daily News, calling for the boys' execution—despite the fact that four out of the five were legally children.
“I am strongly in favor of the death penalty,” he told Larry King at the time. “I am also in favor of bringing back police forces that can do something instead of turning their back because every quality lawyer that represents people that are trouble—the first thing they do is start shouting police brutality."
In the same interview, he scoffed at people who implied the boys deserved compassion, perhaps because they had not yet been found guilty. "Of course I hate these people and let’s all hate these people because maybe hate is what we need if we’re gonna get something done."
Trump has a long history of this racist imprecision. At best, Trump treats minorities and women with perpetual distrust. At worst, he thinks hate is what we need if we're going to get something done.
"Donald Trump tweeted earlier today, 'It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to.' What shackles are you talking about? The only thing that ever shackled you was the 140-character limit on Twitter. And now you’re going to fight for America? Hey buddy, you’re not Rosa Parks. You know how I know? People liked what Rosa Parks said on the bus."
---Seth Meyers
"Take a Tic-Tac and grab 'em by the pussy is the closest thing to a plan Donald Trump has described this entire election."
---Samantha Bee
"I honestly thought Donald Trump had peaked on the whack-a-doo meter. Turns out he's got another gear. How is that possible? You started your campaign accusing Mexicans of being rapists. Now you're on tape explaining how you sexually assault women. The only way it could be more hypocritical is if you said it in Spanish."
---Michael Che, SNL
---The Daily Show
“After that Access Hollywood tape came out, a number of prominent Republicans called for Trump to drop out. But now, because of the pressure from the “Trump-ublican” base, some of those who denounced him say they’re still planning to vote for him. They essentially un-un-endorsed him so as not to anger those who might vote for them. This is putting a lot of Republicans running for re-election in a tough spot. If they support him, they lose a lot of moderates, but if they don’t, they lose the rest. It’s like they found themselves in a Saw movie just before Halloween.”
---Jimmy Kimmel
Golly, we should run in and save them, said nobody. Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
The first responders and relief agencies who are working around the clock to help residents in the south deal with the fallout from hurricane Matthew
4%
171 votes
President Obama: commutes sentences of another 102 non-violent drug offenders; approval firmly in mid-50s; delivers Hillary-campaign barnburners in NC & OH; and Cuban rum and cigars for everybody!
3%
114 votes
Kossack Tom Tomorrow, whose comic strip "This Modern World" is being made into an animated series
1%
55 votes
U.S. District Court Judge Mark Walker, for pushing Florida Gov. Rick Scott's "poppycock" attempt at voter suppression aside and allowing an extra week of early voting in the state
6%
225 votes
Bob Dylan, for winning the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature
12%
492 votes
Hillary Clinton: Notches debate #2 win and sees spike in poll numbers as Trump campaign and the GOP melt down in sexual abuse scandal. And happy 41st anniversary to you and Bill!
11%
436 votes
Vermont, for ditching Columbus Day observation in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day
2%
71 votes
Michelle Obama, for her historic gloves-off New Hampshire speech in defense of womens' and girls' dignity and rights
49%
2002 votes
Al Gore, for joining the A-list of surrogates campaigning for Hillary Clinton with terrific climate change/get out the vote rally in Florida
1%
30 votes
Washington Post reporter David Farenthold, who won a Sidney Award for his reporting on Trump's misuse of foundation money and abusive comments about women
In case you need a reminder, Donald Trump is a fascist, not just “fascistic,” a plain-old fascist who has been delivering fascist rants ever since he entered this campaign. Trump’s white nationalist rhetoric of racism, religious bigotry and toxic masculinity is now fully wedded to a stabbed in the back mythology and talk about international bankers taken straight from neo-Nazi websites.
The Clinton machine is at the center of this power structure. We've seen this first hand 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. …
It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.
There’s a great reluctance by the media to use this term. The p-word? Yeah, that barrier is gone. But the f-word? They’re not ready to cross that line. Not even when Trump is throwing out things like the above. Not even when he’s saying things like …
A conglomeration of people who feel, think and act according to international ideas.
Oh, sorry. That one’s Hitler.It’s getting very hard to tell the difference.
Donald Trump is a cancer on the American politic, and now he has metastasized.
