Wikileaks expected to release another blast against Hillary this last week of the campaign.
Update on Comey.
Monday, October 31, 2016
Sunday, October 30, 2016
GOP lunatics getting ready for Hillary
Yes, that would be the Republican establishment, actually.
I hope Wolffe is right and Comey has not successfully rigged the election for The Duce.
But I truly fear he is wrong.
The Trump campaign has been saying for weeks there would be an October surprise.
Was it Comey's email letter?
Did they plot that with him?
The real threat is on the right. And it is white.
Trump and the shameless Buchananism of his movement prove the menace of hyper-patriotism and white nationalism in America is a real threat to the Republic far exceeding any danger posed by minorities or immigrants, Hispanic, Muslim, or other, or the white racial suckups who nod and agree with even their most absurd whines, offensive racial insults, and outrageous demands for white humiliation and groveling.
For these people, it is a patriot's work to wreck our republic out of love for the constitution - and hatred for Mexicans, Muslims, and blacks.
Ask Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, or other luminaries of the Republican Party or the American faux conservative movement.
Every day there is less crypto and neo in their crypto-, neo-fascism.
What a bunch of malevolent crackpots and liars, led by a braying jackass with orange hair.
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Still trying to stop the madness
Tony Blair calls for a second vote; Teresa May says no way.
Cameron was such a blockhead.
Did Republican Comey just steal the election for Republican Trump?
He violated a longstanding practice of no public announcements about politically sensitive investigations within 60 days of an election.
He ignored objections to going public from the AG and Assistant AG.
None of the emails were on Hillary's server, none were to or from her.
Now this is how you rig, fix, or steal an election, right out in plain sight.
Friday, October 28, 2016
Il Duce speaks. The loyal constitutionalist who complains so about rigged elections.
It's rigged, anyway.
Shouldn't we just skip it?
Trump: 'We should just cancel the election' and declare me the winner
Donald Trump, trailing his opponent in key battleground states polls less than two weeks from Election Day, said Thursday he'd like to "cancel the election" and be declared the winner.
"Just thinking to myself right now, we should just cancel the election and just give it to Trump," the Republican presidential nominee said during a rally here on Thursday.
His supporters, real Americans all, think it's a swell idea.
"Her policies are so bad. Boy, do we have a big difference," he added of his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
The apparently lighthearted comment falls against the backdrop of Trump's repeated and serious questioning of the legitimacy of the presidential election in recent weeks as he has tumbled in the polls.
Trump has called the election "rigged," argued that the media and establishment politicians are conspiring to sink his campaign and warned supporters that the presidency could be stolen from them due to voter fraud -- instances of which are extremely rare.
Trump is trailing Clinton in national tracking polls and in key battleground states, and its unclear how Trump can amass the Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency if polls hold where they are through Election Day.
And the real Trump is unleashed.
Trump's comments about the election also came as he mocked Clinton as "low energy" for the second time in as many days, even polling the crowd to ask them if they think Clinton or his GOP primary foil Jeb Bush is more "low energy."
"Who is more low energy, Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton?" Trump asked the crowd, re-upping a question he said Fox News host Bill O'Reilly asked him earlier in an interview airing Thursday evening.
"Hillary!" replied most of the crowd.
His speeches are pure talk radio.
I once worked in an office where the person in charge insisted on tuning the radio to Rush every day, for hours at a time.
People complained to the manager, who told them to suck it up.
The mind of the real American.
Shouldn't we just skip it?
Trump: 'We should just cancel the election' and declare me the winner
Donald Trump, trailing his opponent in key battleground states polls less than two weeks from Election Day, said Thursday he'd like to "cancel the election" and be declared the winner.
"Just thinking to myself right now, we should just cancel the election and just give it to Trump," the Republican presidential nominee said during a rally here on Thursday.
His supporters, real Americans all, think it's a swell idea.
"Her policies are so bad. Boy, do we have a big difference," he added of his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
The apparently lighthearted comment falls against the backdrop of Trump's repeated and serious questioning of the legitimacy of the presidential election in recent weeks as he has tumbled in the polls.
Trump has called the election "rigged," argued that the media and establishment politicians are conspiring to sink his campaign and warned supporters that the presidency could be stolen from them due to voter fraud -- instances of which are extremely rare.
Trump is trailing Clinton in national tracking polls and in key battleground states, and its unclear how Trump can amass the Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency if polls hold where they are through Election Day.
And the real Trump is unleashed.
Trump's comments about the election also came as he mocked Clinton as "low energy" for the second time in as many days, even polling the crowd to ask them if they think Clinton or his GOP primary foil Jeb Bush is more "low energy."
"Who is more low energy, Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton?" Trump asked the crowd, re-upping a question he said Fox News host Bill O'Reilly asked him earlier in an interview airing Thursday evening.
"Hillary!" replied most of the crowd.
His speeches are pure talk radio.
I once worked in an office where the person in charge insisted on tuning the radio to Rush every day, for hours at a time.
People complained to the manager, who told them to suck it up.
The mind of the real American.
Shock?
Oregon stand-off: Wildlife refuge occupiers in shock acquittal
What the heck.
Our fellow Americans.
Oh, and how about that militia?
Who doubts these are Trumpists and Buchananites?
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Ann Coulter: Immigrants are rapists, child abusers, and incest fiends
Our new country
Every ethnic group except whites bloc-votes for the Democrats.
Whites vote for the Republicans.
Coincidentally, the Democrats have brought in another 30 to 40 million nonwhite immigrants in the last few decades.
And it's downhill from there.
If Trump wins, it will be because white Americans are just incredibly stupid.
As her point about voting patterns proves.
Every ethnic group except whites bloc-votes for the Democrats.
Whites vote for the Republicans.
Coincidentally, the Democrats have brought in another 30 to 40 million nonwhite immigrants in the last few decades.
And it's downhill from there.
If Trump wins, it will be because white Americans are just incredibly stupid.
As her point about voting patterns proves.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Crooked Hillary, set straight. About the 2nd Amendment.
Revised 10/27/2016.
Why gun rights advocates don't trust Clinton on the second amendment
At the final presidential debate last week, Clinton reiterated her position that the supreme court was wrong in its 2008 decision in District of Columbia v Heller, which overturned Washington DC’s ban on handgun ownership, as well as a law that required other guns in homes to be “kept nonfunctional”.
In a controversial 5-4 decision, the court ruled that Americans have a constitutional right to have and use firearms in their homes for self-defense.
Clinton had dodged giving a clear answer about her opinion of the ongoing case during a presidential primary debate in early 2008, though she suggested that the supreme court would probably find a full ban on handguns unconstitutional.
But in 2015, the Washington Free Beacon reported, Clinton told an audience at a private event that “the supreme court is wrong on the second amendment. And I am going to make that case every chance I get.”
That’s an opinion that is shared by many people – including some of the liberal justices on the supreme court, who argued in their dissent that the second amendment was intended to protect the right of people in each state to form militias, not to limit lawmakers’ ability to regulate civilian gun ownership.
But that particular view is not one that is popular with the general public.
A Gallup poll from 2008 found that 73% of Americans believed the second amendment “guarantees the rights of Americans to own guns”.
As this fairly thorough Guardian article shows, Hillary is about as friendly toward individual gun rights as the most ardent right to lifer is to abortion rights.
Personally, I think it is true, as the text of the thing makes clear, that the purpose of the amendment was to ensure the states could maintain militias, which latter at the time relied on the people to have their own guns.
The historic successors of the militias of the various states are the National Guards, which do not at all rely on their members to buy their own weapons, though of course that could change.
But in various states and locales in the US there are unofficial, private associations of citizens, some or all of whom own suitable weapons, that maintain on their own some state of military or paramilitary training and discipline, and these also are militias within the historic as well as current meaning of the term.
It is a nice historic question whether it is or was part of the purpose of the 2nd Amendment to enable the formation of such militias.
But that is neither here nor there.
The reason why some provision was made part of the constitution is different from the provision itself.
Why it is, is different from what it is.
Here is the text.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
As to the what, I think the Second Amendment conjoins a dubious claim of the necessity of militias before the comma with a guarantee of the individual right to keep and bear arms after the comma.
Or perhaps it conjoins a tacitly but genuinely conditional guarantee of that right with the assertion of its condition.
In the first case we have the individual right to keep and bear arms claimed by the gun rights folks, though conjoined with an assertion that is most likely false, of which it is all the same independent.
In the second case the amendment is altogether without legal significance unless the condition is actually true, as the guarantee of the individual right at issue is conditional upon the necessity of militia and not merely upon the assertion of that necessity.
But in neither case does the thing guarantee to the states a right to maintain militias (or National Guards), nor to individuals the right to form private militias, nor to individuals the right to keep and bear arms only if they are members of a militia.
I think the first reading the more plausible, so the gun rights folks are likely correct that it protects an unconditional individual right to keep and bear arms.
But I believe the incorporation doctrine is a falsehood based on gibberish, and so the guarantee of the amendment is only good against the federal government, anyway, restricting the states and lesser jurisdictions not at all.
Too, it is notable that the constitution has not a thing to say about which arms, which sorts of arms, the people have a right to keep and bear.
But, based on the purpose of the amendment discussed above, it is clear enough that, as meant at the time of its adoption, the text of the 2nd Amendment should be taken to refer to weapons one might carry during service in a militia.
Those would be light infantry weapons - firearms, bows, explosive devices, or bladed weapons that one might easily carry about.
And so also, as the enthusiasts claim, the amendment does protect an individual right to personally and privately own the latest fully automatic weapons designed for military use (so-called "assault rifles"), as well as other modern light infantry weapons that are readily carried about.
But it does not protect an individual right to ownership of tanks or suitcase nukes, as others sometimes claim; the former are not infantry weapons and the latter will never be that, though at some time or other if the world isn't lucky a person carrying such a device may well be a member of a militia.
As for me, I'd prefer the amendment was repealed altogether, leaving the federal, state, and local governments to do as seems best in their jurisdictions to them.
Pending that, I am pleased to see judges and politicians all but unanimous in telling lies about the amendment in order to legitimate very sensible restrictions that are in fact in flagrant conflict with it.
Why gun rights advocates don't trust Clinton on the second amendment
At the final presidential debate last week, Clinton reiterated her position that the supreme court was wrong in its 2008 decision in District of Columbia v Heller, which overturned Washington DC’s ban on handgun ownership, as well as a law that required other guns in homes to be “kept nonfunctional”.
In a controversial 5-4 decision, the court ruled that Americans have a constitutional right to have and use firearms in their homes for self-defense.
Clinton had dodged giving a clear answer about her opinion of the ongoing case during a presidential primary debate in early 2008, though she suggested that the supreme court would probably find a full ban on handguns unconstitutional.
But in 2015, the Washington Free Beacon reported, Clinton told an audience at a private event that “the supreme court is wrong on the second amendment. And I am going to make that case every chance I get.”
That’s an opinion that is shared by many people – including some of the liberal justices on the supreme court, who argued in their dissent that the second amendment was intended to protect the right of people in each state to form militias, not to limit lawmakers’ ability to regulate civilian gun ownership.
But that particular view is not one that is popular with the general public.
A Gallup poll from 2008 found that 73% of Americans believed the second amendment “guarantees the rights of Americans to own guns”.
As this fairly thorough Guardian article shows, Hillary is about as friendly toward individual gun rights as the most ardent right to lifer is to abortion rights.
Personally, I think it is true, as the text of the thing makes clear, that the purpose of the amendment was to ensure the states could maintain militias, which latter at the time relied on the people to have their own guns.
The historic successors of the militias of the various states are the National Guards, which do not at all rely on their members to buy their own weapons, though of course that could change.
But in various states and locales in the US there are unofficial, private associations of citizens, some or all of whom own suitable weapons, that maintain on their own some state of military or paramilitary training and discipline, and these also are militias within the historic as well as current meaning of the term.
It is a nice historic question whether it is or was part of the purpose of the 2nd Amendment to enable the formation of such militias.
But that is neither here nor there.
The reason why some provision was made part of the constitution is different from the provision itself.
Why it is, is different from what it is.
Here is the text.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
As to the what, I think the Second Amendment conjoins a dubious claim of the necessity of militias before the comma with a guarantee of the individual right to keep and bear arms after the comma.
Or perhaps it conjoins a tacitly but genuinely conditional guarantee of that right with the assertion of its condition.
In the first case we have the individual right to keep and bear arms claimed by the gun rights folks, though conjoined with an assertion that is most likely false, of which it is all the same independent.
In the second case the amendment is altogether without legal significance unless the condition is actually true, as the guarantee of the individual right at issue is conditional upon the necessity of militia and not merely upon the assertion of that necessity.
But in neither case does the thing guarantee to the states a right to maintain militias (or National Guards), nor to individuals the right to form private militias, nor to individuals the right to keep and bear arms only if they are members of a militia.
I think the first reading the more plausible, so the gun rights folks are likely correct that it protects an unconditional individual right to keep and bear arms.
But I believe the incorporation doctrine is a falsehood based on gibberish, and so the guarantee of the amendment is only good against the federal government, anyway, restricting the states and lesser jurisdictions not at all.
Too, it is notable that the constitution has not a thing to say about which arms, which sorts of arms, the people have a right to keep and bear.
But, based on the purpose of the amendment discussed above, it is clear enough that, as meant at the time of its adoption, the text of the 2nd Amendment should be taken to refer to weapons one might carry during service in a militia.
Those would be light infantry weapons - firearms, bows, explosive devices, or bladed weapons that one might easily carry about.
And so also, as the enthusiasts claim, the amendment does protect an individual right to personally and privately own the latest fully automatic weapons designed for military use (so-called "assault rifles"), as well as other modern light infantry weapons that are readily carried about.
But it does not protect an individual right to ownership of tanks or suitcase nukes, as others sometimes claim; the former are not infantry weapons and the latter will never be that, though at some time or other if the world isn't lucky a person carrying such a device may well be a member of a militia.
As for me, I'd prefer the amendment was repealed altogether, leaving the federal, state, and local governments to do as seems best in their jurisdictions to them.
Pending that, I am pleased to see judges and politicians all but unanimous in telling lies about the amendment in order to legitimate very sensible restrictions that are in fact in flagrant conflict with it.
Attack the refs, the scorekeepers, everybody
War over polls intensifies
“When the candidate starts fighting against the polls as much as their opponent, it means they’re losing,” said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray, whose most recent national survey put Clinton’s lead at 12 points.
“When the candidate starts fighting against the polls as much as their opponent, it means they’re losing,” said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray, whose most recent national survey put Clinton’s lead at 12 points.
Humbert Humbert of the Subway
I hadn't realized he was having sex with girls too young even to qualify as Nobokov's nymphets.
Jared Fogle's Ex Wife Sues Subway, Claims They Knew He Was A Pedophile
The lawsuit further claims former Subway CEO Jeff Moody did nothing when a Florida Subway franchisee, Cindy Mills, reported that Fogle had made "disturbing comments about children," including admitting to her that he "really liked them young" and that he had sex with minors from age 9-16.
Jared Fogle's Ex Wife Sues Subway, Claims They Knew He Was A Pedophile
The lawsuit further claims former Subway CEO Jeff Moody did nothing when a Florida Subway franchisee, Cindy Mills, reported that Fogle had made "disturbing comments about children," including admitting to her that he "really liked them young" and that he had sex with minors from age 9-16.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
The increasing rejection of democracy by the right wing radicals of the American so-called "conservative" movement
The Right Is Giving Up on Democracy
Suspicion of the democratic system is driven by the fear that white Christian America is facing demographic doom.
Sure, but it was already openly out there in Romney's time that it was takers getting to vote that made it impossible to abolish entitlements and the Welfare State, and roll back progressivism all the way to McKinley's time.
And there are far more white takers than nonwhite, my friends.
It is a right wing commonplace in America today, it is very dogma, that it is illegitimate corruption for the masses to vote for economic and social policies that favor their interests, but personal and civic virtue for the plutes and anyone they can hoodwink into it to vote for policies that favor the rich and the mighty.
Recall that even Romney, an alleged moderate of the Republican Party, was channeling that right wing radical, Ayn Rand, as does everyone today who is devoted to what fraudulently calls itself the American conservative movement.
The idea is out there and has been for many decades that when democracy goes so far as to allow the masses to lock in progressivism it has gone too far, it is illegitimate, it is an intolerable corruption.
That right wing idea, foolish, cruel, stupid, and not at all conservative, widespread even among the soi-disant conservative masses who themselves are ordinary people, has been undermining not only elite but public faith in democracy for many, many decades.
That Iron Man of the right of his age and place, Bismark, knew the proper conservative move was adopt much of the agenda of the Social Democrats in order to maintain stability and retain the loyalty and obedience of the masses to his creation, the German Empire of the Hohenzollern dynasty.
That arch right-winger so beloved of Ayn Rand, Aristotle, taught a lesson she ignored, and a point echoed by that idol of libertarians, John Stuart Mill, that the mixed state is best, and must necessarily allow for enough democracy for the great body of the people to protect themselves from the arrogance, cruelty, selfishness, and greed of the rich, and thus ensure a necessary condition for any durable social order.
Even that theorist of absolutism and monarchy, Thomas Hobbes, was crystal clear that when the rich are so grasping and pitiless as to refuse to others any adequate portion of what they have, however far in excess of genuine need, they provoke crime, disorder, rebellion, and what he thought the greatest of evils, civil war, thus making themselves the enemies of peace and putting themselves in direct conflict with the first law of nature, that we are to seek peace, and pursue it.
On the other hand, few are the ordinary people of America who can be convinced to vote to sink themselves for the benefit of the rich, when the question is put quite like that.
More can be brought to boil themselves in oil if it is put to them that the Democrats, the Party of the People, are in fact the party of their enemies, global economic elites and vast swarms of hate-driven nonwhites.
And that is what the entire deceptively labeled "conservative movement" has been doing for many, many years, now, both the Wall Street wing of the WSJ and The National Review and the paleocon wing of Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, and the fringe elements of both.
It is imperative to understand that these people and their movement are not conservatives.
They have all along been very clear they want to abolish in America rather than fund Obamacare, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, the Department of Education, the EPA, the vast establishment of public education, and all the other measures and establishments, whether regulatory or redistributive, commonly taken by progressive governments around the world to ensure that democratic capitalism is possible by ensuring that capitalism does not become so rapacious, so cruel, and so vicious that it is acceptable to no one but the capitalists, themselves, and the gunmen they must hire to shoot the people down.
They understand fully that our political system is too democratic to make that project at all plausible.
Increasingly, the project is more important to them than democracy.
Suspicion of the democratic system is so pervasive on the right because it’s driven by the fear that white Christian America is facing demographic doom.
The evidence is right there in the election results: Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, and if current polling trends hold, the GOP will be batting one for seven when the results come in on November 8.
Thanks to gerrymandering, Republicans may hold on to a U.S. House majority for a while, and they’ll remain competitive in state capitols in the near future.
But a whites-only party can’t win national elections.
And over time, the GOP’s congressional and state fortresses will crumble if the party doesn’t change dramatically.
Or if the democratic system doesn’t change dramatically.
As conservative writer Byron York noted in the Washington Examiner in May, there’s been an upsurge on the right of calls for “a test for voting, limited-participation elections, condemnations of democracy in general.”
The anti-democratic measures have been taken up with especial fervor by anti-Trump writers like David Harsanyi, Jonah Goldberg, and Keven D. Williamson, all frequent contributors to The National Review.
Go ahead and read the whole of Jeet Heer's piece.
An eye-opener, truly.
His only and central mistake is to see too much of race where what fundamentally moves most of the elites and their mouthpieces of the right is a refusal to accept a capitalist regime in which social harmony and order are bought by throttling the greed of the haves for the sake of the have-nots.
Suspicion of the democratic system is driven by the fear that white Christian America is facing demographic doom.
Sure, but it was already openly out there in Romney's time that it was takers getting to vote that made it impossible to abolish entitlements and the Welfare State, and roll back progressivism all the way to McKinley's time.
And there are far more white takers than nonwhite, my friends.
It is a right wing commonplace in America today, it is very dogma, that it is illegitimate corruption for the masses to vote for economic and social policies that favor their interests, but personal and civic virtue for the plutes and anyone they can hoodwink into it to vote for policies that favor the rich and the mighty.
Recall that even Romney, an alleged moderate of the Republican Party, was channeling that right wing radical, Ayn Rand, as does everyone today who is devoted to what fraudulently calls itself the American conservative movement.
The idea is out there and has been for many decades that when democracy goes so far as to allow the masses to lock in progressivism it has gone too far, it is illegitimate, it is an intolerable corruption.
That right wing idea, foolish, cruel, stupid, and not at all conservative, widespread even among the soi-disant conservative masses who themselves are ordinary people, has been undermining not only elite but public faith in democracy for many, many decades.
That Iron Man of the right of his age and place, Bismark, knew the proper conservative move was adopt much of the agenda of the Social Democrats in order to maintain stability and retain the loyalty and obedience of the masses to his creation, the German Empire of the Hohenzollern dynasty.
That arch right-winger so beloved of Ayn Rand, Aristotle, taught a lesson she ignored, and a point echoed by that idol of libertarians, John Stuart Mill, that the mixed state is best, and must necessarily allow for enough democracy for the great body of the people to protect themselves from the arrogance, cruelty, selfishness, and greed of the rich, and thus ensure a necessary condition for any durable social order.
Even that theorist of absolutism and monarchy, Thomas Hobbes, was crystal clear that when the rich are so grasping and pitiless as to refuse to others any adequate portion of what they have, however far in excess of genuine need, they provoke crime, disorder, rebellion, and what he thought the greatest of evils, civil war, thus making themselves the enemies of peace and putting themselves in direct conflict with the first law of nature, that we are to seek peace, and pursue it.
On the other hand, few are the ordinary people of America who can be convinced to vote to sink themselves for the benefit of the rich, when the question is put quite like that.
More can be brought to boil themselves in oil if it is put to them that the Democrats, the Party of the People, are in fact the party of their enemies, global economic elites and vast swarms of hate-driven nonwhites.
And that is what the entire deceptively labeled "conservative movement" has been doing for many, many years, now, both the Wall Street wing of the WSJ and The National Review and the paleocon wing of Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, and the fringe elements of both.
It is imperative to understand that these people and their movement are not conservatives.
They have all along been very clear they want to abolish in America rather than fund Obamacare, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, the Department of Education, the EPA, the vast establishment of public education, and all the other measures and establishments, whether regulatory or redistributive, commonly taken by progressive governments around the world to ensure that democratic capitalism is possible by ensuring that capitalism does not become so rapacious, so cruel, and so vicious that it is acceptable to no one but the capitalists, themselves, and the gunmen they must hire to shoot the people down.
They understand fully that our political system is too democratic to make that project at all plausible.
Increasingly, the project is more important to them than democracy.
Suspicion of the democratic system is so pervasive on the right because it’s driven by the fear that white Christian America is facing demographic doom.
The evidence is right there in the election results: Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, and if current polling trends hold, the GOP will be batting one for seven when the results come in on November 8.
Thanks to gerrymandering, Republicans may hold on to a U.S. House majority for a while, and they’ll remain competitive in state capitols in the near future.
But a whites-only party can’t win national elections.
And over time, the GOP’s congressional and state fortresses will crumble if the party doesn’t change dramatically.
Or if the democratic system doesn’t change dramatically.
As conservative writer Byron York noted in the Washington Examiner in May, there’s been an upsurge on the right of calls for “a test for voting, limited-participation elections, condemnations of democracy in general.”
The anti-democratic measures have been taken up with especial fervor by anti-Trump writers like David Harsanyi, Jonah Goldberg, and Keven D. Williamson, all frequent contributors to The National Review.
Go ahead and read the whole of Jeet Heer's piece.
An eye-opener, truly.
His only and central mistake is to see too much of race where what fundamentally moves most of the elites and their mouthpieces of the right is a refusal to accept a capitalist regime in which social harmony and order are bought by throttling the greed of the haves for the sake of the have-nots.
Depressing his own turnout
Morning Joe did interviews in the T of PA and found two Stein voters, one for Hillary, and a few for Trump, one of whom was a firm supporter who was not going to bother to vote.
He thinks the people will vote for Trump but Hillary will be made president because, as The Donald says, the system is rigged and the fix is definitely in.
He made a really bid deal of it in Gettysburg the other day.
The System is rigged
On Sunday, ABC News released a survey showing Hillary Clinton with a 12-point lead nationally.
Buried a bit deeper in the poll were respondents' attitudes about Trump's claims of vote-rigging.
Overall, 59 percent of respondents figured that Trump's oft-repeated claims that the vote is being rigged and that he'd otherwise win is simply an excuse he is using to offset an eventual loss.
Thirty-nine percent of respondents said the issue was legitimate — a figure that includes 74 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of Trump supporters.
. . . .
Trump's core of support is, for a Republican presidential candidate, unusually made up of less-frequent voters.
It's typically the case that college-educated white voters, who vote heavily, prefer the Republican nominee.
This year, Hillary Clinton has the edge with that voting bloc. Trump's support is concentrated heavily among whites without college degrees, who are less likely to say they are certain to vote (and less likely to actually do so).
Trump needs those less-frequent voters to go to the polls.
One study noted by the Monkey Cage suggests that claims of a rigged vote will make it less likely that infrequent voters go to the polls instead of more.
. . . .
As it stands, Trump is broadly unpopular and relying heavily on strong turnout from a group of voters that generally doesn't turn out that much.
He needs to provide arguments that will get them (and others) to go cast a ballot on his behalf.
Telling them instead that the vote is rigged and, implicitly, that their votes may not count seems like the exact opposite of what he should be doing.
He thinks the people will vote for Trump but Hillary will be made president because, as The Donald says, the system is rigged and the fix is definitely in.
He made a really bid deal of it in Gettysburg the other day.
The System is rigged
On Sunday, ABC News released a survey showing Hillary Clinton with a 12-point lead nationally.
Buried a bit deeper in the poll were respondents' attitudes about Trump's claims of vote-rigging.
Overall, 59 percent of respondents figured that Trump's oft-repeated claims that the vote is being rigged and that he'd otherwise win is simply an excuse he is using to offset an eventual loss.
Thirty-nine percent of respondents said the issue was legitimate — a figure that includes 74 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of Trump supporters.
. . . .
Trump's core of support is, for a Republican presidential candidate, unusually made up of less-frequent voters.
It's typically the case that college-educated white voters, who vote heavily, prefer the Republican nominee.
This year, Hillary Clinton has the edge with that voting bloc. Trump's support is concentrated heavily among whites without college degrees, who are less likely to say they are certain to vote (and less likely to actually do so).
Trump needs those less-frequent voters to go to the polls.
One study noted by the Monkey Cage suggests that claims of a rigged vote will make it less likely that infrequent voters go to the polls instead of more.
. . . .
As it stands, Trump is broadly unpopular and relying heavily on strong turnout from a group of voters that generally doesn't turn out that much.
He needs to provide arguments that will get them (and others) to go cast a ballot on his behalf.
Telling them instead that the vote is rigged and, implicitly, that their votes may not count seems like the exact opposite of what he should be doing.
Over 65: Old, but not stupid
Polls
Among likely voters, Clinton tops Trump 49% to 44%, with just 3% backing Libertarian Gary Johnson and 2% behind Green Party nominee Jill Stein.
. . . .
Clinton now stands at 53% among voters under age 45, compared with 47% in the previous CNN/ORC poll.
In fact, the only age group where Clinton currently trails Trump is among those age 50-64, who back Trump by 4 points in this poll.
Still too thin a margin for me to be happy.
Among likely voters, Clinton tops Trump 49% to 44%, with just 3% backing Libertarian Gary Johnson and 2% behind Green Party nominee Jill Stein.
. . . .
Clinton now stands at 53% among voters under age 45, compared with 47% in the previous CNN/ORC poll.
In fact, the only age group where Clinton currently trails Trump is among those age 50-64, who back Trump by 4 points in this poll.
Still too thin a margin for me to be happy.
Monday, October 24, 2016
I can't believe they killed Abraham and Glenn. Why?
This kind of thing signals a show on the way out.
Disgust your fans to make cancellation easier.
Walking Dead.
Step-daughter called my wife and said not to watch it.
She said she cried and that the talk show about the show afterward was like a funeral.
We won't watch it.
We might even drop the series.
Disgust your fans to make cancellation easier.
Walking Dead.
Step-daughter called my wife and said not to watch it.
She said she cried and that the talk show about the show afterward was like a funeral.
We won't watch it.
We might even drop the series.
What? Atlas Shrugged?
That boring, insipid, perverse tripe is his favorite novel?
Not Les Miserables or The Grapes of Wrath?
And they made him Speaker of the House?
Well, it wasn't The Turner Diaries, anyway.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Pat Buchanan considers this a deal breaker
67,000 Virginia Ex-Felons Just Got Their Voting Rights Back
Note that this move by the VA governor was ruled constitutional by the VA Supremes.
And note that if felons can't vote a very large percentage of American blacks will be permanently disenfranchised - something PB and his like view as both good in itself and good because it hurts the Democrats.
Note that this move by the VA governor was ruled constitutional by the VA Supremes.
And note that if felons can't vote a very large percentage of American blacks will be permanently disenfranchised - something PB and his like view as both good in itself and good because it hurts the Democrats.
Pat Buchanan: Traitor.
Every form of so-called but grossly mislabeled conservatism in America today is revolutionary in its longing to destroy the real, the actually existing America.
Every form of so-called conservatism in America wants to roll back over a century of progressivism, from the achievements of TR, Taft, and Wilson through those of FDR, Truman, LBJ, and Nixon, right up to those of Barack Obama, America's first African-American president and one of our best.
All of the American right is the radical right.
And the worst of it is the white nationalist, Buchananist right currently led by Donald Trump, The Duce of the new America First movement, even more repugnant than the original.
An Establishment in Panic.
Pat Buchanan, himself, has gone full-bore revolutionary anti-American.
He now hates the system and the establishment, what America has become since the dawn of the 20th Century, so mightily, that there is really no excuse for it in his view.
In the mind of Pat Buchanan, bringing down America is now the work of patriots.
In Pat Buchanan's inverted world, the America of pre-1950 white supremacy and clericalism is the only legitimate America, the only America worthy of love, loyalty, and respect.
And the bare-knuckle capitalism of the McKinley era is the touchstone of legitimacy.
The former damns nonwhite immigration and would exclude nonwhite Americans from political equality, while the latter damns the Welfare State and the Regulatory State - indeed the whole edifice of over a century of progressivism - as ugly corruptions of the Republic.
And he thunders that his real Americans, the 35 to 40% rump of bitterly resentful, ignorant, and stupid white folks (I no longer think it uncivil to call Trump supporters "lizard brained") who he thinks think just like him, would be right to bring it all down with revolution.
To keep the record straight, I loathed the delusional Marxist and New Left revolutionaries of the sixties and seventies who never really stood a chance, but I both loathe and fear the delusional right wing revolutionaries of our time because, having wrapped themselves in the flag like Sinclair Lewis' American fascists, they are much, much more dangerous.
Far from deploring Trump's rhetorical attacks on the legitimacy of the electoral process because they destabilize the country, Pat Buchanan welcomes them and longs for them to bring down an America he despises with all his heart.
That is the tone in which he writes, now, and that is the sort of language he uses.
Pat Buchanan: Traitor.
Pat Buchanan Defends Donald Trump
Jay Nordlinger is mistaken.
The real conservatives in America don't call themselves that and are in the Democratic Party, and have names like Hillary and Barack.
As for the people who call themselves conservatives, there are only the revolutionary radicals Trump likes and the revolutionary radicals Nordlinger likes.
Every form of so-called conservatism in America wants to roll back over a century of progressivism, from the achievements of TR, Taft, and Wilson through those of FDR, Truman, LBJ, and Nixon, right up to those of Barack Obama, America's first African-American president and one of our best.
All of the American right is the radical right.
And the worst of it is the white nationalist, Buchananist right currently led by Donald Trump, The Duce of the new America First movement, even more repugnant than the original.
An Establishment in Panic.
Pat Buchanan, himself, has gone full-bore revolutionary anti-American.
He now hates the system and the establishment, what America has become since the dawn of the 20th Century, so mightily, that there is really no excuse for it in his view.
In the mind of Pat Buchanan, bringing down America is now the work of patriots.
In Pat Buchanan's inverted world, the America of pre-1950 white supremacy and clericalism is the only legitimate America, the only America worthy of love, loyalty, and respect.
And the bare-knuckle capitalism of the McKinley era is the touchstone of legitimacy.
The former damns nonwhite immigration and would exclude nonwhite Americans from political equality, while the latter damns the Welfare State and the Regulatory State - indeed the whole edifice of over a century of progressivism - as ugly corruptions of the Republic.
And he thunders that his real Americans, the 35 to 40% rump of bitterly resentful, ignorant, and stupid white folks (I no longer think it uncivil to call Trump supporters "lizard brained") who he thinks think just like him, would be right to bring it all down with revolution.
To keep the record straight, I loathed the delusional Marxist and New Left revolutionaries of the sixties and seventies who never really stood a chance, but I both loathe and fear the delusional right wing revolutionaries of our time because, having wrapped themselves in the flag like Sinclair Lewis' American fascists, they are much, much more dangerous.
Far from deploring Trump's rhetorical attacks on the legitimacy of the electoral process because they destabilize the country, Pat Buchanan welcomes them and longs for them to bring down an America he despises with all his heart.
That is the tone in which he writes, now, and that is the sort of language he uses.
Pat Buchanan: Traitor.
Pat Buchanan Defends Donald Trump
Jay Nordlinger is mistaken.
The real conservatives in America don't call themselves that and are in the Democratic Party, and have names like Hillary and Barack.
As for the people who call themselves conservatives, there are only the revolutionary radicals Trump likes and the revolutionary radicals Nordlinger likes.
Not all of it is completely insane
28 Things Donald Trump Promises to Do as President
But a lot of it is.
And the protectionism seems to be fading, quite a bit.
But a lot of it is.
And the protectionism seems to be fading, quite a bit.
Fan mail from Michael Tomasky
Hillary Clinton Stays Undefeated Against the Alpha Males
Maybe we'll get lucky and she'll have a Democratic Congress for her first two years, at least.
Maybe longer, if Trump does as much lasting damage to the GOP as has sometimes been suggested.
Maybe we'll get lucky and she'll have a Democratic Congress for her first two years, at least.
Maybe longer, if Trump does as much lasting damage to the GOP as has sometimes been suggested.
Pray this holds up for a few more weeks
Even if you're an atheist.
Wow.
Clinton Vaults to a Double-Digit Lead
Hillary Clinton has vaulted to a double-digit advantage in the inaugural ABC News 2016 election tracking poll, boosted by broad disapproval of Donald Trump on two controversial issues:
His treatment of women and his reluctance to endorse the election’s legitimacy.
Likely voters by a vast 69-24 percent disapprove of Trump’s response to questions about his treatment of women.
After a series of allegations of past sexual misconduct, the poll finds that some women who’d initially given him the benefit of the doubt have since moved away.
Fifty-nine percent of likely voters, moreover, reject Trump’s suggestion that the election is rigged in Clinton’s favor, and more, 65 percent, disapprove of his refusal to say whether he’d accept a Clinton victory as legitimate.
Most strongly disapprove, a relatively rare result.
All told, Clinton leads Trump by 12 percentage points among likely voters, 50 to 38 percent, in the national survey, her highest support and his lowest to date in ABC News and ABC News/Washington Post polls.
Gary Johnson has 5 percent support, Jill Stein 2 percent.
And this.
The share of registered Republicans who are likely to vote is down 7 points since mid-October.
. . . .
Trump is just +4 among whites overall, 47-43 percent, a group Mitt Romney won by 20 points in 2012.
Broad success among whites is critical for any Republican candidate; nonwhites, a reliably Democratic group, favor Clinton by 54 points, 68-14 percent.
Wow.
Clinton Vaults to a Double-Digit Lead
Hillary Clinton has vaulted to a double-digit advantage in the inaugural ABC News 2016 election tracking poll, boosted by broad disapproval of Donald Trump on two controversial issues:
His treatment of women and his reluctance to endorse the election’s legitimacy.
Likely voters by a vast 69-24 percent disapprove of Trump’s response to questions about his treatment of women.
After a series of allegations of past sexual misconduct, the poll finds that some women who’d initially given him the benefit of the doubt have since moved away.
Fifty-nine percent of likely voters, moreover, reject Trump’s suggestion that the election is rigged in Clinton’s favor, and more, 65 percent, disapprove of his refusal to say whether he’d accept a Clinton victory as legitimate.
Most strongly disapprove, a relatively rare result.
All told, Clinton leads Trump by 12 percentage points among likely voters, 50 to 38 percent, in the national survey, her highest support and his lowest to date in ABC News and ABC News/Washington Post polls.
Gary Johnson has 5 percent support, Jill Stein 2 percent.
And this.
The share of registered Republicans who are likely to vote is down 7 points since mid-October.
. . . .
Trump is just +4 among whites overall, 47-43 percent, a group Mitt Romney won by 20 points in 2012.
Broad success among whites is critical for any Republican candidate; nonwhites, a reliably Democratic group, favor Clinton by 54 points, 68-14 percent.
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Talk about usurpation.
Trump apparently thinks he can do a lot by sheer executive command, rather than by making proposals to the Congress.
You know, the branch of government that has exclusive power to make the laws.
Trump makes 'closing argument'
The parts of his program that aren't downright evil are ridiculous or stupid.
You know, the branch of government that has exclusive power to make the laws.
Trump makes 'closing argument'
The parts of his program that aren't downright evil are ridiculous or stupid.
Who is "rigging" the election?
Western PA Republican circulates fake meme about online voting in PA
A Republican public official and lawyer is breaking the law, circulating misinformation about voting in the coming presidentials, targeting supporters of Hillary, specifically.
A Republican public official and lawyer is breaking the law, circulating misinformation about voting in the coming presidentials, targeting supporters of Hillary, specifically.
It is the Republicans who are trying to "rig" the election by interference with voting
Pennsylvania GOP Files Federal Lawsuit To Allow Out-Of-County Poll Watchers
Nobody can watch you actually vote.
If you are not voting for the first time at your polling place no one can ask for identification, and in any case only officials could do that.
(But see below.)
We use computerized voting in Mt Lebanon, PA, so I don't know just what there is to watch that pertains to counting; it's not like there are going to be a lot of hanging chads.
Do they want to stand around outside the buildings and gawk at the lines of voters?
I really have no idea how this is supposed to relate to any sort of feared fraud.
Just looks like bullshit and posturing, to me.
And maybe a dash of voter intimidation, if they try to lurk menacingly at polling places.
Half of Republicans would reject election result if Clinton wins: Reuters/Ipsos
And these Republicans are stupid, lying, or both.
But these Democrats aren't much better.
Only half of Republicans would accept Clinton, the Democratic nominee, as their president.
And if she wins, nearly 70 percent said it would be because of illegal voting or vote rigging, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday.
Conversely, seven out of 10 Democrats said they would accept a Trump victory and less than 50 percent would attribute it to illegal voting or vote rigging, the poll showed.
Extraordinary.
Can Pro-Trump Poll Watchers Disrupt Voting In Pennsylvania?
This simply shocks me.
What crackpots, to write laws like this.
This is just an atrocity.
Did you need another reason to hate Republicans?
Imagine somebody at your polling place, somebody you've never seen before in your life and who is not even from the same county as you, pointing you out in line and calling over an election official to challenge your right to vote at that polling place.
I have lived at my current address and voted at my polling place for nearly twenty years.
Imagine how much this jackass harassment would piss me off.
This is worse, much worse, than being asked by an official for a photo ID.
Pretty nearly everybody has some form of photo ID.
But what if none of your neighbors who actually know you, at least by sight, is in the polling place at the time?
As the Politico piece notes, a provision in the state election code provides that any poll watcher or other voter in the polling place at the time can challenge the identity or residency of someone showing up to vote.
And, in such a circumstance, the law requires the challenged voter to sign an affidavit attesting to his or her identity and residence, and to find a witness from the precinct who can also sign an affidavit vouching for the voter's identity.
According to Pennsylvania Deputy Secretary of State Marian Schneider, there's case law that says there must be a rational basis for a voter challenge.
If the voter doesn't sign the affidavit or find a witness, she noted, he or she can vote by provisional ballot.
The truth is it takes a lot of effort to recruit hundreds of people, train them, and dispatch them to unfamiliar polling places to challenge voters en masse.
But Howard Cain, who was a Democratic field operative for 25 years, says mass challenges aren't really about disqualifying voters.
"You don't have to be successful in these challenges," he said.
"You just have to create enough confusion and temporary chaos at a polling place so that people go, 'I'm not going to stay here and put up with this nonsense, I'm out of here.' That's what the real goal is."
Nobody can watch you actually vote.
If you are not voting for the first time at your polling place no one can ask for identification, and in any case only officials could do that.
(But see below.)
We use computerized voting in Mt Lebanon, PA, so I don't know just what there is to watch that pertains to counting; it's not like there are going to be a lot of hanging chads.
Do they want to stand around outside the buildings and gawk at the lines of voters?
I really have no idea how this is supposed to relate to any sort of feared fraud.
Just looks like bullshit and posturing, to me.
And maybe a dash of voter intimidation, if they try to lurk menacingly at polling places.
Half of Republicans would reject election result if Clinton wins: Reuters/Ipsos
And these Republicans are stupid, lying, or both.
But these Democrats aren't much better.
Only half of Republicans would accept Clinton, the Democratic nominee, as their president.
And if she wins, nearly 70 percent said it would be because of illegal voting or vote rigging, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday.
Conversely, seven out of 10 Democrats said they would accept a Trump victory and less than 50 percent would attribute it to illegal voting or vote rigging, the poll showed.
Extraordinary.
Can Pro-Trump Poll Watchers Disrupt Voting In Pennsylvania?
This simply shocks me.
What crackpots, to write laws like this.
This is just an atrocity.
Did you need another reason to hate Republicans?
Imagine somebody at your polling place, somebody you've never seen before in your life and who is not even from the same county as you, pointing you out in line and calling over an election official to challenge your right to vote at that polling place.
I have lived at my current address and voted at my polling place for nearly twenty years.
Imagine how much this jackass harassment would piss me off.
This is worse, much worse, than being asked by an official for a photo ID.
Pretty nearly everybody has some form of photo ID.
But what if none of your neighbors who actually know you, at least by sight, is in the polling place at the time?
As the Politico piece notes, a provision in the state election code provides that any poll watcher or other voter in the polling place at the time can challenge the identity or residency of someone showing up to vote.
And, in such a circumstance, the law requires the challenged voter to sign an affidavit attesting to his or her identity and residence, and to find a witness from the precinct who can also sign an affidavit vouching for the voter's identity.
According to Pennsylvania Deputy Secretary of State Marian Schneider, there's case law that says there must be a rational basis for a voter challenge.
If the voter doesn't sign the affidavit or find a witness, she noted, he or she can vote by provisional ballot.
The truth is it takes a lot of effort to recruit hundreds of people, train them, and dispatch them to unfamiliar polling places to challenge voters en masse.
But Howard Cain, who was a Democratic field operative for 25 years, says mass challenges aren't really about disqualifying voters.
"You don't have to be successful in these challenges," he said.
"You just have to create enough confusion and temporary chaos at a polling place so that people go, 'I'm not going to stay here and put up with this nonsense, I'm out of here.' That's what the real goal is."
"We do not keep American democracy 'in suspense'."
Dana Milbank: Trump can’t just be defeated. He must be humiliated.
Only once since 1948 has Arizona gone Democratic in a presidential election, and that was the Ross Perot-skewed 1996 contest.
But Trump’s manifold charms — most recently his threat to ignore the results of the election — have given Hillary Clinton a five-point lead in this red state, according to a new Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News poll.
Disgust with Trump sent thousands of white, black and brown Arizonans on Thursday afternoon into the Phoenix Convention Center (where Trump weeks ago pledged mass deportation of illegal immigrants) to hear Michelle Obama denounce Trump’s assault on the democratic process.
“We are fortunate to live in a country where the voters decide our elections,” the first lady said.
“The voters decide who wins and loses. Period. End of story. And when a presidential candidate threatens to ignore our voices and reject the outcome of this election, he is threatening the very idea of America itself, and we cannot stand for that. We do not keep American democracy ‘in suspense.’ ”
Only once since 1948 has Arizona gone Democratic in a presidential election, and that was the Ross Perot-skewed 1996 contest.
But Trump’s manifold charms — most recently his threat to ignore the results of the election — have given Hillary Clinton a five-point lead in this red state, according to a new Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News poll.
Disgust with Trump sent thousands of white, black and brown Arizonans on Thursday afternoon into the Phoenix Convention Center (where Trump weeks ago pledged mass deportation of illegal immigrants) to hear Michelle Obama denounce Trump’s assault on the democratic process.
“We are fortunate to live in a country where the voters decide our elections,” the first lady said.
“The voters decide who wins and loses. Period. End of story. And when a presidential candidate threatens to ignore our voices and reject the outcome of this election, he is threatening the very idea of America itself, and we cannot stand for that. We do not keep American democracy ‘in suspense.’ ”
Some things are legal that no decent and sensible person would do
Get ready for guns in polling places this Election Day
Legal?
This might be something for the police to put a stop to first and apologize about later.
Legal?
This might be something for the police to put a stop to first and apologize about later.
For the American right, a bias is any sentiment they deplore
Anti-Christian bias.
Anti-religious bias.
Liberal bias.
Bias against Trump.
Bias against conservatism.
Bias against whites or men, come to that.
Anti-religious bias.
Liberal bias.
Bias against Trump.
Bias against conservatism.
Bias against whites or men, come to that.
The underlying fact remains
The race baiting, lying outrage that there is no black racism because hostility toward those of another race is racism only if felt by the powerful toward the weak - because only then is it seriously dangerous - is very annoying, I agree.
But the underlying fact remains.
Donald Trump, nearly openly running as a white "race man," poses a credible threat to American minorities that Barack Obama, with all his own racial baggage, never posed or meant to pose to America's white majority.
As a human being and as fit for the presidency, he has been and remains so very strikingly Trump's superior.
He's a clown and a fraud who has done nothing but harm
And is now doing more.
This is not a political movement but a personality cult.
It's worth considering that he is more harmful to the stability, integrity, and national power of America than George Wallace ever was.
The Republican Party has been worshipping crackpots, off and on, for at least half a century.
Goldwater was, well, Goldwater.
Reagan said Medicare was Communism and its passage would cause the destruction of America.
More and more people are beginning to realize the Republican Party is for crackpots, racists, and ideological boobs who want to smash what America actually is, what America has become, the actually existing America, for some deluded and stupid idealization of what was actually an awful past.
The real defenders, protectors, and strengtheners of the real America - the real conservatives - are the Democrats.
Friday, October 21, 2016
Thursday, October 20, 2016
One guy at Loyola checked a billion votes and found 31 cases of voter impersonation
All by himself.
Uh huh.
How did he do that, again?
If nobody does anything to validate someone's identity when the vote is cast, how is anyone to do that after the voter has done his thing and gone home?
Days after?
Years after?
This is just as absurd as the idea that voter ID would significantly burden the rights of legitimate voters.
Just absurd enough to make you wonder whether the point really might be to enable fraud by impersonation.
Perhaps of the dead!
And the argument we ought not to bother to make X illegal because that would do nothing to stop Y and anyway can't absolutely prevent X from ever happening is too stupid for refutation.
Uh huh.
How did he do that, again?
If nobody does anything to validate someone's identity when the vote is cast, how is anyone to do that after the voter has done his thing and gone home?
Days after?
Years after?
This is just as absurd as the idea that voter ID would significantly burden the rights of legitimate voters.
Just absurd enough to make you wonder whether the point really might be to enable fraud by impersonation.
Perhaps of the dead!
And the argument we ought not to bother to make X illegal because that would do nothing to stop Y and anyway can't absolutely prevent X from ever happening is too stupid for refutation.
Trump doubles down
He says at a rally that he will absolutely accept the results of the election, if he wins.
"I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the United States that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election," the Republican presidential nominee told supporters at a rally in Delaware, Ohio, his first comment since the final presidential debate Wednesday.
After pausing for effect, he said, "... if I win."
Huge applause.
His voters are as crazy as he is.
He did not say he would accept the results only if he wins, however.
Remarkable how many people don't know the difference, or hope we don't.
An MSNBC back-bencher actually misquoted him just now (1400 hrs EDT) as saying "only if."
"I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the United States that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election," the Republican presidential nominee told supporters at a rally in Delaware, Ohio, his first comment since the final presidential debate Wednesday.
After pausing for effect, he said, "... if I win."
Huge applause.
His voters are as crazy as he is.
He did not say he would accept the results only if he wins, however.
Remarkable how many people don't know the difference, or hope we don't.
An MSNBC back-bencher actually misquoted him just now (1400 hrs EDT) as saying "only if."
More from the Turkish quasi-autocrat
Turkey unleashing fury of airstrikes against US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces
Turkish jets and artillery struck U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters in northern Syria Thursday, and Turkey's state-run news agency said as many as 200 militiamen were killed, in a major escalation of Turkey's offensive in northern Syria.
. . . .
The Syrian Kurdish force has been an ongoing source of tension between NATO allies Turkey and the United States.
The U.S. considers the militia group, known as the People's Protection Units or YPG, to be the most effective force in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.
Turkey says the group is an extension of its own outlawed Kurdish militants who have carried out a series of deadly attacks in Turkey over the past year and considers it to be a terrorist organization.
Turkish jets and artillery struck U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters in northern Syria Thursday, and Turkey's state-run news agency said as many as 200 militiamen were killed, in a major escalation of Turkey's offensive in northern Syria.
. . . .
The Syrian Kurdish force has been an ongoing source of tension between NATO allies Turkey and the United States.
The U.S. considers the militia group, known as the People's Protection Units or YPG, to be the most effective force in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.
Turkey says the group is an extension of its own outlawed Kurdish militants who have carried out a series of deadly attacks in Turkey over the past year and considers it to be a terrorist organization.
More from the Philippine Trumpist
Duterte aligns Philippines with China, says U.S. has lost
This is genuine cause for concern.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced his "separation" from the United States on Thursday, declaring he had realigned with China as the two agreed to resolve their South China Sea dispute through talks.
Duterte made his comments in Beijing, where he is visiting with at least 200 business people to pave the way for what he calls a new commercial alliance as relations with longtime ally Washington deteriorate.
"In this venue, your honors, in this venue, I announce my separation from the United States," Duterte told Chinese and Philippine business people, to applause, at a forum in the Great Hall of the People attended by Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli.
"Both in military, not maybe social, but economics also. America has lost."
This is genuine cause for concern.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced his "separation" from the United States on Thursday, declaring he had realigned with China as the two agreed to resolve their South China Sea dispute through talks.
Duterte made his comments in Beijing, where he is visiting with at least 200 business people to pave the way for what he calls a new commercial alliance as relations with longtime ally Washington deteriorate.
"In this venue, your honors, in this venue, I announce my separation from the United States," Duterte told Chinese and Philippine business people, to applause, at a forum in the Great Hall of the People attended by Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli.
"Both in military, not maybe social, but economics also. America has lost."
Glad that's over with
Final debate
Donald Trump refuses to say whether he'll accept election results
Donald Trump on Wednesday refused to say he would accept the result of the presidential election if he loses to Hillary Clinton, raising the possibility of an extraordinary departure from principles that have underpinned American democracy for more than two centuries.
"I will look at it at the time," Trump said when asked during the final presidential debate whether he would concede if he loses on November 8, following his claims that the election is "rigged" against him.
He added: "I will keep you in suspense."
. . . .
A CNN/ORC instant poll found 52% of debate watchers viewed Clinton as the winner compared to 39% who felt the same about Trump.
Much more substantive than the 2nd debate.
Differences on actual policy matters of interest were highlighted.
The manner was civil for the first half hour and then we were back in the mud.
Chris Wallace made a valiant effort to maintain order and keep the answers of the two somewhere within shouting distance of the questions asked, with mixed success.
But not everyone was happy with his work.
CNN now shows the Electoral College at 307 for Hillary and 179 for Donald.
P.S.
Trump, pressed on the point, admitted his nominees for the Supremes would overturn Roe.
Nobody asked whether they would decide Obamacare, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are all unconstitutional.
Priorities?
Donald Trump refuses to say whether he'll accept election results
Donald Trump on Wednesday refused to say he would accept the result of the presidential election if he loses to Hillary Clinton, raising the possibility of an extraordinary departure from principles that have underpinned American democracy for more than two centuries.
"I will look at it at the time," Trump said when asked during the final presidential debate whether he would concede if he loses on November 8, following his claims that the election is "rigged" against him.
He added: "I will keep you in suspense."
. . . .
A CNN/ORC instant poll found 52% of debate watchers viewed Clinton as the winner compared to 39% who felt the same about Trump.
Much more substantive than the 2nd debate.
Differences on actual policy matters of interest were highlighted.
The manner was civil for the first half hour and then we were back in the mud.
Chris Wallace made a valiant effort to maintain order and keep the answers of the two somewhere within shouting distance of the questions asked, with mixed success.
But not everyone was happy with his work.
CNN now shows the Electoral College at 307 for Hillary and 179 for Donald.
P.S.
Trump, pressed on the point, admitted his nominees for the Supremes would overturn Roe.
Nobody asked whether they would decide Obamacare, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are all unconstitutional.
Priorities?
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
The new silent majority
Matt Yglesias on the American center (-left)
Data from the Pew Research Center shows that Republicans enjoy the allegiance of the vast majority of white voters without a college degree — a trend that Trump will, if anything, accelerate.
Democrats, meanwhile, enjoy overwhelming majorities among people of color, who now comprise almost 40 percent of their party — a trend that Trump will, again, accelerate.
White Democrats these days are mostly college graduates, and mostly women.
And while white male Democrats will back Clinton over Trump, they went pretty overwhelmingly for Sanders in the primaries.
Clinton’s core coalition is composed of racial minorities and well-educated women, especially unmarried ones.
Clinton also enjoys the support of more than 70 percent of LGBTQ Americans and is trouncing Trump with Jewish voters by higher margins than any 21st-century Democrat.
. . . .
Clinton’s signature weakness is that she is an ultimate insider — a veteran of a system many Americans have come to despise.
This is, however, another way of saying that she has an unusually impressive résumé for a presidential candidate, with a longer and wider range of experience than any president since the Civil War.
Clinton’s silent majority values competence and experience, and recognizes that it’s no coincidence the first plausible woman president had to be the most well-qualified candidate in generations and equally un-coincidental that in the hands of her enemies her great asset has been relabeled as a weakness.
A lot of good sense about who and what Americans are now.
This is not Pat Buchanan's America.
Data from the Pew Research Center shows that Republicans enjoy the allegiance of the vast majority of white voters without a college degree — a trend that Trump will, if anything, accelerate.
Democrats, meanwhile, enjoy overwhelming majorities among people of color, who now comprise almost 40 percent of their party — a trend that Trump will, again, accelerate.
White Democrats these days are mostly college graduates, and mostly women.
And while white male Democrats will back Clinton over Trump, they went pretty overwhelmingly for Sanders in the primaries.
Clinton’s core coalition is composed of racial minorities and well-educated women, especially unmarried ones.
Clinton also enjoys the support of more than 70 percent of LGBTQ Americans and is trouncing Trump with Jewish voters by higher margins than any 21st-century Democrat.
. . . .
Clinton’s signature weakness is that she is an ultimate insider — a veteran of a system many Americans have come to despise.
This is, however, another way of saying that she has an unusually impressive résumé for a presidential candidate, with a longer and wider range of experience than any president since the Civil War.
Clinton’s silent majority values competence and experience, and recognizes that it’s no coincidence the first plausible woman president had to be the most well-qualified candidate in generations and equally un-coincidental that in the hands of her enemies her great asset has been relabeled as a weakness.
A lot of good sense about who and what Americans are now.
This is not Pat Buchanan's America.
Maybe reaching a bit
"The panic is beginning . . . . "
Republican strategist Steve Schmidt sees a landslide victory for Hillary Clinton and possible Democratic majorities in both the U.S. Senate and House.
Schmidt told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday morning that Clinton was currently “trending over 400” electoral votes, based on recent polling, and he said Republicans are freaking out over the real possibility of losing their majorities in both houses of Congress.
400 votes?
Sure.
Republican strategist Steve Schmidt sees a landslide victory for Hillary Clinton and possible Democratic majorities in both the U.S. Senate and House.
Schmidt told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday morning that Clinton was currently “trending over 400” electoral votes, based on recent polling, and he said Republicans are freaking out over the real possibility of losing their majorities in both houses of Congress.
400 votes?
Sure.
More hate propaganda about "white privilege"
White Privilege wages jihad: Kansas “militia members” aren’t considered “terrorists” because they’re not Muslim
Chauncey Devega (not Gardner) asks,
The three white men planned to unleash a killing spree and to bomb a house of worship — is that not terrorism?
The headline is a lie, and the answer to the question is "No."
Typical Salon race baiting.
But the story is amazing.
These crazies - what might be called "extreme Buchananites" - are very, very scary.
Chauncey Devega (not Gardner) asks,
The three white men planned to unleash a killing spree and to bomb a house of worship — is that not terrorism?
The headline is a lie, and the answer to the question is "No."
Typical Salon race baiting.
But the story is amazing.
These crazies - what might be called "extreme Buchananites" - are very, very scary.
Concern rises about "vigilante poll watching"
Officials fight Donald Trump's claims of a rigged election
Civil rights groups have begun to express alarm at remarks from Mr. Trump that they see as goading his supporters to intimidate minorities at the polls.
Arturo Vargas, the executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials Education Fund, said he planned to formally contact the Justice Department as soon as this week, to ask that it guard against the kind of voting disruptions Mr. Trump has encouraged.
“It is a major concern that we have this candidate promoting vigilante poll watching,” Mr. Vargas said.
And Michael Podhorzer, the political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said that progressive groups were deeply concerned about the possibility of disruptions at the polls on Election Day.
Mr. Podhorzer said that Mr. Trump’s recent comments about a rigged election had the potential to “incite violence and bloodshed.”
Mr. Podhorzer said that Democrats would be closely monitoring polling places for signs of interference in states where voters can cast their ballots before Election Day.
“We will start to see whether folks are out intimidating voters in predominantly African-American communities, and at least get a sense of what direction that might be going in,” Mr. Podhorzer said, adding of Mr. Trump’s speech, “This is beyond the pale.”
Kasich drops the hammer on Trump: Rigged election talk is like ‘saying we never landed on the moon’
“Look, to say that elections are rigged, and that all these votes are stolen, that’s like saying we never landed on the moon,” the Ohio governor said.
“That’s how silly it is… I don’t think that’s good for our country and our democracy, and I don’t believe we have any massive fraud.”
Kasich said that Trump’s claims of a “rigged” election were worrisome because they could undermine a significant number of people’s faith in our democratic process.
“The problem is, it does create doubt in people’s minds,” he explained.
“And I worry about 25% of Americans who may say, after an election is over, ‘It was stolen.’ That is a big, fat joke.”
Civil rights groups have begun to express alarm at remarks from Mr. Trump that they see as goading his supporters to intimidate minorities at the polls.
Arturo Vargas, the executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials Education Fund, said he planned to formally contact the Justice Department as soon as this week, to ask that it guard against the kind of voting disruptions Mr. Trump has encouraged.
“It is a major concern that we have this candidate promoting vigilante poll watching,” Mr. Vargas said.
And Michael Podhorzer, the political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said that progressive groups were deeply concerned about the possibility of disruptions at the polls on Election Day.
Mr. Podhorzer said that Mr. Trump’s recent comments about a rigged election had the potential to “incite violence and bloodshed.”
Mr. Podhorzer said that Democrats would be closely monitoring polling places for signs of interference in states where voters can cast their ballots before Election Day.
“We will start to see whether folks are out intimidating voters in predominantly African-American communities, and at least get a sense of what direction that might be going in,” Mr. Podhorzer said, adding of Mr. Trump’s speech, “This is beyond the pale.”
Kasich drops the hammer on Trump: Rigged election talk is like ‘saying we never landed on the moon’
“Look, to say that elections are rigged, and that all these votes are stolen, that’s like saying we never landed on the moon,” the Ohio governor said.
“That’s how silly it is… I don’t think that’s good for our country and our democracy, and I don’t believe we have any massive fraud.”
Kasich said that Trump’s claims of a “rigged” election were worrisome because they could undermine a significant number of people’s faith in our democratic process.
“The problem is, it does create doubt in people’s minds,” he explained.
“And I worry about 25% of Americans who may say, after an election is over, ‘It was stolen.’ That is a big, fat joke.”
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
The bitter maestro joins the chorus
The System is rigged!
Eponymous founder of the movement of which Trump is the front man, Pat Buchanan complains that the system is rigged because most of the media and most of the voters despise The Duce and the political position and style - Pat Buchanan's position and style - he represents.
He complains that if the media were not so hostile to Trump, the GOP nominee would be leading in the polls.
Gee, if only the press actually liked Trump, Buchanan, and Buchananism.
But they don't.
The system is rigged!
Pat is consumed with fury and frustration at the browning of America, the secularization of America by courts far more seriously disestablishmentarian than he is, the end of the firmly white dominated, clericalist America of his youth.
George Will joins the lunatics.
I think when most persons hear that an election is rigged, they think of government action to rig the election.
And there Mr. Trump has a point if he would just make it more clearly.
It is hard to think of an innocent reason why Democrats spend so much time, energy and money, scarce resources all, resisting attempts to purge the voter rolls, that is to remove people who are dead or otherwise have left the jurisdiction.
It's hard to think of an innocent reason why they fight so tremendously against Voter I.D. laws.
. . . .
We know -- we don't surmise -- we know that the 2010, '12 and '14 elections were rigged by the most intrusive and potentially punitive institution of the federal government, the IRS.
This lunacy is not universal on the right, however.
Eponymous founder of the movement of which Trump is the front man, Pat Buchanan complains that the system is rigged because most of the media and most of the voters despise The Duce and the political position and style - Pat Buchanan's position and style - he represents.
He complains that if the media were not so hostile to Trump, the GOP nominee would be leading in the polls.
Gee, if only the press actually liked Trump, Buchanan, and Buchananism.
But they don't.
The system is rigged!
Pat is consumed with fury and frustration at the browning of America, the secularization of America by courts far more seriously disestablishmentarian than he is, the end of the firmly white dominated, clericalist America of his youth.
George Will joins the lunatics.
I think when most persons hear that an election is rigged, they think of government action to rig the election.
And there Mr. Trump has a point if he would just make it more clearly.
It is hard to think of an innocent reason why Democrats spend so much time, energy and money, scarce resources all, resisting attempts to purge the voter rolls, that is to remove people who are dead or otherwise have left the jurisdiction.
It's hard to think of an innocent reason why they fight so tremendously against Voter I.D. laws.
. . . .
We know -- we don't surmise -- we know that the 2010, '12 and '14 elections were rigged by the most intrusive and potentially punitive institution of the federal government, the IRS.
This lunacy is not universal on the right, however.
Monday, October 17, 2016
It is not a surprise for a gay man to be hostile to women
Peter Thiel faces Silicon Valley backlash after pledging $1.25m to Trump
This guy seems to be serious.
And what do you know?
Another conservative - this one a libertarian plutocrat, quelle surprise - who thinks the massive and unshakable rejection of his politics by the voters proves there's something wrong with democracy.
This is me saying "I told you so."
Though I forget just when.
John McCain: 'I don't know' if Trump will be better for Supreme Court than Clinton
McCain promised that Republicans would be "united against any Supreme Court nominee" put forth by Clinton.
"I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up," McCain said.
"I promise you. This is where we need the majority . . . ."
John McCain: 'I don't know' if Trump will be better for Supreme Court than Clinton
McCain promised that Republicans would be "united against any Supreme Court nominee" put forth by Clinton.
"I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up," McCain said.
"I promise you. This is where we need the majority . . . ."
A Republican without Fox News
Fox News Host: 'If You're Down 11 Points In PA., They Ain't Stealing Nothing From You'
A lot of people on Fox have been openly mocking Trump's crazy lies and deploring his efforts to delegitimate the election and indeed the whole system.
It goes back at least as far as his war of words with Megyn Kelly.
A lot of people on Fox have been openly mocking Trump's crazy lies and deploring his efforts to delegitimate the election and indeed the whole system.
It goes back at least as far as his war of words with Megyn Kelly.
What Trump is doing to the country
Poll: 41 percent of voters say election could be ‘stolen’ from Trump
The American electorate has turned deeply skeptical about the integrity of the nation's election apparatus, with 41 percent of voters saying November's election could be "stolen" from Donald Trump due to widespread voter fraud.
The new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll -- conducted among 1,999 registered voters Oct. 13 through Oct. 15 -- shows that Trump’s repeated warnings about a “rigged” election are having effect: 73 percent of Republicans think the election could be swiped from him.
Just 17 percent of Democrats agree with the prospect of massive fraud at the ballot box.
Remember that Trump is only echoing that hero of the left, Bernie Sanders.
The American electorate has turned deeply skeptical about the integrity of the nation's election apparatus, with 41 percent of voters saying November's election could be "stolen" from Donald Trump due to widespread voter fraud.
The new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll -- conducted among 1,999 registered voters Oct. 13 through Oct. 15 -- shows that Trump’s repeated warnings about a “rigged” election are having effect: 73 percent of Republicans think the election could be swiped from him.
Just 17 percent of Democrats agree with the prospect of massive fraud at the ballot box.
Remember that Trump is only echoing that hero of the left, Bernie Sanders.
What Trump supporters are like
Conservative newspaper that endorsed Clinton details death threats
The Arizona Republic's editorial board knew it was wading into controversy last month when it endorsed a Democrat for president -- the first time it had done so in its 126-year history.
But some of the backlash that followed the paper's decision to back Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump went beyond the pale.
An op-ed published this weekend by the newspaper's top executive details some of the most disturbing threats her employees have received over the past month.
The Arizona Republic
Threats of assassination and bombing feature among them.
These people are a stupid and angry minority convinced that if people oppose them that proves the system is rigged, and if they don't get their way that will prove the system is rigged.
CNN's electoral map shows Hillary with 272, this morning.
270 needed to win.
Bill Maher on Trump supporters.
I think BM misses the point that people who show up at rallies are not representative of voters in general.
The Duce leads with white men, especially uneducated white men, but is losing with all others groups.
Testosterone poisoning?
Melanin deficit syndrome?
The Arizona Republic's editorial board knew it was wading into controversy last month when it endorsed a Democrat for president -- the first time it had done so in its 126-year history.
But some of the backlash that followed the paper's decision to back Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump went beyond the pale.
An op-ed published this weekend by the newspaper's top executive details some of the most disturbing threats her employees have received over the past month.
The Arizona Republic
Threats of assassination and bombing feature among them.
These people are a stupid and angry minority convinced that if people oppose them that proves the system is rigged, and if they don't get their way that will prove the system is rigged.
CNN's electoral map shows Hillary with 272, this morning.
270 needed to win.
Bill Maher on Trump supporters.
I think BM misses the point that people who show up at rallies are not representative of voters in general.
The Duce leads with white men, especially uneducated white men, but is losing with all others groups.
Testosterone poisoning?
Melanin deficit syndrome?
Nobody cares
This is not the only poll to say that.
And it means Trump's bellowing that the media frenzy about him being a groper is affecting the vote is just another Trump lie.
Tight races remain in three battlegrounds
And it means Trump's bellowing that the media frenzy about him being a groper is affecting the vote is just another Trump lie.
Tight races remain in three battlegrounds
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Why is that "bias," anyway?
Jonah Goldberg in NRO.
But let me concede a few things.
Yes, the Mainstream Media (MSM) is biased against Republicans.
This has been true since, if not the Mesozoic Era, then at least 1960.
Yes, the media is particularly biased against Donald Trump.
But this is not quite the outrage Trump’s spinners want to make it.
Not only is Trump an exceptionally unworthy presidential candidate on the merits, but he does everything he possibly can to maximize the endemic problems of liberal-media bias.
Thanks to his lizard-brain narcissism, he would rather have awful headlines about himself and be the center of attention than have Hillary Clinton steal the limelight.
But let me concede a few things.
Yes, the Mainstream Media (MSM) is biased against Republicans.
This has been true since, if not the Mesozoic Era, then at least 1960.
Yes, the media is particularly biased against Donald Trump.
But this is not quite the outrage Trump’s spinners want to make it.
Not only is Trump an exceptionally unworthy presidential candidate on the merits, but he does everything he possibly can to maximize the endemic problems of liberal-media bias.
Thanks to his lizard-brain narcissism, he would rather have awful headlines about himself and be the center of attention than have Hillary Clinton steal the limelight.
LBJ liked to say, “Let’s not step on our d**ks” on this or that issue.
Trump is like one of those Italian barefoot peasant women who make wine by stomping on grapes all day, except instead of grapes it’s d**ks as far as the eye can see and Trump is wearing very expensive shoes.
That the media oppose Republicans and Trump in particular does not make them biased.
Nor does their frank preference for the liberal side on such issues as abortion, gay rights, global warming, or what have you.
But their constant insistence on the most uncharitable view of everything he says and most of what he has done in his past are a colossal smear, egregious propaganda.
As are the endless charges he is a nazi or a fascist.
Trump is like one of those Italian barefoot peasant women who make wine by stomping on grapes all day, except instead of grapes it’s d**ks as far as the eye can see and Trump is wearing very expensive shoes.
That the media oppose Republicans and Trump in particular does not make them biased.
Nor does their frank preference for the liberal side on such issues as abortion, gay rights, global warming, or what have you.
But their constant insistence on the most uncharitable view of everything he says and most of what he has done in his past are a colossal smear, egregious propaganda.
As are the endless charges he is a nazi or a fascist.
What really irks them
Gingrich: 20 Media Executives Are Launching A "Coup D'Etat" Against Millions Of Trump Voters
In an interview with 'This Week' co-host Martha Raddatz, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich categorized Donald Trump's 'rigged election' claims as a "coup d'etat" against fourteen million citizens who voted for Donald Trump in the Republican primary committed by "20 media executives."
"This is about last Friday when the networks spent 23 minutes on the Trump tape," he said.
"And less than one minute -- all three networks combined -- less than one minute on the Hillary Clinton’s secret speeches that were being revealed on WikiLeaks."
Looks like a sensible news judgement, to me.
And, anyhow, if only one newspaper in the entire country has endorsed Trump, maybe that's because all the others recognize him and his Republican Party as the blowhard, airhead, racist demagogues they are and don't want any part of it.
As for those 14 million blithering idiots, well, the only word for them is loooooosers.
I hope.
In an interview with 'This Week' co-host Martha Raddatz, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich categorized Donald Trump's 'rigged election' claims as a "coup d'etat" against fourteen million citizens who voted for Donald Trump in the Republican primary committed by "20 media executives."
"This is about last Friday when the networks spent 23 minutes on the Trump tape," he said.
"And less than one minute -- all three networks combined -- less than one minute on the Hillary Clinton’s secret speeches that were being revealed on WikiLeaks."
Looks like a sensible news judgement, to me.
And, anyhow, if only one newspaper in the entire country has endorsed Trump, maybe that's because all the others recognize him and his Republican Party as the blowhard, airhead, racist demagogues they are and don't want any part of it.
As for those 14 million blithering idiots, well, the only word for them is loooooosers.
I hope.
Who believes that?
The report of the Warren Commission on the assassination of President Kennedy.
Or the story that Bill Clinton drove to an airport to meet with the AG on her jet for nearly an hour and in private, just before the Department of Justice was to decide whether to prosecute Hillary, in order to chat about their grandchildren.
Saturday, October 15, 2016
Buchananite Tom Tancredo blames the GOP establishment in advance, in case Trump loses.
Tom Tancredo on Wikipedia.
His piece at Breitbart, where he is a regular.
He says voters don't care about Trump's sexual misconduct and neither do the Republican politicians who have said they do.
It's really that they oppose his positions on trade and immigration, and have from the first.
Republican Party Leaders Plot Purge, Civil War
Are the American people turning against Donald Trump because of remarks he made in private eleven years ago?
No.
Might they turn against him if every Republican senator and congressman attacked him for those remarks?
Yes, quite possibly.
In that case, what would be the cause of the defeat, Trump’s remarks or the party establishment’s treason?
The answer lies in looking at the facts, not Glenn Beck’s self-indulgent rants.
The latest Rasmussen poll shows that 69 percent of voters think Trump’s attitude and remarks about women are either no worse or the same as Bill Clinton’s, and only 23 percent think they are worse.
That is a 3-to-1 margin saying it is not an important issue for the large majority of voters.
So, if moral Puritanism is not a credible explanation for he organized insurrection against the party’s presidential nominee, what is the explanation?
Why this open declaration of war on the millions of voters who selected Trump as the party’s candidate?
The actions of Paul Ryan, McCain and the other party bigwigs only make sense if it is a signal of a planned purge of Trump supporters by the US Chamber of Commerce globalists.
. . . .
After arguing for a full year that Trump couldn’t possibly win and would lead the party to a catastrophic defeat, many of the same Republican leaders saw Trump steadily gaining ground on Hillary Clinton and decided a Trump victory would be even more catastrophic than a defeat.
Immigration enforcement, an America First foreign policy, and sensible international trade treaties must not be allowed to prevail over globalist ambitions of the party establishment.
Trump had to be stopped.
That is why the sabotage did not occur earlier.
Trump is only a mortal danger to the establishment if he has a chance of winning.
As long as he was losing badly in the polls, the saboteurs could remain silent.
But after mid-September when polls started showing Trump in a virtual tie with Clinton and gaining ground in all the “battleground states,” the knives were out.
Why do you think the 2005 video was released when it was, when the liberal media certainly had it for months?
It is beyond question that the Republican establishment fears a Trump victory more than a Trump defeat.
His piece at Breitbart, where he is a regular.
He says voters don't care about Trump's sexual misconduct and neither do the Republican politicians who have said they do.
It's really that they oppose his positions on trade and immigration, and have from the first.
Republican Party Leaders Plot Purge, Civil War
Are the American people turning against Donald Trump because of remarks he made in private eleven years ago?
No.
Might they turn against him if every Republican senator and congressman attacked him for those remarks?
Yes, quite possibly.
In that case, what would be the cause of the defeat, Trump’s remarks or the party establishment’s treason?
The answer lies in looking at the facts, not Glenn Beck’s self-indulgent rants.
The latest Rasmussen poll shows that 69 percent of voters think Trump’s attitude and remarks about women are either no worse or the same as Bill Clinton’s, and only 23 percent think they are worse.
That is a 3-to-1 margin saying it is not an important issue for the large majority of voters.
So, if moral Puritanism is not a credible explanation for he organized insurrection against the party’s presidential nominee, what is the explanation?
Why this open declaration of war on the millions of voters who selected Trump as the party’s candidate?
The actions of Paul Ryan, McCain and the other party bigwigs only make sense if it is a signal of a planned purge of Trump supporters by the US Chamber of Commerce globalists.
. . . .
After arguing for a full year that Trump couldn’t possibly win and would lead the party to a catastrophic defeat, many of the same Republican leaders saw Trump steadily gaining ground on Hillary Clinton and decided a Trump victory would be even more catastrophic than a defeat.
Immigration enforcement, an America First foreign policy, and sensible international trade treaties must not be allowed to prevail over globalist ambitions of the party establishment.
Trump had to be stopped.
That is why the sabotage did not occur earlier.
Trump is only a mortal danger to the establishment if he has a chance of winning.
As long as he was losing badly in the polls, the saboteurs could remain silent.
But after mid-September when polls started showing Trump in a virtual tie with Clinton and gaining ground in all the “battleground states,” the knives were out.
Why do you think the 2005 video was released when it was, when the liberal media certainly had it for months?
It is beyond question that the Republican establishment fears a Trump victory more than a Trump defeat.
Not all the violent loons are Muslims
Attack on Somalis in Kansas thwarted, feds say
Three men face domestic terrorism charges for allegedly plotting to bomb an apartment complex occupied by Somali immigrants in southwest Kansas, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday.
The men had talked about filling four vehicles with explosives and parking them at the four corners of the apartment complex in Garden City, Kansas, to create a large explosion, the DOJ said in a news release.
About 120 Somali immigrants live in the complex, CNN affiliate KWCH reported, and acting U.S. Attorney Tom Beall said one of the apartment units served as a mosque.
The trio, members of a militia group that called itself The Crusaders, wanted to "wake people up," the DOJ said.
They were stockpiling weapons and planned to release a manifesto after the explosion, Beall said at a news conference.
Three men face domestic terrorism charges for allegedly plotting to bomb an apartment complex occupied by Somali immigrants in southwest Kansas, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday.
The men had talked about filling four vehicles with explosives and parking them at the four corners of the apartment complex in Garden City, Kansas, to create a large explosion, the DOJ said in a news release.
About 120 Somali immigrants live in the complex, CNN affiliate KWCH reported, and acting U.S. Attorney Tom Beall said one of the apartment units served as a mosque.
The trio, members of a militia group that called itself The Crusaders, wanted to "wake people up," the DOJ said.
They were stockpiling weapons and planned to release a manifesto after the explosion, Beall said at a news conference.
The new "conspiracy theory" about the tape of Trump and Billy Bush
Josh Marshall
The hate comes home
I want to be very precise about what I say here.
There's a new conspiracy theory rapidly gaining traction among Trump supporters about the origin of the 'Access Hollywood' Trump tape which triggered days of new allegations about Donald Trump's alleged history of sexual abuse.
The conspiracy theory is rapidly taking on an explicitly anti-Semitic character.
As far as I can see it has not been pushed by the Trump campaign itself, at least not publicly.
But it's catching fire with numerous supporters and surrogates - most notably Jerry Falwell Jr, a key Trump supporter among evangelicals and President of Liberty University, the school founded by his father.
The claim is also being pushed by Breitbart and David Duke in various neo-Nazi web forums.
Notably, in recent months Breitbart, with which the Trump campaign has now effectively merged, has itself more openly embraced anti-Semitism.
You can see the details of the story in our write up here.
The claim is that Dan Senor, a prominent GOP political operative, who is Jewish and married to former television reporter Campbell Brown, is behind the tape disclosure and part of a plot of "GOP elites" to destroy Donald Trump.
Elsewhere it is reported that there are now nine women accusing Trump of sexual misconduct.
The hate comes home
I want to be very precise about what I say here.
There's a new conspiracy theory rapidly gaining traction among Trump supporters about the origin of the 'Access Hollywood' Trump tape which triggered days of new allegations about Donald Trump's alleged history of sexual abuse.
The conspiracy theory is rapidly taking on an explicitly anti-Semitic character.
As far as I can see it has not been pushed by the Trump campaign itself, at least not publicly.
But it's catching fire with numerous supporters and surrogates - most notably Jerry Falwell Jr, a key Trump supporter among evangelicals and President of Liberty University, the school founded by his father.
The claim is also being pushed by Breitbart and David Duke in various neo-Nazi web forums.
Notably, in recent months Breitbart, with which the Trump campaign has now effectively merged, has itself more openly embraced anti-Semitism.
You can see the details of the story in our write up here.
The claim is that Dan Senor, a prominent GOP political operative, who is Jewish and married to former television reporter Campbell Brown, is behind the tape disclosure and part of a plot of "GOP elites" to destroy Donald Trump.
Elsewhere it is reported that there are now nine women accusing Trump of sexual misconduct.
Actually funny.
Not a lot, but some.
Paul Ryan on America's fate if Hillary wins, as reported at TPM.
“What vision to Hillary Clinton and her party offer the people? They want an America that doesn’t stand out. They want an America that is ordinary. There is a gloom and grayness to things,” he continued.
“In the America they want, the driving force is the state. Where we are ruled by our betters, by a cold and unfeeling democracy that replaces original thinking. A place where the government twists the law and the constitution itself to suit its purposes. It's a place where liberty is always under assault. Where passion, the very stuff of life is extinguished. That is the America Hillary Clinton wants."
Makes you wonder what he thinks would be its fate if The Duce, whom he refuses to campaign for or defend, were to win.
Paul Ryan on America's fate if Hillary wins, as reported at TPM.
“What vision to Hillary Clinton and her party offer the people? They want an America that doesn’t stand out. They want an America that is ordinary. There is a gloom and grayness to things,” he continued.
“In the America they want, the driving force is the state. Where we are ruled by our betters, by a cold and unfeeling democracy that replaces original thinking. A place where the government twists the law and the constitution itself to suit its purposes. It's a place where liberty is always under assault. Where passion, the very stuff of life is extinguished. That is the America Hillary Clinton wants."
Makes you wonder what he thinks would be its fate if The Duce, whom he refuses to campaign for or defend, were to win.
More Than 160 Republican Leaders Don’t Support Donald Trump.
The NYT lists them.
The future of the GOP, per The Guardian.
This, I think, has the GOP about right.
The Trumpists are the relatively isolationist and protectionist Buchananite white nationalists whose office holders and ideologues want to get rid of a century of progressivism though the masses who support them cherish Social Security and Medicare and are not especially interested in taking down Big Government.
The Wall Street conservatives and their mass support are anti-progressive to the bone, deadly enemies of Social Security, Medicare, and the entire welfare state, and favor free trade and immigration, as well as American globalism, NATO, and so on.
The Christian Right cuts across these two, as does the division over methods between the radicals who, for example, favored the shutdown and the establishment who opposed it.
Pretty much all of them are global warming deniers.
What The Guardian is calling "the Breitbart wing" seems to be the faction I have been calling the Trumpists, and sometimes the Buchananites.
The future of the GOP, per The Guardian.
This, I think, has the GOP about right.
The Trumpists are the relatively isolationist and protectionist Buchananite white nationalists whose office holders and ideologues want to get rid of a century of progressivism though the masses who support them cherish Social Security and Medicare and are not especially interested in taking down Big Government.
The Wall Street conservatives and their mass support are anti-progressive to the bone, deadly enemies of Social Security, Medicare, and the entire welfare state, and favor free trade and immigration, as well as American globalism, NATO, and so on.
The Christian Right cuts across these two, as does the division over methods between the radicals who, for example, favored the shutdown and the establishment who opposed it.
Pretty much all of them are global warming deniers.
What The Guardian is calling "the Breitbart wing" seems to be the faction I have been calling the Trumpists, and sometimes the Buchananites.
Trump proposes drug test
Trump Proposes Drug Test Ahead Of Next Debate With Clinton
Donald Trump suggested that he and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton should undergo a drug test before their third and final debate on Oct. 19.
“Athletes ― they make them take a drug test, right? I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate,” Trump told the crowd at a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Saturday.
Trump went on to insinuate that Clinton might be using performance-enhancing drugs to improve her debate skills.
“I don’t know what’s going on with her, but at the beginning of her last debate, she was all pumped up at the beginning,” Trump said.
“And at the end, it was like, ‘Huh, take me down,’” he said, mimicking an exhausted exhale. “She could barely reach her car.”
Donald Trump suggested that he and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton should undergo a drug test before their third and final debate on Oct. 19.
“Athletes ― they make them take a drug test, right? I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate,” Trump told the crowd at a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Saturday.
Trump went on to insinuate that Clinton might be using performance-enhancing drugs to improve her debate skills.
“I don’t know what’s going on with her, but at the beginning of her last debate, she was all pumped up at the beginning,” Trump said.
“And at the end, it was like, ‘Huh, take me down,’” he said, mimicking an exhausted exhale. “She could barely reach her car.”
The Duce bellows like a wounded animal
I heard him live on MSNBC XM radio earlier.
He is as enraged as a wounded animal, maybe a wildebeest or water buffalo, and his bellows are enough to fill the African plane.
The election is rigged, the evil global elites are stealing it.
How?
The press is overwhelmingly against him and they are circulating a deluge of lying accusations of sexual misconduct against him.
Think about what he's actually saying.
If the press says bad things about you and some of them are false and you are losing in the polls then they are stealing the election from you.
Hmph.
So every elections is stolen, every time.
Right?
Trump says the election is rigged — and his supporters are furious
In Cincinnati a few days ago.
At a time when trust in government is at a low point, Trump is actively stoking fears that a core tenet of American democracy is also in peril: that you can trust what happens at the ballot box.
His supporters here said they plan to go to their local precincts to look for illegal immigrants who may attempt to vote.
They are worried that Democrats will load up buses of minorities and take them to vote several times in different areas of the city.
They’ve heard rumors that boxes of Clinton votes are already waiting somewhere.
And if Trump doesn’t win, some are even openly talking about violent rebellion and assassination, as fantastical and unhinged as that may seem.
“If she’s in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That’s how I feel about it,” Dan Bowman, a 50-year-old contractor, said of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee.
“We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that’s what it’s going to take. . . . I would do whatever I can for my country.”
Are these the deplorables Hillary spoke of?
These people are fucking crazy.
No way around it.
Trump’s campaign has taken a sharp turn toward such dark warnings in recent days.
He says he is a victim of conspiracies, portrays himself as a martyr to the cause of the right wing, and is stoking anger in advance of what may be a defeat on Nov. 8.
. . . .
Above all, Trump is now using the prospect of his loss to undermine faith in democratic institutions.
“It’s one big fix,’’ Trump said Friday afternoon in Greensboro, N.C. “This whole election is being rigged.’’
He saved some of his harshest criticism for the media, which he said is in league with Clinton to steal the election.
“The media is indeed sick, and it’s making our country sick, and we’re going to stop it,” he said.
Pause for a moment to recall the very similar rhetoric of Bernie Sanders and his surrogates during the primary season, and the fury of his supporters against "the rigged system."
He is as enraged as a wounded animal, maybe a wildebeest or water buffalo, and his bellows are enough to fill the African plane.
The election is rigged, the evil global elites are stealing it.
How?
The press is overwhelmingly against him and they are circulating a deluge of lying accusations of sexual misconduct against him.
Think about what he's actually saying.
If the press says bad things about you and some of them are false and you are losing in the polls then they are stealing the election from you.
Hmph.
So every elections is stolen, every time.
Right?
Trump says the election is rigged — and his supporters are furious
In Cincinnati a few days ago.
At a time when trust in government is at a low point, Trump is actively stoking fears that a core tenet of American democracy is also in peril: that you can trust what happens at the ballot box.
His supporters here said they plan to go to their local precincts to look for illegal immigrants who may attempt to vote.
They are worried that Democrats will load up buses of minorities and take them to vote several times in different areas of the city.
They’ve heard rumors that boxes of Clinton votes are already waiting somewhere.
And if Trump doesn’t win, some are even openly talking about violent rebellion and assassination, as fantastical and unhinged as that may seem.
“If she’s in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That’s how I feel about it,” Dan Bowman, a 50-year-old contractor, said of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee.
“We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that’s what it’s going to take. . . . I would do whatever I can for my country.”
Are these the deplorables Hillary spoke of?
These people are fucking crazy.
No way around it.
Trump’s campaign has taken a sharp turn toward such dark warnings in recent days.
He says he is a victim of conspiracies, portrays himself as a martyr to the cause of the right wing, and is stoking anger in advance of what may be a defeat on Nov. 8.
. . . .
Above all, Trump is now using the prospect of his loss to undermine faith in democratic institutions.
“It’s one big fix,’’ Trump said Friday afternoon in Greensboro, N.C. “This whole election is being rigged.’’
He saved some of his harshest criticism for the media, which he said is in league with Clinton to steal the election.
“The media is indeed sick, and it’s making our country sick, and we’re going to stop it,” he said.
Pause for a moment to recall the very similar rhetoric of Bernie Sanders and his surrogates during the primary season, and the fury of his supporters against "the rigged system."
Let's think about this
Hillary used a private email server for public business and some of the emails involved classified information or attachments.
She did not purposely leak any classified stuff and there is no evidence her server was hacked.
But Trump and his followers want to send her to jail for this.
Meanwhile, Julian Assange's Wikileaks is devoted to hacking the government in order to release thousands of classified documents to the whole internet.
Other hackers, perhaps the Russians, hacked Clinton Foundation servers and have timed release of documents found there through Wikileaks to do maximal damage to Hillary's campaign.
For these crimes Trump and his supporters celebrate and thank Wikileaks, Assange, and even the Russians.
She did not purposely leak any classified stuff and there is no evidence her server was hacked.
But Trump and his followers want to send her to jail for this.
Meanwhile, Julian Assange's Wikileaks is devoted to hacking the government in order to release thousands of classified documents to the whole internet.
Other hackers, perhaps the Russians, hacked Clinton Foundation servers and have timed release of documents found there through Wikileaks to do maximal damage to Hillary's campaign.
For these crimes Trump and his supporters celebrate and thank Wikileaks, Assange, and even the Russians.
Friday, October 14, 2016
The stupid provocation of Wikileaks
Julian Assange belongs in prison, and I hope some day he gets there.
Clinton says US could 'ring China with missile defense'
Neither her remarks nor the views they express are objectionable.
The revelations by the press and the dump by Wikileaks are dangerous and deplorable.
Clinton says US could 'ring China with missile defense'
Neither her remarks nor the views they express are objectionable.
The revelations by the press and the dump by Wikileaks are dangerous and deplorable.
Samsung really stepped on it
Samsung To Lose Over $5B Profit Over Note 7 Fiasco
“What's important is whether the flagship S7 can fill the gap left by the Note 7, and how much trust Samsung can regain from consumers by the time the S8 comes out,” Park Jung-hoon, a fund manager at HDC Asset Management, told Reuters.
In September, after reports emerged that the devices’ batteries were exploding, Samsung recalled roughly 2.5 million phones.
However, even the replacement devices issued with different batteries reportedly began catching fire, forcing the company to stop their sale.
Fat chance.
“What's important is whether the flagship S7 can fill the gap left by the Note 7, and how much trust Samsung can regain from consumers by the time the S8 comes out,” Park Jung-hoon, a fund manager at HDC Asset Management, told Reuters.
In September, after reports emerged that the devices’ batteries were exploding, Samsung recalled roughly 2.5 million phones.
However, even the replacement devices issued with different batteries reportedly began catching fire, forcing the company to stop their sale.
Fat chance.
Guilty!
Trump sues New York Times
Donald Trump has threatened to sue the New York Times once again, this time for publishing interviews with two women who say the billionaire groped and kissed them without consent.
. . . .
As a public figure, Trump would have to prove that the newspapers acted with “actual malice,” i.e., the deliberate intention of harming Trump’s reputation.
While Trump makes this accusation all the time in the press, making it in court is a different story.
Absent some kind of bizarre smoking gun – an email from a Times editor, for example, saying “we gotta get Trump” – it’s impossible that a court would believe that the newspaper is pursuing a vendetta against Trump, as opposed to reporting on a hot story about a presidential candidate.
That's a joke, right?
Does Jay Michaelson expect us to believe the NYT isn't trying to destroy Trump's reputation among voters?
Would he agree, then, that Breitbart isn't out to destroy the reputation of Hillary Clinton?
Does he really think anyone will believe he has no valid concept of the actual function of the media during political campaigns?
And ruining the reputation of a disfavored candidate and pursuing a hot story are not mutually exclusive, anyway.
There is no doubt at all the attacker wants the attack to be a hot story, and hopes any hot story about his target helps ruin his reputation.
In the present case, the real problem is that to win his suit Trump has to show the accusations are false and the Times should have recognized them as false.
So what are the odds the claims are, each and all, false?
Phooey.
Donald Trump has threatened to sue the New York Times once again, this time for publishing interviews with two women who say the billionaire groped and kissed them without consent.
. . . .
As a public figure, Trump would have to prove that the newspapers acted with “actual malice,” i.e., the deliberate intention of harming Trump’s reputation.
While Trump makes this accusation all the time in the press, making it in court is a different story.
Absent some kind of bizarre smoking gun – an email from a Times editor, for example, saying “we gotta get Trump” – it’s impossible that a court would believe that the newspaper is pursuing a vendetta against Trump, as opposed to reporting on a hot story about a presidential candidate.
That's a joke, right?
Does Jay Michaelson expect us to believe the NYT isn't trying to destroy Trump's reputation among voters?
Would he agree, then, that Breitbart isn't out to destroy the reputation of Hillary Clinton?
Does he really think anyone will believe he has no valid concept of the actual function of the media during political campaigns?
And ruining the reputation of a disfavored candidate and pursuing a hot story are not mutually exclusive, anyway.
There is no doubt at all the attacker wants the attack to be a hot story, and hopes any hot story about his target helps ruin his reputation.
In the present case, the real problem is that to win his suit Trump has to show the accusations are false and the Times should have recognized them as false.
So what are the odds the claims are, each and all, false?
Phooey.
The Miller's Tale
Ll 408 - 413.
'Now John,' quod Nicholas, 'I wod not lye;
I have y-found in myn astrologye,
As I have loked in the moone bright,
That now on Monday next, at quarter night,
Schal falle a reyn, and that so wilde and wood,
That half so gret was never Noe's flood.
I have y-found in myn astrologye,
As I have loked in the moone bright,
That now on Monday next, at quarter night,
Schal falle a reyn, and that so wilde and wood,
That half so gret was never Noe's flood.
To which the editor found it necessary to add a footnote.
God destroyed the world because of people's sins, but saved Noah and his family because he was faithful.
Canterbury Tales.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
And yet I could have it wrong
Since conservatives want to repeal a century of progressivism and Democrats want to defend and expand its achievements, I have all along thought Hillary the less dangerous toward, or more favorable toward, Social Security and Medicare for retirees, compared to The Duce.
But that could be wrong.
In order to shore up Obamacare and open up Medicare for all, and to count time as an unemployed care-giver as time worked for purposes of calculating Social Security benefits though such care-givers pay nothing to support the Social Security fund during all those years, she might well tolerate reductions in SS benefits or increased costs associated with Medicare for some or all retirees.
Means testing, for example.
And that's perhaps only the tip of the iceberg.
And The Duce, not fully aligned with the reactionary, anti-progressive agenda of the misnamed American conservative movement, has promised - though maybe not much lately and never very credibly - to retain and strengthen Social Security and Medicare for at least people already retired, though that does not at all suit the druthers of Republican office-holders from DC to East Podunk, or of the ideologists of the party and American conservatism.
Sarko channeling Marine Le Pen
The child of immigrant parents - his father a Magyar aristocrat and his mother a Greek - , Sarko is taking over the French identity themes of Marine Le Pen's National Front.
The reason he's doing it?
The National Front is now the most popular party in France and the presidentials are due in six months.
The common theme uniting Trumpists, the Brexit supporters, and the ethnonationalists of the continent is the marrying of ethnic majority fears and resentments to existing, not very literally nation-states, and opposition to immigration by persons seen as not sharing their ethnic identities.
Most of the leaders of these parties and movements want also to marry them to unraveling the welfare state and abandoning social democracy, but the nationalist masses are a lot less interested in that sort of thing than the leadership.
This is by no means the first time the leadership of a movement and the masses who make it up have had significantly different agendas.
Think of the anti-war movement of the sixties and seventies in the US.
The leaders wanted to use opposition to the Vietnam War to bring about revolution in America.
The masses wanted no part of the revolution and didn't even necessarily oppose the war.
It's just that, like Dick Cheney, they had other priorities and didn't want to be drafted to fight in Southeast Asia.
Hence mass participation in the anti-war movement tapered off to nothing after Nixon stopped sending draftees to fight in Vietnam.
As for the new wave of ethnonationalism in Europe, it undermines and even revolts against not only the EU which it expressly attacks but also the UK, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and most states on the Balkan Peninsula, all of which are multi-national states that it implicitly and in some cases explicitly undermines.
In the US, multi-ethnic from the first day and never to be otherwise, white nationalism, like black nationalism, rejects the inevitable multi-ethnic reality of America and nearly every state in the Western Hemisphere, strengthens hostility and mistrust among diverse groups, and contributes mightily to instability.
Even when they advertise deathless loyalty to their own quasi-nation-states, by their campaigns of bitter divisiveness and resentment these ethnonationalists destabilize and weaken those same states.
All the same and despite the truth that white identity extremists (up to and including those who fantasize global extermination of all others), neo-nazis, and neo-fascists do tend to support them, these mass movements are in no way either fascist or nazi, nor even white supremacist, sensu strictu.
And they are generally most emphatically not anti-democratic.
Just being honest, here.
Update, 10/23/2016.
But consider the attitude of Trump and the Buchananites, including PB himself, toward the elections of 2016.
As they have come to realize they are likely to be crushed in the popular vote as well as the electoral college they have denounced the election as "rigged" in advance.
And they have begun to legitimate rejection of the results.
Not all votes, and not all voters, are equal or equally legitimate, for these folks.
And "diversity, democracy, and equality" are not among their basic political values.
Update, 10/23/2016.
But consider the attitude of Trump and the Buchananites, including PB himself, toward the elections of 2016.
As they have come to realize they are likely to be crushed in the popular vote as well as the electoral college they have denounced the election as "rigged" in advance.
And they have begun to legitimate rejection of the results.
Not all votes, and not all voters, are equal or equally legitimate, for these folks.
And "diversity, democracy, and equality" are not among their basic political values.
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