The Brits need our help to make them look good again. You can do your part by not registering to vote, or just not voting. That way, America can regain its status as idiots. “C’mon America, be the bigger moron!”
Indeed, Brexit passed because many Brits voted for it as a protest vote, assuming that it would not pass. Oops.
People think their vote doesn’t matter, but they are wrong.
An interesting post in Electoral Vote points out that Donald Trump has built an unprecedented coalition — of people who can’t stand the thought of him becoming president.
There’s Paul Ryan, of course, and John McCain, and a host of other high-ranking Republicans in Congress. Barack Obama has been anti-Trump from the outset, and is now actively working to persuade Republicans to abandon him. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is on board, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), as is much of the right-wing commentariat, among them Erick Erickson and Glenn Beck. There are Republican lions, like George H.W. Bush and Democratic lions, like Al Gore and Jimmy Carter. In short, though he presumably did not mean to do so, Trump has built a remarkable coalition.
What’s more, this #NeverTrump coalition is growing. Yesterday, Trump lashed out at Republicans in an epic hissy fit, causing even more leaders from his own party to disown him.
At the same time, his angry base ate it up, creating an even bigger gulf between Trump supporters and mainstream Republicans. If Trump supporters turn against other Republicans, it could cost the GOP not just control of the Senate, but maybe even the House. And with the House possibly in play, even more Democrats will rally against Trump.
Yesterday, for the first time Al Gore made a joint campaign appearance with Hillary Clinton in Florida. Gore wasted no time in pointing out that voting does count — Gore lost Florida by 537 votes out of 6 million cast. If the Florida Democrats had been able to increase their turnout in Florida by 0.009%, Gore would have become president instead of Dubya.
But whatever happens, you can bet that if you think Trump is being ugly now, he and his supporters are only going to get worse.
Is it sad to realize that if Hillary Clinton had done even one-tenth of the bizarre things that Donald Trump has done, she would have been laughed out of the presidential race long ago.
The same thing is true of the other two candidates. Heck, Gary Johnson was derided because he misunderstood a question about Aleppo, and Jill Stein is just laughed at for no particular reason. I’m not saying people should vote for Johnson or Stein — there are very good reasons not to vote for them — but it is unfortunate that the main things being used against them have nothing to do with their policy positions or experience.
Now that Trump has announced that he is going nuclear on everyone, including his own party, I’m really hoping that the same thing happens at the national level that happened in California. After Governor Schwarzenegger, the Democrats swept into power and really cleaned up the mess that was California, fixed the economy, solved the budget crisis, and generally put California back on track.
And I even think that this would be the best thing for Republicans. Their party created the monster that is Donald Trump through the “Tea Party”, demonizing their opponents, and stirring up hatred and resentment. Unfortunately, that strategy worked for a while for them (at least getting them elected), but it has to stop. And I’m still hoping that the majority of Americans are aware enough to realize that they have been (and are still being) manipulated and lied to.
[Jokes from Sept. 21, 2016]
“It was announced that you’ll be able to watch next week’s debate on Twitter. So, finally a way to see Trump say something really crazy on Twitter.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Donald Trump falsely claimed that NBC News anchor Lester Holt is a Democrat, when he’s actually a registered Republican. In other words, Trump just alienated the one black guy who might have voted for him.” – Conan O’Brien
“Today, Donald Trump told an African-American audience, ‘Black churches are the conscience of our country.’ In response, the crowd said, ‘Yes, that’s why we’re not voting for you.'” – Conan O’Brien
“Tomorrow is the first day of fall. I am so excited to watch Donald Trump change colors.” – Seth Meyers
“I saw that on Monday Donald Trump met with the Egyptian president in New York City while he’s in town for the U.N. General assembly. Trump said he’s always felt connected to Egypt, mostly because Trump University was a huge pyramid scheme.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Donald Trump said at a campaign rally yesterday that he would put Syrian refugees in safe zones, and make Middle Eastern countries pay for them, adding, ‘There’s nothing like doing things with other people’s money.’ ‘You said it, baby,’ said Melania.” – Seth Meyers
“Fox News has forbidden Sean Hannity from appearing in any more campaign ads for Donald Trump. Fox said, ‘We want to appear neutral while covering the race between Mr. Trump and that Sickly Lying Witch.'” – Conan O’Brien
“Two days ago, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were tied in Florida, but today she is up by five points. Of course, there’s a margin of error… of Florida.” – Conan O’Brien
“President Barack Obama appeared before the U.N. General Assembly for the final time in his presidency to announce that the U.S. would be admitting 110,000 refugees in the coming year. Now the refugees will include people fleeing dangerous places like Syria, Libya, Florida…” – James Corden
“This might sound like a lot of people, 110,000 people are coming in, but you’ve got to remember millions will be fleeing if Trump is elected.” – James Corden
“Obama announced this today, the day after a tweet by the Trump campaign comparing refugees to poisoned Skittles. Obama was basically like, ‘It was going to be 100,000, but after your little Skittles tweet, it’s now 110,000.'” – James Corden
“President Obama’s half-brother, who lives in Kenya, told reporters this week that he will be voting for Donald Trump in the country’s mock U.S. election. Oh, that’s got to sting for Trump — an Obama wants to vote for him, but it’s the one with the Kenyan birth certificate.” – Seth Meyers
“House Speaker Paul Ryan was at the airport and didn’t recognize a three-year congresswoman from Massachusetts. And even asked her, ‘So what do you do?’ Ryan realized she was a congresswoman when she answered, ‘Nothing’.” – Jimmy Fallon
Here’s a quick sampling of all the late shows:
Easily the best of the bunch was Trevor Noah of the Daily Show, who totally takes Trump to task:
Extra bonus footage from the same show, about how Trump is frighteningly channeling his inner dictator:
And as the only female on late night, Samantha Bee throws her heart into the fray:
Seth Meyers also blasts Trump:
And finally, Stephen Colbert:
After the “Fury in Missouri” debate it is clear that Trump cannot control his own mouth. Threatening to throw Clinton in jail may play well with his angry supporters, but it makes him look more like a tin-pot dictator than an actual presidential candidate. And it has legal experts, including Republican prosecutors and former Justice Department attorneys, appalled.
Trump excused his bragging about sexually assaulting women as “locker room talk”, scores of professional athletes disagreed. For example, Oakland A’s pitcher Sean Doolittle said “As an athlete, I’ve been in locker rooms my entire adult life and uh, that’s not locker room talk.”
And what was it with the sniffles again? That’s twice now. Someone asked Carrie Fisher, known for her former drug addictions, and she responded that Trump is “absolutely” a coke head. That could explain a lot.
Meanwhile, Republican politicians are running away from Trump in droves and the GOP cut off funding for Trump. Even his vice presidential running mate Mike Pence cancelled a fundraiser scheduled for the day after the debate, while some Republicans are pressuring him to quit the ticket entirely.
But maybe the stupidest thing Trump said was to challenge the media to find more video dirt on him. The last person who did that was Gary Hart, who was quickly taken out of the presidential race.
May the same thing happen to Trump.
[Jokes from Sept. 19, 2016]
“It’s come out that Hillary Clinton is having a hard time connecting with millennial voters. So now she’s saying that last week’s coughing spell was actually due to a massive bong hit.” – Conan O’Brien
“Hillary Clinton is here and today is my birthday! Later we’re going to bring out a cake and let Hillary cough out the candles.” – Jimmy Fallon
“This weekend, Martha Stewart said Donald Trump should not be president because he is ‘totally unprepared’. Though to be fair, by Martha Stewart’s standards, we’re ALL unprepared.” – Conan O’Brien
“Last week Trump revealed his child care proposals, including a plan to guarantee six weeks of paid maternity leave. Mothers will get six weeks off, as long as their babies can produce their long-form birth certificates.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Donald Trump held a press conference Friday where he announced that he believes President Obama was born in the U.S. Said Trump, ‘I hope that settles the issue. That Muslim was born here.'” – Seth Meyers
“The U.N. General Assembly began today, and Donald Trump was scheduled to meet with the president of Egypt. Said Trump, ‘Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Tut.'” – Seth Meyers
“Donald Trump accused media outlets this morning of deliberately editing his words to make him come across in a bad light. Also making Trump come across in a bad light – light.” – Seth Meyers
“Donald Trump’s running mate Mike Pence said that his role model for the vice presidency is Dick Cheney. To prove it, this weekend Pence had six heart attacks and shot his friend in the face.” – Conan O’Brien
“Only 50 more days until the election. That’s according to my calendar, The Book of Revelation.” – Conan O’Brien
Taegan Goddard has a very interesting reaction to Sunday night’s second debate. Trump didn’t try to act presidential — saying that Clinton should be thrown in jail and generally attacking her constantly. That may endear him with his base, but won’t gain him any new votes, which he desperately needs to actually win.
Why is he doing that? Goddard’s theory is that Trump has given up on winning the presidency. Instead, he is laying the foundation for a media venture targeted at his angry supporters. “He’s now speaking only to the audience for a speculated media venture. It’s not a mistake that his top advisers are former Fox News chief Roger Ailes and Breitbart’s Stephen Bannon.”
In addition, this debate marks the official divorce of Donald Trump from the Republican Party. Trump even dismissed his own running mate’s comments on Russia. It is only a matter of time before the GOP returns the favor.
Clinton might call Trump’s supporters “deplorables”, but Trump sees them as a cash cow willing to throw money at Trump. As usual, he is figuring out how to make money off this whole thing. Especially since his days as a real estate developer are almost certainly over. He’s comfortable with media through “The Apprentice”, so why not start the Trump News Network? He probably even needs the money.
I keep seeing a meme going around that someday in the near future, Donald Trump will claim that he never actually ran for president. I now believe it.
[Jokes from Sept. 15, 2016]
“We have Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on the show tonight, which means security is very tight. On their way in, everyone in the audience had to put their keys into a tray and their deplorables into a basket.” – Jimmy Fallon
“It’s been a busy week for Trump. Earlier today, he appeared on ‘Dr. Oz’ and said that he wants to lose about 15 pounds. And his barber said, ‘Hey, come by any time you like!'” – Jimmy Fallon
“Donald Trump admitted to Dr. Oz that he is overweight, loves fast food, and doesn’t exercise. In a related story, Trump just won Wisconsin.” – Conan O’Brien
“The White House has announced that America will accept 110,000 refugees next year. Meanwhile, Canada announced if Donald Trump wins, they’ll accept 110 million refugees.” – Conan O’Brien
“During a campaign rally yesterday, Donald Trump said, ‘You think Hillary Clinton could stand up here for an hour?’ Then he debuted his new campaign slogan, ‘I Can Stand Up for an Hour.'” – Conan O’Brien
“Hillary Clinton is featured in the upcoming issue of Women’s Health magazine. While next month she’ll be featured in ‘Bad Timing’ magazine.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Recent polling has shown that Hillary Clinton’s lead over Donald Trump has almost totally disappeared and the candidates are basically tied. They’re neck and neck. Well, for Hillary it’s the neck. For Trump it’s more like a gizzard thing.” – James Corden
“Everybody’s talking about these leaked emails from former Secretary of State Colin Powell. In one, he actually called Dick Cheney an idiot. Cheney was very hurt. In fact, he said the comments broke his latest heart.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Ivanka Trump abruptly ended an interview with Cosmopolitan magazine because she felt the questions were ‘unfair’. Of course it’s understandable, most of us wither under the intense political grilling of Cosmopolitan magazine.” – Conan O’Brien
“Ivanka Trump cut short an interview with Cosmo because of what she said was all the ‘negativity’. Which is weird because all the interviewer said was, ‘So, your dad is Donald Trump, right?'” – Conan O’Brien
“We’ve been hearing a lot recently about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. But there is finally another politician in the news, because former President George W. Bush announced today that he is releasing a book of his paintings.” – James Corden
“This week a study was released by the World Health Organization showing that the United States is the third most depressing country in the world after India and China. When Americans heard the news they were like, ‘Oh, we only got third?'” – James Corden
In early 1990s, Donald Trump had 3 major bankruptcies: The Trump Taj Mahal Casino, Trump Plaza, and The Trump Castle. As reported by the Washington Post, these failures were largely self inflicted.
Trump’s bankruptcy lawyers were Patrick McGahn and George Miller. In a 1993 bankruptcy deposition of McGahn comes the following curious exchange:
Q. Did Mr. Miller always do everything together with you when he was active in this case?
A. Not everything, but we — it’s always been our practice to make sure that two people are present, and we don’t have a problem of people lying.
Q. You are meeting with your client?
A. That’s right, your client. Hey, Trump is a leader in the field of expert — he’s an expert at interpreting things. Let’s put it that way.
Q. That’s interestingly put. As I recall in your letter to Mr. DeSanctis, which we marked yesterday, you indicated the policy of your office was to have two attorneys present for meeting with public officials?
A. Correct.
Q. Here, you are meeting with your client?
A. That’s right.
Q. Was it necessary for both you and Mr. Miller to always attend the meeting —
A. We always do that.
Q. Always?
A. We tried to do it with Donald always if we could because Donald says certain things and then has a lack of memory.
In plain English, Trump’s own lawyers say he lies so much they had to meet with him in pairs so they would have a witness to what he said.
What we see is that Trump is not only a pretty piss-poor businessman, he isn’t even a very good liar.
So Melania Trump has forgiven Donald, announcing:
The words my husband used are unacceptable and offensive to me. This does not represent the man that I know. He has the heart and mind of a leader. I hope people will accept his apology, as I have, and focus on the important issues facing our nation and the world.
And yet, hypocritically, Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed Hillary Clinton for Bill Clinton’s infidelity. His surrogate, Rudy Giuliani, declared that Hillary was too stupid to be president because she didn’t leave Bill.
So if Hillary is responsible for Bill’s behavior, why isn’t Melania responsible for Donald’s behavior?
I find it ironic that Donald Trump is suddenly being done in, not by anything related to being president (such as policies) but by the fact that he is a sexist asshole, which should have been long obvious to everyone (even if they weren’t actually paying much attention). As Jonah Goldberg put it:
Donald Trump is a fundamentally dishonorable and dishonest person – and has been his whole adult life. The evidence has been in front of those willing to see it all along. And there’s more to find.
On the heels of Trump being sued for sexual assault by Jill Harth, and saying insulting things about former Miss USA Alicia Machado (not to mention his comments about Rosie O’Donnell and Megyn Kelly), now there is video of him bragging about sexually assaulting women.
The video is from just a few months after Trump married his third and current wife, and when she was pregnant with his child. I think The Daily Beast sums it up neatly:
Character is what you do when nobody’s looking. And this video captures Trump in the middle of day, sober, a few months after being married, talking with a man he barely knows, bragging about sexual assault, while wearing a microphone.
So much for Trump’s claims to having “great judgment” and “the best temperament”. And for once, it does not look like he will be able to bounce back:
This entire campaign has been an exercise of the electorate being slowly simmered in a pot of boiling water, losing our sense of outrage amid a steady of onslaught insults and lies. But sex and cruelty resonates in a way that financial scandals or demagoguery just don’t.
Trump’s response to this latest revelation? “I’ve never said I’m a perfect person, nor pretended to be someone that I’m not.” Again, he lies. In 2014 Trump tweeted “I consider myself too perfect and have no faults.”
And of course, Trump also claimed that he had personally heard far worse from Bill Clinton. But back in 1999, Trump told the New York Post:
People want me to run for president all the time … I don’t like it. Can you imagine how controversial I’d be? You think about Clinton and the women. How about me with the women? Can you imagine?
So what happens now? I’m going to guess that the Republicans will give Trump the “Dole treatment”. About 30 days before the presidential election in 1996 the GOP abandoned Bob Dole when it became clear that he was going to lose to Bill Clinton, and focused on down-ballot races. Already, many Republicans, including those who have endorsed Trump in the past, are calling for him to drop out of the race. Unfortunately, there is zero chance Trump will agree to do that.
UPDATE: Robert DeNiro does not mince words about Donald Trump:
The Drudge Report has been spreading rumors that Bill Clinton had an illegitimate child with an Arkansas prostitute. But they should have checked their own publication first. Way back in 1999, they were the publication that broke the news that a paternity test on the alleged child had turned up negative.
This would not be the first time that Trump or his supporters just threw crap out there, hoping something would stick. Like Trump himself insinuating that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of JFK, or that Hillary Clinton was dying from some kind of brain disease.
What’s worrisome is that there are a growing number of people who believe utter crap like this. Like the people who still believe that Obama is Muslim, that Michelle Obama is a man, and that the first couple kidnapped their children from another family. Trump seems to bringing stupidity and character assassination to the mainstream.
North Carolina law HB-2 isn’t just about bathrooms and transgender people. It also allows businesses to discriminate against homosexuals. So, the Daily Show wonders what this will look like in reality. Hilarity ensues:
Abortion Bush Campaign Finance Cheney Climate Clinton Congress Conservatives Corporations Corruption Deficits Democrats Drugs Economy Education Election Elections Energy Environment Fox News Gays Guns Health Immigration Lies McCain Media Middle East Obama Palin Protests Racism Religion Republicans Romney Spying Supreme Court Taxes Tea Party Terrorism Terrorists Torture Trump Unemployment War
