It occurs to me that someone could write the story of this election by using nothing other than slightly modified quotes from The Big Lebowski:
WOLF BLITZER: “Mr. President, ya know, it’s Trump, so his toe slipped over the line a little, big deal. It’s just an election.”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “Wolf, this is a presidential election. This determines who’ll control the nuclear codes. Am I wrong? Am I wrong?”
DONALD TRUMP: “Yeah, but I wasn’t over. Gimme the marker, Wolf, I’m marking it 8.”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: (pulls out gun) “Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules? Mark it zero!”
According to “more than 20 security and immigration officials surveyed by NBC News,” trying to ban Muslims from entering the country “would be virtually impossible to implement and would cripple the current immigration system.”
We know that Trump is tanking his own campaign and dooming the Republicans’ Senate majority, but “could this Cheeto-hued dumpster fire of a candidate go one further and actually put the House in play?” David Nir of Daily Kos takes a look.
Say what you want about Trump’s supporters but they ponied up with a hefty haul of small donations.
Don’t say I didn’t warn/predict this, but there’s another poll out of Arizona showing Hillary Clinton in the lead.
It’s hard to say if Yuval Levin is more disgusted with elected Republicans or the Republican electorate, but he sure is disgusted.
Or, as Greg Sargent puts it: “Republicans nominate dangerously insane person to lead America, then panic when he proves he’s dangerously insane.”
Somehow, this song seems appropriate:
Kinda captures the national mood.
We have never had anyone like Trump. At this point, we have to ask: Is he compos mentis? Is there something wrong with his thinking? Does he have prion disease? Does he have a SVD (small vessal disease, a disorder similar to AD)?
Trump is merely Mitt Romney without learned behavioral controls.
Well, I don’t really agree. Much as I disliked and feared Mittens, he is and was a politician, albeit not to my taste. Trump is simply inventing new rules as he goes along, and is way outside the playbook. His is a new and very concerning approach.
I agree with Obama: the man is simply totally unqualified. Is he also insane?
I agree with Obama that Trump is entirely unqualified to be POTUS. Trump has displayed not only complete ignorance but an utter lack of interest in understanding any extant policy iterations.
But I don’t believe Trump is insane; e.g. he is not psychotic. If he is, he is a very high-functioning psychotic.
He may be delusional; the thing is, Trump’s constant history of bullshit & lying make it impossible to determine whether he is delusional or just saying stuff meant to endear himself to rightwingnuts who feel grief and rage at having been fucked over (economically and socially) by the current status quo.
OTOH, Trump displays clear personality disorders: he’s sociopathic and an obvious narcissist. Of course all politicians vying for office make opportunistic and self-serving statements, but Trump has gone waaay beyond that.
Insofar as Mittens: he was a neurotic who despite serial lying found it impossible to sufficiently re-invent himself to make anyone imagine he is a non-elite who presented a better alternative to independents (non-tribal Republicans) than Obama.
His seemingly physical inability to turn it off or reword it or be refocused suggests that it’s the former, not the latter.
If such is the result of some physical limitation on Trump’s part, then yes: it is by definition pathological.
However…I am neither sufficiently intelligent nor telepathic enough to provide more insight into Trump’s motives beyond my previous statements.
To be fair, I believe Romney is a man who, whatever his faults, has empathy and a conscience.
Trump has neither.
And your assessment of Romney is based on what…?
Looks more like The Donald is a high functioning Asperger syn. Military school instead of therapy to hide the psych problems.
There is no bottom.
Trump is like the amp on Spinal Tap. However, instead of going to 11, he goes to 11,203,332. And every day, he turns it up another notch.
Jethro Tull, f*ck yeah.
Exactly! Woo hoo! Most excellent and spot on.
In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath,
Runs the all time loser
Headlong to his death.
He feels the piston scraping
Steam breaking on his brow
Old Trumpie stole the handle and
The train it won’t stop going
No way to slow down.
Odds and Ends…ok.
Ok…so Marc Lamont Hill (one of the few Black analyst on Fox News during PBOs first term) was on the Breakfast Club (Urban radio morning program) this morning. He was talking his new show and his book or whatever.
But the most interesting thing I heard before going into work, was when he was talking a bit about his time at Fox News. First off, he said he was fired…and he said Fox News is like the WWE to real wrestling…it’s all about the show.
Then he talked about the day of the 08 election, when he walked into Fox News HQ and they told him to go up to the executive floor. There he said was Ailes, on camera personalities (like Sean Hannity) etc. He said, it was a somber mood and he expected to hear somebody got shot or something. But then somebody said “he’s gonna win” and they were all in a piss about it…according to Hill, Sean Hannity even said “I did everything I could to stop it” but Obama was gonna win anyway.
Then he said, Ailes (he believes) perked up a bit and essentially said, “that’s ok, we are gonna make his life a living hell for the next 4 years, and make ALOT of money doing it too”
Ok…so Marc Lamont Hill was on the Breakfast Club this morning. He was talking his new show and his book or whatever.
But the most interesting thing I heard before going into work, was when he was talking a bit about his time at Fox News. First off, he said he was fired…and he said Fox News is like the WWE to real wrestling…it’s all about the show.
Then he talked about the day of the 08 election, when he walked into Fox News HQ and they told him to go up to the executive floor. There he said was Ailes, on camera personalities (like Sean Hannity) etc. He said, it was a somber mood and he expected to hear somebody got shot or something. But then somebody said “he’s gonna win” and they were all in a piss about it…according to Hill, Sean Hannity even said “I did everything I could to stop it” but Obama was gonna win anyway.
Then he said, Ailes (he believes) perked up a bit and essentially said, “that’s ok, we are gonna make his life a living hell for the next 4 years, and make ALOT of money doing it too”
No surprise there, but still..
@Variety
Clint Eastwood Says He’d Choose Donald Trump Over Hillary Clinton
http://bit.ly/2aAYjDq
Clint is one chair short of a full dinette set.
Not too surprising. He’s in California you know, and Trump’s support is definitely growing out here as Hillary’s declines.
Interesting observation if true.
But not according the these polls.
While it seems HRC’s numbers are fluctuating in the 45-55 range, it isn’t Trump picking up the slack. He’s stuck in the low 30s range since May.
Other seems to be doing well, tho. I wonder who the hell is other? Peace and Freedom Party (</snark>)?
polling data is not exactly your forte, or “definitely” . . . er, . . . definitely doesn’t mean what you seem to think it does.
Uh-huh. And the drought’s over, I hear.
You can even see the top of Big Rock Candy Mountain.
Great reference – BRCM
I do find myself wanting to say “Shut the f**k up, Donnie” quite often whenever Trump is speaking.
Try the mute button,
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/08/03/trump_taj_mahal_is_closing_a_perfect_metaphor_for_
the_trump_candidacy.html
Saw them at the Fillmore East back in the sixties. Grand Funk Railroad opened and Fat Mattress (band of the bass player from Hendrix’s Experience) was second. The guy fronting Grand Funk played with his shirt off. Fat Mattress kinda sucked. A long time ago.
Fat Mattress. Another band whose album I bought, played once, and never touched again.
I remember Fat Mattress (I think). Kinda like the Magi (fronted for the Amboy Dukes) only didn’t have as much talent and couldn’t sing for shit.
What, no cross-eyed Mary?
More from Billmon’s Hill and Bill Chronicles:
The Guardian – Mass stabbing in central London leaves woman dead and six injured
Police explore possibility of `terrorism’ after man arrested following the incident in Russell Square in the centre of the city
Of course this will be treated as a possible terrorist attack; just as all such incidents of violence are treated today. As was the Munich shooting and the last two stabbings in London. Sadly, there are many people with such a loose attachment to reality that they are especially vulnerable to a constant drumbeat of fear and violence and act out all on their own. Society is supposed to minimally protect all of us and the all includes those less able to filter out excessive and extreme media focus on relatively rare potential violence by individuals that have a real or imagined connection to some larger group.
The murderer is a Somali, and the dead woman is an American tourist in her 60s. Brexit is making more sense every single day.
All of the victims were tourists.
Bloomberg — Saudi Economic Woes Leave Indian, Pakistani Workers Stranded
From what I have read they are stranded because they do not have travel documents (passports and/or exit visa). Which puts them one step away from good old fashioned slavery.
An issue in all the oil rich Gulf State countries. The remittances back to Pakistan and India are quite large; so, generally everybody tries to ignore it.
Terrible situation for these workers. From what I can tell, they cannot get exit papers because the companies went out of business before providing the papers, and no one is willing to come in and do it for these workers. In some cases, they have been without food for an extended period, up to a week. It’s just dreadful.
It makes you wonder about the end of oil and the status of the oil states. They will have no oil. They have used oil profits to expand their populations. What will happen when the huge number of Saudi princes must actually do something other than rape women? Like actual work? How will that go?
Governments and not private companies are supposed to be in charge of entry and exist visas. If they delegate that authority to a company, they are still responsible for that function and can’t pass the buck if the company goes under.
Easy solution for KSA for a few decades is $100/barrel oil. Let poor schmucks around the world subsidize the luxury lifestyles of the Saudi royal family and its courtiers.
However, absent the explosive, and short term unsustainable, population increases in countries such as Pakistan and India over the past sixty years, there wouldn’t be so many vulnerable and desperate people (often compelled by their families) to fill the labor shortage of places like KSA and UAE. Indentured servitude is an old story and part of the UK’s colonization of the western hemisphere, and therefore, part of our story and it’s not a pretty story. One not completely absent from the US even today.
Whether this particular story is but one of so many or a warning sign of something larger and more widespread remains to be seen.
The expansion of population in India is an untold and terrible story. Say what you will about the 1 child policy, it has considerably slowed the population growth in China. India, on the other hand, is increasing in population.
The dreadful rape issue is another problem. This is caused in part by another unknown problem in India: the use of sex selection abortion. This has produced a large imbalance in the current 18-26 YO group. In some places, sex ratio is 4:3 (M:F).
One reason why we have this horrible onslaught of H-1Bs, most of which are incompetent plaugers from India, is due to their desperation to find some work for the millions of educated people there.
An example of the public’s mood with elected officials…LOL
Missouri State Public Defender’s Office Appoints Governor Jay Nixon To Serve as Public Defender
http://www.publicdefender.mo.gov/Newsfeed/Delegation_of_Representation.PDF
Great comeback from underfunded agency. Putting the pain where it belongs.
Tres clever.
Donald Dump is in Maine today. Maine. Ok, there is a chance he could peel away one electoral vote. But of the two Congressional districts they have, only one could conceivably go for Dump and he’s in the wrong one.
Clinton, OTOH, was in Omaha competing for that one electoral vote, but she tied it in to an appearance with Warren Buffet to introduce his GOTV program. Also, Omaha metro includes Council Bluffs, IA, and thus had some impact on a swing state.