Even chronically insipid David Brooks sees it.

Trump has shown that he is not a normal candidate. He is a political rampage charging ever more wildly out of control. And no, he cannot be changed.

He cannot be contained because he is psychologically off the chain. With each passing week he displays the classic symptoms of medium-grade mania in more disturbing forms: inflated self-esteem, sleeplessness, impulsivity, aggression and a compulsion to offer advice on subjects he knows nothing about.

I hadn’t thought of mania…except maybe subconsciously I had, since I had thought of grandiosity, which tends to remind me of mania. Anyway yes – the guy is high on himself.

His speech patterns are like something straight out of

A striking opinion piece in the NY Times by a former honcho at the CIA. When he was a government official he kept his presidential preferences to himself; he’s voted for both Democrats and Republicans; he’s not a member of either party. Now, he wants to explain why Hillary Clinton is a better choice than Donald Trump. Better. Not just preferable, but better.

Two strongly held beliefs have brought me to this decision. First, Mrs. Clinton is highly qualified to be commander in chief. I trust she will deliver on the most important duty of a president — keeping our nation safe. Second, Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a

Slate picks out a sentence uttered by Donald Trump as a glowing example of his way of changing the subject every six words or so. It’s very…what it is.

Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you’re a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a

Some veterans are unhappy with Trump. The Guardian reports:

The backlash against Donald Trump escalated on Thursday as angry US military veterans arrived on Capitol Hill urging Republican leaders to withdraw their support for the party’s nominee.

The protest came after a torrid week for the maverick candidate, whose criticism of Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of an American Muslim soldier killed in Iraq in 2004, triggered a Republican revolt.

“Maverick”? That’s a stupid word for what he is. (It was a label for Palin, too. I guess it’s a euphemism for totally unqualified and unfit?)

The veterans presented a petition on Thursday to the office of Senator John McCain , a Vietnam war veteran and former

That item about Trump’s wanting to use the nukes? I didn’t post about it yesterday because there was only one source, but ThinkProgress has collected examples of his saying it in public on the record, so.

On Wednesday, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough passed on an intriguing piece of gossip: Donald Trump, speaking with a “foreign policy expert,” repeatedly asked “why can’t we use nuclear weapons.”

Scarborough’s claim was thinly sourced. He didn’t reveal the identity of the expert advising Trump or even where he learned the information. Information attributed to anonymous sources is inherently suspect.

But one need not rely on anonymous sources to glean Trump’s views on nuclear weapons. He has broached the subject repeatedly on the campaign trail.

Exactly.

Republicans nominate dangerously insane person to lead America, then panic when he proves he’s dangerously insane

They knew that about him when they nominated him. It’s too late to freak out about it now. They should have done that before they nominated him, not after.

Republicans have shifted into a much higher state of Red Alert because Trump’s erratic antics are revealing just how reckless their decision to nominate him really was, and how reckless their continued support for him really is. In other words, Trump is now threatening to damage the party in far worse ways than Republicans had bargained for, because he’s revealing in inescapably clear terms the real character and qualifications of the person they knowingly

Republicans are reacting with shock and horror to the sudden news that their candidate for the presidency is none other than real estate tycoon and “reality” tv star Donald Trump.

The Republican Party was in turmoil again Wednesday as party leaders, strategists and donors voiced increasing alarm about the flailing state of Donald Trump’s candidacy and fears that the presidential nominee was damaging the party with an extraordinary week of self-inflicted mistakes, gratuitous attacks and missed opportunities.

Well stone the crows! It turns out the candidate is not a responsible competent grown up who knows how to behave, but instead, it’s real estate tycoon and “reality” tv star Donald Trump.

Trump’s top campaign advisers are failing to instill discipline

This has been going around since yesterday when Trump got peevish about a crying baby at one of his appearances.

Obama’s a baby-whisperer. Trump not so much.

… Read the rest

Yesterday Obama pointed out that Trump is unfit to be president.

Speaking in the East Room of the White House while Mr. Trump rallied supporters in a nearby Virginia suburb, the president noted the Republican criticism of Mr. Trump for his attacks on the Muslim parents of an American soldier, Capt. Humayun Khan, who died in Iraq.

But Mr. Obama said the political recriminations from Republicans “ring hollow” if the party’s leaders continue to support Mr. Trump’s campaign.

“The question they have to ask themselves is: If you are repeatedly having to say in very strong terms that what he has said is unacceptable, why are you still endorsing him?” Mr. Obama said. “What does this say about your

My friend Tasneem Khalil asked some probing questions about the whole “soldier killed in battle” thing yesterday.

Worshipping the dead soldier is one of the highest rituals of a national security state. Like many other places, we actually have special monuments for this in Bangladesh and India. It is then not surprising to see that even a petulant scumbag like Donald Trump can not get away after insulting two Gold Star parents whose son died in Iraq. This is the same guy, mind you, who got the GOP nomination after calling Mexicans rapists and advocating a blanket ban against Muslims.

Captain Khan was undoubtedly a brave man but was he a hero? A hero for whom? Would any of

The first Republican Representative to ditch Trump.

Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) is the first Republican member of Congress to announce he’ll vote for Hillary Clinton this November.

…

Regarding the reasons he was resolved not to support Trump in the first place, Hanna wrote that they “were simple and personal. I found him profoundly offensive and narcissistic but as much as anything, a world-class panderer, anything but a leader.”

“I never expect to agree with whoever is president, but at a minimum the president needs to consistently display those qualities I have preached to my two children: kindness, honesty, dignity, compassion and respect,” he continued. “I do not expect perfection, but I do require more than the embodiment of