Tag: Trump

Even Mort Zuckerman doesn’t like Trump. The Daily News is all over him.

When the Daily News Editorial Board strives to identify the person who offers the greatest promise to brighten the futures of Americans and to safeguard the national security.

Never have we questioned a candidate’s fitness to serve.

Then came Donald Trump — liar, thief, bully, hypocrite, sexual victimizer and unhinged, self-adoring demagogue.

If even the Daily News can see it, everyone can see it.

The 16-month campaign since Trump vaingloriously entered the race has horrifyingly revealed that the Big Lie brazenly told — built on smaller falsehoods and spread by social media and a lust for TV ratings — can bring the United States to the brink of electing an aspiring strongman with no moral bearing or self-control.

But, now, with his defeat all but certain, Trump is conjuring for his followers demons that conspire to destroy them and the nation.

Chillingly, he refused in Wednesday night’s debate to commit to honoring the results of the November election. Doing so, he questioned the fundamental soundness of America’s democracy.

Trump’s reckless willingness to damage trust in the electoral process — in order to save face and hold leadership of the paranoid wing of U.S. politics — is the most pressing reason why voters must defeat him in a landslide.

To take full stock of Trump must be to understand the urgency of barring him from the White House, as well as to reckon with how an authoritarian fabulist has gotten so close to leading the globe’s beacon of democracy.

History will mark the presidential contest of 2016 for demagoguery that distorted America’s electoral process from a competition of ideas into, on the one hand, a reach for power based on a cultish thirst for vengeance, and, on the other, a bipartisan drive to save the American presidency itself.

Ok then.

Speaking of Trump, I found this pretty hilarious –

Michael Nugent

The Al Smith Dinner helped to humanise Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who are both demonised beyond their actual flaws.

Hahaha yes the two are exactly equivalent.

No but seriously – it’s beyond me how anyone who’s not as awful as Trump is himself can say that. Trump puts his actual flaws on display at all times. He makes it quite impossible to overlook them.

Nugent was also tweeting up a storm about how it doesn’t matter that Trump has refused to say he’ll accept the election results if he loses. Easy for him to say from the other side of the Atlantic.

Another woman for Trump to threaten to sue.

Adult-film star and sex educator Jessica Drake is the latest woman to accuse Donald Trump of moving on her sexually without consent. At a live Los Angeles press-conference Saturday with lawyer Gloria Allred, Drake accused the Republican presidential nominee of “uncontrollable misogyny, entitlement, and being a sexual assault apologist,” and claimed he kissed her and two other women without their consent upon meeting them in 2006. Drake also said Trump offered to pay her for sex.

According to Drake, she and the other women were invited by Trump back to his Lake Tahoe hotel suite after meeting him at a golf tournament. Once there, Trump allegedly grabbed each of them tightly and kissed them. Later, a Trump representative called and invited Drake back to the suite alone, she said, but she declined—after which Trump personally called to extend the invitation. “What do you want? How much?” Trump allegedly said before offering her $10,000, which she rejected.

Such a nice man.

So Trump gave a talk today in Gettysburg – as one does, hoping some of the cred that Lincoln picked up there will transfer. Slate chose a nice photo to show Trump in Lincoln mode:

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

After weeks of scandal after scandal, Donald Trump was meant to focus on policy. His Saturday address in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania was billed as the chance for Trump to show why voters should choose him over Hillary Clinton. The speech would “set the tone” for the final weeks of the campaign as Trump would make the case for why he is “the change-agent our country needs,” Stephen Miller, Trump’s national policy director said before the speech.

Right at the beginning of the address though, Trump seemingly couldn’t help himself and mentioned all the women who have come forward to accuse him of sexual assault, straight up calling [them] liars and vowing to take them to court.

“Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign. Total fabrication, the events never happened — never,” he said. “All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”

From Pliny the in Between:

Let’s go back back back in time, to April 2011.

Donald J. Trump arrived at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in April 2011, reveling in the moment as he mingled with the political luminaries who gathered at the Washington Hilton. He made his way to his seat beside his host, Lally Weymouth, the journalist and socialite daughter of Katharine Graham, longtime publisher of The Washington Post.

A short while later, the humiliation started.

The annual dinner features a lighthearted speech from the president; that year, President Obama chose Mr. Trump, then flirting with his own presidential bid, as a punch line.

He lampooned Mr. Trump’s gaudy taste in décor. He ridiculed his fixation on false rumors that the president had been born in Kenya. He belittled his reality show, “The Celebrity Apprentice.”

Mr. Trump at first offered a drawn smile, then a game wave of the hand. But as the president’s mocking of him continued and people at other tables craned their necks to gauge his reaction, Mr. Trump hunched forward with a frozen grimace.

After the dinner ended, Mr. Trump quickly left, appearing bruised. He was “incredibly gracious and engaged on the way in,” recalled Marcus Brauchli, then the executive editor of The Washington Post, but departed “with maximum efficiency.”

That evening of public abasement, rather than sending Mr. Trump away, accelerated his ferocious efforts to gain stature within the political world. And it captured the degree to which Mr. Trump’s campaign is driven by a deep yearning sometimes obscured by his bluster and bragging: a desire to be taken seriously.

Well that hasn’t worked out well.

Steve Almond wrote about Trump’s contempt for women back in September…which seems like such a dewily innocent time now.

Trump’s central motive for entering the race, after all, was the shame he suffered after being laughed at during a fancy banquet.

He has spent much of the campaign stoking racial and religious resentment. This “politics of scorn” is nothing new in American politics.

But his preoccupation with humiliating and hurting women is unprecedented. To put it bluntly: We’ve never dealt with a politician — let alone a presidential candidate — so nakedly insecure about his manhood, and so hostile towards women.

As a reality TV star, Trump could get away with saying things like, “must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees” to a female contestant. His history of making unwelcome romantic advances and sexist comments is well documented.

What’s shocking is how little effort he’s made to control himself as a candidate. Throughout the primary season, he mocked women for being ugly or weak or bimbos, and when they challenged him, he conjured an image of “blood coming out of their wherever.”

He makes zero effort to control himself. The contempt and hostility work for him with people who like that kind of thing…and maybe he’s so addicted to their whoops of joy that he can’t bear to alienate them by controlling his rage and disgust. Or, more simply, maybe he’s just too stupid to figure it out.

The media celebrities who get access to Trump and his surrogates don’t have the guts to ask this question, but they should:

Why does Trump, when he fears he’s being laughed at, so often fantasize about violence against women? Does he really believe that rape is inevitable? And that it will be his role as president to punish women?

The more disturbing question is this: What do the mothers and daughters who intend to vote for Trump feel, deep down, when they hear huge crowds cheer him for saying these things?

That they’re different, so he doesn’t mean them.

Jim Wright on Facebook:

Trump is now actively promoting the conspiracy theory that Clinton was given last night’s debate questions in advance

Guess what?

He’s right.

It was obvious Clinton knew all the questions in advance.

BECAUSE NONE OF THEM WERE IN ANY WAY A SURPRISE.

Leaving aside the utterly ludicrous idea Fox News would (even without the clammy groping right wing hand of Roger Ailes) help out HILLARY GODDAMNED CLINTON in any way, only somebody so appallingly ignorant of reality as Donald Trump could possibly NOT know what questions were going to come up in last night’s debate.

Let’s review, shall we?

First Question: Supreme Court.

Wow. What a surprise. There is no way Clinton could have seen that one coming and been prepared for it without cheating. No way. I mean when’s the last time you heard anybody talk about the Supreme Court in reference to this election? Amiright? Poor Trump was totally blindsided. Sad!

And you can apply that to all the questions. None of them were surprising or complicated or tricky – they were broad questions on subjects that had already been announced. They were questions that any candidate should be able to answer well.

A subset of the SCOTUS question was … Abortion? Seriously? Abortion? Roe V Wade? That’s so 1973. It was settled long ago, right? I mean you never hear anybody talking about abortion. Why would the moderator even bring that up? That’s like hoop skirts and Conestoga wagons, who even cares about that stuff anymore? Abortion. Please.

Second Question: Immigration.

Total shocker. Never saw that one coming. Why would a candidate even have any opinion on immigration? Borders? Refugees? Where to they get these crazy questions? Why don’t they ask things Americans care about? You know, stuff that’s in the headlines and like that?

A subtext of this question was Wikileaks and Russian spying. Again, how would a candidate possibly know to prepare for such topics? I mean, come ON, Russian hacking of emails? It might as well have been “Obscure 18th Century Hungarian Beekeepers who Collected Stamps.” I mean who knows that shit? Other than Jeopardy contestants who’ve never even grabbed a … okay, that’s a bad example but I think I’ve made my point here, Clinton MUST have had advance notice. Obviously. So sad.

Another subtopic: Nuclear weapons. And we’re back to Hungarian beekeepers. Nuclear weapons? What is this? A Cold War debate? Sure if you drink enough and squint your eyes Trump does sort of resemble Margaret Thatcher, but goddamn, folks, nuclear weapons? Who cares? What kind of presidential candidate is prepared to talk about nuclear weapons off the cuff? She had to have cheated, Folks. Had to.

Third Question: Jobs

Jobs. Economy. NAFTA. Taxes. Trade. Obamacare. What the hell does ANY of that have to do with anything? It’s all Hungarian beekeeping! When has ANY of that come up during this election? What kind of crazy old lady would bone up on that stuff if she didn’t know in advance liberal Fox News was going to pull a gotcha on Donald Trump?

Sexual shenanigans? Groping and grabbing? Nasty women? Good grief, Folks, I was totally surprised by that. No idea that was going to come up. Crazy! I mean name one election in American history where sex was even mentioned like at all. See? Nobody talks about that kind of thing, it’s like abortion or gay marriage. I mean how would Crooked Hillary be ready for that? Cheater!

It’s all rigged! All of it, I tell you!!

Dr Jennifer Gunter explains about late-term abortions.

The third and final Presidential debate focused very quickly on abortion. Clinton defended choice and Trump, not one to be bothered with facts, countered with this doozy of line:

“I think it’s terrible if you go with what Hillary is saying in the ninth month you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby. Now, you can say that that’s okay, and Hillary can say that that’s okay, but it’s not okay with me. Because based on what she’s saying and based on where she’s going and where she’s been, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day. And that’s not acceptable.”

They don’t rip, she says with cold politeness. There is no ripping. Ripping is not what they do.

Perhaps we can forgive Donald Trump for not knowing this as it is hard to believe that a man who bragged that he doesn’t change diapers and said he wouldn’t have had a baby if his wife had wanted him to actually physically participate in its care would have attended the birth of his own children. It’s certainly not for the faint of heart as there is, after all, lots of blood coming out the “wherever.”

Ah, what a “nasty woman,” thank you baby Jesus.

Talking about abortion from a medical perspective is challenging when you are not a health care provider. Even someone familiar with the laws can get confused. For example, Mrs. Clinton made an error speaking about late-term abortion when she said it was a health of the mother issue. Typically it is not (it’s almost always fetal anomalies). However, this error on Clinton’s part only underscores how important it is for politicians to not practice medicine.

To put it in perspective  1.3% of abortions happen at or after 21 weeks and 80% are for birth defects.

Very rare, and mostly because of birth defects. Not done because the pregnant woman suddenly got bored.

After 24 weeks birth defects that lead to abortion are very severe and typically considered incompatible with life. These procedures are either a traditional induction, just like labor, or something that requires instrumentation. Because of the nonsensical partial birth abortion law women who wish to have a dilation and extraction (a modified technique for more advanced procedures) need to have fetal cardiac activity stopped with an injection into the uterus. Either way it’s a 2 or 3 day or even 4 process to get the cervix to dilate enough. The further along in the pregnancy, the more likely the procedure will be an induction of labor, but a skilled practitoner can do a dilation and extraction at 32 or 34 weeks. I’ve never heard of a dilation and extraction for any other reason than severe birth defects and often it is for a woman who has had two or three c-sections for whom inducing labor might pose other health hazards, like uterine rupture. Are we to force women to have c-sections for a pregnancy that is not compatible with life?

Note that c-sections are major surgery.

Why do some women end up with these procedures later on in their pregnancy? Sometimes it can take weeks or even longer to fully understand what is going on with the fetus. Some patients might think they can make it to term and then at 34 weeks cave and ask to be delivered because they just can’t bear one more person asking them about their baby. Do they just smile and walk away or say, “Well, actually, my baby has no brain and will die at birth?” Some women go to term and others can’t. To judge these women for requesting an early delivery is cruel on so many levels. I wrote more about it here if you are interested.  Regardless, terminations for birth defects isn’t ripping “the baby out of the womb in the ninth month.” At 38 or 39 weeks it’s always an induction and is simply called a delivery.

Health of the mother abortions happen earlier.

This definitely happens between 20 and 24 weeks. The most likely scenario is ruptured membranes and an infection in the uterus. The treatment of this is delivery or the infection will spread and kill the mother, however, someone with lupus or renal disease or heart disease (for example) could have a deterioration of their health and with their providers make the decision to have a termination. After 25 weeks this would simply be a c-section or an induction of labor and the baby would go to the neonatal intensive care unit. Between 24-25 weeks there could be some leeway as conditions that are serious enough to require delivery at 24 weeks often also have devastating effects on the fetus. For example, the fetus could be so severely growth restricted making viability at 24 weeks unlikely and a woman with a severe heart condition may not elect to risk her health with a c-section for a likely non viable pregnancy and choose a termination. These are difficult and nuanced decisions and everyone is simply working together to make the best decision for the pregnant person.

Nobody involved needs any help or advice from Donald Trump.

So did you watch it? I watched it except for the last few minutes. I laughed at his furious scowl, his “I shoulda got that,” his “You’re the puppet.” I gaped in astonishment when he wouldn’t say he would accept the outcome of the election. I cringed when he said “bad hombres.” I missed “Such a nasty woman.”

The Washington Post:

[T]he more damaging impression that average voters will be left with from Las Vegas is Trump’s total lack of self-discipline.

Truth. It was an astonishing thing to see. We could tell he was trying, at first, to discipline that rowdy self of his. He spoke more soberly and quietly for the first few minutes, and a little bit more coherently. But it was only for the first few minutes, and after that he simply threw it all out the window and let his id take over. His id is a revolting thing to see, and out of the question for someone with the duties and responsibilities of president of the US.

Most Americans want a president who can control his (or her) impulses. They may not volunteer “self-restraint” as a hallmark of good leadership, but people do not want someone with an irrepressible temper and unhealthy ego in control of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Trump once again failed that test at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, squandering his last big chance to change the trajectory of a race that has moved away from him.

Emphasis theirs.

It wouldn’t occur to us to include “self-restraint” in the list of desired talents because it seems such a baseline qualification. “Can talk” and “doesn’t defecate in public” are also taken for granted. (Mind you, Bush Junior’s striking lack of skill in the talking department should have been a disqualifier, in my view.) Nobody expects a giant toddler to try to be president of the US, and yet there he is.

Trump became more agitated as the night dragged on. The split screen was not his friend. You could see him grimacing, rolling his eyes and shaking his head as she talked.

That too, yes, but from the very beginning, even while he was comparatively disciplined while actually talking, he was making a ridiculous, childish face – eyes squinched nearly shut and mouth turned down like the sad/angry emoticon. He looked like a toddler, literally.

The culmination of all this came in the final moments when Clinton, talking about Social Security, took a dig at Trump for not paying federal income taxes. “Such a nasty woman,” he blurted out.

Yet earlier in the debate he had repeated his absurd claim that “No one respects women more than I do.” I think Milo Yiannopoulos probably respects women more than Trump does. The New York Times did a piece the other day that included a gem of a remark I hadn’t seen before:

Trump presents himself as ageless — a bit older than Clinton, but only in man years, which don’t really count. He told the TV doctor Mehmet Oz that he looks in the mirror and sees “a person who is 35 years old,” like a fairy-tale villain with a charmed looking glass. He gets his exercise, he said, by gesticulating at rallies. The bizarre doctor’s note he released concluded that he’d be the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” then added, “His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary.” His wives get younger with every marriage — the third, Melania, is 24 years his junior — and their youth, Trump says, only makes him more powerful. “You know,” he told Esquire in 1991, “it doesn’t really matter what they write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”

Such respect.

Back to the Post.

Trump’s self-absorption also haunted him during the debates. Clinton has spent the past few months trying to frame the election as a referendum on him. She’s succeeded, in part, because Trump’s favorite thing to talk about is, well, Trump.

And he takes everything personally. Trump started his answer on the Supreme Court vacancy, for example, by noting that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said nasty things about him and claiming that she was “forced to apologize.”

Indeed, and when he tried to defend his love for Putin he included “he says nice things about me.”

We apologize for this extended trainwreck. We join you in hoping it will be over soon.

Talking Points Memo on Trump and voter intimidation.

Civil rights  groups are already gearing up for an especially tense Election Day. Meanwhile, the federal government has been hobbled by a 2013 Supreme Court ruling in its ability to monitor elections in places with histories of voter intimidation. Of particular concern are states with loose open carry laws, where already, some armed Trump supporters have shown an interest in making their presence known at voting sites.

“The idea that people would be standing outside the polls with guns, or even inside the polls with guns, clearly has the potential to turn people away. There’s a long history of this,” said Deuel Ross, an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which is very active in voting rights litigation.

And it’s what Trump actually wants to happen.

Trump has for months complained about the possibility of an election somehow “rigged” against him, but recently, the rhetoric has taken on a more ominous, and even racially-tinged tone, that specifically mentions voter fraud at the ballot box. Last week, he told a mostly white crowd in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, to “watch other communities, because we don’t want this election stolen from us.” He said at rally in Michigan late last month that his supporters, after they vote, should “pick some other place … and go sit there with your friends and make sure it’s on the up and up.”

He’s telling his fans to intimidate voters.

Bad times.

The Voting Rights Act includes a provision that prohibits any attempt to “intimidate, threaten, or coerce” a person trying to vote, and there’s a section of the federal criminal code banning voter intimidation as well. In theory, that could set up a confrontation between federal voter intimidation laws and state open-carry laws (federal law would generally trump state law). However, according to Kristen Clarke, the president and executive director of Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, federal laws are rarely ever used to address voter intimidation claims.

“There’s not just much of a history of the federal government using them,” Clarke said, adding that her group, which monitors elections to ensure all eligible voters can cast a ballot, is more reliant on state and local systems to address instances of voter intimidation.

The Shelby ruling has made it harder for the Feds to watch out for voter intimidation.

The DOJ interpreted the ruling to have also curtailed its ability deploy election observers to the 11 states previously covered by preclearance. This election, the DOJ will only have its elections monitoring program set up in five states — Alabama, Alaska, California, Louisiana, and New York — where federal court decisions have authorized it do so, Reuters reported this summer.

“That safeguard of having specially-trained individuals on behalf of the federal government inside the polls won’t be in place in many communities this November, creating a potentially toxic and vulnerable situation for some voters,” Clarke said.

Because the five conservative justices were wrong that the safeguards aren’t needed any more. So wrong.

It’s worth noting that the Republican National Committee has been under a three-decade-old consent decree — that the Supreme Court in 2013 refused to lift — barring it from engaging in any sort of “ballot security” efforts targeting minorities. The decree is the result of RNC activity decades ago — including the hiring of off-duty cops to patrol around election sites — that Democrats alleged amounted to voter intimidation.

At least one election law expert, UC-Irvine School of Law’s Rick Hasen, has argued that Trump may have violated the decree in his calls for vigilante poll watchers if one interpreted him to be an agent of the RNC. Clarke, meanwhile, called for the RNC case to serve as a guide for what can and cannot be done at the polls in November.

Bad times.

The Boston Globe a few days ago on Trump’s paranoia-stoking.

“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.

Mainstream Republicans are watching these developments at the top of the ticket with a growing sense of alarm, calling Trump’s latest conspiracy theories of a rigged election irresponsible and dangerous. They also say the impact of voter fraud or errors on the outcome of elections is vastly overblown.

It surprises me a little that there is apparently no one grown-up and responsible who can reach him – who can sit him down and tell him to take a deep breath, think about something other than himself, and stop trying to burn everything down around him to avenge his defeat. You’d think there would be someone.

While voters have certainly questioned election outcomes, it is unprecedented for the nominee of a major party to do so, historians say.

“What’s really distinct is the candidate himself putting this out front and center as a consistent theme throughout the last part of the campaign, and doing it when there’s no evidence of anything,” said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University presidential scholar.

Yeah well. Trump is probably the biggest egomaniac in the universe, so nearly everything about his “campaign” is unprecedented.

Trump has recently started encouraging his mostly white supporters to sign up online to be “election observers” to stop “Crooked Hillary from rigging this election.” He’s urging them to act as posses of poll watchers in “other” communities to ensure that things are “on the up and up.”

“Watch your polling booths,” he warned.

His supporters are heeding the call. “Trump said to watch your precincts. I’m going to go, for sure,” said Steve Webb, a 61-year-old carpenter from Fairfield, Ohio.

“I’ll look for . . . well, it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American,” he said. “I’m going to go right up behind them. I’ll do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. I’m not going to do anything illegal. I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”

That is illegal.

The Voting Rights Act includes a provision that prohibits any attempt to “intimidate, threaten, or coerce” a person trying to vote, and there’s a section of the federal criminal code banning voter intimidation as well.

It’s illegal to go right up behind them. It’s illegal to make them a little bit nervous.

The Times editorial board says Republicans should stop ignoring Trump’s lies about a “rigged” election.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, are the two most powerful Republicans in the country and should be willing to put the national interest above their own. Both know full well that there is no “rigging,” and yet between them they have managed one tepid response to Mr. Trump’s outrageous accusations: “Our democracy relies on confidence in election results,” Mr. Ryan’s spokeswoman said, “and the speaker is fully confident the states will carry out this election with integrity.”

This is like standing back while an arsonist pours gasoline all over your house, then expressing confidence that the fire department will get there in time.

Mr. Ryan and Mr. McConnell could hardly dishonor themselves more than they already have in this sordid election year, but their refusal to stand up to Mr. Trump’s pernicious lie may be their lowest moment yet.

But Ryan and McConnell aren’t even the worst.

Other high-profile Republicans have amplified Mr. Trump’s charges and further riled up his angry base. On Saturday, Senator Jeff Sessions, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee from Alabama, told a crowd at a Trump rally in New Hampshire that “they are attempting to rig this election.” On Sunday, Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and now Mr. Trump’s race-baiting surrogate, told CNN that he would be a “moron” to believe that the voting in cities like Chicago and Philadelphia would be fair to Mr. Trump. “I have found very few situations where Republicans cheat,” Mr. Giuliani said. “They don’t control the inner cities the way Democrats do.”

Giuliani is being relentlessly disgusting.

Trump apologists claim that when he says the election is rigged, he is only referring to critical media coverage, but that’s demonstrably false. Either way, some of his supporters have swallowed his lies and are threatening to act as vigilante poll watchers on Election Day. One Trump supporter in Ohio told The Boston Globe that he would look for “Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American” and that he would “go right up behind them” and “make them a little bit nervous.”

Trump is the candidate of the bullies. That’s his core platform – bullying. Bullying women, bullying foreigners and immigrants, bullying brown people, bullying libbruls – bullying most of the population.

Rebecca Solnit did a public Facebook post about the second debate as a display of domestic violence behavior. There are roughly a million comments on it, expressing how reminiscent Trump is of every abuser people have ever known.

I realized it was like watching a domestic-violence relationship for 90 minutes. He endeavored to humiliate and shame her sexually, menace and intimidate her physically, silence her by talking over her, discrediting her, upstaging her, invading her space repeatedly, and putting his rage on display. Men use rage to instill fear. I’ve talked to people who wondered if he was going to physically assault her, and he certainly loomed as if he might, while he ran through his crazy bunchy-faced scowling, glowering, sulking expressions. I mean, I know it’s fair to criticize your opponent but this was something else. It is our collective nightmare, and it’s hard to stop watching.

It’s true. I mostly listened, and watched only intermittently, but yes his relentless glowering along with his shouting and interrupting did remind me of shouty domineering men I’ve known and clashed with. It’s a definite genre, and I hate it.

One comment was by Melissa Jeltsen, who wrote on the subject at the Huffington Post in September. I blogged about it then, but now in the wake of the second debate, and Trump’s ever more threatening behavior since, it merits a revisit.

Title: Trump Is Triggering Domestic Violence Survivors With Textbook Abusive Behavior

Subhead: He lies. He bullies. He threatens. And he’s one step away from the presidency.

We as a people – Americans – are in the process of telling the world that we love bullies.

Karla Fischer, a professor at University of Illinois College of Law, pointed to another common trait of abusers which Trump shares: Making themselves out to be the victim.

“Sometimes when perpetrators file protective orders against their victims, they say everything they have done to her, but claim she did it to him,” Fischer  explained. “And then there’s the rationalizing: ‘I only did it because I was [drunk etc.],’ the outright denials of wrongdoing even when caught.”

Trump follows this pattern to the word. When he is accused of causing harm, he often makes himself out to be the one who has been wronged.

He’s doing it now, this very minute, on Twitter – projecting so hard he could beam a movie to Mars.

Kimberly Brusk, a domestic violence survivor in Atlanta, said she spent half of her most recent therapy session discussing Trump and how he is reminiscent of her ex.

“He lies about things he just said. He can’t win an argument with [Clinton] fairly so he tries to hurt her,” she said. “When he’s talking I can feel my heart racing.”

Kate Ranta, a domestic violence survivor who was shot by her estranged husband in 2012, said the most triggering moment for her was when Trump “joked” about someone assassinating Clinton.

“Domestic violence survivors have a unique experience when it comes to Trump because we’ve fallen victim to men like him,” she said.

Jennifer Tetefsky, who cofounded an advocacy organization for domestic violence survivors to tell their own stories, said she’s had to go off the grid because Trump was triggering her PTSD. She can no longer watch TV.

Yet he’s a hero to millions.

The disgust only deepens.

Donald Trump keeps peddling the notion the vote may be rigged. It’s unclear whether he understands the potential damage of his words, or simply doesn’t care.

Oh please, it’s very clear that he’s doing it because he wants to. He’s a narcissist, and what he wants is all that counts.

Trump’s claim, made without evidence, undercuts the essence of American democracy, the idea that U.S. elections are free and fair, with the vanquished peacefully stepping aside for the victor. His repeated assertions are sowing suspicion among his most ardent supporters, raising the possibility that millions of people may not accept the results on Nov. 8 if Trump loses.

It’s no skin off his nose. If he loses he can just go back to being the rich asshole. He can destroy the place with no consequences to himself – and he’s bent on doing just that. But the rest of us have to live with a delegitimized president.

As Trump’s campaign careens from crisis to crisis, he’s broadened his unfounded allegations that Clinton, her backers and the media are conspiring to steal the election. He’s accused Clinton of meeting with global financial powers to “plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty” and argued his opponent shouldn’t have even been allowed to seek the White House.

“Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted and should be in jail,” Trump tweeted on Saturday. “Instead she is running for president in what looks like a rigged election.”

My eyes bugged out when I read that, so I took a look at Trump’s Twitter. It’s a horrible sight.

This election is being rigged by the media pushing false and unsubstantiated charges, and outright lies, in order to elect Crooked Hillary!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2016

Talk about projection.

100% fabricated and made-up charges, pushed strongly by the media and the Clinton Campaign, may poison the minds of the American Voter. FIX!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2016

The poison is coming from inside the house.

Back to Julie Pace’s article:

Trump’s motivations for stoking these sentiments seem clear.

One of his last hopes of winning the election is to suppress turnout by making these final weeks so repulsive to voters that some just stay home. Trump advisers privately say they hope to turn off young people in particular. This group leans Democratic but doesn’t have a long history of voting and is already skeptical of Clinton.

Emphasis added. They actually say that!

Republicans have already experienced the paralyzing effect of Trump stirring up questions about a president’s legitimacy. He spent years challenging President Barack Obama’s citizenship, deepening some GOP voters’ insistence that the party block the Democrat at every turn.

Jim Manley, a former adviser to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., recalled the skepticism some Republicans had about Obama. “I’m afraid a President Clinton is going to start off with far too many people raising similar questions,” he said.

Lying liars ruin everything.

People who work in intelligence in the US – career experts, civil servants as opposed to politicians – are disturbed that Trump refuses to accept their finding that Russia stole files from the Democratic National Committee computers in an effort to influence the U.S. election.

The former officials, who have served presidents in both parties, say they were bewildered when Trump cast doubt on Russia’s role after receiving a classified briefing on the subject and again after an unusually blunt statement from U.S. agencies saying they were “confident” that Moscow had orchestrated the attacks.

“It defies logic,” retired Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and the National Security Agency, said of Trump’s pronouncements.

Trump has assured supporters that, if elected, he would surround himself with experts on defense and foreign affairs, where he has little experience. But when it comes to Russia, he has made it clear that he is not listening to intelligence officials, the former officials said.

Trump doesn’t have “little experience” in defense and foreign affairs. He has none. Zero. He’s a real estate developer – what would he know about defense and foreign affairs?

In the first debate, after intelligence and congressional officials were quoted saying that Russia almost certainly broke into the DNC computers, Trump said: “I don’t think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay?”

It’s all just opinion, innit. It’s guesswork, it’s hunches, it’s looking thoughtfully out the window and coming up with something. There’s no reason for Trump to pay any attention to senior intelligence officials because they don’t know any more about it than he does, since it’s all just opinion.

In the second debate, he said “Maybe there is no hacking,” despite having been told in a briefing that government officials were certain Russia hacked the DNC.

Former acting CIA director John MacLaughlin said all previous candidates took the briefings to heart.

“In my experience, candidates have taken into the account the information they have received and modulated their comments,” he said. Trump, on the other hand, “is playing politics. He’s trying to diminish the impression people have that [a Russian hack of the DNC] somehow helps his cause.”

I for one look forward to Putin’s influence in US affairs.

And then there’s the whole fomenting a fascist uprising problem. Jamelle Bouie points out that he’s been mouthing off about “a rigged election” and “voter fraud” for months.

Trump first told his supporters of this conspiracy theory at an Ohio rally in August and followed up the claim in an interview with Sean Hannity: “I’m telling you, Nov. 8, we’d better be careful because that election is going to be rigged. And I hope the Republicans are watching closely, or it’s going to be taken away from us.” This was in line with comments from his surrogates, like longtime adviser Roger Stone, who told Breitbart that Trump would begin to talk “constantly” about voter fraud. “He needs to say for example, today would be a perfect example: ‘I am leading in Florida. The polls all show it. If I lose Florida, we will know that there’s voter fraud.’ ” Stone continued: “‘If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.’” The implication is clear: If Trump loses, he should foment this “civil disobedience.” And he should start preparing his supporters for it now. He seems to be doing just that.

It’s quite extraordinary, this claim that the only way Trump can lose the election is if there is voter fraud – that it’s impossible that most people reject him because he’s a malevolent piece of shit.

Now that he’s behind, Trump has returned to questioning the legitimacy of the election. More critically, the idea that he would respect the results of the election, full stop, ignores the hatred that’s come to characterize Trump’s campaign, the violence he’s condoned against protesters and other vocal opponents, the virulent prejudice he’s brought to mainstream politics, and the apocalypticism of his message, where he stands as the final hope for an embattled minority of resentful whites. These rhetorical time bombs, in other words, could be the catalyst for actual intimidation and violence, before and after Election Day. And if that violence and intimidation strikes, it will be against the chief targets of Trump’s campaign: people of color.

A friend of mine saw a bunch of Trump protesters marching around in a circle today. They were all armed.

Trump’s anti-democratic conspiracy mongering is unprecedented in modern elections. And we can begin to guess at the consequences of this rhetoric. Angry people, stirred by demagoguery and convinced they’ve been robbed of their rightful power, are a real threat to the already-frayed fabric of our democracy. Donald Trump thinks the election is rigged. He says we need to watch “areas.” Despite what he said at the debate, he’s also said that, should he lose, he doesn’t know that he will concede: “We’re going to have to see. We’re going to see what happens. We’re going to have to see.”

And if he doesn’t? If he loses and pushes his base to reject the outcome? Then we could see protests, we could see mobs — we could even see violence, all directed against the people supposedly stealing the election. It wouldn’t be the first time.

It’s worrying.

The Beeb has a story titled US election 2016: Presidential race goes down the drain. I haven’t read it yet, I just wanted to share their thoughtful choice of photo to illustrate it:

The Committee to Protect Journalists has put out a statement on Trump versus press freedom. This is a first.

Guaranteeing the free flow of information to citizens through a robust, independent press is essential to American democracy. For more than 200 years this founding principle has protected journalists in the United States and inspired those around the world, including brave journalists facing violence, censorship, and government repression.

Donald Trump, through his words and actions as a candidate for president of the United States, has consistently betrayed First Amendment values. On October 6, CPJ’s board of directors passed a resolution declaring Trump an unprecedented threat to the rights of journalists and to CPJ’s ability to advocate for press freedom around the world.

Since the beginning of his candidacy, Trump has insulted and vilified the press and has made his opposition to the media a centerpiece of his campaign. Trump has routinely labeled the press as “dishonest” and “scum” and singled out individual news organizations and journalists.

He has mocked a disabled New York Times journalist and called an ABC News reporter a “sleaze” in a press conference. He expelled Univision anchor Jorge Ramos from a campaign press conference because he asked an “impertinent” question, and has publicly demeaned other journalists.

Trump has refused to condemn attacks on journalists by his supporters. His campaign has also systematically denied press credentials to outlets that have covered him critically, including TheWashington Post, BuzzFeed, Politico, TheHuffington Post,TheDaily Beast, Univision, and TheDes Moines Register.

Throughout his campaign, Trump has routinely made vague proposals to limit basic elements of press and internet freedom. At a rally in February, Trump declared that if elected president he would “open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.” In September, Trump tweeted, “My lawyers want to sue the failing @nytimes so badly for irresponsible intent. I said no (for now), but they are watching. Really disgusting.”

While some have suggested that these statements are rhetorical, we take Trump at his word. His intent and his disregard for the constitutional free press principle are clear.

A Trump presidency would represent a threat to press freedom in the United States, but the consequences for the rights of journalists around the world could be far more serious. Any failure of the United States to uphold its own standards emboldens dictators and despots to restrict the media in their own countries. This appears to be of no concern to Trump, who indicated that he has no inclination to challenge governments on press freedom and the treatment of journalists.

When MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough asked him in December if his admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin was at all tempered by the country’s history of critical journalists being murdered, his response was: “He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country… Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too.”

Through his words and actions, Trump has consistently demonstrated a contempt for the role of the press beyond offering publicity to him and advancing his interests.

For this reason CPJ is taking the unprecedented step of speaking out now. This is not about picking sides in an election. This is recognizing that a Trump presidency represents a threat to press freedom unknown in modern history.