Saturday, October 08, 2016

TRUMP TO THE BITTER END -- AND IT'LL GET UGLIER

Politico reports that the Republican Party apparently could drop Donald Trump from the ticket:
The RNC rule that authorizes a replacement nominee gives the committee power "to fill any and all vacancies which may occur by reason of death, declination, or otherwise." The word 'otherwise' has been interpreted by some to give the RNC wiggle room to force out a sitting nominee if it chooses. A majority vote of the committee would then choose a new nominee.
A New York Times reporter tweeted last night that this was under serious consideration:



But Politico tells us that the RNC has no interest in pusuing this option.
"Your sources are wrong. There is no meeting," RNC chief strategist Sean Spicer tweeted at a reporter late Friday after the initial news broke.
It's true that early voting has begun and Trump is already on those early ballots. But a defenestration of Trump followed by a coordinated effort to rally the party around a replacement nominee -- probably, at this point, Mike Pence -- could work. Presidential electors have the constitutional right to vote for anyone they want -- they don't have to vote for the person who wins their state. If the GOP wanted to, it could tell the nation, "Vote for Trump and our electors will vote for Pence."

But that would require getting all the electors on board. I don't know if that's possible, given the GOP aversion to collective action in situations like these (remember the many moments leading up to the convention when the GOP could have made a concerted joint effort to derail Trump and didn't). Also, it would infuriate Trump diehards in the electorate.

The rage of the diehards is the real reason Trump can't be dumped. While it's true that the Fairleigh Dickinson poll I mentioned a few days ago shows Pence and Hillary Clinton neck-and-neck in a hypothetical matchup (Clinton 47%, Pence 46%), that was clearly presented to poll respondents as a hypothetical; if it actually came to pass under the current circumstances, the Make America Great Again crowd would conclude that Trump had fallen victim to "political correctness" on the part of the "cuck" GOP, and many Trumpers would refuse to play along (or would threaten harm to electors who promised to switch to Pence). It would never work.

Trump obviously isn't going anywhere voluntarily. The apology part of the tape Trump released last night looks like a hostage video, with the script read at gunpoint -- but the tape then becomes an attack on the Clintons, with a strong implication that the subject of Bill's sexual behavior and Hillary's responses to it will be brought up on Sunday at the debate.



Meanwhile, there are more Trump allegations. The New York Times has posted Nicholas Kristof's Sunday column early; it recounts the story of a would-be Trump business partner who says she was groped by Trump in Ivanka's bedroom. CNN anchor Erin Burnett has now told a story on the air about a friend who was kissed without her consent by Trump.

So what happens now? Trump will say that Bill Clinton is guilty of sexual assault. More Trump stories will come out. Eventually, Trump defenders will begin to complain of a double standard. At that point, the press will respond to the pressure and start rehashing the old Clinton stories. Juanita Broaddrick and other Clinton accusers will beome fixtures on cable news, as, perhaps, will Trump accusers, including some we don't know about yet.

Eventually the conservative media will start asking what's so awful about Trump. Here's one Freeper preview what a few of the conservative pros and semi-pros will write:
What Trump said is like most any other healthy American guy, except the MetroSexuals with man-buns walking the streets of the major cities.
There'll be "thinkpieces," mostly but not exclusively on the lower-rent right-wing sites, arguing that our shock at the Trump tape is a sign of our aversion to genuine masculinity. I bet Instapundit's wife, "Dr. Helen," is working on something along those lines even as we speak. (Her most recent post for PJ Media: "Tim Kaine: Neutered Male.") Expect somthing awful from Camille Paglia as well.



Yeah, that's what Paglia will write.

Will this doom Trump to a landslide defeat? I agree with a couple of the insiders quoted by Politico on this question:
“Our politics is tribal and polarized. So it's not like this swings the thing 10 points,” a Virginia Republican added. “What it does though, and it has the same impact, is it further devastates Trump amongst women and white college-educated voters, two groups he had to make up big time ground with to even stand a chance of winning. Those windows have now permanently closed.” ...

“At this stage, I don't think it's possible to knock this guy out. He's a cockroach at the end of a nuclear winter,” said a New Hampshire Democrat. “But at least people now know he's a cockroach after these comments. He'll still lose, but 45 percent of people are so partisan that they won't change their minds no matter what he's said.”
I've been saying for weeks that it'll probably be a 2-point Clinton victory. Now maybe it'll be a 4-point Clinton victory.

39 comments:

Phil Freeman said...

"Trump will say that Bill Clinton is guilty of sexual assault. More Trump stories will come out. Eventually, Trump defenders will begin to complain of a double standard. At that point, the press will respond to the pressure and start rehashing the old Clinton stories. Juanita Broaddrick and other Clinton accusers will beome fixtures on cable news, as, perhaps, will Trump accusers, including some we don't know about yet."

The first three sentences are accurate. The last two are not. What you haven't figured out yet is that the media has turned on Trump. Not just because he's odious, but because he has the stink of a loser on him. He's going down hard, is the conventional wisdom, and the mass media - terrified of their own obvious and ever increasing irrelevance (which is why your fixation on what Maureen Dowd thinks about things is so hilariously bizarre - the only person who gives more weight to her opinion than you...is her) - don't want to be anywhere near him. Note that he has ZERO newspaper endorsements. They're not worried about seeming evenhanded with him, not anymore, not for a while now. Hell, Trump got the New York Times to publish the words "fuck" and "pussy." He's cooked, as far as journalists are concerned, and they don't feel the slightest need to cater to his diehards. Look at the CNN crawl that said something like, "Mike Pence Claims Trump Didn't Say The Things He Said." The one good thing about the Trump candidacy is that it's revealed to mainstream journalists the shocking idea that Republican politicians lie. And that sometimes it's OK to say so.

Danp said...

I'm betting a lot of Republicans simply won't vote. The deplorables will, and the country club Republicans will at least vote in other races. But this sludge will rub off on the GOP, which 1) didn't vet him in the primaries, 2) told office holders they wouldn't be supported by the party if they didn't endorse Trump, and 3) spent way too much time supporting the predator/phoney business genius.

Meanwhile, I wonder how many people who lived through the Clinton impeachment really want to watch a debate on who is the biggest sleaze in America. In this corner we have defendant Trump, and in the other corner we have defendant Clinton's wife. Maybe we should let Melania be the moderator.

Jim Snyder said...

Sam Wang has an interesting article (under "White Swan") to the effect that "the growing obviousness of [Trump's] electoral doom created an environment for this story to blow up."

Wang gives the meta-margin as 3.3%, so if you think that the video might mean another 2% in the margin of victory (and FWIW that's my SWAG), it's a 5 point win.

Another variable is the debate tomorrow ... if as almost everyone expects Trump goes after Hillary "because Bill Clinton", then as long as Hillary handles her response well, Trump is likely to do himself further damage.

Mostly agree with Phil Freeman, but "loser" is the symptom. There are many causes, but the three that stand out are a) the infomercial press conference at/for his hotel a month ago; b) his attacks on Machado post-debate; and c) taxes, probably in that order. I keep hearing that the infomercial was the last straw for our press corpse, and it makes sense that our press corpse didn't take kindly to being played for fools by a clown.

Back to Wang, who makes a point similar to Freeman's:
Based on past elections, I estimate that people’s “animal spirits” about a campaign start to shift when the front-runner’s win probability gets close to 95% as defined using PEC’s methods. At that point, the marketplace of ideas starts looking for a reason to pile on to the loser. Enter the video/audio recording.

Wang continues:
Until now I thought the House was likely to remain Republican. But the fact that swing district Congresswoman Comstock has fled for the exit is an early indicator. If Trump is enough of an anchor, Democrats have an outside chance. However, at a minimum they need to win the national popular vote by 6-8%.

Two other variables: difference between the ground games, and Matthew.

I've read that a better ground game is worth 1 to 2 points, so you might nudge the winning margin up a point to 6, which is in the vicinity of a blowout.

Then Matthew ... OTOneH, Matthew will be soaking up a lot of the news cycle.

OTOtherH, I'd guess that those primarily affected by Matthew are the less well-to-do, who tend to be Democrats, so the Democratic vote in Florida may go down.

But y'know? In view of the panic I was feeling only a month ago ...

... I'll take 4%. :-)

Jim Snyder said...

@danp: Guessing that a lot of GOP voters will be sufficiently demoralized that they won't vote, but hard to predict the size of the effect.

@Phil Freeman: Trump has been endorsed by the NYPost (April 15!), the National Enquirer, and NY Observer (Jared Kushner's rag.)

maxk1947 said...

Suppose the RNC deposes Trump: what makes you think he will stop running? Doesn't his campaign have money that's not controlled by the Party? I could see him continuing to schedule rallies where he inveighs against Clinton, Pence, Billy Bush and Vendela (ask Graydon Carter).

Victor said...

I couldn’t sleep, due to laughter – and joy in my heart!!!

Whodda thunk a misogynistic asshole would/could say something so fucking stupid?

Well, me, for one!
Being from NY State, and living in NYC for a long, long time – not recently, though, mind you – I’ve long been acquainted with the t-RUMPster, and his bigotry and idiotic shenanigans!

This latest classless act, of course, will only endear him to his alt-REICH pals!

Still, all I can say at this point, are three things:
LOL!
ROTFLMAO!!
And, BWA-HA-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Feud Turgidson said...

I'm not so much Snyderling as am Wanging it.

There are vasty part of the wingonet going tres monkeys on this. See the full gamut of A to Ab, Ace of Spade HQ to Mediaite. I continue to have not admire but RELATIVE respect for Allahpundit, who sees this for what most of us here see it, even as Drudge tries to not so much ignore it as bury it in page-sludge.

Forget Trump off the ballot. He can't renounce the nom at any time between now and Nov 6 while maintaining his post-Nov 6 claims to some ownership interest via control in the GOP. AO really immediately important things, he can't coerce the GOP to keep paying Trump-owned entities for all the campaign needs of himself and the GOP and various 'tweener groups for all the ridiculous Acme Industries whizbangs and gold-tinged toilet paper he's funnelling thru at iconic US Army hammer-type prices, so that's right out. And as I've said for coming on frickin' 10 MONTHS now, he's got plans to turn his bogus bankruptcy-court- style claim on the GOP golden asset into something remunerative, even if only landfill.

Meanwhile, the GOP's various state franchises don't give a colon fudge sandwich for this video, they're going full speed ahead straight at the iceberg of vote suppressio in the phony guise of vote fraud prevention. There shall be many many months of work for election law attorneys after this big one, folks.

Who TF knows if this turns a Decisive Presidential Win for HRC and a Retake of the Senate into a House-threatening rout - but I have two more thoughts: ....

What if the Dems saw these Rus invasions of their computer files coming? And hand in hand with that, what if one big bank of sources for Fahrenhthold's pending Pulitzer Prize level reporting is made up of basically autonomous Dem oppo research groups?

Answer: if both of those are the case, then yesterday's reveal of a video from 2005 has lots more wave power behind it. We COULD be seeing going on here, finally, a Dem election machine largely unbound by the naivete and timidity of the past. If so, the idea of Re-Speaker Pelosi has a chance, depending on how detectable the R vote fraud efforts turn out to be.

Feud Turgidson said...

Two of many ems I've received on this in the last few hours:

- "This isn't your fathers GrOPe"

- "As we approach the season of bounty, the faith-based within the Republican party phone booth know exactly who they must thank: Donpenis Scrotrump."

Philo Vaihinger said...

I've been saying for weeks that it'll probably be a 2-point Clinton victory. Now maybe it'll be a 4-point Clinton victory.

Ever the optimist, eh?

Trump could still win.

Philo Vaihinger said...

By the way, Trump is no more a misogynist than Bill Clinton, Bob Packwood, or Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Or Casanova.

Or Don Juan.

All these horn-dogs think of every decent looking woman they meet as costarring with them in a porn flick.

And enjoying it hugely.

When they think of women at all, that's how they think of them.

That is not hatred, dislike, or contempt of women.

It's just a constantly sexualized view.

When they don't welcome it, women find it understandably annoying.

These guys are like dogs constantly trying to hump somebody's leg.

Philo Vaihinger said...

Anybody's leg.

Feud Turgidson said...

Two more:

- Seeing Brad Delong exuberantly re-tweeting former Cal govenor Ahhnold's condemination of the GOP nominee under the heading of "Gropers Against Trump".

- a reminder that Mozart and then Italian (eventually American) writer Lorenso De Ponte collaborated on an entire freaking opera called Donald Trump, uh Don Giovanni, very arguably the greatest stand0alone one evening opera of them all, with the Don's ammanuensis/enabler/henchman/manservant Reinhold Priebus aka Leporello's boffo hit song, "the List" or "Catalogo":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWPiNt8J3I4

(BTW Da Ponte's use of the name "Leporello" was a portmanteau, combing the image of the pouncing leopard with leprosy, often considered in those days an STD.)

Never Ben Better said...

As I said over at Booman's: Watching the bit of Trump's videotaped "apology" where he pivoted to attacking the Clintons and I'm thinking given how furious he obviously is at being forced to eat crow, (a) he's going to go full-bore at her in the town hall, multiple times, no matter what the subject matter, on Bill's infidelities, and (b) it's going to blow up in his face BIGLY.

I suppose it would be too much to hope for an all-out expletive-laced meltdown, but I think he's skating right up to the edge of one. I sure wouldn't want to be one of his lackeys right now -- I mean, even more than I usually wouldn't.

Also, Martin tweeted this: Trump apologizes for hitting on married women by threatening to attack a married woman for the infidelity of her husband. #classy

And GOPers are fleeing in droves. Kelly Ayotte not only withdraws her endorsement, she says she won't vote for him. I doubt Maggie Hassan is going to let her off the hook for her previous suport, including that infelicitous comment about him, yes, being a role odel for her children.

Good times, good times.

KenRight said...

It's a wheat from the Elite chaff separator. It will help the Euro-American founding ethnic core worker see who is his/her friend and who is his enemy in the future. As per the GOP it is "rule or ruin." Europe has populist parties which come to power and force the mainstream right to move further right.
Note* as with the NF Party of Le Pen in France further right means more socialism, just properly applied, and less capitalism. And it will come to mean the same thing here.

Clinton is the traitor, as Assange revealed. She who wants to betray the American worker for open borders and a common market race to the bottom, and all for Wall Street/corporate parasitical multinationals. She feels narcistically entitled to fuck the American worker writ large. A shame any of the fake progressives still bend over for her.

Unknown said...

NoMoreMisterNice:

I truly enjoy reading you posts, but I disagree with you on a couple of points:

First, Hillary is going to kick Trump up and down on November 8. I predict 54-46, or better.

Second, this story has real legs. Yes, the base/Free Republic are going to defend Trump. But he has lost the independents and lost women. He was down by 20% with women before this. IMHO, he will lose another 8-10% after this - more similar and disgusting stories will be coming out and I think he is going to go absolutely apeshit crazy at the second debate.

Jim Snyder said...

@NeverBen: agree with "Trump furious." AFAIK Ayotte never "endorsed" Trump, she "supported" him. Or sumpthin'. (No, that didn't make sense to anyone else, either.) Or else she did and I'm wrong, in which case, uh, never mind.

I wonder what Ayotte's calculation is. She's going to lose alt-righters in a close race. Guessing that RNC snap polls are showing that Republican and indie women are fleeing as fast as they can ... but a) I have no inside information; and b) it's only 24 hours ... do pollsters really work that fast?

I am cautiously optimistic that this will be an utter disaster down-ballot if Goopers start bailing on Trump. Enough of them are within a few points that losing either alt-righters or Republican / indie women could push their Dem opponents over the top.

Politico has a list somewhere of Goopers who are having 2nd thoughts, didn't save the link, but it's today's reporting.

@Feud: I think it's "Snyder-ing" rather than "Snyderling"; and I'd be careful how you sling that Wang - actions have consequences!

Marriage of Figaro has a related plot line, but yeah, the Catalog aria - ma in Espagna, son già mille e tre! You can't Trump that for (ahem) fidelity. But didn't Giovanni, er Trump hum "Ogni donna mi fa palpitar" on that vid?

Didn't know that about Leporello...

Re Dem oppo research ... haven't seen concrete evidence, or even electronic evidence, but surprising how many people who might know are now tweeting about things to come. Amusing to think what might have been, had any of the other 16 clowns done due diligence on Trump. Political malfeasance at its malfeasiest.

Interesting statement from a Politico piece:

"... voter-registration records show, Democrats are walloping Republicans. The Florida Democratic Party has submitted about 488,000 voter-registration forms it has collected for this election, while Republicans have submitted roughly 60,000, according to state reports."

http://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2016/10/scott-wont-extend-voter-registration-deadline-as-hurricane-matthew-approaches-106172

Point being that there are two more variables: 1) new voter registrations and 2) vote suppression effectiveness.

jsrtheta said...

Most people are followers, and followers who think their guy is going to lose stay in bed on Election Day. I would even venture to say that Trump's guaranteed vote now roughly equals the number of Right Wingers and Right Wing Trolls who reliably post on the Internet. Oh, sure, a few more, but not many. Trump isn't a movement, he's a fad, and he'll suffer the fate of all fads.

This isn't going to die down - this is a seismic event, and the momentum is building and not in any way in Trump's favor.

BTW, the "otherwise" language does not mean "because we don't want him anymore." It has been pointed out elsewhere that the context eliminates the interpretation that the GOP has any right at all to bounce this idiot from the ticket. It's not a statute, but rules of statutory construction apply. And who wants months of litigation?

Then there's the fact that the ballots have been printed in a lot of states. And some states will not recognize write-in votes unless the write-in candidate has filed his notice by a deadline, which has passed by now.

And it's not at all clear that binding electors by law is unconstitutional. That's a rather glib statement. This isn't like forcing delegates to vote for a certain candidate.

Never Ben Better said...

Meanwhile, over at CNN.com: Ho. Lee. SHIT:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/08/politics/trump-on-howard-stern/index.html

Quote after disgusting quote from Trump -- complete with audio files -- starting with discussing his daughter's body and agreeing with Stern she's "a piece of ass" and going downhill from there.

I get the feeling the reporters who put this story together needed a long hot shower afterwards.

Figure he's got a floor of 27 percent -- the Crazification Factor -- how much above that will he have left by Election Day as more stuff comes out? This has gone way past media bothsiderists' attempts to maintain the horse race; now it's blood in the water and a feeding frenzy.

Feud Turgidson said...

Jeff Ryan - One sees the phenomenon at work a lot on in game running reader commentary threads on sports websites: the team favored by the website will fall behind and immediately there's a hue & cry of despair and a stampede for the exits. I think it's because humans find it difficult to maintain anything approaching objectivity in watching their children fail or their tribe lose. I myself follow a couple of sports teams and occasionally join in-game fan comment threads, and not only do I see this fragility at work, I've even felt it myself more than once. In any event, Sam Wang has written about this before and there's even a little on it in his latest post.

Jim Snyder - Yeah, I realize Don John Trump represents as highly discriminating whereas Leporello's Catalogo has lines in it that suggest Mozart's Don John will try to nail anything that's not quick enough to elude him. I'd like to suggest that Don John Trump isn't nearly so discriminating as he represents, or Da Ponte's Don Juan isn't nearly so indiscriminate as his lyrics for the List Song suggest, or both, and the last would probably be a fare surmise if the Da Ponte-Mozsart Don John were real and not a fiction. But it's just a reasonable surmise on my part.

I Would like to add that I myself was not terribly discriminating in choosing the version of Madamina I linked to above. There's a more recent on associated with the Brussells Mint opera house ("Munt" or "La Monnaie") which is chill to the bone predatory stuff. Here's a link to another set from the same Munt production: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R2Tu6HAIyY and see for yourself if the singer portraying Don Giovanni -
Jean-Sébastien Bou - comes across as he does to me, an Americn Psycho male account executive or male Trump type.

Dark Avenger said...

Vote for the man who has screwed over workers, work immigrants from Poland, and contractors. Only he can bring Euro-Americanism back to life by screwing the rest of the world.

Did I get your position right, Mr. Fruit Hoops?

Unknown said...

I don't understand how the Republicans can be surprised by this. Trump was always as advertised and a stain on the GOP. He's their monster and they own him.

Luigi said...

Ten points. Book it.

Plebeian said...

But the Democrats have an enthusiasm gap, /sarcasm. The drip, drip, drip of negative stories about Trump have turned into the ice bucket challenge. The media loves its horse race narratives, because it's easy and it sells. What sells more than that? Sex and scandal. Who has the enthusiasm gap now?

If it sounds like I'm gloating, I'm not, this is sickening chapter in our nations history. Somewhere along the line we took a wrong turn and ended up where we are today. Whose fault is that? To me it all started with Ronald Reagan.

jsrtheta said...

@Plebeian: I think it really started with the end for the Vietnam War. "We lost." But Reagan was when everyone thought it was cool to screw everyone while becoming rich. I tended bar at a singles place in Chicago, and it was tres depressing. Milken was a god to these turds.

Jim Snyder said...

This seems right to me:

"What you have shaping up looks like it may be an unprecedented situation in modern American politics, perhaps in all of American history ... You're seeing the beginnings of major Republican defections thirty days out from the election. We don't know whether this will pick up steam or dissipate. But even this level is basically unprecedented. And yet Trump can't be removed."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-s-unstoppable-drift-to-election-day

jsrtheta said...

As my old Civ Pro professor used to say, "Time ticketh."

I imagine everyone's holding their breath until the debate. Sure, there may be more defections, but beyond that, Trump is thinking he can fix this in the debate.

I doubt very much he can do that, but he will think he did no matter how he performs. So that means another 48-72 hours before he'll accept any new strategy. The party will remain in full-on freak out mode while this goes on.

I don't think he will. He has walked away before, of course, when he saw the writing on the wall, always muttering about how he was doing great, but others let him down, blah, blah, blah. But this is obviously different. So in the end I think it will be a very awkward slog to Election Day.

It is emblematic of his ego and stupidity that he got into this race, knowing all this was out there (and there's more to come - CNN is diving into the Howard Stern tapes just to keep the pressure on - no one thought of this before?), and thought everyone would just forget his past? It is impossible to believe that the Access Hollywood tape is as bad as there is. (And we know Access Hollywood is checking out every bit of footage they still have lyiing around.) No rational candidate with the sort of business history and sleekit associates Trump has would have made the run. He or she would know it was just a matter of time.

He really thought all he had to do was reinvent himself. And poof! His whole past would be erased. Beyond belief.

Never Ben Better said...

Eh, Jeff, he's a guy who surrounds himself with sycophants and creates his own reality bubble all the time. Of course he thought nothing could ever touch him.

jsrtheta said...

@Never: Doesn't mean I can't continue to marvel at the mystery of it all...

Unknown said...

Feud and Snyder, thanks for the Mozart commentary; that was directly on point (except that Giovanni is still a somewhat sympathetic character).

I had the same thought as Feud, that it was odd that the Russian pillaging of the DNC's oppo research didn't seem to have prepared Trump's troops for the steady drip of damaging information that we're seeing now, although it's not altogether unlikely that the DNC didn't have that much, DWS not being a paragon of competence.

Feud Turgidson said...

The Sweeney - Another take is it's not so much competence as that HRC's current campaign is heavily derived from Obama 2012 (Plouffe), and cross pollinated with Obama 2008- 12 (Podesta), plus Mook was essentially running the DCCC in 3023 and is more than sufficiently perspicacious to have taken from that all he would need to run HRC 2016 and otherwise sanitize that remainder.

I think we have a tendency to over-evaluate hack pols like DWS. DCCC fell to her because there was really nothing left in that Obama, Podesta, Plouffe or Mook needed. IoW DWS was commandante of F-Troop. So, easy to hack, but nothing inside to rendering hacking it worthwhile.

I'm not suggesting necessarily that Mook et al anticipated the supposedly Rus hacks that Wikileaks and Guccifer 2.0 have been trying to use to disrupt the HRC and DNC campaigns (tho I certainly also don't suggest they did NOT see something like this coming from outside the US), but I am saying those 3 are standard deviations better at election forecasting, foresight, planning, politics, strategy and SECURITY than the quite possibly unavoidably Swiss cheese DCCC.

Today has reminded me so strongly of the Saturday Night Massacre of October 1973, and if I'm feeling that, I feel highly confident that really smart folks like Plouffe, Podesta and Mook would have seen SOMETHING COMING that had Watergate like outlines.

Gotta hand it to Trump: he got right to Tragic Isolated Nixon without getting to the White House, or being elected, or getting to Election Day, or even being tragic.

Also, compared to what poor shape the GOP was in all thru the Watergate investigations and hearings and into the Ford administration, the current GOP is such a mess even Trump being trounced, losing the Senate and maybe even the House seems to me unlikely to bring about either reformation or reform.

jsrtheta said...

I don't think the real oppo research was done by the DNC. I would expect the campaign did the most. And I think they have more. The secret of this is timing. I suspect they have some in reserve if it's needed. And it may not be.

Unknown said...

It could be that Clinton has had all this information squirreled away somewhere and is only slowly releasing it, maximizing its effect in the last few weeks of the election. The anonymous source of the bombshell tax reforms is consistent with this hypothesis, as is perhaps the provenance of the Billy Bush tape.

Maybe it's the Russians releasing the dirt and we have everything backwards.

Actually, we're not learning anything about Donald that we weren't already pretty sure about: he's a bankrupt, a fake and a creep, and a lot of the damaging stuff comes from reputable news sources who can describe how they learned it. Money leaves a trace; it can be followed with enough effort. It's going to be open season for year after year.

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GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

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Philo Vaihinger said...

@Jeff Ryan.

Try binding a senator by law.

Crazy idea?

Yup.

jsrtheta said...

@Philo Vaihinger: What do senators have to do with it?

tz-ms said...

Difference between Trump and Clinton http://adf.ly/1ejUuv

Jim Snyder said...

@SteveM: post by VirtualDoctor might link to malware.

Jim Snyder said...

posted on the previous thread, but if anyone missed it, definitely worth a read:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/10/10/daily-202-more-than-trump-the-republican-party-was-the-biggest-loser-in-last-night-s-debate/57fb0c74e9b69b0592430208/

and another link:

https://newrepublic.com/article/137639/donald-trump-going-tear-everything

[quote]
In the closing weeks of his campaign, Trump has decided on The Samson Option, the idea that “if I’m going down, I’m going to inflict as much pain as I can on Hillary Clinton and both political parties as I can.”

In the service of tearing down the walls around him, there’s nothing Trump won’t hurt. And even if he loses, there is still a massive amount of damage he can inflict on American democracy. This is why his threat to investigate and jail Clinton was so significant, breaking as it did with the core democratic idea that the opposition is legitimate. He’s clearly shown that there’s not a single norm he’s not ready to violate, nor is there any institution—certainly not the Republican Party—that can rein him in. Nothing will stop him from attacking the fundamental legitimacy of the American system. The rest of this election is going to be a bloodbath. The repercussions will last a long, painful time.
[/quote]

Sheer nihilism. Trump is nihilism. Nihilism is the GOP's choice.