Trump Triples Down on Racism and Sexism

As Trump's polling numbers have cratered in the last couple of weeks he has made three new hires.

Paul Manafort, who has sold warlords, dictator and despots to the U.S. government for forty years, is being ousted by two right-wing zealots from Breitbart: Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway.

Breitbart News has been the voice of the "alt-right," pushing racist right-wing conspiracy theories. These people peddle the standard crypto-fascist propaganda about Muslims, blacks and Hispanics. Contributors to Breitbart include Milo Yiannopoulos of Gamergate fame, who openly spout the most vile garbage against women.

Trump has also hired Roger Ailes to help him prepare for the debates, though the Trump campaign denies this because it's so damning with the dozens of former Fox employees who have come out with their own stories of Ailes' abuse.
Ailes was recently fired from Fox News for decades of harassing women in the news room. Several other Fox managers and "personalities" pulled the same sort of thing; women who refused lost their jobs or didn't get plum assignments that were contingent on sexual favors. Bill O'Reilly settled one such harassment suit for an untold sum, but the initial figure mentioned was $60 million.

These moves make it clear Trump intends to amp up his racist and sexist diatribes and has no desire to appeal to anyone but the ever-declining population of old white men and the vanishingly small number of gay men who are virulent misogynists.

Remember President Obama?

All this talk of Trump and Clinton has made most folks forget about our current president who is currently shaping up to be what Ronald Reagan was for the GOP-a legacy president who will be remembered as one of the best. Take a look at this, courtesy of 538.

JOB APPROVAL RATING
YEAR	PRESIDENT	1 MONTH BEFORE ELECTION	FINAL
2000	Bill Clinton	57%	66%
1960	Dwight Eisenhower	58	60
2016	Barack Obama	53*	—
1988	Ronald Reagan	51	63
1976	Gerald Ford	50	53
1968	Lyndon Johnson	43	49
1992	George H.W. Bush	34	49
1980	Jimmy Carter	34	34
1952	Harry Truman	32	32
2008	George W. Bush	25	29

Stunning. And this is with all the BS that the right threw at him for the past decade. Essentially what we have here is the recognition that the man deserves from people who live outside of the bubble...you know, in REALITY.

Watch The Senate Slip Away

538 has a piece up about how Trump is dragging down GOP candidates for Senate in tossup states.

Check it out

Trump may be dragging down Republican Senate candidates

	AUG. 3 MARGIN		AUG. 15 MARGIN		CHANGE
STATE	TRUMP	GOP SENATE CANDIDATE	TRUMP	GOP SENATE CANDIDATE	TRUMP	GOP SENATE CANDIDATE
N.H.	-2	+2	-11	-5	-9	-7
Illinois	-18	-1	-20	-7	-2	-6
Pennsylvania	-6	+2	-10	-2	-4	-4
N.C.	-1	+4	-5	+1	-4	-3
Wisconsin	-9	-8	-12	-11	-3	-3
Nevada	-3	+3	-4	+2	-1	-1
Florida	-4	+5	-5	+5	-1	0
Ohio	-4	+4	-6	+6	-2	+2
Average					-3.3	-2.8

At this point, it seems likely that the Dems will take back the Senate. But by how much?

Trump's Bold New Antiterrorism Plan Is a Questionnaire!

Donald Trump's immigration and anti-terrorism plans are dumb and getting dumber. 

His first plan involved simply banning all Muslim immigrants because they might be terrorists. How would he know they were Muslim? He'd ask them. Because terrorists would never think of lying!

His latest plan will be announced today:

In the speech, Mr. Trump will call for greater scrutiny in screening immigrants, particularly from countries he has described as “exporters” of terrorism. The plan would be to have people answer a questionnaire that could press them on their commitment to “our basic principles of tolerance and pluralism,” on issues ranging from gay rights to women’s rights, Mr. Miller said. If that is not effective, visas could be banned from certain areas of the world.

Yes! Defeating terrorists with paperwork! They will never be able to lie on a questionnaire!

The irony is that Trump's own supporters and the vast majority of conservative Republicans don't believe in "our basic principles of tolerance and pluralism!" Trump's new plan would prevent most Republicans from entering the country.

Trump supporters appararently want to ban all Muslims and think all Mexicans are rapists, based on how much they cheered when Trump spewed that bile. He won the Republican nomination based on those two intolerant and non-pluralistic sentiments.

Trump pays lip service to gay rights (he had to in order to get that campaign cash from Peter Thiel), but the vast majority of conservative Republicans don't believe in equal rights for gay and transgendered people. Witness all the whining about making cakes for gay weddings and all the preposterous bathroom bills flooding Republican statehouses. And of course they are dead-set against a woman's right to control her own body, many of them opposing even birth control.

When people like David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, proclaim their wholehearted support for Trump, you can be sure they don't believe Trump means any of this drivel he spouts about "tolerance and pluralism."

Trump refuses to acknowledge that we're already vetting immigrants from countries that are "exporters" of terrorism with far more stringent procedures than his ridiculous questionnaire. They're subjected to background checks that take months and years to complete. They're interviewed by people who are trained to spot terrorists. These interviewers ask follow-up questions when they sense evasion or mendacity. Something that a questionnaire simply can't do.

Yes, occasionally bad people get in -- or just as likely, they're born here, like the San Bernadino and Orlando shooters. That's the dilemma of a free and open society, and the risk you take when you're the land of the free and the home of the brave.

But Americans are supposed to tough. Should we cower and hide and let millions of innocent people be slaughtered by the likes of ISIS? The more we help oppressed people the more support we'll have in the future, which we need to beat terrorists and tyrants like ISIS, Assad and Putin, who has worsened the civil war in Syria, using it to destabilize Europe with millions of refugees.

Yet Trump talks about cutting deals with Putin to "defeat ISIS," which really means letting Assad stay in power. But it was Assad's crackdown on Arab Spring demonstrators demanding democracy and freedom that sparked the Syrian civil war, which is how ISIS gained so much territory in the first place. Last week Trump "sarcastically" called Obama the founder of ISIS, but the most effective recruiting tools for the terrorist organization have been the wars started by Bashar al-Assad and George W. Bush (Trump himself blamed Bush for 9/11 and ISIS when running against Jeb!(!)).


A questionnaire to fight terrorism? Sheesh! Who's running the Trump campaign? This latest plan sounds like something a lackey in H.R. thought up during lunch hour.

Trump Campaign Chairman Gets Millions from Putin Stooge

According to a secret ledger found in Ukraine, Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's campaign chairman, received $12.7 million in cash payments:

Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.

(The ledger is written in Russian, not Ukrainian, by the way.)

Manafort has acknowledged working for Viktor F. Yanukovych, the corrupt Ukrainian strongman who was ousted by pro-Western parties two years ago. Manafort did the same think for Yanukovych that he's doing for Trump:

Before he fled to Russia two years ago, Mr. Yanukovych and his Party of Regions relied heavily on the advice of Mr. Manafort and his firm, who helped them win several elections. During that period, Mr. Manafort never registered as a foreign agent with the United States Justice Department — as required of those seeking to influence American policy on behalf of foreign clients — although one of his subcontractors did.

It is unclear if Mr. Manafort’s activities necessitated registering. If they were limited to advising the Party of Regions in Ukraine, he probably would not have had to. But he also worked to burnish his client’s image in the West and helped Mr. Yanukovych’s administration draft a report defending its prosecution of his chief rival, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, in 2012. 

Manafort has a long history of selling foreign warlords, tyrants and regimes that abuse human rights to the U.S. government, including Phillipine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Angolan guerilla Jonas Savimbi, Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, Pakistan's ISI agency, and on and on.

Manafort also has ties to offshore shell corporations in the Cayman and Seychelles Islands that laundered money stolen by Ukrainian government cronies.

Trump has raised the ire of many in the Republican Party by praising Vladimir Putin and parroting Putin's Crimean claims. Trump's cronies removed language from the party platform against Russia's actions in Ukraine, though Trump claims he didn't know what they were doing (and foolishly I thought candidates and presidents were supposed to be in charge of these things).

Trump's coddling of Putin's designs in Ukraine and his intimations that he would do nothing if Russia invaded NATO countries are anathema to Republicans: they have built an entire mythology around Ronald Reagan standing up to the Soviet Union.

It makes absolutely no sense for Trump to back away from that history. He sounds like a Russian apologist and a Putin puppet, not the heir to Reagan. Granted, the fall of the Soviet Union had much more to do with Gorbachov's policy of glasnost, the fallout from the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the weakness of the Russian economic system, but at least Reagan was on the side of democracy and freedom. Trump cares nothing about justice and liberty; his only interest seems to be the exercise of naked power.

To all appearances, Trump's strings are being pulled by Manafort, who has long-standing financial and political ties to Russian oligarchs. The Times reports that Manafort's company was still active earlier this year helping the Russian-backed Ukrainian opposition. That would mean Manafort is working on two political campaigns at the same time: Trump's and the enemies of Ukrainian democracy.

Trump himself has connections to Russian mobster and convicted felon Felix Sater. Trump, who says he has such a fabulous memory, claimed in court not to know Sater. Yet here Trump is with him (on the right) at the unveiling of the Trump SoHo in 2007.

The other guy in the photo, Tevfik Arif, was also involved in the Trump SoHo deal. He was recently arrested in Turkey for running a high-priced prostitution ring, in which Eastern European models (the sort of woman Trump favors, like Ivana and Melania) had trysts with wealthy businessmen aboard Kemal Ataturk's yacht.

These are the sort of people that Trump associates with. Trump's history of praising dictators and murders (like the Chinese government that engineered the Tiananmen Square Massacre) show exactly why he should never be president.

Amnesty!

Native American Council offers amnesty to 220 million undocumented whites

Yay!

Losing Their Minds

Most Talented Presidential Candidate Ever?

I can't think of a better clip that demonstrates the media's Sybil like relationship with Donald Trump.



Now, of course, Halperin thinks Trump is a buffoon. Sheesh...

Are They Persuadable?

Nate Silver has a piece up about what a Clinton landslide would look like. Given the latest polls, this is indeed an interesting possibility to explore. With all this talk, Republicans are trying to find a way to cut themselves loose from Trump, especially given that the Senate is really, really bad for them right now.

Ron Johnson in Wisconsin and Mark Kirk are toast. Pat Toomey and Kelly Ayotte are looking pretty much the same. Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina are all within striking distance. A big turnout by the Dems to stop Trump will flip at least 2 out of those three states.

Donald Trump continues to be a horrible candidate for the GOP but what other choice do they have? This is who the majority of the people in their party voted for and he represents a common sentiment among conservative, non educated whites who feel as though they are being left behind by the progress in the world. I've written previously about this and think that we ought to just leave them behind given their anger, hate and fear. I mean, they are assholes, no?

Check out this recent discussion on Morning Joe (aka the best political talk show on TV).


 I'm definitely going to be picking up Vance's book and checking it out. And I have to admit that their optimism about the Trump folks being persuadable is infectious. Can they be persuaded?

Obama is the Founder of...ISIL?

Like an adolescent who desperately needs attention, Donald Trump is now at the point where he will say pretty much anything to keep the media spotlight upon him. His latest statement, repeated over and over again yesterday, posits that Barack Hussein Obama is the founder of ISIL.

The BBC has a great piece up about the origin of ISIL. Skip past the Trump drivel for the solid and insightful reporting on who the real founders of ISIL are and how exactly they were allowed to flourish.

Beach Volleyball's Bum Rap

Elghobashy and Walkenhorst

Every time the Olympics comes around, a lot of attention is paid to the beach volleyball competition, usually directed at the women's attire.

The image on the right has sparked a barrage of opinion pieces (like this one, and this one) about beach volleyball, sexism, Islam, body image, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

In this photo Doaa Elghobashy of Egypt is trying to knuckle the ball over Kira Walkenhorst of Germany. The Germans won easily.

I've been playing doubles in the sand for almost 30 years now, so I watch it because I'm interested in the sport. But lots of people seem to think it's just a gimmick to show off women's bodies. The sport has long been a punchline, viewed as some sort of soft-core porn.

Elsa and Liliana

But when the Spanish team of Elsa and Liliana beat the Brazilian team of Agatha and Barbara, they dressed nearly identically to Elghobashy. The Brazilians, whose country is synonymous with bikini waxing, wore the same thing.

No one wrote any editorials about this. No one talked about sexism, or religious strictures, or body shaming or any of that crap.

No, these women were covering their entire bodies because it was cold and raining. They wore clothing appropriate to the conditions. If they were to wear this during more typical Brazilian beach volleyball weather -- 95 degrees, sun beating down, high humidity -- they could collapse from heat stroke.

Wearing a bikini in hot weather isn't pandering, it's wearing attire appropriate to the conditions, just like the full body spandex is when it's cold.

Beach volleyball isn't the only sport in which this is true. Google women's marathon images, you'll find a lot of women are essentially wearing bikinis.

I've played thousands of hours of volleyball alongside women in bikinis, t-shirts and shorts, long-sleeved shirts and bunhuggers, in sweat shirts and sweat pants. I've asked women (including my wife) why they prefer skimpy clothing. Universally the reason is that they're more comfortable. They don't like heavy, loose, sweat-soaked clothing weighing them down, making them hot or tangling them up.

The last is a real danger: I've torn my shorts by catching my thumb in the pocket when jumping to hit; thumb dislocations are surprisingly common in basketball (which is why NBA uniforms have no pockets). Rugby players regularly break fingers when they get caught in jerseys.

Yes, it was bogus when the marketing guys who run the FIVB (the international beach volleyball tour) dictated the maximum size of the bikini that women can wear (seven centimeters on the side), while allowing men to wear t-shirts and shorts down to their knees.

Female players should be able to wear any sort of uniform they want, even if they disadvantage themselves like the Egyptians. The matter of individual choice is complicated by competition rules that require team mates to wear identical uniforms, but that's up to the team to decide.

The simple fact is, though, the vast majority of women beach volleyball players wear bikinis not to titillate spectators, but because that's they need to wear to play their best. They would wear the same bikinis even if the FIVB dickheads didn't tell them to.

I'm sure the programming execs at NBC consider the sex appeal of beach volleyball when they put it in prime time. But there's more to it than that: Americans invented the sport and have dominated it since the beginning.

In 1996 Karch Kiraly and Kent Steffes won the first Olympic beach volleyball gold medal in Atlanta. Dain Blanton and Eric Fonoimoana took the gold in 2000. Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers won gold in 2008. Misty May and Kerri Walsh did it in 2004, 2008 and 2012. And this year Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross (a 2012 silver medalist) have a very good shot at winning again.

Beach volleyball is more than scantily clad bodies. In addition to the action on the court, there's the home-town narrative, the struggles of having kids while competing in the Olympics every four years, balancing injuries and age (Walsh Jennings has three kids and is 37), the soap-opera quality of doubles partnerships breaking up and coming together, and the quest to get just one more medal.

All that makes beach volleyball a lot more compelling than watching Michael Phelps swim up and down and up and down the length of a pool doing some other weird kind of swimming stroke for his hundredth gold medal...

The Party of Booth

The Worm Turns

Eight years ago, after Hillary Clinton had run against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, and John McCain had selected Sarah Palin as his running mate, I had a discussion with a woman who is reliably conservative. She wasn't having any of this female empowerment nonsense. "Women are too emotional to be president," she told me. 

I disagreed: men can be just as emotional; they are particularly vulnerable to the emotions of lust, anger and the thirst for vengeance, especially when their masculinity is threatened.

Now the worm has turned. And that worm is Donald Trump:

In a striking series of defections, high-profile Republican women are abandoning decades of party loyalty and vowing to oppose Mr. Trump, calling him emotionally unfit for the presidency and a menace to national security.

In this election, there's absolutely no question that Hillary Clinton is more emotionally stable than Donald Trump.

Throughout his candidacy Trump has persisted in throwing out petty insults in debates. He is always angry, peevish, jealous and prideful. He constantly brags about nonexistent accomplishments, like some insecure teenaged boy trying to impress a girl.

He constantly insulted the appearance of other candidates, including Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina and Chris Christie. This is particularly ironic, since he's a fat old man with orange skin, tiny porcine eyes and a ridiculous-looking hairpiece that he still insists is his real hair -- which, if true, is even crazier than if it were a toupee: he actually wants his hair to look like a clown's fright wig?

He tweets outrageous nonsense at all hours of the night or day, like a catty thirteen-year-old girl with ADD. He pouts and whines about how unfair everyone has been to him, how they keep saying such mean things about him.

Trump is so emotionally needy and unstable that he insults the parents of a man who sacrificed his life to save the lives of the men in his unit.

Why is Trump so emotional and flighty? Is it his incipient senile dementia? His psychopathy? His overprivileged upbringing? Has an excess of testosterone curdled his 70-year-old brain?
Lots of Republicans, especially Republican women, are increasingly turned off by Trump's antics. He was funny in the beginning. Now the act is wearing thin.

Many conservative women were especially turned off when Trump told them that they should just suck it when they're sexually harassed at work. He defended Roger Ailes, a pervert who ogled and pinched and touched and patted and petted and grabbed and slobbered over his female subordinates.

They were disgusted when Trump said women should be forced to quit their jobs to escape men who abuse their positions of power to extort sexual favors from female employees who have husbands they love and families they have to support.

They were shocked when Trump said that he would have his own daughter, Ivanka, just quit her job if her boss treated her the way Ailes treated his employees, instead of fighting back against what in the final analysis is attempted rape.

Apparently Trump believes that CEOs should enjoy a modern form of prima nocta, a medieval practice which feudal lords could have sex with female subjects on their wedding nights. Only in Trump's mind all female employees are fair game all the time.

You have to wonder how many of Trump's employees he treated this way: sadly, we can't find out because he makes everyone sign non-disclosure agreements.

Or maybe they were turned off when they heard draft-dodging Trump's interview with Howard Stern in which he compared his sleeping around to the dangers soldiers face in war:

“I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world. It is a dangerous world out there. It’s scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam-era. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.”

How can any conservative evangelical Christian woman possibly vote for such an emotionally self-involved twit? The man is bragging about countless acts of fornication and adultery, while dismissing all the women he's slept with as diseased sex toys, comparing them to torture in Viet Cong prisons, land mines, Agent Orange and ceaseless machine-gun fire.

In Trump's mind John McCain is no hero for getting captured in Vietnam: Trump was the real deal, spending the Vietnam War banging busty bimbos in New York, while McCain lazed about as a prisoner of war in the posh Hanoi Hilton.

This was all fine and dandy when Trump was just some dorky fat guy in a phony reality show. But when he's president he'll have real power. He's already promised to change the laws to allow an orgy of lawsuits against news outlets who he thinks have insulted him.

Is eliminating laws against sexual harassment is on his agenda as well?