Trump's Big CON: Товарищ Trump Colluded With a Hostile Power to Win the Election

UPDATE IV:  Товарищ Trump met with the Russians, parroted what they said, directly and publicly encouraged their hacking, assistance and interference, felt no remorse, then tried to stop the investigation.

"Clint Watts, Robert A. Fox Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, began raising alarms about Russian measures to influence the American public's political views shortly after Trump's press conference.

'Once you see both the campaign echoing the messages and themes that are coming out from RT and Sputnik News, when you see hacked materials of the DNC strategically linked and timed in terms of their release to influence the U.S. election in favor of Trump, then when you see Trump get onto stages or make prepared speeches where he refers to both Russia and Clinton's emails, it seems very ominous, in terms of maybe there was some connection between the two,' said Watts. 'At a minimum, they were at least looking or aware of those lines or influenced by Russian propaganda to be saying it almost near verbatim throughout those months.'

Whether Trump was a witting or unwitting beneficiary of Russia's efforts hasn't been proven, but as Watts sees it, Russia benefited from the way candidate Trump ran his campaign.

'The bottom line is Russian active measures were deployed to influence the U.S. election,' Watts said, referring to the effort to discredit the political system and turn voters against Clinton. 'They worked in large part because one candidate used Russian active measures to his own benefit.'"

Read NPR, Timeline Of Trump And Russia In Mid-2016: A Series Of Coincidences Or Something More?

UPDATE III:  "The key insight from a week of gobsmacking revelations is not that the Russia scandal may finally have an underlying crime but that, as David Brooks suggests, 'over the past few generations the Trump family built an enveloping culture that is beyond good and evil.' (Remember when the media collectively oohed and ahhed that, 'Say what you will about Donald Trump, but his kids are great!'? Add that to the heap of inane media narratives that helped normalize Trump to the voters.) We now see that, sure enough, the Trump legal team (the fastest-growing segment of the economy) has trouble restraining its clients, explaining away initial, false explanations and preventing self-incriminating statements. (The biggest trouble, of course, is that the president lied that this is all 'fake news' and arguably committed obstruction of justice to hide his campaign team’s misdeeds.)

Let me suggest the real problem is not the Trump family, but the GOP. To paraphrase Brooks, 'It takes generations to hammer ethical considerations out of a [party’s] mind and to replace them entirely with the ruthless logic of winning and losing.' Again, to borrow from Brooks, beyond partisanship the GOP evidences 'no attachment to any external moral truth or ethical code.' . .

Indeed, for decades now, demonization — of gays, immigrants, Democrats, the media, feminists, etc. — has been the animating spirit behind much of the right. It has distorted its assessment of reality, giving us anti-immigrant hysteria, promulgating disrespect for the law (how many 'respectable' conservatives suggested disregarding the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage?), elevating Fox News hosts’ blatantly false propaganda as the counterweight to liberal media bias and preventing serious policy debate. For seven years, the party vilified Obamacare without an accurate assessment of its faults and feasible alternative plans. 'Obama bad' or 'Clinton bad' became the only credo — leaving the party, as Brooks said of the Trump clan, with 'no attachment to any external moral truth or ethical code' — and no coherent policies for governing.

We have always had in our political culture narcissists, ideologues and flimflammers, but it took the 21st-century GOP to put one in the White House. It took elected leaders such as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and the Republican National Committee (not to mention its donors and activists) to wave off Trump’s racists attacks on a federal judge, blatant lies about everything from 9/11 to his own involvement in birtherism, replete evidence of disloyalty to America (i.e. Trump’s 'Russia first' policies), misogyny, Islamophobia, ongoing potential violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause (along with a mass of conflicts of interests), firing of an FBI director, and now, evidence that the campaign was willing to enlist a foreign power to defeat Clinton in the presidential election.

Out of its collective sense of victimhood came the GOP’s disdain for not just intellectuals but also intellectualism, science, Economics 101, history and constitutional fidelity. If the Trump children became slaves to money and to their father’s unbridled ego, then the GOP became slaves to its own demons and false narratives. A party that has to deny climate change and insist illegal immigrants are creating a crime wave — because that is what 'conservatives' must believe, since liberals do not — is a party that will deny Trump’s complicity in gross misconduct. It’s a party as unfit to govern as Trump is unfit to occupy the White House. It’s not by accident that Trump chose to inhabit the party that has defined itself in opposition to reality and to any 'external moral truth or ethical code.'" [Emphasis added.]

Read the Washington Post, The GOP’s moral rot is the problem, not Donald Trump Jr.

UPDATE II: "Donald Trump Jr. is seeking to write off as a nonevent his meeting last year with a Russian lawyer who was said to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton. “It was such a nothing,” he told Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Tuesday. “There was nothing to tell.”

But everything we know about the meeting — from whom it involved to how it was set up to how it unfolded — is in line with what intelligence analysts would expect an overture in a Russian influence operation to look like. It bears all the hallmarks of a professionally planned, carefully orchestrated intelligence soft pitch designed to gauge receptivity, while leaving room for plausible deniability in case the approach is rejected. And the Trump campaign’s willingness to take the meeting — and, more important, its failure to report the episode to U.S. authorities — may have been exactly the green light Russia was looking for to launch a more aggressive phase of intervention in the U.S. election campaign. . .

And here, the deal should have been obvious to everyone. Moscow intended to discredit Clinton and help get Trump elected, and in exchange it hoped the Republican would consider its interests — in sanctions relief and otherwise. The Russian government appears to have signaled its direct involvement and real intention in advance of the meeting, presumably to avoid the possibility that its offer might be misconstrued, perhaps naively, as an innocent gesture of support and nothing more. . .

Had this Russian overture been rejected or promptly reported by the Trump campaign to U.S. authorities, Russian intelligence would have been forced to recalculate the risk vs. gain of continuing its aggressive operation to influence U.S. domestic politics. Russian meddling might have been compromised in its early stages and stopped in its tracks by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies before it reached fruition by the late fall.

So the suggestion that this was a nothing meeting without consequence is, in all likelihood, badly mistaken."

Read the Washington Post, Trump Jr.’s Russia meeting sure sounds like a Russian intelligence operation.  

UPDATE:  The collusion centipede drops another shoe:

"The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. and others on the Trump team after a promise of compromising material on Hillary Clinton was accompanied by a Russian-American lobbyist — a former Soviet counterintelligence officer who is suspected by some U.S. officials of having ongoing ties to Russian intelligence, NBC News has learned.."

Read NBC News, Former Soviet Counterintelligence Officer at Meeting With Donald Trump Jr. and Russian Lawyer.

Drip, drip, drip!

"Given what we know about the collusion — and there is no other word for it — between then-candidate Donald Trump’s most senior advisers and what they thought was a Kremlin-tied lawyer offering dirt on Hillary Clinton, the most shocking thing is that no one on the Trump side was shocked. The most offensive thing is that no one took offense. Trump’s son, son-in-law and campaign manager treated the offer of aid by a hostile foreign power to tilt an election as just another day at the office. “I think many people would have held that meeting,” the president affirmed. It is the banality of this corruption that makes it so appalling. The president and his men are incapable of feeling shame about shameful things.

Donald Jr. certainly doesn’t know what all the fuss is about. Instead of offering a hint of contrition, he offered a complaint that the proffered information was not particularly useful. “I applaud his transparency,” father said of son. But disclosure is not really a virtue if you are admitting highly unethical actions without apology. It is more like the public confession of serious wrongdoing, and the attempted normalization of sliminess.

The ultimate explanation for this toxic moral atmosphere is President Trump himself. He did not attend the meeting, but he is fully responsible for creating and marketing an ethos in which victory matters more than character and real men write their own rules. Trumpism is an easygoing belief system that indulges and excuses the stiffing of contractors, the conning of students, the bilking of investors, the exploitation of women and the practices of nepotism and self-dealing. A faith that makes losing a sin will make cheating a sacrament.

Republicans have sometimes employed the excuse that members of the Trump team are new to politics — babes in the woods — who don’t yet understand all the ins and outs. Their innocence, the argument goes, is proved by their guilt. This might apply to minor infractions of campaign finance law. It does not cover egregious acts of wrongdoing. Putting a future president in the debt of a foreign power — and subject, presumably, to blackmail by that power — is the height of sleazy stupidity. It is not a mistake born of greenness; it is evidence of a vacant conscience. . .

In the realm of political ethics, voters last year did not prioritize character in sufficient numbers, during the party primaries or the general election. Now we are seeing the result. " [Emphasis added.]

Read the Washington Post, An administration without a conscience.

Trump's Big CON: He is Putin's Puppet

UPDATE:  In July 2016 Trump asked the Russian to interfer in the election, when he said "he hoped Russian intelligence services had successfully hacked Hillary Clinton’s email, and encouraged them to publish whatever they may have stolen, essentially urging a foreign adversary to conduct cyberespionage against a former secretary of state."

Now, of course, it's Obama's fault for not stopping the Russians.

Read the Washington Post, White House blames Obama for failing to stop Russia collusion.

Read also Trump's Big CON: 'It's Obama's Fault'.

Russian President Vladi-mir Putin had "direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race.

But it went further. The intelligence captured Putin’s specific instructions on the operation’s audacious objectives — defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump."

Read the Washington Post, Obama’s secret struggle to punish Russia for Putin’s election assault, which also noted that senior Republican officials knew about the Russian operation and objected to making the information public, but used material hacked by the Russians while pretending it didn't come from the Russians.

Read also:

The Donald is Putin's Puppet,

Trump's Big CON: What's He Hiding: Is Trump a Russian Agent?,

Trump's Big CON: What's He Hiding: Is Trump a Russian Agent? (Cont.),

Trump's Big CON: What's He Hiding: Is Trump a Russian Agent? (Cont., Part 2),

Trump's Big CON: What's He Hiding: Is Trump a Russian Agent? (Cont., Part 3),

Trump's Big CON: The Comey Conspiracy and Russian Agent Coverup,

Trump's Big CON: The Comey Conspiracy and Russian Agent Coverup by the Republi-CON Party (Cont.), and

Trump's Big CON: He is a Russian Agent, Whether He Realizes It or Not.

Republi-CON Family Values, Alabama Edition

UPDATE IV: After an affair and an attempted coverup, and more than a year, we may finally learn more about Republi-CON Family Values, Alabama Edition.

And how did this man get elected?  It's all about the hate.

"'The idea that moral hypocrisy hurts you among evangelical voters is not true, if you’re sound on all of the fundamentals,' said Wayne Flynt, an ordained Baptist minister and one of Alabama’s pre-eminent historians. 'Being sound on the fundamentals depends on what the evangelical community has decided the fundamentals have become. At this time, what is fundamental is hating liberals, hating Obama, hating abortion and hating same-sex marriage.'"

Read The New York Times, For Alabama Christians, Governor Bentley’s Downfall Is a Bitter Blow.

UPDATE III:  "On Monday, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) made what appeared like a typical apology for a politician admitting to a sex scandal. At an unrelated public appearance, he asked for forgiveness from God, from those he hurt and from Alabama residents for his transgressions. . .

But wait a minute. Forgive him for what? Bentley hasn't ever admitted to the affair he has been accused of. He has denied having inappropriate physical contact with his now-former chief political adviser, even as state officials formally file an ethics complaint to see whether he used public money and personnel to carry out the alleged affair.

Most reasonable Alabama residents following this scandal (and many in the state are) would probably sum up their governor's weird apology this way: He's asking them for forgiveness for something everyone is pretty darn sure happened but he won't say happened. It's almost like he's speaking in code to his own state."

Read the Washington Post, As Alabama lawmakers move to impeach, Gov. Robert Bentley struggles to explain himself.

UPDATE II:  "Anyone who has doubts about the importance of journalists in 2016 need be acquainted only with the reporting team at AL.com, the largest statewide news organization in Alabama. The group's reporters cracked open a scandal involving their governor's alleged infidelity last week and have been covering the unpredictable fallout aggressively ever since."

Read the Washington Post, The inside story of how Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley’s sex scandal broke wide open.

Sadly, Northwest Florida's Mullet Wrapper doesn't do investigative journalism anymore.  

UPDATE:  Is The Lying Canadian (© NoBullU.com) a serial adulterer?

And why is that important?

Because "[e]xposing the hypocrisy of Republican legislators not only makes our political system more honest—it can actually change behavior."

Read Salon, Why Ted Cruz’s sex life matters: The GOP’s toxic “family values” charade deserves continued scrutiny.

He is the Republi-con Governor of Alabama, 73 and was married for 50+ years.

She is 30+ years younger, a married mother of 3 and his a political 'advisor', who he has paid $100,000s to 'assist' him, including $426,978 in 2014 during the Governor's reelection campaign.

Read:

Alabama Media Group, Shocking affair allegations, criminal charges and more: It's all Alabama politics,

Heavy, Rebekah Caldwell Mason: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know, and

Alabama Media Group, Gov. Robert Bentley had affair, says fired Alabama top cop.

The Donald is Putin's Puppet

UPDATE XVII:  Now obstruction of justice and coverup.

Read the Washington Post, White House adviser asked FBI to dispute Russia reports.

It's déjà vu Nixon all over again!

And like Nixon, Trump doesn't like it.

Read the Washington Post, The big news is not the FBI leaks. It’s what’s in the leaks.

UPDATE XVI:  "The Trump-Russia file, which concerns fundamental questions of national security, is far more deserving of close scrutiny by Congress, the media, law enforcement, and the public than any of the White House’s many other alleged misdeeds. And the Flynn phone calls are only the beginning, not the end, of the scandal in question."

Read Foreign Policy, Donald Trump’s Russia Scandal Is Just Getting Started.

UPDATE XV: Read the Washington Post, Why Flynn was undone by a phone call, which notes:

"The call may not necessarily be the smoking gun, the ultimate 'proof' that there was a quid pro quo: 'You help us with the election, we help you by lifting sanctions.' But it sure looks like it could be.

That explains why Flynn lied about the call to the vice president, and to the press. That explains why — although he has known about this issue for many weeks — the president did not fire Flynn earlier. That also explains why the president has expressed regret about the leak of the transcript of the call but not about the fact that Flynn made the call in the first place. That also explains why Flynn resigned."

UPDATE XIV:  "President Trump's national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn . . . had discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Moscow's ambassador in Washington prior to Trump's inauguration. Flynn, according to intelligence sources, likely signaled that the question of sanctions would be revisited by a more friendly Trump administration.

The discussions suggest a worrying level of collusion between a key figure in the new administration and the Kremlin. . .

Flynn's dealings with Russia aside, there are even deeper ties that connect the current administration to the Kremlin.

First, there surely is more to come on the extent of Russian involvement in last year's election, with law enforcement agencies in the United States increasingly certain that Moscow actively worked to help Trump win. The Russian establishment, including close Putin allies, publicly basked in Trump's victory. Now, some Pentagon officials say they have 'assumed that the Kremlin has ears' inside the White House ever since Trump's inauguration, according to controversial former counterintelligence official John Schindler.

Beyond the intrigues of spies, though, there's also a clear ideological affinity."

Read the Washington Post, Beyond Flynn, other ties bind the White House to the Kremlin. 

UPDATE XIII: Read CNN, Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him.

Read also The New York Times, Trump Briefed on Claim That Russia Had Secrets on Him.

BTW, this story has more corroboration than Republi-CON pizzagate or the birther scam.

UPDATE XII:  The Donald is ever the consummate con man.

Read the Washington Post, Trump alleges delay in his briefing on ‘so-called’ Russian hacking; U.S. official says there wasn’t one.

UPDATE XI:  The Donald's ode to Putin:



Listen to the lyrics, or read them here. This song foretells The Donald's relationship with Putin.

UPDATE X: In Europe in the 1930s "there was throughout [the land] a generalized crisis of legitimacy. Large numbers of people felt dispossessed, disenfranchised, disconnected from dominant social institutions. The political party system, and . . . government more generally, were regarded as corrupt and oligarchic. Such an environment was fertile ground for a ‘mob mentality,’ in which outsiders . . . could be scapegoated and a savior could be craved: 'The mob always will shout for 'the strong man,' the 'great leader.' For the mob hates the society from which it is excluded, as well as [government] where it is not represented.'

And a society suffused with resentment, according to Arendt, is ripe for manipulation by the propaganda of sensationalist demagogues: 'What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part . . . Totalitarian propaganda thrives on this escape from reality into fiction . . . [and] can outrageously insult common sense only where common sense has lost its validity.' Cynicism. Contempt for truth. Appeal to the craving of the masses for simple stories of malevolent conspiracy."

Read the Washington Post, How Hannah Arendt’s classic work on totalitarianism illuminates today’s America.

Sounds a lot like America today.

UPDATE IX:  "Put his campaign rhetoric, tweets and appointments all together, and we’re getting a sense of U.S. foreign policy under Donald Trump. The president-elect has consistently signaled that he wants to be accommodating toward Russia and get tough on China. But that sees the world almost backward. China is, for the most part, comfortable with the U.S.-led international system. Russia is trying to upend it. . .

Keep in mind that China’s view of the world over the past two decades has been fundamentally benign, having grown to wealth and power in that period. Putin, by contrast, believes that the end of Soviet communism in 1989 was the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century” and that Russia has been humiliated ever since. His goal appears to be to overturn the U.S.-created international order, even if this means chaos.

The question is, why would an American president-elect help Moscow achieve that goal?"

Read the Washington Post, Vladimir Putin wants a new world order. Why would Donald Trump help him?

The answer: simply to get elected. Winning elections is the only thing  Republi-CONs care about, principle no longer matters.

Read also The New York Times, Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?, which argues convincingly that The Donald show classic dictatorial tendencies. 

The more that this is analyzed, the scarier it get.

UPDATE VIII:  "Russia’s secret hacking against Democratic Party officials threatened the integrity of the U.S. political system. And President-elect Donald Trump shouldn’t have criticized the CIA after its analysts told Congress about the Kremlin’s efforts. Trump, unbelievably, seemed to be taking a potential adversary’s side against his own nation’s intelligence professionals. . .

[N]o doubt the Russians wanted to hurt Clinton and help Trump. In Russia’s eyes, he said, Clinton had sought to undermine President Vladimir Putin after the 2011 parliamentary elections and to foment 'color revolutions' in areas of Russian influence. Trump, by contrast, had lauded Putin, suggested lifting sanctions and belittled NATO."

Read the Washington Post, Trump is playing a risky spy game.

UPDATE VII: "Trump has repeatedly expressed a soft spot for an oppressive dictator, Vladimir Putin, who is challenging American interests at every turn. As a candidate, Trump publicly invited Russia to hack his opponent’s emails. Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, resigned amid reports that he had represented pro-Russian interests as a lobbyist. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, seems to be a Russophile and has appeared on Russia’s propaganda network.

In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. admitted that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” President-elect Trump has consistently refused to be fully transparent about his finances.

Before the presidential vote, the American intelligence community determined that the Russian government directed the illegal hacking of the Democratic National Committee and other political figures. Now the CIA, according to reporting in The Post, has shared with Congress its finding that Russia intervened with the intent of swinging the election toward Trump. And Trump — instead of expressing concern about an act of cyberwar — has essentially come to Russia’s defense and launched an ad hominem attack on the U.S. intelligence community. . .

[I]f the CIA interpretation is correct, this is not just one provocation among many. If Putin actually helped elect an American president more favorable to Russian interests, it is surely the largest intelligence coup since the cracking of the Enigma code during World War II. And it is arguably a bigger deal — more on par with, say, German intelligence helping elect Charles Lindbergh president."

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s dangerous diss of the CIA.

UPDATE VI: "Good Lord. We are about to inaugurate as president a man whose election, according to the CIA, was aided by a Russian intelligence operation. Try as we might, we cannot pretend this didn’t happen.

We can’t ignore outrageous interference by an adversarial foreign power because President-elect Donald Trump’s actions question his own legitimacy, or at least his fitness to hold the nation’s highest office, virtually every day. . .

Our president is supposed to be chosen in polling places across the United States — not behind the imposing walls of the Kremlin."

Read the Washington Post, Trump is assembling an anti-government. Did Russia help get him here?

UPDATE V:  "You would think the stunning news that the CIA had concluded Russia hacked the Democrats to help President-elect Donald Trump win the election, followed by Trump’s insulting dismissal of 17 intelligence agencies finding that Russia was responsible — which in turn was followed by news he intended to nominate as secretary of state an unqualified chief executive with exceptionally close ties to Vladimir Putin (and who opposed sanctions) — would have stirred outrage and deep concern among Republicans, who used to pride themselves on their national security chops. You would be wrong. . .

[W]hy are these Republicans so silent? I mean, this is a really big deal.

Read the Washington Post, Republicans need to get out from under their desks.

I can only image the outcry if Russia had hacked the Republi-CONs to get HRC elected. Is there any doubt there would be impeachment proceedings.

UPDATE IV:  "The flood of 'fake news' this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation.

Russia’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery — including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human “trolls,” and networks of websites and social-media accounts — echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia. . .

Some players in this online echo chamber were knowingly part of the propaganda campaign, the researchers concluded, while others were 'useful idiots' — a term born of the Cold War to describe people or institutions that unknowingly assisted Soviet Union propaganda efforts.

The Russian campaign during this election season, researchers from both groups say, worked by harnessing the online world’s fascination with 'buzzy' content that is surprising and emotionally potent, and tracks with popular conspiracy theories about how secret forces dictate world events.

Some of these stories originated with RT and Sputnik, state-funded Russian information services that mimic the style and tone of independent news organizations yet sometimes include false and misleading stories in their reports, the researchers say. On other occasions, RT, Sputnik and other Russian sites used social-media accounts to amplify misleading stories already circulating online, causing news algorithms to identify them as 'trending' topics that sometimes prompted coverage from mainstream American news organizations."

Read the Washington Post, Russian propaganda effort helped spread 'fake news' during election, experts say.

Read also the Washington Post, Americans keep looking away from the election’s most alarming story.

UPDATE III:  "Former CIA director Michael Morell endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and blasted GOP rival Donald Trump, accusing him of becoming an unwitting agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin in an op-ed on Friday. . .

He noted that Putin is a trained intelligence officer, and he suggested that the Russian leader has been using Trump's personality for his own gain. In the primaries, Morell said, Putin 'played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities' by complimenting him.

Among the traits Morell said would make Trump a 'danger' to national security: 'his obvious need for self-aggrandizement, his overreaction to perceived slights, his tendency to make decisions based on intuition, his refusal to change his views based on new information, his routine carelessness with the facts, his unwillingness to listen to others and his lack of respect for the rule of law.'"

Read the Washington Post, In endorsing Clinton, ex-CIA chief says Putin made Trump his 'unwitting agent'.

UPDATE II:  At the same time, his VP pick said "If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences."

Read the Washington Post, Pence: Consequences if Russia is interfering in U.S. election.

So while Pence understands the seriousness of the possibility that a foreign power is directly interfering in the U.S. presidential election, Trump is encouraging the interference.

Pence should withdrawal as Trump's VP.

UPDATE:  "Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday said he hoped that Russia would hack into Hillary Clinton’s email server to find “missing” messages and release them to the public."

Read the Washington Post, Trump urges Russia to hack Clinton's emails and release them publicly.

Donald Trump is dangerously insane!

"Donald Trump never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like — until now.

He has dabbled in, among other things, the notion that President Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya, that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered and that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the JFK assassination.

But on one topic, Trump is conspicuously incurious: the suggestion that he is complicit in a plan by Vladimir Putin to influence the U.S. election."

Read the Washington Post, A Trump-style speculation on the GOP and Putin, which lists the many troubling connections between Putin and The Donald.

Sieg Heil Der Donald!, Cont.

UPDATE:  Read the Washington Post, Democrats can stop Trump via the electoral college. But not how you think., which notes:

"To become president, a candidate must get a bare majority of 270 votes when the electoral college meets Dec. 19.

As Alexander Hamilton explained, the electoral college provides a backstop in the event voters select a dangerously unfit candidate. 'The process of election,' Hamilton wrote, 'affords a moral certainty that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.' Electors would use their judgment to prevent the 'tumult and disorder' that would result from 'this mischief' of presidential candidates exploiting 'talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity.' One might call it the cooler-heads college. . .

The only way Democrats stand any chance of persuading Republican electors to abandon Trump is with a dramatic gesture of true bipartisanship. If all 232 Democratic electors pledge to reach across the aisle and vote for a Republican alternative to Trump, it would take just 38 GOP electors to make that person the next president."

Read also the Washington Post, The electoral college should be unfaithful.

 
"Trump has shown a daunting disregard or ignorance of the Constitution and of law. Regarding the use of torture, he has said that the military must follow his orders — even if they are illegal. More recently, he declared that flag-burning should be a crime and that flag burners be punished by 'perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail.' The remark was one of his off-the-cuff inanities — since 1989, flag-burning has been protected political speech, and citizenship, we’d like to think, is forever. The tweet — so few words, so much meaning — spoke to Trump’s abysmal lack of knowledge but, more important, contained an emotional truth. Trump despises dissent and often reacts emotionally to setbacks or challenges.

Now, ask yourself what might happen if there were a huge terrorist incident on American soil. Might this man of little knowledge and no restraint attempt to suspend civil liberties? . .

I have too much faith in America and its institutions to think that Weimar is the future. It is, however, a warning, not something that shouldn’t be discussed, but something that should be mulled. The differences between Weimar Germany and contemporary America are significant but so, increasingly, are the similarities."

Read the Washington Post, Trump isn’t Hitler. But the United States could be another Germany.

Read also: Sieg Heil Der Donald!

A 2009 Told Ya So: Remortgage America

Remember in 2009 I promoted an economic stimulus program like Remortgage America.

Read the Washington Post, How President Obama might have stopped Donald Trump.

UNBELIEVABLE!!! (Was It a 'Yuge' CON Job By The Donald?)

UPDATE VIII:  "An organizational chart of Trump’s transition team shows it to be crawling with corporate lobbyists, representing such clients as Altria, Visa, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Verizon, HSBC, Pfizer, Dow Chemical, and Duke Energy. And K Street is positively salivating over all the new opportunities they’ll have to deliver goodies to their clients in the Trump era. . .

The answer is, anyone who was paying attention. Look at the people Trump is considering for his Cabinet, and you won’t find any outside-the-box thinkers burning to work for the little guy. It’s a collection of Republican politicians and corporate plutocrats — not much different from who you’d find in any Republican administration.

And it isn’t just personnel. What are the priorities Trump and the Republican Congress will be pursuing right out of the gate?

[Trump will cut taxes for the wealthy, gut regulations, and destroy programs for poor and middle class Americans, and in doing so] Trump is going to be little different from any other Republican president . . .

But one thing it will not be is a threat to the establishment, or the system, or whatever you want to call it. The wealthy and powerful will have more wealth and power when he’s done, not less. There’s a lot that Trump will upend, but if you’re a little guy who thinks Trump was going to upend things on your behalf or in order to serve your interests, guess what: you got suckered."

Read the Washington Post, If you voted for Trump because he’s ‘anti-establishment,’ guess what: You got conned.

UPDATE VII:  First it was the promise to balance the budget, then the ban on Muslims, now Trump is reneging on trade.

Read the Washington Post, A Trump policy adviser is already walking back tough talk on trade.

Trump's election may be the world's biggest CON.

UPDATE VI:  Read the Washington Post, Why Donald Trump can’t govern like a traditional Republican.

Read also, the Washington Post, Is there a parallel between Donald Trump and Arnold Schwarzenegger?

UPDATE V:  "I retain faith in another powerful tool: democracy. By which I mean democracy as defined by H.L. Mencken: 'the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.'" (Emphasis added.)

Read the Washington Post, Americans have voted for Trumpism. Let them have it.

UPDATE IV:  That didn't take long, the election results are not even official and the Republi-CON are already changing their 8-year old tune on the evil of federal budget deficits and government debt, as well as banning Muslims.

"Over the last eight years, the Republican establishment has repeatedly excoriated President Obama for plans that don't immediately balance the budget.

Yet Trump's proposals -- which include an unprecedented $1 trillion infrastructure spending plan over 10 years and trillions more in tax cuts -- would grow the debt far more than under current law."

Read the Washington Post, Republicans look like they could change their tune on debt under a President Trump.

Read also Daily Mail, Has Trump dropped the Muslim ban already? Statement on controversial policy disappears from website shortly after election.

The Republi-CON party is a CON job!

UPDATE III:  As I said earlier, when I initially supported The Donald, I'm still open to the possibility that The Donald is Trump-Brilliant (© NoBullU.com)!!!!

The Donald didn't get & remain rich believing the $@#% he says.

It is possible that his campaign was all a CON job to get elected, that The Donald brilliantly used  Republicans' fears, anger & hatred to win their votes. 

Remember, he is no social conservative, and many of his economic ideas are  heresy to traditional Republi-CON orthodoxy.

("In a brief victory speech early Wednesday morning, Donald Trump devoted only a few words to his specific priorities for policymaking in the next administration. At the top of the agenda was a new investment in infrastructure.

'We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals,' the president-elect said after making a few introductory remarks. 'We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.'

Infrastructure is a major Democratic priority," something Obama has wanted for 8 years."

Read the Washington Post, Paul Ryan might not be happy about the first item on the agenda in Trump’s victory speech.)

Trump hates failure, and doing the things he promised in the campaign would make him a big FAILURE.

And if he goes along with the Republi-CON party orthodoxy, his supporters will realize they have been conned and will turn on him, making him a big FAILURE.

So did The Donald know that it was impossible to talk reason to Republi-CONs, so he used their fantasies and delusions to control them and win their votes?

And now that he has been elected, will he return to being the brilliant negotiating pragmatic moderate he has always been, in it for nothing more than the challenge of succeeding? "Trump has no clear ideology – only a belief in his own ability to solve problems. He could surprise a lot of people by being a pragmatist who cuts deals with fellow New Yorker Chuck Schumer, to the great chagrin of his base."

The Donald's fear of failure will limit his stupidity, his success will be the country's success.

The Donald may be Trump-Brilliant (© NoBullU.com)!!!!

So it is ironic isn't it, "Trump's candidacy was premised on the idea that everyone — politicians, reporters, corporations — is lying to you, and lying to you to to feather their own nests."

Yet The Donald's only way to avoid failure is to be a liar also.

UPDATE II:  Ok, climb off the ledge.  It will get better.

President Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein (© NoBullU.com) & his delusional supporters can't avoid reality forever. (BTW, not all Trump voters are delusional, some just wanted to shakeup DC, and Clinton wasn't the candidate to do that.)

As I have said many time before, call the Republi-CON bluff.

First, balance the budget, NOW!

This has been a Republi-CON fantasy for years. But Obama knew better, he would have taken the blame for the ensuing economic collapse. It can't be done without doing substantial harm to the economy. The people who will be hurt the worst live in red states. (FYI, 44% of Louisiana's state budget is funded by various federal government programs.)

Next, in the bill to repeal Obamacare (which was originally a Republi-CON idea), include a provision that ends all federal government funding of health care.

Currently, about half of all health care spending is paid for by the federal government, probably more in red state. Individual health care is not a federal government responsibility, but federal law requires treatment. Let the states take care of people who are not responsible enough to get health care insurance. Soon people will be dying in the streets, many in red states. (Read my many posts that try to explain Obamacare.)

These are just two ideas that might wake up the American people. Don't let Trump abandon his impossible and unwise campaign statements and lies.  There can be no excuses, Republi-CONs own government — both houses and the presidency.

Triple dog-dare Trump and his Republi-CON supporters to fulfill his many wild promises NOW: build the wall and make Mexico pay for it, abandon NATO, deport foreigners, put Muslims in internment camps, cancel trade agreements and engage in trade wars with China and others, start jailing his political rivals and cracking down on the free press, abandon our allies and encourage them to get nuclear weapons of their own, and more.

If done right, crushing Republi-CON delusions these next four years could be fun!

Remember: "the voters will have the opportunity for more 'change' elections in 2018 and 2020."

UPDATE:  Remember, Trump is a fraud.

"Donald Trump ran against himself and won. The Manhattan billionaire who for decades boasted of his playboy lifestyle, stiffed contractors and vendors, hired illegal immigrants, eschewed churchgoing, embraced liberal causes, and counted Hillary and Bill Clinton as friends and allies pulled off one of the most brazen pivots in American history, selling himself to American voters as a populist hero who understood their frustrations and guaranteed a blizzard of wins. . .

Trump called himself a 'blue-collar billionaire,' and although he had lived a fairly isolated life, working and sleeping in Trump Tower, with no close friends and few trusted advisers, he believed that he had so completely won the hearts of many Americans that, as he put it, 'I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose voters.' . .

Trump believed that through creative use of media, he could build an image that would inspire ordinary people to want to be like him. He believed that if he crafted that image well enough, he could become rich and powerful and ultimately rise to the highest office in the land. On Tuesday, he reached that final step in his half-century-long ascent.

What he will do with it, even he does not know. Asked earlier this year if he has spent much time preparing to actually be president, Trump admitted that his focus had been solely on the campaign. “I’m all about the hunt and the chase,” he said. 'When I get something I really wanted, I sometimes lose interest in it.'"

Read the Washington Post, How Donald Trump broke the old rules of politics — and won the White House.

So play the CON man's game against him, force people to remember who they elected.

The Chicago Cubs won the World Series & Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein (© NoBullU.com) was elected president.

Soon We Shall Know Ourselves

UPDATE: "I’m going to attempt to demonstrate this with a chart — it is below — that, I believe, objectively captures the sum total of Trump’s arguments, and why those arguments, taken on their own terms, compellingly demand a vote against him.

At the heart of Trump’s case for the presidency lies two components. The first is a hyper-exaggerated narrative of national decay and decline — skyrocketing crime, rotting inner cities, decaying factories, a festering terror threat from within, a border that is being breached by dark hordes of invaders. The second is the notion that our elites are both fecklessly responsible for that perilous state of national decline and too corrupted to fix it — they’ve rigged the system against you, undermining American sovereignty to enrich themselves, while allowing American identity to be degraded by immigrants who are at best parasitic and at worst a lethal threat.

But Trump’s diagnosis runs deeper than that. His argument is not simply that elites are ripping you off from above while enabling those subgroups to rip you off and threaten you from below. Rather, the truly pernicious component of Trump’s argument is that our institutions and our democracy have themselves grown so hopelessly corrupted and compromised that they are no longer even capable of arresting and turning around that decline via conventional democratic processes. The only outcome that can change this state of affairs is electing him president. Any other result would only confirm that our system has been so corrupted that it is fundamentally no longer capable of producing legitimate political outcomes.

Trump sometimes expresses this idea explicitly, and sometimes implicitly. But it is the thread that runs through everything he has been saying and promising for months . . ."

Read the Washington Post, A final plea: The case against Trump’s dangerous authoritarianism — in one chart, which includes this chart:

"Trump would be elected on the promise of fighting, rounding up, jailing or humbling any number of personal and political opponents. Take away this appeal, and there is nothing left but grasping, pathetic vanity. . .

The undercurrents of economic anxiety and cultural disorientation that Trump exploits are real, deserving both attention and sympathy. But Trump has organized these resentments with an unprecedented message: The United States is weak and broken, a hell of crime, terrorism and expanding misery, beset from within and without, and now in need of a strong hand — his strong hand — to turn things around.

The single most frightening, anti-democratic phrase of modern presidential history came in Trump’s convention speech: 'I alone can fix it.' A Trump victory would be a mandate for authoritarian politics. . . a Trump administration would be a concession to the idea that America needs a little more China, a little more Russia, a little more 'so let it be written, so let it be done' in its executive branch. . .

Every constitutional conservative should be revolted. Those who are complicit have adopted a particularly dangerous form of power-loving hypocrisy. . .

It is almost beyond belief that Americans should bless and normalize Trump’s appeal. Normalize vindictiveness and prejudice. Normalize bragging about sexual assault and the objectification of women. Normalize conspiracy theories and the abandonment of reason. Normalize contempt for the vulnerable, including disabled people and refugees fleeing oppression. Normalize a political tone that dehumanizes opponents and excuses violence. Normalize an appeal to white identity in a nation where racial discord and conflict are always close to the surface. Normalize every shouted epithet, every cruel ethnic and religious stereotype, every act of bullying in the cause of American 'greatness.'"

Read the Washington Post, One final election plea, on the behalf of U.S. ideals.

Read also 1 Corinthians 13:12.

Republi-CON Racism and Sexism

There’s no doubt that if she becomes president Clinton is going to get a lot of sexist vitriol spewed her way. But the comparison with how race has functioned during the Obama presidency is an important one as we consider how it will function and what the effects might be. . .

[L]et’s think about the purposes race has served during the Obama presidency and how things might be different if Clinton were president. First, birtherism was always a way of declaring Obama’s presidency inherently illegitimate. An African-American could not possibly be the president; if he got elected, the whole thing must have been a fraud because he is an alien. Conservatives will have a harder time making a similar argument about Clinton based on her identity, though they may try to say that the 2016 election was stolen, and there are ways they’ll treat her presidency as illegitimate even if they don’t call it that.

But race was also the organizing theme for much of the anger and resentment directed at Obama. If you’ve been a consumer of conservative talk radio or Fox News over the last eight years, you know how often right-wing complaints about Obama are cast in racial terms. It was only six months into his presidency that Glenn Beck proclaimed that Obama had 'a deep-seated hatred for white people.' Whatever policy initiative Obama was pursuing at a given moment was cast as 'reparations,' by which he was supposedly stealing money from hard-working white people to give it to undeserving black people in an attempt at exacting racial vengeance. It’s no accident that at the end of his term you saw the Republican Party nominate a white nationalist candidate essentially promising to restore the old order.

That’s about race, but it’s also about gender. The people who make up the core of Trump’s support are unhappy about the social changes that have displaced them from their position atop the social hierarchy. That loss of privilege, the idea that as a white man you’re no longer granted respect and deference — and even worse, people seem to be constantly telling you you’re being insufficiently respectful of those you consider your lessers — is for many people painful and disorienting.

For many of those voters, no one embodies that change and the threat it represents more than Hillary Clinton. . . If you’re wondering why conservative evangelicals are so strongly behind Trump despite his multiple divorces, adultery, generally libertine history and lack of religiosity, the answer is that Trump is promising a return to the patriarchal order of the past, where men will be restored to their place of honor and uppity women like Hillary Clinton will get the smack down they deserve.

Race and gender are both integral parts of the alienation many (especially older) conservative men feel. As Bill O’Reilly says, 'If you’re a Christian or a white man in the U.S.A., it’s open season on you.' But it’s easy to see how the relative emphasis on race during the Obama years could be turned just 45 degrees, so that the grievance industry run by people like O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh puts more of its focus on gender complaints than racial complaints.

While during the Obama years they were always on the lookout for anecdotes that could be spun into sweeping tales of the oppression of whites for which Obama was at fault, the Clinton years might feature a similar emphasis on gender, as Drudge and Limbaugh and Fox promote one story of oppressed males after another to their audiences, for whom this becomes a framework to understand whatever is going wrong in their lives. . .

[T]heir base will be fed a daily diet of misogynistic bile directed at the president, and “reaching out” will not be what that base is interested in. And that will leave them in the same quandary they’re in now.

Read the Washington Post, If Clinton wins, get ready for an outbreak of conservative male grievance.

Dems Thank The Republi-CON Media CONplex

UPDATE:  Worse yet, Obama told ya so also!

He "has hit the trail for Hillary Clinton with an elan that recalls his days as a swaggering presidential candidate in 2008. . .

Obama is repurposing a critique he’s been making for years, in public and in private, directed at Republican officeholders themselves. His retooled stump speech is crafted not just to fire up Democratic voters against Trump, but to overwhelm other Republican politicians with a sense of dread by making them recognize the huge mistake they made by not listening to him.

Some of these Republicans are only now realizing that Obama was right all along. But it’s too late. Obama’s taking his argument to the voting public, and Trump is precisely the totem he needs to make it stick.

On the stump, Obama now regularly links Trump’s candidacy, and the bind he’s created for down-ballot Republicans, to a greater theory about the way the right has practiced politics throughout his presidency.

'For years,' Obama said in Las Vegas, 'Republican politicians and the far-right media outlets have pumped up all kinds of crazy stuff about me, about Hillary, about Harry [Reid]. They said I wasn’t born here. They said climate change is a hoax. They said that I was going to take everybody’s guns away.'

Obama went on:

    '[T]here are a lot of politicians who knew better. There are a lot of senators who knew better. But they went along with these stories because they figured, you know what, this will help rile up the base, it will give us an excuse to obstruct what we’re trying to do, we won’t be able to appoint judges, we’ll gum up the works, we’ll create gridlock, it will give us a political advantage. So they just stood by and said nothing. And their base began to actually believe this crazy stuff.

    So Donald Trump did not start this. Donald Trump didn’t start it. He just did what he always did, which is slap his name on it, take credit for it, and promote it. That’s what he does. And so now when suddenly it’s not working, and people are saying, wow, this guy is kind of out of line, all of a sudden, these Republican politicians who were okay with all this crazy stuff up to a point, suddenly they’re all walking away. “Oh, this is too much.” … Well, what took you so long? What the heck?

It should be alarming to Republican strategists that the outgoing Democratic president has a better handle on what’s happened to their party than GOP politicians and conservative intellectuals—many of whom blame Trump’s rise on the media, or liberal dirty tricks.' . .

But the content of Obama’s argument shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who’s been paying attention, because he’s been making it for practically his entire presidency. . .

It is gratifying, in some ways, to watch Obama take this final victory lap. There can be no more fitting repudiation of the the massive resistance strategy Republicans deployed against him than to leave office a political giant, with high approval ratings, and a list of substantive achievements to rival the greatest presidents in U.S. history—while the opposing party’s nominee, the embodiment of the Republican id, loses ignominiously."

Read the New Republic, Obama Was Right About Republican Extremism All Along. 

Another I told ya so!

In November 2008 just after the 2008 presidential election, I asked: "Did Obama win because FOXNews and talk radio, a constant source of right-wing fantasies, promote obsessions that are not the issues that are important to American voters?" See Dems Thank FOXNews.

Now, eight years later, others are realizing that "Trump's rise was no accident; rather, it was a natural outgrowth of a growing and influential faction of conservative media that for years fed the Republican base a steady diet of fringe theories masqueraded as news.

And Republicans allowed it to happen, as Obama noted.

"They just stood by and said nothing, even though they knew better, while their base actually started believing some of this stuff," he said. . .

Trump did not create the conditions ripe for his candidacy. The conservative media industrial complex and apprehensive Republican leaders were responsible for that.

Years before the real-estate tycoon entered onto the political stage, the conservative press — made up of a handful of websites, talk radio, and Fox News opinion programming — started to move the center of gravity in the Republican base further and further right. . .

Perhaps more important, however, the conservative media industrial complex successfully managed over the years to lock the Republican Party away from access to its own base. Those who consumed conservative media were taught not to trust politicians or, even worse, the mainstream media.

As a result, party leaders were beholden to a handful of individuals who controlled the conservative media and, thus, held the keys to their voters. Elected officials and candidates seeking office dared not criticize the conservative media’s most powerful members, for fear of the wrath that would ensue if they did.

The power the conservative press held allowed its members to decide who was accepted by the base and who wasn’t. . .

Republicans instead allowed their base to be held captive by a conservative press that moved their base further right, pushed conspiracy theories about Obama, and set unrealistic exceptions for them while in office.

So it should not be surprising that when Trump came along in 2016 and aggressively echoed this rhetoric, a significant portion of the base accepted him. . .

Questions about what the Republican Party will do in the aftermath of yet another presidential-election defeat are already buzzing in political circles.

"There is no autopsy this year that does not include dealing with the right-wing media," Sykes said. "There is none."

There is a reason, however, that this issue has been ignored for so long.

The Republican base still remains largely unreachable, locked away in a space in which only figures like talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, Fox News host Sean Hannity, and internet titan Matt Drudge hold the keys.

[And] those 'who were wrong' this year [have] 'an enormous power to control the narrative.'

'Drudge, Breitbart, Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, [Laura] Ingraham — those people are completely invested in another false narrative to cover up the first false narrative, . . . 'and if there's one thing I have ever learned in life, it is far easier to dupe people than to convince them that they have been duped.'"

Read Business Insider, The GOP must do something about the conservative media industrial complex if it wants to survive.

There are many such articles being written, including in the Washington Post:

• How the conservative media is taking over the Republican Party,
• Republicans are paying the price for their addiction to their own media,
• Who will hold the right-wing media charlatans accountable?,
• The lap dogs of democracy who didn’t bark at Trump and
• Want to save the Republican Party? Drain the right-wing media swamp.

Don't Vote Hate, Your Vote Must Humiliate & Repudiate

If "Trump is to be denied in his bid to subvert democratic institutions by claiming a rigged election, he needs to be defeated resoundingly, removing all doubt. Clinton needs to run up the score.

The need to deal Trump a humiliating defeat has a sociological basis in the 'degradation ceremony' in which the perpetrator (Trump) is held by denouncers (officeholders and others in positions of influence) to be morally unacceptable, and witnesses (the public) agree that the perpetrator is no longer held in good standing.

Psychologist Wynn Schwartz, who teaches at Harvard Medical School, explained to me that what’s needed to have a successful degradation of Trump is an epic defeat. 'If it is lopsided enough,' he said, 'you don’t have critical masses of people who feel disenfranchised” or “who feel justified in saying that it was stolen.'

But if Clinton’s victory is narrow, the degradation ceremony fails, because a large chunk of the population feels swindled and remains loyal to Trump. 'The margin matters a lot,' Schwartz said.

Trump’s recent actions — talking about a 'rigged' election while laying the foundation for a Trump TV network — suggest that he will attempt to defy the degradation ceremony that a loss typically confers. Hence the importance of a landslide."

Read the Washington Post, Trump can’t just be defeated. He must be humiliated.

Read also the Washington Post, Americans are repudiating Trump’s ‘rigged election’ lies. By voting., which notes that "[o]ne good way for Americans to repudiate Trump’s efforts to shake faith in our democracy — and let’s be clear, this is exactly what he is trying to do — is by voting."

NO NEVER MEANS YES: The Republi-CON Moral Hypocrisy, Debasement & Obscenity in Defense of Donald Trump

 The Republi-CON Party claims it is the paragon of family values.

In the past, I have used examples of Republi-CONs hypocrisy when it comes to those so-called family values they claim to hold in such high regard.

Now, in defense of the indefensible, in order to win the election, none other than the Republi-CON's leading media cheerleader is excusing and condoning rape.

"Rush Limbaugh addressed what he called the 'Donald Trump sex-talk scandal' on his radio show Wednesday, mocking liberals and how, he said, they view the concept of consent.

'You know what the magic word, the only thing that matters in American sexual mores today is? One thing,' the conservative commentator said, according to audio released by Media Matters for America. 'You can do anything — the left will promote and understand and tolerate anything — as long as there is one element. Do you know what it is? Consent.

'If there is consent on both or all three or all four, however many are involved in the sex act, it's perfectly fine. Whatever it is. But if the left ever senses and smells that there's no consent in part of the equation, then here come the rape police. But consent is the magic key to the left.' . .

In 2014, Limbaugh expressed frustration about the definition of consent.

'How many of you guys, in your own experience with women, have learned that 'no' means ‘yes’ if you know how to spot it?' he said on his radio show, according to the Huffington Post. In modern times, Limbaugh said, 'that is simply, that's not tolerated. People aren't even going to try to understand that one. I mean, it used to be used as a cliche. It used to be part of the advice young boys were given.

'See, that's what we've got to change. We have got to reprogram the way we raise young men. ... Are these not lawsuits just waiting to happen?"

Read the Washington Post, ‘Here come the rape police’: Rush Limbaugh reacts to Trump’s ‘sex-talk scandal’. 

As an attorney (& father), let me be clear, NO NEVER MEANS YES, no matter how rich or famous you think you are!!

Will You Be Voting for Moral Bankruptcy?

UPDATE III:  "It’s no longer a question of who is going to win; that’s a foregone conclusion. The issue is whether a party and individuals want to be remembered for defending a moral monster. And even if those calling for Trump’s head do want Clinton as the lesser of two evils, it’s hard to argue with that assessment. They’re entitled to more credence, not less. They knew months ago he was manifestly unfit." (Emphasis added.)

Read the Washington Post, The 7 dumbest arguments in defense of Trump.

UPDATE II: "Trump continues to display the symptoms of narcissistic alexithymia, the inability to understand or describe the emotions in the self. Unable to know themselves, sufferers are unable to understand, relate or attach to others.

To prove their own existence, they hunger for endless attention from outside. Lacking internal measures of their own worth, they rely on external but insecure criteria like wealth, beauty, fame and others’ submission.

In this way, Trump seems to be denied all the pleasures that go with friendship and cooperation. Women could be sources of love and affection, but in his disordered state he can only hate and demean them. His attempts at intimacy are gruesome parodies, lunging at women as if they were pieces of meat.

Most of us derive a warm satisfaction when we feel our lives are aligned with ultimate values. But Trump lives in an alternative, amoral Howard Stern universe where he cannot enjoy the sweetness that altruism and community service can occasionally bring.

Bullies only experience peace when they are cruel. Their blood pressure drops the moment they beat the kid on the playground."

Read The New York Times, Donald Trump’s Sad, Lonely Life.

UPDATE: It appears some Republicans may not be.

"The Republican Party tumbled toward anarchy Monday over its presidential nominee, as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) cut Donald Trump loose in an emergency maneuver to preserve the party’s endangered congressional majorities.

Ryan’s announcement that he would no longer defend or campaign with Trump prompted biting condemnations from within his caucus and from Trump himself, who publicly lashed out at the speaker.

It was an extraordinary display of personal animus just four weeks before the election, destroying any semblance of party unity behind a nominee who many GOP leaders said they could no longer stomach because of his character traits and tawdry campaign tactics.

New national and battleground-state polls showed Trump sliding since Friday’s publication of a 2005 video of him bragging about sexual assault, putting Clinton in position for a possible electoral landslide. Clinton surged to an 11 percentage point lead nationally in an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll conducted over the weekend."

Read the Washington Post, The GOP tumbles toward anarchy: ‘It’s every person for himself or herself’.

"Over the weekend, Donald Trump did what he always does when things go south for him. He walked away. He announced he is not the man at 70 he had been at 59 when he had boasted of sexual assault, and he pledged “to be a better man tomorrow.” With that, he effectively declared moral bankruptcy, paying about a dime on the dollar of sincerity.

It was, of course, what Trump had done six times in business, only this time the crisis was not about his finances, but his character. He had been caught talking trash about women. He has been caught boasting about committing the sort of sex crimes transit cops are always on the lookout for. He said he had hit on a married woman soon after he himself had been married. For all of that, he had “regret.”

Then, like the angel he thinks he is, he took flight. . .

Trump’s diversion worked. He lives to fight another day, to continue to bring embarrassment and shame to the Republican Party and the political careerists who would risk a debacle of a presidency rather than take a stand on principle. Lies spill from Trump’s mouth and he exudes bigotry, yet he learned long ago that only suckers pay their debts and take responsibility for what they’ve done. He simply moves on. If he succeeds this time, then we are not his creditors, but as morally bankrupt as he is."

Read the Washington Post, Trump files for moral bankruptcy.

SNL's Takedown of The Donald

It's lengthy, but hilarious. Watch it:

The Republi-CON Media CONplex, CONtinued

"This election year is memorable for many reasons but among the most important is showing Republicans the cost of their infatuation with 'alternative' news sources.

The rise of the conservative alternative media can be traced back to the founding of the newspaper Human Events in 1944, Regnery Publishing in 1947 and National Review in 1955. But it did not become a mass phenomenon until the debut of Rush Limbaugh’s national radio show, in 1988, followed in 1996 by the launch of the Fox News Channel and the Drudge Report. Those still remain three of the most popular outlets on the right, but they have been joined by radio hosts such as Mark Levin and Michael Savage, authors such as Ann Coulter and Dinesh D’Souza, and websites such as Breitbart News, TheBlaze, Infowars and Newsmax.

The original impetus for these outlets was to offer a different viewpoint that people could not get from the more liberal TV networks, newspapers and magazines. But soon the alternative media moved from propounding their own analyses to concocting their own 'facts,' turning into an incubator of conspiracy theories such as 'Hillary Clinton murdered Vince Foster' and 'Barack Obama is a Muslim.'

This might have been dismissed at one time as a fringe phenomenon. But it has moved into the mainstream now that the Republican presidential nominee has turned over his campaign to Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart . . .

Where might Trump get [many of his] nutty ideas? . . . ”

You can and should blame Trump for believing so much of the nonsense that is spouted by the alternative media, but the deeper problem is with the outlets themselves. The right wing has created its own echo chamber which is increasingly disconnected from reality. There are millions of Americans who share Trump’s outré beliefs — which helps to explain why his presidential campaign has done better than expected.

But in the long term, the right’s addiction to its own news has become destructive — it promotes the election of tea party absolutists to Congress and the nomination of presidential candidates who have trouble appealing to swing voters. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence but in the 28 years since Limbaugh was syndicated, Republican presidential candidates have won a popular majority only once (2004); in the 28 years before then, Republicans won the popular vote five times (1968, 1972, 1980, 1984, 1988). Whether Trump wins or loses, conservatives need to re-evaluate their infatuation with 'alternative' news sources that tell them what they want to hear and join a more mainstream conversation that includes different points of view."

Read the Washington Post, Republicans are paying the price for their addiction to their own media.

Where's The Donald?

UPDATE:  "There is no new Donald Trump. What you see is what you get. Trump is a living, breathing example of how all of the best-laid plans go out the window after you get punched in the face. Even if he knows what he should do — or at least what people like his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway need him to do — in this second debate, Trump's performance in New Hampshire on Thursday night shows that he is simply incapable of executing a plan that runs counter to his freewheeling, stream-of-consciousness approach.

He just doesn't have it in him. To expect a different Trump at this point in the campaign is to believe something against mountains of evidence to the contrary."

Read the Washington Post, Donald Trump’s debate prep is going great!!!

Say good bye to old narcissistic, egomaniacal, religiously bigoted, misogynistic, racist, xenophobe (did I miss anything?) The Donald

Say hello to new & improved The Donald.

Read the Washington Post, Trump just said he won’t attack Bill Clinton’s affairs, after all. Here’s why.

Is anybody really fooled?

And how long will it last?

Don't Vote Hate

See UPDATE XI (10/03/16) below.

Support DontVoteHate.org.

Lord knows we need reform in this country. This blog explains why.

And I had great hope that The Donald could be a reformer.

But now I believe that The Donald is a narcissistic, egomaniacal, religiously bigoted, misogynistic, racist, xenophobe. (Did I miss anything?)

He is our Hitler, and all good Americans have a duty to fight him and defeat him.

God will accept nothing less.

Join DontVoteHate.org.

UPDATE:  "'Kill her.'

'Trump that bitch!'

'Build a wall — kill them all.'

New York Times reporters have spent over a year covering Donald J. Trump’s rallies, witnessing so many provocations and heated confrontations at them that the cumulative effect can be numbing: A sharp sting that quickly dulls from repetition.:

Read The New York Times, Voices From Donald Trump’s Rallies, Uncensored.

Or watch the video:





UPDATE II: You must read this article by a conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin with the Washington Post, New campaign shake-up, same old awful Trump, which notes:

"Republicans have deluded themselves long enough. He’s not stable, coherent or knowledgeable. The man who never apologizes and thinks he has run a perfect campaign will not shift gears. If anything, he is doubling and tripling down. If Republicans cannot declare him ready right now to govern and recommend Trump as he is right now — not after being sprinkled with presidential pixie dust — they should leave him to his own devices and get on with the business of trying to save the House and Senate majorities." (Emphasis in original.)

The rats are abandoning ship.


UPDATE III:  Another must read article by a conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin with the Washington Post, Trump flunks the commander-in-chief test, which notes:

"Hillary Clinton did not have a great night at NBC’s Commander-in-Chief Forum on Wednesday. Donald Trump had a horrendous one. It was in that sense a microcosm of the race: Only against Trump could Clinton seem far and away the most responsible contender. . .

 None of that — if you can believe it — was anywhere as awful as Trump's rambling, incoherent and at times jaw-dropping performance. He once again fawned over Vladimir Putin, who has invaded his neighbors and repressed his citizens. Besides, Putin has an 82 percent approval! (That's like saying Bashar al-Assad is the world's most popular ruler since he gets 99 percent of the vote.) He declared, "I think I would have a very, very good relationship with Putin. And I think I would have a very, very good relationship with Russia." He went back to the topic shortly thereafter: "If he says great things about me, I'm going to say great things about him." It's a telling comment: Trump's sole concern is himself; the interests of the United States don't come into consideration.

Trump repeatedly insulted the military. . .

He repeated his nonsensical position that we should take Iraq's oil . . .

Trump nevertheless is going to demand that the generals come up with a plan for beating the Islamic State. Trump told us he has a plan but apparently he does not, or wants to compare notes with the generals. But they'll be different from the ones reduced to rubble, I guess.

Trump also seemed unaware in discussing sexual assault that there is a military system of justice. ("And the best thing we can do is set up a court system within the military. Right now, the court system practically doesn't exist.") He also objects to women serving next to men in the military.

It is obvious that Trump has learned nothing in more than a year of campaigning. Perhaps that is because, as he acknowledged, he is still running his business. (Blind trust? Conflict of interest?) Maybe it is because he is surrounded by sycophants of Putin. Then again, it may be that he is ignorant and cannot process information that might contradict the rubbish occupying his brain. . .

The worst of the worst, however, might go to the hapless Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who tweeted that Clinton was "angry and defensive" and didn't smile. No, really, he wants the lady to smile more. Is there some kind of contest at the RNC to see how big a gender gap a Republican can achieve? Priebus is a constant reminder that the GOP may be, after this election, unsalvageable."

Read also, the Washington Post, Don’t be fooled — Donald Trump’s foreign policy is as scary as ever, which noted:

"Trump’s vision of foreign policy seems to be a kind of authoritarian “big guys” club — stealing other countries’ oil, sacking generals, politicizing intelligence and buddying up to a Russian leader who’s running a covert action against the U.S. political system."

UPDATE IV:  What type of Trump supporter are you?

"If you are 'very enthusiastic' about a candidate who has based his campaign on scapegoating immigrants, Latinos and African Americans, talked of banning Muslims from the country, hesitated to disown the Ku Klux Klan and employed anti-Semitic imagery — well, you might be a racist. But if you are holding your nose and supporting Trump only because you think him better than Clinton, that doesn’t put you in the basket.

The new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds the two groups roughly equal: Forty-six percent of Trump supporters say they are 'very enthusiastic' about his candidacy. The rest were 'somewhat' or not terribly enthusiastic."

Read the Washington Post, Yes, half of Trump supporters are racist.

BTW, early in the campaign I was the second type of Trump supporter, until I finally realized that even if Trump wasn't racist he was clearly appealing to fear, anger and hatred to win the election.


UPDATE V:  "Hitler was a psychopath. Trump is just a con man. . .

There’s a difference. Trump is a two-bit con man. He’s playing the fools.

Whether he’s jacking up room rates 400 percent when his campaign uses his hotels, or spending campaign money to buy his own books, or blowing racial dog whistles and then accusing his rival of being a bigot, or lying about crime rates to win African American votes, or just plain old running out on his bills — it is all, top to bottom, one long con. A scheme. A grift. To make a buck, to get out of hock, to get some fame, to get his own TV network — the ignominious ends always justify the ignoble means. Even his run for president is a con, a way to gain even more power than this millionaire’s son was already born with. It certainly isn’t to implement any deeply felt ideas. It can’t be. He hasn’t got any. It’s all about the con.

And give the man credit, by the way — he’s good at it. He is, as he says, the best. The white nationalists are eating it up, and they are a tough, tough room. The guy is a fantastic con man.

But he’s no Hitler. Not even close. . .

Is Trump a megalomaniacal demagogue? Yes. Is he a sociopath? Undoubtedly. Is he dangerous? Maybe.

Which bring me to the second reason the comparison of Trump to Hitler bothers me: This isn’t the comparison that matters. It’s the easy comparison, the one that leaves us — We The People — safe from criticism.

The comparison that matters is not, “Is Donald Trump like Hitler?” but, “Are we like Hitler’s willing executioners?”

Will we look the other way, say we didn’t know, stand silently by while millions of our neighbors are rounded up, while women who get abortions are “punished,” while immigrants are given “ideology tests” and our leader heaps praise on oppressive tyrants?

Well? Will we?

Are we that terrified? Are we that hateful? Are we that frightened, that cowardly, that selfish, that helpless, that cold-hearted, that dumb, that easily manipulated, that easily provoked? Are we so bereft of answers, so pathetically hopeless, that all we can come up with is easy scapegoating and blind fealty to Our Great Leader? Are We The People really going to fall for the dumbest, oldest, easiest trick in the book?

Because if we are, then we won’t need an Adolf Hitler to embrace that darkness. Even a two-bit con man like Donald Trump will be enough."

Read the Washington Post, Don’t compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. It belittles Hitler.


UPDATE VI:  And another must read article by a conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin with the Washington Post, Who will hold the right-wing media charlatans accountable, which notes:

"David Rothkopf writes that instrumental in Donald Trump’s rise was the 'chorus of toxic commentators … the Rush Limbaugh phenomenon and the Black Helicopter guys. They have embraced smear, conspiracy theories, inflammatory language, and gross incivility to drum up ratings and stir up emotions.' They’ve sown not skepticism but hatred and unwarranted distrust of all government. They’ve indulged in climate-change denial and economic nincompoopery.

For a while, they played the ideological purity game. Anyone who deviated from the Heritage Action script or the NRA scorecard or the anti-gay-marriage hymnal was a 'RINO.' (The problem with Jeb Bush, you see, was that he was too liberal.) Trump, it must be said, revealed all of these folks to be frauds. The media chorus that hounded impure conservatives now embraces Trump and the worst excesses of the welfare state (subsidized health care for Ivanka Trump?!). They’ve decided that large swaths of America are made up of victims, driven to madness by elites who refused to say 'Merry Christmas' and deprived them of $30-per-hour jobs that required no college education. They have gone from hawking traditional marriage to embracing a thrice-married adulterer. . .

They used to resent racial- and gender-grievance mongering. Now they coddle non-college-educated white males whose lives have been ruined by … what? Free trade that saves them hundreds of dollars a year at Walmart? By the idea that the rich have gamed the system? (It may be objectionable, but crony capitalism did not stymie the job prospects of high school dropouts in Appalachia.)

The conspiracy generators — Sen. Mitch McConnell sold them out! 9/11 was an inside job! President Obama was born in Kenya! — assumed that their audience was stupid. They then concocted a brew of urban myth and racial resentment that made their audience even stupider. It used to be that Republicans were the ideas party (Milton Friedman! James Q. Wilson!), while the Democrats were the coalition party (minorities, unions, etc.). Now the Republicans’ 'big idea' is that whites are persecuted and Christians get no respect. The right-wing media rails about public schools that don’t teach history adequately — and then spews a fractured fairy tale about U.S. history and make mincemeat of the Constitution when it suits their purposes. . .

They are, on the whole, far less informative, honest and fair than the mainstream media (which has its own problems). They sure are less civil. After the election, it will be a good time to name names, to end the Fox News network monopoly on evening conservative news-ish programming, to debunk the false narratives and grotesque sexism and simply to tune out the gibberish. Shining a bright light on charlatans and encouraging more speech have always been the antidote to noxious, false and destructive speech."

UPDATE VII:  "Trump has virtually no qualifications to be president, repeatedly failed as a businessman, has no history of public service, is the target of multiple investigations into possibly illegal activities, has regularly expressed racist and misogynist views throughout his career and during this campaign, and has deliberately and systematically reached out to groups that can only be described as “deplorable” — including white supremacists, anti-Semites, and other hate-mongers. Further, he has repeatedly expressed (including on Russian-state TV) his admiration for Vladimir Putin, a man who has systematically suppressed democracy in Russia, invaded his neighbors, scoffed at international law, and sought to undercut the interests of the United States. Worse, he has hired top aides who worked closely with the Moscow regime and sought to take advantage of a shockingly overt campaign by Russian intelligence to interfere in the U.S. election cycle.

Trump has repeatedly insulted and attacked the U.S. military and intelligence community, its leadership, and performance — while showing such utter contempt for the electorate that he has made no visible effort to come to understand America’s situation in the world or how foreign policy works. What is more, he has demonstrated his derision for the First Amendment to the Constitution and regularly sought to block, quash, and intimidate the press. If there were a more textbook example of the narcissistic, brutal personality type from which authoritarian thugs are made, it is hard to imagine. Trump is not just an American Berlusconi, he is our Putin- or Mugabe-in-waiting.

In an election year in which inequality and economic insecurity rank atop the list of voter concerns, Trump is a billionaire who has made his money by gaming the system and stiffing the little guy. He is odious and offensive; a poster child for everything wrong with the U.S. system. Indeed, the fact that he is not broke or in jail is powerful testimony to the special and unfair advantages the very rich have in America today. (See, for example, the evolving pay-to-play corruption scandal involving him and Florida’s attorney general.)

In fact, by any rational calculus the only federal office for which Trump seems suited is one with bars on the windows. The notion that somehow he has become a champion for Joe Lunch Bucket is beyond ludicrous. . .

Theories about how we got here are plentiful. We could trace the rise of Trump back to Goldwater or Reagan and the rise of the modern right wing in America. We could trace it to Gingrich and the obstructionists who first shut down the government in the 1990s, proponents of a political scorched-earth policy that has only grown worse in the years since. (The Democrats, it must be said, are not without blame here. After all, it was a Democratic effort to shape the Supreme Court that gave us the verb “to bork.”) We could trace it to the concurrent emergence of the fringe right that stretches from Pat Buchanan to Pat Robertson, from Michele Bachmann to Rick Santorum, from Sarah Palin to the Tea Party. And certainly, elements of all of these movements led us here.

So, too, has the chorus of toxic commentators played a role in this — the Rush Limbaugh phenomenon and the Black Helicopter guys. They have embraced smear, conspiracy theories, inflammatory language, and gross incivility to drum up ratings and stir up emotions. They have a special role to play in moving the media world along the spectrum from light to heat. But cable news networks (Fox and MSNBC) and websites (Drudge, Breitbart, and the liberal equivalents) have all seen their success and aped it, valuing conflict over insight, cage-matches over thoughtful, unbiased analysis.

There is a special place in this demonology, by the way, for the right-wing newspaper commentators who developed a strategy and a series of code words that made them sound patriotic but in actuality were dog whistles for the haters. . .

Something catalyzed all these forces and produced this inexplicable outcome. Determining it scientifically is impossible, of course. The rise of the echo-chamber-within-an-echo-chamber media phenomenon has helped isolate groups from one another and has deepened the us-versus-them mindset. The nonstop Twitter and social media conversation — wherein many of us get most of our news from friends, with whom we share values — is also to blame.

But something else has happened. The 15th anniversary of 9/11 underscores this for me. The entire country endured a psychic shock unlike any other in modern history as we collectively watched a human atrocity and national tragedy unfold. This made us feel more vulnerable and at risk than ever before. It created a level of fear that surpassed that all but the darkest days of the Cold War. This despite the fact that then, as now, we are probably safer than at any time since World War II. We’re stronger. We face no real strategic threat (except those from within our own borders). And the enemies we face, while awful, are weak, small, disparate, and doomed to fail.

The lingering sense of vulnerability indicates the severity of the trauma. It also suggests that subsequent shocks — notably the global financial crisis — deepen the psychological damage. We, as a country, are still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. And Trump is a symptom of our distress."

Read Foreign Policy, Donald Trump Is the Symptom of Our PTSD.


UPDATE VIII:  "No matter what Hillary Clinton’s faults — and they are many — it is hard to seriously argue that a man who would lead a racist conspiracy theory and then try to blame his opponent is fit to be president. Trump, like a small child caught misbehaving, simply denies the evidence or blames someone else or lashes out in anger. (He also this weekend called former defense secretary Robert Gates a “clown” in response to Gates’s well-reasoned argument that Trump is unfit to serve as commander in chief.) Again and again he’s proven his views so extreme (e.g., rounding up 11 million people), his judgement so egregious (e.g., embracing Vladimir Putin) and his character so twisted that only someone in deep denial or blinded by partisanship could defend him and insist he is worthy of the office.

As for the fate of the GOP, the evidence mounts that it cannot go merrily on its way after the election. A party that would sanction people who call out a racist deserves to go out of business. A party whose congressional leaders remain supportive of a nominee who incites violence, perpetuates racism, blatantly, and traffics in conspiracy theories loses the moral authority to govern.

In essence, birtherism is a lenient dividing line."

Read the Washington Post, The GOP died this weekend.


UPDATE IX:  He was 'pathetic dunderhead,' a 'big mouth', and a 'most unlikely pretender to high state office', "who rose to power through demagoguery, showmanship and nativist appeals to the masses."

"[R]egarded by many as a self-obsessed 'clown' with a strangely 'scattershot, impulsive style', he focused on social and political conditions, expertly exploiting unemployment, economic distress, and bitterness, as well as a yearning for a return to greatness and and longstanding ethnic prejudices and fears of 'foreignization' to become lord and master of the country.

He persuaded millions to embrace him and his doctrine of hatred, achieving absolute power in a once democratic country and set it on a course of monstrous horror.

He "was often described as an egomaniac who 'only loved himself' — a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and . . . a 'characteristic fondness for superlatives.' His manic speeches and penchant for taking all-or-nothing risks raised questions about his capacity for self-control, even his sanity. But . . . his shrewdness as a politician — with a 'keen eye for the strengths and weaknesses of other people' and an ability to 'instantaneously analyze and exploit situations.'"

He "was known, among colleagues, for a 'bottomless mendacity' that would later be magnified by a slick propaganda machine that used the latest technology . . . to spread his message. . . [He was described as] 'so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between lies and truth' and editors of one edition of [one of his books] described it as a 'swamp of lies, distortions, innuendoes, half-truths and real facts.'"

He "was an effective orator and actor, . . . assuming various masks and feeding off the energy of his audiences. Although he concealed his [demagoguery] beneath a 'mask of moderation' when trying to win the support of the socially liberal middle classes, he specialized in big, theatrical rallies staged with spectacular elements borrowed from the circus. . . . Here, [he] adapted the content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class, nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic listeners . . .  He peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented chaos by playing to crowds’ fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who could restore law and order."

He "increasingly presented himself in messianic terms, promising 'to lead [the country] to a new era of national greatness,' though he was typically vague about his actual plans. He often harked back to a golden age for the country, . . . the better 'to paint the present day in hues that were all the darker. Everywhere you looked now, there was only decline and decay.'"

His "repertoire of topics . . . was limited, and reading his speeches in retrospect, 'it seems amazing that he attracted larger and larger audiences' with 'repeated mantralike phrases' consisting largely of ‘accusations, vows of revenge and promises for the future.' But [he] virtually wrote the modern playbook on demagoguery, . . .  [he knew] that propaganda must appeal to the emotions — not the reasoning powers — of the crowd . . . effective propaganda needed to be boiled down to a few slogans that should be 'persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.'"

His "rise was not inevitable . . . There were numerous points at which his ascent might have been derailed. . . He benefited from a 'constellation of crises that he was able to exploit cleverly and unscrupulously' — in addition to economic woes and unemployment, there was an 'erosion of the political center' and a growing resentment of the elites. . . and the belief of [his] supporters that the country needed 'a man of iron' who could shake things up. 'Why not give [him] a chance?'"

His "ascension was aided and abetted by the naïveté of domestic adversaries who failed to appreciate his ruthlessness and tenacity . . . [His] style and appearance . . . led some critics to underestimate the man and his popularity, while others dismissed him as a celebrity, a repellent but fascinating 'evening’s entertainment.' Politicians, for their part, suffered from the delusion that the dominance of traditional conservatives in the cabinet would neutralize the threat of [his] abuse of power and . . . 'his conservative coalition partners believed either that he was not serious or that they could exert a moderating influence on him. In any case, they were severely mistaken.'"

He "it became obvious, could not be tamed — he needed only five months to consolidate absolute power . . . 'with pressure from the party grass roots combining effectively with pseudo-legal measures ordered by the . . . government. Many [people] jumped on the [party] bandwagon not out of political conviction but in hopes of improving their career opportunities, . . while fear kept others from speaking out . . . The independent press was banned or suppressed and books deemed 'un-[patriotic]' were burned. [Soon] . . . 'his government was going to do away with all norms of separation of powers and the rule of law.'"

He "had a dark, Darwinian view of the world. And he would not only become . . . 'a mouthpiece of the cultural pessimism' growing in right-wing circles in the [country], but also the avatar of what Thomas Mann identified as a turning away from reason and the fundamental principles of a civil society — namely, 'liberty, equality, education, optimism and belief in progress.'"

Read The New York Time, In 'Hitler,' an Ascent From 'Dunderhead' to Demagogue, a review of a book offering "a fascinating Shakespearean parable about how the confluence of circumstance, chance, a ruthless individual and the willful blindness of others can transform a country — and, in Hitler’s case, lead to an unimaginable nightmare for the world."

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."


UPDATE X:  "#NeverTrump Republicans warned [this] would happen: An emotionally unstable, raging narcissist would suffer some type of public breakdown, confirming the gross malfeasance of the Republican National Committee and the foolishness of his backers.

Trump could take the GOP down the tubes in an election that was eminently winnable — until the party nominated a lunatic."

Read the Washington Post, Donald Trump’s 3 a.m. moment.

Read also the Washington Post, ‘Public slut-shaming’ and Donald Trump’s attack on a former Miss Universe’s alleged sex history and Before 6 a.m., Donald Trump proved Hillary Clinton’s point about his temperament.


UPDATE XI:  "Trump all along has been a clinically self-involved con man who never took the issues, the presidency or the future of our country seriously. Can there be any doubt that his campaign is a branding exercise gone, quite literally, mad?

Trump’s gift to voters was a series of tweets he started sending out at 3:20 a.m. Friday morning. His behavior gives new meaning to the old ads about 3 a.m. phone calls questioning how a would-be president might respond to crisis. Beware any human being who feels an impulse to send out angry tweets at that hour. . .

If an onslaught against a Gold Star family didn’t stop him, why should his wee-hours-of-the-morning storm of vicious invective be any different?

The answer is that this episode should finally force everyone to say: enough. Trump is neither normal nor stable. He is manifestly dangerous to our country and erratic in everything except his unrestrained meanness. He should not be given fifth, sixth and seventh chances. He has shown us who he is. We should believe what we see."

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s last tweet?