Steve M has a post titled FOR THE REST OF THIS CAMPAIGN, TRUMP’S MENTAL STATE WILL MATTER MUCH MORE THAN HIS TAXES which is worth reading in full. While I think the tax story is important and should be covered in loving detail, a couple of things are pretty clear about Trump: he’s immune to normal “bad stories” that would sink other politicians, and there’s a small set of voters who might be persuaded to vote for Clinton even though they dislike her intensely because they think he’s crazy.
Trump’s immunity to bad stories comes mainly from his ability to short-circuit the media: he’ll tell a dozen lies in a speech and he’ll say another dozen things that would normally be headline gaffes. He also marinates in an awful backstory that would kill a normal candidate that includes adultery, an appearance in a porn movie, and history of sexual harassment. When he’s on his game, he also finds a new line of bullshit every day (or maybe even hourly). Traditional media–with its narrative of both sides being equally bad and its inability to call out lies–is essentially in Trump’s grip. It’s only when Trump commits a transgression so far beyond the pale that they’re able to report it without cherrypicking a Clinton email to serve as balance. In other words, Trump has to go fucking nutzo for the media to point out how unhinged he really is.
The Khan story, and the Machado story, are two clear examples of this phenomenon. The Khan story was more about who he attacked, the Machado story was more about how he attacked. I think the Khan story picked off Republicans who could have possibly held their nose and voted for Trump, but could possibly tolerate Hillary, and weren’t going to vote for someone crazy enough to think people like the Khan’s weren’t real citizens. I hope the Machado story picks off Republicans who dislike Hillary intensely, but are worried that a guy who is so easily baited will blow up the world if some minor celebrity pisses him off.
If you accept that it’s only Trump’s craziness that will sway the last set of persuadables, then the tax story will be most consequential if it puts him further off the rails. And one thing about that story really ought to get his goat: the envelope had a Trump Organization return address. Somebody stole the can of strawberries. According to this Post piece that Steve M quotes, Trump keeps getting progressively more off message and nuttier at every rally. Let’s hope that trend continues.
gogol's wife
THOSE DAMN MESS BOYS
THEY ATE THE STRAWBERRIES
MattF
So… all Trump has to do to find the skunk in his garden is find someone in his organization that he insulted or demeaned. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
liberal
This is hilarious:
RaflW
I agree with the OP, mister. But the Trump campaign, and in particular, the hot mess RudyG, is also making a hash of the Trumpeter/surrogate effort to hustle the “Billary had affairs!” attack.
I really, really want some journos to go to Utah and play that little clip of Giuliani from this morning to various Mormon voters.
A mega-bonus if a reporter can also get a comment from anyone on the Values Voters staff.
Zinsky
I still think the media has ignored the fact that there is a lawsuit pending that alleges Donald Trump raped a 13 year old repeatedly. Here is the link.
ruemara
The hate is a drug. They don’t want to cut off the source. This won’t hurt him at all.
Yutsano
His. Supporters. Do. Not. Care.
He is the perfect raging Republican id. He says all the things Lee Atwater had them dog whistle all the way back in 1964. He makes it all right to be a racist. He is making it normal to treat fellow humans as beneath you to the point where all those who are labeled as “different” are subhuman. Trump is the system. The problem is all of these emotions and outright hatred he brought to the surface needs to be addressed. And THAT will be the real legacy of this election. When he loses, what happens to all that?
dmsilev
If Trump spends the entirety of the next debate nervously fondling his balls, well as the saying goes, “include me out”.
RaflW
@ruemara: On one level, I sorta agree. Trump’s base is baked in. But he can’t win with just his base. Even if the two idiot 3rd party candidates siphon off votes, the GOP lacks the party ID plus pretend-indies to win without some persuadables going with him.
What I think does get damaged are the GOP’s chances downballot in swing states. A bunch of vulnerable Repubs must be sweating very heavily this weekend. And I hope they slip and fall on their flop-sweat!
Cermet
I disagree about why tRump gets away with issues that would sink anyone else; today’s thug party is so extreme, polarized and win at all cost that the Rump was right. He said he could shoot someone on the streets of NY and he’d keep his numbers up. This all is the result of a black President making the White House no longer white. Nothing has so terrified the average, monies white that the writing is on the wall, and forced them to hear the foot steps behind them. Amerika is fast becoming a country of non-white males with one leg up on everyone else. Also, as our military might drains out our economy, and our manufacturing switches to what we do best (college degree’s required), these people don’t give a flying fuck what crazy they vote for if he has an “R” next to his name.
liberal
@Cermet: Nah. The Republicans have becoming crazier and crazier with time. Certainly by the 1994 House takeover they were pretty nuts.
Of course, Obama being black didn’t help, and in a broader sense—that the right’s aversion to welfare spending is in part driven by not wanting “those people” to get aid from government—it’s true. But if Obama had been white, they’d be at most marginally less nuts.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Yutsano:
More tears of impotent rage?
Anoniminous
@Yutsano:
His supporters don’t care but he needs more than the 14 million who voted for him in the primary. The 27% Rule suggests he can get to 32.67 million which is 28.23 million less than RomBot 2012 losing effort. Where are the other votes going to come from?
In a way the Trump campaign is an experiment designed to find out just how dumb white people are.
hellslittlestangel
@Yutsano: But his true supporters (not the cowards and fellow travelers who won’t speak out against him) are only a small but noisy percentage of voters. I really think Little Gloves will end up with less than 30% of the vote. Normal people who pay attention find him repulsive.
lollipopguild
@gogol’s wife: I keep telling people that but nobody listens.
NotMax
@Yutsano
Fully understand your point (and concur), however Atwater was 13 years old in 1964.
gogol's wife
@lollipopguild:
inorite? enough to make you crazy
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Yutsano:
This. As I told a friend earlier this week, the Donald can remain unscathed in polls by things that would destroy other candidates, because for his base, he’s aspirational. Like eager Trump U students, they hope he’ll teach them how to let their asshole/racist/misogynist/all around bigot freak flag fly with no social consequences. Sadly for them, they fail to understand that it takes a lot of coin to get away with that.
Yutsano
@NotMax: I thought I had the year wrong. Thank you. He was late Nixon then?
@hellslittlestangel: He will still have at least 40%. But 40% is easily outvoted. Plus there’s a shit ton of evidence the polls are being manipulated to undercount minorities and young people. This horserace won’t be one. It’s a matter of getting President Clinton a good Senate and House now.
lollipopguild
@gogol’s wife: I know that I am sane because the voices in my head tell me I am.
sigaba
@gogol’s wife: I have appreciated the slow burn of Caine Mutiny allusions we’ve been gettting lately.
RaflW
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): He is not unscathed in the polls. He peaked over a week ago, and has lost roughly 4% so far, and some parts of his disaster week are too recent to even show up.
lollipopguild
@sigaba: Great cast, especially Bogart. Definatly one of his best roles.
MomSense
@Zinsky:
I cannot imagine that this story would not be the lead on every broadcast if it were a Democratic nominee.
greennotGreen
@sigaba: That movie should be in heavy rotation, along with Idiocracy, through Election Day.
lollipopguild
@Yutsano: Atwater was 1988-Bush’s guy-the willie horton ad.
rikyrah
Giuliani says Trump is better for the US ‘than a woman’
Sunday, October 2nd 2016, 2:02 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) – Did Rudy Giuliani really mean to say Donald Trump would make a better president than Hillary Clinton because he’s a man? And that “everybody” cheats on their spouse?
The former New York mayor was responding to leaked tax documents obtained by The New York Times that show Trump in 1995 declared such a massive loss in income that he could have legally avoided paying federal income taxes for up to 18 years.
When asked about the report, Giuliani told ABC’s “This Week” that Trump was a “genius” when it came to tax laws, unlike Clinton who was investigated by the FBI for using a private email server while leading the State Department.
“Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman, and the only thing she’s ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out her emails?” he asked.
In a separate interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Giuliani was asked whether it was fair for him to criticize Hillary Clinton’s handling of her husband’s alleged affairs when Giuliani himself had dealt with his “own infidelity charge.” Giuliani, who has been married three times, was accused of cheating on his second spouse.
“Well, everybody does. And I’m Roman Catholic, and I confess those things to my priest,” he said.
A phone call and email to Giuliani’s staff asking if he would like to elaborate were not immediately returned.
Suffragette City
The one comment on Steve M’s post rings out to me:
betrayal – someone he trusted with his secrets sent this to the NYT
humiliation – record-setting losses for a supposedly brilliant businessman
Not once, not twice but 3 times he said to Hillary “Where did you find this?” regarding Machado.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@RaflW: Fair enough; you’re absolutely correct and the downward trend may (we can hope) continue – even increase. But my point is that he should have already been annihilated based on all the nasty shit he’s said and done.
Major Major Major Major
@shomi: why don’t you go do something more productive like eating sand?
Mai.naem.mobile
Hey, Donny your Karma called. She ain’t extending you any more credit and the balance is due NOW with all the interest and late fees. Pay up loser.
lollipopguild
@rikyrah: LOL funny. He can keep cheating on his wife as long as he confesses to his Priest.
sunny raines
“When evil’s at the door”
youtube.com/watch?v=9XhK_8eRrcM
NotMax
Have been saying (among other descriptions) for over a year that DT is what one gets when Capt. Queeg and Andrew Dice Clay are involved in a transporter accident.
patroclus
@NotMax: But Tuvix was way cool! And the bearded Spock was better than the regular Spock.
On the election, Trump is sinking badly and I’m beginning to hope for a landslide again. But never-underestimate our media’s ability to put their thumb on the scale and make it a horserace still. I think most Republicans will vote for their team and he’ll get 45% or so and over 200 electoral votes. I’m hopeful about the Senate but still leery about the House.
Peale
@rikyrah: I’m just imaging a commercial with a bunch of old nuns and priests at a table in a retirement home going “that’s not how it works”
scav
The base doesn’t care – the guys in Peoria with TRUMP tattooed on their foreheads are unreachable. The mockery, the curtain and pants and pretense dropping is for the other people in Peoria, the ones driving nutjobs to tattoo their foreheads. The multi-media hoopla is needed to not only make it clear to them how much the orange man is a bag of mean vaporware and puffery with no lasting accomplishments but making it safe to voice so in public. All they know of him is the crap he’s fed them for years in self-promotion on da TeeVee. Giving him a big stage for self-immolation on da TeeVee might be required.
Beyond the trump tower post code, the sheer amount of the loss is also easily understood and harder to warp into his persona as the brilliant business guy. That should needle him as well. The man swallows whole his own myth.
RaflW
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Yes. But the GOP has been far too invested in never goring their sacred cows, so no one in the primaries would go after him the way the Clinton campaign and various outside groups have now that he’s the nominee.
Sure, the press should have done much more to uncover his unfitness before now. You won’t find me singing the praises of our failed media experiment the past many months on this blog, twitter, or at various dinner tables and such. We’ve been very poorly served by them.
But I’d suggest that the failure to dismantle Trump in the GOP year-long clown car circus was because the GOP is completely decrepit and debased. Again, a press that cared about America woulda noticed that. They can’t, for reasons that media critics have been doing a decent job documenting this year.
I fervently hope there is a genuine reckoning when this 2 1/2 year shitshow is over. Probably not, things will have to get worse (or just flat out fall apart) before things get better (if they ever do). As I often say these days, Gaaaahh!
MikeS
Ah but Nigel the Bold is riding to the rescue. Will he arrive in time? Will the “Hair Furor” listen to his sage advice?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@RaflW: We agree about all of that. Including “Gaaaahh!”
ET
I definitely think the taxes story should be investigated more but I don’t think it will hurt him all that much. His fans won’t care and the establishment is in no position to not keep with him.
Mnemosyne
Last voter registration shift here in Nevada. I have a pretty good feeling so far — everyone seems reasonably friendly even if they’re already registered. I’ve talked to a couple of Trump supporters, but they weren’t hostile. Much.
Baud
@Mnemosyne: Excellent. Thank you again.
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
And speaking of “Bring on the Crazy” . . . All that sniffing Donald did Monday night?
Holy Spirit.
You should know better...
Marinates???
Hell… he’s urinating in the backstory and it’s not costing him…
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
There’s another person who’s mostly a lurker who went to Reno — I’ll be curious to hear what his/her experience was.
Mnemosyne
Also, did I mention the Millennials in my van? They are pretty awesome. They’re heading out towards some of the black megachurches to see if they can catch parishioners after services let out.
debbie
One or two more Twitter storms ought to seal the deal against him.
justawriter
I see it less as the strawberries went missing and more like someone threw the palm tree over the side.
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
@Suffragette City:
I still don’t completely get that reaction. The Machado story had been out there for months, and he had to have known that. It wasn’t, or shouldn’t have been, a surprise to him. (Above paragraph lightly edited.)
The other thing (well, one of countless other things) that was really odd and off-key in the debate was when he addressed her very deliberately as “Secretary Clinton,” and then pushed it with “Okay? Is that okay? I want to make sure you’re happy, it’s very important to me.” Paraphrasing from memory, but he was really leaning in on it, and it was very strange, I thought.
Baud
@Mnemosyne: Don’t tell them they are supposed to be lazy until after the election.
Matt McIrvin
@Anoniminous: 27% is a majority if only 50% turn out and vote for the major candidates.
rikyrah
How Hamilton’s Cast Got Broadway’s Best Deal
Of all the prizes bestowed on Hamilton, the greatest might be the one its cast won for itself.
By Richard Morgan | September 28, 2016
Offstage last year, the cast of Hamilton was proofreading a different kind of script—one they’d written themselves, hoping for a sliver of the hit Broadway show’s runaway profits.
Like so many letters that are difficult to write, this one was heavy with kindness. Twenty-two members of the musical’s original Broadway cast—including breakout stars Daveed Diggs, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Leslie Odom Jr., all of whom would go on to win Tonys—had signed it.
“We love you. We love HAMILTON,” it began. “The one million infinitesimal and distinctive decisions you’ve made in service of this property … are destined to be studied on the level of the material itself.”
The letter, sent Aug. 31, 2015, was addressed not to the show’s composer, librettist, lyricist, and biggest star—Lin-Manuel Miranda—but to lead producer Jeffrey Seller, the man the New York Times would later dub the “CEO of Hamilton Inc.” In it, the cast made its case for what could become one of Broadway’s most lucrative profit-sharing deals.
“We CREATED this show”
“There was undeniable genius on the pages we were given at the start,” the actors wrote. “There was a collective genius in the approach to the material. That is what we brought.”
They were, in their words, “begging.” They gave Seller a week to respond.
Diggs wrote in an e-mail to his cast mates: “This letter is brilliant.” Given the stakes, it better have been.
Hamilton had been on Broadway just a few weeks, but its longevity had been evident since its sold-out, thrice-extended Off-Broadway run at New York’s Public Theater. Earning rave after rave, it would go on to win 11 Tonys, a Grammy, even a Pulitzer.
Of all the prizes bestowed on Hamilton, perhaps most remarkable is the one its cast won for itself: 1 percent of net profits, plus a smaller share from most future productions. That retroactive agreement—announced in April, when the show was making $500,000 a week—shocked the theater world. Not since A Chorus Line a generation ago had Broadway’s bean counters offered such retroactive generosity.
Three days after the deal was announced, the cast’s union scheduled a special meeting to field the flood of actors who felt they deserved similar contracts for their work in other shows. The Public postponed a new musical that couldn’t reach an agreement with its cast. The Hamilton victory was a bell that could not be unrung.
aimai
Both my daughters were in NH today stumping for Clinton. It was dispiriting and freaky for the 17 year old–they only managed to get two people to even open their doors to them and one of them was a Trump supporter who gave them the heebie jeebies with his hostility.
ETA: the 20 year old was in Keene and the 17 year old was in Nashua, with different teams.
NotMax
Natch, must be the best, finest plywood.
@patroclus
Yes, but a flip of the coin could have produced Neevak.
*
shudders*Suzanne
@Yutsano:
This. There is no getting through. None.
PPCLI
@rikyrah:
She has produced the medicine that is keeping millions of AIDs victims alive in Africa, who would be dead right now if not for that.
This contrasts with Donald’s foundation, which has settled lawsuits against Deadbeat Donald, donated to the campaign of an Attorney General who was considering joining a case against him, bought garish paintings of Donald, and supported Citizens United, the organization built by a current senior campaign adviser.
karen marie
@RaflW: Trump bitches to his crowds that he can only lose if Dems cheat but has anyone ever heard him encourage people to register to vote? Apparently his supporters aren’t just lazy in their thinking.
Baud
@aimai: That’s disappointing, but probably not unusual.
Another Scott
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: I thought he was pushing the “Secretary Clinton” stuff as part of his attempt to show that she has been running things for the last 30 years and has messed everything up, so she shouldn’t be elected President. “It’s all her fault!!11 Vote for me because we need a change!!1”
Someone competent had a small chance of making it work, but Donnie isn’t.
Cheers,
Scott.
hellslittlestangel
Trump may never get to be President of the United States, but he can always fall back to being Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor de France.
JMG
@aimai: Were they canvassing in afternoon? Pats game was on, could account for people blowing them off.
rikyrah
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE IS THE BLACKEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN THIS WEEK…AND EVER
Panama Jackson, 9/30/16
I’ve been to the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) twice so far – yes, that was a stunt – and it is easily the second Blackest place I’ve ever been in life. The Blackest? I’m glad you asked. That would be in the southeastern quadrant of Washington, DC, where Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue intersects with Malcolm X Avenue; this corner features a liquor store, a park full of vagabonds, and the coup de grace: Popeye’s.
It is indeed, the Blackest place in America. In fact, I contend that the Blackest thing you can do in this country is eat some Popeye’s chicken wearing a dashiki while listening to DC’s own Marvin Gaye at this intersection. Ask about me. Photos coming soon.
Back to the NMAAHC, it’s a beautiful Black ass place and I love it. It wasn’t just that every 10th person had on a dashiki on opening day, or that there were people wearing tuxedos standing next to people in graphic tees with Black fists standing in line together to get in. Nor was it that all three verses of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” are inscribed on one of the walls as people hummed while they read. Or even the fact that the cafeteria specifically made sure to have good, quality soul food – appropriately named the Sweet Home Café – and the smell permeates the third floor so much that you are almost lifted off your feet and wafted towards the catfish.
It’s that there were so many Black people looking at so much Black stuff feeling so much Black pride in accomplishments of both those exhibited throughout the museum, but of the museum itself. It is a marvel. It’s expansive. It’s huge. It’s awesome. And yes, that is all what she said. Every person who has been will undoubtedly tell you that it is impossible to fully take in the museum in one sitting. You just can’t. There are too many exhibits and too many floors. You could easily spend an entire day on the bottom floor itself.
lollipopguild
@justawriter: Will Mr Roberts report to the bridge.
lollipopguild
@hellslittlestangel: Or the Czar of all the Russias.
hovercraft
@RaflW:
Um no, just because the Trump knob polishers are all a bunch of weasels doesn’t mean the rest of us are. His response that he’s not running for president, therefor his cheating is irrelevant was laughable. The response should have been that when you come on TV to trash someone else’s marriage, you make it relevant. Asshole.
I agree the temperament or even sanity question is the most important issue. Everything else is meaningless because the mercurial nature of the man makes it so. Nothing is set in stone, because the wind may change, or the sun may get in his eyes. Maybe the maid spills his soda, or his poll numbers fall, does he lash out, and if so at whom? Cray cray cannot be president.
dmsilev
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch:
He insists on being called Mr. Trump, so Hillary calling him Donald got under his skin and that was his clumsy attempt to do the same thing to her.
Another Scott
@NotMax: What kind of luxury hotel doesn’t have several employees standing outside the main door all the time?? Especially around 4 PM??!?!?
Sheesh.
Cheers,
Scott.
dr. luba
@scav:
You realize that story was posted by Inked magazine on April 1, 2016?
opiejeanne
Have any of you seen this?
Where is Trumps $916 million loss?
Iowa Old Lady
Article by NYT reporter who found Trump’s tax returns in her mailbox. She gives some details on how they conducted their investigation.
dmsilev
@justawriter: If Hillary is Mr Roberts, I guess that makes Tim Kaine Ensign Pulver.
Hungry Joe
@sigaba: “Kay.” The captain deliberately lit a cigarette, “Gentlemen, ten minutes before I called this meeting, I sent down for some ice cream and strawberries. Whittaker brought me the ice cream and said, ‘They ain’t no mo’ strawberries.’ Has any of you gentlemen an explanation of the missing quart of strawberries?” The officers glanced covertly at each other; none spoke. “Kay.” The captain rose. “I have a pretty good idea of what happened to them. However, you gentlemen are supposed to keep order on this ship and prevent such crimes as robbing of wardroom stores. You are all appointed to a board of investigation as of now, with Maryk as chairman, to find out what happened to the strawberries.”
“You mean in the morning, sir?” said Maryk.
“I mean now, Mr. Maryk. Now, according to my watch, isn’t the morning, but forty-seven past three. If you get no results by eight o’clock this morning I shall solve the mystery myself — noting duly for future fitness reports the failure of the board to carry out its assignment.”
— From Herman Wouk’s THE CAINE MUTINY
Another Scott
@opiejeanne: I mentioned it in an earlier thread, but was already late to the party. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
hovercraft
@debbie:
If the polls continue to trend the wrong way for him, he will continue to simmer. Hillary and her surrogates will just need to lay out some more bait over the next week, and by Sunday he will be primed and ready to blow. The rally last night was something to behold.
redshirt
@JMG: Some game. *Spits.
DCrefugee
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch:
This is Trump letting his misogynist flag fly. To him, the term “secretary” refers to an administrative assistant, not the head of a federal government department. In his warped worldview, it’s demeaning, and he wanted to a) ensure his followers (because that’s what they are…) heard/saw him refer to the woman on the stage as a secretary while, b) seeking her permission to use the term. A twofer.
If his ongoing meltdown continues this same trajectory, the election is over, except for the final tally. Not even the horserace-worshiping MSM can avoid reporting his excesses, lies and unhinged behavior. Again, if this continues and he shows up at the next two debates, they will be epic events, all three of them to be studied in college poli sci, psychology and communications classes for the next couple of decades. All Hillz has to do to get to a win on November 8 is what she’s already doing.
The whole thing is simply fascinating. There simply has not been a U.S. political event displaying the same degree of dysfunction since the 2000 election and/or (what may eventually be known as the First) Clinton impeachment.
/moar popcorn
Baud
@hovercraft: That’ll be on Kaine’s to do list at the Veep debate.
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
Good one.
hovercraft
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch:
They told him to use her title, and not to call her Crooked Hillary, or anything like that, so as not to alienate women. He was supposed to demonstrate the fact that he respects women, but he couldn’t even get that right, he used her title as almost an epithet.
Manyakitty
@dmsilev: I interpreted it as calling her A secretary, what with the whole woman thing and all.
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
@Another Scott:
Maybe it was the employees who did it. I mean they’re probably not getting paid anyhow, so why not?
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
@hovercraft:
Yes! Exactly so, thank you!
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
Thanks to everyone who explained Trump and the “Secretary Clinton” thing. I guess my mind just doesn’t work like his, so I’m baffled by some of his behaviors.
That’s probably a good thing.
Another Scott
@hovercraft: Donnie will say: “What are you people doing to me?!!?!?” just like he did in Iowa.
He’s a whiner.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Cermet:
Yes. The country is quickly becoming a place where no one is a majority, and therefore no one is restrained from certain circles of society. That is incredibly threatening to the people who are invested in those barriers. Black people and women and LGBTs getting to go to college and enjoy positions of leadership and make money?!?! What, that shit isn’t reserved for straight white Christian dudes?!?! What, you have to actually finish college now if you want to be prosperous?!?! A middle-class life is not a birthright for a straight white dude?!?!
Another Scott
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: rofl. You may be right!
Cheers,
Scott.
Schlemazel
@sigaba:
I love that movie, in part because of Bogarts performance but mostly for the ending.
SPOILER ALERT – if you have not seen the movie do not read down but get a copy & watch it.
I think the ending changes the whole movie and makes it much better. All your comfortable prejudices are ripped to shreds like Fred MCcMurry’s ego. I could see an ending like that for Trump: “Sure he was not right, sure he was a lousy leader, sure he did bad/stupid thing but you, YOU! are responsible because instead of helping him, getting him treatment, being responsible you drove him mad. This. is. your. fault.” And like Jose Ferrer we should all be waiting outside for them if they are man enough to do something about it.
raven
@Schlemazel: A spoiler alert for a movie made in 1954???
Mike J
@rikyrah: Did the Hamilton fans see this morning;’s Foxtrot comic?
Ivan X
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: I just figured that was him trying to show her (and everyone watching) who’s boss, being intentionally patronizing by mocking her title (after all, he doesn’t have one), and then being sarcastic about his respect for her. I have a nightmare client with a similar personality and the same dominance behavior. He’s at his worst when others are watching.
Thoughtful David
@hovercraft:
I get the people saying he was trying to diminish her by calling her a secretary, but that’s not the way I interpreted it. It really looked to me like it was him trying to say “See! I really do respect women! I will call her by her title!”
Of course, then he did use it kind of as an epithet. He couldn’t pull it off as using it as a term of respect.
Kjazz
Toronto Star newspaper has daily reports on ‘False things Trump said yesterday’. Here’s todays.
Schlemazel
@raven:
I keep running into people who have never seen it, some have not even heard of it. It is a great movie & I didn’t want to take a chance!
Also I got yelled at for spoiling Star Wars about 5 years ago when I mentioned one of the characters parentage.
raven
@Schlemazel: I’d tell to bite me.
Shell
So, at a Saturday rally, Trump mocks Hillarys bout with pneumonia, and then descends into a bizarre word-salad that would make Sarah Palin think “What the fuck is wrong with him?”
SoupCatcher
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch:
My take on that was that he’d been specifically instructed about the correct title he needed to use when he addressed Secretary Clinton. And, since this is Donald Trump we’re talking about, his handlers probably did it over and over again, until they were blue in the face.
That was a sullen child whine, to me.
smintheus
@DCrefugee: That was my interpretation as well. I thought he was also trying to get under Clinton’s skin by making sure she understood that he was needling her.
Reminded me of a crazy (also paranoid, narcissistic misogynist) I used to have to deal with on a committee. One time he got wound up and angry at me in a meeting and decided the way to take pot shots at me was to keep making inane comments that included bad puns about beards, as if he imagined that I was going to respond in kind to such a lame form of mockery.
hilts
The Fonzi of Freedom is annoyed that this story is getting so much attention:
Schlemazel
@raven:
You’re not wrong but I want them to have the shock of that last scene fresh & not be expecting it. Same with Citizen Kane, if you know the ending the rest of the movie is different. Everyone should see them without knowing
Tokyokie
@Schlemazel: Fred MacMurray was much better playing heels (Double Indemnity, The Caine Mutiny, The Apartment) than he was playing suburban dads in Disney movies and the like. Billy Wilder recognized the hollowness behind the facade, whereas Walt Disney was happy with the facade.
Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck
@Suzanne:
Having Lived Among Them, I think the key is not so much that they think those positions should be reserved for straight white men. That is… sort of a side effect. They want the freedom to bully their inferiors. Gamergate is a fine example. It’s not like women are threatening men getting what they want in any way, except that if women become an acknowledged part of gaming society, they can’t get away with being as misogynist as they want whenever they feel like it. It’s like how Religious Freedom now means ‘being allowed to shit on women and queers.’ You can throw in some fear, because they also find minorities scary, so they’re more and more surrounded by scary people. In all of these ways, their happiness ends when minorities get more power than whites.
hovercraft
@Another Scott:
I would love for him to ask America during the debate if they are stupid. The only thing is that the Town Hall format may cause him to be more subdued.
hovercraft
What’s up with the “genius” label that they are all using today?
Soylent Green
I see Trump as the William Jennings Bryan character in the movie “Inherit the Wind.” Clarence Darrow keeps goading and trolling him, playing on his inflexibility, until he throws a rod and drops dead on the courtroom floor.
Schlemazel
@Tokyokie:
I had forgotten he was the dick in “The Apartment”! Yeah, I have heard he also was not particularly happy in those Disney roles & became a pain in the ass to work with. But he was good as the snot-nosed jerk jr. officer and the conniver in Double Indemnity.
hovercraft
@Thoughtful David:
I think it was both, he enjoyed diminishing her in his mind by saying secretary,while outwardly ‘showing respect’, but then couldn’t hold it in, and let the contemp leak out.
Tokyokie
@Schlemazel: To quote Lucy from my all-time favorite Peanuts strip: “Rosebud’s the sled.”
SRW1
@rikyrah:
So Bill’s sin wasn’t so much the cheatin’. It’s that he’s the wrong persuasion of Xtian.
Elie
Trump is crazy and getting crazier. I am not sure just how overtly crazy he would have to be for the system to finally acknowledge it as a real breakdown. If he was my family member, I would be calling his psychiatrist and setting up some medication changes or at least a visit. I go back and forth on whether he is on methamphetamine or something like it. He is extremely unstable — almost a bi-polar manic attack.. I know that it is not kosher for psychotherapists to give diagnoses on people they have never interviewed or examined, but trust me, they have seen this behavior in their practice many many times. That late night episode was a huge tell…
Seriously, he could be heading for a for real crisis. He must be scaring the eff out of his back room team. I tell you, he’d scare me cause I know what could be coming next. Not saying for sure it will, but the set up looks really really bad….
geg6
@Tokyokie:
Seeing him in Double Indemnity completely changed my perception of him as an actor. My mom got me to sit down and watch it with her when I was in my teens. I bitched about him being in it because I thought the whole Mr. Douglas thing from My Three Sons was beyond corny. So I was blown away by it.
? Martin
@hovercraft:
Probably instructions from him. Seems pretty clear that everyone in the campaign is terrified to tell him the honest truth, except maybe Christie and maybe Ivanka. People have been freeloading off of him his entire life – telling him what he wants to hear. No reason to believe the campaign doesn’t function exactly the same way.
Schlemazel
@Tokyokie:
One of my favorite cartoons has Charlie beating the ever loving shit out of Lucy for yanking the football. She had it coming.
Tokyokie
@Schlemazel: Yeah, later in life, MacMurray (who was one of the leading Republicans in Hollywood and, because of savvy Southern California real estate investments, one of Hollywood’s richest actors) pretty much disavowed all his best work. I guess he, too, preferred the facade. For My Three Sons, all his scenes for the entire season were shot before any other scenes, and then the rest of the actors’ scenes were shot and edited in, all so MacMurray could spend as little time doing the show as possible. So yeah, he was a pain in the ass. Although I’ll give him props for lobbying for the great Bill Demarest when the show dumped Bill Frawley (for health reasons, because he was a severe alcoholic, because he was horrible to work with, or some combination thereof) and thereby providing one of the best comic supporting actors of all time a steady income.
mike in dc
17 days to the third and last debate, and one week out from that (10/26)we will pretty much know who’s going to win, and by roughly how much. She has to break, dominate and provoke him twice more. I expect a couple wobbly moments between now and election day(some WikiLeaks releases, maybe one or two more NYT shots at Clinton, another terror attack or bad economic news) but largely I think it comes down to the remaining debates, plus ads and GOTV, targeting of less-committed voters and continuing legal defense against vote suppression.
Also, if you think the Red base is batshit now, wait until after she wins. Especially if Republican losses are heavy and we wind up running things across the board. They will be insane with rage and nothing to lose. So we should expect it.
WereBear
@geg6: Often the best villains are played by the best people: Boris Karloff, Joffrey on Game of Thrones, Alan Rickman, Glenn Close, Sigourney Weaver…
It can be very freeing to play someone who isn’t like you. A good person can be more comfortable with a dark side.
And then there’s Wallace Beery, who always played a lovable lug and was one of the most hated people in the business.
Princess
@Tokyokie: I was SO angry about that when I finally saw the movie about thirty years later.
NotMax
@geg6
Also right at home with light ensemble comedy.
Remember the Night, The Egg and I, and Murder, He Says, for example, the last skirting the line with slapstick.
Tokyokie
@geg6: MacMurray’s career track is roughly similar to Eddie Albert’s. Both played a lot of affable nice guys in the 1940s and 1950s before finding mainstream success in TV sitcoms playing variations of their typical roles. But much as Wilder saw a scary, hollow man behind MacMurray’s affability, Robert Aldrich saw a mean, vicious coward in Albert in movies such as Attack!, The Longest Yard, and Hustle. The chief difference between them though is that Albert was in on the joke, MacMurray wasn’t. Green Acres was one of the most subversive TV shows ever, with Jeffersonian man of reason being defeated weekly by characters (including his wife) who subscribe to an alien, yet consistent, set of logical principles, and Albert’s self-mocking performance is key to the concept’s success. My Three Sons, on the other hand, was about as about as daring as a small-town Rotary Club, and its very rationale was dependent upon a full embrace of white suburban values. And, not surprisingly, in real life, MacMurray was a lot closer to the hollow asshole Wilder observed, and Albert was reportedly a genuine nice guy, before Alzheimer’s set in.
gogol's wife
@Schlemazel:
Who gets to throw the whiskey in their faces?
gogol's wife
@Tokyokie:
SPOILER ALERT I disagree that the Double Indemnity character is a heel. Murderer, yes, but not a heel.
gogol's wife
@geg6:
He was a fantastic actor.
Tokyokie
@Princess: One of my many annoying habits is to say, “Rosebud’s the sled,” in response to any spoiler alert about any movie. Thank you, Charles Schultz!
Tokyokie
@gogol’s wife: I’d say he was certainly a heel. Just listen to how he spits out “baby” as an epithet in his exchanges with Barbara Stanwyck. To the degree that Walter Neff doesn’t seem to be that awful is because the other main characters in the movie are a manic compulsive investigator and a psychopathic gold digger. He may be the least dislikable main character, but he’s not even a remotely nice guy.
psychobroad
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: One of my bloggers pointed out that he did it to try and pressure her into calling him “Mr. Trump”–he IS her better, after all. Hilary: sure, Donald, whatever, Donald. LOL!
Matt McIrvin
@DCrefugee:
She could still lose; it’d be because of the anti-Trump vote going to Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, or not turning up. There needs to be a push to convince people that voting “against” Trump by voting third-party is not going to cut it, and there’s a problem that a lot of people inclined to do this are incredibly thin-skinned about it and will go all “you’re not the boss of me” if you explain the first thing about strategy.
Villago Delenda Est
@SRW1: You mean one who actually takes all that red letter stuff in the gospels seriously? No wonder Rudy doesn’t like him.
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
@psychobroad:
Love it! She and Bill have known him for years on a first-name basis. Why would she suddenly revert to the honorific?
NotMax
@Tokyokie
Green Acres director and contributor Richard Bare possessed a wonderfully wicked, off-kilter sense of humor.
Same man behind the Joe McDoakes shorts of the 40s. Died only last year, at 101.
wenchacha
@hovercraft: I agree. I thought it was like he was saying, “See how nice and respectful i am being?”
Matt
@MikeS: If anybody can get a bunch of elderly white rural racists to fuck over their whole country in the name of white supremacy, it’s Farage. He already did it once…
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
@Kjazz:
Trump can’t not lie. Really. It’s as natural as b̸r̸e̸a̸t̸h̸i̸n̸g̸ sniffing to him.
karen marie
@Shell: Speaking of the devil, she’s been keeping a mighty low profile. Odd, because she was such a vocal early supporter. Why do you suppose that is? He refuses to pay her airfare? Has his BFF Hannity got something against Palin and counseled Trump against her? Or does Trump just not like the competition in his race to crazytown?
Another Scott
@Soylent Green:
rofl.
I wonder how that expression is going to survive when all the consumer cars are electric…
The two spurving bearings spun though the panametric fan!
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck:
I’m in Arpaio country, so I live around a lot of them, too. And I agree with you. They object to “political correctness”, which to them is just the growing social consequence for saying offensive shit. They just do not like a society in which they are not a majority and not superior.
I am increasingly of the opinion that we should not attempt to be nice to these people. Civil and respectful and sociable, but not genuinely kind. People like that have gotten away with this shit because of a lack of negative consequences, and voting for racists should be seen as a significant character flaw.
NotMax
@Another Scott
It’ll join hellbent for leather in the obscure but still seen occasionally column.
(Although must admit have always heard it stated as “throw a rod.” Maybe regional difference?)
Tokyokie
@NotMax: I did not realize that. A lot of people from that show lived very long lives: Albert was 99 when he died, Sam Cady 96, and Sid Melton 94, for instance.
NotMax
@Tonyokie
All those doting grandmas who said, “Laugh. You’ll live longer.” were on to something.
NotMax
Whoopsie. Major sorries for the typo in your nym above, Tokyokie.
different-church-lady
@Shell:
It’s gotta really be driving his fans up the wall that he’s losing to a dead woman.
Lurking Canadian
@hellslittlestangel: He can have St. Helena as long as he promises to stay there.
Lee
@opiejeanne:
If that is true, then the reporter that finds that debt will have a pulitzer.
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
@Another Scott:
I often wonder that about phrases such as “This is where I came in” or “You sound like a stuck record.”
But I guess it’s not that much different from people of my generation hearing (and understanding) lines like “Hold your horses!” Somehow, the useful clichés prevail, even if subsequent generations have to explain their original meanings.
brettvk
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: Or you get mutations as time passes and the origin isn’t often explained — so somebody says “he has free reign” instead of free rein.
cynthia ackerman
@hovercraft: All these references to Caine Mutiny strike me as missing the point of the book and film.
Queeg is reprehensible, but the mutineers are moreso for tearing into him. He is trying his best, they are smug opportunists.
Bogart made a masterful turn which is what most of us remember, but Jose Ferer at the end showed how awful it was to take Queeg down. That is the point of the story, and I wince when we compare Drumph to Queeg, because there is nothing sympathetic about that asshole.
Joe Miller
@Zinsky: It would be unwise for us to make an accusation like this, or try to use it politically, without 100% verification of its truth.
Matt McIrvin
@Yutsano:
The polls are reflecting a hypothesis that minorities and young people won’t turn out as much as they did in 2008 and 2012. There’s some evidence at least for a loss of enthusiasm among young people, so it’s not clear that they’re being undercounted.
Walker
@Matt McIrvin:
I get modeling less young voters. But less minorities? That is crazy.
Ken
Slate (bear with me) has an article on six ways the tax revelations could hurt Trump, but miss the obvious: He’s going to spend most of the next month obsessing about it, instead of preparing for the debates and running his campaign.
Though as I type that, I realize that it won’t really hurt him, since there’s no evidence he’s ever spent any time doing those things.
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
@brettvk:
Very good point.
philadelphialawyer
@cynthia ackerman: Meh. As for the point of the story, that has always struck me as more than a little bit forced. And reductive. And preachy besides. A surprise ending that doesn’t really fit all that has gone before. Queeg is crazy, and a believer in CTs, and a petty tyrant, and so forth. I don’t find him all that sympathetic, despite the way the author manipulates things and hides the ball until the end. In any event, we are not dealing with a person in a position of authority to which he is unsuited, as the other officers were with Queeg, but rather we are choosing a person to fill a position of authority. OK, the other officers should have helped Queeg, in the story as written. But that doesn’t mean that, all things being equal, it is a good idea to choose a Queeg-like person to run your ship!
AnotherBruce
@Yutsano: please stop talking about his suppoters It makes no difference.
Joey Maloney
@Another Scott:
I’m sure there’s someone you can dial on your phone who could answer that question.