In light of @kurteichenwald's report on the Trump Organization's dangerous ties, here are 20 questions that Trump needs to answer—now.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 14, 2016
Yep, that’s the Eichenwald article Tom Levenson highlighted earlier today. Click on any of the tweets here to read the whole list. Add your own in the comments, if you like!
1. Will you sever ties with your company linked to foreign leaders, questionable organizations, and criminals if you become president?
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 14, 2016
2. How will you handle non-cancelable contractual obligations with parties whose interests conflict with those of the United States?
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 14, 2016
3. While refusing to release your tax returns, how will you confirm that you do not have dangerous financial ties to bad actors abroad?
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 14, 2016
8. Will you disclose the nature of your personal and business relationships with all of the Russian oligarchs you are “close” to?
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 14, 2016
14. We know you engaged extensively in pay-to-play here at home. Have you bribed foreign officials or other parties abroad?
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 14, 2016
lollipopguild
she needs to pound his orange ass-carpet bomb him!
Yutsano
It was pretty damn brutal. I haven’t heard of any response yet from TrumpleThinskinned.
@lollipopguild: Once she’s better, between her and Obama the hits are going to be devastating.
RaflW
This is great, though of course journalists will hate it. They do not like the idea that she is going to do a better job asking questions that they do (Farenthold and a few others excepted).
Omnes Omnibus
Yeah, I saw that in real time. Her Twitter people are good.
Also too, over the past year or so, I have come to respect Eichenwald.
Major Major Major Major
Go Hillary! Though we’ll see if the media notices ?
BR
Regular reminder: please sign up for a local campaign event to volunteer. Signing up will take just 30 seconds of your time. Voter reg deadlines are coming up — we need all the help we can get.
lollipopguild
@Yutsano: I really like TrumpleThinskinned(TM).
Major Major Major Major
@RaflW: they could always try, um, asking some questions.
PaulWartenberg2016
What horrifies me is that every scandal and every black mark that comes up against Trump… he just keeps getting bigger… his shamelessness makes him unstoppable. And he’s driving the frenzy of the Far Right higher and higher to where we’re getting daily assaults of people on the streets.
There’s been at least five major scandals that ought to have driven Trump’s polling numbers DOWN. Instead, he’s still in this race and even leading in some polls.
What the hell is happening to us?
amk
She dropped millions in ads before. It should have been held back for sep, oct and nov.
Mike J
RaflW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: What makes you think she is short of cash for ads from here to the end?
Mike J
@amk:
1) she’s not low on cash
2) much of what she spent earlier was buying avails for sept-oct. Muchmuchmuchmuch cheaper if you buy in advance.
Mike in NC
@BR: Just signed up.
schrodinger's cat
I made you a poll and did not eated it. So vote early and vote often!
amk
@Mike J: Good point on point no. 2 if it indeed went to ad buys for these months. As for point no. 1, campaigns always run short of cash.
RaflW
@Major Major Major Major: Oh now, that’s just mean! They ask questions!
It’s just that they ask stupid ones. Or don’t bother to follow up when blatantly lied to. Or focus on their own pet peeves/personal grudges rather than what viewers/readers are interested in.
Jeffro
@PaulWartenberg2016:
There’s been at least 10 things he’s said or done that would have already caused any/every Dem, or any other Rep, to have to resign from the race in shame. Shameless self-promotion is His. Thing., so it’s time to pivot (ugh) and point that out
“Donald Trump has been up to so many unethical, immoral, illegal activities it’s been hard for voters (and reporters?) to know where to start, or to be able to stay focused. Just remember: you could pick any one of these things and find that this is not a person you can trust to lead our great country. You can – and should – focus in on any issue from Trump University’s scamming innocent Americans to Trump’s vocal support from the KKK and white supremacists to Trump’s bribing Attorney General(!) Pam Bondi to Trump’s ties to Vladimir Putin, criminal dictator of Russia. In the end, he’s counting on you to be so overwhelmed, and the media to do his work for him, that he squeaks past on Nov 8th”
“Don’t lower your standards. Don’t accept what used to be completely unacceptable in America and for America. As a journalist recently noted, sometimes in America we have choices between apples and oranges, but this time, we seem to have a choice between an apple and rancid meat.”
Mike in NC
@PaulWartenberg2016: All polls are bullshit. There are literally hundreds of them out there.
Matt McIrvin
@PaulWartenberg2016: Remember: Trump’s poll numbers cratered when he flipped out after the Democratic convention and attacked the Khan family. They stayed down for pretty much the whole month of August.
There are ways to beat this guy. They seem to involve getting his goat so that he lashes out in some way that people consider unacceptable. When he realizes he’s losing he tends to double down, too. His staff is working hard to rein him in–but they’re not going to be able to control what he does during the debates.
bluehill
@PaulWartenberg2016: It seems like Conway and Bannon are doing an effective enough job in muzzling Trump so that he seems somewhat more reasonable and planting enough BS stories to play into concerns that people already have about Hillary built up over 30 years. They are making it seem like both candidates have equally negative issues, so the race isn’t based on experience but who you like more and for many people it becomes a personality contest. It is depressing, but that’s how we ended with GW Bush.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Rather than concluding each story with “it raises questions”.
Omnes Omnibus
@bluehill: The debates will be key.
Matt McIrvin
@Mike in NC: Individual polls mean almost nothing. Large numbers of correctly aggregated polls can actually give an accurate picture of the state of the race. But news stories about polls will focus on the most extraordinary outliers, which give the worst picture of the state of the race. People need to ignore them.
Miss Bianca
@schrodinger’s cat: “Queen” sounds cool. Well, they all sound cool.
Keith P.
Took a few blood pressure meds and am about to relax and watch the premier of American Horror Story. A welcome diversion from the worries in life.
FlipYrWhig
@bluehill: No, he doesn’t seem reasonable. He’s not doing anything differently or better. He’s a hateful disgusting person and the people who want to vote for him like it that way. The same people are voting for him now that were voting for him a month ago and two months ago. I don’t think he’s winning first-time converts. He’s just getting different numbers in different polls that describe the same set of horrific assholes that dominate the Republican Party, because that’s the nature of sampling.
schrodinger's cat
@Miss Bianca: What can I say, girls rule! Did you vote?
Jeffro
Since it’s an OT…
Happened to see that Bruce Springsteen has a new autobiography out, and related links occasionally pop up on my FB feed…it’s absolutely hysterical to see wingers who can’t deal with the dissonance: they love Bruce, but their little lizard brains won’t allow them to either just enjoy the music or at least shut up about politics.
They’re crazy-livid about saying “shut up and sing, Bruce!” – as if they are owed all their favorite teenage melodies, without the merest thought for what Bruce says (either in the lyrics or in between songs), troubling their beautiful minds.
It must be tough wanting to enjoy songs you love or have strong connections to, when the merest hint of helping out your fellow Americans/looking out for one another takes away all that good feeling. No wonder they act out like they do.
FlipYrWhig
@Matt McIrvin: Yup. Reporters are in the job of spotting trends and spinning narratives. Outlier numbers make better stories because they intimate drama. They reverse-engineer cause and effect relationships from noise and random fluctuation.
tobie
One newspaper is doing yeoman’s work tonight and saying what the grey lady deplorably won’t say:
See the front page online right now of the Washington Post</a.:
Omnes Omnibus
@Jeffro: I went to law school and a lot of concerts with a Republican Billy Bragg fan.
TaMara (HFG)
When this election is over, I hope to never have to stray too far into twitter again. I like my nice, safe, list of people I follow. Those comments were just…I don’t have words for those people…basket of deplorables is much too nice.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I guess Sec. Clinton’s twitter must be popular, still can’t get in.
geg6
@efgoldman:
I have heard and read numerous talking heads who are looking at the LV polling of some of these polls showing Trump polling ahead. Republicans are being over sampled, white people are being over sampled. I’m not sure their models are correct. The consensus seems to be that a lot of polling organizations are modeling their samples along the lines of the 2004 race. I stick with Sam Wang. He’s the only level head out there. I trust his work. There aren’t many I’d say that about.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Omnes Omnibus: For a long time, I had a Republican friend who was a huge fan of The Clash, along with other punk. The only problem with this story is that he’s now as much of a Republican as Cole is.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Guess he finally listened to the lyrics.
japa21
Just got back from my election judge training. My hunch is that several of those that applied are going to decide they have something else to do. The money sounds good until you get a sense of hours ( at least 15-18) and the complexity involved. Nonetheless, I will be there when they call.
Jeffro
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s impressive! Was he/she training to be a political mole of some sort, or just a BB superfan, or weaning him/herself off of a GOP-indoctrinated childhood, or…? That’s not an easy combination.
My “libertarian” brother’s #1 fave artist of all time is Bruce Springsteen and he does his best to ignore certain lyrics/whole songs…in the interests of full disclosure, the mean older brother in mean likes that it irritates him here n’ there.
Ella in New Mexico
Fucking. Goddamned. A.
Bee this ti ever loving death, Hiz team. Every day.
Jeffro
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Another victory for Saint Joe Strummer!
bluehill
@FlipYrWhig: Yes, he is. I agree, but IMO he’s making fewer incendiary remarks or at least they appear less so compared to his post-convention comments. It’s not fair that the “public” seems to judge him by a different set of standards, but you know what they say about fairness. It seems like he’s reading off the teleprompter at almost every appearance so Conway has minimized the changes that he says something really bad. I also can’t recall when he held a press conference or a gaggle or anything like that.
As for the polls, I’m not a statistician, but the bump that Hillary had post-convention has been trending down for the past several weeks even in polls of polls.
I think the debates can make a difference, but I think Hillary needs to find a message that resonates better with people still uneasy about both candidates. I’m not sure the message that Trump will be better utter disaster is working with them.
I’m just trying to understand how this won’t be a blowout election. I expected the polls to tighten but kind of surprised that it’s been this much particularly in some of the swing states.
Matt McIrvin
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I like The Clash but I would not expect someone with The Clash’s politics to be big on Democrats either.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
Congratulations, you made my cats all bolt from the room because I laughed so hard.
Howard Beale IV
Did anyone notice that Trump’s BMI makes him obese?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Nah. He loved to talk about how wrong they were about everything, but liked the music. What happened is that he got a rare form of skull cancer, that hardly anyone survives, and the various surgeries left him disabled and unemployable, and now he lives in destitution on his parents’ farm in northern Minnesota. That experience completely changed his politics. He was always a socially liberal Republican, and the rest of his views followed.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Howard Beale IV: My BMI makes me obese, and, while I’m definitely overweight, I’m not obese. BMI is just a terrible way to judge someone’s weight.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@bluehill: I’m thinking it’s the switch from RV to LV.
Jeffro
@Howard Beale IV:
No offense, but…isn’t that just another shiny distraction from the fact that he’s a moron and a psycho? Who cares if he’s heavy? He crows about our “beautiful destroyers” and how the Iranians “shouldn’t be allowed to make gestures” at our ships & sailors. That’s what he wants to go to war over, already…
Bobby Thomson
@Matt McIrvin: but only because they were for the Labour Party instead.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: In a binary system?
chopper
@Jeffro:
I do think it’s worth noting given that he keeps going after hilz’s health and waving around a doctor’s ‘note’ that says he has the physique of a demigod.
Peale
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yep. As Kay reported from the trenches in Ohio, the voter contact people reported that the support for her is there but that it is soft. So the screener questions for the LV are probably also going to be weeding out more soft voters as not-likely voters. Not certain how to turn that around. Since there’s quite a few people who are very much stuck right now.
bluehill
Some people were talking about the Keepin It 1600 podcast the other day and I’ll add my vote for it. It’s led by Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer, former Obama staffers. They had on Obama’s swing state director last week and he was pretty confident that Hillary was going to win because of the advantage that the dems have in GOTV and their ability to identify and target likely voters. He believes that it would have taken the repubs a couple of cycles to catch up and now with Trump’s disinterest in GOTV the advantage could be even longer. So it’s probably fair to say that the dems data is more accurate than the polls that are being conducted. If they seem relatively calm, then I’ll have to trust that it’s because of the data they are seeing.
Ruckus
A doc I had today asked me how I’m doing and I told him much better now that you got me out of the waiting room having to listen to Crappy News Network. W. Blitzer is an idiot and he works for idiots. But you all knew that. Had on 2 separate reporters to get to the bottom of a couple of issues. Of course they just skimmed the top but the reporters did OK, Blitzer tried to make it sound like everything was OK with Trump and wrong with Clinton, but the reporters pulled him up short. Not very well but better than nothing.
I can not began to express how much better off I am not having a TV.
shomi
@PaulWartenberg2016: Oh just STFU you pantswetter. That is going to be my standard response to comments like this. If you are wondering “What the hell is happening” then step the fuck away from your fucking computer.
The world is not getting worse, Things are not getting worse. It’s just that the ability to report what is going on is a lot better. You are just not capable of understanding the modern world. Information is instant. If someone gets shot in Iran protesting, you are seeing a video of it from someones cell phone seconds later.
Stop sitting on your ass in front of a computer in the comfort of your own home reading every little fucking thing that happens in the world and thinking things are going to hell….lol.
Omnes Omnibus
@shomi: go fuck a goat.
shomi
@amk: Ah yes, the Ball Juice presidential campaign advisor experts who think they know better than actual presidential campaign advisors. You apparently have it all figured out.
Omnes Omnibus
@shomi: The goats do require your attention. Get to it.
shomi
@efgoldman: Yea but…Al Gore…therefore we are going to lose.
I know because that is the logic I read right here on Ball Juice. I am so well infromed and I have ball juice commenters to thank.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
What do you have against goats? What did they ever do to you? Clowns I get but goats?
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: I don’t like the cheese. I really don’t.
shortribs
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
That’s why he released it, it’s a distraction and people will say he’s obese and they’ll quibble that he’s not obese but overweight and instead of spending 5 minutes asking about his health care policies they’ll talk about his BMI and weight and words that all basically say “BMI and weight”.
No One You Know
Anyone who imagines that “lol” is punctuation, humour, or sarcasm, has failed all three. However, this can be anticipated from the content preceding said failure.
It does validate Emerson’s observation about the relationship between consistency and breadth of mind, so there’s that.