Clinton-Trump II: bloodletting doesn’t occur

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What just happened in St. Louis?

The pre-debate analysis predicted a disaster. The pundits said Donald J. Trump was going to steer the debate into the gutter in response to that hideous video recording in which he bragged about being able to commit sexual assault on women.

That discussion occurred only briefly.

Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton seemed a bit on edge tonight.

Two big takeaways …

First, Trump, the Republican nominee for president, disagrees with his running mate Mike Pence that the United States needs to punish Russia for its continued bombing of rebels seeking to topple the Syrian government of Bashar al Assad.

Second, Trump vowed to put Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in jail over the e-mail controversy if he gets elected president. I do not believe that’s ever been stated quite like that in a debate between two major-party nominees for the presidency.

OK, maybe a third takeaway.

The sex-related rhetorical bloodbath that all those pundits said would occur … didn’t happen.

Rigged debate schedule, eh?

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Do you remember when the presidential debate commission scheduled the joint appearances with Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald J. Trump?

Trump, the Republican nominee, bitched about the effort to keep viewership down. The commission put the debates at the same time as professional football games, which also were being televised. It became part of Trump’s mantra that the election would be “rigged.”

The audience for the first debate topped 80 million viewers, making it one of the most-watched TV events in history.

The audience for the next one, which is about to occur, well might exceed the first event.

How come? Donald Trump’s videotaped remarks about having sex with a married woman, how he wanted to grab one by her private parts and how his “star” status enabled him to have his way with women.

The reaction has been ferocious — from Republicans!

Yes indeed,, the audience for tonight will — to borrow a phrase — be h–u-u-u-g-e!

 

Trump prepares to go low … very low

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Donald J. Trump has just introduced four women to the press corps covering the upcoming debate with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The women all purport to have been victimized by Bill Clinton, the former president and the husband of the Democratic presidential nominee.

That’s his answer to the videotape released this past week showing him talking in quite vulgar terms about sexual assault on women? This is how he’s going to respond? This is the Republican nominee’s answer to questions about his own character, his moral fiber, his fitness for the job he seeks?

This stunt very well could explode in Trump’s face.

Someone help me out here. Is Bill Clinton running for president yet again?

Another hero passes from the scene

arizona

Raymond Haerry has died at the age of 94.

I want to take a few moments to concentrate on someone other than Donald J. Trump and those vulgar remarks about women.

Raymond Haerry served on a battleship during World War II. It was the USS Arizona. Haerry was on board the old ship when Japanese fighter pilots roared in over Honolulu harbor and started bombing the U.S. Navy ships anchored at Pearl Harbor.

Haerry was one of the last survivors of that attack. With his passing, only five men remain. The hero’s son, Raymond Jr., plans take his father’s ashes to the Battleship Arizona Memorial in Honolulu to inter them next to his shipmates.

Haerry’s death is worth noting for a lot of reasons. I’ll cite just a couple of them.

Raymond Jr. said his dad was aboard the ship when the attack commenced. He tried to man a deck gun to fire at the enemy, but the ammo was locked up. As he tried to secure some ammunition, a bomb exploded on the ship. He jumped into the water and swam through flames to the shore, where he was able to return fire at the marauding aircraft.

He represents what’s come to be known as The Greatest Generation, a term made famous by a book of that name written by the legendary broadcast journalist Tom Brokaw.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/one-of-last-uss-arizona-survivors-of-pearl-harbor-attack-dies/ar-BBx8MOq

All told during the nearly four years the United States fought in World War II, we sent 16 million men and women into the fight. They are dying rapidly these days. Only a fraction of those Americans remain among us.

My wife and I — God willing — are likely to outlive the last American veteran of that great conflict.

We’ve had the pleasure of seeing the Arizona memorial. We went there in September 2010 and could see the outline of the ship just below the surface of the water. One’s heart breaks at the sight of the ship — and of knowing that many of the more than 1,100 crew members’ remains are entombed there.

I want to honor Raymond Haerry’s service to our great country. His heroism cannot be denied, just as so many Americans’ served heroically during a dark time in our nation’s history.

They, indeed, comprised our Greatest Generation.

Can this man ‘speak from the heart’?

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Donald J. Trump’s allies say his task at tonight’s debate with Hillary Rodham Clinton can be defined cleanly and crisply.

He has to “speak from the heart” that he is truly sorry for the ghastly remarks he made 11 years ago about women.

The recording, released this past week by the Washington Post, has put Trump in a lot of political trouble. It has given Clinton an enormous amount of ammo she can throw at him.

Trump’s pals say he must deliver the apology of his life.

My questions? Is this individual wired sufficiently to convey such sincere contrition — and will it expunge the record of the terrible things he has said?

They call it ‘trickery’ at City Hall … seriously?

tx amar city hall

My wife and I got a surprise this morning on our walk through the neighborhood.

We saw a house around corner from ours with a lawn sign that urges city residents to oppose all seven of the municipal propositions on the Nov. 8 ballot.

The message is sponsored by a group called saveamarillo.org.

So, when we got home, I looked up the website and found some limited “information” about why this group — which doesn’t have any individuals listed — opposes the propositions.

Here’s what I found under the tab “The Problems with Propositions 1-7”: “The problems with the propositions that Amarillo will be voting on are very simple to see.

“These propositions are loaded with pork. When we say pork, we mean wasteful spending by government officials. Look through the items listed on amarillo.gov and you will see plenty of items that are not well defined, or not needed. We are for buying must haves, but all of the must haves listed in these propositions could easily be taken care of by the City Council. Instead, Amarillo will not be voting only on wants, or only on must haves, but rather Amarillo will be voting on a combo package of the City’s wants and a couple of must haves. This is trickery by the career politicians. And it is yet another reason to vote against on November 8.”

That’s it, folks.

For starters, I’d like to know who the “we” are in this effort to derail the city’s $340 million spending package that covers a multitude of issues, ranging from parks and ballfields, police and fire protection, street repair and Civic Center renovation and expansion.

I also would like for them to identify the “pork” alleged to be contained in the measures.

How about telling us how the City Council could have “taken care of” the items listed in the propositions? Are these folks — whoever they are — suggesting the council could just spend the money without asking voters for their approval?

As for City Hall asking voters to decide the fate of a “combo package,” the city instead has broken out the propositions into stand-alone segments. Voters can approve all, some or none of them.

I intend to support them all.

This group also accuses the city of not defining the projects sufficiently. It’s fair to ask, though, whether saveamarillo.org has defined its objections … at all!

Check out the website here:

http://saveamarillo.org/

They call it “trickery.” I sense a good bit of the same in the vagueness of this anti-proposition effort.

Early voting bites ’em in the rear

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This is going to so very Trumpian, so please forgive me.

I called it, man! I’ve been saying for years that early voting carries tremendous risk, that the candidate who gets one’s vote before Election Day could mess up royally and make the voter regret the ballot he or she has just cast.

Donald Trump, anyone?

Several states have begun allowing residents to vote early for president. Many thousands of Americans have done so. Many of those who have cast their ballots early did so for Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president of the United States.

Texans will commence early voting on Oct. 24.

Perhaps those who’ve voted early walked away from the polling booth feeling pretty darn good about the vote they cast.

D’oh! And then something happened! The Washington Post uncovered an 11-year-old video and audio recording of Trump saying some ghastly things about women.

You know what has happened in the 48 hours since then. The Republican Party is in full crisis mode. GOP members of Congress have pulled their endorsement of Trump back; many of them have called on him to quit the race; House Speaker Paul Ryan disinvited Trump to a political rally in Wisconsin; and in the Mother of All Political Insults, Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, cancelled an appearance with Trump.

Has there been a clearer demonstration than this — at the presidential election level — of what can happen to someone’s vote?

I posted this blog item four years ago.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2012/10/down-with-early-voting/

I am disgusted by what we’ve learned about the Republican presidential nominee.

However, the revelations that have come out about the candidate’s behavior fill me with a sense of validation.

Early voting? No thanks. When your candidate messes up, you can’t take it back.

Calls for Trump to quit race are mounting, but …

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The Deseret News of Salt Lake City has joined a growing chorus around the country in demanding that Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, quit his campaign.

The editorial is attached here:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865664336/In-our-opinion-Donald-Trump-should-resign-his-candidacy.html

He probably won’t quit, although I hate to predict anything at this point of a growing scandal that only promises to get worse.

My own sense is that Trump is thinking about it, considering at some level to call it quits, to hand this presidential nomination over to VP nominee Mike Pence.

He has vowed to go the distance.

Frankly, I want him to stay in the race. It’s not that I want this man to redeem himself. I believe that politically speaking he is beyond redemption.

Republican Party primary voters very well could have known this kind of news would splatter itself all over the campaign. Yet they punched their ticket next to a man who “tells it like it is,” who eschews “political correctness,” who has promised to “build a wall” to keep out the Mexican “rapists, drug dealers and killers” and who has pledged to ban all Muslims from entering the United States of America.

Oh, the personal stuff? The three marriages and his boasts about all his sexual conquests, the language he uses to describe women? Pfftt! Doesn’t matter, man.

Trump “isn’t a politician,” the mantra goes. Well, actually he became a politician the moment he rode down the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his campaign for the presidency.

The media are largely complicit, too, in allowing this man to get to this point. They didn’t call him out immediately for the lies he told about seeing “thousands of Muslims cheering” the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11, or for the phony excuses he gives for refusing to release his income tax returns.

The Deseret News has taken a bold step in calling for Trump to quit the race. I get that it dislikes Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, too, and cannot endorse her candidacy.

There will be more of this kind of demand in the days to come before the election.

Let us not kid ourselves, though. The Republican Party’s primary voters have made their choice. It’s Donald J. Trump. They now must swallow what he fed them on his march to their party’s presidential nomination.

You guessed it: There’s more from Trump’s filthy mouth

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There well might be no end to what we’re going to hear from Donald J. Trump’s filthy mouth.

The Washington Post is now reporting that it has uncovered more recordings of the Republican presidential nominee talking with that scholarly soul and renowned social critic, shock jock Howard Stern, about his sex life.

Some of it post-dates the now-infamous hot-mic recording of Trump and “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush talking about Trump’s attempt to seduce a married woman … and a whole lot of other disgusting stuff.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/more-trump-tapes-surface-with-crude-sex-remarks/ar-BBxbcus?li=BBnb7Kz

But now we’re getting an intimate look at the character — and I use the term guardedly — of the man who wants to become president of the United States of America.

Threesomes? Sex with women while they’re menstruating? Profane references to his daughter Ivanka’s physical attributes? We’ve got some of that, too.

Is it any wonder at all that members of Trump’s own party are deserting him in droves?

I still intend to watch Trump’s Sunday night televised joint appearance with Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton. My concern, though, is whether I’ll have the stomach to listen to all of it, given where I am pretty sure the questioning will go.

What might happen next with Donald J. Trump?

A woman holds signs depicting the head of Republican presidential candidate businessman Donald Trump as she waits to enter the auditorium to hear him speak, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2015, at Pinkerton Academy in Derry, N.H.  (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

Let’s roll out a few notions about what could happen to Donald J. Trump’s crumbling presidential candidacy.

Here’s what we know:

* Trump was caught on tape saying some unbelievable, hideous and profane things about women. We’ve all heard the tape.

* Many Republicans in both houses of Congress are calling for Trump to step down, to quit as their party’s presidential nominee. I’m waiting, however, for my own congressman — Republican Mac Thornberry — to issue a statement of any kind regarding his party nominee’s conduct.

* House Speaker Paul Ryan was going to appear with Trump at a campaign rally in Wisconsin, then he disinvited the nominee.

* Trump has issued a Twitter statement that vows he “never” will quit the race, that he will not let his supporters down.

* Polling after the first “debate” with Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton has shown Trump slipping dramatically; the revelation revealed in this horrific audio recording are sure to accelerate the polling free fall.

I refer occasionally to my trick knee. It’s acting up this afternoon just a bit and it’s telling me something I thought I’d never hear.

It’s telling me that the probability of a Trump withdrawal is increasing. How do I know this? I don’t.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pressure-mounts-on-trump-to-step-aside/ar-BBxaPaB?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

The pressure is building from within the Republican Party. Key Democrats don’t want Trump to pull out; they see him as their ticket not only to retaining the White House, but getting control of the Senate and possibly making serious inroads in trimming the GOP majority in the House of Reps.

That’s what is driving the Republican big wigs to persuade Trump to pull out.

He’s not going to be elected president. Indeed, he well now could lose the race in a huge fashion on Nov. 8. The bigger the margin of victory for Clinton, the greater chances of a Senate flip back to Democratic control.

Am I predicting a Trump withdrawal? No. I’m out of the predicting game, remember?

But if this guy has any sense — at all — of the disaster that awaits him and the party he only recently adopted as his own, then he ought to rethink that pledge to “never drop out” of the campaign.

In fact, when a politician is forced to say he’ll never do something, then we know he’s at least thinking about it.

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