October 11, 2016

If we judge our candidates by how 'big' it is...

then Hillary is humiliating Trump again with the size of HER rally!

18,500-20,000 last night at Ohio State University:

October 9, 2016

Republican pundit Steve Schmidt on 'Meet the Press'

Schmidt was the senior campaign strategist and advisor to the 2008 presidential campaign of Senator John McCain. He knows "unqualified" now, after regretfully giving us Sarah Palin.

http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-october-9-2016-n662746

CHUCK TODD:

Steve, what happens tonight?

STEVE SCHMIDT:

Well, this debate will be like the last debate. You'll see someone who's manifestly unprepared for the duties of the office of President of the United States, who has no idea what he's talking about from a policy perspective, who lacks the requisite dignity required of someone who wishes to be the Head of State of the government of the United States, and someone who lacks the capacity to be the Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military and the world's most potent nuclear arsenal, that's what you'll see tonight.

*****

When we, when we look at this-- When we look at where this race is today, the Presidential race is effectively over.

*****

Hillary Rodham Clinton will be the 45th President of the United States. Chuck Schumer will be the Majority Leader of the United States Senate.

CHUCK TODD:

You're that confident?

STEVE SCHMIDT:

And the only question that's still up in the air is how close the Democrats will come to retaking the House Majority. What this exposes, though, is much deeper and it goes to the Republican Party as an institution. This, this candidacy, the magnitude of its disgrace to the country is almost impossible, I think, to articulate. But it has exposed the intellectual rot in the Republican Party. It has exposed at a massive level the hypocrisy, the modern day money changers in the temple like Jerry Falwell Jr. And so, this party, to go forward and to represent a conservative vision for America, has great soul searching to do. And what we've seen and the danger for all of these candidates is over the course of the last year, these, these candidates who have repeatedly put their party ahead of their country, denying what is so obviously clear to anybody who's watching about his complete and total manifest unfitness for this office.

October 8, 2016

A Donald Trump presidency would bring shame on this country

At long last, have we no decency?

Source: Vox, by Ezra Klein

This isn’t about fitness for the presidency. This is about basic human decency.

*****

But the question isn’t whether Trump has any decency. We’ve known for some time that he doesn’t. The question is whether we have any decency — whether we will elect this man, or even come close to electing this man, knowing all we know about him.

Here is the compliment I can pay Donald Trump, and I pay it with real gratitude: He never hid who he was. Perhaps he lacked the self-control, or the self-awareness, but whatever the mechanism, he never obscured his cruelty, or his misogyny, or his greed, or his dishonesty. He is not a clever demagogue but a crude one.

*****

He has done all this in public, and he has done all of it repeatedly, almost gleefully. If we elect him, there will be no excusing our actions to future generations, no pleading ignorance in the face of threat. It was all here. It was all obvious. It will all be visible to our children, and to historians.

Trump told us who he was, showed us who he was, again and again. The test here is not of his decency, but of our own.

Read it at: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/7/13206528/donald-trump-leaked-assault-audio

October 6, 2016

Washington’s ‘governing elite’ think Americans are morons

It's finally confirmed! I'm a member of the 'elites'!

Source: Washington Post Wonkblog, by Jeff Guo

*****
Since this wasn’t a random sample, and the authors don't tell us precisely what kinds of workers in what proportion were asked to participate, we have to take their word that this is a representative group of D.C. insiders.

Nevertheless, the results they present are eye-popping. On a wide range of issues, bureaucrats believe that Americans are ignorant. For instance, over half of them say that the public knows little to nothing about government crime programs, child care programs or environmental programs.



*****

A lot of this elitism is probably justifiable. When only 36 percent of adults can name the three branches of government, you wouldn’t want to hand over control of FDA to, say, your next-door neighbor. In the sample of bureaucrats that Bachner and Ginsberg looked at, the majority had master’s degrees or more. It should be a comfort knowing that there exists a specialized class of people who have dedicated their lives to understanding the intricacies of, say, tax credits for the poor or the diplomatic intrigues of the Caucasus.

*****

Fair enough. But respect, as the saying goes, is a two-way street, and Americans have a long and ignoble tradition of denigrating expertise. Today, nearly 40 percent of adults think there isn’t evidence for global warming. Skeptical parents won't vaccinate their children, endangering their communities with breakouts of preventable diseases like measles. So maybe we can make a deal. If we want experts to listen to our opinions, we might also do them the courtesy of sometimes listening to their opinions, too.

Much more at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/05/washingtons-governing-elite-actually-think-americans-are-morons/