The Politics of Personal Destruction. Again.

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Politico is reporting “an avalanche of revelations and allegations about Trump’s behavior toward women.” Just coming out now? Astonishing timing. With less than a month before the election.

We’ve seen this before. Remember Herman Cain’s accusers? (Here’s one of the reports.) As soon as Cain dropped out of the 2011-12 primary race, we heard nothing more. No cases went forward. The women dropped out of sight.  

And like clockwork, attorney Gloria Allred (who represented women accusing Cain) has stepped forward to help the alleged victims take legal action against Trump.

Trump’s speech today in West Palm Beach takes on this latest attack – head on. You can read the transcript here. Or you can watch the speech live streamed here (his speech at the rally starts at 1:21:38.

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Hillary’s Foundation and campaign: follow the money

 YouTube video

You may run hot and cold on Sean Hannity, but when Dr. Sebastian Gorka is a guest, I take the TV off mute and turn up the volume. Dr. Gorka is a national security professional, and his interview with Hannity is just under 3 minutes. They are discussing Hillary’s hypocrisy concerning women’s rights, her (and the Clinton Foundations's) funding from countries hostile to American values, and the recent email evidence that proves that such accusations are true. Take a look.

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Electing judges

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Election Day approaches, and most of the attention has been going to the Presidential race. But in Cuyahoga County, voters will also be choosing judges for the state Supreme Court, Common Pleas, etc. I am usually not up to speed on many of the candidates, and unless you follow court decisions closely, you might be interested in one online resource that collects ratings for judicial candidates. The Judge4Yourself site is here. I google check a few names, print the page out and take it with me to the polling place. 

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Voter registration deadline

If you have not registered to vote, you have one day left to do so.

Ohio Voter Registration

The deadline is tomorrow, Oct. 11

  

You can access a registration form here.

You will be registering to vote in the General Election on November 8, 2016

Registration Deadline:  October 11, 2016

Mail the form or bring it in person to your local County Board of Elections office. 

Board of Election addresses are here.

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Legitimacy in government: Spengler’s take on Debate #2

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Some polls show Trump the winner, others Hillary. Similarly, the pundits are mostly declaring their preferred candidate the winner. David P. Goldman (a/k/a/ “Spengler”) published his take on PJ Media and here are a few short extracts:

The referee should have stopped it in the tenth. Punching at will, Donald Trump said, "Hillary used the power of her office to make $250 million. Why not put some money in? You made a lot of it while you were secretary of State? Why aren't you putting money into your own campaign? Just curious."  Reeling and against the ropes, Clinton gasped that she supported . . . the Second Amendment. It was a brilliant rhetorical device: under the rubric of campaign financing, Trump slipped in an allegation that Clinton corruptly enriched herself by using the power of her office for personal gain--and Clinton didn't even respond. That's a win by a knockout.

That's the decisive issue of the campaign: the corrupt machinations of a ruling elite that considers itself above the law, and the rage of the American people against the oligarchical ruling class that has pulled the ladder up behind it. Trump's bombshell below Clinton's waterline came at the end of the debate, well prepared by jabs at Clinton's erased emails and Bill's rapes. Trump used the "J" word--that is, jail. That was perhaps the evening's most important moment. This is not an election fought over competing policies but a struggle for legitimacy. A very large portion of the electorate (how large a portion we will discover next month) believes that its government is no longer legitimate, and that it has become the instrument of an entrenched rent-seeking oligarchy.

. . .

The Republican voters chose a reckless, independently wealthy, vulgar, rough-edged outsider precisely because they believe that the system is corrupt. 

Read the rest here. If you missed the debate (or could not bear to watch), you can see the whole thing here. 

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Trump and voter values

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The dinosaur media is having collective apoplexy over the recently released locker room remarks that Donald J. Trump made over 10 years ago, as a private citizen, in what he assumed was a private conversation. The faux outrage expressed by the media and the political elites in the Uniparty is laughable. Most of us have heard far worse, and if we don't like what we hear, we voice an objection, ignore it, or walk away. 

And if I had to guess, since Miss Universe’s (Miss Piggy) complaints-for-hire about Trump were broadcast all over the place, and now we get the locker room remarks, well, there will probably be some more October surprises. And we can watch as more RINOs reach for their smelling salts while withdrawing their Trump endorsements. Looking at you Rob Portman.

But those in the Trump basket of Les Deplorables, vulgar as they are, don’t seem to need their smelling salts. Many reader comments posted to various websites reflect different values: voters prefer crude over corrupt. They may not like locker room sexual braggadocio, but they’ll take that over a candidate whose career is a litany of brazenly criminal actions. Trump’s words didn’t break any laws, get anybody killed, jeopardize American security, or destabilize the Middle East.

When Ted Cruz imploded at the RNC, mega-donors Robert and Rebekah Mercer withdrew their support for his campaign and transferred it to Donald J. Trump. Yesterday, following the media hysteria over Trump’s crude remarks, the Mercers reaffirmed their support for Trump. ICYMI, here is their statement (via The Washington Post):

“If Mr. Trump had told Billy Bush, whoever that is, earlier this year that he was for open borders, open trade, and executive actions in pursuit of gun control, we would certainly be rethinking our support for him. If he had admitted to Mr. Bush that he had profited privately by allowing the sale to Russia of 20% of US uranium deposits or that he had amassed his personal fortune not by hard work in the private sector but by selling favors to foreigners on the American taxpayers' dime, we would certainly be rethinking our support for him. If he had argued that he needed both a public and a private position on issues facing the American public, we would certainly be rethinking our support for him. And finally if Trump had serially terrorized and silenced the victims of violent sexual assault whom he feared could damage his political career, we would most definitely be rethinking our support for him.

“Donald Trump's uncensored comments, both old and new, have been echoed and dissected in the media repeatedly in an effort to kindle among his supporters a conflagration of outrage commensurate with the media's own faux outrage. Can anyone really be surprised that Mr. Trump could have said to Mr. Bush such things as he has already admitted saying? No. We are completely indifferent to Mr. Trump's locker room braggadocio.

“The same media that resolutely looked away when the most powerful man in the world, a sitting U.S. president with multiple violent sexual assaults to his credit, snared an impressionable young intern in his web and ruined her life, now expects us to gasp with revulsion at Mr. Trump's irreverent comments. America is finally fed up and disgusted with its political elite. Trump is channeling this disgust and those among the political elite who quake before the boombox of media blather do not appreciate the apocalyptic choice that America faces on November 8th. We have a country to save and there is only one person who can save it. We, and Americans across the country and around the world, stand steadfastly behind Donald J. Trump.”

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Part 2 on the shocking Trump Tape Scandal

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Shocking. It’s headline news everywhere. The  NY Daily Mail leads off with

Surprise, surprise: Donald Trump has exposed himself one more time — 
as a crude, sexist pig.

First, consider the source of the tape: a nephew of George H.W.Bush. We know the Bushes are voting for Hillary.

This banner headline scandal is as much about media malpractice and dirty Uniparty politics as it is about Trump’s shocking conduct. From over 10 years ago.

And look at the timing. Anything to distract from non-shocking news…
Here come the Wikileaks on Hillary’s Wall Street speeches, a/k/a pay-to-play access.

And the ongoing e-mail security breaches that compromise America’s national security.

And the latest revelation that President Obama exchanged emails with Hillary during her tenure at State, on her unsecured server.

And the ongoing lies to cover up her role in the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, include lying to the bereaved families present at the Air Force base to receive the flag-draped caskets of the deceased.

And the locking up of an inconsequential film-maker to provide further cover for the lie that the terror attack in Benghazi was a spontaneous reaction to the inconsequential video that nobody saw, rather than the planned terror attack deliberately made on the 2012 9/11 anniversary.

Or the victims of Bill Clinton’s serial sexual predatory behavior, whether in office as AG in Arkansas, right up to his terms as President. These victims continue to come forward with their stories. We know of at least one payoff, the $850,000 to Paula Jones. We know that Bill admitted his affair with Gennifer Flowers. And we also know that Hillary repeatedly attempted to discredit and demean Bill’s victims and to cover up Bill’s predatory behavior.

And she is shocked, shocked I tell you, over locker room talk - of the sexual bragging variety - by a private citizen over ten years ago?

The exposure of Trump’s scandalous conduct invites comparison. What about her own history of filthy and disrespectful language – while in office.  

Or her disparagement of blacks and millennials?

One other thing. With this shocking, shocking, shocking tape, we’re seeing more RINOs reveal themselves. Look, there goes Jason Chaffetz! Look, there goes Senator Mike Crapo. And there goes Senator Kelly Ayotte. (Never expected anything different from Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins.)

Trump is lacing up his boxing gloves and the Clintons can look forward to the worst weeks of their lives.

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