Octopus Overlords

Holman wrote:I fear that even that account and the details involved are tl;dr for most Americans, but it's definitely disturbing.

It's really starting to seem like Trump's gullibility and ignorance and arrogance are as a grave a threat to us as anything we've faced since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Defiant wrote:

Chaz wrote:Dammit, I was about to post that. If he's been holding himself back so far, this should be an amusing/terrifying month.

Smoove_B wrote:The shackles of reality?

Holman wrote:I'd love to watch the GOP civil war with a big tub of popcorn, but I'm genuinely worried about what this means for democracy.

Skinypupy wrote:

Defiant wrote:

Trump literally lives in his own reality, and his supporters simply eat it up. It's completely insane to watch.

hepcat wrote:Sooooo....about Trumputin's Evangelical support?

It's starting to weaken.

The Democratic nominee has pursued unaccountable power through secrecy—most evidently in the form of an email server designed to shield her communications while in public service, but also in lavishly compensated speeches, whose transcripts she refuses to release, to some of the most powerful representatives of the world system. She exemplifies the path to power preferred by the global technocratic elite—rooted in a rigorous control of one’s image and calculated disregard for norms that restrain less powerful actors. Such concentration of power, which is meant to shield the powerful from the vulnerability of accountability, actually creates far greater vulnerabilities, putting both the leader and the community in greater danger.

Kurth wrote:

The Democratic nominee has pursued unaccountable power through secrecy—most evidently in the form of an email server designed to shield her communications while in public service

tgb wrote:The nation survived the loss of the Whigs.

malchior wrote:

Holman wrote:I fear that even that account and the details involved are tl;dr for most Americans, but it's definitely disturbing.

Yup. It'd be great if we could sound bite this.

Within hours of the video’s release on Friday, a number of top Republican officials in the state yanked their endorsements, including Gov. Gary Herbert, a Mormon, who declared Mr. Trump’s statements “beyond offensive and despicable.” Representative Jason Chaffetz, who is also Mormon, said that if he voted for Mr. Trump he would no longer be able to look his 15-year-old daughter in the eye.

On Saturday, the Deseret News, a media outlet owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, broke with an 80-year tradition of refraining from presidential endorsements to publish an editorial calling on Mr. Trump to step aside.
...
Still, the scale of the rebellion by Utah Republicans against their party’s presidential candidate is practically unheard-of, said Chris Karpowitz, a director of Brigham Young University’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. Almost the entire congressional delegation has vowed not to vote for Mr. Trump in November.

“The Republican establishment in the state of Utah is in all-out revolt against the Trump candidacy,” Mr. Karpowitz said. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen that before.”
...
At the headquarters of the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, the initial impulse was to cover the video, which was first published by the Washington Post, as straight breaking news. Editors huddled late into the night, wresting over how to portray Mr. Trump’s tawdry descriptions of unsolicited sexual groping in the three-minute recording, while upholding the outlet’s conservative editorial standards, said Paul Edwards, the editor and publisher of the 166-year-old publication.

“We tried to keep it to the issue,” Mr. Edwards said, but as the night wore on, “it got to where we felt we that we had to take a stand.”

“We did not see this as a political issue,” he said. “We really saw it as a moral issue.”

The outrage among Utah conservatives over the recording has allowed Democrats to begin to contemplate what was once unthinkable: taking the state for Mrs. Clinton in November. The hope is that disaffected Republicans will abandon Mr. Trump and split their votes between two third-party candidates: Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party and Evan McMullin, a former C.I.A. official who is a Mormon.

Mrs. Clinton has opened a campaign office in Utah, something that no Democratic candidate has done in decades, said Peter Corroon, the state’s Democratic Party chairman.
...
By Saturday, few of the state’s political leaders appeared ready to immediately throw their support behind an alternative. Most, like Senator Mike Lee, seemed more focused on getting Mr. Trump to go away.

In a video recorded at Mr. Lee’s home and posted on Facebook, the senator addressed the Republican candidate directly: “With all due respect sir, you sir are the distraction,” he said. “Your conduct, sir, is the distraction, is the distraction from the very principles that will help us win in November.”

“I respectfully ask you, with all due respect, to step aside, step down.”

Alefroth wrote:

malchior wrote:

Holman wrote:I fear that even that account and the details involved are tl;dr for most Americans, but it's definitely disturbing.

Yup. It'd be great if we could sound bite this.

This is about as concise as I've seen- http://www.pajiba.com/politics/proof-th ... ganda-.php

malchior wrote:

Alefroth wrote:

malchior wrote:

Holman wrote:I fear that even that account and the details involved are tl;dr for most Americans, but it's definitely disturbing.

Yup. It'd be great if we could sound bite this.

This is about as concise as I've seen- http://www.pajiba.com/politics/proof-th ... ganda-.php

Could you imagine if even a whiff of something similar happened with Clinton - the fallout would reach Russia from here.

malchior wrote:

Alefroth wrote:

malchior wrote:

Holman wrote:I fear that even that account and the details involved are tl;dr for most Americans, but it's definitely disturbing.

Yup. It'd be great if we could sound bite this.

This is about as concise as I've seen- http://www.pajiba.com/politics/proof-th ... ganda-.php

Could you imagine if even a whiff of something similar happened with Clinton - the fallout would reach Russia from here.

Trump's behavior also extended to his original female advisor on the show, Trump executive Carolyn Kepcher, formerly the executive vp and chief operating officer for Trump's golf properties. "He was always more dismissive of Carolyn," says the source close to the show, adding that the attitude extended to female crew members. "We would not necessarily send the girl camera crews to do the close-up stuff just because it was always weird. I know one of our camera operators would get uncomfortable. I found out from her after the fact that he was saying things to her."

A camera-person on the show classifies Trump's interactions with a blonde female camera operator as "borderline sexual misconduct."

“It was more a creepy feeling you felt when he was around on set," the camera operator continues. "The way he looked at you or would be dismissive to all the female producers and only deal with Mark Burnett — he was just an overall asshole who thought of himself as very important."
...
Evans recalls Trump would fixate on women's looks during the filming of The Apprentice's signature boardroom scenes. "If you were in the middle of the discussion or talking about the merits of why you won or lost, sometimes you would be interrupted with a compliment or something that had to do with your physical attributes," she says. "That happened pretty much every single time you're in the boardroom."

A former NBC staffer recalls Trump making specific requests for certain eliminated contestants to visit him in his office after they were "fired" from the show. “One of the stops along way was always Trump Tower and he would always make sure that if it was a pretty girl, we had to bring her by,” the staffer says.
...
As season one contestant Kristi Frank recalls, producers and casting directors pushed a particular dress code for the female contestants.

"They happened to pick the shortest skirt I had for the opening when I could meet Mr. Trump," Frank says. "They wanted us to be sexy."
...
The stories told to THR echo those of contestants and crewmembers who spoke to the Associated Press last week about Trump's lewd behavior and crass language both on set and behind the scenes. That behavior also was reflected in a transcript from a 2010 episode of Celebrity Apprentice published by The Huffington Post on Monday in which Trump heavily criticized the appearance of a female musician, Emily West, involved in the competition and described himself as a "skin guy."
...
NeNe Leakes, who served as a judge for Miss USA 2013, says higher-ups at the pageant attempted to influence the voting process in meetings that occurred prior to the pageant. "You pretty much knew who was going to win," she tells THR. "You're just kind of told in a way that this person's going to win. We don’t have any control. I don't know who the girl next to me voted for, I just know that these are the top picks we need to be looking at, don't worry about nobody else, just worry about these two people right here."

Fitzy wrote:

tgb wrote:The nation survived the loss of the Whigs.

There was the little matter of the Civil War when the Republicans rose in their place...

Alefroth wrote:

malchior wrote:

Alefroth wrote:

malchior wrote:

Holman wrote:I fear that even that account and the details involved are tl;dr for most Americans, but it's definitely disturbing.

Yup. It'd be great if we could sound bite this.

This is about as concise as I've seen- http://www.pajiba.com/politics/proof-th ... ganda-.php

Could you imagine if even a whiff of something similar happened with Clinton - the fallout would reach Russia from here.

I'm anxious to see what, if any, explanation the Trump campaign gives.

Defiant wrote:

tgb wrote:The nation survived the loss of the Whigs. It will survive the loss of the Republican party as well. Besides, I was under the impression that the fringe/loony right had already pretty much split off and was calling itself the Tea Baggers Party.

Isgrimnur wrote:

Where are my marshmallows?

Carpet_pissr wrote:

“His (Bill Clinton's) victims are terrible. He is, he is really a victim himself,” “The whole group, Paula Jones, Lewinsky — it’s just a really unattractive group. I’m not just talking about physical.”