Friday, October 21, 2016

Not Worried Trump Might Not Concede

I am absolutely not worried.

If you lose more than 45 states, and the Senate, and the House, and 30 state legislatures and then turn around and say, "I dunno," why will I not be worried!

This guy is facing a tsunami. That blue you see Donald is not the sky, it's the ocean coming at you.

No TV network will be asking for your opinion on November 9. Your defeat will be so total.

Why Hillary Is Winning And Winning Big

The gender pressure has been building. Every time America has not elected a woman president that has added to the pressure. After 44 men that is a lot of pressure. That is why this is going to be a gigantic volcanic eruption. Women are being strategic about coming out only in the final few weeks.

She is a cat with two lives. She gave one life to making Bill Clinton president, with another life she is making herself president. What every top caliber politician has done one time she has done two times. That is a lot of preparation. Donald Trump is a feather weight boxer who is seeing both Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson in the ring, and it is not just because he is seeing stars. There really are two boxers in the ring, Hillary times two. And I am not talking Bill Clinton. More on that later.

She has the brains. Someone of middle class background who went to top schools on merit and was top student there.

Thomas Edison said genius is 99% perspiration. Discipline and hard work are perhaps Hillary Clinton's defining qualities and that aspiring girls and women would most benefit from emulating. She puts in the hours. No short cuts there. She has all the qualities of a good student.

She has sound political instincts. I believe you could compare her in that department with any contemporary politician anywhere, or any in history. She is as good as they come. And I am not talking policy wonkiness. That is different. Paul Krugman is quite a policy wonk but I would not send him into the boxing ring.

She is a policy wonk, and not every successful politician is. She could have happily worked at some think tank her entire working life.

It does not hurt to be married to Bill Clinton, a world class political talent in his own right.

Getting beat by Barack Obama in 2008 makes her a cat with three lives.

2016. After 5,000 years of men running the show it had to happen in 2016. Being in the right place at the right time, Hillary got lucky.

And God gave her the most unqualified candidate in history to run against. Mother Mary obviously desires gender equality on earth.

The Good News: American Democracy Seems To Be Working

As disgusting as Donald Trump is at every possible level, personal to political, polls show he is about to possibly lose in deeply Republican places like Kentucky and Texas.

This is a sign American democracy is actually working. Talking fascist is still free speech. But getting your ass whooped when you do so is democracy.

Putin's Russia

As our special report this week sets out, Russia confronts grave problems in its economy, politics and society. Its population is ageing and is expected to shrink by 10% by 2050. An attempt to use the windfall from the commodity boom to modernise the state and its economy fell flat. Instead Mr Putin has presided over a huge increase in government: between 2005 and 2015, the share of Russian GDP that comes from public spending and state-controlled firms rose from 35% to 70%. Having grown by 7% a year at the start of Mr Putin’s reign, the economy is now shrinking. Sanctions are partly to blame, but corruption and a fall in the price of oil matter more. The Kremlin decides who gets rich and stays that way. Vladimir Yevtushenkov, a Russian tycoon, was detained for three months in 2014. When he emerged, he had surrendered his oil company.

Kentucky? Never Thought I Would See This Day


The Kentucky poll is a good reminder that Trump’s slide isn’t only occurring in national polls. Donald Trump is in decline in solid Republican territory....... there are serious questions about whether Donald Trump will win deep red states like Arizona, Utah, Kentucky, and Texas. ..... What is unfolding is nothing less than the destruction of the far-right led Republican Party.

Debate 3: Unsurprising Moment

Donald Trump vs. American Democracy

People are acting aghast. How could Donald Trump suggest he might not accept the election results? Such an affront to American democracy.

Really?

The US Senate is refusing to let President Obama make an appointment to the Supreme Court. The US constitution says he is the only person who can.

How is that not like putting the US constitution into the acid tank?

100% obstructionism of a black president because he is black for eight years non stop - - - how is that not an affront to the very idea of democracy?

Improve Obamacare

Barack Obama Offers Blistering Takedown Of GOP Obstructionism In Pitch For Health Care Law 

First is for the 19 states that have refused to take up Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion to do so, in the process covering millions more poor adults. Second is to beef up the subsidies provided to people who get their coverage from the law’s health insurance exchanges. And third is to set up a government-run public option program ― which Obama called a “public plan fallback” ― in geographic areas with the highest prices and least competition.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

If Hillary Can't Confront Donald Trump

If Hillary Clinton can't confront Donald Trump she can't confront the dictators around the world, plain and simple. Trump is a fascist, a sociopath with enormous bad manners.

But we saw in the third debate Hillary absolutely can confront Donald Trump. This was my favorite of the three debates. I saw Hillary go for the kill.

My definition of success is Hillary taking the House. And the way to take the House is to go on the attack. And she did.

You can not shy from the evil and the ugly. You have to take it head on. Hillary did. She took Trump head on.

I also thought she looked great. Of all the colors she wears, and she wears many colors, I think white looks best on her.

Men are much less imaginative in the colors they wear. Red tie? Trump probably wears one in bed. The guy is monotonous.

I think this debate worked much better than the second one because Donald Trump was not allowed to walk around the stage. That is the prescription. Cage Donald Trump and you will have a decent country. Build a wall around the guy.

On issues, I think everyone with a coal job today can be shifted to solar installation jobs and there would be a shortage of workers. And these jobs would be all over the country instead of just near the coal mines.

What has been most confounding to me in this election is on climate change Trump has basically been saying let's turn the entire planet into one big gas chamber. Where is the outrage? Hitler has nothing on this guy. Hitler is a hand grenade to this guy's atom bomb.

This guy wants to jail opponents, silence the press and build gas chambers. Such thoughts used to be limited to extreme fringes. What has become of America? Where is the sanity?

Bill Clinton gave the longest economic expansion on record and record surpluses because of NAFTA. But the mistake that was made was half that surplus should have been ploughed into investing in human capital, namely education and health, to prepare Americans for the next generation of higher paying jobs. That was not done. Don't blame that on NAFTA.

The precise people who voted for the party that absolutely got in the way of a $3 trillion stimulus in 2009 (which was every literate economist's prescription) and thus prevented a quicker recovery are now complaining there was not a quick recovery. And are threatening to vote for the same party all over again.

Trump is a pickpocket who came out of nowhere to capitalize on the situation. Look fire, he is saying, so you look the other way, so he can pick your pocket, give himself and his super rich golf buddies a massive tax cut. And the people whose pockets will get picked are rooting for him in large numbers. Whatever happened to common sense?

This guy might hate Mexicans but he absolutely intends harm on poor white folks.

Trump is a disaster train nobody should have to ride on. America's enemies would wish Trump on America.

Good thing this thing will be over in a few weeks. If this guy is allowed to run for president for just three additional months the stock market would crash. Never before has America been in a situation where some dude could start wars simply by running for president.

Who is this guy? Really.

Trump's recorded sexist talks that have been revealed is what the glass ceiling is, folks. The glass ceiling is sexist bonding around sexist words. That is precisely what it is. What do you think the glass ceiling is? You think it is gorilla glass like on the iPhone? No, the glass ceiling is chimpanzee glass, it is Donald Trump saying sexist things and getting away with it.

In hindsight now Hillary's tanking numbers in August now look like a blessing. And by tanking I mean it was down to a dead heat.

Now she is in double digits and can take 100% of the credit. This is the way it should be. Her rising confidence levels show she is feeling the love.

Democracy works after all. The American democracy is resilient enough to process a fascist and spit him out. American democracy will emerge stronger after all has been said and done.

As they say in soccer, this has been a hattrick. Hillary has won three debates in a row.

Third Debate Video
Stephen

Hillary Clinton, Mocking and Taunting in Debate, Turns the Tormentor

Republicans despondent that Trump threw away final debate - POLITICO

Steve Schmidt, who guided John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, said Trump’s refusal to commit to accepting election results would overshadow any strong moments he had.

“It’s the one and only headline that matters coming out of the debate,” said Schmidt. “It’s absolutely unprecedented for any presidential candidate in the history of the country.”

Trump tweets at 3 a.m. that he won debate - POLITICO

Hillary Clinton’s 3 debate performances left the Trump campaign in ruins - Vox

And it’s not just the presidential race. Betting markets now predict Democrats will win the Senate. Polls have started showing Democrats in striking distance of the House. The GOP has collapsed into a mid-election civil war, with the party’s presidential nominee openly battling the speaker of the House.

Trump’s meltdown wasn’t an accident. The Clinton campaign coolly analyzed his weaknesses and then sprung trap after trap to take advantage of them.

Clinton’s successful execution of this strategy has been, fittingly, the product of traits that she’s often criticized for: her caution, her overpreparation, her blandness. And her particular ability to goad Trump and blunt the effectiveness of his political style has been inextricable from her gender. The result has been a political achievement of awesome dimensions, but one that Clinton gets scarce credit for because it looks like something Trump is doing, rather than something she is doing — which is, of course, the point.

It began in the first debate. "Donald," she kept saying. No one quite knows why Trump so loathes the sound of his first name, but he does. 

Each debate has followed the same pattern. Trump begins calm, but as Clinton needles him, he falls apart, gets angrier, launches bizarre personal attacks, offers rambling justifications for his own behavior, and loses the thread of whatever question was actually asked of him.

 her assault on Trump flummoxed his usual mode of defense, which is to dominate and insult the other men on the stage. By the end of the final debate, Trump was reduce to spitting that Clinton was "such a nasty woman," a line that spoke to both his horror at being challenged by a woman and his complete inability to control what came out of his mouth after 80 minutes on a stage with Clinton.

Trump has been, at every turn, underprepared, undisciplined, and operating completely without a strategy. In one of the third debate’s most unintentionally revealing moments, Trump said, "I sat in my apartment today ... watching ad after false ad, all paid for by your friends on Wall Street," an inadvertent admission that he was inhaling cable news when he should have been prepping for the debate.

Clinton has been, at every turn, prepared, disciplined, and coldly strategic. She triggered Trump’s epic meltdown purposely, and kept Trump off balance over multiple weeks that probably represented his last chance to turn the election around. She was ready for every question, prepared for every attack, and managed to goad Trump into making mistakes that became the main story the day after every single debate.

We aren’t used to this kind of victory. We aren’t used to candidates winning not so much because of how they performed but because of how they pushed their opponent into performing. But the fact that we aren’t used to this kind of victory doesn’t make it any less impressive. Hillary Clinton has humbled Donald Trump, and she did it her way.

With 19 days to go, Clinton’s lead is bigger than ever | Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball

there are some surprising conservative places where he is registering very thin, soft support.

He’s barely ahead in some polls of Alaska, Indiana, Missouri, South Carolina, and Texas 

Seriously, did you ever even for a second think Utah would be a Toss-up in late October? 

The Trump campaign’s Arizona crisis reminds us in some ways of how John McCain’s 2008 campaign ended up losing Indiana. Because McCain was at a resource disadvantage against Obama — just like Trump is now outmanned against Clinton — the 2008 nominee could hardly spare any resources to protect Indiana, a typically red state where Obama vastly out-organized and out-spent him. Obama was able to very narrowly flip the state.

Today’s changes push Clinton to 352 electoral votes, the highest we’ve had her in the whole election cycle

BuzzFeed CEO: I Heard Ivanka Trump Talk About "Mulatto Cocks"

Ivanka Trump distances herself from father’s campaign: ‘I’m not a surrogate, I’m a daughter’

“Perhaps due to her beauty, serene composure, and ability to translate her father’s half-literate ramblings into semi-coherent policy proposals, Ivanka Trump has remained unscathed by her father’s 16-month effort to ruin the family name,” Kirchick wrote this week. “Which is inexplicable, because all that Ivanka’s involvement in this campaign has revealed is that she’s the pretty face of a white nationalist political movement, a truly bizarre place for a University of Pennsylvania-educated, Upper East Side doyenne to wind up.”

War And Peace: Trump Book Report
Crime And Punishment: Trump Book Report
The Old Man And The Sea: Trump Book Report
Bible: Trump Book Report
One Hundred Years Of Solitude: Trump Book Report
My Life by Bill Clinton: Trump Book Report
The Audacity Of Hope by Barack Obama: Trump Book Report
It Takes A Village by Hillary Rodham Clinton: Trump Book Report
Earth In The Balance by Al Gore: Trump Book Report
Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama: Trump Book Report

The Daily Show

Hilarious hashtag on how Trump interprets classic literature

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran: Trump Book Report

Clinton Probably Finished Off Trump Last Night | FiveThirtyEight

प्रियंका चोपड़ा और बिकीनी

क्वान्टिको अभी तक देख नहीं पाया। लेकिन हिट शो है। तभी तो सीजन दो तक आ गई। मेरे पास टीवी नहीं। गरीब आदमी।

हॉलीवुड बिजनेस है। पैसे छापते हैं। प्रियंका चोपड़ा के मार्फत भारत का मार्केट ताक रहे हैं।

अब एक मुवी बना रहे हैं। बेवाच।

सलमान का एक मुवी आया। सुल्तान। पहलवान। मैंने अभी देखा नहीं। लेकिन ट्रेलर देखा है। लन्गोटी पहने  सलमान चक्कर लगा रहे हैं।

अभी तक किसी ने एक कमेंट नहीं मारा। कि देखो। सलमान ने भारतीय पुरूष की तौहीन कर दी। सारी की सारी बॉडी दिखा दी। लन्गोटी मैचिंग कलर का है। लगता है जनाब नंगे घुम रहे हैं। भारतीय परम्परा सन्सक्रिती सब सत्यानाश।

अभी तक किसी ने एक कमेंट नहीं मारा।

बिकीनी और लन्गोटी में क्या फर्क है? कोई फर्क नहीं।

बेवाच में जो बन्दा हीरो है वो अभी हॉलीवुड में टप पेड ऐक्टर है। नम्बर वन। काला आदमी। एक काला आदमी वाशिंग्टन में रिटायर हुआ नहीं दुसरा हॉलीवुड पर छा गया।

प्रियंका चोपड़ा ने तो I came I saw I conquered वाली बात कर दी। सत्य नादेला, सुन्दर पिचाइ और प्रियंका चोपड़ा, तीनों बराबर। लेकिन रफ्तार के हिसाब से तीनों में नम्बर वन प्रियंका।

This is a geopolitical shift.  

Donald Alec Baldwin Trump

These days when I think of Donald Trump the face that shows up on my mindscreen is that of Alec Baldwin.

What just happened?

Is the man really that unsmiling and ugly? And fat?  

And devoid of ideas?

The guy is so lacking in anything that can even remotely be called public policy it looks like he is a cardboard cutout.

I can't tell the difference.

Will Alec Baldwin please show up for the third debate? He is equally ugly, what with all the makeup, but he is not sickening.   

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Priyanka Chopra's Crossover Is A Geopolitical Event

Priyanka Chopra on Nightline

This is the first time a top Bollywood star has eased into being a top Hollywood star. This is big.

America and India now are what America and Britain used to be. The oldest modern democracy and the largest democracy are natural allies.

Priyanka Chopra is like Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai. She is a role model.

And she stays Indian.