10.18 Stuart Rotherberg in the Washington Post: The newest NBC-Wall Street Journal poll shows Trump doing worse against Clinton than Mitt Romney did against President Obama with almost every demographic group, including men, women, whites, Latinos, Republicans, voters with household incomes of more than $100,000 per year, voters with a college degree, voters with a postgraduate degree and voters 65 and older. African Americans, white men without a college degree and younger voters are among the few groups with which Clinton is underperforming compared with Obama. But that should not give much comfort to Trump, who is drawing only 9 percent of African Americans, compared with the 6 percent that Romney drew against the first African American president. It would be a mistake to call Trump’s current path to an electoral-college victory narrow. It is nonexistent. Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, once part of the Trump scenario, have never been “in play,” and he is not competitive in states Obama won only narrowly in 2012, such as Virginia and Colorado. Trump is more likely to lose North Carolina than win it, which would put him under 200 electoral votes. Frankly, the writing has been on the wall for months about this race. You simply needed to look at the candidates, their campaign teams, the map and the voters.”
10.17 Michael Gerson in the Washington Post: “It is a further indication (as if we needed it) that Trump has no commitment to the American political system. He is perfectly willing to delegitimize democratic institutions as a campaign tactic, squandering a civic inheritance he does not value. Even before his current troubles, he said that an electoral loss would be prima facie evidence of fraud and encouraged supporters to monitor majority-black polling stations in Pennsylvania. Now he is entering uncharted territory. By preemptively questioning the legitimacy of his forthcoming shellacking, Trump is stepping outside the four corners of the constitutional order, on the model of autocratic strongmen he has publicly admired.”
10.16 Giants beat Ravens 27-23, as Odell Beckham Jr. scores two touchdowns and accumulates 222 yards
10.15 New Disunion anthology published.
10.14 Toronto Sun: Designated by Cleveland manager Terry Francona as the Tribe’s Game 2 starter, Trevor Bauer managed to cut himself badly enough on the pinky finger of his pitching hand to require stitches and has been pushed back at least until Game 3 on Monday in Toronto. Francona chose to address the crisis with humour. “I think we’ve all, probably everybody in here, have had, at some point or other, a drone-related problem,” said Francona during his press briefing Friday before Game 1. “I think he said it was routine maintenance. And, again, I have no idea what that is.”
10.14 Interview with Steve Schmidt by Andrew Prokop of Vox:
Prokop Stepping back a bit from the swirl of allegations about Trump’s personal behavior in the news, what’s your big-picture view of the state of the Republican Party right now, and our politics in general?
Steve Schmidt One of John McCain’s famous quotes was quoting Chairman Mao: “It’s always darkest before it’s completely black.” The Trump campaign is over — Hillary Clinton is going to be elected president. The question that remains here, the open question, is the degree of the collateral damage, right? The Republicans are going to lose the US Senate. The question is how many seats can they lose in the House. It is possible but not probable yet that they lose the House majority. So the question is, how far below 40 percent is Trump in the popular vote? Then there’s a long-term implication for the civic life of the country, the vandalism being done, which will culminate for the first time in American history with his refusal to make an ordinary concession where he grants to the winner legitimacy by recognizing the legitimacy of the election. I think it’s very clear he’s going to go out saying it’s a rigged system. I think what you’re gonna see is Steve Bannon monetizing 30 percent of the electorate into a UKIP-style movement and a billion-dollar media business. And I think the Republican Party has an outstanding chance of fracturing. There will be the alt-right party; then there will be a center-right conservative party that has an opportunity to reach out, repair damage, and rebuild the brand over time. America, ideologically right now, is a centrist country — it used to be a center-right country — but it’s by no means a Bernie Sanders country. Not even close. The market will demand a center-right party. The last implication for it behaviorally is it exposes at such a massive scale and at such magnitude the hypocrisy of the Tony Perkinses and the Jerry Falwell Jrs. and the Pat Robertsons. These people are literally the modern-day Pharisees, they are the money changers in the temple, and they will forever be destroyed from a credibility perspective. There are millions of decent, faithful, committed evangelicals in this country who have every right to participate in the political process. But this country doesn’t ever need to hear a lecture from any one of these people [Perkins, Falwell, etc.] again on a values issue, or their denigration of good and decent gay people in this country.
Andrew ProkopSteve Schmidt As a political device, the “war on women” trope was effective. Republicans had an unfortunate series of candidates who were able to caricature the party. But the defense of Trump, the cowardice of so many Republican elected officials who won’t confront this — what it exposes is political cowardice on a massive level. It exposes a political class in the Republican Party that simply is unfit to lead the country. As a conservative Republican, I find anathematic the regulatory and tax policies of liberal Democrats. But there’s no question that Republicans — as an institution and what we’re led by — are unfit to run the country, or to govern the country. You have a massive reckoning coming due that will play out over years on the serially putting party above country. We’ve reached the moment in time that George Washington warned about in his farewell address with the danger of factions. You have basically warring tribes that subordinate the national interest to their tribal interest. There’s no higher value obviously for most — though not all — Republican elected officials than maintaining fidelity to Donald Trump. What’s extraordinary about that is that in America, we don’t take an oath to a strongman leader; we take it to the Constitution of the United States. And Donald Trump is obviously manifestly unfit in every conceivable way to occupy the office of the American head of state.
Andrew Prokop What do you think of this new Trump campaign strategy, reportedly being pushed by Steve Bannon and perhaps Roger Stone, to focus on attacking Bill Clinton for alleged sexual misconduct? Does this line of attack have a chance of actually working, or is it more aimed at satisfying, say, the future audience of the media company Trump is rumored to want to start if he loses?
Steve Schmidt Trump’s surrounded by people who have made a living in the Clinton conspiracy business. What’s the point they’re trying to make? That there’s a double standard in the media about how he’s been covered? There is! But this isn’t a strategy for winning a presidential election. This is a strategy born from the fevered imaginations of people who are living in an alternate reality universe. And it won’t be effective. I made this point the other day on MSNBC, and it’s true. In World War II the Japanese adopted a new tactic, kamikaze missions, manned aircraft, fully fueled missions, to fly into American ships. Twenty percent of the kamikaze missions were effective. They hit their targets, they caused death, they were instruments of terror. It was a tactic born from desperation. But it didn’t change the war’s outcome. Yet as the war neared its end, the desperation and the attacks increased. And that’s what’s happening as this race comes to an end.
Andrew Prokop So what would your advice be for Republican candidates on the ballot this year — let’s say for someone who’s supported Trump so far but hasn’t been all that enthusiastic. Is it too late to unendorse?
Steve Schmidt Winston Churchill was a keen observer of character and he said, Americans will always do the right thing, but they’ll wait till the last possible second to do it. And there’s something to that in our national character. Obviously the decision to jump off the Trump train will have been a late one, and it will be criticized by some people. They’ll say, “What was the last straw that broke the camel’s back?” I don’t know if there’s an answer for that. But people who are straddling the line with absurd propositions, like, “I’m voting for him but I don’t endorse him,” it’s a chickenshit position.
Andrew Prokop From a political perspective, isn’t there a counterargument that Republican officials going too openly against Trump would depress base turnout and lead to a bigger loss, handing over more seats to the Democrats?
Steve Schmidt Candidates for federal office have duties and obligations toward the national interest that supersede tactical calculations. And the question is this — I suppose if you believe that Donald Trump has demonstrated fitness to sit atop the national command authority as commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military and its most sophisticated nuclear arsenal, then you should continue to endorse Donald Trump. But for sure, when the election’s over, you’re locked into that position for all time. And the question is, if we haven’t hit the line where you can say, “I can’t support the nominee of the party” — then where is the line?”
10.14 Daniel Halper in the New York Post: “Donald Trump’s campaign says a British man is countering claims that the GOP presidential nominee groped a woman on a cross-country flight more than three decades ago. The man says he was sitting across from the accuser and contacted the Trump campaign because he was incensed by her account — which is at odds with what he witnessed. “I have only met this accuser once and frankly cannot imagine why she is seeking to make out that Trump made sexual advances on her. Not only did he not do so (and I was present at all times) but it was she that was the one being flirtatious,” Anthony Gilberthorpe said in a note provided to The Post by the Trump campaign. Gilberthorpe made headlines in 2014, when he went public with a claim that as a 17-year-old he procured boys (some who “could have been” underage”) for sex parties with high-ranking British politicians. Gilberthorpe has no evidence to back up his claim — just his self-described excellent memory.”
10.13 Bob Dylan is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
10.13 Michelle Obama: “This is not normal. This is not politics as usual. This is disgraceful, it is intolerable, and it doesn’t matter what party you belong to. No woman deserves to be treated this way — none of us deserves this kind of abuse. I can’t believe that I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women,” the first lady told several hundred voters at a university here. I can’t stop thinking about this — it has shaken me to my core.”
10.13 The United States is no longer a majority white, Christian country, and that is already beginning to have profound social and political implications. At 45 percent of the population, white Christians are a shrinking demographic—and the backlash from many members of the group against the increasing diversification of America has been swift and bitter. “People fight like that when they are losing a sense of place, a sense of belonging, and a sense of the country that they understand and love,” says Robert P. Jones, the author of The End of White Christian America, in this animated interview. “How do they reengage in public life when they can’t be the majority?”
10.12 Barack Obama in Wired: the truth is, if you had to choose any time in the course of human history to be alive, you’d choose this one. Right here in America, right now.
10.7 On a video taped in 2005, Donald Trump is recorded saying: ““I moved on her [Nancy O’Dell} and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and fuck her. She was married. I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture. I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there, and she was married. And then all of a sudden I see her, she’s not got the big phony tits and everything. Whoa, I’ve gotta use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her . . . You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything . . . Grab them by the pussy.”
10.6 Hurricane Matthew skims Florida
10.5 Tom Topoussis, Maxwell, Pam Widener
10.5 Mets eliminated by Giants in one game playoff, despite brilliant effort by Noah Syndegaard
10.2 Vin Scully signs off: “Romo out of the stretch, and the 2-2 pitch on the way. Sergio deals a slider hit in the air to left center, coming over is Pagan — he puts it away!
And the Giants are the wild-card team. The city is going wild, appropriately enough, and they are heading for New York. No runs, one hit for the Dodgers, who managed to leave four men on base because they were the only four they got on base. The Giants in the Western division are 45-31, the Dodgers are 43-33, so inside the division, they certainly were the better team. That was awfully nice. The umpire just stood up and said goodbye, as I am saying goodbye. Seven runs, 16 hits for the winning Giants, 1-4-1 for the Dodgers. The winner, Matt Moore, the loser, Kenta Maeda. I have said enough for a lifetime, and for the last time, I wish you all a very pleasant good afternoon.”
10.1 The New York Times: Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show. The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period.
