Out of My Mind | Mind, Blown

You can stop right here and read this because it’s a concise explainer of the Republican nominee for president. But if you really want to continue….

When an admission or, since it’s Trump, a boast of being a sexual predator comes out, a failed apology isn’t enough.

Apparently, the wife of a fellow predator has to be embarrassed and humiliated as well.

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, its Bill Cosby knows in his heart that he wouldn’t have his current problems if he was white.

When backed into a corner, Donald Trump acts like a pig.

After floundering on the biggest debate stage of his short political career, the former reality television star devoted a week to discussing the weight of Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado, even garishly imploring people to hunt down a nonexistent sex tape.

When Marco Rubio managed to briefly get under his skin during Trump’s march to the nomination, the real estate mogul reverted to discussing the size of his penis during a debate.

And shortly after marrying his wife in 2005, he was caught on tape disgustingly joking about sexual assault.

Another particularly vulgar example of Trump’s boorish behavior came in 2012 when he offered to show attorney Gloria Allred his manhood — and then questioned the gender identity of the lawyer who famously crusades on behalf of her female clients. (Link.)

This is unspeakably sad: Four women, two of whom so upset over being victims of one man that they have to help a confessed predator score points over the first assailant’s wife. (The fourth woman is upset that Clinton acted as a cog in the legal system.)

If Donald Trump’s “debate prep” with three women who have accused Bill Clinton of sex crimes left you braced for an even uglier scene in Sunday night’s debate, your instincts were right. The Washington Post reportedearly on Monday morning that the initial plan was to seat the women in Trump’s family box in an effort to intimidate Hillary Clinton and embarrass her husband by physically confronting him in front of millions of TV viewers. Officials from the Commission on Presidential Debates thwarted the plan just minutes before the start of the debate.

According to the Post, the plan was hatched by Donald Trump campaign CEO Stephen Bannon along with Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband, and personally approved by the candidate. The three women who have accused the former president of sexual misconduct — Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Juanita Broaddrick — were accompanied by Kathy Shelton, who accused Hillary Clinton of defending the man who raped her in 1975 when she was 12, though she knew he was guilty. A judge appointed Clinton to serve as the man’s public defender, though she did not want to take the case.

“We were going to put the four women in the VIP box,” said former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. “We had it all set. We wanted to have them shake hands with Bill, to see if Bill would shake hands with them.” (Link.)

Sadder yet are the people give Trump a pass. Then again, people cool with racism and xenophobia and his life as a liar and thief surely don’t have the decency to have any problem supporting a sexual predator.

Make no mistake, ladies: Trump may be the face of your rapist, but Pence is every judge who made sure he got away with it.

Trump been saying bigoted stuff for the last yr. The sexist comments released are getting more traction because it effects white women.

Passed on the debate, but can anyone tell me whether President Trump followed this best advice he received?

Rise and shine, @realDonaldTrump! Big debate tonight! Carpe vaginum!

As I said, passed, but apparently what I missed was a piece of shit of a human being doubling down by trying to convince doubters how awful — and unfit for office — he is:

I’ve come to realize that any number of people, including but not limited to those who think Donald Trump should become president of the United States, think that what they saw in last night’s presidential “debate” was politics without the niceties of “political correctness.” There are people who think that this is what the “game” is always about: sexual innuendo, vicious threats, and enough mud that the candidates are indistinguishable from each other and a pile of steaming poop.

Last night, we saw what those people think they always see, stripped of what they think of as “the bullcrap.” But we didn’t see American “politics” on display. The bullcrap is what would have made it “politics.” Instead, we saw a rutting bull challenge a pride lion for the right to f**k America. David Attenborough should have moderated that thing: “Here, the challenger rubs his scrotum on the dais. It’s not meant to cause harm, he’s merely trying to show his dominance. In response, the matriarch ignores him. She knows that attention is all he seeks.”

In the wild, a successful challenger will kill or cast out the old leader. Some animals will eat the children of their rivals, to ensure the purity of their line. Donald Trump threatened to do that to Hillary Clinton, last night. He asserted that, should he be engorged with power, he would have Hillary Clinton hounded and likely destroyed. The “jail” threat seems like a normal if classless attack to people who think this is all some kind of game. It’s actually despotic degradation of civil society. (Link.)

It took Anderson Cooper to force Trump to confront the sexual assault he endorsed in the tape released on Friday. Trump instantly denied what everyone in America heard him say, claiming both that Cooper “didn’t understand” and that “you hear these things, they’re said” as he repeatedly dismissed his statement as “locker room banter.”

[snip]

Then on the second attempt to extract an answer from Trump over the issue of his statement, Donald finally released his assault on Bill Clinton. Hillary’s response on this, and on several other attacks that Trump made, was to dismiss his statement. She instead laid out a litany of Trump’s statements. This was the highlight of Clinton’s night, allowing Clinton to flay Trump steadily for most of her two minutes while Trump paced and turned various shades of pumpkin. (Link.)

Classy, always classy.

And:

Trump announced, though he “hated to say it,” that if he wins, he will appoint a special prosecutor to go after Hillary Clinton. Because nothing says democracy like threatening to lock up your opponent.

On Syria, Donald Trump explicitly disagreed with Mike Pence saying “He and I haven’t spoken and we disagree.” Where Pence was ready to go after Assad’s assets to protect Aleppo, Donald Trump instead turned his back on the rebels, saying we “don’t know who they are” and calling them worse than Assad and Russia. At one point Trump said “Syria is Russia,” and as he always does, Donald Trump supported Russia. Putin got his money’s worth tonight.

Trump demonstrated that he has a peculiar form of X-ray vision, saying that Hillary Clinton has “tremendous hate in her heart,” then repeating the remark.

Trump admitted to not paying any taxes. Though he dodged the question the first time, when asked directly he said that “Of course” he took advantage of the tax loophole that allowed him to avoid taxes for years. Pressed further, his response on this was the same as it was on several other question — other people did it. So there.

Trump denied his previous sex tape scandal, the one in which he tweeted that the nation should go and look at a sex tape which doesn’t exist.

Trump repeatedly challenged Hillary Clinton over why she, as a single senator, had not changed the tax code. “If you were an effective senator, you could have done it!” Making it unclear if Donald Trump knows how the government works. Actually, making it clear that he doesn’t.

Trump lied about his position on Iraq. Again. Because there’s no amount of pointing out his lies that will keep him from lying.

Confronted on Russian hacking, Trump not only repeated his previous statements that Hillary doesn’t know it was Russia — even though two federal agencies have said it was definitely Russia — and then followed up with the even more incredible statement: “Maybe there is no hacking.” Maybe.

Trump sniffed. A lot. Any comments, Howard? While thinking about your response, also note Trump’s 10K of pacing and looming over Hillary during questions. (Link.)

Hurrrrrgghhhh:

Civil rights lawyer Gloria Allred said this week that women have begun contacting her with allegations that they were sexually harassed or abused by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

After news broke over the weekend that Trump had bragged about groping women on a leaked 2005 video, Allred confirmed to Gothamist on Monday that she had been “contacted by women who allege inappropriate contact by Mr. Trump.” (Link.)

No end….

But meanwhile, Deplorable Donnie — too many lines for debate prep (*sniff!! snnniffff!!*), or too few?