Saturday, October 29, 2016

Trump Can't Win the Presidency Per Pennsylvania Poll!

FLASH....TRUMP CAN'T CATCH 
HER IN PA.....AND THUS CANNOT WIN THE ELECTION!
Here it is! The news that matters and will carry us through the media agitation about emails and Andrew Weiner. This lays it all out, not just about Pennsylvania, but by extension it means the whole race. The little blue x-spot in the middle of the state is ME waving at YOU. It says State College in tiny letters. All the empty space around it is cows and mountains.


Weiner and Trump! Now There's a Pair!


We've long known Hillary is a mess of a candidate, loaded with baggage. But she's still got the great advantage of having Trump as an opponent. Plus she makes sense (he seldom does), and she is willing to pursue the goals of Bernie Sanders plus other goals that will really help people. 

It's also just too late for this last-minute FBI email revelation to make a big difference. 

People have made up their minds. As always, the remaining "undecided" will likely break in proportion to the rest of the electorate, with a high percentage of them just not voting at all.  

Bernie Sanders was spot-on even back in the early months of the year, saying to Hillary: "No one cares about your damn emails". They didn't care then, and they don't care now. At least that's how it seems to me. 

I'm surprised no one is pointing out that Trump and Weiner are two of a kind, i.e. sexual predators. Maybe the references to Anthony Weiner will remind voters of Trump's sleazy ways. It would be funny if this turn of events actually turns against Trump, reminding undecided voters of how disgusting his sexual record is.

So the real quandary undecided voters face is: Who's worse? Weiner sending lewd photos to a 15-year-old? Or Trump grabbing the sexual organs of any woman who walks by?

With sensationalism like this to focus on, no wonder no one cares about the damn emails!



Friday, October 28, 2016

How We Know Trump Is Losing and Why He Wants To

First reason we know Trump is losing:
His campaign has admitted he's losing. A Bloomsberg News reporter was allowed inside Trump's campaign to talk to the polling people working for him. (Trump's actually doing a lot more polling than he lets on.) And his own polling people admit their figures match those of Nate Silver's "538" site: “Nate Silver’s results have been similar to ours,” says Trump's lead pollster. Inside the Trump Bunker, With 12 Days to Go - msn.com.  Silver gives Trump only an 18% chance of winning. Not impossible odds, certainly, but nearly so. 2016 Election ForecastUpdated 1 hour ago

Second reason we know Trump is losing:
Pew Research, the gold standard of pollsters, announced today that Trump is 6 points behind Clinton nationally. Six points is beyond the margin of error and tends to confirm all the polls saying Clinton leads by 3 or 4 points, amounts normally considered within the margin of error.

Third reason we know Trump is losing:
There doesn't seem to be a possible way he can get to 270 electoral college votes. Even if he won all the states still considered "toss ups" (a dubious "if"), he still comes up with only 266. New Hampshire has exactly the 4 votes he needs, but it has moved well away from being a toss-up, with Clinton leading there now by 9 points.The other "swing states" that have already swung to Clinton look equally unobtainable by Trump.

Fourth reason we know Trump is losing:
Clinton's lead nationally and in the key states is confirmed by a separate metric. Better to say, Trump's failing is confirmed. When one compares how the GOP Senate candidates are doing in the states Trump must have, they are out-polling him by numbers that fit with the numbers showing him trailing Clinton. Thus—by two separate measurements—Trump is losing.

Fifth reason we know Trump is losing:
He hasn't put his money where his mouth is. He boasted he would finance his own campaign, but he's put in only a fraction of what would be needed to run an actual presidential campaign. (In 2012 that was a billion per candidate in th general election.)  In the critical weeks of fall, no other big shots have ponied up either.  Money Flows Down Ballot as Donald Trump Is Abandoned by Big Donors (Even Himself)    The so-called smart money says "no thanks". The little folks, however, have sent in their hard-earned cash in small donations and Trump has gleefully lined his pockets with a lot of it. How Donald Trump is making money off his presidential bid

Sixth reason we know Trump is losing:
He never cared about winning. He was in it for the adulation and the money. Especially the money. He's made lots of money off the campaign, just as he promised to do back in 2000 when he told Fortune magazine, “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.” In September, CBS repeated this quote and went on to tell the ways Trump is skimming a lot of money from his campaign to put into his own pockets. How Donald Trump is making money off his presidential bid.

The bottom line for Trump is the traditional bottom line!
For Trump the bottom line is always the money. In order for his scams to work he has to look like he's losing. That's how he walked away with lots of money from his casino bankruptcies. And it's why he has to look like a "loser" now. He's worked very hard at losing, because for him to "win", i.e. for him that means winning the money, he has to look like a loser.        

More on that next time when Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel help us understand Trump's con.
















Monday, October 24, 2016

Trump Quits the Race!


Actually Donald Trump quit the presidential contest a long time ago. In fact, he never was in it at all.

Take note that he didn't put his money where his mouth is. He didn't self-finance his campaign, and his campaign is grossly underfunded. If a guy doesn't put his money where his mouth is, he's a con.  He didn't want to be president. He wanted to be a celebrity again.

Remember that he's a TV celebrity who lost his spot as man-in-control of the Miss Universe pageant where he could, not so incidentally, go in the dressing rooms and look at the contestants as they changed their clothes. Bad enough to be knocked out of being a peeping tom, but to have also lost the limelight...... Well, it was just too much.

He's missed being Mr. Big. He missed the roar of the grease paint and the smell of the crowd. And he found a way to get back to center stage.

It's one of the greatest cons of all time. Everybody fell for it.  Especially the uneducated, mostly unemployed, fearful and fading white men who just had to believe that something would turn back the roiling history that was shoving them into oblivion.

Like Trump they had lost their center stage. White males—any white males—used to run the show. They were the superior race and the superior sex. Like Trump they were stars in their own worlds and the bosses of the women in their lives . They were powerful and mighty. Now they are the only demographic group in the world that has a rising death rate, chiefly from addiction, alcohol, and suicide. Ten million of them are missing from the American labor force, sidelined by disabilities or addictions.Their jobs are gone, chiefly manual labor. Minority people of color will soon be the majority, and women are increasingly empowered and uppidity.

Trump spoke for the fading men and to them. He never talked about the self-inflicted pathos of their lives—the suicides, the addictions, their lack of education or anything else that may be their own doing. Instead he identified others for them to blame and hate. The list is long: immigrants, Latinos, Muslims, Japanese, Chinese, Democrats, liberated women (that's who the denunciation of "politically correct" is really aimed at), women who don't tolerate his mauling them, Wall Street, Washington,  Republican office-holders, the elite, the educated, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, the media, and anybody who doesn't bow down or roll over when King Donald saunters by.

As King Donald struts through the campaign, his followers take every slight or criticism against him as an attack on themselves. He is them!

That's all Trump ever cared about: bring a hero and celebrity to millions of people. He didn't care a rat's ass about being a president.

And that explains why he has repeatedly ruined his own chances, blotting out any issue he spoke of by shifting into outrageousness.The wisps of coherence were just to keep his voters thinking he was an actual candidate, to give them the cover of not apparently being complete nincompoops.

I think he'll back off of leading an uprising when he loses. Not out of any patriotic sense of responsibility toward the country's welfare, but because he's too lazy to do it and he's probably afraid he might win.

He doesn't want to govern. He just wants his own pipeline to the people and the sound of their roars of approval. The rumble on the street is that he will be starting his own news network.

But ask yourself: what businesses would advertise on his network?  Bedsheet and scissor companies?










Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Can You Believe It? Trump's Chances At 9%!


Never before has there been something like this with a major party presidential candidate. Let's hope the outcome is a devastating repudiation of Trump and all the vile things he has said and done.
What more is there to say in the face of such stunning numbers? Well, actually the thing to say is:   "Get out and vote!"  It isn't over until it's over. Voter complacency is the enemy of a candidate in the lead.So remember our motto: Vote early and often!


2016 Election Forecast: Who Will Be President? - The New York .

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Four Pieces of Very Good Campaign News

GOOD NEWS #1: Here in all-important Pennsylvania two men just came door-to-door on my street on behalf of Hillary Clinton. The older of the two proudly announced that he has been a registered Republican for 25 years but "not any more, not now, not with what Trump is doing and saying."

Nothing is as powerful as door-to-door "canvassing", as it's sometimes called, or "the ground game" in recent parlance. As I've explained over and over in this column through the last five years, it beats ads, it beats robocalls, it beats direct mail. It's how I ran winning campaigns on a shoestring for 20 years........ People going door-to-door. Nothing like it! It's also morally correct, non-fattening, and wonderful for democracy and community. But enough of the commercial message.

GOOD NEWS #2:  This is the second time someone has come to my door on behalf of Clinton. A couple of weeks ago, a man and woman came knocking. This is unheard of! Two visits by a campaign! This is great! Makes this old campaigner's heart really sing. Clinton reputedly has a good ground game going. Judging by what's happening in my neightborhood, I'd say she has a great ground game going and that Trump is toast! 

GOOD NEWS #3:  What follows is a column put up about an hour ago by Nate Siver on his well-regarded analytical site "538". It is so good in its thinking, facts, and writing that I'm just going to give you the link and let you enjoy the whole thing. You're going to like this, folks. It's not only good news; it's instructional about politics. Hats off to Nate Silver!
    Election Update: Where The Race Stands With Three Weeks To Go  

GOOD NEWS #4: The above news is all so good this evening that the drinks are on me!  And — remember! — vote early and often!

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Three Things Not To Worry About

People keep asking me, "How can those GOP women still support Trump?" Even the normally arithmetic-oriented "538" site today raises what I consider a silly issue: For Many GOP Women, Party Loyalty Trumps Personal Affront

Why should anybody care about this bunch of GOP women? As far as the election goes, these women literally don't matter because there are so few of them.

It's just a question of arithmetic, not mysterious political shadows.

In exploring the leanings of GOP women, the "538" article first announces that some 74% of all GOP still support Trump. 74%! Wow! That sounds like an awful lot of voters. But keep in mind that a large percentage of a modest number is still a smallish number. At last tabulation, only 23% of the electorate were registered as GOP. That's the Republicans lowest number ever.

When your basic number is only 23% and you take 74% of it, you get only 17%. This means that the  entire GOP contingent supporting Trump accounts for only about 17% of the electorate. Thus 74% may sound big but is a relatively small number when you look at the steps in reaching it.

It shrinks even further when you look at just GOP women, which this alarmist article purports to do. According to the article 73% of GOP women still support Trump. That's a really small number of actual voters since slightly less than half of the GOP's 23% of the electorate are women. Half of 23% is only 11.5%. Of these GOP women, only 73% still support Trump. That's only 8.4% of the electorate!

Be real! Since Trump is polling about 40% nationally  (RCP Poll Average), he's obviously getting support from somewhere. Why is the "538" writer surprised that one in five of Trump's supporters is a female Republican? What's surprising is that so few Republican women are supporting him. The paucity of their support has been hidden by the strong anti-Hillary numbers among all registered males. Hillary is trailing Trump among men by 11%. But she's leading him among all women by 18 points. Hillary Clinton gaining support among key set of voters - CBS .... Thus she is ahead of him by about 6 point nationally.

Numbers matter! In the end we count the votes. In the end politics is all about numbers! Correct use of the numbers!

Lecture over!  Here's the other two things not to worry about. Don't even bother to read these!  Both are from "538". Gosh, they'd better take up card playing over at 538 to kill time when they have nothing worth writing about.

Election Update: Watch New Hampshire For Signs Of A Trump Comeback   Wha...?

How Evan McMullin Could Win Utah And The Presidency   Really, dear? (Yawn)
____________
P.S. My manager when I was writing comedy scripts put all this percentages thing very well in one sentence. I complained, "Why should you get 15% when other managers get 10%?" His answer: "You haven't sold anything yet, and 15% of nothing is still nothing." He never did get anything because my writing partner commited suicide, and I left show biz and began a career in politics. (Compared to Hollywood, politics is just good, clean fun.) You can still see one of my dear friend's shows on Lucy reruns, i.e. the one where she gets her hand stuck in the rare Chinese vase. Let me emphasize: Lucy was an exemplary human being, very good and kind to all who worked with or for her. I want to make clear that my friend's suicide had nothing to do with his working for her.





Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Three GOP Men Walk Into a Bar.....

Three GOP Men Walk Into a Bar And Watch The Debate.....



What can I say beyond that? This is a tough time for the GOP. It's going to take more than a couple of drinks to suffer through what they are now suffering.

These headlines below pretty much tell the story as of today. Normally things can change quickly in politics, but in spite of that maxim, in my long memory of politics no candidate has ever recovered from what Donald Trump has said and what he has done and what he is.

The polls and GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan have already virtually pronounced Trump a loser.  And— oh!— how Trump hates any "loser"!  He will of course blame Paul Ryan and the GOP "establishment".  Now it only remains to be seen how far Trump's damage runs through the entire GOP.

So here's a look at the current prognosis via headlines. You sure don't have to actually read the articles to get the picture:

The House May Be in Play   from RealClearPolitics;

 Election Update: Women Are Defeating Donald Trump    from Nate Silver's "538" site 10-11-16;

 Is This What It Looks Like When A Party Falls Apart?   also from Silver;

As Party Splits Over Trump, Republican States May Tilt from the New York Times;

Re absentee GOP voting dropping sharply in NC: http://www.insight-us.org/blog/ncs-2016-voter-turnout-through-10-october ;

 The 2016 Race Google Searches for Voter Registration Have Surged in Hispanic Areas      NY Times;

From Al Hunt at Bloomberg News: Clinton's Turnout Machine Could Prove Decisive.

Regarding that last item, remember that Trump thumbed his nose at organizing a ground game (he's lazy and also thinks he can do anything on his own). He said he would rely on the Republican National Committee for door-to-door work on his behalf. Hmmmmm. Where does that leave him now? I'd say I'd check it out, but that's not actually possible. The GOP will say it's doing the job because it has to say that.

We shall have to wait and see! What a year!

Next time:  "What About the Senate?"  (Unless the eight-legged Trump drops yet another shoe!)

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Trump Crashing? Destruction of the GOP? And How About Those Cubs?

I can't keep up with it! The headlines are coming too fast!.........Bing, bang, bong!......

                                                   _________

   Hillary Clinton has an 87% chance of winning the presidency 

      Election Update: Polls Show Potential Fallout From Trump Tape  

         ‘Tin-Pot Dictators’ Seen in Threats to Jail Clinton

              G.O.P. Fracture Over Trump Grows Worse

                 Hard-Liners Furious as Ryan Appears to Abandon Nominee

                      Meltdown: Republican Leaders at Odds With Their Voters

On and on and on...

Did you get that item above that Trump has fallen to a 13% chance of winning?  That's down 5% in a couple of days. It's an historic sub-cellar position!

Plus the big piece of news last night from NBC. The network's latest polling shows Clinton leading nationally by double digits. Yes, my friends, double digits!  NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl

Folks, that just doesn't happen in a presidential race in this day and age.

Also Clinton is edging ahead of Trump in Florida and just a tad in Ohio. Losing those two states is more than enough to lock him out of the electoral college. because Clinton is approaching a double digit lead in Pennsylvania. PA, FL, and OH spell the White House. She's also pulling further ahead in Virginia and now even has a small lead in North Carolina. Get this! She's only 1% behind Trump in Arizona. Yes, ARIZONA! 

Meantime, pivotal Senate races are veering into the Democratic column, among them New Hampshire and Pennsylvania where the Republican incumbents were seemingly secure a week or two ago. Added to Illinois and other states the Democrats are about to pick up, these two would give the Democrats a majority in the Senate and thereby clinch the Democrats' chance to fill the swing seat in the Supreme Court for a majority they haven't had for decades.

And the House of Representatives? It was over the moon to dream the Democrats could win back control of the House. But that may be what is threatening Speaker Paul Ryan so clearly that he is willing to dump the party's presidential nominee in a desperate attempt to save House seats. He must know from private polling that the GOP is in real danger of losing its majority because of the curse of Trump being on the ticket. Prior to the Trump tape, the Cook Political Report named 20 seats as up for grabs.  The Cook Political Report - House Race Ratings  Apparently it now it puts 34 GOP House seats within  reach of Democrats. The Democrats need 29 to regain control.  Where Republicans in Tight Races Stand on Trump

Can all this be true? It is a terrible thing for a superstitious Irish/Jewish person to dare to say it might really be happening. It is to dare the fates to say such things out loud. But, hey! We're only young once. Well, actually we're only 80 once. I have so dreamed and prayed for us to keep the presidency AND win back the Senate AND—miracle of miracles—win back the House. AND get the Supreme Court majority after having been in the minority for 40 long, long years!

I really want to see all this happen while I still have my feet in this crazy country and before I go drifting off into some other realm where they probably don't have politics. Is that too much to ask?

And out of the corner of my eye, there's the Cubs. We Cubby fans have waited 108 years. That's a long time in the desert.

Naw. It's too much to also want the Cubs to you-know-what. One can't want everything, right?

Aw, what the hell. Bring it all on! This kid is ready to be really thankful this Thanksgiving! And if it all doesn't happen, you'll know whom to blame. This 80-year-old woman who felt compelled to dream out loud and thus jinxed everything.








Monday, October 10, 2016

Who Won The Debate? (Hint: It Was on TV!)

Consider the first televised presidential debate—JFK v. Nixon in 1960—and you'll know who won on Sunday night.

Television is visual. JFK looked great that night. Nixon looked awful. JFK's cool and handsome visage lifted him from being a little-known youngster to being a candidate of the first order. Nixon looked tense and literally sweaty.

On Sunday night Trump looked awful from the opening moments on. In those first minutes I actually thought he was going to cry or fall on his knees and beat his breast in contrition and remorse. He looked old, tired, pallid, beaten, and as disappointed as a kid who has seen the Easter Rabblit stealing his Christmas.

He knows he has been defeated.

At the end of the debate he as good as conceded the race.  He borrowed an old ploy from sports: brag up your opponent before the game so the world will admire you for having taken on such a tough competitor. That's why he made a big deal of what a "fighter" Hillary Clinton is. He knows he is going to be beaten on election day and he wants the world to know he went down before a mighty force.

The force that took him down, of course, wasn't Hillary Clinton, She's still a weak candidate. Donald Trump himself defeated Donald Trump. He knows that too. He knows he got caught confessing to despicable conduct and behavior. All three have finished him: the illegal sexual assaults on women, his words about women, and his confessing on the record. (Like they said on SNL, for once he had a working microphone.)

Between the first moments and the last moments of the debate, not much of importance occurred. He didn't ramble as much as usual, whereas Hillary got lured into chasing a few rabbits including joining him in a long ramble about Mosul. Mosul? Hey, it was announced this week that ISIS is virtually defeated in Iraq. Thus it's the ISIS fighting forces that are pulling out of Iraq, not just its leadership as Trump kept bellowing. Why didn't Hillary correct his obvious ignorance of what's going on there? Don't these two read the New York Times?

So it was a poor debate in terms of any educational value. But that doesn't matter. Not in a year of passion like this one.

Trump not only came across as defeated; he also came across as a physical bully. He invaded Clinton's space over and over, hovering above her only a foot away at times. He made a not-so-holy show of himself. Because the campaign scene this year has been full of violence at his rallies and stoked with his steaming words of violence, his hulking presence hovering over her was especially spooky.

And then, of course, he also said that when he was president he would have her put in jail.

Politics by threat? Jailing your political opponent? He has been practicing all year for his Halloween role as Adolph Hitler.

Now, I have a disclosure to make. I concluded Hillary Cinton won this debate in the minds of the voters before looking at any instant-pollings.  I woke up this morning, summoned the images from the debate and saw a scowling miserably unhappy Trump and a placid smiling Hillary talking warmly and personally to someone who had asked a question. That person's face glowed with warmth in response to Hillary. And that image was better than any ad that money could buy.

Clearly Hillary won the debate and will win the election.

Because it's all about visual images!

P.S. Just checked the results of CNN's insta-poll: Clinton was adjudged the winner by 57% to Trump's 34%.










Friday, October 7, 2016

Trump v. Rube Waddell: The Groper Meets the Baseball Hero


OCTOBER SURPRISE!





Not all male "stars" are as evil as Donald Trump. In fact, at a time such as this—when major league baseball playoffs, the political season, hurricane floods, and Halloween all meet— one's mind turns to the ghost of Rube Waddell. Or at least mine does. Yesterday the despicable Donald Trump died politically. One hundred and two years ago a true hero and baseball legend died. 

Meet Rube Waddell!



 Waddell is the antidote to Trump—a decent man, a hero, and a baseball legend but, strangely, also a sort of ancestor to Trump, as you shall see. He was also the funniest man ever in all of baseball.

He didn't try to be funny; he couldn't help it. He was, in fact, an amazing player. In 1900 he pitched 17 innings in the first game of a double-header for Milwaukee, winning in the 17th inning on his own triple. His manager, Connie Mack, offered Waddell a three-day fishing vacation if he agreed to pitch the second game, which had been shortened to 5 innings. Waddell threw 5 scoreless innings for the victory, and headed to Pewaukee Lake for fishing.

He is rightly in the Baseball Hall of Fame, but he should rightly be in other halls of fame as well, having saved a woman from drowning and also having twice helped save the town of Hickman, Kentucky, during spring training in two consecutive years.  In his flood-rescue efforts, he caught pneumonia both times. This weakened his lungs so badly that he got tuberculosis and died at only 37, having been disabled from baseball some while before that. Though denied high stats by his short life, he was included in the 1981 book by Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig,The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. You can also read more about him at Rube Waddell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and sources cited therein.

Now let's pit Donald Trump, the spoiled child of wealth against Waddell, a simple Pennsylvania farmboy of a very poor family.

Where are Trump's 17 innings of pitching? His triple in the clutches? His saving a town from flooding? His rescuing a woman from drowning? Isn't Trump the one who attacks a Miss Universe for being "fat" and calls women all kinds of names and brags about groping married ones?  Tape Reveals Donald Trump Bragging About Groping Women . Hasn't he taken advantage financially of 14-year-old girls? Trump Enslaves 14-year-old Models. Hasn't he lost a billion dollars of other people's money and stiffed his suppliers and workers? What has he ever done for anybody that was any good?

Nothing.

But strangely enough Donald Trump is a sort-of descendent of Rube Waddell. Here's how Wikipedia describes Waddell's best remembered characteristics: "Waddell was unpredictable — early in his career he left the mound mid-game to go fishing. He had a longstanding fascination with fire trucks and had run off the field to chase after them during games. He was easily distracted by opposing fans who held up puppies and shiny objects, which seemed to put him in a trance on the mound."

He was distractable and he was obsessive. One of the greatest ball players of all time was actually a sort of comic Donald Trump of baseball. Waddell had to chase a fire engine. Trump has to chase the same irrelevant topic night after night via twitter. Waddell was mesmerized by a puppy dog or a shiny object. Trump can't let go of rage about what some woman says about him. 

At least Waddell's "fatal attractions" were only fatal to a score on a field of sport. They weren't fatal like Trump's could be with nuclear codes and letting lots of nations have such weapons.  Or responding with war to some jerk in a little Iranian boat giving a US. destroyer the bird. (I kinda like that little harmless Iranian jerk. "Go for it, guy! You tell 'em!")

There was something wrong with Rube Waddell upstairs, but his heart was golden.

There's something wrong with Donald Trump upstairs, and he has no heart.

Waddell died a hero. Trump will never do anything for anybody, let alone be a hero.

Waddell helped save a Kentucky town. Trump would destroy our world in a nuclear holocaust or a scorchingly hot climate. 

Not all obsessives are funny. But let's hope that Trump quickly fades into history like a bad dream, while the legend of Rube Waddell goes on stirring our admiration and bringing smiles for another hundred years.

Meantime, I can't bear to even say "Goodbye, Donald Trump." I can't bear to wish him a good anything. He hurt people, including fourteen-year-old girls. An Irish curse be on him!  And now let's rejoice at this wonderful "October surprise".  The self-convicting boasting of Donald Trump!

***********
NOTE:  I freely thank Wicked Pedia for its happy prose which I have borrowed. That's the magic of Waddell. He can turn even a Wikipedia writer into a good one and thereby corrupt the ethics of this Irish cop of a professor, luring me into borrowing W's text. Naughty me! Long live Waddell! By the way, Waddell is from Bradford, PA, a tiny town in the northernmost mountains of Pennsylvania. People say, "Bradford isn't in the middle of nowhere but you can see it from there." Rube's real name was George Edward Waddell, the nickname "Rube" coming from his being a big country boy just off the farm.  But he's made the name "Rube" glorious! I'm going to Bradford one of these days and see if the ghost of Rube Waddell ever comes into town from the family farm. Maybe I'll go on Halloween!


The Twelfth Reason Trump Is Losing

From the top spot on the front page of the New York Times, this story speaks for itself. Summarized, it says, "Trump has lost the presidency for sure." But read it for yourself.

    Tape Reveals Donald Trump Bragging About Groping Women   

Meantime, I'm speechless. Yeah. Me. Actually speechless.


Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Ten Reasons Clinton Is Winning and America is Laughing


                                                            

Read 'em and laugh! 

Reason One:
On Monday, September 26, Donald Trump was supposedly debating Hillary Clinton. He instead attacked a former Miss Universe and seemed to want Japan to have nuclear weapons, but we couldn't really tell because he was incoherent during the last two-thirds of the debate.


Reason Two:  
As Tuesday, September 27 was being born, Trump twittered in the wee hours, now attacking the same ex-Miss Universe for being "fat".

Reason Three:
In the wee hours of Wednesday, September 28, Trump twittered some more, now also attacking the microphone he had used at the so-called debate.

Reason Four:
On Thursday, September  29, Trump twittered in the wee hours, claiming (falsely) that Hillary Clinton had hired the former Miss Universe to bring him down. And that everything, his mic included, had been"rigged" against him.

 Reason Five:
Trumped moved his twittering to near-dawn and obsessively hit at ex-Miss Univerde yet again on Friday, September 30, stating, "Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?"  5:30 AM - 30 Sep 2016

He thus made history, being the first presidential contender ever to urge watching of a reputed sex tape (which doesn't exist).

Reason Six:
Right on time as a legendary "October surprise", on Saturday, October 1, The New York Times revealed that – in just one year —Trump lost nearly a billion dollars of other people's money invested in his busineses and that as a result he would have had to pay no personal federal income taxes for the next 18 years. Yes, 18 years of no personal income taxes even though he lost other people's money!
Donald Trump Tax Records Show He Could Have Avoided Taxes for Nearly Two Decades, The Times Found OCT. 1, 2016

Reason Seven:   
Also on Saturday, October 1, Trump again attempted to debate Hillary Clinton. No...wait.... That was Alec Baldwin doing Trump on SNL. He was better at being Trump than Trump is! Enjoy!  SNL compares Hillary Clinton’s debate reaction to a premature celebration in pro wrestling match - Duration: 9:02. POLITICAL VISION 157 viewsNew

Reason Eight:
Trump's campaign team showed they are as dumb as he is. Their defense regarding his tax mess is way off.....No, wait.......this letter is actually from Trump to the NY Times, talking about himself in the third person, saying:
     Donald Trump's Letter - The New York Times
     (Note: He doesn't explain how losing a near-billion dollars in one year is the mark of "a successful private businessman".)

Reason Nine:  
I'm getting confused. If Trump is being his campaign or some other third party, then is Alec Baldwin also Trump's campaign or some other third party?  Is this my joke? Or is Alec Baldwin really me?

Reason Ten: 
The polls that really count have come in as of yesterday. Quinnipac and other live-interview pollsters all show Clinton ahead nationally and, much more important, also ahead in the key swing states. Yes, Trump looks to be winning Ohio, but Clinton also now leads in Virginia by 7 points and Colorado by 11 though not shown by Quinnipac. Together those two have enough electoral votes to compensate for Ohio. RealClearPolitics - 2016 Latest Polls. She also can make up for Ohio with a sweep of several other smaller states. Trump, however, would need to win all of the traditional three key states in order to have enough votes in the electoral college. Before the first debate, he had Ohio, led in Florida and was near a tie in Pennsylvania. As of now Clinton holds those two last cards pretty firmly, plus other possible turn-key states. And that trumps the Trump!

RealClearPolitics - 2016 Latest Polls

And here's more polls being reported minutes ago by the site "538":  "...[S]urveys showing Clinton leading Trump by 9 percentage points and 10 points in Pennsylvania, by 6 points and 2 points in North Carolina, and by 3 points in Nevada."  Election Update: North Carolina Is Becoming A Backstop For Clinton. Oho! Get this! Just in:Update the count to Eleven! Based on polls of Oct. 5, analyst Nate Silver now shows OHIO as leaning to Clinton. Trump thus has none of the three states he must have to win.
2016 Election ForecastUpdated 39 minutes ago 


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Conclusion:
I asked earlier whether the jokester at that point was me or Alex Baldwin. The answer is now obvious. Trump and his campaign are the joke and always have been. This is the trick that has been played on us all since last Halloween. His coverage and rise as a "major" political figure has been a comic-tragedy joke version of "our long national nightmare" of Nixon and Watergate.  Now, hopefully, this new national nightmare may be ending — if Clinton sits back and doesn't rock the boat. Then we should get the treat of seeing Trump lose the election. We will have been delivered from a great peril that actually wasn't funny at all. It stirred racial hatreds and raised the spectres of nuclear war and/or a scorching global climate. But maybe it's now going to be all right.

So I'm going shopping today for some pumpkins for jack o' lanterns!

Boo to you, Donald Trump!