Froth Slosh B'Gosh

I Wish I Had A Camera

So much to blog about!  There was the FBI's announcement that the e-mail search turned up nothing, the non-assassination attempt on Trump, or the Post-Gazette's cowardly non-endorsement, but something on my way home from work really struck me.

I work in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, primarily in Bethel Park and South Park townships.  Now these areas, especially Bethel Park, are pretty affluent.  So what do I see  at the main intersection?  A Trump supporter with a brown cardboard box sign on a pole reading Vote Trump.  Now this part of Allegheny County has a fairly large population of Republican or Republican-leaning voters, so seeing a Trumpkin there wasn't unusual.  What was unusual was his garb.  He was dressed in a manner that someone who knew nothing of steel working might imagine how a steel worker dresses.  He was wearing some sort of overall, and had what looked like a grey-plastic civil defense helmet from a costume shop atop his head, I guess to emulate a hardhat.  Like I typed earlier, I wish I had a camera! 

I suspect he might have been an out-of-town operative attempting to garner working class votes by pretending to be a steel worker?  Of course, most of the mills are long gone from this area, and as noted, Bethel Park is pretty affluent, it is unlikely to harbor a large number of blue collar workers.

But I guess that's what you get when you have no GOTV operation.  A show, instead of an effort.

Your Asshole Of The Day

Senator Mark Kirk.

Pennsylvania Has Early Voting???

So everyone is talking about Newt Gingrich accusing Megyn Kelly of "being obsessed with sex" but what caught my ear was something early in the exchange:

GINGRICH: Well, look. The next two weeks are a contest of two parallel universes. I just listened to that report. First of all, I used to hang out with Charlie Cook when he would explain that Donald Trump was hopeless and would not get the nomination. I like Charlie. That doesn't mean he's infallible. But let's take the report we just got. Republicans are actually outvoting Democrats in Florida, they're outvoting Democrats in Pennsylvania, that's unprecedented. They've cut the Democratic leads --  

KELLY: You predict a win in Pennsylvania.  

GINGRICH: I think they might.

KELLY: Really? You think Trump is going to win Pennsylvania?

GINGRICH: Look, all I can report you right now is they're outvoting the Democrats in early voting which is also true in Florida which is unprecedented.

OK, so Newt says Republicans are outvoting Democrats in early voting in Pennsylvania?  That's rather interesting, as Pennsylvania doesn't even HAVE early voting. While you can cast an absentee ballot, Pennsylvania's rules are rather draconian on who is allowed to cast one.  You essentially have to prove that you will not be in the state on election day, and they won't give you a ballot if you're out of your precinct voluntarily, such as on a vacation.   So if Newt thinks Republicans are out polling Democrats in early voting in Pennsylvania, well, then he really is living in a parallel universe, or perhaps a bizarro one.

 

Trump Went To Gettysburg

From the content of his speech, he should have delivered it at Waterloo.

The speech was a laundry list of familiar promises on the economy, national security, immigration and other issues, though the candidate’s message was muddled by his assertions of coming lawsuits against the women accusing him of sexual misconduct and his pledges to break up media companies that he said are trying to deny him the presidency.

So, win or lose, he's going to throw a temper tantrum and lash out at perceived enemies.

Your Asshole Of The Day

Curt Schilling.

The Other Shoe(s) Drop

Women coming forward accusing Trump of groping them.

“He was like an octopus,” she said. “His hands were everywhere.”

She fled to the back of the plane. “It was an assault,” she said.

And...

Aware that her company did business with Mr. Trump, she turned and introduced herself. They shook hands, but Mr. Trump would not let go, she said. Instead, he began kissing her cheeks. Then, she said, he “kissed me directly on the mouth.”

It didn’t feel like an accident, she said. It felt like a violation.

For those of us here in the Commonwealth, we wonder if its enough to get Looney Toomey to dump Trump.

Off The Rails

He just cannot help himself.

Donald Trump's campaign announced Saturday evening that the candidate would soon deliver a nine-sentence critique of comments Hillary Clinton made months ago about many of the millennials supporting her primary rival, Bernie Sanders. It was an attempt to latch onto a new headline in hopes of finally escaping the controversies that had consumed his week.

It didn’t work.

It took Trump nearly 25 minutes to read the brief statement because he kept going off on one angry tangent after another — ignoring his teleprompters and accusing Clinton of not being “loyal” to her husband, imitating her buckling at a memorial service last month, suggesting that she is “crazy” and saying she should be in prison. He urged his mostly white crowd of supporters to go to polling places in "certain areas" on Election Day to "watch" the voters there. He also repeatedly complained about having a "bum mic" at the first presidential debate and wondered if he should have done another season of “The Apprentice.”

He's become completely unglued since the debate, and I'm making an assumption that he was ever "glued" in the first place.  His rambling rant in Manheim yesterday just reinforces the view that he cannot concentrate on any one thing for more than a few minutes.

Oh, and it looks like he doesn't pay federal taxes either.

USA TODAY

At this point in time, is there any major paper actually endorsing Donald Trump?

This year, the choice isn’t between two capable major party nominees who happen to have significant ideological differences. This year, one of the candidates — Republican nominee Donald Trump — is, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, unfit for the presidency.

From the day he declared his candidacy 15 months ago through this week’s first presidential debate, Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he lacks the temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty that America needs from its presidents.

The editorial goes on to list the many reasons why Trump is unfit to be president.

To Watch Or Not To Watch

I've never been a fan of the modern "debate" on the teevee, because it really isn't a debate, as classically defined.  Its more of a joint presser.  Tonight's extended candidate commercial starts at my usual bedtime, and I do have to work on Tuesday, so I'm unsure if I should watch it or just check out the recaps tomorrow morning.

In either case, I'm sure I'll be more disappointed by the media stenographers' vapidity than intrigued, shocked, or outraged by what's actually said.

The Company He Keeps

Ben Carson looks shadier by the day.

Dr. Carson wrote that Costa was "an extraordinarily successful real estate developer" and "a man of his word. ... I could literally trust him with all of my earthly possessions and rest assured that I would get them all back with interest." Other than his wife, Dr. Carson wrote, "there is no one on this planet that I trust more than Al Costa."

The context for the laudatory comments, though, was Costa's sentencing on one count of health care fraud....

Five years later, the Associated Press reported, Dr. Carson said that those convicted of health care fraud should go to prison for at least a decade and be forced to forfeit “all of one’s personal possessions.”

Costa, by contrast, got two years of probation, a $250,000 fine and $44,579 in restitution.

Obviously, just because Costa committed fraud doesn't mean that Carson is guilty of Costa's crime, but it does reveal that he holds his close friends to a different standard.  This, along with the lies in his autobiography and associations with another questional business certainly call his judgement into question.