Month: October 2016

The Miami Herald Endorses Hillary Clinton

Buck Banks

Mr. Trump’s demerits are well-documented — in print, on video, on the debate stage. And they are legion, so the CliffsNotes version will do: The billionaire Republican candidate is a boastful, self-centered egomaniac who lacks a record of public service or familiarity with the issues. Indeed, he clearly seems to lack any political convictions whatsoever, except those of convenience. He’s the star of this political reality show of his own making, a sick parody of a real political contest. He’s the ringmaster of a circus that attempts to conceal his lack of gravity by relying on the entertainment value of insults, exaggerations, lies and promises completely devoid of credibility and substance, characterized by his pie-in-the-sky vow to “make America great again.”

— From the Miami Herald’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton

The Miami Herald Endorses Hillary Clinton

Buck Banks

Miami Herald, Sunday, Oct. 16, 2016
Miami Herald, Sunday, Oct. 16, 2016
I opened my Sunday Miami Herald to see a ringing endorsement of Hillary Clinton covering the front page of the editorial section headlined “We’re With Her.” Then I went online to snag the story for this blog and the headline was “The Miami Herald recommends Hillary Clinton for president of the United States.”

Hmmmm, not so ringing, maybe.

But fortunately, the editorial was the same. It starts this way:

Let’s make clear what the 2016 presidential election isn’t about:

It is not about choosing between a bad candidate and a worse one. The narrative that Hillary Clinton is the lesser of two evils is patently wrong. Ms. Clinton is a pragmatic, tough-minded woman of accomplishment and political conviction with a demonstrated mastery of policy. She is politically flawed. However, Donald Trump is a damaged human being.

[…]

Obama: GOP Created Trump

Buck Banks

The problem is not that all Republicans think the way this guy does. The problem is that they’ve been riding this tiger for a long time. They’ve been feeding their base all kinds of crazy for years, primarily for political expedience. So if Trump was running around saying I wasn’t born here, they were okay with that as long as it helped them with votes. If some of these folks on talk radio talked about how I was the antichrist, that’s just politics. … They stood by while this happened. And Donald Trump–as he’s prone to do—he didn’t build the building himself, he just slapped his name on it and took credit for it. And that’s what happened in their party.

— President Obama, giving Republicans a frank dressing-down for allowing Donald Trump to become the Republican nominee at the annual Ohio Democrats’ dinner Thursday night, TPM reports.

Apparently, Trump Is a Secessionist and Revolutionary

Buck Banks

I haven’t seen it since 1860, this threat of delegitimizing the federal government, and Trump is trying to say our entire government is corrupt and the whole system is rigged. And that’s a secessionist, revolutionary motif. That’s someone trying to topple the apple cart entirely.

— Historian Douglas Brinkley, telling the New York Times that the country has not had a presidential candidate from one of the two major parties try to cast doubt on the entire democratic process and system of government since the brink of the Civil War.

Michelle Obama Slamps Trump Like No One Else Can

Buck Banks

The fact is in this election we have a candidate for president of the United States who over the course of his lifetime and the course of this campaign has said things about women that are so shocking, so demeaning, I simply will not repeat anything here today. … And last week we saw this candidate actually bragging about sexual assaulting women. I can’t believe I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women.

— First lady Michelle Obama, delivering a powerful and emotional rebuke to Donald Trump, saying his vulgar comments on sexual assault “have shaken me to my core,” Politico reports.