His platform was simple: he led a coalition of anti-Putin groups called “Other Russia,” and they vowed to establish a “democratic and just” government.
Less than two months later, Garry Kasparov, Russian presidential candidate, was arrested at a Moscow rally by police loyal to . . . Vladimir Putin . . . Russian president.
Last night, on the ninth of October 2016, in the United States of America, on live national television, Donald Trump, American presidential candidate, stared at his opponent and said:
“If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation . . . We’re going to get a special prosecutor and we’re going to look into it, because you know what? People have been, their lives have been destroyed for doing one-fifth of what you’ve done.”
Secretary Clinton replied, “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in this country.”
Trump then erased any doubt about what he meant—or who he is—or what he has planned.
He shot back.
“Because you’d be in jail.”
*
Make no mistake what you heard between the sniffs and the snorts and the mindless wandering around the stage.
Make no mistake what you heard amid the swirling, strutting egotism and the cacophony of insults.
Make no mistake what you heard—and put aside for now even the lie about opposing Iraq and the mindless, heartless claim that Captain Humayun Khan would still be alive if Trump had been president. . . . Put aside even the disavowal of his own running mate’s position on Syria, and the bobbing and weaving about the “grab them by the pussy” tape.
You heard a would-be president of the United States, the twenty-eighth different nominee in the long history of his party for the most important job on earth, who heretofore has left this ominous, dire, dictatorial threat to the bleating of his ravenous rally crowds—you heard Donald Trump threaten to not merely defeat his opponent but to then put her in prison.
“Instruct my attorney general . . .”
“Special prosecutor.”
“Because you’d be in jail.”
Afterwards, last night, his surrogates tried to palm it off as a joke. Except Trump actually said it twice. Later, Trump said to her, “You’d be put in jail.”
That was no joke.
Make no mistake . . . what you heard.
*
There are no other conclusions here, Trump, are there?
It is not the presidency you are running for. Not, at least, the presidency as we have known it since 1789.
Not, at least, as we have known it as a free country.
The kind of presidency you want to have, Trump, already exists.
It is called a Putin-style dictatorship.
And the kind of America you want to lead, Trump, is not the America we live in now.
This other America already exists. It is called Russia.
*
Trump: men and women you often invoke, but none of whom you have understood for a moment, have died for this country in order to prevent . . . you.
They have died—and others have lived and sacrificed in other ways—to prevent exactly the kind of one-man rule in which a president, or a candidate for president, can threaten to imprison his opponent.
All the patriots of our hallowed history have given and lost and self-abnegated so that you could not say that . . . last night.
And . . . they have also given all of themselves so that Hillary Clinton could not look at you last night and say, “You admitted to sexual assault on that tape. If I’m elected, I will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate you”—so that she could not look at you, Trump, and say, “You just admitted to writing off $916 million in losses to avoid taxes. If I’m elected, I will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate you.”
But she didn’t say either of those things.
Because she believes in our democracy.
And our democracy rests on the same razor’s edge that has permitted a bully and a lunatic like you to get this close to having the power to destroy it.
Because it is very simple, Trump.
When you personally promised to put Hillary Clinton in jail last night—when you made her “imprisonment” part of your campaign, in your own words—you killed a part of our democracy.
When you threaten to jail one of your political opponents, you have threatened to jail all of your political opponents. It is, by itself, the outskirts of a Russian pseudo-democracy in which the act of opposition to the ruler becomes a crime or, worse yet, becomes a reason to fabricate evidence of an extant crime against the opponent.
It is dictatorship.
And the power you seek might still carry the title “president,” but with the threat of the legal power of the United States of America being brought down on your opponents, you might as well be Chancellor Trump . . . or Chairman Trump . . . or Protector Trump . . . or Generalissimo Trump . . . or Führer Trump.
*
“Because . . . you’d be . . . in jail.”
*
Because, Trump, if you are elected, we would all be in jail.
Your threat last night, to merge political opposition with legal prosecution, has no place in a free country.
And you, Trump . . . have no place in this free country.
TRUMP’S THIRTY CRAZIEST DEBATE EVENTS
Post date • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11
We have sunk to this.
We can now rank the thirty craziest things done by one presidential candidate.
Just in the debates.
Just in two of the debates.
We have the thirty craziest things by Donald Trump even leaving out the apology for the “grab them by the pussy” tape. The apology in which the first half of the first sentence was “I’ve never said I’m a perfect person,” which was a lie, because he once tweeted, “I consider myself too perfect and have no faults.”
The apology in which the second half of the first sentence was “nor pretended to be someone that I’m not,” when he used to pretend to be his own press spokesman, named John Barron and John Miller, and didn’t even change his voice when he pretended to be someone he was not!
We’re leaving those out—and many, many more.
Number 30, from Sunday night: “ICE just endorsed me.” First, it sounded like “ISIS just endorsed me.” Second, ICE is a branch of the government involved in immigration; it can’t endorse anybody. He meant either the union representing employees of ICE, or Vanilla Ice.
Number 29, in the first debate, he brought up Rosie O’Donnell and added, “I said very tough things to her, and I think everybody would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her.”
What are you, nine?
Number 28, in the first debate, he claimed the DNC hackers, believed by our government to be Russian, “could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs four hundred pounds, okay?”
Number 27, Sunday night, same topic, he said, “Maybe there is no hacking.”
Number 26, also debate 2, without apologizing for crapping all over the parents of Captain Humayun Khan, insisted that if he had been president then, their son “would be alive today, because unlike her, who voted for the war without knowing what she was doing, I would not have had our people in Iraq.”
Number 25, first debate, he denied that there’s a 2002 tape of him supporting the invasion of Iraq. “Wrong.” Then Hillary Clinton said, “That is absolutely proved over and over again.” He replied, “Wrong. Wrong.”
Number 24, second debate, she said his claim that he hadn’t said what is on the tape had been debunked. His reply? “That’s not been debunked,” “That has not been debunked,” and “Has not been debunked.”
Number 23, first d
ebate, he offered proof he was against Iraq by saying that people should call Sean Hannity, because he told him! He mentioned Hannity by name seven times in a presidential debate—a debate that he was trying to win!
Number 22, Sunday night, about terrorism: “You know, there’s always a reason for everything.”
Well . . . you’ve got me there.
Number 21, first debate. Denied he had ever said global warming was a Chinese hoax. “I did not. I did not. I do not say that.”
No—he only tweeted it.
Number 20, debate 2: “She also sent a tweet out at three o’clock in the morning, but I won’t even mention that.”
You just mentioned it!
Number 19, first debate, explaining the time he settled government prosecution for racial discrimination in renting apartments: “There was no admission of guilt.”
Number 18, first debate. Clinton noted that he rooted for the 2008 housing collapse. “That’s called business, by the way,” he replied.
Number 17, first debate. Admitting that he paid low or no taxes: “That makes me smart.”
Number 16, first debate. Then he said that if he had paid more tax, “It would be squandered, too.”
Number 15, first debate, she mentioned his father got him $14 million. He called it a “small loan.”
Number 14, Sunday. Complained to the moderator: “I’d like to know, Anderson, why aren’t you bringing up the emails?” . . . When they had just finished a question about the emails!
Number 13, also debate 2: Claimed truthfulness was “the big difference between Abraham Lincoln and you. That’s a big, big difference. We’re talking about some difference.”
Number 12, Sunday. Again lied about the 2008 Clinton campaign starting birtherism . . .
Number 11, first debate. Asked what he had to say to people of color about his birtherism, replied: “I say nothing. I say nothing.”
Number 10, Sunday, asked by a Muslim American for help with rising Islamophobia, he told her to inform on her fellow Muslims and then lied: “In San Bernardino, many people saw the bombs all over the apartment . . .”
Number 9, first debate. Insisted he could not release his tax returns, then immediately said he would release them “when she releases her 33,000 emails that have been deleted.”
Number 8, Sunday. Asking why, in the Senate, Clinton hadn’t repealed “carried interest” and getting the answer that there was a Republican president at the time, he seemed not to know what that meant. “If you were an effective senator, you could have done it. If you were an effective senator, you could have done it. But you were not an effective senator.”
Number 7, first debate: Claimed he had a better temperament than Clinton, while clearly showing he had no idea what the word “temperament” means. “I think my strongest asset, maybe by far, is my temperament. I have a winning temperament. I know how to win.”
And then, Number 6, Sunday, twice threatened Clinton with a special prosecutor, saying, “You’d be put in jail” and “You’d be in jail.”
Number 5, Sunday, asked why he had tweeted, about Alicia Machado, “Check out sex tape,” he said, “No, there wasn’t ‘check out a sex tape’”—when he tweeted, “Check out sex tape”!
Number 4, Sunday, asked about the “grab them by the pussy” tape, said it was “locker room talk.” Five times. “Locker room talk.” Because all locker rooms feature two men wearing microphones in a bus while they know they are being videotaped.
Number 3, Sunday. Pivoted from the tape—which by itself cost him the support of at least thirty-three elected Republicans—by saying, “Certainly I’m not proud of it. But this is locker room talk. You know, when we have a world where you have ISIS chopping off heads . . .”
He segued from “grab them by the pussy” to “chop off their heads!”
Number 2, Sunday, said sniff. Sniff, sniff, sniff! After doing it throughout the first debate, he sniffed at least eighty sniff times in sniff the second sniff debate sniff alone!
He was so loud he was just this side of Darth Vader!
Eighty times!
In just over ninety minutes!
That’s once every sixty-eight seconds!
What’s with the goddamned sniffing?
Buy a handkerchief!
See your doctor, Dr. Vinnie Boombatz!
*
And the Number 1 craziest thing yet by Trump in the debates . . . how could he have not known this? How could somebody have not seen this? How could somebody have not stopped this?
In a debate, the whole point of which was to change the narrative from the “grab them by the pussy” tape, do you know what they call the shirt that his wife Melania wore to the debate?
It’s a pussy-bow shirt!
That’s what it’s called by the designer, Gucci!
A pussy-bow silk crepe de chine shirt!
Pussy bow!
The woman wore a pussy bow to the event at which her husband was trying to get people to stop thinking about “pussy”!
And if all of this bullshit is not bad enough . . .
Worst of all . . . worst of all . . . this sniffling, sniveling, pacing, threatening, preening, bullying, nitwitted would-be dictator . . . made it necessary for me . . . to find out what a pussy-bow silk crepe de chine shirt is!
CAMPS, WITH CONCENTRATION
Post date • WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12
They were once not just the centerpiece of the Trump campaign; they were the first evils out of its Pandora’s box.
The wall along the Mexican border . . .
And the deportation of around eleven million undocumented Americans.
The starting line of this whole wretched, hateful, bigoted nightmare. What empowered the alt-right and inflamed xenophobia and imperiled something fundamental to this nation since slavery ended: the idea that if you were born here, you were an American.
The wall comes up now and again. But . . . what was the other thing?
Oh, yeah. . . . mass deportation.
How exactly would that work?
How exactly would you take eleven million people and make them, you know, leave?
Especially if—and I’m going way out on a limb here—they, you know, didn’t wanna leave?
Eleven million people.
Eleven million people is . . . the population of the entire state of Ohio.
Three and a half percent of the population of . . . all of us.
Even now, a year and three months into this triumph of delusion and ego, over reality and stuff like math and science, there is no policy or guidance about this to be gleaned from the Trump website or the campaign . . . other than his surrogate Chris Christie’s declaration that about two million people would be targeted for immediate deportation, and Trump’s claims that he would deport any undocumented American accused of a crime—not convicted, just accused—and the original plan to “triple the number of immigrations and customs enforcement agents,” with Trump’s insistence that he would “do it humanely.”
A generous estimate is that there are a hundred thousand agents now.
So we triple that, to three hundred thousand.
Three hundred thousand to humanely round up eleven million undocumented Americans.
That’s thirty-seven undocumented Americans per agent. If you triple the number of agents.
If somehow the whole process—from finding these people to apprehending them to giving them whatever is left of due process to maybe an appeal to transportation to expulsion—takes only six months per undocumented American, Trump’s Deportation Force could humanely get the job done . . . in only nineteen years.
Presuming, that is, all of the undocumented Americans cooperate. And all of their friends cooperate. And relatives cooperate. And employers cooperate. And ordinary Americans—who think it’s the work of the devi
l to round up and expel people who risked their lives to get here and are willing to live their lives in the shadows to stay here—presuming they also cooperate when the trucks come for their friends and neighbors.
And it would still take one agent about nineteen years to get “his” thirty-seven undocumented Americans out of America.
Now if, say, each case required the work of three members of that 300,000-person Trump Deportation Force, the project wouldn’t be completed until about the year 2072. And that still assumes that those who are forced out do not come back in.
Now, no matter what numbers and dates are actually realistic (there is another scenario in which Trump’s ethnic cleansing—I’m sorry! I meant to say “humane deportation”—could be concluded by 2027), there is still one giant problem looming in the background.
These eleven million people are not simply going to line up on a given day and march out of the country.
You are going to have to take these people and remove them from society. Go to their homes and—for want of a better word—capture them. Capture as many people as now live in the state of Ohio—and take them somewhere else . . . until the process of expulsion from the country is complete.
Is Donald Trump thinking of humanely keeping them in . . . his hotels?
No.
There would have to be humane deportation centers of some kind.
These would in fact be camps of some kind, and the living arrangements would necessarily be cramped, crowded, congested, confined—oh, what is the word I’m looking for?
Concentrated!
That’s it!
The camps would be concentrated.
Where people would be humanely held in, you know, concentrated places.
Where the deportee-residents were in a—humane—state of being concentrated.
Where these humane camps had the quality of concentration.
Camps. With concentration.
And unless you want these camps, with concentration to just hemorrhage money, there are going to have to be a lot of camps, with concentration all around the country, to make transportation easier.
Trump Is F*cking Crazy (This Is Not a Joke) Page 6