NOVEMBER 6, 7, AND 8, 2018

NEWS AND VIEWS

I CAN’T REMEMBER WHO IT WAS, UNFORTUNATELY, BUT AN ARTICLE SAID THAT SEVERAL DEMOCRATS HAVE WARNED TRUMP TO STAY AWAY FROM MUELLER. I NOTICE HE MADE THE COMMENT YESTERDAY, OR MAYBE EVEN TODAY, THAT HE “DOESN’T LIKE” TO INTERFERE WITH MUELLER, BECAUSE IT IS POLITICALLY RISKY. YOU BETTA BELIEVE IT IS, BROTHER.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/415606-sanders-warns-trump-interfering-with-mueller-probe-would-be-an-impeachable
Sanders warns Trump: Interfering with Mueller probe an 'impeachable offense'
BY MEGAN KELLER - 11/07/18 05:18 PM EST

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday warned President Trump against interfering with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's election meddling now that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has left the Justice Department.

"President Trump must allow Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation to continue unimpeded," Sanders tweeted Wednesday along with an article regarding Sessions's ouster.

Sessions resigned Wednesday after months of criticism and insults from Trump.

“I came to work at the Department of Justice every day determined to do my duty and serve my country,” Sessions wrote in his resignation letter, obtained by The Hill.

“I have done so to the best of my ability, working to support the fundamental legal processes that are the foundation of justice.”

The Justice Department promptly released a statement saying that Matthew Whitaker would serve as acting attorney general, including taking oversight of Mueller's probe, control of which was given to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein when Sessions recused himself because of his role in Trump's campaign.

During a press conference Wednesday before Sessions's resignation was announced, Trump said he has no intention to end Mueller's investigation into Russia's 2016 interference and any possible coordination with the Trump campaign.

"I could fire everybody right now, but I don't want to stop it because, politically, I don't like stopping it," Trump said.

"I let it just go on," he added. "They're wasting a lot of money, but I let it go on because I don't want to do that."

"It's a disgrace, frankly, and it's an embarrassment to our country."

Republicans have ripped the probe as being politically motivated, but have urged Trump not to put an end to it before Mueller makes his conclusions known.

Democrats have likewise encouraged Trump not to end the investigation and argued that doing so would qualify as obstruction of justice.

Mueller's team has indicted or secured guilty pleas from 32 people and companies so far.


I HATE TO GO STRAIGHT TO THE MOST OBVIOUS AND PROBABLE CONSPIRACY THEORY LIKE THIS, BUT WHO DOES THE EMPHASIS ON MENTAL ILLNESS IN RELATION TO GUNS MOST IMPACT? WELL, THE NRA, OF COURSE. AS DEEP THROAT SO MOVINGLY HALF-WHISPERED, “FOLLOW THE MONEY.” THE NRA DOES NOT WANT TO DIMINISH THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THEY CAN MAKE ON THEIR GUN SALES, AND IF EVERYBODY WHO PURCHASES A GUN ABSOLUTELY MUST GET A MENTAL HEALTH AND CRIMINAL HISTORY PROBE, THAT WILL CUT DOWN ON GUN SALES. I BELIEVE THAT NOT ONLY THE SHOOTERS, BUT THE GUN-WORSHIPPING OVERGROWN BOYS WHO WANT A PRIVATE ARSENAL, ARE AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT “TETCHED IN THE HAID,*” AS WELL.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-duwe-rocque-mass-shootings-mental-illness-20180223-story.html
Actually, there is a clear link between mass shootings and mental illness
By GRANT DUWE AND MICHAEL ROCQUE
FEB 23, 2018 | 4:15 AM

PHOTOGRAPH -- A woman cries as she visits a makeshift memorial for the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting victims in Parkland, Fla. on February 16. (Matt McClain / The Washington Post)

"Repeat after me: Mass shooters are not disproportionately mentally ill."

This is the opening line of a meme that's been circulating in the aftermath of the shooting in Parkland, Fla.

But this and other efforts to downplay the role of mental illness in mass shootings are simply misleading. There is a clear relationship between mental illness and mass public shootings.

At the broadest level, peer-reviewed research has shown that individuals with major mental disorders (those that substantially interfere with life activities) are more likely to commit violent acts, especially if they abuse drugs. When we focus more narrowly on mass public shootings — an extreme and, fortunately, rare form of violence — we see a relatively high rate of mental illness.

According to our research, at least 59% of the 185 public mass shootings that took place in the United States from 1900 through 2017 were carried out by people who had either been diagnosed with a mental disorder or demonstrated signs of serious mental illness prior to the attack. (We define a mass public shooting as any incident in which four or more victims are killed with a gun within a 24-hour period at a public location in the absence of military conflict, collective violence or other criminal activity, such as robberies, drug deals or gang turf wars.)

Mother Jones found a similarly high rate of potential mental health problems among perpetrators of mass shootings — 61% — when the magazine examined 62 cases in 2012.

Both rates are considerably higher than those found in the general population — more than three times higher than the rate of mental illness found among American adults, and about 15 times higher than the rate of serious mental illness found among American adults.

It’s possible for mass public shootings to be both a gun problem and a mental health problem.

And yet this nuance often gets lost in mainstream news reports. In a story that largely suggested mass murderers are not "insane," the New York Times cited research showing that, in fact, mass murderers are nearly 20 times more likely to have a "severe" mental illness than the general population.

According to our research, only one-third of the people who have committed mass shootings in the U.S. since 1900 had sought or received mental health care prior to their attacks, which suggests that most shooters did not seek or receive care they may have needed.

This treatment gap is underscored by evidence showing that the U.S. has higher rates of untreated serious mental illness than most other Western countries. Additional research shows that the gap is even larger for males, who have committed 99% of the country's mass public shootings.

Although the link between mass shootings and mental illness has only recently gained widespread recognition, the correlation itself is longstanding. Indeed, we see it in some of the earliest such shootings in the U.S. Gilbert Twigg, who opened fire on a concert crowd in Winfield, Kan., in 1903, killing nine, had displayed signs of paranoia beforehand. Howard Unruh, who shot and killed 13 people in Camden, N.J., in 1949, was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. (Both were also Army veterans who had seen combat.)

One of the primary reasons some are reluctant to establish the link between mass shootings and mental illness is a fear that it will lead to the stigmatization of such disorders. This concern is valid. The vast majority of people with mental disorders are not violent, after all.

Conversely, some have insisted — wrongly, in our opinion — that mass public shootings are strictly a mental health problem rather than a gun problem. They, too, are on the wrong side of the evidence. It's possible for mass public shootings to be both a gun problem and a mental health problem.

Increasing access to mental health care may reduce mass public shootings. But while such events are more commonplace than they should be, the reality may be that they're still too rare to develop and implement policies that reduce their incidence or severity specifically.

Policymakers should therefore focus on strategies that have shown promise in reducing gun violence in general, like a federal universal background check.

Because there's still a lot we don't understand about mass shootings, we need to invest in research to develop evidence-based solutions. In the meantime, the media should stop glorifying this violence. In the midst of our tribal hyperpartisanship, the debate over mass shootings is doomed to continue ignoring facts. We won't make any progress until those on the mental health side and those on the gun side find common ground that's rooted in empirical reality.

Grant Duwe is research director for the Minnesota Department of Corrections and the author of "Mass Murder in the United States: A History." Michael Rocque is a professor of sociology at Bates College.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook


http://www.yourdictionary.com/tetched-in-the-haid*
“tetched-in-the-haid*”

tetched Play tetched
DIAL.
touched; slightly demented: also used humorously
Origin of tetched

Late Middle English techyd, probably altered (infl. by teche, a quality, mark: see tetchy) from touchede, past participle of touchen, touch


ABOUT THAT REAGAN LAW, SEE THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE AND THE MOSTLY VERY GOOD READER COMMENTS. MANY OF THEM SHOW FIRST HAND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, AS PATIENTS OR AS FAMILY MEMBERS. SOME OF THE COMMENTS, OF COURSE, ARE SATIRICAL. I ESPECIALLY LIKE THE ONE ABOUT “PUTTING THEM OUT ON THE STREETS SO THEY CAN SHOOT US!” TRAGEDY AND COMEDY ARE BOTH BEST WHEN THEY ARE INTERWOVEN, DON’T YOU THINK?”

http://www.povertyinsights.org/2013/10/14/did-reagans-crazy-mental-health-policies-cause-todays-homelessness/
OPINION TOPICS: HOMELESSNESS • INSTITUTIONS • MENTAL HEALTH • POLITICS • RONALD REAGAN
Did Reagan’s Crazy Mental Health Policies Cause Today’s Homelessness?
By Joel John Roberts | Oct 14, 2013

Recently, a 34-year-old woman rammed her car into barricades outside the White House while her infant daughter was in the back seat. The police, thinking it was an act of terror, chased her down and shot her to death.

Later, we learned she was actually struggling with mental illness.

This came not long after another 34-year-old, this one a man who heard voices and thought people were out to hurt him, walked into the Washington Navy Yard and gunned down 12 people.

It is getting crazy out there, and these two people were not even dealing with the added pressure of living on the streets. Within our country’s homeless population, a quarter of a million people—or one-third of the homeless population—struggle with some sort of mental illness.

For those of us who encounter people experiencing homelessness on a daily basis, this is not surprising. We see that man walking down the sidewalk angrily screaming at an imaginary person, haunted by some phantom or past memory, every day. We also see people steering their children across the street to get away from the potential danger.

In America’s cities, many of us are so immune to such disturbances that we just continue reading our email on our smartphones without even looking up. It is just another crazy part of our urban lifestyle.

But when I see people like this, my first thought is always the same: Why isn’t this man institutionalized? He certainly is not living a dignified life out here on the streets.

When I ask my mental health colleagues about this, the one political figure that typically comes up is former President Ronald Reagan. It’s like an urban legend in our field. People say the reason so many people with mental illness are homeless or in jail—one-third of all homeless individuals and half of all people behind bars—is because of President Reagan.

Really? What did he do? Let all of the mentally ill patients loose?

Well, yes, that’s exactly what they say he did.

Over 30 years ago, when Reagan was elected President in 1980, he discarded a law proposed by his predecessor that would have continued funding federal community mental health centers. This basically eliminated services for people struggling with mental illness.

He made similar decisions while he was the governor of California, releasing more than half of the state’s mental hospital patients and passing a law that abolished involuntary hospitalization of people struggling with mental illness. This started a national trend of de-institutionalization.

In other words, if you are struggling with mental illness, we can only help you if you ask for it.

But, wait. Isn’t one of the characteristics of severe mental illness not having an accurate sense of reality? Doesn’t that mean a person may not even realize he or she is mentally ill?

There certainly seems to be a correlation between the de-institutionalization of mental health patients in the 1970s and early 1980s and the significant number of homelessness agencies created in the mid-to-late 1980s. PATH itself was founded in 1984 in response to the significant increase in homelessness in Los Angeles.

It’s ironic that a political leader who made such sweeping decisions affecting Americans with mental health issues ultimately came face-to-face with the dangers of untreated mental illness. In 1981, President Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr., a man suffering from several different types of personality disorders.

Where has Hinckley been for the last 30 years? In a psychiatric hospital.

It makes me wonder just how many people living on the streets today would also be safer and better cared for in an institutional setting.

photo: by Michael Evans, 1982 (NARA/Reagan Library)

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@pkomarek · 264 weeks ago

Deinstitutionalization was no mistake. The asylums may have been more humane than chaining people up in back yard sheds, but they were never sustainable, and became horrific dumping grounds themselves. People with mental illness belong in our communities, but need care, and treatment, and support. What Reagan did was gut mental health treatment funding, as well as housing funding, the two main supports for this population, while ratcheting up drug penalties, which swept many people with mental illness into prisons where they don't belong.

Fixing the experience of mental illness starts with adjusting the attitudes of ordinary people, focusing on what is safe for a person and what is risky, and what helps people make the most of their talents and capacities. There are humane ways to connect people with appropriate treatment, and ways to reduce the numbers of people stuck in jails and prisons, end there are even ways to get everyone into appropriate housing.

But you know how hard it is to connect people with housing in today's America. The work is more difficult for challenging populations. Romanticizing bygone asylum days is not the way to start.

Anica Oaks · 250 weeks ago


It is often claimed that mental illness is a primary cause of homelessness, and that most people who are homeless have a mental illness. Many of us nod our heads at this apparently obvious truth. You do not have look too far down Melbourne's lanes to see examples of homelessness and people who are mentally ill.
Reply
+3Carrie's avatar
Carrie · 226 weeks ago

Better to put the mentally ill on streets so they can shoot us @pkomarek
Reply
-77Austin Jones's avatar
Austin Jones · 188 weeks ago

Liberals are responsible for the mentally ill being on the streets. They should be made to pay for the institutionalizing of ALL of the mentally ill living on the streets. It is impossible for the average mentally ill person to seek help as they are not aware of their condition.
Reply5 replies · active 26 weeks ago
-73Jay's avatar
Jay · 180 weeks ago

Because LIBERALISM is a MENTAL ILLNESS!
Reply3 replies · active 14 weeks ago
+8LoriC's avatar
LoriC · 176 weeks ago

Kennedy was the first President to start the process. The plan was set in motion by the Community Mental Health Act as a part of John F. Kennedy's legislation & passed by congress in 1963, mandating the appointment of a commission to make recommendations for "combating mental illness ".The deinstitutionalisation movement was initiated by three factors: a socio-political movement for community mental health services and open hospitals; the advent of psychotropic drugs able to manage psychotic episodes; financial imperatives specifically, to shift costs from state to federal budgets.
Reply1 reply · active 166 weeks ago
+14Seth's avatar
Seth · 165 weeks ago

If you think about it Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" was published around the same time as JFK's New Frontier. There was a common conception that the state institutions were dehumanizing the mentally ill by just feeding people tranquilizers all day. I think the intention of the act was to fund community health clinics to provide treatment and public housing so that the mentally ill had a more humane system of being a part of society but still getting the treatment they need. However, Ronald Reagan axed a lot of the funding that was supposed to be channeled into this program so basically the community facilities were either never built or shut down. They just were turned out into the streets.
Reply1 reply ·

TRUMP HAS FINALLY FIRED JEFF SESSIONS. WHEN SESSIONS WALKED OUT OF THE BUILDING HIS CO-WORKERS WERE OUTSIDE CLAPPING FOR HIM. I MUST SAY THAT, THOUGH SESSIONS IS AN OLD RACIST HIMSELF, HE AT LEAST PROTECTED OUR DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE. MEANWHILE TRUMP CALLED HIM "MR. MAGOO." OH, WELL, LET’S SEE WHERE IT GOES FROM HERE. THE DEMOCRATS USUALLY DO COME BACK FIGHTING. BESIDES, TRUMP SAID TODAY THAT HE DOESN’T INTEND TO FIRE MUELLER; AS TWO COMMENTERS SAID, THOUGH, MAYBE HE INTENDS TO CUT OFF HIS FUNDS. WHATEVER. I’LL WATCH AND WAIT IN FAITH THAT GOOD WILL TRIUMPH.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/08/politics/trump-reviewing-answers-mueller/index.html
Trump reviewing his answers to Mueller as he changes who oversees the Russia investigation
By Evan Perez, Pamela Brown, Sara Murray and Laura Jarrett, CNN
Updated 10:18 AM ET, Thu November 8, 2018

Washington (CNN)As he was preparing to remove Jeff Sessions as attorney general, President Donald Trump had already begun reviewing with his lawyers the written answers to questions from special counsel Robert Mueller.

What does Sessions' firing mean for Mueller?

The move to replace Sessions with Matt Whitaker, who has been openly critical of the special counsel, comes as the White House braces for a return of public activity on the Russia investigation following a pre-election quiet period, according to people briefed on the matter.

As acting attorney general, Whitaker also now takes over Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's role in overseeing the special counsel probe, which officials inside the Justice Department and lawyers representing witnesses believe is moving closer to a conclusion.

Mueller's team has begun writing its final report, multiple sources told CNN.

Before that happens, one of the major questions in the Russia investigation remains to be answered: What happens to Roger Stone, a longtime Trump adviser who has been at the center of a whirlwind of legal activity behind the scenes even during the election-related public quiet period by Mueller.

Related: Track the publicly known developments of the sprawling investigations into Trump and Russia.

As recently as a month ago, Mueller asked Trump's lawyers to produce call and visitor logs related to Stone from Trump Tower in New York, according to a source briefed on the matter. The request at this late stage of the investigation came as something of a surprise to lawyers involved, given that the Mueller team has been focused for months on Stone and his activities before the 2016 election.

Among the questions Mueller has asked the President to provide written responses on are queries about Stone and his communications with then-candidate Trump, according to a source briefed on the matter.

Despite the change in leadership at the Justice Department, the Trump legal team believes it won't affect its approach to the Mueller questions, according to one source familiar with the matter.

Trump strikes, sensing post-midterm window to wound Mueller

The President and his lawyers have been aiming to return answers to Mueller's questions later this month, according to one source familiar with the matter. No final decision on an in-person interview has been made.

But Trump's legal team and other lawyers representing witnesses in the investigation expect that the President's responses to Mueller could be one of the final pieces of the 18-month-long probe before the investigators present a report on their findings.

Trump made clear once again in a news conference Wednesday he believes the investigation is a waste of time and money.

"It's a disgrace, it should have never been started because there was no crime," Trump said.

Even after Mueller completes his work, Tuesday's midterm election results mean that House Democrats will also be in a position to expand investigations of Trump. That means Mueller will not be the end of Russia-related questions of Trump and his campaign.

Play Video -- Former FBI Agent: Mueller may no longer be protected 03:23

What does Stone have?

The Stone portion of the investigation relates to one of Mueller's central responsibilities: to tell Americans whether there's evidence of collusion between Russians and people associated with the Trump campaign related to the 2016 election.

Trump's replacement for Sessions once argued the Mueller probe goes too far

Investigators have been circling back to Stone's associates they have already interviewed with additional questions. And at least one -- author and well-known conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi* -- is still in discussions about potentially appearing for a second time before the Washington, DC, grand jury that Mueller has been using for the investigation.

[JEROME CORSI* -- READ THE WIKI BIOGRAPHY ON CORSI. HE’S A REAL LIAR’S LIAR -- A PROFESSIONAL. WHY DO SO MANY OF TRUMP’S PEOPLE FIT THE DESCRIPTION OF CROOKS AND SCAM ARTISTS? TRUMP AND THE REST ARE ALL EQUALLY “NOT PRESIDENTIAL MATERIAL.” (I DECIDED NOT TO SAY “NOT MY PRESIDENT,” BECAUSE THAT COULD BE INTERPRETED AS TREASON, PERHAPS.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Corsi ]

Over the last two months, Corsi has been talking to Mueller's investigators "in a really constant basis," he said in a video he posted online on Monday.

RELATED: Roger Stone reveals he talked to Trump campaign about WikiLeaks in 2016

On Thursday, Mueller's team is set to appear in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to defend the special counsel's authority as another one of Stone's former associates aims to quash a subpoena for grand jury testimony.

Stone has denied any wrongdoing and has said he didn't have any inside knowledge about plans by WikiLeaks to publish hacked emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign stolen by Russian intelligence in the run-up to the election.

Stone insists he never shared anything about WikiLeaks with then-candidate Trump.

"I never discussed any of this with Donald Trump," Stone told CNN recently. "It's one of the questions that Mr. Mueller wants the President to answer -- one of the written questions. I'm highly confident that his answer will be that he knew nothing about it. We just never discussed it."

On Thursday, Stone told CNN, "I never visited Trump Tower after August of 2015 until the President-elect asked me to visit him after the election." Stone said he visited just one time around late November of 2016 or early December, and that this was his last visit to Trump Tower.

The conversation during that one visit was "mostly congratulatory. It was innocuous. Nothing heavy."

In terms of phone calls in 2016 with Trump, he says they were "occasional and in all cases initiated by him. And we never discussed WikiLeaks."

All signs point to an investigation that is winding down, though Mueller hasn't provided any timeline for completing his work.

Play Video -- Roger Stone on his alleged role with Wikileaks 08:33

Election's impact on Mueller

Even with the Mueller probe seemingly nearing its end, the Russia meddling investigation and its impact is expected to reverberate for months.

The White House is seeking to hire as many as two dozen lawyers for the counsel's office, which will soon by led by Pat Cipollone, following the departure of Don McGahn, sources briefed on the search say. The legal firepower, the President's lawyers believe, will be needed as newly empowered Democrats launch a new round of probes, including pursuing parts of the Trump-Russia matter that Republican leaders had blocked.

Two Roger Stone associates go before Mueller's grand jury

One of the important questions the new White House legal team is expected to have to address is whether any of Mueller's findings can be shared with either Congress or the public given executive privilege concerns, which could block release of some or all of Mueller's work.

Under Justice Department regulations, Mueller is required to produce a "confidential report" at the end of his investigation, which includes "the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel."

But the regulations do not require that Mueller's report be released to the public, and with Whitaker taking over, it is not clear whether he will choose to release it at all, or in what form.

One of the sources familiar with the matter said the report will be detailed in part because Mueller's team wants to make sure it withstands public scrutiny. It is expected to include an analysis of the allegations, any information or statements made over the course of voluntary interviews, a legal explanation of why the evidence didn't meet the prosecution bar and an overall defense of the investigation.

How much the Mueller team has accomplished remains a subject of partisan debate. Critics of the President cite guilty pleas from top Trump campaign associates, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and his deputy Rick Gates, as well as Michael Flynn, his first national security adviser.

So far the Mueller team has brought charges against 35 people and entities, secured six guilty pleas, and prison sentences against three people.

Supporters of the President argue that none of the guilty pleas, and the one court conviction, have had anything to do with the Russian interference in the 2016 election, which is what Mueller is supposed to be investigating. The new acting-attorney general has questioned in the past whether there is any obstruction to investigate.

Second-guessing of Mueller

Even inside the Justice Department, there's been second-guessing of some of the Mueller team's work.

One particular focus has the Mueller team's decision earlier this year to include a Russian company among entities and people charged related to operating an internet troll farm that played a central role in Russian interference efforts in 2016.

Mueller could soon roar back into the news

Some Justice Department lawyers raised concerns about charging the company, for fear it could force the government to share information in discovery that could end up with the Russians.

Those concerns have proven prescient in recent months as the company, Concord Management, hired US lawyers to fight the special counsel in court on a series of fronts. The Concord lawyers have won court permission to access to sensitive information used to bring the charges, though the judge has restricted what can be shared with foreign nationals.

"What a lot of people thought were vulnerabilities in the indictment are now coming to light," said one former Justice Department official.

RELATED: Russian company compares Mueller to Looney Tunes

The behind-the-scenes doubts were discussed among Justice Department lawyers, some of whom were consulted by the Mueller team before the charges were brought.

A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment.

Russian company compares Mueller to Looney Tunes

Some DOJ lawyers have groused that the Mueller team should have taken a less risky course by focusing the indictment against the Russian nationals, without the companies and entities. That's because since the individuals wouldn't likely respond to the charges and subject themselves to US legal process.

Given the legal fight that has ensued, DOJ will have to handle the upcoming trial in the case and any other legal matters that arise from it, perhaps long after Mueller has wrapped up his inquiry.

CNN's MJ Lee contributed to this report.

BETO O’ROURKE IS AN INTERESTING PERSON. IF HE COMES UP FOR THE PRESIDENCY (AFTER BERNIE GETS IN AND SERVES TWO TERMS) I’M VERY LIKELY TO VOTE FOR HIM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzipRjUwQgo
BETO O’ROURKE WITH CENK UYGUR. I’M PUTTING THIS UP HERE SO YOU CAN WATCH IT AND SEE WHAT BERNIE IS TALKING ABOUT IN THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE. I DO LIKE WHAT O’ROURKE IS SAYING AND HOW WELL HE IS ABLE TO EXPRESS AND ADVOCATE FOR HIS IDEAS, WHICH I THINK IS BERNIE’S POINT. HE’S A STRONG CANDIDATE.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-on-andrew-gillium-and-stacey-abrams-many-whites-uncomfortable-voting-for-black-candidates
BERN NOTICE
Bernie Sanders on Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams: Many Whites Made ‘Uncomfortable’ Voting for Black Candidates
The progressive leader says Democratic senators who lost in GOP states should’ve been more like Beto O’Rourke, and that race may be responsible for near-misses in the South.
Gideon Resnick
11.08.18 10:05 AM ET

Beto O’Rourke -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGWmh-maevk

PHOTOGRAPH – BERNIE SANDERS SPEAKING Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Democratic officials woke Wednesday morning searching for answers as to why the party was unable to win several marquee Senate and gubernatorial races the night before.

But for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the explanation was simple. The candidates who underperformed weren’t progressive enough; those who didn’t shy away from progressivism were undone, in part, by “racist” attacks.

“I think you know there are a lot of white folks out there who are not necessarily racist who felt uncomfortable for the first time in their lives about whether or not they wanted to vote for an African-American,” Sanders told The Daily Beast, referencing the close contests involving Andrew Gillum in Florida and Stacey Abrams in Georgia and ads run against the two. “I think next time around, by the way, it will be a lot easier for them to do that.”

Sanders wasn’t speaking as a mere observer but, rather, as someone who had invested time and reputation on many of the midterm contests. The Vermonter, who is potentially considering another bid for the presidency in 2020, mounted an aggressive campaign travel schedule over the past few months and endorsed both Abrams and Gillum. He also has a personal political investment in the notion that unapologetic, authentic progressive populism can be sold throughout the country and not just in states and districts that lean left.

Surveying the victories and the carnage of Tuesday’s results, Sanders framed it as a vindication of that vision. The candidates who performed well even though they lost, he said, offered positive progressive views for the future of their states, including Gillum, Abrams, and Texas Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke. Those who were heavily defeated, Sanders said, didn’t galvanize young voters, people of color, and typically non-active voters.

“I think you got to contrast that to the votes of conservative Democrats who did not generate a great deal of excitement within the Democratic Party,” Sanders said, alluding to a host of Senate Democrats who lost re-election on Tuesday night. “Did not bring the kind of new people, new energy that they needed and ended up doing quite poorly. In admittedly difficult states. Missouri and Indiana are not easy states, but neither is Florida or Georgia or Texas.”

“You look at Beto O’Rourke. Running in, you know, what is generally considered to be a red state,” Sanders added, in some of his first remarks on the Texas Democrat. “Enormous excitement. Enormous citizen participation, young people participation. Broke the bank in terms of small contributions that he got. Came within a hair of winning in Texas.”

TEXAS-SIZED
Beto Raises Most Money for Senate Candidate Ever
Gideon Resnick

RELATED IN POLITICS
Will Enough White People Vote for Abrams and Gillum?
Mika: Trump Said He Knew Birtherism Was ‘Bad. But It Works’

State by State, Democrats Are… Winning?!

Sanders’ explanation for Tuesday’s results is not universally shared among Democratic Party strategists, who have cited state demographics and fears about immigration as having more to do with the outcomes than a candidate’s progressive bona fides.

Senate Republicans built on their narrow majority with a net pickup of three seats on Tuesday, with a possible fourth in Florida, pending an anticipated recount. In the states Sanders referenced specifically, Indiana and Missouri, incumbent Senators Joe Donnelly (D-IN) and Claire McCaskill did close their campaigns by tacking to the middle and emphasizing their agreements with President Trump (all while still running on protecting insurers’ coverage pre-existing conditions). But one top Senate strategist insisted to The Daily Beast that their doing so actually kept the contests closer than they could have been.

Sanders, by contrast, credited Abrams with a “brilliant campaign” for her efforts to bring non-active Democratic voters into the electoral process. He marveled at O’Rourke’s fundraising prowess, which allowed the Texas Democrat to raise $38 million in the third quarter of this year—the largest of any Senate candidate in history—and earn more than 48 percent of the vote against incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). And he noted that Gillum helped generate turnout that led to the successful passing of Amendment 4, which will restore voting rights to 1.5 million convicted felons in Florida.

“I think he’s a fantastic politician in the best sense of the word,” Sanders said of Gillum. “He stuck to his guns in terms of a progressive agenda. I think he ran a great campaign. And he had to take on some of the most blatant and ugly racism that we have seen in many, many years. And yet he came within a whisker of winning.”

As for the notion that race may have played a role in Abrams’ and Gillum’s defeats, the two did face racist robocalls in their campaigns, and Gillum’s opponent, soon-to-be Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, began his campaign by urging voters not to “monkey this up” by voting for his opponent.

The narrow losses did nothing to dissuade Sanders that he, or anyone else competing as a Democratic candidate for president in 2020, should write off perennially tricky states in the South, including Texas, a state that he believes could go blue in two years. “And let me tell you something else,” Sanders added. “I think the day is going to come sooner than later when states like Mississippi are going to become progressive states.”


ANOTHER DEMOCRATIC NEOPHYTE ACROSS THE FINISH LINE. THIS COUNTRY IS READY, AFTER BARELY TWO YEARS, FOR DIVORCE FROM TRUMP AND ALL THINGS TRUMPIAN. AT ANY RATE, THAT’S WHAT I THINK IS GOING ON.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arizona-senate-race-democrat-kyrsten-sinema-small-lead-over-republican-martha-mcsally-live-updates-today-2018-11-08/
CBS/AP November 8, 2018, 8:33 PM
Democrat Kyrsten Sinema pulls ahead in razor-close Arizona Senate race

Democrat Kyrsten Sinema pulled ahead of Republican Martha McSally on Thursday in the Arizona Senate race by a margin of 2,000 votes. This marked the first time that Sinema has pulled ahead of McSally in the days since the election.

An additional 120,000 outstanding ballots were made available from Maricopa County Thursday. The county encompasses Phoenix and some of the state's liberal enclaves. There are an 345,000 ballots that needed to be counted per a knowledgeable source with the Arizona Secretary of State's office.

Republicans filed a lawsuit Wednesday night to challenge the way some Arizona counties count mail-in ballots, as election officials began to slowly tally more than 600,000 outstanding votes in the narrow U.S. Senate race. The task that could take days.

About 75 percent of Arizona voters cast ballots by mail, but those ballots have to go through a signature confirmation process, and only then can be opened and tabulated. If county recorders have issues verifying signatures they are allowed to ask voters to verify their identity.

The suit filed Wednesday by four county Republican parties alleges that the state's 15 county recorders don't follow a uniform standard for allowing voters to adjust problems with their mail-in ballots, and that two counties improperly allow those fixes after Election Day.

The GOP complained about the issue before Election Day and threatened to sue. Democrats alleged it was attempted voter suppression and that recorders have followed the same procedures for years with no issues. Republicans said it was about following the law and having a timely ballot count.

The sluggish count is a perennial issue for Arizona, but has rarely received such a high level of attention because the GOP-leaning state generally has had few nationally-watched nail-biting contests.

The lawsuit alleges that signature verification must stop when polls close, and seeks an injunction to stop the counting of such ballots that have been verified after then. It's unclear how many of these votes still remain outstanding, but the suit singles out the state's two biggest urban counties, the center of support for Sinema. It says the two counties allow voters to help clear up signature problems up to five days after the election.

Democrats believe the uncounted urban ballots dropped off shortly before Election Day favors Sinema.

The lawsuit is scheduled to be heard Friday, after the next release late Thursday of tallied ballots.

Grace Segers contributed to this report.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.


THE NEWS DAY IS FULL OF THE RECENT TRUMP AD THAT MOST MAINSTREAM NEWS SOURCES ARE NOT SHOWING, THOUGH THEY ARE ARGUING AGAINST IT AS BEING RACIST. THE BEST DESCRIPTION AND DEPICTION OF IT, HOWEVER COMES FROM THE DAILY BEAST, MY FAVORITE “FAKE NEWS” SOURCE – THE ONE WHERE YOU CAN OFTEN GET WHAT THE BIG BOYS WON’T POST. BY THE WAY, IT IS NOT A “FAKE” SITE, BUT MERELY PROGRESSIVE AND COURAGEOUS.

WATCH THIS AD FROM TRUMP WHICH IS THE CAUSE OF AN UNDERSTANDABLE UPROAR. OOOPPSIE! IT, ALSO, HAS BEEN PULLED, LIKE A NUMBER OF THINGS SINCE TRUMP HAS COME INTO OFFICE. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8dL-uaqv_M.

IN ONE NEWS SNIPPET FROM YESTERDAY, A REPORTER TOLD TRUMP THAT HIS AD IS “OFFENSIVE,” AND HE COUNTERED BY SAYING “EVERYTHING IS OFFENSIVE,” GIVING MEDIA QUESTIONS AS AN EXAMPLE. WHAT I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE MAINSTREAM NEWS IS WHETHER THEY ARE CHOOSING TO BOYCOTT TRUMP’S DANGEROUS OR HIGHLY OFFENSIVE MATERIAL, TRUMP PERSONALLY HAS THREATENED TO SUE THEM, OR HE HAS THREATENED THEM THROUGH SOME OTHER MORE OFFICIAL ROUTE, LIKE THE GOVERNMENT ITSELF. HOPEFULLY THE PRESS BOYCOTT IS THE CASE.

AS OF THIS MOMENT, 2:09 PM, THE DAILY BEAST IS STILL SHOWING A TINY BIT OF IT LESS THAN TEN SECONDS LONG, OR SO; WITH FOUR STILL SHOTS EACH ABOUT 3 SECONDS LONG. THEY SHOW BRACAMONTES HIMSELF TWICE, ONE CAPTION BEING “DEMOCRATS LET HIM STAY,” THE SECOND IS “I WILL BREAK OUT SOON AND I WILL KILL MORE.” THE THIRD IMAGE IS OF A LARGE CROWD, SEEMINGLY AN AUDIENCE, WHO IN THAT VERY BRIEF GLIMPSE APPEAR TO BE ALL BLACK. THE CAPTION FOR THAT IS “WHO ELSE WILL THE DEMOCRATS LET IN?” THE FOURTH PHOTO HAS NO CAPTION, BUT SHOWS A LARGE GROUP OF HISPANIC TRAVELERS EITHER OUTSIDE IRON GATES OR IN A JAIL CELL, POSSIBLY ASLEEP.

YES, THIS IS 100% RACIST.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cnn-aired-trumps-racist-ad-way-more-than-even-fox-news-did
FREE AIRTIME?
CNN Aired Trump’s Racist Ad Way More Than Even Fox News Did
Trump’s penchant for fact-free stunts poses a challenge for news outlets on how to cover his presidency. The most recent example? His racist anti-immigrant ad, released this week.
Maxwell Tani
11.02.18 10:15 PM ET

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast

If President Donald Trump was looking for free airtime for his racist new campaign video, he failed on several fronts.

On Wednesday, the president tweeted a video about an immigrant who boasted about killing multiple police officers. Openly appealing to racist fears—in a fashion reminiscent of the infamous “Willie Horton” ads used by Republicans in the 1988 election—the video falsely pinned the killer’s residence in America on Democrats, and suggested that many asylum seekers and immigrants are violent criminals.

The president likely expected the clip to generate viral coverage among mainstream media, giving his latest stunt unlimited airtime and bringing his hard-line immigration policies to the forefront ahead of next week’s midterm elections. But according to a survey of the major cable-news networks, using television-monitoring service TVEyes, most of the channels largely ignored the video.

Even the dedicated Trump boosters at Fox News—where such an ad would be seen as red meat for the network’s overwhelmingly conservative viewership—barely touched it.

For years, the network has run segments demonizing immigrants by highlighting individuals who have committed violent crimes. And while Fox spent much of this week hyping Trump’s often-conspiratorial warnings about the asylum-seeking migrants traveling through Central America towards the U.S. border, the network seemingly overlooked his nakedly racist ad.

MESS
The Most Racist, Dishonest Campaign Ever
Michael Tomasky

According to TVEyes, Fox News only played the ad once with audio, and another time as a setup for a segment bashing the critics of the president’s rhetoric on immigration.

MSNBC, too, barely covered the ad. According to TVEyes, the network played snippets of the ad three times, giving it just under one minute of total airtime.

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‘Today’ Show Falls Into Classic White-Nationalist Trap
By comparison, CNN gave Trump’s stunt video a more substantial amount of coverage.

In the two days since the president posted the ad, CNN aired the clip with its audio at least 19 different times, totaling more than seven minutes of free airtime for the video between the network’s normal programming and reruns.

The racist ad served as a déjà vu moment for the cable-news networks that faced criticism for their willingness to allow Trump—a former reality-TV host known for dramatics—steer the political-news narrative during the 2016 campaign, breathlessly cutting away from normal news programming to cover his every word.

In the aftermath of the election, media critics admonished the big cable outlets for allowing Trump’s most outlandish, incendiary, or outright false statements to be given free airtime, often repeated ad nauseam and unchallenged.

In the case of Trump’s anti-immigrant ad, however, Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple said CNN’s coverage of the ad was actually appropriate.

He noted to The Daily Beast that the network repeatedly couched their coverage by labeling the ad “racist”—a descriptor many journalists have shied away from in light of the president’s incessant attacks on outlets that give him unfavorable coverage.

RINGING ENDORSEMENT
The Willie Horton Ad Maker Is Impressed by Trump's Work
Jackie Kucinich

When covering overt racism from the president, Wemple said, it is “important to acknowledge that this is hard” as the American media faces an undeniably unusual situation with an unusual president.

“This is unprecedented in terms of the level of hatred and the amount of falsehood and the amount of lies,“ Wemple explained. “The media is starting from a position of weakness and bewilderment and cluelessness. The whole system has long operated on an underpinning of good faith and a common set of facts. Now that we’re unmoored from that, the media does not have a lot of great options.”

Indeed, some cable-news anchors approached Trump’s video with hesitation.

News anchors like CNN’s Chris Cuomo and MSNBC’s Ari Melber played only a portion of the racist ad while expressing their reticence to do so. CNN prime-time host Don Lemon played the clip multiple times, but ran a chyron calling the video “racist,” and said the video “shows just how willing this president is to use lies and scare tactics to terrify his base.”

CNN midday anchor Jake Tapper dubbed the video “propaganda,” and in a video package, overdubbed the clip with his own commentary pointing out how very few Republican lawmakers have condemned the ad.

DISGUSTING
Trump, GOP Caravan of Lies Intensifies in Final Midterm Push
Margaret Carlson

Meanwhile, several news anchors made it a point to not to play the video at all.

Both CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and MSNBC’s Katy Tur discussed the ad’s contents on-air, but declared they would not show it.

“The president tweeted today a clearly racist video, I am not going to play any of it,” Blitzer said. “It is pretty disgusting.”

Over the past month, the president has managed to make his border policies the focal point of the 2018 midterms by injecting racially tinged or conspiratorial anti-immigrant rhetoric into the media bloodstream.

Whether the result of Trump and his allies’ unfounded claims that the migrant caravan is hosting “Middle Easterners,” criminals, terrorists, or diseased individuals, the president’s various remarks about the asylum-seekers have generated substantial media coverage of the caravan, creating a “crisis” over a group of people roughly 1,000 miles away from the U.S. border.

According to Media Matters, a left-leaning media watchdog group, both The New York Times and The Washington Post have produced at least 115 news stories about the caravan. Twenty-five of those stories have been prominently featured on the front pages of the papers.

BACK AT IT
Obama: Don’t Fall for Trump’s Racist Border ‘Stunt’
Andrew Desiderio

And earlier this week, Trump told Axios that he would use an executive order to end birthright citizenship. While the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship could not possibly be ended in such a manner, many major news organizations simply blasted out Trump’s claim without any fact-checking or overt skepticism.

In a similar stunt, the president on Thursday gave a “major address” on immigration policy that turned out to just be a fiery rant about asylum and the border. While MSNBC avoided carrying the stunt speech at all, Fox News aired it in full and CNN aired a portion before cutting away.

“We brought out that speech live because we were told by the White House that the president would be introducing a new proposal, a new policy when it came to asylum. That's not actually what happened,” Tapper, the CNN anchor during that hour, explained.

As Wemple noted, Trump’s penchant for grotesque, fact-free, and often reality-TV-like stunts has posed a challenge to news networks in how to cover the most powerful political office in the world.

As this week proved, they are still working out the kinks.


THIS IS THE BAD NEWS. A RUMOR IN THIS NEWS CLIMATE IS AS BAD AS A PROVEN EVENT SOMETIMES, BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL EMBROIDER THE STORY TO MAKE IT MORE PLEASANT, OR EVEN JUST MORE FUN. IS RUNNING AROUND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT WITH A BUNCH OF IGNORANT GOOFBALLS PAINTING SWASTIKAS ON TEMPLES FUN? UNFORTUNATELY, IT IS FOR SOME. I DO BELIEVE THAT THE REASON TRUMP LIES SO OFTEN ABOUT SO MANY THINGS IS THAT HE THINKS IT’S FUN. BEING A BAD BOY IS FUN. THE VAGUENESS HERE ABOUT THOSE SURROUNDING ALL THOSE “ISIS MEMBERS,” GIVES THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS ROOM TO OPERATE. CREATIVITY IS REALLY GREAT, ISN’T IT?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-seems-to-have-gotten-his-baseless-claim-about-random-middle-easterners-from-fox-and-friends
Did Trump Get His Baseless Claim About ‘Random Middle Easterners’ From ‘Fox & Friends’?
The president tweeted about the caravan shortly after Fox host Pete Hegseth rattled off a wholly unverified, specious claim about ISIS having infiltrated the asylum-seeking group.

Pilar Melendez
10.22.18 12:46 PM ET

Yet again, it appears as though President Trump’s favorite cable-news show is the source of his latest conspiracy theory.

The president began his Monday morning by firing off a trio of tweets on the thousands of asylum-seeking migrants traveling by caravan through Mexico towards the U.S., tossing in some unverified claims about Muslims for good measure.

Trump declared the situation “a national emergency” as the migrants approach the border, adding that “unknown Middle Easterners” have joined the group.

It was not immediately clear where Trump got his evidence that people from the Middle East were among those seeking to cross the border from Central American countries, but his baseless claim does echoes [sic] one made by his unofficial advisers on Fox & Friends—his favorite show—shortly before he fired off his tweets.

In a segment Monday morning, Trump-boosting co-host Pete Hegseth (who has advised the president through the TV screen before) claimed that members of ISIS are among those traveling in the migrant caravan, making it an issue that goes beyond “national sovereignty.*”

“You got the President of Guatemala saying to a local newspaper down there just last week they caught over a hundred ISIS fighters in Guatemala trying to use this caravan,” Hegseth claimed.

He was briefly interrupted by co-host Steve Doocy, who asked, “Are we sure that’s true?”

Nevertheless, Hegseth, who has previously lobbied for a Trump cabinet position, continued: “He talked to their local newspaper. We don’t know, it hasn’t been verified. Even one ISIS, even one poison pill is too many in a caravan like that.”

Just under two hours later, the president tweeted: “Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States. Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy [sic]. Must change laws!”


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States. Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy. Must change laws!

7:37 AM - Oct 22, 2018
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Hegseth was apparently referencing a Daily Mail report that Guatemala’s President Jimmy Morales boasted at a recent conference about capturing and deporting “close to 100” operatives of the Islamic State.

Morales declined to provide factual evidence for his claim, citing security reasons.

Additionally, there has been no official reporting to substantiate Morales’ comments, which were made on October 11—before the caravan even formed.

Morales made no connection to the migrant caravan in his remarks, and yet right-wing outlets like Gateway Pundit, Judicial Watch, and NewsMax all picked up the remarks—from a local Guatemalan newspaper story earlier this month—as evidence of ISIS having infiltrated the migrant caravan.

UPDATE: Later on Monday, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith refuted Trump’s tweet and, in turn, rebuked his colleagues’ claims from earlier that morning. “Fox News knows of no evidence to suggest the president is accurate on that matter,” he said. “And the president has offered no evidence to support what he has said.”

In his other two Monday morning tweets, Trump went further, announcing he is “cutting off, or substantially reducing” aid to three Central American nations—Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador—after they were unable to stop the caravan from progressing farther north. Though there were no official numbers, an early estimation puts the first caravan at about 7,000 people, while a second caravan of about 1,000 people have also left Honduras.

“We will now begin cutting off, or subsequently reducing, the massive foreign aid routinely given them,” Trump wrote.


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were not able to do the job of stopping people from leaving their country and coming illegally to the U.S. We will now begin cutting off, or substantially reducing, the massive foreign aid routinely given to them.

7:57 AM - Oct 22, 2018
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This is the second time the president threatened to cut off aid to those countries, who received about $500 million in funding from the U.S. last year, if they did not stop the asylum seekers.

But since Congress is not scheduled to return to Washington until after the midterm elections, it is not immediately clear how or when Trump would take unilateral action to cut such foreign aid.

The tweets reflected Trump’s use of the caravan to rally his base around anti-immigrant rhetoric before the midterm elections. In a final tweet he wrote: “Every time you see a Caravan, or people illegally coming, or attempting to come, into our Country illegally, think of and blame the Democrats for not giving us the votes to change our pathetic Immigration Laws! Remember the Midterms! So unfair to those who come in legally.”


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Every time you see a Caravan, or people illegally coming, or attempting to come, into our Country illegally, think of and blame the Democrats for not giving us the votes to change our pathetic Immigration Laws! Remember the Midterms! So unfair to those who come in legally.

7:49 AM - Oct 22, 2018
138K
65.2K people are talking about this
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The president also wrote last Thursday morning that he would “close our southern border” if the caravan tried to enter the U.S., and on Friday, at a rally in Arizona, Trump claimed the caravan contained some “bad people,” “criminals,” “not little angels,” and “tough, tough people.”

He did not mention supposedly “unknown Middle Easterners” at that rally.


RELATED IN POLITICS
Former U.S. President Barack Obama (C) campaigns for Democrats, U.S. Senator Bill Nelson (R) and and Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum in Miami, Florida, U.S. November 2, 2018.

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BERNIE NEWS – THREE ARTICLES

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/415294-sanders-cruises-to-an-easy-win-in-vermont
Sanders cruises to an easy win in Vermont
BY NIV ELIS - 11/06/18 07:02 PM EST
© Getty Images

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders is projected to cruise to an easy reelection victory in Vermont on Tuesday night, defeating Republican Lawrence Zupan by a wide margin.

Projections from AP and ABC called the race as polls closed, with less than 1 percent of precincts reporting.

Sanders had a 40-point lead in pre-election polls in his bid for a third Senate term from Vermont, one of the most Democratic-leaning states in the nation.

Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, kept his status as a political independent despite running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. He ultimately lost to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Sanders, whose views represent the progressive flank of the party, is considered a likely contender for the 2020 Democratic nomination. His push on issues such as "Medicare for all" have shaped the debate within the Democratic establishment.

Zupan, who ran on an anti-regulation platform, had actually lost the GOP primary to H. Brooke Paige, but the GOP state committee put him on the ballot anyway after Paige withdrew his candidacy.

TAGS HILLARY CLINTON BERNIE SANDERS

I HOPE EVERY DAY FOR A BERNIE SANDERS/PROGRESSIVE WIN IN 2020, AND PREFERABLY BERNIE HIMSELF. THAT KEEPS ME ALIVE, NOW THAT I’M, OLD AND RETIRED.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/415154-bernie-sanders-trump-lies-every-day-about-every-imaginable-thing
Bernie Sanders: Trump 'lies every day about every imaginable thing'
BY JOHN BOWDEN - 11/06/18 11:05 AM EST

VIDEO -- Cnn Anderson Cooper 360 11/18

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says that Tuesday's midterm elections will be a referendum on whether Americans are comfortable with a president who he says is a "pathological liar."

In an interview with CNN, the Vermont senator issued familiar attacks aimed at President Trump's credibility, arguing that he lies about "every possible thing."

"What this election is really about is whether we feel comfortable, Anderson, about having a president who is a pathological liar," Sanders told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Monday night. "Who lies every day about every imaginable thing."

"And whether we as Americans are comfortable having a president who tries to divide us up, divide us up based on the color of our skin or the country we came from or our sexual orientation or our religion," Sanders added. "And ultimately, I don't think the American people want us to move in that direction."

Sanders, who ran an insurgent bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and is considered a top potential candidate in 2020, is a regular critic of Trump.

Allies of the Vermont senator said in September that they expect Sanders to make another White House bid, and Sanders himself has campaigned across the country in recent months for Democratic candidates aligned with his progressive message.

Earlier this year, Sanders attacked the Republican Party as "bankrupt intellectually" while defending House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) amid GOP attacks.

"The Republican Party is bankrupt intellectually. They are not going to campaign on their views of giving tax cuts to billionaires and cutting Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, so they have to come up with some demon and I guess their demon now is Nancy Pelosi," he said on "CBS This Morning."

TAGS BERNIE SANDERS NANCY PELOSI DONALD TRUMP 2018 MIDTERM ELECTIONS 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION


THIS IS A NEW FACE TO ME, RASHIDA TLAIB. SHE’S A STRONG-LOOKING WOMAN, THE TYPE WHO IN VICTORIAN NOVELS WOULD BE CALLED “HANDSOME.” I’M GLAD TO SEE MORE OUTSIDE GROUPS MAKING IT INTO THE CONGRESS AND SENATE. THEY ADD NEW INSIGHT AS WELL AS NEW PHYSICAL APPEARANCES, A LITTLE VARIETY IN SKIN, HAIR AND NOSES.

INCLUSIVENESS IS GOOD, EXCLUSIVENESS IS DEGRADING TO A CULTURE. IT LOSES ITS’ VIBRANCY AND BEGINS TO DIE. WHERE PEOPLE WOULD HAVE GOTTEN ALONG AS EQUALS, THEY END UP FIGHTING INSTEAD. I’M SO BORED WITH THAT KIND OF THING, AND AM ADAMANTLY OPPOSED TO A NEWLY SEGREGATED SOCIETY.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSUm5NqlVXY
Brief bio spot by Tlaib as introduction. 11/6/18


https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/414830-rashida-tlaib-becomes-first-palestinian-american-woman-to-win-congressional
Rashida Tlaib becomes first Palestinian-American woman to win congressional seat
BY EMILY BIRNBAUM - 11/06/18 09:58 PM EST

PHOTOGRAPH -- © Rashida Tlaib for Congress

Rashida Tlaib (D) on Tuesday won Michigan's 13th Congressional District, setting her up to become the first Palestinian-American woman elected to Congress.

The former Michigan state representative was widely expected to secure the win with no Republicans and no independents running against her in the racially diverse, urban district.

Minnesota congressional candidate Ilhan Oman (D) and Tlaib are poised to become the first two Muslim-American women to serve in Congress.

"Congratulations to my sister @RashidaTlaib on your victory!" Omar tweeted after Tlaib's victory on Tuesday night. "I cannot wait to serve with you, inshallah."


Tlaib, who ran for a House seat previously held by former Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), defeated five other candidates in the state's crowded Democratic primary.

Conyers in December 2017 resigned amidst sexual harassment allegations, citing health concerns.

Tlaib has joined dozens of other progressive candidates across the country in saying she will likely not support House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for leadership.


MY COMPLIMENTS TO THIS WRITER S V DATE FOR A REALLY EXPRESSIVE NEW PHRASE. THIS IS HOW MY FAVORITE KIND OF POETRY WORKS – IT BRINGS FORTH A NEW TWIST ON AN OLD IDEA. I’M REFERRING TO THE FOLLOWING: “A MAKE-PRETEND WORLD OF INVENTED FACTS.” DONALD TRUMP REALLY IS A GOOD LIAR. UNFORTUNATELY, I DON’T EVER TRUST LIARS. HE NEEDS TO DEVELOP SOME NEW SKILLS, IF HE WANTS TO MAKE IT UP TO THE TOP OF MT. RUSHMORE. ANOTHER GREAT AND GRIPPING PHRASE IN HERE COMES FROM THE WRITER TOM NICHOLS IN THE TITLE OF HIS NEW BOOK: “THE DEATH OF EXPERTISE.”

“IT’S A MATTER OF SEMANTICS,” HE SAID, AND POINTED OUT THAT FALSELY CLAIMING TO HAVE BUILT A WALL WAS “AN EFFECTIVE CAMPAIGN TOOL.” WELL, TO ME, DOING SOMETHING ESSENTIALLY DUMB IS NOT EFFECTIVE. “IT’S WONDERFUL CAMPAIGNING FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN CONGRESSIONAL SEATS AROUND THE COUNTRY, TO STIMULATE THE BASE.” THAT MEANS GET OUT THERE AND CONVINCE THEM TO TAKE THEIR TORCHES AND MARCH ON A SMALL, LARGELY DEFENSELESS SOUTHERN CITY.

THIS ARTICLE OFFERS SOME INTERESTING INSIGHTS INTO THE MIND OF THE TRUMPISTS. YA LAUGH AND YA CRY.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-lies-supporters-midterm-elections_us_5bdf78dde4b04367a87dacf5?fbclid=IwAR20tfCJfdToYyvOnv7TIlavfcRhtOPSGNrE-FUCMweNmgzBwlFRcVYYy2w
POLITICS 11/05/2018 05:45 am ET
As Trump Spreads A Fog Of Falsehoods, His Fans Believe Them And Make Excuses For Him
From the greatness of his trade deals to the status of his ‘Great Wall’ to the real name of the Democratic Party, Trump’s lies are as good as gold to his base
By S.V. Date headshot

PHOTOGRAPH -- ASSOCIATED PRESS

ESTERO, Fla. – Last Wednesday afternoon was typical for Donald Trump over these past weeks: The president was en route to a rally where he would let loose a torrent of falsehoods and outright lies about everything from trade to immigration to even the name of the opposing party.

Just don’t bother telling that to the lady who wore the New England Patriots socks at the very front of the line to get into Hertz Arena on the outskirts of Fort Myers. Presented with a short list of Trump’s most frequent falsehoods, she countered with a homemade placard with a photo showing Louis Farrakhan with former Democratic President Barack Obama and demanded to know why the media wasn’t covering that.

She added that she was not interested in whether or how many times Trump might lie that evening. “I don’t care if he sprouts a third dick up there,” she said.

(She declined to give her name or to elaborate on her views of the president’s anatomy.)

Her response, though, was typical of fans so committed to Trump that they take time off from work and spend hours in the rain or under a blazing sun to listen to his speeches. And it highlights the other half of the president’s destruction of the truth: As Trump has passed through the looking glass into a make-pretend world of invented facts, legions of his fans have happily followed him.

Jennifer Petito, who drove across the state from Melbourne to see Trump, was similarly dismissive of proof that Trump’s claims are false.

“I don’t believe that,” she said, joining in with the verbal assault on HuffPost for daring to challenge Trump’s version of reality. “I don’t believe he would lie like that.”

Tom Nichols, a professor at the Naval War College and the author of the recent book, “The Death of Expertise,” said the Trump supporters’ response does not surprise him in the least.

“There are a lot of scientific explanations for it, but most of them boil down to ‘shooting the messenger.’ Deep down, they know that these things are false. They don’t care,” Nichols said. “What they object to is the sense of inferiority created when someone tells them that the things they know to be false are actually false.”

As those monitoring Trump’s speeches even casually have noted, Trump began ramping up dishonesties in service of GOP candidates about two months ago. The Washington Post found that Trump’s more frequent speeches combined with more prevarications per speech have raised his average number of false statements per day to 30 – making these past seven weeks a veritable festival of falsehoods.

Trump supporters’ efforts to defend these untruths often put them in the position of denying the existence of any objective truth at all. Everything becomes a matter of opinion or perspective.

Four days later and 600 miles northwest awaiting Trump’s rally at Pensacola airport, Gene Ponder, a high school government and politics teacher in Daphne, Alabama, wound up arguing that there was no real difference between having built a wall and falsely claiming to have built one.

“It’s a matter of semantics,” he said, and pointed out that falsely claiming to have built a wall was an effective campaign tool. “It’s wonderful campaigning for the Republican Party in congressional seats around the country, to stimulate the base*.”

What they [Trump supporters] object to is the sense of inferiority created when someone tells them that the things they know to be false are actually false.

Tom Nichols, professor at the Naval War College

To be among the first handful of attendees to get into the Fort Myers hockey arena, Virginia Alonso drove across Alligator Alley from Fort Lauderdale the previous afternoon. She and a friend slept in lawn chairs under the stars, and a few hours before the start of the rally were in place right outside the entry doors.

With only a short time left before the doors were opened, the Cuban-American retiree was in little mood to hear about Trump’s falsehoods. She regarded the single page HuffPost had asked her to review with suspicion.

While Trump typically has been putting out many dozens of falsehoods and exaggerations per hour-long rally, HuffPost curated five with which to interview rally-goers: 1) Trump has received nearly $5 billion already to build his wall; 2) military veterans got the ability to see private doctors in the event of long waiting lists thanks to Trump; 3) his recent $716 billion military budget is the largest ever; 4) U.S. Steel is opening as many as eight new plants thanks to Trump’s tariffs; 5) and the real name of the Democratic Party is the “Democrat” Party.

All five are flatly untrue and easily disproven. In reality, Trump has received zero funding from Congress for wall construction; veterans received that choice under President Obama; the largest recent military budget was also under Obama; U.S. Steel is opening zero new plants; and the real name of the Democratic Party is, in fact, the Democratic Party.

“Why should I believe you?” Alonso said. “I don’t believe you.”

Others near the entrance doors who had likewise spent a chilly night and then a steamy, hot afternoon outside so that they could get in first were similarly outraged by HuffPost’s list.

“He doesn’t like fake news. Why would he say things that are not true?” asked Barbara Guzman, who owns a label-making business in nearby Cape Coral. “Most of the things he says I agree with, and I believe.”

Further back in line, even those who had invested far less of their time to see Trump were just as defensive.

One man who would not give his name said HuffPost’s list of falsehoods was unfair because it had only five items and because it did not contain an equal number of good things Trump had done.

“This is fake news!” he shouted, repeating the line Trump regularly uses to describe reporting that does not flatter him.

Marie Brausan, who lives in the Chicago suburbs but winters in Fort Myers, said if the news media didn’t like Trump’s words, it was their own fault for criticizing him all the time rather than giving him positive feedback, as a parent does with a toddler.

“Of course I want him to be truthful and honest,” she said, but added: “The bottom line is he is not a politician, he is doing what he said he’d do, and I trust him.”

Most of those approached by HuffPost at Trump’s second Florida rally in four days in Pensacola Saturday had similar reactions.

“He does what he says he’s going to do,” said a Penscola woman who would only give her first name, Diane. But after learning that Trump had not, as he has claimed, started building a wall, she said that it didn’t really matter. “No, it doesn’t bother me, because he’s going to make everything balance out in the end.”

Once a con man cons somebody, there is a bias among the marks not to admit that they’re that stupid. In this particular one, they want it to go on and on. They love it.

Longtime GOP consultant and Trump critic Rick Wilson
Rick Wilson, the author of the recent “Everything Trump Touches Dies” and a longtime GOP consultant in Florida who opposed Trump from the start, said the president’s supporters are the victims of a con artist.

“Once a con man cons somebody, there is a bias among the marks not to admit that they’re that stupid,” he said. “In this particular one, they want it to go on and on. They love it.”

Nichols, also a Trump critic, said that the gulf between what supporters believed Trump would bring and what he has actually delivered is clearly causing mental anguish for them. “When you start from the assumption that they know they’re wrong, and how the immensity of the cognitive dissonance makes them deeply uncomfortable, the rest of their reactions start to make a lot more sense,” he said.

That cognitive dissonance was visible among some Trump supporters who seemed disappointed at learning the facts belying Trump’s claims. Yet even those who told HuffPost that they are troubled by his falsehoods almost always found some mitigating factor to excuse them. Hillary Clinton. Democrats generally. The Bernie Sanders supporter who opened fire at a congressional Republicans’ baseball practice. Planned Parenthood.

In Pensacola, retired Defense Department project manager Armando Hernandez shrugged off Trump’s falsehoods entirely. “Well, a lot of people believe him,” he said of Trump, and then unloaded on Democrats. “Democrats say whatever they want to say, even if it’s false. The last Democrat I voted for was Jimmy Carter and that was the worst mistake I ever made.”

Denny Elkins, a technician with the local Glass Doctor franchise, said he couldn’t explain why Trump felt compelled to lie so much but that, in the end, it wasn’t important. “I’m more comforted having him as president, even if he doesn’t tell all the truth all of the time,” he said. “It makes me ill to think that Hillary could have been president. In my opinion, you can’t trust a thing she says.”

Back in Estero, retired economist Tom Walton said that Trump’s advanced age might factor into all his untruths – the way Ronald Reagan’s dementia was affecting his words and decisions in his second term. Like many others, Walton, who is 73, said that the strength of the economy and Trump’s appointments to the Supreme Court and efforts to roll back business regulations outweighed his negatives.

“It doesn’t bother me. No one’s got a perfect memory,” Walton said of Trump’s propensity for falsehoods. “He’s got a lot on his mind.”

One 75-year-old woman who declined to give her name said she supported Trump because Obama had doubled the national debt in his two terms in office. But when it was pointed out that Trump was on track to have $1 trillion annual deficits during a strong economy, she demanded to know why the media has not covered that. She added that she watches Fox News religiously and had not seen that mentioned.

One rally-goer who attended more out of curiosity than adoration for Trump, though, said the falsehoods of what he had accomplished could come back to bite Trump – particularly regarding his singular promise from the 2016 campaign, that he would build a wall along the border with Mexico.

“If in another year or so there hasn’t been a wall started, he’s going to have a big problem,” said Phil Deems, a commercial real estate broker in Naples, who added that that could serve as a consequence for all the dishonesties. “It kind of fixes itself.”

In the meantime, however, Deems’ point of view appears to be in an exceedingly small minority among the universe of Trump supporters.

Virginia Alonso, walking out of the arena after hearing Trump repeat four of the five falsehoods on HuffPost’s list that evening, said the day-and-a-half wait to see him had been worth it.

“I loved it,” she said.

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I DEFINITELY BELIEVE IN CIVILITY IN POLITICS, BUT BE SURE YOU HIT ‘EM HARD ENOUGH BEFORE YOU APOLOGIZE .... JUST JOKING, FOLKS! THE VIOLENCE ISN’T COMING FROM THE LACK OF CIVILITY IN POLITICS, I DON’T THINK, BUT FROM THE LONG-NURTURED GRUDGES WHICH, IN THE OLD SOUTH, ARE SURFACING ALL AT ONCE. I DO THINK TRUMP’S WHIPPING UP ALL THAT FEELING AT HIS RALLIES GIVES PERMISSION FOR UGLIER BEHAVIOR BY THE ANGRY WHITE MEN, AND THE WOMEN, TOO, TO THE DEGREE THAT THEY ARE OUT THERE. THAT’S HOW A “DOG WHISTLE” WORKS. THE KEY PHRASE ELICITS OLD FEELINGS AND SOME OF IT IS VIOLENT. AS FOR “CIVILITY,” THAT IS ALMOST A LOST ART, I THINK. I’M WAITING FOR THIS TRUMP ERA TO END, SO THAT WE CAN BUILD SOMETHING NEW; SOMETHING WARMER AND MORE HUMAN THAN MERE “CIVILITY.” A YOUNG “HIP” STANDUP COMEDIAN FROM THE 1970S NAMED BIFF ROSE SAID, “I LIKE A LAUGH. IT’S LIKE A SMILE THAT GOT AWAY.”

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/nearly-80-percent-of-americans-concerned-negative-tone-lack-of-civility-will-lead-to-violence-poll-says?fbclid=IwAR1W_KbrV1k7kds9Aor3ypJwOfc4-Blw7FYyiFiwPPxliV_C517EHMxcqmU
Nearly 80 percent of Americans concerned lack of civility in politics will lead to violence, poll says
Politics Nov 1, 2018 5:00 AM EST
By —
Laura Santhanam

Days after a failed mail bomb plot and a deadly shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, most Americans say they are concerned that a lack of civility in Washington, D.C., will lead to violence, including acts of terror, according to the latest poll from the PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist.

Approaching a crucial midterm election, 79 percent of Americans said they are concerned or very concerned that the negative tone of national politics will prompt violence. That concern was prominent across the political spectrum, with 92 percent of Democrats, 70 percent of Republicans and 79 percent of those who identify as independent all in agreement.

“You don’t get a consensus like that across party lines very often,” said Barbara Carvalho, director of the Marist Poll.

What Americans can’t agree on: who’s to blame. A plurality of Americans — 40 percent — point to President Donald Trump, and another 29 percent blame the media. An additional 17 percent held congressional Democrats responsible, while 7 percent blamed Republicans.

In the runup to this year’s high-stakes midterm elections, violent acts have added to a national sense of despair and frustration over how polarized the country has become.

According to the latest poll, nearly three-quarters of Americans — 74 percent — think the overall tone and level of civility in the nation’s capital have gotten worse since Trump was elected. That’s an increase from November 2017 when 67 percent of Americans said they felt that way about Trump. (In July 2009, after Barack Obama’s election, 35 percent of respondents said civility had gotten worse, according to Marist’s polling data.)

On Oct. 22, federal officials discovered the first of 15 improvised explosive devices mailed to prominent Democrats, including Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, among other high-profile critics of Trump.

Authorities traced the packages to Cesar Altieri Sayoc, 56, of Aventura, Florida, a registered Republican and vocal supporter of Trump on social media. He’s been charged with illegal mailing and transporting explosives across state lines and threatening a former U.S. president, among other federal offenses.

Since then, and after the shooting in Pittsburgh, carried out by a man with a long trail of anti-Semitic postings online, critics have pointed to Trump’s incendiary and divisive rhetoric as a contributing factor. They say Trump’s habit of targeting political opponents, immigrants from certain regions and the media, from the nation’s top political office, could embolden people to embrace violence. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended the president against that suggestion, saying those who carry out attacks — not the president — should be held personally responsible for their actions.

When asked by reporters whether he would adopt a more civil tone, Trump said he thought he had been toned down, and “could really tone it up because as you know, the media’s been extremely unfair to me and the Republican Party.”

In the poll, when U.S. adults were asked what factors primarily drive these acts of violence, more than a third — 37 percent — said they blame the way Trump conducts himself, and 21 percent pointed to the way the media reports news. An additional 12 percent of Americans said bickering between Democrats and Republicans motivated these violent acts, and another 23 percent of adults said none of these factors were to blame. A remaining 7 percent of people said they had no idea why these incidents were happening.

When asked about media coverage of the suspicious packages, half of Americans said journalists handled the story irresponsibly. That sentiment was particularly strong among Republicans (73 percent) and more than half of people who identified as politically independent (53 percent), while more than a quarter of Democrats (28 percent) agreed.

Similarly, 52 percent of the general public said Trump acted irresponsibly after the series of explosive packages was found. Sharp political lines were drawn among respondents with 83 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of independents saying the president was feckless in his behavior. Only 12 percent of Republicans said they felt the same.

Voters are significantly more energized going into this midterm election than they were in 2010, the first major election after Obama took office. More than half — 55 percent — of U.S. registered voters said they were very enthusiastic to go to the ballot box, compared to 40 percent of voters ahead of the 2010 midterms. A majority of Democrats and Republicans share that enthusiasm going into this election cycle, while politically independent registered voters are slightly less so.

What fuels that enthusiasm? The vast majority of U.S. voters — 76 percent — said this election is very important. At the same time, public disapproval of Trump’s job performance while in office remains steady, with 51 percent of U.S. adults saying they don’t like what he’s doing in the White House.

The PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist conducted a survey Oct. 28-29 that polled 924 U.S. adults with a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points, including 822 registered voters with a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

Left: President Donald Trump gestures to supporters as he finishes a campaign rally at the Mid-America Center on October 9, 2018 in Council Bluffs. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images.

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Deep gender divide over Trump could influence the 2018 midterms, poll says
By Laura Santhanam

New poll: 70% of Americans think civility has gotten worse since Trump took office
By Laura Santhanam

Go Deeper
2018 midterm elections
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By — Laura Santhanam
Laura Santhanam is the Data Producer for the PBS NewsHour. Follow @LauraSanthanam


“EVERYBODY JUST DO WHAT OPRAH SAYS AND GO VOTE! #ELECTIONEVE”
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, OPRAH WINFREY IS GOING AROUND DOOR TO DOOR IN GEORGIA WITH STACEY ABRAMS! THAT’S GOTTA BE A WINNER! NOW LOOK AT SOME COMEDIANS' COMMENTS ON THE STRANGE STATE OF AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/nov/06/late-night-hosts-seth-meyers-republicans-trump
Seth Meyers on the Republicans: 'A party that traffics in open racism'
Late-night hosts discussed Trump’s last-minute midterm tactics, including ‘racist fearmongering’ and ‘keeping people angry and afraid’
Guardian staff
Tue 6 Nov 2018 11.56 EST

VIDEO -- Seth Meyers: ‘Most of what Republicans have done in office has been deeply unpopular so instead they’re furiously throwing out one new lie after the other.’ Photograph: YouTube

Late-night hosts took one last look at the state of the race before the midterms, criticising the racist tactics of the Republican party.

SETH MEYERS
TRUMP’S CLOSING MESSAGE FOR THE MIDTERMS

On Late Night with Seth Meyers, the host addressed what the Republicans have been up to in their last weeks of campaigning. “Most of what Republicans have done in office has been deeply unpopular so instead they’re furiously throwing out one new lie after the other,” he said.

Related: John Oliver denounces Trump's 'racist' family separations ahead of midterms

One of Trump’s many lies was a claim that he would introduce a tax cut for the middle class before the midterms with the president claiming he was studying it around the clock. “I don’t believe you’re studying anything around the clock,” Meyers said. “I mean, your eye bags say all-nighter but your grasp of policy says in bed by 7.”

Meyers also spoke about his attempt to stop birthright citizenship and referred to it as “a racist stunt to motivate the GOP base”.

Despite Trump now claiming he wants to rewrite a portion of the constitution, when he was campaigning before he became president, he spoke at great length of how important it was and how he would help bring it back.

“Bring the constitution back?” Meyers questioned. “It didn’t go anywhere. It’s the founding document of our nation, not the McRib.”

He said that “keeping people angry and afraid is one way they can stay in power” while discussing the migrant caravan and referred to the Republicans as “a party that traffics in open racism and sells its voters culture war rhetoric while enriching themselves at taxpayers’ expense”.

Stephen Colbert
Video – Let The Voting Begin

On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert the host said: “Tomorrow is like Christmas if Santa was going to leave you either some shiny new checks and balances or your stocking just has a lump of clean beautiful coal.”

He joked: “In America’s ongoing bitter divorce, the big question is: who’s getting the house?”

He then spoke about polling and the many figures that have come out before the midterms. “CNN just released new numbers on their generic ballot where women favour Democrats 62% to 35% but Republicans aren’t worried because they have a history of not believing women,” he joked.

At a rally, Trump said that even if the Democrats were triumphant, he would figure out, asking the crowd if that made sense. “Nothing you’ve said for the last two years makes sense,” he said. “You don’t figure anything out. You’re the leader of the free world and you can’t figure out how to close an umbrella.”

Trump has also said that while he’s been doing campaigning, he’s also been doing work in the House of Representatives. “You’ve never done house work in your life,” he said. ”Or work work for that matter.”

He also joked at a rally that he watched some of Obama’s campaigning as he had nothing else to do.

“You had nothing else to do?” Colbert said. “You’re the president of the United States. You could enact meaningful climate change legislation, you could finally make sure Flint has clean drinking water, for God’s sake, they’re making four Avatar sequels, you could stop that!”

Trevor Noah

The Daily Show
(@TheDailyShow)
Everybody just do what Oprah says and go vote! #ElectionEve pic.twitter.com/SoIG69fW0c

November 6, 2018

On The Daily Show, Trevor Noah spoke about the long list of celebrities who have been getting involved in the midterms, including Oprah who was going door to door in Georgia with Stacey Abrams. “Oprah coming to your door and asking for your vote, that has to be the most effective thing ever,” Noah said. “Seriously, if Oprah showed up at my house and asked me to do anything, you better believe I’m doing it.”

Noah also reminded audiences that this week will see the return of obnoxious news graphics. “I don’t need graphics to tell you why tomorrow is huge,” he said. “If the Democrats take the House or the Senate, they can block Trump’s nominees, they can block his legislation and Democrats might even be able to see what’s inside his tax returns. Spoiler alert: it’s Hillary’s emails.”

In conclusion, he said: “You shouldn’t vote because of what the polls say, you should vote because there’s a message that resonates with you or you want to completely obliterate the other side.”