Last Call For The Master Debaters

Saturday Night Live. That is all. See you guys Monday.

The Paper Trail

The Arizona Republic recently endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, and the response from Trump supporters has been nothing short of death threats against the paper and its supporters for doing so. The paper's publisher and president, Mi-Ai Parrish, responds to the community about the threats made against the paper and herself, specifically:

 

To those of you who have said Jesus will judge me, that you hope I burn in hell, that non-Christians should be kept out of our country, I give you my pastor grandfather. He was imprisoned and tortured for being a Christian, and suffered the murder of his best friend for also refusing to deny Christ. He taught all that freedom of religion is a fragile and precious thing.

Much as my grandfather taught, I also know there are a lot of things worth standing up for.

To those of you who said we should go live with the immigrants we love so much, and who threatened violence against people who look or speak a different way, I give you Jobe Couch.

He was the Army cultural attache and Alabama professor who sponsored my aunts and my mother when they arrived in America from Korea after World War II. There are dozens of descendants of his kindness. Citizens with college degrees, a dentist, lawyers, engineers, pastors, teachers, business owners, a Marine, a publisher and more. Uncle Jobe stood for the power of America as a melting pot. He taught me that one kind man can make a difference.

To all the other people who we heard from, who thanked us for our courage and our bravery, or who were bold enough to disagree with us on principle — the people who didn’t threaten to bomb our homes or harm our families — I have something for you, too. To you, I give my gratitude. I’m grateful that you stood up to say that we live in a better world when we exchange ideas freely, fairly, without fear.

To all of you who asked why we endorsed — or what right we had to do so — I give you my mother. She grew up under an occupying dictatorship, with no right to an education, no free press, no freedom of religion, no freedom to assemble peaceably, no right to vote. No right to free speech. She raised a journalist who understood not to take these rights for granted.

Don Bolles and Nina Pulliam are gone now, and Uncle Jobe is, too.

But the journalists I introduced you to here walk into the newsroom every day to do their jobs.

When they do, they pass by an inscription that fills an entire wall, floor to ceiling. It is 45 words long. It is an idea that is in my thoughts a lot these days.

It is the First Amendment.

For those of you playing at home, the First Amendment says this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It's held up for quite some time, frankly.  And it has because of people like Mi-An Parrish.  By the way, Don Bolles, the Republic reporter that Parrish referenced?  Killed by a car bomb 40 years ago for what many believed was for following a story on organized crime.

Violence against the media in America is nothing new, folks.  But a presidential candidate and his supporters openly calling for it over an endorsement of a political opponent?  That's pretty much beyond the pale, even for this country's bloody history.

Sunday Long Read: A Tortured Existence

Yet another reason Donald Trump can never be allowed to be in the White House: he would bring back Bush-era "enhanced interrogation techniques" to be used freely on suspects.  You know, legalized torture by the CIA.  Turns out that even years later, the folks the Bushies wrongfully accused and detained are still suffering the effects.

Before the United States permitted a terrifying way of interrogating prisoners, government lawyers and intelligence officials assured themselves of one crucial outcome. They knew that the methods inflicted on terrorism suspects would be painful, shocking and far beyond what the country had ever accepted. But none of it, they concluded, would cause long lasting psychological harm.

Fifteen years later, it is clear they were wrong.

Today in Slovakia, Hussein al-Marfadi describes permanent headaches and disturbed sleep, plagued by memories of dogs inside a blackened jail. In Kazakhstan, Lutfi bin Ali is haunted by nightmares of suffocating at the bottom of a well. In Libya, the radio from a passing car spurs rage in Majid Mokhtar Sasy al-Maghrebi, reminding him of the C.I.A. prison where earsplitting music was just one assault to his senses.

And then there is the despair of men who say they are no longer themselves. “I am living this kind of depression,” said Younous Chekkouri, a Moroccan, who fears going outside because he sees faces in crowds as Guantánamo Bay guards. “I’m not normal anymore.”

After enduring agonizing treatment in secret C.I.A. prisons around the world or coercive practices at the military detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, dozens of detainees developed persistent mental health problems, according to previously undisclosed medical records, government documents and interviews with former prisoners and military and civilian doctors. Some emerged with the same symptoms as American prisoners of war who were brutalized decades earlier by some of the world’s cruelest regimes.

Those subjected to the tactics included victims of mistaken identity or flimsy evidence that the United States later disavowed. Others were foot soldiers for the Taliban or Al Qaeda who were later deemed to pose little threat. Some were hardened terrorists, including those accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks or the 2000 bombing of the American destroyer Cole. In several cases, their mental status has complicated the nation’s long effort to bring them to justice.

Americans have long debated the legacy of post-Sept. 11 interrogation methods, asking whether they amounted to torture or succeeded in extracting intelligence. But even as President Obama continues transferring people from Guantánamo and Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, promises to bring back techniques, now banned, such as waterboarding, the human toll has gone largely uncalculated.

At least half of the 39 people who went through the C.I.A.’s “enhanced interrogation” program, which included depriving them of sleep, dousing them with ice water, slamming them into walls and locking them in coffin-like boxes, have since shown psychiatric problems, The New York Times found. Some have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, paranoia, depression or psychosis.

Hundreds more detainees moved through C.I.A. “black sites” or Guantánamo, where the military inflicted sensory deprivation, isolation, menacing with dogs and other tactics on men who now show serious damage. Nearly all have been released.

It's important to realize two things: one, as I said before that this was done in our name and that Trump as president has vowed to bring these inhuman practices back, and two, President Obama stopped these from happening when he took office.

This is part of what "voting for Clinton to continue Obama's legacy" means.

The Orange Martyrs Brigade, Con't

I used to joke about the "coming purge of America" by Trump's furious supporters in their senior mobility devices and their diesel flareside pickups with Confederate flag gun racks.

Nobody should be laughing anymore after this weekend, especially here in the Cincinnati area.

Anger and hostility were the most overwhelming sentiments at a Trump rally in Cincinnati last week, a deep sense of frustration, an us-versus-them mentality, and a belief that they are part of an unstoppable and underestimated movement. Unlike many in the country, however, these hard-core Trump followers do not believe the real estate mogul’s misfortunes are of his own making.

They believe what Trump has told them over and over, that this election is rigged, and if he loses, it will be because of a massive conspiracy to take him down.

At a time when trust in government is at a low point, Trump is actively stoking fears that a core tenet of American democracy is also in peril: that you can trust what happens at the ballot box.

His supporters here said they plan to go to their local precincts to look for illegal immigrants who may attempt to vote. They are worried that Democrats will load up buses of minorities and take them to vote several times in different areas of the city. They’ve heard rumors that boxes of Clinton votes are already waiting somewhere.

And if Trump doesn’t win, some are even openly talking about violent rebellion and assassination, as fantastical and unhinged as that may seem.

“If she’s in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That’s how I feel about it,” Dan Bowman, a 50-year-old contractor, said of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. “We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that’s what it’s going to take. . . . I would do whatever I can for my country.”

He then placed a Trump mask on his face and posed for pictures.

The thing is we all know someone like Dan Bowman.  And we should be now asking ourselves just how serious he is.

There's a reason I'm not sporting Clinton/Kaine bumper stickers.  It's because the people I work with are sporting III-percenter, Molon Labe, and Blue Lives Matter flags.  And Trump stickers.

I'm a big guy.  I'm not Luke Cage. I'm not bulletproof by any means. If somebody at work or around town decides to take offense at my support of Democrats here, really decides to take offense, well I end up a hashtag and it really won't be long before FOX News discovers my blog, huh.

Guys like Dan Bowman want me to be scared.  You'd be absolutely foolish not to be when you hear about a man openly bragging at a political rally about starting a bloody coup should that politician's opponent win.

But I'm going to vote anyway, because it's my duty to do so.  It's literally the least I can do in order to maintain the America I want to live in. I'm doing it because the people who should be most vocally against Trump, the Republican party voters who should be horrified at this, are silent and complicit.

I will not be.

Vote.

Last Call For The King And Thai

Thailand's popular King Bhumibol has passed after reigning over the country for an impressive seven decades, reaching the status of world's longest serving monarch before his death on Thursday.  Now Thailand looks to the future under Bhumibol's son, Vajiralongkorn.

The head of Thailand's royal advisory council will stand in as regent while the country grieves over the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and awaits for his son to formally succeed him, the government said.

Mourners lit candles and recited prayers before dawn on Saturday outside Bangkok's riverside Grand Palace, where the remains of the king will lie for months before a traditional royal cremation, and thousands joined them during the morning.

The world's longest-reigning monarch, King Bhumibol died on Thursday in a Bangkok hospital, at the age of 88.

The government has said Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn wants to grieve with the people and leave the formal succession until later, when parliament will invite him to ascend the throne.

Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said in an interview broadcast on state television late on Friday that there was no uncertainty about the succession but, in the interim, the head of the powerful Privy Council would have to step in as regent.

"There must be a regent for the time being in order not to create a gap," Wissanu said.

"This situation will not be used for long," he added, without mentioning by name Privy Council head 96-year-old Prem Tinsulanonda, a former army chief and prime minister.

Prince Vajiralongkorn does not enjoy the same adoration his father earned over a lifetime on the throne. He has married and divorced three times, and has spent much of his life outside Thailand, often in Germany.

The king's remains were taken in a convoy on Friday through Bangkok's ancient quarter to the Grand Palace, winding past thousands of Thais dressed in black, many of them holding aloft portraits of a monarch who was revered as a father figure.

And I thought I have big shoes to fill compared to Zandardad.  We're talking about a man who ruled since the end of World War II and achieved near deific status among his people.

Meanwhile, Thailand's military government remains running the show, now without King Bhumibol as a mitigating voice.

The king stepped in to calm crises on several occasions during his reign and many Thais worry about a future without him. The military has for decades invoked its duty to defend the monarchy to justify its intervention in politics.

Military government leader Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said after the king's death that security was his top priority and he ordered extra troops deployed around the country.

Thailand has endured bomb attacks and economic worries recently while rivalry simmers between the military-led establishment and populist political forces after a decade of turmoil including two coups and deadly protests.

The junta has promised an election next year and pushed through a constitution to ensure its oversight of civilian governments. It looks firmly in control for a royal transition.

And so a king passes.

Doctored T And The Women

If you want evidence that the greatest failure humanity possesses is the near-infinite capacity for self-delusion in the pursuit of political power, look no further than the millions of women who are more than happy to vote for Donald Trump in a few weeks. Five Thirty Eight's Clare Malone reports:

“Locker room talk” has been the national buzz phrase of the last week; in the 2016 campaign, it’s not just videos that go viral, it’s talking points too.

“Do you have men in your family?” Mary Anne Huggins asked me when I brought up the now-infamous Donald Trump “Access Hollywood” tape. Huggins is the GOP chairwoman for Gaston County, North Carolina, and we were speaking in the county headquarters about the close race in her neck of the woods. “I hear that’s a lot of locker room talk,” she said. “Don’t you think that’s minor?”

People on Twitter and television and many in the Republican Party’s national leadership do not think the tape a minor issue, but most rank-and-file party members do; according to a Morning Consult/Politico poll conducted the day after the video’s release, 74 percent said that party officials should continue to support their nominee. That number, of course, includes Republican women — 73 percent of them said the party should still back Trump. Another Gaston County Republican I talked to, Lou Armstrong, has supported Trump since the primaries and said she didn’t like the tape, but it didn’t make a real difference because “everyone messes up and makes mistakes, and when you get in the public eye, they bring all that stuff up just because they’re making jabs.”

The strength of partisanship has proven more powerful than many could have imagined, as Republicans, including Republican women, decide that the agenda of their party matters above all else this election. That Morning Consult poll found that support for Trump was about equal between Republican men and women. And 82 percent of Republican women and 84 percent of Republican men are still supporting Trump, according to SurveyMonkey data from October 3-9.1

It doesn't matter to them.  Trump Uber Alles.

These are the folks in America that put Trump in the nominee's position, these are the folks who look the other way because all they care about is winning.  They truly believe that as bad as Trump is, that it is his enemies that will suffer, and you, me, all the rest of the non-Trump folks out there in America?

We're the enemy.

It's A House Afire

The latest Cook Political Report analysis of the House shows Democrats assured to pick up a handful of seats, with more than a dozen additional GOP seats vulnerable to flipping as toss-ups and a dozen more in play on top of that.



The total number of seats in play is astonishing: 11 Democratic seats and only one is in real jeopardy,  retiring Rep. Gwen Graham is leaving as Tallahassee's congresswoman and at best 7 seats are really in play.

On the GOP side however there are 46 seats up for grabs in total, at least five are lost and a wave election could cost them more than two dozen more.  The Dems need 30 to flip the House and put the gavel back in Pelosi's hands, and kick Paul Ryan out of the Speaker's office.

And I think Donald Trump might be the key to doing just that.