You know how we keep saying, “I wish this election were over, I’m growing to hate my fellow American”? I feel ya — I say it myself about 60 times a day. On the other hand, when confronted with video evidence that your fellow American shouldn’t be allowed to drive a car, much less vote, isn’t that a perfectly normal reaction?
Eh, it’s all but over now. Alan and I went out for our customary Friday-night dinner, talking a bout what-else, when I speculated that if nothing else, this election would reduce the Trump “empire,” such as it is, to ruin. Who would want to do business with this guy now, other than other sleazebags? Even in New York society, which I suspect is far less genteel than they might have us believe, the had-it-up-to-here factor has to be strong by now. I told some friends that I didn’t just want Trump defeated and his “brand,” such as it is, destroyed, I wanted all his children likewise and all his acreage sowed with salt.
Nothing personal. I’m just tired of hearing about what a sweet, poised socialite Ivanka is, and all the rest of the tribe’s b.s. Not that I am extreme about it or anything.
Anyway, to our disagreement. I think Trump is not only toast for now, but toast forever, that he’ll look back on his deathbed and see June 2015 as the place when he lit the match that burned everything down. His wife will leave him, quietly, in a few months. His creditors will demand full payment, and when it isn’t forthcoming, liquidation of his assets. I think this is it.
Alan disagrees, and thinks he has a bright future – of more grifting, basically. His loyal fans will follow him to whatever tar-stained beach he washes up on.
But the second presidential debate is nigh. Let’s get the popcorn and see how it goes, eh?
beb said on October 9, 2016 at 9:34 pm
Popcorn? This is a night for Maalox!
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 9, 2016 at 9:37 pm
If there was no moderator, what would this end up being like? Just a timekeeper. Like Lincoln/Douglas.
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Icarus said on October 9, 2016 at 9:44 pm
Popcorn?
I really should have diverted my 401K investments into liquor stores, breweries, and vineyards.
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beb said on October 9, 2016 at 9:53 pm
So much sniffing from Trump? Sinus troouble or cocaine? People want to know…
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Diane said on October 9, 2016 at 10:58 pm
The mikes need to have timers and automatically shut off after the allotted time per answer.
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Deborah said on October 9, 2016 at 11:47 pm
Trump is finished. Nothing left to say. Except everyone please vote.
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Sherri said on October 9, 2016 at 11:50 pm
I think the Trump brand is done, too. His loyal fans are too downmarket to grift off of at the level needed to keep Trump in the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed. When his businesses were imploding in the early 90s, the banks who were bailing him out put him on a $450K/month allowance. I don’t think even Mark Burnett can sell a Trump reality show for that.
As for Melanie, it depends on the prenup and Barron as to whether she leaves.
I watched the debate. I don’t know what it looks like to anybody else anymore because I find the Donald so disgusting at this point. That little stunt he pulled right before the debate didn’t help.
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alex said on October 10, 2016 at 12:17 am
Paula Jones actually got some decent face work done. She could pass for a member of the cast of Real Housewives of New Jersey if she never opened her mouth.
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Dexter said on October 10, 2016 at 12:58 am
Jesus…the old adage of seeing something so gross or hearing something so disgusting it makes you feel so dirty you need to take a shower…Martha and Anderson questioning Trump about groping women’s genitals made me want to go back to my recording of the competing baseball game of the Toronto/Texas baseball game, which I did after thirty minutes, after all the filth had been laid out there. I truly felt I finally realized that crap like this on TV really does make one desire to jump into the shower with a full tank of hot water to empty onto one’s self, scrubbing with a wire brush to get the Trump cooties off. A fresh bar of Lava soap would help. Whatever Bill Clinton did with Paula Jones and that row of women does not affect my choice of candidates all these years later.
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Sherri said on October 10, 2016 at 1:19 am
After some more time to process, the most striking parts of the debate:
-Trump vowing to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Hillary, and saying she’d be in jail if he were in charge.
-Trump praising Putin and Assad because they are fighting Isis, directly contradicting his running mate. (And it’s not true, of course.)
Both demonstrate his love of authoritarianism.
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Suzanne said on October 10, 2016 at 6:50 am
I had to go for a second glass of wine before the thing was half over. Trump says nothing. He has his few talking points: immigrants, emails, blah, blah, it’s gonna be great, blah, blah, Syria, Putin, blah, blah, it’s gonna be great, I’ll make it great, sniffle, sniffle, snort, snort, and a little heavy breathing.
One of my kids texted me about 20 minutes in and said, “What a shit show.”
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adrianne said on October 10, 2016 at 7:43 am
I think Hillary needs to put out an arrest warrant for Trump for unrelieved stalking. What was that weird roaming about Trump was doing on stage? If it was meant to rattle Hillary, it emphatically did not work. And the sniffing! Maybe Howard Dean is right and Donald has a raging cocaine problem.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 10, 2016 at 8:27 am
Interesting suggestion from a usually right-leaning source: Taegan Goddard thinks last night was a Trump who isn’t trying to win anymore, but is building blocks for a new media venture after November.
https://politicalwire.com/2016/10/09/reaction-second-presidential-debate/
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nancy said on October 10, 2016 at 8:36 am
And yet the wingnuts are calling this a win, and even Cokie-fucking-Roberts said it “stopped the bleeding.” This is why I didn’t give one thin dime to public radio this time. Fuck that shit.
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brian stouder said on October 10, 2016 at 8:50 am
Nancy – you got me laughing.
“Stopped the bleeding”???
It reminded me of a darkly humorous saying I once read:
‘all bleeding stops, eventually’
(A cold comfort for the trumpsters, indeed!)
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Peter said on October 10, 2016 at 9:40 am
I give Hillary a lot of credit for last night. I would have popped off in the middle of the debate and told Donald to sit his fat ass down and stop interrupting.
And for the last question – I think Hillary could have said that the one good thing about Trump is that he finally exposed the racism and xenophobia that the Republican party leadership encouraged but never acknowledged and brought it out into the open.
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Julie Robinson said on October 10, 2016 at 9:44 am
In the same interview, Jonah effing Goldberg said Trump’s plane is still going to crash, but at least they got the coffeemaker going. And I found myself with a glimmer of respect for Goldberg, for the very first time.
I think I may have commented here that I thought Trump’s Presidential run would be the beginning of the end for his career as a grifter; if not, let me say I fervently pray it will be so. His Atlantic City Taj Mahal is closing today, with 3000 more losing their jobs. But somehow he made money on the venture.
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Judybusy said on October 10, 2016 at 9:48 am
We had another couple over and had lots of good food and wine as we watched. The only way to get through the debate.
Am I the only one that thought, “He wants to strangle the life out of her” when he was grabbing her chair by both hands near the end of the debate?
Nancy, I am so with you about NPR coverage for this election. I’ve laid my complaints out before, so won’t repeat them here.
Sherri @7, what stunt are you talking about? Not ringing any bells for me. We started watching right as they were being introduced.
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Suzanne said on October 10, 2016 at 9:54 am
Julie, I heard that too from Jonah Goldberg and thought the same thing. Pretty funny line.
I thought her praise of tRump’s children went too far. Did she have to add that it shows he did a good job or however she phrased it? I’m sure he wasn’t a hands on father, except maybe with his daughter…
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brian stouder said on October 10, 2016 at 9:54 am
Judybusy, I could be wrong, but I interpreted Sherri’s remark as a reference to the Donald’s seating the several women with past connections to Bill as the stunt.
They wanted to seat them where Bill would have had to directly come in contact with them, and in that they failed (at the very last minute)
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brian stouder said on October 10, 2016 at 10:16 am
Pamela found this –
https://www.yahoo.com/style/social-media-finds-deep-inner-meaning-in-melania-trumps-hot-pink-debate-outfit-021436411.html
which makes me wonder what Tom and Lorenzo have to say?
(worth a chuckle in any case)
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alex said on October 10, 2016 at 10:17 am
I’m sure he wasn’t a hands on father, except maybe with his daughter…
Suzanne for the win!
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Julie Robinson said on October 10, 2016 at 11:01 am
Brian, here you go: http://tomandlorenzo.com/2016/10/melania-trumps-pussy-bow-blouse-intentional-inadvertent/
They are split.
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brian stouder said on October 10, 2016 at 11:06 am
Julie – you got me laughing! Thanks for the T&L link; count me amongst there large crowd who didn’t even know a pussy-bow was “a thing”
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adrianne said on October 10, 2016 at 11:09 am
Me, I’m with Ken Bone, rockin’ that cable-knit red sweater.
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Heather said on October 10, 2016 at 11:09 am
I was more struck by the fact that Melania did a 180 from her exposed shoulders number at the last debate.
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nancy said on October 10, 2016 at 11:11 am
If you’re looking for amusement, I highly recommend #MuslimsReportStuff on Twitter.
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Sherri said on October 10, 2016 at 11:31 am
The stunt I was referring to was Trump calling in the media and live-streaming an “press conference” with Paula Jones and others less than 2 hours before the event.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/09/politics/donald-trump-juanita-broaddrick-paula-jones-facebook-live-2016-election/
The “stopped the bleeding” horse race narrative after a debate in which Trump said his opponent would be in jail if he were in charge is another sign of the media’s inability to keep up with the speed with which Trump smashes the norms. They still expect to cover a normal debate between too normal opponents, and Trump overwhelms them with so much that they retreat to the familiar.
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alex said on October 10, 2016 at 11:34 am
He may have stopped the bleeding, but someone needs to tell him to stop the humping.
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alex said on October 10, 2016 at 11:36 am
A better link for that.
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Sherri said on October 10, 2016 at 11:37 am
Gannon and Kushner wanted to seat the four women in the family box, bit the debate commission said no: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/10/trumps-debate-plan-to-seat-bill-clintons-accusers-in-family-box-was-thwarted
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brian stouder said on October 10, 2016 at 11:41 am
…and Paul Ryan just jumped off the ship
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Heather said on October 10, 2016 at 11:45 am
But not really Brian. He hasn’t said he’ll pull his endorsement. This is literally the most spineless thing he could have done.
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Sherri said on October 10, 2016 at 11:55 am
Racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, rampant corruption at his foundation, sucking up to Putin, blatant lying: not enough to get Ryan to pull his endorsement.
Second bad debate performance on top of already dropping poll numbers (which don’t even reflect the sexual assault talk yet): still not enough to unendorse, but don’t ask me about Trump anymore.
Profile in courage, that one.
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Deborah said on October 10, 2016 at 12:03 pm
I read somewhere that the sniffing thing is a dominance behavior mechanism, as in loud breathing sounds, something animals do when they’re trying to intimidate their opponents. I know that cats hiss and bulls snort, so maybe there is something to this.
I thought Melania was unconsciously trying to identity with Hillary by wearing a bright pink pantsuit, but after reading the pussy bow blurb, probably not. I still think she’s going to dump Trump eventually, just a matter of time.
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Deborah said on October 10, 2016 at 12:06 pm
Does Trump do the sniffing when he speaks at his rallies? It would be interesting to see if he has done it at those and the Republican primary debates. When I have time, I’ll try to find those videos, if I can stand it. On second thought, maybe not.
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brian stouder said on October 10, 2016 at 12:19 pm
Deborah – that makes just enough sense that I believe you’re onto something!
He snorted and stalked around and glowered like an old bull (not to give old bulls a bad name)
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Dorothy said on October 10, 2016 at 12:23 pm
After it happened so frequently in the first debate, I am amazed Hillary didn’t keep a hankie stashed in her pocket and hand it to him after the third or fourth sniff. Can you imagine what the reaction would have been – both his and the audience’s?!
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LAMary said on October 10, 2016 at 12:28 pm
I know a few people who are very overweight and they inhale audibly through their noses when they need to take a breath while speaking.
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Andrea said on October 10, 2016 at 12:30 pm
Oh Alex, that is SO GROSS. I need eyeball bleach after seeing that vine.
I am disgusted and discouraged after seeing that debate. I pin my hopes on this: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-clinton-field-offices/
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Jakash said on October 10, 2016 at 12:36 pm
Thanks, Nancy, that “Muslims Report Stuff” hashtag is excellent.
One of my favorites: “I’d like to report that the GOP is neither Grand nor a Party. They old tho.”
As for the “stopped the bleeding,” I liked this take from Twitter last night:
“Trump said he’d try and put Clinton in jail, broke w/ Pence on Russia, admitted he didn’t pay fed income taxes but it was his best 90 mins”
A couple observations from Jon Favreau, former Obama speechwriter:
“Man, there are some people who are pretty damn terrible at judging debates.”
“Republicans thinking that Trump’s absurd performance was ‘good enough to stop the bleeding’ is exactly why they’re in this mess.”
And a funny photo and caption:
https://twitter.com/SweetPeaPatsy/status/784851509351559168
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Judybusy said on October 10, 2016 at 12:51 pm
Here’s an analysis by two body language experts on the debate. The sniffing is definitely a dominance thing.
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Sherri said on October 10, 2016 at 2:26 pm
Rebecca Traister continues to be on fire: http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/10/trumps-one-service-was-exposing-the-misogyny-of-the-gop.html
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St Bitch said on October 10, 2016 at 2:56 pm
I’m keeping up with posts, but am so far behind with my comments that I’ll never catch up.
I will try in the foreseeable future, but am jumping in right now about, of all things…the tRump sniffithon.
It has to be a nervous tick. I noticed those loud nasal inhalations way back during primary rally clips, and was surprised that no one else clocked them until the debate. tRump is not a drugee, but he does love to hear himself talk, while obviously lacking any training or awareness of oratorical breath control.
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brian stouder said on October 10, 2016 at 3:24 pm
StB – agreed.
For a guy who loves to ridicule people for the way they talk or act (for example, the NYT reporter with the chronic condition), one would think he’d be a little more self-aware.
‘Course, as soon as I say that, I think of his ridiculous hair, and my supposition above simply collapses
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Jolene said on October 10, 2016 at 4:10 pm
What is amazing to me is how utterly stupid Trump is. He has never, for one moment, shown that he realizes he has to win the votes of people who DON’T come to his rallies. It’s just math, Donald!
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Sherri said on October 10, 2016 at 4:45 pm
The new Roger Ailes: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/when-trump-went-low-steve-bannon-found-a-new-direction-lower/2016/10/10/80c7c8c0-8ef3-11e6-9c85-ac42097b8cc0_story.html
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Jakash said on October 10, 2016 at 5:01 pm
Yeah, Jolene.
The “locker room” excuse was a lame, desperate immediate response when he first tweeted it out days ago, but having that as his only excuse and repeating it over and over last night was just pathetic.
2 Americas:
In one, there’s a consensus among reporters that Rump’s “You’d be in jail” line and his threat to appoint a special prosecutor to delve into that extremely-underinvestigated email situation of Hillary’s (those FBI losers can’t be trusted, needless to say) is seen as THE most significant thing about the debate indicating how unfit he is to be President. Lots of stories as to the banana republican / despotic strongman implications of that tactic out today.
In the other, rather than being ashamed of, or backtracking on that, Rump is actually tweeting out a screenshot of himself saying “You’d be in jail” because it’s such a popular idea with a certain loud minority of the electorate.
Even if the minority of “Trump that Bitch” and “Lock Her Up” folks isn’t enough to get him elected, it’s still pretty freaking alarming that they, and their more “reasonable” Republican enablers have gotten him to this point. The only good thing is that he once again was forced to use the debate to appeal to his base and couldn’t have done much to narrow Hillary’s lead by making inroads among the folks that aren’t bound and determined to vote for a Republican, no matter what kind, nor how incompetent.
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LAMary said on October 10, 2016 at 5:04 pm
Looking at the photo of Mr. Bannon, I’m going to venture a guess that he drinks a bit.
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Sherri said on October 10, 2016 at 5:14 pm
Stuart Stevens, who was Romney’s lead strategist in 2012, tweeted today that for decades there has been a Clinton Hating Industrial Complex. It’s made a lot of people rich, and helped Clintons win, and it’s doing it again.
I’d add that the media bubble that the conservatives sealed themselves into has contributed mightily, as it has gotten tighter and more extreme. Fox News isn’t even trusted anymore; Breitbart and Alex Jones are the new sources. Alex Jones, who today declared he had evidence that both Obama and Clinton are demons, that people near them say they stink of sulfur. Apparently this is related to the fly to the debate last night.
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Sherri said on October 10, 2016 at 5:16 pm
BTW, lots of athletes are unhappy about Trump calling his sexual assault talk “locker room banter.”
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Jolene said on October 10, 2016 at 5:31 pm
Have seen several comments from athletes along the lines Sherri suggests. Here’s one from a former NFL player.
Have also seen numerous comments from grown-up men re what they really do talk about in locker rooms. Key topics: wife and kids, work, sports, aches and pains.
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Sherri said on October 10, 2016 at 5:41 pm
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Too Racist For Confirmation To Federal Bench) is not sure that grabbing a woman by her pussy is really sexual assault. Well, let me help you out, Beauregard. If a strapping young buck(TM Ronald Reagan) grabs your wife that way, would you ask the district attorney to file sexual assault charges? How about if a guy grabs you by the balls?
Hope I was able to help clear that up for you.
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alex said on October 10, 2016 at 5:41 pm
Here’s one of Trump’s victims who brought suit over exactly what Trump now denies he has ever done. We’ll probably be hearing more about it in the next few days.
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a5128852/jill-harth-donald-trump-assault-ivanka-bedroom/
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Sherri said on October 10, 2016 at 5:50 pm
Can I just share that I hate undecided voters?
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David C. said on October 10, 2016 at 6:18 pm
Cokie is neck and neck with Bill Kristol for always wrong punditry. It’s time for NPR (Nice Polite Republicans) to tell her that she doesn’t have to drag her old, dead ass out of bed to talk on the radio machine anymore. They can just run her old stuff over and over, like Car Talk. Nobody would ever notice, like Car Talk.
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Sherri said on October 10, 2016 at 6:41 pm
In the you can’t make this up category, Trump’s first rally since the Access Hollywood tape came out was today in Ambridge, PA. Ambridge is a small town in Western PA located in Beaver County.
There is a seminary in Ambridge that used to be conservative and Episcopal, but dropped the Episcopal over the ordination of Bishop Gene Robinson.
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LAMary said on October 10, 2016 at 7:03 pm
My son didn’t realize Car Talk has been an old rerun for a couple of years and he was amazed that everyone calling in had an old car.
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Sherri said on October 10, 2016 at 7:20 pm
I find it equally amazing and dismaying that there are a significant number of right wing Christians who are willing to accept anything Donald Trump says or does out of the misguided belief that God can use anybody and that they can rely on him for the overturn of a Roe v. Wade. In other words, they are willing to shred every bit of their credibility in order to make abortion illegal (not stop it, because we have lots of evidence that making it illegal doesn’t stop abortion, it just increase the number of women who die as a result.)
They think God can use a cheating racist, misogynistic, xenophobic narcissist, but Hillary is evil incarnate. As Anne Lamott said, you can be pretty sure you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out God hates all the same people you do.
It’s not just the Republican Party that may never recover from wages of Trumpism.
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Suzanne said on October 10, 2016 at 7:21 pm
I’ve kind of been thinking along these lines the past few months. For all the “Oh dear Lord, the Liberals are coming to get uuuuusssss!” screaming among the religious right, it’s their own pursuit of political power to the detriment of the values they say they so dearly love that is destroying them. Not a couple of gay guys with a cake.
For one of their own to acknowledge this is putting a nail or two in the coffin.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/09/if-donald-trump-has-done-anything-he-has-snuffed-out-the-religious-right/#comments
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Sherri said on October 10, 2016 at 7:59 pm
Of course, too many of those same white conservative Christians have spent the last 8 years believing the current President is a Muslim not born in America, so their credibility is already in tatters.
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Deborah said on October 15, 2016 at 8:19 pm
I too do not get undecided voters. How can you possibly be undecided given the choice you have?
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