TODAY IS
MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2018
Trump’s 626th Day In Office
Is 2018 Looking More Like 2016 Every Day Or What?!
MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2016
Today’s Good News And Bad News
From Our Local Political Junkie We’ll Call “Cincy Dave”
THE GREAT DEBATE
Last night’s debate lived up to expectations. It was truly a Jerry Springer show with Trump in the hot seat. He made it more so by pulling a real Springer show stunt just before it started by holding a press conference with four of Bill Clinton’s supposed victims, in the hope of deflecting attention away from the recent video of him talking about women in a sexually explicit manner. That apparently didn’t work. His campaign manager was very unhappy that debate officials would not let the “victims” sit in the family box at the debate.
The debate itself got right down into the mud immediately, going straight to questions about the video. Trump offered his half-hearted apology again and tried to dismiss it as just meaningless locker-room talk. Then he pivoted immediately to ISIS and how Hillary was responsible for their success. Hillary and the moderators weren’t about to let him off the hook so easily. They all three hammered him 
to the point where he felt like he was debating three people, and he said so.
The rest of the debate didn’t go much better. Mud flew in all directions with Trump throwing the most. It even got to the point where he called Hillary “the devil” in speaking about Bernie making a deal with the devil. He threatened to appoint a special prosecutor for her if he was elected.
After a question to Hillary about her emails, he complained that no one had brought up her emails. He kept going back to the emails issue and, at one point she said that, fortunately, he was not in charge of the legal system, whereupon he said, “Yeah, because you’d be in jail.” It was the best zinger of the evening. However, although he may not have realized it, threatening to put your opponent in jail is 
the stuff of evil dictators throughout history and probably didn’t help his cause.
Fact checkers were working overtime trying to keep up with the lies flying in both directions, although, in spite of Hillary’s reputation for lying, The Donald easily won the “most lies of the evening” award, 13 to 2, with a whole lot of half-truths on both sides, according to one article.
HILLARY INVOKES LINCOLN
Hillary defended a private statement that politicians need to have “both a public and a private” negotiating position, saying she was recalling President Abraham Lincoln’s deal-making after watching the movie “Lincoln.” “As I recall, that was something I said about 
Abraham Lincoln after having seen the wonderful Steven Spielberg movie called ‘Lincoln,'” “It was a master class watching President Lincoln get the Congress to approve the 13th Amendment. It was principled, and it was strategic,” Clinton said. “And I was making the point that it is hard sometimes to get the Congress to do what you want it to do, and you have to keep working at it.” Trump’s response was a good one – “WikiLeaks that just came out. And she lied. Now she’s blaming the lie on the late, great Abraham Lincoln. That’s one that I haven’t… OK, Honest Abe, Honest Abe never lied. That’s the good thing. That’s the big difference between Abraham Lincoln and you. That’s a big, big difference. We’re talking about some difference.” Trump’s answer rambled on for a long time, going way off the subject, so here’s the whole thing. Lincoln himself had once been accused of being two-faced on a similar matter and his response was, “If I had two faces, would I be wearing this one?”
RESULTS
The “Babe Ruth of Debating,” as campaign manager Kellyanne Conway called him, needed a grand slam but couldn’t deliver. He couldn’t even deliver a solo home run. Of course, partisans on both sides claimed their candidate had won the debate. No remotely non-partisan viewer polls were immediately available. Hillary really didn’t need to win, just keep The Donald from winning, and she easily accomplished that. Her goal now is to run out the clock. Barring any huge revelation about her from Wikileaks in the next four weeks, it looks like she should be able to do that.
RYAN WILL NO LONGER DEFEND TRUMP
House Speaker Paul Ryan said he will not campaign with or defend Trump through the November election, in a phone call with GOP lawmakers this morning. He had earlier cancelled an appearance with Trump and said he was disgusted by Trump’s comments on the tape that surfaced. He stopped short of formally withdrawing his support however.
RNC TO DECIDE TRUMP’S FATE?
The Republican National Committee has scheduled a conference call with its members tonight, The call, which is to start at 5 pm ET and is slated to last 30 minutes, does not have a set agenda. But it comes amid swirling speculation surrounding whether the RNC will divert resources from Trump to down-ballot candidates. Many RNC members have expressed profound unease with Trump following the release of the bombshell 2005 tape showing him bragging about sexually assaulting women.
PUSSYGATE TAPE CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM
Billy Bush has been suspended from the Today Show as a result of his involvement with The Donald in the famous tape that rocked the Trump campaign. His future at NBC remains uncertain, but insiders and even one on-air source said that he would never return. Bush’s 
excuse for going along with Trump’s remarks about women was that he was young at the time (although he was 33 years old). Maybe The Donald can hire his old locker-room buddy as some kind of gofer in the Trump organization, or in the unlikely event of a Trump victory, something like an assistant to the assistant press secretary. We aren’t too worried about his future though. Being a member of the wealthy Bush political and banking family, he won’t be going hungry anytime soon.
TODAY’S STATE POLLS
There is no good news here for Trump, and these polls were taken before his “locker room” comments became public. Future polls will almost undoubtedly get worse for him without some more help from Wikileaks.
— More Good News And Bad News Tomorrow —
