Trump Jr and Roger Stone Agree: Yes, We're Deplorable!

Wow.  When Hillary called a big chunk of Trump supporters "a basket of deplorables", I thought it would be a major issue for the rest of the campaign.  Hell, the Trump campaign is already running an ad attacking Clinton for saying it.

But apparently Donald Jr and Trump's long-time confidante Roger Stone didn't get the memo, because they got on social media and sent out an image basically confirming that Clinton is right:

From left to right, that's Roger Stone; former Republican candidate for president and all-around know-nothing neurosurgeon Ben Carson; loudmouth, bully, corrupt New Jersey governor and Trump eunuch Chris Christie; Eric Trump; vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence; Trump; Pepe the Frog; former New York Mayor, 9/11 opportunist and conspiracy theorist Rudy Giuliani; Donald Trump, Jr.; right-wing nutjob and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones; and different right-wing nutjob Milo Yiannopoulos.  At a minimum, Stone, Giuliani, Jones and Yiannopoulos fit Clinton's definition of "deplorable".  And that's not even taking into account Pepe the Frog.

Pepe has been around for more than a decade, but in the last year he has become the unofficial mascot of the white supremacist movement.  Trump Jr. and Stone know this (or damn well should).  Pepe represents the worst America has to offer in bigotry, the neo-Nazi movement, and straight-up racism.  In other words, he represents EXACTLY the kind of people Clinton meant when she talked about "deplorable" Trump supporters.

Understand, this image didn't come from some crazed Clinton supporter trying to do a hatchet job on Trump.  And it didn't come from the Trump campaign, either.  Its origin is unclear.  But what's so damning about it is that Trump Jr. and Roger Stone both EMBRACED it.  Trump Jr said he was "honored" to be in this group, and Stone said he was "proud".  Which proves that Clinton got it exactly right.

Emirjeta Xhelili is Deplorable

Trump and Republicans generally are pretending to be shocked and insulted that Hillary has pointed out that a large chunk of Trump's supporters as "deplorables" (a nice word for "assholes").  Their faux outrage would be more credible if it weren't for people like Emirjeta Xhelili:

Emirjeta Xhelili, 32, hurled Islamophobic insults as she pounced on the two victims near her Bath Beach home about 1:30 p.m. Thursday, authorities said.

“Get the f--k out of here,” Xhelili, 32, allegedly yelled at the pair, according to prosecutors. “Get the f--k out of America, b-----s.”

As she punched the 23-year-old women in the face and kicked them in their legs, she tried to rip the traditional Muslim veils off their heads at Bay 20th St. and Cropsey Aves., police sources said.

She also tried to knock over a stroller carrying a 15-month old.

Anyway.  There's ONE deplorable who loves Trump.

A Presidential Look

A few days ago, Donald Trump said he doesn't think Hillary has a presidential look.  Seriously.

THIS GUY thinks he's in a position to tell someone else they don't look presidential.  Okay then.

Basket of Deplorables

On Friday, Hillary Clinton told the truth (as she almost always does):

"You know, just to be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.  Right?" she said to applause and laughter.  "The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic --- you name it.  And unfortunately there are people like that.  And he has lifted them up."

On Saturday, she clarified her comments, indicating that it's not really important whether the proportion of Trump's supporters who are "deplorable" is exactly half:

But let's be clear, what's really "deplorable" is that Donald Trump hired a major advocate for the so-called "alt-right" movement to run his campaign and that David Duke and other white supremacists see him as a champion of their values. It's deplorable that Trump has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices, including by retweeting fringe bigots with a few dozen followers and spreading their message to 11 million people. It's deplorable that he's attacked a federal judge for his "Mexican heritage," bullied a Gold Star family because of their Muslim faith, and promoted the lie that our first black President is not a true American. So I won't stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign.

For the record, on both occasions she classified the remaining Trump supporters as hard-working Americans who just don't feel like the economy or our political system are working for them, and people with whom we must empathize.  But for now, I'm focusing on the controversial part of her statement; that a large chunk of Trump's supporters are basically assholes.

There is data to back up this claim:

Now, everyone knows that your race doesn't determine your intelligence, work ethic, manners, or your tendency toward violence or lawlessness.  And it's disappointing to see that even some Clinton supporters admit to harboring racist beliefs.  But Trump's supporters are far and away the worst in this regard.

That's deplorable.

Trump Isn't Trying to Win

Trump isn't trying to win.  That should be obvious by now, considering his habit of insulting the media, women, and other prominent Republicans.  In fact, for someone who claims to be a 'uniter' who gets along well with people, the list of people and organizations he's insulted is quite spectacular.  We can also see that he's not trying to win by the way he actively courts the support of known white supremacists.  And the fact that he's now on his third campaign manager.  And the fact that he has essentially no campaign organization or ground game.  And the fact that he only recently started advertising on TV.

You know what Trump IS doing, though?  He's fundraising.  And where is that fundraising money going?  As we noted, it's not going to pay for field offices, or office staff, or to GOTV (get out the vote) operations.  But some of it is going right into Donald Trump's pocket, in the form of rent that the Trump campaign is paying Trump Towers for rent in the office space it's using.  The funny thing is, the campaign is now paying more than four times as much for this office space than it was back in April.

Do you know who profits when Trump Towers raises its rent?  Donald Trump.  If he were running a serious campaign where he cared about winning, he could, maybe, let his campaign use that office space FOR FREE.  But instead, he makes the campaign pay AND raises the rent!

I think I've made it pretty clear that I don't support Trump for president.  But if I did, and if I had donated some of my heard-earned money to a campaign where it seems like he's not even trying to win, and pocketing a bigger and bigger share of each donation, I might consider staying home on election day.  Or voting for the other guy woman.

But you know, that's just me.

And Another Thing: Hillary is Much More Honest Than Trump

It's late, I'm supposed to be on vacation, so I'm phoning this one in.  But Robert Mann has an awesome chart, based on data from Politifact:

I Can't Question Trump's Ethics, Because I'm Unable to Find Them

Let's start with the facts about Captain Humayun Khan:

In 2004, Captain Khan was deployed from Germany to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom, despite the fact that his four years of required service had technically been completed. Then on June 8th, four months into his tour of duty, Khan was inspecting soldiers on guard duty when a suspicious vehicle approached the gate of his compound at high speed. Khan ordered his fellow soldiers to stay back, as he took 10 steps toward the car with his arm outstretched. The car then exploded, killing Khan, but its improvised explosive device detonated before it could reach the gates and the nearby mess hall where hundreds of Khan's fellow soldiers were eating breakfast.

There's a word for people who do the kind of things Humayun Khan did: hero.  And anyone who doubts that either has some very good reason to doubt that the above story is true, or they have a very twisted standard for measuring morality.

I can't imagine what it must be like to be the parent of such a hero, and I hope I never find out.  But when your child sacrifices his life for others this way, one thing is beyond dispute: you get to say whatever the hell you want about the people running for president, and everyone else has to shut up and respect it.  Just like when Pat Smith, whose son Sean died in Benghazi in 2012, stood up at the Republican National Convention to tell the world that she blames 'Hillary Clinton personally' for her son's death.  Hillary could have attacked Pat Smith for saying this, and so could the Clinton campaign or other high-profile Democrats.

Only they haven't, you see, because all of them --- including Hillary, especially Hillary --- have at least some amount of integrity, and they understand that Pat Smith gets to say whatever she wants.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, doesn't understand this, because Donald Trump is a man without integrity, honor or ethics.  That's why when Khizr Khan, Captain Khan's father, stood up at the Democratic National Convention to tell the world that Trump has 'sacrificed nothing' and questioned whether Trump had ever read the Constitution, Trump didn't just ignore him.  Instead, he attacked him:

"While I feel deeply for the loss of his son," he added, "Mr. Khan, who has never met me, has no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution, (which is false) and say many other inaccurate things."

Yes, he does, Donald.  That's how it works.  For one thing, he said nothing inaccurate: you really haven't sacrificed anything.  And for another, when your child dies heroically on the field of battle, you can criticize the president, or anyone running for president, however you damn well please.

This initial reaction was bad enough, but Trump being an asshole pandering to assholes, and surrounded, supported and enabled by assholes, has taken things to the inevitable next level:

Amid Donald Trump's ongoing attacks on the family of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, a Muslim-American solider who was killed fighting in Iraq, a number of his supporters latched onto a conspiracy theory that Khan's father is a "Muslim Brotherhood agent" and his son was on an "Islamist mission."

Their evidence for these accusations more or less boils down to: "Trump is awesome and you're a nasty Muslim who said bad things about Trump so you're a terrorist, shut up and go away terrorist."  No, the accusations aren't coming from Trump himself, but they're coming from his close associate Roger Stone, which is the same thing.  Google up the relationship between Trump and Stone, and you'll realize that Stone wouldn't be saying these things without Trump's approval.

I know that 25 years of smears and attacks has a lot of people thinking that Hillary is corrupt, etc.  That's tremendously overblown, but no matter how compromised her ethics may be, at least they're not zero.  That territory is reserved for Trump, Stone, and their white-supremacist, misogynist, Muslim-bashing supporters.