The Goat Pen

An excellent assessment of the failure of both parties from a Canadian:

"He'll likely lose, but Trump is a Final Warning to the Elites"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/ ... e32278545/

Sign of the Apocalypse #623:

Ben & Jerry’s Said Black Lives Matter and the Reaction Was Predictable
http://www.eater.com/2016/10/6/13193140 ... ves-matter

Ben & Jerry's has stepped off the sideline and weighed in on one of the most contentious issues affecting America today: the Black Lives Matter movement. In a statement posted online, the beloved Vermont-based ice cream purveyor officially declared its support for the cause.

"Systemic and institutionalized racism are the defining civil rights and social justice issues of our time," the statement reads. "We’ve come to understand that to be silent about the violence and threats to the lives and well-being of black people is to be complicit in that violence and those threats."

The statement specifically references the recent police officer-involved shooting death of an African-American man in Charlotte, which sparked days of protests. It links to a separate landing page on Ben & Jerry’s website titled "7 Ways We Know Systemic Racism Is Real." It goes on to clarify "that saying black lives matter is not to say that the lives of those who serve in the law enforcement community don’t," and offers a response to those who disagree: "All lives do matter. But all lives will not matter until black lives matter."

The statement, which Ben & Jerry’s posted on Twitter and Facebook, has sparked heated discussion. Some social media users have responded with messages of support for the company, but many have derided the statement and expressed plans to boycott the ice cream manufacturer.

Good ice cream

Ben and Jerry's support for BLM is hardly newsworthy. They have advocated numerous liberal causes in the past:

http://www.benjerry.com/whats-new/corpo ... ty-history

It would have been a "sign of the apocalypse" if they had NOT endorsed the latest progressive shiny object.

Such a tragedy in Haiti. I sure hope the Clinton Foundation can help them like they did in 2010...

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_57f60 ... a29a5486fd

sardis wrote:Such a tragedy in Haiti. I sure hope the Clinton Foundation can help them like they did in 2010...

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_57f60 ... a29a5486fd

Looks like Hills can't count on the Haitian vote. Oh my.

Meantime, that Access Hollywood tape is just now making the rounds. Trump talking about hitting on married women and actresses ("Being a star, they'll let you do anything...even grab them by the pussy." Lot's of stuff in that vein. He just put out a statement. saying those comments were "locker-room talk" and btw Bill Clinton made worse comments to him [Trump] on the golf course. Sorry if anybody was offended.."

:::laughingmymotherfuckingassoff:::

Billy Bush under fire over vulgar Trump tape
http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/07/media/b ... index.html

"Today" show co-host Billy Bush says he is "embarrassed and ashamed" about his role chatting with Donald Trump on a vulgar 2005 videotape revealed Friday.

"It's no excuse, but this happened eleven years ago - I was younger, less mature, and acted foolishly in playing along. I'm very sorry," Bush said in a statement.
Before the statement was released, angry comments piled up on Bush's Facebook page from viewers who were disgusted by the contents of the tape, in which Trump brags in graphic terms about being able to grope women "when you're a star."

The "Today" show Facebook page was also overtaken by hundreds of critical comments. Some viewers said they want Bush to be suspended or fired.

NBC News had no immediate comment on that, either.

Bush is a co-host of the 9 a.m. hour of "Today," NBC's highly profitable morning show. He regularly appears during other hours of the four-hour broadcast, which has a predominately female audience.

As the controversy over the tape erupted on Friday afternoon, Anthony Quintano, who formerly ran the "Today" show's social media efforts, pointed out that "a majority of the 'Today' show production staff is female" and said it "won't go over well internally to keep Billy Bush around."

It is hard to picture Bush sitting around the "Today" show table on Monday morning, chatting about Sunday night's presidential debate, given that Trump's taped comments are sure to be part of the debate.

NBC executives may conclude that his role is untenable through election day.

The Billy Bush tapes + Trump's campaign's cancellation of ad buys in Florida, North Carolina and Ohio = game over.

The pullback on ads ended up being inaccurate reporting and was started by a New York Times reporter on Twitter who later backtracked the claim. Nevertheless, this Bush tape thing will finish Trump off even though it puts him in the same sexist category as Kennedy and Clinton. You can't get Republican faithful to turn out with a "I grab them by the pussy" comment.

sardis wrote:The pullback on ads ended up being inaccurate reporting and was started by a New York Times reporter on Twitter who later backtracked the claim. Nevertheless, this Bush tape thing will finish Trump off even though it puts him in the same sexist category as Kennedy and Clinton. You can't get Republican faithful to turn out with a "I grab them by the pussy" comment.

The apology was halfhearted, but it would be survivable . . . except for the fact that there are hundreds upon hundreds of hours of video/audio tape of Trump going back decades . . . Trump undoubtedly has said similarly damaging things (c'mon, the man practically lived on the Howard Stern show) . . . and you have to assume that the HRC campaign has found more stuff and will just continue to drop new bombs every 3 or 4 days.

'I'm out': Rep. Chaffetz withdraws his endorsement of Trump
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/r ... z4MTJZ6X6M

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, Jason Chaffetz Rescind Endorsement Of Donald Trump
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gar ... 55eab48044

The evangelicals who supported Trump must be particularly horrified. I never really understood why so many of them hitched their wagons to a guy like that. Trump would probably not have been nominated without them. Talk about buyer's remorse:

SNL may get it's highest ratings ever tonight.

hedge wrote:He'll be the fallback candidate when Trump inevitably says something that can't be forgiven. Just like he was when they needed a new speaker o' the Haus...

Took a little longer than I thought. Too long to get Paul Ryan in as the candidate, for sure, as was the prediction of this post (from last December). But as to the essential element, i.e., that Trump would say something that can't be forgiven (god knows he tried and tried) or in this case that something has been unearthed that he said fairly recently that can't be forgiven, did anybody seriously doubt that precisely something like this was going to happen? And as JD noted, does anyone seriously doubt there is still a treasure trove of similar gold nuggets out there, most likely already mined and minted by the Clinton machine, to be put in general circulation at their discretion? They are in control of this campaign just as much as the Fed controls monetary policy. I'll grant that, considering it's Donald Trump, this sort of thing is low hanging fruit. But if you have any appreciation of Machiavellian politics (and believe me, I do), you have to be impressed with the Clintons. We're in good hands...

Meanwhile, Fox news is hammering Hillary on the released transcripts of some of her speeches to Wall Street executives in which she (gasp) suggests that they need to be part of the solution. Wow, that's really a bombshell. Well, I only say that b/c the Fox news commentators have said "bombshell" about half a dozen times in the past half hour with regard to this "issue"...

The contrast between Fox news and other channels last night and this am is amazing.

Apparently Clinton said she "dreamed about open trade and open borders...and green energy for all." According to Faux those are fighting words.

Unbelievable....

Who cares