September 29, 2016

Massive Backlash Builds Against Trump Among Women Over Miss Universe Insults

September 29, 2016/ Anne Enke

Former Miss Universe Alicia Machado Won't Be Defined by Donald Trump's Fat-Shaming Cosmopolitan

Donald Trump was positively ambushed by Hillary Clinton in Monday night's debate, as she waited for the right moment to unload on Trump for his body-shaming of the woman he called Miss Piggy.

Hillary's TV debate response to Lester Holt's question about Trump's assertion that Clinton doesn't look presidential -- meaning that she has no penis -- was fully-loaded:

"This is a man who has called women pigs, slobs, and dogs, and someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers," Clinton said.

She then called attention to one woman in particular, who, next to Clinton herself, would emerge as the most famous following the debate. “And one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest — he loves beauty contests, supporting them, and hanging around them — and he called this woman 'Miss Piggy.' Then he called her 'Miss Housekeeping,' because she was Latina.”

"Where did you find her, where did you find her?" Trump interrupted, but Clinton pressed on: "And she has a name, Alicia Machado, and she has become a U.S. citizen ... and you can bet she's going to vote this November." The audience, against the debate's house rules, burst into applause.

So confident was the Clinton campaign that one way or another, Hillary would be able at some point in the debate to take Latina Alicia Machado's case to voters that her post-debate response was ready to go.

1. Machado quickly affirmed her support for Clinton on her Twitter feed. 2. The campaign had an ad ready to go. 3. Machado has an online interview in Cosmopolitan today.

Then there is the help that Trump himself gave the 'fat shaming' of the former Miss Universe issue yesterday, as the totally predictable Trump doubled down on his actions from two decades. And this meglomaniac thinks he has the brainpower to handle Vladimir Putin??? The Russians must be doubled over with laughter.

Were the Trump children cringing -- or did at least Ivanka say: "Daddy, shut the hell up!!!!!!" Probably no -- unless the Trump kids are watching their future fortunes flushed down the proverbial toilet because Big Daddy just can't zip up his mouth.

As for launching a crusade against Bill Clinton's past infidelities, can someone make it clear that Bill Clinton is a spouse, whereas thrice-married Donald Trump himself was never able to keep his fly zipped up?

If you doubt that a gutter-level response is waiting for the Trumpster if he unloads on Bill Clinton over past infidelities, think again. Hillary herself won't go there, but the Internet has its own toxic culture, and the Clinton campaign will manage to unload Trump's fair share on his own campaign.

It's called HYPOCRISY with a capital H, and we will unload on Trump for her.You have been warned Mr. Orange Man. ~ Anne

Related: That Seventh-Grade Bully Is Running for President by Nicholas Kristof New York Times

Kesha Supports Former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, slams Donald Trump: 'He Is A Bully' Billboard

Shamed and Angry: Alicia Machado, a Miss Universe Mocked by Trump New York Times

Cover Story: Donald Trump Is Barry Blitt's 'Miss Congeniality' The New Yorker

She was the worst we ever had, the worst, the absolute worst, she was impossible,” Donald Trump told Fox News the morning after his debate with Hillary Clinton, defending his treatment of Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe whom he called “Miss Piggy,” when she gained weight after the pageant, and “Miss Housekeeping,” in apparent reference to her heritage. Watching the debate, the artist Barry Blitt recognized a significant moment in the Presidential campaign. Of all Trump’s dangerous beliefs, Blitt said, his misogyny “might just be his Achilles’ heel.”

Trump Zips Up His Own Fly & Goes After Bill Clinton

PSA: It's really, really sexist to blame Hillary Clinton for Bill's infidelity ThinkProgress

Pundits, journalists, and real-time polls agree: The first presidential debate was a bad night for Republican nominee Donald Trump. In full spin mode, Trump campaign operatives are now grasping at straws — and, continuing on a common theme, they’re coming up sexist.

In a particularly egregious example, Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani said that Hillary Clinton is “too stupid to be president” because she didn’t know about her husband’s infidelity, continuing a grossly sexist line of attack the campaign has employed before.

10 Emotional Abuse Tactics That Trump Blatantly Used in the First Debate EveryDay Feminism

The reason why this year’s election has caused a heightened and exacerbated sense of anxiety among many people is because Trump’s language is not your typical political rhetoric. In fact, the language he employs comes straight out the handbook of toxic masculinity.

That is, he uses toxic tactics of emotional abuse – especially emotional abuse aimed at women – in order to put other people down. The tactics are powerful, emotionally violent, and often disarming against their victims.

Hillary Clinton Headlines September 28, 2016

Donald Trump Proved to Be No Ronald Reagan The Atlantic

Comey on Clinton email probe: 'Don't call us weasels' Politico

Private Prison Stocks Just Tanked As Hillary Calls For End of State Private Prisons Occupy Democrats

Clinton Picks Up Two Unprecedented Endorsements Second Nexus

Trump? How Could We by Thomas Friedman New York Times

Trump fundraising record not all it appears Politico

Trump and the Truth: The 'Lying' Media The New Yorker

AOL founder Steve Case: 'I'm voting for Hillary Politico

Donald Trump's Cruel Streak The Atlantic

September 10, 2016

Does Hillary Clinton Represent the Ultimate Emasculation of American Males?

September 10, 2016/ Anne Enke

Is Hillary Clinton Right About Trump Supporters? This Is What The Polling Data Says ThinkProgress

Hillary Clinton created major controversy speaking at a fundraiser in New York on Friday night. In a statement that she has since walked back, Hillary described half of her Republican opponent Donald Trump's supporters as a "basket of deplorables".

Arguing that large numbers of Trump's supporters are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it -- Clinton said that the Trump campaign has given voice to the websites and Twitter account. Clinton then described other Trump supporters as "people who feel the government has let them down, the economy let them down, nobody cares about them." Hillary stressed that "those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."

The polling data supports Hillary's argument. ThinkProgress digs into the views of Trump supporters specifically, compared not only to Democrats but to Republicans who supported other candidates.

The Male Perspective

Fear of a Female President by Peter Beinart The Atlantic

According to the Public Religion Research Institute, 52 percent of white men hold a “very unfavorable” view of Clinton. That’s a whopping 20 points higher than the percentage who viewed Barack Obama very unfavorably in 2012, 32 points higher than the percentage who viewed Obama very unfavorably in 2008, and 28 points higher than the percentage who viewed John Kerry very unfavorably in 2004.

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Over the past few years, political scientists have suggested that, counterintuitively, Barack Obama’s election may have led to greater acceptance by whites of racist rhetoric. Something similar is now happening with gender. Hillary Clinton’s candidacy is sparking the kind of sexist backlash that decades of research would predict. If she becomes president, that backlash could convulse American politics for years to come.

To understand this reaction, start with what social psychologists call “precarious manhood” theory. The theory posits that while womanhood is typically viewed as natural and permanent, manhood must be “earned and maintained.” Because it is won, it can also be lost. Scholars at the University of South Florida and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign reported that when asked how someone might lose his manhood, college students rattled off social failures like “losing a job.” When asked how someone might lose her womanhood, by contrast, they mostly came up with physical examples like “a sex-change operation” or “having a hysterectomy.”

The Subtle Misogyny in Matt Lauer's Interview With Hillary Clinton Was Appalling Slate

I am interested in the far more subtle variation of the misogyny illness, the one that lurks behind phrases such as “even-handed” and “fair-minded,” that low-grade fever that caused Matt Lauer to continually interrupt Hillary Clinton’s sharp, specific answers to his questions in the Commander in Chief Forum on NBC (thank god Clinton stood up and ignored him), and which also prompted him to allow Donald Trump to ramble on in incoherent sentence fragments about secret plans for defeating ISIS in thirty days, as if such nonsense were serious political discourse. Would our “fair-minded” journalist have treated a male candidate the way he treated Hillary Clinton? I ask you to search your souls, men and women alike. My answer is no.

Related: How Many Times Will Hillary Clinton Be Interrupted? Vogue.com

How Sexism Like Matt Laurer's Could Imperil the Nation The American Prospect

Trump, the Big Liar

Donald Trump's 'Big Liar' Technique by Paul Krugman The New York Times

Annoyed with a Trump-supporter comment on the HillaryWomen News FB page -- one calling Hillary a liar -- I have the Politifact info on who is more truthful, referenced by Krugman, right here.

One point that Krugman makes is that -- in the same way the media won't report that the AP took down their tweets on the Clinton foundation yesterday -- what Hillary Clinton said about Colin Powell advising her is true. The Powell email -- written three days after Hillary took office as Secy of State -- absolutely backed her up. So the media scoffed at her claim and reported it widely, but don't hold your breath that they will clean up their snorts. Journalists tend not to take that action.

Related: The Hillary Clinton email story is out of control The Washington Post