In Swipe at Trump, Clinton names Merkel as her favorite world leader Politico

In another embarrassing moment for Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, the pro-weed candidate has a second moment of total mind blankness when asked to name one world leader -- just one anywhere in the world -- that he admires. He had no response.

Hillary Clinton responded on Thursday, naming Angela Merkel as her favorite leader.

“Oh, let me think. Look, I like a lot of the world leaders,” Clinton said, bursting into laughter initially when asked about her favorite world leader during a gaggle with reporters aboard her campaign plane in Chicago. Now that Hillary is travelling with the press, she is in constant contact, improving her previously frosty media relationship. “One of my favorites is Angela Merkel because I think she’s been an extraordinary, strong leader during difficult times in Europe, which has obvious implications for the rest of the world and, most particularly, our country.”

Clinton praised the German chancellor’s “leadership and steadiness on the Euro crisis,” while adding that “her bravery in the face of the refugee crisis is something that I am impressed by.”

Reminding reporters that she had known Angela Merkel since the 1990s, Clinton sought to undercut Donald Trump, who also named Merkel as his favorite leader. “And I hope I’ll have the opportunity to work with her in the future, but we could talk about lots of different leaders if you want to sometime,” she quipped as she walked away with a smile.

Just a month ago in Charlotte, Trump told the crowd that "Hillary Clinton is running to be America's Angela Merkel, and we've seen how many problems that's caused the German people." And to underscore Trump's variability from morning to afternoon, the Republican candidate both honored Merkel in his Thursday interview in New Hampshire, calling her a "great international leader" before criticizing her before the crowd later in the day.

Trump Takes On Clinton Marriage

Donald Trump Opens New Line of Attack on Hillary Clinton: Her Marriage New York Times

The headline may be Trump's new attacks on the Clinton's marriage, but I find the comment that Donald Trump will no longer promise to honor the election of Hillary Clinton as far more concerning. after saying at Monday night's debate that he would "absolutely support her if she won in November", by Friday, the always erratic and unstable Trump said: "We're going to have to see. We're going to see what happens. We're going to have to see." The new response was yet another example of Trump's limited, first-grade vocabulary.

Trump used a familiar phrase in his New York Times phone interview, saying that he was "absolutely disgusted" that Mrs. Clinton had aligned herself politically with a Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado. Even though all history indicates that women in particular do not respond positively to attacks on Hillary Clinton and her marriage, Donald Trump insists that voters will turn away from Hillary, being repulsed by her after his attacks.

Trump, the serial womanizer, denied that his own marital and sexual history was irrelevant to the election. He became involved with Marla Maples while he was still married to his first wife, Ivana, who divorced him in 1991. The affair was front page news for months in the New York tabloids. Trump married Ms. Maples in 1993; they were divorced in 1999. He married his current wife, Melania, in 2005. Note that both of Trump's ex-wives have signed confidentiality agreements and there is no left-wing conspiracy digging into his past.

Mr. Trump has bragged consistently over the years about his sexual exploits and enormous success with women. Many -- including myself -- found his constant exploits vulgar and demeaning to women. Yet he charged in the interview that Mr. Clinton's numerous indiscretions “brought shame onto the presidency, and Hillary Clinton was there defending him all along.”

Mr. Trump refuses to discuss his own infidelities, saying it was never a problem. Trump is just laughable in his answers, and women just aren't that stupid.

Donald Trump, Disgust and Precarious Manhood Toronto Star

As someone who has written about women and religion for years, with special emphasis on the erosion of women's rights in the Arab world and in America, the constant use of the word 'disgusting' by Donald Trump concerns me. That word is fundamental to the views about women worldwide -- a word that speaks to a woman who has violated some moral code that requires her to be punished. Honor killings come to mind. The imprisonment of women who have abortions in a future Trump administration also come to mind -- because women must be punished, Trump told Chris Matthews.

One must have a strong affinity for human psychology to read into Trump's savaging of women, his rating of women and his frequent use of 'disgusting' to describe our actions. The Toronto Star's Heather Mallick takes up the argument.

"Trump is disgusted by many things, including fat women, non-fat women, foreigners, abortion, aging, sweat, people who aren’t white, journalists, losers, menstrual blood, height limits on buildings and flagpoles, baldness, bathroom breaks, taco trucks, taxes, statistics, NATO, “bad people,” and even more things than that.

In her book Purity and Danger, the anthropologist Mary Douglas defined dirt as “matter out of place.” Trump sees Clinton thus, a woman in a man’s place. It repels him. Trump once described shaking hands as “barbaric.” “I am a clean hands freak,” he wrote. “I feel much better after I thoroughly wash my hands, which I do as much as possible.”

Has a politician ever been so uncomfortable with pressing the flesh? How he must have suffered having to shake Clinton’s hand as the debate began.

One would expect female Republicans to finally call a halt to this nonsense, even if the male ones won’t. Even women who are habitually hostile to other women — perhaps currying favour with misogynistic men — must see that they should find common cause with good men and end this. My brand of feminism includes men. There is no other way to move ahead except in tandem with the rest of the human race.

Related: The politics of disgust animated for the age of Trump The Righteous Mind

Trump Praised Saudi Arabian Divorce & Sharia Law

Trump Praised Saudi Arabia's Shariah Law for for Making It Easy for Men to Get Divorced Mother Jones

Where the heck has our media been for the last 18 months!!!!!! Consumed with the daily ask about Hillary Clinton's emails. while they turned their own airwaves over to Donald Trump for ratings and big bucks?

Now that people are digging in to Trump World, we just don't know what they will uncover next. Good goddess. Donald Diarrhea Mouth Trump had kind words for a system that allows men to divorce their wives without going to court: Saudi Arabia's sharia law.

"The Republican presidential candidate praised the Islamic law, or sharia, system during a 60-second syndicated daily radio commentary called "Trumped!" that he recorded daily from 2004 to 2008. In a January 2008 segment, Trump discussed a news story of a Saudi man who had divorced his wife for watching a television show while alone at home because, in Trump's telling, the husband considered it tantamount to being alone with a strange man.

"Men in Saudi Arabia have the authority to divorce their wives without going to the courts," Trump said. "I guess that would also mean they don't need prenuptial agreements. The fact is, no courts, no judges—Saudi Arabia sounds like a very good place to get a divorce."

BuzzFeed first uncovered the show and its website in March, and the Wall Street Journal published some audio and transcripts in July. According to BuzzFeed, stations that still have an archive of the shows cannot release the audio without Trump's permission."