Vee

When Trump gets overconfident - or feels like he's been humiliated, as he did by being convinced (allegedly by Conway) to go onstage and reluctantly 'renounce' birtherism - he goes rogue. It happened post-primary with the Khans and his hellish month of August and it's happening again now with his ludicrous hotel farce where he spent 4 seconds on his 'admission' and then barred the press. Spoonfeed them plenty but insult them and they buck. The media is turning on him. Front page of the NY Times this morning calls Trump a liar. The Times has fucked up a lot on Trump lately and has felt major pressure for it, from people like Paul Krugman and others. Their editorial staff, including Maggie Haberman, have grown increasingly testy. This is a big change from their apologia for their prior weak headlines on Trump.

They're not covering it so benignly.

CNN just called on Trump to release his taxes. All the networks are just shredding him.

Welp!

Sky Atlantic indicates the new series will air (overseas) in May. The American airdate would be either the same time or earlier.

More on hotel debacle.

Trump is (allegedly) livid about today's disastrous event, livid that the press destroyed footage and is blaming Conway for 'making' him do anything at all. CNN backs this up. Now he's trying to send surrogates out to cry censorship because the press destroyed his precious hotel footage. (Free hotel promotion is how his campaign convinced him to do this.)

I clicked the button once and it posts twice anyway. I'm so tired of the bullshit on this ridiculous fuckin' board no one ever fixes.

The polls will tighten because that's what they do, helped this year by a bored press that decided reporting on Trump was old news and they had to spice the race up by hammering their most hated candidate. But as an article pointed out the other day, Trump's gains are built on sand - Hillary still leads him, and he still hasn't made it even to where Romney was this time in '12. The Obama/Romney race tightened after the first debate, but by November it was not a question to me. Obama put him away before midnight. I do think we have this. I think this is a bad moment, but campaigns are full of those. The worm is always about to turn again. Case in point: Trump's latest fiasco, his press conference/hotel tour where he hoodwinked the press into listening to testimonials from vets at his new hotel before popping up to quickly dismiss birtherism in 4 seconds, then shut them out with no questions despite promising a press conference and 'major announcement' - and then proceeded to try to give a tour of the hotel. If there's one thing the press can't stand it is an insult to them. They are livid, ranting about it live, and have begun destroying all their footage of Trump's new hotel as retaliation for his antics.

Looks like this may be confirmed by Mark Frost - a second volume of The Secret History of Twin Peaks, presumably which will cover everything since the original series. (Volume I next month covers the history of the town and its people from colonial times through the end of the original show.) One assumes Volume II would be released next year before the new show. Angelo Badalamenti talks about working on the new show and gives in-depth stories about creating several classic pieces of music from the original series, including Laura's theme. Tim Roth talks TP and working with Lynch on the new show.

They needed the extra time - the original timetable was kind of insane.

Cilizza is a creep, but in fairness the Post has been one of the few major outlets consistently going hard at Trump for months.

Apparently both the health scare and deplorables worked for her - which I expected, frankly. Meanwhile: Flint church pastor shuts down Trump for trying to Clinton-bash during his appearance before congregation.

Hillary is actually up by 5 against Trump in the latest Quinnipiac poll. Quinnipiac leans right, which means it's actually higher.

I believe she's taking a break til Thursday.

Trump's attempt at a scripted sitdown with Dr. Oz about his health - complete with a physical - evidently did not go well, presumably because he is obese and clearly on who knows what. This morning the Trump campaign abruptly announced no physical results will be released and instead they will have a talk about 'wellness and positive thinking.' The press is going after it.

The much-anticipated Newsweek cover story: More at link.

Breaking: The NY Attorney General's office has opened an investigation into the Trump Foundation, as per the scandals mentioned upthread. Also, just now: MSNBC runs with a portion of tomorrow's major Newsweek story about Trump's ties to foreign powers and criminals, and the conflicts with national security.

Looks like the book released next month may or may not be only "Volume 1" according to a new press release using that phrase - allegedly, the book may only chronologically cover As Mark Frost has said repeatedly the book would span a larger frame of time (as in, taking us to the present-day), one wonders if Volume 2 might not be coming. Frost and the publisher have yet to deny this when questioned. Who knows.

This is what I mean by many of the press being lazy, in the privileged bubble (where Clinton has been denying the Beltway press for years) and amoral. From a new GQ profile of idiots undecided voters. This is an extreme example - I don't think most of the press is as passively pro-Trump as this anonymous idiot (who is getting roasted on Twitter). But I do think there are many lazy, pampered, insulated people in DC who see this all as just a big game that won't affect them, that see Trump as a doomed buffoon they don't need to report on seriously and that hold deep resentment towards the Clintons. The entitled, me-me-me attitude (and whining about the public not caring about the emails!) is the same. Anyway, it's still not shared by the country at large: A new NBC poll has Hillary up 4.

I don't remember Dondre Whitfield being that hot. Woof. I'd be curious to know if the book is told from any one perspective or if anyone's POV takes precedence. The second episode made me wonder if Charley is the primary POV character here. Great stuff so far.

Today in Trump troubles, aside from the developing scandal upthread: Mike Pence refuses to denounce David Duke, blames Hillary for smearing him. David Duke is now trending.

I don't excuse them at all. And they absolutely have made a sport about chasing the Clintons for 20+ years - it is an institutional grudgefuck. But as Josh Marshall says, it's also that in the Beltway press bubble they widely consider Trump a crook and a buffoon already, and find it tiresome (amongst themselves) to keep covering more of his lowlife exploits that often amount to what they would consider the same punchline. They call it "just Trump being Trump" and throw it on the pile, while finding Clinton's secrecy more galling to their collective ego. It's a problem of both laziness and amorality, as well as not considering the public interest enough vs. their own. Some outlets do hit him hard though, especially after having been called on the double-standard in recent weeks. They grudgingly began to move to cover the Bondi scandal, and I think this Trump Foundation story will be bigger. The debate pressure is now on them as well following Lauer's flameout.

Lara Flynn Boyle gives a rare interview for Norwegian(?) television. She looks a bit better than the last time I saw her but there's still some striking comparison shots. It is nice to see her apparently happy. I don't think she addresses not doing the new show. Interview with Lara Flynn Boyle on Gylne tider from Thor Åmli on Vimeo.

Good lord, y'all need to calm down. No, Trump should not, cannot and in fact will not win the election - while some of you may have a 'perverse interest' in the idea I can promise you that for a lot of the rest of us around here it would even be catastrophic. Also, according to Nate Silver Trump's mild momentum in polls - where he could only attempt to catch up to Hillary - has completely stalled out. And no, I do not think 90% of the media wants Trump to win. As Josh Marshall points out, they simply regard Trump as a buffoon and don't know how to cover his endless stream of lies, and many of them are too lazy and exhausted by him to keep bothering at all because they consider it repetitious. Plus, a lot of the Beltway press are just amoral, bored and bitchy about the Clintons in general. As for calling the debates doomed to be called for the Republican, yeah, I heard that same line about Romney too and look what happened. IIRC, Hillary is now polling ahead of where Obama was vs. Romney at this time. As to news of the day: Putin views Trump as "an easily manipulated buffoon" subject to flattery and gifts. "According to Putin insiders, he sees Trump as a weaker, far more ignorant, wholly self-absorbed version of Neville Chamberlain. [...] Putin also knows Trump cannot resist a good deal, ie, that benefits him personally. If Trump were president, Putin knows he can offer bargain-basement terms on choice property in Moscow and in St Petersberg, for example, for Trump’s company to build hotels in exchange for geopolitical concessions from the U.S. that have no impact on Trump’s wealth." Most importantly: The Trump Foundation has been taking its own charitable funds and giving them to Donald Trump to buy things for himself. And yes, this story is being carried on other outlets.