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Donald Trump made ill-advised remarks about PTSD, though considering how stoically he handled his own personal Vietnam, you can’t blame him for not realizing everyone isn’t as brave as he is. Trump made those remarks during a speech on cybersecurity, which he’s learned a lot about from the people he’s urged to hack our government. And the RNC is airing an ad warning Americans that when Tim Kaine isn’t coaching pee wee football and buying Blue Oyster Cult box sets, he’s dispatching rapists to their local middle school. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Monday, October 3rd, 2016:
TRUMP DEALT WITH GROUP WITH TERROR TIES - Sasha Chavkin, Michael Hudson and Dave Levinthal: “Donald Trump’s real estate organization rented New York office space from 1998 to 2003 to an Iranian bank that U.S. authorities have linked to terrorist groups and Iran’s nuclear program. Trump inherited Bank Melli, one of Iran’s largest state-controlled banks, as a tenant when he purchased the General Motors Building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, according to public records reviewed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the Center for Public Integrity. The Trump Organization kept the bank on as a tenant for four more years after the U.S. Treasury Department designated Bank Melli in 1999 as being controlled by the Iranian government. U.S. officials later alleged that Bank Melli had been used to obtain sensitive materials for Iran’s nuclear program. U.S. authorities also alleged that the bank had been used between 2002 and 2006 to funnel money to a unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that has sponsored terrorist attacks — a period that overlapped with the time the bank rented office space from Trump.” [CPI]
TRUMP LIKES PEOPLE WHO WEREN’T CAPTURED ― OR WHO EXPERIENCE ANY MENTAL ANGUISH - Gives a political meaning to “Seeing the Elephant.” Veronica Stracqualursi and Adam Kelsey: “Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is getting flak today for comments he made in response to a question about what he would do to address post-traumatic stress disorder and suicides among veterans. ‘When people come back from war and combat and they see things that maybe a lot of the folks in this room have seen many times over and you’re strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can’t handle it,’ Trump said, speaking Monday morning at a panel for the Retired American Warriors PAC in Virginia.... Reaction was quick on Twitter to some of his remarks, with many users saying a diagnosis of PTSD is no reflection on a person’s strength. The CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Paul Rieckhoff, tweeted that Trump’s remark ‘perpetuates stigma.’” [ABC News]
Trump was trying to move on from a disastrous week: “Donald Trump tried to put one of the toughest weeks in his campaign behind him Monday by using a cybersecurity speech to veterans to hammer away at Hillary Clinton’s email controversy. Trump hewed closely to his script Monday morning, promising as he read from a Teleprompter that he would order a complete review of the US cybersecurity capabilities and prepare offensives against global opponents.” [CNN]
TRUMP PUTS THE WORKING-CLASS FIRST (IN CHINA) - Kurt Eichenwald: “Plenty of blue-collar workers believe that, as president, Donald Trump would be ready to fight off U.S. trade adversaries and reinvigorate the country’s manufacturing industries through his commitment to the Rust Belt. What they likely don’t know is that Trump has been stiffing American steel workers on his own construction projects for years, choosing to deprive untold millions of dollars from four key electoral swing states and instead directing it to China—the country whose trade practices have helped decimate the once-powerful industrial center of the United States. A Newsweek investigation has found that in at least two of Trump’s last three construction projects, Trump opted to purchase his steel and aluminum from Chinese manufacturers rather than United States corporations based in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.” [Newsweek]
TRUMP LOVES WOMEN, ESPECIALLY HIS DAUGHTER - God help us if we ever learn anything like this about the hosts of the “Great British Bake Off.” Garance Burke: “In his years as a reality TV boss on ‘The Apprentice’” Donald Trump repeatedly demeaned women with sexist language, according to show insiders who said he rated female contestants by the size of their breasts and talked about which ones he’d like to have sex with. The Associated Press interviewed more than 20 people — former crew members, editors and contestants — who described crass behavior by Trump behind the scenes of the long-running hit show, in which aspiring capitalists were given tasks to perform as they competed for jobs working for him. The staffers and contestants agreed to recount their experiences as Trump’s behavior toward women has become a core issue in the presidential campaign. Interviewed separately, they gave concurring accounts of inappropriate conduct on the set. Eight former crew members recalled that he repeatedly made lewd comments about a camerawoman he said had a nice rear, comparing her beauty to that of his daughter, Ivanka.” [AP]
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HIGH COURT REJECTS WHITE HOUSE PETITION TO RECONSIDER IMMIGRATION ORDER - Cristian Farias: “Back from its summer recess, the Supreme Court on Monday declined a long-shot petition by the Obama administration to reconsider a deadlocked June ruling that left the president’s executive actions on immigration in limbo. One member short following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the court split evenly in that case ― a multi-state challenge to a plan that would have deferred the deportation of millions of undocumented parents of American citizens and permanent residents. The federal government pointed to the court’s vacancy as a justification for its petition and boldly asked the Supreme Court to agree to rehear the case, but only ‘before a full nine-Member Court.’” [HuffPost]
NY AG ORDERS TRUMP FOUNDATION TO CEASE ACTIVITY - Ryan Grim and Cristian Farias: “The Donald J. Trump Foundation is being ordered to cease its activities in New York state by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The charity was not properly registered under state law to conduct its activities and solicit donations, according to Schneiderman’s office. ‘The Trump Foundation must immediately cease soliciting contributions or engaging in any other fund-raising activities in New York,’ wrote James Sheehan, head of the NYS Attorney General’s Office Charities Bureau, in a letter sent Friday and released Monday.The foundation has 15 days to come into compliance with the law, and must also ensure that no other charities or third parties raise funds or conduct related activities on its behalf. Failing to take the required steps within that period will amount to ‘a continuing fraud upon the people of the state of New York,’ the letter stated.” [HuffPost]
DEMS CATALOGING TRUMP SUPPORTERS - Everything you say on the internet is permanent...especially Trump endorsements. “Newly confident in Hillary Clinton’s November prospects, Democrats are now plotting a post-Election Day campaign against individual Republicans for nominating—and sticking by—Donald Trump.... Party operatives in key states, with help from a few Washington players, are starting to fluff the feathers on the Trump albatross they want to hang around the GOP’s neck in 2017, 2018, even 2020. Anyone who stood with Trump, these Democrats intend to say, enabled racism, irresponsibility and a departure from conservative principles. The Democratic Governors Association is starting with next year’s Virginia governor’s race, where they say they think they’ve got fertile ground in a swingy state to hit all three likely GOP candidates for backing the Republican nominee.” [Politico]
TRUMP WANTS TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, ALSO WET-WILLY A/V KIDS - Good thing he hasn’t said anything about mental disorders lately to exacerbate this perception. Abby Phillip: “The country’s largest labor union will kick off its final general election push on Hillary Clinton’s behalf this week with a campaign that links Donald Trump to a rise in schoolyard bullying. Citing a growing number of reports by its membership of Trump-like bullying in classrooms across the country, the National Education Association is planning to make the issue a centerpiece of its argument against Trump in ads and mailings in battleground states. ‘We are going to do everything humanly possible to make sure that we have a president who will be a good role model for children,’ NEA President Lily Eskelsen García said. ‘Donald Trump is not on that list, but Hillary Clinton is.’ Beginning on Monday, the union will hold conference calls and news conferences with teachers, principals and psychologists who link Trump’s comments on the national stage to a rise in bullying in the classroom.” [WaPo]
PRO TIP: TIM KAINE’S PROBABLY GOING TO KILL YOUR FAMILY - That is, when he’s not buying Wrangler jeans and reading David Baldacci paperbacks. Niels Lesniewski: “The day before Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine takes the debate stage in his home state, Republicans are attacking his record on the death penalty. In a new web ad that recalls the Willie Horton attack on the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, the Republican National Committee is highlighting two of Kaine’s clients when he was a defense attorney. Richard Lee Whitley was convicted of murdering a 63-year-old neighbor in Fairfax County, while Lem Tuggle was found guilty of raping, sodomizing and murdering a 52-year old woman from Smyth County. While numerous executions took place on his watch as Virginia governor, Kaine had come up as a defense attorney working to keep people convicted of capital offenses from facing the death penalty.” [Roll Call]
GOP DROPS A BIG FAT NOPE ON WI-SEN - Ron Johnson, America’s most capable legislator, might not be long for this congressional world. Reid Wilson: “The National Republican Senatorial Committee is canceling more than $1.1 million in television advertising reservations in Wisconsin, a likely sign the party believes Sen. Ron Johnson (R) trails by too much of a margin to win reelection. The NRSC has already spent a limited amount in hopes of reversing Johnson’s fortunes. But the party’s independent expenditure wing will drop its scheduled reservations beginning Oct. 17, according to a source watching the advertising market.... Polls show Johnson trailing Feingold, the Democrat he beat six years ago, by significant margins. An Emerson College survey conducted in mid-September put Feingold ahead 52 percent to 42 percent, and a Marquette Law School poll from the same period showed Feingold ahead 47 percent to 41 percent.” [The Hill]
Mood music: “Saying relations with the United States have deteriorated in a ‘radically changed environment,’ President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia withdrew Monday from a landmark nuclear security agreement, in a troubling sign that the countries’ cooperation in a range of nuclear areas could be threatened. The treaty, on the disposal of plutonium, the material used in some nuclear weapons, was concluded in 2000 as one of the framework disarmament deals of the early post-Cold War period. It required Russia and the United States to destroy military stockpiles of plutonium, a deal that represented another encouraging step away from nuclear doomsday and an insurance policy against the materials falling into the hands of terrorists or rogue states.” [NYT’s Andrew E. Kramer]
ANOTHER BUSH FOR CLINTON - If only we could announce all of our political views through parties in Paris. Elise Viebeck: “If you need a reminder that social media can break political news in 2016, look no further than this Instagram post. Vanity Fair’s Derek Blasberg is pictured here with Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, fashionista Lauren Santo Domingo and actress Dakota Fanning at a Clinton fundraiser in Paris. But who is that woman to Fanning’s right? We haven’t seen her in a while. That’s right — it’s Barbara Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush. And judging by the context, it looks like she’s the latest member of her family to share her support for the Democratic presidential nominee.” [WaPo]
BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here’s a monkey concerned with your cleanliness.
THE NRA REALLY KNOWS HOW TO CARPE THAT DIEM - Mollie Reilly: “The National Rifle Association decided it was appropriate to needle Kim Kardashian West about her position on gun control after the reality TV star was robbed at gunpoint in Paris. Kardashian West was robbed early Monday morning by armed thieves dressed as police officers. Her representatives said she was ‘badly shaken but physically unharmed’ during the incident, which took place at a private apartment she was renting during Paris Fashion Week…’Wait, criminals held @KimKardashian at gunpoint in Paris? How is that possible? Does anyone know if they passed a background check first?’ [the NRA tweeted].” [HuffPost]
COMFORT FOOD
- This machine literally digs trees from the ground, root and branch.
- ICYMI: SNL’s Trump-Hillary mock debate.
- A giant, bowling ball-firing slingshot.
TWITTERAMA
@aedwardslevy: IF HORSE RACING CO-OPTED CAMPAIGN TERMS INSTEAD OF THE OTHER WAY AROUND:
“And...oh no! What a gaffe there from Mine That Bird.”
@BobbyBigWheel: Adding “Sr.” to your jersey is a nice way to show everyone you’ve had sex
@moshekasher: They have not yet invented a joke that the Internet won’t willfully refuse to get.
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