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A new report predicts that global markets would fall sharply if Donald Trump wins the White House, and considering how much the candidate likes market crashes, that might make defeat even more difficult for him. Merrick Garland’s FOMO was temporarily relieved when a short-staffed Supreme Court delayed hearing three cases. And Donald Trump’s terrible Alfred E. Smith dinner speech makes us wonder why anyone would ever have Steve Bannon write jokes. At least Trump didn’t use Bannon’s “A priest and a rabbi walk into a bar ― yeah, a rabbi.” This is HUFFPOST HILL for Friday, October 21st, 2016
Happy Friday: “Salma Hayek claimed that Donald Trump pursued her while she had a boyfriend, asked her on a date, and then — angry at being rejected — planted a National Enquirer story about her being too short for him, in an interview on a nationally syndicated Spanish-language radio show that aired Friday. Hayek, a Hillary Clinton surrogate, began by arguing that Trump was bad for the Latino community and extolled Clinton’s virtues, before the host of El Show del Mandril on Radio Centro 93.9 in Los Angeles asked her opinion on the number of women that have come forward alleging Trump sexually assaulted them.” [BuzzFeed’s Adrian Carrasquillo]
PAUL RYAN’S BIGLY SHIT SANDWICH - Matt Fuller: “The problem for Ryan is that Trump, his supporters and his policies do not seem to be going anywhere, even if he loses spectacularly. Ryan’s favorability has fallen 28 points over the past two weeks, fueled by Trump turning his attention to the speaker and criticizing him for sowing division in the party, seemingly without any sense of irony. A Bloomberg poll conducted Oct. 14-17 showed that 51 percent of Republicans think the Trump’s view of what the GOP stands for better matches theirs, compared to 33 percent who said Ryan’s perspective more closely matched theirs.… ‘If we lose 15, it’ll be tough for Paul Ryan,’ one GOP member told HuffPost this month. That means, as other members have told HuffPost, Ryan already has a speaker reelection problem. And that’s before Trump starts whipping up the GOP base. Already, we see some conservatives in the House looking apt to use Ryan’s less-than-enthusiastic support of Trump as a way to potentially remove him.” [HuffPost]
MARKETS WOULD SHUDDER AT TRUMP VICTORY: REPORT - Better short the market if he wins. Y’know, short: like his fingers. Alexander Kaufman; “A victory for Republican nominee Donald Trump would send stock markets in the United States, the United Kingdom and Asia down by 10 to 15 percent, according to a new economic analysis. In a paper released Friday by the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, economics professors Justin Wolfers and Eric Zitzewitz tracked overnight trading during the first presidential debate last month between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. They found that markets around the world surged as it became clear that Clinton had won the face-off. ‘Markets believe this election will have huge ramifications for the global economy,’ Wolfers wrote in a flurry of tweets breaking down his findings. ‘It’s not just about us; it’s about the world.’” [HuffPost]
TRUMP BOMBS ALFRED E. SMITH DINNER - Daniel Marans: “If there was any doubt that Donald Trump’s comedy routine at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner did not go over well with the crowd, Alfred E. Smith V put that to rest on Friday morning. Smith ― the great-great-grandson of the dinner’s namesake, who was the first Catholic presidential nominee from a major party ― specifically told CNN’s ‘New Day’ that Trump’s joke that Hillary Clinton was ‘pretending not to hate Catholics’ did not sit well with the largely Catholic audience. ‘Donald had some very solid minutes early on and eventually he crossed the line and took it a little too far,’ Smith said. ‘Hillary, on the other hand, was able to laugh at herself and at the same time not underplay any of the serious things that Donald Trump has said or done.’” [HuffPost]
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COMPARING CLINTON AND TRUMP TWITTER Christopher Mathias, Samantha Storey and Adam Hooper: “The Huffington Post wanted to find out more about the people who follow the candidates. We hoped their 160-character bios might reveal a thing or two about political identity. Not everyone fills out their Twitter bio, but for those who do it acts as a sort of digital calling card. We downloaded the Twitter bios for people who follow either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. That ended up being about 8 million tiny 160-character self-portraits.... Take guns and religion, often associated with the right wing. #2A, meaning Second Amendment, popped up in the bios of 4,320 Trump followers, compared to 585 Clinton followers. Then there’s #MolonLabe, a Greek phrase meaning ‘come and take [them],’ which, legend has it, was the Spartan king Leonidas’ response when the Persian army told him and his army to lay down their weapons. The phrase, adopted by gun rights advocates as a rallying cry against gun control, was in the Twitter bios of 396 Trump followers and in the the bios of just 43 Clinton followers.… Also prominent in Trump followers’ bios were Bible verses: Psalm 23:4, John 15:13, Matthew 19:26, Romans 1:16, Luke 1:37, and most popularly, Joshua 1:9 (’Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go’). Clinton followers, by comparison, were less biblically inclined.” [HuffPost]
DONALD TRUMP IS CHUCK GRASSLEY’S BEST FRIEND - From Eliot’s Iowa Senate dispatch: “After Judge declared her candidacy on March 4, it appeared, at least for a fleeting moment, that the Democrats might be one seat closer to retaking the Senate. The New York Times called her a ‘formidable’ challenger, which is about as emotional as the Times gets about anything. In a normal election year, the Supreme Court’s unprecedented staffing issue, and Grassley’s role in preventing Garland from getting a hearing, would be the most-discussed aspect of this race. But that has been rendered a mere afterthought thanks to a Republican presidential nominee whose love of gold trim and threatening his opponents with extrajudicial vengeance is reminiscent of a Soviet bloc leader.... [I]t would appear that Trump has had the salubrious effect for Grassley of keeping the Garland nomination off the front page. Trump has sucked all the oxygen out of the room, and not just because of those great gulping nasal sniffs of his.” [HuffPost]
Iowa mood music: “The Supreme Court is offering new evidence that the short-handed court is having trouble getting its work done. The justices have yet to schedule three cases for arguments that were granted full review in January, about a month before Justice Antonin Scalia died. The cases involve separation of church and state, class-action lawsuits and property rights, issues that often split liberal and conservative justices. Their absence from the calendar of cases that are being argued this fall suggests that the justices believe they may divide 4 to 4, and are waiting for a ninth justice to join them.” [AP’s Mark Sherman]
TRUMP COULD FLIP KENTUCKY STATEHOUSE - Well, at least he’ll do one thing for the GOP. Adam Beam: “Democrats could lose control of their only legislative chamber in the South because of a blustery hero for folks in coal country — Donald Trump. The New York real estate developer’s anger on the campaign trail matches the mood of many in Appalachia, where job losses associated with the declining coal industry have fueled a backlash against national Democrats that has slowly trickled down to the local level. In Kentucky, the backlash could spill over into races for the state House, where Democrats hold a precarious 53-47 majority. Kentucky House Speaker Greg Stumbo, a Democrat, has not lost a state House election in 36 years. But this time, he’s scared. ‘My opponent can’t beat me,’ Stumbo said. ‘But Donald Trump can.’” [AP]
DAVID DUKE: STILL AROUND - The hate-filled man who looks like Donald Trump and a post-motorcycle accident Mark Hamill had a child is still trying to win elected office. Michael McAuliffe: “Republican candidate and former Ku Klux Klan wizard David Duke will have a spot on the stage in next month’s Louisiana Senate debate. Duke, who is among a large field of competitors vying to replace retiring Sen. David Vitter (R), had been out of politics since 1999 when he jumped into the Senate race over the summer. His platform includes promises to stop racism against white people and to declare the Black Lives Matter movement a terrorist initiative. He has been trying to leverage the relative popularity of Donald Trump in his state to gain some momentum, although he has not been faring very well. But a poll released Thursday pegged Duke’s support at 5.1 percent, which put him just above the threshold to be included in the next televised forum for Louisiana’s Senate candidates on Nov. 2.” [HuffPost]
Sad news at the Journal: “The Wall Street Journal is seeking a ‘substantial’ number of employee buyouts as the newspaper grapples with industry-wide financial pressures. Editor-in-chief Gerard Baker notified staff Friday that management was first looking for buyout-takers in hopes of limiting layoffs down the line. All Journal employees worldwide are eligible for the buyout by the end of October. However, management can elect not to accept some requests. ‘We are seeking a substantial number of employees to elect this benefit, but we reserve the right to reject a volunteer based on business considerations,’ Baker wrote.” [HuffPost’s Michael Calderone]
BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here’s a kitten and some chihuahuas.
PETER THIEL: WHADDA GUY - Julia Carrie Wong: “When Mark Zuckerberg defended board member Peter Thiel’s $1.25m donation to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign this week, the Facebook CEO emphasized that support of the candidate did not necessarily constitute ‘accepting sexual assault’. But part of Thiel’s 1995 book The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and Political Intolerance on Campus suggests that he may sympathize more with Trump ― who has recently been accused of sexual assault and misconduct by several women ― than with his victims. The PayPal co-founder attempted to discredit the idea of date rape ― he wrote that the definition of rape had been erroneously expanded to include ‘seductions that are later regretted.’’ He also suggested that the movement to combat it on college campuses was motivated by animosity toward men.” [Guardian]
COMFORT FOOD
- The most efficient way to destroy the entire universe ― not that the election has us thinking about such things.
- The internet can’t seem to spell “pregnant” correctly.
- Don’t watch this slug at 20x speed while high.
TWITTERAMA
@MEPFuller: You haven’t lived until a Congressman texts you the word “poppycock.”
@ggreenwald: My biggest wish is to see the alternative universe where it was Paul Manafort’s emails that were published, & see everyone’s views on it.
@CNNYourMom: U.S. Officials Baffled By Your Mom
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