Donald Trump: How Am I Disgusted? Let Me Count The Ways.

I began reading this New York Times story this morning.

You really should read it now.

It's about Donald Trump and his behaviors around women. He is repellant in so many other ways but this article had me repeatedly washing my hands and stepping outside for air. I had to put the article down. (If you go read the Times story now you can come back to this blog when you have to stop and catch your breath.)

We are not unfamiliar with men in power behaving badly. Trump takes it to a new level. He views women like a judge at a livestock show. There is a sinister eugenic aspect to his creepiness. I might say it's almost Nazi-like but Hitler was so asexual. Trump is more like a buyer in a Roman slave market. A deviant trolling in a black sedan.

Donald Trump is a creep of monumental proportions. We thought he was a weird rich insecure narcissistic bully but there are so many stories that have not been told about him. Why has the news media waited until now? Why have they focused on the laughable, stupid things he says? The funny statements, the funny hair, the funny orange tan, the silly bravado of a phony Romeo on a street corner in Queens. What about his mob connections? What about his multiple bankruptcies? His many shady business deals? What about his behavior toward women, which seems like something out of Saudi Arabia or Hustler magazine?

If reporters ask him a question he can’t answer why don’t they keep asking it? Why do they cave? Why do they cater to his weirdness? Why do they cover up his weirdness and pretend that it is normal? They act as if they need him more than he needs them, which is untrue. Trump craves attention. Journalists should give it to him but if he lies report that he is lying. If he denies the ugly truth report the ugly truth repeatedly until he has to admit it. If Trump runs away and hides report that. Instead the media obeys this man. Which is one reason we have a loathsome human being at the top of a major party ticket. The other reason he is there is the Republican Party has become the party of voters who want a loathsome, weird, rich, insecure, narcissistic bully as president.

Here is a Mother Jones article about how Trump plays the news media.

Another weird thing emerged recently.

Trump is always willing to brag about himself, about his sexual conquests, about his alleged penis size, about his fabulous possessions (material and female), about his money, about the famous people he is pals with, about the important people who “love him” ("The Queen is wonderful! She loves hanging around with me!”) He brags endlessly and unsupportedly about the huge fabulous things he will do, the promises he will get out of the moment he pockets the money. He is a carnival barker. He is the guy bragging about the strippers on the sidewalk outside a topless bar. He is the guy who lies you into buying a junk car. He is the slimy investment shill who calls you uninvited from a call room in Costa Rica. But mostly he is a braggart. His favorite topic is him. Sometimes he prefers to brag about himself in the third person. Maybe he is practicing to be Queen. Accounts have emerged, and recordings, where Trump has pretended to be his own publicist so he can brag about himself without seeming conceited.

Here is the New Yorker article about it. Instead of electing him president maybe we should start discussing which kind of mental ward we should confine him to.

Republicans' Rationalizations for Rape

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." Todd Akin, Republican Senate candidate from Missouri.

Right now Akin sits on the Republican majority's side of the House Science Committee but he has no clue about the science of human reproduction. Nor does his Republican House colleague Steve King.

Republican Congressman Steve King: "I’ve Never Heard Of A Girl Getting Pregnant From Statutory Rape Or Incest"

Todd Akin and Steve King coauthored a bill in Congress last year that would limit a rape victim's access to abortion to women who were victims of "forcible rape". In other words a woman or girl would be expected to carry her rapist's child to term if he didn't break her arm or her nose, or maybe if he said thank-you afterwards.

The other co-sponsor of HR3, this draconian restriction of reproductive rights that redefined rape? Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's running mate.

Today's Republican Party (which is writing these issues into their national platform as we speak) values a fertilized egg (in many cases an egg that has not even been fertilized yet but may if contraceptives are not available) values its rights above those of women and girls who have been assaulted. A single cell, a sperm cell, a infinitely small bundle of cells, created by a criminal assault, trump the rights of a living person. Women and girls have a lower status than their male assailants in the estimation of this modern Republican Party. Rapists' rights to parenthood are sacred to the GOP.

It isn't only Republican men who hold these medieval beliefs. This prominent Republican said rape can be a blessing from God.

"If God has chosen to bless this person [the rape victim] with a life, you don’t kill it." Sharon Barnes, Vice President, Membership Committee, National Association of Republican Women and a leader in Missouri Republican politics. Rape a blessing?

When asked what she would say to a young girl who has been raped by her father, Nevada Republican and Harry Reid's opponent in 2010, Sharron Angle said carrying her rapist's child to term would be like making lemonade when life gives you lemons.

This narrowing and redefining of rape is nothing new to Republican politics. Republicans have a history of rationalizing and excusing and defending rape and rapists, basing these rationalizations on old myths and good-old-boy fairy tales. They've carefully instructed their candidates and spokesmen to use certain terms that put the burden back on the rape victim and narrow her rights and her options, that make the rape victim responsible for the crime.

"When pro-lifers speak of rape pregnancies, we should commonly use the phrase "forcible rape" or "assault rape," for that specifies what we're talking about. Rape can also be statutory. Depending upon your state law, statutory rape can be consensual, but we're not addressing that here .... Assault rape pregnancies are extremely rare." John C. Willke, president of the National Right to Life Committee, 1999

Untrue. He should have known better then. We certainly know better now.

"A series of state lawmakers have made similar arguments since at least 1988, when Pennsylvania state Rep. Stephen Freind (R) argued in a debate on abortion that the odds of pregnancy from rape are "one in millions and millions and millions," because "when that traumatic experience is undergone, a woman secretes a certain secretion which has a tendency to kill the sperm."

The Republican Party is spending its billions of dollars advertising myths and false beliefs. Their objective? To revise our medical standards back to the middle ages.