Donald Trump … has no record of public service and no qualifications for public office. His affect is that of an infomercial huckster; he traffics in conspiracy theories and racist invective; he is appallingly sexist; he is erratic, secretive, and xenophobic; he expresses admiration for authoritarian rulers, and evinces authoritarian tendencies himself. He is easily goaded, a poor quality for someone seeking control of America’s nuclear arsenal. He is an enemy of fact-based discourse; he is ignorant of, and indifferent to, the Constitution; he appears not to read.

In an essay on King Lear, the philosopher Stanley Cavell describes Lear’s daughter Regan, who orders the eyes of her father’s loyal friend Gloucester gouged out, thusly: “She has no ideas of her own; her special vileness is always to increase the measure of pain others are prepared to inflict; her mind is itself a lynch mob.” A year and a half into Trump’s incitement of a campaign, this seems the most concise formulation of his character: He has no ideas of his own; his special vileness is always to increase the measure of rhetorical violence others are prepared to inflict; his mind is itself a political mob.

… not to have said that.

Either Lino Graglia is trying to obscure his identity for the purposes of inclusion on this list, or Scholars and Writers for America should hire a copy editor.

*********************

Another name on the list stirred something in ol’ UD, and then she remembered:

… Peter Ferrara, of the Institute for Policy Innovation, acknowledged in …BusinessWeek Online … that he had … taken money from [Jack] Abramoff in exchange for writing certain opinion articles. But Mr. Ferrara did not apologize for doing so. “I do that all the time,” Mr. Ferrara was quoted as saying.

*********************

Pointy-headed intellectual calls the Scholars and Writers for America list “fairly pathetic.”

But UD, with Ferrara and several others on the list in mind, would say that these people, like their leader, are “enterprising.”

… Strega Nona territory.

Much too much pasta.

Despite his history of conflict with her, Michael Chertoff, “the lead Republican lawyer on the Senate committee investigating Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Whitewater scandal,” endorses Hillary Clinton:

[Trump’s] decision to spend last week attacking former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado, a woman Trump once called “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping,” proved to the former homeland security secretary that the Manhattan billionaire is too impulsive to be president.

“This issue came up at the debate about Miss Universe,” he said. “Not only did he seem at the debate to lose his temper, but to get up at 3:30 a.m. and reach for your smartphone is to me a hysterical reaction. If you’re president, the button you reach for is not the Twitter button; it’s the nuclear button.”

E.J. Dionne.

(Sing it.)

The last time Trump paid taxes
The year was ’95
The OJ Simpson trial began
My students weren’t alive

Oh the last time Trump paid taxes!
So many years away!
No matter how they change the rules
He’ll never ever pay.

In private conversations this week, Trump’s high command has sought to reassure party figures, including Senate and House leaders, that there is no reason to be alarmed by the debate or by Trump’s ensuing theatrics, explaining them away as part of his appeal to the masses.

When the sun is high in the afternoon sky
You can always find rallies to lead
But from dusk till dawn as the clock ticks on
Your poor heart starts to bleed

When your bitter heart has learned its lesson
You’ll be Prez! … But she might have you beat…
In the wee small hours of the morning
That’s the time you have to Tweet Tweet Tweet Tweet Tweet

Plunging the future of the 2016 Presidential debates into doubt, Donald J. Trump said on Tuesday morning that he would not participate in the remaining two debates if Hillary Clinton is there.

Trump blasted the format of Monday night’s debate by claiming that the presence of Clinton was “specifically designed” to distract him from delivering his message to the American people.

“Every time I said something, she would say something back,” he said. “It was rigged.”

Well, let me tell you ’bout the way she looked
The way she acts and the color of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool
Her eyes were clear and bright
But she’s not there

Well, no one told me about her
What could I do?
Well, no one told me about her
Though they all knew

[Trump supporters] are accusing Hillary of carrying a concealed ‘communications’ device connected to an earpiece, which they suggest could have been used by the candidate to cheat during the debate. Their rationale? [A] photograph of a bulge that ran down the back of her pantsuit on the night of the debate.

[Trump] can show up before an audience of 100 million without preparation …and talk about serious issues with no more sophistication than your crazy uncle.

“The deeply conservative Arizona Republic endorsed the Democratic nominee for president for the first time in its 126-year history on Tuesday,” [describing Donald Trump as a man] “with a stunning lack of human decency.”

Nicely tripping iambic pentameter in that phrase: A stunning lack of human decency. Pretty.

Perhaps this will be, for some, a moment of illumination:

But SOFT! what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS?

Trump, by the end of the night, was left complaining to reporters about alleged problems with his microphone, which he suggested may have been sabotaged. Top surrogate Rudy Giuliani told a reporter Trump should pull out of future debates if moderators didn’t agree to be more deferential.