Obama : Trump vote remarks ‘dangerous’

President Barack Obama has said Republican Donald Trump’s insistence that he might not accept the election result is “dangerous”.

Speaking at a campaign rally in Miami for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, the president said Mr Trump’s comments undermined American democracy.

Mr Trump refused in a televised debate to say he would accept the outcome of the election on 8 November.

He later said he would accept a “clear” result but left a challenge open.

Speaking in Ohio on Thursday, Mr Trump said, with a grin: “I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the United States, that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election – if I win.”

In the same speech, he said he would accept a clear election result but reserved the right to file a legal challenge in the case of a questionable one.

Hours later, the president said that sowing the seeds of doubt in people’s minds about the legitimacy of US elections provided a boost to the country’s enemies.

“You’re doing the work of our adversaries for them, because our democracy depends on people knowing that their vote matters,” said Mr Obama.

Mr Trump has been heavily criticised by many in his own party by suggesting he might not accept the election result.

For days, he has claimed the election is rigged against him, due to media bias and voter fraud.

During Wednesday night’s debate with Mrs Clinton, when moderator Chris Wallace asked Mr Trump if he would accept losing to her, the Republican nominee said he would “keep you in suspense”.

Mr Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, later insisted that the candidate had meant he would not concede until the “results are actually known”.

Republican Senator John McCain, who lost to Mr Obama eight years ago, said: “A concession isn’t just an exercise in graciousness. It is an act of respect for the will of the American people, a respect that is every American leader’s first responsibility.”

First Lady Michelle Obama also joined the attack on Thursday, saying “you do not keep American democracy in suspense”.

With the Clinton camp – Kim Ghattas, BBC News

Hillary Clinton walked on to her campaign plane to the cheering and clapping of her aides.  

        

She told reporters she was relieved and grateful and joked there would be “no more naps”- a reference to Trump’s repeated description of her prep days off the campaign trail as naps.

Mrs Clinton’s stand-in for Mr Trump during the mock debates was one of her close aides, Philippe Reines, who took the role so seriously that he wore Trump cufflinks, shoe lifts and the same red tie as Mr Trump. After the debate, Mrs Clinton and Mr Reines embraced and he called her a “badass hombre”.

Clinton aides said she would continue to highlight Mr Trump’s refusal to pledge he would accept the results of the election. But would it be a real crisis on election day? Not if the result was a decisive win, they seemed to quietly indicate.

If Mrs Clinton and her team felt that she had closed the deal on stage, they kept their confidence in check. But the mood on the plane was certainly relaxed.

At the Ohio rally, Mr Trump also reiterated a claim he made during the debate, that Mrs Clinton and President Obama were responsible for inciting violence at a Chicago rally earlier this year.

The crowd erupted into cheers of: “Lock her up!”

During the debate, he called Mrs Clinton a “nasty woman”.

Mr Trump has trailed Mrs Clinton in the polls after facing damaging fallout over a video that emerged of him making obscene remarks about groping women.

When asked to address the allegations made against him by several women in the wake of the video, Mr Trump said the claims had been “largely debunked”.

Mr Trump’s comments come after a 10th woman came forward to accuse him of sexual assault on Thursday at a news conference.

Karena Virginia said Mr Trump allegedly touched her breast at the US Open in 1998 and made offensive comments about her to a group of men.

The two candidates are scheduled to appear at a charity dinner on Thursday night in New York.

Polls suggest Mrs Clinton is ahead nationally and in key battleground states.

Source: BBC

There’s no media conspiracy against Trump

Source: Robert J. Samuelson | The Washington Post

Date: 19-10-2016 Time: 11:10:05:pm

Regardless of who wins the election, the press — or, at any rate, what used to be called the “mainstream” media — may be the big loser. Donald Trump is making a case that he’s the victim of an orchestrated media campaign to defeat him, and although the charge is not true, it may stick among his devoted followers.

We live in an era of fragmented news sources. People can pick not only what’s interesting and agreeable but also what confirms their opinions, convictions, and biases. There are more choices than ever. A new Pew survey finds that adults “often” get their news from the following sources: TV, including cable (57 percent); online, including social media and smartphones (38 percent); radio (25 percent); and print newspapers (20 percent).

News has become akin to religion; it’s accepted or rejected as a matter of faith, depending on the source. Consider another recent Pew poll. Respondents were asked whether on major issues Trump and Hillary Clinton supporters agree on basic facts, even if they disagree on solutions. The finding: 81 percent said they disagree even on basic facts.

Trump is now ratcheting up this process to a new level of mistrust. The essence of his charge is that most mainstream media reporters and editors (the type of people who work at CNN, The Washington Post and the New York Times) don’t like him, don’t agree with him, or both, and have skewed their coverage to engineer his defeat. There is cooperation, implicit or explicit, with the Clinton campaign.

Trump is right in one sense: Much of the press dislikes him.

Take me as an example. I’m a slightly right-of-center columnist at The Post. I am no great fan of Clinton, but I believe that President Trump would be a disaster. He doesn’t know anything about governing, is proud of his ignorance, stirs hatred of his critics and would throw his opponent (Clinton) in jail. This last threat is one we associate with dictatorships, not American democracy.

I suspect that most Post reporters and editors feel this way, though I have no hard evidence. (For what it’s worth, the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity has disclosed that 480 “journalists” have made nearly $400,000 in campaign contributions, more than 96 percent of which went to Clinton. Many news organizations, including The Post and the New York Times, bar contributions and involvement in partisan politics.)

But this doesn’t mean the press has hatched a conscious campaign to defeat Trump. The counterweight to personal preference is a professional ethos that emphasizes evenhandedness — at least among mainstream media organizations. Note also that editorial pages are run separately from the news pages.

Let’s put this in context. All through the primaries, Trump skillfully played the media to get free airtime. He also used the media as a whipping boy, part of the dreaded “elite” that is allegedly ruining America. For these months, the media was Trump’s unwitting ally.

Now, the landscape has changed. Trump is the subject of blanket coverage, much of it unfavorable. He apparently didn’t pay federal income taxes for many years; he not only has made lewd comments about women but (as my colleague Eugene Robinson suggests) he also appears to be a sexual predator; he says nice things about Vladimir Putin and ignores his secret national-security briefings.

These stories are anti-Trump, but they’re not unfair. They address a central issue in any presidential election: personal character. If Trump dislikes the results, he has mostly himself to blame, because he has been mainly responsible for projecting and defining himself. If a free press is not supposed to explore questions of character and political philosophy, what is it supposed to do?

True, if the exploration were one-sided, the media would be playing favorites. But the press has also focused on Clinton’s embarrassments. Her use of a private email server has generated hundreds of stories; so have potential conflicts of interest involving the Clinton Foundation, as have her lucrative speaking gigs. But Clinton’s sins — secretiveness, arrogance, greed — seem less offensive than Trump’s, which include lying, bigotry and alleged sexual misconduct.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump believes there's a global conspiracy to stop him from becoming president – but it's not the first time he's pushed unfounded theories. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Should Trump win, he will likely use his new powers to attack the media he dislikes. If he loses, the media — or, at any rate, much of it — will be cast as a villain. Defeat will justify more false claims that he has been the victim of a “rigged” election. There was a time when the mass media was a unifying force in national life. That time has long passed.

"Patriarchal Nonsense"

I used to ponder on why

my "better half" let me down

in a way that always hurts

after we made our matchless vow

to stay for better or for worse -

until death sets us apart

but -

I've learned to let go

after all we all can only try

to do what's right in this life

where we come and go.

I was then thirty

with a youthful hue

as fresh as dew

that and many others

attracted me to him and others

who thought that I "am witty

graceful and not cocky".

Yet, those were not enough

to make him stay home although

he had cheated and

that was not the first.

What makes it worse

is the onus society places

on me the woman and not what

he the man does in most cases

to keep a union such as ours

from coming to an end. 

I became to him what most men

see in their mothers who

broke their hymen

before marriage who

they/society labels whoes - not him

who appears to have the right

to dangle his manhood

in every house he deems fit -

then again - it's a man's world?

While I dearly want to jab underfoot

the numerous cancers of our society I 

certainly cannot with a single post

although this is a start -

so should I live another day I

would tell a story which might cost

me friends and some sanity -

but better that than permit

this patriarchal idiocy

under his authoritarian jackboot.

Yeah, I doubted every time he said

"I love you"  because when he lied

he would - with a Judas kiss.

And he had me believe it was 

because I couldn't suffice

his most pressing manly needs

including his fetish for blowjob.

Rather 'kind' to showcase his prop

whenever the stage necessitated it.

Yes, I was his showpiece when he deemed it fit -

a day's joy was but a bubble

as his heart seemed unattainable.

The man who had said I do

had become his own foe -

so unpredictable predictable.

I figured I was not enough

to please and pleasure him over time

and had to face the truth that I'm better off ...

not living in denial and the dream

that a man whose sisters had served

him nearly all his life -

wouldn't be needing another "slave" christened a wife.

Because out of his rips I was taken -

to be his "helper", sex object and for his kitchen:

such patriarchal nonsense

posited by men with a double dose of insolence.

Stop Violence Against Women

I served my couch a billion tears from a bitter heart -

because the punching, kicking, name-calling was tearing us apart

and I prayed it would end

as it appeared I wasn't good

to keep him from cheating

over and over with the bluff

that he was going to change and

realize that I am good enough.

He never did and like me

you don't need his permission

to make the decision

not to any longer tolerate

this patriarchal nonsense

and end the marriage

but it would be painstakingly tough

and society would take offense

because it expects you and me

to accept this patriarchal nonsense.

For statistics on violence against women in Ghana read at: http://gendercentreghana.org/?p=63

Source:cmcghana.blogspot.com/Crabbe Nathaniel

 PHOTOS:

Malala