Understatement Files: Missouri Senate Candidate Probably Not Getting Womens' Vote

Courtland Sykes is either a wacko U.S. Senate candidate
from Missouri, a parody, or the star of a really bad
1980s soap opera. (He looks like the later)

There's quite a dodgy guy running for the U.S. Senate from Missouri who has some interesting campaign positions that are of interest to women, to say the least. 

Before I go on with this candidate, named Courtland Sykes, quite a few people, me among them, suspect this Courtland Sykes character might be some sort of parody.

It doesn't help that his supposed girlfriend is named Chanel. Courtland and Chanel. It sounds like characters from some really bad 1980s soap opera.

More on my suspicions about a hoax in a minute.

But first, our supposed candidate, Courtland Sykes, had quite a statement up on Facebook the other night regarding "women's rights."

"I want to come home to a home cooked dinner every night....One that she fixes and one that I expect one day to have daughters learn to fix after they become traditional homemakers and family wives."

Oh, but he was just getting started. He soon escalated into a fever pitch.

He goes on to tell us that feminists have an agenda they "made up to suit their own nasty snake-filled heads."

Sykes also hopes his would-be daughters don't grow up to be "career obsesses banshees who forgo home life and children, and the happiness of family to become nail-biting monophonic hell-bent feminist she deveils who shriek from the top of a thousand tall buildings they are (sic) think they coud have leaped in a single bound - had men not been 'suppressing them'. It's just nuts."

Wow! I wonder how long it took Sykes to think up that wild sentence!

I'm sure this all will endear Sykes to women in Missouri who just love being on the receiving end of 19th century-style sexism.

One question Missourians are asking is, "Is Sykes for real?" That's not all sarcasm. He might not actually be real.

The Riverfront Times, relying in part on reporting from the Kansas City Star, had this murky bit on Sykes:

"His LinkedIn page says he....attended Harvard University's Extension School... earning a degree in 2014. That page also had listed him as a graduate student at the University of London, but when the Star questioned him about that, he said he had to put those studies on hold to focus on his campaign.

The LinkedIn page was edited to remove the college shortly after. he is listed as the managing director for a military consulting firm named Talosorion, but he tells the Star that the firm currently has no clients."

Supposedly, Sykes recently moved from Arkansas to Missouri. But even that is questionable.

The Riverfront Times goes on:

"Even Arkansas seems flummoxed. The Arkansas Times notes the 'fudge factors' on his resume, and even goes so far as to ask its readers if anyone knows who the guy is."

Also, conservative consultants in Missouri who would jump at the chance to help a Trumpish  candidate like Sykes say they've never heard of this moron.

Of course, Sykes, if he really exists, hasn't got a prayer in this election. First, he has to get through the Republican primary. Missouri Republican State Attorney General Josh Hawley, who has the benefit of being considered sane, is the frontrunner, and Hawley will be the likely Republican to run against incumbent Missouri U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskell.

McCaskell, for her part, says she's not particularly worried about Sykes.  I can see why.

Dumb Guys For Trump Would Repeal Womens' Suffrage

A very blue pro-Clinton electoral map
if only women were votiing in the upcoming
presidential election, says FiveThirtyEight 

A trending hashtag on Twitter for awhile yesterday was #RepealThe19th.

It was a drive to get rid of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.

This nonsense was all the fault of the poll data crunchers at FiveThirtyEight.

At least sort of.

Yesterday, FiveThirtyEight published an electoral map of this year's presidential election showing the result if just men voted, and the results if only women voted.

Donald Trump would win in a near-unanimous landslide if it was only guys voted.  Hillary Clinton would win in an enormous landslide if only the gals voted.

Of course the reality is, Clinton is ahead in the overall polls, but it won't be unanimous, let me tell ya.

Dumb guys, mostly dumb white guys, who are totally enthralled by Trump went apeshit. At least some of them. To their little minds, women are too stupid to vote, and the FiveThirtyEight electoral maps proved it.

Hence the hashtag #Repealthe19th.

I'm sure some of the popularity of #RepealThe19th was just created by bots created by a handful of Trump supporters to make that "movement" seem bigger than it is. But still, they're out there, folks.

Of course, women went on line to hashtag #RepealThe19th to respond to this, though they seemed to be pretty much in favor of the 19th Amendment, naturally.

One women tweeted that she was surprised these male Trumpsters realized there were more than two amendments to the Constitution.

Another woman said she wasn't paying much attention to the #RepealThe19th hashtag because she was too busy voting.

Touche!

Scary Thing Is, Donald Trump Will Probably Get Even Lower Than This

Yes, Donald Trump could probably sink even lower.
He probably will.

The news is dominated today by that old clip of Donald Trump being a scary, creepy, ultra vulgar predator against women.

Plus, there's Trump's "apology" video that makes other videos of hostages being forced to say things look like the height of sincerity.

He would have done better just quoting the lyrics to that old Radiohead song "Creep":

"I'm a creep.
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here."

You sure don't, Donald!

I think some of the best Twitter reactions to Trump's awfulness have come from Huffington Post reporter Ariel Edwards-Levy, who echoed Trump's famous Muslim ban quote by tweeting, "I'm calling for a total and complete shutdown of Donald Trump interacting with women until we can figure out what's going on."

Edwards-Levy also reminisced about the olden days of last week when Trump's biggest problem was his taxes. And she rightly complained sarcastically that her childhood dream of being a reporter included being online at 1:07 a.m. on a Saturday writing about Donald Trump saying "pussy."

I'm sure Trump's core supporters will stick by him, no matter what. He can do no wrong, in their eyes.

Hillary Clinton probably didn't go far enough when she said some of Trump's supporters were part of a "basket of deplorables."

Not all Trump supporters are as deplorable as Trump himself. Most aren't, in fact. But a few have been learning well from Trump on how to be despicable.

An example: There's a Newsweek reporter who has been aggressively covering Trump. This reporter happens to have epilepsy. So Trump supporters have been sending the reporter videos that are designed to cause epileptic seizures.

Lovely.

I normally don't compare people to Nazis but these wacko supporters are as really as bad as Nazi brown shirts.

Trump will trundle on, having promised to bring up Bill Clinton's sexual escapades during the debate scheduled for tomorrow night. That ought to be a show.

I'm sure Hillary will just fall apart when Trump brings that up. At least Trump believes that, if nobody else.

I can't wait to hear what Hillary has to say during the debate about Trump's "fondness" for women.

Again, that ought to be a show.

By the way, Trump would note that his remarks about women that triggered this latest firestorm were made more than 10 years ago.

But Trump, commenting on sex-scandal prone Anthony Weiner said this three years ago: "Weiner is a sick puppy who will never change - 100% of perverts to back to their ways. Sadly, there is no cure."

This morning, the Donald tweeted, "Certainly has been an interesting 24 hours!"

I don't think interesting is quite the word for it.

Extreme Vulgar Temper Tantrums On Facebook Won't Get You Elected To Office

Weirdo former GOP candidate Michael Krawitz
and his hate messages to a reporter.  

Breaking news out of New Jersey: Republican Michael Krawitz is no longer a candidate for the West Deptford Township Committee.

OK, this isn't earthshattering news.  With all due respect to the fine citizens of West Deptford, we normally wouldn't care about this bit of election news.

Except for the reason why Krawitz has withdrawn his candidacy. He's a big Donald Trump fan, and wasn't happy at all that Daily Beast reporter Olivia Nuzzi posted on her Facebook page a critical article about Trump written by a colleague.

So Krawitz took to Facebook to criticize Nuzzi. So far, we're OK. You can criticize a reporter's work. Journalists tend to have thick skin.

But the problem is Krawitz's, um, way with words.   

He wrote to Nuzzi: "Fuck.You. Olivia. I. Hope. Somebody.Rapes.You.Today. :)

Nuzzi responded by writing: "This man who wants me to be raped today was a Republican candidate for office in NJ."

To which Krawitz responded. "Hope.You. Get. Raped. By. A. Syrian. Refugee. :)

You can see the obvious problem here.   Not a nice guy.  Not somebody who would get a lot of votes for the West Deptford Township Committee. Or any other office.

I'm also curious about his style. Every word is followed by a period. And he ends his hate sentences with a smile emoticon. Like the little smile makes the nastiness go away or something?

Definitely some issues here.

Krawitz apparently said his Facebook account got hacked the day his messages appeared so it wasn't him. With that, Nuzzi produced another Facebook love note she received from Krawitz back on August 10:

"Hows. The. Gun. Crime. In. Democrat. Chicago. Olivia. You. Ugly. Stupid. Cunt. :)

Again with the periods after every word and the smiley emoticon!

Nuzzi said she's been harassed by Krawitz since 2014. And as a female reporter, she always gets totally misogynistic comments from guys - mostly on the far right of the political spectrum, who don't like her work.

I guess they can't criticize the quality and accuracy of Nuzzi's reporting because it's solid, so their onl recourse is to call her every horrible name in the book. That accomplishes a lot!

In a statement before Krawitz withdrew his candidacy, Nuzzi said she trusted the voters of West Deptford Township to make the right election decision.

And Nuzzi said this:

"As a reporter, bullying of this kind from would-be politicians makes you fear for your First Amendment rights. As an American and a woman, it makes you fear for the state of our country and the safety of half the population that inhabits it."

She's got a great point: We can laugh at the stupidity and awfulness of Krawitz. But the legions of Internet trolls and such out there like Krawitz really do degrade this nation.

Krawitz is no longer running for office and has crawled back under his rock.  So that's good. I just wish the rest of the trolls out there would crawl under rocks and go away, too. But there's so many trolls, I don't think there's enough rocks out there for them.

Donald Trump Wins The Internet Troll Vote

Donald Trump trying to comprehend basic questions
thrown at him by Megyn Kelly at Thursday's Fox News debate.  

Everybody's been yakking about the awful things Donald Trump has said about Megyn Kelly and the blood remark which got him booted from a conservative gathering called RedState, sponsored by right winger Erick Erickson.

Trump is still whining because he thinks Kelly was a meanie for asking him pointed questions at the Fox News televised debate on Thursday.

He continued his rant against Kelly on CNN Friday night, when he said about Kelly: "there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of wherever," was too much for Erickson, you know you have problems.

Erickson is himself famous for his misogynistic bomb throwing.

Media Matters compiled Erickson's greatest anti-women hits. Included in the list is the time he called Michelle Obama a "Marxist harpy" and has said things about feminists on Twitter such as "That's what the feminazis were enraged over? Seriously?!?! Wow. That's what being too ugly to get a date does to your brain."

He called the first night of the 2012 Democratic convention the "vagina monologues" because several speakers were women. He called Wendy Davis, a Texas gubernatorial candidate "Abortion Barbie."

Even Megyn Kelly herself called Erickson's remarks about male dominance "offensive."

So you get the picture about Erickson.

Still, I'm totally in agreement with Erickson on this one. He did the right thing by dumping Trump from the RedState convention this weekend.

Let's see, Trump has totally alienated Latinos, military veterans and now women. He still has an absolute lock on the Internet troll constituency, though.

Erickson proved my Internet troll theory because at the RedState convention Saturday, he read what were basically mean Tweets from people who were totally pissed off at him for disinviting Trump. 

One of those missives Erickson read called him a liberal. Wow, Really? That message from "Thomas" said he is "so sick of political correctness I' might puke."

Another message to Erickson referred to Kelly in saying "Maybe you ask that (C-word) not to ask gobshit questions."

Another critic, a woman, said that Kelly "was very clearly on her (bleep)"

Yeah, those are the people supporting Trump. It's a bit scary there are that many of them out there.

As for Trump, he says we're all pervs, because he was "clearly" referring to a bloody nose. His campaign released a statement saying "only a deviant would think anything else"

The blood remark referred to a bloody nose, you sickos!!!!

Um, yeah, right.

Trump and his campaign are still whining. Gotta hand it to him, Trump takes whining to an art form. If there was an Oscar for whining, he'd clean house at the awards banquet.

Trump's campaign said Erickson is "a total loser" who "has a history of supporting establishment losers in failed campaigns."

Given Trump's whininess and his attitude toward women, it's scary to think what Trump would do if say, German Chancellor Angela Merkel pissed him off during some delicate diplomatic negotiations involving European security or something.

I'd also pay to see the inevitable fireworks between Trump and Nancy Pelosi.

So, the Trump trainwreck rolls on, aided and abetted by his dumb and classless supporters.

We'll just wait and see what ditch he lands in next.

Sigh.