Trump's character

Many in the media prepared for today's debate by doing features on how much Trump lies. People who have been paying attention for the last year-- or who have been aware of him outside of the political realm-- have long realized that virtually nothing he says is true. Before tonight, PolitiFact had investigated 259 statements he's made and found just 11 true (4%). 70% of his statements are false (and that leaves out another 15% that are half false).

Tuesday I'm having dinner with a friend of mine, Sonia, a Berlin-born novelist and Holocaust survivor. She's written over 40 books and is working on a new novel about a family of refugees who have resettled in the U.S. from Afghanistan. Two of her early books, The Journey to America and Silver Days, are about German Jewish refugees who flee the horrors of the Holocaust and resettle in America.

The man in the video above, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, endorsed Herr Trumpf for president Friday. The clip was shot during a press gathering in Indiana where Trump was in the process of winning every single Indiana delegate and closing down Cruz's narrow path to victory. (The final score was Trump 590,460 to Cruz 406,380 and next door neighbor John Kasich 83,913.) Cruz eked out wins in 5 northeast counties to Trump's 87. While Indianans were still casting their ballots, Cruz said "I'm going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump" for the very first time since the campaign began.

Let's leave aside today's Rolling Stone interview with Bruce Springsteen that saw the rock icon declare Trump's candidacy "a tragedy for our democracy" and the candidate himself "a moron, basically." I can't imagine there's a DWT reader who doesn't already know that. In the video above, you can watch ABC News' Brian Ross reporting on Trump's financial entanglements with Russia.

Illinois Senator Mark Kirk is remembered by many for falsely claiming to be an Iraq War vet. Although he was in the Navy Reserves during the Iraq War, he never left the U.S. and his claims to be a war vet were patently false-- and are still false, as he does it again this year. Lying to the public about something like that used to be a major no-no. But is it any longer? Donald J. Trump lies every time he opens his mouth. He lies about small things and he lies about big things.

People are getting nervous that Trump can actually win. Blue America hasn't exactly been Hillary headquarters this election season, but yesterday we unveiled a new approach that goes beyond just #NeverTrump. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who worked with Hillary in the Obama cabinet, is no fan of hers either, not by any stretch of the imagination.

I bet there were a lot of pissed-off Republicans who read the Daniel Larison piece in the American Conservative this week, Trump's Plunder Doctrine. This wasn't about Señor Trumpanzee's personal business empire, but about how he thinks the U.S. government should be run-- the notorious, and oft repeated, "take the oil" notion. Trump doesn't understand the concept of international law, let alone why the U.S.

It's become so passé to compare Señor Trumpanzee to Mussolini and Hitler. Now he's the American Putin. OK, I brought that up in front of a roomful of Russians at the Museum of Political History in St Petersburg a couple months ago.

Jeff Flake has never been someone with whom we've found much common ground here at DWT. He was a very conservative House member and he is a very conservative senator. But unlike most Republicans in Congress, Flake isn't a coward when it comes to the execrable Señor Trumpanzee.

One thing I learned as a young kid on the playground in Brooklyn, not far from where Old Man Trump was raising the asshole who decades later managed to make fools of the GOP's whole "deep bench," was that bullies are always cowards.