[If you haven’t read the post below, tonight’s explosion was across the street from my apartment. I and my family were not in the building at the time.]
Shortly before the Mayor’s news conference a short time ago a friend who lives in my apartment building told me that the police presence seemed to be focused on the Bed & Breakfast which is immediately east of the home for the blind which I discussed in the post below. The Police Commissioner confirmed that the explosion took place outside the Townhouse Inn of Chelsea, which is at 131 West 23rd Street.
You may have seen news of an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan tonight. The cause of the explosion is still unknown, though there’s a flood of speculation. As it happens, the place where the explosion occurred is literally directly across the street from my apartment. My family and I were about thirty miles away when this happened. TPM’s New York office is about three and a half blocks away.
We’ve now seen one of those days which has become darkly familiar in the year of Trump. Trump is dominated, put on the receiving end of various perceived insults and assaults. In this case, it was being coerced by campaign aides into finally giving up the birther lie – which had to be addressed after the Washington Post interview and which I suspect they feared might blow up one of the debates. That was followed by a series of attacks from Hillary Clinton, a for once emboldened press corps roundly attacking Trump for the content and manner of his “major announcement”, a furious attack from members of the Congressional Black Caucus and a mix of outrage and mockery from everyone from Barack to Michelle.
The response was predictable and rapid.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an AP lede quite like this – or an article for that matter. Here’s the first paragraph.
After five years as the chief promoter of a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace, DonaldTrump abruptly reversed course Friday and acknowledged the fact that the president was born in America. He then immediately peddled another false conspiracy.
Here’s the rest.
The second episode of my new podcast is out. This week I’m talking with Chris Hayes about the Democratic left, the future of the Democratic party, Trumpism and Chris Hayes. Hope you enjoy.
After a fascinating day at the races, Trump is now riling up crowd by fantasizing about Clinton being assassinated. “I think her bodyguards should drop all weapons. They should disarm immediately. Take their guns away, let’s see what happens to her”
Trump says Clinton is against 2nd Amendment, jokes about disarming her bodyguards: ‘Let’s see what happens to her’ https://t.co/6gWaUt6cuK
— The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) September 16, 2016
This is must-watch video (after the jump) of an interview by former TPM reporter Evan McMorris-Santoro, shot on April 16th 2011. It shows a remarkably candid Donald Trump explaining how and why he saw birtherism as essentially a ticket to power. He claims credit for “reinvigorating the issue” and criticizes then House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for knocking birthers because “people love this issue, especially in the Republican party.”
I wanted to make a few comments about the very bad run of polls Hillary Clinton has had over the last week. As I think regular readers know, I try to always remain a poll realist and resist partisan wishful thinking. Particularly I frequently shoot people down who have some explanation of why the latest bad poll isn’t really bad because something in the numbers is wrong. This is why I’ve repeatedly dismissed efforts to look at poll internals and show how they can’t be right because they don’t include enough of this or that group. Dems did that in 2004, Republicans did it in 2008 and 2012 and until about a week ago in 2016.