Welcome back to our daily roundup of Donald J. Trump campaign news. Today we learned that Donald Trump will indeed be ready for that all-important 3am phone call, because he will already be up tweeting about porn.
In less consequential events, Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold continues his one-person quest to find out what the flying hell has been going on with Donald Trump's "charitable" foundation. His latest discovery:
Donald Trump’s charitable foundation — which has been sustained for years by donors outside the Trump family — has never obtained the certification that New York requires before charities can solicit money from the public, according to the state attorney general’s office.
This means that the Donald J. Trump Foundation has been soliciting funds illegally, whether from business associates or the general public. That's right. Even Donald Trump's charity can't keep on the right side of the law.
I've said this before, and I'll say it now again: There is a very good chance that Donald Trump wants to be president only because he imagines it will give him the right to sell off the White House furniture and build hi-rise condominiums on the South Lawn.
The other news of the day, alas, was Trump's three-in-the-morning tweetstorm about, yet again, the former Miss Universe that he simply cannot stop insulting. Capping the insults: an instruction from the would-be president to his supporters to "check out [her] sex tape". (There is no such sex tape, by the way. It’s a hoax.)
He is running for president. Not a joke. He won the Republican nomination for the office; they had a national convention on his behalf and everything. This man who is now tweeting to supporters that they should "check out" the supposed sex tapes of his female detractors. A whole hell of a lot of sitting Republican lawmakers have shaken this guy's hand.
On to the rest of the news.
• The time Donald J. Trump cameoed in a soft-core porn video. Because we just haven’t been creeped out enough today.
• USA Today broke from their previous editorial policy of not endorsing presidential candidates to explicitly give an anti-endorsement to Trump, calling him "erratic" and a "serial liar" who is "unfit for the presidency." Trump responded by predicting the paper would "lose readers!" Notably, the USA Today condemnation of Trump was distributed as usual in multiple Trump-owned hotels.
• In the immediate wake of revelations that Trump's company secretly sought business in violation of the nation's trade embargo with Cuba—revelations have angered Florida's Cuban-American Republicans—Trump's Florida spokesperson has resigned.
• After publishing the story of Trump's Cuba dealings, outlet Newsweek was hit with a "massive" denial-of-service attack.
• When the SEC launched a civil fraud investigation into Trump's hotel and casino company for fudging the books in 2001, Trump asked the commissioners for leniency in the wake of "the tragedy of September 11."
• In a Los Angeles Times look at the eagerness of white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups to help Trump gain the presidency, one prominent neo-Nazi asserts "virtually every alt-right Nazi I know is volunteering" for the candidate.
• The members of Trump's "Pro-Life Advisory Council" have been named. A who's who of hard-right abortion opponents, the list includes numerous House Republicans, still-omnipresent huckster Ralph Reed, and the leader of an anti-LGBT hate group.
• Google searches for voter registration information have jumped in the wake of Trump's weeklong attack on Alicia Machado, especially in disproportionately Hispanic areas of the country.
• Half a dozen taco trucks in Houston, Texas are holding voter registration drives.
• A video of Trump calling comedian Rosie O'Donnell "he" (to an approving crowd) has surfaced.
• The Trump Foundation gave to at least one non-Trump-related charitable effort over the years; unfortunately, it was to Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccination group.
• Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich today attempted to link former Miss Universe Alicia Machado to Benghazi.
• The 70-year-old Donald Trump has gotten at least an inch taller over the last year, according to his doctor. Coincidentally, the extra inch of height makes a difference between whether Trump can be medically considered "obese" or merely "overweight", so it was a lucky break on his part.
• J.J. Abrams, LaVar Burton, George Takei, Zachary Quinto and nearly everyone else you can think of are among the Star Trek stars signed onto a new Facebook group, Trek Against Trump.
Star Trek has always offered a positive vision of the future, a vision of hope and optimism, and most importantly, a vision of inclusion, where people of all races are accorded equal respect and dignity, where individual beliefs and lifestyles are respected so long as they pose no threat to others. We cannot turn our backs on what is happening in the upcoming election.