August 19, 2016

Donald Trump Embraces Breitbart & Steve Bannon As Campaign Reboots Yet Again

August 19, 2016/ Anne Enke

Alt Right Rejoices At Trump's Steve Bannon Hire The Daily Beast

"As Breitbart’s chief Steve Bannon did a lot to normalize the racist, anti-semitic world of the Alt-Right, they couldn’t be happier he has now joined the campaign of their king, Donald Trump.

Donald Trump’s campaign is under new management—and his white nationalist fanboys love it.

The campaign’s new chief executive, Stephen Bannon, joins from Breitbart News —where he helped mainstream the ideas of white nationalists and resuscitate the reputations of anti-immigrant fear-mongers.

White nationalists today invest a lot of energy worrying about growing Hispanic and Muslim populations in the U.S. Turns out, Breitbart News spends a lot of time worrying about those things, too. And in Bannon, they see a media-friendly, ethno-nationalist fellow traveler.

“Latterly, Breitbart emerged as a nationalist site and done great stuff on immigration in particular,” VDARE.com editor Peter Brimelow told The Daily Beast.

VDare is a white supremacist site. It’s named after Virginia Dare, the first white child born to British colonists in North America. Brimelow said he and Bannon met briefly last month and exchanged pleasantries about each other’s work."

Related: Clinton Allies Say They're Ready for Rough Campaign After Trump Shakeup Bloomberg Politics

The Era of 'The Bitch' Is Coming by Michelle Cottle The Atlantic

As a woman whose mindset has taken a real bashing over the last 15 months -- being told by Bernie-loving FB friends that they now loathe me for supporting Hillary, being asked why I am promoting Aryan values with my blonde hair, or worse yet, being called a murder by a so-called feminist for having concerns about Bernie's health care plan -- I have finally embraced being a 'bitch'.

As Michelle Cottle writes, we might as well fasten our psychological seat belts because we are about to see an unleashing of misogyny against competent, intelligent women that is only paralleled by the assault on President Obama as a super smart, compassionate, humanist black man.

If you're a black woman supporting Obama and Clinton, you get special seating at the top of the angst ladder -- except you probably learned to be a bitch to survive long ago.

I am hardened after this campaign in a way that I never was in my life. So the asshat called Donald Trump and his Breitbart News posse will NOT get under my skin. My stilettos are ready to kick some serious butt targeting me . . . because it IS OUR TURN and we are marching to the White House.

Also, if you've been in police protection for a year over some crazy, right-wing, right-to-lifer determined to kill you, the orange mop head is only frightening if we give him the right to run America's highways. I don't know about you, but this bitch will lie down on I-95 -- if not to stop the Trump jet overhead -- at least to fight all his narrow-minded minions traveling to DC, determined to take us back to the land of Ozzie & Harriett. ~ Anne

{Quote}: "Get ready for the era of The Bitch.

{. . . }

A Clinton victory also promises to usher in four-to-eight years of the kind of down-and-dirty public misogyny you might expect from a stag party at Roger Ailes’s house.

You know it’s coming. As hyperpartisanship, grievance politics, and garden-variety rage shift from America’s first black commander-in-chief onto its first female one, so too will the focus of political bigotry. Some of it will be driven by genuine gender grievance or discomfort among some at being led by a woman. But in plenty of other cases, slamming Hillary as a bitch, a c**t (Thanks, Scott Baio!), or a menopausal nut-job (an enduringly popular theme on Twitter) will simply be an easy-peasy shortcut for dismissing her and delegitimizing her presidency.

Either way, it’ll be best to brace for some in-your-face sexist drivel in the coming years. Despite progress in the business world, women as top executives still prompt an extra shot of public scrutiny. (Just ask Marissa Mayer or Sheryl Sandberg or Carly Fiorina.) And just as Barack Obama’s election did not herald a shiny, new post-racial America, Clinton’s would not deliver one of gender equality and enlightenment. So goes progress: Two steps forward, one step back(lash). As the culture changes, people resent that change and start freaking out, others look to exploit their fear, and things can turn really, really nasty on their way to getting better."

Related: Trump and Clinton wreck Facebook friendships Politico

Clinton Could Have Cut Her Tax in Half Under Trump's Plan Bloomberg Politics

Under Hillary Clinton's tax plan, she would have increased her 2015 federal taxes by $224,000 or more. Under Donald Trump's tax plan, the Clintons would have saved about $1.7 million. Sweet!

Hillary Clinton Headlines August 18, 2016

Clinton campaign goes nuclear on health rumors Politico

Is Putin playing Trump like he did Berlusconi? Politico

Exclusive: Stephen Bannon, Trump's New CEO, Hints at His Master Plan Vanity Fair

How Scared Do Clinton Voters Really Need to Be? The Atlantic

The Clintons Wrote The Book On How Politicians Climb Out of the Middle Class NPR

Trump's Casinos' Tax Debt Was $30 Million. Then Christie Took Office New York Times

June 30, 2016

Pressure Mounts Daily on Bernie Sanders To Stand Down As Warren Rallies Progressives For Clinton

June 30, 2016/ Anne Enke

Bernie Blew It by Jamelle Boule

Before Bernie Sanders, there was Elizabeth Warren. Consider that what we are witnessing is a total failure of Bernie to understand power and influence that goes beyond his adoring crowds. Consider that Elizabeth Warren has a natural understanding of how to get things done, in a way that Bernie doesn't.

Consider that being the progressive icon that she is, Elizabeth Warren is insuring that 1) Trump not win and 2) Hillary gets elected. Consider that after Hillary is elected. Warren will occupy a position of influence with Hillary that Bernie will never have. Whether she is a VP, a Senator or a Cabinet officer, Warren will be the go-to person that Bernie will never be, when progressives want to get something done.

Everything you hear about Hillary is that she never forgets what someone has done for her. Those relationships go back decades, and what we saw on stage yesterday in Ohio was pure magic. Elizabeth Warren really can loosen Hillary up and also embrace her with genuine enthusiasm because Warren knows that she may be uber-progressive, but Hillary isn't all that far behind her. And Warren is also a wonk. And wonks can work very well together.

Boule is right. So many of us are so over Bernie, so tired of his lectures. Elizabeth Warren shares most of his same beliefs and yet she inspires us, rather than judging us. Warren uplifts us while Bernie waves his finger in yet another sermon over our inadequacies, as if only he holds the moral high ground . . . the broken record. We get it, Bernie preacher man.

Between these two, I have no doubts over who will really hold progressive power in her hands. It won't be BS, because it takes a village . . . Hillary's wisdom never sunk into that cranky, belligerent Vermont skull. ~ Anne

Is Elizabeth Warren Really the Best Choice for Vice President? by Jamelle Boule Slate

Only if you think the symbolism of her nomination is bigger than the hole she’ll leave in the Senate.

Battleground bloodbath: Clinton leads Trump in 7 swing states Politico

Of the seven states polled by Ballotpedia, Clinton’s lead was smallest in Iowa, where registered voters polled preferred her by four pts. Hillaryf's largest lead came in Michigan, a traditionally Democratic-leaning state but one Trump says he will win with his anti-trade message. Clinton leads the charging-bull Manhattan billionaire in Michigan by 17 pts, 50% to 33%.

Clinton maintains double-digit leads in Florida (14 pts), Pennsylvania (14 pts) and North Carolina (10 pts) over Trump. Poll respondents said 'yes' to Hillary over Trump by nine pts in Ohio and seven pts in Virginia.

Clinton maintained her advantage with a third option for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson was offered, although her leads shifted slightly. Clinton’s advantage dropped to three pts in Iowa and six pts in North Carolina. But Johnson’s introduction as a third-party option actually grew Clinton's lead to 15 pts and eight pts in Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Study Sees Debt Jumping Under Trump, Staying Steady Under Clinton WSJ

Donald Trump’s tax and spending proposals would tremendously grow the national debt over the next 10 years, while Hillary Clinton’s strategy of new revenue and new spending would have a minimal effect on the country’s $14 trillion debt, according to a study by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. This organization is committed to bringing down the national debt. released Sunday.

Mr. Trump's plan as the presumptive Republican nominee would grow the national debt to 127% of the entire economy, up from 75% today, according to the analysis

Under current law, the debt is expected to grow to 86% of the economy, largely because of automatic spending increases for programs such as Social Security and Medicare driven by the aging population. Under Mrs. Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, the debt would grow slightly to 87% of the economy, the report found."

It's True. Analysts list Trump among top global threats PolitiFact

"The Economist Intelligence Unit -- an affiliate of The Economist", the London-based newsweekly -- is a research and analysis firm that supplies clients, including businesses, with information about opportunities and risks around the world.

The firm made headlines in March 2016 when it listed the possibility of a Trump presidency as one of the biggest threats to "companies’ capacity to operate at target profitability." The rankings are based on "qualitative" judgments of a how powerfully an event could affect the world and how likely it is to happen, the firm says.

In its March ratings, the firm rated the risks from a Trump presidency as 12 on a 25-point scale. That ranked Trump sixth among the 10-item list of biggest threats, tied with "the rising threat of jihadi terrorism destabilizing the global economy."

But the Trump threat level increased in the July 2016 rankings. A Trump presidency now ranks as the third-biggest global threat, with an increased score of 16 on the 25-point scale. In the meantime, the risk from jihadi terrorism has remained constant with a score of 12."

House Benghazi Report Finds No New Evidence of Wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton New York Times

I simply cannot believe that the House Benghazi committee refuses to draw any real conclusions from their 800-page report and have the audacity to stand at the microphone saying they will leave it up to the American people to draw their conclusions. They are actually suggesting that we have the time to read the report. As a high-ranking corporate executive, I would have been fired on the spot for pulling a stunt like that -- and not one that spent $7 million of my company's dollars. Our govt is in truly pitiful shape. And so, it's left to the media to digest what's in the report and how it impacts Hillary Clinton. ~ Anne

Lead paragraph at the NYT concludes:

"Ending one of the longest, costliest and most bitterly partisan congressional investigations in history, the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued its final report on Tuesday, finding no new evidence of culpability or wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton in the 2012 attacks in Libya that left four Americans dead."