July 27, 2016

Trump Loses His Mind In Asking Russia To Hack Hillary Emails

July 27, 2016/ Anne Enke

'DNC Hacker' Unmasked: He Really Works for Russia, Researchers Say The Daily Beast

The hacker who claims to have stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee and provided them to WikiLeaks is actually an agent of the Russian government and part of an orchestrated attempt to influence U.S. media coverage surrounding the presidential election, a security research group concluded on Tuesday.

The researchers, at Arlington, Va.-based ThreatConnect, traced the self-described Romanian hacker Guccifer 2.0 back to an Internet server in Russia and to a digital address that has been linked in the past to Russian online scams. Far from being a singly, sophisticated hacker, Guccifer 2.0 is more likely a collection of people from the propaganda arm of the Russian government meant to deflect attention away from Moscow as the force behind the DNC hacks and leaks of emails, the researchers found.

The controversy over Donald Trump's ties to Russia, explained VOX

On Wednesday, Donald Trump felt compelled to make big news: He called on a foreign power -- in this case Russia -- to launch an espionage operation against his chief political opponent, "hacking into Hillary Clinton’s email server to find 30,000 emails she allegedly deleted."

"Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," Trump said. "I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."'

Donald Trump's Most Chilling Comment on the DNC Has Nothing to do with Russia VOX

Vox's Timothy B. Lee gets it right. I listened to the Donald Trump press conference and was so dumbfounded, that I missed this statement. ~ Anne

"Everyone is talking about Donald Trump’s call for the Russian government to release emails it may have stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private email server. But that wasn’t the most chilling thing Trump said in his rambling answer to a question about who hacked the email server of the Democratic National Committee.

"Honestly, I wish I had that power," Trump responded. "I’d love to have that power."

The thing is, if Trump gets elected president, he probably will have the power to hack into the private communications of his political opponents. And that’s terrifying."

In Clinton's March to Nomination, Many Democrats Changed Their Minds Pew Research

Pew Research looks at both consistent support and evolving support for Hillary Clinton throughout the nomination process.

Ignoring the media's obsession with focusing on strife within the party -- choosing to focus almost exclusively on Berners who promise not to vote for Hillary -- reality is that Hillary has quietly and consistently lock down her support.

In the most recent, July 25 Pew Survey, the overwhelming shares of all Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters -- including 90% of Sanders supporters -- back Clinton.

Trump Deals From Strength With 'USA Freedom Kids,' Crushes Them New York Magazine

The “USA Freedom Kids,” a caught my eye at a Trump rally last summer and became an instant sensation. True, their perky, cheerleader enthusiasm seemed a bit out of sync with the quasi-fascistic undertones of their lyrics (such as “Deal from strength or get crushed every time”). "Jeff Popick, the group’s (adult) manager, told Claire Landsbaum he was attracted to Trump not only for reasons of customer synergy but also personal conviction — “[Trump] knows what he's doing, and he makes the right decisions,” Popick explained."

You’ll never guess what happened next. Trump lived up to his reputation. “My whole life I’ve been greedy, greedy, greedy. I’ve grabbed all the money I could get,” the Republican candidate said at a debate last year. “I’m so greedy. But now I want to be greedy for the United States.” Because for Trump, greed is good . . . the best form of winning.

Yes, the kids got stiffed, reports Philip Bump. The USA Kids were told they could have a free table to sell CDs instead of the $2,500 fee, and they accepted the deal. No such table was provided, according to Popick. When they were asked to fly to Iowa to support veterans at a Trump rally, not only were they not paid, but Trump stiffed the kids on the cost of their travel.

Nice guy, this man who wants to make America great again.

Hillary Clinton Headlines July 27, 2016

In 1995, Walmart Pulled a 'Someday a Woman Will Be President Shirt From Shelves Slate

Jill Stein's Ideas Are Terrible. She Is Not the Savior the Left Is Looking For Slate

American Flags Burn Outside DNC After Anti-Hillary March US News

The Case for Tim Kaine New York Magazine

Worry if Hillary Clinton Wins: What to Do With Bill New York Times

Is Tim Kaine liberal enough Politico

George Soros rises again Politico

Yes, Slaves Did Help Build the White House New York Magazine

July 22, 2016

Hillary Clinton Picks Tim Kaine As VP Running Mate The Day After Trumps Dark Convention Speech

July 22, 2016/ Anne Enke

Hillary Clinton has chosen Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate. The enormously qualified senator has a wealth of experience, a political resume held by only 20 people in America. Putting Kaine on the ticket may put the purple state in the blue column for good. Hillary is currently estimated to win the state without Kaine, but making the state a Democratic bastion could be good news. On his own, Trump is turning off educated Republicans, a reality that shows up in all the polling, including among white men.

Tim Kaine has never lost an election, moving from city council member, into mayor of Richmond, Va, lieutenant governor and then governor of Va and now a senator. Many Republicans have praised Kaine's calm, warm, Midwestern collegiality.

Some of the Bernie Sanders supporters are disappointed, a reality we will cover tomorrow on AOC. But Kaine speaks fluent Spanish from his days as a Jesuit missionary, before marrying his wife who is presently secy of education in Virginia. The future vice president has a long history of activism, including taking on the NRA in Virginia and winning. More on Kaine's resume tomorrow.

Ivanka Trump gave a speech based on Democratic ideals last night -- and certainly to policy ideas around women. As a close (but shelved) friend of Chelsea Clinton, There is NO way that the current Republican-controlled Congress would pass legislation based on her principles.

Still, Ivana's eloquent, competent, engaging speech must be dealt with in Philadelphia next week. And Democrats should deal with it head on. Still, Ivanka spoke as a Rockefeller Republican, the Republicans judges who passed Roe v. Wade and gave women a legal right to contraception. If was as if Ivanka came from an earlier Republican era and advocated for the same Republican ideas of hard work, entrepreneurialism, fairness, high standards, high competency and host of other values that neither party speaks of these days -- except in the most glib terms. They were my original values before I became a Democrat.

Of course Trump's speech is the one that must be dealt with, but Ivanka giving her father legitimacy and saying she will hold his feet to the fire on old-fashioned Republican ideas has been largely lost in the conversation. They should not be lost. They should be embraced but attached to the right party that has her vision as a policy agenda.

Take Ivanka's words and compare the platforms. ~ Anne

Ivanka Trump Is Not Going to Save Us From Her Father New York Magazine

So it’s been somewhat startling to see this Ivanka — the Ivanka we know — seemingly wholeheartedly embrace a campaign that features xenophobia, racism, and general lack of civility as its central themes. Even though she told us in The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life that she was a “daddy’s girl,” it’s still hard to comprehend the level of filial loyalty that compelled Ivanka to defend her father’s grotesque comments about Megyn Kelly’s “blood coming out of her wherever” and straight-facedly call him a “feminist.” It’s hard to believe that the Ivanka whose New York social circle consists of people from all over the world truly supports the idea of Building a Wall. Given the intelligence we know she possesses, it’s tempting to see tightness in her smile as she stands behind her father, blustering at the podium, and read sarcasm in her cheery tweets (“There’s power in looking silly and not caring that you do,” she wrote — quoting Amy Poehler — after her father’s Brexit gaffe).

Perhaps this is the reason we’ve allowed a sub-narrative to take root, one that casts Ivanka as the Trump campaign’s Secret Voice of Reason. He’s her father — she has to support his cockamamie run to some degree, the thinking goes, but she’s not like him.

Donald Trump's Caesar Moment by Jeff Greenfield Politico

It was a speech perfectly suited to the nominee. It was a speech utterly unconnected to anything we have ever heard from any previous nominee. It was, then, exactly what we should have expected from this most unexpected of candidates.

Most American presidential nominees—indeed, most convention speakers—pay homage to outsized figures of the nation's past, even some from the other side of the spectrum. House Speaker Paul Ryan, as did countless others in Cleveland, paid homage to Ronald Reagan. Vice Presidential nominee Mike Pence told the assembled Republicans that “the heroes of my youth were President John F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.” Ronald Reagan himself, back in 1980, quoted Franklin D. Roosevelt. In past conventions, the Founding Fathers were invoked, or inspirational party leaders of the past, or some link to the heritage of party or country.

And Donald Trump? In his speech, there was no thread of any kind linking him to past American greats, no sense that he is following any tradition. Indeed, in one of the best-received lines of the speech, he told us, of our “rigged” system: “I alone can fix it.” Fix it with his own party’s leadership in Congress, or with an aroused populace? No. “I alone can fix it.”

In so many other ways, Trump presented himself as a man alone, imbued with the power to do what no other person or institution can do. Consider how he described his visits to “the laid-off factory workers, and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country. People who work hard but no longer have a voice.

“I am your voice.”

Trump Claims the Prize Politico

'“Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never change. Never ever,” Trump said. “My message is that things have to change and they have to change right now.”

Trump delivered a deeply negative speech that described a darkening America. He spoke of spiking crime, “third-world” airports, growing trade deficits, “chaos in our communities,” and terrorism on the home front. Abroad, he said, the situation was “worse than it has ever been before.”

“This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction, terrorism and weakness,” he said."

News Updates

North Carolina Trans Law

NBA Pulls All-Star GameOut of Charlotte Over Transgender Bathroom Law HB2 NBC News

Caitlyn Jenner Tells GOP Gathering Why She's a Republican TIME

This week, the GOP approved a platform that defines marriage as the “union of one man and one woman.” The party drafted language aimed at restricting bathroom usage to individuals’ birth sex and an early version nodded to “conversion therapy,” or the discounted practice of trying to “cure” homosexuality. The published version condemned “the hate campaigns” by “proponents of same-sex marriage” and left many gay and transgender Republicans wondering what there place is in the party and whether they are welcome.

“I get it. The Democratic Party does a better job when it comes to the LGBT and trans community and all of that,” Jenner said at Wednesday’s brunch. “The Republican Party needs to understand. They need to know people who are trans.”