June 11, 2016

I don't care who Hillary picks for VP. I don't think it indicates much

beyond who she thinks will best help her win and who she feels she can trust.

On issue after issue, I'm not with Hillary I'm against Trump. It boils down to this: She's not insane. He is.

My expectations of her presidency are low. And yes, I expect her to be the next President.

And if I'm proven wrong and she does exceed my expectations, I'll be delighted to admit I was wrong.

June 11, 2016

I think Clinton will defeat Trump with the greatest of ease

It's not because she's unencumbered with problems herself, but his are so much more pronounced. She is disciplined. He is the most undisciplined political candidate for major office that we've ever seen.

He is going to self-destruct. He's not used to the political arena and that may have helped him with the hapless little republicans also ran, but it's hurting now.

So he's turning to the teleprompter, but here's what Mark Shields had to say last night on the News Hour:

<snip>

MARK SHIELDS: So, you know, Donald Trump now is going to a teleprompter, as we saw today and we saw on election night.

Donald Trump on a teleprompter is about as electrifying as the recorded message you get calling the airlines and saying, calls will be answered in the order by which they were received.

(LAUGHTER)

MARK SHIELDS: He loses all of Donald Trump.

More:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/shields-and-brooks-on-anticlimactic-clinton-victory-trumps-moral-chasm/

Trump is mentally unstable with a ridiculously thin skin and an inability to shut the fuck up when he needs to. Honestly, my greatest concern is that he'll implode before the convention. I prefer September.

June 11, 2016

Mark Shields: "He lost the nomination, but he won the future of the Democratic Party."

<snip>

JUDY WOODRUFF: How much do you think, Mark, the fact that they sort of — the White House orchestrated this, this week, in a way that they just — they gave Bernie Sanders gave the space to get out when he wants to.

MARK SHIELDS: Democrats, historically, when they form a firing squad, from a circle. This was a total exception.

It was brilliantly choreographed. In addition to the president’s endorsement, a man not noted for his self-doubt, to say that she was the most qualified presidential candidate in his lifetime was quite an admission and statement.

I thought the other part of it, Judy, was the deference and respect and space they gave — given to Bernie Sanders, that he’s paid homage, he’s paid tribute, and I think deservedly so. He lost the nomination, but he won the future of the Democratic Party.

<snip>


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/shields-and-brooks-on-anticlimactic-clinton-victory-trumps-moral-chasm/

June 11, 2016

Sweeping VT privacy law will hinder several federal surveillance programs

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin has signed a sweeping bill that establishes robust privacy protections in the state into law. It not only limits warrantless surveillance and helps ensure electronic privacy in Vermont, it will also hinder several federal surveillance programs that rely on cooperation and data from state and local law enforcement.

The new law bans warrantless use of stingray devices to track the location of phones and sweep up electronic communications, restricts the use of drones for surveillance by police, and generally prohibits law enforcement officers from obtaining electronic data from service providers without a warrant or a judicially issued subpoena.

Sen. Tim Ashe, Sen. Joe Benning and Sen. Dick Sears prefiled Senate Bill 155 (S.155) in December. As filed, the legislation addressed the use of drones by Vermont law enforcement, and placed some additional limits on storage and sharing of data collected by ALPRs. An amendment in a Senate committee added provisions to limit warrantless collection of electronic data. Amendments in the House banned the warrantless use of stingray devices and ultimately put off significant changes to current ALPR law.

Gov. Shumlin signed S.155 into law on June 6. It will go into effect in stages. Extension of the current ALPR statue went into effect immediately, along with study requirements. Minor changes to current ALPR law will go into effect July 1. Sections relating to drones, stingrays and warrantless data collection become effective Oct. 1.

STINGRAYS

The new law virtually bans the use of cell site simulators, known as “stingrays.” These devices essentially spoof cell phone towers, tricking any device within range into connecting to the stingray instead of the tower, allowing law enforcement to sweep up communications content, as well as locate and track the person in possession of a specific phone or other electronic device. Under the new statute, law enforcement can only use stingrays to track a fugitive with a warrant.

More:

http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2016/06/signed-by-governor-sweeping-vermont-privacy-bill-will-hinder-several-federal-surveillance-programs/

June 11, 2016

Batshit crazy tRump wants sports stars, not politicians on convention stage

— Donald J. Trump has some ideas for how to jazz up the Republican National Convention, and he previewed one at a rally here on Friday evening: a “winner’s evening” of sports celebrities and champions addressing the convention rather than politicians.

“We’re going to do it a little different, if it’s O.K.,” he told the crowd. “I’m thinking about getting some of the great sports people who like me a lot.”

After regaling the crowd with the long story of how he successfully courted the endorsement of Bobby Knight, the former Indiana University basketball coach, Mr. Trump rattled off a list of other names of sports figures who he said have supported him. According to the candidate, he also has the support of the star quarterbacks Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger; Brian France, the chief executive of Nascar; and Dana White, the president of Ultimate Fighting Championship.

<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/11/us/politics/donald-trump-republican-convention-sports-celebrities.html

June 11, 2016

Meg Whitman indicates she may vote for HRC, compares Trump to Hitler

and Mussolini.


Republican donor Meg Whitman, the high-profile Hewlett Packard Enterprise president and CEO, indicated at Mitt Romney's closed-door summit on Friday that she would likely be supporting Hillary Clinton in November, according to multiple sources who were in the room.

"She posed the question, 'Is it not reasonable to support Hillary Clinton?' given all the awful things Trump has said," explained donor John Chachas.

Whitman served as Romney's finance co-chair in 2012.

But asked if she was switching over to the other side, Whitman told ABC News, "I haven't made that decision. We’ll see, get to the conventions, see who the vice presidential picks are. And then I will make that decision."

<snip>

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/high-profile-gop-donor-meg-whitman-support-hillary/story?id=39774523


Meg Whitman compares Donald Trump to Hitler, Mussolini

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/meg-whitman-donald-trump-hitler-mussolini-224212

June 10, 2016

In terms they should understand: Evangelicals supporting Trump are Whited Sepulchers

Definition of whited sepulcher

1

a person inwardly corrupt or wicked but outwardly or professedly virtuous or holy : hypocrite



Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. 26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. 27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. 28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. (Matthew 23:25-28)

June 10, 2016

Man, I love John Cassidy. How to feel the GOP's pain over Donald Trump

This post is something of a public-service announcement for liberals and Democrats: I’ve discovered a new guilty pleasure that you might want to get in on. It’s perfectly legal and harmless; the main source of the guilt is that it can become compulsive. All you need is an Internet-connected Web browser. Then fire it up and type into the search box “Donald Trump” and “Republican Party.”

I’ve been doing this for weeks now, and the results seldom disappoint. When I indulged my habit on Thursday morning, here were some of the headlines that appeared: “Donald Trump’s Racist Remarks Could Destroy the Republican Party” (Chicago Tribune); “Many in GOP Are Now Running Away from Their Nominee” (Boston Globe); “Iowa State Lawmaker Leaves GOP Over Trump” (The Hill); “Donald Trump Leaves California GOP in a Mess” (Sacramento Bee); “Major Conservative Radio Host Calls for Republican Party to Dump Donald Trump at the Convention” (Business Insider); “Obama Tells Jimmy Fallon He’s ‘Worried’ About the Republican Party” (USA Today).

You bet Obama is worried. Just like you’re worried—worried that, despite its current troubles, the G.O.P. might somehow get its act together in time for the election. Right now, though, there doesn’t appear to be much danger of this happening, so feel free to keep on typing and searching. You can even get the view from the inside, by confining your search to conservative sources. Town Hall: “Donald Trump’s Biggest Opponent Is Himself.” Red State: “Donald Trump Can’t Hire the Best People, Because They Refuse to Work for Him.” National Review: “ ‘The Agony of the Trump Endorsers.’ ” If you prefer to gloat, you’ll find plenty of company at liberal sites. Salon: “Donald Trump May Be Finished: Republicans Are Turning on Their Nominee En Masse.” Daily Kos: “Trump’s Ground Game? Let the State Parties Get Out the Vote, but Don’t Talk to ’Em or Fund ’Em.” MSNBC: “What Took Trump’s Republican Critics So Long?”

If you only have time for a cursory read, scanning the headlines and dipping in here and there offers a decent fix. But there are ways to take it further, too. One thing I like to do is select an anguished Republican quote of the day. There were many entries in my Thursday contest, including one from Hugh Hewitt, the conservative radio host, who called for a coup against Trump. On his daily radio show on Wednesday, Hewitt said that accepting Trump as the nominee is “like ignoring Stage IV cancer. You can’t do it, you gotta go attack it.”

That was pretty good. But Hewitt is a longtime critic of Trump, and he might have been gloating more than despairing about the candidate’s antics since he clinched the nomination. So I awarded the prize to Wayne Johnson, a Republican consultant in California, who was reacting to the results of Tuesday’s runoff election to determine the two candidates who will compete in the fall for the U.S. Senate seat that Barbara Boxer is vacating. Under the reformed electoral system that California adopted in 2011, one party is able to claim both spots, and indeed two Democrats did so, leaving the G.O.P. without a candidate on the ballot.

With most eyes fixed on the Democratic Presidential primary, this result didn’t get much national attention, but it was a sign of what could be awaiting the G.O.P. Many of the Party’s voters stayed home, creating fears among state Republicans that, with Trump at the top of the ticket, the Democrats could pick up a bunch of California’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and rack up huge, filibuster-proof majorities in the state legislature. “I’m trying to find something good, but there is no silver lining on this very dark cloud,” Johnson, the G.O.P. consultant, told the Sacramento Bee.

Another source of schadenfreude for non-Republicans is monitoring the various schemes to stop Trump that are circulating in and around the G.O.P. For a while, these revolved around the possibility of a third-party candidacy. But after Mitt Romney ruled out a run—and after the rumor that some conservatives favored David French, a little-known writer for National Review, prompted some wags to post derisive tweets with the hashtag #FrenchToast—attention switched back to the idea of challenging Trump at the Republican Convention.

<snip>

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/how-to-feel-the-g-o-p-s-pain-over-donald-trump

June 10, 2016

A Republican Senator just prayed that Obama's "days be few". This is how the GOP got Trump

Sen. Purdue tells Faith and Freedom attendees to pray for Obama. "We should pray like Psalm 109:8 says: Let his days be few."

Sen. David Perdue is the junior senator from Georgia. He's known in the Senate as a nice, modest guy — not one of the bomb throwers, by any means.

Here is how the prayer he encouraged the audience to make for Obama continues:


Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour.

Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.

Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.

You don’t have to believe Perdue literally wants Michelle Obama to be a widow to think that invoking this psalm toward the president of the United States is, perhaps, a bit inappropriate. (Perdue isn’t the first to suggest Psalm 109:8 is an appropriate prayer for Obama; it's become a meme in hard-right circles, where you can buy bumper stickers and shirts that say the same thing.)

The Republican Party acts shocked by Trump — like he is some alien parasite who has taken over their party without warning or precedent. They shouldn’t be so shocked.

Comments like Perdue’s are the context in which Trump ran. For years, Republican voters have been told that the president is a Muslim, a Kenyan, a socialist. They have heard Newt Gingrich fret over his "Kenyan anti-colonial mindset," Mitt Romney worry that the United States is "inches away from no longer being a free economy," and, yes, Donald Trump argue that he’s hiding the true circumstances of his birth. They were thrilled when Ben Carson called Obamacare "the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery" and pleased when Ted Cruz agreed to look into whether Obama was planning an armed takeover of Texas.

<snip>

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/10/11902822/perdue-obama-psalm-days-few

June 10, 2016

Write an essay and win a chance to own a small newspaper in Vermont

including the historic building it's lodged in and all the equipment.


The Hardwick Gazette is a 127-year-old print-only publication with a paid circulation of approximately 2,200 that serves the incomparable Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Those who land on hardwickgazette.com will find not updates on town council meetings and baseball games, but rather the rules of an essay contest — one to find a new owner for the Hardwick Gazette.

Essay contests have been used to sell homes, restaurants and the like. But 70-year-old Ross Connelly , the owner of the Hardwick Gazette, has found no prior instance of a newspaper being sold via essay.

Perhaps that’s because prospective newspaper owners can’t write.

Connelly bought the paper in 1986, though it wasn’t his first in the industry. He attended Howard University in the 1960s and while there worked for civil rights leader the Rev. Walter Fauntroy. Through that connection, he met future D.C. Council Chairman David Clarke, who worked weekend shifts at The Post stuffing newspapers, according to Connelly. “I did it once or twice. That was my first official newspaper job,” says Connelly in an interview with the Erik Wemple Blog.

<snip>

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/06/08/owner-of-small-vermont-newspaper-launches-essay-contest-for-new-owner/