August 6, 2016

ISIS wants a President Trump. Perhaps this is part of the reason:

So obviously this is opinion, conjecture, and it’s born out of my field of study and a long time fascination with apocalyptic thinking and movements. In 1998 I wrote my thesis on Millenarianism at the turn of the Millennium.

Just as nearly all religions have a creation myth, so too do they nearly all have end time myths, and the latter are often an end and a reset- to put it inelegantly.

The plethora of jihadist attacks over the past several months are, I believe, in part because ISIS and others of their ilk want a Trump Presidency.

Why? They are, as the late great British historian, Norman Cohn, millenarians. The definition of Millenarianism has long been expanded beyond Christian eschatology. Cohn’s definition of millenarian is as follows:

Millenarial sects or movements always picture salvation as

a) collective, in the sense that it to be enjoyed by the faithful as a collectivity:

b) terrestrial, in the sense that it is to widely realized on this earth and not some other worldly heaven;

c) imminent, in the sense that it is to come both soon and suddenly;

d) total, in the sense that it is utterly to transform life on earth so that the new dispensation will be no mere improvement on the present but perfection itself;

e) miraculous, in the sense that it is to accomplished by or with the help of supernatural agencies.


They want an all out war such as that promised by Donald Trump. They believe that he will be a hugely effective recruiting tool for them.

Millenarian movements, such as the medieval ones examined in Cohn’s seminal work ‘Pursuit of the Millennium’, are invariably shot through with the insane. But they are often born not just out of religious fervor but perceived and/or real injustice and persecution. Indeed, there are millennial movements that are non-religious.
‘
http://notbored.org/cohn.html
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/aug/09/guardianobituaries.obituaries

August 6, 2016

Somebody must have drilled into Trump's skull and found some part of his brain

(cue jokes about finding any brain at all) that was receptive to grasping the simple concept that if he didn't start sticking to a script- including endorsing Ryan and McCain and using a pre-prepared speech at his delirium of hate rallies, he'd be totally screwed. Done before the dog day of August fade into September.

I don't think that someone could possibly have been the spectacularly loathsome toady, Paul Manafort. Perhaps his daughter, Ivana or Ivanka- always get mother and daughter's names confused.

It will be interesting to see how long he can stay on script. I don't think he has the capacity to do so for more than a 24 hour period- and that may be stretching it.

Interesting to watch though.

August 5, 2016

A photograph by Alfred Steiglitz

She was my mother's first cousin. I was named for her

August 5, 2016

Trump has revealed his economic team. All men, all white, almost all rich as fuck

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday announced a new team of ultra-rich financiers and businessmen as his core economic advisers, a move that brings high-profile names to his inner circle but also may step on his populist claims to save America's middle class.

The list includes strikingly few academic policy experts, usually the bread-and-butter of campaign policy teams. Instead, the advisory team of 13 men — and no women — consists largely of personal friends or longtime business associates of Trump. The median net worth of Trump's official economic advisers appears to be at least several hundred million dollars.

That wealthy group includes Harold Hamm, a self-made oil billionaire who was a top energy adviser to Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign; Dan DiMicco, a former chief executive of steelmaker Nucor; Steven Mnuchin, Trump's national finance director, who is chairman and chief executive of the hedge fund Dune Capital Management; Steve Roth, founder and chief executive of Vornado Realty Trust; hedge fund billionaire John Paulson; Howard Lorber, chief executive of the Vector Group; real estate investor Tom Barrack; bankers Stephen M. Calk and Andy Beal; and financier Steve Feinberg.

The only academic economist on the team — the only one who has a doctorate in economics — is Peter Navarro of the University of California at Irvine, who focuses on trade with China, and who three times ran unsuccessfully for public office in San Diego. The leading tax expert is Stephen Moore, who founded the Club for Growth and was a longtime columnist for the Wall Street Journal. There's a former U.S. Senate candidate, David Malpass, who served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.

<snip>

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/05/donald-trumps-economic-team-the-ultra-rich-to-the-rescue/

Champions for working class Americans!

August 5, 2016

If this isn't alarming, I don't know what is: How to Hack an Election in 7 Minutes

This is a very long, detailed piece with a lot of tech talk.


When Princeton professor Andrew Appel decided to hack into a voting machine, he didn’t try to mimic the Russian attackers who hacked into the Democratic National Committee's database last month. He didn’t write malicious code, or linger near a polling place where the machines can go unguarded for days.

Instead, he bought one online.


With a few cursory clicks of a mouse, Appel parted with $82 and became the owner of an ungainly metallic giant called the Sequoia AVC Advantage, one of the oldest and vulnerable, electronic voting machines in the United States (among other places it’s deployed in Louisiana, New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania). No sooner did a team of bewildered deliverymen roll the 250-pound device into a conference room near Appel’s cramped, third-floor office than the professor set to work. He summoned a graduate student named Alex Halderman, who could pick the machine’s lock in seven seconds. Clutching a screwdriver, he deftly wedged out the four ROM chips—they weren’t soldered into the circuit board, as sense might dictate—making it simple to replace them with one of his own: A version of modified firmware that could throw off the machine’s results, subtly altering the tally of votes, never to betray a hint to the voter. The attack was concluded in minutes. To mark the achievement, his student snapped a photo of Appel—oblong features, messy black locks and a salt-and-pepper beard—grinning for the camera, fists still on the circuit board, as if to look directly into the eyes of the American taxpayer: Don’t look at me—you’re the one who paid for this thing.

Appel’s mischief might be called an occupational asset: He is part of a diligent corps of so-called cyber-academics—professors who have spent the past decade serving their country by relentlessly hacking it. Electronic voting machines—particularly a design called Direct Recording Electronic, or DRE’s—took off in 2002, in the wake of Bush v. Gore. For the ensuing 15 years, Appel and his colleagues have deployed every manner of stunt to convince the public that the system is pervasively unsecure and vulnerable.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/2016-elections-russia-hack-how-to-hack-an-election-in-seven-minutes-214144#ixzz4GTrrmQ74
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

August 5, 2016

Lessons from my search for Donald Trump's personal giving to charity

I’ve spent the last few months trying to prove Donald Trump right about something important.

So far, I’ve failed.

Trump has promised to give millions of dollars of his own money to charity. Trying to find evidence of them, I first looked at the Donald J. Trump Foundation. Dead end. Tax records show no gifts from Trump to his namesake foundation since 2008. Then I looked at the Trump campaign's official list of his donations. Dead end. That list included thousands of free rounds of golf, given away by Trump's golf courses. But no gifts of cash from Trump's own pocket. His campaign said those gifts did exist. It just wouldn't say who got them.

So I kept looking, starting with the individual charities that Trump seemed closest to. He'd attended their galas. Praised them on Twitter. Given them cash from the Trump Foundation's dwindling pot of money.

I've tried 259 of those charities so far.

I've found one gift, out of Trump's own pocket, between 2008 and this May.

<snip>

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/08/05/daily-202-lessons-from-my-search-for-donald-trump-s-personal-giving-to-charity/57a3eb5fcd249a7e29d0cf7a/

August 5, 2016

Texas Fetal Burial Proposal Would Add Thousands to the Cost of an Abortion

And it's not just abortions. Miscarriages as well.

This is the worst of the worst as far as TRAP laws go.


A funeral services consumer advocacy group says a state proposal to require the cremation or burial of aborted fetuses could mean an approximate $2,000 increase to the cost of an abortion.

On July 1, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission quietly slipped a proposed rule into the Texas Register that would require fetal remains, whether as a result of an abortion or a miscarriage, to be buried or cremated instead of being disposed of in a sanitary landfill or incinerated.


This proposal first surfaced four days after the Supreme Court ruled that Texas' House Bill 2, which increased regulatory burdens on abortion clinics, causing many in the state to close, was unconstitutional. The Center for Reproductive Rights, which argued against House Bill 2, has called the nature of the fetal burial proposal, which could take effect in September, a political maneuver that seeks to undermine women's rights that will likely result in more costly litigation for the state.

According to the Center, the state spent over $1 million fighting the challenge to House Bill 2. And in a recent letter sent to state health officials, the Center said the state will most certainly spend more taxpayer dollars if the fetal burial rule takes effect. “Texas politicians are at it again, inserting their personal beliefs into the health care decisions of Texas women,” Stephanie Toti, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a press release. “The Center for Reproductive Rights is prepared to take further legal action to ensure that Texas women can continue to access abortion and other reproductive healthcare without interference by politicians.”

read:http://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2016/08/05/texas-fetal-burial-proposal-would-add-thousands-to-the-cost-of-an-abortion

August 5, 2016

I dare you not to laugh: Donald Trump Is A Frightened Coward And I Bet $100,000 He Won't Fight Me

(the author, Daniel Roberts, is a mixed martial arts athlete)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Roberts_(fighter)

Last month, I made a public challenge to Donald Trump, which I will repeat here: If he or either of his sons will box me for one round, I will make the maximum legal contribution to his campaign and donate $100,000 to the charity of his choice.


In challenging Trump to box me, I was and am using one of his own favored tactics. Four years ago, he famously offered to donate $5 million to the charity of President Obama’s choice if Obama would release his passport, college applications, and other personal documents. I’m not as fabulously wealthy as Trump claims to be, so my offer was lower than his, but it’s a challenge that Trump should eagerly accept, given his professed love of combat and competition. (Moreover, it’s not unprecedented for a recent Republican presidential candidate to engage in a charity boxing match—2012 nominee Mitt Romney did so with Evander Holyfield just last year.) Of course, I never seriously expected Trump to take me up on my challenge, and don’t expect him to do so now. Donald Trump, you see, is a coward.


<snip>

Trump certainly looks the part of a tough guy. He’s a physically imposing presence who stands 6’3” and amplifies that height with military posture (a residue of his military prep school days) and a chin that he seems to keep perpetually tilted above the little people. He has a robust build, perhaps more fat than muscle on close examination, but nevertheless a physique that evinces power. He scowls perpetually, his eyebrows forming a near-perfect V, with his eyes locked in a tight squint as his cheeks flush a fiery red. His chiseled jaw juts out. Finally, and most important, is the hair. It is carefully glued in place, which gives it an icy—even steely—and imperturbable presence, swept over his forehead in a configuration resembling a medieval battle helmet, and dyed a glowing reddish hue, nature’s designated color of danger.

Trump’s mannerisms only serve to underscore this perception. He emphasizes his physicality at every opportunity. He gesticulates violently. He raises his voice at the slightest provocation, real or imagined. He snarls his upper lip, flashing his shockingly-white teeth like an angry dog with a patina of foam on its maw. If one watched him on mute, they could just as easily believe that Trump was delivering a pre-fight promo as a speech on economic policy.


His rhetoric, of course, is where Trump’s naked physical aggression is most on display. “Man is the most vicious of all animals,” Trump once said, seemingly echoing the wisdom of Arthur Leigh Allen, “and life is a series of battles ending in victory or defeat.” He shouts down his political opponents, his voice literally overpowering them into submission. He threatens hecklers with a “punch in the jaw” or with having them “taken out on a stretcher.” He brags about loving to fight. He advocates physical violence as policy, saying he’ll order soldiers to torture. Even his books ooze physicality: a pair of recent titles advise his readers to Get Toughand Kick Ass. So Trump certainly looks, acts, and talks the part of a tough guy.

But is he?

Much more:

read:http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/donald-trump-is-a-frightened-coward-and-i-bet-100-000-1784774156

August 5, 2016

In every poll I've seen, Jill Stein is irrelevant.

Johnson is a different story but I don't see him getting a lot of liberal votes.

I have seen nothing that shows that Stein has the ability to garner a significant share of Sanders voters. And having a running mate trashing Bernie won't help her gain their support.

August 5, 2016

I confess: I find Freeperville fascinating. Repulsive, sure, but a glimpse into a large

chunk of the American electorate and its psyche.

With that in mind, I offer you this post from a thread there that exemplifies cognitive dissonance.

You know, seriously, I believe anyone who conscientiously votes for Hillary Rodham Clinton is in serious danger of eternal damnation.
1. She is for killing the unborn
2. Her life is full of lies and scandals
3. She will appoint Supreme Court political appointees that will destroy America forever.
4. She has covered up and enabled a rapist lecherous immoral husband for years

Having said that I believe she will be elected by this evil country.

DJT has brought a lot of this on himself by self destructing when we needed him the strongest. (Yes for you GOPe haters out there , I am going to vote for DJT even if he runs through the streets naked!)

For the next 8 years Bible-believing Christians might have to underground like Chinese house churches.

The cries of the unborn will go unheard

Socialism will destroy america like it destroyed Venezuala

Our fighting forces will be PC and feminized to the point we won’t know what to fight for

Her Islamacist allies will continue to massacre and debauch the world.

It's from a thread on HRC leading in Georgia. The freak out is predictable and kinda awesome in a schadenfreude way.