August 5, 2016

New AJC poll sees HRC leading trump by 4 in Georgia

Democrat Hillary Clinton has built a slim lead over Donald Trump in Georgia after one of the worst weeks of the Republican’s campaign, and the Libertarian presidential ticket cracked double-digits, according to a new Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll.

The poll released Friday shows Clinton at 44 percent and Trump at 40 percent in a head-to-head matchup, within the poll’s margin of error. It is the latest showing a close race between the two candidates in Georgia, a state that has voted for the GOP nominee since 1996.

In a four-way race, Clinton led Trump 41-38, followed by Libertarian Gary Johnson with 11 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein with 2 percent.

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http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2016/08/05/ajc-poll-hillary-clinton-has-slim-lead-over-donald-trump-in-georgia/

August 5, 2016

This is so much fun to read:

How Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, and Other Blowhard Goliaths Meet Their David

Tyrannosaurus radio host Rush Limbaugh re-upped his contract this week for another four years, which will enable him to blow cigar smoke up his followers‘ fossilized backsides for the duration of Hillary Clinton’s first presidential term. As Eric Boehlert reports and observes in Media Matters, the rollout for Rush’s contract renewal is rather more muted this time around. In 2008, the news of Limbaugh’s $400 million dollar eight-year-contract renewal was treated like a coronation ceremony with all the royal trumpets blaring. This time, barely a bird chirp. ’Twas to be expected. (Yes, I said “’twas,” dammit.) As Boehlert notes, the business model for AM talk radio is broken, the angry white male audience is dying on the shriveled vine, and, I would add, the Trump ascendancy has scrambled the binary heroic-patriotic-religious conservative/cowardly-treasonous-godless liberal stereotype that formed the theater platform of talk radio’s (and Fox News‘s) Punch and Judy show. The decline of Limbaugh‘s radio reign was inevitable—it's impressive that it lasted this long—but it was hastened by a sharp downward break from which he never recovered: a self-inflicted blow produced in a petty fit of pique . . . an unforced error that acquired major magnitude and all because Rush was too arrogant to retreat a step or two and apologize. And this week Donald Trump (whom Rush is in the tank for—one old bro supporting another) made the same mistake, drilling a hole in the bottom of his dinghy, glub, glub.

It was, in case you need a refresher course, Rush Limbaugh’s scurrilous attack on Sandra Fluke that led to his irreversible unraveling. In 2012, Fluke, then a law student at Georgetown University, testified before a congressional oversight and reform committee on the need for contraception coverage in the university’s health plan. From Wikipedia: "She...stated that 40% of Georgetown Law School's female population suffered financial hardship as a result of birth control not being covered by the student health insurance plan, and that the lack of contraception coverage in the university insurance plans would induce many low income students to go without contraceptives. She then shared the stories of friends affected by such policies, citing a friend with polycystic ovary syndrome."''

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This cautionary tale of hubris has now been reenacted on a bigger stage with bigger stakes, demonstrating yet again George Santayana’s adage that those who do not learn from the past will louse up even worse the next time. (Santayana may have phrased it a bit differently.)

The Khans are Donald Trump’s Sandra Fluke. After Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of a captain killed in Iraq in 2004, made their powerful, emotional appearance at the Democratic convention, with Khizr Khan issuing the rebuke of rebukes by presenting his pocket Constitution and offering to lend it to Trump so that he could acquaint himself with our founding document, Trump could have respectfully acknowledged their loss, honored their son’s sacrifice, and Risen Above It. After all, Fox News didn’t even carry the Khans live, ensuring that most of Trump’s legions would have remained lulled in their usual state of unknowing. He didn’t have to make an issue of them, just as Limbaugh didn’t need to single out Fluke. But elegant deflection and rising about are not what a Limbaugh or Trump do. They descend below it, whatever ”it“ may happen to be, scuba-diving in the fever swamp that has become Republican conservatism’s nature preserve. Like Rush with Fluke, Trump didn’t ease up, acting as if he were the injured party, going after the Khans with kamikaze zeal while they, like Fluke, stayed composed, resolved, unruffable—portraits of fortitude and integrity that revealed Trump as the all-thumbs smear artist and opportunist that he is.

Much more:

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/08/how-donald-trump-rush-limbaugh-and-other-blowhard-goliaths-meet-their-david

August 5, 2016

‘No Doubt’ President Obama is a Muslim, Donald Trump’s New York Campaign Chair Says

LOL. And this is from The Observer- Publisher, Jared Kushner, Ivanka's husband.


Donald Trump’s New York State campaign co-chairman insisted in an interview with the Observer that President Barack Obama is a Muslim—and pointed to his policies in the Middle East as evidence.

Speaking over the phone for an unrelated story, Carl Paladino—the 2010 GOP candidate for governor of New York—abruptly changed subjects and assailed the sitting president and his policies. The Buffalo-based real estate developer and Tea Party activist maintained that Obama, a practicing Christian, has sought to mislead the public about his religious affiliation, but that the citizenry has not fallen for his falsehoods.

“In the mind of the average American, there is no doubt he is a Muslim,” Paladino said. “He is not a Christian.”

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Contrary to Paladino’s assertions, the average American does not seem to believe there is “no doubt” the president is a Muslim: polls indicate only 18 to 29 percent of the populace identify him as an adherent of the world’s second-largest religion. However, surveys suggest a full two-thirds of Trump supporters believe the president has hidden his true allegiances to the Quran and the holy city of Mecca.

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This is far from Paladino’s first brush with controversy. During his 2010 run for governor, he came under fire for comments he made about the attire at gay pride parades, and for a series of emails he had allegedly sent over the years—emails that included pictures of nude women, videos of horses copulating with humans and material that seemed to compare African-Americans to chimpanzees.

read:http://observer.com/2016/08/no-doubt-president-obama-is-a-muslim-donald-trumps-new-york-campaign-chair-says/

August 5, 2016

Insiders to Trump: Drop out

this is getting funnier- and weirder- by the hour.


Amid widespread chatter that DonaldTrump could drop out of the presidential race before Election Day, Republican insiders in key battleground states have a message for The Donald: Get out.

That’s according to The POLITICO Caucus — a panel of activists, strategists and operatives in 11 swing states. The majority of GOP insiders, 70 percent, said they want Trump to drop out of the race and be replaced by another Republican candidate — with many citing Trump’s drag on Republicans in down-ballot races. But those insiders still think it’s a long-shot Trump would actually end his campaign and be replaced by another GOP candidate.

“I’d rather take our chances with nearly anyone else than continue with this certain loser who will likely cost the Senate and much more,” said a New Hampshire Republican — who, like all respondents, completed the survey anonymously.

“The effect Trump is having on down-ballot races has the potential to be devastating in November,” added a Florida Republican. “His negative image among Hispanics, women and independents is something that could be devastating to Republicans. Trump’s divisive rhetoric to the Hispanic community at large has the potential to be devastating for years to come.”

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http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/insiders-to-trump-drop-out-226689

August 5, 2016

Drip, Drip, Drip

For Donald Trump's fellow Republicans, this campaign is increasingly about binary choices, but not Donald versus Hillary; rather it's about denialism versus defection and denunciation versus renunciation.


The poster boy for denialism is House Speaker Paul Ryan, whose speech in Cleveland last month made him seem like he had wandered in from a different political convention. He gave an earnest, optimistic, forward-looking speech, a stark contrast to virtually everything else uttered from the podium that week. Ryan has seemed walled off from the actual political freak show going on around him. Occasionally reality intrudes and either he has to admit that Donald Trump is a racist or, as he said Thursday, that Trump's attacks on Khizr and Ghazala Khan are "beyond the pale." But he quickly reassures himself and anyone listening that said beyond-the-pale bigot is the most qualified choice for the presidency.

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But here's the key thing: Do Ryan, McCain and Ayotte support Donald Trump for the presidency? Unwaveringly. When forced to answer for Trump by name the GOP formula has been denounce but don't renounce. (And Trump only underscores their fecklessness, refusing to endorse Ryan and McCain in their primaries and suggesting that Ayotte is "weak" and disloyal.) On one level their basic political calculation is understandable: They need Trump voters in order to survive in November; but they are in danger of disappearing into a growing chasm between those voters and everyone else.

<snip> (list of many "drips&quot

Drip: Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman, who has pointedly declined to say who he's voting for, released a television ad promising to "stand up to" Trump if The Donald is elected president. Colorado should be a swing state but is generally now seen as being safely in Clinton's column.

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Add up enough drops and you've got a flood. The interregnum is what The Washington Post's Greg Sargent has called the "dignity window," which for Republican leaders is inexorably closing. "If individual Republicans don't break off their support for Trump's candidacy now ... they run the risk of having no choice but to do so after Trump sinks even further into wretchedness and depravity, to a point of true no return," Sargent wrote this week. "At that juncture, their move will look unprincipled and desperate, leaving them stained – perhaps irrevocably – with their previous willingness to stick by him during much of his descent, and depriving their break with him of whatever moral force it might have had if done earlier."

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Trump is Palin on steroids and come the flood many so-called leaders will find themselves swept away.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-08-05/republican-defections-from-trump-accelerate

August 4, 2016

I don't give one hot damn that Trump opposes the TPP. I'm not going to support it

just because he also opposes it. That would be stupid and reactive. I oppose it for reasons like this:



TPP would make medicine a luxury for developing nations


The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a treaty currently stalled in the U.S. Senate, contains a provision that would require all member countries to adopt laws that protect the profits of American pharmaceutical companies. On the losing end of this requirement are impoverished citizens of developing nations, who would see the cost of biologic medicines soar.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is marketed as a deal that will promote free trade by removing barriers between North American and Pacific countries, including the United States, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore. The agreement offers many benefits, but contains several troubling provisions, including one that would force member countries to implement strong monopoly protections for newly introduced biologics.

Biologics are complex molecules, isolated from organisms. They are used for medicines from vaccines to gene therapies, and can treat numerous diseases from arthritis to cancer. Heightened protections would allow pharmaceutical companies to elevate prices throughout Pacific markets.

The United States currently grants data exclusivity, a type of intellectual property protection, to new biologic products for 12 years. Data exclusivity prevents firms that create similar molecules called biosimilars from using data from the original biologic to enter the market. This increases financial returns for biologic developers, but extending similar standards abroad would make many medicines unaffordable to millions of people throughout the world.

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read:http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/290232-tpp-would-make-medicine-a-luxury-for-developing-nations

The TPP won't get a vote until after the election, but President Obama believes it will pass shortly thereafter:

Obama predicts TPP trade deal will be ratified after election



Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article93319742.html#storylink=cpy

August 4, 2016

What a beginning: Rio de Janeiro riot police fire tear gas at protesters as Olympic torch arrives

Riot police fired tear gas at protesters gathered along the pathway for the Olympic torch relay as it arrived in Rio de Janeiro.

Hundreds of people were on the scene the protest the high cost of hosting the Olympic Games, which officially kick off Friday.

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Riot police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse a crowd of protesters, causing people, including families with children who came out to watch the Olympic torch, to run away. Police said some protesters refused to leave one lane of road open for the Olympic torch to pass through as was previously agreed, adding that they took action to contain chaos and clear the road. Part of the relay was abandoned.

The official cost estimate of hosting the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro is $12 billion but some experts estimate the cost could rise to $20 billion. More than a million event tickets have not been sold.

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http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2016/08/04/Rio-de-Janeiro-riot-police-fire-tear-gas-at-protesters-as-Olympic-torch-arrives/4691470309137/?spt=hts&or=7

August 4, 2016

This guy is running as a P/D for Lt. Guv. He discusses third parties and

working closely with dems. I think what he has to say is worth listening to. Btw, it is not against DU rules to support him as he's running in the dem primary, and he's serving in the VT Senate as a P/D. Really like David, but that interviewer? Not so good.

August 4, 2016

Paul Ryan's genteel and wimpy response to Trump: "campaign is distressing" but

he stands by his endorsement.

Sharp critique?

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan repeated Thursday that his endorsement of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was “not a blank check” and delivered a sharp critique of Trump’s flailing campaign two days after Trump declined to endorse Ryan for reelection to his Wisconsin congressional seat.

“He’s had a pretty strange run since the convention,” Ryan said on WTAQ radio in Green Bay. “You would think that we want to be focusing on Hillary Clinton, on all of her deficiencies. She is such a weak candidate that one would think that we would be on offense against Hillary Clinton, and it is distressing that that’s not what we’re talking about these days.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/08/04/paul-ryan-says-trumps-campaign-is-distressing-but-stands-by-endorsement/

August 4, 2016

The first AA college graduate built this amazing structure; to this day how he did it is a mystery

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Alexander Twilight alone constructed this four-story granite building which was used as a dormitory for out-of-town boarding students at the nearby Orleans County Grammar School. He called it "Athenian Hall." Granite was almost never used in building construction in the early 19th century in Orleans County. No one knows where the granite came from.[2]

The dormitory closed in 1859, two years after Twilight's death. The Orleans County Historical Society bought it in 1918 for $500. Today it is called "The Old Stone House Museum." It is one of the best-preserved institutional buildings of its era in the United States. Operated as an historical museum, it contains collections of 18th, 19th, and early 20th-century furniture, paintings, decorative art, folk art, tools and household items.[3]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Twilight


<snip>

The Old Stone House started as the grand vision of Alexander Twilight. The Rev. Mr. Twilight first saw Brownington in 1829, when he arrived to become minister of the Congregational Church and the Preceptor (Principal) of the Orleans County Grammar School. The co-educational “Brownington Academy,” as it was often called, had been founded only six years earlier, and was the only secondary, or high school, in the county.

Twilight felt strongly that if the Academy was to compete successfully with other institutions it would have to provide a well-equipped dormitory for its students. Unable to convince the school’s trustees of the need for such a building, he concluded that he would have to erect it as a private venture. One of the many unsolved mysteries about the Old Stone House is how one man, on the salary of a minister and schoolmaster, was able to finance the construction of this enormous building. He started to work on it in 1834.

There are hosts of fascinating legends about how he built the “Stone Boarding House.” Although there is evidence to the contrary, many believed Twilight himself quarried the granite blocks from neighboring fields and erected the building alone, using a wooden or earthen staging that rose as the building rose, together with a single ox that worked on a treadmill on the staging to raise the blocks into place. Local folklore has it that when the last stone was hauled to the top, it was found that the ox could not be lowered to the ground far below. Consequently the poor animal had to be slaughtered on the staging and was consumed in a great ox roast.

Twilight and his associates shared the popular veneration for Ancient Greece; they named the new building “Athenian Hall.” More commonly, it was known as the Stone Boarding House. Serving both boys and girls, the building was outfitted in a rather Spartan manner, without indoor plumbing or central heating. The huge kitchen fireplace and fifteen tiny charcoal fireplaces apparently supplied most of the heat. Wash water was collected from the roof in a huge underground cistern, from which it was fed by gravity into the kitchen.

http://oldstonehousemuseum.org/brownington/

On Monday, this is happening. I hope to be there:

40 oxen to move 1823 Vermont schoolhouse to original site

Vermont schoolhouse dating to 1823 will be returned to its original site with the help of 40 oxen.

The Burlington Free Press reports (http://bfpne.ws/2b1vxwL ) the oxen will pull the Orleans County Grammar School in Brownington one-third of a mile down the road next Monday to its original location.

Alexander Twilight was the school's headmaster from 1829 until 1855. According to Middlebury College, where Twilight studied, he was the first African-American known to have earned a degree from an American college or university.

The school was abandoned after the Civil War and didn't operate from 1865 through 1870. By then it moved from its original location in the Prospect Hill neighborhood to the village center.

With the addition of the schoolhouse, the Orleans County Historical Society now owns seven historic buildings in Prospect Hill.

http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-40-oxen-to-move-1823-vermont-schoolhouse-to-original-site-2016-8




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownington_Village_Historic_District#Cyrus_Eaton_House