Trump's embrace of racist policing tactics is a terrifying master plan.
By Chauncey DeVega / Salon September 23, 2016

First, his black outreach campaign is simply one more example of the tired, fake, insincere, and ineffective efforts by Republican presidential candidates to win over non-white voters with the goal of appearing more moderate for the general election. In this cynical ploy, a faux-courting of non-white voters is a way of making independent and center Right-wing white voters feel more comfortable with the extreme and retrograde conservatism and racism of the current Republican Party.

Second, and most importantly, Trump’s promise to create a nationwide stop-and-frisk program targeting black and brown people is red meat for the “basket of human deplorables” that is his base.

As shown by a litany of public opinion polls and other research, Trump supporters are racists, bigots, authoritarians, misogynists, and extremely hostile to African-Americans and other people of color.

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/stop-and-frisk-and-donald-trumps-promise-police-state-black-people

Facebook Faces Backlash Over Oculus Founder’s Alt-Right Ties
Janko Roettgers Senior Silicon Valley Correspondent

Facebook’s virtual reality (VR) subsidiary Oculus found itself under fire Friday after reports surfaced that Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has been secretly bankrolling a right-wing internet campaign to attack Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Several VR developers even said that they would stop building games for Oculus until Luckey left the company.

News about Luckey’s double life broke when the Daily Beast reported that he has been bankrolling an organization called Nimble America. The group, which recently incorporated, wants to take some of the same Anti-Clinton memes that have been circulating on social media and bring them to a wider audience.

http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/oculus-backlash-palmer-luckey-alt-right-1201869275/

Palmer Luckey, Millionaire Founder of Oculus Rift, Loves Donald Trump and Dates a Gamergater
Bryan Menegus Yesterday 11:54amFiled to: OCULUS

It’s been an open secret for some time that Palmer Luckey, the 24-year-old founder of VR company Oculus Rift and heir apparent to the future of gaming, is a strange guy—the type who argues with his customers on Reddit and casually cosplays as My Little Pony characters. Turns out, he also appears to be an active supporter of Donald Trump and the alt-right, and in a long-term relationship with an avid Gamergater.

He’s also faved tweets mocking “SJWs” or Social Justice Warriors—a concept encompassing a sort of liberal boogeyman for members of the alt-right. For the alt-right, “censorship” is everything up to and including criticism of outright bigotry, and SJWs are painted as ineffectual proponents of everything from racial tolerance to nanny state politics.

Luckey is also in a longterm relationship with Nicole Edelmann, aka Nikki Moxxi, a cosplayer, vocal member of the GamerGate movement, and active Trump supporter.

http://gizmodo.com/palmer-luckey-millionaire-founder-of-oculus-rift-love-1786994094

As Palmer Luckey Backtracks, Developers Turn on Oculus Rift
His misguided political donation could have serious impacts on Oculus and Facebook.
by David Z. Morris @davidzmorris SEPTEMBER 24, 2016, 12:54 PM EDT

To understand the extremity of the response to Luckey’s political donation, it’s important to know that Nimble America is not simply a pro-Trump campaign group.

Though their activities so far have been limited, their stated goal is to be a “non-profit dedicated to shitposting in real life.” “Shitposting” generally refers to content that is defamatory, misleading, offensive, or, preferably, all three. In other words, beyond supporting any particular candidate, Palmer Luckey has contributed, directly and knowingly, to the intentional degradation of American political discourse.

It’s also notable that one of the endorsements of Luckey offered to would-be Nimble America supporters came from Milo Yiannopoulos, the inflammatory mouthpiece of the so-called alt-right.

http://fortune.com/2016/09/24/palmer-lucky-backlash-oculus/

U.S. intel officials probe ties between Trump adviser and Kremlin
Michael Isikoff Chief Investigative Correspondent September 23, 2016

U.S. intelligence officials are seeking to determine whether an American businessman identified by Donald Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers has opened up private communications with senior Russian officials — including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president, according to multiple sources who have been briefed on the issue.

The activities of Trump adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business interests in Russia, have been discussed with senior members of Congress during recent briefings about suspected efforts by Moscow to influence the presidential election, the sources said. After one of those briefings, Senate minority leader Harry Reid wrote FBI Director James Comey, citing reports of meetings between a Trump adviser (a reference to Page) and “high ranking sanctioned individuals” in Moscow over the summer as evidence of “significant and disturbing ties” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin that needed to be investigated by the bureau.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-s-intel-officials-probe-ties-between-trump-adviser-and-kremlin-175046002.html

Green Party's Jill Stein Seeks to Woo Young Voters From Clinton
by ALEX SEITZ-WALD SEP 24 2016, 5:18 AM ET

ORONO, Maine -- As Hillary Clinton and her allies scramble to keep young liberal voters inside the Democratic Party, Green Party nominee Jill Stein is doing her best to coax them out.

Stein, who won just one-third-of-one-percent of the vote when she ran in 2012, has set an internal goal of reaching 5 percent this time. It's a far shot from winning, but that kind of showing -- along with a more robust effort by another independent candidate, libertarian Gary Johnson -- could pose a huge headache for Clinton.

Stein's efforts will require lots of new converts, and the strategy to get them is simple: Target the remnants of the Bernie Sanders movement by convincing young Clinton skeptics that the Democratic Party is too compromised to be reformed from within -- no matter that Sanders now is saying the opposite.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/hillary-clinton/green-party-s-jill-stein-seeks-woo-young-voters-clinton-n653211

Palmer Luckey: The Facebook Near Billionaire Secretly Funding Trump’s Meme Machine
Palmer Luckey—founder of Oculus—is funding a Trump group that circulates dirty memes about Hillary Clinton.
GIDEON RESNICK BEN COLLINS 09.22.16 8:00 PM ET

A Silicon Valley titan is putting money behind an unofficial Donald Trump group dedicated to “shitposting” and circulating internet memes maligning Hillary Clinton.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey financially backed a pro-Trump political organization called Nimble America, a self-described “social welfare 501(c)4 non-profit” in support of the Republican nominee.

Luckey sold his virtual reality company Oculus to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014, and Forbes estimates his current net worth to be $700 million. The 24-year-old told The Daily Beast that he had used the pseudonym “NimbleRichMan” on Reddit with a password given to him by the organization’s founders.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/22/palmer-luckey-the-facebook-billionaire-secretly-funding-trump-s-meme-machine.html

Here are 12 ways Gary Johnson is a hardcore right-wing radical
Adele M. Stan AlterNet 23 SEP 2016 AT 00:50 ET

1. Opposes federal guarantees for student loans.
2. Opposes virtually all forms of gun control.
3. Opposes the minimum wage.
4. Opposes equal-pay laws.
5. Opposes collective bargaining for public employees.
6. Proposes cuts to Social Security and removing Medicare and Medicaid from federal control.
7. Supports private prisons.
8. Gave a sole-bidder contract to Koch Industries.
9. May have Koch backing for 2016 effort.
10. Uses dirty tricksters.
11. Accepted $1 million in PAC money from anti-education right-wing donor.
12. Top corporate contributor slapped with $1.5 million pollution fine.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/09/here-are-12-ways-gary-johnson-is-a-hardcore-right-wing-radical/

Newest absentee, registration numbers promising for Clinton
By Marshall Cohen, CNN Updated 6:26 AM ET, Fri September 23, 2016

Early numbers from Iowa and North Carolina, where voters are already casting absentee ballots, look promising for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

And Democrats have also improved their position on the voter rolls in Colorado and Florida, outpacing Republicans in the past month, according to a CNN analysis of newly released statistics.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/23/politics/voter-registration-north-carolina-florida-democrats/index.html?sr=fbpol092316voter-registration-north-carolina-florida-democrats1132AMVODtopLink&linkId=29115562

How the Maker of the Epipen Made Government its Ally
By James Surowiecki , SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

In most respects, Wednesday’s congressional hearing into Mylan Corp.’s steep price increases on the EpiPen followed an all-too-familiar script. Mylan’s C.E.O., Heather Bresch, was berated by legislators for the price hikes, and for her $18.9-million pay package.

Bresch tried, feebly, to explain that Mylan doesn’t actually make that much money from the EpiPen, and was careful never to offer the only real explanation for why the product costs six times as much as it did in 2007, namely that the company kept raising prices because it could.

The politicians got their soundbites. Bresch got to state her case. And, at day’s end, nothing meaningful had changed.

As Representative Elijah Cummings accurately put it in his opening statement, “The industry will take their punches. But then they go right ahead and keep raising their prices.”

http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/how-the-maker-of-the-epipen-made-government-its-ally?mbid=gnep&intcid=gnep&google_editors_picks=true