People I hope are immolated by a Trump defeat, aside from Trump: #1 Rudy Guiliani

because he's as repulsive and bigoted big mouthed as Trump and as much of a liar.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-appalling-last-act-of-rudy-giuliani

#2 Mike Pence- because he's a far right wing religious creep who hitched his wagon to Trump

#3 Jeff Sessions- for rabidly pushing Trump. Alas, the outlook for his going up in flames is dim.

#4 Kelly Ayotte- because she's a gutless wonder who wants it every which way. She's endorsed Trump while trying to separate herself from him on issue after issue

#5 Ron Johnson, another Trump endorser who Feingold is going to beat by double digits, and because he's another businessman asshole tea party creation who thinks government should be run like a "business".

#6 Reince Priebus. He's been effective in pushing a far right agenda.

#7 Paul Ryan because his phony statesman act is bullshit, and he's just another far right tea party tool who the TP has turned on.

Who would be a better President in a Zombie Apocalypse? Walking Dead star say Clinton

Judge orders expedited release of 15,000 Hillary Clinton documents found by FBI

Source: CBS

At a heated hearing Monday, a federal judge pressed the State Department on when it would release the 15,000 documents uncovered by the FBI during its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

Initially, the State Department attorney would not answer Judge James Boasberg’s repeated questions about the number of emails recovered by the FBI. The judge urged the State Department to expedite its review of what is called “Disc 1,” which is one of two discs handed over from FBI to the State Department in late July.

The soonest these emails will be released to the public is early October, a few weeks before the November elections.

These are all emails that Clinton sent or received during her tenure as secretary of state, and they were not among the 55,000 documents turned over by her lawyers last year. The conservative judicial watchdog Judicial Watch​ has filed several Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the State Department for material from Clinton’s time as secretary of state. The group is keenly interested in Disc 1 because the information on it relates directly to Clinton.


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-orders-expedited-release-of-15000-hillary-clinton-documents-found-by-fbi/

Federal Transgender Bathroom Access Guidelines Blocked by Judge

A federal judge on Sunday blocked the Obama administration from enforcing new guidelines that were intended to expand restroom access for transgender students across the country.

Judge Reed O’Connor of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas said in a 38-page ruling, which he said should apply nationwide, that the government had not complied with federal law when it issued “directives which contradict the existing legislative and regulatory text.”

Judge O’Connor, whom President George W. Bush nominated to the federal bench, said that not granting an injunction would put states “in the position of either maintaining their current policies in the face of the federal government’s view that they are violating the law, or changing them to comply with the guidelines and cede their authority over this issue.”

The judge’s order, in a case brought by officials from more than a dozen states, is a victory in the continuing legal battles over the restroom guidelines, which the federal government issued this year. The culture war over the rights of transgender people, and especially their right to use public bathrooms consistent with their gender identities, has emerged as an emotional cause among social conservatives.

<snip>
read:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/us/transgender-bathroom-access-guidelines-blocked-by-judge.html

The Rise of Donald Trump is a big flashing neon sign that something is very wrong in this country

Even with his (hopefully) big fall, his ascendency to the Republican nominee, is more than just what's wrong with the Republican party itself.

It's also about our electoral system, the gap between the very wealthy and everyone else and the disconnect between Trump the person and businessman and his tens of millions of voters, and much more.

It's easy to lose the plot for the horserace ( generated largely by our dismal media and other factors).

As far as I know, he's the most unqualified candidate for President in our history. He's unqualified for any office.

His revelatory stream of consciousness gobbledygook is disqualifying in and of itself.

I keep coming back to how the hell did we end up here? Is the ultimate culture war battle? How did we become this divided?

Is the culture of worship for "American success" as potent as it seems?

I keep wavering between confidence that there is no way he can possibly win to a sinking sick making feeling that anything is possible.

I keep asking myself who could support anyone who says the shit gushes from his mouth? This is a man who bragged that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue in broad daylight and he still wouldn't lose his voters.

How the hell did we get here?

I believe that Bernie can really help boost support for Hillary with Millennial voters

I look forward to his hitting the trail and hope that he can still generate large numbers of people at rallies. She's leading Trump with these voters but trailing by a lot what Obama managed in 2008 and 2012.

<snip>


Clinton is earning 41 percent, on average, with young voters. In both 2008 and 2012, by contrast, Barack Obama won at least 60 percent of these voters, according to the American National Election Studies (ANES).

But it’s not that younger voters like Trump. Quite the opposite: Only 20 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds across the five surveys say they’ll vote for him. If that held, it would be the worst performance by a major party nominee among voters under 30 since at least 1952, according to the ANES.

Rather, 18- to 29-year-olds seem to be flirting with third-party candidates more than usual this year. Both Johnson and Stein are polling in the double digits, and Johnson is nearly pulling the same percentage of the under-30 vote as Trump. That shouldn’t necessarily to be too surprising given that younger voters are more likely to identify as independents than are older voters. Younger voters were also much more likely to vote for independent Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary than other age groups were.

With an unusually high share of under-30 voters saying they’ll vote third party, Clinton’s margin over Trump among this age group is lower than we’d expect given how Obama did in the last two election cycles. Per the ANES, Obama won the under-30 crowd by 34 percentage points in 2008 and by 24 points in 2012. Right now, Clinton’s margin over Trump among 18- to -29- year-olds is 21 points. This isn’t a super fair comparison, as we’re putting a pre-election poll which includes undecided voters against a post-election poll of actual voters (with no undecideds, obviously).2 Also, third party candidates have historically lost support as Election Day approaches, so it’s possible some young voters will find their way back to the Democratic Party. But it’s something to keep an eye on.

<snip>

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/clinton-and-trump-are-losing-a-lot-of-young-voters/

The big Bernie rallies are returning, but this time, Sen. Sanders will be campaigning in swing states to get Hillary Clinton elected president.

According to The Washington Post:

Sanders, who endorsed Clinton last month, ticked off a list of states that he is likely to hit in coming weeks, including some where he won primaries and caucuses (New Hampshire, Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin) and some where he fell short but ran strongly among key segments of the electorate (Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada).

Sanders said that during some of those visits he will also campaign on behalf of Democratic Senate candidates, including Katie McGinty in Pennsylvania, Ted Strickland in Ohio and Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire. He is also planning to campaign for other progressive down-ballot candidates, he said.

<snip>

It is a smart move by both the Clinton campaign and Sen. Sanders to harness the energy of his rallies as the next step towards integrating Sanders supporters and their ideas into the Democratic Party. The Democratic platform has shown that Democrats are serious about welcoming Sanders supporters into the party. With Sen. Sanders transitioning his presidential campaign into a broader progressive movement, the return of the big rallies will not only help Hillary Clinton but also help Sanders keep the momentum going forward on his agenda as well.

<snip>

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/08/20/bernie-sanders-big-rallies-returning-put-final-nail-trumps-coffin.html

538: Election Update: National Polls Show The Race Tightening — But State Polls Don’t

Hillary Clinton moved into a clear polling lead over Donald Trump just after the Democratic convention, which ended on July 28. Pretty much ever since, the reporters and poll watchers that I follow have seemed eager to tell the next twist in the story. Would Trump’s numbers get even worse, possibly leading to the first double-digit victory for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964? Or would Trump mount a comeback? As of last Tuesday, there wasn’t much evidence of an overall shift in the race. Trump was gaining ground in some polls but losing ground in a roughly equal number of them.

Since then, Trump has gotten some slightly better results, with national polls suggesting a race more in line with a 5- or 6-percentage-point lead for Clinton instead of the 7- or 8-point lead she had earlier in August. But state polls haven’t really followed suit and continue to show Clinton with some of her largest leads of the campaign. Trump received some decent numbers in Iowa and Nevada, but his polls in other swing states have been bad.

<snip>


You can, of course, pick apart the individual polls if you like. The USC/Los Angeles Times poll makes some unorthodox methodological choices; I happen to like some of these choices and dislike others, but overall, they produce a poll that’s significantly more Trump-leaning than other pollsters. And I’m not sure anyone should be crowing about Zogby Analytics polls, which have been highly inaccurate historically. But there are ways to adjust for these things, and they don’t obscure the fact that the trend in national polls has mostly been toward Trump.

State polls tell another story, however. Here’s every state poll we’ve added since Tuesday:2

<snip>

Moreover, these state polls show highly favorable trend lines for Clinton, where they’re available. Among the six polls that had previously surveyed the same state, Clinton gained ground in every one, with an average swing of 6 percentage points toward her. A caution: The average shift is inflated by a Quinnipiac poll of Colorado which found Clinton up 8 points; Quinnipiac had implausibly showed an 11-point lead for Trump when it surveyed the race in November. Even without that poll, however, Clinton’s average gain is 4 percentage points, still pretty good.

<snip>

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-national-polls-show-the-race-tightening-but-state-polls-dont/

There are two new books about Trump out- both paint a dire picture of Trump's history and

and predict how he might operate if elected President.

‘No time to read ... I want it short’: Best of Washington Post’s forthcoming Trump book


Donald Trump has never found time to read a biography of a president; prefers quick, preferably oral briefings to detailed reports; relishes the Secret Service hoopla; and once said that you become iconic by seeking more publicity after people are tired of you.

These and more are the highlights of "Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money, and Power,” written by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher. Trump gave more than 20 hours of interviews to the Washington Post reporters who worked on the 431-page book, to be published Tuesday by Scribner.

<snip>

Trump never sounded angry in the [Washington Post editorial board] meeting [in March]. ... The editors who wanted more than anything else to figure out how much of Trump’s campaign manner was shtick and how much was real venom emerged thinking that they had seen the genuine Trump – a man certain of his views, hugely confident in his abilities, not terribly well informed, quick to take offense.” (p. 11)

<snip>
--“As Trump’s empire spread, some of the people closest to him noticed a change. He grew more distant, sometimes petulant, sometimes explosive.” (p. 99)

--“He began drinking his diets sodas through a straw, and only when they came from Norma Foerderer, his executive assistant [who died in 2013], because he was too afraid of others’ germs.” (p. 100)


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/washington-post-trump-book-best-parts-227259#ixzz4I3zBqQr4
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

And by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston:

New book reveals ‘con man’ Donald Trump is even sleazier and more underhanded than you think

David Cay Johnston has been one of the nation’s premier investigative reporters for decades, specializing in the ways government works for the wealthy at the expense of everyday Americans. He first met and covered Donald Trump in the 1980s. In his latest book, The Making of Donald Trump, he profiles the many ways the Republican presidential nominee has gotten wealthy by bilking others, colluding with criminals, evading prosecution, and romancing the press. I spoke with Johnston recently about his new book.

Steven Rosenfeld: What are you trying to show readers about Donald Trump that they might not know?

David Cay Johnston: As you know, I’ve been trying to show people how government is creating inequality though all of these rules and laws that nobody knows about. The political donor class—a phrase that I coined by the way—are doing what economists call rent seeking. So I understand people who are terrified—they should be—and who think the government has worked against them. What’s nutty is this belief that Donald Trump is their friend.

This is a man who started his [presidential] campaign by saying wages are too high. This is a man who, when he does construction projects, deals with mob-controlled unions. That’s why Trump Towers [in Manhattan] are concrete, because the steelworkers are an honest union. This is a man who cheats workers out of their pay. Four dollars an hour he paid, and he cheated them out of some of their pay. That’s what a judge found. This is a man who tells vendors, Do this work. They do it and then he says, I am not going to pay you.

I don’t know if you saw the piece the other day where the manager, or whoever was responsible as his witness, at the Doral [Miami], over this guy who didn’t get paid the last $34,000 for his paint—he was a Benjamin Moore paint dealer—testified Mr. Trump felt he had paid enough. Nobody runs their business on that basis. You can think, and with good reason, of all sorts of bad things that corporations do. But they don’t go around saying to vendors or workers, “Uh, we paid enough. We’re not going to pay you.”

<snip>

SR: Have you seen that impulse change since you started covering him in the ’80s?

DCJ: Donald is 70 years old. I’m almost the same age, I’m 67. He’s not any different than when I met him, when he was in his early 40s. Donald is a guy who has no empathy for other people, who doesn’t see other people as human beings. He sees them as things to be used. That’s why when he was challenged about cutting off health care for his sickly grandnephew, over money, and he was asked, as I report in the book, “Don’t you think that will look cold-hearted?” [He replied] “What else can I do?” There is no moral core inside Donald Trump. There is no moral compass. It doesn’t exist.



<snip>

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/new-book-reveals-con-man-donald-trump-is-even-sleazier-and-more-underhanded-than-you-think/

NYT: Why Hillary Clinton Might Win Georgia

Recent polls show something that has caught even the most optimistic liberals by surprise: Hillary Clinton is tied with Donald J. Trump in Georgia, catching up with him in South Carolina and generally showing strength in traditionally Republican parts of the South. It seems like the Democratic dream come true — demographic changes are turning Southern states purple.

But this story has less to do with the future than the past, and both parties run a risk in misreading it. Mr. Trump’s racially charged hard-right campaign reveals a fault line in Republican politics that dates from the very beginning of G.O.P. ascendancy in the South.

<snip>


Yet this year that mixture may not work. Mr. Trump’s extreme language and divisive policies are alienating moderate Republicans in places like the Atlanta exurbs — where Mrs. Clinton is running nearly even with Mr. Trump. And across the state, polls show a significantly low number of Republicans saying they’ll support their party’s candidate.

Mr. Trump’s campaign most closely resembles the presidential campaigns of George C. Wallace, the arch-segregationist Alabama governor. Indeed, Wallace’s legacy is telling. An economic progressive, he remained a Democrat his entire life. True, he galvanized white working-class disenchantment and pioneered a populist, anti-liberal rhetoric that Ronald Reagan and subsequent Republicans would use to devastating effect. Yet he never had much appeal among the new class of suburban whites; the two were like oil and water. So, too, it would seem, are Donald Trump and moderate Southern Republicans today.

Whether or not Republicans hold on to Georgia and South Carolina this year, the lessons they are likely to take away are predictable. Democrats will assume that these states, like Virginia and North Carolina, are part of a long-term liberal trend and push traditional liberal ideas harder in future elections. Republicans will most likely write off Mr. Trump as a one-time phenomenon and not do anything. In doing so, both parties will ignore lessons from the history of the Southern conservative majority.

<snip>

read:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/22/opinion/campaign-stops/why-hillary-clinton-might-win-georgia.html?_r=0

Donald Trump Makes Flood Relief Donation to Tony Perkins's Church

Ugh. Eww. The United Way. The Red Cross. Other reputable unbigoted sources to donate money to and Trump donates to hate monger Perkins.

Says it all about who and what he is.

Donald Trump has reportedly donated $100,000 to help Louisiana residents affected by disastrous floods — but he’s put it in the hands of an anti-LGBT church whose interim pastor is Tony Perkins, head of the infamously homophobic Family Research Council.

CNN’s Ashley Killough, who is covering Trump’s presidential campaign, reported the donation via Twitter:

Trump visited the church, located in the Baton Rouge suburb of Greenwell Springs, and made other stops in the area at the invitation of Perkins. The church is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, which believes that being LGBT is a sin. The Greenwell Springs church’s website includes a “Statement on Marriage and Sexuality,” which reads in part:


We believe that any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography or any attempt to change one’s sex, or disagreement with one’s biological sex, is sinful and offensive to God.

It asks church employees and volunteers to “abide by and agree to” the statement and “conduct themselves accordingly.”

Perkins, as a Louisiana delegate to this year’s Republican National Convention, took credit for helping to create what even the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay conservative group, termed the most anti-LGBT platform in party history. It continues to oppose marriage equality, denounces the Obama administration’s call for transgender students’ access to gendered facilities of their choice, and contends that parents have a right to enroll their children in any kind of therapy. The last is a thinly veiled endorsement of “ex-gay” therapy, even though major medical groups condemn it as ineffective and harmful, and several states and cities have barred licensed professionals from subjecting minors to it.