October 1, 2016

Johnson's running mate "'not sure anybody is more qualified than Hillary Clinton' to be president."

Libertarian vice presidential hopeful Bill Weld said Friday that he's "not sure anybody is more qualified than Hillary Clinton to be president of the United States," the latest misstep in what's been a painful week for the third-party ticket.

Weld's praise of the Democratic presidential nominee was made in an interview with MSNBC's Chuck Todd. He quickly added: "I mean, that's not the end of the inquiry, though. We were two-term governors and I think Gary is very, very solid. At this point, we overlapped as governors and I thought highly of him back when we served together, but having spent the last several months (together), I don't just like the guy, I love the guy. I think he is very solid and deep."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/30/politics/bill-weld-hillary-clinton-qualified/

September 17, 2016

How Pepe the Frog Became a Nazi Trump Supporter and Alt-Right Symbol *A MUST READ* IMO

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/26/how-pepe-the-frog-became-a-nazi-trump-supporter-and-alt-right-symbol.html

<snip>

It began in late 2015 on /r9k/, a controversial 4chan board where, as on any message board, it can be difficult to discern how serious commenters are being or if they’re just fucking around entirely. Nevertheless, /r9k/ has been tied to Elliot Rodger—the UC Santa Barbara shooter who killed six people in 2014—who found fans there, and GamerGate. There, Pepe transformed from harmless cartoon to big green monster.

“We basically mixed Pepe in with Nazi propaganda, etc. We built that association,” @JaredTSwift said.

<snip>

Building the Trump association came next, after which @JaredTSwift said the images got crossover appeal. They began to move from 4chan to Twitter, which is when “journalists were exposed to it via Trump memes.”

<snip>

“In a sense, we’ve managed to push white nationalism into a very mainstream position,” he said. “Trump’s online support has been crucial to his success, I believe, and the fact is that his biggest and most devoted online supporters are white nationalists. Now, we’ve pushed the Overton window. People have adopted our rhetoric, sometimes without even realizing it. We’re setting up for a massive cultural shift.”

<snip>

@PaulTown_ characterized Pepe as “an experiment” the group used “as a test.”

“As you can see,” he said, “it went better than we could ever have imagined.”

September 10, 2016

Alt-Right Leaders: We Aren’t Racist, We Just Hate Jews #BasketOfDeplorables was far too nice

Bad news, Jews: You don’t get to be part of Richard Spencer’s white ethno-state.

In a windowless room in a swanky hotel half a block from the White House on Friday afternoon, three of the most visible leaders of the Alt-Right movement held a two-hour press conference to discuss their affection for Donald Trump and their hopes for a white homeland. The white supremacist Alt-Right movement has grown over the last eight years or so, incubated in racist forums like StormFront and meme-loving corners of the internet like 4chan and 8chan. Its members generally share a disdain for political correctness, feminism, zionism, Jews in general, immigration (especially Hispanic and Muslim immigration), and anyone who criticizes them for holding these views.

And the Alt-Right won substantial mainstream media attention when Hillary Clinton gave a speech last month excoriating Donald Trump for some of his staffers’ ties to it. Clinton’s team zeroed in on the campaign’s new CEO, Steve Bannon, who formerly helmed a website that he himself once described as “the platform for the Alt-Right.” And prominent Alt-Right figures, including two of the men who helmed Friday’s press conference, told The Daily Beast last month that they were delighted Trump hired him.

Many reporters have been hesitant to give the Alt-Right much media attention. But since Clinton made their existence part of her anti-Trump campaign pitch, there’s significant public interest in who they are and what they believe. And they’re loving it.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/09/alt-right-leaders-we-aren-t-racist-we-just-hate-jews.html?via=desktop&source=twitter

September 7, 2016

Mexico's finance secretary resigns after Trump visit

One of President Enrique Pena Nieto's closest advisers and confidants, Finance Secretary Luis Videgaray, has resigned in a move seen as linked to the unpopular decision to invite Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to visit Mexico.

Pena Nieto has taken responsibility for inviting Trump, but a former government official familiar with the workings of the administration said Videgaray would have played a preponderant role in the decision. Newspaper columnists in Mexico have reported Videgaray was behind last week's visit, after which Pena Nieto was criticized for not being forceful enough in rejecting Trump's proposals and comments about Mexico.

Videgaray "was the architect" of Trump's visit, because he was the adviser that Pena Nieto had "the most reliance on, and was closest to," said columnist and political analyst Raymundo Riva Palacio.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexico-govt-treasury-minister-resigns-155540624.html

September 7, 2016

Dallas Morning News endorses Hillary Clinton, backing first Democrat in 76 years

For the first time since 1940, the Dallas Morning News has endorsed a Democrat for president, telling readers in one of the nation's most reliably red states Wednesday that they ought to vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.

The Morning News's conservative editorial board, joining dozens of high-profile Republicans in rejecting the GOP nominee and supporting his opponent, acknowledged that breaking a 19-election streak caused its members some heartburn, but the endorsement's opening sentence suggested they felt their choice was clear: "There is only one serious candidate on the presidential ballot in November."

The Morning News braced readers for its surprise move in an editorial Tuesday that declared "Donald Trump is not qualified to serve as president and does not deserve your vote." Still, the newspaper went far beyond a non-endorsement of Trump. What makes the Morning News's backing of Clinton so striking is how full-throated it was. The paper could have picked Clinton merely by process of elimination or even declined to endorse either candidate, as it did in the 1964 contest between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. Instead, the editorial board praised Clinton.

Resume vs. resume, judgment vs. judgment, this election is no contest.

In Clinton's eight years in the U.S. Senate, she displayed reach and influence in foreign affairs. Though conservatives like to paint her as nakedly partisan, on Capitol Hill she gained respect from Republicans for working across the aisle: Two-thirds of her bills had GOP co-sponsors and included common ground with some of Congress' most conservative lawmakers.

As President Barack Obama's first secretary of state, she helped make tough calls on the Middle East and the complex struggle against radical Islamic terrorism. It's no accident that hundreds of Republican foreign policy hands back Clinton. She also has the support of dozens of top advisers from previous Republican administrations, including Henry Paulson, John Negroponte, Richard Armitage and Brent Scowcroft. Also on this list is Jim Glassman, the founding executive director of the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/07/dallas-morning-news-endorses-hillary-clinton-backing-first-democrat-in-76-years/

"When Pigs Fly" courtesy of The Simpsons.