Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel’s Fantasy Trump

Burr Reveals

the GOP nominee "aligns perfectly with where the Republican Party is" on the issues. 

The Comey Sexism

Clinton is guilty of SWF (Speaking While Female), and emailgate is just a reminder to us all that she has no business doing what she’s doing and must be punished, for the sake of all decent women everywhere.

FBI Chief James Comey has shown himself to be another bully of the same kind. He has repeatedly talked down to Clinton, admonishing her as a bad parent would a 5-year-old. He has accused her of “poor judgment” and called her use of a private email server “extremely careless.” 

The Comey Attack

What drives people? When your professional obligation is to uphold the laws and the constitution but you helplessly undermine your chain of command and your department guidelines and your heart says to not obey because your boss is a black woman (that don't look right) and you are moved by the ideologies of racism and sexism as certainly as the electrons are moved by electric forces and you are okay with Huma Abedin being a Hillary Clinton surrogate but a Pakistani Indian American is getting too close to the president for your comfort, what do you do? You make one last ditch effort. You would rather a madman near the nuclear code than a Pakistani Indian American near the President Of The United States.

The FBI did it to John Liu, who is born in New York City. He looked too Chinese to possibly occupy the second most powerful office in the country.

This is how you know racism in America's criminal justice system is a very real issue.

On Clinton Emails, Did the F.B.I. Director Abuse His Power?

GOP Civil War Round The Corner?

Now the party of Ronald Reagan is being led by a man with no discernible ideological leanings, save for an affinity with some of history’s ugliest. 

“The likelihood of the Republican Party surviving this, of there being another Republican president in the future, is small,” said one movement conservative who served in the Bush White House. “I don’t think the party survives.”

Far from the halls of the Hoover Institution and big Washington policy shops is a force they cannot control: the Trump campaign, a small collection of social-media gurus, Breitbart alumni, and Trump family members who have managed to capture the majority of Republican voters in the U.S., and who may use their new power to launch a media network, or take over as the new axis of the GOP, or both. And as the old establishment looks on in horror, the civil war in its ranks has already begun.

“I’ve never seen so many really smart people at a loss for what to do,” says the head of one prominent conservative think tank. “They’re pulling their hair out, to the extent they have any hair left.” 

“We’ve known the cause of death while the patient was still alive on the table.”

There is pretty universal agreement in conservative circles that the immediate cause of death was blunt force trauma with a loud, orange object.

there is wide disagreement as to whether this was a sudden, unpredictable trauma—a piano falling on you as you walk down the street—or the result of deep-seated, sclerotic disease. 

“The ugliness of those forces is real. The number of people who supported Trump is alarming. 

Some among them just think it’s time to start over. “If you can’t resurrect the Republican brand with less than half a billion dollars and spending four to eight years to get it done,” Glover, who is on the board of Roy’s new think tank, said, it might be time to think about starting something new. 

The party she envisions is one with “a Jeb Bush platform but with a 21st-century bolt on acknowledging climate change, gay marriage and campaign finance reform that’s First Amendment-compliant.”

Trump could only have happened to a party that was already paralyzed by an identity crisis—one that still has to be dealt with in addition to the secondary identity crisis wrought by Trump.

three disparate factions that find themselves squabbling under the Republican tent—the Trump fans, the stand-pat establishment, and the conservative Jesuits—

What the orange dragon chooses to do after the drubbing Republicans are sure he’s going to get might be the difference between the final nail in the GOP coffin, and a revival. And again, few really believe in the latter, not even the stalwarts. “I have a feeling no one’s going to learn a lot from this campaign because of the unique nature of Trump,” says the think tank head. “I’m one of the people who is feeling a lot of angst.” If he starts a media company, says Ayres, “It will be far harder to heal the wounds that he opened up, and far harder to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

“It’s in Trump’s nature to continue to want to be relevant, to have people come to Trump Tower to lick his boots for years to come,”

As for the people who hope Trump will simply melt away on November 9 and remove the threat of collapse from the Republican Party? “I appreciate but do not share their optimism,” says Soltis Anderson. “I feel like we are in for a pretty long civil war.”

Texas Blues

Texas Republicans are slowly coming to grips with the unthinkable: Hillary Clinton has a shot at winning the nation’s most iconic red state.

Texas is the beating heart of the modern Republican Party, and the cornerstone of any GOP nominee’s electoral strategy. It’s also home to the most recent Republican president, George W. Bush, and to two serious recent GOP contenders for the White House, Sen. Ted Cruz and former Gov. Rick Perry.

And Texas is where the party’s most prominent donor base is clustered.

Trump Monster

Bilal Elcharfa was pouring cereal for his children before school this month when his 7-year-old daughter, Maaria, walked into the kitchen, calling for him.

“Baba, I had a scary dream,” she said, hugging him tight. “About Donald Trump.”

Mr. Elcharfa, a taxi driver, had dealt with his own share of anti-Muslim sentiment, like the time a passenger refused to pay his fare because he said Muslims needed to pay for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Maaria said that if Mr. Trump became president, “I’m going to stay in my room forever.”

Trump Is Pus Coming Out

Mass injustice doesn't result from a "few bad apples," but from the mass of people willfully supporting injustice.

I remain desperate to protect you from a society that quietly but habitually tells you that as a girl, you're not equal to boys -- that you're more valued for your body than your brains, that you don't deserve the same opportunities let alone the same basic respect. And the truth is, black men and women are still treated vastly differently under our laws and in our communities. 

After all, you're only eight years old. But I know you understand the difference between right from wrong. And I know that you know the things Donald Trump has said about Mexicans and veterans and Muslims and women are wrong.

You've said that if Donald Trump wins, you want to move to India. 

Trumponomics Leads To India Before 1991

Trump's US will look like the India Narayana Murthy complained about

St. Hillary?

St. Hillary?

“St. Hillary?” @paramendra https://medium.com/@paramendra/st-hillary-6b7b17aba911

Assange

Assange believes WikiLeaks was a primary driver of the Arab Spring, which led to major uprisings in around a dozen countries. This is the stage on which Assange believes he plays — the equal of a world leader, still the biggest story in the world.

Assange is a gifted public speaker, with a talent for playing the media, struggling with an inability to scale up and professionalise his operation, to take advice; a man whose mission was often left on a backburner in his efforts to demonise his opponents.

These are traits often ascribed to Donald Trump, the main beneficiary of WikiLeaks’ activities through the reaction, and its modern-day champion during presidential debates. Those traits have left Assange a four-year resident of a Harrods hamper–laden single room in a London embassy.

Ivanka

There are a few people surrounding Donald Trump who, for their own reasons, have chosen to step in front of the bus of his campaign—his wife, Melania, for one, and even Rudy Giuliani. They arguably didn’t have much to lose, and stood to gain significantly, if things had worked out. The one person who does appear to have a great deal at stake in terms of reputation and personal ambition in Trump’s flame-throwing final stand is Ivanka Trump.

She embraced the family philosophy of turning everything into an opportunity for personal enrichment; the morning after she introduced her father at the Republican National Convention, shebroadcast on Twitter an image of herself wearing one of her fashion label’s dresses on the stage with the exhortation: “Shop Ivanka’s look from her #RNC speech.”

She went on to say that nothing could prepare a person to be the child of a Presidential candidate, and that the media has been “vicious” to her and her family. It was hard not to feel a bit sorry for her when she described being followed by a pack of photographers on the way to drop her children at school in the morning. Ivanka said that she often didn’t recognize the person—her father—the press portrayed.

Sick Sexist

after such a sickeningly sexist and racist campaign, one that exposed so starkly how far our society has to go......
 a trash-talking, burn-it-to-the-ground demagogue....... He has never held office or otherwise served his country, never acceded to the authority of competing visions and democratic resolutions...... 

 he does not accept the authority of constitutional republicanism—its norms, its faiths and practices, its explicit rules and implicit understandings. That much is clear from his statements about targeting press freedoms, infringing on an independent judiciary, banning Muslim immigration, deporting undocumented immigrants without a fair hearing, reviving the practice of torture, and, in the third and final debate, his refusal to say that he will accept the outcome of the election. Trump has even threatened to prosecute and imprison his opponent. 

The prospect of such a President—erratic, empty, cruel, intolerant, and corrupt—represents a form of national emergency.

his temperamental authoritarianism—a trait echoed in his admiration of Vladimir Putin.

The consistencies of Trump’s character are matched by the inconsistencies of his policy positions.

The combination of free-form opportunism, heroic self-regard, blithe contempt for expertise, and an airy sense of infallibility has contributed to Trump’s profound estrangement from the truth. 

Her story is about walking through flames and emerging changed, warier and more determined. In her intelligence, in her gimlet-eyed recognition of both the limits and the possibilities of government, she’s a particular kind of inspirational figure, a pragmatist and a Democratic moderate. 

Not even a sound defeat is likely to cause Trump to recede from view. Now, as he trails in the polls and declares the election “rigged,” thanks to a collusion of the media, political élites, and inner-city “communities,” he seems to be preparing the ground for an unlovely and prolonged assault on a Clinton Presidency. Even some Republican leaders who have withdrawn their support for him have adopted his maximalism. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has said that Clinton wants to strip away all color and joy from the lives of Americans. Senator John McCain has sworn that he will work in the Senate to block any Supreme Court nominations that a President Clinton might make. Neither has come to terms with the ways in which his party’s rhetoric and tactics have enabled Trump’s rise. If anything, their hope seems to be that the swell of passions he has brought together will not dissipate but propel their own ambitions.

Obama inherited a financial crisis when he took office. The civil crisis that Clinton will inherit is less sharply defined, but her political legacy will depend upon her ability to alleviate it.

Trump Sowing The Land With Salt

the non-stop logorrheic rainbow of horror constantly shooting from Trump’s mouth........   all of this was just one more step in the long, absurdist slog of the Russianization of this campaign......

When Trump and his acolytes accuse protestors of being well-organized, paid saboteurs, I hear echoes of Kremlin television accusing people who came out in Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square to protest for democracy in 2011 of working for the U.S. State Department. When Trump lies and injects conspirological plots into the mainstream, when I hear his supporters echo them back to me as gospel because “it’s on the Internet,” I feel like I’m back in Russia, listening to people tell me about George Soros and his nefarious plots. And then I hear about George Soros from Trump supporters who tell me that he has both created the Black Lives Matter movement and hacked American voting machines.

When Trump talks about regulating the “dishonest” press or about jailing Clinton, these echoes become deafening.

But when Trump questions the peaceful transfer of power, when he, essentially, says that he will only accept the election results if he wins, when his supporters talk of assassinating Clinton if she becomes president, and of blood flowing in the streets if Trump doesn’t, the moment I’m transported to is not a Russian one, but an American one.

Michelle Obama For President 2024

I just read somewhere earlier that Republicans are scared Michelle Obama might run for the Senate and I was like, dang, how did they beat me to such a good idea!

That would be an excellent outcome. Hillary Clinton has not had a better surrogate this year. Michelle Obama is such a natural. Michelle took the gender issue by the horns. I think that partly explains Hillary's great confidence in the third debate.

And then I don't see why Michelle Obama can then not run for president in 2024.

People with last name Obama have been known to do that. Enter the Senate, then enter the White House.

I am on record from years ago right at this blog suggesting let's just declare Michelle queen and be done with this First Lady business. And since Bill Clinton can't be First Lady I think my idea has new relevance. It's still not too late. Where is an executive order when you need one?

After 44 men in there, what's two women? Besides black women find themselves at the intersection of both race and gender. It is a unique sociopolitical position to be in.

Send guys named Bill and Barack off to the golf courses. Let the women run the show.  

The Only Thing Hillary Has To Fear

In this final phase of the campaign there is only one thing Hillary has to fear. You hope Donald Trump does not spend any time doing research. Because when Donald Trump does research he has a tendency to go into the tabloid section of the research library and with Donald you know how it is. Donald Trump never came across a conspiracy theory he did not like.

So pray in this final phase of the campaign Donald Trump does not go to the research library. That is one risk Hillary 2016 can not take.

Wyoming

Nobody but nobody can take away Wyoming from Donald Trump. Put Wyoming in the Donald Trump column please.

Not Worried Trump Might Not Concede

I am absolutely not worried.

If you lose more than 45 states, and the Senate, and the House, and 30 state legislatures and then turn around and say, "I dunno," why will I not be worried!

This guy is facing a tsunami. That blue you see Donald is not the sky, it's the ocean coming at you.

No TV network will be asking for your opinion on November 9. Your defeat will be so total.

Why Hillary Is Winning And Winning Big

The gender pressure has been building. Every time America has not elected a woman president that has added to the pressure. After 44 men that is a lot of pressure. That is why this is going to be a gigantic volcanic eruption. Women are being strategic about coming out only in the final few weeks.

She is a cat with two lives. She gave one life to making Bill Clinton president, with another life she is making herself president. What every top caliber politician has done one time she has done two times. That is a lot of preparation. Donald Trump is a feather weight boxer who is seeing both Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson in the ring, and it is not just because he is seeing stars. There really are two boxers in the ring, Hillary times two. And I am not talking Bill Clinton. More on that later.

She has the brains. Someone of middle class background who went to top schools on merit and was top student there.

Thomas Edison said genius is 99% perspiration. Discipline and hard work are perhaps Hillary Clinton's defining qualities and that aspiring girls and women would most benefit from emulating. She puts in the hours. No short cuts there. She has all the qualities of a good student.

She has sound political instincts. I believe you could compare her in that department with any contemporary politician anywhere, or any in history. She is as good as they come. And I am not talking policy wonkiness. That is different. Paul Krugman is quite a policy wonk but I would not send him into the boxing ring.

She is a policy wonk, and not every successful politician is. She could have happily worked at some think tank her entire working life.

It does not hurt to be married to Bill Clinton, a world class political talent in his own right.

Getting beat by Barack Obama in 2008 makes her a cat with three lives.

2016. After 5,000 years of men running the show it had to happen in 2016. Being in the right place at the right time, Hillary got lucky.

And God gave her the most unqualified candidate in history to run against. Mother Mary obviously desires gender equality on earth.

The Good News: American Democracy Seems To Be Working

As disgusting as Donald Trump is at every possible level, personal to political, polls show he is about to possibly lose in deeply Republican places like Kentucky and Texas.

This is a sign American democracy is actually working. Talking fascist is still free speech. But getting your ass whooped when you do so is democracy.