Trump chilled by cold Election Day reality
The Republican will strike a moderate tone on immigration as he searches for a path through the swing states.
By ELI STOKOLS 08/31/16 05:21 AM EDT

PHOENIX — When Donald Trump walks on stage here Wednesday, he will be guided by anti-immigration zealots to a more moderate-sounding platform, one that represents a pragmatic calculation of his Election Day challenge if not a deeper belief in the unforgiving border policy that won him the Republican nomination.

Conflicting advice from Trump’s remade inner circle of advisers — including former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, newly installed campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and campaign CEO Steve Bannon — and the outside counsel of conservative mega-donor Sheldon Adelson have led to a series of muddled statements that have left Trump sounding at times like President Barack Obama and his former GOP rivals on immigration, not a hard-liner ready to deport illegal immigrants.

“Trump cannot get the current levels of Latino votes he’s getting in Florida, Colorado and Nevada and win,” one campaign source, speaking privately, acknowledged. “He’s just trying to soften the rhetoric just a little bit. They should have understood sooner the logistical impossibility of what they were saying about mass deportations and the potential political damage, but here we are.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-chilled-by-cold-election-day-reality-227572

More parents believe vaccines are ‘unnecessary,’ while a mumps outbreak grows
By Ariana Eunjung Cha August 29

The contrast between parents’ attitudes about vaccines today and a decade ago is striking. A survey published Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that more and more moms and dads are refusing the shots for their children.

Much of the blame for this phenomenon can be attributed to continuing claims from everyone from actor Jim Carrey to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump about the link between vaccines and autism — an idea that originated with a paper later shown to be fraudulent and that numerous scientific teams have tested exhaustively and found to be untrue. But while many parents’ scrutiny of vaccines may have been triggered by the autism theories, they have grown beyond those initial concerns.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/08/29/more-parents-believe-vaccines-are-unnecessary-while-a-mumps-outbreak-grows/

Trump campaign CEO fired woman on maternity leave: suit
By Daniel Halper August 29, 2016 | 2:39am

Donald Trump’s campaign CEO fired a new mother suffering from multiple sclerosis while she was on maternity leave, according to a lawsuit obtained exclusively by The Post.

“Julia Panely-Pacetti, a new mother who suffers from multiple sclerosis, was terminated by defendants from her position as head of public relations and corporate marketing because of her sex and her disability,” states the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court in September 2005.

http://nypost.com/2016/08/29/trump-campaign-ceo-fired-mom-with-ms-on-maternity-leave-suit/

Democrats Step Up Pursuit of House Republicans Left Limping by Donald Trump
By ALEXANDER BURNS and JONATHAN MARTINAUG. 28, 2016

LEESBURG, Va. — Emboldened by Donald J. Trump’s struggles in the presidential race, Democrats in Congress are laying the groundwork to expand the list of House Republicans they will target for defeat as part of an effort to slash the Republicans’ 30-seat majority and even reclaim control if Mr. Trump falls further.

Mr. Trump’s unpopularity, which has already undermined the party’s grip on the Senate, now threatens to imperil Republican lawmakers even in traditionally conservative districts, according to strategists and officials in both parties involved in the fight for control of the House.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/us/politics/donald-trump-congress-gop-voters.html?action=click&contentCollection=Business%20Day&module=Trending&version=Full®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article

At Least 110 Republican Leaders Won’t Vote for Donald Trump.
Here’s When They Reached Their Breaking Point.
By KAREN YOURISH and LARRY BUCHANAN AUG. 29, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/29/us/politics/at-least-110-republican-leaders-wont-vote-for-donald-trump-heres-when-they-reached-their-breaking-point.html

Media False Equivalence Is Trump’s Best Friend in the Debate Over Racism
By Ed Kilgore

But if major media organizations treat everything Trump says as equivalent in gravity and proximity to the truth as everything Clinton says, it could get even worse. After all, Trump throws out insults all the time, at nearly everybody. If insults equal fact-based attacks, the sheer volume of insults could win in the end.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/08/media-false-equivalence-over-racism-charges-helps-trump.html

Trump Campaign Bombs in Virginia, Again
Empty bleachers and a hostile student body greeted Trump vice presidential nominee Mike Pence in Virginia on Saturday at one of the most religiously conservative schools in the country.
Tim Mak 08.27.16 7:40 PM ET

PURCELLVILLE, Va. — Mike Pence definitely chose the wrong place to give a stump speech.
Trump’s VP nominee railed against Hillary Clinton in Northern Virginia on Saturday afternoon—but he chose to do it at an evangelical Christian college with a history of anti-Trump sentiment. Students protested outside, while inside students stood in silent protest until they were ejected mid-speech.

The protests and poor attendance at the speech at Patrick Henry College illustrate the challenges that Trump has appealing to evangelical Christians, especially younger ones, who are turned off by his tone, his campaign ideas and his personal history—and are not at all assauged by his choice of Pence for his running mate.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/27/trump-campaign-bombs-in-virginia-again.html

Donald Trump broke the conservative media
Oliver Darcy Aug. 26, 2016, 12:05 PM

"I think that, in retrospect, they really did empower the instruments of their own destruction," Sykes said of the GOP.

One of the chief problems, Sykes said, was that it had become impossible to prove to listeners that Trump was telling falsehoods because over the past several decades, the conservative news media had "basically eliminated any of the referees, the gatekeepers."

"When this is all over, we have to go back. There's got to be a reckoning on all this," Sykes said. "We've created this monster."

"I think the conservative media is the worst thing that has ever happened to the Republican Party on a national level," he said.

"The conservative establishment that needs to be gotten rid of is the conservative media establishment. Sean Hannity needs to go. Bill O'Reilly needs to go. Sadly, Rush Limbaugh needs to go," he said.

http://www.businessinsider.com/conservative-media-trump-drudge-coulter-2016-8

Teamsters endorse Hillary Clinton
By COGAN SCHNEIER and MARIANNE LEVINE 08/26/16 06:21 PM EDT

The 1.4-million-member Teamsters endorsed Hillary Clinton, the union announced Friday, in a unanimous vote by its executive board.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is the nation's fourth-largest union, and the last of the country's labor giants to fall behind the Democratic presidential nominee — well behind the National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which all endorsed Clinton in 2015.

Unlike these other unions, the Teamsters do not consistently endorse the Democratic candidate for president.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/teamsters-endorse-hillary-clinton-227463

Donald Trump Fine With Supporter Who Called For Hillary Clinton’s Execution
Trump also said he’d never heard the widely reported comments.
4 hours ago

In July, Al Baldasaro, a Republican state representative in New Hampshire, said Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton “should be put in the firing line and shot for treason.”

And now Donald Trump says he is unfamiliar with the remarks.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_57c04700e4b04193420eb886