Tuesday Reads: Benghazi Will Never Die and Other News
Posted: October 20, 2015 Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: Benghazi, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Jim Webb 68 Comments
John Cole / Scranton Times Tribune
Good Morning!!
I’m getting a very late start this morning because of some computer problems, but as far as I can tell, Joe Biden is still playing games with the press corps. I suppose that could go on for at least the rest of the week, since Hillary is testifying before the Benghazi! Committee on Thursday. I doubt if she will suddenly implode, but apparently Biden is hoping for a major meltdown of some kind.
Last night Rachel Maddow announced that she will be interviewing Hillary on her Friday show, so that should be interesting. Meanwhile, ABC News was forced to admit that Hillary’s poll numbers have gone up against both Bernie Sanders and Biden, according to their latest survey of voters.
Hillary Clinton has followed a successful debate performance by rebounding in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, regaining ground against Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden alike.
With anticipation surrounding Biden at a peak, Clinton has 54 percent support in interviews Thursday through Sunday, compared with Sanders’ 23 percent and Biden’s 16 percent. That’s 12 percentage points better for Clinton than her position a month ago, bringing her halfway back to her level of support in the spring and summer, before her September stumble.
In anticipation of Hillary’s testimony on Thursday, Democratic members of the Benghazi “special committee” released a 146-page report detailing the results of the investigation so far from their point of view. CBS News: Democrats: Benghazi committee interviews discredit GOP claims about Clinton.
“This report shows that no witnesses we interviewed substantiated these wild Republican conspiracy theories about Secretary Clinton and Benghazi. It’s time to bring this taxpayer-funded fishing expedition to an end,” Ranking Member Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, said in a statement accompanying the 146-page report.
Following through on a recent threat, the Democrats released excerpts from the panel’s 54 interviews, but still called on Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina, to release full transcripts and depositions….
Based on 54 interviews, the Democrats said the committee found no evidence that Clinton ordered the military to stand down on the night of the attacks, no evidence she personally approved a reduction in security before the attacks and no evidence Clinton or her aides oversaw an operation to scrub or destroy documents related to Benghazi, among other findings.
Documents obtained by the committee confirmed Clinton’s earlier testimony about her actions that night, the report said, as did the interviews with Mills and Sullivan.
Many more details at the link.
Pat Bagley / Salt Lake Tribune
As Dakinikat wrote yesterday, the Benghazi committee is falling about anyway, thanks to the stupidity of its chairman Trey Gowdy. At The New Republic, Brian Beutler writes: The Benghazi Witch-Hunt Against Hillary Is Backfiring Just Like Bill Clinton’s Impeachment.
When the committee began to drift from its nominal investigative purpose—the 2012 attack on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in which Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed—and focus on unrelated aspects of Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state from 2009-2013, it invited comparisons to the GOP-led fishing expeditions of the 1990s, which culminated in the partisan impeachment of President Bill Clinton, and discredited his leading critics.
The comparison became inescapable this weekend, when the top Democrat on the Benghazi committee revealed that its Republican chairman, Trey Gowdy, had fabricated a redaction to Clinton’s emails to make it look like she’d endangered a spy, and the CIA had busted her. Gowdy even mimicked intelligence community vernacular, designating the redaction as undertaken to protect “sources and methods,” without disclosing that he was the redactor or that the CIA had cleared the name he redacted for release.
This flagrant misconduct has barely pierced the consciousness of the political scribes who have treated every selective Benghazi leak with as much credulity and legitimacy as lower-fanfare congressional investigations, even after their media peers have been burned—repeatedly—by intentionally deceptive leaks. Conservatives, too, are ignoring or brushing off the impropriety. But Benghazi committee errors are piling up so rapidly, and timed so impeccably for Hillary Clinton’s public testimony before the committee this Thursday, that it seems for once like Republicans might tamp down on the Hillary misdirection of their own volition, much as they did in the 1990s when a similarly unfocused obsession with the Clintons damaged their party.
Back in 1998, House Republican leaders had to dial back an investigation into the Clintons’ campaign finance practices after then-oversight committee chairman Dan Burton tried to hoodwink the press with heavily edited transcripts meant to implicate Hillary. That botched operation forced Burton to fire his top aide David Bossie, who went on to become president of Citizens United, and prompted an angry backlash from Speaker Newt Gingrich on behalf of an embarrassed Republican conference.
The recent blows to the Benghazi committee’s self-styled credibility are at least as severe, beginning with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s admission that Republicans empaneled it to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy, running through well-substantiated allegations that Republicans have been using committee resources to investigate Clinton at the expense of the actual attacks on the U.S. facility in Libya.
I am sooooooo looking forward to Hillary’s appearance on Thursday!
Chris Britt / Creators Syndicate
According to CNN, Jim Webb will hold a press conference today to announce he is dropping out of the Democratic primary race and that he does not plan to run as an independent.
Jim Webb will end his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination at a press conference Tuesday, according to two sources with knowledge of the decision.
The former Virginia senator who launched a longshot presidential bid earlier this year is considering an independent run, according to his campaign. Craig Crawford, Webb’s spokesman, declined to comment on whether the senator was dropping out of the Democratic race, however.
“Jim will have the first word at 1 p.m.,” Crawford said, referring to the senator’s press conference at the National Press Club in Washington.
After a prolonged exploration of a presidential bid, Webb used an more than 2,000-word blog post to announce his run.
His campaign, however, never really got off the ground and was seen by even some close Webb aides as more of a vanity play than an actual presidential bid. In total, Webb spent four days campaigning in New Hampshire and 20 days in Iowa, far fewer than the senator’s challengers.
Webb also expressed outright frustration with the Democratic Party during his run, questioning their strategy and the support they were providing him. During the first Democratic debate earlier this month, Webb spent considerable time complaining about the amount of time he was given to speak.
John Darkow / Columbia (Missour) Times Tribune
On the Republican side, Carly Fiorina is struggling and Donald Trump and Ben Carson are still running neck and neck. Politico reports: Fiorina’s support collapses, Trump leads in CNN poll.
Carly Fiorina’s time near the top of the Republican polls may have come to an end, as another national CNN/ORC poll out Tuesday suggests. Just 4 percent of Republican or Republican-leaning voters said they would cast their votes for her in a primary election, down from 15 percent in September.
Overall, Donald Trump led the field with 27 percent, followed again by Ben Carson with 22 percent, up 8 points from last month’s survey. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio each earned 8 percent, followed by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul at 5 percent. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Fiorina pulled in 4 percent, while Ohio Gov. John Kasich earned 3 percent, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum 2 percent and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham 1 percent.
Appearing later in the morning on CNN’s “New Day,” Trump commented that he and Carson have both “hit a chord” in the electorate.
Tom Toles / Washington Post
[Trump’s] latest ugly truth came during a Bloomberg TV interview last Friday, when he said George W. Bush deserves responsibility for the fact that “the World Trade Center came down during his time.” Politicians and journalists erupted in indignation. Jeb Bush called Trump’s comments “pathetic.” Ben Carson dubbed them “ridiculous.”
Former Bush flack Ari Fleischer called Trump a 9/11 “truther.” Even Stephanie Ruhle, the Bloomberg anchor who asked the question, cried, “Hold on, you can’t blame George Bush for that.”
Oh yes, you can. There’s no way of knowing for sure if Bush could have stopped the September 11 attacks. But that’s not the right question. The right question is: Did Bush do everything he could reasonably have to stop them, given what he knew at the time? And he didn’t. It’s not even close.
When the Bush administration took office in January 2001, CIA Director George Tenet and National Security Council counterterrorism “czar” Richard Clarke both warned its incoming officials that al-Qaeda represented a grave threat. During a transition briefing early that month at Blair House, according to Bob Woodward’s Bush at War, Tenet and his deputy James Pavitt listed Osama bin Laden as one of America’s three most serious national-security challenges. That same month, Clarke presented National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice with a plan he had been working on since al-Qaeda’s attack on the USS Cole the previous October. It called for freezing the network’s assets, closing affiliated charities, funneling money to the governments of Uzbekistan, the Philippines and Yemen to fight al-Qaeda cells in their country, initiating air strikes and covert operations against al-Qaeda sites in Afghanistan, and dramatically increasing aid to the Northern Alliance, which was battling al-Qaeda and the Taliban there.
But both Clarke and Tenet grew deeply frustrated by the way top Bush officials responded. Clarke recounts that when he briefed Rice about al-Qaeda, “her facial expression gave me the impression that she had never heard the term before.” On January 25, Clarke sent Rice a memo declaring that, “we urgently need…a Principals [Cabinet] level review on the al Qida [sic] network.” Instead, Clarke got a sub-cabinet, Deputies level, meeting in April, two months after the one on Iraq.
When that April meeting finally occurred, according to Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz objected that “I just don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden.” Clarke responded that, “We are talking about a network of terrorist organizations called al-Qaeda, that happens to be led by bin Laden, and we are talking about that network because it and it alone poses an immediate and serious threat to the United States.” To which Wolfowitz replied, “Well, there are others that do as well, at least as much. Iraqi terrorism for example.”
By early summer, Clarke was so despondent that he asked to be reassigned. “This administration,” he later testified, “didn’t either believe me that there was an urgent problem or was unprepared to act as though there were an urgent problem.
And so on . . . we all know the story from the 9/11 committee hearings but you can read more about it at The Atlantic. Actually all Trump really said was that Bush was president when 9/11 happened. That’s pretty difficult to deny.
Interestingly, Andrew Kaczynsky points out that Trump actually predicted that something bad was likely to happen: “Over A Year Before 9/11, Trump Wrote Of Terror Threat With Remarkable Clarity.” Read about it at Buzzfeed. Finally, The Hill reports that the DNC is using Beinart’s story in The Atlantic to “bash” poor Jeb. I wonder how much longer he can keep going?
What else is happening? Let us know in the comment thread and have a great day!
Monday Reads
Posted: October 19, 2015 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Benghazi, David Vitter Misttress, Trey Gowdy lies about CIA outing, Trey Gowdy outs Dubya as War Criminal 26 Comments
It’s a beautiful fall day here in New Orleans!
We’re five days out from our state elections here in Louisiana and Diaper David Vitter with his proclivity for using prositutes is once again in the news. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since giving up on my Republican voting status 20 years ago, it’s that sex scandals, religous venom, and lies are what drives today’s Republicans. I’m going to start with the Vitter news and then move to a disgusting story about Trey Gowdy trying to frame former SOS Hillary Clinton for outing a CIA agent. It was pure sheninagans as usual for the S.C. Representative. Thank goodness that Rep. Elijah Cummings serves on the committee and tries to keep it honest! Clinton is scheduled to appear before the Benghazi Witch Hunt Committee this week and the Republicans are eager to tank her candidacy.
So, Louisiana Blogger American Zombie who is most infamous for being the first to expose former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s corruption has been on the hunt for Vitter liasons. His first installment includes a new interview with Wendy Cortez who was the source of a Hustler interview some time ago. This story has evolved over time but Jason Brad Berry says there’s more to come. While many are now finding the story flawed, I still think that more evidence is on the way. Vitter showed up on the DC Madams list. His phone log shows he actually called out for hookers while doing things on the Senate floor. He’s also been shy coming to debates and having living audiences during his run for governor this year.
A married pro-life Republican senator has denied getting his mistress pregnant and asking her to have an abortion.
Senator David Vitter, who is running to become Governor of Louisiana, was sleeping with prostitute Wendy Ellis for three years, she claims, until she fell pregnant in 2000.
Ellis told the American Zombie blog site that she informed the senator the baby was his, but he refused to believe it and asked her to abort the child.
The senator furiously denied the allegations today, with his campaign saying the claims had ‘zero legitimacy’.
So yes, this would be another example of a “pro-life” republican once again applying double standards on when abortions should be legal and available.
Here’s Jason’s story and interview.
Here’s CenLamar–who has worked on stories with Jason–on why he thinks the story is unravelling. I should probably tell you here that I know both Jason and Lamar.
On Saturday, with only a week left before Louisiana voters head to the polls to decide who will become their next governor, Jason Brad Berry of The American Zombie published a bombshell interview with Wendy Ellis, a former prostitute who once sold her story about hooking up with U.S. Sen. David Vitter to Hustler Magazine. Her story has changed, though, dramatically. Today, Ellis says that her relationship with Vitter was much more intimate and much more involved than she previously claimed. But most notably, Ellis now claims she was once pregnant with Vitter’s child and that Vitter, then a Congressman, asked her to get an abortion, which she refused to do. Sen. Vitter’s dalliances with prostitutes are well-known and documented, and his 2007 scandal involving the D.C. Madam has become a flashpoint in the current campaign. But Ellis’s sordid and heartbreaking story unravels completely upon close inspection. Wendy Ellis, also known as Wendy Williams, Wendy Yow, and Wendy Cortez, once served a portion of a ten-year prison sentence for a crime of dishonesty, and she has a track record of making outrageous claims about Sen. Vitter, claims the Senator has repeatedly denied.
To be sure, Sen. Vitter’s past invite people like Wendy Ellis into his orbit, and Louisiana voters should think long and hard about the distractions he would generate if elected governor.
But two wrongs don’t make a right. David Vitter, for all of his faults, is not an irredeemably terrible person simply because he used to pay people to have sex with him. That doesn’t automatically disqualify him from earning a decent living for his family, but it probably should disqualify him from representing Louisiana in the U.S. Senate and living, rent-free, in the Governor’s Mansion.
So, meanwhile, Trey Gowdy is showing exactly how trifling trifling can be. However, this is likely illegal trifling and should bring in to question every piece of evidence the former prosecutor has ever introduced.
Trey Gowdy, the chair of the Select Committee on Benghazi, leveled a very serious charge against Hillary Clinton in an October 7 letter. Gowdy asserted that Hillary Clinton disclosed the name of CIA source in an email sent from her private server. Gowdy wrote that the information was “some of the most protected information in our intelligence community, the release of which could jeopardize not only national security but human lives.”
He should’ve checked with the CIA first.
But late Saturday night, a CIA official informed the committee that the agency does not view that email, among 127 previously undisclosed messages sent by Blumenthal to Clinton that the panel plans to release this week, as having any portions that need to be redacted because they include classified information.
The CIA finding prompted Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the panel’s ranking Democrat, to demand that Gowdy publicly apologize for his “irresponsible” allegation. It was, he charged in a letter released Sunday morning, further evidence that the GOP-led committee is making false charges “in order to attack Secretary Clinton for political reasons.”
Gowdy quickly responded in his own lengthy email, conceding the CIA did not seek any redactions in the Blumenthal email but maintaining that it may still have included information “that ordinarily would be considered highly sensitive.”
Rep. Cummings has been doing a lion’s share of work trying to keep that Committee honest. His website has information on the bogus charge. Cummings has called on the Committee and Gowdy to apologize to SOS Clinton.
Smoking gun emails reveal Blair’s ‘deal in blood’ with George Bush over Iraq war was forged a YEAR before the invasion had even started
Leaked White House memo shows former Prime Minister’s support for war at summit with U.S. President in 2002
Bombshell document shows Blair preparing to act as spin doctor for Bush, who was told ‘the UK will follow our lead’
Publicly, Blair still claimed to be looking for diplomatic solution – in direct contrast to email revelations
New light was shed on Bush-Blair relations by material disclosed by Hillary Clinton at the order of the U.S. courts
That committe has literally turned into the Keystone Cops. In trying to show Hillary Clinton is a bad person, they outed their last president as a war criminal.
The damning memo, from Secretary of State Colin Powell to President George Bush, was written on March 28, 2002, a week before Bush’s famous summit with Blair at his Crawford ranch in Texas.
In it, Powell tells Bush that Blair ‘will be with us’ on military action. Powell assures the President: ‘The UK will follow our lead’.
The disclosure is certain to lead for calls for Sir John Chilcot to reopen his inquiry into the Iraq War if, as is believed, he has not seen the Powell memo.
A second explosive memo from the same cache also reveals how Bush used ‘spies’ in the Labour Party to help him to manipulate British public opinion in favour of the war.
The documents, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, are part of a batch of secret emails held on the private server of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton which U.S. courts have forced her to reveal.
Former Tory Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: ‘The memos prove in explicit terms what many of us have believed all along: Tony Blair effectively agreed to act as a frontman for American foreign policy in advance of any decision by the House of Commons or the British Cabinet.
‘He was happy to launder George Bush’s policy on Iraq and sub-contract British foreign policy to another country without having the remotest ability to have any real influence over it. And in return for what?
‘For George Bush pretending Blair was a player on the world stage to impress voters in the UK when the Americans didn’t even believe it themselves’.
Davis was backed by a senior diplomat with close knowledge of Blair-Bush relations who said: ‘This memo shows beyond doubt for the first time Blair was committed to the Iraq War before he even set foot in Crawford.
‘And it shows how the Americans planned to make Blair look an equal partner in the special relationship to bolster his position in the UK.’
Blair’s spokesman insisted last night that Powell’s memo was ‘consistent with what he was saying publicly at the time’.
The former Prime Minister has always hotly denied the claim that the two men signed a deal ‘in blood’ at Crawford to embark on the war, which started on March 20, 2003.
Lastly, we have Joe Biden’s Presidential Campaign Hope/Death Watch on the agenda. Another 48 hours to wait, folks!!!
Joe Biden could finally be ready to jump into the presidential race. And soon.
Fox News reported Monday morning that the vice president is running.
Yeah, well, I certainly believe Fox News.
Anyway, I’m convinced the world’s gone mad, what about you?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Lazy Saturday Reads: It’s All About Me Me Me! –Joe Biden
Posted: October 17, 2015 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Bernie Sanders, Creepy Uncle Joe, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden 28 Comments
Good Morning!!
I’m sick to death of hearing about Creepy Uncle Joe Biden and his presidential ambitions. If he wanted to run for president in 2016, he should have started long ago. But now he’s doing his very best to overshadow the serious candidates with his months-long dithering about “jumping in” at the last minute.
In the wake of Hillary Clinton’s outstanding debate performance on Tuesday, Washington pundits announced that there was no room for Biden in the race; but one of his top supporters spent Thursday hyping the possibility that Biden could still run and win. He sent out an email to Biden supporters designed to suggest that Biden is running and then leaked the email to the Associated Press. Here’s the whole thing, from CNN: Sen. Ted Kaufman’s email to Biden allies.
Dear friend,
A lot of you are being asked, and have asked me, about the direction and timing of the Vice President’s thinking about a run for President. On the second question – timing – I can’t add much, except I am confident that the Vice President is aware of the practical demands of making a final decision soon. He has been in public and political life a long time and he has a good grip on the mechanics around this decision.
But on the first question, I know him well, and have spoken with him extensively about this issue. It will not surprise you, as it does not surprise me, what he will weigh in the decision and what – being Joe Biden – he will not.
All of you know well that the first and foremost consideration will be the welfare and support of his family. That’s Joe Biden. He has been clear about this and it is as true today as it has been for the past several months. He is determined to take, and to give his family, as much time as possible to work this through.
But then the question is what kind of Presidential campaign he believes he would run, and what kind of President he believes he can be. If he runs, he will run because of his burning conviction that we need to fundamentally change the balance in our economy and the political structure to restore the ability of the middle class to get ahead. And whether we can a political consensus in America to get it done
And what kind of campaign? An optimistic campaign. A campaign from the heart. A campaign consistent with his values, our values, and the values of the American people. And I think it’s fair to say, knowing him as we all do, that it won’t be a scripted affair– after all, it’s Joe.
He believes we must win this election. Everything he and the President have worked for — and care about — is at stake.
I know in the daily ups and down of the political swirl, we all get bombarded with the tactics. So sometimes it’s good to take a step back and get real again. Let’s stay in touch. If he decides to run, we will need each and every one of you — yesterday!
Ted
And so Biden’s dithering dominated yesterday’s news cycle.
Here’s the Wall Street Journal’s take on the Biden non-decision:
Vice President Joe Biden is expected to announce in the coming days whether he will enter the presidential race and, at this point, signs point to him running for the Democratic nomination, people familiar with the matter said.
Mr. Biden has been making a final round of phone calls to political allies this week, locking down their support and talking through his prospects in key states, people with knowledge of the calls said. He has been focusing on Democratic operatives and officials in states holding early contests—Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina—asking about “the way forward,” one person said.
The vice president has been wrestling with the question for months, weighing whether he and his family are emotionally ready for the rigors of the campaign so soon after the death of Mr. Biden’s son Beau. The Biden family, which has long played a central role in his campaigns, has signed off on what would be his third White House bid, people familiar with the matter said.
Mr. Biden could still pull back, however, if he concludes he is too shaken by his son’s death to mount a campaign. Another consideration for Mr. Biden: the fortunes of front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Does anyone really believe that Biden is still “wrestling” with his “emotions” over his son Beau’s death at this point? Frankly, Biden’s behavior is beginning to look like unseemly exploitation of his family’s grief.
I like Gawker’s interpretation of the email best. Breaking News: Joe Biden Still Available, If You’re Interested, by Chris Thompson.
Joe Biden has sent you an email. But, because he’s an addled old man and a politician, he did it in the stupidest possible way.
First, he had this other guy, Ted Kaufman, write it, and instructed Kaufman to talk about him in the third person. Then, instead of sending it directly to you, he had Kaufman send it to a circle of other people, while specifically leaving the intended target of the email (you) off the list. And then, to make extra sure you got it, via this ridiculous, circuitous route, he had Kaufman give the email to another group, the Associated Press, also not on the list, but who he could trust to get it, finally, to you.
So that’s how the Associate Press wound up with this email—ostensibly from Ted Kaufman, seemingly intended for a small circle of people for whom it will have no value—which they are now tasked with presenting to you, the intended recipient of the email, in as breathless a fashion as possible.
But not by email! Instead, by posting the details of the email—but not the email itself! still not the email—in a published story that would be picked up and circulated among other publications, so that you would eventually see it and read it. “APNewsBreak: Top Biden aide lays out potential 2016 platform,” wink wink.
And he did all this with the bizarre intention that you, the intended recipient of the email, would think that the information in the email was not intended for you.
Read the rest at Gawker.
In reaction to yesterday’s Biden push, Howard Fineman wrote at Huffington Post: We’re Watching The Long Whatever Of Joe Biden.
At least one thing has been decided: Joe Biden has retired the trophy for candidate indecision.
A weary Washington has been driven batty by the vice president’s “I’m in, I’m out, I’m in again” agonizing about whether to enter the 2016 presidential contest. He has given us either the longest goodbye since Bogart in “Casablanca” or the longest hello since Castro in Havana.
People were bound to lose patience, even before the boffo performances by both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in Tuesday night’s debate, not to mention Martin O’Malley’s debut as a BuzzFeed-certified hunk.
It’s finally dawned on Biden World that they’ve run out of time. A statement is expected any minute, hour or day now….
Biden’s former chief of staff and longtime Sancho Panza, ex-Sen. Ted Kaufman, sent Biden’s friends and allies a letter to calm them as the dramatic moment approached. He assured the troops that, if the vice president indeed were to run, he would do so in the name of the middle class — as well as in memory of his son Beau, who died of cancer in May.
But the decision slog has focused mostly on Joe Biden himself. No talk of an actual agenda. No hint of his assessment of the candidates already in the race. No talk of what the Democrats really need in order to secure a third-straight term in the White House. Instead, we’ve been shown a saga of grief and inspiration, with Biden offering soulful public updates on the condition of his political heart.
Other writers have pointed out some of the practical drawbacks of a Biden run.
James Oliphant at Reuters: Obama’s foreign policy could burden Biden if he runs in 2016.
Leigh Ann Caldwell at NBC News: Joe Biden Bid for White House Would Begin in a $60-Million Hole.
But Nick Gillespie gets to the real nitty-gritty at The Daily Beast: Joe Biden, Narc in Chief. In a country that badly needs a future, Biden is stuck in the past.
Americans may not get along all that well these days, but on this much we should find common cause: Biden would be a terrible president.
Weird Uncle Joe isn’t just a decades-long punchline and perpetual-gaffe machine—his political ideas are even older than his advanced years (he’s 72). Whether it’s plumping for unsustainable old-age entitlements or leading the charge on the drug war, Biden represents the past, not the future.
Gillespie claims Biden is still viable because of supposed shortcomings of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders,
…even though his odd behavior and logorrhea are legendary. Last year, The Daily Show went to town on “creepy” Joe’s semi-chokehold on Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s wife during a swearing-in ceremony; the veep pulled the same trick on various pre-pubescent daughters of random senators too. Fully half of the internet is taken up with lists of Biden gaffes, which range from the bizarre (“You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent”) to the more-bizarre (Obama, he averred, is “articulate and bright and clean and a good-looking guy…that’s a storybook, man”) to the please-god-make-it-stop (“I’d rather be at home making love to my wife while my children are asleep”).
Beyond the eww factor, his loose talk about “Shylocks,” “Orientals,” and disgraced sexual harasser and former Senator Bob Packwood during a commemoration of the passage of The Violence Against Women Act is difficult to simply laugh off. As is his truly disturbing record of plagiarism and lying.
During his failed presidential campaign in 1988, Biden had to cop not only to getting an F during his law school days for cheating but to having ripped off speeches by John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey. Even more amazingly, Biden cribbed biographical details from British Labour politician Neil Kinnock, including lines about ancestors who “would come up [from coal mines] after 12 hours and play football.” What kind of politician plagiarizes not simply other people’s word but other people’s lives? That’s not a storybook, man, that’s a nutjob.
There’s more disturbing stuff at the link.
I’ve included photos of some of Creepy Uncle Joe’s cringe-inducing public behavior toward women, girls, men, and boys in this post. Here’s a must-read 2012 article about touchy-feely Joe from The New York Times: What are we going to do about Creepy Uncle Joe Biden? by Alexandra Petrie. It’s satire, but very on-point, IMO.
Finally, if Joe decides to run, Anita Hill is going to be an issue, as Edward Isaac Dovere wrote at Politico in September: Joe Biden’s Anita Hill problem.
If Joe Biden gets into the presidential race, allies and supporters of Hillary Clinton say there are just two words that will make a difference as he seeks support among women and African-Americans: Anita Hill.
Nearly 24 years have passed since the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in which Hill, a respected law professor, was grilled under oath about alleged inappropriate sexual behavior by Thomas, her former boss. The graphic testimony gripped Washington and the country and spurred intense public conversations about sex, harassment and the nominee’s charge of being subjected to a “high-tech lynching for uppity blacks.”
Biden’s done a lot over the past 24 years, including authoring the landmark Violence Against Women Act and leading its four reauthorizations. But that hasn’t erased the memories of how Biden presided over those hearings as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, blamed for doing little to stop the attacks on Hill and opting not to call three other witnesses who would have echoed Hill’s charges of sexual harassment. Biden almost apologetically gave Thomas the benefit of the doubt, critics say, and that stance helped put Thomas on the Supreme Court.
Ever since, for many women and blacks, Hill’s name conjures an image of a black woman struggling under attack by a dozen powerful white men asking aggressive questions and questioning her character.
Friday Reads: Walking Dead Edition
Posted: October 16, 2015 Filed under: 2016 elections, morning reads | Tags: Bobby Jindal, Campaign Death Watch, campaign donations, Jeb Bush 36 Comments
Happy Friday! It’s still October!
I’m going to binge on all things Halloween for awhile because I refuse to acknowledge the onslaught of National Crass Consumerism Season which overtakes all Autumn Holidays. Tis the season for me refusing to buy anything but the basics because I don’t want to encourage the takeover of all things autumnal.
The campaign trail continues to heat up and there’s been a death watch put out for two republican candidates. The first one is my disastrous Governor Bobby Jindal. The second one is for the abysmally dull Jeb Bush. The Republican field is narrowing down to people that are really unfit to govern at all and all Republican establishment eyes appear to be turning to dim, inexperienced, and very flip floppy Marco Rubio. But, let’s go wallow in the Bobby Jindal death knell awhile.
The Louisiana governor’s campaign reported having just $260,000 to spend at the end of September after raising a little over half a million dollars and spending significantly more than that in the third quarter. It’s a paltry sum compared to his rivals, and if Jindal can’t jumpstart his White House bid soon, he could be headed the way of Rick Perry and Scott Walker, who ended their campaigns when their coffers ran dry.
Jindal’s been such a disaster for Louisiana it appears that a few Democrats actually have a chance in statewide elections including the race against David Vitter for Governor. Sean Illing refers to this as our “nasty Bobby Jindal hangover”. Could this be the year that Blue Dog Democrats make a come back? 
The GOP is in serious trouble as a national political party. Demographic shifts, a crisis-driven conservative media and an ungovernable congressional caucus have tarnished the Republican brand. Increasingly, the GOP’s base is confined to the south and to pockets of rural America. But even in a conservative state like Louisiana, Republicans are being challenged by Democratic candidates. While it’s unlikely that Louisiana becomes a blue state anytime soon, there are some compelling indicators that the political winds are shifting.
First, you have the emerging gubernatorial race, which is far more competitive than many thought possible. The Democratic candidate, John Bel Edwards, is now leadingthe former Republican frontrunner, David Vitter, by a substantial margin. “
It’s almost laboratory conditions in Louisiana for Democrats,” James Carville told Salon in an exclusive interview. “You have a horrifically unpopular incumbent governor [Bobby Jindal] and the likely Republican survivor [Vitter] is one of the most flawed candidates in American politics.”
Against the backdrop of Jindal’s tenure (which began with an $865 million surplus and ended with a $1.6 billion budget deficit) and the GOP’s broader image problem, things set up perfectly for Louisiana Democrats.
In addition to the gubernatorial race, there is also the campaign for Louisiana Secretary of State. The Democratic candidate is Chris Tyson, a young progressive who many, including Carville, believe has a bright future in national politics – although Tyson himself insists his “immediate concern is winning this election.” A Baton Rouge native, Tyson would be the first African-American elected statewide in Louisiana since Reconstruction. As yet there is very little polling data, but that which exists shows the race extremely tight.
That the race is close at all is remarkable. Tyson’s Republican opponent, incumbent Tom Schedler, was thought unbeatable by most observers of Louisiana’s politics, but that’s no longer the case.
Carville, who follows Louisiana politics as closely as anyone, expected a competitive race. The Republican Party is reeling nationally, he noted, and “Chris is a once in a generation candidate…He’s a progressive Democrat in Louisiana, but he’s also the son of a federal judge, a former small business owner, a law professor, a community activist and a graduate of Howard, Harvard and Georgetown University.” Tyson may not win this election, Carville added, but “it’ll be interesting to watch because it’s a good barometer of what’s possible in this political climate…The deck couldn’t be stacked more in the Democrats’ favor.”
I watched the debate between the four candidates running for govenor and basically wanted to sell the kathouse and head for the safety of a blue state. However, none of them could ever be as worse for the state than Jindal. At least their open to addressing some of the problems we have in the state with something other than naked ambition in mind. So, Jindal is building a huge house in Baton Rouge. We won’t be completely rid of him but it seems he’s gone from public life shortly.
Jeb Bush’s campaign slashed hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries over the last three months as the struggling candidate’s fundraising machine slowed to a more middling pace, new campaign-finance reports indicate.
No longer able to raise unlimited sums with his super PAC, Bush hauled in $13.4 million in the third quarter of the year for his campaign. That’s more than all of his GOP rivals except Ben Carson. But Bush also spent more than many of them, leaving him with about as much money in the bank as Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz has more.
Bush’s campaign once saw its size and staff as its strength. But the newly released campaign-finance reports indicate it could be a liability if fundraising slacks further.
More than 60 Bush staffers might have had their salaries cut or their positions changed to reduce their income, compared with the second quarter of the year when Bush announced his candidacy, the campaign-finance reports show. The campaign did not want to discuss the numbers. But the pay cuts, depending on whether the salaries are divided on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, could have saved the campaign anywhere from $450,000 to nearly $900,000 per quarter, according to a POLITICO analysis of the campaign’s payroll. The cuts have ranged from the small for some staffers ($12 a week) to large reductions for four of the top campaign chiefs who each took a $75,000 pay cut.
YouGov describes Bush’s campaign as “faltering”.
He was once the clear frontrunner for the GOP 2016 presidential nomination. Then, while candidates like Donald Trump emerged, he was still seen by many Republicans as the likely nominee. But now former Florida Governor Jeb Bush runs behind Trump, neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Bush is just about tied with Texas Senator Ted Cruz and businesswomen Carly Fiorina in the latestEconomist/YouGov Poll.
Red State has officially put him on Death Watch. (Not linking to it. Won’t do it. Wouldn’t be prudent at this juncture.)
There is also some talk about no one liking Chris Christie. This includes his home state. He should be on death watch too except no one cares about him any more.
Meanwhile, the Biden Will-he-or-Won’t-he? obsession of the national media continues.
Former Delaware Sen. Ted Kaufman, one of Biden’s closest political advisers, said Biden would soon make a decision about whether to enter the race. In an email obtained by The Associated Press, Kaufman asked former staffers to stay in close contact and said Biden would need their help immediately if he enters the race.
“If he runs, he will run because of his burning conviction that we need to fundamentally change the balance in our economy and the political structure to restore the ability of the middle class to get ahead,” Kaufman said.
Calls within the Democratic Party for Biden to run have been growing for months, fueled largely by concerns that front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign was faltering under the weight of an email scandal and declining popularity. But Clinton’s commanding performance Tuesday in the first Democratic debate, coupled with Biden’s seemingly endless delays in making a decision, have put a damper on the speculation in recent days, with top Democratic leaders questioning whether it’s too late for Biden.
Kaufman’s letter to former Biden aides marked an attempt by the vice president to signal he’s still very much considering running and shouldn’t be written off. It also served to reinforce the notion that Clinton isn’t the only Democrat who could run in part on a promise to lock in policies that Obama has advanced during his two terms.
“He believes we must win this election,” Kaufman said. “Everything he and the president have worked for — and care about — is at stake.”
Clinton and her top rival in the race, Sen. Bernie Sanders, have been campaigning for months and have raised tens of millions of dollars, giving them a huge head start that would make it tough for Biden to mount a viable challenge. The first filing deadlines in some states are just weeks away and Biden currently has no operation in key states. Alluding to those concerns, Kaufman said Biden was “aware of the practical demands of making a final decision soon.”
Has any one ever seen a whackier campaign season or is it just me? So, establishment Republican donors appear to be stumped or Trumped, depending how you wanna look at it. I’m thinking that SuperPacs may
actually have a huge effect in the race because the traditional campaigns don’t seem to be flush with cash right now.
“You could have this big super PAC, but if you have limited momentum and limited money to keep the campaign going, it’s like the guy at the top of Mount Everest with two broken legs and an extra oxygen tank,” said Republican strategist Matthew Dowd. “You’re living longer, but you’re not going anywhere.”
One of the challenges for Bush and other GOP hopefuls has been the dominance of real-estate impresario Donald Trump, who has siphoned off much of the enthusiasm in the base. The businessman raised $3.8 million, even though he has pledged to self-fund his campaign and is not soliciting contributions.
“Donald Trump has basically stultified the fundraising for these candidates,” said Anthony Scaramucci, who had been Walker’s national finance co-chair and is now backing Bush. “He’s the Trump speed bump. His ratcheting up in the polls has made it very difficult for more establishment Republicans to get traction with donors.”
In all, six Democratic candidates reported raising $123.2 million for their campaign committees so far this year, while 15 GOP candidates pulled in $143.5 million overall.
Clinton and Sanders together had $60.1 million on hand at the end of September. Meanwhile, the 15 Republicans combined reported having $61.2 million in the bank.
Meanwhile, the first primary happens in February. Who knows what will come and go between then and now?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Live Blog: The Morning After
Posted: October 14, 2015 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics 51 Comments
The Villagers have weighed in, and they mostly admit that Hillary won last night’s debate going away. Here are a few links I’ve been reading.
Dana Millbank: Hillary Clinton towers over her debate rivals.
Politico: Insiders: A runaway victory for Clinton. After her performance in the first presidential debate, six in 10 Democrats say Joe Biden should not run.
Seventy-nine percent of Democratic insiders surveyed said she dominated her four opponents onstage. Fifty-four percent of Republicans said the same. “Not even close,” an unaffiliated New Hampshire Democrat said. “Hillary crushed it tonight.”
“I think that everyone walked into this debate looking for her to make a mistake, and she didn’t,” an Iowa Democrat said. “On top of that, Sanders’ lack of preparation showed, and O’Malley was trying too hard to look presidential to be effective.”
Marveled a New Hampshire Republican, “She stood out as a leader, charismatic and personal. It may have been an out-of-body experience.”
John Heilemann: Hillary Clinton Runs the Table in Vegas Debate. Simply put, the Democratic front-runner put her competition to shame.
Mark Halperin: Grading the Democratic Debate: Hillary Clinton Schools Her Rivals
Margaret Talev: What the Democratic Debate Means for Joe Biden.
The Guardian: Democratic debate: Clinton remains in command as Sanders stumbles on guns – as it happened.
Politico: Clinton crushes it.
Jonathan Chait: The Hillary Clinton Panic May Have Just Ended. (F-you, Chait!)
What are you reading and hearing?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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