For the first time since she announced her candidacy for POTUS, the media spend two days noticing that Hillary Clinton is winning in the national and state polls and with many experts–including Republicans–who know what it takes to be President and Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces. That ended yesterday after Hillary answered questions from “journalists” at a meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Two of the “journalists” asked about her emails and about why everyone supposedly hates her.
In Friday’s press questioning, the trouble began when she was asked her first question about her private email server and recent statements about that server which independent fact checkers have labeled as categoricallyuntrue. Clinton’s responses here—and her previous responses to questions about the truthfulness of past statements—are so overly legalistic and convoluted that they are difficult to even explain. But here’s a shot.
Last month, Fox News’ Chris Wallace asserted to Clinton that FBI Director James Comey said her public statements about which documents on her private email server were classified and which were not were untrue. In actuality, Comey declined to address the truthfulness or lack of truthfulness of those statements in Congressional testimony on the matter. But in announcing his investigation into her server—which cleared Clinton of any wrongdoing—Comey implied that she had either misled the American public about her poor handling of material she should have known was classified information, or been incompetent in doing so. “Even if information is not marked ‘classified’ in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it,” he said. Clinton had previously claimed: “I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time. I had not sent classified material nor received anything marked classified.”
In response to Wallace’s question claiming that Comey had said she was not telling the truth, Clinton said this: “Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails.”
painting by Gerrit Albertus Beneker
But the “fact checkers” say she’s lying. And of course this is so much more important than the idea of Donald Trump having access to the nuclear codes or that he is likely being manipulated by Vladimir Putin. It makes no difference to the media that Hillary did nothing criminal, that she will not be indicted, and never was even in danger of being indicted. Her emails are the only “issue” that matters to those in the DC media bubble. Read the rest of the article at the link if you are interested in intense parsing of every word that comes out of Hillary’s mouth.
At least Pierce admits that most voters don’t give a flying fuck about her emails. They voted for her by the millions in the primaries and she is way ahead in the polls. This should be a dead issue. But it will never die. Pierce also draws attention to another question that Hillary was forced to answer yesterday–in so many words, “why does everyone hate you?”
…she sat for questions, which is the closest she’s come to an actual press conference in over 200 days, something that’s been the topic of insufferable whining from our elite political press. Said whining was represented ably by Ed O’Keefe of The Washington Post, who prefaced his question by being fairly snotty.
“We encourage you to do this more often with reporters across the country, especially those news organizations that travel the country with you wherever you go.”
Tough guy.
Pierce left out O’Keefe’s actual question which was a demand for her to answer why people think she’s so untrustworthy, and how can she possibly lead the nation when that’s the case. Gee, I wonder why Hillary chooses not to give press conferences?!
But Pierce has no mercy on Clinton for her response the the email question. He quotes part of her answer and then writes:
That is not within an area code of satisfactory.
Hell, it’s barely in the neighborhood of English. It is legalistic gobbledegook. You can turn an ankle trying to get from premise to conclusion in that tangled thicket of weaselspeak. It ought not to matter at this point, and it never has mattered all that much to me, but, Lord above, if HRC and her people ever wonder why her trust numbers are so abysmal, they ought to read back her answer to that question.
That’s the way you talk when the mule you sold somebody died on the way home.
Remember, folks, we are talking about emails after it has become clear that Hillary did nothing different from previous Secretaries of State and thousands of other government officials whose emails have not been examined. Furthermore we’re talking about it after the case has already been decided in Hillary’s favor. Finally, James Comey (a Republican) is not the final arbiter on what is or should be classified, and he went against DOJ rules when he spoke publicly about the case.
When Hillary Clinton told her audience at a rally in Las Vegas on Thursday “Here’s what I believe,” she punctuated those words with not just a vocal flourish but a physical one. Up went her hand, placed over her heart.
It’s a gesture unfamiliar from her past campaigns, but it’s a favorite this time around. In Columbus, Ohio, and Omaha, Mrs. Clinton spoke of her late father, and up went her hand, placed over her heart.
At the Democratic National Convention, when she took the stage to wild applause, she cued the audience on how grateful, moved and humbled she felt by putting her hand to her heart, once, twice, then a third and fourth time.
It’s a subliminal message of sincerity that some language experts consider contrived.
Bill McGowan, a communications coach and chief executive of Clarity Media Group, calls the hand-on-heart motion “the gesture du jour.” He said he has noticed that other politicians have adopted the habit, and he doesn’t think it’s entirely artless.
“Voters are more and more wise to the fact that speeches are carefully constructed and vetted, yet at the same time there is so much demand for a higher level of authenticity,” Mr. McGowan said. “Candidates are looking for anything that makes them seem like they are speaking genuinely from the heart, and not from a thoroughly vetted key message document.”
Oh my God! Putting her hand on her heart? She’s the Devil! Has anyone ever written an article like this about Donald Trump’s hand gestures?
I wish I could stop caring so much about the media’s treatment of Hillary Clinton, but I can’t. I hate what they are doing to her. Anyway here are some antidotes to the media hatred.
Peter Daou also posted a stunning and insulting CNN interview with Hillary in 1996 that shows how far back the media harassment of her goes.
In his piece on the video, Daou quotes Melissa McEwan:
The thing we have to understand about these interviews is that they’re not about trying to establish facts about Hillary’s fundamental truthfulness or integrity. They’re about an attempt to hurt her on camera and capture her pain. The persistent exploration of negative feelings toward Hillary is about shaming her, about replicating the visceral responses many people have to women seeking power.
In the past week, like every week before it, the national media have worked overtime to convince the public that Hillary is a liar, continuing their interminable obsession with her State Dept. emails. Even while she’s leading her unhinged opponent by wide margins, they continue to characterize her as a loser….
Now we get this inane and insulting piece from the New York Times rehashing the stale “Hillary is inauthentic” narrative….
Got it? She’s “contrived.” According to our national media, nothing Hillary says or does is real. She’s just a cold, robotic, scheming, lying ambition machine.
• CALCULATING (Scheming, crafty, manipulative)
• SECRETIVE (Suspicious, paranoid, uncommunicative) • POLARIZING(Divisive, alienating) • UNTRUSTWORTHY (Corrupt, deceitful, dishonest, unethical)
• OVER-AMBITIOUS (Will do or say anything to win)
• INAUTHENTIC (Disingenuous, fake, unlikable, insincere)
• INHUMAN (Machine-like, robotic, abnormal, cold)
• OVER-CONFIDENT (Inevitable, defiant, imperious, regal)
• OLD (Out of touch, represents the past)
Now think about the profoundly misplaced priorities of the NY Times (and other major media outlets) whose singular mission is to mangle Hillary’s public image even as we face the possibility of a Trump presidency.
It boggles the mind.
Exactly what do there “journalists” want Hillary to do? Would they be satisfied if she got down on her knees on stage and cried for mercy? I doubt it. Do they want her to withdraw from the race for POTUS and cede the presidency to Donald Trump? Do they want her to be flogged in the the public square and then tarred and feathered? I honestly don’t think anything would satisfy them.
Please post your thoughts and links on any topic in the comment thread and have a great weekend!
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I hardly know where to begin this morning. Yesterday was one of the strangest days I’ve experienced in my 56 years of following politics. The day began with multiple reports that the Trump campaign was melting down, that campaign staffers are “suicidal,” that campaign manager Paul Manafort has given up and is “mailing it in” because Trump doesn’t listen to advice from anyone. RNC Chair Reince Priebus was reported to be “apoplectic” over Trump’s attacks on the Kahn family and especially his refusal to support GOP Candidates Paul Ryan, John McCain, and Kelly Ayotte.
“I’ll have to be very careful here,” Scarborough said slowly. “Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on international level went to advise Donald Trump, and three times he asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked, at one point, ‘If we have them, why can’t we use them?’ That’s one of the reasons why he just doesn’t have foreign policy experts around him.”
Scarborough, previously a Republican congressman from Florida, clearly startled his colleagues with this story. “Trump,” asked a nonplussed Mike Barnicle. “Trump asked three times?” “Three times, in an hour briefing,” confirmed Scarborough. “Why can’t we use nuclear weapons?”
On the same program General Michael Hayden, former director of both the CIA and NSA, explained why he can’t vote for Trump. Think Progress:
Hayden also expressed concern about “how erratic” Trump is.
“I can argue about this position or that position — I do that with the current president,” Hayden said. “But he’s inconsistent. And when you’re the head of a global super power, inconsistency, unpredictability, those are dangerous things. They frighten your friends and they tempt your enemies. And so, I would be very concerned.”
Asked which people in the national security community are advising Trump, Hayden said, “No one.” And in response to a question about what steps might stand in the way of Trump using nukes if he’s elected president, Hayden said, “The system is designed for speed and decisiveness. It’s not designed to debate the decision.”
During the course of the day yesterday, news outlets reported that an effort was under way to stage an “intervention” to convince Trump that he has been damaging his campaign with his attacks on a gold star family and on fellow Republicans and that he needs to focus on Hillary Clinton as well as broadening his appeal to voters outside his crazy base. The “intervention” team was supposed to consist of Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, and Reince Pribus.
Donald Trump is not having any sort of “intervention” with the likes of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Giuliani said Thursday, pointing to Gingrich as the source of the term.
“So first of all I find the word intervention completely out of line,” Giuliani said during a discussion on Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria.”
Giuliani then singled out Gingrich specifically.
“That word, I think, honestly I love him dearly, but I think that word was used by Newt in a memo that got around,” Giuliani said. ” What a ridiculous word. An intervention is for a drug addict and it’s for someone who’s an alcoholic and I’ve had to do them with people at times. There’s nothing wrong with them, if that’s the case. Donald Trump doesn’t drink or smoke, by the way. We don’t have that problem.”
NBC News first reported Wednesday that the trio close to Trump were hoping to push the GOP nominee into a reset of his campaign after a calamitous week that led to a subsequent drop in the polls and high-profile Republicans defecting to Hillary Clinton.
All of this is happening just a little over two weeks after Trump accepted the GOP nomination! And on Tuesday, much of the public discussion was about Trump’s mental health, capped off by a discussion with clinical psychologist George Simon on MSNBC’s The Last Word, in which it was decided that Trump probably has a personality disorder. Simon calls it “character disturbance.” Whatever is wrong with Trump, many more people in the media and public office are beginning to notice and express concern.
Republican donors weren’t expecting a traditional campaign from Donald Trump, but they weren’t expecting the level of this week’s implosion either.
“I don’t know what he’s doing — trying to commit suicide?” said Stan Hubbard, a Minnesota-based top donor to a pro-Trump super PAC. Hubbard has been trying to get other Republican donors, including Charles and David Koch, on board with Donald Trump for months.
But he said Trump’s recent comments, in particular those about the parents of a Muslim American soldier who died in the Iraq War, were “just nonsense,” adding that he sent Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus a note pleading with him to do something. “The whole world is laughing at that. It’s just very frustrating.”
Although Trump’s campaign and the RNC announced raising $80 million in July, the candidate’s rolling implosion has been felt. He’s continued to engage in attacks on the Khan family, refused to endorse Paul Ryan and John McCain, and suggested Russia should hack Hillary Clinton’s email. A high-profile Republican — Meg Whitman — has said she will not only donate to Clinton, but encourage friends to do so as well.
Prospective donors are now having second thoughts about getting involved, while those who convinced themselves to get behind Trump, like Hubbard, are at their wits’ end over the presidential nominee’s behavior.
Reports on other concerned Republican donors at the link.
Amid a pileup of self-made political disruptions, mounting Republican defections and internal staff exasperation, Donald Trump is proving himself to be a candidate running a presidential race all by his lonesome.
With little regard for the GOP’s future, he continues to antagonize its most prominent elected officials. With an uncontrollable proclivity for tumbling into a tangent on any given target – no matter the time, relevance or risk – he regularly relinquishes control of a media message. Having no capacity to absorb even the slightest political attack, he is constantly lured into petty fights that place him on the wrong side of public opinion. And with little reverence for seasoned political advice, he alienates even those who want to see him recover and succeed.
Trump is a party of one – a candidate embarking on his quixotic and increasingly improbable quest for the presidency without a compass or a map, without a front-line defense shield or significant reinforcements, and always and forever without any regrets.
Even the Lone Ranger rode a horse named Silver; Trump seems quite content to traipse ahead on his own two feet.
And check this out:
When Trump landed in Ashburn, Virginia, on Tuesday – a state in which he has yet to open a campaign office – he huddled backstage with Will Estrada, chairman of the Loudoun County Republican Committee, for advice on how to carry the crucial area.
“George, these people here in Virginia know what we need to do to win Virginia,” Trump told his advance aide, George Gigicos, according to Estrada’s recollection posted on his personal Facebook page.
But Trump also unleashed another line that reverberated with those in the setting, U.S. News has learned: “Don’t listen to New York.”
The message conveyed was that going forward, Trump wanted local leadership to make the decisions on where to hold events and how to stage them – not the suits at high command in Trump Tower.
According to Catanese the only people Trump might listen to are his children and his son-in-law Jared Kushner; but it’s not clear he’ll listen to them if they try to interfere with his own ego-driven decisions.
I showed great self-restraint yesterday by not posting the latest poll numbers, but today is Wednesday, which is officially the middle of the week. So here’s the latest from Pollster, based entirely on post-convention polls:
Hillary Clinton’s convention bounce will almost certainly fade a bit by next week, but even if it does she’ll remain 4 to 5 points ahead of Trump. This is roughly the same as her lead before the conventions, which suggests that this year’s four-day infomercials probably had no net effect at all.
A spate of new polling shows that the initial evidence of a significant post-convention bounce for Hillary Clinton is looking like it COULD become a sturdy lead for the Democratic nominee. A new Franklin and Marshall College poll of Pennsylvania shows Clinton with an 11 point lead over Trump, 49 percent to 38 percent. A Detroit News/WDIV-TV poll of Michigan voters finds a nine point lead for the former secretary of state, 41 percent to 32 percent. And a freshWBUR/MassINC poll this morning shows Clinton opening up a 15 point lead over the GOP nominee in New Hampshire, 47 percent to 32 percent. Add that to national polls this week from NBC News|SurveyMonkey (Clinton +8), CNN/ORC(Clinton +9) and FOX News (Clinton +10). Bottom line: Trump couldn’t have picked a worse week to have a DISASTROUS week. Clinton was already in the midst of a convention bump, and Trump exacerbated it with his series of unforced errors and unnecessary fights. The next question: How does the Trump campaign react in the next week, when even more national and state polls are likely to show a similar gap between the two candidates?
Clinton is now far ahead of Trump in Michigan, according to The Detroit News.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has widened her lead over Republican Donald Trump in Michigan as 3-in-5 likely voters say the New York businessman is not qualified to be president, according to a new poll conducted for The Detroit News and WDIV-TV.
Clinton led Trump 41 percent to 32 percent in the statewide survey of 600 likely voters conducted Saturday through Monday following Clinton’s formal nomination at last week’s Democratic National Convention.
The poll contains many troubling signs for Trump’s White House campaign, including a “shocking” lead for Clinton in the Republican strongholds of west and southwest Michigan, pollster Richard Czuba said.
Sixty-one percent of likely general election voters said Trump is ill-prepared to be the nation’s commander-in-chief. The figure grows to 67 percent among women, a group with whom Trump performs poorly. Clinton has a commanding 21-percentage-point lead among female voters.
In New Hampshire, where Hillary is now leading Trump by 15 points, GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte has fallen 10 points behind Democrat Maggie Hassan! That is huge. Obviously, we can’t get overconfident, but I really don’t believe Trump is capable of suddenly becoming a sane, reasonable candidate who can at least fake acting presidential.
What else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a tremendous Thursday!
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MECHANICSBURG, Penn. — Donald Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric against Hillary Clinton once again on Monday, telling a rowdy crowd in battleground-state Pennsylvania that she was “the devil” — a temporary departure from the “Crooked Hillary” moniker.
Speaking about former Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, Trump said the Vermont senator “made a deal with the devil. She’s the devil. He made a deal with the devil.”
Trump also bragged about his very weak fund-raising prowess.
Trump, who constantly reminded that he was “self-funding” his campaign throughout the primaries, bragged while previewing his July fundraising totals.
“It’s gonna be announced tomorrow or the next day: we’ve raised, we think, about $35.8 million. This is unheard of for Republicans, $35.8 million,” Trump said.
While the haul certainly shows a much-needed uptick for the Trump campaign’s fundraising efforts, “unheard of” it is not: In 2012, GOP nominee Mitt Romney raised just over $101 million in July of that year.
In his appearances yesterday, Trump appeared even more out of control than usual. Olivia Nuzzi at The Daily Beast: 15 Hours of Donald Trump’s Lies.
The lying started at 7:27 a.m. and did not stop until after dark.
Even for Donald Trump, Monday, Aug. 1, was a banner day for bullshit.
With 100 days until Election Day, the Republican presidential nominee decisively rejected suggestions that he make some attempt to appear statesmanlike in his campaign against Hillary Clinton, opting to commit fully to the erraticism and dishonesty that characterized his performance in the Republican primary.
Typed into the ether on Twitter, shouted at the people of Columbus, Ohio, at a town hall, or yodeled at a rally to the cable cameras and citizens of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the steady stream of nonsense could not be corked….
Read all the sorry details at the link.
Oh, and Trump ended his long day of lies by eating Kentucky Fried Chicken with a knife and fork.
Great afternoon in Ohio & a great evening in Pennsylvania – departing now. See you tomorrow Virginia! pic.twitter.com/jQTQYBFpdb
This op-ed by Kathy Sullivan, former chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, comes from the ultra-conservative Manchester Union Leader (!): Donald Trump’s weekend of lies.
ON THE LAST DAY of the Democratic National Convention, three of us went to lunch at a local Irish pub near our hotel. After thanking us for stopping by, the owner told us he would never vote for Donald Trump. He knew three small contractors Trump stiffed on his Atlantic City project. None were paid in full. One got less than 50 cents on the dollar. Another was never paid at all. He lost his house.
That night, Khizr Khan gave his now widely covered remarks regarding the loss of his son, a young Muslim American Army officer, in Iraq. A better man than Donald Trump would have said, I appreciate the sacrifice the Khans made, and that is all I have to say. Instead, when asked what sacrifices he had made, Trump falsely equated working hard at his business career with the death of Capt. Humayun Khan in the service of his country. He also made the stupid statement that perhaps Mrs. Khan had not been “allowed” to speak.
Faced with outraged condemnation, Trump just could not shut up. The next day he said Mr. Khan had no right to stand on stage and say things about him. Then, extending his losing streak another day, he tweeted that Mr. Khan had “viciously attacked” him, and asked if he was not allowed to respond.
Yes, Donald, you may respond. Keep it up, so America can see who you are.
A passing conversation in a bar, and Trump’s reaction to Mr. Khan’s speech, may not seem to have a lot in common. But they both show Trump’s contempt for ordinary Americans. Whether it is Donald ducking bills, or disrespecting the parents of a dead soldier, he does not care for us. In 1984, Trump served on a commission to erect a Vietnam War Memorial in New York. Two commission members told the Washington Post at the time that Trump had only attended two of the more than 20 meetings. Trump’s response to the criticism? “They’re very small thinkers. They’re stockbrokers that were in Vietnam, and they don’t have it.” “It” apparently was Trump’s word for his own self-perceived magnetism. Instead of explaining his attendance record, Trump attacked his critics as veterans without “it” who worked in the financial sector. The insulting attack does not even make sense. By the way, if you are a stockbroker who served in Vietnam? Don’t vote for Trump.
After delivering a standard stump speech, Pence took audience questions at a room inside a Carson City, Nevada, casino.
The second question came from 52-year-old Catherine Byrne, whose son serves in the U.S. Air Force. Byrne asked Pence about Trump’s treatment of Muslim parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son, a decorated Army veteran, was killed in Iraq in 2004.
“Will there ever be a point in time when you’re able to look Trump in the eye and tell him enough is enough?” she asked Pence, prompting boos from the crowd.
Pence asked the crowd to quiet down, then said of Byrne, “That’s what freedom looks like. That’s what freedom sounds like.”
“I know this has been much in the news as of late in the last few days,” Pence said, acknowledging the controversy over Trump’s reaction to the Khan family. “But as I said last night … Captain Khan is an American hero and we honor him and honor his family.”
Byrne, a CPA who lives in Carson City, welcomed part of Pence’s response. “I did like his words about Captain Khan and his family,” she told CBS News’ Alan He in a telephone interview. But she felt he didn’t fully answer the part of her question about Trump’s disrespectfulness. Byrne’s son is 27 years old and is stationed in the UAE.
Pence added that he has never spent time around someone who is “more devoted” to military and to veterans than Trump.
WATCH: Military mom booed at Pence rally for asking about Trump's treatment of Khan family. pic.twitter.com/soaCWAhh6n
Following the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton now leads Donald Trump by 8 points — 50 percent to 42 percent — up from a single-point difference last week, according to the latest NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll.
Clinton’s gain also comes after a series of controversial comments made by the Republican nominee this past week regarding the family of a fallen American soldier and Trump’s suggestion that Russian hackers should seek out deleted Clinton emails.
The Republican National Convention did not result in a post-convention bounce for Trump.
Clinton also saw a bounce in a four-way general election match-up against Trump, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Clinton now leads Trump by 4 points — 42 percent to 38 percent — in the four-way race. This is a lead-reversal from last week, when Trump was beating the Democratic nominee by 2 points. Support for Johnson (9 points) and Stein (4 points) remained virtually unchanged from last week….
Perhaps a result of a series of well-received speeches from high-profile Democrats, Clinton’s gains this week were not only in the horserace numbers. Overall, the number of voters who say they have a strongly favorable impression of the Democratic nominee is up 5 points — from 15 percent to 20 percent — since the question was asked two weeks ago.
Clinton’s favorability among Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters rose from 74 percent two weeks ago to 80 percent this week. Her unfavorable rating also dropped among Democrats from 24 percent to 19 percent.
More analysis of the poll results at the link, with charts.
Five new public surveys, each conducted over the weekend following Democrats’ national party convention, give Clinton a lead ranging from 3 to 9 points. Four of the five pollsters point to a clear Clinton bump, having found Trump ahead or down by only a single point the week before.
What’s also clear is that bump exceeds the rise in support for Trump after his convention the week prior. While Trump called his bounce “the biggest bump in the history of conventions,” the best poll for him showed his support ticking up 6 points, while other polls showed no change or a nominal Trump boost….
The bounciest of the new polls, a CNN/ORC International survey conducted Friday-Sunday, shows Clinton leading Trump by 9 points, 52 percent to 43 percent. That’s a massive shift from just a week prior, when CNN/ORC gave Trump a 3-point lead, 48 percent to 45 percent. Clinton’s 7-point bounce over that time was larger than Trump’s 6-point surge from a poll conducted shortly before the GOP convention in Cleveland.
A new CBS News poll conducted over the same time frame, shows Clinton ahead by 6 points, 47 percent to 41 percent. That’s a 4-point jump for Clinton, who trailed Trump by a point in between the two conventions, 44 percent to 43 percent. (This uses CBS News results including voters leaning toward one candidate, which CBS began to measure with the between-conventions survey.)
Trump’s post-convention bounce in CBS News’ polls, on the other hand, was just 2 points.
For discussion of the rest of the recent polls, head over to Politico.
This has been one of the strangest and most dramatic weeks in the history of U.S. politics.
We have seen the nomination of a woman for President of the U.S. by a major political party after 240 years of male candidates only.
On the G.O.P. side, we are watching a madman campaign for President while praising the autocratic leader of Russia and inviting Russian intelligence agencies to hack into U.S. government computers and computer systems used by his Democratic opponent. This madman has also suggested that we should let Russia have Crimea and lift the sanctions on Russia that were applied after Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.
A key figure at the Republican national convention where Donald Trump was nominated for president has strong business ties with Ukraine, the Guardian has learned.
The party platform written at the convention in Cleveland last week removed references to arming Ukraine in its fight with Russia, which has supported separatists in eastern Ukraine. Trump’s links to Russia are under scrutiny after a hack of Democratic national committee emails, allegedly by Russian agents.
Frank Mermoud also has longstanding ties to Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who in 2010 helped pro-Russia Viktor Yanukovych refashion his image and win a presidential election in Ukraine. Manafort was brought in earlier this year to oversee the convention operations and its staffing.
Three sources at the convention also told the Guardian that they saw Phil Griffin, a longtime aide to Manafort in Kiev, working with the foreign dignitaries programme. “After years of working in the Ukraine for Paul and others, it was surprising to run into Phil working at the convention,” one said.
The change to the platform on arming Ukraine was condemned even by some Republicans. Senator Rob Portman described it as “deeply troubling”. Veteran party operative and lobbyist Charlie Black said the “new position in the platform doesn’t have much support from Republicans”, adding that the change “was unusual”.
And that’s just the beginning. The article spells out and analyzes Donald Trump’s and his advisers’ extensive past ties to Russia. For decades, the G.O.P. was the party of anti-communism and anti-Russian sentiment. In 2012, Mitt Romney even argued that Russia was the top geopolitical threat to the U.S.; in 2016, Romney’s party is getting very cozy with Russian and its autocratic leader Vladimir Putin.
Now it has become crystal clear that Russia is behind a number of cyberhacks on U.S. and Democratic Party computers.
Thousands of Democratic National Committee emails were hacked and published by WikiLeaks on the eve of the party’s convention in Philadelphia this week. They showed that officials, who are meant to remain impartial, favoured Hillary Clinton and discussed ways to undermine her rival, Bernie Sanders. The leak led to the resignation of chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
The FBI is investigating, with all signs pointing to Russian involvement, though Moscow rejects this. Experts note Vladimir Putin’s past attempts to damage western democracy, including cyber-attacks on French, Greek, Italian and Latvian elections. In 2014, malware was discovered in Ukrainian election software that would have robbed it of legitimacy.
Alina Polyakova, deputy director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council, said: “We can’t say 100% that Mr Putin had a hand in any of this but this kind of meddling in other countries’ affairs is part of Russia’s toolkit. It’s a kind of asymmetric warfare. To me, this looks like something straight from the Russian secret service playbook, but I’m surprised at how brazen they’ve been.”
Trump and his campaign have denied any connection but on Wednesday he ignited a firestorm by calling on Russia to find 30,000 emails deleted from Clinton’s private server. “I think you will probably be mightily rewarded by our press,” he said. He later claimed that he was being sarcastic.
Please read the entire article to learn about Donald Trump’s extensive ties to Russia and Putin.
Donald Trump’s flurry of offhand remarks and abrupt zingers on Russia — praising Vladimir Putin, dismissing NATO — have jolted the world, not to mention the U.S. presidential campaign.
With Russia’s behavior rattling nerves in the U.S. and elsewhere, Trump is accused of cozying up to a “dictator.” Of threatening the very underpinnings of America’s relationship with Europe. And of naiveté.
Some of the GOP presidential nominee’s goals are consistent with long-held U.S. views, many experts say. The idea of fostering U.S.-Russian cooperation isn’t outlandish. After all, Hillary Clinton tried to “reset” relations with Russia when she was secretary of state. Also, past U.S. administrations of both parties have quietly complained that other NATO members should pay their share to the alliance.
It’s what Trump is willing to do to achieve those goals and the way he expresses his views that have shocked many foreign policy experts.
The notion of refusing to defend NATO allies who don’t pay their bills, for example, or of buddying up to Putin despite his aggressive stances is jarring to Democrats and Republicans alike. And it’s on the minds of foreign leaders.
“We’re going to talk about NATO and Russia,” Secretary of State John Kerry said as he met Saturday with French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault in Paris. Kerry wouldn’t address Trump’s comments specifically, but said he would discuss anything Ayrault wanted to talk about “that has to do with our relationship.”
So Trump’s remarks are already threatening our relationships with our allies.
A computer network used by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign was hacked as part of a broad cyber attack on Democratic political organizations, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The latest attack, which was disclosed to Reuters on Friday, follows two other hacks on the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, and the party’s fundraising committee for candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.
A Clinton campaign spokesman said in a statement late on Friday that an analytics data program maintained by the DNC and used by the campaign and a number of other entities “was accessed as part of the DNC hack.”
“Our campaign computer system has been under review by outside cyber security experts. To date, they have found no evidence that our internal systems have been compromised,” said Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill.
Later, a campaign official said hackers had access to the analytics program’s server for approximately five days. The analytics data program is one of many systems the campaign accesses to conduct voter analysis, and does not include social security numbers or credit card numbers, the official said.
The U.S. Department of Justice national security division is investigating whether cyber attacks on Democratic political organizations threatened U.S. security, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.
The involvement of the Justice Department’s national security division is a sign that the Obama administration has concluded that the hacking was sponsored by a state, people with knowledge of the investigation said.
The Clinton presidential campaign said Friday that an “analytics data program” maintained by the Democratic National Committee had been hacked but that its computer system had not been compromised, denying news reports from earlier in the day that the campaign had become the third Democratic Party organization whose systems had been penetrated.
So far, campaign computer experts “have found no evidence that our internal systems have been compromised,” campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement.
Merrill said that “an analytics data program maintained by the DNC and used by our campaign and a number of other entities was accessed as part of the DNC hack.” The campaign did not provide details, but a source familiar with the situation said that the hacked material was generally dull and did not include email communications, memos, research or other potentially inflammatory communications. Mostly, the source said, it included innocuous data such as computer code and lists of email addresses.
Nevertheless,
Senior figures in the national security community are warning that the Russian hack of the DNC and the subsequent release of committee emails by the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks may be part of a broader attack on the U.S. electoral process….
If the email leak was orchestrated by the Russian government, “this is an attack not on one party but on the integrity of American democracy,” the Aspen Institute Homeland Security Group, a group of 32 homeland security and counterterrorism experts, said in a statement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly accused Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state of interfering in Moscow’s affairs — and if Russian security was behind last week’s release through WikiLeaks of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails, it would look a lot like Kremlin payback.
Even if the breach was carried out by a mid-level intelligence official acting on his own initiative, hoping to please his boss, disclosures that seemingly raise questions about the legitimacy of Clinton’s nomination speak directly to Putin’s complaints about her….
In December 2011, large protests unexpectedly broke out in Moscow following parliamentary elections that featured brazen cheating. Clinton, as secretary of state, called the election “neither free nor fair,” and Putin jumped on that as an attack on Russia and, by extension, him.
“She set the tone for some of our public figures inside the country, sent a signal to them,” Putin said. “They heard this signal and launched active work with the U.S. State Department’s support.”
The rest of that winter saw ever sharpening attacks on the United States as Putin was in the midst of his own presidential election campaign. In the year that followed, some of the strongest anti-American steps that Russia took were only tangentially related to Clinton — expelling the USAID, forcing Radio Liberty off the AM dial, harassing then-U.S. Ambassador Michael A. McFaul….
Clinton had also pushed hard for the Libya intervention in the spring and summer of 2011, which Putin was appalled by, seeing it as unwarranted interference in another nation’s sovereignty. After she stepped down as secretary of state, she made a well-publicized visit to Yalta — in 2013, when it was still part of Ukraine — to support Ukraine’s signing of an agreement with the European Union. Putin hoped to strong-arm Ukraine into joining his Eurasian Economic Union, which Clinton had called an attempt to “re-Sovietize” areas of the former Soviet Union.
That comment and others “were in part seized upon for domestic political reasons,” Samuel Charap, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington, said Wednesday. “She became a convenient scapegoat.”
Read more analysis of the Clinton-Putin relationship at the link.
Joy Reid has been covering this story extensively on her MSNBC show. If you missed it this morning, please check it out on the website. She had some experts on who were quite alarmed by what is happening with Trump and the Russian hacks that seem designed to help him become POTUS.
There were many memorable moments this week as history was made with the nomination of Hillary Clinton by the Democratic Party for President of the United States. For me, the most amazing thing was hearing the stories of the many people whose lives were touched by Hillary Clinton at one point. Then, once touched, she stayed in touch and followed up and through for them. Last night, the stand out story was from grieving but determined father Khizr Khan whose Anti-Trump Speech was so amazing that Fox News ignored it and provided what can only be called an outright propaganda campaign with the images.
Fox News ignored a speech by the father of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in 2004 in the Iraq war, instead opting to air commercials during the speech. Fox later went live to a song by pop singer Katy Perry after the speech.
During the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, PA, Khizr Khan spoke about the honor he felt to be present at the convention with his wife, “as patriotic American Muslims with undivided loyalty to our country.” Khan’s speech was preceded by a video that showed Hillary Clinton calling Captain Khan “the best of America” and explaining the circumstances of his death, for which he was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
This actually is a tribute to the massive effectiveness of the speech and it’s also telling. Why hide a true story that represents a slice of America?
While CNN and MSNBC aired the video and Khan’s speech in full, Fox News’ The Kelly File instead continued with its regular commentary featuring Brit Hume, then went to commercial as the speech began, showing slightly more than two minutes of the speech in a small window as commercials — including a Benghazi attack ad — overplayed it.
But the worst moment of the speech came near its end, when Clinton began to riff about the different kinds of people who should join Hillary’s effort. “If you love this country, you’re working hard, you’re paying taxes, you’re obeying the law and you’d like to become a citizen, you should choose immigration reform over someone that wants to send you back,” he said. Fair enough. Under any conceivable immigration overhaul, only those undocumented immigrants who have obeyed the law once in the United States—which includes paying taxes—will qualify for citizenship. Two sentences later, Clinton said that, “If you’re a young African Americ#an disillusioned and afraid … help us build a future where no one’s afraid to walk outside, including the people that wear blue to protect our future.” No problem there. Of course African Americans should be safe from abusive police, and of course, police should be safe from the murderers who threaten them.
But in between, Clinton said something dreadful: “If you’re a Muslim and you love America and freedom and you hate terror, stay here and help us win and make a future together, we want you.” The problem is in the assumption. American Muslims should be viewed exactly the same way other Americans are. If they commit crimes, then they should be prosecuted, just like other Americans. But they should not have to prove that they “love America and freedom” and “hate terror” to “stay here.” Their value as Americans is inherent, not instrumental. Their role as Americans is not to “help us win” the “war on terror.”
Whether Clinton meant to or not, he lapsed into Trumpism: the implication that Muslims are a class apart, deserving of special scrutiny and surveillance, guilty of terrorist sympathies until proven innocent. I think I understand where the formulation came from. In the 1990s, one of Clinton’s key New Democratic innovations was his insistence that with rights, come responsibilities: To receive government assistance, welfare recipients must work. If people commit crimes, the government will punish them harshly.
The problem with transferring that formulation to Muslims today is that Muslims aren’t asking for benefits from the welfare state. They’re simply asking not to be discriminated against. Clinton’s formulation was like saying, in 1964, that as long as African Americans eschew violence and love America, they deserve the right to vote.
Hear are a few comments I read from a friend’s discussion on Facebook. I refer to him only as the initials NT.
FR: “There’s no need to read into it to see how he’s advocating two-tiered citizenship. It is quite clear.”
NT: “That’s premised on the concept that leaving’s an option, because they’re after all somehow all immigrants, who choose to stay. Like FR pointed out, it’s clear and unadulterated advocacy for two-tiered citizenship. And considering that both parties voted overwhelmingly to restrict visa-free travel for Europeans of dual citizenry with Iran, Iraq, Syria, and some other countries, this is on small point.”
NT: “Some folks I know of were prevented from traveling to the US since the November legal change, which practically nobody noticed. This problem is real, and his quote is tangible.”
I also would like to rebuke the people that were criticizing Ghazala Khan for standing quietly next to her husband on the stage wearing her hajib. Who are we to infer her motives for either? American values respect religious practice. American values also respect a grieving mother. But, back to the content of this amazing speech which was both a tribute to their son and a take down of Trumpism.
In 2005, The Washington Post interviewed Khizr Khan. “They did not call him Captain Khan,” he said of the men his son led. “They called him ‘our captain.’ ”
“We are honored to stand here as the parents of Captain Humayun Khan,” the elder Khan said at the Democratic convention, “and as patriotic American Muslims with undivided loyalty to our country.” He spoke of his son’s dreams of becoming a military lawyer and how Hillary Clinton had referred to his son as “the best of America.”
Then he focused his attention on Trump.
“If it was up to Donald Trump, [Humayun] never would have been in America,” Khan said. “Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims. He disrespects other minorities, women, judges, even his own party leadership. He vows to build walls and ban us from this country.
“Donald Trump,” he said, “you are asking Americans to trust you with our future. Let me ask you: Have you even read the U.S. Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy.” He pulled a copy of the Constitution from his pocket. “In this document, look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of law.’ ” Earlier this month, Trump promised congressional Republicans that he would defend “Article XII” of the Constitution, which doesn’t exist.
“Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery?” Khan asked. “Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending America — you will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities.
“You have sacrificed nothing. And no one.”
If there ever was a statement that could be characterized as a mic drop, those words on sacrifice from Khan represented a loud and resounding mic drop. Wonkette’s take was great.
Khizr Khan, we’d submit to you, is a far better patriot than any of the morons who think a patriot’s job is to take over wildlife refuges or keep an eye on scary Muslims as they attend their mosques. And what you really need to keep this country free is equal protection under law and the First Amendment, not an AR-15.
Khan’s speech blew up on social media, although not everyone was a fan. Spite-fueled rageparrot Ann Coulter, for instance, didn’t think much of a guy whose son merely saved the lives of a bunch of The Troops, and she had excellent reasons…
She was beautiful. She was magnificent. And in four riveting, I’m-not-playin’ minutes, she schooled the world that disabled people don’t want the able-bodied to speak for them.
They want the able-bodied to listen to them and respect their equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
If you missed Anastasia Somoza’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, Google it and grab the Kleenex. You’ll be moved by the dignity and ferocity of Somoza, 32, a disability-rights advocate who was born with cerebral palsy and spastic quadriplegia.
The tiny Somoza owned the Wells Fargo Center from the instant she rolled onstage in her motorized wheelchair to declare her belief in Hillary Clinton and to reject Donald Trump’s limited views of people who are different.
“I fear the day we elect a president who defines being American in the narrowest possible terms, who shouts, bullies and profits off of vulnerable Americans,” she said. “Donald Trump has shown us who he really is, and I honestly feel bad for anyone with that much hate in their heart.”
Then came the line that brought cheers so loud, they must’ve busted windows.
Lauren Manning, a former executive and partner atCantor Fitzgerald who was wounded in the World Trade Center attack, spoke about how her life “changed forever” after the terrorist attack and lauded Clinton for having stood with her “through that fight” to recovery.
Manning is one of the few Cantor Fitzgerald to survive. The company lost 658 people in the attack.
“When I arrived at the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11th, 2001, I was a partner at Cantor Fitzgerald.
A moment later, my life changed forever. I was burned over 82 percent of my body, my chances of survival next to zero.
I battled for months, to live, and for years, to recover.
I fought in tribute to the friends and colleagues I lost, and all 2,996 people who were killed that day. I fought to honor our troops, who were fighting on frontlines around the world.
I fought to return to my young son. I fought as hard as I could so the terrorists wouldn’t get one more.
Hillary Clinton stood with me through that fight.
In the darkest of days and the hardest of times, the people who show up mean everything.
Hillary showed up.
She walked into my hospital room and took my bandaged hand in her own. Our connection wasn’t between a senator and her constituent. Our connection was person to person.
She visited, called, and checked in for years, because she cared.
When I needed her, she was there. When our first responders needed her, she was there.
Now our country needs her.
I trusted her when my life was on the line, and she came through. Not for the cameras, not because anyone was watching, but because that’s who she is. Kind. Caring. Loyal.
This is the Hillary Clinton I want you to know. She was there for me. That’s why I’m with Her.”
Some how, I cannot imagine a huge number of ordinary people with extraordinary lives showing up and giving similar testimony to Bernie Sanders or very many other pols in this country. This native son of Nebraska was also a favorite of mine. I remember hearing his story back in the day. To see that young boy grow up into such a young man was just inspiring!
Ryan Moore from South Sioux City, Nebraska was selected as one of the “everyday Americans” who will address the 2016 Democratic National Convention this week. Moore is one of twenty individuals from across the nation to share their stories as an America that is stronger together. Moore was selected to speak by the Democratic National Convention Committee and Hillary for America. According to the DNCC, “Ryan has known Hillary Clinton since 1994 when his family came to Washington, DC for an event to advocate for health care reform. Ryan has stayed in contact with Hillary ever since.”
Moore is set to speak Tuesday afternoon at the Wells Fargo Center, and will talk about growing up with spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia dwarfism and the difficulties his family faced when his father lost his job because his employer did not want to have to cover Ryan’s health care and treatment costs. When asked about being selected to speak 2016 DNC Moore stated, “I was completely shocked when I found out I was being asked to speak at the DNC. It’s such an honor and privilege to take part in this historic event! I’m so glad to be able to represent the state of Nebraska in this speech, and hope and pray that I make my home state proud.”
Anyway, there were so many awesome Americans testifying for Hillary Clinton all week that I may never tire of going back and reading their stories some where, of how Hillary became a meaningful part of their lives, and the things Clinton did because she is Hillary Clinton; no less or more.
The most tearful moment for me came during the testimony of the “Mothers of the Movement.” Again, the strength of a parent’s grief turned into determination is something that just blew me away. Each and every one of these women lives each day making sure that no other woman experiences what they did and they do so while supporting Hillary Clinton. No one should underestimate the abiding and strong power of women together.
Nine black women whose sons and daughters died in racially-charged incidents took the stage at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday as party delegates shouted “Black Lives Matter.” They urged voters to elect Hillary Clinton, arguing that she cares deeply about racial injustice and will try to reduce tensions between police and communities of color.
The decision of Clinton’s campaign to have these women on stage at the convention was the latest illustration of the growing influence of the Black Lives Matter movement. This anti-racism campaign, which did not even exist at the time of the DNC in 2012, has successfully pushed Clinton, President Obama and the broader Democratic Party to focus more on issues of policing and racial disparities.
Clinton has repeatedly used the phrase “Black Lives Matter” during her campaign and has called for a number of police reforms, such as creating a national standard for when officers can use force and increasing implicit bias training for law enforcement personnel.
“This isn’t about being politically correct. This is about saving our children,” said Sybrina Fulton, whose 17-year-old son Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida in 2012 in a controversial incident that drew so much national attention that President Obama eventually said that “Travyon Martin could have been me.”
She added, “In memory our children, we are imploring all of you to vote this Election Day.”
Lucia McBath, the mother of Jordan Davis, said “Hillary Clinton isn’t afraid to say that black lives matter.”
So, I’m closing the post today with a bit of Bill Clinton and balloon fun from last night that I lifted from Ralph’s Facebook. Thank’s for the early morning smile Ralph!!! Buzzfeed says that Bill Clinton really likes Balloons.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Easter EGG!! Bonus Content!!!
All of this reminded me of how much I want for my daughters. Thought I’d share this with you. My fellow NOW members gave this album to me during a baby shower in 1983. It became one of Jean’s favorites and we would sing and dance to it all the time when she was little.
The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
This actually is a tribute to the massive effectiveness of the speech and it’s also telling. Why hide a true story that represents a slice of America?
Hear are a few comments I read from a friend’s discussion on Facebook. I refer to him only as the initials NT.
Then, there was the e
Some how, I cannot imagine a huge number of ordinary people with extraordinary lives showing up and giving similar testimony to Bernie Sanders or very many other pols in this country. 
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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