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Tag: Hillary Clinton

State Department Coordinated With Clinton Campaign

by | 2006, 2 Nov 1616 | | 0 Comments

Because of course they did. And we’re also supposed to believe that this same State Department didn’t cover for Clinton either.

Emails from the files of Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta show that the department official provided Clinton aides with the agency’s official response to a New York Times reporter in advance of the newspaper’s March 2015 report that Clinton had used a private email account to conduct all of her work-related business as secretary.

The stolen emails were released Wednesday by WikiLeaks, part of a massive trove of emails released by the document-leaking group on a daily basis since last month. WikiLeaks has indicated it intends to leak emails stolen from Podesta’s account every day through the election.

In a March 1, 2015 email, State Department press aide Lauren Hickey told Clinton’s spokesman Nick Merrill and two other advisers that then-State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki had “just cleared” a reply to the Times. Hickey provided the agency’s response to the Clinton aides and also appeared to agree to a change requested by the campaign, saying: “Yes on your point re records – done below.” It is not clear what specific change was requested and made.

Candidates Less Popular Than a Van Down By the River

by | 1204, 31 Oct 1616 | | 2 Comments

Heh

Trump earned a -569. Clinton, a -481. That places both candidates in the second-lowest category, characterized as “failure.” “We’ve never seen scores this bad, ever,” sales Alexander Edwards, president of Strategic Vision. When the firm asks consumers to rate vehicles they’ve purchased, there’s rarely a score below 200. One of the lowest scores for any vehicle accrues to the Chevy Express Cargo Van, which earns a score of 207. This is the vehicle that pleases consumers far more than either of their main choices for president this year:

The Chevy Express Cargo Van. Way more appealing than Trump or Clinton.

The research firm did similar polling in 2012. President Obama scored 331. His Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, scored 307. Both polled in the range between “satisfied” and “excellent.” There are some obvious difficulties applying polling methodology meant for automobiles to political candidates. For one thing, people who buy a car have dozens of choices, many tailored to their specific needs and desires. This year’s presidential candidates are more like survivors of attrition warfare than market-tested favorites. Clinton’s shiftiness causes huge trust issues; Trump’s caustic treatment of women, minorities and critics suggests he’s a thin-skinned bully.

Warrant Issued For New Clinton Emails

by | 0830, 31 Oct 1616 | , | 0 Comments

Given the timing, we likely won’t know any real details until after the election. But there is a real chance that our president will have to illegally quash this investigation or issue an outright pardon to avoid indictment.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal investigators have secured a warrant to examine newly discovered emails related to Hillary Clinton’s private server, U.S. media reported on Sunday, as a prominent Democrat accused FBI Director James Comey of breaking the law by trying to influence the election.

The warrant will allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to examine the emails to see if they are relevant to its probe of the private email server used for government work by Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

FBI officials were unavailable for comment on the status of their investigation. Reuters could not independently confirm that the search warrant had been issued.

FBI Reopens Clinton Investigation

by | 1832, 28 Oct 1616 | , | 7 Comments

I’m not as optimistic as Koffler, but it’s good to see the FBI pretending to be serious.

The FBI today wrote to lawmakers to inform them that it is effectively reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server for State Department business. They’ve found some new emails, though we don’t know what they contain. But it must be pretty bad to do this eleven days before the election.

I can’t underemphasize what a big deal this is. The election is actually quite close. The key factor that will tip it is whether swing voters are more uncomfortable with Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. This will have voters wondering whether by voting for Hillary they are electing someone who either could wind up in jail or will be under constant investigation.

Not to mention someone wholly unethical.

Doesn’t matter if in a few days the FBI says it’s sewing the case back shut again. The damage is done, and it’s considerable.

“still not perfect in her head”

by | 2233, 25 Oct 1616 | | 0 Comments

Still isn’t.

Huma Abedin warned Clinton’s campaign team that Hillary would have to ‘stick to her notes’ at an event because she was ‘still not perfect in her head.’

The personal emails, belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, were published by WikiLeaks on Tuesday.

The exchange in April, 2015, came at the end of a discussion between the Democratic candidate’s aides about Jeb Bush’s utilization of Super PACs.

Clinton Toadie Pays Off FBI Investigator

by | 0800, 24 Oct 1616 | , | 1 Comment

Pure bribery taking place here. And yes, bribes are almost always done through intermediaries.

The political organization of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, an influential Democrat with longstanding ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, gave nearly $500,000 to the election campaign of the wife of an official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation who later helped oversee the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email use.

Hillary Accused of Stealing Furniture (again)

by | 2317, 18 Oct 1616 | | 8 Comments

It would be true to form.

The ex-agent told the FBI that they were aware of Clinton or her aides ‘removing lamps and furniture from the State Department which were transported to her residence in Washington, D.C.’

The female agent did not know whether the items were returned, the FBI noted.

The claim is particularly resonant for the Clintons, who left the White House with massive amounts of furniture and other items which they then either returned  – including sofas, a chair, and an ottoman – or paid for.

In total they declared $190,000 in gifts as they left the White House, but ended up paying $86,000 in cash and handing back $48,000 worth of items – after public outrage at what they had done.

The State Department denied the ex-agent’s allegation, saying it was ‘not true’ and that the items removed from the building had been paid for by the then Secretary of State.

Choosing POTUS

by | 0847, 18 Oct 1616 | | 0 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

For the first time in my life, I am sitting here in the middle of October of a presidential election year and I do not know for whom I will vote for President of the United States. Yet, choices must be made and the consequences will be felt.

I am a firm believer that one of the responsibilities of citizenship is to inform oneself and vote even when the choices on the ballot are poor. Our electoral system does not allow for do-overs or “none of the above.” Someone will actually win the election and assume power. The voters will decide who that will be and it is my responsibility to express my choice through the ballot box.

Often, perhaps far too often, this choice comes down to choosing the better of two evils. That is the determination many are trying to make this year between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. But as I consider these two choices, I cannot discern a lesser of the two. They are just two evils.

Clinton is one of the most corrupt people in American politics. Her decades in public life have shown her to be a liar whose overriding motivations are rooted in her own advancement. Repeated disclosures have catalogued how she has violated federal law, used the Clinton Foundation as a vehicle to trade money for favors when she was secretary of state, exposed our national secrets to hostile foreign governments, and attacked the women whom her husband allegedly sexually assaulted. She is a vile person who will abuse the office of president for her personal gain and to advance policies detrimental to the United States.

Donald Trump, who was a liberal New York Democrat until he decided he wanted to run for president, has also spent decades in public life swaddling himself with dishonor. He is also a proven liar who has no scruples about trampling the people and institutions around him for his personal advancement. His willful and unapologetic ignorance of the basic tenets of the Constitution, the separation of powers, international affairs, and the basic duties and limits of the executive leave little doubt that President Trump would cast off any remaining moorings of the American presidency.

Many of my fellow conservatives have weighed and measured the two candidates differently and concluded that Trump is a tolerable choice. Some of them argue that the eventual appointments to the Supreme Court and Trump’s mouthing of support for some conservative principles tip the scale. While I understand and respect those arguments and the people making them, it is not a path I can walk with them this time. In Wisconsin, at least, it is a discussion that is more philosophical than tangible. Wisconsin will vote for Clinton irrespective of how the conservative minority splits their votes.

The history of governments amongst people is replete with examples of bad, corrupt, evil leaders in both representative and other forms of government. We will survive and build for ourselves a better future after this setback. It is critical that we build a bulwark against the excesses of a tyrannical presidency by electing strong Conservatives to the House and Senate like Sen. Ron Johnson, Speaker Paul Ryan and representatives Glenn Grothman, Sean Duffy, Mike Gallagher and Jim Sensenbrenner. While that is true in any election, it is paramount in this one.

By the time Election Day is upon us, I will exercise my franchise for the least offensive choice for president and it will likely be for one of the third party candidates. Then I will pray for our nation to fight off the worst excesses of our next president as we look to build a brighter future.

Next President to Inherit Obama’s Failed Russia Policy

by | 1410, 16 Oct 1616 | , | 0 Comments

Like I said earlier, there are some real issues out there that are being intentionally ignored during this election. Remember that it was Clinton who was Obama’s Secretary of State during the “reset” with Russia. Well, it worked. We’ve reset it to about 1961.

The next U.S. president will inherit an increasingly fraught relationship with Russia in which Washington’s attempts to deter Putin have mostly failed. Moscow’s decision this month to pull out of a landmark agreement on disposing tons of weapons-grade plutonium, coupled with reports last week that Russia deployed new nuclear-capable missiles to Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea, underscore how Putin is flexing Russia’s power in new and often unpredictable ways.

U.S. and European officials are increasingly alarmed over Putin’s willingness to risk military confrontation and threaten to use his country’s nuclear arsenal over issues the West sees as unrelated and separate. That makes it devilishly difficult for the United States and its European allies to find an effective response to Putin’s audacious tactics that in recent years range from Russia’s annexation of Crimea, to its air war in support of the Syrian regime, to Moscow’s suspected hacking of America’s presidential election.

“It very much feels like we are entering a very troubled and dangerous phase in this bilateral relationship,“ said Julianne Smith, a former senior Pentagon official who oversaw NATO policy and a former senior advisor to Vice President Joe Biden. “The next president will face some big strategic choices,” said Smith, who now advises Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Europe and Russia.

President Barack Obama’s successor will have to choose from a range of unpleasant and risky options when it comes to handling a resurgent Russia, current and former officials said. A more conciliatory stance, aimed at cutting a grand bargain with Russia focused on Ukraine, would defuse tensions in the short term but at the cost of ultimately emboldening Putin. A more hawkish line — like the one championed by Clinton, who is leading nationwide polls — would risk escalation, with the chance of a military showdown in Syria or the Baltics.

 

Clinton Email Accuses Saudi Arabia and Qatar of Funding Terrorists

by | 0655, 12 Oct 1616 | , | 0 Comments

No doubt she’s right.

On Aug. 17, 2014 — eight months before she declared her candidacy for president — Clinton sent a detailed strategy for combating the Islamic State, which she referred to as ISIL, in an email to John Podesta, then a White House counselor and now her campaign chairman.

Along with a military campaign to roll back the terror group in Iraq, the Clinton email talks about confronting the Saudis and the Qataris, both key U.S. allies, over what she refers to as governmental backing of ISIL.

The Clinton email states: “We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”

As a basis for the assertions, Clinton in the email cites “Western intelligence, U.S. intelligence and sources in the region.”

In a realpolitik view, however, we can’t abandon our decades-old alliance with the Saudis. With Russia asserting its power and influence through its proxies in Iran and Syria, the U.S. needs its alliance with Saudi and the Gulf states to have any influence in the Middle East – a crucial geopolitical fulcrum. So while Clinton is undoubtedly stating a truth, the real question is what are you going to do about it?

Clinton Funneled Haiti Aid to Foundation Supporters

by | 1948, 11 Oct 1616 | | 1 Comment

We all knew it was happening, and now we have proof. Hillary Clinton’s State Department made it a point to funnel billions of dollars of aid to people who put money in her family’s pocket. It is the purest form of quid pro quo and it is both immoral and illegal.

However noble the motives of the officials working to get supplies into Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, numerous messages show a senior aide to then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton coordinating with a Clinton Foundation official to identify FOBs. The Clintons have said repeatedly that the State Department never gave favorable treatment to foundation supporters in Haiti or anywhere else.

“Nothing was ever done for anybody because they were contributors to the foundation,” Bill Clinton told CBS News’ Charlie Rose in September. “Nothing.”

The correspondence offers a glimpse into the first stages of a $10 billion Haiti recovery effort. The emails appear to show a State Department process that at times prioritized — and, some argue, benefited — people with close ties to the Clintons.

“I think when you look at both the State Department and the Clinton Foundation in Haiti, that line was pretty faint between the two,” said Jake Johnston, a Haiti analyst for the nonpartisan Center for Economic and Policy Research. “You had a lot of coordination and connection between the two, obviously. And I think that raises significant questions about how they were both operating.”

October Madness

by | 1350, 8 Oct 1616 | | 0 Comments

So I understand from the news this morning that Donald Trump is a sexist pig and Hillary Clinton is a crooked liar. Neither of these facts are revelations. We, as Americans, have chosen two of the most despicable people imaginable to contend for the presidency atop the two major parties.

At this point, given that both candidates are horrible people with enough baggage to fill a caravan on the Silk road to hell, the person who will win the election is the one we talk about the most until election day. The more we talk about Clinton, the more we hate her. The more we talk about Trump, the more we hate him. That’s why Clinton won the first debate – they spent most of the time talking about Trump. If they spend the most time talking about Clinton in the second debate, Trump will win.

I truly hate this presidential election. Our nation is diminished by the mere fact that these are the candidates for the major parties.

Hillary Accused of Violating Campaign Laws

by | 2010, 6 Oct 1616 | , | 0 Comments

It’s shocking to think that Hillary, of all people, would play fast and loose with the law.

A nonpartisan watchdog group Thursday called for a federal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s campaign committee, accusing it of illegally accepting millions of dollars worth of  “opposition research” and other assistance from Correct the Record, an outside super-PAC, in violation of U.S. election laws.

The Campaign Legal Center also filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission to initiate probes of Donald Trump’s campaign, and two super-PACs backing it, for similar violations of laws barring “coordination” between political campaigns and outside groups.

But the Campaign Legal Center’s detailed 52-page complaint against Hillary for America and Correct the Record — part of the sprawling political empire run by Clinton backer David Brock — is likely to get special attention, given Clinton’s repeated advocacy of campaign finance reform. She has vowed to “curb the influence of big money in American politics” and to push for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United — the controversial ruling that opened the door for groups such as Correct the Record to accept unlimited donations to benefit political candidates.

Hillary Uses Child Actor at Town Hall

by | 0723, 6 Oct 1616 | | 0 Comments

It’s all part of the big show, folks, and we’re just chomping popcorn and watching.

At a Hillary Clinton town hall yesterday in Haverford, Pennsylvania, a 15 year old girl was supposedly “chosen at random” to ask a question of the former Secretary of State.  But, the well-scripted performance raised some suspicion with a YouTuber named Spanglevision who decided to dig a little deeper.  And, wouldn’t you know it, the “random” participant was none other than child actor, Brennan Leach, whose father just happens to be Pennsylvania democratic State Senator Daylin Leach.  Oh, and in case it wasn’t obvious, Daylin supports Hillary for president…shocking.

 

Al Gore to Stump for Clinton

by | 2136, 5 Oct 1616 | | 0 Comments

I feel like we’re in a time warp and have been transported back to the end of the 20th century. It appears that even lefty millennials aren’t buying into it.

We millennials — at 33, I’m at the top of the range — are primed to hear these arguments. As a group, we care more about climate change than older voters. That only makes sense considering we (and all future generations) will inherit an era of rising seas and super droughts associated with our continued addiction to fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas.
But Al Gore? Please.
He’s exactly the wrong person to boost the millennial vote.
Yes, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary that helped wake up the world to the perils of climate change. Personally, I’m super grateful for the continued work he’s done on that issue. In reporting on climate change for CNN, I’ve met several people who pursued a career fighting climate change because of that film.
But the optics here are awful. One reason so many liberal millennials voted for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary is they didn’t want to see another Clinton in the White House. They want change — less inequality, better health care, smarter climate policies, a fix to the student debt crisis — not more of the same. Clinton’s biggest challenge with young voters, who tend to lean left, and who should be on board with many of her policies, is that she represents the old guard.

What Hillary Really Thinks of Bernie’s Supporters

by | 1343, 1 Oct 1616 | | 0 Comments

From the Daily Caller

A leaked audio recording of a conversation between Hillary Clinton and campaign donors reveals the Democratic presidential nominee calling Bernie Sanders supporters basement-dwellers who seek out a “political revolution.”

“They’re children of the Great Recession,” Clinton said of Bernie fans. “And they are living in their parents’ basement. They feel they got their education, and the jobs that are available to them are not at all what they envisioned for themselves.”

One would think by now that politicians would understand that nothing they say is ever truly in private, except, perhaps, when they are speaking to their family and very close friends. It isn’t like people have to buy a recorder and secretly place it in the room. Almost everybody now carries a recorder with days of recording storage and a fantastic microphone. All it takes is one person recording for either malicious purposes or even just as a personal souvenir because they are meeting with a VIP.

So there it is. Frankly, Hillary is right. What she didn’t do is connect the dots that the very policies she supports led to their frustration.

 

Trump Accused of Violating Cuba Embargo 18 Years Ago

by | 1957, 29 Sep 1616 | | 0 Comments

Really? We’re going to argue about this? Does anyone remember what Hillary Clinton was doing in 1998? Oh yeah, she was, once again, helping her husband fight off a “bimbo eruption” with Monica Lewinsky. He was impeached for lying under oath late in the year.

Newsweek reports that Mr Trump’s company secretly conducted business in Cuba, violating the US trade embargo against the country.

The company allegedly spent at least $68,000 (£52,300) in Cuba in 1998.

Hillary Clinton Overcharges Donors

by | 2132, 15 Sep 1616 | | 0 Comments

That’s one way to drive up donations before a reporting deadline.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is stealing from her poorest supporters by purposefully and repeatedly overcharging them after they make what’s supposed to be a one-time small donation through her official campaign website, multiple sources tell the Observer.

The overcharges are occurring so often that the fraud department at one of the nation’s biggest banks receives up to 100 phone calls a day from Clinton’s small donors asking for refunds for unauthorized charges to their bankcards made by Clinton’s campaign. One elderly Clinton donor, who has been a victim of this fraud scheme, has filed a complaint with her state’s attorney general and a representative from the office told her that they had forwarded her case to the Federal Election Commission.

Clinton Foundation Would Divest Interests if Hillary Wins

by | 2023, 15 Sep 1616 | | 0 Comments

Seems legit to me… not.

Washington (CNN)Clinton Foundation president Donna Shalala says the charity would need to transition some of its work to other organizations if Hillary Clinton is president — even though it didn’t do so when she was secretary of state.

“When she’s president, there’s no process you could set up that would eliminate conflict of interest — so we actually have to reduce the size of the foundation and what it does,” Shalala, who was secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton, said in an interview with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day.”

“What we have to do when she’s president is we have to actually eliminate any aspect of conflict of interest — so all the international programs are spun off,” she said.

“There’s no evidence that policy was impacted by anyone requesting an appointment. So let me dispute any indication that Mrs. Clinton’s behavior on policy was changed in any way,” Shalala said. “The most important thing is, this is a magnificent foundation that has reinvented philanthropy.”

Somehow it’s not very reassuring when the Clinton camp says “there’s no evidence” when they have a habit of destroying said evidence.

Clinton Apparently Has Pneumonia Now

by | 2058, 11 Sep 1616 | | 0 Comments

Heh.

(CNN)Hillary Clinton has pneumonia, her doctor said Sunday, hours after the Democratic nominee stumbled and exited a 9/11 commemoration ceremony early.

The incident seems certain to prompt further scrutiny of Clinton’s health and her campaign’s transparency.
Clinton was diagnosed on Friday with pneumonia, and “was put on antibiotics, and advised to rest and modify her schedule,” Dr. Lisa Bardack said in a statement.

I hope she recovers OK, but the whole episode illustrates one of the key problems with Clinton. She is a liar. Pure and simple. She lies. All. The. Time.

Just follow this story… she passes out at the event this morning and is whisked away. First, her campaign says that she’s fine and was just feeling overheated despite the fact that it was 77 degrees with low humidity and she was sitting in the shade. Then, after a couple of hours at Chelsea’s apartment, they make a big show of her walking to her car with nobody within 20 feet of her. She’s playing the “see, she’s fine” role. In the meantime, however, video had surfaced of her leaving the event in which she is clearly incapacitated and was carried into the waiting car.

Now, after it’s been several hours and it is clear that the video of her is extremely damaging to her campaign, they decide to tell us that she has pneumonia and it was diagnosed on Friday. In other words, assuming that she is telling the truth about her illness, her campaign flat out lied when it told us that she was fine and she’s just overheated.

Throughout the entire day, Hillary Clinton’s intent and actions were to lie and cover up. Despite presumably having an illness and passing out, she went to her daughter’s apartment instead of a hospital – where no medical records are kept. She made a public show of being fine and told everyone that she was perfectly healthy. If that video had not surfaced, she probably would have gotten away with her lie with the help of a friendly media.

And it was all unnecessary. If she had just been honest and said, “I have pneumonia and am going to get some rest, let the antibiotics work, and then return to the campaign trail,” it would not have been a big deal. People get sick. It happens. Especially when you are running 100 miles per hour and not taking very good care of yourself. Just tell the truth and move on. But no. Clinton can’t do that. She lied because it is her first and most natural reaction to everything.

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