Two step plan to Make America Great:
1) Quickly build wall and do not allow Donald Trump back into United States.
2) Throw Hillary Clinton over wall.
Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought
Clinton Unfavorability At Highest Level Ever–Nearly Tying Trump
August 31, 2016 — Ron Chusid
The primary process certainly seems to have been a success if the goal was to find the two worst people in America. Hillary Clinton’s unfavorability ratings have worsened over the past month with Clinton losing support among groups including women, Hispanics, college graduates, and liberals. Her favorability is now almost as low as Donald Trump’s. An ABC News/Washington Post poll found:
Hillary Clinton’s unpopularity reached a new high in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, putting her on par with Donald Trump among registered voters.
The latest findings solidify their positions as the two most unpopular presidential candidates in polling dating back more than 30 years.
Among all adults, 56 percent now view Clinton unfavorably, up 6 percentage points in three weeks, compared with 63 percent who say the same about Trump.
Among registered voters, the two candidates have nearly identical unfavorable ratings: 59 percent for Clinton versus 60 percent for Trump.
See PDF with full results here.
Before the 2016 election, George H.W. Bush had the highest unfavorable rating for any major-party candidate for president in ABC/Post polls, in July 1992, on his way to losing his re-election bid.
Clinton’s rise in unpopularity follows renewed focus on her use of a private email server and alleged conflicts of interest regarding her connections to the Clinton Foundation while she served as secretary of state. This metric rose among some of her core support groups, including women, postgraduates, Hispanics and liberals.
The change in recent weeks could be because Donald Trump has not made mistakes as serious as those he made around the time of the conventions, such as attacking a gold star family. By softening his language and avoiding negative statements which dominate the headlines, Trump has allowed the media to concentrate more on new revelations related to Clinton’s email and Foundation scandals. Trump’s trip to Mexico today will probably be seen as a positive, while Clinton gains no points in attacking Trump for the trip.
Although Clinton has lost much of her bounce since the conventions, she still maintains a significant lead in many of the battleground state polls, and Trump is far behind in establishing a ground game.
Clinton Supporters Can Attribute Any Criticism To Sexism
August 30, 2016 — Ron Chusid
Among the many disturbing things we are seeing from the Clinton camp is their attribution of almost all criticism to sexism, along with their hostility towards the free press. Peter Daou, a former Clinton adviser, who continues to push heavily for her, showed how ridiculous they can be with this tweet: “Make no mistake: the media’s obsession with forcing a #Hillary press conference is ALL ABOUT HER GENDER.”
Yes, attribute it to sexism when Clinton avoids answering questions, despite two recent reports which have demonstrated that she has been lying to the American people about major scandals for over a year. Both the the State Department Inspector General report and the FBI director’s statement on the investigation demonstrated that Clinton violated the rules in effect when she became Secretary of State, she acted to cover up her actions, and that many of the statements she has made since the scandal broke have been false. Fact checkers have pointed out how Clinton has repeatedly lied not only about the scandal, but about what these findings against her demonstrated.
Anyone who is likely to become the next President should be willing to answer questions from the press. Someone tainted by scandals to the degree Hillary Clinton is should especially be questioned. That has nothing to do with her gender. It is a fundamental principle of democracy.
Today The New York Times editorial board discussed the ethical issues involving the Foundation. I imagine that those in the Clinton camp see only sexism, and not questions of ethics. Emma Roller elaborated further on the Opinion Page. Is she also sexist?
Even beyond the recent scandals, Hillary Clinton Clinton has a long history of opposing government transparency, along with a terrible record on First Amendment issues. Objecting to her record on government transparency and First Amendment issues have nothing to do with her gender.
Daou acts as though Clinton is being singled out, but in reality both Clinton and Trump have been criticized by the media for the ways in which they are hindering press coverage. It has nothing to do with gender. Daou acts as though the criticism is all from sexist male reporters, but the criticism has come from journalists and others regardless of their gender. Last month, Carol Lee, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, argued that both Trump and Clinton are a threat to press freedom. Again, her criticism has nothing to do with gender.
Hillary Clinton is likely to become the next president despite having been wrong on virtually every major decision of her career, and despite Hillary and Bill having spent years playing fast and loose with the standards others are held to, both to increase their influence and to amass a huge personal fortune. It is no surprise that Hillary Clinton is not trusted, and that people believe she has a lot of questions to answer.
The Washington Post Looks At Hillary Clinton’s History On Same-Sex Marriage
August 29, 2016 — Ron Chusid
Hillary Clinton is a strange choice to be the Democratic candidate, having spent her career pushing for economic conservatism, neoconservative interventionism, and social conservatism. These are among the reasons that an inexperienced politician such as Barack Obama beat her for the nomination in 2008, and a candidate as unlikely as Bernie Sanders kept it so close this year.
The Clintons have always been to the right of the Democratic Party, and often the nation, on social issues. Hillary Clinton spent her time in the Senate working with The Fellowship, and the influence of the religious right can be seen in many of her views. An article in The Washington Post has reviewed Clinton’s history on one issue where she has lagged behind the country–support for same-sex marriage:
During her first run for president in 2008, Hillary Clinton had an opportunity to become an undisputed leader in the gay rights movement.
As she prepared for a forum on the gay-oriented Logo network, she reached out to her friend Hilary Rosen, a political consultant who is a lesbian. Rosen expressed frustration that so many mainstream political figures opposed legalized same-sex marriage, and she challenged Clinton to speak out for a community that had strongly supported her.
Clinton refused.
“I’m struggling with how we can support this with a religious and family context,’’ Rosen recalled Clinton telling her. Clinton just wanted to know the best way to explain the position…
Clinton’s approach to same-sex marriage illustrates the caution that has come to define her political career. It also reflects a central challenge for the 68-year-old candidate, who along with her husband helped to shape an era of centrist politics designed to appeal to culturally conservative voters but has struggled to adapt to a generation of Democrats who have moved further to the left…
In 2004, the mayor of San Francisco started approving marriage licenses for same-sex couples. Courts in Massachusetts had endorsed marriage rights. President George W. Bush called for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, energizing a conservative base that would help him secure a second term.
Clinton said she opposed amending the Constitution but said in a Senate floor speech that she took “umbrage at anyone who might suggest that those of us who worry about amending the Constitution are less committed to the sanctity of marriage or to the fundamental bedrock principle that it exists between a man and a woman.”
Clinton’s perpetual balancing act unnerved some supporters.
Of course we know that Clinton has changed her view, with many suspecting this was primarily out of political expediency before running in the Democratic primaries this year. Regardless of her motivation, Clinton’s underlying social conservatism and religious views are bound to influence how she will govern assuming she goes on to be elected.
SciFi Weekend: Star Trek Discovery; Digital Erections; Supergirl; The Flash; What Thor Was Doing During Captain America: Civil War; Outlander; Doctor Who; You’re The Worst
August 28, 2016 — Ron Chusid
When word came out that Star Trek Discovery (officially abbreviated DSC, not STD) would take place about ten years before the original show, and it would feature a female lead who is not the Captain, many fans realized that this would put it around the era of The Cage (the original pilot which was re-cut into flashbacks on The Menagerie). Some also speculated that the female lead could be Number One from that episode if she transferred to a new ship. Bryan Fuller has told Ain’t It Cool News that the female lead will be know as Number One. It was not stated whether this will be the same character, or perhaps another character is being referred to in this manner (as Riker was on The Next Generation).
As for the other project upcoming from Bryan Fuller, I09 discussed plans for digital erections in American Gods.
Collider interviewed producer Andrew Kreisberg regarding plans for Supergirl’s second season:
With all of the great things that come with getting to continue the show on The CW, one of the things you lost was the ability to have Calista Flockhart on as a regular cast member. How often can we expect to see her?
KREISBERG: Well, she’s in the first two episodes and we’re talking to her about doing more. It’s funny because, from our perspective, we thought she wouldn’t do any. And it’s not because she doesn’t love the show. She’s such a huge fan of the show, but moving to Vancouver, we assumed that we would part as friends. But she’s so into the show and feels such an allegiance and a responsibility to it that she’s agreed to come back, so we’re very happy. We’re not focusing on what we don’t have. We’re focusing on what we do have, and it’s allowed us to have Ian Gomez, who’s playing Snapper Carr, come in, in a more supervisory capacity, which is fun. Kara has spent two years of her life learning to deal with Cat Grant’s idiosyncracies, foibles, short temper and mixed signals, and just when she finally got that down, she’s now introduced to a new boss who’s very different, has his own thing, and isn’t quite as impressed by her spunk as Cat always was, even if Cat wouldn’t admit it. It’s a journey, like any of us go on. We’ve all had different bosses, over the course of our careers. Just when you finally feel like you’ve nailed your job, you get promoted and you’re suddenly like, “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore!” That’s what’s going to happen to Kara this season…
What can you say about the addition of Christopher Wood and how his character will fit in with things?
KREISBERG: We don’t want to say too much because we’re doing our own version of Mon-El. Obviously, he’s a character from the comic books and he’s much beloved, and we’re putting our own spin on it. What’s interesting about Mon-El joining the show, from Kara’s perspective, is that Kara has spent her whole life as someone who’s been mentored, first by her mother, and then by the Danvers and Superman and Cat. She’s always been somebody who’s been taken care of, in a way. Now, with Mon-El, he’s fresh off the boat. As far as he’s concerned, living on another planet happened yesterday, and suddenly, he’s on Earth and everything he knew was lost, just the way it was for Kara, but she’s had 12 years to process it and he’s struggling with it. So, Kara is now the one in the mentor position. Ironically, she even says in an episode, “I was sent to Earth not to be a hero. I wasn’t sent here to be Supergirl. I was sent here to protect Clark and take care of Clark. Now, in an odd way, with Mon-El here, I’m getting to fulfill that original mission that I had.” So, it’s a big change and a big growing experience for Kara, this season.
How daunting was it to figure out how you wanted to portray Superman, what you wanted the dynamic between Clark and Kara to be, and finding the right actor to take all of that on?
KREISBERG: I think our take on him is probably something a little bit more traditional. There’s certainly a little bit of the “Aw shucks” about him, but he’s been Superman for awhile, so there’s a savviness about him as Superman and as Clark. If he’s been Superman for 12 years, that also means that he’s been Clark Kent for 12 years. He knows how to interview somebody. He knows how to get a story out of someone. As always, with any of these things, we’re never doing a direct adaptation of a specific comic book. We cherry pick the best parts and things that we love. So, there’s a little bit of the Christopher Reeve Superman in there, a healthy dose of the Superman animated series, which we’re huge fans of, a little bit of Lois & Clark, a little George Reeves, and a little Super Friends. And as far as finding the right guy, as soon as we said we were going to do Superman, Greg [Berlanti] mentioned Tyler [Hoechlin]. We’ve been fans of his for years, and when we sat down with him, he is Superman. Not just with the looks, but he’s such a good guy, such a nice guy, and he’s so open and forthright and brimming with life. You just feel better when you’re around him, which I think is part of the secret of Superman. He is that ideal, but not in an unattainable way. Superman should make you feel like you can do anything, even though he’s the one that can do anything. And Tyler just had all that in spades. So, it was less a question of us reaching out. It was more a question of hoping he would say yes. After Tyler, I’m not sure what we would have done…
What’s in store for J’onn J’onzz?
KREISBERG: Part of the reason we’re bringing on Miss Martian is to give J’onn his own story this year and his own emotional ride, meeting her and having this tie to his home world that he thought he would never have again. As he has to keep reminding people, he’s been here for 300 years and isolated for most of it. Last year, with his relationship with Alex and his relationship with Kara, he started to come out of his shell a little bit and wasn’t quite so afraid to show who he really was. So, in getting to interact with M’gann, he’s going to have a whole new person with which to share his martian experience. We think it’s going to be a great story.
The Flash will be lighter in tone next season, despite dealing with two villains along with Flashpoint.
On the weekends I often wear somewhat subtle genre t-shirts such as Stark Expo, Wayne Enterprises, or Nelson and Murdock, Avocados At Law. I have a lot of ties with hidden, and in some cases not so hidden Mickeys (and one with both Mickey and Goofy). Now it is possible to go all out with superhero themed suits. Fun Suits has put out a line of discrete Marvel and DC based suits. The Mary Sue provides a description. The downsides are that they are polyester, and won’t be available until November.
In other Marvel news, Marvel has revealed what Thor was busy doing during the events of Captain America: Civil War in the above video, which was shown at San Diego Comic Con.
Variety reports on Ron Moore’s comments about season 3 of Outlander:
“Outlander” showrunner Ronald D. Moore told an audience at the Edinburgh Intl. Television Festival on Thursday that in Season 3 the show would start in Scotland but would then be making a sea voyage in the 18th century.
“There’s an extended journey across the Atlantic and then the story eventually goes to Jamaica, the Caribbean and ending up in the New World,” he said. “Season 3 will be as different to Season 2 as Season 2 was to Season 1.”
These dramatic shifts threw up challenges for Moore, who said: “It’s exciting creatively; it’s very hard in terms of the production… You are doing a whole new series with every season. So that’s very difficult. Scouting new locations, building new sets, bringing in new cast members, new costumes, different eras. It increases the expense, it increases the time necessary to prep everything, to shoot everything… So it makes it more difficult and it also takes more mental energy having to crack new problems.”
…Moore underscored the differences between the novel and the show. “You are not capturing Diana’s voice in the show, so much as you are capturing her world and her story. Diana’s voice is there for you on the page. When you read the book, or any book, the author is speaking to you directly,” he said. “The TV show has a vision, feeling and vibe that is an entity unto itself. All these component pieces then combine into our voice.”
Ingrid Oliver says she knows the difference between the human and Zygon version of Osgood:
Discussing last year’s last year’s ‘The Zygon Invasion’ and ‘The Zygon Inversion’ episodes, Oliver told Doctor Who: The Fan Show: “In the script it simply said Osgood 1 and Osgood 2. Steven [Moffat] never said explicitly ‘This is Zygon Osgood and this is not Zygon Osgood – or Hybrid Osgood’, so I sort of made a choice, but I don’t know if it’s right!”
Asked if there were any tells to signify which Osgood is which, she revealed: “Yes, in my head there are some very small tells. But, having said that, it’s sort of open to interpretation – because I guess that’s the point of the episode. In my head, inevitably there are a couple of little things that I did.”
Oliver joked: “I don’t know if people have noticed it – probably not… the Zygon one strokes her chin a lot!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EurfvJ2z3gM
You’re the Worst returns on Wednesday. Season three trailer above. I hear the first episode is rather Not Safe For Work, and the season also includes an episode entitled The Last Sunday Funday. TV Line has more on the season.
I am waiting to see what happens next on tonight’s episode of The Last Ship. Last week’s episode felt like a look at Donald Trump’s America with that wall going up.
Conan O’Brien on Hillary Clinton
August 27, 2016 — Ron Chusid
Hillary Clinton received her first classified briefing as the Democratic nominee. Conan O’Brien had this to say: “On Saturday, Hillary Clinton will receive her first official intelligence briefing as a candidate. Officials plan to tell Hillary about threats to U.S. cybersecurity such as Russia, China, and her.”
Related jokes from Conan:
“According to Hillary Clinton’s newly-released medical records, she suffers from seasonal allergies. But she just takes some Benadryl and they’re all deleted.”
“Experts say Hillary Clinton’s campaign strategy is to ignore the controversies, and just run out the clock. By the way, that also happens to be Hillary Clinton’s marital strategy.”
Third Party Candidates Unusually Strong In 2016–Should Be Included In Presidential Debates
August 26, 2016 — Ron Chusid
With most voters unhappy with both the Democratic and Republican nominees for president, voters are more open to consider third party candidates. Even if not yet willing to say they will vote for one, many do believe third party candidates deserve a place in the debate. A Quinnipiac University poll shows 62 percent of likely voters say that Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson should be included in the debates this year. They weren’t asked about Jill Stein but, as the number of those supporting inclusion in the debates doesn’t correlate with plans to vote for Johnson, and is split among supporters of each major party, I bet a similar number of voters would also support include Stein.
Third party candidates are only included if they reach fifteen percent in the polls, but have difficulty reaching this number without exposure from the debates. While neither third party candidate is close to fifteen percent yet, third party candidates will very likely far better than usual this year. Most years the support for third party candidates has started to fall by now, and dwindles to near nothing by election day. FiveThirtyEight notes that we are not seeing that pattern so far this year:
Johnson is pulling in about 9 percent in the national polls, according to the FiveThirtyEight polls-only average. And his share in national polls has not fallen as we’ve gotten closer to the election. Indeed, Johnson’s support right now is higher than many other viable1I’m including third-party candidates who garnered a significant amount of media attention and were on the ballot in a substantial number of states. third-party candidates’ at a similar point in campaigns since 1948.
Johnson is pulling in at least twice as much of the vote as Henry Wallace or Strom Thurmond was in late August 1948, as Ralph Nader was in 2000 and certainly as Johnson himself was four years ago. Perhaps even more impressive is that Johnson is polling right about where Ross Perot was in 1996, when Perot had a nationally known name after his strong 1992 run. That said, Johnson is nowhere near the success of that 1992 campaign: Perot was pulling in 20 percent as a hypothetical candidate after leaving the 1992 campaign in July but before re-entering the race in October.
And notice: Most third-party candidates didn’t lose that much support between late summer and Election Day. Besides John Anderson in 1980, no candidate ended up finishing more than 3 percentage points below where they were polling in late August. The average drop-off is about 2 percentage points. Anderson, meanwhile, was already fading at this point in the campaign. In Gallup’s polling, for example, his support peaked at 24 percent in early summer and by now had dropped by 10 percentage points…
Why is Johnson’s support proving more durable than past third-party candidates’? The most obvious answer is that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are extremely unpopular for major party presidential nominees; if third-party voters eventually settled on a major party nominee in past campaigns for fear of “wasting their vote,” they may be less willing to settle this year. (Of course, Johnson’s support may simply fade later than past third-party candidates.)
There is, however, some bad news for Johnson in his steady numbers: They’re not going up either. He’s showing no signs of reaching 15 percent in national polls, the threshold necessary to get into the debates. Still, if he ends up with 7 percent of the vote — as we’d expect based upon history and the current polls — the Libertarian Party will qualify for federal campaign funding in 2020, and Johnson will claim the highest share of the vote of any non-major party nominee in 20 years.
The final paragraph reveals one reason to support third party candidates even if they have no chance of winning this year–qualifying for federal matching funds in the next election, along with an outside chance of making the debates. Both third party candidates are working to increase their vote totals this year. Johnson is starting to advertise in the battleground states and Jill Stein is increasing her ballot access, hoping to make the ballot in forty-seven states. The Nation ran a recent op-ed arguing that Stein should be part of a four-way debate.
Reason continues to look for reasons to hope that Gary Johnson will make the debate:
Looking for a glimmer of hope? Here’s one intriguing gap in the numerical record. Of the Commission on Presidential Debates’ determinative Big Five polls, in which Johnson has been averaging 10 percent instead of 9, none of them have produced results in the last three weeks. Beginning any minute now, we should have a much clearer idea whether the Libertarians are rising in the polls that actually matter.
If there has been no data for three weeks, there is the danger that Johnson’s support is following historical trends for third parties and falling, but it could be rising as Reason hopes. We can also hope that Jill Stein’s support is rising but has not yet been measured. With major party candidates as bad as Clinton and Trump, there is the possibility that more voters will reject them in favor of the alternatives.
Fact Checker and Ethicists Critical Of Clinton Regarding Foundation
August 25, 2016 — Ron Chusid
With the Clinton Foundation and the email scandal making the news again this week, both the fact checkers and ethicists are once again weighing in. PolitiFact has debunked Clinton surrogate Jennifer Granholm’s defense of the Clinton Foundation. Granholm claimed Clinton complied with the ethics agreements she entered into when she became Secretary of State. PolitiFact disagrees:
New emails released after Granholm made her statement, detailed in an Associated Press investigation, show that Clinton took many meetings with foundation donors as secretary of state and offered assistance to several.
The ethics agreements, plural
Clinton pledged to keep her distance from foundation matters as secretary of state. “I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter involving specific parties in which The William J. Clinton Foundation (or the Clinton Global Initiative) is a party or represents a party …,” she said.
The Clinton Foundation signed its own, separate memorandum of understanding with the Obama administration, promising to disclose donors annually and report material donation increases to the State Department among other things.
“The parties also seek to ensure that the activities of the Foundation, however beneficial, do not create conflicts or the appearance of conflicts for Senator Clinton as Secretary of State,” the memorandum of understanding reads.
What’s clear is that both agreements were intended to minimize conflicts of interest.
And in that regard, experts told us Granholm’s comments amount to poorly masked spin that focus on Clinton’s personal involvement while ignoring the involvement of her top aides.
Granholm is right that neither agreement prohibits aides facilitating meetings or taking job recommendations, but that’s only technically accurate because terms of the agreement were pretty specific to begin with, said John Wonderlich, the director of the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation.
“The letter of the memorandum of understanding is not the standard by which they’re being judged,” Wonderlich said. “By trying to use that as a defense, that just highlights the deficiencies of the memorandum of understanding.”
Granholm offered a lawyerly response that reflects “a certain tone-deafness on the part of the Clintons, their staff and surrogates,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor who specializes in government ethics at Washington University in St. Louis. “It keeps you out of jail but it doesn’t really address the underlying concern.”
That concern is that donors and those with ties to the Clinton Foundation could use their connections to curry favor with the U.S. government, “not just whether Clinton is technically violating an ethics statute” narrowly tailored for legal purposes.
So while the emails contain no smoking guns that point to pay-to-play, Wonderlich said, they contribute to “a sense of commingling the personal and the official.”
Clark held up the Clinton campaign’s argument that Band sent the emails as Bill Clinton’s aide as an example of a flimsy response.
“That’s nice, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a foundation connection,” she said. “The foundation’s work is no doubt laudable, but it’s not at all clear how they are addressing a reasonable perception that giving money to the foundation may help one accomplish goals related to the U.S. government.”
Craig Holman of the government accountability think tank Public Citizen said the new emails at least show “an effort was made to secure official favors” for donors.
“The Clinton Foundation itself did not live up to the expectations of the ethics agreement,” he said.
Violations elsewhere
Outside of the emails, the Clinton Foundation has actually violated its memorandum of understanding with the State Department.
As previously mentioned, the foundation agreed to disclose donors every year while its various initiatives would do the same and report material increases from existing donors to the state department.
But in 2015, numerous media outlets reported several instances of the Clinton Foundation breaking its promises. There were three major examples:
• Not reporting to the State Department a $500,000 donation from Algeria in 2010
• Not disclosing over 1,000 donors who passed $2.35 million total through the Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative through a Canadian foundation (the foundation simply reported the revenue from the Canadian foundation)
• Not updating or notifying the State Department on the Clinton Health Access Initiative’s donor list, which included five new foreign countries and two with material increases in giving, from 2010 to 2013
To be clear, none of these disclosure failures are proof of quid pro quo. But experts told us that the Clinton camp and the public should have higher standards.
“The fact that it’s not a bribe may help keep you out of federal prison, but is that good enough?” Clark said.
Our ruling
Granholm said Clinton “abided by the ethics agreement” between the Clinton Foundation and the Obama administration.
That’s a misleading response that ignores what occurred at Clinton’s State Department.
Experts told us emails between Clinton aides and a foundation aide may not have been prohibited by the specific terms of the ethics pledges. But they demonstrate a blurring of the lines between official government business and Clinton’s personal connections — breaking the firewall Clinton agreed to preserve.
The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.
Politico discussed the latest revelations, along with the announcement that Chelsea Clinton will remain on the board of the Clinton Foundation. The interviews included Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn:
“Without a doubt, moving forward, having Chelsea at the foundation is really going to create problems for [Clinton],” Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn said, noting that ethics rules typically recognize the child of an official as being directly linked to their interests.
Hillary Clinton tried to turn attention back on Donald Trump in a speech today. The New York Times reports:
Hillary Clinton delivered a blistering denunciation Thursday of Donald J. Trump’s personal and political history with race, arguing in her most forceful terms yet that a nationalist conservative fringe had engulfed the Republican Party.
In a 31-minute address, building to a controlled simmer, Mrs. Clinton did everything but call Mr. Trump a racist outright — saying he had promoted “racist lie” after “racist lie,” pushed conspiracy theories with “racist undertones” and heartened racists across the country by submitting to an “emerging racist ideology known as the alt-right.”
“He is taking hate groups mainstream,” Mrs. Clinton told supporters at a community college here, “and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party.”
Hillary Clinton gave this speech attacking Donald Trump as being from the “alt-right.” The battle is on, Clinton of the neocon-right versus Trump of the alt-right. May they both lose.
Clinton & Trump Failing At Fooling The Voters While News From NASA Offers Potential Escape Plan
August 24, 2016 — Ron Chusid
Regardless of what other surprises occur during this campaign, it is safe to predict that Hillary Clinton will not convince people she is not a crook, and Donald Trump will not convince people he is not xenophobic and racist. Among the worst consequences of Clinton being elected will be to see Democrats become the Republican Party of 2001. After opposing both neocon foreign policy and the “culture of corruption” under Bush, the Democratic Party now owns both with the nomination of Hillary Clinton.
It is rather disappointing to see how many Democratic bloggers who criticized corruption under Bush find ways to rationalize actions they would have never tolerated under Republicans, and attack the media as opposed to those acting unethically. No, just because you think your party represents the good guys, this does not excuse such action. Less partisan sources are more critical of the latest revelations regarding the unethical relationships between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department revealed in the latest batch of emails and the AP’s review of the number of meetings Clinton had as Secretary of State with large donors to the Foundation. For example, USA Today called for the Clinton Foundation to be mothballed:
Ending foreign and corporate contributions is a good step, but allowing them to continue at least through the first week of November looks more like an influence-peddling fire sale (Give while you still can!) than a newfound commitment to clean government.
And the complex plan for allowing donations from U.S. citizens and permanent residents, keeping some parts of the Clinton Foundation alive, and maintaining scores of Clinton-family allies on the payroll is less an opportunity for a clean slate than a guarantee of new controversy.
Yes, the Clinton Foundation supports many good works, notably the fight against HIV/AIDS. No, it is not “the most corrupt enterprise in political history,” as Donald Trump is calling it, nor is there enough evidence of potential criminality to warrant appointment of the special prosecutor Trump is seeking.
But the only way to eliminate the odor surrounding the foundation is to wind it down and put it in mothballs, starting today, and transfer its important charitable work to another large American charity such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. If Hillary Clinton doesn’t support these steps, she boosts Trump’s farcical presidential campaign and, if she’s elected, opens herself up to the same kind of pay-to-play charges that she was subject to as secretary of State…
When Clinton became secretary in 2009, new ethical quandaries arose that few people imagined at the time. She gave key State Department aides permission to work for the Clinton Foundation while they worked at State and drew paychecks from a Clinton-affiliated for-profit consulting firm. Emails from her private server reveal communications between foundation representatives and her aides about setting up meetings between America’s top diplomats and the Clinton Foundation’s top donors, including Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire.
According to an Associated Press analysis of Clinton’s State Department calendars released so far, more than half the people outside of government she met with or spoke with on the phone as secretary of State had made pledges or donations to her family charity. Those 85 people donated as much as $156 million. The tabulation published Tuesday does not include the meetings and phone calls with representatives of 16 foreign governments that contributed as much as $170 million to the foundation.
Should Clinton win, she’ll face an uphill battle to rebuild trust in government and find a way to get Washington working again. That task will be all the harder if millions of voters repulsed by Trump’s rhetoric and concerned with his volatile behavior find that his “Crooked Hillary” taunt had some substance in fact.
While Clinton, enjoying a huge and possibly insurmountable lead, prefers to try to run out the clock and continues to avoid the press as much as possible, Donald Trump is trying to convince voters that he is not racist. Aaron Blake poked holes in Trump’s statement of regret for some of the things he has said and, Jonathan Chait pointed out that the one flaw in Trump’s plan is that he really is a racist:
The main difficulty Trump faces in dispelling the impression that he is a racist is that Trump is, in fact, a gigantic racist. His first appearance in the New York Times came in the context of his being caught refusing to rent apartments to African-Americans. A former Trump employee has detailed a series of private racist statements and acts — saying “laziness is a trait in blacks,” objecting to black people working for him in accounting, his staff shooing black people off the casino floor when he arrived. Trump has replied that the comments were “probably true,” but berated the person who made them as a “loser.” He has questioned the legitimacy of President Obama’s birth certificate, called him a “terrible student,” and implied he only made it into Harvard Law School due to affirmative action…
Trump has spent more than a year identifying himself as the candidate of white-backlash politics, using his appeal to the most racially resentful Republicans to win the nomination. And now he’s running to Clinton’s left on criminal justice! Trump adviser Roger Stone tells the Post, “an entire generation of young black men are incarcerated” because of the 1994 bill. So African-Americans should instead vote for the candidate who literally called for “retribution” and an end to civil liberties. Does Trump’s campaign really think anybody is going to believe this?
One of these dreadful candidates will win, with most voters hating the outcome regardless of how they vote. The one good news in this awful political year is that NASA announced finding a potentially habitable planet as close as Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our solar system. This might provide a potential escape route from an earth in which either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is President of the United States.
AP Found That Half Of Clinton’s Non-Government Meetings As Secretary of State Were With Foundation Donors
August 23, 2016 — Ron ChusidAP has analyzed Hillary Clinton’s meetings with people outside of the government when she was Secretary of State and found that half of them were donors to the Clinton Foundation:
More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money – either personally or through companies or groups – to the Clinton Foundation. It’s an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.
At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.
Donors who were granted time with Clinton included an internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran; a Wall Street executive who sought Clinton’s help with a visa problem; and Estee Lauder executives who were listed as meeting with Clinton while her department worked with the firm’s corporate charity to counter gender-based violence in South Africa.
The meetings between the Democratic presidential nominee and foundation donors do not appear to violate legal agreements Clinton and former president Bill Clinton signed before she joined the State Department in 2009. But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with Clinton. Her calendars and emails released as recently as this week describe scores of contacts she and her top aides had with foundation donors…
“There’s a lot of potential conflicts and a lot of potential problems,” said Douglas White, an expert on nonprofits who previously directed Columbia University’s graduate fundraising management program. “The point is, she can’t just walk away from these 6,000 donors.”
…Some of Clinton’s most influential visitors donated millions to the Clinton Foundation and to her and her husband’s political coffers. They are among scores of Clinton visitors and phone contacts in her official calendar turned over by the State Department to AP last year and in more-detailed planning schedules that so far have covered about half her four-year tenure. The AP sought Clinton’s calendar and schedules three years ago, but delays led the AP to sue the State Department last year in federal court for those materials and other records.
While it is not certain if this violates the letter of the ethics agreements Clinton entered into before becoming Secretary of State, Clinton is known to have violated the letter of the agreement in other areas, and this certainly violates the spirit. Politico discussed earlier revelations with ethicists:
Meredith McGehee, policy director for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, said that the actual language of the pledge is “not surprisingly, very lawyerly … [and] there is an argument to be made that Clinton herself has not violated what was in the pledge.”
“Whether she or her aides have violated the spirit of the pledge … yeah, of course they have,” McGehee said. “The notion of continuing contact between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department — that was not supposed to happen.”
With these major ethical lapses, it was not surprising when McClatchy reported that there was no record of Clinton and her top aides undergoing the required ethics training at the State Department.
Since leaving the State Department, Clinton has been found to have violated policy with regards to using a home server rather than a government email system, failing to turn over any email for archiving which was sent over personal email, destroying over half the email and falsely claiming it was personal, and failing to disclose all donors to the Clinton Foundation as she agreed prior to her confirmation. She was found to have unethically made rulings on multiple occasions regarding parties which contributed to the Foundation and/or made unprecedented payments for speeches to Bill Clinton.
There have been questions regarding improper relationships between the Clinton Foundation and Clinton’s political actions for quite a long time. On April 24, 2015 the nonpartisan watchdog group Common Cause called for a full audit of the Foundation:
Citing concerns about potential conflicts of interest and the influence of hidden overseas donors, Common Cause called on presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Clinton Foundation today to commission an independent and thorough review of all large donations to the foundation and to release the results.
“As Mrs. Clinton herself observed earlier this week, voluntary disclosure is not enough,” said Common Cause President Miles Rapoport. “A report in Thursday’s New York Times indicates that the Clinton Foundation violated an agreement to identify all of its donors. The foundation’s omissions create significant gaps in the information that voters need to make informed decisions at the polls.”
To ensure that the audit is complete, Rapoport said the foundation should enter into a contractual agreement with auditors to open its books fully and to make public the complete report of their review.
And to further guard against potential conflicts of interest, the foundation should stop accepting donations from foreign governments and foreign corporations, he said.
“There already is too much ‘dark money’ in our elections, in the form of spending by supposedly independent nonprofit groups that are not required to disclose their donors and operate as sort of shadow campaigns,” Rapoport said. “The Clinton Foundation and any other foundations tied to a candidate or his or her family provide one more way for potential donors to gain access and curry favor from candidates – without the public knowing about it. That lack of transparency creates a clear risk of undue influence and conflicts of interest.”
While the Clinton Foundation has garnered headlines this week, Rapoport noted that at least one other apparent presidential hopeful, Republican Jeb Bush, has close ties to a foundation. The former Florida governor created the Foundation for Excellence in Education and last year turned over its leadership to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; it should initiate and make public the same kind of independent review Common Cause is recommending for the Clinton Foundation, Rapoport said.
Though Mrs. Clinton has severed ties with the Clinton Foundation, her husband and daughter remain active in its operations.
“Six years ago, at Mrs. Clinton’s confirmation hearing for her appointment as secretary of state, then-Sen. Dick Lugar observed that ‘that foreign governments and entities may perceive the Clinton Foundation as a means to gain favor with the secretary of state.’ He was right, and his remarks remain relevant today as Mrs. Clinton seeks the presidency,” Rapoport said.
The evidence of a need for a full audit of the Clinton Foundation, if not a special prosecutor as Donald Trump has called for, are even greater today.
