Hello. It is I, normal American voter of age group Millennium. Name Doug or something.

My guys, can you believe latest scandal in campaign of Hillary Clinton? This scandal is all my millennial friends talk about, as well as her many other scandals, and “Game of Thrones.” It is hot topic of conversation and snapchats when we get together to trade cassettes at hottest new borscht place (we are “foodies”).

We do not like Hillary Clinton, but not because she is woman, no no. We are young Americans with soft hands who do not think it is shameful to vote for a female who has never strangled a wolf. No, we do not like her because of the content of these emails.
These emails show that the Democratic National Committee has rigged the election in favor of Hillary Clinton! Shame! Shame! I will never vote for her, and neither will any of my friends in backwards baseball caps! It is wrong to rig elections, and not sensible and normal! I love basketball!

It is not important who hacked these emails or why. My friends Doug and Doug and my girlfriend Beyonce and I all agree on this. “What if it was the Russian government? Wouldn’t that be a frightening indication that Vladimir Putin is attempting to destabilize an American election and tip the balance in favor of Donald Trump, whose anti-NATO stance would potentially make it easier for Russia to invade countries in the old Soviet bloc?” absolutely none of us said.

We were too busy playing Pokemon: Go!

We know nothing of Putin, except of course that he is handsome and strong, like a robot with tigers for hands, and Beyonce has many times dreamed of him shirtless upon his majestic horse.

We know only that we will never, ever, ever vote for Hillary Clinton. It is very important to our principles to not vote for this shame-woman. No matter if this means the election of Mr. Donald Trump. No matter who this hurts.

Or who it helps.

See you at the Justin Bieber concert!

Your definitely American friend,
Doug

PHILADELPHIA — Debbie Wasserman Schultz wasn’t supposed to ask Joe Biden to come to her daughter’s bat mitzvah.

Democratic National Committee staff had sent the chair to the vice president armed with four specific requests for getting him involved in raising money for the party.

She decided to scrap them for two of her own.

First, she asked Biden to do a fundraiser for her own reelection to her House seat in Florida in the primary challenge she’s facing next month. He agreed.

The second was to get down to Boca Raton for the bat mitzvah.

When Obama agreed to do a DNC fundraiser in Miami in June — and in the end, went out of his way in his public remarks to talk about why Wasserman Schultz needed to be reelected — she for weeks hassled White House political director David Simas to get 10 of the 60 seats (which went for $10,000 each) at the event for her congressional reelection campaign’s biggest donors. She ended up filling the seats, according to people involved with planning the event, with family and friends.

Frustration within the DNC, the White House and the Clinton campaign was exacerbated by Wasserman Schultz’s efforts to raise her own profile by appearing more often on national television.

Luis Miranda, the communications director whom Wasserman Schultz hired last September, pitched her hard in their interview on how he would get her on TV more often. He got the job over two candidates who were recommended by the Clinton campaign.

“The biggest problem with the communications department right now is that we don’t put Debbie out there enough,” Miranda said at his first staff meeting after coming on board in September, according to people in the room.

After Clinton won the nomination in June, her campaign moved quickly to try to take control of the DNC. But when Brandon Davis, former political director of the Service Employees International Union, was brought in to the DNC by Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook to be the campaign’s eyes and ears in the party office, Wasserman Schultz made comments both in introducing him to the full staff and in private conversations encouraging people to see him as working for her.

Wasserman Schultz couldn’t stop Davis’ hiring. But when the campaign tried to bring in a senior communications aide who’d be supervisor to Miranda, she dug in against the move, infuriating the Clinton campaign anew, according to people familiar with the discussions.

A group of California delegates wearing red T-shirts stood up during Admiral John Hutson's remarks and began chanting "Trump" and "Let her in." They were quickly drowned out by other California delegates who chanted "Hillary." It wasn't immediately clear what the "Let her in" was a reference to.

It is the other half of the equation that is more opaque. Putin is helping Trump, but what exactly is Trump giving him in return? As Foer notes, Trump’s habit of refusing to pay back people who loan him money means regular American banks won’t lend him money anymore, making him dependent on unusual sources of financing. He has cultivated deep personal and financial ties with Russia — and to do major business with Russia, unlike a reasonably free economy, is to do business with its ruling claque. Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, helped orchestrate Putin’s intervention in Ukraine. His Russia adviser Carter Page has deep ties to Russia and owns stock in Gazprom, the state-controlled firm that is a major source of the Kremlin’s financial and economic power. Michael Flynn, another Trump adviser, appears regularly on RT and refused to answer questions about whether he is paid to do so. Trump and Putin have exchanged lavish compliments.

Trump’s own financial ties to Russia are completely non-transparent and will remain so as long as he refuses to release his tax returns. With a normal candidate, the Russia connection would amount to a massive, disqualifying scandal. At minimum, the nominee would face overwhelming pressure to release his tax return — a standard requirement even without grounds for suspicion — to prove he is not getting paid by a hostile foreign power. To be clear, it is pretty improbable that Trump is literally working for Putin. But this hardly settles the question. First, for a risk as consequential as the willful penetration of the American government by a hostile power, “pretty improbable” is not improbable enough. Second, the more likely explanation for the web of ties between Trump and Putin is still fairly damning. You have a candidate with a long record of admiring despots in general and the Russian despot in particular, surrounded by advisers in his pay, and who is flamboyantly ignorant of policy. Given these circumstances, it would be hard to imagine how Trump could form views on Russia without Putin’s influence.

But the accusation that Trump’s relationship with Russia reeks of impropriety, in the media now by Clinton, has provoked a furious counterattack on the left. Even the indisputable notion that Russia is trying to help Trump (far from the more explosive charge that Trump is trying to help Russia) has been assailed on the left as “McCarthyism” by figures like Katrina vandenHeuvel, Glenn Greenwald, and many others.

...


Trump’s pro-Russia tilt has reenergized these Cold War tropes. The left-wing writer Corey Robin heartily endorses the Republican nominee’s statement that “When the world sees how bad the United States is and we start talking about civil liberties, I don’t think we are a very good messenger.” And in response to liberals aghast at Trump’s renunciation of upholding America’s commitment to NATO, Robin sneers at “the prospect of sending the US military off to fight Putin or whomever it is we’re now supposed to be willing to fight over NATO.” To clear up Robin’s apparent confusion, “whomever it is we’re now supposed to be willing to fight over NATO” is in fact whoever invades the members of NATO, all of whom are pledged to defend each other in the event of an attack. And “now” is in fact since NATO was formed in 1949.

...

Update: The Nation has an editorial denouncing defending Trump’s relationship with Russia, under the headline “Against Neo-McCarthyism.” The Nation’s in-house Russophile Stephen F. Cohen echoes those views. The editorial hinges upon a loose definition of “McCarthyism,” a term I would use to mean “false accusations of disloyalty,” but which The Nation uses to mean “any accusation of being in agreement with Russia, whether true or not.”

The editorial asserts, “nobody has conclusively proven who hacked into the DNC’s network.” “Conclusive proof” is a pretty difficult standard, in the absence of a signed, notarized confession from Vladimir Putin. What we do have is the strong belief of experts both inside and outside the American government.

The editorial likewise argues that poor Trump is being smeared because he wisely opposes arming Ukraine:

Comparing the first night of both the Democratic and Republican conventions, the Democrats came out slightly ahead (though the ratings agency admitted to probable undercounting of ours since Bernie Sanders spoke past 11 PM, when they had stopped tracking).

Apparently, people liked what they saw on Monday, because the ratings disparity is now turning into a rout.

At least 24.3M people watched #DemsInPhilly from 10-11:15 Tues. Down a tick from Monday, but about 25% higher than day 2 of #RNCinCLE
— Joe Adalian (@TVMoJoe) July 27, 2016

An estimated 26 million viewers were tuned in to cable and broadcast coverage of the convention’s 10 p.m. ET slot that featured former White House occupant Bill Clinton making the case for his wife, Hillary Clinton, the first woman to receive a major party nomination for president. Nielsen will have an official figure late Wednesday afternoon.


In contrast, the featured hour for the second night of the Republican National Convention was watched by 19.8 million viewers on the ad-supported networks on July 19. An additional 1.3 million viewers watched on PBS.

The source, familiar with some of the details but not authorized to discuss them, said the DNC also cut Turner and another prominent and effective surrogate, actress Rosario Dawson, from the promotional video that aired just before Sanders' Monday night speech. Sanders reportedly fought the moves, but was not able to overturn the decision.

However, Hinojosa said most delegates quickly denounced Lytle's comment.

“Within minutes, Bernie delegates started coming to me and said, ‘We are really sorry. This is not what we planned to do. We do not agree with this,'" Hinojosa recalled.

He said some Sanders delegates then went back on the stage to address the situation and apologized for Lytle’s remark. Lytle has since turned in his credentials and released a statement apologizing for the remark.

...



Jacob Limon, the Texas state director for the Sanders campaign, said Lytle “got caught up in the moment” and his word choice does not reflect the sentiments of the Sanders delegation. Limon said Lytle would be replaced by an alternate delegate.

“In a few hours, we’re not going to be Bernie delegates or Hillary delegates, we’re going to be Democratic delegates,” Limon told POLITICO in an interview. “99 percent of the speech and what we talked about was fantastic.”

Limon said people left the breakfast in good spirits, and he feels the delegation is united behind Clinton as they head into the roll call vote later Tuesday.