August 31, 2017

Does Hillary Owe Us An Apology? Or Does The Media Owe Her One? - Gene Lyons

Gene Lyons
Does Hillary Owe Us An Apology? Or Does The Media Owe Her One?
August 29, 2017 9:59 pm

Full article posted with the permission of the author -- Don

Way back in April, 1994 Hillary Rodham Clinton held a press conference concerning Whitewater, the granddaddy of all phony Clinton scandals. Pressed about whether she and her husband should have known that their Ozarks real estate partnership was doing badly and paid off its loans, she responded flippantly.

“Shoulda, coulda, woulda,” she said. “We didn’t.”

Editorialists pronounced themselves offended. She was even dubbed a “congenital liar,” although the facts eventually showed that the Clintons’ partner Jim McDougal had actively deceived them about their investment. But you never saw a straightforward account in the scandal-mongering press. That would have spoiled the fun.

From Whitewater through Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation and her accursed emails, it became a familiar pattern. Hillary Clinton was arrogant, corrupt, deceptive—essentially a brass-plated bitch. Each time the actual evidence revealed no real crime, her detractors simply moved on to the next damned thing. It was like something out of Lord of the Flies.

“Lock her up,” crowds chanted, although that was never going to happen.

Sorry to say, but among Hillary’s most ardent detractors were certain of the MSNBC All-Stars and New York Times columnists currently rending their garments over the misbegotten presidency of Donald Trump. I’ve yet to notice even one acknowledge his or her role in the ritual stoning.

In 2015, both the Times and Washington Post cut deals with Peter Schweitzer, author of Clinton Cash, a murky expose of imagined corruption at the Clinton Foundation. Schweitzer basically proved that to raise billions for health care in Africa, it’s necessary to pal around with rich people. Not that Bill and Hillary ever minded. Schweitzer’s book was financed by a foundation run by one Stephen K. Bannon—a fellow recently in the news.

To summarize, a recent report from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center documented that Clinton scandals drew “sixteen times the amount of news coverage given to [Hillary’s] most heavily covered policy position.” Her emails alone drew four times more negative coverage than the old P***y Grabber’s treatment of women.

On the day FBI director James Comey released his ill-advised, ultimately withdrawn letter hinting at previously undiscovered emails, the Times’ entire front page above the fold was devoted to the story. Sample headline: “With 11 Days to Go, Trump Says Revelation Changes Everything.”

As, indeed, it did. Absolutely did the bitch in. Anybody who denies Comey’s intervention settled the election can’t have looked at the data.

Fat lot of good it did him.

So anyway, there was Hillary last week giving us the shoulda, coulda, woulda version of her 2016 election loss. Given that any baseball fan can name pitchers who never got over surrendering dramatic home runs, maybe her contrition shouldn’t be surprising.

Nevertheless, I found it so.

“Every day that I was a candidate for president,” she wrote, “I knew that millions of people were counting on me, and I couldn’t bear the idea of letting them down—but I did. I couldn’t get the job done, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.”

But what really eats at Hillary is her failure to confront the Bully-in-Chief when she had the chance. In a recorded excerpt on “Morning Joe,” she remembers thinking “This is not O.K….It was the second presidential debate, and Donald Trump was looming behind me. Two days before, the world heard him brag about groping women. Now we were on a small stage and no matter where I walked, he followed me closely, staring at me, making faces. It was incredibly uncomfortable. He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled.”

Indeed, replays show the big galoot lurching around the stage like the villain in a teen slasher film. All he lacked was a pair of overalls and a chainsaw. Hillary recalls asking herself what to do:

“Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly invading your space?” she said. “Or do you turn, look him in the eye, and say loudly and clearly: ‘Back up, you creep, get away from me! I know you love to intimidate women, but you can’t intimidate me, so back up.’ ”

“I chose option A. I kept my cool, aided by a lifetime of difficult men trying to throw me off. I did, however, grip the microphone extra hard. I wonder, though, whether I should have chosen option B. It certainly would have been better TV. Maybe I have overlearned the lesson of staying calm, biting my tongue, digging my fingernails into a clenched fist, smiling all the while, determined to present a composed face to the world.”

Better TV maybe, but Option B risked disaster. A classic New York blowhard surrounded by bodyguards all his life, Trump revels in name-calling contests. There are no depths to which he won’t sink.

But then I don’t think Hillary Clinton owes me an apology at all.

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http://www.nationalmemo.com/hillary-apology-media/

August 31, 2017

One way or the other, the post-party presidency is coming -- Matt Bai

Matt Bai
Yahoo NewsAugust 31, 2017

You’d have to think that some part of President Trump was relieved to be in Texas this week — to finally be confronting crisis rather than creating it, to be demonstrating some unity rather than driving people further apart.

Of course, Trump being Trump, he somehow managed to speak at a briefing in the middle of a major disaster zone without once mentioning the victims of the hurricane, which he had already admitted to exploiting for its TV ratings.

“What a crowd!” Trump exclaimed upon leaving his event at a firehouse, where 1,000 Texans had gathered for what he seemed to think was an impromptu rally. “What a turnout!”

Back in Washington, though, there were no tributes — only a growing sense, now openly discussed in both parties, that Trump’s hold on the office is proving increasingly tenuous. Rebuked by congressional leaders for his tolerance of white nationalists and for a controversial pardon, abandoned publicly by some members of his own Cabinet, Trump is fast becoming the " target="_blank">Tom Hanks of presidents, stranded on his own little political island, futilely throwing coconuts at the wall.

His approval rating, now stuck at around 35 percent in a series of polls, opens the door wide not just to a tumultuous midterm election season, but also to a long and unpredictable presidential campaign after that.

more
https://www.yahoo.com/news/one-way-post-party-presidency-coming-090029546.html

August 31, 2017

U.S. states hit back at EPA chief over climate rule guidance

Source: Reuters




AUGUST 31, 2017 / 11:52 AM / AN HOUR AGO

Lawrence Hurley and Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic state officials blasted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday for telling governors in what they describe as a “legally incorrect” letter in March that they do not need to comply with a major climate change regulation.

Fourteen Democratic attorneys general and officials from six cities and counties said the guidance that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt sent to states on March 30 was misleading because the Clean Power Plan enacted under former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, remains on the books despite the Republican Trump administration’s plans to unravel it.

The Clean Power Plan was aimed at curbing carbon emissions from power plants. It never took effect because the Supreme Court put it on hold in February 2016.

The state officials said the regulation “remains the law of the land” even if it is currently on hold and that Pruitt’s “unsolicited legal advice” to governors was “premature and legally incorrect.” They called for Pruitt to retract his letter. The move is the latest tussle between Democrats who back the regulation and the new administration, conservative states and the coal industry, which oppose it.



Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-idUSKCN1BB28L

August 31, 2017

Kushner Faces Cash Crunch

August 31, 2017 at 7:09 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

Bloomberg: “Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, wakes up each morning to a growing problem that will not go away. His family’s real estate business, Kushner Cos., owes hundreds of millions of dollars on a 41-story office building on Fifth Avenue. It has failed to secure foreign investors, despite an extensive search, and its resources are more limited than generally understood.”

“As a result, the tower poses a significant challenge to the company. Over the past two years, executives and family members have sought substantial overseas investment from previously undisclosed places: South Korea’s sovereign-wealth fund, France’s richest man, Israeli banks and insurance companies, and exploratory talks with a Saudi developer, according to former and current executives. These were in addition to previously reported attempts to raise money in China and Qatar.”

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https://politicalwire.com/2017/08/31/kushner-faces-cash-crunch/

August 31, 2017

New Trump Hotel Investigation Makes Six Probes Involving President

BY GREG PRICE ON 8/31/17 AT 12:10 PM

Whether it’s his campaign, family members, friends, business associates or even his business, it seems everywhere President Donald Trump turns there's an investigation involving him.

The latest probe, which raises the grand total to six, has to do with Trump International Hotel in Washington and the lease it obtained from the General Services Administration (GSA), Bloomberg BNA reported Tuesday.

Both the Government Accountability Office and the GSA’s Office of Inspector General are looking into the lease after two Democratic lawmakers, Representatives Peter DeFazio of Oregon and Hank Johnson of George, penned a letter in June asking for an inquiry.

The agencies responded, meaning the president now has at least some involvement in six different federal probes. To date, the four other known investigations are being conducted by the House and Senate intelligence committees, as well as by the Senate Judiciary Committee and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is heading up the FBI’s probe into whether Trump's presidential campaign colluded with Russia in an effort to win the White House.

A GSA spokesperson told Bloomberg the exact scope of its investigation had yet to be determined, but the report comes after the agency claimed on March 23 the hotel’s lease was in “full compliance.”

more
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-hotel-investigations-washington-657811

August 31, 2017

Can Trump's Arpaio Pardon Flip Arizona?

BY MARIA BUSTILLOS, CAPITAL & MAIN ON 8/31/17 AT 9:20 AM

Capital & Main is an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political and social issues.

Donald Trump issued his first pardon last Friday, to Joe Arpaio, expunging the former Maricopa County sheriff’s federal conviction on criminal contempt charges relating to illegal racial profiling. It would not be surprising, considering Trump’s polarizing rhetoric on August 22 at a Phoenix rally, if many Arizonans consider the Arpaio pardon “a slap in the face,” as Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton called it. The pardon has only made it harder for moderate Republicans to halt or even slow Arizona’s accelerating blueward political shift—a shift that exploded last year when Latino voters, angered by both Arpaio’s racist policies and passage of an anti-immigrant law, joined with labor and community advocates to challenge the encrusted status quo through activist coalitions.

The once immensely popular Arpaio has become Kryptonite to Republicans in his own state. Challenger Paul Penzone beat him 56 percent to 44 percent in the sheriff’s race last November, denying Arpaio a seventh term. In that election Trump won Arizona by a measly 3.5 percent, in comparison with the 12 percent margin of victory enjoyed by Mitt Romney against Barack Obama in 2012. An August High Ground poll found that 55 percent of Arizonans disapprove of Trump’s job performance.

"For a president that claims to be a rule of law president, he's done the opposite. He ignored what this court behind us has said and he pardoned a criminal," said Carlos Garcia, the director of Puente, a grassroots migrant justice organization, after the pardon’s announcement. Puente, along with immigrant-rights activists and organizers representing Progress Now Arizona, Promise Arizona and the Center for Neighborhood Leadership, had gathered outside the Phoenix courthouse for a news conference, flanked by giant inflatable Trump and Arpaio balloons—the latter “dressed” in prison stripes, like the ones Arpaio infamously made his own inmates wear.

On Tuesday, a group of lawyers met on the lawn of the same courthouse to protest the pardon, the Phoenix New Times reported. Former Arizona attorney general Grant Woods, a Republican, said that the pardon did not reflect conservative values. “There is no more powerful act of government than to deprive someone of their liberty. When people do that based upon the color of someone’s skin, there isn’t a bigger outrage that could be in this country.” Others present objected to Trump’s apparent disdain for the authority of the court system. “When you see people breaking the law and getting away with it, it hurts the whole legal system,” said criminal defense attorney Benjamin Taylor.

more
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-arpaio-pardon-arizona-democrats-657362

August 31, 2017

Pentagon releases name of missing soldier from Black Hawk crash

Source: The Hill




BY ELLEN MITCHELL - 08/31/17 11:41 AM EDT

The Defense Department has released the name of a U.S. service member who is still missing after an Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed near Yemen last week.

Staff Sgt. Emil Rivera-Lopez is listed as “whereabouts unknown” after the Aug. 25 crash nearly 20 miles off the southern coast of Yemen, according to the Pentagon. Officials did not release Rivera-Lopez’s age or unit, and said the crash is still being investigated.

Rivera-Lopez is from Tucson, Arizona, but was living in Savannah, Georgia, according to local news station WTOC. Five other crewmembers on board the helicopter at the time of the crash were rescued by U.S. forces.

The soldiers were part of Operation Inherent Resolve – the mission aimed at defeating the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria – and were conducting a training mission at the time of the crash, the Washington Post reported.

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Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/defense/348706-pentagon-releases-name-of-missing-soldier-from-black-hawk-crash

August 31, 2017

Poll: West Virginians approve of Dem senator more than Trump

Source: The Hill




BY JULIA MANCHESTER - 08/31/17 11:22 AM EDT

West Virginia voters are more likely to approve of their Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin than President Trump, according to a MetroNews West Virginia poll released on Thursday.

Fifty-one percent of West Virginia voters polled said they approved of Manchin, while 48 percent approved of Trump.

West Virginia gave Trump his highest margin of victory in the 2016 election; he won nearly 69 percent of the vote there.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) trailed her Democratic counterpart, with 40 percent of voters polled saying the approved of the Republican.





Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/348694-poll-west-virginians-approve-of-dem-senator-more-than-trump

August 31, 2017

Dems' 2020 dilemma: Familiar 70-somethings vs. neophyte no-names

The party's presidential prospects generally fall into two, less-than-optimal categories.

By EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE 08/31/2017 04:57 AM EDT

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Old but well-known vs. fresh but anonymous: That’s how the 2020 Democratic presidential field is shaping up so far — and it’s causing anxiety within a party starting to acknowledge that President Donald Trump could be harder to beat for reelection than the base would like to admit.

The older generation — Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — would be tested and experienced on the national stage, with high name recognition and built-in support. They’d also all be in their 70s, people who’ve been around forever for Trump to use as perfect foils for exactly what he stands against.

Then there’s everyone else looking at a White House run who could embody a new start, separate from the Washington and political establishment that repel voters. But they’re virtually unknown, and they’d be running against the most famous man in the world who’s proved he can dominate every news cycle.

If only, Democrats say, there was some person under 55 who had any profile.

more
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/31/democrats-2020-sanders-warren-biden-242189

August 31, 2017

Iran sticks to key limits of nuclear deal - U.N. watchdog

Source: Reuters




THU AUG 31, 2017 / 3:30 PM BST

Shadia Nasralla

(Reuters) - Iran has remained within key limits on its nuclear activities imposed by its 2015 deal with world powers, a U.N. atomic watchdog report said on Thursday.

The report was the third since the January inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has called the 2015 agreement between six major powers and Iran, reached under his predecessor Barack Obama, "the worst deal ever negotiated" and voiced suspicions Tehran is not fully complying with its terms.

Iran's stock of low-enriched uranium as of Aug. 21 was 88.4 kg (194.89 pounds), well below a 202.8-kg limit, and the level of enrichment did not exceed a 3.67 percent cap, according to the confidential International Atomic Energy Agency report sent to IAEA member states and seen by Reuters.

Iran's stock of so-called heavy water, a moderator used in a type of reactor that can produce plutonium, stood at 111 tonnes, below a 130-tonne limit agreed by the parties to the deal.



Read more: http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUKKCN1BB1SV