Look! President Obama actually meets with congressional leaders — including Republicans! (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Another slow day…
- Middle-class incomes grew faster in 2015 than any year in modern history, new data show — Not mine, of course, but this isn’t about me. If her campaign weren’t such a mess at the moment, this would be good news for Hillary Clinton to tout. President Obama will probably bask in it a bit.
- Clinton’s impulse to ‘power through’ with pneumonia set off cascade of problems — Think about it: Had she listened to the doc and rested over the weekend, she wouldn’t have gone to the event where she talked about the “basket of deplorables,” and she wouldn’t have collapsed in public. (Extra-point question: What do you get when you cross a basket of deplorables with binders full of women?)
- RCSD: Teen attacks student, driver, trooper during bus fight — The alleged attacker was 13 years old.
- 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists To Point Blame At Fat — They got a lot for their money, as I recall.
- Edward Snowden makes ‘moral’ case for presidential pardon — This is from The Guardian, of course, which adores the little scrub. This is one case in which I must pause to applaud British new outlets’ habit of scrupulously using quote marks in headlines rather than commit to anything. “Moral” case, my arse.
- Russian Hackers Leak U.S. Files From Doping Agency — First a story about Snowden, now one about his pals. Interesting how the Russians have gotten so brazen about this stuff lately…
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1. The income story is huge. It’s still the economy stupid. Not sure why stories like this are ignored while a fainting spell gets 3 days of coverage.
Bud, first it’s not a fainting spell. It’s pneumonia. She was warned by a doctor to rest, but she ignored it, went to an event sick and said stupid stuff about the opposition (“basket of deplorables”), then was seen collapsing leaving a big-deal public event.
All while trying to tough it out and keep the pneumonia a secret.
All of which made it more of a story than it might have been otherwise.
As for it continuing to be a story for days afterward — well, of course it is. Because now she IS resting, and not making new news to compete with it. What else is there to say about her right now?
You know what concerns me in this situation? That Trump is acting like a grownup and not talking about her health problem right now. He’s following the playbook and letting his opponent’s illness work against her without pulling the attention to himself. Instead, he’s sticking to complaining about the “deplorables” comment.
That shows discipline. Trump showing discipline worries me. Normally we could depend on him to blow the advantage of having his opponent out of action by saying stupid, horrible things about it…
I just turned that comment into a separate post…
So there goes the “Colin Powell did it” excuse Hillary has lied about as a rationale for using a private email server. Powell told her and her staff multiple times not to do it. He used a private AOL account for personal email. Big difference.
https://theintercept.com/2016/09/13/colin-powell-emails/
“Former Secretary of State Colin Powell attempted to discourage Hillary Clinton and her team from using him as a scapegoat for her private email server problems, according to newly leaked emails from Powell’s Gmail account.
“Sad thing,” Powell wrote to one confidant, “HRC could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me to it.”
“I told her staff three times not to try that gambit. I had to throw a mini tantrum at a Hampton’s party to get their attention. She keeps tripping into these ‘character’ minefields,” Powell lamented. He noted that he had tried to settle the matter by meeting with Clinton aide Cheryl Mills in August.
Powell’s private messages were leaked by D.C. Leaks, an anonymously managed website that shares hacked emails from U.S. military and political figures. D.C. Leaks has a relationship with Guccifer 2.0, a hacker that many allege to have ties with Russian intelligence. D.C. Leaks provided access to Powell’s emails to a number of reporters on Tuesday.
The emails show Powell regularly corresponding with reporters and friends about the Clinton email server scandal, explaining that his situation was different. When Powell arrived at the State Department, the information technology system was badly dated, he argued. And unlike Clinton, Powell never set up a private server. Instead, he used his personal AOL account, on a server maintained by AOL, and used a government computer for classified communications.
“It is no secret that I used a unclassified personal email account in addition to my classified State computer,’” Powell wrote to the New York Times’ Amy Chozick. He implored the dozens of reporters and producers who emailed him to read his book, It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership, in which he devoted an entire chapter to his efforts to revamp the State Department’s IT system.
The Clinton campaign’s effort to blur the lines between Clinton’s private email server and Powell’s AOL account left Powell deeply frustrated.
“They are going to dick up the legitimate and necessary use of emails with friggin record rules. I saw email more like a telephone than a cable machine,” Powell wrote last year to his business partner Jeffrey Leeds. “As long as the stuff is unclassified. I had a secure State.gov machine. Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.”
Powell added in a tangential complaint: “I told you about the gig I lost at a University because she so overcharged them they came under heat and couldn’t any fees for awhile. I should send her a bill.”
Clinton sought Powell’s advice at a dinner on June 16, 2009 at former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s house, according to the emails. Powell gave Clinton “written guidance on why and how [he] had been doing it.” Also in attendance were former secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice, Lawrence Eagleburger, George Schultz, Warren Christopher, James Baker and Henry Kissinger.
“Dumb. She should have done a ‘Full Monty’ at the beginning,” Powell wrote. He added: “I warned her staff three times over the past two years not to try to connect it to me. I am not sure HRC even knew or understood what was going on in the basement.””
Powell got caught so of course he’s going to play defense. Really not much to see here. The e-mail faux scandal is about all the Trump people have left. With a big story coming out in Newsweek today it’s time for the Donald to play a little defense for a while. In the end Hillary will win and the country will continue to prosper.
Got caught??? What did he get caught doing? He told them years ago not to do it and the emails confirm that. He told them specifically that he used a private email account on AOL (not a private server) but also used the government email account for official business. Has there ever been any suggestion that he received classified email on his personal email account?
Hillary and her people tried to use the “he did it first” excuse that doesn’t work even when little children do it. The only person who “got caught” was her. Just another data point in a long history of lies, evasion, and otherwise untrustworthy behavior.
The only way the country will continue to prosper along the current path is if the government keeps propping up the economy. Maybe Hillary, if she wins, can get us across the $30 trillion debt line in her first term.
Another leaked email from Colin Powell to a DNC leader:
“I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect,” he writes in the email dated July 26, 2014. “A 70-year-old person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still dicking bimbos at home (according to the NYP).”
Yep, that pretty much sums it up.
I may not use the same words, but my own level of enthusiasm for her candidacy isn’t all that different from the general’s.
On a scale of 1 to 10, my level is probably about a 2. Maybe a 3 when I’m thinking about her neocon tendencies.
Of course, my liking for Trump is about a minus 147, so the choice remains an easy one.
With all her flaws, she is within the realm of consideration. He is not.
So Gary Johnson is a 1 or lower. Just because… you’d rather support a greedy grandma than an ethical third party candidate.
… Who disagrees with me on pretty much everything, yes.
We’re talking scale of enthusiasm here, so yes, mine for Johnson would be pretty close to zero.
Also, there’s the problem that he can’t possibly stop Trump, and she can — maybe.
And THAT is my chief concern as a voter this year. That’s what we’re reduced to.
We’re a long, long way from soaring rhetoric and inspiration…