Connecting the dots on Hillary Clinton

[russ1945]

[h=1]Cable news hammers Hillary Clinton[/h]

By T. BECKET ADAMS

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8/3/15 6:09 PM



Is the summer of media love over for Hillary Clinton?
Cable news was not at all kind to the former secretary of state Monday, as the she was dinged on multiple fronts for being supposedly out of touch and unauthentic — and all of this as rumors circulate that she may have a serious 2016 Democratic competitor in the form of Vice President Joe Biden.
Clinton's early-announced $2 million ad buy, for example, will likely do little to convince voters she has a soft, "authentic" side, MSNBC talking heads suggested Monday.
"I just saw her picture on the front of New York Magazine," morning host Joe Scarborough said. "Her head was back, it was one of those fake phony campaign laughs that she does, where she throws her head back and you know it's phony."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/m...elebrates-10-year-anniversary/article/2569484
MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
[h=2]Media watchdog NewsBusters celebrates 10-year anniversary[/h]By Eddie Scarry

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08/03/15 7:00 PM

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Bloomberg News' Mark Halperin added, "In the short-term, the echo chamber matters a lot. There's no one inside the echo chamber who looks at these two new ads and goes wow, that's awesome, that's awe-inspiring."
The panel suggested that Clinton's infamously slow and cautious approach to campaigning has likely contributed to her unflattering image as being out of touch.
"If you're cautious and everything about your campaign is focus-grouped and polled, you're not being yourself," Halperin said.
"It feels a lot of the time like she knows she's up by 40 points," MSNBC contributor Willie Geist added. "[The approach seems to be] don't say anything to mess with that, don't answer a question directly because you don't have to, you can kind of obfuscate about things and be vague. I think that catches up with you eventually."
At CNN, talk of Clinton's "authenticity" problem was much of the same.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/white-house-continues-to-defend-planned-parenthood/article/2569477
ALSO FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
[h=2]White House continues to defend Planned Parenthood[/h]By Becket Adams

•​

08/03/15 3:00 PM

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"Hillary Clinton has the negative numbers when it comes to being viewed as trustworthy," CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson remarked, noting a problem that has long dogged the Democratic presidential candidate. "She's had problems with her campaign generating that enthusiasm and a sense of connection."
"If you look at the internal poll numbers, they say people don't think that Hillary Clinton represents or relates to people like them," she added, suggesting that Clinton's multimillion dollar ad buy would do little to create a connection with voters.
Then there was talk Monday of Team Clinton's supposed worries over rumors Biden may jump in the 2016 race.
Whispers that Biden will make a go of it in 2016 may have informed Team Clinton's decision to go with the $2 million ad buy well ahead of schedule, The Huffington Post's Sam Stein suggested, adding that the ad rollout suggests her campaign may be genuinely "spooked."
"Certainly it's enough that the Clintons feel spooked that they had to spend $2 million in a biographical ad," Stein said Monday on MSNBC.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/g...mps-very-old-cellphone-number/article/2569474
ALSO FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
[h=2]Gossip blog publishes Donald Trump's 'very old' cellphone number[/h]By Becket Adams

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08/03/15 1:37 PM

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Referring to Clinton's choice to focus her multimillion-dollar ad campaign on her personal story, and not on her many former political roles, also suggests that maybe she is trying to show voters her softer side, he added.
The problem is: When it comes to softer side and likability, Biden wins every time.
"This is the vulnerability that allows the door to open for a Biden, which is Clinton, relatability, likability," Stein said. "This whole email saga has resurfaced questions over whether she's too calculating, whether she's too political."
Though Clinton enjoys name recognition, she rates poorly when it comes to what Americans think about her in terms of honesty and trustworthiness, according to several polls.
This is another area where Biden shines, Stein said.
"If Biden has one strength over Clinton, it's not the institutional political strength, it's the character strength," he said. "So that's her weakness, that's his entry in."
Elsewhere on MSNBC, political journalist Erin McPike suggested that rumors Biden may enter the race shows that Clinton is far more vulnerable than originally thought.
"I think the reason is that it's clear now that Hillary Clinton is more vulnerable at this stage of the campaign than people thought she would be," McPike told MSNBC's Jose Diaz-Balart, suggesting that a candidate Biden would do real harm to the former secretary of state's current status as Democratic frontrunner.
Headlines were busy this weekend with news that Biden backers have busied themselves with a potential bid, as well as news that an adviser to the vice president's late son, Beau Biden, has recently joined a Draft Biden super PAC.
"Now there's a big opening for another Democrat to potentially take her on," McPike said. "Obviously, Bernie Sanders has been doing well, but this is really a realization that someone could effectively take on Hillary Clinton and that could be Joe Biden."

 

[russ1945]

[h=2]Dark Money Floods into Hillary Super PAC[/h]Sources of seven-figure contribution to pro-Clinton group are virtually untraceable
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AP​

BY: Lachlan Markay
August 4, 2015 5:00 am

A Democrat-aligned super PAC financed by a pair of dark money groups wrote a seven-figure check to Hillary Clinton’s super PAC in June, infusing a key pro-Clinton outfit with money whose sources are virtually untraceable.
Fair Share Action (FSA) donated $1 million to pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA Action in late June, one of eight million-dollar contributions the pro-Clinton group has received so far this year from various sources.
FSA also gave $5,000 to another pro-Clinton super PAC in April.
The source of FSA’s money is nearly impossible to trace. It’s received just two contributions this year: $300,000 from Fair Share Inc., its 501(c)(4) dark money affiliate, and $800,000 from another dark money group called Environment America.
Fair Share and Environment America are part of an extensive network of political and nonprofit groups that supported Democrats during the 2014 election cycle. They are now pouring money into efforts to elect Hillary Clinton president.
Priorities USA Action is legally prohibited from coordinating with the Clinton campaign, but is expected to play a major role in boosting her candidacy. It received contributions from some of Clinton’s other top supporters this year, including media moguls Haim and Cheryl Saban and film studio executive Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Neither Environment America nor Fair Share disclose their individual donors, making it difficult to know who exactly is bankrolling their large contributions to Priorities. Neither organization returned a request for information on their finances.
Clinton has declared her opposition to that type of political financing. Her campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
“We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all, even if that takes a constitutional amendment,” she said in an April campaign speech.
She has not detailed what her preferred amendment would do, irking campaign finance reformers who say she is simply paying lip service to an important issue for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
“Far from offering concrete plans for reform, Clinton has actively pried open more ways for big money to flow into the political system, like her unprecedented coordination with a super PAC, Correct the Record,” Kurt Walters, an official with the campaign finance reform group Rootstrikers, told theAmerican Prospect.
Walters was referring to news that the Clinton campaign would directly coordinate with Correct the Record, a super PAC that this year spun off from its parent group, American Bridge.
That move is likely to test the legal limits of coordination with groups that are by definition independent of candidates’ official campaign committees.
Correct the Record says it is within its legal bounds as long as coordination extends only to free online content, which it says is not subject to the same campaign finance restrictions.
The group recently created a joint fundraising committee with Priorities USA, signaling closer ties between the two groups even as they push the envelope of legal behavior for a type of organization that is rapidly growing in prominence for candidates of both parties.
The Clinton campaign has defended the large sums that super PACs are expected to spend on her behalf. “There is too much at stake for our future for Democrats to unilaterally disarm,” one campaign official told New York Magazine.
That might not be enough to satisfy campaign finance reformers. “Clinton appears to think rhetoric alone can mislead American voters justifiably fed up with shadowy super PAC spending,” Walters said.
Super PAC contributions from Fair Share and Environment America could fuel that type of criticism. The large network of political committees and nonprofit groups that they belong to has frequentlyshared resources, with funds often ending up in the accounts of political groups that can spend directly on elections.
That money has also ended up supporting a state-level campaign finance reform ballot measure, albeit one that opponents described as toothless and entirely symbolic.
Dark money supporting the measure was channeled through a group called the Fair Share Committee to Get Big Money Out of Politics.

 

[russ1945]

[h=2]Clinton Campaign Ad: Hillary’s Greatest Accomplishment as Secretary of State Was Losing to Obama[/h]BY: Andrew Stiles
August 3, 2015 12:47 pm

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Loser (left), and winner.​

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has released its first television ads of the election cycle. The move is somewhat surprising, as most expected Hillary to wait several months before hitting the airwaves. The early ad buy suggest the campaign is worried about Hillary’s public image, which has suffered amid a torrent of scandals. A shockingly high number of voters don’t find her honest or trustworthy. Imagine that.
The ads are an attempt to “soften” Clinton’s image by presenting the personal story of her mother, and reminding voters that Hillary is also a mother, indeed a grandmother. One of the ads, titled “Family Strong,” lists a few of Hillary’s accomplishments. For example: As a lawyer, she worked for the Children’s Defense Fund; as first lady of Arkansas, she “fought for school reform;” as FLOTUS, she backed healthcare for children; as senator, she opposed the 9/11 terror attacks; and as secretary of State…
…she “joined the cabinet of the man who defeated her.”
That, apparently, is her most noteworthy accomplishment as secretary of State. She lost to President Obama. Seems like a bizarre choice to remind voters of the 2008 election, which got pretty ugly at times. Hillary didn’t just lose to Obama, she was brought to tears at the thought of him becoming president, and once suggested during a debate that he had ties to the terrorist group Hamas. When asked during a 60 minutes interview if Obama was a Muslim, Hillary responded: “No…as far as I know.”
The ad says Hillary decided to serve in Obama’s cabinet because “when your president calls, you serve.” Definitely not because she thought it would help her succeed him as president. The Clinton campaign’s decision to release the ads show early should be seen as yet another reason why Joe Biden, if he decides to run, would be the clear favorite to win the nomination.

 

[russ1945]

[h=2]Schultz Accidentally Lists Hillary Clinton Among GOP Alternatives to Bernie Sanders[/h]SHARE
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BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
August 2, 2015 4:11 pm

Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) may have committed a Freudian slip Sunday when she named Hillary Clinton at the end of a list of Republican alternatives to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) in the presidential race.
Meet the Press host Chuck Todd had asked Schultz to explain the rise of Sanders, who has drawn huge crowds on the campaign trail and galvanized the left-wing base of the party.
Schultz began by saying any of the Democratic candidates compared to the Republican field were more appealing because they “speak to the issues that are important to the American people.”
“The contrast, whether it’s Bernie Sanders, Jeb Bush, Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee, um, Hillary Clinton, any of that contrast between our candidates and theirs is very clear, and the American people will eventually choose our nominee as president,” she said.

 

[russ1945]

5 REASONS WHY HILLARY IS IN TROUBLE OVER PRIVATE EMAIL SERVER

by JOHN SEXTON3 Aug 2015404

Hillary Clinton is already in trouble over the email story and that trouble could get a lot worse.

The problem for Hillary and her defenders is that once you get past the outraged cries of media bias related to a NY Times report, the email story still represents a real and growing threat to her campaign. Here are five reasons why Hillary is in serious trouble:
1) Her Private Server Was Unique and Violated the Rules – Hillary has repeatedly claimed that other Secretaries of State had similar arrangements. “Previous secretaries of state have said they did the same thing…. Everything I did was permitted by law and regulation,” Hillary claimed in a July 7th interview with CNN. Neither statement is true.
As Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler points out, no previous Secretary of State had a private email server running in their home from which they sent and received all of their correspondence while in office. Only one previous Secretary, Colin Powell, admitted to sending any email from a personal account.
In addition, regulations in place at the time Hillary was Secretary of State required her to turn over all official communications before leaving her job. She did not do that. In fact, it was only after the State Department came to her and after they negotiated with her attorneys that Hillary turned over a hand-sifted group of emails, nearly two years after leaving her job.
Hillary’s claim that she violated no rules (and, anyway, others did too) earned three out of four Pinocchios from Kessler. He concludes, “She goes too far in suggesting her actions were ordinary – -and did not stretch the limits of existing laws and regulations.” And because Hillary can’t reasonably claim what she did was normal or even reasonable, it leaves her open to scrutiny.
2) Classified Information Was Contained in Hillary’s Emails - The core of theNY Times story last week was a referral made by the Intelligence Community Inspector General to the Department of Justice. That referral was not criminal, according to the IG’s office, because it did not single out Hillary or any other individual for investigation and prosecution.
Nevertheless, the IG did point a finger at the handling of classified information in Hillary’s inbox. The IG says he identified four emails with classified information from a sample of just 40 emails. In addition, he identified one email that was already released, which contained classified information. Dozens more emails released last Friday were blacked out because of classified contents.
Hillary continues to maintain that none of the material was classified at the time it was sent or received, but that claim is directly at odds with the statement released by the State Dept. and IC Inspectors General more than a week ago. The joint statement said unambiguously that the four emails, “were not retroactively classified by the State Department; rather these emails contained classified information when they were generated.”
3) It Doesn’t Matter Whether the Emails Had Classification Markings or Not– One of the claims that Hillary’s defenders have seized on is that the classified emails identified by the IC Inspector General did not have security markings. According to Peter Van Buren who worked at the State Department for 24 years, that doesn’t matter:

If an employee were to be handed information sourced from an NSA intercept of a foreign government leader, somehow not marked as classified, she would be expected to recognize the sensitivity of the material itself and treat it as classified. In other cases, an employee might hear something sensitive and be expected to treat the information as classified. The emphasis throughout the classification system is not on strict legalities and coded markings, but on judgment. In essence, employees are required to know right from wrong. It is a duty, however subjective in appearance, one takes on in return for a security clearance.
‘Not knowing’ would be an unexpected defense from a person with years of government experience.
​

In fact, Van Buren suggests that Hillary’s decision to use her own server is directly responsible for the lack of proper markings:

Every email sent within the State Department’s own systems contains a classification; an employee technically cannot hit ‘send’ without one being applied. Just because Clinton chose to use her own hardware does not relieve her or her staff of this requirement.
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In other words, she should have recognized the sensitivity of the material in at least some of the (probably) hundreds she received with “secret” information. If she claims not to have recognized it because it was not marked properly, that is ultimately her fault as well for choosing to use a system not designed for handling classified material in the first place.
4) It Doesn’t Matter Whether Hillary’s Server Was Hacked or Not – Somereporters have already asked what harm was done. Assuming (and it’s a very generous assumption at this point) that Hillary’s homebrew server was never hacked, why would it matter if there were secret information contained on it? Again, Peter Van Buren explains that the rules regarding the handling of classified information are not judged on a “no harm, no foul” basis.

Some may say even if Clinton committed security violations, there is no evidence the material got into the wrong hands – no blood, no foul. Legally that is irrelevant. Failing to safeguard information is the issue. It is not necessary to prove the information reached an adversary, or that an adversary did anything harmful with the information for a crime to have occurred. See the cases of Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Jeff Sterling, Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou or even David Petraeus. The standard is ‘failure to protect’ by itself.
​

The Petraeus comparison has been made several times. He was sentenced to a $100,000 fine and two-years probation for showing hand-written notes containing classified information to his mistress Paula Broadwell, even though it was determined that none of the information appeared in the book Broadwell wrote about Petraeus. (Note: the handwritten notes probably did not have classification markings, but that didn’t matter.)
As Ed Morrissey noted at Hot Air, a sailor who kept cell-phone photos taken on a nuclear submarine is facing 30 years in jail for taking the photos and for trying to destroy the evidence after he learned he was being investigated.
5) The Scandal Goes to Hillary’s Truthfulness and It Is Hurting Her – Back in 2012, some progressives argued that not every gaffe matters in a presidential race. The ones that do are the ones that confirm something people already suspect to be true about the candidate.
In Hillary’s case, the public is long familiar with her act and has always had questions about her honesty and authenticity. The email scandal plays into these suspicions as well as the sense that she is paranoid at a Nixonian level. Legal or not, most of what Hillary said was true about her private server has already been shown to be false or misleading.
The impact of the scandal has been evident in recent polling. American’s estimation of Hillary’s truthfulness and honesty have sunk, as has her overall favorability.



Conclusion
Hillary’s private email server was not something that prior Secretaries had ever done. Despite her denial back in March and again this month, two Inspectors General say her email contained classified information that was classified at the time. This has already been referred to the DOJ for investigation.
Hillary was responsible for recognizing the sensitivity of this information even if it wasn’t marked properly. And she is responsible for the apparent mishandling of the information whether or not her server was ever hacked by a foreign government. As the two IG’s said in their joint statement, “This classified information should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system.”
Finally, even if Hillary somehow avoids being held legally accountable, the public can still decide she is not trustworthy. The recent polls (and this week’s boom in reports that Joe Biden might enter the race) is evidence that the process of backing away from Hillary is already underway.

 

[russ1945]

^^^^The articles posted today are very interesting. Funny how Hillary is losing momentum and the worst is yet to come for her. Journalists have her in their spotlight and are not going to let up. Every day something new and the beat goes on. Almost impossible to avoid on her part and the truth is coming out despite everything she says and does. If Biden jumps in the race it will get very interesting.

 

[SheriffJoe]

^^^^The articles posted today are very interesting. Funny how Hillary is losing momentum and the worst is yet to come for her. Journalists have her in their spotlight and are not going to let up. Every day something new and the beat goes on. Almost impossible to avoid on her part and the truth is coming out despite everything she says and does. If Biden jumps in the race it will get very interesting.

Death by a thousand cuts.

 

[SheriffJoe]

Hillary Clinton Loses Ground With White Women — WSJ/NBC Poll

In June, 44% of white women had a favorable view of Mrs. Clinton, compared to 43% who didn’t. In July, those numbers moved in the wrong direction for Mrs. Clinton: Only 34% of white women saw her in a positive light, compared to 53% who had a negative impression of her, the poll found.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/08/04/hillary-clinton-loses-ground-with-white-women-wsjnbc-poll/

 

[SheriffJoe]

 

[SheriffJoe]

Libtard Logic 101:

"I'm somewhat amused people(blind pats fans) still act as if the Brady, Bellichick and Kraft are still credible." -- Poker Fraud Vtard

"Hillary for president! It's a right wing witch hunt" -- Poker Fraud Vtard

Brady destroys his cell phone: ZERO credibility

Hildabeast destroys and entire fucking server: totally credible and the next POTUS!

"blind pats fans!!!" :missingte

 

[vitterd]

Libtard Logic 101:

"I'm somewhat amused people(blind pats fans) still act as if the Brady, Bellichick and Kraft are still credible." -- Poker Fraud Vtard

"Hillary for president! It's a right wing witch hunt" -- Poker Fraud Vtard

Brady destroys his cell phone: ZERO credibility

Hildabeast destroys and entire fucking server: totally credible and the next POTUS!

"blind pats fans!!!" :missingte

Right wing witch hunt? Do you just invent shit in your head and make it someone else's quote?

settle down with your Facebook rants.....your family is completely embarrassed by you.

 

[SheriffJoe]

"I'm somewhat amused people(blind pats fans) still act as if the Brady, Bellichick and Kraft are still credible." -- Poker Fraud Vtard ointer:

bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...

:laughingb:laughingb:laughingb:laughingb:laughingb

 

[vitterd]

"I'm somewhat amused people(blind pats fans) still act as if the Brady, Bellichick and Kraft are still credible." -- Poker Fraud Vtard ointer:

bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...

:laughingb:laughingb:laughingb:laughingb:laughingb

Thats your best stuff? Most everyone outside of New England knows the pats cheat. And the fact that a mush like you is a pats backer.....should scare the hell out of pats fans.

" Fred Thompson is the next president"

can you give us more gold or DOW predictions? Bwaaaaaaahhhh

 

[SheriffJoe]

Thats your best stuff? Most everyone outside of New England knows the pats cheat. And the fact that a mush like you is a pats backer.....should scare the hell out of pats fans.

Most everyone outside of libtardville knows the Hildabeast is a corrupt, criminal whore, except, well...

"I was for hilary over obama in 08'" ointer:

http://www.therxforum.com/showthread.php?t=990268&page=2

 

[vitterd]

Most everyone outside of libtardville knows the Hildabeast is a corrupt, criminal whore, except, well...

"I was for hilary over obama in 08'" ointer:

http://www.therxforum.com/showthread.php?t=990268&page=2

Yeah.....that's why she's still the fav to be the next president.

You have been wrong about everything for a decade on this site. When are you gonna learn?

You are a total mush. Start doing the Costanza opposite thing and it will turn around for you.

" the bombshell birther news will be out in 6 months"---- sheriff joe in november of 2013

 

[ScottL]

Here's Vit with his signed copy of the book written by our future deleter of the free world. Lookin' good Vit!

 

[vitterd]

Here's Vit with his signed copy of the book written by our future deleter of the free world. Lookin' good Vit!

That guy is out of the house. He has most people here beat by just doing that

 

[SheriffJoe]

Brady, Bellichick and Kraft aren't credible, but Hildabeast's shit don't stink. face)(*^%

What an embarrassing joke vtard is!

"It's about progress!" - poker fraud vtard

 

[ScottL]

That guy is out of the house. He has most people here beat by just doing that

Yeah but what's that on his right wrist? He might be "due back."

 

[vitterd]

Yeah but what's that on his right wrist? He might be "due back."

He has earned privileges that Joe and Acebb are hoping to get one day.

A day outside weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!