August 10, 2016

Voters Find Hillary Clinton Vastly More Qualified Than Trump To Be President

August 10, 2016/ Anne Enke

This poll result shows Donald Trump's single biggest problem VOX

A majority of American voters simply don’t think Trump's qualified to serve as president. And the problem goes beyond qualifications — they don’t think he has the personality or temperament to serve as president (67 to 31 percent), they don’t think he has a solid understanding of world affairs (64 to 33 percent), and they don’t think he’s honest and trustworthy (62 to 34 percent).

This is how Trump’s candidacy differs from Clinton’s -- in terms of competency. Not a day goes by without media implying that Hillary Clinton's unfavorable ratings will keep her from being elected president. It's the only poll result the media cares about, along with the trust issue. In the new Washington Post/ABC News poll, the 50 percent unfavorable rating Clinton posts is better than Trump’s 63 percent unfavorable rating. More important and consistently in polls, while many Americans don’t like Hillary Clinton personally, they do believe she can do the job. Majorities think her qualified to serve as president, compared to Trump (60 to 38 percent), that she has the personality and temperament to serve as president (61 to 38 percent), and say she has a solid knowledge of world affairs (72 to 25 percent).

If these poll results applied to anyone but Hillary Clinton, the media would call them 'formidable'.

GOP Senator Susan Collins: Why I Can't Support Trump Washington Post

It's true that Sen. Collins says that she can't support either major presidential candidate. Perhaps. Hillary Clinton did co-host her bridal shower a couple years back. The voting booth is private for a reason and there is strong speculation that Collins will run for governor of Maine in the future.

"I had hoped that we would see a “new” Donald Trump as a general-election candidate — one who would focus on jobs and the economy, tone down his rhetoric, develop more thoughtful policies and, yes, apologize for ill-tempered rants. But the unpleasant reality that I have had to accept is that there will be no “new” Donald Trump, just the same candidate who will slash and burn and trample anything and anyone he perceives as being in his way or an easy scapegoat. Regrettably, his essential character appears to be fixed, and he seems incapable of change or growth."

50 GOP Officials Warn Donald Trump Would Put Nation's Security at Risk New York Magazine

Among the most prominent signatories are Michael V. Hayden, a former director of both the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency; John D. Negroponte, who served as the first director of national intelligence and then deputy secretary of state; and Robert B. Zoellick, another former deputy secretary of state, United States trade representive and, until 2012, president of the World Bank. Two former secretaries of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, also signed, as did Eric S. Edelman, who was Vice President Dick Cheney’s national security adviser and as a top aide to Robert M. Gates when he was secretary of defense.

Robert Blackwill and James Jeffrey, two key strategists in Mr. Bush’s National Security Council, and William H. Taft IV, a former deputy secretary of defense and ambassador to NATO, also signed. Mr. Blackwill, a former aide to Henry A. Kissinger, is expected to endorse Mrs. Clinton this week.

Donald Trump's Support Among Republican Women Starts To Slide New York Times

Donald Trump comes from the 'never let them see you sweat' school of publicity. Everything is just great, according to the Trumpster, even though Republican women are leaving the candidate by the droves. A recent series of defections by high-profile Republican women are grabbing the attention of rank and file Repubican women, as leaders put 'country before party' with promises to oppose Mr. Trump as being emotionally unfit and unstable for the presidency and also a "menace to national security".

“For people like me, who are Republican but reasonable and still have our brains attached, it’s hard to see Trump as a reasonable, sane Republican,” said Dina Vela, a project manager in San Antonio who said she had always voted Republican and remained wary of Hillary Clinton. But to her own surprise, she has started visiting Mrs. Clinton’s campaign website and plans to vote for her.

Donald Trump needs a miracle to win Washington Post

DO NOT LET UP!! We must BLOW TRUMP out of the water. We must send his orange hair mop and crude antics packing with a roar that this is NOT America, flawed as we are. Because another bigot will be standing in line behind him, and if the election is close, that right-winger led by angry white men without education will also claim the mantle of the presidency. AND we must work in state legislatures to bring common sense governing into the states. NO MORE WAR ON WOMEN'S BODIES!!! So do NOT let up! ~ Anne

"Journalistic neutrality allegedly forces us to say that the race isn’t over until November, and most media organizations prefer to hype the presidential contest to generate viewers and readers rather than explain why a photo finish is unlikely.

But a dispassionate examination of the data, combined with a cold-blooded look at the candidates, the campaigns and presidential elections, produces only one possible conclusion: Hillary Clinton will defeat Donald Trump in November, and the margin isn’t likely to be as close as Barack Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney."

Hillary Clinton Headlines Aug. 10, 2016

Clinton urges GOP congress to take emergency action on Zika The Washington Post

Poll: Clinton's lead over Trump triples in Wisconsin Politico

Top Democrats warn against writing off Trump Politico

Polls: Clinton's Lead Over Trump Increases in Three Battleground States NBC News

How Trump's poll decline could lead to a self-perpetuating death spiral for his campaign VOX

Watchdog Group Files Complaint with IRS Against Trump Foundation The Daily Beast

Is Florida Even a Swing State Anymore? Daily Beast

Georgia Poll: Clinton Leads by 7 Points The Hill

The Polls Aren't Skewed: Trump Really Is Losing Badly FiveThirtyEight

Why Hillary Clinton wouldn't be a foreign policy hawk as president VOX

Trump: Without id law, voters will vote 15 times for Clinton Politico

Why Some Republican Women Are Voting for Hillary Clinton Slate

May 06, 2016

24-Hours In A Donald Trump Whirlwind of Self-Contradictions

May 06, 2016/ Anne Enke

Donald Trump's Greatest Self-Contradictions Politico

. . . Over the past four decades Trump has talked about every imaginable subject: gun rights to germs, the nature of competition to pre-nuptial agreements, love and sex, self-promotion and politics. And on every one of those topics, he has taken positions that directly contradict exactly what he has previously said.

In a world where candidates have lost elections over a single flip-flop, Trump has turned the self-contradiction into an art form. To create the definitive archive of Trump’s long argument with himself, Politico mined an almost limitless seam of his radio and TV interviews, newspaper and magazine profiles, books written about him and books written by him, rambling campaign speeches and late-night tweets. Read them together and they reveal a person who may be amazingly good at gauging the moment, but whose principles, beyond simply winning, remain elusive—perhaps even to himself.

Did Hillary Clinton start the Obama birther movement? PolitiFact

FALSE

Donald Trump made news on CNN's Wolf Blitzer on May 4, 2016, resurrecting his accusation that Hillary Clinton launched the anti-Obama birther movement. PolitiFact rates this claim as FALSE!

John Avlon, editor-in-chief of the Daily Beast, explored the roots of the birther movement in his book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America. Avlon described a posting on the PUMA. He wrote that a Clinton volunteer and convention delegate in Texas, Linda Starr, played a key role in spreading the rumor.

Reading 'Where's Linda Starr, the Inventor of the Birfer Story?, Starr does qualify as a Wingnut.

"Starr connected with Pennsylvania attorney Philip Berg in August and Berg followed up by suing in federal court to block Obama’s nomination. The suit was thrown out repeatedly on the grounds that Berg lacked standing and the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately refused to hear his appeal."

Subsequently, Phil Berg sued Linda Sue Belcher, aka Linda Starr, on behalf of his assistant Lisa Liberi for libel. Linda has ublicly accused Phil Berg of incompetence. These are the real nutjobs who invented the Obama birther story.

Hillary Clinton Not Involved in Birther Story

There is no record that Clinton herself or anyone within her campaign ever advanced the birther claims against now President Obama. A review by our fellow fact-checkers at Factcheck.org reported that no journalist who investigated this ever found a connection to anyone in the Clinton organization.

It seems that President Obama was satisfied with Clinton's innocence if he asked her to be his secretary of state.

Clinton, herself, addressed this outrageous accusation after Trump's tweet during an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon. Lemon asked Clinton if she started smear campaigns that Obama was born outside the United States.

"That is – no. That is so ludicrous, Don. You know, honestly, I just believe that, first of all, it’s totally untrue, and secondly, you know, the president and I have never had any kind of confrontation like that," Clinton said. "You know, I have been blamed for nearly everything, that was a new one to me."

The Atlantic reported that Clinton even rejected her campaign staff's divisive strategy in the 2008 campaign that played to Obama's lack of American roots. "Let's explicitly own 'American' in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn't" (Mark) Penn suggested. But he added: "We are never going to say anything about his background."

Related on Trump

Trump Names Hedge Fund Manager as National Finance Chairman Bloomberg Politics

Trump Decides He's Not Rich Enough to Self-Fund His Campaign Fortune

Argentinian TV channel mocks Donald Trump to promote Copa America 2016 The Guardian

Thousands of soccer-loving Latin Americans will be winging their way to American this summer, for games all over America. The TyC Sports network in Argentina chose Donald Trump's immigration nightmare to frame the Argentinian team's soccer prowess.