August 07, 2016

Trump-Putin Relationship Gets Increasing Scrutiny | Ex CIA Director Endorses Clinton

August 07, 2016/ Anne Enke

Donald Trump: In Your Heart You Know He's Nuts The Daily Beast

This is a remarkable article in its analysis and assertions. I don't know that Trump is nuts. But I definitely know that he does not have a personality, nor does he exhibit traits of an ability to govern or stay calm, deliberate and focused under pressure.

I Ran the CIA. Now I'm Endorsing Hillary Clinton New York Times

In his career, this is the first time former CIA director, Michael Morell, has endorsed a candidate for president. That's saying something about what's at-stake this year. It's informative for the high marks he gives Clinton on experience, thoughtfulness, the ability to accept new information as conditions warrant and to change her view. But, it is eye-popping for the devastating profile he paints of Donald Trump as an unwitting Russian agent! O

Senior ex-CIA official: Putin made Trump 'an unwitting agent' of Russia Reuters

Is Donald Trump a danger to national security because Vladimir Putin has played him? Considering that Trump is now supporting positions favorable to Russia and has been consistently lavish in his praise of the former Russian KGB heavy weight, it's very possible that President Vladimir Putin has made the Republican presidential candidate an "unwitting agent" of Russia Michael Morell, a longtime CIA officer and former deputy director of the agency, said in an opinion piece in The New York Times.

"In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation," Morell wrote without providing evidence for his argument. Still, we must ask if -- given his narcissistic personality -- Trump's ego makes him vulnerable to exactly what so many of us fear. Basking in the glow of Trump's perception that Putin believes he is a genius -- which the whole world has observed for months now because Trump can't stop telling us -- has the Orange Mophead responded exactly as Mr. Putin calculated he would.

How Trump Adviser Stone Became Washington's Sleasiest Political Officer Slate

Slate's chairman and editor-in-chief-Jacob Weisberg revists a piece he wrote about Trump surrogate Roger Stone 30 years ago. He recalls reporting then that Stone was less power player than con artist.

"After my story came out, Stone claimed it was good for his business. I don’t think it was. After Jack Kemp dropped out of the 1988 presidential race, his only nationally known client was Arlen Specter, the late Pennsylvania senator. He would emerge every so often at the center of some bizarre gambit or scandal, advising Al Sharpton on a presidential run, leaving abusive voicemails for Eliot Spitzer’s father, proposing to run for governor of Florida on a platform of legalizing marijuana, or publishing preposterous conspiracy books charging LBJ with masterminding John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Showing off his Nixon tattoo and giving interviews in Miami sex clubs, he was the definition of a marginal political figure.

Another seemingly marginal political figure has brought him back to prominence. Stone has had a long relationship with Donald Trump going back to their mutual friendship with Roy Cohn in the 1980s. For many years, Stone was a lobbyist for Trump’s casino business. He was also the perennial leader of the “Draft Trump” campaign—the person who encouraged Trump’s birther obsession and finally got Trump to run this year."

In August 2015, Stone either quit or was fired from Trump’s campaign. Nonetheless, he remains a Trump surrogate and dirt-dealer, most recently smearing Khizr Khan as a terrorist and predicting a “bloodbath” if the Democrats try to “steal” the election. Thirty years ago, I called him the state-of-the-art political sleazeball. And I’ve got to hand it to him—in the years since, no one has come close to taking that title away from him."

Kaine accuses Trump of history of racism Politico

Tim Kaine showed up to address the National Urban League. Donald Trump’s campaign didn’t. Kaine drew very strong contrast between his own history with African Americans and that of Donald Trump.

“Around the time my father-in-law desegregated Virginia’s schools,” Kaine said, “the Justice Department had filed suit after Donald Trump and his father were refusing to rent apartments to African-Americans. It was one of the largest federal cases of its kind at the time.”

Hillary Clinton Headlines Aug. 6, 2016

Longtime Bernie Sanders supporter Tulsi Gabbard endorses Hillary Clinton for President Mauitime

Sanders chief meets with new DNC chair Politico

Clinton camp confronts Trump's Rust Belt strategy Politico

How Hillary Clinton Seized the Center Without Pivoting New York Magazine

Voting Like a Woman by Connie Schultz Creators

Scam Alert: Donald Trump's Website Won't Let You Cancel Recurring Donations Slate

Bernie Sanders: I support Hillary Clinton. So should everyone who voted for me LA Times

This Is a Jobs Report That Democrats Can Boast About New York Times

Trump properties losing visitors during campaign USA Today

July 31, 2016

Hillary Clinton Takes Her Pantsuits to the Rust Belt As Trump Has Momentum

July 31, 2016/ Anne Enke

Her Shot: Hillary Clinton Shares a Vision of America Out of Hamilton New York Times

A Glass Ceiling Now Broken, Is US Ready for a Madam President New York Times

The World Economic Forum, in its latest Global Gender Gap report, ranked the United States 72nd of 145 countries for political empowerment, trailing countries like Cuba, Cape Verde and Kenya.

In part, experts say, the American system is at fault. The presidential nominating process, with its long and ruinously expensive campaigns, is tougher on nonconventional candidates than the parliamentary system is in many countries. And American politicians are averse to the quotas that helped increase female participation in other countries.

Badges and T-shirts deriding Mrs. Clinton in obscene terms or using sexual slurs became common at Trump and Sanders rallies. But women who have succeeded in Washington also point to deeply ingrained male chauvinism as a powerful impediment to success.

Madeleine Albright, America's first female secretary of state, recalled in an interview how she had often encountered more resistance from American colleagues than from the Arab heads of state she had been warned about. Hillary Clinton was shocked at the low priority of women's issues when she became secretary of state in 2008. She immediately opened an Office of Global Issues, headed by Melanne Verveer, who now heads the Georgetown Institute for Women.

“It was the little things,” Albright explained. Like when she raised her voice in meetings, “men would say, ‘Don’t be so emotional,’ or would drum their fingers on the table and say I was talking too long — when the men actually talked much longer.”

Similar attitudes endure today, powerful women say.

Hillary on the March by Gail Collins New York Times

Gail Collins nails it, capturing this historic moment (part one) as Hillary Clinton seizes America's brass ring at tonight's Democratic convention. We all know that inspiring oratory is not her strongest skill. Perhaps she can speak an action plan, punctuated with audio snippets from all the inspiring speakers who have endorsed her this week.

Collins taps into a rarely discussed undercurrent of identity politics in America, a strong moral belief among women that we will be fairer, more effective, and stronger leaders than so many male politicos who have held exclusive power in America. At the least, we are equally effective.

Those of us who support Hillary Clinton are counting on her to break through THIS glass ceiling -- that men are our moral leaders, a belief fundamental in the bedrock of most religious institutions in America. Countless women have rejected this fundamental tenet of American life for several decades. While many incredible women have lead this renouncing of America's male dominance for decades, Hillary Clinton carries this mantle on this day.

On this day, HWN would like to honor one of those unspoken names in American history: Sarah Grimke and her sister Angelina. ~ Anne

As Gail Collins notes:

"I’d like to think that somewhere, all the women who worked for this moment through American history are watching and nodding happily. Like the sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke, who really don’t get enough mention. They were the daughters of a wealthy pre-Civil War South Carolina slave owner who figured out on their own, when they were hardly more than babies, that the system was wrong. (When Sarah was about 4 she went to the docks and asked a sea captain to take her to a place where whipping was prohibited.)"

A Few Simple Truths About Immigration New York Times Editorial Board

Donald Trump and his allies at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland peddled two falsehoods about America’s immigration problem. One was the vision presented by speaker after speaker of a nation overrun with foreigners crossing American borders and infiltrating communities to rob and kill. Another was the notion that most Americans are desperate for the kind of tough-guy response — including massive deportation and building a wall — that Mr. Trump offers as his solution.

Ghazala Khan: Trump criticized my silence. He knows nothing about true sacrifice Washington Post

Donald Trump has asked why I did not speak at the Democratic convention. He said he would like to hear from me. Here is my answer to Donald Trump: Because without saying a thing, all the world, all America, felt my pain. I am a Gold Star mother. Whoever saw me felt me in their heart.

Donald Trump said I had nothing to say. I do. My son Humayun Khan, an Army captain, died 12 years ago in Iraq. He loved America, where we moved when he was 2 years old. He had volunteered to help his country, signing up for the ROTC at the University of Virginia. This was before the attack of Sept. 11, 2001. He didn’t have to do this, but he wanted to.

Poll: Clinton Rides Convention Bump Past Trump Morning Consult

We'll watch what happens in the coming week, but this Morning Consult poll has Hillary leading Trump for the first time among men. Last week Trump beat her by 8 pts among men. Today she led by 1 pt.

Hillary Clinton is once again leading Donald Trump in the presidential race after her party’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

The former secretary of State leads the Republican, 43 percent to 40 percent, in a new Morning Consult survey taken in the days following the DNC gathering. It’s a 7-point swing from the previous poll, in which Trump surged to a 4-point lead following the Republican National Committee’s convention in Cleveland.

Almost one in five voters (17 percent) remain undecided.