May 23, 2016

Hillary Clinton Supporter Terry McAuliffe Is Under FBI INVESTIGATION For Campaign Donations

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May 23, 2016

INTEL VETS Urge Fast Report on Hillary Clinton’s Emails

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Background

Last August, Secretary Clinton handed over her private email server to the FBI, five months after she acknowledged she had used it for work-related emails as Secretary of State. She admitted to having deleted about 31,000 emails she described as personal. Media reports last fall, however, indicated that the FBI was able to recover the personal emails, and was reviewing them, as well as the 30,000 others she had described as work-related. In January, the Department of State announced that, of the 30,000 work-related emails, at least 1,340 contained classified material. The Department retroactively classified 22 of those TOP SECRET and prevented their release. Among the 22 were some that, according to media reports, included information on highly sensitive Special Access Programs (SAP). The White House has said it will do nothing to impede the FBI investigation and possible filing of charges against Clinton, if the facts should warrant that kind of action. Inasmuch as the outcome of the investigation is bound to have major political consequences, such White House assurances stretch credulity. By all indications, the FBI is slow-walking the investigation and mainstream media are soft-pedaling the issue. As things now stand, most Americans remain unaware of the import of this industrial-scale compromise of very sensitive national security information in Secretary Clinton’s emails.

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Another argument being surfaced, in a transparent attempt to defend Secretary Clinton, has to do with intent. It is said that she did not intend to have classified information on her computer in New York and had no intention of handling secret material in a way that would be accessible to foreign intelligence or others lacking the proper security clearances and the need-to-know. But while intent might be relevant in terms of punishment, it does not change the fact that as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, then Senator Clinton had clearances for classified information for years before becoming Secretary of State. She knew the rules and yet as Secretary she handled classified information carelessly after a deliberate decision to circumvent normal procedures for its safeguarding, thus making it vulnerable to foreign intelligence, as well as to criminal hackers. Anyone who has ever handled classified material knows that there are a number of things that you do not do. You do not take it home with you, you do not copy it and share it with anyone who does not have a clearance and a need-to-know, you do not strip off the classification marks and treat it as unclassified, and you do not transfer it to another email account that is not protected by a government server. If you have a secured government computer operating off of a secure server that means that what is on the computer stays on the computer. This is not a matter of debate or subject to interpretation. It is how one safeguards classified information, even if one believes that the material should not be classified, which is another argument that has been made in Clinton’s defense. Whether or not the classification is unnecessary is not your decision to make.

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Some More Equal Than Others

Secretary Clinton’ case invites comparison with what happened to former CIA case officer Jeffrey Sterling, now serving a three-and-a-half-year prison term for allegedly leaking information to New York Times journalist James Risen. Sterling first came to the media’s attention when in 2003 he blew the whistle on a botched CIA operation called Operation Merlin, telling the Senate Intelligence Committee staff that the operation had ended up revealing nuclear secrets to Iran. When in 2006 James Risen published a book that discussed, inter alia, this amateurish cowboy operation, the Department of Justice focused on Sterling as the suspected source. In court, the federal prosecutors relied almost entirely on Risen’s phone and email logs, which reportedly demonstrated that the two men had been in contact up until 2005. But the prosecutors did not provide the content of those communications even though the FBI was listening in on some of them. Risen has claimed that he had multiple sources on Operation Merlin, and Sterling has always denied being involved. Jeffrey Sterling was not permitted to testify in the trial on his own behalf because he would have had to discuss Operation Merlin, which was and is still classified. He could not mention any details about it even if they were already publicly known through the Risen book. No evidence was ever produced in court demonstrating that any classified information ever passed between the two men, but Sterling, an African American, was nevertheless convicted by an all-white jury in Virginia based on “suspicion” and the presumption that “it had to be him.” The contrast between the copious evidence – some of it self-admitted – of Secretary Clinton’s demonstrable infractions, on the one hand, and the very sketchy, circumstantial evidence used to convict and imprison Jeffrey Sterling, on the other, lend weight to the suspicion that there is one law for the rich and powerful in the United States and another for the rest of us.




cont'

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/05/23/intel-vets-urge-fast-report-on-clintons-emails/

May 23, 2016

Should Dems Be Freaking Out? In First, National Polling Average SHOWS Trump OVER Clinton

After weeks of polls showing Donald Trump gaining on Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton's once sizable lead, for the first time on Monday, Real Clear Politics recorded the New York billionaire ahead in the national polling average. For the period between May 13-19, the presumptive Republican nominee polled ahead of Clinton by a national average of 0.2 points.



The new figure places the upcoming presidential contest in stark new light. That national average was posted on the heels of two separate national polls which showed the two running neck-and-neck: A Washington Post/ ABC News survey released Sunday has the two in a "statistical dead heat" with Trump ahead of Clinton 46 percent to 44 percent among registered voters; while a survey from NBC News/ Wall Street Journal, also Sunday, recorded Clinton polling ahead of Trump 46 to 43 percent.

Perhaps even more troubling, the NBC/WSJ survey found that the negative ratings for the two presumptive nominees are the highest in the history of the poll. Fifty-four percent of those surveyed hold a negative opinion of Clinton and 58 percent have a negative opinion of Trump. At the same time, Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders continues to best both Clinton and Trump in favorability ratings (43 percent hold a positive view of the Vermont senator versus 36 percent who have a negative view) and maintains a double-digit lead over the Republican candidate.

NBC/WSJ recorded Sanders ahead of Trump by 15 points.

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http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/05/23/should-dems-be-freaking-out-first-national-polling-average-shows-trump-over-clinton

May 22, 2016

The Case For Electability-- Or Do You Just NOT CARE That Much If Trump BECOMES President?

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Well, it isn't so clear that Trump is going down as some anti-Trumpists predict. In fact, polling shows him generally in a decent position to win in November if the Democrats are stupid enough to nominate a candidate disliked and distrusted by so much of the electorate. Trump is gaining on Hillary. The Washington Post/ABC News poll released this morning reports that "Never in the history of the Post-ABC poll have the two major party nominees been viewed as harshly as Clinton and Trump. Nearly 6 in 10 registered voters say they have negative impressions of both major candidates. Overall, Clinton’s net negative rating among registered voters is minus-16, while Trump’s is minus-17, though Trump’s numbers have improved since March." Overall, Trump is beating her 46-44%. This morning Bernie told George Stephanopoulos that "We need a campaign, an election, coming up which does not have two candidates who are really very, very strongly disliked. I don't want to see the American people voting for the lesser of two evil. I want the American people to be voting for a vision of economic justice, of social justice, of environmental justice, of racial justice." Hillary-campers claim that once the primary is over and the Bernie backers coalesce around the nominee, everything will be fine. I wonder what they're smoking? Bernie's movement isn't a beauty contest about who has a better personality. The issues he raised during the campaign preclude large segments of his coalition from voting for Hillary or Trump. I'm sure many will get hoodwinked into voting for Hillary as "the lesser of two evils," but I suspect many will stay home and many will vote for Jill Stein.


Those same Hillary-campers who insist-- don't worry-- everything is going to be fine when Bernie gets out of the primary, don't seem to comprehend the degree of disdain his supporters have for everything Hillary stands for. Sorry, it's not Obama vs Clinton 2008 again. This one's about values. Saturday, Bernie's campaign released a polling memo from Tulchin Research, one I'm sure Bernie hopes the super-delegates will consider seriously before they nominate a candidate who is so weak that she can be beaten by Trump. Democrats seeking a presidential nominee to lead their party to victory in November should take notice of the overwhelming preponderance of data demonstrating that Bernie Sanders is the strongest Democratic candidate to defeat Donald Trump. For months, public polling has found Sanders running consistently better than Hillary Clinton against Trump both nationally and in key swing states across the country and that trend remains very much in tact today.


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Additionally, Sanders runs markedly better than Clinton against Trump in many key battleground states. In fact, Sanders leads Trump by wider margins than Clinton in all of the public polling that has been conducted in swing states over the past few months.



Krugman's cute Sanders dead-enders phraseology couldn't have been more effective to guarantee there would be inadequate post-convention unity than if Trump invented the term himself. But as everyone knows now, poor ole Paul has deluded himself into believing that Obama has ended inequality and Wall Street excess with (ever so slightly) higher tax rates, (an inadequate, compromised) Dodd-Frank Act and the (fraction of a loaf) Affordable Care Act. He should get out more and, you know... meet real people. Like Krystal Ball who, although she once worked for MSNBC, apparently is listening and hearing and understands that hand-wringing over party unity misses the point; no one cares about your precious parties.



cont'

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-case-for-electability-or-do-you.html

May 22, 2016

This Week - Bernie Sanders: Americans Deserve A Better Choice Than “THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS”

May 21, 2016

Will 712 Democratic Officials DECIDE 2016 Election?

This is why the Hillary Camp wants Bernie's campaign to shut down....

May 21, 2016

Hillary Clinton LIED When She Claimed Her Server Was 'Effective & Secure'

May 21, 2016

FAIR.org: “First, Do Some Harm: How to SMEAR a Disfavored Candidate on NYT's Front Page”

By Jim Naureckas, Editor
FAIR.org
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting


The first sentence of the lead story in yesterday’s New York Times (5/19/16) had some surprising news:

That would be odd behavior—a political campaign having the professed aim of damaging an opponent rather than advancing its candidate. The New York Times wouldn’t lead with this sensational claim unless it had hard evidence, right? Well, you have to go to the seventh paragraph of the story–co-bylined by Patrick Healy, Yamiche Alcindor and Jeremy W. Peters–before you find an actual quote from anybody. And that’s this:


This is Bad Journalism 101: You come up with a thesis, like “Bernie Sanders wants to hurt Hillary Clinton’s chances of beating Donald Trump.” You take your thesis to your source, and ask them to agree with it; like any sensible spokesperson, they decline to comment on it. You take their no-comment as an endorsement of your thesis—and that becomes the lead headline in the nation’s most influential newspaper:




As a bonus, you get to make a front-page allusion to violence on the part of Senator Sanders, which bolsters the idea—advanced by phantom chair-throwing incidents—that the Sanders campaign is a dangerous menace. (Note that the story’s original headline was the less-inflammatory “Bernie Sanders’s Campaign Accuses Head of DNC of Favoritism“—which became the more slanted “Bernie Sanders’s Defiance Strains Ties With Top Democrats” before settling on the final smear.)

The real problem that the Times has with the Sanders campaign, I would suggest, is revealed at the end of that lead, where Healy et al. write that Sanders plans on “amassing enough leverage to advance his agenda at the convention in July—or even wrest the nomination from her.” Yes, the New York Times has the scoop: Bernie Sanders is secretly hoping to win the election! Healy is one of the Times reporters who wrote, back in October, about “Hillary Rodham Clinton emerging as the unrivaled leader in the Democratic contest.” The Times will not forgive Sanders for proving them wrong.


cont'

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/5/21/1529233/-FAIR-org-First-Do-Some-Harm-How-to-Smear-a-Disfavored-Candidate-on-NYT-s-Front-Page

May 21, 2016

Bernie Sanders STRONGEST Candidate to Beat Donald Trump

May 21, 2016

Bernie Sanders Supporter CONFRONTS Vegas Reporter Jon Ralston on Rachel Maddow

Any doubt that Rachel is carrying water for the Clinton machine......well then, watch her superior reporting effort at exposing the truth........



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