Nothing to lose: Gingrich and Christie make the most sense because they've already bottomed out as politicians

SEAN ILLING

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Republican convention this year is the mystery surrounding the VP nomination. Republicans are reluctantly supporting Trump, but they know he’s radioactive and don’t want to be anywhere near him if possible. We know this because the list of Republicans either not attending the convention or refusing a speaking slot is long and growing. There’s also the fact that Trump’s campaign is a dumpster fire, with no campaign infrastructure, no material plan for the general election, no fundraising operation, and a barely competent skeletal staff in key battleground states. So it makes sense that Trump’s options for VP are narrower than we’ve come to expect.

Nevertheless, the Donald’s vetting process is underway and Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich are the early leaders, according to a report in The Washington Post. The authors write that “with little more than two weeks before the start of the Republican National Convention, Gingrich and Christie have been asked to submit documents and are being cast as favorites for the post inside the campaign.” Trump confidants like Ben Carson, they add, are particularly enthralled by Gingrich, whose gaseous but silver-tongued style might help the ticket.

Trump has said he wants a seasoned running mate, someone who can work with the establishment. In a normal year, that would open the field to a number of veteran Republicans, safe picks who would add gravitas to the campaign. But this isn’t a normal year, and no politician with dignity or something to lose wants to run alongside Donald Trump.

That leaves us with Gingrich and Christie.

Gingrich is a good fit for Trump. He’s as shameless as the Republican nominee but considerably sharper. Gingrich has a gift for sounding smart without actually saying anything intelligent. He discovered in the 1990s that if you stick the words “profound” and “fundamentally” in a sentence, people assume you said something important. While he hasn’t served in office since 1999, he’s still active and clearly itching to be relevant again. Trump is the perfect vehicle.

more
http://www.salon.com/2016/07/01/theyre_perfect_for_him_newt_and_christies_scandalous_past_make_them_ideal_trump_vps/

Trump’s campaign of paranoia reaches new levels: At New Hampshire rally, Trump suggests Mexico sent an airplane to attack him


“That could be a Mexican plane up there.” Trump then pointed upwards and added, “They’re getting ready to attack”

SOPHIA TESFAYE

Donald Trump’s got bluster down pat. Demagoguery, although a more recent tone for him, appears to now be second-nature. Humour, however, is one department where he could use a little work.

After spending months of railing against undocumented Mexican immigrants and their government, he argues, that is too feckless to prevent the migration, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee appeared to drop his usual bluster and bravado in favor of an odd foray into humor while campaigning on Thursday.

Touting his plans to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, Trump oddly elevated the Mexican government he so often rails against — in a manner not unlike what he displayed when he descended from the golden escalator in Trump Tower more than one year ago.

“I respect Mexico, and I respect their leaders,” Trump told supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire, taking the opportunity to jab the Obama administration. “What they’ve done to us is incredible. Their leaders are so much smarter, so much sharper, and it’s incredible,” Trump told the crowd.

Then, as a plane flew overhead, Trump said, “That could be a Mexican plane up there — they’re getting ready to attack!”

Video @ link

###

http://www.salon.com/2016/07/01/trumps_campaign_of_paranoia_reaches_new_levels_at_new_hampshire_rally_trump_suggests_mexico_sent_an_airplane_to_attack_him/

If Republican Donald Trump wins the White House in November, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said he expects unprecedented “levels of violence” from upset liberals.

On his Thursday radio show, Limbaugh asked listeners to imagine the fallout from the political left immediately after a possible Trump win.

“I want you to think: What’s going to happen that night? What’s going to happen the next day? What’s going to happen every day thereafter?” he said. “What’s going to happen the day Trump gets inaugurated? What is the left going to do? They’re not going to just sit idly by and accept this."

“They’re going to do everything they can to undermine it, and I think we’re going to see levels of violence that we have not seen,” Limbaugh continued. He went on to suggest anti-Trump forces would “intimidate” people into “reversing” a Trump win and doing “everything they can to see it that Trump never does get inaugurated.”



###

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rush-limbaugh-violence-trump-liberals

July 1, 2016 12:59 pm

When Nigel Farage said his Brexit campaign had made a “mistake” in promising that Britain’s National Health Service would have £350 million more every week if the “Leave” campaign won, British voters seemed to know almost immediately that they had been duped.

That morning, the pound plummeted to its lowest point in 35 years. #Regrexit campaigns emerged across the UK, calling for a second vote. In the week since, hate crimes have spiked. Boris Johnson exited stage see-you-never-again.

Now, one website claims to have gotten ahold of Nigel Farage’s plan to make everything right again in Britain. It’s a bit hard to read, though. See if you can figure it out: http://thebrexitplan.com/

###

http://www.nationalmemo.com/website-boasts-nigel-farages-hilarious-leaked-plan-leaving-eu/

July 1, 2016 11:24 am

Donald Trump’s choice to run his campaign in Colorado, a key battleground state, is a veteran political consultant who was accused in the last election cycle of defrauding a top conservative super PAC.

During the 2014 midterm election, Patrick Davis was brought on to help run Vote2ReduceDebt — a cash-flush group launched by an elderly Texas oil tycoon who had no experience in politics but wanted to help elect fiscally conservative lawmakers.

The group quickly collapsed amid allegations of faked campaign events, destroyed records, fabricated expenses and contracts routed to friends, ProPublica reported last year.

The group’s director questioned whether events organized by Davis were all they claimed to be. At an Iowa phone bank, the director alleged a caller admitted they were just “pretending to make phone calls” for the benefit of the campaign’s video cameras.

Davis denied all allegations of wrongdoing, saying he was trying to clean up a troubled PAC. But according to records and interviews, Davis pushed for much of the group’s nearly $3 million to go to organizations run by him or his close associates. He secured payments of about $410,000 from Vote2ReduceDebt to a PAC he founded and helped direct contracts and cash to a company run by a friend.

-snip-

http://www.nationalmemo.com/trump-taps-consultant-accused-defrauding-pac-lead-colorado-campaign/

Source: The Hill

A super-PAC supporting Hillary Clinton has refunded $200,000 in contributions from a company that The Hill discovered had contracts with the federal government.

In a statement, Suffolk Construction said Priorities USA had returned the donation. “Based on our internal accounting, the contract appeared to be completed as the project was over four years ago," Dan Antonellis of the Boston-based company said in a statement to The Hill. "We notified the Committee of this ambiguity and they decided to return their contribution.”

-snip-

Companies that hold contracts with the federal government are banned from making political contributions. The ban on contributions from federal contractors is a longstanding law meant to prevent pay-to-play deals between companies receiving taxpayer money and public officials. But the prohibition is often ignored by contractors and campaign committees because the Federal Election Commission is plagued by partisan gridlock and unlikely to take action against infractions.

The Hill found that ignoring the ban has become a common practice, with super-PACs for Republicans also taking money from companies with federal contracts.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/286259-pro-clinton-pac-returns-banned-donations

Source: The Washington Post

By Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller July 1 at 1:47 PM
The United States has inadvertently killed between 64 and 116 non-combatant civilians in drone and other lethal attacks against terrorism suspects in places not considered active war zones, the Obama administration said Friday.

The unintentional deaths came in a total of 473 CIA and military counterterrorism strikes up to the end of 2015 that the administration said have taken between 2372 and 2581 militants permanently off the battlefield in countries where the United States is not at war, which would include Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya.

The release was accompanied by an executive order, signed by President Obama, designed to give added weight to existing administration standards and procedures governing the use of lethal force and for limiting civilian casualties.

The long-awaited casualty disclosures are part of an attempt to live up to Obama’s repeated promises of greater transparency about his administration’s extraordinary reliance on armed drones in the targeted killings of terrorism suspects.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/white-house-releases-its-count-of-civilian-deaths-in-counterterrorism-operations-under-obama/2016/07/01/3196aa1e-3fa2-11e6-80bc-d06711fd2125_story.html?wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-world%252Bnation

By Michelle Ye Hee Lee June 29

“So who is all for women until she isn’t? When Bill Cosby was accused of sexual assault, Mrs. Clinton tweeted, ‘Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be believed.’ But when another Bill (Clinton) was accused of sexual assault? Not so much. … She savaged their dignity and shamed them. (Shows a video clip of Clinton saying) ‘Some folks are going to have a lot to answer for.’”

–Voiceover and video clip in political ad by pro-Donald Trump group Rebuilding America Now

This political ad by a pro-Trump super PAC attacks Hillary Clinton over her response to women who made sexual allegations against her husband. The ad begins with a reference to a post on Twitter by the Hillary Clinton campaign, noting it was published “when Bill Cosby was accused of sexual assault.” The ad goes on to say that she reacted differently to allegations about her husband.

“She savaged their dignity and shamed them,” the narrator says, as the following text appears on screen: “The Clinton effort used words like ‘floozy,’ ‘bimbo’ and ‘stalker.’” Then a video clip airs of Clinton saying, “Some folks are going to have a lot to answer for,” and gives the impression that she was making those comments in response to the women who had made sexual allegations against her husband.

-snip-

The Pinocchio Test

This ad employs sound, video and text editing to create quite a misleading impression to the viewers. First, the narrator says that “When Bill Cosby was accused of sexual assault, Mrs. Clinton tweeted, ‘Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be believed.’” Yet the tweet did not mention Cosby. It includes a link to her plan to address campus sexual assaults, and apparently coincided the airing of a documentary on the issue.

Later in the ad, the narrator says Hillary Clinton “savaged their dignity and shamed them,” and immediately shows a clip of Clinton saying, “Some folks are going to have a lot to answer for,” implying Clinton was referring to the women. But in the context of the full interview, that’s not exactly clear; Clinton appears to be blaming political opponents of her husband.

We wavered between Two and Three Pinocchios. As regular readers know, editing jobs in political ads that risk misleading the public almost automatically qualify for Two Pinocchios under our standards. The group says it’s “fair to assume” that Clinton would have known that her tweet would read as a commentary on the larger issue of sexual assault, and that it’s “fair to interpret” that her claim in the Today Show interview was a “threat that she was going to exploit” the women. We find that a stretch, and admakers deliberately made assumptions and interpretations to arrange audio, text and video in a way that misleads viewers. That tips it to Three Pinocchios.

[image][/image]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/06/29/pro-trump-groups-ad-misrepresents-hillary-clintons-comments-about-women/?wpisrc=nl_fact&wpmm=1

Source: The Hill

Attorney General Loretta Lynch will announce Friday that she plans to rely on the opinion of the FBI and career prosecutors on whether to press charges over then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, a Justice Department official told The New York Times.

The decision comes amid a political firestorm over a private meeting Lynch had with former President Bill Clinton on Monday at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. The former president has been on the campaign trail for his wife's White House bid.

Many Republicans are calling for Lynch to recuse herself from the investigation, saying that the meeting shows a lack of judgment on her part and raises the possibility that partisan politics could shape the outcome of the case.

An unidentified official told the Times that Lynch for months had been mulling over the move to rely on the recommendation of the FBI and career prosecutors, but the furor over the meeting had forced the decision. Lynch will give a speech on Friday in Aspen, Colo., during which she is expected to make the announcement.

###


Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/286228-lynch-will-accept-recommendation-on-whether-to-prosecute

Source: Talking Points Memo

After Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday said he was confident that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will endorse Hillary Clinton, the Vermont senator insisted that he is still not ready to back the presumptive Democratic nominee.

"I talked to Joe, I think it was three weeks ago," Sanders said on MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes" when asked about Biden's comment. "On that issue, we are trying to work with Secretary Clinton’s campaign on areas that we can agree on."

Biden told NPR in an interview published earlier in the day, "I've talked to Bernie, Bernie's going to endorse her, this is going to work out."

After Sanders told Hayes that he will do everything he can to make sure Donald Trump does not become president, Hayes asked if that would involve campaigning for Clinton. In response, Sanders said that he is working with Democrats on the party platform.

-snip- (video @ link)

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sanders-biden-endorse-clinton