Trump Lies on the Benghazi

by Dave

Republicans prepared a report  in June 2016 which none of the Democrats supported.  They issued their separate report.   But both Democratic and Republican reports and prior investigations state that the embassy in Benghazi was inadequately protected.  Hillary Clinton agrees with this assessment and as Secretary of State accepted all recommendations made at the time to improve security.  Of course, you are not going to hear this from Trump.

The big lie is that Secretary Clinton did nothing while 4 Americans were killed in Benghazi. Not even the Republican version of the Benghazi has any conclusion remotely similar to this.  The Republican report states it was impossible to save the two lives in the embassy.  The discussion is on the two lives while guarding the CIA annex.    This is all about an attack that lasted a total of 11 minutes.

Here’s the reporting from the New York Times, June 28, 2016:

“The Republican-led committee found no evidence of culpability or wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state.”

What the Republican version did, was to suggest, just possibly, more could have been done militarily to save the two lives and  suggest Leon Panetta and the Department of Defense.   acted too slow.  NYT reports:

 Senior Pentagon officials have consistently said that they were constrained by the “tyranny of time and distance” — that is, that the military could not have sent troops or planes in time to have made a difference.

NYT reports:

Even the report acknowledges the challenges facing the so-called FAST teams: These troops did not have their own planes, which meant delays waiting for flights; did not travel with their own vehicles (they would need to find some in Benghazi when they landed); and were designed to deploy before a crisis hit, not during hostilities.

Essentially, the hypothetical rescue mission would have been sent to save the lives of two servicemen guarding the CIA Annex.  More lives could have been lost in this mission.  And then the Pentagon, Obama, or even Secretary Clinton would have come under serious attack.

Full NYT article

The best summary I’ve seen on Benghazi is from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

 

 

 

 

More lies about the Clinton Foundation

by Dave

When Hillary was asked about the Clinton Foundation scandals, she avoided  the claims by Trump and simply named many of the accomplishments of the Clinton Foundation.

There been so many false claims, it’s tough to know where to begin. On Wednesday,  on Fox News, on the 6:00 and 7:00 pm broadcasts, they said indictments against the Clinton Foundation were near according to their sources.   It’s always safe to say the FBI or the Justice Department is investigating some organization because they are prohibited from commenting on their investigations.   But soon the other networks, like ABC and CNN were saying this was nonsense,  and by yesterday,  Fox News was backing down from this “breaking story.”

False Indictment Story

The uranium deal story has a few bits of fact, but no real evidence of corruption and none of them related to Hillary Clinton.

Uranium Story and  False Claims

One of the worst lies was that Clinton’s used the money just travel and make themselves more famous, which thanks to factcheck.org has been completely discredited:

Where does the Clinton Foundation money go? 

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Pence is just as bad on pushing email fictions

by Dave

From factcheck.org:

In an Oct. 30 interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Pence said that “Hillary Clinton continues to refuse to turn over some 33,000 e-mails.” But, as we said earlier, Clinton’s non-work-related emails were deleted more than a year ago, so Clinton doesn’t have them to turn over. As we have previously written, Clinton’s office disclosed on March 10, 2015, that she gave the State Department 30,490 work-related emails on Dec. 5, 2014, and “chose not to keep” 31,830 emails she deemed “personal.” “We went through a thorough process to identify all of my work-related emails and deliver them to the State Department,” Clinton said at a press conference on March 10, 2015. “At the end, I chose not to keep my private personal emails.”

The 31,830 personal emails were deleted “sometime between March 25-31, 2015,” according to the FBI notes of its investigation. As we said earlier, the emails were deleted by a PRN employee about three weeks after Clinton received a congressional subpoena on March 4, 2015. So Clinton is “not continuing to refuse to turn over some 33,000 e-mails,” as Pence claimed. Because they were deleted by PRN (private computer company), she doesn’t have them to release.

PRN stands for Platte River Network.   So, these accusations that Hillary Clinton either refused to turn over emails or ordered them destroyed has been investigated and found to be false.   Time for Republicans to move on.

Fact check is a non-partisan organization, is a project from the Annaberg Public Policy Center.  See:

www.factcheck.org

They find many false statements from both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns.

Stay tuned,

Dave

Stupid Trump Claims – Part III

by Dave

The Clinton crew gave more than $675,000 to the wife of the deputy director of the FBI.”

Factcheck.org concludes:
Trump says the “Clinton crew,” but he isn’t talking about Clinton or anyone in Clinton’s campaign. He is talking about Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime friend and supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton. A political action committee controlled by McAuliffe and the Virginia Democratic Party combined donated more than $675,000 to Dr. Jill McCabe, who unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the Virginia Senate in 2015.
McAuliffe’s PAC, Common Good VA, made other large donations in 2015: $803,500 to state Senate candidate Jeremy McPike, who won his election, and $781,500 to Daniel Gecker, who lost. The big donations were part of an all-out effort by the Democratic governor to help his party gain control of the Senate in the November 2015 elections. That effort failed, and the makeup of the Senate remained unchanged with the Republicans holding a narrow 21 to 19 advantage.
Trump focuses on the donations to McCabe, because she is the wife of Andrew McCabe, who at the time of the donations was either head of the FBI field office in Washington, D.C., or assistant deputy director of the FBI. Andrew McCabe was not involved in the FBI investigation of Clinton’s emails when his wife was running for office. He was promoted to deputy director in February 2016, and at that time he assumed “an oversight role in the investigation into Secretary Clinton’s emails,” according to a statement from an FBI spokesman.
There is no evidence that Clinton had any knowledge of the donations or that they were made to influence the FBI investigation of her handling of classified information. (See “Clinton’s Connection to FBI Official.”)
Trump assembles — or rather disassembles — these half-truths and innuendos to reach his shaky conclusion that “this is bigger than Watergate.” That’s his opinion, but at least one person who was involved in Watergate disagrees.
John Dean, who served as White House counsel to Nixon from 1970 to 1973. wrote an op-ed in the New York Times calling the Watergate comparison “nonsense.”
“Only someone who knows nothing about the law, and the darkest moment of our recent political history, would see a parallel between Nixon’s crimes and Mrs. Clinton’s mistakes,” Dean said, noting that “some four dozen Nixon aides and associates were convicted of or pleaded guilty to criminal misconduct, including me.”

Stupid Trump Claims- Part 2

by Dave

Hillary Clinton is not playing Trump’s game of making her deny his false allegations. He wants her to play on defense. But I will.

Donald Trump stated the following:

“She made 13 phones disappear, some with a hammer.”

Factcheck.org disagrees:
It is true that the FBI said (on page 8) it “identified 13 total mobile devices … which potentially were used to send e-mails using Clinton’s clintonemail.com e-mail addresses.” But only eight of the 13 were used while Clinton was secretary of state, the FBI said, so Trump exaggerates the number of devices she had during her four years in office. (See “A Guide to Clinton’s Emails.”)
The FBI also quoted a Clinton aide (on page 9) as saying that he could recall on two occasions that he got rid of old mobile devices by breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer.
Trump insinuates that there is something sinister about owning several mobile devices and destroying the old ones when they are replaced. But the FBI came to no such conclusion, and security experts interviewed by the technology website Wired said destroying old devices is a good way to erase data — if done properly.

The stupid and untrue email claims – Part 1

by Dave

The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie–deliberate, contrived and dishonest–but the myth–persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

John Kennedy, June 11, 1962, Yale Commencement Address

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hillary Clinton is not playing Trump’s game of making her deny his false allegations.  He wants her to play on defense.   But I will.

Donald Trump stated the following:

“But you know, the deletion of 33,000 e-mails, boy, that just sort of is so out there, after receiving a subpoena from the United States government. She lied to Congress, she lied to the FBI, she made 13 phones disappear, some with a hammer. The Clinton crew gave more than $675,000 to the wife of the deputy director of the FBI and the man who was overseeing the investigation into Hillary’s illegal server.”

None of these statements are true.

Here is what factcheck.org has to say on the first claim.

Trump conflates and distorts three separate issues to make his Watergate comparison. Let’s take them in order.

“Hillary bleached and deleted 33,000 e-mails after receiving a congressional subpoena.”

Trump is referring to 31,830 emails that Clinton’s lawyers had deemed personal. These emails did not have to be turned over to the State Department, which in the summer of 2014 requested all work-related emails that the former secretary of state had in her possession. (See “A Guide to Clinton’s Emails.”)

The department’s policy allows its employees to determine which emails are work-related and must be preserved. “Messages that are not records may be deleted when no longer needed,” according to the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual (5 FAM 443.5). (See “Trump on the Stump.“)

That means Clinton was within her right to delete these emails, so that’s the first thing to know.

Now, Trump is right that these emails were deleted about three weeks after Clinton received a subpoena on March 4 from a Republican-controlled House committee investigating the 2012 deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. However, there is no evidence that she knew that the emails were deleted after the subpoena was issued.

According to the FBI’s investigative notes, Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff, in December 2014 told Platte River Networks that Clinton had preserved her work-related emails and “no longer needed access to any of her e-mails older than 60 days.” At that time, Mills instructed a PRN employee “to modify the e-mail retention policy” on Clinton’s server “to reflect this change.” That would automatically delete the old emails. But the PRN employee told the FBI that “he had an ‘oh shit’ moment” after learning about the subpoena sometime between March 25 and March 31, 2015, which is when he deleted Clinton’s emails. Clinton told the FBI that she was not aware that PRN deleted her emails in late March 2015, and the FBI did not say when she learned that they were deleted. (See “The FBI Files on Clinton’s Emails.”)

PRN used a free software program called BleachBit to delete the emails. That’s what Trump means when he says the emails were “bleached.” Other times he has said that Clinton “used chemicals” to “acid wash or bleach” her emails. That’s part of the deception, too. (See “Trump, Pence ‘Acid Wash’ Facts.”)

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

—- Bottom line is there is no requirement that government employees retain personal emails after they leave service.  Also, there is zero evidence to support the allegation that Hillary Clinton ordered deletion of personal emails after receiving a subpoena from a Republican controlled House committee.   

Hillary Clinton- Best Choice for President

by Dave

As President, she will have a lot to deal with.  The most critical will be international policy, with the crises in Syria, being number 1.   Syria is a complex mess, and can only be put back together by cooperation from many countries, including Turkey, Iran and Russia.  Her slogan,  “Stronger Together”,  is the right path forward.

Obama and Bush have never found a way to persuade North Korea’s leader Kim Jung-un to halt his quest for nuclear weapons.   He is truly a scary leader.  Libya is battling ISIS, yet the country still in broken into various factions.

Donald Trump has demonstrated his ineptness with his insulting comments to Mexico.  It doesn’t take much to be friends with Mexico- but he blew it big time.  He seems to start little wars at the drop of a hat.  Even insulting Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz’s father  and many other Republicans.

It is not the time to elect a president who has zero knowledge of diplomacy.  This is not the job who calls our elections rigged when he’s behind in the polls. There is no on-the-job training program.

Vote for Hillary to keep our nation great by working with others to find solutions.

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

 

What happens next Comey-wise?

by Dave

Watching too much CNN recently.   But, what pretty much makes sense, is nothing happens.  Comey  can refuse to answer all questions of an ongoing investigation, so bringing him in front of a subcommittee would be pure political theater.  He could refuse to appear, and be served with a subpoena.

Director Comey could make a mad dash to complete the investigation in the next 5 days- but experts are saying this is not realistic.   So,  nothing is likely to be resolved before the election.  Afterwards, if Clinton is elected, it is a super mess, particularly if Trump fails to concede.

The reason emails were sent to Hillary’s aide laptop, was so she could print them off and give them to Hillary.  If a classified email was on Huma Abedin’s laptop, and subsequently used by Anthony Wiener,  all this was unintentional.   Director Comey will not recommend prosecution for Huma Adelin, Anthony Wiener nor Hillary Clinton IF  classified information not previously discovered on the server  is found on the laptop.    The information was not where it was supposed to be. But there certainly was no public disclosure of classified information, only the unintentional mishandling of information, which Huma nor Anthony Wiener likely did not know was classified, and will not be charged with any crimes.

So I think this is really a lot of fuss by the media over very little.

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

 

Crazy, Crazy, Crazy

by Dave

Comey sent a letter to 8 chairmen of committees in both the Senate and House of Representatives on new information which could possibly affect the email investigation.

Newsweek filled in a lot of the details:

Newsweek story

As the Newsweek story explains,  the movement of emails to various accounts by Clinton’s aide, Huma Abedin,  was done simply to make it easier to print them, as Clinton preferred paper copies.  She had been previously interviewed by the FBI.

It gets really messy, really quick.  Some  of the emails are on a laptop shared by Anthony Weiner, who was being investigated for sending sexual text messages to a 15 year old girl.    Adelin and Weiner have separated.   The FBI confiscated this laptop.

Now,  Newsweek states that Comey’s statement was not partisan, but a horribly mishandled one.   I agree with the first part and disagree with the latter.

Hillary’s mis-characterized the situation as she  stated that Comey had sent this letter to the republicans in the House and Senate.  Comey’s letter addressed the chairmen of 8 committees, all of whom are republicans.   It was also forwarded to 8 ranking members, all of whom are democrat. It was sent to these eight committees because they had sought information from the FBI in the past.

Director Comey had no good options, but he picked the best one from the choices he had.   He had testified to Congress that he would investigate any new evidence that emerged.  Congress of course wanted to be kept informed. The details of the investigation could not be included in Comey’s statement, because Anthony Weiner has not been charged with committing any crime.  It would be extremely premature.   Comey issued the statement because he had to.  He knew the possibility for leaks was real strong, and then any statement would look like he had been hiding something to help Hillary’s election.  If he had included any information in the email, this would have been immediate cause for eight committees to investigate.

I suspect that Comey will not release anything more, until a final concluding letter to Congress.    So,  Hillary’s campaign is likely to be under a cloud of suspicion.

Before Friday’s announcement,  Comey was touted by Republicans  as Hillary’s friend, who  ignored the facts of the case, and  swept the whole thing under the rug.   One day later,  he’s their hero.   Of, course, both are completely false,  and the reputation of the FBI as being apolitical, is intact.  Anyone who can earn such disdain from both Republicans and Democrats must be apolitical, in my opinion.   Comey is not concerned with the election but the integrity of the investigation. Good for him.

Will anything of significance come of this?   I think Newsweek got it right,  if  classified emails were where they never should be, on an aide’s laptop,  and could have been easily shared with her husband at the time,  still there was no intent to disclose confidential information.   So,  without intent, it is all political fodder.

Read the Newsweek article- it’s well done.

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

 

 

Polls and Reality

by Dave

I told my friend that pollsters give Hillary Clinton above 90% chance of winning.  I also said that unless something goes  incredibly wrong, she should win.

What could go wrong?    People believing the polls, and acting accordingly.  If you believe she can’t lose, then why vote?

Another words,  polls  work only if people do what they say they will.   So,  Hillary’s biggest problem may be complacency.

A 90% chance of winning does not mean Trump can’t win.   In fact, any probability greater than zero of an event occurring  is an affirmation that the event is possible.

So, if you believe in Hillary, vote for Hillary.

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

 

 

 

Losing the right way

by Dave

Obama Tells Trump: Stop ‘Whining’ and Trying to Discredit the Election

New York Times Article

Trump’s comments were over the top for Marco Rubio,  Senator from Florida, seeking re-election, who has been trying to put some distance between himself and Trump:

This election is not being rigged,” Mr. Rubio said, adding that Mr. Trump “should stop saying that.” “We have 67 counties in this state, each of which conduct their own elections,” Mr. Rubio said. “I promise you there is not a 67-county conspiracy to rig this election.”

There was no backing down from Trump, which is scary.   He is laying the foundation for a speech when he loses the election.  He might not give a nasty “concession” speech- but leave enough bits of accusations of a rig system- media bias,  election fraud and big money influences,  so others can accuse the government of “ripping off the election.”

Trump’s campaign manager claims this is exactly what Al Gore did in year 2000.  It’s not true- not by a long shot.  In year 2000,  Florida vote count was extremely close and a re-counting began in certain counties where a few ballots could make a difference.  But, there are laws governing the timing of announcing election results, and the Supreme Court decided to limit the recounting.   Al Gore conceded to George Bush and never discredited the election system.

Trump doesn’t retract statements, he doesn’t apologize,  but he threatens his accusers with lawsuits.   He said he’ll  sue Jessica Drake, a pornstar, who said Trump was offering her $10,000 for sex.   No- this isn’t going to happen. Not to a single accuser.  He is suing the New York Times, and his wife is suing People magazine.

One last thing. Ultimately, the Secretary of State from each state declares the winner in the election.  If you take a look at all the toss up states, their governors are Republican.   Look at OH, FL, NC, IA, AZ, NV and even GA- all Republican!

This stuff gets Trump headlines, but nothing else.  Poor Marco Rubio- trying to distance himself from Trump, yet telling people to vote for Trump anyway because he can’t be as bad as Hillary.   It’s a tough act.

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

 

 

 

Making stuff up

by Dave

CBN is not CBS and ACLJ is not ACLU.  CBN stands for the Christian Broadcast Network and ACLJ stands for the American Center for Law and Justice.

I  did a Google search for FBI Director  James Comey, and at the top of the page,  was the headline,  “ACLJ accuses FBI Director of Obstruction of Justice in Clinton Email Case.”   This was posted by the CBN organization.

I found the information I really wanted by typing in “James Comey”  Wikipedia.

The American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ) is a politically conservative, Christian-based social activism organization in the United States founded by Pat Robertson.   The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) is an American Christian-oriented religious television network and production company founded by televangelist Pat Robertson.

ACLJ is all about right wing politics.

ACLJ

 

And Pat Robinson is at the head of all this.  He  gets regular messages from God including the one that the world was going to end in 1982:  His latest message is as follows:

“God came to me in a dream last night and showed me the future,” said Robertson. “He took me to heaven and I saw Donald Trump seated at the right hand of our Lord.”

Of course, all the evangelicals were hoping  for Ted Cruz or Dr. Ben Carson,  but Trump is an adequate replacement  (obviously the bar has been lowered).

There’s going to be a lot of stuff posted on the Internet and from religious broadcast stations, particularly over the radio,   that are loaded with false accusations.   There is not one iota of evidence that the FBI did anything but a non-partisan and thorough investigation into the email scandal.

The bottom line is that Republicans are unhappy because the thorough investigation did not show any laws were broken.  If Comey had recommended criminal charges,  Republicans would have been ecstatic – even if this was unjustified by the evidence.  Hillary would be forced to end her campaign, and it would be a closer contest of Sanders v. Trump.

But Republicans couldn’t find a more unlikely target than Comey,  who served both Republican and Democrat  presidents,  a registered Republican for most of his life (he’s registered as an independent now) and was easily confirmed as Director of the FBI in 2013.

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

 

The Stay at Home Crowd

by Dave

This is a quick note, really based on last night’s Mad Money show, where Jim Cramer was highlighting Tuesday’s  jump in Netflix and Domino’s Pizza stock price, as a direct result of the “stay at home” crowd.   Cramer then went on to talk about how everyone is ordering take-out and buying everything on Amazon.

I think he’s right.    His argument is that the internet, is making all this easier.  Ordering movies and pizza from tablets on the sofa, with the credit card information stored on the device- how convenient. And really very passive activity.

Bill Gates got it wrong.  It isn’t information we want  at the click of a mouse that we want. It’s pizza and movies.   And more stuff.

And I’m sorry, but I feel it’s a terrible trend.   Movie theaters  and restaurants are wonderful.  Travel.  Shows.  Camping.   Sailing.  Music in the parks.  Farmers market.  Interaction with people.  Excitement and new experiences.

Yeah!

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

This election is a total fraud!

by Dave

Ok- did I get your attention?

I’m not talking about the 2016 election here in the US.   I’m going all the way back to 1992, in a very different part of the world,  in the country of Angola in their very first open election since independence from Portugal.

These six words were uttered by  a representative for Jonas Savimbi,  the losing candidate in the Angolan  election in 1992.   I was in Angola, and I understand Portuguese, so as I heard this on national television,  it frighten me.  I knew it was untrue.  The UN had monitored the election, and while there were irregularities, it was, on balance, a fair election.

What came through on that day in 1992, was the intense  anger in place of a concession speech.    Savimbi’s representative blasted away at the government,. declaring the entire election system was rigged.   All election results were false.  To Savimbi’s supporters,  the government had stolen the election.  If someone steals something, the natural reaction is revenge.

Savimbi did not blast away at the election results. He let others do the dirty work  for him.

Lost in all of this was the respect for  the people who worked to make sure fair elections were held in Angola.   The Carter organization had helped to monitor the elections, along with UN monitors.  My friend was one of the election monitors.  It was a dangerous voluntary work.

The trust we have in our election system,  can also be undermined by politics.   Hateful and dishonest rhetoric is dangerous.  Volunteers from the Women League of Voters, help keep our elections fair and honest.

What followed in Angola, was a resumption of a civil war, which lasted until year 2002.   So people died believing in hateful lies.

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

 

 

So, who is going to win?

by Dave

Right now, Hillary is in front. But,  everything depends on FIONNA   – Florida, Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona.  Trump has to win Florida.  Hillary doesn’t.  Not all forecasters have the same list of toss up states.  Some consider Arizona goes to Trump, and Nevada to Clinton, so  this leaves just FION.  Or we can call it NIFO, which sounds dirty.   Florida is still the biggy in all of this.

The New York Times, upshot webpage is still the best, as it provides other forecasts;

Stay tuned,

Dave