Politico (aka Tiger Beat on the Potomac) | September 1, 2016
Bill Clinton aides used tax dollars to subsidize foundation, private email support - "Bill Clinton's staff used a decades-old federal government program, originally created to keep former presidents out of the poorhouse, to subsidize his family's foundation and an associated business, and to support his wife's private email server, a POLITICO investigation has found. Taxpayer cash was used to buy IT equipment -- including servers -- housed at the Clinton Foundation, and also to supplement the pay and benefits of several aides now at the center of the email and cash-for-access scandals dogging Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign."

That "decades-old federal government program" is, of course, also known as a federal pension, as authorized and allocated in this instance under the Retired Presidents Act, which was enacted in 1958 to fund the living and operating expenses of the country's former chief executives. Politico's findings breathlessly describe what the program was literally designed to do.

To the extent that all of the various public employee retirement systems in this country are funded by taxpayer dollars, then a number of my own relatives are equally guilty of sticking taxpayers with the tab for trips to Europe, Caribbean cruises and remodeled kitchens. Do we really want to go there? Because that's exactly where Politico's logic ultimately takes us.

For all of the smoke being blown here by Politico, it should be noted that the reporters themselves admit that none of the expenses itemized in the article were impermissible or unauthorized. So why, then, is this even news?

Rather, what we're seeing here is Exhibit A for the Clinton Rules at work. Use FOIA to access publicly available government documents, investigate for malfeasance and when none is found, publish the benign findings anyway under a misleading headline that gives the entire enterprise an aura of breaking scandal.

Truly, we're living in a Golden Age of Misinformation and Pseudo-scandal. Next up, the Associated Press catches Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren engaging in some really hot thespian action in front of enthralled audiences, some of whom are children under 18 years of age!

"Kaine correctly noted that Clinton had taken questions after an address to the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, but that is different from addressing the national press corps that knows her positions better than anyone, including other reporters, and is therefore better equipped to ask probing questions."

Glad he cleared that up for us -- and with heaping helpings of arrogance and condescension, too. Would it be trés gauche for me to note that the national press corps is also overwhelmingly white, and prone to doing stuff like THIS?

In the meantime, in pointed recognition of the job they've done this election cycle, here's to Dylan Byers and the entire national press corps.

... How will you get immigration reform, something that President Obama was not able to do, so that Latinos can believe that something is going to happen, that their vote, again, is not being taken for granted considering that the House, at least the House, will remain under Republican control? [...]

... How do you walk back the deportations, comply with the law, and not inherit the title of deporter-in-chief, and at the same time, all these steps to help mobilize the Latino community to the polls, many who still believe that their vote is taken for granted in 2008 and 2012, and then we have the e-mails[!] from WikiLeaks that say that are the loyalty brand of the party? [...]

... your poll numbers went way up this week, and yet, the e-mail[!] controversy was still in the headlines. So, I wanted to give you the opportunity to respond [...] are you mischaracterizing Director Comey testimony? And is this not undercutting your efforts to rebuild trust with the American people? [...]

... you said you never sent or received classified material, and he did say there were three e-mails, that were marked classified at the time. Is that an inconsistency? [...]

... today you are endorsed by former CIA Director Michael Morell who says it's Trump who can't be trusted, and he went so far as to indicate that he's been termed (ph) by Putin. Do you agree with that assessment? [...]

... you've accused(!) Donald Trump of using racist and sexist language. What does it say about the electorate that so many Americans are supporting him? [...]

... I think on behalf of all of us, we encourage you to do this more often(!) with reporters across the country. Especially those news organizations that travel the country with you everywhere you go(!).

A majority of voters consistently say frankly they don't like you(!) and they don't trust you(!). And they say pretty much the same thing about Donald Trump.

Either you or Mr. Trump will be elected president. How would you lead a nation where a majority of Americans mistrust you? And what extra responsibility might you have to show that you're up to the task? [...]

What is the most meaningful conversation you've had with an African-American friend?

Does the Democratic Party, does your campaign, take Latino voters seriously, or are you taking them for granted that they will automatically vote Democrat?

Turns out that was a bad, bad thing.

No, not the fact that Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee were held prisoner by the most repressive and reactionary regime on the face of the earth. Who cares about them any more, right?

Rather, it's that the Clinton Foundation was involved in making the arrangements, which of course casts a dark and unseemly cloud that overshadows Hillary Clinton's State Dept., because -- because, uh, you know, the Clintons.

Let this be a lesson to everyone that no good deed goes unpunished. Oh, and all that fulsome praise the New York Times had for the former president's mission seven years ago? Well, never mind. They must've had their fingers crossed at the time.

Kevin Drum writes:

Have you read the entire FBI report on their investigation into Hillary Clinton's email practices? No? Well, I have, because that's the kind of professional I am. And I'm going to provide you with all the most interesting excerpts.

Then he cites and comments, convincingly, on 14 excerpts, concluding:

That said, this report is pretty much an almost complete exoneration of Hillary Clinton. She wasn't prohibited from using a personal device or a personal email account, and others at state did it routinely. She's told the truth all along about why she did it. Colin Powell did indeed advise her about using personal email shortly after she took office, but she chose to follow the rules rather than skirt them, as Powell did. She didn't take her BlackBerry into her office. She communicated with only a very select group of 13 people. She took no part in deciding which emails were personal before handing them over to State. She had nothing to do with erasing information on the PRN server. That was a screw-up on PRN's end. She and her staff all believed at the time that they were careful not to conduct sensitive conversations over unclassified email systems. And there's no evidence that her server was ever hacked.

There's remarkably little here. If you nonetheless believe that it's enough to disqualify Hillary from the presidency, that's fine. I have no quarrel with you. But if the FBI is to be believed, it's all pretty small beer.

Cute factoid:  Badgers QB Bart Houston was named for Bart Starr, his day's favorite player -- so seeing his son play at Lambeau Field was special.

(This is historic, the first time ever that the UW Badgers played at Lambeau -- and another excited QB there was Aaron Rodgers, who also showed his flair for hilarious pregame commentary.)

THIS is pay for play. And I'm waiting for that New York Times editorial calling on Trump to shut his foundation down.

No one for whom it is important that a candidate appear "presidential" is going to believe that one trip to Mexico overrides everything else Trump has said/done over the past 2 years, let alone the last 40 years.

Trump's favorable/unfavorables have been 35/65 for as long as I can remember. It is simply impossible to win an election when 2/3 of the country does not like you.  

"We got the bubbleheaded bleach-blond, comes on at five."
- Don Henley, "Dirty Laundry" (1982)

... and absolutely fabulously so. Meet Milo Yannopolous, Donald Trump's political boy toy and right-wing Scream Queen, whose shtick got royally blown up today by ABC News' Terry Moran during a TV interview.

Seems that Moran didn't have much patience for our poor li'l Milo's nasty attitude or modus operandi. I bet the end of the interview got cut by network editors -- you know, the part where Moran takes a dollar out of his wallet, throws it in Milo's face and says, "Miss Thing, buy yourself a fckn clue."

http://tinyurl.com/hma6wvl

Did Democrats cry wolf so many times before Trump that no one hears or heeds them now?

"There's enough truth to it to compel some self-reflection," Wolfson, who was the communications director for Hillary Clinton's presidential bid in 2008, told me this week.

"And I'm quite confident I employed language that, in retrospect, was hyperbolic and inaccurate, language that cheapened my ability -- our ability -- to talk about this moment with accuracy and credibility."

That's a question being asked with increasing frequency, though mostly in conservative circles and publications.
In Commentary, Noah Rothman has repeatedly examined this subject. He wrote back in March that when "honorable and decent men" like McCain and Romney "are reflexively dubbed racists simply for opposing Democratic policies, the result is a G.O.P. electorate that doesn't listen to admonitions when the genuine article is in their midst."

"Liberals may be accused of many sins, but enabling Trump is not one them. Liberals have spent a quarter-century warning that the Republican Party was descending into unhinged, knee-jerk, anti-intellectual reaction. What Trump reveals is not that liberal warnings about the growing ignorance and derangement of the Republican Party were taken too seriously, but that they weren't taken seriously enough."

Suffice to say that there's a good reason why the New York Times relegated him to the role of food critic, and Judith Miller no longer works there. Perhaps they can soon hustle Maureen Dowd into early retirement, too.

Aloha.

What you are saying is that she is smart enough to recognize that these contained classified information and just ignored that and proceeded.....

That's gross negligence.

Jail time for Hillary.

Apart from sophomoric logic, you haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about.  You can't even cite a statute that you - in all your ridiculous logic - think she's broken, yet you claim as a fact that she's engaged in some kind of criminal conduct.