Weinergate part i

I must preface this entry by saying, that the follow topic is one I hoped I’d never have to read, and wished I didn’t have to write, but plan to talks about propaganda in the media with photos like Omran, the Aleppo boy will have to wait for a later time.

Late last night, news emerged that FBI director James Comey had sent a letter to congress to reopen the email scandal case against Hillary Clinton. Slowly news trickled out that her top aides Huma Abedin‘s former husband and Democratic congressman in New York Anthony Weiner was involved in another incident, this time, allegedly sending illicit text messages to a 15 year old girl in North Carolina.

Comey’s letter was to bring notice to the fact, that such emails may have improperly contained classified information, tightly controlled by the government. And while it’s unclear what was in the emails, which are still under review, or whether they had come from Mrs. Clinton’s server, his letter states that the documents “appear to be pertinent.”

As you may remember in his remarks, this reopens the case brought against Clinton, that saw her labeled as ‘extremelly careless’ in their handling of sensitive documents. That this has happened so close to election night, it has left the Clinton team, in the midst of a scandal of his own.

Clinton’s statement made in a news conference shortly after news got out was only to say “We are calling on the F.B.I. to release all the information it has.” Clearly upset that this information has been brought to light less than two weeks before the election. “Let’s get it out.”

Trump, as you might expected, reacted to the news by saying jubilantly at a rally in New Hampshire, “Perhaps, finally justice will be done.”

Part II on this developing case will be up Monday while news still trickles in.

Donna Brazile and the Project Veritas clips

It’s a cold one here in the Capital, but I’m off today and tomorrow, so you’ll get a double dose this week (the second posting will be on Saturday morning), so strap in there’s a lot to cover.

Firstly, it was suggested by one of our readers to go more in depth on the Donna Brazile controversy. I touched on it briefly in the last post regarding her possible DNC charter breach, but also felt there was a need to explore the topic in a broader sense.

For those who don’t know Donna Brazile, she’s a CNN political correspondent. Also a part time actress appearing on shows like the Good Wife, playing herself (how quaint.)

Where things get a little blurry here, is that she had taken leave from CNN to become interim chairperson of the Democratic National Committee in July 2016, filling in for disgraced former chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who if you remember, was implicated in the smear campaign against Democratic hopeful, Bernie Sanders.

Connect the dots a little further, and you’ll find that CNN is still paying Donna’s wages. A direct conflict of interest? Yes.

Things get murkier still, when a leaked Podesta email allegedly shows Brazile may have provided a word for word question to Hillary the day before a March 13th TV One town hall debate, on the death penalty.

The week that was got entertaining as Fox journalist Megyn Kelly sits down with Brazile to discuss Project Veritas (more about this below), and the debate question controversy. Which you can watch here.

My favourite part was Donna referring to her as Kelly, and Megyn asking her why she’s dodging question (on whether she provided debate questions), and Donna replying that she doesn’t play dodgeball, only basketball.

Proof is in the pudding, as my mum would say.

Project Veritas videos

Like something out of a movie, comes this revelation that Clinton operatives were providing thousands of dollars behind the scenes to actors at Trump rallies to stir up shit.

The term referred to in the clips as bird dogging, pays people to show up early to the debates so they’re at the front, where they’ll be seen on tv. Part two has them causing fights and infighting violence to defame Trump supporters.

The 16:26 first part clip goes into detail of how $20,000 was sent from an off-shore account to pay for the services of these actors, some of them as the video touches on are homeless or mentally ill.

In the first video Scott Fogul, a freelance writer for the Huffington Post, and former field director for Americans United for Change (he was fired after these videos released), is caught on camera explaining the process.

Scott previously worked for People for the American Way, which is heavily funded by Hillary Clinton supporter George Sorors.

Podesta emails part ii and the Presidential debate part iii

I was out for most of Wednesday night, and didn’t get home until well after midnight, missing the debates airing live. But a quick shower, some snacks (I like Doritos personally) and a couple of blankets (it was cold here, rained most of the day) before I queued it up on Youtube.

So strap in this is a long one..

Last night another selection of the Podesta emails was released. This time focusing on Obama, including a 2002 interaction where he encouraged the then member of the Illinois Senate to attend a disclosure meeting regarding Extra Terrestrials. Podesta, if you might remember seems to have an affinity for UFO talk, going so far as to persuade Hillary Clinton to advocate for the release of documents on Area 51.

Hard to believe, but that hasn’t been the strangest of interactions of this recent release.

In another email dated October 6th, 2008, sent between Podesta and Mike Froman (a transition adviser put in place as a top White House aide) with the subject line “Diversity”, sent a list containing names of women and minorities presented to serve as appointees for the incoming administration.

On the day of the 2008 Election, Podesta reached out again to set an emergency meeting of the G-20 to outline a plan for the ongoing global financial crisis. In it, during an an exchange with Barack Obama encouraged “On the chance that President Bush would raise this with you tonight, I wanted you to be aware that it is the unanimous recommendation for your advisors that you NOT attend”, outlining a list of pros and cons for the president-elect and suggestions on how he might decline any invitation from President Bush to the summit.

Advice included “early press availability following the election,” at which time there would “likely be a question about your potential attendance at the G-20 meeting.” Adding it was “something that such a question would elicit an interesting answer if asked.”

The interaction sent with suggestions on declining invitation also includes the line “The United States has only one President at a time, and until I take office in January that is President Bush.”

As you’ll remember, Obama was invited by Bush to attend the G-20 summit, and as advised, Obama declined invitation. “It is not appropriate for two people to show up at this meeting,” Podesta told reporters in 2008. “The resident-elect will respect  the fact that we have one president at a time.”

As discussed in Wednesday’s entry, I’d like to post a review of the most interesting Podesta emails, so far. They are as follows:

Violation of DNC charter?

In a January 2016 exchange between John Podesta and DNC chief Donna Brazile she stated her bias for the primary elections. “Technically, I’m neutral, but neutrality is something that gets you in trouble because, you ever notice someone who stands on the white line in the middle of the road? They get run over. And I don’t want to get run over. So I’m not neutral. I have to tell people that I’m neutral, but I’m ready for Hillary.”

This is interesting, because if true, Brazile is in direct violation of the DNC charter.

Bernie Sanders referred to as a “doofus”

In an exchange with Neera Tanden (a political activist, domestic policy adviser and President of the Centre for American Progress, a public policy research and advocacy organization in Washington, DC.) with in December 2015, regarding the Paris Climate Change Conference he referred to DNC candidate Bernie Sanders as a “doofus” for questioning the deal.

He recommended the campaign “make love to Bernie and his idealistic supporters, and co-opt as many of his progressive issues as possible.”

Also in a message to Podesta from Philip Munger , a leading donator to the Democratic Party, took a different approach. Munder suggested that Clinton is “going to have to kneecap him. She is going to have to take him down from his morally superior perch.”

Pay to Play?

In emails from February 2016 titled “speaking at the banks” Tanden suggests to Podesta that Clinton “should just return the money” if she “lose(s) badly.”

Further emails  between Podesta and Clinton aide Huma Abedin in January 2015 detail how Moroccan donations to Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in exchange for access to Hillary.

Abedin suggests the “King has personally committed approx $12 million both for the endowment and to support the meeting” and that “the condition upon which the Moroccans agreed to host the meeting was her participation. If hrc was not part of it, meeting was a non-starter.”

She continues to say that the meeting had been Clinton’s idea. “Our office approached the Moroccans and they 100 percent believe they are doing this at her request,” Abedin adds. “She created this mess and she knows it.”

Clintons Won’t forget what their friends have done for them

In a November 2014 exchange, Clinton’s  2016 campaign manager Robby Mook emailed Podesta about moving the Illinois primary out of March, as it would be a “lifeline to a moderate Republican candidate.”

Although Illinois was offered “a bonus of 10% extra delegates if they move to April and 20% if they move to May,” the date didn’t change.

“They don’t really care about being helpful and feel forgotten and neglected by POTUS,” Mook writes. “The key point is that this is not an Obama ask, but a Hillary ask. And the Clintons won’t forget what their friends have done for them.”

Achille’s heel

In a further interaction between Podesta and Tanden, regarding Clinton’s shortcomings she states: ““Everyone wants her to apologize,” Tanden also say to Podesta and Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton’s director of communications. “And she should. Apologies are like her Achilles heel. But she didn’t seem like a bitch in the interview. And she said the word sorry. She will get to a full apology in a few interviews.”

Presidential debate part iii

Some key points on the third Presidential debates, Hillary states that 33,000 people died in gun related shootings. It took a lot of digging to find, but according to the Gun Violence Archive the total amount of gun related deaths in 2015 is actually 13,472, Not 33,000. In fact, the past two years combined (2014’s total 12,579) still falls almost 7,000 shy of her estimate.

Hillary also suggested that 90% of donations to the Clinton Foundation go to charity. According to factcheck.org only 5.7% of their budget in 2014 went to charitable grants, “the rest went to salaries and employee benefits, fundraising and ‘other expenses.'”

Hillary states that $30 million was raised by the Clinton Foundation for Haiti. The total is much closer to $54 million according to the Wikipedia Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.

Hillary Clinton states that Charity Navigator has given her Clinton Foundation the highest rating (four stars). What she didn’t mention is her $2 million donation to the company, according Business Insider.

And finally Clinton complains that only Republicans are saying elections are rigged. Clearly she has a short term memory, since Al Gore (the Democratic candidate in 2000) during the election against George W Bush complained that Florida required a recount.

Political Discourse 2016

Friday morning I’ll be posting a review of the recently released John Podesta emails, including a selection of the ones I found most damning. But I wanted to share thoughts this morning on the election process and how interesting it was that Hillary had complained in 2008 about voter fraud in Pennsylvania (among other states).

Despite the fact that recently leaked Podesta emails show possible media collusion within DNC, paid actors being coached to ask specific questions for Hillary at townhall debates, that a moderator provided questions prior to the presidential debate, and proof that Bernie Sanders was never a legitimate Democratic candidate (documents show DNC were supporting Hillary as their candidate as early as May 2015), many voters have and will continue to vote for Hillary Clinton (or Donald Trump for that matter).

Which begs the question – is there an issue with the electoral system, or perhaps a problem with the perception of where to draw a line within the government as a whole?

Political discourse in teetering on the brink and neither big ticket candidate seems capable of legitimizing this election and that is perhaps the most polarizing fact of all. The two party system, and how it’s portrayed by mainstream media, is deeply flawed, if America feels they truly have no other options.

Podesta emails and the distraction of the week

Shortly before the second Presidential debate, a clip was released by the Clinton camp that had Republican candidate Donald Trump saying that when he got famous, he’d grab women by their pussy. It was a terrible thing to hear, and yet, a far cry from the exploits of Hillary’s husband, that have up to now, mostly been swept aside.

In the audience of that debate were also 4 women. Four. Who were accusing Bill Clinton of rape.

This afternoons article however, is in regards to the leaked emails posted by wikileaks earlier this week: Source

In the emails, a wide variety of points are made by the Clinton campaign, most of which are sketchy or illegal. A list has been compiled here: Source

Another leaked document indicates that Clinton staffers made a deal with the FBI to release certain emails/information and laptops owned by former Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills and an ex-campaign staffer Heather Samuelson to destroy laptops during the FBI investigation: Source

It’s also been brought to light that during a town hall debate in rural Philadelphia, Clinton had a young actress planted in the audience to ask a question about body image. Digging a little deeper, it was discovered the 15 year old is actually daughter of State Senator Darlin Leach.

A video on CNN interviewing both of them was an interesting watch to say the least: Source

And finally, Brussels is at the centre of the EU work this week with a controversial new bill that would prevent media outlets from revealing the religion of terror suspects, if they’re Muslim: Source

Morning musings: Resident Sportsbet bozo Jamie Campbell has refused to refer to the Cleveland Indians by their not so controversial monicker when they meet the Blue Jays in this weeks ALCS. Ontario loony and Hydro One cohort, Kathleen Wynne has also decided to hitch her wagon to the cause:

By my count, since his debut on October 12th, a 5-4 loss in OT to the Ottawa Senators, the Toronto Sports Network (or TSN, as it would have you call it), had posted no less than 25 article on Auston Matthew’s, the number one overall pick by the Maple Leafs in last years draft. Yet not one of them mentioned it was his costly mistake that ended the game when Sens centre Kyle Turris blew past him to put the puck over the Leafs net minder. Source