Tag Archives: Hillary for America

Election 2016, Presidential Campaign 2016

Hillary for America Highlights Differences in Candidates’ Vision; Releases ‘Trump Effect’ Video

New Hillary for America video documents “The Trump Effect.”
New Hillary for America video documents “The Trump Effect.”

Hillary for America has released a new video on the “Trump Effect,” highlighting the differences between Hillary Clinton’s vision and approach and Donald Trump’s.

“Hillary Clinton believes in an America where everyone counts and everyone has a place. She’s spent her life acting on those beliefs, from her early work at the Children’s Defense Fund through a campaign that has consistently called out Trump’s division and hatred while offering a policy agenda that would bring people together and address the issues that keep us apart. Hillary has prioritized issues like immigration reform, endingLGBT discrimination and criminal justice reform.

“American voters face a choice of two different visions for America:  Donald Trump’sdark and divisive vision that could tear our country apart, or Hillary Clinton’s hopeful, inclusive vision that says we’re stronger together.

“Donald Trump set the tone of his campaign by insulting Mexican immigrants and has continued using those kinds of insults and divisive comments through today. From Muslims to Gold Star families to a judge of Mexican heritage born in America to one of his own African American supporters just this past week, no one has been safe from Trump’s insults and lies.Trump has also built his political identity on conspiracy theories, starting with the racist lie that President Obama was not born in America and support from hate movements like the alt-right—whose leaders Trump has embraced.”

Clinton has been  campaigning in Nevada and Arizona where she highlighted Trump’s divisive agenda and the high stakes in this election by pointing to Trump’s long record of insults against communities of color. In Jan Brewer and Joe Arpaio’s backyard, Clinton will counter their attempts to silence Latinos by mobilizing the community to break with history and turn the state blue on November 8th.

Also today, Hillary For America is launching a new video showing how Trump words and actions have encouraged bullying and fear in schools across our country, something experts are calling the “Trump Effect.”  Children — members of the groups that Trump so frequently attacks — are speaking out about the harassment and threats they are facing because the Republican nominee has targeted who they are or how they pray.

WATCH: “The Trump Effect”

“As millions of Americans continue to vote early, and with election day less than a week away, it’s worth taking a look back at Trump’s history of divisive and hateful rhetoric,” the campaign noted:

THE “TRUMP EFFECT”

  • Trump’s rhetoric has given rise to bullying and violence in schools and communities across America.
  • Adopted children in Wisconsin and New York worried they would be sent back to Africa.
  • A child in New Jersey worried he, his mother, and sibling would be separated from his father because they have a different skin color.
  • California school children have endured xenophobic taunts on the playground, including being told they were “born in a Taco Bell.”
  • Students broke out into chants like “build the wall”  when their sports teams competed against Latino students in Colorado, Indiana and Wisconsin. A fraternity in Louisiana constructed a wall made of sandbags “emblazoned with pro-Trump slogans.”
  • A teacher in Arizona allegedly told a student “I can’t wait until Trump is elected. He’s going to deport all you Muslims.”
  • A man and a woman were attacked in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. respectively by people who attributed their motivations to Donald Trump.

AFRICAN AMERICANS

  • Trump, for years, peddled a racist lie that President Obama was not born in the U.S.
  • Trump pointed at an attendee and called him “my African American” during a campaign rally.
  • Trump to African Americans and Hispanics: ‘You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed — what the hell do you have to lose?’
  • Trump retweeted “racially loaded” and “wildly inaccurate” statistics claiming Blacks were responsible for 81 percent of White homicides.
  • Trump blamed crime in majors cities on Hispanics and African Americans.
  • Trump claimed crime in Oakland and Ferguson was so bad that it was dangerous like Iraq and has continued to compare inner cities to war zones.
  • Trump to a Black Lives Matter protester: “Maybe he should have been roughed up.”
  • Trump paid for a racially provocative ad calling on New York lawmakers to reinstate the death penalty for five young African American men who were wrongfully accused of raping a woman.

IMMIGRANTS, LATINOS

  • Trump called Mexican immigrants “criminals” and “rapists.”
  • Trump said Mexican immigrants bring “tremendous infectious disease.”
  • Trump on Judge Gonzalo Curiel: “He’s a Mexican. We’re building a wall between here and Mexico.”
  • Trump refused to stop using the term “anchor baby.”
  • Trump referred to some Hispanic immigrants as “bad hombres.”
  • Trump has said he would have a “deportation force” to go roundup and deportundocumented immigrants.
  • Trump would deport children born in America because he does not think their citizenship is valid.
  • Trump said Mexico was sending “The bad ones over because they don’t want to pay for them.”
  • Trump’s campaign CEO, Steve Bannon, is currently on leave from his job as head of Breitbart News. Breitbart drove conspiratorial reporting about Chobani in retaliation for hiring immigrants and refugees, making the company’s founder the target of vicious social media attacks.

MUSLIMS

  • Trump called to ban an entire group of people based on their religion.
  • Trump on his proposed Muslim ban: “I’m not softening my stance at all … In fact, you could say it’s an expansion.”
  • Trump said “I’m looking now at territories. People were so upset when I used the word Muslim… Now, we have a religious, you know, everybody wants to be protected. And that’s great. And that’s the wonderful part of our Constitution. I view it differently. ”
  • Trump defended his Muslim ban by comparing it to Japanese internment camps. Not surprisingly, he said he might have supported internment camps.
  • Trump suggested he would create a database to track American Muslims.

VETERANS, SERVICE MEMBERS AND THEIR FAMILIES

  • Trump repeatedly attacked a Muslim Gold Star family who lost their son in Iraq.
  • Trump claims that U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan would be alive if he had been president.
  • Trump calls our military “a disaster.”
  • Trump said “our military can’t beat ISIS.”
  • Trump said, “I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me.”
  • Trump said the generals have been “reduced to rubble.”
  • Trump said John McCain was “not a war hero” because he was captured.
  • Trump suggested veterans experiencing PTSD aren’t “strong.”
  • Trump’s businesses have reportedly fired employees for their military service.
  • Trump scammed veterans through his sham Trump University.

DISABLED AMERICANS

  • Trump mocked a disabled reporter.
  • Trump reportedly called a deaf actress on the Apprentice “retarded.”
  • Trump referred to a paralyzed news commentator as a “guy that can’t buy a pair of pants.”
  • Trump faced a series of lawsuits for failing to comply with the ADA.
  • Trump repeatedly attempted to kick disabled veterans off of Fifth Avenue over two decades, calling the situation “deplorable.”

DISCRIMINATION IN TRUMP BUSINESSES

  • Trump was twice sued by the Department of Justice for discrimination in housing.
  • Trump employees marked applications from minorities with “C” for “Colored.”
  • The housing complex that was one of Trump’s first real estate deals faceddiscrimination charges.
  • Trump’s businesses lagged in minority hiring. Former employees who worked for Trump over several decades said they don’t remember a single black vice president-level executive at Trump Tower.

TRUMP AND HATE MOVEMENTS

  • Trump’s campaign shared an anti-Semitic image on his twitter that first appeared on white supremacist websites.
  • Trump has received an outpouring of support from hate movements like the alt-right.
  • White Supremacists used Trump’s candidacy as a recruiting tool.
  • White Supremacists and Klan members supported Trump, comparing his views to their views.
  • Former KKK Leader David Duke said Trump has “Made it OK to talk about these incredible concerns of European Americans today, because I think European Americans know they are the only group that can’t defend their own essential interests and their point of view.
  • Virginia KKK Leader Endorses Trump: ‘What He Believes In, We Believe In.’”
  • Trump on being supported by White Supremacists: “A lot of people like me.”

TRUMP ENCOURAGING VIOLENCE

  • Trump said to a protester “I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell ya” and mourned “we’re not allowed to punch back anymore. I love the old days … They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.”
  • Trump offered to pay the legal fees of a supporter who attacked protester.
  • Trump claimed he could “shoot somebody” and not lose any votes.
  • Trump called to throw a protestor out into the cold without their coat.
Election 2016, Homeland Security, National Security

Trump’s Own Words Show He is Unfit to be President, Commander-in-Chief

Donald Trump has advocated giving nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Japan, has expressed wonder why we can’t use nuclear weapons if we have them, and has described his strategy for dealing with foreign enemies is to be “unpredictable.” © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Donald Trump has advocated giving nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Japan, has expressed wonder why we can’t use nuclear weapons if we have them, and has described his strategy for dealing with foreign enemies is to be “unpredictable.” © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

The newly disclosed possibly “pertinent” (or possibly not) Hillary Clinton emails, which are all part of the same single issue of using a private server and have nothing to do with deliberately handing classified information to enemy forces (does anybody really understand what the issue is all about), do nothing to reverse the clear and present danger that a Donald Trump presents if he becomes the “leader” of the Free World and the most powerful person on the planet, with unique control over nuclear weapons.

To remind you of this, the Hillary for America campaign provided a handy list of what The Donald has already said and done.

The comparison with Hillary Clinton’s experience, her steady hand, her maturity, her ability to see the long view, to balance complex competing constituencies, and her willingness to listen, learn and most importantly, admit and learn from mistakes, makes it clear:

The Choice is Clear: Trump is Unfit to be President and Commander-In-Chief

Americans deserve a president who’s ready on Day One to keep us safe. As a former Secretary of State and senator, Hillary Clinton brings vast experience to the Oval Office, having dealt with the key issues facing Americans around the world for decades. Traveling nearly a million miles as America’s top diplomat, Hillary has handled issues ranging from nuclear proliferation to military readiness, from women’s rights  to climate change, and is ready to lead from day one.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, has proven himself again and again to be temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief.

Beyond his lack of understanding of foreign policy and unwillingness to learn, Donald Trump is a loose cannon with dangerous views on major global issues. Trump would encourage the spread of nuclear weapons around the world, has insulted our allies and praised several authoritarian dictators.  He even encouraged a foreign government to hack Americans, and since then has refused to acknowledge the U.S. Intelligence community’s conclusion that the Russian government has done just that.

Americans deserve a president who understands the challenging world in which we live, not one who is too erratic and uninformed to have control of nuclear weapons.

Throughout his career, and throughout this campaign, on subject after subject, Trump has proven he is unfit to be commander-in-chief. As we begin the final week of the presidential campaign, here is a look back at Trump’s dangerous record on matters of defense and foreign policy:

NUCLEAR WEAPONS

On nuclear weapons, Donald Trump has displayed a reckless disregard for fact and fails to understand the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Simply put, he doesn’t have the temperament to be trusted with the nuclear codes.

  • Trump has said he “loves war.”
  • Trump has embraced a reckless “shoot first” foreign policy.
  • Trump reportedly wondered why we can’t use nuclear weapons, if we have them.
  • Trump said he wanted to be “unpredictable” with nuclear weapons.
  • Trump exhibited ignorance on whether he would adopt a “no first use” doctrine.
  • Trump would allow countries like Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia to acquire nuclear weapons.
  • Trump appeared to have no idea what the nuclear triad was.
  • On the prospect of nuclear war in Asia, Trump said, “good luck, enjoy yourself folks.”
  • Trump’s rhetoric pushed dozens former nuclear launch officers to sign a letter saying Trump “should not have his finger on the button.”

U.S. MILITARY AND VETERANS

Trump has repeatedly insulted our military, our veterans and their families. He has been disrespecting our veterans for decades, continually proving he’s unqualified and temperamentally unfit to be commander-in-chief.

U.S. INTELLIGENCE

Trump has disparaged the U.S. intelligence community – not only rejecting their conclusions, but questioning their motives.

  • When asked whether he trusts U.S. intelligence, Trump said “not so much.”
  • Trump invited a foreign government to commit cyber espionage in the U.S.
  • Trump maintains that we don’t know if Russia is behind recent hacks, despite being personally briefed by Republican Representative Michael McCaul, Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security.
  • Trump called the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia was behind that hack was “public relations, frankly” and repeatedly denied their conclusion.
  • Trump has been accused by a former acting CIA director of being “an unwitting agent of Putin.”

AMERICA’S ALLIES

For decades, America has held strong alliances across the world – including those with NATO countries. NATO has stood with the United States, for example, invoking Article 5 after 9/11 and collaborating to fight the war on terror today. But on the campaign trail, Donald Trump has outlined plans to cut off America’s allies.

  • Trump said he would be fine if NATO broke up.
  • Trump accused NATO countries of ripping off the United States, saying “either they have to pay up… or they have to get out. And if it breaks up NATO, it breaks up NATO.”
  • Trump said NATO “may be obsolete” and “doesn’t really help us.”
  • Trump said he might not defend NATO allies against Russian aggression.
  • Trump has extended his threats past NATO to countries like Japan and South Korea.

FOREIGN DICTATORS

Donald Trump seems to have an admiration for dictators from across the world. From Vladimir Putin to Saddam Hussein and beyond, Trump has repeatedly complimented foreign leaders known for their records of oppression and abuse..

  • Trump said North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un deserves “credit” for taking out his rivals and has “got to be pretty smart.”
  • Trump gave Saddam Hussein undue credit, saying “he did one thing well, he killed terrorists.”
  • Trump believes that, during the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese government showed “strength.”
  • Trump thinks Vladimir Putin is a better leader than President Obama, “saying in terms of leadership, he’s getting an A and our president is not doing so well.” (But of course, his praise for Putin doesn’t stop there.)

FOREIGN BUSINESS ENTANGLEMENTS

Trump’s extensive foreign dealings would present significant conflicts of interest and endanger our national security. Trump refuses to disclose the full extent of his foreign business entanglements – but without knowing the details of them, how will Americans know whose interests Trump is putting first? What we do know is concerning.

  • Trump has extensive global financial dealings.
  • Trump admitted that if his business interests were threatened by another country’s government, he would retaliate with the power of the US government.
  • Trump has a record of business dealings with foreign governments – including Iran and China that we don’t know the extent of.
  • Trump has also had numerous foreign business partners we don’t know much about – including one that is allegedly linked to an international money laundering network.
  • Trump is in debt to foreign institutions for hundreds of millions of dollars.
  • Trump’s foreign entanglements would pose unprecedented challenges for U.S. foreign policy and national security.

ISIS

Despite Trump’s claims that he has a “secret” plan to defeat ISIS, he has no real plan at all. And his rhetoric is dangerously playing into terrorists’ hands.

  • Trump would “ask [his] generals” – the very same generals he believes he knows more than – for a plan to defeat ISIS, since he doesn’t currently have any plan at all.
  • Trump would continue to promote Russia’s brutal bombing campaign in Syria that is targeting civilians instead of ISIS.
  • Trump has suggested he would allow Syria to become a “free zone for ISIS.”
  • Trump would ban Muslims from entering the U.S., a policy that feeds radical jihadist propaganda.
  • Trump would engage in torture in the fight against ISIS and kill the families of terrorists.

IRAN

Donald Trump’s approach to Iran is devoid of any substance. He has prefered to denigrate American leaders and spew lies when it comes to Iran — though he was willing to deal with Iran when it made him money.

NORTH KOREA

Trump doesn’t understand the threat North Korea poses. On the campaign trail, Trump has taken positions that would endanger the security of the  United States and our allies and embolden North Korea.

  • Trump would meet with Kim Jong-Un, despite his continued violations of  international obligations to abandon his nuclear and missile programs.
  • Trump would consider cutting off defense support to Japan and South Korea.
  • Trump would open to door to nuclear proliferation in the region. When asked whether it’s “fine” for Japan and South Korea to get nuclear weapons, Trump said, “Can I be honest with you? It’s going to happen anyway.”
  • Trump joked about the prospect of nuclear war between Japan and North Korea, saying “good luck, enjoy yourself folks.”

RUSSIA

While Clinton has stood up to Russia, Trump panders to Putin. He has voiced support for policies and positions that align exactly with the Kremlin’s interests.

SYRIA

To date, Donald Trump has not laid out any real plans with respect to Syria or offered any indication that he takes the conflict and humanitarian disaster seriously.

  • Trump suggested Syria should be a “free zone for ISIS.”
  • Trump raised the possibility of sending 20,000 – 30,000 U.S. ground troops to Syria and Iraq.
  • Trump praised and encouraged Russia’s brutal bombing campaign in Syria, despite the climbing total civilian casualties and attacks on U.S.-backed forces.
  • Trump peddled lies about Syrian refugees.
Election 2016, Presidential Campaign 2016, Presidential Politics

FBI Director Comey Under Fire for Unprecedented Action Rekindling Clinton Email Issue

Hillary for America Chair John Podesta: “It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election. The Director owes it to the American people to immediately provide the full details of what he is now examining. We are confident this will not produce any conclusions different from the one the FBI reached in July.” © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Hillary for America Chair John Podesta: “It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election. The Director owes it to the American people to immediately provide the full details of what he is now examining. We are confident this will not produce any conclusions different from the one the FBI reached in July.” © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

By Karen Rubin, News & Photo Features

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus demanded FBI Director James Comey release more details about the letter he sent to Congress just 11 days before Election Day – an unprecedented action – renewing the email scandal that has plagued Secretary Hillary Clinton’s entire campaign. Otherwise, they charge, it raises questions about Director Comey’s political motivations, handing Donald Trump’s campaign the ammunition they were looking for to depress voter turnout.

“For months, Donald Trump and his henchmen have led chants of ‘Lock her up.’ Now they are trying to turn this letter into something it is not, because the only way he can win is to hijack the election,” stated Congressman Luis Gutierrez (Illinois), and suggested that FBI Director Comey was similarly bullied into making this unprecedented statement, with the effect of breathing new fire into the Trump’s imploding campaign.

But, Gutierrez asserted, “The more we learn, the more we know it is overblown. Initially we told that the investigation has been reopened. That’s debunked. The emails don’t come from Clinton’s server at all. It may be that most or all are duplicates of others that have already been turned over.”

But he said, it raises questions about Comey’s own motivations. If only to give an update on an investigation, he noted, “You don’t hear Comey giving updates” on Russia’s role in the hack of the Democratic National Committee and whether the Trump campaign had any involvement.

“Why go so far as to send this highly questionable, unusual letter? [With so little information] it doesn’t make sense…He sent it, knowing it would be leaked, and he sent to 8 Republican chairmen who were sworn to defeat Clinton.

“Trump may bully the FBI but we cannot let him bully us out of this election,” he said.

Congresswoman Lujan Grisham of New Mexico called it, “another political ploy that has nothing to do with fairness or even professionalism.”

The action casts a shadow over Comey’s leadership, Grisham charged. “It is very difficult for them to rebut the presumption that this was politically motivated, which really should shake us to our core about the DoJ and FBI. This is absolutely unprecedented. You don’t engage this way, so close to an election and without any facts.

“Given that there has been a lot of pressure to the FBI to do something, find something, it is not difficult to figure it out. It allows one side to paint a scenario.” The conclusion that must be drawn, she said, “is that it is aimed at voter suppression, to depress turnout because Clinton is the most qualified candidate ever to run. She has incredible, proven track record for getting things done that this country needs to get done. It appears that that kind of distraction that might suppress remaining voters to stay home. We need Comey and FBI to explain.”

To illustrate how unusual Comey’s action is, she said, “it is not the practice of the FBI or Justice Department to release any kind of information related to ongoing or potential investigation, of which this is neither. And members of Congress should not engage or interfere. Because if you don’t hold to that practice it minimizes the independence and objectivity of the office. That highly unprofessional, out-of-practice effort, particularly engaging 8 Republican members of Congress, told us this is political.

“This has nothing to do with private server, Secretary Clinton’s emails. This is about somebody who has worked with Clinton, and part of an entirely separate investigation.”

Congressman Joaquin Castro (Texas) highlighted the unprecedented timing of releasing such a potentially inflammatory statement just 11 days before an election.

“This would be strange before a City Council election, much less a Presidential election…Director Comey showed extremely poor judgment in deciding to release the letter he did yesterday. He is irresponsible if he does not provide further information as to why looking at these emails. There has been no indication the emails are from or to Secretary Clinton or that she is involved in any way.”

The Hillary for America campaign documented the reaction:

Comey Under Fire After Sending Unprecedented Letter

FBI Director James Comey is under widespread criticism for breaking department precedent by commenting on an ongoing investigation, and doing so just days before a presidential election. Indeed, the Washington Post reported this morning senior Justice Department officials made perfectly clear to Comey that he would be in violation of long-standing DOJ policy.

Moreover, according to CNN, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates both objected to Comey sending this inappropriate letter to Congress. Nevertheless, Director Comey independently decided to move forward, rattling the presidential election with a note that was heavy on innuendo and extremely light on actual information or needed details.

The result? Broad bipartisan condemnation and demands for the swift disclosure of more information:

Washington Post: Justice officials warned FBI that Comey’s decision to update Congress was not consistent with department policy: “Senior Justice Department officials warned the FBI that Director James B. Comey’s decision to notify Congress about renewing the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server was not consistent with long-standing practices of the department, according to officials familiar with the discussions. Comey told Justice Department officials that he intended to inform lawmakers of newly discovered emails. These officials told him the department’s position “that we don’t comment on an ongoing investigation. And we don’t take steps that will be viewed as influencing an election,” said one Justice Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the high-level conversations.”

CNN: Comey notified Congress of email probe despite DOJ concerns: “Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates objected to FBI Director James Comey’s decision to notify Congress about his bureau’s review of emails related to Hillary Clinton’s personal server, law enforcement officials familiar with the discussion said. Comey decided to disregard their objections and sent the letter Friday anyway, shaking the presidential race 11 days before the election and nearly four months after the FBI chief said he wouldn’t recommend criminal charges over the Democratic nominee’s use of the server.

New York Times: Justice Dept. Strongly Discouraged Comey on Move in Clinton Email Case: “Mr. Comey’s letter opened him up to criticism not only from Democrats but also from current and former officials at the F.B.I. and the Justice Department, including Republicans. ‘There’s a longstanding policy of not doing anything that could influence an election,’ said George J. Terwilliger III, a deputy attorney general under the first President George Bush. ‘Those guidelines exist for a reason. Sometimes that makes for hard decisions. But bypassing them has consequences.’”

Politico: Comey’s disclosure shocks former prosecutors: “James Comey’s surprise announcement that investigators are examining new evidence in the probe of Hillary Clinton’s email server put the FBI director back under a harsh spotlight, reigniting criticism of his unusual decision to discuss the high-profile case in front of the media and two congressional committees.”

Los Angeles Times: “The emails were not to or from Clinton, and contained information that appeared to be more of what agents had already uncovered, the official said, but in an abundance of caution, they felt they needed to further scrutinize them.

Washington Post Editorial: The damage Comey’s bad timing could do: “Mr. Podesta said he is ‘confident’ full disclosure ‘will not produce any conclusions different from the one the FBI reached in July.’ If so, the question will be how badly damaged was Ms. Clinton’s candidacy by the 11th-hour re-eruption of a controversy that never should have generated so much suspicion or accusation in the first place.”

New York Times Editorial: “But Mr. Comey’s failure to provide any specifics about a new, potentially important development, less than two weeks before Election Day, is confounding. As Mr. Comey put it in July: “The American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest.” They deserve details even more urgently today.”

Bloomberg: FBI Shocker on Clinton Fuels Criticism of Comey’s Tactics: “FBI Director James Comey is facing extraordinary pressure to explain himself after dropping a bombshell on the campaign of Hillary Clinton just 11 days before the presidential election… Former prosecutors and lawmakers from both parties expressed shock and dismay at Comey’s highly unusual decision, which flouted decades of legal custom that call for avoiding taking actions that could affect the outcome of an election.”

Washington Post: FBI Director James B. Comey under fire for his controversial decision on the Clinton email inquiry: “Nick Ackerman, a former federal prosecutor in New York and an assistant special Watergate prosecutor, said Comey ‘had no business writing to Congress about supposed new emails that neither he nor anyone in the FBI has ever reviewed.’”

Huffington Post: News Outlets Dial Back Reports Of FBI ‘Reopening’ Clinton Email Case: “The story took several other turns on Friday afternoon that complicated the early, screaming headlines, and then ensured the story would remain a topic of discussion in the days ahead. Multiple outlets subsequently reported that the new emails weren’t sent by Clinton and didn’t come from her private server.”

CNN Legal Analyst, Paul Callan: Time for FBI director Comey to go: “Comey’s public announcement in July that the FBI had concluded its investigation regarding Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server in the conduct of official State Department business and would not recommend the lodging of criminal charges was historically unprecedented in a high-profile political case.”

Washington Post Op-Ed by Former DOJ Spokesman Matt Miller: James Comey fails to follow Justice Department rules yet again: “With each step, Comey moved further away from department guidelines and precedents, culminating in Friday’s letter to Congress. This letter not only violated Justice rules on commenting on ongoing investigations but also flew in the face of years of precedent about how to handle sensitive cases as Election Day nears…. The director of the FBI has great power at his disposal…. With that independence comes a responsibility to adhere to the rules that protect the rights of those whom the FBI investigates. Comey has failed that standard repeatedly in his handling of the Clinton investigation.”

New York Times: F.B.I. Chief James Comey Is in Political Crossfire Again Over Emails: “The reaction was swift and damning, with Mrs. Clinton’s supporters and even some Republicans blasting Mr. Comey. Indeed, Mr. Comey, who was attacked this summer by Democrats and Republicans for both his decision not to bring charges against Mrs. Clinton and for the way he handled it, found himself in an even stronger crossfire on Friday.”

Los Angeles Times’ Michael McGough: FBI director should have known what his Clinton emails letter would unleash: “Having raised new doubts about Clinton so close to an election, Comey has an obligation —a moral obligation if not a legal one — to do everything he can to expedite the “additional work” required to determine whether this new information does, in fact, cast doubt on his earlier conclusion that Clinton wasn’t criminally culpable.”

Aurora Sentinel Editorial: FBI’s Comey needs to come clean on details, motivation — or resign: “If there’s damning or critical information about Clinton staff handling of email that creates the clear and immediate threat to national security that would warrant such a ploy, Americans deserve to have Clinton explain them, and Clinton must get that opportunity. Otherwise, Comey needs to apologize for his infelicity and possibly politically motivated stunt, and immediately step aside.”

Newsweek: Hillary Clinton’s Emails: The Real Reason The FBI Is Reviewing More Of Them: “Unfortunately, by trying to have things both ways – revealing the change in circumstances while remaining vague about what the agents know – Comey has created that misleading impression that could change the outcome of a presidential election, an act that, if uncorrected, will undoubtedly go down as one of the darkest moments in the bureau’s history.”

New Yorker: James Comey Broke With Loretta Lynch And Justice Department Tradition: “Coming less than two weeks before the Presidential election, Comey’s decision to make public new evidence that may raise additional legal questions about Clinton was contrary to the views of the Attorney General, according to a well-informed Administration official. Lynch expressed her preference that Comey follow the department’s longstanding practice of not commenting on ongoing investigations, and not taking any action that could influence the outcome of an election, but he said that he felt compelled to do otherwise.”

Charlotte Observer Editorial: Comey drops Hillary Clinton email bombshell; so tell us more: “But it is extraordinary for such volatile information to emerge so close to Election Day and that’s especially true given how few specifics are known. Because Comey was so vague, voters can’t know what to think. The new emails could be anything from meaningless to evidence of criminal activity by Clinton to most anything in between.”

ThinkProgress: The ‘new’ Clinton emails might all be duplicates: “So, to be clear, the FBI Director delivered a gut punch to the Clinton campaign, despite the fact that 1) he doesn’t know what he has; 2) it may be something that he already had; and, 3) whatever it is that he has, it reportedly didn’t come from Secretary Clinton, and was not sent to her.”

Huffington Post: Heat Rises For FBI Director James Comey As Both Campaigns Demand Email Answers: “Both camps demanded that FBI Director James Comey disclose more details about the emails and the bureau’s investigation, which he made known in a letter to Congress just 11 days before the election…. Many challenged the FBI director’s motives, increasing the pressure on him to comply with calls from both campaigns for more information.”

See: Trump Trumps Up Non-Story About FBI Looking into Additional Clinton Emails

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© 2016 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go to www.news-photos-features.com, email [email protected]. Blogging at www.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures.  ‘Like’ us on facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures, Tweet @KarenBRubin

 

Election 2016, Presidential Campaign 2016, Presidential Politics

Yet Another ‘Bombshell’ Clinton Revelation Fizzles As Facts Come Out

Hillary Clinton, Democratic candidate, campaigning for President © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Hillary Clinton, Democratic candidate, campaigning for President © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

It is so concerning how the Donald Trump campaign has seized on the vague statement FBI Director James Comey made, initially first to eight Republican Congressmen, and only later did he bother to clue in the Democratic members of the committees. Trump seized on this revelation as 1) “bigger than Watergate” and 2) satisfying that in fact, the FBI was not part of the conspiracy to rig the election as he had previously charged. But it has fed into the Trump campaign strategy which, in face of dwindling poll numbers, has focused on suppressing turnout from those who would vote for Clinton.

Here’s how the Hillary for America campaign has responded:

“Yesterday, Republican Congressional leaders leaked an unprecedented letter from FBI Director James Comey, with initial reports including dire headlines for Hillary Clinton. But like most “bombshell” discoveries about Clinton over the course of this campaign, it fizzled rapidly as facts actually became available,” the Hillary for America campaign stated. Let’s review…

YESTERDAY’S BOMBSHELL: NBC News: FBI re-opening investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server

  • Rep. Jason Chaffetz: “FBI Dir just informed me, ‘The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.’ Case reopened”
  • GOP: “BREAKING NEWS: The FBI is re-opening their investigation into @HillaryClinton’s secret server.”

…facts emerge:

  1.       Investigation not reopened. Huffington Post: News Outlets Dial Back Reports Of FBI ‘Reopening’ Hillary Clinton Email Case
  2.      No emails had been withheld. NBC News: “the e-mails Comey announced today were NOT originally withheld by Clinton or campaign.”
  3.      Emails not from Clinton’s server. Bloomberg: New Clinton E-mails Not From Her Private Server, AP Says
  4.      Emails reportedly not to or from Clinton. Los Angeles Times: “The emails were not to or from Clinton”
  5.      No indication emails bear significance. Comey memo to employees: “we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails”
  6.      Many emails likely duplicates of ones already turned over. ThinkProgress: The ‘new’ Clinton emails might all be duplicates
  7.      Comey letter violates DOJ policy. Washington Post: Justice officials warned FBI that Comey’s decision to update Congress was not consistent with department policy
  8.      Comey overruled AG Loretta Lynch. CNN: “Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates disagreed with FBI Director James Comey’s decision to notify Congress about his bureau’s review…”
  9.      Former officials on both sides of aisle criticized Comey. New York Times: “Mr. Comey’s letter opened him up to criticism not only from Democrats but also from current and former officials at the F.B.I. and the Justice Department, including Republicans.”
  10.   Clinton and Trump both calling for more information. Huffington Post: “Both camps demanded that FBI Director James Comey disclose more details about the emails and the bureau’s investigation” 

This is hardly the first time. It seems the script is always the same, the campaign noted:

  1.       Bombshell allegation is made hastily without facts available
  2.      Media breathlessly covers the latest supposed Clinton Scandal
  3.      Republicans declare that this time they’ve found the smoking gun
  4.      Initial explosive reports slowly fizzle on account of facts

Here are five of the many recent examples:

BOMBSHELL: @GOP, 8/30/16: “BREAKING: State Dept discovered 30 emails recovered from Hillary Clinton’s private server that discussed Benghazi.”

…facts emerge: Los Angeles Times, 9/7/16: “There appears to be only one new communication related to Benghazi… a complimentary note from a diplomat to Clinton, praising how she handled herself before a Senate panel investigating the matter.”

—-

BOMBSHELL: @GOP, 5/5/16: “Hacker ‘Guccifer’ told news outlets that he repeatedly accessed Clinton’s unsecure email server & that ‘it was easy’”

…facts emerge: FOX News, 7/7/16: Comey: Hacker ‘Guccifer’ Lied About Accessing Clinton’s Emails

—-

BOMBSHELL: @AP, 8/23/16: “BREAKING: AP analysis: More than half those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary gave money to Clinton Foundation.”

…facts emerge: Vox, 8/24/16: “Except it turns out not to be true. The nut fact that the AP uses to lead its coverage is wrong, and Braun and Sullivan’s reporting reveals absolutely no unethical conduct….  the AP excluded from the denominator all employees of any government, whether US or foreign.”

—-

BOMBSHELL: Washington Post, 8/22/16: The FBI found 15,000 emails Hillary Clinton didn’t turn over. Uh oh.

…facts emerge: CNN, 10/7/16: “Okay, so what’s in this latest batch? Short answer: No bombshells. More than half of the emails are these so-called “near duplicates” of previously released emails… There are also a number of emails between Clinton and her close aides in which they discuss scheduling matters — timing for phone calls, meetings, etc…. None of the new emails contained information marked as classified or upgraded to classified.”

—-

BOMBSHELL: The Hill, 7/5/16: FBI director: Clinton emails were marked as classified at the time

…facts emerge: MediaIte, 7/7/16: FBI Director Admits Hillary Clinton Emails Were Not Properly Marked Classified

See: FBI Director Comey Under Fire for Unprecedented Action Rekindling Clinton Email Issue

Election 2016

Better Than Bullying: Hillary Clinton Introduces Plan To Create Safer Schools

Anastasia Somoza, who along with her twin sister, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and spastic quadriplegia when she was born and is an advocate for Americans with intellectual and developmental disabilities, interned for Hillary Clinton in her U.S. Senate office and on the 2000 campaign for senate, and spoke at the DNC: "I first met Hillary as First Lady on a visit to the White House. I was 9 years old and I listened to her and my mom discuss healthcare and early intervention for children with disabilities. Over the past 23 years, she has continued to serve as a friend and a mentor...Championing my inclusion and access to classrooms, higher education and the workforce." © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Anastasia Somoza, who along with her twin sister, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and spastic quadriplegia when she was born and is an advocate for Americans with intellectual and developmental disabilities, interned for Hillary Clinton in her U.S. Senate office and on the 2000 campaign for senate, and spoke at the DNC: “I first met Hillary as First Lady on a visit to the White House. I was 9 years old and I listened to her and my mom discuss healthcare and
early intervention for children with disabilities. Over the past 23 years, she has continued to serve as a friend and a mentor…Championing my inclusion and access to classrooms, higher education and the workforce.” © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

by Karen Rubin, News & Photo Features

Today Hillary Clinton announced a major new plan to help children, families and educators confront the challenge of bullying and heal divisions in communities around the country. The initiative, Better Than Bullying, would provide $500 million in new funding to states that develop comprehensive anti-bullying plans, empowering communities to improve school climates and support our kids. The new policy was discussed in a Hillary for America conference call with HFA Senior Policy Advisor Maya Harris and Policy Advisor Corey Ciorciari, New Hampshire educator Anne McQuade, and former Chairman of the President’s Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities Tony Coelho.

The initiative comes as a kind of antidote to the impact of Donald Trump’s campaign is seen to have a “Trump effect” among school children and communities.

From mocking a reporter with a disability, to demeaning women for their appearance, to calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “criminals,” Donald Trump has made no apologies to the growing list of people that he has attempted to bully since the launch of his hate-filled campaign.  Trump’s divisive rhetoric has encouraged an increase in hurtful behavior and intimidation that is being reported in communities across the country. Experts are calling it the “Trump Effect,” and the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that Trump’s campaign “is producing an alarming level of fear and anxiety among children of color and inflaming racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom.”

“We’re seeing a terrible trickle-down effect from the Trump effect into our public schools,” said Ann McQuade, a New Hampshire educator who teaches english to refugee and immigrant students from more than 30 countries. “ And since Donald Trump officially became the republican nominee for president, many of my refugee and immigrant students have come to me to ask questions that revolve around, ‘What if?’ These honest conversations have been sobering and sad… These beautiful, hopeful kids, they come to this country to find a better life and we say to them: ‘Welcome to America,’ and then they watch television and are exposed to angry social media that sends a different message.”

“One of the things we are most concerned about in the disability community is getting rid of the stigma that has existed for years and years,” said Tony Coelho, former Congressman and architect of the Americans with Disabilities Act. “We were making tremendous progress when it comes to that. My really strong belief is that Donald Trump has brought hate back… When you have a candidate who is a nominee for president of one of our legitimate parties who is openly mocking, openly stigmatizing those of us with disabilities, that is a huge setback. We, in our community, really appreciate what Hillary is trying to do to take it the other way and get back to the progress that we were making… She has been with us all these years, and now she is coming in on a major issue and defending us again.”

The character issue was raised as a significant difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during a rally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, when for the first time, First Lady Michelle Obama appeared along side Hillary Clinton.

“We’ve never had such a stark contrast – of character, of vision. The stakes in this election could not be more clear,” Michelle Obama declared. The most powerful role model in the world – how to treat others, how to deal with disappointment, whether to tell the truth.” She added that as President  and as First Lady “with every action we take, every word we utter, we think about the children watching us, hanging on every word. We try to be the kind of people, the kind of leaders that your children deserve whether you agree with our politics or not.”

“We all know that bullying is a real problem in our classrooms our playgrounds and online – and teachers have reported that this election has made it worse,” Clinton stated. “ I want you to know, we’re going to launch a major new effort to help states and communities and schools and families end bullying wherever it takes place…  I can’t think of anything more important than making sure every single one of our children knows that they are loved just as they are. So ultimately, my friends, as Michelle reminds us, this election is about our kids – and in my case, my grandkids. Their lives and their futures, nothing is more important to me than that. I’ve been fighting for kids throughout my career. I will fight for them every single day of my Presidency.”

Clinton’s Better Than Bullying initiative would provide $500 million in new funding to states that develop comprehensive anti-bullying plans, empowering communities to improve school climates and support our kids. States will have flexibility in tailoring anti-bullying plans to their local communities, in keeping with the following national priorities:

  • Developing comprehensive anti-bullying laws and policies that explicitly prohibit bullying on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, and religion.
  • Making the Internet a safer space for kids by addressing cyberbullying.
  • Supporting educators working to improve school climate.
  • Providing support for students impacted by bullying and abuse.
  • Expanding behavioral health programming — teaching young people to control their impulses, recognize the feelings of others, and manage stress and anxiety.

Examples of policy interventions and investments states can pursue include:

  • Expanding social and emotional learning programs. For example, the RULERprogram helps students recognize, understand, label, express and regulate their emotions. Studies show students using RULER perform better academically, experience less anxiety and depression, and are less likely to bully other students.
  • Investing in specialized school-support professionals like guidance counselors, social workers, school nurses, and school psychologists.
  • Embedding training on bullying and classroom climate in educator and school leader preparation.
  • Implementing evidence-based suicide prevention and mental health programs in high schools. The link between bullying and suicide is clear, and we need to respond by providing students that have experienced bullying and those that have bullied others, the supports they need.
  • Investing in school-based cyber bullying interventions and parent education.
  • Making school climate a priority in enforcing the Every Student Succeeds Act.

A full fact sheet is available here. Previously in the campaign, Clinton has outlined a number of initiatives that complement the Better Than Bullying initiative and its goals, including her commitment to end the school-to-prison pipeline, fight for full equality for LGBT people, and support Americans living with mental health problems and illnesses.

Hillary for America also released a new television ad, “Bryce,” that tells the story of a young man with muscular dystrophy who has overcome bullying. Throughout the campaign, Clinton has talked about the need for more love and kindness in our culture, and she’s recognized that bullying is an urgent crisis that contributes to poor academic performance, increased incidence of depression, and in some extreme cases, suicide.

 

Election 2016, Presidential Campaign 2016, Presidential Politics

Hillary for America Campaign Issues Alert to Be on Lookout for ‘Trump’s 7 Deadly Lies’ in Debate

Hillary for America campaign has issued 19 pages of Donald Trump’s lies, including the seven the Republican presidential candidate uses most often, as a guide to be used in the upcoming debate at Hofstra University, Long Island, on Monday, September 26 © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Hillary for America campaign has issued 19 pages of Donald Trump’s lies, including the seven the Republican presidential candidate uses most often, as a guide to be used in the upcoming debate at Hofstra University, Long Island, on Monday, September 26 © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

By Karen Rubin, News & Photo Features

The Hillary for America campaign has issued 19 pages of Donald Trump’s lies, including the seven the Republican presidential candidate uses most often, as a guide to be used in the upcoming debate at Hofstra University, Long Island, on Monday, September 26.

The campaign is calling out the moderator, Lester Holt, of the first Presidential Election debate, as well as reporters and viewers to hold Trump to account.

For his part, Trump has warned the moderator will be “afraid” to attack Hillary Clinton and that if he is attacked, it is only proof that the system is “rigged” against him.

Expectations are so skewed that the fear is Trump only has to appear calm, even if ill-informed or shallow and lacking in any real understanding of policies, while Hillary Clinton has to be perfectly in command but also “attractive” and not too “studied” or scripted. In this, Hillary, a trail-blazer for women’s rights, will experience the same kind of gender-bias as when she became Arkansas’ First Lady and wanted to be known as Hillary Rodham, instead of Mrs. Clinton, and when in 1992, campaigning for her husband, Bill Clinton, she said she didn’t want to back cookies and stand by her man like Tammy Wynette.

A misplaced comma in a phrase could cost her the debate while the big question for Trump is whether he will be able to resist his verbal tick of calling her “Crooked” Hillary.

But Donald Trump’s, who has used his background as a Realty TV star as his strongest advantage in the campaign so far has won PolitiFact’s “Liar of the Year” award, after it rated 70 percent of his claims as “four Pinnochios” or “Pants on Fire.”

“Debates are about each candidate laying out their vision for America, not making things up. Donald Trump has shown a clear pattern of repeating provably false lies and hoping no one corrects him. Voters and viewers should keep track: any candidate who tells this many lies clearly can’t win the debate on the merits,” said HFA Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri.

The campaign issued a handy guide to  Trump’s Seven Deadly Lies

 1.  FALSE: Trump opposed the Iraq War.

Washington Post: Trump: “I was totally against the war in Iraq.” // Four Pinocchios.” 

As our timeline shows, Trump was not ‘totally’ against the Iraq War. Trump expressed lukewarm support the first time he was asked about it on Sept. 11, 2002, and was not clearly against it until he was quoted in the August 2004 Esquire cover story. (We even made a video documenting how this is a bogus claim.) Yet he repeatedly claims he opposed the war from the beginning — and thus, earns Four Pinocchios.”

  1. FALSE: Trump opposed intervention in Libya.

Factcheck.org: Donald Trump on Libya, May 20 interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”:  I would have stayed out of Libya.” // False.

“Trump’s claim that he ‘would have stayed out of Libya’ doesn’t square with his comments at the time. In February 2011, Trump, referring to Gadhafi, said that the U.S. should go into Libya ‘on a humanitarian basis’ and ‘knock this guy out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively and save the lives.’”

  1. FALSE: Clinton supports open borders.

PolitiFact: Trump says Clinton wants to create ‘totally open borders.’ // False

“This is a huge distortion of Clinton’s proposals. Clinton has praised work already done to secure the border, and she said she supported a 2013 bill that would have invested billions more in border security while creating a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants. Her plan calls for protecting the border and targeting deportation to criminals and security threats.”

  1. FALSE: Clinton wants to get rid of the Second Amendment.

ABC News: “Claim: Hillary Clinton wants to abolish the Second Amendment” // False.

“When Trump made this same claim earlier in the cycle, Politifact rated the claim false after finding no evidence of Clinton ever advocating for the abolishment of the Second Amendment… Bottom line: there’s no evidence to support Trump’s claim.

PolitiFact: “Donald Trump falsely claims Hillary Clinton ‘wants to abolish the 2nd Amendment,’” // False.

“We found no evidence of Clinton ever saying verbatim or suggesting explicitly that she wants to abolish the Second Amendment, and the bulk of Clinton’s comments suggest the opposite. She has repeatedly said she wants to protect the right to bear arms while enacting measures to prevent gun violence.”

  1. FALSE: President Obama and Clinton founded ISIS.

Washington Post: “Is Obama the founder of ISIS?” // Absolutely not.

“Absolutely not. It’s like saying that Ronald Reagan is the founder of al-Qaeda because the arms he sent to the mujahideen in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion led to the creation of al-Qaeda. It’s a ludicrous claim.”

Washington Post: “Trump also claims Hillary Clinton was a “co-founder” of ISIS. Does that make sense?” // No.

“No. Within the administration, Clinton was one of the loudest forces for keeping a residual force in Iraq and for intervening in Syria, such as arming the rebels. So the criticism especially does not apply to her, since she advocated a more hawkish policy than was undertaken by Obama.”

  1. FALSE: Clinton would allow 620,000 refugees into the U.S. with no vetting.

Washington Post: Trump: “This includes her plan to bring in 620,000 new refugees from Syria and that region over a short period of time.” // This is an “invented figure.”

“Trump has used this number before, but it stems from the unverified assumption that Clinton, who has called for 55,000 additional refugees from Syria, would continue at that pace for every year of her first term, on top of the Obama administration’s proposal for 100,000 refugees for fiscal year 2017. Trump then multiplies 155,000 times four years to reach 620,000 refugees. Clinton has never proposed such a “plan,” so this is an invented figure.”

Washington Post: Trump: “Under the Clinton plan, you’d be admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them, or to prevent the radicalization of the children and their children.” // “It’s false…”

“Trump has repeatedly made this “hundreds of thousands” claim, usually referring to Syria, but it’s false… Trump also falsely claims there is “no system to vet” refugees. The process actually takes two more years, after vetting that starts with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and then continues with checks by U.S. intelligence and security agencies.”

  1. FALSE: Trump will make Mexico pay for the wall.

NPR Fact Check: Trump: “And Mexico will pay for the wall. 100 percent.” // Mexican President “would not pay” for the wall.

“After his meeting with Donald Trump today, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto reiterated his insistence that Mexico would not pay for construction of a border wall. Peña Nieto said he made that clear to Trump during their meeting, although Trump told reporters that the issue of payment was not discussed. — Scott Horsley”

For the rest of the18 pages of Trump’s lies see The Briefing here.

“Our concern about Trump’s record of lying is what that means for how the debate unfolds and how viewers should judge,” Jennifer Palmieri said on a press call.

Trump should be expected to present his solutions – explain what his solutions are, demonstrate the knowledge and judgment. But so far, Trump has shown clear pattern of lying, expecting no one to correct them, she said.

“We have provided 19 pages of lies Trump has told during the campaign,” she said. Politifact has rated 70% of his claims as untrue; Factchecker gave him 47 ‘Four Pinnochios’ and rated 47 ‘Pants on Fire.’  He beat out all modern presidential candidates for fact checking – he was awarded the Lie of the Year and Trump was named the Liar of the Year.

“We think this warrants particular focus because his level of lying is unprecedented in American politics – reporters should keep this in mind,”

“Trump is a very unconventional, unusual, challenging candidate – recognize it’s true for press and moderators. It’s unprecedented in modern times to hold a conference to talk about special precautions because the opponent is a habitual liar, but we think it is necessary.

“When Trump has been chosen as Politifact’s Liar of the Year, for the moderator to let lies go unchallenged, gives Trump an unfair advantage. It is the role of moderator, particularly in this case, to call out those lies, and do so in real time.

“Clinton has a responsibility to defend herself –  her own record. But given the historic record of how much Trump lies, it can’t be only on her to call him out if the moderator isn’t willing to stand up and challenge lies. We’ve provided 19 pages of them for helpful reference, plus the 7 he uses most often. This is unusual, but  that’s the year we are in, that’s the campaign Trump is running, and it requires that kind of role for the moderator.”

Palmieri said that Trump would probably do what he could to “get under her skin,” but “good luck.  We’ve all seen her endure tough questions – 11 hours during the Benghazi hearings. Trump may think he will be the first to get under her skin, but I doubt it.”

As for expectations of how Trump might perform, We had a dry run during the Commander-in-Chief forum which demonstrated that Trump could control his demeanor, and the concern is that will be the sole criteria for handing him the “win” in the debate.

“But maintaining demeanor and not becoming unhinged is not the standard for being considered President of the United States.” What should be the standard is that you demonstrate that you understand problems, have solutions, that you can explain them, that you have adequate knowledge, judgment to do the job “and that’s certainly what she is coming to the debate to do, and that’s what voters should judge Trump on as well.”

How Trump behaves and whether or not he maintains a calm demeanor is up to him, and we think that is within his power – I wouldn’t describe that as what we are pending a lot of time on. A good deal of our prep is thinking through the argument she would put forward that she would do – it is a useful exercise at debate as well as what closing arguments for last few weeks of campaign will be as well.

________________________________

© 2016 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go to www.news-photos-features.com, email [email protected]. Blogging at www.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures.  ‘Like’ us on facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures, Tweet @KarenBRubin

 

Election 2016, Presidential Campaign 2016

Clinton Campaign Calls on Trump to Disclose Foreign Biz Ties, Divest from Trump Org, Release Tax Returns; Launches Webpage Comparing Candidates on Disclosure

The Hillary for America Campaign is calling on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to disclose his foreign business ties, which an investigative report published by Newsweek asserts, "Never before has an American candidate for president had so many financial ties with American allies and enemies, and never before has a business posed such a threat to the United States. If Donald Trump wins this election and his company is not immediately shut down or forever severed from the Trump family, the foreign policy of the United States of America could well be for sale." © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
The Hillary for America Campaign is calling on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to disclose his foreign business ties, which an investigative report published by Newsweek asserts, “Never before has an American candidate for president had so many financial ties with American allies and enemies, and never before has a business posed such a threat to the United States. If Donald Trump wins this election and his company is not immediately shut down or forever severed from the Trump family, the foreign policy of the United States of America could well be for sale.” © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

On a press call led by HFA Chair John Podesta, Hillary for America called on Donald Trump to disclose all information related to his foreign investments and business dealings, divest his holdings in the Trump Organization to remove troubling conflicts of interest, and release his tax returns to meet the basic threshold for transparency. This week, Newsweek published a new bombshell report, “How The Trump Organization’s Foreign Business Ties Could Upend U.S. National Security.” The report offers a disturbing preview of the foreign entanglements that could influence Donald Trump, should voters make the grave mistake of electing him president. We now know that over the course of decades, The Trump Organization has been financially involved in more than a dozen countries on five continents — including Russia, Ukraine, Libya, Turkey, China, and Brazil. These new revelations also bring greater urgency to the need for Trump to release his tax returns, so the American people can see his sources of income, and what influences he might be subject to as president.

HFA also launched a new webpage, “Full Disclosure: Comparing the Two Candidates”, a one-stop shop to access each candidate’s financial records or lack thereof, medical information, professional correspondence – including emails – and other personal and professional records. Voters can compare Hillary Clinton’s sizable record of disclosure to that of Donald Trump, the least transparent candidate for president in modern history.

“We already knew that Donald Trump is the least transparent presidential candidate in modern history,” HFA Chair John Podesta said, “Now we’re learning that Trump is tied up in a web of personal and business relationships with countries that play key roles in our foreign policy decisions. Until Trump discloses his foreign business ties, divests from the Trump Organization, and releases his tax returns, there should be serious concern about who a President Trump would serve: the American people, or Trump’s bank account.”

In case you missed it, Newsweek’s upcoming cover story detailed a sample of the various foreign influences circling around Trump and the Trump Organization. Key excerpts, and the full story, can be found below:

The Newsweek article stated, “Never before has an American candidate for president had so many financial ties with American allies and enemies, and never before has a business posed such a threat to the United States. If Donald Trump wins this election and his company is not immediately shut down or forever severed from the Trump family, the foreign policy of the United States of America could well be for sale.”

ON TRUMP IN LIBYA: “But for the Trump Organization, Qaddafi was not a murdering terrorist; he was a prospect who might bring the company financing and the opportunity to build a resort on the Mediterranean coast of Libya.”

ON TRUMP IN TURKEY: “In other words, Trump would be in direct financial and political conflict with Turkey from the moment he was sworn into office. Once again, all his dealings with Turkey would be suspect: Would Trump act in the interests of the United States or his wallet?”

ON TRUMP IN UKRAINE: “The potential financial conflicts here for a President Trump are enormous.”

ON TRUMP IN SOUTH KOREA: “This relationship puts Trump’s foreign policies in conflict with his financial interests…. One of the primary South Korean companies involved in nuclear energy, a key component in weapons development, is Trump’s partner—Daewoo Engineering and Construction. It would potentially get an economic windfall if the United States adopted policies advocated by Trump.”

ON TRUMP IN INDIA: “In India, the conflicts between the interests of the Trump Organization and American foreign policy are starker… No doubt, few Indian political groups hoping to establish close ties to a possible future American president could have missed the recent statements from the Trump family that its company wanted to do more deals in their country.”

ON TRUMP IN UAE: “With Middle Eastern business partners and American allies turning on him, Trump lashed out… Once again, Trump’s personal and financial interests are in conflict with critical national security issues for the United States.”

ON TRUMP IN AZERBAIJAN: “If American intelligence concludes, or has already concluded, that his business partner’s father has been aiding Iran by laundering money for the military, will Trump’s foreign policy decisions on Iran and Azerbaijan be based on the national security of the United States or the financial security of Donald Trump?”

NEWSWEEK: “The dealings of the Trump Organization reach into so many countries that it is impossible to detail all the conflicts they present in a single issue of this magazine, but a Newsweek examination of the company has also found deep connections in China, Brazil, Bulgaria, Argentina, Canada, France, Germany and other countries.”

Election 2016, Presidential Campaign 2016

Hillary Clinton Campaign Tears Apart Trump ‘Deplorables’ Ad

Supporter at Donald Trump rally, Bethpage, Long Island, NY, holds sign, "White Lives Matter" © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Supporter at Donald Trump rally, Bethpage, Long Island, NY, holds sign, “White Lives Matter” © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

I’m disappointed that Hillary Clinton issued a statement pulling back on her statement that half of Donald Trump’s supporters are in a basket of “deplorable”  and the other half are people who feel they have been left out and left behind by government. Her statement is founded in fact – surveys of Trump supporters that show solid percentages who favor building a wall, banning Muslims, even saying the Emancipation Proclamation was a bad idea. Nonetheless, hoping to have the same success as an attack on Hillary Clinton as Mitt Romney’s 47% comment (47% of Americans would not vote for him because they were “takers” which presumably included seniors on Social Security and veterans, and Barack Obama’s comment about “guns and God” and taking  a tiny phrase out of context, “You didn’t build it”), Trump created a new ad.

Hopefully it will backfire because instead of coming back against Clinton, it will highlight who, indeed, is inspired by his campaign of hatred, bigotry and fear.

In response to Donald Trump’s new ad, HFA Deputy Communications Director Christina Reynolds offered the following statement:

“As we’ve come to expect, Donald Trump gets quite a bit wrong in his new TV ad, ignoring Hillary Clinton’s comments that she did not mean half of his supporters were deplorable and her reference to the economic concerns of many of his supporters. That said, if he’d like to argue against Hillary’s claim that people who are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic or Islamophobic are deplorable, we are happy to have that debate. Trump has spent the entire campaign offering divisive views that have given rise to far too much hatred and bigotry—Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine will continue to call that out.”

TRANSCRIPT RECORD
VOICEOVER:Speaking to wealthy donors, Hillary Clinton called tens of millions of Americans “deplorable” CLINTON CLARIFIED REMARKS

Clinton Said She Regretted Being “Grossly Generalistic” In Her Comments. “Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong. But let’s be clear, what’s really ‘deplorable’ is that Donald Trump hired a major advocate for the so-called ‘alt-right’ movement to run his campaign and that David Duke and other white supremacists see him as a champion of their values. It’s deplorable that Trump has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices, including by retweeting fringe bigots with a few dozen followers and spreading their message to 11 million people. It’s deplorable that he’s attacked a federal judge for his ‘Mexican heritage,’ bullied a Gold Star family because of their Muslim faith, and promoted the lie that our first black president is not a true American. So I won’t stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign.” [Hillary for America, Statement, 9/10/16]

IN THE FULL CONTEXT OF HER REMARKS, CLINTON SAID THANKFULLY, THE HATEFUL TRUMP SUPPORTERS “ARE NOT AMERICA”

Clinton Said We Have To “Understand And Empathize With” Trump Supporters Who Feel “The Government Has Let Them Down” And Who Are “Desperate For Change.” “…thankfully they are not America. But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroine, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.’” [Transcript via NPR, 9/10/16]

CLINTON HAS REPEATEDLY SAID THE VAST MAJORITY OF AMERICANS REJECT TRUMP’S BIGOTRY

Clinton: “As I Said, Many Of Trump’s Supporters Are Hard-Working Americans Who Just Don’t Feel Like The Economy Or Our Political System Are Working For Them.” “I also meant what I said last night about empathy, and the very real challenges we face as a country where so many people have been left out and left behind. As I said, many of Trump’s supporters are hard-working Americans who just don’t feel like the economy or our political system are working for them.  I’m determined to bring our country together and make our economy work for everyone, not just those at the top. Because we really are ‘stronger together.’” [Hillary for America, Statement, 9/10/16]

Clinton: “So There May Be Some Folks Who Buy Into His Dark, Negative Vision, And Think He Maybe Could Be Their Voice, But I Don’t Think That Represents The Vast Majority Of Americans.” “And you know, the other thing that struck me about his speech was when he said, ‘I am your voice.’  Now, look, I will admit, maybe he does speak for some people, but I think it’s kind of hard to imagine him speaking for immigrants, for people with disabilities, for African Americans, for Latinos, for women, or even for working people who he has a history of stiffing, not supporting.  So there may be some folks who buy into his dark, negative vision, and think he maybe could be their voice, but I don’t think that represents the vast majority of Americans.” [Voter Registration Event in Charlotte, NC, 7/25/16]

Asked If Americans Are Becoming Desensitized To Trump’s Rhetoric, Clinton Said “The Vast Majority Of Americans Are People Who Are Decent And Caring And Looking For Ways That We Can Come Together, Not To Be Divided By Fear And Hatred.” “QUESTION: Do you worry that Americans are becoming desensitized to this kind of rhetoric? HILLARY CLINTON: I think the uproar from Americans across our country in response to a number of the comments that Trump has made, but in particular to his derogatory comments about the Khans shows to the contrary, that the vast majority of Americans are people who are decent and caring and looking for ways that we can come together, not to be divided by fear and hatred.” [Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine at Press Avail in Ashland, OH, 7/31/16]

Clinton On Trump Supporters: “I Think That The Core Of His Support Really Centers On The Disappointment In The Economy That So Many Americans Feel.” “YAMICHE ALCINDOR: My question is 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? HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I really believe that the core of his support — I’m not going to speak for everyone who supports him because I think there have been some quite distressing statements coming out of his rallies and his supporters and who has aligned themselves with him. But I think that the core of his support really centers on the disappointment in the economy that so many Americans feel. And what I have been saying is, you know, I want to bring this country together. I think we have three overarching goals: we need more economic opportunity; we need to protect our national security; and we have got to work toward American unity.” [Q&A at NABJ & NAHJ Convention in Washington, D.C., 8/5/16]

CLINTON GAVE AN ENTIRE SPEECH ABOUT HOW THE ALT-RIGHT USES TRUMP’S CAMPAIGN TO PROMOTE THEIR HATE MOVEMENT

Clinton: “Trump Is Reinforcing Harmful Stereotypes And Offering A Dog Whistle To His Most Hateful Supporters.” “Now, Trump’s lack of knowledge or experience or solutions would be bad enough.  But what he’s doing here is more sinister.  Trump is reinforcing harmful stereotypes and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters. It’s a disturbing preview of what kind of President he’d be.” [Remarks on Trump’s Prejudice and Paranoia in Reno, NV, 8/25/16]

Clinton: “This Is A Moment Of Reckoning For Every Republican Dismayed That The Party Of Lincoln Has Become The Party Of Trump.  It’s A Moment Of Reckoning For All Of Us Who Love Our Country.” “We wouldn’t tolerate this kind of behavior before and we wouldn’t tolerate it in our own homes.  And we shouldn’t stand for it in a presidential candidate. My friends, this is a moment of reckoning for every Republican dismayed that the Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Trump.  It’s a moment of reckoning for all of us who love our country and believe that America is better than this.” [Remarks on Trump’s Prejudice and Paranoia in Reno, NV, 8/25/16]

Clinton On Trump: “Every Day, More Americans Are Standing Up And Saying ‘Enough Is Enough’ – Including A Lot Of Republicans.  And I Am Honored To Have Their Support In This Campaign.” “We can have our disagreements, and believe me, I understand that. I think that’s healthy. We need good debates, but we need to do it in a respectful way, not finger pointing and blaming, and stirring up this bigotry and prejudice.  Every day, more Americans are standing up and saying ‘enough is enough’ – including a lot of Republicans.  And I am honored to have their support in this campaign.” [Remarks on Trump’s Prejudice and Paranoia in Reno, NV, 8/25/16]
HILLARY CLINTON: You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. The racists, sexists, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it. TRUMP’S CANDIDACY HAS GIVEN THE ALT-RIGHT “LEGITIMACY THEY HAVE CRAVED FOR YEARS.”

HEADLINE: “Donald Trump’s Alt-Right Brain” [Editorial, New York Times, 9/5/16]

New York Times Editorial Board: Trump’s Candidacy Granted The Alternative-Right “The Legitimacy They Have Craved For Years.” “Mr. Trump says he isn’t signaling the alt-right when he says of immigrants, as he did again on Wednesday: ‘We have no idea who these people are, where they come from. I always say Trojan Horse. Watch what’s going to happen, folks. It’s not going to be pretty.’ Or when he said — in a line widely quoted on alt-right websites — ‘There is only one core issue in the immigration debate and it is this: the well-being of the American people.’ Mr. Trump’s white supremacist followers don’t take his disavowals too seriously. After all, he has enthusiastically retweeted bogus crime statistics and incendiary imagery from these websites and hired one of their biggest lights, Stephen Bannon of Breitbart News, to manage his campaign.  There aren’t enough of these people to put Mr. Trump in the White House. But his candidacy has granted them the legitimacy they have craved for years. For the first time, a candidate is using a major-party megaphone to shout the ideas they once could only mutter among themselves in the shadowy fringes of national debate.” [Editorial, New York Times, 9/5/16]

THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN FORTIFIED THE WHITE SUPREMACIST MOVEMENT

Donald Trump Was A Boon For White Supremacists, Who Used His Candidacy As A Tool To Expand Their Movement. “The Ku Klux Klan is using Donald Trump as a talking point in its outreach efforts. Stormfront, the most prominent American white supremacist website, is upgrading its servers in part to cope with a Trump traffic spike. And former Louisiana Rep. David Duke reports that the businessman has given more Americans cover to speak out loud about white nationalism than at any time since his own political campaigns in the 1990s. As hate group monitors at the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League warn that Trump’s rhetoric is conducive to anti-Muslim violence, white nationalist leaders are capitalizing on his candidacy to invigorate and expand their movement.” [Politico, 12/10/15]

Politico: “The Ku Klux Klan Is Using Donald Trump As A Talking Point In Its Outreach Efforts.” [Politico, 12/10/15]

Politico: “Stormfront, The Most Prominent American White Supremacist Website, Is Upgrading Its Servers In Part To Cope With A Trump Traffic Spike.” [Politico, 12/10/15]

Stormfront Founder Don Black: “Demoralization Has Been The Biggest Enemy And Trump Is Changing All That.” “As hate group monitors at the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League warn that Trump’s rhetoric is conducive to anti-Muslim violence, white nationalist leaders are capitalizing on his candidacy to invigorate and expand their movement. ‘Demoralization has been the biggest enemy and Trump is changing all that,’ said Stormfront founder Don Black, who reports additional listeners and call volume to his phone-in radio show, in addition to the site’s traffic bump.” [Politico, 12/10/15]
VOICEOVER:People like you, you, and you TRUMP DESCRIBED THE AFRICAN AMERICAN AND HISPANIC COMMUNITIES AS IMPOVERISHED AND CRIME-RIDDEN

Trump On The African-American Community: “You Have So Many In Poverty And The Crime Is Horrible And The Education Is Terrible And They Live Terribly.” TRUMP: “But you have tremendous numbers of African-Americans that have really had a hard time. I mean, beyond belief. And, you know, I read the numbers where you have so many in poverty and the crime is horrible and the education is terrible and they live terribly. And I say, what do you have to lose? I say to them, what do you have to lose? Give it to me. I’m going to fix them. And a lot of people are agreeing with me. What do you have to lose. The Democrats and the Hillary Clintons of the world have done a terrible job. She has been there for 35 years. She has done a terrible job. But the Hillary Clintons of the world have done a terrible job, Eric, and I say, what do you have to lose? I will fix it and you know what? A lot of people are agreeing.” [O’Reilly Factor, Fox News, 9/1/16]

TRUMP HAS DESCRIBED AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES IN INSULTING AND IGNORANT TERMS

 

HEADLINE: “Donald Trump’s Description Of Black America Is Offending Those Living In It”[New York Times, 8/24/16]

New York Times: “The Unrelievedly Dire Picture He Has Painted Of Black America Has Left Many Black Voters Angry, Dumbfounded Or Both. Interviews With Roughly A Dozen Blacks Here Turned Up No One Who Found Any Appeal In Mr. Trump’s Remarks.” “But the unrelievedly dire picture he has painted of black America has left many black voters angry, dumbfounded or both. Interviews with roughly a dozen blacks here turned up no one who found any appeal in Mr. Trump’s remarks. More common was the suggestion that Mr. Trump was trying to appeal to whites who might support him.” [New York Times, 8/24/16]

TRUMP CRITICIZED A FEDERAL JUDGE’S ABILITY TO DO HIS JOB BECAUSE OF HIS HERITAGE

Trump Claimed Federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel Could Not Preside Over His Case Without A Conflict Of Interest Because He Was “Of Mexican Heritage.” “Trump said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel had ‘an absolute conflict’ in presiding over the litigation given that he was ‘of Mexican heritage’ and a member of a Latino lawyers’ association. Mr. Trump said the background of the judge, who was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrants, was relevant because of his campaign stance against illegal immigration and his pledge to seal the southern U.S. border.” [Wall Street Journal, 6/2/16]

TRUMP CALLED TO BAN AN ENTIRE GROUP OF PEOPLE BASED ON THEIR RELIGION

12/7/15: Trump Called For A “Total And Complete Shutdown Of Muslims Entering The United States,” Citing “Great Hatred Towards Americans By Large Segments Of The Muslim Populations.” “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim populations.” [Press Release, Donald Trump for President, 12/7/15]

Trump Said He Was Not Rolling Back His Ban On Muslims: “In Fact, You Could Say It’s An Expansion.” “Donald Trump made clear this weekend that he has not rolled back his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, despite top allies insisting that he had… ‘I don’t think so. I actually don’t think it’s a rollback. In fact, you could say it’s an expansion,’ Trump said. ‘I’m looking now at territory. People were so upset when I used the word ‘Muslim’: ‘Oh, you can’t use the word ‘Muslim.’ Remember this. And I’m okay with that, because I’m talking territory instead of Muslim.’” [Washington Post, 7/24/16; Meet the Press, 7/24/16]

TRUMP CALLED IMMIGRANTS CRIMINALS AND RAPISTS

Trump: “When Mexico Sends Its People, They’re Not Sending Their Best… They’re Bringing Drugs. They’re Bringing Crime. They’re Rapists.”TRUMP: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” [Trump Presidential Campaign Announcement, New York NY, 6/16/15]

TRUMP REPEATEDLY MADE SEXIST ATTACKS

Trump On Megyn Kelly: “You Could See There Was Blood Coming Out Of Her Eyes, Blood Coming Out Of Her Wherever.”“Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Friday night that Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly ‘had blood coming out of her eyes’ when she  aggressively questioned him during Thursday’s presidential debate. ‘She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions,’ Trump said in a CNN interview. ‘You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. In my opinion, she was off base.’” [Washington Post, 8/8/15]

Trump On Fiorina: “Look At That Face! Would Anyone Vote For That? Can You Imagine That, The Face Of Our Next President?”“When the anchor throws to Carly Fiorina for her reaction to Trump’s momentum, Trump’s expression sours in schoolboy disgust as the camera bores in on Fiorina. ‘Look at that face!’ he cries. ‘Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!’ The laughter grows halting and faint behind him. ‘I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not s’posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?’ And there, in a nutshell, is Trump’s blessing and his curse: He can’t seem to quit while he’s ahead.” [Rolling Stone, 9/9/15]

Trump On Hillary Clinton: “Do You Think She Looks Presidential? I Don’t Think So.” “GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump went after Hillary Clinton Tuesday for the way she looks, saying she just doesn’t seem presidential. ‘Do you think she looks presidential? I don’t think so,’ Trump said to his crowd at a rally in Ashburn, Virginia.” [Huffington Post, 8/2/16; Trump Campaign Rally, Ashburn VA, 8/2/16]

TRUMP DEFENDED HIS SUGGESTION THAT SEXUAL ASSAULTS SHOULD BE EXPECTED IF WOMEN ARE ALLOWED TO SERVE IN THE MILITARY WITH MEN  

Trump Defended His 2013 Tweet Suggesting Sexual Assault Was Inevitable “When They Put Men And Women Together” In The Military: “It Is A Correct Tweet. There Are Many People Think That’s Absolutely Correct.” LAUER: “In 2013, on this subject, you tweeted this. Quote, 26,000 unreported sexual assaults in the military. Only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men and women together? End quote.” TRUMP: “Well, it is a correct tweet. There are many people think that’s absolutely correct. We need to have a –“ [Commander In Chief Forum, MSNBC, 9/7/16]
VOICEOVER:Deplorable TRUMP SAID HE WAS PROUD TO BE A BIRTHER

USA Today: Trump “Was Perhaps The Most Prominent Voice Of The ‘Birther’ Movement.”“Trump has been an outspoken critic of President Obama and was perhaps the most prominent voice of the ‘birther’ movement, which asserted, erroneously, that Obama was not a natural-born U.S. citizen. On Monday, he took a shot at the newest entrant to the 2016 Republican field, Jeb Bush, tweeting: ‘Do we really need another Bush in the White House — we have had enough of them.’ If there’s one thing Trump brings to the 2016 campaign, it’s confidence. ‘I’m the most successful person ever to run for the presidency, by far,’ he told The Des Moines Register in a recent interview.” [USA Today, 6/16/15]

March 2011:  Trump:  “I’m Proud To Be” A Birther.  “Well I thought he was very nice to me, though. I mean, I understand that. And he doesn’t want to be labeled as a birther, probably. I’m proud to be. I mean, I’m very proud of it. I don’t like the term. I think it’s a demeaning term to the people that believe that he should have a birth certificate. .” [Laura Ingraham Show,AUDIO 06:30-07:00, 3/30/11]
VOICEOVER: You know what’s deplorable? TRUMP ATTACKED A GOLD STAR FAMILY WHO LOST THEIR SON IN IRAQ

HEADLINE: “Donald Trump Criticizes Muslim Family Of Slain U.S. Soldier, Drawing Ire” [New York Times, 7/30/16]

HEADLINE: “Donald Trump’s Slander Of Captain Humayun Khan’s Family Is Horrifying, Even For Trump” [Vox, 7/30/16]

Trump Claimed The Mother Of A Fallen Muslim Soldier Did Not Speak At The Democratic Nation Convention Because “Maybe She Wasn’t Allowed To Have Anything To Say, You Tell Me.” “Donald J. Trump belittled the parents of a slain Muslim soldier who had strongly denounced Mr. Trump during the Democratic National Convention, saying that the soldier’s father had delivered the entire speech because his mother was not ‘allowed’ to speak…But, he added, ‘If you look at his wife, she was standing there, she had nothing to say, she probably — maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say, you tell me.’” [New York Times,7/30/16; This Week, ABC, 7/31/16]

Trump Suggested His Business Career Was A Sacrifice Comparable To The Loss Of Khizr Khan’s Son: “I Think I Have Made A Lot Of Sacrifices.” STEPHANOPOULOS: “How would you answer that father [Khan]? What sacrifice have you made for your country?” TRUMP: “I think I have made a lot of sacrifices. I’ve work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve done — I’ve had tremendous success.” STEPHANOPOULOS: “Those are sacrifices?” TRUMP: “Oh, sure. I think they’re sacrifices.” [This Week, ABC, 7/31/16]
VOICEOVER:Hillary Clinton viciously demonizing hard working people like you. TRUMP QUESTIONED HOW STUPID THE PEOPLE OF IOWA AND THE COUNTRY WERE

Donald Trump: “How Stupid Are The People Of Iowa? How Stupid Are The People Of The Country To Believe This Crap?” “With his voice growing louder and louder, Trump questioned what sort of person would attack his mother. He questioned how a belt buckle could stop a blade, stepping away from the podium to demonstration how such an attack might happen and how his own belt buckle wouldn’t stay in place long enough to stop a knife. ‘Anybody have a knife?’ Trump asked the audience, which was screened by Secret Service agents who began protecting him this week. ‘You want to try it on me?’ Trump was flabbergast: ‘How stupid are the people of Iowa? How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?’” [Washington Post, 11/13/15; Donald Trump Campaign Rally, Fort Dodge Iowa, 11/12/15]

TRUMP SAID HE LOVES THE “POORLY EDUCATED,” BRAGGING HE WON THAT GROUP OF VOTERS

Trump: “We Won With Poorly Educated — I Love The Poorly Educated.” TRUMP: “We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated — I love the poorly educated. We’re the smartest people, we’re the most loyal people.’” [Trump Campaign Rally, Las Vegas NV, 2/23/16]

TRUMP MOCKED A DISABLED REPORTER

HEADLINE: “Trump Mocks New York Times Reporter With Disability” [Chicago Tribune,11/25/15]

Chicago Tribune: “Trump Appeared To Mock Kovaleski’s Physical Condition; The Reporter Has Arthrogryposis, Which Visibly Limits Flexibility In His Arms. ‘Now, The Poor Guy — You’ve Got To See This Guy, “Ah, I Don’t Know What I Said! I Don’t Remember!”’ Trump Said As He Jerked His Arms In Front Of His Body.” “On stage Tuesday, Trump berated Times investigative reporter Serge Kovaleski for his recent recollection of an article he had written a few days after the attacks. Trump appeared to mock Kovaleski’s physical condition; the reporter has arthrogryposis, which visibly limits flexibility in his arms. ‘Now, the poor guy — you’ve got to see this guy, “Ah, I don’t know what I said! I don’t remember!”’ Trump said as he jerked his arms in front of his body. The gesture was all the more personal because Kovaleski covered Trump while reporting for the New York Daily News between 1987 and 1993, a tumultuous period for Trump in which he struggled through several financial setbacks.” [Chicago Tribune, 11/25/15]
DONALD J. TRUMP: I’m Donald Trump, and I approve this message.

 

Election 2016, Health Care, Presidential Politics

Hillary Clinton Unveils New Comprehensive Mental Health Policy Agenda

This week, Hillary Clinton announced her comprehensive plan to support Americans living with mental health problems and illnesses © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

This week, Hillary Clinton announced her comprehensive plan to support Americans living with mental health problems and illnesses © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

This week, Hillary Clinton announced her comprehensive plan to support Americans living with mental health problems and illnesses. Recognizing that nearly a fifth of all adults in the United States — more than 40 million people — are coping with a mental health problem, Hillary’s plan will integrate the mental and physical health care systems. Her goal is that within her time in office, Americans will no longer separate mental health from physical health when it comes to access to care or quality of treatment. Hillary has been talking about mental health policy throughout her campaign, since hearing directly from American parents, students, veterans, nurses, and police officers about how these challenges keep them up at night.

According to a Fact Sheet provided by the Hillary for America campaign, Hillary will convene a White House Conference on Mental Health during her first year as President. In addition, her comprehensive agenda on mental health will:

  • Integrate our nation’s mental and physical health care systems so that health care delivery focuses on the “whole person,” and significantly enhance community-based treatment opportunities. Hillary’s plan will foster integration between the medical and behavioral health care systems (including mental health and addiction services), so that high-quality treatment for behavioral health is widely available in general health care settings. Hillary will expand reimbursement structures in Medicare and Medicaid for collaborative care by tasking the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to create and implement new such payment models.
  • Promote early diagnosis and intervention, including launching a national initiative for suicide prevention. The overall rate of suicide increased by 24 percent between 1999 and 2014, and is now at its highest level in 30 years. Hillary will direct all relevant federal agencies, including Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Education, to research and develop plans for suicide prevention in their respective settings, and create a cross-government initiative headed by the Surgeon General to coordinate these efforts. She also believes we must redouble our efforts around early screening and intervention – and that means training pediatricians, teachers, school counselors, and other service providers throughout the public health system, to identify mental health problems at an early age and recommend appropriate support.
  • Enforce mental health parity to the full extent of the law. The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, which Hillary co-sponsored, requires that mental health benefits under group health plans be equal to benefits for other medical conditions, and the Affordable Care Act requires insurance plans in the individual and small group markets to offer mental health coverage as an essential health benefit. But while the right laws are on the books, they are too often ignored or not enforced. As part of her commitment to fully enforcing the mental health parity law, Hillary will launch randomized audits to detect parity violations, and increase federal enforcement. She will also enforce disclosure requirements so that insurers cannot conceal their practices for denying mental health care and strengthen federal monitoring of health insurer compliance with network adequacy requirements.
  • Improve criminal justice outcomes by training law enforcement officers in crisis intervention, and prioritizing treatment over jail for low-level offenders. As many as 1 in every 10 police encounters may be with individuals with some type of mental health problem, and our county jails today house more individuals with mental illness than our state and local psychiatric hospitals. She will dedicate new resources to help train law enforcement officers in responding to conflicts involving persons with mental illness, and increase grant funding to support law enforcement partnerships with mental health professionals. She will also increase investments in local programs such as specialized courts, drug courts, and veterans’ treatment courts, which send people to treatment and rehab instead of the criminal justice system, and direct the Attorney General to issue guidance to federal prosecutors, instructing them to prioritize treatment over incarceration for low-level, non-violent offenders. Finally, she will work to strengthen mental health services for incarcerated individuals and ensure continuity of care so that they get the treatment they need, which will improve outcomes for them after they reenter society and will reduce recidivism.
  • Improve access to housing and job opportunities. As president, Hillary will expand community-based housing opportunities for individuals with mental illness and other disabilities. Hillary will launch a joint initiative between the Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and HHS to create supportive housing opportunities for thousands of people with mental illnesses and disabilities, who currently reside in or are at risk of entering institutional settings. The employment rate for people with serious mental illness is below 20 percent, even though many of these adults want to work and more than half could succeed with appropriate job supports. Hillary will work with private employers and state and local mental health authorities to share best practices around hiring and retaining individuals with mental health problems, and in adopting supported employment programs. She’ll also expand HHS’s “Transforming Lives Through Supported Employment” program, which already assists states and communities in providing supported jobs to people with mental illness.
  • Invest in brain and behavioral research and developing safe and effective treatments. Hillary believes we need a pioneering, multi-sector effort to transform our knowledge of this field—from mapping the human brain to generating new insights into what drives our behavior to investing in clinical and services research to understand the interventions that work best and how to deliver them to patients. As president, Hillary will significantly increase research into brain and behavioral science research. She will provide new funding for the National Institutes of Health; build on cross-collaborative basic research efforts like the BRAIN initiative; scale up critical investments in clinical, behavioral, and services research; and integrate research portfolios with pioneering work on conditions like PTSD and traumatic brain injury already underway at DoD, the VA, and HHS. She will develop new links with the private and non-profit sectors to ensure that federal government efforts are aligned with those of other sectors to ensure that progress occurs as quickly as possible. She will also commit to brain and behavioral science research based on open data.

The full comprehensive proposal is available on HillaryClinton.com here.

Election 2016, Immigration-Migration-Refugees, Presidential Politics

As Trump Attempts to ‘Clarify’ Signature Immigration Policy, Clinton Agrees has Remained Same: Inhumane, Undoable, UnAmerican

Hillary for America campaign blasts Donald Trump’s charade to “soften” stance on immigration, stating, “as Trump attempts to distract from his bigotry and disguise his dangerous ideas, he and his own campaign have continued to reaffirm that the defining policy proposal of his candidacy remains the same as it's always been: forcibly remove 16 million people from this country.”
Hillary for America campaign blasts Donald Trump’s charade to “soften” stance on immigration, stating, “as Trump attempts to distract from his bigotry and disguise his dangerous ideas, he and his own campaign have continued to reaffirm that the defining policy proposal of his candidacy remains the same as it’s always been: forcibly remove 16 million people from this country.”

After a whirlwind visit to Mexico to meet with President Peña Nieto, Donald Trump is slated to give a speech on immigration which is supposed to clarify what policy he might implement as President, after a week of attempting to couch his extreme policies in “softened” rhetoric.

“But make no mistake: Trump will always be Trump, and he is the same today as he was on the first day of his presidential campaign,” the Hillary for America campaign stated.”At his campaign launch, he stood in Trump Tower and told the world that, when it comes to immigrants from Mexico, ‘they’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.’

“From the first days of his campaign, Donald Trump has painted Mexicans as ‘rapists’ and criminals and has promised to deport 16 million people, including children and U.S. citizens. He has said we should force Mexico to pay for his giant border wall.  He has said we should ban remittances to families in Mexico if Mexico doesn’t pay up. What ultimately matters is what Donald Trump says to voters in Arizona, not Mexico, and whether he remains committed to the splitting up of families and deportation of millions.”  

The HFA campaign continued, “While Trump may try to disguise his plans by throwing in words like ‘humane’ or ‘fair,’ the reality is that Trump’s agenda echoes the extreme right’s will – one that is fueling a dangerous movement of hatred across the country.

“So as Trump attempts to distract from his bigotry and disguise his dangerous ideas, he and his own campaign have continued to reaffirm that the defining policy proposal of his candidacy remains the same as it’s always been: forcibly remove 16 million people from this country.”

The campaign wants to remind voters of Trump’s position on immigration, and also state Clinton’s position, which has been “pants-on-fire” mischaracterized by Trump as “open-borders” but is a detailed plan for comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path for legalization and keeping families together:

TRUMP: “I don’t think it’s a softening… I’ve had people say it’s a hardening, actually.” [Anderson Cooper 360, CNN, 8/25/16]

  • TRUMP:“I will tell you we are tougher maybe than ever in a certain respect.” [NH1 News, 8/25/16]

Vice Presidential Nominee Mike Pence: “Nothing has changed about Donald Trump’s position on dealing with illegal immigration… It is going to be fair. It is going to be tough. But there will be no path to legalization, no path to citizenship unless people leave the country.” [State of the Union, CNN, 8/28/16]

Campaign Manager Kellyanne Conway: “It is this week what it’s always been.” [New Day, CNN, 8/25/16]

  • Conway:“He’s said no path to legalization, no path to citizenship and no amnesty. You can return home, and if you would like to go stand in line, like everybody else is… stand in line, wait your turn, go through the normal courses. Then that would be evaluated on a case by case basis.” [Good Morning America, ABC, 8/26/16]

Campaign Spokeswoman Katrina Pierson: “…he hasn’t changed his position, he has changed the words that he is saying.” [New Day, CNN, 8/25/16]

  • Pierson:“There is not a different message. He is using different words to give the message, because everyone on the news is saying that he is a bigot and that he is a racist because of the words he uses.” [New Day, CNN, 8/25/16]

Rick Perry: “Donald Trump is not softening his position on immigration.” [Fox & Friends, FOX, 8/30/16]

Donald Trump Jr.: “He wasn’t softening on anything. He didn’t change his stance on anything.” [CNN, 8/30/16]
No matter who surrounds Trump, his hateful rhetoric about immigrants and dangerous policies remain. He would deport an estimated 16 million, including every single undocumented immigrant and U.S. citizens born here to undocumented parents…

TRUMP: “We’re going to take people that are here illegally, and we’re going to move them out. Got to move them out. We’re a country of laws, and we’ve got to remain that way.” [Florida GOP Sunshine Summit, Orlando FL, 11/13/15]

TRUMP: “We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally. They will go out.” [Republican Primary Debate, Houston TX, 2/25/16]

TRUMP: “We’re going to keep the families together… but they have to go,” [Meet the Press, 8/16/16]
Send a deportation force into schools, workplaces and homes in communities across America…  

TRUMP: “You’re going to have a deportation force, and you’re going to do it humanely…’” [Washington Post, 11/11/15]

TRUMP: “We’re rounding them up in a very humane way, in a very nice way. And they’re going to be happy because they want to be legalized. And, by the way, I know it doesn’t sound nice, but not everything is nice, somebody has to do it.” [60 Minutes, CBS, 9/27/15]

TRUMP: “You know if you back to the early 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower… he moved out 1.5 million people and brought them back to where they came from. They were here illegally. I think — it really does have big precedent.” [Hannity, Fox News, 11/10/15]

TRUMP: “…Eisenhower had the exact same situation and he moved out one and a half million people and very few people talked about it and it was a tough situation, but what he did is he did it. And, you know, I like Ike.” [Mornings With Maria, 11/6/15]
Rescind DACA and DAPA…

TRUMP: “I will immediately terminate President Obama’s illegal executive order on immigration. Immediately.” [Presidential Announcement Speech, New York NY, 6/16/15]

TRUMP: “I’m also going to cancel all unconstitutional orders, executive orders, you’ve been hearing about that. We have a little bit of an excessive executive order president and empower the rank and file ICE officers and border patrol officers to finally do the jobs that they were meant to do.” [Roast N’ Ride, Des Moines IA, 8/27/16]
End birthright citizenship and deport U.S. citizens…

The Trump Campaign’s report Immigration Reform That Will Make America Great Again calls for an end to birthright citizenship, saying it “remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration.”

Sean Hannity: “One of the important aspects when you hear about his plan — you hear about his plan you hear about visas, you hear about people overstaying them. You hear, for example, no birth-right citizenship, correct?”

TRUMP: “Right.” [Hannity Town Hall, Fox News, Austin TX, 8/24/16]

Bill O’Reilly: “But here is a scenario, ok?  Illegal immigrant mother and father living in Los Angeles, two children who are American citizens, born here.  If you’re president do you order authorities to take that family into custody?”

TRUMP: “We have no choice.  I’m sorry, Bill.  We have to bring them out.” [O’Reilly Factor, Fox News, 8/24/15]
Subject all immigrants to religious tests and ban the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims from entering the country…

“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” [Donald Trump Press Release, 12/7/15]

TRUMP: “Take a look at [FDR’s] presidential proclamations back a long time ago, 2525, 2526, 2527. What he was doing with Germans, Italians, and Japanese because he had to do it.” [Trump on Morning Joe, NBC News, 6/27/16]

TRUMP: “On immigration, we will temporarily suspend immigration from any place where adequate screening cannot be performed. Extreme vetting. Remember. Extreme vetting. All applicants for immigration will be vetted for ties to radical ideology, and we will screen out anyone who doesn’t share our values and love our people.” [Trump Campaign Speech, Charlotte NC, 8/18/16]
And build a giant concrete wall along our southern border.

TRUMP: “We’re going to build a wall. It’s going to be a real. It’s going to be a wall that is powerful and that people aren’t going to be going under or up or around or anything else.” [Erin Burnett Outfront, CNN, 11/12/15]

TRUMP: “It’ll be a real wall… I think the height could be 35 to 45 feet. That’s a good height.” [Hannity Town Hall, Fox News, Austin TX, 8/24/16]
What’s more, Trump has deployed lie after lie about Hillary Clinton’s plan for comprehensive immigration reform in an attempt to deceive and exploit voters so they buy into his dark, dystopian, and fabricated view of immigration in America.

Washington Post’s Fact Checker – “Four Pinocchios” for Falsely High Crime Statistics: “Trump’s wild rhetoric over deporting all unauthorized immigrants for bringing crimes like murder into the U.S. underscores a common public misperception that violent crime is correlated with immigration, especially illegal immigration. He continues to assert that crime is spiking because of illegal immigration, this time in California, but this claim remains unsupported…Four Pinocchios.” [Fact Checker, Washington Post, 5/13/16]

PolitiFact.com – “Pants on Fire” for a False TV Ad: “Trump’s television ad purports to show Mexicans swarming over ‘our southern border.’ However, the footage used to support this point actually shows African migrants streaming over a border fence between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla, more than 5,000 miles away. We rate the claim Pants on Fire.” [Politifact.com, 1/4/16]

Washington Post’s Fact Checker – “Four Pinocchios” for Another False TV Ad – this Time on Social Security: “The Republican presidential nominee makes a bizarre claim that undocumented immigrants will collect Social Security under a Clinton presidency… The broad assertion in this ad is just not supported by facts, and thus earns Four Pinocchios.” [Fact Checker, Washington Post, 8/20/16]

PolitiFact.com – Trump’s Claim “False” That Undocumented Immigrants Will Take Americans’ Jobs: “Trump says Clinton is ‘proposing to print instant work permits for millions of illegal immigrants to come in and take everybody’s jobs, including low-income African-Americans.’… The green cards would be available to students who are already legally in the United States. And given their level of education and expertise, they would not be taking jobs of low-income Americans. Nor is the program aimed at millions of students. We rate the statement False.” [Politifact.com, 8/18/16]

PolitiFact.com – No, Trump, Clinton Will Not Create “Open Borders”:“Trump said Clinton’s immigration platform would ‘create totally open borders.’ This is a huge distortion of Clinton’s proposals… We rate this claim False.” [Politifact.com, 6/23/16]

Clinton Plan for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Governor Mike Pence recently said that there is a very clear contrast between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s immigration policies. He is absolutely correct.

Unlike Trump, Clinton has promised that she will fight for comprehensive immigration reform within her first 100 days that offers a pathway to full and equal citizenship, fixes the family visa backlog, and protects our borders and national security. She will:

  • Fight for comprehensive immigration reform legislation with a path to full and equal citizenship.
  • Defend President Obama’s DACA and DAPA executive actions.
  • Do everything possible under the law to go further to protect families.
  • Conduct humane, targeted immigration enforcement.
  • End family detention.
  • Close private immigrant detention centers.
  • Ensure families can buy into Affordable Care Act exchanges, regardless of immigration status.
  • Promote naturalization.
  • Remove the 3- and 10-year bars to keep families together.

Hillary Clinton: “The truth is, too many people today feel left out and left behind.  That’s not the America we want to be.  Instead of demonizing hard-working immigrant families, we should be giving them a real path to citizenship.” [Clinton Remarks, 1/21/16]

“We won’t be fooled by Trump’s attempts to distract from his bigotry and disguise his dangerous ideas. Donald Trump will be who he has always been: Donald Trump,” the Hillary for America campaign stated.