August 30, 2016

Hillary Clinton Piles Up Research in Bid to Needle Donald Trump at First Debate,

DEBATE PREP -- “Hillary Clinton Piles Up Research in Bid to Needle Donald Trump at First Debate,” by Pat Healy and Matt Flegenheimer on A1 of the NYT: “Hillary Clinton’s advisers are talking to Donald J. Trump’s ghostwriter of ‘The Art of the Deal,’ seeking insights about Mr. Trump’s deepest insecurities as they devise strategies to needle and undermine him in four weeks at the first presidential debate, the most anticipated in a generation. Her team is also getting advice from psychology experts to help create a personality profile of Mr. Trump to gauge how he may respond to attacks and deal with a woman as his sole adversary on the debate stage. They are undertaking a forensic-style analysis of Mr. Trump’s performances in the Republican primary debates, cataloging strengths and weaknesses as well as trigger points that caused him to lash out in less-than-presidential ways …

“‘I believe you can prep too much for those things,’ Mr. Trump said in an interview last week. ‘It can be dangerous. You can sound scripted or phony — like you’re trying to be someone you’re not.’ ... He has been especially resistant to his advisers’ suggestions that he take part in mock debates with a Clinton stand-in. At their first session devoted to the debate, on Aug. 21 at Mr. Trump’s club in Bedminster, N.J., the conservative radio host Laura Ingraham was on hand to offer counsel and, if Mr. Trump was game, to play Mrs. Clinton, said Trump advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the debate preparations were supposed to be kept private. He declined. ... Mr. Trump said in the interview that he would ‘rather not’ attack Mrs. Clinton on personal grounds, including Bill Clinton’s extramarital affairs. ‘If she hits me, though — you have to see what happens,’ Mr. Trump said.” http://nyti.ms/2cnYRSL


http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/playbook/2016/08/scoop-team-trump-gives-republicans-a-look-inside-transition-for-5k-donation-hackers-targeted-arizona-election-system-huma-calls-it-quits-bday-warren-buffett-216115#ixzz4IocbjIWi

August 30, 2016

Team Trump gives Republicans a ‘look inside’ transition for 5K donation

PLAYBOOK SCOOP -- Cash for access to the Trump transition effort -- Gov. Chris Christie is hosting an intimate, 40-person “look inside” the transition effort, but it’ll cost you. The price tag: $5,000 per person. The invitation, which went out this week, invites a small number of Republican insiders to the Bernard’s Inn in Bernards, New Jersey, for the Sept. 15 event, which will run from 8:45 a.m. to 10 a.m. “This will be an inside look on the work underway on planning for the transition,” the invitation reads. The $5,000 donation is to the transition effort -- not the Trump campaign -- and is only disclosed, it says, “within thirty days after the inauguration of the President-elect as President.” Corporate donations are permitted, according to a flier distributed by the transition team.

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http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/playbook/2016/08/scoop-team-trump-gives-republicans-a-look-inside-transition-for-5k-donation-hackers-targeted-arizona-election-system-huma-calls-it-quits-bday-warren-buffett-216115

August 29, 2016

AP chief on patently false Clinton tweet: No regrets!

By Erik Wemple August 29 at 11:46 AM

The Associated Press deserves credit for fighting for six-and-a-half years to get the records of Hillary Clinton’s schedules when she served as secretary of state. The AP also deserves credit for analyzing that information and putting it alongside the database of donors to the Clinton Foundation, the better to sniff out any conflicts of interest. The AP, however, deserves no credit for the false tweet that it used to promote the resulting story, which covered her first two years in office.

Follow

The Associated Press
?@AP

BREAKING: AP analysis: More than half those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary gave money to Clinton Foundation.

RETWEETS 7,817 LIKES 5,979

As the article itself explains, far, far fewer people who met with Clinton when she served as secretary of state made donations to the Clinton Foundation. The AP article excluded all those who worked in the U.S. government and who were representatives of foreign governments. The tweet bypasses that rather critical detail, leaving the impression that Clinton was essentially running the State Department straight out of the offices of the Clinton Foundation. Upon seeing the tweet, the Clinton campaign asked for a correction. It hasn’t come.

Yesterday on his CNN show “Reliable Sources,” Brian Stelter pressed Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of the Associated Press, on the bogus bit of social-media activity. Here’s the key part of the transcript:

STELTER: Really, one of the things that was scrutinized the most was that tweet. Let’s put it back on screen if we can. It suggested that half of the people that she met overall during her State Department time were donors to the Clinton Foundation. Would you agree that tweet was inaccurate?CARROLL: I would say that we’re a lot better at breaking stories and covering news and gathering video and taking photographs than we are on tweets, (INAUDIBLE). This one could have used some precision.
STELTER: Does that mean regret?
CARROLL: No. If we felt it was wrong, we would have taken it down right now.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/08/29/ap-chief-on-patently-false-clinton-tweet-no-regrets/?utm_term=.cb879e095ba0&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1

August 29, 2016

John McCain is in the fight of his political life in the age of Donald Trump

PHOENIX — After 30 years in the Senate, during which he transformed himself from war hero into political icon, John McCain now finds himself in more jeopardy than at any time during his political career. And for much of that, he can blame Donald Trump.

This reelection campaign, his fifth, is forcing the Arizona Republican to do battle on multiple fronts, testing his political dexterity in ways unlike any of his previous races, including two unsuccessful bids for the presidency.

First he must clear his primary Tuesday, a day after he turns 80, against an arch-conservative whose campaign received a late six-figure boost from a Trump donor. Then, assuming he wins the nomination, he must move into a general election just two months away against a well-funded Democrat, U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, whose campaign is wrapping McCain’s support for Trump around the veteran Republican’s neck in a bid to drive up Latino turnout.

McCain insists that he will not alter his high-wire campaign strategy, which basically involves steadfast support for Trump while also reserving the right to regularly criticize the GOP nominee when he does or says something objectionable. But the personal and political antipathy between McCain and Trump has led some experts to suspect that McCain will dump Trump after he secures his party’s nomination Tuesday. The political calculus is that he desperately needs Trump’s voters to win the primary but needs Trump voters and anti-Trump independents to win the general election. McCain says he does not expect to stop supporting Trump before Election Day.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/john-mccain-is-in-the-fight-of-his-life-in-the-age-of-donald-trump/2016/08/29/1e3168ac-6b11-11e6-99bf-f0cf3a6449a6_story.html?wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1

August 29, 2016

One of Trump’s biggest lies is falling apart. So naturally, he’s blaming the media for it.

The Grand Trumpian Immigration Follies of 2016 are set to take another turn: Donald Trump has now announced that he will give a major speech (does any Trump speech fail to merit that label?) on the issue on Wednesday, in which he is expected to finally clarify his stance on mass deportations. Trump veep candidate Mike Pence promised yesterday that Trump would clarify it. But it is more likely that instead of clarifying his stance on mass deportations, Trump will instead try to shift the subject away from them entirely. That’s because Trump’s big lie about mass deportations — i.e., that he would carry them out swiftly and humanely, thus Making America Great Again — is falling apart. And he’s now trying to replace that lie by foregrounding another lie.

Trump previewed his speech at a rally over the weekend, at which he said this:

“In recent days, the media, as it usually does, has missed the whole point on immigration. They have missed the whole point. All the media wants to talk about is the 11 million people — or more, or less, they have no idea what the number is because we have no control over our country; they have no idea what it is — that are here illegally.

“But my priority, and really, it’s for the well-being of everybody, but in particular the 300 million Americans and more, and all of our Hispanic citizens, and all of our African American citizens, legal residents who want a secure border. And I mean secure….my goal is to provide good jobs, and even great jobs, good schools and safety, to every Hispanic community, African American community, in the country….we can’t do that if we don’t secure our border….On Day One, I’m going to begin swiftly removing criminal illegal immigrants from this country.”

The idea that we have “no control” over our border is not true. As Jerry Markon reported, as of one year ago, most available evidence indicated that thanks in part to stepped up border security efforts in recent years, “illegal immigration flows have fallen to their lowest level in at least two decades.” But beyond that, let’s pause to marvel at the spectacle of Trump blaming the media for this focus on mass deportations. That promise has been key to Trump’s candidacy for over a year. As early as August of 2015 Trump was already saying on national television that all undocumented immigrants in this country “have to go.” A month later he said that his plan was to round them up “in a humane way.” A couple months after that Trump indicated that “they’re gonna have to go out,” and if not, “we don’t have a country.” In February of this year Trump said: “We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally. They will go out.”

-snip-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/08/29/one-of-trumps-biggest-lies-is-falling-apart-so-naturally-hes-blaming-the-media-for-it/?tid=pm_opinions_pop_b&utm_term=.67d51bef758c

August 29, 2016

Clinton Rolls Out Policy Plan To Address Mental Health Treatment

Source: Associated Press

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) — Hillary Clinton is rolling out a comprehensive plan to address millions of Americans coping with mental illness, pointing to the need to fully integrate mental health services into the nation's health care system.

Clinton's campaign released a multi-pronged approach to mental health care on Monday, aimed at ensuring that Americans would no longer separate mental health from physical health in terms of access, care and quality of treatment.

The Democratic presidential nominee's agenda would focus on early diagnosis and intervention and create a national initiative for suicide prevention. If elected, Clinton would hold a White House conference on mental health within her first year in office. Clinton's proposal would also aim to enforce mental health parity laws and provide training to law enforcement officers to deal with people grappling with mental health problems while prioritizing treatment over jail for low-level offenders.

"Building on her longstanding commitment to health care for all, Hillary believes everyone should be able to access quality mental health care — without shame, stigma or barriers," said Maya Harris, a senior policy adviser to Clinton's campaign, in a statement.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/hillary-clinton-mental-health-policy-plan

August 29, 2016

RNC Chair: Trump Realizes ‘Degree Of Humanity’ Needed As Election Day Nears

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Sunday that his party’s nominee knows that he must inject a little “humanity” into his rhetoric if he hopes to win the presidency.

MSNBC host Chuck Todd asked Priebus if Donald Trump had recently somewhat moderated his tone on immigration because he realized Latino voters may be put off by his calls to deport undocumented immigrants en masse.

“What I think is that Donald Trump understands that with every position that is taken and as you get closer to the White House, a degree of humanity and decency is part of every decision that needs to be made,” the RNC chair replied. “And I know Donald Trump. I know Donald Trump in private, I talk to him every day,” Priebus continued. “I know what he’s thinking about a lot of these issues and this is a good and decent man that wants to do the right thing and wants to take every position that he’s talking about and pepper it with decency, dignity and humanity.”

Trump and his staffers’ contradictory claims about his immigration policies have sowed confusion over the past two weeks. As of late August he still planned to deport millions of immigrants living without papers and build a wall on the US-Mexico border.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/priebus-trump-degree-humanity-as-president

August 29, 2016

Takeover Complete - Josh Marshall

By JOSH MARSHALL Published AUGUST 29, 2016, 12:35 AM EDT

Over the last few years, as 'government shutdown' went from being a crazy ass thing Newt Gingrich did twenty years ago - never to be tried again - to the top item on the Republican policy agenda, you could hear more and more Republicans saying something like this: We thought it was this great thing that we had our own cable news network as an arm of the GOP or the conservative movement, echoing talking points, spinning the news. But at a certain point we realized Fox News wasn't working for us. We're working for Fox News.

This isn't something I'm fantasizing for effect. It's a real recognition by real, specific people. Not everyone of course. In some ways it comes very much from 'the establishment' : elected leaders, campaign operatives, non-BS-based conservative commentators and intellectuals. They thought Fox News was the media arm or comms department of the GOP. But at some point the GOP, the institutional Republican party, the people who run campaigns, formulate policy or try to enact it, became a junior operational affiliate of Fox News. Whether Fox is principally a hugely profitable media company or an ideological endeavor is largely beside the point: the balance of power had shifted fundamentally. Like in decrepit, fragmenting imperial states where the powers-that-be keep on a powerless nominal emperor because he is so easy and convenient to dominate, a figure like John Boehner was kept at the helm by the fringe figures who had become the dominant force in GOP politics along with Fox News. Of course, that's the conceit of Trumpites and Fox, a populist rebellion against the 'establishment' and 'party elite.' Only that conceit is mainly self-flattery and it obscures the deeper fragmentation and institutional collapse within the GOP.

Several months ago I described the build of 'nonsense debt' and 'hate debt' in the GOP which made Trump's takeover possible. Indeed, whether genuine or merely opportunistic, you now have more than a few Never Trump conservative media personalities stepping forward to explain how the rightwing media echo-chamber created a framework in which you are immediately discredited if you do not subscribe to a series of demonstrably false claims, non-facts and theories. And there you have it: Years of build up of fantastical conspiracy theories, completely unrealistic political goals, all leaving the party ungovernable and vulnerable to a takeover by someone like Donald Trump who was willing to satisfy the demand the institutional GOP had studiously cultivated but was both unwilling and unable to satiate. Will Saletan had an observation several months ago which captures this and which I continue to think is one of most apt insights I've seen into contemporary American politics: the GOP is a failed state and Donald Trump is its warlord.

This isn't just a clever aside. The prism of state failure is actually an apt way to look at the progression of the GOP over the last two decades. Trump isn't the leader of the GOP. He's not trying to be. Historic party leaders - FDR, Reagan, possibly Obama - fuse party coalitions together on new and transformative terms. McCain or Romney may have failed to achieve that goal in its entirety. But Trump hasn't even tried. He's simply taken control of the largest constituency block and decided to rule it as his own. The party's institutional apparatus was too weak to prevent it. Like warlordization in a state collapse context, Trump's action confirms the breakdown of institutional control but also makes recovery and unity even more difficult to recover.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/takeover-complete

August 29, 2016

Why Clinton Republicans matter - By E.J. Dionne Jr.

By E.J. Dionne Jr. Opinion writer

Not since Barry Goldwater’s 1964?campaign has there been such widespread public disavowal by Republicans of their party’s nominee. The Hillary Clinton Republicans will be one of the most important legacies of the 2016 campaigns.

The question is whether they will constitute the forward end of a political realignment, or just a one-time reaction to the unsuitability of Donald Trump for the presidency. Reasons for skepticism about long-term change are rooted in the differences between today’s polarized politics and the more tempered partisanship surrounding the big-bang elections of 1964 and 1980.

In 1964, there was a lively liberal wing of the Republican Party. GOP figures such as Jacob Javits, Clifford Case, Edward Brooke and John Lindsay had far more in common philosophically with Lyndon B. Johnson than they did with Goldwater.

Thus, 1964 was genuinely realigning, setting off the flight of conservative white Southerners from the Democratic Party but also a defection of liberals from the Republican Party. Many (including Lindsay, Javits and Case) were pushed aside in primaries.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-clinton-republicans-matter/2016/08/28/5949cb00-6b9d-11e6-ba32-5a4bf5aad4fa_story.html?utm_term=.7138f9710a64&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

August 29, 2016

Mike Pence wants to keep Syrian refugees out of Indiana. They’re coming anyway.

By Katie Zezima August 28 at 6:08 PM

INDIANAPOLIS — After a terrorist attack in Paris last year carried out in part by Islamist terrorists who masqueraded as migrants, Gov. Mike Pence directed all state agencies to halt the resettlement of Syrian refugees here in Indiana.

Pence is now running on the Republican presidential ticket with Donald Trump, who has called for a temporary ban on Muslims coming into the United States, halting immigration from unspecified countries and sending Syrian refugees back to their war-torn homeland. During the campaign, Pence has also boasted about his move to block refugees in his state. “In Indiana, we suspended the Syrian refugee program .?.?. in the wake of the terrorist attack,” Pence said on CBS’s “60 Minutes” last month. But things did not quite work out the way Pence says they did.

A single family scheduled to come to Indiana was diverted to Connecticut shortly after Pence’s announcement in November. But thanks to a lawsuit and subsequent court ruling overturning Pence’s directive, 140 Syrian refugees have since resettled in Indiana, with more expected in coming weeks. The state’s attorney general also argued in court that the directive “does not purport to preclude any refugees from settling in Indiana.”

“You can’t pick and choose who comes to your state,” said Cole Varga, executive director of Exodus Refugee Immigration, which resettles refugees here. Exodus and the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana sued Pence days after his directive, claiming that the governor did not have constitutional authority to bar people from Indiana. While more than 30 governors have opposed housing Syrian refugees, Pence was the only one to be sued over his edict.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mike-pence-wants-to-keep-syrian-refugees-out-of-indiana-theyre-coming-anyway/2016/08/28/2847f4dc-6576-11e6-8b27-bb8ba39497a2_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1