Attorney General Loretta Lynch Cartoon :-)

The press savors the battle, but is the GOP 'revolt' against Trump overblown?

 

It’s being described as a civil war, a crisis, a meltdown, a totally unraveling of the Republican Party.
The mainstream media are just devouring the feuding and finger-pointing between Donald Trump and the GOP establishment. Some, such as the “Morning Joe” crowd, are even saying that the billionaire could lose the election if he doesn’t solve this problem in the next couple of weeks.
But let me offer a contrary theory: What if the press is overhyping this and it’s not that big a deal?
Things are messy right now, no question about it. The sniping going on between Trump and Paul Ryan hardly creates a picture of party unity. For Trump to float the idea of replacing the House speaker as the convention chairman—and for Ryan to say he’d abide by Trump’s request—shows they’re not just playing pattycake.
But what if Trump can do just fine this fall without the likes of Ryan on board?
That is probably a theoretical question. The Trump camp is confident that, sometime after they meet in Washington on Thursday, the congressman will come around and back Trump, however tepidly.

2016 Election Headquarters

The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →

Trump and his deputies believe there was no way everyone in the party would be holding hands within days and find the civil war narrative way overblown. Other Republicans are backing the real estate mogul, with some names yet to be announced.
“It's a healing process that will happen over time and frankly the media's expectations that the day after the Indiana primary and everybody got out of the race everything was going to come together in one moment, it was unrealistic,” convention manager Paul Manafort said on “Fox News Sunday.”  
The story is tailor-made for the press because every day that another Republican lawmaker or honcho says no way to Trump generates fresh national and local headlines. Now that Jeb Bush, George W. Bush and their dad have landed in the #NeverTrump camp, along with Lindsey Graham, others are piping up as well.
By the way, why doesn’t the press mention that Jeb and Graham are breaking the pledge they took to support the Republican nominee? Had Trump broken the pledge he eventually signed, it would be the lead story for a week.
In cold, calculating terms, how many votes would Ryan actually affect? He was, after all, part of the losing Romney ticket four years ago.
It’s not so much Ryan himself as the vision of Republicanism that he represents and that other House conservatives support. The speaker and the nominee have wide differences on immigration, trade policy and entitlement programs. 
These can always be papered over, as politicians are wont to do, but there is no way that Trump can back down from his core positions without alienating the 10 million Republicans who voted for him. He is adjusting his rhetoric on taxing the rich and the minimum wage, but that is part of the pivot toward the center that most nominees make.
Besides, does anyone really buy the empty ritual when a Rick Perry, who called Trump a “cancer on conservatism,” or a Bobby Jindal, who called him “a narcissist and an egomaniac,” now says he’s their man?
Jeb Bush did so poorly in the primaries, and Graham even worse, that I’m not sure how much their support would mean. As for the two former presidents, Trump has run explicitly against W’s Iraq war and even brought up 9/11.
More important, Trump campaigned against the Bush brand of conservatism and the incompetent leaders of both parties. That proved a powerful outsider message in a year when so many Americans are disgusted by the political system.
Obviously, Trump can’t win in November without attracting the votes of some Democrats and independents, and he can’t win with a completely fractured party.
But as more Republicans face the prospect of a Hillary Clinton administration, they may come around to Trump and the current feuding could fade. If not, Donald Trump is in for a long six months.

Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.

Former Facebook staffers say conservative news is deliberately suppressed

I hope not.

Facebook is being accused of fiddling with its formulas to suppress conservative news.
That’s what some unnamed former Facebook contractors told the tech site Gizmodo—and it’s an accusation that strikes at the heart of the social network’s credibility.
Facebook relies on computer algorithms to determine what is “trending,” an influential designation that inevitably boosts traffic for what are deemed the hottest topics. But unbeknownst to much of the public, Facebook hires journalists to tweak these formulas, and this is where the question of political bias has erupted.
Gizmodo reports that Facebook “routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers,” according to a former journalist who worked on the trending designations. And several former Facebook “news curators” told the website that they were told to “inject” certain topics into the trending list, even if they weren’t popular enough to warrant making the crucial list.
Depending on who was on duty, said the unnamed conservative ex-curator, citing fear of retribution from the company, “things would be blacklisted or trending … I’d come on shift and I’d discover that CPAC or Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn’t be trending because either the curator didn’t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against Ted Cruz.”
Facebook denies any political bias. A spokesperson said in a statement: “We take allegations of bias very seriously. Facebook is a platform for people and perspectives from across the political spectrum. Trending Topics shows you the popular topics and hashtags that are being talked about on Facebook. There are rigorous guidelines in place for the review team to ensure consistency and neutrality. These guidelines do not permit the suppression of political perspectives.”
The Gizmodo account is based on interviews with a handful of ex-employees who chose to remain anonymous and could be pushing their own views. Other former curators told Gizmodo they did not consciously make biased judgments on trending topics, and no one is alleging that Facebook management ordered such actions.
But as Facebook has mushroomed into a mighty media force, one that has content-sharing arrangements with major news organizations, Mark Zuckerberg has always cast his global operation as a neutral platform. If there is a cooking of the digital books that penalizes conservatives, Facebook could face a considerable backlash.  
A former curator gave Gizmodo notes he had made of stories that were omitted from trending topics. These included the allegations that former IRS official Lois Lerner improperly scrutinized conservative groups, and stories involving Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, the Drudge Report and Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who was killed three years ago.
All this, said the unnamed curator, “had a chilling effect on conservative news.”
The sources also told Gizmodo that stories reported by such conservative-leaning news outlets as Breitbart, the Washington Examiner and Newsmax, which were trending enough to be picked up by Facebook’s algorithm, were excluded unless so-called mainstream sites like the New York Times, CNN and the BBC followed up on those stories.
Facebook’s political stance has been called into question during the presidential campaign.
Zuckerberg, the company’s founder and CEO, took an obvious shot at Donald Trump last month, saying: “I hear fearful voices calling for building walls and distancing people they label as ‘others.’ I hear them calling for blocking free expression, for slowing immigration, for reducing trade, and in some cases, even for cutting access to the Internet.” Zuckerberg has also signed a legal brief asking the Supreme Court to uphold President Obama’s executive action limiting deportation of illegal immigrants.
And in March, as part of a weekly internal poll, some Facebook employees asked Zuckerberg: “What responsibility does Facebook have to help prevent President Trump in 2017?”
That prompted a statement from Facebook: “We as a company are neutral — we have not and will not use our products in a way that attempts to influence how people vote.”
With more than 1 billion users worldwide, Facebook wields tremendous influence. The controversy over trending topics could cause some users to question whether the social site is subtly tampering with people’s news feeds to promote or minimize certain political stories or viewpoints.

AG Lynch says she cannot make 'prediction' about timing of Clinton probe

Another crooked politician ?

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Monday she could not make any “prediction” about the timing of a final resolution to the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
Asked at a news conference if the clock had run out against taking action against Clinton in light of the advanced election schedule, Lynch replied, "We do all our reviews, investigations of any matter carefully, thoroughly, and efficiently. And when the matter is ready for resolution, a recommendation will be made and we'll come to a decision at that time and I'm not able to give you a prediction. Sorry." 
Lynch had called the press briefing to discuss a DOJ suit against North Carolina – which the department brought quickly, in less than two months - over its transgender bathroom law. The state is also suing the DOJ over the issue.
The FBI's criminal investigation of Clinton's use of a private, unsecured server for government business began about a year ago and is now reported to be entering its final phase with interviews of her closest aides, including Huma Abedin and others.
Two emails from Abedin, and then State Department deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan, containing classified information kick-started the FBI probe, as first reported by Fox News.  Since more than 2100 emails containing classified information were identified, as well as another 22 at the Top Secret level.
Last weekend, on CBS's Face the Nation, Clinton downplayed the FBI criminal probe, stating "I say what I've said now for many, many months. It's a security inquiry. I always took classified material seriously. There was never any material marked classified that was sent or received-- by me. And I-- look forward to this being wrapped up."  
The non-disclosure agreements signed by Clinton in January 2009 when she became secretary of state explicitly say that classification is based on content, not whether it carries a secret or top secret marking.
"As used in this agreement, classified information is marked or unmarked, including oral communications..." the agreement said.
It is the responsibility of the security clearance holder, such as a secretary of state, to recognize classified information and report when it is outside secure channels. 
Asked whether she had been contacted by the FBI, Clinton said, "No one has reached out to me yet, but last summer, I think last August, I made it clear I'm more than ready to talk to anybody, anytime. And I've encouraged-- all of-- you know, my-- assistants and-- to be-- very forthcoming."
However, her spokesman Brian Fallon said on CNN Friday that her lawyer, David Kendall, who handled the plea agreement for former CIA Director General David Petraeus was in constant contact with the Justice Department, leading critics to charge the campaign was splitting hairs. 
"David Kendall is her top counsel and he has been in touch with the Justice Department throughout this review. We've always been very upfront about that," Fallon said in the CNN interview.  
"She said no, because the honest answer is it hasn't happened yet," Fallon said. "But whenever they do, we'll be happy to accommodate that and make it happen."
Last week, Fox News was the first news organization to report that the Romanian Hacker Marcel Lazar, who goes by the moniker "Guccifer," claimed he easily compromised Clinton's personal server in 2013. 
The FBI has not commented publicly on his extradition to the U.S. and any possible intersection with the Clinton email probe. But a review by Fox News found that convicted hackers are generally brought to the U.S. for trial when there is a significant financial fraud, or government computer networks were compromised, and neither was true in Guccifer's case. 
Cyber security expert Morgan Wright said, “If a little Romanian country boy can get into this, then it means that this thing could be gotten into by anybody.”
While the hacker's claims could not be independently verified, three cyber security experts said they are plausible, and the 44-year old Romanian said he was eager to cooperate with US government authorities.

State Department says it can't find emails from Clinton IT specialist

If you lead by example take a look at some of our country's leaders, what a joke.

 

The State Department told the Republican National Committee that it could not find any emails to or from Hillary Clinton's former IT specialist, who managed her private email server before going on to work for the agency, according to a court filing made public Monday. 
The government's revelation in U.S. District Court in Washington came in answer to a lawsuit by the Republican National Committee. The RNC had sued over its public records request for all work-related emails sent to or received by Clinton's former aide, Bryan Pagliano, between 2009 and 2013, the years of Clinton's tenure as America's top diplomat. The lawsuit also pressed for other State Department records from the Clinton era.
The RNC's filing said lawyers for the agency had informed them in discussions that "the State Department has represented that no responsive records exist" for any Pagliano emails. Pagliano was hired at the agency after reportedly setting up Clinton's server in 2009, but the lack of any official State Department emails raises the question whether he limited his email traffic using a private account, much like Clinton did during her four years as secretary, or whether his government emails were deleted.
A State Department official said Monday that the agency possessed emails from Pagliano from the period after Clinton's term had ended, when he continued to work as a technology contractor.
Agency spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau then added Monday evening that some Pagliano emails dating from Clinton's tenure had been recovered from agency officials' files and turned over to other organizations, including Senate investigators.
"We have previously produced through FOIA and to Congress emails sent and received by Mr. Pagliano during Secretary Clinton's tenure," Trudeau said in a public statement. At least one email, which was sent in November 2012 to Clinton from Pagliano -- but possibly from his private email address -- was released as part of 30,000 Clinton emails made public by the agency over the past year.
A spokesman for the RNC said the organization stood by its description of the discussions with lawyers for the State Department. The group said in its filing that "the State Department has represented that no responsive records exist."
Raj Shah, the RNC spokesman, added, "It's hard to believe that an IT staffer who set up Hillary Clinton's reckless email server never sent or received a single work-related email in the four years he worked at the State Department." Clinton's campaign officials declined to comment in response to questions from The Associated Press.
Trudeau said the State Department is working with Congress and several public records requesters to provide relevant material. She also said agency officials continue to search for "Mr. Pagliano's emails, which the department may have otherwise retained." Trudeau also said the department would respond further to the RNC in court.
State Department officials told Senate investigators last year they could not find a file containing Pagliano's work emails during Clinton's tenure, an assertion first reported by Politico.
Fox News reported in March that Pagliano has revealed several details about Clinton's personal email system to investigators, including who had access to it– as well as when and what devices were used. An intelligence source close to the case told Fox News that Pagliano has been a "devastating witness" to Clinton.
The one email sent by Pagliano that surfaced among Clinton's 30,000 emails was sent to Clinton was a November 2012 birthday greeting. He wished her "Happy Birthday Madam Secretary. To many more!"
Pagliano's email address was censored, unlike numerous official State Department addresses that are listed in Clinton's emails -- suggesting he may have sent the message from a private address.
Clinton did not reply directly to Pagliano. Instead, she sent a copy of an email to an aide with the instruction "Pls respond."