Crooked Hillary Cartoons

Carlson: Clinton attacks on Trump's economic policies are 'ludicrous'

Clinton attacks Trump

Tucker Carlson told viewers Tuesday on “Special Report with Bret Baier” that it’s “ludicrous” for Hillary Clinton to attack Donald Trump’s economic plans.
“It’s always amazing to watch liberals lecture anyone else on debt,” said Carlson.
Clinton attacked Trump's economic policies during a speech delivered Tuesday.
Carlson explained the irony of the claims Clinton made during her speech.
“The boldest part of this address today was her claim that Trump is somehow a handmaiden to the rich,” said Carlson. “This is someone who’s running to continue Barack Obama’s economic policies, under which 95 percent of economic gains have gone to the top 1 percent.”

After DNC attack, hacker Guccifer 2.0 claims Hillary Clinton 'dossier' leak

A hacker who goes by the name ‘Guccifer 2.0’ claims to have  published a dossier of Hillary Clinton-related documents accessed during the recent attack on the Democratic National Committee’s computers.
In a blog post Tuesday, Guccifer 2.0 described the haul as “a big folder of docs devoted to Hillary Clinton that I found on the DNC server.”
The files include a “HRC Defense Master Doc” outlining criticism and defense points on issues such as U.S. military intervention in Libya, the deadly 2012 Benghazi attack and the Clinton email server controversy.
“The DNC collected all info about the attacks on Hillary Clinton and prepared the ways of her defense, memos, etc., including the most sensitive issues like email hacks,” explained Guccifer 2.0.
The authenticity of the documents is unclear. The DNC has not yet responded to a request for comment on this story from FoxNews.com.
Last week Guccifer 2.0 claimed responsibility for the DNC hack. In a June 15 blog post Guccifer 2.0 touted documents purportedly accessed in the attack, which included opposition research on presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. Guccifer 2.0 also posted files purportedly showing Democratic Party donors and claimed to have extracted thousands of documents from the DNC networks.
Experts have been looking for clues about the mysterious self-described hacker, and suspicions still linger that the Russian government played a role in the hack.

More on this...

• Russian government-affiliated hackers breach DNC, take research on Donald Trump

• Lone hacker claims responsibility for DNC breach, but fingers still point at Russia

Cyber firm CrowdStrike, which is working on the DNC’s investigation into the hack, says the attack was conducted by groups affiliated with the Russian government. CrowdStrike identified the ‘Fancy Bear’ and ‘Cozy Bear’ groups as likely perpetrators.
The company stood by its analysis after Guccifer 2.0 claimed responsibility for the hack. In a blog post June 15 CrowdStrike CTO Dmitri Alperovitch identified “two separate Russian intelligence-affiliated adversaries present in the DNC network in May 2016.”
After studying the DNC malware, Fidelis Cybersecurity backed up CrowdStrike’s analysis. “Based on our comparative analysis we agree with CrowdStrike and believe that the COZY BEAR and FANCY BEAR APT groups were involved in successful intrusions at the DNC,” explained Fidelis Cybersecurity senior vice president Michael Buratowski, in a blog post Monday. “The malware samples contain data and programing elements that are similar to malware that we have encountered in past incident response investigations and are linked to similar threat actors.”
The DNC has also pointed its finger at Russia, but says financial and personal information does not appear to have been accessed by the hackers.
Last week Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Russian government involvement in the DNC hacking incident.

Media freakout over Trump's poor fundraising: How bad is the problem?

The pundits are going nuts over Donald Trump’s anemic fundraising.
They are stunned, shocked and horrified that his campaign raised just $3.1 million last month, and he had to lend the enterprise $2 million to cover costs.
“Trump Starts Summer Push with Staggering Money Deficit,” says the New York Times.
“Trump Getting Crushed by Clinton Money Machine,” says Politico.
“The real estate mogul's meager cash flow spotlighted the urgent need for him to dramatically ramp up the fundraising he is doing in conjunction with the Republican National Committee,” says the Washington Post.
So: The numbers are bad. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. The split in the party means Republican donors are sitting on the sidelines.

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Now the media usually overestimate the importance of money in politics. If big bucks were the determining factor, Jeb Bush, with his $100-billion campaign, would be the nominee.
Much of the money that general election candidates raise goes to TV ads. But the primaries showed that commercials mattered less this cycle than in decades, and with such well-defined nominees, that could again be the case.
And given Trump’s uncanny ability to dominate news coverage, I believe he could beat Hillary Clinton while raising half as much money.
But not while raising one-tenth as much money. His tiny campaign outfit was victorious with a media-driven primary campaign, but you’ve got to have a basic infrastructure to compete in a 50-state election—even on such basics as turning out your voters.
Trump began June with just $1.3 million cash on hand, according to federal reports.
By that measure, Clinton is $41 million ahead. And she raised more than $28 million in May. Her 700-person staff is 10 times the size of Trump’s. Of course, the real estate mogul has boasted to me and others that this means his operation is more efficient.
Trump told the “Today” show that he spent $55 million of his own money in the primaries and “may do that again in the general election,” though it would be “nice to have some help from the party.”
But Trump at one point was talking about having to raise a billion for the general election. He can’t foot that bill himself, even if he has mused about having “to sell a couple of buildings” to come up with some cash. And if he suddenly wrote the campaign a mega-check, wouldn’t that discourage donors from opening their wallets?
Here’s the difference between Trump’s ultra-lean staff, with campaign manager Corey Lewandowski now out, and Clinton’s sizable machine.
The Hillary camp barrages reporters with emails every day, often including negative excerpts about Trump from Republicans and from media reports. Trump, who doesn’t have a communications director, sends occasional emails that sometimes contain statements from the candidate but are mostly about scheduling.
When Clinton decided to give a speech yesterday ripping Trump on the economy, here’s what she did in advance.
Her campaign notified the press of a new website (“Art of the Steal”) with an elaborate attack on Trump’s business record, and posted an online video, which got some cable airtime, attacking that record.
Then the Hillary camp leaked details of the speech, and made Jake Sullivan, her top policy adviser, available to such outlets as the Times, the Post and Politico. Campaign manager Robby Mook previewed the speech on Sirius XM.
That’s what a big campaign apparatus does for you. Trump often seems a one-man band by comparison.
But this time, for the first time I can recall, Trump had a rapid-response operation ready. He fired up a tweetstorm and responded with an Instagram video. And his campaign sent out a barrage of releases.
More important, these statements weren't just insults from Trump, but contained policy arguments on his behalf and against his Democratic opponent. They had titles such as “THE CATASTROPHIC ECONOMIC RECORD UNDER CLINTON-OBAMA POLICIES” and “TRUMP ECONOMIC PLAN WILL CREATE MILLIONS OF JOBS & TRILLIONS IN NEW WEALTH.”
Maybe the campaign is turning a corner. Although the contrast was stark when Trump wanted to promote an address planned for today, doing so with a single tweet: “I will be making a big speech tomorrow to discuss the failed policies and bad judgment of Crooked Hillary Clinton.”
In the end, money isn't all that matters in winning elections. But Trump’s challenge now is to make sure a lack of money doesn’t cripple his campaign.
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. 

Republican senator seeks bipartisan support for gun deal

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine

A moderate Republican senator sought broad bipartisan support Tuesday for a compromise to block gun purchases by some suspected terrorists, a day after the chamber split along party lines to derail far more sweeping proposals.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he would allow a vote on the proposal by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, but stopped short of endorsing the measure itself. The package seemed to face an uphill climb for the 60 votes it would need, thanks to the hurdles of election-year politics and opposition from the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America.
Flanked by eight senators — three Republicans, four Democrats and a Democratic-leaning independent — Collins told reporters that mass shootings in Orlando, Fla., and San Bernardino, Calif., were "a call for compromise, a plea for bipartisan action."
"If we can't pass this, it truly is a broken system up here," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
On Monday, the Senate rejected rival Democratic and Republican proposals for keeping guns from known and suspected terrorists. President Barack Obama criticized the stalemate Tuesday, tweeting: "Gun violence requires more than moments of silence. It requires action. In failing that test, the Senate failed the American people."
The government's overall terrorist watch list has 1 million people on it. Collins' measure would let federal authorities bar gun sales to two narrower groups: the no-fly list with 81,000 people and the selectee list with 28,000 people. Selectees can fly after unusually intensive screening.
All but a combined total of around 2,800 people on those lists are foreigners, who are mostly unable to purchase firearms in the U.S.
Under Collins' proposal, Americans denied guns could appeal their rejections to federal courts. The FBI would be notified if someone who's been on the broader terrorist watch list in the past five years buys a gun, but could not stop the purchase.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., praised lawmakers involved with Collins for having "serious bipartisan talks," but didn't endorse her plan. Other top Democrats seemed to revel in the divisions Collins' proposal were causing between the NRA and the GOP, whose members usually cast strong gun-rights votes.
"What potentially is happening here is Republicans are finally breaking" from the NRA, said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., his chamber's No. 3 Democratic leader. "I'm glad it's happened, whether it's politically advantageous or not."
Prospects for the GOP-run House considering a similar proposal seemed dim. One Republican leadership aide said it would be premature to comment because no bill had been introduced there or passed the Senate. The aide was not authorized to publicly discuss the issue.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said it was too early to say if the administration would back the measure, but said support seemed likely if it would "at least prevent some suspected terrorists from being able to buy a gun."
Chief NRA lobbyist Chris W. Cox criticized Collins' plan, saying, "Keeping guns from terrorists while protecting the due process rights of law-abiding citizens are not mutually exclusive." That seemed aimed at Collins' provision allowing people to appeal to federal courts after they've been denied a gun, not before it happens.
Michael Hammond, legislative director for Gun Owners of America, said Collins' plan "allows a highly politicized official to take away constitutional rights by fiat."