Presumptuous Politics

Thursday, May 26, 2016

China and US Trade Cartoons

Republicans seize on State Department audit to challenge Clinton's repeated claims on emails

Republicans jumped on the report by the State Department watchdog accusing Hillary Clinton of flouting federal records rules and cybersecurity guidelines with her use of personal email while secretary of state, saying it showed she was in clear violation of the Federal Records Act and endangered national security.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement Wednesday that the “detailed inquiry by an Obama appointee makes clear Hillary Clinton hasn't been telling the truth since day one and her and her aides' refusal to cooperate with this probe only underscores that fact.”
The forthcoming inspector general audit, a copy of which was obtained Wednesday by FoxNews.com, faults Clinton and her predecessors for poorly managing email and other computer information.
The report says the department was "slow to recognize and to manage effectively the legal requirements and cybersecurity risks associated with electronic data communications." It cites "longstanding, systemic weaknesses" related to communications that started before Clinton's tenure.

Trump, national political director Rick Wiley go separate ways

Donald Trump's presidential campaign announced Wednesday night that it had parted ways with its national political director Rick Wiley just a few months after he was hired.
Trump's campaign said in a statement that Wiley's position was not a permanent one, and thanked him for his service.
"Rick Wiley was hired on a short-term basis as a consultant until the campaign was running full steam. It is now doing better than ever, we are leading in the polls, and we have many exciting events ready to go, far ahead of schedule, while Hillary continues her long, boring quest against Bernie," the statement said. "We would like to thank Rick for helping us during this transition period."
The campaign did not indicate the terms of Wiley's departure, but sources told Politico that Wiley was not responsive to campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and clashed with other Trump campaign officials.
Wiley, who joined the Trump team after previously working for the Republican National Committee, previously told the Associated Press he was "working with the RNC, putting together a state-of-the-art program" with multiple data firms to maintain contact information collected when voters register for tickets to Trump's rallies.
Wiley predicted Trump's campaign would be able to match what "Obama was able to do in 2008."

Audio shows Katie Couric documentary deceptively edited interview with pro-gun activists

The makers of a new Katie Couric documentary on gun violence deceptively edited an interview between Couric and a group of gun rights activists in an apparent attempt to embarrass the activists, an audio recording of the full interview shows.
At the 21:48 mark of Under the Gun a scene of Katie Couric interviewing members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights organization, is shown.
Couric can be heard in the interview asking activists from the group, “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?”
The documentary then shows the activists sitting silently for nine awkward seconds, unable to provide an answer. It then cuts to the next scene. The moment can be watched here:
However, raw audio of the interview between Katie Couric and the activists provided to the Washington Free Beacon shows the scene was deceptively edited. Instead of silence, Couric’s question is met immediately with answers from the activists. A back and forth between a number of the league’s members and Couric over the issue of background checks proceeds for more than four minutes after the original question is asked.
Under the Gun bills itself as a documentary that “examines the events and people who have kept the gun debate fierce and the progress slow, even as gun deaths and mass shootings continue to increase.”

Trump admits using aliases, denies posing as own spokesman

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump admitted Wednesday to using aliases during his business career, but denied posing as his own spokesman in a recently-released recording.
"You know, over the years I've used aliases," Trump said on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live", an appearance that capped a day of campaigning in Southern California. When asked by Kimmel what aliases he'd used, Trump volunteered Barron, which is also the name of the real estate mogul's youngest son.
"I used an alias in terms of setting up a meeting with Mr. Donald Trump," he said. "And many people in the real estate business do that, you use [an] alias. And you have to, frankly, otherwise they find out it's you and they charge you more money - and nobody wants to pay more money."
Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported that Trump had repeatedly posed as his own PR man during the early 1990s, variously using the aliases "John Miller" and "John Barron". The primary basis for the report was a recorded 1991 phone conversation between a People magazine reporter and "Miller", who described Trump's romantic life in detail. Trump has repeatedly denied being the voice in the recording.
On Wednesday, Trump said he'd used the tactic "especially when I was out in Brooklyn with my father and I'd want to buy something."
"And honestly nobody knew who Trump was at that time, nobody knew me, so it wasn't so much so important," he said. "But I would never want to use my name because you had to pay money for the land. If you're trying to buy land, you use different names."

China reportedly will send nuclear-armed submarines to patrol Pacific

The Chinese military plan to send submarines armed with nuclear weapons to patrol the Pacific Ocean for the first time, according to a published report.
The Guardian, citing Chinese military officials, reports that while the timing for a maiden patrol has not yet been determined, Beijing insists that such an action is inevitable.
The report comes days after U.S. President Barack Obama announced that he had lifted a decades-long arms embargo against Vietnam. Chinese officials publicly praised the move, but an opinion piece in a state-run newspaper warned that any attempt to enlist Vietnam in an effort to contain China "bodes ill for regional peace and stability, as it would further complicate the situation in the South China Sea, and risk turning the region into a tinderbox of conflicts."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry responded Monday by saying that it was China's actions in the South and East China Seas that could create a tinderbox.
"I would caution China to not unilaterally move to engage in reclamation activities and militarization of islands," he said.
The Pentagon says China has reclaimed more than 3,200 acres of land in the southeastern South China Sea and is developing and building military installations on the manmade islands.
As a consequence, the U.S. and Vietnam have steadily strengthened their relationship in recent years, in line with growing Vietnamese concern over Chinese moves to assert its maritime claims.
Despite China and Vietnam being Communist countries, clashes in 1988 over their conflicting claims in the South China Sea killed dozens of people. The tensions reared again in 2014, when China parked an oil rig off Vietnam's central coast, sparking confrontations at sea and deadly anti-China riots in Vietnam.
Last week, the Pentagon said two Chinese fighter jets flew within about 50 feet of a U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane in what was termed an "unsafe intercept."
China responded by demanding that the U.S. end surveillance patrols around the South China Sea, with a foreign ministry spokesman claiming that such missions "seriously endanger Chinese maritime security."
Earlier this month, a U.S. Navy destroyer sailed within 12 miles of China’s Fiery Cross reef, an artificial island made after months of dredging operations. It was the third time the Navy sailed a warship close to a contested Chinese island in what the Pentagon calls “freedom of navigation” operations. Beijing responded by scrambling fighter jets to show its displeasure.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Illegal Alien Voter's Cartoons

This is really funny isn't it?

Democrats reportedly discuss dropping DNC chair Wasserman Schultz

DNC challenger: Debbie Wasserman Schultz should be worried

Democrats on Capitol Hill have discussed the possiblity of removing Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz from her position prior to the party's national convention this summer in Philadelphia.
According to The Hill, some Democrats believe that Wasserman Schultz's ongoing battles with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have made her too divisive a figure to unite the party ahead of this fall's election campaign.
"There have been a lot of meetings over the past 48 hours about what color plate do we deliver Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s head on," one Democratic senator who supports frontrunner Hillary Clinton told The Hill.
"I don’t see how she can continue to the election," the lawmaker added. "How can she open the convention? Sanders supporters would go nuts."
"There’s a strong sentiment that the current situation is untenable and can only be fixed by her leaving," a senior Senate Democratic aide said. "There’s too much water under the bridge for her to be a neutral arbiter."
However, The Hill reported that other senior Democratic senators went on the record to express their support for Wasserman Schultz, with Florida Sen. Bill Nelson flatly say a change at the top is "not going to happen."
On Monday, the DNC announced a deal that limited Wasserman Schultz's role in drafting the party's platform at the convention. Under the agreement, the Clinton campaign got to appoint six members of the 15-member drafting committee, the Sanders campaign picked five, while Wasserman Schultz picked four.
Sanders has repeatedly criticized Wasserman Schultz and the DNC, claiming both are favoring Clinton. He has criticized the party for scheduling debates on weekend nights, for having many closed primaries and for its super delegate system that has helped Clinton pad her lead.
Last week, Wasserman Schultz criticized Sanders' response to actions by his supporters during Nevada's state Democratic convention, calling them anything but acceptable."
In response, Sanders endorsed Wasserman Schultz's primary challenger in Florida's 23rd congressional district and told CNN that if he's elected president, "she would not be reappointed to be chair of the DNC."

Clinton, Trump crank up the vitriol in prelude to November

The crossfire between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton reached new levels of intensity Tuesday in a prelude to their expected November presidential election battle, as the candidates traded blows over everything from past Clinton scandals to claims Trump was rooting for a housing market crash before the recession.
Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, hit the presumptive GOP nominee on his years-old housing comments at a campaign stop earlier Tuesday.
"When he was talking about the possibility of a housing market crash before the Great Recession, he said, ‘I sort of hope that happens,' " Clinton said. "He actually said that, he actually said he was hoping for the crash that caused hard working families in California and across America to lose their homes, all because he thought he could take advantage of it to make some money for himself."
Trump's campaign issued a statement defending his comments, made in the mid-2000s, as the mortgage, then housing bubble began to burst.
"I am a businessman and I have made a lot of money in down markets, in some cases as much as I've made when markets are good. Frankly, this is the kind of thinking our country needs -- understanding how to get a good result out of a very bad and sad situation," Trump said in the statement.
"Politicians have no idea how to do this -- they don't have a clue. I will create jobs, bring back companies and not make it easy for companies to leave.”
The New York real estate mogul has reached the general electorate with a pro-jobs message that in part includes vows to end the kind of international trade deals that have sent U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas.
The exchange between Clinton and Trump came a day after Trump released an incendiary web video that including allegations from two women who accused Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, of sexual assault years ago.
Two polls released this past weekend show Clinton and Trump essentially tied in the White House race.
The Trump campaign on Tuesday also denied claims by Democrats and those of a former adviser that Trump helped pay the mortgage of a woman who years ago accused the former president of sexual assault and was just featured in a scathing Trump campaign video.
"There's no truth to that,” campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks told Fox News, responding to the mortgage claims.
The pushback comes after a Democrat-tied group posted the video and transcript of a February interview in which Trump ally Roger Stone described efforts to financially help Kathleen Willey, who claims former President Clinton groped her in 1993.
The Washington Post also said Monday that Trump, in a recent interview, said the 1993 death of Clinton administration attorney Vince Foster was “very fishy.”
Investigators ruled his death a suicide. But Clinton detractors have suggested the first couple was involved in Foster’s death to hide secrets. Trump, nevertheless, called the allegations of possible foul play “very serious.”

Trump easily wins Washington primary, moves closer to securing GOP nomination

Dr. Carson on why it's time for GOP to unify behind Trump

Facing no active opposition, Donald Trump easily won the Republican presidential primary in Washington state Tuesday, inching him closer to the magic number of 1,237 delegates necessary to wrap up the GOP nomination.
With 70 percent of precincts reporting, Trump had garnered 76 percent of the vote. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich each earned 10 percent of the vote, while retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson earned 4 percent of the vote. In all, approximately 115,000 votes out of 482,000 were cast for former Trump rivals.
Trump's convincing victory came days after Washington state's GOP convention awarded 40 of its 41 elected delegate slots to Cruz supporters. However, under party rules, each delegate is bound to the primary results for the first round of voting at the national convention.
Republicans in Washington were to allocate all 44 delegates to this summer's national convention in Cleveland based on the primary results. Trump had secured at least 27 delegates as of late Tuesday, leaving him 41 short of the number needed to clinch the nomination.
Trump is expected to easily secure the nomination on June 7, when GOP contests are held in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota, with a total of 303 delegates at stake.
Washington has both a presidential primary and a caucus system. But Democrats will ignore the results of Tuesday's primary, which frontrunner Hillary Clinton was projected to win, having chosen to use the party caucus system to allocate their national convention delegates.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders handily won the Washington Democratic caucuses in March, receiving 74 delegates to the national convention in Philadelphia to Clinton's 27.
Cornell Clayton, director of the Foley Institute for Public Policy at Washington State University, said even though the Democratic primary is nothing more than a poll, there's still value for the campaign that prevails.
"They're going to tout this as the will of the people," he said.
Clinton is just 78 delegates short of clinching the Democratic nomination for president. She is on track to do so in early June, even if she loses all the remaining contests.
When superdelegates are included, Clinton has 2,305 delegates and Sanders has 1,539. It takes 2,383 delegates to win the Democratic nomination.
About 1.3 million voters had already sent in their ballots prior to Tuesday's election. Election officials said that as of Tuesday evening, 31 percent of voters have returned their ballot. There are more than 4 million registered voters in Washington state, who can either vote by mail or by dropping their ballot at an election drop box.
The record number of presidential primary ballots counted in Washington was nearly 1.4 million in 2008, according to the secretary of state's office. The record percentage return was 42.6 in 2000. Both of those elections were held in February. Under state law, the presidential primary is held on the fourth Tuesday of May, unless the parties agree to change it, which they did in both of those years.
Last year, Republican Secretary of State Kim Wyman pushed to have this year's primary moved to March, but the move, opposed by Democrats, failed to get the two-thirds vote required by the Presidential Primary Date Selection Committee.
The inevitability of the Republican race doesn't sit well with some voters who say they are not ready to support Trump.
Daniel Emborg said Tuesday he voted for Cruz. Emborg, who was depositing his ballot at a drop box in Everett, said if Trump is the GOP nominee, he will vote for a third-party candidate.
However, Tom Lasswell said he voted for Trump because "you need to instigate change."
"I like Ted Cruz, but I believe Donald Trump can pull this together, and I'm willing to give him a chance," he said.