Sunday, June 12, 2016

Paperback version of Clinton's 'Hard Choices’ omits her former TPP trade pact support

The paperback version of Hillary Clinton’s memoir “Hard Choices” fails to include her support of the international trade pact TPP that rivals Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have opposed, raising criticism about Clinton “reinventing herself” for the general election race.
The paperback version of Clinton’s 2014 book, which details her work as secretary of state for President Obama, omits the passage in which she touts her efforts to get the country to support the 12-nation trade deal, which she once referred to as the “gold standard” for such agreements.
“We worked hard to improve and ratify trade agreements with Colombia and Panama and encouraged Canada and the group of countries that became known as the Pacific Alliance -- Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile -- all open-market democracies driving toward a more prosperous future to join negotiations with Asian nations on TPP, the trans-Pacific trade agreement,” Clinton says in the hardback version about a 2009 effort.
However, Clinton changed her position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership in October 2015, about a month after the deal was signed and after weeks of being pressed by the news media for an answer.
A total 96 pages were trimmed from the hardback version. Publisher Simon & Schuster said a “limited number of sections” were cut to “accommodate a shorter length for this edition," according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which reported on the changes shortly after the paperback edition was released in April.
“That Clinton's own memoir is reinventing itself for the general election shows the lengths she will go to mislead the American people," Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Short told DailyMail.com, which along with The International Business Times earlier this week picked up on the changes and reported them.
The Clinton campaign declined Saturday to comment.
The Obama administration says TPP attempts to help American entrepreneurs, farmers and small business owners sell products on the international market by eliminating roughly 18,000 taxes and others “trade barriers” that “put American products at an unfair disadvantage.”
Democratic primary candidate Sen. Bernie Sander has said the deal and its accompanying Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership are “disastrous” and need to be renegotiated -- in large part because of their potential to kill millions of U.S. jobs and negative environmental impact.
Clinton, now the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, also supported the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed by husband President Bill Clinton in the 1990s and criticized by Trump, the GOP’s presumptive nominee.
Trump, a billionaire businessman, says he supports free trade but has been highly critical of the TPP, calling it a “horrible deal” in part because, he argues, it continues to allow such countries as China to continue “currency manipulation.”
“This is one of the worst trade deals,” Trump said during the Fox Business Channel/ Wall Street Journal debate in November 2015. “I’d rather make individual deals with individual countries. We will do much better. ... We’re losing now over $500 billion in terms of imbalance with China.”

Trump's no-apologies campaign tour hits hard on Romney, Warren

Warren

Supposedly Republican Romney.

Donald Trump on Saturday kicked his unapologetic presidential campaign into high gear -- saying he won’t apologize for his personal attacks on Sen. Elizabeth Warren and extending his feud with GOP establishment leader Mitt Romney.

“The guy’s a stone cold loser, a choker,” Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, said about Romney at a rally in Tampa, Fla.
Also on Saturday, Romney, who this weekend is holding an ideas summit in Utah, suggested that Trump’s misogynistic and racially insensitive remarks have opened the door for generations of Americans to engage in similar behavior.
Trump told the crowd of about 5,000 in Tampa that Romney, the GOP presidential nominee who lost to President Obama in 2012, “doesn’t even know what a misogynist is.”
Trump and Warren, a leading progressive voice in the Democratic Party, have attacked each other increasingly in recent weeks, with the exchanges appearing to intensify now that Clinton has become the party’s presumptive presidential nominee.
On Thursday, Warren endorsed Clinton and accused Trump of “race baiting” and using “racism” toward the federal judge of Mexican heritage who is presiding over a civil fraud suit against the Trump University real estate school.
Trump has suggested the American-born judge won’t give him a fair trial, considering Trump’s disparaging comments about Mexican immigrants.
Trump has not apologized to the judge, despite widespread calls for him to do so.
On Saturday, Trump sarcastically suggested he’ll apologize for referring to Warren as “Pocahontas,” in response to Warren apparently attempting to use Native American heritage to further her academic and political career.
Trump said he’d apologize because his name calling “is an insult to Pocahontas, not Warren.”
Romney, at his summit Saturday in Park City, likened the impact of Trump's words to former President Bill Clinton’s sexual “dalliances in White House,” which he said have “impacted generations.”
“Now we have kids in elementary schools joking about the size of their hands,” Romney said about one Trump comment, in a question-and-answer session with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Romney, nevertheless, credited Bill Clinton with correctly articulating that a candidate’s views on jobs and the economy largely decide elections when Clinton said: “People vote with their pocketbooks.”
He appeared to give a mixed message about how he’ll deal with Trump through November, saying he’s not going to spend the next six months arguing his point of view.
“I’m not going to be an attack dog,” said Romney, who then made clear that he’ll call out Trump for comments with which he does not agree.
Trump, who also held a rally Saturday in Moon Township, Pa., told supporters that former GOP House Speaker Rep. Newt Gingrich, Alabama GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions and former Secretary of State Condleezza Rice appear popular choices to be his running mate.
He dismissed Clinton’s recent line of attack that he lacks the temperament to be president and said, “She’s got the bad temperament.”
Trump said the recent tell-all book by a former Secret Service agent referred to the former first lady as a “total mess.”
“We need strong temperament,” Trump said. “I have a strong temperament.”

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Harry Reid Cartoons (Dumb Democrat)

Reid accuses GOP senator of 'praying' for Obama's death

At left, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid; at right, Sen. David Perdue.

As if the 2016 cycle couldn’t get any uglier, a nasty war of words broke out Friday when Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid accused a Republican senator of “praying” for President Obama’s death.
The allegations followed Georgia Sen. David Perdue’s remarks Friday to a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington.
“We are called to pray for our country, for our leaders, and yes, even our president,” Perdue said. “I think we should pray for Barack Obama.”
He added, “We need to be very specific about how we pray. We should pray like Psalms 109:8 says. It says, 'Let his days be few, and let another have his office.'”
Reid spokeswoman Kristen Orthman let Perdue have it, claiming he had just issued a call to prayer for Obama’s demise – as opposed to the end of his term.
“If Republicans are still wondering why Donald Trump is their nominee, look no further than today’s Faith and Freedom conference where a sitting Republican Senator left the impression he was praying for the death of President Obama and then the Republican Leader followed him on stage and did not condemn him,” she said in a statement.
Perdue’s office rejected the allegation.
Megan Whittmore said in a statement: "Senator Perdue said we are called to pray for our country, for our leaders, and for our president. He in no way wishes harm towards our president and everyone in the room understood that. However, we should add the media to our prayer list because they are pushing a narrative to create controversy and that is exactly what the American people are tired of."
Perdue was speaking at the same Washington conference that Donald Trump addressed Friday afternoon.
In the remarks, he made clear he was joking. “In all seriousness, I believe that America is at a moment of crisis,” he added.
He did not recite the next lines of Psalm 109, which are: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”
Asked later at Friday's briefing whether the senator should apologize, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said: “As Senator Perdue considers whether or not an apology is appropriate, there are a variety of other Scripture he might consult.”

School rejects teen's gun-toting, flag-waving photo

Joshua Bruner (Courtesy of Joshua Bruner)

Joshua Bruner is a real-life Captain America.
The 15-year-old country boy from Ringoes, New Jersey is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association. He’s a member of two state shooting teams and he serves as a United States Sea Cadet.
Darcy Meys said her son wants to follow in his great-grandfather’s footsteps and enlist in the Marines.
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“Josh considers himself to be a patriot,” she told me. “He loves his country.”
A few weeks ago Josh was given an assignment in a photography class at Hunterdon Central Regional High School. He had to take a self-portrait representing self-expression.
So Josh and some of his buddies gathered in a field behind his house and set up a tripod – striking their best male model poses.
Josh climbed atop a four-wheeler. He was holding Old Glory in one hand and a shotgun in the other – a Remington pump action 12-gauge to be precise.
It was, by all accounts, an epic picture that summed up the heart and soul of this teenage patriot.
Now, at Hunterdon Regional kids have to upload their assignments to the school’s Google site. And that’s when Josh learned there was a problem.
Click here to get your primer on how to restore traditional American values!
His self-portrait was rejected because it violated the school’s gun policy.
“The rules of our school prohibit students from using artwork depicting themselves or another person with any weapon,” the teacher wrote to Mrs. Meys.
Mrs. Meys told me she looked at the school policy and she believes it was referring to actual guns on school property – not a photograph of a gun taken on private property.
“Josh was just showing pride for his country and who he is as a shooter and as a kid who wants to be in the Marines and protect his country and follow in his grandfather’s footsteps,” she told me. “He was not dressed inappropriately. He was not holding the gun incorrectly and He was respecting the flag.”
The school decided to offer Josh a compromise, according to email correspondence between his mother and the teacher.
But it’s really not much of a compromise.
The school agreed to grade Josh’s photograph – but they were adamant that it could not be uploaded onto the school’s server nor could it be publicly displayed.
“He will not be able to upload the image to our server, post them to his Google site or display them in his presentation,” the teacher wrote. “We would like to recognize his work on the portrait but limit the possibility that the photo can be taken out of context.”
Good Lord! It’s not pornography, people. It’s a kid holding Old Glory and a shotgun.
“They are crushing his spirit,” Mrs. Meys told me. “They are stifling his creativity.”
And for that matter – they are in effect telling this child that he cannot take pride in who he is – his identity as an American.
“If it is okay for people to show pride in their sexuality, why can’t my son show pride in his country,” she asked.
I know the answer to that question. These days Gay Pride is in vogue and American Pride is passe.
“I’m supposed to accept guys going into bathrooms with my daughters and girls going into bathrooms with my boys but they won’t accept my kid for just wanting to be a patriot,” she said.
In this age of tolerance and diversity it’s too bad our public school system can’t be more tolerant of red-blooded American patriots like Josh Bruner.

Board of Education: Hunterdon Central RegionalHigh School

Deborah Labbadia, President
Readington Township
dlabbadia@hcrhs.org

Kathy Raborn, Vice President
Raritan Township
kraborn@hcrhs.org

Lori Blutfield
Readington Township
lblutfield@hcrhs.org

John Cannizzaro
Raritan Township
jcannizzaro1@hcrhs.org
James Davidson
East Amwell Township
jdavidson@hcrhs.org
Patrick Dugan
Raritan Township
pdugan@hcrhs.org
Robert McNally
Flemington Borough
robert.mcnally@hcrhs.org
Karen Palestini Falk
Delaware Township
kfalk@hcrhs.org
Vincent Panico
Readington Township
vincent.panico@hcrhs.org

Jury finds Alabama House Speaker guilty on 12 ethics charges

Mike , center, and Susan Hubbard walk to the Lee County Justice Center for closing arguments in the Alabama House Speaker's Trial on Friday, June 10, 2016, in Opelika, Ala.

OPELIKA, Ala. – A jury on Friday found Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard guilty on 12 counts of public corruption — agreeing with prosecutors' assertions that the Republican used the power and prestige of his political offices to benefit his companies and clients.
The panel acquitted Hubbard on the remaining of the 23 charges he was facing. He talked briefly with his attorneys before a deputy escorted him out of the courtroom.
The verdict came after weeks of mostly reluctant testimony from Hubbard's inner circle and a roster of the state's business and political elite, including Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and former Gov. Bob Riley. Hubbard, 54, has described Riley as a father figure and political mentor, and named his younger son after him.
Prosecutors accused Hubbard of using his political offices, as speaker and as former chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, to try to obtain $2.3 million in work and investments. The charges included that he directed GOP campaign work to his printing company; solicited investments and help to find employment from lobbyists and company executives; and used the power of his office to benefit his clients through legislative action or lobbying the governor's office. Hubbard argued the transactions were legal and within the bounds of the state ethics law and its exemptions for normal business dealings and friendships. His defense noted that the transactions involved people who were long-time friends.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers gave jurors dueling portraits of Hubbard, a man who helped guide Republican's rise to prominence in Alabama.
Defense lawyer Bill Baxley told jurors that Hubbard took care not to run afoul of state ethics law and asked advice from the then-director of the Alabama Ethics Commission.
Prosecutor Matt Hart depicted Hubbard as a conniving politician who seized at opportunities to make money through his political party work and elected office.
The trial accused Hubbard of violating a state ethics law he once championed after leading Republicans' rise to legislative power.
Hubbard was the general of Republicans' 2010 offensive to win control of the Alabama Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. After the victory, Hubbard was elected speaker and the new GOP-controlled legislature approved revisions to the state's ethics law in a special session called by Riley.
Hubbard took the witness stand in his own defense at the trial.
Hubbard faces up to 20 years in prison for each ethics count. Sentencing is set for July 28.

Did the KGB breach Hillary Clinton's server?

EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton, from the moment her exclusive use of personal email for government business was exposed, has claimed nothing she sent or received was marked classified at the time.
But a 2012 email released by the State Department appears to challenge that claim because it carries a classified code known as a “portion marking” - and that marking was on the email when it was sent directly to Clinton’s account.
The “C” - which means it was marked classified at the confidential level - is in the left-hand-margin and relates to an April 2012 phone call with Malawi's first female president, Joyce Banda, who took power after the death of President Mutharika in 2012.
"(C) Purpose of Call: to offer condolences on the passing of President Mukharika and congratulate President Banda on her recent swearing in."
Everything after that was fully redacted before it was publicly released by the State Department -- a sign that the information was classified at the time and dealt with sensitive government deliberations.
A US government source said there are other Clinton emails with classified markings, or marked classified, beyond the April 2012 document.
A January 2014 federal government training manual, called "Marking Classified National Security Information," provides a step-by-step guide for reviewing classified information, and allocating classified codes or "portion markings."
"This system requires that standard markings be applied to classified information...Markings shall be uniformly and conspicuously applied to leave no doubt about the classified status of the information, the level of protection required, and the duration of classification."
It adds, "A portion is ordinarily defined as a paragraph, but also includes subjects, titles, graphics, tables, charts, bullet statements, sub-paragraphs, classified signature blocks, bullets and other portions within slide presentations, and the like."
"Portion markings consist of the letters “(U)” for Unclassified, “(C)” for Confidential, “(S)” for Secret, and “(TS)” for Top Secret."
Congressman Mike Pompeo, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, has read the 22 Top Secret emails too damaging to national security to release, and routinely reviews classified documents.
While he could not speak directly to the April 2012 email, he said, "I've seen information like that often. Often certain parts of a particular message will be unclassified and other parts will be classified and they are almost always marked paragraph by paragraph."
Pompeo added, “If, in fact, it is truly marked confidential that would.. and she read it, that made it to her, that would conflict with what she had previously said."
On Wednesday, Clinton told Bret Baier on Special Report, “the fact is, nothing that I sent or received was marked classified, and nothing has been demonstrated to contradict that. “
Meantime, Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal, who spoke to Fox News as part of a book tour to promote his new biolgraphy, "A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1849,"said that the Romanian hacker known as Guccifer -- who claimed to breach Clinton's personal server - may have worked for foreign intelligence.
"Marcel Lazar is a Romanian. He worked from a Russian server. He may well be part of a Russian information operation," Blumenthal explained.
While he said there's no way Lazar compromised Clinton's emails, the hacker told Fox News in a telephone interview before reaching a plea deal with the Justice Department that it was "easy for me, for everybody” to access the Clinton server.
Given more than 2,100 classified emails were on the server, Fox asked Blumenthal if he had a security clearance to handle such material. "I was her friend, and I had no security clearance, nor did I seek it, nor did anyone ever send me anything that was classified. So I had no access to, nor did I send or receive any classified material."
Blumenthal said he expects FBI Director James Comey to publicly confirm that Clinton and her aides did not deliberately compromise the nation's secrets.
"This is the question that is at the center of the Department of Justice FBI investigation: Whether anybody had intent, criminal intent to put classified information outside of the system. I believe that was not the case, and I think then, that we will see a statement coming from the FBI stating that, saying that... I assume that the FBI has an interest in - James Comey, the FBI Director has an interest in acting promptly to resolve this remaining question. But I feel confident about the resolution, " Blumenthal said.
Asked about the April 2012 email, and how the campaign could reconcile the classified marking with Clinton’s public statements, spokesman Brian Fallon did not directly address the issue. "This email was just a request for Secretary Clinton to make a phone call to express condolences over the passing of the President of Malawi. The fact that this email was classified after the fact suggests again that agencies in the government tend to err on the side of classifying even routine matters of diplomacy."

Trump, Clinton clash in dueling DC speeches

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, now at the starting line of a general election race, traded shots across the capital Friday in dueling addresses before two very different D.C. audiences -- each warning the other would take the country backward.
Trump headlined the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” summit while Clinton addressed a Planned Parenthood national conference.
Trump, looking to solidify his standing with evangelical Christians, offered assurances Friday that he would “restore respect for people of faith” -- and stressed the “sanctity and dignity of life.”
If there was any doubt he wanted to throw Clinton's Planned Parenthood speech into sharp relief, he took on his presumptive rival later in his remarks. Trump warned Clinton would "appoint radical judges," eliminate the Second Amendment, "restrict religious freedom with government mandates," and "push for federal funding of abortion on demand up until the moment of birth."
He also cast her support for bringing in Syrian refugees as a potential clash of faiths. "Hillary will bring hundreds of thousands of refugees, many of whom have hostile beliefs about people of different faiths and values," he said.
Clinton, meanwhile, in her first speech as the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, said a Trump presidency would take the country back to a time “when abortion was illegal … and life for too many women and girls was limited.”
Clinton thanked the nonprofit women’s health group and abortion provider for their support in the Democratic primary race. In January, Planned Parenthood backed Clinton, offering its first-ever primary endorsement in the group’s 100-year history.
Clinton made it clear that women’s issues would be a staple of her campaign, promising abortion rights supporters that she would “always have your back” if elected president.
Clinton repeated claims that Trump wants to “take America back to a time when women had less opportunity” and freedom.
“Well, Donald, those days are over. We are not going to let Donald Trump -- or anybody else -- turn back the clock,” she told the cheering crowd.
Before arriving at the event, Clinton held a private meeting at her D.C. home with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has been rumored to be a consideration for running mate.
Echoing some of the attacks Warren has made in recent days, Clinton attempted to elevate the importance of this election.
“We are in the middle of a concerted, persistent assault on women’s health across the country,” warned Clinton, who said the 2016 election was “profoundly different” than previous elections.
In what is a campaign trail staple of hers, Clinton highlighted Trump’s insults toward women and asserted that it would be “hard to imagine depending on him to defend the fundamental rights of women.”
Trump, meanwhile, continued calling Clinton, “crooked Hillary” and referred to her ongoing email scandal. He took her to task on her domestic and foreign policy stances.
Trump was interrupted by protesters at the annual gathering of evangelical Christians. The protesters shouted “Stop hate! Stop Trump!” and “refugees are welcome here.”
Trump called the chants “a little freedom of speech” but added it was also “a little rude, but what can you do?”