Isaac Stanley-Becker, in the Washington Post:
Hillary Clinton was first lady when an influential legal journal featured her in its spring volume, drawing tributes from such luminaries as Elie Wiesel, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and the Queen of Jordan.
But the most intimate portrait came from Diane Blair, a woman Clinton befriended in Arkansas who was not a Nobel laureate or legal scholar and never held elected office. Through 30 years of friendship, Blair knew more than perhaps anyone about Clinton’s private struggles as she became the governor’s wife, moved to the White House and transformed herself into the most famous woman in American politics.
In her tribute to Clinton in the 1995 Annual Survey of American Law, Blair portrayed her friend as a female crusader, setting an example at great personal cost.
“When I was a schoolchild I was both fascinated and horrified by stories of the canaries who were carried down into the mines as early warning systems for the miners; if poisonous gases started seeping into the mine-shafts, the canaries would quickly expire, thereby giving warning to the men in the mines. I wonder now whether Hillary is playing the risky part of national canary for the women of America,” Blair wrote.
Clinton wrote back to Blair in the summer of 1995, calling her a “fellow canary.”
“We flap our little wings harder and harder, while chirping as loudly as our voices permit about what’s happening around us,” she said. “Sometimes we even are heard outside our cages!”
Blair never sought the limelight, but she became one of Clinton’s closest confidantes as the first lady wrestled with what she saw as a legion of political detractors and a hostile press. Clinton turned to Blair with her fears that her husband was “ruining himself” and the presidency because he had no strategy to fight back at his enemies.
Blair, who died of cancer in 2000, left behind a written record of their friendship that today offers one of the most comprehensive portraits of the woman who last month became the first female presidential nominee of a major American party….******
Notably, Blair’s papers offer insight into how Hillary Clinton reckoned with the public fallout from news of her husband’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky. As Bill admitted to maintaining an inappropriate relationship with the White House intern in grand jury testimony, Hillary Clinton fell silent. For days, she didn’t return Blair’s calls, according to Blair.When they finally spoke, in early September, they discussed books — John Banville’s “The Untouchable” and Arthur Golden’s “Memoirs of a Geisha.” They talked about Blair’s upcoming trip to Washington. Finally, they addressed the scandal.
Blair said that Clinton partly blamed herself: “She thinks she was not smart enough, not sensitive enough, not free enough of her own concerns and struggles to realize the price he was paying.”
She wouldn’t leave him, Blair wrote, partly “because she’s stubborn; partly her upbringing; partly her pride . . . she really is okay.”
Part of Hillary Clinton’s frustration was that the White House was not hitting back hard enough at detractors, Blair said.
On the congressional front, where they were “getting killed,” Blair wrote, Hillary Clinton was “urging hard ball.” For instance, she was angry that the North American Free Trade Agreement took legislative priority over health care. She complained that most senators were “diseased from egomania,” according to Blair.
She refused to tolerate incompetence or dissimulation. She was “dumbfounded,” Blair wrote, “by people who look her in the eye and lie to her.”…
******
“Few of us today have the luxury of choosing this or that, homemaker or professional, wife or worker,” Blair wrote. “We are all those things, because they all msut [sic] be done.”
Clinton was merely the first woman to claim this complexity “so openly, and well, and without apology.”…
Aimai
Wow! How sad to lose such a friend so early.
Luthe
But- but-! Benghazi! Emails! Clinton Foundation! History’s Greatest Monster! /wing-nut
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Luthe:
FIFY.
Baud
Thanks, AL.
rikyrah
Good find.
bystander
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Today Mika is hosting the great Rick Tyler, the genius behind the Ted Cruz campaign. They’re following up with Joe Hazlewood of Exxon Valdez fame to discuss Boating Safely This Summer. They’ve already started the “pay for play” smear to give some help to Trump.
Meanwhile, those of us of a certain age note the passing of soprano Patrice Munsel. One of the allthatchatterers recounted a very touching anecdote about her.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@bystander: There’s no evidence whatsoever at this point about any pay to play. The ambassador never even met with the guy. State was just doing constituent services, you know, their job.
Fester Addams
I’m wondering what fraction of the electorate has never used e-mail (their electronic communication being texts, Twitter and Facebook stuff). Is this how we got to a place where just “having e-mails” is something obscure and nefarious?
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Trump is pushing the “pay to play” meme, and the media is following suit.
OzarkHillbilly
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I don’t see any difference.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: My point.
bemused
@bystander:
Yesterday, during dump Trump segment Joe told Mika her opinion didn’t matter because she’s a Democrat which didn’t go over very well with Mika.
OzarkHillbilly
@?BillinGlendaleCA: got it.
Joel
Can someone explain to me why Scarborough is so popular? Obviously not in the national sense, but among political junkies and Washington insiders. The show is such mindless fluff from my eyes.
one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer
@Joel:
I suspect that it’s popular because they do seem to be pleasant on a personal level and clearly have a “friends” chemistry.
Plus, Mika occasionally wears stuff that has that “Ilse, She-Devil of the SS” vibe, which kind of works for me.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Joel: Because he has a valuable time slot. That’s really all it takes.
OzarkHillbilly
Off topic:
Who is Robert Stroud?
I can see me bidding on that fascinating piece of history.
Baud
@Joel: I don’t watch regularly, but when I do, it seems like their conversation is much like what you’d see at a VIP cocktail party. I’m not sure any other show captures that.
one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer
Shit, Mika is tearing into his appearances on MJ and flatlined ratings. Totally unfair! Sad!
Kay
There was no “legal department sign-off” for the Obama campaign to open smaller offices. They provided paid organizers and the local Democrats chose the space to rent, paid the rent out of existing or locally raised funds and opened the office. The county org rep signs the rental contract, not the campaign. Ours was next to a pawn shop in a half-empty strip of 6 storefronts.
I’ll be curious to see the offices- maybe they have to be gold-crusted and tacky-ed up with the Trump “brand”.
It’s also extraordinary that they have to worry about “which” central committee members are “allied” with the campaign. The whole role of central committee members is to support Party candidates.
Central Planning
@bystander:
While mentoring my kids’ robotics team this past year, one of the kids was using a metal lathe for some unimportant reason right now. You’re supposed to put oil on the cutting parts when operating the machinery. Anyway, this one kid was POURING the oil onto the parts while he was cutting (lathing?). I said loudly, with a touch of amusement in my voice “Slow down there, Captain Hazelwood!”
He and a couple other kids looked at me like I had two heads, which is generally the effect I want on the high schoolers. A short explanation of the Exxon Valdez ensued. Robotics: fun AND educational!
JMG
@Joel: Joe and Mika are not popular. Their ratings are abysmal. They are only popular with their corporate bosses at Comcast for pushing the company line and that subset of liberals and Democrats who like to start the day by getting pissed off at them.
Baud
@Kay:
What do you expect from the founder of ISIS?
Central Planning
@Kay:
Trump’s lawyers probably have NDAs and non-compete agreements that need to be hammered out.
debbie
@Kay:
Any thoughts on the Johnson people delivering ballot petitions with another person’s name on them and claiming it’s legal? Even Husted was kind of speechless.
Patricia Kayden
@JMG: LOL! They are only watchable in bits and pieces. Now that they’ve completely lost their love for Trump, it’s amusing to remember how close they once were to The Donald. Analogous to rats jumping out of a sinking ship.
Kay
@Central Planning:
I’m not sure I believe it, just because there are presidential campaigns in these places every 4 years. The local people know how to do it- renting a storefront with an internet connection is not that difficult. OPENING it takes organization because you invite local media so you have to get 100 people to show up. It sounds like the bullshit people say when they didn’t get their work done.
one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer
@Kay:
Wondering if the problem is those NDA/Non-Disparagement docs that Trump’s screaming asshole shrill lawyers have fetishized that he needs people to sign. That would sure in hell dampen volunteer enthusiasm.
Baud
@Kay:
I’ll have to add that to my list of excuses.
Patricia Kayden
@Kay:
This is why he’s going to lose so big in November: lack of organization, over reliance on his “huge” rallies, nonsense tweets, etc. This is why it’s so bizarre that he’s talking about rigged elections. He’s going to lose because he’s obnoxious and disorganized.
Kay
@debbie:
I don’t know if it’s okay. There’s a legal concept to allow a person to file in a court to meet a deadline when they haven’t had time or opportunity to name the person they’re suing- there’s a rule for it- but I don’t know if that concept is or can be applied to ballot petitions. I don’t know why the libertarians are acting as if Ohio voters only get 2 choices and they’re being kept down by the man, or whatever. There’s always more than 2 choices at the top. It’s not at all unusual and it’s not because Hillary and Trump are so wildly unpopular.
Kay
@one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer:
But why is it so centralized? The idea is to hand it off to the locals. I wonder if it’s about their delusional belief that the stupid “brand” is worth a billion dollars so they don’t want Trump’s name in some run-down strip mall. They call them “pop up” offices- open quickly, pay 3 months rent up front and get the internet up.
Baud
@Kay: I think I read somewhere that micromanaging was Trump’s style.
sunny raines
self-described “progressives” who have denigrated Hillary Clinton, buying into wingnut and media smears now, going back to 2008 and further need to take a long hard look in the mirror. If they’re honest, what they will see is not pretty. But then again, if they were honest they wouldn’t need so badly to be taking that look.
You can disagree with Clinton’s policies as a progressive in a number of areas including too quick to support war and the potential for Wall St influence, but as a person of high accomplishment, intellect, and integrity, and a progressive, and as the first woman to run for POTUS for a major party, she is a champion.
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
Local Republicans will know it too, because they been thru lots of these, unlike Donald Trump. They have an actual basis of comparison to contrast with his bragging bullshit. They weren’t happy here with the Romney people- they thought they were snobby know-it-alls These are like little fiefdoms. They expect the candidate to show how crucial they are to the effort :)
low-tech cyclist
@Baud:
Morning Edition this morning described that as ‘another controversial remark by Trump’ rather than ‘a blatant falsehood.’ Their treatment of the Trump campaign as just another campaign has had me tuning them out in a big hurry this summer.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay:
Because Trump is fixated on “loyalty.”
FlipYrWhig
@sunny raines: AND she hates all the same people we hate.
Baud
@low-tech cyclist: Yep. “Controversial” is as much as you can get from the media in any Trump attack on Hillary.
Interesting that Trump felt the need to bring Obama into it directly. Recently, he had been focusing on Hillary.
OzarkHillbilly
@low-tech cyclist:
I’m sorry, but why would they waste time telling people it was a ‘blatant falsehood’ when anyone with an intellect above that of a howler monkey already knows this without being told?
ETA: Trump is insinuating that ISIS is the direct result of Obama’s ME policies, not that he literally founded ISIS.
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
I was reading the Twitter feed of a Trump supporter last night. It’s wild. They are absolutely convinced that there is an elaborate conspiracy to make him appear less popular than he is. It will be bad when he loses.
I think the polls will tighten too, still. I don’t believe there are that many Republicans who will change a lifetime habit of GOP voting. That is a tough thing to do. The one thing Trump says that I believe (and it is ONE) is that it will coalesce after Labor Day. I still think she’ll win, but more GOP voters will come home. It’s fine. 4 points is as good as 5 in Ohio. They’ll immediately discredit Clinton’s presidency anyway. Obama won big in ’08 and they spent 4 years questioning his citizenship.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
But we need a majority!
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I overheard a conversation at the courthouse between a local Republican and the leader of the wingnuts. I call her the leader of the wingnuts because she’s on the Bd of Elections and her husband is a Tea Party county commissioner. She was saying “her people” were “conservatives”- ya know- noble and principled. It sounded like he was trying to get her to bring her people to Trump.
weaselone
@low-tech cyclist:
Makes it easier to do the “both sides do it”, “horse race” routine.
For Trump, outright and easily identifiable lies as well as statements and actions that violate all limits of basic common decency are reduced to controversial.
For Clinton, slipping up on the answer to a question she’s already been asked 500 times previously and any baseless crap related to her emails is elevated to a controversy.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: But we don’t need Republicans, no matter how loud they howl.
MattF
Not a big surprise, but Connie Morella, former Republican congressional rep from my district, has endorsed Hilz. Morella was an actual liberal Republican– more liberal than most congressional Democrats. She was (finally!) defeated during the Bush years by Chris Van Hollen– who is now moving up to the Senate. I never voted for her, but nonetheless have a good opinion of her.
Kay
The missing white voters. This is where GOP efforts to suppress voting will come back and bite them in the ass because there are lower income WHITE people and they have the same problems with documentation and changing addresses as lower income brown and black people. We actually had to bring these people out for a school levy and it was labor intensive.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: I was invoking Adlai.
hovercraft
@Joel:
It’s the insiders show, where villagers get to come on and talk among themselves about what they feel is the most important narrative, and what the optics are. They all watch it and want to be on it. It has terrible ratings and has for several years now, but Phil Griffin always said the ratings were not that important because the show was seen as an important one by the people who matter, the beltway media.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Heh. I’d forgotten that quote.
Kay
So, early voting is really important. Trump doesn’t have 90 days. If Clinton can out-organize him and “bank” votes it’s a huge advantage. It will matter less and less if polls tighten in Ohio as early voting begins.
MattF
Sean Hannity tells a heart-warming story about Trump’s generosity and… gets four Pinocchios.
Baud
@Kay: Do you really think GOP voters in Ohio will come home given how Kasich is positioning himself on Trump? It is different than normal years in that respect.
Peale
@Kay: yep. I honestly would be a bit concerned if someone else was running. Say Rove. But since Citizens United, the republicans will all that unlimited corporate cash seem to have completely forgotten that campaigns aren’t simply TV advertising. McCain and Romney were pretty dismal when it came time to get the conservative church congregations to do the work for them.
one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer
@Kay:
I suspect that’s part of it, too.
Remember the size of those TRUMP letters at the RNC? Never saw anything like it before. By the time it dawns on them that their absence of ground game is killing them, it’ll be too late.
This is “the brilliant businessman’s” weakness – as a meritorious inheritor, nobody ever told him that an idea was stupid, and nobody ever just beat the living shit out of him on principle. He’s surrounded himself with fawning, cringing, obsequious “yes” men who tell him that his every utterance is brilliant, so why should he ever need advice or wise counsel? This is a man who never utters an apology, nor does he admit when he was wrong.
So he takes petty, foolhardy, self destructive acts to protect the brand, not recognizing the wreckage he inflicts constantly.
Kay
I love how all the groovy 21st century “sharing” companies end up exactly like 19th century industrialists regarding their employees. Same old, same old. Cheap labor remains the North Star despite all the Ted talks on “employee voice” and “disruptive” slogans at Aspen.
manyakitty
@Kay: I’d love to try early voting, but I have so little confidence in Husted that I’m afraid they’ll shred my ballot.
Kay
@Baud:
I do think most of them will come home. I think we have to consider how hard it would be for us to abandon a Dem nominee. It’s difficult. Some of them have been voting straight GOP for decades.
We’ll see.
MattF
Y’know Trump’s claim about Obama being the founder of ISIS? Turns out that particular accusation is taken from the Russian political fantasy-world.
Kay
@manyakitty:
Really? That’s sad. In Ohio there are an equal number of R’s and D’s on your bd of elections. They recommend the employees, so it’s likely that the actual local employees are R and D too. Husted you should worry about. I don’t think you have to worry that local people with good jobs and pensions will put all that at risk to destroy 100 votes or something. It would need to be huge, and coordinated across counties. The people who handle your ballot are not R and D operatives. They’re more like postal clerks. They are RULE-BOUND and process protects.
Kay
@manyakitty:
I don’t mean to make it sound like a well-oiled machine because it’s not and fraud is always possible but voting process employees have so many rules the idea that they would destroy a ballot or ballots would MEAN a conspiracy.
We had a situation here with a school levy where they found 4 early ballots after the count had been reported. They had been put in the wrong place. It was a big deal- reports were written, people were interviewed. There’s a LOT of process. They have little or no discretion, which is deliberate.
Shalimar
@Kay: Our OFA office was in a 4-storefront building that the county Dem chairwoman owned herself. In the middle of nowhere (which is hard to find along the coast of Florida where everything is overbuilt), the 2 occupied places were a pool supply store and a yoga instructor.
Our original paid staffer in 2012 stole clothing from the chairwoman’s closet, so she was fired and replaced near the end of the campaign by the guy from the county to the west doing double-duty.
Iowa Old Lady
@Kay: Possibly paying the rent up front is the problem. That’s not Trump’s style.
hovercraft
@Baud:
That quote needs to passed on to all the purity ponies who are railing that Hillary is selling her soul to get these republicans and neo-cons to endorse her.
El Caganer
@MattF: The idea that the US is behind terrorist groups isn’t being spread just by the Russians.
one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer
@Iowa Old Lady:
Wonder how the money is being spent. With rMoney, it at least looked like a normal campaign. Same with McCain.
This? A bunch of tweets and Nuremberg rallies.
gindy51
@Baud: A LOT of OH voters hate Kasich as much as Indiana voters hate Pence.
hovercraft
@MattF:
It’s a theory that ties in with the bases obsession with secret mooslim, hates America b.s., and it’s a target where the media will say that while it’s extreme, if only he had phrased it differently, he would have had a valid point. All the jokers on MJ made the same point, the Obama/Clinton foreign policy is responsible for ISIS and the mess in Europe, but calling them the founders is beyond the pale.
dr. bloor
Ecuador: Yeah, we’re sick and tired of him, too.
bystander
@one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer:
Mika has lately seemed to be getting her wardrobe from Hassie in The Real McCoys.
Glad to see Larry Kramer is excoriating Daryl Roth’s father for joining the homophobe supporters of Trump.
bystander
Is anyone surprised that the jackass whose public stunt of climbing up the exterior of Trump Tower endangered many people’s lives and cost a fortune is a Trump supporter?
manyakitty
@Kay: Point taken. Thanks.
hovercraft
@bystander:
He just wanted to show his dedication to Trump. He was so desperate to meet his hero he was willing to risk his life, as well as other peoples lives. So no I am not surprised. I nominate him for a Darwin Award. I’m sure when screened, most Trump rally attendees would be credible nominees for the awards.
one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer
@bystander:
I know – I much prefer her in the sleek leather things that she seems to break out in the fall and winter.
Preferably carrying a riding crop, so I can be punished.
catclub
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Political discussion that is superior (ha! only more extensive) than what is on NBC Today Show and GMA.
Very low bar.
catclub
@bystander: I would not have guessed that.
eric
@catclub: Here is the real reason: because you can put each appearance on your resume to fluff your own bona fides as a TV pundit on a show watched by other people fluffing themselves (pun intended).
catclub
@hovercraft:
My response, a wide eyed: “gee willikers, I sure am glad that George W Bush, our hero president, had nothing to do with THAT!”
catclub
@OzarkHillbilly:
Nope. Trump is SAYING that Obama founded ISIS, and knows that the media will grant him your interpretation, while his base cheers the words he says.
hovercraft
@catclub:
They were all cheerleaders for his excellent adventures, and have been called out for going along without asking enough questions. If they can deflect from the original sin and focus on the fact that Shrub had finally managed to ‘stabilize’ Iraq, and everything was going swimmingly until Obama came in and destroyed all that Shrub had accomplished, then their hands are clean. Mistakes were made but they were rectified, it was Obama/ Clinton who actually screwed the middle east up.
Kay
@Shalimar:
We housed this very young woman from the suburban Philadelphia area. She was sad and homesick. She essentially had a whole floor of the house because 3 of our children are grown and gone. I felt sorry for her. She couldn’t find the vegan food she likes in the supermarket. They replaced her with this young man from Michigan who was all bidness and seemed to live in his rusted-out Taurus :)
hovercraft
From Nancy Letourneau over at Washington Monthly
FlipYrWhig
@hovercraft: Dem-ghazi!
dr. bloor
@hovercraft: “Odd” strikes me as an odd way to characterize “sociopathy.”
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Sam Wang put an interesting analysis up yesterday about Presidential and Congressional vote trends:
With all the usual caveats about the lack of Congressional district polling, etc.
Matt McIrvin
Andrew Tanenbaum at electoral-vote.com is wringing his hands over the latest batch of emails and the treasure trove of dirt that Assange surely has. He’s becoming my barometer for centrist-y conventional wisdom, so I guess this is getting some traction.
The part where Assange is hinting that his source was the murdered guy takes it into pure whackaloon territory, though, and I wonder if the papers will be headlining the Clinton Body Count by October to provide some contrast for Trump’s continuing meltdown, or if it’ll all just be too crazy for them to take seriously. I mean, the stuff that has actually been released so far is at best mildly embarrassing from my perspective: Politicians Do Vague Politician-y Things, shock and horror. But it’s coming out of this strange paranoid spy-thriller demimonde.
Kathleen
@low-tech cyclist: Inhiskeep played the clip where Reagan jokes about nuking Russia because it was an anniversary of the remark but I also got a defiant “See making jokes about killing people is ok cause St. Ronnie and take that you partisan polarized hacks” from the clip. NPR needs to be defunded.
MattF
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, that’s the rational reaction. However, Russian propaganda says that the US created ISIS. Period. Not a metaphor. No air-quotes.
rikyrah
Lopsided Housing Rebound Leaves Millions of People Out in the Cold
The housing recovery that began in 2012 has lifted the overall market but left behind a broad swath of the middle class, threatening to create a generation of permanent renters and sowing economic anxiety and frustration for millions of Americans.
Home prices rose in 83% of the nation’s 178 major real-estate markets in the second quarter, according to figures released Wednesday by the National Association of Realtors. Overall prices are now just 2% below the peak reached in July 2006, according to S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices.
But most of the price gains, economists said, stem from a lack of fresh supply rather than a surge of buyers. The pace of new home construction remains at levels typically associated with recessions, while the homeownership rate in the second quarter was at its lowest point since the Census Bureau began tracking quarterly data in 1965 and the share of first-time home purchases remains mired near three-decade lows.
The lopsided recovery has shut out millions of aspiring homeowners who have been forced to rent because of damaged credit, swelling student loans, tough credit standards and a dearth of affordable homes, economists said.
In all, some 200,000 to 300,000 fewer U.S. households are purchasing a new home each year than would during normal market conditions, estimates Ken Rosen, chairman of the Fisher Center of Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California at Berkeley.
“I don’t think we are in a normal housing market,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. “The losers are clearly the rising rental population that isn’t able to participate in this housing equity appreciation. They are missing out on [a big] source of middle-class wealth.”
rikyrah
New Duke of Westminster Is Youngest Among World’s 400 Richest
Hugh Richard Louis Grosvenor, who became the 7th Duke of Westminster after the sudden death of his father Tuesday, joins the Bloomberg Billionaires Index today as his inheritance makes him the youngest billionaire among the world’s 400 richest people.
As duke, the 25-year-old now heads his family’s $12.3 billion estate, which includes hundreds of acres in London’s Belgravia and Mayfair neighborhoods, country homes, and Grosvenor Group, the London-based real estate firm with assets under management of 13 billion pounds ($19 billion) at the end of 2015.
“The Grosvenor Estate is subject to a 1933 Act of Parliament, the Grosvenor Estate Act, which effectively restricts inheritance to the male line,” said Marilyn McKeever, a London-based lawyer at Berwin Leighton Paisner.
Kathleen
@manyakitty: I always vote early. I hope my vote is counted. It’s so much more convenient.
rikyrah
The real GOP Crime Bosses are NOT opening their checkbooks for Ferret Head:
Trump Has a SuperPAC Problem
So far, pro-Clinton outside groups have out-fundraised pro-Trump PACs by more than 10 to 1.
by Anne Kim
August 10, 2016 1:46 PM
In perhaps another indicator of flagging enthusiasm for Donald Trump, outside groups have raised just $9.7 million so far in support of the GOP presidential nominee. In sharp contrast, outside groups have collected more than $110 million on behalf of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Great America PAC, the largest of the pro-Trump PACs, reported raising $5,073,027 as of July 21. But its war chest is dwarfed by both the largest anti-Trump SuperPAC, Our Principles, which has amassed $19 million; and by Priorities USA Action, the largest pro-Clinton PAC, which reported funds of $100,040,923.
Matt McIrvin
@MattF: The 9/11 truther types I know go further, and insist that all modern Islamic radical groups are the intentional creation and puppet of the United States, as a brake on whatever overseas socialist or nationalist movements they favor.
They don’t claim this all happened during the Obama administration, though; it’s supposed to go back to Brzezinski and the mujahideen, if not further.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure RT is trying hard to feed this fringe.
Waldo
@catclub:
This to me is more troubling than the media punting on Trump’s 2nd Amendment comment, which was muddled enough to be spun as something other than the threat it was meant to be. His “Obama founded ISIS” charge, on the other and, is unequivocal. How is this not a huge story?
O. Felix Culpa
@Kathleen:
The problem is that NPR has been defunded – by the Repubs of course – and now leans mainly on corporate sponsorship. Quality of reporting is correlated.
Eric U.
I am kinda surprised that Atrios got on the Kissenger endorsement fainting couch
Some PAC is running a nasty anti-McGinty ad on heavy rotation for the Olympics. Very annoying, I’m sure it’s full of lies and half-truths. Haven’t seen any ads for her yet. I think that it would be pretty easy for a PAC to come up with a truthful ad against Toomey, but nobody has stepped up to that yet.
rikyrah
Pro-Hillary SuperPacs: $110 million
Pro-Ferred Head SuperPacs: $9.7 million
The GOP Crime Bosses are NOT opening their checkbooks
weaselone
@OzarkHillbilly:
Actually, Trump’s stating directly that Obama founded ISIS. It’s the press that is insinuating that Obama’s ME policies caused ISIS in their efforts to bail out the floundering Trump campaign.
Amir Khalid
@rikyrah:
His father’s name was Tuesday?
MattF
@Matt McIrvin: Didn’t know that. Sigh. I’m not exactly pleased that now I need to become familiar with the genealogy of various conspiracy theories. I’ve managed until now to avoid that sort of thing.
grandpa john
@catclub: Who bush? Those years are just figments of the imagination. For the GOP hive mind they never existed
Matt McIrvin
@MattF: I admit, I’m a little too fascinated by this garbage. Stare into the abyss long enough…
dr. bloor
@Matt McIrvin: I linked upthread to a NYT piece noting that Ecuador is in the process of setting a date with Sweden for a Swedish rep to question Assange re: the rape investigation that drove him into the Ecuadorian embassy, so that will get a few grafs in the potboiler. Looks to me like Ecuador has had enough of the stink that goes with having a sociopath sleep on your sofa for four years.
Kay
Only the best people….
FlipYrWhig
@Eric U.: Atrios is exactly in the sweet spot for that sort of crap: people who are too young to remember Vietnam but were highly influenced intellectually-politically by the generation of lefties who came up in its aftermath. I have a young 40-something friend who was especially aggrieved as well.
dr. bloor
@Waldo: “Man Bites Dog” is only a story if the man doesn’t keep biting the dog day after day. At this point, no one can keep up with the Gish Gallop of lies and hyperbole that the Tangerine Ballsack can crank out.
MattF
@Kay: Yeah, saw that. I’m not even a teensy-weensy little bit surprised.
Matt McIrvin
@dr. bloor: I’d been wondering when that would happen. Of course it will just inflame everyone in the short term.
catclub
@rikyrah:
Yes they are, just not for the Ferret headed one.
See the comment above yours:
Waldo
@weaselone:
It’s insane. The story here isn’t, Here’s what the leader of a major political party probably meant to say — it’s Here’s the totally unhinged, incendiary, off-the-wall shit he said! Let him explain it, for f*cks sake.
Matt McIrvin
@FlipYrWhig: Speaking as an old 40-something, I think that for GenXers absolutely everything about politics is naturally interpreted in the light of 9/11, Bush’s wars and their aftermath, just as for Boomers everything that ever happened is about Vietnam. Kissinger is a monster of Vietnam, but to someone of my generation he also seems like the spiritual predecessor of the drive to go into Iraq. So associating him with Hillary Clinton contributes to the sinking feeling that we might be electing a crypto-Bush disguised as a liberal. I don’t agree with it logically but I understand it, emotionally.
MattF
@Waldo: Trump has explained. He meant what he said.
Amir Khalid
@dr. bloor:
I wonder why the Ecuadorian Embassy let Assange have its sofa for so long
catclub
@rikyrah: There are two major risks to the election of Hillary Clinton: A major terrorist attack and the economy going bad. If the economy just goes along at ‘meh’, it will never fall into recession either. So far, that is what is happening. LONG, mediocre recovery – but no out of control inflation, no sharp recession. The time for any recession to matter to the election is just about past.
Now just worry about some terrorist attack.
FlipYrWhig
@Matt McIrvin: IMHO being all wound up, or affecting to be all wound up, about Henry Kissinger is a way to signal that you have a familiarity with the postwar left canon. It has the logic of a fandom. That applies to Atrios, that applies to Corey Robin, and I think it applies to a lot of the veterans of the blogosphere.
Gelfling 545
@Kay: I suspect they’d have had an easier time finding the necessary personnel some months back. Now that the full extent of the madness is being revealed, many may decide pass this time.
japa21
With all the attention paid to the “Obama founded ISIS” comment, I don’t see anyone looking at another statement in the same stream of consciousness vomiting that Trump always does. Note that there were 3 separate and distinct statements:
“Obama founded ISIS”
“Clinton was the co-founder of ISIS”
“ISIS honors Obama”
All are off the wall, but I don’t see anyone challenging that last one or asking him to explain how ISIS honors Obama.
Kay
Straight-up lie and Trump knew it was a lie because he was in big financial trouble regarding these particular planes at that time.
The funniest part of the whole thing is that the true story is essentially ABOUT what a horrible businessperson Trump is- how he makes bad deals.
No one would have known about this story BUT FOR Hannity’s and Trump’s lie.
Eric U.
@MattF: too bad there never is anyone to push back when these nominally impartial journalists try to explain things for Trump. He’s running for president, why does he need people to explain things for him? Especially people that aren’t paid by his campaign. I was going to say “people that aren’t working for his campaign” but I’m not so sure about that
Calouste
@catclub: It used to be that Republican politicians used dog whistles so that the both-sides-do-it media could pretend that they said something else than they meant.
Trump has now proven that he can go full out bullhorn and the BSDIM will still pretend that he said something else than he meant.
FlipYrWhig
@japa21: Yup, I’d like an explanation for that as well. Was there an awards banquet? Honorary degree?
Kay
@japa21:
It’s a mistake to go after Obama, though. Obama is more popular than any of them. He’s WAY more popular than Trump.
I don’t even know why conservatives think normal people are freaking out about ISIS or would turn to Donald Trump if they were.
Matt McIrvin
@FlipYrWhig: I recall Henry Kissinger was one of the central figures in Lyndon LaRouche’s giant conspiracy theory, too, along with Queen Elizabeth II and Donald Regan and whichever Loudoun County supervisor was causing him the most trouble. He always incorporated this heady mix of left- and extreme-right-wing tropes (he was big on stressing the “Straussianism” of neocons, which was a big left thing during the Bush II era), and some of the stuff I’m seeing today kind of reminds me of that.
Gelfling 545
@OzarkHillbilly: ah, yes but the average howler monkey would understand what Trump is suggesting; pepole who can be convinced to vote for Trump, not so much. In fact, on consideration, I’m not totally sure Trump isn’t stating that the President & SoS didn’t formally establish the group, given his unique point of view.
catclub
@japa21: Gish gallop in action.
Kay
I’m sure pundits will get around to it, but one of the things about the Trumpsters is...they’re older people:
Clinton may not be the most popular candidate ever with not-old voters, but she’s more popular than Trump.
Miss Bianca
@catclub:
Not to go all Pollyanna-ish here, but we do have a competent President at the helm currently, which was not the case during 9/11. Believe me (believe me!), I’m sure the Intel/national security community is taking that possibility *very* seriously, and so is the White House.
FlipYrWhig
@Miss Bianca: IMHO most of the Benghazi kerfuffle has been undertaken with the specific intent of undermining the image Hillary Clinton carefully built after 2001 of being tough-minded and unflappable in an international crisis.
catclub
@Miss Bianca: I agree, and am fairly polly-anna-ish about probability of said attack. the 9/11 attacks were a true one-off,
lucky, unprecedented, virtually impossible to repeat.
Miss Bianca
@FlipYrWhig: Yeah, we see how well that’s worked out for them…hey, Trey, you want to go another 11-hour rounder with HRC? Hey, where you going?!
hitchhiker
Can I just ask how come journalists are so ready to softsplain Donald’s bizarre remarks but would never, ever dream of telling us what Hillary meant to say?
catclub
@catclub: see, also:
I think Kessler is part of politifact.
SiubhanDuinne
@dr. bloor:
How does that work, anyhow? Is the Ecuadoran Embassy a landlord or a host (IOW, does Assange pay a form of rent)? Who pays for his meals and personal needs? Does he have pretty much the run of the place or is he confined to his own quarters?
eric
@Kay: So is the Clap.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
If I thought the Democrats were that smart and were channeling Francis Underwood, I would think that Trump was indeed a false flag candidate.
It seems every time the media tries to bury Hillary, Trump says something so bizarre that it steals the air away from whatever faux scandal the media is promoting today. Any candidate not named Trump would keep a low profile and let the media attack Hillary for them.
Brachiator
@OzarkHillbilly:
Burt Lancaster portrayed the Birdman of Alcatraz in an excellent 1962 film. According to the Wiki, ” It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Burt Lancaster), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Telly Savalas), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Thelma Ritter) and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White.[”
Directed by John Frankenheimer
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
There go my holiday plans:
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: The aftermath of the Orlando shooting convinced me that Trump will actually have trouble getting any benefit out of a large terrorist attack in the fall. On paper, you’d think anything like that would help him by amping up fear of Muslims. But Trump couldn’t help acting like a dumbass and just appalling people, while Hillary Clinton came across as level-headed. It ended up being fear of Trump instead.
catclub
@jake the antisoshul soshulist:
Paul Waldman’s column today. Conclusion: Trump is incapable of keeping a low profile. sad!
catclub
@Brachiator: It definitely sounds like the inheritance tax works differently in old blighty, when you get the laws adjusted for your special case.
JMS
@Eric U.: You haven’t seen any “Pat Toomey hates women’s health because he’s against planned parenthood” ads? Those have been running in the Philly area but I suppose they wouldn’t be considered effective in other parts of the state where you could make them pro Toomey.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Thanks for keeping us up on Ohio happenings, Kay.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Voting here begins October 12th.
Early voting, I think a week later.
Calming Influence
@Kay: My armchair analysis of Trump’s psyche is that he flips between “control freak/micromanager” and “big picture guy/don’t bug me with details” at a frequency of around 100 Hertz. I think it’s likely the reason he has no “organization” much outside his family and a few close associates.
Brachiator
@catclub:
British tradition has always tried to maintain the property of the aristocracy so that they are passed down to the heir. This has been the meat of Jane Austen novels, for example.
But some of the laws relating to setting up an estate to avoid taxation are not uncommon here in the US. The new Duke is especially benefiting from this, with a few British wrinkles.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: Early voting only starts 11 days before the election here in Massachusetts.
It’s the first time ever, and I haven’t heard thing one from my town government about it, so I hope the election board is ready. I did see a mention of it in an announcement that the local YWCA was doing bilingual voter registration, with a couple of outraged comments about Spanish-speaking illegals coming here to commit vote fraud. Note that about half of the Hispanic people around here are Puerto Rican, and therefore are native-born US citizens.
Bess
@O. Felix Culpa:
We’ve watched big money take over the media. If we want NPR to be an objective news source then it’s up to us to fund it.
PIGL
@FlipYrWhig: balls. It means having some fucking awareness of modern history.
FlipYrWhig
@PIGL: Six of one, half-dozen of the other.
J R in WV
@OzarkHillbilly:
The last news I heard was that some Republican MSM A-Hole (whose name I forget, thank FSM) suggested that Trump meant that Obama’s failed ME policy gave ISIS an opening, and Trump said, “No, I mean he founded ISIS himself!” Live.
J R in WV
@hovercraft:
George W Bush and his administration made the Forces agreement with the Iraqi government calling for troop level reductions, with the numbers and dates spelled out. This was all signed, sealed, delivered before President Obama was inaugurated.
So even that part of it is a flaming letters in the sky lie from the lips of Trump and all the others repeating it. The fate of Iraq was determined by Shrub from the first bomb to the last car bomb, whenever that will be. Obama did the best he could, but you can only do so much without boots on the ground.
And without a real Iraqi army, to boot. They still don’t really have one good for even internal support, much less offensive action against a well dug in ISIL, daesh, whatever you call them.
Founder of ISIS, more Shrub than Obama, in every sense of that phrase. All of it is Cheney and Rumsfeld’s fault, under the command of Shrub. All war criminal murderers once the first bomb fell on the nation of Iraq.
J R in WV
@Kay:
You don’t go to a lawyer, you go to the police. Plenty of time for a suit after the convictions.