Posts Tagged ‘2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 3, 2016 at 12:02 am
The signs were there long before Wikileaks confirmed them.
Even the most casual observer of politics could see the aren’t-we-cute? relationship between Hillary Clinton and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
Clinton, of course, was the former First Lady, U.S. Senator from New York and Secretary of State under President Barack Obama. She was also, by popular consensus, the candidate to beat for the 2016 Democratic Presidential nomination.
And Wasserman-Schultz was the chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Nobody expected Clinton to act impartially. But that was the expectation demanded of Wasserman-Schultz.
There were, after all, other Democrats besides Clinton seeking their party’s nomination–the most prominent of these being Bernie Sanders, the U.S. Senator from Vermont.
Bernie Sanders
Yet Wasserman-Schultz made no effort to hide her clear bias on behalf of Clinton.
On December 18, 2015, writing in The Huffington Post, political blogger Miles Mogulescu sounded a warning:
“It’s increasingly clear that Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, isn’t acting as a neutral party Chair, trying to insure a fair and democratic primary and building the Democratic Party in the states.
“Rather, she’s acting as a shill for Hillary Clinton, doing everything in her power to ensure that no one will effectively challenge Hillary’s coronation as the nominee.”
Hillary Clinton
Two days later, on December 20, 2015, the website, U.S. Uncut published an article:
5 TIMES DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ VIOLATED DNC RULES AND STACKED THE DECK IN FAVOR OF CLINTON.
The article bluntly stated that Wasserman-Schultz “has made a name for herself among many Democratic voters as a shill for the Clinton machine.” And then it offered five specific examples to back up this assertion:
- Scheduling primary debates to garner as few viewers as possible–and thus “circle the wagons” around the front-running Clinton.
- Locating grassroots Clinton field offices at DNC offices.
- Shutting off Bernie Sanders’ access to the DNC’s voter database, thus crippling his ground strategy.
- Raising money for the Clinton campaign via a top DNC official.
- Lining up Superdelegates for Clinton before the first primary debate.
So no one should have been surprised when the full dimensions of the truth were finally revealed on July 22, 2016.
That was when Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the DNC.
The emails had been exchanged from January 2015 through May 2016. And they clearly revealed a bias for Hillary Clinton and against Sanders.
One email revealed that Brad Marshall, the chief financial officer of the DNC, suggested that Sanders, who is Jewish, could be portrayed as an atheist.
Sanders’ supporters had long charged that the DNC and Wasserman-Schultz had undercut his campaign. Now they had the evidence in black-and-white.
The leak badly embarrassed Clinton. About to receive the Democratic nomination for President, she found herself charged with undermining the electoral process.
Wasserman-Schultz proved the first casualty of the leak, resigning as chair of the DNC and saying she would not open the Democratic convention as previously scheduled.
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
Clinton’s campaign manager, Bobby Mook, put his best spin on the scandal: He blamed the Russians for the leak. Their alleged motive–to help Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Cyber-security experts believed the hackers originated from Russia–and that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have authorized it.
Perhaps the worst mistake of the DNC was not putting so many embarrassing emails into computers.
Its worst was favoring Hillary Clinton above all other Presidential candidates.
On August 31, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the two most unpopular presidential candidates in more than 30 years.
A July 6 Fortune story sheds light on “Why Trump and Clinton Are America’s Most Disliked Presidential Candidates.”
Trump: “After making comments insulting Muslims, Latinos and women, Trump has been unable to fend off charges of racisms and sexism.”
Clinton: “Clinton is dogged by voter mistrust stoked by her handling of classified State Department information on a private email server, the Benghazi hearings, and the long-ago Whitewater scandal.”
And applying to both candidates: “People who exhibit a few instances of socially unacceptable behavior are quickly labeled as deviant and have to commit disproportionately many more acceptable behaviors to restore their reputation.”
Since October, Trump has been dogged by his admission of sexually predatory behavior toward women: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful–I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
At least a dozen women have since charged him with making unwanted sexual advances.
Such revelations would normally prove the kiss of death for any Presidential candidate.
Had the Democrats chosen a genuinely popular candidate–or at least one who was not so widely hated as Clinton–the electoral map would now look very different.
But as matters now stand, Trump and Clinton seem locked dead-even in the polls.
In 2008, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw compared the Presidential campaign rallies of then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama to popular Hannah Montana concerts.
In 2016, not even the most partisan Democrats would make such a remark about Clinton.
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In History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 25, 2016 at 12:10 am
On October 7, The Washington Post leaked a video of Donald Trump making sexually predatory comments about women. The remarks came during a 2005 exchange with Billy Bush, then the host of Access Hollywood.
The two were traveling in an Access Hollywood bus to the set of the soap opera Days of Our Lives, where Trump was to make a cameo appearance. A “hot” microphone picked up their conversation–which has proved damning for Trump:
Donald Trump: You know and I moved on her actually. You know she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and fuck her.
She was married. No this was–and I moved on her very heavily, in fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture. I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there, and she was married.
Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.
[At that point, they spot Adrianne Zucker, the starring actress in Days in Our Lives.]
Trump: Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful–I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.
And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.
Donald Trump
When the Washington Post broke the story on October 7, the reaction was immediate–and explosive.
The Trump campaign quickly released a statement: “This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course–not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended.”
During the second Presidential debate on October 9, moderator Anderson Cooper asked Trump: “Have you ever done those things?”
Trump: “And I will tell you–no I have not.”
On October 12, The Palm Beach Post, The New York Times and People all published stories of women claiming to have been sexually assaulted by Trump.
Mindy McGillivray told the Post that Trump groped her buttocks when she visited Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2013.
In December, 2005, People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff went to Mar-a-Lago to interview Donald and Melania Trump for a first-wedding-anniversary feature story.
During a break in the interview, Trump said he wanted to show Stoynoff around his mansion. There was one “tremendous” room he especially wanted to show her.
According to her account: “We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat.”
Natasha Stoynoff
Fortunately, Trump’s butler soon entered the room, and Trump acted as though nothing had happened. But as soon as he and Stoynoff were alone again, Trump said: “You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?”
Stoynoff asked her editors–and received permission–to be removed from writing any further Trump features.
The Times reported that, more than 30 years ago, Trump had made equally unwelcome advances toward businesswoman Jessica Leeds, then 38.
Jessica Leeds
She said she was sitting next to Trump in the first-class cabin of a New York-bound flight when Trump lifted the armrest, grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt.
She fled to the back of the plane.
Another woman who spoke to the Times was Rachel Crooks. She was a 22-year-old receptionist at Bayrock Group, a real estate investment and development company in Trump Tower in Manhattan in 2005.
One morning she came face-to-face with Trump outside an elevator in the building. Knowing that her company did business with him, she introduced herself. They shook hands. But instead of letting go, Trump kissed her cheeks, and then “kissed me directly on the mouth.”
On October 11, questioned by a Times reporter about the women’s claims, Trump shouted: “None of this ever took place.”
He accused the newspaper of inventing accusations to hurt his Presidential candidacy. And he threatened to sue for libel if the Times reported the women’s stories.
On October 13, Trump used Twitter to deny the allegations in the Times and People.
On October 14, at a rally in North Carolina, Trump attacked the character of the women accusing him.
Of Stoynoff, he said: “Take a look. You take a look. Look at her. Look at her words. You tell me what you think. I don’t think so. I don’t think so.”
Calling Jessica Leeds “that horrible woman,” he said: “Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you. Whoever she is, wherever she comes from, the stories are total fiction. They’re 100% made up. They never happened.”
At one point during his lengthy outburst, Trump–who’s been married three times and often boasted of his sexual prowess–asked why President Barack Obama hasn’t had similar claims leveled against him.
By October 14, at least 12 women had publicly accused Trump of sexually inappropriate behavior.
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In History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 24, 2016 at 12:22 am
“Certain things are true,” says the American historian Deborah Lipstadt in the newly-released movie, Denial. “Elvis is dead. The ice caps are melting. And the Holocaust did happen.
“Millions of Jews went to their deaths in camps and open pits in a brutal genocide which was sanctioned and operated by the leaders of the Third Reich. There are some subjects about which two points of view are not equally valid.”
On September 5, 1996, the British author and Holocaust denier David Irving (Timothy Spall in the movie) filed a libel suit against Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) and her British publisher Penguin Books.
In 1993, in her book, Denying the Holocaust, Lipstadt had called Irving a Holocaust denier and accused him of distorting evidence and manipulating historical documents.
Irving had authored a series of books about the Third Reich and World War II. Among these: The War Path; Hitler’s War; The Trail of the Fox (a biography of Erwin Rommel); and The War Between the Generals (on the infighting among the Allied high command).
Of these, Hitler’s War (1977) was–and remains–the most controversial. Although Irving admitted that the Holocaust had occurred, he claimed that Hitler hadn’t ordered it–or even known about it. He blamed Reichsfuhrer-SS Henirich Himmler and his number-two deputy, Reinhard Heydrich, as its architects.
David Irving
For decades, Irving boasted that no one had ever found a written order from Hitler ordering the Holocaust–and offered to pay £1000 to anyone who could find such an order.
In later years, Irving completely denied that the Holocaust had occurred. He claimed that gas chambers had never been used to exterminate Jews and there was no officially-sanctioned Third Reich plan to slaughter European Jewry.
But Irving claimed that Lipstadt’s labeling him a Holocaust denier had tarred him as a disreputable historian–and had thus damaged his professional reputation.
Irving sued in a British court because the burden would be on the defendant to prove that s/he had not committed libel. (In American courts, the plaintiff must not only prove s/he has been libeled, but with actual malice.)
Lipstadt faced a second hurdle: Her lawyers ordered her to not take the witness stand. They wanted to put and keep the focus entirely on Irving–and to make his virulent anti-Semitism the issue in the case.
In her 2005 autobiography, Denial, Lipstadt described the agonies she endured in preparing for–and sitting through–this trial:
“For four years I immersed myself in the works of a man who exuded contempt for me and much of what I believed. I lost many nights of sleep, worried that because of some legal fluke Irving might prevail.”
Deborah Lipstadt
For Lipstadt, more was at stake than the possibility of losing a big chunk of money.
Above all, she feared that an Irving victory would give anti-Semites a legal precedent for “proving” that the extermination of six million Jewish men, women and children hadn’t occurred.
The case was tried in a London court from January to March, 2000.
Entering court on the first morning of trial, Irving assured the assembled reporters that he would be victorious.
Asked where his legal team was, he said he had chosen to represent himself: They might know the law, but he knew the topic–Hitler and the Third Reich.
The outcome was a disaster–for Irving.
Among the expert witnesses testifying on behalf of Lipstadt was Richard J. Evans, professor of modern history at Cambridge University and author of a three-volume history on the Third Reich. In his examination of Irving’s work, Evans found:
“Not one of [Irving’s] books, speeches or articles, not one paragraph, not one sentence in any of them, can be taken on trust as an accurate representation of its historical subject.
“All of them are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about. … if we mean by historian someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past, and to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, then Irving is not a historian.”
Judge Charles Gray found that:
“Irving had for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence” and that “for the same reasons, he had portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favorable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews.”
The judge also found that Irving was “an active Holocaust denier; that he was anti-Semitic and racist and that he associated with right-wing extremists who promoted neo-Nazism.”
Irving was discredited as a historian and ordered to pay all of Penguin’s costs of the trial, estimated to be as much as £2 million ($3.2 million in American currency). When Irving didn’t pay, he was forced into bankruptcy and lost his home.
Asked by a reporter, “Will you stop denying the Holocaust on the basis of this judgment?” Irving replied, “Good Lord, no.”
Denying the truth about the past didn’t work for David Irving. Soon America will discover if it works for Donald Trump.
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In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 7, 2016 at 12:47 am
Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump has only one opponent in his race for the White House: Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
But after his September 26 debate with Clinton, he seemed more at war with another woman: Former Miss Universe Alicia Machado.
Clinton had briefly mentioned her in the first of her three debates with Trump: “And he called this woman Miss Piggy. Then he called her Miss Housekeeping because she was Latina.”
Trump didn’t deny making such comments. Instead, he claimed that Clinton had “spent hundreds of millions of dollars on negative ads on me, many which are absolutely untrue.
“They’re untrue and they’re misrepresentations. And I will tell you this, Lester [Holt, the debate moderator], it’s not nice and I don’t, I don’t deserve that.”
On September 27, Trump attacked Machado via a phone-in interview on Fox News. Then the next day, he attacked her again on Fox’s “The O’Reilly Factor.”
And at 2:14 a.m. on September 30, Trump launched yet a third assault on her character–this time through a series of tweets on Twitter:
“Wow, Crooked Hillary was duped and used by my worst Miss U. Hillary floated her as an ‘angel’ without checking her past, which is terrible!”
“Using Alicia M in the debate as a paragon of virtue just shows that Crooked Hillary suffers from BAD JUDGEMENT! Hillary was set up by a con.”
“Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?”
Subsequent media investigations found no evidence that Machado had starred in a pornographic film.
Republican leaders were dismayed. They wanted Trump to concentrate his fire at Clinton. And here he was, aiming yet another tirade against a woman wholly unimportant to his race for the White House.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media quickly reacted to Trump’s latest rant–and its verdict was overwhelmingly negative.
According to NBC News: “Still reeling from Monday’s widely panned debate performance, the Republican nominee has found refuge in a fringe media environment where his victory is assured, his setbacks are the result of shadowy plots, and his critics are humiliated by sordid revelations.
“The alleged Machado ‘sex tape’ Trump cited appeared to be a hoax widely promoted in fringe pro-Trump outlets like Infowars. Other sites like Drudge Report have spread grainy stills of a love scene from a reality show Machado starred in.
“Radio host Rush Limbaugh called Machado ‘the porn-star Miss Piggy’ this week. And Trump, desperate for encouragement after his debate, is huffing these sycophantic fumes like never before.”
And POLITICO offered this judgment: “TRUMP JUMPS INTO THE GUTTER.”
The story’s sub-headline read: “The Republican nominee loses all impulse control, and unleashes a violent Twitter rant against his Miss Universe nemesis.”
Trump–never one to admit error–responded, typically enough, on Twitter: “For those few people knocking me for tweeting at three o’clock in the morning, at least you know I will be there, awake, to answer the call!”
Furthermore, POLITICO noted, Trump’s inability to restrain himself has played “right into the Democratic nominee’s argument that Trump lacks the temperament and impulse control to be commander in chief.”
Nor was Clinton silent on the matter: “What kind of man stays up all night to smear a woman with lies and conspiracy theories?” she posted on Twitter.
And she followed up: “Trump obsessively bullies Rosie O’Donnell–an accomplished actor. he insulted Kim Kardashian for her weight–when she was pregnant. Pathetic.”
On the same day as his Twitter rant against Alicia Machado, Trump demanded that President Barack Obama promise not to pardon Clinton. Since Clinton has not been charged with or convicted of a crime, such a promise would be wholly unnecessary.
President Barack Obama
On September 30, Trump called The New York Times and said of Clinton: “She’s nasty, but I can be nastier than she ever can be.”
With that, he opened a new line of attack on his Presidential rival: Her marriage.
“Hillary Clinton was married to the single greatest abuser of women in the history of politics.
“Hillary was an enabler, and she attacked the women who Bill Clinton mistreated afterward. I think it’s a serious problem for them, and it’s something that I’m considering talking about more in the near future.”
Trump said that his own marital history did not disqualify him from making such an attack.
He has been married three times and divorced twice.
While still married to his first wife, Ivana, he became involved with Marla Maples.
Ivana divorced him in 1991, and he married Maples in 1993. They were divorced in 1999.
He married his current wife, Melania, in 2005.
Asked about his affair with Maples while he was married to Ivana, Trump said: “I don’t talk about it. I wasn’t president of the United States. I don’t talk about it.”
Thus, in one week, Trump managed to infuriate
- Taxpayers
- Women
- NBC News
- Blacks
- Democrats
- The Wall Street Journal [which endorsed Clinton]
- The Arizona Republic *
- USA Today *
- President Obama
- POLITICO
- Hispanics
- The FBI
- LeBron James (a hero in the key state of Ohio endorsed Clinton).
Political campaigns are about winning voters, not alienating them. Trump appears to believe it’s the other way around.
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In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 6, 2016 at 12:09 am
“He appeared to need enemies the way other men need friends, and his conduct assured that he would always have plenty of them.”
So wrote William Manchester about General Douglas MacArthur in his monumental 1978 biography, American Caesar. But he could have written just as accurately about Donald Trump, the businessman-turned-Republican-Presidential-nominee.
Donald Trump
What some pundits have called “the worst week in Presidential campaigning history” started–for Trump–on September 26. That was when he finally squared off against Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the first of three debates.
Through a series of bare-knuckled debates, Trump had bullied his way to the Republican nomination. He had mocked his opponents (“Little Marco” Rubio, “Lyin Ted” Cruz) and attacked former Texas Governor Jeb Bush as the brother of the President he blamed for 9/11.
So it was widely expected that he would run over Clinton like a tank going over a rabbit.
Events proved otherwise.
Moderator Lester Holt–who anchors the weekday edition of NBC Nightly News–gave Trump more airtime than Clinton. But Clinton showed a greater command of foreign and domestic issues.
Hillary Clinton
Trump repeatedly sniffled throughout the debate, causing some viewers to wonder if he had a cocaine problem. And he often reached for his water glass, causing other viewers to mock him on Twitter (“Does anyone remember how badly Trump made fun of Marco Rubio for drinking water? Hmm..”).
For Trump–who had attacked Clinton’s health after she fainted on September 11 at a New York 9/11 commemoration ceremony–it was a disaster. Clinton seemed to be in better shape than he was.
When Clinton charged that he paid “nothing in Federal taxes,” Trump in effect admitted it: “That makes me smart.”
Clinton then cornered him on his claim that he had opposed the 2003 Iraq war. Trump replied that he had told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he opposed it. He asked the media to contact Hannity.
Clinton then attacked Trump as “a man who has called women pigs, slobs, and dogs, and someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers.”
From there she segued into his attacks on former Miss Universe Alicia Machado: “And he called this woman Miss Piggy. Then he called her Miss Housekeeping because she was Latina.”
Alicia Machado as Miss Universe
This may have proved the worst part of the debate for Trump, because he later felt he had to respond to it–on TV and Twitter.
By the end of the debate, 62% of CNN viewers voted Clinton as the winner, with only 27% voting it was Trump.
The next day–September 27–Trump felt the need to renew his attack on Machado, courtesy of a telephone interview he gave to Fox News: “She was the worst [Miss Universe contestant] we ever had. The absolute worst. She was impossible….
“She was the winner and she gained a massive amount of weight, and we had a real problem. Not only that, her attitude, and we had a real problem with her.”
On September 28, Trump appeared on Fox News‘ “The O’Reilly Factor.” There he continued his attack on Machado: “It is a beauty contest. They know what they are getting into.”
He claimed that “I saved her job” because the pageant wanted “to fire her” for gaining so much weight.
On September 29, Trump added one more enemy to the list: The FBI.
Addressing a crowd in Bedford, New Hampshire, Trump falsely accused the agency of giving “immunity” to Hillary Clinton:
“They [the FBI] gave so much immunity there was nobody left to talk to. There was nobody left–except Hillary. They probably gave her immunity, too. Do you think Hillary got immunity? Yeah, she had the immunity.”
FBI headquarters
Also on September 29, Trump once again attacked a longtime target: President Barack Obama.
Thirteen days earlier, Trump had renounced “birtherism”–the slander that Obama was not an American citizen. It was a slander that Trump himself had created and vigorously promoted since 2011.
The reason for his renouncing it: His dismal standing among blacks in political polls.
At a press conference on September 16 to promote his new upscale hotel in Washington, D.C., Trump said: “Now, not to mention her in the same breath, but Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy.
“I finished it. I finished it. You know what I mean.
“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again.”
After falsely blaming Clinton for starting the birther lie, Trump seemed content to finally drop the slander campaign.
But on September 29–a mere 13 days later–Trump told a New Hampshire reporter that he was “very proud” of his “birther” campaign:
“I’m the one who got him to put up his birth certificate”–which clearly proved that Obama had been born in Hawaii, not Kenya, as Trump had claimed.
“[Hillary Clinton] tried [to get Obama to release his birth certificate] and she was unable to do it and I tried and I was able to do it so I’m very proud of that.”
Thus, the goodwill of black voters he sought on September 16 he cast aside on the 29th.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 26, 2016 at 12:15 am
On July 22, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
The emails were exchanged from January 2015 through May 2016.
These clearly reveal a bias for Hillary Clinton and against her lone challenger, Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.
One email revealed that Brad Marshall, the chief financial officer of the DNC, suggested that Sanders, who is Jewish, could be portrayed as an atheist.
Sanders’ supporters have long charged that the DNC and its chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, were plotting to undercut his campaign. Now thousands of them are expected to descend on the Democratic convention as furious protesters.
The leak could not have come at a worse time for Hillary Clinton, the former First Lady, U.S. Senator from New York and Secretary of State under President Barack Obama.
About to receive the Democratic nomination for President, she finds herself charged with undermining the electoral process.
Wasserman-Schultz has proven the first casualty of the leak, resigning from her position as chair of the DNC and saying she would not open the Democratic convention as previously scheduled.
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
As for Clinton: Her campaign manager, Bobby Mook, blamed the Russians for the leak. Their alleged motive: To help Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Cyber-security experts believe the hackers originated from Russia–and that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have authorized it.
His alleged motive: Trump has repeatedly attacked United States’ membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
He believes the United States is paying an unfairly large portion of the monies needed to maintain this alliance–and he wants other members to contribute far more. Otherwise, if he is elected President, they would be on their own if attacked by Russia.
Trump took to twitter to offer his take on the release: “How much BAD JUDGEMENT was on display by the people in DNC in writing those really dumb e-mails, using even religion, against Bernie!”
Bernie Sanders
Which brings up the obvious question: Why was such sensitive information entrusted to computers that could be hacked?
This is not the first time a major corporation or government agency has fallen prey to hackers.
Name-brand companies, trusted by millions, have been hit with massive data breaches that compromised their customers’ and/or employees’ most sensitive financial and personal information.
Among those companies and agencies:
- Target
- Kmart
- Home Depot
- JPMorgan/Chase
- Staples
- Dairy Queen
- Anthem, Inc.
- Sony Pictures
- The U.S. State Department
- The Pentagon
- The Office of Personnel Management
Perhaps the most notorious target so far hacked is Ashley Madison, the website for cheating wives and husbands. Launched in 2001, its catchy slogan is: “Life is short. Have an affair.”
On July 15, 2015, its more than 37 million members learned that highly embarrassing secrets they had entrusted to Ashley Madison had been compromised.
This included their sexual fantasies, matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails.
A website offering cheating services to those wealthy enough to afford high-priced fees is an obvious target for hackers. After all, its database is a blackmailer’s dream-come-true.
And the same is true for computers of one of the two major political parties of the United States.
Among the secrets unearthed in the WikiLeaks document-dump: Plans by Democratic party officials to reward large donors and prominent fundraisers with lucrative appointments to federal boards and commissions.
Most of the donors listed gave to Clinton’s campaign. None gave to Sanders.
According to Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group:
“The disclosed DNC emails sure look like the potential Clinton Administration has intertwined the appointments to federal government boards and commissions with the political and fund raising operations of the Democratic Party. That is unethical, if not illegal.”
Centuries before the invention of computers–and the machinery needed to hack into them–Niccolo Machiavelli offered cautionary advice to those thinking of entering into a conspiracy. He did so in his masterwork on politics, The Discourses.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Unlike his better-known work, The Prince, which deals with how to secure power, The Discourses lays out rules for preserving liberty within a republic.
In Book Three, Chapter Six (“Of Conspiracies”) he writes:
“I have heard many wise men say that you may talk freely with any one man about everything, for unless you have committed yourself in writing, the ‘Yes’ of one man is worth as much as the ‘No’ of another.
“And therefore one should guard most carefully against writing, as against a dangerous rock, for nothing will convict you quicker than your own handwriting.”
In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul of France, ordered the execution of the popular Louis Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Enghien, claiming that he had aided Britain and plotted against France.
The aristocracy of Europe, still recalling the slaughters of the French Revolution, was shocked.
Asked for his opinion on the execution, Napoleon’s chief of police, Joseph Fouche, said: “It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder.”
This may prove to be history’s verdict on the storing of so many incriminating computer files by the DNC.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 2, 2016 at 12:13 am
Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren seems to know something that most of her fellow Democrats don’t–or choose to ignore.
Nazi Germany wasn’t defeated because “we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys.”
On the contrary: It was defeated because the Allies waged war as brutally as the Germans.
For example:
- From D-Day to the fall of Berlin, captured Waffen-SS soldiers were often shot out of hand.
- When American troops came under fire in the German city of Aachen, Lt. Col. Derrill Daniel brought in a self-propelled 155mm artillery piece and opened up on a theater housing German soldiers. After the city surrendered, a German colonel labeled the use of the 155 “barbarous” and demanded that it be outlawed.
German soldiers at Stalingrad
- The United States and Great Britain carpet-bombed about 150 German cities by day and night, killing 305,000 to 600,000 civilians.
- During the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, Wilhelm Hoffman, a young German soldier and diarist, was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender. He wrote: “You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear! Barbarians! They use gangster methods….”
In short: The Allies won because they dared to meet the brutality of a Heinz Guderian with that of a George S. Patton.
This is a lesson that has been totally lost on the liberals of the Democratic Party. Which explains why they lost most of the Presidential elections of the 20th century.
To Republicans, “lawfully elected” applies only to Republican Presidents. A Democrat who runs against a Republican is automatically considered a traitor.
And a Democrat who defeats a Republican is automatically considered a usurper, and thus deserves to be slandered and obstructed, if not impeached.
Unable to defeat Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Republicans tried in 1998 to impeach him for getting oral sex in the White House.
Similarly, 2012 Presidential candidate Herman Cain, asked in a conference call with bloggers why Republicans couldn’t just impeach President Barack Obama, replied:
“That’s a great question and it is a great–it would be a great thing to do but because the Senate is controlled by Democrats we would never be able to get the Senate first to take up that action.”
Barack Obama
In Renegade: The Making of a President, Richard Wolffe chronicled Obama’s successful 2008 bid for the White House. Among his revelations:
Obama, a believer in rationality and decency, felt more comfortable in responding to attacks on his character than in making them on the character of his enemies.
A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama is easily one of the most academically gifted Presidents in United States history.
But for all this, he failed–from the onset of his Presidency–to grasp and apply this fundamental lesson taught by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.
Niccolo Machiavelli
In The Prince, Machiavelli warns:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be more loved than feared, or feared more than loved.
The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….
And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Just as they have blithely disregarded the lessons of history, liberals have ignored the Realpolitik of Machiavelli–with catastrophic results.
On Facebook and Twitter, liberals are already celebrating the “certain” Presidency of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders or former First Lady Hillary Clinton in 2017.
They forget–or ignore–that liberals couldn’t believe America would elect, respectively, Richard Nixon (1968 and 1972), Ronald Reagan (1980 and 1984), George H.W. Bush (1988) and George W. Bush (2000 and 2004).
But Elizabeth Warren clearly hasn’t forgotten those Republican victories. Nor does she take for granted that Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump is certain to lose in November.
Elizabeth Warren
Instead, Warren has dared to do what no other Democrat–or Republican–has: Attack Trump head-on, with the kind of blunt, insulting language he has lavished on his opponents.
On March 31, she appeared on The Late Show, with Stephen Colbert. Her take on the egotistical billionaire:
“Donald Trump is looking out for exactly one guy, and that guy’s name is Donald Trump. He smells that there’s change in the air and what he wants to do is make sure that that change works really, really well for Donald Trump.
“The truth is, he inherited a fortune from his father, he kept it going by cheating and defrauding people, and then he takes his creditors through Chapter 11.”
When Colbert said that Trump had never broken the law, Warren replied that he had never broken the law “and been caught.”
For Democrats to win elective victories and enact their agenda, they must find their own George Patton to take on the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.
Only Elizabeth Warren has so far grasped this truth. And only she seems determined to act on it.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 1, 2016 at 12:04 am
Donald Trump, “for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius.”
So stated New York Times columnist David Brooks on the May 27 edition of the PBS Newshour.
“And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco {Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
Donald Trump
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under. It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And [Hillary] just comes with ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’
“These are words that are not exciting people. And her campaign style has gotten, if anything…a little more stagnant and more flat.”
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton isn’t the only Presidential candidate who has proven unable to cope with Trump’s gifts for insult. His targets–and insults–have included:
-
Former Texas Governor Rick Perry: “Wears glasses to seem smart.”
-
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush: “Low Energy Jeb.”
-
Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders: “Crazy Bernie.”
-
Ohio Governor John Kasich: “Mathematically dead and totally desperate.”
So far, only one opponent has managed to stand up to Trump: Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, whom Trump has called “goofy.”
Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio tried to out-insult Trump at the Republican Presidential candidates’ debate on March 3.
“I call him Little Marco. Little Marco. Hello, Marco,” said Trump.
And so Rubio retaliated with “Big Donald.” Since Americans generally believe that “bigger is better,” this was a poor choice of insult.
On the May 27 edition of the PBS Newshour, syndicated columnist Mark Shields noted the ability of Elizabeth Warren to rattle Trump:
“Elizabeth Warren gets under Donald Trunp’s skin. And I think she’s been the most effective adversary. I think she’s done more to unite the Democratic party than either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.
“I mean, she obviously–he can’t stay away from her. He is tweeting about her.”
Elizabeth Warren
JUDY WOODRUFF (moderator): “But whether it’s Elizabeth Warren or not, doesn’t Hillary Clinton need to come up with some approach that works, that is as effective comeback?”
DAVID BROOKS: “Yes. Well, I think she does, not that anybody else has managed to do this….
“And so the tactics…is either you do what Elizabeth Warren has done, like full-bore negativity, that kind of [get] under the skin, or try to ridicule him and use humor. Humor is not Hillary Clinton’s strongest point.”
But sharp-edged humor clearly works for Warren.
A May 12 story on CNN–“Elizabeth Warren Gives Trump a Dose of His Own Medicine on Twitter”–notes:
“In the past week the Massachusetts Democrat has refined an aggressive anti-Trump message through a series of so-called tweetstorms.
“Whenever Trump criticizes her, Warren fires right back at him, sometimes twice as hard.”
Warren’s tweets, according to the article, appear to have two goals:
- Challenge Trump on social media, which he has so far dominated; and
- Use attention-catching words like “bully” and “loser.”
Among her tweets:
- “But here’s the thing. You can beat a bully–not by tucking tail and running, but by holding your ground.”
- When Trump boasted “I’m driving her nuts” Warren tweeted: “No, @realDonaldTrump – your racism, sexism & xenophobia doesn’t drive me nuts. It makes me sick. And I’m not alone.”
- “You care so much about struggling American workers, @realDonaldTrump, that you want to abolish the federal minimum wage?”
- “@realDonaldTrump: Your policies are dangerous. Your words are reckless. Your record is embarrassing. And your free ride is over.”
Nor has Warren restricted herself to battling Trump on Twitter.
On May 24, Warren unleashed perhaps her most devastating attack on Trump at an event hosted by the Center for Popular Democracy:
“Just yesterday, it came out that Donald Trump had said back in 2007 that he was ‘excited’ for the real estate market to crash because, quote, ‘I’ve always made more money in bad markets than in good markets.’
“That’s right. The rest of us were horrified by the 2008 financial crisis, by what happened to the millions of families…that were forced out of their homes.
“But Donald Trump was drooling over the idea of a housing meltdown–because it meant he could buy up a bunch more property on the cheap.
“What kind of a man does that? Root for people to get thrown out on the street? Root for people to lose their jobs? Root for people to lose their pensions?
“What kind of a man does that? I’ll tell you exactly what kind—a man who cares about no one but himself. A small, insecure moneygrubber who doesn’t care who gets hurt, so long as he makes some money off it….
“Sometimes Trump claims he is tough on Wall Street–tough on the guys who cheated people….. But now he’s singing a very different song.
“Last week, he said that the new Dodd-Frank financial regulations have…’made it impossible for bankers to function’ and he will put out a new plan soon that ‘will be close to dismantling Dodd-Frank.’
“Donald Trump is worried about helping poor little Wall Street? Let me find the world’s smallest violin to play a sad, sad song.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 31, 2016 at 12:05 am
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On May 27, Shields–a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative–came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about the character of Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
With the business magnate having won the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, both columnists appeared increasingly dismayed.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
MARK SHIELDS: “Donald Trump gratuitously slandered Ted Cruz’s wife. He libeled Ted Cruz’s father for being potentially part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the president of the United States, suggesting that he was somehow a fellow traveler in that.
“This is a libel. You don’t get over it….
“I cannot figure out any possible advantage to Donald Trump when he’s got a problem with Latinos and with women to go into New Mexico, where the nation’s only Latina woman Republican governor sits, who has not said anything negative about him, who endorsed one of his opponents, but has not been an attack dog on Donald Trump, and absolutely goes after her and is abusive to her.
“And I’m just saying to myself, what is the advantage to this?
“…I think this man may be addicted to the roar of the grease paint and the sound of the crowd, or however it goes, smell of the crowd.
“And those rallies bring out something in him, and he just feels that he has to–and it’s all personal….I mean, it’s not a philosophical difference. It’s not a political difference. It’s all personal.”
Donald Trump
Ironically, Rand Paul, Republican U.S. Senator from Kentucky, has reached a similar conclusion about Trump:
“I think there is a sophomore quality that is entertaining with Mr. Trump, but I am worried. I’m very concerned of having him in charge of his nuclear weapons because his visceral response to attack people on their appearance–short, tall, fat, ugly–my goodness that happened in junior high.”
DAVID BROOKS: “Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under.
“It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’
“These are words that are not exciting people. And her campaign style has gotten, if anything…a little more stagnant and more flat.”
How did American politics reach this state of affairs?
In 1996, Newt Gingrich, then Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, wrote a memo that encouraged Republicans to “speak like Newt.”
Entitled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” it urged Republicans to attack Democrats with such words as “corrupt,” “selfish,” “destructive,” “hypocrisy,” “liberal,” “sick,” and “traitors.”
Newt Gingrich
Even worse, Gingrich encouraged the news media to disseminate such accusations. Among his suggestions:
- “Fights make news.”
- Create a “shield issue” to deflect criticism: “A shield issue is, just, you know, your opponent is going to attack you as lacking compassion. You better…show up in the local paper holding a baby in the neonatal center.”
In the memo, Gingrich advised:
“….In the video “We are a Majority,” Language is listed as a key mechanism of control used by a majority party, along with Agenda, Rules, Attitude and Learning.
As the tapes have been used in training sessions across the country and mailed to candidates we have heard a plaintive plea: ‘I wish I could speak like Newt.’
“That takes years of practice. But, we believe that you could have a significant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases….
“This list is prepared so that you might have a directory of words to use in writing literature and mail, in preparing speeches, and in producing electronic media.
“The words and phrases are powerful. Read them. Memorize as many as possible. And remember that like any tool, these words will not help if they are not used.”
Here is the list of words Gingrich urged his followers to use in describing “the opponent, their record, proposals and their party”:
- abuse of power
- anti- (issue): flag, family, child, jobs
- betray
- bizarre
- bosses
- bureaucracy
- cheat
- coercion
- “compassion” is not enough
- collapse(ing)
- consequences
- corrupt
- corruption
- criminal rights
- crisis
- cynicism
- decay
- deeper
- destroy
- destructive
- devour
- disgrace
- endanger
- excuses
- failure (fail)
- greed
- hypocrisy
- ideological
- impose
- incompetent
- insecure
- insensitive
|
- intolerant
- liberal
- lie
- limit(s)
- machine
- mandate(s)
- obsolete
- pathetic
- patronage
- permissive attitude
- pessimistic
- punish (poor …)
- radical
- red tape
- self-serving
- selfish
- sensationalists
- shallow
- shame
- sick
- spend(ing)
- stagnation
- status quo
- steal
- taxes
- they/them
- threaten
- traitors
- unionized
- urgent (cy)
- waste
- welfare
|
Yes, speaking like Newt–or Adolf Hitler or Joseph McCarthy–“takes years of practice.”
And to the dismay of both Republicans and Democrats, Donald Trump has learned his lessons well.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 24, 2016 at 12:56 am
The 1960 Kirk Douglas epic, Spartacus, may soon prove to be more than great entertainment. It may also turn out to be a prophecy of the end of the American Republic.
In the movie, Spartacus (Douglas), a Roman slave, entertains Marcus Crassus (Laurence Oliver) the richest man in Rome. He does so by fighting to the death as a gladiator.
Poster for Spartacus
While Spartacus and his fellow gladiator/friend, Draba, slash and stab at each other in the arena, Crassus idly chats with his crony, Marcus Glabrus.
Crassus has just secured Glabrus’ appointment as commander of the garrison of Rome. Glabrus is grateful, but curious as to how he did it.
After all, Gaius Gracchus, the leader of the Roman Senate, hates Crassus, and stands ever ready to oppose his every move.
“I fought fire with oil,” says Crassus. “I purchased the Senate behind his back.”
Draba defeats Spartacus in their gladiatorial bout, but refuses to kill him. Instead, he throws his spear at Crassus and is immediately slaughtered by Roman guards.
Soon afterward, Spartacus leads 70 other gladiators against their Roman masters, forms an army of freed slaves, and marches against Rome.
Just as Crassus bought the Roman Senate in Spartacus, so, too, are billionaires now buying the 2016 Presidential election.
In 2016, Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, ran as the pet candidate of casino billionaire Sheldon G. Adelson. Since 2007, Adelson had spent millions in support of Gingrich and his causes.
Newt Gingrich
Adelson put up seed money and, ultimately, $7.7 million between 2006 and 2010 for a nonprofit group that served as a precursor to Gingrich’s presidential campaign.
Sheldon Adelson
Such a contribution is no small amount to the average American. But Adelson is listed by Forbes as the eighth-wealthiest American, with a net worth of $21.5 billion.
Naturally, Adelson denied he had any selfish motives for shelling out so much money to a candidate for the most powerful office in the world:
“My motivation for helping Newt is simple and should not be mistaken for anything other than the fact that my wife Miriam and I hold our friendship with him very dear and are doing what we can as private citizens to support his candidacy.”
Unfortunately, Gingrich was not the only candidate of the rich, by the rich and for the rich seeking the Presidency.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney relied heavily on a small group of millionaires and billionaires for support.
By February, 2012, a quarter of the money amassed by Romney’s campaign came from just 41 people. Each contributor gave more than $100,000, according to a Washington Post analysis of disclosure data. Nearly a dozen of the donors had contributed $1 million or more.
Some of Romney’s biggest supporters included executives at Bain Capital, his former firm; bankers at Goldman Sachs; and a hedge fund mogul who made billions betting on the housing crash.
Like Adelson, Bain has directly profited from the losses of others.
Fast forward to 2016:
In early May, Adelson met privately with Republican Presidential nominee-in-waiting Donald Trump. Nevertheless, at least this much has leaked:
Adelson promised to contribute more to secure Trump’s election than he had contributed to any previous campaign. This could exceed $100 million.
Meanwhile, Trump is bragging that he’s “not beholden” to any “special interests” because “I’m really rich.” This myth has been a main reason for his popularity as a candidate.
Donald Trump
All of this can be directly traced to the 2010 “Citizens United” decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that ended limits in corporate contributions to political campaigns. The decision is so named for the group that successfully sued over federal campaign finance laws.
The 5-4 decision led to the rise of Super PACs–outside groups affiliated with candidates that can take in unlimited contributions as long as they don’t directly coordinate with the candidate. The overwhelming majority of this money goes for negative ads–that slander opponents without saying anything about what a candidate proposes to do.
Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia brushed aside criticism of the corrupting role money played in politics: Change the channel or turn off the TV.
“I don’t care who is doing the speech–the more the merrier,” Scalia said. “People are not stupid. If they don’t like it, they’ll shut it off.”
On the contrary: A fundamental principle of propaganda holds that most people are stupid–or can be made to behave stupidly. If they are ceaselessly bombarded with mind-numbing lies, they will eventually substitute these for reality.
In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler laid out his formula for successful propaganda: “All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials.
“These must be expressed as far as possible in stereotypical formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”
During the early 1960s a series of movies about the Roman Empire–like Spartacus and Cleopatra–hit the big screen. In these, rich criminals like Marcus Crassus openly bought the favors of ambitious politicians like Julius Caesar.
No doubt millions of moviegoers thought, “Boy, I’m glad that couldn’t happen here.” But it has happened here–and it’s happening right now.
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TOO CLEVER FOR THEIR–AND OUR–OWN GOOD
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 3, 2016 at 12:02 amThe signs were there long before Wikileaks confirmed them.
Even the most casual observer of politics could see the aren’t-we-cute? relationship between Hillary Clinton and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
Clinton, of course, was the former First Lady, U.S. Senator from New York and Secretary of State under President Barack Obama. She was also, by popular consensus, the candidate to beat for the 2016 Democratic Presidential nomination.
And Wasserman-Schultz was the chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Nobody expected Clinton to act impartially. But that was the expectation demanded of Wasserman-Schultz.
There were, after all, other Democrats besides Clinton seeking their party’s nomination–the most prominent of these being Bernie Sanders, the U.S. Senator from Vermont.
Bernie Sanders
Yet Wasserman-Schultz made no effort to hide her clear bias on behalf of Clinton.
On December 18, 2015, writing in The Huffington Post, political blogger Miles Mogulescu sounded a warning:
“It’s increasingly clear that Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, isn’t acting as a neutral party Chair, trying to insure a fair and democratic primary and building the Democratic Party in the states.
“Rather, she’s acting as a shill for Hillary Clinton, doing everything in her power to ensure that no one will effectively challenge Hillary’s coronation as the nominee.”
Hillary Clinton
Two days later, on December 20, 2015, the website, U.S. Uncut published an article:
5 TIMES DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ VIOLATED DNC RULES AND STACKED THE DECK IN FAVOR OF CLINTON.
The article bluntly stated that Wasserman-Schultz “has made a name for herself among many Democratic voters as a shill for the Clinton machine.” And then it offered five specific examples to back up this assertion:
So no one should have been surprised when the full dimensions of the truth were finally revealed on July 22, 2016.
That was when Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the DNC.
The emails had been exchanged from January 2015 through May 2016. And they clearly revealed a bias for Hillary Clinton and against Sanders.
One email revealed that Brad Marshall, the chief financial officer of the DNC, suggested that Sanders, who is Jewish, could be portrayed as an atheist.
Sanders’ supporters had long charged that the DNC and Wasserman-Schultz had undercut his campaign. Now they had the evidence in black-and-white.
The leak badly embarrassed Clinton. About to receive the Democratic nomination for President, she found herself charged with undermining the electoral process.
Wasserman-Schultz proved the first casualty of the leak, resigning as chair of the DNC and saying she would not open the Democratic convention as previously scheduled.
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
Clinton’s campaign manager, Bobby Mook, put his best spin on the scandal: He blamed the Russians for the leak. Their alleged motive–to help Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Cyber-security experts believed the hackers originated from Russia–and that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have authorized it.
Perhaps the worst mistake of the DNC was not putting so many embarrassing emails into computers.
Its worst was favoring Hillary Clinton above all other Presidential candidates.
On August 31, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the two most unpopular presidential candidates in more than 30 years.
A July 6 Fortune story sheds light on “Why Trump and Clinton Are America’s Most Disliked Presidential Candidates.”
Trump: “After making comments insulting Muslims, Latinos and women, Trump has been unable to fend off charges of racisms and sexism.”
Clinton: “Clinton is dogged by voter mistrust stoked by her handling of classified State Department information on a private email server, the Benghazi hearings, and the long-ago Whitewater scandal.”
And applying to both candidates: “People who exhibit a few instances of socially unacceptable behavior are quickly labeled as deviant and have to commit disproportionately many more acceptable behaviors to restore their reputation.”
Since October, Trump has been dogged by his admission of sexually predatory behavior toward women: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful–I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
At least a dozen women have since charged him with making unwanted sexual advances.
Such revelations would normally prove the kiss of death for any Presidential candidate.
Had the Democrats chosen a genuinely popular candidate–or at least one who was not so widely hated as Clinton–the electoral map would now look very different.
But as matters now stand, Trump and Clinton seem locked dead-even in the polls.
In 2008, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw compared the Presidential campaign rallies of then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama to popular Hannah Montana concerts.
In 2016, not even the most partisan Democrats would make such a remark about Clinton.
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