TWO CLINTONS IN ONE!
● Hillary Told Daughter Chelsea That Terrorists Were Behind Benghazi Attack The Night It Happened.
● Hillary to Benghazi Committee: You Need to Learn ‘Lesson’ of the YouTube Video.
Hillary is apparently applying a variation on the Dan Rather/New York Times “fake but accurate” defense to square the circle.
THE HILL: GOP backs away from House debt-limit vote.
House Republicans are backing away from a tentative plan to vote Friday on raising the debt limit with a package of conservative reforms, leaving them without a clear path forward ahead of the looming Nov. 3 deadline.
The conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) had authored a proposal that would hike the debt limit into 2017, impose a freeze on new regulations, ban the Senate from filibustering spending bills after October and prevent either chamber from adjourning in September if they haven’t finished work on appropriations bills.
But GOP aides indicated Thursday that the bill is now unlikely to hit the floor this week. The RSC is comprised of about 170 members, which is short of the 218 votes needed to pass legislation.
One source said GOP centrists were objecting to a show-vote measure they believed had little chance of success, given opposition to the plan in the Senate.With the RSC plan now on the shelf, it’s unclear what the House’s next move will be on the debt limit, with less than two weeks to go until the Treasury Department says the nation faces a potential default.
Either use it for leverage or give Obama a clean one and fight him elsewhere. Er, somewhere.
HOW HILLARY’S CAMPAIGN “BOXED OUT” JOE BIDEN:
On the debate stage, Clinton embraced Obama, a move that made it more difficult for Biden to pitch himself as the Obama legacy candidate. And she moved leftward on a number of issues, such as the Keystone XL pipeline, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, and attempted to use rhetoric to distance herself from Wall Street, leaving no room for Biden to maneuver between her and the Democratic socialist to her left, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Riding Obama’s coattails so closely could backfire dramatically though once Hillary lurches back towards wooing the center — note how well these two posts from Wednesday dovetail:
● Does Hillary Clinton Want Your Guns? — The Democratic presidential candidate thinks Australia’s mass confiscation of firearms “is a good example.”
● Video Proof: CNN Caught Lying About Trump – Obama Does Back Gun Confiscation. “At the 1:45 mark, below is video proof of Obama openly expressing his desire to impose Australian-style gun control laws here in America. And it is a fact that the Australian law began with a massive campaign involving the confiscation (through a mandatory government buyback program) of legally purchased firearms.”
All presidential administrations begin to dissipate dramatically as they enter their last year, but Hillary has yoked herself to Obama at a moment when he’s flailing particularly wildly, alternately in search of a legacy and in exhausted YOLO mode. (Iran sums up both halves of that equation, of course.)
Being associated with a train wreck presidency that unpredictable is partially why Roger Simon writes that “Biden’s Departure Gives Republicans Early Xmas Gift,” but then given that this is the Stupid Party after all, they’re just as likely to squander it.
BIBI TO BBC: “ARE WE LIVING ON THE SAME PLANET?”
And everyone knows the answer to that question.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Student Debt Is Worse Than You Think.
The loan crisis hits hardest at colleges enrolling large numbers of students from low-income backgrounds. These undergraduates have to borrow for college, then often have difficulty finding well-paying jobs after graduation — if they graduate at all.
As a result, they struggle to repay their loans. The colleges with the lowest student-loan repayment rates include many for-profit colleges, but also some public and private nonprofit colleges, including a substantial number of historically black institutions. Even some wealthier, more selective colleges turn out to have a bigger student loan problem than previously realized.
Along with recent research finding that student loan defaults are heavily concentrated among the most economically marginalized students, the new data suggests that debt is a major financial obstacle for people who already face barriers to opportunity.
Funny, higher ed is sold as the great equalizer, but the effect seems to be the opposite. If only someone had offered a warning.
WELL, SOMEBODY SHOULD: Dem to Clinton: Benghazi panel is here to ‘prosecute you.’
HOW REPUBLICANS BLEW IT ON BENGHAZI: Note that this piece by “GOP Media Guy” Rick Wilson was published before Hillary took the stand yesterday. To invert the sentences in his lede, “The news cycle that will follow Hillary Clinton’s appearance on Capitol Hill is entirely predictable,” Wilson writes. “Even before Hillary Clinton faced off against the House Benghazi committee, Republicans had lost the narrative—because they still don’t understand Hillary Rules.”
And speaking of entirely predictable, here’s Wilson’s article, published yesterday at 1:15 AM Eastern:
The stories are already written.
Because Republicans have so fundamentally botched the messaging on this matter (surprise!), tomorrow’s stories write themselves. I’ll lay perfectly good bitcoin that the coverage will include lines like these:
“After a day of highly politicized hearings that even Republicans admit are merely to harm Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, the Democratic frontrunner emerged essentially unscathed.”
I bolded the text in that last sentence, because it’s an uncanny preview of this headline at Democrat house organ The Hill, published at 9:30 PM Eastern yesterday: “Clinton largely unscathed by GOP Benghazi hearing.”
Now if only the GOP could match up their presidential candidates with strategists who can hack the MSM’S OODA loop with that degree of forensic surgery, they might no longer be the Stupid Party.
AW! SHE’S JUST BEING HERSELF: Hillary’s horrid Benghazi-hearing howlers.
LIVING IN TIMES OF DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE: It’s not easy driving green: Uber & a new cab crisis.
A MATTER OF REGULATION: From 1860-1916 the British Army required every soldier to have a mustache.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Feds Have Spent More on Origami Condoms, Fat Lesbian Studies Than on Benghazi Committee.
TOO CLOSE TO THE TRUTH: Campus speech cops ban ‘politically correct’.
CHIVALRY WAS A BALANCED SYSTEM, SO YES: Has Feminism Killed Chivalry?
SCAMMING THE SCAMMERS: Here’s what happens when you reply to that bogus ‘free money’ email.
A MODEST PROPOSAL TO COUNTER THE HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE: A Modest Proposal for Making College Admissions More Fair: Remove Subjectivity and the Glitzy Foofaraw.
BLOWING IT WITH THE GEEK VOTE: Bush himself admitted that he wasn’t an expert on Marvel.
NEW YORK TIMES POLITICAL REPORTER APPARENTLY HAS NEVER WATCHED C-SPAN:
IT’S NOT TOO LATE: at Amazon, take 30% off Halloween costumes.
Also, Top Picks in Retro Toys.
ASHE SCHOW: All Hillary Had To Do Was Avoid Catastrophe To Be Declared The Winner. That’s certainly true. But I don’t think Hillary loses in a moment — her press-corps deflector shields ensure that. But I think the steady accrual of evidence of incompetence and sleaze still does damage.
EVERYTHING GETS OLD EVENTUALLY: Why Jos. A Bank is finally ending its infamous “Buy 1, get 3 free” sales.
MAYBE THE REASON WE HAVEN’T MET INTELLIGENT ALIENS IS THAT WE’RE THE FIRST ONES: Most earth-like worlds have yet to be born, according to theoretical study. “Earth came early to the party in the evolving universe. According to a new theoretical study, when our solar system was born 4.6 billion years ago only eight percent of the potentially habitable planets that will ever form in the universe existed. And, the party won’t be over when the sun burns out in another 6 billion years. The bulk of those planets — 92 percent — have yet to be born.”
AT AMAZON: 20% off Halloween Candy.
THE PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES MOVIE TRAILER.
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