Author Archive: Stephen Green
October 24, 2016
MAYBE I COULD BORROW SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE: The New Yorker Endorses Hillary Clinton.
HMM:
1.2 mil Floridians have voted by mail: 504k Reps, 483k Dems, 220k others. GOP had 5 point mail advantage at this point in 12. Today, 1.7
— Adam Smith (@adamsmithtimes) October 24, 2016
The five-point early voting advantage in 2012 still wasn’t enough to deliver the state to Mitt Romney.
HEY, BIG SPENDER: Facebook co-founder drops unprecedented cash to stop Trump.
Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz vaulted suddenly and without any advance warning to the top rung of Democratic party mega donors with two unheralded tears through his checkbook in the last six weeks. His money significantly altered the short-term financial position of the pro-Hillary Clinton forces and revealed a previously unknown source of cash for Democrats.
In the days after Moskovitz’s money landed, the party’s leading finance operatives struggled to control their excitement at the prospect of finally having an answer to Republicans’ Sheldon Adelson in the shape of a Silicon Valley titan like the ones Democrats have been chasing after for well over a decade.
“This is a unicorn-type campaign gift — you just don’t see someone basically walk into a campaign without a significant track record of activity and contribute at this level,” said veteran Democratic strategist Chris Lehane, a Clinton White House alum who works closely with top party donors in Silicon Valley.
Closely indeed, I’m sure.
THEY ANSWERED THE CALL: Why the Pentagon Is Hounding CA Veterans for Money.
Nearly 10,000 soldiers — many of whom served in multiple combat tours — have been ordered to repay large enlistment bonuses (of $15,000 or more), the Los Angeles Times reported. Worse, if the veterans refuse, the Pentagon uses interest charges, wage garnishments, and tax liens to recoup the money.
“I feel totally betrayed,” Susan Haley, a 26-year veteran and former Army master sergeant who deployed to Afghanistan in 2008, told the Los Angeles Times.
Haley comes from a family of heroes: her husband also served, and her eldest son lost a leg in Afghanistan while serving as a medic. Haley said she sends the Pentagon $650 every month, a quarter of her family’s income, just to pay the $20,500 in bonuses which was given to her improperly, in exchange for her six-year reenlistment. Haley said she fears her family may have to sell their house to repay the bonuses.
“They’ll get their money, but I want those years back,” she declared.
Read the whole thing.
MY WIFE SAYS “MUCH FASTER, PLEASE.” Dutch Designer Creates ‘Smog Free Tower’ That Converts Chinese Pollution Into Diamonds.
THIS ACTUALLY MAKES ME FEEL BETTER ABOUT THEM: Iran’s President Criticizes US Presidential Candidates.
THE MEANING OF IS: No, the Clinton campaign didn’t actually deny Dem operatives incited violence at Trump rallies.
Larry O’Connor:
Today, you’ll see many mainstream media reports saying Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook denied any involvement in the “bird-dogging” activities revealed by James O’Keefe’s video investigation released last week by Project Veritas.
But, did he really? I don’t think so.
As is typical with everything surrounding the Clintons, you need to really look at what he said and parse the sentence down to its actual meaning.
Of course Mook didn’t say anything that he could be pinned down on later. A lie is the default response from the Clinton Camp, and if pressed they will admit to only as much truth as they absolutely must.
This has been the Clinton’s SOP for more than 30 years, and the Democrat-operatives-with-bylines are usually all-too-happy to play along.
DUCK AND COVER: Russians Conduct Nuclear-Bomb Survival Drills as Cold War Heats Up.
At the Kremlin’s Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Cold War is back.
The country recently held its biggest civil defense drills since the collapse of the U.S.S.R., with what officials said were 40 million people rehearsing a response to chemical and nuclear threats.
Videos of emergency workers deployed in hazmat suits or checking the ventilation in bomb shelters were prominently aired on television when the four days of drills were held across the country. Students tried on gas masks and placed dummies on stretchers in school auditoriums.
The capital’s civil-defense plans are also being upgraded, said Andrey Mishchenko, deputy head of the ministry.
“An inventory was taken in Moscow of the city’s underground spaces, in order to allow us to plan for sheltering 100% of the city’s population,” he said, as reported by state news agency RIA Novosti.
In parallel, commentators on state-dominated airwaves issued some of the shrillest anti-American rhetoric in years. “Russia is sick of America’s arrogant lies,” influential commentator Dmitry Kiselyov said this month after a Syrian peace plan collapsed.
“Just” 88 days until the next president is sworn in.
PUNCHING DOWNTICKET: Buoyed by rising polls, Clinton shifts to a new target: the House and Senate.
JAYVEE UPDATE: ISIS Attempting to Establish Caliphate in Afghanistan.
A LITTLE PIECE OF POLAND, A LITTLE PIECE OF FRANCE: In Russia’s ‘Frozen Zone,’ a Creeping Border With Georgia.
Mr. Tatiashvili’s troubles started early in the summer when earth-moving equipment turned up without warning and started digging a wide track through an apple orchard and a field of wildflowers on the edge of the village. He was out at the time, so he avoided being trapped.
“It is too dangerous for me to go home,” he said, complaining that the boundary has become so mobile that nobody really knows its final destination. Mr. Tatiashvili now lives in his brother’s house, away from the border in the village center.
The destitute mountainous area of South Ossetia first declared itself independent from Georgia in 1990, but nobody outside the region paid much attention until Russia invaded in August 2008 and recognized South Ossetia’s claims to statehood. With that, the territory joined Abkhazia in western Georgia, the Moldovan enclave of Transnistria and eastern Ukraine as a “frozen zone,” an area of Russian control within neighboring states, useful for things like preventing a NATO foothold or destabilizing the host country at opportune moments.
Russia has been annexing little bits of Georgia in this manner since at least 2014.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, IT’S OLD NEWS, TIME TO MOVE ON: Clinton Ally Aided Campaign of FBI Official’s Wife.
The political organization of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, an influential Democrat with longstanding ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, gave nearly $500,000 to the election campaign of the wife of an official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation who later helped oversee the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email use.
Campaign finance records show Mr. McAuliffe’s political-action committee donated $467,500 to the 2015 state Senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, who is married to Andrew McCabe, now the deputy director of the FBI.
The Virginia Democratic Party, over which Mr. McAuliffe exerts considerable control, donated an additional $207,788 worth of support to Dr. McCabe’s campaign in the form of mailers, according to the records. That adds up to slightly more than $675,000 to her candidacy from entities either directly under Mr. McAuliffe’s control or strongly influenced by him. The figure represents more than a third of all the campaign funds Dr. McCabe raised in the effort.
McAuliffe approached McCabe to run on March 7, 2015. The New York Times broke the Clinton email story on March 2.
HMM: Plane crash in Malta kills five people on surveillance operation.
The Maltese government said the plane was taking part in an operation to track illicit trafficking routes, including human and drugs trafficking. The Fairchild Metroliner crashed at 7:20 a.m. local time on Monday, Malta International Airport said.
“Our thoughts are with the families of the people involved in the accident today,” the airport said in a statement.
The Maltese government later said that an investigation was under way. It said in a statement: “The flight was part of a French Customs surveillance operation which has been taking place for the past five months, with the aim of tracing routes of illicit trafficking of all sorts, including human and drug trafficking amongst others.
Malta lies just north of Libya.
VIDEO: Bob Woodward Says Clinton Foundation Is “Corrupt” And Clinton Didn’t Answer The Questions.
But surely…
Surely foreign heads of state would treat a fundraising appeal from the favorite in the next presidential election as wholly private.
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) October 24, 2016
REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD: UK could slash corporation tax to 10 percent if EU blocks Brexit trade deal.
“People say we have not got any cards,” the newspaper quoted an unidentified source familiar with the British government’s thinking as saying.
“We have some quite good cards we can play if they start getting difficult with us. If they’re saying no passporting and high trade tariffs we can cut corporation tax to 10 percent,” the newspaper quoted an anonymous source as saying,” the source was quoted as saying.
Cutting corporation tax could attract companies away from the EU to Britain, boosting its economy and challenging Ireland’s preeminence as Europe’s low tax home for large international companies.
Just think of Brexit as a contested divorce between a rich old couple with no prenup.
OUR ALLIES THE TURKS: Turkey Is Bombing Anti-ISIS Fighters in Iraq, Syria.
On Wednesday, Turkey launched one of its biggest airstrikes in decades — bombing 18 positions in northern Syria and killing an estimated 200 fighters.
But the strikes north of Aleppo didn’t involve President Bashar al-Assad’s army, or any of the main groups fighting his government like the Free Syrian Army, the Jihadi militia Jabhat Fatah al Sham, or even ISIS.
Instead, Turkey bombed People’s Protection Units, or YPG — Kurdish militia the U.S. considers the most effective force against ISIS in Syria.
Turkey has sent 2,000 troops into Iraq, where they are watching the massive military operation aimed at recapturing Mosul from the extremists. Baghdad maintains Turkey has violated its sovereignty and on Thursday issued an arrest warrant for an ex-Mosul governor who allegedly “invited” in the troops.
These latest in a series of military moves reveal how the government of President Tayyip Erdogan is reasserting its historic territorial claims while also trying to crush the country’s mortal enemies — Kurdish separatists.
If Erdogan’s aim was to occupy the Syrian- and Iraqi-owned Kurdish territories in order to permanently solve “the Kurdish problem,” what would he be doing any differently?
THE INTERNET OF POLITICAL THINGS: Amazon Echo now fact-checks politicians.
Duke Reporters’ Lab has introduced an Amazon Echo skill that lets you fact-check any politician scrutinized by PolitFact, FactCheck.org or the Washington Post. If you want to know if Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is telling it straight, you just have to ask your wireless speaker whether or not a claim is true.
It’s not perfect. You have to sit through a lengthy introductory spiel before you can ask your question, and Duke stresses that you should mention major keywords to get the right answer. Still, there’s a certain pleasure to knowing that you can call a would-be leader’s bluff while you’re busy making dinner.
October 21, 2016
QUESTION ASKED: Why Doesn’t BuzzFeed Find Women Hot?
MEET THE SNOO CRIB: The Most Brilliant Invention of 2016 for Tired Parents.
WELL, GOOD: GOP rebuffs Obama’s entreaties to fix health law.
President Barack Obama on Thursday called for Republicans next year to pass legislation to repair Obamacare. The GOP response? No.
Democrats have long held out hope that with a new president, the political winds would shift, creating an opening to pass badly needed legislative repairs.
But Republicans have been bashing Obamacare for more than six years and there is no sign that they’re going to break that habit — let alone vote for legislative repairs. House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday that the law “can’t be fixed.”
Obamacare is the reason “we’ve seen record premium hikes,” Ryan said in a statement. “That’s why millions of people—including millennials—have lost their plans, or been forced to buy plans they don’t like. That’s why we’ve seen waste, fraud, and abuse. And at this point, one thing is clear: This law can’t be fixed.”
It’s like what I tell my young sons almost every day: “This is your mess; you clean it up.”
MATTHEW CONTINETTI: Crisis of the Conservative Intellectual.
Just click. Too lengthy to properly excerpt, too important to miss.