October 30, 2016

Republicans Weaponize James Comey’s FBI To Kneecap Hillary Clinton - by Joy-Ann Reid

For a quarter century, Republicans have ginned up phonygates to jam up the Clintons. They’re at it again.

We need to talk about Republican abuse of power.

Something got lost in the sturm und drang over the FBI’s “October surprise” that dropped Friday afternoon, when director James Comey inexplicably dropped the bomblet that his agency had obtained “new” emails (or maybe duplicate ones; apparently no one’s read them yet) from a laptop shared by Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her creeper husband, former congressman Anthony Weiner.

Behind Comey’s defiance of both precedent and the guidance of his boss, the attorney general, was the subtext of intense pressure being put on the FBI and the Justice Department by Republicans, some of whom rushed Comey’s vague letter to members of the press.

Republicans have relentlessly pursued investigations of Hillary Clinton, going back to her time as secretary of state (to say nothing of the 30-year project to take down both Clintons by right-wing outside groups). The goal of the eight Benghazi committees, one of which produced and nurtured “emailgate,” has been clear from the start: to prevent Hillary Clinton from becoming president of the United States. Comey disappointed Republicans in July by not going along with what would have been a highly unusual indictment of a public official given the facts of Clinton’s email use, Republicans responded by dragging him before Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s House Oversight committee. Donald Trump called for Comey himself to be investigated.

That Comey felt pressed to step way outside the bounds of what previous directors have done by making his July statement at all, complete with editorial embellishments about Clinton’s conduct, and then to make new statements about the investigation 11 days before a national election is indeed “unprecedented and deeply troubling,” as Clinton herself put it at a rally Saturday.

-snip-

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/29/republicans-weaponize-james-comey-s-fbi-to-kneecap-hillary-clinton.html

October 30, 2016

Comey Ignored Attorney General, Violated Policy In Announcing Email Review

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet

FBI director James Comey was told by top Justice Department officials not to make any public statement about renewing the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, because it violated DOJ policy on commenting on ongoing investigations, various national news outlets reported Saturday.

“Director Comey understood our position. He heard it from Justice leadership,” the Washington Post‘s source said. “It was conveyed to the FBI, and Comey made an independent decision to alert the Hill. He is operating independently of the Justice Department. And he knows it.”

Attorney General Loretta Lynch told Comey not to break DOJ policy—laid out in federal prosecutor guidelines—of not commenting on open investigations or making any statement potentially influencing election outcomes, the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer reported, also citing DOJ sources.

“Lynch expressed her preference that Comey follow the department’s longstanding practice of not commenting on ongoing investigations, and not taking any action that could influence the outcome of an election,” Mayer wrote. “The F.B.I. director is an employee of the Justice Department, and is covered by its policies.”

-snip-

http://www.nationalmemo.com/comey-ignored-attorney-general-violated-policy-announcing-email-review/

October 30, 2016

Why The FBI Is Reviewing More Of Hillary Clinton’s Emails - by Kurt Eichenwald

Posted with permission from Newsweek

The disclosure by the Federal Bureau of Investigation late on Friday, October 28 that it had discovered potential new evidence in its inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s handling of her personal email when she was Secretary of State has virtually nothing to do with any actions taken by the Democratic nominee, according to government records and an official with knowledge of the investigation, who spoke to Newsweek on condition of anonymity.

The revelation that the FBI has discovered additional emails convulsed the political world, and led to widespread (and erroneous) claims and speculation. Many Republicans proclaimed that the discovery suggests Clinton may have broken the law, while Democrats condemned FBI Director James Comey for disclosing this information less than two weeks before the election, claiming he did it for political purposes.

Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, said the development showed his opponent had engaged in corruption “on a scale we have never seen before,’’ while Clinton called for the FBI to release all of the information it has, saying the American people have a right to know everything.

The truth is much less explosive. There is no indication the emails in question were withheld by Clinton during the investigation, the law enforcement official told Newsweek, nor does the discovery suggest she did anything illegal. Moreover, despite the widespread claims in the media that this development had prompted the FBI to “reopen” of the case, it did not; such investigations are never actually closed, and it is common for law enforcement to discover new information that needs to be examined.

As of Friday night Comey had only said the bureau is seeking to determine whether these newly discovered emails involved classified material.

-snip-

http://www.nationalmemo.com/why-fbi-reviewing-more-hillary-clintons-emails/

October 30, 2016

FBI doesn't have warrant to review new emails: reports

The FBI did not have a search warrant Saturday to review newly obtained emails linked to the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server.

FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to lawmakers Friday revealing the emails despite agents not having yet received a warrant to read them, Yahoo News reported.

Investigators still had not secured a warrant to review the emails as of Saturday night, Yahoo News reported. That echoed reporting from CBS News earlier Saturday.

One of the government officials quoted by Yahoo News said the FBI director "had no idea what was in the content of the emails" when he wrote the letter to lawmakers.

-snip-

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/303463-fbi-doesnt-have-warrant-to-review-new-emails-reports

October 30, 2016

Huma Abedin has told people she doesn’t know how her emails wound up on her husband’s computer

Clinton aide Huma Abedin has told people she doesn’t know how her emails wound up on her husband’s computer

By Matt Zapotosky, Tom Hamburger and Karen Tumulty

Top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin has told people she is unsure how her emails could have ended up on a device she viewed as her husband’s computer, the seizure of which has reignited the Clinton email investigation, according to a person familiar with the investigation and civil litigation over the matter.

The person, who would not discuss the case unless granted anonymity, said Abedin was not a regular user of the computer, and even when she agreed to turn over emails to the State Department for federal records purposes, her lawyers did not search it for materials, not believing any of her messages to be there.

That could be a significant oversight if Abedin’s work messages were indeed on the computer of her estranged husband, former congressman Anthony Weiner, who is under investigation for allegedly exchanging lewd messages with a 15-year-old girl. So far, it is unclear what — if any — new, work-related messages were found by authorities. The person said the FBI had not contacted Abedin about its latest discovery, and she was unsure what the bureau had discovered.

According to federal law enforcement officials, investigators found thousands of messages on Weiner’s computer that they believe to be potentially relevant to the separate, Clinton email investigation. How they are relevant — or if they are significant in any respect — remains unknown.

-snip-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-aide-huma-abedin-has-told-people-she-doesnt-know-how-her-emails-wound-up-on-her-husbands-computer/2016/10/29/1d30c2b8-9e15-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

October 30, 2016

How stereotypes of women as weak push female politicians to be hawkish

By Will Englund October 28

Will Englund is an editor on The Washington Post’s foreign desk and the author of the forthcoming book “March 1917: On the Brink of War and Revolution,” which will be published in early 2017.

Donald Trump and his allies have spent the fall depicting Hillary Clinton as too much of a hawk and too much of a dove, as too reckless with American power and too weak at the same time. She voted for the war in Iraq. She wanted to go into Libya with guns blazing. No, wait: She quailed at confronting the Islamic State. She failed to override Iraqi objections to keeping American soldiers on the banks of the Euphrates.

From the left, she is criticized for being too eager to project American power abroad, often favoring military force when President Obama was resistant. Even within this critique, though, there is sometimes a suggestion that she is weak — “susceptible” to guidance from neoconservatives.

It’s a bind that’s familiar to other women in prominent government roles, especially in the realm of national security: They have to deal with skepticism that they’re tough enough to protect American interests and American citizens. Can a woman be “as strong as a man”? That puts them in a position of having to prove their toughness, which in turn puts them at risk of being declared overly aggressive.

Few have understood these pressures better than Jeannette Rankin. She was the first woman elected to Congress, exactly 100 years ago. She ran because she wanted to be a voice for women and children, to advocate for safer food, better health care and, most important, national women’s suffrage. But on the day she took her seat, April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson went to the Capitol to ask for a declaration of war against Germany.

Rankin had come to Washington amid a buzz of excitement. “The Lady from Montana” (one of only 11 states that had given women the vote) was a progressive Republican who campaigned against big corporations and the class known back then as the “2 percent.” She was 36 and loved fast cars. Back East, it had been rumored that she was a man-hater and that she had flaming red hair, neither of which was true.

-snip-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-stereotypes-of-women-as-weak-push-female-politicians-to-be-hawkish/2016/10/27/036b233a-8977-11e6-875e-2c1bfe943b66_story.html?utm_term=.96094fdfd576&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

October 30, 2016

How Hillary Clinton Met Satan

By SUSAN FALUDI OCT. 29, 2016

It was my third day at the Republican National Convention in 1996, and my notebook overflowed with a one-note theme: “You do know that Hillary Clinton is funding the whole radical feminist agenda?” “She had Vince Foster killed.” “She’s behind many more murders than that.” “It’s well-established that Hillary Clinton belonged to a satanic cult, still does.” The consensus among Pat Buchanan’s supporters seemed ardent and universal, though the object of this obloquy wasn’t even on the opposing ticket.

One of the mysteries of 2016 is the degree to which Hillary Clinton is reviled. Not just rationally opposed but viscerally and instinctively hated. None of the stated reasons for the animus seem to satisfy. Yes, she’s careful and cagey, and her use of a private email server, which the F.B.I. flung back into the news on Friday, was a big mistake. But no, she’s not more dishonest than other politicians, and compared with her opponent, she’s George Washington. Her policies, even where bold, are hardly on the subversive fringe.

Yet she’s cast not just as a political combatant but as a demon who, in the imaginings of Republicans like Paul D. Ryan, the speaker of the House, and Representative Trent Franks, would create an America “where passion — the very stuff of life — is extinguished” (the former) and where fetuses would be destroyed “limb from limb” (the latter).

Donald J. Trump and his supporters posit their antipathy as a reaction to Mrs. Clinton’s accumulated record over “30 years in power.” It’s important to recall that she was deranging Republicans on Day 1. Understanding her demonization requires admitting her full significance in our political history, for she is not simply a pioneering woman fighting an Ur-misogyny. Mrs. Clinton faces a two-headed Cerberus, an artificial conjoining that occurred in the early 1990s, of wounded Republican invincibility and wounded male prerogative. Our current political crisis won’t be resolved until those forces are separated and the Cerberus slain.

Few current observers seem to recall the wrath that greeted Bill Clinton’s ascension. To the left, “Clintonism” implies accommodation and calculation. But to the right in 1992, it meant usurpation. Reaganism held almost religious significance, and its reign was supposed to be transformative and permanent. For the One True Way to be restored, Clintonism had to be delegitimized.

more
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/opinion/sunday/how-hillary-clinton-met-satan.html?emc=edit_th_20161030&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=57435284

October 30, 2016

It’s Hard to Overstate the Turmoil In the Republican Party

“Donald Trump’s path of destruction has pushed the Republican Party to the cusp of a historic reckoning, an existential crisis that has left half of America’s political establishment in desperate need of new leaders, a new message, and even a common orthodoxy,” the Boston Globe reports.

“Party members say it is almost impossible to underestimate the challenges facing the 162-year-old GOP, which for the last three decades has been largely defined by a hagiographic vision of Ronald Reagan but is now riven by a civil war with multiple dimensions.”

“Some Republicans are even studying the collapse of the Whig Party in the mid-19th century, hoping they can avoid a similar fate. Others are girding for proxy wars that will be waged on Capitol Hill, within the Republican National Committee, and live on the set of Fox News.”

###

https://politicalwire.com/2016/10/29/hard-overstate-turmoil-republican-party/

October 30, 2016

A GOP Lawmaker Off-the-Record

From Robert Reich's FaceBook page:

October 29, 2016

Michael Moore trashes Julian Assange: He’s a ‘human Molotov cocktail’ Trump is using to blow up...

Michael Moore trashes Julian Assange: He’s a ‘human Molotov cocktail’ Trump is using to blow up the system

Appearing on HBO’s Real Time, Friday night, host Bill Maher and filmmaker Michael Moore marveled at how conservatives have taken the side of WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange now that they are attacking Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton even more than Donald Trump does on a daily basis.

According to Maher, WikiLeaks has succumbed to mission drift; randomly going after targets, but now seemingly solely focused on trying to disrupt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“Have they drifted from their original goal, Mike? I know you’re a big fan of Julian Assange. I feel like he’s drifted,” Maher asked Moore. “Now, it’s a lot of personal shit. At the beginning, it was about ‘we’re exposing what’s going on at Guantanamo Bay, and the Iraq War, and letters of Scientology,’ and last year their big thing was the Sony hack. ‘Let’s find out what studio executives think of Adam Sandler!’ I really feel like he’s lost his way a little — and he hates Hillary.”

According to the progressive filmmaker, who first backed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders before supporting Clinton, Assange is an anarchist who has no interest in anything other than blowing up the system.

“I think WikiLeaks and I think Assange, they’re essentially anarchists and they know, just like a lot of people voting for Trump know, that he’s their human Molotov cocktail and they want to blow up the system,” said Moore. “It’s an anarchic move.”



http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/michael-moore-trashes-julian-assange-hes-a-human-molotov-cocktail-trump-is-using-to-blow-up-the-system/