Category: HILLARY CLINTON

CIRCUS COMES TO MIAMI!

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By Laurie Kellman

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sixty seconds for answers, a television audience of millions and, for some candidates, a first chance to introduce themselves to voters.

The back-to-back Democratic presidential debates beginning Wednesday are exercises in competitive sound bites featuring 20 candidates hoping to oust President Donald Trump in 2020. The hopefuls range widely in age, sex and backgrounds and include a former vice president, six women and a pair of mayors.

The challenge: Convey their plans for the nation, throw a few elbows and sharpen what’s been a blur of a race so far for many Americans.

What to watch Wednesday at 9 p.m. Eastern on NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo:

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WHAT’S HER PLAN?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s task is to harness the recent momentum surrounding her campaign to prove to voters that she has what it takes to defeat Trump. As the sole top-tier candidate on stage Wednesday, she could have the most to lose.

The Massachusetts senator and former Harvard professor is known for her many policy plans and a mastery of classical, orderly debate. But presidential showdowns can be more “Gladiator”-style than the high-minded “Great Debaters.” This is no time for a wonky multipoint case for “Medicare for All,” student debt relief or the Green New Deal.

So, one challenge for Warren, 70, is stylistic. Look for her to try to champion her progressive ideas — and fend off attacks from lesser-known candidates — with gravitas, warmth and the brevity required by the format.

“Preparing for the debates is trying to learn to speak in 60 seconds or less,” she said in Miami, ahead of a visit she live-streamed to a migrant detention center in Homestead, Florida.

Another obstacle is to do so without alienating moderates any Democrat would need in a general election against Trump.

Being the front-runner on stage conveys a possible advantage: If the others pile on Warren, she gets more time to speak because the candidates are allowed 30 extra seconds for responses.

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WHO’S THAT?

There may be some familiar faces across the rest of the stage, such as New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, 50, or former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke, 46. But a few names probably won’t ring any bells at all.

These virtual strangers to most Americans may be enjoying their first — and maybe last — turn on the national stage, so they have the least to lose.

Take John Delaney, 56, a former member of the House from Maryland. Look for him to try to make an impression by keeping up his criticism of Warren’s plans.

Or Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, 45, who sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. He has likened the Democratic primary to “speed dating with the American people.”

BREAKING OUT, GOING VIRAL

For several of the candidates onstage Wednesday, the forum is about finding the breakout moment — a zinger, a burn — that stays in viewers’ minds, is built for social media and generates donations, the lifeblood of campaigns.

In 2015, Carly Fiorina won applause and a short surge for her response to Trump, who had been quoted in Rolling Stone as criticizing Fiorina’s face.

“Look at that face,” Trump was quoted as saying. “Would anyone vote for that?”

Asked on CNN to respond, Fiorina evenly replied: “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.”

For candidates such as O’Rourke, a breakthrough moment on Wednesday is critical to revitalizing a campaign that has faded. The 10 White House contenders have two hours on stage that night and up until the curtain rises on the star-studded second debate the next day to make their mark. Former Vice President Joe Biden, 76, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, 77, headline Thursday’s debate and are certain to take up much of the spotlight.

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BREAKING OUT BADLY

An “oops” moment can be politically crippling to any presidential campaign.

Just ask Energy Secretary Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who, in a 2011 debate, blanked on the third agency of government he had said would be “gone” if he became president.

“Commerce, Education and the, uh, what’s the third one there?” Perry said.

“EPA?” fellow Republican Ron Paul offered. Yep, Perry said, the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Oops,” he finished. Perry’s campaign, already struggling, never recovered.

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WHAT ISSUES?

There’s simply no time for an in-depth discussion of issues. But the migrant crisis would be an apt topic, even in shorthand. Dominating the news in the hours before the showdown were vivid reports and images of the toll of the administration’s policy on children, especially.

Expect at least a mention, or perhaps the appearance, of a bracing photo of the bodies of a migrant father and his 23-month-old daughter face-down along the Rio Grande.

In addition to Warren, other candidates, such as Sen. Amy Klobuchar, were visiting the migrant center.

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TRUMP

This is the Democrats’ night.

But Trump has dominated the political conversation since that escalator ride four years ago, and he loathes being upstaged. It’s worth asking: Will he tweet during the debates? And if he does, will NBC and the moderators ignore him or respond in real time?

NBC News executive Rashida Jones said the focus will be on the candidates and the issues.

“Beyond that, it has to rise to a certain level,” she said.

During Wednesday’s debate, Trump will be on Air Force One on his way to the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan. The plane’s cable televisions are usually turned to Fox News, which is not hosting the debates. For the second debate, Trump will be beginning meetings at the G-20.

Trump told Fox Business Network on Wednesday that he’d watch because “it’s part of my life” but that “It just seems very boring. … That’s a very unexciting group of people.”

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Hollywood stars read ‘adaptation’ of Mueller report in deranged stage ‘performance’

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With America facing a dizzying array of social and political challenges, an impressive cast of Hollywood actors have taken their civic activism to the next level — with a live stage performance of the Mueller report.

This is no joke. There is indeed video evidence of the bizarre stunt floating around the internet, in which the angry band of Russiagate devotees are seen dramatically reading aloud from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan’s “adaptation” of Robert Mueller’s report.

If memories need refreshing — and it seems like they might — this is the report resulting from the investigation which found no evidence to prove that Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. But come on, let’s not allow facts to get in the way of the mind-numbingly dull theatrical, cherry-picked re-play of events.

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Monday’s one-night-only performance condensed the 448-page Mueller report into “ten acts” performed by big-name actors like Annette Bening, Kevin Kline, Alyssa Milano, John Lithgow and Kyra Sedgwick — and was hosted by LawWorks, an organization which “educates the public on the importance of the rule of law.”

The one hour and twenty-minute-long performance was even promoted by former US Secretary of State John Kerry, who called it an “act of public service.” No word yet on whether or not Hillary Clinton was sitting in the front row.

Can this farce get any sadder? Why are so many Americans desperate to hold on to the idea that their president is a Russian agent? Shouldn’t the findings of the Mueller Report — again, no evidence of a conspiracy with Russia — have filled them with relief?

As if the play itself wasn’t mental enough, the whole charade was made even more ridiculous by how seriously it was taken by establishment media. MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough gushedabout the “great” performance, while the New York Times’ “review” (yes, they did a review) called it “fitting” for the political era.

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You do have to admit though, there is something quite fitting about it. If any group of people could bring more life and drama to the anti-climactic Mueller Report it would be Hollywood actors. They’re generally quite good at pretending things that never happened actually did.

The Times reviewer acknowledged that a star-studded stage performance was probably not what Mueller “had in mind” when he was called upon to investigate Trump’s alleged infidelity to America. Well, it’s not what any of us had in mind — and yet here we are.

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For those of you who missed the live show, don’t worry, the whole thing is now available to stream online. Word on the street is that there’s also going to be a 208-page “graphic novel” of the report available soon.

If the adapted versions aren’t enough to quench the insatiable thirst for all-things Mueller, the Russiagaters among you will be delighted to learn that a Washington, DC theater will soon bring the report to life again with a marathon — and no doubt intensely boring — 11-hour reading of the entire text next month.

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Project Veritas – Leaked Google Document Labels Prager U, Jordan Peterson ‘Nazis’

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By Lucas Nolan

Google documents leaked to Project Veritas show the company referring to popular conservative personalities such as Jordan Peterson and Dennis Prager as “Nazis.”

A recent report from investigative journalism group Project Veritas claims that leaked internal Google documents shows a Google employee and a member of a Google “transparency-and-ethics” group calling conservative and libertarian commentators such as Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro, and Jordan Peterson, “Nazis.” The email was sent as part of internal communications between the Google “transparency-and-ethics” group and suggests that content published by PragerU, Jordan Peterson, and Ben Shapiro should be removed from the “suggestion feature.”

A Google employee named Liam Hopkins can be seen stating: “…if we understand that PragerU, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro et al are nazis using the dog whistles…” The employee further suggests following through with the suggestion of another employee named Meredith: “I don’t think correctly identifying far-right content is beyond our capabilities. But if it is, why not go with Meredith’s suggestion of disabling the suggestion feature?”

 

Following the publication of an undercover video of Google executive Jen Gennai stating that the company was working to prevent another “Trump situation” after the 2016 election; the executive stated in a Medium blog post: “Google has repeatedly been clear that it works to be a trustworthy source of information, without regard to political viewpoint. In fact, Google has no notion of political ideology in its rankings.” Yet here we see Google employees discussing doing exactly that.

Gennai also claims that the Project Veritas video is selectively edited and pushes a series of “debunked conspiracy theories,” about censorship. What Gennai does not address is her direct comments about Google’s view of Congress, the company’s refusal to appear before Congress and her statements claiming that Google will not change its business practices regardless of what Congress says:

Project Veritas has edited the video to make it seem that I am a powerful executive who was confirming that Google is working to alter the 2020 election. On both counts, this is absolute, unadulterated nonsense, of course. In a casual restaurant setting, I was explaining how Google’s Trust and Safety team (a team I used to work on) is working to help prevent the types of online foreign interference that happened in 2016. Google has been very public about the work that our teams have done since 2016 on this, so it’s hardly a revelation.

The video then goes on to stitch together a series of debunked conspiracy theories about our search results, and our other products. Google has repeatedly been clear that it works to be a trustworthy source of information, without regard to political viewpoint. In fact, Google has no notion of political ideology in its rankings. And everything I have seen backs this up. Our CEO has said ”We do not bias our products to favor any political agenda.” He’s somewhat more powerful and authoritative than me.

But despite what the video may have you believe, I’m not involved in any of these products, just like I’m not involved in any of the other topics Project Veritas baited me into discussing (whether it’s antitrust, Congress, or the dozens of other topics that didn’t appear in the video, on which I presumably didn’t say anything that could be twisted to their advantage). I was having a casual chat with someone at a restaurant and used some imprecise language. Project Veritas got me. Well done.

Read the full report by Project Veritas here.

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TUCKER: SAME PEOPLE PUSHING FOR WAR WANT TO OPEN OUR BORDERS TO MIGRANTS FROM MIDDLE EAST

Tucker: Same People Pushing For War Want to Open Our Borders to Migrants From Middle East

“It’s almost like they’re trying to destroy our country.”

JUNE 25, 2019

Tucker Carlson slammed warmongers lobbying for an attack on Iran by pointing out they’re the same people pushing to open America’s borders to migrants from the Middle East.

The Fox News host went on the offensive once again over criticism of President Trump’s decision to call off an attack on Iran at the last minute.

Indeed, Carlson has reportedly been privately advising Trump on the lunacy of getting the United States entangled in yet another Middle Eastern quagmire.

Tucker mocked mocked neo-con Washington Post columnist Hugh Hewitt for “accusing the president of being a weakling for not launching a trillion dollar war over a broken robot.”

“Isn’t it the same people who are pushing us to war in the Middle East, who are also telling us we have to accept the populations of the country in the Middle East coming to our country – how’s that work?” asked Carlson.

His guest agreed that this was “a very strange concept” before Tucker ended by saying, “It’s almost like they’re trying to destroy our country.”

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Bad unless Obama does it? Biden slams Trump for immigration policies he once supported

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The former vice president took to the pages of the Miami Herald on Monday to lay out his approach to immigration, positioning himself as the antidote to a toxic president who “is only interested in using his policies to assault the dignity of the Hispanic community and scare voters to turn out on Election Day.”

Those policies have created a “horrifying” situation at the border, Biden wrote, and have taken “a wrecking ball” to US relations in Latin America.

Ever eager to wield his credentials as vice president under the Barack Obama administration, Biden boasts that he was involved in crafting the prior government’s policies toward Latin America, but Obama’s legacy on immigration reflects dismally on a candidate running on a pro-migrant platform.

Biden tells rich donors not to worry, ‘nothing would fundamentally change’ if he won

CAP

Throughout President Obama’s two terms, more people were deported than under any previous administration, according to government data, earning him the unfortunate title of ‘Deporter in Chief.’ During Obama’s first four years in office, nearly 400,000 people were deported per year, topping out in 2012 at over 409,000.

Despite Trump’s reputation as a superhawk on the border, his presidency has seen fewer deportations per year than his predecessor, with around 250,000 in 2017 and 2018, and just over 280,000 so far this year.

Critics point out that the separation of migrant children from their families at the border has become more common since Trump took office, but that policy, too, is a carryover from the Obama years. A photo of caged migrant children went viral last year and prompted fierce criticism of President Trump’s inhumane border policies – yet the photo dates to 2014, smack in the middle of Obama’s second term.

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Some of the very cages Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently compared to “concentration camps” were, indeed, constructed under President Obama’s purview. The holding facility in McAllen, Texas, the largest in the country and a creation of the Obama administration, has become emblematic of the problems plaguing migrant detention centers. With ill-equipped health facilities and overcrowded cells, the McAllen center was forced to temporarily close its doors earlier this year amid a deadly viral outbreak.

On ‘the Wall’, Biden will also struggle to set himself apart from the president. While the former VP condemns President Trump’s wall proposal as “divorced from reality,” Biden was a vocal supporter of the Secure Fence Act, a project that spent $1 billion building a 700-mile barrier along the border with Mexico.

A recently surfaced video from 2006 captures Biden proudly telling an audience “I voted for a fence,” as he warns of dangerous drug traffickers crossing the border. Later in the clip Biden highlights his ‘tough on crime’ record, bragging “I’m the guy who wrote the crime bill, I’m the guy who wrote the national drug trafficking bill, I’m the guy who wrote the law that set up a drug czar.”

Biden caught in immigration hypocrisy after rediscovered clip shows him demanding border fence

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If Biden wants to position himself as the open borders, pro-migrant candidate in the 2020 race, he’ll have to do a better job of hiding his record.

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Insider Blows Whistle & Exec Reveals Google Plan to Prevent “Trump situation” in 2020 on Hidden Cam

Published on Jun 24, 2019

Insider: Google“is bent on never letting somebody like Donald Trump come to power again.”

• Google Exec Says Don’t Break Us Up: “smaller companies don’t have the resources” to “prevent next Trump situation”
• Google Head of Responsible Innovation Says Elizabeth Warren “misguided” on “breaking up Google”
• Insider Says PragerU And Dave Rubin Content Suppressed, Targeted As “Right-Wing”
• LEAKED Documents Highlight “Machine Learning Fairness” and Google’s Practices to Make Search Results “fair and equitable”
• Documents Appear to Show “Editorial” Policies That Determine How Google Publishes News • Insider: Google Violates “letter of the law” and “spirit of the law” on Section 230
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