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October 2016

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 16, 2016 37 Comments
Earlier this month we reported on a beating of a female Chicago police officer by a suspect, and how the officer didn't use her service weapon because of fear of how the public would react to a shooting of a black man, Chicago’s Top Cop: Police are ‘Second-Guessing Themselves’: Chicago Superintendent Eddie Johnson said one of his officers didn’t defend herself against the man who beat her unconscious because of the backlash she and the department might receive:
“As I was at the hospital last night, visiting with her, she looked at me and said she thought she was gonna die, and she knew that she should shoot this guy, but she chose not to because she didn’t want her family or the department to go through the scrutiny the next day on national news,” Johnson said while attending a public ceremony honoring heroic officers and firefighters.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 16, 2016 11 Comments
Donna Brazile, a CNN contributor and at the time DNC Vice Chair (now Chair), was caught through the Wikileaks Podesta email dump feeding to Hillary's campaign a question to be used at a CNN presidential town hall. We covered the story previously, Brazile Gave Hillary Campaign Town Hall Question in Advance:
The Wikileaks dump of Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta emails shows that then-CNN contributor, now DNC interim chair, Donna Brazile gave Hillary a question ahead of a CNN town hall. Brazile sent this email to Podesta and a few aides, with the subject “From time to time I get the questions in advance.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 16, 2016 25 Comments
The Hillary Clinton email scandal just got much worse. New files indicate the possibility of "quid pro quo" between the State Department and the FBI. FOX News reports:
New FBI files contain allegations of 'quid pro quo' in Clinton's emails FBI interview summaries and notes, provided late Friday to the House Government Oversight and Intelligence Committees, contain allegations of a "quid pro quo" between a senior State Department executive and FBI agents during the Hillary Clinton email investigation, two congressional sources told Fox News.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 15, 2016 11 Comments
Linc Chafee was the most improbable of Democratic presidential candidates, as I explained when he announced, Wut? Former RI Senator and Governor Linc Chafee for President?
Former U.S. Senator and Rhode Island Governor Linc Chafee has announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee. When Rhode Island reader and blogger Tony emailed me about it, I thought it was a joke. Chafee has a reputation of a buffoonish political character who switches political sides on a whim. On second thought, that may make him perfect as a presidential candidate.... Had I known this would happen, I never would have left Rhode Island. The talk radio is going to be gold, pure gold.
Chafee's candidacy was "pure gold" for talk radio and the national audience when he had some interesting moments on stage.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 15, 2016 23 Comments
Donald Trump is claiming in his recent speeches that the election is "rigged." It's unclear what he means by "rigged" -- is it physical tampering (for which there is no proof) or a bias in the media to unfairly sway public opinion (for which there is plenty of proof), or both. Regardless, the claim of "rigging" is being treated as one of the worst threats to our democracy ever! https://twitter.com/RyanLizza/status/787303407312838656 I did some searching, and it seems that presidential election fraud claims were made against George W. Bush in 2000 (mostly related to the Florida recount) and 2004.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 15, 2016 9 Comments
Creepy clown incidents have been sweeping across the U. S. to Mexico, the UK, Australia,  France, and now in Sweden.  In Sweden a group of clowns encircled children and threatened them with fake chainsaws last week, and this week, a young man was attacked and stabbed in the shoulder by a person wearing a clown mask. The International Business Times reports:
A teenager has been stabbed by an attacker wearing a clown mask in western Sweden, police have said. Hysteria surrounding a wave of creepy so-called 'killer clowns' has spread in the last few months, from the southern US states across the UK and Europe. In the latest 'killer clown' incident on Thursday (13 October), a youth who was born in 1997, was left with minor injuries to the shoulder, after going outside for a cigarette in Varberg - roughly 50 miles south of Gothenburg - where they were confronted by a masked attacker.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 15, 2016 8 Comments
The economic crisis in Venezuela canaptly be described as a centralized control crisis, a crisis socialist and communist states know and for some reason insist on repeating.  Over and over.  We've seen the reports on shortages ranging from toilet paper to food, and rather than risk a revolution that would topple government, the Venezuelan government has decided that it will ease up on price controls on food and other essentials (like toilet paper). NPR, in October of last year, wrote about the problems with Venezuela's price controls and the firm grip the government had its citizens access to food.
For Caracas housewife Anny Valero, today is grocery day — whether she likes it or not. Here's why: It's Monday, and if Valero doesn't go now, she'll have to wait four more days to buy food. In Venezuela, government supermarkets sell price-controlled food, making them far cheaper than private stores. But Valero explains that people are allowed in state-run supermarkets just two days per week, based on their ID card numbers. The system is designed to prevent shoppers from buying more than they need and then reselling goods on the black market at a huge markup.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 15, 2016 15 Comments
You may recall that the State Department produced certain Sidney Blumenthal emails with Hillary Clinton that were not included in the emails Hillary turned over to the State Department. The story of more Blumenthal emails beyond what Hillary turned over called into question Hillary's repeated claim that everything work-related was turned over to the State Department, and only purely personal emails (like regarding Yoga) were deleted. In searching the Wikileaks database of the Podesta email hack, Mary found the email exchange below which shows that the Clinton campaign received a heads up that the State Department was to produce the emails to a House committee, and team Clinton scrambled to prepare a response in advance of the State Department turning over the emails to Congress. There are several aspects of this email that are important, including that the State Department was considering planting a story with a friendly reporter at AP and that the Clinton campaign and the State Department were working together to create messaging for Hillary:

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 15, 2016 12 Comments
The fact that Russ Feingold is even running for Senate is proof that the Democratic Party has no back bench. Feingold is a re-run who served in the Senate from 1993 to 2011. He is a big fan of Hillary, too. He even thinks she's trustworthy. The Journal Sentinel reports:
Russ Feingold calls Hillary Clinton 'trustworthy' Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Russ Feingold called Hillary Clinton "reliable and trustworthy" Monday but reaffirmed his stance that if she's elected president she should consider shutting down the Clinton Foundation.
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