Image 01 Image 03

2016 Election Tag

In an odd video conference with the Laborers' International Union of North America, Hillary hollered about the evils of Right to Work laws. "Now having said all this, why aren't I fifty points ahead? you might ask," Hillary suggested. Gee. We just can't imagine why her...

The House Oversight Committee has demanded that Reddit preserve deleted posts that an IT technician may have written about Hillary Clinton emails. Earlier this week, Reddit users found an archived post that shows someone asking how to "strip out a VIP's" email address from the to/from fields. No one has confirmed the username "stonetear" belongs to Platte Rivers Network employee Paul Combetta, but people have found connections between his name and the username.

This Insurrectionist regularly monitors Chris Matthews' Hardball show. And while there's little doubt that come November 8th Matthews will pull the lever for Hillary, he has given Donald Trump a fairer shake than other MSNBC hosts. I chalk it up to Matthews' regular-guy upbringing. Factoid: Matthews did a short stint as a Capitol Hill police officer. A striking example of Matthews' relative fairness came tonight. After airing a clip of Trump criticizing the police shooting of an African-American man in Tulsa, OK, Matthews repeatedly pressed Hillary surrogate Stephanie Schriock, the president of the pro-abortion rights EMILY's List, to agree that Trump was "right in saying that." She clumsily dodged and weaved, but under persistent questioning by Matthews, Schriock eventually conceded "yes, I think so." Said a satisfied Matthews: "that's all I'm asking."

Avengers writer Joss Whedon gathered a few of his celebrity friends to launch "Save the Day" as a way to encourage people to show up at the polls come Election Day. None of the actors specifically mention Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, but it's hard not to see how the video is meant to encourage voting for anyone other than Hillary. https://twitter.com/joss/status/778570386833219585

Richard Haass is the quintessential member of the foreign policy establishment. Long-time President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Haass has served in Republican and Democrat administrations and advised candidates from both parties. In this election, he has been very critical of Donald Trump. So no taint of partisanship can be applied to the normally mild-mannered Haass' scathing comments on today's Morning Joe about President Obama's UN speech of yesterday. After calling the speech a "major disappointment," Haass unleashed the unkindest cut, saying of Obama's detached attitude to the crises of the day "this is not the faculty lounge." Ouch.

A new ad from the NRA reminds voters that Hillary wants to enact stricter gun control laws which could leave innocent people defenseless. They're also planning to run the ad in five key swing states. Politico reports:
NRA warns voters that Clinton will leave them unprotected The National Rifle Association’s new spot is aimed at people who are already afraid, and hammers Hillary Clinton for wanting to leave them defenseless.

Andrea Mitchell has her unmentionables in major undulations over the fact that Donald Trump, Jr. posted a tweet analogizing terrorists hiding among bona fide refugees to a few poisonous Skittles in an otherwise okay bowl. And so on her MSNBC show today, Mitchell teed up Dem Rep. Adam Schiff to take a big swing at the Trump campaign. Schiff was only too happy to oblige, piously denouncing Trump, Jr., whom he described as a "rotten apple" falling not far from the tree. Schiff accused Trump, Jr. of saying "essentially, children who are fleeing the war and violence are like poison candy." The truth is that far from analogizing innocent children to poison candy, the point of the tweet was that terrorists would infiltrate themselves among the innocent to enter our country and wreak mayhem here.

Late last year, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was snubbed by President Obama during his visit to New York City for the United Nations General Assembly’s 70th meeting. Now, al-Sisi is gearing up to meet the two top challengers in the race to be the next Oval Office occupant.
An adviser to U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's campaign said on Sunday that Trump will meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Monday during the United Nations General Assembly, just as Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, is also scheduled to do.

Republican congressman Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has to be one of the best-informed, well-spoken, reasonable, fairly non-partisan Members of Congress. So when Royce appeared on today's Morning Joe to discuss the latest atrocity in Syria, in which the Assad regime barrel-bombed an aid convoy, he was initially given respectful "Mr. Chairman" treatment, until . . . Royce had the audacity, responding to Andrea Mitchell's question about Donald Trump's "embrace of Vladimir Putin," to refer to Hillary Clinton's failed "Russian reset." That set Mika Brzezinski off. After an "oh, wow" of incredulity, Mika demanded "can we at least be on the same planet here?"

Legal Insurrection readers who are also Rush Limbaugh fans know that one of El Rushbo's pet peeves is the way liberals have tried to co-opt the term "our values" into their political lexicon. There was a perfect—if annoying—illustration of the phenomenon on today's With All Due Respect. In clips of Hillary and President Obama, and during a live interview of Obama spokesman Josh Earnest, discussing the latest terrorist bombings in NYC and New Jersey, the v-word was bandied about no fewer than six times. View the video for the nails-on-blackboard montage!

A current GQ article detailed something that this Insurrectionist, as a regular monitor of Morning Joe, had observed: that Joe Scarborough went from being a Trump booster during the primaries to a vitriolic critic of The Donald during the general election campaign. But a trend I sensed last week continued on today's Morning Joe: Scarborough seems to be swinging back in Trump's direction. On a number of issues, it was Scarborough-against-the-panel in defending Trump. First, Joe noted how a reporter had teed Hillary up to criticize Trump for speaking of a "bomb" in NYC, whereas Hillary herself had spoken of "bombings." Later, Scarborough alone rose to Trump's defense over his suggestion that Hillary's bodyguards be disarmed.

Remember when millennial voters were going to help propel Hillary Clinton to near certain victory? I was skeptical long ago. In early April 2015 (that's 15 not 16, mind you), I wrote, Job One: Teach millennials about the real Hillary:
When discussing Hillary Clinton’s email and server scandal, I dismissed arguments that the scandal in and of itself would sink Hillary’s impending campaign. There are far too many powerful people invested in Hillary for President to let mere paranoid and obsessive control coupled with destruction of evidence stop Hillary. In fact, to Hillary’s core supporters, paranoid and obsessive control coupled with destruction of evidence is a feature, not a bug. Rather, I argued that the damage from Emailgate (or is it Servergate or Deletegate?) was in shaping Hillary’s image for voters who never knew the Hillary older voters know:
While it’s way too early to assess the overall damage to Hillary Incorporated from the email, now document destruction, scandal, is does appear to be hurting Team Billary in ways that are hard to change: Public perception of a politician.

There's seriously nothing better than when people can make fun of themselves and laugh about it. Former GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush did just that in the opening for the Emmys Sunday night. He posed as an Uber driver to get Jimmy Kimmel to the show on time to host:
“I’m in between jobs right now,” the former Florida governor tells Kimmel. Kimmel tells Bush he has to get to the Emmys. “Are you nominated?” Bush asks. “Wow, What’s the like?”

At last night's Congressional Black Caucus gala, Obama gave a speech in which he urged the black community to vote for Clinton in order to preserve his legacy and all the "progress we've made." The Hill reports:
President Obama called on the black community to show Hillary Clinton the same support it did for him in an impassioned speech at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation gala Saturday night. “We have achieved historic turnout in 2008 and 2012, especially in the African-American community. I will consider it a personal insult and an insult to my legacy if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election," he said. "You want to give me a good send-off? Go vote."

"If you care about our legacy, realize everything we stand for is at stake. All the progress we’ve made is at stake in this election.

In a "Tonight Show" appearance scheduled to air Monday night, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was greeted by a medical mask-wearing Jimmy Fallon. .@jimmyfallon put on a medical mask to start his interview with Hillary Clinton today. pic.twitter.com/m6KJlSBXZq — Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) September 16, 2016 Well played, Mr....

. . . but he won't say for whom he is voting. The AP reports: Edward Snowden, in exile in Moscow after leaking U.S. National Security Agency documents, said Friday he intends to vote in the U.S. presidential election, but did not say which candidate he favors. "I...