7 thoughts on “Get More Smarter on Friday (October 14)”

1. Why are we being BFF's, Bipartisan Stooges with such an obvious bunch of Liars:

   This should be a theme in every address given by every Democratic politician from now until Inauguration Day. Should Hillary Rodham Clinton win the presidency, and should the Democrats make substantial gains in the national legislature, there is going to be a strong and concerted effort to make her offer some gesture of "healing" to the crazy people after such a "divisive" campaign.

   That effort should be resisted as vigorously as the president called out his opponents on Thursday.

   Not until you clean up your own house, boyos. Not until the elements that produced your 2016 presidential nominee have no more purchase in your party. Not until the ideas that have animated eight years of vandalism and obstruction and ideologically based goldbricking are crushed underfoot. You have become a chronic danger to American democratic government and it's time for a serious intervention. Hell, the Democratic Party had the campaign of George McGovern, as good and decent a man as has ever served in Washington, hung around its neck for 25 years by conservative lightweights and ratfckers who couldn't carry McGovern's shoes.

   Given that, the GOP should have to answer for nominating Trump until time shall be no more. 

   Be smart, Dems!

   Obama:

   "The problem is not that all Republicans think the way this guy does. The problem is, is that they've been riding this tiger for a long time…They've been feeding their base all kinds of crazy for years, primarily for political expedience...People like Ted's opponent, they just stood by while this happened…And Donald Trump, as he's prone to do, he didn't build the building himself, but he just slapped his name on it and took credit for it. This is in the swamp of crazy that has been fed over and over and over and over again. So the point is, if your only agenda is either negative — negative is a euphemism, crazy — based on lies, based on hoaxes, this is the nominee you get.

   You make him possible."

   Yeah, the outrage machine they can generate is intimidating and difficult to counter, but this is what Democrats have to do. As the years-old Krugman statement still applies to those who reject science, reject evidence, reject results – it's not a both sides thing:

   If one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read “Views Differ on Shape of Planet.”

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2. In case of insurgency, break glass or That time Hillary's speechwriter added a line scolding banks to her Wall Street speeches, just so it could be selectively released in the future to put any curious parties off the trail of her paid talks to the pillars of finance.

   Aide Planted Anti-Bank Comments in One Paid Clinton Speech to Throw Reporters Off the Scent

   From the e-mail, emphasis mine.

   Following up on the conversation this morning about needing more arrows in our quiver on Wall Street, I wanted to float one idea. In October 2014, HRC did a paid speech in NYC for Deutsche Bank. I wrote her a long riff about economic fairness and how the financial industry has lost its way, precisely for the purpose of having something we could show people if ever asked what she was saying behind closed doors for two years to all those fat cats. It's definitely not as tough or pointed as we would write it now, but it's much more than most people would assume she was saying in paid speeches.

   […]

   I think we could come up with a vanilla characterization that challenges the idea that she sucked up to these folks in her appearances, but then use AP's raising of this to our advantage to pitch someone to do an exclusive by providing at least the key excerpts from this Deutsche Bank speech. In doing so, we could have the reporting be sourced to a "transcript obtained by [news outlet]" so it is not confirmed as us selectively providing one transcript while refusing to share others.

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3. A new poll out of Texas has HRC down by only 4%. This is an improvement over the last one which had her trailing by 7%. Looks like Daddy Bush's quietly-leaked endorsement may be gaining some traction for her.

    

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4. CIA Prepping for Possible Cyber Strike Against Russia

   Current and former officials with direct knowledge of the situation say the CIA has been asked to deliver options to the White House for a wide-ranging "clandestine" cyber operation designed to harass and "embarrass" the Kremlin leadership. 

   The sources did not elaborate on the exact measures the CIA was considering, but said the agency had already begun opening cyber doors, selecting targets and making other preparations for an operation. Former intelligence officers told NBC News that the agency had gathered reams of documents that could expose unsavory tactics by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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   1. I'm all for it even though it does sound kind of oxymoronic when potential "covert" and "clandestine" actions are the subject of your network evening news reports. Isn't that kind of the opposite of "clandestine"? Of course that just means it's meant to be. 

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5. Michael Bennet, Tower of Pudding:

   By almost any measure, the Colorado Democrat’s support should have been automatic. Not only was Garland the choice of a Democratic president, the two men had a shared history — not a small thing in a town built on relationships.

   Yet Bennet couldn’t quite do it.

   Sure, Bennet spoke glowingly of his former boss after their meeting. And he argued Senate Republicans were wrong to stall his nomination.

   But Bennet still held back from an official endorsement — a reluctance that speaks to his reputation as a Senate institutionalist and lawmaker more comfortable with point-by-point arguments than fiery displays of loyalty.

   “Even though I know him — and maybe because I know him — I wanted to reserve judgment until after the hearing was done,” he said in an interview this fall, adding that he now supports Garland’s nomination.

   That's friggin' pitiful.

   Let me be clear: Michael Bennet is a Coward, always ready to undercut Obama and his own side so he can remain BFF's with Institutional Terrorists such as today's Republicans.

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   1. Always undercutting Obama by supporting whatever Obama wants 97% of the time. Hey, with enemies like that, who needs friends? So sad for you that you aren't going to get Glenn instead.

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