Clinton daughter calls Duterte ‘murderous thug,’ slams rape joke

Chelsea Clinton, a former broadcaster and daughter of Hillary and Bill Clinton, called President Rodrigo Duterte a “murderous thug without regard for human rights” after criticizing the Filipino Chief Executive for joking about soldiers committing rapes in Mindanao while the region is under martial law.

“Duterte is a murderous thug with no regard for human rights. It’s important to keep pointing that out (and) that rape is never a joke,” Chelsea said, reacting to a news report on Duterte’s statement, over her Twitter account on Saturday (Manila time).

Chelsea is the only child of former US President Bill Clinton and former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, the democratic presidential candidate who lost to businessman-turned-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

In an earlier tweet, Chelsea retweeted the news report about Duterte’s joke and captioned it with: “Not funny. Ever.”

Speaking before soldiers in Iligan City on Friday, Duterte assured the troops that he will be responsible for the consequences and ramifications of martial law, even if it includes rape by bad military forces.




“Trabaho lang kayo. Ako na bahala. Ako na magpakulong sa inyo. Kapag naka-rape ka ng tatlo, aminin ko na akin ‘yun. ‘Pag nag-asawa ka ng pang-apat, bugbugin ka I will go to jail for you. (Just work. I will support you. I will go to jail for you. If you happen to have raped three women, I will own up to it. If you marry four, son of a bitch, you will get beaten)” Duterte said.

The former Davao mayor declared martial rule in the whole of Mindanao after an intense firefight between government forces and members of the terror Maute group in Marawi City.

What triggered the clash was the government forces’ attempt to capture Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon, who was said to be the leader of Islamic State in the Philippines. IDL

source: globalnation.inquirer.net

What went wrong in this year’s presidential polls?

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s victory came as a surprise to many Americans, the nation’s pollsters most of all.

Heading into Election Day, most national surveys overstated what will likely be a narrow popular vote advantage for Hillary Clinton and led many to believe she was a shoo-in to win the Electoral College.

“The polls clearly got it wrong this time,” the American Association for Public Opinion Research said Wednesday in a statement. The association traditionally assesses the state of public polling after each election cycle, and already has a committee in place to do so again this year.

“I think it was an important polling miss. It would really be glossing over it to say that it was a typical year,” said Courtney Kennedy, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center.

For now, it’s impossible to know for certain what exactly went wrong for pollsters this year — and, as votes are still being counted, exactly how far off they were. Some factors pollsters will examine:

How big a miss?

Although most polls throughout the 2016 campaign showed Clinton running ahead of Trump, in the final two weeks of the campaign her advantage narrowed in many national surveys, as well as in states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan. Her apparent lead fell within many surveys’ margins of sampling error.

Kennedy said pollsters may ultimately not have had a historically large miss on the national popular vote, but thinks there was a systematic overrepresentation of Clinton’s support and underrepresentation for Trump’s.

She says people sometimes expect too much of election polls, which “are not designed to provide extremely accurate results.”

Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, says that averages of publicly available polls sometimes give a false sense of certainty in a candidate’s lead.

“You’re taking imprecise estimates and throwing them all together with the hope of eliminating error,” he says.

Shy trump voters?

Trump’s campaign frequently pointed to the possibility that public polls were missing some of his base of support, and some pollsters say that might have played a role in the polling miss.

“One of the biggest problems that polls face nowadays is that people don’t want to participate in them at all,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. He plans to use voter data to find out if certain types of people were less likely to participate in his surveys.

At Pew, Kennedy said it appears that there was a segment of Trump’s support base that was not responding to polls, which she called “fundamentally a difficult challenge to fight.” But, she said, it’s unlikely voters were lying about their support.

Turnout

Harold Clarke, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Dallas who regularly conducts polling, said one of the shortfalls in the presidential prediction was a problem that has plagued survey science for decades.

“We’ve got to filter our surveys as we try to pick out those people that are really going to vote,” he said. “We all have the problem of not getting likely voters right.”

Murray said pollsters are using likely voter models that might have worked in the past, but may no longer. He suggested that public pollsters should take a lesson from campaigns and consider putting out a range of numbers reflecting different turnout scenarios instead of a single number that suggests too much certainty in where the horse race stands.

Tightening race
Republican pollster Whit Ayres suggests that many observers — himself included — assumed that since Trump had never held a lead, he wouldn’t get the benefit of the doubt from voters in the end. But he says that in races where an incumbent is stuck below 50 percent in the polls, late deciders often break toward the challenger.

“There were a number of us who should have raised that possibility before the election,” Ayres said. “If you think about it, Hillary Clinton is about as close as you can get to an incumbent.”

Nationally and in key states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Trump prevailed among voters who said they decided which candidate to support in the last week before voting, according to exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Research.

In retrospect, Republican pollster Ed Goeas says that he saw a sign he now believes was a clue of Trump’s advantage. In his national polling, he saw an 8 percentage point edge for Trump in voter intensity and enthusiasm among his supporters.

“But the assumption on our part was that Clinton’s ground game would overcome or neutralize that intensity,” Goeas said. “It just didn’t.”

Not enough polls?

In several key states, including Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, there were few polls conducted in the final week before the election.

“In some of those unexpected states in the Rust Belt — Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin — you didn’t see some of the more rigorous polls being conducted,” said Kennedy.

Goeas confesses to failing to see some late movements, in part because his polling ended four days before the election.

“So basically we were looking at numbers thinking where he might end up,” Goeas said of Trump’s chances in Wisconsin, where he believed the Republican would benefit from Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s get-out-the-vote operation. “Did we have any comfort he would do it? No.”

“It would have been nice to have a couple more Michigan and Wisconsin polls to adjust that perception” that Clinton was leading, Miringoff said. “The campaigns don’t stop because the pollsters do their final poll.”/rga

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Donald Trump elected US president

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States.

The Republican nominee won Wednesday after capturing Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes, putting him over the 270 threshold.

Voters eager to shake up the nation’s political establishment picked the celebrity businessman to become the nation’s 45th president.

Trump rode an astonishing wave of support from voters seeking change and willing to accept a candidate loose with facts and accused of sexual misconduct.

He upset Democrat Hillary Clinton, who would have become the first woman to serve in the Oval Office.

Trump struck a populist tone and placed a hardline immigration stance at his campaign’s heart.

Trump rose to political fame after questioning whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States. He will now follow Obama into the White House.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Trump leading Clinton, 232-209, in electoral votes — AP

UPDATED @ 12:40 p.m.

Originally posted at 10:35 a.m.

WASHINGTON, United States — The Latest on Election Day 2016 (all times EST):

11:33 p.m.

Donald Trump has won Georgia.

The Republican nominee on Tuesday was awarded its 16 electoral votes.

Trump now has 232 electoral votes while his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has 209.

The Democrats had some hopes that changing demographics in Georgia could allow then to flip the reliably Republican state but their efforts fell short.

___

11:29 p.m.

Hillary Clinton has won Washington state and its 12 electoral votes.

The victory in Tuesday’s elections brings the former secretary of state’s electoral vote total to 209. Republican Donald Trump has 216.

It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.

___

11:11 p.m.

Donald Trump has won battleground North Carolina and its 15 electoral votes.

The victory in Tuesday’s elections brings the billionaire’s electoral vote total to 216. Democrat Hillary Clinton has 197.

North Carolina was one of the hardest-fought contests of the election and is one of the map’s newest swing states. It consistently went for Republicans until Barack Obama captured it in 2008. Republican Mitt Romney narrowly won the state in 2012.

At least 270 electoral votes are needed to win the presidency.

___

11:06 p.m.

Hillary Clinton has won Oregon.

The Democratic nominee on Tuesday was awarded its seven electoral votes.

Clinton now has 197 electoral votes. Her Republican opponent Donald Trump has 201.

Several key battleground states have yet to be won.

___

11 p.m.

Hillary Clinton has won California and Hawaii. Donald Trump has won Idaho’s four electoral votes.

The results in the West bring Clinton’s electoral vote total to 190 and Trump’s to 201. It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.

The results were not surprising. California, with 55 electoral votes, has voted for Democrats beginning in 1992. Hawaii has chosen Democrats consistently since 1988.

Idaho has voted for Republicans beginning in 1968.

___

10:50 p.m.

Donald Trump has won the key battleground state of Florida.

Trump on Tuesday was awarded 29 electoral votes.

He now has 197 electoral votes. His Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has 131.

Both candidates have spent an extraordinary amount of time in Florida, one of the most important prizes on the map. Trump calls Florida his “second home” and his campaign acknowledged that a win there is vital to his White House hopes.

Barack Obama captured the Sunshine State in both 2008 and 2012.

___

10:43 p.m.

Hillary Clinton has won Colorado.

The Democratic nominee captured its nine electoral votes Tuesday. She now has 131 total electoral votes while her Republican opponent Donald Trump has 168.

Colorado has become an attainable state for Democrats in recent years thanks to shifting demographics.

Clinton tried to woo a surge in Latino voters and the state’s college-educated whites while Trump repeatedly made pitches to Colorado’s large military population and swaths of rural voters.

___

10:40 p.m.

Hillary Clinton has won Virginia.

The Democratic nominee has captured its 13 electoral votes.

Virginia was reliably Republican for decades until Barack Obama won it twice, thanks in part to huge turnout from Washington, D.C.’s suburbs. Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, is a senator from Virginia, though Trump made a late push in the state.

The victory gives her 122 electoral votes. Her Republican opponent Donald Trump has 168.

___

10:37 p.m.

Donald Trump has won the electoral prize of Ohio, a state known for picking presidents.

The Republican wins the state’s 18 electoral votes in Tuesday’s election, bringing his total to 168. Hillary Clinton has 109.

Clinton had appeared ready to concede Ohio’s 18 electoral votes to Trump as polls showed him pulling ahead even in some traditionally Democratic blue-collar areas. But Trump struggled after release of a video in which he talked about groping women and kissing them without their permission.

Republicans held their nominating convention in Cleveland. Governor and one-time Republican presidential rival John Kasich refused to endorse Trump.

___

10:25 p.m.

Donald Trump has won Missouri.

The Republican nominee was awarded its 10 electoral votes. The result was not as a surprise, as the last Democratic victory in the Show Me State came in 1996.

Trump now has 150 electoral votes. His Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has 109.

___

10:21 p.m.

Hillary Clinton has won New Mexico and its five electoral votes.

That brings her electoral college vote total in Tuesday’s election to 109. Republican Donald Trump has 140 votes.

___

10 p.m.

Donald Trump has won Montana.

The Republican presidential nominee on Tuesday was awarded the state’s three electoral votes.

The result was not a surprise, as Montana was considered a safely Republican state.

Trump now has 132 electoral votes. His Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has 104 votes.

___

9:40 p.m.

Preliminary exit polls show the racial divides that were expected to define the 2016 presidential election.

Polls conducted for national media by Edison Research show Republican Donald Trump winning a majority of white voters while Democrat Hillary Clinton is drawing support from about three out of four nonwhite voters.

Trump’s support is strongest among whites without a college degree. He’s winning nearly two-thirds of them. Whites with college degrees are split between Trump and Clinton. Trump is winning both among white men and white women, though his margin is much higher among men.

Clinton’s strongest support comes from African-Americans. She’s winning about nine out of 10 black voters. She’s winning about two out of three Hispanics and Asian-Americans.

___

9:30 p.m.

Republican Donald Trump is maintaining Republicans’ advantage among white voters nationwide, but perhaps not by the usual margin that the party’s nominees have enjoyed.

Preliminary exit polls of voters who have already cast presidential ballots show Trump winning a majority of whites. He has not quite reached the roughly six-out-of-10 share that Mitt Romney notched four years ago in his unsuccessful challenge of President Barack Obama.

The difference appears to come among white women. Trump is posting about the same, if not a slightly wider margin among white men as Romney did in 2012. But his lead over Clinton among white women appears to be in single digits, short of Romney’s double-digit advantage four years ago.

___

9:28 p.m.

Donald Trump has won Louisiana and its eight electoral votes.

That extends his Electoral College total in Tuesday’s elections to 137, compared with Hillary Clinton’s 104.

History was on Donald Trump’s side in the state. Louisiana hasn’t given its electoral votes to a Democrat since Bill Clinton won 52 percent of the vote two decades ago.

___

9:26 p.m.

Hillary Clinton has won Connecticut.

The Democratic nominee on Tuesday was awarded Connecticut’s seven electoral votes.

The result was not a surprise, as Connecticut was considered a safely Democratic state.

Clinton now has 104 electoral votes. Her Republican opponent Donald Trump has 129.

___

9:08 p.m.

Republican Donald Trump has won Arkansas and its six electoral votes.

That brings his electoral vote total in Tuesday’s election to 129. Democrat Hillary Clinton has 97.

It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.

The result was expected. Earlier polling showed Trump leading Clinton by double digits in the state where she served as first lady for 12 years while her husband was the governor.

The once reliably blue state has turned red in recent years. Republicans now control all of Arkansas’ statewide and federal offices, as well as a majority of seats in both chambers of the state legislature.

Arkansas has backed the Republican candidate for the White House in every election since 1980 — except for years when Bill Clinton was running for president.

___

9:05 p.m.

Hopeful Hillary Clinton supporters have gathered on a Brooklyn street corner they expect to be prophetic: The intersection of President and Clinton Streets.

Photos and video posted on social media Tuesday show hundreds of people gathered for a block party where the streets cross.

Organizers have set up a large screen to stream election coverage. A food truck is dispensing tacos to the crowd.

The street signs in the intersection have been an attraction all Election Day for Clinton boosters snapping selfies.

It is just under a mile from Clinton’s national campaign headquarters in Brooklyn.

___

9 p.m.

Donald Trump has won Texas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Kansas and Nebraska while Hillary Clinton has won New York and Illinois.

Trump also on Tuesday won two of Nebraska’s congressional districts. In the state that awards by congressional district, one remains too close to call.

Trump was awarded Texas’ 38 electoral votes, the second-largest prize on the map. He also won six from Kansas, four from his victories in Nebraska and three apiece from Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Clinton was awarded 20 from Illinois and 29 from New York, the state both candidates call home. Trump had declared he would try to win New York but never mounted a serious effort there.

The Republican nominee now has 123 electoral votes. Clinton has 97.

___

8:55 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is watching election returns with a collection of close campaign aides and her family in a suite at the Peninsula New York, a luxury hotel in midtown Manhattan.

Aides say the group is snacking on salmon, roasted carrots and fries — along with vegan pizza and crème brulee for former President Bill Clinton, who’s careful about his diet. Her granddaughter, Charlotte, is wearing a dress emblazoned with the campaign logo.

Clinton and her husband have also been working on her election night remarks with her speechwriters.

Later Tuesday evening, they’ll move to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City for her election night party. It’s a building with a glass ceiling — a nod to the historic moment.

___

8:51 p.m.

Donald Trump has won Mississippi and its six electoral votes.

That brings his Electoral College total in Tuesday’s election to 66, compared with Hillary Clinton’s 48.

The outcome was not unexpected. Mississippi has voted for Republicans in every presidential election starting with 1972, with the exception of Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976.

___

8:40 p.m.

Hillary Clinton has won Rhode Island and its four electoral votes.

That brings her total Tuesday to 48, compared with Donald Trump’s 60.

It takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.

Rhode Island has voted for Republicans for president only four times since 1928.

In 2012, President Barack Obama defeated Republican Mitt Romney in the state by about 27 percent.

__

8:33 p.m.

Exit polls conducted by Edison Research for national media outlets suggest Hillary Clinton is still struggling with white voters who have put Georgia in the Republican column for every presidential election but one since 1980.

Exit polls in Virginia show Clinton and Republican Donald Trump split white Virginia voters with college degrees. In North Carolina, Trump apparently won a slight majority of college-educated whites. But in Georgia, whites with college degrees sided with Trump by more than 2-to-1.

Among whites with no degree, the gaps were even wider. Trump won about two out of three of those voters in North Carolina and Virginia. In Georgia, he won about four out of five.

___

8:27 p.m.

Donald Trump has won Alabama and its nine electoral votes after Sen. Jeff Sessions endorsed the billionaire candidate.

That brings Trump’s total in the Electoral College to 60 votes, to Clinton’s 44 votes.

It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.

The results continue the state’s streak of voting for Republicans every presidential election since 1980.

___

8:13 p.m.

Donald Trump has won Tennessee and its 11 electoral votes.

Tuesday’s vote is the fifth presidential contest in a row in which the state voted for the Republican candidate. That includes the 2000 election, when native son Al Gore lost the state to Republican George W. Bush.

It takes 270 votes to win the presidency. CBB

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Clinton casts her ballot: ‘It is the most humbling feeling’

CHAPPAQUA, N.Y.  — Seeking to become the nation’s first female president, Hillary Clinton cast her ballot Tuesday and settled down to wait for the country to make its choice.

The Democratic nominee and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, voted at an elementary school near their home in suburban New York before greeting supporters waiting for her outside.

“It is the most humbling feeling,” she said of voting for herself for president. “I know how much responsibility goes with this.”

It was a relatively calm moment Tuesday compared with Clinton’s hectic final few days day on the campaign trail. The former secretary of state and New York senator dashed through battleground states, encouraged get-out-the-vote efforts and campaigned with a star-studded cast of celebrity supporters.

It was an election eve punctuated by an emotional rally in Philadelphia with her husband, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, as well as performances by Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen, and capped by Lady Gaga, who serenaded thousands of supporters before the Clintons took the stage for a 1 a.m. rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. It ended with cheering fans greeting her at the airport back in New York when she landed in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

After the divisive rhetoric of the campaign against Republican Donald Trump, Clinton sought to offer a positive closing message on Monday. She told supporters in Pittsburgh they “can vote for a hopeful, inclusive, bighearted America.” In a buoyant mood, she also greeted voters who cried out “we love you,” smiling back: “I love you all, too … absolutely.”

Some good news boosted Clinton’s spirits in the final moments of the campaign. On Sunday, FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congress, informing lawmakers the bureau had found no evidence in its hurried review of newly discovered emails to warrant criminal charges against Clinton.

The late October announcement of a fresh email review rocked the race just as Clinton appeared to be pulling away from Trump in several battleground states. The update from the FBI may have come too late for some: In the nine days between Comey’s initial statement until his “all clear” announcement on Sunday, nearly 24 million people cast early ballots. That’s about 18 percent of the expected total votes for president.

But campaign aides projected confidence in the final moments. They said they felt good about Nevada, where they said support for Clinton in early voting was strong. They were encouraged by the strong Latino turnout in Florida and felt they took a strong lead in Michigan and Pennsylvania into Election Day, when the bulk of votes are cast in those states.

Leading up to Election Day, Clinton made stops in Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and New Hampshire — often flanked by star guests. Jay Z and Beyonce performed with pant-suited backup dancers in Cleveland. James Taylor serenaded New Hampshire voters and Katy Perry sang “Roar” in Philadelphia.

She also campaigned with Khizr Khan, the father of a slain U.S. Army officer whose indictment of Trump at the Democratic National Convention was an emotional high point for Clinton’s party.

Her last two days on the campaign trail felt almost like a Clinton family reunion, with some of her closest confidants jumping on the campaign plane for her final hours. Even Huma Abedin, her embattled personal aide caught up in the email controversy, jumped on the plane for the midnight rally in Raleigh. TVJ

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

A look at FBI Comey’s decisions in the Clinton email case

WASHINGTON — The FBI’s announcement that it recently came upon new emails possibly pertinent to the Hillary Clinton email investigation raised more questions than answers.

FBI Director James Comey said in a letter to Congress on Friday that the bureau had discovered the emails while pursuing an unrelated case and would review whether they were classified.

The announcement, vague in details, immediately drew both criticism and praise to Comey himself. Some questions and answers:

Where did the emails come from? 


A: The emails emerged during a separate criminal sexting investigation into former Rep. Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s closest aides, a U.S. official with knowledge of the matter told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation and discussed the matter on condition of anonymity.

Federal authorities are investigating communications between Weiner, a New York Democrat, and a 15-year-old girl.

It was not clear from Comey who sent or received the emails or what they were about.

Why is this coming out so close to the election?

A: Apparently because the emails were found very recently. In his letter to Congress, Comey said he had been briefed only Thursday by investigators.

Releasing the letter opened Comey to partisan criticism that he was dropping a significant development too close to an election. But keeping it under wraps until after Nov. 8 would surely have led to criticism that he was sitting on major news until after the election.

Comey has said there are no easy decisions on timing in the case. In an internal email sent Friday to FBI employees, he said he was trying to strike a balance between keeping Congress and the public informed and not creating a misleading impression, given that the emails’ significance is not yet known.

“In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood,” he wrote.

Upon learning of Comey’s intention to send lawmakers the letter, Justice Department officials conveyed disapproval and advised the FBI against it, according to a government official familiar with the conversations who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Department leaders were concerned that the letter would be inconsistent with department policy meant to avoid the appearance of prosecutorial interference or meddling in elections, the official said.

Is the disclosure standard for the FBI?

A: No, but neither was the Clinton email investigation.

In a nod to the extraordinary nature of an election-year probe into a presidential candidate, Comey promised extraordinary transparency as he announced the investigation’s conclusion in July.

“I am going to include more detail about our process than I ordinarily would, because I think the American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest,” Comey said at the unusual news conference where he announced the FBI would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton.

Since then, the FBI has periodically released investigative files — that is, summaries of witnesses who were interviewed. Those materials aren’t typically public.

Comey, a former Republican who is not registered with a political party, has served in government under both Democratic and Republican administrations and speaks repeatedly about the need for the FBI to be accountable to the public.

His letter Friday seemed in keeping with a statement he made to Congress last month, that although the FBI had concluded its investigation, “we would certainly look at any new and substantial information” that emerged.



But why was the letter so vague?

A: For one thing, the FBI avoids publicly discussing ongoing criminal investigations, or even confirming it has one open.

It also appears the FBI isn’t sure what it has. Comey said the FBI cannot yet assess whether the material is significant, or how long it would take to complete the additional work.

Nevertheless, the letter’s vagueness was immediately seized upon by critics as unacceptable and leaving the public in the dark.

What happens now? Does this increase the likelihood that someone could be changed?

A: The FBI will review the emails to see if they were classified and were improperly handled.

It’s impossible to say if anyone is in greater jeopardy than before.

The FBI announced in July that scores of emails from Clinton’s server contained information that was classified at the time it was sent or received. So, new emails determined as classified might do nothing to change the legal risk for anyone who sent them.

Comey said in July that the FBI had found no evidence of intentional or willful mishandling of classified information, of efforts to obstruct justice or of the deliberate exposure of government secrets. Those were elements that Comey suggested were needed to make a criminal case.

Nothing in the letter appears to change that standard. TVJ

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Emails show how Clinton campaign chair was apparently hacked

WASHINGTON — New evidence appears to show how hackers earlier this year stole more than 50,000 emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, an audacious electronic attack blamed on Russia’s government and one that has resulted in embarrassing political disclosures about Democrats in the final weeks before the US presidential election.

The hackers sent John Podesta an official-looking email on Saturday, March 19, that appeared to come from Google. It warned that someone in Ukraine had obtained Podesta’s personal Gmail password and tried unsuccessfully to log in, and it directed him to a website where he should “change your password immediately.”

Podesta’s chief of staff, Sara Latham, forwarded the email to the operations help desk of Clinton’s campaign, where staffer Charles Delavan in Brooklyn, New York, wrote back 25 minutes later, “This is a legitimate email. John needs to change his password immediately.”

But the email was not authentic.

The link to the website where Podesta was encouraged to change his Gmail password actually directed him instead to a computer in the Netherlands with a web address associated with Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand located in the South Pacific. The hackers carefully disguised the link using a service that shortens lengthy online addresses. But even for anyone checking more diligently, the address — “google.com-securitysettingpage” — was crafted to appear genuine.

In the email, the hackers even provided an Internet address of the purported Ukrainian hacker that actually traced to a mobile communications provider in Ukraine. It was also notable that the hackers struck Podesta on a weekend morning, when organizations typically have fewer resources to investigate and respond to reports of such problems. Delavan, the campaign help-desk staffer, did not respond immediately to the AP’s questions about his actions that day.

It is not immediately clear how Podesta responded to the threat, but five months later hackers successfully downloaded tens of thousands of emails from Podesta’s accounts that have now been posted online. The Clinton campaign declined to discuss the incident. Podesta has previously confirmed his emails were hacked and said the FBI was investigating.

The suspicious email was among more than 1,400 messages published by WikiLeaks on Friday that had been hacked from Podesta’s account.

It was not known whether the hackers deliberately left behind the evidence of their attempted break-in for WikiLeaks to reveal, but the tools they were using seven months ago still indicate they were personally targeting Podesta: Late Friday, the computer in the Netherlands that had been used in the hacking attempt featured a copy of Podesta’s biographical page from Wikipedia.

The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Homeland Security Department have formally accused Russian state-sponsored hackers for the recent string of cyberattacks intended to influence the presidential election.

The help-desk staffer, Delevan, emailed to Podesta’s chief of staff a separate, authentic link to reset Podesta’s Gmail password and encouraged Podesta to turn on two-factor authentication. That feature protects an account by requiring a second code that is separately sent to a cell phone or alternate email address before a user can log in. “It is absolutely imperative that this is done ASAP,” Delevan said.

Tod Beardsley, a security research manager at the Boston-based cybersecurity firm Rapid7, said the fact that an IT person deemed the suspicious email to be legitimate “pretty much guarantees the user who is not an IT person is going to click on it.”

Other emails previously released by WikiLeaks have included messages containing the password for Podesta’s iPhone and iPad accounts.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Clinton’s showbiz pals spend big as Hollywood shuns Trump

LOS ANGELES—Glance at the list of Hillary Clinton’s biggest donors and you could be forgiven for thinking she was funding a Hollywood movie rather than a presidential campaign.

It is hardly surprising that the left-leaning entertainment industry is supporting a Democrat for the White House, but the gulf between candidates in donations from Tinseltown this election cycle is staggering.

Actors, studio executives and other employees of the film, TV and music industries have donated $20.7 million to Clinton’s run for the presidency, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign funding.

Her Republican rival Donald Trump has meanwhile raised less than $350,000 from Hollywood.

“The Clintons have always been Hollywood darlings, going back to Bill’s term in office,” said Usman Shaikh, a Los Angeles-based entertainment attorney and a contemporary of Trump’s daughter Ivanka at the University of Pennsylvania.

“If you recall when it was Clinton and Obama for the primaries in 2008, Hollywood was supporting Clinton.”

Within hours of the former first lady confirming last year she was running to become America’s first female commander-in-chief, dozens of celebrities clamored to give their stamp of approval.

By the fall of 2015, according to the Los Angeles Times, she had taken about $5 million of the $5.5 million that Hollywood figures had donated to the 2016 campaign.

Film titans Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg gave $1 million each, while “Star Wars” director J.J. Abrams stumped up $500,000.

Clinton supporter George Clooney hosted back-to-back dinners in San Francisco and Los Angeles in April which reportedly raised over $15 million, with donors paying as much as $350,000 a head.

Clinton attended 17 starry fundraisers in California over the summer, part of an eye-watering schedule that included nine events spread across the state over just three days in late August.

Onslaught of negativity

That string of fundraisers included an August 22 cocktail reception for 500 people — including actor Samuel L. Jackson — hosted by NBA legend Magic Johnson and his wife Cookie.

That was followed later the same day by a 90-minute event put on by billionaire media mogul Haim Saban and his wife Cheryl at their Beverly Hills home. One hundred guests paid at least $50,000 each.

The following day involved fundraisers in Piedmont and Laguna Beach, each requiring donations of $33,400 from attendees, and a 75-minute swing by the Hollywood Hills home of Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel.

Guests there — including Jennifer Aniston, Tobey Maguire, Shonda Rhimes, Jamie Foxx and Katie Holmes — raised more than $3 million.

Trump, meanwhile, has faced an unprecedented onslaught of negativity from the entertainment industry — and not just the liberals.

Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a statement on Twitter at the start of October saying he would not be voting Republican for the first time since gaining US citizenship in 1983.

Meanwhile Harry Sloan, former head of MGM and a lifelong Republican, has announced he is backing Clinton and has even donated to her campaign.

According to Shaikh, there are an abundance of conservatives in Hollywood — but hardly any who will support the Republican candidate because of his divisive rhetoric on Mexicans, Muslims and women.

In fact, the driving force behind Trump’s fundraising activities is veteran Hollywood producer Steve Mnuchin, the man behind the “X-Men” franchise and “Avatar,” who has been finance chair of the campaign since May.

Political consultant Patrick Dorinson led a contingent of entertainment figures including Oscar-winner Jon Voight on a bus tour across the US in mid-September, giving speeches and news conferences on behalf of Trump.

‘Just too extreme’

But the litany of celebrities who have openly disparaged the real estate mogul and former reality TV star by far outweighs his supporters in Hollywood.

Some of America’s biggest stars, including actors Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson, appeared in a video in September to take potshots at Trump while rallying voters to the polls on Election Day.


“Do we really want to give nuclear weapons to a man whose signature move is firing things?” asks Leslie Odom Jr., a Tony winner for his turn as Aaron Burr in the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton.”

“I just think culturally he’s a very different fit from Hollywood. On so many of his issues, he’s just too extreme, particularly on women’s issues,” said Steve Maviglio, a California-based political consultant.

“He’s been actually good on gay marriage and you’d think that would be a natural to attract people in Hollywood. But you’re not even seeing the Hollywood Republicans helping him out.

“Look at the Republican convention. He had hardly any entertainment, any Hollywood, there at all.  Where is Clint Eastwood, even?”

But while support of Hollywood is an important source of campaign fundraising, surveys have shown that the backing of celebrities holds little sway over the way Americans vote.

“We saw Susan Sarandon do a lot of work for Bernie Sanders this year,” said Maviglio, who served as Bill Clinton’s director of public affairs in the 1990s.

“She got a lot of attention because she was one of the first people out there. But did it have an impact at the end of the day? No.”

source: entertainment.inquirer.net

Clinton warns Trump is ‘threatening’ US democracy

CLEVELAND—Hillary Clinton excoriated rival Donald Trump as a threat to American democracy Friday for not pledging to honor results of the upcoming presidential election, as the bitter rivals battled for supremacy in battleground states.

The 2016 election cycle pitting the Republican nominee against the former secretary of state has turned increasingly toxic, with Trump fueling wild conspiracy theories about vote “rigging” and Clinton warning that the provocative billionaire was straying into authoritarianism.

“We know the difference between leadership and dictatorship, and the peaceful transition of power is one of the things that sets us apart,” Clinton told a rally in Cleveland, Ohio, one of the key swing states up for grabs on November 8.

“Donald Trump refused to say that he’d respect the results of this election. By doing that, he’s threatening our democracy.”

Her comments marked a stern rebuke to Trump’s bombshell suggestion during their third and final presidential debate that he may not recognize the election result — a surprising rejection of political norms.

Trump, 70, then told a rally crowd that he could launch a legal challenge if Clinton prevails.

His remarks follow weeks of Trump warning about the likelihood of a “rigged” election including massive voter fraud, despite members of his own party disavowing the comments and Trump earning condemnation from President Barack Obama.

Despite isolated allegations of voter fraud, controversy over the tight 2000 vote and rampant gerrymandering, US elections have been regarded as free and fair.

Invigorated by both her commanding poll numbers and Trump’s eyebrow-raising declarations, the candidate vying to become America’s first female president was in Ohio aiming to block Trump’s efforts to claim the blue-collar heartland state.

Trump, well aware that no Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio, campaigned in the Buckeye State Thursday.

Meanwhile the Manhattan real estate mogul hosted rallies Friday in the battlegrounds of North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

“Eighteen days. You’re going to look back at this election and say this is by far the most important vote you’ve ever cast for anyone at any time,” Trump told a crowd in Fletcher, North Carolina.

‘Win, lose or draw’

“We’re fighting this juggernaut…. because they have billions of dollars they’ve raised,” he said of the Clinton campaign, which reportedly has outspent Trump on television advertising in recent months.

Trump said he would give the campaign everything he had, “right up until the actual vote.”

“Win, lose or draw… I will be happy with myself,” he added. “I don’t want to think back if only I did one more rally I would have won North Carolina by 500 votes instead of losing it by 200 votes, right?”

Clinton is narrowly leading in polling in North Carolina, a state Obama won in 2008 but lost to Republican Mitt Romney in 2012.

Clinton and Trump are coming off an evening of stinging humor at a white-tie charity event in New York where they traded jokes and jabs at what is meant to be a friendly roast — and where Trump was booed.

The bitterness of the campaign was quickly on display, with Trump calling the 68-year-old Clinton “corrupt” and jabbing her for disclosures from her campaign’s hacked emails.

“Here she is in public, pretending not to hate Catholics,” he said, as Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York looked on.

Despite the prickly barbs — including Clinton proclaiming that Trump sent “a hearse” to bring her to the dinner — the two candidates shook hands at the end of the evening.

Battleground focus

Trump is trailing badly in the polls, and his debate threat opened him up to a stinging attack from Obama at a Miami rally.

“When you try to sow the seeds of doubt in people’s minds about the legitimacy of our election, that undermines our democracy,” Obama said Thursday.

“When you suggest rigging or fraud without a shred of evidence, when last night at the debate, Trump becomes the first major party nominee in American history to suggest that he will not concede despite losing… that is not a joking matter.”

In the battle of the battlegrounds, Clinton holds leads in several states, ranging from razor-thin, such as in North Carolina, to moderate in Florida and Pennsylvania and commanding in Virginia.

She is even narrowly ahead in Arizona, the traditionally Republican-leaning state where First Lady Michelle Obama — who galvanized voters with a searing attack on Trump last week — campaigned for Clinton on Thursday.

If Trump loses Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, Clinton is all but assured of victory, experts have said.

In Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Trump supporters streamed into a convention center to hear Trump speak in their depressed former steel town, where most mill jobs have evaporated.

Trump promised that he would bring many of them back.

“We don’t make things anymore” he told the cheering crowd. “When I’m president, we’re going to start making things again in America.”

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

‘Nasty’ women swarm in support of Clinton after Trump insult

WASHINGTON—Suddenly, it seems America is crawling with nasty women.

Female unpleasantness as a tongue-in-cheek rallying cry is on T-shirts, in memes and in tweets galore — a furious backlash mocking Donald Trump’s latest insult of Hillary Clinton.

Trump’s dis — “such a nasty woman” — came during one of his interruptions of his Democratic rival in Wednesday’s final presidential debate.

Social media lit up as women came to Clinton’s defense.

T-shirts emblazoned “Nasty Woman” went up for sale on e-commerce website Etsy.

“Nasty Woman” took off on Twitter, with actress Lena Dunham, who has campaigned for Clinton, spreading the word.

“RT if you’re a nasty woman and it’s made your life a freakin’ pleasure,” Dunham tweeted.

Trending were #ImANastyWoman, #ImANastyWomanBecause, #NastyWomenVote and #NastyWomanUnite.

Trump’s comment immediately called to mind for many Janet Jackson’s 1986 “Nasty” video, where the singer champions “nasty boys.”


A new video mashing up Jackson’s hit and Trump and Clinton debate clips quickly went viral.

Spotify streams of Jackson’s song soared 250 percent after Trump’s remark, CNN reported Thursday.

A CNN clip of Trump’s “nasty” remark quickly garnered almost 27,000 views on YouTube.

News site Vox.com said that “calling Hillary Clinton a ‘nasty woman’ may have been the best thing Donald Trump has ever done for her campaign.”

It noted the Clinton campaign purchased the web domain nastywomengetshitdone.com, which automatically links to the candidate’s website, www.hillaryclinton.com.

Trump’s comment came in response to a dig from Clinton to the effect that the Republican nominee — who has bragged about his savviness in avoiding paying taxes — might also try to get out of chipping in toward the nation’s pension and health insurance programs.

In their third and final debate before the November 8 election, Trump accused Clinton and her campaign team of drumming up allegations that he has groped almost a dozen women.

“I believe,” Trump said, “she got these people to step forward,” accusing Clinton of running a “very sleazy campaign” and adding of the claims aired by several women dating back decades: “It was all fiction.”

“Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger,” Clinton said.

“He goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and I don’t think there is a woman anywhere who doesn’t know what that feels like.”

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Clinton says she takes ‘no satisfaction’ in Trump’s actions

SEATTLE — With Donald Trump on the defensive, Hillary Clinton says she is taking “no satisfaction” in his actions and promising to repair the damage and project a message of unity during the campaign’s final weeks.

Hours after her Republican rival furiously defended himself against multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, Clinton spoke Friday of the need for national healing in a Seattle fundraising speech that also saw her call upon Americans to help her govern if she’s elected president.

“This election is incredibly painful. I take absolutely no satisfaction in what is happening on the other side with my opponent,” Clinton said while visiting a Seattle campaign field office. “I am not at all happy about that because it hurts our country, it hurts our democracy, it sends terrible messages to so many people here at home and around the world.”

The Democratic presidential nominee said earlier at a Seattle fundraiser that while she understands many voters want to “turn away,” her supporters need to help her win the election to “demonstrate the positive, optimistic, confident, unifying vision of America that I believe in and that I think, together, we can demonstrate America’s best days are still ahead of us.”

While President Barack Obama is ending his two terms with high approval ratings, Clinton’s struggles with high unfavorability ratings and questions about her honesty could undermine any electoral mandate she might achieve in November.

So as Trump has dealt with a firestorm that started last week with the release of an 11-year-old videotape of him bragging about kissing and groping women, Clinton is increasingly aiming her message not only at Democrats but at disaffected Republicans and independents turned off by the spectacle.


draiser at the Paramount Theatre, where Trump backers gathered outside on a blustery day, one bearing a sign that read, “Hillary for Prison 2016,” Clinton struck a tone of conciliation. She said she wanted people “to start looking after each other again,” and that while she would aim to pass laws and seek “some real national commitments,” people needed to support each other at the end of an acrimonious campaign season.

“I will be asking for your help. I need your help not just to win this election but to govern and to heal the divides that exist in our country right now,” Clinton said. “I do believe there isn’t anything we can’t do once we make up our minds to do it.”

The former secretary of state said those challenges extend across the globe, saying she had talked to many foreign leaders who complained about Trump’s praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin or her opponent’s calls for a temporary ban on foreign Muslims entering the country.

“So make no mistake, we do have to repair the damage which he has done, which we will do. But on both domestic and national security grounds, repudiating his candidacy sends exactly the right message,” she said.

Leading in many battleground state polls, Clinton’s team is assessing the possibility of expanding the map to compete in traditional Republican states like Utah, Georgia and Arizona. She is preparing for next week’s final debate in Las Vegas and then an intense stretch of campaigning. While she continues to call Trump unqualified to be president, much of her message appears aimed beyond November — and into a possible first term.
READ: Clinton reaching past Trump, as he denies report of assault

“Bringing people together to solve problems is key to our democracy. There’s no question about it,” Clinton said. “And I want us to do that in a spirit of mutual respect, listening to one another, having each other’s backs.”

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Clinton edges ahead of Trump in post-debate poll bump

WASHINGTON—Hillary Clinton has pulled ahead of presidential rival Donald Trump in a new national poll out Friday, just days after her strong showing in the first televised debate.

The Democrat and former secretary of state bested her Republican rival by three percentage points in a Fox News poll which showed her ahead 43 to 40 percent.

Although Clinton’s lead is within the poll’s three percentage point margin of error, it shows a bump for Clinton, who beat Trump by only one percentage point in the same poll two weeks ago.

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein polled at eight and four percent respectively.

The nationwide results come as Clinton’s numbers improve in a number of critical swing states following the debate.

Florida — with its prodigious number of electoral votes — has swung back toward Clinton since Monday’s political showdown, polling shows, offering her a tantalizing opening to reach the White House.

Meanwhile a Detroit News-WDIV-TV four-way matchup conducted in the battleground state of Michigan found Clinton leading Trump by seven percentage points after the debate.

The first of three, the debate was the most watched in US history with 84 million people tuning in, according to a Nielsen tally.

During the clash the Democrat frequently forced her prickly opponent on the back foot over judgment, taxes, foreign policy and terrorism.

But American voters do not particularly like either candidate and many are still undecided.

The Fox News poll found that 53 percent had an unfavorable opinion of Clinton, while 55 percent view Trump in a negative light.

The number of voters who find Trump honest and trustworthy, meanwhile, sank eight points since mid-September to 31 percent.

Clinton’s numbers remain relatively unchanged: 35 percent now find her honest and trustworthy compared to 34 percent two weeks ago.

The Fox News poll interviewed 1,009 registered voters, and includes results among 911 likely voters. It was carried out Tuesday through Thursday.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

A Miss Universe insulted by Trump steps up for Clinton

WASHINGTON— Alicia Machado says that when she gained weight after being crowned Miss Universe for 1996, Donald Trump labeled her with a sexist nickname — “Miss Piggy” — that caused her shame and humiliation.

Two decades later, Machado’s dealings with Trump, her one-time beauty pageant boss, are reverberating through the 2016 campaign as the Republican businessman and reality TV star seeks the White House.

Democratic rival Hillary Clinton told Machado’s story toward the end of Monday’s first presidential debate, scolding Trump for referring to the Venezuelan-born actress as “Miss Housekeeping,” as Clinton said, “because she was Latina.”

“Donald, she has a name,” Clinton said, prompting Trump to ask, “Where did you find this?”

Clinton said, “Her name is Alicia Machado and she has become a U.S. citizen, and you can bet she’s going to vote this November.”

Asked about the exchange during an interview Tuesday with “Fox and Friends,” Trump said Machado was “the worst we ever had,” adding: “She gained a massive amount of weight. It was a real problem. We had a real problem.”

On CNN Tuesday night, Machado said she thinks Trump believes women are “a second class of people.”



“I love this country,” Machado said. “I don’t want to have some misogynist president.”

Clinton’s embrace of Machado brought comparisons to her campaign’s defense of Khizr Khan, whose son was killed while protecting other U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Khan spoke at the Democratic National Convention, holding up a copy of the U.S. Constitution while accusing Trump of smearing the character of Muslims.

Clinton’s campaign is trying to mobilize Latinos and women in November’s election and has assailed Trump for derogatory comments about women in the past. It quickly released a web video detailing Machado’s story, portraying her as a mortified pageant winner whom Trump called “fat” or “ugly” and blindsided by inviting reporters to watch her work out.

Machado went on a diet in 1997 after saying she gained at least 15 pounds. Trump said during Machado’s workout in front of the media that year that “she likes to eat — like all of us” and supported her weight-loss efforts.

She was embroiled in controversy of a different sort one year later, after a judge in Venezuela accused her of threatening to kill him after he indicted her then-boyfriend for attempted murder. The boyfriend, Juan Rafael Rodriguez Regetti, was accused of shooting and wounding his sister’s husband, whom he blamed for his sister’s suicide. The victim’s family accused Machado of driving her boyfriend’s getaway car, but she denied any involvement and apparently was never indicted, due to lack of evidence.

Now a U.S. citizen, Machado told reporters Tuesday in a conference call arranged by the Clinton campaign that her experience with Trump could “open eyes” in the presidential election. She said she was “really surprised” to hear Clinton refer to her story during the debate — she said she was overcome with emotion and started crying — but wanted to help Clinton in the election.

After the debate, Machado tweeted her thanks to Clinton, writing in Spanish: “Thanks Mrs. Hillary Clinton. Your respect for women and our differences makes you great. I’m with you.”

In June, Machado appeared at a news conference in Virginia held by immigrant advocacy groups to encourage Latino voters to support Clinton.

“I want to keep working on my campaigns for women’s equality, for respect for women and that our physical appearances do not define us productive or intelligent beings,” Machado told reporters in Spanish. “We are more than what we look like physically, that’s my point.”

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

George H.W. Bush said to be voting for Clinton

WASHINGTON  – A prominent member of the Kennedy family says former Republican President George H.W. Bush told her that he plans to vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton for president this fall.

Former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend posted a picture of herself with Bush on Facebook Monday and added, “The President told me he’s voting for Hillary!!” Townsend later confirmed the conversation she had while meeting Bush in Maine to Politico, which shared a screengrab of the Facebook post.

Bush’s spokesman, Jim McGrath, says in a statement that the 92-year-old former president’s vote is private and Bush isn’t commenting on the race. McGrath later said on Twitter that he’s “still checking” if anyone was there to verify Townsend’s conversation.

Bush hasn’t offered support for GOP nominee Donald Trump, who defeated his son, Jeb Bush, in a testy Republican primary.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Obama urges unity on eve of 9/11 anniversary

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Americans to remain united in the face of terrorist attacks, in a barely-veiled jab at Republican White House nominee Donald Trump 15 years after 9/11.

“In the face of terrorism, how we respond matters,” Obama said in his weekly radio and online address, delivered on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States.

“We cannot give in to those who would divide us. We cannot react in ways that erode the fabric of our society,” he added.

“Because it’s our diversity, our welcoming of all talent, our treating of everybody fairly—no matter their race, gender, ethnicity, or faith—that’s part of what makes our country great. It’s what makes us resilient,” Obama said.

“And if we stay true to those values, we’ll uphold the legacy of those we’ve lost, and keep our nation strong and free.”

On several occasions Obama has denounced Trump’s bombastic rhetoric towards Muslims.

Following the December shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California for example, Trump called for a temporary ban on the entry to the United States of all Muslims.

Obama was speaking two months before the presidential election in which real estate magnate Trump will face Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The al-Qaida hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001—the first foreign attack on the US mainland in nearly two centuries—ruptured a sense of safety and plunged the West into wars still being fought today.

More than 2,750 people were killed when two passenger jets destroyed the Twin Towers, the symbol of New York’s financial wealth and confidence. Another jet slammed into the Pentagon, and a fourth jet crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after those on board tried to overpower the hijackers.

Evoking “one of the darkest in our nation’s history,” Obama noted that much had changed over the past 15 years since the attacks.

“We delivered justice to (al-Qaida leader) Osama bin Laden. We’ve strengthened our homeland security. We’ve prevented attacks. We’ve saved lives,” Obama said.

But at the same time, he said, referring to attacks in Boston, San Bernardino, and Orlando, Florida, “the terrorist threat has evolved.”

“So in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond, we’ll stay relentless against terrorists like al-Qaida and [the Islamic State group] ISIL.

“We will destroy them. And we’ll keep doing everything in our power to protect our homeland,” Obama said.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Trump ignites new firestorm: Gun backers might stop Clinton

WILMINGTON, N.C. — Donald Trump ignited a fresh political firestorm Tuesday by declaring gun rights supporters might still find a way to stop Hillary Clinton, even if she should defeat him and then name anti-gun Supreme Court justices. Democrats pounced, accusing him of openly encouraging violence against his opponent.

The Republican presidential nominee has been working this week to move past distracting campaign disputes, but once again he put himself at the center of a blazing controversy.

First, he falsely claimed that Clinton, his Democratic opponent, wants to “essentially abolish the Second Amendment.” She has said repeatedly that she supports the Second Amendment right to own guns, though she does back some stricter gun control measures.

Trump then noted the power Clinton would have to nominate justices to the high court.

“By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina. “But I’ll tell you what. That will be a horrible day.”

The reaction from Democrats was immediate. Said her campaign manager, Robby Mook: “This is simple — what Trump is saying is dangerous. A person seeking to be the president of the United States should not suggest violence in any way.”



Trump’s reaction later as the uproar grew: “Give me a break.” Interviewed by Fox News’ Sean Hannity, he said everyone in his audience knew he was referring to the power of voters and “there can be no other interpretation.”

Trump’s campaign sought to quell the controversy with a statement that blamed the “dishonest media” for misinterpretation. And Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, said his boss was talking about the election choice for pro-gun voters, not encouraging violence.

Yet Trump’s foes were unconvinced and unforgiving.

Tim Kaine, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, said “of course” the Republicans were trying to explain away Trump’s comments, but added, “I think it was just revealing … and I don’t find the attempt to roll it back persuasive at all.”

Priorities USA, a super PAC supporting Clinton, said Trump had “suggested that someone shoot Hillary Clinton.” Across the country, Democratic House and Senate candidates piled on, working to tie Trump’s comments to their GOP opponents.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which has endorsed Clinton, said Trump was encouraging gun violence “based on conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton.”

Tweeted Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, “@realDonaldTrump makes death threats because he’s a pathetic coward who can’t handle the fact that he’s losing to a girl.”

The National Rifle Association, the gun lobby that has endorsed Trump, came to his defense. The group wrote on Twitter that “there’s nothing we can do” if Clinton is elected, urging voters to defeat her in November.



The controversy immediately overwhelmed Trump’s intended campaign-trail focus: the economic plan he unveiled just a day earlier and was promoting during a series of rallies in the most competitive general election states. It also reinforced the concern, voiced by many worried Republicans, that he cannot stay disciplined and avoid inflammatory remarks that imperil not only his White House prospects but the re-election chances of many GOP lawmakers.

At another rally later Tuesday in Fayetteville, Trump was careful with his words. He repeated his argument that Clinton poses a threat to gun rights, but avoided any talk about advocates taking matters into their own hands. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, introducing him, blamed the controversy on “disgusting” journalists.

Clinton’s supporters are hoping the latest Trump trip-up will lead yet more of his fellow Republicans to defect. A day earlier, Maine Sen. Susan Collins became the latest to declare she won’t vote for her party’s nominee, explicitly pointing to his “constant stream of cruel comments.”

The U.S. Secret Service, responsible for both Clinton’s and Trump’s protection, said it was aware of what Trump had said but declined to say whether it planned to investigate.

Contrary to Trump’s remarks, Clinton has made her support for gun rights a key piece of her stump speech in a bid to pre-empt attacks from Trump and groups like the NRA. Still, she supports reinstating a federal assault weapons ban, expanding background checks and barring purchases by domestic abusers, among other steps.

“I’m not here to repeal the Second Amendment,” she said in her Democratic National Convention speech. “I’m not here to take away your guns. I just don’t want you to be shot by someone who shouldn’t have a gun in the first place.”

Clinton spent Tuesday in Florida calling for emergency public health action on the Zika virus while visiting the Miami area dealing with the first U.S. outbreak. At a local health clinic, she urged Congress to cut short its summer recess and immediately pass funding for a Zika response. She blamed congressional Republicans for inaction.

“Everybody has a stake in this. And that’s really why I’m here,” Clinton said. “We don’t want to wake up in a year and read more stories about babies like the little girl who just died in Houston.”

It’s an issue that could affect votes in a crucial swing state where she has held a small advantage in recent polls. So far, Trump has not addressed the issue in depth, though he told a Florida television station last week that Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, “really seems to have it under control.”

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Trump moves from ‘crooked Hillary’ to ‘the devil’ on stump

MECHANICSBURG, Pennsylvania — On the campaign stump Donald Trump has opened August by moving from ‘crooked Hillary’ to ‘the devil.’

Speaking in Pennsylvania on Monday, the billionaire real estate mogul derided Bernie Sanders’ capitulation in the Democratic primary race and Sanders’ decision to support Clinton.

Trump said of Sanders: “He made a deal with the devil. She’s the devil.”

Trump in recent days has taken to categorizing the the Clinton-Sanders understanding as a “deal with the devil” but this was the first time that he went so far as to specifically equate Clinton with Lucifer.

Trump’s supporters packed a Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania high school gymnasium and thousands more were left outside or forced to watch in a spillover room.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Hillary Clinton declares ‘moment of reckoning’

PHILADELPHIA—Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, who sacrificed personal ambition for her husband’s political career and then rose to be a globally influential figure, became the first woman to accept a major party’s presidential nomination on Thursday night (Friday morning in Manila), a prize that generations of American women have dreamed about for one of their own.

Declaring that the nation was at “a moment of reckoning,” Mrs. Clinton, 68, urged voters to reject the divisive policy ideas and combative politics of the Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump. She offered herself as a steady and patriotic American who would stand up for citizens of all races and creeds and unite the country to persevere against Islamic terrorists, economic troubles, and the chaos of gun violence.

“Powerful forces are threatening to pull us apart, bonds of trust and respect are fraying,” said Mrs. Clinton, who worked on the speech until the early hours of Thursday morning. “And just as with our founders there are no guarantees. It truly is up to us. We have to decide whether we all will work together so we all can rise together.”

Mrs. Clinton radiated confidence, from her pungent delivery and easy laugh to the unusually expressive ways she shifted her tone and delighted in her own best lines. She smoothly acknowledged her own limitations and trust issues as a public figure and forcefully challenged Mr. Trump over his claims that he alone could fix America’s problems.

And after 25 years in a sometimes brutal national spotlight, Mrs. Clinton tried to explain who she is and what drives her—from her Methodist faith to her passion for government policy that could mean all the difference for people.

Policy wonk

“I sweat the details of policy,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Because it’s not just a detail if it’s your kid—if it’s your family. It’s a big deal. And it should be a big deal to your president.”

It was one of several contrasts she drew with Mr. Trump, who has barely explained how he would carry out his policy goals. And she received help from several Republicans and military veterans who took the convention stage earlier in the evening to warn that Mr. Trump was not fit for the presidency and would take the United States to “a dark place of discord and fear,” as a retired general, John Allen, put it. Democrats in the convention hall broke out into a booming, lengthy chant of “USA, USA!”

But the most powerful guest speaker of the evening was Khizr Khan, a Muslim American whose son joined the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and was killed during service in Iraq. Mr. Khan, rebuking Mr. Trump for frequently demonizing Muslims as threats to the United States, pulled a copy of the Constitution out of his suit jacket.

“Mr. Trump, have you even read the Constitution?” he said. “You have sacrificed nothing.”

His words seemed to send a collective shiver through the convention hall, leaving some delegates in tears.

Night of history

Few recent political conventions have had a night gusting with so much history and high emotion. If elected, Mrs. Clinton would become the 45th president of the United States, as well as the first to be married to a former president, Bill Clinton, the nation’s 42nd.

She would be the latest in a long line of Yale graduates and accomplished lawyers to lead the country, but she would also be the first mother and grandmother to be commander in chief, decades after women became heads of state elsewhere.

Democrats roared with passion and pride as a beaming Mrs. Clinton took the stage after her daughter, Chelsea, introduced her as an American who was inspired by her own mother’s impoverished childhood and had faced personal and professional choices that defined generations of women. The two locked eyes and fell into a long embrace as Mrs. Clinton patted her back. A moment later, Mrs. Clinton waved at Mr. Clinton, and he blew her a kiss.

Have no fear

Then Mrs. Clinton, who has given only a few major political speeches in her life, delivered her biggest yet. She offered a positive portrait of America that felt like a different country than the nation in decline that Mr. Trump often describes and that many voters’ fear has come to pass after years of terrorism at home and abroad and the growing gap between rich and poor.

“He’s betting that the perils of today’s world will blind us to its unlimited promise,” Mrs. Clinton said. “He wants us to fear the future and fear each other. Well, a great Democratic President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, came up with the perfect rebuke to Trump more than 80 years ago, during a much more perilous time:  ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’”

Mrs. Clinton, facing a three-month general election campaign against an unpredictable Mr. Trump, who has risen in the polls since his convention speech last week, hoped that her remarks here would not only energize her party, but also help her connect with undecided and independent voters who are skeptical of her candidacy.

Bernie’s cause

She nodded toward the political work she still had to do. Praising her rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, she told his mostly liberal supporters—some of whom booed or staged a “silent protest” in the hall, declining to applaud her speech—“I want you to know, I’ve heard you. Your cause is our cause.”

And she acknowledged that many voters still do not relate to her after her eight years as first lady, eight as a senator, and four as secretary of state.

“The truth is, through all these years of public service, the  ‘service’ part has always come easier to me than the ‘public’ part,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I get it that some people just don’t know what to make of me,” she added before sharing memories of her humble roots and life lessons from church and her mother—particularly, “no one gets through life alone.”

Bashing Trump

Her strategy was to go hard at Mr. Trump, repeatedly drawing contrasts between her positions—which are in the mainstream of Democratic politics—and Mr. Trump’s unorthodox views for a Republican, such as placing tariffs on other nations’ goods and possibly withdrawing from treaties and trade deals.

Reciting a litany of unusual and unlikely ideas that Mr. Trump laid out at the Republican convention, Mrs. Clinton drew huge laugh when she said, “He spoke for 70-odd minutes—and I do mean odd.”

Mrs. Clinton, the rare first lady who, like her idol Eleanor Roosevelt, used the job to influence policy and who went on to be a powerful figure, began her own quest for the White House nearly a decade ago with her first run for the nomination against Barack Obama.

Back then she presented herself as a steely and even hawkish Democrat who held some views—opposing gay marriage, supporting free trade, and championing the rights of gun owners—that she has shifted since her defeat. This time around, she fashioned herself as “a progressive who likes to get things done”—the sort of line-straddling language that makes some liberals dubious of her values and some independents skeptical about her authenticity.

Wellesley speech

Her convention speech comes 47 years after the young Hillary Rodham wound up in Life magazine when she used her commencement address at Wellesley College to reckon with that era’s civic unrest and clashes between protesters and police officers.

Her message to the millions of people watching her speech on television on Thursday night was similar, as she implored Americans to look past fear and tumult and to choose harmony over hatred. But this time, Mrs. Clinton was to speak to an audience that is deeply distrustful of her. Some 67 percent of all voters and 74 percent of independents said they do not trust Mrs. Clinton, in the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

About six weeks ago, Mrs. Clinton started sketching down rough notes about what she wanted to say on the eve she accepts her party’s nomination. A month ago, discussions with her top policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, and the speechwriters Dan Schwerin and Megan Rooney, began to shape the speech, with advice from a variety of friends and former speechwriters. Mrs. Clinton also sought advice from Mr. Obama’s much-admired former director of speechwriting Jon Favreau.

Falling barriers

The speech often electrified the assembled Democrats with its crowd-pleasing lines about Mr. Trump like, “Imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis: A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.” And the delegates reveled at the end as confetti rained down on Mrs. Clinton and she playfully swatted at the spill of balloons.

For her, though, the greatest exhilaration flowed from the sense that history had been made and that the lives of future generations would be changed forever.

“Standing here as my mother’s daughter, and my daughter’s mother, I’m so happy this day has come,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Happy for grandmothers and little girls and everyone in between. Happy for boys and men, too—because when any barrier falls in America, for anyone, it clears the way for everyone. When there are no ceilings, the sky’s the limit.

“So let’s keep going,” she said, “until every one of the 161 million women and girls across America has the opportunity she deserves.” TVJ

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Lady Gaga putting on invite-only Democratic convention show

CAMDEN, N.J. — Camden, one of the country’s most impoverished cities, will get some time in the Democratic convention spotlight Thursday with some help from Lady Gaga.

But while thousands of delegates have been invited across the Delaware River for an afternoon concert with the pop star, press won’t be allowed to cover the event sponsored by the man considered New Jersey’s most powerful unelected political power broker.

George Norcross and the Senate Majority PAC are hosting the invite-only “Camden Rising” event Thursday afternoon with invites going out to all of the convention’s delegates, hours before Hillary Clinton accepts the Democratic Party’s nomination.

A spokesman for Norcross said performer contracts prohibited press from being able to cover the event, which also will include performances by Lenny Kravitz and DJ Jazzy Jeff.

Norcross is credited with working with Republican Gov. Chris Christie to help in redevelopment efforts in Camden, many partially funded through state grants and tax credits. The insurance executive runs southern New Jersey’s Democratic Party organization and is a Democratic superdelegate along with his brother, US Rep. Donald Norcross. Both are supporting Clinton.

“It’s going to be, with the exception of the acceptance speech by Hillary Clinton, the hottest ticket at the convention based on the responses that we’ve gotten so far,” Norcross said last week. “I think having it in Camden and entitling it ‘Camden Rising’ and telling a little of the story of Camden is very helpful for the city, its resurgence and what everyone is doing to try to make it a better place.”

Gary Frazier, a Green Party candidate for Camden City Council and an organizer for Black Men for Bernie, said at a pro-Bernie Sanders event that started in the city on Monday that protesters will be at Thursday’s concert to send a message that the city is still struggling.

“I live here,” he said. “How’s it turning around when we have violence in our city, where you have youth killing youth?”

While Camden has drawn national attention for community policing — President Barack Obama lauded the efforts last year during a visit to the city — crime was up in the first six months of the year by nearly 14 percent and the city’s homicide total had more than doubled, according to state police statistics released this week.

Frazier said Camden’s downtown and waterfront may look better, but life is still the same in the city’s beleaguered neighborhoods, which have long suffered from a thriving drug trade and the loss of industry.

Jesus Hernandez, 63, has lived in Camden since 1972. He said he doesn’t see as much crime as a few years ago and long-abandoned homes are being razed. He pointed to a Rutgers nursing school under construction downtown.

“Now it’s lots better,” he said. “They’re building brand new buildings.”

source: entertainment.inquirer.net

Trump: Saddam killed terrorists ‘so good’

RALEIGH, North Carolina  — Donald Trump, who frequently criticizes U.S. foreign policy under President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is praising Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s ruthlessness.

“Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? … But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good,” Trump told supporters at a campaign rally Tuesday night in Raleigh, North Carolina. “They didn’t read ’em the rights, they didn’t talk. They were a terrorist, it was over.”

Trump has previously said the world would be “100 percent better” if dictators like Hussein and Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi were still in power. Prior to the U.S. invasion, Iraq was listed by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism. Hussein suppressed dissent in his country and used poison gas against 5,000 Iraqi Kurds.

Jake Sullivan, a Clinton senior policy adviser, said Trump’s “praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds.”

Sullivan said such comments “demonstrate how dangerous he would be as commander-in-chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks.”

Trump’s foreign policy pronouncements have proved controversial, even within the Republican Party that is poised to nominate him for president in a few weeks. He has said the United States is too fully engaged around the world and has questioned the role of NATO and said the United States has been taken advantage of by nations benefiting from its security cooperation and troop presence. Some critics within the GOP have said his policies suggest an isolationist stance in an increasingly dangerous world.

Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, partners among Republican congressional critics of Obama administration foreign policy, carried out a fact-check on Trump’s national security statements earlier this year at a Capitol Hill hearing.

On April 19, when the Army general selected to lead U.S. forces in South Korea testified before the committee, McCain seized the opportunity to undermine Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. withdraw its forces from the South because Seoul isn’t paying enough to cover the cost of the American military presence.

“Isn’t it the fact that it costs us less to have troops stationed in Korea than in the United States, given the contribution the Republic of Korea makes?” McCain asked Gen. Vincent Brooks.

Yes, Brooks said, telling McCain the South Koreans pay half, or $808 million annually, of the U.S. presence there.

Two days later, Trump’s claim that NATO is irrelevant and ill-suited to fight terrorism came under the microscope. As president, Trump has said he would force member nations to increase their contributions, even if that risked breaking up the 28-country alliance.

In early March, more than 70 conservative national experts, including former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, wrote in an open letter that they have disagreed with one another on a variety of issues but are united in their opposition to a Trump presidency. Chertoff served in President George W. Bush’s administration. TVJ

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net