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Ricochet Podcasts on NPR
Michael Graham, host of Ricochet’s Michael in the Morning podcast, was on NPR, uh, this morning (he’s a morning person) to talk podcasts with Lulu Garcia-Navarro (with a name like that, she aced the NPR job interview) and Emily Bazelon, co-host of the liberal Gabfest podcast from Slate. Listen below:
Welcome Back
The site was unavailable for most of this evening due to the SSL certificate suddenly not working. It didn’t expire, it just… stopped. I was not aware that was a possibility, but there you go. Most everyone received secure connection error warnings in their browsers, which prevented them from loading the site. I had to install a new certificate, which worked for about 10 minutes, and then the site decided to pretend it was still using the old certificate, which knocked out everyone’s connection once more. We’re back now, but it’s possible you may still see some odd behavior. Let me know in the comments. This was not, as far as I’m currently aware, related to the server problems we’ve been having this past month.
When Governments Sue Citizens to Suppress Transparency
“These lawsuits are an absurd practice and noxious to open government.” That’s how the Associated Press quotes University of Kansas journalism professor Jonathan Peters, speaking about a troubling trend in recent years of government bodies suing citizens who seek disclosure of public documents through open-records laws.
I know all about these types of absurd lawsuits. Last year the Tuftonboro, NH Board of Selectmen (at the time: Carolyn Sundquist, Lloyd Wood, and Bill Marcussen) sued me and another Tuftonboro resident, Bob McWhirter, when we requested to inspect government records. They spent around $20,000 (and counting) in a vain attempt to charge us 25 cents per page to inspect the records, even though New Hampshire’s Right to Know law states that “no fee shall be charged for the inspection or delivery, without copying, of governmental records, whether in paper, electronic, or other form.” The selectmen’s attorney, Richard Sager of Ossipee, argued in court that the law doesn’t make sense because, if read literally, it meant that the selectmen couldn’t charge us a fee. And they wanted to charge us a fee.
They lost their lawsuit when Carroll County Superior Court Judge Amy Ignatius ruled that they couldn’t charge us a fee. But as the AP quotes Mike Deshotels in its article, “You can lose even when you win.” Deshotels was sued by the Louisiana Department of Education when he requested school enrollment data. The DOE lost in court, like the Tuftonboro selectmen, but Deshotels incurred legal costs, like Bob and me, defending himself from an attack on his right to know what his government was doing.
These types of abusive lawsuits are happening all over the country, according to the AP. But in Michigan, the state House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill this spring, 108–0, that would prohibit government bodies from suing citizens who are requesting documents. The bill needs to be passed by the Michigan Senate before becoming law.
Tuftonboro selectmen spent $20,000 of taxpayers’ money in an effort to make it more difficult to get access to public records. Would they have done that if it was their own $20,000? It’s easy to spend other people’s money. Even after the court’s ruling on August 8, the selectmen have yet to turn over a single email to me or Bob.
New Hampshire should make it illegal for government bodies to sue citizens who are requesting documents.
New Hampshire Congressional Candidates Andy Sanborn and Eddie Edwards
Andy Sanborn and Eddie Edwards are declared candidates running for the Republican nomination (to be held in September 2018) to run against (presumably) Carol Shea-Porter for the United States House of Representatives. They both spoke to Republicans onboard the Winni Belle on Lake Winnipesaukee recently. Here are excerpts from their speeches.
Sanborn, a New Hampshire native, is a member of the state senate and, along with his wife (Laurie Sanborn, a member of the house of representatives), owns several businesses including a restaurant in Concord. He was a state co-chair for both Ron Paul’s 2012 and Rand Paul’s 2016 presidential campaigns.
Edwards came to New Hampshire 30 years ago when he was stationed in Portsmouth with the Navy. He went on to have two-decade career in law enforcement as the chief of police in South Hampton and the director of enforcement and licensing for the New Hampshire State Liquor Commission. Edwards was a state co-chair of Ben Carson’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Both Edwards and Sanborn spoke about the need for integrity in elected offices, to hold elected officials to the same standards as everyone else, and also both pledged to adhere to term limits if elected to Congress. Sanborn said he had signed a pledge to introduce term limit legislation if elected, and Edwards said if elected he would seek no more than three terms (six years).
Carol Shea-Porter is liberal — her first campaign for congress was based on her opposition to the Iraq war, raising the minimum wage, and universal healthcare — who is serving her fourth non-consecutive term in congress. She was first elected in 2006, re-elected in 2008, lost narrowly in 2010 to Republican Frank Guinta, re-gained the seat in 2012, then lost to Guinta once again in 2014, but was re-elected once more in 2016, defeating, yes, Guinta by fewer than 5,000 votes (the race also included two independent candidates and a libertarian received a combined 46,000 votes).
As the Winni Belle sailed (steamed? boated?) out of Wolfeboro Bay, a pontoon boat approached and began circling the larger vessel. Someone at the front of the pontoon boat began firing off a flare gun as other people unfurled a banner that read “DUMP CAROL.” Back on the Winni Belle, passengers on both the upper and lower decks cheered, but one gentleman grumbled, “Can’t they leave us alone? Those jerks!”
Another passenger responded, “It says ‘Dump Carol.’ “
“I know! Jerks!”
“No, ‘Carol.’ ” The passenger emphasized, realizing the first gentleman was wearing hearing aides.
“What? Oh! I thought it was Dump Trump! That’s great. Haha,” said the gentleman, taking out his camera to get a picture.
Scheduled Server Maintenance Tonight
We’ll be doing some tune ups tonight between 1-2AM ET. We hope it will take no more than 15-30 minutes. (Because I want to go to bed afterward.)
The Immorality of Abortion Advocates
Liz Harman, a professor at Princeton, is interviewed by James Franco, the movie actor, and his friend Eliot Michaelson, a lecturer at the department of philosophy at King’s College London. Harman explains that there’s nothing wrong about “early abortion” because some fetuses have no moral standing.
Which fetuses have no moral standing? Why, aborted fetuses. Why? Because they have no future. Why do they have no future? Because they are aborted. Therefore, it’s ok to abort them.
On the other hand, some other fetuses, like fetal James Franco, that aren’t aborted do have moral status. Fetal James Franco had moral status due to his future. He had a future because his mother didn’t abort him. So aborting him would have been wrong. However, Professor Harman explains, had his mother aborted him, he would not have had any moral standing. So it would have been ok to abort him.
She’s not saying, she helpfully adds, in case you are getting confused, that abortion is ok because the mother had an abortion on the one hand, and that abortion is not ok on the other hand because the mother didn’t have an abortion. No, not at all.
I’ve no idea, frankly, what James Franco’s political opinions are, but judging from his facial expressions, I think he’s not thoroughly convinced by the professor’s arguments. Are you?
Introducing POTUS POD to the Ricochet Audio Network
I’m happy to announce the newest podcast on the Ricochet Audio Network: POTUS POD.
POTUS POD will carry speeches by the President of the United States (POTUS), and the weekly address to the nation, as well as White House briefings and other related events that would make sense to listen to in a podcast format. This podcast is presented as a public service to provide an audio archive of the Donald J. Trump administration.
I’ve started posting episodes and will be retroactively adding past speeches as well. This podcast may go down as being one of the best, if not the best, in all honesty, podcasts of all time, I can tell you that, believe me, so you’ll want to subscribe in iTunes or via RSS feed in your podcast app of choice.
And don’t forget to give this and all the podcasts at Ricochet glowing five-star reviews in iTunes or wherever else you can leave reviews. (Is Yelp still a thing? What about hotels.com? I’m not sure if “swipe left” or “swipe right” is the “good” swipe on Tinder, but we’re the swipe-Right type of site, anyway.)
Special thanks to @ejhill for the artwork. He also came up with the name. I was going to call it Trump Channel, but didn’t want to get sued.
Podcasts Are Great Again! #PAGA
McCain, Murkowski, Collins Kill Obamacare Repeal; Americans Hurt the Most
When are Republicans in Washington going to find out that they control both houses of Congress? Soon? After years of promising to repeal Obamacare to bring relief to the millions of Americans who have been harmed by skyrocketing premiums, stratosphere-leaping deductibles, and vanishing insurance policies, Senate Republicans abjectly failed to deliver last night. Senators Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), and John McCain (Arizona) joined with all 48 Democrats to vote “No” on a so-called skinny repeal of Obamacare, causing the bill’s defeat 51–49. Murkowski’s and Collins’s perfidy was expected, but John McCain’s no vote reportedly elicited shocked gasps from his fellow Republicans. I don’t know why. He apparently hobnobbed with Senate Democrats before casting his vote, so it can’t have been that surprising.
The “skinny” repeal itself appears to be an absurd bill that didn’t really repeal much. But Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell apparently hoped, we’re told, that it would be amended in conference with the House. So the Republicans — who campaigned on repeal, who voted for repeal bills countless times — have failed to deliver. Murkowski, Collins, and McCain are scoundrels. (I of course have empathy and sympathy for McCain’s medical condition — but he deserves contempt for last night’s vote.) Murkowski and McCain, in particular, deserve our disrespect for having voted for Obamacare repeal in 2015.
President Trump’s critics are (of course) blaming him rather than blaming the three Republican senators who voted with the Democrats to consign millions of Americans to misery. According to NeverTrumeprs, Republicans should keep their promises only if Trump reminds them to do so. Can we stop calling Murkowski, Collins, McCain, and others “moderates”? Their positions are not moderate. They are intransigent. They refuse to budge. Murkowski and Collins, for instance, refused to vote even to open debate on the repeal bill earlier this week. Their “moderate” position forced John McCain, who is dying from brain cancer, to fly to Washington from his home state of Arizona to cast a yes vote for a bill he didn’t even support. How’s that “moderate” of Murkowski and Collins?
Trump this morning on Twitter again renewed his call to let Obamacare die. I hope he doesn’t actually mean that. I believe it is a persuasion tactic. (Most things he says are — not that NeverTrumpers have figured that one out yet. Pro-tip: Read The Art of the Deal.) Obamacare has fewer chances of surviving to the end of the decade than Senator McCain has, and in its death throws the health-insurance law is leaving Americans without options, without care, and without hope. And apparently Republicans don’t care enough to keep their promises. Today, the GOP isn’t just the Stupid Party, it’s the Lazy, Lying, Cowardly Party.
Scott Hamann, Maine Democrat, Now Regrets Threatening Donald Trump
Scott Hamann, a Democrat state representative from South Portland, ME, has deleted a Facebook comment he posted Tuesday night in which he wrote, “Trump is a half term president, at most, especially if I ever get within 10 feet of that pussy.” He also called Trump supporters “dumb [expletive]s” who are “ruining America,” and asserted that President Trump was “installed by Russia,” and is “an admitted rapist. He inserts his fingers in women without their consent.” In contrast, Hamann wrote, Barack Obama had a successful presidency due to “zero rape victims.” One might think that’s a low bar to cross, if not for the actions of Democrat presidents John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton.
The chairwoman of the Maine Republican Party, Demi Kouzounas, demanded that Democrat Speaker of the Maine House, Sara Gideon, “do something about her unethical and radicalized caucus” in response to Hamann’s implied threat against President Trump. “Is this language and behavior that she is willing to accept from Democrat Representatives?” Kouzounas asked.
Hamann’s Facebook comments were first publicized by Keith Hanson, a radio host in New Hampshire and Vermont, who said the screen shot had been sent to him by a New Hampshire state representative. When Hanson contacted Hamann, and Hamann’s employer, The Good Shepherd Food Bank, Hamann responded by threatening to sue Hanson. According to the Bangor Daily News:
On Tuesday night, Hanson, who hosts shows on FOX News affiliate radio stations WNTK in New Hampshire and WUVR in Vermont reached out to Hamann and Good Shepherd Food Bank over Facebook regarding the posts.
Hamann responded by saying he would pursue legal action against the radio host if the statements hurt his career, according to screenshots of their conversation provided by Hanson.
“And if anything negative comes from your attack on my employment, my attorney will be in touch,” Hamann wrote. “Cease and desist.”
By the next day, however, Hamann changed his tone. In a statement published in the Portland Press Herald Wednesday, Hamann said:
I regret my impulsive decision to post something aggressively sarcastic and inappropriate in a Facebook exchange with a childhood friend. While the tone of the post was born out of frustration with the vile language currently surrounding politics, I should not have responded with the same language. This is not language I typically use, it does not reflect my personal values, and while misguided, it was intended to make a visceral point about the devolving political discourse in America.
Hamann represents District 32, which covers part of South Portland and part of Cape Elizabeth, and is in his third term in office. Maine has term limits for state representatives and senators. The term limit restricts officials to four consecutive terms. Officials who have been term limited, however, are re-eligible to run for office after a two year (one term) period. Republicans currently hold the majority in the senate while Democrats have the majority in the House.
“Threatening the president is a crime,” the Bangor Daily News reported Wednesday. “The U.S. Secret Service is aware of Hamann’s statement and tracking the incident but has not opened an investigation, David Watson, resident agent in charge of the service’s Maine field office.”
Speaker Gideon is on vacation and was not available for comment, according to the Portland Press Herald, which spoke to Gideon’s spokeswoman, Mary-Erin Casale.
Mollie Hemingway and Jonah Goldberg on Special Report
The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway and National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, both friends of Ricochet, disagreed last night on Special Report over President Trump’s tweets. They discussed Trump’s May 12 tweet, “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Mollie said, “James Comey had already been leaking to the New York Times, and he’d been presenting stories as if he was some hero of the conversations he had with Trump. That tweet actually got James Comey to admit that he did three times tell Donald Trump that he wasn’t under investigation. It got him to admit he had said Mike Flynn was a good guy when he was asked about it by the president. And it did get him to also admit that he had pledged his honest loyalty to Donald Trump, which was contrary to what he had said to the New York Times the day before that tweet.”
“It also got him a special prosecutor,” said Jonah.
“I think it’s naive to think that that would not have happened otherwise. James Comey was clearly laying the groundwork on a campaign through his leaking and it’s kind of re-writing history to say it’s otherwise.”
They also talked about Trump’s June 22 tweet, “With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea whether there are ‘tapes’ or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings.”
Jonah said that it was “offensive” that Trump insinuated there might be recordings of the president that Trump doesn’t know about, because “there’s no evidence whatsoever that anyone was bugging or wiretapping the oval office or the president of the United States without his awareness.” Mollie pointed out that there have been numerous leaks of Trump’s private conversations, saying “You’ve had nothing but months of leaks from intelligence agencies about people affiliated with the Trump campaign or otherwise. It’s not insane at all to think there might be surveillance.”
Jonah ended by insisting, “leaking is not bugging!”
Trump’s Greatest Crime
Last month on the Ricochet Podcast (Episode 353, “Happy Family”), Rob Long tried to bully me into saying mean things about Donald Trump. I declined, because the Left and NeverTrumpers don’t need any help saying bad things about Trump. But I did say that Trump had made two mistakes in the eyes of his detractors: 1) He ran for President as Donald Trump, and refused to kowtow to political correctness, and 2) He won despite point #1. I said that this was confusing to people like Rob, who had insisted Trump couldn’t win because of the first “mistake.”
Rob wasn’t convinced by my airtight, 100 percent accurate political commentary, but now everyone’s favorite Fox News contributor, Ricochet alumna Mollie Hemingway, has voiced a near-identical assessment on Twitter. I therefore declare total and complete vindication over Rob. If Mollie said it, then it’s true. Unless I disagree with her. Then she’s wrong. But I still respect her. Hey, it’s ok to disagree.
Mollie Hemingway: “Many Reasons Why Comey Lost the Confidence of Everyone”
Appearing on Fox News’s Media Buzz with Howie Kurtz this morning, Ricochet’s favorite Fox News contributor, @MollieHemingway, pushed back against the conventional wisdom in the media that it’s contradictory for President Donald Trump to have more than one reason to fire former FBI director James Comey.
Mollie Hemingway: Can we stop with this idea that there needs to be one reason and only one reason why someone gets fired? There are many reasons why Comey lost the confidence of everyone on both left and right and it doesn’t need to be one reason — it’s many reasons.
Amazon AWS Outage Fixed
Update: Resolved.
[RESOLVED] Increased Error Rates for Amazon S3
Update at 2:08 PM PST: As of 1:49 PM PST, we are fully recovered for operations for adding new objects in S3, which was our last operation showing a high error rate. The Amazon S3 service is operating normally.
We host many of our podcasts on Amazon’s S3 service, which is currently experiencing massive worldwide failures. Whoohooo. A message at https://status.aws.amazon.com states:
Increased Error Rates
Update at 10:33 AM PST: We’re continuing to work to remediate the availability issues for Amazon S3 in US-EAST-1. AWS services and customer applications depending on S3 will continue to experience high error rates as we are actively working to remediate the errors in Amazon S3.
You will also not be able to upload images until Amazon fixes this problem, which they are in the process of doing:
Update at 12:52 PM PST: We are seeing recovery for S3 object retrievals, listing and deletions. We continue to work on recovery for adding new objects to S3 and expect to start seeing improved error rates within the hour.
Update at 11:35 AM PST: We have now repaired the ability to update the service health dashboard. The service updates are below. We continue to experience high error rates with S3 in US-EAST-1, which is impacting various AWS services. We are working hard at repairing S3, believe we understand root cause, and are working on implementing what we believe will remediate the issue.
Trump’s O’Reilly Super Bowl Interview
Fox News released an excerpt last night of an interview of President Donald Trump by Bill O’Reilly that will air before the Super Bowl tonight. In it, O’Reilly asks Trump about Putin, noting that “Putin’s a killer.” Trump then responds, “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think–our country’s so innocent?”
This is not different from things that Trump said during the campaign. In a December, 2015, appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Trump made a similar statement. When host Joe Scarborough said that Putin “kills journalists that don’t agree with him,” Trump replied “Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe.” Later in the interview Scarborough asked Trump if he condemned the killing of journalists. Trump said, “Oh sure. Absolutely.” I wonder if O’Reilly will ask the president a similar follow-up question. I hope so.
Even if there is more context, there’s no saying that it will cast Trump’s position in a better light. But then that depends on where you’re standing.
The NeverTrumpers are gleefully condemning both Trump and Trumpers.
https://twitter.com/StephensWSJ/status/828047211762155520
Every day, someone or other tells me that Trump is like Reagan, if not better. A truly puke-making claim.
— Jay Nordlinger (@jaynordlinger) February 5, 2017
I’m a Neoconservative. I didn’t fully agree with Trump’s foreign policy stances during the campaign. It’s one reason I didn’t vote for him in the primary. However, I do like his focus on strength. And I know that President Obama got rolled by Putin repeatedly. Hillary Clinton spent four years implementing Obama’s failed foreign policy. I believe Trump will be tougher on Russia than Clinton ever would have been.
What would NeverTrumpers actually prefer? That Hillary Clinton were now president? Clinton has no core beliefs when it comes to foreign policy and national defense. Remember, she voted for the Iraq war when it was popular to do so, then turned against it when it was popular to do so. She also sold American Uranium interests to Russia for personal gain.
Would Hillary Clinton’s U.N. Ambassador have used her first appearance at the U.N. to criticize Russia?
Criticizing Trump’s statement that “we’ve got a lot of killers” is perfectly fine, but I’m getting tired of the constant outrage. When you’re outraged about literally everything then nothing is outrageous.
Scott Adams has described this as “outrage dilution.”
At the moment there are so many outrages, executive orders, protests, and controversies that none of them can get enough oxygen in our brains. I can’t obsess about problem X because the rest of the alphabet is coming at me at the same time.
NeverTrumps should consider cooling it if they want to be taken seriously and not like the boy who cried wolf. Even though I have real policy disagreements with Trump in some areas, I feel an overwhelming urge to defend Trump, if only because the NeverTrumpers are so obnoxious all the time.
Update:
The interview has been released in full.
I didn’t much care for Trump’s comment on Putin. In a cold way, Trump’s obviously correct: We’ve killed a lot of people. And I don’t have a problem with that. But there’s huge difference between Putin ordering the assassination of journalists — one of whom was gunned down on the sidewalk in Moscow — just for writing critical stories and Obama taking the entirely lawful act of ordering the assassination of an enemy combatant who had declared war on America and was responsible for many terrorist acts.
I supported Obama’s action on Awlaki, and always thought that Libertarians were off the deep end howling about how Obama had “ordered the killing an American citizen without due process.” When you declare war on the United States, you forfeit your right to due process.
But Trump didn’t cite Alwaki. He cited the Iraq war. “Lots of people died” in the Iraq war. So I guess that George W. Bush is somehow morally equivalent to Vladimir Putin? That doesn’t make sense. I don’t get it.
But again, this interview with O’Reilly does not reveal anything new about Trump in this regard. He’s said these same things before, during the campaign.
I’ll be fine with Trump’s comments if his actions reflect American strength, which I think they will. The problem with Obama was that he had weak rhetoric and backed it up with weak actions.
The “Inquisition” of a Christian Nominee in New Hampshire
Photo credit: Councilor Joe Kenney’s Facebook page.
During a marathon seven-hour public hearing on Tuesday in Concord, Andru Volinsky, a Democrat, grilled Edelblut about his Christian faith. Volinsky is a freshman member of New Hampshire’s Executive Council, a five-member body that shares some power with the governor and which confirms the governor’s nominees.
The hearing was described as an “inquisition” by Anne Marie Banfield, an education liaison with Cornerstone Action, a New Hampshire think tank.
During the public hearing, Volinsky focused on Edelblut’s time on the board of Patrick Henry College, a Christian school. The video, provided to Breitbart News by Banfield, shows Volinsky saying, “Patrick Henry College has a required oath of faith for its agents, and I assume, as either a board member or curriculum developer, you had to sign on to that oath of faith —”
Edelblut interjected, “Well, I don’t know that I did.”
“Well, I’ll show you the website that says all of its agents have to subscribe to the oath of faith,” Volinsky responded. “And the oath of faith is tied to a biblical worldview that also requires its agents to subscribe to — and, again, I wouldn’t even begin to ask you about this if it wasn’t relevant to what we’re doing here. …The oath of faith requires you as an agent to believe in the complete entirety of the 66 books of the Old and New Testament as ‘inerrant, original autographs, and infallible.’”
New Hampshire blogger Kimberly Morin blasted Volinsky’s “bigotry” in a blog post at nhpoliticalbuzz.org, writing:
Apparently Volinsky assumed that Edelblut would somehow infuse his religious beliefs into his position as commissioner despite facts to the contrary. Volinsky was actually interrupted by the council to end his “grandstanding” and actually get to his questions. The man seemed like an angry prosecutor cross-examining an innocent man, accusing him of crimes he didn’t commit. It was truly a low moment for the Executive Council.
Late in the proceeding — after a motion to confirm Edelblut had been made and seconded — Volinsky asked whether Sununu had consulted with the state Board of Education prior to the nomination, as required by statute. The hearing was adjourned after Sununu consulted with Attorney General Joseph Foster (a Democrat appointed to a four-year term by Sununu’s predecessor, Maggie Hassan, who is now a New Hampshire senator).
State Representative Glenn Cordelli (R., Tuftonboro), who sits on the House Education Committee, said: “It was a shameful treatment of the governor’s nominee for Commissioner of Education. To grill him like a court-room defendant and question his faith was beyond the bounds of decency, and he deserves an apology.”
Republicans hold a majority on the council, so Edelblut is expected to be confirmed when the hearing is reconvened on February 15.
Election Day in New Hampshire
Today in New Hampshire I caught up with my state representative, Glenn Cordelli.
Here’s what I wrote about him in September:
A Republican, Glenn Cordelli was a statewide chair of Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign in 2012, has a 96 percent rating from the American Conservative Union and a 100 percent rating from Americans for Prosperity. “I’m very proud of the A+ rating from Americans for Prosperity for 2016. They look at bills based upon limiting the growth of government and creating economic growth — both vital to the future of New Hampshire. As government expands, our liberties and freedoms shrink. As our economy grows, opportunities grow — opportunities for employment or to start or expand a business.”
There are many candidates on the ballot today. Here’s who I voted for:
Update:
Glenn was re-elected:
(We elect to representatives in the district, so the top two vote-getters are the winners.)
Donald Trump Trounced Hillary Clinton in the Town Hall Debate
Donald Trump emerged victorious from the the townhall debate despite a punishing 48 hours of negative press and a triple team from Clinton, ABC’s liberal Martha Raddatz, and CNN’s Clinton Global Initiative member Anderson Cooper. Trump came prepared for questions about his comments to Hollywood Access’s Billy Bush in 2005. He apologized and then immediately pivoted to Bill Clinton’s treatment of women. Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones, were in the audience, at Trump’s invitation, silent testifiers to Bill Clinton’s sexual monstrosity. Also in the audience was Kathy Shelton, who was raped as a 12-year-old by a man who Hillary Clinton got off on a technicality and later laughed about on an audio tape.
Trump hammered an increasingly peevish Clinton on issue after issue, from her bad judgment on the middle east, to her inadequacies as a senator, to her failure to answer the proverbial 3 AM phone call during the attack in Benghazi, to her 30,000+ deleted emails. He also promised, if elected, to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her private email server.
When Clinton said she was glad Trump was not in charge of American law enforcement, Trump quipped, “because you’d be in jail.” When Clinton implausibly explained her leaked Wall Street speech transcripts as a reference to Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, Trump mused that “Honest Abe” never told a lie, which was a big difference from the many lies Clinton has told.
As the evening went on, Clinton looked more and more angry, retreating often to sit on her stool while Trump never sat after the first few minutes.
The moderators were flagrant in their bias, repeatedly arguing with Trump and jumping in to help Clinton. Martha Raddatz at one point began debating Donald Trump, obviously carrying water for Hillary Clinton. The questions from the audience that had been selected by Raddatz and Cooper were, frankly (to borrow a term), pathetic. The first question was, “what about the children?” And another one was, “are you devoted to the people?” The one legitimate question came almost at the end when one man asked about Supreme Court nominees. Clinton blathered about justices who “have real-world experiences” and who “won’t favor corporate interests,” but didn’t mention the Constitution once. Trump mentioned the list of judges he has put forward already, and cited the second amendment.
I felt that Trump dominated the first presidential debate, but there’s no doubt that he lost the post debate spin. In that debate, Clinton sprung a surprise attack against him in the closing moments, accusing him of misogyny toward former Miss Universe Alicia Machada. There was no such surprise from Clinton tonight. Perhaps the Clinton campaign felt the Access Hollywood video, released this past Friday, was sufficient, or perhaps they have no more ammunition. I wouldn’t count on it, though. Look for more coordinated attacks from the Democrat campaign and the mainstream media.
Trump Dominated the First Presidential Debate
Donald Trump was a dominating force in the first of the presidential debates. First, Lester Holt: He mostly stayed out of the way, letting the candidates speak and interact with each other. Holt deserves much credit for his deft handling of an undoubtedly difficult task. However, Trump also refused to allow Holt to interrupt on the occasions that Holt tried to redirect the conversation, first on stop-and-frisk and then on Trump’s position on the Iraq war. Trump would not allow Holt to take over. In short, Trump did what Mitt Romney couldn’t and John McCain wouldn’t: He refused to allow the moderator and the other candidate to direct the conversation. He refused to buy into the premise of the questions.
Hillary Clinton wore a fake, sickly smile throughout the debate, glancing condescendingly in Trump’s direction and rolling her eyes. “Well, just listen to what he said,” she said at one point. It was as if she thought his mere presence was a joke. Trump, on the other hand, treated Clinton as an equal, aggressively challenging her on repeated points — while being polite. No one has ever challenged her the way Trump did in any of the scores of debates I have watched her in since 2007. When Clinton said 50 national security officials had endorsed her, Trump responded that hundreds of generals have endorsed him and that “I’ll take the generals over the political hacks.” The clear meaning was that Clinton is a political hack. Trump made it more clear at several other points during the debate when he said that she was “all words” and no action, that politicians had ruined our foreign policy, and destroyed the inner cities.
Trump was forceful. Hillary was fake. In my opinion, formed without listening to any of the post-debate pundit-talk, Trump won. She was an unlikable know-it-all while Trump spoke and acted like a normal person. At times he seemed irritated, but he wore it plainly. When she was irritated, she grimaced harder with her pretend-smile, bobbed her head, and at one point did a bizarre shoulder-shake and said, “Woo! Let’s go.” She was incredibly disingenuous and fake. She also repeatedly implored viewers to go to her web site to fact check Trump, the rhetorical crutch of losing candidates nation-wide.
Glenn Cordelli, New Hampshire State Representative
Glenn Cordelli has been knocking on constituent doors for the past month in preparation for the September 13 state primary in New Hampshire. Cordelli is seeking reelection to his third term in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, where he serves on the House Education Committee. “Parents should be in control of their children’s education, not government ‘educrats,’” he says. “Why shouldn’t a parent be able to have their child take an online course, take several classes at the public school, hire a tutor, etc? Put education dollars back into the hands of parents. That is the education reform we need.”
Cordelli’s district encompasses the towns of Moultonborough, Sandwich, and Tuftonboro. On one recent expedition, Cordelli recalls, he saw a big yellow sign at the end of a driveway that read: “Go away. Turn around now.” He laughs. “I didn’t knock on that door.” But he has been to 400 other houses so far, with another week to go.
A Republican, Cordelli was a statewide chair of Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign in 2012, has a 96 percent rating from the American Conservative Union and a 100 percent rating from Americans for Prosperity. “I’m very proud of the A+ rating from Americans for Prosperity for 2016. They look at bills based upon limiting the growth of government and creating economic growth — both vital to the future of New Hampshire. As government expands, our liberties and freedoms shrink. As our economy grows, opportunities grow — opportunities for employment or to start or expand a business.”
At 400 members, the New Hampshire House of Representatives is the fourth-largest individual legislative chamber in the English-speaking world (The New Hampshire General Court — the House and the Senate — is the third largest legislature in the English-speaking world). Members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives receive $100 per year in compensation. In addition to representing their districts in Concord (the state capital), members also serve as county delegates.
A bill that Cordelli co-sponsored during the most recent legislative session was signed into law by New Hampshire’s governor, Maggie Hassan (who is running for the US Senate against Kelly Ayotte). The bipartisan law, HB 645—also known as “Willa’s Law,” after a four-year-old girl who died in an unlicensed day care—changes state law to make it a felony, instead of a misdemeanor, when negligence causes severe injury or death. “This is a great example of why I enjoy serving in the New Hampshire House,” says Cordelli. “After the tragic death of this little girl, we discovered a loophole in the law that we were able to remedy. It makes the time and effort worth it.”
There are almost 7,400 state legislators across the United States. Many, like Cordelli, deserve our support and thanks for their efforts to make government more open and accountable. Share your local legislators’ accomplishments, good and bad, in the comments below, or start your own post on the member feed.
Friday Night News Dump: Ricochet-Style
Later tonight Saturday night after 11PM ET we will be unveiling a new site design for Ricochet, barring unforeseen circumstances.
In developing this next version of the site, we wanted to address two major areas: refresh and unify the design of the site (the current site is a mish-mash of the 1.0 design and a bunch of tacked-on elements we’ve added over time), including making it much easier to use on mobile devices, and making the site much more social (i.e., better private messaging, add the ability to tag members and contributors in posts and comments, enable users to create private groups, and make it easier to share media).
We’ve detailed many of the improved and new features on the Member Feed with a series of posts in what we called the Beta Blog. We also invited Ricochet members to help us beta test the site, and have incorporated their feedback into the design.
This new site design is a big change that will produce strong reactions for and against. We ask that you keep an open mind and reserve judgment until you’ve had a chance to use the site for a while. Also, please bear in mind that we will continue to make changes to the site in the weeks and months ahead in order to bring you the best Ricochet possible.
Update:
We ran a simulation moving the new site from the beta site to a staging site that was a cloned version of the live site. It went very well.
And so, because it went well, we are going to wait until tomorrow night to pull the trigger here. Because we can.